The lilacs out the window on Friday morning. Note the decals on the kitchen window, iridescent through birds’ eyes, to curb or hopefully prevent window strikes. Overnight it went down to 15℉. As anticipated, this morning the cherry blossoms and nascent fruits look finished for the year. Oh well. The magnificent yellow columbine at the cherry tree base took a hard hit but will likely come back from the center. Everything else in the garden looks stressed or wounded but I’m optimistic that all will survive. I covered them again tonight.
Yesterday was a perfect day for a grilled cheese sandwich: cloudy with blowing snow all morning and bitter wind even after the snow stopped. The high was barely above freezing. Melted dill havarti on rosemary-garlic focaccia with thinly sliced red onion, lettuce, mayo, and a splash of raspberry jam offered tasty comfort at lunchtime. And it was a perfect day to finally bake the orange marmalade brownies I’d been considering for a long time.
I’ve never really liked orange marmalade, and I thought maybe this recipe would make it palatable for me. It was simple to make, and I must say, delicious. But I doubt I’ll be spreading marmalade on toast any time soon.
This day dawned sunny and crisp and then warmed up into the 50s. The brownie went beautifully with my ritual maple-vanilla latté and morning fiction. It felt good to share the bake with my neighbors, so Wren and I made a quick run up the driveway and then around the corner to make deliveries. Not only did I feel good about sharing, but I got to return home with surprise bonus bacon! Which went right into today’s cheese sandwich: lettuce, cheddar, and bacon with mayo, mustard and raspberry jam.
Of all the articles I read online this week, by far the best was this hilarious article on The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. It provided a wonderful balance to the majority of the other headlines. I’ve been working with Discernment this month, and considering deeply what media I ingest. Why, I wonder, is 90% of the news and entertainment about horrors, when in actual fact, most humans spend most of their time–maybe as much as 90%–doing good, kind, generous things, and simply aspiring to be good, kind, happy people? Media coverage of the species is terribly skewed toward bad behavior, and by over-representing violence, betrayal, destruction, hatred, rage, etc., is invariably influencing the zeitgeist. Too bad. One more good reason to focus on gratitude and living mindfully.
I’ve been working on a hard post to write, about the costs of war, human, financial, and to the wild world. But I wasn’t able to focus on that today, so instead, by popular demand, I’m sharing some happy eye candy. The first goldfinch of the season and a couple of piñon jays were among Bird Buddy’s captures this past week. It’s time to focus on gardening for birds, with helpful tips from Cornell Lab of Ornithology and also the Audubon Society.
We enjoyed a nice rain shower on Wednesday, which rinsed the dust off the feral heirloom arugula thriving among the flagstones, so I harvested a bowlful.
I’ve been adding it to salads along with the perennial lettuce that’s been creeping toward cutting size since December. How marvelous to be able to gather fresh greens again!
With a big bag of fresh feral arugula in the fridge I’ve been adding it to everything. I made an arugula and green pea frittata with cheddar and mozzarella and topped it with fresh chopped chives from the windowsill pot; and added arugula to a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich the next day.
I woke Thursday morning to a lush green yarden, with the last of the storm clouds crawling east over the mountains, leaving a nice top up of the disastrous snowpack. I knew it would freeze hard that night and didn’t know what would survive, so in the afternoon I cut some tulips, jonquils, forsythia, and the one lilac cluster that was just starting to open, and brought them inside.
The snowfall Thursday night caught me off guard. Wren ran quaking from the bed when we heard heavy rain and a little thunder, but I gathered her in under the covers and held her tight, and very quickly the rain stopped. Or, the sound of the rain stopped, as I realized when I woke disoriented by the view. It took a beat to understand that the rain had quickly turned to snow, and left a welcome couple of inches on the ground. The temperature had also dropped to 20℉ (-6.67℃ for my fortunate international friends). I was glad I’d salvaged some flowers.
By afternoon it had all melted, but the damage was done. There will be no peaches from Mirador this year, few lilacs, and likely no crabapple blossoms at all. I was grateful that I’d cut a few budding twigs, which I arranged in a little Ikebana tray inherited from my mother, so at least I can enjoy a few spectacular pink blooms.
