Tag Archive | Wren

Caketastrophe!

Feb19
Their time in DC was amazing. The number of people they gathered along their route to the Lincoln Memorial lifted my spirits, and the crowd that stood and listened to the closing ceremony was impressive.

I’m still following the Walk for Peace on Instagram, and reading articles about it as people including the monks reflect on what it meant for them, what it means for us. I enjoyed this article in Mindful.org, ‘An Invitation to Reimagine Where Peace Begins.’

“…the longer we resist offering our attention to these unhealed places, the more we will keep living through the reverberating echoes of those same wounds over and over and over again. Different possible futures are only made possible by first giving our loving awareness to what’s happening right now—even (maybe especially) when it surfaces sorrow, hopelessness, or anger that we’re not sure we can handle in the moment.”

It’s a good thing I’m practicing inner peace every day. In my Quest to bake birthday cakes, today’s has been rough! I started last night baking the cake and the cookies with which to decorate it. I got excited because the beaten egg yolks looked so perfectly aerated that I forgot to whip in the sugar before adding flour, so I had to add sugar last. I think it resulted in a slightly heavier batter that didn’t rise as much, but overall the cake itself was okay and the orange shortbreads were perfect.

The first attempt at white chocolate mascarpone frosting went horribly awry. I thought at first it was because I beat the butter and cheese at too high a speed: the recipe said the only thing you can do wrong is overmix it, and to beat it on medium til light and fluffy. Or maybe because the butter and cheese were different temperatures. But in retrospect I think it failed because I used the whisk attachment in addition to high speed. Anyway, I set that mess aside, grateful that I had another cup of mascarpone and another stick of butter. But that started to split too! Though the finished white frosting tasted delicious it looked rather like cottage cheese if you’d blended it just enough to make the curds really tiny. I was afraid to beat it longer to try to thicken it, in case that just made it split even worse! Piping was pointless, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try, and gooped up the silicone piping bag for no reason. There’s not much more challenging baking tool to wash than a piping bag; I see why people use disposables but can’t bring myself to waste plastic like that.

The lemon curd for the filling between layers turned out beautifully, though. And to salvage the split white frosting I whipped up a quick chocolate ganache, grateful that I had not used all the cream and that I had dark chocolate on hand. However, that also started to split! What? I think I know what happened there too: I added the chocolate to the hot cream in the hot pan, instead of adding hot cream to chocolate in a cold bowl, and the heat caused the chocolate to seize. I was able to salvage it, though, by tossing in a tablespoon of soft butter and whipping it, but that made it too thick to pour a thin layer over top. So the cake ended up with too much frosting of two kinds of chocolate that wouldn’t hold on the sides, and I was grateful I had the shortbreads which I’d planned to stick on there anyway. I took my tithe portion before frosting the cake and filled that missing space with shortbread also. I’d have been sent home from Bake Off with that cake, but instead of feeling I’d failed I chalked it up to practice. And isn’t that what this Birthday Cake Quest is all about, learning new skills? I learned a lot, and the Head Bitch at the Bad Dog Ranch was delighted with all the “many fun layers of yummies!” which is all that really matters.

After the cake was picked up, I dumped the split mascarpone/butter mix back into the Kitchenaid, and used the beater attachment to try to salvage that. It worked, sort of smoothing it, which is how I figured out that while the whisk might work for creaming butter and sugar, it doesn’t work for creaming butter and mascarpone. I was grateful that I have a flourishing herb garden in pots in the sunroom, where I harvested a handful of rosemary, oregano, parsley, sage, chives, and a little tarragon, which I minced and mixed into the butter blend with salt and pepper. All those fresh herbs left only a hint of vanilla from when it was destined to be frosting, and it turned into an adequate spread for toast for lunch, and topping for a baked potato for dinner. A busy and educational day in the kitchen!

