Monthly Archives: February 2020

Pantry Soup

“Pantry Soup” sounds better than “Pandemic Soup,” don’t you think? This cabbage bean combo fits the emergency-preparedness bill because most of the ingredients can be found in the well-stocked larder. Also, it relies on root vegetables which can sit on the counter for weeks.

Pantry Soup / Serves 2

1/2 onion, diced

small wedge of cabbage cut into ribbons

couple of potatoes diced

14 oz can of diced tomatoes, w/liquid

14 oz can of beans (I used cannellini)

2 T of powdered chicken broth / 4 c water

2 T of miso*

2 disks of jalapeños

Sauté onion and cabbage. Throw everything else in except the miso, save that for the end. Bring to low boil and cook until potatoes are done, about 20 minutes. Remove a little broth into a bowl and soften the miso in it and then dump back in.

Salt and pepper.

Serve.

Hearty and satisfying. I don’t know about you, but I almost always have onion, potatoes, and cabbage in the house. Cans of tomatoes and beans and miso are staples, always to hand. If it had been a week that I’d been out and about, I would have finished with a pretty handful of chopped parsley.

I know I’m near heathy because I found myself at the grocery store before 7. Not quite a dawn run but close. The 22 degree air braced and refreshed.

Sign of the times: no Purell; no disinfectant wipes; dried beans very picked over.

I did manage to get some bleach and Lysol spray, plus TP and paper towels even though we have some. Also: a big jar of Tylenol.

These poor lonesome Yukon Golds looked like they were waiting for something — maybe to have their picture taken?

I felt a little strange stocking up so heartily when I already have a pantry that could feed us for weeks, but then I realized that my exuberant shop had more to do with being confined to the house most of the week than with fears about pandemics.

Also: can you say The Great British Baking Show? It was my greatest balm this week and I am gonna bake bread even though I’ve only done so twice in my life and technically I don’t eat gluten.

Thank you for all you insightful and kind comments yesterday. I haven’t quite finished responding there, but wanted Michelle to know that even though I did read Twitter upon waking (instead of smiling and gently stretching), the podcast I chose for my errand this morning was Ezra Klein interviewing former poet laureate Tracy K. Smith and NOT my usual political fare.

* thanks to my chef friend, Elizabeth Germain, for the miso master stroke. I happened to be talking to her on the phone while tasting the soup. It was a little bland. She said blonde miso would’ve blended in better but I only had dark and it was yummy.

PS if you double the recipe to serve 4, don’t double the miso.

Trying not to say it

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Maybe I should rename this blog “Pattern and Despair”?

Nightmares have moved back in.

They dogged me for the first thirty years of my life — vivid and terrifying. After years of interventions (therapy, Rolfing, hypno-therapy, rebirthing, sessions with psychics, trauma journaling), they stopped. It seemed their job was done.

Last night’s:

I am walking along the edge of a frozen pond when a hole opens up and a man with a male teenager emerges. In the dream that’s not weird. The older male is holding a clipboard and pretending to need directions. I nearly instantly understand that he is trafficking in humans and turn and run. He yells after me, like what is my problem. “It’s the teen aged boy!” I yell back, hoping I can out run him.

Also this:

I am participating in what is a normal ritual, carving hunks of flesh off of Jennifer Aniston. It’s not clear if there is a purpose or significance to this, but in the dream its ordinary and not life threatening. She’s wrapped in cloth and it’s hard to see. There are three or four of us at it. She feels her breast after a while and asks me, “Did you take my nipple?!” Turns out I did but I hadn’t meant to. I just couldn’t see where I was working. Now she is damaged.

Woke to NPR and honestly the first five stories qualify as waking nightmares.

I hope this is the flu talking. Today I will walk the dog and make dinner, which is twice as much as what I did yesterday.

Update: the beech against a blue sky is really something.

And, even though I’m machine piecing, takin’ it slow with C’s quilt.

Unsettled

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Yesterday, I was too unsettled to focus and coming down with K’s cold, so I cleaned a little. Dusted our big corner cupboard. Rearranged things. This always satisfies me.

And lo! I discovered a SECOND Aquarian Tarot deck. Noreen’s spare. Not the one worn with frequent use that I passed along to Deb, but an almost pristine version. I was shocked and pleased to count 78 cards.

(I made that little cloth case years ago).

Today, I’m more sick. So much awful barking and coughing last night. I’ll watch old Vera episodes and eat the leftover potato leek soup and perhaps not much else.

What I WON’T do is listen to any of the 87 messages discovered cached in Comcast voicemail. Didn’t know they were there. Yesterday, I listened to a few from summer and fall of 2016. I don’t know which was harder, my sister’s child-like reports designed to gain my approval or her ridiculous wrath about my inadequacies.

I never wanted to be her mother.

(I DID use some pink thread, after all).

Support

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Support can be jerry-rigged. Improvisational.

Look at the care taken to uphold this old, semi-rotted fence post.

The question about what will uphold our institutions is never far from our minds these days. What nail? What piece of twine?

An election? Even one tampered with, not just from within but externally, too?

The level of excitement at the first day of early voting at City Hall here in a suburb of Boston was palpable. No place to park. Seven people handing out ballots. A camera crew out front.

Bernie supporter in my Indivisible group: Bernie is being unfairly treated as unelectable.

Me: Bernie is unfairly being treated as a juggernaut.

Debates tonight. Let’s hope Steyer isn’t the punching bag

I hate to say it, but some days I feel like that fence post.

Big cloth, small glass

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In progress, all over the living room: the six panels for First Born’s bed-sized quilt.

Will I finish in time for an upcoming birthday? Probably not. But finishing is the goal.

I keep finding glass from the shattered tumbler — in the dishwasher, on the floor.

I canvassed for Warren yesterday. The NV results were discouraging but here are three ideas to remember (cling to?):

Bill Clinton lost IA, NH, and NV;
the 75,000 early ballots in NV were cast before the most recent debate; and
Warren raised $12MM after that debate.

My last bday celebration took place across town last night with two long-time friends — one a fellow February baby, the other the host and a terrific cook. We’re all getting older. Actually, we’re all terrific cooks, too!

We sat by the fire and talked about all kinds of things, including — ESG-filtered investments, dating apps, grandchildren, Harriet Tubman, the NV caucus, butter beans, and how to survive in a wholly altered America.

“We only have each other. Small, local communities.”

I wonder: what kind of paperwork does one need to live, say, in Montreal?

We swapped inspiring links. I offered up the Future Primitive podcast link about regenerative design and B gave me (another) terrific astrology link as well as this:

Trash to Treasure

So if as Maddow says this is not the threat of dark times but the dark time themselves, it seems incumbent upon all of us to document gratitude and small miracles.

This orchid seems poised to bloom. It’s a kind of miracle if you ask me — especially because I know nothing about orchids or what they need. There’s a sky light, so maybe that?

The orchid was a long ago bday gift from D, who cooked dinner last night. From Georgia. The butter bean expert.