Next-to Last Supper

for Isaac at home was Wednesday night.  John , Audrey, and Heather came bringing the wonderful little plum cakes and their attendant chocolate cram sauce from Baking with Julia.

Audrey, Suzanne and I went to see Julia and Julia a week or so ago.  I read My Life in France in the weeks before–and not the movie tie-in version either!  It is a wonderful biography.  Cooking was what Julia found to “have something to do“  since they were unable to have children and her husband did not wish to adopt.  Her infertility makes me feel quite simpatico towards her and her work.  That and her love for butter.

In addition to cakes we ate

-Sungold tomatoes, both whole and cut in half for salad which could be dressed with Balsamic/Rice vinegar Good Seasons Italian home mix

-a finely sliced large Romanian striped cucumber with Balsamic vinegar

-sweet corn too large to eat off the cob, so it was cooked, cut off the cobs, and then mixed with chopped onion and tomato and cooked in butter.

-finely sliced garlic and kale cooked in olive oil and butter

-venison flank steaks cut about 1/3 inch thick and mixed with sesame oil, ginger, white pepper, salt and brown sugar then allowed to sit all day in the fridge before coming out an hour or so before being quickly pan sauteed.

Tonight I think we will have hot dogs for the first time this summer.

Home Again, Home Again: Notes

and boy am I tired. It was a blessing to be able to be with my brother, sister-in-law and their daughter through a difficult time: Jay went back into hospital and had yet another surgery–this one to put in a lumbar-peritoneal shunt to drain off spinal fluid from gathering near the site of his second surgery–after enduring way too much pain and going downhill neurologically.  He seems fine for now. Before that we went to a small farmer’s market, the mall , “UP”, the Texas Roadhouse restaurant, walks, rainstorms, thunders and lightenings galore, lots of wildlife, In and Out Burger, and a Vietnamese eatery.

And then a quick visit to Texas with Jeni and family.  Wonderful, wonderful!  Pork, poblano pesto and peaches, chimichurro sauce, chips and cherries, salsa and special ice cream dessert, dogs, a great Lutheran church service, and plants and the HP movie and seeing kids who have grown so much since I last visited.

An old housemate and her family stayed at our home last night and I made waffles for breakfast.  Jay picked blueberries to have with them.

There was a get-together for them at another home last night.

Laundry.  Started weeding.  Lack of sleep.

But wonderful to be back where everything is all colors of green, the humidity is high and the temperature is quite moderate.

Sugar snap peas, broccoli, the first Sungold tomatoes, speckled lettuce, the first potatoes, ground venison and garlic mayo made with the new garlic and eggs grown down the road for supper tonight.  Those eggs are from chickens that eat lots of greenstuff so the mayo is vibrant yellow.

While travelling I read Dune by Frank Herbert for the third time–but the last time was years ago, and Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl by ND Wilson for the first time–but it will not be the last; books that are opposite of each other in many ways.  One is a fantastic made-up story about a made-up world in the far future, the other a collection of fantastic real stories and essays about the real world now.  The first is a materialists’  explaination of faith and fate, the second is by a faith-full man explaining what some might think of as fate in the material world.  Dune is ultimately serious, cynical and without hope, Notes is full of hope,  jovial, and optimistic– in a fun way.  Both books share great writing, though.  Herbert was obviously brilliant, thoughtful, lucid.  Wilson is thoughtful, meandering and I look forward to more of his writing.

Powers Wins

Late last  year I wrote about Ursula LeGuin’s Annal of the Western Shore series.

Seems I am not the only one who thinks they are great.  She has won the 2008 Nebula Award for the novel “Powers” from that series.

And WALL-E won best script.  Yay!  We really like WALL-E.

I am Sir Percy!

A certain young lady who reads the Scarlet Pimpernel series online got me started.  I have finished the first two books.  I just took the quiz.

You are the Scarlet Pimpernel! You are a brave, heroic, and very clever Englishman with a philanthropic streak. Your enemies hate you. Everyone else adores you.  You’re a snappy dresser, and like every true Englishman,  you just hate mushy sentimentality.  You are the leader of fashion in London, live in a very big house, have a very beautiful wife, and a lot of lolly. When you’re not playing the social fop, you enjoy organizing and carrying out dash-cunning rescues of poor little Frenchies from the scummy hands of the evil Revolutionary Government.

Which Scarlet Pimpernel character are you?

Sack’s Fern Journal

Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks is of a piece with all the others I have read by him.  Not that this one is about neurological problems, or his history.  No, it is an erudite travel journal about a fern-hunting holiday in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.

What is wonderful about this book is it is like listening to an intelligent friend as lots of interesting ideas come and go through his mind.  Like an interesting, free-flowing  conversation on many topics: ferns and other plants, yes, but also chemical composites,  Meso-American history, chocolate, odd foods, types of hallucinogens, people watching,  architecture, social commentary, mythology, and one of the oldest trees in the world.

Dandelion Fire

Dandelion Fire is the second book  after The 100 Cupboards in a proposed trilogy by ND Wilson. It is even better than 100 Cupboards.  One can almost see Wilson grow as a writer.

Although the series is billed as a children’s fantasy, it is one in the same vein as Lord of the Rings,  Narnia, the Black Cauldron or The Dark is Rising series.  That means adults like me love it.

The series has an American, rather than British, bent.  It is placed in Henry,  Kansas.  We all know Kansas has seen odd things happen before. I particularly remember legs rolling up underneath a house…

Henry York is visiting cousins for the summer.  In the first book he found the cupboards in his attic bedroom and strange things happened.  In Dandelion Fire, Henry himself changes in strange ways.  More of the the mystery behind the cupboards is revealed.

Wilson’s writing is so wonderfully organic–in the sense of describing nature and happenings natural and supernatural, physical,  and vivid.  There are allusions to classic,  mythological,  and biblical tales.   There are people getting hungry and dirty in the midst of difficulties and sufferings.  There is magic, and hope and rip-roaring adventure.  It is a great read.

The best book of this kind I have read in a long time.

Run out and get both books!

Local Library and Lincoln Letter

The Lincoln letter sold for over $3.44 million dollars!  Yay!  Dryden will have a larger library