To get real sensual pleasure out of a meal, an evening, a moment in time, don't you think it's important to create in your mind an image of something beautiful, exceeding perhaps the reality that you have before you? I mean, that's what I do, after all, when I burn a candle with a delicate (and it must be very delicate) fragrance of pine: a kind of magic is triggered by it, where suddenly you can feel yourself to be transported. It's only a candle, but it feels like you've just stepped out of a warm log cabin, after a fitting, breakfast into the forest of tall pines.
Or how about this: I picked up (yesterday, at the curbside farmers market) a container of honey from B's Honeys. I've liked her honeys (and corn!) for years. But I don't really go out of my way to purchase a special honey these days. There are a lot of good ones made locally and this year alone I've bought honey from both Matt (Blue Valley) and Bill (Snug Haven). Both were excellent. Still, I saw that the beekeeper was listing a Pumpkin Honey, and she described it thus: pumpkin honey has a clean fresh taste with a fruity finish. Tremendous with berries and apples. Pairs well with blue cheese... and so on. Into the shopping cart it went!
Matt and Bill laughed at my excitement. We all know that the bees were not confined to a pumpkin patch for the production of the honey. But, there must have been a moment when they buzzed their way through blooming pumpkin flowers and the image is so profoundly satisfying that today, at breakfast...
... I have a contentedness about me that surely can be attributed to that honey on the table and the evocative, sensual idea of a bee in a field of blooming pumpkins. And yes, in fact, it is singularly delicious.
Of course, it is Sunday and so the morning meal is late. Today's walk to feed the animals was normal enough...
(Once again, cloudy skies, with an occasional insignificant sprinkle of snow. And cold.)
But then there was a grocery delivery and once you're sifting and sorting through stuff, well, the morning sort of runs away from you.
It's Sunday and so inevitably I will spend a big chunk of the day in the kitchen. I had asked the young family what I should bake for them and the first to answer was Snowdrop: chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting!
I have just the recipe for this! When my girls were young, they, too picked cupcakes more often that I can county and because it's 2021 it's easy to track down (via the internet) just about anything you did way back when and so I find our old favorite recipe (Maida Heatter -- the dessert genius of yore). I used it a lot because it would satisfy an adult palate as well: dark chocolate, with an intense chocolate ganache on top.
Today, I add a child's decoration, just because I want to do everything I can to make these kids smile.
In between the baking and the cooking, Ed and I do a loop on skis in the county park. It's not easy to be out now: everything is icy and slick! Still, we ski.
And in the evening, I get to see the kids for just a few secs as I deliver the foods for them. It's greatly satisfying to see the little one jump for joy. I'm sure it's on account of the sprinkles.
Evening quiet. There's still a lot of uncertainty out there in the real world of real facts and unknown variables. But maybe slowly we'll come to a point where it's all manageable and fine again. We live with hope.
And love.
