Yearning

The Milky Way as seen from Death Valley, courtesy of NASA.

The earth cracks open and my heart explodes as blue eyes cut the starry sky and a silver river illuminates the world.

My favorite phrases from the Sigur Rós song, remixed. For a complete translation from Icelandic, click here.

And then heals

One day a doctor is propping open an artery hugging my dad's heart. The next day my dad is laying on the grass playing with his youngest grandchild. He's fine. A little tired, perhaps, but happy to dig in the dirt and toss dandelions at a one-year-old.

A few hours after surgery, we brought him Ruby Soup, a steaming borscht infused with garlic and prayers. While eating, he explained how a stent is like scaffolding. The tiny mesh tube was inserted through an artery in his groin, traveled to the blockage and then expanded so blood could once again flow freely.

"The doctor says I need to take statins to lower my cholesterol, but you know what the word on the street is? It's fish oil," he said. "Why statins when you can pack a can of sardines in your lunch everyday?"

That's my dad. Flat on his back in the hospital and he's questioning the official line. Doesn't matter who's line -- cardiologist, cop or wife -- he's going to challenge it.

"The doctor told you not to lift any weight," she said.

"I'm not going to disappoint an one-year-old," he said and lifted his grandson into his arms.

"Well, don't come to me when you starting bleeding out through your groin," she snapped.

Sharp. Stupid. Sweet. Love in a few of its guises, in a few paragraphs.

In which a heart hurts

Anatomical heart by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Today's bowl contains a sparkling, life-sustaining, ruby soup and I hope my father will get to eat a bowl. He's at the hospital today where doctors will dye his blood and watch as it's pumped through the chambers of his heart. If the heart is strong, he'll come for dinner. If it's weak, doctors will operate.

As I sliced beef into half-inch cubes I thought of this heart caged in the chest I fell asleep against as a child. As I cut beets and stained my fingers I thought of that blood, bubbling with oxygen, feeding my father. And as simmering broth turned brilliant red I prayed for the first man I loved.

In the anthology "My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead," Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides wrote about the heart:

"The perishable nature of love is what gives love its profound importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does."

Under the hood of my first car.

Childhood memories of my dad involve muscle: hammering together rabbit cages, carrying loads of firewood to the truck, changing the oil in my VW Bug. The picture I carry in my brain is of his body bent over the engine of our car. Broken down on the side of the highway, he once jerry-rigged it with a crochet hook. The slow speed of his driving and his bloodshot eyes brought the car to attention of police, so trips often included time on the side of the road answering a cop's questions.

Though my dad's still strong and ingenious, he's also old. His hair is the color of winter and his hands are knotted. He's nearing the age of his father who died following a heart bypass, the age of his mother when she suffered a second heart attack. Death lurks in my family's genes. I warn my husband that I'll die first, that I'll die from a broken heart. My grandma almost did. After my grandpop died and she had suffered the heart attack, she asked not to be resuscitated should her heart stop again. One day it did. But forgetting her request, doctors shocked her heart into beating again. She lived for twenty more years and remarried, but the family knew that part of her heart no longer beat, but lay buried next to her lover.

Again, Eugenides:

"We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth."

I sleep next to the second man I love. On most nights I sleep on his right side, so when I curl up against his chest I can't hear his heart's rhythmic thumping. Sometimes, though, my husband and I lay like spoons with his arm thrown over my side and his hand cupping my left breast, my heart playing a staccato against his palm. If the heart had a song for living, for the joy of filling cavities with blood and sending thin, brilliant blood through unblocked veins and arteries, it would be Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust by the quintet from Iceland Sigur Rós:

The album cover.

I'm playing it today as the soup simmers. I'm playing it.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Loud.

