The wide expanses of farmland. White heads, some enormous with the plants sagging under their weight: “That one’s cauliflower,” said our niece. We three passengers were all trying to decipher crops from the expanses of green. We passed a proud sign: Iceberg Lettuce! (Wait, wait, let me guess.)

And the artichokes, the raspberries, the newly-planted-anyone’s-guess. The irrigation canals were dry but the fields were green.

And it rained, not much at all this first day of the incoming storm and less than we’ll be getting at home a hundred miles or so north, but any rain at all, we’ll take it.

Re the purple sweet potatoes I’d roasted in olive oil, someone wondered, “Where did these come from?”

“Here,” I answered. “Salinas.”

And so Easter was happily spent with family at his cousin’s house with her three small children running around excited at all the company. The baby, like all babies everywhere, takes especial delight in touching index fingertips with smiley people he doesn’t remember: close, connecting, just-at-length-enough as needed. (Sometimes he let me snuggle him too.) The three-year-old, after showing off the bows on her pretty shirt, played many a game. Her six-year-old sister quietly studied her grandmother’s drawing in action, intent on being able to create flourishes and flowers like that and was highly pleased with herself when she pulled off quite a decent version. Her grandma was even prouder.

I said something to (to us she’s) Aunt Mary Lynn and the three-year-old stopped right there and turned and stared at me and then back at my daughter across the kitchen: “You mean she’s yours?”

“Yes,” I smiled, “she’s my little girl.”

Little?! The kid took in how a 5’11” grown woman could be…!…and, done with that, jumped and skipped away with, “Okay!”

Crumpled sharp-edged eggshells around a trunk or stem are the easiest, most benign way to keep snails and slugs out of what you’re trying to grow.

And so I had to make that chocolate hazelnut torte. Had to. My future fresh-picked peaches depended on it.

Remember last September when I lifted Parker up high to pick the last two apples off our Fuji tree?

Turns out he sure did.

So last weekend while we were at their house he had his mommy cut him up an apple, sliced across the equator so he could pick the seeds out and offer them to me. He was telling me I could plant them. He offered me the other half of the apple but I let him eat mine, too. He likes apples. He likes picking out the seeds. So that was fine by him.

Kim explained so I would be clued in as to what a gift I was being offered.

Parker is totally sold on this idea of apple seeds growing into apple trees and then apples growing on those trees and starting the whole apple cycle all over again. Turns out he’s been saving all his and burying them down in the ground while taking walks, at the park, wherever it looks to him like it might be a good spot. Might take awhile but he’s ready to see it happen and he’s getting them started and knowing that I too like apple trees, he wanted to share the possibility with me of my making my own, too. From his seeds! So it would be our tree together!

My plate got cleared from the table by one of the menfolk who’d missed that conversation while I was trying to find something to take them home in to plant because how could I not. (The coin part of my wallet. That would have done it. Didn’t think of it fast enough.) I was thinking I would send him pictures as one sprouted and grew in a little pot and we would see where it went from there. (Not worrying about chill hour needs yet–what variety was that?)

Gone. Oh oops.

To my relief Parker took it as no big deal. There will be more apples to eat. He’s on it.

Good intentions, got up, got ready, and felt like okay, that’s it for now, I’m done.

I got talked into going anyway. And so we picked up Michelle and went to our favorite chocolatier downtown. (That car is not sitting in the middle of the chocolates display–it’s a reflection from outside.)

The other two went back over thataway to the left to chat a moment over where you can watch them making wonderful things while I drooped in a corner at the front, waiting. Timothy saw me and immediately sent Michelle over with one of their new pieces, wrapped in foil so that I didn’t have to eat it immediately if I didn’t want to. He caught my eye in happy anticipation and got to see my whole face change–my day had just gotten better on the spot, as he’d hoped. Thank you!

Adams, his partner, talked fruit trees with me briefly between customers: at their old house, they’d had eleven. The one he most had to tell me about, though, that he clearly most missed–was a rare-variety mango tree.

A fellow mango grower! I’d had no idea! I am so glad I went!

