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Category: Sustenance

In Which I Am Already Stressed and Still Manage to Get Myself Into Trouble

Trouble with my own tendency to throw myself into the inspiration of the moment that is, with little regard as to the repercussions with my own internal “should” monitor.

October always seems to be one of those months that gets too busy too fast and this October has been no exception: the beginning of the “arts” season, four trips, a Camp Grandma weekend. That would be excessive in and of itself, but somehow I failed to factor in the most critical thing of all, namely who I would be when I moved back into the house. And I have been caught somewhat by surprise.

Admittedly some miscalculations were made. I made plans assuming that I would be settled in the house by the end of the summer, but work on the house ended just before Labor Day, and I underestimated my ability to settle during the work. I also somehow underestimated the pull that creating this space would have on me. At the moment I want nothing more than to finish unpacking and settling, to disappear into creative pursuits and dreams. It feels like I have been putting this off too long, and now it is time to put off other things so I can do what my heart has been calling me to do.

But as I said, I underestimated that pull, and said yes to some things I should not have. And so here I am, writing a post in an airport, while I go off on my third trip of October, a trip I, in no way, regret. But when I was home I wanted nothing more really than for the world to disappear and to leave me to unpack, settle, nest, play with yarn and fiber and fabric, patterns and dreams, but obligation would raise its head, and it would leave a crack open for my stubborn inner critic, always ready to criticize my choices.

I did play though, although not in the studio.

I needed food and I went to the Farmer’s Market. Once there I was quickly inspired. I am not complaining. I had missed that inspiration to play in the kitchen. I do, however wonder why it had to arise at such an inconvenient time, in a short busy week between trips. Or perhaps therein lies the secret to happiness — pursuing your dreams when it is not easy to do so, much as the same way helping others when one is tired and wants nothing more than to be alone, is exactly what our souls need to soar the highest. P

One of the things I found at that farmer’s market, which was a week ago now, was fresh ginger root. I bought a couple of pounds, and proceeded to pickle it. There are a couple of jars of pickled ginger sitting in my refrigerator now, happily doing their thing while I am away. I also tried using the ginger stems to infuse some tea. The stems had a subtle flavor and although it was good, it was not a completely successful experiement. I ended up turning the tea into a green tea/ginger leaf syrup, which was an improvement, and I concentrated it and froze it for use upon my return.

I also discovered that the ginger leaves are quite edible and have a lovely, if subtle, ginger flavor. I stir fried a bunch with that large yellow oyster mushroom and a little chicken breast for dinner before tossing the remaining leaves into the infusion. In retrospect, I think the leaves also would have made a nice ginger-leaf kimchi, and I’ve put a note in my calendar for next year.

A bottle of wine that sat in my car for the extended trip home from sewing camp, was the basis for starting a batch of red wine vinegar, and I started a batch of malt vinegar as well, using some dark gluten-free beer. I suppose my vinegar will not be true malt vinegar as it contains no barley, but I hope something good comes from the experiement anyway.

The fermentation kick was partially inspired by all those red peppers I found at the market. The idea was to make a salt-brine fermented sriracha. I started by chopping all those hot peppers in the food processor but I was a little nervous, perhaps more so than I needed to be, or perhaps not, about burning my eyes, so I did it outside on the deck, wearing the goggles from my circular saw over my glasses while I worked. I may have been a sight to see, but I did not take a picture. Nor did I take a picture of the peppers either, which are happily bubbling away in a crock in my basement.

I discovered lovely carrots with beautiful greens, and bought two bunches. In fact the farmer from which I purchased the carrots was very happy to give me extra bunches of greens that he had trimmed for prior customers, enough that I made a batch of carrot-greens soup to get me through the week and still had extra to freeze for future, off-season, use.

As I write this, I remember how happy the time in the kitchen made me. Remember the wonderful meals: Curried chicken, Szechuan okra, various roasted vegetables, a fabulous cauliflower salad and am happy that I indulged in this creative outburst, even if it meant neglecting other creative pursuits. Winter will be here soon enough, the market will mostly continue to slow down and eventually end, and there will be long weeks when little inspires me to cook. Rather than beating myself up over the things I wasn’t doing — unpacking, cleaning the house, blogging, etc — I should have cut myself some slack. This is, in the end, exactly what I want to be able to do in this time of life, have time to indulge and even sometimes over-indulge in passions.

And of course the added benefit is that I will also get to eat well. Perhaps gratitude is best found in the most difficult corners, when one is too tired to look.

October 20, 2019
Monday Miscellany

A few highlights, diversions and meandering thoughts from last week…

Radish Greens Soup

I had purchased radishes, as much for their beautiful greens as for the radishes themselves at the farmer's market the Saturday before I burned my hand, and since I did not want those gorgeous greens to go to waste I managed to make soup, despite the burn, although it was a more time-consuming process than I might usually expect. I was using Béatrice Peltre's recipe from My French Family Table, which I had used a year and half ago, before the book was packed away. That first time I had noted that the soup was too redolent of potato for me, and needed more onion and so this time I halved the potato and added a leek to the shallot that was called for in the recipe, mostly because I had a leek on hand. I also sweated the leek, shallot, and celery slowly over very low heat, rather than sautéing them over medium heat as directed. Although I probably did not need to, I used homemade chicken stock in the soup, and given that I tend to make a rich bone-broth-type of stock, my final soup is really more of a green chicken soup than was intended. I probably didn't need the chicken stock at all, of perhaps only one cup of stock and three cups of water. The soup was delicious though, and a good thing to have on hand.