I’m grateful, too, that we got a little snow the past few days, with more up in the mountains, but Colorado (the state and the river) are in dire drought this year regardless. That’s the real ‘tastrophe, as explained in this article from The Atlantic. Just before the snow fell I caught the first crocus blooms, and enjoyed a few sessions counting birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. Never mind that there were hardly any birds over the weekend, at least it got me and Wren outside. So just a few more things I’ve been grateful for this week:

Walk for Peace

Feb9
Sandra shared this illustration that someone sent her, knowing I would appreciate it.

Today the monks walked along US Rt. 1 from Woodbridge, VA to Alexandria. I watched some of it live on Facebook, and wept most of the time. Just before they stopped for lunch they walked past the apartment complex where I lived while I was helping my mother die, and shortly after that past the Home where my parents lived. After lunch at a Buddhist temple I never knew existed (and may not have back then) they walked past the fenced and multi-gated Fort Belvoir where my father worked at one point, and where I’ve spent time occasionally through the years since my childhood. People lined the road for miles, offering flowers, fruit, prayers, and other symbols of heartfelt thanks. Amy chanced to drive near there and reported “Traffic is insane. Police everywhere blocking off roads. People are leaving their cars and walking to get close to them. It’s very festive!”

The tears I shed were tears of pure emotion, mostly joy. Tomorrow they walk through a very dense part of Northern Virginia from Alexandria to Arlington, normally perhaps a twenty minute drive. And on Tuesday, they cross the Potomac River into the belly of the beast. Their full schedule for DC is here, and includes an interfaith ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, followed by a Unity Walk along Embassy Row. I encourage everyone to watch live as much as possible of their walk into our nation’s troubled capital: This needs to be witnessed. I have some anxiety about the official welcome they’ll receive.

Wednesday morning they’ll walk to the Peace Monument (after my time?) and Capitol Hill. After lunch they’ll walk to the Lincoln Memorial for a peace gathering and concluding ceremony, and from 4:30–7:30 PM ET they’ll lead a global peace meditation which will be live-streamed on their Facebook page. You can be sure I’ll be tuned in for that. Thursday they’ll cross into Maryland, speak at the Maryland State Capitol, and leave early afternoon to return home to Fort Worth, TX. What an astonishing thing they have done!

In between watching the monks and spending the afternoon and evening with televised sports spectacles like a regular American, Wren and I did a little spring cleaning at the pond. I was very careful not to disturb the frog that Wren didn’t notice, while she enthusiastically sought to disturb as much as she could. I didn’t see any other signs of life besides the one frog, but she may have. I used the marvelous SunJoe hedge clippers to cut back some of the rushes and grasses, but this is a before picture. Then we rested up with the Super Bowl sandwiched between Olympics. I tuned into football largely for the commercials (which weren’t that great imho) and for the marvelous halftime show, but also enjoyed watching the Seahawks trounce the Patriots. Maybe because I haven’t watched a Super Bowl in years, maybe because Bad Bunny put on a spectacular and moving show, maybe because everyone at the Olympics seemed happy (until Lindsey Vonn crashed) I surrendered all my “should dos” and worries, whipped up some onion dip, and thoroughly enjoyed escaping for the whole day into the illusion that everything is just fine. Tomorrow, it’s back to work strenuously cultivating inner peace and saving democracy.

Honeybun Fail

Feb7

We’ve been savoring morning coffee in the sunroom and busy in the kitchen the past few days. Choosing to attend to what brings peace and not the things I can’t control. Though I did make some calls to or email my elected federal representatives each day making my preferences known: impeach Trump, fire Noem, defund ICE, release the full unredacted Epstein files immediately, etc… oh, and thanks for supporting public lands, because thankfully all three of them seem to be doing at least that for Colorado.

The week’s sourdough rose beautifully and turned out perfectly.

But the honeybuns failed spectacularly. I’d been craving those gooey childhood sweet rolls for awhile, and Amy’s been helping hunt for a good recipe, but I used the first one I stumbled on because I liked the idea of rolling the dough into a snake for each bun instead of rolling it flat and then into a log and slicing it. They looked like they might turn out ok as they rose.

