Read this, go here:

Looks like I have the capacity to keep up one online presence at a time. Spuddy, my old pal, we'll have some good times together again coming up, I'm sure. But for now, I'm over here.

jalShalley

Bring that casserole to my potluck

The light and my girl Scout are both longer these days. Read more about it here.

Look Ma! In Print!

Wooie woo! Click on the picture, then scroll down till you get to the part that says, "featured articles," then click "becoming we." Sure, I could just link you there, but then you wouldn't get a quick tour of the greatest latest publication by/for LDS women!

(Then click here, and really think about it, ok? Jamie, Liz, Becca, Camille, Laura, and I'll say it again--Geo, and any other readers, that means you!!!)

kisses for my fave babe

scout the bug

First say you'll still respect me

To celebrate 10 years of life in Our Lovely Deseret/idaho, I wanted to do something . . . just, spehchal. But first, let me tell you what happened in Lava--say it like this: Lah Vah--just down the road this summer:

One of my beloved sisters-in-law and her family came out from Boston to see the West, visit the big parks to the north, and meet the new cousin. One of the fun things we planned to do here was tube the Portneuf. It's chock full 'o hot springs up Lah Vah way. Even I was enticed into my stretched, pilled, faded, unelastisized old black beauty of a bathing suit. It was 25 bucks on sale, and I know I'd had it for at least 6 years, because I distinctly remember wearing it in San Diego at Trev's house that night I had to climb in my sisters' in laws' bathroom window at night to get back in. All unbeknownst, and me so awkward to tell them. That was the night I felt like a siren, but was glad it covered so much of me. So anyway,

the boys had had one run down the river. They put in at the top of town, wagged their whitewater way through the warmish water under the main street bridge, floated and spun to the pullout, grabbed the ground, hauled out and walked mainstreet all the way back to we waiting mommies. Woohoo! My turn. I selfconciously step out of my clothes (hello! Baby four months ago. Hello! regardless!!), and turn to put my life vest on, but hear my dear eleven-year-old nephew grab Andy's arm and noisily whisper in his ear. Hey buddy, I saw you look at my bum! What are you two whispering about? NOT Polite!

Discussion was: Aunt Joh's bathing suit is worn through in the rear. What's held within is clearly visible.
Options were: pass on the Portneuf (and all the 11-year-old implications of that) or ride with pride! (and all the 11-year-old implications of that).

So yeah, I rode with prode, and when it came time to walk all the way back through town, oh so casually hung my life vest by my elbows, oh so casually. My nephew walked behind me, feeling victorious at his discovery, snickering. I tried to ignore it, because if I told him to quit it, I'd have to explain it to Adam, my brother-in-law. I love Adam, but frankly, didn't want to discuss the sheer rear with him.

I really am going somewhere with this, I promise. Besides immolating embarrassment. Just to show you I'm not all about diversions, look at this. (See photo above) She is something I concentrate on a lot. Right now I'm trying to figure out which side of the family her antennae came from.



But step back. And look closer.

(See other photo above.)

THIS is what I'm talking about! See those hip long shirts in fresh colours inspired by the seasons? That would be the Second Skin Capsleeve under the Long Fit Cami, under the really looooong totally awesome zip front hoodie.

I'm celebrating my ten year anniversary with a cultural rite of passage: by having a tupperware party! Except I'm not selling Tupperware! I'm selling Modbe clothing, including the first comprehensive line of fashion-forward modest swimwear! YOU'RE INVITED!!!

This is my golden message: The bathing suits are all super cute tankinis and they're only 35 dollars!!! I've already invested. Black boy short bottoms (Not see-through. Sturdy. Two layers.) and the mango diagonal stripe ruched long top. Seriously.

If you don't live in town with me, you can still be part of the fun, 'cause this is such a nontraditional boutique. You just check out online what you like, then email me and I'll add it to the order. My Modbe Fashion Consultant will call you if you have questions. She is so confident in the product and her knowledge of it, she can size you over the phone. Seriously. I believe her, too. She sized me up, and look. I'm having a party!!!

My email address: moonsmith at gmail dot com.

