On a Summer's Day

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." —J. Lubbock

All summer long—all spring even—I’ve been harboring a little dream. My dream included a few simple things: a friend, a blanket on the grass under a tree, and a warm summer’s day. It’s a simple recipe, actually, but harder to concoct than you might think. If you can get it right, it’s a little bit of alchemy.

First you need to find the time—this is often easier than it sounds. As much as my life in Seattle is calmer and slower than my life in San Francisco (something I am profoundly grateful for), it can still be hard to find a free afternoon. Add in a friend’s busy schedule and things get even more complicated. The afternoon in question I actually had a number of things I should have been doing, but the day was sunny, the sky was blue, and what was I going to remember more—an afternoon spent at the computer or an afternoon spent on the grass with a friend? I chose the later.

The grass in question is my friend’s backyard, and such a backyard one does not often see. Large, with leafy green trees—a treehouse even. There are flowers and vegetables too. There are birdhouses, even a clothes line. It’s the sort of backyards that people used to have, when houses were smaller and gardens were larger and you planted trees to provide you with both fruit and shade. In the autumn her lawn is studded with apples, but not yet. Now it is just grass, lovely, inviting grass.



It’s the sort of grass that makes you want to kick your shoes off.



And so you spread out your blanket, and maybe you bring some food (in our case it was Ethiopian takeout, from our favorite place in town). And if you are me, you do something that delights you to no end—you lie on the blanket and stick your feet off the end so that you can wiggle your toes in the grass.

(Alternate versions include the sand wiggle, at the beach, and the more challenging to pull off but oh so delightful water wiggle, which can only be accomplished alongside a lake or slow-moving river.)

And you lie there and talk and laugh with your friend, and you watch the clouds slowly blow by, and you listen to the birds and feel the slanting late afternoon sun as it moves across the grass, and it doesn’t matter about the work and the worries that may sit at home on your desk. These are the moments you cherish, the ones that will linger. This is what you have been waiting for.

And your friend—who is quite a genius—surprises you with rootbeer floats. Rootbeer floats! Creamy vanilla ice cream in a cup, with cold rootbeer poured over it. You feel like a kid again, let out for summer vacation.

And you’re happy.



This is what I wish for you this summer. That you might find a free afternoon in the midst of your busy life and a small patch of grass—be it a backyard, a park, or a friend’s garden. I hope that you can lay out your blanket, listen to the sound the wind makes as it ruffles the leaves of the trees, and watch a few lacy clouds slowly float across a blue sky. And I wish that you might be happy.

Rootbeer floats entirely optional but heartily recommended.



And if an afternoon on the grass doesn’t make you happy, just look at this sweet house. I mean really, have you ever seen something so cheerful?

Happy summer, friends. I hope it is a good one for you.

Of Brothers and Beers and Immortality

If I might be the tiniest bit bossy—like an older sister—I would tell you to go out and get yourself a surrogate brother, especially one of the gregarious Irish-American persuasion, I think everyone should have one. They make life so much better.

My surrogate brother is named Paul. We grew up in neighboring towns but didn’t meet until after college, when he befriended my best friend while traveling in Guatemala. She introduced us and the rest is history. He quickly became my surrogate brother and has been ever since.

Paul and I were in Japan at the same time and he became my touchstone there, a connection to home and all that it represented. He knew the joy of a hike on Mt. Tam; how the sound of the foghorns under the Golden Gate can be both mournful and beautiful; and the pleasure of watching the sun sink into the Pacific from Bolinas Ridge (and how important a cold beer at the brewery is afterwards). Whenever I grew homesick I knew I could call Paul in Tokyo (much cheaper than actually calling home). He always understood without me having to explain. And when my tender heart was crunched by a man who both said he loved me and was unfaithful, he understood that too. Paul came to visit for a week and got the two of us into so much mischief that I didn’t have time to think about my loss. That's the sort of guy he is.

