14 Movies I've Seen This Year That I Recommend

So here's my list of the films I enjoyed the most this year.  Despite the above photo, I saw them all at home; they all came in the mail.

Dramas:

• About Elly.  This is an Iranian film that could well be a play, the script is so good.  Set on Iran's Caspian Sea coast, it involves three young families, a single man in search of a wife, and a young woman, Elly, who have gone together for a weekend's getaway. It might well be called a psychological mystery.  The characters are believable, the story-line tense but surprisingly realistic. Nominated for an Oscar.  In Farsi.
• Belle.  (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson) (U.K.)  Mixed-race young woman is raised by her aristocratic relative in 18th century England.
• Far From the Madding Crowd.  (Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen)  (U.K.) Adaptation of Thomas Hardy's story of shrewd and clever Bathsheba Everdene in 19th century Dorset.
• Laila's Birthday.  (Palestine.)  The activities and frustrations of a judge--now a taxi driver--in Ramallah on his daughter's birthday.  In Arabic.
• Leviathan.  (Russia.)  Wonderful setting, bleak but beautiful photography of the Barents Sea off the Russian arctic coast.  A fisherman fights to keep his ancestral home on land a corrupt official wants to take over.  Won a Golden Globe; nominated for an Oscar.  In Russian. 
• Mademoiselle Chambon.  (France.)  A refined school teacher and a family-man construction worker become attracted to each other (played by a former husband and wife).  Gentle, slow, precise, very French, contemporary setting, winner of several awards.  In French.
• Pride. (Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton) (U.K.)  Based on a true story of lesbian/gay activists helping raise money for Welsh families affected by a miners' strike in 1984.
• Siddharth.  (Canada, India.)  When his young son is abducted, a zipper-repairer father travels around India looking for him, trying to follow various leads.  Based on the director's hearing an illiterate man in India asking if people knew where a particular city was.
• Tangerines.  (Estonia, Georgia.)  Set in 1992 in Abkazia during the war when it wanted to withdraw from Georgia.  Rather than return to their native Estonia with their families, two Estonian settlers stay on in Abkazia in order to harvest their tangerines but become involved with soldiers on both sides--one fighting with the Georgians, one for Abkazia.  Rather than ending in hatred, it ends with a coming together.  In Russian, Estonian, Georgian.
• The Hundred-Foot Journey. (Helen Mirren, directed by Lasse Hallstrom)  (U.S.)  An Indian lad, who is a talented cook, and his family open an Indian restaurant in a French village to the objection of the proprietress of an acclaimed restaurant immediately across the street.   In English.
• The Other Son.  A French movie about two teen-age sons, an Israeli and a Palestinian, accidentally switched at birth and the trauma that produces for both families.  In several languages.  

Documentaries:

•  GMO OMG.  The title says it all.
• Merchants of Doubt.  An excellent documentary about what they call "the network of scientific 'experts' paid by major corporations to spread disinformation about looming environmental threats including chemical pollution and climate change."  These "experts" don't think anything of lying, making up heart-felt stories, sending death threat emails, and purposefully confusing the public.  Or they might be actors paid to purposefully disrupt a meeting.  Or someone participating in a false flag event where "our side" actually prompts the event that they then blame "the other side" for.  Sound familiar?
• Tim's Vermeer.  An American engineer and inventor totally recreates the complete physical setting of Vermeer's The Music Lesson (now in the Queen's possession), being stunningly faithful to every detail.  Though not an artist himself (and after mixing his own paints from materials available in the 17th century), he then proceeds to paint an exact copy by using what he concludes was Vermeer's technique of employing optical devices (rather than a free-hand style) to achieve what has always been considered Vermeer's extremely photographic-like rendering.  Only an art historian would be able to detect the difference between Tim's copy and the original.  As he paints, he comes across more and more confirmations that Vermeer did use, if not exactly Tim's technique, then something very similar.  (Other artists of that day undoubtedly did as well.)  Because of his attention for exactitude, the whole project takes Tim something like five years.  I found it enthralling.

Names (Again)

In my day:  Donna, Kenneth, LeRoy, JoAnne, Judy

Then Bambi, Tammi, Debbi, Tiffani

Later we got a Biblical period:  Jedediah, Jacob, Joshua, Noah, Caleb, Zachary

Then Scott, Jennifer, Matt, Jason, Troy, Kent

Then Sophie and Emma traveled in popularity from the UK to here.  (Think:  the Thompson sisters.)

