Beefburger & books

I’m feeling better about decorating.  I figured out that aside from the tedium of the trim, we had somehow bought stinky solvent-based gloss.  It doesn’t bother Steve at all, as the man has no sense of smell.  It’s true, although he can taste things OK.  I advise him on which cologne to buy and that my perfume, Beautiful by Estée Lauder, smells divine.  Go figure.  I hate the cleanup with oil based paints, too.   Such a mess.  And I really don’t like the look of gloss.  My eyes find it very noisy.

Anyhow, when I went into Exeter yesterday to get my hair cut, I went to B & Q and bought some water-based satin paint for the trim.  Cleans up with water and dries in an hour.  So, I’m much more enthusiastic about doing the trim.

It was a grey, rainy day.  Sometimes when I have to be out, not by choice, in the rain, I feel a bit aimless and depressed.  Not sure why.  I think it stems from when I was a teenager, playing truant from school and not really having any place to go.  As I was walking back into town, along the River Exe I turned my head just as four chalk white swans were flying low against the pewter sky, coming to land on the water.  It was a magnificent sight and made me feel better inside.  I also had about 20 minutes to pop into the library and got a really good stack of books.  I did some trim painting when I got home yesterday and carried on this morning.

I was listening to ‘Essential Classics’ on Radio 3.  They have a question feature, called appropriately enough ‘What am I?’  Clues are given and listeners are invited to text and email in their guesses.  It was something sticky and used by ballet dancers, boxers and gymnasts.  I suddenly knew it was rosin, although I associate it with baseball pitchers.  It’s a classical music show and my sister used to play cello and had rosin, so I figured I was right.  I emailed in and had my name read out on the radio (along with lots of other people).  So that was fun.  By the way, I learned a new word today.  I looked up rosin just now and ‘colophony’ is another word for it.  I’d have thought it had something to do with noise.  Apparently the term “colophony” comes from colophonia resina or “resin from the pine trees of Colophon,” an ancient Ionic city.

So back to painting the trim.  I’d set my self the goal of painting all of the trim and most of the doors in our foyer and gallery.  I was starting to feel ‘eleven o’clockish’ and though about stopping for tea and toast with honey.  But as I thought more about it, what I really wanted was a hamburger patty.  Though I wasn’t quite hungry enough and it would be a longer break, since I had to go to the Co-op for some ground beef.  So I set myself the goal of the end of the gallery skirting board and imagined a big, juicy beef burger waiting there.  When I got out of bed this morning, I’d also sorted the 20 or so books next to my side of the bed into ‘Read and need to be put or given away’, ‘Not read yet’ and  ‘New library books’.  The library books were waiting on the kitchen table.

The Goal

I had a fabulous hamburger, studded with jalapeño peppers and topped with melted Cheddar cheese and sautéed onions, just as I’d imagined it.  I read ‘The Intoxicated’ by Shirley Jacksoon, from a collection of short stories.  She’s probably best known for ‘The Lottery’, de riguer in high school English classes.  I obviously hadn’t ditched that day because I remember seeing a film version of The Lottery.  But I love all of her writing and it’s great to be reading her again after many years.  She’s written novels, “true-to-life funny-housewife memoirs”, and my favourites, short stories.  Most were written in the late 40′s and the 50′s and reflect “our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb” and mirror humanity’s McCarthy-era fears.  According to Jackson’s husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, “she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements.  She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years.”  Another of my favourites, which I hope is in my book, is one about a commuter husband who comes home from NYC to Connecticut, or wherever, and neither he nor the family he goes to realises he’s in the wrong house.  The conformity of the 50′s and alienation of modern life all wrapped up into one gem of a story.

The Prize

Info source – Wikipedia

Happy Bunnies

I was thinking about one of my favourite childhood books about a little rapscallion cat named Sneakers (which I’ve just ordered from the US).  I can remember my Mom reading it to me and also the fabulous illustrations.  When I was quite small, I used to leave a carrot out for the Easter bunny.  One year I drew the rabbit from my copy of Sneakers and wrote ‘For the Easter bunny’ beneath it’.

I learned that the illustrator was  French-Mexican artist, Jean Charlot.  He and his widowed mother moved to Mexico in the early 1920′s.  Charlot was muralist Diego Rivera’s assistant and his knowledge of fresco painting  influenced the Mexican muralists.  He later moved to the US where he worked as an art teacher and produced many lithographs and woodcuts, including children’s book illustrations.  A bit of a potted history, but I love his style and intend to delve more.   You can see the Mexican influence and Charlot’s style in this drawing.

Work and rest, lithograph, 1956

In celebration of Easter, here are a couple of Charlot’s bunny drawings.

Happy Bunnies, lithograph, 1936

Woodcut, 1956

A bit of earth

One of my favourite stories is ‘The Secret Garden‘ by Frances Hodgson Burnett.   First published in 1911, it is considered a classic of children’s literature.  Orphaned Mary Lennox finds a key to a secret garden on her uncle’s estate in Yorkshire.  She asks her uncle’s permission for ‘a bit of earth’ to make things grow.   Using the garden motif, Burnett explores the healing power inherent in living things.

