Celia Wakefield's Lava Cakes

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As many of you know, our dear Celia is in treatment for cancer, which means at times she's not feeling up to writing. (I often feel that way, and I don't even have any health excuse!) We're just after Valentines Day, and Fat Tuesday will be here in just a few days, so I went back into the archives to bring up a rich, indulgent, chocolate recipe, perfect for rounding out a romantic interlude or celebrating before the start of Lent. 

I hope you'll enjoy this rerun, and be inspired to tackle these delicious Lava Cakes. I'm sure Celia will be popping into the comments if she has the energy, so feel free to leave her a message!

 

 

You may remember Celia's delicious, impressive and easy summer dinner. Her lava cakes are the same way. It's a scrumptious 'restaurant' kind of dessert, but it turns out the only special thing you need to have on hand is not that special - individual ramekins. I got a set of six for $6 at Dollar  Tree, and you can probably find deals as good at the Christmas Tree Store. (Why do they have so much stuff unrelated to Christmas? I have no idea. But I've found it's a great place for low-cost glassware and, surprisingly, lamps.)

Celia suggests doing each step all the way through, and don't try to do more than one  thing at a time. To that I can add, focus, focus, focus. The second time she made this when I was a dinner guest, I was in the kitchen "helping" (ie, we were both talking nonstop and enjoying rather stiff drinks) and the inner part of the cake didn't remain gushy. This is a recipe that demands strict attention to the measurements and mixing. Celia is British, so she even includes grams for our Canadian and continental readers.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes For Two

These Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes for Two are the perfect small batch dessert! These lava cakes are incredibly easy to make and ready in less than 30 minutes. I found that the mix would fill three ramekins and still be a good size. This recipe can be doubled for 6 people.

 Prep Time10 minutes

 Cook Time  10 -14 minutes (at 10 minutes start checking)

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup (60 grams) unsalted butter
2 ounces semi-sweet or bitter chocolate chips

1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup (32 grams) all-purpose flour - spoon out then level
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Spray two or three 6-ounce ramekins well with nonstick cooking spray and place on a baking sheet. Set aside.

Cut the butter into pieces, and add with the chocolate to a large microwave safe bowl (Pyrex or other glass works well).

Microwave in 30 second increments, making sure to stir well after each increment, until melted and smooth. (Do not over cook, recommend taking out after 30 seconds and working the chocolate into the butter with a spatula. It’s a better result for the chocolate).

Whisk the powdered sugar  into the chocolate / butter mixture until well combined.  Mix the eggs and vanilla together, then fold gently into the chocolate mixture until  combined.

Fold in the flour and espresso powder gently; do NOT over mix the batter. Evenly divide the batter between the prepared ramekins.

Bake at 425° for 12-14 minutes or until the edges are firm and the center is slightly soft (the center should look soft and won’t rise). 

Remove from the oven and allow to stand for a minute. Cover the ramekin with a small plate or bowl and invert. Careful, the ramekin is very hot. Add whipped cream or ice cream, serve, and enjoy!

Cooking with a Little Help

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I know quite a few of us have been cooking-challenged in the last couple of weeks. When you can't get out to the store, for whatever reason (iced in for a week here!) you have to get creative. So did I pull out my favorite cookbooks as I was perusing the pantry and planning meals?

Uh, nope, I'm a little embarrassed to admit. I searched for recipes online. Don't get me wrong–I love cookbooks. But I'm more likely to read them than I am to actually cook from them. I've almost finished reading the copy of Samin Nosrat's GOOD THINGS I got for Christmas, but have I made anything from it? Oops, no, although I even bought the special vinegar for one of her salad dressings... Maybe tomorrow...

I do, however, have favorite online cooking sites that I use practically every day. 

#1 is New York Times Cooking.

I know it's a subscription, but to me it is absolutely worth it. I love that I can save recipes in my searchable Recipe Box. And I really love the comments from other readers. They can be incredibly helpful and have often made the difference between a recipe that is just okay and one that goes on instant dinner repeat.

#2 is Jeanine Donofrio's LOVE & LEMONS. I actually have one of her cookbooks that I never think to open. We're not vegetarian but I'm always trying to ramp up our fruit, veggie, and grain proportions, and she's a terrific resource on how to cook all of those things.

