I have many things to write about in the upcoming weeks: two wonderful, frugal Crock-Pot meals for the price of one; an exploration of Franco-American food and the lack thereof in Maine restaurants; a review of a terrific book—Best Food Writing of 2012; the celebration of spring and our backyard and our patio.

But all these potential posts have been superseded by the terrible incident at yesterday’s Boston Marathon. Whoever is responsible, this much is clear: The event was an act of terror, one of destruction and fear. People were killed and maimed at a celebratory event that encourages people to push their physical limits.

What drives people to do such horrible deeds? That I certainly can’t answer. There is a dark strain in humankind, one that finds pleasure and even power in inflicting pain on others. To reflect on this, as there is unfortunately ample opportunity to do, can lead to a kind of despair.

As an antidote to the despair, there is a quotation attributed to Fred Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Who knows if Fred Rogers actually said this? In the end, it doesn’t matter. At yesterdays explosion, many, many people hurried to help, and that is always heartening.

But for me, in hard times, my chief solace lies in nature, in its beauty and vitality and serenity. In its completeness. So here is a picture taken in our backyard in mid-April. The backyard is small—perhaps a half-acre—but it borders a big woods that flickers with birds and other creatures. As I’ve observed before, the backyard feels as though it is cupped by the hand of the forest, and above is the beautiful sky.

This picture is in honor of those who are suffering because of the explosions at the Boston Marathon—to the families of those who have been killed, to those who have been maimed, to those who had to flee in terror.

Not long ago, I said to my husband, Clif, “I have a new hobby.”

“Oh?”

“I like to go in the backyard and collect sticks and branches. The sticks I can break by hand and use for kindling. With the branches, I use the little hand saw. But they’re good for the furnace, too.”

Clif gave me a look suggesting that even though we have been married for 36 years, I still have the ability to surprise him. But all he said was “Well, go for it.”

And so I have. Today, I will be recycling our Christmas tree, stripping the branches and sawing the trunk into smaller logs. “They’ll be good for the fire pit,” Clif had to admit.

Scavenging the woods and backyard for twigs and branches might sound like a weird kind of hobby, but I am the sort of person who enjoys puttering around the home—cooking, yard work, tidying, cleaning—all right, maybe cleaning not so much. Unlike work that is done for others, however necessary or profitable it might be, work done for the home just has a different feel. It’s more personal and more direct, done for the family or for oneself. Somehow that makes all the difference. Simply put, for me it is more satisfying to work for myself than it is to work for others, and I find any work that bolsters the home or the family to be very rewarding.

I realize there is much work that must be done outside the house, and indeed I do my fair share of volunteering at the town library and food pantry. I realize that not everyone is in a position to spend their days at home. Every household needs money. Finally, I realize not everyone has the temperament to enjoy the usual days of work around the home. But I do, and I count myself as one of the lucky ones who not only enjoys work around the home but who also has the luxury of staying home and doing that work.

Times change, as they must, and women are no longer required to stay home, as they shouldn’t be. However, I can’t help but feel that people—men as well as women—who enjoy the little things, the puttering—the work that goes toward making a house a home—have a better shot at a life that is not only full of contentment but one that is rich as well.

Not long ago, at a foodie meeting I went to in Brunswick, a woman I met—Laura—spoke passionately about how food was so central to everyone’s life and how food nourished more than the body. I found myself nodding in agreement, and my first thoughts were of the writer Proust, whose plain little cookie—the madeleine—triggered a cascade of memories.  That a cookie could bring forth such a rush of emotions shows that food is as symbolic as it is real, feeding a person on more than one level.

Well, Proust had his madeleine, and I have my egg salad sandwich, always served with chips and Pepsi. Oddly enough, I am not especially fond of chips. I don’t dislike them, but I’m seldom inclined to eat half a bag at a time, the way my husband, Clif, does. Nevertheless, when I have egg salad sandwiches, I always want chips. And Pepsi.

This goes back to my childhood, to the times my family would visit my Uncle Leo, my Aunt Barney, and my cousins Linda and Carol. They lived in Norridgewock, and in those long-ago days when traveling by car was less common, the trip to their house felt like a real event.

