My Pretzel Shaped Cocoon

I want to be a pretzel maker.

No, I don’t mean I want to make a batch of pretzels. Been there, done that, it’s kind of a Lent association for me now. And when you can buy frozen pretzels for under $2…the flourtastrophe that making pretzels always becomes is even less appealing.

I want pretzel production to be my JOB.

I know, this seems bizarre, but bear with me.

A few weeks ago, just after our first familial visit to the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, (a culinary nirvana), my youngest and I discovered an Amish market right across the street from her dance studio.

Now, the nearest Amish person house is over 2 hours away from where we live, so discovering an Amish market close to somewhere we go 2x a week was a bit of a novelty.




I know, "discovered" seems silly. It's a large building. But it's only open on certain days, and we had never been there when it was open until a few weeks ago. Hence our discovery. Not unlike European explorers "discovering" America. Like it wasn't there before? hm.


Right inside the building is a large pretzel making area. 4 Mennonite girls work kneading dough, shaping dough—stretch, flip, twist, done!-- taking dough (now magically pretzels) in and out of an industrial oven, dunking pretzels in a crock pot of melted butter (!!!), globbing cinnamon raisin pretzels with sugar glaze, wrapping little hot dogs in pretzel dough, creating 16 other variations of pretzel bites and sandwiches and wraps of delight, and cheerfully taking money from hungry pretzel cravers.

Which of course included my youngest and me.

Oh, the raptures of buttery delight! Oh, the sticky glaze covered fingers! Oh, the fresh squeezed lemonade! We were instantly hooked. I’m not even really a bread person, per se, but these were insane carbalicious perfection.

Pretzel procurement has now become a weekly tradition.

And then…life continues on. And lately, that continuation is just…so…meh. Little frustrations, epic stupidities, schedule impossibilities, back to school stress, work stress, and the over-arching lens of catastrophic illness…I am left so often feeling like This Is Not What I Wished For.

This isn’t a new road, and it runs super close to Whiny Whinestreet, so I want to step carefully. But I was left thinking, after seeing those Mennonite girls working and smiling and pretzel making like crazy, that I should love to be a pretzel maker. The work is so tangible, so instantly gratifying: mix ingredients in proper way. Shape. Bake. Dunk in butter. Sell to happy people (because pretzel buyers seem to be flush with happy anticipation, at least from our brief studies while on line).

There is something so basic and lovely about feeding people as your job.

Ok, so I’m mom. And I work fewer hours than my spouse (way fewer). Feeding people IS my job, but I don’t mean feeding people a protein, not too much carbness, forcing them to taste the salad or broccoli or veggie of choice. THAT is a thankless task most days. Don’t get me started. But feeding people something delicious and lovely, something that’s a treat…pretzel making would be like making cupcakes for a living but without the pressure of making frosting look pretty. My baked things taste fabulous. I have zero patience for decorating beyond a dash of festive sprinkles.

In these days where life is once again living me, I long for the comfort, the safety, the simple pleasure that those pretzel girls seem to have. I do NOT want to be Mennonite (can you imagine my spastic hair in a bun? Or my giant fat head in a little cap? Or LIFE WITHOUT FACEBOOK?? The horror!), and I know that those girls are probably exhausted and super sick of flour and yeast and splatters of melted butter by the end of the day. But there is something about pretzel making, about making people happy AND doing a good work that is super appealing.

I had several years in which I got to be a stay at home mom. I am grateful for that time, even though sometimes money got really tight and I was generally plagued by self doubt. I admit that DURING that time I always felt like I should be working, I needed to do craft fairs or try and write or do SOMETHING to bring in some income. I felt exceedingly BAD at the SAHM thing. My house was always messy, my kids tended to look happily feral, I felt overwhelmed by sleep deprivation and the deadly plague of SAHM comparisons. I never felt good enough at that whole SAHM gig. I tried really hard, but…yeah.

At the same time, I did routinely sew my children clothes for special occasions, and heck, I sewed most of MY special occasion clothing too! I would cross stitch everyone an ornament each year for Christmas. I made random tchotchke out of toilet paper tubes and construction paper. I would cook, and read stories, and then feel guilty for playing FreeCell for hours. Some things, some nurturing kinds of things, those I COULD do. And I miss that, in the crazy hectic yikes our life has become.