The chocolate everything was wonderful but I couldn’t eat it all. Most of my cuppa became a to-go–which is fine, it turns into a light ganache in the fridge and I’ll scoop some into my hot cocoa tomorrow and greatly improve it. I’m looking forward to it.

After dropping Michelle off, heading towards home to let me rest, my sweetie asked me what I most wanted done today.

Well, actually… He’d bought all the parts, and what I most wanted was to get the box set up that will turn the Christmas lights on and off based on temperature without my needing to be there. For the times we know we’re going to get home late but don’t want to cook the tree during the warmth of the day by simply leaving them on. For the times we go out of town. For taking care of my mango while giving me a little more leeway.

(Yeah, you can buy such things, but he does electronics like I do yarn. Create a little. Play.)

He was surprised at how much longer it took to do than he’d expected–he spent most of the rest of the day on it but he did it and it is ready to go. It’s not outside yet because by the time he finished it was 49F and falling fast and I’d already covered and lit the thing for the night. That, and, going back out there in the dark, um, hormonal skunks have been having hissy fits of late and I’ve luckily missed them so far. Barely, once.

Tomorrow, then. “It’s in Celsius, because, y’know. Scientists,” he told me, grinning. (And because converting it was going to take far more programming time than it was worth bothering over.)

While he was making that I was researching automatic watering systems. I want my trees’ health not depending on mine.

Oh and? There was a new cluster of buds today beginning in a new place on that mango. (YAY!!!!!) Not that I’m excited or anything. Oh no not at all.

I’ll have to bring Timothy and Adams one when I can. (Don’t worry, Dani, you’re still first in line.)

Milk Pail turned 41 today and Steve threw a cheese tasting party in celebration and that it wouldn’t be the last. We got the invite.

Seeing the Wensleydale with cranberries, I said, “I’m going to tell you something I bet you don’t know.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

I told him that Wensleydales ate too much for how much wool they produced and so the commercial flocks pretty much had vanished except for one flock (actually might have been two, come to think of it) hanging on preserving the breed. And then the handspinning market found out that there was this rare really cool lustrous wool to play with and that was the start of its comeback.

“Cool!”

Milk Pail is the little shop that spent years and finally successfully fought off a developer who’d wanted Steve’s land. The problem being that Steve had had an agreement to share parking with the other businesses surrounding his but one by one they had all sold out to said developer, who proposed building eight to ten stories in a solid block around Steve’s till he starved and sorry about that, pal. The mayor even told the guy’s rep to shorten those in the plans so that they could make better use of Steve’s land when they got it. Charming.

They did a test run by illegally cutting off another small shop from its customers, and its owners caved and sold.

Not Steve.

Years.

City council meeting protests. Standing-room-only turnouts, again and again. Appeals to reason. Because Steve had owned his place so long (the distortions of long-ago Proposition 13 being the unspoken elephant in the room) he could keep his prices very low; a new owner would have to pay current-market-value-rate property taxes in one of the most expensive parts of the country. Local zucchinis at fifteen cents? Ears of corn at twenty? Triple-creme brie? Manufacturing cream for your chocolate torte, which no one else sold? You want local, Steve even owns his own cows now, having saved someone’s family farm.

You had the most and the least well off in Silicon Valley calling the eclectic little place their favorite shop and coming together in their day-to-day, being human together no matter their circumstances. And that is no small achievement.

Steve knew our car situation and that there had been times when Richard had taken time off work so I could go to those city council meetings, and he made a point of telling Richard how grateful he was for that and that I’d not only gone, I had told him when I wouldn’t be able to make one.

It told him the fate of what he’d poured his whole life into mattered not just to him. That had meant far more to him than I had ever had any idea of.

And, he continued, “Have you seen the video? You’ve got to see the video!”

I cringed but I quoted: “If. You. Shaft. Steve!” and we laughed together at that moment when I’d stood at that podium. “Yeah, I kind of lost it.”

“You should show it to your kids! Save it for your grandkids!”

“Four, two” (almost), “and one month.”

“Yeah, okay, a little young yet,” he agreed. “But still. Who would have guessed it. I mean, with your religious background, and you’re a…knitter! I mean-! He grinned, “You really took them on!”

