"Do not allow the empowerment of women and girls to be 'ghettoized' strictly as a women's issue, " said a participant in the Clinton Global Initiative. Will the Shepherdstown Town Council pay her any mind? Doubtful. There are women in the council, but the question is, do they represent the women in the community? How can they when only a tiny minority votes at local elections. Ask the non voters why they stay away from the polls and they often say that they are disgusted with the town's farcical administration. They are tired of lies. They are tired of folks who care only for their personal agendas.
Can this be changed? I doubt it.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
FAIRY RINGS AND FRITTILARIES
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Fairy ring. |
Male and female Diana fritillaries.
Diana fritillary larva.
August is the time for fritillaries and fairy rings. Both are present in our wild garden. Diana fritillaries, so have the distinction of being dimorphic. That is, it occurs in two different form. The female's wings are a velvety black marked with a shimmering blue dice-like pattern (fritillus means dice box in Latin) and the male's are a gorgeous black and tawny wings Their larvae feed on violet leaves. Adults feed on the nectar of milkweed. I have seem them noshing on crepe myrtle, clover, and echinacea. They live for four to five months and those of us who lucky enough to live in Appalachian bottom lands can expect to see them at their meal time, mid-afternoon.Fairy rings are not as beautiful as butterflies. All the same, their earth bound beauty is remarkable when observed at close quarters. Our garden erupts with fungi of greater visual impact, such as the dreaded Dead Man's finger. It also harbors inkycaps, the bane of drinkers of alcohol. We allowed our most recent fairy ring to deacy, not knowing that its 'shrooms, much as inkycaps, are edible.We will not make that mistake again.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
SLANDERED VEGETABLES
Bad publicity once made tomatoes and cucumbers distasteful to fearful Europeans. The former was said to be poisonous and the latter "fit for consumption by cows only." Samuel Johnson once said that "A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.” Nevertheless, today's gardeners love these slandered vegetables. In my case, they are the only ones I have been able to coax from my container garden. The cucumbers must have come from a ten-cent package I got at a discount store. They are frighteningly prickly and far from handsome. Once peeled, however, they are perfectly acceptable. The prickliness identifies them as pickling cucumbers--slicing cucumbers are smooth and uniformly green.
So far my harvest has been so modest, pickling is out of the question. besides, I prefer cornichons, the best of which, in my opinion, come from Poland. My paltry supply of fresh cucumbers will do for salads and all I need to do is choose between various recipes. Rose Martha Rose Shulman's Persian salad recipe calls for the addition of radishes, tomatoes and a dressing made from lime juice, olive oil and garlic. A mix of cottage cheese and Greek yogurt is all that is required for her Creamy Cucumber salad.
Soup is my alternative to salads although my attempt to duplicate a Brazilian recipe made with maxixe, (Cucumis sativa) was not a great success. Northeast Brazilians cook maxixes in milk to which they add butter and queijo de coalho, a cheese I replaced with mozzarella. next I will try Fannie Farmer's Chilled Cucumber Soup and Emeril Lagasse's more elaborate version with green peppers, jalapenos, dil,l coriander and mint. An addition of shrimp should make Fannie Farmer's soup a good meal for Meatless Monday. Then, there is always green gazpacho. Let the cows try to fight me for it.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
NO COOK MEAL
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Clockwise --sheep's milk cheese, cornichons, olives, taramasalata, octopus, anchovies with roasted peppers. Japanese rice crackers at center. |
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Anchovies wrapped in roasted red peppers. |
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Jimmy's watermelon. |
Hummus is another no-recipe component of summer feast. All one needs to make it is garbanzos, garlic, lemon juice and tahini. Mash the lot together, et voila, something far superior to the pallid thing that passes for hummus at the supermarket. Tinned octopus served marinated with slivers of preserved lemons and paper-thin slices of red onions, a small tin of wasabi almonds, olives, rice crackers, bagel, and taro chips, cubes of herbed feta, salad greens, a baguette and cornichons make this meal of feast.
Here at the village there is an abundance of cherries, plums and peaches, but the last time when I had appetizers for dinner, recently, a fresh watermelon donated by our friend Sally's husband, Jimmy rounded up the meal splendidly.
