Spot the Canaries in Southern Italy

Last Saturday night my husband answered the door to welcome our guests wearing his own homemade version of Madonna’s cone bra – instead of cones he wore protruding plant pots covered in glitter. A rural Madonna. After the initial shock it seemed the guests warmed to him. The idea was Italian-American and we were hinting at the theme of our first wine tasting – wines from Southern Italy.

It was the first time I’ve entertained (along with David) for 12 people around a table, and I felt my inner Mother Mitzi came to life as I spent the whole day buzzing about in preparation. However I did feel the benefit from all the planning ahead as an unexpected calmness arrived just as the guests did. A good group of people makes all the difference. Your little mistakes won’t be held against you. The effort, the act of making something for someone, giving to the people you care about and whose company you enjoy, is what tops the cake.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do."



One tasty by-product of our efforts was a handmade pesto (courtesy of chef Nigel Slater) with watercress. The recipe can be found here,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hand-made_pesto_with_64346. With a borrowed pestle and mortar I crushed these ingredients into a green nutty sauce to be mixed with warm pasta. I supplemented the pine nuts with cashews to save on cost and traded the parmesan for grana padano and this recipe became a keeper, and justification for buying my own pestle and mortar!

As far as the theme of the night, Southern Italy, in addition to these 4 wines we sneaked in two from Tenerife, (a Spanish Canary Island) and hence, the title. Our guests had to decide which two were the oddballs among the bunch. Several of our friends were hot on our tail.

It occurred to me that quite of a few of the elements of the night formed a heart-warming convergence of people we’ve met, places seen, and experiences had. We served an Italian wine made the Negroamaro grape, a type of wine we first tasted in Rocco’s restaurant in Corfu. Rocco and Hilary introduced us to this wine from Rocco’s place of birth – Puglia in Southern Italy. My dress for the night – a thrift store treasure dug up in Kannapolis, NC from Value Village – was used for the whopping second time, being first worn (by me) at the Halloween party in 2009 thrown by some much-loved friends. (Thank you Amanda & Sarah for giving me a reason to buy that frock and bestow upon it an extended life). David’s bra incorporated flowerpots, giving a due nod to gardening and my father-in-law who has supplied me with a surplus of pots for my endeavours.

This time, I did manage to finish the night without showering anyone with liquid from improperly opened bottles. Hooray!

Dusty Keys & Sun Drop Cake: Another Trip Home

Last Saturday night, I sat around a table with a belly full of chili, cornbread and Sun Drop pound cake. Like every November 7th, it's my Daddy's birthday; dogs are smearing cold noses on the door and daylight savings is distracting us with colored leaves before his elusive exit. I see him now: creeping down the hall, pointer finger to mouth, careful not to wake his sleeping sunlight mistresses. But there we were in the sunroom, tissue paper and candle wax leaving evidence of year 57, a year I hope to walk with half my dad's bouncy step. Through the windows we could see the bonfire he built at dusk, settling into cherry wood embers, asking quietly for more fuel.

I stood up to stretch. My mom and my friend, Vanessa, were knee deep in childhood stories, adding a tear or two to the pile of tissue paper and dripped wax. (Anyone who knows my mother, knows she could coach the heart out of a light pole.) I looked at my dad in the midst of all this estrogen and had to giggle. What a man!

I relocated to the living room, where our old piano sits and uncovered its keys. Growing up, piano lessons came once a week, and I associated this spot with stress, with making my fingers do the right thing at the right time. I knew if I played The Entertainer loud enough, my hard-of-hearing grandmother would come into the room, bend her knees a bit like she saw them do on the Lawrence Welk Show. I loved to see her dance. And I knew she loved a chance to listen.

But this night, I laid my stiff fingers over the keys and remembered their sounds: together, separate, in a row. Like the words I gather when writing poems, I realized that each sound has infinite potential when pushed by emotion. And this wood and ivory piece of potential had been sitting quiet for too long. However many songs I'd memorized sitting there, I'd never sat there with their sounds to make something new.

I see it now: a brisk walk up my stairs, a cup of green tea and honey, warm light in the corner, a keyboard. Maybe it's my Winter project, a reason to stretch my creative landscape. Year 25 isn't too late or 57, for that matter. Maybe Daddy will take up dancing while I play. A little girl can hope.


xx Corrie Lynn

Finding Breath in Winter

For several years I have wondered if I may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, but then I relax and back away from the hypochondriacal tendencies and into the warmth of a cardigan and fleece blanket. Next I invite my cats onto my lap for communal warming. I want to think it is the ebb and flow, the seasonal turns our human bodies must obey, or as my yoga teacher would say, the yin and yang.

