There are a few “assembly-only” recipes in Easy Breakfasts from Around the World. Keilbasa and Toast from Poland, Brown Bread with Honey-Molasses Butter from Turkey, and La Boillie (rice with peanut butter) from Chad, Africa. Next time you don’t know what to eat for breakfast, don’t think “What can I cook?” think “What can I assemble?”

The Grim Raker

Then there was this guy in our yard, raking leaves like a fiend. Our neighbor asked, “What’s he supposed to be?” I said, he’s the Grim Raker! (aka my beloved husband).

That question “What’s he supposed to be?” got me remembering the Halloween when I was 13 and did not know what to be. I bought a mask of a plain woman at Ben Franklin. I put on one of my mom’s old dresses and carried a purse. It seemed lame but, oh, well, I tromped around with a bunch of friends. One homeowner looked at us and said, “Oh look, it’s a cowboy, a ghost, a vampire, the Bionic Man …and …and …and a … a … a lady!”

Yup. That was me. A generic lady. Not Marilyn Monroe, or a witch, or Wonder Woman. Just a nobody, clutching her empty purse. It seemed like a flaw, not to have a specific Halloween costume and I was bummed for the rest of the night. What if I grew up to be a nobody? If that generic neighbor (I didn’t know who she was) had merely said “Happy Halloween, kids, here’s your candy,” I never even would have remembered dressing up as a “woman” for Halloween. But because she pointed it out, faltering when she couldn’t define or recognize me, I have never forgotten it. Not that it was her fault, but it was my Charlie Brown moment.

When I taught, I drove my students crazy asking them to dredge up old memories and then, horrors!, analyze them. It’s one of my favorite things to do (analyze past events, not torment innocent students).

And Halloween is a perfect topic, a mysterious day when everybody dresses up as somebody else. What will you be for Halloween?? What costumes did you wear in Halloweens past? What is your best or worst Halloween story? Any Charlie Brown moments?

You can check out page 44 of Easy Vegetarian Foods From Around the World to see a recipe. Or look one up online.

A friend of mine tried the recipe. She didn’t have pita, so she put the falafel on a cucumber salad with garlic yogurt dressing. She and her family loved them! “I could eat these every day,” her son said. “They’re better than cookies.”

To learn more online, click here. This recipe says to boil the dough. Remember, you can do what you want — fry, bake, or boil.

But no matter how you cook it, you still get to eat falafel!

Believe it or not, I find this schedule one of the perks of the business. (Did you know the word perk comes from “perquisite” which means benefit or bonus?) I love when a challenge becomes a perk. The schedule can be stressful, because you don’t really know when your days off will be. But in the down times, I get a lot of other stuff done around the house (I’ll spare you details about the laundry and the state of our kitchen floor, etc.). Casey likes the down times too. She gets longer walks.

What are the perks of your work? Do you face challenges that turn out to be perks?

I better get back to work. Happy October!

For a long time, I saved letters written to me. Recently I’ve been going through the boxes, sorting the envelopes, and giving the letters back to senders. When they reread them, they go back in time, into their personal histories. The notes reveal funny things. My sister started almost every one of her letters with an apology. “I’m sorry it took me so long to write back. Sorry I haven’t written in such a long time.”

Well, I’ve been feeling sorry I have not written on this blog for so long. It’s just that I’m still trying to figure out how to use a blog.

Do you write letters? Do you like getting them in the mail? Do you save them? How are letters different from email? (Hey, don’t knock compare / contrast! How would we make choices without it??)

My best students—no surprise, often the returning adults who’d been through jobs, military tours, motherhood—were no smarter and just as nervous as everyone else. The diff? Their stakes were high. They did not waste a minute—or a penny (high tuition!). They had big reasons to be there. They worked hard. Maybe those young students (that sea of sweet faces) need time.

I’ve seen smart thinkers fail and mediocre thinkers ace the class with nothing more than good study skills. They sat in front, asked questions, took notes, followed along, talked to me. And here’s a secret, any student who walked into my office during office hours instantly got a better grade for putting forth the effort. Success is really not only about being smart, it’s about habits. Do you believe it? Have you seen it? Do you agree?

Sometimes, when I was teaching, in the middle of a hot debate over a controversial essay, a student would raise his hand. “Yes? Yes??”

“Can I go to the bathroom?” he’d ask, or  “When is the essay due?”

I saw other students tight-lipped with good ideas lighting up their eyes, too shy or nervous to speak up. What if their comment sounds dumb? I know it’s a risk to say what you think. I was a shy student. Now I wish I had spoken up!

Think of it as practice. In soccer, you don’t kick a goal the first time you play, do you? No, you have to practice!

I always learn from students. They often say things I never thought of. To this day, I remember some of their comments. What? You’d like an example? Good catch. (I’m constantly pushing students to provide examples.)

Once, my class read the book Affluenza, about America’s consumer culture, people’s tendency to buy lots of stuff and value money. One student said, “The authors totally make the assumption that it’s not okay to be poor.” I’ve never forgotten her eye-opening comment.

What do you think? Is it hard to speak up in class and say what you think?

My author copies of these cookbooks arrived last week. These were such fun books to write! The recipes come from around the world. Each spread has three elements – a fact about the country, information about a type of food, and the recipe!

I have so many favorite recipes in these books. In Easy Lunches, there’s “Pyttipanna,” from Sweden. The word means “little things in a pan.” It’s hash – fried potatoes and meat – with a fried egg on top, a little pickled beets on the side. Yum! Part of Sweden is north of the Arctic Circle. That means in June and July, the sun never sets!

Doesn’t that make you hungry – for knowledge and food??

This story was sent to my mailbox, not to the blog. I enjoyed it, so I thought I’d share it.

Today two young students visited my home. They are ten and six.

“School starts September 6,” the first said.

“We can’t wait,” added the other.

“Sounds like you like school,” I said, smiling.

“We like homework,” they said. “Our mother is tired of us asking for homework.”