this and that days

Well, it seems The Big U has spoken. The window boxes remain empty and I've still no interest in gardening. Feeling grounded indoors. With a nod to nature, I did manage to artfully place fresh eucalyptus around the house. The dining table, currently and often a book table, hosts a large center vase and a petite vessel full sits above my friend Annie's favorite bistro picture.

The art is positioned on the floor for a direct view if sitting on the loveseat, which I do often. The frame's detail resembles piano keys, a feature not many people pick up on. It is a favorite of mine too, a sweet reminder of the Jamie Cullum concert at Dallas' Balcony Club. 



So I'm not productive with planting but instead with household chores, reading, and cooking. Always much cooking. Sunday W brought in eight gorgeous red bell peppers which I will roast and save for a creamy pasta dish or a side sauce when I fry up some summer green tomatoes. Spotted them at Jimmy's last trip. 

And there's a cake I've been anxious to bake - Michal Korkosz's Cocoa-Chile Cake.  (Wonderful book!) The cake offers a chocolate frosting recipe but I'm thinking instead, that I'll make a rum glaze.

I've made peace with my low energy summer and it feels so good. 




(Jimmy's Food Store, Dallas, Texas)
(Fresh from Poland/Michal Korkosz)

when sweet potato vines come a callin'

Sitting here missing being surrounded by plants & flowers, as was never true of past, late springtimes. If I blink, it will be mid June, blink twice and the worst of summer will be over.  

Short of the few new herbs and the sage & asparagus which has regenerated itself spectacularly since the winter, both window boxes and very many pots & planters remain empty. Even the yard cats seem bored. All that is adding beauty to my outside world are two Plumeria, which in several years have yet to bloom. And I've yet to muster the energy to do anything about any of it.

Shopping and planting is the fun part, and given a good night's sleep and a double decaf cappuccino, I could knock that out this weekend. But it's the every other day watering, now through August, that is just so damn hard in Dallas' summer heat. 

Is it still a priority? Obviously not. If I skip this season will I miss the greenness of ferns and the pinkness of petunias when W and I begin to light up Junebug to keep us mosquito-free on rare tolerable days when we take leisure at the big table? Yes, definitely.

So, I guess I will continue to sit and stare, and soon ponder over sips of wine, and at close of night I'll toss it up to The Universe to decide for me. The weekend is sneaking up... Dare I shut my eyes?     

via dello studio

"...there seems always to be rather a wistful sense of 

something lost to be regained, than the desire of discovering something new. " 

David Leavitt, in his wonderful book, Florence, A Delicate Case, poignantly describes many of my feelings about Florence. I have solo featured three other favorite insights of his, in my now-and-finally finished Bistro 3906 book, but this quote stirs me to my core. He gets me!

The city is many things to me, and any return trip, past or future, would evoke the same feelings. I seem not to realize how much is not present in my life until I am there, feet on uneven ground and chasing the illusive sun. Florence gives me things no other place can, internally and externally. There is a version of me that I am, only in that space.

It was a wistful mood that found me a couple nights ago, revisiting several journals of mine: the very petite DaVinci, the larger red velvet, the Florentine marbled paper one, and the two palm tree cover mini books that I rotate by seasons. Most are filled with quotes and toasts written for holidays, mementos and wine labels tucked in several pages of each book. One held a business card long forgotten, from a beloved Firenze restaurant that Spoke and I frequented.

In my book, I introduce a recipe for Limoncello with a story of a trattoria on a side street just yards from The Duomo. If you order espresso after your meal, the waiter goes over to a wood and glass curio cabinet and brings from it to your table three chosen bottles: a Grappa, a Limoncello, and a Vin Santo; any or all on the house. I chose the Vin Santo all but one time, going for the grappa which on that snowy afternoon sent me to LaLa Land until the next morning.

I decided that night, feeling nostalgic from many journal entries, to take a leap of faith from these 5,473 miles away and research if the restaurant still exists. Indeed. It does!

Across these decades that I've not been there, the trattoria has become a ristorante by the same name. It looks much like I remember though the chairs and art works have changed. Granted, memories fade but I don't remember it being quite as large as it appears now.

I do hope the family's next generation has taken over. The warmth, the romantic archways, the paintings, all made my heart go thumpa-thumpa, but none so much as seeing a recent enough post to know that the curio cabinet and its bottles still stands. That speaks volumes no matter the years or distance.

Salute!

like a rabbit, down i go

A smoky scent from the burning sage still lingers. I love the smell. It speaks of late summer nights by Junebug when the pinon's remains that burn in the chimenea are mere embers, but we aren't yet ready to retreat inside.

W smudged the Bistro for me - with me she would say - as I stayed one step behind, her longer arms reaching towards all corners easily. Like many of her favors given me, she seemed a pro.

