Tom and Huck Down on the Farm

Harris and Meby Gary Paulsen, Sandpiper, 2007, 168 pages, ISBN: 015205880X

Reading Harris and Me is the most fun anybody can have between the covers of a book.   Originally published in 1993, Harris and Me is the best story Gary Paulsen (Hatchet) has ever written, and I suspect it is based on a summer he himself spent with a cousin on a farm.  This is a twentieth-century Tom-and-Huck story.  Harris, the instigator, is Tom, and Me, the narrator who is never named, is Huck, the cast-off child of drunks.

Our narrator is sent to spend a summer with his distant cousins on a farm in a remote part of Minnesota.  Being a city boy, he is not used to the hard work--or hard play--of a farm. The farm is owned by Knute Larson, a big man who hardly ever talks but can take down a bull with his fist, and his wife Claire who mothers our affection-starved narrator.  They have two children: the mischievous Harris and Glennis, Harris's older sister who whacks Harris in the back of the head every time he swears--and that's a lot of head whacking.  Also on the farm is Louie, the hired hand who never bathes and hoovers up all the food in reach.  Try as they might, Harris and his cousin cannot get any food while Louie is at the table.  Harris takes his new friend on a daring roller coaster of a ride through the summer:  Our narrator is kicked in the head by a cow, forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat with 300-pound-pigs, and must learn to dodge the attacks of Ernie the rooster and Louie's pet lynx Buzzer.  But our narrator learns fast, and before the summer's over he'll take Harris on a ride of his own making.

Harris and Me is a glimpse into the childhood of the past when childhood was fun and not a bit safe.  Set in the post-war late forties, this nostalgic story will thrill the over-scheduled, video-driven kid of the twenty-first century.  The pacing is fast, the action daring, the storytelling hilarious, and the ending very poignant.  This story will entertain and charm even the most bibliophobic of middle school students.

Supper Time

The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Timeby Laurie David, Grand Central Life & Style, 2010, 256 pages, ISBN: 0446565462

In spite of my son's preference for Chipotle™ burritoes in front of the t.v.,  most nights I insist on everyone sitting down together to meals made at home from scratch.  Lately, my son has not seen the sense in eating at the table as a family.  Why can't we all go in the living room and watch The Simpsons while we eat? he asked.  I told him it is because we're only going to have him around for a few more years, and we want to enjoy his company as much as possible.   But I have to admit, our dinner conversations have been less than stimulating, unless you are a die-hard Bulls, Bears, or Cubs fan.  And, sadly, I am not.  To the rescue:  Laurie David's book,  The Family Dinner.  The book is full of interesting conversation starters, like "Name three places you would not want to go,"  which I trotted out on day one, and all of us were really and truly hooked on conversation.  In fact, three places were not enough for my son:  He wanted to list five.  And he wanted to list five places he would like to go.  And my husband suggested we add three places we'd like to go for a meal.  And we started planning our next family vacation.  And so on.   Now when we all sit down to dinner, I throw out a new question.  Most nights it keeps us at the dinner table longer than twenty minutes.

One other thing we've added to our weekly meals is having our son cook every Friday night.  For now, I am supervising and making suggestions as to what he should cook.  But as he begins to feel more at home at the stove, I will let him plan the meal and cook solo.  This past Friday was his first meal.  He made one of his favorites: sautéed shrimp with frozen vegetable and saffron rice.  Simple but elegant.  True saffron story:  Last fall I had a coupon for a free spice from Penzey's, and I used it on the $80 saffron, Penzey's most expensive spice.

Most of the time, I do the cooking, and most of my meals, though from scratch, are pretty quick and easy.  Following are two of my favorites.  The chicken linguine I've been making for twenty years; the soup I just concocted last week for our first Meatless Monday.  A salad and a good, crusty bread are all you need with either of these meals.  I use the recipe for Light Whole Wheat Bread on page 74 of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Chicken Linguine (Four Servings)
Sometimes I jazz this up by substituting shrimp for the chicken.

