Pancakes for the Tribe

I don't know about anyone else, but I have been on a cooking spree lately. Anything made with corn, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, basil, stone fruits, all the gorgeous summer goodness that is passing slowly away as we tilt towards fall and winter. I think all this cooking, freezing, roasting, canning--dare I say it?--nesting is all part of the way I am trying to savor and say farewell to summer. It is passing, winter is coming. It will not stop coming because I refuse to accept it. All right, then.

Thankfully, my faithful subscription to Gourmet magazine has kept me up to my ears in delicious recipes--really ever since I started subscribing. Plum Kuchen, Roasted Tomatoes, Roasted Garlic Tomato sauce, Cherry Buttermilk Cake, Corn and Tomato Pie, Peach Ice Cream, Baked Tomatoes with Hazelnut Breadcrumbs. (there's a lot of tomato stuff, I know. I've been very committed to learning to like them and let me tell you, it's working!)And, most recently, Corn Pancakes.

Sounds kind of weird, huh? This is actually one of my now favorite recipes that I passed up my first time around, but was rescued for me because after I've gleaned all I want from each month's issue, I usually cruise by Gourmet.com to see a feature called "Ruth's Favorite Recipes from the _____ issue." Ruth Reichel is one of my favorite food editors and seems to have impeccable taste, and it's happened more than once that I've tried a recipe I was not too excited about on her recommendation and fallen head over heels. I know, I know checking the website? A favorite food editor? I'm a super-dork for this kind of stuff, but hey, I eat well.

So there I was, on Saturday morning, sun streaming in the window, a hot cup of fresh, French-pressed coffee steaming on the counter, potatoes sizzling in the cast iron skillet and the hot griddle full of these delicious pancakes. I was in foodie heaven, the quiet house, the relaxing concentration of producing good food, the anticipation of the meal to come when BAM! loneliness hit me like a brick between the eyes.

Backstory: I love cooking for other people. Whether I'm dragging people over here for a dinner or baking a cake for bible study or insisting on whipping something up to share when someone invites me over, or at the holidays...don't even get me started. The issue has always been not having enough people to eat the food that I make. Living at home, where I took over cooking for my family at the age of 16, there was only three of us and my mother and sister, who both ate like birds anyway, were usually on some kind of diet, which made making desserts all but impossible. When I went away to college, through bible studies, cooperative dinner making and just plain having more hungry people around, things got much better. And here in Buffalo, I have established a fairly *ahem* positive reputation, so if I ever have any food to get rid of, all I have to do is whistle. So why is it not enough?

By and large, I still eat most of my meals alone, and, don't get me wrong, it is fantastic to cook once and eat for a few days without having to dirty more dishes or make more work (that is the fly in the ointment, those dishes). But there are just some times, some meals, where I know, deep down in my heart, that I want to be sharing this food.

My sister and I often talk about our envy for the family in the movie Dan in Real Life. Coming from a small family where we barely know the extended sides, those fictitious summers by the lake, with brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins all piled into one big house doing crazy, inventive fun stuff together sounds like paradise. But this desire, I think, has not so much to do with wanting a big family (I'm going to be very happy with my sister's 10 kids). I want a tribe. I want a group of people who are around, in the day to day, in your face, life kind of way. I want people who don't just live in my neighborhood or in my city but in my house! I want people to empty the cookie jar without asking if it's okay. I want people to groan over the injuries of Wipeout with. I want a noisy house, where people run around and yell up the stairs instead of walking up and knocking quietly on doors. I want a huge dining room table, where anyone could invite anyone to join us and we'd all just scrunch together a little more and add a little water to the soup. I want to walk in with the skillet of steaming corn pancakes and go around and give second helpings to anyone that wanted them, right from the skillet to the plate.

Oh well. This is one of those things where there's no reason why it wouldn't work out and there's a million reasons why it wouldn't work out. And I guess I'm just a little more blue than usual because all of my buddies are either out of town or doing med school rotations or visiting relatives or taking more college classes or celebrating their anniversary or driving to Ohio or writing grants or...busy. Really, really busy. Not their fault, but still rough.

So, if you've ever felt like inviting yourself over for dinner, but thought it might be rude, just do it. I would be so, so happy to whip up a quick batch of corn pancakes, just for me and you. Or me and you and everyone we know.

Ordinary Life

I have been thinking a lot about Story Telling, and I have more to say about it, but first I would just like to note one little thing. I feel like, for me at least, it is easy to feel like the things I have to say, or the stories that I have to tell, are not interesting because they don't feel unique. I have this weird tendency to assume that everyone's life is exactly like mine, and so no one would be interested to say. Everyone has read every night before bed for most of their lives. Everyone used to go out to their friend's horse barn in the summer and listen to country music and currycomb the horses. Everyone had a Barbie cake for their 7th birthday and their moms all walked into the house to find the dog up on the table, eating a corner. Everyone had a pirate party for their 18th birthday and went chasing around the woods looking for buried treasure. Everyone has insane allergies in the spring and fall and started getting nosebleeds when they moved to Nebraska because their was so freaking much pollen! (thanks a lot, goldenrod! I'm still a little bitter about this one) Obviously the point is that, contrary to my bizarre assumptions, those things didn't happen to everyone, they happened to me. I may have had a fairly typical life in the broad view (wasn't raised in the circus, didn't go to Hogwart's, never captured by pirates (well, except for at that party))but in the minutia, I think we're all quite extraordinary. And, in the future, I want to honor my little stories. They may be small, but, gosh darn it, they're mine!

