Small

Apple picking with my wife on a brilliant fall day, christening my neighbor’s wood burning oven with pizza one week and a full Sunday dinner the next, clamming on the mud flats of midcoast Maine as temperatures continue to fall, and cobbling leftovers together to make meals at other times. And a trip across a swath of southeast Asia, eating from food stalls in Singapore and private dining rooms in Jakarta. And all of this amid kind, welcoming people who defy our poisonous president’s attempts to vilify people and divide us from our neighbors.

I will continue to defy his pathology of greed and deceit, especially as I witness some of the extraordinary work done by inventors and scientists, doctors and policy makers, poets and musicians, all motivated to make the world, or just our community, a better place. And it's necessary to keep in mind that so many of these efforts, gestures, are small. A non-profit board meeting yesterday and someone brings cookies which he makes every time we get together. The hosts of our regular poker party make snacks that meet the mood of the times, ghoulish Halloween treats included.

We need presidents and prime ministers who make treaties that improve the lives of people, recalibrate our energy consumption habits, and promote peace. Equally important are the steps you and I make to comfort a friend, help a neighbor, share with our family. Our being, our strength, is nourished by this. Always

Echoes

Hi friends. A move to Maine, a job change, long spells in Asia and undiminished curiosity about food and how we get it and where we get it and prepare it and how we share it and whether we find ways and time to think about systems and processes and the politics that make things possible or point us toward some kind of social political culinary catastrophe, and as we ease into September and the long glory of warm days and a sun that doesn't rise as high, I continue to make stories, cook food, eat it, and think about it. A pasta machine and an outdoor wheelbarrow stove are two pieces of equipment I use with more regularity than I did in Vermont, or Minnesota before that, and my bread baking has all but disappeared. Pork, duck, rabbits and lamb have mostly given way to clams, crabs, mussels, fish, oysters and lobster, most of which are found at the end of our dock or just down the road, and the corresponding stocks and broths have been supplanted in equal proportion.  And, despite a long silence, it's still this life, and we change and grow and our tastes and opinions evolve and some of them we settle into and others we leave behind, and if there's a thread woven through this, it's my continued belief that with hospitality and generosity and a welcoming table we can address most of the important issues of life.

My neglect prevailed

My neglect prevailed, but I was given this growth, these abundant plants that pushed through dirt and grew, even as I ignored the claims of spring and summer, the edict of sunshine and heat.  I forgot to care but was rewarded, by dint of throwing seed, with life-rich greens, and peas, peppers, beets, and leeks.  And now October's thinning heat and the near memory of what just was is slowly packed and preserved in bags of frozen blueberries, jars of applesauce almost made, and sauerkraut fermenting in a big stone crock.  Tradition is the memory of time, repeated.