Category — Domesticity

I tasted these date bars for the first time last month and begged the recipe off of my wonderful friend Grace. The orange zest makes them! Enjoy.

Grace’s Date Squares (from the Five Roses Cookbook)

Mix together well and spread ½ in 8 x 8 greased pan
1½ c. flour
½ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ c. quick oats
1 ½ c. brown sugar
1 c. margarine or butter

Over medium heat cook until dates are soft and water is absorbed, add vanilla and cool slightly.
1 lb. pitted dates, chopped
½ c. hot water
¼ c. white sugar
Pinch of salt
¼ c. orange juice
Rind of ½ orange
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

Spoon cool date filling over crumble mixture, pat remaining mixture on top. Bake 350, 30 minutes.

(For thinner squares you can use 9 X 13 pan)

Christmas card, 2009 by Christina Crook

I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been writing on here a heckuvalot lately. For me, blogging happens in bursts. Sometimes I am spilling with things to say, and other times I’m not. I don’t want to fake it.

Plus, it has been busy. Christmas is around the corner. (Literally, I can see him peering, wiley, from behind our apartment-sized tree.)

This year’s Christmas baking included the tried-and-true: shortbread (with a red and green twist,) a newcomer: orange-laced date bars (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow,) and the kick-ass: the chewyist brownies you’ve ever laid your teeth into (I took the liberty of adding cranberries which, as Michael can attest, was a spectacular choice.)

I’ve also been back at the crafting. 2009 marked a new tradition — the inaugural year of homemade cards. Not cheesy scrap-booky-kinds but collage-y ones hacked out of magazines and pasted on beautiful cream papers from Granville Island’s Opus. I likey.

Here is one of my favourites:

Also, I made a ton of my little magnets. I love sorting through bins of paper and meticulously cutting circles… It’s a little bizarre considering the fact I normally hate this kind of monotony.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

:::

To view more picture of our little munchkin, click here.

I’ve found my Christmas crafting inspiration! Ornaments! Thank you, Anthropologie.

I’ve decided to give my typewriter a place of prominence in our home: on our coffee table. Part aesthetic and part practicality, I think it is a lovely statement of the centrality of words in our world. Many more letters will be written this way, I think. 

A side note about our home: We are moving. But not far. We are selling our condo but are staying the neighbourhood. We have worked so hard to make this area feel like home. We are falling in love with our new little church, we run into more neighbours each day, and we’ve developed a rhythm here in our little neck of the woods. Speaking of woods, we will be living closer to the ravine where Madeleine and I take our daily walks!

Stay tuned about the details of our new digs…

Emotionally, motherhood is the deepest well from which I’ve ever drank. The Chantal Kreviazuk quote I shared the other day speaks to this. I feel a new lease on life. Freedom. A peace with myself. An altered view of the world.

… Afternoons are spent speaking to trees. Walking through the ravine behind our house, infant in arms, smiling at sunflower gold and the rainbow of rust dancing off branches … 

Spiritually, motherhood is a deep well. There is a sensitivity and awareness growing through the stillness that’s demanded of me.

… I gather up moments of reflection like a blind man reaching out for a steady hand …

Intellectually, socially, and actively, motherhood has seemed abysmal. I don’t expect it to remain this way but I don’t view it as a failure either. For the first time in my life I am the last to know. My evenings are spent inquiring of the day’s affairs from my husband. I gobble up front pages as I pass them by at the grocery store. No reason to purchase the paper, it won’t get read. I am still working on my third story from last weekend’s Globe and Mail. 

Creatively, I can envision motherhood being a deep well. Pictures, projects and stories are steeping in my mind. But where are the moments to write them? Pencil them? Paint them? Collage them? My hands are tied to my child.  

I must trust the hours are coming…

The well is waiting.

I rescued the last of my basil earlier this week, in anticipation of Vancouver’s trademark downpours. This afternoon will be spent making pesto! I thought I’d share my favourite recipe with you:

Classic Pesto, care of Epicurious.com

Ingredients:

• 4 cups fresh basil leaves (from about 3 large bunches)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Combine first 4 ingredients in blender or food processor. Blend until paste forms, stopping often to push down basil. Add both cheeses and salt; blend until smooth. Transfer to small bowl. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Top with 1/2 inch olive oil and chill or freeze for later use.)

Your face is an orbit. Pursed lips, supple skin. Bright eyes, like moons. A constellation.

You are a little ship, a face like an ocean cresting. Raven hair and blue eyes the size of boulders. 

I swim in your sea from day’s break to day’s end. You are my life’s greatest treasure. Lying beside you these first days has felt like a rebirth. Your soul, your face, every inch of you speaks pure. Your loveliness outshines the rainbow that nestled itself outside our window yesterday. I would spend the rest of my days gazing at your face if the world, the Lord, would allow. Instead I will take my moments, store them in my heart like gold, and watch you grow, grow, grow up into heaven, out into the world.

We welcomed our little girl one week ago today. Madeleine Jacoba Hope.

Madeleine comes from the root ‘Magdalen’ meaning ‘High Tower.’ Therefore she is named after Mary Magdalene and also the wonderful writer, Madeleine L’Engle. Jacoba (pronounced Yacoba) is my grandmother’s middle name, common to the Dutch, which shares the same Hebrew root as my brother James’ name. Hope is a word that has particularly captured me this year (I wrote about it here.) Also, we felt the name appropriate due to to the amount of times we had to reach out to Jesus for hope during her labour and delivery. It was a long journey to meet our little girl. 

Madeleine weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz after 81 hours of labour, start to finish. Although we laboured almost entirely at home, she was delivered naturally by our midwives at Burnaby General Hospital in the wee hours of the morning. Mommy was too tired to go anymore without a little help (a small amount of IV Oxytocin.)

Our new life with Madeleine:

In the words of Madeleine L’Engle, one of our little girl’s namesakes: “Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.”

Our prayer is that our little one will tell the story of Christ through her beautiful, adventurous, and marvelous life. 

looks like:

Michael set up the birth tub in our living room the other night. He made sure to practice contractions.