Christmas, Caffeine, and Minnesota Public Radio

A story of sweet, sweet Christmas gift mockery

and why I turned the radio up too loud.

I'll admit that my family back home has never been big on decorating for Christmas, but my Vermont family takes holiday decorating to an entirely different level. One day a few weeks ago literal boxes of Christmas goods were unpacked and festooned about. They even switched out every dish in the house to something Christmas-themed. Plates, mugs, bowls. All of it.

Well, I guess I was spared the silverware. They used to change that, too, but find it too be too much of a hassle.

The sudden upsetting of what had finally become familiar and part of a comforting routine was too much for me. Panicked by the foreign tradition, I asked, "Can I at least keep my favorite coffee mug out?!?" I don't think it too much of a luxury to want comfort in my morning cup of coffee.

Yet the reply was a ribbing, "No! It's not Christmas themed!"

Woefully and grumpily, Christmas came between me and my caffeine.

However, a joyous thing happened on Christmas morning. I was gifted by my Vermont family a giant, obnoxiously-colored mug of my very own, just like the favorite they had insisted I put away.

And I made this face.

The Christmas dishes are still in the cupboards, but I can parade around the house drinking my coffee out of my not-even-remotely-holiday-themed mug saying, "Hah! You can't force me to put it away! It was my CHRISTMAS gift!"

Oh to be properly caffeinated!

But that's not even the end of the story.

As I listened to the Current from Minnesota Public Radio today at work, as I often do, they asked listeners to send in stores of the best/worst Christmas gifts they received this year.

As the story of my not-Christmas mug was recited on MPR, I cranked the volume and made my co-workers listen. HEY, I WAS ON THE RADIO, GUYS.

But that's not even the end of the story.

No, I used part of my work day today talking to a DJ who was filling in for the usual host because HEY, IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, GUYS. The man who picked and read my story to all of the listeners turning in at 2:30 EST today lived and worked for four years in Manchester, Vermont, 20 minutes away from my office. We'd been to the same bars, coffee shops, and bookstore. I had even conversed with his ex about lingerie in the underwear shop that she owns.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

Farm Alarm

I recently started reading Barbara Kingsolver's influential book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" which talks about her family's experiment to live one year on only locally-sourced, organic foods. It was published in 2007, so I'm a bit late to the book party; it hasn't been a shocking eye-opener for me. I already know the good majority of what she's written.

That being said, this is the most depressing book I have ever read. Not in the "I am emotionally gripped and brought to tears" way, but in the "it feels as if there is no hope left for our world" way.

None of us like to face the truths that we find unpleasant, even if they're ones that we already knew. I like to live my everyday life and forget that food and farm issues exist. You can't worry every second of the day or you'd go crazy.

But damn you, Barbara, they do exist.

Here's what I've been reminded of up to page 118:

There are people who don't realize that food either comes out of the soil or from an animal.

Farm subsidies cause an excess in corn and soybeans, which are then either processed into sugars and fats which are added to our diet or dumped overseas, causing developing agricultural markets to crash and farms to fail.

Genetically modified organisms.

We use over twice as many calories to make and ship the food we eat when compared to how many calories the food provides us.

One can make the argument that our markets for seeds (and therefore the crops they produce) are literally monopolies. Monsanto supplies 90% of all soybean seeds and 80% of all corn seeds.

Marketers literally sit in strategy meetings, planning ways to put more processed sugar and fat in our diets and make us like it.

Genetic diversity in the world's domesticated food seed supply is declining so greatly, many scientists worry that we could not recover our food security if a major natural disaster occurred.

We don't care about taste. We only care about our food shipping well so that it looks good when it's sitting on the grocery shelf.

We give up our health and the future of our planet so that we can "economize" on food and buy unnecessary, luxury items instead.

And that's just what I could stand remembering in the few minutes I've been typing.

If it sounds a bit alarmist to you, good! I'm ringing the alarm bell for myself.