Today, a dear friend reminded me of the joy of Hipstamatic, so I spent a little time diving back into those imaginary films and lenses, and captured this image of the crabapple twigs with my new Impressionist pack. I used a little more of my precious time on this day that will never come again playing with Hipsta outside in the afternoon, but I’ll save those images for another day.
I’ve been reading the amazing new book from Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, and I’m grateful for his historical and philosophical synthesis of the times we find ourselves in. It’s grueling, but he articulates so thoroughly what I have believed in my bones to be true since I was a child. But enough about humanity’s ineluctable drive toward mechanization at the cost of Nature, we see it in every facet of our lives, including this blog that I’m writing and you are reading on machines that embody so much more than the simple convenience of a keyboard, a digital camera, and the internet. We needn’t dwell on it in this moment.
I’m grateful for the gift of calamondin jam that surprised me in the mail the other day, out of the blue, from an old school friend and reader of Morning Rounds. It represents the good in this world: homegrown fruit cooked and canned, and one person thinking of another with generosity. She read about my quest to bake birthday cakes, and thought I might like to include something a little different in one. Of course I had to taste it, and it was Florida sunshine on toast. Next cake, here it comes! And the next cake is coming soon.
In contrast to The Machine that grinds up nature and humanity in its conquest of the world through concentration of power and worship of wealth, treetops have captured my attention this week. Pinyon jays have been spinning the Bird Buddy feeder around on its pole with their enthusiastic feeding, and I caught a group of them in a treetop the other day on our walk. One seems to have fluff in its bill, hopefully an indication of nest building.
Between working, walking, and baking cakes, I tried out this recipe for big fat chewy chocolate chip cookies, and they are fantastic.
Joanna Macy said “Hope is a verb,” and so I continue to hope to do all that I can to contribute to the remaking of the world as Western Civilization collapses. Some of those things include vigilant introspection to see myself clearly and live in alignment with my values, which by the way are not the values of The Machine; sharing in various ways the mindfulness skills that I rely on to ground me in a meaningful life and bolster resilience; and supporting the wild world through the ways I protect and tend the land in my care. I’m so grateful to have brought the birds back to my yarden after a decade, now that I’ve minimized the domestic cat threat. Evening grosbeaks are back at the feeder, and filling the aspen tree.
In cheese sandwich news, there continue to be many delicious options. Last week I pickled red onions and am putting them on everything including this simple cheddar, lettuce, and mayo sandwich.
Despite a few freezing cold days and nights, the weather was warm enough last week to enjoy time at the pond, including polishing off the last of the ice cream.
But the weather is too nice. This morning I discovered that the apricot blossoms are already opening. I spent a few hours in the yarden, installing a couple of bluebird nest boxes to give them options, and watering. I gave the apricot her first water of the season, and took some time to sit beneath her boughs and appreciate her. Those buds are really swelling, I thought and then I looked more closely. First I saw a few white tips on some buds, and then saw a few just breaking open. Earliest ever, I think.
Today’s cheese sandwich included tuna salad with parsley and celery, pickled red onions, and havarti. So simple, so delicious.
After lunch and a few hours desk work, I took the little animals on a leisurely ramble through the woods, remembering to look up. We rambled northwest from the house, a spontaneous and unusual direction, and then back toward the forest center. We saw treetops reaching for the clouds, and a surprising number of treetops toppled over.
Coming up a slope from an unfamiliar direction I spied an oddly glowing trunk, and when we got close I was mystified to see this young pinyon pine stripped bare, all its bark in chips at the base, its top recently deceased. Curious. And then we found ourselves near the Triangle Tree, where I paused to lean back into its curved embrace and look out toward the mountains for awhile, resting, calmly abiding, breathing.
From there we rambled back to a familiar bench, where we rested again, and noticed these tiny wildflowers in bloom, I’m thinking weeks or even months early… But then, I found flowers even in midwinter in some parts of the woods.
Back home it was happy hour time, so I took a mocktail and a bowl of poison fish down to sit in the golden light and read some more about the cyclical history of the Machine. What a juxtaposition. This week in telesangha we’re exploring paradoxes; in particular, a paradox that has come up synchronistically a couple of times in recent days: navigating the wisdom of accepting conditions exactly as they are, allowing oneself to be just as one is, and at the same time aspiring to refine or grow oneself and improve conditions in the world. Chewing on this book at the same time will add an interesting influence in this exploration.
