As we all navigate what might turn out to be a brand-new world, it helps to go to the water, our place of origin, and to just listen to it meet the shore.
I don’t like to “interpret” a poem, as I feel there is more value in a person coming to it whole, without preconceptions. Please enjoy.
The Adjustments
When coffee first arrived in Europe,
It was referred to as “Arabian wine.”
In turn-of-the-century San Francisco,
The Bank of America began as the Bank of Italy.
When Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519,
Moctezuma II greeted him warmly, and kissed his hand.
All of that. We are amazed by the smallest of things
Coming before us, the facts that seem so strange to us now
As we live in their opposite rooms.
In 1935, reports say, when Isaac Bashevis Singer
Arrived in New York, he was thirty years old
And could speak only three words in English:
“Take a chair.”
But then he learned other words. It helped.
We’re gonna go ahead and start this party with a little bit of shirtless Prince at his live birthday show in Detroit in 1986. If I am honest, as I always try to be, I will say that I was not the rabid Prince fan that many of my friends were. HOWEVER. You cannot argue that this man was incredibly talented and his loss left a gaping hole. Plus, his shows are fun to watch. So enjoy.
I know – I am supposed to write some intriguing words about each of the links, but this one doesn’t need it. It’s a simple little story about a Korean author ordering noodles from a local shop in New York. Touching and beautiful and hopeful all at once. Also, it may have influenced me in making the customizable noodle bowls pictured above. The recipe is from Nadiya Hussein’s somewhat saccharine but nevertheless charming Netflix show.
Sigh. Following up on that is arguably the dumbest argument happening on the internet, and that’s saying a lot. There is some backlash about the trend of long stories prior to recipes online. If you have read any of the recipes on this blog, you can pretty much guess where I land on this non-controversy. But what do you think? Do you like a long, personal story before the recipe, or do you prefer a simple headnote and then the recipe?
And ending on a low note, which I don’t like to do but sometimes it BEES that way, here’s a depressing AF article about how many small farms are going under by the end of 2020. Our food system is sick, and small farmers are taking a huge hit. Dan Barber, chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York discusses why this is and what we might do to muddle through.
All that to say, for now, STAY THE FUCK HOME. Cases are slowing because IT’S WORKING. If we can not be toddlers about this, maybe we can actually prevent some illness and death. Is that shirt you’re fingering on the rack worth your grandma’s life? How about that cocktail on a rooftop deck?
Presenting the Tipsy Forager. Props to KWeeks for the name.
So you may have noticed very little (any?) food content here on this blog lately, a so-called food blog that has been o’er taken by poems and links from other people and merely passable iPhone pictures of the woods and the water.
Sometimes it’s all I can do these days to put my feet on the floor before I begin to feel ALL OF THE FEELINGS. It’s my watery Pisces nature, friends. I cannot shut it out, and sometimes feelings just get in the way of other things.
But I have been writing and painting and (sort of) working on a website re-design and teaching myself how to draw and either going for a long walk or doing yoga (and sometimes both) every day.
I have also been in the kitchen doing a variety of things. First, creating recipes for the incredible human behind Full Moon Acupuncture for her seasonal Renewal that will launch sometime in September. I will post individual recipes in the fall, in support of her work and to just share what is going to be a delicious group of ten dinners and five lunches (plus some bonus sauces/dressings). But recipe development is not always the most exciting blog topic.
I have been making cookies out of the freezer – big, glorious, crunchy/chewy chocolate chip cookies that I eat (at least) three at a time. These are lifesavers, especially since I am dedicated to staying out of stores and only pick up groceries through PeaPod once every ten days or so.
And because I am technically still writing and illustrating a book on foraging that may or may not be a go in 2021, I am wandering fields and forests and gathering food. Sunday’s expedition was to Cromwell Valley Park, for a bonanza of blue spruce tips.
Blue spruce tips are exactly what they sound like: the vibrantly green new growth that occurs at the very end of pine branches in the spring. Each pine has its own specific flavor, some of which are a bit too resinous and astringent for eating straight out of hand. Blue spruce tips, especially when young, have a bright citrus-y flavor with endnotes of pine – it is astringent and perhaps not a taste that everyone will love but still milder than many others.
Medicinally, blue spruce tips are high in vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium. They are used for coughs and sore throats and help to transport oxygen to the cells (which speeds healing).
