Crybaby

I cry at the slightest rub against the emotion of loss-- lost time, lost relationships, lost opportunity. I feel it with a hint of someone's departure, through a phone call with an old friend where I find myself bereft of words and wallowing in the pain of time passing; or through the words found on the printed page of a storybook. I cry over sad endings, beautiful moments, and sometimes when caught unawares. Ignoring the power these moments hold over me feels foolish, but I do it often enough anyway.

I steal an inward glance and prepare to cringe. Pain from the present moment anchors onto an old state, an old fear, or an old longing. It wants release like a soap bubble that floats up and then pops except that it's a bubble bursting with pain that I can't hold back. It's complicated and it's simple.

Sorrow for what can't be; loss for what has passed and will not come again is tethered to every moment before it and after it. I tune into this channel of loss as if it is a beacon or homing signal. Some transend regret eloquently whereas I choke on pain and drip with tears. I want to gather all the pieces that have taken flight on the wind and form them into something meaningful and keep them or at least bring them back into my life.

In the Jewish tradition, after bar mitzvah, a rabbi might say to the young adult, go and repair the world. What am I to do with these shards? Why do I hold onto ancient history? Why do I stroke the bones as if they can be brought back to life?

Instead, I smile inwardly when my son, eight, asks for my iPod because his dad's iPod doesn't have the Moody Mama Playlist that has the Journey songs he likes. Journey always makes me think of my friend Kelly. When I was fourteen, I remember noting a Journey poster in her room before confessing that I liked the band. She was probably oblivious to the impact of my truthsaying, but for me it wove her into their songs. My son has added another layer. This is how a song becomes laden with feelings, memories, and love. It's never the surface thing, but that deeper place that resonates, vibrates and knocks everything together, the wellspring, the source of tears too hard to explain. Everything is like this-- overgrown and entangled.

Vacation

Vacation prep makes me want to stay home. Packing bags, looking for random phone chargers, teabags, and swim gear, and making arrangements for time away feels like the straw that broke the  camel's back. Maybe I just like my work, my everyday routines. Maybe there is already enough to do?

If only the inevitable pile of post vacation laundry or the fugue where you aren't on vacation but aren't exactly home either could be avoided. Then there is all that food-- excessive amounts and too many extra calories.

Anh. We end up happy to be away from routines, even me-- books to read, beaches to explore, and people to see. Transitions just aren't my favorite.

I thought this illustration by Blanca Gomez captured the off to vacation sprint.

 

Mama Dreams of Fried Fish

Delirious, I closed my eyes and dropped directly into REM stage sleep full of thick, tenacious dreams that would not let me go. 

The next evening, watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I felt a pang of longing for Japan. The film is set in familiar subway tunnels, shops, and restaurants in Tokyo. Jiro's relentless pursuit of perfection is expressed through a ten seat sushi shop. Three Michelin Stars validate that he's a master of his craft. He tells you he dreams of sushi, wakes up in the middle of the night thinking of sushi. He also mentions that he has been on his own since age nine and that he last saw his father when he was seven years old. Failure was not an option, only hard work schooled by the quest for perfection. He seeks out experts that know fish and rice like he knows sushi. He reviews every detail before his customers arrive, and he tastes and tastes and tastes. Jiro says in the film, “In order to make delicious food, you need to eat delicious food. The quality of ingredients is important, but one must develop a palate capable of discerning good and bad food. Without good taste, you can’t make good food.”

A local chef commented that university students know good food, but they can't cook anything. Eating is a first step, then there is the cooking and the cooking and the cooking. I think this is where I am-- relentlessly cooking and trying to get the food to taste as good as I have eaten though I lack the desire to devote night and day to it like Jiro.

One dream leads to another, sushi is more of the nightmare realm for me, I dream of crispy fried fish. When I dream of food, I dream of eating it, not cooking it.

Rooting into Gardening

I've killed a few houseplants out of neglect and over watering, a regular brown thumb. In my defense, frequent moves over the decades meant that flora and fauna changed regularly and were taken for granted. However, now, I'm putting down roots and paying attention.

The plagues of gardening in Southern Ohio are clay soil, critters, and the small labor pool, me. 