I am in the throes of designing a webzine and I am trying to catch up with book reviews for my book blog. These days, the less time I spend in the kitchen, the better.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY
Saturday, August 7, 2010
DOG DAYS--DIES CANICULARES
Photograph by Jordan Matter
The ancients blamed the constellation Canis Major and its most brilliant star, Sirius, also known as the dog star, for the hottest summer weather. Whether Sirius is the cause of global warming is something only that polymath Sarah can explain. All I know is that it is hot as blazes in the lusty little village. Corn wilts, perennials droop, shrubs give up the ghost. It rains, occasionally, in quantities just large enough to keep gardeners and farmers hoping for a miracle and hope, as the Bhutanese supposedly say, is painful. Much easier it is to face reality. Help is not on the way. Plan accordingly.
I have been thinking of the tyranny of hope. A friend whose business that has been dying for at least a year, gambled on an improving economy, rented more space and expanded stock, to no avail. It was a brave thing to do and I admire this friend's sang-froid. Nevertheless, in this case, misplaced hope put so much in jeopardy I wonder if it would not have been better to chuck the project a year ago. Naturally, the question of whether a failing project is worth further effort is something for which each individual has a different answer. For my friend, it must have been as essential to go on as it was for Icarus to fly towards the sun. Regardless of the result, the experience must have been valuable. In the end, perhaps this is all that counts.
Friday, July 30, 2010
DANA ALDIS, ARTIST
D. PRIZZI'S PAINTINGS
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These are some paintings by D. Prizzi, an artist based in New York. Please visit her site.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
TOMATO DREAMS
The first tomatoes of the season make dream of a bustling kitchen where a capable cook prepares huge batches of tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and ketchup for canning. I think the image in my mind's eye comes from an old Judy Garland and Margaret Sullivan movie, Meet me in Saint Louis. Plump and gravel voiced Marjorie Main played the cook, Katie, who labored over a vat of ketchup in a Victorian kitchen complete with Willoware. Watching her, one could almost almost could easily imagine that savory scent of allspice, cinnamon, cloves wafted through house, calling up memories of picnics and barbeques.
There are no faithful retainers in my house, more is the pity. Canning is a labor intensive chore usually performed in the dog days of summer. It requires fortitude and dedication along with the certainty that there is a serious demand for the product of one's labor.
The reality is that it makes no economic sense to make ketchup for my small family. A few years ago a friend brought me such a large quantity of mangoes I felt compelled to make mango chutney. It was good chutney, as chutneys go. I gave away several jars, my family ate a few and there reamained such a vast number of jars we slapped our FLAGRANTLY DELICIOUS label on them and tried to sell them at a town fair. I found out that ours is not chutney country--the salsa vendors did not fare that ell either. I think that ketchup would go a bit faster and no doubt the home canned variety would be superior to stuff available at the store. It makes more sense to think of my tomatoes as ingredients for salad, sandwiches and pasta primavera. Still, I like to think that someday I will have a reason to dust off my pressure cooker and fill dozens of canning jars with FLAGRANTLY DELICIOUS ketchup.
Monday, July 26, 2010
JANE GREEN’S CAKE REDUX
An explanation for those of you who have been craving the chocolate banana cake from Jane Green's novel PROMISES TO KEEP and who wanted a recipe. It was my feeling that readers should buy, beg or borrow the novel in which it was published. On second thought, maybe the author's recipe and my variation on it will encourage those who visit this blog to discover--or rediscover--Green's work.
THE REAL JANE GREEN"S WARM CHOCOLATE BANANA CAKE
1 cup plain baker's chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup plus two tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 bananas, mashed
Preheat to 350 F
Melt chocolate in bain-marie
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs gradually while beating. Stir together flour, baking powder and cocoa and fold into the mixture. add melted chocolate and mashed bananas.Bake for 45 minutes.
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MY VARIATION
Preheat to 350 F
1 cup plain baker's chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup plus two tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
4 bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon double vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon
1/8 cup confectioner's sugar
2 cups hulled strawberries or raspberries
Melt chocolate. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs gradually while beating.
Stir together flour, baking powder and cocoa and fold into the mixture. add melted chocolate and mashed bananas.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Cool.
Dust with confectioner's sugar.
Decorate with berries.
Melt chocolate. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs gradually while beating.
Stir together flour, baking powder and cocoa and fold into the mixture. add melted chocolate and mashed bananas.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Cool.
Dust with confectioner's sugar.
Decorate with berries.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
HOW TO COOL OFF
Host an ice cream social.
Ice your bathtub.
You can keep your hat on.
