Rake 8 November 2009

It’s impossible to avoid feeling suburban when you have trees in your backyard.  Sure, we live in the city (well, for what that’s worth) instead of the surrounding vast network of rural counties.  City or not, our neighborhood is studded with oaks, maples, cottonwoods and…you get the idea.  Those leaves are pretty but they have to fall.

I had no idea being a homeowner would give me such sore abs.

At least, raking is slightly more fun that it was as a kid.  Now there’s an ipod and I’m actually tall enough to move the rake without whacking myself in the head (Thanks for that chore, dad).  Sure, we aren’t jumping in the leaves – have you seen the bugs out there? – but it’s fun to smell the dry leaves in the sun and hear them crunch underfoot.

Sore everything.  But, completely worth it.

National Blog Writing Month 1 November 2009

Somehow November crept up on me.  I suppose it’s only fair to say that October and September did too.  It’s been lovely, fall in a new house.  We’re been watching the leaves flash a most beautiful red and yellow.  Some folks say it has been a brighter fall than usual, but I can’t tell the difference from last year.  Our old neighborhood was heavy on the dogwoods – young ones that turned a sullen purply red.  This neighborhood has old oaks and cottonwoods (along with a few grown dogwoods) that have lit up the sky.  Late October is one of my favorite times of year.

This is National Blog Writing Month followed by Holidailies in December.  I’ve managed to write nearly every day in these two months for the last two years (Nov. 1 posts here and here) without much fanfare.  So consider this a statement of intent and an invitation to join me.  I’m not necessarily brilliant for 61 days, but I’m company at least!

Death Defying Loops 14 September 2009

When is the last time you’ve ridden a roller coaster?  And how did you feel afterward?  Not just in the woohoo moments when the ride cruises to a stop, but in the day-after moments?

We’re all adults here, you can admit it if you felt like you might die.

D and I went to an amusement park this weekend to shake off some of the last month.  And shake it we did, on teeth-rattling, head-banging, gut-wrenching, twisting and twirling rides.

I didn’t grow up enjoying roller coasters.  I particularly hate the click click click of the cars going up for the first big drop.  The rattling, jostling ride of a wooden roller coaster is a recipe for a skull cracking headache.  But as an adult, I love the rush of the propelled coasters, the smooth steel tracks that zip under and over without the need for a slow initial rise and deep drop.  I love to laugh as the ride shoots through loops and curls and suspends me upside down for a perfect moment.

But let me tell you, we hadn’t been to a park in a couple of years and something about my equilibrium has significantly changed.  The first ride we went on featured a set of twists that just about sent my stomach onto the pavement.  While the rest of the day was terrific, I don’t think we ever really recovered from the nausea courtesy of our first trip.  I’ve definitely felt it in my bones for the last couple of days.  Ouch.

Even in the moment, I think we knew that our inner children had taken a beating.  When I was little, I remember running from ride to ride, insatiable for more excitement, thrilled as the park lights twinkled on and the lines got shorter.  It didn’t matter that we would race from one point to the next just to stand in line or even that we rode the same ride again and again.  It was a matter of cramming as much as possible into the minutes we had left.  It was always time to go too soon.  This time, we arrived shortly after the park opened (but not early enough to beat down the door) and left well before it closed, satisfied and happy, delighted to both have been there and to be wrapping things up.

I never thought I’d want to leave before the park closed.  But oh was I delighted to be home.  People, my bones might be too old for roller coasters, but luckily, my soul isn’t.

09/09/09 9 September 2009

I don’t know why I’m so delighted to have written today’s date over and over again.

09/09/09.

I have, of course, done this for the last eight years (01/01/01 and its other, older, brothers) In a pervious job, I’d have signed fifty telephone bills and dated each meticulously. In fact, even if the bills hadn’t been due yet, I’d have dated them 09/09/09 anyway (just like 02/02/02 – by the way, that was a disastrous year and not just for having to hand-date 50 telephone bills every month.) Regardless, it’s fun to make this many 9s.  Almost as fun as it was on September 9 10 years ago.

