Deal Breakers

I know people who refuse to eat tomatoes out of season. When it comes to the hard, greenish-orange variety that used to be a staple of the winter produce department, I'm totally with them, but these days you can get decent tomatoes all year long. One of my favorite things to do in the winter is to roast grape tomatoes to intensify their flavor and then toss them in salad or sauce. Of course, vine-ripened is the gold standard, but I don't see any reason for deprivation the nine months those aren't available.

In general, I try to have a pragmatic attitude toward food and cooking. Despite considering myself kind of a foodie, I try not to be unreasonable when it comes to what I will or won't eat, mostly because like most people, I am constrained by time and money.

I tell you all this to shed a little perspective on my latest culinary line in the sand. Ever since I made my own tortillas a couple of months ago, I have rejected the store-bought variety. Yes. The difference in quality is THAT enormous. Tender, flavorful, flaky, they put the ones that come in a plastic bag to shame.

So take this as a cautionary tale, friends. DO NOT spend the extra time on mixing and rolling your own flour tortillas (even though it really doesn't take that long), because if you do, you may never turn back, either.

Recipe:

12 oz bread flour (or 9 oz bread flour and 3 oz whole wheat or spelt flour)
1/2 tsp salt
3 oz shortening
3/4 c warm water

Mix flour and salt together. Cut in shortening. Add water and stir until a soft dough forms. Divide into 8 equal balls, flatten, and let rest for 30 minutes. Heat a cast iron skillet on the stove, or a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven. Roll each disc as flat as possible (about 8 inches) and cook for 1 minute on each side.

Throwback

I had after-school study hall in my room today. The hour after school is definitely the most convenient time to offer this support to our students, but it is not necessarily the best time. After a full day of learning, one more hour of quiet can be challenging for some. In an effort to make it as productive as possible, we give everyone a snack, offer a frequent attendance bonus program, and allow as much movement and collaboration as possible without letting such activity to become a distraction.

Because we teachers take turns supervising "Homework Club" for all the kids on the team, there are always some kids I don't teach in the group. That is not usually a problem-- I like to say I've been in sixth grade long enough to be able to help almost anyone with any assignment. Even so, today I ran into something I wasn't prepared for.

One of the kids asked me for a couple of sheets of loose leaf paper. I handed it over without questioning him, but he was eager to tell me why he needed it. "I have to write I will not chew gum in class 200 times!" he reported.

I'm sure my surprise registered on my face, because even though I've been around for a while,  I thought using writing as punishment went out way before I came in.

Portmanteau

Over my years of teaching sixth grade English I've read and heard many a malapropism. Some can be blamed on the spellchecker-- once when I asked kids to write about whether it is our conscience which sets humans apart from the other animals on the planet, I got an essay that began with the memorable line, Continence, oh continence, where would we be without continence? Hmmm... Where indeed? I'm sure the makers of Depends would love to find out.

Many such mistakes are funny, but some are downright inspired. Take for example this recent bit of writing: Bees, the most horocious insect in the world!

Now, "horocious" should totally be a word. Not only does it combine horrible and ferocious, but it also  sounds a little like Hiroshima.

The sheer calamity of the term is positively palpable! Who's with me?

Guarding the Crosswalk

Seven or eight years ago we got a crossing guard at the intersection closest to our middle school. It happened after one of our students ran into a moving car while crossing the street. The accident occurred hours after school was out and nearly a block down the road, but the traumatic brain injury the student sustained made everyone want to do something to make things safer for kids.

From time to time I hear adults complaining about the guard on duty. They don't like it that not only does he stop traffic for kids who are ready to cross, but then he goes on to direct traffic, too. It's a 2 stop-sign intersection, and the line of cars can get pretty long at the stop signs in the middle of the morning rush. Personally, I don't mind, although if I'm running late, it's me he stops from taking the quick right while he waves the other cars on. I always like it when someone imposes order on potential chaos.

My sister aspired to the job of crossing guard. When she was 5 or 6, she told us how much she liked the uniform, especially the white cap and gloves, and we knew she could imagine herself and her cat, Dusty, in matching outfits, standing on that bold yellow circle in the middle of the road, whistles at the ready, hand and paw held straight out in the universal gesture for Halt.

