An Apology to the Woman Who Cut in Front of Me at Meijer

This morning while in the checkout line at Meijer I experienced a lack of basic human courtesy that shocked me.  There was a crowd there this morning and only a few checkout lines were open.  I was waiting in a long line at one lane, and about ten lanes down there was an older woman waiting in another long line.  I was struggling to control my girls at this point  — we had been at the store longer than any of us were comfortable with, even though I had provided snacks and diversions in the pet department and promises of a chance to stretch their legs very soon.  Still, at this point my five year old was under two throw pillows in the cart and my two year old was trying to throw herself out of my arms onto the ground screaming “Down!  Out!  Down!!”  I was already considering just abandoning the cart and making a run for it, when a sign of hope appeared.

Hi, my name is Riley.  I like sitting on the backs of chairs,
couches, and grocery carts.  I love the feeling of falling!

A store employee came out from a lane two lanes from mine, and, turning directly toward me, asked me if I wanted to step over to his lane because he was going to open up.  I said thank you, and yes I would.  Actually, I said “Oh my God thank you so much, YES!”  Behind the store clerk I saw the woman watching us.  She frowned at me, and as I struggled to pull my cart out of the lane and turn it toward the newly opened lane, she whipped her cart around and strode quickly past the eight closed lanes toward us.  She looked right at me and her frown deepened as she pushed her fully loaded cart into the free lane and started unloading.

Well, I wish I could say I was gracious.  But in reality I barely stopped myself from throwing a full on adult tantrum.  I barely stopped myself from yelling “Mother Fucker!” and storming with screaming kids right past her and out of the store.  I didn’t behave much better than that, but I didn’t make a public scene.  Well, I didn’t.  Riley probably qualifies as a public scene wherever we go.

In any case, I didn’t think about her, or her life.  I didn’t consider what circumstances would lead her to ignore the struggle I was having and put herself first.  I didn’t think about whether she had an ailing spouse or child at home and needed to get back, or whether she had an appointment to keep or person to meet.  I didn’t think about her at all except with the term “bitch” attached.  

And so, Woman Who Cut in Front of Me at Meijer, I want to apologize.

I want to apologize for the open mouthed bitch face I gave you.  I know you were frowning at me before, but I straight up gaped at you.  People talk about Resting Bitch Face (RBF) as a joke, but I gave some straight up Active Bitch Face.  

I apologize for loudly exclaiming “You have GOT to be kidding me!”  I don’t usually comment in awkward social situations like that.  I was raised Episcopalian, and even though I have converted to Catholicism, a religion steeped in pointed commentary, it is in my nature to suffer such a lack of courtesy in silence.  I am more of a silent believer in Karma, more apt to glare, breathe deeply while counting to ten, and pray that your evil ways do not catch up with you before you mend them.  I embrace my British ancestry while secretly thinking of the things my Apache ancestors would have done.  But you extend my stay at a grocery store by 20 minutes while I was already hanging on to my sanity and my toddler by the tips of my fingers.  That was my breaking point.  Who knew?!

I apologize for aggressively trying to initiate eye contact with you the entire time we stood in the check out line together.  I couldn’t understand why you were suddenly so hesitant to look at me.  You seemed to be fine glaring at my daughters every time they moved, breathed, or made a sound.  But you would not meet my eyes anymore.

Hi, my name is Lucy.  I know there are two throw
pillows, but I will fight you for both of them.

I apologize for all of the times my toddler touched or played with an item of yours on the conveyor belt as we waited for you to finish directing the clerk which items to place into which bags.  To be fair, your bananas would never have been molested had you not stolen our place in line.  And, when you think about it, its really miracle she didn’t bite right into them.  Furthermore, if I am being totally honest, I could have tried harder to prevent her from touching your things.  But I was really tired of holding her while she tried to kick me, and her interest in your groceries was keeping her from riding on the edge of the cart like a horse.  I was selfish, and I am sorry.  

