Best Reads of 2013: Non-fiction

A splendid, divergent list this year.

1.  Reza Aslan, Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth  (This is a well-researched view of Jesus, the historical man, executed for sedition as were many, many others before and after him.  His brother James carried on his teachings which spoke of helping the poor, not the rich temple priests whom he defied.  But it was Paul who later shifted things around by calling Jesus the Christ.  As for being the (or a) messiah, that term meant an anointed one who would restore the land to the glory it had had under King David.  In fact, no one came along to do that and the Romans eventually destroyed Jerusalem and either killed or dispersed its inhabitants.  The author says that with the Holy Land destroyed, there was no longer a "mother assembly" to spread the original teaching which lay in the Law of Moses and came from the Jewish religion, so Paul's manufactured version took over.  A good presentation of the history of the times ... with debunking of various myths and a more accurate telling of the probability of what happened in this man's life.) 

2.  Alexandra David-Neel, My Journey to Lhasa, The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City  (Here in great detail is this French/Belgian woman's 1923-1924 eight-month journey when, at the age of 56, disguised as a pilgrim, she and her adopted son, a lama, walked from China, through Lhasa, to India.  They slept on the ground out in the open and lived on tea and barley flour tsampa.  Because her presence as a foreigner was forbidden, she wore a yak-hair braid and darkened her skin with Chinese ink and soot from the bottom of cooking pots.  Fluent in Tibetan, she could carry on a good discussion about Buddhist philosophy.  A classic tale, indeed!)

3.  James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why It Matters  (Thoroughly gripping, well researched account of Kennedy's murder which the author says was planned and executed by those who, shall we say, disagreed with his foreign policy.  The thesis is that he sought winning the peace without taking lives, but they sought winning the Cold War with invasions, assassinations, and nuclear first strikes.)

4.  Natalie Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing, Connecting Life With Language (Combining Zen meditation with regulated writing and lots of no-nonsense instruction.  She's a dedicated writer, teacher, and Zen practitioner who lives in Santa Fe.  This must be the fifth or sixth book of hers I've read.)

5.  Matthew Goodman, Eighty Days, Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World  (Here is a vivid description of the race these two young journalists engaged in in 1889-1890 to circle the globe--largely in British ships--in less time than Jules Verne's fictional hero did it in 80 days.  Bly took 72 days, 6+ hours with Bisland not far behind.  An historically accurate adventure tale.)

6.  Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart, A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life  (This is the sort of book I mark up as I make notes of wonderful passages.  For instance, page 45, "... a deeper kind of healing takes place when instead of sending aversion and aggression to wounds and illness, we bring loving-kindness."  A wonderful book by a shining teacher of American Buddhism.  Make yourself a cup of tea, find a good chair, and open it any place.  It's all good stuff!)

7.  Mabel Dodge Luhan, Edge of Taos Desert, An Escape to Reality  (This and the following are must-reads for those who love northern New Mexico.  A friend of D. H. Lawrence and Georgia O'Keeffe, she describes her life in Taos when she arrived in 1917 and came to know and love Tony Luhan, a Taos Pueblo Indian.  Splendid.)

8.  Mabel Dodge Luhan, Winter in Taos  (Very pastoral, very gentle, a love song to Taos with beautiful resonate descriptions of that magical land.  Though framed around one winter day, she describes every season as she ruminates on her home, her life, her husband, loving it all--riding horses, taking the dogs up into the hills, knitting by the fire, watching August thunderstorms, planting and harvesting alfalfa, opening the acequia (irrigation channel) for the growing season.  It's the sort of book that makes you want to live only there, no place else.)

9.  Lynne Olson, Citizens of London, The Americans Who Stood With Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour  (Though the author speaks of other Americans as well, she concentrates on Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and our Ambassador, John Gilbert Winant.  Extraordinarily moving with an emphasis on London and the British, their dignity, work ethic, and stubbornness in not giving in.  Good descriptions of Churchill--a lion of a man with a deep emotional sentiment--and FDR who seemed to assume American superiority over Britain though at that point, we hadn't done all that much.  Very moving passages as, on D-Day, when the English went out with their flags and table-cloths and waved to the planes flying overhead to France.  Highly readable.)