Party details: My house to try stuff on and eat the fabulous treats I'm going to make,
Thursday, October 12, 7 to 9 pm. But the party rocks on in spirit till the 17th, 'cause you can place an order up till then.

Just let me know. And don't worry about writing this info down. I'll also be sending email invites to those of you I have email addresses for. (Girlzzz of my fam: that would b U.)

Ok, that's it for now. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks so much!!!!

Why We Love September Around Here:

Kim, Adam, Jacob, Ethan, Emma, Patrick, and the Tetons.

Grandma is visiting!

And the State Fair.

All the gals love a Fat Boy.

East Idaho folk.

Old tater, little spud.

(p.s.: Tech question: anyone have easy instructions on how to post more than one photo at a time through Picasa?)

Red Hot

On our way home tonight from a ward potluck, we were stopped halfway up the canyon we live in. Three teenage boys, all spiffed up for the evening--two in all black and white ties and one in all white with a black tie--were huddled with hunched shoulders on the side of the road, silhouetted by a flaming car parked in flaming grass. We pulled up beside them, nervous. One was on a cell, the others had their hands jammed in their pockets. They had already called the fire department.

What we should have done:

Had Andy jumped out and helped extinguish, and me drive up to our house.

OR

Turned around so we wouldn't be stuck up the canyon if the fire really did block us off. (Except, with Grandma and Duke up at the house, we would have vetoed that option if we'd thought of it anyway.)

Instead, we quickly decided to drive past and risk being blown up if the car exploded. I craned my neck around to keep watching, and saw a man leap off his ATV and slip down the bank, spraying a little fire extinguisher. When we got home, I hauled Scout out of the car and Andy ran to get our two extinguishers. I had already started mentally gathering our most vital possessions, beyond us and Duke.

Actually, I could almost call this a passtime considering the number of afternoons I've spent thinking about what would happen if there were a Gibson Jack fire. But I'd always counted on the fire coming down the canyon from the National Forest. I'd never thought about what would happen if the fire were to come UP Gibson Jack, and we couldn't load the car and skeeddadle. (Um, that's a word, right?) So, for sure our CPU, my journals, our photos, and a couple folders out of the filing cabinet. . .

Ten minutes later Andy was rushing in the door ordering Grandma off the phone in case we need it or we get the evacuation call, and saying, "The whole field's on fire! I've got my phone, I'm with the Bishop."

Aye.

When we had pulled into the driveway, we imagined out loud to each other, "So if things got really bad, I guess we go stand in the field next door, right? Or would we turn on the sprinklers and sit on the lawn? Stand in the road maybe?" With Andy's announcement, I tried to be casual but focussed and started moving boxes of photos and stacks of journals from nether rooms in the basement to the bottom of the stairs, wondering how I'd get them and my four-month old AND my 92-year-old grandmother all over the river and through the woods to safety in a field or anywhere else. I pulled open the file cabinet drawer and plucked out the one labeled "Important Papers." It contained copies of records, licenses, certificates and diplomas and . . . every love letter I've ever written Andy.

When 15 minutes had gone by and I couldn't take the suspense any longer, I called Andy's cell. "Looks like it's going to be ok," he said. I could feel the adreneline hush up some in my blood. "What happened?" I asked him when he got in, not long later. He figured he had come back the first time just as a juniper was exploding. His two household extinguishers seemed silly, and the fire looked huge. In the dark, it's easy to mistake a fire's size. When he returned the second time, the city fire department was there, and had extinguished all the flames.

The property owner's grumble: "I could have done it myself if three or four guys had been willing to stop instead of just driving by."

My take-home message: As for me and my house, we are not ready for an emergency. Thinking about it doesn't cut it. So my plan is to give myself goals and deadlines, like, 72-hour backpacks for each of us and one for the dog by October 15th. Also, food storage and firewise landscaping. It might also be time for another love letter.

Bands of Gold: What the Middle East and my backyard have in common

Apricots, along with avocados and cilantro, are something I first ate in quantity enough to really understand only when I moved down and out to Utah. I have many happy memories of *acquiring* free fruit-in-it's-season in pioneer-planted Provo. One apricot tree even had delicious pits: we kept a little hammer on the east-facing brick windowsill of our second-story apartment and lined our pits up there to dry, then bake, then crack open and eat like almonds.

