These days I mostly try not to write. My life is so full of work and family and weeding. But every now and then, my brain starts to itch and the only way to scratch that itch is writing. This is where you will find my most recent scratchings.
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Nuts and Bolts
Much to my blushing surprise, Harriet Fasenfest joined both the new Apron Stringz groups. Harriet is the author of The Householder’s Guide to the Universe (I wrote a short review in January, scroll down, it’s at the bottom-ish of the post). She’s stewing over her next book and left a comment and question over at Homegrown which I think is really fascinating. Here’s what she said, Oh but that I could call myself a punk housewife. I’m more your crusty ex-pat N.Y. still-talking-about-woodstock householder with grown kids and a husband who can’t figure out why I do all this stuff…
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Bouquet of Choice, and a Recipe for Chard Muffins
Swiss chard (silverbeet for some of you) is good eating, don’t get me wrong. But damn is it fine to look at! Those Rubenesque stems in every color imaginable. Those enormous succulent dark green wrinkled velvet leaves. Oh my! I like Orange Fantasia and Pink Lipstick. I mean, in varieties of chard. The only problem with chard is that the prettiest varieties are the ones with mammoth stems, and the 36-24-36 proportions that look so heady on the plant never seem quite right in the kitchen. So little leaf, so much stem. So few ideas how to use those stems……
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Down the Street and into the Future
Phew. We have finally finished hucking all of our everything to the new house, just ten blocks from our old place. As of yesterday, we are officially moved. I had never moved like this before– a whole family’s worth of shit. I was packing and taking over a car load a day or more during the last week, then on the 31st we rented a 17 ft truck and did two trips full of furniture. I was completely tapped by the end of that day. I haven’t felt so thoroughly exhausted since that 3rd day after my last birth when…
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Brave New World
No time to talk. Just spent the better part of two days fucking around with motherfucking Faceb**k trying to set up a page for this madness I call a blog. Did finally get it done. Phew! It’s a long story, which I will divulge at a later date. Starts like this though, “Dear Faceb**k, I hate you…” For those of you who share these coarse feelings about FB, I also started a nice, wholesome group over at the lovely Homegrown.org. If you sign up under a psuedo-nim, you high school nemesis will not track you down through this humble site.…
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Empanadas: A Confession
Very few people understand what it’s like to be addicted– obsessively, compulsively– to cooking. It’s rough. I’m not joking. For example, what should I have been doing at 4:00 yesterday afternoon? Should I have been taking down the laundry and folding, picking up the drifts of junk and sweeping the floors, or otherwise restoring some order to this whirlwind of a house? Yes. Should I have been packing boxes for our move, a mere 6 days away? Absolutely. Should I have been putting a pot of brown rice on the stove for a simple, wholesome dinner to top with some sauteed…
calamity jane 