10.  Paul Theroux, The Last Train to Zona Verde, My Ultimate African Safari  (Less a safari in our sense than an overland journey through--largely--Namibia and Angola.  Having already made the overland trip from Cairo to Cape Town for another book, he was hoping to travel from Cape Town up the West Coast of Africa this time but extremists and xenophobia blocked his way, so he turned around in Angola where the wealthy elite ignored its own people, leaving them hungry and unemployed.  Even the wild animals were gone--either killed to be eaten or killed by land mines planted during Angola's war.  Theroux is not one to skip slums but seeing an entire country of the abandoned living in squalor, he felt the cities were simply "transit camps for people wishing to flee.")

11.  Justin Webb, Cheers, America, How an Englishman Learned to Love America  (Sensible, amusing, and a lot of fun.  The author was a journalist working for the BBC in Washington, D.C., for eight years.  Quick and enjoyable reading, very chatty, with wonderful Brit/Yank comparisons of just the sort you want to know about.  )

Best Reads of 2013: Fiction

It's that time of year when I look at the books I read (48 this year) and talk about those I considered the best.  As it happened, I seem to have read more non-fiction this time--many of them truly excellent.  So rather than try to fit both fiction and non-fiction into the same posting, I'm giving each its own space with non-fiction following next week.

My favorite works of fiction this time happened to be three I'd read many years ago but enjoyed enormously on second reading.  (I've put an asterisk by them.)  In alphabetical order:

1.  *James Agee, A Death in the Family (An autobiographical novel set in Knoxville in 1915 when his father was killed in an automobile accident.  It is beautiful, heart-felt writing that, to me, could not better describe the loss so powerful and immediate to the author as a six-year-old and to the entire family.)

2.  Gerbrand Bakker, Ten White Geese (A dying Dutch woman who renames herself Emily moves to rural Wales to live out the rest of her life and then die in a way that fits Emily Dickinson's poem, "A Country Burial."  Very spare writing by a Dutch author.)

3.  *Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris (Set on a single February day in post World War I Paris when two children spend the day together--the girl to go on to visit her grandmother, the boy to meet his mother for the first time.  Intertwined is the boy's story of his parents' lives before he was born.)

4.  Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things  (Translated from Dutch.  Set in the Dutch East Indies and fictionalized, the narrator tells of her life and the lives of others there.  According to Chinese thought, each of us encompasses a unity of 10,000 things.  Places, too.  Very sparkly writing.  Published in 1951 when she was 63.)

5.  J. G. Farrell, The Singapore Grip (Singapore before and during the Japanese invasion in 1942 as it relates to a few families in the rubber industry.  Amusing, ironic, and warm if over-long.  The general theme concerns the pursuit of self interest over the common interest.  One in this Anglo-Irish author's Empire Trilogy.)

6.  Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment (Translated from Italian.  A woman falls into "a void" when her husband leaves her and then struggles to get herself out, back to normal.  A difficult book, her journey is almost caricatured.  Excellent for showing rather than telling.)

7.  *Graham Greene, The Quiet American (Wonderful.  Early CIA shenanigans in Vietnam and the idealistic, "innocent" Americans who do harm by having no real understanding of the area ... all compared to the sardonic, seasoned, and uprooted English protagonist.)

8.  Penelope Lively, Passing On (After a domineering mother dies, her two still-at-home middle-age children find her only finally receding from their lives when the daughter decides against the wrong man and the son realizes he's gay.)

9.  Wallace Stegner, Remembering Laughter (An early novelette.  Lovely descriptions but a sad Calvinistic tale of repressed love.  One of my favorite authors.)



 

Seventy-five Years

What does one say on reaching the three-quarters-of-a-century mark as I have now done?  What are the words of wisdom?  What is it we see for ourselves at this point?  What is it we've done in these past 75 years ... or not done that we thought we would?  The one constant, it seems to me, is to remain as flexible as possible whether that's in espousing new ideas, keeping one's body mobile, or "simply" expressing a consistent gratitude for life however it shows up.

