Shuga' Mommas

Shuga’ Mommas: Morning Glory Zucchini Bread

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By now, you all definitely know that I’m passionate about eating good food; and I’m definitely becoming more passionate about eating local, sustainable food.

I’m excited to give you this recipe, not only because it’s good (it is), but because the story behind the recipe is worth knowing.

In 1979, the Athearn family became farmers on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Now, some 33 years later, their farm has become a place where buying fresh, local food is a way of life. Their farm feeds an island!

One of their most popular prepared products from their kitchen is their zucchini (courgette) bread. It is divine….and now you can make it in your own kitchen.

MORNING GLORY ZUCCHINI BREAD

  • 2 to 2.5 cups shredded zucchini
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325F (163C). Spray two 9″x5″ bread pans with nonstick spray.

In a large mixing bowl, combine zucchini, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly.

Beat sugar into mix until it is thoroughly creamed.

Once liquids and sugar are well mixed, add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Mix until batter is well blended and even in texture. The batter should be smooth, outside the zucchini shreds. If it’s not, add a little juice from the zucchini.

Pour batter evenly into pans. Bake for approximately 1 hour, or until bread is brown and springs back when gently pressed in the middle.

You will not be disappointed.

And…even better news…they have a book out that tells the story of how their farm began, and it includes 70 delicious recipes. I use it quite often to cook out of, and I can tell you…it’s worth it. You can find the book here.

So go buy it! And enjoy it.

-Mandy

Community

Blueprints

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-written by Stephanie, a current graduate wife

During the first year or so of my life as a graduate wife, I often wondered to myself why me?  Why did God’s plan for me include living outside of the United States for two years?  Why did it mean putting my schooling and career on hold and leaving my family and friends so that I could follow my husband around the world helping to chase HIS dream?  I knew there had to be a reason, but in your darkest of days, you sometimes begin to question it.   If only I could have seen the bigger picture, the blueprints for my life that God knew even before I was created, then maybe I could have saved myself the heartache early on.  Then again, maybe the outcome wouldn’t be so sweet.

I am almost done with year two of my life as a graduate wife.  And I can now say with certainty why I’m here, living in the third world country of Grenada.  Within weeks of moving to the island from Newcastle, England, I took on the role of volunteer coordinator for the Significant Others Organization of St. George’s University.  I didn’t exactly know what the role entailed, but I knew I wanted something, anything to keep me busy.  I expected that my new position would keep me active in the Grenadian community, but I had no idea how connected I would become to this country.  After only a few weeks, my heart had been stolen by the children and people of Grenada.

I currently run an after school program three days a week called “Limes.”  We average 50+ children ages 2-15 every day.  On a good day, we have 8-10 volunteers.  We aren’t teachers.  We meet on a public grass field in the late afternoon while the blazing sun beats down on us.  Many kids don’t have shoes and their clothes are either too big or too small, that is, if they are even wearing any at all.  The snack they get in class might be the only food they receive each day.   We play games, help with homework, and attempt to educate them in things like dental health, how to treat animals, and respecting others.  The program is funded by donations and bake sales.  Most days are completely chaotic.

But, this is where I’m supposed to be. These are the blueprints that I couldn’t foresee. I know that now.  This experience with these precious children has been the most eye-opening, humbling, and rewarding thing to happen in my life.  I don’t have a job, but I get paid in huge smiles and big hugs every day and I promise you that it’s so much better than money.  And though I don’t yet have any children, I feel like I have 50 kids of my own, because I absolutely love them all.  The hardest part about working with these children is that almost every day I see their precious faces, I wish I could do even more for them.

The biggest piece of advice I could give to graduate wives, especially those living outside of the United States would be to get involved in your new community.  Find something you can do once a week, or even once a month that connects you to your new home.  Get involved with an underprivileged kids program, visit an elderly or disabled home, or frequent the local SPCA.  Find something that helps you connect to your new surroundings and perhaps even takes you a bit out of your comfort zone.  Maybe God’s blueprints for your life don’t include volunteer work, but maybe they do, and you just don’t know it yet.  Take the first step and you might be surprised at what you find.