As the sun goldly lowered I glanced up to see a pair of bluebirds atop the aspen tree. More synchronicity. I hope they find a nest site they like for this summer, in one of the boxes I put up this morning, or back in the hole in the side of my house.
I’m grateful that Topaz has learned in recent years not to hunt birds.
Wren jumped right into her job of finding Biko as soon as I started putting him out in his round pen. Tonight just before sunset she raced right to his gate and loudly announced his location. Life’s simple pleasures.
Finally finished my hat! heehee… and had leftover yarn so have knitted a few red hat resistance badges for friends who live in warmer climes.
Many days the one thing that motivates me to get out of bed in the morning is the thought that I get to drink a homemade latté. The latté is a fairly recent twist but ever since 9/11 the promise of coffee has been the prime mover in getting me up, and some days it’s the only inspiration I can muster to face the day. I don’t think I’m alone in this; I do think it’s a symptom of a huge societal problem.
On 9/11 I was visiting my parents who lived near the Pentagon. I could die here, I thought when the Pentagon was struck, without my dogs, away from home, away from all that I love…This is the beginning of World War III. I wasn’t wrong about that, it’s just been a slow burn, a ‘forever war.’
Wren and I spent some time in the garden the past few days spring cleaning, and found her a treasure.
War news has been the backdrop to my whole life. To your whole life. I grew up in the sixties watching the Vietnam War on TV during dinner. It ended. Then there was another war. And then more wars, though eventually the government learned to censor photos and video of US casualties and coffins returning home, since those unsettled Americans.
We planted a bunch of old seeds to see what comes up and what might survive whatever weather comes our way in the next six weeks before true planting season begins.
And here we are again. It makes me sick; and, it reinforces the message of the Walk for Peace: Peace begins inside each one of us. Pema Chodron says that War also begins inside each one of us, in a book she wrote twenty years ago:
“War and peace begin in the hearts of individuals,” declares Pema Chödrön at the opening of her inspiring and accessible new book. In Practicing Peace in Times of War she draws on Buddhist teachings to explore the origins of aggression and war, explaining that they lie nowhere but within our own hearts and minds. She goes on to explain that, remarkably, the way in which we as individuals respond to challenges in our everyday lives can mean the difference between perpetuating a culture of violence or creating a new culture of compassion.
With war and violence flaring all over the world, from Iraq to Darfur to London, most of us are left feeling utterly helpless. In this audiobook Pema Chödrön insists that our world will begin to change when each of us, one by one, begins to work for peace at the level of our own behavior, our own habits of thought and action. It’s never too late, she tells us, to look within and discover a new way of living.
We started unfurling hoses and laying out some soakers like this one around the little cherry tree. Wren investigates the bug bath.
It’s ingenuous to ask why it doesn’t change, why is there always war, when will we ever learn? I practice and meditate and inquire and investigate all day long every day, and I still experience anger or despair frequently.
I’m also simultaneously grateful for living off the grid and far from the madding crowd. On our walk the other day we spied some good tracks in the mud. I can’t tell if they are from a coyote or a domestic dog. They’re smaller and rounder than the usual culprits’ tracks, the big white dogs up the road who roam freely. Getting outside more again on these warming days, walking among trees, getting my hands in the dirt, grounds me in what is good and true. I find peace in Nature.
But it’s been a constant struggle to cultivate inner peace when for months I couldn’t separate who I am from the nonstop pain and festering resentment of the dentastrophe. Only in the past month has the constancy abated enough to allow moments of awareness free of mouth pain. Then I got a second opinion last week. My perceptions that the bite is wrong were validated, which lifted a burden; but, a weightier burden was added: Mercury toxicity. The US lags behind the global understanding that dental mercury amalgam is a cumulative neurotoxin implicated in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, MS and various other systemic ailments. Last summer, because I didn’t know any better, I allowed two large mercury blobs to be ground to toxic dust inside my mouth with absolutely no precautions. How does one find peace when one feels wronged? I’m seeking it through meditation and polite insistence that the offending dentist drop the remaining balance on my account.
