Hamburgers & Bad Parenting

by Amy

The child sat at the next picnic table and immediately spilled a Coke in one direction and knocked over the salt shaker in the other. His mother made Number Five take a pinch of salt and toss it over his shoulder. Gamache watched with interest. Peter brought over a platter of hamburgers, slices of barbecued lamb and a pyramid of corn on the cob while Olivier put down a tray of beers and bright pink lemonades.
“For God’s sake, qu’est-ce que tu fais? There’re ants everywhere, and just wait. Wasps’ll come and sting you.”
Mom grabbed the boy’s arm and yanked Number Five to another table, leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.

We’ve all been there. I don’t mean that we’ve all been that mom. I mean we’ve all been the person watching a parent blotch parenting. And we’ve all, at some point, been that kid. We’ve all made a mess at some point in our lives. And I’m pretty sure no one has lived any significant amount of time without ever being smack in the middle of a mess and hearing a scolding. We’ve all been there.

They all watched as Shithead [aka Number Five] took a lick of his Coaticook ice cream, spilled more salt and again shot the Coke can across the table. It skidded over the salt, hit a bump and fell over. 
He started crying. Mom, after soothing him, took a pinch of spilled salt and tossed it over his shoulder. For luck. Gamache thought the only luck Number Five would have would be if his mother made him clean up after himself instead of moving each time he made a mess.

It’s all too common, isn’t it?

I can’t help but think that this might have been Louise Penny’s revenge after watching one parent too many. I wonder if she felt like Gamache, watching with interest and thinking the child should be so lucky as to have someone teach him or her to clean up.

We’ve all been there. Watching the imminent mess and shaking our heads at the one who wasn’t able to prevent it or didn’t fix it once it happened.

She’s a double offender, isn’t she? She not only doesn’t make him clean up his own mess, she doesn’t even set an example by cleaning it herself.

I can empathize with mom. There’s an age where mess follows you around ALL-THE-TIME. I remember packing for a trip once and my mom questioning whether I really needed a clean pair of jeans for each day of the weekend trip. Couldn’t I just have one pair and change tops? Um… no. 

There were always dirty feet bumping into my legs, occasionally a dirty diaper leaking on my lap, and all too frequently sticky handprints everywhere.

It’s tiring to clean up after yourself at any age.

It’s utterly exhausting to teach someone else to clean up after themselves.

It’s oh!-so-very rewarding when they learn to do so.

It is true, though, that teaching someone how to do anything involves the willingness to do it yourself. 

The best teachers are those who set an example. First you show… then you do it together… and then you supervise. If you’ve done your job right as a mentor and the disciple is willing, the expectation is that they will not only do it themselves, but perhaps even do it better.

I kind of feel sorry for the kid in the story. He probably drives people crazy. I mean… Number Five and Shithead aren’t exactly endearing nicknames. It’s not all his fault though, right? The person who’s supposed to be taking the time to educate him into becoming a better person and a more acceptable social being oscillates between pampering and scolding – neither of which seem to be very effective.

Gamache looked over at the first picnic table. Sure enough, ants and wasps swarmed over the sweet puddles of Coke.
“Hamburger, Armand?” Reine-Marie held out the burger, then lowered it. She recognized the look on her husband’s face. He’d seen something. She looked over but saw only an empty picnic table and a few wasps.

But he saw murder.
He saw ants and bees, the statue, the black walnut, Canada Day and its counterpart Saint-Jean-Baptiste. He saw summer jobs and greed and the wickedness that would wait decades to crush Julia Morrow.
And he finally had something to write it that last column.
How.
How a father had walked off his pedestal and crushed his daughter.

Don’t you just love that? The “aha” moment?

Life is full of those – when we care to look. If we pay attention, life gives us opportunities and clues to unlock mysteries and find answers to our questions. Gamache pays attention. He’s always open to listening and learning from his surroundings.