Downton Abbey

It will come as no surprise that I loved Downton Abbey and am ready to see it again anytime. I loved the series after all. Perhaps my mom would like to go see it, although I've had difficulty getting her out to movies in the recent past. At the same time perhaps my affection is surprising given that, aside from British literature, I am not an anglophile and care not a flip for the hoopla over royal weddings and babies, but there you are. I am nothing if not inconsistent, and although I love the costumes, I also love the story lines, and the idea of fine acting around smaller themes, the idea that one can float ideas without blowing things up, that one can participate in a system even while knowing it is doomed. Perhaps I just grow tired of darkness and harshness. Perhaps I too just want to look at a pretty dress and smile, relish the witty asides and 15-second references to all too human foibles, perhaps even a hint of nostalgia for something I am well aware was never really the way we imagine it have been.

Garden

General planting and landscaping is delayed by the continued heat and drought, the good news being that although I am surrounded by clay and dirt, at least I am not surrounded by mud. Nonetheless I was thrilled to look outside and see the that the two remaining lace cap hydrangeas are showing signs of budding. I shall enjoy the flowers and hope that this is not an all-out last ditch attempt at replicating themselves before giving up the ghost. Perhaps it is part of my concerted effort to water the existing shrubs, running slow trickles around the few surviving specimens, for long hours, hoping that the water will be absorbed rather than running off. I wonder that even this may not be enough, wonder if my attempts at watering are actually helping or prolonging the agony, although I take comfort in the fact that the plants that once looked peaked and weary seem to have perked up a good bit. Perhaps this is all worth the call from KUB informing me that my water usage has been high… yes, I know. If I had to give up showering in order to water the plants I would do so. I am tired of losing things, not that my own feelings will affect the outcome in any way. I only hope it is enough to keep everything going while I run off to Texas. I will have contractors in the house, but I can't expect them to water the garden.

The Planets

The symphony season opened Thursday with a performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets, which was accompanied by a video presentation of images compiled and collated from NASA. Admittedly I had mixed feelings going in, but felt it worked beautifully, the powerful images mostly playing well with the music and riffing off cultural references (such as Star Wars) that probably 80% of the audience, if not more, was simultaneously running through their heads. The concert hall was almost full on Thursday, when I went, and apparently sold out on Friday, and the music was powerfully and beautifully performed.

And despite all that, perhaps as much because of the pictures as due to the fact that I know the music so well, my mind did wander a little bit. Mostly I was thinking of the music and it's cultural associations, and not just because of Star Wars, and other film and television references. Themes and ideas from the Planets show up in religious music, school songs, popular music, so many places. And of course this is not unique to Holst. I always think that there is a world of educational opportunity out there, that although we have lost a certain degree of musical literacy, much of this strong tradition exists in our cultural memory, although it may be hidden and not overtly recognized. Much the same can be said for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, early polyphony…. but during the performance of the Holst, I was thrilling to the music and imagining the possibilities of uniting the world, the music of Holst, and Star Wars, Christian Hymns, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath all running through my head. The music has its own weight and presence, but all experience builds on previous experience, and a performance is never just itself, but always this fusion of all that has come before it with al that is happening in the present. A fine evening.

Science in Motion

The same evening that I attended the symphony I also went to an opening reception for a new exhibit at the McClung museum of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, Berenice Abbot and Harold Edgerton. The exhibit was lovely and well worth attending. I was already familiar with most of the work by Muybridge and Abbot, less familiar with Edgerton, although some of the images are very well known. I found myself as fascinated by reading about the techniques and processes as in viewing the images themselves, thinking about the intersection of art and science, and the radical changes that the world has seen in the past 100 to 150 years. I was also taken with the camera cookies, even though I couldn't eat a one of them.

September 23, 2019
Little bits of Life

A spice order arrived from World Spice yesterday and as I unpacked the box and then filled jars and grinders, the entire kitchen was filled with the aroma of spices. I felt like I was in some exotic spice market and the experience followed me throughout the day, the aroma of spice a part of my skin. Appropriate then that I was reading Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, where memories often begin with recollections of evocative scents or tastes. Shafak's prose often captures an almost poetically sensory sense of place and time that can feel palpable to the reader.

I really only filled the tall salt grinder, the matching pepper grinder had already been filled as Tellicherry peppercorns were one of the very few spices I replaced before moving. In fact, I should have ordered spices earlier, and it was only as I was setting the table for a dinner party that I realized I did not have salt for the table. I managed to put out small cellars with Maldon flakes but although I am happy with fingers in bowls of salt, not everyone shares this predilection. But now the grinder is filled with chunks of Himalayan pink salt, oh I know, how trendy of me, and I concocted a blend of six peppers for the smaller funky-looking grinder.

I actually bought that grinder just so I could fill it with mixed peppers. I didn't need it but somehow its weird almost alien looks drew me in. I can't say it is beautiful and yet it is in an odd beautiful-ugly sort of way. I like that It is made of local seed pods. I actually like that its strangeness draws attention to itself. Perhaps I just like it because it is unexpected.

And while I am thinking about scent and sensory stimuli, I am reminded that the scent in the air changed a couple of weeks ago. It is still hot, too hot to plant in my yard, and I don't think the sprinkler system is fully in yet, or if it is, no one has told me how to use it. But the air now has a subtle scent of autumn about it, a whiff of dust and decay, most apparent in the hours around dusk and dawn. This morning also, my toes were cold. That is probably more about me than the actual weather. The house is the same temperature it has been, but somehow my body is sensing the shift, and whereas a cold floor was deliciously soothing in the summer, it is now becoming chill. I needed new slippers in the spring but delayed purchasing them until after the move. It is now time and so slipper-buying will be added to today's list.

