Favorites 9.29.14

Driving on the beach: It always feels like you're getting away with something. Freedom! I mean, you could drive straight into the freaking waves if you wanted! But you don't. But still.

Goat milk: Goat milk? Goat's milk? Milk of the goats? Whatever you call it, it's good. Use it in place of regs milk in your oatmeal and be rewarded with a deep creaminess and that lovely, goaty tang on the tail end.

Pine nuts: My very, very favorite of all the nuts. Or is it a seed? And why don't they make some sort of pine-nut butter for toasts and rice cakes? This is something my breakfast most desperately needs.

Beginners: Rewatched this Mike Mills movie the other night and remembered how it's great. About, among other things, the silk thread that ties our parents' fraught relationship to our own adventures in fraught-ness. Also, cancer, rollerskating, and a wicked cute terrier.

Top 3 To Read (Slowly)

Did y'all know there's a new movement for "slow reading"? Which basically just means reading a book. Because peeps are forgetting how, can't sit still long enough, can't focus on something for more than 10 minutes without scrolling. Reading books is my thing! But I'm a victim, too. That shit takes me waaaay longer now. But I'm still doing it! You should, too.

Without further ado, I give you my top 3 favorite non-fiction books. All of them wild with adventure, of course.

North To The Night, by Alvah Simon: About a dude who winters alone in the arctic darkness on a tiny sailboat. See, he sails up there with his wife and cat (!!!), but she (the wife) has to leave, and he's left frozen there for months with his boat, with his demons, with polar bears, with the Northern Lights, with the storms, with the crushing cold.

The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher: Mom sent me this book, so it's special. The author walked the entire length of the Grand Canyon in the 60s, all alone, and then wrote about it. Mom read it 30 years ago. Now me. An interesting cycle. Anyway, a quiet, relaxing text with much lovely language describing the hugeness of geologic time, the nature of beauty in the wild, and such: "Beyond shadow that still belonged to the night, a day’s incoming sunlight streamed across the rock reefs. Noon pressed down onto the Esplanade, hotter each day, more ponderously silent. Evening came, and a softer, richer silence.”

 Jacque Cousteau: The Sea King, by Brad Matsen: “He didn’t particularly care about money as long as he had enough, and his chief financial tactic was simply going out and getting more cash when he ran out.” You see, Cousteau was down for living only in the now—no rehashing things past or backward-looking. “The road to paradise is paradise,” he said, quoting an old Spanish proverb. Anyway, a bit of a womanizer, but a true adventurer, through and through, Cousteau pioneered the modern-day scuba tank by trial and error with sketchy homemade setups. He's fucking crazy! So much could go wrong!

The Weekend Report

Fall and summer crossed paths this weekend on their ways in and out of Oregon. The sun was hot, but the shadows were long and the light inarguably gold.

Went to Hood River to skate but no one had any energy. Ended up on a sandbar in the warm Columbia, wading out to cool off and watching the dogs lunge through shining waves.

Smoke from wildfires turned the sunset hot pink on the way home, and everything felt liminal.

Went to see Dumpster Wizard—an aptly named metal band comprised of our pals—play in a shadowy corner of the Kenton Club, then pit-stopped at The Tannery for a potent drink in a tall thin glass.

Attended Sunday afternoon gathering at the Bracewell residence, skated 'til exhaustion, sent summer off in the best way possible.

New Best Ever

Tomatoes-wise, the cherry one has my heart. The sweetest garden morsel in a manageable pebble size—you can put a handful in your mouth, which I often do.

Now is when I tell you about my new cooking jam: the galette. Kinda like a pie, but messier and lazier and incendiarily delicious. The dough, which bakes up all beautiful and buttery, is slapped together in a big bowl. The innards are whatever you want them to be (I did cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, and pan-fried leek). Rolling pin the crust flat, pile wonderful food stuff in the center, and then lovingly fold it all up like a baby in a blanket. It's the oven, really, that does all the work.

But there is freedom to the galette. Fuck the recipes. Make whatever kind you want. Peaches and blueberries? Squash, pine nuts, and pecarino? Yes and yes. It's all good.

Just know that if you have flour/butter/something in season to put inside, then a brilliant meal is always achievable.

Not pretty looking, necessarily—but pretty in your mouth!

Ancient (Garden) History

I'm not writing this from the table on my back deck ... but I could be. It's where I spend a lot of time—sometimes reading, most times doing nothing. Just sitting there, being human.

I'm able to do this (i.e. nothing), because I know what the yard looked like before I moved in 8 years ago, and what I'm really doing (besides nothing) is just kinda savoring what's become of that gloomy dirt/weed patch. Something green and vital. Something that hums.

Yes, yes, I've done a lot of work. But now the garden runs itself, I swear. I am particularly proud of how much the bees love it in there. Those guys work hard—it feels good to make them happy. Also? There's still an excitement every time something comes into bloom. That's fun.

I don't think modern folks feel much of a bond with where they live. We travel too much, and we move all the time. But I was thinking today, when I came across a couple ancient house pics on my hard drive, that propagating my garden—it's how I've connected with my land, primordially speaking. Cool, huh?

Circa 2006, when pulling weeds was my life.

Spring 2007, when my mommy came to visit and helped me plant some starts.

Spring 2014—a horticultural bonanza.