Love and thank yous

As soon as I saw on Facebook that Igor was sick I knew I was going to make him soup.   But it didn't occur to me that I was doing for him what my wise women teachers taught me to do by doing it for me over all these years until later, standing in Derynne's kitchen tonight.  Her friend, who I've never met til tonight, said 'that's really the best medicine, the vitamins and minerals cooked in from the whole foods.'  Then she took a sip from a plastic red cup of wine that already had her lips joker purple. And she grinned and added 'and all that bright white light~'

It made me raise my brow with my own little grin because indeed as she said that I was adding the last little dash of flavor and also putting blessings of so much love and thank you all over that soup.  This was the first thing she'd said to me directly all night.  I don't know if she saw my smile.  We'd been packing D's house for their move on January 2.  They are going back to the dessert where Cam's tattoo shop is.  Packing laundry boxing taping labeling drinking wine drinking wine making chicken soup.  And dumplings. This gal's either got drunk second-sight or is wild-intuitive.  Either one totally natural.  One homemade pot was macaroni noodles with broth just like Judy taught me to make way back even before I lived on the farm.  To that pot I also added kale and chard-pot like Teena used to make to heal me, when I lived in sabbatical with her those many long days at Chop.  Also tons of oregano because Igor's sinus' are sick and for sick sinus', well that's one of the first things I ever learned working with herbs.  Also back in the days that I used to salvage Judy's herb garden out on the side of her river house.  And cloves and cloves of garlic.  And other secret dashes and smiles.  The other pot was homemade chicken dumplings, the way grandma taught me all those different times standing behind or beside her or out of her sight but her not out of mine.  I didn't make hand-pressed noodles Pennsylvania-Dutch style though, but, with Grandma's recipe and a combo nod to Judy again, little butter dumplings that turned in the broth and before the roux to the warmest, fluffiest balls.  That pot I made for Laura another student of mine, or rather as I don't teach them now, for Laura a woman I know who's far away from her mom's countryside home in Romania.  My students, I mean my friends, so far away from family, during the holidays.

It is cold and clear the night before the last day of the year.  Pon Pon walked me to where I was parked on Adams.  He lives with Igor and Gustavo.  And Bob, who I've met several times through them, and Leo too.  Igor was in bed sniffling and laughing his wonderful Igor laugh.  I made all of them take emergenC's and zincs the way Maria did back when I was first learning to teach and got so sick right after Christmas that year.  Back when Judy first made me homemade chicken soup and showed me how.  And her, and Maria my mentor teacher, how both those good women took turns stopping by to give me care.  Pon Pon handed me a bag of Brazilian chocolates at my car and gave me a million kisses on my head.  We could see our breath.  I live in Southern California, it was almost midnight, I have a sweet artist's studio in the canyon that was calling me home.  All these darling Brazilians.  My sister D and her dear kids, moving away.   I made soup or dumplings for everyone who took care of me this year, for all this precious family here who helped me find my way.  My cherished friends.  I am eating a bowl now.  Thinking about the year that just passed.  Sending cosmic soup with thanks to Mike, my dear friend, on vacay in the BVI.  Remembering how in February in a panic I called him, then drove the Sonoma coast not sure what would be around the bend. Readying myself to leave and come here, all the way South.  The hand-cut life I've glistened up down here since then.  Crafted on nothing but pure love.  Love and lots of help.

Love and thank yous.  Which always work whenever you remember to cook them in.

What's Rad: Paul Suplee

I love cooking in the fall.

Root vegetables are my favorite, but I suspect this affinity goes back to the days of Brandon and I living in the trailer in Waldport, Oregon, with no jobs and zero money. We foraged the floors of the Suislaw National Forest for chanterelles; I roasted root vegetables we got on sale at market stalls for literal pocket change. I got very good at baking goodies that called for apples and we ate fried green tomatoes several times a week--because both were coming in out in the backyard. The food pantry supplied us with flour. I made dumplings, wontons and pizza from scratch. That was the fall I studied Harold Bloom and the Canon and Brandon was emulating Lew Welch. My only other regular read was Moosewood Cookbook, the original which came with the house we were renting for $200 a month. We hiked the forests, cooked from scratch food that was in season. In general life was a feast. An authentic, humbling, beautiful feast.