But others choose differently. We know how the President seeks relief from feeling cornered: by escalating aggressive distractions, from domestic ICE assaults to now an illegal war in the Middle East.
“Every leader facing accountability has understood what a war provides. It is the oldest move in the history of power: when the walls close in, find an enemy abroad. A shooting war restructures the entire political landscape. Opposition becomes unpatriotic. Criticism becomes dangerous. Emergency powers that were already being stretched past recognition suddenly have the one justification that has historically silenced opposition in every democracy that ever fell: wartime necessity. And the emergency never ends, because ending it means facing consequences.
A wartime administration that was already stripping Clean Water Act protections from millions of acres of wetlands, already opening 40 million acres of national forest to logging and drilling, already letting coal plants dump toxic ash into groundwater, already withdrawing limits on forever chemicals in drinking water now does all of it behind a wall of smoke and patriotic obligation. “Support the troops” becomes the shield behind which everything else gets done. They are generating attacks on the constitutional order faster than any existing institution is processing them, and they know it. And the ten months between now and the midterms just became ten months of a wartime presidency operating without constraints, with a proven willingness to ignore the judiciary, and with every incentive to keep the emergency going as long as possible.”
(Read further in the essay and you’ll find inspiration and encouragement. We can stop this. We have to.)
Tonight’s supper snack was a mushroom paté made with baby bellas, onion, garlic, fresh sage all sautéed in of course butter, puréed with some cream cheese, with more meltedbutter poured on top, then chilled. I added a sprig of sage blossom. So simple, so delicious!
Trump is what’s called in Buddhism a hungry ghost. He dwells in a special Hell realm, as do his henchmen and women, and many of his billionaire cronies. They are so empty inside that they will never have enough of anything, and live in a state of constant grasping. Call your representatives. Demand impeachments and unredacted Epstein files. Show up for protests. Channel your anger into action.
Amy and I planned a cheesy-potatoey bake for our zoom cooking last weekend because I wanted to use up the sprouting purple potatoes in something I could freeze in portions for later.
I was dismayed when I dug into the box on Sunday to find that all the potatoes had sprouted, not just those in the top two layers. So much for a big dish and lots of leftovers. I repacked most of the potatoes in brown paper in a new box to save for planting, and knocked the sprouts off of just over a pound so I could make dinner.
Amy made half the recipe by choice, I by necessity. For that amount of potatoes, we mixed together ⅔ cup of heavy cream, a couple tablespoons butter, and a garlic clove minced, and poured it over the potatoes one layer at a time, with a little salt and pepper on each potato layer. It might look like a lot, but the potatoes were tiny, and the dish is only about four inches wide. We baked at 375 degrees F for about 50 minutes.
Then the piéce de résistance, half a small wheel of Brie with an olive oil drizzle, and another 15 minutes in the oven. So simple, so delicious! Rich enough that I got three meals out of it. I might just dig into that potato box again before planting time.
The Walk for Peace monks are finally getting the coverage they deserve, at least in local media. Their stop in Columbia, SC drew thousands of supporters along the route and around the State House, where Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara spoke at length about the motivations and aspirations for their journey, then offered a blessing. The event was covered live by local TV station WLTX, and I was grateful to get to hear their message in greater detail. (Photos from Instagram)
Tomorrow they cross into North Carolina as they continue their arduous pace to DC, with the White House their apparent destination. God bless their everlovin hearts. With each day and each thousand people they reach with their message of peace, loving kindness, cooperation, and compassion, my curiosity grows around their reception in Our Nation’s Capitol.
And Puzzle Season continues to keep me grounded with a bounty of options flowing around the community…
After a mindless moment last night at a zoom meeting and my subsequent apology, the friend I had interrupted kindly forgave me, and said about current events, “What if it all turns out ok?” Bless his heart. My fingers are crossed but I’m not holding my breath. This is a common perspective in a certain branch of Buddhism, pointing out that, due to Impermanence, we never know how things will turn out. We really don’t. A common example is the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1950s which forced the young Dalai Lama to flee to India; which was the direct cause of His Holiness’s benevolent influence spreading around the world for the next sixty-five years. So sometimes awful things do have a silver lining.
