In the Swamp Rabbit box - a week's worth of produce

I'm no Julia Child, but living in France broadened my horizons in the kitchen, forcing me out of my comfort zone and into the realm of cooking from scratch with fresh and sometimes previously unknown ingredients. I didn’t completely abandon everything I learned upon returning to the US despite reverting to some old favorites including macaroni & cheese and certain Trader Joe’s frozen meals, but it has been easy to slip back into a boring routine, especially with the arrival of Vilis and the following upheaval in our domestic lives.

Last week the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery had a deal on their produce box ($15 instead of the usual $25) that has derailed that boring routine. I think I’ve mentioned that I like their produce boxes because there is no obligation (you can buy once a year or twice a week), pick-up is flexible (after 4pm on Wednesday or Friday and anytime on Saturday) and the contents are always fresh and local. So it came to be that I was presented a new challenge: to use 7 ingredients I have little or no experience cooking with (and a handful that are more familiar) before anything spoils, and to do so in such a matter that the little people will eat it. Without further ado, here is a week’s worth of meals inspired by the Swamp Rabbit Grocery produce box!

source: here

SATURDAY: We had a busy day and so dinner was quick and easy, with BLT’s featuring the lettuce out of Greenbrier Farm in Dacusville. Start small, right?

source: here

SUNDAY: In researching some of the more unfamiliar ingredients I came under the impression that the arugula would be best eaten sooner than later, and so the Tyger River Smart Farm (out of Taylors, SC) hydroponic arugula was incorporated into pasta salad with goat cheese via this recipe from Martha Stewart. I used tri-colored rotini since gemelli pasta wasn’t available, and substituted white wine vinegar for the red wine vinegar as it is a little milder and was what I had in the cupboard. End result; this is better as a side dish than a main meal, and the boys avoided eating any arugula, red onion or pasta that wasn’t plain. The goat cheese and cannellini beans were a big hit, and the Dijon was a nice accompaniment to the arugula. Prep time 10 minutes, total time required 25.

source: here

MONDAY: Next up was the kale (Bioway Farm in Belton, SC), which I recognized because it’s what has been growing in my pallet garden! (One of the salad mixes included kale seeds, and it was the only thing to survive the summer heat.) We had been mixing leaves into our salads, but I had not tried anything more complicated. Turns out, kale can be rather uncomplicated. Tonight’s dinner was Real Simple’s roasted pork chops and butternut squash with kale. Except that in lieu of the squash I used the sweet potatoes (Crescent Farm, Clinton SC) from the produce box and therefore skipped the sage. End result; the boys both had a tiny taste of kale and politely declined any more, and surprisingly the sweet potatoes were a hard sell to the younger one. I was pleased with the kale but found the pork chops a little on the tough and dry side. Prep time 30 minutes, total time 55 minutes.

source: here

TUESDAY: Soccer night calls for something quick and easy as the boys only get home around 7pm, and although tonight’s game was rained out I was happy for this simple recipe from Country Living. Jumbo shrimp with bok choy calls for baby bok choy, but since I had the grande version (from Clemson Organic Farm) I rinsed and roughly chopped and once again was pleasantly surprised with the result. I might have simmered the citrus-soy glaze a little longer to achieve a more syrupy sauce, but it wouldn’t have changed the end result; the boys once again mostly refused the greens after taking a taste (Mikus did eat the stalks). It was a good thing I made rice to accompany the dish, as that is what filled stomachs, and although I enjoyed the shrimp I think next time I would choose a sesame oil recipe. Prep time 10 minutes, total time 15. (PS For the recipe I used Bee Well honey, Pickens SC, also purchased from Swamp Rabbit - they've got the best deal in town!)

source: here

WEDNESDAY: These ratatouille wraps by Rachel Ray were great for adults, but didn't go over well with the boys. They like ground beef burritos with veggie toppings, but apparently these eggplant (Clemson Organic Farm) wraps were too far removed from what they were expecting. The boys enthusiastically ate empty tortillas instead, and Roberts confessed they tasted only slightly better than they looked. I enjoyed the goat cheese in combination with the veggies, but end result: I have a bunch of leftover ratatouille. Recipe states prep time is 15 minutes and a total of 25, but I found it to be closer to 40. 

