Tag Archive | so simple so delicious

Both And

Jan6
Mind like the sky

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.”

Wild Surprise

Jan1

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.

Learning to Fly

Dec28

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.

Countless Connections

Dec12
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.

Baking Therapy

Dec11
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!

Interconnected

Oct15
Little Bambino drinking from the bird bath
BLT under construction, with added basil
Using more gifted basil with leftover squash in a layered pickled salad with garden red onion and Prosecco vinegar
Rain-drenched moss glowing under juniper on evening walk
Quick pasta dinner with leftover gnocchi dough and tomatoes leftover from the BLT reduced in sage butter with a dollop of bacon fat
This morning’s joy while filling the small-bird feeder
Midafternoon walk to the sunlit canyon, playing with Hipstamatic app
A tote bag full of geraniums broken up and potted to give away at No Kings Day rally on Saturday. I’ll be keeping just one, of course

Bandits and Butter

Oct12

Anticipating several cold, rainy days last week I started a new puzzle that Amy’s mom had sent me. Amy and Judy visited me at Auntie’s way back in 2013, another world ago, and we all did our first Liberty puzzle together. I’m grateful that Judy continues to enjoy Liberty puzzles, and that she did not especially like this one so she passed it along.

Because we actually got only a few hours of cold, rainy weather, the puzzle took me awhile to complete, and I finished it yesterday just in time for Zoom Cooking with Amy. I wasn’t crazy about the color scheme of this puzzle, and people are not my favorite whimsy pieces, but it was new and free, and there was a lovely symmetry to doing a train puzzle from Judy, since our first Liberty was a different train puzzle. And the puzzle itself overcame my initial judgments because it was delightful, fun, and every bit of it filled with story. So many stories, all over the puzzle! And all the little stories fitting together, piece by piece and then segment by segment. The engineer in the window with the bandits shooting outside, the guy falling out of the boxcar, the passengers being herded out, and the little band of people in the distance – are those the bandit hunters? And the whimsies: the little banker running for his life, the bandits, the horses, the maidens in distress…

It looked like it would be pretty easy, and I assembled the title at the top and the subtitle at the bottom, and then it got more complicated. Especially when the side edges came together quickly and I had to slide all the pieces out of the way and gently pull the top down to connect the sides. After that the real puzzling began.

Five days later the puzzle was done, and it was time for Butter Week. There was another lovely symmetry in finishing the puzzle late afternoon that Amy’s mom had sent, and then zoom cooking with Amy half an hour later. I am so grateful for my oldest friend and her mother!

I wanted to make butter candles from a recipe I spotted on instagram; Amy wanted to make butternut squash gnocchi. We supported each other’s choices. For the candles, which we didn’t make but I still might, we melted two sticks of butter and simmered with fresh sage, garlic cloves, half a pear, peppercorns, coriander seeds, and a pinch of salt. I was grateful to have fresh sage from my herb pots, garlic from the garden, and pears from the Bad Dogs’ tree. I ate most of the other half but mashed a little bit to throw into a wine cooler.

We had pre-cooked the squash on Friday. Amy cut hers into cubes and roasted it, while I chose to roast mine whole. I am averse to cutting up hard winter squash because it’s hard, and even though I’m skillful with a kitchen knife I always get the willies when my knife is met with serious resistance. Hers didn’t take long to roast in pieces but lost a lot of moisture, making her dough very firm; I didn’t even ask how long it took to cut it all up. Mine took almost two hours to roast whole, but was a breeze to scoop out and mash the next day. My squash had so much moisture that I had to keep adding flour as I kneaded the dough and finally called it quits with a very soft dough that was still a little sticky to roll and cut.

Both of our dinner bowls were delicious. We dressed the gnocchi so simply, with some sage butter and grated parmesan. Another successful zoom cooking! After dinner I admired the puzzle some more, and took a few detail shots for fun.

I had started another one-day mock wonder bread loaf yesterday also, and had to burn a fire in the woodstove to get a spot warm enough for it to bulk rise. By the time we finished dinner it was ready to roll up and plunk into the pan, and supposedly needed only 3-5 hours to rise before baking. But it was too late for that, so I left it in the mudroom overnight, and it rose beautifully over the next twelve hours. This morning I put it in the oven and then dressed a couple of leftover waffles with blueberries, Greek yogurt and organic maple syrup to enjoy while it baked.

After breakfast, and brushing the bread with butter, I disassembled the puzzle. As I carefully separated the pieces I once again appreciated the artistry, even as I listened to Pema Chodron respond to people’s questions about “How to Confront Fear.” How did the pioneers confront their fear of railroad bandits, and all the other fears that came with the choices they made? How do we deal with the perfectly natural fears of death, of degenerative disease, of living in these troubled times? How do we confront our fears about the current bandits in this rogue administration who are stealing our rights, our livelihoods, our money, our social safety nets, our very democracy? The answers always come down to seeing reality clearly, responding with wisdom and compassion, and taking action where you can.

Coming together in community, knowing we’re not alone, and taking action together are all antidotes to anxiety: Join a No Kings Day protest near you this Saturday, October 18!

After a morning that felt like a full day, it was lunchtime, and I sliced into the wonderful bread and made a BLT. So simple, so delicious! Though cool, it was gorgeous outside and I sat on the patio in the warm sun, reading Bill Bryson’s “In a Sun-burned Country,” laughing out loud at his travels through Australia.