Further along those lines, I apologize for the fact that I had absolutely no control over my toddler whatsoever.  Grocery carts cannot contain her.  She laughs at restraining belts.  She leaps from moving carts.  She pitches herself forward or backward out of my arms in total disregard for anyone’s mental or physical wellbeing, including her own.  She is 22 months.  She is a force of nature.  She is a compilation of curiosity, desires, and emotions in a harness of blood and bone and completely devoid of any rationale or temperance.  She is glorious and she might actually kill me one day and I love her.

Finally, I am sorry that I bitched about you all day to anyone who would listen, and that I am still thinking about you now.  You did something unkind.  You had your reasons.  I hope they were good, but it is really not my position to judge them.  I did not answer you with kindness, I answered you with anger and sarcasm.  That was not a good model for my children, and it was not healthy for my heart.

I forgive you for your simple transgression.  Such a gesture is meaningless to you, you might not feel you did anything warranting forgiveness.  The gesture is for me, to purge the black flower of rage that blossomed in me when you steered your cart into lane 13, an emotion disproportionate to your actions.  I forgive myself for my day of wallowing in that rage from time to time without stopping to consider your humanity.

I only hope, were we ever to meet again face to face in the checkout lanes of Meijer, that I would be strong enough to act differently.

Lost in Translation

Note: This post was begun two weeks ago, and finished this morning.

We have been in Mirebalais over a full week now, and I am finally feeling settled in and comfortable.  This is largely due to our downstairs neighbors, the Philbrooks, who have taken us under their wing.  They have patiently and graciously fielded requests for help with everything from "Where do we get water?" to "Can I borrow your broom...again?" to "Can we catch a ride with you to the market/party/hospital?"  Lucy has become fast friends with their son, who is almost seven, and they can often be found together pouring over the ponds of tadpoles or building rock houses.

I have been trying to practice some Kreyol, although it goes against every instinct I have.  I am an introvert naturally, and can happily go the whole day without talking to anyone.  The fact that I have two little extroverts with me all day every day ensures that this never happens.  I can be mentally exhausted at the end of the day just from talking to my girls all day, let alone talking to all of the people that we meet with whom they strike up conversations.  Add on to that the embarrassment of having to communicate with most people in my own extremely poor Kreyol which usually comes out as my high school French (to be fair I was really good at French...when I studied it 15 years ago), and that makes talking to people quite daunting.

Today, however, necessity was the mother of boldness, if not invention.  We ran out of drinking water, propane, and the other night I broke the handle on our front door.  Don is working today at 8am, and helped me talk to Vladimir one of the security guards, this morning before he went to work.  However, that left the remainder of the negotiations up to me.

We also had a lovely lady, Maranatha, come over today to help me with our laundry.  I have been keeping by by washing things in the sink or in our trash can every other day or so, and it has come to my attention that my hand washing skills are woefully inadequate.  As in, the other day I washed a pair of Don's scrubs with some other things.  When I brought them in from the balcony where they were hanging to dry I noticed that the hems of the pants were still crusted with dirt.  Total fail.

So, with the help of our little Kreyol Made Easy book, Google Translate, and my four years of High School French, I did some language dégagé.

"Who is able to help us exchange our water bottles?  Are you able to exchange them?  Today?"
"Who is able to exchange the propane?  Is he able to do that today?"
"I am so sorry, but I broke the handle on our front door."
"Yes, I have cleaning things, they are here.  Yes I have detergent.  No, I don't have any bleach, Mistolene (a floor cleaner), or more detergent.  This Ajax bottle says 'bleach', is this it?"
"You cannot install the propane but the manager can, and he is coming?  Today?  OK."
"You can fix the door handle by switching them?  OK.  Do I have a screw driver?  Noooo, I don't have a screwdriver....but you will come back with one later to fix the door?  OK."
"What is it?  What is it for?  For laundry?  I don't have it?  You can go buy it?  OK.  How much is it?  OK I have that.  One minute.  This is all the money I have. It is enough?"

By the end of the day I was literally sweating every time I saw another human being.  Not because of the 95 degree heat or the 90% humidity.  It was fear sweat.

