The Case for Narcissism

The pale translucent beauty of these indoor Narcissus blooms (the cultivar is Paperwhite, 'Ziva') does indeed invoke their mythic namesake: the youth Narcissus, so entranced with his own image reflected in a stream that he literally fell in love with it, toppled into the water, and perished. A cautionary tale of self-absorbed infatuation. He gave his name to a psychological disorder of extreme preoccupation with oneself, Narcissism, but these delicate flowers, also namesakes, make the case for a more inspiring legacy. Anything so lovely has to be admired.

We've been gazing, entranced, at their slow unfolding for the past month. Every year my sweet sister sends a Christmas gift that grows.






The bulbs arrived mid-December, along with planting rocks, vase, and instructions on how to force them for maximum effect. At first, there wasn't much to look at, just the papery bulbs with pale growths emerging like the long, curved fingernails of a sloth.

Following the instructions, I filled the bottom of the vase with the planting rocks, pushed several bulbs into the rocks so they stayed upright with growing ends on top, and added water within an inch of the bulbs so they weren't sitting in it but the roots could grow down towards it. This was all new to me so every step was fascinating.

When everything was in place, I set the vase in a cool, dark corner. And waited.

It took a few weeks for the roots to twine downwards into the labyrinth of rocks. When the bulbs were anchored and green shoots were heading hopefully upward, it was time to bring them forth into the light.





By early January the tall slender stalks were tipped with swelling buds.





And the roots had woven themselves into a tangled, shiny, white mat at the bottom of the vase.





Here they are at peak beauty, blossoms leaning into the light, or, perhaps, bending toward their reflections in the window glass.

Thanks, Sis! It's been a great show.

Our Daily Loaf

Was this the first loaf of the new year? I'm not sure. It has become so routine now to have a new one coming out of the oven that it's hard to keep track. This is our daily bread, with only occasional supplementation from the grocery store. We can pretty much count on fresh green salads from the back yard and fresh warm bread from the oven.

We have moved on from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day to the advanced version: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The process is the same but is adapted for whole grain flours.

B. has mastered the process to the point where it is a normal part of daily life to mix up a new batch of dough, let it rise a while and stick it in the fridge, or pull the container of dough out of the fridge, shape a loaf, let it rise, and bake it. One batch of dough will serve for four or five loaves, which get tastier and more tender the longer the dough sits. It seems like the hardest part of the process is to find room in the fridge. (That's my job.)

I really like the feeling of having a productive homestead, even if it's only on the very small scale of our whimsical two-person operation plus dog and occasional son. Years ago I saw a magazine article (Time or Newsweek, I think) about the shift over the centuries in the American household from a center of production to a center of consumption. It was the illustrations that were memorable.

On one side of the page was a drawing of a colonial family gathered around the huge hearth in their cozy kitchen. The whole family was there, three generations worth, staying warm by the fire. Everybody was doing something: winding yarn into a ball, shelling peas, mending a rake, stirring the pot hanging over the fire. The scene was alive with activity and interaction.

On the other side of the page was a photograph of a modern family circle. There were only two generations and the hearth had been replaced by a TV set whose wan glow lit up the faces of the silent, unmoving group.

This is not to say, of course, that we don't spend time clustered around the electronic fireplace, passively consuming mass-produced entertainment. In fact, we each have our own little screen to look at, more often than not, happily surfing, streaming, gaming, blogging, to our heart's content. But that's why it's especially satisfying to have the tangible daily projects of garden tending and bread making to confer about. Every day we produce something useful and enjoy every part of the production process.

Except perhaps trying to cram that bread bucket into the fridge.

2010 Eat the Yard Recap: It Was Mostly Salad

Last January I made a New Year's resolution that we would eat something from the yard every day, even if only a spring of parsley or a twig of thyme. Despite some eye-rolling from one who shall not be named, we did a better job of living up to this self-imposed challenge than I would have expected.

I stopped keeping daily records within a month or two -- about the length of time most New Year's resolutions last. But looking back over the past twelve months it's clear that the 2010 Eat the Yard Challenge made a difference in our lives. Laying down a formal goal turned out to be consistently motivating and inspired the little bit of extra daily effort that made it possible to rise to the occasion: dashing out at the last minute for the qualifying sprig or twig, for instance, or taking a flashlight out into a dark winter yard to gather a handful of lettuce.

We ate dinner at home just about every day during 2010. Not eating at home now seems like the very rare special event that happens when far-away friends come to town or some emergency comes up. Restaurant food or take out food simply can't compare with our own home-grown and home-cooked bounty.

Out of 365 days, I think we were at our own table all but about ten of them -- a wedding, a couple of unexpected trips to the hospital, some excursions with friends and family, and one day last February when we got stuck in traffic coming back from San Francisco so stayed in Sausalito watching rainbows over the Golden Gate bridge and having dinner with an old friend who always responds to a last minute phone call.

