Easter Trinity

Living in Delaware, we live at least an hour and half from our family, which now includes our son. We used to live in the same county as most of our relatives. Going for a holiday dinner requires a different kind of finesse than before. While we used to have to herd our kids into the car, we now have to plan for what to do with our dog because a accepting an invitation to a holiday dinner means we are gone all day. We are not far enough away that overnighters are required for anything but the staggered events at Christmas. We do, however, live far enough away that we try to stack our visitations one on top of another until our day resembles a triathlon. If we are driving three hours round trip, we will see as many people as possible. In terms of Easter, this meant two-and-a-half hour stints at three places, with pug in tow. He rode in the back seat and cried for three-quarters of the journey with Mark yelling at him for half. Note to self: bring earbuds along for holiday car rides.

We dropped Eli off at Mark's parents, where he is more at home with Lilly, their dog, and since we were not getting in our Sunday morning hike, we walked the two miles to my parents' house. We held hands as we walked and marveled at the changes to our hometown. An addition to the Rec Center, a drainage ditch where Mark used to play field games at the pool, a skateboard park behind that. It is a beautiful day, and we snacked on a bag of cookies that Mark nicked from his parents' house even though we are about to have two full dinners in the span of three hours.

My parents' house is pure chaos. Eight of the ten grandchildren, ages seven months to twenty years, are accounted for. Maren, our daughter, is in New York. My eleven-year old nephew is with a friend at Disney World. My dad is beside himself trying to locate seating for the entire franchise. My parents put out the invitation to Easter dinner within the last week. I am not sure they expected that all four of their kids would agree to come. Bowls of strangely sour jelly beans are set out with the paper plates and plasticware. The menu is Pennsylvania Dutch and includes Ham Loaf (a favorite of mine even though I dislike ham) and pineapple filling among the spread of other of my mother's go-to dishes. My sister-in-law makes up a separate meal for my niece who suffers from food allergies. The talk is boisterous and animated while we pass the baby around like a hot potato. My dad must pray over his food in his usual manner, but one in which I find to be less about the thanks part and more about his dominion. I realize that is my personal issue. Amen.

The news of the day is that my brother-in-law has just resigned his post as Warwick's head basketball coach, a position he held for eight-years and that my father held for twenty years prior to that. Looking around the room, four of my dad's former players are in attendance in the form of his sons and sons-in-law, including my husband. All the togetherness is a bit much for some of us. Jonah puts himself in time-out on a faraway couch to get away from it all. My sister, brother-in-law, niece, and I take the baby for a walk to put her to sleep. Mark takes the menfolk out in a spin in his new hybrid vehicle which Jonah had driven over from Mark's parents' house. The car is so new that I have not even driven it yet. We just have enough time for a little pretzel salad when we all return. My mother makes pretzel salad for every event, and we all guzzle it down. I do, too, even knowing that my lemon sponge pies are going untouched and that meal number two is upon us. I should have known better than to have gone up against the almighty pretzel salad.

Dinner number two is far more relaxed. Just nine of us around a dining room table with actual plates and silverware. My mother-in-law has made ham and raisin sauce, which only she and Mark's brother will eat. They have also made a chicken or a turkey. I don't know. I pass on the meat because I have had my protein in the preferred form of ham loaf. I serve up the pierogi lasagne we brought. It is a new recipe which puts potatoes, cheddar cheese, and sautéed onions between layers of lasagna noodles. It is good and and it is hefty, but with my mother-in-law's fresh cole slaw it strikes a perfect balance. The boys, young and old, fight over the homemade crescent rolls which show up and disappear at every special occasion.  I'm almost glad that I prefer a crustier bread. Like I need any more calories--or a black eye for trying to come between the Wood men and those rolls.

We all call Maren from around the table and joke that it is like our Christmas Eve calls to Grandma Pat in Michigan where we all have to make small talk and fight over who gets to ask about the weather. I take a walk (#3) with Mark's brother's wife, Tammy, with whom I once trained for and ran the Chicago marathon years ago. We have lots of catching up to do. It is so good when family members are friends. I count myself lucky in this regard many times over.  Dessert after this walk is assorted cheesecake. Again, my sad lemon sponge pie waits in the wings, but I know that Jonah will take care to polish it off during the week. That comforts me. There are very few treats I can bring him that he doesn't already get living at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Our third and final stop is to our best friends' house where we have our wine. They bring out the good stuff for us now that we live far away.  We sit and catch up. The kids, who have not eaten in a while come up--starving. I make them fried sweet bologna sandwiches which they have never had. I used to cook a lot in our friends' kitchen. As veterinarians, they would work late on Friday nights when we used to get together. I had my afternoons free, so I would cook dinner even if we were meeting at their house. It is nostalgic to cook here, even if it is just frying up some lunchmeat. Our two-and-half hour allotment stretches into three hours here. Monday morning seems so far away when you are enjoying a Sunday night with old friends.

