Downstream

When in the country the waterfall is the center of attention. It is majestic and loud and beautiful. It slows people down, they pause and contemplate. The stream it feeds into becomes an afterthought. So I've been trying to pay more attention to what goes on downstream. The smaller falls, swirls and eddies formed by rocks. The rocks themselves. Mossy, ferny twiggy things.

 Icy bits are starting to form.

Thanksgiving was an eclectic bunch of friends, everyone brought something. I  made my favorite applesauce cake. I boil apple slices in apple cider so it is very apple-y. Holiday lights went up in the little towns, a wonderful thing when it gets dark at 4:00. There were lots of leftovers, and Reader, I read Jane Eyre for the first time.

xo, Jennifer

a country weekend, autumn

 I rarely get to the country at the peak of fall colors,

always a little early or a little late. 

But this year it couldn't have been more beautiful. 

 Mesmerizing, inviting reverie and giddy moments,

fleeting glimpses of the profound.

Nature. Earth.

The backroads of upstate New York ablaze.

For the first time, I saw the changing color of the ferns, 

how lovely they are.

Our property is shady and damp, filled with ferns, 

so why haven't I ever taken this in before?

I could study this landscape for the rest of my life 

and never see it all.

a country weekend

Country weekends are much the same-- the frog pond, wildflowers, farmers markets, wading, moss, ferns...But it always feels fresh. There is less noise there. Cell phones don't work, internet is slow and shaky, there is more space to breathe and think and not think. When I was young I did a lot of camping, backpacking, hiking, sleeping outside. I've never once slept outside of our house in the Catskills, but lately I've been feeling the urge for a campfire and a night of stars. I'm too domesticated, I want to let things go.

a country weekend

We are climbing the walls around here, so it was nice

to escape to the Catskills for a weekend.

There's plenty of snow there too, but hey, it's country snow.

I haven't been in ages, because the pipes burst and

our kitchen flooded and had to be ripped out, too depressing to see.

But it's almost back together now.

The waterfall is frozen, which always amazes me,

the water rushes so fast I wonder how it stops in space and time,

what is that instant when water becomes ice?

Saturday we drove to Table on Ten for breakfast.

Conde Nast Traveler wrote about them in this article on food in the Catskills, 

which made me suspicious, but the article does a pretty good job of describing

the western Catskills, our neck of the woods.

And there were eggs with brilliant orange yolks

and fresh sourdough bread, and delicious treacle cookies.

Treacle! 

Saturday night we had dinner with friends,

and Sunday I made the rounds in Margaretville, where I had my store,

saying hello to friends and buying a few books at the Bibliobarn.

And then home Sunday night, to cats, books, and a pink quilt

that I am disproportionately fond of.

Remember the greenhouses in my last post?

I brought home some begonias. Touches of pink

brighten up the bleak late winter.

Thanksgiving in the Catskills

I felt like I was living in a Robert Frost poem.

Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening was on repeat.

Dinner was at our friends George and Gerry's house.

( and their three Boston Terriers--see Louie, above)

It was an especially nice group of friends and family.

Everybody contributed to the meal.

 There was just the right amount of snow--

enough to be pretty,

but not a bother.

I often find holidays stressful, and have struggled to simplify,

to focus on what matters, enjoy the little things.

Tonight talking to my son about Christmas I said,

Just give me a tree with lights and some hot chocolate and I'm happy.

fresh, local, seasonal

My last visit to the country I spent a considerable time watching ice form.  The creek water is shallow; it tumbles over jumbles of rocks creating small waterfalls, estuaries and coves. The temperature drops, molecules rearrange, and moving water, ice crystals and icicles mingle.

I was sad to read about the disappearance of glaciers at Glacier National Park. It's overwhelming, all of it.

And I keep thinking about this piece by John Lanchester, A Foodie Repents, in the New Yorker discussing, among other things, his Irish mother's spaghetti bolognese, and how she, who was at one time a nun, learned to cook. Also working as a restaurant critic, food trends, and  the politics of food--how the choices we make about food matter at every level. To a point. The point at which we can't feed the world with our seasonal, local free-range choices. 

He writes, "If shopping and cooking really are the most consequential, most political acts in my life, perhaps what that means is that our sense of the political has shrunk too far—shrunk so much that it fits into our recycled-hemp shopping bags. If these tiny acts of consumer choice are the most meaningful actions in our lives, perhaps we aren’t thinking and acting on a sufficiently big scale. Imagine that you die and go to Heaven and stand in front of a jury made up of Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Your task would be to compose yourself, look them in the eye, and say, “I was all about fresh, local, and seasonal.”