#3 is another vegetarian site, COOKIE + KATE. If one of your New Year's resolutions is to eat healthier, this will inspire you.

I also subscribe to The Washington Post's Eat Voraciously column (free with the paper's digital subscription) and I subscribe to Mark Bittman's substack, The Bittman Project which does require a small fee but is a great resource for healthy eating and food news.

And of course there is Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, who can be relied upon for many a great recipe. (Short ribs, anyone? Yum, I think, with this cold weather, those might need to go on my menu this week…)

Darling REDs, do you turn to favorite internet cooking gurus in a pinch, or do you actually use your trusty cookbooks?

LUCY BURDETTE: I requested and received 3 cookbooks for Christmas and Birthday, including Good Things. I’ve only made one recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s cake book. John wonders why I need cookbooks when I get everything online? BIG SHRUG. I’m an addict!

I love New York Times Cooking, Once Upon a Chef, Sally’s Baking Addiction, King Arthur, and most recently, Alexandra’s Kitchen. And more…

DEBS: Oh, I use Once Upon a Chef, too!

HALLIE EPHRON: My go-to source is The New York Times Cooking, too. But I also find myself dipping back into the first cookbook I ever used: The Joy of Cooking. It’s cover has decayed and many of the pages are stained, but it’s so easy to follow, simple and reliable. I’m not a fan of recipes that include obscure ingredients or fancy equipment. (No air fryer or sous vide or crockpot even …)

And then there are all the recipes I’ve cut out or printed over the years, which I keep in a series of manila folders (Mains, Desserts, Soups…)

DEBS: For some reason, I've never really cooked from Joy, even though I have the 1970s edition and the newer one. You Joy fans will have to list me some of your favorites to try.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Ladies, I have to confess. I cook because I like to eat. Any small stirrings of cooking as a creative act were trampled underfoot by thirty years of making dinners (and lunches) for a family of five. If I could hire someone to make delicious, healthy meals for me, I’d do it in a minute, and I’d never open the oven again except to re-heat take-out pizza.

That being said, if I am looking for a recipe for a dish I’ve never made before, my technique is to search with a list of the main ingredients, see what pops up, and then sort the recipes by the number of reviews and how many stars each one received. Then I go back and forth, reading several of them. Sometimes, I choose just one. Other times, I mix and match. If a dish was a success, I’ll bookmark it, which is the modern version of the manila folders with newspaper and magazine clippings which I, like Hallie, collected.

Where are they now? I guess we’ll find out when my Swedish Death Cleaning is complete.

DEBS: Julia, mine in are the kitchen bookshelf, and I do actually use some of them!

RHYS BOWEN:  I have become anti-cooking. After fifty years of feeding a family every night all I want is a personal chef to call me when dinner is on the table and delight my senses. But one thing I do still enjoy is making soups in the winter. My friend Susan Shea gave me a lovely book called Sunday Soups for Christmas and I have already tried a couple of them.

I do save recipes I see online but I have to confess that my rule for trying them is now how good they might taste but how many ingredients they have. If I scan down and read “first grate the ginger, crush the garlic and saute the xxx then put aside while you…”  No. My favorite meals these days are things like lamb chops, asparagus and new potatoes or pan fried petrale sole. 

DEBS: So many of the NYT recipes tell you that you can make them in 30 minutes. I will tell you that THEY LIE. I used to think I was just a really bad cook because things would take me at least twice as long, but I see other people in the NYT comments saying that they lie! Maybe in a professional kitchen, with someone to prep...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I think I get a newsletter from–All Recipes? Which I never make anything from, but I get ideas. Like–oh, I have chicken and mushrooms, and that’s an interesting way to put them together. And then I do it my way. Sometimes I enter the ingredients I have, and see what it comes with that’s different. I am less and less inclined to try something complicated. I have NO time for that.

