nature table

Our nature table tends to be less about seasons, as our's in Florida are less distinct than in other places, and more about showcasing our collections. Currently, we have been looking for seedpods and are intrigued by the variety. We have a big collection in a paper mache bowl and then an example of each in front. The seeds are both local and from our travels.







We have lots of shells and rocks from the beach, but these items are our very favorite specimens. A horseshoe crab, the egg case of a lighting welk, coral from Costa Rica and sea urchins from Cayo Costa, FL.


What is on your nature table? Do you stick to the season or your interests? Feel free to share your link in the comments.

real fast food:: avocado salad

This is the fastest, tastiest, most nutritious lunch ever! And the majority of my kids like it, so maybe yours will too.


Simply squish out an avocado per person (no fancy slicers here) and add lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and chopped up garlic. Seriously, if I call out, "who wants avocado salad?" kids come running. And avocado is full of all the good fat for growing brains - so everyone feels good about this lunch.

Do your kids like avocado? How do you prepare it?

food for thought::hand peeling citrus

When I was in graduate school I had a friend from Indonesia named Sri. She was short and plump and cherubic. She told me amazing stories of how her Chinese great-grandmother was sold off to pay an opium debt. Her family dynamic required that her brother was required to take care of her until she married; her insistence on not getting married but instead coming to America to get her master's degree focusing on African American jazz and literature fascinated me.

Although she never cooked for me, she taught me a few things about food. The first thing was about the rooster emblazoned hot sauce, sriracha - which she would liberally squirt all over her lettuce and call it a salad. I use it still, on rice and grilled vegetables and am always surprised at how a little is so hot.

The second and most important thing I learned from her was how to peel and enjoy citrus. Living in Florida most of my life, I definitely took citrus for granted. We rarely had fresh citrus, maybe some oranges that we would cut into wedges and suck the juice out of while spitting out the seeds. My friends and I would steal oranges from the surrounding groves, but they were juice oranges so nearly impossible to peel. Once in a while, we might get some tangerines which were so easy to peel they felt like magic. And of course, we drank plenty of pasteurized OJ from a carton.



Sri loved citrus and would bring an orange or grapefruit to class nearly every day. Before class began she would slowly peel it and the whole, dingy concrete shell we were sitting in would brighten and smell fresh and crisp. You could see the oils squirting from the peels as she unwrapped the fruit.

She would always offer me a segment as I stared at her, astonished that she would undertake such a messy, sticky operation at a tiny desk before class. To me, her activity seemed akin to chopping up a watermelon and eating it during a lecture on 19th Century factory aesthetics. But the reality is that it was simple and luxurious and wildly sensual and I was hooked.

Now, one of my favorite food rituals is to peel fruit and eat it, really concentrating on the scent, the flavor, the texture and all the nuances that get lost in the hurried up way we seem to eat most of our meals. This meditation nourishes me as much as the fruit.

I always squeeze the peel and watch the oil spray and fragrance the air. My kids love that trick now, too. They are always standing in a line waiting for me to hand feed drippy segments to them.



It is amazing to me that this fruit grows here so easily and abundantly; we get bags and bags for free from neighbors and family all season. Slightly chilled, these grapefruits and oranges inspire and thrill more than elaborate pastries or caviar. It only took a friend from the other side of the world to show me what was in my own backyard.

garbage, landfills and recycling, oh my!

We went on a fascinating field trip to the local landfill with our homeschool group. We toured the hazardous waste area, the old and current landfills and the recycling center. The big mountains with the environmental fabric and tires on them had methane pumps that capture the methane expelled from the garbage and sent it to a little power plant that used it to generate power for around 350 homes. In the future (like in a 100 years), we were told, the trash will be dug up, burnt at a super high temperature,  and the exhaust will be captured and used as an alternative fuel.

It was all pretty interesting, but we were still disturbed at the 2,000 tons of garbage brought in daily. We saw huge garbage trucks dumping recyclable cardboard into the landfill. We were told the majority of the garbage is from packaging. So, even though it is hard to imagine living in modern society without refuse, the huge majority of garbage could easily be reduced based on simple, daily choices. This trip motivated me to step up my actions and not be as complacent as I have become in the last year or two.

And even though we recycle, the clear choice is that it is better to not consume the products at all. The argument that recycling takes, in some cases, as much energy as producing new goods was illustrated. Between the collecting, sorting, cleaning, and then selling and shipping the raw goods around the country (and the world), we did not leave the recycling plant with a warm, fuzzy, feeling.

My kids alerted me to the irony at the end when the tour guide was lecturing us about making good choices as she was drinking a bottled water, and there were other half drunk waters littering the room. We were then given a thick plastic bag with recycling paraphernalia - all headed back to the landfill.

Do you know where the garbage does in your town? Have you visited with your children? What did they think? (My kids were not as disturbed as I was - they wanted to go rummage through the garbage looking for treasures).

toffee shocks and the enchanted wood

One of our most beloved authors is Enid Blyton. She wrote many series of books from the 1930's on. The Fairaway Tree series is a favortie that we have read and reread numerous times.  With lovable and weird characters, adventures in different lands, sibling loyalty and a bit of magic...these books make for the perfect bedtime story. 
Recently, we were lucky enough to be invited to a Faraway Tree Tea Party. We brought "toffee shocks," one of the many notable foods mentioned in the tales. Toffee shocks get bigger in your mouth as you eat them and then disappear. We thought the closest thing would be the gooey, chewy caramels my husband makes every Christmas. I wrapped them up like little packages and the kids ate them up. 
Here is the recipe we use from www.epicurious.com. We love the salt and have also added pistachios (yum) and herbs de Provence (wow!)
what you need1 cup heavy cream5 T unsalted butter, cut into pieces1 1/2 cups of sugar1/4 light corn syrup1/4 cup waterfleur de sel or other toppings

what you doLine a small baking sheet or 8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper and lightly oil it. 
Bring the cream and butter to a boil in a small saucepan and set aside. 
Boil sugar, corn syrup, and water in a heavy saucepan. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Then boil without stirring (you can gently swirl the pan) until the mixture is light golden caramel colored.
Carefully stir in cream mixture (this will bubble up) and simmer, stirring, until the caramel reaches 248 degrees on a candy thermometer (10-15 min.)
Pour onto the parchment and sprinkle with the fleur de sel (or any other toppings you choose).
Let it cool for two hours and then cut into pieces and wrap in candy wrappers (or parchment or wax paper). 
Eat within a few day (which is not hard). 


Do you make homemade candy? What are some of your favorites?

{this moment}

image from the week. no words. via soulemama.

burlap embroidery

I keep meaning to share this idea. 

When kids are young and want to embroider with you, but have a tough time because their motor skills are not quite ready for a small needle yet, try burlap embroidery. My son loved it when he was younger and older kids can have fun creating designs too. 

We used burlap stretched in an embroidery hoop and a large blunt end needle with yarn tied on to the eye. So, no constant re threading. It is a great project to have tucked away when you need to keep little hands busy for a while.