Today I made lunch for mom and I, surprised her. I-tunes going just right. Dancing and prepping veg's. Roasted butternut squash stuffed with mashed sweet potatoes, covered in caramelized red onions and Gorgonzola. It just came to me, sort of while mom was watching Rachel Ray. Cooking is such an art form, I have crazy respect for people who use it as their expression or palette.

Which is why you need to check this guy out over at Quips of a Rambling Chef, a new food blog by Paul Suplee (Paul's also got a website, found here.). I had the honor of working with Paul some this summer, and in addition to being a great writer (clever and conversational, a combo of both my faves) and a teacher working with more than your average troubled type teens, he's most important a stand-up guy of the kind that I actually hold up to as a standard for who and how other's can aspire to be. The best kind of teacher, he teaches by being. Also, once he gives hip-hop a chance his music taste will be pretty perfectly right on, too~

A day to process

Poem for the day, by me

This is just another ordinary day: snow coming
down like dust, the cup of coffee I mic’d
lukewarm.
And of course
I am running late.

There is not one person out there
not a people
not one
Not struggling to keep tented, alight
his heart full of gold.

What, ideally, independently
are we all worth? What’s it matter
this bird on the lawn
that church, red-roofed
on the side of the road?

In our valleys
green trees rise
steam pours across cement
a handle hangs lazy
off the mailbox it’s meant to
close, protect.

We are all broken,
getting better
We are all
getting better, staving off
the worst break.

I, here the navel of the world
my mountain, my airplane
my cold dark night.
My curtains, waiting to be
parted, pulled.

My car tires pass trees & sidewalk.
These places we go
that take us so far.
These places that arouse
how far we each may go.
___

Yesterday I came home bummin. It was not a hard day for any reason, simply an emotional day, aware as I was of how very much I've lost in the past three months. I've kept quiet on here about Brandon and I and how and why the circumstances of me moving out of Anngar and on to Choptank went down. And out of respect for him I will continue to keep that area mostly off limits. But at least I will say this: At times what one needs most is quiet and time. And certainly, within that quiet and time what one finds is her self. And sometimes little parts of that self are full of longing, regret and also just plain sad.

Yesterday, start to finish, was sort of that way.


I got home though, and as almost always happens right when I seem to need it, here is my lovely roomie Teena cooking up a feast. I swear, the first time I came home on the night of a day she'd spent entirely in the kitchen I could still feel, even practically see the joy and light dancing all around, even though she was already in bed. This is a woman in love with, and totally dedicated to, her art.


And thank god for me!! that that's so! Because boyohboy there is nothing like pork soaking in garlic and fat to melt a woman and make her feel warm again, and whole.....

To Dream

Weekends at Choptank...

Teena's Vietnamese and Thai infused pho with influence of Normandy Chicken!

I am sitting in my big blue bathrobe, front porch of Choptank in the corner near the heater, the only place I get wifi here on my own secret spot on the shore. I'm indulging in leftover ghiradelli peppermint bark from christmas--yummy breakfast just for me and also the only best part of this past commercial holiday season far as I'm concerned. Went back to work Monday after two full weeks off and woah--socking me in the face with a brick would be the closest reality to how that felt. I forgot how damn much energy I give to adult education. My heart and soul. That's it tho--how I do my life. With my whole heart and all my soul.

Weekends at Choptank so far are usually spent in my pajamas, so it felt good to put my foot down and choose not to go in to the office first thing today and instead take this morning in full lounge mode as I've grown accustomed. Teena cooks a lot when she's here; a lot of good, rich, enduringly satisfying and savory foods. I wear my robe, sit by the river, read, take pictures, write a lot. I cry, I pray. Soak in moments. Feel myself, my life, coming in through me. Through some block that I didn't even know had grown so strong and cold there. Sitting there just underneath who I used to be, who I currently dont know I am, who, in quivering moments, I know I have the potential to become...on the underside of it all there lay the instinct of my life, the force of me so raw at times that the pure alluring surprise of it startles me to tears.

It is incubation time. Time for the earth to draw herself long inwards for time-full and quiet rest. So too we find ourselves doing the same--tho perhaps wide awake at night, passion-felt and full with the waking dreams of what, of who, of how we could be. Take light of this waking felt in the night, this startling sense of suspended animation, of instinct towards joy and flight tempered regularly by dark and futility. So should it be. The whole purpose of a long sleep is that one may dream.....

