42point1

book meme

I think this might be the only time I've ever been tagged for a meme, and since it was Todd Tyrtle of Quirky Outakes who tagged me, I feel a certain obligation to comply.

It may surprise some of you who know that I'm all about the rules and regulations and orderly procession of things to find out that I'm pretty much prepared to break the rules of the meme.  What can I say?  I'm occasionally capricious.  Blink and you'll miss it, though.

So here goes, and how the thing is supposed to work:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Okay, right off the bat, I'm breaking number 1.  If I pick up the nearest book, you'll find yourself nodding off over a paragraph from the most excellent book Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by the talented and knowledgeable Judith MacKenzie McCuin.  It is a good book.  It is a solid, informative book.  But I happen to know that page 123 is devoted to mixing multiple singles and combining textures through navajo plying.  Useful, but appealing only to a definite target audience.

So I decided that the spirit of the meme was really to discover what was on my bedside table, what I was dipping into the last thing before I closed my eyes at night.

And there, well, we touch spun gold of a different kind, because what I'm reading before I drop off to sleep (and which, if truth be told, is actually causing me to try to stay awake as long as possible in order to read it) is The Story of Chicago May, a most excellent exercise in biography (that is not really biography, for reasons the author makes clear in the book) by the late Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain.

I discovered Nuala O'Faolain recently, when the CBC programme Writers & Company repeated an interview Eleanor Wachtel had done with her just after her death on May 9th.  It was one of those bittersweet moments, where you are absolutely delighted to discover someone funny, sharp, and an exceptionally talented writer, only to know that they are no more.  Go listen to the interview, it is absolutely wonderful.   As soon as I'd finished it, I went online to put every one of her books on hold at the library.

When I first opened the book to do the meme, I mistakenly thought the rules said "Turn to page 124", so I did.  And when I realized that I was wrong about the page number, I turned to page 123 and discovered that I'd really rather post using page 124.  So that's what I'm going to do.  So if I turn to page 124, and post the fifth sentence, this is what you get:

The nuns did not allow women to wear underwear.  The French, as May wrote tersely, are very refined in their cruelty.

Oh, seriously -- doesn't that make you want to go out and get the book and read it? 

Yes, I know, that's only two sentences, not three.  Here's the third, if you insist:

Once when I was walking at nightfall across a quadrangle in the complex of law courts beside the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, a door somewhere opened and a group of lawyers hurried toward me down the steps, men in the ballooning black gowns and white neckbands of the antique dress that avocats wear in court in France.

Okay, so now I'm supposed to acknowledge who memed me (done) and nab five more of you to do it, too.  Which is where I break the rules again.  Because I think I'd rather ask what you're reading right now, what's capturing your imagination, or what book or books can you recommend to me?

Because I'm coming to the end of The Story of Chicago May, and I know that I'm not look forward to closing the book -- I've been enjoying it far too much to want it to end.  I'm going to need something just as engaging to move on to when I'm done.

catholic church 2.0

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when life hands you kohlrabi and radishes...

...make....er...something.

I was commenting over on Twitter that I really love picking up my CSA share every week, as it's a good challenge in finding ways to use everything up during the week.

(As an aside:  there is an older couple who have a share, and they came on Tuesday to pick things up, and spent the time being upset because they didn't know what any of the vegetables were or how to prepare them and they were really only there for the "hard" vegetables.  I don't know what was meant by "hard" vegetables.  But they made me feel sad.  On the one hand, they've contributed to the farm.  On the other hand -- well, they just make me feel sad. But on to happier things.)

Maybe next week I'll blog the list of stuff in the share and describe how I approach it all, but for this week, I'll just talk about these:

Oh my, aren't they beautiful?  Kohlrabi and radishes.  Now, I *knew* what the kohlrabi was, but I've never used it before.  And I needed to figure out what I could do with two of them, and two radishes.  Okay, a few more radishes than that, because in addition to these lovely violet ones, I have some French Breakfast radishes from our own garden plot to add into the mix.

So I started by doing a little research on the kohlrabi.  Turned out the green tops are edible, too, so I cut those off and set them back in the fridge.  I'll use them later on to make rice pasta and salmon with greens.

The radish tops can also be used, apparently, but these ones seemed to have barbs, like....ortie....sorry, I can't pull the English word out of my head today.  But a planty thing with barbs.  So I didn't want to use them in salad.

After looking at a bunch of really tempting ideas for cooked kohlrabi, I decided that really what I wanted was a salad, and that would be perfect for two of them plus a few radishes.

So, I peeled the kohlrabi -- this is pretty easy to do.  Then I sliced it into thin matchsticks.  I sliced all the radishes into thin bits as well.  I put them all in a bowl.

Then I added 2 tsps of lemon juice, a pinch of sea salt, a little fresh ground pepper, a half teaspoon sugar, a tablespoon of olive oil, and a tablespoon of Italian parsley from my container garden, chopped fine.  When done, it looked like this:

And it was *really* tasty, too.