Connections

We are a one-car family. Any time work calls me to destinations within a drivable distance, I just walk over to Congress Street and down towards Deering Oaks Park, past the imposing main post office to the Enterprise rental car office.

I was doing this yesterday in preparation for my annual trek to the NY Sheep & Wool Festival at Rhinebeck. This year's car rental was a little more tricky because I needed a vehicle big enough to accommodate a rowing machine.

No, I'm not such an exercise fanatic that I have to bring my equipment with me -- I was bringing it to give to my friend Jennifer Heverly, the eyes and hands behind Spirit-Trail Fiberworks.

What you need to know about Jennifer is that she is very good at multitasking. Not only does she provide a solid anchor of parenting to her two teenage kids (i.e. she resists the urge to throttle them on a daily basis), but she also does the books for her husband's landscape business while expertly running a very successful hand-dyed yarn business nearly single-handedly.

Jen's secret gift is that she can run on a treadmill while reading a book and spinning yarn. I'm serious. She runs on the treadmill, reads a book, and spins yarn (on an electric miniSpinner).

All at the same time.

Now you may understand why I was immediately intrigued when she expressed an interest in my once-loved and now-languishing Concept 2 rowing machine. I needed to see just how many other things she'd be able to accomplish while rowing across her imaginary ocean.

I was walking down the hill toward the car rental place when I spotted a young woman up ahead. She was crouched low to the ground, holding something in her hand. The knees to her jeans were torn. This particular street isn't that super, so I immediately wondered if I was witnessing some new kind of drug-taking posture. Was the body language furtive enough? Was she hiding something? Do people crouch in order to shoot up? Then I realized she was just holding an iPhone and framing a picture of the small patch of dirt surrounding a spindly sidewalk tree.

She glanced at me, quickly stood up, gave a nod -- was it annoyance or embarrassment? -- and walked away.

I was intrigued by the thought of her applying her filters and hitting the "share" button, causing ripples of smiles and likes and comments from a whole virtual community I couldn't see. All I saw was a person, a stranger, who made brief eye contact before disappearing. Was she friendlier online? Who did they perceive her to be? And who do people perceive me to be online? Am I that person? Am I being genuine?

Further down the hill, I spotted another woman. She was cruising toward me in a zippy motorized wheelchair. She was smiling, basking in the sun, clearly enjoying the ease of the still-iceless, snowless sidewalks of October Maine. From a distance, our eyes locked in a smile that became words of greeting as we got closer. She was present, and I was present, and I no longer felt quite so confused or alone or doubtful of myself.

At the car rental place, two well-dressed couples with heavy southern drawls were just returning their car and discussing their return to the cruise ship they had taken into town. "Kennebunkport was so naaaaas," said one woman to the other.

My customer service guy asked if a Jeep something-or-other would be big enough for me. "I don't know," I replied, "it needs to hold a rowing machine..." He knew I was on a business trip to New York, and this threw him for a loop. Spotting his confusion, I said, "No, I'm not in the rowing-machine business, I'm going to sheep and wool festival. The machine is a gift for a friend." He nodded, and we completed our inspection of the car.

And the rowing machine, it did fit.

What Might Have Been

Every year or two, we like to come back to San Francisco, walk our old streets, visit our old haunts, and dwell on that eternally unproductive question, "What if we'd stayed?" 

For the last week we've been on one such Road Not Taken Tour disguised as a vacation, this time staying in a house (thanks, AirBnB!) just a few blocks from where we used to live.

It's a sweet little place with plenty of room for us both. It's quiet, with a charming kitchen, huge back deck, a YARD, and a nice big office down below. Pretty much what we would've tried to get, many years ago, had we decided to stay in San Francisco and forget the whole Maine idea. I wanted to be in a place that would let us pretend, if just for a week, that we'd never left.

We've spent the last week sitting out on the deck and talking about how we'd do the garden differently. We've gotten produce at our old market. We've had friends over for dinner. We've redecorated (in our minds) the living room. We've even eavesdropped on the neighbors and decided which ones we'd like, which ones…not so much.

A few observations after a week in San Francisco:

1. This no-mosquitoes thing is pretty nice. Ditto the black flies and horse flies and ticks carrying Lyme disease.

2. Public transportation. So, so very nice. For $35 you can get a 7-day pass that gets you on all the buses and trolleys and cable cars. There is no better, more inexpensive way to see a city than by riding its buses.

3. The drought is no joke. I've never seen it so dry here. The owners of our house are gone for weeks but left all the cushions on the patio furniture, explaining that they didn't see any rain in the forecast. Friends in Oakland can't remember the last time it rained.

4. I don't know if it's gotten louder or if I've just gotten accustomed to the quiet, but this city roars. I sit in the sunshine on the back deck, trees and birds and flowers galore, surrounded by the Noe Valley millionaires, yet in the background, always, is a roar as if I were sitting next to the ventilation system for a large hospital.

