the handsome-man

Today, after a very long while (exactly two weeks and maybe two or three days), the handsome-man was back. (That is all one word. Handsome-man.)

I am threatening to march over to his table and leave my business card on it.

Which, to be sure, since I can't even manage eating when he is sitting at the next row across from me, up one table, is not exactly something I would ever be able to do.

It would, however, in theory, blow him out of the picture, because men don't like it when women are forward.

Or at least, I don't like it when women are forward.

Today, however, he looked and looked and looked at the sky, peering at it in a most exaggerated fashion to determine something that must have been awfully important, before sitting down to eat.

I buried myself in my taco bowl, so I wouldn't be thought to be aware that he was there.

I think he needed to determine the degree of sunlight.

Were I him, I wouldn't be sitting in a Southern sun at noon, in the summer.

And the little outdoor eating area has more tables under the patio roof than nakedly in the bare sun anyway.

I am like that.  Always like to sit at the same exact table, every day.

But about the time I got calmed down enough to manage noticing again what I was eating (and had even cast a wee glance his way. To be sure, I did not have my glasses on so could not have seen anything anyway, even if I had been glancing at him, rather than merely over at the exact table where he was sitting.

I didn't look but the merest of glances, anyway), he stands up, huge in his exquisitely tall thinness, and all of it in that very bright sun, shakes out his paper (as if one of those men of old who came home from the office, oxford shirt still as crisp as when he put it on, sat down to read the evening news while his wife puts the dinner on the table: she would be wearing a proper shirtdress and an apron over the skirt)...

And walks around to sit on the other side of his wee two-fer table!

The sun had been in his eyes (I could surmise) and he could not read his paper!

So he is facing me!

Needless to say, I buried myself even further in my taco bowl.

He really is a handsome man, and I can tell that even though I didn't look over his way one bit!

But he is a goof-ball, and rather like someone I hold very dear.

Err. That would be me.

He seems exactly like me.

And one me is exactly enough for my small life (and sometimes too much!)...

It has been at least two plus weeks since I have seen him. I did mention that.

You see why it would be much better to do something to get me out of this torture! But I really do not want a man that does not take the first step.

With him being as nervous/high strung as I am, however...

It would be a disaster. And I am still certain he smirked, instead of smiling, that day, so he is probably not made of the caliber of saint that I would prefer.

But the main thing is I am aware how much space men tend to take up when they invade a woman's mind and I just do not have room.

So.

There it is.

Washed him out of my hair again and that is that!

but a place without loss

Back to boredom.

Boredom reveals.

Terrible fear in me—I hide behind other portions of my identity because stories (which are truth, and the way people impact one another—read a very interesting article yesterday on that idea)—because the stories of my life are so severe that I cannot go there.

They are stories of loss.

But they have the power to hurt others.

And to let people in. I don't want people in, regardless of whether or not, being human, I must let them in.

People are not kind, and I cannot trust my need to be treated kindly to them. Far better to keep them all "out there"—sometimes, a life allows the boundaries to be ringed by the score of individuals, hands clasped and singing—the long row of them, singing.

But not so often.

Can't see their faces, save one, maybe two. I do not know them. They aren't really there, anyway. I have found my solace and identity in ideas and in Truth and in images like flowers—the exotic kind, heavy in scent and as yet not known, vivid if not garish, hiding in jungles yet unexplored, then coming to the light of someone's microscope, notebook, pen.

My day begins. Yesterday, at the elevator, glad to be there again. The place clean, ordered, filled with that distant row of people, not clapping, not singing, just present.

-adapted from the morning pages, 25 June 2013

o sweet and lazy nigh unto summer

The lazy blogger had a lovely, lazy holiday. Saturday, doing Big Stuff by participating in the March against Monsanto, which headed out of Piedmont Park in Atlanta to march along a section of the BeltLine.

The Atlanta Jazz Festival was in gear, with lots of stalls selling delectables, from eats to drinks to tie-died and lushly curved and curling dresses waiting like doughtnuts slathered with chocolate icing to adorn favourite darlings to jewelry that would let arms and ears and fingers play exquisite mischief...