Paul is directly responsible for many memorable moments in my life—and all of my worst hangovers. Our adventures always felt epic. In Tokyo we stayed out all night going to dance clubs, taking photo booth pictures at 5 AM as we waited for the trains to resume. Up in the mountains we went snowboarding, soaked in hot springs, and played basketball with the children in my village (when Paul realized the hoops were lower than he was used to, he achieved a life dream of dunking like an NBA star and the kids went wild). Once we went on a road trip with friends and had so much fun we decided to take an extra lap around the region, just because we didn't want the experience to end.

There was that magical night when it actually snowed in Tokyo—something that never happens. We walked back from dinner through a city whose constant sound was suddenly muffled and heard the clink of pool balls echoing out of an upstairs window. It was a hidden pool hall. Paul promised to teach me how to play and I proceeded to beat him two games, a fact he now refuses to admit ever happened. “It never snows in Tokyo,” he says with a grin whenever the topic comes up.

One day, earlier this spring, my phone rang and I saw that it was Paul. I was on a call for work so I ignored it and called back when I was done.

“You missed out,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood.” Paul used to live on the same street as me in San Francisco, but moved north to Marin County when he got married. “I just got home.”

“That’s too bad, I have something to celebrate.” And I told him how I had received the signed and sealed contracts for my book that very day, it was finally official.

“I’ll come back,” he said immediately.

“Nah, don’t do that. “ I couldn’t bear the idea of him driving all the way back to the city, across the Golden Gate Bridge with its five dollar toll. “We can celebrate some other time.” I was already thinking of all the work I had to do.

“How many times are you going to get the contact for your very first book—we have to celebrate!”

And thus was hatched the plan of the Carbon Neutral Beer. I would walk from my neighborhood across Golden Gate Park to the Richmond District. Paul would ride his bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. We would meet at an Irish pub on Clement Street, for a cold drink on an afternoon that saw higher temperatures than San Francisco usually sees. I had been hiding all day in my cool house to escape the raging heat.

So I walked across the park, past the soccer games and through the leafy green.



And down streets lined with the cutest of houses. Now that I don’t spend much time in San Francisco the city seems to me like a dream, so charming, so quaint.



And over to a dark cool bar, where my faux-brother was waiting, already drinking a beer after his ride.

And because Paul is insufferably gregarious, by the time I reached the bar he had already befriended everyone there and told them about my news. When Paul caught sight of me he started clapping and they all joined in. I got an ovation from total strangers, all congratulating me on my book contract.



Then we sat and drank beers and talked, and I watched Paul talk with his hands as he always does. We talked about our friends from Japan, we planned reunions that most likely will never happen. Paul told me how, now that his generation is having kids, this is the bar they come to after each new baby is born at the nearby hospital. “First you bring a bottle of Patrón with you to see them in the hospital and have a few drinks there, then we come here afterwards.”

“The father doesn’t come with you, does he?”

“Nah, the dad stays at the hospital with the mom and the baby,” he assured me. “Well, except for my brother—he came down here with us.”

“He left his wife and new baby to come drink with you? That’s awful,” I tell him, but Paul just grins. If you marry into a clan such as his, you'd best know what you’re signing up for.

And then he tells me a story that made complete sense in the moment, though it might have been the beer going to my head. He told me that life is sometimes hard, but when we can sit with our friends and have a drink together, it is like we are immortal.”

Or something like that. It doesn’t make any sense to me now but in the moment it felt deep, profound. Though that might have just been Paul’s amazing ability to talk anyone around to anything.

But when I think about it now, months later, it does feel profound that someone dear to me would drop whatever he was doing and bike across a big bridge to sit with me in a dark bar and raise a glass to mark something special in my life—and though Paul might disagree, it has nothing to do with the beer.



This is who we are in our best moments—there for our friends, our family, those we care about. Paul has helped me move furniture (but swears he will never do it again—apparently I own the heaviest desk known to mankind). We've shared many a meal—he even bravely ate the first steak I ever cooked (an event you can read about when the book comes out). We've both cheered the other on in the trials and triumphs that make up a lifetime. Call it friends, call it family—I know he will always be there for me, and I for him.

