Maple Snob, Abashed December 11, 2011

I owe Carolyn an apology for scoffing at her “maple syrup” last year.  The conversation went something like this:

C: I made maple syrup last night! I never realized how easy it was!

L: *checks hearing, rejects image of Carolyn tapping trees and boiling down sap in an evening* I’m sorry, what? You MADE maple syrup?

C: Yeah, it was just corn syrup and maple flavoring, and it’s great!

L: Oh, you mean pancake syrup. Not the same thing at all. Maple syrup comes from maple trees and tastes way better.  Cool, though, I’m glad you have some now, must be much cheaper than the imported pancake syrup. Way to go. <- (trying to recover relationship from the scoffing here)

I am a real maple syrup snob. Grew up buying a gallon of it each summer in New Hampshire and doling it out like precious liquid gold on those special Saturday mornings or Sunday evenings when we ate pancakes, waffles, or those heavenly delights known as fried dough!  We have had pancake syrup in the house at times in my life, and even eaten it, but it just doesn’t taste the same and the difference can’t be masked.

BUT, I was glancing through blogs on FeedSquares (go Chrome!) as I prepared to make some sugar cookie dough, and saw that Smitten Kitchen had just recently posted a recipe for Nutmeg Maple Sugar Cookies.  Well, not only do I not have a cup of real maple syrup in the house for a double batch of cookie dough (there’s a half gallon jug of it in a closet in VA from NH this summer, waiting for me to bring it back after Christmas!), I wouldn’t spend that much of that precious luggage space/pancake topping in one recipe anyway.  Last summer I did buy and bring back a bottle of maple flavoring, so I finally broke it open and adapted a recipe I found online to make “maple syrup.”

YUM.

That stuff is some of the best maple-flavored syrup I have ever tasted!

Now, I’m not turning in my Maple Syrup Snob card. I still reserve the rights to call this other liquid pancake syrup or maple-flavored syrup or at least put quotation marks around “maple syrup” if that phrase must be used.  But I won’t mind having the leftovers from this batch on my pancakes until I get the big bottle of the real stuff back here, and making more of this anytime in the future that I run out of the genuine ambrosia.

Maple-Flavored Syrup
Adapted from Cooks.com
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup water

Bring to a boil in a small saucepan.  Lower heat so it’s barely boiling, cover, and cook for about 3 minutes or until it starts to smell like you’d better get it off the heat!  Let cool for a few minutes.

3/4 tsp maple flavoring (mapline)
1/2 tsp real vanilla extract (well, I had to be authentic with SOMETHING here!)

Stir in the flavorings.  If using for the cookies, let cool completely before adding to the butter mixture.  I also added another 3/8 tsp or so of maple flavoring to the cookie dough, and then fought to get it into the fridge before I ate the entire batch raw!

PS: When I saw vanilla in the recipe, I was doubtful. Wouldn’t that make it taste less like the real stuff?  But since I begin with the assumption that it can’t taste like the real deal anyway, what’s important is that it tastes GREAT! And I just realized that since I used vanilla in this, I can enter it in a contest. Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Beanilla!  Seriously, the prize is a $150 gift card for vanilla stuff, which would be AMAZING! Good for baking, precious, potent vanilla goodness (eg, vanilla paste to use in chocolates), and light to pack in my suitcase!

  the leftover syrup in an old honey bottle

 the cookie dough, wrapped and refrigerated!

Such a happy evening December 11, 2011

As I opened the tab to write this post, I was thinking how much I appreciate WBVN.  Not only do they have a good mix of music and a snazzy new Flash player that started playing even before I finished logging into my awoken laptop, they play up-beat, more rock kind of music on Friday and Saturday evenings – perfect for waking up on Saturday and Sundays! – and as I started this post, they were playing some nice quiet songs over there in US-Saturday-morning-time, which was great for my late Saturday evening winding down.  (Now sadly it’s a show with talking, but you can’t win ‘em all.)  I don’t know if this is planned or just a reflection of their DJ personalities, but it works well with my 14-hours-ahead life!

However, the main topics of this post are the cool, exciting things going on here in recent evenings!

