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Getting away with it

So, I am blogging and I already Facebooked, at work. Ha ha! Take that county computers that don't allow anything...I brought my own in!
Okay, fairly lame thing to be excited about, but nonetheless.

Irony

So, today is Earth Day and I just bought a 6-pack of Evian water, in plastic bottles. Yep. But it was $4 for 6 liters!! Seriously! And Evian is delicious, and I'm dehydrated...so there you go. I am killing the earth, and am a horrible person.
I will recycle these evil bottles, but they will still probably end up in the innards of a poor unsuspecting sea creature within the week, nonetheless. God help me.

Nicolai's Garden

Nicolai’s Garden

By Erin Schmiel

The lone beet lurking in the refrigerator was a perfect candidate for borscht. Alexey pulls the dull-looking tuber from the drawer where it had been knocking against the bright orange carrots. He brushes at the skin, not able to wipe away its dirty color.

He recalls the damp morning he yanked this beet from the ground. It had come easily from the soil, as if wanting him to pick it. Nicolai, the previous owner, had taken good care of the soil. He put everything into it. Alexey knew he would make borscht with his harvest even then.

He grabs the carrots and onions from the same compartment and begins chopping, tossing the pieces into the pot as he goes. All goes well until he pierces the beet.

“Ouch!” he yelps. There is blood everywhere, magenta staining the cutting board and dripping from the knife. But it is not he who is bleeding, he checks his fingers and all is whole. It’s the beet, oozing its bloody center over the counter. He quickly tosses it too into the pot, and turns the burner up. He lets the soup boil, adding cabbage near the end.

After an hour on the stove, the borscht is ready to be eaten, and Alexey takes it off the burner. His arms tremble as he lifts the heavy stewpot. Its aroma is earthy and sweet. He ladles some into his bowl, scooping sour cream onto the top of it, he watches it start melting, easing itself into the steaming borscht, changing from rich purple to, deep crimson.

He breathes in the aroma, becoming light-headed. Unable to resist any longer, he grabs his spoon and digs in. He burns his tongue but doesn’t stop, as spoonful after spoonful find their way into his mouth. He slurps at the empty bowl and ladles more to fill it. The tang of the beet meets with the cream, the sugars combining on his tongue him woozy. He looks down at his hands and notices that they’re still stained from cutting the beets. He had washed them, but with little effect. He eats the second bowl as quickly as the first, not noticing his skin becoming flushed. He empties the second bowl and goes for a third as if in a fever, satisfied in his hunger, but unable to stop.

With each bite he becomes more and more flushed. He opens the windows in his small kitchen, thinking it had become warm from the cooking. Before Alexis knows it, his skin takes on a dirty, rough quality like that of the beet he had tried to wash. He was not flushed, but was turning red. Beet red. Brushing at his arms, he jumps from the table, knocking over the bowl, the spoon clanging on the wooden floor. He stumbles, his legs less like legs now, and more like roots.

“What is happening?” he cries as he grabs the chair for support. But no one answers. He grabs his head and feels small leaves sprouting from his hair. Gasping, he runs out the door of his cottage, into the warm evening, listing side to side on his root legs.

Growing rounder by the minute, stumbling through the yard, he knows what he must do. He tumbles into his garden, digging at the dark earth, feeling the cool soil on his purple, root hands. He lays down, nestling himself into the dirt, wiggling himself deeper into the ground until at eye level with the surface. Here, he falls into a deep sleep, calm and happy to be home at last.

Alexey becomes the beets that fill his garden, waiting for the spring and the next unsuspecting cook to come and pull his descendents from the ground and thinking of borscht and brushing at the rough skin.

Youngest Member at Bible Study

I lead a women's bible study at my church. Not surprisingly, I am the youngest member, and the only single member. I don't have a lot in common with anyone else in this group, except the fact that we all go to the same church. Right now we're reading a book called Tactics which is an apologetic text on how to defend and talk about faith. Today we watched clips of the the author in action, arguing against a new-age author Deepak Chopra. It was interesting. I like Eastern philosoph, I find it fascinating and it gives me something to think about outside of the box of Christianity that I have been raised in.
What I found funny this morning was a comment made by one of the women. She had gone into Barnes and Noble recently and was appalled that Eastern religion books were next to books on Christianity in the religion section. I said that those are religious books too and this is America so all of those types of books should be displayed equally. This didn't seem to satisfy her, and I would have like to have discussed it further--but this never happens. Interuptions abound in this group and no train of thought every really gets to finish.
So why am I in this group? I mainly keep going because I cannot make it to church on Sundays and want to stay in touch with this part of my life--the spiritual side of my life. Also, they're like my family, grandmothers and mothers and aunts, and since I'm far from home their presence is comforting. So I keep going, putting up with the sometimes close-minded, set-in-their-ways tendancies.