5. From our deck I can peer into at least 100 windows. I have to work to tune out neighboring conversations. There is no privacy. I realize how very lucky we are that, from our Maine porch, we look out across miles of fields, water, and woods, all the way to distant mountains, with nothing but the occasional blinking cell tower to remind us that other people are around. What a rarity.

6. The Pride Parade. For me, the most moving moment came after the sea of Apple employees, after the Kaiser employees and AirBnB employees and the endless smiling waving politicians, when a single car appeared carrying James Obergefell. A cheer filled the street, people screamed, "Thank you!" And I cried.

7. The food. Good lord, by the number of restaurants in this town you'd think nobody has a kitchen? Don't get me wrong, it's good. But...if an alien arrived on this planet and visited San Francisco it would think all humans did was eat.

8. Those sinister silver and white tour buses that clog the roads, windows tinted so that nobody can see what's inside. They remind me of the time my brother and I passed a bus parked at the Emeryville Marina late one night, many years ago. We glanced up just in time to see a small light inside the bus illuminating a stripper, performing for the passengers.

After a few days it dawned on me, ahhh, these aren't porn-seeking tourists from China. These are the infamous Google buses I've heard so many people complain about. They circle like sharks, back and forth, back and forth. Had those buses been around when I was commuting, I would've embraced them, I would've cheered their arrival, for I really, really disliked my daily commute to San Mateo.

But now, there's something about them I find disturbing. It's as if a whole segment of the population has checked out of collective society and created their own little guarded, gated, tinted, air-conditioned, wifi-enabled community. The whole city has become a gated community. Only there's no gate, just money. To keep up, I'd have to pack myself into such a bus every day, only to be spat out again at sunset. Just imagining it fills me with an oppressive sadness. I don't want that life. Nor is it plausible that I could even achieve it. Time has passed, and a new generation boards the buses.

Which brings me to:

9. We used to tell ourselves that if this Maine thing didn't work out, we could always move back to San Francisco. But our week pretending to be Noe Valley millionaires has really made it clear that the city has slipped beyond our grasp. Entirely, and irreversibly. That imaginary safety net is gone. I know I broke up with San Francisco, but I didn't actually want it to marry someone else. But it has, she's gorgeous, and they're really, really happy together.

I wonder what will happen to the artists and poets and writers, the hippies and dreamers who arrived with $20 in their pockets and made this city so magical? Even Armistead Maupin has confessed he couldn't move back here if he wanted to. And what about the bus drivers and paramedics and school teachers, where, exactly, will they live?

The problem is real. I can't tell you the number of people who've said some version of, "If we lose our apartment, I have no idea how we'll manage to stay here." Bright, creative people who add spark and charm and genuine value to this place, one by one, they're being picked off. I grieve for the city I loved, albeit the city I chose to leave. It's rapidly disappearing.

Which, at last, leads us to:

10. Maine may have its problems (good lord it does), but it's still accessible to everyone, the artists and poets alike, the dreamers and starter-uppers, and even one very lucky woman who somehow managed to carve a career out of reviewing yarn. Maine has turned out to be a mighty fine place to call home, and I'd move there again in a heartbeat.

But…

11. Once January arrives, you know I'll be planning another trip to California.

Plodding, Obdurate Effort

I'm in the middle of Sally Mann's unexpectedly good autobiography, Hold Still. I say "unexpectedly" because, while I knew she was a stunningly gifted photographer, I had no idea she was also such a gifted writer.

Her story itself is gripping. But I'm also finding her observations about her art, and about her creative process, deeply reassuring. Especially this:

Art is seldom the result of true genius; rather, it is the product of hard work and skills learned and tenaciously practiced by regular people. In my case, I practice my skills despite repeated failures and self-doubt so profound it can masquerade outwardly as conceit. It's not heroic in any way. To the contrary, it's plodding, obdurate effort. I make bad picture after bad picture week after week until the relief comes: the good new picture that offers benediction.

She touches the profoundly unglamorous truth of it all: the plodding, obdurate effort of making art. For me, it's writing. 

These days I feel like we're trained to focus on the end results, on the shiny cover, the hyperbole-laden press release, the accolades and lists. We're expected to maintain a beautiful lie across all social media outlets, a lie that suggests this life is easy, that these books were birthed fully formed with nary a moment's gestation. Because the truth is far less glamorous. 

The tenacious practice of your skills, that plodding and obdurate effort, they really are at the very heart of what writing is. The showing up day after day to work against odds that would make any sane person walk away. I'm comforted to know someone of Mann's caliber agrees. 

Clearly I am not sane, because I'm still here. How I crave those brief moments when I feel like I've actually created something beautiful, when I get a hit of what Mann calls, quite simply, "the relief." I've been doing a lot of plodding, obdurate effort lately--more than ever before--and I've also been catching a few exquisite hits of the relief. I still have a way to go, but those transcendent moments make it all worthwhile.

Seventeen Years

Seventeen years ago this week, we crossed the bridge into Maine and began our new life. That number seems surreal to me, both a blink of an eye and multiple lifetimes. I remember, in my 20s, zoning out when someone began a sentence with "17 years ago." That was, like, so irrelevant to now.