Good Eats

So here, thought i'd switch it up a little today cuz i am really in to eating and lately not too in to writing. which means i've been cooking a lot, channeling my creative energy last night in to, for example, chicken pot pie with a cornmeal lid, a recipe i got off operah and wasn't crazy about cuz of how thick and bready the crust turned out. the pot part with the thick del-ish-ous chicken and veg was sooo good and hearty tho

or, like last weekend, i did a whole slow-cooked goose (upside down bc this way the fat rolls in to and integrates and flavors the breast meat) in nice fresh apple cider, with fresh chopped honeycrisps in cinnamon and powdered red chili pepper, stuffed with diced celery, onions and more honeycrips, with a bit of salt, pepper and also honey drizzled all around. mmmmmmmm.

this is typical of me in the fall, usually a couple good recipes come out of my heart when the season turns cold and the day goes early to dark--it's the way i stay warm and also connected in heart and soul to the changing tides taking us

so i liked it when i was blog-rolling tonite and found the following on Confessions of a Young Woman--The Omnivore's Hundred. Originally it comes from Very Good Taste, a food blog out of the UK. From Very Good Taste:

"Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.



So in the spirit of coziness and cooking for the season, I give you Kelly's version of The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison--though 25 years of grandma and papaw offering never budged me, a cute long-haired brown-eyed Eastern Shore boy got me to try it finally w-out a second guess. My favorite: Venison Osso Bucco, served wintertime at The Wild Orchid Cafe, Annapolis.
2. Nettle tea--this would be from a biodynamic permaculture women at Floyd Fest, Virginia. Too much cayene in hers made me sneeze
3. Huevos rancheros--Cali does it best
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile--also Cali, some restaraunt off the boards in Huntington Beach
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue--mmmmm
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari--actually the best ever was at Szabo's, that roadhouse bar/steak joint i waited and bartended in at Oregon
12. Pho--never even heard of
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart--mmm this i associate w manhattan's smell and being 13 and wearing too much make-up and dad taking me from his apartment for the weekend to see Cat's and the Macy's Day Parade
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle--did chef abby let me try these at the Hotel when i worked under her or am i making that up?
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes--apple. blueberry. pear. and does dandelion count?
19. Steamed pork buns--huh?
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries--grow wild all over our farm!
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans--which, according to Katie, I make the best
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters--hands down the best way is smoked in a fire that's keeping you and all your friends warm and at once bringing out the primal beast in you, prying apart the shells and sucking the hot juice while your hairs stand on end and you, you know, beat at your chest
29. Baklava--thoughts of mom and the Greek Fests at Lexington when we were kids
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut--yuck smells like old shoes
35. Root beer float--yummmm Downies at Chestertown makes the best
36. Cognac with a fat cigar--would you believe, an old favorite at Applehell when i used to work there way back when
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat--well, not curried. but slow-cooked over low heat for four days for Reyna's birthday celebration para su amor, Joel. and they had it fresh-slaughtered for the event.
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut--i mean come on i grew up minutes from the bakery in glen burnie, you haven'thad um til you've had um fresh out the oven...
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear--in tacos, in Santa Cruz, at Russel's favorite taco joint. my fave werethese unreal artichoke enchilladas
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal--believe it or not, never. though to this day i love their fries. still my favorite. i wont lie.
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini--MMMMMM mMMMm good ma fave, i mean, besides wine for medicinal purposes this is the drink i miss the most
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips--dont come close to the real thing. nothing like true, dark chocolate chips
61. S’mores--my aunt linda makes the best
62. Sweetbreads--blughghhgghgh i can't cross things out cuz i dont know how but this, these, are the only thing i would not eat. they smell so damn good but it all comes down to seeing them raw come out of the walk-in and watching Eugene one of the chefs at the Blue Heron seperate them. Ughghghg gross.
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake--naw-lins, right?
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho--okay, again with the Blue Heron, Jeff makes the best i've ever had
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill--maybe? depends on what Perry stocked our fridge with, I think that one deer he did in fact hit
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini--no too bad too late cuz they seem good
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky--do those American versions in the canister in the coffee aisle or candy aisle at the grocery store count?
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.--huh what does this mean?
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers--dandelion tea is extremely healing. drink regularly from your yard, if you dont spray!! in the springtime
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam--still associate this with Great Aunt Janet and Great Uncle Dave
92. Soft shell crab--dont really like, does that mean i am not a true marylander?
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish--my spicy fried recipe is the best around
95. Mole poblano--Reyna Reyna Reyna, all i can say
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake