All posts by Laurie Graves

I write about nature, food, the environment, home, family, community, and people.

Home

First Laundry on the Line and Repairing the Fence

April 11, 2016 Laurie Graves 10 Comments

At the little house in the big woods, the excitement just doesn’t end. Yesterday, for the first time this year, I was able to hang laundry on the line. (From December through April, the backyard is in too much shade for the laundry to dry thoroughly.) I must admit that I am a fool for hanging laundry outside, especially in our backyard on a sunny yet windy spring day when the air smells sweet and cold. If I could bottle that smell, I’d be a rich woman.

We only own an acre of land, yet there is always something to do or fix. Yesterday, we replaced a portion of the storm fencing that surrounds the whole backyard. The yard is fenced in so that Liam can have a half-acre or so to run and bark and rest without us having to worry about him taking off for parts unknown.

Last October, the fence was damaged by a portion of a tree that fell during a storm.

Clif had patched and repaired it, but we knew this spring we would need to do more, to actually replace the portion that had been damaged. Luckily, we had a fence section tucked away, and we could use it for the repair. After a few hours that were actually rather pleasant, the fence was fixed.

We were even able to haul in the wood that had fallen, which is good enough to be used either in our wood furnace or in our fire pit.

A nice afternoon’s work, and by the end, the sheets were dry. When Clif and I came inside, we both felt as though we had earned our tea and some time to read in the living room.

Laundry on the line and the fence repaired. Tea and reading in the living room. A finest kind of Sunday.

Books

Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear

April 8, 2016 Laurie Graves 17 Comments

A few weeks ago, my friend Cheryl, knowing how much I love England and books about nature, recommended that I read Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. As luck would have it, the book was available in our library, and I checked it out.

When most people think about Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit and all the small animals in her other stories come to mind. And how you feel about Beatrix Potter often depends on how much you like charm and fancy. I must admit that I am a sucker for such things. Seldom is anything too fanciful for me, but I do understand how some people might find Potter’s work a little too twee. Those trousers, that hat, the little dress, and on a rabbit, duck, or pig.

However, as Linda Lear makes it clear in her lengthy but absorbing biography of Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit was a multi-talented, extremely bright woman who made herself useful in a time when women of her class were not expected to do much. Peter Rabbit and the other animal tales were but one aspect of this complex woman.

Born in 1866 to parents who were extremely conservative and overprotective—some might say smothering—Potter was nonetheless encouraged to draw, paint, and explore nature on summer trips her family took to England’s Lake District and to Scotland. As a young woman, Potter become fascinated by fungi, and she spent much of her time painting and observing them. Eventually she came up with her own theory of germination and spores. (This was in her pre-Peter Rabbit days.) She submitted a paper “On the Germination of the Spore of Agaricinea” to the Linnean Society in… 1897.”

Lear writes, “The Linnean Society did not reject Potter’s paper because they never seriously considered it….Beatrix was too insignificant a player for the establishment to be concerned with. To have noticed her would only have called more attention to her unwelcome and unproven theories…That they were antagonistic to her as a woman and as an amateur goes without saying, and their bad manners account for the LInnean Society’s official ‘apology’ for the sins of historic sexism a century later.”

And that was that. Except for Beatrix Potter, it wasn’t. Over the years, she had written picture letters to the children of a former Governess, Annie Moore. “Annie Moore suggested that some of {Potter’s] pictures letters could be made into interesting books for little children….Beatrix was taken by the idea.”

Hence, Peter Rabbit was born, to be followed by Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, and various other characters that would become beloved by generations of children. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing that Potter’s books sold very, very well. In addition, Potter, who was a brilliant marketer—is there anything this woman couldn’t do?—came up with what we would now call spin-off products: games, dishes, stuffed animals, and various other related items.

Peter Rabbit and Company made Potter an independently rich woman. To add to Potter’s wealth, an aunt died and left a substantial inheritance to her niece. Did Potter then decide to rest and retire in style, say, taking in the sights of Europe or taking a trip around the world?

She did not. Instead Potter continued to write, bought land in the Lake District, got married at age forty-seven, started raising sheep, and bought more land—well over 3,000 acres, which she would later donate to the National Trust so that the land would be preserved after her death.

This review is just a survey of this remarkable woman who was so enormously talented and creative yet did not believe in women’s suffrage. (I certainly have a hard time wrapping my mind around that contradiction.)

Lear’s biography accomplished what a good biography should. It expanded my appreciation of the subject, whom I had taken for granted as a children’s writer, which, in all fairness, would have been enough. Little did I know of Potter’s other accomplishments, this energetic Victorian who blazed through life, turning her attention not only to rabbits and ducks but also to fungi, sheep breeding, and land preservation.

