Category Archives: Happiness

Sources of Brilliance, Such as We Are

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digital drawingTropical Splash

A-chatter in the curling fronds, the wet-leafed canopy, the ponds,

Among the tangled twining root of every vine-choked tree’s broad foot,

Wild birds spread out their neon wings in this green palace of such kings,

Shout to a sun that’s seldom seen, deep in this hot palace of green,

But bring a blaze that’s all their own, as bright as such a place has known.

Take flight! Take wing! Aim for the sun–race with them upward, every one,

Above the canopy, to see whether a sun can really be;

And if it’s not, let no bleak night deter a second from our flight:

Upward and forward, light or none, we always ought to seek the sun–

And if not found, our calling is that we must light these palaces.

Foodie Tuesday: Meatless had Better Not be Tasteless

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photoJust because I am generally an unregenerate carnivore, that does not make me averse to vegetarian delights. I am not so silly as that, really, my dears! It’s still very much about great flavor and appetite fulfillment, is it not? Oh–and that glorious connectivity that occurs at table between friends and loved ones, of course. Of course. Sitting and watching the dragonflies and wood wasps and butterflies tumble through the air outside the kitchen window, and the occasional marvel of a buzzing hummingbird or flashy scarlet cardinal.photoBut those non-meaty treats for eating, they beckon too. Oh, yes they do. As long as they’re loaded with flavor, texture, deliciousness and appeal of their own kinds. It’s not too much to ask. For a simple example, let’s consider having a few crackers or pieces of flatbread to dip in a bowl of easily made eggplant spread. When my girlfriend joined me for lunch, I made it the easiest way possible: I took a jar of roasted eggplant (nothing but salt and a little citric acid, for preservative, added in processing), tossed it in the blender with a good dose each of cumin and smoked paprika, topped it in the bowl with some Thai fried shallots, and we dug in to our lunch. A sort of Baba Ghannouj 2.0, perhaps.photoThe other dish of the day was supremely easy, too. Warm quinoa salad. Quinoa, to begin, naturally. A nutty, crunchy salad, because I wanted lots of texture. Sliced almonds, black and white sesame seeds. And I wanted something fresh and summery in it, and a little chew to complement the toothiness of the quinoa and contrast with the nuts’ crunch. For the latter, small pieces of queso blanco. Too mild for you? Some snappier feta or goat cheese would do it nicely. But I did brighten it up for that summery aspect. Chopped navel orange, some zest from it; juice, too, along with a little lime juice. A bit of Persian Lime olive oil, a little salt and pepper. I certainly could have added lots of possible further tweaks, as could you, my friends: fresh mint, fresh or pickled ginger, toasted pine nuts, dried apricots or figs; preserved lemon, rice vinegar; toasted coconut; chopped fresh tomatoes or cucumber. No matter how composed, very edible. No fuss, lots of taste. Oh, and no meat. Purely coincidental? Karma? Or just good eating? I know where my own inclinations lead. Oh, yessiree, now hurry up and hand over a fork, please.photo

Happy Birthday, My Sweet

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Between us, my husband and I have nine outstanding nephews, all of whom we adore. We have one niece. She was born 22 years ago today. Any questions? digitally painted photoGoddesses Beware

My dearest darling, grand, almighty,

So surpasses Aphrodite

In each nuance womanhood

Considers lovely, fine and good—

And never mind what men prefer,

All being ten times more in her—

digitally painted photoWhat panegyric can I make,

What genuflections, what grand hymns

Of obloquy, as evening dims,

Shall I sing for my niece’s sake?

Is there a form of worship deep

Enough to compass the extent

Of family greatness, heaven-sent,

We mortals are so blessed to keep?photo

What I See is What I Get

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acrylic mural on a wall (6 ft H)My Hero, My Self

The guide to my path,

The lamp to my feet,

My counselor, guru,

Informer, my sweet

Intelligent tutor,

My rescue, my hope—

Too bad you are Me,

You poor pitiful dope.

