More photos from the Redmond Saturday Market.
Hard to believe that in a little over a month
all this will be gone and these splendid late summer days
will have turned wet and grey. Alas.
Get it while it's hot!

A Little Bramley Apple Tarte....

...equals a portion of heaven.

This is outrageously creative:

I admit this is getting just a little out of hand....

My friend Peter, over at The Virtual World, shared the
abundance of his tomato harvest with me today.
I brought home three bulging (and ripping!) bags of Roma's,
which I peeled, chopped and froze. This stunning
green-and-yellow striped beauty made a lovely little
Insalata Caprese for dinner, with some 12-year-old
balsamic and a sprinkling of Mediterranean sea salt.
Lucky me!

Two signs on Rainier Avenue South:

Oar Wash

G-Spot Video

This was on my page-a-day Zen calendar:

1. Get enough good to eat, and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it it quiet, sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you
arrive at the silence of yourself, and listen to it.
4.

--Richard Brautigan

Well I'll Be....

Further Adventures of Plastic Boy

One hot September afternoon Plastic Boy and his mother
and the genderless sibling found themselves traversing
a boundless plain of fresh dill.

After spending hours in the seemingly endless fragrant
meadow-upon-meadow, they settled down for the night
in a lean-to. Plastic boy considered a career in poetry.

The next morning, they accepted a ride from a skeleton
on a bicycle. All the blood rushed to their heads when
he carried them upside down. Silly skeleton!

The skeleton dropped them off in front of a liquor
store.

"Look Mom!" Shouted the Plastic Boy.
"Chateau Los Boldos on sale for only $3.200!"

The mother didn't drink.

They trudged on and on, with no particular destination
in mind.

By late afternoon, they found themselves in Boston
at Fenway Park.
"Imagine that!" Said Plastic Boy.
But they didn't have to imagine it, because there they
were, smack-dab in the middle of Fenway Park, complete
with paper spectators and miniscule paper Red Sox.
"I hope I catch a home-run ball!" said Plastic Boy.
But his mother just yanked on his plastic arm
and away they went.

They passed a peaceful night in a twig nest
with a rose petal blanket.

The little plastic genderless sibling was strangely silent.

In the morning, they were forced to cross a small stream
made up entirely of tiny forks, knives and spoons.
Everything was blurry once again.
Maybe Plastic Boy needed glasses!

But everything suddenly came into focus
as the gentle meandering stream turned into
a ferocious roaring river --

Plastic Boy was scared silly and the fork tines
poked into the plastic platform upon which they travelled.
Yowza. Maybe they were going to perish.
Maybe this was their LAST DAY ON EARTH!
But it wasn't, because all the fierce water
turned to ice, which, though slippery,
they were able to cross.

On the other side they were met by that pesky onion.
"Oh grate!" Said the plastic mom, as they leapt up and
away from alliumial danger.
"Phew!"

"Look Mom! Texas bluebonnets!" Plastic Boy said,
using altogether far too many exclamatory phrases.

Cookies cutters are frightening.

Bacon floss is not.

Weary and cranky, they ran past a ceramic hedgehog,
a wooden terrier and The Virgin Mary talking quietly
beside a pink wax fire.
"Mom! Stop!"
The mom yanked at the arm of Plastic Boy,
and again, the genderless sibling made not a peep.

But in the end, the mother relented, and they turned
around to confer with the hedgehog, the terrier
and The Virgin.

The pink wax fire was warm.
The Virgin was chaste.
The hedgehog was born in a Red Rose Tea box.
The terrier barked and barked.
Life was good.

THE END.

911 Dills

Sometimes, when someone is having a heart attack,
it's dismissed as heartburn. And then again,
the opposite can be true. Now, I don't know
how often it has happened that the meds used
to prevent myocardial infarction
actually contribute to the symptoms
of heartburn, which are mistaken
to actually be a heart attack....is your head spinning
a little bit there in this weird circle?
Dizzy? Is your kitchen prepped for pickles?
Nitro, anyone?

So. In the midst of pickling, R. and I
were surrounded by a bevy of EMT's
and flashing red lights and a drive over the bridge
in Friday rush-hour traffic to revisit the ER.
Nine-eleven. Eerie as hell.
And yes, all is well.

When we got back to the house last night,
I decided to go ahead with the pickling
in spite of the late hour. Can you say crazy?
Crazy crazy crazy. (Go ahead, say it!)
Craziness compounded by the fact that my stovetop
is on the fritz and can only be controlled
by switching the breaker on/off.
And won't heat properly....

Hours, hours later, my dozen pint jars
of dill pickles sat cooling on the counter,
belying the drama which just hours before
swirled about them like jalapeno spiced vinegar.
Ho hum.

