Fun with Tomatoes

Our single tomato plant bore a total of perhaps 20-25 tomatoes. The plant grew like a beanstalk, snaking over a trellis and held captive by the morning glories. 10 tomatoes were edible, tasting more or less like the supermarket variety; 5 were green and will be pickled; the rest had a nasty fungus. All was not lost, as you can see by the photos below.

Tribal Necklace

Why?

Spinal Energy

I didn't save any seeds. These were not heirloom tomatoes.

Haitian Horrors

Haiti must be the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and one of the most unluckiest. I read two more Danticat books back-to-back which left me numb and angry.

The damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural events is one thing. The pain inflicted by government abuse is outrageous. This isn't news, of course, but it's amazing how easy it is to turn a blind eye. Maybe it's impossible to keep your eyes wide open.

The Farming of the Bones is a novel that takes place straddling the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both countries are well-known for their dictatorships, many propped up by the U.S. government. Drownings, murders and starvation are the fate of the dirt-poor migrant workers who go to the DR for work. When they attempt to return to Haiti, the same horrors are perpetrated by Haitian forces.

Brother, I'm Dying is a memoir that follows Danticat from her early childhood in Haiti, where her family was relatively well-off, to her new life in the U.S. when she was 12. Her father went to the U.S. to find a better life,  her mother joined him a few years later, and the author and her brother made the journey years after that. While her parents were in the U.S., she and her brother lived with her uncle, to whom she became very close. It's the last part of the book that's heart-wrenching and anger-provoking. Read it and weep.
 

Birthday, Brook, Birds, Butterfly

Festive Drinks for Harry's 21st

The Man Makes Guacamole

Mom Makes Birthday Streudel

It was my youngest son's 21st birthday last week. We celebrated the event all weekend up in the woods. On Friday, we went to our favorite local bar/restaurant, The Cabin. Maybe because they know us so well, Harry wasn't asked for ID. He has such a baby face that I thought he'd be carded forever.


Saturday was a perfect day, as Lou Reed sings in his sentimental ballad that happens to be my ringtone. I went to yoga, came home to my husband grilling pizza for lunch and said good morning to Harry who likes to sleep in when he can. Where we live, except for a car now and then, only the birds and the brook are the sounds you hear.

We made our own pizzas and dined al fresco. It was a warmer than normal Fall day. As we ate, a monarch butterfly hovered above us. He must have been looking for his amigos to join the migration to Mexico. Adios, mariposa.

Although I was feeling better than usual, I was tired and decided to take a brief nap. My husband woke me up to say I'd slept for 3 hours and that I was needed in the kitchen to help with dinner. Harry requested margaritas, and was making guacamole. I'd already made my son's favorite dish the day before, curried lamb meatballs, and had to make some rice. It was a wonderful meal, that ended around 10 and left a sink full of  pots and and a counter full of glassware.

We had a very late breakfast on Sunday because we were taking Harry out for an early dinner before my husband had to catch the bus to New York City. We hate this weekly ritual, but a pied a terre isn't in the cards right now. Dinner was delicious, and once again, Harry wasn't asked to show ID. Go figure.

Harry left Monday afternoon, after sleeping until 1 pm. He ate some breakfast, packed some warmer clothes in case Fall ever arrives, and drove back to school. He drives Vanna, my 11-year old Mazda minivan that served us well in suburban RI and refuses to seize and fall apart.

As my my mother-in law says, "good things, good things."

Turks Drink Lots of Tea

I've never read a book by Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish Nobel Prize winner for Literature. Silent House, which was published about 15 years ago, but only translated into English recently, gives a true experience of armchair traveling complete with odorama.

The book takes place during the volatile 1980's when Communists and Nationalists were battling for control of the country's political future. But this book is more about characters, what they are thinking and doing amidst the turmoil. Some, history has passed by; others seem to live for the moment; others get caught up in the brutality of the times. One character tries to write an encyclopedia of the East. He's a true atheist in an overwhelmingly Islamic country. Another character, his grandson, wants to write a history of Turkey but can't decide whether it's a laundry list of public records or something grander. In the meantime, he dwells on the meaning of time and how we move through it.

I look forward to reading his other books, one of which my library has but I couldn't justify checking it out when I have two Danticut I'm reading.