Two nights ago was the first performance of the Qingdao Carolers.  It was our only outdoor performance, and it was SNOWING!  Absolutely perfect. I even brought my muff even though I couldn’t wear it while holding my music because how could I leave it at home when it was the only thing missing from the “picture print by Currier and Ives”????  It was sooooo much fun, just amazing.  Equally amazing has been learning the alto part of half a dozen Christmas songs, and learning about learning the alto part (for example, I have re-confirmed the fact that I can’t sing harmony for many measures before getting lost unless I really do have someone else singing it with me.)

Last night I stayed at school all afternoon for the Secondary Christmas Gala in the evening.  It was also amazing.  The jazz band rocked, especially with “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (don’t ask me what that has to do with Christmas, but the fiddle-playing took my breath away), the “Stomp” group was funny and fun, especially the head chef “smoking” a cinnamon stick (I wish they’d had Stomp when I was in high school!), the 6th grade band showed their hard work, all the choirs sang beautifully….  The a capella group’s final song was a Spanish one with a small hand-drum and I wish I had a recording of it!  The high school choir was beautiful in their matching dresses and nice suits, though perhaps someone hit the “fast forward” button as they mounted the stage, tee hee.  And during the long intermission there were fresh tortilla chips and tuna salad, among other things (like salsa, but I prefer the tuna!), and a chance to view the middle and high school art gallery.  I posted some photos to Facebook during the show, and will try to transfer a few here.  Simply amazing.

Today started off not-so-hot, with a skirt from the tailor that makes me look entirely too poufy at places I’m already too naturally poufy, a total lack of powdered sugar at Metro, and a lot of not-to-my-Western-taste calendars at the Chinese C’ian bookstore (I bought nary a one!). But all in all I was getting done what really needed doing, aside from *cough* lesson plans.  For instance, I got some generic “Chinese” gifts for people, and I was finally able to pick up the custom-made Chinese shirts for a friend in the States that weren’t ready when I used part of my personal day to go pick them up last week. (If I spoke more Chinese I would have asked the tailor to pay for my taxi today, it cost me an extra $12-13 today round trip plus that chunk of my one free day wasted last week; she’d promised they’d be ready the day before I went.)  Anyway, the later part of the day was better.  With the wonderful new thing I’ve discovered since chopping off my long hair – that I can wash and blow dry it on a weekend afternoon and have nice hair right away instead of having to wait 24 hours – I dolled myself up for the one-night-only performance of “The Nutcracker” at the grand theater down the road!  A visiting Russian ballet company put on a splendid performance; I’m so glad I went!  Before the show I dropped in on Karen’s “Elf” party, saw friends, and doled out Christmas goodies, and then Laura and I went out for a blue cheese arugula burger at Canvas before the show.

Waiting for the bus home, I glanced up and, lo and behold, a lunar eclipse was in progress!  I pulled out the pocket binoculars I’d brought for the show and enjoyed waiting for a bus in the cold more than I ever have… I even stayed standing outside when I got back to my apartment complex for about ten minutes watching it approach totality!  Two firsts in one night, watching live ballet and seeing an eclipse.  I can’t even tell you which one I’m happier about.

This coming week will bring 4 afternoons of rehearsals, the upper elementary Christmas show on Friday evening (early elem had theirs yesterday morning), the end of a reading unit… and it will end with just 3 1/2 school days left until Christmas break!!!!  This time two weeks from now will be Christmas eve and I’ll be in America, G. willing.  He is so good!

Another Celebration of Thanksgiving November 19, 2011

Here’s something I’m thankful for: My parents have a huge heart for the international students at the university where Dad works.  They have very different personalities and ways of showing that love, but they have together “adopted” quite a few students over the years.  My father even walked one or two down the aisle when they were married!

This all began the second decade of my life, as I was in middle and high school.  All those years, I tried (with varying levels of effort and success) to put up with these intruders on our special family time – namely, Thanksgiving and Christmas – but with very few exceptions I always felt at least a little bit of resentment at having to to share the special days with outsiders.

Then I graduated from high school and began an internship in Texas.  Followed by four years of college in Indiana.  Neither of which is close enough for the folks to come pick me up for Thanksgiving, and one visit a year (Christmas) was all we could afford.  Wow, did my perspective change!  All at once, I was the outsider on these holidays, each year staying with a different family and intruding on their special traditions and time together.