I do have a stash of cookbooks, though, and if I need any advice, I go to Mark Bittman or the Blue Strawberry Cookbook. They always know.  I will never give up my young-bride compilation of recipes clipped from the Washington post and who knows where else, some in handwriting on  peoples index cards and some weird copies from an office copier (I bet) and all taped with now-yellowed and brittle scotch tape into spiral steno pads. I bet it has chicken divan and fondue sauces and chicken Kiev and french onion soup (Julia Child's) and boeuf bourguignon and fettucini Alfredo.Things like that.

Recently I calculated that in the time I’ve been married to Jonathan I have probably cooked 7500 dinners. Just saying.

JENN McKINLAY: I don’t cook so while I love looking at cookbooks — the Magnolia Bakery cookbook is divine! — I handed my apron to the Hub during the pandemic and never took it back. So recipe searching isn’t for me, although I will ask the Hub to cook chicken or fish or whatever I’m hankering and he is wonderfully accommodating and a much better cook than I am. 

DEBS: How about it, dear readers? Do you reach for a cookbook, look up a dinner recipe online--or order out!

What We're Writing--Debs Draws a Blank

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Happy new year and 2nd day of January, everyone! Time does march on but I am convinced that there are wrinkles in the fabric of the universe that somehow swallow chunks of time without our permission. At least that is what happened to me between Thanksgiving and this week.

The week before Thanksgiving week I was really on a writing roll. I hit my pages per day goals, I had a great conference with my editor, and I could see the end of the book, beckoning to me. Look, in this photo there are more pages in the manuscript pile! (As well as the Christmas cactus that didn't bloom. Sigh.)

And then time did its cute little tesseract thing. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few days before Thanksgiving, our dog got really sick and thus began many, many vet and emergency vet appointments. Also, it was the holidays along with lots of other stuff, including my blog week and two back procedures.

Which brings us to the new year and me staring down the barrel of January only a few pages further along on Duncan/Gemma 20. (I suppose I could tell my editor that the dog ate my homework?) Even the pages of my weekly planner, which normally contain all the color-coded minutae of my life as well as my writing progress are...blank.

This is so frustrating because I know more or less what needs to happen and how the scenes will be blocked out, and I know that the bits I haven't figured out will come to me as I'm writing. (Really, I'm sure they will...won't they?)

My editor (bless her) needs this manuscript finished before the publisher's February sales meeting, which means I have got to buckle down, get a grip on that maverick time, and write the bloody end! 

In the meantime, here is a hopefully not too spoiler-ish snippet for you. I love writing Doug Cullen and Melody Talbot's sometimes cantankerous relationship. They have been on the outs for several months in the gap between books, but now they are in cahoots over helping Gemma with her case. In this scene, Melody is staying in her parents' London townhouse and has invited Doug over for dinner.

“Sorry I’m late,” Doug said as she ushered him in. “And sorry I’m empty handed. I had to stand Kevin a second round and I ran out of time to stop for something on the way.” He smelled a bit beery, but didn’t seem the worse for wear.

“I won’t report you to the etiquette police. Kevin’s your mate?”

“Um, yeah.” Doug was peering into the ground floor rooms, eyes wide. “I know I’ve seen the country house, but this…”

“Yeah, I suppose it is a bit much.” Melody nodded towards the dining room with its table for twelve and the sitting room with its deep emerald green wallpaper traced with golden vines and birds. “But normally they don’t use these rooms much. Come on, I’ll show you where the real action is.” She led him to the back hall and down the bare Portland stone stairs into the basement kitchen/sitting room. Unlike the formal rooms above, these areas were designed for comfort. And utility, as her dad, especially, liked to cook. Even though her parents could certainly afford to have a daily chef, they preferred to organize their own meals or to go out.

Her mum, with her usual genius for color, had painted the walls in a soft color that was somewhere between taupe and mauve, with the cupboards and the base of the island in a deep aubergine. The soft furniture was done in pale neutrals, with scatter cushions and paintings providing splashes of color. When her parents were in residence stacks of newspapers and books would proliferate and that only added to the room’s hominess.

The French doors to the garden were open and the outdoor lighting had begun to come on, illuminating the clean contemporary landscaping. “Wow,” said Doug, going to the doors to look out. “The garden’s nothing like the country house, either.”

“No mixed borders here, and no roses,” Melody agreed. “But it works. I think Dad finds a calmer garden restful after the chaos of the paper.”

