god and sandwiches

i got a present

 

profundity in the woods in the late part of a Sunday afternoon. not many leaves left here, and not many aspens in a conifer forest, and not many sunbeams in a mostly east-facing canyon and yet! one tree with the lights in it. right in front of me.

we are not always this lucky - to have something so close to a blessing ring and shine at us. but, when the conditions are right: solitude is certain, quietness abounds, light blows and bends in the sky, stillness  radiates from the walking body (however that seems to happen), the mind is unfurled, reaching and open, well, you can be struck like a bell if you put yourself out there.

and so often such profundity is a flash and a retina burn. but for me, on this walk, it wasn't. it was long and drawn out and dreamlike. and i wavered like the autumn grasses myself, rooted to the spot but also surging away from myself, squinting into the blown beacon of one lit and gilt aspen tree as if the only thing in the world that mattered was my standing there, in muddy clogs, with a snarled braid zipped partially into my jacket, with numb fingers and a dry mouth wondering if Divinity could be so powerful and also so mundanely present in the regular world. 

i should say i am not usually moved by a thing so electric and huge as some people call God. but i do, absolutely and surely, believe in the large and complex plans of the Universe. i like that the Universe lets you in to those plans sometimes, and sometimes shocks you to your marrow, and then lets you carry on and maybe get startled by not one, not two but three pairs of moose later on the walk that force you to run back to the car for fear of being flattened. i like that, because i feel at once small and immensely relevant (though still weak and inconsequential.)

after the present i felt i should give back and so, because we had a nice heap of eggs, and some lovely growing things and (importantly) a nice velvety square of cheese i made a magical and lit up sandwich in honor of the Golden Tree.

mostly the stain of these beets is what revved me up. like egg yolks. steamed them in their paper thin jackets, a few drops of water and some salt in a warm oven.

 

caramelized some onions with fennel, thyme and himalayan salt 

 

scarped out the onions, added a thick slice of butter and this mountain of spinach and beet greens

 

meanwhile charring some poblano peppers from the market on a spare burner (the crackling smoke was green, how strange.) tipped in 5 eggs whisked with a little cream and some salt and pepper and cooked it over low until it pulled away form the skillet and rose high at the edges 

 

rubbed some sourdough bread with garlic and toasted under the broiler 

 

dotted the frittata with a few nuggets of saint andre, and finely chopped up one last, and very soft, yellow tomato and...

   

voila! add a tangle of parsley and there is a sandwich fit to honor a glowing tree.

solitary fish supper

last week's dreamy warm spell made me want something to eat that was snapping and bright. luckily this lady is good for those kinds of things (despite aversions to animal food) and i was inspired to see something unusual poking into a bowl of familiar grains. fennel is something i love, slow roasted or steamed or shaved paper thin in salads. but raw and in wedges i usually find it too stiff and unyielding. however, softened up with ample amounts of citrus, warming spice and a few tweaks it was a happy supper for one lady.

i didn't have fennel flowers (ours have long since frozen) but happily made do with chopping up the fronds. i used farro instead of spelt and used a healthy bit of preserved lemon since those were what happened to be gleaming down from the cupboards at the time. also one luminous shingle of salmon from the summer's Alaska stock happened to be just the oily and mellow taste the whole thing needed to rest harmoniously on the tongue. thank goodness for week night salad.

fennel, citrus, herbs, salt, waiting for the farro to be done...

...salmon marinated with more fennel greens, preserved lemon, a squeeze from a grapefruit and an orange, some good olive oil and dulse flakes

the dusky final bowl.

heart snipping

autumn is here; winter is coming; we all need warmth and complexity. challenges and hoar frost and plans for resolution. so i bought a rabbit. 

i think it stems from a part of me wanting something to rise up and meet me in the ritual of eating an animal. something with a different grain and more difficulty than simply wrapping whole chickens up in brown paper or unfurling the waxed tissue that the little shrimps come twisted up in. a rabbit comes whole (at least to me he did), sheathed in plastic in the self same seated position he may have been in right before his life was snuffed out. (sad, truly. but you cannot deny it is an animal when you snip away the packaging jacket and see him resting on the cutting board. he is an animal, here are his small feet, the nub of his tail, the force and fastness of the muscles that shot him through the grass. and it is a tender thing, i think, to apply yourself to dressing him.) and so i set out to butcher him in the most respectful way i could. laying aside his luminous heart as a marker on the cutting board: this little bundle of muscle propelled a living thing! and i divided him at his joints, using a sharp and swift knife, a little pot of burning sage and tobacco for thanks, and a plan to use all of him.

 

i saved the back bone and put it up with the chicken backs we freeze for stock. (rabbit and chicken have a similar flavor and a natural affinity for one another when mixed.)  then snipped the little organs from the cupped palms of the rabbit's ribs and made them into stock with onion, rosemary, bay and peppercorns.

then i browned him in butter and olive oil, tucked him into the le creuset with more onions, castelveldrano olives and so on to feed our little house while the cold crept in.

