Tag Archives: tea

I feast on the garden and my cold dinner.

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Today I spent most of the afternoon and evening working in my garden, happy to act out the quote from Elisabeth in the last post. Often on Mondays I end up trimming and weeding, because it’s tonight that I put out the garbage cans to be picked up in the morning, including the big green bin that is for all green waste.

The lettuces that had bolted I chopped up and gave to my worms. Out there I set up a board by way of a chopping block just for this purpose. I probably have four times as many worms as I started with last fall, because the man who gave me my starter batch moved far away and couldn’t take his worm farm; he gave them all to me! He consolidated all three or four of his bins into one new one, before bringing it to my house, so I fear that they are overcrowded, and I plan to modify my set-up so that they have more room. But they seem to be doing well on the diet I provide.

I tied the new tomato stems to the long tree prunings I am using for stakes; I removed a lot of spindly new nigella sprouts that are still coming up everywhere even though the weather is not conducive to their health. And I picked lots of kale and Swiss chard.

Last Saturday my patio got scrubbed and power-washed. I’d noticed only this spring how black it had turned over the winter; it hadn’t been cleaned since it was installed twenty years ago. While that was happening I picked a few of the sweet peas from the vines that are crisping up, as I pulled out the plants. The patio was left to dry and won’t be sealed until later this week, so in the meantime all my potted plants are waiting on the paths. I was watering them this morning when I noticed the manzanita’s bark curling as it does at this time of year. Here are new pictures of that artistry.

At six o’clock I was still going strong, and I didn’t want to stop and cook dinner, so I came in and just found cold things in the fridge to eat quickly — a lamb chop and a few roasted Brussels sprouts. There was cold tea as well, pretty fancy stuff that had just arrived today.

Last year I gave my grandson Scout a subscription to a few orders of Tea Runners blends of tea, and when I visited him recently he made tea for me from a flavor of my choice, from his collected packets. I was so impressed with the various flavors I decided to order a few for myself, and today I made Burgundy Blast as iced tea. Its color and flavor reminded me of the Kool-Aid that my siblings and I used to drink in the summers of my youth; I say that, quite glad not to have drunk Kool-Aid for many decades. But this was just barely sweet (I see from the ingredients list that the mangoes included were sweetened), and so fruity and yummy. And beautiful. This is what it looked like before the boiling water was poured over:

For several years I used to pick lavender flowers from my many plants, hoping to put them into sachets. I stored them in the freezer against the day I would have time for that project. But it never happened, and I stopped trying. This year I got the idea to make lavender simple syrup, but I didn’t pick the buds in time, and now they are fading. Oh, well, I gathered a cupful of blooms anyway, and maybe I will make lemon & lavender shortbread… maybe.

A lovely thing happened on this gardening day: I received in the mail this book The Fragrance of God, by Vigen Guroian (2006). I noticed it online when I was buying the new edition of Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination. The Fragrance book seems to be on the same theme as the author’s previous book, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening. I couldn’t help leafing through it right away, though I was too busy to give it proper attention. Just now I did take time to glean one quote with which to end my mostly garden post. I am reveling in my own heart’s portion of Paradise tonight.

“When Adam left it, he took a portion of Paradise with him. That piece of Paradise is more deeply etched in the human soul than all the memories of this impoverished world. Scratch beneath the skin of a genuine gardener, and you will find this memory of Paradise. When he looks into his backyard, Paradise is what he envisions. But Paradise is not just inside of every man and woman. In these regions of ‘sin and woe,’ William Cowper remarks, ‘Traces of Eden’  may still be seen, ‘where mountain, river, forest, field, and grove’
remind us of our ‘Maker’s power and love.'”

Drop it gently onto the tongue.

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It’s always nice to have a piece of toast, or some tasty thing to go with tea. At least, that’s how many of us think. In Kusamakura, the narrator takes tea with the host of the inn where he is staying, and there is a tea-sweets plate on the table, but it is bare. It’s there to be itself, a blue stone artifact that the owner wants to show off, and the narrator muses without speaking:

“It is nothing short of astonishing to consider the fine dexterity of the master craftsman who has carved such a large piece of stone to such thinness, and with such delicate precision! Spring sunlight shines through the translucent stone, seemingly captured and held there within its depths. It is right that such a plate remains empty.”

At a tea time earlier in the story, the guest does mention a tea-sweet, “…the firm bean jelly known as yōkan…. Yōkan happens to be my very favorite tea sweet. Not that I particularly want to eat it, but that velvety, dense texture, with its semitranslucent glow, makes it a work of art by any standards. I especially enjoy the sight of yōkan that has a slightly blue-green sheen, like a mixture of gemstones and alabaster — and this bluish yōkan piled on the plate glistens….” Sorry, I can’t go on. In a later post I hope to have more to say about this character who, while his mind overflows with voluptuous details pertaining to what he likes, dismisses more and more other things and behaviors as “vulgar.”

Because of him, I am feeling more welcoming of Lent. But before that shift toward better feasts, I want to show you my own edible works of art from blogger friend Orientikate in Japan; she wanted to contribute to my research on the land where she dwells. 🙂 In my case, I was so vulgar that I did want to eat them all! The dorayaki below is made with the same red beans that our artist praises above. Made into a sweetened paste and wrapped in a soft pancake, they make a lovely treat to eat with tea.