source: here

THURSDAY: I roasted a whole chicken and made roasted scarlet turnips (Greenbrier Farm in Dacusville, SC) and baby blues as a side (although I couldn't resist adding carrots as well). I just love the color contrast between the orange carrots, red turnips and the purple potatoes, which I’ve been a big fan of ever since first seeing them in France. The scarlet turnips are of an heirloom salad variety but taste about like regular turnips. The microgreens (Iszy’s Heirlooms in Liberty, SC) joined the leftover lettuce from BLT night for a side salad, also featuring veggies from Tomato Vine. End result; no leftovers! Everyone loves the roasted chicken, especially because it doesn’t dry out when cooking whole. Ask your butcher to spatchcock it, it’ll require less time in the oven. Prep time 15 minutes, total time 60 minutes.

source: October's Real Simple Magazine

FRIDAY: Roasted carrots with chimichurri are on the menu tonight, taking care of the cilantro in our produce box with the recipe from October’s Real Simple. If we had a grill I would send Roberts outside with some steaks, but as we don’t… I still have a few hours to decide, right?

So what else was in the produce box that isn’t included in the above dinners? I confess that I took the big, beautiful, green bunch of collards (Thicketty Mountain, Cowpens SC) over to my neighbor first thing, because I know how much she loves them and I was facing a daunting crisper drawer full of greens – I think Lauris and Mikus will forgive me. The apples (Lively Orchards, Hendersonville NC) we ate as snacks and with lunch, and the beets… well, maybe I’ll get around to Roberts’s favorite soup, aukstā zupa! Thanks to the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery for a healthy week in culinary adventures!

Saying goodbye

There are things that being an expatriate prepared me quite well for, such as: trying new foods, being flexible in situations where I don’t feel completely comfortable, and making do with what is on hand. However, considering the amount of times we had to say goodbye (to friends and family in the US before moving to France, to new found friends who were moving on to other expat assignments/back home, to friends and family who came to visit us while in France, to those same dear people at the end of return trips to the US, to all of our new friends upon our move from Clermont-Ferrand back to Greenville), I assumed saying goodbye now would be easier.

photo credit: Gunārs L.

 

The holidays have brought a whole round of goodbyes, each harder than the last. First, the house emptied of my husband’s family who had come to celebrate Christmas with us, and although I found some consolation in the fact that the next round of guests would soon be here, the boys had a much harder time understanding where all their cousins went. From a full house of storytellers, laps to sit in, buddies to chase, friends to hug, all of the sudden they had only me – overwhelmed with daily household chores that had been put on the back burner during “the holidays.”

"the tackle" photo credit: Gunārs L.

 

When we returned to Greenville after several years absence, a few friends went out of their way to make us feel comfortable and at home, welcoming us into playgroups and introducing us to other like-minded parents with children of similar ages. Our second goodbye came with the departure of one of those friends with her family for New Zealand, for the start of a new adventure. As they prepared to leave, packed and consolidated, we said goodbye; first there was the mom’s night out goodbye, the garage sale goodbye, then the Christmas brunch goodbye, the playdate goodbye… It is so very difficult to get closure but not extend goodbyes, and I found myself remembering our last weeks in Clermont with unease – saying goodbye was turning out to be harder on me than on my friend. It’s a selfish grief, stemming from that helpless and abandoned feeling from friends leaving you, with some jealousy mixed in, that it isn’t us headed to the storybook country. How to put aside all this selfishness and help our friends during the transition as they helped us? I’m afraid I failed miserably and barely managed to say goodbye without losing it completely… Sue, thanks for everything (including the bike which Lauris is getting tons of use out of!), and I wish you nothing but happiness and adventure on your journey.

Perfect sized mug for a cup of joe on a cold winter's day!

 

Then came saying goodbye to 2013, which honestly wasn’t that hard as it brought closure to an exciting year in addition to new visitors – my parents, all the way from Chicago. But they brought the final and hardest goodbye, as they got out of Dodge yesterday and headed back up north after taking an extra day or two to let the snow plows and tow trucks do their job. The house is empty and cold (literally and figuratively as South Carolina has been hit with the same cold front), and I’m having difficulties remaining optimistic not knowing when the boys/I will next see the grandparents/uncles/aunts/etc.

