Quote du jour/Taylor Goldsmith

... stepping into the evening is the time to praise the day.
Taylor Goldsmith
song - Waiting For Your Call
album - All Your Favorite Bands
band - Dawes

Hazel Nina and The Littles

Have you ever read any of the books in The Littles series by John Peterson? They were a big hit with my kids, and I still have their childhood copies. Early in January, when Hazel Nina was 13 months old, I took the first in the series off the shelf and thought we’d read it to her at nap time. 

Her crib is in the bedroom, so when she begins getting sleepy we go upstairs and pile on the big bed having a quiet time with stuffed animals and books. Tom and I take turns reading, and then I sing her the old Pat Boone song, April Love, as she nods off. This began when she was a very little baby. I had bought the song on iTunes ages ago, and happened to play it one day downstairs when I was holding her. She fell right asleep in my arms. It happened again and again, as we all shook our heads in wonder. I’ve thought of messaging Mr. Boone on his Facebook page and telling him that he has new fan. 

Anyhow, she was quite enthralled with The Littles. She peered at the cover and illustrations with great interest. We’d read a little bit each day, and when it was finished, went on to The Littles Take a Trip. Hazel had the same fascination with this book. 

February 24

When we began The Littles Give a Party her enthusiasm for the series took on a new intensity.

March 10

April 2

May 22

We got to chapter 8, and have proceeded no further. She takes the book away and won’t give it back. She studies it and ‘reads’ it. Her little babbling voice is so sweet and completely different from the sounds she usually makes.

June 12

The other day she tore the cover off, hugged it to her face, and gave it a little kiss. What on earth is it about this book that so captures her imagination? We’ll never know, and I guess I just have to read the book on my own to find out if Granny Little ever gets her 80th birthday party! 

Introducing Lucy the Labrador!

I wrote in March about the death of our beloved Sadie. The weeks since have been very sad and lonesome. We haven't been without a dog in our lives since 1973. I began looking around for a pup and found a breeder of Labrador Retrievers less than an hour away, and she had one little yellow male pup available for July. We sent a deposit and looked forward happily to next month. And then a couple days later, the breeder posted on Facebook that someone had returned an 8-month old spayed female yellow Lab because of a change in their work situation, and she was available right now! Well, you probably can guess what we did. Yup. Drove over on Saturday and picked up this adorable, sweet-natured girl.

Her name is Lucy, which pleases us because we used to have a Belgian Sheepdog named Lucy when the kids were little. She is working out very well and is great with Hazel Nina.

I think Tom's laughter in this picture expresses the happiness we feel.

And here she is, laying at my feet under the computer desk as I write.

Today's poem by William Butler Yeats

As I was watching the movie of 84, Charing Cross Road, I heard this, and thought I would share it here in my letters. So lovely.

Aedh Wishes for The Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths 

Of night and light and the half-light;

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) 

Quote du jour - Lucy Maud Montgomery

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.  

Lucy Maud Montgomery

A spring evening

I'm not sure there is anything quite as wonderful as a spring evening, with all the windows open and a temperature of 70 degrees and the air full of the sounds of peepers and tree frogs.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

It’s rhubarb season!! Although most people use a knife, I go out with my trusty little Fiskars garden shears and cut it. 

This recipe comes from one I found on Martha Stewart’s page. 

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8x8 or 9-inch round pan with cooking spray.

Streusel:

6 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup flour

Whisk together butter, sugar, and salt. Add flour and mix with a fork until large crumbs form. 

Cake:

Mix: 1/2 pound rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 

with 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 cup flour.

In another bowl mix: 

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

In the electric mixer mix:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

turn down speed and add the flour mixture.

Spread batter in prepared pan

Sprinkle with rhubarb 

and top with streusel

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 45 to 50 minutes. 

This was really great! You could substitute strawberries for some of the rhubarb, but this first time I wanted to try it with just rhubarb. You may top it with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, if you wish. I am amazed at how very many rhubarb recipes there are, and a fair few of them may be found under the 'recipes' tab! 

Lots more foodie subjects at Weekend Cooking.

Today's Poem by Robert Frost

Spring Pools

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect

The total sky almost without defect,

And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,

Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,

And yet not out by any brook or river,

But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. 

