Learning to cook.

Apr7

My husband is an amazing cook. Countless times I’ve been asked where he studied. Countless times I tried to explain that he hadn’t. Then one time I remembered a line from Goodwill Hunting about how Mozart could just play. I appropriated the explanation. “You know how some people never took lessons but can just play music? He’s like that with cooking. He just does.”

These past months, our schedule is such that four nights a week he is gone to class during the time to cook and eat dinner if we’re to hit bedtime on schedule. So he’s been prepping what can be prepped, texting me instructions, and coming home in time to hopefully sneak a few bites before “splash splash” and “pjs” and “nilk.”

This means that inadvertently, I’ve been learning how to cook.

Let’s back up a little…

I’ve always baked. I remember my brother and I kicking our parents out of the kitchen to make cookies by ourselves. I wasn’t yet four, he wasn’t yet six.

Cooking…never my strong suit. Overdone or raw, too much or too little, and without fail: ~~underseasoned~~ not seasoned.

When we first moved in together I was 18 and he was 19. It was our first night in the apartment and we’d just gotten home with dinner fixin’s. I went in the kitchen to start making whatever it was (probably rice and beans, we were painfully poor) and he came in the kitchen to ask, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“Making dinner.”

“Get out of my kitchen, silly,” he teased.

I obliged. I think I made dinner three times our first year together.

In the many years since then, I’ve acquired a few pony tricks. I can make chicken soup without a recipe. I can make a chicken/rosemary/bacon thing in the oven. I can usually manage to steam vegetables appropriately (and remember to salt them!) without them turning to mush. But that’s honestly about it.

So fast forward back to now, and I’ve learned a lot in the recent weeks. I now know you don’t sear scallops in butter because the lactose makes them stick to the pan. And the (steel) pan needs to be heated empty, oil added, heated, and then scallops (that have been patted dry – and seasoned!) I know many things I didn’t.

Tonight was the night I applied my lesson about scallops. It was also the night I didn’t overcook the squash (“turn it off when some are looking cooked and some still look raw.”) I did want some greens, and without his guidance ahead of time my intended serving for four ended up quite under-sized (but seasoned!)

There’s more magic in the world.

Apr3

It’s not yet summer.

Mar26

I’d thought we were done with spring. Weeks hitting 80 and nights no longer cooling. Broccoli bolting and tomatoes past ready.

This week cooled again. Highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s, and everyone out soaking in the final days before the heat truly takes hold.

Each evening I’d lay on a blanket ten feet from the back door while DH or his amazing mother made dinner. Our daughter would ask me to find bugs, so we’d peer through the grass for ants and pill bugs (or rollie pollies, or as she calls them “doodle buhgs.”)

Today marks the last day of bed rest. She and I are outside examining pebbles and spilling water bottles. DH is planting tomatoes (24 transplants this year, and 14 of them kept their labels!)

“The volunteer dill is doing its job,” he announces. He comes over to help me up and the nearly-four of us trek to the dill. Sure enough.

Hello there, handsome.

Closing the fifth day.

Mar17

“Hope you don’t feel like I think you’re doing nothing. You’re doing important work.”

Exactly what I needed to hear today.

I find myself with conscious gratitude surfacing more and more as bed rest continues. Is it the slowing down that allows room for it to grow? Is it the perspective shift front and center bringing gratitude into focus more clearly?

I’m grateful for mother daughter strawberry picnics on blankets with airplanes flying overhead.

I’m thankful for an over-extended partner extending himself even further to keep us all going, garden included.

I’m grateful for our small village who wash dishes or do “splash splash” (bath time) or just sit and talk politics and nonsense with me.

I’m grateful for fresh muffins made while I sleep in and for the financial ability to stomach a pretty decent property tax hike.

I’m grateful for “smoo” (smooth) and “buhpee” (bumpy) pebbles, and the daughter that carries them to my pillow and blanket fort to tell me about them.

And I’m grateful that for another day, our little Blueberry is still growing safe and sound in my belly.

Sideways shift.

Mar12

My main duty these days is laying on my side and not doing things. At least two more weeks of cooking are ideal and my body and this baby appear to be plotting their own plan.