Who's going to wake us up?

We're the richest nation on earth, yet we have some of the worst food habits. You'd think we'd spend some of our enormous income on the freshest, tastiest food we could get our hands on. You'd think we'd be like greedy children hoarding that stuff that comes out of the ground or off the backs of animals.

But somewhere along the line we got used to exactly three food groups: fat, sugar, and salt. Maybe our animal nature is a bit to blame, but why do so many think these are the only three tastes worth tasting? Or the only three tastes that exist, for that matter?

Damn you, Barbara, now you've made me rant.

But it's true. We've got our priorities all mixed around.

If you don't believe me, go read the book for yourself. Then we can talk.

GLUTTONY BOWL.

Gluttony Bowl: the serious sport of gaining the most weight on Thanksgiving Day, generally performed in the style of classical Roman feasts, EAT AND PURGE, EAT AND PURGE.

A crazy thing in and of itself, an even crazier thing for a mostly-vegetarian with an almost-phobia of processed sugar and butter.

I was warned by a previous participant that it would not be a pleasant experience. I would feel like throwing up, and I would not be able to taste the food.

But when in Rome...

Just to prove the seriousness of the sport, look at that trophy. 

I weighed in at approximately 11 am with an official weight of 132.4 pounds.

My strategy for the day was continually graze. Just don't stop eating. Don't. Stop. Eating.

Puppy chow, lobster bisque dip, ginger sesame popcorn, fruit and chocolate dip, cookies cookies cookies, hash brown casserole, pasta fagioli, apple crisp. All by 3pm.

Then the preparations for the feast.

Turkey, three kinds of stuffing, two corn puddings, succotash, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two cranberry sauces, lefse, waldorf jello salad, and what must've been two gallons of gravy.

 

The face that tells of the deliciousness and the agony.

My plate was labeled "hysterical," a small pile of everything spilling over the sides. But I was slowing down. Things hurt more than they had flavor. It was just as horrible as predicted. I asked if it was appropriate to go curl up in a ball for awhile. "You wouldn't be the first." Nor the last would be my guest, but that couch was the best thing to happen to me all night.

THEN THE PUMPKIN PIE, CHOCOLATE CAKE, COOKIES COOKIES COOKIES, CHOCOLATE PUDDING PIE, AND GIANT CHOCOLATE TURKEY. MAKE IT STOP.

I made it to the 9 pm weigh out time with no trips to the bathroom, to purge or otherwise.

I weighed out at 142.4 pounds, a net gain of 10 pounds on the dot.

After weigh out, all that was left was to calculate percentage of body weight gained for each participant.

I finished with a 7.55% gain. Good enough for second place.

The champion weighed out with a 9.78% gain, and there was no way I could've challenged that.

In my baggiest pants, totally food-baby preggo.

However, second place seemed appropriate to the current state of nausea my stomach was in. I probably ate more fat and sugar in those ten hours than I had in the past month.

I am happy to report the morning after that I did not puke (though the champion did), and that I was able to actually enjoy a modest slice of pumpkin pie at breakfast.

I can always phone in next year, if I want to try for the trophy. But I won't.

Lefse - It's Just Not Thanksgiving Without It!

We populate our tables at any holiday season with traditional, festive dishes that make the occasion special. Perhaps the food makes it special for some symbolic reason, or they may just be the foods we grew up eating and remind us of home.

As proof of this, I spent 12 hours in a kitchen yesterday prepping for Thanksgiving dinner, and it's not even dinner at my house with my family. I am not traveling home this holiday season, so I'm having Thanksgiving dinner with my housemates and their family. And as they graciously said I could do, I'm making an extra effort to put dishes on the table that my family has on Thanksgiving, so it can feel like my holiday, too.

While there is a very specific and very long list of "Thanksgiving foods" at my house every year, there's one thing that I cannot imagine gorging myself on without: lefse. It's just not Thanksgiving without it.