The moments I treasure may not end up being the days that soar to great heights. Sometimes the best memories are days like this: when a friend takes the time to quietly witness—insists that you take the time to witness, even—a moment in your life. And in that process, you both write a new chapter in the part of your life that you share together.

Then my surrogate brother got back on his bike and rode north, home to his family. I went south, to evening dinner plans with friends—though not before I gave him grief for not wearing a bike helmet (the dumkopft). I am his surrogate sister, after all.

But for a moment there, laughing at our shared stories in the dark of a bar, we felt immortal.

Happy Anniversary, Baby

It slipped by without me noticing even, like some old married couple. I had to go back through my Flickr account to check the date on the photos to make sure. But it’s true; it’s been more than a year that I’ve been in Seattle.

Last spring I got in a car packed tight with my most important books, papers, and kitchen equipment and drove north, arriving late in the night at a house that was dark and sparsely furnished. I woke up early the next morning, awed by the greenery outside my window. I found my first favorite café (there have since been many others). I wandered around this wet city that spring had not yet reached and surprised myself by feeling at home.

(The Subaru, the clogs, the fleece all helped—who knew I had been impersonating a Seattleite for years? I thought I was just being a fashion slacker.)

And when spring truly arrived, it came with showers of cherry blossoms, of cheerful daffodils and fields of tulips. I made chirashi-zushi to celebrate the season. Not since I lived in Japan have I experienced such excitement at spring’s arrival. Sure, we have cherry blossoms in San Francisco, but there’s nothing like spring when you live in a place that has a real winter.



There were lilacs too, bringing with them memories of college and dinners eaten on a front porch. It's a slower pace of life up here. I took long walks and thought about getting a dog. I began to really like you, with your laid back weekends and mellow vibe.

But summer is when you really made me think twice, summer is when you began to make me fall for you. I hadn’t realized that I had been missing summer—tucked away as I was in my foggy corner of San Francisco. I opened the French doors to my bedroom and kept them that way for three months—the cool breezes each evening were pleasant to sleep in. There were some days that you pushed me to the edge with temperatures hotter than I like—and there was that week of rain in July that confounded me—but the bike rides along Lake Washington, the swims in the morning, the gardening, the berry picking, the farmers’ markets I can ride my bike to, all this pleased me to no end. You won me over last summer and made me question my devotion to that city by the bay. And as the summer wound down, you made me want not to leave.



And so I came back. It’s not what I had planned originally, but you wooed me back north, to see what winter might be like. It’s all fireworks and infatuation in the beginning, but how well would we get along once summer was over? I wanted to see you at your worst, to make sure of what I might be signing up for.



I can now say that your worst is pretty bad—dark, wet, unfriendly. It wasn’t a good winter, I can admit that now. I can even laugh a little bit at the weeks of gloom, of how friendless I felt, how cranky, how isolated. My life in San Francisco is so full of people and activity that it took me by surprise how lonely I could be, living by myself in this cold city. In the summer I didn’t mind it, but once the days got dark and dreary I needed more people around. You made me question everything. I didn’t realize how much I was struggling until the clouds began to lift. I couldn't write. I took long walks along the lake in the dwindling light. I grew sick of wearing fleece, of being bundled up. All I wanted was a sundress, strappy sandals, and a fruity drink in my hand. I began to understand why so many Seattleites buy homes in Mexico.



Oh sure, there were those few clear winter days when you dazzled me with the sight of snowcapped mountains rising over blue waters but those are cheap thrills, my friend, not the sort of thing you build a relationship on.



When I went back to San Francisco briefly this spring it made me cry. The city, the golden hills, the fact that I have so many friends there I can’t see them all in one visit—friends with whom I have history, who really know me. The farmers’ market was overwhelming with its bounty, the days were warm, the light like liquid gold. I put on sandals and wiggled my toes and was happy. It was all very confusing.