But they did not turn out ok at all. They baked tight with a hard crust, the exact opposite in every way of what they should have done. I’m grateful that with mindfulness, I get less upset and less often about the little things, like a honeybun fail. It didn’t upset me at all, just surprised me, and so I made the best of it. It wasn’t worth making the glaze but I had some leftover frosting in the fridge, which melted into a glaze on top, and then I sliced the buns open and spread frosting inside to invent a brand new sandwichcakebun. They’ll work well enough for me for a few breakfasts.

I’d also made some meringue because I needed space in the freezer so I had to use up the mini-phyllo shells and the frozen lemon curd. Those turned out pretty well, but then I had a lot of leftover meringue so I folded in some mini-chocolate chips but by the time I could get those in the oven the meringue had softened too much to pipe well. Oh well. They still tasted good.

Inspired by Cousin Mel talking about vegetarian chili I made a big batch of that with a simple recipe I found online, but which I can’t locate again and it was just common sense anyway. Chopped up onion, carrot, celery, and bell pepper small, minced garlic, mixed with chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper…

… chopped up some frozen roasted green chilis (more space in the freezer! but not much!), threw in a can of chopped tomatoes and three cans of beans with some water and cooked it down a bit…

… added a can of sweet corn and cooked some more, then served it with sour cream and grated hard cheddar for a hearty dinner.

I’ll be eating chili for a few days and watching winter Olympics, taking a mental health break from the cares of the world, and spending some time reading, meditating, and spring cleaning a little bit in the garden before the next snowstorm later this week. Practicing with cognitive dissonance. Eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Walk for Peace monks in Washington DC in three days, where they’ve invited monastics of all traditions to join them for various talks and walks in our troubled nation’s capital. I’m holding love and curiosity gently balanced as I wait and see what happens. May all beings find peace in their hearts.

A Small Cremation

Feb2

I woke to a startling warning text from Amy. I didn’t doubt her but wanted to know more. Eew. It didn’t take more than a minute reading to decide what to do next. I don’t want to see its invariable change. So I gently lifted it off the stem…

Eew. Sticky! Where did she come from? Will winter kill any others that might have laid their cottony egg sacs outside? It says they can hatch 600-800 eggs in a few days in summer but take a couple months in winter. Thank goodness I didn’t wait to see what happened!

Eew. Very sticky!

I tried to lay it on a paper towel but it was so sticky I had to spread it to get it off the tool. I couldn’t see any eggs so I used the handy zoom feature on my pocket supercomputer.

I considered my options for disposal of these pests. Definitely not the compost! Maybe garbage? I don’t like to kill any being, but nor did I want to risk them surviving and spreading. I decided on a ceremonial cremation, so I folded up the paper towel and set it on top of the woodstove to wait for tonight’s fire.

Wren supervised. I set the shroud on the floor to start the fire, and once it was blazing I tossed in the deceased mother and her hundreds of eggs. Goodbye, cottony cushion scale! Thanks Amy!

It Will Invariably Change

Feb1

After a foot of snow last weekend, the week has been cold and sunny, keeping the ground snow-covered.

Thursday was a good day to bake. I was out of bread, and the sourdough starter was low and feeble. So I followed dear Amy’s lead and baked these one-hour sourdough discard rolls again.

This time I made half a batch, and tucked a little pepperoni and cheese inside. I’d have put a smear of tomato sauce in, too, except there was a little mold on top so that went to the compost. I’m grateful for the process of composting, so that I feel no waste-guilt when I let food go bad: It all goes back to the garden. Still, I try to not waste food.

I love working with dough. I’ve got so much to learn. I was happy with these rolls but will refine them the next time. The way I filled and folded them, all the goodies ended up in the top half but they’re still pretty good.

I brushed the tops with an egg wash and sprinkled them with marigold salt. I enjoyed a couple warm out of the pan the first day, sliced and toasted one the next day with extra cheese on the bottom half, and the third day toasted and buttered one, served it with sweet onion jam and a fried egg.

Today I made a big batch of turkey tetrazzini with the Thanksgiving turkey that keeps on giving—more cheesy goodness. And spent some time tending the sunroom garden. It was restful self-care. I also attended the Upaya Zen Center teaching on courage and resilience, and listened to Francis Weller on caring for our souls in uncertain times. I’m grateful to have access to these supportive resources.