I can't say that I am really settled yet. I still feel like I am in a somewhat transitional space although I admit that this may be primarily because the yard remains so unfinished. I don't expel it to feel finished anytime soon as I have deliberately decided to only put in certain areas or larger items now. I want the garden to evolve over time, and yet at the moment perhaps it remains a little too bare. Or perhaps it is all just in my head. I am unpacked but I feel like I am standing on an empty set.

Not a set like the set for Million Dollar Quartet, which I saw at the Clarence Brown Theater last week. It was a fabulous show and a fun evening. The actors were incredibly talented and good, but I felt the show worked better as an event, something like musical entertainment, than it worked as an actual play exploring that particular moment in the development of Sun Records. But that may just be me — I always want something to think about, I always want discovery and meaning. It is likely that my brain looks for it, refuses to take the passive, easy, way out. I felt there could have been, perhaps should have been, more of a story to be told even thought the characters themselves, the relationships between them and the music was fabulous.

Perhaps it is just a symptom of my own pensive state of mind, but this exploration of the early days of rock reminds me of the cultural shift that had started over a decade previously, a shift sparked by the horrors of WWII and the changing of the American cultural landscape that it sparked. Rock wasn't really something radically new, but merely a specific symbol of a change already well under way, even though it may not have been visible as such at that particular time.

I wonder if we are in the midst of another shift….

September 5, 2019
Meanderings

I experiences a bit of a petulant moment on Saturday as I was out shopping, whinging to myself, quietly, under my breath, about why there was only one store in Knoxville I could count on for having Belgian endive in stock (or escarole for that matter). Both are vegetables that I would consume regularly, perhaps weekly, if they were widely available. But, as is usually always the case with these small annoyances in life, the situation is as much about ourselves as it is about the situation itself. Of course my formative adult years, ie. my formative cooking years, occurred in the Hudson Valley where both escarole and Belgian endive were indeed widely available in most grocery stores. It was a different time and place, with a different population, holding different expectations. It is on me, when moving, to realize that expectations and norms are different in different spaces. I should be grateful that I can find Belgian endive, and that the store in question is on my list of preferred stores (following last spring's spreadsheet comparison). I do in fact know where to go to get the things I want, and there are in fact probably many things in the store that are considered essential in this region, things that I never buy. In the end, it seems it is all about how one looks at the world, and how willing one is to adapt. And therefore I musk ask myself: Why whinge?

(chilled tomato soup with an endive and shiitake salad, a soup I've been making for over 20 years)

Of course I live in an age that celebrates the individual, which has not been the case for most of human history. I am not always convinced that this is the best course. Not that I don't believe that all people should be treated fairly and with dignity, but because I doubt that a society can successfully survive on individuality without developing a class of winners and a class of losers, or in fact whether even a person can live life solely based on his or her own desires without hurting others in the process, even inadvertently. Then I move on from there, thinking that we are not really living self-actualized individual lives at all. That each of us is a slave in one sense or another to this vision of society and culture, and that there is no way for some people to make it to the top without forcing other people to be on the bottom.

Oh dear, this is not at all where I thought I was going with post this morning. And yet here I am.

I realize the precariousness of my position because my life, and the very things I waste energy fretting over (endive?, landscapers?), where and how I live, are all a part of this same view of society that I am currently questioning, and I am unquestioningly not on the bottom of the heap. And so it seems I must hold my own good-fortune lightly, recognizing that were it all to disappear tomorrow, both the gain and the loss would be but a blip on the course of human history, and in fact should have nothing to do with the joy and purpose to be found in human life. Perhaps even my insistence on endive is a failure to adapt, an insistence that the past, my past, was somehow superior to the present, a dogged persistence in holding the ideals of the individual over all the rest.

Oh there is the rub. But how did I even get into this reflective state of mind? Blame it on books, because a lifetime of reading has shaped me, both fiction and non-fiction. Fiction makes us more empathetic, more human (and yes people have studied this); non-fiction forces us to think about the world in new ways. And the books I have just read, both non-fiction, have put me in a questioning mood. But to blame my own inclinations solely on books is also misleading — there is truth there of course, but such a simplistic explanation is acceptable only to a fool. Of course books alone do not make the person, so do our environment and the people we encounter, both willingly and unwillingly, but books force us to perhaps look outside ourselves, to open ourselves up to greater encounters with others. Although l cannot blame books entirely for who I am and how I think, they play a role.

Perhaps this is why books are so often banned? Thinking truly can be subversive, the ability to look outside of one's self and one's circumstances revolutionary. Or madness…… Or adulthood. Who was it that said the difference between looking at the world as a child and as an adult is the ability to step outside of one's milieu and self and look upon the self as if an outsider? But that too is revolutionary because the path of self-actualization of seeing the self as it truly is also means letting go of the idea that the world can revolve around one's own needs. The life of self-gratification is the life of a child.

Admittedly one of the books I have been reading, Debt, by David Graeber has perhaps provoked some of my more radical questionings, but I do not think radical questioning of one's basic assumptions is such a bad thing. Debt, has, in fact, been one of the most intellectually stimulating, enjoyable, and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time. It is not so much an economics text as it is a study of the history of debt as in idea, both economic and moral or cultural, and Graeber is best when he looks at the historical and anthropological record and pulls big themes and ideas together. He gets a lot right, but he is also sometimes a little loose with the details. I am not convinced that is important here as the aim seems to be to provoke and challenge the reader to think and perhaps stand up on his or her own opinions. I certainly don't agree with everything, but I do agree with some of what Graeber says and he has made me think and reconsider many a treasured bias, which proves useful even if I return full-circle to my previous position, now more fully informed. I think it is a book everyone should read, but which most people won't read, as it is too full of philosophy, history, and just plain old challenging and upsetting ideas.