Thankfully, none of them made me feel unwelcome or like I was an added inconvenience.  I watched Veggie Tales and danced with young siblings, rode along to visit relatives, took long chatting walks, played a crazy-fun game of (Florida? Liverpool?) Rummy with the whole extended family, gazed at stars, woke up early for my first (and second) ever “Black Friday” shopping trips, helped decorate the house and make Christmas candy, played with pets, sat with the family and watched the first person ever win a million dollars from Regis, so many things.  My senior year, one housemate and I stayed in the house 6 of us were renting and hosted a small Thanksgiving dinner with my visiting brother, her visiting mother, and her freshman sister in attendance.

This is my seventh year in China.  Obviously I have many more non-traditional Thanksgivings under my belt now, though it’ll be another 10 years before Thanksgivings away from home outnumber Thanksgivings at home (assuming I don’t add to the latter category in the meantime).  Each time it’s different – much more different than the post-high-school Thanksgivings, though there are also some similarities between each of the Thanksgivings in China, the main ones being that my biological family is not here and there are usually people present who are not Americans – so it’s not even “their” holiday!

Some Thanksgiving-in-China memories:

Each year at the university I’d teach my students about the first Thanksgiving, then have them put on short skits to re-tell the story, usually with some very humorous (at least for me) results.  (I blogged about it several years ago but at the moment can’t find the post.)

2005: My first year I had Thursdays off but no oven, so I spent Thanksgiving with my one electric hot plate preparing stuffing, pumpkin pie filling, crust, apples, crisp-topping, and whipping cream and then put it all in my fridge.  The next day after teaching I went to my Australian family’s house and, together with a couple cans of sweet corn I’d found and some chicken Celia cooked, shared with them their first-ever Thanksgiving dinner!

2006: Chris P hosted Thanksgiving at his place.  He had just bought a huge (for China) oven.  Probably big enough for a 9×13, if you’re wondering.  We managed to bake 4 China-sized chickens in it.  I gave the butcher a hard time when I bought the birds, insisting she cut off the feet and heads but not the legs (and I ended up having to remove the necks myself).   I remember cooking in Chris’ huge but sans-hot-running-water kitchen with Stacey K, and then Celia rescuing me by carving those birds – I was pretty sick of them by then!  It was a fun meal, and the Chinese-American-Australian group shared things we were thankful for.  (I think the Americans were the minority!)

2007: I hosted a meal for a small group of friends who were students at my college – Prima, Kate, and Samson – and one fellow teacher, Lloyd R.  It turned out well, and I was really satisfied with how much I’d managed to make on my own with my one functioning burner!

2008: I cooked a turkey for the first time!  My oven quit just before Thanksgiving, so Celia kindly loaned me hers… and then mine was fixed just in time, so I had space to make the turkey AND the stuffing.  Kate helped me keep it basted as it cooked during my regular Saturday morning English class of 8 small children and assorted mothers at my apartment, then I rushed across town as soon as everything was done for a meal at Anna W’s place. (See more photos on the blog post from that year!)
  

2009: New to QD, I took part in a big dinner with the community of teachers at my apartment complex.  The turkey was HUGE and beautifully made, and we played a VERY loud game of Catch-Phrase… wow, a good time to get to know everyone, and to get in all my socializing for the weekend in one afternoon!  Then on Sunday morning another group of foreigners had a Thanksgiving brunch – thankfully I was ready for more people-time by then

 

  

2010: I went to Blake and Marivic H’s home with a small group of fellow teachers.  Two of the men there had wives who were out of town, and were co-workers that I’d never really interacted with before.  It was a really nice time to get to know them and my hosts better, as well as Lisa F, who I already knew a bit more as she was another teacher who came to this school from already living in China in the fall of 2009.

2011: This year, we had a staff dinner in early November with 4 turkeys and 12 long tables!  I plan to be participating in two more Thanksgiving dinners on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, one for local college students and foreign teachers at a school for local students, and one for fellow foreigners (mostly from my school) who live near/in my apartment complex.

I love that I can remember so many of these Thanksgivings.  I cherish time with my family, but I can’t say that I remember much about who was there or what we did all those Thanksgivings together, certainly not to pin it to any particular year, aside from the one  that involved sledding at my uncle’s house (the only time we ever celebrated it away from home).  It no doubt helps that I’m older, but I think the perspective and richness of these different experiences also helps keep them in my memory.