I can understand about 70% of what people say, if they are speaking slowly.  If I am not sure what they are talking about, I ask them to spell a word so I can translate it, or tell me what a thing is used for if they are asking for something.  It is the responding that is really hard for me.  My natural inclination is to respond in formal French.  And not even real French, like people here who are from Francophone countries.  High School classroom French.  Which I am sure sounds like nails on a chalkboard to people who speak French, let alone people who speak Kreyol.  So I really have to stop and think every time I say something.  Which makes for some reallllllly loooooooong conversation pauses.  Which are awkward.  Very uncomfortable.

Because, and forgive me if you have already noticed this, people are looking at you while you pause and try to compose a sentence.  They just stand there and look at you.  Waiting.  And when people stand and look at me, I tend to forget what I was supposed to be doing.  My brain switches off and the brain stem takes over and I start thinking about how I can get out of this situation instead of what sentence I was supposed to be translating.

This is why I am an introvert.  I like being around people, I like talking to people, I like being social.  Most of the time.  It is just that doing so takes up so much energy.  I need to be by myself in a quiet room after most social interactions in English, let alone in another language.

So by the end of the day, I was pretty exhausted.  Don came home around 4pm, and I am not sure exactly what he found.  I had accomplished all of the necessary tasks.  We had water and propane and clean clothes and a clean apartment and both girls were alive and Lucy and I had done school work together and I think there was probably some semblance of dinner occurring or about to occur (Full Disclosure: I am posting this more than two weeks later, and our door handle is still broken, but as long as we don't close our front door when we leave the apartment everything is fine).  But it is possible that I resembled Goldie Hawn in the scene in Overboard where the boys are throwing grapes at her face while she mutters incoherently.

But I did it.  And I am still trying.  I am still trying to talk to Vladimir and Micheler and Maranatha and go a few questions deeper than the usual "Good morning and how are you?" exchanges.  I am still saying hello to people on our walks.  I am trying to be better about buying my own things and not having Don and Julia ask everyone how much things cost for me (OK, could still be a lot better at that.  Every time I try to buy something by myself I basically pull out a wad of small bills like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and look hopefully at the woman with the tomatoes/Maggi cubes/rice).  I am trying to puzzle out translations to questions that I have and not feel embarrassed to say things when 9/10 times I get a blank state in response to my Kreyol/French mix.

I am only defeated if I stop trying.

Unless we run out of diapers.

Baggage

We are deep into the packing process right now.  

Empty boxes of things.

I have lists.  I have lists of lists.  No, seriously.  I literally have a list detailing all of the lists that I need to make.  Lucy, Riley, Don, Toiletries, Kitchen, Medicine, Entertainment, School, Packing here, Grocery store in Port-au-Prince, to order online, to buy at the store, to do before we go, etc, etc.  Lists and lists and lists.

I have boxes and boxes of things.  I bought all of the things.  All of them.  Then I took them out of their boxes, and put them into gallon ziplock bags.  A lot of ziplock bags.

I sat on the guest bed last night surrounded by empty cardboard boxes and full ziplock baggies.  And then I had a panic attack.

Full ziplock baggies of cashew and clorox and dried fruit, oh my.

Oh my God.  I bought all of this stuff?  Do we need all of this stuff?  Do we really need to bring granola bars and apple sauce pouches and swim floats and 3 canisters of bug spray and 42 bottles of children’s tylenol and peanut butter new bottles of toiletries?  Why do we need all of this stuff?  We are going to a populated country!  There are people who live there, people who eat and love and get sick and take showers.  We can live for a month without Nutella for Christ’s sake!

I bought CVS.

I looked around again and my panic attack did not abate.  It intensified.  Because I tallied the cost and the weight of everything around in, in dollars and pounds and expectations, and I felt even less prepared than before I began.  I would forget something.  I had forgotten something.  I knew it.  I had made lists and lists of lists.  I had purchased ALL of the things.  And we would go to Haiti and pay extra baggage fees for our six pounds of peanut butter and we would get to our apartment (our own apartment!  amazing!) and we would unpack and someone would ask “Mom, where did you put the X, Y and Z?” and then my head would explode.