“Yeah, she can be a real rabble rouser,” said Richard, and we both kind of explained our Washington DC/political family backgrounds: you speak up when you see an injustice. You just do. (But then, one does anyway, I would hope.)

And I remembered the city council meeting where I had cast on at the start and cast off at the hours-later finish, wound the ends in with my knitting needles and presented Steve with a hand knit hat to tell him the community was behind him. It was later that I would be telling that city council how good they had it to have a business like Steve’s creating some of the better moments in Silicon Valley and with that memorable phrase announced that my family and I would take it as, then they didn’t want our business. Any of their businesses. Anywhere in Mountain View, if those politicians pocketed that developer’s money and looked the other way. “We have our own,” and I stormed off before their timer even beeped.

Totally earned Tiger Mom cred in his eyes that night. He was unfailingly soft-spoken and kind but someone needed to stand up for him and give it to’em like they needed it given to’em. Darn straight.

I handed out a few Peruvian hand knit finger puppets to two sets of parents for their toddlers tonight.

We had a great time, and let me tell you, that Wensleydale with the cranberries? I have a new favorite cheese. Clearly it wasn’t just the handspinners. I can’t wait to go stock up at the shop.

Rain is in the forecast oh thank goodness after 30 dry days and freezing is not.

I almost didn’t see it. I was walking past it and did a double take.

Blueberries. Blooming. In January. Not profusely, but hey.

I didn’t know they could do that.

An overflowing bowl (thank you Mel and Kris!) of strawberries to pass around: at this time of year they’re red and ripe but not overly juicy nor sweet; they are, however, locally grown.

A very small bowl of sour cream and one of brown sugar to each person.

Dip. Dip again.

And serve it as a side rather than dessert to make sure there’s no threat of guilt over quantities consumed.

I should have been clued in when a certain someone started working on organizing and clearing his electronics projects from the kitchen table.

I should have been clued in when Michelle came over, got out a clean tablecloth, and harassed her dad gently for not having the table ready to put it on there yet, but then, I’d been encouraging the same step forward myself, so, hey.

My birthday was over and done with, a good day enjoyed much and that was that for the year.

Not to them it wasn’t. Lee called it a flash mob surprise birthday party and that’s precisely what it was. Chocolate cake from The Prolific Oven, a goofy headband-hat thing put on my head first thing, ice cream, Martinelli’s apple soda, dairy-free cookies for Michelle, the co-conspirators had thought of everything.

Phyllis (Lee’s wife) had already doorbell-ditched flowers a few days before, which was birthday surprise enough. The lilies in that arrangement were in full bloom and the heavenly scent totally covered over the stopped-up sink behind us that thankfully wasn’t too bad yet. There’s still a towel kept on the floor because the icemaker on the fridge still has that slight and random leak.

My daughter, niece, husband, and they and a lot of other friends were in on the whole thing and Christmas season busyness or not, they totally pulled it off.

When Richard got up this morning the ganached cake in the fridge was a little smaller and there was a slice waiting at his place on the beautifully clean table on top of a second fresh cloth, last night’s having been put to its appointed use. “Somebody loves me!” he crowed in delight.

Yes, honey. Someone sure does.

(Yes there are pictures. I had been outside chasing after escaping styrofoam peanuts from unpacking the mango tree before it got any worse (and STAY in that bag!)  I’m sure there was a spiderweb or five and I had not so much as brushed my hair out yet. No you can’t see.)

I woke up this morning and grabbed my glasses. Through the clerestory windows I watched the tops of the trees duking it out with the near-hurricane winds.

We’re at 3.84″ of rain with another .5″ to go for the day, and then next week it will rain again. We just need snowpack in those Sierras, too. I’ve been watching my downspouts going crazy and wishing we had the means to capture our roofprint’s worth up there.