Have an ice cold vodka and caviar feast.
Look at Russian paintings such as this one by Repin.
Watch The Nutcracker ballet. Concentrate on the snowflakes.These are from the Moscow ballet.
Read Doctor Zhivago.
See Doctor Zhivago.
Get yourself a vintage fan. Remember that fans were not always frivolous objects. Japanese samurai learning the art of Tessenjutsu used war fans made of iron. Follow the middle course. Get a Spanish lace fan and slay only with your eyes.
Buy a fancy parasol.
Look at Ivan Kramskoi's cool lady with a parasol
Look at Repin's portrait of his daughter.Make several pitchers of lemonade. Flavor each with mint, ginger, rosemary and lavender. Invite friends over for a degustation.
In the cool of the night, have a moon viewing like the people in Gakutei Harunobu's paintings.
Don't forget the manju, moon viewing cakes.
Remember last winter.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
A DAY FOR BELLINIS
David phlox blooms in the intense July heat.
Fixings for Bellinis.
" With my whole body I taste these peaches, I touch them and smell them. Who speaks? I absorb them as the Angevine Absorbs Anjou. I see them as a lover sees, As a young lover sees the first buds of spring And as the black Spaniard plays his guitar. '" Wallace Stevens
While Spain dithered, Syria banned the Burka. France gears up for a tremendous s debate on the constitutionality of its anti-burka law. Strange world. Katherine Mansfield thought so too. Lately, I have been rereading her LETTERS with intent. That led me to research on a writer I have yet to read, the Provencal poet and naturalist Jean Henry Fabre. I found his poems online with translations from Provencal to French. I also found his entomology books at online used bookshops. These little jaunts into literary cyberspace have their dangers. Inevitably, I find books I absolutely must have, such as the complete Shakespeare--my late husband got custody of the copy I used to read. He moved to the steppes to set up housekeeping with Gertha Klavichord, a person of Teutonic extraction, and so it was goodbye Shakespeare. I have replaced the late husband before I replaced Shakespeare--an omission I am about to correct.
Buying books when one's stash has already reached critical mass is folly, I know. Surely I can get Charles Lamb's LETTERS, Fabre's SOUVENIRS ENTOMOLOGIQUES, John Forster's LIFE OF DICKENS from the local library. The catch is that I want my books at my fingertips for those occasions when I wake up in the middle of the night wondering exactly what Fabre had to say about nougat, what is the second verse in Walter de la Mare's Song of Enchantment and like that. It happens, you know. I could read some this online I if I were willing to share my bed with my laptop. I can't. There is too serious a risk that the mountain books teetering on my bedside table would choose the occasion to collapse and on it, crushing it forevermore.
So I raise a glass of Belllini made with some divine white peaches I found at our grocery store. Here is to France, Syria and online bookshops!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
DOMESTIC AND LITERARY ARTS
Finally, we have tomatoes. Having taken the trouble to start and cosset seedlings I feel that it is only fair that there should be some reward for entire process. This year my veggies and herbs are planted in containers. I have switched, reluctantly, to plastic pots. Unglazed terracotta is aesthetically pleasing, but it allows water to evaporate too rapidly and the result is distressed plants that cannot survive our 100F weather. I also use whisky half barrels which I tuck behind thorny rose bushes to keep the deer away. So far so good. The pear tomatoes are way ahead of the Tigarellas. I confess that I am impatient for them to ripen. We have been baking bread with whey left from goat milk cheese and the idea of bruschetta, chevre and olives dances in my head.
Working on novels and book reviews takes up most of my time. I have recently posted a review of Robin Oliveira's novel, MARY SUTTER in my book blog, www.richtexts.blogspot.com. This coming week I will be reading from a treasure trove of goodies I received Simon and Schuster-- Eric leMay's book about cheese, IMMORTAL MILK, THE WISDOM OF THE LAST FARMER, David Mas Masumoto's reflections on organic farming, ABIGAIL ADAMS, a biography, by Woody Holton , BETWEEN ASSASSINATIONS, a novel by Aravind Adiga, and THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK, by Brando Skyhorse. Additionally, I will review Carey Wallace's THE BLIND CONTESSA'S WRITING MACHINE and Alan Furst"s SPIES OF THE BALKANS. I am looking forward to a guest post Carey will be writing for richtexts and I will be giving away a copy of THE BREAKING OF THE EGGS--see richtexts for details.
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