Tag Archive | leftovers

Some Say the World Will End in Fire…

Jul18
Sunset beyond the Grand Mesa last week, as smoke began to decrease here.

I’m grateful today that wildfire smoke in my little corner of the world has diminished, but watch with compassion and horror as Canada’s boreal forests burn out of control again this summer in climate chaos exacerbated wildfires, and thick smoke blankets southeastern Canada and the northeastern and mid-Atlantic US. There’s a great graphic in this Guardian article. The good news is that it’s likely to improve by Sunday in time for the World Cup final in New Jersey. Even better, the president told Canada it has to stop!

Sunrise through wildfire smoke beyond the Iwo Jima memorial outside Washington, D.C. That bird! from The Atlantic, Finn Gomez / Getty

“A 2024 study published in Science found that carbon emissions from wildfires had increased by 60 percent in the prior two decades. Fires in boreal forests such as Canada’s were the main reason. Another study, published in Nature, found that Canadian wildfires in 2023, when more than 43 million acres burned, generated more emissions than the burning of fossil fuels in all but the three most-polluting countries.”

I could do tonglen all day long for just the wildlife alone killed and displaced by these mega-fires. And how do we cope with the grief of losing so much of the natural, wild world to greed-induced climate chaos? Not well, it turns out. In modern western culture, we don’t even know how to mourn the deaths of beloved individuals very well, but even so we do it better than we grieve the death of nature. Our nervous systems weren’t designed (read, ‘evolved’) for the constant stress, duress, and distress that persistent grief over the degradation of our planet stirs in many of us. One Buddhist offers the model of palliative care to help us be with our planetary grief.

A friend shared this creative, low-impact alternative to July 4th fireworks: the photographer and friends used bubble blasters to celebrate–or is this AI? credit@luckyclover.5280

… Some Say in Ice

Meanwhile, the Colorado Sun sheds light on the true consequences across the state of last April’s catastrophic freeze in the North Fork Valley. After some reports recanted original estimates, it turns out the initial impression of 100% fruit loss was accurate. Fruitgrowers and related businesses that rely on harvests and fruit tourism have had to get creative this summer to stay afloat and support just some of their employees. Vendors and distributors across the state who rely on North Fork fruit, roughly 10% of Colorado’s harvest and most of its organic fruit, have also been hard hit.

Most of the fruit trees in the North Fork Valley, like my apricot, survived the freeze and have leafed out beautifully this summer without producing any fruit.

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Fire and Ice, Robert Frost

Some people’s worlds have already ended in ICE. Congress failed Americans again by authorizing another $70B last month for DHA, apparently giving ICE license to kill again. Speaking of corruption and perversion, Penzeys is having a great sale right now on all spices beginning with the letters E,P,S,T,E,I,N: the sale code for checkout is FILES. Whatever happened to those files, anyway? As always, action is the antidote to anxiety. If ICE horrifies you, or the Epstein Files upset you, find your local grassroots activists and join them in peaceful protests, get out the vote efforts, and the camaraderie of shared purpose.

I’m grateful for leftovers for lunch all this week, after a delightful fly-by visit last weekend from old dear friends Ed and Gabrielle, globe-trotting, super-computing astrophysicists from Wyoming. They picked up some fresh vegetables from the smoky Ridgway farmers’ market on their way here from New Mexico, and I made big batches of potato salad and three-bean salad. Smoke was light, and Wren gave them each kisses of approval.

Keeping cooking and baking to a minimum this week with continuing temperatures in the mid- to high nineties, I did use the skillet to cook up a mess of garden greens decorated with the second and final green pea harvest–what am I doing wrong? This morning I baked a loaf of sourdough early because I’ve missed having bread. I’m grateful for doing something right.

I’m grateful I can do some little things for some little people to make this hard life in a world in upheaval a little easier. This white-breasted nuthatch figured out a few weeks ago to drink from the ant moat above the hummingbird feeder. Soon I noticed other birds drinking from them as well, scrub jays, house finches, a Bullock’s oriole. Now I fill the ant guards with water more often than I fill the feeders with nectar.

X-Rays

Dec14
It’s their third winter together. I had hoped by now they’d be cuddling in front of the stove. I was grateful to see them lying peacefully, but seconds after I took this Wren succumbed to the Topaz vibe and gave up the rug, went back to her pillow. Oh well. At least they’re communicating in their own way.

The broccognocchini that kept on giving. For the second leftovers, I sautéed sliced portobello mushrooms and the next-to-last garden onion, then tossed in the gnocchi and more tomato sauce. Simple. Delicious.

