Work is not a job... that's a different thing entirely.
A job is what I did in high school.  The fast food restaurant, the book store,
I've been thinking lately a lot about work and life and how they go together.  I've always thought that they should be separated, compartmentalized from each other.  'Work is life/Life is work' being either a relic of our religious work ethic past or something that people who happily work 80 hr work weeks for ridiculous sums of money are fond of reciting off to us lesser individuals.  I'm becoming less sure though.
More and more I'm thinking that work is just a subset of life.  Albeit a large subset - probably one of our biggest.  These days we work for a paycheque but it used to be that we worked literally to subsist.  We farmed, we foraged, we made, we grew, we preserved and we did it all so that we could live.  It was work.  It was the only work that made sense.  And it was both our life and what gave us life.  The concept of leisure time is something that is quite recent in the history of human society.
You see I'm thinking more and more that life is work just as much as it is anything else we do.  I'm even starting to think that the whole idea of leisure and doing 'nothing' is a joke.  Like it's some kind of hugely successful propaganda campaign by governments and corporations to keep us on the treadmill, safely occupied.  But I only think that stuff in my 'super-tired-paranoid-conspiracy-theorist-but-probably-the-most-sane' moments.
What I'm trying to say - rather unsuccessfully I fear - is that I'm starting to feel like work and life need to and are meshing together more in my life. Work is something I've been feeling good about.  I've been feeling fed by it.  Work exists for me right now because of personal friendships (thanks KT ;-) and many of my work friends have become personal friends.  It all blends.  And this is where this post will now tie into the squares that you see floating around here.


My friend lost her father last week.  This is someone that I wouldn't have met if it weren't for work.  As time has gone by we've discovered that we work pretty well together and we like each other.  It all blends.  I wanted to make stuff for her family right away after hearing about my friend losing her father but they were heading out of town for the funeral so it would have been wasted.  When they got back I was in the thick of doing craziness like this and going to hear these guys and drinking a bit of this.  So I finally settled down enough to make these squares which I'm still disappointed about not because the squares sucked but because they weren't accompanied by the two or three other dishes that I had hoped for.  I dropped them off with some bran muffins (recipe to come) for her and her family.


I'm not quite sure how to end this post and I think it's mostly because I really haven't completely worked through my thoughts about work.  Either way, these squares were good.  I tried two before they were sent off.  I added a little more butter to the topping because when I made it to the original specs it just wasn't enough crumble.  It does make a big pan so it's a great one to share.



Pear and Apple Pie Squares adapted from Technicolor Kitchen
makes 1 9x13 pan of squares


5 pears (I used home canned bartlett pears), sliced and then diced
2 apples (good cooking apples), sliced and then diced

Crust
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Topping
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Cover a 9x13 inch baking dish with foil leaving the foil folded over the edges.  Butter the foil and set aside.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
For the Crust:
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt together.  Set aside.
Beat together the butter and brown sugar until smooth and fluffy.  Add in the vanilla and the egg.  Mix together until fluffy and well incorporated.
Add the flour slowly, stirring continuously.
Once combined well pour into the foil lined baking dish.  Press the batter down a bit.  Bake for about 15 minutes or until turning golden and pulling from the pan at the edges.
turn the oven down to 350 degrees F.
Cover immediately with the diced fruit.
Topping:
combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix until just blended.
Add in the cubed butter and cut together using two knives or a pastry cutter until the mixture is a crumbly texture.
Sprinkle evenly over the fruit layer.
Bake for 25 minutes or so.  The topping should be kind of melted together and kind of blended with the fruit a little.  It will be a little golden as well.
Cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan and cutting into bars.