The best part about this panic attack was that it occurred while I was on the phone with American Airlines trying to get Riley added as a lap infant to our reservation.  I was on hold for 23 minutes, using that time to put more things from boxes into ziplock bags.  Riley, for her part, was communicating to us from her crib that she would not be taking a nap this afternoon, thank you very much, and the fact that we were trying to force her to do so was killing her.  Don walked into the room with a train of suitcases in which to pack the ziplock bags full of things from cardboard boxes.  A live human being finally came on and asked me how she could help.  And then the phone cut out.  

I put the phone down on the bed, gentler than I have ever handled anything in my life.  I took a deep breath.  I looked around at the sea of boxes and bags on the bed again.  A rising sound filled my ears.  My chest got tight.  I breathed in slowly again, but couldn’t seem to get any air.  I felt like a tea kettle left on the stove too long.  I wasn’t just going to boil, I was going to crack.

And then I looked up at Don.  He got it.  He knew exactly what was going on.  Because he had that look on his face.  He was Robert Redford in the Horse Whisperer.  He was in full de-escalation mode.  And I don’t even get mad at this anymore.  I love it.  I need it.  I was about to get totally crazy.  I was going to burrow into a cave of Cliff Bars and Crystal Light powder and diapers and sob.  I was about to cancel the trip.

But he knows.  After being together over ten years he knows.  I am on board for the adventure.  I am all in — but there is a caveat.  Every so often, I am going to totally lose my shit.  I am going to cancel the holiday/trip/dinner, pick the worst fight for no reason, get emotional and cry and make everything about me.  The best part about Don is that he knows this, and he knows exactly how to deal with it.  He wraps me in a mantle of patience and logic and a calm voice and he waits out my crazy.  

The best part about Don is that he knows my crazy, and he loves me.  Not in spite of it.  Not even because of it.  He just loves me.

Unpacked bags :(

Packed bags!

More bags...

Just too cute not to add in.

Noodles, Part One

And so it begins...the two day noodle extravaganza inspired by David Chang. Today is dashi day, or stock/broth day. Here is my exciting list of ingredients:

Kombi (dried seafood)

Pork neck bones (now added to butchers list for our next whole hog)

Dried shiitake mushrooms

Good thing I thought a little bit ahead and ordered a giant box of these...

I'll let you know how it goes!

To Believe or Not To Believe?

“Mom, why don’t you ever believe in me?!”

I stood motionless, holding my 16 month old daughter while staring at my almost 5 year old daughter, mouth agape.  I couldn’t think of a single way to respond, because I had an entire lecture series of parenting articles, blog posts, and advice warring with a simple fact in my brain.  It went a little something like this:    

If I don’t believe in her now, if I don’t trust her to make her own mistakes and learn her own lessons (when safe) then she will never learn to believe in and trust herself.  If I always run in and fix the zipper or put the lunch in the backpack or set up the train set because it is taking too long, it is too hard, we are too late, then what?  I will make her insecure.  I will make her doubt herself.  I will make her dependent on her father and me and then friends and then boyfriends and then somebody else but never herself.

I will fail her.

I am failing her already!  She thinks I don’t believe in her!

How could I not believe this face?

But…but….her tennis shoes are not in her backpack!!!  Because they are on the floor in the pantry.  Where I can see them.  Right.  Now.  So I literally CANNOT believe in her.  Because she is just wrong!

<insert silent, primal, maternal scream of despair here>

So there I stood, mouth agape, paralyzed by this parenting crisis.  Do I just lay it out logically?

“Lucy, sweetheart, my strong, smart, brave darling.  I am so sorry that you feel that I do not believe in you.  However, the fact remains that I can see your tennis shoes on the floor in the pantry right now.  Ergo, if they are on the floor of the pantry, they cannot be in your backpack, as they cannot occupy two separate spaces at the same time.  Correct?”

Or do I just let it go (HAH!  Sing it all day now!) and allow her to make the inevitable discovery when she gets to school, and wear her snow boots in class all day?

“Lucy, sweetheart, my strong, smart, brave darling.  I am so sorry that you feel that I do not believe in you.  If you think that your shoes are already in your backpack, then I trust you.  You have an excellent memory, as I have often said.  Let’s just get your backpack and get to the car, ok?”