The other book is in many ways less challenging but still thought provoking. It is not so much a book about nutrition as a book about the way corporations and the drive to constantly increase corporate profits have reshaped the way we eat and even the way we think about and crave food. This is not necessarily to our benefit, or to the earth's although Moss doesn't go into that in detail. He does talk about how sugar specifically, and the combination of sugar, salt and fat are used to create desire, and to change the nature of what and how we eat, of the very way we experience and think about food, and this is sobering. And he discusses how a drive to increase corporate profits has lead to the way we eat today, across all fields, not just prepared food although that is increasingly the bulk of what we eat, but also dairy and even meat production. He doesn't really go into the implications, or the way the corporatization of food has altered the environment in ways that we, willing sheep that we appear to be, have allowed because we assume that this is the way things are and must be.

I suppose I am channelling a bit of Graeber here but also my own natural inclination to question everything even if I don't find answers right away. Graeber tells us that we aren't asking the right questions. Moss as well, although not as explicitly. He shows us a problem and leaves it up to us to decided if we want to ask those tough questions or not. As for me, as I stated I have long thought that our ability to question is one of our greatest strengths. I also tend to think there our choices are rarely binary. If we see the world as black or white, yes or no, this or that, or even this is the way it has always been and anything else is chaos…… then, I've long been with Graeber — we are asking the wrong questions.

September 3, 2019
Puttering in the kitchen

I was tired this past weekend, and I gave myself permission to be tired. I am not certain that this was so much a physical tiredness, as it was a physical manifestation of a basic introverted sort of emotional and psychological tiredness. I needed to be quiet, to be still. I needed the house to be quiet and be still as well.

The stonemasons were here early Saturday morning laying bluestone on the back patio and walk in preparation for the rain that was supposed to come on Monday. The rain did indeed come and the masons returned yesterday, but that is another story, for another day. While they were working on the back patio, I trekked downtown to the Market Square Farmer's Market. I came home with this haul:

I returned home just as the masons were leaving, for which I was grateful. I needed to work in the studio, hard pressed against a deadline, and did not look forward to traipsing back and forth across their workspace. But before I could get to work I needed, at a minimum, to unpack. I was too tired for my normal wash and prep work, tired enough to worry that I would make my deadline, even without the added kitchen work.

I did however, also need to eat. In my bag were some chanterelles and some lobster mushrooms (upper right corner, on the paper bag). I saw the lobster mushrooms first, and initially turned down the chanterelles because I had already purchased the lobster mushrooms. But I went back, my mind filled with dreams of a late breakfast of eggs and chanterelles. Initially I planned an omelet, but by the time I sautéed the chanterelles I was so needy for sustenance, that I just turned down the heat to its lowest setting, and scrambled the eggs slowly in the butter and mushroom juices. No regrets, just deliciousness.

I didn't even fret about not doing my usual round of food prep and cook-up. I accepted that I was tired, that my schedule was actually pretty open, and I could allow myself to do as much or as little as I wished. I gave myself permission to putter….

And somehow instead of cooking I felt like organizing cookbooks. Slowly: about 16 linear feet of shelf space over three days. As I sorted, I would pick up a book and glance through its pages, perusing volumes that have become like old friends, and when I was tired I would walk away to return later. No added pressure to do anything. In many ways it was like an extended visit with old friends; with a few new acquaintances thrown in as well. I still have my first cookbook. I still cook form it, although only occasionally now. But my collection isn't exactly about recipes, although that is part of the story. I have books that I love for what I have learned from them, how they have changed my attitude and understanding about food and cooking, and my skills, whether or not I follow the author's recipes or not. And of course there are new books in there as well, new friendships to be formed perhaps, although I realize that some of the new cookbooks will not mesh, and will be replaced.

I also spent part of the weekend rereading Lidia Bastianich's first cookbook, La Cucina di Lidia which was written before her PBS show, before she became a celebrity chef. It remains one of my favorite books. The food is simple and true to its nature and source, It is filled with memories for me, but also with inspirations and things I still want to cook. It is delicious to read. I spent a lovely afternoon knitting and reading, also remembering, but not in a clinging nostalgia-ridden way. I remembered going to the Italian Market in Poughkeepsie, the one that would have baskets of fresh snails and I remember buying them and cleaning and cooking them, I remember learning to cook tripe. Well, I had always loved the flavor tripe gave to a broth — my parents made a good tripe soup — but until this book I had disliked the tripe itself (I studiously tried to pick the tripe out of the soup). Lidia taught me how to cook tripe in a way that enhanced the flavor and texture. I grew up eating tripe because my parents would buy a side of beef, or did they buy a whole cow, before it was trendy, but because it was an economical way to feed a family. I don't remember eating heart, which I now like, although I do remember struggling with the liver. But the book is not only about snails and tripe, although Lidia Bastianich's cooking in this book leans toward the Istria cooking of her childhood. It is about an approach to food that embodies simplicity in terms of integrity toward the materials, to the act of cooking, and feeding others as an act of love and sustenance, in all the many forms sustenance can take, but not necessarily simplicity in terms of ease of use. But we confuse ease and simple sometimes. This book stays in my library because it is a part of my own evolving understanding of the world and life and my own place in this world. This book stays in my library because it makes me want to walk into the kitchen, even when I am tired.

And yes. I did get back into the kitchen, even that same day, although most of the prep-work was put off until Sunday and Monday. As I had shopped I had imagined one of the lobster mushrooms, sautéed until just soft, with a little caramelization along the edges, with warm spices, served over a bed of little gem lettuces. I ended up adding merguez as well. Lobster mushrooms look large and sturdy, and one would think they would keep, but they do not. It was the perfect, simple dinner for a lazy day. Sunday morning the last lobster mushroom was turned into a hash with shallots and sweet potatoes.

