Evening Light in Mid-October

Today's picture/Bread and Rolls

I just love how the bread and rolls look in the late afternoon sunlight.

Quote du jour/Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mrs Bale talks about fall color

To quote Van Morrison, today truly is a "golden autumn day." This has been such a beautiful fall so far. Much sunshine, and the most remarkable color. Around here, we talk about "peak" color a lot, but I've come to feel it is all peak. It just depends where you look. You might see a stand of red maples in September and know they are as beautiful as they can be. Then the red becomes muted, and we see orange and yellow, and the rusty color of the oaks. This goes on for weeks if we are lucky and the rain and winds don't take away the leaves too quickly.

Just before midnight

The Red Sox did it!

Sunday Supper - Waffles

For tonight's supper I chose another recipe from The Tasha Tudor Cookbook.

Tasha Tudor's Waffles or Pancakes

The recipe begins:
Pancakes were a winter favorite with my children. Served with real maple syrup, they are heavenly. And made on the wood stove on a heavy iron griddle, they are really a treat for breakfast or supper. There was the added fun of feeding the first-cooked to the hens – "hen pancakes," they were called. We once had a Jersey cow who devoured waffles. A look of bliss would come to her liquid brown eyes as she munched. The children claimed that her milk always tasted better on Sunday nights for this reason.

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 farm-fresh eggs, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter; melted

Sift into a bowl the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Beat the eggs lightly in a second mixing bowl.
Stir in the milk and the melted butter.
Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and blend.

To make pancakes, spoon the batter onto a hot, greased griddle or skillet. When the tops are bubbly, turn them and cook the other side until nicely brown. Place the pancakes on warm plates and serve immediately.

To make waffles, spoon the batter into a preheated waffle iron. The waffles will be cooked when steam no longer rises from the waffle iron. Serve immediately on warm plates.

Makes 14 4-inch pancakes or 6 waffles.

My notes:
I used the Kitchen Aid mixer and the electric fry pan.
The butter was salted.
I used half whole wheat flour and half unbleached white, both courtesy of King Arthur.
I put that real maple syrup on top, and didn't even need any butter. These are so, so good!
Our waffle maker made 3 waffles, enough for supper and breakfast and maybe Tom's lunch tomorrow.

Invasion of the pods :<)

I've been meaning to write about this subject all summer. We have a huge, huge iris plant. I don't recall where I bought it, but I've had it a few years. It didn't blossom for a while, but had gorgeous, lush leaf growth so we let it stay, hoping the flowers would eventually come. Well, this summer, they did. We had very, very pretty yellow iris flowers.



But I began to wonder about the plant itself, about why it was so big, and I discovered that in some places, including my own state -just this year, it is considered an invasive species. Apparently it goes wild if planted near water. Well, ours is along the fence which borders our road and there is no water anywhere, but still it grows. It was planted on one side of the fence, but it has spread to both sides.


This is what I saw when I went out today, and I thought it plenty scary. And this is just one pod. There were many of them, all waiting to grow and grow and grow.



It is overpowering everything around it. So, we've decided to dig it up, and I hope we don't need to rent a backhoe to do so.

Today's picture/Turkeys

Now, you might ask, why is she putting up this photo as a today's picture. It isn't very clear and it was taken through a window. But, this is as good a photo as I will be able to get of the dear wild turkeys that come around. There were nineteen at one point, all eating the thistle and sunflower seeds under the bird feeders. Do you know the book Time and Again by Jack Finney? In it, the man is able to go back in time by setting the scene the way it was in the past. Well, that's how it feels when I see these creatures. If I look really hard, just at them, I can be transported back to the days of dinosaurs. They look so, so old. Apparently they were becoming very scarce, not too long ago, and a few were introduced, and what a success story they have become. They are everywhere; on the sides of the roads, in open fields, in condo developments, and happily at my house. As we enter hunting season, I wish I could tell them to just stay here. Go hang out with the chickens. There will be plenty to eat and you will be completely safe. But, alas, they are wild as the wind and must go where they will. You may see better photos here, as well as read more about these wonderful birds.

I resolve

On this day (mostly) spent away from the computer, I have come to a conclusion. I simply cannot, and will not buy any more new books for a long, long while. It is money I can't afford to spend. But even more importantly, I don't like the feeling that comes from buying, buying, buying when my shelves are filled with unread books. Too often I hear about a book, and think I simply must own it. Well, I don't have to own it. I can borrow it from the library, or I can put it on an ever-growing list of books I'm interested in reading. And if I don't want to read the books in my house, why, oh why did I buy them in the first place? This is a big thing for me. I've resolved to do this before, but didn't stick with it. This time I'm announcing it to the world, or at least the bit of the world who visits my blog. :<)

Here are a few glimpses of books patiently waiting for me to read them.