Then girls with surnames:  McKenzie, Sloan, Riley, Tyler, Taylor

Then Caitlin, Kate-lynn, Katelyn, Kaitlin

Now Jonas, Silas, Gulliver

And celebrity children:  Apple and Moses (Gwyneth Paltrow), Hazel and Phinnaeus (Julia Roberts), Bear Blaze (Kate Winslett), Violet and Seraphina (Ben Affleck), Roman, Edith, Ignatius, Dashiell (Cate Blanchett), Shiloh, Vivienne, Zahara, Maddox, Pax, Knox (Jolie/Pitt)

Ever popular:  Michael, Robert, James, Richard

Then I recently came upon the birth-name of the Queen of Belgium:  Mathilde Marie Christiane Ghislaine d'Udekem d'Acoz.  Pretty classy.

(Next week:  my movie recommendations for 2015.)

More About Improvements

I sometimes flirt with an odd notion:  that there are so many innovative people out there, each wanting To Make Changes, each with a view of How Things Can Be Done Better that they sometimes come in conflict with how things should be.  Some things are just fine the way they are.  Or the way they were.  Maybe we don't need those changes. Or quite so many.

Let me take my last winter's visit to Santa Barbara as an example.  When we lived there many years ago, State Street was a wide enough street that you could fit in two lanes of traffic plus parallel parking.  Today it's wide enough for two lanes but now the old (and very handy) parking space is planted with quite handsome trees.  Rather than what I might call useful stores, those have been edged out by the more glitzy that attract not the local residents so much as the now-plethora of tourists.  Gone is the dry-goods--a wonderful place with pneumatic tubes that whizzed off your payment and whizzed back your change.  My mother and I went there regularly to buy yardage and patterns with which to sew our clothes.  The candy store.  Gone.  The children's clothing shop.  The hardware store.  The incense-scented store with goods from China.   The splendid family style cafeteria where my mother, grandmother, and I lunched on chicken pot pie with blackberry pie for dessert.

Santa Fe is similar.  Almost all the nice little local shops that lined the Plaza are now selling touristy items so that residents now retreat to outlying malls. One friend said he even thought people would soon be charged simply to enter the Plaza area.  I doubt that ... but you never know.

May I be allowed to paraphrase from Alexander McCall Smith's recent book, The Handsome Man's DeLuxe Cafe, when one of his characters--when told that moving forward was the modern way--says that he is not modern and does not want to be.  There are many people, he says, who "want to stay exactly where we are, because there is nothing wrong with that place."  He likes where he is (geographically, emotionally, etc) so why be told that it's the modern way to "move forwards."

Improvements come in so many forms--yet another leadership workshop, another governmental regulation/decision, more town planning ideas, another tax hike. Let's just all go out and lie in the sun for awhile and let improvements take a coffee break.  We could also give our laptops, smart phones, emails, twitters, and tweets a vacation.  I think there is great glory in going off into the "wilds" and being incommunicado. Or living in a place where you don't speak the language and have no idea what the nightly reporters are talking about so can come up with your own summation of things.

I know when I lived Away, it felt splendid.  A bit like Marco Polo, off someplace in the wilds of the world. Well, anyway, those are thoughts I play with sometimes.

That's an Improvement?

One of my favorite casual authors is the Scotsman, Alexander McCall Smith, who writes series of books about Botswana and Edinburgh.  I've read more of his works than any other author, always finding pleasure in his humor, supreme niceness, and gentle pace of life.  Early on this year I learned he had a new book coming out in March.  Now, I can't get a brand new book on inter-library loan from my library; I have to wait six months after publication.  So, come the beginning of October, I put in a request.  I heard nothing. Some three or four weeks later, I asked about it.  Oh, they said, they'd look into it.

The very next day, I had a call from the librarian himself to tell me they now had the book; I could pick it up.  It was an e-reader.  Oh, I said, over the phone.  That was kind of you but I didn't want an e-reader.  I wanted a book. A real book.  I'd never dealt with an e-reader and didn't especially want to start.  The problem, he said, was that that particular book didn't come in a regular published form.  It was an e-reader or nothing. And they'd just bought a copy of the text for me.

