Carey Jane Clark

Our China: The Crack of Dawn

July 22, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

When we first arrived here, as the initial jet lag was wearing off, we quickly concluded that more than our internal clocks were askew. The time itself was wrong.

Instead of greeting dawn at nearly 6:00 a.m. as we had in Toronto, the sun streamed into our room (and our children’s–they were 6, 4, and 2 at the time) at 5:00 or so. It didn’t help that there were just thin curtains in the kids’ room, and the bedrooms were on the east side of the apartment.

What was the reason for this disorienting dawn? Turns out, China has no time zones.

Take a look at China on the map.

This isn’t a small country. There should be time zones–if China operated like other countries. Apparently, the story is that there once were time zones, but they didn’t work, so they were abandoned. So what happens instead is the culture of the places changes. In the west of China, people get up late and go to bed late. Here, people wake up early–a market in our neighbourhood opens at 4:00 a.m.–and go to bed early.

Here’s a picture out our bedroom window at 4:30 a.m.

I won’t show you a picture of 10:00 p.m., because it would be too dark. All the lights are off (and there isn’t an abundance of streetlights, either).

In the summer, there’s little need for anyone to tell us what time it is if we wake up early. We don’t even have to open our eyes. Because around 4:30, the chirping of the crickets rises into a crescendo just prior to being drowned by the hum of cicadas. Then a man somewhere on the mountain sings out loudly with a Tarzan-like yell. (It’s a thing. People do it here. We don’t understand why.)

No alarm clock necessary. (Not that anyone in their right mind would set an alarm for 4:30 a.m., but you get my point.)

So if I’m yawning while I write this post (after 10:00 p.m., I might add, ours the only lights in the neighbourhood that are on), you’ll excuse me, right?

Eating Vegan: Best Ever Banana Muffins

July 16, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

I’ve often lamented in the past how eclectic my blog can be. Posts from an author who’s also an expat living in China who also homeschools her children can be that way, I suppose. However, recently, since we began eating vegan it seems the biggest excitement around here is in the kitchen. (Or maybe it’s just that most of my life is in the kitchen!)

It’s a good thing we’ve pared things down to a summer homeschool schedule (just math, Chinese and one other subject per day). Between searching for and planning vegan meals, to cooking and consuming them, it seems there isn’t much time for anything else! I’m having to learn a whole new way to cook.

While we have all but abandoned the idea of eating mostly raw (JavaMan was dwindling away to nothing), we are two months in now since our switch to eating vegan, and things are going well. My family doesn’t even seem to mind being guinea pigs as I experiment and innovate in the kitchen. In fact notably, Sweetpea, previously my pickiest eater, has actually confessed that her tastes are changing and she enjoys eating vegetables much more than she used to. This after eating a dish comprised mostly of spinach!

I’m thrilled to report that I even seem to have licked the breakfast challenge. I now have a set breakfast for each day of the week and most meals get a five-star rating from the kids (except one that everyone else loves and Sweetpea suffers through). What’s even better, most meals have an overnight component, so preparation in the morning is minimal.

Which works great when you remember the night before. And not so great when you don’t.

This morning was one of those mornings I woke up to the realization I’d forgotten to start breakfast the night before. So I dug out an old standby and tweaked it–a lot.

But here’s the thing: the recipe turned out better than the original. I kid you not. No one could ever have convinced me this could be so (especially when butter is no longer one of the ingredients), but it’s true. My “Best-Ever Banana Muffins” are even better.

Here’s my new-and-improved recipe:

Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Muffins

(Makes 12 muffins)

Ingredients:

1 flax egg (1 Tbsp. ground flax, 3 Tbsp. filtered water, mixed and refrigerated 15 minutes)
1 cup gluten-free flour blend (see last week’s recipe for this amazing breakthrough)
1/2 cup millet flour (this was a last-minute substitution because I didn’t have enough flour mix made up. Next time, I’ll try them with a full cup and a half of the GF mix)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup olive or grapeseed oil
4 bananas, mashed

Directions:

Mix the flax egg and refrigerate.
Mash the bananas.
Mix in the honey and oil, set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and mix in the flax egg.
Pour into muffin tins and bake 20 minutes at 350 F.
Muffins are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry.

These muffins turned out lighter and fluffier than my buckwheat version and elicited rave reviews from all three kids. They even asked for a double recipe for tomorrow’s breakfast. I’ll have to mix up a new batch of GF flour!

Gluten-Free Flour Tortillas

July 9, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

I’m very excited to share this new recipe because this one has changed our lives. Sounds a bit dramatic, I know, but imagine going two years without a wrap or a tortilla!

Okay, maybe it’s still a bit dramatic, but we’re pretty excited over this, nonetheless.

