Ask and ye shall receive! Herewith, over at family.com, the peach jam recipe. Even Michael makes this jam. Even Michael. Michael who, when we lived in a vegetarian co-op, would, on his night to cook, put out gallons of milk and boxes of Life cereal. That Michael. (Now, you're thinking to yourself, is that a good way to positively reinforce Michael's challenging of himself in the kitchen? Michael's making of peach jam? By shaming him publicly? No.
No it is not.)And the deodorant recipe is Angry Chicken's, here. (It really works. And I recommend following her advice of going in on the ingredients with a friend or two. Assuming you have friends you can approach with such a request: "Hey, you seem kind of stinky and broke. Want to start making homemade deodorant with me?" We made an evening of it, complete with bottles of wine and shea butter.)
And homemade bikini wax is here. Easy and, as my kids noted, delicious! All I'm saying is: let it cool, okay? Let it coooool. That $25 dollars you saved isn't going to go very far at the ER when you're getting your groin burn treated.
And my Brain, Child piece is here. (Hey, thanks for asking! Sorry so strange!)
And Krishna from last week's comments: wow, it gets so much easier to do things. I used to imagine going to my grave having only eaten miniature Snickers bars since giving birth to Ben in 1999. When I showed up a party recently with homemade crackers, our friend Lee said, "Catherine, I think you need to have another baby. You've obviously got too much time on your hands." Sigh.
And my bartering request: I got an offer to trade pickles and jam for sex toys and lingerie. Life is good.
You have a piece in Brain, Child?! That's so cool! I love that magazine, although I haven't gotten the fall issue yet. Your jam post made me laugh out loud (still can't comment over there for SOME reason) because my blog post on Monday featured at least some of my kids sitting at a picnic eating jam. Strawberry and blackberry are the favorites here and do my kids ever go through the jam!
ReplyDeletewhat a beautiful story in Brain, Child. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteoh, and I made the peach jam last night! yummy.
Catherine! I was OBSESSED with that Very Special People book as a kid. OBSESSED.
ReplyDeleteI am looking dubiously at the homemade bikini wax recipe. Really? It works?
Your piece in Brain,Child was simply beautiful. Although it's been many years since I saw this movie, as I recall "Twin Falls Idaho" (about conjoined twins) was really touching and well done. --Cathy K.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to chime in and say that I jsut finished up my jar of homemade deoderant from angry chicken's recipe and I have LOVED it - LOVED it - it really works better than any store bought non-antiperspirant deoderant that I've tried and is nice to use too. I'm always joking that it's my armpit spa treatment...and my husband just rolls his eyes that it cracks me up every time.
ReplyDeleteI tried to leave a comment on the peach jam recipe, but Disney has always hated me. :P
ReplyDeleteAnyway, not only does that sound uber delicious, but Birdy is simply stunning in the final picture. And very much not a baby. ;(
Hey Catherine. I haven't tried any of the recipes, haven't even checked the links, but I will. I just wanted to let you know that I gave a link of your tomato sauce to my friend, who was in charge of teaching "freezer meals" to the women of our church, and she loved it! Neither I nor she make freezer dinners (I don't know WHY she was asked to teach in the first place), and the tomato sauce was the closest thing we'd used previously made and frozen.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go to the class, but she gave out copies of your post, and everyone loved it! You may have acquired a lot more stackerish followers after that day :-)
Wow, Catherine your writing still amazes me, 6 years after I first read your journal at babycenter. I love the article at Brain, Child. I love how you an describe perfectly things I have wondered about, things I have felt as a mother. Wow!
ReplyDeleteWow, so it really was bikini wax. Huh. Does it work on neck beard?
ReplyDeleteI usually have no trouble writing over at the Disney site, but it has suddenly refused to acknowledge me anymore no matter what I try.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wanted to say is that pick-your-own strawberries for me provide that same peachy summer burst in the middle of winter. We go to this incredible organic strawberry farm and sometimes make them into jam, but usually we just compulsively eat them and then freeze the rest. Last December, during the ice storm that left many of us in upstate NY without power for a few days, I took out some frozen strawberries and made strawberry pancakes for dinner by candlelight. Just the taste of that incredible perfect strawberry-ness in the middle of the cold and dark brought tears to my eyes.
So many links! The Brain Child article was lovely and thinky and mostly lovely.
ReplyDeletePeach jam is my favourite. This morning I made a less ambitious, but equally tasty peach crisp.
I love that deodorant, though the baking soda always settled to the bottom half of the container and irritated my arms when I got to it. So I decided to let it cool while I whipped it in my standing mixer. Works perfectly.
ReplyDeleteDetails here... http://wisdomofthemoon.blogspot.com/2009/07/homemade-deodorant-yes-i-am-that-person.html
"Hey, you seem kind of stinky and broke. Want to start making homemade deodorant with me"
ReplyDeleteToo funny!
Thank you for the link to your Brain, Child magazine I can't wait to check it out.