In the bowl:

Ruby Soup

Ruby Soup
Adapted from Smith and Smith Farm's newsletter

Makes 4 quarts

1/2 pound grass-fed beef, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1/4 cup olive oil, divided in half
3 quarts beef stock
4 small beets or one large beet with tops
pinch of red chili flakes
juice of one lemon
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 14 ounce can peeled, diced tomatoes
1 small onion, sliced
3 small carrots, sliced
3 cups cabbage, shredded
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoon parsley, minced
1 tablespoon dill, chopped

Heat half the oil in a stockpot and brown the diced meat. Add the beef stock and tomatoes, bring to a boil, turn down heat and cover. Simmer for half an hour.

Trim and wash the beet greens, discarding the stems. Scrub the beets, cut them in quarters, place in a saucepan with the greens, the chili and a half cup of water. Cover and steam until the beets are tender but still firm, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice and allow to cool, then slice the beet wedges into 1/8 inch slices. Set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in a large skillet and saute the onion and carrot for 5 minutes. Add the cabbage and continue cooking until the cabbage has softened. Add the cabbage mixture, potatoes and beets and beet greens to the stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, salt and pepper to state, and continue to simmer for 5 more minutes.

Turn off the heat. Stir in the minced garlic and chopped herbs, cover and let stand 10 minutes before serving in warmed soup bowls.

The bird lady, round 2

The sparrow hawk and its prey.
By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucien Bonaparte, 1876

The bird lady was out in her driveway this morning with binoculars, searching the skies for a sparrow hawk. In her other hand she clutched a spray nozzle and planned to blast the bird with water if she could only find it. She'd been working in the yard when she spotted the hawk spotting the sparrows in her lilac bush, but before she could hook up the hose, it escaped. She was certain it was nearby.

"The damn thing is good at camouflaging and now I can't get anything done."

Five minutes

Chocolate caramel crackers

Sick kid. No writing.
Recipe link must suffice.
See y'all Wednesday.

The keeper of the keys

Illustration from "Laurel's Kitchen"
by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey.

One February day I committed to making a weekly stone soup, a promise to feed my family and one other. My pledge was made in alarm over the number of people lining up in the neighborhood to receive free food each week. Since then, I've made seven pots of soup, sharing the recipes with you and sharing a second set of ingredients with the local food bank.

Between this week's bookends of warm days, it snowed and I made soup, a pea soup the same dusty green as the awakening apple tree and flavored with the ham bone from Easter. It was a deliciously thick with baby lima beans and chewy barley, and we ate it all before I could take a picture. As I thumbed through "Laurel's Kitchen" to pass the recipe along to you, I was diverted by the essay in the front of the book. It's an essay I've read many times, but this time it resonated in a new way given the uncertainty of our world, our jobs, our homes. Written in the 1970s, it was arguing that American women held the key to the food and resource crisis.

A neighborhood that meets its needs cooperatively takes a much smaller bite out of the world resources. Car pools form naturally; a communal garden springs up. Joint wholesale food purchasing comes easy; families may even find they can live under one roof. One lawnmower, one Rototiller, one sailboat does for a whole block. The barter system can flourish: fresh-baked muffins for minor car repairs, knitting lessons from the elderly lady down the block in exchange for a lift to the grocery store. ... Outgrown clothing gets passed around among the children until it's threadbare and gradually, in the evening, people can even be seen out-of-doors, visiting with one another... Women are the people who can best accomplish these changes, by bringing warmth, self-sufficiency, and interdependence to our homes and communities.

Soup weather's thawing, days are warming, lengthening, and so is the food line. I'm getting pulled away from recipes and into the garden where seeds are hidden. What does this mean for me and my promise? Why not turn that future crop of zucchini into a cold ratatouille, you ask? Because I hold serious doubts about my abilities as a farmer. Like a ground squirrel I bury seeds only to forget about them for weeks and then later wonder why the squash isn't growing. But I will forge (or forage) ahead into the world of lighter soups, cooler soups, soups that still hold a stone in the bottom of their bowls.

(What would have been)
in the bowl:

Hearty Pea Soup
(had we not eaten it)

Hearty Pea Soup
adapted from "Laurel's Kitchen"

Note: While the original recipe is a delicious vegetarian soup, I couldn't resist using the ham bone from Easter dinner.