Quick Thoughts October 19, 2011

So instead of a long post here are some quick thoughts:

1. Life is crazy-busy right now. Crazy. Thus the short thoughts here, instead of a nice long photo-filled post (though I should put one of those up one of these days.)
2. Sometimes it’s a little difficult not to feel a little bit of resentment for the support staff I work around, who work 8-4:30 and then are finished. No other responsibilities to the school or students, no taking work home with them.  It helps to remember that that’s what they signed up for and NOT what I signed up for, and if I really want to watch someone else teach and not get to teach much of anything myself, I can quit and look for a similar job (though knowing that a job like that wouldn’t be likely to support me if I did find one is another downer – I should know, I’ve been there!)
3. Something I’ve been learning this year is how “take captive every thought” really comes into play on a practical, moment-by-moment basis… like those thoughts in #2 above!  There’s some Biblical metacognition for ya.  Negative thoughts about myself, my place in life, my students, my co-workers, pretty much anyone and anything depending on the moment – I’m good at having them, I’m often too slow to catch them before they fly out of my mouth (though I’ve been working on that for years), but this year I’m seeing how I can recognize them as contrary to Truth and then reject them!  Focusing on what’s True is hard but worth it.
4. Speaking of metacognition, I am working on an assignment for my grad class that involved reading and responding to an essay about how really knowing yourself and being at home in yourself helps you be a better teacher.  I’m having to fight the urge to use the term “navel-gazing” in the title of my response to the essay.  I don’t want to be known as the snarky one in class, so so far the side of me that knows how to write properly for academic circles is winning.
5. His point IS worth some reflection, though – insecure and unhappy people probably don’t make great teachers.
6. One of the things I am weakest at is keeping patience in my voice, and just today I’ve noticed it slipping (the school year is 1/4 over… the bloom has worn off.)  I see it echoed in the way they speak to each other later in the year… so one of my goals is to guard my tone of voice more carefully and apologize if I catch myself speaking impatiently – no matter how justified I feel in being impatient!  I can do ALL things through HIM who gives me STRENGTH!  Fill me, Spirit, and flow over in patience as well as other fruit.
7. I am REALLY grateful for the group of kids I’m teaching this year.  They are overall more patient and kind than the ones I’ve had the last couple of years, though even they are not saints, just children, of course!
8. Unit 4 is beginning in Math… here we go with the really wide spectrum from “don’t know anything at all about multiplication” to “know all the multiplication facts, how to divide, and got a 100% on the unit-end-test-given-as-a-pre-test.”  It’s an opportunity, though an overwhelming one, to hone my craft more in the lovely world of “differentiation” – also known as giving the ones who already know it something educationally valuable to do while the at-grade-level students learn the basics of what their classmates have already mastered.
9. I want to be able to trust my slow-cooker but haven’t been able to bring myself to leave something hot not only plugged in but turned on all day. Sure, I do it with my drinking water tower, but that’s a lot less likely to catch fire than if my stew dried out!  I’m hoping that next weekend I can make myself some pumpkin soup, apple butter, or other yummy fall goodness.  I’ve got a couple of OATMEAL recipes bookmarked right now too, one pumpkin and one eggnog flavored – perhaps I can leave it plugged in while I sleep on Friday night! *drool*
10. One fish, two fish, … blue fish. Decipher if you can! (Thanks, Dad, they were good!)

So Loved August 14, 2011

I mentioned a few posts back, last spring, a family I knew of via the blogging world that had been preparing to adopt two precious girls from China, but one of them had passed away.  They recently were able to meet and bring home the other child, beautiful Poppy, but because it’s Ester’s birthday this weekend, Michelle is honoring her with a giveaway, by encouraging others to do kind acts, and by raising money for surgery that can save other orphans with similar heart issues.

You can find her blog here -> http://www.nihaoyall.com

Or purchase one of the t-shirts being given away here ->
Proceeds, of course, go to fund heart procedures for orphans here!

If I don’t win one, I plan to buy one later this semester (when my US account isn’t in its post-summer-visit hollow condition).  Maybe you’d like to buy one too!

Thoughts from today May 26, 2011

Field trip + sick (thus absent) teaching assistant + absent (attending 5th grade graduation) PE teacher + high school exams in cafeteria until well into regular lunch time + my turn to teach Social Studies = one very full day.  Instead of the almost-2-hours of prep time I often have (some days more), I had about 20 or 25 minutes to do the work of both myself and my TA. Not a bad day but not one of my best!

