If you have heard of the town of Walla Walla, it is probably for one of these reasons:

1)  You read Tom Robbins’ Still Life with a Woodpecker in which he mentions that the Native Americans named the city and “walla” means water.  He goes on to say, and I am paraphrasing here, that if that tribe had continued on to much wetter Seattle, we might have been called Walla Walla Walla Walla.

2)  You grew up in Washington State.

3)  You or someone you know went to Whitman College.

4)  You are a wine drinker.

As a matter of fact, all four of these points apply to me.  In all the years I have lived in Washington (lots) and all the years I have loved to drink wine (lots), I had never visited Walla Walla.  It is in the southeastern corner of the state – about a four hour drive from Seattle and not really on the way to anywhere.  But it is the wine capital of our state and in the past ten years, it has grown from a sleepy farm community with a small wine community and a terrific liberal arts college, to a true destination.

Back in February, the Walla Walla Wine Alliance sent me an invitation to take part in a promotion that they were doing called February Foodies.  I could go to Walla Walla, stay in a nice hotel, go wine tasting, and choose from any number of wonderful restaurants to have my meals.  Sadly, I couldn’t go because Randy was teaching skiing on Saturdays and I didn’t want to go by myself.  They graciously offered to have me come at a time that did work and just a few weekends ago, my little family packed up the car, and set out on an adventure.

So many of our friends make annual trips to the region and we knew we were in for a treat.  My parents now drive out of their way when they go to Sun Valley so they can stay at the lovely Marcus Whitman hotel and eat well in one of the many great restaurants in town.  Now we understand why and we can’t wait to go back.

We loaded up our kids, along with plenty of snacks, some books on CD, and various video distractions and headed out on a Friday morning.  We have traveled plenty with our children but have not taken a long road trip.  We weren’t sure how they would do but they were terrific.  We listened to music, to stories, sang songs, and carried on a continuing negotiation about the snacks.  (My children seem to be capable of eating a tremendous amount when we travel.)  I won’t say the 4+ hours flew by but they went much more quickly and pleasantly than we anticipated.

We had a whole itinerary planned for us with stops at three wineries, a goat cheese farm, and two dinners, but we couldn’t resist a stop at an additional winery.  Randy and I have long loved the wines coming out of L’Ecole No. 41 – one of the original Walla Walla wineries.  The tasting room is housed in an old schoolhouse and a charming child’s drawing of the building used to be on the label of all their bottles.  Now that they are distributing to all 50 states, they have changed to a more, um, sophisticated label but Randy and I both miss the old one.  The wine continues to be lovely and fairly priced.

We literally started laughing out loud when we saw that the tasting, in which you got to try 6 different wines, was $5.  It looks like we are never going back to Napa.  They also had a little chalkboard to occupy the boys.  (Spencer has a perpetual plumber’s crack going.)

After that pit stop, we drove right into the center of town to our hotel, a beauty of an old building called the Marcus Whitman.  The lobby has high soaring ceilings and it is decorated beautifully.  It is a little on the dark side, so I wasn’t able to get a good photo of it, but I love that old style glamor.  We had a great room, a suite with both a king and queen bed in separate rooms, so the boys were able to sleep and so were we.  That first night we were treated to an incredible meal at the restaurant in the hotel called the Marc.

(Warm cookies available in the lobby along with juice and coffee.)

In all the eating out I have done in my life (a lot), I had never done a chef’s table before.  I really had no idea what to expect.  How many people would be there?  Would the food be served family style?  What does chef’s table mean exactly?  In our case, we had a table smack dab in the middle of the kitchen, just the two of us, and two completely separate five course tasting menus.  The chef made my all vegetarian and he treated Randy to scallops, pork, and beef – all things he loves.  Between the amuse bouche and the angel food cake dessert and including all the food in between, we were both blown away by the quality of the food and the experience.  The sommelier paired wines with each course and took the time to really tell us about each wine and why he paired it.  We left vowing to bring friends back for another round of amazing food and wine perhaps in the fall.

The next day was a full one.  After a delicious breakfast at the hotel (which is included in the cost – as is parking), we headed over to the beautiful Whitman College campus to take a look around.

(Waterbrook Winery.  They have a lovely deck where they served us a great taco lunch.)

There was a big bike race going on, so we got to watch them zoom by on our way.  We went to two beautiful wineries, Waterbrook and Dunham, and also went to visit a farm where they make goat cheese and got to taste all the goodies in all three places.

(Monteillet Fromagerie.  We got to taste six different cheeses and they were all delicious.)

The landscape in Walla Walla is absolutely stunning in a way that is so different from Seattle.  The Cascade mountains separate western Washington from eastern Washington and they effectively split the state into two different climates and landscapes.  West is wet, green, very hilly, and mild.  East is dry, brown, flat, and more extreme in temperature.  Walla Walla in the spring is incredibly beautiful.  Impossibly green crops against impossibly blue sky and beautiful weather.  We all really enjoyed driving along their country roads.

But for being smack dab in the middle of nowhere, Walla Walla is an impressively cosmopolitan town.  Part of that has to do with the college being there and part of it has to do with the approximately 140 wineries in the region.  Some of the best wine in the country is being made there and where there is good wine, there is good food and culture.  We had another really nice dinner the second night at T Maccarone’s.  The “T” is for Tom and he is the owner and head chef of the restaurant.  He also waited on us that night and made us feel very welcome in his bustling restaurant.  (It was prom night – that made for some great people watching.)

The next day, we hit two more wineries, Va Piano and Pepperbridge, before grabbing a quick lunch and getting back on the road to Seattle.  As we left, the boys said, “Bye bye Walla Walla!  We will miss you!”  It really was a great little trip and the boys are still talking about Walla Walla and how much they liked it.  I wondered why, what it was specifically that they liked so much.  According to them, ages 7 and 5, they liked Walla Walla because of the hotel and they liked the hotel because of the beds and the “delicious breakfast”.  Clearly, they are my children.

(Full disclosure:  The Walla Walla Wine Alliance paid for our hotel, dinners, and wine tasting at Waterbrook, Dunham, and Va Piano.  Also the goat cheese tasting.  All the opinions and enthusiasm are my own.)

About a year and a half ago, Randy started a new job.  He had spent 6½ years at Microsoft – a company known for their innovation, excellent benefits, fair pay, exciting opportunities, and grueling schedules.  Randy had a great career there but the work/life balance was out of whack.  When he had the opportunity to join a start-up, working with two close friends, he jumped.  (I wrote more about the job and the decision to take it here.)

Almost immediately, our lives changed for the better.  In the Microsoft days, Randy would leave before 6am and return home around 7:30pm.  He did this to avoid sitting in traffic which is epic on the 520 bridge – the span that connects Seattle to Redmond where the Microsoft headquarters are.  He was pretty good about not working on the weekends or in the evenings, but the job was ever-present.  Like the big elephant in the room that everyone tries to ignore.  He traveled nearly constantly toward the end of his time there.  When he was home, he was exhausted from time zone changes and the stress.  It was not a life that was sustainable for our family.  Fortunately he understood that and together we decided it was time to make a change.

The start-up was 2.1 miles from our house.  It had a more relaxed atmosphere – more work/life balance.  Randy is a self-described “type triple A” personality, so it’s not like he slacked off, but I truly felt like he put family first.  He was home around 6 every night and was able to help with drop-offs and pick-ups which allowed me to create my career and take the job as culinary director at Book Larder.

There were several scenarios for how the job at the start-up would play out and we talked about them from time to time.  Maybe the company would get bought.  Maybe he would get recruited for another job at another company.  Maybe the three friends would get hired as a power team to build something new.  I’m not sure that either of us thought that the company would just implode.  But sadly, that is what happened.

