My First Birth

Had one of the most fantastically inspiring nights of my life last night. Nutmeg and Carpenter Man's sweet second baby was ushered into the world and I had the great honor of attending the birth (can words express what kind of a friend-gift that is???? I think not.)  at the side of the midwife who delivered most of own children. I cannot even describe to you all the sheer, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs feeling of peak experience I felt walking out into the crisp, cold February air re-playing the visual in my mind's eye of Baby's placid, buttermilk-velvet profile, slipping into his mother's waiting arms and then being cradled to her face for first kisses.

Life is peppered with a few crystal moments and I knew--standing there on the curb, helping my mentor load her birthing supplies back into her trunk and then hugging her under the golden halo of the streetlights---that I had lived one of those great times. A time that will always be hung in space as significant.

So, to better remember, there on the sidewalk at 1:45AM, I pulled out my camera, squeezed my cheek against hers and held it out and snapped a memory. A little salute to one of my heroes.

So, here's to you, Martha, I feel so blessed to have knelt at the side of a laboring mother, next to you and to have peered over your shoulder as you worked and helped you lug your bags out to the car. I know that yours are big shoes, and I hope someday I'll be able to keep a pair on as I slosh down the road of midwifery. You're super inspiring.

Forgotten Flowers

I started packing yesterday and managed to get four boxes shoved full of books, labelled and strapped with tape. I am trying to pack the books by category since that's how I try to shelve them. Yesterday, I packed a box of A's religion texts, children's storybooks, theatre scripts and books and finally a box of nature tomes. Most of our nature books are garden books (though of course not exclusively) and this made me suddenly think of our garden! Poor forgotten thing!

I have been a very inattentive garden owner this year. Between travel, hot weather, baby arrival and buying a house I've been all kinds of distracted or unavailable. So, today I wandered out and gave it a smidge of attention. Here's a little summary of a few of this year's first time successes which you have to know are also some degree of hardy since they performed virtually unaided.

My new white hydrangeas which I bought last year.                    Dinner plate dahlias! So pretty!

                                     And okay....so this wasn't a first time success...last year was but, truly, I cannot get enough of the much maligned and yes, somewhat over-used Shasta daisy....they go and go and go...and come on...they're daisies. You can't have too many.

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I grew hollyhocks! Been wanting to for years...such a pretty grandmother's favorite flower

                               ....with such cool buds! Love how they look like tiny green buttons.

Look at that sweet little campanula...balloon flower is an extremely cute thing folks.

And phlox! Yay! They smell amazing, and they're such a standard. Makes me very happy to announce that this year finally was the first year that the local rabbits didn't managed to munch it to the ground before it bloomed! Woohoo!!! Me: 1 Rabbits: 0

Sharing The Consolation

Its a crazy little cloudburst kind of day. My first day flying alone with all three of the boys...and you know what? I made it. There were no tear-type cloudbursts...just dramatic thunderclaps and lightening zaps and driving force rain outside our window. Am very pleased to be feeling as buoyant and I am actually making this three kid thing work. True, I didn't give the boys their regularly scheduled bath, true, we never made it outdoors for playtime and true, true, true...I didn't get up fast enough and get boys clothed fast enough to make a real breakfast or take A to work so I could have the car to go to my painting group. BUT....I managed all the snacks, had the handyman in to do odd jobs around the place, made lunch and everyone took a sound nap. And as I mentioned....I haven't cried once.

In honor of doing well and feeling good and not needing a lot of consolation myself at the moment...I'm passing on "my" (read Julia Child's) recipe for Chocolate Consolation Cake that buoyed me  as I waited in that nasty in-between place for little Reid to arrive. Maybe somebody else out there needs a little lift today, have some chocolate cake, chocolate can sometimes make everything better! So, here it is...for those of you who made requests...heat up those ovens...here's the recipe!

Le Glorieux (The Glorious...if my French detective work serves me well....what a great name!)

7 oz. semisweet baking chocolate
2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 c. of orange liqueur (I omitted it as I hadn't any)
the grated rind of one orange (ahem...I omitted this too)
2 sticks of butter
5 large eggs
1 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 c. cornstarch



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Break up the chocolate and melt it with the liqueur (if desired) and orange rind in microwave 30 seconds at a time with a stir each time the microwave beeps. Continue until perfectly smooth and creamy. Cut butter up into small chunks and stir the bits into the melted chocolate until perfectly smooth. Then set mixture aside.

Beat the eggs and sugar for a moment at low speed to blend. Increase speed to high and add the vanilla. Continue to beat for 7-8 minutes, until pale and fluffy, doubled in volume and holding soft peaks. (This part is so lovely and pretty to watch)

At slow mixing speed, sprinkle the cornstarch into the egg mixture and incorporate slowly. Don't try for a perfect blend, just a mostly perfect one, you wanna make sure to mix it briskly so that you don't deflate the eggs completely. The take a spatula and use it to fold a large gob of the egg mixture into the chocolate butter to lighten it. Then fold the chocolate butter into the eggs, one large glop at a time until completely incorporated. Make sure you smooth your spatula down the sides of the bowl to ensure thorough mixing.

Pour batter into two prepared 8 inch cake pans and bang lightly on a table to evenly distribute the batter in the pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes. The cake should be slightly moist when done in the "French manner" (so says Julia!) and the top of the cake will crackle and flake a little which is normal.

Cool cakes after removal from oven and while they sit you can:

Melt 3 oz. of semisweet chocolate, 1/2 an oz. of unsweetened chocolate, 4-5 T of butter and 3 T of orange liqueur together until perfectly creamy. When the cakes have cooled, pour the new chocolate mixture between the layers and sandwich the cake together....I served it just like that, with spoonfuls of whipped cream on the side but, of course you could also frost it if you need deep consolation.

There you have it.