Encouragement

Sometimes the last days of the year are the hardest.  Dark, cold, and ghosted by past resolutions.  For me, the biggest hang-fire is to get my book finished and published.  I've been slow to tackle the revisions, fear of failure probably.  I need to find an agent too and the idea of sending my book-baby out to strangers is daunting. 

One of Denny's partners, Meredith Bell, writes about encouragement, and she recently posted a video with a good strategy for generating the confidence to move forward.  That's going to help me get my book out of my computer and onto store shelves.

Good things should be passed on, so I'm sharing the video as a gift for you too.

American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)

We were robin-flocked for a few days last week, just in advance of a (rare) deep freeze Friday.  The birds swarmed the American Beautyberry bushes I planted outside our bedroom windows a few years ago.

Robins are only seen in our part of the Texas Hill Country during migration, which made the sighting more of  a treat.  I'm pretty sure they left some berries for our winter Hermit Thrush and the Mockingbird and Eastern Phoebe too.

The birds are a big reason we planted the bushes, in addition to lush spring-fall foliage and appealing sprays of purple berries from late summer into winter.

American Beautyberry thrives in dappled-shade areas and in part-sun (morning).  The bushes average 3-5 feet tall and wide, up to 9 feet in optimal conditions, and are ecumenical regarding soil composition--from sand through clay.  The Lady Bird Wildflower website says beautyberry prefers moist woods and fertile soil.  The bushes probably grow better in those conditions but ours are doing well in rocky clay in a part-sun dry site.  If planted in sunny areas, the bushes require more water and I'll admit to having watered via soaker hose during our epic drought, but the plants are not water hogs.  Beautyberry is native across the southeastern US from Virginia south and west into Texas and Oklahoma (zones 6a-10b).

The leaves fall in winter but stems decked in purple berries provide color.  When the winter birds have eaten the berries, I usually prune the stalks back 12-18" from the ground, to promote bushy growth next season.

Deer will eat American Beautyberry foliage if the plants are easily accessible.  I get around this by planting away from the areas deer frequent in my yard and by inter-planting with Turk's Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii), which is unpalatable to deer.  The two plant species are compatible and grow together to form lovely islands of green punctuated by purple berries and red Turk's Cap's flowers.

As a side benefit, we enjoy winter birdwatching in warm comfort with Ernest.  Although I'm pretty sure his interest is culinary.

Unexpected Learning

I walked into the garage a couple of days before we left for New York and found a pool of pinky-red fluid flowing out from under the car. Sunday, the day mechanics watch football and drink beer and do NOT go into work or answer the phone to tell you what the fluid is, what to do about it and if you can drive a hemorrhaging car in to be fixed.

Did you know if you enter "pinky-red fluid leak" into Yahoo Answers, the name of the fluid will be waiting for you?  It's steering column fluid or transmission fluid or antifreeze, depending on the shade and color and how it smells and how it feels when you rub it between your thumb and finger.  And you can't/shouldn't drive the car if you've lost most/all of any of those fluids.

Of course, if you thought it was antifreeze and you had put a bowl under the leak to catch any remaining fluid, and the next morning you poured that fluid and a goodly slug of filtered water into the white plastic container on the right side of your engine, you might think you could make it to the dealership.

You would be wrong.

Then if the car overheated before you got past the community mailboxes but the engine temperature needle dropped while you fumbled with the hood latch and peered at the engine, and you thought maybe you could make it to the dealership with a couple of stops, you'd be wrong.

And if, when you figured out it might take forever to go the 15 miles to the dealership in half-mile increments followed by engine-cooling periods, you finally called a tow truck, you'd realize it would have been less stressful to wait beside your neighborhood mailboxes, or even in your own house, than on the side of the road in the dark.  Although it will probably not be dark by the time the tow truck arrives at your roadside location.

But you'll bless the TWO large go-cups of coffee, book and camera that came with you.  Better to be awake and armed with words and pictures in case of attack. 

