Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes-
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Here's a little truth that magicians, poets, and politicians have built entire careers on: not everything is only what it seems to be.
For instance:
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| Is this a pile of empty boxes, or the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi? |
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| Is this a drainage ditch, or the very best sort of sanctuary? |
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| Is this a piece of furniture or a launch pad for leave takings and a haven for homecomings? |
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| Is this a kid with a cigarette and a chicken, or........holy cow! That really is a kid with a cigarette and a chicken!!!! |
Our house transforms into a veritable suburbaport this week, with homecomings and leavetakings galore. A line up of ordinary meals that are, despite their ordinary appearance, full of memory and significance will ( I hope) make all those events even sweeter.
Here's what I'm planning:
Wednesday: Honey Cloud Pancake
The first homecoming is my own, back from a romp through the woods and through the wilds of North Carolina and into the kitchen/laboratory of our very own house. We'll be wanting something light and fast and easy, and this may be it. I may put a little bit of sauteed asparagus with this, or a slice or two of ham.
Thursday: Lemon Chicken and salad
By which I mean that I know that on Saturday, I want a chicken
chef salad. Which in turn means that on Saturday, I'll need leftover chicken. Which means chicken tonight.
I'll be putting this together with a salad of lettuce, grape tomatoes,
feta cheese and cucumbers.
Nothing says homecoming in this household more powerfully that a roast lamb dinner. In fact, the smell of roasting lamb pretty much bleats out a loud and clear "A kid of ours is coming home!!!!". And so one is. With at least one friend. Let the happy feasting begin!!!
I'll be roasting all sorts of veg along with the lamb: carrots, cauliflower, tomatoes... I'll cut them into chunks, toss them with olive oil and salt, and roast them along with the lamb. In the same oven, maybe not the same pan. I'll be using the leftover veg for a stew on Sunday, and I'm pretty sure, though not certain, that I don't want it to taste like lamb stew.
Saturday: Chicken chef salad
We'll be playing all day with those who arrived Friday night, and at night I'll send Thursday night's leftover chicken into a salad bowl, where it will play nicely along with celery, avocados, tomatoes and hard cooked eggs.
Did you know that I have only just this year mastered the art of hard cooking an egg? It's true. I've spent years hunting a way to consistently cook and egg that was not too soft, not too rubbery, with no grey ring around the yolk. And was my hero Alton Brown who showed me how to do it. Here's a link to his eggcellent
instructional video:
Just the two of us again for a few days, and in Texas, there are an uncertain number of days left before winter turns into summer. I'd like one more stew before it's so hot that soups sound unappealing, and this recipe looks wonderfully versatile. I'll be using the roasted vegetables from Friday night.
I hope that this week, while the rest of the world sits around and plucks blackberries, you see and hear deep things that others miss.
Whether the griefs and stresses that overtake you this week are ordinary or awful, I hope that one or twice you catch a glimpse of the beauty and wonder that so often hide behind them.
I hope that while the rest of the world refuses to see more than one thing at a time, you smile to yourself as you realize that, well, there's almost always more to everything than meets the
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