To Make the World of You and Me

How long does it take
to make the world
of you and me,
the soil of souls,
the promised crop
a sheltered spot beside
the trees...

Sometimes I do this thing in the evenings... tweet-poeming with friends. @tspoetry usually starts things. Then we begin responding, lifting each other's words and folding them into new poems. Each poem is 140 characters or less.

This particular poem reminded me of a book that Ann Kroeker wrote, called Not So Fast which The Runamuck is currently giving away. (Stop by for a chance to win.)

What I'm saying is... it takes time to make the world of you and me, the soil of souls, the promised crop... But to do that, we need to slow down, behold one another, breathe.


Girls in the 'Playhouse' on Long Island, photo by L.L. Barkat.

I'm Gonna Win the Nobel

Eight years dating. Seventeen years married. A quarter of a century?

So I cleaned the fridge. For the man who has everything, it was just the thing. (Kim, I know you're reading this and will agree. ;-)

Besides, I'm set to win the Nobel for Fridge Science* now. Which isn't a bad way to begin my August.


*for the discovery of primordial soup, petrified garlic, and life in the produce drawer.

Clean Fridge photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Formerly Known As Delicious

Above: homemade bread topped with melted cheddar and fresh garden stuff... chopped red russian baby kale, chives, garlic seed-head, and basil. Drizzled with olive oil. Sprinkled with salt and pepper. Totally out of this world.


As a child, I loved to go to my grandmother's house. She grew vegetables in army quantities... potatoes, zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, peas, green beans. Her land also swelled with fruit... cherries, mulberries, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, blackberries, plums, pears. I knew what a real vegetable tasted like. I understood fruit beyond canned cocktail.

In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver discusses a generation of children — our children — whose life expectancy will be shorter than the previous generation's. And it's largely due to what we're feeding them.

Some of it is our own fault. We live with the mantra of "convenience", sacrificing homemade meals to the gods of busyness. And some of it is a more subtle problem. The fruits and veggies, especially those taken out of season, just don't taste like they used to. Why should we expect our kids to want them?

I like the way Kingsolver explains the loss of deliciousness...

"How did supermarket vegetables lose their palatability, with so many people right there watching? The Case of the Murdered Flavor was a contract killing, as it turns out, and long-distance travel lies at the heart of the plot." (p.48) This plot centers largely on the breeding of "indestructible vegetables...creations that still looked decent after a road trip." Forget about the whole issue of being picked green or sitting for weeks before landing on our plates.

Maybe the place to start is to hand our children a hoe and a seed packet, then later a watering can, and finally a morning of harvest. Whether we let them wield a knife in the kitchen, to help serve it up, will be according to our level of bravery.

I can say that this has worked in part for me. We're still trying to cultivate tomato love. But squash and cucumbers are in the bag. Not the grocery bag mind you. Just the one that my kids label, "I'll eat this, because it's home-grown delicious."


"Fresh Herb Sandwich Above Sara's First Nine Patch Square." Photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Green Inventions Invitation: if you write a related post and LINK back here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

L.L.'s Tomato Abstinence

Re-Vision

Wendell Berry has a lot to say about our visions for life. In The Gift of Good Land, he discusses the destruction of prairie and forest, saying this...

"As we felled and burned the forests, so we burned, plowed, and overgrazed the prairies. We came with visions but not with sight. We did not see or understand where we were or what was there, but destroyed what was there for the sake of what we desired. And the desire was always native to the place we left behind." p.82

In saying this, Berry urges me to know my own land, to understand where I am, and what is here. I'm compelled not to simply destroy what exists, for the vision of "perfection" handed down to me. (In my county, that would be the vision of a pristine lawn with narry a "weed" in sight.)

So I am learning, and I am trying to participate in a "re-visioning."

As part of the process, I went on a wild edibles hike this past Saturday, with Steve Brill. And I came home to a weekend of discovery... that on my own property I have garlic mustard (pic above) with a "horseradish" root, and edible violets, and day lilies (don't confuse with inedible Tiger Lilies), dandelions, and wild onions.

I felt a fresh vision of the gift I hold right here, on my own small parcel of land. My ten-year-old daughter expressed it well on Sunday night. She gave this blessing before the meal...

"Thank you, Lord for this day when we could be together. And thank you for all this wonderful food, that we didn't even have to pay for! Amen."

For a related post on my other blog, visit Discerning the Violet


Here's a recipe using dandelion greens. Pick them young, before the flowers come, for milder greens. If you've already got flowers, you could also eat those instead. Just pluck the green part off the bottom.



Caldo Gallego

Saute in a bit of oil 'til brown:

- 1 onion, chopped


Add and saute briefly:

- 1 garlic, minced
- 1 TB "bacuns"
- 1/2 tsp. smoke spice (if using Liquid Smoke, add at next step)
- 1/2 tsp. fennel seed
- 1/4 tsp. red pepper
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin


Add and boil about 15 minutes (til potatoes tender):

- 2 potatoes, large dice
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups cooked red beans or chickpeas
- large tomato, chopped, or small can diced tomatoes
- water, to cover all (put more or less for thicker or thinner soup)


Finish:

- good pour olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- bunch of dandelion greens, chopped (let wilt in soup before serving); if dandelions are out of season, substitute spinach

Serve with crusty whole wheat bread or rice and a salad.

Caldo Gallego photo by L.L. Barkat.

Trashwalk

After posting this on my Seedlings blog, I got to thinking. Part of why I am nameless in my community is because I don't have a big "presence" here. I give my neighbors Christmas cookies during the holidays, and that's about it.

So when my kids asked to do a trash walk today, I decided it was the community thing to do. We packed some old plastic grocery bags into the knapsack and went to the library. On the way back, we gathered enough trash to fill what you see in the pic above.

It's not like I've done anything big, I know. But I can't help remembering the words of Wendell Berry...

Small destructions add up, and finally they are understood collectively as large destructions.

Conversely, maybe my small reconstructions can add up to something largely positive. Just thinking in this way seems like the beginning of something big.


Sidewalk Trash photo, by L.L. Barkat. Berry quote from essay "Contempt for Small Places," in The Way of Ignorance, p.7.

Recycle, Reduce, Reuse... Rethink?

Many people who care about creation are into the three R's. Recycle, reduce, reuse. But I find I've had to concentrate on a fourth one... "rethink."

Mostly, I realize that much of my thinking has been molded by advertising and societal views of what is cool, fulfilling, and rewarding. This affects even the simplest areas of life.

Take food, for example. My TV shows a woman using Hamburger Helper (food in a box, which is not good for my family, and is also a source of consumer waste). This woman is smiling because she has made her family happy (so says the commercial). And all this, without stooping to the indignity of creating a meal from scratch (or perhaps wasting "precious" time).

It is a strong message: you can make your family happy without degrading yourself, or without effort.

Is it true? Will food in a box make my family happy and healthy? Have I escaped some kind of drudge work that would suggest I'm less-than-important if I did the work? I'm not saying that I never cook anything out of a box, but I've had to rethink... what is it that truly brings health, happiness, and meaning? Is life really like the commercials say?

If life is not like the commercials say, then maybe convenience is not a primary value, nor effortlessness, nor throwing away the old for the new, nor buying the new to create happiness. And maybe my role in my family is not entertainer, but Guide and Mentor and Nurturer.

Photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.