There is a giant in my yard.

There is a giant in my yard.
She's big and brown and tall and true.
She is a comfort to me.
Does she comfort you?

Thick branches fill the sky,
Dark brown against bright blue,
I spy a hungry woodpecker.
Does he spy me too?

Her bark is gnarled and coarse,
But her branches are light and lithe.
I hope I'm as beautiful as she is
When I am fifty-five.

"We'll soon be anachronisms, subjects like me who discover at a midway point in our lives that it was always trees, not houses, that constituted home. Anyone with enough money can have his house the way he chooses, even the way it looked in 1797. But trees are a legacy, subject to cancellation without notice, maintained with luck, love, faith, and vigilance. Some of the most fundamental grooves in our consciousness are formed by the way familiar trees divide, disperse, and define the daylight in which we live." -Hal Crowther

Pimento Cheese

I was talking to my best friend about a week ago-this is how it went:
Crystal: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Fixin' to make pimento cheese."
Crystal: "What?"
Me: "I'm fixin' to make pimento cheese."
Crystal: "Allison, I can't understand what you are saying!"
Me: "I am going to make pi-men-to cheese."
Crystal: "What in the world is that?"

For those of you who have been deprived and have never tried pimento cheese, I thought I'd give a recipe!

First you need a block of cheddar cheese. I prefer mild, but some people prefer medium or sharp cheese. Grate it into pieces as small as you want (this is not an exact science!).


The second ingredient is diced pimentos. You will add half of the pimentos to the cheese. Make sure you drain them well.


Third, add about 1/4 cup of mayonnaise, preferably Duke's Mayonnaise.



Stir well and you have homemade pimento cheese!


Pimento cheese is best served on crackers, celery, or spread in between two pieces of white bread! It is a great snack or shower food.

Persimmons

I gathered these wonderful persimmons while in Virginia last month. After 24 hours of travel, including a hotel stay, they weren't beautiful, but I loved them anyway. This is the American persimmon and they can grow wild on the edge of the woods. That is where we found these. They are smallish, maybe the size of a half-dollar. I tried to make persimmons preserves and failed, but I am determined to try again. They really are quite beautiful before they get all squishy...I wish I had taken a picture. However, I wanted to share this beautiful poem. I read it for the first time about a year ago and I still love it. The persimmons mentioned in this poems are the much larger ones native to Asia.

Persimmons

by Li-Young Lee

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker

slapped the back of my head

and made me stand in the corner

for not knowing the difference

between persimmon and precision.

How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.

Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.

Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one

will be fragrant. How to eat:

put the knife away, lay down newspaper.

Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.

Chew the skin, suck it,

and swallow. Now, eat

the meat of the fruit,

so sweet,

all of it, to the heart.

(Omitted stanza is not PG)

Other words

that got me into trouble were

fight and fright, wren and yarn.

Fight was what I did when I was frightened,

Fright was what I felt when I was fighting.

Wrens are small, plain birds,

yarn is what one knits with.

Wrens are soft as yarn.

My mother made birds out of yarn.

I loved to watch her tie the stuff;

a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class

and cut it up

so everyone could taste

a Chinese apple. Knowing

it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat

but watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun

inside, something golden, glowing,

warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper,

forgotten and not yet ripe.

I took them and set both on my bedroom windowsill,

where each morning a cardinal

sang, The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding

he was going blind,

my father sat up all one night

waiting for a song, a ghost.

I gave him the persimmons,

swelled, heavy as sadness,

and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting

of my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking

for something I lost.

My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,

black cane between his knees,

hand over hand, gripping the handle.

He’s so happy that I’ve come home.

I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.

All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find a box.

Inside the box I find three scrolls.

I sit beside him and untie

three paintings by my father:

Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.

Two cats preening.

Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,

asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,

the strength, the tense

precision in the wrist.

I painted them hundreds of times

eyes closed. These I painted blind.

Some things never leave a person:

scent of the hair of one you love,

the texture of persimmons,

in your palm, the ripe weight.

Of Human Bondage

Early this summer while I was stuck at home with a cold and poison ivy, I had the wonderful opportunity to read as much as I wanted. I had stumbled across a practically new copy of Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maughm at a thrift store downtown. It had recently been proffered as a suggested read for the Meredith College Alumni Book Club. I voted for it, but alas, it was not chosen. So, being stuck in bed, I decided it was the perfect time to read a 600 page classic. And boy did it end up being good! The story is about a young orphan named Phillip who is left in the care of his aunt and uncle after the death of his mother. He is sent to boarding school where he is made fun of for having a club foot. He is churlish and mean and leaves school early to travel abroad. He searches for the meaning of life; he becomes obsessed with a woman named Mildred. Phillip returns to her every time she casts him aside. I fully expected to hate Phillip throughout the course of the book, but he grows as a person as the book progresses. He learns to empathize with the poor and, most importantly, he learns to give and receive love. I liked Of Human Bondage much better than The Painted Veil by Maughm. There was a recent article in the NYT about Maughm that essentially labeled him a second class writer. I have to disagree. I thought Of Human Bondage was great!

Movie Review: The Book of Eli

I bought Joel a movie for his birthday-one that he had been raving about and had to own. Normally he won't watch a movie more than once in about five years, but he wanted to re-watch this one as soon as the credits ended. The movie was The Book of Eli. He told me the plot line as soon as he got home, which was fine since I don't normally watch rated R movies. This one, however, sounded interesting. Picture post-apocalyptic America (imagine the TV show Jericho 30 years on) and you have the idea. An unnamed man (Denzel Washington) is traveling west through the country with only a sack on his back. He has some essential weapons and a book which he fiercely guards. He comes to a town that is run by a power-seeking despot (Gary Oldman) who is searching for books, one in particular. He evenutally finds out that the traveler has a book in his possession and sets out to retrieve it at all costs. I can't say any more without giving away essential information-you'll have to watch the movie. It is a fabulous. There is language and violence (hence the R rating), but provided you are a mature adult it is a must-see. Denzel Washington is, as always, an amazing actor. If you don't watch it for his performance, though, watch it so that you can see Michael Gambon (a prolific British actor) play a country/Western post-apocalyptic American. I think it is the funniest and most unusual role I have ever seen him in. Though never touted as a Christian movie, it will build your faith and leave you pondering what is really important in life.

Go Brasil!!!

GO BRASIL!!! LET'S WIN THE WORLD CUP!


VAMOS BRASIL!!! VAMOS GANHAR A COPA DO MUNDO!

Essays, Short Stories and a Change of Heart

I was never a fan of short stories or essays until a year ago... I didn't like the fact that they were over so soon-I felt like I was getting a snippet of something that could be longer and better. However, on a trip to Washington D.C. to see the Red Sox play the Washington Nationals and visit my college roommate, I was encouraged (wait a minute, was that forced?) to read a book of essays by E. B. White. Despite the fact that we lived 5 hours from each other, she lent me the book. If you read E. B. White's books as a child (Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little), you will love him even more as an adult. He is insightful and witty and his essays will downright pull you in and not let you go. It is a book to own and re-read throughout the years; it is a book that will grow with you. Run to the bookstore and buy Essays of E. B. White. It might open up a whole new world for you just as it did for me.

After reading most of the essays in the book, I felt comfortable moving on to short stories. It was obvious that I had been missing out on something. We read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows in the Meredith College book club. It is the story of a book club that meets during the German occupation of Guernsey during WWII. One member of the book club reads the Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb. I was curious about these essays, so I got an alumnae library card at Meredith College and checked out a VERY old copy of the essays. I was entranced. Though they are called essays, some of them seem to be short stories that fall somewhere in between the categories of fiction and non-fiction.

And so I moved on to fiction-specifically short stories by Willa Cather. My favorite short story of the bunch was The Bohemian Girl, but there was not a bad story in the entire collection. (The Essays of Elia and many short stories by Willa Cather are all in the public domain and can be downloaded for free through book reading applications like Stanza and Kindle.)

I found a collection of short stories at a yard sale about a month ago for 50 cents. I love to own the books that I read, and so I try not to pay more than $1 for a used book. I decided to read a short story by W. Somerset Maughm called The Book-Bag. It was extremely interesting, beautifully written, and quite tragic.

Next on the list was The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad. This was such a wonderful short story. I first read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness at camp in Brasil. There is a bookshelf full of old, termite eaten books which has yielded up some of my favorite books. The Secret Sharer did not disappoint. As with all of his books that I know of, it takes place on a ship. I am amazed by his grasp of the English language (he uses nautical words that I have never even heard of), yet he only learned to speak English around the age of 20. His command of the English language is much better than many native speakers; this only enhances the beauty of his writing.

Long post short, don't be afraid to try something new. I have grown so much since I allowed my college roommate to challenge my notion of good writing. Now if I could only learn to like modern fiction...