"Please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses: (((())))."

I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the loss of the author who probably played the most instrumental role in my life. JD Salinger died at 91 last week. He wrote some of the best prose I’ve ever read. I blame him for my inability to write a proper ending. He is, without a doubt in my mind, the reason I read, the reason I’ve written, and the reason I got a degree in English.

I was not a reader growing up. I wasn’t one of those kids who devoured books or even slogged through them. Reading was for school and I honestly didn’t see much point in doing it on your free time. I hate to admit all this, but it’s true. I liked being read to, but hated reading.

Then, my mom’s friend started coming once a week, giving me assignments and doing just what I wanted: reading to me. We read a lot of the major children’s literature classics, namely the Narnia books and Madeleine L'Engle. I started reading a bit on my own.

But it wasn’t until I was 13 and I read Catcher in the Rye that I realized that this reading thing was really something to cherish. It was my first “adult” novel. I read it because I took a quiz in Teen Magazine that said my ideal boyfriend was Ethan Hawke and the little blurb mentioned that he’d have a dog-eared copy of Cather in his back pocket for some reason. (This is so embarrassing.) So I read it and I couldn’t believe that anyone could write like that; that writing like that was allowed at all! It was so real. It just floored me: books were supposed to be fake. Literature got a lot more interesting with a narrator like Holden. And then there is the Glass family. I have outgrown my initial feelings/obsessions with Salinger, but the Glass family will always be a literary miracle. After that, I just read, and read, and read. And I have to say, I always read the good stuff. I drank in all of those books one should read as a teenager: To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace, Slaughterhouse-5, One Flew Over the Coo-Coo’s Nest, Brautigan, On the Road, etc, etc. No Twilight-type stuff, ever, thank heavens.

And so, JD Salinger has followed me through my life. Aaron and I basically became friends because of Franny and Zooey. And the rest is history there. I named two of my cats after characters in Salinger stories: Esmé and Sergeant X. And I met my best friend Meghan because I was giving a presentation on Salinger’s uncanny ability to Address the Reader in “Seymour; An Introduction” in a Creative Writing Workshop we were in together and she happened to be reading that story at the same time.

And now, he is gone.

Incredible India

Let me start off by saying that India was a totally wonderful, totally draining experience that I am so happy to have had the chance to go. It was like no other place I have had the privilege of visiting. Of course, vast wealth and vast poverty mingled at every corner. One thing to note: seeing people live their lives gives you a unique perspective. I never felt sorry for anyone there, even as they were showering or shitting on the roadside. This is life and they are living it. It might be different than mine, but it is no less fantastic. It’s so important to realize that saving the world isn’t always a good thing because you’re saving it in your image, when theirs is just as valid. The richness of life was felt in full.

The sights were gorgeous. Beautiful buildings, beautiful landscapes. Fields of mustard waiting to be pressed into oil. Bold colors, pink cities. Of course, there is the Taj Mahal. Can I just say it is covered with the most intricate inlaid marble I’ve never seen. It is more incredible than pictures can convey. And yet, it is small inside. You feel that she is protected there. Having seen (or rather, not seen) all that the British had looted out of India , I am so surprised it is intact at all. Did you know that once upon a time the Brits rented it out to honeymooners? Seeing the Taj was worth the trip.

My favorite city was Jaipur. Everything is painted pink or constructed in Pink sandstone. It’s gorgeous. I loved the Hawa Mahal (The Palace of Winds) and the Amber Fort (of course!). Hawa Mahal is just this incredibly vertical palace in the middle of the city and it reminded me of a pipe organ or something.

And the Amber Fort was just all around gorgeous. It was classic Hindu style, beautiful decoration. So much fun to wander.

I won’t mention the bad stuff like 9 hour bus trips, food poisoning, cancelled flights and Al Qaeda terrorist threats. We were so lucky to have had the chance to go to such a unique country.

Pumpkin Rice Pilaf

So, I've been off meat lately. It's just something I'm trying. I don't want to make any life-altering proclamations that define who I am. I might eat it again some time. But, for the past 18 days, I haven't had any. And what is a little surprising is that it's so easy not to eat meat. My biggest struggle in the past was going out to eat and seeing all kinds of wonderful meaty things, especially burgers. But now...I don't know. There are other things. I guess I'm not eating it because I don't really have a desire to eat it. I don't feel like I need meat in my life right now. So, I've eliminated it for now.

We made this awesome rice pilaf and shoved it into a roasted pumpkin. The recipe can be found here. It was really, really good.

Pizza Night

It has been snowing pretty non-stop for the past couple of weeks. The roads are bad and all we can do on the weekend, really, is stay in and watch movies. So for the past couple of weekends, we have been experimenting with homemade pizza. It is so much fun! The best part is, we had everything we needed for all kinds of fun combinations at home. There is something to be said for a well-stocked pantry, I guess.



