Pie and Cake

Thanksgiving Pie

Pear.
A little apple.
Maybe a cup of blueberries.
Maybe a half cup cranberries.
Juice of a meyer lemon, plus zest.
Fresh grated ginger. A little honey. Some cinnamon.
And a splash of some weird maple whiskey and some fancy pear brandy.

Butter/flour/water crust with a bit of bacon grease, too.

Most of the fruit went into the pie

And there was enough leftover for cake today

I made it very similarly to this cake, except instead of cornmeal and pecans, I used the fruit. Instead of flour, almond meal, and oats, I used one cup corn flour and one cup coconut flour. I used a yogurt, apple cider, milk blend for the liquid (and it needed much more than one cup). I did not put any spices in the batter this time, because there was a lot of spice in the fruit.

I also made pumpkin bread with chopped dark chocolate bars today

angel love baker

Enjoy.

Gather the Spirit

Gather the Spirit; Harvest the Power
Our separate fires will kindle one flame
Witness the mystery of this hour
Our trials in this light appear all the same

Gather in peace, gather in thanks
Gather in sympathy now and then
Gather in hope, compassion and strength
Gather to celebrate once again

Gather the Spirit growing in all
Drawn by the moon, and fed by the sun
Winter to Spring, and Summer to Fall
The chorus of life resounding as one

Gather in peace, gather in thanks
Gather in sympathy now and then
Gather in hope, compassion and strength
Gather to celebrate once again

Sing out. Loud. It feels good.

Happy Thanksgiving.




Peace.

Time Flies Like An Arrow, Fruit Flies Like A Banana

Me, as a tipsy hot babe
(taken 20+ years ago)

Putting the Garden to Bed for Winter

pea volunteer

happy arugula

jill and shawna in yesterday's rain

muddy shawna

first clearing of main garden
(the carrots can stay for now)

extending the bed in the back garden

jill and shawna prepare the beds for compost

delivery

compost!

the main garden

the back garden

ready for garlic

wise man for another season

Thanks, Jill and Shawna.

I can haz this house?

Please?

pecan cake

It was a rainy, cold gray day today. Perfect for inventing cake. Loosely based on a pineapple upside down cake recipe, but with a sprinkle of cornmeal and some Trader Joe's sweet & spicy pecans where the pineapple and cherries should be.

I also used regular flour (what is cake flour, anyway?) and increased the flour to two cups (I used a flour, almond meal, and oats blend). I also increased the milk to one cup and melted the butter. For some odd reason, I used two teaspoons of baking powder. I used brown sugar instead of white. And added ginger and cinnamon.

Some of the pecans stuck to the pan when I turned it over, so I scooped them out and put them in the center.

Yum.

The Gleaners

Yay! Thanks to the amazing Shawna and Jill, we will have garden potatoes for Thanksgiving!

The amazing Shawna and Jill

Yeah, I knew I'd missed a few potatoes when I harvested with the girls.

I guess I missed more than a few.

Thank you Jill and Shawna.

I am enjoying reading this book

Stop Forgetting to Remember, by Peter Kuper.

When I was looking for some new graphic novels to read a while back, this book passed my thumb-through inspection in the shop, so I bought it. I didn't know what to expect, only having this book from Peter Kuper in my collection. It turns out, Stop Forgetting to Remember, is laugh-out-loud funny. At least for me. At least for now. [Full disclosure: I also find Kafka laugh-out-loud funny.]

I am completely identifying with the main character's trajectory into adulthood (though he did many more drugs than I did) and parenting. This morning, when I could barely drag myself out of bed to get the girls ready for school, I read a few pages describing his new father days, and laughed enough to get up to face the day.

These are the pages that gave me the strength to get out of bed laughing
(it was also a good place to stop, 'cause it's the end of a chapter).

I am enjoying the art, as well. I particularly like recognizing shops and buildings from my New York City days of youth.

I am also thinking of two friends from my community as I read, NTodd and AndyG, who recently became new fathers. I think of their partners, too, of course, ERG and E (yes, I think she has a blog, too, but I can't remember where). It's just that, since the main character in this book is male, the birthing and parenting scenes are from his perspective. Since I'm a single parent, I do both parts (smiley face here). The following two pages, in particular, made me think of the boys.







With all of the daily drawing I'm doing, and all of the graphic novels I've been reading, life has begun to look a lot like a comic book. Here is a little comic relief from my own life from yesterday. No, I don't always ask the girls to help me off with my boots, but I did yesterday, and they were happy to oblige.










Peace.

Garden Frost This Morning

I don't think these second generation carrots like the frost

the pink of the zinnias in August

The kale salutes the sun (or at least awaits its warmth to burn off the frost)

The same spot three months ago

And still the birds are singing

The summer garden photographs were taken from this post (you can click on them to enlarge the view there).



Peace.

For m.heart

My thoughts are with my friend m.heart and her family.

This photograph is from the downtown farmers' market on a summer Saturday.





Peace.

Habits and Addictions, Routines and Rituals

Was it as I was indulging my habit of wandering and looking around the house as I grind my morning coffee that I looked out the pantry window and saw this view into the garage? Or perhaps it was during the sunny afternoon routine of doing laundry that it caught my eye. Was it addiction that forced me to grab my camera? And what of my ritual of sharing photographs on the blog with you?

In the week without computer, I nearly became addicted to solitaire (the card kind), and reading graphic novels, though I did not become addicted to drawing. Trying to make drawing a daily habit has been very difficult for me. Where does creating art fit in a life committed to taking care of other people, especially when I barely keep up with all the mundane tasks involved in running a household? And how come I can make room for blogging?!

As for the photograph...

The metal angel candle holders are a gift from my mother. She had sent two when my family was two, then she was happy to find and send a third when I had another child. As soon as the seasons turn dark, we add the ritual of lighting candles at the dinner routine.

I found the 7-up bottle at one of my favorite local houses, Grave's Farm, after the brothers Grave had died, but before the house had been renovated and turned into a bed & breakfast, and the land had become part of Mass Audubon. I have a habit of searching for and saving rusty things. I found some rusty buckets and tools along with this soda bottle and some old magazines there on some of my routine bike rides past the farm. I also once drew an ink sketch of the tree out front.

I gave the original drawing to a friend, this is a photograph of a color copy

Whiskey. I'm not sure when I first fell in love with the word (and for me, it always has an 'e'). Perhaps it came from my childhood: there have been addictions in my family (but I managed to escape them). I associate the word not only with country music (it's hard to front a band named Whiskey Ina without being gifted with lots of whiskey--Ooh! I like the double meaning there!), but also poverty and passion, pirates and poets, a black & white movie of a life lived. And, heck, the Knob Creek bottles are cool.

The tea cannisters are from back in the days before the french press came to live here. Before I made coffee at home, I was mostly a tea drinker. I have the bad habit of keeping cannisters and tins, thinking I might use them for something someday. Oh, the many projects that see light only in my mind, more rusty treasures.

The spiderwebs are courtesy of the spiders.

I'm Back!

the flu
pencil on paper, 6x5 inches

I've been gone for a week. And now, just like that, I'm back. All hail mighty electricity.

My old computer cord could not be coaxed into working any longer so I shut the machine down and contemplated my fate. The girls like me better when I have no computer access at home. My books and newspapers like me better, too.

In the mix of contemplation was a household full of flu. In all its swiney-ness, it was mostly just fever and cough. The girls are both better and were back to school today, so I decided it was time to fix the computer.

I had gone to the computer store downtown last Saturday. I had heard they were a bad store, but I decided to try anyway. They had a cord for $70, but if I took it home and it didn't work, they'd charge me a 15% restocking fee to return it. Factor in their less-than-helpful attitude and I left the store empty handed.

This morning, I looked in the phone book for other computer stores. I can't believe, in our hippy groovy town, there isn't a friendly mac store. Perhaps there's one in Amherst. Anyway, I found a listing for a store over the bridge. So there I went. It turned out to be a repair shop (Yeah, I could've called first, but I had other errands I needed to do over the bridge anyway). However unlike the computer store in my town, these folks were very friendly. They suggested I go to the Apple store in the mall (even though I never go to the mall). They assured me the folks there were also very friendly.

Sure enough, they were. At the Apple store, they let me plug in my computer using one of their cords to determine if that was indeed my problem. How delighted I was when the machine came to life, and there I was, still online at my blog (where I had been when it crashed)! I had 205 new emails! My virtual world was still alive!

I bought a new cord, then moseyed down to eyeball all the fancy new machines. I started talking to one of the salespeople and he surprised me by suggesting I keep my old machine, just get out of Panther. He said he would need to know how much memory I had, to see if I could go to Leopard. I asked if we could plug in my machine with my new plug and take a look. We did (I need more memory). He searched online for a place that still sells memory for my machine. He also searched for the (high) cost of Leopard (which we added to my wishlist). The whole time he was talking to me and searching online, he was also using his computer cleaner to clean my machine! It's never had a bath before (don't tell my dad), and gosh, it looks as good as new now.

[Full disclosure: the cord actually cost $79 at the mall, but it was an Apple cord rather than the generic one at the store downtown, if that means anything. I asked if they would charge me a restocking fee if I returned it, and they said they only charge restocking fees for things with serial numbers, like computers, not for cords. Of course, I won't need to return it because they let me try their cord before I bought one to make sure that was my problem!]

It's good to be back. Though I feel guilty that the girls are in the kitchen building a cardboard city and I'm in here reading and writing. Hmm... And contemplating.