I admit to finding that a bit of a shock.  Could we no longer find our favorite authors' works as a published book?   Did we have to go to the mechanized version?  Okay, I thought, I'll be a good sport and try it out, though, privately, to my inner self, I didn't like the idea.  So I picked up the e-reader along with its plug to recharge the battery and then sat down to read after locating the various buttons to push or click.  No riffling through pages.  No checking out the blurb about the plot or the end page about the author. No cover illustration or author's photo or any of my old friends from real books.

So I began reading.  But I have to say, I felt uncomfortable immediately.  I didn't like this mechanism, this molded hunk of plastic, telling me to accept it as a book!  I admit:  I soon gave up.  I had no affinity for the experience whatsoever.

So how many votes do I get for thinking that this (below) version of one of the author's earlier works is much cheerier?!  There's even a nice photo on the back showing him with a tuba. Though, in fact, he plays a bassoon in what he calls the RTO, the Really Terrible Orchestra.

Flipping real pages!

Checking out the back cover

Gallery of Photos: Looking Back at November

For me, November is wind rustling ... leaves skittering ... plus beautiful low-angled light giving the day a perpetual three-o'clock-in-the-afternoon feel ... as well as what seems an increase in light now that the trees have dropped their leaves and the sun can pour through bare branches.  Of course, it's also the transition into winter when we hunker down for three months.

Tiny house

Canada geese

Heirloom apples

Gourds

Cranberries at a local farm stand

Our weekly farmers' market has now moved indoors for the winter.

Many thanks, K.!  Your first time doing the Thanksgiving turkey and it was mighty tasty!

Remembering Those Goofy, Corny Days

It all started when I looked out the window a few weeks ago and said to myself, "It's going to be chilly today."  At which an image of my mother instantly popped into my head along with her amused little saying, "It'll be chile today and hot tamale."  I mean, even as I write that, it makes me laugh.  Yes, corny, but it so reminds me of my mother, I don't care.

Then I remembered my father liked "If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs."  A popular saying of that day.  No one says that anymore.

It got me to thinking about how that sweet, silly, sappy, old fashioned humor has gone the way ... things that we just came up with ourselves.  Now if we want to laugh, we tune in to some program.  Of course, programs have been around a long time:  Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny on the radio in my day.  But it seems that now, rather than just being nutty and goofy, humor has become mean-spirited, or else it's ironic or sarcastic. Or Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey tosses off what are called "zingers" as impromptu wit, but, still, this isn't the humor I remember.

Of course, a lot of it is style, and corny jokes aren't Maggie Smith's style.  They were my parents' style, though ... and, as I say, part of the style of that time.

My father briefly tried his hand at being a cartoonist and used 3 x 5 cards to record the family's cute sayings that he wanted to illustrate.  I still have those cards and find, now, how really innocent our humor was.


*Distracted father:  Our money goes so fast these days we don't even get a chance to spend it.

*Woman:  For years I've been catering to my stomach.  Now, I'm going to think about my'sylph!

*Definition of a cat washing itself:  A little spit and paw-lish.

*Child:  We're studying insects at school and now I've got the bug.

*Kids going to bed, say to parents:  Please be quiet, we want to talk.

*Young mother:  Well, after all, I gave up swearing to be a good influence on the children.  If they're going to take it up, so am I.


Well, all that may have gone out of style today, but I'm glad my parents had their goofy moments, especially considering what their generation had to take on!

Listening: Letting Each Morning Tell Me What It Wants to Say

A cup of tea and a quiet chair.  That's all it really takes.  No music, no radio, no TV, no computer.  Just a few first-thing-in-the-morning moments to sit and transition into the day.  Or, if one is fortunate enough to live near the water, a good early morning walk on the beach is splendid.  Or along a mountain trail.  I'm not talking about now and again, I'm talking regularly! 

I often think that it's totally necessary to spend some quiet time with myself ... to sit down and be silent. Or, to put it another way, to simply BE. If I'm to receive easy thoughts--or answers to any questions, for that matter--I need to be in a quiet environment.  Though, yes, they can arrive in the middle of washing the dishes.  Or taking a bath.  Or driving down our main street.

So, I live a quiet life partly to be receptive to whatever might come and partly because I simply prefer a life of peace.  No sounds except maybe a light configuring of traffic out on the main road.  The humming of the refrigerator.  Maybe a neighbor down the hill mowing his lawn.  I don't even put on Bach and Vivaldi as often as I used to.  Though I do enjoy tuning in to Krishna Das on Pandora sometimes when I'm making supper.