Here’s hoping you’re having as much fun as CNN.

Not Witty and Clever 24 August 2009

As much as I wish I could tell you witty and clever things about the weekend to both amaze and inspire, I’m having trouble shaking the late summer blues. However, if I were witty and clever, I would tell you about:

The biscuits I had this weekend at a local restaurant that might have been better if they didn’t look like whole wheat rolls while simultaneously tasting like biscuits.  I thought eye-taste confusion really only happened with mashed potato scallops and the like. I was wrong.

The return of students and their impossibly skintight jeans to campus. Perhaps they will start wearing these

The tendency of the millennials to consider a busy signal an indication that no one will ever answer. Not even several days later.

By the way, despite my grumpy and generally high-strung nature, my wife still loves me. She draws delicate hearts with our initials in the steam on the shower door. D + M.
Dear reader, you would love her, too.

County Fair 28 July 2009

Dear readers, you know that I have a long history of country fair attendance.  You’d think that now that I’m more rural than ever, D and I would have more to write home about.  So far though, the only notable fair commentary I’ve had is what puts the county in county fair.

Admittedly, D and I are particular about what sort of fairs we go to.  We tend to steer clear of the smaller, Ferriswheel-only type events.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re not in it for the rides. We have two, clear criteria.  Food and a demolition derby.  Yes, we have attended fairs without those two crowning glories (one fair with no food – NO food! – and another with no transportation more exotic than pony rides).  But what makes my summer complete is a bang up, hootin, hollerin, demo derby followed by something deep fried and delicious.  So we keep our eyes open for candidates.  You’d be surprised at how many fairs eschew the demolition derby demographic.

We thought, since moving to Charlottesville brings us into a decidedly more rural territory, that we’d have our pick of the (junk)yard.  We were wrong.  So far only one candidate has proven to meet our minimum requirements – the Madison County Fair.  And what a fair it was.

The Madison fair had all the standard fair features.  Cows and other barnyard 4H standards, blue ribbon arts and crafts, rides, games and food.  There was a even a tiny three ring sideshow featuring (if you believe it) a giant alligator, a Man Eating Snake of the Desert Nations and the SMALLEST HORSE IN THE WORLD.  Well, clearly, Madison County has got what it takes in the fair department.   They even have a demolition derby, bless them.

So off we went.  An hour north and $10 later, we were walking around the midway (and a wee one at that) admiring the hometown fun machine and the win-a-fish ping pong toss.  We skipped the WORLDS SMALLEST HORSE (pity) in favor of a fried twinkie and a corn dog and moved out to get a seat in the bleachers well in advance of the main demo derby event.  While our 30-some bodies practically fell apart after an hour on the hard wooden seats, we were glad we held them since it quickly became clear that this was the most happening thing going on Saturday night in Madison County.  Lawn chairs, bleachers, standing room only, there was no place to be if you didn’t have a place already.

We had local company just behind us in the form of a family of 20; mothers, nieces, Paw Paws and Aunt Sissy’s of indeterminate familial status.  Who knows if they were blood, co-workers or just benchwarmers like us, but they were friendly enough, if a bit invasive.  At one point, Maw Maw leaned over and whispered close in D’s ear, “You all wanna mint?”

Maw Maw was holding down her family’s chunk of the bleacher like an anchor dropped in sand.  Never budging an inch but taking up more and more, she spread and melted in the humidity.  Eventually, the clan formed around us into a swarming hive and we had to give up reclaiming our seats from the matriarch.   After all this, it was easy to tell they enjoyed the derby as much as we did (Ma! Ma! Did ya see that? did you?) and I got the impression they made us as comfortable as possible in the heart of the chaos.

