Species animal crackers. Every time someone asks you for one, you can give them a little lecture about how the real animals need to be saved, not eaten.
If that doesn't appeal to you, you can recall another childhood pleasure with these easy-to-make brownies. They can furnish a week's worth of lunch bag treats, or disappear in a day or two with coffee or a big glass of milk. Thanks, Mom.
Nostalgic Brownies
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
¼ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
½ cup walnuts, broken into pieces or chopped
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan, and line it with baking parchment or waxed paper. Butter and flour the waxed paper.
Melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat, stir well, then lightly stir in the sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, salt, and nuts.
Spread into the pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until center is set. Do not overbake, or brownies will lose their chewy texture and become dry.
Remove pan from the oven and cool on a rack about 5 minutes. Turn out onto the rack and peel off the paper. While still warm, cut into squares with a greased knife. Makes 16 brownies.
Whatever the seasoning, whatever the dish, whatever the occasion, do it generously and with love, for that in the end is what the shared experience of cooking and eating is all about.
—Elizabeth Rozin
Family and Friends
’Tis the gift to be simple . . .
—Shaker song
Desert Hoops
An old man in Chile once told me about a simple pleasure he and his sister invented for themselves when they were children. They lived in an isolated house far out in a flat and windy desert. Some mornings when they were bored and had nothing to do, they would make hoops out of brightly colored paper and place them on edge on the desert sand. The wind would roll the away, and the children would watch them disappear towards the horizon. At midday, when the wind reversed its direction, the children would watch for tiny colored specks in the distance—the hoops were coming back, careening past the house towards the opposite horizon. Sometimes the boy and his sister would make hoops for several days in succession, setting up a brilliant multicolored traffic of wheels across the barren land.
“I said to the Wanting Creature inside of me, ‘What is this river you want to cross? Do you believe that there is some other place that will make the soul less thirsty? In that great absence you will find nothing. What we seek is here already . . . Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things not yet come and stand firm in that which you are.’”
—Kabir
THINGS TO DO
Homemade Play Dough
This preschool staple is easy to make in batches at home. It's worth keeping an assortment of bottled food coloring for projects like these, even if you don't use them often for cooking.
1 cup salt
¼ cups water
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
3 cups all-purpose flour (not self-rising)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Food coloring
In a large bowl, mix salt, water and vegetable oil. Continue mixing while adding flour and cornstarch. Knead until smooth. If dough seems too sticky, add a little flour. If too dry, add a little water.
Divide the dough into several lumps. Add a few drops of food coloring to each lump and knead to mix the color into the dough. Store in air-tight containers, for this will dry out if exposed to air.
Unselfconscious Contact
Children are such heavy sleepers that you can lean over them and nuzzle and pat them without waking them up. Sometimes I'll breathe in the scent of the shampoo on my son's hair and I'll think how extraordinary this little guy is and how lucky I am. When he wakes up, he puts out his arms to be carried and touches his little face to mine and says, “I love you Mommy” in that stream-of-consciousness way, where whatever he's thinking just comes out of his mouth. As adults, we're always aware of another person's reaction when we say something like that or touch him or her. I've never had such unselfconscious contact with anyone as I do with my boy. There's something so intimate about ministering to someone from the moment they're born that you never have to establish a relationship. It's already there, and the love just keeps on growing.
“The darn trouble with cleaning the house is it gets dirty the next day anyway. So skip a week if you have to. The children are the most important thing.”
—Barbara Bush
THINGS TO DO
Do it Together
You and your family can make your own wrapping paper. Buy a roll of white butcher paper or brown paper. For ease, you can purchase a couple of rubber stamps and different colored ink pads, and simply stamp out a pattern on your paper. Be careful not to smear it as you go. To make the paper even more personalized, you can make your own “rubber stamps.” Cut a potato in half, then carve a simple shape into the center, then cut the sides away so your center design is elevated enough to make a clear impression. Try simple shapes like hearts, stars, dots, and diamonds. For simple polka dots you can use wine corks. What's great is that each person gets to express his or her individuality.
Brand New Socks
My dad had two favorite expressions: “He who shoots first lives longest” and “The first one up is the one best dressed.” We were a large family, and all the kids' socks were pooled, so if you got up late, you might not even get matching socks. I guess that's where my sock psychosis came from. I just love brand new socks. It's such a thrill breaking them out of the package, when they're soft and tight-fitting and they've never been inside a dirty old shoe. The first wash wrecks them. That's why I always set aside new socks for special occasions, such as traveling or a fancy dinner.
“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worthy of the name, someone to love and to love you, a cat, a dog, a pipe or two, [and] enough to eat and enough to wear . . .”
—Jerome
