Author Archives: mbajane

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life…

For this week’s Farm Kitchen/Table Talk Expert Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I enlisted all three of my fab favorite kitchen minions: Andy, Nora, and Piper. After all, they were all ready to earn this badge and a bird in the hand is worth three in the kitchen. Or something like that.

Anyway, they got to work planning out their menu, since this Expert Level badge was all about making dinner and being adventurous about it, to boot. Adventure is in these kids’ blood, I tell ya, so this was not going to be a problem. At least, that’s what I thought.

Trying to get them to agree on supper plans was pretty exhausting and time consuming. I needed a snack just to keep my blood sugar up. Finally, after some serious arguments, tiffs, quarrels, and squabbles (not to mention arm-wrestling matches), they decided they would each pick out a dish. After all, it was going to be a full meal deal, righto?

Going with their spirits of adventure and trying new things, I steered them away from standby favorites, such as macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, and pizza. I let them browse through my cookbook collection and scroll through Pinterest, and they came up with some pretty interesting menu ideas.

Okay, so they didn’t flow together all that great, but we decided to call it A Trip Around the World Buffet. Andy chose fish tacos, Nora picked Savory Crepes, and Piper had her heart set on Ratatouille.

photo by Arnold Gatilao via Wikimedia Commons

I wished I had a bigger kitchen.

I ate another snack.

Piper’s dish was going to take the longest to prepare and cook, so I let her get started first. She learned how to use a mandoline (no, not the instrument, my peeps—that’s a mandolin, but the slicing kind). The bounty from my garden was getting some serious lovin’. We used eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, red and green peppers, fresh basil, garlic, plum tomatoes, and red onion. The smell was divine! She artfully arranged all our slices in a beautiful pattern and we put it in the oven.

Then Nora was up with her Savory Crepes. Crepes are fun for everyone because you can put anything inside of them. Nora took this decision seriously and really got her knickers in a twist over the pairings. She finally decided on mushrooms, pesto, and turkey. We made a simple batter and I must say, she got pretty darn good at flipping. One or two or seven might have ended on the floor, but practice makes perfect and she figured out her crepe-making mojo.

Then we let Andy back in the kitchen, and he was a whirling dervish. It was like the Tasmanian Devil was whipping up the fish tacos. Back and forth he went, stirring his Sweet and Spicy Chili sauce, dipping his halibut in salt and pepper and cumin, heating up his corn tortillas, and chopping up lettuce, cilantro, and radishes.

At the end? We had a feast of epic culinary proportions. We were all so full, it felt like we had eaten Thanksgiving early!

And the state of my kitchen?

Don’t ask.

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life…

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …  

For this week’s Stitching and Crafting/All Buttoned Up Intermediate Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, Nora and I picked up right where we left off.

Hands deep in the cookie tin.

No, not that cookie tin. The one with all the buttons in it.

Now that she had her very own collection of super-adorbs buttons, it was time to learn their function (besides the functions Nora had come up with on her own: sorting and piling, gluing to things, and flipping across the room like miniature flying saucers).

Sewing them on fabric.

Now I’m not saying that I took this opportunity to teach this skill at this particular time just because I was in need of a button on my favorite apron … I prefer to call it perfect timing. A complete coincidence. And it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t replace my missing button myself: Nora had pilfered my own collection to bolster hers. I didn’t have a spare button to my name.

So, I got out a needle and thread and proceeded to teach the fine art of button attaching to my little protégé.

There was much wailing and poking and pricking and screeching and losing of the needle and losing of the button and losing of patience and demands for a tea and scone break. Such shenanigans. It was embarrassing really.

“Seriously, Aunty,” said Nora, with a roll of her baby blues, “Are you about done with the dramatic show and shenanigans? I’m ready to learn this if you’re ready to focus.”

“Yes, er, sorry.” I sucked on my sore finger and wondered where I’d stashed my thimble. “I’m better now. All focused. Pass me that apron, would you?”