Well, as it happens, both of my imagined scenarios were off.  Here is how it played out.

Such innocence?

<Lucy enters the dining room walking toward the garage door, head thrown back, groaning in agony.  She has her backpack on, and is carrying her school folder, which I have asked her approximately 83 times to place in her backpack this morning.>

L: Ugghhhh…this backpack is SO heavy!

Me: I can see that it looks quite full.  What do you have in there?

L: I don’t knooooooow.  I didn’t look.  

M: Can you take it off so we can put your folder inside?

L: Fine.

M: <I open the backpack.  Inside are Lucy’s rain boots, which she wore to school yesterday instead of her snow boots>  I see that your rain boots are in your backpack Lucy.  Do you want to take these to wear at school today?  Or would you rather get some other shoes to take?

L: <laughs> Oh yeah!  I forgot I put those in there and wore my tennis shoes home yesterday!  I want other shoes.

M: <silently closing my eyes in victory, which is usually the same thing as defeat when it comes to these parenting moments> OK.

What would you have done?

Word Storm

L is in her second year of preschool now, and her savage little mind is literally exploding with words.  Every day she learns a new song and reads a new book, and when she gets home from school often skips around the house calling out phrases or words in sing song that have never before passed her lips.  She has also recently crossed the Rubicon of reading.  Don and I have always loved reading to her, and read several times a day.  We have been working with her, pretty casually (well, pretty casually on my part, more seriously on Don’s part) for a while on letter sounds and stringing those sounds together to make words.  Then, while Riley and I were in California a few weeks ago, L and Don started working a lot more and something in her brain clicked and letters and sounds became words and now she is reading. 

In essence, we have a perfect storm of words in our house right now, which has resulted in some pretty humorous conversations.  For instance, today at lunch Lucy decided that she was going to start using the phrase “pretty much.”  This colloquial expression can be laid entirely at my own door.  I don’t know where it came from or why I say it, but I do.  Too often.  How do I know that I use it too often?  Because it is now being used in my presence and it is pretty much super annoying.  But this is what happens when she encounters something new that she likes.  It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know what it means, it just sounds nice.  She uses it often.  Too often.  She word storms it.

This is a new phrase I have recently invented to describe her relationship with words.  She hears a word or phrase in conversation, or reads it in a book.  She tries it on, like a new pair of high heeled, glow in the dark, flashing light Ariel dress up shoes.  Then, all of the sudden….word storm.  She is prancing around the living room in pajamas at 12:37pm, blowing a plastic flute and chanting “Cue the magic!  Cue the sparkles!!” at the top of her lungs.  R staggers after her like a tiny, drunken Igor.  I believe I have the PBS series Super Why! to thank for that particular gem.

This lends itself to a certain air of…total chaos…when it comes to everyday life at the Zimmer home lately.  But, not all the time.  Because now, there is the calm.  The calm after the word storm.  This is when Lucy uses her newfound relationship, her intimacy, if you will, to do something really special.  She changes its meaning.  So now, after the mad capering about the room has ceased, we have conversations like this:

L.     Mom, did I have a Vitamin yet today?

Me.  No, you did not.

L.     OK, can I have an Eight Stories High then?

Me.  <<blank look>>

L.     Eight Stories High is what I call my Vitamins now.  Because they are up on the high shelf.  So can I have one?  An Eight Stories High?

Me.  Yeah….yes.  Yes you may.  Have an…eight stories high.  Vitamin.

L.     Just Eight Stories High.

It is a rare moment with L when I am not being told that some word she is going to say, action she is about to perform, thing she is about to draw is not something else entirely.  Maybe this is the price we are paying for introducing her to science fiction and fantasy – the lines between realities are entirely blurred.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.  That is the way I grew up, and I turned out just fine.  Almost entirely not insane.  I mean, I believed in the Greek Pantheon of Gods roughly through High School….but whatever.  Lucy won’t read the Greek myths with me yet, so I think we are pretty safe from catching her burning offerings in the back yard.  My concerns now are probably entirely superficial.  Like, how am I going to keep anything straight?

