Cherries are HERE!

Since it is one of the last seasonal fruits I look forward to the arrival of cherries in the supermarket.  I must admit I have never tried growing cherries though I know people are growing them here in Southern Arizona.  I, instead, focus on enjoying their fleeting loveliness; the sweet, tart, beauty that is a cherry.

Mommy will they be food?

This spring a mourning dove couple decided one of our hanging plants would be a perfect place to raise their young.  They didn’t really seem to care that I was trialing green beans in that basket.  They did care when I watered it every morning.  After flushing them several times I dragged the ladder from the garage to the backyard and discovered two tiny eggs in a hastily prepared “nest” that was tucked in the hanging basket. 

 It was rather exciting and an incredible learning experience for Pumpkin Pie & Peanut.  We discovered that both male and female share egg sitting duties while the other fly’s away to find food.  We learned how long the incubation process would take.  We found out that they are called mourning doves because their call is so mournful.  We studied their diet and bought seed they liked.  There were many questions and of course the inevitable one about “food.”  See, in our area the first day of dove season is quite noisy.  The first few years here we would forget it was September 1^st and think “was that a gunshot?”  Now I’m quite accustomed to it.  We discussed that, yes, indeed dove hunting is very popular in our area.  She asked me if I’d eaten one.  Yes, I told her, though it is not my favorite game bird to eat.  I prefer quail and turkey.  It was a good opportunity to discuss population conservation but I saved this topic for another day.  They are gone now.  It was fun to watch them trying their baby wings and learning to forage with their parents, each parent taking a baby.  Now I know why it is called empty nest.

Spring is bursting our here at our urban farm.  All the sweet potato slips survived transplantation.  The asparagus is ferny and lovely and we are still getting new shoots coming up.  They are quite thin, about like yarn.  I’ll be curious to see if they are even edible next year.  We also have a variety of potatoes planted in 5 towers and 2 whiskey barrels.   I am anticipating it will be a challenge to keep everything watered this year, it always is in the desert.  Though I will not be traveling as much this summer as last.  I will also be giving detailed instructions, perhaps with a diagram, on what is to be watered so all my hard work isn’t burnt up in an afternoon.

Though none of these things were planted from seeds (by us) it still got Peanut thinking about seeds.  Now, her and her sister have planted countless seeds in the yard; unpopped popcorn kernels, uneaten seeds from watermelon, tomato, and cucumbers.  But it seemed to have just hit Peanut this morning that this tiny seed has all the information needed to grow a plant or a tree.  Just add sunlight and water.  I think she definitely has the gardening bug which is one of the primary reasons for gardening with them.  I don’t know how many six year olds can go out to the herb garden and return with the herb mom asked her to pick.

Some of these life lessons come with hard questions and even unanswered questions.  Some of them may have an unhappy ending.  (I’ll be thinking of our dove family when I hear the first shots fired in a few months.)  But life is like that.  I don’t want to shield my kids from the realities of life and death.  I want to teach them, nurture them, love them while we’re here.  

Update: We were such good hosts we apparently have another dove family utilizing our hanging basket nursery.

Processed Food

Now that I have a child in Kindergarten I've become acquainted with "Box Tops for Education." I find it incredibly offensive that we clip coupons for our kids education but our elected officials waste billions on frivolous nonsense, but I digress. These little gems are nearly always attached to boxed foods re: processed food. One morning before school I was having a discussion about processed foods with the mother of a child in Peanut's class. She related how she hardly ever fed her kids processed food. My jaw nearly dropped to the floor since her kid is the Box Top champ of Kindergarten. Granted, he may be getting these from neighbors, grandparents or other relatives. Then the thought occurred to me, what does the term processed food mean to me and to others? Is it like art? I know it when I see it. Is it a looser definition: must have 5 or fewer ingredients? Is it anything in a box? Does it come from a laboratory or a kitchen? A factory or a farm? And more importantly is it EVER okay to eat it?
I think, for us, processed food is a bit of all those things. We do eat food from boxes. Primarily pasta (Barilla Plus), whole grain cereals (Wheaties, Cheerios, etc) and crackers (Triscuits).
We do try to stay away from foods with excessive ingredients. One must use common sense however as Kashi Black Bean Mango frozen entree which I LOVE has over 20 ingredients. The difference? Every ingredient is a real food, not a preservative, flavor enhancer, etc.
Is it foods with a primary (first) ingredient of refined white flour? Maybe, that'd probably be a good place to start. Although, I admit, as a Southern girl, I do love me some biscuits. I don't, however, eat them everyday as I did growing up.
How about this one: anything with greater than 5grams of sugar? That might be a good place to start too since as Americans we are eating 30% more sugar than we did 30 years ago (when I was a kid).
Well, we could debate this for a very long time but I think I'll close with this. If we are eating more real food like meat (preferably locally sourced), fruit from the tree or vine, vegetables from the ground and whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, oats, etc there will be less room in your diet for the other stuff however you define processed food.
Wait, is chocolate processed food?

Some food is just for FUN!

