'What a beautiful clear sunny morning!' I was thinking as I set off on my bicycle today to meet a friend for breakfast. But somehow out on College Street as I was trying to set off when the light turned green, my foot slipped off the pedal, with my full weight on it, and though I managed to get it on the ground, rather than falling over, the pedal scraped and banged up my shin pretty thoroughly. I swore a little then pedalled to our meeting place, where I asked the cafe cook and owner for some ice to sooth the swelling. I already had a goose egg on my shin, as well as scrapes oozing blood. The ice worked: now an hour and a half later the goose-egg is down and all I have is a dull ache (and unsightly scrapes that will take awhile to heal).
All it takes is a moment's inattention for our luck to change, our judgement to be off-key, our fate to turn. Examples abound. A friend told me this week about her near-drowning a couple of weeks ago. The elements there were first, a decision to try swimming across a lake that was wider than she realised, and second, a weaker swimmer with her, who needed to cling on, which started them both sinking... until my friend passed out. Luckily a third person was with them, a strong swimmer, who got them both back to shore safely. It's shocking to think that they might easily have drowned. Events can turn on a hair sometimes.
Reminders like this are painful jolts: We can get hit by a bus, or drown in a lake, tomorrow, or any time. There are no guarantees. And so there's no point worrying overly about the future, though we are inclined to (see my last week's blog about over-anticipation and min-maxing). Of course we need to anticipate it and take some precautions, as a navigator steers a ship around a coming headland or shoal, but we also need to remember that since each day could be our last, we need to live in the now as much as we can, to enjoy it, and to take responsibility for ourselves and others, in the moment.
Like the rest of life, it's a balancing act. And the attentiveness we bring to it gives life edge and meaning.
I guess part of the balancing act involves being in the moment and engaged and also capable of stepping outside it and seeing context or the wider view. It's a process a little like working with a zoom lens, focussing in on the immediate and then going wide for the wide-angle view, where each element becomes smaller but their interconnectedness is more the focus.
These are July musings, in the luxury of some of the best summer weather I can remember (we could do with more rain, but we've had rain some evenings and sun in the days, so the gardens are way ahead). It's time to enjoy local tomatoes, the purple "green beans" hanging on the bean plants out in the garden (so beautiful!), the raspberries and blackberries at the market, the last of the cherries...
And as I explore the homecooking traditions of Burma, I'm engaging with fish. (In this warm weather I leave doors and window open, so there's a breeze that carries cooking smells away. The house and garden have a very tropical feel these days, seamlessly connected by soft air and greenness flowing through the house.)
This week has been full of soups, fish broth for sour soups (there's sour soup with vegetables in it at almost all lunch tables in central Burma, delicious and refreshing in the heat), for a soup with lemongrass and ginger, and for a mohinga from the Rakhine coast (where food is more chile hot, the west coast south of Bangladesh). I also messed around with a chickpea soup, cooking chickpeas (garbanzos for some of you) unsoaked and comparing that to the cooking time if they are soaked overnight. it does indeed make a difference, soaking them. It knocks an hour or more off the cooking time. And by the way, the soup is satisfying, easy to make, a keeper for sure. (It's flavored with minced shallots fried in oil, and with lemongrass etc.)
Speaking of Burma, I had a letter from a guy in Indianapolis today who is looking for Chin recipes. The Chin are one of the cutures/ethnicities that live in Burma, mostly in Chin State, in the northwest. He says there are 6,000 refugees from Burma in the Indianapolis area, among them Chin. There is even a Chin restaurant. He wanted to know if I had any Chin recipes, for he is due to cook for the refugees in a few weeks. I wrote back to say that he is in a better place than me to gather and know about Chin food. it makes me want to head to Indianapolis this fall, to eat and ask questions.
In Burma Chin State is off-limits to foreigners. My only contact with Chin people was at several Chin villages in northern Rakhine State, up river from Mrauk U.
Sorry to ramble on and on... thinking out loud. Thinking about refugees who have had to leave their homes and landscape and start afresh, with many hardships in between, is a good reminder that our short-term aches and pains, or worries, are small indeed.... And it's also a reminder of how resourceful and resiliant human beings can be when survival is the issue.
Happy summer everyone.
SUMMER FOOD: A further thought on my "classic" potato salad, described a few posts ago: Boil new potatoes and several sweet potatoes, whole and unpeeled. When they are cool enough to handle, peel them and chop into large bite-sized pieces. Steam cook or parboil some wing beans (also called asparagus beans, tua plu in Thai) or some green beans, then chop them into the potatoes. Then chop fresh herbs from the garden and stir them into an olive oil-vinegar (or lime juice) and salt (or soy sauce) dressing. I have shiso, basil, tarragon, mint, and flat-leafed parsley, all jumbled together, so that the dressed salad yields a surprise with each mouthful. And it's beautiful, with green and dark red (the shiso) herbs, orange and white potatoes, and the green of tua plu or beans... A great potluck dish, as I've said before!
