Lori in PA

Coffee, of course: My lovely early-morning routine has been taken over by blogging. Here is my computer corner in the kitchen, complete with my scribblings of Alyssa’s photo downloading (uploading?) instructions and Ellen/MizDucky’s multiple post-quoting instructions: Next up – the first of two Beginner/Intermediate 4H cooking classes scheduled this week. That’ll be nine children, ages 8-13, with sharp knives in their hands. The menu: Stir-fried Vegetables with White Rice Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

--I have no idea what he means about the north side of the house. I'll ask when he gets home. --About MAKING me call you "Your Honor": He lies! --My Mary Englebreit apron is a present from Alyssa, given to me Saturday night at her graduation party. About five years ago, she asked me what I wanted for Christmas -- she'd reached the age where she really wanted to give real gifts -- so I said I wished I had a beautiful apron. I'm an apron wear-er, but all of mine are utilitarian solids. So, we bought some pretty fabric at Walmart one day so she could make my gift. I teased her now and then, saying "I'm going to be so surprised!" Well, she cut it out and never finished it. It's been languishing in our sewing basket ever since -- the victim of a busy schedule. I guess she decided she better do something about it before she leaves for college, so she did a marathon sewing session at my folks' house and presented it to me -- I really was so surprised, after all! I'll treasure it til it wears out. --"...ask for financial aid" -- What a nut! I'm afraid I may have given the impression that The Husband is a tightwad and now he may have confirmed it. Not so, he is a generous guy. We don't have piles of money, but we are rich. --About the porch spitting: I would consider myself a failure as a mother/home educator if I sent our children out into the world unable to spit. --Our county's fire departments are all volunteer. For a good while after Alyssa became a junior firefighter at 14, we had a big map of Adam's County which showed all the fire "boxes," or sectors, under the clear plastic for our dining pleasure and learning. I was glad to see that changed -- boring. --It's obvious by now that I went to BB's. The Husband gets a charge out of me going there, I think, because when I get home, he always asks excitedly, "What was your best deal today?" My best deal yesterday was the 50-cent Bon Maman tarts. That's one of the cool things about BB's -- we can have a few little luxuries we'd never afford otherwise. The worthy woman in Proverbs 31 is described, in part, as one who "bringeth her food from afar." I may fall down in some areas of Worthy Woman-dom, but I've got that characteristic in spades. After I posted all those photos of our day yesterday, I thought, "I wonder if it's possible to break eGullet."

Someone said, "We read to know we're not alone." Thank you for sharing the ways we are the same -- I love hearing that. I tell people who get overly impressed that I'm mayor, "It isn't really like running for office. It's more like, 'Somebody needs to be mayor. Will you be mayor?' 'Sure, I'll be mayor.'" Well, I guess I stretch things a little, but I'm in my second term and ran un-opposed both times. If somebody else comes along and wants the job, I'm sure my non-competitive self will bow right out. The sun is shining into my kitchen. I had to come to eGullet to find out what Alyssa was doing to save the town while the mayor slept the exhausted sleep of the eG blogger. All seems well for now. You're from Bendersville? As I live and breathe! "the poorer section..." Too funny -- personally, I've always thought of Bendersville as Biglerville's less-fortunate cousin... I eat Musselman's applesauce now and then at a fire department banquet or someone's home, but we can our own applesauce from Nittany apples at our house. Our supply is almost gone, however, so I may have to get some Musselman's to tide us over until October. I think the proportions of ground pork and ham are equal, but I didn't make the meat "mix" part myself -- I bought it at the Butcher Shoppe. Kentucky is indeed beautiful -- my brother used to live there. I thought I could be very content living in a low, wide, aristocratic-looking house with horse pasture surrounding me on three sides like the ones we passed everywhere in the Lexington area -- so different from our own landscape. I must clarify that the view of rolling hills and orchards isn't from my porch -- I live in a little town -- but I stopped along the road between our town and the next town 2 miles away to take that photo. The church spire and the houses around it are a town called Arendtsville, whose population is slightly smaller than Biglerville's, I think. I'm wondering what my plan is for them, also. I usually use these kinds of leftovers for lunches or simply as a second dinner a night or two later, but we have cooking classes for Wed -- Fri lunches and I sort of hate to subject you all to a repeat of the same dinner. Time and energy may answer this question for me. That bread pudding was very nice. I like it better made with stale baguettes or another sturdy bread, but the point was to use up the hamburger buns, so I was pleased. I would feel happy to see you, particularly if you all jumped out of the car and helped me in the kitchen so we could have a lovely feast together! You are not breaking rules so far as I'm concerned, my dear, but will you be able to be up and cheerful to help with cooking class today?