The day I left to come back to Seattle I stopped briefly in the town of Petaluma and the feeling of being pulled in two directions was visceral. Part of me yearns for Sonoma—for rolling hills and a rugged coast and old barns and cows and little white farmhouses and a landscape I have known all my life. It is home.

But as I woke up the next morning, to lush green outside my Seattle window, I felt soothed as well. There were friends here I wanted to see, things here I wanted to eat, and the lilacs were still in bloom. I weeded my garden and puttered about my house and went to see my niecelets who climbed into my lap and snaked their tiny arms around my neck and whispered secrets in my ear and this place was home too, though in a new and different way.



Which is all by way of saying that I think I might be sticking around. I’m not making any guarantees, mind you. I sometimes wonder why I’m going through the effort of starting over from scratch when I have a perfectly lovely life down south filled with people and places I adore. But I just signed up for a year-long kayaking membership and that’s at least a low level of commitment. I’m not turning in my keys to that city by the bay quite yet, but perhaps I might move some furniture up here, find a permanent place for myself, get a dog. It’s been over a year, Seattle, and I think it’s safe to say that we’re going steady.

But you should know that I’m seriously thinking about spending next February in Mexico. It may be the only way our relationship can last.

An Asparagus Story

I never eat asparagus without feeling profoundly grateful.

Asparagus grew in my mother’s garden when I was little, an early harbinger of spring. I’m sure my mother was grateful as well, to see them sticking out of the ground each year. She tells me they were so tender she never bothered to cook them. I don’t actually remember the spears themselves, I mostly remember the delicate ferny forest that was formed when the asparagus went to seed. My strongest asparagus memory took place many years later, miles away from my childhood home.

It was a sunny morning in late May when I left the small eastern Washington town where I had gone to college for the last time. I had graduated just days earlier, walking across the stage in my cap and gown in front of my family and fellow classmates, bobby pins stuck uncomfortably into my head to keep the funny mortarboard from slipping off. There had been parties, speeches, congratulations, and packing up my small apartment. Now I was heading south—home to California—with most of my worldly belongings jammed into the back of the car.

The road out of Walla Walla leads south and west, through rolling farmland and toward the Columbia River. In the three years I had spent there I hadn’t often driven this route. If I left town I usually went north, for skiing or camping in the Blue Mountains and bicycle rides through rolling hills covered in wheat. I didn’t know this low, flat farmland well.

That morning was clear and sunny and I was full of adventure and excitement, both for the roadtrip before me and for my adult, post-college life, stretching out like a magic carpet. The exams were over, the infernal papers, the required classes. Sure I was nervous about what might lie ahead, but that was part of the excitement. On that golden morning, zipping past open countryside with the windows down and the music up loud, I felt like I could be anything.

That is when I saw them, off in the fields to my right as I zoomed by, the farm workers.

They were bent over, their arms stretching to the ground. Every foot or so they reached down with their left hand to grasp a spear coming out of the ground and used a metal tool in their right hand to sever the stalk at the base, They were picking asparagus, carefully, painstakingly, one by one. Each spear was another stretch to the ground, another thrust with the right hand, another aching back. I had never thought much about where asparagus came from, how they were harvested, I never stopped to consider that each spear represented backbreaking labor for someone.



This photo and article about farmworkers ran in the newsletter put out by the Seattle area PCC coop stores this spring. It is exactly the scene I had driven past that May morning, years ago.

And there I was, in my fancy car (not my own, but mine for the driving), with my newly minted degree that represented a tuition outlay far beyond what these farm workers might earn in many years, a lifetime, perhaps. I felt instantly humbled, aware of my own privilege, of the conspicuousness of my own good fortune in this lifetime. Whatever trials I have had in my life, I have been given great gifts.

Perhaps the greatest gift I have been given was my education—this degree that lay newly glittering in the palm of my hand was the culmination of years of educational opportunities that are not afforded everyone. Sure I was thousands of dollars in debt for that degree, but it was money I would be able to pay back over the years with earnings from the better jobs my education would allow me. I have been given great gifts.

I learned all sorts of things in college, but I learned something far more important that day on the road out of town.



I think of that day each spring, when I begin to see asparagus in the market. I don’t know if each spear is still harvested by hand, but it doesn’t matter—plenty of our food is, probably more than you or I would ever guess. The amount of work that goes into the fruits and vegetables we buy for pennies—work from people who are too often paid only pennies for it—is something I try to keep in mind always. How much more careful might we be if we knew each apple, peach, or peapod was picked by hand? Would we be more likely to treat them like the treasure they are? Would we let these fruits and vegetables rot in our refrigerators?

Each spear, picked by hand, with aching back.

I thought of this more recently, when I had the good fortune to spend a weekday afternoon hanging out and eating at Pizzetta 211, one of my favorite little gems of a restaurant in San Francisco. They had an asparagus appetizer on the menu, fat spears bathed in a Meyer lemon vinaigrette and scattered with a dice of salty preserved lemon. It was served with toasted bread spread with buttery Bellwether Crescenza cheese and it was delicious. The food and that afternoon—when lunch stretches to hours and the light filters in through big windows and you are well fed but generally left to you own devices to chat and laugh with your dining companion—is another thing to be grateful for.



But what can we do to make a difference in how our food is grown and harvested, to protect the people whose hard labor keep us fed? The best thing I find is to learn about where your food comes from and who is growing it. Shopping at farmers’ markets, if they are available to you, makes this easier. Buying directly from the producer allows you to ask questions, to learn about their operation and their values.

For years I’ve bought from Swanton Berry Farm, in the Bay Area, and always choose to support them. The berries are delicious—no doubt about it—but I also like knowing that I am supporting the first organic berry farm in California and the first organic farm to unionize. They offer stock ownership to employees, a medical plan, retirement, and vacation and sick leave. They pay their workers hourly rather than for produce picked, so that their workers are not tempted to risk injury for a few extra bucks. For me, that makes it all taste even better.

Another thing you can do is to support farmworker organizations such as the United Farm Workers, you can sign up on their website to receive email updates. At the moment they are fighting for justice for a 17-year-old girl, Maria Jimenez, who died from heat stroke while working in a Stockton (California) area vineyard this spring. The labor contractor she was working for did not provide the protection from the weather (required by law) and when she was taken to the hospital she had an internal body temperature of 108.4. The vineyard she was working in provides grapes for the Charles Shaw Wines (otherwise know as Two Buck Chuck), which is distributed exclusively by Trader Joe’s. UAF is sponsoring an email campaign to ask Trader Joe’s to support humane working conditions. If you’d like, you can participate here. There are other organizations working for farmerworkers rights as well.

You can buy organic. When I was growing up my family participated in the boycott of table grapes, due to the harsh chemicals used to grow them and the fact that the farm workers who pick them were growing sick and their babies were being born with missing limbs due to the pesticide exposure. I was saddened to hear that this sort of thing is still happening—three deformed babies born within weeks of each other to families who worked for the same company and lived in the same camp only yards apart. Buying organic means that your produce is protected from some of the harshest agricultural pesticides, and that the people who pick it are protected as well.



It’s tempting to ignore these issues—I sometimes would like to. No one wants to look at how children are being born deformed because their parents are working to grow tomatoes that will feed other people's children. We like cheap food, but how can we take care of those who grow it for us? It’s one of those many-layered situations where there is no clear or easy solution for how to fix it (the labor contractor that Maria Jimenez worked for has been shut down, but it’s likely they will resurface under another name). I do my best to stay informed, ask questions, make better choices, and be aware that I am benefiting from the hard work of others.

I am sure the farmworkers I saw that morning barely noticed the car going by on the road out of town, but I have never forgotten them. I don’t suspect that I ever will.



ASPARAGUS WITH MEYER LEMON VINAIGRETTE AND PRESERVED LEMON
Adapted from a dish a Pizzetta 211, San Francisco

This makes for a dramatic presentation, especially on a large platter, and would be a lovely dish for a spring dinner or luncheon. Alternately, just make it for yourself or a loved one. My mother was visiting Seattle the day I made this and, well, she practically licked her plate clean. You can serve it on toast or just as a composed salad.

