There's Beauty in the Bellow

All sorts of odd responses to food and ideas as to what's "healthy." Turkeys were more expensive this year. One woman rather complained about it, saying something to the effect of "I don't even know why we eat turkey." "Well, maybe we'll switch to eating pork someday," I replied. "I hope not," she said, "that's even worse for you." Huh? Who comes up with these distinctions? Maybe I have been suckered by the "Pork: the other white meat" campaign. I've heard about the evils of all animal protein, or the relative healthiness of fish or poultry over red meat, but this was new. Another woman, pushing a toddler in her cart, bought coconut milk. I asked about it, since it was new to me and looked yummy. "Well, I wasn't going to feed her cow puss, and I didn't wan't to do soy because it's been so genetically modified, and I didn't want to do almond milk because it has nuts in it, but coco...

#1: Slice asparagus stems in half lengthwise and steam. Pile asparagus, thinly sliced radishes, sliced pears, toasted walnuts, and your last dollop of ricotta onto a plate. Sprinkle with fresh thyme, salt and a splurge (ie, a copious rain) of black pepper. Drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette. Sit down at the table with your salad. Inhale. Make sure to try different combinations of flavor and texture. Radish and asparagus. Pear and radish, with ricotta. Pear and asparagus, then with a walnut, then with ricotta. Ricotta and asparagus, swirled in the balsamic vinager. #2: Slice and saute a couple mushrooms with a little butter and salt. Once you have them in the pan, make a phone call: by the time you have gotten off the phone, the shrooms will be well underway. Wilt some spinach in the microwave for about 30 seconds. If you have gotten distracted and your mushrooms have gotten a bit cold, include them in the last step. Top with your mushrooms, thinly sliced radishes, chopped grapes, walnut...

If we cannot control our appetites for food, then how are we to discipline our appetites for violence, sex, pleasure (caffeine, drugs, alcohol, etc) or the accumulative appetite? Obesity is entirely our own fault. We are individually responsible for whatever "conditioning" leads us toward this "disease."

Critics depend upon structured arguments to make their points. A novelist primarily structures not arguments for the reader but experiences. Unlike our more random encounters with the actual world, the experiences we find in a novel are entirely verbal in origin, and they are shaped by their creator specifically with us, the readers, in mind. As we progress through a novel, we live in its world with an intense, imaginative participation very rarely, if ever, generated in us by any kind of purely expository writing. Thus somewhere--exactly where, no artist and no critic has ever discovered--between the immediacy of a lived, concrete encounter, and the limited intellectual engagement created by expository prose, exists the mysterious participatory experience offered by imaginative literature. The Religious Dimension of Jane Austen's Novels , Gene Koppel, 122.

Wash, rinse and dry grapes. Wash, rinse and dry cilantro. Pick a firm grape. (Usually the firm ones fall off first when you shake the bunch.) Tear off a few leaves of cilantro. Deposit cilantro and grape in your mouth. Bite into the grape with your back teeth so that it bursts in your mouth. Press the cilantro against your tongue as you eat.

Her method was just that: the intensification, or concentration, if meaning in words until they glowed "as no sapphire"---until, that is, they became, in mutually supportive combination, the Word, a poem that could "dwell among us," alive, a corporate fusion of meaning and (like human life) mystery. This sense of life is the most difficult of all things to create---and she knew that, too. This is one reason, surely, why many of her poems seem cryptic, incomplete, barely reducible to coherent statement, as if she was conscious of an element of the ineffable, even in usual things, like hummingbirds of sunsets. ~ The Life of Emily Dickinson , Richard B. Sewall

Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, Rejoicing in the world, His earth, And having my delight in the sons of men. Proverbs 8:30-31 Isn't this what poets, artists and writers are supposed to do?

447 This was a Poet — It is That Distills amazing sense From ordinary Meanings — And Attar so immense From the familiar species That perished by the Door — We wonder it was not Ourselves Arrested it — before — Of Pictures, the Discloser — The Poet — it is He — Entitles Us — by Contrast — To ceaseless Poverty — Of portion — so unconscious — The Robbing — could not harm — Himself — to Him — a Fortune — Exterior — to Time — 455 TRIUMPH – may be of several kinds – There’s triumph in the room When that Old Imperator – Death – By Faith – be overcome – There’s Triumph of the finerMmind When Truth – affronted long – Advance unmoved – to Her Supreme – Her God – Her only Throng – A Triumph when Temptation’s Bribe Is slowly handed back – One eye upon the Heaven renounced – And One – upon the Rack – Severer Triumph – by Himself Experienced – who pass Acquitted – from that Naked Bar – Jehovah’s Countenance –