I've now lived longer than either parent, my only sibling, and my spouse.  I certainly can't say that I still feel, say, 16.  No, in a way, I feel ancient, yet still perking along.  I do find that though I always thought of myself as "a person of projects," that seems to have ebbed as a degree of stamina has given way.  Also, I always thought I'd want to continue to "see the world."  That, too, seems more trouble than I care to put into it anymore, including all that mish-mash at airports, cramped seating on planes, extra charges, and jet lag.  And then my favorite mode of travel--by ship--is now a thing of the past.  (Also, having no warm soul to go with ... or to meet at the other end now seems important though I used to go places on my own.)

I think my mind and memory are doing pretty well but I do find myself sort of "skipping" things sometimes as if, after so many years of concentrating and wanting to take everything in, I know what all that's like and feel I no longer have to be quite so conscientious about it.  It's a bit as if I'm skimming over the tops of things rather than always having to get down into them and fit things together.  Maybe I'm getting lazy.  After 75 years, you have a good idea where conversations are going ... or how the news is going to be reported ... or what book and movie plots are like, etc.

When I think back to the year I was born--1938--it feels as if it were part of some period drama, as, I guess, it now was.  Back when cars looked classically old-fashioned, when women wore silks and satins, high heels and stockings, when you wrote (and received) letters from friends and relatives with stamps that didn't say "Forever" on them.  Back when we looked things up in books or card catalogs not having all this info at our finger tips.  Back when the news was broadcast on the radio for a short period each day ... and life didn't seem so frenzied despite the aching problems and continuing conflicts that persisted.  When holidays were celebrated on the days themselves, not the nearest Monday.  When you drove over hill and dale to visit your cousins along two-lane "surface roads" bounded by walnut groves and orange orchards that were being bulldozed even then.

Here's something I just learned.  This 75th birthday is known as one's dodranscentennial.   That is, 100 with 25 taken away from it.

Why Am I Surprised?

I just finished an eleven-week survey of the cost of food per item.  I used to think you could take a $5 bill into the grocery store and come out with several items.  "Several" isn't the operative word anymore.  One or barely two would be more like it since I found the average cost per item to be $4.  Okay, $3.96.  And that with my coop's 10% senior discount ... and no meat since I've been getting mine from the local farmer or the local butcher shop and don't count that into my shopping tab.  (Yes, mine is a casual survey.)  The least expensive item was a single banana--and organic, at that--for a quarter.  The most expensive was a container of good-quality (free-and-clear of all fragrances) laundry soap for $17.99 but that supposedly provided some 60+ washes.

I bought one head of cauliflower for $8, then had to pick through it for bugs, resorting to breaking it into very small florets and soaking them in a bowl of water.  You'd be surprised how many bugs I found.  Then I bought another less buggy cauliflower--which cost the same.  I divided that into eight $1 piles.

Here, then, is $1 worth of cauliflower

I was going to do an apple pie comparison--the cost if I made one as opposed to the cost of purchasing one at the farmers market, but the pie lady apparently died this past winter.  And then I was off gluten and sugar for awhile so I chucked that experiment.

When I gave a little dinner party recently--there were four of us in all--I figured it cost around $100.  Two bottles of wine, fresh apple cider, plus two nice cheeses for a cheese and cracker platter.  Some little munchy nibbles.  Four bone-in chicken breasts.  Cauliflower, chicken broth, half and half with which to make soup.  Spinach, potatoes, onions.  Ice cream plus a couple of bakery-made lemon bars.  The maple liqueur which we poured on the ice cream--yum!--had been a gift, so I figured that was free.  Of course, if we'd gone out to eat, the entree alone (with soup and dessert extra) would have come to around $28 each.  That plus tax and tip, and I dare say the cost would have risen by another $100.  So, I guess I saved $100 by doing the cooking and serving.

Actually, I don't find that people give dinner parties anymore.  If they get together--other than lunch or a summer outdoor barbecue (do people get together anymore to eat?)--it seems to be pot luck.  Casual.  "What can I bring?" they say when invited.  No, I want to reply--I'm doing the food; you're my guest.  It seems a bit of an odd concept these days.  Or, I'm finding that to be the case.  But don't you think it's fun to be invited out to dinner?  You dress up, you take a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates as a house gift, and you let your host/hostess prepare the evening.  Then, when it's your turn, you do the same for them.  Pot lucks have their place.  But so do dinner parties.