So now I'll tell you about the meal that my three boys and lovely daughter-in law cooked. They bought my husband a smoker for his birthday and came to the country to present it to him and cook up a storm. Our new kitchen was put to the test. They made pulled pork (from a Catskills pig), kimchi, pickled scallions, kale (cooked with gobs of Hudson Valley garlic), biscuits, mashed potatoes, and ice cream. A dozen eggs from our friend George's chickens were used. A meal made with love. And as much local food as we could find.

a Catskills weekend

I got to the country late Thursday night, and Friday morning went to Russell's for an egg sandwich.

The eggs are so fresh and flavorful that I don't add cheese or anything else. At Russell's weekenders mix easily with locals--old school farmers and Brooklyn stylist/makers can all agree on a good breakfast sandwich.

 Then I wandered through tiny downtown Bovina to take some pictures. This old general store is for sale, and somehow I discovered that the door was unlocked, so I went in and wandered around. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted most of my pictures, but it is such a cool place, filled with soul and character. It's for sale with an old farmhouse and 8 acres.

Pressed tin ceilings.

 Three or four rooms on each floor.

Old ledgers.

 There are a lot of pictures on the real estate listing here. Her exterior pictures are good, but her interior pictures don't begin to capture the charm of this place. It looks like the farmhouse has been woefully updated. Upstate NY is filled with charming old farmhouses at really reasonable prices. (If you're used to Boston, NY, SF prices). Bovina's only three hours from NYC. I'll never open a store again, but I was pretty excited for a while there, as I wandered around.

 We bought our house in the woods twelve years ago, and every time I go there I feel a sense of joy, freshness, clarity, peace. I get deep into nature, but also enjoy the simple pleasures  that abound in the eclectic rural life of the Catskills.

a country weekend, arrival

My arrivals at our country house follow a pattern. Day or night I first check on the waterfall. I hear it as soon as I get out of the car, framing why I love the Catskills, wilderness and wildness set among rolling hills and dairy farms. The waterfall is fed by snowmelt and rain, so by the end of summer slows to a trickle, but big rains last week had it roaring.

Then I unpack the car, go in the house, open the windows, 

and if it's daytime go back outside. 

I arrived Friday late afternoon so had plenty of time to explore.

I walked to the frog pond to make sure the frogs were there.

So many species have become extinct in recent years that I worry, 

but there were tadpoles and frogs in every stage.

They leap away at any movement of my shadow.

Next I investigated the wildflowers.

Forget me nots, tiny and delicate,

that perfect blue with the yellow center, takes my breath away.

Everywhere I looked there were layers of nature.

I picked some flowers and ferns

and went into the house to put them in water.

I chose a couple of my nature books 

and took them, along with ice water, raspberries

and Denise Parsons' (of Chez Danisse) new book 

After the Sour Lemon Moon, and went back outside to read.

"The train pulls slowly to a stop. I tug my suitcase down from the rack above and exit into the blue hour. It is quiet. I can hear myself breathe."

                                                                               from,  After the Sour Lemon Moon

 Yes, I can hear myself breathe.

a country weekend

There was the farmers market of course, and an auction, many barns, paint samples tested on the house with final decision based on those barns, great books finds at Bibliobarn (the treasure being Hiroshoge's Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido), an epic fall into a ditch while taking a picture of a roadside sculpture of a cat, lots of wandering… I have much to share with you, but right now I'm tired and just want to say hello. Oh, and there were wildflowers!

Hope you had a good weekend.

xo, Jen

a country weekend

Ramps (wild leeks) grow rampantly on our property in the Catskills. They've become quite trendy, with several articles already written about them in this spring's NY Times. Last weekend we pulled (oops, I mean harvested) some and cooked a ramps themed dinner. Rather, Bob did, with some help from Luke.   Luke made some fresh farmers cheese, served on slices of bread with ramp jam and pickled ramps. He also grilled ramps to be served with Bob's cream of ramp soup, kale with ramps, ramp risotto, and chicken cooked with, you guessed it, ramps. I drew the line at ramp desserts (having once had a garlic dinner that carried through dessert) so we had fruit cobbler with sour cream ice cream. Then after we'd all (several friends joined us) digested a little and laughed a lot, we passed around the chocolate ice cream Matt made.

What did I do? Stayed out of the kitchen. Visited friends. Read. Took a nap. Set the table. Washed lots and lots of dishes and pots and pans and strainers and blenders and…..

 I hung up one of my paintings, a big step for me, because I am pretty shy about my creative endeavors. But it's a good spot for all those greens, there in the house in the woods.

Keeping company with lilacs, roses and hyacinths, from my Bow Street Flowers trip.
Some people take their pets when they travel. I take my flowers.