One generous bunch of asparagus, wooden stems removed, lightly steamed.
1 tbs and 1 tsp olive oil
1 tbs and 1 tsp lemon juice (Meyer lemon, preferably)
1 tsp chopped preserved Meyer lemon rind (more as desired)
salt and pepper to taste (careful to taste before you add salt, the preserved lemons are quite salty)

Whisk dressing ingredients until smooth and drizzle on cooked asparagus. Toss carefully with hands or tongs to distribute the dressing evenly.

If desired, serve with toast and soft cheese. Pizetta 211 uses Bellwether Crescenza, I used a soft goat cheese when I made this dish. Both were wonderful.

To Mise or Not to Mise, That is the Question

Mise en place: a French phrase defined…as "everything in place"… It is used in U.S. kitchens to refer to the ingredients, such as cuts of meat, relishes, sauces, par-cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables, and other components that a cook requires for the menu items that they expect to prepare (Wikipedia).

I have a confession to make: I do not mise.

I don’t have anything against the mise—I find it lovely when people chop all their ingredients beforehand and put them in those cute little glass dishes awaiting the moment when they add them to their soup or sauté. When I first started dating the Italian he made dinner for me and had prepped all his ingredients ahead of time. I sat in the kitchen on a barstool with my cocktail as he made our dinner, adding all the pre-measured components, and felt like I was watching a cooking show on TV. I found it charming.

But on my own, by myself, when no one is watching, I am not a mise-er*.

This is probably because I taught myself how to cook, from books, starting when I was about twelve (and long before the birth of the Food Network). When you’re twelve you don’t think about strategy—and you really don’t have that much patience either. Instead I fell into the habit of chopping my onion as the pan I planned to sauté it in was heating on the stove. Once the onion was in the oil and softening I grabbed the carrot or potato and chopped that. It’s less methodical but it’s terribly time efficient—and I work well under pressure, I always have. Occasionally I've gotten in trouble with this method, but not enough to break me of the habit.

[We won’t even go into detail here about how I don’t bother to clean as I go along either. I grew up in a household where the rule was if one sibling (me) cooked, the other one (my brother) had to clean up. Of course this spoiled me for life and I’m still looking for the dish crew I lost when I grew up and moved out.]

This slap-dash method of mine would never work in a restaurant setting. There you need all your ingredients prepped and in place before the orders come in and you have to fire, fire, fire your dishes at speed for hungry diners who are waiting. In a situation like that, mise in place is essential. Even for complex cooking—dinner parties where multiple dishes need to be orchestrated—it’s pretty important. But on a Tuesday night, when I’m making soup for myself and no one else is at home, I don’t bother to mise.

When I bake, which admittedly isn’t often, I don’t pre-measure things either. Not only that, I don’t always bother to combine the dry components into a bowl and add them all at once the way the recipes tell you to. Sometimes I don’t even bother to sift (oooh, rebel). Sometimes I do, but not infrequently I flout convention and add them, unsifted, one by one. In theory I love those tiny little glass bowls that people measure out their sugars and spices into, but in my real life it’s all far more seat-of-the-pants.

(And the truth is I’ve rarely had anything not turn out well—never, in fact).

I was thinking about this the other day as I chopped lemongrass and peeled ginger and separated eggs and measured out sugar and coconut milk in preparation for making Jess Thompson’s Ginger-Scented Tapioca Pudding (yum). Yes, I chopped and peeled and measured before I turned on a burner and started cooking, but that’s only because the tapioca balls have to soak for 30 minutes first and I had nothing better to do. On my own I would have chopped and peeled as the coconut milk was heating. On my own I measure sugar straight from the bag into the pot. On my own I separate eggs directly over the dish the whites are going into (I'm a daredevil that way). I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but the truth is I rarely mise.

But maybe that’s because I still haven't found my in-house dish crew and want to avoid the extra work of washing all those cute little bowls and measuring cups.