Fortunately, we had some warning.  A couple of months ago, we found out that, unless someone bought the company, the leadership team would be laid off at the end of May.  Randy was incredibly busy looking for a job, networking, taking recruiting calls, while simultaneously helping get the company get acquired and also just doing his day job.  And then, the last ditch effort didn’t work.  His last day was Tuesday.  The company is still there and there are a few people still working on business but Randy is officially unemployed.  We both feel sad about this for many reasons.  He poured a lot into that company both in sweat equity and money.  There are friends who no longer have jobs.  He is a little unmoored being without a job for the first time since he was 18 years old.  Our life and our future is very uncertain right now.

We are extremely lucky in that we have just about 100% certainty that he will get a great job.  He has been interviewing like crazy and has about 10 opportunities that are possible at the moment.  We have enough money stashed away that we don’t have to worry about this little interim period until the next job starts.  He is trying to enjoy having a bit of time and being able to focus on just talking to people and finding the right job.

Almost everyday for the past few weeks I have gotten calls from him about opportunities.  “Would you move to Boise?”  “Would you move to San Francisco?”  “LA?”  “Denver?”  “New Jersey?”  “Luxembourg?”  “South Korea?”  My answers to those questions are complicated.  I don’t want to move.  I want to stay in Seattle.  I want to continue to teach my classes at home and work cool events at Book Larder and stay near my incredible network of friends and my family.  After working so hard to find the right school for Graham, I don’t want to have to start that whole process again.  At the same time, I appreciate that the right job might not be in Seattle.  Randy is a fairly senior guy and those jobs are not a dime a dozen.  He is an amazing man – so smart, so successful, so hardworking.  He should be running a company – if not now then soon.  I can’t hold him back from the next step just because I don’t want to move.  He is respectful of my feelings and is trying hard to keep us here.  But neither of us knows what is next.

(Pardon the intense color on this photo.)

I went on a great blogging trip this week to Monetery with Dole to learn more about their salad greens.  I thought I was leaving on Tuesday but when when I went to print out my boarding pass on Monday night, I realized that the trip was actually Wednesday – Friday.  I was relieved.  I would be able to be home on Tuesday night and have dinner with Randy after his last day of work.  An emotional day for us both.  In order to keep the mood light, I asked him what he wanted me to make for dinner.  Of course he said Mexican.

I taught a class at Book Larder last month using some recipes from some of Rick Bayless’ books.  I love his recipes and decided to do a riff on one for Randy’s Last Day of Work Dinner.  I wasn’t sure what he would think – Randy is kind of a burrito/enchilada/quesadilla guy.  I wasn’t sure this “other” type of dish would fly.  I hate to say it was like a Mexican lasagne because that does a disservice to both Mexican food and lasagne.  But you make a sauce (a salsa really), you layer tortillas with yummy things like sautéed mushrooms and chard and beans cheese, and you bake it.  We loved it.  Like really loved it.  I’m glad that, along with a bottle of special wine and a big salad, we were able to toast the end of this chapter, and begin thinking about the next.

One Year Ago:  Roasted Sesame and Panko Coated Asparagus with Soy-Ginger Drizzle
Two Years Ago:  Chocolate Truffles, Gianduja Gelato
Three Years Ago:  Rhubarb Streusel Tart, Bean Tostadas with Sofrito, Niçoise Salad

Layered Pasilla-Tortilla Casserole with Black Beans, Mushrooms, and Chard
Adapted from Mexican Kitchen
Serves 4-6

I made a lot of changes to this recipe, added in some things, swapped out others, changed the size of the baking dish, but this is still a Rick Bayless recipe.  I used canned beans here because I was short on time but ideally, dried would be best.  This recipe has a lot of components but they come together quickly.  You can always make the sauce the day before.  I would imagine, like lasagne, the whole thing can be assembled earlier in the day and just kept in the refrigerator until you want to bake it.  Add another 5-10 minutes to the baking time if you do so.

For Pasilla Sauce:
½ head of garlic, broken apart but not peeled
6 medium (about 2 ounces) dried pasilla chiles, stemmed and seeded
1 tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. ground cumin
Olive oil
1 cup vegetable broth
Kosher or sea salt

For the mushroom layer:
2 medium portabello mushrooms, black gills scraped out, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ bunch of chard, leaves stripped off the stalks, roughly chopped

For the casserole:
1 small white onion, diced
2 cups cooked black beans (I used 1 15-ounce can, drained)
8 corn tortillas
½ cup sour cream or crème fraîche thinned with a little cream or milk
6 ounces cotija cheese

Make the sauce:
Roast the unpeeled garlic on an ungreased griddle or heavy skillet over medium heat, turning occasionally, until soft (they will blacken in spots), about 15 minutes; cool and peel.  While the garlic is roasting, toast the chiles on another side of the griddle or skillet.  Do 1 or 2 at a time:  open them first and press down firmly on the hot surface with a spatula; in a few seconds, when they crackle, even send up a wisp of smoke, flip them and press down to toast the other side.  In a small bowl, cover the chiles with hot water and let rehydrate 30 minutes, stirring frequently to ensure even soaking.  In a food processor or blender, combine the chiles, garlic, oregano, cumin, and about 1/3 cup of the soaking liquid.  Blend to a smooth purée, scraping down and stirring frequently.  (If necessary, add a little more broth to get the blades moving.)

With a rubber spatula, working the pasilla paste through a medium-mesh strainer into a bowl.  Heat about a tablespoon of oil in a medium saucepan, then add the paste and a pinch of salt.  Cook, stirring constantly, until dark and very thick, about 4 minutes.  Stir in the broth and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.  Taste and season with salt.  Keep warm over very low heat.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Make the  beans:
Heat about a tablespoon of oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add the onion and a large pinch of salt.  Cook until brown in spots, about 10 minutes, then add the beans.  Using a potato masher or the back of a large spoon, mash to a coarse purée.  Add water or bean broth to thin the beans, if necessary, to an easily spreadable, but not runny, consistency.  Taste and season with salt.  Cover and keep warm.

Make the mushroom filling:
Heat another tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the mushrooms and a large pinch of salt and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms start to give off their liquid.  Add the garlic and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated.  Add the chard leaves and sauté until the chard is nice and soft and the pan is mostly dry, about 10 minutes.  Taste for salt and season as needed.

Assemble the casserole:
Spread about 1/3 of the sauce in the bottom of an 8×12-inch baking dish.  Put down a layer of tortillas, just barely overlapping.  Top with the beans, another layer of tortilla halves, another 1/3 of the sauce, half the cream, and half the cheese.  Top with the mushroom mixture.  Add a final layer with the remaining tortilla halves, remaining sauce, cream, and cheese.  Bake, uncovered, until bubbly, about 20 minutes.  Let stand for a few minutes to firm up, then cut into squares.

Do you ever realize that you have been carrying around an opinion about something without ever realizing you even have one?  Maybe, for instance, hearing that an acquaintance was going on a safari and wondering, without ever really formulating the thought, “Why would someone go all that way, spend all that money, go somewhere that hot, just to see some animals?”  Traveling to sub-saharan Africa, going on safari, was never on my bucket list.  If not for my husband, I would probably have gotten old(er) and gray(er) without ever visiting that continent.  As it happens, I found myself on a nine hour plane flight, and then holing up for a five hour layover, and then on another twelve hour flight which leaves a lot of, um, time to think about these things – I realized that that was my opinion about going on safari.  Why go?

This is why.  This and more.  There is something about going so far away, just about as far as you can possibly go, that changes you.  I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I didn’t even really miss my children.  Them and our life in Seattle seemed so impossibly far away that I almost felt like, when thinking about them, I was viewing my twin sister’s life.  (I don’t have a twin sister.)  Getting away from everything, living a life so different from the everyday, in a landscape and surroundings that are almost impossibly different from the familiar, is an experience whose value I would never have known.