I nod off on the car ride home. Fresh air, wine, and heavy food have done me in. Even the dog is silent on his blanket in the back seat.  Mark squeezes my hand. This is our new normal holiday regime, I tell myself. I am fine with that.

In Arden, I will lose weight...and other misguided notions

I thought that when I moved to Arden, I would lose weight. It's true. We had to move out of our home in Reinholds and put all our things into temporary storage for two months. For the most part, this meant a total purge of pantry items. I still cooked for the two months we lived with my in-laws, but I was careful not to accumulate food stuffs. We would move to Arden, and the pantry would be a fresh start. In Arden we would live within 15 minutes of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I would have access to that great wall of serve-yourself fancy grains and jewel-like, dried legumes. I would buy the expensive meats carved from the loins of grass-fed cattle who had a happy backstories posted for my reading pleasure. Because we would be paying top dollar for happy meat, we would eat less of it. Meatless Monday might drift into Tuesday and Wednesday. I would grow vegetables in the community garden, and those I couldn't grow, I would buy at Marini's produce which was close enough that I could walk to once a week, carrying my market basket through the woods. I would do Yoga regularly at the Buzz and take long walks throughout the village and into the forests. And guess what? All those things really happened. I wasn't wrong.

Here's what I didn't count on--all the friends we would gain and all socializing we would be doing. Community dinners. I mean, I knew I would be eating at the Dinner Gild. We used to come for dinners before we moved in, but that was one dinner a week. I didn't count on Beverley Fleming and her catered specialties like sesame chicken showing up and in my face at every buffet table across town. I didn't count on adult trick-or-treating or that we would find friends who would not only be beer snobs with us, but egg us on to greater and greater hoppy heights. We are like the geocachers except that instead of looking for hidden treasures, we search for hard-to-get IPA's. The same friends, or maybe their wives, pushed us to bourbon and rye tastings. And do you know what goes with bourbon? Bacon. Brown sugar-cured, maple-slathered bacon.

In Arden, there are so many occasions for covered dishes and casserole gifting that I have started keeping things like disposable, deep-dish, aluminum containers and lids around so I don't have to worry about bringing anything home from parties or so people don't have to worry about giving the dishes back if I deliver a tomato pie to a sick friend. And we have been the recipient of food goodness starting from the very beginning with a coffee cake given to us by our neighbor Betty upon moving in. We have made homemade cronuts with the gang. Celebrated Good Friday with a fryer. Bring over anything, and we will fry it. Oreo cookies are a must. Fried peeps were a grave disappointment. There is nothing that can't be celebrated with food in Arden. The final episode of Breaking Bad, the band Jonas Sees in Color coming back into town, the first snow, Mardi Gras, feast days of lesser saints, and my favorite excuse--Thursday. I've already mentioned in previous blog entries that our Sunday morning hikes end in pub fare about 50% of the time. All those feel-good miles obliterated by french fries and a nap.

Having more restaurants to choose from has been detrimental, too. Folks in North Wilmington think that the pickings are slim. They never lived in Reinholds. I must have a southwest chicken salad from El Diablo at least once a week. When I am being good, I bring it home and put half of it in a container for the next day. I am not always good. Larry took me shopping at Booth's Corner Market and showed me his favorite stands. Did I know about fried Mac-n-cheese and Philly cheesesteak baked into a pretzel wrap? They know Mark and me by name at Two Stones Pub. We are there often. At the same time we are frequenting 2SP, we are avoiding the doctor's office. Last time I was there, I was admonished. My weight gain issues were dismissed with the charge to use MyFitnessPal to track calories. I'll get right on that. Bev, what is the nutritional analysis on that Sesame Chicken?  David, how about them cronuts? How many calories in a Dinner Gild chicken mole dinner? Mark has an order for blood work that he has been ignoring since October. I think we are going to switch doctors.

