Autumn sedums

It doesn't matter if you are happy or sad, daily life still happens around you. Life goes on is an annoying (but true) old platitude.

Around here in October, life goes on is about cleaning out flower beds and hacking off the soggy, dying plants I worked hard to grow all summer. And then a final mulch with maple leaves carted over from across the street. It's dirty, heavy work but good outdoor exercise, and I don't have to do it all at once.

Rain or shine, I would spend time outdoors almost every day of the year with Sizzle, and that is added to the long list of things I'll miss-- even in winter. If you know about keeping nice horses, then you know they're a lot of work. But it's the fun kind. Brushing, fussing, combing, picking, polishing, tacking up-- then you ride a bit and do it again in reverse. (Pulling down sticky dead vines is that other kind of work.)

Anyway, when October comes I'm glad I once planted too many Autumn Joy sedums. It's a common, easy to grow plant and nice to look at year round. But in the fall they really come into their own when the silver flowers turn a dark rose color. Even in the winter the dried seed heads are interesting, and I think the birds like them.

For what it's worth, "they" are forecasting a hard winter in the Northwest with more snow, wind and rain than normal. Our summer was one of the coolest on record, and apparently these are often followed by cold, wet, snowy winters. Oh, boy.

Piggy smarts

"I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals."

Winston Churchill 1874-1965

Oven-dried tomatoes

Last spring, I bought a tiny Roma tomato plant in front of the Payless drugstore. It was sickly looking all summer, but in the end gave us pounds of meaty, dark red tomatoes. Go figure. I picked the last of them a few days ago, and since I finally put away my canning paraphernalia (good riddance till next year) I thought I'd try oven-drying. Of course, you can find complicated recipes on the Internet that make this sound harder than it needs to be. Over in the Methow Valley, Amanda dries her produce in what amounts to a wood box with a light-bulb. Surely I could do the same in my gas oven?

So, I sliced them in half and laid them out on parchment paper. No salt, no oil.
Set at the lowest temperature, they looked like this in about 2 hours. I turned them over and left them alone for another 4 hours. Eventually they were caramelized and so, so sweet. Like a highly concentrated essence of tomato flavor.
And they're delicious in many recipes-- it would be hard to imagine cooking without tomatoes.
I boiled some orzo pasta, and sautéed a little garlic in olive oil. Then I mixed the pasta in with the chopped tomatoes and fresh Parmesan:

Simple and tasty...

Seattle Symphony weekend

The October curtain came down this weekend, and it rained and rained. Saturday was college football on the TV (the "right" Michigan team won-- apparently a big deal if there's a Buckeye in the house.) Then we ate pork roast for dinner. The delicious, fatty kind you braise for hours with garlic, onions and apples. For longer than I can remember, I couldn't think of a single reason to leave the house all day Saturday. So when Sunday afternoon rolled around, it was nice to go downtown to the Symphony.


It was the second concert in our regular season series, and included Copland's Appalachian Spring and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Both are big audience favorites. To me, Appalachian Spring is like listening to a long, sweet prayer--it was written in 1943 for a ballet choreographed by Martha Graham. I like daydreaming through music with a story, and this is about a young pioneer couple beginning life together in rural Pennsylvania. It ends with the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, made famous by Copeland.

And what can you say about the treat of hearing a live performance of Rhapsody in Blue? This is the jazzy, classical concerto that a generation of 1990's TV watchers will forever associate with United Airlines. And dang it, sometimes the music still makes you think of that old commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_hRjDiKcv8

Paul Wiggenstein in concert, 1935
c. Joan Ripley

The guest soloist was the fine Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin. Along with the Rhapsody, he also played Ravel's Concerto in D Major, also known as the Left-Hand Concerto. Ravel composed it for the pianist Paul Wiggenstein, after he lost his right arm in WWI. But just because he had only one hand doesn't mean Ravel cut poor Wiggenstein any slack. The concerto sounds like it would be diabolically difficult, even played with two hands. In fact, Wiggenstein disliked it at first, but Ravel (being Ravel) refused to change a note. He eventually came around to appreciate Ravel's French Modernism style.

Here's a picture of Ravel near the end of his life, looking over the shoulder of Jacques Fevier. Ravel was a small, precise, dapper man, and there are many entertaining stories about him. But his personal life remains a mystery. Ravel made a remark once that because he was such a perfectionist composer, so devoted to his work, he could never have a lasting intimate relationship with anyone. He was quoted as saying: " The only love affair I have ever had was with music."

Another week passes

Pipestone Canyon

Methow Valley
"Nature never betrays the heart that loves her..."

After great pain, a formal feeling comes-
The nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs,
The stiff heart questions, was it he, that bore,
And yesterday, or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round-
Of ground, or air, or ought-
A wooden way
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead- remembered, if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow-
First chill- then stupor- then the letting go.

Emily Dickinson

Golden tomato salsa

Look at these perfect beauties Amanda grew in her garden. At a posh Seattle grocery store, these would be "heirloom-organic (blah blah blah) tomatoes, $5.95 a pound."

So, what to do with them? I was determined not to waste a single one.
Salsa sounded like a good idea, and buried in my cookbook shelf I found an old booklet about home canned salsa, published by the State Agricultural Extension (is there still such a thing?) It had many stern warnings about not changing recipe ingredients like lemon juice and vinegar, for fear of poisoning your family. Anyway, I started chopping. First the tomatoes...

Then the peppers and onions.

You add the vinegar (carefully measured, of course) spices, garlic, etc. and let it cook down for about an hour. Now, while slicing tomatoes are delicious, I've learned from experience they're a bit watery for salsa and pasta sauce.
So this recipe adds 3 cans of tomato paste to thicken. (I don't think that's cheating.) With all those fresh hot peppers, the taste was wonderful. Let me know if you want the recipe.

We like salsa on just about everything, and this would be especially good on Sunday morning eggs and potatoes. Best of all, I still have enough yeller tomatoes to make another batch of tomato-pear chutney tomorrow.