I’m also grateful to be able to offer resources to support others through the mindfulness course coming up on February 20, the Telesangha I lead weekday mornings, and other avenues. I’m grateful for the multiple mindfulness skills I continue to learn and practice daily which help me cultivate courage and resilience during this dark turning. It will invariably change.

I can hardly wait for the red yarn to arrive so I can join knitters around the world in making Melt the ICE hats. Amy bought the pattern from the Minneapolis yarn shop that created it and has raised nearly half a million dollars to support immigrants.

What is this curious little creature I found in the sunroom today? (The one above I mean, not the one below.) It’s doing whatever it’s doing on the trunk of the bonsai honeysuckle. I’ll just wait and see what happens, knowing it will invariably change.

Year of Birthday Cakes

Jan25
I saw the first mini irises popped up in the dry dirt on January 21, the earliest ever I think.

I want to be a helper. I am certainly grateful these days for the reminder to look for the helpers, when the wounds are so heavy. The contrast between the monks walking for peace across the south and the ICE thugs besieging Minneapolis is staggering.

Bird Buddy caught this lovely northern flicker Friday morning, just as the lightest snow began to fall.

The helpers, the good people with big hearts, are showing up in many thousands along the trail of the Walk for Peace monks; and the helpers generating compassion in action are showing up in the many thousands in the Twin Cities. It’s helpful to keep these many thousands of good-hearted Americans in mind.

By bedtime when I went to shut off the generator the snow was deep and heavy, weighing down birch limbs and wild rose stems almost to the ground.

My heart breaks for the VA nurse murdered yesterday and the mother murdered two weeks ago, and the two-year-old girl and the five-year-old boy and the fourth-grader and and and… I mean just imagine it for a second and it can’t help but break your heart (if you have one): a tiny child with no sense of what’s happening or why suddenly ripped away by strangers from all they know, and shipped to who knows where.

This morning the sun came out.

The sun coming out helped my heart yesterday. I remember the wisdom of the teachers that when I get mired in sadness because of anyone’s suffering I’m helping no one. I only help if I let that sadness morph into compassion and take action to alleviate the suffering of others. You can do it too. Call your congresspeople every day, show up in the streets if you’re able, write letters to editors, talk with friends and family, share reliable news sources with them if they’re blinded by propaganda from the regime. Do something to support the resistance: action is the antidote to anxiety. The stakes have never been higher.

Also, or if it’s all you can manage, do some random act of kindness for a neighbor, or a friend, or a stranger. And also: take care of your own nervous system. Everyone has their own unique capacities in each moment, each day. I took the weekend off, mostly, from screen time, from news, and still it was hard to relax. There’s this dreadful undercurrent, against which happiness, joy, and gratefulness become acts of resistance. So I spent the weekend in the kitchen, mostly, baking for friends and neighbors in gratefulness for their kindness.

Watching as much GBBO as I do, I got to feeling that there are too many great cakes and not enough birthdays. It’s time to step up my cake game, and anything you want to get good at requires practice. So I decided that I’d try to bake a birthday cake for everyone in my found family here this year. Clearly I can’t ship them to Portland, Florida, Santa Cruz, Virginia, Alabama, etc., but if I can drive it I aspire to bake it.

Today was devoted to a Bake Off worthy birthday cake for Neighbor Mary. The challenge I set myself was creative fillings, so I made white chocolate ganache and piped it around the bottom layer because that’s what the bakers on the show do. I don’t know why. I covered the first layer with ginger jam and a thin layer of the ganache.

Atop the second layer I smoothed the last of the raspberry and hibiscus jam, sorry there wasn’t more of it but committed to it once I started. I didn’t want to mix it with any other jam and get judged for sloppy flavors. (Does Paul Hollywood say sloppy flavors? I don’t think so.) I didn’t have a time limit and two kitchen icons waiting to judge me, but I can’t say that it wasn’t a bit stressful. But the fun kind of stress, where you’re stretching your capacities in your growth zone, like on the show.