And yet if you're really, really lucky, if you manage to keep waking up every morning, your reward is that you, too, can be one of those people who begins their sentences with, "Seventeen years ago."

How exhilarating it felt to arrive in a place where we knew nobody. We had no strings in Portland, no ties, no history in this town at all. Our canvas was blank, we could paint on it whatever world we envisioned. I bought a state-of-the-art Dell desktop and set up shop in a sunny window overlooking our tiny courtyard. I took to the freelance lifestyle instantly.

Two years later that very same month, I got an idea to start an online knitting magazine all about yarn. I bought the domain "knittersreview.com" and started working on the logo and layout. It all came quickly and easily. After years of using my skills for things that didn't resonate, it felt exquisite to pair them with my passion.

Blink, and that was 15 years ago. From my work on Knitter's Review came books, years of traveling and teaching, several radio interviews, and even a gig on PBS. It's been a really rather beautiful gift, a grand adventure, none of which I could have possibly anticipated when we crossed the river and cheered the "Welcome to Maine" sign.

Fifteen is a good number. It's odd but round, well past one decade but without the creeping sediment of 20. It's that roadside stop, the one at the crest of the hill, with picnic tables and blooming rugosas and a clear view of the road you've traveled thus far--and the possible paths ahead. It's a beautiful roadside stop, and I'm enjoying the rest, the perspective, the introspection. I've packed a picnic and may stay a while.

Right after we arrived in Portland, we received a housewarming gift from my old colleagues in San Francisco--a clivia plant, which sported a cluster of orange flowers. This plant has kept me company all these years, accompanying me through… let's see… one, two, three, now four moves. It's a patient and friendly plant that deserves a lot more TLC than I've provided. Yet this week, 17 years later and right on schedule, it decided to gift us with another bloom.

I've Missed You

I have a notebook I bought on 24th Street, back when I lived in San Francisco. My first entry was dated some time in 1995, right before Clare and I moved in together, after I'd left my travel writing job and was struggling to find my way in high-tech.

The early entries were full of frustration and confusion. Applying for jobs, being unhappy with my work, feeling like it was my fault, that if I just worked harder, I'd like it more. Then, turning the pages, I come to the spark of a dream to move to Maine. And then the move, and our early life here, the beginning of the farmhouse renovations, my launching of a new thing I called "Knitter's Review."

As time passed, the entries slowed. I was happier, I think, so I needed the notebook less. But every year, twice a year, on New Year's Eve and my birthday, I would make a point of pulling out the book and adding an update. The notebook is now 20 years old and still has empty pages waiting for me.

The surreal part is opening up this time capsule and reading what I wrote before, what was worrying me, what I was hoping to achieve, where I hoped to be. The angst seems to be subsiding, the humility and wisdom gaining, ever so slightly, with each year.

Returning to this blog after a little more than a year, it feels like opening that notebook and reading the last entry. I'm glad it had to do with that chowder, because it remains one of my favorite go-to recipes. I made some just a few weeks ago. I still haven't tried it with fresh corn, but it's on my list of things to do this summer.

Reading my words, looking at the pictures, I felt overwhelmed by a feeling of having missed it. I've missed you.

Blogging is in a state of flux. Some have already declared the blog dead. We're all about blips now, about instantly disappearing Snapchats, videos on Instagram (15 seconds) and Vine (6 seconds). Words? Keep it snappy, 140 characters or less.

What's happening to us? In 2014, the average American attention span clocked in at just 8.25 seconds. To put that in context, the attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. As a writer, I wonder where this leaves the written word. As an easily distracted person, I confess I adore scrolling through my Instagram feed, looping my favorite vines over and over again.

I have no answers. All I know is that I've missed this place, and I've missed you.

A Magical Chowder

You realize you've reached another stage in life when a new dryer vent makes you really excited. Not quite as excited as, say, a new car, but pretty much right up there with the nicest of new kitchen appliances.

I am that person who always envisions the worst-case scenario. When I saw that our dryer vent had cracked and that lint was built-up inside, I was pretty sure the house would burn down in a matter of hours. (And to be honest, it's a legitimate hazard.)

Ken the Wonder Carpenter came by this weekend to help. I figured the whole thing would take 20 minutes, tops. The more realistic Clare said two hours, which ended up being closer to the truth.

The vent goes through a hole in the floor and into the farthest corner of the basement, along a narrow ledge over the concrete cistern that used to hold water for the house. You have to crawl, there's very little light, the angle was awkward, the aluminum tubing grumpy and cumbersome, and Ken's rotator cuff barely functioning and in need of immediate surgery.

You see someone labor over your house, or something as mundane as a dryer vent, and you feel terrible. I asked if I could bring him some Claramels, a glass of tequila, anything. He politely declined. Then I remembered lunch. "I was going to make fish chowder, are you hungry?" It turned out he was.