I was a hesitant follower until today. So worried had I been that this ritual would rid the beloved space of much, too much that is good, but I was assured it would not. So ready I was! This year was not one full of personal regret or due a fierce kick out Eve's door, but a year leaving an unusual, inexplicable yearning for a clean beginning, a relished welcoming for a new year with promises.

W also put up our winter tree. The seventy pound fixture will stay, in all its pseudo snowy natural glory, through the cold weeks yet sure to come. We're having a nice break currently; the extreme winter threats that Dallas always throws our way, seems to have taken a pause, and the madness of the holidays is over, both of which I think is contributing to the most intense calm that I have felt in months. May slow days continue, please, I pray.

I long to burrow: with W, with books, with candlelight, with friends enjoying food and wine and great conversation that comes easily. I long for little else, and what a wonderful, majestic, wintering place it is to be.

bubba

He had a rather mischievous Tom Sawyer look to him most of the time. If out to dine, his hair would be combed and set as if for Sunday school when he was a kid. Considering his age, and though mostly white, even with his very thick mustache he still kept that boyish look.

His name, James. Saint James was just one nickname and very fitting as his beloved wife Magdalena, and others, so often sang his praises.

A Texas boy at heart, James was rarely out without a cowboy hat, and if you were lucky he might tell you stories of home or show you his talents with wallet and belt making, but you best lean in toward him, so soft spoken was he. The little turtle he formed from the wire cage of one of the many Cava bottles we opened one night, sits in my kitchen window sill.

He had a, perhaps favorite, black hat when he and his wife came to a Bistro event, Givingthanks. We held it the day after Thanksgiving on James' birthday. He had not felt well for quite a while, but gave it his ever-present Saint's effort, hanging in with the group for hours.

The black hat has been by Magdalena's side since James' passing Friday, in his sleep. It is striking in its deeply dark hue, a thin braid wrapped 'round.  At a visit with Magdalena yesterday, she told me to look inside the hat. 

James had lost quite a bit of weight over recent months and the hat no longer fit snugly. At the Givingthanks gathering, he had apparently at some point, discreetly lined the inner band of the hat with torn and folded pieces of party napkins, hoping to make the fit tighter. When I peered inside to see, two little owls greeted me. My heart was trapped between laughing and crying.

That was his last visit to Bistro 3906, but I get great comfort thinking he went home with a little bit of the Bistro with him. He will be missed but remembered.

and so it goes

Christmas, as that hustle & bustle holiday, is officially over. This year's was personally a beautifully but heavily emotional one; maybe more on that later, but reflecting back on the past couple weeks being out & about, it seems happiness has hugged the masses. Almost everyone in my path or surrounding me, was cheerful. Genuinely so. I've not heard so many "Merry Christmas" salutations in years. I was reminded of days long gone. 'Twas nice.

Currently, I'm watching the posted Christmas Eve Mass from St. Peter's Basilica. It is so ornately stunning and soul stirring. Those choirs! 

I pulled out my Eucharist wafers to join in with a private little ceremony, and not to make light of it but God knows there was wine already poured. Even Lilly participated. 

I hope that your Christmas was splendid. On we go to soon, and as joyfully, exclaiming, "Happy New Year!"

a grateful bistro

Exhale. I finished my book. It's been many years coming, painful and joyous many times over. 

The book has morphed several times. Alon Shaya, author of Shaya, will never know me or just how much energy he fed me when mine was wavering and so very low. I didn't know how to take the reader on this journey with me that started based on evenings with two friends, then expanded to a book club, was halted by a death that tested me like nothing else, brought back to life as a modest pseudo bistro with southern roots but deeply felt leanings toward all things Italian. Sounds like a wordy mess.

I realized though, that Shaya's journey was an unusual path from Israel to Philadelphia in his youth, as an adult opening a regional Italian restaurant in New Orleans then returning trips to Israel returned him to his culinary roots and in The Big Easy he also opened an Israeli influenced Creole restaurant. Food gave him new life just as it did me! If he could bring his experiences together in a way that made sense, then I could also. I think I accomplished that. 

But now, here I sit feeling all dressed up with no where to go.

The chances of getting published are so very slim. It is just a fact. I have no trail of even the smallest crumbs for anyone to follow: no social media stamp, no prior book published, no credentials in the world of words or food, and as is often the key that opens doors, I have no contacts.

I am not interested in self-publishing, and even if it was my option I couldn't afford it. The book is 300+ pages chock full of glorious photos, yet another reason that publishers likely won't risk an unknown.

So how is it that I'm still so happy about my situation? 

Truthfully, as simple as the explanations are that prop up most sayings, I do believe and always will that it's about the journey, not the destination. Mine has been a humbling, beautiful, and rich experience.

Doesn't mean I'm giving up. I'm so proud of this book; it is really, really good and worth pursuing however winding the path ahead may be.