Squash and Pumpkins

Squash/pumpkins
October 28 2009

Who was the first person to look at a large pumpkin and think, I want to carve a face in that odd, orange vegetable? It certainly does seem random that we carve pumpkins, but not hubbard squash for instance. Although, the hubbard and other winter squash have an impossibly tough skin and I feel there would be many missing digits. But, we don’t carve other vegetables. No bell squash faces, or beet jack o lanterns. The pumpkin does hollow out nicely and it large and thick. So it is suited for this activity, but why? Who wanted to make food a decoration? It’s like the colorful Indian corn or corn stalks. Did the pilgrims do this? I bet they used all the food to eat rather than decorate. We live in such a land of plenty that we can display this wealth in the form of a pumpkin we have no intention of eating, but will place on our doorsteps to show everyone that we could eat this if we wanted to, but we certainly don’t need to.
I’m trying to write pieces of flash fiction for different vegetables. So far I have a piece on the Beet. I was inspired by not only Tom Robbins novel Jitterbug perfume, but also my own essay about making borscht. I had beets on the brain and woke up one morning and wrote about a man who makes borscht, and then in the process of eating his stew, becomes a beet and then plants himself in the ground in the end, waiting to be eaten. Now, I’m trying to bring to life other vegetables but am having a hard become inspired. Robbins book was outlandish oddly written—I blame that for why I didn’t finish reading it. But it started out with “the beet is the most intense of vegetables” and I believed him. Combined with the fact that I had just picked some beets and was looking at borscht recipes I felt that all was working together for this piece to be born. But no other signs are coming together for other tubers, root vegetables or even fruit for that matter. I also need to cook more I think. I made chili recently, but for I opened a bunch of different cans of beans, through them in the crock pot with some stewed tomatoes and ground beef. It wasn’t very exciting. It tasted great, but didn’t inspire me to write. It nourished me bodily, but not imaginatively.
So back to square one.
I do still have a beet shriveling in my refridgerator. I had thought of writing a sequel or a continuation of the beet narrative, but thought against it after writing one sentence. It’s over. The obsession has ended. I need to move on. As do you. Good day.

Just a random, what I'm up to blog

I wrote a piece this morning that was fun and adventurous, and about beets. Much like the essay I also have posted on this blog, this one was about food. I hope that you, whoever you are--the reader-- do not find it boring. It was inspired by a James Tate poem called The Radish and like I said, was fun, new and different for me. Here it is. Enjoy.

September 22nd 2009 Autumnal Equinox
The beet

There is a lone beet lurking in the refrigerator. It sits in the drawer with the prettier potatoes and carrots, all of which are scrubbed clean and shiny. The beet can be scrubbed, but it can never be shiny. It does not sparkle, but absorbs light. The beet’s real show is inside its bloody center. You cut a beet in half and stand back from the splatter; it’s like a Tarentino film, gory yet wonderful. The beet oozes its essence on to the cutting board. Dramatic? It can’t help but be dramatic. Your hands, the knife, the counter, the floor all will be magenta-colored in the blood bath as you chop and dice the beet. It gets under your nails and the smell of earth fills your nose. The soup pot will become like a millpond, full of mossy, dirt smells and water teeming with flavor. Add onion and cabbage and carrot to the pot to keep the beet company, and it will bleed all over them, staining them purple and red. Don’t forget salt and pepper and the stewed tomatoes. Adding more redness to the mess. Place the lid on the pot and let it boil. Boil, boil toil and trouble the witches say in Macbeth. I bet they were stirring a pot of borscht while doling out bloody omens. Serve your borscht with sour cream to sooth the tang. Take a spoonful and taste, close your eyes and think of the garden, the innocuous-looking beet leaves blazing out of the soil. You pulled them from the ground and beheld this tuber, this awkward, dirty root vegetable. You washed and put it in the fridge and now it’s swimming about in your mouth, and down your throat. You swallow and it fills you. You slurp up the whole bowl of borscht, you can’t help it, you are like one possessed. You put the bowl down, only to have it filled again by a pushy hostess. You empty it again within you, and your skin takes on a faint lavender color. You have another bowl, and now you are blushing the hue of beet, it has imbibed you with its juices and you are stained as if with beet jaundice. You refuse another bowl, reeling. Can you cry as Lady Macbeth? Out, out damn spot? No, for it is not a spot, but yourself that is red. You have become the beet, as it has become you. You sprout leaves from you the top of your head and look for a soft place to lay, to plant yourself; waiting for the next unsuspecting, innocent cook to pull you from the ground and place you in a soup pot.