And the animals.  Each time we came upon them, no matter who they were, I gasped.  And got goose bumps.  It’s not like going to the zoo.  There is nothing like coming around a corner and watch out! there is a rhino.  And her baby.  In all their prehistoric glory.

(I got these amazing shots of the hippos on our first full day.  Every other time we saw them, they were hidden in the water – eyes and tops of snouts visible only.  I feel lucky that we saw them in their full glory.  Our guide quizzed us on our first day – what is the animal that kills the most humans in Africa?  You might think lions or leopards but technically it is the mosquito (malaria).  Second place goes to the hippo.  They are violent vegetarians.  They might kill you but they won’t eat you.  Later in the trip, we went on a boat ride and got to hold a hippo tooth – it was incredibly heavy.)

Our situation was kind of unique.  Because we bought this trip at an auction, we did virtually no planning.  Our package included six nights at a private game park with all meals and two game drives per day included.  Because it was all set, we didn’t look into other options – we didn’t investigate what else is out there in the world of African safari.  In a way, that was liberating.  We just showed up and had the experience rather than trying to choose the best possible option for our time and money.  We both had very modest expectations of what our experience would be but we did assume certain things.  I thought we would be in a small global village.  That we would be a couple of maybe a handful of Americans surrounded by people from all over the world.  In fact, except for one French couple who bore the distinction of not talking to anyone and eating truly incredible quantities of (very bad) food, everyone at our park was American.  Not only American, but Americans who had bought the trip at an auction, just like us.  (And, we were dismayed to overhear, many had paid a good deal less than we did.)

Our little Zulu Nyala, a 3,000 acre game park about 3 hours north of Durban, had found its marketing niche in American non-profit auctions.  (The park is named after the nyala – pictured above – which roam all over the park.  They are related to impala and are one of the food sources for the big cats.  They are beautiful and graceful.)

So, no global village.  Fine.  The upside was that everyone spoke English and that there were several small world scenarios.  The downside was that, since the park catered to Americans, the food was terrible.  After eating divine food in Capetown, I subsisted on bad starch for the six days we were there.   Our very first night, when I passed by the meat carving station at the dinner buffet, the carver asked me if I wanted anything.  I told him I didn’t eat meat.  He told me they were expecting me and were making something special.  A few minutes later, out came a hubcap sized bowl of pasta, covered in several pounds of cheese and dotted with – wait for it – rounds of sausage.

And that is basically the only negative things I have to say.  Upon arrival, we were assigned to a guide – one who we stayed with our whole trip.  Rohan (pronounced Ro-wan) was a 21-year old South African with a slow delivery which belied his intelligence, his incredible depth of knowledge about the wildlife we saw, and his wicked sense of humor.  Fluent in four languages (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, and Swahili), Randy asked him, “What is your favorite language?”  He took a good twenty-second beat, enough time that I thought he had not heard over the roar of the diesel engine, then he finally answered, “Body language.”  Awesome.  (The photo above is Rohan with the remains of an impala after a cheetah kill.)

We asked a million questions, he gave a million answers.  He took out his camera and was shooting alongside us when we we witnessed the incredibly lovely and moving spectacle of the largest land mammals swimming – with grace and incredible good humor – at the watering hole.  His excitement mirrored ours.  (I had tears in my eyes when I took that last shot.  I had just read a book about elephants and how social and intelligent they are.  This is the baby elephant – actually a nine year old – reaching out to her mommy.)

And exciting it was.  Our first day, we couldn’t get enough of the impalas and zebras.  By day six, we asked him to just drive right by those creatures, now as ubiquitous as deer in North America.  I learned so much about animals that I didn’t realize I cared about at all.  I only felt afraid three times.  One, and this might surprise you, was because of this guy.

This is a buffalo.  They are considered one of the “Big 5″, meaning they are one of the hardest big game animals to kill.  Game hunters used to come to Africa hoping to kill the Big 5, now tourists just hope to see them.  (The others are leopard, lion, black rhino, and elephant.)  The buffalo is mean, huge, and really one has one small spot that a bullet will penetrate – just between his eyes.  We came upon a large group of them and they ignored us, like most of the animals in the park.  They see the truck as just a herd of something so they do not run and they do not charge.  We had been warned not to stand up in the truck, not to get out, and to keep our voices down.  Just to show why, Rohan got out of the truck, walked to the side of it, and pawed the ground with his foot.  All 20 or so buffalo stopped eating and looked right at us.  I stopped breathing.  They sniffed and went back to eating.  He pawed the ground again, they all stopped again and a few of them started walking closer to us.  Suddenly, I got very fearful.  I mean, the guide knows what he is doing, right?  But these are wild animals after all and just one of them could have turned over our truck without much effort.  This cutie pie scared me a little too.

Just a kitty cat, right?  A cheetah kitty cat.  Did you know they can run 60 miles an hour?  There were a pair of brothers in the road and three trucks were stopped near them.  Everyone was snapping photos and gabbing away and all the guides, tired of sitting, were outside the trucks.  Again, I had to wonder – do these guys know what they are doing for real?  Are we safe here?

Do I look nervous?  By the way, my hair was incredibly curly in Africa.

Being in a landscape so different from what I expected (green rolling hills lots of vegetation and trees – not flay dry savanna) did not make it any less awe inspiring.  The beauty was incredible.  Seeing the sun everyday and feeling the heat of that sun, after coming off winter in Seattle, was very life-affirming.  We are so busy at home, both Randy and me, balancing work and kids and family and friends and each other.  It felt very luxurious to have hours upon hours to just sit and read.  Our typical day started early with a 5:30am wake-up call for the 6am game drive.  After bouncing over the rocky roads for a couple of hours, we would head back to the lodge for breakfast.  After that, I would sit on our little terrace and begin the day’s marathon reading session.  Lunch was around noon, and then more reading and several dips in the pool.  At some point in the afternoon, we would set up in the lobby, the only place where we had internet access, and check in briefly back home.  The afternoon game drive set off around 4pm and we were back for dinner by 7pm.

(This is a warthog.  We were in the truck when I took this shot.  Later in the week, I was walking to the lobby area when I came face to face with one.  We were about six feet from one another.  We both froze.  We looked at each other in the eyes for a moment and then I moved to keep walking.  He lowered his head, gave me a low growl, and then turned around and took off.)

After a few days of this routine, we both started to feel a little antsy.  Yes, it is lovely to relax but we had flown so far and our little park, filled as it was with amazing animals, was starting to feel a little small.  Fortunately, Zulu Nyala counts on you feeling that way and has some wonderful optional diversions.  More on those next time.

Before I tell you my yoga story, I should say up front that yoga has mostly been a physical practice for me.  I am not a good meditator and it is hard for me to stay out of my head when practicing.  Pranayama (doing different breathing exercises) gives me a migraine so I tend to just focus on moving my body with my breath.  I do almost always dedicate my practice to someone, usually my son Graham, and I also send positive yoga vibes to people who need extra energy.  But I would still say that my yoga practice is mostly physical.

I went to my first yoga class in 1998.  I was working a job in radio advertising sales and several of the women in my office could not stop talking about a yoga class they loved.  I knew very little about yoga and decided to check it out.  I didn’t know there were lots of different kinds of yoga and if I had, I would have done a little more research.  But I went and I fell in love with yoga.

Now, I had never been into exercise at all.  I never played team sports.  I went to the gym because I had to but I didn’t enjoy it.  The only way I moved my body that I liked was when I took dance in college and when I went skiing.  But that was it.  After my first yoga class, I realized that I had been waiting for this kind of movement.  Some people’s bodies need running, others need soccer, mine needs yoga.

