Welcome to the second installment of this extremely sporadic newsletter. I don’t have any new publications with which to wow you, but I can report that for the first time in waaaay over a year, I’ve seen and embraced a good number of my family members and that is progress enough.
Just after Independence Day, my Dear Daughter and I took a quick spin to parts north in search of college information and general merriment. We visited a few schools, but mostly wandered the streets (and perused thrift shops) in a few possible cities and towns. My daughter was thrilled by the availability of Vegan food (check out Kati Vegan Thai in Seattle and Aviv in Portland. Both were especially delicious. We also loved Timeless Coffee in Oakland.)
We just missed the big Pacific Northwest heat wave, but it was still hotter and sunnier than on any other visit in my memory. My memory is a looping thing these days — so strange to be looking up to meet the eyes of my tall daughter, exploring landscapes I first encountered when I was just about her age.
A week later, all four of us boarded a plane for the Washington D.C. We hadn’t seen my husband’s family since December of 2019 and it was truly a joy to be reunited. In my customary vacation role of Mini-Van driver, I navigated the Beltway with cheerful aplomb. D.C. is a glorious city, filled with with beauty and blossoms (and a plethora of surprising left hand exits.) In addition to the majestic monuments on the Mall, the kids and I found a few off the wall attractions on the road less travelled. We visited Vanadu Art House, the grave of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and more thrift shops (our favorite, in case you are ever in the area, was Wagging Tails Thrift & Gifts, which also boasted a “Museum of Obsolete Technology.”)
And now we are home. I am back at work on my Big Project — taking it all apart and putting it back together with the help of Post-Its and highlighters. Working toward having a new draft by the time I have to send my Dear Son off to college.
The following piece is an old one, but runs a familiar loop.
Sending you all some love and wishes for health and peace.
Poule Au Riz/Chicken With Rice
This simple, invigorating family dish is prepared in every French home. Sometimes the rice is sprinkled with finely grated Emmenthaler.
I am not living in a French home. I am preparing this “Simple invigorating dish” in my home in Los Angeles, California. In France, they are probably having a proper February, but here it’s hot as Hades, which is something my South Dakota relatives always say. (It’s not polite to say “hell.” It’s not okay to eat flesh. But meat is fine by everyone. Especially if it’s accompanied by potatoes.)
Tonight I’m cooking for my visiting in-laws and for my husband and for our children. Right now is the first time in a long time that I’ve been alone in the kitchen.
1 chicken, about 4 lb (2kg), with liver, gizzard, heart and neck
My chicken is a little small. But it’s organic. It came in a box that is delivered to my front door on Sunday night. The box is filled with fresh fruit and vegetables and meat farmed by local, responsible, organic farmers. I spend more money on the box than I might if I bought my groceries at our local Vons, but then my daughter would ask me where our meat came from and I would have to say I didn’t really know.
My daughter is in sixth grade at an Environmental Studies Magnet. This week for homework, she had to make lists of all the things in our pantry that contain Palm Oil.
“You’re killing the Orangutans,” she told me, when she found a box of Trader Joes granola bars containing the dreaded oil. The next day she told me her list contained only two things, but some people had lists that ran on to twenty items or more. She was pleased by this. And I was, too. But I also feel like a jerk.
When I was a kid, we didn’t think so much. We just ate Peter Pan Peanut Butter. We drank Pepsi with crushed ice and we all joked about taking the Nestea Plunge. My mom blanketed our veggies with crayon orange cheese sauce and my dad tossed the pull tabs from his beer cans into the yard.
I haven’t talked about the gizzard and the heart and the neck.
The chicken heart is as small as my thumb. Not beating. I’m not adding it to the rice. I’m sliding the mess into the trash. My heart is beating. My heart is beating with love for my kids and my husband. My heart beats extra fast when I’m anxious. At these times, it beats so quickly, I can feel it grow to the size of a raven. I can feel the black wings beat against my ribs.
8 oz (250 g) carrots
These particular carrots are growing tiny roots. They’ve been hanging around in the crisper drawer for a couple of weeks and they’ve continued to search for their place in the world. I shave these seeking roots with a sharp peeler, but I admire them. I am seeking, too. I am turning forty-eight. I’ve been in the crisper drawer awhile. I can feel the movement of tiny reaching roots.
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
Buttered toast makes me feel better about the seeking. It makes me feel better about not knowing what it is I seek. My friend Susan tells me to eat more butter. She says it’s good for my creaky knees. “I’m no scientist,” she says. “But it makes sense, right?” What makes sense? Everything and nothing at all. Those roots make sense. The reaching. The need for light and motion and change. That makes sense.
3 onions, finely chopped
All our knives need to be sharpened. The onion juice is thick and white on the cutting board. My tears come readily. I don’t stop crying even when I’m done with the chopping. The reaching roots need water. They need a flood. I wonder what’s happened to our El Nino. The ground is hard and parched. Cracked earth. We need washing.
2 cups (16 fl oz/500 ml) white Burgundy
I fill the measuring cup with white wine. It’s Chardonnay, technically a Burgundy grape, but these are California grapes. They are not French. I am not French. I am not crying in an elegant way: one tear slipping like a jewel over velvet lashes. I am not lighting a cigarette and sweeping my bangs out of my eyes. I do not have that je ne sais quoi. It is 4:30 and I shouldn’t have a glass of wine. The bottle is a wet and open kiss against my mouth. The wine is buttery. I let it roll around in on my tongue as I stir the onions and the carrots. We are all softening in the butter.
1 ¼ cups (10 fl oz/300 ml) water
I don’t drink enough water. I drink some now to dilute the sips of wine. I drink water out of a short glass and when the water is gone, I pour a little wine into the short glass. The glass is really small. I don’t drink very much anymore and even this little bit of wine in this little bit of a glass is going to my head. It’s loosening me. People have told me to “loosen up.” It’s a thing I’ve been told. I think I used to drink more because I didn’t know how to take their advice. I didn’t know how to loosen on my own.
Bouquet garni: 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme, 6 sprigs parsley (tied together)
I caught the bouquet at four weddings before my now husband proposed. Four weddings. I wanted to be married so badly, I stood in line with the other gals and I held out my hands and I showed him the sign. I hung those bouquets upside down to dry and the roses darkened almost to black. I wasn’t quite thirty when all this flower catching was going on. At that time, my roots wanted to grow straight into the ground where I stood.
We are tied together. My husband, my children, the dogs, my in-laws. Tied together by love but also by time and duty and habit. I put the leaf and the sprigs into the pot one at a time. Though it will all cook together, I let everything have a bit of its own space.
1 2/3 cups (11 oz/350 g) long-grain rice
I’ve used short-grain brown rice. It was all I had in the cupboard, so the cooking time has increased. Outside, the heat has broken with the sunset and inside, the house feels warm and good in the cool night. It is February.
Place the chicken on its back. Sprinkle the rice around it. Cover and cook on low heat, without stirring.
The in-laws arrive with my son. They’ve watched him play basketball and he’s made a “swoosh,” but the game was lost. He kicks off his shoes, leaves his socks in damp wads on the wood floor. My father-in-law starts to pour himself a drink. He mixes whiskey and vermouth. My mother-in-law moves plates from the cupboard to the table. My kitchen is getting smaller. My husband arrives with our daughter. She’s got dirty hair and a scab on her nose that she can’t help but pick. She is beautiful and angry and loving and tired and so are we all. Tonight is just the night to have a simple, invigorating family dish.
Surround the chicken with rice and serve.