Cherries straight from the tree taste great.  Not least because you can just spit the pits on the ground instead of trying to politely get something from your mouth to the appropriate receptical in a dining or living room.

Yarn is one of the most wonderful inventions ever. Not only did my students happily knit during 4+ hours of rehearsals for the spring concert last week, they also played a complex game of cat’s cradle on the way to and from the cherry orchard today.

I’ve been blessed quite without merit or petition three times that I can recognize lately (above and beyond things like a nice apartment, a good job, salvation!)  Twice I woke up, wide awake, ahead of my alarm, and was able to fit in things in the morning that I didn’t realize I’d need to before I woke up.  It saved my morning both times!  And yesterday we welcomed a parent who sent a note asking if she could join the cherry-picking expedition, not knowing Arry would be sick today. I can’t imagine what I’d have done without her.

The guitar is amazing: it’s both so simple – hit these six strings, here are 4 chords, you can now play an almost endless list of songs (if you can find them) – and so complex – wiggle this finger in this chord, move that finger in that chord for a moment, you get a whole new and beautiful sound!  I found one video for each of those things today (see my Facebook wall if you want to watch them).  My left hand hurts when I type now but I’m pretty happy.  Only about 5 days of practice so far, a looooong way to go, but I can play (with pauses) three songs and a million more.

Stella’s bored. She meows, then goes looking for trouble. My problem is I like to procrastinate, so I don’t always respond when she meows!  Time to spray her off the top of the AC, where she is chewing on the pull cord for the curtain, then give her some positive attention so we can both sleep tonight.

Of Timing and Four-Letter Words May 18, 2011

*This post is again interspersed with random photos. If I posted about them all I’d never have time to work, but I want to share them!  They are completely unrelated to the actual text of the post. We now return you to your irregularly scheduled blog post.*

Today’s is a tale of timing and four-letter words.

No, not those kinds of four-letter words.

To provide some necessary background, I buy my electricity in advance.  My apartment has been issued with a card that one takes to the electricity office, pays to put money onto, and then inserts into the fuse box downstairs in the correct slot for my apartment, thus depositing the credit into my own power supply.  My apartment in ZZ had this too; the office was just a block up the street, but I had to hurry home a couple of times to get to it before it locked up for the night.  Bankers’ hours and no joke.

 
Two cooking failures: The strawberry cake was wonderful with yogurt on it but would have been just as good without the strawberries, which sank and made the bottom soggy; and the cooking-show-recipe stir-fry wasn’t worth all this prep work as it tasted pretty much like any generic stir-fry I cook in the way Celia taught me.  Live and learn!

Our story begins as I was preparing breakfast this morning.  I was enjoying the sound of a fading storm outside when there was a sound of thunder, and the electricity went off.  “Rats.”  (No, that’s not the four-letter word I mean, it comes later in the story.) I looked out the window and didn’t see any lights on in the neighboring apartment building, so I figured it was the storm and not my own problem.  The oven was already hot but cooling quickly and but it didn’t really toast my English muffin slice. I didn’t want to open the fridge again to get out the natural PB so I had to make do with some generic skippy-type.  Not so yummy, but no harm done.

 

As an aside, I would love to find out from a scientist or chef or anyone else who could explain to me WHY toasting turns rather blah things like English muffins into heavenly breakfasts?  It’s partly the texture, I think – chewing this “raw” breakfast was half the battle, it just didn’t feel right – but some other change seems to take place as well.  Anyone?

 
This man draws chalk images on the pavement to earn a little money.  He was very friendly rather cheerful and I enjoyed talking with him and admiring his art, though he couldn’t tell me the Chinese word for “eagle.” I didn’t determine which country’s flag he was going to fill in under the bird, nor did I ask how he lost his left leg or what he did before, though I do wonder.  At the end he even busted out a little English – “Thank you very much.”  Isn’t it always such a blessing when someone speaks your language to you?  I hope I run across him again.

Back to the story.  I turned off all the lights I could remember leaving on (missed the kitchen, as it turned out!), literally thanked heaven I’d charged the computer when I first woke up that morning – 15 minutes before my alarm and those 15 minutes saved my morning – did a couple of digital chores, transmitting them to school by USB stick rather than internet since it’s too much trouble to go plug the laptop in to the cord when the wireless goes out, and then left for the day.

getting ready to drill!

