Nix Whittaker is a great promoter of New Zealand authors. Here is my interview with Nix, on her website. Take some time to explore the fabulous books by NZ authors while you’re there!
Who’s Debbie?
We pulled a jar of chutney from the cabinet a few days ago, and it inspired hours of speculation.
Who is Debbie? My husband made the chutney, and he labeled it, but no one can remember why it’s called Debbie’s chutney. Did someone named Debbie give us some fruit that was used in the chutney? Is Debbie an acronym for something? Delicious black boy [peach] interesting experiment? Is it a description of what’s in it? December berries?
The truth is, no one remembers. Which is a shame—I’m sure it’s a good story.
Many of our preserves and homemade products have names that tell a story, or describe what went into them. Just a few memorable ones:
Strawgooberry Jam—strawberry and gooseberry jam
Brewcurgooberry Jam—black currant, strawberry, red currant, and gooseberry jam.
Windfall Chutney—made from not-quite-ripe apples that blew down in a storm.
Black Daze of May—a dark beer brewed during a May several years ago when it rained continuously.
Baby Butt Bitter—a beer brewed many years ago during the potty training phase of one of the children.
Non-Dillicious Pickles—a batch of dill pickles that I forgot to put dill into (they were actually quite good)
Ginpricot Jam—apricot and ginger jam
Taumutu Squeak—mozzarella cheese that hasn’t quite worked properly and can’t be stretched, but squeaks when you bite into it
And, of course, Summer Soup—soup made of all the late summer vegetables.
So…
Who the hell is Debbie?
Lemon Meringue Pie
I had extra pie dough from making a quiche earlier in the week, a bunch of lemons that needed to be used, and tons of eggs. What could I do but make lemon meringue pie?
I don’t think I’ve ever actually made lemon meringue pie before. It seems a gross oversight on my part, though not entirely surprising—I’m not fond of meringue, so it wouldn’t be the first thing I’d ever think of doing with lemons.
But, hey there’s a first time for everything, and the rest of the family loves meringue. So lemon meringue pie it was.
And it was very good—a study in textures and colours, with wobbly bright yellow custard underneath and foamy egg whites on top, nestled in a crunchy crust.
Would I make it again? Maybe occasionally, but it will never be one of my regular desserts. Even with the pie dough already made, it was nearly an hour from the start of the process to putting the pie in the oven. I don’t mind spending that sort of time on a dessert now and again, but every week? I can get my sweet fix much more easily than that.
And so, now I’m dreaming of a nice, whip-it-together in-a-few-minutes pan of brownies…
Enrique’s Violin
Music
Wrung from a life of want.
Wrought of
Cedro amargo,
But not bitter.
Wrought of
Machete
And Imagination,
Of sheer desire for beauty.
Your maker a poet,
A dreamer,
Inventor.
You made the people dance
And forget
The crops washed away,
The sick child,
The dead baby.
If only for an hour.
Sing and dance
With the discarded
Rubbish of life.
Sing and dance
With me.
Haiku: Listening to the clock in my office
Clock ticks time away
Marking what I have not done.
Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.
_____
Clock ticks time away
Marking what is yet to come.
Soon, soon, soon, soon, soon.
_____
Clock ticks time away
Marking what I do and say.
Now, now, now, now, now.
Screen Time
Friday is National Poetry Day, so all of this week’s posts will be in verse. Happy Poetry Day to you. May all your couplets rhyme.
Screen time
And TVs
And sports after school.
Texting
And YouTube
And try to be cool.
Selfies
And shopping
It’s not hard to see
That no one has time
For the sky, for the sea.
No time to sit
No time to be free
And ponder a grass blade
Think of a bee.
Well
You can take your
Damned cell phone
Toss it into a pond
Of mud
And of stargazing
I am more fond.
Your selfies
And shopping
Are just like a cage
For the mind and the spirit,
The words on this page.
So
Come out
Come out
Come into the sun
Learn to count raindrops
And barefoot we’ll run
Through meadows
And forests
And rivers and streams
We’ll find what we’ve lost
We’ll capture our dreams.
Missing My Mix
I planted my first vegetable seeds this weekend. I had planned on planting them last weekend, but when I looked at my garden notebook from previous years, I decided it was a few days too early. So I was doubly eager to get my hands dirty this weekend.
But when I opened one of the bags of growing mix I bought this week, I discovered it was thick with fungal hyphae. They’re saprophytic fungi, to be sure—not technically interested in eating live plants—but in that kind of quantity, they could easily overwhelm my seeds and seedlings. When I opened the second bag of mix, I found it was the same.
I looked at the mountain of seeds I intended to plant, then at the small quantity of growing mix I had left from last year. There was no way I had enough to plant everything. It was already past 1 PM on Saturday—the nearby stores would be closed for the weekend. To get more soil would require a 45 minute drive to the city. Yuck.
So I did triage. Some of the plants I start in August are summer crops that need a long time indoors to get growing (eggplants, peppers, cape gooseberries). These I planted today. Others are spring crops that can go out to the garden as soon as they’re big enough to survive the slugs, birds, and drying winds. Every year I’m in a race with those early crops. They’re always ready before I’ve prepared the garden beds for them. I left many of these for next week.
In the end, the lack of planting mix will probably mean a more pleasant, less stressful spring planting season for me. And if it goes well, I might look back at my garden notebook next August and learn a thing or two about pacing my planting.
A Look at Larvae
They’re just midges. If anyone pays attention to them at all, it’s to note how irritating they are when they swarm by the millions, here near Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere. They are annoying at times, swarms so thick you can’t breathe without sucking in a few.
But there are few adults flying at this time of year. Most are still waiting out the winter as larvae underwater. Midge larvae are fun to look at under the microscope, as their exoskeletons are clear, allowing a great view of the inner workings of their bodies.
Seeing the inside of an insect larva helps one appreciate the job a young larva is tasked with—eat. Eat as much as you can and grow as fast as you can. A larva is little more than a mobile digestive system. The brownish streak you can see running the length of this midge larva is the animal’s gut, filled with the algae and other debris it has eaten. At the tail end, you can see, this little larva is having a poo.
Also at the tail end is a wee snorkel of sorts. These midge larvae can survive in low-oxygen water by sucking air from the surface using their snorkel. The silver lines meandering the length of the body are trachea that carry oxygen to all the insect’s cells.
This midge larva was tiny—about two millimetres long—it still has a while to grow before it’s ready to become an adult. But there are lots of other larvae out there getting ready to emerge with the upcoming warm days of spring.
Food, Sleep, and a Good Scratch
I know it’s been a good day of writing when I suddenly realise it’s four o’clock, and I haven’t written a blog post for the day or prepared for tomorrow’s school programme or fed the animals, collected the eggs, filled the firewood box, gotten the mail…
Thankfully, I have an effective alarm to let me know when I’ve gotten too wrapped up in writing and need to stop.
“Maa…”
“Maa…”
“Maaaa…”
The goats are polite, but insistent. They like their afternoon feed, and let me know when it’s late. Animals are good for that. They don’t get caught up in things going on inside their heads. Life is clear and uncomplicated—food, sleep, a good scratch now and again.
Sometimes it’s important to be reminded of that.
Free Books!
I’m taking part in a book giveaway this month.
Sixteen authors, sixteen great reads for teens!
All free from 14 to 31 August!
Robinne Weiss 