Let's can, man

Because we can! Alright, I'll stop.

One of the MIL's favorite Sunday dinners at our house is rack of lamb, and she likes a little mint jelly with her lamb. However, when I went to the grocery to buy some, all I could find was that lurid green stuff—green for absolutely no good reason. The green has nothing to do with the flavor; it's just food coloring. So I learned to make my own, which comes out the lovely golden color of the apple juice I use for the base.


Yeah, I've done that thing where I grated apples, strain them through a cloth, blahblahblah. It seemed so unnecessarily labor intensive when good apple juice can be purchased (and it's not as if I have an apple tree in my yard).


This is so easy, and the jelly cooks while the water in your canning pot heats.


A few pieces of equipment are needed.


A big canning pot like this is also good for boiling crab or lobster (alas, we have only the former) or huge batches of corn on the cob. Oh yeah, and you need a rack to go inside it.

Most hardware stores have these dandy little kits that include a funnel that fits on top of your jars

and these tongs for lifting jars out of the hot water. Well worth the investment.

Ready? Here we go.

APPLE MINT JELLY

3 cups apple juice, unsweetened

1 package powdered pectin

several sprigs of fresh mint

4 1/2 cups sugar

Prepare jars and lids by boiling for 10 minutes to sterilize.

Heat apple juice and pectin in a large sauce pan. When pectin is dissolved, add mint. Bring to boil over high heat.

Add sugar, stirring until dissolved. Return to a rolling boil. Boil hard for one minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove mint and skim foam if necessary. Pour into jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Jars should be covered with a few inches of water on top and not touching each other or the sides of the pot.

I leave to meet Sophie down at my parents' tomorrow, but I did get a few things done around the house. I got my vin de peche bottled, did a little gardening, made a big pot of chili for Husband, baked my dad's favorite cookies, and there's still time for a P.T.A. officers' planning meeting cocktail summit this evening. We've found a drink or two facilitates decision making.

The Obamas and I are tight

Very tight. We email each other, you see. Just yesterday morning I received this email from Michelle (we're on first name basis, of course):

Cindy—

My mom, the girls, and I left home in Chicago and got to Denver yesterday. What a beautiful city!

The convention started this morning, and everyone here is getting ready for the big week.

All the work you've done is at the heart of what's happening here, and our team filmed a short video to give you a look behind the scenes at the convention center.

Take a minute to check out the video and share it with your friends.

This week, folks from across the country will get to know Barack and our family a little better. Tonight I'm giving a speech at the convention, and I'm planning to share a few stories about the Barack I know—the husband, the father, and the man who shares my dreams for our girls, for this country, and for our future.

Before my speech, we're also going to show a video introducing our family to families across the country. Make sure to turn on your TV at 10:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. MDT) to see it, or you can watch it at www.BarackObama.com.

This is such an important moment, and I hope you'll join me by tuning into the convention tonight and all week long.

Thanks,
Michelle

What? You received the same email? Well, Michelle has a lot of friends, you know. I wrote back:

Michelle—

Good luck with your speech. I know you will knock it out the park.

Tell the girls Sophie says Hi.

Best,
Cindy

She did not write back, but that's ok. I know she is very busy. But Barack got back to me this morning:

Cindy—

I am so lucky to be married to the woman who delivered that speech last night.

Michelle was electrifying, inspiring, and absolutely magnificent. I get a lot of credit for the speech I gave at the 2004 convention—but I think she may have me beat.

You have to see it to believe it.

And make sure to forward this email to your friends and family—they'll want to see it, too.

You really don't want to miss this.

And I'm not just saying that because she's my wife—I truly believe it was the best speech of the campaign so far.

Barack

That's nice, isn't it? I wish Husband thought I was electrifying.

Now it's Michelle's turn to write. Here is what I'm sure she will say:

Hi Cindy—

Thanks for your good wishes.

I think the speech went well, but can you believe they played that cheesy Stevie Wonder "Isn't She Lovely" over the applause? WTF? Of course I'm lovely! But that is hardly the point. I am smart, accomplished, well-educated, and articulate. So is Ted Kennedy, but did they play that song for him? Noooooooooo. Hillary may have kicked a few cracks in the glass ceiling, but there's clearly still work to be done. Lovely my ass.

Anyway, thanks for letting me blow off steam. The girls send their love.

Yours,
Michelle

I'm so happy Michelle and Barack are my friends. If you would like to be friends with them, just go here. And tell them you're a friend of mine.

The Olympics are over, but I'm not

So the Olympics are finally over. Husband and I skipped the closing ceremonies and went to a movie instead, so I have no snarky comments to make other than to congratulate China for being able to create as big an overproduced, money-wasting, pointless, and garish spectacle as any other industrialized nation. Way to go, China. You've arrived.

But I'm glad the Olympics are over for another reason as well. Watching these games took me back to somewhere I never wanted to be: laying in a hospital bed, tubed up, unable to move without mind-blowing pain, and drifting in and out of a drug-induced haze as I watched the Athens Olympics from my bed. I had had a standard mastectomy but in the name of efficiency had teamed it up with the first stage in my reconstructive surgery. Two surgeons! One operation! Who could pass up such a deal? But really, I was afraid of having bandages come off and seeing nothing but a zipper scar across a flat or even (horrors) concave chest. No—I wanted a zipper scar across a small mound of something, even if it was only a tissue expander that in no way resembled the breast it replaced. For one thing, there was, of course, no nipple. Sort of like a face without an eye: blank, devoid of personality. It was better than nothing, I guess, but I still cried buckets when a couple of weeks later I snuck into the bathroom, locked the door, and peeked beneath the bandages.

But I digress. (I know some people hate to read that on a blog. Too bad. This whole thing is a digression. My digression. My blog. You know how it goes.)

For four days I watched it all: all the comparatively insignificant events they broadcast at strange times when probably only people on loads of drugs and off their sleep/wake cycle are tuned in. Track semi-finals, quarter finals, eighth finals (that was probably the drugs); men's gymnastics (everyone's so much more interested in the women girls); and some event where they ride a horse, shoot a gun, and do something else—paddle a canoe? It's something of a blur.

And during the commercials I either dozed off or contemplated things like "Where did it go?" My breast, I mean. The evening before I went in, I had washed it in the shower, careful not to scrub off the purple pen marking the next day's plans, and said a sort of goodbye to it. But I could never get out of my mind that when they wheeled me out of the operating room, I went in one direction, and that breast went in another, down the hall in . . . what? . . . a cooler of ice? It was no longer part of me, and I was without it. So I didn't follow up on it other than to read the pathology report (a good one, all clean margins) and wonder "Ok, they're done with it. Now what?"

But the worst was over because no amount of physical pain or mutilation could come near what it had been like the months before as I went through all rounds of diagnostic tests, waiting for results, planning for the worst, and imagining Sophie's life without me in it. That was the worst. She was only four. What would she remember? If I die, should she be there with me? Could holding onto her keep me there a little longer? Was that fair to her? I researched endlessly, looking up tables that charted out survival chances for various diagnoses. It's amazing what can sound like a good outcome in these circumstances. Ten years? Yes, I'll take ten years! Can I have that in writing?

That summer was spent under a black cloud while my mind spun these thoughts and did crazy things like plan out Sophie and Husband's financial future and the series of videos I would leave: "Your First Bra," "Peer Pressure: Most of Them Are Lying," and "So You Think You're Ready To Get Married." What else could I do when my surgeon answered my question "I'm going to be ok, right?" with "You know I can't tell you that"? After all, I'm a planner. I like to be prepared.

But there in the hospital, I had turned a corner from the lonely place where you think about these things and what you need no one can give you to a place where I could let people help me. Husband could wash my hair in the sink, Sophie could "doctor me up" with her Fischer Price medical kit, and friends could temporarily absorb Sophie into their families so that my ordeal became a fabulous adventure for her. I was going to be ok; I was just going to feel like shit for a while.

So I survived. Not because I was brave or strong but because I was lucky. Lucky enough that my cancer didn't progress to the next stage, lucky enough to have very good health insurance. For some reason 40,000 women a year are not lucky, and it's not because they weren't brave or strong. I'm sure some of them were absolute ass kickers.

It's not the most important thing that has happened in my life (that was having Sophie), and I don't think about it every day. It didn't fundamentally change my life, but it tweaked it in some important ways. I'm not as afraid. I'm more grateful. I'm more clear on how I want to live my life:

Don't drift. Dig in and make a mark. Do something. Be something that even if it doesn't last as long as you want will make a great memory. Kick some ass with a smile on your face and love in your heart.

I'll be back with some snarky comments for the London games. I missed synchronized swimming, but I imagine I'll have something to say about it in four years.

Sophie has left the building

Sophie left this morning for a week at my parents' house down in Newport Beach. On a plane. By herself. "An unaccompanied minor!!!" as she likes to explain to anyone who shows the slightest interest in where she is going with her new purse, backpack, and violin.

So for a while there will be no doll parties around here.