Unfortunately for me, that first yoga class, the one that hooked me, was a Bikram class.  Bikram, if you are not familiar with it, is a set series of 26 postures, each one done twice, in a room that is kept very hot.  Nowadays, there is “hot yoga” all over the place and only some of it is Bikram.  But in 1998, hot yoga meant Bikram.  There are people who swear by Bikram yoga.  I am not one of those people.  Yes, I fell in love with it but I also could never do it more than twice a week because the heat was really hard for me to deal with, and after a few months starting, I noticed that my lower back always hurt.  I felt like I continually needed to bend over and touch my toes to stretch it out.

After a year of doing Bikram, I knew something was just not right.  I took a month off and did some research.  Bikram is only one of many different types of yoga and, truthfully, it is not considered “true” yoga in that it does not really have any basis in Hatha yoga, an ancient lineage.  I am no expert here and I’m not trying to offend anyone, but most people who practice and/or teach yoga don’t recognize Bikram as “real” yoga.  There are a lot of things I could say here but I will just say Bikram = not for me.

I was lucky enough to spend the next part of my yoga journey at the Yoga Tree, a lovely studio in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.  (By happy coincidence, the Yoga Tree is now right next door to Book Larder.)  The Yoga Tree specializes in Iyengar yoga which is the yoga of alignment.  Poses are taught slowly with incredibly attention to detail.  Making sure that students learn to do everything from downward dog to handstand slowly and correctly insure that people get the feeling for the pose in their body and also limits injury.  The use of props is encouraged to make things that seem impossible attainable.  (Can’t reach your toes?  Put a block under your fingertips instead of just hanging out there in space and hurting your back.)  To this day, whenever I find myself in Warrior 2, I look down at my feet, making sure I have heel to arch alignment.

The Yoga Tree also offered a few other classes in different styles and one of those was Ashtanga.  I loved the Iyengar classes but after a year or so, I was ready for something a little more fast paced.  Ashtanga was perfect for me.  Like Bikram, it is a set series of postures, but this one felt like a dance to me.  Each class starts with ten sun salutations, moves through a series of standing postures, a series of seated postures, and a series of finishing postures.  You spend five breaths in each pose and each is linked to the next through breath.  It is very challenging but very graceful.  I loved it.

I was fortunate all along the way to have amazing teachers.  I looked forward to going to yoga each time I went and was so happy to see the teacher, so grateful for them.  I was working another sales job at the time and I knew my clients did not feel the same way about me.  When I got laid off, I decided I wanted to do something I loved.  I wanted to teach yoga.  I researched training programs and ultimately decided that since Ashtanga was the practice that spoke most clearly to me, I should train in that type.  I ended up in the same program where my Ashtanga teacher had trained in San Francisco.  (You can read a bit more about my time there in this post.)  It was an incredible and very intense month after which I returned to Seattle and started to look for jobs.

I taught for two years, some classes at gyms and some at yoga studios, including my beloved Yoga Tree.  I absolutely loved teaching.  To be able to share something so powerful with other people was incredible for me.  I kept taking classes myself, always wanting to strengthen my own practice and also to become a better teacher.  Those two years were wonderful ones in my life.  My engagement, marriage, and move to a new house all happened during that time.  I was strong, happy, healthy.

When we moved to London, about a year after we married, I said goodbye to my classes but I kept up my own practice.  Three days a week in our flat I would move our little coffee table out of the way, unroll my mat, and work my way through the primary series of Ashtanga.  There were a couple of studios somewhat nearby but they were incredibly expensive and I just decided to do my own thing.  Then I got pregnant and stopped doing yoga on my own.  When we moved back to Seattle, I did some pre-natal yoga (which I found to be a giant waste of time) and then I had a c-section and an endlessly hungry baby and I never thought I would see the inside of a yoga studio again.  I did start on the path to getting my practice back when Graham was about a year old, but after a few months I got pregnant again and just basically gave up.

About three years ago, I decided it was time for me to reunite with my yoga practice.  I deliberately chose a studio close to my house so that getting to and from was not an issue.  I found teachers I liked and class times that worked and tried time and time again to not remember where my practice once was.  Now that my children spend more time in school, it is easier for me to get to class.  When I had very little free time, devoting two hours to yoga was hard to do, but now it is a part of my routine.  I am in a new studio where the room is kept warm, not too hot, and the practice is very challenging.  I have a long way to go.  Before starting there, I had a lapse for a few months where I only went once a week or so.  I find that I lose so much strength and flexibility so quickly.  I am building back up and try to go four times a week.  It feels good to be back.

When we bought our Safari in South Africa package at the Boyer auction over 15 months ago (story here), I knew we would not be going for just the six nights included in the safari.  I didn’t think it made sense for us to fly 10,000 miles for a six night stay.  It takes two days to get there and two days to get back, so it almost didn’t seem worth it.  I said to Randy, just minutes after we found ourselves in possession of this trip, “We have to go to Capetown for a few days”.

Capetown.  What do you know about this city?  After he graduated from college, my brother Michael spent almost a year in Capetown so I knew, from him telling me, that it is beautiful.  Did you know that?  Capetown is breathtakingly beautiful.

In fact, it is so beautiful, so majestic, so awe-inspiring that I found it impossible to capture with my camera.  The only city that I think could come close is Vancouver, B.C. with its similar mountains-right-up-to-the-water landscape.  Vancouver has much better architecture (Capetown’s has a vaguely Soviet Bloc feel), but Capetown is right on the Atlantic Ocean and the mountains are truly awe-inspiring.

(This guy is gigantic and is made out of Coke cases.)

There are several snap-shot memories of this trip for me and the first one was on the plane.  The flight from London to Capetown is 12 hours during which I got a few hours of sleep.  I woke up and groggily turned on my screen to see how long was left in the journey.  That silly little graphic they show, the one that approximates where the plane is in its flight pattern, showed it about half way down the west coast of Africa.  Africa!  Somehow seeing our little plane against that massive continent made it finally feel real that we were going on this trip.

We landed at 6am.  Too dark to see the landscape during touchdown.  My first glimpse was from the taxi heading in to the city.  At the same time I was marveling at Table Mountain, Randy pointed out his side of the cab to the townships that line the highway.  Thousands upon thousands of tin-roofed shacks.  Tall metal posts with lights and wiring stringing every few feet.  Some painted bright colors, some sprayed with graffiti, some looking solemn and terrible.  We later learned that each shack has a number on it which represents where that particular family is on the waiting list for a home.  After the end of apartheid, the government committed to providing electricity, running water, and toilet facilities to the townships, and to ensuring everyone eventually has a home.  So far, they have built over 3 million homes but they have a long way to go.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we stayed at the Westin.  This was our view.  The hotel runs a shuttle every half an hour that takes you to the waterfront, an area that used to be strictly industrial but is now a major part of Capetown life.  There are tons of restaurants, shops, a ferris wheel, and lots of opportunities for day trips.

We decided to go to Robben Island that day.  This is a small island a few miles out from the city where various people have been imprisoned ever since Capetown was settled in the 17th century.  Its most famous prisoner was Nelson Mandela who spent over 20 years on that rock.  The tour takes you to the island in a small boat.  The barf bags everywhere and stains on the seats and carpets clue you in to the fact that the sea can often be rough, but fortunately our ride out there was fairly calm.  The boat leaves you on Robben Island for several hours.  We loaded on to a bus where a colorful guide took us around the island for the various sites, including several houses of worship and a cannon that they began construction on during World War Two, but did not finish in time to actually help the war effort.  Once we got to the actual prison, a former inmate gave us a tour and also a sense for what it was like to live there.  He was imprisoned for taking part in a demonstration and spent over ten years sleeping on the floor, crammed into a room with 100 other men.