The summer makes us slow with its heat, while the winter calls for a brisk walk or turning over earth in the garden to churn our muscles and give our bodies the warmth that is so plentiful in summer. Winter is contemplative, to summer’s humour.

In the spring I felt like a newborn, plump with desires for the year, plans. After my defrosting I was aglow with the sentiment that blooming was ahead, progress, long hours of sunlight. Of course, the days again will shorten and the green things float back down to the ground. The leaves provide autumn its palette with their color change and eventually become food for the worms underfoot.

It is now the end of October, and I recently bought a new raincoat to bridge the gap between late summer and early winter. It hasn't yet seen many days because the cold arrived too soon and a heavier covering is required. Nearly everyone you meet mentions the return of “dark nights” (although they come around each year they are still a phenomenon which must be spoken of). My green-fingered endeavours have proved a modest success. I have potatoes, petite onions, a few bulbs of garlic among other things. The parsnips are still pushing underground waiting for the frost to bestow flavor. Some things have flowered early and others have flowered late, flowered for longer than expected, or not flowered at all. I have learned that next year I won’t be so calculating in my attempts. I will lean more towards experimentation without a fear of failure. Most of the time, things find a way to grow.

In these next cold months instead of giving in to moods of melancholy, I will empathize with the snow crocus bulbs. Having just been planted they rest beneath the surface, in waiting, and in spring I will monitor their (my) peep above ground, a harbinger of beauty to come.

Let me introduce you to Georgie (right) and Axle (left). Friends since infancy.

And a few of the many local sheep. I'm afraid I can't tell you their names.

Stay warm!

xx Laura

What Lucy Built

There's something about standing in an empty, curtainless house, catching light in all directions. An old house, one that used to hold things I now use in my apartment: tea cups, vases, bedside tables. The one where my mother first learned to bake a cake, my grandmother made dresses, my grandfather sold gas and candy to driversby. Two store front windows later framed Mammaw's sewing machine and my mother's wrought iron bed. We'd park in the gravel and skip up the side walk. A yellow jacket once stung my cheek upon opening the screen door. The place still smells of moth balls and Red Man tobacco. It's something like home.

Being there means dreaming back and forth, wondering what will be of this house and if it will include me. Regardless, in my mind, I trim the shrubs, plant gardens, paint the shutters green. I sip coffee on the side porch and the trees wave sun and shadows over my face. They are old and have seen three generations sit there and throw wishes into their branches.



It's common to get caught in the future. In our minds, we run sprints to the end of the present and crank our necks trying to see what comes next. Whether the impulse grows from excitement or boredom, we miss out on the fruits of the moment, which reminds me of a lovely poem by Wendell Berry.


What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.


Before I left the house that day, I pulled the low-hanging light bulb string and climbed the stairwell. In one of the small bedrooms, stacks of hat boxes lined the walls. I ran my finger through the dust coating one of them and opened it to find a fine, fancy hat adorned with feathers and black netting. Naturally, I put it on and walked over to the abandoned vanity. There, in the dingy reflection was Mammaw's hat sitting on my head five sizes small. And naturally, I missed her and her little head in a house begging to be made a part of someone's present. But mixed somewhere in the rustling trees and floorboard creeks, Berry's words soothed me: What we need is here. What we need is here.



xo Corrie Lynn

A Declaration of Affection: My History With Tomatoes

There aren’t many things in this world as beautiful in their simplicity as a plump and fresh, homegrown tomato. I remember being a young’un, my parents fretting that my premature acne was due to the acid I was consuming via tomatoes. I must have been eating a lot of them. I still eat a lot of them. I still have the odd outbreak of acne. (I don’t really think tomatoes are the culprit). I am letting them off the hook.

Tomatoes have a fair claim to being one of my favorite foods. Lucky them! Let us be grateful to tomatoes for their versatility and their privileged position in the fruit vs. vegetable debate. Isn’t it nice to be fought over? Caprese salad, warm pasta bolognese, fiery arrabiata, the list marches on, just as tomatoes seem to in the months they bless us with their presence. It is sad the season must end, as it is about to. At least they are happy to be frozen in sauces and soups for winter.

Tomatoes and me? Our history is far reaching. Obviously the reference to acne is probably the beginning, and soon came Newman's Own spaghetti sauce, and then I remember having thick slices of beefsteak tomatoes, by themselves. Those slices grew tired of being solo and soon asked to be sprinkled with salt and black pepper and sandwiched between slices of Merita white bread, sealed with a very generous portion of the best mayonnaise in the whole wide world! (Oh Britain you are missing out when it comes to Duke’s). It wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of culinary creativity but what utter pleasure!

