Harpsichordian

Come away with me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 May 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Hello all! If you are still poking around here, I am no longer updating this blog. However, you may follow me over at my latest writing venture, The Sentimental Club.

Cheers!

Spring again

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 04:28:00 +0000

So many of us were reflecting last week as we hit the year mark that we all sheltered in place. I've been allowing myself to look back at my line-a-day journal entries and social media posts in order to mark the time, and to think about how little we knew and how far we've come. A year later, this scary virus now has a vaccine, and we are starting to think about bigger plans than our trips to the grocery store. As I look back, I think of all the ways we have become stronger and more resilient, but also more tender and more sensitive.

One year later, I am still healthy. My parents never got sick. I still have my job. Joel got a new job. We got married. I have done 150 workouts in my living room. I haven't gotten an oil change. My blood pressure is back to normal.

One year later, I have lost two family members without a way to gather in mourning. I missed my niece's wedding. I haven't seen my Boise family in person since 2019. I've become ever more aware of the decline of my dog's health as weeks pass and our walks become slower, and her face becomes whiter.

On Monday, during my afternoon stroll on the bluff, a bird call caught my attention. In the tree above me were five or six Northern flickers. They squeaked and warbled at each other before a few of them flew off, and then the call became loud and persistent. I might have seen or heard these birds before, but I never knew their names until I consulted with my niece, an avid birder, who confirmed via text. They are so common, so it was amazing to me that I had never noticed them before now.

In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell writes of this shifting of attention, paying more mind to our bioregion, that is, the immediate environment where we live, walk, and generally inhabit. Context is important, which includes our physical space. In the past year I have gained a heightened awareness of the way my house creaks during the day, where the light hits during the different times of year, as well as the names of the weeds that pop up in the garden beds in March and June. And I'm still finding more to pay attention to. I've walked the neighborhood each day and have examined, lately, various houses' siding, as we determine how to re-do ours (and more! ugh). I've talked to more neighbors and watched their activities through the window like a true Mrs. Kravitz. I've hiked the bluff hundreds of times and, like on Monday, am still learning what nature does there, and the names of the plants and creatures that inhabit that space. It feels good to be sensitive and attentive to these things, after so much worry this year, after reading so many news headlines without the energy to read the articles themselves, and feeling a growing inability to retain information or to concentrate for any length of time. The other day at work (in my home office), I had a good idea -- a rare feeling lately -- and before I lost it, I shared it with Joel to make sure it made sense, then walked out the door for fresh air and to celebrate that fleeting joy of reconnecting to what I love about my work, hoping that adding a dose of sunlight to it would keep it from being spoiled by checking my email again too quickly.

This year has important and life-changing, though it's just one year in the larger context of our lives, in the even larger context of the world around us. There's so much left to learn and grow from. After a year of isolation, mixed with grief and joy, I'm looking forward to the things we're all looking forward to, but I am doing my best to continue to use this time to form deeper habits that are keeping me grounded and are compelling me to pay better attention.

And yes, it's spring again. The year should begin on the vernal equinox because if ever there were a true feeling of turning a new leaf, this is it. It is the best season (where I've lived, at least), even though summer gets all the credit. Those first warm days, those first pops of green buds and the tell-tale yellows of forsythia and purples of crocuses, the return of the birds, the smell of mud, the sound of kids out on the sidewalks -- spring is a reminder that nothing is to be taken for granted but yet here we are again, greeted by persistent life and color and promises of brighter days to come.

There went January

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 03:30:00 +0000

So...now we're halfway through February and I had this puppy in my drafts for a couple weeks. It already feels like a long time ago, but here's what I meant to post at the end of last month.

One year you’re blogging every week and the next you nearly forget this place exists. Okay, that’s not true. But it’s been nice to take a breather from the weekly blog thing. Now that it’s February, I’m having a hard time remembering what happened over the last four weeks. But…

The best thing about January was sharing some riveting news with friends and loved ones, and if this is the first time you’re hearing of this, surprise! On December 31, Joel and I married each other, in our friends' backyard, in the final hours of 2020.

We had no rings, no formal speeches, no fancy clothes under our down jackets, just our witnesses and ordained friend who asked us if we took each other as husband and wife. It was a decision twelve years and six months in the making, and when it was made, we wasted no time. Our lives were already so interwoven and committed to each other that marriage, to us, felt like opening ourselves to a warm embrace that had long been waiting for us. With each person we have shared our news with (starting with our parents, the next day), I’ve felt that embrace expand.

I must admit that I didn’t think things would feel that different after marriage, but they do. And while I’m admitting things, I’ll add that it’s lovelier than I expected, even as I knew what to expect with Joel as a partner. And while in another reality I would have loved to see my friends and family beside us when we gathered, being able to strip away the trappings of a wedding really made things feel more personal and allowed us to focus on the chapter we’re launching. The friends who were able to be with us were part of our story from the very beginning, which was special, too. It was the best way to end one year and begin another. I've carried this poem by Mary Oliver in my pocket all winter, and it has felt all the more poignant ever since.

We left two days later for a quick trip to Walla Walla and called it a honeymoon (with the dog). The gorgeous weather made outdoor wine tasting bearable, and it was nice to eat another city’s takeout. We also stopped in at a jeweler to figure out our ring sizes and came home and made those purchases for our left hands.

Then came the insurrection, the inauguration, the news of friends receiving the long-awaited vaccine.

A mixed bag of joy, agony, joy, anxiety and joy, as usual.

Here are other highlights, the ones I can remember, at least.

What we’ve eaten:

I’ve been creating these little calendars to help me meal plan and to document what we’ve eaten. I usually only plan out a few days at a time - depending on my grocery shopping plans - which allows for flexibility, the lack of which is the primary reason I’ve resisted meal planning. On the back of the calendar I list recipes I want to try that month, which includes desserts, and I refer to it each time I’m plotting out the next few days or weekend. When the month is over, I slip the paper in a sheet protector and stick it into one of my recipe binders. It then becomes a reference if I’m looking for ideas for future months.

We’ve eaten a number of hearty soups, some standbys like pizza, hodgepodge clean-out-the-fridge dishes, and recipes from new issues of Bon Appetit and Milk Street magazines. Desserts are where I’m having the most fun, with a red wine marble cake, Swedish orange almond cookies (pink icing from blood oranges), and a loaf cake with macerated prunes (with port and whiskey) and pistachios. I also made a new sourdough loaf that contained dried fruit and sunflower seeds that made for incredible toast.

Joel made the month, though, with the most unusual soup, Royale Bolognese, to celebrate the new year. What you’re seeing above is essentially parmesan dumplings in a clear meat broth with fresh nutmeg. It was quite a process to make and the results were incredible. I’ve never eaten anything like it. We think this will be our New Year’s Day tradition. The recipe came from Pasta By Hand, a wonderful cookbook that hasn't failed us yet.

The rest of the time I eat a steady diet of oatmeal for breakfast, and poached egg and greens for lunch (sprinkled with a little feta, plus some Triscuits or toast on the side), with lots fruits and vegetables in between. I’m off of weekday booze, save for a small glass of vermouth that I allow myself as a reward for cleaning the bathroom on Wednesdays after work, and we usually crack open a bottle of wine on Fridays. Lately that bottle has been lasting us all weekend (which is shocking - last year we could polish off one in a night). My blood pressure is now on the high end of normal.

We got a milk frother for Christmas (thanks to me) so I’m also enjoying the occasional cappuccino with my Aeropress.

Watching:
I’ve been thinking of how little I remember of the stuff we watch. We are in the last season of Frasier, and I’m ready for it to end as they’re recycling some old bits from previous seasons, back when Frasier was in its heyday. We watched the first (very short) season of Lupin (Netflix), which was enjoyable, and the latest season of Call My Agent(Netflix). We also enjoyed The Flight Attendant (HBO). For movies, I’d recommend The Dig, a new feature from Netflix. It was also fun to watch the documentary about the Monterey Pop Festival (HBO) and see what festival-going was like in the 1960s, before large corporate sponsorships and smartphones took over the scene. Joel keeps selecting French/Italian/Spanish movies that I never remember the names of later. I need to write this stuff down. He would agree, though, that most of it was forgettable.

Listening:
I’ve given up podcasts and am exclusively listening to audiobooks on my daily walks in my effort to read more books this year. I finished The Body by Bill Bryson, which was fascinating, though many facts are hard to retain. A few passages, however, I will never forget, such as how kidney stones used to be removed, or the story of a guy who fell from a plane without a parachute and survived, and how we can thank mustard gas for the existence of chemotherapy. The main takeaway was that our bodies are smarter than we realize, and that there’s so much that’s still a mystery. I also finished Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist. He writes very methodically but breaks it up with his personal experiences. I was talking to someone who has also been listening to the audiobook version of this, and we agreed it's best to take it in small portions.

Music-wise, it’s mostly music for chilling out. Mia Doi Todd's Cosmic Ocean Ship album has been nice during my afternoon slumps. We also learned of a French band called Catastrophe, a fun and dancy group...the music video for "Maintenant ou Jamais" feels a lot like the dance parties my post-college housemates would host, i.e., a handful of people flailing their arms and spinning, channeling other eras with their outfits. I miss those days.

Reading:
Aside from my audiobooks, I’ve finished Circe by Madeline Miller, The Cold Millions by Jess Walter, and Writers and Lovers by Lily King. All were so different, and all were so engaging. We’re off to a good start this year. Between reads I fit in some short stories by Mavis Gallant as a palate cleanser. I just started Dirt by Bill Buford which is already fun.

Making:

I frogged this project last year and picked it back up for 2021 -- a fun sock pattern called Hickory, which is sometimes a challenge for my hands but worth the effort.

This year has already brought some sadness and new challenges, and right now I'm focusing hard on things that bring color into my life. I'm wearing more jewelry and buying plants and picking out colorful yarn and fabric for new projects. And I'm making sure we always have something for dessert.

So long, 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 16:25:00 +0000

When I started my weekly posts for 2020, I expected to share a year of adventure. In February I went out with a friend and declared that one of my goals for 2020 was to travel somewhere, near or far, every month. We were already off to a good start in January after a quick weekend trip to Coeur d'Alene. I was thinking about Nelson, B.C. for February. We were about to book tickets to France and Spain for March. My friend suggested we try for a group trip to Walla Walla in April (maybe for my birthday!). Other big milestones were on the horizon, so it just felt like a year to get out and go places.

Memories of these kinds of conversations are what many of us look back on as reasons the year was cursed. We brought it upon ourselves, making these grand plans, feeling optimistic and itchy to do something in a year with such an important ring to it: 2020. Our blind optimism caused these plans to evolve into uncertainty, then into cancelled itineraries, and then into a year in which I barely needed car insurance due to driving less than 3,000 miles. Superstition aside, as a result, this blog ended up being just a heightened version of what it was always meant to be - a place to share things I've made (and read and watched and listened to) -- only this time, it was because it was all I could do. It became, unintentionally, a pandemic journal.

I learned at an early age that if I picture how I want things to turn out too clearly, I will be disappointed. I learned much later that no matter what happens, the one thing I can control is my response to a situation. I pictured a year of going places, but gosh darn it if by the end of it I didn't make the most out of staying put.

Little did I know that maintaining the routine of writing here each week would become crucial to my mental health. Every Sunday, I'd think about what stood out about the past week, both good and bad. It helped me pinpoint things I needed more or less of in the week ahead. It helped me process challenging events. Each time I hit "Publish" was a sort of celebration that I made it through another week, all things considered. We all adapted to this year, for better or worse. I'm grateful to be able to look back and see how I did it.

Though I'm holding my hopes for 2021 loosely, I'm carrying the gratitude I accumulated this past year into another year of uncertainty, knowing that I am blessed beyond measure to have a small home to keep, people to love and who love me, a job that brings challenges and fulfillment and a steady paycheck, dear friends who live within a mile, a bluff and a valley at the end of the block to throw my cares to, a good data plan on my phone, and, obviously, hobbies to keep my life interesting.

This is the last of my weekly posts, not just because 2020 is ending but because I need a break! I will return but on a less predictable schedule. In the meantime, thank you for sticking it out with me and if you've been reading for any number of weeks, I hope you found some inspiration to keep notes about your life, to start (and maybe finish) new projects, or that you at least got some good book or movie recommendations.

Cheers, and Happy New Year.

Week 52

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 19:24:00 +0000

Wooooooooo! Here we are!

Christmas and my first week of vacation are both behind us and I'm already feeling wistful. I filled those first few days of the week with gentleness toward myself and didn't give myself too much to do. My one priority each day was to soak in the sun as much as I could. I walked my usual haunts and made a beautiful late-afternoon Christmas Eve visit to Manito Park. Listening to Bach while walking through frozen gardens is magical.

Christmas was sweet. Our gifts were mostly given for both of us to enjoy -- we call it "Us-mas." Joel gave us extremely thoughtful gifts (handmade wooden napkin rings, vintage glassware), mine were mostly practical (e.g. a new milk frother, a nonstick fry pan). The pets got some new toys, too. We Zoomed with all of our family at different points in the day which made me feel a little less homesick. And on Christmas night, it snowed. It made for a bright night and invigorating trek the next morning in our snow pants across the bluff. We sat for a moment on a little mound and looked out at the valley that we look at a bazillion times over the course of a year and watched the misty clouds move around it.

In other news, as of this week I am the proud owner of an at-home blood pressure monitor, which is fun and instantly makes me feel a couple decades older. My numbers have been consistently high this year, and I went to the doctor at the beginning of the week to try to figure out what is going on. It's not for lack of exercise, or needing to lose weight -- I eat few processed foods (pretzels and cheese are my primary sources of weakness) and cut back on coffee to mostly weekends. My cholesterol is low. We definitely drank more alcohol this year, but we've cut back considerably in the last month, and I've inadvertently lost a few pounds because of it. I don't feel more stressed than usual but I do suspect it may have something to do with it. And I need to drink more water. It's my mystery to solve and get a handle on in 2021.

Wish me luck.

Recipes

My family was texting about our traditional family recipes leading up to Christmas, i.e., Oma's rouladen, Mom's ham and egg souffle. I was happy to find a package of lebkuchen on my doorstep on Monday morning from Boise, which is already half gone, less than a week later. But otherwise, our holiday food was mostly influenced by Joel's family traditions this year. We ate chili on Christmas Eve (made with ground turkey instead of beef), and I made his family coffee cake for Christmas morning.

For Christmas dinner we went nontraditional but still festive with coq au vin rosé, in the Instant Pot. This might be my first Christmas without beef.

I'm also enjoying that new nonstick fry pan for all my egg-and-spinach concoctions.

Watching

We watched all the Christmas movies this week: A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Bad Moms Christmas, Muppets Christmas Carol, and a favorite from my childhood which I had not seen in maybe 20 years: Mame, starring Lucille Ball, which isn't really a Christmas movie save for the "We Need a Little Christmas" number in it. It was a real blast from the past.

We also watched Mank, on Netflix, which was mostly confusing, even after having watched Citizen Kane recently.

Making

I finished these crazy socks using the Late Night Socks pattern on Ravelry. That was fun. I recently signed up for a quarterly box from Quince & Co. where they send you yarn and a pattern every three months. The first one is on its way!

Reading

I'm working my way through Circe whenever I feel like there isn't something else I could be doing. It's hard for me to sit on the couch and just read, though now with the snow on the ground I feel like more daytime book-reading is in my future. Mom also got me a book that's been on my list this year, Writers & Lovers, and Joel's copy of Jess Walter's new book, The Cold Millions, is also waiting for me. And we got another book called Wine for Normal People that's been fun to page through as we sip our small amounts of wine.

Listening

Same as last week: a lot of Christmas, a lot of classical. John Fahey's Christmas album is a good one for some instrumental tunes.

///////////////////////

I've got one more of these to round out 2020. We're almost there!

Week 51

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 19:26:00 +0000

Reality hit me pretty hard this week. I think I've held it together pretty well, all things considered -- the isolation, the working from home, the getting along with my partner despite close quarters all the time, the Zoom meetings and FaceTime happy hours, the health precautions to reduce the spread of COVID. But Thursday was my dad's birthday. It marked a milestone for me - a year since I've flown in a plane. A year since I've been to Boise. A year since I've seen my mom and dad. I've never gone this long without any of those things. In the meantime, both Joel and I are both experiencing health issues that are, at least (hopefully) temporarily, taking away some pleasures of eating and drinking, at the height of revelry, just as we enter vacation time that we've looked forward to for months. I have no doubt that what we're experiencing is, to some extent, a result of what we've been through this year.

I keep reminding myself how much worse things could be. Regardless, it's been a year.

Listening: I filled my week with music, because I needed it. For Christmas spirit, a little Dave Brubeck. For general mental health, classical music. A newsletter I follow shared a list compiled years ago by public radio's "Performance Today" of their 50 recommended classical music CDs. I'm working my way through them on Spotify. I had never heard John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" before, and loved it. I listened on my walk and it made me feel energized. And I've spent a lot of time with Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. What can I say, the harpsichord lightens my mood.

Reading: I'm still digging Circe.

Watching: We spent 20 bucks to watch Wild Mountain Thyme (trailer), and it was the best $20 we've spent on a movie in a long time (and first in maybe a year, since going to the theater for the last time was around Christmas time). It was set on two neighboring farms in Ireland, featuring two attractive neighbors (Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan) who have known each other since childhood, with a little Jon Hamm (playing the American cousin) and Christopher Walken (playing the Irish father) thrown in for good measure. I would happily live on location of this film, and in Emily Blunt's wardrobe, rain and all.

We finished The Queen's Gambit, which ended on just the right note. I loved watching Beth's fashion and hairstyles change over the years - she was absolutely gorgeous, and the lighting throughout each episode was well suited to her look. Still, it was strange to watch a show about chess without knowing anything about how the game works -- I still have no clue.

Recipes

Nothing of note here. I've been making things up on the fly with a pantry full of canned soup and saltines when necessary. This week I made things I've made before - crispy marinated tofu with rice, pizza, sheet-pan chicken. Mark Bittman's black bean burgers were probably the best and simplest version of bean burgers I've made. Otherwise, I've paused the Christmas baking. Except for the pumpkin-peanut-oat biscuits I made for Luna (recipe via Martha Stewart). She was very appreciative. And I used leftover pumpkin to make some basic whole wheat muffins, which have been a nice treat at breakfast.

For the love of the dog

On Saturday night, we brought in takeout -- a Puerto Rican Christmas meal of arroz con gandules (herby rice with green pigeon peas), pernil asado (slow-roasted pork shoulder), and ensalada de coditos (macaroni salad), with a side of coconut rice pudding, and to drink, coquito, a coconut nog to which we added a little spiced rum. It was such a treat.

Making

I'm done making gifts and am now revisiting abandoned projects, like socks. I'm also developing spreadsheets for planning my 2021 makes, budget, reading, house plans, etc. I love spreadsheets. And I'm trying to figure out what to do with this blog, too. It can't live on Blogspot for much longer, as I hate the platform, even though it's free. I'll be sure to keep you posted on my next moves in future posts.

Until then, please join me in enjoying what we can to the fullest this week. It's almost Christmas!

8th Annual Book Report

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 01:30:00 +0000

One of the few truly great things I did in 2020 was read. A good book kept me away from the headlines and allowed me to escape or learn something or think about my life differently. I read more books this year than ever before. How did I do it? I occasionally read more than one book at a time, and I also listened to a number of audiobooks -- I found a few that really hooked me, which is rare. I also didn't read a lot of long books, so that helped. And I purchased a Kindle Paperwhite earlier in the year, thinking it would come in handy on my travels, but it turned out to be a godsend during a pandemic, too.

Since I'm dealing with a longer list of books this year, I'm going to format this a bit differently in hopes that it's not a slog to read, or to write.

A re-read: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. I read this shortly after graduating college, so 15 years ago? It still held up as a great story though slightly sentimental, one of those books that has a message.

Favorite new-to-me author (though unfortunately now dead): Mavis Gallant. I read two of her collections this year: The Other Paris and Across the Bridge. Her stories are ones I can really sink into. They're largely about nothing in particular, but her character development is so rich and surprising, sad and hilarious. She is a master of minute detail. If you are an internal processor, you might love her, too.

Books I felt the need to read and ultimately wished I hadn't: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and Normal People by Sally Rooney. I think I've aged out of whatever genre this is, or am just no longer drawn to drama of this sort.

Books about precocious children: How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas and Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson. How to Behave... was my favorite. Isadore is a 12-year-old youngest child who keeps running away from his super-smart family in France, but doesn't want to cause trouble. His perspective of the world and of people is so heartbreaking, insightful and true. The writing and the dialogue between siblings is smart and surprising and made for a joyful read (despite the darkness of the plot). The ending hit me hard. Nothing to See Here was a different kind of read, especially since I listened to the audiobook -- enjoyable but somewhat forgettable.

Books that were recommended to me: The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater: Essays on Crafting by Alanna Okun; and No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering by Clara Bensen. Both were recommended to me by a longtime coworker who clearly gets me (thanks, Julie!). Reading Okun's essays felt like passages I might have written about crafting and anxiety and connection; Bensen reminded me of myself in my 20s when I had just begun to date a guy named Joel who made me feel adventurous and alive and willing to take a few risks.