I had a tiny “aha” moment when I realized this scene would be the perfect opportunity to try making my own veggie patties. I had never made them. We don’t frequently eat hamburgers at home. And I rarely eat them anywhere, really. I have had some veggie burgers in the past few years and I enjoyed them.

They were a bit messy to make. If I’m honest, they looked gross in the process. I knew they’d probably taste good because every single ingredient was something I liked and they would have gone well together anyway, so I couldn’t see what could go wrong. But it looked like a mess.

The end result was yummy, though. Very yummy. If you’re not a big meat fan, that is.

In a bit of olive oil I sautéed about two cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoons of chopped onion, 1 tablespoon of chopped olives, and 2 tablespoons of yellow pepper (because that’s what I had, but I’m sure others would work just as well) and let that cool.

In a big bowl I mixed about 1 cup of chickpeas, 1 cup of black beans, 1 cup of oats, 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs, 1 egg, and lots of spices – what I had at hand and knew I liked. Nothing special. And I’d be hard-pressed to tell you how much of anything, since I was just kind of throwing it in. I have made this again and added varied quantities of similar ingredients with successful results.

I added the sautéed vegetables to the mix and then made the patties. I refrigerated them for a few hours and then I cooked them in a saute pan with a little bit of olive oil.

I’m the worse food blogger EVER. It’s a good thing I’m not really blogging about food, right? This is an unfollowable recipe, I suppose. Not at all precise. Maybe Libby can make some veggie patties and post an actual “followable” recipe some other time.

Since I was probably messing up the original burger idea anyway (I don’t think Reine-Marie or Gamache were eating veggie burgers), I went ahead and used this soft flat bread they sell close to my home that I love and rarely buy, I smeared Djon mustard on the bottom, placed the pattie on top, and added a dollop of ketchup. I had a bit of cottage cheese on the side and some greens.

File Mignon & Baked Potatoes with Blue Cheese - Second Attempt

by Amy

So... the last post was a failed meal. I almost didn't post it. I actually had another post drafted and was planning on using that. I'm glad I did, though. Honesty is therapeutic. And spectacular mistakes can be inspiring.

As Julie (reader) pointed out in the comments, it was colorless. A veggie lover like me doesn't really do colorless. Usually. I was focused on the meat. I was trying to make ingredients that aren't loved by various family members blend into something palatable for all. As I was reading Nancy's comment (see previous post) and reminded of Enid & Beauvoir, I realized I was also in Enid-mode.

So I stopped.

Reassessed.

I remembered that the point was remaking meals so they were a bit our own.

I'm in a better place now than I was the day I made the ugly colorless meal.

So, after an impromptu wonderful fifteen minute conversation with a friend I hadn't expected to run into today, some time spent in nature while son was horseback riding, and wearing yoga pants and very frizzy hair (it's been raining a lot lately), I looked ridiculous enough and comfortable enough to look perfect for cooking the pajama-day meal. Yey! That probably helped.



I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and grabbed some potatoes and German blue cheese... Went to the garden in the rain (gardens prefer rain to human watering, I'm sure)... And cooked myself a better meal.

I think it looks better AND tastes better than the previous one.

I seared the meat (little bit of butter), then used the same pan for the carrots and tomatoes and greens. The potatoes I sliced through (a little over halfway deep), added a sprinkle of salt and a bit of melted butter and baked for about 25 minutes, then added the cheese and baked for another 20. A bit of white wine (I know... probably should have been red, but I had a bottle of "green" Portuguese wine and no one to please but myself). Husband wasn't home. Son loved the meat, didn't have potatoes and tolerated the veggies. I thought it was perfect.

Much better. Sigh.

And thank you Lori (on facebook) & Julie (comments in previous post) for ideas on how they'd do it (or would have or have before). It gave me the push I needed to go back and redo the meal. Also, thanks to Nancy, I spent quite some time imagining Enid's ex-hockey-player's new husband. LOL!

