India

It's 24 hours door-to-door.  Landing in Frankfurt was like landing on a wedding cake; I thought we'd slide off the frosting...

Double de-icing and two hours late taking off again - weather.  Who'd expect that?  In Frankfurt? um...

Mumbai? no de-icing equipment.  Warm and moist and fragrant.  Hammered with tired we look in vain for the A & K guys who, we'd be assured, would meet us on arrival.

Sleeves plucked at with "Car?  Best car!  Air Conditioned!  You come!" we are swarmed.  The Taj hotel people take pity on us, grab our bags and the throng falls back respectfully.

"Five minutes - car from the hotel Taj Palace will be here in five minutes.  Ten minutes later?  "Only five minutes more!"

Half an hour later, two apologetic and rumpled young guys show up - since our flight was late they had been sleeping in the car in the Parking Zoo (good description) and with a warm welcome they swing our heavy bags like kindling into their car.

Mr Toad's wild ride thru the night-time streets of Mumbai - even at 4 a.m. there are joggers, walkers, and traffic. People everywhere, we think.  Wait til morning, they assure us - this is nothing.  Flights arrive early morning because traffic during the day is hellacious.

Red lights?  We didn't stop at one.

The Taj Palace - famous for heartbreaking reasons.  Gorgeous.  

Out the window more pigeons than I've ever seen-

A yacht harbor with no yachts...

 

...and The Gateway to India, built to honor visiting British royalty.  Irony?

Crowded beyond belief, smoke and jasmine scent the air.  Sidewalks teem, traffic seethes, all horns blaring.  Beggars tug at our sleeves and pinch their babies to make them cry (who thinks crying babies are more sympathetic?)  

 We are definitely in Mumbai.  

scratch

If you know me, you know I don't buy prepared food.  I make my own baking powder, for crying out loud, that's how un-prepared I am.  So it was a shock when Kevin made pizza from Trader Joe's pre-made dough.  It was crisp, delicious, and didn't have that pre-made preservative whiff that I so despise.

So last night we made pizza.  From Trader Joe's crust.  This one...

They have an herb-y one, but I'm a purist - I prefer my herbs fresh-snipped and on top of the pizza, not smooshed into the dough.

Dump it out, let it rest.  Then roll.  If it fights back, walk away for 20 minutes.  I had to do this twice, but eventually it quit shrinking up and covered a 13 x 18 rimmed baking sheet.  Peacefully.

Slice some mozzarella (it does not grate well, it fights back.  Trust me on this one and spare your knuckles a painful lesson. Also messy.  Thank goodness for tomato sauce!)

Also some parmigiano reggiano.   Not the cheap stuff, the real deal.

A few pitted kalamata olives, anchovies on his half (not mine!) and some whole tomatoes...

Again, not the cheap ones.  If you're going to bother to cook, use the best stuff you can find.  It's still cheaper than frozen prepared anything, or a restaurant.  And usually better. 

My favorite part: smashing the tomatoes.  Actually,  squeezing and squishing.  I recommend holding the tomatoes in a deep bowl when you squish.  And wearing an apron.  You'll figure out why.  

Scatter the smashed tomatoes over the dough - you can brush with olive oil first, but i like the tomatoes melting into the dough.

Scatter the cheeses, olives, anchovies - carefully! don't get any of that cat food on my half!

Bake. Eat.  I'd love to show you the finished product, but it got eaten before I remembered to grab my camera.  

Maybe next time.

The Jill Jar

Lots of my friends stopped by on my Birthday - for a doggy play date, to see how Wally was doing (drippy and sick), to bring chocolate.  The Gossip Girls and family brought the coolest gift - 

It's  jill jar.  Inside, like fortune cookies but curled, and with things the family thinks about me.  

It has cheered me immeasurably on these cold sick days.  I have it on the counter in front of me now, and when I'm feeling a bit low (you know who you are) I pull one out and read it, and laugh, and remember all the fun we have had together - the meals cooked and shared, the "we're not really a sandwich family" converted by a panini press, the walks up the mountain, the Mr Toad's Wild Rides in Italy...friends are the best.  

Thank you.  

The Wisdom of Yellow

This is the time of year I am so glad I planted yellow in the fall.  Here, if you don't get it planted by September it won't grow.  You think your teenagers can pout?  You've never met a four inch annual planted in muddy soil in late fall.

