Sweet Honey in the Rock played at the Unitarian Church this afternoon. I’ve never paid much attention to them, but since it was a church fundraiser, I bought a ticket. I am so glad I did! What amazing performers they are! I really enjoyed the show.

My youngest cousin (if you want to be precise, she’s my second cousin, once removed) turned two years old on Friday and so the family gathered at 12 noon on Saturday to eat lunch together and celebrate the 700+ days she’s spent on the planet so far. This was her birthday cake, and my goodness, does Jean (the woman who performed our wedding ceremony) make a good cupcake.

Here she is as a newborn.

However, I’ve got a few moments right now and a post topic to boot! Last weekend, and for the sixth year running, I pointed my Subaru south, towards the Chesapeake Bay to attend Camp Tockwogh (also fondly referred to as “church camp,” despite the fact that there’s nothing church-y about it, other than the fact that the people who attend come from two Unitarian Universalist congregations).

This year, we didn’t have the gaggle of young adults that we’ve had in the past. The crew has scattered, taking off for points south and west. It was up to Cindy, Seth and me to represent the young adult collective and we did so with honor (though, we admittedly consumed far less alcohol than in past years. We’re getting soft in our old age).

I drove down Saturday morning and met up with Cindy at a lovely wine bar in Chestertown. We ate lunch in the sunshine and later, wandered through a collection of thrift stores, dollar stores and grocery stores, preparing for the rest of the weekend. Seth arrived a bit later and we spend the rest of the weekend laying outside, reading, sleeping, swimming, kayaking, eating and talking. Camp is truly one of my very favorite ways to spend a weekend. And here are the pictures to prove it.

I remember the day we left LA quite clearly, as we packed up our 1986 Subaru and headed north out of Southern California. My sister and I fought over the amount of space the other was taking up in the backseat, and I traced our route on a map.

The drive took two days, and so we stayed in a motel someplace in the Northern California mountains. I remember my dad carefully cleaning the backseat windows before we pulled out, saying, “we’re going to be traveling through some beautiful country today, and I want to make sure you guys can see it.”

While I haven’t lived in Portland in more than seven years, I still call it home. I feel so grateful that I had the good fortune to grow up in such a wonderful city.

So Scott and I got engaged tonight. It wasn’t a surprise for me, because I designed the ring and I’ve never been particularly good with surprises. We made it official in the courtyard at City Hall, in the glow of the Christmas lights. Despite the lack of proposal ambush, we are both still totally delighted.

I’ve never been a girl who has dreamed about what her wedding was going to be like, but I’ve always been excited about the prospect of the engagement ring (what can I say, I like jewelry). What I finally decided to go with is the ring(s) you see above. I was inspired by this ring on Etsy and really liked the idea of a set of stacking rings for the engagement/wedding situation. However, the way it’s turned out, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t just be better to use the second ring with the two diamonds as the wedding band. For the time being, I’m wearing both of them together, to see if I can’t make this dream of a two-part engagement ring a reality.

One of the cooler parts of the ring(s) is that the diamonds all belonged to my grandmother. She was something of a jewelry collector and so the smaller diamonds were once a pair of small stud earrings and the larger diamond is one half of another pair of diamond earrings that my grandfather bought her about 25 years ago. It’s nice to know that she had some part in this very significant jewelry. I know she would have loved these rings.

I also learned that despite my Jewish mother and her Japanese one, my cousin Liz and I look shockingly alike. Those McClellan genes are strong.

I’ll write more about the trip when I get back to Philly, but I just wanted to check in with the blog and say hi.

My grandparents used to entertain frequently and used that giant coffee maker at least once a month for dinner parties and family brunches. I used it at the luncheon we held in the apartment after my grandmother died, as well as at two or three dinners I hosted for church groups over the years. Of all the things I pulled out to give away this time, it’s that overly large, impractical coffee maker that I’m having the hardest time letting go. It’s been at least four years since I plugged it in, and I the majority of people I know these days aren’t big coffee drinkers.

However, it takes up valuable closet real estate and doesn’t care a proportionate amount of weight so out it goes. If anyone is in need of a sturdy, giganza coffee maker, let me know.