Foodie Tuesday: Big Pigs Like Figs

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photoBig pigs: who, me? Yes, I’ve admitted to it many a time. Being a food-loving piggy myself, and being terribly fond of the gifts of the pig to food-lovers. I fully understand that vegans, vegetarians, Muslims, Jews, those with health restrictions, and any number of others have valid, legitimate and honorable reasons (philosophical, physiological, religious, ethical, etc.) for not eating pigs; my own litmus test for foods is also personally derived and has much more to do with how much respect has been given the plant or creature in question in its tending while alive, in its preparation when being readied to eat and, especially in how it is used for sustenance and, often, the building of community. So no, I would never dream of knowingly serving pork to any of the aforementioned friends. But I am content to obtain and prepare and consume it myself with respect and gratitude. I have no wish to offend, any more than my abstemious friends would judge me for my being a carnivore. Those who wish to do so are of course very welcome to skip this post entirely.

Meanwhile, back at the board, I will say that I am often quite happy to eat vegetarian style too. I never feel deprived when the food pleases my palate, no matter what the range or contents of the menu, and I can easily be just as blissful about a superb salad, an ounce of outstandingly fresh pistachios, or a pan of colorful mixed roasted vegetables (on tonight’s menu again, as it happens). And good fresh fruit, well since that combines the flavor and vitamins and juicy joys of good health-giving food with the sweetness of dessert, why, you know that I am happy to plunge right into that when it’s offered.

No surprise, then, that I was so delighted when that scrawny little $4 twig I bought this winter first burst into leaf and then, to my great amazement, produced lovely, plump Brown Turkey figs. It inspires me to think that perhaps I shall be able to grow some produce of other kinds if I put my mind to it, despite the challenging temperatures and soil character here in the roasty-toasty land of north Texas.

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I am *not* the only ham in my kitchen.

But to return to my porcine loves, I have eaten pork in almost uncountable ways and have loved a great many of them. One standby favorite is a well-made ham. I will happily bypass any of those artificially ‘enhanced’ varieties that are injected with water and so many other, less savory, ingredients and often are processed to the degree that they are no longer recognizable as meat, let alone pork. But a good pit-smoked ham, well, there’s a sweet-and-savory treat of which I am immensely appreciative. I love oven roasted and glazed hams, too, even boiled ones, but I think my affections are most readily given to an unadorned and slightly fumy beauty right out of the smoker.

One of the benefits of being in Texas is that I do have access to a few places that produce such ethereal goodness. As a result, I can often indulge in a meal of simply sliced ham with vegetables or salad or, on a wintry day, perhaps with mashed or roasted sweet or russet potatoes. Or, as I did the other day, with a heap of fabulously fresh and sweet fruits. And of course any leftover bits may be tossed into other welcome meals of the same. Or into sandwich fillings. Or casseroles. Or, as on the day following the feast of ham and figs (and avocado and strawberries and pineapple), next mixed with minced roasted chicken, dill and pepper and stirred into eggs for a quick frittata. Because if ham is good one day in my kitchen, it’s probably a treat for three days in a row if I’ve shopped wisely enough.photoJust now, though, I guess I’d better dash out and check the baby fig tree to see if I can beat the raccoons to the next ripe piece of tree-candy.

Three Hundred Sixty-Five and Counting

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Please pardon my squeals of glee; I’m just a bit of a pig, my dears.

Yay me!

I know, I know, I say such things all the time, egotist and drama queen that I am. If you were really sick of my self-aggrandizement I assume you’d have had the good sense to stop coming here by now. Thank goodness I surround myself with people who, though otherwise entirely admirable in their many stellar qualities, are just loopy enough to spend time with me ungrudgingly and continue to share their own blogging abodes and the treasures therein with me in ceaseless generosity. But I am feeling a little extra pleased with myself these days for a couple of particular reasons. I’m just ridiculously slow to get it all underway appropriately.

