Author: Amy Lauters

Amy Lauters is a Professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Minnesota State University, Mankato, a life-long scholar of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a student of American culture.

October snow

~ Amy Lauters ~ Leave a comment

We in Minnesota woke up Sunday to snow.

I’ll admit to having a complicated relationship with the stuff. Last winter, in the immediate aftermath of our first major snowstorm in January, I broke my leg treading through the drifts. It didn’t heal until the last storm of the winter in late April.

I spent most of the summer wearing Birkenstock sandals, for the back support that comes from the solid cork sole. At a recent conference, friends who live in the American South teased me about wearing sandals in 50-degree weather.

I told them I’d wear the sandals until snow fell.

Well, snow fell.

It also melted right away, so I’m still wearing my sandals this week.

October is early for snow in Minnesota, and it’s rare for us to see flakes even as late as Halloween. It reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s story of the October Blizzard that kicked off the hard winter of her childhood, 1880-1881, captured in her book, The Long Winter.

The story, set in De Smet, S.D., recounts a winter packed with blizzard after blizzard. Trains couldn’t get through to the new frontier town, and by spring, many of the town’s occupants were starving, grinding seed wheat from their stores to make bread.

Dr. Barb Mayes Boustead, a meteorologist, developed a weather index for her dissertation that focused on that winter. She found, through its application, that Wilder’s depiction of the weather that winter was accurate. The index itself has interesting implications and applications for historians interested in how weather is talked about and how it actually was in history.

Boustead’s blog, Wilder Weather, devotes itself to weather and to Wilder, both, and it’s worth a read.

At the 2012 LauraPalooza, my mother and I spent a portion of our time showing attendees how to make and bake the Long Winter bread, made from ground wheat berries and sourdough starter. It’s actually pretty tasty, but I can’t imagine living off it for weeks.

I’m not particularly thrilled with the implications of October snow for this winter. But at least I found my boots. Just in case.

It’s all about the pumpkins.

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My family and I enjoyed a quick trip to a pumpkin patch on Saturday. It’s our fall family tradition to find a good place to get pumpkins that we’ll later carve for our Halloween fun.

This year, we tried out Pumpkin Junction at Blue Skye Farm in Good Thunder, Minn. It’s open for visitors most weekends in October, and it’s one of the few sites we’ve found locally that have not just the pumpkins, but children’s activities and fun things to do, too.

GPS helped us find the farm, off old Hwy 66, and we were one of the first families to arrive. We were greeted by a host who explained the “system” to us. We got a form that listed everything they had for sale, and as we picked out what we wanted, we marked the sheet, paying for everything at the end. She also emphasized that children under 18 got to pick out a free pumpkin, so my girls were pretty excited.

Our first stop was the pumpkin patch. I picked up the clippers, but promptly handed them to husband Matt to wield because I am a notorious clutz. (See the story about the broken leg last winter, if you need further evidence.) We had lovely sunshine, but the wind whipped coldly across the patch as we trudged out in our boots to look at the ripe pumpkins on the vine.

G.G. was along with us, too, and she helped A find a good pumpkin first. By the time we filled our farm-provided green cart, we’d loaded five of our favorite, round, ripe, orange pumpkins. Our next stop was the activity tent, where games and a food booth were set up, as well as tables containing other fall vegetables–varied squash and gourds as well as dried corn.

Our girls picked out sweet treats at the food both (cookies and cupcakes from a local bakery) before we heard the call that the hay rides were starting. We picked up our treats and headed over to the wagon filled with hay bales, drawn behind a tractor. (We like horse-drawn rides best, and cheerfully call ourselves “horse groupies” during the holiday season for our tendency to find where all the horse-drawn rides are, but the tractor worked well, too.)

The tractor made a large loop around the farm, allowing us to see the squash, gourds and pumpkins still in the fields. The girls excitedly squealed each time they saw a new kind of gourd in the field, and C particularly liked the white pumpkins on the ground.

When the long ride was over, we headed to the corrals to see the horses and the calf that were out for petting. Our girls love animals, and visiting the animals, wherever we are, always makes them happy.

The farm also included a hay maze that topped out about five feet in height, which was perfect for small children and their taller parents, but by the time we considered it, we were too cold to stay outside. That whippy wind got the best of us.

Blue Skye Farm is open one more weekend this year.

Meanwhile, what do we do with the pumpkins?