 

So, we jump into the mundane (the laundry, the grocery shopping, the chores of the New Year) and the not-so-mundane (the birthdays coming up require some attention…). We check in with the brother and sisters we didn’t see this holiday season, we wait to hear that the grandparents have made it home safe. And best of all, we plan. We dream about trips we might take, people we might see, places we would like to visit. We pencil in weekends on the calendar to travel and see family, and this is what eases the goodbyes; the house still feels empty and the boys are still a bit lost, but every time I pass my new bulletin board planning station I get excited about all the bonjours I’ll be saying in the coming year.

 

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First wheels!

(Such a depressing post on a happy day! Today we’re celebrating my husband’s birthday, and I would like to wish a big blog bon anniversaire to mon amour! May the next year bring you much happiness!)

Ūsiņdiena and Cinco de Mayo

The thing about being back in the States after living in France – commitments! We couldn’t fly back to the US for every christening, confirmation, wedding and funeral, and so our weekends were free for spur of the moment trips to Spain, hikes in the chain of volcanoes surrounding Clermont-Ferrand and relaxing jaunts to the country to visit friends. In contrast, now that we are back in Greenville every weekend from now until late summer is already booked, as it’s been since early spring. I managed to fit in that weekend in New York after my youngest sister’s visit, but then we were off to the christening in Ohio which was followed by a visit from my parents. This weekend we took a mini-vacation to the coast, but that is the sole family holiday we’ll have until much later this year, as the coming months are filled with exciting travel plans to confirmations and weddings, as well as commitments here in Greenville, visitors, seminars and festivals. You’ll have to pardon my sporadic posts, which will also be a tad outdated, as I’m already several weeks behind on our adventures.

"I call shotgun!"

We observed Ūsiņdiena, the Latvian holiday marking the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice (the beginning of summer). We celebrate because we gave Lauris the middle name of Ūsiņš, after the Latvian patron of horses, who symbolizes light and is said to bring spring. This was the first day livestock were put out to pasture, and many of the old traditions involve eggs (which symbolize life and the sun) and horses. For a great summary of some of these old rituals you can read the article “A primer on Ūsiņi, the start of summer” and then listen to Kad Ūsiņš jāj, as performed by the Melo-M Mega Orchestra.

Our celebration included a late evening trip to downtown for ice cream, as per the request of our little Ūsiņš. Although ice cream consumption was not limited to Lauris!

The following days were filled with activity; the North Main community meeting at the Soda Shop, the Arts Alive fundraiser for our nearby elementary school, plenty of time in the new sandbox and work in the old one (a.k.a. our raised vegetable beds) and trips to the zoo and Falls Park.

At the North Main community get-together with the local firetruck

The trip to Ohio was a whirlwind of driving, visiting and relatives, and it was great to be there for little Annalija’s christening. She has grown since we last saw her (as babies tend to do), and both boys showed a protective streak whenever she cried, Lauris even announcing he needs a baby sister...

Giving a kiss to little cousin Annalija

Roberts enjoyed some time with the guys, I got some time in the kitchen to bake a kliņģeris for the feast (quite an honor, thanks Asja and Brandon for asking me!) and the boys had plenty of attention and time with relatives. Oh, and we celebrated Cinco de Mayo with sombreros.

Annalija with her godfather, father and uncle

PS. We had this celebrity sighting on the way home – who knew Dolly Parton hung out in Kentucky rest areas?

6 months in North Main

As the 6 month anniversary of moving into our new house approaches, I’ve been thinking about how it finally feels like home. We’ve settled in well: making friends with our neighbors, becoming active in the community, and adding to the yard to make it more suitable for the kids. Nothing in the interior of the house has been changed other than some electrical work we had done soon after moving in, but the boxes have (mostly) been unpacked, our belongings have found homes and the superfluous done away with. We’ve picked up some furniture to fill some holes, reassigned other pieces to serve different purposes and identified what we still need.