Love you guys! And, because of you, I had a much better meal than I would have otherwise...

More Muffins, promise, potential, and mistakes

by Amy

 “The next morning dawned bright and fresh. There was some warmth in the sun again and Gamache soon took off his sweater as he walked around the village green before breakfast. A few children, up before parents and grandparents, did some last-minute frog hunting in the pond. They ignored him and he was happy to watch them from a distance then continue his solitary and peaceful stroll. He waved at Myrna, cresting the hill on her own solitary walk.

This was the last day of summer vacation, and while it had been decades since he’d gone to school, he still felt the tug. The mix of sadness at the end of summer, and excitement to see his chums again. The new clothes, bought after a summer’s growth. The new pencils, sharpened over and over, and the smell of the shavings. And the new notebooks. Always strangely thrilling. Unmarred. No mistakes yet. All they held was promise and potential.”

This paragraph from the Three Pines books is reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables and her conversation with her beloved teacher when they say that tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it – yet.

Do you feel it, too? The tug when it’s the time for a new school year? Or is it New Year’s Day that makes you feel like it’s time to start anew? Or spring? Or maybe it’s birthdays? Or Mondays? Or a new book? Are there other things that mark beginnings for you?

I love the idea of promise and potential. And the fact that there are no mistakes yet.

“A new murder investigation felt much the same. Had they marred their books yet? Made any mistakes?”

Isn’t that true for so many other things?

We begin – a year, a month, a class, an exercise program, a diet, a schedule, a course, a marriage, a family… - with the best of intentions. We have promise and potential. We aim for perfection. No mistakes have been made and we’re still looking at a blank page. Unmarred. No mistakes. Yet.

We make mistakes.

Many mistakes are catalysts for learning. Any good teacher will tell you that. It isn’t the kids who get all the answers right that learn the most. It’s usually the ones who know how to ask the right questions. It’s the ones who wonder at the mistakes and question the accuracy of any answer. (Sometimes, in an educational setting, that means they seem to be asking the “wrong” questions and not answering much of anything). Sometimes we need the mistakes to better grasp the process.

Promise and potential are wonderful things.

Accomplishment and achievement are even better.

Promise and potential are like blank new notebooks. I love new notebooks. They’re so pretty and clean and unscribbled on. They smell nice. They’re neat. A just bought a new one online – my cousin is an artist and some of her work is being marketed on T-shirts and sketchbooks. It’s gorgeous. 

Absolutely unneeded, but I succumbed to temptation.

I always have a notebook in my bag. I take notes, scribble information, add “to do” lists, copy out quotes, make more lists, and keep little summaries of important information. At least it seems important at the time. It isn’t always important later. By the time a couple of pages have been filled in, I’ve already forgotten to use my best handwriting (all first pages of notebooks merit best handwriting).

Old notebooks are evidence of accomplishment and achievement. They rarely look pretty once they’ve really been used. I’m sure some people manage to keep things neat all the way through, but my own notebooks – and planners – are usually full of doodles and little hearts and crossed out items on to do lists. I have sketches by my son (done in moments of boredom when we’re in places that lack entertainment), grocery lists (that seem to always have the same items on them), and reminders and phone numbers and one word reminders that make no sense a few weeks (or days) after being jotted down.

I will always love new notebooks. I recognize that used ones, while less pleasing to the eye, actually have better stories to tell.

Some mistakes should be fixed.

Some mistakes are opportunities.

Some mistakes are serendipity.

Some mistakes are charged with regret.

Some are inevitable.

Some are growing pains.

Some are relative – depending on who you ask, they’re not even mistakes at all.

 “As he slowly circled the village green, his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze far off, he thought about that. After a few leisurely circuits he went inside to breakfast.

Beauvoir and Lacoste were already down, with frothy café au lait in front of them. They stood up as he entered the room, and he motioned them down. The aroma of maple-cured back bacon and eggs and coffee came from the kitchen. He’d barely sat down when Gabri swept out of the kitchen with plates of eggs Benedict, fruit and muffins.”