A single bag, imitation hippie, at best, seemed to be at all the stalls. I'd had to carry the items I needed to cover the March in my backpack—my wee camera, a notebook (in case I wanted to interview anyone), sunscreen...

My keys and a pen and pepper spray.

Plus, of course, my plastic card that, although I use as a matter of course now, does not mean I support a cashless society! It's just harder to get cash these days...

I keep five dollars on hand now for Marta emergency money. When the bar-b-que stall wanted cash, I wavered. Left to eat tacos at Willie's—but would return before I left the park to indulge.

Southern girl to the very heart of me, where bar-b-que is concerned, and I see it so seldom.

Knowing I had a post to prepare on the March for another blog, however, I'd started the morning out trying to figure some way to manage a carry-all that did not involve the backpack. So the bag quite caught my eye: it was exactly what I wanted.

And I could forgive that it only looked like authentic hippie...

Looked like hand-painted fabric squares...

Looked like distressed edges...

I needed one that would be rugged, however, and stand up to a lot of carrying.

The first one I stopped to eye and finger admiringly did seem sturdier than the others. Too, it had extras the others did not have. I guessed the stall owners had added the smart tassels and beads to differentiate their product from that wave of others, likely made by machine to identical items swatched together into infinity...

But I didn't buy until later, after I ate my taco and chips and had time to think that it really was quite okay to buy something I wanted and had a genuine need for.

What surprised (and the reason I write about my new hippie bag) is that it so very much became one of those items that gives a girl new life. Red sports car style.

Haven't quite adored something and felt it let the secret me out in a really long while...

I carried it with me Monday when I walked down to Papi's for lunch. Had a Cuban sandwich and an order of sweet plantains and an iced glass of tea, half sugar and half not. The sandwich ended up so large that I ate only a third and carried the other two-thirds to eat in two separate seatings...

I worked up a draft for a new business card, late that lazy afternoon, and then I was back in my bedroom, having missed most of the news and all of M.A.S.H. and The Voice was on and all of a sudden, these two guys (I absolutely had no warning!) are playing the opening notes to Seven Bridges Road...

I live in an apartment. Terrace (pretty word for basement) with two floors (maybe three) overhead. A really old, early 1900's former boarding house, to the best of my thinking—it was never a private home.

EVERYTHING can be heard. Conversations.

Everything.

Eerie, sometimes, to be sitting here minding my own business and all of a sudden out of the middle of nowhere over to the right of my head a girl is...

Well. That thing girls do when they are with a guy that go under the head of things you'd never do otherwise.

And do have something to do with voice but not with singing.

Although, one can suppose that one might regard the sound as singing...

I never sing anymore (and I mean the more literal kind, there). Haven't for years, because of the closeness of the city.

But not sing Seven Bridges Road?

Not possible.

Oh me. It was an abbreviated version, because it was The Voice. They only do abbreviated.

But oh, I miss that song.

My voice is huskier than it used to be. And it's been alto something or 'nother for a long while. Always wished I could have become a singer...

You have to belt it out, at my age, because it's like riding a bicycle. More inclined to wobble unless you really move over and let it roar out.

Don't know what my neighbors thought. Be willing to bet they all heard, top and beside and across the street..

And thought it amusing, but nice to hear.

But it all made for a very pleasant holiday.

an accidental delight

Not just cornbread in a cast iron pan—but a heart! And perfectly centered.

Back in the day, starting out, a new bride needed the set of three iron skillets. You had to learn seasoning, which was pretty troublesome. Long years later, a cousin would tell me he threw his skillets in the dishwasher.

I was stunned. But the seasoning...

He just laughed. He'd season them all over again.

My idea of seasoning at that time still resonated with ancient flavours, melding into the whole. Of skillets that had been handed down from mother to daughter several generations over and still having the seasoning carried down redolent with presence...

What I do not know about seasoning—then, now—remains. I created my home with the stuff of legends. With my mother's mental illness (as much as her own creative spirit), the ways of home-making did not rule the day.

For me, it was like an ideal at which to aim—or a hope, made larger by the absence of essential. Myth, perhaps—life set into story.

Some sense, too, yet remaining, of playing house. As long as I am playing house (rather than properly and completely owning house-keeping as a necessity), I can be happy. Otherwise, you will not find me in the kitchen...

