Tag Archives: playhouse

A May afternoon with friends.

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cistus

After church on Sunday I had twelve friends over for a little party. Half of them were children under ten, and all of those had been in my house before; they fell to right away playing with my dress-up clothes, dolls, and matchbox cars. At one point the squirming baby let me remove her to the armchair in the play area where we read a couple of stories together, so that in the other room her mother might drink tea with both hands.

dwarf pomegranate and helianthemum

The weather had warmed up just enough between Saturday and Sunday to make it pleasant for eating outside, and for the children to enjoy organizing the playhouse. I had spent more time cleaning that little hut in preparation than I did the real house — but I still have not sewn new curtains for its window, in these ten years since it became mine.

May is in many ways the perfect month for a garden party, because of the variety of blooms — and what a joy to have other people soaking up the beauty with me. This spring, since I “lifted the skirt” on the pomegranates, the orange helianthemums are bursting with more flowers than ever before; the wisteria is in its prime, and the bees are buzzing all over it. The snowballs on the viburnum are at their best. And we have the possibility of temperate and sunny afternoons. I always think it should be easy to host more such gatherings, but just finding a date that works for everyone takes a lot of effort; in this case I’d begun that process seven weeks ahead.

snowball bush

I’d started planning the menu, too — it needed to be items that wouldn’t need fussing over that day. One thing I made the evening before was this favorite quinoa salad that is tweakable to what one has on hand, which I found on the New York Times cooking site. I am unlocking the recipe for you, and you can access it through the link: Quinoa and Broccoli Spoon Salad.

A warning about the quantity of salad that came from one of the cooks who joked about it supposedly serving 4-6: “…it serves 4 to 6 distance swimmers during an Olympic training camp.” I used two cups of quinoa and ended up with plenty left over for my guests to take home plus more than I can eat staying here. I don’t like mustard so I left that out, and I used dried California cherries instead of cranberries, toasted walnuts instead of pecans. I like these NYT recipes because the cooks who try them share things they learned when making them according to the original instructions, or after they alter various ingredients or procedures.

figs in the fall

Few people like raw broccoli, but as I have learned and other cooks testified, the dressing in this dish quickly marinates the small pieces of broccoli and removes the unpleasant rawness, while retaining a little crispness.

In an effort to use up foods from my freezer and pantry, I made one dessert using plums from my trees that I’d put by last summer, and another dessert using figs that I had tried freezing raw for the first time. Both worked well and were heartily eaten. Plum and Cream Scone Cobbler from Smitten Kitchen I’ve made before with peaches, but this time I had enough plums to use them.

It was delicious, but I will change some things if I make it again. The scones that make the cobbler topping are just too rich, with a whole stick of butter and a cup of cream in the dough. At least, they are too rich combined with the amount of fruit called for. Maybe I would decrease the butter by half next time, and use at least 50% more fruit. (Ha! I see that last time I made it I told myself to make those very changes next time, and forgot.) I also seem to have cut my scones too large…

My guests and I didn’t only talk about books over the course of our leisurely afternoon, but many book titles popped up in our conversation, more than I even know about. A few that I can recall just from our last hour together were: The Ethics of Beauty; St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns On Paradise; The Hidden Rainbow; Christ the Conqueror of Hell; The Little Liar; and Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future.

At one point I ran upstairs to get this book to show the others, my latest deep read. They all had a good laugh with me. It’s not just goofy, but is actually a very thought-provoking book! Maybe I will tell about here it sometime: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. I do a lot of that already, but I’m sure there’s room for improving my skills.

Usually when children play in the playhouse, they like to prepare salads or other halfway-pretend dishes made of all the edibles I give them permission to pick from the garden, including flowers as well as vegetables.

collard flowers

I meant to point my younger guests to my exuberantly flowering kale, parsley and who-knows-what in the planter boxes I am not cultivating right now, but I never got around to it. After everyone had gone home I checked out the back garden to see if there was the sort of happy mess I’m used to in and around the playhouse. There was no evidence that anyone had done any “cooking,” but rather a lot of setting in order, with the dish soap by the sink and a lavish bouquet completing the scene. It was symbolic of all that I had received from my guests who gave me an afternoon in spring.

All the most dramatic things happen.

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“It is right that men should have houses, right that they should have land, right that they should have laws to protect the land; but all these things are only machinery to make leisure for the labouring soul. The house is only a stage set up by stage carpenters for the acting of what Mr. J. B. Yeats has called ‘the drama of the home.’

“All the most dramatic things happen at home, from being born to being dead. What a man thinks about these things is his life; and to substitute for them a bustle of electioneering and legislation is to wander about among screens and pulleys on the wrong side of pasteboard scenery; and never to act the play. And that play is always a miracle play; and the name of its hero is Everyman.”