The Vitamins are “Eight Stories Tall”

The shrimp in her sushi tonight was “Wazizi” and the avocado was “Grozz”

When she says “beeeeeeeeep” that means it is time for me to brush her hair, but if she says “nayno nay” then I need to stop.

Pretty Much.

Hindsight and Tomato Jam

Here is a list of decisions I made, just today, that resulted in epic failures.

1.  Teaching L how to affect a Yorkshire accent while reading The Secret Garden with her.
Now, I have nothing against a nice, broad Yorkshire accent.  What I do take issue with, now that it has. Been brought to my attention, is L's interpretation of a Yorkshire accent.  Having recently finished several other stories that featured Mexican, Indian, and Scottish accents, addition of Yorkshire appears to have overloaded her savage little mind.  Now whenever L mimics Ben Weatherstaff or Martha, she does so in a hellish patois of accents that is roughly the vocal equivalent of a knitting needle to your ear drum.

2. Adding rice cereal to R's soup to make it easier for her to eat.
R was doing pretty well slurping up the last of the crab chowder broth.  Foolishly, I thought that thickening it with some rice cereal would have the two pronged effect of making it even easier for her to swallow and giving her some added nutrition.  Well, I am sure the latter would have been true had she ever deigned to comply with the experiment and swallow any. Instead, she decided to perform several experiments of her own, and violently spat the nicely thickened broth right into my eyes.  Several times.  That's right.  I tried to feed it to her several more times, even after being blinded by the first attempt.

3. Wearing my nose ring while R is developing her pincer grasp.
While trying to put her down for a nap today R and I had one of those precious and intimate moments that are exclusive to someone feeding a baby.  She looked up from nursing, smiled at me with her sweet, two toothed, milky little smile, and then viciously plucked out my nose stud with the fine motor precision of a ninja. It was like a scene from Kill Bill.  And then I looked up from R, in a haze of pain, eyes running, to find L watching me from the doorway and shaking her head.  "You should have said 'Oh dirt' Mom."

Yup.  Thanks for that tip, L.

4. Telling Lucy what I was doing when she asked, just now.
"What are you doing, Mom?" <<watching me from doorway to the playroom>>
"Um...writing."
"What are you writing, Mom?"  <<steps into the room to lean against the chair I am occupying>>
"A story.  Kind of."
"Can I write a story now?" <<grabs for iPad>>
"Not right now on the iPad L, but you can write on some paper if you'd like."
"What is the story about, Mom?" <<climbs onto the arm of the chair>>
"Um...its about...you.  Kind of."
"Me?  Can you read it to me?  Can I tell you a story about me?  Can I write it?" <<slides down into my lap, directly between me and the iPad, which is now situated in L's lap>>
"Not yet, L.  It isn't finished yet."
"When will it be finished?"
"Well, I don't know."
"When will you know when it will be finished."  <<R, drawn into the room by this conversation, now attempting to climb into the chair.  She is encouraging my help in this endeavor by making noises roughly resembling a Pteranodon speaking Klingon.>>
"I.  Don't.  Know.  It's like one of your paintings or crafts.  You don't know that it is done until its done."
"Oh."  <<L tried to be helpful by tickling R with her foot.  Instead knocks her over, sending her into a baby rage.>>
"Why don't you go back into your play room?"  <If you hadn't already guessed, there is probably a hint of panic in my voice right now.  The panic of one who senses their patience rapidly dwindling>>
"No, that's OK.  I want to snuggle."

And now here is a recipe that is really good.

Tomato Jam with Caramelized Onions
Inspiration for this recipe came from Food In Jars, a great blog with really specific instructions and some really beautiful recipes.  For planning purposes, this is an all day recipe.  I roast the tomatoes slowly, caramelize the onions slowly, and then slow cook the jam to avoid any scorching.  The last time I made it, I put the onions on the burner and the tomatoes in the oven around 11:30am and finished canning the jam at 9:40pm.  In between I did many nap times and bed times and cooked dinner and ran an errand while everything was on low, but it does take a while.