The dough was super easy. Thank you, whoever invented bread machines. Do you own one? You should. Because in less than 3 minutes of prep time on your end, you can have fresh, preservative-free (whole wheat) bread for like $0.75 a loaf. We've been using ours pretty much exclusively since we moved here. I think we've bought maybe 6 loaves of bread since we moved to WV, all fancy ones for special times. Anyway, the bread machine has a setting just for pizza dough type stuff, it does all the kneading and rising and everything and it only takes about an (unattended) hour. We made a soft and lovely whole wheat dough. We noticed that the thinner you can roll it, the better it is.
On to toppings. One thing I really miss about Boston is good food. Specifically, Aaron and I really struggle with the pizza situation here. We were used to good pizza. Brick oven, interesting toppings. There is something to be said for a classic, cheap pizza, but as far as I know, there is only one place in town that sells unique toppings, New Day Bakery. And they only recently started making pizza. Also pretty sure that the water makes the dough different here, which is sad.
Anyway, one place I really miss is Cambridge's Veggie Planet in Harvard Square. Holy pizza! This place rocks. It's all in the dough: whole wheat, chewy, crusty. And they have such amazing toppings. My all time favorite is Dinner for Henry: roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, rosemary, sage and goat cheese. Oh mama. We decided to make our own.
Let's take one more look:
Here is what we found: you need to really slather on the squash and use enough onions. The more the better. I would say at least two big ones. The key to caramelizing is a steady temp, not too hot, and a lot of time.
This is insanely good. Actually, it was so good that we've made it twice already. It was like tasting home.

As for other toppings, we mixed it up, doing different things on each 1/3 of the dough. We made a simple red sauce with crushed tomatoes, garlic and herbs. One of the best was pesto with sundried tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

I'm pretty sure pizza making is our new favorite thing. There are just so many things to try.

52 Books

I reached my 52-book goal just in time. I managed to just make it by the skin of my Tintin. I'm counting it, even though it was short. This year wasn't a great one for reading. I'm not sure why. I didn't read a lot of stellar books. I ended up reading mostly sub-par stuff. I'm not sure how it ended up that way. I also did a lot of starting and not finishing books. I got several hundred pages into Bleak House and somehow couldn't bring myself to finish it.
It's getting harder to devote time to reading/reaching my goals and also to read really worthwhile stuff at the same time. So I ended up turning to a lot of fluff with very little substance. Also had to read a bunch of stuff for work and none of it was really good. I did end up reading Ulysses, which was a major event in my reading life. It had been on my formal "to read" list for over 10 years. It was as tedious as I had anticipated, but there were some very nicely written parts. I am looking forward to reading better in the coming year, even if it means not reading a book a week, and I'm also hoping to tick a few more off of that life-long list. Even though this year's books were largely a bust, there were a few books this year that made an impact. My Top and Bottom 5 after the list...

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Shaffer and Barrows

2. Beloved - Toni Morrison

3. The Basil and Josephine Stories - F. Scott Fitzgerald

4. Something From the Oven - Laura Shapiro

5. The Sweet Hereafter - Russell Banks

6. Big Hair and Flying Cows - Dolores Wilson

7. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks

8. The Secret History - Donna Tart

9. Ulysses - James Joyce

10. Rabbit, Run - John Updike

11. The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

12. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

13. Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins

14. Fablehaven - Brandon Mull

15. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

16. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbra Kingsolver

17. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niggenegger

18. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner

19. Harry Potter (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling

20. How to Cook a Wolf - MFK Fisher

21. American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang

22. Trout Fishing in America - Richard Brautigan

23. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson #2) - Rick Riordan

24. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson #3) - Rick Riordan

25. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson #4) - Rick Riordan

26. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson #5) - Rick Riordan

27. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

28. Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

29. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro

30. Atmospheric Disturbances - Rivka Galchen

31. The Art and Adventure of Beekeeping - Ormond and Harry Arbi

32. Strange As This Weather Has Been - Ann Pancake

33. Wolf Brother - Michele Paver

34. True North - Jim Harrison

35. Spirit Walker - Michele Paver

36. The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff

37. The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff

38. Maus - Art Spiegelman

39. Maus II - Art Spiegelman

40. The End of the Affair - Graham Green

41. A Lost Lady - Willa Cather

42. You Better Not Cry - Augusten Burroughs

43. Mother-Daughter Book Club - Heather Vogel Frederick

44. March - Garadine Brooks

45. The Book of Nightmares - Galway Kinnell

46. Pride and Prejudice (Graphic Novel Version)

47. Kindred - Octavia Butler

48. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

49. The Food of a Younger Land - Mark Kurlansky

50. Turtle Island - Gary Snyder

51. Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney

52. Tintin in America - Herge

Top 5 books:

5. American Born Chinese - An incredibly funny and heartbreaking graphic novel that should be taught in school. It blew me away.

