the second semester and a bowl of granola

Tomorrow afternoon I head back to university for the second semester of the year, my fourth semester as a student. When it concludes I will be half way done. Half way. 

And my wish was granted: I wanted another proper snowfall before I went back. It happened yesterday into early this morning, and in the evening the sun was out, bright and brilliant. So I took a walk, took my camera, and had this song echoing in my head all the while. 

I made some provisions for my return to school. Among them, a batch of granola, adapted from Stephanie Congdon Barnes' recipe:

Simple Granola

6 cups rolled oats
2 cups mixed nuts and seeds (I used flax and pumpkin seeds)
1 teaspoon cinnamon 
1 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
1 cup honey and/or maple syrup
Dash or two (or three, if you dig salty with your sweet like I do) sea salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Place a baking pan (at least 9 x13—I actually use our big roasting pan) over medium heat on the stove top. Add the oats and toast, stirring for a few minutes. Add the coconut, nuts and seeds and spices and continue to toast for a few minutes more until everything begins to brown and become fragrant.
Warm the honey and maple syrup in a small saucepan until liquid. Pour over oats mixture and stir to thoroughly combine. Sprinkle with salt.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes (it depends on the size of the granola batch and the size of the pan). Check every 5-10 minutes or so and give it a good stir. Allow to cool and store in an air-tight jar.

woodberry kitchen

Yesterday evening I had some very fine local fare.

A lovely lady who is like my aunt though we're not related took me down to Woodberry Kitchen for supper. The good stuff that made it's way onto our plates came from nearby sources, from farms and from the sea. For the winter months the restaurant cans and preserves relishes, sauces, tomatoes, syrups, etc. The food was artfully concocted and composed. We got a seat on the balcony and could look down at all the happenings below. Not long after we arrived a song that makes me happy started to play.

It was an absolute treat.

ice garden

Yesterday morning I woke - jumped out of bed nearly - and found the ice-drops and ice-fingers created overnight. It was so cold outside they lasted long into the afternoon. 

They were lovely, but a disappointment. I want snow. Oh, I want snow. 

(I've realized the fact that I do not have to shovel said snow when/if it arrives - thank you Dad, thank you younger brother - may influence my desire for it.)

I didn't even get a chance to photograph this loaf of bread before it was sliced up for a feast with friends. We had a beauteous evening, after a day of snow that made our garden look like Narnia. Inside, my Pap had a fire going and come darkness there was good food, laughs, and time enough to be calm. The year has come to a close. 

2012 was something. For me, it was one of the hardest and yet one of the fullest and finest so far. I'm not much of one for New Year's resolutions, but I will say I have some ideas for 2013, ideas I'm rather excited about. 

But until then, I leave you with a recipe for a humble loaf a bread. I can say from experience that it's quite tasty with chickpea spread, blueberry goat cheese or tapenade. But I imagine it would pair well with just about anything else you like, eaten pipping hot alone in the kitchen or cooled and consumed at the table with friends. 

Happy New Year, best wishes, be merry and happy! Cheers!

Simple Little Loaf

(adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

1 1/4 cups warm water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet)
1 tablespoon runny honey 
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (I'd like to experiment using other flours. Spelt maybe.)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats (not instant oats)
1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
1 tablespoons coconut oil or butter, melted, for brushing

sunflower seeds and poppy seeds (optional) 

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Stir in the honey and set aside for a few minutes, until the yeast blooms and swells a bit - 5 - 10 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the flours, oats, and salt in a large bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir very well.

Brush a 8-cup loaf pan generously with some of the melted butter. Turn the dough into the tin, cover with a clean, slightly damp cloth, and set in a warm place for 30 minutes, to rise.

Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C, with a rack in the middle. When the bread has risen, sprinkle seeds (if using) on top. Bake the bread for 35-40 minutes, until golden and pulling away from the sides of the pan. I finish things up by leaving the bread under the broiler for just a heartbeat - to give the top a bit deeper color. Remove from oven, and turn the bread out of the pan quickly. Let it cool on a rack so it doesn't steam in the pan. Serve warm, slathered with butter.

