Eat real food.

I remembered not long ago how my mom used to make these amazing green beans, and I called her up and asked what she put in them. “Just green beans, honey,” she told me.

“Are you sure, Mom? That doesn’t seem right.”

After a lot of discussion, she said “Oh, well, and some potatoes.”

So I made it. And I called her back, and said, “Mom, this isn’t right.”

“Well, did you put the bacon in? Or some ham?”

Ok, so it turns out it goes like this:

• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Ham

Fill your pot almost half-way with fresh green beans. Another quarter of the mix is potatoes, cut in cubes. The last quarter is ham, also diced. Alternately, you can use bacon-ends.

Add water to cover, put the lid on, and simmer for hours. I mean hours. And most important, keep enough water in the pan, because if it boils dry, you’ve got a burned mess. But if you keep it moist, you’ll find the yummiest green beans you ever tasted.

Well, I can’t promise that. But you’ll have the yummiest green beans I ever tasted.

NVC (never heard of it?) says that if you want a better chance at getting your needs met, you should make a clear request (and not a demand). And Marshall tells us we can tell the difference because if it’s a request, we don’t get upset if the answer is “no.”

So I know I don’t like making demands. I don’t like people thinking I’m making a demand, and I don’t like actually doing it. But something’s been bugging me about making “requests,” too, and I think I’m beginning to put my finger on it.

A request means I want you to do something. If I ask, “Would you be willing to… ?” I might tell myself I’m asking if you could do it with real, heartfelt joy. But I’m afraid I might be asking, “Can you think of any objections that would get you out of doing this thing which is my agenda for you?” ACK! Isn’t that horrifying?!

I recently had occasion to issue an invitation, and I enjoyed heck out of it. I felt so different from a request.

I’ve decided I want to try only making invitations for a while. Offers of ideas or involvement, if it’s of interest, but no requests.

“So, now that you’ve heard about my itching, I wonder if you’d like to scratch my back?” (vs. “…would you be willing to scratch my back?”)
“Would you like to work on a solution together?” (vs. “Would you be willing to work on a solution with me?”)

I’m really excited about this, because I love figuring out things that were snagging for me. And I’m quite curious about whether that excitement came through, and whether it’s exciting to anyone else, or even makes sense. Would anyone enjoy telling me how this is for you? <–That’s an invitation, but not a request!

It’s time for frost, and that meant a big harvest on Friday. This picture is the rest of our basil plants. We pulled them up by the roots and stuck them in a jar, because they smelled like heaven.

We also picked all the squash, of course. We’ll cook the ones with broken rinds, and store the others. (I’m nervous about that!)

We also have about ten million green tomatoes. I did a little research and found four options for ripening them. We’re trying all of them.

• Sunny window sill. For the ones that are beginning to ripen, I’m putting them, stem up, in a window to ripen. That’s what we’ve done all summer with the green ones that fell off.
• In a box in the garage. I’m told you can wrap single tomatoes in newspaper, and put them in a box no more than two layers deep. (Not sure why only two layers.) We’ll put the box in a dark, dry spot and check on them once in a while. I’m told it takes up to a month for them to ripen this way.
• In a paper bag, with an apple. I haven’t tried this before, but apples give off ethylene gas, which speeds up ripening. (I hear it works for bananas, too.) This is supposed to be faster.
• Whole plants hanging up in the garage. Crazy, I know. I’m going to try it with some cherry tomatoes. They haven’t really tasted that great since September, though, so I don’t have a lot of excitement there.

I’ll report back when I know how it’s working.

Meanwhile, we’re also having some fried green tomatoes… real food style.

• Salt & Pepper
• 1/2 - 1 cup almonds
• A few green tomatoes
• Olive or other oil for frying (I’ve been experimenting with grape seed oil)
• A couple of eggs
• Splash of milk or cream (optional)

(Why do I put “optional”? Everything’s optional in my recipes.)
First, salt and pepper the tomato slices. Let the tomatoes sit for 10 or 15 minutes. This helps the stuff stick better. (Trust me on that one. I tried skipping it.)

While you’re waiting, you can run the almonds in the food processor or blender until you have a pretty fine flour. (If you go too long, you’ll get almond butter, which is lovely, but not for this. So set the almond butter aside for later, and start over.) Put the almond flour in a shallow bowl.

Mix up the eggs, and add milk or cream if desired, and pour in another bowl.

Slice tomatoes. Then find a cute little kid to dip the tomatoes in the egg, then in the almond flour. Then fry those babies up. Cook on low heat for about 5 minutes on a side. I used a burner-buddy to keep the flour from scorching, because the tomatoes need to cook for a while.

That’s how I did it.  And… yum. They were good.