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.