A slow soak of sunshine is necessary to keep the stir-crazies at bay, during which I plot my tender snail’s pace loop about the gardens.

Somethings are larger than they appear…

And sometimes I’m glad I have more weeds.

The carrots are looking more carroty.

The garlic are a tangled tussle.

This leek came up all on its own. Having never successfully sown leeks, I can only marvel at its persistence in overcoming my interference.

A kind neighbor gifted us some fig twigs.

And in their ancient wisdom (the seeds are well over five years old and have yet to survive my best attempts) the Alyssum has joined the party.

Swimming in sky water.

Mar10

It’s been raining for days. Thunder in the night that gasps me awake if I’m lucky enough to be asleep. Storms that water fond memories of childhood sleep undisturbed by earthquakes and dynamite.

The earth, parched in winter as it often is here, gulps down each cloudfull before the bursting winds carry off the empty buckets above and usher in the next round.

I stole a few soaked moments this morning while my coffee steeped to puncture holes in the bottom of the tomato cups and rescue the pepper pots from the overflowing trays.

The drops paused long enough this evening for a few fleeting shots of the drenched promises of future garden spoils.

Here’s hoping for perfect shoveling weather coming soon, as a “biiiiiiig druck” (we have quite the budding machinery expert in the house) will be dropping four yards of compost tomorrow for my most lovely partner in life to dole out to the remaining empty beds.

They nearly bounce.

Mar2

The Velcro weed is allowed to exist, first of all because no one has had time (or medical clearance) to mow. Second of all, because it makes tiny little white flowers that the butterflies are enjoying, and third, because the mosquito hawks swarm in it for some unknown reason.

Wakeful trees

Feb15

The rain came in the night. The windows sounding protest against drops as hard as hail. The lightning more witness to the scene. Drink, earth, drink, the thoughts beneath my inner voice coaxed. The thunder resounded, responded. Sleep, child, sleep.

The pecan sleeps.

The Arizona Ash stirs.

Pregnant peppers.

Jan27

Not literally, but they are late. I sowed the tomatoes a month ago and ran out of steam/time/hands. “Next weekend,” I promised. It passed. “Next weekend,” I repeated. Again, it passed. A month late now, but they’re sown and heated and moist. Bells and jalapenos, fish and five color, poblano and (if I can find my seeds) gypsies.

The tomatoes are already looking to move. The strawberries, too. I think it’s time to buckle down and build a second grow light.

And sow some peas! I’m ever so excited. I missed the fall window so we haven’t had garden snacks (aka peas) in ages.

Speaking of changing lodging, I do believe the paper whites are moving off of the kitchen window sill and into the out of doors. The neighbors’ bedded ones seemed much happier than mine.

Seasonal is as seasonal does.

Jan18

It’s still odd to me. It’s citrus season here. It’s chilly out. No real winter yet, even by our standards of “winter” and yet this is normal citrus season. I’m worried about the bugs this coming year if we don’t get a good freeze soon…

But the potted citrus are enjoying much more time outside than in usual years when they decorate our kitchen.
Kumquats seeing their best year yet.

Marmalade anyone?

Bill, the Persian Lime, is still ripening fruit from the past season, but he likes to multi-task.

Oscar the Meyer Lemon is trying to both grow leaves (of which he has terribly few) and set buds for blossoms. I’ll be knocking those off as they appear. If he can’t manage to keep leaves through a season I don’t want him worrying about setting fruit just yet.

There are two mandarin oranges left on the tree that we’ll snack on now that buds are beginning there as well.

Finally, not a citrus, but Elian the Avocado, is pushing new leaves through like its going out of style. DH is talking again about planting him in the ground near a pond nearby…but I’m still hesitant. Elian is a volunteer from years ago who has grown quite tall under our care, but as a volunteer I have no information regarding his variety. Avocados of any variety don’t seem too tolerant below 25 degrees, and we do drop below 25 degrees some years. I’d hate to lose him in an freeze, but I also know that in a pot he’ll always struggle to find happiness.

plumdirt

Putting in a little