Having attempted her dad’s famous whitefish dip as an appetizer, she busied herself putting thin slices of baguette in the oven to toast.  She’d bought only one bottle of wine, a crisp white Bordeaux, and now she poured them each a half glass. Doug wasn’t a big wine aficionado, and she meant not to over-indulge.

Doug ran a hand over the veined marble top of the kitchen island. “This is bigger than my entire kitchen.”

“It doubles as a table.” Melody gestured to the well-padded barstools. “Have a seat. Cheers.” She clinked her glass against his. When the timer dinged on the toasts, she took them from the oven and slid them onto a platter, then removed the dip from the fridge and placed both before Doug.

“Wow,” he said again, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “I wasn’t expecting anything so fancy.”

“You should know better than to underestimate me, Doug Cullen,” Melody retorted, but she realized she was actually nervous. When he'd taken a bite, she said, “So, do you like it?”

Doug responded by piling a second baguette slice with dip. “It’s terrible. I’m forcing myself here.” He rolled his eyes. “Seriously, it’s delicious. Are you sure you didn’t buy it?” Then he grinned and if she’d had anything handy, she’s have smacked him.

Darling REDs and readers, does anyone else suffer from "time derailment syndrome," especially between Thanksgiving and Christmas?

P.S. Jasmine says to tell you that she is doing much better, and that she doesn't have to visit her pals at the vet for a whole week!! Her neck is finally healing, and maybe next Monday the vet will put in the last staples to completely close the wound. We are all crossing our paws and fingers! (She adds that it's nice to be out enjoying the return of some nice weather, even if she does have to wear a silly collar.)

P.S.S. Speaking of time derailments and tesseracts, is anyone else watching the last season of STRANGER THINGS? We have a couple of episodes to go (so no spoilers, please,) but I have loved all the references to A WRINKLE IN TIME in this series. This was such a momentous book in my reading (and eventually, writing) life, and I have to assume it was for the writers of the show as well.  But I also wonder if the references make sense to viewers who didn't grow up with the novel. What do you think, dear Reddies?

I'll Be Home For Christmas

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This weekend I get my two best Christmas presents: Virginia flies in

from Amsterdam today and Spencer arrives from Norfolk tomorrow. Hopefully, their flights will

go smoothly and traffic to and from Boston won’t be too bad. 

Thanksgiving is apparently THE biggest travel period in the US, but Christmas is a close second,

and extends throughout the Americas, Europe, and significant parts of Asia and Africa. That’s a

LOT of people on the move! 

The one time I’ve flown to get someplace FOR Christmas was the year Ross passed away, when

we decided to escape to Hawai’i. Everything went smoothly, and thanks to the fact Spencer was

an active-duty service member, we got to crash in the Bob Hope lounge at LAX, along with

roughly 50% of the rest of the armed forces of the US. 

The rest of my holiday travel has always been by car, and there have been some adventures. When

I was a teen, we lived in Syracuse and went across eastern NY state every Christmas day to gather

at my grandmother’s. Even as a self-absorbed kid, I recall the year it was snowing and blowing

every inch of the way, with my dad white-knuckled on the steering wheel and my mom searching

the map for anyplace we might stay if we had to abandon the Thruway. And these trips took place

BEFORE 24-hour gas stations and always-open mom-and-pop stores.

Then there was the time Ross and I, new parents, were meeting his dad at the Trapp Family Lodge

in Vermont. What could be more perfectly Christmas? Again, the weather in the Northeast wasn’t

cooperative, and this time it was my husband clenching the wheel while I kept my eyes on the

map. It took us at least twice as long as we had planned, and starving, we pulled through a Burger

King drive-in. What a great opportunity to give fifteen-month-old Victoria her very first french

fries! (We were not ordinarily fast food people.) 

Whether it was the grease, or the processed potato, or just the swaying of the Bronco as we were

buffeted by the wind, but as we crawled up the road to the resort, the baby threw up

EVERYTHING. On her cute outfit. On her car seat. On the car’s BACK seat. Merry Christmas,

Granddad!

How about you, Reds? Any memorable holiday season travels?