Food for Thought

Snow (Hey Oh) and a Few Thoughts About the Generation Gap

April 7, 2016 Laurie Graves 14 Comments

When Clif and I got up this morning and looked out the window onto our backyard, this is what we saw.

So instead of complaining about the weather, I thought I would honor the snow by including the link to the terrific song “Snow (Hey Oh)” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I suppose now is a good time to admit that I’m a big fan of rock and roll, from the Stones in the early 1960s to today’s rock music.

I came of age in the 1970s, when there was such good music—Carole King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor—and when my children became teenagers in the 1990s, I liked their music just as well. (All right. Maybe not Nine Inch Nails, but you can’t like everything.) When it came to music, there was no generation gap between me and my daughters.

In fact, there hasn’t been much of a generation gap at all between baby boomers and their children. Certainly not as much as there was between baby boomers and their parents. My parents didn’t think much of the music I listened to, and I absolutely hated theirs. There were so many differences between my generation and my parents’ generation—the clothes we wore, our philosophies, our goals and ambitions.

Now that I am older, I understand where my parents—children of the Great Depression—were coming from, a time of scarcity and terrible uncertainty. It is no wonder that my parents’ generation valued security and stability so much. Their cautiousness was a result of growing up in very hard times, and I now realize that all my parents really wanted was to give their children a better life than they had had. And they did.

As a teenager, of course, I didn’t have this perspective, and I constantly chafed against what I considered my parents’ stodgy, old fashioned ways. (Could they have looked any dorkier in their square dancing outfits? It made me cringe just to look at them.)

But I digress. Back to Red Hot Chili Peppers and “Snow (Hey Oh).”

“In between the cover of another perfect wonder where it’s so white
as snow.”

That’s how it was in Maine when it snowed last night.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: Tree Spirits

April 6, 2016 Laurie Graves 14 Comments

Nature, Recipes

Spring’s Leave of Absence: A Good Time for Squash Soup

April 5, 2016 Laurie Graves 14 Comments

In Maine, spring seems to have taken a leave of absence. The relatively warm days of late March have given way to some pretty brisk weather, and indeed my blog friends in New Hampshire and Massachusetts have gotten three to six inches of snow. Oddly enough, in central Maine, we only got a frizzing of snow.

Nevertheless, yesterday I found that the dog’s outside water dish had frozen solid. A chill wind blew through the backyard, and above the bird feeder, the birds on the branches swayed back and forth. A good thing, then, that the yellow of the male goldfinches is becoming ever brighter, a welcome flash in a landscape that is still lacking color.

In the face of such cold weather, what to do, what to do? Why, make squash soup. In a basket in a back room, I had several of Farmer Kev’s squashes that had made it through the winter. Two were butternuts, in perfect condition. My, what good keepers that squash is.

Better still, as far as squash goes, a butternut is relatively easy to cut and peel, and it only has a small pocket of seeds to clean. In no time, one of Farmer Kev’s butternuts was cut in chunks and simmering with potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, spices, and chicken broth. The whole house was fragrant with the smell of bubbling soup.

After the vegetables had simmered for an hour or so and were really, really soft, Clif took out the trusty immersion blender—surely one of a home cook’s best friends—and puréed everything so that the soup was lovely and thick and smooth.

Now, with the addition of, say, homemade croutons or oyster crackers or toasted squash seeds, that smooth soup would have been good as is. But Clif is the kind of guy who likes soup to have ingredients, so into the puréed mixture I added browned chicken sausage, cooked white beans, and sautéed mushrooms and let everything simmer for fifteen or twenty minutes..

I also made cheese muffins to go with the soup, but that is a recipe for another week.

Clif’s verdict? “Pretty darned good,” and he went back for seconds. He did, however, make an unexpected comment. “This soup is so flavorful that I don’t think it needs any extra ingredients.”

There you have it—a puréed soup that is good enough on its own. Never did I expect to hear this assessment coming from my husband, who has been known to add so many Saltines to his bowl that the whole mess looks like cracker soup.

So to add ingredients to the puréed soup or not to add?

As you like it.

Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks
2 carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half. (If present, remove green center sprout.)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
32 ounces of chicken broth or water
1/4 teaspoon of white pepper
1 teaspoon of dried tarragon
1 teaspoon of celery seed
1 teaspoon of cumin
Salt to taste
Optional: beans, mushrooms, sausage, chicken or whatever cooked addition seems good to add to the soup after it has been puréed.

Directions

In a large stockpot, heat a tablespoon or two of oil and add onions, sautéing until they are soft.
Add the squash, carrots, and potatoes and sauté a few minutes with the onions.
Add the garlic and sauté for a minute.
Pour in the chicken broth or water and stir.
Add the spices and let the mixture simmer for at least an hour, until the vegetables are very, very soft.
Purée the mixture with a blender, and I strongly recommend an immersion blender. Do put the pot in the sink if you use an immersion blender. You will save yourself a lot of mess.
Add other cooked ingredients, if so desired, and simmer for 20 minutes or so.
Before eating this flavorful soup, give thanks for squash and for spring, whenever it may come.