Craft Tour Time

For three days following Thanksgiving, Putney, Vermont, holds an open studio Craft Tour.  This year, celebrating its 35th anniversary, twenty-six studios are being featured including those of fiber artists, glass-blowers, sculptors, fine art painters, jewelers, wood carvers, potters, and metal workers among others.  A family member and I like to go each year.  Of those we visited yesterday, four gave me permission to take photographs.  Here they are.

Dena Gartenstein Moses, who runs the Vermont Weaving School, is a highly experienced, exquisite weaver and holds classes at 4 Signal Pine Road.  (I was one of her students this autumn, my very first weaving class.)

 

A few of Dena's exquisite chenille scarves

Susan Wilson is a long-time potter and ceramic sculptor at 105 Westminster Road.

Just down the road, Ken Pick offers stoneware furniture, sculpture, and pottery at 187 Westminster Road.

Each spot offers refreshments--hot cider, pumpkin bread, home-made cookies, and here, popcorn

The real thing, not sculptures

Finally, Carol Keiser's Art Tile Studio has always been one of our favorites, there at 338 Hickory Ridge Road South with her painting on tiles and canvas with subjects reflecting both Vermont and her other home in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

Carol's studio off in the Putney hills

Examples of her painted tiles

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Between Creepy Crawlies and Ho-Ho-Ho's

Cranberries

Hallowe'en gets at least a month of attention.  Fake webs all over the place.  Horrid over-sized images of creepy crawlies.  (Which reminds me, what happened to those cute goblins we used to see?)  And then Christmas starts right up when November rolls around.  The music.  The Christmas-themed TV movies.  The advertisements.  The reinforcement that it's become important only for the spending of dollars.  So what about Thanksgiving?  It seems to get swallowed up.  And now, as the shopping storm blows in, store personnel are going to have to excuse themselves from their turkey dinners so that their employers can acquire more dollars during the holiday itself, so that they can initiate a Black Thursday instead of holding off until Friday.  Poor Thanksgiving.

In fact, as one seemingly continuous season from early October through early January, the whole thing starts way too early and thus carries on way too long.  I don't like shopping for one thing.  Nor being compressed into all this hoop-la for another.  I remember one December--it was the 20th, in fact--when I was in hot Bangkok and walked by a shop window filled with Christmas decor (in a Buddhist country) realizing that, having been in Asia for awhile, I'd totally forgotten that Christmas was around the corner.  It was quite refreshing.  I was able to spend the next five days thinking about Christmas, not the previous two months.

Well, here's to turkey, stuffing, roasted veggies, cranberry sauce, potatoes and gravy, and whatever pie is set on the table.  (Apple seems to be the favorite these days; no one much seems to go for pumpkin or mince, those two pies from my childhood.  But I figure any pie tastes just fine.)  And here's to family gatherings with good friends joining in.

One nice thing about Thanksgiving is that it all centers around eating.  No one has to worry about gifts except to share the pie you made, the cranberry conserve, or some fancy sweet potato dish.  It's a pretty cool holiday, one of my favorites, so here's to it:  Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready to carve

That Friday in 1963

I wasn't going to write about this.  But as yesterday wore on, and with it the memories of that other Friday when JFK died, I felt compelled to put my thoughts on paper.  Yes, it is true:  everyone does remember where he/she was that day.  

I was twenty-four years old and had only just returned to the U.S. five days before after making my first (and solo) trip to Europe at a time when that book, Europe on $5 a Day, was quite appropriate.  I had quit my New York publishing job but had found myself homesick for friends and the Manhattan life, so I returned--though I'd thought I might wander, find work in France, Spain, Greece picking grapes, teaching English, cataloging someone's private library.  So I was only just back in New York City ... and found myself that Friday in the Upper East Side's Convent of the Sacred Heart school with its high-beamed ceilings and intimate court yards--the same that Caroline Kennedy attended some years later.  A college friend of mine had a job there teaching twenty uniformed fifth graders.  She and I had just had lunch in the cafeteria and were back in her classroom as she was reading aloud from The Wind in the Willows.  Soon enough, we heard the click-click of a habit-frocked sister's shoes as she made her way along the corridor going from room to room.