Somewhere along the way, I found a set of pans and dutch ovens (my kids were all but grown then, and chaos was firmly entrenched in all that we were) that were also cast iron.

I also bought the piece to make cornsticks—and the one for muffins.

Sweet peas heated from the can in the small pan were delectable.

It may be that my love of cast iron goes back to a story Mama told. A huge dutch oven had belonged to her grandmother's grandmother, who had brought it over from Scotland.

But my great-grandfather had done something with it I won't repeat.

All of it, to be sure, likely the stuff of fancy. So many things had belonged to that same woman...

Likely none of them had. The great old dutch oven did exist. But its provenance was less certain, and it disappeared anyway, long before my childhood did, became a longed-for that new-bought cast iron could not ever be, save long generations after.

I don't think my daughter does cast iron.

But the dutch oven became like a beacon for me—in my broken home, perhaps cast iron would give that invisible something we all seek in family...

I see I stray now from that accidental delight into tales told.

Along the way of divorcing and moving to an apartment, I let go of all but the three skillets. I remember giving them away to a woman who stopped by to look at something I had most regretfully put out for the trash, and in conversation, I listed the things I was needing to let go.

Having so little now, I can just imagine how magical it must have been to meet someone getting rid of so many treasures—.

Don't have room for them in the apartment where I live now but I begin to think that, perhaps a piece at a time, some of the smaller cast iron pieces might be nice to have again. They are troublesome to keep up with, and sometimes have to be seasoned again.

But I miss them.

(It may be, perhaps, that I saved the muffin piece and that it hides in the back recesses of my cabinets or storage place.

Sounds like a good time to go digging....)

A single woman now, I tend to make cornbread (those rare instances now when I do) in the smallest of the three, but this one was made in the middle size. I don't know where the heart came from, as I made the recipe like I always do, halfing the recipe and adding just a touch of extra corn meal (without the flour that the mixes include).

To be sure, I forgot to half the milk, then had to add more mixed meal and flour. But I just poured it from the bag without measuring and, even though it was too soupy, shoved it in the hot oven figuring I'd just turn the heat up a bit and cook it until it was done.

And it kissed me back with this sweet heart!

I ate it with a quinoa and rice dish that had kidney beans (I prefer the dark red), corn (hand-sheared from the husk), lime and the Rotel tomato-pepper mix...

And sides of freshly sliced cucumber (with apple cider vinegar and dill) and spinach (cooked down just enough in water then buttered and a chopped green onion added)...

I have also returned to drinking tea. I keep the tea bags in the fridge because of the rats and mice that like to visit, here and there. I rub the leaves between my palms for a minute or two while the water heats.

Then make sure to let it steep anywhere from ten to twenty minutes, to get a good flavour.

A delightful meal, for all that the special heart did have to be turned upside down to get it out of the pan, then eaten...

But I gave thanks to God for its delights, accidental and otherwise, as I took the first bite of spinach...

remembering, and peanuts

Hamburger up at Five Guys (a franchise, too, but not so bad) today was delicious. I had Cajun fries (they use different potatoes each day and put which ones they are using up on the board)—and I sat at the table eating peanuts while I waited and kept thinking about what an old Southern snack they were.

And how hot it used to be in the back roads of the Chattahoochee Valley...

Back in those days when I was still a pup and had no identity or even vision—those blind, unopened eyes pups and kittens have...

Wandering about under that hot, hot sun—used to radiate back up from the very ground...

But you remember.

Oh me.

To have those days again, and all the people who used to be in them, and peanuts and a Nehi grape (a rare soda, in my life), and all the red clay dust a sun could bake to walk across...

A fishing pole.

Grandaddy to put the worms on for me.

Grandma's sour cream pound cake, with anise across the top. Shhh. Fish won't bite if you make too much noise...

And Granddaddy Dalton whistling...

The funny cars—that peculiar smell of an old car, and its upholstery. Especially in the hot summer.

And there I was in all of it, a long-legged kid not even dreaming of anything like growing up and heading out into a life...

when Mama cooked

A perfect morning should almost always begin with oatmeal.

Not the one minute kind.

And it should have dried cranberries one day, and raisens another, and always either walnuts or almonds.

