Keeping In ProportionAs of late, I have been cooking and baking far more with ratios than actual amounts. An example: breakfast these days is more often than not a construction of 1:1:1:some:some, with a side of "put enough coffee in the basket of the moka pot so that it doesn't explode". The coffee to milk ratio is not 1:1, but it is close. The trick I've discovered for fresh pasta is one large egg to three quarter cups of semolina, and make an egg's worth for each person showing up at table. The pizza dough is a 2:1:some:some an some again of flour, water, yeast, oil, and salt, respectively. More flour gets tossed around during the kneading, but that always happens, so I won't include that in the formula, and in cases like this it always seems best to me to simply toss all the numbers right out the window and let my hands figure out if the dough is a reasonable thing yet.
This makes me something of a heretic, in the storied tradition of baking. I find it odd and funny that I know longer actually have any idea of how to make bread anymore that I am able to transmit, just that I do it. I have worked hard to reach this point.
On the way back from work I was walking with a friend at the top of the long hill that is Murray as we were weighing merits of routes homeward. He mentioned that I could very well stop at the new Chinese bakery that we both had thought was a cafe, proceeding homeward with armloads of baked goods. This did not exactly happen, but: they have buns, stuffed with things, baked every morning there in the store. More: they have buns, stuffed with red bean paste, baked every morning there in the store. The bread is golden, airy, with a light sweetness, and the beans lurking inside have a light sweetness too, but coming from a different direction, dark and rich. I bought two.
I will have to go back to try the cookies.
FruitThe wild grape vines are springing from the hillside again, finding ways skyward, making teasing attempts with the fences that I really need to pull out and replace with something more grape-resistant. The use the shrubs for scaffolding, curling up in piled masses on the top like cats on televisions, back before televisions became things where that sort of trick was not difficult. If I let them, the vines will work their way up the stay cable of the utility pole, and I do not want to see the end of that story; I engage in creative editing when they try. Folks ask me what the grapes taste like, but I do not know. I've never gotten any. There are particular ways one must stress a grape vine to make them yield fruit, and I have neither the knowledge nor the focus this season to take them to task. I have no doubt that they will return for me next year. And this year.
It is not yet time for plums. I swung by the markets late this afternoon, pleased to see that the farmers had once again taken up their weekly space at the firehouse, saddened that they were already closing up. In the produce place, I found no plums, but apricots instead, along with some good potatoes. The apricots are sweet, and the stone falls free so easily from them, so easy to snap up in little juicy halves. The apricots not yet eaten sit on a plate in the kitchen, fat and plump. I have perhaps room for apricot trees in the side yard. That may be a good choice, to go with hazelnuts.
There are tells of berries on the gooseberry shrub - the good man at the nursery made mention that I might get fruit this season, but I had not believed him. The raspberries are quiescent, but otherwise seem happy. The rhubarb is strong this year, but I think it may be one other or two before I can start lopping stalks for pies. The wizened horseradish is flowering, and something is eating all the leaves off the bush beans. So it goes.
In the front yard, mixed in with all the ornamentals, the strawberries are fighting a war on two fronts. In the mulched patch they are mingling with the feverfew, each upon the other the claim new territory. By far more spectacular are those hardy scouts that have wondered out into the lawn, where I dare not mow now. They sit tall with happy broad leaves, rising through the shouldering grasses. Once they are done, I will move them so I can mow again. For now, though, they are a field army of little white flowers. With each and every one, a small promise of sweetness.
I may even get enough for jam.
A Brief Respite From Our Regularly Scheduled ProgrammingThere was a small set of confluence this evening; I was listening to Trio Mediaeval's latest, dulcet, impossibly blended Nordic Sopranos accompanied by a gentleman percussionist adroit with, amongst other things, a jawharp. The combination begins strange, but rapidly warms. I set that down to watch Clay Shirky's talk about sitcoms for a bit, as the storms came thrumbling in.
Somewhere in there I got into a YouTube duel with Mr. Referent. I get into these with my brother from time to time - entire conversations consisting of YouTube links, each a play upon the last, each a step further into the strange and beautiful. YouTube is a good medium for this. Mr. Referent opened up his hand and offered up the live performance of a piece titled Baiana, by Barbatuques. Some thoughts came to mind, in rough order:
I'm pretty sure somewhere in there that man is throat singing whilst playing a jawharp.
And: if he isn't, well then why not.
And: why am I not learning to do that right now.
So I step out across the web in search of a good instrument, and I end up at the virtual shop of a gentleman in Port Costa, California who makes high-quality, hand crafted jaw-harp muskets.
Tomorrow should be interesting.
The GreeningI have never lived anywhere that did not have the steady punctuation of seasons, the quaternary turn from the quiet repose of winter to summer's furious sun and then back again. I am offered both comfort and surprise by these transitions, each and every time. The wet snuffly nose of spring is on us now, putting the warm smells of waking earth and walking rains into the air to fill it. In this place it's a capricious thing, spring. I am glad the tomatoes are safe and tiny under their little artificial sun. They will want to keep their feet warm, and the ground outside is not there yet. The peas, on the other hand, do not mind it out there at all, and I am hoping they will soon completely wake and thrive, pumping good into the earth for the nightshades to take back up again.
This morning, I took to work the long way, down behind the lip of the hill and over the old bridges. I did it to become a little more familiar; I do not take that path as often as I should. The trees around were close and leafing out, new young leaves that are still stretching, still an electric green.
This evening, I walked home with a storm at my heels. I took the high route, so as to be closer to the sky and be better able to keep an eye behind. Gloom boiled there, lit from within by bashful lightning. The rain was falling out there, too, some four miles distant and closing while I was yet only half way home, a strange grey part of the sky that ended on the left in a razor-sharp diagonal against the blue and white behind. I was safe home with a coffee before it overran us all with a brief whirl of wind and wet, with rumblings that shook the panes in their sashes.
The birds sing their songs, punctuated by the distant cracks of aluminum bats sending out arcs on the yonder ballfield. They sing even into twilight these days; birdsong in twilight.
Upon RefractionI was talking with a friend the other day; the subject of anonymity came up. I pointed out that I think I've already somewhat lost that particular battle - I said instead I would reach for inscrutability, for which I at least have an outside chance to cultivate. It came up again in the company of Mr. Koan at a little gathering that was in effect this weekend, the doing of which I got to play a tiny part in. It was good to speak with him again.
And I should say, too: that was one thank of a gathering.
As I said, I was only a tiny part of the vast mechanics that spun behind the very successful thing, and other smaller successful things. I know this to be true, if only in part because I had enormous amounts of time to have ridiculous amounts of fun, for which I am incredibly thankful. It was all amazingly humbling and constructive and good, and in the end I think the best and proudest part was this, over and over, in every worthy sense:
We ate together; we ate well.
Rubus and RibesThe small carnival of cardinals found the yard festive this morning, venturing out from the big pine to skitter and thrash in the brambles, caught up in chase and play. Above is a wide and long sky of blue, and the light is strong from the sun. Insects bob and weave in the changing air, making investigations. A lovely starter.
The gooseberry is in the ground, and the raspberries are, too. The former is in partial shade, but I am given to understand that it will not mind that much. The soil it sits in is a bit sandy, and I worry about that more. The raspberries are in good loam, in mostly sun, and I have high hopes that they will do well there, in among the other shrubs. I do not expect fruit this year, but perhaps the next. It will be worth waiting.
The rhubarb is up, in small ways - it will be another year (at least) until I can begin to harvest there. The horseradish is strong in its barrel (who could expect otherwise?) and the other barrel is showing small signs of life from the perennial herbs. The peas are small, but reaching up. The strawberries are running riot in the lawn.
Some work is future work. It's good work.
FramingThere is a light in the basement, connected to a simple clock. It makes attempts to mimic the day. Under it are lots of little things, including peas. The peas are standing up straight, little tendrils testing, reach up for something but only finding each other in an architectural embrace. In the evenings I prise them apart again. It is high time to put them out.
I was going to put together frames of wood, but I was instead offered old information: use sticks, went the lore. Find old branches and lean 'em against the house. The peas will use 'em. Upon consideration, they said, too: PVC pipe?
Something about that immediately made sense. It would be easy to cut lengths to fit. I could find ready-made joints to handle the crossbars. I could put slightly larger pipe in the ground as an anchor, then leave them in for winter with caps. I could drill holes through and make a ladder of twine for the peas. So I trundled you to the places one can buy those sorts of things, trundled back with a pile of plumbing, and spent a happy afternoon in the basement putting it all to right.
There was something remarkably like play in the construction. I was down there with very serious tools and very serious raw materials, only to have it all turn into lovely, chuckling fun. It was Lego, it was erector sets, it was growing onions under a virtual sun, except this time I got to carry it all outside and put it in place, ready for little shoots reaching for the light. Today I built a jungle gym for peas. I bet it'll work.
The real onions are doing well, and the chives, too. The parsley has lifted above the soil in stall timid bits, but will soon grow monstrous. The hosta is up, and the rhubarb (miracle!) is too.
Settle in.
All content under copyright by the author. Dancing is permitted. The strange deltic glyphs in the sand under tidal flow are a pleasure to watch in their deepening. Offer not valid in Kansas. We put it down and then we lost it. It all happens in the corner of the eye. Mail accepted for the bears in the basement. We have a dog, but we do not own it. Thank you.