And so we stayed out of that and at home, grateful for power and heat, listening to it rain, rain, rain. The water came up a foot in our street. Not as bad as the happily boogie-boarding kids in ’98 and the homes across the street with water up to the electric sockets that we had then but threatening to be. The storm drains are old and long overloaded and one neighbor waded out into that water to see if he could save those homes from it and he quietly cleaned the leaves out of the way, here, here, here and if a fourth spot needed it he did that too. We would never have known except that another neighbor ratted him out online so that everybody could thank the guy.

One friend who did leave home said there was water sloshing right over the center divider on the freeway.

I’m fine with marveling over the photos rather than experiencing that sort of thing in person.

Our mail service has had issues, as I’ve occasionally mentioned, sometimes major issues, but today our guy was totally a hero: he came at about 7:30 pm despite the fact that most of the roads between the main post office and here were shut down by flooding and fallen trees, including the road it’s actually on. We heard him and I ran for a rain jacket and struggled to get it on fast enough and then called out into the night as I lifted the lid on the box, “Thank you!”

He answered from over next door, “You’re welcome!”

The CSA (community-supported agriculture) guy made it in, too, dropping off our farm-to-fridge veggies in the dark of the early morning, and in honor of his effort I had to use his greens at their peak. Fresh-picked red chard. Strip the hard thick lower parts of the stalks out of your way, saute the greens in a bit of very good *EV olive oil, that’s all it needs. A small amount of bacon bits topped it off in a perfect winter dish against the cold.

And who knew that slicing ripe Hachiya persimmons in half and roasting them at 450 for fifteen minutes would give them a texture and taste like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes with marshmallows melted in. Peel the skins off that were holding the stuff together and there you go.

It was a thought and a whim and something I will definitely do again.

They must have run out of the spinach that had been on this week’s checklist. They keep making me try out new things. Rapini greens? Looking at the bunch, I’ve never eaten…spikes…before. It’s just the smaller leaves acting all edgy like that, though, y’know, ’80’s punk style.

Not that I’ll mind breaking out that olive oil again.

———

*EV–extra virgin. By lax Federal law, an imported olive oil can be labeled as such no matter what its actual grade as long as it’s food grade, but California requires that if the olives are grown in this state, the bottle must contain what the label says it does. Buy Californian.

Yeah, I went out there. But not to the malls.

Phyllis wanted to beat the crowds so we got there at nine. Meaning that while other people were out Black Friday shopping the 6am-noon specials, we were at the San Jose Harvest Festival with guest passes via Mel and Kris and having an easy time of it.

Phyllis and I both bought some of their pottery (no surprise) and they offered to hold it for us so we wouldn’t have to lug it all around, since we’d just gotten there.

Mel happened to mention to me that some of their customers had asked them how to keep squirrels away from their birdfeeders, now that they sell ceramic hangers stuffed with fleece from their sheep for birdnesting materials.

(And wasn’t that piece a birdhouse? That was new.)

“Bubble wrap,” says I.

“Bubble wrap?!” as he started to envision…

Kris blinked, “Yeah–their claws…!”

And the light reflections and the fact that it doesn’t hold still and I’m still waiting for that first loud pop.

“GENIUS!” He added, “Did you think of this yourself?”

“Only took me five years,” I grinned. Or five decades, but never mind.

I found the pomegranate folks again; I said to the woman, Remember how I told you the bottle I’d given my daughter had been bad? (She’d apologized that they must have accidentally handed me the opened demo bottle last year and she’d replaced it when I saw her in San Mateo.)

Yeah?

Well, she absconded not only with the new one but with some of the other stuff, too.

So I was there to buy a new batch and we swapped mom stories, our kids being the same age, and she laughed when I said with just the right amount of teasing petulance that my daughter was “Just going to have to buy. her. own! next time.”

She said the show special was one of everything they had there plus this many of the less-expensive items, your choice, this price. I bought not only that but another three of the fruit spread. Yeah I could mail-order it. No I didn’t ever get around to it but once this past year. So my goal was to buy what I wanted for the whole coming year (as if!) But I could try.

We turned to go and I glanced back just in time to see her do an overhead high-five with the guy she was working with. Caught! More laughter. Priceless. And good, I hope they do a fantastic business, Skylake deserves it.

Bought great olive oil from the couple that owns those trees.

