Now that school has begun once more

As a parent I got so angry about ‘make-work’ repetitive homework problems and the kind of assignments that clearly were purposed to shape youngsters into obedient sameness suitable for future repetitive uncaring jobs focused solely on ‘getting it done’. Obedience should not be the focus of an education.

To have institutionalized teaching of obedience leak into the home and violate the refuge for a tired kid back from a day of frenetic input, bullying and goose-stepping is simply wrong. Teaching needs to happen in school. Practice likewise. Homework should be for the assignments that were reasonably timed within a school day that a student did not manage to complete. It should not be added on top of full, demanding days. How I hated my child’s homework. It spoiled time we would have better shared reading books– and by the way the fact that I was supposed to count the pages my kid read and report it to the school was insulting. It made the creative act of reading a ‘check in a box’ activity. I ended up reporting the books the kid read, not the pages.

Then let us speak of both the school and teachers’ punitive attitudes towards the noncompliant parent, and then the punishment through the school and teachers’ attitudes and restrictions for the kid who didn’t jump through all the hoops while in the sanctuary of the home. Or worse yet, for the kid whose parents didn’t jump through the hoops. The kids were held hostage for our parental ‘good’ behavior.

My solution? The homework group. A mixed batch of kids of different ranges of abilities working together to get the pages and pages of repetitive exercises done, with homemade brownies or cake, and discussions about science and history that enlivened as much as possible of this tedious obedience training. Lots of reading aloud to illustrate human history and what the international news brought to our door. Maps, and stories from epidemiology and novels, sometimes animal tales laced with natural history.  It wasn’t perfect but it made the process of cookie-cuttering our children something I at least had a hand in.

Guess I should draft a blog on this….Short, incomplete, here it is, but better than nothing.

 

 

The Rey Fire

Last Comment on All For Pie

I must share with you the final tally in our effort to save our concord grapes from the rats. We put up eighteen pies’ worth of concord grapes in the freezer– this is seventy two cups after stemming. So yes, it was worth the labor and the invention of rat proofs!

Grape Pie

Oven 400 F

9″ unbaked pie shell

Topping:

3/4 c flour

1/2 c sugar

cut in 1/3 c butter until crumbly

Filling: Combine these three ingredients thoroughly.

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

dash of salt

————–

1 Tb lemon juice or more

1 Tb melted butter

4 cups concord-type grapes

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Slip the skins from the grapes and put the sugar combination with the skins in a bowl. Simmer the grape innards until very soft, soft enough to easily press through a sieve to remove the seeds. I have tried other methods but none work as well as this one. Mix the now seedless grape pulp with the other filling ingredients including the melted butter and lemon juice. Pour into the pie crust and scatter the crumbly topping over the top before baking for 40 to 50 minutes. Best served at room temperature, not hot.

Fresh Fruit Cake

Now is the season for too much– and too many. I am swamped with plumcots, those speckled crosses between apricots and plums, the garnet hue shocking under the frosted skin. I have a few in a basket here mixed with a few of my Harrold Red apples, and as you see I have polished up a few so you can see the difference.

Here is possibly my favorite use for such fruit. It’s an adaptable simple recipe that tolerates haste and imperfection but still tastes both fresh and happy in the mouth. Not a pretty cake but full of flavor, using the whole wheat to give a nuttiness that showcases the fruit.

Robin’s Rude Fresh Fruit Cake 

Rude in the sense of rough, but perfectly well-mannered enough for any company.(Apple, Pineapple, Pear, Peach, Plumcot, any of these or more will work.)

Sift if you insist, or otherwise simply mix in a 9″ x 13″ deep sided baking pan, no need to grease it:

1 1/2 cups standard white flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 heaping tablespoon psyllium husk (optional)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Throw together in a bowl:

3/4 cup vegetable oil (canola or grape seed work well)

3 eggs slightly beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup of golden raisins (optional– I often forget this.)

3 to 6 cups of coarsely chopped (about 1″ chunks but don’t get obsessive– both smaller and bigger will work) cored fruit, skins included. I like about 6 cups but have been rumored to exceed even that. If you go overboard the cake becomes more and more like a pudding!

Mix the wet and dry ingredients casually together– use your fingers if you like, in the baking dish until there are no big areas of the dry stuff and place in a preheated 375 degree oven. Bake for about 45 minutes and test with a toothpick for doneness. Try not to overbake. You want the batter cooked, nicely set to a crumb, but not hard. If you overbake it and it seems too dry, douse with a half cup of cider or the like while still hot, concentrating on the edges of the pan.

Note— if you want this to be more like an upside down cake you could place half or more of the fruit on the bottom of the pan, mixing the rest into the batter before topping it.