Late Summer

Late summer ragweed pollen causes my hands and feet to burn. I am holding two frozen bottles of water, one in each hand and standing in a bucket of ice water.

Harvest Joy

Last time I was waking at two am from joy bubbles, was in the spring.
This morning at 4 AM I made sesame scallion ginger spicy peanut garlic noodles while listening to French radio classique.
C'est bon!
I threw in frozen corn and red bell peppers for color!
I mixed everything with my fingers.

Matthew W. Sanford

My life has taught me that there is a wealth of strength within us, there is nothing we cannot handle. Life presents it's purpose and beauty in all sorts of ways. The trick is to stay open to one's strength, to not deny or strive to prove it, but rather to simply have it.

If nothing else, my life has taught me one thing: The mind and body that I have are the only mind and body that I have. They deserve my attention. And when I give it, I receive so much more in return. Learning to fall gracefully through one's mind-body relationship is not a submission. One learns to fall gracefully in order to roll.

There is still so much to realize. My experience tells me that the silence within us can be experienced energetically as a nourishing sap. When this happens, consciousness changes shape. For example, I have never seen anyone truly become more aware of his or her body without becoming more compassionate. A mental state like tolerance can deepen into a three-dimensional state of true patience. Nonviolence can become more than a moral principle, it can become an integrated state of consciousness that includes the body. And, of course, for good or for bad, the silence within us also contains the opportunity for choice.

Silence is the word I use to describe the empty presence we experience within our experience — between our thoughts, between each other, between ourselves and the world. We feel the silence when we daydream, when we appreciate the beauty of a sunset, or when the love of our life truly walks away. It is an inward sense, often experienced as a longing or an ache. It is a feeling of emptiness and fullness at the same time. The silence is the aspect of our consciousness that makes us feel slightly heavy. It is the source of the feeling of loss, but also of a sense of awe.

As I wake up to the horror of traumatically induced body memories, I am forced to feel death — not the end of my life, but the death of my life as a walking person. I absorbed death as I watched that young boy having screws twisted into his skull. The silence within which I found refuge was a level of dying.

In principle, my experience is not that uncommon, only more extreme. We all experience different levels of dying throughout our lives — the process of living guarantees it. As each day passes, especially in our later years, we become increasingly aware of our own mortality. If we can see death as more than black and white, as more than on and off, there are many versions of realized death short of physically dying. The death of a loved one sets so much in motion: grief, a sense of loss, tears, anger, a transcendent sense of love, an appreciation of the present moment, a desire to die, and on and on.

Then there are also the quiet deaths. How about the day you realized you weren't going to be an astronaut or the queen of Sheba? Feel the silent distance between yourself and how you felt as a child, between yourself and those feelings of wonder and splendor and trust. Feel your mature fondness for who you once were, and your current need to protect innocence wherever you might find it. The silence that surrounds the loss of innocence is a most serious death, and yet it is necessary for the onset of maturity.

What about the day we began working not for ourselves, but rather with the hope that our kids might have a better life? Or the day we realized that, on the whole, adult life is deeply repetitive? As our lives roll into the ordinary, when our ideals sputter and dissipate, as we wash the dishes after yet another meal, we are integrating death; a little part of us is dying so that another part can live.

-Matthew Sanford Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence

listen to interview online

True Confessions

I love to touch my food. I eat with my fingers.

Delia Ephron

Read article here.

Impromptu Biscotti

My accidentally puddling like pumpkin cake turned into biscotti with my help. I sliced the cake thinly and baked the slices on my ribbed cast iron pan at 350 turning the slices over after 10 minutes. Delicious with black coffee.

The Whole Way in the Dark

When I called, my aunt said "Do you know what day it is? Jewish New Year!"

Eighteen years ago I had just bought my house and I still had a car. I cooked up a feast: roasted red peppers, apple crisp, tofu whipped cream, spicy kale cooked in olive oil and garlic with corn niblets for color, and a basket of my whole wheat bread. I packed the food in my beloved cast iron dutch ovens, loaded up my old silver Subaru wagon, and drove west an hour and a half to my parents country house, a 1750 farmhouse with a view, out in the middle of Massachusetts. It was a surprise but my aunt and uncle knew I was coming with a feast. They were driving up from Brighton Beach to converge.

When I showed up there was a scarecrow displayed out front leaning against the barn. It was wearing my mother's old hospital-beige neck brace, which made my stomach turn. I went inside and my Aunt Irene and Uncle Ron were glad to see me but my parents weren't thrilled by the surprise. They like to be in control but I didn't understand that back then. I set the table and we ate my banquet lunch in their designer kitchen. When we were about to have dessert my mother said "What are you on?" "What? Nothing!" What was she talking about? I was so insulted. After the meal as I packed up to leave my mother said "I am keeping all of the food." I explained that I was hoping to bring some food back for my husband's dinner when he got home from work. She reluctantly parceled out a portion as if I were twisting her arm - there was plenty of food. I drove home angry and sad. I missed the highway exit and ended up taking the local road the whole way home in the dark.

Seltzer

I have been craving seltzer lately. I found this great blog by Jessica Leshnoff called Lunch at 11:30. She has a great post about seltzer. She is a professional journalist.
Read.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

This morning when baking my pumpkin bread recipe I used a double sized can of pumpkin, adding coffee as liquid and I got a pudding texture as a result. I love it. I am calling it pumpkin-bread-pudding. I am not sure the neighbors will understand so I won't give this one away. Perhaps if I slice it and bake the slices flat on a tray it can be pumpkin biscotti! Stay tuned!