We left when the crowds started picking up, stopping by to pick up the pomegranate box–more teasing both ways, more laughing–and then to Mel and Kris’s.

I still have two more to go before I have a dozen bowls to match the number of plates and mugs, but at least I’m now closer by two. Another toddler mug against the day of breakage and a spoon rest.

That bag looked big but I didn’t think anything of it.

I got home and started putting things away.

Wait, what?

I pulled a big box of Ghirardelli chocolate squares out.

I found a paper bag with a note from Kris.

There were handmade soaps and lotion from the milk from the goats on their farm.

Those big grins on their faces, if only we’d known. I love it. They totally got me.

Torte, pies, *spiced pecans, did we forget anything? Past the cities, up into the mountains, winding through redwoods and over the reservoir (still looking awfully empty, but it’s about to rain for four days) and to the aunt’s house.

I debated explaining to a small child that her Aunt Allyson was our cousin and I, as her cousin (once removed), was Alison but I was not her aunt.

Eh. Just give her a few years. She was still figuring out that two people were answering to the same name.

The eleven-month-old started screaming during the prayer over the food, suddenly turning into hiccupy giggles. I didn’t peek to see who got to so thoroughly charm the baby back to happiness in the middle of the solemn pronouncement of thanks for all our blessings. Probably half the table.

Six and seven year olds, cousins to each other, taught me how to play the game Blink–and then, *blink*, they both pushed it away out of reach, done. We hadn’t played it yet: the fun part was teaching the grownup. They had taken turns carefully going over the instructions, each getting to do so twice, making sure I’d gotten it.

I was all ready to try it.

Nope–the younger one had won two games the last time they’d gotten together and clearly that success was not to be outdone by me. The pride, it needed savoring awhile, and her slightly older cousin was looking out for her like a big brother and backing her up on that with pride of his own in doing so. Both had big grins.

Dinner a little behind us, it was time for a–well, there were a lot of desserts. We had fourteen people and cherry, pecan, pumpkin, apple, chocolate silk pies, plus that chocolate torte. Fourteen, that is, if you include the baby. Uncle Nate felt sorry for the deserted pumpkin and helped himself to a slice–a small one by that point.

And then we braved the traffic, where so many other people were likewise returning from time with loved ones, and made it safely home.

*Spiced pecans

Have ready about three cups pecans toasted single layer ten or twelve minutes at 350 till they smell done. Will get crisp as they cool.

So, 1 c. sugar mixed with dash salt and a tbl cinnamon. Add 1/2 c water, stir, heat till it starts to boil, turn it down a bit, and let bubble away (not too high a heat) for at least ten minutes, NOT stirring, you don’t want crystals forming, till the temp is 236. (241 in the center in my pot, 235ish at the outer edges, using the infrared thermometer–good enough.) Add the vanilla (stand back, it’ll steam a little), then–and this is where it turns into real work–mix those pecans in, stir stir stir with a big wooden spoon, trying not to break them. Keep going till the mixture no longer makes long sticky threads but it’s all adhered to the pecans (and the pot). Turn onto a buttered (better) or sprayed (we had another dairy allergic there and didn’t risk butter) pan to cool.

Feed to people you love.

Coopernicus swooped in around lunchtime, perched on the lawn mower handle and communed with me a few minutes and allowed me to admire him up close.

Right when I needed it in my day and right on cue. Time to put down the stupid health insurance company why-are-they-charging-us-out-of-network and just go be one with nature for a moment.

Needed that…

Four o’clock good?

Yes, sure, c’mon by.

And so, curious, I weighed today’s two bags of persimmons. Forty-five pounds? I’d guessed I’d picked and given away about a hundred pounds so far but it looks like it must have been double that.

A crow somewhere unseen was scolding me for that taking as I worked, and I threw a few that had been chowed down on already in an outside bin–and so it begins. The fewer the fruit left, the less danger by mobbing gangs of ravens and their smaller cousins to my hawks later, but man, there was a lot of fruit left. I extended the pole the full twelve feet for the first time (though that does make it harder to avoid snagging leaves) and could have filled many more bags, but it was time to go get Richard.