But if our minds are so obliterated with noise, with external music, with motors and beeps... how can we truly listen to the silence?  I particularly love going out on a sunny afternoon--usually, late afternoon--and just being in my garden.  With its woods, its grass, its rock walls and chipmunks, its tall white pines and herb garden.  Just to be there and take it in.  Then later ideas come to me.  Things I might write about or paint. (Or put into this blog.)   Places I want to go.  But it's the silence that captures me.  No one is around, no traffic (I'm on a dead-end street), no disturbances.

Of course, my uphill neighbor's dog does its share of barking which can drive me to distraction--sorry, but I have zero tolerance for a dog with an annoying bark--but it's what Zen might call "an awareness."  Zen would call the dog my teacher ... its barking something to set aside.  And the setting aside is something that I need to practice along with "don't know mind" as one teacher described it.  Staying neutral.  Not getting involved with others' dramas.  Taking deep breaths.

Loud music in restaurants is also problematic.  And "music" where I go fill up my gas tank.  Or at the dentist's, the butcher's, baker's, or candlestick maker's.  Just let us be, I want to say.  Just let us be.  We need only the sound of the wind in the grasses, the clouds covering the moon, the waves breaking on the beach, the words of a cheery hello.  And children, especially, need this.  Get rid of the television!  Let them be, let them understand the glories of quietude!

Painting With Six Colors

From lower right, going clockwise:

Cadmium Lemon
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Red Medium
Quinacridone Rose
Ultramarine Blue
Cerulean Blue

People kept asking me, "Are you painting?" and I would reply, "No.  Not at the moment."  To which they'd say, "That's what you said last time I asked."  True.  For some reason, I stopped painting.  Well, yes, it began a few years back when I got a frozen shoulder and couldn't move my right arm very well.  Then I had the inspiration to turn some of my already-finished paintings into note cards.  That wasn't as successful as I hoped.  When a fire in town closed the last shop that showed an interest in carrying them, I decided to switch to photography ... especially for this blog.  Fun.  But, still, it's not painting.

I've heard of writer's block but not painter's block.  I couldn't seem to get myself INTO it!  I re-arranged my art room (twice).  I bought a couple of beautiful Afghani carpets to put in it to inspire me.  I sorted through my paints, my portfolios, tossed out old work, but I still couldn't get going.  Then, this autumn I decided to take an art class so I'd be forced to paint ... so chose a still life class in watercolor.  I love watercolor.  And still life was fine with me--it lets you stay indoors--no hauling equipment outside, no shifting of light and shadow, no potential rain, no bugs, no sunscreen, or (conversely) painting with mittens as I once did in Scotland.

So I signed up largely for the discipline of having to show up each week and produce something ... but, of course, the instruction and critiques are always valuable.

Though I took my paint box with me early on (and dipped into it now and again), it turned out the teacher provided the paints, wanting us to try out using only the six listed above (Da Vinci brand).  In fact, they produce all the colors you need.  A good grey comes by combining complementary colors. As for greens, oranges, purples, browns, just dip in and work your own mixing magic.  Black can be a bit iffy but try mixing the three primary colors together.  (I do like the six-color approach and want to continue working with it but need to say that though all the photos here are a result of the class, the apple with green leaves was augmented with a few colors from my paint box.)

So it's all great fun.  And I'm reviewing complementary colors, split complements, analogous colors.  Color bouncing from an object to its near neighbor.  Plus the wet-on-wet technique.
  

The colors I mixed for one particular painting.

The teacher set out a selection of autumn props from which we could choose our subjects.  Apples, leaves, peppers, miniature pumpkins, squashes, plums, pears, onions ...

A quick study in complements:  yellows and purple

A little purple in the apple, a little red in the pepper dropped in when still wet

All Rights Reserved

Flavors of the Day

A new day dawns ... during which I don't tweet, I don't twitter, I don't text.  I don't do Facebook.  I don't have a tablet or a kindle.  I don't have a BlackBerry, and I don't do Bluetooth or Blu-ray.  I don't have a smart phone or a smart meter for the electric company to instantly monitor my needs. I don't buy smart beef or smart hot dogs.  I don't even know what they are.  It's not that I'm against these things; I prefer the simple life.  There's too much to try and figure as it is.  Any mail with my name on it to shred, any account numbers, any old bills.  Passwords to remember where to look up, batteries to recharge, computer to defragment, old emails to clean up, internet history to delete.  (Yes, I do have a desktop computer plus a laptop for when I'm traveling. I also have a land line ... and a cell phone for emergencies.)