As I grew, so did my taste buds and I soon discovered the splendor of freshly made salsa. It must have been the joy at receiving a basket of warm and glistening tortilla chips at the Mexican restaurant in Concord, North Carolina. The one across from Applebee’s and beside Harris Teeter. Is it still there? If not, rest assured the memory is. The accompanying salsa was blended, a smooth cooperative of its integral parts. From smooth salsa beginnings I now tend to prefer it chunky. I like to see what things are made of.

I later made the jump from larger than life, fleshy tomatoes to cherry, roma and their plentiful cousins - petite nuggets of flavor gold. Small things sure can pack a punch!

And here I am, tonight, trying to make sense of the large numbers of tomatoes that have arrived from my Father-in-Law Bill's allotment (the quarters of his gardening mojo). I decide to take a hint from a simple pizza sauce recipe. I skin medium-sized bowl of tomatoes in hot water and chop some garlic to fry. After a few minutes I add the tomatoes to the softened garlic and let it simmer for a little while then add some fresh basil, a little salt to taste and a little extra water if necessary. To such an undemanding recipe I would toss in one more portion of goodness - some grated hard Italian cheese, like parmesan or pecorino. (And giving credit to the Mexican restaurant I like this one smooth and blended).

Your heart will be warmed, I promise.



Tasty!

xxx Laura xxx

We Needn't Be Anything but Together

Time together falls through our fingers, but always leaves us something to hold. We take our bodies from the routine, from the actions we're told to do, and do what we want with the ones we love the most. We sleep in or wake early, and wake not to a rush, but to one another and the chance to catch the crisp of summer morning. We meet the cusp of Autumn when the sun's gone and citronella illuminates the laughter of good and old friends-- a sound not heard enough.

I'm always overcome with inspiration when Laura comes or I go to her. The cinnamon red of a sunset walk, the drizzling rain at Daddy's wood shop, the holding and comparing of hands-- who's got whose? The past ten days have once again proved rejuvenation with the changing backdrop of the Outer Banks to the Yadkin Valley to our very own dogwoods and pines. While we grow and are growing into our adult selves, we irresistibly enter our bubble built with giggles and silly voices. The best parts of us never grow old (we are learning).

So shall we let the homemade pizzas, Sanderling sightings, Italian grapevines, washcloth lessons, Swan Creek cartwheels, chicken stew, and Blueberry Yum-yum sink into our toes as we take our post vacation steps.

And to satisfy your viewing pleasure:

Sunset at Atlantic Beach

Sipping Vermentino, resting our eyes on the Brushy Mountains

Enjoying the chicken stew in Swan Creek

A cute couple of pizza makers!

A circle of good and old friends.

Bike Rides and a Big Pot of Beans

Recently, I've learned a couple of things. One: if you make a big pot of beans, plan ahead. Heaven knows how you'll react when your tastebuds tire of the usual partnership with rice. And two: when a good friend visits, she may yank your perfectly capable (neglected) bike out of storage, lather its chain with canola oil, and bump along next to you down the sidewalk and onto lakeside trails speckled with Canadian Geese. Prepare your face for lots of grinning.

So, first thing's first: beans. One morning, I spent precious before-work-minutes consoling the beans before their eight hour soak. "Don't worry when you get plump. It's just water weight!" They seemed reassured and off to work, I went. Days later, after lunches of beans, couscous, and salsa failed to excite my palate, I rummaged the internet for a veggie burger recipe, and hurried home with mushrooms, green and yellow onions, garlic, and cumin to add to my squashed beans. Later, I was throwing patties on hot oil like a frying pro and my apartment took on the smell of the State Fair. However, my burgers didn't firm up like burgers should. I figure an egg will do the trick, next time. So tell me, dear readers, what would you do with the leftover beans? And please, don't say, "Stuff them down the disposal."

And secondly: my dear friend Amanda was passing through Raleigh one evening with her bike in tow. We unlocked my storage closet and carried the bike that once carried me in college from class to class into my living room. The real world (in its time-guzzling way), had worn hard on the bike's mojo, and its resuscitation ensued. Helmets strapped, tires pumped, and little-kid-anticipation engaged, we hit the road. And I tell you, no matter how concreted, how polluted, how humid-- every place is prettier on a bike. There are no windows to roll up, no volume to control, no gas to pump. Only low hanging wisteria vines to dodge, Canadian Geese to weave through, and people (yes, people) to smile at, talk to, or pass over a piece of bread to throw at hungry ducklings.


So let me ask you this: what possession in your closets could you carry into the light and give a little mouth-to-mouth? Paint brushes? Kayaks? Potter's wheel? Sometimes it takes a good friend to push you into new territory, but really, it's just important to make sure what you own, you use, and also that what you own, doesn't own you. I say this loudly to myself as I consider airing out the tent I don't use enough amongst mountains I don't see enough with the people I could never love enough. Sappy enough?

Time to eat more beans!


xxx Corrie Lynn