Guilt-Free Leisure

I spent the weekend in San Jose with one of my dearest girlfriends, Stacy, and her family. They own a beautiful 1920's home on a double plot in one of the most charming neighborhoods in town, and Stacy has created an absolute sanctuary. I love visiting there for so many reasons, but I'll admit one of them is that I simply love spending time there. The home is cozy and loved-in, and the front door is always open to welcome neighbors who want to chat in the kitchen or stop by for dinner (which has happened almost every time I have visited them). Stacy is a real inspiration to me - a mentor for simple, open-hearted, deep living.

She is also an amazing chef, and a hardcore follower and proponent of the traditional food movement. We spent all our meals at a simple al fresco dining table in the yard, shaded by Japanese maples and redwoods. Meals were made with the freshest, most local ingredients, prepared lovingly and patiently by Stacy and whoever else was chatting in the kitchen, and served graciously and proportionately. I could always see much of the plate (watch out Claimjumper!) yet the food was so delicious and nutrient-dense I never left the table feeling hungry or cheated. I would much rather have this kind of food than the piles and piles served by most restaurants these days. I believe there is some redefining to be done around the idea of value as it pertains to food.

Apart from taking me to and from the train station, we got into the car exactly once the entire weekend, to visit Whole Foods for some ingredients for dinner on Saturday. The rest of the time we practiced slow living...long chats, frisbee in the park, blackberry-picking in the backyard, bee-watching, games with Stacy's daughter, and more chats. It was languid and lovely. I came home determined to create more of that, although I know too well my tendency to get busy in response to that slowness; there is something uncomfortable about it, which I'm trying to work through.

After a nourishing weekend of good friends, good food and lots of fresh air, Stacy sent me home on the train with a bag of wonderful goodies - a sack lunch of gorgeous sockeye salmon, green beans, quinoa, and Caprese salad; two dozen (!) pastured eggs from their CSA (apparently a lot of families were on vacation this week); a jar of sourdough starter, and a beautiful 12-inch disc of kombucha scoby. Fermentation heaven! Today I got my hands on a 5-quart glass jar and tranferred that mammoth mushroom to some fresh sugared jasmine tea. Fingers crossed!

I feel so deeply honored by my friendship with Stacy, one of many deeply nourishing relationships with special women in my life. I count myself incredibly lucky to know her, and to be a recipient of her grace and love. Thanks Stac!

Dig In

I've had a weekend that has been both exhausting - driving 4+ hours a day for four days - and rejuvenating - visiting with this beautiful woman and her fabulous family for a few hours here and there. We shared so many wonderful things each of us has learned about sustainable gardening and farming, traditional nutrition, natural mothering, spirituality, healing our mother wounds, and of course the occasional diatribe about poo. All in all a satisfying way to spend the weekend, and I'm so grateful!

My friend and I are both pretty avid bookworms, and as usual our conversation included lots of talk about what we've gleaned from recent reads. Here's a list of books both she and I are currently contemplating for various reasons:

MaryJane's Ideabook * Cookbook * Lifebook
I bought this over the weekend and am now looking for a free hour to read about baking, stitching and mending, and how a girl can run a farm.




Gaia's Garden
We may landscape our tiny plot of land this summer (.09 acres!) and I'm definitely going to buy this book in preparation. As my friend said this weekend: If you can't eat it, use it for medicine, or support your ecosystem with it, why plant it?




Nourishing Traditions
A wonderful reference in support of real, whole foods. The author is very knowledgable and extremely passionate about her message. Some find it overwhelming, and I've read that this book carries the message in a kinder, gentler, but no less powerful way.


The Omnivore's Dilemma
I have yet to read this book, but have heard so much about it and recently watched two hours of lecture and panel discussion with the author on UCTV (the University of California system's television station). Nearby UCDavis chose this book for this year's Campus Community Book Project - it's basically being taught university-wide in classes of all kinds.



Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal
My friend is a wonderful healer - and if you come down with any malady while in her care you will be well-tended! I woke up this morning with a UTI and she was all over it...she pulled down this book and this one and got to work. I'll have to get these soon.