A few days ago I bought some sprouted hyacinth and Tete-a-tete narcissi bulbs to pot and put in our living room. I love to watch indoor bulbs grow and flower this time of year.  It reminds me that, even though I am still in the depths of an English winter, springtime and another cycle of growth lie ahead.

More importantly, it reminds me that when we plant seeds or bulbs beneath the soil, they need to lie and rest and germinate, hidden from view, before starting to grow.   Like new ideas and endeavours or old issues and griefs, they may need time before they come to the light of day.

We live in a flat and have a patio out front where I grow a few herbs and flowers in containers, and have some space to mess around with dirt and pots. I went to the hardware store for my bit of earth, explaining that I don’t have the space for a big bag of potting soil. So I came away with a carry bag of soil for £1.

My bit of earth

When I plant things and garden, I also feel connected to my mother Nell who loved beautiful things and flowers and was a keen gardener.  She died from cancer on January 20th 1980, when I was 16.

At the time, due to my youth and family circumstances, just like a stone or a bulb, I buried my grief away.  I have, over the years, “dealt with it”, yet this time of year it can still feel very fresh and close.  Sometimes I’m surprised at how it can still split me in two and bring me to my knees.

So on this showery morning, I got my bit of earth and transplanted my bulbs into some pretty pots to bring inside.  As I gently separated the roots and sprinkled and patted the earth around the bulbs, I felt close to my Mom.    I remembered her elegance and the beauty that she taught me to notice and create in the world around me.  As it began to rain, a few of my tears moistened the soil too.

Star Quality

Darlings!  If you haven’t (God forbid) ever read any short stories by Noël Coward – playwright, director, actor, songwriter, filmmaker, novelist and wit, you simply must immediately walk, run or be chauffered to the nearest bookshop and pick up a copy of Noël Coward – The Collected Short Stories.

The introduction, written by no less than Mr. Coward himself, is worth the price of admission.

“I decided to re-read (with a certain reluctance) the stories in this book . . . . . . In this particular instance I am happy to say I was most pleasantly surprised.  These stories strike me as being neither outmoded nor inept, nor indeed so perfect that I feel I can never better them.  In fact, I enjoyed reading them very much . . . . . . “

He goes on to acknowledge and salute the masters of the short story genre – de Maupassant, Maugham, Katherine Mansfield, O’ Henry , Saki, et al.

For Coward, short stories have been an absorbing experiment in form, fascinating to write, but far from easy.  Yet, he has managed to capture that elusive magic which makes the perfect short story.  He applies his skills as a playwright to a form which is somewhere between a play and a novel.

The stories in this volume are drawn from To Step Aside, published in 1939, and Star Quality, published in 1951. Tonight, I fell in love with Cheap Excursion, which describes a love affair between the Diana Reed, a star of The Theatre, forty and desperate, and Jimmy, her much younger assistant stage manager, well beneath her ‘station’ and status.  Mr. Coward exquisitely captures an evening of Miss Reed’s ego-inflated knife-edged infatuation with this hapless young man.   Pure genius along the lines of Steinbeck at his best, perfectly capturing a character immersed in her milieu and time.

Noël Coward is a rare genius for whom it seems there is nothing he cannot do. He is still known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called “a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise”.  Truly a star.

Noël Coward

Dana’s Dog-gone Pumpkin Pie

I made this for our Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday night.  What?  Saturday??  But Thanksgiving is on the last Thursday of the month!  I know, but the UK doesn’t grind to a halt the way the US does on Thanksgiving.  I’d invited a couple of American friends and Sarah, who owns a shop, couldn’t come on Thursday anyway.

So our November feast was an American Thanksgiving.  Steve’s first one ever and the first one I had at home in about 15 years.  Steve was a bit mystified and asked if everyone eats turkey and will we have roast potatoes – ‘Yes, of course! and no, mashed, and we also have sweet potatoes with marshmallows’.  Basically, Thanksgiving is a big family get together and the (football) game or Twilight Zone re-runs are on TV and everyone eats and eats and eats.

Here is the menu:

Roast Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Cranberry Sauce
Green Beans with Toasted Hazelnuts
Candied Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows & Pecans
Frank’s Pea and Cheese Salad
Heavenly Hash
Dinner Rolls
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie
Whipped Cream

I used a recipe for one of the pies from a great cookbook by Dana Crumb called Still Eatin’ It.  Dana was married to the cartoonist Robert Crumb (Zap Comix) and he did the illustrations.  This book is a compendium of innovative recipes, terrific stories, peculiar anecdotes and revealing social history.  Set in the milieu of R. Crumb and those ever-amusing 1960′s, Still Eatin’ It falls into a fourth category of cookbooks:  MFK Fisher on acid.

