Variety Spices My Life

The past year of my life was spent teeming with desire to organize my spices in a coherent, space effective, visually appealing way. Previously they perched, stacked on the edge of a high shelf, difficult to see, perilous to touch; I usually removed 8 vessels to find what I wanted.

My apartment kitchen is a galley, lined with tile and few expanses of non-tiled wall where I could insert a nail to hang shelves or a cabinet. The wall space we have is minimal and there is a large mirror on the wall at the end of the galley to maximize our illusion.

I have weighed options and prices. I liked the idea of a wall cupboard with glass to see inside the darling containers. I contemplated shelves, half enclosed shelves, etc. I found this easy tin box at Urban Renewal last week and the small price tag helped me decide what to do. Jeff drilled two holes in the tin and I fixed it to the wall and piled in my spices, marking the top of each with a sticker of it's own name.

Look, here's a close-up of the spice tray and sundries underneath including fenugreek, cardamom pods, and nutmegs. I have a bowl of peppercorns in the cupboard along with a bowl of vanilla beans, more cardamom pods, and pleasing powders.

Vintage Postcard

Cruising the old neighborhood streets of Glendale, you will most likely happen upon citrus trees dropping their liquid jewels.



Chances were also good for me that Amy would appear gem-like and pose in front of a preferred High Street.



We sheltered from the rain in her salon where I sewed a square of grandmother's flower garden and she discussed vampires with Kiki, her stylist. We visited the new Henry's and wove around Ikea. I bought only muted tones. In Pasadena, we weighed the cost of orange no-crack handcream and a tissue cashmere scarf. She perused salt cellars. I did not buy shelves for my spices. We acquired coconut products at The Body Shop. Peanut butter M&Ms spilled on the wet pavement. I did not lose the case for my phone. I came home with The Reliable Wife, a book Amy devoured in 1.5 days. My kiki was not found wanting. She grilled. A day and a half in the life.

The Great Rains

One year the long rains failed.
That is a terrible, tremendous experience, and the farmer who has lived through it, will never forget it. Years afterwards, away from Africa, in the wet climate of a Northern country, he will start up at night, at the sound of a sudden shower of rain, and cry, "At last, at last."

Out of Africa
Isak Dinesen

Oh, What Do You Do in the Wintertime?

When all the trees are taken down, the carolers wrapped and stored, and the car loaded with donations for charity, it is time to recap our weeks of holiday. I have seen loved ones: Susie and Rachel at Victoria's wedding in Portland

Donn and Nancy traipsing through Snow Canyon

Brendan and Karen and some gingerbread men all in the warmth of home, as well as the usual players in St. George.

I quilted a dark-toned quilt for mother and father during five hours on December 22, sewed the binding in secret until time ran out, and wrapped it with its pins for Christmas morning. A plush white confection of a dress jacket for Taylor. A Snowy Day for Buddy. Among the goods at Christmas were a miniature Victorian book to write one's Christmas gifts, all of Shakespeare's sonnets, three cookbooks: Ten, Apples for Jam, and Falling Cloudberries with its dreamy cranberry sorbet cover, gift cards, a phone.

Our favorites foods were cherries glacés, lamb with mint chutney glaze, tomato bisque, and seven-layer bars.

At our house the talk for days of neighbor Louisa's birthday and her prospective gift.

I learned to play Mancala. We played 20 Questions, the board game, where I guessed Charles Darwin in one clue and could not guess Shoes after 20 clues. And, Taboo. We tastetested Heath vs. Skor. Heath won from all but myself. They complained it stuck in their teeth. I expect that from toffee. Hummphf. The talk of the houses was eggnog. Who likes it (the boys), who doesn't (the girls).

Our Sadie was put under to remove a mole on her paw. We showered her with TLC.

For the remainder, I plan to cook with barley, try to finish the large jar of Spanish olives, hang two gourds, buy bike shoes, and snap a million photos.

Between the Lines

My favorite lines of the Christmas carol season are these:

We'll have to muddle through somehow.
The ox and lamb kept time.
I gave my best for Him.