It was so wonderful to read an essay by you again! I love the recipes but I didn't realize how much I missed the more in depth writing until I read your Brain, Child essay. What a beautiful, touching, funny essay...as they always are.
ReplyDeleteI think if I tried to make my own deodorant, my husband would have me committed.
ReplyDeleteCatherine, have you ever tried making your own laundry detergent? (The deodorant made me think of this.) I'm about to start grating a bar of soap for my first-ever attempt, and wondered if you had any insight or great recipes!
ReplyDeleteThat Brain, Child essay is the Catherine we have loved forever. What a refreshing thing to read! It's like having you back for a moment. It made me laugh, and cry and made my heart swell with love for my own children. Oh, Catherine, how I wish you would write like that for us more often! What a gift.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the links, though I did get confused and thought you had written the deoderant article. I was thinking "This doesn't sound like Catherine. Where are all the witty digressions?" Duh.
ReplyDeleteDoes the wax work on back hair? (Husband's, not mine.)
And all that canning IS like money in the bank! I bet some bank manager would love pickled whatnots in lieu of mortgage payments...
Stacey
Disney doesn't recognize me so I'm forced to comment here.
ReplyDeleteThis line slayed me:
"If I could fill freezer bags with the swell of my own heart when I hear Birdy's feet slap over the wood floor on her sure and easy way towards me"
And this little piece of advice: "or else you can crack the pits and use the kernels, but these may actually contain arsenic, so don't)"
Will I make the jam? No. Do I love reading about you doing it? Every week.
Stacey
And again I say, really? Do we really need to bikini wax? (My answer: I'm way too wimpy. I'll take my chances with the strays).
ReplyDeleteAnd I think our men could write a cookbook entitled "how not to cook but still put food in your bellies"-- Justin offered to cook last week-- he put the waffles I'd frozen into the toaster. W-O-W....swoon;)
Sex toys for jam? Um, you DO have too much time (or you're getting too much sleep...I mean, who can even think of such things??):)
So, I've made you chocolate zucchini cake and your tomato sauce and mmmmmmmmmm! I can never comment over at family.com but I read and make most of your recipes! YUMMO!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the deodorant recipe. I have Angry Chicken on my list of to-read blogs.
ReplyDeleteThanks, thanks, thanks for the peach jam recipe! VERY YUMMY! My whole neighborhood is freezing tomato sauce and I've passed peach jam along the web to several friends who are now sweating over their canners.
ReplyDeleteSigh- truely wonderful to have that piece of you back in print as a previous poster said in relation to the Brain, child article. I so hope more opportunities of the like present themselves to your very talented self.
ReplyDeleteAnd I also am in love with all of the recipes- you truely motivate me to search for and find more ways to be the kind of momma I know I can be- and in that regard I invite you to come visiting when you have a chance to my family blog. We pay a little bit of homage to you on our "meet the happy little family" page. Thank you so much for wisdom and wit over the years. You comfort me so in my ordinariness in your ability to see the extraordinariness in the ordinary.
The blog:
http://www.thetaooftulips.wordpress.com
Catherine, I just defrosted some zucchini dip (your recipe). And after 3 Colorado nights at 24 degrees, each of which turned my garden further to paste, tasting that zucchini dip on my sandwich was like peeking back into August. So sweet and almost exotic.
ReplyDeleteOh and the roasted tomato sauce. That is a new staple. Thank you for giving more purpose to my garden.
Have followed you since the beginning of Bringing Up Ben, have bought your book, and made tons of your recipes. But what makes me post my first comment? . . . YOU HAVE THE CUTEST KITTEN EVER!!!! Please incorporate him into your writing whenever you can!!! Oh, and I really DO love all the writing, recipes, and pics of your family as well . . .
ReplyDeleteJust catching up on your recipes over at Family.com, and Oh My God! BEN?! In that last picture on the granola bar recipe - he looks like a teenager! Yikes!
ReplyDeleteAs always, lovely recipes. I actually logged on because I wanted the granola recipe you posted a while back, but then there was spaghetti sauce, and granola bars, and...
So true: the recipe for underarm deodorant rocks! I made some two days ago and I'm so impressed with the results. I used Tom's forever, and frankly, it fails miserably. I'm a convert! Thanks for sharing. I may just get into the sugaring thing, but that's going to require some different effort.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to warn the readers about the homemade deodorant. The baking soda is really harsh and could end up giving you a nasty underarm rash. I had been using it for several months and then it turned on me. My husband had a hint of a rash, but has toned his usage down to 3 days a week (and no he's not stinky haha). His rash cleared up. I have tried to use it again, but it's not cooperating. I break out into a rash every time. :(
ReplyDeleteSo take it easy with the baking soda and if you see redness, stop using it right away so you don't have to suffer!
Twins are great. They have something in them that can be called as power. They can detect or feel if the other twin is in danger. They were made magnificently by the Lord.
ReplyDelete