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I guess I’m a real slowpoke by nature.

I am told that a recent post of mine was, in the tally of my benign WordPress overlords, number 365 in overall production here at the kiwsparks factory. That is, in the looser sense, a year’s worth of posts for a daily blogger. However, honesty and my personal traces of OCD move me to say that while I did indeed ‘officially’ commit only so far as one year’s worth of daily blogging, I hadn’t yet fulfilled that commitment to the letter since the one-per-day agenda began in earnest on, if I remember correctly, the 6th of July last year. Sure, who doesn’t need something to do to celebrate her wedding anniversary in a more special way than that boring old romantic stuff? So I had a second milestone of the 365 variety yet to achieve in two weeks. I did double-post a couple of times along the way when the whim emerged, but that in no way made me feel I had met the standard I set in my original plan. On the other hand, WordPress would no doubt find it arguable that I’ve posted, technically, daily, because the WP time stamp does not agree 100% with whatever time zone I’ve been in at various points along the year, so it dates my posts differently than I would, and I am happy to consider my own time zone the decisive one, even if it means typing madly until I can press Publish at the stroke (the clock’s or mine) of midnight. I’m nothing if not a control freak.

All of this being said, the rewards of committing to this year of daily blogging have been considerable and entirely worthwhile. I have gotten back into a dedicated practice of writing and creating visual as well as verbal images that is its own reward, to be sure. I am reminded of the need to Make Things on a regular basis and find pleasure in that process as well as sometimes amusing my own little silly self with the outcomes as well. Most of all, I have reconnected with a social side of myself that is sometimes less easy to access, as a more naturally introverted and even shy person who expresses her bolder and outwardly more comfortable character better in print than either in person or (quelle horreur!) on the telephone. Yes, my nearest and dearest will tell you that I am chatty (or verbose) and rather unfiltered in nature when around them, but of course many of you probably know exactly what I mean when I say that it is specific to my feeling safe and in familiar surroundings that brings out that extroverted version of me.

The biggest payoff in this blogging process is, of course, the presence of that sort of a Safe Place for me to have social interaction with a much wider range of wise and talented and fabulous and fascinating people from all over the world than previously possible. I may have had my own self-centered reasons for starting to blog, but it is you, my dear visitors, commenters and especially my blog-sharing friends, who have made it continue to be worthwhile and in ever increasingly fine ways. I have again been gifted with several blogging awards, and though the late spring-early summer schedule around here militated against my taking much time to respond properly, it is yet another reminder that my web community is generous and supportive as well as simply a fun and kindly group of people. So I must say further thanks to Dr. Dan and Susie and my delightful correspondent at veggiewhatnow for sharing their generosity of fine blogs and passing along blogging awards as well, respectively: the One Lovely Blog Award, Versatile Blogger and a recognition I’d never even heard of before, making me a Food Stories Nominee for Excellence in Storytelling. Cool! All of them, all of their blogs, and all of the kindness showered upon me.

I shall certainly try to honor the spirit, and hopefully the letter, of these awards but I’d appreciate it if you cut me a little slack when it comes to sharing those Fun Facts about myself (as if I haven’t poured enough of ’em on you to nearly drown y’all already). As usual, I’m so impressed and humbled by the astounding company I’m privileged to keep that I hope every one of you will click on my three admirable friends’ names above and take a leisurely visit at each of their sites to see just what wonders await you there. You will leave far less hungry and far smarter and happier, really, I assure you. Dr. Dan is a Canadian internist and foodie-supreme who posts all sorts of succulent, sweet and savory cookery to make you dream. The wise and funny blog susartandfood is the place where Susie beautifully publishes her own marvelous food, along with superb art, fantastic writing and a good dose of wit throughout. And veggiewhatnow is a land loaded with grand vegetarian ideas, terrific photos and illustrations and a whole lot of useful information that just doesn’t show up anywhere else in such a friendly format.