You should come to my pantry and see all the beautiful mason jars lined up and filled with bulgar wheat and cranberry beans, chia seeds and dried chili peppers. During the week, I use the mason jars to make brilliant grab-n-go salads. I have a spice drawer to die for. I still cook healthy foods. I still have delusions of finding that sweet spot of eating less calories than I burn off walking to and from all the events in town. I've heard tell of a little thing called moderation. I am going to contemplate it while I eat a breakfast of an oatmeal cookie as big as my face. It is leftover from my book club.

The Moondance Connection

Before we attended the Games on the Green in Arden, we had other July Fourth festivities. For about ten years, we drove to our friends' retreat in southwest Ohio over the holiday. Our friends--actually the aunt and uncle of our best friends--came to Ohio over the summers to get away from the oppressive heat in Houston, Texas. Susan bought sixty-some odd acres of mining lands a hilltop away from the dairy farm where she was raised and created a summer retreat. This land is in the middle of nowhere. Roads are hilly, mostly dirt and gravel. The nearest big city is Wheeling, West Virginia. Susan and Wayne fly into the area via the Pittsburgh airport. Susan built her "barn" on the hilltop overlooking fields where she cultivates grass for hay and woods where she has carved paths for hiking and driving the Mule utility vehicle. The ambiance of the place is rustic and casual but with an elegance for which Susan is known.

The first year we came to Moondance, our kids were five and eight. They hopped out of the car and claimed immediate boredom. Nothing to do. Indeed, we had left the electronic world behind. They were going to have to rough it out here in Ohio's only hilly region. But then, after a long weekend of riding in the Mule, blowing bubbles, grilling hot dogs over the fire, flying kites, painting pictures, catching frogs, hoola hooping, watching fireworks, hopping hay bales, they didn't want to leave.

We parents didn't want to leave either. We had rainy happy hours drinking Wayne's margaritas--accompanied by Susan's homemade guac and chips-- under the metal porch roof. It only seemed to rain at happy hour, and only for a bit. Then Susan would make dinner in a leisurely fashion. She always wanted to eat by 7, but we rarely sat down before 9. We would set a table outside on the hill and watch the sun slip below the horizon. Everything stopped when the sun was going down. It was must-see. Even the dog faced sunset. Or maybe he was just facing the deer who were scampering in the fields below.

The dinners were not your usual hamburger hotdog fair. We had grilled redfish on the half shell or Pechuga a la perilla (grilled marinated chicken) or Cajun shrimp kabobs. Leg of Lamb, marinated flank steak fajitas, paella. All with a fresh green salad from the garden. We have had some of the best meals of our lives atop that hill. It never hurt that we were always famished from spending time out of doors and from the late dinner hour. The wine never hurt either. We vacationed in California Wine Country with this group, and we all appreciated a good bottle. Wayne and Susan took great care to get us our favorites, bottles we couldn't get easily in Pennsylvania. After dinner, we would work up a good Cinch tournament that would last long into the night.

I used the time at Moondance to read books on philosophy and art theory and journal. Susan has huge  circular wicker chairs that swallow you up. Mark would volunteer for projects around the place. He helped build a pergola and repair a fence. He also lent a hand with the electronics, setting up outdoor speakers so that Susan could play the jazz or country music that were the soundtrack of our balmy dinners. Mark liked doing it. He  was content to be away from the office or cubical and doing things with his hands.

On the actual Fourth of July, neighbors would come on their four wheelers for the huge picnic dinner. One of the neighbors, another summer visitor, had a huge RV. He helped supply the fireworks. The show eventually got so big, he started hiring his own fireworks guy to manage it. Moondance's fireworks show rivaled that of all the small towns in the area. We know. We could see six towns worth of fireworks from our perch. By the last year we went to Moondance, there were probably 100 people and 20 four-wheelers gathered for the event.