Our ride back was a little rougher – think roller coaster in a dense wall of fog.  As I desperately tried to hang on, Randy’s head lolled from side to side as he napped.  Having been in the Navy, rough seas don’t impact him at all.

One of the delights of Capetown was the food.  We had gotten some restaurant advice from a few different people, including a reader of mine who lives there.  The two truly memorable meals we ate where on her recommendation.  But all in all, I had fabulous salads and wonderful fresh pastas, nothing boring or second rate about any of it.  We were shocked by the prices – shocked in a good way.  All the goods we encountered in South Africa seemed to be on par with what we pay here, but food and drink were seriously cheap.  Our meals out were about half of what we would pay in Seattle.

Randy and I debated about whether or not to rent a car.  His inclination was yes and mine was no.  In my experience, driving a car in an unfamiliar place, especially one where they drive on the other side of the road, brings unnecessary stress into our relationship.  But we knew there were sites to see in and outside of Capetown, so we booked three tours.  The first was in Capetown proper.  It was helpful to get a sense of the city but truly the only part we really enjoyed was the ride up Table Mountain.

There is often a series of clouds brewing behind the mountain.  At over 3,000 feet, Table Mountain usually stops them from actually coming into Capetown proper, but they often drape over the top.  They call it the tablecloth when that happens.  Unfortunately, the tablecloth was in place for most of our time up there but the views were still spectacular.

The next day, we boarded another van to take us to the Cape of Good Hope.  This is the very tip of Africa, where the weather and the seas have shipwrecked thousands of ships.  It is not, contrary to what many people think, where the Atlantic and Indian Ocean converge.  That meeting point is a little farther down the road.  We started our journey heading out of Capetown towards Camps Bay, a kind of suburb of Capetown with a beachy feel, great restaurants, and billion dollar views.

Just after these shots were taken, I started to feel unwell.  At first I thought perhaps the decaf I ordered had possibly been caf, then I thought I was just a touch carsick.  While I was willing it to be just that, I realized I needed to get back to the hotel.  We were far enough away at that point that we couldn’t turn around and ruin the trip for the rest of the people.  We stopped in Hout Bay for a half hour look around and we asked the driver if he could possibly help us find a ride back for me.  We were counting our money, realizing we didn’t have enough for a cab, when the driver said the tour company was sending another car for me.  The tour needed to leave to stick to its schedule and Randy asked if I wanted him to stay with me.  The Cape of Good Hope is a very important symbol to anyone who has every spent any time on the ocean and to anyone who knows naval history – Randy is both of those people.  I couldn’t take that from him, so I told him to go ahead.  The driver said to me, “A man named Sharrif will come for you.  He has a description of what you are wearing.  He will bring you to a white unmarked Toyota and take you back to the hotel”.  And they were off.  As I stood waiting in the coffeeshop, surrounded by smell of dead and decaying fish, pacing, trying to keep the nausea at bay, hoping I wasn’t going to have to throw up in the overly air-freshened bathroom, I realized I was living one of my worst nightmares.  Sick, alone, about as far from home as I could be, waiting for a man named Shariff to come get me in an unmarked car.

It sounds like the plot of a short story, or a bad film, but it ends well.  Shariff did come.  The road back to the hotel was windy and bumpy and I was silently begging myself not to throw up the whole way.  Once back at the hotel, I took some nausea medicine and, as is my way when I am stomach sick, laid down and did not move for 24 hours.  Randy took the rest of these photos.

Invisible Dana.

The next day I was exhausted and shaky but came around fairly quickly.  I actually don’t remember much of what we did that day.  I slept for a lot of it.

The following day, we went on our wine country tour.  South Africa produces the 7th most wine in the world and we went to three different wineries to taste some of their best.  If we came from a state other than Washington, we probably would have been more impressed with what we tasted.  But we have excellent wine in our state and while we liked everything we tasted, nothing blew our minds.  Again, we couldn’t get over the prices.  Just having been in the Napa Valley last spring, where every winery we visited had a $50/person tasting fee, we were overjoyed to see the prices so low.  This winery did a wine and chocolate tasting that was lovely.  The chocolate all had amazing flavors infused in them (white chocolate and lemon verbena anyone?) and the whole thing was $7/person.  It was also nice to not have sales pitch at each place.  They let us taste and then sent us on our way.

We stopped for lunch and a look around in the town of Stellenbosch.  A friend who had been to Capetown gave us the advice to take some of our time and stay in Stellenbosch instead.  We opted to not do that but once we got there, we were a little sorry we hadn’t taken his advice.  It is a beautiful small town with tons of shops and restaurants – totally walkable.  our time there was too short but I’m glad we got to see it.

The following day, the second part of our journey began.  Stay tuned.

(Bye bye rain.  Oh, and while I am using parentheses, my new spring classes are up!  Check them out and I really hope to see you!  And another thing, the winner of the Bialetti pan is Jentry!  She loves her Le Creuset Dutch oven.)

Every October, Randy and I go to a most amazing auction for the Boyer Clinic.  It is a cause very near and dear to our hearts.  Graham did preschool and his very first round of speech therapy at Boyer and it was a beacon of light during a very dark and confusing time for us.

Because we had such an amazing experience there, we have continued to support them in multiple ways.  We attend the auction, we donate to the auction, we ask friends to donate to the auction, and Randy is on the board at Boyer.  An event like this auction is something we don’t often experience in Seattle.  People dressed to the nines in a lovely room bidding on amazing items.  Seattle is a city that is casual to a fault, so this auction feels extra fancy.

We have been going for many years and something that is always donated is a safari in South Africa.  In October of 2010, that trip came up in the live auction, and Randy starting raising his paddle.

Now, this was shocking to me.  We had not discussed it beforehand.  Usually we have a little pow wow before the live auction begins where we talk about things we are interested in buying.  We decide on what items and how much we are willing to spend.  It almost always happens that the bidding goes out of our reach very quickly.  But there we were.  Trip to South Africa on the line, Randy raising his paddle, and me asking him, “Are you f***ing crazy?”  Everyone at our table was egging us on, promising to watch our children for us, until whatever imaginary number Randy had in his head came and went and he put his paddle down.  That was when the auctioneer came over to us and asked the magic question, “If we can get you another trip for your top bid price, would you take it?”  And Randy, again without consulting me, nodded his head yes.  I was simultaneously horrified and exhilarated.

And so, we are going to Africa.  Today.  It has been a long time in the planning.  Soon after the auction, we bought our plane tickets and also secured multiple people to help watch the boys while we are gone.  (Yes, we thought about bringing them.  But ultimately decided that they are too young and it is too far for them to appreciate at this time.)  And then we kind of forgot about it.  I would look at the calendar periodically for some far off date and think to myself, “Wow, I am going to be in South Africa in March of 2012.”

And here it is.  We fly out tonight and have a stop in London.  We arrive in Capetown the morning of March 15th.  We spend five days there and then board another plane to take us to Durban.  From there we have a 4 hour car ride to a game park where we will spend the next six days.  Considering we are flying to the country that is as far from Seattle as you can get, and considering we are spending a small fortune for this trip, I know very little about what we are doing.

I know there will be a day trip down to the Cape of Good Hope and another day trip to the wine country near Capetown.  I know, once we get to the safari part of the trip, there will be elephants, lions, and giraffes.  And many other animals.  At least I hope there will be.  I know there will be an optional trip to Victoria Falls.  And that’s about it.  I know I have some new camera equipment and I hope to take a million bazillion good photos, and I hope my kids are all right without us.  I’m feeling a bit (a lot) guilty about leaving them here without us.

So, I have one food post waiting in the wings.  And I hope to be able to eek out another post while we are in Capetown.  I also hope to be able to upload photos to my Flickr account, but we shall see.  It might be that you don’t hear from me again until early April.  In that case, I’m sure I will have some stories to tell.