On my way to school, I learned that the other teachers in my complex had NOT lost their electricity.  Hmm.  A bit worrying.  We are not the only people leaving this early, but we are among the first; could it be that my neighbors’ homes were dark simply because they weren’t awake yet?  The idea that I was out of electricity, earlier so easily dismissed by their dark windows, began to claim a bit of ground.  Still, what were the chances it would happen to run out of money right after a clap of thunder?

   
Miss M, the elementary art teacher, organized this massive event to produce art for the lunch room.  Every student got to help, from pre-K through fifth grade (along with a few high school helpers!)

This afternoon I crammed myself and all my dongxi (stuff) onto the Chinese staff bus after my Chinese class ended in an attempt to get home before 5, check the power, and make it to the office before it closed if necessary.  Indeed, at the foot of the stairs my power box held a glowing red “5.”  That’s the warning – when you’re almost out, the power goes off, and you can stick your card in to start it again, using up those last few credits while you go get more.  If I’d grabbed my card that morning I could have checked on the way out and gone directly from school, but I didn’t even think of it.

 

So now I dumped everything inside my door, picked up my card, and headed out.  On the way, I put the card in the slot to activate those last 5 credits so my fridge could start cooling off again in the meantime.  The 4-digit screen flashed some sort of 4-letter word at me.  I shrugged, then went to catch a cab.

   

It was past 5 when I arrived, but as it turned out (a) they closed at 4:30 anyway, and (b) I’d forgotten that I’d already been told by the DeKonicks that there’s an ATM there that you can simply insert the card into.  Duh, I didn’t need to take that early bus after all.

 

There was a woman using the machine ahead of me, and she was there a long time.  It seemed the machine wasn’t working correctly.  It kept spitting her card back out.  She finally gave up and I tried.  Same problem.  Oh, dear.  We tried asking a nearby guard, but it wasn’t his domain – he didn’t even know which slot to put the card into.  Then another customer drove up.  The woman and I exchanged glances but decided to let him try; who knows?  Who knows, indeed.  We stood there watching him feed hundred after hundred into the machine.  It was working!  My companion in distress quickly asked him why this switch, and he tried her card for her – again, it was spit out.  Mine also was refused.  But he inspected the screen, inserting my card several times in order to get a complete look at a message that would flash when it refused the card.  Apparently I needed to insert my card into my home box once, then return and use the machine.  (My companion’s problem, on the other hand, was that she had brought the wrong card.) Turns out I was there at the right time after all – I’d never have figured that out on my own!

 

Still. Go home, come back, and then go home again? Now might seem a good time for four-letter words, but you’ve probably figured out by now which four-letter words I’m talking about. That’s right. When I found another cab and had him drive me the 1 1/2-circle round trip, the fuse box flashed “9OOd” at me when I inserted my card, and then the ATM was willing to take my card.  I now have power (obviously!) after inserting the newly-charged card to deposit my 400 yuan worth of electricity into my apartment’s account.  It said “9OOd” again when it charged, so I’m safe.  I do wonder what that other four-letter word was that I disregarded earlier, but I’m too paranoid now to put my card in to check.  I’ll just make sure I put a couple hundred on it before I leave for the summer, so I won’t be caught unprepared next time!

 
Enjoying the spring!

(That used to be my strategy, by the way.  It’s just that last time 600 was put on it, which seemed like a ridiculous amount, so I didn’t think it would be running out yet.  I guess 200/month isn’t too bad an average, though.)

 
Teacher’s Day gifts

Maple Oatmeal Bread May 16, 2011

I made this bread spur-of-the-moment Sunday a week ago, and I am in love!  It was perfect, despite the fact that the dregs of my maple syrup had finally gone ’round the bend and I had to toss it.  I’ve adapted the recipe a bit to make up for that fact, and finally caved in to add maple flavoring to my summer spices-and-flavorings shopping list.

Maple Oatmeal Bread
adapted from Country magazine, obviously submitted by someone who lives in Vermont and can spare a huge half cup of liquid gold on a single recipe!