Then I'm supposed to quantify my satisfaction based on a one-to-five scale as to how well the service crew last changed my oil ... or how well the new compost program is doing ... or if I'd recommend my car dealership to anyone wanting to buy a new car.  Or how much pain I'm in on a scale of one to ten (that is, if I happen to be in pain).  Speaking of which:  we now have to follow increased medical red tape to satisfy their need for numbers: weight, blood pressure, code numbers, then see a doctor who keeps his/her eyes on the computer screen, not on you, as well as update your meds, re-read their privacy policy, and fill out yet another questionnaire determining just which insurance will pay for the visit.  Never-ending paper work to stick in your paper recyclables--as opposed to your approved-plastic and glass recyclables, your yucky non-recyclables (yellow bag if small, purple if large), and your specially purchased natural fiber "Bag to Earth" for food-waste composting.  

Since I'm starting to feel worn out, except for my book club, I pretty much stay away from regular commitments.  I don't want to find that I have to go out in inclement weather.  I no longer feel comfortable driving at night.  I also feel "I've done all that ... time to let others take over."  Every time I signed up for yoga, I then had to go see a chiropractor.  Whenever I joined a chorus, the music flooded my head later when I was trying to sleep.  Going to evening events, I could find myself out in the boonies (lots of boonies around here) having to get home in the dark.  (And now realizing there's not necessarily cell reception in the event of an emergency.)  It's much simpler staying home and reading a good book.

A good book because I watch very little TV.  Some Masterpiece Theatre but not all including the new Indian Summers.  (To my mind, filming it in Malaysia instead of India is like setting a Colorado story in Florida though that isn't why I'm not watching.)  The Great British Baking Show is fun, sappy, and sweet.  Of course, I'll finish out Downton Abbey.  Week-end C-SPAN is okay, especially their coverage of literary festivals and first-Sunday-of-the-month In Depth interviews.  Sometimes I watch a house renovation program with sledgehammers ripping out walls to create "an open concept," as they call it--an important feature these days so that the cook in the family isn't stuck off in the kitchen while the rest of the party is having a good time elsewhere. One program featured Tiny Houses--with the same square footage some people insist on having for their walk-in closets.  (I've also noticed a tendency for women, when viewing a potential house with a large walk-in closet, to turn to their husbands and say, "This is going to be my closet; I don't know where you're going to put your things."  Some are joking but some aren't.  Easy solution:  toss half the stuff.)

Finally, I also don't watch anything to do with the upcoming (still a year away!!) election.  You'd be surprised how soothing something like that can be.
 

"Okay, It's Time For Me To Go To Sleep Now!"

I'm doing better these nights than I used to.  I was a good sleeper for a long time, right through the night. Then I hit a certain age (can't remember now which it was) and I started having weird nights.  Like the time I woke and found it was getting darker, not lighter, only to realize I hadn't slept through the night at all, only part of the evening.  So I had to go back to bed and try again.  And then I was getting to bed so early that when I woke up, I felt as if I'd advanced a couple of time zones and was somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.  I mean:  I'd wake at 3:45 and feel it was time to get up.  That would be okay if I were in Nuuk, Greenland, where it would be 5:45, but I obviously wasn't in Nuuk, Greenland.

So I began following a few practices to get myself through a night without feeling like the next morning's left-over salad.  For one thing, I didn't have anything to drink after a certain hour--including a nice cup of tea or hot chocolate.  I curtailed evening TV, preferring to read instead ... and evening phone calls so I wouldn't keep hashing the call over in my mind afterwards when I really wanted to start shutting things down. My hope was to keep my evenings as free from distraction as possible.

So, my program includes:

• No liquid after a certain hour.
• Not much alcohol regardless of the hour.  (Wine, especially, seems to wake people in the middle of the night.)
• Nothing sugary after supper. (Otherwise, it just perks me up.)
• Preferably no phone calls after a certain hour.
• Nothing loud so that I can transition into the night. 
• No caffeine ever.  Any tea or coffee has to be decaf.
• A dark bedroom which includes a black shade for full-moon nights.  (Also no TV or electronic equipment in the bedroom.)
• Oh, and a good book to read once I'm in bed which can soon enough put me to sleep regardless of how interesting it is.

