September warmed and sweetened.

food and cooking, my garden, summer, wildflowers, , , , , ,

My worries about September being too cool did not come to pass. We even had a sort of heat wave for two days, and one night when the temperature did not drop below the mid-60’s. As soon as the sun set that evening, we opened the windows and started running the fans. It was cooler the next night, back to our usual marine air, and being able to leave the windows open night and day, and even to let the sun shine in.

It’s warm enough to ripen figs, and we have eaten a few, but something is not right with my tree. Most of the figs turn purple before they get any size, and fall off when they are still small and hard. The ground is littered with them. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the problem is, but I still don’t know.

At least, this year I’m happy about the tomatoes. It’s not often anymore that I have home-grown, vine-ripened “love apples” here, other than cherry tomatoes. I suppose one could make a BLT with those, but it never occurred to me. This summer I have Early Girls, and I wanted to make at least one sandwich using slices of them, lettuce and bacon. I accomplished that goal, and it was well worth the trouble.

And I used a few stems of the abundant tarragon to make the wonderful Tarragon Salsa Verde:

  • leaves from 1 small bunch fresh parsley (approx. 20g / 1 cup)
  • leaves from fresh tarragon (approx. 5g / 1/4 cup)
  • 1 spring onion including green part (roughly chopped)
  • zest of 1 lemon and juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes or 1/2 teaspoon pouring salt
  • 6 tablespoons olive oil

Mix all in a food processor and use as a dip, a spread for bread or on baked chicken, or eggs. It’s just wonderful. I even froze a little batch one time and used it later.

It comes to mind just now, that this salsa would probably make a nice addition to a BLT… I might try that before the tomatoes and tarragon have become a memory.

It wasn’t until last week that I got around to bringing flowers into the house, a bouquet of zinnias, with sweet peas and basil. This year I seem to be content to just stare out at the garden, or wander the paths doing little things, and procrastinating on this year’s Fall Reorganizing. Living where the winters are mild makes it possible — and often beneficial — to put off planting or transplanting until October. But extending the season has its down side; I hope next year I won’t have to do any of this moving-plants-around kind of work — but that’s what I’ve said for three years now.

I opened up one dried flower of the Queen Anne’s Lace that had self-sowed next to my driveway, and sprinkled the seeds among the Mexican Evening Primrose that grow in that arid corner. The latter needs a least a little water in the summer, and is always overrun by weeds. The Queen Anne’s Lace grows vigorously all over the place without any summer water. Maybe it will thrive, and crowd out a few of the less beautiful weeds.

On one of those hot days I did loads of laundry, and used the clothesline. The overflowing basket of items that needed special treatment in the sink is now empty! These two pillowcases that are a hundred years old are fresh and clean. I inherited them from my husband’s aunts or grandmother, and they were a little yellow in places. Now I will start using them. I’m not certain about the monogram… I think it might be FLK? If it is, I don’t know which relative that could be.

Now that Bea is living here, my kitchen is getting more use; it’s really fun to have a girl around who likes cooking and produces things for me to taste. Recently she made meringues from aquafaba! I knew that liquid from canned garbanzo beans was a versatile ingredient, but I had no idea it could substitute for egg whites in this way. She used aquafaba, sugar, and vanilla. When I was first eating the cookie, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a regular meringue, because she had made them after I went to bed. They were very nice.

Flowers, cookies, tomatoes and figs — September so far is warm and sweet.

 

The very proof of me.

beauty, poetry, wildflowers, , , , ,

Walter de la Mare in the poem below does not sound sad for himself, that he should leave this world and go to a place without lamentation and darkness. But when he is removed from this earthly realm and will no longer be around to praise and wonder and delight in its beauties… will someone else take his place in that role? I’m intrigued by the idea he puts forth here, which sounds like “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Beauty is somehow also personified, and passes on the legacy of wonderment from one generation to another.

I don’t believe that when we leave this earth, we will forget its beauties, though He Who is the source of all beauty will certainly consume our attention. But it is surely a sign of his great love, and most natural for him, that De La Mare wants to be sure that those earthly delights have admirers when he is gone.

I wasn’t familiar with the flower that the poet names, Traveler’s Joy, so I looked it up and found that yes, it’s a clematis that is famous in the U.K. for climbing to the tops of hedgerows. Late in the season it takes on the appearance that makes people call it Old Man’s Beard, as in the photo at the bottom.

FARE WELL

When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?

Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller’s Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.

-Walter de la Mare

Photo by Phil Gates in The Guardian

Put your ear close.

culture, humanity, poetry, , ,

I didn’t learn until recently that “Practice resurrection” has become a sort of slogan. The phrase has worked itself into many sermons since Wendell Berry closed his “Manifesto” poem with the words, and it’s also the title of a 2010 book by Eugene Peterson. The only place I’ve personally read or heard it is in this poem. This post has been in my drafts folder for several months, since before Wendell Berry died. It is a wonderful expression of the fervor of his love that called out and pushed back against the wasting of communities, and of souls.

But it was only recently that I came across a lecture by Gracy Olmstead, about Wendell’s wife Tanya and her own artistic sensibilities that contributed so much to their life together, their home and their farm. The lecture was given in 2025 but only recently put up on the Berry Center site. Gracy published the text of her talk on her Substack: “Tanya Berry’s Work and Wisdom.” I strongly urge you to click on the link if only to see a photo of Tanya very elegantly feeding pigs; I found the whole thing very thought-provoking. Farming is for Tanya a way to practice her art.

One odd thing I discovered in my research when I was first drafting this post was a Christian minister who thought that for his Easter sermon in 2024 he had invented the word “resurrectional.” Berry published this poem in the 1973 edition of his collection, The Country of Marriage.

MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

-Wendell Berry

 

Cakes for her birthday.

church, feasts, food and cooking, , ,

Today at church we celebrated the birth of Christ’s mother, the Theotokos (God-bearer) with Divine Liturgy. I was among those who brought birthday cakes to enjoy after the service. I have made this particular lemon cake four times now, and I like my version better than the one I adapted slightly, which was the America’s Test Kitchen version. I just now typed it up in a tidy form that I could post here. Everyone who tried it loved it; they said it was “fluffy” or “spongy,” and especially praised the crunchy topping. It is oh-so-lemony.

LEMON BUTTERMILK SHEET CAKE

Cake:

  • 2 ½ cups unbleached flour (10 oz.)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ cup buttermilk
  • Zest of 3 lemons or 3 tablespoons, grated
  • ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar (11 oz.)
  • 12 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 large egg yolk

Glaze:

  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (6 oz.)
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoons buttermilk

Instructions:

  1. Have oven rack in the middle, and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13″ baking dish and set aside.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a measuring cup, combine buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla. Set aside.
  3. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the white sugar and lemon zest on medium speed until moist and fragrant (about 1 minute). Remove 1/4 cup of the sugar mixture and place it in a small bowl. Cover and set aside.
  4. Add the butter to the remaining sugar mixture and beat until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in the eggs and yolk, one at a time, until incorporated. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 2 additions. Mix until smooth (about 30 seconds)
  5. Scrape the batter into the reserved baking pan and smooth out the top. Bake until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (about 30-40 minutes). Be careful not to over bake. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
  6. While the cake is cooling, whisk the glaze ingredients together until smooth. Spread the glaze over the cake and sprinkle evenly with the reserved sugar mixture.
  7. Allow to cool completely, at least 2 hours.

Happy Feast to All,
and Happy Birthday to the Mother of our LORD!