Tag: Food

OCCASION OF CELEBRATION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I posted in a poem back in April, spotting a hummingbird is an occasion of celebration. They’re so tiny and so fast you’re likely to dismiss one as a dragonfly or as some other large, speedy insect if you’re not paying attention. Sometimes you notice more the irregular angles of their zig-zag flight, the motions no other flyer can manage, rather than the bird itself, and then you start observing closely. And sometimes you just happen to look out when one’s hovering nearby, say at the blooming azalea in front of the bay window.

I hadn’t seen any this year until a few weeks ago, when I glimpsed out from our kitchen and noticed one working its way through our stand of burgundy-color bee balm. I called for my wife to come look, but by the time she came over, it had vanished behind the asparagus, and that was it. You have to be quick. And now those blossoms are gone by.

I’d also remarked that we hadn’t seen all that many goldfinches this summer. Sometimes we seem to have thousands, but these things can go in cycles, so I just figured it was an off year.

And then, late yesterday afternoon, I sat down in the far corner of our yard simply to enjoy a cold beer and regard our garden and house from that perspective. Since this is also the glorious time of year I consider high summer, what I viewed was a culmination of so much that had been building up. Everything was quite green and lush, of course, and the garden was punctuated by the red of tomatoes, the yellows of squashes and peppers, and the incredible purples of eggplants, even before I got to the flowers. As I settled in, after admitting to myself the grass needs to be mowed again, I realized this was dinner rush hour for the birds. Who knows why, but they do seem to eat in spurts, at least when it comes to populating our feeders. And here they were, far more than I could count (after all, they’re constantly flitting from one place to another). Not only that, but many of them were goldfinches, perhaps attracted by our sunflowers that have finally started blooming. Mourning doves landed in the grapevine and wild-rose covered branches of the black walnut tree before looping down to the ground under the main feeder, littered with birdseed as it is. Along the tree I could see just the gray flickers of squirrel tails as they raided the ripe nuts from the branches. In short, it was lovely. And the grass seemed to be just the right depth for many of the smaller birds to go grubbing.

That’s when I caught the distinctive flight of the hummingbird, which then did something I’d never before seen: it actually landed on one of those branches, where it quickly became a camouflaged bump on the distant limb. Soon there were two, and I don’t ever remember seeing two at once. (Well, maybe once in Maine, at a friends’ feeder outside their kitchen slider door?) Still, a first, as far as our yard and garden go.

Minutes later, I spotted one working its way through the zinnias about a dozen feet from me. How meticulously it hovering above a single flower and vacuumed each petal. Next thing I knew, it was gone and then one followed by a second came shooting inches past my head, even as I ducked instinctively. Well, that was the second … and third … time in my life I’ve had to dodge that bullet! They certainly seemed to having fun, as birds and bees are said to do.

It’s been said that meditation may have originated in the art of hunting. That is, in learning to sit very still for extended periods of time and just let the wildlife come to you, if you’re worthy. So I sat very still, the way I would in Quaker meeting for worship or in a half-lotus position on my meditation cushion. Over time, I saw at least four hummingbirds working their way around the yard, swooping from the trees to the Joe Pye weeds, the sunflowers, the zinnias and cosmos, and somewhere behind me, before landing repeatedly in the trees.

All of what was happening could be considered as an epiphany, those special moments when the Holy One appears or becomes manifest in an individual’s life. No, I’m not suggesting that the hummingbirds are divine or even angelic, but this was clearly a reminder of the times and ways we are blessed. You can’t just go looking for it and expect it to happen. You can only be receptive and grateful when it does. You also have to know what you’re seeing and be able to name it, knowing how rare and wonderful it is. Along with the simple pleasures of having everything momentarily perfect. Isn’t that a definition of miracle?

Soon, of course, the hummingbird sightings became fewer and fewer. The ones in the yard were probably already migrating from further north and bulking up for their long flight in a few weeks across the Gulf of Mexico. Their season here is nearly over. The finches, meanwhile, will be around longer before donning their gray traveling cloaks, as one friend says, and then heading south.

On our part, all this was soon followed by our own time for dinner with its fresh sweetcorn, tomatoes, and basil eaten al fresco in the golden rays of the setting sun.

What was I saying about an occasion of celebration? Indeed.

REMEMBERING JULIA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The Canterbury Shaker Village is a remarkable place to revisit history. I’ve had a lifelong appreciation of Shaker architecture and furniture. In fact, we used to bicycle out to what had been a Shaker village and catch crawdads in the stream. Our denomination also had its orphanage and retirement center at another former Shaker village not far south of us, and I remember touring its remaining buildings.

