Apricots, Tomatoes, and Lots of Pink Icing

I did muster enough energy to do a little baking on Friday, but waited to clean house until today. Apricot Poppyseed Muffins with fresh orange zest -- I altered the recipe's fruit component because I couldn't find any dried cherries at the store, only apricots. Still not bad though! Currently, comfort food is bubbling away in the oven...Creamy Mac, Chicken, and Cheese with Spinach from my Foster's Market Cookbook. It's a husband favorite.

This fall a new store is opening in our neighborhood: Marche' -- an artisan foods market. I am jumping for joy (inside) about this for two reasons. One, I love to cook and it will be wonderful to have a gourmet shop just down the street to get my fill of crusty breads and interesting cheeses. Two, the new market will be owned by Margot, who also runs our all-time favorite restaurant in the city (a few blocks away from our house.) Inside, there’s exposed brick and Tuscan colors and unbelievably delicious food that changes daily. The ingredients are always fresh and exotic – in a home-y and creative kind of way, not an intimidating one. We almost always split a homemade dessert. Out front, tangled sunflowers a mile high grow wildly, and boxes of fresh herbs sprout from window boxes. If I had an unlimited eating-out budget, Margot Cafe would be my choice at least 9 times out of 10.

I noticed the “Opening Soon” sign for Marche’ on Saturday, while Jeremy and I were strolling the neighborhood at East Nashville’s 3rd annual Tomato Festival. It was fun to see so many people out and about (though Jeremy accurately pointed out that almost everyone was white---not at all an accurate representation of our diverse section of town.) Kids with bright red face paint, tomato costumes even, mulled along the Woodland Street Bazaar with their fists wrapped around giant roasted turkey legs and hot dogs, ketchup dripping down their chins. There were artist booths and samples of salsa, and special tomato cake sold at the local coffee roaster. Scribbles of sidewalk chalk pointed us this way and that…we followed the arrows to a photo exhibit and then I had my toenails painted in bright red polish at Magnolia salon. Jeremy sipped a tomato martini (yick!) and waited for his chair massage. We ran into a few good friends as we watched a parade of veggie-clad participants and their unamused dogs marching down the street to the beat of the Tomatofest band.

We ended the afternoon at a birthday party for Zoe Weigel, who celebrated by smearing pink icing across her face, followed by a bath in the kitchen sink in front of nearly thirty guests. Having never been to a one-year-old’s birthday party before, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially seeing all our friends’ babies and toddlers scurrying around the kitchen floor. It’s so rare that I actually feel TALL among a group, but for that hour or so, I did.

This was definitely a weekend out of the ordinary, but somehow it made the craziness of last week seem all covered up in sweetness.

Grey.

The sky is white and I am tired.

Everything went bleak and hazy last evening, as a much-needed storm swept in and blew the trees wildly around. Sam shivered and panted under the thunder and lightning while Mia perched with her usual sophistication, unphased.

Forty minutes later the streets were drenched and the power blinked out. We lit candles and huddled down as night fell and the house grew black--all except for a few glowing corners where flames flickered. I drifted into a nap.

A little after eight, we decided to venture out in search of dinner, and ended up at the Boston seafood house down the street, which was surprisingly packed. We munched on fish and chips and chatted with the owner who kept coming around to make friendly conversation. He offered us some sushi to try, which seemed an odd fit in a place reminiscent of the Cheers bar, with Red Sox headlines and pennants adorning the yellow walls.

The rain subsided a bit, and we headed to the bookstore across town. I settled down in a stuffed chair in the corner of the café’ with a stack of art and home magazines, cozy and content to read until we were booted out at 10.

Our house was still dark when we first returned home, but the lights flicked back to life an hour later. Thankful for the air conditioner returning, we fell asleep late, restless from the grumblings of a late meal in our stomachs.

At 4 AM, we awoke harshly to a loud pounding on the front door. My heart did a somersault. It was a policeman, waking us to report that the house next door was on fire (what is it with all the fires?) and that we had to get outside immediately. Sleepy and disheveled, we dressed in 10 seconds, put scared-y-cat Sam on his leash, left poor Mia to fend for herself (at least temporarily,) and stumbled out to the curb to see what was happening.