In your graduate wife journey, how are you connecting to your new community?

Monday's Food for Thought

Monday’s Food for Thought: Sleep, or the lack thereof

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I love to sleep.

In fact, it was one of the biggest worries I had before we had a child. How would I cope with the lack of sleep? I was definitely a 9-10 hour a night kind of girl. Somehow, I managed. (If you ask my husband if I were a morning or a night person, he’d tell you I am a day person – meaning the rest of time I’d rather be asleep).

This article was published last month in the BBC News Magazine, and I thought it was an interesting read on sleep patterns. Do we really need 8 hours of sleep a night? I’m thisclose to challenging myself to see if I could segment sleep, but I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to try it. Although, the task master in me likes the idea of having two extra hours to get things accomplished…..

The magazine also published a great follow-up article several days later of interesting things people do when they segment sleep.

Do any of you sleep this way? What’s your take on it?

-Mandy

Friday Funnies

Friday Funnies: Comics

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For all of us living with grad students….we’re sure this is a conversation that has most definitely been had in every home.

Identity

I used to…

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I used to dance.  I used to dance a lot.  I used to eat and sleep ballet and rehearsals and auditions.  I used to find such joy in being able to move and express myself through motion…through twists and turns and pirouettes and pas de chats.

I used to journal.  I used to get up early every morning to have a sacred quiet time alone with God and with words.

I used to really really enjoy live music.  I used to have butterflies all day as I anticipated a concert on the horizon.

Hmm…I don’t really ‘do’ any of the above three things anymore on a daily basis.  I’ve had one too many knee surgeries to dance that much, I’ve had one too many reality checks on the possibility of hopping off to a concert these days and I’ve had one too many late nights (or busy days) with a toddler to find the strength to get up early and savor the silence.  Sometimes I feel like Nicole shared in her piece on here a while back…who am I now and what makes me, me?

Recently, I have had hints of these three former ‘dos’ in my life creep up…and it has felt like running into your childhood best friend and finding them still looking and smiling and giggling in the exact same way after 20 some years or so.

  • I was playing some music with my daughter and all of the sudden we just broke out into a full on dance session.  It was like parts of my soul were screaming…”Finally! Let me move again in this way!  There is a lot of story here to be told since the last time you moved this way…let it out!  Forget the knee pain, move in other directions…just do something!”  And with a happy and confused toddler and tears streaming down my face I realized that dancing doesn’t have to be something that I ‘used to do’.

  • These next forty days in the Christian tradition are called ‘lent’.  The tradition started somewhere in the 4th century and people would pray and fast for forty days in order to ‘prepare’ their hearts to receive the resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated at Easter.  I’ve gone through phases of really engaging this season by committing to new habits or giving up old ones, and at other times I haven’t.  This year I decided to ignore the urge to snooze and to get up.  To get up when the streets are still quiet and peeps of sunlight are barely reaching my bedroom window.  To get up and make tea and get a pen and paper and just be.  I did it once already…and I found that the words wouldn’t stop.  The words, thoughts, ideas, prayers, dreams just kept coming as I sat in the silence. As I smiled with satisfaction when I heard my daughter waking up, I realized that journaling doesn’t have to be something that I ‘used to do.’
  • Lastly, I have to share about the fantastic treat my husband and I experienced last week in London.  It all started around a convo that went something like…gosh, we used to be cool and into live music before kids and grad school right? As we lamented and shared fun old concert memories, it was like we were pulling out gentle treasured heirlooms of lace or silk.  Pulling them out to share and marvel at them…only to have to put them back for safekeeping.  Lace isn’t something you wear everyday, I remember hearing once.  This band came to London and we barely got tickets to one of their sold out shows. We hit the big city and were transported back in time…or at least transported somewhere.  Somewhere that involves…No deadlines, No papers to mark, No diapers to change, No bills to fret about, No worry about what you look like or what you are wearing, No sense of time or hunger or knee pain after standing for 2 hours straight.  Concerts do that don’t they?  Good, true live music takes hold of you and draws you in. You feel connected to others around you and all of the sudden everyone in the dingy, cramped music hall in NE London is like a family…all moving and swaying and singing and feeling the energy and joy that is coming from those on stage before us.  I hadn’t felt that in a long long time and as we were examining our ‘lace’ mementos from the past, I had begun to wonder if I would feel like that ever again.  But alas, as I stood there swaying and smiling, I realized that going to gigs every now and then doesn’t have to be something I ‘used to do’.