-G.K. Chesterton

2016

Playing under sepia skies.

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Soldier’s family and I are having such a good time, I think most of us forget for long periods about the pervasive fires and the smoky skies. My dear people arrived four days ago, and we’ve been as busy as beavers ever since. The boys are much louder than beavers. There’s something about three boys arriving in a family in less than six years that creates a force field of extra decibels and energy output. I have no doubt that in the balance the constructive energies are increasing!

The first day we did the creek walk, and tasted fennel in all stages of its growth, from the newest fronds to the early seeds. The boys learned about Queen Anne’s spot of blood, and how horsetails break so satisfyingly clean at their joints. I learned the name of a new plant, White Sweetclover.

For two days we did lots of chores in the garden and around the house.

My playhouse has been lovingly fortified by Soldier since I got it used five years ago; back then he put a floor on it and placed it on a foundation he’d made. He sealed it against the rain, and repaired the door when it was falling apart. This week he recreated the little decoration above the door, that used to have red plastic matching the roof. Now it has red wood shingles matching the new roof, and I don’t think there is any remaining plastic that can peel and get brittle and break. If ashes weren’t falling in the back yard I’m sure little Clara would be playing house.

Liam picked many figs that were hard for me to get to, because it’s easy for him to wriggle among the hedges of yarrow and oregano, into the tangle of fig branches, to find the fruits that are drooping and black. Often they have a bird peck taken out of them, so we cut that part off and eat the rest. He and Laddie helped me deadhead the echinacea and one remaining lavender.

The third day, off to the beach! It was an exploratory mission; we couldn’t know for sure from the air quality apps if it would be worse than inland, but we hoped not, and when we got out of the car it was comfortable enough to breathe, so we stayed all afternoon. It was Clara’s first beach experience. She was game for everything.

The boys used all their mental and physical powers in sport with the surf. I who was never much of an athlete am awed by the quick reflexes of one, and the way another takes on the waves as a sort of whole-body interactive science project, learning how to work with the crashing and pushing and keep his balance.

Pacific sand crabs

Joy found a sea plant washed up and called to Brodie, “Here’s a rope!” He came running and gathered it up, flung it out, dragged it all over.

Soldier made a castle and hours later we waited for the waves to slowly encroach. The shorebirds entertained us, digging with their bills that were nearly as long as their stilty legs. At home later, Soldier and I with the help of Cornell’s allaboutbirds.com identified them as Marbled Godwits.

Two things hard to understand: How late it was, when we started home. Maybe the sunlight’s never changing all day confused our inner clocks. The other strange thing was the color of our pictures when we looked at them later.

I’m reading to the boys Along Came a Dog by Meindert DeJong. It has ten chapters, so I told them that we should try to read two chapters at each sitting, so as to guarantee that we finish in the nine days they will be here, since we can’t read every day. Today we finished the sixth chapter, and in the middle of the session they started playing with Legos while they listened, and building figures to represent the main characters in the story.

The story starts with the man, a flock of white chickens, and the little red hen. He drives off to work every day. And then, along comes a big black dog — that he doesn’t want. I would like to give you more of a review of the book and tell you about our intense engagement with the story, and the things we talk about. But I am way too tired to do that right now, and I must rest and store up strength, and be ready to meet the force field tomorrow morning. Good night!

End of June tune.

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When Daughter Kate and her family arrived, we soon established a tradition of drinking smoothies in the afternoon, on the sunny patio. Raj especially liked the thick one I made with mango, ice, rice protein and pineapple juice concentrate. Then there was chocolate banana. And strawberry.

He hadn’t seen the playhouse in six months, and was quite pleased.

Rigo celebrated his first birthday, and he was pleased, too.

Raj sings pretty much all through the day, and he carries a tune awfully well for a two-year-old. I love having Raffi and every children’s folk song wafting through the house and garden.

By the way, out there, a hollyhock whose seeds I planted several years ago is blooming for the first time. [It’s Black Currant Whirl from Baker Creek seeds.] It’s in a very out-of-the way spot behind the mock orange, and grew giant buds before I ever noticed. Then today, this!

I went to church today for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Blessed Feast! Our parish is not open yet on Sunday mornings; that is, we aren’t able to be in the building except for a short time when we file through to receive the sacrament. But because this was a weekday Liturgy, not a large crowd was expected, and we could stand through the service at an appropriate distance from one another. I was an hour late because I’ve been busy with other things than keeping track of the service schedule that’s been changing a lot lately. It was still quite a blessing.

I visited the icon of Saint Isadora, whose message I know that I always need, but never more than these days and months we’ve had lately. And what a gorgeous flower surround for the icon of the saints of the day.

I’ll see you in July! ❤