A packet of crispy snacks was in the package, and several types of green tea, and all of those gifts have been much enjoyed; sometimes I drank the tea from one of the ornate teacup twins that were given to our family more than 20 years ago, by a shy Japanese exchange student who was with us for only a week.

I try to drink tea only in the morning, because I seem to be more sensitive to caffeine the older I get. I know that green tea contains substances that have a calming effect as well, and there was a time when I could drink it all day, as I know many people do. But I laughed out loud at the end of this passage from the same book, when after admiring the plates and the kettle and the calligraphy on the wall, the guests take some nourishment:

“A connoisseur with time on his hands will elegantly taste this rich, delicately sweet liquid, ripened in the precise temperature of the hot water, by letting it run one drop at a time on to the tip of the tongue. Most people believe that tea is to be drunk, but that is a mistake. If you drop it gently onto the tongue and let the pure liquid dissipate in your mouth, almost none of it remains for you to swallow.

“Rather, the exquisite fragrance travels down to permeate the regions of the stomach. Using the teeth on solid food is vulgar, while mere water is insipid. The best green tea, on the other hand, surpasses fresh water in its delicate, rich warmth, yet lacks the firmness of more solid substances that tire the jaw. Tea is, in fact, a marvelous drink. To those who spurn it on the grounds of insomnia, I say that it’s better to be deprived of sleep than of tea.”

Green tea, and stories from Japan.

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I have begun reading a few Japanese novels, in translation of course, and maybe I will add a nonfiction book, because Bellezza has drawn me into her Japanese Literature Challenge 12 — Yes, it’s the twelfth time she has hosted this project! I’ve never had any thought of joining in before, until this month I read a review of one novel linked from her site. It sounded intriguing, so I checked to see how many pages were in the book  — I am lately tired of slogging through 500 or 800 pages in order to complete a story — and it was barely over 200 pages, whee!

Nosing around the body of relatively modern Japanese literature with an eye to length, I soon came up with a plan. The first three books are short, and then things get more difficult, so I might not do all five before the end of March. But I did already complete The Great Passage, and am definitely having fun. It was the coziest thing on a rainy day, to sit by the fire with a book, and green tea from a Japanese-inspired pot. My list:

The Great Passage by Shion Miura

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki

The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo

 

If the tea in the photo doesn’t look green to you, it’s because, unfortunately, the day with green tea prevented me from sleeping that night, so I switched to a more thoroughly soothing blend for the next rainy reading session. I read while waiting at the dentist, and at the doctor, and after I crawled under the blankets at night.

Now I’m in the middle of Sweet Bean Paste, which refers to a confection that I’ve never been drawn to. The idea of mixing beans and sugar puts me off, but I should probably at least try to sample it before I write a review. If I could learn to appreciate it, it sounds like a proper accompaniment for my Japanese reading — and cup of tea.

What I need to know is, if a Japanese reader can’t drink tea with caffeine, what does she drink?

A gathering of godmothers.

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As I was scrubbing and shining the windows on a brisk afternoon, I made peace with myself over the tea party. Housemate Susan and I had planned one since the middle of Advent, but as the date grew closer the argument played in my mind, about whether it was ridiculous to take on another project right now, or perfectly sensible.

Now I knew it was worth it, because otherwise I don’t know when I’d have gotten around to the windows. And cleaning around the lower reaches of the kitchen, etc. The day before, I remembered that I like to use my vintage white napkins at tea parties, and I actually located them upstairs, where every room but Susan’s is dreadfully chaotic for reasons I’ll go into later. I ironed about ten soft cloths with help from a spray bottle of water infused with lemongrass oil. Happiness.

What about a centerpiece for the table? I was using my birds-and-forest table runner, which made me think to check by the creek for some berries and conifer branches, of which I brought home a bagful. All of that had been washed by rain, but was still fresh enough that not one berry fell off.

In the early stages of our idea, the party had been named a Godmother Party. I wanted very much to have the female members of Susan’s goddaughter Gigi’s family, and then it followed naturally to invite my three goddaughters who live in the area, and my godmother, and the godmother of my goddaughter’s sister… and so it went. Not everyone could come in the end, but it was a beautiful time. The little girls got to play outside in the playhouse a bit; the grownup ladies enjoyed a relaxing cup of Christmas tea, near the cheery fire of oak logs that Susan carefully tended. No rush.

Of tea, we had three pots full. “Joyous Jasmine” green tea came from Brewlette, a hipster sort of Indian source you can find on Facebook, in a gift pack from Kate. That was the most flowery, aromatic tea I have ever experienced.

We had a strong black tea from Russia, which came in this churchly tin, and another delicious and festive blend named “Nutcracker Rooibos” — The children drank that as it is caffeine-free.

Cookies, peanut brittle, mini-quiches, chocolates, fancy nuts, and thick slices of my dense Swedish sourdough rye, with plenty of butter. I haven’t mentioned yet the lemony Greek butter cookie twists that Susan made, but you can see below how cute they are.

‘Twas a Fifth Day of Christmas feast!