Life was genteel. We took Reubens and French potato salad to picnic by the stream to skip rocks or to the pond to fish.  We picked raspberries, and Susan made pies. Jim (of the fireworks fame) would stop over with a batch from the fish fry--whitefish freshly caught in the Great Lakes--for us to devour in late afternoon. We all pitched in with dishes, and when Susan got out the electric broom, she didn't call it cleaning. She was "zenning".  She had built a fern bar  (a wooden bar and seats near a patch of ferns) in the woods where we could sit for drinks. If you found the right trail you would discover a tree house or a rope swing or a watermelon cooling in a natural spring or Susan's half wild cats or just a pair of adirondack chairs in the middle of nowhere, looking out over a picturesque ravine.  The kids received presents from the fairies every night and went on a fairy treasure hunts. Over the years, Susan added to the enchantment. She had a wine cave dug out of one of the hills. Before that she had installed a hot tub where I swear my kids learned to swim. Just as well. They also all learned to drive here on the Mule and subsequent utility vehicles. Eight was the age and a true rite of passage.  I did yoga from the moon terrace and painted in the pavilion. It was magazine living, and it was down-in-the-dirt, backroads country.

Every year, on the five-hour return trip home, I would try to figure out how to capture some of the magic of this experience and infuse it into our everyday life. I was convinced it was possible. You had to be present for the sunset. You had to pick wildflowers and light lots of candles. You had to get dirt under your fingernails and be amazed by a starry night. You had to hoe the garden, catch the frog and then turn around and dress for dinner and not care that dinner was late. I never had it all figured out by the time we reached home, but I had glimmers of what I wanted. Moondance was the start of a conversation that started with the question: How do I want to live my every day life? I am pretty sure that experience and that question led us here to Arden.

Tune in tomorrow when I tell the story of the purple door. Hint: it has to do with Moondance.

Arden Dinner Gild

A few quick notes on the Gild system in Arden. A gild is a club. Like guild, except that in the early 1900's  when Arden was in its infancy, the Georgists who ran the show were part of a movement to spell words the way they were pronounced. They dropped the "u" in gild and have been explaining the letter deficiency ever since. According to the Arden Club web site: The Arden Club, Inc. is the cultural umbrella group for many Gilds in the three Ardens: The Village of Arden, Ardentown, and Ardencroft. Most activities take place in Gild Hall, which dates back to the 1850 when it was used as a barn for the Grubb farm. It was substantially renovated in 1910 as the Gild Hall and can be rented for special affairs. The grassy amphitheater of the Moonlight Theater sits to one side of Gild Hall, and the Swim Gild’s swimming pool sits behind Gild Hall.  At this point in Arden Club history we have the following gilds: Ardensingers, Concert, Dinner, Folk Dancing, Gardeners, Georgist (this gild is in limbo at this writing), Library, Poetry, Scholars, Shakespeare, Swim, and the newest gild--The Bridge Gild. Gilds have a couple of responsibilities throughout the year. They must participate in the Arden Fair to perform a needed service or to do something, like manning the baked goods table or overseeing the book sale, that raises money for the Club. Each gild must also provide a dinner for the Dinner Gild.

Last month, I attended a talk at the Scholar's Gild given by Henry Voight, a man who collects historical menus. As a foodie and an American history buff, I was intrigued on several levels by his presetation. Mr. Voight gave the history of our country told through food, and yet the talk was not quite about food. Did you know that restaurants as we know them only started in the 1840's in this country? He showed menus from restaurants, club dinners, Civil War reunion dinners, and in one case, he showed a menu from some sort of town gathering. June, one of the oldest residents in town and an active member of the Arden Craft Shop Historical Museum, asked Mr. Voight if he would be interested in seeing the menus that they had for The Dinner Gild. Mr. Voight brushed her off--not understanding the gold she was offering. He neglected to see the historical value, which is a shame. We in the Ardens know. We were treated to a museum exhibit that centered on The Dinner Gild, its history, menus, and recipes.

The Dinner Gild has been in existence for decades. My memory is telling me somewhere in the 1940's or 50's, but June could tell you for sure. At age 91, her memory is sharp as a tack. Mark and I met June when we drove down to Dinner Gild in those hazy months before we actually moved to Arden. We tried to reintroduce ourselves to her when we actually did move to Arden, but she didn't need a refresher; she knew who we were.

Imagine this. The Dinner Gild oversees weekly dinners for 100-140 people from October through the middle of May with a week off for Thanksgiving and another week or two off at Christmas. At the very least, they probably implement 30 dinners in a season. I continually remind my friends from outside The Ardens that we have perhaps a pool of 600 adults in the three communities. The amount of volunteerism needed to run our organizations  and events is staggering. It probably takes at the very least, ten volunteers to pull off any one dinner. Often it is more. These dinners are nothing short of incredible. The kick-off dinner is typically beef tenderloin and crab cake (though this year, they went without the crab cake). With all the creativity in the Ardens, the menus are a thing of art. Literally. David, a local artist, gardener, handyman extraordinaire creates chalkboard art to accompany each and every menu.