Makes 8 to 9 cups

1 onion, diced
2 tablespoons oil or bacon fat
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 cup green split peas
1/4 cup barley
1/2 cup lima beans
10 cups water
ham bone (optional)
2 teaspoons salt
dash of pepper
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 carrot, chopped
3 stalks celery, diced
1/2 parsley, chopped
1 potato, diced

Saute onion in oil until soft, along with bay leaf and celery seed. Stir in peas, barley and lima beans. Add optional ham bone, 10 cups water and bring to a boil. Cook on low heat, covered, for about one hour and 20 minutes.

Add salt, pepper, vegetables and herbs. Turn heat down and simmer another 30 to 45 minutes. Thin with additional water or stock if necessary.

Through their eyes

The weatherman promised us one single balmy day during the entire Spring Vacation, so while my daughter spent it with a friend, my boys and I hightailed it to the city arboretum. We inhaled the perfume of a Thundercloud Plum, marveled at how blossoms fell like snow from the trees, and had a long discussion about the group of juvenile delinquents wearing vests and hard hats as bright as poppies.

"What are they doing?"

"Community service. They got in trouble because they did something like steal or drink alcohol or spray graffiti."

"How do you know they're not Boy Scouts?"

"Because. They're not having fun. They're not laughing or talking to each other. And do you see that guy over there with the walkie-talkie, he's watching them to make sure they work."

"Oh."

Then I could see the wheels of their brains whirling. The oldest son worrying over the small glass of wine and water he drank at special dinners: Could he be arrested for that? The middle-by-a-minute son hoping he will never get caught. And the baby drawn like a butterfly to the orange vests.

I may be a strong-willed woman raising an opinionated daughter who is training her brothers to enjoy tea parties, but ours is a house of men. There's no sense fighting the domination of balls, karate kicks, Legos and Captain Underpants, which only will give way to stinky feet, loud music, dark rooms and porno magazines under beds. This I know because I had two brothers of my own. On days when I feel buffeted about by this maelstrom of maleness, I think of my grandmother, who raised five (!) boys, of my favorite poem by Billy Collins where he attempts to repay his mother's gift of life with a lanyard, and of my own sons' currency of painted rocks and dandelions. To listen to the poet read The Lanyard, click here.

Oh, shit

Photo courtesy of pauljoyce.

Monday.

How did I get here? Already.

Yesterday was a marathon of celebration, starting at 8:30 in the morning when we went tearing out of the driveway one hour before church began.

One.

Whole.

Hour.

Because if you don't leave an hour early, you won't get a seat. Arrive thirty minutes early and you might be able to squeeze into a pew in the balcony. Arrive fifteen minutes early and you'll be joining the line of people on the walls. Arrive ten minutes early and the doors will be shut and ushers will be telling you to wait for the next service.

Church. For one hour and ten minutes we prayed and sang and sat and sweated and kneeled with hundreds of people, and the baby fell asleep and I escorted kids to the bathroom twice, and then finally it was over. We raced home and grabbed the blueberry muffins (for the first family gathering) and the salad and wine (for the second family gathering), hopped back in the car and went tearing out of the driveway (again). From the backseat of the car came snaps and yanks and tugs and grunts as children fought their way out of tie and shirt and tights and shoes.

Family (divided between two houses and ten miles). For seven hours we ate and laughed and talked and hid eggs and found eggs and drank and ate some more and commiserated over this person's pay cut and rejoiced because that person's job was doing well. Then everything was washed -- sticky hands and chocolately faces and dirty dishes (though the big black pan that held the ham was left to soak). And adults joined kids in a game of four square in the driveway until it was time to go.