Still. That’s a whole lot of fruit that won’t rot in their yard, that the crows won’t squawk over, and that will and is being eaten by people.

And that doctor who told me to work on my upper body strength? I am so on it.

Instead of a fruit picker and paper bags in hand, for today it was a chocolate torte with the ringing of their doorbell. Food for food.

She and I both had way too much fun.

I followed Jean’s lead and brought persimmons to church and Richard set them over by that same table for me, two grocery bags’ worth. The table itself was covered with a basket from Deanne with a note saying Free Lemons (we weren’t the only ones copying Jean) and a beautiful flower arrangement Wendy had made that included small Fuyu persimmons as accents.

There was a young dad whose mom was visiting the grandkids from out of state. I offered her some from my bags to make sure she wouldn’t miss out, thinking, I mean, how often does she get to have these?

“I’ve never tasted one,” in a tone of wonderment.

Wendy’s husband overheard that and he pulled a Fuyu out of that arrangement and a pocket knife out from nowhere for a little instant gratification. “God’s candy,” as he cut her off a slice and explained that this was the crunchy-like-an-apple type of persimmon.

She quite liked it. She took one or two of my Hachiyas, with him and me both warning her not to eat it until it was very soft. Gushy, even.

Do you eat it like an apple?

Pre-made puree, I told her, as he nodded. Sweeter than that one, nodding at the rest of what was still held out to her in his hand.

Sweeter?!

We three talked around the subject a bit more, such matters as Hachiyas ripen faster with a banana near them giving off ethylene gas, you can’t really pick them ripe because then they’re just fruit splat, and finally she said, So–I eat it with a spoon?

Yes, that’s perfect! says he as I nod vigorously.

And I said a silent prayer: please don’t let hers split and go bad. Please let her have a good one. And I’m so glad she loved her first bite of the other type.

All the more reason to visit her grandkids come this time of year.

Mugs! (Re yesterday’s post.)

Tonight: the annual fundraiser for the Scouts, with a silent slideshow going  of their week-long stint at Camp Oljato high in the Sierras this past summer.

The boys made and served a spaghetti dinner and ice cream and cookies and, mercifully, there was no program to have to sit through–they went straight to the dessert auction. TwentytwentyfivedoIhearthirty!thirty!thirty!doIhearFORTYFIVEanyoneFIFTY!FIFTY!

And so it went.

Dave was keeping them back a bit and I thought, C’mon, Dave, there are two there.

Now, you don’t want uncooked cream sitting around at room temperature a long time so we had decided to wrap up and freeze the chocolate tortes after I’d made them–but we didn’t have the freezer space. We arranged with one of the scout leaders to store them in his for two days, and the guy’s wife had written the 4×6″ note covering each describing what the item was.

Not my handwriting. Not my description. Dave hadn’t been sure.

Finally he picked one up, lifted its card off and looked across at me, questioning; yes, that’s my chocolate torte, yes, I made those.

YES!!!

And so the bidding began.

Clyde, a former scout leader himself, had told me last Sunday that he was coming to that dinner IF he would get a chance to bid on one of my tortes. He refused again and again and again and again to be outbid. SOLD, to Clyde, for $75!

Wait, there are two? We get a second crack at it? And so, SOLD!, for $85.

That’s half a scholarship to that camp right there. Man, that felt good. I may not be the biggest Boy Scout booster in the world but I know my sons got a lot out of going to that camp and it’s good to pass the experience on to the next.

The super-heavy pure cream I use to make those comes in half gallon amounts only. And so I had just baked and glazed two new tortes this afternoon and gotten them in the fridge when it was time to go.

There’s a family here on a visiting-professor sabbatical that will end next month. You know how some people just instantly make it into your heart? They couldn’t leave without sampling my torte.

And so I pulled them aside when the bidding was over, invited them to drop by our house on their way home, and when they arrived I handed them their own dose of high-octane chocolate, telling them that it had been my signature dessert at church dinners for about twenty-five years and they couldn’t leave without having some.

It was also my way of saying, y’all come back now, y’hear?