Last year I inherited Heidi's dehydrator and made apricot leather.

This year, I'm making jam, (first, gather in; wash your glasses; measure carefully; harvest) but dreaming of dusty roads through olive groves in Palestine, and the tart, green, unripe apricots we ate there, dipped in cups of salt, like pickles.



This, below, is an example of why I love food writing.



Bands of Gold

Dried fruits are a Middle Eastern staple, but nothing comes close to the apricot leather of Syria. Kevin Gould sees the light on the road to Damascus.

Throughout the Muslim East, the preserver's art is still practised with pride. Frozen and tinned vegetables and fruit are frowned upon as modern agents designed to destroy centuries-old traditions. In the countryside, preservers of vegetables dry their crops in the sun before threading them on to twine and hanging them next to jars of violently coloured pickles, all to be eaten in the lean winter months. Citrus fruits picked in December can be transported to cool basements or mountain caves and remain good to eat until the next harvest. Spring and summer fruits, however, present problems of their own, as delicate tree fruit and berries prove poor travellers and deteriorate quickly.

Fruit preservers specialise in these more fragile foods, and follow different disciplines. Murabbiyati make their heavily sweetened syrups, which are sucked from teaspoons after a cup of black coffee. These murabbiyat, or sherbets, may be made from such exotic ingredients as violet flowers, rose petals and white mulberries, and are refreshing when plunged by the tablespoonful into iced water, to be stirred and sipped. From Cairo to Kabul, street hawkers exhort passersby to try a glass: rich, bittersweet tamarind promises good health; lemony sorrel juice, strength; and milky syrup of almonds, many children, all boys.

The leathermaker is friend to cook and child alike. Fruit leathers keep for ages, and are sold as a kitchen ingredient or chewy snack in every market from the Caucasus to the Sahara. The technique varies little: the fruit is lightly crushed before being cooked to a pulp in a covered vat with a little water and, occasionally, sugar. After being sieved to remove skin and seeds, the thick paste is poured into shallow rectangular cooling trays, and dried over a few days on a sunny roof. Then it is cut into sheets or rolled as a ribbon.

In the orchards of northern Iran, leather, or lavoshak, is most prized when made from sharp berries such as zereshk (barberries), or sour cherries. It is sold in chocolate bar-sized packs, and Iranian cooks adds it to meat-based khoresh or stew. A saunter through any Turkish bazaar will unearth macun of plum or peach, which are often reconstituted by being soaked in warm water before being beaten into a fruit cobbler. Around the tomb of the Blessed Saint Rumi in Konya, in Central Anatolia, the kiosks sell a sublime macun of pale caramel-coloured mulberry, rolled with chopped walnuts, which promises to suffuse the buyer with loving energy.

It's the Syrian amardine, however, that is the king of all fruit leathers - and its vizier, the rotund, moustachioed and avuncular Mr Mohamed el-Shalati. Mohamed and son, Ahmed, have perfected the art of amardine, and risk their lives to ensure the integrity of their product. The journey to amardine excellence starts each July, when they travel north to the Turkish border at Antioch, now Antakya. Passing through Antakya's olive groves, the el-Shalatis enter the disputed Kurdish territories, where the gun is law and kidnapping a noble profession passed down from father to son. Between avoiding Turkish army checkpoints and local brigands levying tolls on mountain passes, Mohamed and Ahmed have to cope with heat of more than 40°C and narrow roads before reaching their destination, the town of Malatya.

Malatya is to apricots what Sophia Loren once was to lips. Its dry, sunny climate and limy soil were made for the notoriously fickle apricot tree and, in the world's finest food shops, boxes of Malatya dried apricots tantalise like translucent gems, attracting fabulous prices for their size, texture and flavour. The el-Shalatis buy only whole, perfect fruit, as any bruised fruit would infect others in the box on the bumpy ride back to Syria. On their home run, they hire a trusted local to ride shotgun and discourage any tribes who might be tempted to hold up the truck before reselling its cargo to a sweating Mohamed. A relieved return to Damascus heralds a period of intense activity in the el-Shalati factory.

