Bread, Wine, Salt

Summer tastes like a bruised peach before breakfast, eaten over the sink while juice runs down your arm. ...like watermelon straight from the refrigerator, cold to the core, eaten while your skin is still hot to the touch, still shining with sweat. ...like ice cream that melts down onto your fingers no matter how many napkins you grab or how quickly you eat. ...like chlorine and sugar and red food coloring when it sounds like the bells and growl of a refrigerated truck. ...like gazpacho sipped from paper cups while you sit on a blanket on the lawn, waiting for the breeze to blow and the music to start. ...like iced coffee in the heat of the afternoon, as you sit with the shades drawn and the fans blowing. ...like salt spray when a wave tosses it in your face as you bend to fill a plastic bucket. ...like a garden grown tomato sliced onto a piece of bread with a smear of mayonnaise and a sprinkle of salt and basil. ...like a burger from the grill, with cheese melting into...

We sit facing each other. You keep telling me it's hot, but I have goosebumps on my arms. You have a knife so finely honed that I don't see it, don't feel it, not even when you've cut me, until suddenly I am bleeding on the lawn and the darkness is falling and you are gone. We play encore like it's a game. The man at the piano winks and urges us on until you return, your arms wide. It is beautiful but it doesn't matter. I am bloodless and breathless, and you never saw me at all. (I'm throwing this against the wall to see if it sticks. Don't worry it you don't like it. I probably won't like in the morning either.)

We've been having a pretty low key summer. I signed the boys up for one session of swim classes, which fizzled out when someone got a fever and someone else didn't want to go anymore (not that he could have gone when his brother had a fever anyway.)  And the rest of the time I've just been doing whatever occurs to me. So we went to a minor league baseball game and sat so close we needed a net to protect us from foul balls. We learned some new chores. We watched a movie at an Aunt's house. We've built a lot of things. We played in the sprinkler. We ate healthful snacks. And then there's this: Homemade Kettle Corn I could pretend its good for us, since it's whole grain and all, but I won't. It's delicious and doesn't need to be justified. You'll need a stove-top popcorn maker, or an electric version that stirs. Ingredients 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter 1 Tablespoon high heat oil such as sunflower 1/3 cup popcorn ke...

In June we had house guests. Since the last time we'd seen them they converted to the paleo diet. (Short version: no grains, no dairy, no legumes, lots of meats, veggies, nuts, and fruits, limited raw honey, dark chocolate.) We had to feed them, while also feeding my older son who won't eat meat unless it's bacon. Almost as soon as they were gone I had vegetarian friends come over for a play date, and I had to feed them lunch. And then the next day my mostly vegetarian friend and her utterly carnivorous husband and son came for a visit and I had to feed them, too.  I say "had to feed them" as if it were a trauma, which is wasn't. I like feeding people. I say "had to" because they were in my home over mealtimes so I was required by the laws of hospitality to offer them sustenance. Basic hospitality also required that I provide food that was acceptable to them. Hospitality doesn't say anything about judging their dietary choices. Why they ea...

On Monday morning I got a call from a client, warning that my services would be needed soon. The threat of labor makes me pretty efficient. I filled and ran the dishwasher, cleaned the sink, took the boys grocery shopping, got the groceries put away, fed the boys lunch, emptied the dishwasher, made snack and dinner for the boys, filled the dogs' water, cleaned the dog' ears, and put the flowers in the vase. I spent the rest of Monday at the birth, watching a skilled nurse-midwife facilitate the VBAC my client wanted despite circumstances that might have sent some providers running for the operating room. It was a great birth, the baby was perfect and I'm glad I was there to witness it. But it meant that I didn't get to bed until 2:00 in the morning. When I say that I am a morning person, I do not mean 2:00 in the morning. A mere five hours later the sun was up and my children were up and my husband was getting ready to leave for work. I had a follow-up scheduled for...

This last week of light posting has been brought to you by a failed oatmeal muffin recipe. I am working on an oatmeal muffin recipe for Lunch in the Park , because we learned last week that Kate makes oatmeal muffins which are so good as to earn her good karma. My last attempt was utterly meh, though my boys ate them happily. I will go back to the drawing board and tweak the formula again.  That is what recipes are, of course, they're chemical formulas and when I try a new baked good I'm doing a bit of science. My last experiment did not produce the expected results, so I have to go change my procedure. I should note that I'm doing all of this work myself and not relying on my mother to do it. That's how science experiments are supposed to be done.  There's a mother at my sons' preschool who doesn't seem to grasp this, and so she weekly regales me with the tales of woe that result from her older son's science project in which she, the mother, must be u...