Movies

Eye in the Sky: One Death or Eighty Deaths?

April 4, 2016 Laurie Graves 5 Comments

On Saturday, Clif and I went to see the movie Eye in the Sky, starring Helen Mirren and the late, great Alan Rickman. What a movie!

Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) has been tracking a British terrorist, a woman, for some time and has pinpointed her location to a house in a crowded Nairobi neighborhood. Assisting Colonel Powell are teams in England, America, and Nairobi with an array of technology that is both impressive and disturbing. Initially, the order is to capture the terrorist, but then a tiny drone beetle with seeing eyes reveals two other inhabitants who are preparing to become suicide bombers.

The mission abruptly changes from capture to kill, using a larger drone to drop the explosives. A discussion ensues, but there is general agreement on the course of action until a bright and engaging nine-year-old girl starts selling bread not far from the house targeted for destruction. (Various eyes in the sky capture the scene outside the house.) The girl would most certainly be severely injured if not killed if the house were bombed.

So what should the team do? As they grapple with this moral dilemma, the movie jumps back and forth between the different groups—the Americans, who control the attack drone; various military personnel and high-ranking officials, both American and British, some of whom wish to pass the buck; and the African team in Nairobi. Never have I seen so much dramatic tension wrung from a little girl selling bread and groups of people arguing about her fate.

Colonel Powell and Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) firmly believe that the drone should strike the target. Unplagued by doubt, they reason that in all likelihood the suicide bombers could kill up to eighty people, and one little girl’s life is a fair trade. Other people aren’t so sure, including the young man controling the attack drone, and his ambivalence is heart wrenching.

This terrific movie kept Clif and me on the edge of our seats. Would the team decide to strike the house? And if so, would the little girl get away before the strike?

Readers, I am not going to reveal the ending. Go see this movie, if it is at a cinema near you, or get it when it comes out on DVD. Eye in the Sky addresses issues that will continue to be of concern to us as our technology becomes more and more advanced. This movie does so in a way that is fair minded yet unflinching.

What would you do if you had to choose between one little girl and eighty people?

I am very glad it is a decision I will never have to make.

Food

To A1 Diner We Went: There and Back Again

April 2, 2016 Laurie Graves 22 Comments

Yesterday, on a gray day perfect for going out for lunch, we went to A1 Diner in Gardiner. (Thanks, Shannon and MIke for the gift certificate.)

A1, as it is locally called, really is a diner car, perched on the edge of a rather steep drop-off.

Like the outside, the inside of the diner is a trip back in time. Need I add that this is one of our favorite places in central Maine?

The food is fresh and tasty, and oh, the fries!

The chicken sandwich was pretty darned good, too.

After lunch, we went to Craft Beer Cellar, where we used yet another gift certificate. (Again, thanks Mike and Shannon.)

As Clif is the one who likes beer—I’m more of a cocktail kind of woman—he perused the selection while I chatted with John, the owner of the store. We talked about Gardiner’s main street, how it has gone from being a street with too many empty store fronts to a bustling place with many businesses, which, for now, are thriving.

“The city has been very supportive,” John told me. “None of us would be here without that help.”

Take note other little towns in central Maine, especially those with a less than thriving main street. I’m not going to mention any names. Seeds of growth must be watered and fed before they sprout, and too many town councils are penny wise and pound foolish. (For more about how Gardiner promotes businesses that are apt to stick around, click here to read this piece by centralmaine.com.)

Then it was back home again, where I discovered that the small swamp up the road was finally free of ice. Would there be peepers come nightfall?

No, but there were plenty of clicking frogs. Surely the peepers will soon be singing their spring song.

Food, Movies

What a Clever Couple Are We: A New Snack, Pizza, and Diva

April 1, 2016 Laurie Graves 20 Comments

At the little house in the big woods, the excitement just never ends. Yesterday, Clif and I came up with an idea that was so brilliant we could hardly stop congratulating ourselves. After thirty-nine years of marriage, we discovered…drum roll, please…that we could actually make our very own nutty, crunchy mix at a fraction of the cost of buying it prepackaged.

I know. This sounds like an April Fool’s Day joke, but honest to gory, Clif and I actually did the snack equivalent of reinventing the wheel. Let’s just say that we could never be accused of being fast learners.

The proof is in the picture, and here it is.

For the price of one container of this snack at Target, we bought all the ingredients, which made a very large bowl of crunchy goodness. There is enough left of everything for another bowl with the same amount. We used peanuts, pretzels, and little wheat sticks. Obviously, other goodies could be added—Chex cereal, little rice crackers, almonds, cashews. The list goes on and on.