 

RHYS BOWEN: When I was a small child we drove to my grandmother’s house every Christmas

Eve, buying the tree along the way and strapping it to the roof of the car. I don’t know how we

managed to bring four of us, presents and a tree in a small British car, but we did. Then we’d

decorate the tree that evening and we kids would go to bed, full of excitement. Christmas Day

was always simple but lovely: opening gits, big breakfast, church in morning then mid afternoon

turkey dinner, Queen’s speech and lazy evening.

My one dramatic Christmas was when I was chatting with a friend who is German and who

lamented the commercialism of Christmas in America. We decided to rent a house up at Lake

Tahoe in the snow (at great expense).  We arrived. It was perfect, Christmas card scene in the

mountains. Then… she came down with the worst cold ever, she had forgotten to bring the

cookies she had baked. She went to bed, leaving all the cooking etc to me.  The first morning

we went skiing… Lovely, until it started to snow, then blizzard. Jane and Andrew, up on the

black diamond slopes, had to be brought down. Then the snow turned to rain and it rained

solidly for the rest of the time we were up there.  No TV. Pouring rain. Everyone tired of board

games.  Not the best memory!

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Christmas for me, growing up, was low key and at home. Our tradition, if

we had any, was to buy a tree on the night BEFORE the night before Christmas. Me and my 3

sisters piled into the car for the cruise up and down Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards,

stopping at the Christmas tree lots on the edges of parking lots (before every spare corner of

Los Angeles was built upon). 

We’d stake out our favorite tree, my father would negotiate, and then strap it to the roof of our car.

It was always enormous, despite my mother’s desperate pleas for “something small  this year.”

Invariably my father had to cut the top off before he could wrestle it through the front door and

into our 2-story front hall where it would stand until the day after New Year when my mother

would dismantle it.

We’d decorate it Christmas eve. And come down to it lit up on Christmas morning with gifts

piled high around it. Our Christmas was all about the food and the gifts and Santa Claus and

Christmas carols. 

I’d never lit a Hanukah candle until I married Jerry, and that’s when I stopped having a tree.

It was just about the only thing on which we did not see eye to eye, but it just never mattered

that much to me, and though he wasn’t religious, it mattered to him. You learn to pick your

battles.

 

LUCY BURDETTE: I have only two semi-disastrous memories. One, I was driving home to New

Jersey from my grad program at UT Knoxville. I had my two cats in a big old Ford Falcon station

wagon, along with a woman passenger who wanted a ride. The weather was horrendous, icy and

snowy and scary. We fishtailed our way north with the cats scraping frantically at the back window

. I’m lucky to have survived that one!

Another was also a trip from Tennessee to NJ, this time on a Greyhound bus. I believe it was an

overnight trip sitting up, with a very drunk man in front of us who wanted the whole bus to sing

Christmas carols. “Come on people, let’s sing!” he shouted through most of the trip. Not to be

repeated!

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Holiday travel? Well, hmm, what I can remember was the time in

college when instead of driving back to school in January after Christmas vacation, my boyfriend

and I decided to drive to New York. Just for fun. (My college was in Ohio, and his in Indiana.) As

we got into Sam’s car, my mom said “Safe travels back to school!” 

And I said, “Oh Mom, we are actually going to New York!”

And she said, “sure you are, have fun.”

 

She thought we were kidding.

 

We weren’t.

 

We drove ALL the way to New York, a trip about which I have zero memories (except learning

that Ohio and Pennsylvania are huge,) walked around in the snow in the city and looked at

decorations, stayed at some hotel, NO idea, and then drove back. I missed two days of classes,

and told the dean it was for personal reasons, and looked sad.

She did not pursue it, and all was fine.

Is that a holiday story, or what?

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am again the boring one here, but maybe that is not a bad thing!

Growing up, Christmas was always at our house, no traveling involved. Then when I was in my

late teens and early twenties, we had a few Christmases in the house my parents owned at the

time outside of Guadalajara. December in that part of Mexico is lovely, as are the Mexican

Christmas traditions. My only disappointment was not having a Christmas tree, but there was an

atrium in the center of the house and my mom and I strung colored lights on the plants and up the

stair rail, so all was fine. 