Pecans are too expensive to even dream, and I live in Georgia: pecans are backyard trees, here!

Sometimes, perhaps, apricot or dates. And blueberries! Must not forget blueberries, and deliciously dried to preserved forever, all of them, then plumped again as I stew them in the oatmeal...

Why do I write of food so often? Not so much because I am hungry, although, to be sure, I might be.

A parishioner once confided in me that she, too, often went home to a bowl of cereal (the packaged processed kind) and considered it a meal.

For supper.

Or 'dinner,' although, here in the South, we move dinner to another hour...

I knew then that creating a place where single women can enjoy taking care of themselves as lovingly as they would a family might be important.

And therein as much a thing of beauty as other places more traditionally thought of loveliness.

But I note here also a memory of a woman—several years ago now—who wrote of her shock when, going through her mother's things after she died, she discovered a drawer full of cut-out recipes...

Her mother never cooked.

Didn't like to. A single woman, too, as I remember it, and she had worked for a living. Those children to take care of, and all the weight of it on your shoulders.

Mine were hard enough to tend without being (at that time) a single woman. I can only imagine what it might have been like alone.

But that has always been a most precious thing to me, that daughter finding the drawer full of recipes her mother dreamed, after her mother was gone from her.

Some dreaming in all women, I am thinking, however (perhaps more secret in some than others; perhaps hidden even from herself), of being there in the kitchen, and marking a hearth determined always by the alluring smell of good food while her children go about the things that kids do, secure in the knowledge of the ordered life...

Not the chaotic one we lived.

For me, when I moved to this apartment (my favourite so far, in spite of its shortcomings (and my own—), I thrilled to see the telephone jack built into the kitchen wall.

One time in my life I had had a telephone in the kitchen, and for some unknown reason, a telephone in the kitchen had always been my dream (just like having my very own washer and dryer: odd, because, while dishwashers are sooooo necessary, having one never made it into that place of perfect dream)...

Adulthood attained.

Being there.

I bought a green princess phone online (cheap!) and set it into the wall...

Waited with my dream of cooking in my kitchen while I talked to the man of my dreams...

Still waiting.

[Editor's note. And what the story does not tell remains that the concentration necessary to talk on the phone AND cook is not mine.

But that detail really didn't need to work its way into the story told. We'll leave it as our girls n silly laughter secret...

And cooking was never my own mama's thrill, either. No memory of that ordered hour while Mama cooked for me, either.

Stepmother, yes.

So I have the contrast. But stories as well I will tell along the way of my precious Mama...

Stories that are that thing of beauty and of joy and of laughter...]

7 quick takes Friday

-1-

I have been enjoying these at another blog for several years and am going to jump in and see what happens. This is my 'fun' blog. My 'girl' blog. That other voice place.

-2-

Apple dumplings. I have been thinking about apple dumplings. Or maybe not. I have been thinking about those delectable concoctions that are a baked apple wrapped up in pastry. The hospital cafe (where I frequently eat during the week to guarantee that, if I get too home too tired to deal with cooking/eating/cleaning, I will have at least had a shot at a well-balanced meal) makes them sometimes.

But I think that the best of these would not have so much sweet in the pastry itself.

It should have cinnamon sprinkled over, after, however. And they put cranberries in it, too. Whether they are dried, then stewed, I don't know. Marvelously plump little creatures. I always try to scrape more of them from the pan when I scoop up my dumpling.

-3-
Rain. We are promised two days of it (or were; the forecast changes on a regular basis from likely most dire to little bit o' nothing at a moment's notice) with a flood watch from noon today until six p.m. Saturday.

-4-
Work. I brought my laptop in today since the work computer died a most horrible death yesterday. The desk seems naked without it.

And I note as I frequently do that the hum of computers, like the hum of airplanes that permeates this city, is really loud.

-5-
Chillens. So many women have them. Mine have grown up and gone far, far away. One of them is in the Czech Republic now. Glad he is not in China any more. Or India.

The other is preparing to buy a house in the little town in Maine wherein she and her beloved were married a few years ago. I find that soooo romantic, and sweet, and it makes me think marriages can do what they are supposed to do, and last forever.

They had never been to the town and almost drew the name out of a hat, as I have heard the story.