My first garden tool was handed to me by my husband as he returned to Japan for the fall and winter months. Composting mainly requires a pitchfork and a willingness to do it. Tea leaves, vegetable scraps, and yard wastes are tossed every few days by the handy tool until eventually you strike black gold. Earthworms accumulating in a corner of the yard ensure the rest. The pile in the sink takes on a distinct odor when neglected too long (mostly due to the weather). The magical transformation of waste into soil is a powerful motivator with a yard full of clay.

With five robins staking out our yard at any given time, I worried about the robins eating up all the worms, but they both appear to keep coming back. 

Robins, don't strike me as bright. They persistently built nests on our front porch eves even though we've removed the mud, twigs, and eventually eggs, they brought. To make the pillars and eves less hospitable, we placed chicken wire along the tops of the coveted dwelling spaces. We hung a plastic owl, a predator, from clear fishing line to bob and float about in the wind to scare them away. Although a nest did not get completed, a robin laid an egg at the top of a pillar anyway. We weren't sure what to do. We optimistically waited for the egg to hatch and noted with the laying of the egg, there was no more nest building activities. After a few weeks, my husband removed the egg (for fear of a potential smell hazard) only to have the robins resume building work. With a stroke of inspiration, I put two blue plastic easter eggs in the same spot and the robins have stayed away. Save your money, don't buy a fake owl. Instead use plastic easter eggs to wave off the nesting robins.

An orange colored bug with black spots hung about on my cucumber leaves for several weeks. Turns out this look alike ladybug bug fooled me, but I have bug issues and prefer to ignore them. My husband pointed out that if a bug is sitting on the leaves with a trail of holes, it's a clue that the bug is not of the helping kind. What to do? Flip them into a dish of soapy water so they can't climb out and dispose of them later. Ten bugs and a few squeals later, I debugged my garden. It would be helpful to read about the natural predators of a few bugs, but my imagination is as squeamish as I am-- part of being a visual learner is that I don't like to learn about things I don't like to see in my mind, namely bugs.

Bunnies nibble daily on the edible flowers, but beyond a small patch I have for vegetables with a rabbit fence, I've no plans for chasing them off.

Squirrels ate my first yuzu lemon. They would be on my hit list if I had one. I think they thought it was a walnut which is also small and green. There are six yuzu perking along now, thanks to the bees which are better pollinators than the paint brush used in early spring to pollinate it while still indoors. Bumble bees are good bugs that I like.

My tomatoes think they're Jack's beanstalk-- they are taller than me. My tomato crop so far? One, one cherry tomato. Cut the tops off of skyward reaching tomato plants to get them to fruit. Stake tomatoes when you plant them, it's just easier and less likely to destroy leaves and stems that you are nurturing. Next year, I won't plant tomatoes next to the cucumbers because the vines grow into each other and become an entangled mess. It gets kind of wild when plants actually grow, bloom, and fruit altogether which is hard to imagine when planting seeds and seedlings, especially for the first time.

The few things I have cultivated in pots here and there are herbs. Mint takes over and is best confined. Cutback herbs like basil, sage, and mint before it flowers. I recollect one of the pilots in Bahrain got some manure for his garden and ended up with a basil bush whereas mine resemble a bunch of sticks.

The focus of my garden is on Japanese produce not available locally. I have found that daikon giant white radish grow very nicely in Ohio thanks to the abundant rainfall of summer. Shiso (perilla), aka shiso (red perilla), kabocha pumpkin, engan French green beens, and cucumbers (long and skinny kind) grow well too. The Japanese hot peppers and carrots have yet to make an appearance.

Airflow stops mosquitoes-- no chemicals necessary. I wish the neighbors who neglect vines and weeds that stop the flow of the chi were onboard with this. Pockets of dead air protect the mosquitoes. The antidote is sunlight and air flow. Get a fan!

My last garden realization is that a produce auction or farmers market offers all the food with less of the labor. Consider harvest times to avoid vacation spells, what you will use or eat,  and how you will save it. Produce, from the garden or purchased, is work too. To make the most of it, you have to put it up in some form or eat loads of it at once. In the meantime, I'm working on my jamming, drying, and pickling skills, but that is for another day.

My garden patch

Speculoos

My sister-in-law told me about a spread that tastes like gingerbread cookies. It took an hour before I asked, "Can we get some?" We picked up a jar of speculoos at her neighborhood Trader Joe's. However, it traveled back home with me before it was sampled. My husband is nonplus about it, but my son and I can eat speculoos by the spoonfuls, one bite to nirvana.

Speculoos is a crispy shortcrust cookie made with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger cardamon, and white pepper. It is a  traditional Dutch treat made for St. Nicholas' Feast in December that since about 2007 has been enjoyed as a spread. It was inspired by factory workers that put the cookies on the their buttered toast in the morning and found that by lunch it was a tasty treat.

There is a shortage of speculoos spread which is made from the cookies and is vegan. It can sometimes be found at CVS, but it's elusive in Athens and on the internet. Though the original sample came from Trader Joe's, they are always out of stock as is another favorite online resource, Vitacost. I've been fueling my speculoos consumption with supplies garnered from an airline connection, Biscoff. It is available in both a crunchy or creamy consistency, we-- the kiddo and I-- prefer the crunchy. There are also recipes on the internet for making the spread from the cookies.

If you have yet to sample speculoos, like spices in your cookies, and know that everything tastes better on buttered toast, then you need to try some!

Speculoos Spread

Every Time I See Vegetables, A Produce Auction

I'm standing at the Chesterhill Produce Auction. The auctioneer calls out, Five, five, five," as he looks for the next bidder. Rows of plants, vegetables, and fruits are spread along an open air room. At the far end another auctioneer is at work. One auction is for larger quantities and the other for smaller. I'm watching the auction for smaller sizes. 

Two Amish men help the auctioneer, one holds the current item for bid and tags the item while the other sorts out the next item for auction. An Amish woman records the bid amount and the bidder's number. The Amish men's pants have no zippers. If I had to sew my own clothes, I'd be interested in pants without zippers. The Amish woman's dress appears to be held together with straight pins.

The produce is gorgeous. The drive is scenic but curvy of the inducing car sickness kind.  I bid on bags of basil leaves, boxes of peaches, and spring for some sweet onions, garlic, and beets. As I load my car, horses and buggies sit together in the parking lot.  

Back home my husband comments that many of his patients eat fast food which is a shame in light of the bountiful and beautiful food in the community. However, real food is work. First you plan it, then you buy it, and then you cook it.

I stare at my produce pile. I see the hours of prep work before me. I pickle eggplant, cucumbers, onions, peel garlic bulbs, and pit cherries. The peaches and plums can wait. I forgot to put dill in the pickles. Mm, guess I need to try that again.

Food puts some off. One friend commented on Facebook that she hated pictures of food. In my faraway place with lighted screen,  I nodded in understanding. Food is complicated in that it can make you fat or unhealthy. However, more food involvement can be helpful.  If you want a better relationship to food, you have to relate to it. Making jam, pickles, or dinner is a way of participating with the world and the moment that no Hot Pocket will ever touch. Food is complicated. Produce is full of potential. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I was grateful for having had a glimpse of it at a produce auction full of vegetables.

Eggplant from Chesterhill Produce Auction

Pickled Asparagus

As a small child you would not have found me lurking about a pickle barrel or snitching sauerkraut from the basement. The first time I ate a sweet bread and butter pickle, by accident, I took note and thereafter looked for them. The first time I bit into an umeboshi sour plum pickle in Japan, I stopped amid conversation to clarify what I had just eaten. Pickles have surreptitiously entered into my diet.

Exploring ways to preserve and keep abundant summer garden and farmers market produce, pickles and canning are a new pursuit. With the help of Well-Preserved: recipes and techniques for putting up small batches of seasonal foods by Eugenia Bone, I made Pickled Asparagus, and it is fabulous! See the book for details on the water-bath method of canning and for additional recipes. She also provides recipes for using the pickled items.

Canning is a lot about being organized in the kitchen. Start with getting your canning gear in place. By this I mean wash the jars and lids. Read up on technique. I've tried the water bath and the oven method. I prefer the dry heat of the oven method so far. Have a damp cloth for wiping the rims and labels handy. Please defer to an expert resource for canning tips.