It was 1:25 p.m.  "President Kennedy has been shot in the head," she said, as soon as she entered the room.  "He's been taken to the hospital, but they don't know if he's dead or alive."  A Catholic school, everyone was to go down to the chapel to pray for him, a fellow Catholic.  My friend closed her book and led us downstairs where people knelt amid murmured prayers and sobs.  When we came out, we heard he had died.  We walked as if in slow motion passing the Austrian Consulate at the moment someone was putting their flag at half-mast. The streets were empty.  "You can see the city mourn," a cab driver said later that evening.  You could also hear it in the silence--no horns, no traffic, only bewilderment and grief.  My dinner hosts opened champagne to toast my return.  We drank it as we watched President Johnson address the nation.

Kennedy's death changed things for us more than we may appreciate.  This summer, I read a fine, detailed, and excellently researched book by James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why It Matters.  It seems he would not have escalated the Vietnam War but brought troops home.  He was already making private peace overtures to Castro and Khrushchev.  Though his generals and others (including our hawkish ambassador to Vietnam) urged him to win the Cold War by following a belligerent policy, he knew that could lead to a nuclear confrontation.  He knew about war--he was, after all, a World War II war hero--and because he did know about it, he decided not to try to win the war (which turned out to be an unpopular stance) but to work to win the peace.  Of course, with his death, we got the war and we got it in spades.

As well, it changed things because many of us felt--and still feel--that we were not told the truth about what happened in Dallas ... that we could no longer trust our government either to do right by us or to level with us.  When Kennedy died, I felt, too, that we'd lost what I would call the marriage of elegance, promise, and intelligence.  With his death, it was back to confusion, gloom, and mis-truths.  The hope we'd all had for something better--a hope that sprang up with his inauguration--was destroyed that afternoon.  The spark, the optimism that we could finally become the nation we wanted to become, died with him. It marked a definite change for me in my attitude toward our government.

Steaming Up the Kitchen

The makings of a white bean, roasted garlic, carrot, and parsley soup with a single bay leaf.

I love soup.  And I love making soup.  Especially this time of year.  Going in the kitchen, putting on an apron, getting out my chopping board and enormous chopping knife, looking through the fridge for things to add--celery, parsley, left over squash or potatoes.  It all gives me a sense of satisfaction.  Oh, yes, and listening to some Bach while I cook.

Then, too, according to Chinese medicine--those who practice acupuncture or teach Tai Chi or make feng shui adjustments--it's best not to eat raw/cold in winter but cooked/hot.  So there go my salad lunches for the time being.

I enjoy cooking, but these days, at least, I usually wing it and don't refer to recipes unless I'm making some hot-shot dessert or fancy entree.  Generally, I just set out the ingredients I want to use and go from there.  And most of the soups I make start the same way:  sauteing chopped onions.  So I get out my Le Creuset enameled cast-iron dutch oven, set it on a lit burner, then, when it's hot, add and heat either ghee or olive oil, then toss in a chopped onion to start the whole process.  Stirring, I let that cook for five or ten minutes over lowish heat so it doesn't burn.  (If I'm making a curry-flavored soup, this is when I'd add that flavoring since such spices like to be heated with the onions, but only for a minute or two.  This would also be the time to saute a bit of chopped garlic.  And, note:  if I'm including bacon or sausage, I saute those even before the onions.)

Then I add the broth.  Something I've made from ham, lamb, beef, chicken, or turkey bones.  Or something commercial.

Next, I put in the rest of the ingredients.  Celery can be stringy so unless I'm planning on pureeing the soup and then straining out the strings, I like to cut a stalk into thirds, drop that into the pot, and then easily pull it all out at the end.  I often make bean soup so add a can of white, red, or black beans  Or lentils.  Maybe some tomatoes.  Mushrooms.  Then I add a bit of salt, put on the lid, turn down the heat, and let everything bubble for a good half hour. 

Or, if I want a slightly thicker soup, I'll add 4 tablespoons of cous-cous to the broth after it's first come to a boil.

My current supply of red and white onions, garlic, and shallots, any of which are splendid in soups.

A drizzle of olive oil or a bit of bacon fat adds a nice richness. As for other flavoring, a bit of tamari, or roasted sesame oil, or a half-teaspoon of vinegar works well.  Plus a selection between bay leaf, parsley, chives, sage, oregano, and celery seed.

