hearts

heart dress, heart earrings.

valentine outfit

i'm a valentine's day grinch.  in the tradition of julie, i'm practicing a more positive attitude about this dreaded holiday and embracing hearts.  

i gave cecily these earrings for valentine's day this morning, then immediately borrowed them.  

sorry, cecily.

kork-ease mary janes.  i didn't check the heel height when i ordered them online.  i'm a giantess in these heels.

if there's one thing i can't get enough of in a shoe it's a) red and b) mary janes. i have to stop myself from buying more red and more mary janes, trying to diversify my footwear.  

my tights are looking the worse for wear, but i don't want to invest in new ones at season's end.  


valentine recipe

molten lava cake.

i know this cake is a cliche, but i make it almost every year.  it's so easy and, if you're a human being, you'll love it.  i used paula deen's recipe, minus the orange liquer because i'm not a fan of orange and chocolate together.  i also added a pinch of salt.  

i always add an extra pinch of salt to every dessert. try it!


valentine date

george bernard shaw's pygmalion at provo's echo theatre.

pygmalion at the new community theatre in provo, the echo theatre.  my first show at the echo.  can't wait to check it out. 

and i've never seen a production of pygmalion before.  


valentine poem



tons of love poems at the poetry foundation.  if you want to get your feet wet with poetry, their website is the perfect place to explore.

A un Desconocido

BY LORNA DEE CERVANTES

I was looking for your hair,

black as old lava on an island   

of white coral. I dreamed it   

deserted you and came for me,   

wrapped me in its funeral ribbons   

and tied me a bow of salt.

Here’s where I put my demise:   

desiring fire in a web of tide,   

marrying the smell of wet ashes   

to the sweet desert of your slate.

My intelligent mammal, male

of my species, twin sun to a world   

not of my making, you reduce me   

to the syrup of the moon, you boil   

my bones in the absence of hands.

Where is your skin, parting me?

Where is the cowlick under your kiss   

teasing into purple valleys? Where   

are your wings, the imaginary tail

and its exercise? Where would I breed   

you? In the neck of my secret heart   

where you’ll go to the warmth of me   

biting into that bread where crumbs crack   

and scatter and feed us our souls;

if only you were a stone I could   

throw, if only I could have you.

a few sparkling points

this year's tree.

it's so dark!

so dark so early.

it's a little hard to keep the spirits up when it feels like bedtime at 5 p.m., no?  but we do what we can.

some things that shone in this dark day were these items:

1) my house is (temporarily, i'm sure) clean and decked out with decorations made and put up by my kids (plus d.j. and anna!)

the snowflakes.

2)  reading time with moses. phrases like "the greek war host", "the black ships", "single combat", and so on.  i'm becoming a nerdy little boy.

christmas list 2012.  a girl after my own heart.

3) cecily's christmas list with annotations and marginalia.  i love this gal's thinking.  she's such a good little writer and i really enjoy reading her creations every day.

this is the annotation to "totoro"

4) lula's salad:  kale, spinach, toasted pine nuts, oranges (supremed, like i taught her), fennel leaf, and meyer lemon garnish and vinaigrette. i added some cucumber and avocado because i needed to use them up before they started to turn.

in regards to line items "d.s." and "webkinz"

5) dessert made by the jasplund's.  holy, holy.  it was one of the best things i've ever eaten:  a spicy, dark gingerbread cake topped with a beautiful burgundy pear poached in unsweetened cranberry juice and spices, a dollop of whipped cream.

the annotations to "crutches"

legwear:  black leggings

looking forward to:  tomorrow's guest blog by one of my all-time sheroes

inspiration:  handmade holiday decorations, poached pears

How Far Would You Walk for a Hot Meal?

My first post-Sandy post. 

I'm very tired.

Our path to civilization

I kept a journal every day.

A flashlight was a necessity.  I didn't leave the apt without it.

What I'll remember is the cold.  Cold apartment, cold water, cold electric stove.

Warm refrigerator.

How far would you walk for a hot meal?  Yesterday, I walked about a mile-and-a-half over a bridge into Brooklyn, bringing my daughter with me.  We brought our dead phones and chargers with us.  I couldn't find my other daughter until I charged my phone. 

Communication in our neighborhood was reduced to notes taped up on doors, dropping by apartment buildings and yelling up at windows, hoping to catch someone home.

In the Brooklyn restaurant we eventually ended up at, my kid asked if she could order steak and eggs.  "Of course!" I said.  And then I jubilantly ordered hot tea AND hot coffee and a kale Ceasar salad with homemade croutans, an egg sandwich with homefries.  We gave our phones and charger to our very sweet waiter who ran out and bought a power strip.

Every day without power I thought about food.  How I could get it and where.  How I would bring it back before sundown, before my neighborhood would go epically, Biblically dark. 

Tight place update:

To add insult to injury, someone got a hold of our banking info and swiped some money from our account last night.  Sigh.

Rhubarb Tart for Posterity

Lunch at the Green Table in Chelsea

Ugh.  My camera phone takes awful photos sometimes.

This photo is of a (in season now!) rhubarb tart with rosemary ice cream and pistachios that I was blown away by when it was set in front of me today at lunch.  (I was treated to this by this Monday's guest blogger--stay tuned for her!)

Here's a better photo of same tart, although you see mine did not come with a flower, but you can see the variegated colors of the rhubarb:  this is what what was so stunning to me!  I gasped audibly when I saw it.

I never photograph food in public.  Some restaurants here are banning people from doing so, asserting it ruins the ambiance of their small places, but I did not want to forget this tart.  When the server appeared to take my plate away, noticing how clean it was--because I'd practically picked up my plate and licked it--I blurted, "How can I have this experience again?"  The tart had flummoxed me, loosened my inhibitions, made me emotional and joyful.

I hadn't been so overcome by the taste of food in a long while.  (And on my way home, Lara sent me a new poem she wrote related to this very thing.)

This lunch was the highlight of an anxious rainy day I was a little underdressed for.  The tart made me feel like everything had been perfect after all.