The third leftover meal was even more simple, gnocchi boiled, drained, back in the pot with more red sauce, topped with parmesan and fresh chopped basil from the sunroom. The fourth and final leftover leftovers from the night before came out of the fridge, got a dollop of mayo, half a can of cannellini beans, celery salt, a sprinkle of homemade paprika, a sprig of fresh parsley, and an accidental cat hair I only just now noticed in the picture! Ick. And oh well. Hope I shook it off before I broke up the parsley but I don’t remember. The salad was delicious anyway. And so simple.

And now for something completely different! I’m grateful for a gold star at my three-month post-op visit. How the time has flown by! On the one hip, I mean hand, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long: I still remember that full moon night in the hospital vividly, and how utterly helpless I was when I first came home. On the other hand, it feels like a long journey from then to now, walking around without the cane half the time in the house, squatting to put firewood in the stove for the first time in years, shoveling snow, going up and down stairs like a grownup this week. Because the PT exercises gave me such trouble in my right hip initially, they x-rayed that as well as the left hip last week. The news was great for both hips: mild arthritis on the right side, just a little pinch at the front but a good smooth ball joint, “nothing like the deterioration of the other one”; and good bone growth starting onto the socket cup and top of the post in the right hip. He could see it, I can’t, but I’m willing to take his word for it. Not for the first time in my life, I’m grateful for x-rays.

Driving home after a successful venture out into the world, I was grateful to see this beautiful big buck strolling into the woods along the driveway. I paused and savored the vision. He was like my prize for a good doctor visit, for good healing, for taking care of myself.

Parmesan Cheese

Dec9
I was grateful I wasn’t the teacher this morning, so I could stay in bed a little later than usual. It was cold and grey all day with around five inches of snowfall, significantly more than the half inch predicted. Topaz looks like she wants to go out but she hates snow more than anything; possibly as a result of her unauthorized journey almost five years ago when she lived outside alone for a month in winter.
I’m grateful that I have some twice-baked potatoes in the freezer for easy heat-up going into this solstice season.

Though my pasta dough didn’t turn out quite as well as Bello’s, I tried his simple two-ingredient pasta last night with boiled broccoli and flour, zapped in a food processor. The motor on my small unit started to grind so I dumped out a sticky mass and had to knead in a lot of flour by hand, but in principle it worked! Then I boiled water and simply scissor snipped bits of the dough off into boiling water and cooked for awhile; meanwhile, frying some bacon. I dried the bacon, drained the pasta, and tossed the little broccognocchis into the hot pan, and added a little parmesan as they continued to cook.

Bacon crumbles and more parmesan on top, and it was a delicious – though ever so greasy – dinner. There was enough dough leftover to make three more meals, so one of them was lunch today, vegetarian this time, with an organic roasted garlic tomato sauce, sourdough toast with butter, parmesan, and grated granulated garlic. So simple, so delicious. I’m grateful for playing with my food, and for parmesan cheese.

This Week in Turkey

Dec5

I gave thanks this week for the wonderful dinner my neighbors shared with me, and for the leftovers I enjoyed creatively all week long. I baked a pie to share with them, Vaughn Vreeland’s coffee-maple chess pie, which looked a lot better than it tasted. Oh well. The laminated crust was great but it shrank so much in the parbake I had to use a smaller pie tin. I’ll try the crust again with a regular chess pie the old fashioned way.

The first leftover day I made a sandwich with avocado, mayo, blueberry jam, cheddar cheese, lettuce and turkey, which tasted a lot better than it looked. Then, knowing I could never finish all of everything and would have to freeze some of it, I threw some of everything (turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, chestnut stuffing, green beans, turkey, and a splash of cranberry sauce) into a pot with a pint of chicken stock, and simmered and stirred until I had a creamy, delicious, chowder-like soup. Which both looked and tasted delicious!

Then I made turkey salad, also including some stuffing and green beans, along with mayo, mustard, and Penzeys spicy salt, enjoying that one day on toast, and another day with the last of the warmed up potatoes and stuffing. I’m grateful for the generosity of my neighbor and for having fun with food.

I had been wanting to bake homemade English muffins for awhile and had the little metal rings in the pantry waiting, when the need to bake them finally arose. I tried them two ways: one instruction had me place the greased rings on a griddle and fill them with dough; the other had me put the rings on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven. In both cases, I filled the rings too full, but the breads turned out light and puffy anyway, and perfectly adequate. I’ll try the griddle method again with a different recipe.