Of course, there are still nights when sleep is elusive.  Sometimes, as I'm lying there around 1:30 or 2:00, I call out to the night (as if it had control over things), "Okay, it's time for me to go to sleep now!!"  In other words, get on the stick, please, and help me do this thing. 

Quintessential New England

Dwight House 1754

It turned out that this year the REAL Columbus Day, October 12th, actually occurred on the day set aside to celebrate it, though, in fact, such celebrations now don't amount to much more than not having to put money in parking meters.  Otherwise, the congestion of cars around here as people made their way out of town, home again after the weekend--THE New England weekend, meaning the best of fall color--overloaded the roads considerably.

I, too, had to leave, for an appointment an hour south of here, but I chose not to take the interstate which I find a race-course and instead took the two-lane state highway which basically parallels the interstate on into western Massachusetts.  A wise choice.  No traffic whatsoever.  I did not have to speed and so could take in the beauty of the countryside as I meandered on down past farms (one advertising a corn maze), sheep, past trees in golds, oranges, reds, all burnished by a totally sunny day complete with an unmarred blue sky.  I put on a new CD by the contemporary Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi with stirring violins and piano--the perfect accompaniment for my magical drive.

Then ... since I was taking the back road, I happened to drive right by the turn-off to what is called Historic Deerfield, a mile-long authentic18th century New England settlement with restored museum-quality houses and furnishings, some open for inspection, some privately owned.  (The opening scene of the 1994 movie, Little Women, was filmed there.)  So, turn off, I did.

When I got home again, I decided I'd experienced the quintessential New England day.  THE day of the year for color combined with THE place for a viewing of an authentic early New England setting.

Williams House 1730

Ashley House 1734

Wright House 1824

Privately owned

Privately owned

Privately owned

For more on Historic Deerfield, go to this link

A Gallery of Photos: That First Yellowing

It starts in September when you realize that a purposeful yellow wash is slowly covering the land.  A bit of orange pops up.  A spot of red.  Then, as October takes over, the landscape's ubiquitous green changes color and peak leaf-viewing season arrives as a thrilling palette takes over ... until it then fades and the leaves drop and blow away, crisp and pungent.

October is THE month in these parts.  The furnace starts up.  Sweaters and jackets come out of closets with scarves and mitts not far behind.  Garden furniture is put away.  Chipmunks nibble crab apples that litter lawns.  The sound of leaf blowers replaces that of lawn mowers.  The last road constructions begin to wrap things up along with the last yard sales.  Traffic becomes congested as tourists arrive for leaf-viewing, harvest festivals, literary readings, and craft tours ... all foreseen in that first yellowing of a few weeks back.

Cutting the cow corn

Talk about color ... even the chard is gorgeous!

Pickity Place Revisited

Just a week ago, two family members and I enjoyed our annual ladies luncheon visit to Pickity Place, a charming 1786 little red cottage some distance away in the hills of southern New Hampshire.  Each month features a different fixed menu.  (One's only choice is between a vegetarian and non-vegetarian entree.)  Along with the little cottage, which was used as the model for Elizabeth Orton Jones's illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood (Little Golden Books, 1948), the property features herb gardens, a gift shop, a drying shed for herbs and flowers, a shop featuring seasonal and gardening items, a greenhouse, and a sheep pen along with little paths that one can wander while taking in the picturesque rural setting.

Pickity Place is open daily, year around, except for major holidays.  When calling to make reservations, you can choose between the 11:30, 12:45, or 2:00 seating.  Fixed price at $21.95.  Their web site (pickityplace.com) lists the menu for each month's five-course luncheon that features their herbs and edible flowers along with a choice of tempting beverages:  mulled cider, lavender lemonade, mocha coffee, herbal teas, raspberry orange tea, and hot or cold spice tea.

Water jug refreshed with a peppermint sprig

Hot spiced tea and cold lavender lemonade

(We started with a cheese and fruit dish but finished it before I remembered to take a photo.)

Then:

Potato soup, called Twice Baked Yukon

Salad with citrus, watermelon radish, and featuring a pineapple sage leaf

Rosemary foccacia with a wonderfully seasoned dipping oil

Beef medallions over risotto and burrata with sauteed matchstick zucchini
 and a pea flower.  (The vegetarian choice was Harvest Vegetable Strudel.)

Lemon and blackberry cake with butter cream frosting.

In the Drying Shed

For my first posting about Pickity Place, see "A Visit to Pickity Place," November 12, 2013.  For quick access, go to Topics in the right hand margin and look under Food.