For my little foraging haul, I made a cough syrup that won’t be ready until October, and a big batch of blue spruce tip simple syrup. I have a few ideas of how I will use it, but our first stop is cocktails.
Kudos to KWeeks for his adroit naming of this. I never know how cocktails will hit my system – some days I can have three and feel nothing; others I have one and feel a little loopy. It just took one of these for me, so the name is apt.
The Tipsy Forager
This cocktail is light, with a fragrant, botanical taste and bouquet that comes from the gin and the simple syrup. To taste more of the blue spruce simple syrup, use a cleaner, less complicated gin. I used Bluecoat because it’s what I had, and the resulting cocktail was dangerous. Refreshing and not too heavy, perfect for warmer weather.
Ingredients
2 ounces of your favorite gin
.5 ounce (or more, to taste) spruce tip simple syrup (see Recipe Notes)
Seltzer
Lemon for garnish
Method
Pack a rocks glass with artisanal ice of your choice (just kidding. Plain old cubes are fine. Let’s not get precious.). Add gin and blue spruce simple syrup and stir to get very cold. Top with seltzer and garnish with lemon.
Recipe Notes
To make blue spruce tip simple syrup, dissolve one cup of sugar in one cup of water. Add one and a half packed cups of blue spruce tips (more’s the better), cover, and remove from heat. Let blue spruce tips steep overnight, then strain and add 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Makes almost two cups of blue spruce tip simple syrup.
Friends, this poem is incredible and timely. It almost made me cry, the last stanza, especially as we are in such an extraordinary time of avoiding human contact. I did not know Aracelis Girmay’s work before this poem, and now I want to know all of it.
Elegy
What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed?
Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, then, believing in this.
Nothing else matters.
All above us is the touching
of strangers & parrots,
some of them human,
some of them not human.
Listen to me. I am telling you
a true thing. This is the only kingdom.
The kingdom of touching;
the touches of the disappearing, things.
I have a line on instant yeast, instant success, and gallon jugs of Tapatio if you’re running low.
This past week has proven quite fraught, emotionally speaking. I blame the full flower moon in Scorpio for my big, deep feelings.
How has it been for you? Are you still locked down, or are you making bad choices? Let me know.
Here are this week’s links. I’ll be honest – this week was a bit of a stretch to find something to share that seemed relevant and valid and not likely to prompt a slide into a deep depression. So I just have three, and one’s not even really a link. Take whatever you like and discard the rest.
SEA MONKEYS. I wanted them to work so badly. I was the child who saved her pennies and mailed away from the back of a comic book to receive a clear Zooquarium and a small packet of Sea Monkeys. After filling the cylinder with water and shaking the packet gently over the top…nothing. A lump of deceased Sea Monkeys drifted to the bottom of their tank and lay there, unceremoniously. I believe it was at that point my parents said something about wasting my money, but this writer is proving that Sea Monkeys do exist, they do spring to life. WANT.
An article in HuffPo lays out two men living a mile away from each other, one white, one black, and how their lives came together and split back apart. It’s not what you might think, and it’s an excellent read about race and our assumptions about it. It makes the connection between two seemingly disparate worlds inhabited by D. Watkins and Daniel T. Hersl, one a published author and university professor, the other a convicted felon who robbed drug dealers to turn around and sell the drugs and confiscated guns. Take some time to read this one if you have it in you this week.
Wednesday Khristian and I went for a little meander through Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park. This is less of a link, I suppose, as it is an urge to go out and explore whatever is in your own backyard, especially if you are starting to get antsy and lean towards doing dumb stuff like going out to eat or not practicing social distancing. Pick up some carryout from your favorite spot and go have a picnic. Bonus of the Leakin Park meander? It was the site of my first date with Khristian almost 4 1/2 years ago, and it was a lovely way to connect to that time again. Plus, we had been making plans to drive waaay out of town to go hiking, but there are tons of trails through the park that we can explore. Tomorrow we will bring a picnic and relax in the sunshine, safely away from anyone else enjoying the park.
That’s it for me. I hope you are all steeling your resolve and keeping safe at home. The virus continues to get more complicated as time passes, and we are not even close to knowing when this will end.
What’s your best tool for coping? How are you doing?