Quote du jour/Edith Carow

While one can lose oneself in a book, one can never be thoroughly unhappy.
Edith Kermit Carow,
later to become the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt

October Light

October Light
Robin and Linda Williams, from their Deeper Waters album.

Each day we walk up on the hill
And watch the setting sun
Play on the trees and fields until
It falls and day is done
Yellow, orange, blue and rose
The colors neon bright
The evening sky is all aglow
With this October Light

We sit together in the swing
Our faces to the west
And talk of what tomorrow brings
And what today has left
We trace the dimming day
As dusk fades to night
So we don’t miss a single ray
Of this October Light

Oh the long dark shadows eulogize
The sun fleeing southward in the sky

There ain’t no saving daylight
When the tenth month comes around
September’s memories take flight
As heaven’s lamp turns down
So we feast on eventide
Cause November’s chilling bite
Is waiting on the other side
Of this October Light

Book Report/The Tale of Hill Top Farm

In 1905, a few short weeks after her fiancé died, Beatrix Potter bought Hill Top Farm in the Lake District of England. In the eight years thereafter, she visited often but did not settle there until 1913 when she married William Heelis. Susan Wittig Albert is writing a cozy mystery for each of these eight years. They are called The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, and the first in the series, published in 2004, is The Tale of Hill Top Farm. This is my second reading of the book, and this time I listened to an unabridged audiobook read by Virginia Leishman.

The author spent a lot of time researching Beatrix Potter for this series, and the book is a fascinating combination of real life and fantasy. Not only does Miss Potter seem exactly right, but Albert has the animals talk. I think in my heart of hearts I have always hoped that they do talk to one another, and that they try talking to us, but we just can't hear them. This device in the novel works. It isn't cutesy. Rather it is just matter of fact; of course they talk.

There is a mystery, but mostly the book is about the area, village life, and Beatrix Potter. It couldn't be more pleasant. The author has a really beautiful and informational website with maps, descriptions, and drawings.

Like the English-country-life novels of Miss Read and Angela Thirkell, Albert's Beatrix Potter books are balm for the soul and entertaining forerunners to a good night's sleep.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Today's poem - October by William Cullen Bryant

October

by William Cullen Bryant

Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief
And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay
In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright, late quiet, would that I
Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks
And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

Sunday Supper - Scrambled Eggs and Popovers

It's amazing how an idea comes into one's head. Yesterday I read Robin's great post about Rosamunde Pilcher, and saw the phrase "scrambled eggs for dinner." I've been thinking about them since, so that's what tonight's supper is, along with popovers. If you are interested, the popover recipe is here.

The scrambled eggs recipe comes from a children's book called Mary Poppins In The Kitchen, and they are truly the best ever.

Scrambled Eggs

6 eggs
1/2 t. salt
1 twist of the pepper mill
3 T. butter

Break eggs into bowl.
Add salt and pepper.
Beat lightly with a fork. This is really mixing, not beating.
Melt butter in saucepan.
Pour in eggs and stir over gentle heat with a wooden spoon until they thicken.
Do slowly to give eggs time to digest the butter. Result will be creamy and buttery.
Do not overcook unless you like your eggs dry and grainy.
Stir in T. or so of finely chopped fresh parsley. (didn't do this)
Six eggs will make 4 generous servings.

My note:
We love these eggs. Butter is the secret. I did exactly as the
recipe said, and they were perfect.
PS This photo doesn't begin to do them justice.

Today's cd/Breakfast on the Morning Tram

If you've been coming by to read my letters for a while, you know that I am a huge Stacey Kent fan. I own all her albums, and play them often. Well, I am happy, happy, happy to report that she has a new one. She has gone in a new direction and is on a new label, the famous jazz label, Blue Note. She has been, to my mind, the queen of interpreting all the old standards, and on this one, she does new songs that may become standards someday. There are a few old songs on this cd; one which Louis Armstrong did so well, What A Wonderful World.

I hear babies cry. I watch them grow. They'll learn much more than I'll ever know.

The song that ends a cd is really important to me, for that is the song that stays with the listener, and this one is just the ticket - optimistic, beautifully sung, good words to keep in your head all the day long. She also does one you rarely hear sung these days, Hard-Hearted Hannah (the vamp of Savannah). She sings three songs in French, and I have to tell you I've always been a sucker for French songs. In my youth, I was buying Charles Aznavour and Francoise Hardy. And no, I'm not a linguist. I understand a word once in a while, but it doesn't matter. I just love the way they sound. And one of my favorite, favorite songs of all time is on this cd, Samba Saravah. Have you seen the 1966 film, A Man and A Woman? In it, the woman's husband sings to her about his trip to Brazil. It is, to my mind, one of the most romantic scenes in all moviedom. He is intoxicated with love for the country and shares it with his wife, constantly, at all times of day and night. She says something about she was there without even traveling. You may see the scene on you tube here.

So, what do I think? I love it. You will be perhaps surprised to learn that a few of the songs were written by Kazuo Ishiguro, the writer, with music by Jim Tomlinson, Stacey's husband. And what songs they are! Really interesting musical stories. And the icing on the cake is that she does another favorite song of mine, Stevie Nicks' Landslide.

But time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I'm getting older, too.

She does it beautifully, as she does every single song on this great, great new album.

Today's Pictures/Food for the body and the soul

I went over to another town today to the co-op health food store, and a beautiful library. Note the shallots to make Tara's mashed potatoes!

Further Afield/Pumpkins for sale

Quote du jour/Hal Borland

October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.
Hal Borland

The Joy of Baking - Cranberry Muffins

Hooray! It's cranberry season! Last evening we had vegetable soup and cranberry muffins for supper.

Cranberry Muffins

3/4 cup fresh cranberries, halved
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix cranberries with powdered sugar and set aside. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and granulated sugar into a medium bowl. Add egg, milk, and melted butter. Mix just until dry ingredients are moist. Fold in cranberry mixture. Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees F. for about 20 minutes until done.

Makes 1 dozen muffins.

These are delicious!

Product placement

Some people are vegetable fans, some are meat fans, some like fruit. I am a grain girl. I do like other foods, but my basic love is grains of all sorts. They are the foundation for the way we eat. Whole wheat and bulgur and brown rice and quinoa and pasta, because indeed, semolina is a grain. And cereal. We love cereal. I've just discovered a new one and wanted to share it with you all. It is called Holly's Oatmeal. I bought the Cranberry Almond, and I'll tell you, it is delicious. I'm going to try the Goji Berry next time I order. And yes, I must get it online since my local health food store doesn't carry it, and yes, it is pricey. But, I don't smoke and I don't travel much these days. Oh, you all know the excuses we make for spending money. :<) But, I feel good food is worth it, and this oatmeal is wonderful. The package suggests cooking it with soy or cow's milk, but I just cook it in water, very, very briefly (Tom says it is raw) and add about a teaspoon of honey. Ah, perfection.

Quote du jour/Eric Sloane

A few days ago I walked along the edge of the lake and was treated to the crunch and rustle of leaves with each step I made. The acoustics of this season are different and all sounds, no matter how hushed, are as crisp as autumn air.
Eric Sloane

Growing where I'm planted

Maybe I've been spending too much time with my dead, but alive to me, gardening pals, Henry Mitchell and Charles Dudley Warner, but I feel a bit of philosophical thought coming on. Today we "put the garden to bed." We cleaned it up and pulled out what was left of the vegetables, added manure and tilled it in. I love the fresh look of the vegetable garden all tilled and tidy, quietly awaiting the coming of spring.


I've been thinking a lot lately about how, if we are lucky, we live where we belong. I belong here. I like the gardening season, though many think it too short. My "summer" is bracketed by Memorial Day and Labor Day. By Labor Day, I'm done. I'm tired of all that lushness and I'm ready for order and a long view when the leaves come off the trees. I love this time with all its color, but I'm just as happy when the riot is over and November is here.

But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness. The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head... The harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on.
Robert Finch

This summer I was all consumed. It seemed like I thought of very little except flowers. I would go out and just stare at all the beauty. I would pick those daylily bouquets with the tenderest care. I mourned the flowers that didn't do well. I was sad that I didn't have more peas. I wondered (yet again) why my zucchini didn't grow. I planned to start seeds for next year, especially cosmos and cleome, to fill in spaces in the gardens. I lived and breathed gardening. I didn't want it to end, but when it did, I breathed a big sigh of relief, and said, "whew, that's over."

And this is what I mean. I live where I'm supposed to. I just couldn't take any more summer. I need the fall and the winter like I need air to breathe and water to drink. Others like a shorter, maybe milder winter and longer growing season, and that means they are where they should be. And that is good.

Sadie is three!

Today's poem - The Shining Moment in the Now by David Budbill

Another wonderful poem from David Budbill. I offered a spring one almost six months ago, and here, his setting is the fall.

This Shining Moment in the Now

When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do
now, in the fall,
getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden,
digging potatoes,
gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making
kindling, repairing
bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods,
doing the last of
the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down
the screens,
putting up the storm windows, banking the house—
all these things,
as preparation for the coming cold...

when I am every day all day all body and no mind,
when I am
physically, wholly and completely, in this world
with the birds,
the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees...

when day after day I think of nothing but what the
next chore is,
when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening
a chain saw,
to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood,
when I am
all body and no mind...

when I am only here and now and nowhere else—
then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse
of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.

Quote du jour/Chinese proverb

I have this neat little book which I gave to Tom way, way back when all things Eastern were so popular. My handwriting, well, really handprinting, in the inscription is so small and so very self-conscious. :<) Anyone seeing it would know it was that of a young college girl.