We’ll carve them this week, and I’ll make roasted pumpkin seeds for snacking on.

Lessons learned about politics, media, and women

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I spent the end of last week in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the annual convention of the American Journalism Historians Association. I’m a long-time member and past president, and it’s my favorite event each year.

This year, I presented a paper about press coverage of gender and gender violence, specifically during the years the Internet was emerging, 1990-2000. I started that research at the behest of a friend working on a book about social media and gender violence, and the recent usage of social media both for harassment and for political organization made examining the historical context even more important.

I didn’t know, when I started the work, just now relevant it would become in the week I presented it.

Social media, as with any media platform, is a tool. In and of itself, social media platforms are neutral. But the people using them? Those people can use them for whatever they want. In the 1990s, people were both concerned by the level of harassment possible online, and optimistic about the tool’s potential uses for change.

And in the last two weeks, we’ve seen examples of the best and the worst of those frames.

The best: Using social media to connect women, organize, and be voices for change. Alyssa Milano, Elizabeth Warren, and many other women stood up and tried to bring attention to ideological struggle represented by the GOP’s determination to appoint a man with a documented history of harassment toward women to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The worst: Using social media to bully, harass, and intimidate women who were trying to be voices for change. Memes attempting to diminish the work of these women abounded on numerous sites. Women’s struggles were portrayed as meaningless; our body autonomy was undercut; our very real problems with men who think our bodies are their playgrounds were mocked.

I at one point considered writing a post about the multiple times over the years where I faced sexual assault and harassment, but ultimately, I could not bring myself to relive any of it for public consumption. I will only say I didn’t report because I knew nothing would be done. I admire Dr. Ford for her willingness to come forward and face the ridicule, disbelief, and scorn I could not.

I will also say that any woman who attempts a career in a largely male-dominated field can expect a degree of harassment and assault as a norm. We learn to live with it or we get out. And frankly, we shouldn’t have to live with it.

According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, one in four women between the ages of 18 and 24 suffer some form of sexual assault, and one in 20 men suffer the same. Why any of us who have suffered would mock the rest escapes me. But that is exactly what I saw on social media.

Conservative friends and family who jumped on that train and shared such mocking? You can unfriend me. I certainly blocked you.

My research about how media platforms are used by people to build and tear down community is ongoing. I won a research grant at AJHA to help continue my work, and I look forward to it.

And on the political front, I’m massively disappointed in the Republican Party. I’ve been an independent voter for years, but the last two weeks have been enough for me. I’m officially declaring myself a Democrat. I’ll be wearing blue on November 6.

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Comfort food for a hard week

~ Amy Lauters ~ 1 Comment

Times are challenging, the news is triggering, and I’m not quite sure what I want to say about all of it. I learned long ago not to speak out rashly in anger, but to think carefully about what I want to say, especially about important and potentially combative topics.

That said. I’m still angry. So I’m still percolating.

While I’m percolating, I decided to share one of my comfort food recipes. I’ve made so many batches of Chocolate Chip Cookies that I no longer need to refer to the recipe. I am the family cookie baker, but my skills with this recipe were honed in my time as a nutritionist and cook’s assistant for the campus day care at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Four out of five days in the week, I prepared and served healthy, balanced snacks for the under-five set.

But on Fridays, I broke out the treats.

Chocolate Chip Cookies are a classic favorite. My original recipe was ripped right from the Nestle Chocolate Chip bag, but I’ve tweaked it a lot to produce a cookie that’s uniformly cooked, chewy instead of crunchy, and loaded with chocolate chips. Pay special attention to the method.

The recipe:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Beat together until fluffy:

3/4 cup of white sugar

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of real butter

1/2 cup of butter-flavored shortening

Gently stir in:

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Blend in:

1 cup of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Fold in:

1 1/4 cups additional white flour

Fold in:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (Variation: mix up your chips–my husband particularly likes a mix of butterscotch and chocolate chips)

Using a one-ounce scoop (or a rounded teaspoon), drop cookies onto ungreased sheet pans. I bake two sheets at a time, swapping the trays’ placement in the oven half-way through baking. I usually start with 4:30 on the timer, then swap for another 4:30.

Your oven might be tricky, so watch for lightly browned bottoms and golden, dry tops of the cookies. If the tops are brown, you’ve baked them too long for the chewy stage. They’ll still be tasty, but they’ll be crunchy. Yield is about four dozen.