But Canterbury was one of the last two villages, and one Friend speaks fondly of his conversations with the sisters. Today it is a well preserved living history museum.

So one weekday, when I was free of the office, my girlfriend and I went up for a tour. As we arrived, I noticed one of my coworkers, Ellie Ferriter, and in greeting, asked what she was doing there. “I’m here to meet Julia Child,” she replied. Yeah, sure. “No really, she’s here to tape an interview with the chef.”

One of the things the museum had done was open a restaurant with a menu drawn from the distinctive Shaker recipes, and there was reason to celebrate the cuisine.

Sure enough, when we came back from our tour, there was Ellie, interviewing Julia. Now Ellie was a large woman, but Julia was larger – in fact, towering above and around the interviewer. I hadn’t expected that, even though one profile had described her as having very long legs when she went to work in military intelligence back during World War II.

Julia had already had a long influence on me. In high school, when we finally got a TV set that included UHF, I could finally watch the “educational station” out of Cincinnati, and there, through the snowy image that barely came through, I was introduced to exotic foods like lobsters, asparagus, artichokes, baguettes and croissants, hollandaise. Well, introduced to their concepts and preparation. The actual introductions would come across the years, and what had been exotic has long since become standard.

We settled into the Creamery, the small restaurant, for lunch – my girlfriend and I along with a couple from England at one table, Julia and Ellie at the next one. We could overhear every word. Our English visitors, meanwhile, had no idea who Julia was.

Later, I noticed Julia sitting alone in a shaded spot. Wondered if she was lonely or just needed a break. I was tempted to approach and introduce myself, but refrained.

*   *   *

About that same time, I was talking with a woman who knew someone whose husband conferred with Julia several times each year, and the wife was expected to serve lunch – a daunting prospect. What do you prepare for one of the world’s most famous cooks and food writers? And then she discovered that a boiled lobster and fresh green salad were always savored.

How I’ve come to love that insight when facing a seemingly impossible assignment – a simple but elegant solution, as the Shakers demonstrated, may be the ideal.

Here’s to Julia’s 101st birthday.

RESTAURANT CITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
A cluster of restaurants and their decks overlook Tugboat Alley in Portsmouth. It's an iconic site in the city.
A cluster of restaurants and their decks adjoins Tugboat Alley in Portsmouth. It’s an iconic sight in the city. A quartet of the tugs is also often seen in the ocean near the mouth of the harbor, waiting to escort a large ship to port. 

Portsmouth, a city of 24,000 just a dozen miles to our south, probably has as many restaurants per capita as Manhattan – by some counts, 160 within a close radius of the downtown.

Much of the demand relies on the tourist trade. Nearly everyone driving to Maine comes through the city, usually on Interstate 95. Half of those going to New Hampshire’s White Mountains turn north there as well. And many simply stop altogether to vacation. It is, after all, on the Atlantic.

Still, that’s a lot of dining.

THE PERSONAL STAMP

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Until landing here, I’d never given much thought to selecting a garden plot. Flat, well-drained sunny soil was a given. Crops could be put out in easily marked rows. The Midwestern loam or Pacific Northwest’s volcanic ash-enriched ground demanded little, other than perhaps a bit of fertilizer boost. What came with our house and its small barn, however, were another matter – one abetted by a decade of deferred maintenance. On the driveway side, hedges had grown to overhang what’s now a kitchen garden and the ground was overrun by invasive ivy. Behind the house, one lilac bush stood nearly three-stories tall. Large limbs rubbed against the barn and blocked the pathway. Three garage-size brush piles soon emerged in the swamp, awaiting a fire department burn permit. It becomes a long history. What I was quickly introduced to is what my wife calls “dead dirt,” almost as hard as asphalt (plucking the stealth maples often required pliers), and then squirrels, especially as they dug up daffodil bulbs they had no intention of eating.

The process of restoring soil is another labor, one that becomes evident years later when the stealth maples slip from the earth, offering no resistance, a result of mulching, pruning, appropriate groundcover taking hold, and composting. In short, the improvement reflects a larger repetition of annual cycles of practice.