And the Fix It Up Grooming Shop, where I do all business of this type (often much to my great aggravation when I am trying to get dinner on the table), will be closed.

So you would think I could get a few things done around the house. It's not that I can't find anything to do.

There's canning to be done,


vin de peche to bottle,

gardening,

organizing,

the fish tank looks like crap,


and I was supposed to go for a run.

But nooooooooo. After Husband and I got home from the airport, I indulged in a cycle of sloth. I crawled into bed and alternated reading and napping for longer than I'm willing to admit. (Good book so far.)

My dad finally called to report that Sophie was happily ensconced at the IHOP across the street from the airport, tucking into pancakes topped with strawberries and whipped cream.

And I got another call a while later with news that made me feel not so bad about taking pictures of Sophie at the airport using a camera with no memory chip. My dad, who updates his website about twice a year, has posted news of Sophie's arrival. (Check out the little picture on the top banner that turns my parents to stone when you roll over it. And say hi while you're there. He doesn't get many comments.)


She looks kind of happy, no? OK, big breath. Canning.

Getting a jump on my favorite season

We three Figs popped out of bed this morning like jack-in-the-boxes. It's the start of California Ski's preseason sale!!! Start your engines!!!

This the Fig family's ski equipment headquarters. We love these guys. They will spend hours fitting you in the perfect boot and will never try to sell you gear you don't need. Their strategy of kickass customer service has clearly worked for us. Greg, the owner, introduced us to his daughter who was pitching in on the cash register, as "friends of the store," which means we buy a lot of stuff there.

Husband was determined to get in early to get the best season rental equipment for Sophie. Everyone agrees that she deserves to be kicked up this year to high-performance twin-tipped skis. She's now got big ideas about skiing backwards through the terrain park.

I had a separate agenda. Husband did not know how serious I was until I pulled out the plastic in response to Greg's advice "You really should just buy these." New powder skis!! I love my Volkls for carving, but they just sink in powder.

These babies should do the trick. Here are two happy girls.

Now all we need it a little lot of snow. Damn—it's still August, isn't it??

How boring was Olympic diving?

So boring I had to entertain myself by making pickles. Nothing fancy: just Joy of Cooking's bread and butter pickle recipe. There is a lot of chopping to be done, which I always find relaxing and therapeutic. Not as good as shelling favas, but good nonetheless.

I found ridiculously inexpensive organic pickling cucumbers and added red and yellow bell peppers for extra prettiness. I'll take some down to my parents' house next week and open them right up. Because otherwise they will "save them for a special occasion." I think if you want a pickle, and you have a jar of them in front of you, that's a special occasion.

And if diving is so boring, why didn't I just turn it off? Because then I might have missed my new favorite sport, BX bike racing. Seriously, it's the summer version of short-track speed skating. It has the best elements of roller derby: speed, wipeouts, unpredictability, near-instant gratification. You never know who's going to win because anyone can and someone almost always does go down. And it's short: start whistle, exciting race, bing-bang-boom, and we've got our medalists. Who knew that Latvia was such a BMX powerhouse?

But I'm ready for it all to end. My attention is starting to wander from the events to things like Bob Costas's pen. Have you noticed he always has one in his hand? And a single piece of white paper in front of him.To show that he's not just sitting there: He's doing something. Like making some really important little notes. He's just taking a break from this to talk to us for a minute. When he finishes and the camera begins to pan out, he moves his pen to writing position above his paper so we know he is getting back to business. Can NBC just get him a laptop?

Figs and cheese for dessert

Although I love to bake, in the interest of ass size, we don't often have dessert. Most of the baked goods I produce are carted off to school events, parties, or other people's houses. But my post the other day that included Manouri cheese and thoughts of figs and honey made dessert necessary.

Off I went for some fig shopping. How excellent that my local produce market had not only the standard Black Missions but also a variety I had never tasted but had seen in The New York Times food section, the Candy Stripe. And how also excellent that, unlike the unfortunate people of New York,* I paid a mere $8 a pound for them. That said, I think $8 a pound for figs is really a lot, and I only bought four.


There they are, along with some Black Missions, one of the varieties we have growing in our yard. If we get enough heat to ripen what we have on the branches now, we'll be happily swimming in figs in the fall.

My verdict on the two figs: Those Candy Stripes are undeniably lovely, but their taste is not nearly as jammy and earthy as the Mission and reminds me of a Kadota. Nice, but overall I like the cheap fig** better.

You heard it here.

* They paid $19.99 a pound. I know: just plain silly.
** Right now they're at just under $3 a pound, which means I will buy them for general eating but will wait until they are closer to $1 a pound to make jam.