Fortunately, there were no flames, only smoke to be seen between the lights of two fire trucks and three times as many police cars. They had the fire under control, but we were still forced to wander the block for close to an hour until it was safe to return inside.

It’s equally dreary today, with thick clouds and quiet streets, but I am glad for it. I will hold off on my plan to clean and bake muffins until the weekend. I need this afternoon to catch up on some sleep.

Blue.

Today feels like a picture day. Last night I watched Project Runway, which always inspires me to some creative end, and I begin to see ordinary things as more than just the purpose they serve.

I also notice colors.

For instance, this morning over a bowl of Special K Red Berries, I began to realize the number of items in my house that are some shade of Tiffany blue…

...my Nigella Lawson citrus juicer, matching measuring cups from my sister, the tiny whisk Jeremy used to scramble some eggs for breakfast:






And I found even more beyond the kitchen:

A Mysterious Rain

Last night at eleven, Sam and I ventured outside for his pre-bedtime visit to the grass. I usually accompany him as far as the patio, and then let him wander while I stand barefoot on the bumpy cobblestones, admiring the garden in the moonlight. It’s the only time of day lately that it’s actually cool enough to be outside for longer than a quick dash to the car. Sometimes I trace the squares of the patio floor with my feet, or run my hands along the twigs of rosemary and lavender in the copper pots to gather their aroma. Last night I inspected my hibiscus to see if any new apricot blooms might be ready to emerge with the light of day. Two wrinkled flowers were folded around themselves, asleep for the night.

Out of nowhere, something caught of the corner of my eye as it drifted down against the side of the house. It looked at first glance like a grey leaf. Then came another, then another, and another, and I thought how strange that the first signs of fall would be coming in the midst of an August heatwave at eleven at night.

I bent over to inspect one of the bits that had fallen near my feet and noticed it was shriveled and black, as if dead. I pinched it, and it crumbled to dust under my fingertips, leaving them smudged. Why were there ashes falling into the yard?

For two seconds, I admit, I thought the world was ending. What else is a person to think when huge ashes are pouring from the ink-sky like charcoal snowflakes? I squinted my eyes upward and looked for some sort of explosion between the stars, debris from a missile, I don’t know what. I know that sounds crazy, but it was literally raining ashes.

One by one they floated straight down, then in twos and threes. Some big, some small. All black and crumbly. They peppered the cobblestones and made our fresh garden feel eery and unfamiliar. Sam stared at me from across the lawn with a tilted head, the way dogs do when they’re tentative.

Jeremy was down the road with some friends, and I called him to see if it was raining ashes where he was, and to ask him to please come home. I think he assumed it was my hormones causing a hallucination, but he promised to be on his way. I opened the side gate and stepped out to the sidewalk, but no ashes appeared to be raining onto the street…only in our backyard.

Then came the stale scent of smoke, like an abandoned campfire that’s been smoldering too long. After inspecting the rooftops of our house with a flashlight (from the ground), I reassured myself that the world was not ending, and that our house was not on fire. I made a phone call to the non-emergency police who confirmed that there had been a fire reported on the next block.

Jeremy arrived and we drove down the street and circled through the alleys several times, looking for smoke or charred remnants of something. Instead we found only a few random trails of ashes scattered around in various places, but no real evidence of what might have created them.

It feels like we’re so shaken in these times we’re living in. Days that will fill pages of our children’s future history books, the way we once read about old wars and The Great Depression with a removed sort of understanding, as we sat in bright classrooms with posters of Snoopy. Those events almost seemed like made-up stories, nothing we could grasp with any real impact. Now, I feel as if in my short adult life, I have witnessed enough world-altering history to span five decades. It causes a tension inside me as I pat my rounded tummy and wonder what the future holds, and think about the ashes raining down.

