Lifescapes

Mesquite Season

I'm making mesquite flour again this year (the photos in this post were taken last summer) because our mesquites are loaded with beans: the product of an El Nino spring, with lots of rain and the hard work of bees and other pollinators. I harvested the beans from the ground (some had a few bugs, but a little animal protein doesn't hurt the flavor, IMO) and dried them in my solar oven: about 2 hours, temp around 180.

The next step--grinding--does take time. I do it the traditional way, using my small metate and mano. I've tried putting them in the blender (don't have a food processor), but since this is a traditional food, the traditional means of preparing it feels right to me. When I do this, it's almost magical, the feeling of deep connection to the native women of the Southwest, who fed their families with this food. We've lost that, I think, in our modern kitchens, borrowing exotic foods from around the globe, with little feeling of connection to the cultures that create such a rich framework of meaning around their foods.

The pods grind quickly but the seeds are hard and resistant. So--reading that the protein and sugars are mostly in the pods--I discard the unground bits of seeds. After an hour's work, I've produced a couple of cups of mesquite flour. Last year, I made a batch of muffins. This year, it's crackers. Here's the recipe:

Spicy Mesquite Crackers

In this recipe, increasing the ratio of mesquite flour will enhance the nutty flavor and slightly gritty texture. How gritty depends on how your mesquite flour was made--commercial flours are probably finers. I make my own, and I'm not fussy about a bit of grit. No mesquite flour? Not to worry. You can make these with various flours (wheat, rye, cornmeal, etc). Experiment.

1/4 cup mesquite flour
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup shortening
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 400 F. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in the shortening until fine and crumbly. Beat egg lightly and add to milk. Add milk/egg to dry ingredients and mix to make a stiff dough. Knead thoroughly (4-5 minutes) and then roll the dough very thin. Cut into squares or rounds and place on parchment paper or lightly greased cookie sheet. Prick with a fork and bake for 10 minutes, until very lightly browned. (Watch--they'll scorch!) Cool on rack. Store in air-tight container.

Book notes. Launching The Darling Dahlias has been keeping me busy. I've started work on the final book in the Cottage Tales series, planning to finish by mid-October. You'll be hearing more from me about that. The Tale of Oat Cake Crag, due out in early September, just got a great review from Booklist--"Charming as always."

Garden stuff. Eating zukes, onions, green peppers, sweet potato greens, and the last of the tomatoes out of the garden. I need to do some work on the beds (I garden in raised beds) before it's time to get the fall garden in, around mid-August. Love being able to step into the garden for the supper veggies, or reach into the freezer, where I put them when we had too many to eat. And with a 35-mile round-trip drive to the nearest supermarket, what comes fresh from the garden every day is a real treat.

Reading note. What sets wilderness apart in the modern day is not that it's dangerous (it's almost certainly safer than any town or road) or that it's solitary (you can, so they say, be alone in a crowded room) or full of exotic animals (there are more at the zoo). it's that five miles out in the woods you can't buy anything--Bill McKibben

Altered Books

A few years ago, I spoke at a meeting of the Kentuckiana Herb Society. One of the group members, knowing of my interest in altered books, made one for me, from a discarded hardcover copy of China Bayles' second adventure, Witches Bane. It was made to serve as a holder for a paperback book. But I remembered it the other day, when I was thinking of buying a jacket for my new Kindle (Bill is inheriting the Kindle I bought back in 2008).

So what you see here is an altered book, jacketing another altered book--or rather a largish library of altered books, since I have nearly 100 books tucked into that ebook reader. Of course, this eReader doesn't really "alter" the book, just the experience of reading it, which (for me, anyway) is significantly different from the experience of turning the pages in a physical book. But I accept the idea that the "book" has been radically altered from the first books I learned to read. And I'm glad to have the luxury of downloading books (and audiobooks), sitting in my chair in the living room--no need to drive 90 miles round trip to the nearest large bookstore. And if you want to see a few other really altered books, check them out here. It's an art form I've been wanting to explore, if only I had a little time. If only...

Fiber stuff. Speaking of time and art forms and the like, I've been knitting string bags. I made the first one of string (literally--plain cotton string) and liked it best. The one pictured here is made of Aunt Lydia's "Denim" (mostly cotton, thicker than string). It's okay, but stretchier than I would like. The one I'm currently knitting is made of some yarn I bought for a weaving project--really liking it. The pattern is finicky and requires some attention. But once you learn the changeover from one round to the other, it works out. I had never done any faggoting work before, so this is a new experience for me, and fun. I can see more bags in my future...

Book report. The Darling Dahlias are out there, and getting good reviews. If you want to make the peanut butter meringue pie, though, please use the corrected recipe. (Special thanks to Dani and Geni for pointing out the problem.) Next up on the writing desk: The Tale of Castle Cottage, the last of the Cottage Tales series. But I won't start that until next week: I'm heading for Houston toward the end of this week for a family visit and a Saturday noon booksigning at Murder by the Book. If you're in the area, do drop by. The Dahlias and I and David and McKenna (the owners of this terrific bookstore) would be delighted to see you.

