BaNNeR RooTS

Celebrate Anything and Everything

Joe came back from Unalakleet. It seems like every month someone comes back from Unalakleet to this house. But this time, Joe gets cake like it's his birthday or something.  He's here and we're thrilled. And we wanted him to know. Even though we just saw him. Like two days ago.

So Sid and I got to work. It's so fun celebrating anything and everything.

 
 
Happy coming back Joe! We love you! And you get a cake with a banner...

And sprinkles...

Life is pretty dang good. Make it fun. Make it silly. Make it taste good. And colorful. And handmade. And chocolatey. And a celebration. Just because.

 

Sometimes Cake

Sometimes you come home from work and take a nap. Sometimes you go for a run but you don't want to today because it's still raining. Sometimes you pick berries but again, it's raining. Or you go fishing but you don't want to mess with rain gear today. Then sometimes you make cake. For no reason. Just to mix it up for fun and eat it for fun. Because you can.

And then when you're done with that one piece, the forever rain doesn't matter as much. And then you really think about putting on rain gear to go fishing.

Green Smoothie, Brown Lawn

I do my best to eat a smoothie everyday. For a good three months (not straight, but almost), I had a mixture of blueberries, spinach, oj and banana. Then I ran out of blueberries (big, sad face). 

Instead of blueberries, I now throw in frozen mango that doens't quite have the affect blueberries do (kind of sad face). The concoction used to be a pretty fuchsia color. Now it's this. Good thing blueberry picking season is almost here! 

 

Water is Wet

It's been raining. I know days of rain can seem like the biggest downer. Wet shoes, wet hair, wet face, cold fingers, and gray, gray, gray skies. Well get ready for some Pollyanna-ish perspective because I've got it. At least right now I do. Who knows if I'll still hold such positive thoughts if this keeps up for weeks.

Here we go. It's rain. It's wet. It doesn't mean life has to be gloomy. We have x-tra tuffs. There's Gore-tex. And here's something. We're in AK. Where weather is CRAZY! We can't expect months and months of sunshine. We have to expect some rain. Especially with weatheriness being so entirely unpredictable these days.

And if you're someone who opts to stay inside, I say do it fully. Bake up a storm. Dirty that kitchen and take extra fingerscrapes of cookie dough while you're at it. Clean like crazy. Clean so much and so good that you have to take a shower afterward. You know what I'm talking about. And then. AND THEN! Relax. I think wet weather gives people the permission to get three movies from Hanson's and maybe finish them in one day. Maybe.

What am I doing this rainy week? Painting my stairs blue. And who knows. I might paint them again if the color sucks bad. 'Cause you never know.

For the Love of a Hot Drink

Sometimes a girl wants to make a cup of tea and not have to make the treacherous journey down the chubby ladder we call our stairs. Anyone who's been to the house knows what I mean. Alas I have a solution to the sans stairs and lazy butt issue. A tea station. It consists of a pretty doily, a water heater, a jar of tea bags and some agave.

 

A gal can continue to sew, write or just gaze out the window.

 

For the love of a hot drink. Pick of the day: Good Earth Jasmine Green Tea.

Sorry chickens...we might eat you.

My favorite recipes are those from my favorite people. My uuraq recipe from Mom. My sourdough pancake recipe from Dad. The coca-cola cake from my beauty queen truck driving sister Karen. The corn chowder recipe typed with a typewriter by Fen's grandmother Bernice. And this one--oven-fried chicken from Kathy Erickson. Making dishes like these connects me to people who've inspired me.

When I make uuraq on the riverbank over a fire, Mom is present. When I add the soda to the sourdough mix and the batter doubles in size, I know my Dad would be happy I'm carrying tradition. When I make beauty queen cake, I hear Karen laugh. When I make corn chowder, I remind myself that optimism is a powerful thing. And when I make oven-fried chicken, I remember Kathy. She was a lady who always made you feel like everything was going to be OK. She exuded strength and kindness and if I had a wall full of photos of inspirational women, hers would be one of the first tacked up. And her chicken is good.

 

And so simple. Set the oven at 400. While it's preheating, place a stick of butter in your baking pan and let it melt. While the butter is turning to a puddle, shake up a bunch of drumsticks in a gallon baggie with flour, salt and pepper. Once the oven is to temp, place the chicken in the butter. Bake for an hour, turning the chicken once 30-minutes in.

Three Noisy Broads

Three ladies live with us. Actually, they have their own house in the yard. They're loud and I'm pretty sure they're scared of me. But they eat my scraps and in return I get fresh eggs. Yes. We have lady chickens.

And they STINK! They've stayed in the coop the past few days to understand this is their new home. Their place smells like sulfur and vinegar. And they poop everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It's kind of weird but I won't judge.

So. Meet the ladies.

The one right up front with her butt in your face is the noisiest of all. She has real attitude and I think we'll be pretty good friends even though all she does is holler at me when I go to say hi. The others won't even look at me when I talk to them. They seriously will turn and stare at the plywood wall the whole time I try to get to know them. Again, it's weird, but I won't judge. Especially since we have three eggs for tomorrow's breakfast.

Gifts

I've been thinking about gifts today. And not "what do I want" or "what should I get" but the gifts I'm thankful for today. I have always believed it's a good habit to count your blessings no matter what the current situation is. There's always something to be thankful for. There are always gifts to take time to appreciate that aren't under the tree.

And it went that Fen took the kids to find a cottonwood Christmas tree. That in itself was a tremendous gift. Fen has been gone for two weeks and I am extremely proud of keeping the house going, the kids turning in their homework everyday, keeping the snowmachines going and everyone fed...dogs included. But it was HARD! And now I can breathe easy and Fen gave me an hour of quiet alone time at the house. THANK YOU FEN!

So what did I do? I baked. I made cookies. And not just any cookies. I made thumbprint cookies. A cookie I can't go one Christmas season without. If someone really, really nasty told me I could only make one type of cookie this Christmas season, this simple cookie would be the one. I've eaten three just while writing this blog and I picked the biggest ones in the batch.

So thanks Mom. Thank you for making these every Christmas and creating a deeply-rooted tradition for me. My love of baking is directly from you and is one of the best gifts I've ever received. 

(And now the count is up to four.)

Pancakes

I was on a blog-posting fast for a long time. Too long. In fact, someone said the apple pie on the post from forever ago was getting moldy. I won't name any names, but since I heard that, I've been a posting glutton Tony.

This morning I celebrated my quiet mornings. I don't go to work until 9AM and my husband has the morning routine with the kids since I mainly have the evenings. I say mainly because sometimes he does that too. He is a fantastic guy and I'm not even kidding. As I was saying, I've been enjoying my non-hurried, non-rushed mornings and today I went all out. I, without any guilt whatsoever, enjoyed a house pancake (aka: dutch baby, german pancake) all to myself.

This is how it went. I woke up and kissed the family goodbye. Then I really wanted a house pancake. So I made one. I figured, how many times do I cook something I don't really, really want but do it for other people? Lots of times. Heck yeah I can make something just for myself. 

So once it was out of the oven, I put some fresh orange juice on and sprinkled (more like blanketed) the pancake with powdered sugar, ate and was off to work.