Moreover, I’d not appreciated the extent to which actions by earlier residents now shaped what we would build on. For starters, the siting of the house, barn, and driveway likely took advantage of drainage. Later, the construction of a gravel patio in shade on the western side of the barn – screened by a row of lilacs – has become so integral I cannot envision another use for the space, which we call the Smoking Garden, with the panels beside it that we filled with ferns, which have proved more difficult to establish than one might imagine. With two “springs” at the top of the swamp (we argue whether the pipes that feed them come from neighbors’ sump pumps or some other source), the seasonal flow of water becomes even more problematic. Combined with variations in sunlight levels and the soil itself – part of the yard remain quite hard, including asphalt fill – to see what grows well, and where, is eye-opening. For instance, our first season, we planted six pussy willow sprigs. One quickly croaked, followed by another. A third has barely grown over the next decade. Two others have shown moderate growth. The sixth, by the more active “spring,” however, has flourished and been the source of a handful of others planted close by.  The asparagus bed, meanwhile, was built atop an earlier raised bed at the top of the yard. And so on.

What has evolved is something that reflects our own style – more natural than formal, low-maintenance or at least relatively low-cost, and often eclectic. Our little city farm hardly provides enough to sustain us, but it does offer a taste of the changing seasons in all of the amazement that truly fresh produce delivers, as well as celebrating the unfolding of the year itself. This is far from the mossy Zen gardens I thought I would have desired, places I now perceive as expensive to build and maintain, or even from orderly, rectangular beds of rational efficiency. I love sitting beside the berm, in the far corner along the street, sipping coffee or wine – or, especially, in the Smoking Garden as late afternoon slips into night, with our torches blazing and clear lights strung overhead twinkling.

I love, too, gazing at the gardens when they’re buried in three feet of snow, appearing so pure and mysterious. They are both all potential and memory of the previous year – the hummingbirds and finches, butterflies and lady bugs.

ONLY THE BEST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Often, the lessons appear when least expected.

One my thoughts returns frequently to a conversation I overheard on a Saturday afternoon in Baltimore’s Little Italy. A couple, recently back from New York City, was trying to impress the restaurant owner that everyone they had talked to was raving about the establishment, saying it was clearly the best in Little Italy. Finally, the owner was able to thank them, with this rejoinder: “Anyone who doesn’t think he’s the best in this neighborhood shouldn’t be down here.”

I admire that sense of upholding your own pursuit of excellence. No excuses. And I admire that esteem for the standards of others doing the same. Rivals. And yet colleagues.

I don’t want to hear a salesman slam the competition, or a priest short selling another denomination or congregation, except in this light.

My work is the best. And so is yours! And, yes, we can both do better!

Humbly yours, forever.

NAMING THE CHANGES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
My fondness for mountain laurel goes back to my days of living in the ashram in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. There, the undergrowth of the forest was filled with these blossoms in season.

Over the years, my own spiritual practices have undergone many changes. Even in a tradition like the one I’ve embraced, seemingly free from the annual routines of a liturgical calendar or outward emblems, there appear cyclical changes mirroring those of the seasons. Cycles, too, like those of progressing from childhood and parenthood into retirement or release. In Salem Quarterly Meeting in Ohio, the session each Fifth Month meant rhubarb in the applesauce. See it as sacrificial and special.

There are times of struggle, doubt, and distrust. Times of whirlwind passion and excitement. Times of discovery. Times of drought or deep winter, relying on what’s brought out of storage. Times of renewal and recharge.

This has manifested as periods where I’ve been able to dedicate significant time to meditation, solitude, travel in ministry, prayer, Bible study, research into history and theology, organizational service, teaching, correspondence, or writing, as well as to regular disciplines such as fasting or physical spiritual exercise (the hatha yoga sessions or even wilderness hiking). Emphatically, however, one would predominate while others would likely be absent or greatly diminished. In addition, they would be strongly impacted by the events of my daily life itself – whether I was single, married, divorced, or “in relationship,” my hours and nature of employment, my friendships and faith community, my driving patterns through the week.

The result of all of this would be a crazy-quilt tapestry or a ricochet trajectory if it weren’t for a spiraling within it. That is, over the years, various periods and interests begin to overlap one another, creating a kind of harmony or accumulated depth. My asparagus bed in New Hampshire has roots in my experience of asparagus along irrigation canal banks in Far West desert three decades earlier. A dog sitting through Quaker meeting here is a reminder of dogs sitting through predawn meditation sessions in the Pocono Mountains, or of the cats aligned on the scaffolding outside the windows, as if they, too, were deep in concentrated worship. I read a particular Psalm and see the passage taking twists I hadn’t perceived earlier.