I share all of this to ask, “what did you ‘used to do’?”  What made you have butterflies or made you feel refreshed and alive?  It is easy on this graduate journey to clutter up our lives with so much important and necessary ‘stuff’ that we can easily forget to create time (or even find time) to nurture those things that used to really satisfy and inspire us.  There are meals to cook and tutorials to attend and articles to publish.  I was encouraged to discover that just because some of my favorite things had gotten a little dusty, it didn’t mean that they were any less a part of me.  Even if they don’t look exactly like they used to (I can’t actually take a ballet class at this point sadly, but I can still try to engage this part of me in some new way).  Don’t be afraid to brush off the dust and flex some old muscles.  Take a moment to dream and remember.  It’s surprising how good it feels to bump into old friends and rediscover them in a new season of life.

-M.C.

Are there hobbies or interests or passions that you have long since had a chance to enjoy?  Have you rediscovered new ways of enjoying them in different seasons?  

Expectations · Inspiration

Picture?

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Today’s beautiful post comes from a woman I’ve had the privilege of getting to know here in Oxford.  She has not just sacrificed career choices or zip codes to help support her husband’s plans in graduate school, she has moved countries, cultures and even languages (English is not her native tongue) on her journey thus far, and this is only the beginning of where their graduate school path will take them. Having never traveled outside of her own country before she met her husband, she has since traveled and moved a great deal.  I hope you enjoy a small part of her story as much as I have and I hope it gives you perspective and encouragement while taking a moment to step back to marvel at the unique and beautiful ways our lives have take different paths than we might have anticipated.  –M.C.

                                                

“ What a nice weather!  How lovely they are.   I am watching the old couple who is sitting in my next bench. The husband is holding his wife’s hand tightly.  They are looking at each other with love and smelling sea breeze together.  It seems by years. I am watching that lovely picture and smiling.  And thinking what is my future husband going to look like.  How tall he is? What color his hair is? Where does he live now? What is he doing right now, right now!?”

This was one of my notes I wrote a long time ago before I ever met my husband.

When I wrote these notes, I had a completely different life than now.  I was sure I had already completed my full self-development…all I learned was enough and I was pretty sure I knew how my life would turn out. But there were other surprises for me!

When I met my husband, it was an ordinary day like others.  All I wanted to do was find the cheapest carpet and I found more than a cheap carpet at that souvenir shop!  I found my most special thing!

Not long later we decided to marry.  I’d never left my country before, I’d never had any opportunity to travel around the world.  Life wasn’t very easy for me, and for my generation.  I felt I always had to study and achieve something, I had to deserve my family’s effort for me and I always had to hold in high honour.

That wasn’t their wish for me to marry a foreigner sometime. To let me to leave my country, leave my culture, leave my family? It should have been a nightmare. It was a long and painful period to deal with them and with my friends. That wasn’t just my family who was against the idea, my friends, my relatives and my professors. I decided to not finish my masters degree. That should call “Cultural Shock!”

But thankfully with patience and love, everything changed.  Yes, I had to given up lots of things.  Now I am in a different culture, different language, different side walk, with different friends, different traditions and that wasn’t a picture I thought when I was watching that old couple. But the picture and frame which I have, I love it! There are somethings that still needs to repair in picture but with faith and love nothing is impossible.

“You are my gift from God!” that is what I wrote in my husband’s wedding ring with my hand writing, and that is what he wrote in mine in my language.

God is always ready to give gifts and ready to help us to find the best frames for our pictures of life. It doesn’t matter on which wall it hangs. The wall doesn’t affect the way picture looks, but the picture in a nice frame effects the wall and the whole atmosphere of the room tremendously.   On your graduate wife journey, does your picture look like you had planned it?

