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Posts from May 2008

Listen for the sizzles

Croatianplatter

The start of a fresh, wonderful lunch outside under the grapevines / Sv. Vid, Croatia / May 2005

“When I don't eat very well, I feel sad,” she says. “If you don't eat right you get sick — you can see that all around. Why is it that people don't care?”

~ Luciana Spurio, chef at Le Virtu who comes from the  Abruzzi region of Italy, in a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Luciana advises us to turn off the exhaust fan in the kitchen and listen for the right sizzles: “The eyes, the ears, the nose, these are what you're cooking with and you put yourself in the recipe.”


If we cross worthily

Theseboots_2

On the threshold / New Jersey / May 2008

“ . . . beauty isn't all about just nice, loveliness like. Beauty is about more rounded substantial becoming. And I think when we cross a new threshold that if we cross worthily, what we do is we heal that patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere. And in our crossing then we cross on to new ground where we just don't repeat what we've been through in the last place we were. So I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”

~ John O'Donohue


No forward momentum

Robinseggblue_3

I have no forward momentum on this post-holiday Monday/Tuesday — think of the momentum and energy that the young robin needs to break through its shell / New Jersey / May 2008

This is the second Robin's egg fragment that I've found while out walking this spring. When I was young I remember reading about things described as “Robin's Egg Blue” — it always seemed so exotic and wonderful. This text is in the official web-safe color called Robin's Egg Blue: #00CCCC; it does seem to match the color of my found egg fragment. What a delightful, soothing color. A little piece of heaven on earth.


Other than ourselves

Seeandhear

Storm passing through / New Jersey / March 2008

“ . . . because we can never be other than ourselves, imprisoned by our time and place and circumstances. However much we want to learn, to know, we can only ever see things with our own eyes and hear with our own ears, and how we interpret what we see and hear depends, ultimately, on who we are and what we already think we know, or want to know.”

~ Daniel Mendelsohn in The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million


Fragaria

Strawberriesfresh

Early May strawberries from Barnsboro, Gloucester County; leave them out on the counter and you can smell their ripeness as you walk by / New Jersey / May 2008

Regardless of the season, we can now purchase almost any fruit or vegetable at any time of the year. However, the taste of this produce often leaves something to be desired. A bite into the first fresh Jersey strawberry of the season is like partaking of the food of the gods -- sweet and juicy and flavorful and . . . fragrant. Did you know that the Latin name for strawberry is Fragaria?


However far

Traintracks_2

Traveling west; looking back east / High above the Delaware River / March 2008

“Every person, in the end, is a person of a specific time, a specific place, and from that there is no escaping, however far he may travel.”

~ Daniel Mendelsohn in The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million


Intuitive in function

Mayflower

In spring the dark-maroon buds come out on this bush. Suddenly one day the buds perfume the air with an amazing fresh grape smell. Then the buds start to disappear and the leaves fill out. I wish that I knew the name of this bush, I know it is an old-fashioned variety / New Jersey / May 2008

“Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow.”

“The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.”

~ Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) writer, journalist, teacher and political activist