It’s been awhile since I baked a loaf. I tried to score a rose on this one; the stem just opened wide, but the blossom turned out okay for a first effort.
It’s my fear, however, that even if it does eventually turn out ok, whatever that looks like, there will have been total American Carnage in the meantime. Carnage that the USA will have wrought upon innocent beings of all species worldwide, and carnage that will have been wrought upon many millions, in fact most, Americans, by this despotic imposter government. At least from some angles, this is the end times that those apocalyptic idiots on the evangelical right, who have infiltrated then severed the three branches of government, have been working toward all along. But contrary to their beliefs, there will be no messiah coming to save or rapture anyone. And even if there were, it would certainly not be those agents of planetary destruction that she would be coming to save.
If anyone were to be saved by divine intervention, if there were such a thing, it would be the innocents, the thin orange thread of Buddhist monks weaving through the southern US, the millions of American children this regime has robbed of nourishment and healthcare, the cowering brave citizens of Venezuela and Ukraine, and all the future countries conquered by the new Axis of Evil the US just joined. It would be the untold billions of living beings who would be raptured, from ancient juniper trees and giant redwoods to the tiny, iridescent orchard bees to the zooplankton and the giant whales they nourish, all already sustaining lifetaking assaults by the oligarchy gathering at the top of world society like a giant pus-filled zit. Sorry. Please forgive me.
On a lighter note, I made a fabulous cheese sandwich for lunch today: havarti on mayo with Penzeys sandwich sprinkle, jam, lettuce, and a drizzle of honey mustard dressing. So simple, so delicious.
I had a rough night last night, was still nursing a black eye and bloody nose this morning from a bout with my Inner Critic. Maybe that’s colored my view today. My jaw and bite are still not right from that dental work seven months ago and that has certainly affected my tolerance for the taste of bullshit. Welcome to my rare but inevitable occasional rant on the state of the union, on this laden anniversary. It’s Insurrection Day. The regime wants you to forget it ever happened, and the Criminal in Chief is doing his ignorant best to divert our attention through waging war and threatening more. We, the majority of Americans, are not being properly represented; our tax dollars are soon to be requisitioned for global expansionism by the oligarchs who could well afford to wage any war they wish to by dipping their bloodied hands into their personal petty cash vaults. It’s time for a tax strike.
I’m grateful that due to Impermanence, my mood had improved dramatically by lunchtime and I was able to enjoy my little lunch ritual.
I’m grateful that wise friends offered perspective and insight last night when I was beating myself up, that my friend understood and forgave, grateful that the skills of apology and of forgiving myself come much more quickly to me than they used to, and grateful for the wisdom of the Buddhist perspective. Life is both suffering and joy, both beauty and horrors. Equanimity is holding awareness of both/and. The monks’ message in one of their posts today was Peace in Gratitude. In part, “This is not about ignoring difficulty or pretending that everything is perfect. It is about training our hearts to recognize the countless ways we are supported, nourished, held by life itself–even in the midst of challenges.”
An unpleasant surprise the other day was that the potatoes I was storing in the very cool mud room in a box of sand had sprouted and pushed open the box lid. I dug underneath and even the second layer had sprouted, but the potatoes hadn’t gone soft yet, so I pulled out a few to make soup.
Using some of the frozen stock from the Thanksgiving turkey, I made a BBC food cauliflower and cheese soup that tasted in the moment like the best soup I’d ever had. So simple, so delicious!
I enjoyed it for a couple of meals with the last of the rolls, and was glad it was on hand when a friend came home ill after holiday travel so I could provide nourishment.
Morning moment: an orchid in bloom catches the light, stockings hung on the stairway with care, a pileated woodpecker offers loving memories of my dear auntie and the many meaningful visits to her home on the Chesapeake Bay. Smiling with a heart full of love.
The eerie, balmy winter days continued this week. Yesterday I stepped outside with Wren and as I stood stretching on the patio I noticed a redtail hawk flying with a raven. I stood riveted as they circled and spiraled upward on a thermal, occasionally flapping, coming close together then drifting apart, coming close again, tilting, dipping, almost touching wings then parting again. I remembered a poem I wrote thirty years ago, when my heart was light as the hawks’ and I marveled that I’d made a life where I was able to stand and watch them soar for as long as I could see them. For a moment I recaptured that sense of wonder. Grateful that I had the time, chose to take the time, to simply stand still, arms wide, reaching toward the clear blue sky, celebrating flight. Five minutes maybe? However long, I watched until they became small in their spiral climb, then dropped out of it and soared still together down and down, southward, then parted ways level with the low sun, raven to the right of it out of sight behind the roof, redtail to the left, my raised hand protecting my eyes as I watched until the hawk disappeared far, far south of here.