Rabbit Braised with Olives
(adapted from here, gotta love Mr. Bittman)

1 generous glug of olive oil
a thick curl off the end of a stick of butter with a small knife
1 rabbit, whole, about 2 1/2 pounds
2 sprigs fresh rosemary or a rounded teaspoon dried
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine, vermouth, sherry or marsala (marsala will make a decidedly different kind of dish, so if you decide on marsala adjust the rest of spices accordingly)
 2 to 3 cups chicken or rich vegetable stock (i used the rabbit stock above)
3 small chopped tomatoes or half a can of tinned tomatoes, diced (not pureed!)
two bay leaves
barest whiff of cinnamon or scratch across a whole nutmeg
fistful oil cured olives, green or black, chopped or whole depending on what you like to find happily speared on the end of your fork.
1 pound dried pasta ribbons, something substantial. i used tagliatelli but anything long will do

preheat the oven to 350.

warm the oil and float the butter in the bottom of a heavy bottomed and deep casserole or saucepan (or the dreamy le creuset) over medium heat. more oil for a bigger rabbit, less for a smaller one. brown the pieces of rabbit in batches if they will not all fit comfortably in the pan- crowd it too much and the meat will steam instead of sear.

remove the rabbit and set aside. add to the warm rabbit-seasoned oil the garlic and salt immediately to keep from burning. add the onions once the garlic has softened but before it's taken on color- about 3 minutes. season with rosemary, salt and pepper and stir until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes more.

remove the aromatics from the pan, raise the heat to medium high, and deglaze with the wine, stirring constantly to lift up anything that's stuck to the pan. when the wine has reduced to the consistency of runny honey (a matter of a few minutes) add the aromatics and the rabbit and stir. tip in the tomatoes, the olives, 2 and half cups of the stock, the bay leaves and the secret cinnamon or nutmeg. stir to distribute evenly.

put a top on the vessel and put into the oven for about an hour, checking to see if more moisture is necessary, if so use the reserved half cup stock or the juice from the tomato tin. it should be bubbling merrily but not furiously, adjust the oven for a happy medium if you need. when done the rabbit will be tender to the point of a knife and separate from the bone easily. it should not be falling off the bone of its own accord, this much cooking will dry the rabbit out. remove the larger pieces of rabbit from the vessel and remove the meat from the bones. shred slightly with a fork.  discard bones and tendons and stir meat back into the broth and tomatoes. (rabbit bones are no good for dog stomachs, too small and brittle. the abundant tendons and chewier bits are great however, so be generous in doling these out should you have any extra mouths that are interested.)

a half an hour before the rabbit is done, boil the water for pasta and cook the ribbons. drain the pasta most of the way, leaving a fair amount of pasta water clinging to the ribbons. toss the pasta directly in the vessel, tumble out on to plates and snow over with a fine drift of hard cheese.

this will taste slightly minerally and briny - in a good way. no dangerous gamey tastes with a gently cooked rabbit. the olives will cling nicely to the fork tines which is also quite pleasant.

: :

i go in and out of putting down words and images. lately words have abounded. and suddenly, now color and shape and line and space and the like.

some braids

because of this, these:

families

at school this week we drew family portraits. (someone's guess as to what a family portrait might be was "a family sitting on a porch".)

such a miraculous thing to see how what they make of a direct prompt. these sorts of things are usually not my thing, i don't like to guide the Littles through tasks where they make something recognizable. but in this circumstance, owing to a larger project in the near future, it had to be done (to my dislike.) but! beautiful things happened, and i silently cheered on those who put down abstracted shapes and broken lines to represent family members because of the way those people felt and seemed.

so we have energies and personalities translated into lines and colors. something adults pay tuition and hard sweat to learn, or to reconnect with, struggling all the while. but those under five years old? for them it just flows.

on "Crunch".

having read this gem in the New Yorker recently, I decided to go out and try for myself this crazy, new fangled apple. one they invented. invented.

genetically modifying plants aside, it is a strange and thrilling thing to eat something whose every facet, character, fault, victory and blemish were decided on, altered, and then presented in all its waxy glory.

groups of people sat with sharp pencils, little lined cards and spitting cups, to bite, chew and discard many apples before the Sweetango. this one, too soft. this? too hard. what about this? too sour, too sweet, too weak, too meek, too showy, not enough confidence, a narcissist, too histrionic, not good looking enough, too fat, too thin, too heavy, too round, foreign, awkward, bitter, a victim. these kinds of things, i'm sure.

and so i took myself into the Regular Old grocery (where, it is true, I am not a frequent shopper,) pleased to find, literally glowing in a halo of halogen and carnuba wax, the Sweetangos.

lordy.



it was the biggest thing i have ever eaten. slightly mealy to the touch. but. in the mouth? as promised, so juicy it wet the chin, and crunch enough to momentarily drown out the radio. as for the taste? i can't say i remember. i was enraptured by the crunch and the juice. apparently the taste wasn't figured into the modifying equation. perhaps they knew we'd be slightly embarassed at first by now knowing how to break the skin. the surface was so wide and taut and curved. and then be so blown over by the feel of the thing we'd forget to taste it. (or perhaps i have so long snubbed conventional and oversized fruit I forget that this is a common problem with mainsteam produce.) either way, the Sweetango. stunning and forgettable and somewhat difficult to wrangle.