When my dad cooked, it was an occasion. He chipped in during holidays and could often be cajoled into making weekend breakfasts. Making pancakes and waffles were his particular specialty and Raina and I would beg for them every Saturday morning. He always made the mix from scratch, using a formula he had created (based on the pancake recipe in the turquoise-covered, 1971 edition of the Joy of Cooking). He was motivated to create his own mix after he spent a stint working as a short order cook at IHOP the 1970′s and, after churning out stack after mediocre stack of unsubstantial pancakes, decided he could make something far, far better. By the time I was born, he had discovered the wonders of Honey Toasted Wheat Germ and the pancake mix was on its way.

The first few cooking skills I acquired as a child came from standing at my dad’s elbow as he mixed up pancake or waffle batter. He taught me the proper way to whisk eggs and how to gently fold the dry ingredients into the egg/milk/oil mixture. I would stand next to him at the stove and watch as he greased the griddle with a carefully folded square of paper towel. He would point to the bubbles forming on the surface of the pancakes, and told me that they were ready to flip when the bubbles popped and didn’t close back up. Most importantly, when it came to flipping pancakes, you had to approach it with confidence. Worry or uncertainty would land a pancake on the edge of the griddle or on top of another cake. To this day, I hear his calm voice in my head when I turn my pancakes.

These days, I make pancakes or waffles in his style at least once a month. I nearly always have a batch of mix blended up and stashed in the back of the fridge (wheat germ gets rancid quickly and cool storage slows it down). I’ve made a few changes to the mix, adding some toasted millet and using all whole wheat flour. These days, I like to eat my pancakes with jam and plain yogurt, although I do also have a fondness dark maple syrup. Here’s how I make the mix these days…

Marisa’s version of Mo’s Famous Pancakes

2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups honey toasted wheat germ (regular toasted wheat germ can be substituted if you can’t find the honey stuff)
1 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup cane sugar
2 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons baking powder

Mix it all together and store in an airtight jar or container. To use, whisk together three eggs, 1 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons oil or melted butter. Fold in two cups of mix*. If it seems to thick, add a bit more milk. Heat a griddle to medium heat (you don’t want it to be too hot, or the pancakes will be burnt on the outside and uncooked on the inside) and oil it lightly. Cook pancakes until they bubbles pop and stay open and then flip. Cook just another minute or two on the other side. Serve with maple syrup (real only, please), jam and yogurt or honey.

*It’s at this point that I add about 1/3 a cup of toasted millet. Toasting it is easy, just spread it on a small baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees. Let it cool a little and then fold it into the batter. It adds a wonderful, nutty crunch.

So the middle of summer might not be the best time of the year to cook up a big old pot of chili, but I gotta tell you, this stuff is darn tasty no matter what month you find yourself in. I make some variation on this dish at least once a month, if not more, because it’s easy, improves over time and cooking in quantity means that I get a couple of nights off from the kitchen. Check out the recipes here!

I was running late and so hopped into a cab at 19th and Walnut to get a lift to the bus stop. As soon as I was settled in the back seat, the driver started grumbling about how Philadelphia is a terrible city. He bemoaned the fact that there aren’t as many people around because it’s summer and then said, “But the worst of it was what happened to me on May 10th. You don’t want to know.”

It was the kind of statement where the meaning feels to be the exact opposite of the words. He wanted me to know what happened to him and he wanted me to ask him about it. So I did.

“Some animal of a person, sitting right back there where you’re sitting, he robbed me. He had a kitchen knife and told me he was going to kill me. I tried to fight back and he bit a chunk of my earlobe off.”

The words look fairly flat on the screen here, but there was such passion and anger rising off of him that I was concerned that he was going to lose control of the cab on the short ride. He continued to rant about the incident, pointing at his ear lobe and announcing that he no longer believed in forgiveness. “I hope that animal rots in hell.”

I tried to listen with compassion, while not agreeing or disagreeing with the statements about punishment and condemnation he was making. I told him that I was really sorry that he had had to have that experience and that I could understand that he’d be angry after having such a painful and frightening experience.

It was a little jarring to observe such venhemous rage that early in the day, and it left me feeling a little shaken and grateful when I exited the cab.