(Ho-humble pickles which must simmer
silently in their acids for two months
before we consume their flesh.)

And so, without further ado,
I present to you my 911 Dills:

These look not unlike the photos I took this summer
of Irish tidepool flora & fauna:

Guarding The Hen House

My friend Cz. pointed me to this:

R. and I went to the Columbia City Farmer's Market
yesterday in search of pickling cukes. As it's late
in the growing season, almost every booth contained
oversized vegetables of some kind: onions as big
as cantaloupe, peaches weighing as much as a pound
each, the ubiquitous missile-sized zucchinis, and cukes
just slightly smaller than the zucchini. I felt doomed
to make cucumber chips, when what I really desired
were lovely delicate pickling cukes.

Finally we found some, tucked away and unassuming
in the shadow of giants. Fresh, of uniform size, perfect
little things! We just about cleaned the vendor out.
And dill -- I began to panic when it didn't seem
to be for sale anywhere, then I found some slightly
wilted bunches, which I brought home and
immediately put into water: a dilly bouquet.

While reading about this pickling process, I've
run across some unexpected tips:
1) Run the cucumbers through a cold rinse cycle
in your washing machine, both to clean them
and give them a good cold soak. (Gonna skip this one.)
2) As an alternative to a hot-water bath, bake the jars
of pickles in a pan with one-inch of water in the bottom.
(This from my friend KE, and I must say it's intriguing!)
3) Include a single grape leaf in each jar. (Yes! We've
lots of grape leaves!)

The Great Pickling Adventure begins tomorrow afternoon.
Full photo documentation to follow.

(I also splurged on a bottle of raspberry wine --
made all from raspberries, not grape wine flavored
with raspberry juice. Can't wait to try this with
some Blanxart bittersweet chocolate.)

Ever had a hankerin' to knit a poem?

R. and I are making pickles on Friday, something
I've always wanted to do but somehow in my canning
days never attempted. I tended to stay with the plums
and tomatoes and jam. My brother made dill pickles
many years ago when we all still lived with mom,
and I recall a crock in the darkness under the house,
a simmering secret. Think I'll forego the crock method
and go straight to the jar. And yes, we'll be hoarding
them all to ourselves. No apologies!

And the sun has returned today, after great drama
in the rain and wind department. It's still summer.
I am not putting away the sandals.

I dreamed that I went to see a doctor
whose office was in the middle of a department store.
I told her that I was having trouble with my right hand,
numbness, and she said that there was a new treatment
for that, and took out a giant meat cleaver.

"Put your hand right here," she said, and motioned
for me to lay my hand down on a, well, chopping block.
Then she whacked at my wrist once, twice, again,
until the hand fell off. OWWWWWW!

Then she gently put the hand back on again
and told me to be careful as it healed.
I asked her if she was going to tape it up,
and she said, no, just be careful
so it doesn't fall off.
WTF???

The rest of the dream (which involved an estate
in Stanwood Washington, a barn, an auction, Mass,
Tom Jones, six skunks, salmon the size of sides of beef
smoking on a massive grill in a forest, shelves and shelves
of uninteresting books and women in plumed
and netted hats) I was anxious and terrified
that my hand would fall off and I'd lose the use of it.
There was a worried red line at my wrist,
but I awoke with my appendage gloriously intact.

This must be Labor Day anxiety, because my right hand
is essential for the work I do, and today's Labor Day,
and I'm headed off to work soon.

A Nonsense Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, a little plastic boy and his mother
with a plastic baby attached --

-- were pursued by three organic tomatoes and an onion.

They careened across a table cloth ocean --

-- with blurry bubble wrap waves.

While passing through France, they invoked the spirit
of Charles de Gaulle, but because he had no arms
and only one leg, he wasn't much help.

The Lipstick lady was no help either.
She smiled and smiled and smiled.

And still the three organic tomatoes and one onion
pursued the plastic boy and his mother and genderless
plastic sibling.

They ran to Rome to request an audience with the pope,
but he was encased in a snowy cloud.

They fled the Sacred Heart scapular, which gave the
little boy nightmares for the rest of his life.

Two ceramic kittens peered whimsically at the fleeing trio.

From a vantage point on top of a bottle of molasses --

-- they spied a pile of nose masks --

-- which had no consequences whatsoever.
The Mardi-Gras feathers perplexed and vexed them.

They nearly reached their demise in an egg carton,
but made a last-minute escape.

They found refuge on top of a black-shouldered kite
who was painted onto a cigar box.

The three organic tomatoes and onion couldn't
jump or climb or fly, so the little plastic boy
and his plastic mom-who-clutched-for-all-eternity
her little genderless plastic toddler
lived happily ever after.

The End.