Now, I may be inviting the scorn of food bloggerdom to rain down upon me with this confession, but I’m sort of curious how other home cooks deal with it.
What about you? Do you mise?

*All apologies for abusing the French language, I just couldn't resist.

Life, Death, and Quinoa

My downstairs neighbor in San Francisco died this spring.

Now, before you start saying those things that we all say because we really never know what to say when it comes to death, I should tell you that I didn’t really know this neighbor. He moved in last summer after I had already left for Seattle. I met him exactly once, the day last November when I was packing my car to leave San Francisco and go back to the Northwest.

But still it was a shock to hear—this life, gone. A massive heart attack in the morning as he got dressed after his shower. He never made it to work that day—or to the date he had planned for that evening.

I don’t know about you but each death I hear about shakes me. Not so much the older folks, death at an old age is most sad for those left behind. But unexpected death when you are still young, that always rattles me. It could have been me not showing up to work that day, what if it had been? I spent the next week thinking about what I might do differently if I knew I had only a short time left.

We go through life assuming we have time—we have to. But the truth is that time will run out and none of us know when that might happen. It’s worth it then, to consider how we are spending our days and years. Are we really living the life that we want, as much as possible within the constraints that we each have?



I know people who make lists of the things they want to do before they die (heck, there are even websites devoted to it). I’ve never done this, but I am always fascinated by other people’s lists. So often they are filled with grand trips: see the pyramids, sit in a café in Paris, go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

I understand these lists but if I were to make a list of my own it would look very different. There wouldn’t be much travel on it at all. Part of this could be that I’ve been lucky to do a lot of traveling (luck and intention, these things don’t happen on their own) but mostly because I’ve come to a point where I don’t think that trips necessarily make up a well lived life. It’s easy to feel a sense of wonder while wandering the streets of Paris; it’s much more of a challenge to appreciate the average Tuesday afternoon—and I’m going to have many more average Tuesdays (all willing) than I will have days in Paris. How do we learn to treasure the everyday?

I must admit, I have not always been able to appreciate my life, sometimes I still don’t. I want to be able to see each day as a gift, but there are times when my days frustrate me, things don’t go my way, and I long for the gratefulness and peace of mind I’ve seen in those who have come close to losing their lives. There is an appreciation for the sheer fact of the day, disordered and unruly though it may be, that I would like to achieve. I’m not there yet, but I am trying.

If I were to make a life list it would be filled with time spent with friends and with family, simple pleasures such as taking my niece to fly her first kite. It would have more dinner parties on it, more time spent smelling flowers, more evenings in front of the fire. It would have a dog on it, and afternoons spent writing letters—real letters on real paper—to friends to tell them how much I adore them. It would have home baked loaves of bread and blackberry pies and lemonade in a pitcher served on a porch on a sunny day. It would have boats and babies and daffodils in the spring. It would even have work—good work that I can be proud of, volunteer work too—and it might have a few naps on it, especially if taken in a hammock in the shade.



My list would definitely have a hammock on it—and it might even have Paris on it, but it would be Paris with my niece when she is old enough (right now we're too busy flying kites).

In the time I have allotted to me, I want to try to live my every day in a way that feels valuable and worthy and rich with meaning—at least a meaning that makes sense to me—so that when my days come to an end, be it years from now or only months, I will be pleased with how I spent my time.

And I want—as much as possible—not to put off pleasure. This is why, the week after I heard about my neighbor, I bought tickets to see Pink Martini. I’ve wanted to see this Portland-based band for years, but it never quite seemed to work out. When I got an email about an extra performance date added, on a night when I didn’t have plans, I jumped at the chance. We do things like this when we’ve just spent days pondering our own mortality—at least I guess I do.

That night was jazzy and fun, filled with gorgeous vocals and dazzling instrumentals, and at the end of the evening more than a few people danced their way out of the auditorium. And in the way that seeing a good concert makes you even more excited about a band you already like, the next morning had me googling a bit, reading more about this group I’ve been a fan of for eight years.