I did have a deadline and some important distractions throughout the day. I was glad I had paced the elements, baking in the morning so it could cool completely, making the ganache before lunch so it had time to cool enough to whip, and starting assembly immediately after my family zoom so I could deliver before dark.

I covered the whole cake with chocolate cream cheese buttercream. Please recall that piping was not the challenge. Piping does challenge me, and I easily loaded the piping bag with a trick I saw on Instagram from Blue Cottage Bakery, so I gave myself a pat on the back for that step in the right direction. I scribbled the remaining ganache on top, plunked the cake in a Chewy delivery box, ripped the snow cover off the windshield dislodging six inches of frozen snow, and drove around the block just after sunset.

Neighbor Mary was thrilled. Her delight and joy was the icing on the cake for me. I begged her to wait for her birthday tomorrow to cut it, but she wanted to send me home with my tithe tonight so she cut a sliver for herself as well. (That’s my tithe above, and her sliver below. Obviously, I need to taste test all the birthday cakes so I can judge for myself.)

As she tasted and swooned over the various components, I told her what they were. I waited til the end to tell her what kind of cake it was. I wanted to capture her reaction for all time. “It’s a chocolate mayonnaise cake,” I said, camera ready.

“Yay mayonnaise!!!”
If you were wondering about the first cake picture, in the mixing bowl, now you know: white sugar, brown sugar, and lots of mayonnaise.
Obligatory Wren picture to share the joy: So often when I get up from the couch during TV time, to fuel the fire or refill my water glass or feed the cat, a line from ‘Cecelia’ sings to mind: “…when I come back to bed someone’s taken my place.”
And just to give Topaz equal time: it’s a little blurry because she’s always looking around, but for one remarkably rare moment yesterday she sat on my lap.

Equanimity

Jan20

It’s felt both lovely and freaky to sit down at the pond for awhile almost every day this birthday week. Meditating, reading, sipping tea, pondering the implications of this dry, warm January. It doesn’t bode well for summer, but it does encourage savoring the present moment.

The future of the planet feels urgently precarious these days, more than ever before, with its fate literally in the hands of a tragically mad tyrant. How is it possible that no one seems able or willing to stop him?

From Instagram
Much love and many fun things came on my birthday, including stickers both whimsical and political.
I got the best laugh when I brought down the mail on my birthday, and in the first package I opened found this adorable card—and there was another one in the next envelope! What are the odds? I felt seen and known.

There have always been mad tyrants, but it’s the exponential scale of the chaos he’s sowing that’s existentially terrifying. Quotidian delights feel both less relevant and more precious. It takes sustained effort to hold awareness of national and global events, participate in resistance, and still experience inner peace and stability. I guess the good lord never gives you more than you can handle, or at least that’s what they say. Maybe that’s why I’ve been obsessed with personal discomfort, it’s easier than focusing on international calamity.

Celebrating various angles on this spectacular orchid as the sun lights it through the day.

I confess to feeling a little disappointed. I had pinned my hopes for some relief on an appointment with a new dentist tomorrow, which got canceled this afternoon. I’ve been waiting six weeks for this. The incremental improvement that has crept along for six months more or less plateaued around the holidays, and I’m left with several areas of constant and distracting discomfort, plus occasional pain and some anxiety about longterm tooth health.

The house sparrows continue to roost in the wild rose, challenging Wren’s equanimity or delighting her, not sure which.

Teeth are hitting and clacking that aren’t supposed to. Chewing, especially soft foods, is the sensory equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard. The lower jaw remains stiff and forward of where it should be, with tension along the lower right jaw; at rest my mouth won’t close without effort. My tongue feels too big for my mouth, and a hundred times a day I consciously release it from twisting and pressing into the upper right front teeth; internal pressure in that jaw fans up into my cheek and eye bones, into a low-grade headache most of the time. And some other stuff.

The tame roses that came for my birthday continue to delight me with their vibrant colors.

I just wanted to tell all this to someone who might be able to explain and help. For six weeks I’ve been documenting symptoms and rehearsing/trying not to rehearse what I would say to the new dentist. Maybe writing it down here will help me quit rehashing the narrative in my head, and free me to simply live each moment without the burden of story.