Gabri once ate his sorrow in muffins (this post: eating my pain). Lacoste is contemplating the power of muffins to fill emotional gaps in this scene. I wonder if anyone else considers muffins to be a sort of comfort food.

“Muffin?”

“S’il vous plait,” said Isabelle Lacoste, taking one. They looked like nuclear explosions. Isabelle Lacoste missed her children and her husband. But it amazed her how this small village seemed able to heal even that hole. Of course, if you stuff in enough muffins even the largest hole is healed, for a while. She was willing to try.”

I rarely make muffins in my home. I love them. I like muffins that are fresh out of the oven and smoking hot. My favorite is a recipe of apple muffins that I first ate in Sweden. The Swedish friend who gave me that recipe called it “apple bread” (although that’s the translation, I don’t know what she called it in Swedish). Maybe it’s because muffins are kind of like bread. Right?

Maybe the only reason they’re my favorite is because it was such a fun and friendly meal. My friend and I talked and baked and then sat down and enjoyed an ENTIRE batch of muffins before going out sightseeing. I was in my late teens, on a “gap semester” and having some time alone, away from home and family and the boyfriend (who I eventually married) and listening to my own heart and mind for a couple of months. Apple muffins remind me of that time.

My son won’t touch them. The little slivers of apple are too gooey for him. My husband tolerates them. Or, I should say, he used to tolerate them. At this point in our lives he quite freely grimaces and says, “Isn’t there anything else to eat?”

I am no longer in my late teens, but I would happily eat an entire batch of apple muffins all by myself. So I don’t really make them. Why risk it?

Since the pistachio muffins were a hit when I made them for the earlier post, I decided to try some chocolate muffins and call them brownies to see if my son would eat them. It almost worked. He ate one. After that, he looked at the muffin plate and said, “Can I have an apple next?”. My husband ate half of one and started rummaging in the refrigerator. Yet another muffin recipe that was not approved by the males in the house.

Me? I ate the entire rest of the batch. I thought they were yummy. Sigh. I really shouldn’t make muffins. The good news is I had no emotional holes or homesickness or regretted mistakes to fill up with muffins, so I managed to make them last enough that I don’t feel guilty. They freeze really well and worked great as a snack to bake, freeze, and pull out one at a time to enjoy with coffee or cappuccino or tea. The best part (my son disagrees) was having hazelnuts in them.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

·         1 cup of sugar (I used white sugar, but since I was the only one who ate it anyway, I’ll use brown next time)

·         ½ cup of vegetable oil

·         3 eggs – I beat them slightly before adding them

Mix these three ingredients until you have a creamy blend.

·         1 ½ cups flour

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         1 pinch of salt

      Mix these in, but not too smooth. Unbaked muffin batter is supposed to be a bit lumpy, right? Just mix the dry and wet ingredients enough.

·         ½ cup of chopped hazelnuts

·         ½ cup of cacao powder or unsweetened chocolate powder

·         1 pinch of salt

·         100g of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Add those last ingredients, then spoon about two spoonfuls into each muffin tin. Bake for about 20 minutes.

All quotes – unless stated otherwise – are from The Brutal Telling: page 69 and 70 in the paperback edition.

Bury Your Dead... and don´t forget to eat your breakfast!

by Amy

Bury Your Dead.

That is probably one of my favorite titles. Well, that one and THE LONG WAY HOME. Sometimes a title is a poem unto itself. This one is. Once you've read the book, you have only to think of the words "bury your dead" and emotions will come in waves. Or is it just me?

“You must believe me, son. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

Everyone makes mistakes. That’s a given.

It’s our behavior after a mistake has been made that defines the kind of person we are.