Later I heard about the overseas travels of one cousin who’d been to Germany and two who’d been to Portugal. A third cousin reported her safe return from a week in NYC. I am grateful that all my travels today were vicarious.

Even later an unpromised gift came to me in a surprise visit by new friends who brought a bagful of geraniums and joined Wren and me for a walk to the canyon in the late day light. They felt the magic, and marveled at the ancient junipers, and nourished my heart. More gratitude today than grief, as my understanding continues to grow. Tomorrow could be different; tomorrow is not guaranteed.

“The ability to wake up to another new day — one with which we will surely need to wrestle and reckon, but one that will also teach and transform us … this is the unpromised gift for which to be grateful.”

Kristi Nelson, from Grateful Living’s Word of the Day

Full Moon

Oct7

Tomatoes, onion and garlic from the garden, along with a few Penzeys spices, made a nice sauce for an impromptu chili relleno casserole for lunch yesterday.

The roasted poblano chilis came from the Delta farmers’ market where I stopped last week. Five dollars for a bag of roasted chilis and five more for four big fresh peppers and two tomatoes.

I based it on the Chili Pepper Madness recipe, and added a splash of milk to the eggs based on some other recipes. So simple, so delicious!

Last night I slipped out of a zoom meeting for a few minutes to catch the full moon rising. It occurred to me that this could be the last October full moon I’ll ever see. Not to be morbid, but just realistic. Anything can happen at any time. Age doesn’t guarantee longevity, nor does genetics, nor anything else.

It also occurred to me that grief is an equally valid response to life as gratitude. Gratitude and grief go hand in hand. I attended a webinar this afternoon on how to help grieving people. It was perfect timing. I’d been thinking about grief a lot this past week, after helping a dear friend navigate a sudden, freak death in her family.

There’s also the grief that I’ve felt since childhood about the madness of humans destroying the planet, and now the exacerbating grief of a regime that’s trying to turn back time in all the wrong ways while accelerating the unbridled pillaging of the natural world for corporate profit. I’m grateful for meditation, for mindful introspection, for compassionate and wise teachers from many traditions around the world available to any of us with a few keystrokes. I’m grateful for sleep, for friendships, for the moon and the sun, for water, wild birds, golden leaves, an open heart, for the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows of being human, and for this breath.

My Little Kitchen

Sep14

I’m so grateful for my little kitchen, and all the magic that happens in it. Much going on in there this week, from tamarind-millionaires-shortbread to bean salad to BLT. I’ve lost track of where or when I picked up this recipe for millionaires shortbread, but found myself with all the weird ingredients at the same time: shredded coconut, tamarind paste, sweetened condensed milk among them. Above, the tamarind caramel before mixing, and below, after it was baked on top of the coconut shortbread, me pouring the melted chocolate-butter on top.

Time had to pass before the confection was set, so I enjoyed another splendid sunset with rainbow, and then enjoyed the tasty treat for dessert.

The first fire in the woodstove last night when it got unexpectedly cold after three days of blessed rainstorms. Wren wore her thunder shirt most of that time, and plopped down in front of the fire the minute it was lit. The hummingbirds still linger and vie for nectar with the yellowjackets, but they’ll both be gone before long. The mystery of the empty birdbath was resolved this morning when I looked out the window to see a doe drinking it down.

The three-day version of the mock sourdough wonder bread succeeded as well as the first effort, and I froze half the loaf to serve later this week after company arrives for awhile.

I’m getting a jump on food prep so I don’t have to spend too much time in my little kitchen while my guest is here, and made this beautiful improv marinated bean salad. The directions come from Samin Nosrat. I love her approach of suggesting ingredients and letting you do the rest how you like. I used kidney and pinto beans, cherry tomatoes, and fresh parsley and oregano, macerated red onion, and sliced cabbage from the garden, with a light olive oil and prosecco vinegar dressing. So simple, so delicious!

And finally, after the bread had cooled enough today to slice it, the first BLT of the season.

Tomato Night

Sep6

I woke this morning and considered how all the conditions of my mostly contented life have been dependent on tens of thousands of beings, human and otherwise. I’m grateful that this reflection has become habitual. I intended to focus on my blessings and sift attention away from my sufferings. But one negative thought led to another and I was soon swept onto a bad train and carried far from my intention.

Baking molasses cookies and then exercising for an hour with Mel both helped derail the glum train, and then a long meditation reset my perspective back on the right track. Just in time for zoom cooking with Amy.

It was so good to see her, it’s been a while. We started Tomato Night with a spontaneous tomato martini. We smashed a couple of cherry tomatoes into the shaker with a splash of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and the regular gin and vermouth, with another cherry tomato for garnish.

While eight ounces of cherry tomatoes roasted with olive oil and salt (for tomato butter), we mixed pesto with cream cheese and cut puff pastry to bake upside down tarts. Sliced tomatoes lay on parchment paper drizzled with olive oil and balsamic awaiting their pastry tops.

A quick egg wash, and into the oven for twenty minutes. While they baked we pulsed the roasted cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper, and mashed them with softened butter.

The tarts came out perfect, and we flipped them over to serve.

I toasted a slice of sourdough to dip in the butter, Amy had ciabatta. We sat down together miles apart for dinner. I’m grateful for the anchor of awareness flowing through the day, for the ability to consciously choose where I place my attention.