when I cannot...
colored pencil, ink, paint on wrapping paper
Amanda Millay Hughes
Spring fever has set in with a vengence! Sorry for the long silence, and thank you for the email and comment...it helps to know you are there, listening.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of work and life activity - every day, evening, and weekend...and all pressed forward by the real wind of the seasons changing. The daffodils are up, the pollen count is up, the temperature is up, and on Saturday night, the full moon looked larger in the sky than it has in 18 years...no wonder I am longing for a trip to anywhere, a month of Sundays, a little time to look at the sky, to stand, to lie down with nothing to do but be there. . . wherever there is.
My antidote for this fever (since a month of Sundays is simply not possible and ibuprofen doesn't touch it): a little reading. I have gone back to some of the books that I have loved in the past - learned from - listened to and heeded. A little bit of Edna St. Vincent Millay (particularly Poems for Children); a little bit of Gift from the Sea (Anne Morrow Lindberg), and finally, last night, I pulled down one of the collections of writings by MFK Fisher, The Art of Eating. My God, the woman could write! I found myself reading though some of her essays in An Alphabet for Gourmets - in particular the section on spaghetti. She says:
Have a bowl of grated Parmesan, genuine and sandy, and unadulterated by domestic packaged stuff; a large pat of sweet butter; a good salt shaker and a freshly filled pepper-mill; as many hot plates as there are people, and a big, hot casserole with a lump of butter in the bottom.
Just reading it makes me hungry - and in fact, it is precisely what I intend to cook as soon as I finish this post. I was reading well after 10 pm last night, so I had already eaten and couldn't imagine it wise to start a second dinner at 10:45! There is something extraordinary about the way she co-mingles her personal experience of herself and the landscape of her life with the universal touch of a great big dish of pasta. The writing inspires me and despite my genuine effort to find someone who speaks this way today, despite all the cookbooks in my personal collection, and my love for Judith Jones, my respect (albeit with a bit of suspect questioning) for Mark Bittman and How to Cook Everything - MFK Fisher was, as a friend of mine says, "A One-er." There is no one quite like her when it comes to the art of eating, loving food, and offering inspiration to get you organized and started cooking!
I find it interesting that both she and Judith Jones describe in some detail their decisions to cook for themselves (a table for one), and in both cases organization of time (and shopping) are key. Organization - when applied to anything other than my silverware drawer - is not a natural tendency. And organized shopping seems like an oxymoron! But Fisher says:
I rearranged my schedule, so that I could market on my way to the studio each morning....I grew deliberately fastidious about eggs and butter; the biggest, brownest, eggs were none too good, nor could any butter be too clover-fresh and sweet. I laid in a case or two of "unpretentious but delightful" little wines.
She is a miracle.
So, perhaps, with the itchiness of my spring fever, the wanderlust, and the ache, I will find a new motivation to these organized intentions.
Dinner at the table
A little glass of wine
A pat of butter
an end of day ritual that might make everything more sensible.
I don't know...
For now, I will just go ahead and put the water on - and hope for a long Spring...
Thinking of you, more often than you know...
All love
Amanda