The big secret was that I finally found a great all-purpose gluten-free blend that’s easily attainable for me here in China. There are really just four chief ingredients to this flour blend, and that in itself has opened up several possibilities for us: pita bread, sourdough bread (next on my list to try), really good pizza crust…

But for now, tortillas.

First, before I go any further, is the all-important :

2 c. brown rice flour
2 c. Sorghum flour
1 c. potato starch (I used sweet potato starch in a pinch)
1 c. tapioca starch (substitute arrowroot flour if you can. We can’t buy that here.)

And now, the tortillas:

2 c. gluten-free all purpose flour
2 tsp. xanthan gum or guar gum
1 tsp. gluten-free baking powder
2 tsp. honey
1 tsp. salt
1 c. warm water

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.
Add the cup of warm water to the bowl and mix the dry ingredients into the water until it reaches an even mixture.
Divide dough into 8 pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Place all but one of the dough balls back into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap until you’re ready to work with them.
Roll dough ball into a roughly circular shape and make as thin as possible, using buckwheat flour on working surface.
Throw the tortilla onto a hot griddle and let it cook approximately 1-2 minutes or until it has started puffing up and the bottom side is developing browning slightly. Flip the tortilla and cook the other side until toasty.
Repeat.
Serve warm with your favorite filling.

These tortillas hold up very well. They bend! They wrap! They’re wonderful. They do less well when they’ve been frozen, which we tried, and may not do again, although it was wonderful to have a supply to pull out of the freezer and use.

We have been using them for fajitas which I’ve been whipping up with black beans, garlic, red onion, zucchini, corn, red peppers, chili powder, chipotle powder and oregano, with a little cashew “sour cream,” salsa and fresh cilantro on top.

Oh dear, I’m drooling. ;)

Natural Approaches to Managing ADHD

July 1, 2013 by Carey Jane Clark

Some of the “hard places” I’ve faced in my journey were when my children were small. I’m certainly not beyond those hard places—we’ve added a foster daughter to the mix! But one difficult period invovled a child diagnosed with ADHD.

Before I was a parent, I taught a group of children every week. In that class was one young boy who had been diagnosed as ADHD and who was on Ritalin. In those days, I would have reacted with some outrage at that idea and insisted that there was no such thing as ADHD, and that parents were copping out to allow their children to be labelled with that diagnosis. Especially when managing medications were involved, I would have insisted that all the child needed was some parenting with backbone.

And I would have been wrong.

When my second child was born, I knew something was different. She rarely slept. She was easily overstimulated. She had a hard time settling down. I had to remove the mobile from her crib because she’d stare at it for such a long time, she wouldn’t be able to get to sleep. After the mobile was gone, she lay there picking with her tiny fingers at the little flower pattern on the crib bumpers.

There were other issues, like the fact that she seemed to get sick so much, but it was hard to put a finger on what was wrong, until during homeschool, we began doing Kindergarten math and phonics with Explode the Code Online. Math facts she knew well and would race through one day, the next day she simply couldn’t recall. And I found myself spending 80-90% of my time trying to keep her on task and only 10-20% actually educating her.

The problem showed up most clearly when she did Explode the Code Online. While my son’s progress showed a steady upward climb, my daughter’s showed an erratic pattern that demonstrated the same kinds of problems as she was encountering with math—mastery one day, failure the next. It was a frustrating and discouraging time.

Some time later, I was having a conversation with someone from our church. She and her husband had adopted more than one special needs child through international adoptions. I asked her, “How did you know you were ready for that kind of commitment?” She referred to her firstborn and said, “We had already dealt with my son’s autism.” I was astonished. I had no idea he was autistic!

Then she told me something else I’d never heard before: ADD and ADHD were on the autism spectrum, meaning whatever therapies were helpful for one had the potential to help the other.

She shared the therapies she’d used to help her son function at such a high level. The thing she was most convinced had been helpful for him was something she called enzyme therapy.

Soon afterward, we began enzyme therapy with our daughter. The change was almost instant and very dramatic. The first thing we noticed was she stopped getting sick all the time. This was huge. During our first six months in China, she had been sick most of the time!

We also noticed some notable changes in her behavior, but the big proof was in her Explode the Code results. Instead of the erratic pattern, we saw a steady upward graph. She was learning!

We have employed some other strategies as well. Here are some things that we have found helpful for her:

hands-on learning
building up the attention span with lots of cuddle and read-to-me time
drawing – this has been very therapeutic for her
playing with modeling clay (She seems to need to do something with her hands. This has given her an incredible outlet.)
a gluten-free diet

People who meet my daughter today rarely guess she was diagnosed with ADHD. She’s thriving and very intelligent. We rarely deal with attention or focus issues anymore, and I try to listen to her about the things that contribute to a difficulty in focusing (like lack of regular routine or a cluttered workspace).

I hope this post offers families dealing with these issues some hope. What have you done in your home to manage symptoms of ADHD?

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