And that is how I found out about the quinoa.



It’s true, in an article in Edible Portland there was China Forbes, lead singer of Pink Martini, talking about this quinoa dish she and her boyfriend make—in fact, she said it was "the most important thing in our lives." It was quinoa, mixed with sesame oil, ponzu, and chili oil, and eaten with seaweed. I could almost taste the umami flavors and after a few days I began to crave this dish I had never eaten. Even though I was out of town and not really in a position to do much cooking, I bought the ingredients and tried to mix up a batch of China Forbes quinoa.

And then I swooned.

This quinoa is one of the very best thing I have ever made—and I don't say that lightly. It is dark and deep with flavor. I added an avocado for texture and richness and I cut the nori in strips and sprinkled it on top, but the quinoa mixture is mostly as China Forbes explained it. There is something sushi-esque about this dish, but I dare say I like it better than sushi. It is a flavor that is hard to describe—earthy? deep? primally satisfying? It's easy to become addicted to—the first week I made this dish I ate it every day, sometimes twice a day, and I craved it in between. The two people I’ve made it for both asked for the recipe (well, one asked for the recipe, the other just wanted me to make it again and again but we can't all be cooking types). It's not a pretty dish, but the flavor is deeply savory and satisfying.



And that’s what it’s all about I guess—savoring. When I look the word savor up in the dictionary the first definition is: to enjoy something with unhurried appreciation, to relish.

May we all learn to savor our days and our years…and even our quinoa.

CHINA FORBES QUINOA WITH AVOCADO

Before I give you this recipe I am going to tell you that not all ponzu sauces are created equal (and I know this because I've gone through a bottle and a half in the last three weeks, seriously). The best I find is Eden Ponzu, which is sadly unavailable in Seattle—or at least I have yet to find it. Other commercial brands are less flavorful. Because of this you might want to take the following recipe as a rough guideline, adding the ponzu slowly and tasting as you go along. Stop when you get to the point you like it. For the brand I am using now, 2 1/2 tbs works, if I had Eden Ponzu I might use less. Try and see what works for you.

If you can't find ponzu at all, you can make a facsimile (not as good but okay) by mixing 1 tbs lemon juice, 2 tbs rice vinegar, 5 tbs soy sauce, and 5 tbs dashi soup stock (made from bonito flakes and kelp).

Half cup uncooked quinoa
I prefer red or black quinoa, if you can find it, but yellow is fine too
Half an avocado, or more as desired
Make sure the avocado is a bit on the firm side or it will mush into the quinoa and not hold its shape
2 tbs + 1/2 tsp ponzu (Japanese soy/citrus sauce) or to taste
1 tsp sesame oil
Siracha chili sauce to taste (for me that's about three drops, but I am a spice wimp).
You can also use other brands of Asian chili sauce, or even Tabasco in a pinch, but Siracha is best.
Handful of nori strips
I prefer spicy nori strips from Sound Sea Vegetables (available in health food stores) cut into even thinner strips with a kitchen sissors. You can also find precut strips of flavored nori in Asian food stores. Plain sheets of sushi nori will work as well.

Cook the quinoa in 1 cup water according to package instruction (I bring to a boil then simmer for about 20 minutes until the water is absorbed). Yellow quinoa will get soft, black quinoa stays a bit firm and seedy.

Put the finished quinoa in a bowl and drizzle in the ponzu, sesame oil, and chili sauce as desired. Cut the avocado in chunks and add. Sprinkle with nori strips. Stir, eat, and swoon.

Makes two servings, but you might want to keep the whole thing for yourself

NOTE: this is not an attractive dish, I will admit it. I tried to gussy it up and also turn it into something more polished—an actual salad-like thing. I added tofu and chopped scallions and created a dish that reminded me of something Heidi Swanson might make (though I dare say she would have photographed it better). It was good, but I like the plain quinoa and avocado better. The tofu and scallions just diluted the flavor, but feel free to play around with it if you like—and report back if you come up with anything good.