Late August seemed too early, the days still hot and sunny, the nights just beginning to cool and lengthen.  Yet the Icelandic poppies I planted then are huge, with nodding cups of coral over the leafy mess that the garden has become since this year's freeze.  The one I found in its pot in December, the one I missed?  Still no bigger than its pot, but the rest are bushy, shaggy, floriferous (love that word).

Daffodils on the hill under the oak trees have joined the paperwhites that have been blooming since Halloween.  I keep saying I'll plant under the oaks, perhaps Douglas iris, the California native.  But I love the bareness, the sweep of land, the only color the daffodils of winter (it's California - they bloom here in winter)  and the self-seeded spring surprises.

Last year there were forget-me-nots and California poppies under the oaks, the orange of the poppies made more brilliant by the pure blue of the forget-me-nots.  

There were a few Campanula primulifolia last year, and there are hundreds of babies now.  Neatnick gardeners think I'm lazy for letting things go to seed, but I have masses of foxglove and forget-me-nots, of campanulas and hellebores.

Annie's Annuals has the campanula, and many more wonderful things besides - this is their photo.  Doesn't do the plant justice, but so many gardeners are seduced by pretty flowers.  (It is fashionable in some quarters to make fun of these people and sniff that they're not real gardeners.  Grow up.  We are all captivated by something, it's why we garden.)

Hellebores have been blooming since Christmas, and have seeded in the paths and rock walls where they're not supposed to thrive.  Live and learn.  I pull off some of the old leaves so the mother plant doesn't smother the babies.  Pinks and whites, and one so dark it is nearly black.  I have seen some yellow hellebores in English gardening magazines, but I'll wait 'til they work out the kinks - just yellow is not enough, I want beauty too.  And for the price to come down.

Outside the kitchen window, yellow pansies join last year's primroses - plant primroses high and in summer shade and they'll come back for years.

At Christmas I almost ripped this all out in favor of white cyclamen.  Then we had a few cold nights, and last year's cyclamen growing under the oak tree turned to slime.  And during the cold gray days (remember those?) just looking at this made me happier.  

Fragrance is one of winter's gifts, an apology that there are not more flowers, a compensation for the smallness of winter's blooms.  Daphne is the classic, but I have been seduced by Sweet Box, Sarcococca ruscifolia and aren't you glad you asked.  Last year I cut small sprigs to bring in the house, then in summer I cut the plant to the ground.  What a waste.  This year I cut many long branches, and my house is full of the sweet kind smell.  And when I prune in summer I won't have as much work, and I will remember the gift of fragrance in the dark of winter.

It makes a fabulous hedge for shade, it's not fussy, and the branches I cut last year lasted for three months, until I noticed the roots they had grown and planted them out in the garden.  So there may be a sweet box hedge in my future...or yours, if you come by.  Stay for tea.

Cheese, please

"They can tell you about torment. They can describe long, frustrating hours sitting in dark, stinky basements and caves, pen in hand, trying to get the flow of the words just right.

"They can tell you, too, about how it feels to be engulfed in a blaze of inspiration. They’ll describe the delirium of bliss when the right lines come. Like all writers, they are keenly aware of the competition, and envy eats away at them when they detect, in one of their comrades, a candle-flicker of genius.

"We speak, naturally, of cheesemongers."

Intrigued?  Check out this NY TImes article on cheese mongers...or should they be called cheese muse?   cheese prosers? poets of the washed rind?  writers of the ripe?   And when you're done I'll meet you at the cheese shop...I'm hungry now too.

Bamboo

Paula opened the back hatch of her Prius, and it was stuffed with beat-up wine cases.  And no, we don't have a drinking problem, they were full of carefully wrapped bamboo segments.  Ceramic.  The only kind you want to let loose in your garden (and I speak from experience).

Edward and Wally unwrapped them and laid them on the outdoor dining table by color (on its last legs,  that table, but that's another story).  

Paula told me where to pound in the rebar.  I moved the ladder into position, said a silent prayer that I wouldn't hit a sprinkler line, and whammed away.  Over and over.  Then Paula handed me segment after segment, and we gently slid them into place over the rebar.  From the top of the ladder I handled the top - Paula lowered them into place and twisted them to make sure they were seated.

I can see them from my bed.  You could see them from the guest room if you were here.  They shine in the low winter light.  They sparkled in the summer, partly hidden by leaves.  Every time I look at them I smile, and think of Paula and her incredible strength and creativity.  And all the years we've known each other, all the stories we have shared.  Lucky me.  

bamboo you