The books have all been put away and I am now slowly organizing the kitchen, again only in fits and starts, while also cooking my way through my haul. There is no expectation here, no pressure to finish by a certain time. The outside of the house is madhouse of work, but inside there is just time and peace. When I am hungry I can just open the refrigerator door and allow inspiration to light the way. Need satisfied with a bit of play.

July 24, 2019
The Good, The Bad, and the Merely Meh….

It is possible I am coming down with a cold. It is also possible that I merely have a sore throat due to sinus drainage from allergies. I am hoping for the later, but am not yet convinced. I have had more colds this winter-into-spring-that an any time since the first winter I moved to Knoxville and started spending more time with a certain 5-year old, un-accustomed as I was to school-yard germs. I am ready to be home, and in my mind that alone, the fact that I am not home, is the source of all these niggly little upsets. Perhaps not, but please don't burst my bubble. The thought of home is a good reward.

Despite my scratchy throat, today is a good day. Despite my tendency toward petulant self-pity, I cannot help but smile. The sun is shining. I went for a walk. I've scanned, shredded, and carted away several boxes of old paperwork that I refuse to move one more time. I had a bowl of red curry soup for lunch and the spice of the curry cleared my sinus while the creaminess of the coconut milk base soothed my scratchy throat.

I read quite a few good books in April although not perhaps books that led me into deep thought. Sometimes thinking is overrated. One needs simply to be allowed to enjoy. I had not read anything by Kate Morton or Belinda Bauer before, but I shall seek out their other novels. I thought that Ta-Nehisi Coates managed the almost impossible in The Beautiful Struggle. There is one point where he seemed to encapsulate perfectly in poetic prose that moment of self-realization and actualization, when a child begins to come into him- (or her-) self, when a person stands on the cusp of knowing who they are in the world. He does this, and he reminded this reader of her own childhood and the childhood of her friends, touching on the universality of humanity, while also laying bare the fragility of childhood and the fragility of experience. Coates childhood was not my childhood, could never be, and yet in one moment he simultaneously tied us all together and shredded all my myths. By making me feel what we had in common, he also made me feel the shattering differences of our experiences and what we can never share. A book worth reading again.

But not all the book were keepers. I took a couple of bags of books I don't think I will want to look at again to the second-hand book store, including a few items from my April reading list. Included were the Dan Brown, which was entertaining enough (meh), the Mary Higgins Clark, which I found to be the weakest of the Under Suspicion series. But then I am really not a Mary Higgins Clark fan to begin with, so I am probably also not a good judge. I also sold Master and Margarita, which was good, and may well be one of the great books of the 20th century, but which didn't really resonate with me. I won't read it again, unlike the other "great" satiric 20th century novel The Tin Drum, which I adored and will read again and again. Also on the "meh" list is The Beautiful Edible Garden. It is one of three books I have been reading as I think about my garden and my dreams for its evolution, and it has pretty pictures, and great bones if one doesn't know much about garden design, but it doesn't really offer enough substance to be useful, nor does it offer any options or information for readers in areas other than the author's California planting zone.

Otherwise construction and planning and packing continue apace. The first Saturday Market Square Farmer's market was last weekend. I tried to go early but only partially succeeded. It was already crowded when I arrived at 9:15, but I still enjoyed walking around and shopping.

I didn't buy the bread, although I ran into a friend, who did. We chatted and shopped and decided to go to brunch. I intended to return to that first stand to purchase some of those wonderful white Japanese turnips you see in the top picture but instead we dawdled and chatted and by the time I got back, all the Japanese turnips were gone. Alas. I tried some small red turnips instead, which I had never had before. They were delicious, a mild turnip with an almost buttery roundness to their flavor..

Here is my small haul. The red turnips are on the right with the beautiful greens. I also bought rainbow radishes, which I am still eating. The radish greens got a little wilted while we chatted and brunched, but it didn't really matter as I prefer them cooked anyway. The beef knuckle bone went into a pot of stock, which simmered away in the slow cooker most of yesterday. In fact, a ladle of fresh stock, the remainder of the greens, and some left-over steak made for a lovely soup when I finally returned home for a late dinner. I had worried about over-buying. Instead I may have not purchased enough as everything is now gone, except a couple of radishes and some eggs.

One final good thing. The tile installers finished the tile in the powder room. The painters need to return and repaint the trim, which is supposed to be black and not blue. The schedule calls for black. But even that cannot dim my enthusiasm. Trim can be repainted. The tile and the sink make me very happy. Eventually, the black trim and the wallpaper will make me even happier.

May 7, 2019
48 Hours: Part One — Savoring

I took a quick trip to Chicago last week, 48 hours from the time I left the ground in Knoxville until the time I returned 2 days later, give or take 5 minutes. I was inspired to book the trip when I learned that Paul Barnes would be performing the Phillip Glass Piano Quintet at Roosevelt University on Friday April 19th. I heard the word premier in Lincoln Nebraska, last year in April, but I had yearned to hear it again. But I am not writing about the music now. I am writing the first, of what appears to be a couple of potential posts, about how a small trip, taken on a whim, can become a time of peaceful recalibration,

The original plan had been modified slightly. Although I had booked my trip specifically to hear Barnes, I had, admittedly, been thrilled to learn that Emmanual Ax would be performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the same weekend, and I planned for a musically intense interlude: Two pianists; two entirely different programs; with a trip to the Art Institute Thursday night. That isn't what happened, The Chicago Symphony cancelled their April programming, and, when I spoke to my friend Patti, we decided to meet at the Art Institute Friday afternoon before going to dinner and the Glass concert.

