Mille Feuille: pastry rules all.

Still recovering from my last baking faux pas; a homemade kettle corn that failed to caramelize and became gritty sugar clumps, I attempted to ward off failure for at least a week.


But cardamom and nutmeg leaped into my cart at the market to join my stock of canned pumpkin at home. 


Muffins were too easy a victory to attempt after the popcorn disappointment.


I had to up the ante this time. It could only mean one thing: a pastry.


Not just any pastry but the daintiest of all dessert loves: the mille feuille in all its flaky wonder. I knew if I botched this I would bake nothing but pre-packaged brownie mix and cornbread as a reminder to leave tarts to the culinary elite.


I tousled my way through the ingredient cupboard to take inventory. With exactly 2.5 cups of flour left and three flowery-scented heirloom apples, I had my green light.


Stackable bowls out. Recipe blog up.


Dough savvy as I wasn't, I managed to cut butter through a landscape of flour with a fork, sweeping it up into a central mass.


I hold two directives responsible for the good dough outcome I achieved:


Not over mixing.
Not letting the dough get warm (unless yeast is involved).


Following rules was my save in assembling tarts nothing less than precious. The darling apple cut-outs fit snugly inside their spice-flecked houses. You could almost say I tucked them into bed. 


Plated and cooed over, apple treats have ushered me into new heights of baking glory. I fancy my ascent to continue with a spice cake or maybe something Jewish with all the delicious somethings that can be done with honey. Things are looking up already.

My very own Grey's Anatomy episode.

With fall comes all things romantic (see list) and a bit of indulgent TV series watching. Slumped down in the couch for two episodes of Grey's Anatomy is where I am found after work.

My latest novel lies discarded on the floor somewhere near my passenger seat. I like to keep it near me during long drives. It has such a pretty cover. I almost feel bad for it.

I heard a recent parenting radio broadcast suggest that "TV media speaks to the heart while a book speaks to the mind." Within the context of orienting children toward literature instead of compulsive TV watching, it makes sense. My mom read to me often. I should know better.

But as a journalist, the statement makes me all kinds of conflicted. I received an overpriced education to become a news media person. I also work at Nordstrom. Sure, the news is full of bad messages. It dampens the glee of lunch hour in under a minute with stories of destruction from across the globe. Events are skewed are presuppositions are made. It is also a thruway for advertising and don't we all hate that!

If Jeremiah 17:9 suggests that the heart is the seat of wickedness and the news media is reporting on said wickedness, well then, they may just be doing their job.

After the seventh (estimated) Grey's episode this week, I made a trip to the dermatologist. Nothing out of the ordinary, just for an examination of a small bump at the base of my scalp. It took Dr. Tavelli all of 5 minutes to assess and tell me:

"You're a healthy kid. The spot doesn't concern me too much. We can inject it with cortisone and it will likely disappear"

Or...

"We can cut it off, put a couple of stitches in the scalp and send you on your way."

I answered decidedly, lacking my usual discretion:

"Cut it off? Yes, lets do that."

As Meredith Grey said, "Surgeons like to cut." It is not always the answer and in my case, did nothing life-altering. Romanced by the operating field delivered through my TV screen the chaotic brilliance and metallic sheen of a ten-blade, I wanted "the procedure."

 It may sound macabre (Happy Halloween!) and maybe it is, but I wanted there to be blood. A small clip and a couple of sutures later, I requested a mirror to see where the two sides of my flesh were sown together.

At the outset of this week was the dilemma of which fall boot to purchase for the season. By Thursday, I'm cavalier about clipping a piece of my scalp off.

What a welcome to October. I think it should involve more reading and a little less medical drama just to be on the safe side. Who knows if I might find other reasons to be visiting a surgical table soon...

That was meant to sound creepy.

Now read my list of romantic fall activities to make yourself feel better:

Smiling pumpkins.
The moccasin heel.
The return of the cozy blanket.
Smiling pumpkins.
A heap of old sweaters, some old, some new.
A game plan for colds (not getting one).
The familiar hug of denim.
Don't mind if I add a scarf.
Time indoors.
The bikini body postponed for another season.
Saying yes to a scone.
Applesauce making.
Collecting chestnuts.
Leaf smell.
Curtains.

September

Praise be to the back-to-school shopper! If not for sales, for social interaction. September blew into Portland on the smoky breeze of a forest fire. I am thankful it's here.

August was a sluggish retail month, a time for making lists because there is time to make lists when you are paid to remain upright and exuberant for a period of eight hours a day. For an introvert it can be an exhausting feat.

After punching my employee number into the register at mindblowing rate of five times per minute (in the event of a miraculous increase in sales figures), I am fabulous at waiting.


Waiting for that velvet hum of the receipt printer. That sound is nice.