I made a double batch this week.

Making Fry Bread

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As promised in the post about the Mahkato Wacipi, I’m discussing the Fry Bread that is a staple at many First Nation gatherings.

The recipe I use comes from a small cookbook I picked up at the Wacipi several years ago, and it offers a bit of back story for the recipe. Fry Bread is one of those recipes that evolved out of the American Indian experience interacting with the U.S. Government. White flour as we know it today was not a part of the original diets of most First Nation tribes.

Flour came into their diets with the distribution of food stuffs and commodities to tribal members living in poverty in the wake of numerous conflicts across the country. Fry Bread became a staple food, using the groceries made available.

I’ve seen several other recipes for Fry Bread, some claimed by different regions and tribes, but they all start with flour and dried milk powder.

This is the recipe I used to make Fry Bread as an after-school snack for my older children when they were teens, and I’ve also used it for small group demonstrations. I’m not an expert on indigenous foods, but this one is pretty tasty and well worth the effort.

Fry Bread

Heat oil for frying. You could use a deep-fat fryer at 375 degrees. I use my enamel-lined, cast-iron Dutch oven filled about half-way with canola oil, heated to about 375. You could use a candy thermometer to check the temp.

Measure out three cups of self-rising flour (or three cups white flour, 1 T. baking powder, 1 t salt, mixed together). Add one cup whole milk (or equivalent in dried milk powder and water). Mix together. Dough will be stiff. Knead briefly and let rest for at least five minutes, while oil is heating.

Turn out dough. Cut into 16 pieces. (I just cut dough into quarters, then in quarters again.) Roll each piece into a ball.

When ready to fry, pick up a dough ball and flatten it into a circle about a quarter to a half-inch thick. Drop into hot fat and fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove to a rack or towel to drain.

Best eaten hot. We like to sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar, to serve with honey. For a savory take, divide the dough into eight pieces instead of 16 before frying. Top these bigger pieces of bread with seasoned ground beef, lettuce and tomatoes to make what’s known as an “Indian Taco.”

The Mahkato Wacipi

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We spent a good portion of our Saturday on the grounds at Land Of Memories Park in Mankato, Minn., for the 46th Annual Mahkato Wacipi, a gathering sponsored by the Shakopee Mdewankanton Sioux Community, the Prairie Island Indian Community, Mankato Area Public Schools, KMSU, and The Center for American Indian Affairs. This year’s theme was “Honoring the 38 Dakota,” and the overall tone was one of reconciliation and reflection about that terrible chapter in Minnesota history.

The 38 refer to the Dakota who were executed on the public square in downtown Mankato on December 26, 1862, in the wake of the Dakota conflicts. The effects of that event and that year on Minnesota culture and living continue to ripple in many ways, and the tribes who sponsor and organize the Wacipi continue to hold it in Mankato in part as a means of calling attention to them, and to foster the reconciliation between First Nation peoples and others in the community.

My husband and I have attended many such gatherings over the years. One of my personal interests in First Nation culture stems from my own search for the roots of the family story that suggests our own descent from one of the tribes on the U.S. eastern seaboard. We can neither confirm nor deny that story at this point, though my search continues.

In those early years of my childhood, I lived in northern Wisconsin, very near the La Courte Oreilles Ojibwa reservation, and in the company of many Ojibwa and St. Croix Chippewa tribe members. While I’ve been told and I’ve read that things were pretty tense in the area of my youth at the time, (it was the late 1970s and the American Indian Movement deeply impacted the area) what I remember was many, many conversations and sharing of cultures.

I distinctly remember a school assembly that featured local tribal leaders in Luck, and my summer day camp featured cultural traditions from the local tribes. One of our guests at that camp was an elder woman who made fry bread over an open fire on the grounds. I remember also trying wild rice and other foods common to our neighbors.

And I remember the drums, and the dancing.

These early events frame my favorite experiences when I go to a gathering. I love to browse the vendor booths featuring handcrafted items, and I always buy at least one pair of earrings. This year’s are hand-cast pewter medallions that feature butterflies. I must taste the fry bread, and I must watch the Grand Entry that features all the dancers and the important songs and ceremony.