Sometimes, all we really need is a little serendipity. And so, with Thursday evening now free, I decided to go out to eat. Luckily my hotel was a block from Mercat a la Planxa, a tapas bar where I had dined with friends several years previously and a perfect place for solo dining. I began with a plate of house-marinated olives and a glass of my favorite sherry, Tio Pepe, by Gonzalez Byass, which is not available in Tennessee. (Well I almost always have some on hand, necessitating occasional driving trips to Texas, or Atlanta in a pinch.)

Although I love dining with friends, the conversations over food, the connections, dining alone can also be the perfect sybaritic experience. I could savor the sherry, allow the salty richness of the olives to roll on my tongue, to savor the refreshing bite of the dry mineral-sweetness of the sherry. I could sit back and watch the room. Sometimes I really want to just experience the sybaritic pleasure of the food. This is not always a shared priority in dinner with friends, and I have, in fact, been criticized on more than one occasion for caring too much about the food itself, and the experience of eating it. In fact, I do not think the food is more important than the conversations around the food, only that the food should create its own space, enhancing and enriching the experience.

Anyway. I was very happy. I followed the olives with some Pulpo a la Gallega, which was savory and beautifully prepared, the just toothsome tenderness of the pulpo contrasting with the soft bed of potatoes beneath. Admittedly I have become increasingly spoiled about pulpo as I get perfectly prepared octopus regularly in Knoxville at my favorite restaurant, Emilia. It is one of those surprising little treats in my small city, the kind of thing that makes me smile as I think how far this country has come. I remember eating octopus and squid as a child the year we lived in Spain, just as I remember my parents buying squid on trips to Houston and Galveston after we returned, where it was not found in the fish market, but sold fresh, for bait.

I followed by pulpo with Butifarra; admittedly a rich dinner. But butifarra is something I do not see often in my part of the country, and this was excellent, summoning all kinds of sybaritic taste-neurons and their associated memories. Mercat's butifarra is stuffed with cepes, and the soft gentle seasoning of the pork melded perfectly with the creamy earthiness of the mushrooms as well as the bed of simultaneously creamy and foamy white beans on which the sausage was served.

This all took me several hours. And perhaps, much as I enjoyed simply sitting and experiencing the room, watching and savoring, there was an added dimension as well. After the sherry, I ordered a glass of Ribera del Duero, one of my favorite wines, and one I haven't had often, not since I lived in Hyde Park, not since we had a wine cellar, not since I had someone to share a bottle of wine with on a regular basis. I've had Rioja, a more commonly found temperanillo blend, but rarely a Ribera. I admit that for the first 10 or 15 minutes I was content to simply sit and swirl the wine, watching the pattern of the wine on the glass, inhaling and absorbing the aroma. With that first inward breath, I was filled with contentment. Memory swelled and I thought, Ribera del Duero. Well, I new what it was, but some part of my brain remembered something else, a familiar scent, completely different from the aroma of a Rioja, more fruity, still earthy and mineral-laden, but less obviously so. In a moment's breath it was like reconnecting with a long-forgotten memory, a part of myself and my experiences; other tastes, other scents, and yet still there, in that moment. In fact, although the wine was delicious, its minerally-tannic fruitiness perfect to offset the pulpo and the butifarra, I didn't finish it. The aroma of wine was my dessert, all I needed to round-out the memory and close a perfectly satisfactory evening.

April 23, 2019
A Little Experimentation

Still a little scattered here. Expect this state of randomness to continue for the next two months. I will be posting, but don't think a fixed schedule works for me during this liminal stage, and it is liminal: a period of yes but not yet; a period between what was and what will be; an amorphous space bridging the person I both am and am-becoming, and the space that both sparks and reflects.

In the meantime, I shall entertain you with more mundane efforts.

I've been playing in the kitchen. It all started on a whim. Somewhere in my travels, I saw this jar of artichoke cream by Les Moulins Majoub and was intrigued. It ends up that I adore this stuff. It is wonderful on toast, with crudités, with an avocado for lunch. I could eat it by the spoonful.

Frankly however, it is a bit too expensive for my budget to accommodate it as a daily indulgence. I've looked up buying it online and the prices range from $12 to $17 a jar, not including shipping and/or tax, or not quite $2/ounce up to about $3/ounce. A rare indulgence then. I bought a second jar with an order of other pantry items from an online retailer. I love Knoxville but there are still things I consider essential that I cannot get locally. Some of things I can make myself. And yet there are other things I continue to order in, although far fewer than I originally anticipated.

I have never said I was not spoiled and privileged. But I also realize that life is a matter of choice. There are things each of us choose to emphasize, and things that are irrelevant in our personal priorities. I tend to opt for really good food, not necessarily always fancy, but high in quality. My food, music, and book budgets are high. Not so much the rest. Well, scratch that. At the moment my construction budget is high and everything else is scraping by.

But back to artichoke spread. One evening I scraped the last bits of my jar of artichoke spread onto a bowl of chili. I topped it with minced onion and bell pepper. I was in heaven. I eat chili regularly, at least during the fall and winter, but the artichoke made it seem more spring-like, more season-less. The truth is that although I now eat my chili plain, well sometimes with avocado or onion or peppers, I truly miss topping my chili with a dollop of sour cream. It is the one dairy item I actually miss on a regular basis. Artichoke cream might be a close second, and it will probably work as a dollop of something savory and creamy on top of other dishes as well

And so the experimentations began. I now produce my own artichoke cream. It may not be quite as good as the original. It may be better — already my memory fails me. I suspect that Les Moulins Majoub uses locally grown artichokes at the peak of flavor and good local olive oil. I use frozen organic artichoke hearts. They add garlic; I do not. I use preserved lemon; they do not. Two pounds of frozen artichoke hearts, 16 ounces of a good fruity olive oil (I do not skimp here), preserved lemon, thyme, bay leaf, vinegar yields about a quart of artichoke cream. It works out to about 65 cents an ounce, still a treat, because I indulge myself with a generous spoonful, but a treat I can justify. This is beginning to become a staple in my pantry.