10 lbs tomatoes (Romas have less water and will cook faster, but anything will do)
4 large onions
2 heads of garlic
1 cup bottled lemon juice
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup honey
several sprigs of thyme, rosemary, and oregano (or whatever herbs you like and can get your hands on)
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

1.  Caramelize the onions: slice all four onions into whatever size you wish.  They will cook down.  Put in a large bottomed pan, at least 12", with 1/4 stick of salted butter and 1/4 cup of olive oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Saute the onions on med high until they brown slightly, then turn down to low and cover.  Forget for several hours.

2. Roast the tomatoes: preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Core your tomatoes, cut them in half, and have your trusty assistant place them on an oiled sheet pan cut side up.  Or down.  Or whatever way she wants to.  Sprinkle them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and have your assistant rub this mixture around every tomato with a brush.  Or her hands.  It's OK, they are going to be roasted.  (If you want to get fancy about the tomatoes, then you really need to peel them first by blanching them in boiling water and peeling off the skins.  I don't really care if there are papery shreds of tomato skin in my sauces and jams, but some people do!)  Peel the two heads of garlic as well, and throw the cloves on the sheet pan in between the tomatoes.  Roast at 350 for about two hours, or until the tomatoes cook down and the edges get browned.

3.  Add the tomatoes, garlic and onions to a large pot.  At this point you have a choice.  You can just dump the sheet pans directly into the pot, tomatoes, tomato juice and all.  Or you can lift out the tomatoes and garlic cloves and leave the pan juices.  Thus far, I have chosen the dumping methods, which I am sure results in several more hours of cooking time for the water to evaporate.  However, for some reason, I think there is a lot of flavor in that juice that is getting concentrated as it cooks down.  If you are in a hurry, just lift the tomatoes and garlic off the pan and dump the juices down the drain.  Or save them for veggie broth.  Or something.

Papery tomato skins and watery juices.  We have a long road ahead.

4.  Add the lemon juice, maple syrup, balsamic, and herbs.  Bring the resulting mixture to a boil

5.  Reduce heat to a low simmer, and let it cook.  And cook.  And cook.  Stir it a lot.  If you have to go out turn it to low.  Leave it uncovered so the water can evaporate.

We are about two hours in at this point.  And we still have a long road ahead.

6.  When the jam is almost finished it will have almost no juice separating out from the mixture.  It will be thick and glossy.  If you stir it and it makes a sizzling sound, the turn off the heat and take it off the burner.  It is done.

7.  To can, ladle the jam into sanitized jars (I usually plan two hours ahead of when I know I will be canning, and use the sanitize setting on my dishwasher.  Or you can boil the jars in water for 10 minutes to sanitize them.), and process in a water bath for 15 minutes.  For more detailed information on water bath canning, please visit this excellent website.  Not only do they have resources on where to pick your own fruits and veggies in your area, but they have instructions on how to jam, jelly, can and pickle almost anything.  (Side note: I can pickle that!  Portlandia, anyone?  Anyone?)

There is nothing as satisfying as the sight of one's pantry full of these jars.
Unless it is the sight of several pallets full in one's basement.

At this point, you might be asking yourself what the hell the point is of making a really weird tomato onion jam that takes like ten hours.  I understand, I really do.  I get it.  But I also love delicious things.  Am I saying that this jam is delicious.....well, no.  Not by itself.  But here are a list of the things I have used it on in just the past week (since I made the first batch) that were nearly transcendent.

1.  Meatloaf stuffed with goat cheese and tomato jam.

2.  Patty melt with goat cheese and tomato jam

3.  Panini with rosemary ham, goat cheese and tomato jam

4.  Wrap with turkey, feta and tomato jam

5.  Sourdough toast with butter and tomato jam

If you are seeing a pattern here, good for you.  Yes the jam is good.  But pair it with a strong, slightly bitter flavor (goat cheese, feta cheese, sourdough), and it becomes insane.  Sweet, savory and complex, the garlic and onions just melt into the background.

You won't be sorry.

Or, at least, you won't be as sorry as I am right now for not having finished this post before nap time was over.