Today’s lunch was ‘eggamuffin,’ a treat from my days in the swamp when my neighbors and I breakfasted together frequently at their trailer. Oh those days in the swamp! I lived in a retired military quonset hut split into a duplex, along with a ragtag assortment of other mostly single residents in other huts, trailers, and a cabin or two, surrounded by live oaks, at the edge of a sinkhole that had filled in with water and was a magnet for herons, frogs, and the occasional alligator. Such a different habitat from the sere mesa I wound up on, both so dear to me in their own ways.

Maybe the best turkey of all this week was the flock of wild turkeys who wandered through the yard this morning! In the thirty years I’ve lived here I’ve only heard them in the woods a few times, and seen a couple outside the fence one time. It was a startling thrill that pulled me away from washing dishes when I caught my first glimpse of one strutting past the south windows. By the time I got to the east window they just kept coming, ultimately more than a dozen of them, strutting and pecking as they went, moving steadily.

I watched, delighted, until they had all moved through the yard and jumped the fence. It crossed my mind to send Wren out there to catch one for us to eat, but she hurt her paw in the snow the other day and wanted to lie on the heating pad and lick it instead. Just as well.

Contentment

Nov24

I’m grateful to see Ice Canyon forming up, and to be able to walk there with my little dog. I’m grateful for the vast, tremendous sky and all that happens in it day to day, moment to moment. I’m grateful for my life just as it is on this day of giving thanks, for where I live and how, for teachers and students, for friends and community, for a sense, in this moment, of safety and ease. I’m grateful for knowing any of this can change in any moment, which inspires me to appreciate all of it every moment as much as possible.

I’m grateful for a tidy stack of wood in the shed, protected from the elements, and for the helpers who stacked it. I’m grateful for the simple meal I made for my Thanksgiving dinner, cheesy samosa puffs, and for the jar of last year’s salsa verde I pulled from the pantry to dip them in. It was a delicious early dinner.

I’m grateful for eggs, flour, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla extract, cream cheese and butter, and the knowledge to turn them into a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It’s not exactly like the Sarah Lee cakes I grew up with, but pretty good nonetheless! I did substitute cream cheese for some of the butter in the frosting because I could and plain butter cream is too–well, buttery–for my taste. I’m grateful that two dear neighbors wanted to share their Thanksgiving dinners with me, and that I was able to share this cake with them. And so glad that I’ll have plenty of turkey, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and more to enjoy for the next few days. I’m grateful for leftovers! I’m grateful for friends. I’m grateful for the leisure and opportunity to cultivate contentment in my life.

Monsoon Season

Jul15
Grateful for leftovers, as always: a tuna melt on a leftover bun, and the salad is even better the second day now that the flavors have blended.

I’m grateful I remembered to go out and close my car windows when the thunder started. I’m grateful for monsoon season, as half-hearted as it is so far this year. At least we are getting some clouds in the afternoon to cool things down, some breezes, and a minuscule amount of rain each afternoon. And so far, no lightning strikes nearby, no wild fires. Fingers crossed!

Leftovers

Nov27

I’ve been grateful the past couple of days for Thanksgiving leftovers, with which to enhance cheese sandwiches. Yesterday, I toasted oat bread, then layered mayo, Swiss cheese, lettuce, bacon, and leftover turkey, and grilled it in bacon fat. So crunchy! So delicious. Other people love fancy cranberry sauces with orange pieces, grapes, nuts, and all manner of other bits in; but I only love Aunt Linda’s cranberry sauce, the ancestral recipe from my father’s side of the family. “It’s like canned,” said the hostess the other day. Well, I guess, but it was being made long before anyone thought to put cranberry sauce in a can. I didn’t make it this year, and so declined leftover cranberry sauce. When I set out to make yesterday’s sandwich, I really really wanted cranberry sauce on it, the right kind. It occurred to me to substitute chokecherry jelly, which is sweet, tart, and a little bitter, just like cranberry sauce. Which, our ancestral way, made only of stewing whole cranberries and sugar, is really just cranberry jelly. I’m grateful there was still some left from two summers ago, since there were no chokecherries this year.

Another Thanksgiving leftover, a delicious puffy yeast roll, provided today’s sandwich, cold this time, with mayo, chokecherry jelly, turkey, cheddar, and lettuce. So simple, so delicious! I’m grateful that eating has become so much more to me than filling up with meaningless food. Eating is a gratitude practice in itself, holding in awareness the sources of all the ingredients, how they were grown or who made or provided them; remembering, with leftovers, their primary meals and who was involved in making and sharing those. I’m grateful to live in a community where hostesses remind me to bring containers to take home leftovers; and grateful that when I forget to, they are provided. As I remember Thursday’s dinner, I’m grateful all over for dining at last with friends again, and grateful there were leftovers.