Our friends Alice and Joel came over for movie night, and we served this snack as an appetizer. Alice and Joel gave us the best praise they could by eagerly digging in. By the time the pizza was ready, there was just a wee bit left in the bowl. I promised our friends that this mix would be served at future gatherings, especially on the patio during the summer.

Movie night has come to mean pizza night, and I know this is bragging, but Clif has developed a very good hand with dough. He knows just how to stretch and flour it so that the pizza is chewy and satisfying. Last night’s pizza was topped with turkey pepperoni, chunks of sweet red pepper, and slices of mushroom. Clif also uses a blend of cheese—cheddar, mozzarella, and Parmesan.

Settling in the living room with our pizza and Alice’s tasty endive-stuffed salad, we watched Diva, a quirky French movie made in the early 1980s. IMDb’s description of this movie is so concise and snappy that I decided I could do no better: “Two tapes, two Parisian mob killers, one corrupt policeman, an opera fan, a teenage thief, and the coolest philosopher ever filmed. All these characters twist their way through an intricate and stylish French language thriller. ”

The only thing I can add to this is that the movie has aged well and doesn’t seem terribly dated. Oh, and the Diva has a magnificent voice that positively soars. One more thing: Diva gets a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you haven’t seen this movie, then put it on your watch list.

After the movie, we had warm apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. We discussed the movie and the problems of the world.

A new snack, pizza and salad, a good movie, and apple crisp.

What a way to end March.

Food for Thought, Recipes

Of Apple Muffins and Housing Prices

March 31, 2016 Laurie Graves 18 Comments

On Tuesday, our friends Judy and Paul came over for muffins, tea, and talk. We discussed many things but one topic was the movie The Big Short, which is about the 2008 financial crisis and the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble. This utterly engaging and creative movie is now available on DVD, and I think it should be required viewing for everyone over sixteen. Make that fifteen.

Only a few people saw the financial crisis coming, and some of these people are profiled in the movie. However, a few years before the fall, some of us could see that housing prices had become so high that average folks simply could not afford them. And despite the drop in prices that came about after the Great Recession, houses are still too expensive for many people.

A couple of years ago, I remember walking with my daughter in her South Portland neighborhood, and we passed a cute little Cape that was for sale.

“I checked on the price,” Shannon said, “and it’s going for $250, 000.”

“Son of a biscuit!” I said, or something to that effect. The house was sweet and well cared for. It was also what I would call a “bread and butter” house, an average little home perfect for a family just starting out. Nice but modest and nothing special. Certainly not special enough to warrant such a high price.

“How can average people afford such prices?” I asked.

“They can’t,” Shannon replied. “That’s why so many people rent. Or, they buy homes farther away and commute to their jobs.”

But even in Gorham, a town outside Portland, a modest but well-kept home with three bedrooms starts at $200,000. (In central Maine, where I live, it’s about $150,000.) Now, I realize that for other parts of the country, these prices might sound like chump change, but consider who Maine’s largest employer is: Hannaford Supermarket. Certainly, some people at the top make a good salary, but most of the people working for Hannaford don’t make a living wage. Most of them aren’t even technically working full time and therefore don’t receive benefits.

And rents aren’t exactly cheap, either. This means that in Maine, as well as in much of the rest of the country, housing prices or rent prices are a real burden for a significant part of the population. I’m not clever enough to come up with a solution, but do we really want a society where average wages cannot buy an average house? Or rent a decent apartment? (Throw in the cost of education and transportation, and no wonder you have a restive populace.)

This is a weighty topic. A good thing, then, on Tuesday, that we had apple muffins on Tuesday to sweeten the conversation. These muffins have a nut-crumb topping that would be good on almost any muffin, say, blueberry or pumpkin or banana.

Apple Muffins with a Nut-Crumb Topping
Adapted from a Betty Crocker recipe

Ingredients

For the muffins:

2 cups of flour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of vegetable oil or melted butter, cooled slightly
1 cup of milk
1 egg
1 apple, peeled and grated

For the topping:

1/3 cup of brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease the muffin tin. This recipe will make either 12 regular sized muffins or 6 large muffins.
In a small bowl, mix the topping—the brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon.
In another small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
In a large bowl, beat the egg. Add the milk and the oil or butter. Mix well. Add the grated apple and sugar. Mix again.
Add the flour mixture, stirring only until the batter is mixed.
Divide the dough among the muffin cups. Sprinkle each muffin with some of the crumb-nut topping.
Bake for 20 or 25 minutes or until the tops are brown.
Let the muffins rest in the tin on a rack for five minutes before popping them out.
Enjoy with a bit of butter, which, for this Franco-American, improves many, many things.