If – by Rudyard Kipling 

If you can keep your head when all about youare losing theirs and blaming you,
but make allowances for their doubting, too;
if you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
or being lied about, don´t deal in lies,
or being hated, don´t give way to hating… 

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

BURY YOUR DEAD is an emotional book. Gamache is in a pretty dark place throughout most of it. Part of it is grief. He’s grieving for lives lost and anyone who has ever lost anyone can relate. But there’s more.. There is remorse when decisions – even with the best of intentions and knowing the risk and responsibility – lead to actions that result in damage and, in this case, lives lost. And then there is the grief every leader – at least every good leader – has felt at least once in his life. The higher the level of responsibility, the greater the guilt when things go wrong.

It’s not only about regret. Gamache is a great role model because he goes above and beyond. He realizes, rationally, that he cannot save everyone all the time. This was actually the subject of a previous post and Nancy (“Hi, Nancy!”) reminded us, in her comments, that “Myrna had to remind him that Jean-Guy’s choices and consequences will be something he and Annie will have to address”. Nancy is right. He has a hard time accepting that emotionally – although he recognizes it rationally.

I think this book isn’t just about feeling responsible for the consequences. It’s about making peace with his humanity. With his mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes cost us more than others.

“Gamache stared down one dark, dingy corridor in the abandoned factory then down the other.
They looked identical. Light scraped through the broken, grubby windows lining the halls and with it came the December day.
43 seconds.
He pointed, decisively to the left and they ran, silently, toward the door at the end.”

As I started to write this, I was thinking of the things we cannot fix. I was thinking of how you can always bake a new batch of cookies if you’ve burnt the first one… and I was listing, in my mind, the things that cannot be fixed: battles that cannot be refought (or, better yet, avoided before they began), trust that cannot be recovered, operations that cannot be fixed in patients that died on the table… Then I realized that the first batch of cookies can’t really be salvaged, either. They cannot be fixed. You can start over, though. And, sometimes, you can learn from your mistakes. Or the mistakes of others.

One of the things I love about stories is that they allow me to learn from the lives – and the mistakes – of others. By living vicariously through characters, I am gifted with multiple lives and have the chance to experience things I might otherwise not experience. Experience – fictional or not – does not always make us wise. I believe we should try to harness it so it _does_ make us wiser…

In a sense, that is what Gamache tries to do in this book. His own life, his own story, his own losses, and his own mistakes are too recent and too painful to probe. So he probes another story. He decides to dissect the mistake of another leader, another man who also led men to their deaths. In trying to decipher another man’s reasoning, he is trying to come to terms with his own misjudgments.

“Avec le temps.

[…]They’d had quiet dinners together in front of the fire, they´d walked the narrow snow-covered streets. Talked. Were silent. Read the papers, discussed events. The three of them. Four, if you counted their German shepherd, Henri.And most days Gamache had gone off on his own to a local library, to read.Émile and Reine-Marie had given him that, recognizing that right now he needed society but he also needed solitude.”

We don’t usually like to dwell on our shortcomings. And I don’t think anyone truly wants to investigate their mistakes, what led to them or their consequences. It’s particularly painful when the results are dire – let alone catastrophic – and when atonement is not an option. It is even worse when it is public and you are judged – or justified – not only by your own thoughts, but by the audience of onlookers. It is bad enough when our mistakes hurt us, but it is devastating when others have to pay a price or when they cost us the loss of trust, friendships or even lives.

Armand Gamache is in pain through most of this book.

I cannot even begin to imagine the depth of his pain.

I have my own mistakes and regrets to contend with. On a side-note, I cannot say the word “regret” without hearing Frank Sinatra’s voice in my head singing, “Regrets, I’ve had a few…”. Now it’ll be stuck in my mind all day.

Some of my less than stellar decisions hurt no one but myself (like eating one – or ten – too many cookies). Others aren’t as easily dismissed and have cost me some sleepless nights. Worse. Some mistakes have hurt others. Those still give me nightmares sometimes. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been aired out, forgiven, and – when possible – been atoned. I still remember the hurt I caused. And it haunts me.

