Savoring

Every February, I think I will make the chocolates my Valentine gives me last.  This year,  I tried to nibble, but the dark-chocolate-covered pretzels were irresistibly good.  I began with one, two, three, and then closed the bag.  But, when a body is writing on a snowy day, with a bag of chocolate covered pretzels next to her, osmosis occurs.  Now those pretzels are a delicious memory.

I tend to gobble up the good things in life.  Last week, a friend invited me over for lunch at her house.  I walked in her front door and was greeted by her energetic, 7 year-old son, and a cloud of delectable scents wafting from her kitchen.  Fresh bread baked in the oven and homemade tomato soup simmered on the stove.  Outside, the snow flew from a gray sky, but inside, warmth, color and a garden of scents bloomed.

Tomato soup seems a bland name for what she served us, for the pureed tomatoes tasted sweet, and freshly plucked, and the basil hit my tongue with the taste of an August day.  How did she transport us, her diners, from a snowy February day to the warmth of an August garden?  "I just pureed the basil with a little olive oil and froze it." she replied.  Incredible.  The three soup ingredients = frozen tomato puree, basil (with a touch of olive oil) and a little soy milk.  Perhaps she added salt. 

I received my bowl with gratitude and couldn't stop my spoon from scooping up the thick, scarlet puddle.  The last dregs of soup in my bowl I sopped up with fresh bread still hot from the oven.  As I write this now, the warmth of her welcome, the generosity of her hand-made life, the joy of escaping the mundane and the inspiration and connection with the land from eating food she gathered locally (some of it bought perhaps at our farmer's market booth last summer) washes back over me, and I can savor the soup and bread, the experiences of the day.  

Yesterday, I posted my farewell to winter.  Well, the Universe must be laughing along with me at myself, as the rain earlier forecasted came down as 4 " of new snow, and the view out my window is the essence of February.  New snow sticks, plastered to the graceful trunks and boughs of the cherry trees along the fence row, and outlines every dark, weathered batten of the barn.  Surprisingly, I find myself delighted at the new snow, at the call this morning from the school's automated alert system declaring a snow day. 

More time to write.  More time to savor.  In writing about the beauty of wind-driven snow, of the charm of a curled gray cat and the tiny sighs and growls he makes as he dreams, of the coziness of soup and bread in a friend's kitchen, I get to relive the delights of my life.  Henry David Thoreau remarked in Walden that the stumps he cut for firewood, "warmed me twice -- once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat." I find this true of experiencing life and then writing about it --  warmed twice by the joy I take.

Thoreau also instructed, "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”  So, I will gather the details of the present day on Hawk's Hill Farm, the crop I harvested today -- the blue sky blasting sunshine through my neighbor's sugar maple trees, the eight brown eggs from my Buff Orpington and Dominikker hens, including two that were warm as toast and freshly laid, a pot of Jacob's Cattle beans sorted and on to soak for dinner tonight.

My thoughts drift to the chicken and dumplings we had for dinner last night, actually, rooster and dumplings, as the bird was one of the young roosters I culled from my laying flock and put in my freezer last fall.  Simmered on the stove until the meat fell from the bones, then boned and the meat returned to the broth.  I made dumplings: 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 2 teaspoons baking powder sifted, then 1/3 cup of good butter rubbed in, and 1/2 cup of milk incorporated to make a soft dough.  Rolled out thin, cut into 1" by 1" squares and dropped into the boiling broth. After 12 minutes of boiling the dumplings, we had a rich stew to feed bodies tired from a day of mortaring the concrete wall in the dining room.  

Sorting beans grown last summer

Jacob's Cattle Beans soaking

How satisfying to work in Soulstice with my beloved, and be sustained by the fruit of this very hill at dinner.  I look out the window to where my man is opening foot paths to the barn in the heavy, wet snow, and reap another harvest of joy at the loving work he graces us with -- the gift of a quarter mile of open driveway and barn trails, easy walking in the snow.

May you breathe the air, taste the fruit and drink the drink of this season and be enriched by it,

Betsy