Fresh Berries

On Friday morning the kids and I met some friends at our favorite U-pick ranch to pick strawberries. I grew up in Minnesota, and it was snowing in Minnesota on Friday morning, so I really relished packing sunscreen and PB&J that morning to pick fresh berries in the 80 degree weather. Living in Minnesota and Alaska for 25 years taught me to never take nice weather for granted. We go outside every day here in Florida. Every single day. Even if it rains, we play in the puddles (it’s warm enough!) and if it’s 50 degrees in the winter, we put sweatshirts on and walk around the block. And every time, I remind myself what a blessing it is to be outside and warm. I won’t let myself forget it.

Our Friday morning berry picking was the delightful adventure it always is. I love any opportunity to show my children how food grows. I don’t garden here because although I appreciate this warm weather, I haven’t been brave enough to try to grow food in the heat. But I love taking the kids to gardens or farms. I don’t want them to think food just comes from the grocery store. I love the idea of being a locavore and try to do it as much as possible. It just makes sense to me to eat food grown or raised nearby whenever possible. 

The kids and I picked about eight pounds of fresh, beautiful strawberries. Lincoln probably ate another pound while we were picking, but that is the fun of U-pick, right? I remember picking berries at a U-pick farm when I was a kid and the farm owner solemnly instructed us: “You do it like this…Pick one, eat one, pick one, eat one…until your bucket and your belly are full.” I took him seriously, and I loved watching Lincoln’s face when he realized he could eat the beautiful red berries growing right up from the ground. Lucy had the same expression two years ago when we first visited that farm. But now she’s a very serious berry picker. No time for eating. She picked most of these.

 

Then we enjoyed a picnic and pool time at a friend’s house, followed by strawberry shortcake in their kitchen and a sunny, sleepy drive home. All at the end of February. The wonder of it is certainly not lost on me. We are blessed.

Pulled Pork and Plantains

Several months ago my husband and I went on a dinner date to Bahama Breeze. It was our first time there, we were famished, and everything on the menu looked delicious. We decided to split an appetizer (a rare treat) and chose something called Mojo-Marinated Pulled Pork. The menu said it was BBQ pulled pork served over plantains. I had never eaten plantains. But we were feeling adventurous.

A little plate arrived with five fried plantain slices topped with a little hill of pulled pork, drizzled with barbeque sauce, and surrounded by black beans and corn. We were reluctant, but it probably took us less than two minutes to devour everything on that plate. It was delicious. The plantains were carmelized and sweet, the pork was tender, the sauce was tangy, and the garnish pulled it all together. We agreed it was the best appetizer we’d ever had.

So of course I had to try to copy it. Immediately.

I bought plantains on my next grocery trip. I looked for the same characteristics I look for when buying bananas: barely yellow, no brown. Then I got home and read about plantains on the internet and found out they’re not ripe for cooking until they’re very very brown. Oops. It took them almost two weeks to fully ripen. But when that day finally came…oh my. We fried us some plantains. And topped them with pulled pork and BBQ sauce. And garnished it all with black beans and corn. And it was as delicious as Bahama Breeze. Almost. (Nothing is ever as good as it is in the restaurant. It just isn’t. But these are very very close.)

I made them again tonight and they were wonderful. It’s a pretty foolproof recipe. I even burned a few plantains and they still tasted good. That is my kind of recipe.

Honestly the toughest (or rather, most time-consuming) part is the pulled pork. But I made it the day before and just reheated it for this recipe. I like the Pioneer Woman’s pulled pork but any recipe will do. You can even add barbeque sauce ahead of time instead of drizzling it over everything before serving. Whatever works for you.

Once you have your pork, slice up your ripe plantains on the diagonal (one whole plantain per person is a good portion), heat a pan over medium heat with about a tablespoon of butter. When the butter is melted and the pan is nice and hot, gently add your plantains.

Let them sizzle in the butter and when they’ve carmelized on one side, flip ’em. It will only take a few minutes. They’ll look something like this.

Let them cook the same way on the other side, then transfer them to a plate lined with a paper towel. If you’re cooking more than two plantains, you’ll probably have to fry them in batches.

Then, load up your plate: plantains on the bottom, topped with your pork, drizzled with sauce (if you’re a drizzler) and garnished with black beans and corn. I just used a drained and rinsed can of black beans and a drained can of corn. I didn’t heat the beans and corn, but you can. 