-6-
Weather makes such big news now. But I have always been rather fond of weather. Outside the window at work the sky is gray and the winter trees behind the evergreens are swaying in all their bare splendor.

-7-
Lent must be a gray season. The memory, always, of winter and that last preparation the seeds make before they peep out to begin all again in the spring.

Now, the link back to Jen's community and we are done!

tomorrow never comes

Headed out at ten this morning to get a jump on my 'out in the city' day. I am desperately needing new shoes (a whole wardrobe of them, actually, although, for the present moment, my last and only remaining pair of heels having bitten the dust, I have to replace them immediately), hence the day blocked out to accomodate all via the really early start.

I began with the new-to-me thrift store. I believe I have mentioned it before--not really so very far from my house, but (immensely) too far to walk. I hit Peachtree St. in enough time to catch the route that heads downtown (as opposed to walking several blocks more and catching the train. City schedules change on Saturday, which is the primary out into the city day for worker drones), but when I got downtown, I had just missed the bus to the thrift store.

So still had what has become the typical wait for each time I have attempted the outing--maybe forty-five minutes. For whatever reason, that corner of Atlanta seems to be like the bench in the old town square, or where the old men used to sit in front of the barber store...

People like to gab there.

This is the third visit now to this thrift store. The first time, I said I'd never go back, finding nothing (but buying a couple of books so my effort was not completely wasted. Seems keenly possible that that particular thrift store is a drop-off for former students. I find barely-thumbed copies of most interesting scholarly works there).

The second time, set on finding odd pieces of brightly coloured dishes, I fared better. Books then, too. But each time, no clothes, and I am a most seasoned thrift store buyer. Have years of both finding barely-worn treasures and supporting full wardrobes at thrift stores behind me.

So any can imagine my delight, today, when, after trying on two buggies full of items, I found clothes. Twelve pieces, including a light but very smart (girlish, really, but the sort that a woman my age wears so charmingly) jacket and two skirts.

Skirts have been on my list of must-finds for some long while. Had descended into absolutely none in my closet. Can you imagine! The two new ones are prints, so they won't quite fill the holes in my wardrobe (which require the more useful khaki, standard black and would even tolerate a navy or midnight blue.

To say nothing of replacing the most necessary everyday denim). I saw quite a number of darling pieces, but only four fit, and two were shorter than I can get away with now.

Of the tops, one was a tee (likely worn only once), another a step up from a tee (and it still had tags from the store purchase on it) and the remaining were varying degrees of either classic or safari or peasant (similar to hippie, but smarter)...

That irresistible matter of thrift stores and style...you can piece a wardrobe from your own choosing, and not the dictates of a wayward fashion.

True style demands that, to be sure.

Half the pieces were fifty percent off, so in spite of the most affordable final total, what it could have cost (and would have, new) allowed quite an ahhh savings.

So the thrift store has finally redeemed itself, and handsomely. I have one now on 'my' side of town that has as many designer and other clever pieces as the next. And even several of those most irresistible pieces, when you are not expecting it. One minute you are just pushing hangers rejecting everything along the way and the next--a piece so exquisite it takes your breath away.

And then it is not in your size.

The other curiousity (a perfectly random one) from today's shopping is that almost everything I picked out was in varying shades of taupe and cream and wheat.

One other treat, however. My books this time included Suite Francaise, which I have long wanted (and thought I had read), a biography of St. Paul, and the book on Satan by Elaine Pagels. While I rarely agree with what Pagels concludes, I respect and look forward to her research.

Saves me having to do the research on my own. (And yes, drily noted. Her book is on the origins of Satan, as though he did not exist, and is merely manufactured!)

Ahh, but the title of today's post. The recipe, promised some time last week for 'tomorrow.' But again...

Maybe tomorrow.

But before I go, the day's eating. I had thought to eat after the thrift store visit, then head on out to more shopping (those most necessary shoes: while I can wear jeans as a matter of course at work, some days require more, and this coming Wednesday is one of them).

The absolute stun when I finally got on the bus to leave the area and saw it was 2:58 p.m. must be noted! Nothing to do then but know the day was done. When I got home, I decided to do a quick grilled cheese for a very hungry tummy, not having eaten at all before heading out...