Piles and piles of lefse

Lefse is a Norwegian potato flatbread that you make by adding some flour to mashed potatoes, rolling the dough out very thin, and frying it on a griddle. It's quite a bit like a potato tortilla. Take a bit of everything that's on your Thanksgiving plate, stuff it inside, and roll it up. Now you've got a Norwegian Thanksgiving Burrito, and it's one of my favorite, decadent, I-can-only-eat-this-once-a-year-or-I'll-explode foods.

However, this being Vermont and decidedly not Norse country, if I wanted lefse on the table, I had to make it myself. And clearly, I had to make it myself. It's tradition.

But what exactly about this is traditional?

Here I've just described a staple of Norwegian cuisine (which varies widely across different regions in Norway) by saying that it's like a staple of Mexican cuisine which has been taken by American cuisine and morphed into something that may or may not be recognizable to Mexicans (because clearly they all eat tortillas and all of their tortillas are the same). Perhaps it's only a comparative illustration, but if you saw my Norwegian-Thanksgiving Burrito on a menu in a hip gastro-pub, you would most definitely see it labeled as "fusion food."

The point is, calling a food 'traditional' has its problems.

As I scoured the cupboard for things that would approximate the special equipment apparently essential to making lefse, I didn't feel like I was doing a disservice to my ancestors because my rolling pin wasn't grooved.

As I stood and griddled bread for an hour, I didn't feel connected to the motherland, like I was being a better Norwegian-American. I really only cared about making it taste good.

In fact, at home, I never would've gone through all of this trouble. In Minnesota, lefse magically appears once a year in the grocery store so that people like me can more efficiently shovel plateful after plateful of other equally starchy, fatty foods into their mouths.

Perhaps this is also unfair. If there wasn't something important about it, what would impel me to go through all of the trouble of making such a time-consuming and labor-intensive dish which, in all likelihood, only I will notice or appreciate?

Perhaps our holiday foods are traditions because they make these days distinct from the rest of the year. They are special markers which tell us, "notice today." What foods we choose for this purpose may have to do with our locality, our heritage, or our family. But they're the foods we choose.

And I will choose to enjoy my lumpy, slightly over-buttered lefse this Thanksgiving. It's what I do. It's my tradition. It's just not Thanksgiving without it!

Costumes Rule

Getting candy and the excuse to party is as fun as anything else, but I really relish Halloween because it's an excuse to put on a costume. In a way, it's a national day of theatrics, the chance to really submerge yourself in another persona, study comportment, style, voice, and see how close you can come to merging with someone else's social image. At least if you're hardcore like me.

Then suddenly it's one day before Halloween and I have nothing to wear, no budget, and no ideas.

TRAGEDY. Not comedy.

So I solicit the advise of a co-worker and a middle-schooler. Result:

Zayn Malik. Member of polarizing boy band One Direction.

Who cares that I couldn't recognize a One Direction song on the radio, let alone tell you which band member is which. It costs no money, and I'll get to walk around in public dressed as a man without anyone giving me odd looks? Let's do it.

To be honest, this costume was really just a result of my hair and my love of dressing in drag.

Add a dash of borrowed house-mate wardrobe and voila!

I even learned his trademark facial expression.

It was a success and recognized by many tween girls.

One of which proceeded to show me 5 different 1D music videos, pointing out where Zayn was singing at all times.

But who am I to judge? I had the Backstreet Boys. And they were awesome.

Vermonter Weekend

What I will now look like more often than not:

What's more: we had company this weekend, and if I had worn anything other than this I would've been out of place.

I did hear the governor speak this weekend, and
he did very nicely asked that the out-of-staters stay.

Vermonter-wear: multiple layers to accommodate the sudden changes in weather, one of which must be plaid flannel, combined with utility pants, all of which must be two sizes too big, topped off with dirt-crusted boots and optional hat/gloves (gloves forgone in this instance)

ASSIMILATION, IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO.

