Edible Jewels of Autumn

I’m thoroughly lost in a honeycrisp apple the size of my two fists put together plus one of Patrick’s, and won’t be answering my phone until well after the last bite. Close your eyes for a minute (read to the end of this sentence first) and imagine a crunching sound so clear and crisp you almost need earplugs.

Rethinking that afternoon cookie snack now, aren’t ya?

(Confession: I’ve also got a 12oz slab of halva—Mediterranean sesame fudge—nearby, topped with a rough blanket of crushed pistachios. In case of an emergency. But the apple went in first, for the record).

Since January 2018, I’ve been clocking in at around two apples a day, sometimes three if they’re small. A high LDL number and some research in the opposite direction of taking a statin led me toward pommes as a go-to snack instead of toast or Mounds bars. I was obsessed at first, having no less than five pounds of them in the fridge at all times and sitting down virtuously each morning (yes, weekends too) to a Gala, my favorite for months and months until I accidentally bought a bag of Fujis in a harried afternoon after-work run through the produce section. Now it’s Fujis, then Galas, and then Honeycrisps, but only organic (additional research offered a scary list of all the fruits and veggies most drenched in pesticides. I didn’t sleep well for a while. Apples topped that list, and I’d ingested about a week’s worth until I was enlightened). Now Patrick will come home with a bag without even asking first. What a dear.

I don’t remember as a kid going for apples much unless we were at our maternal grandparents’ place in Tiffin, Ohio. Opa had a couple of trees that bore a variety called “transparent” in his back yard. The fruits were fist-size and golden yellow, and we’d climb the short trunk to pick a couple and eat them with a sprinkle of salt. It’s important to note that Opa brought his extensive gardening know-how with him from Holland when he came to America at all of eighteen years old. Fifty years later, his grandchildren got to wander through a wonderland of a backyard where that botanical expertise had the lion’s share of the real estate. He could cut the small patch of grass at the edge of the slate patio with a push-mower and not even work up a sweat. The rest of the space between the house and the detached garage was filled with pear, cherry, and hazelnut trees which grew next to a row of gooseberry bushes just on the other side of the raspberry canes. Where the canes ended, rows of potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, ground cherries, lettuce and squash were bookended by pole beans at one end and an airy chamomile patch at the other. The latter was so prolific, we knew we’d find a generous harvest of the apple-scented buds drying on an old copy of the Toledo Blade’s “peach” section every time we opened the door to the potting shed. Black raspberries grew next to the kissing gate that opened into the alley, and behind the garage, red and black currant bushes decorated the cinderblock foundation like a thick and festive fringe. We ate well in every season, as Opa’s wife, Opoe, was a master canner. I come by my foodie tendencies naturally, and miss the heck out of those trips north.

In my college days, there’d be boxes of apples at autumn charity walk-a-thons weighing down the folding tables at the finish line, and I don’t recall getting lost in any of them. Picked too soon and trucked across a few states, they were slightly bitter and left my mouth dry. I ate them in hopes that the next bite would yield the sweetness promised by the ruby red skin. It never did (thank goodness someone always brought donuts).

Now I have un-adulterated apples just a few yards from my back door; they’re the humble remnants of a once-thriving orchard but we haven’t kept up and the fruits are misshapen, a little sour, and occasionally wormy. They still do in a pinch, and the ones that fall before we can eat them smell lovely as they ferment on the ground, wasps and hornets swarming drunkenly from one drop to another. In the spring, we hold onto every ounce of hope that these stalwart survivors of winter will saturate the air with that unmistakable and heady apple blossom fragrance. It’s enough to get a body though the wet and final days of April.

Until then, I’m pleased to announce that the two-year, twice-a-day apple practice has been a helpful strategy in a constellation of statin-free options that has brought my LDL down to almost where it belongs (when your doctor says “keep on doing what you’re doing!”, that’s the extra spring in your step as you head out of her office). It’s one of the most delicious and noble pursuits I’ve ever undertaken.

I think Opa would be proud.

Wanted: Fiercely Private Extrovert. With a Blog.

From my comfy perch on the left side of the couch, looking out through the left-hand living room window, I can see between the twisted grapevines and the thick branches of two osage orange trees on the ridge into the neighbor’s now-harvested cornfield. Save for a stray dangling brown leaf here and there, the trees have been wind-stripped down to their bones. Naked Acres is about ready to live up to its name for another winter.

Patrick loves to see the topography that secures and surrounds us as we move through these weeks of autumn, where all that is unnecessary is being flattened down or blown away or cleared by a mighty Hand. We know the slopes and curves of the fields are there on the other side of July’s rich and leaf-dressed woods, but we forget how the land beneath us rolls and heaves until the fields shift to a tawny brown and the tree line goes all stark and vulnerable. I say vulnerable, but those sycamores and musclewoods and black walnuts are the standing champions in our outdoor family. They even shelter and coddle the weaker mulberry saplings when the snowfall is wet and heavy. Not everyone survives, but they do their best, this tall and silent community of beings with roots sunk deep below and arms continually stretching to the blue or cloudy skies above. They take care of each other. Lessons there, my friends. Lessons.