That said, while I had already noticed that my accent was more newscaster and less rural, Maw Maw’s country drawl spotlit my yankee clang well enough to send me shamefully into whispers the rest of the night.   Or maybe I picked up a little seashore Virginian from D and called it a day.  I’m not telling, I mean, tellin.

Geek 25 July 2009

Bedrock.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Antonia.  The Time Traveler’s Wife.  The White City.  I Was Never Here and This Never Happened.  The Agony and The Ecstasy.  Night Mare.  Tales of the City.  The Things They Carried.  The Hollow Hills.  Changeling.  The Road.  The Poisonwood Bible.  Metropolis.  Where the Sidewalk Ends.  Blueberries for Sal.  Kitchen Confidential.

I devoured books growing up.  I took to fantasy and science fiction early, still read childrens books, sank into classics, lingered over queer lit, languished in contemporary novels, and had a brief, wild stint into romance.  I actually stopped reading for awhile.  I got tired of reading the same plot line over and over.  It didn’t matter the genre.  I’m a quick reader and after awhile the sameness was bland and unsatisfying.  I could read fast and move on to the next, promptly forgetting the old characters in favor of new ones that were just like them. But it isn’t the time to go sour on books, now that I have time to read and access to thousands of books I’d like to read.

It was an accident, really.  I asked a friend for a graphic novel reccomendation in hopes that D would take to the comic since one of her first loves is drawing.  While she read that first one over my shoulder (The Watchmen – “Why is that big blue man naked?”  “What’s she doing with that cape?”) I’m the one that tumbled head long into the genre.

I admit, I have comic book roots.  One of the books I’ve had the longest is a Twilight Zone book of four comics that I’ve read over and over, even as an adult.  Roots aside, I can’t put these books down.  These are the cooler, hipper big brothers to the Archie comics, the sons and daughters of Batman and Wonder Woman.  They are rich and inventive, some beautifully illustrated, some painfully smart, most both.  Some of my favorites so far are Allison Bechdel’s compelling autobiography and Fables, a series of fairy tale escapades gone very, very bad.

I can’t reccomend them highly enough, even having to live with disparaging remarks like this one:

Me (trying very hard to wade through The School of Essential Ingredients, well-written but a touch heavy handed and due back to the library this week) Oh, this book is so slow!
D: What?  Can’t read a book without pictures anymore?

Just watch out.  Make sure I don’t sic The Sandman on you.

Lettuce, I Cannot Live Without You 5 May 2009

We joined a sort of CSA* this spring. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years. In DC, the idea of a box of vegetables delivered to my doorstep was a temptation I couldn’t stop craving but also could justify paying for.  I won’t eat beets, who knows what else they might deliver, and why would I pay someone to gift me with a brussels sprout?  The answer?  I would not.   Sealing the deal was the effort going into getting those vegetables to me – gas for the truck, etc – vegetables that might well rot in the refrigerator in a wave of restaurant nights and lackadaisical cooking efforts.

It’s my downfall.  I’ll admit it to you.   I love the idea of vegetables, but not the reality of them.  Not the earthy flavor that creeps into some bites.   Not the wilted, wet blackening of lettuce.   Not the contortionist thinking when I try to determine what to do with something my mother never cooked.  I bring fresh veg home (and by this I mean only broccoli and green beans) and then I guiltily toss them after determining that we’re tired of tough broccoli or the black spots on the beans might be dangerous.  I know.   It’s criminal.

Charlottesville drew me in with the offer of a CSA drawing from multiple farms, offering a variety of pick-up spots (relieving me from the guilt of a door-to-door delivery) and providing a huge variety of produce.  After much debate (and by this I mean me telling her repeatedly I was going to do it and her nodding sympathetically), D and I agreed that we would commit.  Commit to eating our greens.

