Waiting for Peach Cake

You know me, I appreciate a good recipe when I see one. If I find something new and intriguing, it will have to meet several criteria to make it into my favorites box where I will work it into my repertoire:

• manageable, reasonable instructions
• easily obtained ingredients
• crowd favorite
• doesn't create a disaster in my kitchen

I have also found that some foods feel right in summer, while others feel right in cold weather. I never want to eat salad in the winter. Soup in August is out of the question. 

Summer = watermelon, ribs, salads, peaches, blueberries, tomatoes, anything grilled

Winter = soup, stew, warm bread, roasts, casseroles (We visited Krakow, Poland a few times and were once served bread with a crock full of lard as an appetizer. I guess they understand the concept of fattening oneself up before a bitterly cold winter.)

I've always wanted to be great at ribs. Pork ribs. The rack you find in the meat department that is just begging for an audience of hungry men. I knew there was some mystery about slow cooking, but I was unsure of myself, and unwilling to make the investment. But then one day, I had an email pop up from Smitten Kitchen (one of my favorites) with the perfect directions. I tried it, and they were amazing. The hungry men in my life were full and happy and there were even leftovers. I discovered the secret to a great brisket when I lived in TX as a newlywed, and the plentiful meat from a slab of beef like that is also a big crowd-pleaser. Summer meats. Summer yummy. Ribs will definitely find their way into my recipe box!

Another summer treat is peaches. It almost seems sinful to do anything with a perfectly ripe peach other than just eat it in its natural form. But I have super-fond memories of being in the kitchen with my Grandma on a hot summer afternoon, peeling peaches for her Peach Cake. It wasn't really a cake; more of a flatbread with peaches on top. But we called it cake and we only got this treat once in a great while, and definitely only in summer. Now that I'm a grownup with broader culinary experience, I know that what she made is probably more like a danish that can be obtained from a bakery, but I want to remember it fondly like it is in my memory - a sweet summer treat that we rarely got to enjoy. 

Millie's Peach Cake

Peel 4 lbs. of ripe peaches and dice into a bowl. Sprinkle 1/3 c. sugar on top and let sit for an hour. 

Meanwhile, prepare a sweet bread dough (I always use this recipe from my old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook) and let it rise through the first rising. After it rises for one hour, divide in half and press each half onto a large, greased jelly-roll pan or large cookie sheet. It should be quite thin. Poke with a fork all over. Drain peaches and reserve the juice. Spread peaches over dough. 

Make a syrup with the peach juice. Add 1 T cornstarch, 1 t. cinnamon and 1/2 c. sugar to 1 c. water and combine with peach juice in a sauce pan. Cook down on medium heat, whisking constantly to form a thickened syrup. Pour over peaches. Sprinkle edges of dough with cinnamon sugar. 

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Serve warm. 

Here's a little commentary on delayed gratification, like waiting for those rare moments in summer when my grandmother made a Peach Cake. For those of you over about 35, remember waiting for those favorite Disney movies to come on TV only once per year? Remember when we waited for Christmas time to watch The Sound of Music? Or until Halloween when It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown came on? I can remember seeing the announcement for Swiss Family Robinson, marking it on the calendar and making it a family event to watch it when it came on TV. Such a treat. I feel nostalgic and sad when I think about that, because my grandchildren will never know what it is like to wait weeks or months in anticipation of a favorite movie. It seems everything is 'on-demand' and we don't usually have to wait for anything. Maybe part of being an excellent homemaker is to create such anticipation for special things. Save turkey for Thanksgiving and the gingerbread house for Christmas. Only serve a really good smoked ham with scalloped potatoes for Easter dinner (and for Pete's sake - have an Easter dinner!). Save cake for birthdays. Make pancakes only on Saturday mornings and pizza on Friday nights. 

We recently hosted an outdoor movie for our neighbors and we watched...yep, Swiss Family Robinson, one of my childhood favorites. Here are some pictures from that night! So much fun!

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

  

Well, maybe not easy. My husband and his team have been slaving it out in the hot, hot Carolina sun and humidity for the past couple of weeks, and he is bronzed like a grilled turkey leg. But for me, I’m sweat-averse, so I exercise early in the morning, or ride a bicycle so there is an inherent breeze. I’ve been spending most of my time indoors, trying to re-order my life.

Since January, there has been much up-ending of my routine (as I wrote about here), although they are all happy changes. I love having our baby granddaughter and her delightful parents nearby. It has been AMAZING to have my husband home again full time. Our youngest job-hunting daughter is always a source of great conversation and joy. My sons are thriving and I'm even expecting another grand-baby in the winter from one of them. But these changes have been a tidal shift in the life I had become accustomed to for 5 years or so, even though I didn't like it. I feel a little like a military wife who has to adjust to her husband's return from deployment...my schedule is not as loose as it once was. I feel compelled to be at my husband's beck and call during the day for business purposes. I can't just throw some peanut butter on an apple and call it 'dinner.' There are people around me all the time, and alone time is a luxury once again, rather than the norm. 

Kirk and I happily celebrated 30 years of marriage last month. We went to New York City for a few days and enjoyed some focused time together. We drove, so we had a lot of time to talk in the car undistracted for hours and hours. One of the things I have become quite mindful of is everything in the previous paragraphs…all the change. I brought this up, and we spend some time discussing a restructuring. He just jumped right back into the life of a general contractor, but I had to let go of all the control and involvement to make room for him to do his job. I had been the boots-on-the-ground for several years in our home construction business, and now, finally, he was back. But my role was a little ambiguous, and I frankly didn’t know what to do with myself. I was finding that I began to be cranky, sad, and aimless. Thankfully, I had baby Esther to distract me, but when they moved into their own home in June, all this intensified.

So, we made a plan. I would devote several days a week to our business, and reserve 2 days for family, friends, ministry, chores and personal stuff. I set up an office where I could shut the door as a signal to others that I was unavailable (amazing how even with young adults, Mama seems to be the hub of activity that they gravitate to with a bowl of cereal or a book…that room is just is so much more inviting with Mom in it!). I would focus on tasks that my ‘boss’ gave me on my work days, and only set up coffee dates and lunches with friends on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A regular babysitting date was established for my daughter – I wanted to do this for her, and for the others in time, because I did not have my mother close by when I was a young mom and would have given my right arm for it!

I’ve been at this for about three weeks and it seems to be working. I am way more disciplined about my daily devotions, exercise, to-do lists, work tasks. I’m even ahead on my book club reading!

It feels good and right to be doing this in the summer. I remember when I was teacher, summer was a time of rest but come late July, I was thinking, "reset, get ready, get prepped for the school year." Our book selection this month is The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and it has been perfect timing for what I am going through right now. So many great suggestions about getting a grip on life in general. 

I feel in many ways that I am entering the autumn of my life. I am getting used to be a grandmother (I mean, having the baby around is the easy part...it's the idea of being old enough to actually be a grandmother that I struggle with!), to being available to my adult kids when asked, to having long uninterrupted hours to myself, to being more intentional about my free time, to being a business owner. How did I become 54 years old so fast? I'm sure there is more personal growth to come and more change is likely. I do love autumn; I sense this is going to be a good season.