Week 45

Watching you

Rainbows around the room thanks to my new window crystal

Bus stop view, 4:30 p.m. looking east

First snow Friday

From sunshine and rainbows into the dark days of winter we descended, all in a matter of days. It now takes about 5 minutes to properly bundle up before heading outside, and I feel my muscles seize up as soon as I head out the door. I am trying to find beauty in the quiet and stillness of these dark nights, and be invigorated with the cold air in my lungs. Like everything, it's a matter of perspective. Right now, each day requires a pep talk. Thanksgiving's focus couldn't come at a better time. Also, hot toddies.

Recipes

Joel made a pork loin roast (simple seasoning of Herbes des Provence and salt and pepper) with shallots and apples on Sunday, which we enjoyed with Liberty cider. And we were eating that pork all week long, up until Saturday when I mixed the two remaining slices into a salad.

I also tried out this creamy butternut squash orzotto on Saturday night, topped with toasted hazelnuts. No pictures because I'm getting sad about all my lamplit food photos.

With the snowfall, it was time to make a loaf of bread, as is my mom's tradition. I made a no-knead cinnamon-raisin swirl loaf using a buttermilk bread dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Oh, the toast I shall have these next several mornings!

COW

Someone really wanted chocolate chip cookies this week, so I relented and reached for Dorie's newest recipe, which incorporates nutmeg and coriander into the dough. I also didn't have enough of any one chocolate, so I combined semisweet chips with bittersweet chocolate chunks, and topped the cookies with grey salt for the ultimate flavor explosion. These were dang good (and we still have about a million left).

Listening

I got an intense hankering for some fat saxophone harmonies this week. Maybe it was in anticipation of seeing Joshua Redman on Friday (he performed with the Whitworth jazz band). I scoured Spotify for saxophone quartets and quintets. I found some good stuff, like the Austin Saxophone Ensemble and a lot of nice tango arrangements from a variety of albums. I also spent some time thinking about how 1993 was 25 years ago. Listening to the music from then really brought me back.

Dreaming

I had a strangely vivid dream-life this week, which I am blaming on the valerian root that lives in my Yogi bedtime tea. In one dream, I was at my parents' house, built in 1975 in real life, barricading the door against the Revolutionary War circa 1775. In another, I was at a women's rally when the next speaker was announced with a chorus of voices (similar to those in "Big Bad John") singing a repeated phrase, "Diamond Girls." That was when a parade of potbellied pigs entered the arena, apparently the Diamond Girls, as a joke from male ranchers. I'm revealing too much about myself here, but have fun interpreting.

Watching

House of Cards is over. I am glad. I appreciated what they were trying to do since Kevin Spacey's departure, but it got so convoluted, so over-dramatic, so confusing. There were so many characters and gobs of background info to keep track of that I had to pause the show once or twice each episode to ask Joel who someone was, or what was happening. I think this series simply went on too long.

Reading

"Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle is making it strong. My children will be strong that way."

A tree grew in Brooklyn, indeed. If you've never read this gem, I encourage you to do so. It was written in the 1940s about the early 1900s, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the social themes that emerged, ones that made the book feel almost contemporary. This book was filled with strong women. I loved the slower pace of it, too, which allowed me to savor it. It was a simple, often heartbreaking story, quietly and undramatically illustrating the daily life of poverty, not in a way that made me pity the characters, but in a way that inspired me to see beauty the way Francie, the main character, does.