mulberryshoots

February 15, 2014

a revelation . . .

I just realized that I grew up in a household in which science and truth were important. My father was a research scientist in geology that led him to discover minerals from asteroid impact on the earth at a time when astronauts gathered specimens from the moon. That seems like so long ago.

Being the eldest, I think the search for truth that permeated our household was something I absorbed under my skin, and which has both helped and haunted me all my life. Being rational and wanting to be the smartest brain in the room has both helped me in a late-blooming biotech career to, well, being avoided in order for me not to pronounce some direct “truth” that people may have preferred not hearing.

Be that as it may, I realized today that my bias, if you could call it that, was to reflect and ponder things in order to understand in my own way, what’s happened in my life. Little did I know that sometimes I’m right and often, I’m not and furthermore, that some things are just unfathomable: like why family dynamics were what they were without the benefit of being able to ask and having the departed weigh in from the grave.

Today, by chance, while surfing channels to see what was playing live from the Olympics, I came across Woody Allen’s movie, “Hannah and Her Sisters.” I’m not a Woody Allen fan as I tire of listening to his nostalgic jazz soundtracks and even more, dislike hearing about his personality quirks and life history that seem to have to be included in every one of his movies ad nauseum.

The reason I’m talking about him, though, is a scene in which Allen accidently shoots a mirror while contemplating killing himself in a low moment and in which he then realizes that “life is to be enjoyed, not to be understood.”

EUREKA!

Okay, so you mean I don’t have to understand things in order to move on? I no longer have to ferret out what accounted for something happening and why people behaved the way that they have in order to live? This may sound like an exaggeration but honestly, it never occurred to me that I didn’t have to understand things in order to process them in my life. That’s a lot of hours, days, weeks, months and years spent pondering things when I could have been doing something else!

Now, because of a dumb Woody Allen phrase, I can give myself permission to enjoy life rather than understand it? Who knew?

I didn’t. And today I’m glad to begin experimenting with an alternative reality. Better late than never!

P.S. There’s nothing like puttering around in the kitchen on a snowy day. Here’s a photo of the peach crostata that I just took out of the oven for tonight’s dessert. Threw together some thawed peaches I had in the freezer for smoothies with a little flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, dotted with butter–combined with a Pillsbury pie crust, unrolled and patted into a small springform pan sprayed with Pam. Fold crust over peaches, sprinkle with coarse sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Leave in heated oven and serve warm pie with vanilla ice cream.

hijiki & carrots; teriyaki tofu and cucumber salad for dinner. . .

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February 14, 2014

valentines . . .

It’s a very snowy, slushy, icy Valentine’s Day outdoors today, here in central Massachusetts.

Inside, there’s an armful of fresh flowers that G. brought me after a visit to our neighborhood florist early this morning.

flowers, cards, red felt heart and my father’s calligraphy . . .

I have a couple of surprises for him to open up tonight with his card too!

Hope you are all enjoying the day!

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February 9, 2014

a “yarn” . . .

Noro Yarn, “Cyochin”

Remember when the “New Age” was upon us? Around the time of the millenium or some years back before that? When did the new “Age of Aquarius” really begin anyhow (in the 1960’s and 70’s?) And is it still going on? Some of my favorite CDs to play in the car are piano compositions recorded by Windham Hill, a label that epitomized new age music for me with work by composers like Liz Story, William Ackermann and Michael Jones. The music itself brings back memories of an easier time in the world, if not in my own at the time. Maybe that’s why I enjoy listening to it now: things are so much better in my life compared to then.

Outside, things feel bleak due to the frustratingly protracted political gridlock in Washington, D.C.; to the shock waves due to mass shootings, global spying, hacking, identity-theft, you name it: everyday it hits us on the news, in the newspapers and on the radio while driving around doing errands. The age we live in now is also pre-empted by an ever increasing social media frenzy whipped up by the press along with random ads that pop up everywhere you look on the internet: a dizzying melange of unasked-for opinions and cyberspace junk mail.

In quieter times past, I, for one, used to rely on “signs”, reading the Tarot spreads on occasion, writing down intentions, visualizing goals and so on. Lately, not so much.

