Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time
“There were days when she would take an aimless ride in a rickshaw, immersing herself in the choreographed commotion of the streets, where banners in bold Chinese characters waved down through shafts of sunlight, advertising sales, silks, mah-jongg sets, live birds, ivory. She found Shanghai to be ‘a great sprawling rambling’ place filled with beautiful faces. [Read more…] about Country of the Week: China / The Lady and the Panda
Every summer a kind soul gives us some rhubarb and we enjoy a pan of homemade strawberry-rhubarb crisp. It’s never occurred to me to buy any additional rhubarb, so I’ve never made anything else. So when we got a second batch from the CSA, I dug through my cookbooks to find something new to make.
I found this recipe for Vermont Rhubarb Cake in The American Country Inn and Bed & Breakfast Cookbook. My aunt gave us this cookbook as a wedding shower gift, and I’ve used it countless times over the years.
The cake was delicious, especially topped with a big dollop of fresh whipped cream.
I’m afraid Australia got the short end of the stick last week since we were so busy preparing for Lily’s birthday party. But we did manage to make Australian meat pies, eat Wiley Wallaby Liquorice, and watch Babe and The Rescuers Down Under. (I cobbled together the meat pies by combining a bunch of different online recipes.)
We also made Fairy Bread. An Australian friend of mine from my Special Olympics International days said that Fairy Bread is very popular at children’s birthday parties. So we made some for Lily’s party.
I looked up the recipe online and you’ll never guess what’s in Fairy Bread: white bread, butter, and sprinkles! How easy is that?
Most of the girls at the party liked the Fairy Bread. There were a few who said they didn’t, but I think they were just being dramatic.
Today is Lily’s eighth birthday. I asked her what she’d like to do for her actual birthday (she had her party last Friday) and she said, “Go to the beach.” So this afternoon we swimsuited up and headed for our town’s little beach on the St. Croix River.
As I sat at the water’s edge watching Lily splashing and laughing in the bright sunshine, I thought, as I always do on this day, of her birth mother and father. I thought of all the things I wish they knew.
When I hung up our Matisse-inspired art projects I finally remembered to make museum art labels. I saw this idea in an article called “How to Be More Creative” by A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically and Drop Dead Healthy. The article was full of good insights like “brilliance is a numbers game” and “make an appointment with your creativity.” But my favorite was Jacobs’s idea—inspired by a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art—to hang his his son’s drawings and put plaques next to them.