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods -

Let them think twice before they use their powers

To blot out and drink up and sweep away

These flowery waters and these watery flowers

From snow that melted only yesterday. 

Robert Frost

photo taken by Tom on April 28

One year old today!

Here is Campbell Walker at his birthday party on Sunday. The theme was Where The Wild Things Are. He stayed dressed in his Max outfit for about a minute!

A Year with Mrs. Appleyard - April

This month’s entry is purely whimsical - a story told to her by man who heard it from his cousin who knew a cousin of the man who cut down the overgrown forsythia bushes at the Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, outside of Boston. Though she suspects it isn’t true, 

when she likes a story she never investigates it. 

Mrs. Appleyard loves forsythias, and 

wonders how people got along in the world before William Forsyth brought this flowering shrub from China. Without the yellow starred sprays that droop over walls, without the tangled thickets that catch the sunlight and hold it, without the patches that seem like sunshine itself on gray days, the time before the leaves come would be bleak indeed.

The forsythias of the story were “so old that they had grown into each other.” When the flowers went by, the leaves filled the branches, “thick enough to keep out rain and hot sun.” The man who passes along this tale said that when the bushes were cut down, they found a whole family of Italians living there. “My cousin says it was their summer cottage.”

Well, Mrs. Appleyard takes such a fancy to this notion that she begins to invent a whole life around this family, which she calls, fittingly enough, the Forsythia family. They lived in the North End of Boston the rest of the year, and settled in their forsythia ‘cave’ during the hot summer months. Some of them worked in the city, and would leave the Arboretum when the gates opened in the morning. Mr. Forsythia kept a fruit and vegetable shop, and 

Doubtless he would often bring home a bag of bananas or tomatoes. They would ripen splendidly in the pleasant twilight and even temperature of the cave.

They did their washing at the edge of the pond. The older son “that rising young stonemason” builds a fireplace upon which his mother “makes an especially succulent variety of spaghetti.” An older daughter worked in a beauty shop and brought home bread.

In fact, the whole thing was idyllic and Mrs. Appleyard thinks it was a great pity that the shrubs were ever cut down. However, they are responding to their pruning and perhaps in a few years …

And thus ends the April installment. What a lovely little children’s book this would make, with delightful illustrations of the Forsythia family and their home and activities. I was utterly enchanted.

You may read about the Arnold Arboretum here. And though this photo is not from the Arboretum, it gives me the feeling that a cozy home could be made underneath the tangle of branches.

Hopscotch

How do I explain why I love this 1980 movie so much? I must have seen it when it first came out, but since then I haven’t gone looking for it, or even remembered it particularly. But a while ago I watched it, and then watched it again, and again, and then finally bought the DVD. 

I think one of the reasons I love it is that the hero, Miles Kendig, played by Walter Matthau, is always in control. There is never a moment in the film when he is outsmarted or thwarted or in danger. Another reason the movie is so appealing is takes place in some beautiful locations - Salzburg, London, the English countryside, Savannah, and Munich.

Kendig is a savvy ex-CIA agent who decides to write his memoirs when the agency demotes him to an office job. He reconnects with an old girlfriend, played by Glenda Jackson. They have one of the best on-screen relationships ever. They really understand and deeply love one another. 

The movie is fast-paced and funny and relaxing because we know that Matthau will come out on top. Now that I have the DVD, I watch it as often as I like, and I never, ever tire of it. The cast is excellent, and Matthau’s son and step-daughter are also in the film which makes for a little extra fun. 

David Matthau, Herbert Lom, Ned Beatty, Sam Waterston

Another treat is that Kendig is a Mozart fan so there is a lot of beautiful music. There’s a great deal of humor - some slapstick and some intellectual and I love it all. 

Here are a couple quotes from the movie that I found interesting. 

At one point there is a discussion about how many publishers are in London, and the answer was

A dozen or so major houses. Perhaps 30 or 40 small presses.

I wonder how many there are now. I’d guess a lot fewer.

And there's a funny line spoken by Isobel -

An American without ice in his drink is unthinkable, if not unconstitutional.

This is certainly true of all the Americans I know, but not this one. I never put ice in my cosmo. 

You may read a great review of Hopscotch here. And you may watch it on Hulu Plus.