Once the soup is cooked and cooled, I often put it in the food processor.  Pureed is good.  But I also like soups that are a bit chunky--made by pulsing them just a bit rather than pureeing them.  Then I have a choice about how to serve.  (If I've pureed or pulsed the soup, I'll need to reheat it.)  Sometimes, I add a bit of half-and-half to each individual bowl.  Or, I particularly like the taste of miso--a paste-like ingredient that goes in at the very end since it prefers not to be heated.  If you're planning to use all the soup without reheating next day, you can just spoon a bit of miso in the pot at the tail-end and stir well.  Otherwise, the best way is to put a half teaspoon of miso in your empty soup bowl, add a small amount of liquid, stir until it's all incorporated, then ladle in the soup. That provides the flavoring without cooking the miso.

The beginnings of an onion and shitake mushroom soup

Using sauteed onions as my basic start, here are some of my favorite soups:

• White bean ... with or without sausage
• Cauliflower
• Onion ... with or without curry seasoning
• Potato and leek
• Summer squash ... good in summer, pureed, and then served chilled
• Asparagus
• Mushroom
• Lentil
• Broccoli

One recent batch gave me a lot of pleasure because everything was produced locally.  I'd gotten a beef knuckle bone from one farmer ... leeks, parsley, and carrots from others.  Plus some chives and sage from my herb garden.  It produced a good old-fashioned pot of soup!

A Bit of Movie Star Nostalgia

This all started when I recently heard Jeremy Irons narrate something on TV making me realize once again just how beautiful the English language can be.  Crisp consonants, exquisite vowels, perfect pacing between each word so that one word didn't tumble into the next and get all mushed up.  As I listened, I was reminded of Ronald Colman whose voice captured me when I was only six years old.  With that, my mind began to wander to others of that era.  Here's what I ended up with.  Of course, it's ancient history now.  But for me, these people are still with us in their way.

Most enchanting voices (all Brits):
1.  Ronald Colman
2.  Laurence Olivier
3.  Richard Burton
4.  Jeremy Irons (yes, a totally different generation)

Most deliciously stylish:
1.  Grace Kelly
2.  Audrey Hepburn
3.  Jackie Kennedy (the only non-movie star in the bunch)
4.  Fred Astaire

Most drop-dead gorgeous:
1.  Ava Gardner
2.  Vivien Leigh
3.  Elizabeth Taylor
4.  Hedy Lamarr
5.  Robert Taylor
6.  Cary Grant
7.  Tyrone Power

Nicest:
1.  Ingrid Bergman
2.  Jimmy Stewart

Best Mr. Tough Guy:
1.  Burt Lancaster
2.  Kirk Douglas
3.  Edward G. Robinson
4.  James Cagney

Best Villain:
1.  James Mason

Feistiest Female:
1.  Susan Hayward
2.  Maureen O'Hara
3.  Bette Davis

Best Charioteer:
1.  Charlton Heston

Best War Hero:
1.  John Wayne
2.  Robert Montgomery
3.  Robert Mitchum

Best Sword Fighter:
1.  Erroll Flynn
2.  Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
3.  Basil Rathbone

Best Ingenue:
1.  Joan Fontaine

Most Self-Sacrificing All Around Nice Gal:
1.  Greer Garson
2.  Claudette Colbert

Perkiest All Around Nice Gal:
1.  Doris Day

Best Smile:
1.  William Holden

Sexiest:
1.  Ava Gardner
2.  Clark Gable
3.  William Holden

Best Comedienne:
1.  Marilyn Monroe

Best Dancers Who Weren't Dancers:
1.  Charlie Chaplin
2.  James Cagney

Best in Whatever They Did:
1.  Katharine Hepburn
2.  Wendy Hiller
3.  Humphrey Bogart
4.  Spencer Tracey