But first!  I have received requests and I have listened.  Now, at the end of each post, you have the option to email the recipe.  You can send it to yourself, your friend, your mom.  Hopefully someone who appreciates being emailed recipes.  Thanks, as always, to my amazing designer Kaytlyn who was able to figure this out and implement the change in less than 24 hours.   Also, this is the third non-food related post I’ve written in a row.  Yes, I remember this is a food blog.  So to thank you for your patience and endurance, I promise to talk about food – with emailable recipes! -  Monday through Friday of this upcoming week.  Deal?  Hope you enjoy.

5 Tips to Greatly Improve the Taste of Your Food

1)  Always make your own salad dressing.  I know store-bought is easy and it keeps forever.  It is also expensive and contains ingredients that I can’t pronounce.  Making your own, once you get in the habit of doing it, is super quick and easy and you most likely always have the ingredients on hand.  You can make it to your taste (I like mine with a lot of bite), it will keep for a week or more, it tastes much better, and is much less expensive.

2)  Whenever you can, use fresh herbs.  And a lot of them.  There is a time and place for dried herbs.  Something that is simmering for a long time on the stove (like a sauce or a stew) is a great place to use dried.  The subtlety of fresh would be lost in that case.  Same goes with roasting in the oven.  But other than that, the flavor is fresh herbs is so lovely and adds so much to your food.  Fresh rosemary and fresh oregano are strong, so you might want to use a light hand with those two, but otherwise you can be generous with your fresh herbs.

3)  Throw out your spices.  I touched on this when I wrote about my favorite gingerbread cookies.  Spices have a shelf life.  Most people agree it’s about a year.  They don’t spoil, they just lose their oomph.  As we were packing up from the year we spent in London, I found out that we were not allowed to bring any food stuffs back into the U.S.  Not even canned goods.  So I had to give away everything in my little kitchen, including my considerable spice collection.  I saved all my jars and, once back home, I restocked everything.  I was blown away by how much better my food, savory and sweet, tasted with new spices.

4)  Always use fresh citrus.  Those little plastic lemon shaped bottles of lemon juice?  Don’t buy them.  Or do and then taste that juice next to the juice of a fresh lemon.  No comparison.  Fresh lemons (and limes and oranges) keep very well in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator and they also have the added benefit of possessing zest which is super flavorful.  I don’t think a Microplane would work on a plastic bottle.

5)  Never buy bagged cheese or cheese in a tub.  I know, again, the convenience is tempting.  Grating cheese is one of the kitchen tasks I like the least.  But grated cheese has been mixed with things like flour or cornstarch so that it doesn’t stick together and who knows how long that cheese has been sitting in a bag.  Buy a hunk of cheese and grate or slice it yourself.  It is one extra step for a lot more flavor.  Do the same with feta or blue cheese and the increase in taste will be more than worth the work.

And now, 9 Thrilling Facts About Me.  I did this once before for my 300 Posts post.

1)  In my life I have owned six cars and they have all been different colors.  Red, dark gray, green, silver, blue, and black.  It looks like yellow is next, huh?

2)  My favorite color is purple.  My least favorite is yellow.  (See above.)

3)  My name and my husband’s name are both unisexual (is that a word?)  Meaning that a guy or girl can be named Dana or Randy.  In fact, before I met him, the only other Randy I ever knew was a girl in my grade school whose sister, coincidentally, was named Dana.  The only other Dana that Randy ever knew was a giant African American man.

4)  I have been practicing yoga for 14 years, taking a couple years off while I was having my kids, nursing, dealing with infants, etc.  You might think that means I can put both my feet behind my head but I am very very far from that.  I started off doing Bikram yoga for a year and it almost destroyed my back.  Fortunately, I found my way to the Yoga Tree, a wonderful studio in Seattle, where they teach Iyengar based yoga.  Iyengar is the yoga of alignment so I really learned how to do the poses correctly.  I now try and practice 3 times a week and it is truly what my body likes best.  If you are tempted to try yoga and are scared off because you are “not flexible”, know that strength is equally important to flexibility.  Being tight allows you to learn to use your body’s own strength to open up, rather than just flopping into poses.

5)  I am a big reader.  I subscribe to the New Yorker and I always have a book going.  I like modern fiction, the good stuff, and have read some really terrific things in the last year.  Lord of Misrule, A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Land of Marvels.  I’m currently reading The Marriage Plot.

6)  I sometimes suffer from crushing self-doubt when it comes to this blog and this food-related job that I have created for myself.  I start to feel some of the same insecurities that rocked me in middle and high school – not pretty enough, not smart enough, not working hard enough, not getting invited to the right parties.  Sometimes I just want to back away from it all – blog, Facebook, Twitter.  It is during those moments that I honestly ask myself why I am writing this blog – why I have been writing it for all these years.  And the truth is that it is for me.  I love that people read and share, I love that I have met some amazing people and have made some lifelong friends.  I love that I have been able to start teaching classes and that a big driver for those classes is my blog.  But ultimately, I am keeping a record of my life through food so that someday, we as a family can look back and see what our life was in these years.  I don’t say this as a cry for sympathy or a request for praise.  I just want to put it out there that, at times, I feel very inadequate in this space.

7)  My 20th college reunion is this year in June.  I’m alternating between excitement and horror.  Randy and I went for my 10th.  We were about to be married, we stayed in the same dorm where I lived my freshman year, and I had a blast.   I remember looking at the tables of 20th year people thinking that would probably be the next reunion I would attend.  Early 40′s, married and kids seemed far away.  And here I am.

8)  People ask me, at least several times a week, if my hair is naturally curly.  Yes, my hair is naturally curly.  Then they say that they always wanted naturally curly hair.  I’m confused by this.  Why do straight irons, Brazillian blow-outs, and places whose sole point of business is to blow out curly hair exist if curly hair is so desirable?  I, in keeping with the tradition that the grass is always greener, have always wanted straight hair, but at the ripe old age of 41, I have made peace with my curls.

9)  In March, Randy and I are going on a trip to the country that is about as far away from Seattle as you can get.  Guesses?  Book recommendations?

Lately I have been telling my children that I am going to start feeding them donuts for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, and cake for dinner in an effort to make them stop growing up.  Because nothing else seems to be working.

Yesterday, February 2nd, my baby turned five.  If you have a baby, five probably doesn’t sound like a baby, but he will always be my baby.  Five is a big birthday.  Five is the year children start kindergarten.  Five is officially the end of toddler-dom.  Five is a kid.  I could say a million other things but it all boils down to the fact that I can’t believe my baby is five.  Five years ago, we took Graham, then aged 26 months, to a friend’s house so we could go the hospital and have a baby.  I sobbed with guilt in the car on the way.  Spencer was a planned for and wanted baby, but I felt almost that I was betraying my beloved first born by bringing another child into our little family.  I had no idea, of course, that Spencer would complete our family and that he would become an amazing playmate for Graham.

So my (not so) little baby, who are you at five?  You are an incredibly independently minded person who can carry on a full and engaging conversation.  You still, however, need help buttoning your pants.  You have just started to write your name with the “p” backwards and the letters very large.  You are s-m-a-r-t.  So bright and interested in everything.  You ask me what a word means and I see it just sucked right up into your brain.  You have a temper and hate to be embarrassed.  You love school and ask me every day if it is your show and share day.  You still want to do everything the same way Graham does – you idolize him.  You also squabble with him.  A lot.

(This is one of my favorite photos of my Seattle baby.  You are about 14 months here.)

Your hair can really no longer be called blond but I hold out hope that it will lighten again in the summer.  You are still a big guy – people rarely guess your age correctly.  Your cheeks, arms, and legs are still squishy.  Your belly is just big enough that it kind of pushes down your pants so you have a perpetual plumber’s crack going.  It may be time for a belt.  You still allow me to pick out your clothes each morning but if left to your own devices, you would wear “cozy” pants every day.  Your voice is still raspy and high, surprising for such a big boy.  And adorable.