1 cup hot brewed coffee (or instant in my case)
3/4 cup boiling water
1/2 cup maple syrup (or corn syrup, or molasses… I did about 1/4 cup of each)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt

2 packages active dry yeast (total 1/2 oz)
1/4 cup warm water (110-115F)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

5 1/2 to 6 cups flour – I used 2 cups bread flour, 2 cups slightly coarse whole wheat, and the rest all-purpose white flour

Combine the first 7 ingredients in a large measuring cup or bowl.  They should be at least as cool as the warm water when you finish mixing them; if not, let them cool a bit.

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the wet oat mixture, eggs, and 2 cups of flour.  Mix well.

Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough and knead until smooth and elastic, 6-8 minutes.

Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour in a warm spot.

Divide dough in half and knead briefly to form 2 loaves.  Place into greased loaf pans, cover, and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes until golden-brown; the bread should sound hollow when you remove one from the pan and knock on the bottom with your knuckle.

Remove from pans and cool on a cooling rack before slicing.  Serve with butter freshly churned by your students, with natural peanut butter and raspberry jam, or with sharp Vermont cheddar cheese melted over it!

Exits and Entrances May 15, 2011

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

Is the world a stage?  Perhaps, perhaps not, but we are living out the most amazing story to be told, and Shakespeare has some nice descriptions in this monologue – I don’t much like Jaques, but I do enjoy reciting this one speech of his.  Lately, life here is full of exits and entrances.

The transient nature of life in a foreign land, in a community of expats, is a big part of what defines it, and especially what defines TCKs. (Third Culture Kids = children whose lives are shaped by spending at least part of their formative years in culture outside theirs or their parents’. I’m an ATCK – A for Adult, though to me it always looks like the word “attack”!)  Knowing that either you will move or many of the people in your life will move, at any time and after any length of stay, and that very little is permanent – it affects your outlook on a lot of things.  I know I didn’t put much into decorating my last apartment, once I got over the effort of unpacking and realized I was only going to live there for 10 or 11 months.   Why spend the time, money, creativity, when I wouldn’t be able to take it with me to the new place?  I have found that my personality is something of a contradiction in that way.  I can procrastinate decorating, unpacking the last few boxes, etc, yet I also try to make my locale as much “home” as possible, be it apartment, dorm room, or house.  I always carefully arrange the kitchen and begin cooking my own meals as early as possible, because to me, cooking is relaxing and “home.” I consciously brought several little touches with me when I first moved to China to hang on the walls, spread on the bed, or set on the kitchen counter.  Some of those might even count as “sacred objects” that TCKs accumulate. (If you’re not up on Third Culture Kid lingo, please read the book! For now: a sacred object is something precious from a time/place of your life that you keep through the years, something permanent in the face of all the transiency.)  Then again, knowing that life here is never completely certain or permanent, and having a home base in my passport country at which to store things, I took the most precious object back there the next summer for safe-keeping.

More than things and places, though, are the people.  TCKs often struggle to make deep connections with people when they know that their friends may be torn away or they themselves uprooted.  Somewhat paradoxically, they also jump right in and get to know people; there’s no time to waste on small-talk and surface issues.  I’ve found both of these to be true in my life to some extent; the latter is also true, I think, of people in a small group with a shared goal, such as summer M trips, internships, the I-moved-to-China-alone-and-so-did-you-so-we-must-be-crazy-in-the-same-way connection, or now with a group that all came here to teach children and love on Chinese and fellow expats.  The shared goal/experience is looser in some ways, tighter in others, but it’s definitely here.

Last year very little changed in our community.  One teacher left for a sister school; several teachers stopped teaching after giving birth to their first child; a few new teachers came to take their places.  I wasn’t particularly close to any who left.  This year is different.  Or perhaps this year is more normal, really.  The contrasting feelings are hard to grasp in my mind simultaneously.

As an example of the goodbyes, two weeks ago I attended a shower for a wonderful woman here who is getting married and beginning a new life in the States.  What a happy event, a gain to balance the loss.  Right around then I also learned that a dear family here will be moving to a sister school in another province, far from us.  I won’t get to teach their oldest boy when he’s in third grade a couple years from now, nor enjoy their comfortable hospitality and conversation, nor likely even invite them over again as the days tick down and they are busy preparing and I am busy finishing the school year.  Those are just two of the goodbyes that I am processing.  Yesterday kicked it into overdrive.

When I woke up, I read an update on a family in the States that just lost a little girl. They have adopted several times from China, and after a very long and difficult paper trail they were preparing to come pick up two beautiful daughters here at the same time.  Then they got a call telling them that little Esther had passed away.  I don’t know them in person, but have been following the mom’s blog, and it is heartbreaking.