Funniest:
1.  Danny Kaye
2.  Charlie Chaplin
3.  W. C. Fields

Best Crooner:
1.  Bing Crosby
2.  Dean Martin
3.  okay, okay, Frank Sinatra

Most Wonderful and Beautiful at the Same Time:
1.  Deborah Kerr

Most Supreme Favorite:
1.  Gregory Peck

Award for Those Still Hanging in There, Now in Their 90s (except for #1):
1.  Luise Rainer (born 1910, won her first Oscar in 1936)
2.  Olivia de Havilland
3.  Kirk Douglas
4.  Zsa Zsa Gabor
5. Joan Fontaine
6.  Louis Jourdan
7.  Maureen O'Hara
8.  Mickey Rooney
9.  Doris Day
10.  Eleanor Parker
11.  Lizabeth Scott
12.  Rhonda Fleming
13.  Glynis Johns

A Visit to Pickity Place

Pickity Place's "Grandmother's House" with the luncheon room through the door and to the right.

We recently visited Pickity Place in Mason, New Hampshire, off in the middle of the state not that far from the Massachusetts border.  We happened on it some years back with its attractive acreage that supports flower and herb gardens, its gourmet herbal luncheon, its little paths, and shopping opportunities for such as soaps, herbs, jams, whisks, note cards, etc.

It seems that this little red cottage was built in 1786 and used by the artist, Elizabeth Orton Jones, as a model for her illustrations in the 1948 Golden Book edition of Little Red Riding Hood.  Now, as one would imagine, the cottage has taken on the character of Grandmother's House with an appropriate wolf in a big four-poster bed plus red capes-with-hoods, grandmotherly lace caps, and, of course, various editions of the story on display.

With a seven-year-old in tow, we thought it a good place to spend a Sunday afternoon complete with a delicious lunch.  Pickity Place only serves lunch ... with a new menu each month.  Everyone eats the same thing making service easy with choices only between a meat or a vegetarian dish as well as hot or cold drinks including mocha coffee, orange spiced tea, and lavender lemonade.  (There was also a children's menu with sandwiches as well as a Little Red-Riding-Hood basket that contained a crispy red apple and a newly-baked chocolate chip cookie.)  Of the three sittings--11:30, 12:45, and 2:00--we picked the earliest.  The dishes are made with Pickity Place's home-grown herbs (fresh or dried depending upon the season) and decorated with their edible flowers.

Butternut Squash Soup with Pistachio Oil

Radish and Pear Salad over Baby Kale

Pork Tenderloin Chimichurri over Safrito Rice.  (The vegetarian choice was Acorn Squash with Root Vegetable Couscous.)  Plus Sauteed Autumn Greens.

We were also given lovely chewy rolls with a garlic butter spread.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Sweet Walnut Dust  (Divine!)

After lunch, we wandered into the gift shops, the herbal drying shed, and the herb and perennial gardens.

 

Looking down toward the Drying Shed

Inside the Drying Shed

Another view

Some of the herb gardens

 

For more information, go to www.pickityplace.com

A Gallery of Photos: A New England October

A pair of tame(ish) yearlings that eat windfalls from my apple tree.

Okay, so October's very probably my favorite month.  And then November, just around the corner, is noted for its lowered light (so that the afternoon seems to be a perpetual 2:30) plus its time change plunging us into early evenings that can be dark by 4:30.  In addition to this approaching low-angling sunlight most of the afternoon, there seems a cleanliness to the season.  As if the detritus is rising to the top to be skimmed off.  The humidity and tourists are gone.  The trimming crews are finishing up, getting the last wires cleared of invading branches.  The cyclone of the holidays hasn't yet hit.  Nor the winter storms.  And with the migrating birds, the changing colors and now-sparkling air, plus that low angling afternoon sunlight, there is an appeal to the day.

One year at this time, my daughter sent an email I kept because it seemed evocative.  "Yesterday as I was leaving the woods I saw a V of geese flying over so low that I could hear their wings rustle as they moved.  The rising sun made their bellies glow orange.  Pretty cool."

A month ago, she welcomed autumn with these words:  "Here's to days of jackets, leaves, cider, Bach, stew, pies, jack o' lanterns, clouds scudding across the blue blue sky, school routines, new books, darker evenings, costumes, boots, crafts."

Yes, here's to October ... with November's low light soon to follow.

Typical town scene

We mustn't forget it's also harvest time when people used to fill their root cellars for winter eating.

Leaves, leaves, plus their shadows mixed with pointillistic sunlight.  (This is the coffee man at Saturday's farmers market.)