Rebecca's Bar

"We live by the mantra: We never met an Annie cookie we didn't love!" That was the response I received when I emailed my sister Rebecca and her daughter Cammy and asked what might be their favorite cookie each. Great answer. That's the kind of answer that inspires a baker and helps us break out of the baking box. And I must share that Rebecca or Buck as she is known can be very inspirational when it comes to fun and living life to the fullest with great care and love for her family and others. I would tell you she is thoughtful and you would say oh she thinks of others. That certainly is true but she is thoughtful meaning turning on her thinking processes to bring out her best when we talk about the things and people that mean the most to us. Like the rest of my family she is caring and has a huge heart for others. Rebecca wears her heart on her sleeve for others and is filled with compassion. She is a softy with a very strong and keen intellect.

She sounds like Mother Teresa doesn't she but good as she is she is not quite there. Buck balances her kindness with her keen sense of fun. It's a family trait I tell you! Rebecca is the person who is always up for a game or a good time. She will tease and mock during the nightly slip a$$ game on vacation to throw her opponent and secure a win. She nicknamed Elijah E-Z-E and recognized his rockin' nature as a little guy. She proclaimed her star role as the funniest kid in class when confronted by a dad who thought she might do better academically in grade school but she also won the annual MUGS award from that same school. Quite an honor. She has no patience with long processes and has been known to announce as we drove on the first leg of a family vacation "If I knew it would take this long I would have stayed with Grandma Henry!". She didn't appreciate the cooking process and met the right guy (Thank you David). She confronted me about a recipe I shared that had more than 4 ingredients and took about 6 hours to produce. David would say I was the beneficiary of a Buckburst. So at risk of the more atomic Buckruption I will cease to share more sister stories of this beloved sister. Just know that I love her with all of my heart and it is my good fortune to have her as a sister!

So Rebecca's favorite cookie ........it would be a lemon bar. Like Rebecca tart but sweet, crisp yet creamy , multi-layered and an all around great choice to balance other flavors on the Christmas cookie platter.

Luscious Lemon Bars

Crust:
2 C. flour
1/2 C confectioner's sugar
1 C. butter or vegetable shortening

Topping:
4 large eggs
2 C granulated sugar
1/3 C fresh lemon juice
1/4 C flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
zest of a lemon - I use this for extra kick but it is optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan
To make the crust, combine the flour and sugar in a bowl. Cut in the butter or shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.
Bake 20 minutes

While the crust bakes make the topping.
Ina large bowl beat the eggs until thick, and light-colored. Beat in the sugar. Beat in the lemon juice. Beat in the flour and baking powder.
Pour the topping over the baked crust.
Bake for 20-25 minutes longer until light colored and firm to the touch.
Cool in the pan on a wire rack before cutting into squares.
You can substitute lime juice and make lime bars as well.

Adapted from 1001 Cookie Recipes.

Three Women and a bowl of red

In our family, there are three women who were born in the month of March. My youngest sister Rebecca (Buck or Aunt Buck), Jen, my daughter and Becky, my niece. Family members have long thought that the March women in our family are a very special group. They have strong personalities, are very funny and pretty much a great time. They are also women of deep convictions about family, love and caring. All are also oriented to caring about the world and other people and make personal scarifices to make life better and help create a better world.

Rebecca is a professor at Michigan State in the medical school. She balances work, her daughter, her special guy and Mimi and Bobo in busy days, work travel with fishing, the arts and being Miss Carhardt on the farm. She chops wood and is devoted farm worker. She has an incredible heart and compassion. When she was in elementary school my Dad was worried about her ability to apply herself academically and would have some chats with her about it. Our favorite answer to his concerns was her reply that all of that really didn't matter because she was the funniest kid in the class.