And, in the end, you'll have learned about pinky-red fluid, how to unlatch the car hood and where the radiator cap is--which is where you should have poured the pinky-red fluid and water instead of in the antifreeze overflow container, but which probably wouldn't have made any difference because of the radiator's Niagara Falls issue.

And you'll know Bob, the Assistant Service Manager at the dealership.  You'll know him so well that when, the first morning the car is in your garage again instead of the airport parking lot it occupied after the Niagara repair, it drips pinky-red fluid on the floor (drips this time, not gushes) and you call him, he knows you by the sound of your voice and he's got a loaner car ready.  And he replaces the radiator he installed ten days before, no questions, no charges.

Taking Him by the Horns

The other day I heard crying from the back yard, behind the thicket that hides the fence that divides us from the ranch beyond. 

I walked through the thicket, ducking juniper limbs, until I came out on the other side and there the kid was, all by himself and crying, stuck by his horns in the fence.

He let me pet his nose but every time I inched my hand back to grab his horns, he kicked and thrashed.  So I did the best thing to free him.

I went in and got Denny.  He's got the guts and strength to grab a set of thrashing horns and in one fluid move, tilt and push until the head slides back through the wire square, with no one, man nor goat, getting hurt. Another reason I love my husband.

And the unexpected in our life in the Texas Hill Country.

Tradition

We just got back from Thanksgiving in New York with Denny's son and daughter-in-law and her family.

Susan prepared the feast that has become their Thanksgiving tradition. 


The best sushi I've ever eaten.  











I didn't miss turkey and dressing.  In fact, I'm thinking of starting a new tradition of trying a new Thanksgiving tradition every year.  Unless Sean and Jessica and Susan and Keith invite us back next year.

Pumpkin Tureen Soup

It was a misty morning with a bit of a chill.  By mid-morning I was thinking soup for lunch.  Don't say it, I don't want to know what it says about me that I was thinking lunch a couple of hours after breakfast.



And I had a pretty Red Kuri squash in the garage refrigerator. We discovered Red Kuri this fall and  I'm in love with the nutty-sweet flavor.  Perfect for an adaptation of Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook Pumpkin Tureen soup.  My starting point was a recipe page faxed from my friend Todd on Oct. 29, 1990.  I like it that all these years later, we're still friends; and a mental picture of him popped up when I pulled the page out of my binder. And yes, I like having remembered who the fax came from even without a name on the page.  Given all the things I don't remember...

The cool thing about this soup, besides that it tastes good, is the soup cooks inside the pumpkin.  Bet kids will go for soup from a pumpkin.

The recipe makes a substantial soup serving 4-8, depending on  appetite and whether it's a first course or main course.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:
1    ~4 lb. Red Kuri squash
1    tblsp butter  I'm going to omit this next time, not sure it really adds anything
1/4 cup finely minced onion
2    slices whole wheat bread, crusts removed, cubed
2 tsp horseradish
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp curry powder (I use Penzey's Maharajah)
dash red pepper flakes
Goodly pinches of salt, nutmeg and fresh-ground pepper
2 cups low-fat milk The milk didn't separate and the soup had a great flavor. I'm going to try chicken stock next time, see how that tastes.
1/2 cup (packed) grated Swiss cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the top off the squash and remove seeds and stringy bits.
Rub inside walls with softened butter. 
Place everything else into the shell and stir to mix.
Put foil over the opening and replace top of squash.
Bake 1 1/2  -  2 hours until tender.  Test for doneness by gently sticking a fork into one of the sides. If you're smarter than I am, you'll stick the tines in the inside wall so that juice doesn't sizzle down to the pan.
Before serving, carefully scoop inner sides and bottom of the squash to mix into soup.

Since we ate the squash for lunch, we didn't drink wine with it.  Not that I'm against wine at lunch, I just don't write as well after.  But I'm betting a Reisling or Gewrutztraminer or Sauvignon Blanc would make a good match.

It's a Cat's Life

 Ernest supervises Denny

and my work,

 

but it takes a toll on his energy

and composure...

Changing Seasons

Most folks look to the leaves for the passage from summer to fall.  I look to the birds.

