Incredibly tender and tasty, served here with rice, a carrot salad, and fresh parsley. In case you’re looking for a dependable holiday hit.
Tag: Home
Souvenirs on the wall
Classic proportions
Greek temple revival style house along U.S. 1 in Robbinston.
The one place I’ve never wanted to live was the suburbs
I love big cities, even have a certificate in Urban Studies, but can’t afford them, not for long.
Internet, at least, allows me some important virtual connections that way, not that it includes strolling into ethnic restaurants or great museums.
On the other hand, I’m living in a place others consider ideal for a vacation.
And for me, it’s an ideal writer’s retreat or de facto arts colony.
The ability to walk to so much of what I want in daily life is a huge consideration.
As one neighbor says, ‘It’s my least favorite job’
His sympathy was much appreciated while I worked with one around the garden.
So here’s why I hate using a weed whacker.
- My shoes and legs or pants get splattered in green juice.
- As do my hair, eyes, and lips. (I don’t like slurpies.)
- Stems and blades of tall grasses and weeds often twist into a knot around the connection of the driveshaft to trimmer spool. Their tangling soon chokes the high-speed revolutions. Even with a razor blade, they’re hard to extract. I can spend more time clearing this than actually cutting the tall grasses and weeds.
- The two plastic trimmer cords – the part that actually cuts the greens – are hard to extend to the desired length or to replace when the spool’s empty. The procedures feel counterintuitive. And they quickly fray in actual usage.
- The “trimming” isn’t nearly as precise in its surgery as my wife presumes. It’s more like using a chainsaw than a scalpel.
- That means there’s collateral damage. Domestic flowers and vegetable plants are at risk, especially if I bump into something I can’t see behind me. Oops! Sorry.
- I have an electric battery-driven version, a huge advance over the gasoline alternative. Just the thought of having to deal with the fuel mixture, rip-cord starter, or other maintenance is enough to put on my to-hate list.
- The battery in mine is difficult to remove for recharging. It’s just too tight to get out without an extra set of hands. Help!
- It’s top-heavy, meaning that when I’m trying to clear those tangles in No. 3 or am trying to store it in the shed, it wants to roll over inconveniently or just fall over.
- They’re noisy, even the electric-battery versions like ours.
Would herbicides, which we don’t use, do the job better? (Satan, get thee behind me.)
Rugosa rose hips
A work shift change and a marriage
When I was rescheduled to the night shift, I wasn’t home for as many meals together, for one thing. Or evenings.
It took a toll on the relationship, especially when she was working a day shift.
Does anyone else savor cornmeal mush?
It was a favorite breakfast when I was growing up in Ohio, but not an everyday offering.
First, it would be served as a hot cereal, and afterward, after hardening in bread pans, it would be fried in slices and served in melted butter and syrup.
I still remember the reaction when I was head chef (briefly) at the ashram and served it for brunch. It was vegetarian and fit into that part of our yoga practice. But half of the staff and guests were openly baffled. What is this stuff? It wasn’t anything like the buckwheat kasha they’d introduced me to. The other half, though, delighted in it.
It’s still not an everyday dish in my household, but I still relish the moments when it comes up.
My wife, of Southern roots, is more familiar with grits – a variant – and also the Italian polenta, which is much more expensive for no understandable reason.
The one place I’ve seen it on the menu is at the Bob Evans restaurants, where it’s deep fried and typically sells out early in the day.
Cornmeal does show up in my novel The Secret Side of Jaya and on many supermarket shelves, especially under the Hodgson Mill label, reflecting some distant relations of mine who went back to inserting the “g” into our surname.
So where, if at all, do you use or eat cornmeal? It was a basic foodstuff of much of early America.
Now for our storm door out front
Are you ever caught up when you own an old house? Or is it like a personal sailboat, where you pour copious amount of money into a hole in the ground or the water?
The latest item to join our home maintenance to-do list is the front storm door, which detached from the frame a few weeks ago. It was too heavy and awkward to go back in, and apparently some shifting had warped the angles. It hadn’t been closing completely, and the last time I tried, bingo! We were in trouble.
It wound up, as I said, coming off altogether.
Oops!
We do want to get that fixed before winter hits, though. The front door itself is rather leaky.
Yet part of me is thinking maybe that can wait till I’m dead.
Damn, I do miss being able to call maintenance back when I was living on Yuppieville on the Hill. Back before I so deliriously remarried.
Our old garden has been obliterated
People used to walk down our street in Dover just to admire our garden. They told us how much pleasure and peace it gave them. It also attracted a range of wildlife, including hummingbirds, butterflies, or the occasional turkey or fox.
Throughout the year, the garden also led to many photos you can still find here at the Red Barn.
It was, by many standards, funky. The weeds were never completely controlled, but it was prolific and made good use of what we sometimes called the Swamp, after its mucky clay soil in late spring and early summer. Our pet rabbits delighted in much of what we picked there, too.
The new owners, alas, have bulldozed all that. The strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, currants as well as the raised beds and shrubbery screens – gone. Twenty-years of reclaiming the once tired soil and then dining well as a result – gone. Naturally, we’re lamenting, knowing how much more they must be spending on groceries that won’t be as fresh or tasty.
We have to recognize, of course, that we’ve left all that behind and no longer have a say in the matter.
But we still feel sad or even a tad angry. Ahhh!
Jnana's Red Barn 