Monday's Food for Thought

Monday’s Food for Thought: Target Knows All Our Secrets

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Having had no background in marketing, economics or sales,  this article from the New York Times Magazine totally amazes me.  The calculations that go into product sells are a bit frightening.  Read it and you will be absolutely astounded at what the world knows about you from your shopping, without you ever being aware of it.  The case study on febreeze is incredibly interesting and the explanations of how habits are formed and are broken is really insightful.  Much food for thought.

Are you pregnant?  I bet Target already knows about it. :)

-M.C.

“Specifically, the marketers said they wanted to send specially designed ads to women in their second trimester, which is when most expectant mothers begin buying all sorts of new things, like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing. “Can you give us a list?” the marketers asked.  “We knew that if we could identify them in their second trimester, there’s a good chance we could capture them for years,” Pole told me. “As soon as we get them buying diapers from us, they’re going to start buying everything else too.”

“One Target employee I spoke to provided a hypothetical example. Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August. What’s more, because of the data attached to her Guest ID number, Target knows how to trigger Jenny’s habits. They know that if she receives a coupon via e-mail, it will most likely cue her to buy online. They know that if she receives an ad in the mail on Friday, she frequently uses it on a weekend trip to the store. And they know that if they reward her with a printed receipt that entitles her to a free cup of Starbucks coffee, she’ll use it when she comes back again.”

“Our relationship to e-mail operates on the same principle. When a computer chimes or a smartphone vibrates with a new message, the brain starts anticipating the neurological “pleasure” (even if we don’t recognize it as such) that clicking on the e-mail and reading it provides. That expectation, if unsatisfied, can build until you find yourself moved to distraction by the thought of an e-mail sitting there unread — even if you know, rationally, it’s most likely not important. On the other hand, once you remove the cue by disabling the buzzing of your phone or the chiming of your computer, the craving is never triggered, and you’ll find, over time, that you’re able to work productively for long stretches without checking your in-box.”

Expectations · Patience

Saturday, 11th February

thegraduatewife1 Comment

Originally written two weeks ago… :)

So it’s February 11th.  It’s just a normal, ordinary, lazy Saturday in chilly ole’ England, right?

 Wrong.

 It’s the Saturday after my mom left the UK after a wonderful 8 day visit.   It’s the Saturday that I just don’t want to be on this graduate wife journey anymore.  It’s the Saturday that two of my most treasured friends in the entire world are getting married.  To each other.  They are getting married in my beloved DC…with loads upon loads of my other dearest friends getting to stand witness to their beautiful vows.  It’s definitely the Saturday that I don’t want to be living in Oxford, England.

 Even if you aren’t living overseas on your grad wife adventure, you might be living across the country and you might just not be able to afford flights to see family all that often….or even to experience the joy of watching two precious friends join their lives together.

 Sigh…

 I’m so thankful that we have a ‘celebrate’ category on here.  It’s absolutely vital to celebrate the joys in life, especially the joys on this grad school journey, such as passing exams, getting scholarships, etc.  But, it’s also sometimes hard to celebrate, isn’t it?  I don’t at all want to wallow in self-pity here…but at the same time I just wanted to voice the reality that: sometimes it is really difficult being on this journey.

 Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to have my friend Molly skpye me into a wedding ceremony via her iphone.

 Sometimes I wish I had a car.

 Sometimes I wish my husband worked from 9-5 and could come home at the end of the day and ‘forget’ about his work.

 Sometimes I wish I  knew our ‘5 year plan’ and could be fully at peace with it.

 Ahh…I could go on, and I am sure you could add many of your own.

I guess it’s only fair to share not only the wonderful ups, but also the downs with each of you.  Many of you have done the same and shared deeply personal successes and failures and I want to be true that as well.  So, yeah I don’t want to complain, but just voice …today is a stinky day to be a graduate wife in my book.

But alas…I am thanking God for family visits (even if they are just visits) and for the amazing gift of skype (even if it involves decoding a muffled wedding ceremony while it is streaming from my friend’s pocket).  Deep breath. Tomorrow is a new day.

 -M.C.

