The dogs love skiing but we have one little problem — they get snow stuck to the fur between their toes and it ices up in hard little balls that really bother them — and because the ice balls hurt, the dogs stop and lick them, which only makes them worse. Owen, my puppy, also has problems with snowballs adhering to his feathers, especially in the back. He’ll be running along with tennis-ball sized snowballs hanging off his ass, which looks really funny, but doesn’t make him happy. So, what’s the solution? Pam cooking spray! Who knew? They didn’t like…
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Yesterday I went to see the documentary about Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides. It was extraordinary. I’ve known about Goldsworthy’s work for a long time — when I was a bookseller, I loved Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature, but I’d never seen his work in motion. In the movie, there are these extraordinary images of his art floating out to sea, or a long sinuous chain of bright-green leaves working it’s way out of a pool and flowing downriver. Goldsworthy himself was also inspiring. I’ve been having a terrible time getting any work done these past weeks — my…
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I’ve fallen in love with cooked greens — thank goodness I put so many of them up last summer. But I am running into leftover issues — I made beet greens for dinner with Bill and Maryanne and Jim last week, and had a bunch left over. They’d already been cooked just about to death, so I didn’t want to eat them the way they were again, so I made a sort of crustless quiche with them. I beat three eggs with about a cup of cream and a nice grating of nutmeg, then put the lefotver greens in my…
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I ordered seeds today from Seeds of Italy and Cook’s Garden. I have a lot of seeds left from last year, many lettuces, the beans that never grew because they were eaten by bugs, the melon that didn’t make it, the eggplant that did, and three kinds of tomatoes. This year I’m branching out — I ordered two kinds of broccoli rabe from Seeds of Italy, as well as, gasp, five different tomatoes, some laccinato kale, an intriguing-looking egyptian beet, and a couple of chicories. I can’t say enough good things about Seeds of Italy — last year I ordered…
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Normally I’m not particularly invested in things, especially in light of having spent the past three months trying to figure out what to do with all of Patrick’s belongings, but this week has brought both the arrival of Patrick’s furniture from California, and today, from my grandmother, two lovely silver trays that belonged to my great-grandmother Charlotte. It’s kind of nice, these family things around me. When I left California, I felt so bad for leaving Patrick that I gave him all the good furniture. And while this is the last way I would have wanted to wind up with…
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Back home in my cozy house after my tour of the Rockies. Ten below outside, so no dog walk this morning, and I’m planning on just hanging out in my sweats catching up on old NY Times, reading and puttering around. Christmas was wonderful, thanks to my friends Hope and Matt — I cried all the way across Wyoming on my way down there, overcome by the reality of Patrick’s death, and by the fact that, for the moment at least, I had no home. I love doing Christmas, and when Patrick and I were roommates we had several festive…