Even so, I was thinking the other day about certain events that have occurred in our little world that have made a big difference, a turn of events outside of our own control. I recognized that almost everything important in my life has unfolded that way: moving down here for a new job over twenty years ago, and meeting my second husband (a piano tuner) because the movers didn’t put the lyre back on my Steinway properly.

You can call it synchronicity or serendipity. Or we could just acknowledge that the Universe, and God, have plans for us that we know nothing about until it is revealed to us. It almost makes me think that we should just live and let live, and mostly get out of our own way so that the Universe can do its thing more easily than having us try to fix things ourselves. Do you ever find that to be true in your life too?

I am writing about this nebulous topic today because of what happened to me this weekend. I had been unsuccessful in three attempts to order yarn online from WEBS, a yarn warehouse about an hour’s drive away from me in Northampton. The appearance of the three lots of yarn in my hands was very different in gauge, weight and color from what I had seen (or imagined) on my computer screen.

instead of mailing it back a third time, I got in the car and decided the only way that I might find yarn I wanted to make something for myself with, was to go and take a look in person.

I was right because there was only one yarn in the entire warehouse that drew me in, a gorgeous new Noro yarn.

It was multi-colored and a swatch had been knitted up that hung beside the yarn on the shelves so that you could see what the colors looked like knitted up. I’ve worked with many multi-colored yarns before this, most of which surprised in a negative way, the colors not blending or looking right, which can result in omitting some colors and being surrounded by lots of little balls of various color lots to choose from when finishing a garment. I’ve been there lots of times, so I was glad to see the swatch that showed the beauty of how the colors played out together.

It was very expensive, but with the credit of the returned yarn, and a discount based on the dollar amount of the yarn, I could almost justify going for it. I thought maybe I could afford just six skeins and knit a vest with a kimono look. At the last minute, I asked for four additional skeins which brought the discount up to 25% off. With ten skeins of this unusually beautiful yarn tucked safely in my car, I found a parking place in town after a few tries and had a quick lunch at Osaka, my favorite Japanese restaurant. Over soft-shell crab tempura, I sketched out designs on index cards while I ate to see how the ten skeins of yarn could be used in an unconventional manner but didn’t come up with anything novel or exciting.

On the way home, as I was thirsty from the saltiness of my lunch, I decided to swing by Barnes and Noble to have an iced tea and look at their yarn books, not having found anything earlier in Northampton. The book section didn’t yield anything, but then, my eye fell on a magazine by Noro, the manufacturer of the yarn I had just bought with a patchwork sweater on the cover made out of the same exact colorway of the new Noro yarn that was sitting in my car.

The pattern was perfect: a loose-fitting tunic with dolman sleeves and interesting patches knitted in various cable designs on the asymmetric tunic front. I couldn’t believe it. It was as though I led myself (or was led) to look for and find the yarn in one place, and then find the pattern in a second, three hours later, a third of the state of Massachusetts apart.

Noro pattern of a tunic sweater with patchwork

Oh, and that’s not even to mention that while I was browsing in one of my favorite stores called “Irrisistibles” in Hamp that has books and household whimseys, I saw a display of metal hanging placards, one of which said, “Everything Will Be All Right.” It was $30 and I thought, I can just print that out myself when I get home and put it on the fridge. It was definitely the right message for me at the right time. New age or not, that familiar twinge of recognition, seeing a message meant for me was unmistakeable. I was buoyed up by it on the way home having forgotten that maybe I wasn’t struggling along alone after all.

So, how “new age” is that for a day filled with coincidences? You’ve heard of the phrase, “there are no accidents,” right? Well, what I take away from this little yarn saga is that the Helpers are definitely out and about and that even when I don’t think I need help, their generous handiwork is very apparent. They must be laughing their heads off up there!

I hadn’t wanted to make the drive out to return the yarn, and when I did, the only yarn I liked appeared to be prohibitively expensive. With the credit and an additional discount, I unwittingly purchased ten skeins, the exact amount of yarn required by the pattern on the cover of Noro magazine to make an unusual patchwork tunic sweater.