Pickled red onion has become one of my favorite condiments. For so long it was a hasty afterthought, but this week I planned it and made a whole pint so I could use it generously in sandwiches and salads.

The original dentist who did the crowns left the practice, and her partner did a couple of follow ups but then quit. She told me in December that whatever is going on with me now has nothing to do with her partner’s work, “it’s been too long.” None of these symptoms is new: they have all been ongoing since July, and have fortunately decreased with time. I have resisted paying the balance on work that I believe was badly done. We are at a mutually resentful impasse.

But my disappointment at the cancellation was tempered in the same instant as learning of it. “The doctor has a medical emergency she needs to take care of,” the message said, “and she’ll be out of the office for a few weeks.” I called back to offer well wishes and reschedule. “We’ve got a lot of calls to make,” she said. “We don’t even know the extent of it yet.” My heart sank for the dentist, for her staff, for her family. Was it herself? A child, a parent? It could be anything. Compassion rose immediately, eclipsing disappointment and curiosity. And I’m grateful for that.

Little Wren warming by the pond this morning.

There was a time when disappointment about my personal situation or fear about global unrest would have been the defining emotion of my day, but mindfulness practice has transformed my perspective. The two boundless qualities of equanimity and compassion have truly found a foothold in my heart, balancing the more afflictive emotions that still reside there.

From Instagram: Venerable Samma Maggo has left the Walk for Peace to return to his dwelling place in France. He walked bent over his hiking poles, keeping pace with his brothers, with deep concentration. At rest stops, he radiated peace with the most beatific expression. May I emulate his courage and commitment.

Savoring Connections

Dec19

Moments of joy came throughout the week from connections with friends. Jennifer sent this marvelous photo last weekend of a redtail hawk perched on her fire escape in downtown San Francisco. I’m grateful for friendships through the years and across the country, new and old, simple and complex, in person and online. With the common ground of mindfulness and gratefulness, I’ve formed meaningful friendships with people I may never meet in person.

I had hoped to be generous with the three leftover lemon tartlets, but only managed to give away one of them. The other two I savored for breakfast last weekend. I found a little pot of leftover cream cheese frosting in the fridge, so I topped the first tart with that and the last raspberries.

The final tart cried out for a little leftover lemon curd since there was only a lonely dollop of icing left. I’ll definitely make these again.

My Colorist friend sent this gorgeous Christmas card she created. She explained that the passion flower represents “the Passion of Christ in all its beauty and terror,” with Mary “looking adoringly at and embracing the end of Jesus’s earthly life instead of the beginning” as in traditional nativity scenes this season. And of course, the sumptuous colors.

She also introduced me to the Hugo Spritz in her comment on my last post. I made mine without the prosecco using soda water only for the bubbles to give it less of a kick.

I’m grateful that grownup vitamins come in gummies too.

I sometimes wonder where the day goes, these short winter days. It seems like I get the bare minimum done and then it’s dark. One fun task each day is feeding the birds, and an especially meditative part of it is spreading the Bark Butter on various limbs and posts. Bark Butter, created by the founder of Wild Birds Unlimited, is a “spreadable suet” that includes peanut butter and corn. I put it out for the nuthatches who love it, but the jays come to devour it too.

A local friend sent this picture of an anomalous goose down in Delta with a flock of Canada geese (genus Branta). INaturalist identifies it with 100% certainty as belonging to the Grey Goose clan (genus Anser). A delightful conundrum.
This week’s sourdough, with a seasonal star.

I’m grateful for the great healthcare I receive from Delta Health, one of the many rural hospitals threatened by the Republicans’ healthcare plan which Andy Borowitz says is “Move to Canada.” I had a late afternoon appointment with my PCP for a checkup. I love her. She’s quick, thorough, listens well, trusts me with decisions, and we have had some hearty laughs, especially last week. And then the drive home from town was exquisite. I’m so rarely out of my little hollow at sunset, it was a treat.