Most rewarding fiction of the year: Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. This was a truly masterful work that completely surprised me. It's a book about the passage of time, of migration and travel, of the body, and to be honest, it was a good challenge for me. By the end I questioned what it was I had just been through, then I re-read the beginning and began to put the puzzle together.

Two very random audiobooks about death: Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels; and Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman. I mean, you have to be in the mood for these. In the former, there's a lot of tragic and untimely death in this woman's life, and the woman also happens to be a religious scholar, but wasn't brought up in a religious home. The audiobook element didn't add anything to it. However, with Sum, another book about death, each tale was narrated by a different reader, which was probably the only reason I listened. I don't remember a single one now, though.

The book worth revisiting every four years or less: Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit. I love that she points out that the word "emerge" is inside the word "emergency." I've thought about that a lot this year.

The best audiobook I've ever heard and this is not an overstatement: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, read by Tom Hanks. The thing that's missing for me with audiobooks is that I rarely get that feeling I get with physical books of not wanting to put a book down, or looking forward to picking it back up again. Not with this one. I made sure I had it with me anytime I had time to listen -- on walks, on errands, while knitting. It was an excellent story, and I love Ann Patchett in general and the ways she writes about family, but with Tom Hanks in the mix, in the early throes of the pandemic, it was just a delight. I would listen to it again on my next roadtrip, whenever we do that again.

Escapist pandemic reads: The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman by Mamen Sanchez (a light-hearted mystery/love story set Madrid); L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home by David Lebovitz (a memoir from one of my favorite food writers); Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland (imagining life in 1930s Atlantic City, based on a true story). I was happy to read all of these - none of them was heavy or complicated, just charming and enjoyable.

The one I read to see what the fuss was about: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. You must know that I am automatically skeptical when it comes to this kind of category, and there were a few things that bugged me about this book, plotwise, but I do know why it captured so many of us. It was a good book.

Four good books about food and cooking: Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson; Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin; The Seven Culinary Wonders of the World by Jenny Linford; The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth by Roy Andries de Groot. As an avid bedtime cookbook reader, I find food books to be the easiest way for me to forget everything else and calm my mind - other than the times when I think, "Oh, I need to remember to try that!" Bee Wilson's book was a fascinating history of how we arrived at the conventions and tools we use today at the dinner table. The Seven Culinary Wonders was also in that vein, but looking at the history of the food itself and how it's been developed through different continents and cultures -- things like tomatoes and rice -- and it came with recipes (bonus!). Colwin's and de Groot's memoir-ish books were more for the eater in me. Colwin was so relatable and I hope to read more of her again soon, while de Groot was purely a trip to another time and place -- the 1970s and an inn in the French alps that served food you'll likely never find there again.

When I gave the author a second chance: A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. I was disappointed in Brideshead Revisited when I read it many years ago, but A Handful of Dust caught my eye in my digital library. I loved it. Loved it! The characters were despicable but so well developed, the dialogue was smart and often times hilarious. I'm not sure if I'll give Brideshead a second shot, but at least I have a better opinion now of Waugh.

The books to help you appreciate the present moment: What If This Were Enough?: Essays by Heather Havrilesky. We are all inextricably linked, she reminds us, and our survival depends on our ability to be compassionate with one another. And Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith. I didn't think I'd want to read about this year right now, but the way Smith writes about it in these essays -- the pandemic, racism, being creative -- feels original and comforting and poignant.

Maybe a better read for a different kind of year: Weather by Jenny Offill. I loved the style of her writing in this, and I really did love this book, but thinking about climate change and emotional affairs was just too much on top of everything else going on in the world.

The book that firmed up my feelings on Michael Chabon: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. I believe that Chabon is a gifted writer, but everything I've read by him, including this, just hasn't done it for me.

The most moving (illustrated) memoir: Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug. Gorgeous collages comprised of photographs, letters, and finds from the flea market build this scrapbook of Krug's German family history, on both sides. She expresses such tenderness and perspective as she unpacks upsetting details and the feelings of homesickness without a sense of home.

The two books I'd recommend to pretty much anyone: Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller; Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. These are both nonfiction. Lulu Miller is best known for her radio and podcast work, but here she has written a beautifully complicated biography of David Starr Jordan that is interwoven with her own life. And ever since reading Nestor's book, I've been so much more aware of the importance of my own breath and how much power it holds -- obviously breathing keeps me alive, but the ways in which we breathe are also important. Between COVID and the murder of George Floyd, breath has already been our minds. Both of these books have made me view the world differently. You should read them.

Good memoirs for perspective: The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom; The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg. Broom grew up in New Orleans East, and her memoir is a poignant portrait of place -- and devastating inequality -- as she maps her family tree and the house and neighborhood they called home. As for The Fixed Stars, I have read (and cooked) all things Wizenberg, and while this is nothing at all like her food memoirs, this was her way to process the changes in identity, love, and sexuality she's experienced in the last several years.

The heartbreaker (that also has an excellent movie adaptation): The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. You know where this story is going to go before you even get too far into it, because it's the story we've heard so often of police violence against Black people. The young narrator's voice was so moving and strong.

The book I finally got around to: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I felt like I learned so much about the Congo and the politics there in the 1960s, and Kingsolver's writing made it come to life, as I knew it would. These characters were so well developed and memorable, and the foreshadowing and themes made it rich.

If you can get it from your library: Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen. I don't want to have this book on my shelf because it would be a more frequent reminder of the things I already know. The way this country is set up leads to systemic burnout for not just my generation, but for the large majority of us. There are all sorts of reasons for this and it's going to take a long time to fix. Petersen didn't provide ideas for fixing it, but she did provide really good commentary and historical context.

Reading now: Circe by Madeline Miller.

Happy reading, y'all!

Week 50

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 00:04:00 +0000

Silly me, I thought there were only 52 weeks in the year, but the way 2020 has turned out, there will be a Week 53 post this year, since the new year starts on a Friday. Of all the years.

Back in the olden days, this would be the time we'd start gathering at peoples' houses and around the office for Christmas parties, drinking festively and exchanging gifts and cookies. In 2020, this month has been dotted with Zoom happy hours and text threads, lots of package deliveries, and me getting really sick of being in the kitchen and running dumb errands. The thrill of the week was taking part of Monday off to get my snow tires put on and drop off a package at the post office (a J. Crew return from a month ago).

On certain days I get excited about Christmas, and how unusual this one is. We can make it special and fun. In some ways, we are. In other ways, I'm having a hard time finding the energy for it. I'm trying to shake it off.

But I will warn you that this was, nonetheless, a pretty blah week, so this report is short.

Recipes

We ate a lot of soup (Mama Leone's with the leftover chicken) and other easy dinners. The best recipe of the week was Melissa Clark's rum balls, a no-bake concoction with gingersnaps, pecans, cocoa powder, maple syrup, spices, and of course, rum. They keep getting better as the days pass.

Reading

After finishing Zadie Smith's Intimations: Six Essays (loved it), I started on Circe by Madeline Miller. I had a book club Zoom this week and my friend joined the dozens of others who have told me they devoured this book. Greek mythology (i.e., any mythology) is a huge blind spot for me, and this is the first time I've read something about it that has actually captured my imagination. I think this is the perfect way to wrap up my reading year.

Watching

I finally watched The Family Stone this year. Several friends have told me it's a favorite, and it got me in the Christmas mood. A month or so ago, we watched Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, and this weekend we followed it up with Before Sunset, which follows the same characters ten years later, in true Linklater fashion. Now we just need to finish the trilogy with Before Midnight.

And we hopped on The Queen's Gambit bandwagon, too. She is such a captivating character.

Listening

The album that powered me through my first round of Christmas baking was The King's Singer's "A Little Christmas Music" album. I am not ashamed to say that there's something about men singing in spritely falsetto that just feels like Christmas to me.

Making

Secret stuff.

Week 49

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 01:44:00 +0000

Are you tired of these photos from the bluff? Tough. When Joel and I shared things we've been thankful for this year, the bluff was pretty close to the top. This year especially, it's been there to give me perspective in all the ways I've needed. It's helped me appreciate all the seasons - the growth and the death and renewal of things, the change of the sun's path, the muddy paths that become dusty and then muddy again. It has given me a way to view depth and shadow and my ability to be above it all. It's a place where I can watch Luna bound around unleashed, a place I return to each day alone. I hope you have a place like this. If you don't, I urge you to find one near your home (or wherever you're spending most of your time these days).

This was a tough week, but there was sweetness inside. I've been thinking a lot about the solace of solitude, and my mind often goes to my first apartment where I lived alone for several years. A friend who was part of that era of my life texted me out of the blue, not long after I had been thinking of that, and of her, and we shared how things have been been hard this week. We also got to see friends we haven't seen for months and talk to them from their porch. And I picked up sandwiches from a place we'd never eaten before. And I'm spending a lot of time with the poetry of David Whyte and Mary Oliver who remind me of different ways of looking at the world.

But still, it was a tough week. How was Week 49 for you? I hope 50 offers some joy for us all.

Reading

I finally finished The Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon and floundered a bit when trying to think of what I was in the mood for next. I have tended to avoid reading essays about the pandemic as long as we're still in it, but I'll be darned if Zadie Smith's Intimations: Six Essays isn't exactly what I want to read right now. She is one of my favorites, and I love her reflections on this time we're in.

Watching

Comfort watches this week: The Great British Bake-Off and Meet Me in St. Louis. Also, Citizen Kane, in preparation to watch Netflix's new series, Mank -- also worth watching in general after the president and election we've just had.

Making

I made a felt leaf garland because why not? I used this blog post as inspiration. I'll take a picture of the finished project, if I remember.

Recipes

The best thing I can share with you is my insistence that you make Samin Nosrat's buttermilk marinated chicken before the year is through...or at least soon. Tender, succulent, perfect in every way.

Listening

We got our Spotify round-up of all the stuff we listened to this year, and listened to the most, and when all was said and done, Joel and I listened to a lot of Steely Dan, Paul Simon and Sting. I am not sure how I feel about this.

Anyway...

Take care of yourselves, readers. Get good rest, and take in more fresh air than you think you need. The Christmas spirit can only get us so far.

Week 48

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 19:27:00 +0000

The Thanksgiving food was made and devoured, the Christmas decorations are up, and we are just a month away from saying ta-ta to 2020. I'll save my reflections on the year for Week 52, but this week was a good variation on the overall theme that things could have been a lot worse. My mood varied wildly - feeling down in the dumps, hopeful, energized and exhausted. Fresh air improved everything.

