I’ve had the pleasure of eating your fine cooking before when we were down at your family’s place. I know this recipe just has to be good.

Janet

That’s a pretty extensive and exciting harvest. It shows how steady work developing skills and relationships can take our art and music into the wider world.

Janet

This fall my harvest are three gigs with Michelle Shocked–one in Ferndale, Michigan, Nelsonville and Kent Ohio, including one right next to my hometown of Athens! Are you familiar with her music? We’re doing her Arkansas Traveler album, which is being reissued. She wrote songs loosely based on fiddle tunes she’d learned in Texas as a kid. Many have interludes or endings that feature the real tunes. Lots of fun, but I might actually have to practice!

The dates are Sept 24,25,26 for any of Riehlife readers in Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia or Kentucky who may want to come. Here’s the complete tour schedule on Michelle’s site: http://www.michelleshocked.com/tour.html

Happy harvesting to all,

Mary Seelhorst

Fall is my time to begin playing in the kitchen again. Despite the back pain, I have created a new yummy soup, & hope to do it again soon so I can take notes to write it up as a recipe.In the meantime, here is the rough draft:

chicken stock made with one chicken carcass, white onion, celery, carrots & sage, bay, & a hot pepper (and cloves stuck into the quartered onion).

In some of the strained stock (freeze the remaining stock in ice cube trays), cook one bunch of asparagus. In a fry-pan, toast a generous handful of slivered almonds.

Remove the cloves from the onion. Place some of the stock in a blender to puree with the cooked veggies, asparagus, the toasted almonds & an avocado. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice & season to taste with salt & garlic & more lemon juice if desired. Add water to bring to desired thickness. Let me tell you this is YUMMY . Healthy, too!

P.S. Kitchen hint from Karen:

Squeeze lemons & limes in ice-cube trays (ones that make small cubes). The best ones for this purpose are the ones with a silicone bottom, so you can easily push out the cubes rather than having to twist the tray.

Freeze also a half of a squeezed lemon/lime rind. When you bag up the lemon/lime cubes, the rind will identify whether the bag’s contents are lemon or lime cubes. You’ll always have fresh citrus juice on hand, as little or as much as you need for a glass of water or a recipe.

P.P.S. Make ice cubes also from the chicken stock. Freeze some in small containers & most in ice-cube trays. Put a label on each bag or container to identify the contents. I print up 6-7 labels for chicken stock & other things I often freeze & then laminate the labels. Cut so there is a tiny bit of laminate border surrounding the paper, so the Labels can be re-used indefinitely.

Enjoy!

Karen Mondale

I had to look up “lugubrious” again. “Feeling sad & dismal” is the definition I found.

I believe that civilization cultivates culture. Maslow’s pyramid of the hierarchy of needs says it all.

The quality of leisure depends on how it’s pursued, received, and benefited from. Some of my leisure time is for escape–and time escapes me. Some is to settle, to regroup, to rest, to remember myself vs. himself. I’m not sure that leisure can be pursued with passion–unless leisure is defined as “soft time” that makes space for passions to live and and bloom.

Janet

I love your vivid description taking us through the grape cycle as you span summer and fall.

I think it’s so funny that you’re reading “Death in the Time of Cholera” as you gently swing your hammock.

Thanks for taking us there.

Janet

A huge, specked yellow leaf dropped off into my lap yesterday, the harbinger of Fall.Even as I mourned the passing of summer, I was excited at the prospect of fall, with its scents and that vague, wistful turn of sunlight that teases me into realizing the fleeting path of my life.

JJ, Your poem “Corn Ceremony” catches the spirit of the fullness of summer.

Thanks to you both for sharing your poems.

Janet

Corn Ceremony

It’s mid summer.
The corn plants
In my father’s garden
Tower over head.
I’ve been waiting for this moment
Since we planted the tiny seeds
Mid spring.

Now I stand between the rows
Toes wiggling in the warm earth.
Full ears wrapped in green husks –
Yellow silk turned slowly golden brown, then black.
I touch an ear.
Is it ripe?
I touch another – and another
Until I find the one to pick -
The first fresh corn of summer.

I strip the ear.
Husk and silk fall to the ground.
I bite in to the golden pearls
And taste the sun!

There’s a whole list of summer joys I could add – but this is one of those moments that’s especially meaningful this summer.

JJ