If you buy the DVD, there is a wonderful conversation with the writer of the book, which won the Edgar Award in 1976, Brian Garfield and the director of the film Ronald Neame who says that Hopscotch "didn’t get very good reviews but it was tremendously popular."

Here is the trailer

Today's picture/ This old magazine cover tells the weather story around here

Pictures of Bee-bim Bop

For this week’s Weekend Cooking, 

I thought I’d offer pictures my kids posted on Instagram of their versions of Bee-bim Bop, based on the children's book I wrote about here. The suppers were a huge success!

Michael's

Margaret's 

Clothesline revisited

Three years ago, almost to the day, I posted about my new clothesline. I didn’t keep it there too long. Turns out that the little walkway out to it between the lilac and honeysuckle wasn’t so much fun because of the giant rhubarb in the path. I could have transplanted it somewhere else, but decided it was easier to move the line.

So, Tom dug up the clothesline and put it out by the barn. It was a lovely spot, and served as a blog header picture last May. 

Today it was moved again to a place closer to the house. We could put it here because the old maple was cut down last fall, leaving a sun-drenched place just right for a clothesline. I couldn't be more pleased.

Judi Dench short movie

There's a wonderful 2011 short (about ten minutes) film on youtube called Friend Request Pending which stars Judi Dench. It is simply delightful. And here it is!

Omelet

I must say right at the beginning that I have never eaten an omelet. I’m a little funny with eggs. I like scrambled eggs cooked the Mary Poppins way. And I like some versions of egg salad, and I bake with eggs all the time, but there’s just something about them that makes me feel squeamish. Two of my favorite characters in children’s fiction are not fond of eggs. Beverly Cleary’s Ramona doesn’t like soft-boiled eggs ‘because she did not like slippery, slithery food.’  But while Ramona will eat deviled eggs (as I will sometimes), Russell Hoban’s Frances doesn’t like eggs in any form, and makes up little songs about them.

I do not like the way you slide,  I do not like your soft inside, I do not like you lots of ways, and I could do for many days without eggs.

and

Poached eggs on toast, why do you shiver with such a funny little quiver.

Frances says that

Sunny-side up eggs lie on the plate and look up at you in a funny way. And sunny-side down eggs just lie on their stomachs and wait.  … Scrambled eggs fall off the fork and roll under the table. 

In movies and books often an omelet is a romantic late-night meal shared by a couple. It may also be a Sunday brunch item cooked with lots of vegetables and cheese. An omelet is Tom’s go-to food. Just for fun last night I did a search on how to make an omelet. One of the results was this youtube video. I left Tom a note suggesting he might want to make one using this fellow’s method. Tom cooks his omelets quickly at a high temp, using two eggs, and while he has always enjoyed them, he did indeed try this slower method with three eggs, and he thought it was perfectly delicious. He made his with cheddar cheese, spinach, tomato, yellow pepper, and a little parsley. 

He was so pleased that I thought I’d share the video with any of you who are omelet fans, 

and use it as an offering for Weekend Cooking.

Article on Laurie Colwin written by her daughter Rosa Jurjevics

This was in the Barnes and Noble Review, here. If you've read my letters for a while, you know how fondly I feel toward Laurie Colwin. If not, just type her name into the search bar.

Looking for Laurie

Posted by Rosa Jurjevics  November 26, 2014

Editor’s Note: To mark the publication of a new edition of Laurie Colwin’s classic works on food and life, Rosa Jurjevics looks back on her mother’s legacy, on and off the page.

Sometimes, all it takes is a glance. I’ll be on the train, or waiting in line at the supermarket checkout, or about to cross the street, and right there, right over there, is a tiny piece of my mother. It’s always a small something—a skin tone or a hairstyle, a striped shirt, those perfect teeth I’m lucky enough to have inherited—grafted onto the body or face of a stranger. Once it was a tiny, irregularly shaped gold-hoop earring on someone with a head full of chestnut brown curls that did it. I hung there as everything rushed by me at the same speed, tunnel vision locked on the unfamiliar woman who had no idea why the big-eyed weirdo was staring at her unflinchingly.

Shocked doesn’t quite describe how I am or how I feel after the sudden appearance of a mysterious not-my-mother; dumbfounded might be a better word, with longing a close second.