4. Kindred - A SciFi book about slavery in America...it's what all SciFi should be. I remember all of my professors doing a "read-in" of this book in college, so it was nice to remember them, as well.

3. Rabbit, Run - It's been on my list for awhile. Had I known it was this good, I would have read it a long time ago.

2. Maus and Maus II - I spiraled into this world for days. The most visceral depiction of the Holocaust I've never read. I think it could have only been told in graphic novel form.

1. Beloved - Brilliant. Seriously, read this book. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks afterward, and that is what a proper book should do to you! She is a master.

Bottom 5 books:

5. Poisonwood Bible - It just didn't seem believable, the characters were one dimensional. I was really disappointed with this book.

4. The Te of Piglet - A really pathetic follow-up to a sweet book. Not worth wasting time on.

3. True North - Not his best. Meandering and repetitive, unfortunately. I forgive him.

2. The Secret History - Not a badly written book. It was a page-turner. However, it really upset me. Here is my goodreads.com review from last Feb: 629 pages? Overly long; flat characters that are difficult to sympathize with; muddy details which I often times questioned the authenticity; purple patches. I hate it when authors use first person and then, when it's finally time to reveal a major point, the character "doesn't remember exactly," or "doesn't want to go into it" for no good reason. 629 pages and you don't want to go into it? Bogus, Richard! You're fictional...you don't even exist. And yet, you owe it to me for putting up with your excruciating minutiae. Everything you ate that year, the drinks each character in the room were drinking every time they drank, every cigarette anyone ever smoked, what time you woke up every time you woke up that year. Then you go and do a "what they're doing now" for the last 5 pages of the book like the ending credits of some movie...for characters so minor that I didn't even remember some of them. Way to tack on a few. I can't believe that someone caught up in murder can be so boring.

1. The Time Traveler's Wife - A lot of people recommended this book to me. A lot of formerly trustworthy people. Like Secret History, it is not poorly written. The first half or so was really good. I was so excited to be reading something romantic and well-written. Then it all just fell apart. I felt like I knew the characters less towards the end than I knew them at the beginning. What's more, I hated them all toward the end. They were also totally flat and the the writing wasn't exciting. In fact, it was really boring. It felt as though the author wrote it while suffering from insomnia. And it went on forever. It was at least 200 pages more than it should have been.

*Note about the Bottom 5: these are certainly not the worst books I've read, they are just the books that disappointed me the most. I hate it when someone recommends a book and it doesn't come through. I hate it when something garners a lot of interest and it's total crap. Usually, these books have been on my shelf for a significant amount of time. That's way more upsetting than randomly choosing a flop from the library. That said, please recommend some books for 2010! I might not love them, but I sure hope I do.

Christmas Tree 09

I am going to admit something terrible: we have two Christmas trees. We have an upstairs living room (when in romantic moods, I like to think of it as the Parlor) and a downstairs living room (... the Den) where we watch tv, etc. So it wasn't any fun to be in the Christmas spirit in one place and not the other. Last year we got a fake tree for the den. It's a nice, perfectly shaped tree with colored lights. So this year, for our real tree I wanted something that was perfectly misshaped, if you know what I mean. Something with a Scandinavian feel. Like we went out into the snowy countryside with a sled and a saw.

I decided also that because we have a nice tree downstairs just waiting for all of the beautiful ornaments of my childhood, I could continue on with the "theme" for the upstairs tree and use red/white/hearts/straw ornaments. I don't know why I am always drawn to heart-shaped ornaments, but I am. I also have tons of corn husk angels from Prague and various straw ornaments from other places...including Ikea, where I found the most gorgeous straw/hearts/red garland a couple years back.

I am so happy with how it turned out. It looks so great in real life. Why is it always so hard to shoot pictures of Christmas trees? I don't think I've ever taken a good one.

Skunked

I am so behind on my posts lately. We've been working on our handmade holiday gifts like mad. All of our free time is consumed by getting things done and mailed asap. All other spare moments are devoted to applications for grad school and some seriously deliberate cocoa-and-Christmas-movie time. I need to fit that in to feel like it's December. The good news is that it snowed yesterday, so everything feels a little better.
Anyway, in the early fall I was able to get some crafting done and I remembered I haven't posted my needle-felted skunk.