There are others that may not even be considered mistakes. In some ways, Gamache’s own experience falls into this category. We make the best decision we can with the knowledge we have available at the time. Urgency – as in Gamache’s case – sometimes gives us limited time to gain knowledge or to reassess our decision-making process. Sometimes, it is only in hindsight that the knowledge is available.

“That was often the equation, give up the few to save the many. From a distance it seemed so simple, so clear. And yet, from a distance you might see the big picture, but not the whole picture, you missed the details. Not everything was seen, from a distance.”

I have only practiced medicine for 10 years. In those 10 years much has already changed. Sometimes I learn something new and am reminded of a patient (or patients) for whom I made what I thought was the best decision, but now, in hindsight, if only I could go back in time... Nothing drastic. No lives lost. No severe consequences. Usually the outcome wouldn’t even have changed. As I write I am listing them in my mind and cannot think of one where the outcome would have changed. Maybe one or another would have had earlier behavioral interventions or something… I still feel guilty.

I can only imagine how Gamache feels.

I once saw a TED talk (Brian Goldman – Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?) about mistakes in medicine and how doctors aren’t encouraged to talk about them. We aren’t supposed to fail. We aren’t supposed to make mistakes. But it is only in talking about them and airing them and assessing them and studying our own – and others’ mistakes that we can prevent them, make amends, or learn from our mistakes.

To err is human.

We do not need to ignore or cover up our errors, though.

While we do need to bury our dead, we need to grieve them and to make our peace with our role in their lives – and theirs in ours. We need marks. We need the headstones that remind us what those dead meant to us. The pain of loss can be important to make us aware of the responsibility we have towards those still around us.

We all make mistakes. Some mistakes are huge – but have few, or dismissible, consequences. Others are unintentional, small, apparently inconsequential, and lead to disaster. It is not the nature of the consequence that determines the weight and importance of the error. It is not being caught that makes it a sin. It is not discovery that makes you accountable.

We do need to forgive ourselves. But we cannot let ourselves off the hook too lightly or too quickly. We need to take time to assess our actions, our intentions, our motivations, and our reasoning. We need to evaluate the consequences of our choices. We need to rethink our steps and try to imagine different outcomes to different paths taken. Ideally, this is done before action is taken (although some people are paralyzed in trying to make the best decision and never make any decision at all). I believe, and there are studies to prove, that successful people and resilient people are not the ones who always make the best choices (I don’t think those people exist). They are the ones who take responsibility for their choices – and the consequences thereof.

“And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.”

True forgiveness can only come after there is true understanding. Gamache understands this. He isn’t beating himself up in this book. He is giving himself time to heal. Then he is making himself relive it, bit by bit, and understand it… so he can come to terms with it and forgive himself.

“To be human is to accept ourselves just as we are, with our own history, and to accept others as they are.” (Vanier – Becoming Human)

It is only because he allows himself to retrace his steps and because he is humble enough to accept, and recognize, that he is human and susceptible to error – despite taking all precautions – that he realizes that while some things cannot be made right – Agent Moran’s life cannot be regained – there are things that can be amended. While Olivier will never be the same and the price he paid was, in a sense, higher than the mistake he made, Gamache’s error in that case could be amended.

Gamache became stronger physically after the raid. He was in better shape than he’d been in a long time. He worked at it. He was also stronger emotionally. He worked at that, too.

He is a good role model.

We all make mistakes.

It is what we do afterwards that make us who we are. 

Throughout much of the book there are many simple meals – most in local cafes and Émile’s home. Breakfasts abound. Much tea and café au lait is drunk throughout. I didn’t really cook a meal for this post. I did include some pictures of my own breakfasts (usually overnight oats – I always add a generous amount of cinnamon to the mix at night, and throw in some chocolate chips and fruit in the morning). Coffee and tea.