Pickled Asparagus

Makes 3 Pint Jars

Asparagus, 5 lbs (2268 gm)

Water, 2 1/4 cups

Distilled White Vinegar with 5% acidity, 2 1/4 cups

Pickling Salt, 1/4 cup

Dill Seed, 1 tsp

Hot Red Pepper Flakes, 1/2 tsp

Whole Allspice berries, 1/4 tsp

Cumin Seeds, 1/4 tsp

Coriander Seeds, 1/4 tsp

1. Wash 3 pint jars with the lids and screw bands. Put jars, tops up, in the oven with the lids off at 250ºF (121ºC) for 30 minutes. Lay out a clean cloth to wipe the jars and an absorbent pad (silicon mat lined pan, towel, or layer of newspapers) to place the hot jars after processing.

2. Trim the asparagus ends off so that they allow 3/4 to 1-inch of headspace in the jars. Over medium to high heat, bring a pot with about 2-inches of water to boil.  Cook the asparagus, in small batches, until bright green, about 3 minutes. Remove asparagus and run under cold water or dunk them in ice water to set their color. Drain and set aside. Repeat with remaining asparagus.

3. Prepare the vinegar solution. Combine water, vinegar, salt, dill seed, pepper flakes, allspice berries, cumin seeds, and coriander seeds in a saucepan over medium to low heat. Stir to dissolve salt, but do not boil past the point the salt has dissolved. Remove from the heat.

4. Pack the asparagus into the warm jars tightly, tips upright. Cover with the vinegar solution leaving 1/2 to 3/4-inch of headspace above the vinegar solution. Distribute the spices amongst the jars. Wipe the rims, set on the lids, and screw on the bands to fingertip tight.

5. Process the jars by baking them in the oven at 250ºF (121ºC) for 15 minutes or use the water-bath method and process accordingly for 15 minutes.

6. Remove jars from the oven. Place them upside down to cool. Check the seals to be sure they sealed. Tighten the bands as needed. Label and date.

7. Allow the asparagus to season in a cool dark place for 4 weeks (or overnight). Refrigerate after opening. The asparagus will become paler and float in the vinegar as they do shrink during processing so pack them tightly. Using proper canning methods, you can store these for up to one year. They've yet to last a week around here.

Serving suggestions:
Eat out of the jar, add to salads with hard-cooked eggs and vinaigrette, or add to Chicken Piccata.

Pickled Asparagus

Chesterhill Produce Auction

My memories of summer touch upon long hot afternoons of reading. Sometimes it was as if the heat turned imagination and story into an alternate reality, but by then I would awaken from a sweaty nap.

My grown up fantasy of summer has been a long awaited garden which looks impressive thanks to abundant rain fall. The problem is that it is a small space and being a novice gardener, I've not taken advantage of every inch of it, but I'm learning.

My garden is planted with Japanese herbs and vegetable seeds, things I could not easily find. Having limited garden produce and no fruit bearing trees, I still have the usual shopping trips to the grocery store and the farmers market. I am also teaching myself how to make jams and pickles courtesy of numerous library books, my favorite inspirers. 

Today, in search of larger batches and better prices, I went to Chesterhill Produce Auction. The produce looked beautiful. I quickly obtained a number and flashed it for a batch of asparagus, my new favorite pickle. Next, I went for raspberries, then blueberries, and finally three sacks of potatoes, my usual concoction of nonsensical items that interest me but don't exactly come together to make a meal or recipe.

There are four jars of homemade jam-- cherry,  strawberry rubarb, shiro plum, and plum-- in my fridge, but none with raspberries or blueberries. To make jam, I need motivation, read volume, to can it. Just as I'm a newbie gardener, so I'm a newbie canner. Thus far I'm trying recipes out for taste and ease and learning what is in season in hopes of building a canning repertoire. 

I plan to go back to the produce auction as I learn what I can "put up" and what tastes good. It was cool-- from the auctioneer to the Amish farmers to the beautiful  produce-- and motivating. Learning about local food sources is only part of eating locally. Learning how to use local food, keep it, and enjoy it beckons.