Home On the Range

I housesit from time to time. There are perks, there are inconveniences. I want to share some of what I love about living in someone else's home as I spend quantity time with my young charges, Rocky and Bootsie.

central air and heat
washer/dryer
the feeling of a family
bottled salad dressing
good doors and windows (few drafts)
filtered water

A Little Teapot

Do you like herbal teas, tisanes, and cocoa? Me too! What luck I can share with you my favorite herbal tea, Sweet Thai Delight. Startling in its rounded taste to a milky coconut. Spices add. It is quite a delight. Surprisingly made only with water and a delicate tea bag. Steep on! Cup your hands around your warm drinking bowl. Recline with a soft blanket. Light a flame.

Blanket 2: Wool and Satin

My great aunt Beth presented this blanket to me last year. She is originally from Brigham City and has many blankets from this area's woolen mills. Over the years she has redone the satin binding several times and it fits a full-size bed.

I used it last winter and felt a heated difference. People who are allergic to wool should fold their sheet over the top of it. I like the stripes and find the feminine coral a nice light color for a warmish blanket. It was a treasure in Beth's home; I love to look upon it. And a word on satin binding: simply adore it.

Blanket 1: Indian Red and Coral

Because one of my favorite objects is a blanket, here begins a record of my favorites. When we evacuated for the fires a year or so ago, I brought my blankets. This blanket is a happy one. Who would have thought coral and red could be a tandem? Not I. The blanket is also very soft. It is about a twin size comforter. I found it in Jaipur and paid $20. Beside the colors and the feel, I love the weight of it. Soft and light and just cozy enough but not too warm. I took this to the Ritchies on one of my overnights and it was perfect to roll up in. For this reason, I have imagined it rolled like a taquito and strapped to a donkey. I must be riding the animal myself as who else would have this blanket. I think it would look nice in a pitched white tent, à la Out of Africa. In a modern setting, I'd fold it at the base of a clean white linen coverlet.

Flying Geese and Blind Meece

Don't you think every quilt has a story, even the new ones? Which thought necessitates that a story can stem from the creation. Which, in this case, it does. I have wanted to make a red quilt. And, I've wanted to make a flying geese quilt. I am not the visionary type and never plan anything out from beginning to end. I don't know how something will look until I'm looking at the finished product. So, my projects are always evolving as the stages progress, and sometimes end up quite different than the initial feel. I saw a flying geese set-up like this in a quilt pattern book. It's a take on an old find. I added white, brown, and red borders and edged it in brown, gold, and red floral.

The back is brown and white. The large sheaf design is a piece from T's warehouse sale. It is bordered in brown and white mini checks. The whole quilt sandwich was stippled. The quilt store made some changes to my top and bottom. To make the back and front an equal size, they cut off the bottom checks on the back. I would have evened out top and bottom checks instead. I am fine with it, because it is homemade. Second, they took apart the front and made it an even square of geese. My square of geese slanted up at the bottom. So, there are changes to this I didn't make but I am happy with the end result and want to wear it in. I love an old soft quilt.

I made the flying geese square initially and my roommate thought it looked like Christmas what with the green in the floral stripes. Horrors, I thought. This is not a Christmas quilt. I added the brown and now, I don't think of Christmas at all. I did scallop the edges and like this look. It works since everything else is so linear. Linear like the V formation of geese.

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version Of "Three Blind Mice"
by Billy Collins

And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,

how did they ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?

And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.

Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass

or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.

By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"

which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.

His Favorites

driving
Zion Nat'l Park
reading, silently and aloud
volleyball
basketball
biking
camping
swimming
movies with popcorn and M&Ms
summer squash
Milk Duds
carrot cake
Fresca
second helpings of pretty much anything
poetry
short-haired pets
putting furniture together
holding hands
his happy girlfriend

So, A Needle Pulling Thread

I have posted a couple of quilts already. This small quilt uses snowball blocks. It is the same block but reverse colors as the Spice Cake quilt which uses dark centers and light corners. I used a light center and dark corners for this one which you can see, changes everything. M gave me a selection of blue fabrics (all her quilts are blue and red) to use. She also showed me how to scallop the edges and cut a bias binding. The backing is length of toile from T's warehouse sale.