Wednesday's Weekly Tip

Wednesday’s Weekly Tip: www.flat-club.com

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We’re thrilled to introduce our GW readers to our friends, Nitzan and Elinor, founders of http://www.flat-club.com. We asked Elinor (since she is a graduate wife) to tell the story of how a simple conversation in their kitchen launched a business that is a direct benefit to graduate students and alumni worldwide. Be sure to check out their website and sign up! We can’t wait to use their website the next time we travel! – Mandy & MC

Like many of us, I was made the same promise – we’ll move abroad, spend all our savings on a top business school, find a dream job, and live happily ever after. But something always changes. Right?

In our case, it all started with an innocent conversation we had in the kitchen of our lovely London flat. It was a month before Christmas, and we were planning to travel home for the holidays for 3 weeks, and my dear MBA-husband came up with an idea – Christmas and New Years Eve is peak tourism season in London, we could rent out our place and earn £1,000. I replied, well, we already owe that top business school £50,000, how would £1,000 make a difference?

Then he said, well, if we manage it, we’ll spend half the money on a weekend in Bruges. Hmm….That made it interesting. My next question was, but who would we rent it out to? I didn’t want just anyone off the street staying in our place!

We started to think together about who we trust (but can still charge), and how we could make it work.

We ended up renting our flat to a family of alumni from a top business school. We didn’t know the family and we didn’t know the alumni, but because we knew someone in the middle it was enough for us. We knew they wouldn’t ruin the place or steal the TV. It turned out to be an amazing experience. We left them groceries for breakfast and chocolate on the pillows, and they left the house tidy and well organized and also a personal gift they made themselves. Oh, yeah, and we went to Bruges!!

In the following year, we set about finding a solution to help others find the people they trust to arrange short term renting. We ended up with Flat-Club: an exclusive network for alumni & students looking for short term accommodation. Everyone can post their place when they go away and select who will see their flat – instead of posting to everyone, you post only to the people you trust.

It took 9 months to bring Flat-Club to life, and in these same 9 months we had our first baby as well! Our baby (and Flat-Club) recently celebrated a year, in which Flat-Club grew from 5 flats in London to 2,000 flats worldwide, and we received outstanding feedback from hosts and guests, and traveled to Spain, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Thailand – by renting from and to people we trust.

I never realized that this is what the MBA in London would bring, but I’m so happy with how it’s all turned out! Seeing an idea developing into a company, and the ability to help others travel, enjoy, and of course earn money on the way :), is just the best experience.

Where will you travel next? I’ve got my eye on Menorca…

Shuga' Mommas

Shuga’ Mommas: Lasagna

thegraduatewife1 Comment

Who doesn’t love a freshly baked pan of lasagna on a cold winter’s day? Add a side of warm, buttery garlic bread, and ohhh you had me hello.

I have several friends who are Italian. Secretly, I always wanted to be part of their families. Why?

Because of the pasta.

I would eat pasta all day long if I a) didn’t have a gluten sensitivity and b) wasn’t afraid that if all I ate was pasta, I’d weigh 300lbs.

One of my favorite quotes is Sophia Loren’s, “Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world like that?

I promise this recipe will make you feel Italian. And your friends will love it if you bake one and bring it to them. Trust me on that one.

LASAGNA

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 3/4 cup of chopped onion
  • 1 1lb can chopped tomatoes
  • 2 6oz cans tomato paste
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 Tbsp chopped parsley
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 tsp oregano leaves
  • 1 package of lasagna noodles, uncooked
  • 1 lb ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 package of Mozzarella shredded cheese

Just a note: it’s better to make this the night before and let sit in the fridge for 24 hours. It allows the flavors and spices to develop.

In large sauce pan, lightly brown beef and onion. Add   tomatoes, paste, water, parsley, salt, sugar, garlic powder, pepper and oregano. Simmer for 30 minutes.

In baking dish (9×13), spread about 1 cup sauce. The alternate layers of lasagna noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese, ending with sauce, mozzarella, and parmesan. Bake at 350F (176C) for 50 minutes until top is lightly browned and bubbling. Allow to stand 10-15 minutes. It will safely feed 6 very hungry adults.

This also freezes well. Yummy!

What’s your favorite winter dish?

-Mandy