Alyssa here: Just got home from 5 calls (3 water rescue) and am wet and tired. Got myself some re-warmed bread pudding and it hit the spot. Yum yum!! PS hope I'm not breaking any rules by taking over mom's name for a few seconds, but I thought you should know just how great bread pudding is to cold and wet fire women (and men, but dad isn't here, so I get his - ha ha!). ← Alyssa here again: just got back from 2 more calls and it is 2:25 am. FYI: Even a spoon full of <i>cold</i> bread pudding and a glass of milk are amazing!

Alyssa here: Just got home from 5 calls (3 water rescue) and am wet and tired. Got myself some re-warmed bread pudding and it hit the spot. Yum yum!! PS hope I'm not breaking any rules by taking over mom's name for a few seconds, but I thought you should know just how great bread pudding is to cold and wet fire women (and men, but dad isn't here, so I get his - ha ha!).

Um,'scuse me, but aren't those pickled eggs in beet juice? ←

More Dinner: You all talked me into making bread pudding. Plus, this strange rainy weather kept the temperature cool enough to bear having the oven going. Chocolate bread pudding for dessert: Bread pudding is so, what’s the word? Ugly. That’s it: Ham loaves glazed with sweet and sour sauce and finished: Peas are done. I sweetened the water with some sugar to help them out: Dinner is served: Hamloaf, steamed new potatoes with butter and parsley, fresh peas, and salad (“Just lettuce, please, Mom!”). I think we sat down about 6:30. We were only three for dinner tonight. We have some flooding in areas around town, so Alyssa has been down at the fire department, where she volunteers along with The Husband. She says I should mention the fact that I never know when family life will be interrupted by a fire call. I try to forget that. I had a serving of bread pudding while I worked on this. You know, you really can’t make bread pudding pretty, or at least I can’t. I sprinkled a little sugar on top before I baked it, but it’s still its homely self. It’s good, though, and that’s one pack of hamburger buns down for dessert, part of another pack used in the hamloaf, and only several more remaining. Goodnight all.

How fast can I make dinner? Start the timer – it’s almost five o’clock already! Ham loaf, a PA Dutch favorite: This is my mom’s recipe – she’s not PA Dutch; rather she’s from Alabama. I wonder where she got this? Anyway, my PA Dutch husband enjoys it: Cool egg-in-the-fingers shot – good photography, Jonathan! I made 1 ½ recipes with 3 lb. ham loaf mix (ground ham and ground pork) and made it into two loaves so hopefully it will bake a bit faster: Out onto the porch to shell some peas – these weren’t wonderful – some were beginning to sprout: Out to the garden to harvest lettuce and cut a little parsley. I got soaked for this:

Bender’s Potato Farm: Next door to The Butcher Shoppe is Bender’s Potato Farm, which bills itself as “The Little Farm in the City” or something to that effect. They have greenhouses and grow their own lettuces, other veggies, and, of course, potatoes. I don’t always stop here, but they have the best prices on shallots anywhere, so I wanted to get some: The store is in the first floor of the barn. The displays are sweet and welcoming: Oops! It looks like someone clued them in to charge more for those excellent shallots – I gave them a pass today, but I did pick up a couple of pounds of shelling peas: They have a beehive and their own honey, with free information sheets available: Back home, it was time to put everything away. It went much more quickly than usual because of our light “catch”:

The Butcher Shoppe: Samuel and I continued on our shopping circuit to Chambersburg to visit The Butcher Shoppe. http://www.mybutchershoppe.com/ Shopping at BB’s traditionally ends with us rubbing in a liberal application of hand sanitizer as we exit the parking lot, but shopping at The Butcher Shoppe makes us feel a little upscale, a little pampered, a little treasured. It has most everything a large grocery has except what is usually found in the middle of the store. There is the bakery, where this nice young lady put together a chocolate whoopie pie with peanut butter filling for Samuel’s car picnic dessert: The produce department is well-maintained: There is a large prepared foods section, where we got some items for our lunch: There is a seafood and poultry counter and then comes the meats, the stars of the store: The employees are kind without exception and give excellent service: We lunched, as we often do while running errands, in the van. (We keep a permanent picnic kit in the glove box.) Samuel had a couple of ham salad sandwiches on good old Martin’s Potato Rolls (I can’t believe I bought another pack of rolls!!!), an orange soda (Big Treat #1), and his whoopie pie (Big Treat #2). I had a small container of beef salad and a 25-cent Harrisburg Dairies lemonade to wet my whistle. Today, our dining music was provided by the deluge drumming over our heads:

More from BB's... There is a large walk-in refrigerator: Those PA Dutchmen love their bologna: ...and cheese: ...and pickled beets: Beyond that is the walk-through freezer: I left the freezer quickly -- I forgot my coat and gloves! Part of the parking amenities – the hitching post (foggy image due to condensation on the camera lens from the trip through the freezer): Loading the goods: My receipt – the equivalent of a very full cart for $75. I usually get 2 heaping carts for about $120. The Amish make extensive use of old-fashioned scooters like this one, but they don’t ride bicycles. Why? Dunno… The house on the farm where BB’s is located – clotheslines on the porch are typical, the trampoline is less common: I’ve been going to BB’s for about 6 or 7 years, since a good friend clued me in to its existence. Every time I drove there, I passed a road called “Covered Bridge Road”. Finally, one day I drove down that road to see if there really was a covered bridge on it. In April, the area all around the bridge is carpeted with Virginia Bluebells – breathtaking! This house just past the bridge has the most beautiful woodland garden: And this house across the road from that property is typical of the old fieldstone houses common around here:

Today is BB’s Grocery Outlet Day! BB’s is an Amish-owned “bent and dent” grocery store located on a farm in the middle of nowhere near Newburg, PA. It is one of three locations. I nearly always go there on a Tuesday every six weeks or so and I try to arrive when they open at 8, which means I must leave my house at 7. Today was different for two reasons: I really don’t need very much and I had to wait to go until after piano lessons. Our late start meant I needed nourishment (in the form of a leftover muffin) during the drive, but more importantly it meant emptier shelves and fewer deals at the store. Samuel, my partner for the day, waited in the van while I took a few photos near our house. I feel so lucky to live here: Apple orchard: The creek is running very full with all the rain: After crossing Big Flat and the Appalachian Trail, we wind through Shippensburg (home of Shippensburg University) and a few little communities and find our way to the store: They used to have a ramshackle, tacked-onto-over-the-years building, but last year they built a spiffy new building and tore the old one down for a parking lot. Still, it is lighted, heated, and cooled without electricity: No one comes for the surroundings, however; they line up for the prices: That says 50 cents, friends: Of course, one has to be flexible about little things like holiday motifs not matching the current season: And, it takes a long time to shop here, because one has to look at everything: BB's even runs sales: Hand-made baby bibs and Amish cookbooks and coloring books:

I've been gone most of the day and then cooking slightly frantically to get dinner on the table. More soon.

The Husband is on a business trip, and I just got this email from him. I will let him "speak" for himself: I read the blog and think you need to add a few comments from me. Show them the view on the north side of the house. Tell them about MAKING me call you "Your Honor". You should tell them about your new apron in the picture. If we have to go out for a meal, go for the pity and ask for financial aid. Ice cream on hamburger buns does not sound good at all. You do not have to save me a muffin if you make more. Our HS children sitting on the porch spitting........now there is something that they do not teach in public school. Don't forget about our place mat with fire response areas on it. Nice picture of the lamp! Did you not go to BB's? Have to go to my meeting. Have a good day. Love, Kevin Lori, again: I'll comment on his comments later, but now I've got to SCOOT!

After I got back from chauferring the boys to their piano lessons, the sun tried to come out, so I had breakfast on the front porch: I often do this in the summer, but almost never during the rest of the year, because sitting out here amongst my perennials while I eat begs me to get up and putter in the borders. The very wet lawn discouraged me from it today, which is fortunate, because this needs to be a putter-less day.