Next to pockets, buttons are incredibly important to functional style. Plus, buttons can say a lot about you! Square, round, pliable, stiff, shiny, dull, colorful, sparkly, you name it, you can find it in a button. My apron was a cheery blue/green pattern, so I chose a button in a shade of bright green for a nice contrast.

I suppose you could say the purple thread I used to sew it on was also for contrast, but mostly it was because I couldn’t find any green. Or blue.

I really need to organize my thread collection.

Is there a badge for that?

But back to the buttons. I worked on my apron, while snuggled up next to Nora, who was sewing her own yellow button on a scrap of fabric for practice before she attached one to a real item of clothing.

Turns out I was also snuggled up to the missing needle in the couch cushions.

Son of a tailor! My bottom was nearly Swiss cheese by the time I found that sucker. In the meantime, Nora had finished her button and was kindly finishing up mine. She really got the hang of it quickly, partly due to my What Not To Do demonstration.

The things I do for these kids. Turning myself into a sieve and whatnot.

Ah well. I can wear my favorite apron once again, Nora earned a new badge, and we finished off the afternoon with some tea and scones. It was a successful day, indeed.

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …  

For this week’s Farmyard to Kitchen Young Cultivator Expert Level Merit Badge, Andy, Nora, Piper, and Yours Truly were ready for action. We had earned our Beginner and Intermediate Level badges (and no one was harmed in the making of those badges, fowl or bovine or small children or Aunty), and we were ready to progress.

First things were first: raising baby chicks or learning to milk a cow?

Since Buttercup the Cow Princess was looking rather askance at us (talk about mooooooo-dy), we decided on chicks. Or, Baby Balls of Fluffy Cuteness, as Piper described them with stars in her eyes.

“Yes, they’re adorable right now, but let’s remember: when they are no longer shiny and new, you don’t get to drop them off at Aunty’s house, okiedokie?” I reminded them. I had heard tell of a childhood phenomenon: adopting delightful pet babies and then losing interest in them posthaste, leaving the chores to be done by their mothers.

Just another reason why I was never a kid. Fresh out of the box as a grown woman, that’s me.

But I digress.

“We’d never stop loving our Cotton Balls of Puffy Fluffy Loviekins!” Piper was insulted.

“I’m naming mine Ryan Gosling,” said Nora, who was really into movie stars lately. “Get it? Gosling? Ha!”

“Goslings are baby ducks, dummy,” said Andy.

“Nuh uh, they’re baby geese, dork-head,” she fired back.

“No arguments!” I broke in. “Arguing in front of hens makes bad layers. It’s science.”

We got our little chickies home that evening and set up their cozy new house: a large Rubbermaid container with straw and a heat lamp, food, and water. And Piper’s additions: half a Barbie’s Dream House, a few stuffed animals, some baby blankets, and a medley of soft rock playing in the background.

After I armed them with an stack of library books on how to raise happy chickens, a list of Things Not To Do (in my days as Aunty, I’ve learned those are much more applicable to their mischievous little minds than lists of Things To Do), and my number written on the fridge in case of Chicken Emergencies, I went home for a little nap.

The next day, after checking in on Ryan Gosling, Mrs. David Bock-Bock-Beckham, and Lady Clucks-A-Lot, we finished up our badge earning with a little butter making.

“I don’t really like butter,” Andy said.

I had a small stroke and had to be revived by the local paramedics. Afterwards, while recovering with a nice bread and butter sammie and a cup of tea, I decided to get to the bottom of Andy’s sacrilegious comment.

“What did you mean you don’t like butter?” I croaked, still weak. I dunked my sammie in my tea for extra nourishment.

“Well, I don’t know, Aunty,” he said. “I just don’t think it tastes all that great. Kinda oily and greasy, if you ask me.”

“I did not ask you, whippersnapper!”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Oh yes. Right. Fetch me this so-called butter, youngster. Chop, chop.”