For a hair shy of two years now, I’ve meandered on the pages of this blog with musings and stories that I’d largely kept to myself for far longer than two years, and I’m still getting settled into the awkward passage from timid-hearted to sorta brave when it comes to self-disclosure. As my late psychologist dad used to say, “Self-revelation is not for the squeamish, no matter what side of the couch you’re on.” He was right, of course. I’ve been in both places, sitting across from someone as her moment of truth came crashing forward in a storm of tears or fury, and unpacking my own luggage in the presence of a trusted member of my personal ‘board of directors’, but in those latter episodes, I’ve often walked away doubtful that it was ever the right move. I’ve squeamed often (there’s a new word for you; the autocorrect isn’t having it). But in an unexpectedly reassuring way, the look back at those moments doesn’t include any lasting impressions of deadly fallout. I’m still here, I have healthy, nurturing relationships and a solid set of elastic core values. I eat mostly well and can still put my aging body in service to a variety of heavy-lifting tasks. Whatever I feared would happen hasn’t come to pass.

I understand that I have more choices than the trees do when it comes to shedding layers of pretense and protection. They receive the harsh gifts of the seasons with grace and growth, and while they may lose a few bits of themselves along the way, they’re also experts at repurposing and healing: bark that has embraced and tucked into itself a length of rusty barbed wire (to try and remove that now would do more damage than the original wound), the cut end of a 5” branch once raw and seeping now weathered and smooth. I could learn from that (and I have, truly), but when they deliberately let go of the very dressing that makes them gorgeous and beloved (whether it’s green, fire-y red or glowing orange) and reveal their hard-earned knobs and knots and knuckles, I wince and impulsively want to cover them up in the most compassionate way. I hardly ever choose to show anyone those less attractive parts of my character. It’s nearly always an accidental event, and in front of people I want to impress or whose opinion of me matters.

But on another side of the Liz coin, I am usually the one to put my hand out first, ask the first ice-breaking question, and continue the conversation with sincere follow-up questions. I enjoy speaking to groups large and intimate about topics they’ve requested or I’ve initiated, and punctuate key messages with stories from my own life that connect the dots. I walk the halls at work with my head up, make eye contact, and say “hello, how’s your day?” and stick around to hear the answer. And while I may not volunteer a lot about myself, I respond honestly when asked. In the words of my beloved friend Matt (who spoke them to me just this past Friday as we chatted on my way across the county), I’m a “fiercely private extrovert with a deep need to be known and understood”, to which I added “in my own time”. Measured and edited self-revelation. Through writing. Go figure.

So far, people have been gracious and kind with what I’ve put “out there”, not frightened my introvert back into her cave with harsh critique, and the move from timid to brave continues rather smoothly. Only I know the risks I haven’t taken yet, the stories still dangling from a topmost branch until a seasonal wind pulls them gently to the ground.

There’s no rush. I trust that wind and the unfolding season through which it travels. I’m grateful for the gift of your company along the road.

Gentle Landings

It’s as if the leaves on the towering yellow maple just outside the kitchen window fell in one unified and agreed-upon drop, finally unable to hang above the dried grass a moment longer. Every blade was covered in ombreic shades of gold and maize and pale butter, the sharp-edged leaves flattened down by a steady rain that started falling an hour after we pulled up the driveway in the first new and dark minutes of Saturday morning. However it happened, it looked soft and bed-like and almost inviting.

Filling a tall glass with water, I stood at the sink shortly after 7:30am with a ten-plus hour road trip hangover (you know what I mean—still slightly dehydrated, knee and elbow joints stiff from the bucket seat sitting position, regretting the Taco Bell dinner choice at 9:30pm), having spent five of those hours inching our way through Chicago’s Friday night gridlock. The yellow of the leaves soothed my travel-weary spirit, and I lingered a bit longer than necessary over the dishes Patrick must have used for his post-trip before-bed snack. By my reckoning, he could eat whatever he wanted at any time of day or night from this day forward, after such patient obedience to the GPS that guided us along Lakeshore Drive, an alternate route to avoid an accident on 94. It added two hours to what was normally a seven-hour trip (not counting bathroom breaks and Taco Bell stops). Much as we both enjoy our time in the Big Blue truck feeling the miles disappear beneath its tires, this thirty-hour round-trip jaunt to the Windy City was brutal. As I write this, I’m not even sure I want to make the 18-mile commute to work tomorrow morning.

But there there…we’re home now, and it’s taken us the better part of two days to find our stillness groove again. Coming home to a clean kitchen was intentional and arranged. I knew I’d want my eyes to rest on an empty sink and a full dish drainer as soon as we walked through the front door. The view of the yellow maple carpet outside the kitchen window was pure bonus, a lottery ticket found in a forgotten winter coat pocket, cashed in and spent on something impulsive and frivolous.

It never gets old, living here.