I've even worn sweatpants to the grocery store. Granted, all my other pants were in the wash. Still.

Activities on a Vermonter weekend with company include eating way too much, having a bonfire, hiking, and skeet shooting.

I'm surprised that my shoulder escaped unbruised. My ego, however, did not. I did not hit a single target. I will need a lot of practice with that shotgun before being considered adequate.

Oh well. I still looked cool doing it.

Hair Cuts at Home

I have had the same hair stylist for twelve years.

I have wanted a real undercut for at least the past three.

I had plenty of chances when I was in Minnesota to take the plunge and shave the sides of my head, relaxed and safe in the hands of the woman who knew my hair best. Did I do it? No.

Yet now that my stylist is gone along with so many other things I was familiar with in my native land, I sat down at the kitchen table on a Tuesday night and let a man I've known for only a month and a half take a buzz cutter to my head.

Am I crazy? Maybe a little. But I have several friends that swear by home hair cuts.

Here's how it went down:

I started the night with my hair looking like this. A little grown out, but still acceptable. Certainly not long enough to be a bother, and not even particularly "feminine," which I hate my hair being.

And then the buzzer ignited. Or at least it felt like it ignited because this wasn't a salon and you didn't block off the lines first and oh YOU'RE COMING RIGHT AT ME WITH THAT THING.

But I had been assured repeatedly that my housemate was good at cutting hair; he cut the rest of the family's hair all the time.

So deep breath.

You picked this.

Gotta do it now.

We did check all of the angles in the end. We worked slow. Lots of communication, like any good stylist should have with their client.

And damn if the result isn't awesome.

So instead of paying a salon stylist I had no trust in 25 bucks to cut my hair, I just let someone I (admittedly) also had no trust in cut it for free.

Right decision.

Or as my housemate-stylist would say, "Score!"

Now I can look just like several of my favorite musicians. Two hardcore Twin Cities rappers, and one trashy Europop boy band.

Not that I can be as photogenic as Astronautalis is.

But I can look pretty damn similar to Sims.

Now if only marginal resemblance translated into coincidental talent.

On the bright side: now I look just like Jedward, mommy! Just like I've always wanted!

Apple Season

As you may have guessed, this post should have been up a couple of weeks ago when the distinct chill that comes with winter and snow wasn't creeping into the air, but I was busy and didn't have time to get the pictures then. And what's a blog without pictures, anyway?

So here's the story of picking apples in Vermont, in pictures.

After going from organic farming to desk work so suddenly, it was fantastic to be out in a field harvesting again. My housemates and I picked three bushels of drops, which are the apples that have become ripe and fallen off the tree by themselves. Normally, these would be discarded as waste, but they're beautiful! Look at them!

The best part? We only paid fifteen dollars for the whole lot. Fresh! Local! Organic! Only fifteen dollars!

We spent the next couple of weeks chopping, peeling, freezing, saucing, jellying and canning them all.

The best part again? We get to enjoy them all winter.

Gentrification

Oh, yes. Apparently it is happening to me. My very good friend has verified it.

These little monsters are the reason.

You have seen more pictures of me in my unflattering work out clothes than should be allowed.

Something about motherly instincts!

Something about social pressure to live life with a white picket fence!

Something about how kids and a husband aren't things a woman needs to be fulfilled!

But no. Just something about two adorable little boys who worm their way into your soft spot with their sweetness.

Such as when Atticus, age 2, stumbles half asleep to you first thing in the morning and wants a hug.

Or when Harry, age 5, says he'll sit and keep you company while you do your important work, even though he's finished his.

Or when they both drag you into the giant guest bed and snuggle in for the night, teddy bears and all, and say they don't want to sleep in their own beds.

Sigh.

Perhaps it was inevitable that I'd think children and a family would be nice.

Half the town seems to be working on finding me a husband as we speak.

