the scent of water

Some things that are only mildly related to some other things.

  

Art is contagious.  ~ Brenda Ueland

I like the idea of art as a virus, infecting first the DNA of its creator and then rapidly spreading to whoever else is fortunate enough to cross its path.  There are some days when I wonder if there is any kind of point to art, and then there are days when I wonder if there is any kind of point without it?

There was a man who walked into the front garden of the house in my early morning dream and picked a bouquet of blue hydrangeas growing there.  He brought them inside as a present for our table, and to offer a warning of the danger waiting outside our front gate. Then he disappeared. Cheeky sod, I thought when I woke up, and decided that he must have come from my dream book.  His name is Luca and I am not quite sure whether anyone really knows if his heart is good or bad.

I am buying Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence as a birthday present for myself next month, partly because I love that title, and partly because in one of the lives I will almost certainly never live I hang out by myself in an isolated cabin in the Scottish Highlands.  If I can't have that particular dream then surely the next best thing is to be infected by the work of someone who can.

Here comes the rain again.

 

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.  ~ Chinese proverb.

No food pictures today but never fear, we are still eating.  Cookies mostly.  Instead, I've been trying to take some semi-attractive photos of a couple of books that make good cold weather reading (This Cold Heaven, and Winter's Bone, if you're interested), but the light has not been co-operating and so I am stealing these few slices of summer from my northern friends instead.  It's been a cold, hard winter.

(I dreamed a few nights ago that I was writing a book called A Strange Row of Trees, which my unconscious self thought was the most genius title ever.  Lord knows what it was about.  I also dreamed I was narrowly escaping burning meteors and aliens in tiny spaceships, so, you know.  Maybe not.)

1. a little cheer, 2. yarrow, 3. Peonies and lilacs, 4. wild things: gratitude 241.365

Apparently, what I mostly do is ramble.

According to the newly added category cloud in the side bar.  I put it there because I like to trawl through the different categories on other people's sites, depending on my particular mood that day, and thought it was time enough to have one of my own.  I didn't really assign categories before the end of last year, so it's not comprehensive, but never mind because, really, I think  it's rather safe to say that it's all pretty much just one big ramble.

 

I can't remember any longer how I found my way to this mujadara recipe, and even less why I tried it (just lentils, rice, and onions?  how good could that be?) but I thank all things foodie that I did.  It's my new favourite lunch. Truly delicious (though you really do have to heed her instructions re. cooking the onions long and slow, it's absolutely crucial).  You can see what I thought of it by the empty plate above -  I had made two servings, one for that day, one for the next.  Hah, yeah, good joke. 

I also thought an email I received today was a bit of a good joke the first time I read it, which brings me nicely to explaining the other new (and rather premature, but I've told you before how hopeless I am at waiting) addition to the sidebar.  If you've lived on planet blogland for more than a few seconds, you'll no doubt know of the Julie/Julia project that Julie Powell started nearly 7 years ago.  Then came the book, and now the movie.  The movie website is featuring a 'blog of the day' each day until the movie's release on August 7th, and the scent of water will be there in all its foodie-wanna-be glory on July 8th (why me?  I have absolutely no idea.  I figure if we all keep quiet, no-one will realise I'm a total fraud.  So ssssshhhh.) 

I think it probably makes me and Ms. Streep practically best friends, wouldn't you say? I have mentioned before the way I feel about her.  Check out the movie trailer on the website, it looks like a great one.

As obsessed as I am with food (and I am, very), it doesn't show up on this site as much as it does in real life, but I did have one idea a few months ago that I have never gotten around to doing, and now seems like the perfect time to give it a go. 

According to a national paper, it should cost somewhere around NZ$350/week to feed a family my size on an average food budget.  If I shopped at an organic store instead of the supermarket, I wondered, and left out all of the processed gloop I lazily shove into my trolley far too often, could I still keep it to this average budget?  I'd like to try. 

On Monday I will take out $350 in cash and see what it will get me for the week.  I'll catalogue what I make and what it cost me, etc., and so forth. I have both Julie's and Julia's memoir on my bedside table to read as encouragement when I can't be bothered to pull together yet another meal, and a ridiculously large number of cookbooks to look through for inspiration.  Rock on.

(In other news, I bought an older style second hand Bernina today for almost half what it would have cost me to repair my newish flash computerised one.  It'll arrive in a couple of days, and I've already decided on my first project: produce bags like these.  Everything's coming full circle, baby.  And I'm still rambling.)

I like books

 

And baths. But mostly books.

One of the unexpected joys I get when visiting bookshops and libraries these days is seeing the published fruit of fellow bloggers everywhere; too many now to name one by one.  It used to just be a small trickle of a few of the more popular blog authors, but now, at least in the sections I look in, you guys are all over the place. 

How fabulous.  I mean, really fabulous.  A publisher turned me down recently, citing the belief that only celebrity authors sell in the genre I was proposing to write a book in.  But she's wrong isn't she?  (Probably not about my book in particular, I have a habit of not waiting until ideas are fully baked before sending them off out into the world, but you can send her angry letters on my behalf anyway if you like).  But in general, she's really rather wrong.

Women like you, like me, have found a way of connecting with each other through these invisible interwebs, of learning and teaching and sharing our respective skills and points of view with whoever happens to be passing by. We have become a truly global village, a uniquely modern  group of like-minded women, and one that has been founded on an astonishing supply of support, respect and goodwill. 

All of which to say, I'll take you guys over the Martha Stewarts of this world any day, and I couldn't be more thrilled about the ever increasing opportunities I get to do so.  Three cheers for you.

Not my house.

Though it could have been.  It was for sale when we moved here, and it was exactly the sort of house that my heart was asking  me for.  But the practicalities (too small, too cold, too old) argued me out of it, and we went renting instead.  Sorry, heart.

Ms. Cleaver commented in the last post how smart it is to use one cut of meat for several meals.  I already do this for chicken (I can get beautiful organic chicken from a store nearby), a roast for the first meal, often a risotto for the second (a glass of wine for the pan, a glass of wine for me - so civilised) and I am just learning to make a decent stock from the carcass.  Not easy for a one-time vegetarian.  (Yes.  I totally was.)  Di also linked to this post on how to cook cheap cuts of meat. I'm sure my grandparents knew all this.  It would have been great if they'd left me with a recipe collection or two, though a good second choice would be moving to the french countryside...

This soup was made from a homemade stock - I saute an onion or two in olive oil, then add in whatever else I happen to have on hand.  I sometimes add in cannellini beans too and last night I thought that a sprinkling of parmesan would have lifted it from a nice meal into a gorgeous one, but alas I was out.  This is how I cook.  Add stuff until it tastes great.

I try to keep a small selection of growing things on my patio (we are garden-less) but I fail miserably at it.  Herbs I can do, except I often buy baby ones and use so much of them so quickly that they never quite recover.  Bad lady.  My kids get an over-the-top thrill out of seeing even a sprinkling of parsley we've grown ourselves over the top of a meal.  It seems to give them some kind of idea that we are eco-warrior culinary genius types, and I am more than happy to uphold the illusion.