My sharing of bits of brilliance about myself, well, that’ll keep coming in all of the upcoming posts just as it has in every post so far.

And here are some fellow bloggers greatly deserving of my passing along these honors, along with all of my previous nominees (please search my site via the various awards’ names found in my sidebar if you’d like to see the many other deeply deserving folk I so enjoy sharing with you):

logo + photoFor the Versatile Blogger Award, I happily commend to you the following standout bloggers: Mandy, filling The Complete Cookbook not only with gorgeous food and the photos thereof but also all sorts of domestic derring-do and lovely forays into the history (familial and wider-reaching) of landscape, pets, garden and more; Marie, managing a grand kitchen, a busy family, a beautiful property and gardens, and a dog who thinks she’s queen of the active crew of local wildlife, blogs at My Little Corner of Rhode Island; Claire, the travel, garden, cookery and photography (and more) blogger of Promenade Plantings; the supposedly year-stricken K, writing year-struck‘s wide-ranging, scintillating, touching and bracingly intelligent while often still hilarious tales; and Bishop, savoring through his Backyard Farm the natural approach to gardening, cooking, travel and the appreciation of fine libations both home-brewed and otherwise.

logo + photoFor the One Lovely Blog Award, I’m pleased to present: David, painting heart-stoppingly beautiful portraits and teaching lessons to lucky painters over at davidreidart (which my computer appropriately translates for me as ‘daredevilry’); Lindy Lee, weaving poems of the heart and telling tales that transfix, on Poetic Licensee; Nitzus, magnificent and insightful photographer spreading the admiration of memorable and remarkable people, places and creatures far and wide through his self-named site; Cyndi, bookchick extraordinaire, wending her way through collected poems, stories and essays of her own, and stellar photography in the pages of cfbookchick; and Dennis, that inimitable Bard on the Hill, whose poetry spills out of the Texas hill country in rivers shared with poems he’s selected from many other fine poets.

logo + photoAnd for the Excellence in Storytelling recognition I enthusiastically nominate: Celi, at that magically inviting sustainable homestead, thekitchensgarden; John, who writes hymns of Italianate glory from the Bartolini kitchens; Tanya, la reina of the Spanish mountains’ bounty at chicaandaluza; Barbara, who has far more than justasmidgen of exquisiteness to share at her blog; and cookingspree‘s mistress of fabulousness at table, in the kitchen, and whatever amazing places she goes, Antoinette. All of my best to you–and theirs, too! Cheers, my friends.

A small footnote: while I am deeply honored and pleased to have been so generously given these recognitions, I am going to refrain from further award acceptance lest I spend too much of my time polishing my medals and strutting around in my tutu and tiara and too little time, well, blogging. Much ground left to cover, I’m pretty sure, even if I don’t yet know what it is. Meanwhile, you good people should busy yourselves with exploring the wealth of illumination at all of these other blogs too–so much fun ahead for everyone.photoPS–while I’m cresting this wave of self-promotional adulation, I’ll just mention that today at Zazzle.com there is a one-day 50% off sale on all of their posters and wrapped canvases, and mine are all over the site and pretty dirt cheap to start with, so if you go over there and search for kiwsparks you’ll see all sorts of affordable art, much of which has been seen on this blog before, on sale. Just saying.

http://www.zazzle.com/zazzle7thbirthday

What’s-in-My-Kitchen Week, Day 7: Love & Happiness

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photoIt’s said that Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, and regardless of your beliefs, a clean kitchen is surely going to keep you closer to the desirable state of ideal health and well-being than a slovenly one. A rotten, filthy kitchen, on the contrary, may well send you off to meet your maker (or annihilation) with unwelcome rapidity. In my experience, Good Eating is Next to Perfect Happiness.