But it is not yet perfect. My artichoke puree is not quite as smooth as the original. I only brought a fine mesh chinois with me to the apartment. I need a coarser mesh, in either a chinois or Tamis, or perhaps a food mill, to produce a smoother cream. I have all those things, but they are in storage. So the final refinements are yet to come. But in the meantime, my artichoke cream is good. I am happy in the kitchen and in the dining room.

April 16, 2019
Further Explorations

Yesterday morning I was out walking Tikka early, well before the sky was starting to brighten with the impending dawn, and I was struck by the scent of the air. It was something hard to describe, not a floral perfume, not exactly the scent of fresh dirt, but of something I could only call hope or growth. It was a warm, woodsy, green but also slightly sparkly scent, not floral, not fruity, a scent of brightness, a hint of promise. I thought to myself, "Ah! Spring!". It may be early yet, there may be setbacks, but spring has announced itself, not just in the hellebores and the leaves of bulbs and buds on trees, those can always be false starts, but something in the scent of the air and soil and the leaves themselves. There are always setbacks but the cycle moves forward.

The house is moving forward as well. Every day I see something new, although at the moment the most dramatic visible transformation is occurring with the garage and studio. Windows went in last week, although they were not completed when these photos were taken.

This wall of windows faces north and north light was one of the most important criteria for my studio. Yes there are windows on all sides of the studio, and good lighting is being added as well, but north facing windows were one of my most important demands for this space. North light is the light I love. I love seeing the sunrise, I love watching the sunset. But if I could only have one window for the rest of my life I would want it to face north.

Here is the view looking out from the very unfinished studio. There is a courtyard below, between the house and the garage, the same courtyard that attracted me to this house in the first place, and a view of the street, where I can, should I choose, watch the neighbors passing by walking their dogs. Of course this also means that if I am working at night, and if I am in the middle of a project the hours tend to disappear, anyone on the street can see me in the studio. I am not sure I that I am uncomfortable with that. I am perhaps more uncomfortable that everyone who can see me can see the mess that often occurs in the sewing room, the mess that indicates that something is being created. It can be limited, but it can't be completely contained.

My entire life is not as organized as my refrigerator. In fact much of my life has been a struggle between these too sides of myself, the organized spreadsheet-loving person who likes things sorted and lined up in pretty little rows, and the more creative impulsive part of me. In my youth these aspects of my character were mostly at war, but now I am finding a sense of balance and peace, Or at least I am trying to find a sense of balance, trying to find a sense of peace. I do not always succeed. There are days when one side or the other is winning. There are days when I have to remind myself it is not a battle. There are days when I need to pull myself out of the fog of melancholy.

I am beginning to understand how these things are related in my soul: clutter, order, inspiration, melancholy. I wonder sometimes if art, if meaning, if transformation, actually exists in the interstices between order and chaos, between our need for security and our need for change. Perhaps this is exactly where I need to be, where I see magic, see creativity, as happening, in the fog between passion and reserve. Passion, discipline, love, mysticism, melancholy, even perhaps moments of despair. Each can be overwhelming, can indeed destroy us, but somewhere in the tension between them lies meaning, is that thing that I think art, life even, is trying to capture. That thing that we yearn to discover.

Order in and of itself can become an obsession, and I try to nip that impulse in the bud. Order can help with life but it can also stifle creativity, at least my creativity. I am all about balance and happy accidents, the ways things just happen to fall. But I am also all about pretty things lined up in pretty ways. I cannot say that I would choose form without consideration for function, but I would never chose function without consideration for form. And I have come to accept that this is one of the reasons that I want my studio to be a separate place from my house. The house needs to work for me to be content there. I like little jars lined up in the refrigerator and I learned long ago, that if I wash the lettuce, dry it and put it in a container, it will last longer, but I will also be more likely to use it before it spoils. If I cut the bell peppers into strips and put them in a pretty container, I will see them and use them. If a whole bell peppers rolls around in the back of a crisper drawer, God help it, because I will likely forget its existence. I hate food waste. I like pretty little things lined up in rows. Spending time prepping and putting away saves me time in the long run, and brings me peace. It gives me more time in the studio, where I and pull things out of drawers and pile things up and let them speak to each other, where serendipity plays a role.

I can't really explain why some clutter makes me crazy and other clutter fills me with joy. All I can do is go with it, and learn to respect my own strengths and failings. Also learn to accept that anything I see as a strength may indeed be something someone else sees as a failing. But who cares. The joy in existence is that each and every being is different. For me, having food prepped in anonymous little containers encourages use and play, and helps me find things. I won't rustle through plastic bags, but I will look at little jewel boxes of color, and use ingredients before they spoil. That is how I ended up with roasted chicken thighs and a simple sauté of bell pepper and baby box choy for dinner one night. I saw the vegetables, saw that I needed to eat them before going away, thought they looked pretty together and so they were, delicious also, simply tossed in the pan drippings from the chicken.

But where am I in all this? I don't know. Someone said to me in a conversation about something, some choice for something, "but you are an artist". I was taken aback. I don't really think of myself as an artist. I don't actually think of myself as much of anything, just myself, just a complex mix thoughts and ideas and activities. I don't produce anything, not necessarily anything that anyone wants. But I do think life is art. I care about the details of how life is lived. Can being an artist be a way of looking at the world? I don't know.