I frequently have conversations with my eldest daughter Peanut about what food is healthy and what is not. She already knows what is healthy and what she likes. I do frequently remind her that not all our food has to be healthy. Some food we eat just b/c it tastes good and we like it. But we don't do it everyday and we don't make pigs of ourselves doing it. That said, here are some photos of us making pineapple upside down cupcakes from Family Fun magazine. It really is a great magazine for recipes that kids can help with, among other great features. P&P truly enjoyed cutting the cherries and pineapple and of course the measuring and stirring. We also made chocolate covered strawberries this week. Unfortunately the strawberries did not come from our garden. Someone had one of those edible fruit baskets sent to work. Peanut became obsessed with chocolate covered strawberries when she heard about them. It does after all entail two of her favorite foods.

We will be replanting our strawberries soon, ours dried up when Viking Daddy misunderstood my directions on which pots to water while I was away. August gardening in AZ is akin to the rest of the country's January. We are getting some cucumbers and the basil is still producing but that is pretty much it. But we have three different tomatoes sprouting as well as some bell peppers. Our other seeds are awaiting cooler temperatures to be planted

Tonight we had sauteed baby spinach with golden raisins and almonds, basmati brown rice and salmon patties. I LOVE salmon patties because I always have the ingredients to make them on hand, they are quick and very nutritious. I have quite a bit of canned salmon stored up in case we have a supply chain melt down due to the H1N1 flu this winter. Even though my children always eat this way (i.e. not carnival food) I still marvel at it. I think because it is not the norm. Kids eat chicken nuggets and french fries because that is what they are served. Mine eat curry and cauliflower because that is what they are served.

Fruit over French Fries

On a recent trip to Chick-fil-a a mistake was made on our order and my children were given those tasty waffle fries instead of the mixed fruit we always order. No big deal I thought, I'll let them have it. The line was unusually long. Peanut looked at the fries and said "where's my fruit?" I told her a mistake was made. "I don't want those. I want my fruit." I took them back to the counter where they disposed of them and handed me two containers of fruit. They did look at me in disbelief when I told them my daughters would rather have fruit than fries. This is the norm for them. There are lots of thing we don't give our kids "choices" on -- wearing a bike helmet, washing hands. Is good nutrition any different? It undoubtedly affects health for the rest of ones life! I hope by making choices for them as a parent I have set them up for a lifetime of good nutrition. Though I do occasionally wonder if I go overboard and it could backfire one day. The truth is, like so many things, I can't control everything they do. But I have control over this, for now.

slow train & sandy watermelon

While in Oklahom we also took the Quartz Mountain Flyer. It is a local train that goes from the entrance to Quartz Mountain Park into the small town of Lone Wolf, Oklahoma. It was really quite fun. The train goes incredibly slow because the distance is so short, it almost rocked the adults to sleep! It goes around Lake Altus-Lugert which is special for my family b/c my maternal grandmother grew up in the town of Lugert, the ruins of which are at the bottom of the lake. Also, we have had countless family reunions there and spent many hours hiking, fishing, swimming and just generally having fun there. When we got to Lone Wolf there was fresh watermelon at the "depot." The depot was actually a little out building that they sell train related souvenirs out of. But best of all was the watermelon. Anyone who knows, knows that sand grows the best watermelon. And the best watermelon is so juicy you have to eat it leaning forward and it is as sweet as honey. It was delicious and I wish the town of Lone Wolf much success in this endeavor. I hope it continues for many years.

The narrarator on the train was fantastic! She told us a lot of interesting stories about the area. Some we knew but something we didn't was the versatility of mesquite trees. We always thought they were just a nuisance, thorny, compete with grasses for water, etc. In fact my Dad used to just shake his head that mesquite trees are purposefully planted here in AZ. But she talked about the pods and how they can be dried, pulverized and used as flour. Or the beans in the pods can be cooked to make a sweet syrup. I just thought this was fantastic to know. It's too late this year but next spring I will trek back to Oklahoma and harvest some mesquite pods. Oh, yeah, I planted two mesquite trees in my yard. I'll just use those! Anyway, I have a newfound respect for those mesquite trees.

How locavore are we?

We're back from Oklahoma and boy did we have fun! When we first arrived my Dad had expressed that he wanted to take P&P and their three cousins fishing. My negative side thought this would be an exercise in futility and that getting ready to go would take three times as long as the actual fishing. In the end, it didn't matter because they had so much fun. I think my girls are conflicted girly-girls like their mom. The love shoes and makeup but Pumpkin especially really loved holding the worms. We caught these fish Wednesday morning. Pop filleted them that afternoon, Nanna fried them and we ate them. That's being really close to your food.

I have to say though, that it wasn't a fair fight. This little farm pond was quite low and the fish were practically jumping on the shore. We caught 11 fish in about a 20 minute time frame. Now, I love catfish but these were a little "muddy" tasting, even for me. It did bring back soooo many memories of fish fries when I was a kid. A mess of catfish, some cornbread, beans and gallons of sweet tea. Does it get any better than that?