eggbeater

The Mermaid Day Parade! CONEY ISLAND! Brooklyn, NY! Saturday June 19, 2010

if you know me, you know i adore the mermaid day parade in brooklyn.

if you really know me, you know why. 

if you've known me a long time you have seen me dress up for it at least once.

if you have no idea what i'm going on about, now even you mermaid day parade virgins can listen to the whispering words of the wild & wacky isle of coney.

if you want to come/go this year, i cannot endorse, suggest, cajole, force, beg, suggest, carry, kidnap, mention, guilt, announce, and/or tell you enough.

i can personally guarantee that   you've never seen,  whispered, sorted, bitten, felt, tasted, touched, licked, breathed, smoked, peeled, sliced, diced, sanded, snorted, cooked, eaten, plugged in, sweet nothinged, ridden, nibbled, undressed for, taken the subway to                       anything else like it!

you have my word{s}.

Jonnatan Leiva, chef & Matthew Wilbur, sous. butchering lamb & suckling pig.

 

Matthew Wilbur

 

Jonnatan Leiva

Suckling pig & lamb raised in Vermont by Lydia Ratcliff, farmer extraordinaire.

bunnies, chicks, rabbits & eggs

bunny stew. {sans bushy tail}

you know you're really living in a place when you get the flu that's going around. 

as a chef you know you're really sick when you get up, get dressed and put on a scarf and realize that that fever is truly kicking your ass and you,

deep breath

call in.

but then.

you have to go to Shepherd's Bush to get the exact right Orange Flower Water. No other will do. you've finally perfected a gluten-free cheesecake and you need orange flower water to seal the deal.

so, even though you're really sick, you make a plan to traverse the top end of London by the fabulous Overground.

and you tell two gorgeous fellows, who live in the 'hood, that you'll be nearby.

you know you're in the right standing when they invite you over for rabbit stew. a big bunny has been bought and butchered and you believe this to be the best, most restorative possibility one could wish for.

slow food nation @ fort mason: fish.

out of all the installations at slow food nation in the taste pavillion at fort mason, this was my favourite. and not because my middle name is fish. but because it was innovative, spectacular and informative.

thank you marta fry & peoples.

Live, from The Farm, it's Shuna fish.

here i am.

it was great to wake up way after 4 am today. and watch babette eat, slow and methodically, a baby rabbit after our walk Saturday evening, and {me, myself} eat 2 fat and supple figs from the fig church, and see an entire bowl of Santa Rosa plums on the dining room table, and notice an orchard ladder next to a few fruit trees, and look down on the Napa River at dusk, and look forward to a day of nothingness interspersed with long walks with the dogs. especially after a week of 10 hour baking days starting at 5 am.

farm departure snapshots /in the rearview mirror

large hares bounding slowly, their long bodies arching long and wide
scent of mowed grasses, dry and sharp underfoot
abu & babette's ears, flapping in tune with each other and four foot dance trot
a clear, dark outline of one deer, stilled,
    and I stilled as well, viewed in secret, between levee and vineyard
a sense that isaac was on our walks with us
the Napa river, shallow but calling my name
    from way way down ravaged river walls
one extra ordinarily grand Great Blue Heron startled by our morning walk,
    lifting off immediately, unfurling fantastic wings tucked, and flying, unbelievably, through the river's fallen trees, up up, and disappearing
mosquitoes who will stop at nothing, including socks and bug spray and trousers, to sting me
an almost full moon casting thick silvery moonlight
    and drafting clear shadow outlines of barns and tree canopies

one Royal Blenheim apricot ripening slowly
guiding those I love through a place I love
hundreds of swallows dipping and swooping
    over an orange-golden field at dusk

glimmering dried grasses swaying, rocking
adult quails followed by dozens of tiny quailettes,
    their tiny head dresses trilling faster than the speed of sight!
babette, arched and exhilarated, tail curlique as a scorpion,
    at the prospect of catching a squirrel on the levee
seeing smoke on the horizon that is really topsoil upset by one tractor
barely ripe tomato, eaten, from the summer garden
morning skies viewed through Live Oak and Redwood tree branches
inviting people into the fig church
explaining cardoons to Easterners

