My 2.5 year old child could see me in the gas station as I was paying. And had been told, “I will be right there I am not going where you can’t see me. Wait right here for just a minute.” Got out of the car seat, cranked open the sun roof, climbed up and out, slid down the windshield and hood and ran across the parking lot cheerfully calling out, “I finded you, Mommy!”
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I have been exploring the joys of aperitifs. I read an article about the European habit of a little snack with a cocktail before the dive into preparing dinner and it really appealed to me. I’ve been having fun creating the little snacks.
One day, I boiled 3 eggs and deviled them. Another day, I used a spoonful of Chuck’s home-fermented sauerkraut with about an ounce of Cambozola cheese and 5 Kalamata olives for each of us. Yesterday, it was 5 cherry tomatoes and a Babybel cheese each. I cut the tomatoes in half and the cheese into 5 pieces and drizzled the plate with balsamic vinegar and Tuscan herb flavored olive oil. A baguette that Chuck picked up for part of my birthday celebration has been cut into pieces and frozen. So, I can pull out 4 pieces to thaw, along with a portion of smoked salmon. Cream cheese and capers live in my fridge. So, that’s an easy one. Or just pickled cauliflower in a dish with a couple of cherry tomatoes alongside it. Or hummus and crudites. I think Chuck’s been getting a kick out of seeing what’s going to come out of the kitchen when I start stirring around at 4:00.
My grandmother set 4:30 as the cocktail hour and that has been my “it’s not too early” time forever. She did, once, say “It’s 4:30 somewhere in the world” when she wanted bourbon and Coke at 3:30. But, I generally reserve that attitude for vacations. And, for the record, in order for it to be 4:30, we would have been at sea.
Our summer cocktails are usually wine, gin and tonic, a gin rickey (if I’m feeling lazy), a lemon drop martini or a non-alcoholic shrub. And I only make my own drink. Chuck gets to decide what he prefers in that instance for himself.
We discovered shrubs last year. Chuck decided to give his liver a break about the time there was a little explosion of bartenders in better places creating interesting concoctions for designated drivers, (or anyone else who didn’t want to imbibe). It’s usually a flavored syrup, vinegar and soda water. We already had a SodaStream for the fizzy water and we have been keeping a small bottle of apple cider vinegar and a collection of flavored simple syrups in the fridge. The syrups we keep around are homemade vanilla, lavender, ginger, mint and a couple of berry flavored syrups I found at IKEA. A shot of syrup, a shot of vinegar, top it with fizzy water and we’re set. More fun than just a glass of water with a twist of citrus.
I’ve been trying to decide on the word that describes how it feels for me to make a little taste of something lovely as a mark of the shift from day to evening. I think “gracious.”
gra·cious /ˈɡrāSHəs/ adjective:
1. courteous, kind, and pleasant.
Similar: courteous, polite, civil, civilized, indulgent, magnanimous, beneficent, benign, friendly, pleasant, amiable, affable, cordial, hospitable -
A decade or so ago, my friend, Ann, decided to try a block-a-month quilt project and learned a new trick that way. She has been a quilting fiend ever since. It’s been to my benefit. I have 2 gorgeous quilts that she made me and she made another one for my kid when they were getting situated elsewhere. Offspring loves that quilt.
I have tried various crafty things to keep my hands busy and none of them stuck. My paternal grandmother taught me how to make a cathedral window quilt. Ann helped me cut enough blocks of muslin to make one that would cover my bed. And there they sit. I took a class in chainmaille jewelry. Bought a collection of rings from a young friend who had gotten tired of it. And there they sit.
The only projects I stick with (much) are outside. I plant things, let the grass grow in the beds in the heat of summer, and fight the grass all Spring. And I do a little bonsai. Those are not things to do while I listen to a book during the blistering heat of the afternoon or watching TV in the evening.
I’ve been playing a lot of solitaire on my tablet and it was becoming really tedious.
So, when I saw a kit-a-month crochet ad on Instagram right after the shutdown started, I thought, “That’s kind of how Ann got started quilting. And I can quit after the first month if it just sits there. OR, I’ll end up with an afghan.”
I’m liking it. The kit teaches me 3 blocks a month and, in the end, I’ll have 30 blocks and the 11th month will be putting them all together. The difficult part has been getting a handle on how to do the end of the row correctly. I have ripped out you-wouldn’t-believe-how-many sections that either wanted to become trapezoids or magically expanded. But, that’s OK. It’s not like I have a deadline.
Frankly, the kits don’t come quickly enough because it’s too hot to do anything outside and I only work 2.5 days a week anyway. Three 9″ blocks hasn’t really been enough for the muscle memory to kick in either. And, I got the first kit done in a little over a week. So, being the mad genius that I am, I decided to do another afghan, at the same time, parallel to mine for my kid. Hello, practice!
Offspring likes black, grey and red. I am here to tell you that black yarn is impossible for 60 year old eyes to see worth a damn. So, they’re getting shades of grey and some finishing scarlet.And, I still didn’t have enough to do. So, Ann gets one, too. She asked for “bright” and we had a photo consultation via text while I shopped, masked and well spaced, at Michael’s.
I have no clue what I’ll do with this new skill once I have finished a few afghans. Honestly. How many blankets can you give to your friends and family?
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If I got the parent plant from a nursery, but this is a shoot, does that make it semi-yamadori?
I haven’t worked the trunks yet, aside from a little chop to keep it from being ridiculously top heavy, letting it get over the transplanting. But, the bloom makes feel pretty good about it.
The nursery stock it came from is ‘Tuscarora’.
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Our sensations aren’t the same. And… I think most of us know that some. But, it can be pretty dramatic and I believe we often don’t take that into consideration.
If you have ever been to a wine tasting and tried to compare notes with someone whose taste buds don’t match yours, you got a dose of awareness of that. That’s why it drives me crazy when the person pouring the wine tries to tell me what to expect. I will grant that there have been times when one of the really oddball descriptors have been shockingly accurate and it has bowled me over. “Leather? Tobacco? Really?” Yes. Really. Even though they aren’t words that one usually associates with wine.
Once upon a time, we got a Vanilla Chai Chocolate Bar. I had a piece first. My husband is a big fan of cardamom and I said “You are really going to like this. The cardamom is strong.” Later, when he finally had a piece, he said “I can barely taste the chai flavor because the vanilla is so strong.” I really like vanilla. So, this imbalance is incredibly unfair.
Later, I started making a lavender-vanilla simple syrup to make shrubs in the evening when I didn’t want something alcoholic during the cocktail hour. The recent crop of lavender kind of overpowers the vanilla and I told Chuck I think the next batch might just be all vanilla. He decided to try my concoction (he usually opts for ginger or mint syrup) and told me he could barely taste the lavender for the vanilla.
When I had been considering how our perceptions differ, I wondered out loud to a friend whether what we see isn’t actually the same. We label a certain wavelength “blue” and all call that wavelength by that name. But, there’s no real reason to believe that we are truly registering the same thing.
My friend was appalled. He insisted that if it’s the same wavelength, we must see the same thing. But, I still think that if our taste buds can register flavors differently, there’s no reason to believe our cones and rods don’t do the same thing. Clearly, that’s true for people who have various types of colorblindness.
I’m talking about something more extreme, though. I’m envisioning being able to slip my consciousness into your body and see that the sky is what this body sees as red and taste as lemon what this body perceives to be chocolate. We agree that a think* is pleasant because we like it. But, there’s no real reason to believe we are actually experiencing the same thing.
*Ha! Leaving the typo because it fits.
I am the Audience 