Upstairs I ran and set to work making one of my favorite simple soups. And because I have a book due this fall and should be working on it instead, I thought I'd share my soup recipe with you, thus making you complicit in my own procrastination. (Thanks, by the way.)

Haddock Chowder

Loosey goosey ingredients
Either 2 slabs bacon or 1 Tbsp butter
Nice big onion
Garlic clove (optional)
One large potato per person + 2 for the pot
Bay leaf, a dash of thyme, wee bit o'nutmeg, a soupçon of smoked Spanish paprika at the end
Broth - can be water, chicken, clam juice, seafood, vegetable, or some combination thereof, enough to cover the potatoes
Half and half - quarter cup or thereabouts, depending on the volume of the soup itself
Medium white fish - I used about 3/4 lb beautiful haddock filets, which fed 3 people and provided leftovers

So the principle here is to make an extremely easy and flexible soup base to which you can add pretty much anything you have on hand. You begin with a few nice slabs of bacon (or skip if you don't do the bacon thing), which you cut into small pieces and fry in a soup pot until crispy. Remove them with a slotted spoon and let drain on a paper towel.

Next, get a nice big onion and dice it into little bits. Drop them all into the bacon grease (or a tablespoon of butter, if you're just starting), reduce heat, and slowly stir until the onions relax and become translucent. The act of standing over a pot of simmering onions is, in itself, bliss.

During a brief break from your onion-stirring ecstasy, take out several potatoes (I like to figure one big potato per person, with two extras for good measure), scrub, and peel (if you like your potatoes peeled). Dice into small cubes - not as small as the onions, but easily bite-sized. If you're in a hurry, dice them smaller so they'll cook faster.

When the onions are nice and relaxed, put the potatoes in the pan and add somewhere between one and two quarts of liquid. I like to add just enough liquid to cover the potatoes but still keep them visible, if you know what I mean? You don't want to have to go diving for your lunch.

What kind of liquid, you ask? It can be anything. Sometimes I do a mix of clam juice and water, other times I'll do straight chicken broth. Vegetable broth would be wonderful. Water alone can be a little sad, but if that's all you have, don't despair. Just add more onion, perhaps a crushed clove of garlic or two. I also like to add at least one bay leaf. Sometimes, if I'm feeling wild, I'll add a dash of thyme, maybe even oregano. You can also add a few grains of nutmeg, but be very sparing. It can go from charming to overbearing in no time at all.

Now, put on the lid and let everything simmer until the potatoes are soft. Once they're done, I like to crush a few of them with the back of my spoon to make the soup thicker, but it's entirely your call.

This whole cooking process should take about 18 minutes. (I say 15, Clare says 20.)

Our fish guy always tries to sell us on a pound of fish per person. For something like haddock, that's insane unless you're a competitive eater or are training for the Olympics. For three people, our two filets (probably 2/3 pound total) did the trick. Any white fish of medium constitution works well here.

Cut the fish into reasonable chunks and drop them into the soup. Push them down into the liquid, turn the heat either off completely or to the barest wisp of warmth, cover, and let the fish poach in the hot broth. Usually I grow impatient and turn the heat up a few times, just to bring the soup back to warm, but you don't really want a rolling boil here. You want a leisurely poach.

As soon as the fish has gone from translucent to white, but still has a soft, yielding texture, it's done.

For the piece de resistance, I like to drizzle a little half-and-half over the whole thing, maybe 1/4 cup maximum. Enough to bring the whole mix together into something that feels creamy and decadent. This is a deep, smoky, flavorful broth with creamy overtones and magical healing powers. Sometimes at the very end I like to dip my finger in the tin of Spanish smoked paprika, then flick it over the top of my soup for an extra smoky zing.

We enjoyed ours with a plate of sliced tomatoes. Ken the Wonder Carpenter lapped up two big bowls of it and was so refreshed, he promptly went outside and cut up the big spruce tree that had fallen in our side yard over the winter.

Now it's your turn. Go forth! Let me know what you put in yours, and how you like it.

p.s.-We had enough left over to enjoy a second bowl of soup yesterday, which is when I remembered I had a camera and actually took a picture of it. Sometimes, you need to eat first, shoot later.

Hacking other people's recipes

Yesterday just had that vibe, you know? That overwhelming combination of fatigue and distraction, an inability to concentrate that makes you useless for much more than making lists and doing stupid data entry.

So I took myself out for lunch. At the next table, a woman stopped chewing just long enough to pull out her phone and call another restaurant to order nachos to go. "No sour cream, double cheese, please."

I wanted to say, "You too, huh?"

While waiting for my Vegetable Delight to arrive, I pulled out my phone and did the rounds in my bookmarks. Between my daily horoscope and Jane Brocket sits Smitten Kitchen.

I've been a bit off the food blogs lately. They all seem so packed with noise, with heaps of implausibly esoteric ingredients, vamped-up "Look at me!" shots of meals in the making, high-resolution close-ups of the stack of cookies on a dark wooden board, crumbs so artfully intermingled with, what's that I see, vintage tea towels and sprigs of lavender. It all feels much more contrived than actually lived and enjoyed.