We brought our little girls to the Wacipi for the first time this year, and they enjoyed coloring on popsicle sticks to make their own game. They tasted their first fry bread, fresh, hot, and coated in cinnamon sugar. Two elders who sat with us at our picnic table nicknamed my four-year-old “Quick Hands” because she was able to catch her popsicle stick with one hand immediately after dropping it through the crack of the table with the other.

We talked with many people, and my three-year-old literally ran in circles around me as we moved through the grounds. I was able to quietly witness the reconciliation ceremony on Saturday that featured descendants of the 38, while my husband took the girls for another walk through the grounds. But my girls came to me and watched with wide eyes as the Grand Entry began. It featured dancers in order and full regalia, and the rhythm of the drums, the motions of the dance, and the quick melodic jingles of the jingle dresses held their attention through all the first dances.

The Mahkato Wacipi site features a page devoted to dancing etiquette. I’m afraid that my own mobility was limited this year so I didn’t join the dancing, as I often do when Intertribal Dancing is called, but if you’re inspired to go to a Wacipi in the future, do check out the etiquette rules.

The weather was perfect, sunny and cool, and we’ll be glad to go again next September, and meet old and new friends.

And yes, I do have a recipe for Fry Bread. For another post.

Baked Beans

~ Amy Lauters ~ 1 Comment

My mother’s contribution to nearly every holiday feast we had growing up was her from-scratch baked beans.

Baked beans are a classic British dish, often served as breakfast with a full English (which also includes grilled tomatoes, fried eggs, and fried pork) or on toast. My father’s mother, Elsie, always ensured she’d have some of the leftover baked beans to take home, if possible, for her favorite beans-on-toast.

Today, it’s easy to buy baked beans in a can to heat and eat. Recipes for their use as a base also abound. However, the original recipe can’t be topped by something out of a can.

This classic features heavily in the Little House series, in which Laura Ingalls Wilder describes her mother’s procedure for making baked beans and bean soup as staples of winter eating. It was years before I connected those stories with my mother’s recipe and my own enjoyment of baked beans. Another recipe for them can be found in Barbara Walker’s excellent Little House Cookbook.

This recipe, however, comes directly from my mother, who notes that the “bean pot” — a covered crock–is key to the success of the dish. She also notes that her sister, my aunt Julie, often skips the first step and uses plain, rinsed-and-drained, canned navy beans as her starter to cut down on prep time.

Linnea’s Baked Beans

Soak overnight:

1 lb. navy beans.

In the morning, drain the beans, cover again with fresh water and ¾ t. baking soda, and bring just to a simmer. Skim off foam as beans cook. They’re ready when you can spoon up a few and blow on them and the skins crack. Drain again, and add beans to the bean pot.

Add:

½ c. brown sugar

1 sm. onion, chopped

¼ to ⅓ c. molasses

½ lb. bacon, chopped

½ t. black pepper

â…“ t. dry mustard

1 T. salt

Add just enough water to cover the beans. Bake at 300 degrees for at least four hours.

On the Practice of Writing

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My main goal while on sabbatical this year is to reflect about and practice writing; it’s one of the reasons I started this blog to begin with.

Today, I thought I’d put together some of my thoughts on the practice of writing and those who have been influential in my own practice of writing.

The writers who’ve most influenced me in their practice are Nora Roberts and Louis L’Amour. They might seem like widely disparate authors, and in terms of content and story, they are.

However, when it comes to their practice, they approached writing similarly. I always enjoyed reading the bio of Louis L’Amour that appeared in the front of each of his books and the philosophy expressed therein. It spoke of his long and varied career in other professions, his belief in describing actual places as they were, and his firm approach to sitting down daily to write, regardless of distraction.

L’Amour was a self-taught writer, and his book, Education of Wandering Man, offered insight into his thought process that remains useful and relevant. Ryan Mizzen recently posted an article on The Writing Cooperative that highlights L’Amour’s best ten lessons on writing. Of them all, the notion that writers who want to write should just keep writing is the one that sticks:

“Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. You can sit and look at a page for a long time and nothing will happen. Start writing and it will.” –Louis L’Amour

Nora Roberts is probably best known for her romance fiction, but she also writes mystery under a different pseudonym. She is legendary in some circles for her prolific output. These days, she usually has two trade paperbacks, one hardcover stand-alone novel, and two additions to her “In Death” series, also in hard cover, every year.

I’ve written/edited three books, and I can tell you, the challenge of coming up with five books PER YEAR is stunning.