Wait. Wait.
 Mistake woman's purse dog for domesticated squirrel. Laugh(discretely).
Wait. Point the way to women's restroom.
Wait. 
Answer phone. Wait. 
Take a stroll ( to the other register). 
Wait.
Swivel mannequins hands right side up after being tampered with by sugar-infused children. 
Wait again.
Scan the floor for signs of life. Wait. 
Locate happenstance customer. Appear casual, not desperate.
Maximize small talk. Ask questions. Lots of questions.
Accept a return, with enthusiasm.


Wait... 

The sky was on fire when I dropped into Warm Springs canyon. Islands of light hedged back the darkness of the sleeping valley and desert cliffs. The far ridges melted. I drew my focus from the center line and waited for memory to interpret the sight. It was past sunset hour and my eyes were hazy. But something familiar was happening.


Volcano? The searing borders glowed molten hot with drops of gold. They were of a beautiful kind of danger that moved cars to the shoulder to watch from the sloping grade. I slowed with anticipation to find a spot, but I was alone.


Concrete gravity pulled my car a little deeper into the valley floor and the image began to raise in monstrosity from my perspective. Silhouetted trees engulfed in flames jogged my memory. The orange was hot like it should be and smoke dampened the air of night. I rolled down my windows feel the winds generated with the storm that carried the warmth of a forest fire. 


The crest of orange singed the hillside as I wondered what other common dangers I had missed in their spontaneous glory. I have yet to see a real whale breech the surface of ocean as I've wanted or to lay under the Aurora Borealis. Things out of control. I wanted a picture but I knew the best details would be gone.


The night closed up all the gaps of light as I drove on from that moment. The fervor of nature was a pressing reminder. There is a God who is ruled by none.

Salt.

It has a way of indulging us in the simple things. Things that punch through our monotony. Things that make our senses real and alive.

Things like watermelon, a bath tub, a steak and an ocean soak are best with a tiny grain having much meaning: salt. It's as ordinary as the girl holding the umbrella and it always pours too fast from the spout. The irony of flavorless salt the Word makes perfectly clear: it is good for nothing because its meant for everything.

From Matthew 5...

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men."

Ordinary means in every way, important, in terms of objects and individuals. Water is ordinary and water is life. People are commonplace while they are also eternal. This makes for a miracle in even the easiest people to ignore. C.S. Lewis put it this way:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit— immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

Perpective is necessary when being the salt of the earth starts to get boring, or when we marinate too much our own ideas and opinions and the rest of the world starts looking bland. Then we've lost flavor. Then the banality of selfishness and the ugliness of narcissism appear. If ordinary is good enough for God to use, then we all have plenty to bring to the table. 

Productive suggestions for the wildly disruptive coffee shop "talker"

• Look up the word logorrhoea
• Learn sign language
• Breathe
• Eat a banana
• Consider the benefits of a tonsillectomy
• Consider a career in telemarketing
• Take a vow of silence
• Host a community forum where others come willingly to hear "your life story"
• Avoid microphones
• Make a grocery list
• Do a crossword puzzle
• Check your blood pressure
• Check the weather
• Count coffee beans
• Tip the barista
• Read that book in front of you

Summer bounty

.........


The rows were worn by footsteps. I batted my bowl next to my side, hunting and tasting. Strawberry Swing soundtracked my thoughts as I glared into the sunlight: "Which spot is best?"
My arm itched and I wasn't planning to get my knees involved. A lazy balance suspended over the green sprawl was the aerial method used to pick from the lot. I shouldn't have been that careless: the strawberries were free after all.

Much of the little I know about farming is consistent with life--its droughts, bounty, loss and life. Maybe that's why Jesus wrapped his parables in the rich, solid language of earth and its seasons. 

Zora Neale Hurston once said, "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." 

I love the idea and yet I cannot figure which is more thrilling, knowing that a question has been answered or that the answer, though hidden for a time, exists. This is the glorious chase of wisdom. The marvel that fills my head as I read passages from Proverbs 8 is born of words like these:

"While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
      Or the primal dust of the world.
        When He prepared the heavens, I was there.."

I, wisdom? Personified wisdom.

"When He marked out the foundations of the earth, 

      Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;^[b]
      And I was daily His delight, 
      Rejoicing always before Him, 
      Rejoicing in His inhabited world, 
      And my delight was with the sons of men."

Wisdom dancing, clapping, sounding off joy? What an event for my eyes to attend to. I wish to understand what it means. I wish to have a little for myself too.


I looked at the strawberry lot and smiled with a bowl half full and a stomach at ease. This was a good yield for a cold summer. Though not all the berries were sweet, delight was in the hunt.

Not all things lovely are always in plain sight. They must be sought, dusted off and treasured. My bowl bounced at my feet as our car turned off the rutted path and onto highway. They probably wouldn't make it into jam and I was glad not to preserve them. The full glory of their moment had come. I was just there to appreciate.

........