You still like vehicles but no longer carry one in each hand everywhere.  You really like tape and making little projects out of paper and various things you find.  You call it “artzuka” from one of the shows you watch.  You are obsessed with Batman and love this shirt that comes with a “cake” (that would be a cape).  You do not, however, want to put the Batman sheets that Santa brought on your bed because they are too scary.  You continue to be a much pickier eater than your brother – carrots and celery are the only vegetables you will touch.  You are a big snacker and love yogurt.  Treats are a big part of your life and your current favorite is “mommy’s homemade ice cream”.

At night you like me to lie next to you and rub your back.  My own father used to do this for me – I know how lovely it feels.  All animals are banished from your bed but they do sit on a chair nearby.  We talk about what the next day brings.  Some nights, when you are very very tired, your eyes will flutter closed while I lie next to you.  I remember lying in my bed with you during your colicky months, trying to nap along side you, completely exhausted from caring for a baby who cried from 5pm to midnight non-stop every day.  You were tiny, of course, and I would pat your back, silently begging you to sleep.  Your eyes would flutter in that same way and I would hold my breath, willing them to stay closed.  Now you almost never cry (and when you do, it’s a big production), and sleep comes easily to you.  I almost want your eyes to flutter back open so you will say goodnight to me one more time.

I’ve been keeping track of some of the cuter things you say.  You were telling me about the Zamboni at the ice rink and you called it a “tromboni”.  We broke through a spider web and you said, “Looks like we need a web repair”.  Melted frozen yogurt looked like “a yogurt swimming pool”.  People don’t litter, they “glitter” as in “that man is glittering”.  Stupendous is “dependous”.  You think driving school has little mini cars and pretend stop lights.  I was roasting beets one day and when they came out of the oven you asked, “Are those sharks?”  “Sometimes, when I have a headache, I pretend to pull my head off.”  And my favorite – one day we were about to pull into an intersection after our light turned green.  A guy came through, completely running his red light.  I cried out and you asked me why.  “Because that guys was going really fast and he went through a red light – that is not safe!”  To which you said, “Well, maybe he had some ice cream in the back of his car and it was melting.”

I have written so many posts about Graham, one might wonder why there is so little of you here on my blog.  The truth is that my love for you is so uncomplicated.  There is that age old saying that you love your children the same, just differently.  I love you the same amount as Graham but with less frustration, less guilt, more ease, and more humor.  Every year brings new wonders in being your mother.

Today, November 28th, is Graham’s birthday.  He is seven.  I have written so much about him that I have created his own category here on my blog (scroll down on the right hand side for the categories).  What I haven’t written about is his birth story.  It is a story I have told countless times and have written about in my journal, but not one I have told here.  It’s time.  Don’t worry, no blood and guts, just the story of having Graham.

(Age 3)

My pregnancy with him was easy.  I felt sort of yucky for the first few months but only at night and was never very sick.  I had some food aversions (salad) and some cravings (citrus juice) and I didn’t gain too much weight or retain water or develop hypertension.  Easy all things considered.  My due date was December 3rd and once I passed into my 38th week, I breathed a big sigh of relief – he could come any time and would be fine.

On the morning of November 27th, I woke up at 7:30am to a contraction.  I had had a few before but I knew this was different.  I lifted my head to look at the clock and note the time.  Then I waited.  If another didn’t come – it was just a teaser.  But about ten minutes later, another came, just like the first.  I woke Randy and we called my doctor.  She told me to wait until they were five minutes apart and then call her again, so I spent the morning eating breakfast, taking a shower and packing my bag with a stopwatch in my hand the entire time.  I was scared, I was excited.  I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday and also to tell her that we would not be attending her birthday dinner that night as I would most likely be delivering a baby.

When it came time to leave for the hospital, we had a She’s Having a Baby moment.  I was sitting calmly in the living room, packed bag by my side, and Randy was running all over the house trying to find his wallet and keys.  After a few minutes of male hysteria, we were on our way.  We had done a practice run to the hospital so we knew exactly how to go and this happened to be a Saturday so traffic was light.  We were there in no time.  The night before had been a full moon so there were no rooms immediately available – it turns out that more babies really are born on full moon nights.  They hooked me up to monitors in the triage area and our long day of waiting officially began.  I had some fear of being turned away at the hospital and told to labor more at home, this had happened to people I knew, but I was already 3 centimeters dilated when we arrived.  The nurse told me I would not be leaving without a baby.

(Age 4)

The next few hours went by quickly.  The pain from the contractions was intense but not terrible.  I got moved into my room.  Periodically a nurse would check me and I was still 3 centimeters dilated (you need to get to 10 before you can start pushing).  I got in the tub at one point, just for something else to do and also to help ease the pain in my back.  My brother Michael was living in New York at that time and had been home for a Thanksgiving visit.  My parents brought him by the hospital on the way back to the airport.  He took one look at me and said, “You look like shit.”  I told him, “Maybe that’s because I’m in labor.”  Oh, the sensitive male.

The afternoon progressed.  My doctor, who was fortunately on call that weekend, came in to check me and when I was still stuck at 3 centimeters dilated, she told me it was time to walk.  Randy and I took an hour long stroll in the hospital halls, the pain getting more intense as we went.  At each contraction, we stopped, I held my arms around his neck, and we swayed back and forth.  Almost as though we were dancing.  We had learned this trick in our lamaze class and somehow that swaying and the rhythm of it calmed me.  I started to worry.  If I was feeling this much pain at 3 centimeters, how was I going to make it much further?  Natural childbirth was not something I had considered.  I applaud women who go that route but my feeling is that if there is a safe way to ease the pain of what is known to be one of the most painful things in the human experience, I wanted to take advantage of it.

When we finally made it back to the room they checked me and I was 6 centimeters dilated.  No wonder it hurt so much – I had dilated 3 centimeters in an hour.  Time for the epidural.  A nurse told me that the anesthesiologist was with another patient and could I wait 5 minutes?  Yes,  I could wait 5 but I literally could not wait 6.  Fortunately, he walked in about a minute later and in another few minutes, I was feeling those contractions but without pain.  An extraordinary relief came over me.

(Age 5)

Afternoon moved into evening and I kept dilating.  Around 9pm, my doctor checked me and said that in another half hour, I would start pushing.  The hospital where I delivered has birthing suites which means that the room you start in is the room you end in.  There is no labor and delivery room – it all happens in your room.  They are set up like hotel suites and the overall effect is very pleasant.  As we counted down that last half hour, we turned the lights down to a nice soft low, put on some Miles Davis, and prepared to meet our son.  We had put very little in our birth plan – just that we wanted to avoid a c-section if possible and that we wanted as few people in the room as possible.  No friends, no family, and certainly no interns.  So when the time came, it was just me, Randy, my doctor, and one nurse.

I pushed once.  I pushed twice.  After the third time, my doctor’s eyes jumped to the machine that was monitoring Graham.  I will never forget her voice saying, “Come on little guy.  Come on.”  And then, “We’re out!”  His heart rate had plummeted and not recovered and so, in a matter of seconds, we were in the OR with a bright lights and a flurry of people.  I was crestfallen.  I had just made it through 15 hours of labor, only to have a c-section?  I was also terrified.  Was he all right?  Surgery?  I had never had surgery.  My doctor promised me that, once they got me all hooked back up, if he had recovered and kept his heart rate up, we could resume pushing.  But we had to stay in the OR just in case.