When I was in sixth grade there was a crossing guard at the intersection near my bus stop. It was his job to cross the elementary kids safely across busy Cooper Street. His name was Ernie, and even though we middle school kids didn't need him to help us get to our bus stop, we all knew him because he had been there for years. That didn't stop a bunch of the older kids from verbally abusing him every day. He was short, older, and definitely not the smartest guy around, and these kids took delight in shouting insults across the street until our bus picked us up.

Of course Ernie blustered and threatened, but he really had no recourse, and more often than not his responses just made the kids worse. Their cruelty and disrespect really upset me, but I didn't know how to stand up to the prevailing culture. There was one thing I thought of to do, though. I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper in defense of crossing guards.

That was my first publication. It made me very proud to see my name and words in print, but nothing at the bus stop changed. Even so, I had an inkling that writing, too, could help bring order to chaos.

Diction

I was reading an article today where the documentary film maker Errol Morris describes a private eye trick he learned along the way.

“It went like this,” Morris explained. “He’d knock on a door, sometimes of someone not even connected to the case they were investigating. He’d flip open his wallet, show his badge and say, ‘I guess we don’t have to tell you why we’re here.’
 
“And more often than not the guy starts bawling like an infant, ‘How did you find out?’” And then disgorges some shameful criminal secret no one would ever have known about otherwise.

I laughed a little and wondered if we are all really so wracked with guilt. Then my thoughts turned to my sixth grade students. On the occasions that I must ask them to step away from the class to discuss their inappropriate behavior I typically begin the conversation with "Why did I ask you to come talk to me?"

And the usual parry is, "I don't know."

To which I reply, "That's too bad. Why don't you stay here and give it some thought. I'll be back when I can."

Oh we get there, we do, but sometimes it takes a while, so as I read today, I found myself speculating about ways to improve my approach. Was it the element of surprise that got those guys to confess so quickly? Was it the burden of carrying such a guilty secret for so long? If so, I was out of luck.

Still, as an English teacher, I have faith in the power of sentence structure, word choice, and phrasing, and that is why I intend to begin my next conversation with an errant student like so:

I guess I don't have to tell you why I asked to speak with you...

I'll let you know how it goes.

Roots

As St. Patrick's Day, the day when everyone is Irish, approaches, my thoughts turn to my own ethnicity. My last name is English, and there are documented reports that the first immigrant to this continent with our surname came in the mid 1600's. That was my great-who-knows-how-many-other-greats grandfather, Daniel. Several generations later, the branch of the family from which I am descended went through an interesting trend. All of the men married women of full Irish descent, so that eventually our last name was the most English thing about us.

That's not an uncommon American story, is it though? We watch Who Do You Think You Are? every Friday night, and one of the draws of the program is seeing people find a connection to some other amazing person or culture, separated from us by time and space. As proud as most of us are to be American, everyone gets choked up on that show.

Once I told a friend that on my mother's mother's side, I'm 1/16 American Indian. Rather than be impressed, she laughed dismissively and noted that many poor white trash families use the same story to elevate their heritage.

I can't say that I'd ever thought of those ancestors as white trash before, although they did work hard at farming for a living. I was silent, but my expression must have conveyed my dismay. "Think about," she said, "how did that white guy get hooked up with an Indian in Mississippi? Much less marry her?" I stayed quiet, and I confess that I wondered if my story seemed so foolish to everyone who heard it.

Recently, a friend at work mentioned that she had gotten her husband Ancestry DNA testing for his birthday. For a hundred bucks and a couple of cheek swabs you can discover your genetic heritage.

Hmmm. That just might be worth it.

Gardener's Dilemma

It is time to move some of the seedlings from under the grow light to bigger pots for some outside time to harden them off before planting them in the garden. Even though they are getting too big for their little starting cells, they are still very fragile, and some of them won't make the transition.

As a relatively new gardener, I don't take this loss very well; I feel as if I've done something wrong and let my little sprouts down. (Which may be true.) Even worse though is when you have to thin the seedlings. Ordinarily, you plant two or three seeds per cell, and then once they've had a chance to establish themselves, you're supposed to cut the weaker plants so that the strongest can grow unhindered.

Although intellectually I understand the procedure, such culling goes against my nature. I want to nurture them all, regardless of size and space and resources, so that every one of them grows to be productive.