Senseo and Solitude As I said last night, I get up early. It is one of the best times in the day for me. I am alone. There is quiet. There is coffee. And, I have my little routine which has evolved, almost without my noticing, into ritual. Of course, even ritual has its evolution and I think it is the additions and subtractions that come and go, as much as the constants, which keep things both interesting and satisfying. My usual practice is to get up whenever I wake up (between 3:30 and 5:30, but most often right in the middle of that range), dress immediately, make my way downstairs to the (hopefully) clean kitchen, and turn on the coffee machine. I wash my hands and set up the mug of the day with a scant spoonful of sugar. As the coffee drips into my cup, I race it to see how much of the dishwasher I can unload before it is finished. I stir in a dribble of cream and retire to the computer in the corner of the kitchen to check email. I get a short essay sent to me each morning by a wonderful writer; reading it is an encouraging way to begin the day. I check a couple of web sites I visit regularly to see what’s up. (Sometimes I come to eGullet now, but often I save it for breakfast, because reading it usually makes me hungry!) Some of my friends and I are reading the Bible in one year, so I try to read my whole “assignment” before I get distracted with other books. (Right now I’m enjoying May Sarton’s Encore, a journal of the eightieth year, among the four or five things I have going at any given time.) If I don’t read, I usually write for awhile, especially in summer when I have more time. During the school year, I have planning to do and yesterday’s assignments to correct. I also teach Bible classes in our congregation for ladies and children, so some mornings I’m studying and preparing for those. I make lists of what needs to be accomplished during the day, the week, the month. I putter around the downstairs, putting things to rights. If I’m cooking something with multiple steps that day, I may do part of the work now. I eat when I get hungry – sometimes now while I’m still alone, sometimes with the kids, sometimes after breakfast is over and we’ve started school. The kids get up at seven during the school year and emerge downstairs by 7:30. They fix their own breakfasts and 3-4 mornings a week we have a short devotion while they eat. At the moment we’re reading in Proverbs and I try hard not to give significant glances to whichever child seems especially to need to hear whatever we’re discussing. We pray together and sing a song or two and then the day begins in earnest. Alyssa is in charge of kitchen clean-up after breakfast, so she does that. Jonathan usually practices piano (“Do your least-enjoyed tasks first!”) and Samuel reads (if I’m not paying attention) or does his chores (if I am). Because they have a mean mom, all three kids have daily chores and are responsible for clean-up after a meal, too. There is a chart on the fridge so everyone knows what to do. We usually change the chore assignments at the beginning of summer (need to do that!) and I train whoever is learning something new. We get going with schoolwork around 8:30. In the summer, things are a little looser, but the framework of our routine is still there. The default time for the kids to get up is 8:00, but it varies according to what’s going on. Today, the boys have piano lessons at 8:00, so they can’t sleep in and we won’t have devotions. Their piano teacher lives close by, so I’ll drop them off and come back home for an hour. I think when I pick them up today we’ll head straight on to BB’s, an Amish-owned bent and dent grocery about an hour away from us. I try to make a trip there every six weeks or so. Discovering this place is the best thing that ever happened to our grocery bill, plus it is always fun to go. Where else could I find Lindt chocolates, cake mixes with Cyrillic labeling, ready-to-expire yogurt, hand-stamped greeting cards, and more, and shop for it amongst Amish folks, hippies, retirees, and mothers with scads of children?

One last thing: this morning Alyssa was teaching me how to add photos to my posts (my admiration for all of you who post pictures regularly has increased ten-fold!), and she kept saying, "Mom, you don't have a signature!" "Mom, you don't have a quote!" "Mom, you don't have an avatar!" An avatar??? I didn't know how deprived I was! So, in case you haven't noticed, as of today I'm the proud owner of my own signature, a favorite quote, and, of all things, an avatar, which is one of my daughter's food photos. Thank you, Alyssa.

Your explanation is why people like me need people like you. I have copied and pasted your instructions to save. Thank you.

I'm an early-up, early-to-bed person, so this is goodnight. My snack: Fage's Total Yogurt, with honey I think it is called Total because it is totally wonderful and totally fantabulous. I really, really like this yogurt. I like it so much that even though I have to drive long distances to get it, I do it. I got this latest batch (two cases) at a NJ Trader Joe's on my way home from NYC a few weeks ago.