I work a lot at scaling down my life - Descartes and I regularly go through the house trying to figure out what we can do without. But of all my possessions, books are the hardest for me to let go of. Who knows the psychology behind that, but I generally don't just read a book once and put it on the shelf - they are my constant companions, sources of wisdom that I can turn to again and again. This week I'm going to dig in and dream a little, about a life I wish for my future - a life with a little more land and the ability to grow more of our food, get back to sewing again and let the dogs (that I don't have yet) run across our fields each day. I'm going to dig in and see what fresh wisdom I can find in my many paper-and-ink friends.

Herban Garden

We live in a heavily shaded neighborhood in the heart of the city. It provides me a bit of the best of both worlds - I can walk or bike most of the places I need to go in town, but live "in the forest" as my nephew used to say. I mostly enjoy the trees, although the sycamores release these nasty little pollen burrs that stick in the back of your throat, gently choking you for most of the afternoon if you forget to shield your face during yardwork. Still, the tall, mature trees break up the concrete jungle around us and remind me how well nature and civilization can comingle if each is given due respect.

As an often frustrated amateur gardener, a downside of all this shade is that it's darn difficult to grow anything besides ferns and azaleas...so what's a girl to do when she wants to grow some food?

Last summer I discovered a sunny patch of beauty along our driveway - it's a long, thin strip of cement with an even thinner ribbon of earth, formerly choked with jasmine but recently cleared in preparation for house painting. I laid fresh compost and peat in, mixed it up and headed to Capital Nursery to choose the right mix of plants - a giddy pleasure of mine equal to school-supply shopping - for my edible garden.

I planted lavender and rosemary, along with alyssum in between to fill things out. The nursery also had some beautiful wine barrels that I brought home. One I filled with other herbs such as sage, basil and parsley, and the other with three varieties of heirloom tomatoes. One last pot billowing with thyme rounded out the planting.

I feel really proud of this little garden! During the summer we had beautiful fresh tomato & basil salad; autumn dealt us butternut squash with fresh sage butter, and last week I was able to have fresh herbs for homemade soup - in the middle of winter! As you can see, my kitty took to it as well.

Where have you found your little piece of edible earth?

Bowing Down To My Domestic Goddess(es)

I'm constantly intrigued and a bit surprised by my own pull toward the pleasures of nourishing old-fashioned food and down-home domesticity. I was raised in the heyday of the Women's Lib movement, by a mother who shed her domestic life licketysplit for a high-powered advertising career, and taught me volumes about how to make it in the working world. Her advice did not go unheeded - with my own successful business and fulfilling work, I have never shied away from the challenge of making a damn good career out of what I love to do. It has always been my area of greatest comfort and experience, while the tub went uncleaned for years at a time and the fridge was stocked with Trader Joe's packaging and takeout leftovers.

But I have heard the siren call deep in my belly to slow down and bury my hands in the the soil (and products of the soil). I remember in high school watching "Flashback" with my mother and being inexplicably, psychotically aware of a deep need to bake bread right then and there. Had I ever actually baked bread before, I would have known not to start such a project at 11:30pm (and if my mother knew this secret wisdom she should have told me). But no matter, I mixed and kneaded that bread with fervor, woke by my alarm at 2-hour intervals during the night to punch down the living cushion of dough, and rose at 6am to set my inaugural loaves to the fire. Although the initial product better served as doorstops than sandwiches, I never forgot the primal satisfaction of that experience. It has surfaced again over the years, though my drive to succeed in business has usually taken the front seat while baking, gardening, spring cleaning and homekeeping have been relegated to the trunk.

That is, until recently. Over the last year I have found myself journeying to feed this deep, primal place inside, answering the cry of Hestia, goddess of hearth and home to be expressed through me. She doesn't want to wait any longer, and I feel the time is ripe to embody her more and more. What this looks like, I can't be sure just yet. It does involve more bread-baking (which has improved greatly since 1989) and more...the making of traditional, whole, nourishing foods...the satisfying freshness of sun-dried bedsheets...the addition of homegrown rosemary and thyme, and in the summer, tomatoes and squash...the enjoyment of nurturing our family as it grows...the deepening of my conversations with Gaia (earth), Hestia (home), and Eileithyia (motherhood)...and probably other gifts that I can't even imagine.

All of this, humbly submitted in posts about adventures in homemade marmalade, cat poop in the garden, and tips for how to clean way-overdue bathtub grout. I'm not at all sure how this blog of mine will turn out, but it seems like a fun way to chronicle my journey home. Thanks for witnessing and joining me.