Another lemon bake: lemon chess pie
That reminded me that I’d seen two foxes the other morning. As I set Topaz food in the window sill first thing, an odd flash of movement caught my eye in the west woods just beyond the driveway. It was erratic, not the smooth glide of a deer or anything else, but a flipping flashing motion a couple of times, like two animals in conflict or in play. It took a minute to find the binoculars and by the time I did the woods were still—for a moment—and then I saw another flash, trained the glasses on it, and saw a fulsome fluffy red fox leaping. A second later, another. I’d missed the heat of play but caught their convivial afterglow as they danced on past the window frame.
Taking the garbage up this afternoon before dusk I met a neighbor who’d just spotted big cat tracks south of my house in the next door woods. “I think it’s a big bobcat,” he said, “Keep an eye on your little buddy.” Wren and I had gotten out of the car to chat with him, and she was far afield sniffing unfamiliar terrain. Each time I lost sight I whistled and she came running back. She is SO good!
The final wild surprise of the past few days came after dark. As I got up from the puzzle a shadow flickered through the light, and flickered again. There are sometimes small moths inside, but this was a big shadow. I was astonished to see this cabbage white butterfly flittering around the tiny geranium. Where did it come from? How, in the depth of winter, had it ended up in my kitchen?
I enjoyed watching it for awhile as I pondered the kindest course of action. Let it be? Or catch it and put it outside. I checked the forecast. It looked mild enough for the next few days, and the butterfly seemed disoriented, almost frantic. So I held out my hand and waited. It didn’t come to me. But it did land on the puzzle pieces, so I gently cupped it and carried it out the back door, where I let it crawl onto the still-warm adobe wall, then Wren and I slipped back inside to our quiet little life.
In what might have been the last cheese sandwich of 2025, I used romaine, cheddar, mayo, mustard, hibiscus-raspberry jam, and a quick turkey salad made from Thanksgiving leftovers I had picked from the carcass and frozen for Wren. It was a big container and I found enough pickings to make a couple of meals for me.
The uncanny weather finally got wintry with a trace of snow last night, and a seasonal drop in temperature. Before the rain on Christmas, we took a startling walk through the woods. I’d hoped to walk to the rim since the mud had dried enough, but just as we turned east a neighbor across the canyon started shooting, which frightened Wren and made me turn west, taking the short loop back to the house. The mosses were vibrant, and a fall aster was in bloom. This is all wrong.
We humans are making so much progress on so many fronts that it just makes me sad to see how the species insists on escalating its rapacious slaughter of the planet and sabotage of our species. Scum does indeed rise to the top, and now that it’s followed Russia’s lead in this country and many others, the potential of power-hungry malignant narcissists to irreparably break our world with greedy extractive industries is coming to a head just at the time when medical science is on the cusp of discovering treatments for Alzheimer’s, advances in consciousness studies and the intersection between science and spirituality give real hope for finally understanding the imperative to cooperate rather than compete, and the flowering of Buddhist philosophy as a path to peace is growing loving kindness and compassion at an exponential rate.
Amy randomly sent me this recipe for sourdough discard dinner rolls, so I made them on Christmas Eve and have been enjoying them in various ways since. As soon as they came out of the oven I poured some almond butter into a little bowl, with just a hint of recurring aggravation—you can’t really call it butter if you can pour it straight from the refrigerator—and spooned some jam, and enjoyed a simple lunch.
After some very fat sandwiches that night, I sliced the rolls into club style threes to make a sandwich with havarti, lettuce and mayo on one layer, and havarti and lemony pesto a friend made. I’ve eaten them several other ways and still have a couple left, but it’s almost time to bake sourdough focaccia.
