To me, the first of the strawberries always means the true start of spring. In early March, as a few cold snaps are still happening here in Texas, and the trees are just beginning to bloom or leaf out, strawberries also begin to ripen into a deep, juicy red. It’s something we look forward to.
Living a homemade life has always been of great importance to me, perhaps even more so now that I have young children of my own. What is a homemade life? To me it means that we limit processed foods in our house as much as possible. We also bake and cook wholesome foods. We choose organic when possible or following the dirty dozen guidelines, filling our plates and our tummies with nutritious, home cooked meals to feed our family. We also try and limit sugar and empty calorie snacking.
We aren’t saints. You’ll still see mac and cheese and nuggets in our freezer. Like most parents, sometimes we’re tired, strapped for time or just plain lazy. But a homemade life is what we aspire to and what we follow most of the time. Since I love baking, cereal is a rare thing around here. More often, I’m setting aside my sourdough pancake or English muffin dough the night prior so it’ll be ready to bake off in the morning. I love baking, especially with my kids and so we’re always getting messy in the kitchen.
A homemade life goes hand in hand, to me, with a farm-to-table connection or the slow food, slow living mentality.
I’m currently reading Seeking Slow: Reclaiming Moments of Calm in Your Day by Melanine Barnes. Great book. She talks about slow moments. Moments that help us slow down and feel calm or that we find comforting. Two of my favorites are on her list- baths and baking. So maybe the act of baking itself is my form of meditation. Most people think I’m crazy but I love awakening a little early to make something worth consuming and starting our day with.
One of my greatest desires is for my children to have a farm-to-table connection to their food. For them to know where their food comes from and feel a greater connection to it than one gets from shopping grocery store aisles. I’ve long dreamed of owning some property, maybe 8-10 acres of land and a home with a wrap-around front. A place where we could have an enormous, thriving vegetable garden and live off the land as much as possible instead of a grocery store. I dream of canning jams and pickling things. Of composting food scraps and collecting fresh eggs from a few chickens we own; green ones or maybe blue. I dream of fresh honey and a deeper connection to the earth.
Most people dream of big homes, nice cars, far flung vacations I suppose. But my little dream has always been decidedly simpler than that. Sitting on a back-porch swing, spitting watermelon seeds over the side- who’s can go the farthest? I dream of butterfly bushes and a white picket fence around a delightful vegetable garden thriving in full sun, of following the seasons based on what’s growing. I dream of reclaiming the moments of stillness that give pause and serve as the antidote to the “busyness” of twenty-first-century-life.
We’ve lived many places and owned or rented several homes over the years and, while they’ve all had gorgeous trees or felt forested, there’s never been a spot of full sun large enough to make a garden thrive. You can always rent a garden plot, sure, but having to get in the car it not nearly the same as simply walking out into your backyard.
So, I keep my little dream, tucked away neatly, hoping that someday I’ll look out my window and see that garden. My son, barefoot, collecting eggs, bees buzzing about the flowers. No visible neighbors, just blue sky and clouds, maybe a tree with an old-fashioned tire swing.
It’s not that I desire to be a farmer or live in the country. But neither is the city life for me. That’s why we love living in the Woodlands, which is just outside Houston, TX. You get the pine forests and natural beauty as well as all the conveniences and diversions a city has to offer.
I’m not sure when this little dream began- a piece of land and a garden. Maybe it got its start when I lived in Italy during my semester abroad. I woke up to food there. To flavor, or the fact that food is always best when local and in season. Perhaps it was my early 20’s when I worked as an intern in Alice Waters Office at the eponymous Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Farmers are practically celebrities in California. Often credited as the champion of the local, seasonal, organic movement, I learned much about food during my time at Chez Panisse. Or, perhaps still, it was my time in San Francisco, and my career in restaurant and wine PR. A glamourous, and fun job for one’s 20’s to be sure. But it was my time there, living in a city which impresses people that I realized who I was, or more accurately, who I wasn’t.
For whatever reason, I was not happy there. I was living in a city, much like New York, where everyone brags of living there. Yet I used to look out the tiny window of my apartment, shared with a man I felt was wrong for me but whom I couldn’t seem to extricate myself from, at the too often-gray sky and dream. As I’d look out at the backyard covered in AstroTurf, I’d dream of the big blue skies of Texas. I dreamed of a home with a wraparound front porch, of my garden, of chickens, of some land, a space to call my own, of a vocation I had yet to realize and of someday finding a man who’d be as desperate to marry me as I was him. I dreamed of children, and of a life I knew was out there but that I wasn’t yet brave enough to live. So I binge watched The Sound of Music with it’s frolicking hills and gorgeous scenery and made silent plans to alter the course of my life.
It may sound silly that a little dream or fancy like a garden and a front porch could forever affect the course of my life. But in a way it did. I left San Francisco and I did ultimately realize all those dreams of mine. Back in San Francisco, all those years ago, I couldn’t name what was wrong at the time. It was just a feeling, a growing discontent. Now, years later, I understand and I’m grateful to my twenty-something self for honoring that voice in my head telling me not to settle for the dreams of others but to go boldly in the direction of my own.
