late peppers
The garden season this year has played out consistently. There has been a lot of growth, a fair amount of disease, and meager harvests. Only the poblano peppers (a plant I bought, didn’t start from seed) produced enough small peppers for cooking. In the process I discovered a great, simple, flavorful chicken chili recipe from Smitten Kitchen that has also rewarded my desire to eat more beans.
But the pimentos and other sweet reds are just starting to produce a few fruits, too little too late. I’m hoping to fix this with the use of the greenhouse next summer, supplying the early heat that will kick them into producing fruit. I’ve always had big, beautiful pepper plants loaded with fruit. So I’m mystified. This article says they are pollinated by wind, which is also concerning– maybe I should start them in the greenhouse and then move them to the outdoor beds. That article also makes me tired. Maybe I’ll just tack it up to a bad year and do what has always worked in the past (i.e., just plant them).
The tomatillos also did not develop as usual. The two plants were loaded with fruit, but the fruit didn’t ripen and fill out the husks. Instead of buckets of fruit, I had small pails, which I did simmer down and freeze for a few tomatillo chicken dinners this winter.
And I’ve appreciated the frost-time scaling back of the garden. My sister and I brought in the squash, crookneck and butternut. They’re a little scrappy, too. Today I diced a bunch and in addition to a large roasted vegetable dinner we’re planning, blanched and froze three quarts.
I didn’t make it to the garlic festival this year, so for the first time I’ll be replanting my own seed garlic– so I sat and chose the best bulbs this morning, too.
In the garden itself there are still those powerhouses, cherry tomatoes! And the king of the post-frost harvest, leeks (potato leek soup to come). And the always-fruitful kale, as well as an array of fresh herbs.
After the surgery, I was quite frustrated by my bland diet. Finally my taste is back and I couldn’t eat anything with flavor because of my digestion! But even at its blandest, I was so happy eating my own potatoes. Thanks again to Kate Ritger, my sister Kathy, my step-daughter Julia, and husband Steve, who made those potatoes possible by planting, weeding, and hilling.
I’m finally back in full form this week and eating things I love that aren’t necessarily good for me: ribs, Indian food, Mexican food, etc. I’ve seriously had it with being as healthy as possible, though I am being diligent on the exercise end. This, too, is a way of regrouping before we start chemo this coming Thursday– giving oneself over to life’s pleasures, including culinary ones. The leek potato soup (with a touch of curry powder) can come later, when I return to bland land.
And it feels good to be “putting up” reasonable quantities of foods I’ve grown. As always, though we’re not dependent on the harvest for our food, giving us the sense that we’re ready for winter– we’re ready for whatever lies ahead.
Knowing the author also helps us track and understand her influences. What I find actually interesting in the article is the connection between Anita Raja (Elena Ferrante) and Christa Wolf, whose work she translated from German into Italian. Christa Wolf was the first person to shape for me the loose links between memory and memoir, between writing and recall of a life and shaping a narrative. I carried around her book 
But maybe most interesting of all, it allows us to explore this fictional accomplishment– not just the four novels, but also the writing she has done “around” the issue of her own identity and the identity of her characters. My desire to go further into this character, if not the author, led me to order the book The Lost Daughter, which seems to be alluded to in the final book of the Quartet, and which gives a different account of a similar story to the one told there, although the narrator is now an outsider observing a large Neapolitan family on a beach.
My sister has been staying with me the past ten days as I recover from surgery (three weeks ago). It’s been a really great time of visiting and she has leant her strength where I don’t have it. She has cleaned my house top to bottom (you should see her wield a Shark vacuum and all its attachments), done all the cooking and grocery shopping, AND cleared out the garden (no small task) of weeds. But mostly she has accompanied me on walks and in talks and watching fall come to the prairie.
Last night we watched one of my sister’s favorite movies: The Shawshank Redemption. Somehow I missed this movie in the 1990s and it kind of got away from me. It is a movie about hope. And resilience. Convict Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) preserves his “freedom” by not becoming a prisoner in his mind– he takes risks. He also applies himself, to build a library and get other reforms to the prison, by writing letters every week for years and years, even when he doesn’t get results. His hope doesn’t make him any less dogged in his efforts. Fellow inmate Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) tells him to give up hope, accept his fate, because it will make things easier in the long haul. Live without expectations, or maybe expect the worst, and live in spite of it. But to Andy, that sounds like dying, not living.
