Missed Calls and a Few Recipes

I was frying slabs of tofu for dinner when my radio toned. The call was a car fire. I wanted to go, but there was no one to take over cooking for me so I stayed home. I wasn't heartbroken because I don't really enjoy fire calls, but I would have gladly gone to this one. In a few minutes the crew called back in service and the truck returned to the station. The fire was out.

I continued cooking, roasting eggplant and tomatoes and browning tofu. Then my radio toned again. I thought the fire had reignited, but this was an ambulance call for a car accident. The crew was still at the station, so the ambulance left before I could have arrived there.

Missed ambulance calls are a source of frustration for me. I love patient care and I am a confessed adrenaline junkie. At the same time, dinners together a few times a week are important to my family, and I cook from scratch most of the time. Last night's dinner came entirely from local sources or our garden. The tofu is made locally, the chicken was raised by a client of mine, all the veggies - beets, eggplant, tomatoes, garlic, tarragon, rosemary, potatoes - came from our garden. I picked most of them moments before cooking. It was a festive meal, almost like a holiday. Worth staying home for.

Roasted Tarragon Chicken

Rub the chicken with olive oil. Sliver a few cloves of garli and slip them into slits under the chicken skin and in the cavity. Sprinkle with fresh tarragon, and stuff some tarragon into the cavity. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put a few small potatoes around the chicken and roast at 350 for 3 hours or until the skin is crisp and brown, and the legs are easy to wiggle.

Fried Tofu

Slice a cake of tofu into 5 or six thin slabs. Saute these in a single layer (you'll probably have 2 batches) in canola oil until lighlty browned on each side. Remove from teh pan and pour off all but 2 Tbsp. of the oil. Return the tofu to the hot pan and toss with 2Tbsp tamari, 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1/4 tsp garlic powder and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes until the liquid is absorbed into a syrupy glaze. Serve as is or in sandwiches.

Roasted Eggplant and Tomatoes

Cube 3 Japanese eggplant, toss in a glass casserole with 3 Tbsp olive oil until well coated. Roast at 350 for 45 minutes or until broen and completely soft. Add 5 diced tomatoes, a few cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp minced fresh rosemary, salt, pepper and 2 tsp balsamic vinegar. Bake another 45 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Serve with good sheep's milk feta, kalamata or nicoise olives and crusty bread.

Zinnias

The largest zinnia in the vase on the dining room table is at least 10 centimeters in diameter. I think about a dilated cervix every time I look at it, and consider how valuable it would be to show to a group of students. It is irrevelevant that I am training no one at this time. Students and practitioners use a variety of tools to learn how to check dilation - charts, bottle openings, foam cutouts. I have never heard of a flower being a tool of choice. But it would be friendly, cheerful and memorable, if available.

Right now I'm at a lull between the last batch of babies and the next. Waiting is slightly stressful (will I sleep all night? how will the next birth go?) and makes me grateful for some time off. During these lulls I have more time to garden and enjoy the multitude of zinnia colors. I watch the sunflowers unfurl their petals like individual fingers and I notice the great variety of bees nourished by the Queen Anne's Lace.

Although the last birth was two weeks ago, I can't really relax, because I'm on call as I am most of the time. Being on call means no alcohol, the car is always packed, and I don't travel far. It means that if my husband is out of town, the kids don't have friends stay over. It means I miss the annual midwifery conference. And there is the constant hope that my phone will ring with someone in labor or that my radio will tone for an ambulance call and I'll get that rush of adrenaline that I love. With a birth there are greater rewards: the shiny new baby, the empowered mother and the surge of oxytocin everyone in the room feels.

Upcoming births: two first time moms and one having number four.

Upcoming gardening jobs: keep working on the irises. It's a year for dividing and replanting.