I’ve repented, mended my ways, found religion in this CSA.  I had no idea that rhubarb tasted good.  Historically, one bite of standard strawberry-rhubarb pie left me alternately scraping my tongue of sweetness and wondering why there was a slight vegetable taste.  My lettuce lexicon consisted of iceberg (ugh), romaine (bland), and arugula (bitter and not really a lettuce).  I’d never seen an actual beet.  It’s shocking, really, that my love of cooking and food could have resisted variety for so long.

Last week, we picked up spinach, beets, rhubarb, chard and red sails lettuce.  This was week three of spinach and so it went into a dip for a party (and by this I mean there’s a bodily limit to how much spinach a person can consume).  However, the generous addition of dip ingredients and crunchy bread made up for the side effects. The beets are awaiting a sweet potato/beet roast while the chard will be joining us in a parmesan prosciutto pasta.  We discussed the rhubarb at length (why does it look like celery?  Does it taste like celery?  Why are the leaves poisonous but not the rest?  What is it about strawberries? How can we avoid the sickly sweet berry/barb combination?) before tossing it into a rhubarb bread pudding.  In theory, this would be redeemable because D prefers bread pudding to even me and I prefer her happiness to everything else except yours.  It went into a bread pudding looking weird and celery-like and came out of the oven tasting delicious.  Horizons broadened?  Check.

The real star of last week’s haul was the red sails lettuce.  This beautiful cluster of tender, flavorful leaves trumped everything that had come before it (including both the apple butter and the honey).  We’ve eaten it as quickly as we could, testing the previous leafy limits set by the spinach.  I had no idea a lettuce could be anything so perfect.  Pretty, delicious, slightly sweet and useable all the way through.  I realize I was a hostage to iceberg as a child and only begrudgingly welcomed romaine into my life as an adult.  For having never met the red sails lettuce, I am deeply sorry.

Here’s to this week’s bounty.

*for local folks, we joined Horse and Buggy Produce a “local natural foods cooperative”

Sister 8 November 2007

Arrives tonight.  I look forward to seeing her curled in the recliner, drinking hot cocoa and spouting tyra philosophy.  See you tomorrow!

Food Love 5 August 2006

I’m not going to be tiny, ever. Here’s why: Flavor.

It’s not that I love to eat. In fact, most of the time, I think of it as maintenance…or necessity…or a chore. It has to be cooked, chewed, and digested. Don’t get me wrong. I love to cook. I like the way garlic smells with olive oil and onions. I like the way things blend together (or don’t), burn or brown, combine to make whole new flavors. I enjoy eating. But the other night at dinner, I was reminded why I love to eat.

We went to a spot we’d been eyeing called Artie’s. We thought it was probably middle-of-the-road American – in fact, we were looking for something easy. Instead, we got the most flavorful calamari resting on lobster cream. We got delicate flounder wrapped in kale, crab meat and slender slices of crisped potato. We got braised pork tenderloin with a slightly caramelized chili glaze and shredded parmesan potatoes flecked with a hint of dill and broiled just enough to crisp. All we drank was water, but it was appropriate as everything had the perfect consistency; nothing melted when it should have crunched, nothing was gummy when it should have been flaky. We thought we were satisfied (no, thank you, I couldn’t eat another bite!) but in fact, the strawberry shortcake proved beyond our willpower and the from-scratch biscuity cake (not too sweet) and the layer of rich cream (not too bitter) with the plumpest blueberries (none soft) and the ripest strawberries (perfectly juicy) went beautifully with the hand-churned ice cream (not too firm).

I felt like I could have rolled home, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. The waiter was friendly without being flirtatous (which I find unappealing in a waiter), the booth we sat in was deep and comfortable, slick brown, padded cushions blocked by a shiny, glossy…buttery…dining table. The napkins weren’t too stiff and the service was perfect; our water glasses never got low, unobtrusive busboys cleared plates at the appropriate time, the staff seemed to truly like each other. I don’t know how soon we’ll go back, but I’ve been back three or four times in the last week alone.

And that is why I’ll never be the girl in the magazine.