As my day continued, I went to a party welcoming home a little boy who was adopted from Africa a month or so ago.  It was my first time to interact with him, and he seems sweet and happy in his new family.

After doing my errands around town, I stopped in at a goodbye party for a couple who are leaving in three weeks, moving back to the States.  While I was there, I held a precious little boy whose welcome party was last week, and watched my newly-one-year-old honorary niece toddle around.

Then I took a note of appreciation to a co-worker.  She is ill and leaving sooner than expected in order to have tests done in another country and begin treatment.  This time of goodbyes and closure is being short-circuited for her, right when she most needs support.  I don’t know how to help her but am glad to see others who are close to her coming around to hold her and lift her up.

The grief of parting, the pain of unanswered questions – Why is she ill? Why did little Esther die?  Will I ever see any of the leaving people again?  And at the same time, the joy of new life and new families.  Just a month ago we were mourning the loss of a boy in our own community, and welcoming another newborn boy that same week.  We are created to handle these events but I really don’t know how.  And how must our Creator feel, loving all, seeing all that goes on, knowing our injuries and victories and sorrows and loves and everything else that happens in our hearts and words and actions?  He is All-Powerful, so he CAN experience these without shutting down, without ceasing to be involved, without turning off his heart to avoid being hurt again.  He also gives me his Spirit, so that I can function as he created me to.  I don’t need to dig a hole and crawl into it; I have his promises of  “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”  Now to walk in it.

Two songs for the Wannabes May 9, 2011

I had meant to put these on yesterday’s blog, but forgot.  I’d like to share two songs that connect with the theme of contentment in C, apart from any roles (mother, wife, or single person) one may or may not have.

Yesterday we sang “I’d Rather Have J,” a great old song that I like.  I felt yesterday that the lyrics weren’t quite tailored to me, unless you stretch them a bit – perhaps having “houses or land” could mean having a household to care for?  But it’s still a great song.  To go a bit on a tangent, it also suffers from the same grammatical confusion as the song that first taught me what it was to be picky about grammar.  (Cue a flashback!)

When I was in second or third grade, our elementary put on the musical “Angels Aware!” (which apparently beat Yahoo! to the trick of having an exclamation point as part of the title and making punctuation of surrounding sentences awkward.)  One of the songs was about the Ten Commandments, and has stuck with me through the years – I never learned them by rote from Exodus or Deuteronomy, but I know what they say and in what order because I can still sing that song!  A pair of lines went thus:

Number Seven: Life is heaven when you’re true to your mate.
Number Eight: Don’t steal and break this rule for goodness’ sake!

Makes sense, rhymes, gets the point across, no?  Only my classmates were all singing “Don’t steal OR break this rule…” which makes no sense whatsoever if you stop and think about it.  After all, we’re listing the rules; how much sense would it make to say “Don’t drive drunk or break this rule” (or fill in your own example)?  If the rule IS not to steal, there should be an “and,” and if the rule ISN’T to not steal, why on earth are you telling them not to steal, instead of telling them what the mysterious rule is that we aren’t supposed to break? It drove me crazy because I couldn’t make them see the importance of not singing nonsense and correcting it once they’d all learned it incorrectly.  Ah, young Lily, get used to it – life is full of people who don’t think grammar is as important as you believe it to be!

End flash back… this song has a line like that too – going on the theme of “I’d rather have J,” the chorus begins “Than to be the king of a vast domain,/ Or be held in sin’s dread sway.”  Okay, that COULD be the line, but it seems to me what the writer is trying to say is “I’d rather be poor and powerless on the earth and have J than be rich and powerful AND caught in sin.”  Doesn’t that make a better contrast?  Otherwise it seems to imply that two without-J options are (a)be a king (without sin?) or (b) be sinful, which isn’t quite accurate.  Okay, end grammar lesson!

The other song, which has been special to me for a while and also meets my other “think about what you sing” rule of actually being sung TO J, not just ABOUT Him, is “Enough.”

“All of you is more than enough for all of me,
For every thirst and every need.
You satisfy me with your love,
‘Cause all I have in you is more than enough.”

It is so true, whether sung with conviction or with faith that feels weak.  May that be true for you today as well.