He complied, rolling his eyes all the way (I nearly threw my sammie at the back of his head, but I’d finished it). He returned with …

GASP.

I can hardly say it. Here you try and try with these kids, you nurture, you give and give, blood, sweat, tears … wasted.

It was a crock.

A plastic crock.

A plastic crock of butter impostors.

Fake butter product.

Processed, pasturized, yellow-food-coloring laden, oil.

The rest of the Expert Level earning will have to wait. Tell the paramedics to get back here.

Fading. Fading.

Going towards the light.

Goodbye, cruel world.

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life…

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …  

For this week’s Stitching and Crafting/All Buttoned Up Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, Nora and I were all about the buttons.

Isn’t that a song? “All ‘bout dem buttons, dem buttons, dem buttons?” No?

Anyway, we did this badge in spite of the fact that I held a bit of grudge against the little things. You see, my Gramma Barbie loved her button collections. Loved them so much she stored them in cleverly disguised tins that once held cookies.

Good for her, but annoying for cookie-hungry grandchildren.

I’m just sayin,’ Grams, you could have kept them in Brussels-sprouts tins or something less tantalizing.

But I swallowed the bitter disappointment of years gone by and Nora and I got to collecting. She’s all about collecting, that girl. She’s got a collection for just about you can name: stamps, spoons, rocks, paper dolls, temporary tattoos, bookmarks, pens and pencils, snack food, stickers, stuffed animals, beads, belly button lint … okay, maybe I’m making that one up. She says it’s fairy cotton balls. I remain skeptical.

Finding a few to start her collection was easy enough. First, her dad submitted a shirt for the cause: it was stained and a bit ragged so we salvaged the buttons off with a sharp pair of scissors. That gave us several nice enough buttons to line the bottom of our cookie tin with (tradition, you know). After that, we went yard sale-ing, and sure ‘nuff, found a mason jar of mismatched and intriguing buttons for less than a dollar. She had a blast sorting through those (and found more to add to her fairy cotton-ball collection, to boot). Also, a bit of loose change and some safety pins. I nearly rummaged around myself in case of a spare copy of the Declaration of Independence or something at that point, but we had to stay focused.

Of course, you can just go to the craft and sewing supply store and buy a few buttons to start your collection, but where’s the fun in that?

Nora, being Nora, had to line them all up, in order. First order was by color, from the blues to the greens to the aquamarines. Then she mixed them back up and arranged them by size, smallest to largest. Then she settled on her own personal organization system: favorites. From left to right, from most favorite (a shiny heart-shaped button in pale pink) to her least favorite (a plain, black round one).

photo by stitchlily via Flickr.com

But then she felt bad. After all, at this point, they were like her mini children. You can’t arrange your children by favorites! It’s frowned upon in most circles, even the 8-year-old Button Mama circles. Which is totes a thing. So she scooped them up and poured them back into the cookie tin, letting them run through her fingers first.

Because there’s not much more of a better tactile, hands-on, experience than sifting through buttons.

Unless of course, it’s sifting through cookies.

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life…

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …   

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life…

For this week’s Farm Kitchen/Table Talk Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I gave Nora the job of setting her family’s table each night.*

This posed a couple of problems, the first being that they rarely sat down to dinner together. Between sports practices and late nights at the office and different hungry bellies, it just wasn’t happening enough to make setting a table worth it. I pictured their dining room table looking like something out of Miss Havisham’s house … great for a Halloween scene, but not so inspiring for family life.

So I took Mr. and Mrs. Nora’s Parents out back and gave them a stern talking to. They promised to rearrange their schedules to accommodate seven nights in a row of family dinner.

Nora and I got crackin’.

photo by Alexandra Constantin via Wikimedia Commons

First, we went through the kitchen, looking for little-used dishes. We figured this was a special week, so no holds barred! We got out the good stuff, that’s usually only reserved for holidays, plus some even perkier perks: things like cloth napkins (we attempted some fancy folding, but evidently we need a whole ‘nother merit badge for that), tablecloths, wine goblets for ice water, and even a nifty candlestick holder, complete with candles. Who doesn’t love a candlelit dinner, am I right? You know I am.