Simply eating well–whether of the most esoteric or exotic or splendidly gourmet meals, or of the handful-of-greens with some impeccably ripe apricots, a speck of salt and pepper and a drizzle of lemon-infused honey pristineness–that act of tasting and enjoying is its own reward. Love of good eating and the happiness that accompanies and follows it are worthy sorts of pleasures.photo

The process by which the meal or nibble is achieved can be grand delights, too. Just happening on the desired food serendipitously, even sometimes without having realized there was a desire at all, is lovely. Planning a dish, a menu, an event can be a satisfying challenge and adventure. Hunting (in field, stream or market) can be your surprisingly meditative, endorphin-brewing action sequence to prepare for the meal making itself.

Along with all of this is the primary joy of dining with others: the communal happiness and yes, meaning that can be cultivated in shared eating. The love of good food is magnified, multiplied exponentially, by the reflection of that affection between those at table. With strangers and acquaintances, it is the magnanimity–the largeness of spirit–inherent in hospitality that binds and bonds us. Among friends and loved ones, the food is both expression and enhancement of the finest graces in our connections to one another. And I can think of no lovelier thing to stock in my kitchen than that.

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Pull up a chair and have a piece of pear-blackberry pie with me!

What’s-in-My-Kitchen Week, Day 6: Good Reading

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photoI used to have a large bookcase full, top to bottom, of just my favorite cookbooks (and a few choice cooking magazines). Then we moved into an apartment half the size of our previous house. Guess what. I discovered that even most of my favorites were dispensable in exchange for the good trade in housing. The ones I parted with had to go to good homes, of course, and were a fine cause for bonding with family and friends over food in a new and different way–conversationally rather than via consumption, for a change. Still, there are some things one values above open shelf space, and a few of the ‘basics’ and a few of my personal favorites really did call out for rescue from the give-away goods enough to move with me–to all of my various domestic locations since then.

Cookbooks are far from Legal Documentation to me: I rarely follow any recipe to the letter. But they are instructional all the same, and highly inspirational. Since I depend on them so much for acting as kitchen muses, two things tend to happen–I almost always prefer cookbooks stuffed with vivid pictures as well as the recipes and descriptive tutorials, and I love cookbooks as bedtime reading and coffee-table books even more than as technical guides for my cookery, when they can stir my imagination without my being distracted by my stirring the pot. Still, I have a good number of cookbooks that are more pedagogical than pictorial and rely on them for my factual education whenever I’m in need.

My kitchen operations aren’t generally terribly sloppy, so I don’t tend to have grease marks and mustard stains all over my cookbooks. However, I am such a mad-scientist in their use that recipes not only get tweaked endlessly as I work but instantly forgotten in their current iterations if I don’t write them down, so I do desecrate my cookbooks by writing in them. They’re the only books I can think of that I have ever written in directly, but when I used to jot notes and stuff them into the pages, pretty soon I had a cookbook with a broken spine from my fattening it too much–if the book was really any good.

I’m very fond, when traveling, of finding local cooking magazines as well, because like any good picture book, they’re well enough illustrated so that I can pretty quickly translate what’s being said–okay, the Hungarian and Czech magazines are not so quickly conquered, but I can still suss out what’s going on eventually. And I love getting a taste of either the local traditions or what’s trendy there as opposed to what’s current here. Talk about tasteful souvenirs of my wanderings.

So, what are my favorites? Betty Crocker, that maven of miracles in the kitchen, is an icon of my childhood and so still keeps her place in my heart and home. For truly basic kitchen science, I’m still attached to the Joy of Cooking (Rombauer & Becker), but I like Alton Brown‘s playful yet factual approach to the chemistry and physics of it all, too. I’ve got a superb Swedish compendium (Mat Lexikonet, above) that a friend edited, not just because she’s such a dear but because in spite of having very little illustration it’s a very thorough encyclopedia of the tools, terms, dishes and ingredients commonly used in the Swedish kitchen, including all of the foods adopted and adapted from other cultures that have become part of Sweden’s rich heritage as a result of their delicious wonders. From our times spent in Sweden I have a few other great cookbooks, a couple of them also edited by our friend Birgit, and chose them primarily because while editing she would sometimes prepare the dishes for photo shoots or, better yet, test them on us who were lucky enough to visit during one of those preparatory periods. America’s Test Kitchen is also a fine source of scholarly information, and the organization’s focus on developing recipes through multiple trials and experiments makes them truly a litmus test for quality control; even though I still play with substitutions constantly I know the science behind my choices better.