Plus, the real gift of the day was coming across and being reassured by the comforting admonition that “everything will be all right.” If you believe it, maybe it will happen.

Priceless.

so far, so good. . .

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February 6, 2014

“counting the ways” . . .

A few days ago, a literary friend of mine who has started a thread on her Facebook page to read various poets assigned me one to read and quote from: Sharon Olds. I was surprised to receive a poet I was not familiar with. Reading about her online, it turns out there are interesting turns of events about her poems.

In the 1990’s, her doctor/psychiatrist husband told her he was leaving her after 32 years of marriage to be with a doctor/colleague. Sharon Olds wrote poetry about her reactions, love, and sense of loss during this time and for years thereafter. She promised her son and daughter that she would wait at least ten years before publishing these poems from a period of time that was full of pain for them all.

Last year in 2012, she culled out a selection of poems from the hundreds she had written more than a decade earlier and Jonathon Cape published them in the U.K., a book entitled, “Stag’s Leap.” In April, the book was awarded the T.S. Eliot poetry prize, a U.K. poetry award of 15,000 British pounds. She said she bought herself a cashmere cardigan when she won the prize. Since her painful divorce, she rebounded with a younger man who was not the right guy for her; and after nine of years alone, she still teaches at NYU and lives the rest of the time with a former cattle breeder named Carl, whom she calls her “sweetheart.” Carl owns cabins up in New Hampshire which are rented out and also serve as a locus for poetry workshops. So it seems, all’s well that has ended well–which also makes the poems about the marriage breaking up easier to read.

The piece de resistance, though, is that after all those years of loss, being alone and growing older (she’s now 71,) Sharon Olds’s book, “Stag’s Leap” was recently awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. If he hadn’t left her, she wouldn’t have written these poems and would also not have won a Pulitzer prize. Such irony here. . .

Here’s an excerpt from the poem, “Last Look”:

” and I saw again how blessed my life had been,

first, to have been able to love,

then, to have the parting now behind me,

and not to have lost him when the kids were young,

and the kids now not at all to have lost him,

and not to have lost him when he loved me, and not to have

lost someone who could have loved me for life.”

Well, it turns out he didn’t love her for life. In fact, her poems convey the sad truth that he was a very closed person who hardly let her in during all those years. I also felt that she was keening for the loss of him a little too much, given that he deserted her, especially when he said, “it’s not about her, it’s about you.” Ouch!

So I’ve been thinking about different kinds of love: those that inspire poems that are Pulitzer-worthy, and love that’s more commonplace, like my husband, cleaning up snowdrifts from the blizzard and coming in to a steaming bowl of Lipton’s noodle soup and a sandwich.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” said Robert Browning.

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February 3, 2014

“berceuse” . . .

A Berceuse is a “musical composition that resembles a lullaby.”

Somehow, after reading and hearing so much about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s untimely death yesterday, I thought about playing Chopin’s “Berceuse” on the piano this morning in his memory.

Here is a rendition that expresses the sadness of Hoffman’s passing, an elegy of sorts, played by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

May Philip Seymour Hoffman’s family survive his absence.

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January 24, 2014

“mirror, mirror” . . .

Do people become more introspective as they get older? Or is it just because we older ones have more time to think about ourselves and how our lives have turned out? I guess there are also plenty of older folks who don’t give a whit about thinking about themselves, carrying on as merrily as they can, day by day.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the “devil-may-care” gene. I’m not afraid to poke at every scab, turn over the rocks of my youth and ponder about what I was doing at the time or what might have been. Guess what though? I’m getting over that bad habit now. How and why? First of all, it doesn’t do any good, as all the self-help books in the world will tell you: because you can’t change the past. You can’t even change very much how you might FEEL about the past. What was, was, with however much heartache or 20-20 hindsight there might have been then and might linger now.

That being said, I feel that the danger is to keep thinking about it, not letting it go, as a way of, what? … torturing oneself? or keeping oneself from enjoying and being happy in the here and now? For me, it’s been the latter. I’ve dragged that bag(gage) for a long time and even hung onto it as a way to remind myself that my life wasn’t that perfect. As though anyone of us has a life that has been perfect! (I haven’t even been to Disneyland so some might say I’ve haven’t yet lived, not that I ever wanted to go.)

