Amaranth oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

I have this new habit of getting an ingredient I've never used before every time I visit Komati foods, a few blocks from my house. As a pretty unadventurous cook/eater, it's helped me discover new foods.

So recently I got some amaranth, a tiny grain with lots of good nutrients. We're just starting to try out different recipes using the grain, and I decided to make some cookies. The thing is, amaranth is big in the gluten-free community, so most of the cookie recipes had ingredients that we don't have right now. They also called for amaranth flour, and Eli was asleep in the carrier so I decided, rather than grind the amaranth into flour, to just use the whole grain. I'm interested in exploring a lot of different grains, and seeing what makes us feel healthy, since we are not gluten free at this point. So here's a recipe I made up- please tweak as you need to!

about 8tbsp Fat- I used 6tbsp butter and 2tbsp coconut oil
Creamed with 1/2 cup brown sugar

Add 1 egg and a little vanilla to mix.

1/2 cup amaranth
1/2 cup oats
1.5 cup brown flour (note- in SA brown flour not really whole wheat, so this is more like 1/2 ww 1/2 white flour for non SA readers)

Add a cup of chocolate and nuts. We used chopped dark chocolate and pine nuts picked up at Oude Moulen that Noah proudly cracked himself.

Mix up into a ball, freeze for 30 minutes or so, then spoon onto a cookie sheet. (start preheating oven to 375F/180C at some point)

Bake for about 10 minutes!

We baked about half of them and froze the rest to bake later in the week. The amaranth is nice and crunchy!

Pee for Lemon Trees

About ten years ago I was at College of the Atlantic (a hippy school in Maine) visiting Elisheva, and I balked at a sign asking residents not to flush the toilets unless they really had to. My mind couldn't wrap around the water waste associated with flushing toilets, it was just on my list of hygienic necessities.

Then this week, after reading some of the Humanure handbook and some other texts, I found myself totally convinced of the waste associated with flushing so much potable water. I wondered what was practical in our context in an urban setting- we can't create giant composting toilets or dedicate a large worm bin just to human waste.

So, as a start I snuck one of Noah's potties in the toilet and started collecting pee for our 4 lemon trees. The toilet paper went to the worm bin. And while a very token gesture, it crossed a line, a very fun line.

Global apartheid

We're about to apply for Eug's permanent residence and the bureaucracy is overwhelming.

It made me think of all the paperwork we've had to file over the years of our marriage, the money spent, and the number of times we have felt like interlopers. I think we're not unique at all, and the paperwork that others go through is even more overwhelming, the costs even more prohibitive, and the psychological consequences even more dire (in the global apartheid created by strict borders, we are still definitely among the powerful). Asylum seekers in Cape Town must have their right to remain stamped each and every month- each time this can take a full day or more. Is it right that governments and borders hold this kind of power over us? Many refugees don't have any paperwork whatsoever when they start out. For each application, imagine hours and hours of paperwork and signatures.

In the US, for me:

• F1 application to come to study and marry Eug. (my 4th F1 visa, for the record)
• Work permission after marriage.
• Green Card Application (conditional)
• Permission to travel while Green Card Application Pending
• Green Card Application (permanent, after 2 years of marriage)
• Certificate of Naturalization
• U.S. Passport.

In the U.S., to the SA embassy 

• Temporary residence application (Noah and Eug)
• Application to retain SA citizenship before receiving U.S. citizenship

Let's do a tally:

• Total number of X-rays to determine that I was free of TB: 3
• Number of Medicals that focused on whether Eug or I had psychosis, addictions, or a history of sexual deviance: 3
• Number of Interviews where I was asked whether I was a terrorist or a prostitute: 3
• Number of forms where I signed that I have never been a terrorist or a prostitute: I lost count
• Number of times I was refused boarding because of visa/vaccination changes: 2

In South Africa (each with multiple trips to home affairs with two tiny children at 7am):

• Applied for Eli's abridged birth certificate
• Applied for Eli's unabridged birth certificate (still not through, 10 months later)
• Applied for Noah's abridged birth certificate of a foreign birth (which will allow him to become a SA citizen and therefore stay in SA).
• Applied for Eli's South African Passport.
• Apply for Eug's Permanent resident and a extension of his temporary residence (and possibly Noah's) 

To be done, at the U.S. embassy: Eli's U.S. birth certificate and U.S. Passport

Are roads and other tax funded resources so precious?