Camping on Deep Creek

Over Lil's fall break, we went camping with Alan's sister, Teresa, and her hubby, John, on Deep Creek in Bryson City, North Carolina. We borrowed this pop-up camper from Alan's other sister, Kendra, and now I'm obsessed with getting one of our own. I have no idea where we'll park it, but I MUST have one. It's very compact when folded up and can easily be pulled by a mid-sized car. You just pop it up, plug it in and hook up the water and you're all set. You can get a good one used for about $3,000

and I have fantasies of popping it up in our backyard and making it a room of my own,

a place to escape to.

We were right on the creek, so we went tubing a couple of times.

Sleeping to the sound of the creek was delightful. Is there anything more relaxing than sitting in front of a camp fire? We weren't exactly roughing it, as my husband so sarcastically reminded me. The campground had a bathroom with showers (and only a few creepy crawly things).

The children were so happy. They were thrilled that they got to eat marshmallows every night! Lilly said I'm nicer to her when we're camping. Isn't that another good reason to buy a pop-up camper?

"Evening" by G.K. Chesterton

Here dies another day

During which I have had eyes, ears, hands

And the great world round me;

And with tomorrow begins another.

Why am I allowed two?

Here we go round the mulberry bush

(from May 2010)


Until a week ago, that nursery rhyme was the only thing I knew about mulberries. Then our friend, Jonathan, posted ‘mulberries’ as his facebook status. Just ‘mulberries’. He later commented that he was trying to work but all he could think about was foraging for mulberries. He and his wife, Lesley, live in Nashville so I assumed their neighborhood was flooded and that they couldn’t get to a grocery store. Nope, they’re just that cool.

Then Alan informed me that there’s a huge mulberry tree in the field behind our house.

So he carried a bucket down the hill and brought these lovely little berries home.

“What are you going to DO with them?,” I asked. “Are you SURE they’re mulberries? 100% sure? How do you know?” He looked at me like I was the crazy one.

I’ve mentioned that my mountain man has some mad baking skills, but I was terrified to try this suspicious little piece of pie. The crunchy-granola girl in me admires the simple living, back to the land movement and thinks growing and canning your own food sounds swell. I mean, how much more local can you get than these mulberries? But the city girl in me got online, started googling pictures of mulberry trees, and researching the possible side effects from consuming its fruit. I whispered to Lilly, “Let’s wait until tomorrow and make sure Daddy hasn’t poisoned himself before we eat a slice.”

Why was I so afraid of the mulberries? The same reason other people are afraid to eat collard greens, kale, swiss chard, or fennel. We’re terrified of the unfamiliar, but it’s the familiar that’s REALLY scary: double D-sized chicken breasts, antibiotic-laden beef washed in ammonia and chlorine to remove E. coli, fake food filled with ingredients you can’t pronounce let alone recognize. So why was I afraid of eating berries growing on a tree behind my house? Because they weren’t labeled and I didn’t have to pay for them – as if that ensures safety. It’s laughable, I know! The point is, as a society, we’re so completely disconnected from our food. We have dandelion greens and mulberries growing all over the city and hungry people who have no clue that they’re edible. I did eventually try a piece of pie and my exact words were, “This is SO good, I don’t care if it makes me sick.” Lilly woke up the next morning and said, “Daddy didn’t poison himself, so can I eat a slice of pie now?”

God is good

Ted Clark once described our church on NPR's All Things Considered. He said, "Oakhurst Presbyterian Church is unremarkable on the outside, but the congregation on the inside is quite remarkable. People from the most divergent backgrounds - middle class professionals, blue-collar and pink-collar workers, welfare recipients, old, young, and very young, black, white, Asian, gay and straight. All seem to feel comfortable there and speak their minds." Today we celebrated our church's 90th anniversary.

The following song is called "White Man" and it reminds me very much of our community of faith and the message at Oakhurst. We are all children of God. There are many other definitions that the world will  give us based on our skin color, sexual orientation, education level and economic status. At Oakhurst we're reminded that our primary definition is a child of God. There are no second class citizens at our church. Diversity is a gift.

The band, Gungor, hails from Denver, Colorado and the video was constructed entirely out of felt using a technique called stop motion. It was developed and directed by Goodwin Films.

"God is good, God is good, and he loves everyone."

Quote on parenting

"Remember you are not managing an inconvenience; you are raising a human being."

- Kittie Franz

400 year old trees

When we were on our trip to North Carolina, Alan and I got away for a night to celebrate our 12th anniversary. 

We spent the night at the Freymont Inn in Bryson, City and the next morning went on a hike in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. It's one of the only old-growth, virgin forests on the east coast. It reminded me very much of a mini-Muir Woods, which was where we were 12 years ago for our honeymoon. 

Twelve years ago, when we were younger, thinner, and more carefree,

but no happier

and no more in love.

Separate, separate, separate

That’s my secret for making one dinner that usually sometimes pleases both the tall and short people in my home. ‘Separate, separate, separate’ is an especially important technique for children of the preschool variety. They want power and they want it now. Food is the only thing in their little lives that they have any control over. As much as you’d like to get your screwdriver and your plumber’s helper, open their mouths and shove it in, that didn’t work for Mr. Parker in A Christmas Story and it won’t work for you.

My six year old will eat raw spinach dipped in salad dressing and she’ll devour a container of strawberries in minutes, but try combining those three items and she recoils in horror. I not only physically separate every item on the plate, I also reserve items while I’m cooking before I RUIN them with too much flavor. The other night I made one of my favorite spring dishes, Seared Tofu with Spicy Black Beans and Mango Salsa, which I discovered years ago in Peter Berley’s cookbook Fresh Food Fast. This is how the dish looks when Alan and I eat it.

For my picky little munchkins, I reserved some of the mango salsa before I added jalapeno and cilantro to it. I also separated the food on their plates like this.

Lilly informed me that next time I make this dish, the tomato is not invited to her mango play date. I meant to reserve some black beans before I RUINED them with ginger, cumin, and garlic, but I forgot. Do you see where this is going? Lilly didn’t seem to mind the beans, but this was Jonathan’s reaction:

It gets even better!

Separate, separate, separate!
Separate the food, but don’t cook a separate meal; unless, of course, you want to. If you have endless money, time, and patience, then go for it. Just keep in mind that “kid-friendly food” is a marketing gimmick, one that didn’t exist 100 years ago.

Don’t feel too rejected when the ungrateful boogers refuse the meal you so lovingly prepared for them. You sometimes have to offer a dish twenty or thirty times before a child starts to like it; an annoying fact, but true. My daughter was a really good eater when she was little. She later went through picky stages and turned up her nose at meals she once loved. On the bright side, she’s eating things today that she refused to touch just last year. If I didn’t give her the opportunity to try a variety of foods, how would her taste buds ever develop and mature? Don’t get too worked up about the food they reject. Just laugh at their full-body shudders, try to refrain from lecturing them about starving children in Africa, and celebrate small victories. We’re all in this thing together.