Makes 1 loaf.

My third semester at university has come to a close.

I'm one of those people who thrive at school. If I had the money for it I'd get more degrees than you could shake a stick at. As it is, I'm become even more enamored with my major: anthropology. It might have something to do with having a professor who brings in a traditional Mexican healer, a Lakota Soiux woman, and a sound healer and lets them do their thing: a healing, a ritual, a sampling of singing bowls. (This is the same professor who has the class sit in a circle, allows the students to guide the course as they will, and wears the most amazing Native America turquoise amulet ring.) And then there was also the research I did: I interviewed two CSA farmers and wrote a twenty-five page paper complied from said interviews. I felt like a real anthropologist; I was.

This semester: I was introduced to this book, I wrote two papers about this couple, I watched this horribly sad film, and became a reader for my school's literary magazine.

And yet I do not know what I want to be "when I grow up." People ask me this question constantly, it seems. Nervously, I answer some ridiculous little something about perhaps working in non-profits, or museums, or maybe permaculture. When I say I'm studying anthropology I typically get one of two responses (except the one time when the reply I received was an obscenity): "Wow!" and "What are you going to do with that?"

The truth is I don't know. I'd like to, but I don't. It used to bother me that I didn't have a firm job title in mind, something I could cling to and say: this is exactly what I'm after. I'm not studying anthropology because I want to be an anthropologist. We do not live in a world that needs another Margaret Mead or Claude Levi-Strauss. That I understand. But we do live in a world where we need people who are work to create cross-cultural understanding. I want to be one of those people. And I wouldn't mind getting my hands dirty in the process.

At this point in time, that is as much as I know. And that is okay. Ken Robinson, in one of his TED talks, says we can't predict with any accuracy what the state of the world is going to be at the end of the week, let alone in five years, so how can we prepare? Now, I do not feel the need to chose a career and say absolutely this is what I am going to do with my life. What I have is the present, and in it all I can do is study what I love, and open my mind, my eyes, and mouth.


And get really good grades. That helps too.

november afternoon

I spent the last day in November with my Nana and Pap, my grandparents.
But they're my friends too. 

winter

This has never happened before: I am excited for winter.

Yesterday morning it snowed. Really, it rained and it snowed. But as I walked back to my dorm room after my 8am history class, proper snowflakes were coming down. By noon, a little had collected on the grassy areas, like powdered sugar on a coffee cake. And I was thrilled.

I am excited by the greyness of the sky and the air. I am excited by the cold wind.

Maybe I was more aware this year of the bounty and the burden of summer (because of my internship at the farm), and now because of that I am more grateful for the quietude and beautiful bareness of winter.

I recently read this quote by Andrew Wyeth and paid little attention to it. Then, when the weather turned colder, it came rushing back into my mind:

This morning I cut a couple of paper snowflakes. Perhaps I'll make some classic paper chain decorations this weekend. I'm already dreaming of the scarfs and hats and sweaters (maybe) I will knit (maybe because first I have to learn to knit). I'm excited to start listening to this record again; it sounds like winter to me. And I've started a pinboard collection, here, of wintery things. 

Come winter. I think this year you and I will get along.


painting by corey paker. 

starting seeds for winter

Yesterday morning, with the sun to our backs and the frame of an ironing board as our table, Devin and I started seeds for the winter CSA.

We started lettuce, leeks, kale, komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach), napa cabbage, bok choi and radicchio. They will begin their life in these containers. We filled the containers with potting soil, created little indentations with our fingers or the back end of a pen, watered the soil, dropped in the seeds, covered them and re-watered. Each flat is then labeled and transfered to some place that will best suit the seed's needs. When they've germinated and become hardy enough, they'll be transplanted into the greenhouse.

And so I got to play some part in the makings of a winter CSA, though I'll be away at school when these seeds turn into edible things.