I'll just start with the food situation around here. Neither Joel nor I have held strong opinions on the necessity of a bird on a cutting board surrounded by mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy on Thanksgiving, but we are happy to allude to these things in other forms. Our meal this year was a turkey cassoulet (recipe from the New York Times) - a stewy bean mixture with sausage, turkey and bacon, topped with freshly toasted seasoned bread crumbs; pull-apart sour cream and chive rolls (recipe from Bon Appetit); warm Brussels sprouts salad with citrus vinaigrette (recipe from Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons cookbook); and cranberry hand pies for dessert (recipe from Bon Appetit).

This week brought some nice outdoor excursions, both solo and with the gang. On Wednesday afternoon I took the longer route on the bluff that heads further up the South Hill, and on Saturday afternoon we drove out to Fort Spokane - an old Army outpost at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers. We had never seen it in all our years of living here.

I also finished my orange raglan sweater - I even weaved in the ends and blocked it. I'm still not sure if I'll actually wear it, but it was a fun learning process and way to keep my hands busy for several months.

As for what we're watching -- Joel got me to watch 1917, which was quite something. I was really impressed by it. On Thanksgiving night we watched Holmes & Watson with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly - the perfect thing for digestion. And after finishing Schitt's Creek, I started on the latest season of the Great British Bake-Off and almost died laughing over the cake busts in the first episode.

What else, what else. Still reading Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which reminds me that I should do my annual book report post. I've read a lot of books this year, until recently. This book isn't really hooking me but I'm enjoying it enough to continue.

My goals for this next week are to finish my book, start an embroidery project (I have a kit coming in the mail) and to find some extremely basic but good recipes for the week to use up the stuff we have and freeze the rest. We still have a lot of leftover cassoulet...

Cheers to another week!

Week 47

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 19:39:00 +0000

These days are so routine as to be absolutely forgettable. Each day is some version of doing a morning workout, showering, administering pet meds, eating the same breakfast (English muffin, poached egg, tea), working, lunching, walking with the dog, working, walking again by myself with a podcast before it gets dark, drinking afternoon tea, finishing work, taking out cheese and putting it on a small cutting board with a few pretzels, pouring a tiny glass of vermouth, sitting at the table with Joel discussing news headlines and recounting our workday, starting dinner, eating dinner while watching an episode of Frasier, cleaning up, offering each other either sparkling water or tea before watching Schitt's Creek or the Crown, knitting, getting ready for bed and reading until I start to doze. The cat crawls in bed on my right side each night around 1:30 and drapes herself over my arm until I get up four hours later. On Mondays and Thursdays we take turns vacuuming. On Wednesdays I try to remember to water the plants and clean the bathroom. When the weekend rolls around, we sleep in until 8:30. We spend more time outside and watch movies instead of shows. I take on a larger cleaning project or do yardwork. We make more involved dinners and I make something more interesting for breakfast and/or dessert. We drink the whole bottle of wine from dinner.

Each Sunday, I write out a weekly schedule in my journal to plan for the week, but I rarely actually fill it in, because anything out of the ordinary - a trip to the vet, a Zoom happy hour - is easy to remember without writing it down.

What's more helpful right now are to-do lists to help me break out of these routines and give me something different to do, and something to remember. This is not to say I don't love my routine. It's comforting and it helps the days pass, and these days I'm looking forward further into the future and the routine helps me forget how far off those days might be.

I am greatly looking forward to a few days off from work, and my task today (Sunday) is to come up with some ideas to make those days look and feel like some sort of vacation. I have a feeling Christmas decorating might be one of those things.

Reading: The Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon- I'm taking my time with this one, especially since I'm mostly just fitting in a few minutes at a time before bed. In the meantime, books-of-the-year lists are starting to emerge and I'm feeling that annual push to aim higher with my reading goals.

I also got a lump in my throat reading this, written by a woman whose mother died of COVID last week in Spokane. There were certain elements that hit close to home, and I'm sure so many others felt the same way. Beautifully written and incredibly sobering.

Watching: The Crown and Schitt's Creek -- we may finish both by week's end. On Friday night we watched a cute but maybe a touch racist Argentine movie called Chinese Take-Away. On Saturday it was the 1983 movie Tender Mercies (available on Prime), for which Robert Duvall won an Oscar. I'd watched it 20 years ago in my American Film class, and neither I nor my classmates fully appreciated it at the time, though I remember my professor nearly getting choked up while describing it as a meaningful film for him. It indeed hit me more deeply this time around.

Listening: It's about time for the annual listen of my Turkey Trotters playlist, a compilation of toe-tapping old gems which I compiled years ago for Thanksgiving food-prepping.

Making: I finished my little cabled hat and want to make more. But I am also almost done with my raglan sweater, GLORY BE.

Recipes: This was the last week of our CSA box. Having that box really made our eating lives more interesting this year and was the best way to ensure we were eating lots of vegetables. We could sign up for the winter box but I think I'm ready for the break. But on Friday night I really celebrated what was made possible by all the contents and made a creamy parsnip and leek soup, which also contained potatoes and celery. It looks brown because I had to use beef broth, but it was delicious. On the side we had a kale salad with Braeburn apples and golden beets. We drank wine from our beloved Wanderlust, a local wine and cheese shop where we have a monthly wine club membership. The bowl that contained the salad was made by a local artisan, KJ Pottery. It was a nice way to feel thankful for the people around us here in Spokane.

I made pumpkin scones with oats and crystalized ginger as well as brown-sugar anise cookies, both recipes from the New York Times.

And finally, a 5-star Melissa Clark dish for Moroccan chickpeas with kale in the Instant Pot. It's even vegan.

I'll be thinking of my friends and loved ones even more than usual this week. The one comfort I've found during these shutdowns and travel restrictions is that, strangely, I feel less alone when I know we're all alone together. (By the way, Zoom is free on Thanskgiving!) Time to read some Mary Oliver poems and revel in all the beautiful little and living things that fill our lives with wonder. Thank you for reading and for caring about the little pleasures in mine.

Week 46

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 18:41:00 +0000

Mid-November in the neighborhood: wet leaf mulch over the roads, giant puddles, heightened colors against gray clouds. My eye is always drawn to yellows, so I stopped to take a picture of this during my Friday afternoon walk, and within minutes, the clouds burst and I ran the last five blocks home. It was exhilarating.

Leisurely Sunday breakfast (poach pods make the eggs perfectly round for the English muffin) and casual reads.

Luna is a very earnest kitchen companion.

I wish my Oma were here to give her opinion on which vermouth she likes best.

Saturday night fireside dinner, after sitting several hours by an outdoor fire. Dinner: Melissa Clark's sheet-pan chicken with sweet potatoes and peppers, topped with pickled red onions, quinoa on the side. Watching The Sunlit Night. Also watched two episodes in a miniseries version of The Name of the Rose, not very good. (Very much looking forward to the latest season of The Crown).

Reading: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon. Breakfasting on whole-wheat Irish soda bread with goat cheese.

Craft diversion: cabled beanies.

A last-minute throw-together that looked planned: salmon with lemon-herb marinade, pan-charred Brussels sprouts and purple cauliflower, rice.

Minestra di pasta e verdure alla romana, one of my favorite soups of all time, made with a boatload of greens, prepared by Joel.

This week, during the workday, I've been listening to the ambient music of Brian Eno. While some of it gets a little out there, for the most part it's helped me stay focused and calm.

I'm thinking about Thanksgiving and the holidays. It will be different for all of us, but some new traditions may arise from it that we can share with others in the coming years. Life in a pandemic remains difficult but I'm grateful for things to look forward to. In the meantime, I'm happy to stay home, stay healthy and stay connected in whatever ways I can.

Week 45

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 21:21:00 +0000

I'm not sure how it took me 38 years to realize that our national anthem ended with a question mark.

"O! say does that star spangled banner yet wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

While I feel an overwhelming sense of relief right now, I don't feel like using this space to write about the election. But. This is one of the best things I read all week.

It doesn't come as a surprise to me that I did next to nothing outside of work this week. I had grand plans for Tuesday night: eat an early dinner, take a bath, read my book. Instead, we ate less-than-satisfying takeout burritos, tuned in to PBS all night, and I knit my boring sweater and drank chamomile tea, hoping these things would ease my blood pressure.

At least I kept up my afternoon walks, even in the rain. The earth smelled sweet and one afternoon I watched a hawk circle above me. As an added treat, I came in and put the kettle on for tea and had a bite of apple cake before returning to work. I'm finding my cold weather routine.

I also made a few cold weather related purchases: a humidifier for my office, resistance bands for my workouts and a new bathroom scale. If I gain or lose weight this winter, I can now know it to the nearest tenth of a pound. Our old scale made me believe I was five pounds lighter. I'm still keeping it nearby.

But my brain has been all over the place. We learned on Wednesday that my brother has COVID, and we were waiting to hear the test results for the rest of the family who were all experiencing symptoms. On Thursday, my city's public health official got ousted. Cases are rising everywhere and it feels like we've lost ground.

I didn't feel much like knitting, I didn't have a huge appetite, and I didn't care to watch much TV after a day full of screens.

But I did find a daily escape at The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth.

Each evening, I lost myself in the seasonal menus that Mademoiselle Vivette and Mademoiselle Ray prepared at their valley inn in the Chartreuse Mountains in southeast France, and in Roy Adries de Groot's descriptions of how it tasted when he stayed there in the 1970s. He lists all the seasonal menus for lunch and dinner, starting with the aperitif and ending with the eau de vie and/or coffee and dessert, with several different wines between each course.

He describes going to market with Mademoiselle Vivette, the early morning trip itself a scenic feast, and the different farmers and vendors they visit with as Vivette selects the freshest frog legs, eggs, leeks, herbs and mountain cheeses. And how, in the fall, they roast birds who have recently eaten blueberries or juniper berries, on a spit over a wood fire.

In my research about de Groot, who wrote this book after discovering this inn by accident while traveling the area to learn more about his beloved Chartreuse liqueur, I found out that he was blind -- the result of injuries during World War II. He had been a writer with the BBC then, and as his blindness progressed to completely eliminate his sight, he focused on food writing for the remainder of his life as his sense of taste heightened.

The second half of the book contains the recipes. The inn still stands today, and while I know the food will be nothing like these glory days, I am dreaming of post pandemic trips to the area, maybe even stopping at the inn for lunch.

My own cooking this week was comfort-food focused - a curried butternut squash soup, apple snack cake, and an easy stirfry.

On Saturday, the clouds parted, and after spending the morning in the yard, we ventured out of our neighborhood for drive-thru coffee and a curbside pickup to restock our winter bar. I made zaletti, a Venetian cornmeal cookie with boozy currants and orange zest. We ended the day - and the very long week - by the fire, watching our president elect. I felt my shoulders relax and my heart fill with hope.