In the round before surgery I looked ahead to things– the reading in Chicago, the trip to Indiana. Now I look forward to Thanksgiving, our trip to Chicago and family and our day-after stay at Starved Rock State Park, even if I can’t hike as far as I usually do. We will gather around the hearth of their gigantic fireplace and play games, and the restaurant will gladly make me mashed potatoes and whatever else I can manage to eat. I received a gift of cinnamon rolls this week which I put in the freezer looking ahead to Christmas, when all “the girls” will be here. There is a lot to look forward to this time of year. And that, too, is hope.
And after my update to friends and family about my roller coaster day, I received so many wonderful e-mails. My friend Kate, who runs the monastery CSA, said she’s been seeing the Holy Spirit in the sand hill cranes lately. This morning we had a visit from our wetland family of four, drinking from the large pond and gleaning from the path near the large oak. Hello, Holy Spirit.
This week we waited for the pathology report to come in from the tissue that was removed and sampled during surgery. I wasn’t worried. In fact, I was more focused on healing from the surgery. The pathology report wouldn’t affect that process.
On Friday afternoon I met with the surgeon’s assistant, Kelli Daly, who had been in the surgery. She gave me the pathology report.
The only way I can see the move from Stage IV to Stage IIIC is stepping back from a cliff’s edge. The initial diagnosis put me way out there on the cliff’s edge. The way I imagined even remission was maintaining my place on that edge. I’d have to just balance out there and live life on that edge, careful not to go over the cliff. Of course, one day the cliff could crumble beneath my feet.
from 10 to 12 (right past 11!) and that day I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t visit or listen to a podcast or keep my eyelids open. My husband said I looked like Garfield. Perhaps 11 would have been high enough. Or 10. I didn’t go on walks that day or actually get out of bed at all. I did breathe into the breathalyzer that is a fun plastic toy that helps keep fluid out of your lungs and keeps you from getting pneumonia. Pneumonia was a big threat, though really coughing (from being intubated) was, I think, the real problem. Boy that hurts.
However, I’m not quite the rock this Yoga Joe in the middle is. I found him holding his tree pose even though an actual tree (Devil’s Backbone) was growing right across his face!
Tomorrow afternoon we leave for the hotel near the hospital. I have waited for the surgery for an extra three weeks beyond what I was willing to wait– one more thing more or less out of my control.
Yes, it looks gorgeous! It is big and ripe and round. A beauty. But what about that spot?
I know Sharon Jones’s story because our son-in-law, Homer Steinweiss, is the drummer for the Dap Kings (that blurry guy in back of SJ). The band has been together a long time, and were the touring band for Amy Winehouse. As Homer says in the film: “I’ve played with this band since I was 16 years old.” Steve remembers meeting Sharon at a record release at a record store in Minneapolis (I’m thinking it was probably Electric Foetus) where about 20 people showed up. They struggled a long time before achieving success. We were at their First Avenue show for 100 Days, 100 Nights, their breakout success, where Homer reported excitedly that they had sold out– the first sold out show of that tour. After that venues got bigger and selling out the venue a more regular occurrence.
It has been a beautiful August. Just like June and July. The prairie behind our house was burned very late in the season, so it is behind– or it is just different than the other prairie. The river of blue stem came in and matured before the yellows– the coneflowers and tall sunflowers– bloomed. Last night at 8:30 it was nearing the end of a luminous sunset, with lightly colored sky and the burst of yellows on a mellow purple canvas. A camera can’t really capture it, but this comes close enough.
I’m having a late bloom myself. My hair is just starting to come back, mostly white, seemingly straight. It’s soft, like the fleece blanket my sister gave me, or a stuffed animal’s fur. Velveteen rabbit, say.
Someone, my sister or my mother, left these handy rubber gloves in the cabinet below my kitchen and bathroom sinks! Truth is, I’ve never been good at protecting my hands. But now I’ve been bandaging the fingers and wearing the gloves when I harvest in the garden or clean in the kitchen. Both came in handy for yesterday’s canning session. The only canning session I’ll have this year.