It’s strange to think that the last time I saw my mother (whom I will at times, out of habit these days,

refer to as Laurie) was more than 20 years ago. I was eight—a newly minted third grader with a beige plastic recorder, a fish tank full of neon tetras, and a matted blond ponytail trailing down my back. My biggest concerns then were: if my friend Julia and I were fighting or not, which Playmobil set I wanted for Christmas, and how I could get out of having to load the dishwasher. Little did I know…

Laurie’s death was the end of the line for us as mother and child, in most ways; in the ways that matter the most. No longer could we quarrel over what was going in my school lunch (“YES, Fruit Roll-Ups, Mom!”), or go for a walk around the neighborhood together (just because), or shop for my father’s birthday present (a tie, from Saks).

She didn’t get to see me graduate from high school or college; she didn’t have a chance to read the articles I wrote, watch the videos I made, or get a hand-drawn card from me in the mail. In turn, I don’t get to have her over for coffee (from the blue Hall teapot I would have begged off of her) at my apartment, call her up to ask how long I ought to bake chicken and at what temperature (45–55 minutes, 350 degrees in the oven I have now), or introduce her to a significant other (not that she’d have liked most of them).

It is hard to carry on a rapport of any kind with a person who is no longer alive— harder still when that person is your mother. But, though the idea is undoubtedly an odd one, there is still a relationship between us. As I would were she alive, I still get mad at her when I learn of something she did that angered another person, or left them hurting.

In antique stores, I consider which pattern of plate I would have bought for her, or what kind of teacup would have fit perfectly in her small, long-fingered hands. When another of her beloved New York institutions closes and reopens as a gentrified mess, I am indignant on her behalf as well as my own. Laurie would have forever mourned losing the Empire Diner, Balducci’s in the Village, and the L&S Dairy, and would have cursed every mega-million-dollar hotel to invade the meatpacking district. “These developers are morally bankrupt and out to lunch,” she might have said, slouched in a booth at the still-standing Carnegie Deli. And, lifting her can of Cel-Ray high, she’d toast: “To the same old thing!”

Though there will be no more words from Laurie Colwin, no more –isms and quotable sayings, no more long breakfasts, roast chicken dinners, or lazy Connecticut summers together, I still continually discover her. More of her comes out through what has already happened—the past rockets into the present in the form of the letters that I rescued from my grandmother’s nutty Philadelphia townhouse, or scribbled notes my mother took throughout my lifetime, and stories her friends and frenemies (though death seems to bury most hatchets) relate to me over meals, emails, and the phone calls.

And, of course, there are the books. I need only to crack open my well-worn copies of Home Cooking—complete with an illustrated inscription from my mother, crayon-colored in my 4-year-old hand—and More Home Cooking to see the life we led together as real and as immediate as if those days of warm fires and tussles over chores and Halloween gallivanting and gingerbread-making were still ahead of us.

Laurie leaps off the pages of her books, and not just in my hot little hands but in kitchens and favorite reading chairs across the country; from bedside tables and shelves holding beloved volumes in France, England, Spain, and Japan. “She’s like the best friend I never met,” people tell me, and I get it, for she was the mother I never fully got to know.

I will constantly be looking for Laurie; I will reach for her again and again and again, as long as I’m here. It’s to be expected, and it’s not a sad thing. In fact, it’s a hopeful one. I can still get to know my mother as her now-grown child, by hearing tales of her years as a young woman, learning who her favorite poet was, or reading about where she got the original recipe that inspired her amazing beef stew.

Laurie Colwin—Mom to me, really; forever Mom—wrote as she spoke, with a light in her eye and keen wit about her, and for this I am forever thankful; in some small way, my mother will always be here, on those pages, almost as alive as ever.

Spot's First Easter by Eric Hill

In the days leading up to Easter I read Spot's First Easter to Hazel Nina. She enjoyed it just as much as Spot's First Christmas which I wrote about here.

It begins with Spot and his friend Helen going off to find Easter eggs, as Spot's mother looks on. 

And the reader's fun begins!

They look outdoors

and indoors, where they find a surprise.

When all six eggs are found, the book ends so beautifully.

After the reading we had a treat. Margaret had hidden eggs around our house with little snacks inside, and Hazel Nina loved finding them.