(Age 6)

He did recover and I did resume pushing and slowly, all the extraneous people melted away.  It was once again just me, Randy, my doctor, and a nurse, but now I was in the OR with its antiseptic atmosphere and bright lights.  I was not allowed even an ice chip as surgery was possibly imminent.  Thirst started to make itself known.  But truly I didn’t care.  I kept pushing.  I did not feel the pain of the contractions but I did feel them and I could also feel the toll they were taking on my body.  An hour went by and he still had not descended.  After the second hour went by, my doctor looked at me and said, “I’m sorry Dana, but I think we have to do the c-section.”  I had read or heard somewhere that doctors at this hospital will let you push for three hours before they do a c-section so I begged her for another hour.  She relented and I spent another tortured hour just trying to get him to budge at all.  My doctor said that if I got him to a certain point, she could use forceps to get him out.  But I could not even do that much.

The end of the third hour came and I was beyond exhausted.  I was also very worried.  Why was he not coming out?  Was he all right in there?  At this point, I just needed to see him and I did not argue when she said it was time for the surgery.  A drape was set up, more doctors and nurses came back in.  I begged the anesthesiologist to give me something to prevent nausea (I am more afraid of throwing up than labor contractions), and then a dreadful feeling came over me.  When I say beyond exhausted, I truly mean it.  I felt like I was lying at the bottom of the ocean with the weight of all that water resting on me.  I could barely move and I would have sold my soul for a glass of water.

The actual surgery is blurry for me.  Randy watched (which surprised me) and I just tried to hang on and stay conscious.  They pulled him out and I remember that he did not cry.  That worried me.  A nurse whisked him off to get cleaned up and when they finally did bring him over to me to see him, my little Graham who I had been waiting nine months to meet, I could hardly turn my head to look at him.  My voice just a croak, I asked how much he weighed and was surprised to hear that he was just 6 pounds, 13 ounces.  Not a big baby at all.  I couldn’t push him out?  Randy got to hold him as they stitched me back up, surely the worst part of the surgery.  Of course, I didn’t feel pain, but I could feel them tugging at me and I started to feel really sick.  I begged the anesthesiologist for more nausea medicine – after all this, the last thing I needed was to throw up.  Fortunately, it worked and I started to feel better.

I learned that Graham was born at 12:40am.  This meant that he was not going to share a birthday with my mom after all but have his very own, November 28^th.  I also learned that his blood sugar was low and they gave him formula immediately and did not bring him to me that night.  I don’t remember much else except soreness, fear, and complete exhaustion.

The next morning, the pediatrician on call came in to tell me how he was doing.  I had to keep slapping myself in the face to keep from falling asleep.  He had a somewhat rocky start, including jaundice and a few days under the lights, but never had to be in the NICU.  My grandmother’s mother died in childbirth and now I understood how easily that could happen in the days before c-sections.  Graham surely would have died and I might have as well.  It was a sobering thought and one I tried to hang on to whenever I had feelings of failure about the c-section.

My recovery was rough.  I had been through full labor and pushing, followed by major abdominal surgery and it took me a while to come back from that.  But of course I did and I also made it through the first couple of weeks of breast-feeding when I thought I would cry my eyes out before we finally got the hang of it.

(Today)

Seven years ago.  There have been times that I have looked back to those moments in the OR and wondered if it was my stubbornness that caused Graham to have the issues he has had.  If I had just gone ahead with the c-section right away, would he be typically developing?  I have barely dared voice this question aloud but when I have, I get a resounding “no”.  No one knows, and probably no one will ever know, why Graham is the way he is.  I had some bleeding in my second trimester and it is more likely that something happened then than at birth.  Still, even these many years later and even though I know better, I torture myself with this question.  Guilt is a complicated thing.

It is hard for me to believe but now I have a first-grader.  He is tall and lanky and has none of the baby fat that was once so much a part of his face.  He is pretty darn cute and pretty darn sweet.  We had his teacher conference last week and his lovely teacher told us that he is doing great.  She adores him.  She showed us some of the terrific work he is doing.  She mentioned that although he struggles with some things, he seems to get other things on a deeper level.  The class did a big segment on Veteran’s Day and she encouraged the children to write a note to a soldier.  She had stationary set up for them to use when they wanted.  She saved Graham’s note for us.  It read, “Dear Soldier, Please do not give up.  Love, Graham”.  That made me cry a little.

My blog captures the dishes I make and the stories I have that are associated with food.  It has also become my journal, since I no longer write longhand in one anymore.  This post is the type of thing I would write in my journal.

Today is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.  In addition to being the day before Thanksgiving, this day has become The Day We Pick Up Graham’s Birthday Cake.  Graham’s birthday is November 28th and we usually have a party for him sometime over the weekend.  This is a busy time of year in our family – my mom, Graham, one of his best friends, my best friend, and my best friend’s son all have birthdays within three days of each other.  Graham is a very go-with-the-flow kind of guy so he doesn’t care when we celebrate, but he always has very specific ideas about his birthday cake and this year it was Spiderman.

I bake.  I bake cakes.  I bake cakes that taste good and sometimes look pretty.  But I don’t do Spiderman cakes or fire truck cakes or construction vehicle cakes.  Those I leave to the professionals so for years now, we have been getting our birthday cakes at a sweet little old-fashioned bakery in a neighborhood right next to a lake.  This bakery sells parker house rolls and cookies with sprinkles on them and the boys think it is just magical.  They have old dusty fake example cakes set up around the shop and my boys oooh and aaah over them and fantasize about what they want to get next year.  The day before Thanksgiving, the bakery is crammed full of special orders.  Pies and rolls and cakes and breads are all stacked on racks with names in permanent marker.  Each one of those bundles has to be picked up today because the bakery closes for the weekend at 5pm tonight.  Which is why the Wednesday before Thanksgiving has become The Day We Pick Up Graham’s Birthday Cake.

Like most Wednesdays before Thanksgiving, it is pouring today.  We got out of our car, all of us in rain jackets and rubber boots, and held hands as we crossed the street to the bakery.  As we did so, I was hit with a giant wallop of nostalgia.  I remembered picking up Graham’s cake the year he was turning four, the fire truck cake you see above.  Spencer was just under two and had just started walking (he was a late walker).  I was frantic.  It was raining.  I had a million things to do.  It was close to naptime.  How was I going to get the cake to the car and carry Spencer at the same time?  And keep track of Graham?  And once we got home, how was I going to cook all the things on my to-do list while my boys napped?  If you ever see a mother with two young children who looks totally sweaty and harried – that was me that day.  As I was getting ready to leave the bakery, a man held the door open for me, took one look at me, and then offered to carry the cake to the car.  Bless that kind man.  I carried Spencer and held Graham’s hand and the nice man carried the cake.

Today we walked in, waited our turn in line, and then got our cake.  (There were some squeals of delight – it is an awesome cake.)  I decided that the boys could wait for me in the bakery while I brought the cake to the car because we were having a mommy lunch date afterward at one of their favorite Mexican food places right next door.  I asked that they sit at the little table crowded into a corner, and out the door I went.  Not harried.  Not sweaty.  Still overwhelmed with all that I have to cook today and tomorrow but taking comfort in the fact that the boys would probably take a little nap (yes – still!) and even if they didn’t, that they will play together more or less nicely while I sauté and bake away in my cozy kitchen.

We had our lunch date where there were no high chairs or diaper changes, just two wiggly boys and chips and bean and cheese burritos and flan for dessert.  Conversations.  Kisses and snuggles.  Reprimands of course.  I looked at the two of them across the table as they colored in their kids menus, both of them with their long eyelashes and their darkening hair, and could hardly breathe for the thankfulness of my life.  My two healthy and kind children, my husband who is so present in their lives and brings parts to them that I don’t posses, the family and dear dear friends that I will cook for tomorrow, and the fact that we get to go to an old-fashioned bakery every Wednesday before Thanksgiving to pick up a special birthday cake.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.