Essays into poetry: Let me fill this pot -- Roots thickening, moist, whitish flesh-- Then move me, make me face The shock of Transplant Then grow again-- Moderating my sun, Spritzing my leaves. Master Gardener: Prune me, let me thrive; Tend me, let me live. Star-gazing Warm hood-- Watching the darkness: Bright foreigners Stare back. The leaves bleed out their chlorophyllic green Flutter to the ground in gold, parchment-brown litter-- The old strews the stable for the new, mulch and fruit Somehow-- Something grows underneath Pressing the earth. Maybe that's it: The leaf leaps precipitous from the branch to meet it. The arbor lifts and sun shines direct into the nest For a short time. I think it was Ted Kooser in his Poetry Home Repair Manual who defined poetry as words with funny line breaks. I'd like to discipline my lines more. But since these are not assignments, I'm not squeezing my brain to push the words around. (And when you are doing ...

As usual, some tidbit from the New York Times" That’s a refrain heard inside the White House as well: it’s a communication problem. The first refuge of any politician in trouble is that it’s a communication problem, not a policy problem. If only I explained what I was doing better, the people would be more supportive. Which roughly translates to If only you people paid attention, you wouldn’t be kicking me upside the head. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, laughed at the ever-ready assumption that all problems stem from poor communication. “I haven’t been at a policy-problem meeting in 20 months,” he noted. "The Education of President Obama," Peter Baker

Mopping-up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers. They constitute what I am here calling normal science. ~Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Like countless educated women in the late nineteenth century, Vinnie (Lavinia Dickinson, sister to Emily) faced the problem of vocation, as finance capitalism and the Industrial Revolution did away with the domestic economy that had dominated colonial and early national life. With the middle-class home transformed into a center of consumption by the mid-nineteenth century, the home because the "women's sphere," but what was a woman to do in it? If, as Vinnie said late in life, "Austin had Amherst" and "father believed," what were the women to do? In assuming her role as a poet with "title divine," Emily found her vocation and made her home, at least for herself, a center of production in a unique, new form of domestic economy. Mrs. Dickinson took upon herself the work of love, ailment, and complaint. That left Vinnie with the job of looking after all of them. ("I had the family to keep track of.") ...

At Cattle Point. Feather duster worms. You poke them and they shrink back into their tubes. Bread crumb sponge (the green stuff) and pink encrusting algae. Aggragating anemone A little Isopod Barnacles. They were everywhere! Really quite handsome. More anemones, above tide. They've pulled in their tentacles to conserve moisture. Their bodies are very soft and gelatinous. My friend's feet. She finds shoes inconvenient. Well, she did grow up in West Africa where she did everything barefoot! I just couldn't stop taking pictures of the anemones! They were so lovely. They spread out everywhere in whatever wet crevice was availible during the nice low tide. (Nice for us at least.) And then I dropped my camera in a tiny shallow little pool. So I didn't get pictures of the rest of the trip. (The following were taken earlier on.) But I took the battery and memory card out, left it open for a couple days and the camera works just as well as ever--to my great relief! Flotsam a...

I don't rebel at being a helpmeet, nor at being the glory or crown of the man. But I want my work to adorn his, not just inspire it (either as a muse or another reason to kill dragons), not just to nurture it (by cooking good food, creating a welcoming home, and building him up with praise). Can my work go beyond the domestic, beyond serving his appetites? Can the crown go with him, shedding glory in public places, beyond the energy and confidence bestowed by receiving respect at home or “sugar cake for you to take for all the boys to see”? I love stories of husbands and wives who are collaborators, where her research and knowledge strengthens, increases, sustains his project. In a sense I want to be a Deborah to a David—if it is possible for those two characters to create a peaceable union. Pagan religions at once deify sex and its offspring while also despising the woman herself, her organs and her blood. What dies the Church do? She is our Mother, she is Christ's Bride. She ...

Frida Kahlo is famous for her self portraits--she painted around 200 of them. Looking at the parade of faces, hair rarely varying, posture hardly altered, the stare emerging out of the canvas, the number seems to have little to do with vanity. It's more as if Kahlo is trying to simultaneously reveal something about herself to the world while trying to discover something about herself. Some of her odd externalized internal landscapes are rather obscene, though I am tempted to excuse them for their intensely visceral personalness. For me, her paintings are like miniatures of her own psyche (which probably is narcissitic, but she did suffer some intense pains).