1 1/2 pounds skinless and boneless chicken breast
1/2 cup olive oil
1 bunch of scallions, thinly sliced
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1 pound linguine, fettucine, or gemelli

Cook the pasta according to package directions.  While the pasta is cooking, cut the chicken into bite-size pieces.  In a large sauté pan or skillet, heat the olive oil until a haze forms.  Add the scallions and garlic and cook about two minutes.  Add the chicken and cook until cooked through, about five to ten minutes.  Add the lemon juice, basil, salt, and pepper.  Cook and stir constantly until well incorporated, about thirty seconds.  Toss the chicken mixture with the drained hot pasta.  Serve immediately.

Tuscan Bean Soup (Four Servings)

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 14 1/2-ounce can chicken or vegetable broth
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 cup water
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle
1 cup ditalini pasta

In a large soup pot, heat oil over medium heat.  Add the carrots, celery, and onion, and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the garlic and cook another minute.  Add the beans, broth, tomatoes, and water.  Turn heat to high, and heat the soup to boiling, then reduce heat to simmer.  Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.  While soup is simmering cook the pasta according to package directions.  Add the salt, pepper, Pasta Sprinkle, and ditalini to the soup.  Serve.

Life on the Wrong Side of Town

The Outsiders 40th Anniversary editionby S. E. Hinton, Viking, 2007, 192 pages, ISBN: 0670062510

The Outsiders is the quintessential middle school book.  It always seemed so corny to me, like West Side Story, so I never read it.  Then last year when my son was in seventh grade, his language arts teacher assigned it to the class.  My son loved The Outsiders so much, he devoured all of S. E. Hinton's books and hungered for more when he'd exhausted the Hinton canon.  I saw that last year The Outsiders was on a list of top ten paperback children's books of all time.  It's no wonder, as there is little to date this book, and teens dig it as much today as they did in the late sixties when it was first published.  And, I confess, I love it, too.

The Outsiders centers on Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser who lives on the wrong side of the tracks with his two older brothers.  His parents had been killed in a car wreck; his oldest brother Darry, the twenty-year-old head of the family, works two jobs to support his family.  Middle brother Sodapop, a sixteen-year-old high-school dropout, works at a gas station.  The family's goal is to stay together and keep fourteen-year-old Ponyboy, a bright studious kid, in school.  Ponyboy is a dreamer, who loves movies and books, but, according to Darry, lacks commonsense.   Darry is worried that because Ponyboy doesn't think and often gets into trouble, he and Sodapop will be taken away and put in a home.

As if the boys don't have enough to worry about, being greasers, they are engaged in class warfare with the Socs, the gang of rich kids who live on the other side of town.  As Ponyboy says, "It wasn't fair for the Socs to have everything.  We were as good as they were; it wasn't our fault we were greasers."  One night Ponyboy and his friend Johnny are attacked by a group of Socs; the ensuing fight leaves one kid dead and two on the run.

Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was sixteen and understands the teenage mind as only a teenager can.  She herself said that she wrote it at the right time, as "the feelings you have at sixteen you can't recapture."  And her focus is completely on the teenagers, as there are no major adult characters.  Like a Charlie Brown cartoon, Ponyboy's world is free of parents.  Ponyboy's parents were loving, but are now dead.  Most of the living parents are abusive and neglectful, and many of the greasers often stay over at Ponyboy's house.  The absence of parents adds an element of fun.  If Ponyboy and his brothers want chocolate cake for breakfast, they bake a cake.  If they want friends to hang around all night, their friends come over.  I suspect this aspect of the book is a big draw for the teens.  What teenager doesn't at some point daydream about a life without parental interference?

The Clothes She Wore

Love, Loss, and What I Woreby Ilene Beckerman, Algonquin Books, 2005, 144 pages, ISBN:  1565124758

Ilene Beckerman tells and illustrates her life story through the clothes she wore.  I am not a clothes horse, but this charming book got me thinking about the clothes I've worn in my time.