Apart from the peak-of-the-season feasting in the summer and fall, it was mostly salads that got us through the full twelve months of eating from the yard. One of the realizations this year was how easy it is to keep the salad greens going continuously. We had to buy salad makings a few times to get us through the occasional Lettuce Gap, but I don't think there was ever a time when the backyard did not provide something that could supplement the nightly bowl of tossed greens -- tomatoes or arugula or edible weeds like miner's lettuce.

So now it's time to keep moving forward with the 2011 Eat the Yard Challenge and our own personal tournament of champions (chompions?), the Salad Bowl. Let the games begin!

New Year's Eve Tomatoes

At the closing of the year we are still putting tomatoes in the nightly salads: just a few to make them last as long as possible. Of course, in dark December they don't have the rich flavors of August, yet somehow the minimal spark they provide pulls together the lettuce, spinach, and arugula into a unified burst of flavor.

The hanging vines out in the garage are picked over and bedraggled, so this won't be going on much longer. It's been a good run.

Christmas Reds and Greens

Evergreens in the house are an essential part of Christmas and just a few simple touches can evoke the season. It's even better when the glossy branches and bright berries can be gathered from the yard.






We don't really have enough to form a whole wreath or swag, nor am I willing to put in the time making them, but it feels so good to cut a few branches from the berry bush and the little redwood tree in the front yard to fill out the inexpensive store-bought greenery.






The seasonal backyard produce is also thematically correct with a range of dark greens set off by soft reds. Even the tomatoes from the garage are in harmony. (And we've been very happy to use the backyard bounty in simple meals of soup and salad to balance all the rich once-a-year fare: fruitcake, eggnog, exotic cheeses, nuts, and fruits, etc.)







Out in the garage the hanging tomatoes (the few remaining branches of the summer plants, rescued from the first frost in late November) form a makeshift Christmas tree with colored bulbs attached. Like the inside tree, this one will not be taken down for several weeks to come -- not until the last harvestable morsel has been gathered -- as we try to wring every bit of delight from this all-too-brief season of celebration.

A Fragrant Winter Soup

We ended the shortest day of the year with a warm, fragrant, and comforting winter soup that started out as a minestrone but didn't make it that far. The mushroom broth enlivened with vegetable juices and just a touch of fennel seed was so good that B. didn't want to weigh it down with beans and pasta. So it ended up as a simple vegetable soup. A spinkling of fresh grated parmesan cheese, and some homemade whole grain bread rounded out a cozy meal.






Along with garden chard, the backyard contributed some blue potatoes to our solstice dinner. This was a second surprise harvest from the little patch that won't quit. There was already one volunteer harvest earlier this year and then, on November 26, I dug up the pile pictured above. All of these went into tonight's soup, which was already special but became even more so.

The Solstice Eclipse

Despite the gloomy weather, Bay Area skywatchers and mere curiosity seekers like myself are tracking tonight's total lunar eclipse. It is a very rare event because it falls on the same day as the northern winter solstice -- the moment at which the Earth's north axis is tilted farthest from the sun, giving us our shortest day and longest night of the year, and heralding the first day of winter. According to NASA Science News, there's only been one other lunar eclipse on the northern winter solstice in the last 2,000 years . . . and that one was back in 1638.

According to information from Oakland's Chabot Space & Science Center, the eclipse begins -- or began, because it's underway now -- when the Earth's shadow starts to slide across the full moon at 9:30 p.m. Monday night, December 20 (tonight). Complete coverage -- known to astronomers as "totality" -- lasts from 11:40 p.m. until 12:53 a.m. on Tuesday, December 21, and the eclipse should be over by 2:00 a.m.

The photo above was taken at 10:40 p.m. from our backyard. The splendid full moon of the solstice can been seen through a thin veiling of fog. It looks like the Christmas star, but don't try to follow it!






I took this follow-up photo at 11:50 p.m., ten minutes past "totality." What I saw -- or thought I saw -- and tried to get a picture of was the last tiny fingernail clipping of light disappearing behind a thicker layer of fog. I don't know why it was still visible at that point in the process. When I enhanced the photo there was indeed a small pale smudge in the center, but I couldn't get the enhanced photo to upload. There are far better photos and videos of the whole event all over the internet; nonetheless, it's nice to keep a personal vantage point on the cosmos from one's own backyard.

Besides tracking the eclipse, I also marked the solstice by hanging the first section of this marvelous calendar which provides a beautiful wall poster for each quartile of the natural year: winter solstice to spring equinox, spring equinox to summer solstice, summer solstice to fall equinox, and fall equinox to winter solstice.

The reddish circle on the left edge is the solstice lunar eclipse, which marks the beginning of another cycle of light in our journey round the sun.

Note about the calendar: The link goes to the 2010 calendar at Amazon but I know the 2011 version is available. I bought mine at Whole Foods.

Note about the time stamp: Blogger has an interesting habit of marking the time the first draft of a post is saved. I started this post earlier in the evening and saved the draft, worked on it some more later and didn't actually publish until a few days afterwards. But the date and time stamps show the time of the first draft.