Jen is the mom to Eli and Gabe and partner to the awesome Josh. Their family is waiting for child number 3 said to be a baby girl. I refer to the baby as the mermaid. Jen is a health educator and has a master's degree in student development. She is using her degree to rear her wonderful children and Elliott the little guy she cares for. Elliott's Mom and Dad are adding a new one to their family as well so Jen will care for the tribe of five this fall. Jen and Josh are extraordinary parents and community members. They are pursuing Landmark Education to create the possibility of a better world and life for everyone. Jen is one of the most intentional women I know. Jen is a warrior who fights for life and love. Bobo's nickname for Jen when she was little was Screech. This was a great name because she truly screeched. She told Bobo she didn't like that name at all. Dad told her that if she didn't want that name she needed to change her behavior - which she promptly did.

Becky my niece is named for Aunt Buck. She is a teacher of children with special needs. Becky and Jen received their Master's degrees in the same year and of course we had a family celebration. Becky is smart, witty, fun, committed and lives with a wonderful outlook on life and what it means to be Becky. Becky is a person who loves with a great fire. I tell her she is a comet. Becky is a pretty woman and she was adorable as a little girl. She had brown hair in ringlets, blue eyes and freckles sprinkled across her nose. She and her Mom would run errands together. Once on the way home Becky burst into tears. Sue asked her what was wrong and she wailed, "No one told me I was pretty!"

You would be disappointed and think me remiss if I did not describe their culinary orientation. Rebecca long held a somewhat distant relationship with cooking. She was a meat and potatoes girl and pretty much survived childhood with peanut butter. She liked dishes made with fewer than four ingredients and made in 1 step. She called me years ago for a pork recipe. I gave her a delicious recipe for pulled pork that required boiling the pork in water and spices, baking the pork to tenderness and using some of the broth to create a baste that would be applied during the long roasting to further season the meat. I thought it was easy and I described the recipe and the process to her and she decided to make it. I received a call from her that her lovely David terms a "buckburst". Basically she was extremely miffed that I would subject her to this. Love can do wonderous things and she and David are wonderful cooks and entertainers. Beck's skills have really advanced. One of the few recipes I have from this sister was a recipe for Moo Shu Pork with home made Mandarin Pancakes. This is a recipe from the same time period as the pulled pork buckburst. Go figure!

Jen grew up in a house that was food oriented and she loves to cook and enjoy times with friends and family around food as the lubricant for a special time. Like me she creates community around food. She and Josh are adventurous eaters and cooks. They participate in a CSA, she goes to many different grocery stores depending on the items to be purchased and they shop the farmers market. They love ethnic foods and search out the little hole in the wall places that are so good and so fun.

I am not sure about Becky's cooking skills but she is a devoted appreciator of food and is a great partner in the kitchen for family vacation meals. Being single there isn't much reason to acquire lots of skills in cooking. She is a person who is a lover of life and friends and lots of fun is related to music and those same friends. If she has a culinary spcialty it would be potatoes. She has a great potato casserole recipe and at Thanksgiving directed her mother in making sweet potatoes that were slowly cooked and carmelized in a bath of butter, brown sugar and spices. It was a long process with awesome results.

One of Aunt Buck's primo recipes is a chili recipe. Coming from a family of chili lovers we've all configured our own take on this beloved dish. Rebecca called hers Michigan Meltdown. She took this recipe to a chili cookoff at her department of the university. If memory serves me correctly it was a winner. So in honor of lingering snows in Washington and Colorado and iffy Michigan weather here is the last winter recipe as we wait for spring.

Michigan Meltdown (I write this in the style of Buck as she gave it to me)

Simmer 8 ounces pinto beans cooked with 2 16 ounce cans of tomatoes for 5 minutes
Saute 4 chopped green peppers in oil for 5 minutes. Add 3 large chopped onions and cook until tender. Add 2 cloves of crushed garlic and 1/2 C. chopped parsley.
Saute 2 1/2 lbs ground beef and 1 lb lean ground pork for 15 minutes.
Combine with the onion mixture and 1/3 C. chili powder, simmer 10 minutes.
Add beans with 2 T. salt, 1 1/2 t. pepper, 1 1/2 t. ground cumin, 1 t. oregano, 3 cloves and 1 bayleaf.
Simmer covered 1 hour, uncovered 30 minutes. Skim off fat.

Happy Birthday to three incredible women we are blessed to have in our family.