But this time, I spotted a recipe for dark chocolate coconut macaroons. Ahoy. I've got coconut, I said to myself. I have eggs, I have cocoa powder, I have sugar, and boy oh boy do I have chocolate. (Having Somerville Chocolate for a brother has its perks.) It became clear that what this day needed was the smell of chocolate and coconut baking in the oven.

Here is the original recipe in its entirety. (Here's a question for you: Why is it ok for food bloggers to swap one tiny ingredient in a recipe and then reprint the whole thing on their blogs, with the words "adapted from," when if you even thought of doing this with a knitting pattern you'd be - and rightfully so - shut down immediately? I'm still not clear on this, which is why I'm not sharing the original recipe here. It just doesn't seem right.)

Note: This recipe works beautifully exactly as written as long as you have 400g of sweetened, flaked coconut - the kind that comes in squishy bags in the baked goods aisle. But I don't like that stuff. I prefer to get unsweetened shredded coconut from my favorite Asian grocer. You get easily twice as much coconut per ounce, with none of the sugar crap, and for half the price.

But because this coconut is dry, it weighs far less than the sweetened stuff. Which means 400g of this would be enough to stuff a pillow, and that would basically mess up the whole recipe.

I took to the Interwebs. Lo, a few clicks later I found another macaroon recipe that was nearly identical to this one, minus the chocolate. It called for approximately 5 cups of coconut. There was my number.

To compensate for the dryness of my coconut, I replaced the 2/3 cups sugar with 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup Lyle's Golden Syrup. I figured the Golden Syrup would add an element of moisture along with a smoky hint of caramel (and Golden Syrup is 100% cane sugar, so you're still avoiding corn syrup).

The only other thing I tweaked was the chocolate. She has you heat half of it in a saucepan, then add the other half and let it melt. Heating chocolate directly on a stove always makes me cringe, but I didn't feel like pulling out the double boiler. I did the next best thing: I put it in a Pyrex bowl and popped it in the microwave for about a minute, until the bottom was starting to melt. Then I stirred until the top pieces were melted. This is really a minor detail, but if we're reporting tweaks to the recipe, that was mine.

They only bake for 15 minutes, and after about 10 minutes your house will already begin to smell VERY VERY GOOD. The kind of good that makes neighbors knock on your door and ask what you're making.

Finished, these aren't the prettiest things in the world. The 12-year-old boy in me would call them raccoon poop. (Not that I even know what raccoon poop looks like, and no, I'm not going to Google it.) But looks aren't the issue here. Once cooled, sink your teeth into one of these babies and you'll be transported to that magical, timeless place where everything is perfectly a-ok.

Utterly delicious maple nut granola

During my brief but illustrious career as a baker, I was tasked with building the breakfast menu. Someone else provided the toast, bagels, sweet rolls, and croissants, but everything else was up for grabs. After weeks of churning through all sorts of biscuits and muffins and scones, it suddenly hit me… woah. We haven't even thought about granola. And not your average crumbled-suet-in-a-bowl kind of granola, but a really good one.

I perused the Interwebs to figure out the basic ratios for fat/sweet/grain. Some recipes called for (gasp) corn syrup and buckets of sugary dried fruit, while others looked like a food fight erupted in the bulk foods aisle of your local co-op. Enough already.

What I came up with was a mishmash of both, a really lovely blend that honors your craving for candy and your body's need for a bit of, well, roughage.

While what you see here is my own personal definition of "perfect," it's a wonderfully flexible recipe. Not fond of peanut butter? Try almond butter or maybe even cashew butter. Want more nuts? Go for it! Sprinkle some flax seed on there while you're at it. Prefer dried cherries? Mix away.

After a brutal winter that sucked most of my mojo for just about everything, I awoke last Saturday with a clear vision of how the day needed to progress -- and it involved two trays of this granola slowly roasting in my oven. It's the perfect sweet and nutty counterpart to these brisk April mornings.

Without further ado, may I present...

Utterly Delicious Maple Nut Granola

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

Ingredients

Dry:
7 cups whole oats (use good old-fashioned ones, not quick-cooking - they won't hold up)
1 cup shredded coconut (can be sweetened or unsweetened or grated, your call)
1 cup chopped walnuts (or any other nut you like)
1 cup sliced almonds (ditto - go wild!)
dash of cinnamon
dash of salt

Combine all dry ingredients in a nice big mixing bowl.

Wet:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth, your call)
3/4 cups real true maple syrup (oh yeah, you heard me right)
slosh of vanilla (about 2 teaspoons, your call)

Slowly combine all the wet ingredients with a whisk. It will become a tantalizing slurry that, despite all that oil you just saw go in there, you will want to drink. Resist the urge.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and mix thoroughly. I like to roll up my sleeves and dig in with my hands. The goal here is to coat every single oat, nut, and bit of coconut with some of the slurry.

Spread this mixture evenly onto two sheet trays and place in a 250-degree oven.