1. Red Snowflake Sweater.  Typically, I don't know if an article of clothing "belongs" to me until I've gotten it home and worn it for awhile, but this Ralph Lauren hand knit cotton sweater called out to me from the rack in the consignment store where I purchased it for $17.  Pretty good price, given that one just like it is going for $167.99 on Ebay.  I am not usually a label snob, yet I know just how Marge Simpson felt when she found a Chanel Suit at an outlet mall for $90.
2. Black and maroon dress.  About sixteen years ago, I bought a cotton dress with a long, tiered skirt at Target, the only article of clothing I've ever bought there.  But I loved that dress.  I wore it in the summer with sandals.  I wore it in the fall with clogs and cardigans.  I wore it until it was threadbare.
3. Pirates of the Caribbean Crocs™.  I saw these in the gift shop of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World about three years ago.  I loved them on sight, but the $50 price tag seemed a bit steep.  As soon as we left Florida, I regretted passing them up, and I complained bitterly to my husband that I should have bought those bitchin' Caribbean Crocs™, so he surprised me on Mother's Day with a pair he purchased online for $35.  I'm now wearing my third pair of Pirates Crocs™.
4. Scottish Terriers Flannel Nightgown.  From October to May, I sleep in flannel nightgowns.  I always have and have never considered graduating to adult lingerie.  Nothing is more comfortable to sleep in and for me comfort trumps all.  A few years (15?) back I noticed the flannel on new nightgowns had gotten so thin that it was no longer keeping me warm.  A friend of mine, also a flannel lover and a flight attendant, told me she buys hers in England, where they still make them out of thick flannel.   Though I've no immediate plans of traveling to England, I did discover that The Vermont Country Store sells Lanz of Salzburg sleepwear,  made of--you guessed it--thick flannel.  Pricey, but I no longer have to shiver under the covers in January.
5. Gold knitted wool baby hat.  My Oma made this hat for my newborn daughter to wear home from the hospital.  Over the next seven or eight years, Oma knitted sweaters, dresses, and even a coat for my daughter, but by the time my son was born, Oma was too old to knit.  And, though he never met his maternal great-grandmother, who lived in Germany and died when he was seven, when I brought him home from the hospital, he was wearing this gold hat Oma had knitted fifteen years earlier.

New Year's Objectives

I make resolutions every year, but I never keep them.  So this year, instead of making resolutions, I'm listing specific objectives that I'd like to pursue daily.  They say that those who write their goals down are more likely to follow them.  Certainly, publishing them online will make me more accountable.  In fact, at least once a month, I'll revisit this list and see how it's working out for me.

1. Stop frittering money away.  Save those nickels and dimes.
2. Cut back on sweets.  If I don't eat processed foods and only eat treats I've made myself, my sugar intake will plummet.
3. Eat five or more fruits and vegetables a day.
4. Walk 30 minutes a day.
5. Write 30 minutes a day on my play.

These  objectives actually work together.  If I'm not eating purchased sweets, I won't be spending a dollar on a candy bar or a bottle of pop.  Not eating sweets will also mean I'm more likely to be snacking on fruit.  Instead of running to the store to buy junk food, I'll take walks, which will stimulate my creativity and aid in the half hour of writing.  And in the big picture, I should get healthier, wealthier, and more productive. We'll see how it works out in the coming months.

Power to the People

One Crazy Summerby Rita Williams-Garcia, Amistad, 2010, 224 pages, ISBN: 0060760885

I love the sixties, and anything about the sixties.  Many middle school students, girls in particular, go through a stage where they dig the sixties, too.  It's no wonder; the sixties were an exciting time, and there was a lot going on:  the music, the protests, the flower children, the Black Panthers.  One Crazy Summer, a National Book Award Finalist, is an evocative depiction of this happening time.  The story is told by Delphine, an eleven year-old girl, who, along with her two sisters, Vonette, nine, and Fern, seven, lives in Brooklyn with Pa and Big Ma, her paternal grandmother.  The girls' mother Cecile, a poet, left them when Fern was a baby and now resides in Oakland, California.

In the summer of 1968, Pa decides it is time for them to go visit their mother.  Delphine dreams of Disneyland, sunshine, and movie stars, but when they get to California, they find it considerably less magical.  Cecile has no time for them:  She is busy writing poetry on the walls and printing flyers for the Black Panthers.  Instead of Disneyland, they are sent to the Black Panther Community Center every morning for breakfast.  They stay to play in the park and take classes from the Panthers.  Every night they eat takeout Chinese because Cecile does not want them in the kitchen.  After a time, Delphine decides to buy groceries and cook dinner herself because takeout food is sometime food, not for everyday eating.  Against Cecile's wishes, Delphine insinuates herself into the kitchen, where she cooks and cleans, but leaves Cecile's work alone.