While Patrick reacquainted himself with his workshop out back late in the afternoon, I made a batch of oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies (he’s been asking me for years—they’re his favorite), filling the house with their buttery baked breath, and had three of them before dinner. To atone for our food choices on the road, we sank into the couch around 9:00pm, each of us holding a bowl of savory quinoa topped with steamed and sautéed vegetables, tahini, soy sauce, slivered almonds and only a mention of shredded cheese. That would cancel out any damage done by the pre-dinner cookie indulgence, I told myself. And I was right.

By grace and by gift, I am able to look back on myriad homecomings, some following the most joyous of events and others, broken-hearted and tear-stained circumstances beyond my influence. The common ground among them all is the welcome that only a familiar home can offer— nubby upholstered chairs that have followed me through the decades from apartments to houses, plush throws draped across the arm of the couch, and framed photos of family and watercolors right where we left them. We exhale into their “come and sit down” presence, leaving the unpacking for a few minutes as we untie our shoes and peel off the socks that have left their knitted imprint on our ankles. We walk from the living room to the bathroom, putting away toiletries and giving the mail on the coffee table a quick glance and a promise. It feels good to be stretched out to full height and moving without really going too far, and the cats are glad to see us (no opposable thumbs to open the food bin and scoop out a measure into their bowls, they’ve looked forward to this moment since our niece Andi last filled them around 3:00). In these first few moments, it’s easy to wonder why we left in the first place.

A full week ahead begins to play itself out in our minds, and we set about slowly acknowledging what we need to do to prepare for it, lest it rush forward and devour all of our residual energy. There’s a new appliance addition to the family—a shiny washing machine, delivered this morning, waiting to chew on our clothes for a while before spinning them damp-dry and spitting them out cleaner than when they went in, and I’m eager to empty the hamper into its silver-ringed maw. But for now, I’m content to look out the living room windows at the sun-dappled maple leaves, turned brown and dried by this morning’s gusty winds, as Patrick naps by my side on the couch.

Home. It’s almost like we never left.

In Praise of the Ordinary.

Bits of dried Montmorency cherries stick to the kitchen shears in my right hand as I snip about half a cup into smaller pieces for the batch of mocha cherry almond granola that’s baking at a warm 325 degrees. My fingers are sticky and I resist the temptation to lick them clean (this batch of granola is for sale. Mustn’t put the customers off). We’re in between summer and winter farmers’ markets, with a two-week break, and it’s always good to stay ahead on inventory. Because we make flavors in small batches, certain ones sell out quickly, almost guaranteeing that we won’t have every flavor available all the time. But if a customer asks, we’ll make what she wants, sell her a bag or two and tuck the rest away for the next Saturday’s offerings. So far, it’s a system that works without taxing the kitchen staff.

I started and ended my day baking, filling the space in between with roasting the last of the summer squash and then cleaning the bathroom before heading over to our friends’ place an hour away for a scrumptious sliders sammich bar and belated birthday celebrations with their two young girls. Time spent with them is always—always—good, and the sunny autumn day enveloping us made it that much better. We cooked together, romped in their back yard with the two “loaner” dogs they were watching for some friends, and watched the “Pastry Week” episode of The Great British Baking Show until Jen pushed the pause button to serve up spiced crunch-top apple cake with her homemade caramel sauce, alongside Claire’s first batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (that are also excellent with a spoonful of that same caramel sauce). Yes, I realize I’m writing a lot about food at the moment. My apologies to the keto folks in the reading audience or anyone just starting the Atkins plan. I can move the reflection in a more low-carb, low-cal direction.

On our way home, I felt that familiar hunger for putting my feet on the field paths while the sun was still two hands above the horizon line. It didn’t take long to unpack the car, put away the leftovers Jen and Russell sent home with us, change into my chicken boots and head down the slope from the front deck into the mouth of the meadow. The kittens bounced along behind me for a few yards before racing ahead to find adventures of their own along the creek banks. They’d disappear and reappear at semi-regular intervals, and follow the sound of my voice if we lost sight if each other. They’re dear little fur balls and sturdy walking companions.

As we crunched along through the brown and curled sycamore leaves, I couldn’t get over how simple and plain this day felt. No emotional peaks and valleys, nor physical ones from some long overdue farm chore. Just granola, sliders and TV with people we love, a sunset walk beneath reliable blue skies and trees, and more granola. Steady, I think to myself. Some would say average or ordinary, and I’d be ok with that too. It’s these calmer days that I sometimes forget to appreciate or even notice, surrounded as we are by the language of the superlative experience. Headlines lure us in with “stunning”, “jaw-dropping”, and the overused “amazing”, and all I learn when I read further is that some folks get there much sooner than I would have. The unremarkable goes, well, unremarked.

But it’s so essential, my friends, to set that bar at a height that we can scale without injury—physical, emotional, or spiritual. When we expect a home run nearly every time we’re at the plate, we lose an appreciation for a well-executed single that keeps the inning going. Don’t worry—the no-hitters and grand slams come along too and it’s thrilling when we’re there to gather those moments into our open and awestruck mouths. Let’s just remember to make room for the common, the steady, the normal inhaling and exhaling rhythms that give us a solid place to land, and a grounding from which to stretch and reach beyond once in a while.

Here’s to granola and friends and borrowed dogs and nothing too flashy.

Sleep well, dear ones.