The Joy of Baking - Orange Cake

Here's another recipe from Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters. I thought this would be a good use of the many eggs Tom brought in from the barn this morning.

Mrs. Tate's "Old And Tried" Orange Cake, 1890

We found this recipe as we browsed through a pile of cookbooks we had bought in central Massachusetts. It literally fell into our laps. We were intrigued by the simple little recipe and the reference to "old and tried." This delicate all-natural cake flavored with the zest and juice of an orange, is very "Southern," and we still wonder how it made it all the way to New England. We'll never know!

For Cake:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar, sifted (I didn't sift)
1/2 cup water
5 egg yolks
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup butter, melted
4 egg whites

For Orange Glaze:
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
1/4 cup orange juice, if needed
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Set the oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Coat an 8-cup tube pan with vegetable spray or butter. Cut a piece of parchment paper or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Insert the liner, coat it with vegetable spray, and dust the pan with flour.

2. To make the cake: Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. Beat sugar and water in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time. Add orange zest and juice. Add sifted dry ingredients and combine until mixture is smooth. Add butter. Put this in a bowl.

4. Place egg whites in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat until stiff. Fold egg whites into batter.

5. Pour batter into tube pan. Bake approximately 45 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool on rack for 20 minutes before removing from pan. Cake will have pulled away from the sides of the pan.

6. To make the orange glaze: Mix together confectioners' sugar, orange zest, orange juice, and salt to a glaze consistency. Slip a sheet of wax paper under rack to catch drips. Poke tiny holes in top of cake with a cake tester and liberally spoon the glaze over the cake. Let glaze harden before serving. Store under cake dome or loosely wrapped in wax paper at room temperature.

As Mr. Monk says, here's the thing. The batter is so good, you may never actually bake the cake. :<)

I didn't have a orange, hence no zest. Also, my "glaze" was really more of a frosting. If you want it thinner, you could add water. I did use the parchment paper but it probably isn't necessary. This cake was so easy to make and so delicious, that I plan to make it again and again.

Today's poem - Soap Suds by Louis MacNeice

Soap Suds

This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big
House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open
To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop
To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.

And these were the joys of that house: a tower with a telescope;
Two great faded globes, one of the earth, one of the stars;
A stuffed black dog in the hall; a walled garden with bees;
A rabbit warren; a rockery; a vine under glass; the sea.

To which he has now returned. The day of course is fine
And a grown-up voice cries Play! The mallet slowly swings,
Then crack, a great gong booms from the dog-dark hall and the ball
Skims forward through the hoop and then through the next and then

Through hoops where no hoops were and each dissolves in turn
And the grass has grown head-high and an angry voice cries Play!
But the ball is lost and the mallet slipped long since from the hands
Under the running tap that are not the hands of a child.

Louis MacNeice, (1907-1963) in honor of his centenary last month

My favorite movie and music of the past summer

The movie and musical love of my summer was Once. I saw the preview, and went right out and bought the soundtrack, something I've never done before. I was so taken with the unique sound, the achingly beautiful voices, the tunes. And I have played it over and over ever since. Then I saw the film. It is a real original. It is a musical, it is a love story, it is quiet and simple, and to me, just perfect. I plan to buy it when it becomes available on dvd. I loved the setting, the story, the close family relationships, Marketa Irglova's clothes (!), and of course, the music. The movie takes its time to tell this little story, and there are long scenes which I thought were wonderful.



The song playing is Falling Slowly, sung by the stars of the film, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.


I was delighted when I showed my son the cd, and he immediately said it reminded him of the Bob Dylan cover, for this was my first thought when I saw it. I always loved that cover. I wanted to be that young, in-love couple, walking around a city. Well, that was in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and Once is set in Dublin, which I think can be compared to that earlier place and time. It is full of young people and music and life. And my boy noticed something further, which I had missed. They are walking on a guitar!

At this moment - indoors

I thought I would offer an at this moment in an indoors version. This is what I see:

The computer screen

The telephone table and view out the south facing windows.

Books, pottery bowls made by a friend, my mother's desk.

And behind me is our built-in bookcase.

I hear the washing machine going.
I smell bread just baked.
I taste that bread. :<)
I feel the afternoon warmth of the room.

And again, I would so enjoy reading about your moments.

Quote du jour/Anthony Trollope

This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for his creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.
Anthony Trollope

Quote du jour/Charles Dudley Warner

Here's another wonderful quote from one of my favorite gardening books.

I like to go into the garden these warm latter days, and muse. To muse is to sit in the sun, and not think of any thing. I am not sure but goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire. The late September and October sun of this latitude is something like the sun of extreme Lower Italy: you can stand a good deal of it, and apparently soak a winter supply into the system.

Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer In A Garden