The other day I took a bite of canteloupe with some basil leaves that were lying on the counter. Would be very good as a salad with toasted almonds (sliced would have best texture to go with the softness of the melon and the chewiness of the basil), lemon juice, lemon zest, a pinch of salt, and some black pepper. I tried fresh papaya for the first time this summer, and the basil treatment works beautifully with that as well. Papaya/basil and canteloupe/basil would make good sorbet--someone's probably already beat me to it. Papaya, basil chiffonade, toasted nuts and spinach make a delicious salad--and don't forget the papaya seeds! They have the texture of pomegranite seeds with a peppery bite, very fun to eat on your salad. You can salvage a disappointing piece of fruit by sprinkling it with lemon juice, salt and honey/agave nectar. Try it with just the lemon and salt, and then add the extra sweetener. I ended up dressing the papaya this way fairly often. Even when it was rip...

I just came across an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times by Brent Staples on plagiarism in academia. Of course, blogger won't allow me to cut and paste it. The Irony. So I will most laboriously type out the passage I wanted to highlight: Staples quotes a professor-friend: Nonchalance from students towards plagiarism "represents a shift away from the view of education as the process of intellectual engagement through which we learn to think critically and toward the view of education as mere training. In training, you are trying to find the right answer at any cost, not trying to improve your mind." Is this ideal of self-improvement and mental freedom unique to Western education? Eastern thought and pedagogy seems to strive for detatchment as opposed to independence . I could be wrong; I find Eastern philosophy rather convoluted and I retain only impressions and snippets of it. But I am thinking of the prominence of our Asian and Indian ("India-Indians...

While bagging for one of my fellow cashiers last week, we met a very interesting person. She is the mother of Patrick Warburton and an abstinence advocate and activist, beautiful, elegant, and passionate. She told us that she is always looking for young people to talk about abstinence and encourage parents to talk to their children: "they'll listen to you, they won't listen to me." But as a cashier in a grocery store, communication in families is frequently rude, ungracious, impatient and tense in very small matters like "what are we doing for dinner?" "did you get everything on the shopping list?" If grace and courtesy have become alienated from everyday discourse, why should it be any better in more serious matters? If I did do a talk for Ms. Warburton, I could say "Talk to your kids," but I'd also have to say, "Go to church, get right with God, improve your communication with God, else why should they listen to you?" Jus...

Today we hosted a little birthday luncheon for Teri, who's been our neighbor and surrogate grandmother for several years now. We made Ina Garten's incredible crab cakes (Daddy said they taste better than the expensive ones he once ate in some fancy restaurant), spinach salad with cucumbers, strawberries and roasted almonds and cherry balsamic vinaigrette, pinot grigio wine spritzers, and buttermilk biscuits from the Gluten-Free Girl's recipe. The biscuits turned out beautifully! As Momma was pulling them out, she exclaimed, "Oh, they look like real food!" I used a store-brand lactase milk (milk with the lactase enzyme added) and added lemon juice to substitute for regular buttermilk. We also followed Ina's philosophy and bought the dessert, a fruit tart from The Fresh Market. Since the tart has gluten and dairy, I wanted to make sure the biscuits wouldn't add any discomfort to what Momma was going to experience. I skipped out on the tart, made our favori...

Blogger has been acting impossible and refusing to let me copy and paste. But hopefully this link will take. Before steam starts coming out. Nancy Wilson just gave a commencement address to a Christian school not too far away from me--the class was all girls. And she describes the kind of person I've been wanting to become.

From Pastor Wilson's Twitter: "Never forget that the wife is not the head, the husband is. This means the wife is higher than she is--she is the crown."

We are expected to be broadminded about literature, to put aside prejudice or conviction, and to look at fiction as fiction and at drama as drama. With what is inaccurately called 'censorship' in this country--with what is much more difficult to cope with than an official censorship, because it represents the opinions of individuals in an irresponsible democracy---I have very little sympathy; partly because it so often suppresses the wrong books, and partly because it is little more effective than Prohibition of Liquor; partly because it is one manifestation of the desire that state control should take the place of decent domestic influence; and wholly because it stems from custom and habit, not from decided theological and moral principles. Incidentally, it gives people a false sense of security in leading them to believe that books which are not suppressed are harmless. Whether there is such a thing as a harmless book I am not sure: but there very likely are books so utterl...

Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with one of the falsest first lines of literature; he writes that "happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." With novels and memoirs full of dysfunctional families of perverse individuals, perhaps we are congratulating ourselves in our unhappiness that at least we are not like those boring happy folks. But perversion, being parasitical, is capable of only so many permutations. Every happy family has found its own way of creating an organic being from a few vagrant individuals. "Dysfunctional family" must be a cliche by now. The "Books" section of The New York Times is probably the most boring part of the paper after "U.S. News." But I love invites to family dinners, to watch the members speak to, and listen to them speak of, one another, to see their different methods of life. Last night, I listened to a wife talk about her husband's annual spring itch to drive to Washing...

I came across this hymn: God be in my head and in my understanding; God be in my eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at my end, and at my departing. Setting by Sir Henry Walford-Davies