It turns out our little experiment was a big hit. The whole family loved the atmosphere so much that the seven days flew by and extended into nine. Nora got even more creative and began making homemade placecards and even menus. Then, she picked themes for her dining-room restaurant: barbeque night complete with a picnic style on the floor, Italian night with a checkered tablecloth and background opera music (reenacting the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp was a must), and a breakfast-for-dinner night where she required everyone to dress in pajamas for their pancake supper.

After the nine nights of feasting, they must have realized how sad I was to be missing out (I think they saw me peeking through the front window) and they let me in for night #10. Too bad it was Chinese night—I was nearly impaled by a chopstick. But, no matter.

Life went back to almost normal for Nora’s family, and family dinner nights aren’t every single night anymore, but they are a minimum of two nights per week now. Hey, that’s two nights for everyone to look forward to—and two nights I don’t have to set my own table. Voila!

*Note: To earn this Young Cultivator Badge, your youngster only has to set the table one night per week for a month. Nora and I just like overachieving.

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …   

For this week’s Each Other/Her-Story Intermediate Level Merit Badge, I got to pick another woman who was influential and powerful and inspiring (this time, living or dead) in my country. I had so many to choose from, it was hard to pick! It was like being in the line at the ice cream parlor … how to choose, how to choose? Which explains why I usually get three scoops. Which explains why my pants don’t button. Ahem.

But back to the badge, Madge!

I decided to go with someone I’d admired all my live-long days, and who I had originally thought of back during my Beginner Level badge earning: Audrey Hepburn.

Screenshot of William Holden and Audrey Hepburn from the trailer for the film w:en:Sabrina (1954 film) via Wikimedia Commons

After all, she seemed a practically perfect woman in every way (much like Mary Poppins, only, you know, real). She had style and grace, charm and wit, sure, but she did so much more!

screenshot of Audrey Hepburn from the trailer for the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s via Wikimedia Commons

In particular order, here are the most amazing things I found out about my dear Audrey:

• Audrey spoke fluently Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, French, and English. I, myself, speak three languages: English, sarcasm, and whale.
• She is one of the few people who are a true EGOT, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards.
• She was sent away to boarding school at the ripe old age of 5.
• Once the Germans invaded the Netherlands where Audrey lived, she became a member of the Dutch Resistance, where she delivered messages and packages and performed in clandestine performances of ballet for fundraising.
• During the Occupation, Audrey would make cakes and breads out of ground tulip bulbs. This affected her health and she developed anemia, and also had a hard time gaining weight for the rest of her life. She was told she would not be strong enough to continue with ballet dancing, and began to concentrate more on acting.
• Despite her father being a Nazi sympathizer and having left their family when Audrey was a child, she reached out to him in the sixties and supported him financially until his death.
• The dress she wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is considered the most iconic dress of all time, and is the inspiration behind the term ‘little black dress.’
• Cary Grant was quoted as saying, ‘All I want for Christmas is to be in another picture with Audrey Hepburn.’ Incidentally, I’ve been quoted as saying, ‘All I want for Christmas is Cary Grant.’
• She was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF and United States President George H. W. Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF.
• The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences posthumously awarded her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity, with her son accepting on her behalf. Grateful for her own good fortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations. Though she had done work for UNICEF in the 1950s, starting in 1954 with radio presentations, this was a much higher level of dedication. Her family said that the thoughts of dying, helpless children consumed her for the rest of her life.
• In 2002, at the United Nations Special Session on Children, UNICEF honored Hepburn’s legacy of humanitarian work by unveiling a statue, “The Spirit of Audrey”, at UNICEF’s New York headquarters. Her service for children is also recognized through the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s Audrey Hepburn Society.