It occurs to me that the Christmas I lived in England is a complete blank in my memory, other

than that I was terribly homesick.

JENN McKINLAY: My favorite holidays are the traveling ones. We're a beachie peoples and usually meet our east coast fam in Florida or California for a beach Christmas every few years just to break up the same old same old. The only disaster to date was when six month old Hooligan 2 got a righteous case of croup in Daytona and began barking in the middle of the night. A steamy bathroom didn't calm his cough, so in full panic mode we ended up with six burly fireman (there's a rule that they have to be hot, isn't there?) taking care of our wee man and then having baby and me go in an ambulance to the hospital just in case. It was my first and only ride in an ambulance and I'd like to keep it that way. That was our first night on the trip and from there on out it was smooth sailing...phew.

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What are your holiday travel memories?

Thinking Ahead to Christmas food.

 RHYS BOWEN: Apart from buying gifts this is the season when our thoughts turn to food. In my earlier days I participated in cookie swaps. All those hours making cookie dough, cutting into shapes, rolling it, frosting it etc etc. I made Stollen, whcih I adore but nobody else does. It seemed we were overflowing with sugar/butter and everything else bad for us. Now I find there is less interest in sweet things. We always have a Christmas brunch with eggs, bacon, sausage etc, then at four o'clock we have tea (of course, we're British) with lots o cookies, cakes etc but I find not that many are eaten.  Then in the evening we have the big Christmas dinner with turkey and ham and all the trimmings, followed always by apple crumble and Christmas pudding (just for John and me). 

As we have fifteen people descending on us I always try to plan ahead, to make hearty soups and easy dinners that I can free before hand. This is complicated by the fact that I have three gluten free family members, one lactose intolerant and one who doesn't eat meat. I have planned to make a big cocoanut fish soup, a paella one night, but need other ideas. All the pasta dishes I make for a crowd could be made with gluten free pasta, I suppose. But I like the idea of hearty soups. Last year I made a chicken soup with aromatics and chicken breast and then finished it with lemon and spinach. It was quite yummy.

The one thing I always have to make (tradition) is small mince pies and sausage rolls. These are very simple... short crust pastry cut and put into muffic pans, mincemeat inside, brushed with egg white and sugar and then baked. For the sausage rolls I've recently switched to puff pastry and Jimmy Dean's sage sausage meat, the closest I can get to English sausage. 

So any suggestions for easy meals to feed up to fifteen people will be most welcome!

Were You a Free Range Kid?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Because I have a primary school age granddaughter, I can't resist reading anything that comes up about kids and screen time, which is, as I'm sure most of you know, a sinkhole of horror. It seems pretty clear that the amount of time kids (and adults, too) spend on screens correlates with a drastic drop in reading, something that none of us want to contemplate.

Wren will be ten in February, an age that seems to be pretty common for first smart phones, but she's shown no interest and her parents have no plans to give her one. She does have a kid-friendly smart watch so that she can text home, but she doesn't like to wear it and never remembers to charge it. Not that she has much need for it, because her activities are very seldom unsupervised.

I'm not being at all critical here–this is modern life for most families with kids. She has after-school camp, gymnastics, and soccer practice during the week, and weekends are packed with family activities. This is all great! But I can't help wondering, where is the free time?

I read recently that the amount of time–and the license–that kids had to roam free declined by half between my generation and my daughter's. For Wren and her generation it is almost non-existent.

Some of this is due to the pace of modern life, but some of it seems to be due to an overall sense of fear. Parents don't feel that their kids will be safe doing things on her own, and they don't trust them to manage independently. But are kids really less safe than they were a generation or two ago? Or have we become conditioned to think that there is a monster behind every tree? (As crime writers, some of this might be down to us, but I'm more inclined to think it's the constant bombardment of news and social media.) And how do kids learn to make decisions when they're never given the opportunity to do so?

When I was ten, on weekends and summer holidays, I went out the door after breakfast, and only came home for lunch and dinner. A creek ran along three sides of our house and my friends and my cousins and I played on the banks and in the creekbed for hours and I don't think anyone worried about us. I did slice open my foot on one occasion, but my cousin went for help and I ended up with twelve stitches and a tale to tell.