Foxessa over at Fox Home has bestowed upon me,
with way too many kind words, the Honest Scrap Award.
She says:

Premium T.'s blog is filled with the beauty with which she
walks through her beautiful world...However, she's never
sticky sweet, cloying or in lalala land. She sees what is
there...It is my conviction that if there were more
T's in the world, there would be less need
for other kinds of scrappers.

Well then. Can you see me blushing?!

Honest Weblog Award Rules:
1. You must brag about the award.
2. You must include the name of the blogger who
bestowed the award on you and link back to
that blogger.
3. You must choose a minimum of seven blogs
that you find brilliant in content or design.
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment
informing them that they were prized with the
Honest Scrap Award.
5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

Then pass it on with the instructions!
Heartfelt thanks, Foxessa!

Ten Things (not Ten Thongs, which is how it came
out when I first typed it):

1. My most prized possession is a jeweler's loupe.
2. When I roll out pie dough, I close my eyes. Holy, holy.
3. I have five sisters.
4. When I was eleven, I tried to talk my mom into
turning our house into a restaurant. I had a business plan.
She declined.
5. One of the conditions of my marriage to P. was that he
laugh at my puns. Amazingly, he agreed.
6. I published my first poem at age 18.
7. I believe that cake is the world's most perfect food.
8. Could not have imagined the intense joy/sorrow
that comes with being a mother.
9. I was the star of my high-school track team.
10. I still want a pony.

And now, I would like to pass this award on
to only one other blogger:

Red Apple Elegy: Robin, urban-planner/architect/
visionary, writes with conviction and passion
about the need for sustainable communities.
A resident of suburbia, she acknowledges both
the beauty and bane of our 21st century landscape,
and approaches it all with an optimism
to be admired and emulated.

The Redmond Saturday Market

This is for Robin over at Red Apple Elegy, who posted a video of Burning Down the House:

R. and I had the good luck to happen upon a
health-care rally last night after dinner at Palace
Kitchen. What a great scene! The "pros" outnumbered
the "cons" by about thirty to one. It was peaceful, with
lots of chanting and cheering. There was a large police
presence; I think there were actually more police
present than protesters. Feelings of hope
and optimism were running high.

Thanks to Collin over at Modern Confessional for this:

This wonderful thing happened yesterday:
each of my sons called me to tell me something nice.
He didn't say that the house had caught
on fire and was burglarized and in an
earthquake it all tumbled into a chasm
and then he/his brother were decapitated
and all the cats died/went-blind/were-run-
over-by-cars and the cars were totaled
and he failed his classes and is broke
and his identity has been stolen and
has an incurable disease and has just
this moment dropped dead.

Nope. None of those things.

Even a shred, a scrap of good news
can render one limp with giddiness.

And I am grateful.

A loan, a bear.

I have a dear friend (brilliant, compassionate,
very funny woman with a marvelous artistic temperament)
who has accrued enormous student loans in pursuit &
attainment of a PhD. So what happens now?
She goes back to college to get a degree which will
provide her with a job that pays well enough
to allow her to pay off above-mentioned loans.
Here's the best part: her current employer will
pay for her schooling. I mean, the schooling
to get the degree to pay off the PhD loan.
Some crazy stuff.

(This same friend was hiking on Mt. Rainier
recently and encountered a bear. An elusive bear.
And where did Mr. Bear go? They did not know.
It was a speedy mile+ back to the car and they
expected Mr. Bear to pop out at any moment
and bare his bear-teeth. Yikes.)

Strawerries! Pineapple! Maple Syrup!

I did not inherit any type of gene
which allows one to color-coordinate one's life.
My sister Mary did, as is evidenced
by this very beautiful setting:



And here's the recipe for the fruit:


Pineapple in Maple Syrup

1 ripe pineapple
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbs. kirschwasser or Chambord
6-7 large ripe strawberries, washed, hulled
and cut lengthwise into thin slices

Halve the pineapple lengthwise, cut off the skin
and cut out and discard the core.
Place the prepared halves, cut side down,
on a cutting board and cut them crosswise
into ½” slices. Arrange half the slices
in a 6-cup gratin dish. Combine the maple syrup,
lemon juice and liqueur in a small bowl.
Mix in the strawberries and spoon half the mixture
evenly over the pineapple slices.
Arrange the remaining pineapple slices on top
and spoon on the rest of the berry mixture.
Cover and let marinate for a few hours in the
refrigerator. Serve in deep dessert dishes.

Notes: This is very delicious and simple to make.
It serves six and is only 125 calories per serving.

From Jacques Pepin’s Simple and Healthy Cooking.

How many more nights of dinner under the cedars
before the rains spill us back indoors?
My favorite time, this late summer,
our evening meal in waning light.
Geraniums in their final bloom.
Our recounting of the day's ordinary events.