On Weekends Away + Farro Bowls
Reflecting on a weekend without obligations
As I alluded to in my last dispatch, Mrs. CWD and I occasioned ourselves last weekend to drop the Kiddos CWD off at their Tio and Tia’s house while we decamped to Vermont for an overdue trip without any real obligations1. While we’ve traveled without kids — both before and after the Warthog’s arrival — each time doing so still had some sort of associated duty. A wedding to attend, a bachelor or bachelorette to celebrate, a work obligation. The forty-sum hours we had to ourselves last weekend were, shockingly indeed, the first forty-sum hours we had truly alone with the two of us in years.
Wild to think about.
I love spending time with Kiddo and the Warthog. I really do. But, I will admit, for Mrs. CWD and me, it was nice to have some time to reacquaint ourselves with ourselves. To be able to wake up in the morning on our own terms, move at our own pace, not have to worry about packing enough snacks or forgetting a stuffed giraffe. To just be able to relish a game of cribbage with each other by the fire. Truly, no obligations. And that break from being a parent helped me feel even more thankful to have the kids in my life when we picked them up2, even as Monday morning threw us right back into the regular routine3.
My recollection as a child is that my parents were ubiquitous. That’s a good thing. I have very few memories of time without at least one of them until probably middle school, when I started going to sleep-away camp in the summer. I loved — and still love — being able to spend time with Nana and Grandfather CWD and I cherish the fact that they were so dedicated to my (and Tio‘s and Uncle’s) well-being. The one memory I have of Nana CWD spending any significant time away from us was her flying to California to spend a week4 with her college roommate. When she got back, she brought the three of us Beanie Babies5, and then life went on like she was never gone. I don’t think I even thought about her leaving again until the next time she brought us back a new toy.
Looking back now, as a parent myself, I see that trip in a new light. Nana can — and, I hope will — speak for herself, but I can now have an understanding of how that trip must have felt for her. At the airport, she wouldn’t have to wrangle three rambunctious boys through the terminal and onto a plane. She wouldn’t have to worry about car seats or car snacks, bags packed not with clothes but with stuffed animals, the endless intricacies involved in traveling with kids. I imagine it must have been freeing — but also confusing. Did she, like Mrs. CWD and I, smile at every kid we passed, remarking how alike or different he was to our kids? How her laugh sounded just like Kiddos? How his haircut was reminiscent of the Warthogs? Do you think that they miss us?
Being a parent, as I’ve said before, isn’t harder — it’s different. Having an obligation to your children — an obligation that I wouldn’t give up for anything— changes the way you interact with the world. Children shift your perspective. They force you to hold two worlds simultaneously in your mind: that of your own and that of your children’s. They provide a new lens through which you view the world, one that it is impossible to stop looking through.
It’s an amazing thing — but it’s not reciprocal. Kids live in the moment, in innocence. What feels like month away for them is over in the blink of an eye, the absence forgotten just as quickly.
When we picked the kids up, on the ride home, we asked Kiddo what the best part of her weekend was.
“Playing in the basement.”
I truly hope that, until she’s reflecting on having kids of her own, that memory remains the most of what she’ll remember of us leaving.
There’s no need to complicate it any further.
That’s about all I’ve got for this week. I suppose I owe you a recipe, but if we’re being perfectly honest, I didn’t take any photos of food this week. Like a tree falling in the forest, with no one around to hear it — can I really even say I cooked at all?
Who’s to say?
But, in the early days of CWD, I didn’t ever include photos of my recipes, so it can be done. We’ll envision today’s post in that same vein — making a winter farro bowl with smoked venison. If you need more visual instruction, it’s basically this recipe, but served overtop farro grains.
Roughly chop whatever winter vegetables you have on hand — squash, sweet potatoes, turnips, radishes, carrots, onions, leeks, go crazy — and toss them in a roasting pan with olive oil, salt, black pepper, some dried herbs, and white pepper. Roast at 375(F) until well-browned and cooked through. Meanwhile cook whatever meat you like, however you like (we used a venison backstrap and smoked it at 275(F)) — and simultaneously cook whatever grains you like (such as farro, cooked in bone broth).
When the veggies, meat, and farro are all done, serve them in a bowl, layered in the reverse order I just listed them, and enjoy. You could top with some cheese if you felt so inclined.
There you go. Not a bad recipe for a weeknight when you have some time during the day to prep veggies and grains. Give it a shot, using local ingredients as best you can.
I’ll leave you now to your weekends. Relish whatever opportunities you have, viewing the world simultaneously like a parent and a child, with love and with wonder, with tenderness and innocence, with a sense that each day is its own blessing.
Our only obligations were to ensure we didn’t kill ourselves cross-country skiing. We fulfilled these obligations, though I will admit after 3 hours of skiing above our skill level on some of the downhills, we did concede and take a lesson. Our instructor, named Beowulf — yes, after the novel; no, not his first name, but yes, his legal middle name, his father being a high school English professor — affirmed to us that you can indeed pizza down the mountain on cross country skis, you can make turns while pizza-ing, and if you’re feeling steezy, you can try to make tele-turns as well.
Good things to know, and knowledge we passed on to a group of ne’er-do-wells (I say this as they sat next to us at breakfast on Sunday morning, not talking about leaving their kids behind, but instead lamenting having to leave their plants unattended for the weekend) who asked us, like we asked ourselves a day earlier, how the heck you make it down the steep stuff with a free-heeled binding.
I can’t imagine the aforementioned couples felt the same way about the plants, but hey, maybe I’m wrong.
Clock strikes 6:45am and no matter how much of the dishwasher you’ve emptied, you’re still going to hear “DAAAAAAAAAAADDY, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDY!”
A weekend? A long weekend? A month? A year? Who knows. To a kid, like a dog, time is meaningless.
Kickstarting a collection that, at it’s peak, was probably worth in the tens of hundreds.
I think I was the one who cut off the tags. I bought them as toys, not collectables. Grammy was the one who became distraught noting the missing tags. Even if the tags had stayed, you kids played hard, and the tiny inner beads did not have a chance of staying intact.
Enjoyable read. Slightly related, but being away from the kiddos has me thinking about how 5 minutes before my kid is asleep I am looking forward to a small break... then when they're finally asleep and I get my break, I am like "I wish the kids were awake rn"