In my own life, my childhood was filled with natural science, hiking, and camping, each with its mystical visions and moments. Adolescence led into politics, classical music, opera, and writing complicated by unrequited sexual yearning. Without romantic companionship, a Lone Ranger journey. Rejection of existing creed while ensconced in church office was followed by flight into atheism and hippie excess landing, inexplicably, in a yoga ashram with its Hatha exercises and sustained meditation. From there, into Quaker practice, though of the ABC – or “anything but Christ” variety. The ashram lessons were applied here, in circles of deepening prayer life. By steps, I moved toward Christocentric and Plain speech, and an especially faith fervent language. Among the Wilburite Friends as well as Mennonites, especially, I came to wrestle within Scripture while similtaneously undergoing repeated Dark Night journeys and questioning. Turning to therapy, I wondered if anyone could come along with me through all of this. By now I was no longer meditating to get high, or transcend, but rather to center down to the Seed. Here, with all of its committee work, I was engaged in a religion that combines mystical experience with social witness and activism. In a nutshell, then.

Each swirl also stirs up something from before. What failed in earlier marriage or relationships reappears. What has been left unfinished is not left entirely behind. What has been shredded remains to be woven. I heard this opera in its entirety a hundred times. Have I ever heard this note before?

I moved from the Midwest to the East Coast and back before heading on to the Pacific Northwest in what seemed an epiphany but instead shattered amid volcanic eruption and devastation. I left the wilderness for another kind of wilderness, back across the Midwest to the East Coast. The pendulum, as they say. Here, I now see life as both linear and circular – that is, spiraling. The spirit requires flesh, or is it that flesh requires spirit? Seasons include times that are full or overflowing, and times that are barren or dry. I now welcome the questioning that is not hostile is both essential and healthy.

My first spring in the orchard, I expected all of the trees to blossom simultaneously. They don’t. The apricots and cherry petals give way to plums, pears, and peaches. The apple blooms arrive last, when others are already gone.

Experiencing a new place through a full year or repeated years provides a much different understanding than a tourist gets – even one who spends several months there. Relocating requires a year-and-a-half to gain familiarity with the new surroundings – to get beyond the obvious, to establish friendships, to be oriented with the elements one finds essential or special. A favorite restaurant, a woodland pathway or place to swim, a boutique or gallery.

There are seasons for a person of faith, from winter to spring elation and then into fullness, dryness, struggle, or disillusionment. To harvest, perchance. Marriage? Family? Children? Extended into joy, compassion, humility, appreciation – one begins observing and naming.

The turning point in my own journey came when I accepted a new name.

LION’S TOOTH SALAD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Maybe it was simply a day of firsts.

As I was lunching al fresco for the first time this year, having savored our first asparagus of the season (which I’d sautéed with minced garlic leaf in olive oil and then fried two eggs atop the mixture), I realized I was still hungry. So glancing up, I noticed a sprout of dandelion, got up, plucked a leaf, brought it to the table, wiped it in some of the remaining egg yolk, and … it was good. It was very good. Somehow, the yolk overcame whatever bitterness I expected at the end of the bite.

So I harvested the remainder of that cluster (which also doubled as weeding, let’s be candid), went indoors to rinse it and fry another egg to serve with it, covered the resulting salad with salt and coarse-ground fresh pepper … and it was still good. Very good.

So for dinner, another round, this time with a fresh mustard vinaigrette my wife had just made … and it was still good. Very good.

Maybe I’m hooked. Yes, we’ve read some fine food writers who’ve extolled their pleasure in fresh dandelion every spring, before the leaves turn too bitter and too tough. Until now, though, our dandelions were treasured only by our pet rabbits.

Not anymore. Another first.

Now, to see how it works blanched. Or maybe as a spinach substitute, say in a Florentine-style dish.

Not that I have any intention of turning the Red Barn into a food blog. Oh, no. I know my limitations.

ALL HAIL THE DETERMINED GARDENER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Although I do my share of the weeding and much of the spading, I’m not the gardener. My wife is the one who studies the varieties of plants, selects and orders, fusses and sows, evaluates soil and sunlight, while I’m more likely to mow, do the composting, construct the raised beds, and transport ferns, Quaker ladies, and ox-eye daisies from the wild. In recent years, our elder daughter has taken delight in getting seedlings started and transplanted, especially, as well as making jams from the fruit we harvest. (The younger one could care less.)

While my dad, mainly, raised vegetables and tomatoes behind the garage when I was growing up, and my mother fussed over flowers that generally failed, and despite my later experiences living on a hippie farm and then the ashram as well as my first wife’s efforts in Ohio, Indiana, and the fertile desert country of Washington state, my perspectives on gardening center on Rachel and her world. Everything before was simply preparation. Little did I suspect, when we set out to buy a house as part of our marriage, how much she was calculating garden opportunities; many of the urban New England properties, surprisingly, have little usable space for raising plants. Only after bidding successfully on the house we now inhabit did we learn that it included not just a small but manageable strip beside the driveway but a half-lot on the other side of the house, as well – the side we’ve come to call the swamp.