In my memory, which admittedly could be faulty, we usually went on a Sunday, after mass and after dinner, which was at noon. I will pinpoint my memories even further. I am about 8, my brother, Steve, is just a baby. The ride seems long to me, but I don’t care. We are on the way to Norridgewock, perhaps 40 minutes away from our house in Vassalboro.

My aunt and uncle’s house was just as clean and as gleaming as our own house. As a rule, Franco-Americans have a passion for cleanliness that borders on obsession, and if they didn’t also have a balancing passion for fun, then they would be a real drag as an ethnic group.

If the weather was good, we would go for a walk in the pine grove behind their house. If the weather was bad, Carol and I would play with her toys while the adults chatted. Linda, who is a few years older than Carol and I, mostly stayed with the adults. Then came the magic hour, supper time, around 5:00, with everyone grouped around the small table in the kitchen. Was Steve in a high chair? I don’t remember. Unlike the taciturn Yankees, Franco-Americans are a chatty ethnic group, so there was always a lot of talking. And then, of course, along with the talking and the fellowship of the family being together, there were the egg salad sandwiches and chips and Pepsi—everything so entwined that it cannot be separated.

My brother also has fond memories of these egg-salad suppers, so I am sure the tradition carried through long after he had grown from a baby to a toddler to a little boy.

Not long ago, when I met Carol and Linda for breakfast in Waterville, I mentioned egg salad sandwiches and family suppers and what good memories I have of them.

Carol said, “Neither of our families were large, so when we got together, it seemed as though we were a big family.”

She is right, and, as a bonus, our families got along really well.

But along with the kinship, egg salad—humble, hearty, and oh so good—was the food that bound us together.

Yes, the title of this piece is right. Clif and I have been married for 36 years. Yikes! That’s a long time. All marriages have their ups and downs, and ours is no different, yet I am ever so grateful to still be married to a handyman Yankee who just this weekend fixed the power mate to our vacuum cleaner, which means we didn’t have to buy a new one, and says “Pretty darned good,” when I make him a meal that he likes. I love chocolates and flowers as much as the next woman, but what I really appreciate are the details of everyday life—the fixing of things when they are broken, riding our bikes, listening to music, watching movies, cooking for family and friends, walking the dog, working on creative projects. This delight in the quotidian, I think, is partly what has held our marriage together over the years. Let’s face it, hot romance only lasts so long, and then couples must face the practical and sometimes difficult rhythm of life.

On Sunday, we went to our daughter Shannon and her husband Mike’s home for an anniversary meal of lentil soup, homemade pretzels, and chocolate caramel brownies. I ate too much, of course, but how good it all was. There was a walk—brisk but fine—on the beach with the dogs, our Liam and their sweet, little Holly. Mike gave us a lovely photograph of lobster traps glowing in the sun.

On the home front, to celebrate our 36 years, I’ll be making a quiche with smoked cheddar, which I’ll serve with cole slaw and olive oil toasts.

A very, very happy anniversary.

Here are some pictures from Sunday.

Last night, I went to a Food Writers Meet-Up hosted by Christine Burns Rudalevige. Maine is awash in all things food, from restaurants to farmers’ markets to speciality stores to community supported agriculture. In such a food-rich environment, food writers flourish, and it was certainly interesting to get together with people who are so passionate and knowledgable about food. Among other topics, there was much talk about the recent influx of good restaurants in Maine. In Brunswick alone, there are over 30, and Portland, the Babylon of Maine, is a haven for restaurants.

These conversations, of course, led me to think about food in Maine. While it is true that the uptick in good restaurants and speciality stores is a relatively recent event and does correlate to the immigration of those from away, food and cooking have always been of major importance to Maine.