Guest blog alert. On Tuesday 7/20, I'll be a guest blogger at Molly Weston's Meritorious Mysteries, blogging about (what else?) the Dahlias. Molly has already posted her review of the book (yes, she liked it!). We're holding a book drawing, too, so be sure to come on over.

What I'm reading. I was inspired by a friend (thanks, Sid!) to post a page of my reads and reviews. I'm just getting started with this work-in-progress, so check back every so often and see what I've listed. In the meantime, have a great week--and cross your fingers for no hurricanes in the Gulf and a quick kill on that blasted oil well.

Stephen King, to his readers: I don't want to just mess with your head. I want to mess with your life. I want you to miss appointments, burn dinner, skip your homework. I want  you to tell your wife to take that moonlight stroll on the beach at Waikiki with the resort tennis pro while you read a few more chapters.

Sunflowers: Brightening Up

A gray morning here--not that I'm complaining, mind you! We've had a tenth of an inch of rain already this morning and there's more on the way, courtesy of a monsoon-like tropical depression in the Gulf that is sending bands of rain across the Texas coastal plain and into the Hill Country. Sadly, the weather system is also bringing oil to the Texas beaches and wetlands. And yesterday, a good piece of AP reporting turned up a story on 27,000 abandoned oil wells in the Gulf, any of which may be leaking oil. Disastrous neglect by both industry and regulators.

But in the midst of all this gloom, sunflowers brighten my day. My life is like that these days, it seems. Bad news all around, but patches of pure pleasure. Bill and I just got back from Illinois, where we gathered over the holiday with children, grandchildren, and dear friends. A long drive (and too many oil-miles), but it was worth it for the time together, connecting, reconnecting, finding new common interests and concerns, restoring old ones. Precious.

Book report. Another bit of brightness: I finished The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies a couple of days before we left. It flew off to New York via the Internet--such a delight, not to have to print 350 pages, wrap, and ship. All I have to do is hit "send" and off it goes. (A special treat for me, since I'm old enough to remember submitting my work, typed on an old Royal, with carbons. Whew.)

Also bright: the reviews of the first book in the series, The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree, which won a starred review from Booklist, one of the few remaining print review publications. These days, authors can't take anything for granted, so I feel very grateful for the Booklist review.The book is also available on Kindle, I'm glad to say: Penguin and Amazon resolved the differences of opinion that led to the holdup of Holly Blues in April.

Next up on the writing desk: the final book (the wedding book) in the Beatrix Potter series, The Tale of Castle Cottage. It's due to my editor's computer in mid-October, so I'll be spending the summer right here at my desktop. Not a bad place to be, actually, with temperatures regularly topping 100.

Garden stuff. It rained while we were gone, so the garden is doing better than I expected for early July--and certainly better than the last two droughty Julys. I still have a few tomatoes, the zukes and peppers are producing, and the May beans look as if they might make a crop. Best: the sweet potatoes (planted about 3 weeks ago) are starting to push out new foliage. I've never cooked the leaves, but I understand that they're edible. I think I'll try them tonight. Check out the sweet potato link, which includes photos of ornamental sweet potatoes, which I love: I have planters of Black Heart and Marguerite on our deck. And here's some information I turned up in a Slow Cook post cooking the leaves, if you're inclined to run out to your garden and nip a few.

What I'm knitting. Bill did the driving on this trip, while I knitted: string bags right now--teaching myself some new knitting tricks. I used plain old cotton string (which I found in the garden shed, hiding under some newspapers) instead of the #10 crochet thread in the pattern. Worked very well. Have some new Peaches 'N' Cream cotton--we'll see how that works.

What I'm reading. On our four-day drive to Illinois and back, while Bill was driving and I was knitting, I was listening to several very fine books. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, an abridged (sadly) edition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil, by Peter Maass (still not finished with this one). In e-book format, I also read Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization (first chapters great, final chapters a disappointment). Oh, and Diet for a Hot Planet, by Anna Lappe (which I'm reviewing for Story Circle--I'll post that link when it's up.) Best of the lot: Maass's book, a must-read if you're concerned about peak oil and the direction that our oil-based culture is heading.

Reading note:  This lifestyle [based on cheap fossil fuels] is going to change, whether we want it to or not, whether Chevron and Exxon want it to or not . . . The question is whether this lifestyle will change with extreme disruption when the price of oil returns to triple digits and goes beyond the $147-a-barrel record set in 2008, or when global warming means a portion of Manhattan is under water, or–-and this is what I hope happens–our society truly recognizes these threats and begins the painful and costly adjustments necessary for radical shifts toward renewable energy as well as conservation and efficiency.--Peter Maass