My daughter and I had been corresponding about grilled cheese: she began adding onion, fresh tomato and mushrooms (also fresh) to her grilled cheese several years back. I'd done plain grilled cheese earlier in the week, hence the emails.

But I decided to go with her add-ons after the long day of eating absolutely nothing (it would be another hour before I was actually home)...and the new one, spinach.

I actually had a bag of fresh spinach in my fridge.

Days being what they are when you are a single woman, supper ended up a repeat, but this time, I sauteed a full serving of spinach, a plum tomato and some slices of red onion and ate them as a side with a 'plain' grilled cheese (four slices of Muenster on a 12-grain wheat bread)...

Dribbled just a bit of balsamic vinegar over the sautee after I put it in a small bowl...

And, after eating all, swiped the vinegar-tomato brothling left in the bowl with the ends of my sandwich.

Single women don't always eat well. Shortcuts, tired evenings and bowls of cereal don't add up to good health. Part of what I want to do herein is encourage us to eat well.

And to go the extra mile and celebrate it as we do.

eggplant pomodoro

Will be posting about this most delicious repast sometime, I hope, tomorrow, and will include the recipe. (Didn't dare use the new placemat or napkin with its gorgeous flower ring because I was afraid I'd get it dirty, silly me.)

Click on the photograph to see it full size scrumptious. Angel hair pasta, eggplant, garlic, olives, fresh plum tomatoes and, oddly, no onion.

So I seared the last of my spring onions and set them across the top.

leftovers, several times removed

I am currently at this very minute nibbling the absolute finally! last of an item left over from a recipe (when you live alone, all your recipes seem to dribble out into forever) fixed several days back (second time have tried it now) and combined with the most wretched eyeing of several other refrigerator squats.

As a category for food, I loathe leftovers. Some there are that are still able to be fit into a second meal most lovingly and I long for the day’s end so that I can get home and eat them all over again, but most foods these days are so old by that second setting that I cannot stand the thought of even looking at them.

Whether that is the fault of my refrigerator, how old food is by the time we buy it, or other nefariousnesses that I have not yet guessed, I am powerless in their sway. Nothing keeps now!

And I’ve tried to manage. Frozen, rather than canned. Fresh, rather than frozen.

And so on.

Having just finished The Glass Castle, I might add that things there are that people who are hungry have eaten that you do not want to know.

Maybe it is that I just have become too accustomed to being hungry, and ignore at will. A certain appreciation for hunger is indeed requisite to dining well, or sufficiently.

In any case, I made bits of the wee bite of leftover sardines (I kid you not, and it almost had an anchovey kind of flavour, and was minus the hair) to add to the rapidly dying bag of salad, and added it to what was left from a recipe I have enjoyed twice now (and I don't think I had too many leftovers the first time I made it), and which I will add below.

I sent it to my daughter after I tried it the first time, and I believe she allowed that it looked interesting and she might try it some time: you see why I must resort to posts about the recipes I try, in hope of getting someone as excited about them as I am!

Or perhaps you don't. So I must explain that anything less than the effusiveness by which I live is most pallid discouragement, to my most effusive personality and (what must be supposed) way of thinking. 

And daughter is a most cool cucumber of a cerebral sort of gal.

Besides which, how many daughters take seriously anything Mom has done?

But I must copy the recipe without photos, and without my pretty new idea of a special (and specially mismatched) new dishes.

To make too much of a production of something guarantees it won’t get done, when you work forty hours a week and upon occasion, hit the weekend tired of it.

As much as from it!

Seeing how little one can do, that first day after, becomes a thing of much joy. 

Tomorrow, it is hoped that I will attempt my first recipe with photographs and dishes...

There. Breathe. If I do, I shall, and if not...

No one will whimper but a wee Wren.