We celebrated Ūsiņdiena with ice cream downtown, one of the many things we love about our 'hood

 

It’s true that we have fallen in love with the neighborhood. North Main is close to downtown, not quite walkable with the boys, but definitely doable without driving if we walk to the trolley. The giant, mature oaks lining the streets provide shade, color and character. The street is inhabited by an eclectic mix of families, young couples starting out and neighbors who have been here since they were children. We can walk to two parks, one of which is part of the school the boys will be attending in a few short years. Friday I walked to the school with Lauris and Mikus to check out Arts Alive, the annual fundraiser featuring music, food, games, rides and a silent auction to benefit Stone Academy. It was nice to recognize a few of the families that live on our street, and even nicer to know that by having fun all afternoon we were helping to support a top-rated local school. Mikus loved the “Dinosaur Dig” activity, a sandbox filled with buried treasure that both boys dug around in for quite some time (for them the digging was more fun than finding the prizes). Lauris especially remembers getting a train painted on his arm and his hair colored pink. He wanted to participate in the paintball-style glitter fight, but I thought that was best saved for when he is a little older. We left balloons in hand about three hours later after a meal of snow cones, hot dogs, pizza and popcorn. I’m very glad we went to check out what was going on; I had seen a few ads for Arts Alive, but thought it was an art program for the Stone students. When we saw the news helicopters circling that afternoon I figured out it was something more – over 2,000 people were expected.



In the last picture, notice the pink hair...

 

We’ve also recently joined the neighborhood community group, and Thursday evening attended a membership drive at the local soda shop to meet more neighbors. It was only recently that we learned such an organization exists; due to several developments being built nearby there have been concerns over subdividing, retention ponds and the loss of mature trees, and we attended an informational meeting to learn more. The social meet and greet Thursday reminded us that there is an organization looking out for the general health of our community, and we had fun meeting new people and checking out the fire engine from the local firehouse.

 

In our six months here we’ve managed to make some big changes to the backyard. During the winter we built two raised beds in the sunniest portion of the yard, which were immediately appropriated by the two little guys as their own personal digging site. With some pressure treated lumber, rebar and a saw we were able to quickly put together a very solid, easy to assemble (and disassemble if needed) raised garden that hopefully will be productive for us this summer.

 

The spring however has so far been a constant struggle to keep Mikus from pulling everything up from the garden, and we had talked for a while of building a sandbox to keep them otherwise occupied. While Zinta was in town our neighbor stopped by to let us know she had seen a sandbox on the curb a few streets over as she knew we had been thinking about building one and hadn’t yet found the time. I left the boys with my sister and went to take a look, finding an adorable wooden sandbox in great shape. Good (free) finds don’t last long in this neighborhood, and after measuring and deliberating and trying to figure out a way to fit the playset in the car without taking it apart I was resigned to waiting for my husband to get home with the truck. At that moment yet another stroke of luck occurred, as a neighbor saw me and offered to give the sandbox a ride to our place with his pickup. Roberts has fitted the box with a cover and yesterday we filled it with river sand, a cheaper alternative to the play sand that sells at home improvement stores.

 

The sandbox is not the only “lightly used” play equipment taking up space in the backyard. A while back we went out to Anderson to a farm that belongs to some friends of ours, and they offered us they playset that their girls had outgrown and was taking up space where the pool was to go. After determining that it could be taken apart we accepted the offer, knowing that putting it back together might prove more of a challenge than getting it home. Sure enough, between having to replace a couple of boards and the awning, to having to “tweak” things a little, the result is not exactly how it originally looked. The important thing however is that the two boys now have a swingset and slide to expend energy on, and that Mikus has become a little spider monkey climbing up and down the rock wall.

 

With all the settling in and changes in the last six months I’m curious to see what the next six will bring. I’m excited to see what happens with the garden, so far it looks like the squirrels and insects will provide me a challenge with some of the plants. And we keep adding more; a raspberry bush has joined the blueberries and the grape has finally budded, some hostas will be joining the shrubbery out front and the mint that a friend dug up from her garden has finally established itself in the back close to the irises our neighbor separated for us from her gorgeous garden. She’s the one that had to give her three guinea hens to her brother; we are simultaneously sad and happy to see them go as we (especially the boys) loved collecting the beautiful feathers that occasionally landed on our side of the fence, and that they would keep us company while we played and worked outside, but the early morning wake-up calls will not be missed. Never a dull moment, it looks like we’ll possibly have some chickens for neighbors on the other side in the coming months, should I complain a little in order to secure a bribe of fresh eggs?  Changes on the block aren’t restricted to new development either. Friends on another street (with a French connection) have decided on a move to California, and we are sorry to see them go, but new friends we refer to as the #2 pencils (we first met them as a family on Halloween, when they were dressed up as…) remind us that there are tons of families with kids of similar ages as L & M on our street.