Recycling Joy and Dust

With my new found transmit energy, I'm tackling the dust, washing the cat and dog hair off the couch cover, washing three pairs of sneakers a friend gave me, and dismantling the mountain of cardboard boxes: 18 years worth, piled up in the cellar. Dust city! Eventually, God and dog willing, I must tackle the teetering paper stacks in my studio it is now a health and safety hazard.

I dug out my little red wagon from underneath the boxes. It is a wooden wagon with detachable sides for grocery shopping or attaching Lily to haul stuff - a joke. This wagon is just like the one I sent my brother down the driveway in, when he was two and a half and I was seven. He turned at the bottom of the hill and hit gravel. He got a weensy cut over his top lip the size of an ant, in the shape of a musical rest. I am forever blamed for his cosmetic imperfection and it went on my permanent record. When my mother introduced me to his girlfriend, she said "Oh, she's the one who gave Peter the scar above his lip".

I'm baking pumpkin breads for neighbors - new and old, cleaning the crumb tray in the toaster, vacuuming the dog hair. This is what shrinking daylight does to me.

Savory Sisters

I love savory food: meat muffins and mashed potatoes on a cone!

Barter

How many loaves of my home made sourdough bread do you need to cut my grass?

Meat Muffin

When I made meat loaf last night I added five cups of oats and two cups of chic peas to my regular formula. It is more like a Thanksgiving stuffing or a savory muffin, a meat muffin!

Monks Hours

We are back to monks hours here at the ghetto palace. Bill's alarm goes off at four AM and although I have not been able to get up at that hour the past two mornings, this morning I was on his schedule. I made coffee, clipped the cats nails and ate two bites of cold leftover meat loaf. The neighborhood is quiet. When I poured a shot of milk to heat in the smallest size jam jar for my coffee the cat leapt over to it and Lily made one loud baritone bark. I glanced over to the window above the sink, luckily it was closed. The new neighbors bedroom windows are four feet away. They have small children, and I don't want to wake them. In our town when two people rent an apartment six people move in. Families spill out onto the street playing, shouting, fighting, barking. It's the opposite of the town I grew up in but I wouldn't trade it for the world. My unemployed neighbors spend the day watching their kids, and the traffic driving by, and I spend the day watching them.

Jim Sollisch

Jim Sollisch article. Cooking is Freedom!
The Art of Repetition article here.

Alley Cat

Sammy has a new friend, a black cat with white whiskers who sits on our windowsill in the alley and meows at him! This cat moved in with our new neighbors next door. This is the first time Sammy has not paid attention to our toast making. It must be love.

A Dirtying Machine!

My washing machine is rusted and now stains our clothes. A washer in reverse. A dirtying machine.

Skunk Alert

Last night I put Lily's leash on and opened the door to the back yard. Lily pulled and I could see that it wasn't a cat she wanted to chase, it was a black skunk with a white stripe and its tail was up. I yanked her back inside. Luckily she didn't get sprayed.

Blueberry Muffin Cake

This cake is basically a gigantic muffin!

Preheat oven to 350.
Beat the eggs and oil together with a whisk, then add the vanilla and blueberries. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients, then mix all ingredients together in a big bowl by hand or with a mixer.
Pour into a pre-greased, pan and bake for 55-60 minutes. I use a Bundt pan.

2 eggs
3/4 cup of corn oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 cups of blueberries*
3 cups of whole wheat flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda

*This is an adaptable recipe. You can use applesauce in place of blueberries or pumpkin puree or mashed over ripe bananas. The batter should be the consistency of thick mud! If the batter is too dry add a splash of orange juice. Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes. Insert a broom straw! It's done when it comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Enjoy with hot tea or coffee!

Barometric Pressure

When I get a headache it seems to correlate with severe drops in barometric pressure. Obviously barometric pressure is not something I can control but I feel better about taking headache medicine after I have seen the evidence of a pressure drop on the weather graph.

Our local dairy farmer told me that his pregnant cows tend to calve during a high pressure system. I want to see a cow give birth! I am watching for weather indicators intercepting our need for milk.

Ice Cream

Last night I had a craving for a pistachio ice cream. As we walked across the grass behind the baseball field, I could see the red OPEN sign blinking in The Castle window. By the time we got there the light was off. We asked if they were still open. They said they closed early but they were still open for ice cream. When the woman handed me the cones, Lily reached up and put her paws on the counter window. The ice cream was delicious and we ran into our neighbor Paula on the way home.

Raymond Chandler

After a while I got in past the velvet rope and ate one of Rudy's 'world famous' Salisbury steaks which is hamburger on a slab of burnt wood, ringed with browned-over mashed potato, supported by fried onion rings and one of those mixed-up salads which men will eat with complete docility in restaurants, although they would probably start yelling if their wives tried to feed them one at home.

I went down to the drugstore and ate a chicken salad sandwich and drank some coffee. The coffee was overstrained and the sandwich was as full of rich flavours as a piece torn off an old shirt. Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of its sides, preferably a little wilted.

- Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Rituals Enhance Flavor

Article

Jon Frankel

What a joy it is to buy a fresh whole fish from a fisherman on a dock in Maine, or rural New Zealand, or from a fish store in the Hamptons. Another, more urban joy, is heading down to Mott Street in New York and lining up before a small fish store with whole fish laid out on the ice, dripping slowly on the sidewalk, the fishmonger hosing down scales and blood, people talking, poking, calling their orders out in Cantonese. They pack a whole sea bass with a piece of ginger and a couple of scallions.
-Jon Frankel
read Jon's full blog post and recipe here.

Night Line

Last night I hung my clothes in the dark so the early morning sun would catch them while I was still asleep. I also mixed up a batch of bread dough before going to bed and refrigerated it overnight so the dough could sit out today and warm up slowly. It felt good to wake up with a head start on my chores.