Beautiful Everyday Living: the dinner hour

No, this is not a post about how beautiful I think our house is (although it does have some shining features). This post is about how we bring beauty into something so simple as weekday family dinners.

All of our lives are so jam-packed with activity -- meetings, sports and dance practice, school, church activities, work (and the long commute home). These extras can pull a family apart, just at the time of day when we're needing to come together.

What we all really need is a pause, a time to enjoy our families, a good meal, and the homes that we've taken the time to make special and unique.

Beautiful everyday living is our family's way of savoring the moment, and in this case, the weekday family dinner.

For the last month, we've been having our family dinners in the formal dining room. It's such a perfect place for dinner. There are no visual distractions, such as pots and pans, a pile of mail, or schoolbooks. Those distractions only serve to remind us that we need to hurry up so we can get back to the work of life.

Well, why is it so important that those dishes get done ASAP? Why do I really need to go through the day's mail this very minute? Most of the time, I can afford a few extra minutes to listen to my family, and hear how their day went. The dishes and mail can wait. My family is growing up and will only be here, in our home, for a little while longer. I say, make the family the priority, not the distractions.

The dining room is not only a peaceful respite for us all to gather 'round, but the table itself is a nice, generous size. We have this to thank my son for. He and his friends gather here every Sunday evening, for game night. And they like the space of an extra leaf in the table.

This is fantastic for our family dinners. A little extra space always feels like a luxury. For quick breakfasts and lunches, the smaller kitchen table is just about right (although, I caught one of my daughters in the dining room with her breakfast oatmeal earlier this week. She said it's just so much nicer in the dining room -- Agreed!) At the dining room table, we all have much more elbow room. No accidentally kicking my daughter every time I cross my legs under the table.

I don't worry about spills and mishaps in the dining room. There's a sealed wood floor, with no rug, underneath the table. I use cloth placemats for every day, which are very washable, and require no ironing. And the table and chairs themselves, I don't worry over, as this set is 47 years old (or young, however you look at it). My parents bought this set in 1966, and it has seen many years of wear already. It is still holding together quite well.

To enhance the beauty of dining everyday, I use cloth napkins. They're so much nicer to the touch. When I'm shopping for cloth napkins for everyday use, I look either for a print or a dark solid, as both will conceal stains well. When my son and friends get pizza, I make sure to set out my ancient (bought 30 years ago) burgundy-colored cloth napkins. These napkins were a great investment. They have yet to reveal a single stain.

Lighting can either be harsh and make you want to hurry up, or it can be gentle, and make you want to linger. This time of year is perfect for the use of candles on the table. They're very flattering, gentle on the eyes, and again, add that feeling of luxury. There is just enough light outside at the dinner hour, that 2 candles are all the light we need. I buy my candles at the dollar store, so even this expense is minimal.

For nothing more than the water to fill a vase, I can have fresh blossoms on the table everyday, from now until early October. This week we have the cherry blossom branches from my pruning last weekend. I had to take some branches off, anyway, that were blocking a walkway. So I  thought, "I might as well bring them indoors to unfold their beauty".

As a mom, I find there is one more advantage to our using the dining room on a daily basis. My kids have the opportunity to exercise their manners and social graces, under my watchful, but kind eye, preparing them for occasions outside the home.

Preserving some of the freshness of spring: freezing asparagus

The summer between freshman and sophomore year in university, I had a seasonal job in the Bird's Eye frozen foods processing plant. Specifically, I worked the asparagus harvest. I was tried at many stations -- the cutting room (ooh, now that was a scary place, the things I saw!), the steam blancher, sorting and packing, and finally, where I spent the bulk of my employment there, I was the single quality control person for the overnight shift of the asparagus.

Yes, you read that right, this 19 year-old version of me was in complete charge of quality control for half of that plant's asparagus harvest (the other half was manned by someone on the day shift). My supervisor came around, once per week, to watch me work for all of 10 minutes. I can scarcely believe that the quality of a food product would be at the mercy of a university student. But that's how these operations work.

My job entailed checking all the boxes for things that didn't belong, weighing and adjusting the amounts for each box, and removing any asparagus which had obviously gotten stuck in a crack in the steam blancher for several hours. You could say I got a crash course in preparing asparagus for freezing, that summer, long ago.

Fast forward to today, I did not lose my taste for asparagus that year, and I enjoy eating my fill each spring, and freezing several pounds for meals later. I have my own "system" for the preparation and packing of asparagus. I froze about 4 pounds last week, enough for 6 meals.

I begin the day that I bring the asparagus home from the market. I place all the spears upright in a container with water, cover with a plastic bag and store in the fridge, until I can get to it, usually within one day.

I do all this in parts, assembly line fashion. I use: 1 9 X 11-inch baking dish for rinsing asparagus, cutting board and knife, 1 large pot of water, 1 mesh strainer, 1 colander in an ice water bath, 1 spare dinner plate for draining, 1 dinner plate covered with a tea towel for blotting, a slotted scoop, plastic bags, a drinking straw

I fill a 9 X 11-inch baker half full with water, and rinse the spears, laying down, removing stray strands of grass.

If the spears have portions of white still on them, I trim these off. You can snap the spears, or cut. I find cutting to be simpler. If I come across a spear that feels tough to cut, I simply cut higher up the spear until it feels tender.

I save these scraps of trimmings in a container in the freezer, for making stock later.

I cut the spears in half, on the diagonal (it looks prettier that way, and camouflages the tips from the ends, just a bit).

Meanwhile, I prepare my blanch and cooling stations. I fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil.

I fill a large bowl with ice water, and set a colander in the water.

I place a dinner plate next to the ice water bath, for draining.

I set another plate out and cover with a dish towel (for blotting). And I keep a supply of bags handy for filling.

When the water has come to a boil, I fill a mesh strainer with trimmed and halved asparagus spears, and immerse in the boiling water for 30 seconds. I use the same timing method my mother always used. I count briskly, 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, etc to 30 Mississippi. This approximates 30 seconds, and doesn't require me to fuss with a timer.

I quickly pull the strainer out of the boiling water, and use a slotted spoon to scoop any stray spears into the strainer.

I dump the contents into the ice water bath/colander set-up. This quick-cools the asparagus so that it doesn't continue cooking.

When the asparagus is cooled (I swish it around the ice water for a minute or two with my hand), I pull the colander out of the water and set on the plate to drain.

Once drained, I unload the contents onto the dish towel, to further blot.

I, then, fill small bags with the blanched pieces,

and set these bags in the fridge, as I go, unsealed, to begin the chilling process.

When I have finished blanching, cooling, filling bags with all the asparagus, I use a drinking straw to suck the air out of each bag, and seal it shut. This is poor man's vacuum sealing.

I separate all the sealed bags in the freezer, to insure rapid freezing. Once all are frozen solid, I pack them together in a large freezer bag.

It should be noted, if you want crisp-tender asparagus, you'll need to eat it fresh. Frozen asparagus loses some of its original texture. But I enjoy this frozen asparagus in dishes like chicken (or ham) and asparagus crepes in cream sauce, or, asparagus, rice and chicken bake, or, thawed and marinated in vinaigrette to add to salads. If you find that you don't enjoy the texture of frozen asparagus, then my next favorite way to use it is pureed in cream of asparagus soup.

Just a favorite way to save some of spring's freshness.