Showing posts with label bicycles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bicycles. Show all posts
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
OUT AND ABOUT IN THE GOLDEN GLOW OF LATE OCTOBER
There's a golden glow everywhere here. The trees continue in briliant leaf, our reward or compensation for a cold wet summer, whose weather was ideal for trees but hard on farmers and local markets and any sense of optimism, and...
The enormous two hundred or whatever it is year-old elm that towers over the house is in the most glowing yellow colour it has ever worn. Beneath it the crabapple tree (sorry, don't know the variety) that fills our small front yard spreads its arms like a golden embrace. The branches are dark, especially after a rain of course, and the leaves just glow in contrast. SOme have fallen so the ground, too, is aglow. The front of the house faces east, so mornings are radiant with the trees in leaf, even when the sun doesn't shine, and even more so in the office, on the second floor, which is a golden yellow too (at least the bits of wall that show at the edges of bookshelves!).
The heart lifts with all this beauty. And perhaps even more so because it is ephemeral? Hard to say.
The was a foretaste of the next months yesterday as I heard the sound of a plough scraping and bumping down the street. Wha..a..a..t? And what was it? Yes, it was indeed a city truck with a plough, scraping its way down the street, at the edge of the sidewalk... yes, you guessed, it, ploughing up the fallen leaves! How strange. And a bit of a chilling reminder of real ploughing and the white stuff that will soon fall.
But today is again soft and hazy, so colours glow. The ivy on the coachhouse is gradually turning, so there remain touches of green and hot yellow as the advanced leaves are tinted with orange and red, a wall of nature's colour. It's been a green wall all summer, filling the view out the back door and radiating a sense of life back into the house. Now it radiates light, magically and beautifully, changing light.
Yesterday I was out there in the back yard (a small enclosed space, framed by the ivied back wall and the house), digging up part of the garden, some of the vegetable part of the garden. i hate to dig things under or pull them out unless they are truly gone, so that means that there are still some straggly tomato plants, (dotted with a few green fruits) and chile pepper plants as well as parsely and garlic chives, but the shiso has gone, the epazote, and a lot of the tomatoes (the ones that got hit with mildew). The earth was dark and rich and full of worms. Once I've dug under the rest, I'll add manure (bought, not found, unfortunately) and maybe dig it in a little, but basicaly leave it until spring.
All this digging up is the way to do things. My granddad would be appallled at my hesitancy, but I do hesitate. I hate to discourage or disturb the volunteers and the survivors - the shiso seeds, the tomatoes, the parsley, that come back on their own. It's a silly attitude, for survivors survive better if the soil is fed and turned and aerated. Just letting it sit there is not doing things a favour, and certainly doesn't lead to vigorous growth of the tomatoes next year. It's with exhortations like that that I get myself out there with the shovel!
Digging was a nice sequal to hearing a talk by the charismatic Dr. Vananda Shiva the other day. The theatre was packed, the audience rapt, as she talked about saving seeds, the attack on the planet by agribusiness, the wisdom of local farmers, the insanity of seed patents... Do go to hear her if you get a chance. And by the way, there was a question put to her about vegetariansim: she said, yes, "I am a vegetarian because to me dal and vegetables are much more tasty." She went on to say that eating a little meat is fine, "if you like it". (We eat meat, and have signed on for seven pounds of meat a month, a small meat share at a meat CSA (Twin Creeks Farm). But we rely on dal and vegetables. The kids cook most of the meals, and dal is such an easy option that it's usually on the menu at least twice a week. Usually some vegetable or other gets added with the seasonings, and there might be another veg dish or two on the side, all served with rice usually. I could happily eat dal every day; it's always so comforting and inviting.)
On another topic, I've been on foot - can you say "unbiked" as you can say "unhorsed"? - for the last two weeks. On my way back from holding the fabulous baby (see the October 19th post) my rear bike tire was suddenly flat with that horrible squelch-squelch sound. I had a pump with me, but it could do nothing; clearly there was a huge hole. So I started walking, quite resigned. The tires after all have been on the bike since 1986, when we cycled over the Karakoram Highway from Kashgar to Hunza, so I can't complain if something has given out!
And then in one of those serendipity-can-come-out-of-downers moments, as I was plodding past a restaurant on Harbord I spotted two friends sitting by the window dining with a few other people. I leaned the bike against the window and went in for some conversation and laughter and a glass of wine. The gift of the flat tire, that's what the evening became.
Since then, though, I have failed to get the tire fixed: bought an inner tube but it was the wrong size... etc etc. Finally today I carried tire and wheel to Urbane Cyclist, bought a new tube and a new wheeel (the rubber WAS a little tired after all these years!) and now I have two wheels, two working wheels, again. Hurrah!
But speaking of feet, it seems to be a day for shoes... not just the running shoes (now getting a little worn) that I wear each morning for my run (today a ramble through Queens Park searching out the biggest and most gloriously coloured trees). I put a bag of running shoe discards out this morning to go with the garbage or be picked over by passers-by. Others had the same idea I guess, for down the street today I came on two odd-looking pairs of shoes, platforms, yikes! And a hundred feet beyond them, parked neatly side by side on the sidewalk stood two glamorous red satin shoes with high slender wooden heels, a pair. Were they waiting for a wearer? an anonymous art piece? abandoned by some Cinderella when her bicycle appeared?