Maine has a rich agricultural history. In the mid-1800s, the state produced so much grain that it was considered the bread basket of New England. Every town in central Maine—and other communities, too, I’m sure—had apple orchards, and remnants of these orchards can be seen in scattered trees by the side of the road. Sugaring and maple syrup have a long tradition in Maine, and in rural towns, many people, not just farmers, had big gardens. Even in the 1960s and 1970s, home cooking was the norm—most people did not go to restaurants—and as I have pointed out in a recent post, obesity was not a problem. We ate prodigious amounts, but we got a lot of exercise, which flowed naturally from our active lives. Then there was the sea, still bountiful, not yet overfished but heading in that direction.

I cannot deny that the food Mainers ate and cooked was plain and unpretentious, often made with eggs they raised and vegetables they grew. Biscuits, muffins, baked beans. Roast chicken, roast beef, corn on the cob. Lots of greens. Carrots and potatoes. Ham. This is the tradition I came from, and it has influenced the way I cook—plain, honest, and with real ingredients. (I will admit that I have jettisoned the tics of the 1960s—cream of mushroom soup and Veg-all. I still hate them, and I always will.)

At this food gathering, as a humble home cook, I felt a little like a plain Jenny Wren among cardinals, blue birds, and gold finches.  As the conversation turned to Julia Child and fancy cheeses, I realized that along with the Maine tradition of local food, my cooking affinities were with Moosewood and the organic movement. While I admire Julia Child, I have never aspired to cook in the “French Chef” style.

My favorite cheese? Cheddar. I might have added that a big block in the refrigerator is perfect when the wolf is at the door, which it has been and still is for many Mainers. Shredded cheddar in casseroles and in macaroni and cheese. Sliced for grilled cheese sandwiches. A lowly cheese, perhaps, but tart, tangy, and good for many things.

However, what I lacked in sophistication, I made up with appetite, and I think I earned my moniker as a good eater. I ate my way through potato and leek soup, glazed bacon, stuffed dates, sugared cranberries, delectable cheeses I was totally unfamiliar with, and a lemon honey so good I could have eaten it all by the spoonful. There was a brittle made with pine nuts and rosemary, so crunchy, nutty, and spicy that I felt as though I were a cat next to a bowl of catnip. (I knew I had overdone it with the gluttony when Christine asked me if I wanted to take the rest of the brittle home.)

While we all brought things, Christine provided much of the food—such as that wonderful brittle—and let’s just say that this woman  can cook. She teaches cooking classes at Stonewall Kitchen in York, and if you live within driving distance, then do not hesitate to take a class taught by Christine.

But just being at this gathering was an education for this home cook.

March is here, and with it slush and snow so dirty and heavy that it seems to weigh everything down. In Maine, even in good times, tempers are short in March, and in bad times, well, tempers are that much shorter. Unfortunately, this is also the time of year when Maine towns start addressing their yearly budgets, sometimes through town meetings, where everyone gets to vote, and sometimes through council meetings, which are open to to the public but elected officials do the voting.

Let’s just say that right now, times are not good for Maine towns. Unless the legislature takes action, state aid to towns is being drastically reduced, and towns, in turn, must either slash their own budgets and reduce services, or they must raise property taxes. The problem is, everyone likes services, but no one seems to want to pay for them. My husband calls this magical thinking—you can have it all and still have low taxes. Well, you can’t. Plain and simple.

A few nights ago, my husband, Clif, and I went to a town meeting where we learned that if the current state budget is approved, our town will have to deal with a $650,000 shortfall, chump change by some standards but serious money for our small town. So cut, cut, cut. Cut the budget to the rec program. Cut the budgets for police, fire, and ambulance departments. Cut the budget for plowing the roads. Cut hours to the town hall. Cut hours to the transfer station. Cut the budget for the library. This is a horrid example of trickle-down economics at a time when people and towns are struggling and need more aid rather than less aid. And the bigger the pool, the easier it is to come up with that aid.

What to do during these gray days? Go to town meetings, of course, and speak up where it is appropriate to do so. Write letters to state senators and representatives.

For me, a homemaker, it is a time to cook and clean and chop wood. Keeping busy and physically active helps. Today, I’ll be making crackers and a cream cheese spread to take to a Maine Food Writers Meet-up in Brunswick. Tomorrow, homemade pizza and granola cookies. When I go out with the dog, I scrounge the woods for good-size branches that have blown down, branches I can saw into pieces for the wood furnace.