Their purchases are carefully washed before being committed to a vast copper-bottomed vat for controlled cooking overseen by Ahmed. Once pulpy, the apricots are rubbed and passed through giant sieves before granular sugar and liquid glucose are added. The pulp is then gently reheated and constantly stirred, which renders it to a paste without caramelising the sugars or adding any scorched flavours. Meanwhile, the drying trays are lubricated with olive oil; this stops the paste from sticking during the 48-hour drying process, which takes place under nets on the factory roof.

Cut into sheets, the amardine is layered in polythene and folded in three before being labelled and encased in Cellophane of a glorious orange. The crowning glory of this king of all fruit leathers is the el-Shalati family recipe for amardine cream. But those of an impatient nature may obtain immediate satisfaction by eating this apricot leather straight from the pack, an exercise that satisfies the sweetest tooth. This greedy behaviour also ensures the stickiest of fingers, causing this keyboard to write aaaaaaaamardine.

(This article was first published on Waitrose.com in November 1999)

Legacy: July 24th

We hired Garrett, a wiry, baby-faced sixteen-year-old neighbour, to help out with yardwork this summer. The first time he showed up, eight ay em sharp, I nearly wept to see this strong good boy working hard to dig out the stumps I didn't get last fall, haul branches to the brush pile, and concentrate so dilligently on making good earning his $6.00/hour. It was beautiful. I had the unmistakably adult desire to call his mother and tell her what a fine young man he is.

He was game for anything (except prolonged periods of weeding), so I told him we needed to stack some wood. Much of our "mature landscape" is not just mature but overripe, so there was a decent little mound of logs. No problem, he said. Half an hour later he knocked at the door and asked me to come make sure his pile looked good. His beautiful half-circle mound lasted but a day, alas. Garrett, see, hasn't yet been schooled in the fine art of woodpile architecture.

I, however, have been learning these lessons since I could pass wood along a chain of hands, indeed, since I was young enough to refuse to pass wood along a chain of hands becuase of the spiders harboured there.

While we were visiting my parents this past weekend, Andy spent most of Saturday morning with my Dad, cutting up logs stacked on sawhorses with a 24-inch chainsaw. Dad has an arrangement with an old neighbour who trims trees on the days he doesn't have class, and instead of hauling it all away to be chipped for compost, he brings it to Mum and Dad's driveway. Looks like it's been a good summer for him; there's barely space for cars now.

These piles are diverse, and the wood in them is old, I'd wager some of it pioneer wood: thick rounds of fruit woods--plum, apple, cherry--and ash, black locust, elm and sycamore, pine and spruce. Dad's plan is to cut and split it all by hand and sell it in bundles--kindling included--to people who just want to go have a campfire somewhere. An artisan campfire. He will also use it to heat his home this winter, and Rob will use it to heat Tryst.

Andy told me about their time together. "When people talk about 'coming into their living'? For your Dad that means wood. That's his heritage for his children. He'd pick up a piece and toss it aside, 'Ooh, look at this one. I'll save it for Rob.' 'Just look at this piece, Andy. Isn't this incredible?'"

This July 24th, while I sit here in Southern Idaho, warmed at fires I didn't light and celebrating my adopted heritage, I also honor those who have taught me how to pile the wood and dry it for use on a cold winter's afternoon--my heritage inherited.

How far it's got:

When I found a drenched spot on my sheets under Scout's bum after our nap, I just let it air dry, and am sleeping on it tonight.



Guess I'm officially a sheet-snob has been. Reminds me of that momentous day several weeks after she was born when I realised I had had skin contact with every bodily fluid--except bile and maybe earwax--in a single day. Barf, blood, spit, tears, sweat, pee, poo, snot, milk, yeah you name it, all there. It seemed . . . like a big deal. In some symbolic way. Or something.

In other news: She laughed! A lovely sound, original and the first in the world. Those great big grins, all gum and so-inviting open mouth, the elkas and ha!s--this baby blackbird has spoken like the first bird.