Diving Into Domesticity

Yesterday I baked my first angel food cake – a chocolate chip one with gloppy icing. Come to find out, angel food cakes are not as easy to make as, say, brownies from a box. This is mainly because you have to beat the egg whites for about 100 minutes in order to get them to peak and become fluffy. Never have I wished so urgently for a KitchenAid mixer as I did while standing there with a weak bicep, holding my hand mixer for eons upon eons. At about minute eighteen, I decided the eggs were frothy enough—peaks or no peaks.

The cake turned out pretty well actually, not as light and spongy as the ones you get from the Kroger bakery, but definitely tasty.






After a sample slice each (for J and me) to make sure the cake was up to par, I covered the rest in a glass dome to await my friend Lisa’s arrival. She just returned from a two-month honeymoon in and around Germany. The cake was my attempt at a welcome home. We sat on the sofa with Chinese take-out and caught up on all her adventures in Munich, Switzerland, and Prague, and my adventures in napping and eating large quantities of frozen yogurt the entire time she was away.

I must say, I am really enjoying my foray into the hidden corners of my domestic self. Besides the cake, I am discovering that I might really love the idea of sewing something. I have clicked through hundreds of vintage fabric samples on Ebay in search of an alluring swatch--to make what out of, I have no idea, but my pin cushions are ready and waiting.

This is different than the time that I discovered a new love of shoes; this goes much deeper. I feel as if I must create.

Between watering the plants incessantly, Jeremy has been creating too---putting lyrics into his magic red notebook, and filling the house with piano sounds, which I love. We are in a good place…staying inside, out of the way of August, and learning what it means to be inspired again.

abode.

“The Nearness of You” [Saturday Ongoing]

This is one of my favorite Saturdays in awhile. After our lazy morning of TV-in-pajamas, we dressed quickly, split a honey-wheat bagel and headed out the door to the Farmer’s Market. Jeremy scoured the Gardens of Babylon nursery for lavender Crape Myrtles while I headed for the vegetable tents. I love walking through the tunnel surrounded by baskets of colorful produce in bright shades of green, orange, yellow and red. My nose led me to the soap lady in the local artisan’s section and I sampled the scents of homemade eucalyptus, lemon, and peppermint soaps, soft from olive oil. I bought a tumbled-edge bar of $2 lemon soap from the bargain basket and walked to the next table to pick up a pound of fresh pasta. Lemon seemed to be the flavor of the day, so I passed up the cheese raviolis and chose a box of fresh lemon-peppercorn linguine sprinkled with a bit of cornmeal. On my stroll back to meet Jeremy I picked up some green onions, a head of garlic, and a basket of grape tomatoes. Home we went.



Jeremy was eager to make a sauce from my ingredients for the pasta tonight so I helped chop the onions and garlic while olive oil popped and sizzled in the big sauce-pot. Louis and Ella sang from the speakers, and the sun poured through our kitchen windows, splashing light all around. In went a yellow can of tomatoes and a large clump of thyme from the herb trough out back.




Next we attempted an art project (my idea) with sun-sensitive paper and clippings of fern, leaves, and bamboo from the yard. Jeremy’s two designs turned out much better than my three, but escaping the heat became more important than getting it just right.



I headed out to buy a few final organizing items for the closet, while Jeremy stirred the sauce and took a rest. I listened to the Beatles B-sides all the way home (via Deep Tracks on XM Radio) and just as I approached the house, Simon and Garfunkel had a turn. Jeremy waved from the front porch where he was checking on the status of our droopy Dawn Redwood, and I cranked up the song…

“Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da here I am
The only living boy in New York…”

I sat in the car at the edge of the curb just listening and letting the air conditioner cool my face. I felt a wave of nostalgia for my childhood mixed with a memory from two summers ago when Jeremy surprised me with a Simon and Garfunkel concert for my birthday. For a second I wished the day was cool enough to hop into our VW bug for a drive, like we did last fall. I had to listen to the song the whole way through. I knew as soon as I turned the car key the moment would be over, and I wanted to sit in it as long as I could. Certain music does that.

Jeremy met me at the door. I feel so fortunate to have a husband who I love to spend time with, and who above all else is an amazing friend. Sure, we have our moments when things don’t seem as effortlessly in sync as they did today…but much more often than not, I’m happiest to have him nearby.

What I Love About Saturday...