Now I work part-time in a job that takes about twice as many hours as I actually get paid for, which is largely my own skewed sense of This Must Be the Best History Class EVER-- EVERY DAY. My house is still a mess, my 10 year old never detangles her hair, my visually impaired/comfort is everything and I don’t want to run up the stairs again teen creates some insane fashion statements (soffe shorts, a tie dye shirt, knee socks and school shoes?), and my first born lives in a biohazard lab. Our weekly schedule looks like a write up of the tactical plans for the assault on Normandy. My dining room table is obscured not by toys and craft projects but by paperwork. Instead of toddler toys all over the floor we have puppy toys all over the floor. I know the pizza place phone number by heart. I’m not sure I’m any better at this gig than I was at the SAHM one.

But now my kids are older. The baby is in 5th grade, and I feel the strain of being done with “mom of little kids” far sooner than I had planned, especially since so many of my friends and family are still having babies. The weather is turning colder, and I think I just want to cocoon my kids somewhere safe, somewhere different than the perpetual stresspot we seem to flounder in so often. Looking at old pictures, we used to be a lot better at just BEING…but maybe that’s the skewed lens of nostalgia.

I have been baking a LOT, and lighting pumpkin candles, and sorting out drawers and things. This feels good, somehow.

Maybe it’s just the change of seasons, maybe in a past life I was a bear and I just want to hibernate, maybe I really AM supposed to just stay home and bake and try and create a HOME for my family instead of a base of operations…

For whatever reason, that pretzel job seems so delightful right about now.

Do you have anything like that? That job/place/moment that seems like it could just be so nice…not the umbrellas and sunshiney beach kind of place, but the cocoon moment? Where do you find that space?

And in the interest of full disclosure, as soon as I wrote the first draft of this I brought one of my children to the aforementioned market, which then led to a complete hypothalamically driven pretzel-tastrophe. Sigh. So much for the cocoon.

At least in my search for that cocoon, I have left a giant trail of baked goods in which to find solace. ; )

My sister took this picture with her phone. How do you like THEM apples? I mean, the actual apples with caramel sauce. And my pumpkin shaped cake. Yum.

Zen and the Art of Roasty Potatoes

Roasty potatoes save the day.

Some days, between Dr. Phil and WebMD, I’m pretty confident that I have some version of PTSD. I know, newsflash, right? Granted, working with those 2 experts I’ve also had lung cancer, hydrocephalus, a torn Achilles tendon, and weird hair. Only the last one actually afflicts me, and honestly I diagnosed that all on my very own.

Today was a hard day. Most folks who read here likely know why, and some might be wondering why I’m not tripping the light fantastic. We had GOOD news yesterday.

But as a history teacher, for me everything is about text, context, and subtext (to borrow from a really great book I just read about teaching historical thinking). The text of good news! is in a context of EXTREME yikes, with a subtext of “you KNOW you’re gonna be in this spot again”. So today I was more amoeba than Supermom.

My body hurt, every inch hurt. My stomach reminded me that coffee really isn’t the ONLY food group if you want to avoid ulcers. Yesterday’s stress and sleep deprivation, coupled with an inability to fall asleep last night AND a bed invasion by a small weeping child who was stressed out because we were in another state all day equaled a giant pile of exhausted me. I literally could not think straight. Thinking curvy was not going well, either. Throw in pouring rain and the start of school tomorrow, and I’m not sure even Dr. Phil would have an answer for me.

And this is after GOOD news!

Anyway, sending the waaaambulance on its way…I realized that the horde here doesn’t necessarily respond to stress the way I do. They like to eat actual food still, not just handfuls of Cub Scout choco-caramel popcorn and the last few Cadbury Mini-Eggs I hoarded for just such an occasion. That's likely better, I really don't want to share. So in between trying not to burst into random tears (I am a WAY ugly crier) or curse at anyone inadvertently (that was LAST night’s routine, oops) I dug out some potatoes and mindlessly started chopping away.

Cue the quiet Eureka moment.

Potatoes are therapy.

Something about chopping my little red potatoes (Costco!) into quarters, tossing them with olive oil and salt and pepper and that Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic stuff, something about that whole business made me feel like a human being. The rhythm of it, the smells, the impending yum…it just made me feel human again.

Talk about comfort food!

Today was a hard day. For whatever reason, today was epically hard in my head. But potatoes are in the oven, along with some healthy chicken tenders, I chopped the remaining strawberries from the fridge so we can eat them over leftover brownies…the act of food just saved the day.

Yes, I still grabbed some of that choco caramel popcorn before I came down to my computer. But at least now my headache has abated. I feel calmer. Let’s not be crazy, I KNOW our context & subtext haven’t changed while my potatoes are roasting. I know tomorrow has new challenges for all of us, even as I keep carrying our elephant around. But tonight my warrior is smiling because she LOVES potatoes, and we will eat together and just have this moment, a moment far different than what we thought we’d be having tonight.

And I promise, I will NOT turn on Dr. Phil or surf WebMD to see what the curative powers of roasty potatoes are for stressed out moms. ; )

Now I have to go talk my warrior off a “my summer math isn’t done yet!” ledge, and get those potatoes out of the oven. Life does go on. And no matter what comes, at least there are always potatoes to come back to.

Food, Glorious Food!

(my delicious crumb cake)

“Food, glorious food! Hot sausage with mustard!
While we’re in the mood—cold jelly and custard!”
--Oliver!

My love of most things edible is not a newsflash to anyone. Eating is one of my most favorite pastimes. I only really have two criteria for food:

1. No tentacles
2. Not a garden pest

If these two criteria are met, I will eat almost anything.

As a child and young adult I admit, I was picky. Once I had kids, and endured hyper-emesis for 9 months straight 3 times, I could eat nearly ANYTHING. I have to be careful of certain rich foods and sadly cannot eat Mahi Mahi or Chilean Sea Bass (alas! I was a slow learner on both of those), but generally if it can be eaten, I will eat it.

Granted, my family picked up where my pickiness ended, almost as if I birthed my pickiness right out of me with the delivery of my kids! My eldest will try nearly anything, but Kids 2 and 3…eek. We have pictures from Easter several years ago of all of us around the table of feasting…and Kid 2 has a bowl of Cheerios in front of her.

It took the squashing of certain key portions of her brain for her to become a good eater. Now we have trouble making her stop. But still, vegetables are taboo.

Anyway, we have never wanted for food. There are about a half dozen grocery stores within 10 minutes of my house. We have a couple of big box stores only a bit further than that. I generally hit one grocery store and one mega store at least once a week.

When life looked a bit bleak at the end of last summer, I created a food hoard. I still have pasta from that time…my pantry was PACKED with canned foods, sauces, pastas, peanut butter. I was afraid, and I met my fear of the unknown with cases of Orville Redenbacher.

But this isn’t the situation for everyone.

This isn’t even the situation for most people, I’d say.

Our family volunteers at an urban soup kitchen about 25 minutes from our house. Just over a week ago we arrived at St. Ann’s to discover that it was not a meal day but a food pantry day. Lined up on the floor in neat rows were brown shopping bags full of groceries. Most had one bottle of juice, a bag of rice or pasta, some random canned goods, and a bag with some meat and cheese.

Each client had to present ID to get a bag, and multiple IDs (for kids, etc) to get 2 bags. The system is strictly adhered to and runs pretty smoothly for the most part.

As we worked to distribute the bags, alongside clients who help out before they take their bags (I love working with them), I was struck by how flipping lucky we are.

The idea that THIS could be our food for the week: a bag of random what not, all healthy and generously given, but beyond my control as mom, was staggering. Folks asking if there was any toothpaste to be had, folks wishing they could change what they had in their bags for something different (not allowed, chaos would ensue)…it was staggering.

The idea that I would have to get a number, wait on a line, present ID, and then get a bag of something that would become my family’s meals: I just felt flattened by the psychological enormity of that.

When my kids need food, I run to the store. When I was first married, and our budget was really tight, we ate more simply. We made do. My kids have NO CLUE about those days. Not that we are eating filet every night, or only drink Perrier (we don’t), but still: I buy food in packages (! The Tightwad Gazette lady would have my head!) , we always have cheese and meat in the house, we have plenty of milk and I no longer only get half and half on holidays.

We are so lucky.

I love being able to go work at St. Ann’s, and I wish we could go more often. I need that reminder to be grateful. It’s not like we did anything to be lucky. We are just super blessed that life, while smiting us in an awful lot of areas, hasn’t messed with lunch.

With new energy I am getting a bag for our county food pantry for collection next week at church. If we all gave one can of corn or one can of tuna, just imagine how many more people we could feed? Even if we don’t have a ton, just one can could really help someone who has less than we do.

Food brings people together. Sharing food with those who are hungry brings the world together, I think.