But that’s the beginning of another story.

HOT DOG BUNS VERSUS FRANKFURTER ROLLS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 44 Comments

Once upon a time, or so it seems now, a girlfriend sent me out with orders to come back with hot dog buns, which is what I did.

But when I handed her the grocery bag, she cried out, “Oh, no! What are these?”

“They’re hot dog buns,” I replied ever so naively.

“No they’re not!” she insisted.

“But they’re what I’ve always had hot dogs on,” and they were.

She would not believe me, so off we went, together, to the supermarket.

“These,” she said, “are hot dog buns.”

Asked to pick out a hot dog bun, which would you choose -- the ones sliced on the top, at left, or on the side, at right?
Asked to pick out a hot dog bun, which would you choose — the ones sliced on the top, at left, or on the side, at right?

They looked like a flattened loaf of bread cut in fat slices. The side of each “bun,” in fact, was without crust – naked, to my taste.

Pointing to another shelf, I looked at the kind I’d always known – the kind, that in fact, came labeled Hot Dog Buns. Hers, in contrast, were labeled Frankfurter Rolls.

Hmm, we both said without satisfaction.

She had, in truth, grown up in New England and lived nowhere else. And her idea of how to serve a hot dog was unique to the region. Not in something she considered a torpedo roll.

Ah, but the plot thickens. As I bought packages of each this time around, there was no Frankfurter label -- and the Hot Dog tag instead went on what my wife confirms are often called Frankfurter buns or rolls around here. As a further complication, we now have the term Coney Island, which confounds my elder daughter while bringing to my mind something completely different, a miniature hot dog where I grew up, often served covered with "chili." But that's a whole other story.
Ah, but the plot thickens. As I bought packages of each this time around, there was no Frankfurter label — and the Hot Dog tag instead went on what my wife confirms are often called Frankfurter buns or rolls around here. As a further complication, we now have the term Coney Island, which confounds my elder daughter while bringing to my mind something completely different, a miniature hot dog where I grew up, often served covered with “chili.” But that’s a whole other story.

This can, in turn, point to a lot of other regional distinctions. Whether you call a device a watercooler, a water fountain, or a bubbler, as we do here. Or whether you order a soda, a pop, or a cola. Feel free to expand the list. It can go on a long time.

Fast forward, then, to lunchtime at a national conference being held in Rhode Island. I sat down and joined a random group that included a handful of teens. One was from North Carolina. I pointed to the hot dog on his neighbor’s plate. He looked bewildered. “What’s it wrapped in?” he asked.

“Would you call it a hot dog bun?” I prompted.

“No way!”

“Oh yes it is,” said the girl from Connecticut. “It’s what we always use.”

You know where the conversation went from there. Yes it is, no it isn’t.

At least the college cafeteria knew to stock both Hot Dog Buns and Frankfurter Rolls.  As we all discovered.

Hmm. Maybe next time we have a crowd over and we’re grilling hot dogs, I’ll get packages of both – and then see which kind goes first.

MUG, MORE THAN A CUP

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Seems I’ve always been a coffee lover, as far back as those “coffee milks” our Gran used to serve my sister and me on Sunday afternoons. Maybe that’s why I still prefer mine café au lait – half milk heated with a liberal dose of sugar or sweetener.

For decades now, my days have begun with a round of hot coffee, often abed – yes, how blessed I was after remarrying, when my wife would appear with the perfect mug when I needed to awaken. And how much I lament how that ceased, in part because the office rejuggled my schedule, meaning she never knew quite when I would be rousing.

For someone in a faith tradition that eschews rituals, I have to admit where they really appear – and be willing to acknowledge anything that’s an addiction, as well. (Remind me to take a coffee fast in the next year, OK?) Yes, maybe the editors of one poetry journal had it right when they admitted they were devotees of the Goddess Caffeina. (Oh, she has temples everywhere.)

More recently I’ve begun to question whether it’s really the coffee itself I like. That is, I can drink it black. And, yes, I also demand dark coffee – the darker, the better. I even like Starbucks, though that has nothing to do with my years in the Nevergreen State. (Remember, I lived in the desert side of Washington state.) No, I realize when the mug’s turned cold, my beverage tastes a lot like the cartons of chocolate milk we used to purchase in the elementary school vending machine – the ones that cost us a nickel. So maybe it’s that chocolate underpinning that grabs me.

Is it possible that even at six-foot-two, the chocolate stunted my growth? We can’t blame the coffee, now, can we?