Week 44

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 18:09:00 +0000

It occurs to me that it is the 45th week of the year that will (maybe, if we're lucky) determine the fate President #45. I am nervous, I am weary, I am ambivalent, I am emotional, and I am fired up.

During a week when I elected to not seek out the news, it still found its way to me. If I thought I could refocus on something other than Trump, the election or COVID, I was clearly dreaming. I was on a text string with friends who were fuming over the fact that our local newspaper ran an unsigned editorial endorsement of Trump (though it was clearly written by the paper's owner). Of course I couldn't help but read one of the columnist's responses, followed by the editor's, in which he outlined how unsigned endorsements will no longer run in the paper. Later in the week, I learned during a Zoom meeting that Spokane's top health official either resigned or was terminated. Meanwhile, I listened to someone I think the world of describe Trump as a man appointed by God who will bring this country together. I found out through another friend's tweet that future stimulus checks she desperately needs won't be coming anytime soon. I received 18 text messages from strangers about the election, voting and volunteering.

It's not that I didn't want to know any of these things. I can't pretend to be a responsible citizen while ignoring the state of the world and my local community and how my own friends and family are feeling about it all, and how it's directly affecting them. It's just that I temporarily wanted to feel less distracted by it, and therefore less stressed out, and less saddened by the state of the the world. It was an attempt to reclaim control of what information goes into my brain, and to give myself space to sort things out.

And so instead, in the evenings, I sorted through my recipe binders. I took every recipe out of its plastic sleeve and reorganized everything in the most thoughtful ways I could think of. Soup recipes go together; soup recipes with butternut squash go together; vegetarian soups should be separate from ones with meat. Does bacon garnish count as meat? Yes, it does.

Handling these old recipes from various points of my adult life was comforting -- the lemon chiffon pie I made in 2005 with Splenda for Dad, who was visiting with Mom for Thanksgiving at my brother's that year; the autumn minestrone I made when my best high school friend came for the weekend; the green bean casserole I brought to my boss's comfort-food birthday party; the skinny soup recipe I printed off a decade ago with the best of intentions and still have never made; the pop art raspberry ice box cake I made for my best college friend. None of this was connected to the internet or any news source. Unlike with reading, where my mind can wander back to something else I read or heard earlier in the day, my brain was fully engaged in this activity. It was completely within my control. It was just what I needed.

And so we wait to see how things will unfold this week in ways that are out of our hands. I know that no matter the outcome, I will continue to mourn for this country, but I will keep engaging with it and working for a better version of it. I think of Rebecca Solnit's words from Hope in the Dark: "Despair demands less of us, it's more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity -- seeing the troubles of this world -- and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable."

An extra hour of sleep couldn't come at a more perfect time.

Reading

I'm close to finishing Can't Even (Anne Helen Petersen) and while I continue to identify with it, I am feeling more and more fortunate, and a bit guilty, about my lot in life. I have taken so much for granted, especially my workplace, i.e., the ways it operates from an almost bygone era. With a few exceptions, it employs all of its workers (rather than hiring contract workers), and grants the same benefits to the custodians as it does the vice presidents. I've never taken more than 15 minutes to think about my healthcare plan each year. Though I won't receive a pension, I've built up my retirement with one of the best employer matches I know of (until recently, due to the pandemic). And for the most part, I'm not expected to work over the weekend, or check email. I may complain about managing our social media accounts and how they never really allow me to truly unplug, but it's rare that I spend more than 20 minutes per day checking on things when I'm not technically on the clock. I know if something is truly urgent, my boss will text me, and she never abuses that access. My coworkers feel a lot like family and we take time to check in on each others' lives. This could not always be the case, and I'm appreciating it more than ever.

Also, check out the new Little Free Library my neighbor just installed...all the books inside are about Godzilla and Dracula.

Recipes

It was risotto Milanese on Sunday, compliments of Joel -- a treat and a dream of our travels. I also made my annual tradition of molasses spices cookies, which I believe are my favorite cookies of all time. Otherwise it was fried tilapia and slaw one night (inspired by this) and a red lentil soup from the Instant Pot with homemade sourdough and salad.

I'm trying to learn to tolerate, maybe even enjoy, radicchio, because it keeps showing up in my CSA box. I am generally not averse to bitter greens, but this one has always been challenging. Then I learned if you soak the leaves for 20-30 minutes in ice water, they lose some of their bitterness. I tried a Martha Stewart recipe for a r adicchio salad with chopped lemon and mint dressing on Saturday night and it was actually very good.

Making

This has become the boring-est category on here, but I'm pleased to report that I made significant progress in my sweater by tackling the most complicated part where you join the sleeves with the body, essentially converting three tubes into one big one. It should be smooth sailing from here on out.

Watching

We have been watching so much Schitt's Creek that we are starting to talk like Moira, Alexis and David. We only have a few episodes left and I'm making plans to fill the void with the latest season of the Great British Baking Show.

On Halloween night, we watched Blackbird (trailer), starring Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill, Kate Winslet, Rainn Wilson, and other recognizable actors, about a family who is gathering one last time around their mother/wife/friend (Sarandon) before she ends her battle with ALS. Somber, for sure, but worth a watch. We followed it up with a very palate cleansing viewing of Clue from 1985.

Listening

I found the perfect song (and album) for the week, specifically for my windy walks on the bluff.

Glory by David Crosby

...And when the weight
is layered in rounds
like clouds
you can't find your way out

Let me be your glory in the sky
Circling your shadow
Cradling the light

Week 43

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 18:12:00 +0000

Wednesday

Saturday

This was the week that Spokane dressed up as winter for Halloween. This happened to us last year, too -- a heavy dump of snow on leafy trees, causing bent and broken branches, broken car windshields from broken branches, downed power lines, and total mayhem. A benefit of COVID is that we need not think so much about our commutes if we're lucky enough to work from home, but as soon as the power went out at 2:45 p.m. on Friday, I panicked. A house without WiFi or hot water, a car without snow tires, and no reasonable escape plan from a hilly neighborhood kicked my worrying into high gear.

Where I finished the workday

Fortunately, the power returned within an hour and we were completely fine and able to boil our gyozas in beef broth for dinner, which was the only reasonable thing we had to eat without going to the store. Later that night I heard a loud "whooooosh," followed by a thump, outside the bedroom window, which was a branch that took another one down on its decent into our backyard, hitting our deck railing. No damage was done, and the branches now rest peacefully on the part of the yard I consider to be the "dump" anyway. How no power lines joined them, I will never know. In the meantime, the rest of the city experienced small and large outages throughout the night as more lines gave way to the weight of the snow and snapped branches.

Other than weather events, the week was fairly ideal for its routine and fall colors, followed by the crystalline winter breezes and blue sky. I dropped off our ballots and got a flu shot, so I'm doing my part. In lieu of watching the final debate on Thursday, I joined my P.E.O. sisters on Zoom for a Halloween trivia night. Work has been busy and heavy on strategy and planning, and I find that by evening I only have the mental wherewithal to wind a ball of yarn and watch Unsolved Mysteries with a cup of peppermint tea. I'm still waking up early for exercise, and walking the bluff nearly every afternoon, but I'm pretty spent by 9 p.m. and am falling asleep toward the ends of shows.

Reading

What you're doing when practicing your times tables or taking a standardized test or writing an essay isn't learning, but preparing yourself to work. This is an incredibly utilitarian view of education, implying that the ultimate goal of the system is to mold us into efficient workers, as opposed to preparing us to think critically, or to be good citizens. --Anne Helen Petersen, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

While reading Petersen's book this week, I have been thinking about the point at which I began to view every class, every essay, every job, and every activity of volunteerism as a point on my resume. For me, it was eighth grade. For many other millennials, it began much earlier. My parents did not over-schedule me and allowed me to have a childhood that was largely unstructured, gave me some agency, and let me be bored (thanks, Mom and Dad, from the bottom of my heart). It wasn't until I got into high school that I realized how many kids spent very active summers at various camps, enrolled in gymnastics and non-school-sponsored sports teams, gifted-and-talented programs, and participated in organized volunteerism. Sure, I had vacation Bible school, music lessons and church youth group and occasional camp, but otherwise I spent full days at my friends' houses, splashing around in the pool, walking to the gas station for froyo, and recording songs off the radio. High school was when I got the feeling that maybe I should have spent those summers becoming a well-rounded person to get a leg up on college applications. So I made up for lost time. I volunteered as a candy-striper at the hospital. I attended a couple Key Club lunches. I joined Mu Alpha Theta, the math club. I participated in the German-American Partnership Program. I got involved in choir and took zero hour classes to make it fit in my schedule. I worked a couple jobs. I took AP classes. I played in harp festivals where my performances were judged. I'm not saying that none of these experiences was fulfilling -- they all were, and I loved my high school years -- but midway through my senior year, including on New Years Eve of the new millennium, I continually broke out in hives in the midst of preparing for college applications. We first thought it was an allergic reaction, but eventually we believed it was stress. Every action seemed crucial, from the number of colleges I applied to, to the activities I participated in, to my GPA and my test scores. It became a miserable process, so miserable that when my brother told me, within weeks of the application deadline, that he thought the college where he taught might be a great fit for me, I took it as divine intervention and applied. Fortunately he was right and it all worked out. But I will never forget the year that led up to that decision. It was so counterintuitive for me to live with so much stress that I have prioritized finding balance ever since, and I've mostly lived an anti-burnout life. But I'm also extremely lucky: I grew up in a stable family, and I have had a steady job and a retirement plan since age 22, which is not typical for many millennials, and I'm white. If any one of these elements were removed, my life would look different. Still, it's not hard for me to see the precarious situations that so many of my peers have entered into, the patterns that were established by concerned parents to live lives of constant activity in order to get ahead in life, the recessions and general lack of financial security amid rising student debt, and the job economy that doesn't provide much if any stability that allow people to think beyond the end of the month. Petersen does a great job of digging into these elements.

Recipes

We're still doing bike-race-themed dinners. Last Sunday was Belgian meatballs with Belgian beer for watching the Tour of Flanders.

Our CSA keeps giving us pears, so I put them on top of some gingerbread. Killer combo.

Making

This looks like progress, but it's not much. I still need to attach the sleeves and keep knitting upward.

Watching

We watched the new Borat movie. I can't unsee that Rudy Giuliani scene that everyone is talking about, but there was another scene that made me laugh harder than I have in a long time. That said, don't watch it unless you know what you're getting into.

And we also watched the new Netflix version of Rebecca, which I found to be a bit meh.

Listening

This Brene Brown podcast episode offered a different perspective on burnout, from the emotional and physiological side, and it was also fascinating.

Week 42

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 22:49:00 +0000

Warning: all my photos this week are food photos. I promise that the fall colors around here are gorgeous, and that the sunsets have been incredible, but in these moments of noticing, I have been blissfully without my phone to take photos, or have made a conscious choice to leave these moments undocumented.