Now, there are two ways you can do this. You can be sloppy and just let it bake for two hours. Or, you can do the right thing and check in on your baby every 15 minutes. Pull out the trays and shuffle the granola around. Flip the clumps, give everything a good stir. You want a slow, even roast.

In about two hours, you'll be ready to stop checking on your granola - and it should have achieved a lovely golden hue and satisfying crunch.

But wait! One more step: FRUIT. You don't add these at the beginning because they'll heat too much and caramelize into little tooth-breaking bullets. Instead, you wait until now to add as many fistfuls of raisins and dried cranberries as you desire. Give it a good stir, then put everything back into the (now off) oven and forget about it. The residual heat will cause just enough caramelization for a satisfying chew without going any further.

Once the granola has completely cooled, pour it into a Mason jar and enjoy.

I can't tell you how long it keeps because mine is always gone within a week. It really is that good.

Back on the Ground

Wow. When we last left off, it was early October and I was on the cusp of hitting the road for my first-ever capital B, capital T Book Tour.

All that optimism. All those nerves. What a poignant place it turned out to be. I don't really know how to bridge the gap between then and now. So much happened that even months later I'm still putting myself back together again.

Probably the biggest surprise was how much my sense of "enough" got distorted. Having waited a lifetime for this opportunity, I scolded myself for not savoring each moment enough, not remembering enough, not being grateful and humble enough.

Each day I'd get emails from my publisher asking about the event, the number of books sold, the number of people who came, all of which prompted a whole other self-doubt about whether or not I was attracting enough people, selling enough books, making enough money for my publisher and for the bookstores that were hosting me. From here, it's a slippery slope toward re-evaluating one's entire self-worth.

I didn't give enough respect to the power of sleep deprivation and the compounded exhaustion of daily airport security checkpoints, take-offs and landings, cabs and shuttles, and empty hotel rooms, of entering a new bookstore each day, introducing myself, and hoping beyond hope that anyone would come.

I struggled with the dichotomy between what the tour looked like to the outside world and what it felt like inside, and with the feeling that even at the hardest moments, well, who was I to complain? I was lucky. Very, very lucky. Even at 4am, wheeling my carry-on down an empty hotel corridor toward the elevators.

I learned to be prepared for things to fall apart the minute I thought they were together. I learned to scan for the word "problem" in email headers. Like when, in Minneapolis, the bookstore had mistakenly cancelled its order and had no books. None. 

On the very last day of my tour, frayed at the edges and having almost missed my flight home, I made the mistake of glancing at my phone one last time to see how my book was doing on Amazon. (Yes, we do this.) That's when I discovered that someone had just given it one star. How Freudian, I thought.

BUT, and this is a very big but, alongside those low points were people. Kind knitters, readers, angels in human form, who appeared at each stop and made it all better.

Never have I realized how important friendship is, whether it was the friend who called in sick to play with me, or the one who drove out to the airport before having coffee, to meet my early flight.

At each stop, more appeared. There was Felicia, whose whole family contributed to the Yarn Whisperer good-luck tour map shown above. Lorilee, who brought me cake and almonds on my first night. Jan, whose oatmeal cookies served as that night's dinner and breakfast the following morning. Shelley, who let me scrawl "boobs are good!" on her arm in red ink. Stephanie, who understood why I needed to walk around the block one more time before going into the bookstore. And Eunny, who knew exactly where to take me when I told her I needed "a bowl of something hot."

The people are what I remember, which is as it should be. They are what humbled me the most, what kept it real. I remember their faces, their kindness, and I carry those memories with me as I contemplate throwing my hat in the ring, yet again, for another round.

I've been thinking about all of this since I saw Molly's tour announcement for her much-awaited Delancey. I could feel a clench in my chest. I wanted to yell at the screen, "Look out! Behind you! He has a chainsaw!" I wanted to sit her down with a cup of tea and give her comforting words. Be early for everything, I'd tell her. Tip often and well, drink plenty of water, get to bed early, and always, always pee first.

And for those of you with author friends? If your friend comes to town for an event, no matter how crowded you think it'll be and how little your presence there might matter, please know that it does matter. I beg of you, for the sake of all authors past, present, and future, GO. Get a babysitter, rent a car, quit your job if you must, but please, go.

I promise, there'll be cashmere and chocolate waiting for you in heaven if you do.

Tour Time

I'm off! First stop, Seattle. Then San Francisco, then Portland, then Pasadena, then Denver, then Minneapolis, then Chicago, then Nashville, then Rhinebeck, then Portland, Maine, then Toronto, and then I'm going to hide under the bed for A WHOLE YEAR until I'm able to form complete sentences again.

I've blathered about the tour everywhere, and I assume people are sick and tired of hearing about it, and I certainly feel rather dull talking about it all the time. But then someone will email and say, "What? A tour? When?" so I feel compelled to list the dates one more time, just in case. 

You can find them all here.