For specifics that I love, I go back to a very few books regularly. For breads, I couldn’t beat Bernard Clayton‘s old standard that always gave me the right technique and proportions (in baking, of course, this is a far more fussy matter than in many other practices in the kitchen) and I could play with my variations on a theme as long as I knew precisely where and when and how that should work. My other baking go-to has remained the beautiful Country Desserts. Lee Bailey’s attention in it to lushness and depth of flavor is matched so exquisitely by the glorious photography, and frankly, I love that he emphasizes in this a laid-back approach to the dishes’ presentation that is much more in keeping with my fix-it- and-chomp-it-down mode of operation than any of those dainties that may cause me such heart palpitations when others do the decorative work but keep me waiting too long in my panting desire when they’re in my own hands in preparation. Donna Hay‘s photographers always make her cookery look even more desirable than the descriptions can do (and they can do a lot, I find), so hers are cookbooks and magazines I love to peruse for artful ideas any time.

As I do have a deep affection for pigs, living or cooked, and my kind friend Ellen knows it, she presented me with the lyrical Pork & Sons, which though filled with delectable recipes indeed, is even more a gorgeous photo album of and paean to the French farmers, chefs, butchers and eaters who revere the pig in all of its glory. International love of food–that’s half the reason for reading about it as well as eating it. And as a great admirer of the cuisines of many different cultures, I have always enjoyed reading cookbooks as a form of cultural and social and political as well as culinary history and often enjoy a meander through the tasty pages of books of Indian, German, Thai, Jewish, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish or whatever other places and peoples capture my imagination at the moment. Probably one of my other greatest favorites in that realm is to peruse the local Junior League or church or social club’s cookbooks from American small towns and obscure organizations, because they too have such colorful and thought-provoking takes on what makes them who they are. I will always adore the late, lamented Ernest Matthew Mickler‘s classic White Trash Cooking as both a terrific piece of artistry and one of the most truly compassionate and funny documents of rural American cookery and culture ever to come off a press. Heart-stopping foods, perhaps, but well worth the danger for the love and laughter with which they’re garnished.

Maybe my enjoyment of that book and its cousins is really just because I’m a little trashy myself and feel so at home among the people whose crusty, hardscrabble, can-do, make-do good cheer and affections would accept pretty much anybody at the table, so long as I eat what’s put in front of me gratefully and don’t spit on the floor. White Trash is one cookbook I could never bear to write in, come to think of it, so perhaps there is something with a whiff of the sacred about great cookery books. All I know is, they’re close to my heart and so I keep ’em close to my kitchen too.

Pardon My Love Letters

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Adjusting the Balance of Powers

I make no pretense of refinement,

Charm-school graces, savoir-faire—

I’m no more mannered than a monkey

Picking cooties from its hair—

In fact, I’d never boast of

Attributes I’d likely waste,

Having little use or need for

Proving further I’ve great taste

Than I did when I selected

You as partner, lover, mate;

All alone, that one maneuver

Proved my social skills are great,

Even if the sorry outcome

On your side is to undo

Any special social standing

That once appertained to you!digital painting from a photo

Today is a Great Day

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photo + textphoto + textBy the way, today is especially delightful in my own life as it’s the sixteenth anniversary of my marriage to the most astounding and outstanding man I know. Happy day, my love, and here’s to many, many more.