Not unrelatedly, I am experiencing a strong distaste for social media right now, which is usually the case, but it's stronger than ever. This morning while trying to relax in the bath with a book, my mind kept wandering back to a comment someone wrote on Facebook that bothered me, and to another post on Instagram that distressed me. In both cases I found the restraint not to comment, but my mind kept coming up with zingers I would have loved to reply with. I kept having to take deep breaths, return to the present and re-read the paragraph I was on. It's a sign I need to return to my better disciplines of only signing on for work purposes and signing off on my personal accounts.

Coincidentally, this article just arrived in my Pocket from the Harvard Business Review: To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To

One of my goals this week was to make exercise fun. I found new playlists for my regular workouts which made a surprisingly huge difference, and on Friday, I decided to go old-school and found a Jane Fonda video on Youtube - I called it my "Fonda Friday." Because of this, I exercised each morning and didn't mind getting up for it.

I've also been working on a different method of goal setting that seems to work for me because it's not so much about goals - it's more of a curiosity-driven approach to see how long I can keep up a streak. For instance, if I work out today, I make a plan for how to keep it up tomorrow. It's no longer a goal, like "Work out 5 days this week," it's a question: "I wonder how many days I can work out this week." If I do it right, I have more on days than off days. And I don't feel bad if I break the streak, because I can just decide to start up a new one. I'm still figuring it out, and what areas of my life I can apply it to (like house cleaning???), but so far so good.

This was also the week that my niece and I continued our annual tradition of Halloween cookie decorating. In this pandemic world, we decorated them outside. It was so nice to spend time with her and feel some sense of normalcy and celebration, and see her parents and brother while I was there, too.

Reading

I'm skimming Anne Helen Petersen's Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. I read her viral essay last year that prompted the book, so I know the basic premise: Precarity causes burnout, our systems are built to perpetuate that precarity and therefore burnout, and it doesn't need to be that way. Otherwise, I'm onto the final short stories of Mavis Gallant's Across the Bridge collection. These ones haven't hit me in the same way as her others that were written earlier, but I'm still enjoying it for the ways I'm absorbing subtle history lessons of post-war Montreal and Paris that shape the background of her characters.

Listening

Podcasts have reentered my life. I have especially been enjoying Fresh Air, as well as Death, Sex & Money and On Being, all of which I used to listen to faithfully - they are like old friends.

Watching

On Friday night we watched Gremlins (1984), which I had never seen and Joel could hardly remember. It's an interesting watch for 2020 with its strong themes of xenophobia and American consumerism. But it also had all the slime and Spielbergian homages that made for an obviously 80s-era movie.

Making

Nothing! I took a break from it this week. I've lost my crafting mojo again. Waiting for it to come back - I know it will.

Recipes

The most exciting things this week were the cornetti experiment on Sunday morning (the Italian version of croissants, filled with custard), which Joel organized and pulled off with minimal assistance from me, and mussels and frites on Saturday night, also made by Joel, for a Belgian-inspired meal in honor of the Tour of Flanders. We definitely feast on the weekends around here.

Week 41

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 01:29:00 +0000

Over the past seven months, 11th Avenue has become overrun with children, and they've all become playmates. Our house seems to be in the middle of it all, offering a lawn for kids to use as a shortcut to get to one of our neighbors, and offering us surround sound in the afternoons of shouts and giggles and resolutely declared rules of some new game, as well as barking dogs and one mom yelling, "BRADEN!" During the times when I'm trying to concentrate on work, I quickly become annoyed, but most of the time I'm amused and even grateful to witness these scenes from a seemingly bygone era. It helps that there's a tree swing in one front yard, a trampoline in another backyard, and one house's large front porch has been set up as a kids corner of sorts, with books and a table and some art supplies for all of them to use. I wonder how much of this would have happened without a pandemic, now that other types of play and friends are less available. I wonder what will happen now that the weather is getting colder. And I wonder what all the retired folks who have lived across the street for decades think of all this.

We have eleven weeks remaining in 2020. Eleven is my favorite number.

Recipes

We had a lot of eggplant and squash in the house this week. On Sunday Joel made Pasta alla Norma, a saucy tomato-eggplant pasta, continuing his Italian themed meals following the Giro d'Italia.

That eggplant followed us through the rest of the week when I added some to a shrimp curry dish (Mark Bittman recipe), and finally an eggplant-parm melt, via Smitten Kitchen.

I feasted on spaghetti squash at lunch with fresh herby breadcrumbs, toasted on the cooked squash under the broiler with some mozzarella. And we mixed some delicata squash into a random sausage sheet pan meal with cabbage another night. We have the CSA to thank for most of this.

Finally, I made a new recipe for pizza because it was too ridiculous not to try - it was from America's Test Kitchen and promised chewy, crispy pizza, start to finish in one hour. It used lager and vinegar in the dough for fermented flavor, and you pre-roll the dough between parchment and let it rise that way. The result was thin and crispy pizza indeed, but not good enough for me to stray from my usual methods. It took not one hour, but just over one and a half. Still, fun to try.

Reading

I finished The Poisonwood Bible this week and was totally moved by it. There is so much to think about with these characters and the setting that I'm still processing it. Throughout the book I loved the theme of language - from Adah's ability for wordplay and palindrome, to misinterpreted and mispronounced words, to the slang and the names characters were given, and the words we don't have equivalents for in English. It had been awhile since I had read a book with such rich foreshadowing that caused me to revisit chapters at the end. And the political history of the Congo that I was totally unaware of was fascinating and gut-wrenching. I'm glad I finally know this book.

From there I moved to Mavis Gallant's Across the Bridge. She is one of my favorites when it comes to writing about details we don't often put words to. Her short stories are a pure delight to read.

Watching

Haven't given you a Frasier update. We're still watching and on season 9. And Schitt's Creek has become that 20-minute wind-down show for us before I get ready for bed. We're real creatures of habit around here.

We rented Paris Can Wait on Friday night because it was a Diane Lane movie we hadn't seen (someone in this house has a real crush), and it was a cute one that showcased France in its culinary glory. And Diane Lane.

I also bought my first livestream concert ticket from a local venue, trying to do whatever I can to keep these places around for when we can join again in person.

Listening

I mostly just want to listen to jazz right now. We're looking for music that doesn't make us melancholy even as the clouds roll in and the sun sets too early.

Making

Yup, the sweater. I think I've gotten to a critical point where I attach the sleeves to the body, but it requires more than 5 minutes of concentration which I haven't prioritized this past week. That's my goal for this next week.

Week 40

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Where do I even begin with this week? I don't know how to write about the small bits of activity in my corner of the neighborhood when political and pandemic news is so unbelievable. One major headline after another.

Back over here, I got up early every morning to exercise my body, breathe in deeply and prepare my heart for whatever fresh hell might greet us that day, remembering that progress is still being made somehow and somewhere. At 3:30 every afternoon, I peeled myself away from my desk to breathe deeply again, but outside, along the bluff trails where I could take in vastness of everything and remember that I am but a tiny speck wearing inadequate shoes. These moments are also tiny specks in the vastness of time.

These are comforting moves in trying times.

I am thrilled that we have reached October. It's almost always one of the loveliest months of the year with its weather and colors and the buttoning-up of it all. I continued my winter preparations by purchasing new gloves, a Stanley thermos and two insulated mugs for winter walks. I'm almost looking forward to it.

And some dear friends got married on Saturday. Further proof that the world keeps turning.

Watching

On Saturday we watched Juliette Binoche and Catherine Deneuve, together at last, in The Truth. Gotta love a complicated French mother-daughter relationship story. This one had many layers (and Ethan Hawke!) that made for good conversation afterward.

Reading

I feel like I am reading all the time but making no progress on Poisonwood Bible. My Kindle says I'm 60% of the way through. A character has just died. I am dreaming of snakes and diseases. One of the character's names is Anatole, which makes me think of the song Amapola. It's an engrossing read though once I'm done I think I'll be in the mood to read some short stories. I just ordered myself some new (to me) Mavis Gallant collections.

Making

I sent off the dish cloths and am back to knitting in the round an hour or so each night, making slow but steady progress on my raglan.

Listening

To my Boise readers, I am with you in spirit each Saturday morning when I listen to the Private Idaho show on KBSU. When I started listening to that New Jersey jazz station a few weeks ago, I realized I could and should also be listening to my favorite long-running program in Boise as well. Though Victor, the original host, has passed on, the show still brings just the right eclectic mix of music that feels like my hometown.

Sucking out the dust

Also, the annual turning on of the furnace produced this annual earworm.

Recipes

Pouding Alsacien

We can't travel these days, but we can use new recipes to provide different experiences and tastes. One night I made Ethiopian Doro Wat, a succulent chicken dish made with a berbere spice blend (recipe from Milk Street). Another night was a Vietnamese inspired noodle dish with peanut sauce and daikon radishes and cucumbers (recipe from Melissa Clark). And on Friday, I took the day off from work and made an Alsacian apple dessert (recipe from Julie Child). These were delicious distractions from the news of the world.

Doro Wat

Stay ready for anything, friends. We are getting good at this.

Week 39

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 18:37:00 +0000

We are waiting as long as possible to turn on the heat. I'm toughening up for the winter months, but that doesn't mean I'm not creating little heat sources, like lighting candles, buying Duraflame logs, and turning on my space heater. I'm also trading style for comfort, wearing my giant fleece under my raincoat and looking like a marshmallow with a fanny pack strapped around my middle (for all my dog-walking needs), and hiking socks overlapping my leggings and peeking out from my Chelsea boots. There's no such thing as bad weather, the Scandinavians supposedly say, just bad clothing. In other words, if you do it right, you can be toasty warm and look as amazing as I do on a rainy day, earning stares of admiration from all your neighbors.

I've been in productivity mode lately, booking home maintenance, making overdue doctor appointments, purchasing new glasses and contacts, vacuuming the walls, washing the south-facing windows. I like this feeling of prep mode, knowing a new season is coming. I stopped watering the tomatoes and I turned off the automatic sprinklers. I even just ordered something for Christmas time.

Still, it's always hard to see the days get shorter. It's much more difficult to get up early for a workout and to stay up past 8:30 p.m. I miss our sunset walks after dinner. And yet, the afternoons are still glorious (when it's not raining) and the perfect temperature for lunch al fresco, or a bike ride to the store.

Making

I got a temporary diversion toward productivity when my mom asked me to make her some new dish cloths. These knit up quickly and are very satisfying to make. Otherwise, I'm still working on my raglan sweater.

Recipes

This time of year brings many meals of throwing stuff in the pot or the oven. This week it was vegetarian chili, and roast chicken thighs with vegetables and rice. And pizza because of a giant tomato. But I must recommend the concept of crispy leeks. I made these for Melissa Clark's version of colcannon (alongside some roasted chicken sausage for a bangers and mash situation), and those crispy leeks were so good on the mashed potatoes, this morning I crisped up some leeks again for our scrambled eggs. Just slice them thinly and saute them in a little butter and olive oil with a big pinch of salt until golden, then drain on a paper towel.

Watching

I've finally gotten into Schitt's Creek and am on season 2. Moira Rose, played by Catherine O'Hara, is the very best part.

I convinced Joel to let us watch Swingers on Friday night, a movie from 1996 that was very influential for some of my college friends. I had only seen it once, back in college, and as you can imagine it feels very dated now, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's music didn't age well. Vince Vaughn sure was cute, though. And the next night we watched City Slicker's II: Curly's Gold. Jon Lovitz replaces Bruno Kirby as the third amigo, playing Billy Crystal's kid brother.

One night we watched an hour long Dutch presentation from 1953 of that year's Tour de France in black and white. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it - these weren't the super-athletes you see now on their fancy bikes. These were older, legendary riders in their (gasp) 40s, with a few gears, no helmets and normal-guy outfits. Some of the areas they rode through were still recovering from the war.

All this to say, we miss having new movies to watch.

Listening

Nothing much to share here, other than the Bodyguard Soundtrack that helped me get through the end of a work day. I will always love Whitney Houston.

Seen on Garland Ave.

Reading

Still Poisonwood, probably for a while. Still enjoying it.

I did read a longer piece online, which is rare for me, but this one was extremely engaging and the writing was particularly moving: Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System. (There's also an audio option.)

Week 38

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 18:28:00 +0000

This was one of the hardest weeks of the year. Spokane, along with many other areas in the West, dealt with the unhealthiest air quality in the world. During the first two days of it, I only went outside to take the dog out for very short walks. We kept all the windows closed and recirculated very stale air with fans and our swamp cooler. I had a headache and sinus pain for several days, and my lungs felt ticklish.

We ordered an air purifier that arrived on Friday, though by that time our air quality was vastly improved. It's wonderful to have, though, and its gentle fan is music to my ears. Still, my body has been out of whack for lack of movement. On Friday and Saturday I was a cleaning machine as I tried to remove all the dust and cobwebs around the house, dusted the blinds and vacuumed the walls and used every attachment provided with my vacuum cleaner. It was good to move and feel the general state of things improving. It rained on Friday night and on Saturday morning, we got outside with Luna and inhaled deeply for the first time in a week.

And of course we learned of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg on Friday, and a whole new set of worries began to sink in.

As a result of all of this, I didn't take a lot of pictures. I do have a lot of pictures of tomatoes, because I feel buried in them between the goods from my CSA and my backyard plants. I was still somehow productive this week - I took my car in to the shop (again) for a recall, and took myself in to the dermatologist for my annual skin check (all good - keep wearing sunscreen, everyone). And then there's my day job.

Ooh, and I also ordered a new couch blanket since Luna destroyed our other one last year. The cooler nights have me preparing for a cozy winter.

Reading

The Poisonwood Bible. I love the different voices, and am especially savoring Orleanna's sections. As well as Adah's. I am impressed by the way Kingsolver develops these characters so distinctly. I'm still only a quarter of the way through.

Recipes

Joel, after a too-long hiatus, made his magnificent chicken burritos this week. I contributed the cooked beans (Rancho Gordo's King City Pinks) and salsa, and he cooked up the chicken with a homemade spice blend, all of which got folded into a tortilla with cilantro rice. We ate this for a couple of nights and I requested that we not wait so long again before having another round.

And during another busy day when I couldn't tear myself away from my computer or figure out what I wanted to do for dinner, he picked up the ingredients to make one of our favorite pork tenderloin dinners with rice.

On my Friday lunch hour I made the pastry dough for a tomato galette (a Bon Appetit recipe), making for an unusual Friday night dinner. I've always wanted to make one of these, and it was tasty with these beautiful heirloom tomatoes. It was also a great way to use up the ends of a bunch of cheese we had in the fridge (a smoked, a cajun-spiced, and a regular cheddar). I adjusted the pastry dough recipe to include some whole wheat flour. We ate a cucumber and carrot salad on the side, as I ran out of salad greens.

Watching

If you love musical theatre and documentaries and are in the mood for a good cry, I highly recommend The Best Worst Thing That Could Have Happened (Netflix). It's about the promising 1981 Steven Sondheim/Hal Prince show Merrily We Roll Along which flopped when it debuted. Its cast was comprised of young, aspiring actors (including Jason Alexander), and the director of the documentary, Lonny Price, was one of them. He interviews his friends and former cast members as they remember that time, and what happened in their lives since. The way the documentary is assembled, though, is one of the most moving elements of it.

We finally watched Crazy Rich Asians and Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Fun watches, both. But the oddest and most challenging thing we watched all week was The Lighthouse, starring Willem Defoe and Robert Pattinson. Not for the faint of heart. It helps to know some mythology when you watch it, which I learned later.

Making

That damned sweater. I think I've gained a couple inches on it since last week. Who knows.

Listening

Two songs have been in my head this week: "Old Friends" (from Merrily We Roll Along) and Miriam Makeba's "Pata Pata," a misplaced association in reading Poisonwood, which takes place in Africa in the 1960s...the book is set in the Congo, not South Africa. Still, it's nice to have some upbeat refrains in my head these days.

Week 37

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 23:41:00 +0000

It feels like September, alright. It's hard to wake up in the mornings, my nose is cold until about noon (when I can go outside and get some sun on it), and I'm starting to think about soup and house projects that need to get done before winter.

The winds blew in on Labor Day and wreaked minor havoc around town, but at least the skies stayed mostly clear until Friday night. We managed to do a few fun things anyway, like a Sunday drive to Idaho where we toured around the lakes, a riverside picnic with friends, and a Friday night bike ride to pick up pizza and eat by the falls. By the evening, the smoke arrived in full force and we have been inside pretty much ever since.

Recipes

It was a good week to cook in honor of grandparents. Food is such a tangible way to remember those who are no longer with us, and I find it opens up memories that go beyond the kitchen. My Oma's birthday would have been on Wednesday, Sept. 9, and I usually make a kuchen in her honor. This year, a friend gave me plums, so pflaumenkuchen is currently on our counter. I have found myself thinking of her especially this year, during the pandemic. She lived through one, too - as well as all the wars of the 20th century, including 9/11. In her final years she continued to say, "If I complain, I should be spanked." And she amended the Bible verse to "This is the day the Lord has made... something good is on the way."

On the same day as Oma's birthday I read this touching tribute written by Tejal Rao about her grandfather: I Think of My Grandfather Every Time I Make Kofta. I made her vegetarian version of the kofta curry on Saturday night and it was delicious.

Watching

I watched three movies between Friday and Saturday night. A classic I should have seen already but had not: City Slickers. A favorite I can sing along to: A Mighty Wind. And finally, a tragic historical drama in gorgeous black and white from Poland: Cold War. All completely worth watching.

Making

I probably won't have much to share here for awhile - I just timed how long it takes me to complete a row on my sweater, and it's 7.5 minutes. Per row. But it's good to be working on the main portion of this, and it's straight stockinette, which means I can watch movies, including ones with subtitles.

Listening

There's something about listening to the radio in the kitchen that is comforting to me - likely because I grew up with one. And it's especially fun to tune in to radio stations from elsewhere. While making dinner on Saturday night I bounced around the kitchen listening to WBGO, New York and New Jersey's only 24-hour jazz station, which apparently has some sort of cult following (which is how I heard about it).

With September, I often think of "September Song," my dad's go-to tune to play on the piano. It's a haunting but pretty melody, and I was trying to remember the lyrics the other day when I came across Willie Nelson's version of it. I'm sure Dad will dislike this rendition (Sarah Vaughan is more his speed, and mine, too) but I rather liked it.

Reading

I am finally, after all these years, reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I've felt like a phony claiming her as one of my favorite authors without having read the work she is perhaps most known for.

This was after finishing Florence Adler Swims Forever. Such a great final read of the summer. I enjoyed the vintage look at Atlantic City, and the well-crafted characters, including those who were based on actual people. It wasn't particularly challenging, just enjoyable and relatable and easy to pick up and put down.

Week 36 / Final Summer Journal 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 05:13:00 +0000

Homegrown

This was an eventful week in every way, and I displayed a range of emotions throughout each day, it seemed: joy and thankfulness for getting to experience an August without oppressively smoky skies, anguish over the latest news (take your pick), nerves and irritability over the start of the school year and the uncertainty of everything, sentimentality over what September usually brings, sadness about the end of summer, loneliness and cabin fever from general pandemic-ness, and restlessness in my daily routine.

The way I just described it makes it sound generally sad, but I assure you, it was generally a good week. I had good reasons to keep moving, to walk somewhere each day, to break up the regular environment, to see different scenes. I've reminded myself countless times during this pandemic that emotions need motion - it's important to acknowledge discomfort and the source of it as much as to reflect on the tailwinds that allow me to function and thrive. And physical motion is a mental boost, too.

We rode the Spokefest route on Sunday. The annual bike ride was canceled this year and would normally be held in September. It's a beautiful one with some of my favorite views of the Spokane River. Last year, we rode with friends in the pouring rain and felt triumphant by the end, but it certainly is a better ride when the sun is out.

The work-week was busy as we prepared final communications for incoming students arriving on campus this weekend. I was on campus for a few hours and it was so good to just be there and walk across The Loop where flower baskets are overflowing and all the colors are vibrant. I try to think of what it must be like for someone experiencing the campus for the first time. Breathtaking, mostly.

And on Friday and Saturday, the first students arrived, and talk about breathtaking - I'm holding my breath. We all want and need this semester to go well. What a world.

In other news, it's Tour de France time and it's like a little piece of July is back in our house. Another strange feeling. And we got the heaviest watermelon I've ever experienced from our CSA box.

Recipes

I made this recipe from Bon Appetit for coconut-ginger chickpea dal (without all the toppings) and used the incomparable Rancho Gordo chickpeas. Quite yummy.

On Saturday morning I made blueberry oatmeal pancakes. Those were good, too.

Saturday night was a feast of baked cod with Romesco sauce, hazelnuts, lemon and parsley, produced by Joel (another one from BA). We ate it outside in the near-dark otherwise I would have gotten a photo. It was beautiful, a rainbow of flavors. We'd been craving corn on the cob, and earlier that day I ventured to a sweet little produce market in Hillyard for the good stuff and grilled it as a side.

Making

The sleeves of my raglan sweater are finished and now I've begun the body.

Listening

Now that I'm walking more regularly, I've been listening to podcasts again, and this episode of The Daily was a true highlight, about a theater group in the Birkshires performing a COVID-era production of Godspell.

For music, it was good to get to know the music of Gil Scott-Heron, who is perhaps best known for "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." I listened to the album "Pieces of a Man," and the title track was haunting and moving.

Watching

I'm working through that Indian Matchmaking show on Netflix...a good one for knitting. And we watched I'm Thinking of Ending Things, the new Charlie Kaufman movie, on Netflix. It's a mind-bending plot, the kind where you are inventing theories the entire time as you try to figure out what is happening. I enjoyed it.

Reading

Florence Adler Swims Forever has been the perfect thing to read at the end of the summer. I hope to finish it this week and provide a better report.

We were recently reflecting on this summer, and for me, it was akin to the summers of my youth, in terms of being home a lot and spending hours in the backyard. While it went fast, it definitely felt slower. I truly believe that there will be a time when I think of this summer with fondness, or try to recapture some aspect of it again. I am glad we've reached September, a month that feels like the real new year and the start of a new chapter. But it's been a pretty okay summer, all things considered.

Week 35/ Summer Journal Week 10

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 03:18:00 +0000

Well, gosh. Where did that week go?

One realization I had this week, after putting on work pants for the first time, is that my waist is not what it was in mid-March.

A second realization I had this week, after looking at my phone's pedometer, is that I have been walking an average of 1,500 steps a day. I know it's not truly tracking all of my activity (including my morning barre/HIIT/bootcamp classes), but that's still a staggeringly low number of steps. I'm missing my daily campus walks.

Are the two connected?! Of course they are.

It doesn't help that Luna just can't walk that far anymore, so I don't have a walking buddy. So this week, starting Wednesday, I instituted a mid-afternoon solo neighborhood walk. I walked places I used to walk with Luna, but on sides of the road I usually avoid because of dogs and other reasons that upset Luna. It was a rediscovery of my own neighborhood, and I really enjoyed myself. It was especially nice to do it during my mid-afternoon slump when I'm more inclined to eat a cookie for a sugar rush. I'm hoping to keep it up.

The reason I put work pants on in the first place was because I went to campus this week for a presidential video shoot. We're doing as much preparatory communications with students as possible before they return this coming week, and as much as I read about the bad news about college campuses across the country, there's a spark of optimism for me that maybe our students will buck the trend of reckless partying and COVID spreading. Time will tell. It's tense. Say a prayer for us, will you?

In the meantime, most of the photos I took this week were of food I made. So let's start with that:

Recipes

I did a riff on enfrijolades (recipe inspiration from Bon Appetit) on Monday using big beans from Rancho Gordo for the sauce. I filled the tortillas with seasoned ground turkey and diced jalapenos, and topped the dish with cotija, fresh onion and cilantro.

I made another Bon Appetit recipe for a blackberry tahini yogurt cake which was strange and delicious.

And then there was the bucatini dish Joel made with fresh sage from the neighbors' yard and fresh cherry tomatoes from our garden.

And finally, pear sorbet with candied ginger.

Making

A light report this week: I continued on the sleeve for my sweater. I'll take pictures this week (maybe!).

Reading

I finished The Hate U Give on the same day I heard the news about Jacob Blake. I keep thinking about the children who are the witnesses to murders and violence. It is too much to bear, and yet I keep telling myself not to look away from these painful stories, to not leave it to them to seek justice. We all must do this work.

I began Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland and am enthralled. I love stories that let you try on all the characters' perspectives.

Watching

We watched the movie adaptation of The Hate U Give and I thought it was quite well done - great choices of actors for both Starr and Khalil. Plus Issa Rae, whom I love.

Listening

I'm catching up on news commentary on my walks by resuming The Daily from The New York Times. I feel like have things to talk about at the dinner table again.

Week 34 / Summer Journal Week 9

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 03:32:00 +0000

This was exactly the week I needed. It began with a picnic with family in the park. The days that followed at work were productive and restorative (thanks to a department retreat via Zoom where I got to hear from one of the dearest voices of my college career and career in general), the evenings were fun and gorgeous (thanks to not cooking much and beautiful sunsets), and the overall feeling was one of cautious optimism (thanks to a DNC convention and a four-day weekend).

Back in early June, sensing that we would not be making any of our usual lake visits or Boise vacations, I found an intriguing spot to pin all our hopes to for a summer getaway. That spot was two hours away in Soap Lake, a town that is decidedly Trump territory and offers a community theatre performing Noel Coward plays (currently closed, of course), a Russian deli, an Italian-Brazilian pizza joint, and a taco truck. We rented a modern cottage near the water just off Main Street.

We arrived on Friday afternoon. The landscape was scrubby and exposed, stark with basalt edges, softened with dusty paths. The sides of buildings were spotted with bugs trapped in cobwebs, and the buildings themselves were nondescript, not seeming to belong to any particular era. Nothing about it screamed destination, but there seemed to be community humming in the quaint resorts and RV parks along the water, populated largely by Russian families, at least from what we observed. Soap Lake itself is not remarkable at first glance. Our private stretch of beach was grassy and poky and a little buggy, and when we opened our lounge chairs, I worried that this would be the most uncomfortable and flat-out lamest vacation we'd ever been on.

But I've never been to a lake quite like this. You can walk for a long while - and I mean long while - before you're deep enough to swim. Beneath your feet is thick, black sulfurous clay that people scooped up and slathered onto all exposed skin (getting their partners to help with the back regions), let dry, and then rinsed off in the lake, believing themselves to be somehow better than before. This medicinal mud has been the allure of Soap Lake for at least 100 years.

The shallowness and stillness of the lake also made for sublime stand-up paddleboarding, and these were provided with our cottage rental. I paddled to somewhere in the middle and laid down for a spell, feeling the peace of solitude and nature. We even briefly coaxed Luna onto the board for a minute or two.

It ultimately was a perfect type of vacation - we never felt like we were missing out on sites and attractions because everything was right in front of us or down the street. The air around us was ours. The lodging itself was modern and comfortable in ways that made me feel taken care of, with amenities we don't have at home: a big screen TV, a Keurig, Adirondack chairs on the patio and recliners in the living room. We were at the water most of the day, and we read, did crossword puzzles, watched movies, knitted, drank cold beer in the afternoon and ate surprisingly good takeout. At night, the sky was darker than at home and I could see a hint of the Milky Way.

The drive home solidified the feeling of being a tourist in my own state as we stopped along the way at Dry Falls State Park and the Grand Coulee Dam, sights neither of us had seen before.

I can confidently say that the coronavirus made this trip happen. I'm glad it did, and I know that our memories of this trip will grow even sweeter with time. I'm already feeling wistful about it, and we just got home a few hours ago. It was a good reminder of how much there is to see in close proximity to where we are. It's the stuff of Woody Guthrie songs, after all.

Recipes

I'm too tired to describe the things we cooked this week other than to say we grilled some pork and made a sauce that made for excellent tacos, we teamed up another night to make one of our favorites, cardamom lime chicken, and on Thursday I made a pour-in-the-pan style focaccia with cherry tomatoes and pesto that I will totally make again.

Otherwise, part of the vacation-est part of vacation was not making anything more complicated than coffee and toast.

Watching

I got teary-eyed watching Michelle Obama and Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention this week. It reminded me of what leaders sound like, what empathy looks like, and why I will cry regardless of the outcome on November 3.

We also watched four (!) movies at Soap Lake. A classic: Best in Show; a dark comedy: I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore; and two brainless comedies: Drunk Parents (super dumb, with Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek) and An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (great, but probably only if you love the actors as much as we do)

Reading

I finished Molly Wizenberg's new memoir and read the excerpt of The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante that was published in the New York Times last Sunday. I loved being in the minds of Ferrante's characters again.

Listening

I am not sure what kind of music I'm drawn to right now.

Making

I have started knitting the second sleeve of my sweater. If this sounds like progress, I should also mention that I have yet to start the body of this sweater. It's slow-going, but I totally love it. Over the past two weeks, I've loosely been participating in a Design Your Wardrobe class offered by Seamwork. It's got me thinking again about my color palette and being more scrutinizing about styles and patterns and fabrics, which is hard when you're drawn to so many different things. I put together a Pinterest board to try to find similarities in things I'm drawn to repeatedly so that I can focus more on making those kinds of things when I sew and knit. I want to wear the things I make just as much as the things I buy.

Week 33 / Summer Journal Week 8

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 22:48:00 +0000

Here we are, middle of August. Main topics of conversation: back to school plans, Kamala Harris, European cycling (at our house, at least), the USPS, and whether to bike or drive to get ice cream at 8:30 at night.

I harvested my first tomato this week, a so-called Early Girl (I thought it would be much earlier), which was thrilling. There are many more to come, particularly cherry tomatoes. I have about five Cherokee Purples ripening that will probably come in dead last. Worth the wait.

We had a couple cold overnights that resulted in confusion and long sleeves.

But the evenings were perfectly lovely. On Thursday we rode downtown to pick up our wine, pick up a book, and pick out a spot on the grassy knoll for secret wine drinking and cheese eating.

Recipes

Saturday was Ferragosto, an Italian holiday celebrated each August 15, originally a festival created by emperor Augustus to celebrate a day of rest for agricultural workers. Of course, the church later took it over to observe the assumption of Mary. We have celebrated it for the last number of years with Joel's pollo alla Romana, braised chicken and bell peppers, served with grilled crusty bread. This year we also played bocce in the backyard, enjoyed a crisp Pinot Grigio and watched the film Pranzo di Ferragosto.

We had more rich Italian food earlier in the week with a Milk Street recipe for Sardinian sausage ragu (made with saffron).

We've been managing to eat veggies, too. Roasted carrots with carrot-top chimichurri, and grilled assorted veggies with tahini dressing.

And finally, I tried out a recipe for honeyed blueberry cakes from Flourless, which have been tasty with coffee at breakfast.

Making

I knocked out another Willow tank this week and it might be my favorite so far.

Watching

I couldn't resist starting the Sinatra documentary that just appeared on Netflix. Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about Frank, I'm enjoying hearing him speak about his life, which is often what is missing in his biographies.

Reading

I'm almost finished with The Hate U Give, but I'm splitting my reading time with The Fixed Stars, a new memoir by Molly Wizenberg. I attended a virtual book talk to hear from her earlier in the week and it's a very interesting departure from her food memoirs, and also very good so far. (The basic gist, in case you weren't following, is that after getting married, having a kid, building a successful food writing career and blog, and opening two restaurants with her husband in Seattle, she realized her sexual identity was changing.)

Listening

I couldn't start watching that Sinatra documentary and not listen to a lot of Sinatra this week. Ring-A-Ding-Ding! was a good choice.