The week overflowed with baked gifts as well as abundant sunshine. Among the cookies and biscotti that arrived also came the annual Potica delivery from the next door elves. Last year I was caught taking a shark bite right out of the bag; this year I restrained myself to just sniffing.
I’ve spent part of the weekend in retreat via zoom with Tergar Meditation on Dream Practice, learning how to meditate while sleeping, and how to cultivate lucid dreaming. Some of the most blissful dreams of my life were the few in which I could fly. I used to either jump off a roof, or take a long, slow running start with strides extending longer and higher until I achieved liftoff. But it’s been decades since I could fly in a dream, despite my longing.
It’s been decades since I experienced any kind of lucid dream, until last week when I realized I was dreaming, almost woke up, made myself stay asleep. I’d signed up for this retreat weeks before that, and was pleased to learn during the talk this morning that I had just overcome one of the main obstacles to lucid dreaming: realizing you’re dreaming and immediately waking up. I’m on the right track! And it turns out, the next step after you realize you’re dreaming is to do something, almost anything, to anchor yourself in the lucid dream: taking off flying is the easiest thing to do! Far simpler than transforming a flower into a building or a person into another kind of animal, or even transforming yourself into a newt.
My favorite Christmas gift: a perfectly small bowl with a fucking grasshopper built right in, from someone who knows me too well.
I’m grateful for a week filled with kindness, connection, and compassion in my little bubble, and a week of hopeful exploration of the rich potential and beauty in the human spirit worldwide. We are not prisoners here, nor potted plants. Action is the antidote to anxiety.
Helpful little dog cleans up the ice cream box for me after lunch.
Tonight was Zoom Cooking with Amy, but we did a lot of prep ahead of time. We texted back and forth all day, first to decide what to cook and then to see how it was going. Since I had the tart shells already, she made some too, and we each blind-baked them. I lined mine with scrunched parchment paper and weighted them with dried kidney beans which will now be saved and labeled Pie Beans so I don’t try to cook them later. They baked for twenty minutes at 350℉, then I removed the paper and beans and baked them another five minutes, and let them rest on the counter.
Amy usually directs these endeavors, so she texted to tell me to mix the lemon zest with the sugar ahead of time and let it sit. The “Classic Lemon Curd Tart” recipe calls for zesting and juicing four large lemons, but I don’t think they’ve ever seen lemons this big. I zested three of them and got sloppy on the second one knowing I’d have more than enough. One and a half lemons exceeded the two-thirds cup of juice needed, but I juiced the rest and filled four silicone freezer molds with a third cup each. Then I set aside the lemon tart project to make the cracker dough.
Amy chose these Cheddar Cheese Shortbread Crackers which we mixed mostly according to instructions, but added fresh chopped chives from another recipe, and rolled the dough in seeds before chilling.
I rolled one log in poppy seeds and one in white sesame seeds. We decided later as we ate them that sprinkling a little kosher salt among the seeds would make the seasoning perfect. Then we chilled the dough until we were ready to zoom.
Between the mise en place and the actual cooking, I was grateful to zoom with a young friend I am just getting to know, though I’ve known about her for a long time. When she asked how I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, I chanced to mention my obsession with Great British Bake Off. Pema Chodron talks about the discipline of keeping your mind and heart open, always receptive to where you find yourself in the moment, in the world; and also about trusting that we “live in a rich world that’s never running out of messages.” I could have left out the mention of GBBO but it’s what feels alive for me right now so I said it. My friend said with some surprise, “Have we talked about this?”
“No,” I said. She then told me that she knows one of the contestants from this season, and went out with him just a couple of weeks ago when he was in New York. I was thrilled, and asked to hear everything he told her about being on the show. It was more stressful than he thought it would be, she said, the people were all fantastic and supportive, he made some great friends, and so on. If I hadn’t mentioned the show, we wouldn’t have had that moment of delightful connection, and I would never have seen this adorable picture of the two of them.
We also talked about grief: how there’s no wrong way or right way to grieve; the idea of titrating or pendulating, i.e., touching into the feelings and then stepping back into all the living going on, touching in then stepping back as one is able, thereby developing capacity and resilience; and, how grief can soften with time though it may never disappear. I was reminded of something beautiful that my cousin’s fiancée wrote to me recently, just over a year after he died so unexpectedly:
“For me, grief feels like it’s love turned inside out. Its heaviness gets lighter as I get stronger and time moves on…. As painful as it was to lose my love, it gives me comfort feeling that my heart is now strong enough to carry this beautiful soul within me, and I’m forever grateful.”