So we all have had different ideas of what we wanted from life. In reflection, I remembered that all I ever wanted was being in a mutually loving relationship, making my home and sharing it with a family. I have all of that good fortune, as it turns out. It’s what makes me rejoice and celebrate by making all the little meals that I’ve described on this blog; knitting sweaters for my daughters and granddaughters, keeping house, playing the piano. Sharing a life of music and pianos in a place that my husband has built over the past few decades is my greatest good fortune as it turns out. I am never more thankful than when the power goes out in zero degree weather and G. is up in the middle of the night, checking the systems in the house to make sure we are safe from pipes bursting and/or heating systems that are working as they should be (we have an old geothermal system that heats and cools the house.)

And what about me? Honestly, (and that’s the only way this whole thing works in my opinion) I think I could have been much easier on myself and on those I cared about through the years. I made choices that were the right ones and I didn’t make ones that could also have been the right ones. But that’s water under a very old bridge. Believe it or not, I’ve just (a day or so ago) stopped holding onto that. There’s no way to salvage what was lost so long ago. To think that it isn’t gone, even in our memory, is a waste of time. Moreover, that kind of negative energy depletes the energy we have at our disposal every day when we wake up in the life we now live in.

It doesn’t hurt to think about all of these things, although it might feel like it still hurts while we’re doing it. But as they say, there are some things that you can’t avoid except to go through the middle of it, even if it’s something that’s long overdue. Although you might not know what I’m talking about as it relates to myself, this post may ring a bell (tinkle, tinkle!) in the back of your mind about something that resonates with you. What I’m saying is that when you look in the mirror and clean things up with yourself, it can go a very long way.

Just rejoice when the old hurt stops and you can smile when you look in the mirror.

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January 23, 2014

soba noodles . . .

We’re having a cold snap this week with temperatures hovering around zero outdoors. When this happens, I start rummaging around in the pantry and fridge to see what I can make for dinner that’s appetizing and filling so that I won’t have to go to the store. I found myself back on Pinterest last night, after a few months away and came upon some scrumptious looking photos of soba noodles. They’re Japanese noodles made from buckwheat. Sure enough in my pantry, I found a sleeve of green soba noodles made with mugwort (whatever that is.) On another note, I have a friend who has been writing to me about making herbal infusions with herbs such as nettles and oatgrass so I was right in the mood for using these mugwort soba noodles (turns out mugwort is an artimesia family herb with tonifying qualities.)

In the fridge, I found a package of fresh shitake mushrooms, baby spinach, scallions, two good sized florets of broccoli and half a head of baby cabbage. I knew that I also had a treasure trove (to me at least!) of large frozen shrimp in the freezer that I draw from in times like this. I took out about half a dozen shrimp and set them in a bowl of water to defrost. Now, I had a melange of appealing ingredients (see photo above.)

Next, I went to Pinterest and typed in “soba noodle recipes” in the “Search” box. Scrolling through numerous tempting combinations, I soon recognized that I had too many ingredients to make one dish. I could make the shrimp into crispy tempura and serve on the side of a simpler soba noodle dish; or I could cook the noodles and then add lightly cooked shitake mushrooms, broccoli and scallions–or have a cleaner tasting, simpler shaved raw cucumber and raw shitake mushrooms atop soba noodles dressed in a light sauce. I was happy to see that the teriyaki sauce that I made a couple of weeks ago which I still have a little bit left of, would be a tasty condiment to add to dashi broth. I also remembered a NYTimes clinical article months ago about a rare allergic (appeared neurological!) reaction to undercooked shitake mushrooms.

broccoli and shitake mushrooms

So, here’s what I think I’m going to make: leave the shrimp in their shells, dry them and saute them briefly with garlic, ginger and scallions with a little teriyaki sauce added just at the end. In a separate pan, saute sliced shitake mushrooms with broccoli and shallot, chopped thin. Make a dashi broth and add a little teriyaki seasoning. Cook the soba noodles in boiling water and drain well. Slip the soba noodles into individual large soup bowls filled with the dashi broth and fresh baby spinach. Serve the shrimps on the side to be eaten in their savory sauce.