Whoa, I just noticed this -- do you mean Gardenweb? It was probably me. I haven't spent as much time there as I did before I discovered here. See my Heritage rose just beyond the spitters? The one begging to be dead-headed? She was glorious a month ago. To keep this post on-topic: roses grow hips, which can be eaten, though mine can't, because I spray, though mine could this year, because I haven't sprayed yet.

The championship of pit-spitting is in dispute. Alyssa and Jonathan (13 1/2) are both claiming victory. I was too busy laughing and doing my own pitiful version of spitting to judge. Everyone agrees Samuel inherited his pit-spitting genes from me. Re G-burg restaurants: it's a tourist town, so what can I say? There isn't much worth going back to a second time. We really liked Herr Tavern just west of town when we were there a couple of summers ago. Even further back before that it was a trap, imo, but whoever had it two years ago was doing a lovely job and I think it is still the same. There is a little Mexican place in a strip mall on West Street that is nice. We like a little place south of town between G-burg and Littlestown on Rt. 97 called Olivia's. It isn't a placemat -- it's our "tablecloth." Years ago I had the idea to lay a big map on the table and cover it with heavy duty clear plastic from the fabric store. Sometimes we have a US map, sometimes a world map, and sometimes other things under the plastic. It's amazing how much geography we've learned over the bowls of cereal. For awhile we had a diagram of the human eye at The Husband's spot (as I remember it), but he felt like he was being watched...

Hmm, somehow my new-found quoting ability didn't work out too well above. Hope it makes sense anyway.

I got a little hand cherry pitter a few years ago, but before that I used to cut a slit in the side and sort of pinch that baby out. Really, it is my considered opinion that canned cherries taste the same as fresh in pies, cobblers, etc. I usually just buy fresh cherries for eating raw and let our dear Knouse Foods canning factory do my cherries for me when I want a pie. That's right folks -- I live within walking distance of the company who processes Lucky Leaf, Musselmans, and a few other labels of applesauce, juice, vinegar, pie fillings, and more. My kids are the main reason I teach the 4H cooking classes. It's the only way I make sure I do teach them cooking. We do cook together at other times, but this is more systematic. They laughed when I read the comment you made about lunches -- lunch around here is every man for himself, so it's tuna salad, pb&j, deli meat/cheese if we have some, leftovers, whatever. I believe there'll still be sweet cherries, but I didn't see sour ones at the market this morning, so they may be done.

Dinner is leftovers tonight. Ah, leftovers. Friend of the busy, the tired, the stressed. Here they are: And here's my plate. I have leftover pulled pork with sweet/spicy sauce, coleslaw, and stuffing left from one of last week's cooking classes. After the dishes were done by my offspring/slaves and I was awoken from a snooze by a borough call (long story), we were persuaded out to the front porch for a sort-of tradition by Samuel, the 11-year-old. A few years ago, I happened to get home from Sandoe's with a quart of the summer's first cherries just as a thunderstorm hit. The kids and I ended up sitting on the porch eating cherries and spitting the seeds into the perennial border as we watched the storm. Now each time we get cherries, Samuel hopes for a thunderstorm so we can repeat what apparently was a very memorable experience for him. It isn't storming now -- just raining -- but it was close enough. Here they are getting ready to let fly: In the midst of the spit: And the after effect: We're weird -- we know it. Now they're going to teach me to play Texas Hold 'Em -- without actual money changing hands, though.

These are the sum of my vast civic powers: 1. I'm in charge of our two-man police department. 2. I break tie votes at borough council meetings. 3. I do ceremonial things like parades and have performed a few weddings. 4. I sign an awful lot of paperwork. Me and Mr. Giuliani, ya know? So you will form your exploratory committee for President in...? Seriously, what borough? You're in Adams County--that's south-central Pennsylvania. Gettysburg's the county seat. (I swear, the Web is wonderful!) There must be oodles of history close by as well! Will we get to see any of the battlefields? Congrats and belated best wishes for good fortune (I'm afraid the weather will remain lousy) to you, the third Pennsylvania blogger in as many months. (We're on a roll here--a potato roll, I hope!) I'll be following along during my downtimes. ← I live in Biglerville, which is a lot like Mayberry on our beloved Andy Griffith Show. We have about 1100 residents -- told you it was a Tiny Town -- and we are indeed surrounded by both historical areas and beautiful farms and orchards. If it stops raining, perhaps we'll have a little tour of our metropolis.