On my flight to Seattle, a most amazing thing happened. I was waiting with everyone for our gate-checked luggage when a lovely woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Are you Clara Parkes?" This usually sends me into a panic. What did I do? How am I in trouble? Where will they interrogate me? Will I miss my connection?

I nervously nodded and said yes, and she reached into her purse and pulled out a copy of my book. She'd been reading it on the airplane. Probably at the exact moment I was snoring and drooling in my seat. That, my friends, is a moment I won't soon forget. 

On the next leg of my flight, I sat next to a charming man from Nashville who works for Service Corporation International. He told me all about it, all the places he's lived and worked during his 25-year career there. It's the nation's largest funeral company if you didn't know. (I didn't.) Lovely man, pulled my suitcase from the overhead for me, likes his beer cold, and recommended I go to the bubble gum wall when I'm in Nashville. Apparently it's a wall where famous people stick their bubble gum. Yup.

In the meantime, tomorrow I formally launch myself into orbit at Third Place Books. Butterflies! Excitement! Two weeks of getting to hang out with knitters every day, talk with them, make them laugh, and hear their stories. Could anything be better?

Will I see you along the way?

* Correction! Apparently the wall is here in Seattle. But still...why?

Get a load of them apples

It must've been eight years ago when the box came. Tall, slender, from Fedco Trees. Inside were two twigs, their bases wrapped in shredded newspaper. Along with them, a piece of paper explaining that these were, in fact, apple trees. Cox's Orange Pippin and Black Oxford. A gift from my brother.

We dutifully chose some spots on the west side of the field, pretending we really believed these little twigs would survive and grow to become anything in either of our lifetimes. They survived the first year. The next year, just as they were sprouting leaves, deer came overnight and stripped the twigs of their tops.

Any ambivalence I'd had about those twigs was gone. I became fiercely protective, setting up little fences of deer mesh around each twig. The years passed, the deer mesh expanded, and these improbable little twigs began leafing out. Ever so slowly they got taller, from two feet to three feet, but never losing their Charlie Brown slouch. 

Besides tending to their little fences once or twice a year, I confess I've pretty much forgotten about these guys. But lo, I recently had an urge to wander down past the struggling cherry tree and through the blueberries to check on my little twig prison. 

And what did I see?

The Black Oxford twig, the one that had been most damaged by deer so long ago? It was bearing fruit. Like, real, true, three-dimensional apples. Not huge, but who are we kidding? I tugged one off, wiped it on my sleeve, and took a bite, pre-puckering in anticipation of crabapple tang. But no tang came forth, just a symphony of sweetness and flavor. Clouds parted, the angels sang, a worm poked out his angry head and yelled, "Hey, watch it!" (At least it was a whole worm, am I right?)

Fast-forward to this afternoon, one of those perfect Maine fall days where the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the crickets are cricketing, the leaves are turning colors, and you realize that the house needs to smell like apples and maple and cinnamon and fall. Time to try that recipe I just clipped out of the newspaper.

I'd like to say that today's custard was made with these same Black Oxford apples, but there weren't enough yet. I used Honeycrisps after Googling "best apples for baking" in the produce aisle of my grocery store. 

The recipe was in this week's Ellsworth American, credited to Super Chilly Farm, which happens to be one of the folks helping out with the Out on a Limb apple CSA I've talked about here before. 

It couldn't be simpler. 

Preheat your oven to 375 and grease a nice deep pie plate.

In a bowl, mix together:

4 eggs

3/4 cup maple syrup (the real stuff, please, don't even mention Aunt Jemima)

1 cup yogurt (I used full-fat yogurt because, hell, it's the weekend)

1 tsp vanilla (or if you're me, a generous slosh)

1/2 tsp cinnamon (pausing to sniff the open jar and marvel at how much you love cinnamon)

Peel, core, and slice 2 cups of apples. (Years ago, my sister-in-law got me this contraption which makes tasks such as this a breeze. You'll want to double the recipe just to continue playing with your toy.)

Evenly distribute the apples along the bottom of the pie plate and pour the custard mix over. I chopped about 1/2 cup of pecans and sprinkled them over the top. 

Slide it into the oven for about 45 minutes, until it's nice and puffy and the edges barely begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. It'll continue to cook a while longer.

Wait as long as you can before giving up and cutting yourself a slice--which will slither and jiggle and tumble in that custardy way that inspires you to go back and get a little more, then a little more, "just to tidy up that edge," you say. 

-- Update! First, I'd probably not use Honeycrisps again. This dish benefits from an apple that's willing to go soggy faster. And second, in comparing this recipe to the golden standard from Moosewood, the Apple Honey Custard Pie, I discovered that this is that recipe, only minus the pie crust and substituting maple for honey. Once again proving that there are no new recipes in this world.

Heirloom breakfast

It always begins with a seductive "gotcha" photo followed by an evocative story about, say, when the writer was 8 years old and her Italian grandmother handed her a ripe tomato in the garden. Probably Tuscany. Flavor bursts, time standing still, blah blah blah.