Although she doesn't get to Disneyland, Delphine does treat her sisters to a San Francisco excursion, just the kind of day-trip I'd like to take.  When they step off the bus, they are greeted by hippies and flower children.  They visit Chinatown, where they eat dumplings and window shop, and then climb aboard a cable car and head to Fisherman's Wharf  to see the Golden Gate Bridge.  Some intrigue and surprises await the sisters upon their return to Oakland.

One Crazy Summer is a good peek back into the turbulent sixties, one that middle school readers will enjoy, and presents several interesting issues to get them rapping.  One of the questions this book poses is what is a woman's place?  To take care of her children?  To practice her art?  As the summer unfolds, Delphine and her sisters forge a new relationship with their reluctant mother, and she with them.  As impossible as it would seem to empathize with a mother who has deserted her children, by book's end Williams-Garcia has me doing just that.  Also, she challenges the stereotype of the Black Panthers as an extremely violent organization outside the law.  I knew that the Black Panthers were at times unfairly targeted by the law; unarmed Bobby Hutton, for instance, had been gunned down by the police, but I certainly never considered the organization as nurturing.  Yet, in One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia presents us with just that.  At the Black Panther Community Center, children of all races are fed, and black children are taught pride and strength and unity.

Holiday Leftovers

The holidays mean leftovers.  You can't possibly finish a ham or turkey or roast in one meal, no matter how many guests you've got for dinner.  The one exception for us is a standing rib roast:  From that we never have leftovers; we just keep eating it until it's gone.  One Christmas when my son was two, so much did he love this new food that he ate half the roast one little piece at a time.

This afternoon simmering on the stove is a pot of bean soup made with the ham bone left from Christmas Eve, and Sunday I'll be making turkey pot pie, as we're having roast turkey for New Year's Day.  I always buy a second turkey when grocery shopping for Thanksgiving--as the birds are so cheap--and put it in the freezer to save for New Year's Day.  And I always make a turkey pot pie from some of the leftovers.  Not to boast, but my pot pie is the tastiest one I've ever eaten; I know one person who prefers it to the roast turkey dinner from which it originated.

This pie serves four to six people, depending on how hungry or gluttonous they're feeling.  A couple of things regarding the liquids.  First, you can make your own broth from the turkey carcass, or you can used canned.  I've done both and, truthfully, I can't tell the difference.  Also,  you can use light cream, regular milk, reduced-fat milk, or skim.  The higher the fat content, the thicker the filling.  My husband likes it thick with cream, but I prefer it thinner with skim or reduced-fat milk.  So I trade off.  One last thing:  if you've got a recipe for pie crust you really dig, use it.  If you don't want the extra work, buy a box of Pilsbury refrigerated pie crusts.  They come two to a box;  just remember to take them out of the refrigerator before you start cooking the filling, as they need to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.

Turkey Pot Pie

4 Tbsp. butter (1/2 a stick)
3 carrots, diced
1 small onion, minced
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup fresh turkey broth or canned turkey or chicken broth
1/2 cup milk or light cream
2 cups leftover turkey breast, cubed
1 cup frozen or fresh peas
Pastry for a two-crust nine-inch pie, rolled out and shaped into two disks

Heat the oven to 425º.  In a saucepan, melt the butter.  Add carrots, onions, salt, pepper, and thyme.  Cook until tender, about 5 minutes.  Stir in 1/4 cup flour and cook about a minute; then gradually stir in broth and milk or cream.  Bring to a boil and cook one minute, stirring continuously.  Remove from heat, and stir in the cubed turkey and peas.

Fit one of the pastry disks into a nine-inch pie plate.  Fill with the turkey mixture.  Top with second pastry disk and crimp the edges.  Cut a few vents into the top crust.  Put pie on baking sheet, and bake about 35 minutes, until golden brown.