Chalkboard Art by David Yoder

So let's talk menus. This weekend's feature was Chicken Mole which has become an annual tradition. I'm not going to run down all the food we have eaten at Dinner Gild but here are some of offerings which stand out in my mind: Peanut Chicken with Sesame Noodles, Rochester Garbage Plate, Day of the Dead taco dinner, Eggplant Parmesan, Chicken Marsala, Pork Tenderloin, Cincinnati Chili, Beer-sauced short ribs, German sausage and kraut, Mardi Gras gumbo, and a 420 dinner which featured foods you might find in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert. We were pressed into dinner gild service one evening while sitting around a fire making S'mores in October just after we had moved in in late June. We agreed to lead a Pennsylvania Dutch dinner of Chicken Bott Boi, brown butter carrots, salad with sweet and sour dressing, and rolls with apple butter. It was a success, and we repeated the dinner again this year.

You will find salads with such ingredients as pears and hazelnuts, and homemade breads with compound butters. The desserts can be anything from Mississippi Mud Pie to coconut rice pudding. Chocolate caramel bread pudding to homemade pumpkin ice-cream with a ginger snap. The desserts for our Pennsylvania Dutch dinner in January included red velvet whoopie pies and shoo-fly cupcakes. Where else can you get a dinner of this caliber for $11 a head? ($13 for non-Arden club members.)

This Saturday, Mark and I walked from our house carrying our bottle of wine. Those en route to the dinner in cars, rolled down their windows and promised not to run us over. The wine bottle was a dead giveaway as to where we were headed. We got to the lower Gild Hall right at six and found ourselves at the end of a long line. The Gild Hall had a little snafu with its floors. Seems the folks who built the barn put the floor right on top of dirt with nothing to support it in one section. This was preliminary action of a $300,000 kitchen renovation coming this summer. Part of the lower hall was cordoned off with dividers and plastic because of the work being done. No worries, the Chicken Mole crew decorated over the plastic, but the new arrangement cost the dinner three tables of ten. With such a popular dinner and the loss of seating, you could see latecomers mentally calculate the remaining available seating. Musical chairs--for real. The tables were festooned in brilliant colors with confetti in the shape of little cacti and set with baskets of chips and homemade mango salsa next to baskets of warm tortillas and honey butter.  Mark and I did a "no-no" and put our coats and wine bottle at a table in the back room to reserve two seats next to a former town chair and his wife who works in R&D at Dupont. Yes, we were cheating at musical chairs.

Chef's table at dinner gild

This leads me to the very essence of Dinner Gild, and it is none of the things I have mentioned so far. Though there are those who sit with the same people each week, we do not. We squeeze in where we can. In this way, we have managed to meet so many of our neighbors. I really think this has made all the difference in the way we were able to assimilate into Arden village life. The conversations we have are fresh and fascinating. One week we are talking beekeeping with Ron, and the next week we are talking about a trip to China with...well.. a different Ron. Sometimes we eat with our most immediate neighbors, and we keep abreast of what is going on with them. How often do you live beside someone and know nothing about them? Too many times to count, in our lives. We have sat beside June and let her recount the history of all the people who have lived in our house during her lifetime. June is a treasure, and any time the seat next to her is open, you should take it. We have also sat next to June's son Allan and his wife Sharon. One such interaction led to an impromptu game night at their house. Game night is always a possibility except when, on a night like last night, there was a concert offering going on upstairs.

Also, on dinner nights, the library is open upstairs. You can check out the latest book by Anne Patchett (which I have done) or listen in on children's story time around the fireplace. I do want to volunteer to do story time at some point. I really miss reading to my kids. Last night, Mark and I were too tired to attend the concert or go to the library. With the threat of daylight savings time change looming over us, we walked home to watch a movie. On the whole walk home, we were groaning that we ate too much. Smart people bring containers to Dinner Gild, because most times, you can very easily package half your dinner and have something to eat the next day.

Mr. Voight did not know what he was turning away when he dismissed the invitation to peer into the history of Arden's food service. Oh, the stories he could have uncovered.