Home. Where there were dirty dishes and wet laundry and Easter grass all over the floor, and one kid took a bath, and a Scotch was poured, and the baby dragged a blanket to his mama's feet, and caught her raiding the Easter baskets. And it wasn't until after the dishes were washed, the drier running, the floor swept, the baby sleeping and the peanut butter cups eaten, that I realized tomorrow was Monday, and the kids were on spring vacation, and I had to write something, something for this blog. But my synapses weren't firing because my brain was sloshing around in sugar, and I thought:

Oh, shit.

And then I thought:

A title.

Soup, never simple

How does a Catholic girl get mistaken for being Jewish? Marry into a name.

In fourteen years, I've received a cold call from a rabbi, begged ignorance of Yiddish, been told I should move to the Bronx where there are lots of nice, young Jewish families, asked which synagogue I attended during a craigslist purchase, and now the latest from the Sunday school coordinator:

"You don't have to answer this question, but we've been wondering: With your names -- Rachael, Chaja, Sam, Max -- how did you end up here?"

A conundrum, to be sure.

While my husband would have us all remain happily ignorant of his heritage, it's not easy in a world where rabbis and real-estate agents want to pin stars on the rest of us. So rather than fight the stereotype and protest the label, I've decided to learn about the Jew in us.

With that introduction comes this week's Passover soup, a steaming bowl of chicken broth, thin slices of carrot, snips of dill and matzo balls. (And what's for dinner tonight? Fish, of course. After all, it is Good Friday. Click here for some incredible pictures of Holy Week.)

In the bowl:

Matzo Ball Soup

On the side:

Grilled sourdough with extra-sharp cheddar and fontina

Matzo Ball Soup

Matzo Balls
Makes 8 to 12 matzo balls

1/2 cup matzo meal
2 eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chicken stock or seltzer (recommended by Smitten Kitchen)

For soup
2 to 3 quarts chicken stock (I used Swanson's)
1 carrot, thinly sliced
sprigs of dill

Mix matzo ball ingredients in a bowl. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. With wet hands, shape matzo into 1-inch balls and drop into simmering water. Cover the pot and cook for 40 minutes.

About 10 minutes before the matzo balls are cooked, heat the chicken stock and carrot. (If you've made the matzo balls ahead of time, add them to the stock and bring the whole thing to a simmer.) Ladle soup and a couple matzo balls into a bowl, garnish with dill.

Homage

"And dirt was cleanly ..."

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious praisebe
poet and maytag

when ivan discovers

that hose + dirt
= mud

it's spring
and the world is puddle-wonderful

when maxandsam come running
from soccer field smelling of lawn and little-
boy stink

it's spring and
the iceCream truck
whistles far and wee.

and chajaandcoins go
scrambling for chocotacos
that dribble and glop

it's spring and
mothersclimbMountains
of laun
dry
and sigh at what they see

it's spring and the iceCream truck
whistles
far
and
wee

The sky fell

Mary Poppins glues stars to the sky. Illustration by Mary Shepard.

Then Jane and Michael saw a most amazing sight. As soon as she arrived at the top of her ladder, Mrs. Corry dipped her brush into the glue and began slapping the sticky substance against the sky. And Mary Poppins, when this had been done, took something shiny from her basket and fixed it to the glue. When she took away her hand they saw that she was sticking the Gingerbread Stars to the sky. As each one was placed in position it began to twinkle furiously, sending out rays of sparkling golden light.

-- Excerpted from "Mary Poppins" by P.L. Travers.

***

Above my head hundreds of paper stars fell out of the blue sky, tumbling and fluttering through the breeze, growing soft feathers and sharp beaks before settling on the water. People, strollers, dogs, scooters, rollerbladers all walked by. They didn't hear the stars laughing, nor see the piece of sky floating at their feet.

"Gull repeat 01" by M.. K... S.......

Turning up the heat

"Sexy Scissors" courtesy of HeadOvMetal.

Five minutes from my house a barber shop offers topless haircuts, or at least that's what the sign said. The word was scrawled in large black letters on cardboard and posted above a painted barber shop sign. It caught my eye as I drove home with groceries.