He's one of the first needle-felting projects I've done. Wool roving is a fun material to work with. I still haven't used the free locally grown roving I have, but I was in a parade with one of the sheep that produced it on Friday. What a town.

5 Happinesses for Friday, the 20th of November

1) This American Life, Sunday mornings over coffee and eggs.
It is somewhat of a routine at our house. WV NPR plays This American Life at some ungodly hour (totally sacrilege), so we usually listen to it free on the internet, found here.

2) The sleep after the sick is over.

3) Leaving work early on a Friday afternoon.

4) Being totally immersed in the beautiful works of children's author and illustrator, Jan Brett, for a work project.

5) Going home to Boston for Thanksgiving.

5 Happinesses for Friday the 13 of November

1) Free wool roving.
Specifically, free samples of wool roving from the most gorgeous farm I've ever seen. Victorian farm house, sheep, alpaca, peacocks roosting in huge fir trees, great Pyrenees, mini-chickens, fair prices.

2) Book Club meetings.

3) Kenyan Cafe.
One of the best new additions to Morgantown. Everyone should go there. Masala tea!

4) Books about Little Women.
Right now I'm reading March by Geraldine Brooks.

5) Co-workers who bake fresh sourdough bread and sell it to me.

Gnome and Friends

I finally finished my scroll saw project. Or, rather, the first batch of friends to come from it. I have more in various stages of done-ness. Completed and photographed are: a gnome, a tree, a bear, owl, and two hedgehogs. I had the best time just sawing around on a piece of wood and seeing what came of it. That's how the tree and the hedgehogs were invented.

The hardest parts about doing wood crafts, I think, are the many different steps you need to take before you get an end product. Sanding and finishing take forever. However, the results are totally worth the time and effort.

I would like to experiment more with the forest scene idea. Also, it would be neat to take a book and make the characters from it. What a cool gift that would make.

Willy

Over the course of the summer, Aaron and I befriended a local farmer named Willy. Every Saturday, Willy set up a table in the Southern States parking lot. (Southern States is like the farm/garden supply store. It's where you get seeds, chicken feed, donkey bridles, etc. In the summer, you can buy local produce by the peck and bushel. It's probably my favorite store besides Gabes.) Each Saturday, there is also a farmers market elsewhere, which is great if you're feeling rich, but the majority of those vendors are over-priced and too fancy. I like the idea of buying something directly from the farmer for a price that is good for him and for me. Willy's price is typically $1 for almost any pint of produce or bunch of veg. His maple syrup was under $3. His honey was $3, but we'd get 75 cents back if we return the jar. But why would we want to? Look how cool it is:


I think that what people have forgotten is that to buy food directly from the farmer, it doesn't have to be fancy stuff. It can just be things that you didn't get a chance to plant yourself. Another difference between the farmers market and Willy is that at the farmers market, they don't expect you to grow your own food. They don't really want to talk shop from the farming perspective, and if they talk shop at all, it's only from the business perspective. Willy gave us great tips on our garden all summer. He talked tomato blight with us. He asked how things were coming along. I wish there were more Willy's in parking lots everywhere.

lentil stew

It's fall and that means a different cuisine entirely. We've been on soup for about a month now, which feels so right. There is nothing more heartwarming than a big pot of soup on the stove.

I started making my lentil stew a number of years ago. I made it so much my last year in college that I had to give it a break the last two winters. It is really hardy, really flavorful and super easy. The secret is stuffing the pot with as many veggies as you can. Kale really adds to the experience and the vitamin content. Different kinds of lentils do different things. I like using the red lentils because they add a creaminess to the pot. If I have them on hand, I'll throw in a handful of brown or green. This time, I added a little bit of quinoa and it was great. It's really up to you. Violet gave us these beautiful bread bowls, so that was an extra special treat.

Lentil Stew, I'm glad we can be best buds again.

My Lentil Stew

6 carrots, sliced
3 potatoes, quartered
1 med. butternut squash, peeled and chopped into large chunks
1-2 onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves
as much kale as you like, leaves cut into strips, stalks cut into little nubs - separate the two
1 tbsp. fresh ginger, chopped fine
heaping tbsp each of cumin and garam masala
a respectable amount of ground cardamom
1 lg. can crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 cup lentils, red and other
1 can chickpeas
salt and pepper to taste, but don't skimp on the pepper
water (not sure how much, but enough to make it stewy but not soupy)

Saute onion in olive oil. When golden, add ginger, garlic, and the other spices, saute 3-5 mins. Add carrots and potatoes, cook a couple minutes, adding a bit of water if needed. Add crushed tomatoes and water. Add everything but the kale leaves. Cook until everything is just soft. Add kale leaves. Let sit for awhile before serving to give the kale time to soften. Makes enough to freeze some.