Mother received it for her birthday in July. I put it together feverishly and it shows. Some of the blocks don't match up; the corners are dark. I like to think it is a homemade piece and who would care. This makes me feel it's something special and not a mistake. I think I should treat more life situations like this. Can we create our life? The realist dreamer says yes and no. Yesterday I was taken with this piece of writing (audio) from Blaise Pascal's Pensées, returning home from a very enjoyable three days in SG.

Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.

Light the First Light of Evening

What a handsome silvery sea urchin!

Anglais Mort A Florence

By Wallace Stevens

A little less returned for him each spring.
Music began to fail him. Brahms, although
His dark familiar, often walked apart.

His spirit grew uncertain of delight,
Certain of its uncertainty, in which
That dark companion left him unconsoled

For a self returning mostly memory.
Only last year he said that the naked moon
Was not the moon he used to see, to feel

(In the pale coherences of moon and mood
When he was young), naked and alien,
More leanly shining from a lankier sky.

Its ruddy pallor had grown cadaverous.
He used his reason, exercised his will,
Turning in time to Brahms as alternate

In speech. He was that music and himself.
They were particles of order, a single majesty:
But he remembered the time when he stood alone.

He stood at last by God's help and the police;
But he remembered the time when he stood alone.
He yielded himself to that single majesty;

But he remembered the time when he stood alone,
When to be and delight to be seemed to be one,
Before the colors deepened and grew small.

On My List: Golden September

1. Begin One Hundred Years of Solitude in earnest, i.e., stop reading the first line for the umpteenth time: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

2. Anticipate a month of Island Coconut at Golden Spoon.

3. Begin quilt class and complete a sampler quilt in 12 months. I will use reds.

4. Eek out all occasions to submerge in the warm water.

5. Watch for opportunities of change, including produce, people, and situation.

6. Make tarte tatin, autumn dessert of dreams.

Home Away from Home

Each Thursday I volunteer for two hours at my library branch. Can you spell happiness? I walk, cutting through this alley to admire four colors of bougainvilla.






Normally in a touch of a hurry, I arrive slightly sweaty and chipper. I head to the worker office (where I am privy to the door code) and drop my bag, sign in on the clipboard, and don a volunteer badge necklace. I grab a shelving cart and start organizing. I push the cart around the rows of books. I shelve, I align, I tidy. Normally I end in the children's library. There are so many books (since they are small, thin). At the end of my shift I check out whatever books I want on the computer, scanning barcodes, printing date due slips. It is a highlight. I love books. I walk home to lunch.

I Want to Write Something So Simply

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think—
no, you will realize—
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your own heart
had been saying.

Mary Oliver
Evidence

Chocolate Gobs

When you have less than a stick of butter and no brown sugar, the hunt is on for a good cookie recipe. I went first to Baking: From My Home to Yours from our national treasure, Dorie Greenspan. She came through on page 70 where very rich looking Chocolate Chunkers nestle cozily onto page 71. Calling for 3 tablespoons of butter and no brown sugar but five kinds of chocolate that incredibly and embarassingly were on hand, I made them. Toasted pecans and golden raisins broke the chocolate haze and I did not faint. However, one is enough for now. I will now decide who among my sturdy acquaintances can stomach the remainders.

I am the first person to appreciate a recipe name and probably one of the first to pause in midstep at a clunker. Dorie's name of Chocolate Chunkers is a bee in my bonnet, avoiding as I do words like chunk or nugget for any food. We know they were once favorites at Soho Charcuterie (now closed) and still served at Sarabeth's where they are called Chocolate Chubs. Another word I don't use. At Soho Charcuterie, they were named Chocolate Gobs. Finally. I can approve as we recall Wonka, everlasting gobstoppers, and England's Roald Dahl. Chocolate Frogs. Chocolate Gobs.

