Amish Friendship Bread and Finding One's Self

Friendship Bread Muffins with hydrangeas from Nicole H.

"I'm not into kvetching. I'm into changing the world."

Judy Chicago, artist, feminist, and rabble-rouser

I am sitting at the Chicago O’Hare Airport this afternoon, and an 11-year-old girl with a “Little Miss Bossy” pink t-shirt starts talking to me. I find out this girl spent a summer at camp, that this week she saw the Cubs wallop the Brewers (15-3), and that she is going into sixth grade in North Carolina, a state where I used to teach middle school language arts and social studies students just like her. Her Nana is a bespectacled and bemused woman with short blond hair and pretty dangling shell earrings. Nana listens patiently as her granddaughter, this spritely spitfire, rattles off how she is at the top of her class in math and science, and how she writes, produces and anchors the morning news crew at her elementary school, and how she loves Junie B. Jones books but not the Goosebumps series because the covers scare her. When the girl tells me she was born in 1998 and that she’s 11, I smile and say I was born 20 years before her in 1978.

She looks at me and smiles, and then says, “Wow. That’s back in the day. You’re as old as my mother.”

Harvest + Urban Gardening

In addition to Patty's farm-fresh Banty and brown eggs I brought home on Friday, I also received a bunch of green onions from her garden! (Thank YOU, Patty) Due to this bounty, I'm planning on making two quiches with baby Portobello mushrooms, gouda and green onions on Sunday (one for Patty and one for me). I also have some more biscuits to make since it's time to use the plain yogurt in my fridge. I'll freeze those bad boys and then have them on the ready when guests or carb-cravings strike.

This afternoon I planted chives, sweet basil and cilantro in containers. In my little clay-based (ugh!) flower garden, I planted larkspur, pinwheel zinnias, wildflowers, and California poppies.

I have a feeling I didn't plant the flowers far enough apart, so I may need to thin them out when seedlings begin to show. My mint is already flourishing (I planted it last year) and Dave can't wait to make homemade mint-dark chocolate chunk ice cream. I love steeping iced tea with fresh mint while Dave loves making mojitos. I'm sure I'll plant something next weekend too... If only I had better soil and a place to put a compost bin!

Photo Credit: I created the "Polaroid effect" of California poppies with Picnik.