(This is the house where I grew up, below. Ignore the Christmas lights and imagine it on a summer's day! I took this photo about ten years ago when we were next door--where my inlaws still live--at Christmas. You can see from the treeline where the creek runs.)

What about you, dear Reds? Did you roam the neighborhood and have adventures when you were growing up? And do your kids or grandkids have the same freedom you did?

RHYS BOWEN:  You are describing my childhood, Debs. We lived in a big house in the country with an acre of orchard on one side. I either played making treehouses or trapezes or I was on my bike, riding several miles to the next village and playing in the stream there. I came back in time for meals and nobody asked where I was going. 

When we lived at a country club in Texas our kids had that freedom. Going off with friends to the pool or around the neighborhood. When we first moved in our five year old Jane went around on her bike. If she saw toys in the front yard she knocked and introduced herself. By the end of the first week she knew who lived where ( she’s the one who just competed in the world masters waterpolo tournament in Singapore. Still gutsy!)

I think no free time has stifled imagination and creativity. I remember playing pretend, making potions, rescuing baby birds etc etc.

HALLIE EPHRON: I was pretty free range. After school, I rode my bike all around the neighborhood and played in the backyard and watched the Mouseketeers on tv after l.

My grandkids are 12 and  9 and they live in Brooklyn in a building with a courtyard where the kids are free to come and go and play and do their stuff together anytime. It’s great. They’re old enough to walk to the stores (Bubble tea!) a few blocks away.

Not that they are not addicted to their screens… They are but they’re also good readers and A students and sweet as pie… according to me. 

In my little suburb, my neighbors’ kids play out on the street… Which gives me a heart attack because there is traffic streaming through from time to time. But it works.

JENN McKINLAY: Lord, yes! Gen X here. We got tossed out of the house after breakfast and were not to be seen again until my dad whistled us home for dinner. It was awesome.

I raised the Hooligans the same way and, man, was that controversial. They did get up to no good, as kids do, and now I've noticed their friends have no adventure stories from their childhoods and my boys come across like pirates. LOL. Also, most of their friends live at home while mine have been out of the house since they started college. I stand by my theory that kids need to learn how to get out of a pickle on their own because as a parent you're not going to be there forever.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Growing up in the 60s and 70s seems like a different time now, but no, there weren’t less dangers lurking then - maybe more, because back then no one believed a trusted adult could be a perv. My childhood, like the rest of yours, wasn’t “free range,” it was just… childhood. 

Walk or bike home from school, get a snack, get thrown out for a bracing dose of fresh air. (When I had elementary school kids, I came to understand it was less about healthy air and more about not driving my mom crazy.) In the summer, leave in the morning for ‘adventures.’ When the post broadcast taps, it was time to go home for dinner (after standing up, facing the post flagpole, and putting your hand over your heart, of course.)

There are real difficulties with replicating this life: most mothers work, the pressure for kids to excel at sports or grades is intense (got to get Jr. in line for a top tier college) and structurally, we live in an environment with a LOT more cars and a LOT fewer sidewalks. We can fix some of this, but it would take a real societal effort.

LUCY BURDETTE: Ditto with me--free range in a big neighborhood filled with families and creeks, woods and a creek. I cringe to watch today's kids have their time micro-managed. But you know what? I'm not there to raise those kids so everyone is entitled to make their own choices!

DEBS: Jenn, Kayti says she'd be okay with Wren going to the park, etc. with friends but she's afraid she'd be ostracised by other parents if she suggested it. But maybe the other parents feel the same way?

Hallie, your grandkids situation sounds ideal! There are things to be said for city living. My daughter and her family live in a very nice suburban development, but there are no shops within safe walking distance. We are so dependent on cars here in the south, and I'm wondering if that contributes to kids having less freedom.

What's appropriate for kids is something I think about a lot for my fictional family, as well. Kit is almost sixteen and is certainly able to walk (or skateboard) the neighborhood or take public transport around the city. But when will Toby be old enough to get himself to ballet? Ten? Twelve? At least I don't have to deal with that quite yet!

Dear readers, who else grew up roaming the neighborhood, and have you seen this decreasing in younger generations?