Now the Astro Turf and Gray skies are long gone but I’m still dreaming of my garden…that little dream has still managed to elude me. So we find our farm-to table connection in other ways. We frequent the u-pick farms near us.
A u-pick farm provides much needed context for our kids. Our favorite book, Blueberries for Sal takes on new meaning when my son picks blueberries and can see that they grow on bushes. As does The Little Mouse and the Red Ripe Strawberry as we pick berries and see that strawberries grow on little plants in the ground. Even though the small mouse in the story makes the plants look like trees.
But half the fun of a u-pick experience is what you do with your bumper harvest when you get home. I see strawberry jam; our kids favorite in our future, finally putting our Blue Chair Jam cookbook to good use. But the morning after our harvest, as I sat contemplating breakfast, a forgotten love popped back into my mind (no pun intended) POPOVERS.
Food memories are strong in my life and popovers will forever remind me of my mother. As a girl and young adult, growing up in Dallas, we used to visit the third floor Neiman Marcus Café for lunch. They serve consume in little elegant tea cups to start, followed by pillowy popovers with fresh, strawberry butter. It was something my mother did with me that her mother had done with her; back when blue sugar had seemed the height of elegance to my own mother, then a child herself.
To make a proper popover and get the height and air you need for the rise in the oven, you need a popover pan. However, as I discovered that morning, mine had been ruined in the flood and not replaced. So we tried our luck with a regular muffin pan. You heat the pan as the oven warms and then once you place it in the oven, be sure not to open the oven door or the popovers will fall. Now the muffin pan worked just okay. So, I’ll be getting another popover pan but they still tasted great so don’t feel the need to rush out and buy a new pan.
Of course, in our house, it’s not a popover without strawberry butter. It’s pretty simple to make really, choose a high-quality butter (I like Kerrygold) then whip it with a little powdered sugar and strawberries, crushed or pureed or a combo of the two. Then roll it into a log with wax paper and chill. Some people make or use a store bought strawberry jam and you can do that. I , however, wanted to use our fresh berries and I wanted a butter that was only slightly sweet.
Many people love the idea of involving their kids in the kitchen but aren’t quite sure how to do so in a safe manner. Or perhaps, more accurately, in a way that doesn’t mean twice the mess! I get this.
It surprises many to know that I’m a total Monica (read neat freak like the character Monica on the popular sitcom FRIENDS from the 90’s). Perhaps it’s a surprise given that my art business, Process Art Kids, is all about allowing kids the get messy. We DO create messes in our home – art messes, baking messes and fort building playroom messes. I just clean up afterwards. Part of childhood is mess-making. You have to allow kids to make messes but you can certainly involve them in the clean-up process.
My advice is this, give your kids age-appropriate tasks and ways to participate. My son (almost 4 now) has a set of safe Montessori knives he can chop with. On popover morning, he helped add ingredients, beat the batter smooth, then lick the spatula of course! He also mashed the strawberries with a fork and turned the mixer on to whip the butter. My daughter (age 2) was more interested in watching and eating.
It’s fun for kids to make these connections and play a role in the process. My son picked the strawberries on a farm, and the next day helped mash them and make the strawberry butter that would then give flavor to our breakfast popovers.
That’s a farm-to-table connection. This is what I love. Someday maybe the strawberries will come from our own backyard. But until then our strawberry butter tastes just as sweet as if they had.
From my heart to yours,
~RHL
Popovers with Strawberry Jam
Yields approx. 10 popovers. You don’t need a popover pan for this a muffin tin works just fine.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- canola oil or butter for greasing pan
Instructions
- Grease 10 muffin cups with butter or canola oil. (leave the middle two empty). Turn oven on to 400° and place muffin tin in oven to heat while you make the batter.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and milk together. Add flour and salt. Whisk in melted butter. Whisk until smooth but don’t over stir.
- Pour batter into a measuring cup for easy pouring. Remove now-hot tin from the oven and pour batter evenly into the ten oiled cups.
- Bake popovers for 20-30 minutes. You just want them puffed and slightly brown on top. Don’t over bake. Serve warm with homemade strawberry butter.
Homemade Strawberry Butter
I’ve also seen recipes were you make or simply fold in store bought strawberry jam and that works too. But I wanted my strawberries fresh and my butter only slightly sweet.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened
- 2 TB- 1/4 C. powdered sugar (depending on your taste)
- 1/2 C. fresh strawberries
Instructions:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the softened butter with the on medium speed until creamy.
- Add the powdered sugar and mix until combined.
- Add you strawberries (you can mash them with a fork if you want bigger chunks of strawberry or puree them in a processor if you want a smoother texture. Doing some combination of the two is also good.
- Spoon the butter mixture into the shape of a log on wax paper. Twist ends to close or put in a butter crock
- Refrigerate the butter for at least 3 hours or overnight before serving
Enjoy! Bon Appetit!