Then we fast-forward to today, a farmer's market in, say, Brooklyn or maybe Seattle, where the writer stumbles upon a basket of that very same tomato. The mere fragrance brings back a rush of memories. She impulsively buys the whole basket, balancing it on the back of her Vespa or British bicycle or perhaps lugging it on the subway, to the envious stares of fellow riders. When she reaches home, a tiny yet impeccably charming sunny apartment kitchen, she sets about re-creating some amazing recipe from the past. Documented in high-resolution photographs with the contrast turned up as high as it can go without cracking your screen.

This not being a food blog, I'll simply tell you this: We have tomatoes and I've been enjoying them. Lots of tomatoes. Such is a rarity for Maine, where the first frost usually kills the plants and leaves me with bags and bags of green tomatoes that never ripen and that I never fry the way you should and, instead, end up dumping guiltily on the compost pile.

I've taken to slicing one, oh what the hell two of these beauties every morning, dousing them in salt, pepper, and olive oil, shredding a few basil leaves and leaving them to rest in a little glass cereal bowl while I put on a pot of water. In goes an egg, still in its shell. It boils for two and a half flips on my grandma's hourglass timer. (No idea. Six minutes? Eight?)

I hold the egg under cold running water for a minute or so, just long enough to cool it down so I can peel it. Which I do, then I plunk it whole on top of the tomatoes, drizzle more olive oil, more salt, more pepper, and then take out onto the porch to eat. The egg is still soft enough to burst slightly when I cut into it with my fork, but not so much that it evokes any "eww" in the eater. The flavors and colors and textures are pure heaven.

I have no photographs, because I'll be damned if I spend my morning photo-styling my breakfast. But you'll have to trust me, it's delicious. Years from now when I'm strolling through that market in Paris and I spot these tomatoes, you can be sure I'll buy the whole bunch, race them home to my charming apartment, and put on the water to boil.

Signs

My first book signing is this week--Friday the 13th, to be exact--and I have butterflies. Until now, my books have translated into workshops that I could travel around the country and teach. Sometimes those events would include a book signing, where I'd stand at a table giving people directions to the restroom.

This is the first time I've showed up with nothing but a book. No suitcase of samples, no hand-outs, no props. It feels liberating and terrifying.

Tell me, if you were coming to one of my readings (and I dearly hope you will, even if just to ask directions to the restroom), what would you like the evening to be? What should we talk about? The Bale? Biscuits? How we all manage to navigate this big, awesome, scary world every day?

Our time together is an opportunity. How can I help?

Fait accomplis

The bag of shame. 

The sound of goodbye

And then, in what feels like the blink of an eye, they're gone.

Before the last trucks have pulled out of the Blue Hill Fairgrounds, the summer visitors have pulled up their dinghies, taken in their mailboxes, emptied out their refrigerators, and headed south. The children were loaded into their cars and whisked away, gazing out the windows from their comfy car seats, oblivious to what they're leaving behind. The older they get, the longer they pause to inhale that last sweet breath of Maine air.

So painful were those late-August goodbyes that I finally decided to stop making them. Now we live just a mile up the road, otherwise at most three hours away, and can always traipse down to say hello to the place, even in the dead of winter (and usually with a thermos of coffee and thick slabs of cake to fortify us for the long trek uphill toward home).

Initially, there's a sigh of relief. Trying to work among the retired and vacationing is always a challenge. But then comes sadness. Without their noise and fuss and bustle, the manufactured flurry of the temporarily idle, the place feels utterly empty. Almost haunted.

Before they go, somewhere after settling up at the market and putting in their forwarding notice with the post office, they pull up in front of my house. Their own houses, devoid of electricity and inaccessible by car six months of the year, must be emptied of anything that might rot, burst, or attract vermin.

These may be second homes, but their owners are nothing if not true New England frugal. It bothers them deeply to throw anything away, even that half-used bottle of diet salad dressing, those two potatoes. Instead, they pack them up and bring them to us.

In the days leading up to closing time, we receive a steady trail of visitors with boxes and bags of "perfectly good" things that they couldn't bear to throw away. In accepting this food, we're helping them leave with a clean conscience. So we say "oh sure!" when presented with that squeeze-bottle of key lime juice, the box of generic Rice-a-Roni. When they leave, we promptly walk the bag into the barn and drop the most offensive of the give-aways, the crumb-coated sticks of butter that smell of refrigerator, straight into the garbage.

These cast-aways offer a clear economic indicator, and if this year's harvest is any indication, economic recovery has finally reached us. After years of generic, years of feeling the need to rescue that last egg, that last drop of lukewarm 2% milk, people were reaching for the name-brands and throwing away all but the pristine. Campbell's soup, Premium saltine crackers, Heinz tomato ketchup. Even the diet salad dressing was Wishbone.

There was one generic item, though, I'm guessing an impulse buy to please young visitors who chose not to partake: Marshmallows. Generic or not, those are my Kryptonite. I will have them, four at a time atop a steaming mug of hot chocolate, until either they or I am gone. Let's hope they go first.