The last group of hummingbirds flew out the first week of November.  I left a feeder up a few weeks longer, just in case, but after a mass sugar drunk of bees, from which two didn't recover and the rest had what must have a been a helluva hangover, because it took them all day to climb out of the feeder ports and fly away, we brought the feeders in for the winter.  I was reluctant but the bees were gorging to harmful excess and I don't want to contribute to their demise.

Otherwise, I'd leave a feeder up for late hummingbirds.  Last year a Rufous hummingbird spent a few weeks with us in December.  Rufous hummers don't live in the Texas Hill Country and theoretically don't migrate through.  But we've had a stray every fall-winter since we moved here.  We react as if we're new parents--notices to the neighbors and all that.  I put on extra coffee in case anyone wants to come down and watch the flying-orange show.   
     Rufous hummingbird photo courtesy of Gary Woodburn's Flikr photo-stream. 

As one species departs, others arrive.  A winter flock of  Chipping sparrows has started trickling in.  There are about about fifty now and more will arrive.  By mid-winter, we'll see a hundred 'regulars' and I'll hum as I throw out seed in the mornings. An ubiquity of sparrows.

Until we moved to the Hill Country, we knew one species of sparrow by sight.  All others were LBJs, Little Brown Jobs.  Now we know nine, because they're our neighbors, living markers of time and season.

No Whee Without A Leap

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Metamorph

Metamorph

Artist:  Dory McNair

We create ourselves of the whirlwind and dance our lives in the vortex.


I'm grateful to my friend Dory McNair for creating art that echoes the universe, and for sharing it with me.

 

The Laurel Tree

Folks usually come to Utopia, Texas for the rivers and the parks and the wildlife.  To fill their lungs from the big sky and remember who they were before city-life wore them down.


Then a few years ago Chef Laurel Waters, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, opened The Laurel Tree, and Utopia became a foodie destination too.  Now, a stone entrance off of FM 187 in the western Hill Country welcomes travelers to culinary magic.

Housed in a limestone building inspired by Provence, The Laurel Tree opens to diners on Saturday for lunch and dinner.  Ms.Waters will cater your wedding or birthday party at The Laurel Tree on other days but restaurant dining  is Saturday only.

When I first learned that, I wondered if  The Laurel Tree was something like Brigadoon, an alternate universe invisible every day except Saturday.

Out back is the tree for which Laurel named the restaurant, a multicentury live oak which shades an outdoor dining area. 

See the chandeliers?  ------------------------->

The restaurant features seasonal cuisine made with fresh herbs and vegetables from the adjoining "potager".

The meals are served Prix Fixe and there is only one seating.  It was lovely to know our table by the candlelit fireplace was ours for the evening.  I wanted to savor each course.  There was a lot to enjoy--an amuse bouche, appetizer, soup, salad, choice of main course and a dessert.

Guests bring their own wine or other alcoholic beverage, if desired.

I won't make you drool with the entire menu the night we were there, but the main course we chose was Roasted quail with a sweet 1015 onion glaze, stuffed with sausage, cranberries and leeks.  I can't resist trying things I'm not likely to make. It was served with pesto scalloped potatoes, baby carrots, squash and broccolini.

And garnished with rosemary in bloom.  

We brought a bottle of Pine Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 2003, because the bottle was calling me from our wine cooler.  Ripe cherry and blackberry with a bit of mocha, buttressed by tobacco, black pepper and toast.  Would have been hard to find a better wine match that night. 

Denny said he thought it was the best meal he'd ever eaten.

It was the best anniversary celebration too, but then, I think every anniversary is the best one.

Where Were You?

I'm at Birds On a Wire today in a series about remembering one of the life-changers of the 1960's. Click over and check it out.

If you haven't been to Birds On a Wire before, take a look.  Paula Hartman Cohen puts out cogent looks at issues and life--where we've been and where we're going.  

Recent series have included health care legislation, the falling of the Berlin Wall and a look back at the day JFK died.  And Paula has the life experience to winnow through the stack to the good stuff, after a life as a reporter, writer, wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, photographer, singer, knitter and blogger.