tiny bunny, dead, at abu's feet
ground shadows of hunting hawks
listening to the wind before it arrived
eating green almonds
spending a Friday morning with my favorite 78 year old farmer
    and feeling the morning go from cool to hot in few hours   

cutting open green walnuts, still liquid where the nut meat should be
calamine lotion legs, hot pink exposed under summer shorts
    the scent of calamine like camp and grandmothers
an itch that is hot with unbearable-ness
having time to catch up on old New Yorkers
laughing aloud at Jay Raynor with no one to hear me but the dogs
bright sky, bold green grape leaves, dark vineyard in trellis-land:
    a three layered painting of opposites, at the same time
dusty shoelaces
sunscreen and still and Irish face reddened
bug bites galore
the quiet of nothing all the day long

a valley of light long after sunset
coyote skat filled with cherry pits
countless acorn hats
inpenatrable black walnuts and their finely dollhouse sculpted interiors
finding the old tractor
dense fuzz of young peaches
green figs camouflaged
one lemon gifted to a friend
seven days without music, or news
late nights with books in hand
long talks with faraway friends
burrs in furry friends' ears
a bird-stripped elderly cherry orchard

going out to eat at Ubuntu and then having more dessert at Redd!
visiting friends at Fatted Calf
mint chocolate chip ice cream from Three Twins
running into the most beautiful man/pastry chef, Gary Rulli, at The Oxbow Market {falling into his green eyes}

cooling the little farm house down with night air
green blackberries reaching out, waterless creek
skyscraper tall eucalyptus trees
freshly painted barns
rabbit warrens everywhere
coconut perfume breeze through fig trees
walking far far away with the dogs
babette stalking, leaping and bounding in tall dry grasses,
    psyching out small, hiding, frightened mammals
abu playing a game with me at dusk,
    running in wide circles, like hide and seek.

remembering
memory,
a silent movie of every visit, every stay, every walk with the dogs,
    every sleepover, every intimate moment,
a whirlwind romance,
a deep friendship,
a geography where my roots lay claim
love.

where my heart is, here.

bunny breakfast.

this here is proof that dogs, when allowed to be dogs, are not vegetarian. baby bunny.

I've seen a lot of rabbits at the farm lately. the older ones are pretty brave, leaping across the road in front of the dogs, here and there and everywhere. but the little ones aren't as fast, unfortunately.

babette, the small female dog, is an excellent hunter. she's fast and can run over 40 mph under the vineyard watering hoses and trellises. abu, babette's slightly larger half brother, isn't as fast. I found him with this baby rabbit though, at the end of our morning walk. it could be that babette gave her prize to abu, or that she found baby bunny and ran it straight to abu.

every stay at the farm is different and I see changes in the dogs as well as other creatures who live and visit depending on more factors than I would know how to see, determine or reason why. this visit will be remembered by bold hares and dusk skies filled with raptors. everyone is hungry. most especially the mosquitos, who couldn't be happier about my stay.

abu n babette in the tall tall mustard grasses

one year ago today

I took this photo.

at the farm.

and tomorrow

I hope to take some more like it.

The farm is where I go to remind myself that I am whole.

No matter what is happening or not happening in my life.

I never look at this gift

and think it's there because I deserve it.

I remember that this gift is grace.

And that like all gifts,

it could disappear at anytime

but that does not mean that I could disappear at anytime.

This is an important distinction.

It means that no one can decide my fate without me participating in the decision making process, unless I am physically incapacitated, which I am not.

As I said to a friend of mine tonight,

"I am letting the thoughts run through me but not let them to run me off the road."

For in all crises, in all departure, there is confusion. One must cycle through hundreds of conversations to try and make sense of the most recent one.

It's a strange fact.

But after all the ticker tape there can be pattern, and then,

answer.

Or at least an answer you can be comfortable with wearing.

For a spell.

It's like a spell. A faerie ring. The dance is so joyful, ecstatic, and then it's exhausting and you're treacherously bound to the movement, pushing on beyond all physical limits.

i would like to remember you as you were

pretty and decorated and mine

a space I created from a long neglected one

~

I'm glad,

and grateful,

that memory plays tricks on us.

Going to the farm month after month, season after season, year after year,

means I can always see it anew.

More Claude. Bisous!

Claude, aka Potato