shrimp with garlic, scallions, ginger and mirin

All this just to keep from going outside and going to the store! I’ll bet there are a few more variations that we could try in a few days: a broth with cooked spinach and cabbage, and so on.

soba noodles in dashi broth with fresh baby spinach

Oh, and while the afternoon sun was still shining in through the skylights, I decided to use a half bag of Macoun apples from the pantry to make an open faced apple pie for dessert.

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January 20, 2014

“the whole world” . . .

A few weeks ago, I came across a saying online:

“When you realize there is nothing lacking,

the whole world belongs to you.” (Lao Tzu)

I don’t know if this quote is attributable to Lao Tzu or not, but it sounds like him, doesn’t it?

A variation that might follow along that theme is this quotation:

“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

I don’t know who said that, but it strikes close to home for me. Throughout many years, being out on my own from an early age, raising children during a long and unhappy first marriage, then patching together a life afterwards with a demanding career in mid-life, I’m habituated towards feeling like my glass was half empty even though my brain might tell me that it was probably more than half full, most of the time.

Yesterday, I don’t know how this happened, but I woke up from that errant dream of being vaguely unhappy. Here’s how it came about.

A ritual I’ve taken on every year after Christmas was to look for the perfect winter coat at the after-holiday discount sales: a puffy but fashionable shiny black down three-quarter length coat with a huge, luxurious coyote or fox fur hood (real) that I had glimpsed in the New York Times Style page years ago and carried the clipping around in my wallet. This hunt served as amusement (or served as withdrawal from holiday shopping,) with a succession of coats tried on, delivered and then, mostly returned to the seller. Sometimes, I would buy one, then give it away to one of my daughters when they needed one more than I did. And so, the elusive coat search continued, at least until now.

Over the weekend, I looked at Patagonia, North Face and Nordstroms before I somehow found myself looking at “vintage LL Bean” listings on Etsy yesterday. I’ve been a fan of LL Bean for their quality, classic stock, especially in decades past. On about the eighth page of listings, I came upon a 1970’s vintage duffle coat, size Medium, in a deep army green with a yoked back, hood and a blue/green woolen plaid lining. It hung gracefully on the model in the photo, not crumpled up and bedraggled like others that were also online. In any case, as soon as I saw it, I instantly felt that the grand hunt for my winter coat was over. It had no fur trim, no contemporary flourishes, just a plain woolen coat that reminded me of my youth, truth be known. I also happen to have a loden shearling hat that G. doesn’t use and a Barbour tan and forest green plaid scarf that matches the color of the coat. Turns out that I had the accessories before I found the coat.

I don’t know if I can convey the sense of home or grounding that I instinctively felt with this coat. Perhaps you know what I mean. It’s as though one goes out looking for something and it turns out to be hanging on the line in your backyard or in a wooden storage chest that you forgot about or something.The other thing that this coat has done is to bring me full circle “back to my beginning” (a la T.S. Eliot) from the extravagances of decorating, food, gifts and spending that the holidays entailed; including taking everything apart, repacking the stockings, the ornaments, replacing broken ones, saying farewell to the Frasier Fir tree that was still fragrant, its needles still fresh to the touch.

As a loner at heart, my interests have been pretty insular for the most part, which is to say that I do most things I enjoy by myself: read, play the piano, cook meals, clean the house, knit, and so on. I realized after finding that coat that I have everything that I have ever wanted (and struggled for) including the most important intangible ones that are not always just up to us. I also noticed that my former habitat of being not very happy for most of my life had shifted to being happy without my truly “getting it” until now. This is not as strange or peculiar as it may sound. In any event, I awakened from feeling unhappy, to understanding that there is nothing keeping me from being happy now, except for old habits I wasn’t that aware of.