And then…devour it, of course! It seems simple (and it is) but it is beyond delicious. And I love that it’s a little out there. Plantains for dinner. Yes. (And please excuse my green plate and weird (but awesome) kitchen curtains as a backdrop. I have a lot to learn about photographing food. Plus, I was hungry!)

 

The back story

I own a Canon Rebel DSLR camera. I bought it about five years ago when I worked for the newspaper in Kodiak, Alaska (where I was living at the time). It’s a small newspaper so I had to take my own photos for stories most of the time. I used the newspaper’s cameras on assignment initially and it was my first time using a DSLR camera. I always used them in auto mode because I knew nothing about photography, and when I bought my own camera I used it only in auto, too. I tried reading the manual and fiddling with settings in manual mode but I am not a self-teacher and I went years without using my camera properly.

Fast forward to August 2012 when I enrolled in a workshop taught by Amy Earle of Simply B Photos. Amy is a fellow Coast Guard spouse and is an amazingly talented portrait photographer. I’d been admiring and following her work for awhile and when she moved to my city (thank you, US Coast Guard!) I enrolled in her first local workshop immediately. 

Amy is a gifted teacher and in one day she broke down the basics of photography into simple, practical terms I could understand. She explained ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, metering, light, lenses, the rule of thirds, and much more. She talked too about telling a story with photos, and looking for unique perspective and details when photographing my family. I even discovered that a little 50 mm f/1.8 lens I had bought with my camera but never used was my new best friend. I had kept a large zoom lens on my camera all those years, thinking of course that bigger was better, but once I learned about aperture I put the neglected little 50 mm lens on my camera body and haven’t taken it off since.

I talk up Amy’s workshops every chance I get because she gave me a gift that day when I attended her workshop (and later in November when I took her online Photoshop Elements class as well). Knowing how to use my camera has unlocked new creative potential in me. Stay-at-home moms aren’t exactly swimming in creative space or spare time so opportunities for creative expression in my daily life can be really sparse. Sometimes nonexistent. I rarely write (until now, hence the new blog) and I don’t sew very well, nor am I very crafty. And I don’t have space to spread out scrapbooking materials unless I want little hands “helping” with my projects. But I can grab my camera while my children are playing or while we are on a walk or at the park, and I can capture glimpses of my precious time with them and make memories without ignoring them, spreading materials across the dining table, or neglecting laundry so I can finish a craft. (Not that those things are bad…and I must admit, I am neglecting laundry right now. But that’s okay with me.) I love to be creative in other ways, too, but photographing my family is a way that I can be creative now, as a busy mom with young children and little spare time. And I appreciate my little ones even more with this art…I pay attention to their expressions as I photograph them, their little toes when I shoot from a different perspective. I could do this without any training in photography, but it is so much richer when I can do it well and mark my growth and learn and fail and try again. It’s my carry-along art. My practical, lasting creativity in a time of my life that is mostly filled with tasks that are immediately undone (hello, cleaning and laundry).

Meltdown Monday

My four year-old daughter Lucy was in bed at 6 p.m. tonight. That is not normal. Nor was the three hour nap my son Lincoln took beginning at noon today. It was one of those days. Something was off, the kids were tired and easily irritated, and both threw mind-blowing tantrums before their early bedtimes. This is (thank God) not normal in our house so it left my husband and me a little bewildered and I dubbed today “Meltdown Monday” after bedtime was done and the dust settled.

In the one hour of quiet and solitude I had today, I edited photos for my humble contribution to this month’s Project.12 theme, which is “Sweet.” My interpretation of February’s theme was to photograph my children sleeping. My children are sweet so often, but never sweeter than when they are asleep. I love to watch them sleep. I check on them every night before I go to bed and marvel at their round cheeks, chubby hands, angelic expressions. It is truly a sweet moment that seems frozen in time in which I can thank God for the gift that is my children.

I’m so glad I waited until today to edit the photos, though I took them weeks ago, because I needed to see those glimpses of sweetness in the midst of Meltdown Monday. I think it helped me find my footing for the rest of the day.

So here is my contribution to this month’s theme of “Sweet.” I will say these aren’t the sharpest nor best photos I’ve taken by a long shot, but it was a good challenge for me to shoot indoors in poor lighting while navigating obstacles like cribs, stuffed animals…and of course, sleeping babies.