Waking up at 10 AM with no alarm clock, only a sliver of sun peeking through the blinds

Morning coffee on the sofa while watching TV in our PJs – we are watching landscape design shows on HGTV and Jeremy is engrossed

A day full of project possibilities – today I will edit some photos, work on a painting, and sort a few more drawers

Sam the dog curled up against my legs, sleeping in an extra hour

Brunch

Time to roam around town--maybe a trip to the Farmer’s Market for some summer tomatoes and a jar of local honey

The sound of Jeremy playing his new piano

Skipping a shower

Strolling mindlessly through antique malls, flea markets, and the art supply shop

Piecing together a creative dinner from whatever ingredients are left from the week

Imagining my mom at her weekend beach house, walking along the humid shore, collecting shells and smooth bits of colored glass

Rest

Mother Bird.

I am nesting. Just like that crazy fat robin, who for a time, dove at our heads and made a mess of our front porch ledge with its scraps of twine and eggshell. Lately I’ve been scouring every nook and cranny of our house, searching for another drawer to organize. Even our refrigerator cannot be tidy enough to suit me. I wish I could fill the doors with entirely new jars of strawberry jam and almond butter to replace the half-filled ones. And maybe alphabetize them too.

Yesterday I poured through years of old recipes strewn sideways into a box and spilling out from the top. I found lots of contributions from my mother, written in her familiar cursive that has evolved only slightly since she scrawled into my baby book in the seventies. I found her recipe for gumbo that made me miss New Orleans, and lots of old appetizers she used to make for Superbowl parties. They all went into a well-sorted binder and I moved on to two of many junk drawers in the house.

Meanwhile, Jeremy was in our closet hanging new shelves and assembling a laundry hamper. I cannot tell you how happy this made me…a fellow-nester in my very own home. We worked on the closet until midnight, and I drifted off to sleep thinking about how much I will enjoy color-sorting all our clothes today as I hang them back up in their renovated space.

I have been thinking about some of my goals for motherhood, like creating a signature grilled cheese sandwich, and making our house a creative place where our children feel inspired. (These are among the slightly shallower goals, filed after the important ones like raising a person of integrity and faith.) But I do want to build forts in the living room and help them cut paper snowflakes to scotch-tape to the windows at Christmastime.

When I was little, I always had an endless supply of Play-doh, and if I was ever bored, my mom usually sat me down with a stack of construction paper or some magazine pages to tear apart. I can remember painting shrinky-dinks, and molding silly putty into odd animal shapes. It taught me to imagine.

At the moment, all I can really imagine is how great it would feel to line up the bottles in my medicine cabinet according to size. And once that's done, I might clear some space in our extra bedroom for a future toy box, and some shelves for plastic scissors and jumbo crayons.

Ritual.

Every morning is the same. I wake up on the left side of the bed, roll myself into the kitchen, pour a cup of husband-made coffee, scoop some kibble into the cat bowl to quiet her whining, and settle into my gold leather armchair by the sunroom window to read and finish opening my eyes.

The variations come only on weekends, and the days when my husband, who is so very heroic and sweet for making the coffee in the first place (I have no room to complain,) skips the steps of washing out all the components of our ridiculously Jenga-like coffee maker and the brew ends up tasting a tad bitter.

I have an acute tongue for coffee. My favorite summer Starbucks drink used to be an iced cinnamon latte with two-percent milk. (Skim makes it too watery next to the ice, and whole is too thick and milky, interrupting the flavor of the coffee. There is a science to these things.) Over time, I began to notice that my latte sometimes tasted better than others. I’ve always believed that Starbucks workers are schooled in consistency, so this made me curious. One afternoon at the drive-through window, I took a sip and found my drink to be the perfect blend. Not too sweet, no bitter aftertaste. I wanted to congratulate the latte maker but felt silly, so instead I just asked, “Why is it that sometimes when I order this it tastes bitter, unlike this masterpiece which you have made for me today?”

The guy at the window, who actually was just making change, not espresso drinks, informed me that there are some baristas who ARE LAZY and don’t take the time to rinse out the components of the espresso machine between pulling shots. When that happens, the oils from previous pulls collect and become bitter, thereby compromising the purity of all future shots and rendering my drink groty.