1/3 C all-purpose flour
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking powder
3 T unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 C sugar
1 t pure vanilla extract
6 oz semisweet chocoalte, chopped into chunks
6 oz premium-quality milk or white chocolate, chopped into chunks
1 1/2 C coarsely chopped nuts, preferably salted peanuts or toasted pecans
1 C moist, plump raisins (dark or golden) or finely chopped moist, plump dried apricots

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment. Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder. Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Add the butter, bittersweet chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate and heat, stirring occasionally, just until melted—the chocolate and butter should be smooth and shiny but not so hot that the butter separates. Remove the bowl from the heat and set it on the counter to cool.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes, until they are pale and foamy. Beat in the vanilla extract, then scrape down the bowl. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the melted butter and chocolate, mixing only until incorporated. With a rubber spatula, scrape down the bowl, then, on low speed, add the dry ingredients. Mix just until the dry ingredients disappear into the dough, which will be thick, smooth, and shiny. Scrape down the bowl and, using the rubber spatula, mix in the semisweet and milk (or white) chocolate chunks, nuts, and raisins—you'll have more crunchies than dough at this point. (The dough can be wrapped in plastic and kept refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
Drop the dough by generously heaping tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving about an inch of space between the mounds of dough. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 10 to 12 minutes. The tops of the cookies will look a little dry but the interiors should still be soft. Remove the baking sheet and carefully, using a broad metal spatula, lift the cookies onto a cooling rack to cool to room temperature. Repeat with the remaining dough, baking only one sheet of cookies at a time and making sure to cool the baking sheets between batches. If, when the cookies are cooled, the chocolate is still gooey and you'd like it to be a bit firmer, just pop the cookies into the fridge for about 10 minutes.

Blueberry Crumble and Chewy Chocolate

Some people are "chocolate eaters," eschewing most other desserts in a firm tone. Like saying you vacation in France and will not chance buying a ticket to Italy. I don't judge this stance. I grew up in an all chocolate family. We had such a self-proclaimed guest at the table this evening for a line of three desserts. Warm flan, blueberry crumble, and chewy chocolate cookies. Of course I played out the evening before it happened. Making sure the chocolate eater had plenty of chocolate to eat, knowing she would most likely invest only in it. Therefore, I was impressed when this guest took a second helping of the crumble. I guess I could excuse it saying blueberries are a superfood and the guest is health aware. I choose to think the taste was so pleasing, the chocolate (low-fat) cookies took second, which I kind of like. The blueberries were fresh, purchased for a song at Henry's. The crumble was plentiful and tasty, a hint of cinnamon. I baked it in my French casserole with its pleasing curves. The flan was also delicious and warm and nummy. I never make flan so it was a treat. We did not overeat. We sampled three dishes, and lived to tell.

Blueberry-Blackberry Crumble
Adapted from A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes by Davis Tanis

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
8 T (1 stick) cold sweet butter, in small pieces
3 pints blueberries (I used only blueberries)
3 pints blackberries
1/2 C granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. To make the topping, combine the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the butter and work it in with your fingertips until you have a crumbly mixture. In another bowl, toss the blueberries and blackberries with the granulated sugar. Pile the sugared fruit into a large gratin dish or two pie plates. Mound the topping over the fruit. Bake for an hour, or until the topping is nicely browned. Cool for 15 minutes before serving, or serve at room temperature.

Orange Fire and Coconut

In case you are wondering I have spent the last few weeks doused in Feu d'Orange from L'Occitane and Exotic Coconut body cream. It seems I can't get enough of the scent of coconut. Spending some time in the hot air balloon of St. George, for once I didn't dry out totally what with the layers of body cream. We celebrated the 4th of July, mother's birthday, J's birthday, and summer days. Our menus included four kinds of cookies (seven layer bars from Greyston Bakery Cookbook, Katherine Hepburn's brownies, strawberry-shortcake cookies, salted peanut butter toffee cookies from Pure Dessert), coleslaw, green chile pork posole, guacamole, fresh bread, macadamia fudge torte, and carrot cake with fresh orange rind frosting from Sweet Melissa, in addition to Brian's famous Benihana rice which I ate for breakfast at least two mornings.