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Monthly Archives: December 2016

Winter pesto with foraged chickweed

I finally remembered to use some of the chickweed that is growing so abundantly in the backyard and orchard right now. Mixed about half and half with fresh cilantro, it made a fine pesto as a dressing for avocado. The chickens love the chickweed, by the way, and we get the benefit of the chickweed […]

K&W Cafeteria revisited

I know I’ve written about K&W Cafeterias before, but I had not been to one in almost a year. The nearest K&W (on Hanes Mill Road in Winston-Salem) recently reopened after being closed for several months for renovation. Yes, I have a fascination with cafeterias, diners, and white-tablecloth bistros. In the category of cafeterias, K&W […]

In December?

A terrapin up and ambling on December 27, and chickweed blooming in the northern shadow of the house. It just doesn’t seem right.

Tribe

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, by Sebastian Junger, Twelve/Hachette, 2016, 170 pages. “As modern society reduced the role of community,” writes Sebastian Junger, “it simultaneously elevated the role of authority. The two are uneasy companions, and as one goes up, the other tends to go down.” Anthropologists have found, Junger writes, that in tribal societies […]

Dreaming of a local economy

Recently, while rummaging in an old cedar chest that was being moved to the attic for storage, I came across my photographs from a trip to India in December 1994. The photo above particularly catches my eye. I took the photo in the Main Bazaar of Delhi’s Paharganj district (which is just across from the […]

Winter squash

For some reason, I have long underrated winter squash. I rarely bought them, and I never grew them. I suppose my thinking was that anything so hard and heavy must be as hard to cook as a rock and similarly tasteless. I was wrong, as was amply proven by a winter squash that I roasted […]

Buying eyeglasses on line

A couple of weeks ago, while waiting for an appointment with the eye doctor, I listened to a couple of people ordering glasses from the glasses-fitting technician. I was stunned at the prices they were being quoted, easily $600. There are rumors about why eyeglasses have gotten so expensive, but from Googling I found it […]

Stone ground whole wheat biscuits

First of all, I see from the blog log that this blog has some new readers in France. I’m flattered. Please feel welcome … For years, I did my best with stone-ground whole wheat flour — and avoided it for some purposes — because bread came out like bricks. Now I understand the most important […]

Christmas wish: Deeper woods and a real drawbridge

Woodpiles are a symbol of security, aren’t they? [Click on photos for higher resolution] I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t seem to get past the gloom of the election. The feeling of being surrounded by madness, by mass delusion, and by white hatred keeps intruding. The virtual drawbridge isn’t working […]

Where poets’ lives matter

In the Irish media, the death of poet John Montague was a major event. As far as I can tell, the American media have not mentioned it, though there is an American connection. Ten of Montague’s books were published by the Wake Forest University Press in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The editors were Dillon Johnston (who […]