My generous college friend Katarina gave us this bowl for a wedding present. It is the most lovely and satisfying thing. It glows like a fat red pepper, has a delicate but substantial heft in your hands, and elevates anything you put in it or near it. I read yesterday that Michelle Obama closes a lot of doors to keep their new dog out of mischief: "We try to set him up for success." That made me laugh, because not to equate raising kids with training dogs, but that's what I do with the red bowl. It stays on a high shelf and only comes down with close supervision, because I would be broken-hearted if anything happened to it. You set them up for success, you see.
Tonight we picked spinach mustard leaves from the garden, and they deserved the red bowl. I rolled them up into cigar shapes and then cut them crosswise into strips, and sauteed them with garlic and olive oil. Sea salt and red wine vinegar and red pepper flakes just at the end. Just-picked greens taste so fresh and mineral-y and grassy. There is a salty, earthy quality that goes away when they're kept and stored.
Another surprise, our first spring in this house--there are spirea everywhere. My neighbor told me they are called bridal veil because brides used to make bridal crowns from them. I remember spirea in our house in Albuquerque when I was little. The white blossoms make perfect miniature doll bouquets.
R drew this picture today. She says it's "Daddy, Mommy, me, and the dog we are going to get some day soon. It's raining, because I love the rain and running outside to play in it." The red shape on the far right is "a mouse house. You know, a house for mouses." Behind her are all the pepper and tomato plants, hardening off before planting.
The forecast says possible hail later today, so I'll put off the tomatoes and peppers and maybe only transplant the pumpkins. They are huge in their pots, I don't think hail will bother them. D dug out a big sunny strip behind the sheds and cleared the weeds and thistles. Perfect for pumpkins and melons to grow up the fence and sprawl behind the sheds. It was so nice to wake up this morning to a cool, overcast day and D home on a Monday. He made pancakes and let me sleep in.