The enormous two hundred or whatever it is year-old elm that towers over the house is in the most glowing yellow colour it has ever worn. Beneath it the crabapple tree (sorry, don't know the variety) that fills our small front yard spreads its arms like a golden embrace. The branches are dark, especially after a rain of course, and the leaves just glow in contrast. SOme have fallen so the ground, too, is aglow. The front of the house faces east, so mornings are radiant with the trees in leaf, even when the sun doesn't shine, and even more so in the office, on the second floor, which is a golden yellow too (at least the bits of wall that show at the edges of bookshelves!).
The heart lifts with all this beauty. And perhaps even more so because it is ephemeral? Hard to say.
The was a foretaste of the next months yesterday as I heard the sound of a plough scraping and bumping down the street. Wha..a..a..t? And what was it? Yes, it was indeed a city truck with a plough, scraping its way down the street, at the edge of the sidewalk... yes, you guessed, it, ploughing up the fallen leaves! How strange. And a bit of a chilling reminder of real ploughing and the white stuff that will soon fall.
But today is again soft and hazy, so colours glow. The ivy on the coachhouse is gradually turning, so there remain touches of green and hot yellow as the advanced leaves are tinted with orange and red, a wall of nature's colour. It's been a green wall all summer, filling the view out the back door and radiating a sense of life back into the house. Now it radiates light, magically and beautifully, changing light.
Yesterday I was out there in the back yard (a small enclosed space, framed by the ivied back wall and the house), digging up part of the garden, some of the vegetable part of the garden. i hate to dig things under or pull them out unless they are truly gone, so that means that there are still some straggly tomato plants, (dotted with a few green fruits) and chile pepper plants as well as parsely and garlic chives, but the shiso has gone, the epazote, and a lot of the tomatoes (the ones that got hit with mildew). The earth was dark and rich and full of worms. Once I've dug under the rest, I'll add manure (bought, not found, unfortunately) and maybe dig it in a little, but basicaly leave it until spring.
All this digging up is the way to do things. My granddad would be appallled at my hesitancy, but I do hesitate. I hate to discourage or disturb the volunteers and the survivors - the shiso seeds, the tomatoes, the parsley, that come back on their own. It's a silly attitude, for survivors survive better if the soil is fed and turned and aerated. Just letting it sit there is not doing things a favour, and certainly doesn't lead to vigorous growth of the tomatoes next year. It's with exhortations like that that I get myself out there with the shovel!
Digging was a nice sequal to hearing a talk by the charismatic Dr. Vananda Shiva the other day. The theatre was packed, the audience rapt, as she talked about saving seeds, the attack on the planet by agribusiness, the wisdom of local farmers, the insanity of seed patents... Do go to hear her if you get a chance. And by the way, there was a question put to her about vegetariansim: she said, yes, "I am a vegetarian because to me dal and vegetables are much more tasty." She went on to say that eating a little meat is fine, "if you like it". (We eat meat, and have signed on for seven pounds of meat a month, a small meat share at a meat CSA (Twin Creeks Farm). But we rely on dal and vegetables. The kids cook most of the meals, and dal is such an easy option that it's usually on the menu at least twice a week. Usually some vegetable or other gets added with the seasonings, and there might be another veg dish or two on the side, all served with rice usually. I could happily eat dal every day; it's always so comforting and inviting.)
On another topic, I've been on foot - can you say "unbiked" as you can say "unhorsed"? - for the last two weeks. On my way back from holding the fabulous baby (see the October 19th post) my rear bike tire was suddenly flat with that horrible squelch-squelch sound. I had a pump with me, but it could do nothing; clearly there was a huge hole. So I started walking, quite resigned. The tires after all have been on the bike since 1986, when we cycled over the Karakoram Highway from Kashgar to Hunza, so I can't complain if something has given out!
And then in one of those serendipity-can-come-out-of-downers moments, as I was plodding past a restaurant on Harbord I spotted two friends sitting by the window dining with a few other people. I leaned the bike against the window and went in for some conversation and laughter and a glass of wine. The gift of the flat tire, that's what the evening became.
Since then, though, I have failed to get the tire fixed: bought an inner tube but it was the wrong size... etc etc. Finally today I carried tire and wheel to Urbane Cyclist, bought a new tube and a new wheeel (the rubber WAS a little tired after all these years!) and now I have two wheels, two working wheels, again. Hurrah!
But speaking of feet, it seems to be a day for shoes... not just the running shoes (now getting a little worn) that I wear each morning for my run (today a ramble through Queens Park searching out the biggest and most gloriously coloured trees). I put a bag of running shoe discards out this morning to go with the garbage or be picked over by passers-by. Others had the same idea I guess, for down the street today I came on two odd-looking pairs of shoes, platforms, yikes! And a hundred feet beyond them, parked neatly side by side on the sidewalk stood two glamorous red satin shoes with high slender wooden heels, a pair. Were they waiting for a wearer? an anonymous art piece? abandoned by some Cinderella when her bicycle appeared?
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