 

I wish to end this overly long post with the following thought - everything happens for a reason. Upon moving back from France a lot earlier than originally expected we regretted selling our house; the first home we ever owned, the house Lauris spent the first months of his life in, the friendships we formed in another tight-knit community. But now I realize that if we still owned that house, we would never have bought this home, in a neighborhood that has already brought us so much happiness. Now wouldn’t it be cool if the rumors of an owl living in our tree were true (well, except for maybe the new chickens...)?

A spring cleansing

We had a blast showing my little sister all our favorite spots downtown last week, including the Mice on Main and all the various statues and fountains. We had checked out Falls Park and a tiny piece of the Swamp Rabbit Trail on Friday, so Saturday afternoon/evening we stuck to Main Street north of the Reedy River. It’s always fun seeing our town through a visitor’s eyes, but it can be even better to taste Greenville through the excuse of guests… Enter cheese fries, wings and burger, excellent fare for a spring evening after a long day of work.

 

How hard could our Saturday have been you ask, especially with ace-childcare specialist little sister in town? The morning started at six, as we struggled to unpack dozens of boxes of stuff onto our driveway for a good old-fashioned yard sale. Our two previous moves had been a little bit sudden, and as they both came on the heels of having a baby I might have been a little lax in sorting the essentials from the clutter. Along with spring came the urge to purge, and the past weeks had been spent going through boxes, cupboards, the shed and the closets, sorting our life into piles of “need,” “keep,” and “sell.” I convinced our neighbors on both sides to join in the fun, and after an ad in the local paper (much too expensive, will not be doing that again when our online ads pulled in a couple of hundred people) and some handmade signs out on Main Street we had a pretty decent yard sale, if I can say so myself.


The boys immediately appropriated items from the sale for themselves

 

With an hour to go until the official start of the sale the cars came pulling in, people demanding to see what had yet to be unpacked. It was the first weekend of sunny, warm weather, and I was a little sad not to be out hunting bargains myself, but the feeling of satisfaction over de-cluttering, and making room for some new furniture won out.

Z and Max Heller

 

My five lessons learned on having a yard sale:

1. Begin at 7am, because despite listing your start time as 8, people will be there at 7.

2. Every sale needs big ticket items to balance out the knick-knacks. We just happened to sell our biggest item a few days earlier on craigslist, but had enough medium sized stuff to draw people in. All of our CDs sold, books didn’t sell well at all.

3. Get your neighbors to join in, one-stop shopping is appealing to people, and it also adds variety.
4. Display things visibly, easy to peruse. We put our big, bulky electronics up on pallets, used a ton of cardboard boxes as tables, propped a curtain rod up on a ladder to hang clothes on, and sold the majority.
5. Price to sell. Of course you’ll have some bigger things that you want to get a certain amount for, but remember that you’ve taken the trouble to get it out of the house, and you want to keep it there.

 

 

PS. On our way home from downtown, we stumbled upon another type of sale. This enterprising artist was selling his work. When offered a choice between a piece of art for $1 or for 3 cents, we chose the more expensive of the two and walked away with a portrait of a sea monster. More importantly, we made a mother’s day. Apparently selling art is more difficult than selling lemonade… I think the sea monster will go next to the portrait of Lauris we commissioned in Amsterdam on Queen's Day.

 

PSS. Anyone want to buy a great wooden desk? It's solid (code for weighs a ton), is an antique (read: old) and could be a great drafting or work table (aka very large!). Still has the typewriter slide!!! Yours for a bargain :)

 

While we were gone

Expatriates hear enough about the surprising difficulties in re-acclimating to their home country upon return, to know to be weary of repatriation. Our reentry has not been without difficulty; however my most comical challenge may have occurred this weekend.

 

Over twenty years ago there was a television show set in and named after a fictional town in Washington, Twin Peaks. The plot followed an investigation headed by an FBI Agent into the murder of a homecoming queen. Filmed in the Washington towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend, I remember the show well, not only because I later visited the famous Snoqualmie Falls in that area, but because the creator of the show, David Lynch, had an art exhibition in Clermont-Ferrand last year (the town in France we were living in at the time).

