Some answers and a recipe...

Thanks so much for your supportive comments yesterday about this little directional change in my life.  It's been in the works for many weeks now, and I've almost forgotten how sudden it must seem!  But believe you me, after six separate job interviews, sudden is not exactly how I'm thinking about things.  I've already got some really cute projects for the classroom in mind, and I'll be sure to share them as they are completed (smocks, anyone?!)

The main question people ask when I tell them about this is simply "WHY? Why drive an hour when there are multiple options availble a few minutes from our house?"  The best answer I can give is this: Montessori is a tricky thing-- there are a whole lot of versions of it floating around out there.  For me, though, an authentic Montessori education is comprised of the following: a classroom of 25 (or more) students of mixed ages (3-6 years; 6-9 years; 9-12 years, and so on.); a classroom fully stocked only with the materials designed by Maria Montessori, where lessons are given strictly as designed by Montessori; and a dynamic between teacher and student that is student-led, rather than teacher-directed.  Montessori called in "normalization"-- I'll try to think of some interesting ways to talk about it a little in the future, but looking through the window of a normalized classroom is kind of like looking down at a bustling ant hill.  Every little ant is busy, engaged fully and purposfully in work of their choosing.  It's a beautiful thing to see, and something I wish was the norm in how we educate our children, rather than the all-too-rare exception. 

But enough about that--on to the more important things-- FOOD!

I love cooking meals in summer.  We switch to a mostly-vegetarian diet in the summer, and there are just so many yummy, yummy options available.  I found this recipe while searching Soulemama's archives a couple of weeks ago, and we've had it several times already.  John-Harper, our resident Mikey (do you remember Mikey?  Seriously, who WOULDN'T eat Life Cereal?!)  has on occassion asked for third helpings, and this is a rawther big deal.    I left off the mint pistou, and rather than puree ours, I used the whisk attachement for our mixer to soup things up, for the simple reason that I burned up my blender making green smoothies, and a certain husband of mine broke my beloved food processor a few weeks ago, so I'm without pureeing capability right now.  He's promised me a new one for my birthday, and when it arrives he shall be forgiven. The chunkiness seems to work really well for our kids-- chunky soup is easier to keep on your spoon when you are only 17 months old.  I also shucked an ear of corn directly into the pot with the other veggies, and it added some wonderful "pop" to everything. 

PS-- don't skimp the butter.  You really do need 6T and you really do have to use real butter.  Console yourself by remembering that this makes A LOT of soup, so the fat is pretty diluted in each serving.