I added the last of my pretend olive oil (which is to say. It says it is 100% extra virgin olive oil but we all know now that doesn’t really mean 100%) and a bit of red wine vinegar (and, oh dear. Does that mean…) to the sad sack of salad, with the sardines and the leftovers from the original recipe—and homemade that very instant croutons, courtesy two slices of leftover deli bread (I am thinking also from the recipe into which I tossed all; it was a hoagie recipe, and I still have a loaf or two of the mini-loaves from the deli that I bought—ten of them, I think it was—at seventy-eight cents each, markdown, and froze; this was one of them) that I quite properly cubed then toasted in the smallest amount of oil imaginable…

Then let cool a moment while I finished a post at another blog. (In real time, that would be perhaps a good twenty minutes, but I was at final edit, and had been for some very long two or three hours.)

But, all that noted, the recipe follows. My commentary is inserted throughout, bracketed in with italicized print.

Err, buon appetito! (As if that will mean what I think it should!) You won't have any leftovers, so don't worry about all my meandering, above.

Italian Vegetable Hoagies

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/italian_vegetable_hoagies.html

4 servings | Active Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion, separated into rings

1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts, rinsed and coarsely chopped
[NOT pickled artichoke hearts; and don't skip the chopping; I did, second time I tried it and it was much better when the little quarters are chopped]

1 medium tomato, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
[I used red wine vinegar the first time, which I think was the superior of the two]

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 16- to 20-inch-long baguette, preferably whole-grain
[I used a mini-deli loaf; see below]

2 slices provolone cheese, (about 2 ounces), halved 
[I never added the cheese; scattered a bit of parmesan, first time, but liked it better without cheese]

2 cups shredded romaine lettuce 
[I recommend leaving this out]

1/4 cup sliced pepperoncini (optional)
[I tried this both ways and hand-sliced the peppers from a jar of most delightful pickled Greek Tuscan peppers (or, for the more plainspoken amongst us, banana peppers); can't say that it added anything. They might have been more delectable nibbled as one partakes of a most excellent repast, as is said.]

Preparation

1. Place onion rings in a small bowl and add cold water to cover. Set aside while you prepare the remaining ingredients. 
[I changed the water three times in the 20 min. period – nicely took off the onion bite.]

2. Combine artichoke hearts, tomato, vinegar, oil and oregano in a medium bowl. 
[I let mine marinate for a good half hour before assembling as a sandwich; would recommend, after this marinade, draining through a colander.]

3. Cut baguette into 4 equal lengths. Split each piece horizontally and pull out about half of the soft bread from each side. Drain the onions and pat dry. 
[I had a mini deli loaf – they are maybe eight by four by three - sliced it lengthwise; stuffed, then cut into vertical sandwiches of about an inch across. O delight! ]
[Hmm. Skipped completely that 'pulling about half of the soft bread from each side.' As if I would waste good bread! No wonder I had artichoke hearts flying everywhere.]

4. To assemble sandwiches, divide provolone among the bottom pieces of baguette. Spread on the artichoke mixture and top with the onion, lettuce and pepperoncini, if using. Cover with the baguette tops. Serve immediately. 
[Delete the parts I deleted, above, and add fork and several napkins: very messy – but most delicious! ]

out into the city

Yesterday, after writing at length in my journal about a matter to be set in as a post at another blog, I headed out into the city. I needed to shop for some items I will be using in conjunction with this blog. On the city transit, to go out for any reason is a full day endeavor, but with the holiday, I had a three-day weekend, which, in theory, gave me two days yet to write.

So my one stop planned to a local Salvation Army I discovered not so far (in city terms) from my apartment a few weeks ago could be (and was) undertaken with much relish. Ended up waiting an hour after I got to Five Points on the train, and paced through most of it. An interesting couple came up a few minutes before the bus finally arrived. He was a redhead, and carried a much-used red sleeping bag rolled up (without, I noted, folding it in half, lengthwise, before he rolled) and carried on his back.

Both the young man and the girl carried knapsacks and were dressed in bright smiles and road rags. Seemed fresh for the journey and quite at ease. The girl waved another bus down when she saw a man running as if his life would end to catch it. Having sat there for a good ten minutes, it was not mindful to stopping for a latecomer. But did.

I thought of asking to photograph and interview them but fortunately the bus arrived before I could do more than dream of being that sort of woman. But then, on the bus, ended up having a most delightful chat with a young Georgia Tech grad student from China, who has been in Atlanta since August. We got off at the same stop then headed in different directions.