When asked, Roberts offers the same insight. Writers must write. She treats writing like a full-time a job (which it is, for her), and sits in her office writing during regular first shift hours. Her biggest pieces of advice for writers?

“Write what you like to read – if you are not captured by the story, who will be? Write every day – a habit that you need to build. And remember to have fun with it.” — Nora Roberts

Some might ask about my lifelong interest in Laura Ingalls Wilder and ask about her influence, but honestly, her story as woman and her observations and technique were more influential than her actual writing practice. Wilder’s story is one of persistence and practicality, and a model for the idea that retirement is a fallacy.

For practical writing, I’d cite her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, as an influence. Lane threw herself into writing as a means of supporting herself, her soon-to-be-ex-husband, and her parents in the 1910s. Her diaries record lists of books about writing, and they reflect her thoughtful interrogation of the materials as she pushed forward into a freelance market after World War I.

She struggled greatly with her mental health, but pushed forward to write constantly, in whatever genre or format was necessary for the people who paid her, and treated her work. I talk about this more in my contribution to Pioneer Perspectives. For Lane, writing was her job, her means of travel, and her necessary place of expression.

Engaging in this blog this year is in part a means of putting into practice the advice from these sage writers. I’m forcing myself to write daily, and writing here twice a week reflects that commitment. I’m also working on other projects, such as new research into British journalism history and more reflection on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her popularity over time.

None of it will get done unless I sit and write. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Of Pirates, Ponies, and Princesses

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One of my little girls turned four this week and her big birthday party is on Saturday.

Since we first started talking about what she wanted for her birthday party, the overriding theme has been princesses. A is very interested in dressing like a princess, wearing tiaras, and having adventures like her favorite Disney princesses do. She loves Elsa and Anna from Frozen, in particular.

So we started to plan a party that was mostly Frozen-themed, but generally involved letting everyone dress like royalty and eat a lot of cake. (Every time I asked what we should serve for lunch, A said cake. Chocolate cake. Cupcakes. Ice cream cakes. Just, you now, cake.) We branched into letting people dress like pirates if they wanted, too, in case they weren’t feeling princess-y.

It helped that her Uncle Ryan promised to wear an eye-patch.

And then, she watched her first episode of “My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic.”

Oh, boy. Suddenly, it’s not just about princesses and pirates; it has to be about ponies, too.

So we have dress up things for princesses, and for pirates. We have Frozen-themed plates and snowflake sparkles for the tables. And we have a My Little Pony-themed cake and piñata. It looks like Rainbow Dash.

I’ve decided to call the party a triple-P bash.

At the heart of it is love for a little girl who loves fantasy and stories. We have castles to color and costumes to dress up in, a “tea party” menu with lots of cake, and all the adults playing along to dress up, too. My nieces, who are older, are particularly excited to be re-wearing their prom dresses so they can be princesses, too.

As adults, we often forget the small joy of being ourselves, letting our imaginations run wild, and playing along with the fantasy. I’m excited that we’ll have an opportunity to do just that tomorrow for A’s birthday.

I think I might wear an eye-patch with my crown.

Miracle Chocolate Cake

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I had an urge for chocolate cake yesterday, and remembered this cake, which some call Depression Cake because if its apparent roots in the 1930s. It takes no eggs or dairy to make, and the story goes that it was developed as a means of making a special treat when one didn’t have the ration coupons for eggs or butter.

That said, it’s been made in my family for as long as I can remember. Many of us have special dietary needs or food allergies, especially to dairy or eggs, and this is one of the recipes that can be eaten by nearly everyone. In fact, I remember my Grandmother Fern mixing this recipe up right in a well-seasoned baking pan, which would certainly cut back on the number of dishes that needed washing later.

My mother and sister discovered that if you substitute rice flour for the all-purpose wheat flour, it can be made to be gluten-free, too.

The recipe also can be easily doubled to bake in a 9 by 13 pan. Choose your favorite frosting or just sprinkle on powdered sugar when it’s cool for a pretty topping.

Grandma’s Miracle Chocolate Cake

Stir together:

1 1/2 c. AP flour

1 c. White sugar

3 T. Cocoa

1 t. Baking soda

1 t. Baking Powder

Mix separately:

1 c. Water

1 T. Vinegar

2/3 c. Oil

1 t. Vanilla

Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients until well-blended. Pour into a greased 8-inch square or round baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes, until a clean knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.