Favas!

2016.04.24.10.20.22.000Fava beans are one of the most rewarding crops–giant beans, like the one’s from Jack and the Beanstalk–go into the ground in the fall or spring.

Soon they pop up tall and full of flowers. Then the many branched stems have many big seed pods. You have to pick them fast before they get too fat.  Then comes the shucking, parboiling, peeling, and eating. Once you’ve parboiled and peeled them, they can go into almost any dish.

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Like fried rice, for example.  2016.04.24.08.53.23

But now I’ve learned you can also roast them whole in the pod with a little olive oil, salt, and spice–they come out crispy and delicious. You can eat the whole thing!

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Spring is sprung

E.-E.-Cummings-150x150I was in high school when I first discovered e.e. cummings. I thought he was terrific. He is terrific, even though though his methods are no longer novel, and his work can seem a little too precious…still, it comes from a time when queer had nothing to do with sexuality, smoking was cool, and verbal playfulness was new.

in Just-

in Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee

.

e.e. cummings

Lavish

is the only word I can think to describe this spring. Even before today’s rain, the hills were Ireland green, and the flowers, spinach, and herbs have overwhelmed the Labyrinth.  They look so good in their profusion, I’m just giving up on the labyrinth idea for the moment.

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In back, the small flower area of the vegetable garden is a riot of color–with nasturtiums, geraniums, cymbidiums (should that be cymbidia?) and poppies.

2016.04.18.08.35.44We are eating whole meals from the fall vegetable garden, which has yielded potatoes, onions, greens galore, and bouquets grace the table:

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2016.04.17.17.12.25It’s been so warm, I’ve made a temporary summer office (had to take in the rug and the hammock today, of course).

 

 

Managing grief

bridgeI’ve been reading Paradise Drive, a book of sonnets by Becky Foust. I heard her read this one the other day–she said she had taken the words from the elegy of a woman she knew who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. She rearranged and fractured them. The disjointed result gives a sense of abandonment.

Anastrophe Elegy

Not the woman we all knew. No.
Never would have done she, like this a thing.
How could someone, her, like that ever do?
Knew we the girl: hurdler varsity,
date cute. Sport good. Track quit who Continue reading “Managing grief”

Mark Strand on Monday

man-with-camelHere’s a poem by Mark Strand that deals with that old question of does the tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one is there to hear it–or more specifically the relation of the listener to the event itself.

Man and Camel

On the eve of my fortieth birthday
I sat on the porch having a smoke
when out of the blue a man and a camel
happened by. Neither uttered a sound
at first, but as they drifted up the street
and out of town the two of them began to sing.
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— Continue reading “Mark Strand on Monday”