“When you realize that there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

Thanks to the Helpers of the Universe who have shielded, guided and pushed me to this place. It feels as though it has been an enormous struggle but perhaps at least half of that burden might have been of my own making and wrestled within my own head. Attitude is everything and mine has been edified by finding an old duffle coat and a quotation that floated by my screen unbeknownst from wherever.

As noted, the Sage, Helpers and the Cosmos have helped me create a soft landing for my life. I just haven’t felt it to its fullest until now. And I am thankful more than ever.

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January 14, 2014

bach and (much) more . . .

Now that the Christmas things have been packed up and put away, I turned my attention yesterday to learning how to use the new Tascam recorder my daughters gave me. After a few tries, learning how to input the settings like “turn mic on,” I sat down at the piano and played through the Bach Prelude in C major. In the middle of that playthrough, the phone rang (G. calling me) which I ignored (see if you can hear it on the video. . .)

I shared the recording with my daughters yesterday which they were able to play and then wanted to upload it as an audio onto YouTube because transmission of the audio clip was too large for a few friends’ mailboxes which were bounced back to me as “undeliverable.”

This morning, after reading that YouTube only accepts video clips (with music in the background) I learned that I have something called I-Video on my Macbook Pro dock (duh!) So, I went through some photos and added enough of them so that the “soundtrack” of the Bach played all the way through, adding a final photo so that the last C-major chord could be heard.

Not being that technologically able, I managed to upload this video onto YouTube (twice!) set the viewing button to “public” and hope that it will play for anyone who might be curious to see what’s possible with a little time and preserverance. Thanks for listening/watching. . .

(In carrying out this little exercise, I am reminded once again how profoundly fortunate I am, surrounded by the love of this beautiful family.)

http://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=R5DJRW_vJYM

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January 6, 2014

cold weather noodles . . .

It’s been frigid here and elsewhere (so many minus degrees below zero where M. lives in Minneapolis that they closed the schools!) This morning, I straightened out the books and magazines on my small Chinese table and came upon the “healthy” recipes that Bon Appetit was promoting in its January issue.

Leafing through, there was a teriyaki sauce recipe from a restaurant called “Canal House.” Three simple ingredients of the same measure:

1 cup packed light brown sugar;

1 cup mirin (Japanese rice wine); and

1 cup Ohsawa soy sauce (or low-sodium soy sauce):

simmered until the sugar dissolved and then cooked at very low heat for 40 minutes until the sauce thickened slightly. Good in the fridge for a month, the recipe said.

I paused midway through the thickening of the teriyaki sauce and tasted it with the tip of my spoon. The flavor was so rich and delectable that I imagined right away using a dollop of it to flavor fresh shitake mushrooms, softened in a pan; or glazing a piece of salmon or chicken thighs on the Le Creuset “Soleil” grill pans my daughters and I received as Christmas gifts from Santa (that’s me!)

So here’s the recipe for cold weather noodles I made for supper tonight:

1. Boil fresh Chinese wide egg noodles, drain and rinse with cold water, shaking out excess water. Defrosted a frozen pack of noodles tightly zipped in a plastic bag set in warm tap water and used two coils worth of noodles (see top photo.)

2. De-rib some lacinato kale and chop the leaves into two inch diagonal pieces.

3. Chop up some napa cabbage including leaves (same diagonal slice.)

4. Saute 2 cloves of garlic in a pan, add greens above and take off the heat when just wilted. Drain and set aside.

kale and napa cabbage

5. Combine 1/2 pound of fresh ground pork with scallions, ginger, and brown in a saucepan, adding a little teriyaki sauce when pork is browned.

cooked pork with garlic, kale and cabbage

6. Make a dashi broth in a sauce pan (either instant powder or with kombu and bonito flakes); add browned pork, cooked greens and stir. Cook gently for soup flavors to combine. To taste, add a spoonful of teriyaki sauce to the broth.

7. Add cooked noodles to soup and simmer.

dashi broth, kale, cabbage, pork, noodles flavored with teriyaki sauce . . .

8. Ladle into soup bowls and add a poached fresh organic egg on top or sprinkle with scallions.

It’s still pretty cold out there. But in here, it smells like heaven.

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