Hanging onto Dear Life, A Sad Pruning of Hydrangea, and the Saving Grace of Ovens

 photo courtesy artisinalbreadinfive.com

Wait, shouldn’t I be writing a Turkey post?

This is a story of complete and total idiocy.  It is one that I sadly repeat year after year – and somehow I can’t help myself from doing it.  As I write this admittance, I re-confirm the complete and total folly in my ways – and the identification with the idiom that a person who repeats his mistakes is indeed ignorant.  However, at this age there is some level of acceptance of who I am  – such a creature of hopeful determination and survival instinct that I see must have gone awry somehow when it comes to the competing forces of the pragmatist instinct that would render me somewhere in the healthy-zone.  Haha – Fight on I will, if not sadly.

I spend a lot of time at this time of year wondering why the weather has to change so dramatically and go into an extended period of devastation and hibernation.  I know this is an incredibly useless waste of time.  Not only is the physical change to the landscape a powerful affront to all my sensibilities and ability to feel happy, but it is the power of these changes to impact my frame of mind and reference to all things of life that makes me wonder about this force of nature as well as my own sanity.    And so, I try to absorb myself into a regimen of other pursuits.  As I walked the dog along last week in a down coat, hat and gloves and held my hand over an ear with pain, wind howling, I wondered to myself what on earth had happened so early in November this year and uttered a few curse words to myself.  Thoughts of California, shorts and flip flops teased me – of walking along at the Santa Barbara Farmer’s Market in bliss in March and wonder at why on earth I continue to live here swirling in my head (honestly, this is where agapanthus bloom in March and they are harvesting strawberries in Oxnard.  Thoughts of packing my bags returned yet again – but who would go with me?  Everyone else is entrenched here – but I am not.  Anyway…..

For anyone looking for something fun and inspiring to do, I highly recommend following this site and page on fb – www.artisanbreadinfive.com.  Honestly, at this time of year, I am in very great need of some productive activities to keep myself from going stir-crazy – as I can’t enjoy myself outdoors any longer.

On Friday, I stepped outside the door with a wool jacket and down vest zipped up and clippers in hand.  My hydrangeas had been frosted in a particularly savage way – not naturally dried out and put to sleep in a way that would allow the buds set for next season to stay in tact.  Suddenly, the wrath of this early cold had rendered them ugly – a fate they certainly don’t deserve in the landscape.  My Endless Summers which line the north side of our patio were left largely overgrown and barren this Summer, along with my pink and blue mop heads.  Honestly, only my oak leaf and lace cap, which I incessantly photographed early on had any sort of production this year in New Jersey.  And so, not wanting to have a sadness emanating from this lovelies all Winter long, I headed out the door with the pruners.  Afterward, having made my patio slightly more palatable-looking, I mourned the possibility that I would have yet another season of bloomless wonders.  Ugh!  I may have sabotaged next June with my own hand……….

For any of you who don’t see (or feel) what I’m talking about, here’s a little picture of the physical transformation right outside my door.  There is obviously something terribly awry with me as most people either accept these changes and easily transfer to other modes of operation in the late Autumn and Winter, or migrate to a more suitable climate.  Some people actually revel in these changes.  I, unfortunately, tend to remain cranky and worried that it is going to seem like forever until May comes back.  I do try to dissuade myself, but something incredibly odd in my nature makes me fester about this.  And so, I go about trying to find some other things to occupy my mind.

 perhaps my favorite photo of 2014  – and this turns into:

  now, I know that these have to do one to get to another, but……..

About two weeks ago I went out one morning and ripped the morning glories off two cedar trellises outside my side door.  I felt resigned that I had to do this and the images of death in front of me were depressing.  After I had ripped down the one on my chimney, I saw that there were indeed still some living buds left off to the right, having wandered over on their incessantly determined vines to the next door neighbor rose bush.  Seeing that I had effectively rendered those living buds a death sentence at my own hand, after having reveled in their glory for the last 8 weeks or more, was an affront to my sensibilities and I felt horrible.  Such is my degree of attachment to the life cycle outside my door.  Hanging onto dear life was I, all those mornings when I would peak out the door very early on to be reassured that they were still pushing buds……..

Ok, I get it, it’s over and I HAVE to move on.  And so, that next phase of obsession begins to creep into my psyche.  It is the inimitable urge to bake and bake and bake………..

I am an incessant waiter for the season of Christmas to come.  I never decorate anything in our house until December is well under way.  I guess it was the cold weather this year that made me begin to feel that I wanted to move forward.  This was incredibly odd, especially juxtaposed with the story above.  I began to notice the beautiful hollies I see every day.  One is outside my dining room window right now as I type away.  The other is in Basking Ridge where I walk the dog every morning.  I tried to keep these images at bay for another couple of weeks.  I kept my eye on the lot at Country Mile Gardens as I passed by every day – pumpkins out and the space cleared away.  Were the trees arriving yet?   This indeed was incredibly out of character for me.  I went to the Farm on Thursday and secured 5 tiny red Cyclamen for the kitchen window and 3 larger white cyclamen for the copper pot on my island.  Unheard of!  But I was craving color.

On Friday I made an apple torte.  Yesterday, I played around with my Mom’s Pumpkin Pie recipe and turned out a new one – unheard of.  In 60 years, probably 55 of which I have baked with someone or alone, I have never made a pumpkin pie different than my Mom’s.  I felt incredibly conflicted.

 circa mid 1970s (possibly just the Libby’s standard recipe) “make sure your spices are new!”  how I can still hear her voice……

Ok, try as I do to “deal” as Ryan would say, I begin to let my imagination wander.  Panettone has been in the back of my mind already lately and this morning I began to wonder if I could transform these little multi-day beauties into a project for the Thanksgiving table in the form of little rolls – perhaps embellished with a little bit of pumpkin,  hmmmm –  like I needed another project for Thursday, um, no……

What would my family say if I formally proposed that I was going to change the menu from my otherwise demanded Sweet Potato Rolls.  Luckily, this whole idea got me off the sadness of my pile of hydrangea cuttings laying on the patio floor.

Off I went in search on the internet for people who had already thought of this idea.  Luckily, it didn’t take too long to find some.  It didn’t take me long to settle on the image shown above.  Soothing thoughts settled my mind…….  But, how long does it take to make these?  Do I have any of these beautiful paper wrappers in the house?  Hmmm, where can I score some of these and quickly?

And so, this is the saving grace – where I feel that instantaneous affinity for all the bakers across time and country, who are drawn into the kitchen to engage in their craft.  I am happy again, if only for awhile.  And just as I type this, the sun streams in the window and onto my face, warming me for a moment.  It is a hopeful sign of confirmation – I will move on.

Artisinal Bread in Five Minutes a Day is a classic book.  And there is now a Gluten-free volume, written by Jeff Herzberg, MD and Zoe Francois.

Here is their beautiful post about Panettone.  And, most importantly, it doesn’t take 5 days to make!  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/2010/12/20/panettone-the-sweet-fruit-studded-christmas-bread  

And so, not finding a recipe online for a pumpkin-enhanced panettone, here I go, off on an experiment – one which will keep me otherwise occupied this week.

This is my little story for today.  Updates to come.