OMG

So, apparently my most recent attempt to eke out of few musical recommendations has been rather more on the unsuccessful side than not. Oh well. I'm sure you're just working out exactly which might be the perfect songs to recommend, and then I'll have a flood of helpful suggestions. No worries. Take your time.

While we're waiting for that, there is much to report! I'm in a little bit of a sticky wicket for the fall, at least the possibility of a sticky wicket. I'm doing four different types of dance. Yes, I said it, four. Mondays are tango, Tuesday are belly dancing, Wednesdays are Samba, and, oh yes, Monday and Wednesday I also take the Modern Dance class from hell.

But no, this implies that I don't enjoy the class. I definitely enjoy aspects of it. Let me try to begin at the beginning. I am taking a Beginning Modern Technique class at Buff State college, largely because one of the trifecta of dance types that I want to be good at is contemporary, and modern is the boat I am taking to reach that happy land. I am taking it at the college because I have a jolly old educational stipend from my year as an Americorps, and since I don't really have any notion where my life is headed and feel rather unenthused about any thought of grad school, this seemed as good a place as any to spend the dough. Wait, let me revise that, it sounds a little too aimless. I don't know where I'm headed, really, but dance seems to be a prevailing wind in my life right now, and so dance classes do make sense.

So that's how I got there. As to how it's going...well, the first day we showed up she gave an introductory speech that caused three people, at its conclusion to simply stand up and walk out, never to return. "Do not show up late for my class, if I have to come here on time so do you and there's no reason to be late for a class that starts at 10:00. If you are absent more than three times, you better just drop this class right now. I don't care if you have a court date, that's not excused it counts as one of your three, so use them wisely. If you have never done dance before, this is not the class for you, this is a class for experienced dancers so if you're not experienced you will not be able to keep up, you'll just slow everyone else down. So, if that's you, you better just drop the class right now." (Two things to keep in mind here: sure, I have been dancing forever but I am no modern dancer, and, this class is Beginning Modern Technique I, as in, there is no lower level of the class you can take. There is another section designed for non-experienced dancers, but still...) So the taskmistress of this happy little band does not mince words, she swears freely, she yells frequently and she has no qualms about coming around to adjust you into the right position. The class consists of a strenuous 45 minute stretching time, which is as much about working on the finer points of technique (posture, foot positionings, swings) as it is about warming up. Then about 30 minutes of across the floor work, in which we walk, jump, turn, skip, hop and all manner of combination of those things across the floor until no one can breathe. And then for about the last 15 minutes we learn some pieces of choreography, which we are expected to retain for the next class so that we can add some more.

It is grueling, there is no support from the top, I am being pushed to the absolute limits of my abilities and I can just barely keep my head above water. But, because of all of that, more than in spite of it, I am loving it. I am amazed to be in this class and to be able to do these things that she asks us to do, considering I've had next to no training. Every class I walk away in a stupor of exhaustion and dehydration, but I walk away with a sense of triumph as strong as if I'd just climbed Mt. Everest. I did it. I did everything she asked me. I did everything that the way more experienced dancers can do. I made it through.

Now, not to be too self-aggrandizing, I will let it be known that it's not like I'm doing everything great. When we go across the floor, the finer points of technique are mostly out the window, since we're just going too gosh darn fast to worry about positions, and oh, by the way, the entire time she's shouting at us, "Move! Pick your feet up! Close your mouth!" My leaps are not at all what I wish they were and let's not even talk about the turns. There are no shoes worn in modern dance and all I've ever done has been with shoes on. So my feet will continue to stick on the floor until I build up those calluses, which means I will continue to tear up, cut, and blister my feet until I build up those calluses, but there's no way around it. (Believe me, I've already checked with every dancer I know, there's no way around it.)In short, it's obvious that I've still got a long way to go.

So it's not exactly a walk in the park to say the least. For awhile, I was slightly panicked when I realized that as much as I enjoy taking this class, it isn't fun. I'm not happy and fulfilled when I'm out there with a stitch in my side skipping backwards across a room once every sixteen counts. Eeeek, oh no, now that I'm really doing it, I've discovered that I don't like dancing!!! After working through that episode, what I realized is that I don't like dance classes, which is great. Dance classes are there for building skills. Dance classes are not an art form. You don't build a career out of going to dance classes. So when all is said and done, I can move on from dance classes, back to what I love, which is my dancing. I'll just be able to do it way better (I hope).

So, that's pretty much the story on that. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be hearing much more about this class in the future. It's always such an emotional roller coaster for me, it took me days and days of processing just to get down to what I have written here. But it's a very exciting, challenging new chapter in this meandering journey of mine, and I'm so happy to be able to share it with you.

Oh, and those other classes? Well, they have all come to me for free in exchange for some of the work I am doing for one of my clients. And my great hope is that those won't try to kill me, but help remind me why I love dancing in the first place. Balance you know. It's all about the balance.