My friends Ted and Cathey live about 80 miles north of Selma, Alabama, where the Walk for Peace monks stopped midday today, then walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. My whole day was infused with the joy of knowing my friends were there, carrying a little piece of my heart with them. Ted posted this and more photos on his daily blog, and will share more tomorrow.

This week of savoring friendships included some great phone conversations with friends from Florida to Virginia to Oregon, all of which also included some hearty laughter, such balm for the sorrowing soul in these dark times. Tonight’s small new moon/early Solstice gathering wrapped up this past week like a gift. The bonfire was slow to start but quick to burn, and safe in the bottom of an empty, muddy irrigation pond.

Grateful to feel safe in the bosom of my found family, I yet held in my heart the sorrow of those who lost beloved children, parents, friends, and family in mass shootings this week, to murder, to starvation, to climate catastrophes like floods and landslides, and so many more ways the ravages of human depravity manifest.

May I grow in understanding and compassion, and may my thoughts, words, and actions contribute to peace in this world. May all people grow in understanding and compassion, and may their choices contribute to peace in this world.

At the height of our ritual fire, the FedEx truck came down the driveway and a pack of dogs from three households ran barking off to greet him. He’s a great guy, we’re all grateful for Scott, and so are the dogs because he gives them treats. I whistled for Wren and she didn’t come, I got up and called and finally yelled for her, and still she didn’t come—but then I looked to the left and saw her trying to get to me through the fence—poor baby! She had probably come right away, but she came the wrong way and got stuck on the other side of the studio. I stepped through and gathered her up and held her close the rest of the evening. She’d had on her parka, but still got chilly, and has been sleeping next to me or on the heating pad ever since we got home.

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.

Gemini Full Moon

Dec4

I was grateful today for abundant sunshine to charge the solar panels and melt a little ice once I’d shoveled the paths again. And to lift the spirits of many of us.

I was astonished to look out the west window and see a doe chewing on an old shed antler that was ornamenting the garden. She munched on it for a long time while her fawn nibbled some leaves under the snow. It reminded me it was lunchtime.

Today I was grateful for the last two slices of bread which I dressed with peanut butter and jam. But yesterday, as cold and grey as it was, I was really happy to make a grilled cheese sandwich. I used mayo on both slices but then remembered I had a smidge of that tomato butter Amy and I made back in September. I’d pulled it from the freezer to make room for turkey stock and been using it up all week. So I spread that on one side, layered cheddar and Havarti on the other, and closed the sandwich. Then I tried a trick we’d seen on Instagram, to spread mashed potatoes on the outsides of the bread before grilling.

It must have not been the right kind of potato. It looked great, but the bread was actually less crispy than a usual butter or mayo grilled cheese. I topped it with the single harvest from the hydroponic tomato experiment, which also looked great but felt like a little marble so I gave it to Wren for last bite.

My little philosopher…

It was a lovely day. After lunch I edited some meditations, including this one from my dear departed friend Cynthia Wilcox. The timing was perfect for “Sensing into Boundaries.” As I was editing it someone came to the door that I just couldn’t attend to in that moment and Cindy’s guidance supported me.

And before I knew it, the short day was over. I made sure not to miss the rising of the Gemini Full Moon, whatever that means. A friend had mentioned it this morning as meaningful to her, and later texted after she watched it rise six hours earlier in London. I’d been upstairs waiting for it but remembered I had to run out and dump the birdbath before it froze, and just as I got there the moon peeked over the mountains.

The birdbath was already frozen. We came inside after this shot. I love how the farthest peaks of Mount Gunnison are still in alpenglow and the moon highlights a ridge I’d never realized was part of the distant mountain.

These last two are through the window so there’s a bit of distortion. I considered what my friend had said, and looked up the significance of this moon. Yoga Journal offered a full and mindful analysis from which I’ve excerpted this:

“What makes this full Moon particularly potent is how Gemini teaches us that reality is malleable. The stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what is possible for us, and what we deserve directly shape our experiences. When we change our internal narrative, we change our external world. This is the secret power of Gemini—it shows us that a simple shift in perspective can unlock doors we didn’t even know existed.”