Terri Mayer
Our conversation gave both of us the tender opportunity to feel closer for a moment to someone we grieve, to touch into the well of grief and maybe lift out a spoonful, or even just a drop. And then to go back into our day and our lives with a stronger link in the chain of interconnection. In no time at all I was zooming with Amy and we were whisking up lemon curd tartlets. So simple, so delicious!
While they cooked and then cooled, we sliced our cracker logs as thinly as we could, and while they baked we made a Ritini, my instantaneous variation on a martini, which used gin, elderflower liqueur, a tablespoon of leftover Meyer lemon juice (like I said, I’m gonna make the most of every bit), and a couple of raspberries.
We enjoyed a couple of sips of the cocktail before realizing that it didn’t really go with the cheesy crackers, so we poured a little red wine for the savory portion of our meal, and caught up on everything under the sun. We each baked one tray of crackers and also ate most of it they were so addictive. I’m glad there are leftover logs to slice and bake later, or even freeze for much later.
And then it was time to savor the sweetness that was days and miles and many hands in the making. I know who grew the lemons. Who grew and picked and packed and shipped the raspberries? Following back all the ingredients in the tart, all the elements in the simple setting: the plate, the glass, the gin, the liqueur, the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, the whipping cream and vanilla bean paste… I’m grateful for and to the countless connections, humans, and other beings who contributed to this perfect moment.
From the Great British Bake Off news page, host Noel and judges Prue and Paul listen to baker Rahul describe his signature bake. Or it might be his showstopper. But it’s definitely not the technical challenge, because the judges aren’t in the tent for that one.
I don’t remember when I started watching the Great British Baking Show, but know that it became a real inspiration in 2020. My interest has only grown with each subsequent season, to the point that when this season ended (Series 16) I started rewatching the previous seasons. US availability starts with Series 5 on Netflix which is actually Season 8 in the UK where it’s called the Great British Bake Off. Not gonna try to make sense of that. There have been four pairs of hosts (at least) and two companion judges to the majordomo, the one consistent character throughout, bread legend Paul Hollywood. Like Drag Race, the show is a phenomenon with its own internal culture and even more camaraderie and less drama. Though the tension in the tent and in living rooms across continents can be equally intense as bakers come down to the wire with some showstopping creations.
They bake a lot of savory pies, which I’ve never done, and I was inspired a couple evenings ago by a pie filled with a veggie curry. I had all the ingredients and then some, so last night I threw chopped kale, garbanzo beans, and roasted butternut squash in a skillet and cooked them down a bit, then added leftover ‘risotto with kale and peas’ and stirred it all up with a good splash of Penzeys curry powder. So simple, so delicious. Tonight I whipped up a quick shortcrust in the food processor, kneaded it just enough to roll it out thin, and used a heart-shaped empanada mold to make four little hand pies.
I really don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just not afraid to take risks in the kitchen. They turned out beautifully, not a single leak or tear. Maybe I could have left the tiny dough hearts in place but I wanted to make sure the pies didn’t blow up so I pulled them off to release steam before baking at 375℉ for about thirty minutes.
I ate one for dinner, froze two for quick meals later, and saved one for tomorrow. That single bunch of kale has gone a long way, through four nights of dinner with several more to go, plus Wren got the stems for treats. It’s good to practice frugality and creative leftover cuisine these days as the cost of everything continues to rise thanks to the commander-in-thief. All I want for Christmas is for Americans to wake up and stand up to the billionaire class that is robbing us blind. Check out this graphic from The Guardian illustrating how roughly 56,000 individuals control three times as much wealth as half of humanity.
So I’m extra grateful tonight for homegrown bounty, like this pile of Meyer lemons and bag of red limes that arrived the other day after a long journey from a friend’s backyard citrus trees. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to make the most of the juice and the zest and the peels and every bit of these gorgeous fruits, and I’ll start by using the leftover pie crust to make lemon curd tartlets. I’ve never made them before, but how hard can it be? We’ll know more later!