This morning my “barista” (the one I sleep next to) was not lazy, but still my ritual was thrown askew. For starters, I woke up on the couch.

Yesterday, while cleaning out my desk drawers, I came upon several fluffy cat toys. Normally, we hide the toys from the cat for the very reason that I am about to explain to you, but I have noticed that Mia is packing on the pounds lately, so I decided she needed some exercise and tossed three toys to the floor. Before we went to sleep last night, I mentioned to Jeremy that I should gather up the cat toys to keep her from making “hunting noises” all night, but he said, “No, no, leave them out. I want to see what she does. If she makes noise I will get up and take them away.”

At 5:50 this morning, I started dreaming about scary, screeching children, and woke up to the real-life sounds of the cat prowling around the house with a pom-pom in her mouth droning on and on as if in pain.

An hour later, after the droning stopped, I still couldn’t fall back asleep and moved to the sofa. When I woke up, I had a horrible headache, and in an insult to injury kind of way, the coffee was not up to its usual level of warm, friendly greeting. My husband just mowed the lawn in this blazing summer heat, so I will not speculate further on why the coffee was bad. And I think I will attempt to redeem the day by making us both some nice French toast.

Suds.

I always seem to find bubbles on my birthday.

Last week I turned 33 and sat five rows from a velvet-curtained stage, sandwiched between my husband and two little blonde girls on booster seats who kept switching places. Before us was a party of dancers in colorful panty-hose suits who appeared to lack skeletons. They were somersaulting over each other’s heads, galloping through hoops twenty feet in the air, and balancing chandeliers on their foreheads while assuming the dead cockroach position. It was magical to be at the circus, and I was surprised at how often my mouth fell open in amazement and how genuinely I laughed when a cat bride and groom came rolling along in a stagecoach pulled by a poodle.

This wasn’t a circus with juggling clowns crammed in a Volkswagen, or tightrope acts with roaring tigers; it was a sophisticated circus. A dance of acrobats. Ballerinas who could fly and twirl from satin ribbons high above the crowd. [The cat wedding was just a bonus.]

Then my favorite part happened: bubbles began to float down from above and fill the theatre as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” played. I lost interest in the dancers swaying on stage and became enraptured by a rain of bubbles drifting toward my head and vanishing into my skin. I felt peaceful and happy, caught up in a sense of wonder that only finds me once in a long while, when all the distractions of life dissolve. I became like a seven year old again, curled up in my Crayola sleeping bag on the living room floor watching The Muppet Show while my sister braided my hair.

There was also the time that we almost burned the kitchen down. My sister and I were attempting to cook a chocolate mousse recipe we’d seen demonstrated on our favorite show, ZOOM. Our babysitter must have been in another room talking on the phone as we knelt on chairs and stirred away bubbling pots on the stove. The details are vague, but I remember that a dishtowel caught on fire, and somehow the glass coffee pot exploded and there was chocolate pudding everywhere. That was a night full of distractions.

A few years ago, some friends took me to lunch in Franklin for my birthday. Afterward, we walked around the square looking at the shops. I was wearing a black dress and a turquoise necklace and I remember it being a really good day. We walked along the sidewalk for awhile, eventually coming to the shop that made homemade soaps and fizzy things for your bathtub. The smell of lavender and roses drifted outside and mixed with the bubbles floating down from above the doorway. I stood there and popped them with my fingers before they could land, my head tilted back to watch them bouncing toward me.

Sitting at the circus, being pelted by soft bubbles, I thought of an idea. One January when our little kid has a fifth birthday or so, I will bring a bubble machine home through the winter snow and will fill our house with the fragile orbs to celebrate. And maybe, hopefully, just like our child, I will find myself still caught up in the magic of them too.

Five Villages

[in keeping with my recent tribute to SUMMER, i offer a photo blog of our three days spent in Cinque Terre on the coast of Italy. it was early-May when we were there, but it's the kind of place that feels like a perfect slice of breathtaking summer any time of year...]

{click photo to enlarge}