Balancing

I had great plans of coming home from school today and trying my hand at making pumpernickel bread.   I have so enjoyed my "Mondays in the Kitchen".  This morning I ran out the door without my grocery list.   To be really honest, I am not for sure how successful I would have been.  I've been feeling a wee bit off balance of late.

image via pinterest

You've probably noticed I've been devouring books lately.  I try to only bore you with the ones I really enjoy.   When I need to find my center I usually rush off to the bookstore.  I don't need to purchase a book;  I need only to walk among them.   I read the covers, touch the bindings and I know I am among kindred souls, whether they be authors or characters.  (I truly am not as eccentric as this makes me sound...honestly.)

Today, after a quick walk, I headed to the library.  Sometimes I want to hold a book that has been held in the hands of another book person.  A book whose cover is worn and pages a bit tattered.  A book that has been shared and passed among book-loving strangers.   I looked for some of my favorite authors, most were out visiting someone else this afternoon.  When I can't find what I am looking for I like to pick out a letter in the alphabet and search all the authors whose names begin with that letter.  Today I happen to choose "W".  I have no rhyme or reason, it is just a system I came up with that seems to work for me.  I came home with The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty and The Judges, Elie Wiesel; neither very long.   While I am a huge fan of Eudora Welty, this is my first introduction to Wiesel.  I'll let you know what I think.  

I do adore the library!  I don't take advantage of it as much as I should.  It really is a most wonderful system.

I am thinking an evening with a good book and an attitude adjustor

(I bet you were expecting wine!)

is all I need.

I hope you have had a wonderful Monday!

Tuesday is going to be fabulous.....

Another For the Favorites List

"I caught up with the others outside, giving a little prayer of thanks to no one in particular.  Because when some incident sheds a favorable light on an old and absent friend, that's about as good a gift as chance intends to offer."

When I picked up Amor Towles' debut novel Rules of Civility I had no idea I was about to enter a beautifully written story I would not want to leave.  We are allowed to shadow the smart and savvy Katey Kontent  as she moves through the jazz clubs of the lower east side to the townhomes and vacation homes of Manhattan's elite and powerful during the late 30s.  Through humor and wisdom we find life's path is controlled as much by chance as by design.   Few books have me laughing out loud one moment and within pages misty eyed.  I was truly, at times, transported with words.  Mr. Towles "dots all the i's and crosses all the t's".  At the end we are not left wondering what happened to....  

Without doubt, unfortunately, this book will quickly be snatched up to be transformed into a movie.  There are plenty young, talented and beautiful actors who can recreate the characters.   They will include all the things that draw in moviegoers.  They might even tell a good story; they will miss the point.  They almost always do.  I hope they prove me wrong.

Happy Reading!

Monday Afternoons in the Kitchen

Growing at the edge of the yard I played in as a child was an old fig tree.  Up until the time we moved to the farm the only thing I really knew about fig trees was the story of Adam and Eve, the snake, the apple and the fig leaf.  I am not for sure I really knew there was a fruit, or if I cared.  I was pretty much an apple and banana girl.   I had never tasted a fig until that time.   I remember the first time Mother reached into the tree, picked a sun warmed fig and offered it to me to taste.   The sweet mushiness was divine.  

As years passed the tree grew enormous and the fruit was so plentiful Daddy would wedge long pieces of lumber under the fruit ladened branches to keep them from breaking.   Each summer the birds and I would fight over the ripened figs.  Mother soon began picking the figs and making the best fig preserves ever.  The birds and I fought over the leftovers.  She did little more that half the fruit and make a sugar syrup to pour over them.  Unfortunately, she didn't  know she would leave us so early and didn't bother to write her recipe down.  The best fig preserve ever recipe was lost forever.

Several years ago Roger and I bought a teeny tiny fig tree; really just a stick.  This past spring I counted 26 figs on our little tree with four branches; the birds and squirrels feasted and I cried.   Through the summer I watched figs appear and disappear.  I have yet to enjoy one of my own homegrown figs.

Last week Whole Foods had figs on sale; I brought home two containers of Mission figs and made my first preserves.  It is not my mother's recipe.  It is mine.

And all the lids popped! 

 This past weekend I brought home four pounds of French Butter pears.  They are my very favorite. 

It was so difficult resisting the urge to cut one up as a yummy snack, but I had a plan for these beauties. 

Today I peeled, cored and quartered.  I cooked the pears down with sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and orange zest.   My finished product?  Three pints of pear butter.  

They all popped, and

I am so pleased!

I am loving my Monday afternoons in the kitchen!

I wish my Mother could be here with me... 

And, I know she is.

  

The Back Door is Closed

Grab the beverage of your choice and sit back for I have a tale to tell.

Thursday evening Roger and I took our simple pasta supper to the sunroom to enjoy the outside from inside avoiding a mosquito swarm.  We lingered enjoying a glass of wine, talking about our day and watching the sun leave the sky.  As the evening enveloped the backyard we were prompted to get up and finish daily chores.   Roger headed outside and I began clearing the table.  I stacked the dishes and took the few steps into the kitchen.

I stopped and did a double take.  He was about nine inches and was slithering across my kitchen floor.   It  was rather surreal seeing this visitor scooting across the floor, head held high, the refrigerator towering on one side and the stove hovering on the other, moving toward the dead end of the room.   I felt as if maybe I had walked into a Salvador Dali painting.  I had to wonder if I was imagining it.

Although I  am not afraid of snakes, cautious, but not scared, I did yell out "snake".   Okay,  I just said it...yes, there was a snake in my kitchen.  I live in suburbia not the country!   No one came to my rescue and he seemed comfortably at home.  I went to the back door to get Roger's attention.  In disbelief he followed me into the kitchen only to find our night visitor had disappeared. 

Where?  Under the refrigerator?  The stove?  Or maybe into the abyss by the dishwasher?  There was always the possibility he dropped down the air conditioner vent in the floor.  We spent about an hour looking for this directionally challenged fellow.  

We pumped the air conditioning down to see if we could chill him into seeking warmer ground.  Bedtime and no snake.  I had visions of him slipping through the air conditioning ducts, up the walls and dropping through the vent above my bed.  Surprisingly I fell asleep with little effort.  I did have a couple of snake dreams; one involved a dog, a very large snake and fire (I was in a Dali painting).  

Friday morning there was no sign of my houseguest, and I went about my business getting ready to leave for school.  Around 10 o'clock I received a text from Roger.

"I CAPTURED THE LITTLE GUY!

HE IS BACK IN THE GREENBELT.

ON ACCOUNT OF GOOD BEHAVIOR,

NO DEATH PENALTY."

When I had a minute I texted back, "Where did you find him?"

His reply, "Sunning, by the chair in the den."

Yes!  That would be my chair.  The chair where I sit each morning to email my daughter.  Had he been coiled under the chair that morning watching my feet?    Or maybe he was in my knitting basket setting beside my chair.   I shiver to think of reaching into the basket pulling out a wiggling snake instead of a knitting needle.   I suppose he was trying to give me a Halloween jumpstart.

I think I will rethink saying "the backdoor is always open".

I do hope he finds his mom and dad.  His mom and dad...surely they are living outside.