(And while that's certainly an exaggeration) I am now the kind of person who answers inquiries of, "What's up?" with, "Nothing much. Just working," and spends weekends happily babysitting kids and dogs, cooking, and being a general domestic.

Will I be sucked into Vermont? Stay tuned to find out. I certainly am.

The Thinnest of Doughs

Anyone who knows me know that what I do with my free time is cook, cook, cook.

My most recent adventure in cooking was to make one of my favorite pastries: burek.

It's essentially phyllo dough (or yufka) filled with cheese or meat, although you can fill it however you like.

I first had this deliciousness in Serbia. The night was late, and my compatriots and I had consumed one too many Jelen (the ubiquitous Serbian beer), so we went wandering through the neighborhood at 2:00 am looking for the one thing that brings joy to all who are intoxicated: greasy, fatty food. We found a bakery that was literally no more than a window in the front of a building where an amused local advised that we try the burek because, "You haven't been in Belgrade until you've had burek!"

Whether he was right about that or just wanted to entertain himself with some drunk Americans, who knows? But did he have it right! Hot out of the oven, cheesy, buttery, flaky. The best of drunk foods.

Now don't get the wrong idea. I was not drunk and I did not drunkenly say, "You kno wha woul be da besttttt? Burek!"

That might have made a much better story.

But burek is a comfort food for me, and a challenge to make. So I jumped in. my own yufka and everything.

Surprisingly, the hardest part was not making or stretching the yufka. Let the dough rest long enough and stretching the gluten strands until the dough is paper thin is perhaps a bit tricky, but very doable even for a beginner.

Look at my hand right through that dough!

 The hard part was filling and shaping the rolls!

Knowing how much filling can be put in without putting too much weight on the dough and having it tear a lot longer to learn than just one batch. The same with how to maneuver such fragile dough into perfect rounds.

I tried two fillings. One 'salty' with ricotta and goat cheese, and the small swirls I made look sort of cute. I tried to make the 'sweet' filling with cream cheese and maple syrup into one giant burek, which didn't work out at all. It ended up too tall and not spread out in the pan, so I cut them into wedges. But you can't win them all on the first try.

But difficulty with presentation or no, the results were tasty. The salty rounds tasted quite like what I remember. The sweet wedges tasted sort of like french toast with maple syrup. Not quite "traditional," but still delicious.

Now to work on my filling and rolling technique so that I can make one the size of an entire pan and really impress people.

Hiking a Mountain

Between giving an all-day workshop on Thursday and holding an 800-person event on Sunday, this week at work was one of the busiest of the year. I went home early twice and still managed to put in overtime.

Saturday was my one day to myself.

So what did I do?

Hiked a mountain.

Because relaxing is for the sane.

Stratton Mountain is a premier skiing resort in New England. It stands at an elevation of 3,940 feet with a prominence of 2,410 feet. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes for me to climb, which I am quite happy with for my first mountain. But it also gives you an idea of why I decided to spend my Saturday climbing it; it's not that big.

However, it is quite beautiful, as evidenced by these views.

Toward Bromley Mountain.

View from the summit.

As anyone who knows me might imagine, I was terribly excited to climb my first mountain. The exhilaration of nature!

I'm sure I looked like a tourist holding my camera, telling everyone I met that, "This is my first time up a mountain!" No one was impressed. I didn't care. The excited Minnesotan me couldn't help it! It's flat where I come from, people. FLAT!

I nearly ran up the fire tower at the top... until I realized that I hate heights and the wind was a-rockin' that thing. At which point I proceeded very cautiously and with great fear. But then this:

Panoramic view from the top of the fire tower.

After a brief lecture on how one usually climbs a mountain "with a buddy," one man was nice enough to offer to take a picture of me at the top of the tower just to, "prove that I did it."

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

Now I need to make myself a punch card and climb Bromley, Magic, Equinox, and Aescutney. After that, who knows where these two legs will take me?