Blog

  • One Local Summer: Week 2

    This is what I scored for under twenty bucks at this morning’s farmer’s market!


    From Lockbriar Farm (Chestertown MD: 50.28 miles)
    asparagus, zucchini, cucumber, lemon cucumber, tomato

    From Calvert Farm (Rising Sun, MD: 13.91 miles)
    bee-you-ti-ful rainbow chard, spring greens

    From Maple Hill farm (Lincoln University, PA: 11.16 miles)
    super-sweet peas, rosemary plant that made my car smell yummy

    From Sun Health Farm (somewhere in Cecil County, webpage not up yet, somewhere in the vicinity of 50 miles)
    Big bag of kale

    By 1:00, when I went to make some lunch, it was already pretty hot and humid in my kitchen, and I was not much into the idea of turning on the oven. So the chard will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

    Instead, I quickly boiled some asparagus and cooked up an omelette (sadly, with no cheese, because I forgot). Happily chopped up a tomato and tossed on some super-sweet peas. A dash of salt and pepper- Yum!

    I feel like I’m cheating because so many others participating in the One Local Summer challenge are coming up with creative meals (with recipes to boot!) whereas I am basically just slicing and serving. I may be many things, but a chef I most decidedly am not.

    On the other hand, the kids have been eating up the raw veggies! So no complaints here.

  • Tiger-Lilies Blooming

    “O Tiger-lily,” said Alice…”I wish you could talk!”

    “We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily: “When there’s anybody worth talking to.”

    -Lewis Carroll
    Through the Looking Glass

  • From my Dad’s Binder

    THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS

    Sundays too my father got up early
    and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
    then with cracked hands that ached
    from labor in the weekday weather made
    banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

    I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
    When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
    and slowly I would rise and dress,
    fearing the chronic angers of that house.

    Speaking indifferently to him,
    who had driven out the cold
    and polished my good shoes as well.
    What did I know, what did I know
    of love’s austere and lonely offices?

    -Robert Hayden

    More on my father and his “austere offices” later on today.