 

On Saturday evening after spending the day reconstructing a playground set (a story for another day), we headed to a local sushi joint for happy hour half-price sushi. Upon arrival we found a line out the door with happy hour about to be over, and so we rerouted to the closest restaurant I could think of, one that opened while we were abroad and seemed to embody the mountain/outdoors similar to that television show from way back.

Opening credits to Twin Peaks, source here

 

My local friends might see where I’m going with this; it was complete culture shock to enter and realize I had just convinced my husband to take the boys and me to a restaurant of “scenic views.” For those friends abroad (or anyone obviously not in the loop such as myself), the scenery consists of wait staff dressed like this:

Source here

 

I can laugh about it now, however I was mortified throughout dinner, especially when asked if I wanted my beer in a “girly” size or a “man’s” size. My discomfort was probably due more to my embarrassment than to the girl’s outfits, but then I have to ask did we become desensitized in France, as what I may consider risqué was commonplace there? Thankfully we were not the only family there, nor was I the only female diner, and the food was surprisingly good. I especially enjoyed the apple turnovers, which were beignet-like with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar and a side of caramel for dipping. But I’m getting off topic thinking of dessert!

 

This somewhat surprising side-effect to expatriation, the realization that things changed while we were gone, to the extent that I unknowingly walked into a chain restaurant based on “eats, drinks and scenic views,” this is something that I’m reminded of everyday. We’ve returned to a different place than we left, and although there are the things that stay the same (such as a great Superbowl, it was SO much fun watching the game with the boys tonight), there are the things that change and continue to change. Not just restaurants, but people. New additions to families, the loss of loved ones, babies born and weddings celebrated. Our time abroad, however brief it may feel, has irrevocably changed us as surely as our surroundings. We are better for the experience, of that I am sure – stronger, more able to deal with adversity and the unexpected. I’m pretty sure I will not be returning to Twin Peaks, but I can say I was able to enjoy my dinner and even order dessert.

 

Sunflowers

There was a span of a few days between the movers leaving our apartment with the last box and the day our flight was scheduled to leave for the United States. As much as I plotted and planned, I found it impossible to manage all the loose ends that needed tying up AND fit in a trip to Provence… Eight hours in the car proved to be too much to cross off one last thing from my wish-to-see-while-in-France list: the Provence lavender in bloom.

Instead we tried to cram as much time as possible into those days with good friends and good food, and of course we did manage the other crazy long drive to catch the Tour de France as it wound its way through the countryside just outside of Brive-la-Gaillarde. It was a hard week as I was sad to leave my friends and new life, but also because I felt I had missed this opportunity. I just can’t imagine that we will be back in France in the near future and when we do make the trip, I don’t know if blooming flowers would take priority or that the season would be correct. I finally become resigned to the fact that it wasn’t in the cards for us this year.

We said our farewells. The mom & baby club organized a farewell lunch for Marine and me, and after saying my goodbyes to the moms I saw most of them again at a girl’s night out later that week. I said my goodbyes again, only to be invited over to dinner almost every single night that last week by our dearest friends, resulting in more goodbyes. It was on our way to Vertaizon for a barbecue with Marine and several other families that my disappointment over not seeing the lavender was completely forgotten. We crested the hills to the east of Clermont only to see a patchwork of sunflower fields, fully in bloom and yellow heads turned in perfect  harmony.

Roberts was patient and helped the boys keep calm while I exclaimed over every field, taking several detours to find the best vantage points to snap a picture or two (or a hundred!). Similarly to how rapeseed is processed into canola oil, sunflowers produce sunflower seed oil in France, which differs from the typical sunflower field in the southern US which is planted as a dove-field. With a backdrop of rolling hills and the sun low in the sky behind us, the sea of blooms held me in thrall until I remembered that we had a dinner date. And so we drove on to spend an evening with friends, saying our goodbyes over a plate of barbecue while the kids splashed in the pool and the sun slowly set over the sunflower fields.

Those last nights in France truly were amazing. Although we ended up saying goodbye too many times, we had ample opportunity to find closure and reconciliation. France: “d’accord, you wish to see lavender? Non, il n’est pas possible! The lavender, it is in Provence, and you Americans, you are not. I give you something else to look at. Regardez, tournesols!”