Topless usually doesn't raise eyebrows in Nevada, but this one apparently was operating in a strip mall that included a Christian bookstore, an H&R Block, a supermarket and a laundromat. I had to investigate. So I bundled up the toddler, deposited the big kids at school and headed toward the strip mall, all the while thinking about boobs and buzz cuts. This was the conversation in my brain:

Is it really that erotic to receive a haircut while checking out titties in the mirror? Would I offer to cut my husband's hair while topless? Hah, I'd probably end up with a chest hairier than his! How much can you charge for such a cut, anyway? Wait a minute. I have given topless haircuts -- to my sons when they were very small. Remember chasing them around the yard with scissors, until I grabbed one of them, stuck a boob in his mouth and, as he nursed, quickly snipped his hair.

The first point of investigation on my walk was Razor's Edge Barber Shop, located across the street from where I spotted the sign. As I passed, I glanced inside: Two men were getting their hair cut by two other men. They all wore shirts.

So I crossed Pyramid Way and headed north to New Image and The Establishment, both located in the strip mall. At New Image, a sleepy woman sat like a lumpy potato in a barber's chair waiting for the first customer of the day. Could I imagine her taking off her shirt? Uh-uh. I kept walking, past a bar, a laundromat, an empty store-front, and then came to The Establishment. The dark tinted windows prevented me from seeing inside.

I took a deep breath.

I opened the door.

My face flushed.

"Hi, I'm looking for the topless barber shop."

"Oh, that was an April Fool's joke," a woman said. "One of the barber's played it on the other barber. We cut men and women's hair while wearing clothes."

"Oooh, I wondered about the sign. Did you get any reaction?"

"Nah. You'd think there'd have been a long line, but nothing. Must be the economy."

Face sizzling, I slipped outside. My cheeks radiated heat, my brain harangued:

What was the point of that, Rach? Heat. Heat. Heat. Embarrassing heat. Erotic heat. Spicy heat. Like this week's soup with smoky chipotle chilies, sliced thin, like lines of burning filament in a bowl, in a blog post.

In the bowl:

Chipotle Turkey Stew

Chipotle Turkey Stew
Adapted from Sunset magazine, January 1999

1 pound cooked turkey or chicken (I used smoked turkey)
6 cups chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup masa or flour
15 ounces tomatoes, diced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons canned chipotle chilies, minced
sour cream and cilantro (optional)

Saute the onions. Pour in the broth and bring to a simmer. Ladle out about a cup and whisk the masa into the broth. Then slowly whisk that thickened broth into the main pot. Add tomatoes, oregano, turkey and chilies. Garnish with sour cream and cilantro.

Sweet inspiration

In my home, cookies trump cleaning.

Lately, I've been thinking that the chocolate portion of this blog has been neglected -- not for lack of eating my favorite food, but because I'm eating it too quickly. And, well, once out of sight, out of mind. But I'll try and make amends by sharing my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Okay, okay, I know I've said that before, but my faithfulness is fleeting and mostly I like whatever is in my hand.

As I've cooked up batch after batch of these cookies in the past few weeks, a fine sprinkling of flour has settled on top of the existing thick layer of dust in my kitchen. For you see, although I revel in the results of spring cleaning -- a sparkling home scrubbed free of grime and smelling like sweet grass -- it doesn't inspire me to action. But these cookies do, so perfectly balanced, crisp and chewy and loaded with warm, bitterwsweet chocolate. And I'm excited about a few other things too, all of which don't require rubber gloves, scrub pads and buckets of soapy water, but go quite deliciously with cookies. Check out "What I'm Loving" at the top of the right-hand column.

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated, May-June 2009

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli's 60 percent cacao bittersweet chips)

Melt butter. Mix butter with sugars, salt and vanilla. Add egg and egg yolk. Stir in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Form dough into large balls (about 3 tablespoons) and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10 to 14 minutes or until golden brown and still puffy. Edges will be set, but centers will be soft.