I had already done some preliminary shopping toward my new idea of posting recipes herein; I think it was last week that I stopped by Pier One (my disposable income is mere trifle, but that is another story), where a great many pieces were 75% off. I have a plan in mind to continue adding pieces to my idea, but in that cautious manner that a discipline of poverty (whether intentional or set upon one by circumstance) demands.

Living most cautiously, to be sure, can allow a careful consumption, outside of the stark necessities of a small life. I am collecting odd plates and bowls and serving pieces, and have a new place mat, napkin and even a napkin ring in which to make most bright and lovely (and deliciously mismatched) place settings.

To be sure, each will be a special event.

'Everyday' will remain plain brown Wren. Which tends to be very used Pfaltzgraff (or some odd pieces of hotel white from when Borders changed cafes—that would be before they bottomed up—and gave the old settings to whoever wanted). I have an odd collection of thrift store place mats that I set on a bamboo tray, then I typically grab a paper towel rather than a dinner napkin (and these would be paper) then head to my bed.

My apartment is too small for a table and chairs, although I have long thought I could set one of those three piece cafe sets in the bedroom, just off the kitchen...

A tiled set, with the high bar chairs...

Or I could completely upend my computer and work area, moving it to the bedroom (which is very large) and set the tiled cafe table that I dream of buying in the living room...

In any case, all is dream. Three years now of dream!

More often than not, every day moves me to consider leftovers put up if they are set into the fridge in the pan in which I cooked them, and really, lid is optional.

You probably didn't need to hear that, and can likely see why a little bit of special is most needful.

And why it should be a special that is special indeed!

And resplendent in an overflow that will affect not only how I eat but what I eat, set as I am now on finding recipes again—too, it will spill over into many places, the global of which does not stop at 'taking better care of myself.'

But goes into that place wherein the very spirit is nourished.

Because...

That thing of joy...

I stopped to photograph the new pieces this afternoon as they sat on my coffee table (which was badly in need of a wash) in the sun. Here is a cropped photo of some of them, still with their thrift store tags (the napkin ring sports its 'brand new' tag from Pier One) and deeper in shadow than such bright sunlight would have suggested.

I don't know what the little square plates are but assume maybe an olive plate or tapas.

Which, to be sure, is the same thing. More or less. But—I am playing house now, so can call them whatever my wee heart shall choose. And use them thusly! However I choose!

Ah, such freedom, there 'midst all the loveliness.

where I think it might be going

Because I really don't know where this one is going...

But it started, really, with the Psalm, and the hope at another of my blogs to create a space for some of my work that had been published at still another blog...

And then the background came up. Suddenly. It was there. One of Isobel's photographs, and I knew it had to be the background for a blog.

I had to create a blog, just for that background. I knew then that 84.3 and the background had to be linked.

Along the way of that, I realized that I have one other voice in me that does not have voice. An everyday voice. So I think perhaps this will be that voice—yes, memoir, but in that lazy fashion of a live lived amidst recipes cut out and strewn through a drawer (or now, saved from on-line sites) that fascinate but are never tried, a cloche knitted (and then another) (and both with one hole in the pattern that wasn't supposed to be there), a pretty dress, a dream...

A love.

Little snippets of everyday.

And then, perhaps, like another blog I ran across and found most delectable (although filled with foods I would never try to cook; enough to look at them, and enjoy)—maybe I will learn to try these new ones I am finding (and maybe some of the old), and photograph (like the other blog did) the results...

All the while adjusting a tweak here, a bit there. And sketch out and rewrite all the possibilities and different directions herein. 

A recipe box...

But more. Small things that give beauty. Movies or books. Random moments. Small and everyday and made up of 'girl things.'

And, to be sure, the devotional and other writings for which 84:3 was originally designed (but never used) at the other blog...

Yes. I think I can do that. My mother used to quote the line from Keats. And I, in turn, quoted it often to my own.

I wonder if they remember it as marvelously as I do—tinged not just with its essential meaning but overlaid always with the woman who said it to me...

And thus a directive to how to live—and to life itself.

Mothers are the guideposts to how to live. Fathers, too, yes. But here in this moment, I rise up and call her blessἐd who pointed me to this moment.

This new path.

And yes, all paths that I have trod.

first post

the small thought to beginning