Where am I in all of this? It is worth repeating. Evolving. Aren't we all, always evolving? Or at least that is the hope. Here I am sitting with my grand-dog, Dash. Dash is growing to big to be a lap dog, but he is still a puppy and he wants desperately to be a lap dog, so he tries. I feel that way sometimes, like I am trying to shove too much into my time and space wanting to be — something — l am not sure what, but also content to just be what I am inconsistencies and big floppy messes and all.

February 8, 2019
A Nerd in the Kitchen

Last week I was in search of escarole. It was a commonly available ingredient when I lived in Hyde Park, available both in grocery stores and specialty markets. Not so much in Knoxville, which is a shame because I would purchase it regularly if available. I did not find any in the stores I normally frequent, and so I ventured further afield, actually finding it in a store where I once shopped regularly but had later abandoned due to increasing frustration over a steady drop in quality. I not only found the escarole, but I was pleasantly surprised that the store seemed to have turned around.

I decided it was time to reconsider my shopping trails, and so I turned to my pantry spreadsheet. Years ago, when I still lived in NY State, I would periodically do grocery store surveys, strictly for my own benefit. I would go, pantry list in hand, and compare prices, brands, and quality of the food items I routinely purchased. This was useful both from a budget perspective, and an organizational perspective, because I have apparently never been the kind of person who will buy everything in one store out of convenience, but I do need to know where to get the things I want, and how to balance price, convenience, and availability, given that time is also a commodity with its own costs.

I hadn't done a store comparison since I first moved to Knoxville, 7 years ago now. It seemed to be about time, especially since I have found myself more settled and am regularly cooking again both for others and myself. I simply took my existing spreadsheet and added a set of columns for the stores in the area, both specialty markets and grocery stores, and decided that over the next few weeks I would do a price and product comparison, thinking about where the best places are for me to shop based on availability and, yes, convenience simply because there is a cost to travel and to time, even as a retired person.

There are more stores on this list than on my first Knoxville comparison, mostly because more stores have moved to town, but also because I have moved and have grown more familiar with this area as well. Similarly, there is at least one store that may not make the list simply because the nearest branch is far enough outside my normal circle to make it uneconomical unless it has some prized ingredient that is otherwise difficult to source (doubtful).

Besides, I was already in another reorganization phase. Quite a few of the food storage containers I had purchased 5 years ago had lost their seals, and I was looking for something to replace them. I have long been a person who partially preps and repackages food into storage containers. And I have found that the effort pays in terms of both convenience and freshness, both because the repackaged items keep longer and because I am more likely to remember things I have actually worked with, as opposed to tossing them unheeded into the refrigerator. I also find I prefer to not be assaulted by branded packaging, at least for those items that can be easily repackaged.

Purchasing identical packaging is a luxury but one that brings me joy on a daily basis. Gradually, the contents of the refrigerator are being organized so that I can identify and find everything easily, although there are still a few jars on the side, awaiting an order of a specific size of storage canister/jar. This is important as I generally dislike the refrigerator in this apartment and find it difficult to use; anything that encourages me to open the refrigerator door and actually use something is a good thing.

I also started freezing extra portions of soup as I made it. This seems obvious, but I had not done it in years. I love soup, but I easily grow bored eating the same soup every day for a week. Rather than storing the soup in containers, I decided to try storing it in ziplock bags, each of which contains two servings of soup. This is also probably pretty obvious but I had never done it this way before, even thought I started packaging stock in Ziplock bags over a year ago.

The bags allow me to make a "soup file" in the freezer. The whole system makes it easier for me to see what stocks or soups I have on hand. Having soup in small quantities makes it easier to come up with a meal when I am tired and feeling uninspired. I am far more likely to use a 2-serving package of soup, than a big container of soup. And, since I love soup, and it is a convenient way to use up odd bits that would otherwise languish or go to waste, making soup is an easy feel-good activity.

I've also been engaged in a bit of a baking experiment. I made some shortbread for a friend, the traditional Scottish kind that consists of nothing but flour, butter and sugar. Although I used gluten-free flour because I won't have the other kind in my kitchen, I did use real butter even though I can't eat it. But as I worked I started to think about shortbread. Scottish shortbread is a really simple thing, simple and elegant. The recipe is a classic 321 ratio of ingredients, and the main trick is not to overwork the dough, and to cut it while warm but to wait until it fully cools before removing it from the pan.

My thoughts revolved around whether I could make a dairy-free version of shortbread using clarified butter rather than one of those dairy-free butter blends, which neither taste nor act like real butter. Hence the experiment. This last iteration was very close to perfection, but not quite. The photo above contains pieces from two batches of shortbread. Both are delicious, even if I think there is still room for improvement.

The first was using straight clarified butter, butter in which all the milk solids had been removed, and adjusting the proportions of the recipe to match the weight of the butter. It worked, but the resulting shortbread remains a little too tender and friable. It is difficult to eat without it falling into crumbs in one's fingers. Gluten-free flours do not absorb fat in the same way as wheat flour, meaning I may need to play with flour blends, or increase the protein solids which were lost in the clarification process.

In the second batch I added collagen protein to the clarified butter to replace the milk proteins that had been removed in the clarification process. This batch also tastes buttery and delicious, but it is a little too firm, and it got a little too dark. Of course collagen proteins and milk proteins are not identical, but I also realized that I made a basic miscalculation. I added protein to replace the entire weight that had been lost from the butter in the clarification process, forgetting that some of that weight loss had been due to the evaporation of water. Next time I will weigh the clarified butter and the remaining milk solids and adjust my proportions accordingly. I don't know if the water weight is important in this small of a quantity, or even if I can add water back into my clarified butter mix, to make a new emulsion, or even of that matters. It will be a couple of weeks before I can pick up this challenge again, but I am looking forward to the process.

February 4, 2019