But beneath this activity is an anxiety that things won’t come together, that the scrooges will have their way, that we won’t all pitch in to make sure that cities, towns, and people have the services that make life comfortable and indeed, in some cases, worth living.

Spring and summer are coming. The sap is running, and it promises to be a good year for maple syrup. There are glimmers of hope. But in the meantime, gray, gray, gray.

Yesterday and today, we had a wet, heavy snowfall. The day is gray and drippy, and everything outside has a soggy, discouraged look. (However the birds have begun their jaunty spring songs, so better weather is ahead.) Heavy snow, of course, means heavy shoveling, and my husband, Clif, and I got up early so that we could clean enough of the driveway to allow him to get the car out and thus go to work. He used Little Green, our electric snow-thrower, while I used my trusty blue shovel.

When we got about two-thirds of the driveway done, I said, “That’s enough. I’ll finish the job, probably in two shifts.” Shoveling this snow is truly an example of nature’s gym, and I figure by the end of the day, I’ll have  burned off enough calories for an extra piece of chocolate, some popcorn, and some other little tidbit.

So in we went. Clif got ready for work, and I took my tea, toast, and orange into my office, where I read the New York Times. Immediately, a piece by Mark Bittman caught my attention, and in this piece he rails against sugar, even going so far as to write:”Sugar is indeed toxic.” Apparently, according to some studies, the major cause of modern obesity is sugar, and the feeling is that this sweet substance is making us sick and fat.

Before I go any further I should make two things clear: First, I am a huge fan of Mark Bittman, and his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is a cookbook I use often. Second, I am also someone who loves sweets. Chips and salty things I can resist without much effort, but when it comes to candy, cookies, and donuts, I am putty.

After breakfast, I went out to do more shoveling and to ruminate about the statement, “Sugar is indeed toxic.” Is it really? Is sugar responsible for the current spike in obesity? Or, did Mark Bittman overstate the case? I considered the issue as I threw shovelful after shovelful of slushy snow, and the dog leaped, barked, and twisted until he was panting. (I’m not the only one who burned off calories this morning.)

Well, I thought, as much as I love sweets, I can’t deny that too much sugar isn’t good for a person. But then again, neither is too much bread, butter, and pasta.  Many things should be enjoyed in moderation, even the current darling, red wine. Too much wine can lead to alcoholism, a damaged liver, and other miseries just as surely as beer and mixed drinks. Yet, a glassful with a meal is considered beneficial to a person’s health.

Then I thought of my childhood, where everyone—adults as well as children—gobbled sugar with a lusty, guilt-free abandon that is shocking to consider by today’s standards. We ate cookies, cakes, brownies, whoopie pies, Ring Ding Juniors, Devil Dogs, and cream horns. Donuts and turnovers. Just down the street from where I lived was the corner store, where my friends and I would go daily to get a bagful of penny candy. But here’s the thing—despite the wanton sugar consumption, hardly anyone was fat, and again this applied to adults as well as children. There was one fat family on the street I lived on, and they were the exception. The rest of us were either slim or normal, and except for one of my uncles, nobody that I knew of had type-2 diabetes.

But, we lived in a rural community, and we kids ran, biked, skated, played baseball, threw chokecherries at each other, went sliding, played tag, climbed trees, and rode ponies. Seldom were we in a car—I even walked to school. The adults were pretty active, too. When time allowed, they played outside with us. They also worked in big gardens, helped neighbors with the haying, cleaned out the chicken coop, and took walks on Sunday afternoons. I know memory is unreliable, but in my memory we were always moving.

This leads to me wonder: Is it really sugar that is making us sick, or is it that we, as a society, sit too much and move too little? Maybe cars are toxic. And computers. And machines such as leaf blowers that make life too easy for us.

I will be interested to see what future studies reveal about sugar. In the meantime, I will enjoy sweets in moderation and get plenty of exercise.