The book is filled with tips like Tastes to Caress and Fondle the Tongue & Pleasure the Palate and Herbs! Herbs! Fresh, fresh herbs!  Chapter 1 is Desserts and begins with Fun Things To Do With Chocolate.  And so it goes.  Dana Crumb is a fabulous cook who is also wryly humorous, delightfully droll, and the survivor of a thoroughly fascinating life.

The pie crust is a melt in your mouth, flaky one.  The recipe is for a double crust.  I used half for the pumpkin pie and half for a pecan pie.

Pie Crust

• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup cold butter
• 3 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening
• 4 tablespoons ice water

Cut half the butter and vegetable shortening into the flour and salt until it’s grainy like cornmeal.  Now work in the rest of the butter and shortening until it’s sweet pea size lumps.  Sprinkle all over with ice water and blend into a ball.  The less you handle the pie dough the more tender it will be.  Let the dough ball ‘rest’ in the fridge for an hour or so before you continue.

Dana’s Dog-gone Pumpkin Pie

Here’s a Dana story:

‘I had made, from scratch with fresh pumpkins, the other pies.  I set them upon the front porch freezer under a towel to cool.  Later, I went out to the porch to check on their progress and admire their beauty and instead saw an unknown German Shepherd puppy (about 6 months old) standing in several pies, tail awag, while gobbling the others.  It wasn’t even our dog!’

• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg & clove,
  very light on the clove or you’ll numb your mouth)
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 & 2/3 cups half & half or double cream
• 1 &  ½ cups pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin
• ½ pie crust recipe

Line pie plate with pastry and crimp the edges.  Prick shell all over with a fork.  Weight the bottom of the shell and bake for 10-15 minutes in a 350°F/180°C oven.  Let cool at least 30 minutes.

Mix ingredients well and pour into the shell.  Bake at 450°F/200°C for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 325°F/170°C for 45 to 60 minutes or until a knife inserted into the the center of the pie comes out clean.

.I like to coat the raw crust with apricot jam or good marmalade and bake to ‘seal’ the crust on a custard pie.  Try it sometime.  If you have any bts of pastry left over, it’s fun to cut out a pumpkin shape and just sit it on top of the custard and bake.  Or you can cut out pastry leaves and encircle the edge of the pie with them.  (I did this with my pecan pie, but, alas, didn’t take a photo) Always remember, part of our eating is done with our eyes.

Serve with gently whipped and delicately sugared cream.  Enjoy!

Dog-gone good!

The Dark Path

I’ve just read Thomas Merton’s Dark Path by William Shannon.  William Shannon takes Merton’s writings and life experiences to provide a field book for the apophatic spiritual path. The apophatic tradition begins with the premise that God or Truth can never be captured in language, and can therefore only be described by what it is not. Apophatic mysticism is found within all of the religious traditions and seeks a direct experience of the divine reality, beyond the realm of our ordinary minds or senses. This divine union is the goal of all seekers, and is the only solution to the riddle of life and death. Nothing else we can say, do, think, or become will satisfy the need we feel so desperately to know that “all shall be well” and that our doubts, fears, and perceived inadequacies are all, in the end, unfounded.

This book gives an overview of Merton’s major writings on contemplative prayer.  I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but was captured by the chapters on The Inner Experience, a book which in part compares the contemplative to the existentialist.  As Merton was a ‘rip roaring Trappist’, his path and views are invariably rooted in Christianity.  Yet I was able to strip away the religious references and find much food for thought rooted in his writings and thoughts on contemplation, views on the darkness and his ‘discovery’ of Zen Bhuddism and Eastern mysticism.  Ironically though, and as Merton himself wrote (here I paraphrase) one doesn’t learn about contemplation by reading about it, but by direct experience of it.  But one who has been there can have an ‘Aha’ experience when reading that which is so difficult to put into words and at which Merton is so eloquent.

“The darkness becomes an atmosphere of breathless clarity, in which we find peace and the deep night becomes the brightness of the noonday sun in which we find the one our heart desires.”     – Thomas Merton

According to the apophatic way, in order to engage the spiritual source with the most intense intimacy, at the moment of union the mystic suspends all beliefs and disbeliefs. Taking an empty mind and an open heart, she steps over the mystical threshold and crosses into the realm of the unimaginable. This crossing into the state of complete surrender is the way of the apophatic mystic.

Once again, I am beckoned into the darkness.  I am coming to know it as a friend and willingly heed its summons.  I can look back on a time when I was literally dragged very reluctantly, heels dug in, into a dark night, but somehow stayed in it and came out the other side much richer for the experience.  It is so tempting for the uninitiated to try and avoid a dark night at all costs or to cling on to the first piece of flotsam drifting past just to make it end sooner!  But the price that we pay for avoidance is not finding the treasures in our depths.  A dark night is the subject of one of my next fibre art pieces.  I wrote a poem just when I was coming out of it and will use screen printing to put it into the piece.

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire