remedial eating

thirty one days

I knew about the twelve days of Christmas, of course.  I'm counting down the days until I touch down, ever so briefly, on Seattle soil (15, 14, 13...).  I even gave up coffee for the forty days of Lent.  Once.  New to me, though, are the thirty one days of Halloween.

I might be stretching the truth, just a little.  It's possible I've been tripping over wizard hats and bad polyester pantsuits for forty days, maybe forty five.  Either way, we've been living Halloween 14x7 for weeks now.  No tombstones on the front lawn or ghoulish hands bursting up from the mums, thank goodness.  Just costumes, all day, every day.  And everywhere. 

I guess I could have predicted it; Mr. Make Believe is made for Halloween.  I know dress-up play is an entire genre (and industry).  I know the simple prop of a top hat or tutu can transform a child, and a morning.  I've been to plenty of homes, even those chock-a-block with boys, that have trunks spilling over with stetsons and space suits.  But it's always been an impromptu affair around here, a tea towel-turned-cape kind of thing.  Until now, that is.

I'm finding myself in new territory here.   At the park, with Optimus Prime, for example.  "Excuse me, Ultimate Autobot, but please watch your step.  You didn't wear your wellies today."  Or reminding the Power Ranger who pops down for breakfast that oatmeal is better with a spoonful of sugar and civility.   "In polite society, we always remove our light-up visor-hoods at table."  Or concluding that whomever came up with those flimsy foot covers that turn a pair of dirt brown Merrills into mighty morphin' super boots deserves a MacArthur. 

There have been a few hiccups, a few philosophical quandaries along the way.  "Can I be a Power Witch Pumpkin?"  (You bet)  "If Max is Mario, can I be Mario, too?  Or do I have to be Luigi?"  (Two Marios are twice as nice.  He can be Mega and you can be Mini.)  "Can I wear my costume to the park?"  (Of course)  "Again?"  (Sure)  "To bed?"  (Even I have limits)  "I'm Dracula!  Vampires only drink blood for supper."  (Minestrone's, um, also a liquid.  Only better -- it has beans!)

And, truth be told, these get-ups have had their wrinkles.  I'm kind of done turning ten teeny tiny inside-out glove fingers seam-side in again.  And again and again and again.  After Dr. Evil alarmed several innocent bystanders (and a few new friends) by meeting their greeting with a no-holds-barred growl, we began a dialogue on in character versus out of line.   And that Wee Witch of the West, down there?  He got the red light when he suggested, "Wait, witches are green, right?  I shouldn't brush my teeth ever!" 

But I know all too soon these role playing games will play out in pixels, not capes.  Someday, not far enough away, he'll showcase his alter ego with an avatar instead of an old pair of overalls.  So I tolerate it, encourage it, egg him on, even.  And untangle those dratted gloves one more time. 

(Zoë's gotten in on the action a little, here and there.  She knows costumes are the currency of the realm, right now.  And actually, she can pull off Power Ranger with more poise than you might expect from a pig-tailed, dimpled little dumpling.  Still, I'm pretty sure the peanut butter cups Mamo sent airmail are her favorite part.  You decide.)   

In the end, we door-belled our new block as Mario and Luigi and one roly poly pumpkin.  (Halloween has come and gone as of Thursday, over here.  I wasn't kidding.)  But really, the whole trick-or-treating bit seemed a little anti-climactic.  The Kit-Kats won't last half as long as the superhero soap opera we've been privy to this month.  I'm not sure what will happen once October, and Halloween, are behind us.  Maybe the blush will be off.  Maybe we'll stock up on cut-rate cloaks.

What I do know, for certain, is that I've held off on fall food for thirty one days, maybe more.  Well, okay, so maybe I bought a gaggle of squash, brought home a few gorgeous turnips.  But I didn't inhale; not yet, anyway.  They're still waiting patiently in the garage, on standby.  I've eked out one more month of August-in-October meals, trying to make the most of summer's last, knowing the ripe onslaught will be history here shortly.  Good for me.  And enough, already.  I've got jack-o-lantern under my fingernails and seeds in my sleeves and a one-track stomach, grumbling "fall fall fall".  It's time to bring on autumn eating.  Which, for me anyway, translates directly as "bring on the caramelized apples with rosemary brown butter". 

There's nothing of summer to sautéed apples.  Gently seared until bronzed outside and tender-crisp within, these warm little wedges are sweet and tart and perfumed throughout with rosemary's savory spunk and nutty brown butter.  Or, if it's Halloween, they're cooked too long and too slow while you try (and fail) to defend the merits of moustaches to two charming plumbers.  They'll half-collapse in a heap (the apples now, the boys later), all crumbly at the edges and a little soft in parts.  They'll look more like a pile of wet leaves than a dish dressed to impress.  And it won't matter one bit.  Not after the first bite. 

Next time, I'll turn the heat high and the attention higher.  Even if there's a robot practicing stiff knees and straight elbows right behind me, I'll wait to look.  Though I may not wait another thirty one days for this forkful of fall. 

[Updated to add: On any of the year's 364 other days, said apples look rather more like those below.]

Caramelized Apples with Rosemary Brown Butter

I first ran into this in Andreas Viestad's Kitchen of Light, an exquisite ode to Scandinavian cuisine (or maybe an unusually glamorous government gambit to refute Babette's Feast.)  I sugar them up a bit, as I prefer tart granny smith's to his sweet golden delicious.  Also, I like my rosemary chopped and fried into crisp little cracklings.  If your children are squeamish about green leafy bits (Henry usually balks, but ate two servings last night), you can lay a few generous sprigs in the warming butter, remove the rosemary, then sauté the apples in the infused butter.  All the flavor, none of the bits.

You could use any apple here that holds its shape in a hot pan -- ask your apple seller for recommendations.  Just adjust the sugar accordingly, and spritz in the end with lemon if you choose an apple with no natural tartness.

4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 8 wedges
3 Tablespoons butter
1-2 Tablesoons sugar, or to taste
Dash salt, to taste
2 tsp. fresh rosemary, finely chopped

Lay butter in a large, heavy skillet, sprinkle with chopped rosemary, and heat over medium-high until foam settles and butter begins to brown.  Add apples, sprinkle sugar and salt over all, and toss gently to coat apples in butter and seasonings.  Let apples sit to develop a good crust, 4-5 minutes, or until caramelized on bottoms.  Toss to turn apples over, and sear other side, 4-5 minutes, or until most edges are browned and apples are tender.  Eat warm, preferably in the company of pumpkins and plumbers. 

anything but dull

Nothing to see here, folks.  If I were being honest, or at least empathetic, I should at least mention as much at the outset.  We're knee-deep in the domestic around here, haircuts and sink snaking and tucking tissues into every coat pocket I can lay my hands on.  If it's any indication, the highlight of my week was washing the last of summer's flies off our windows.  I had help, hired help (and worth every quarter).  But still, exciting as dirt.  So long hubbub, hello humdrum. 

It's pretty exquisite.

Because in a year like this year, when change has been the only constant and novelty our closest neighbor, the ordinary feels awfully good.  A little exotic, even.  I finished going through all the drawers, boxing up summer and airing out winter.  I cleaned closets that smacked of eight years' neglect, though their contents are only eight months' out of moving cartons.  (Better make that two constants, if you include my abiding inner slob.)  I made headway in the garage and order in the art cupboard and successful repairs to a deadbeat IKEA dresser.  Last year, I would have called it all drudgery.  This year, almost normal. 

It wasn't all housework.  If anything, chores played second fiddle to the thrum and blur of kids suddenly in the swing.  Monday I'm tracking down paper plates for one school's fall fest, Saturday I'm keeping up with two bouncing brothers at another.  We've been working hard to re-claim this common commotion for nearly nine months now, so I wasn't exactly caught unawares.  But the all-at-once of birthday parties and parent meetings and play dates longed for and arrived blindsided me a little anyway.  And left me more than a little giddy.  We'll manage the vortex later.  Right now, it's just nice to have a seat at the swirl.

Or maybe third fiddle, if it's dust we're talking.  I dissed crumby rugs for days, because the sun just wouldn't quit.  We walked at the feeblest excuse, to return two library books, to romp at the playground, to gawk.  The trees are pretty gawk-worthy right now.  Once, on the way back, I fielded one of those random car-window questions from a lost driver, looking for home.  I gave them directions, good ones, accurate ones.  From our usual park.  I felt so from-around-here.

Everyday accomplishments snuck in.  I made ten minutes to rip a sweet dreams CD for my sweet babe.  Finally, I have the means to muffle four little boy feet stampeding tiptoeing across the percussion instrument oak floor right outside Zoë's door.  And a swell means at that, plump with Mingulay's aching harmonies and the best lullaby ever set to banjo.  Absolutely trivial.  Deeply satisfying. 

I began a novel.  Poetry is the only fiction I've read all year, and I really have no complaints.  Poems are perfectly scaled to the reading time snippets I find here and there.  Like People, but so much better.  And Robert Frost's beautiful ghastly tale of the boy who lost his hand, then his life, to distraction has more plot and pathos than many books I've read.  Still, it feels significant to make it to page 8.

I volunteered for the first time in I don't know how long.  I ran 167 kids through the paces of pop bottle terrariums, and chaperoned a field trip.  The number of students was higher than the number on the thermometer.  It was cold and windy and awesome.  We waded well into the Olentangy to net water pennies and mayfly nymphs and other tiny indicators of the river's health.  I think the kids learned a lot; I know I did.  Like "if it's three, let it be" (poison ivy) and those fiery flaming leaves are the trees' true colors (photosynthesis, you chameleon!) and to always, always pack cookies on fall field trips in Ohio.  They may be the only thing standing between my child and hypothermia.

And at week's end, Zoë and I hit the market, the way we have most weeks here this year, the way I have most weeks for years now.  We piled our Radio Flyer high with slender leeks and pounds of greens and summer's last gasps, peppers and eggplants and tiny zucchini waving goodbye to all that.  Then we went back for more.  Not a lot more, just a few stragglers too awkward or large for the first pass, like a glowing wreath of bittersweet.  And that enormous cauliflower, below there.

I really should've put a dime down next to it, for scale.  Or Zoë.  It was bigger than her head.  It was bigger than my head.  It weighed in at over four and a half pounds; Henry wasn't a whole lot bigger when he was born.  It was downright regal, this cauliflower, and two bucks, to boot. 

But even extraordinary cauliflowers meet the same old fate in my hands, which is to say chunked up and chucked in a blazing hot oven.  I've roasted cauliflower this way, with the temperature cranked high and the racks tucked low, in three houses now, through four or five ovens.  Roasting improves almost any vegetable, concentrating its sugars and elevating its texture to a crisp-tender two-step.  But cauliflower transforms more than most.  Maybe because it's more brusque to begin with.  Maybe because it's mostly known as a raunchy raw scoop for bad veg tray dip.  Probably all that matters is the fine mellow outcome, nutty sweet and salty edged and better than the best french fry.  Every once in a while, ordinary tastes anything but dull. 

Roasted Cauliflower
Roasted cauliflower is old news, but it remains very, very good news.  I first ran into it years ago, in Deborah Madison's Local Flavors.  I prefer mine roasted to a fine burnished brown, as I love the play of tender interior and crunchy exterior.  For a less intense roast, reduce the oven temperature and/or cooking time.  For reasons I can't begin to explain, roasted cauliflower is almost better cold, the next day, straight from the fridge. 

1 head of cauliflower
olive oil
salt

Preheat oven to 450º.  Adjust oven racks to bottom two positions.

Chop cauliflower into roughly even florets.  I aim generally for 1", though there are always plenty of tiny shards and wide thin slices.  Turn them all out onto a half sheet (jelly roll) pan.  Drizzle generously with olive oil (2 Tbs. per pound is a nice start), and sprinkle generously with salt (1 tsp. per pound).  Toss cauliflower to coat (with your fingers, on the baking sheet, is efficient and effective).  Place on bottom oven rack.

Roast 20 minutes, or until bottoms of florets are browning well.  Shake and toss to flip florets, reverse trays (if using more than one), and return to oven for another 10 minutes.  Check for browning and tenderness, and return to oven if more of either is needed.  Remove when cauliflower is generously caramelized and fork-tender at the thickest bit.  Eat hot, warm or cold, fingers optional.

all bundled up

It's official: I adore house guests. 

For three weeks now, we've hosted a little Seattle delegation of one sort and another, and I have to say, I can't imagine where the naysayers get their gripes.  Because not only did we get good company, we got great stuff.  Fluffy stuffed bears and the coffee I pine for and catapult spoons that finally check the payback box for that awesome 10,000 sticker mega-pack I once bought a 3 year old (um, oops?).  And services!  Free kid entertainment, ingenious off-label uses for roof flashing, D.I.Y plumbing chutzpah, and a truly admirable policy of gutter-cleaning-before-sight-seeing.  And fall. 

They brought fall.  I'm sure of it.  Because the day before they arrived we were being steamed alive, and happily ever after it's been blustery and brash and unmistakably autumn.  They didn't make a big deal of it, didn't mention it, actually.  And I really can't imagine how they got a tilt of the planet and this riot of leaves past Homeland Security, what with Code Orange and all.  But they did, bless their sneaky little hearts.

Our morning school runs have a snappy new soundtrack, the snap *crackle* crrrrunch of a thousand acorns underfoot.  We wander to the park for long, lazy afternoons, not so hot we can't move, not so cold we leave fingertips on the monkey bars.  We walk home a three-person parade, Henry crushing sycamore and oak leaf confetti to mark our progress.  We were tardy to preschool last week, twice.  Henry was dressed on time.  It was me.  All he had to do was whisper, "let's go for a little walk before school, eh?", and I was a goner.  Albeit a goner with a guilty grin and a double jogger, playing hooky under the impeccable swagger of early autumn shadows. 

There's color in the garden yet, but it feels less like full throttle and more like grand finale.   The goldenrod that towered over us all by August, that just weeks ago stood eight feet high, is Zoë's height again, brilliant and weary.   

There's a funny little renaissance happening over in the roses and anemones.  Come and gone already in early summer, they're back for an encore.  I can't decide if they're generous or shameless.  I'll take them either way.

We're still playing in the yard as much as ever, maybe more.  Autumn afternoons in Ohio are shaping up to be just the way I once loved my Seattle summers: cool and sunny and bright.  Seed pods and acorns are the toys-of-the-moment.   

And the signs of summer's end are everywhere.  This week has taken a turn for the chilly.  The last of the green beans have been picked, so thick and tough we shelled them for their tiny purple insides.  We culled the final tomatoes at the first word of frost.  Now our kitchen sill is its own roly-poly parade, red and green and everything in between.  Fall fashion is out in force: long sleeves and light coats and that timeless male style statement, dark socks and sandals. 

And at the market, a twilight round of Ohio eggplant.  For all my nattering on about brisket, beef is an occasional visitor at our table, a once-a-month emissary to the carnivores I love to make up for all the garlicky greens and eggplant I'm always trotting out under the guise of supper.   Like this. 

You could call it eggplant Parmesan if you wish; I do.   It's not, though, not technically.  I've made a proper Parmigiana before, an all-afternoon affair full of breading and frying and oil-spattered tedium.  It was very authentic, and good.  This is very easy, and better.  

Roasting sliced eggplant -- oiled and salted and blasted at high heat -- transforms its texture from tough and spongy to edible gold.   As is, bronzed and tender, I snitch so many slices I nearly compromise dinner.  But (ahem) little gaps and torn slices matter little in a dish like this, because in the end eggplant and tomato and sharp, nutty cheese blur into one.   It tastes of summer all bundled up for fall, and smells like the best of both.  You can bake it at pretty well any temperature, though I usually slide it in at 350° and take it out when its sultry sweet smell fills the house.  It's no substitute for a home full of guests, but it's not a bad consolation prize.  

Not Really Eggplant Parmesan
Serves 6

3-4 medium globe eggplant
2 1/2 cups light, herbed tomato sauce (see note below)*
8 oz. fresh mozzarella, sliced 1/3" thick
1 1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan
1 c. panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
olive oil
salt

Preheat oven to 450°.  Move two racks to bottom two levels.

Top and tail eggplant, then slice into 1/2" thick rounds.  Toss generously with olive oil (4-6 Tbs., or as needed) and salt (2 tsp.) to coat.  Spread in single layer on two baking sheets, then place in pre-heated 450° oven.  Roast 15 minutes, or until most undersides are freckled with brown.  Flip slices over with spatula (don't worry if some collapse), rotate trays if needed (top to bottom), and return to roast another 10-15 minutes, until reverse sides are browned.  Remove and set aside.  

Turn oven down to 350°.

Drizzle a little tomato sauce over the bottom of a baking pan.  Place roasted eggplant slices, cheek to jowl, in a single layer along the bottom of the pan.  Place half of mozzarella slices on top, then 1/3 grated Parmesan, then dollop with 1 cup of tomato sauce, spread slightly to distribute.  Repeat.  Sprinkle top with panko, remaining parmesan, and fling a little salt and pepper overall for good measure. 

Bake 30 minutes at 350°, or the juices are bubbling and the house smells like heaven.  Run the broiler 3-4 minutes to brown cheese and crumbs (watch closely), then remove.  Let sit 30 minutes, then serve. 

*Use your favorite basic tomato sauce here.  I cracked open our first jar from August.  If you don't have any on hand, here's one quick and simple template: While eggplant is cooking, saute one onion, chopped, in two Tbs. olive oil until golden, 5-8 minutes.  Add one 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes, drained of most juices.  Add 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (thyme, basil, parsley), generous 1/2 tsp. salt, pepper (black or flakes).  Simmer over low heat 5-10 minutes, to blend flavors.  Adjust seasoning to taste.  This produces more than you'll need in this recipe, but leftovers are lovely for pizza, pasta, etc. 

 

tough, lovely

 
Some things are just better when you let them sit awhile. 

Take brisket.  Brisket's never made it big in the way of, say, T-bones or tenderloin.  Somewhere along the way, it got typecast as a sultry character with a Texas drawl and a smokey disposition.  Fair enough: barbecue doesn't get much better than brisket.  But in our homes, on our tables, it rarely takes center stage.  If we're lucky, brisket may make a cameo at Passover, or in March, incognito, as the St. Paddy's day sidekick to cabbage and mash.  Which is too bad, because dinner doesn't get much better than a tender slump of braised beef, supple as silk and dripping flavor.

Maybe it's a PR problem.  Brisket's one of those tough, lovely cuts that always seems to be spoken of in slightly slanderous terms, like economical and fatty and slow.  Not exactly come-hither copy, I guess.  Even if it is just shorthand for bliss, cheap and easy. 

Or maybe it's the "let it sit" bit that puts people off.  If you don't want to spend the night stoking smoldering hickory (me, I prefer teething toddlers with my all-nighters), brisket's best braised.  Which is to say, tucked snug into your heaviest pot, with plenty of onions and salt and benign neglect.  

Actually, you could probably skip the seasonings entirely, so long as you tuck yourself into Ordinary Boy and identifying false click beetles and sorting through those scary-high stacks of old homework and new junk mail and half-finished to-do lists that conspire like rabid dust bunnies on your counters.  Anything but the brisket, really.  After a lifetime's hard work, all this well-worn muscle needs is a long, lazy afternoon to plip and plop at a barely-there simmer until it finally, finally relaxes.  You'll know done when you see it.  Looks exactly like a fifteen year old boy just asked to take out the trash.  When it's all droop and slouch, it's ready.  To put in the fridge.  

 

Because like any braise (and all good people), brisket only improves with age.  Strictly speaking, it can be eaten immediately, but indulge it a slumber party, and it settles into itself something wonderful.  I suppose this is the bit that sounds suspiciously like planning ahead.  But it's where I just fall in love all over again.  Brisket's not food for fixing after work, to eat twenty minutes after landing.  Brisket's food for when you want to eat in two minutes, with no fixing whatsoever.  It's food that happens days earlier during a spot of downtime, like folding the towels, then waits quietly in the wings.  Sustenance on demand.  Supper for wastrels.  

Not that I'm name-calling.  I'd hardly slam two friends I've known, together, some 45 years.  Especially after they stopped by the other weekend.  From Seattle.  Which, by my rough estimate, translates as "traveled 4,822 miles through 3 time zones (and back) to spend 41 hours with you and yours".  Though I might let the memory sit awhile, lest I say something slanderous.  Like sunrises suck.  Which, of course, I don't believe at all.  Except when I have to say goodbye before dawn.

But two weeks out?   The tough bits are long gone, and all that's left is the lovely.  Like the particular pleasures of people who play late-night catch with Henry as ball and who don't complain when you hog the popcorn over 3-D meatballs and who, after you get hopelessly lost five minutes from home, deftly navigate the last 98% of the route to the ancient eroded landscape scattered up and down this page.

Or the casual magic of friends who've known your children since they were days old.  Minutes, even.  How even now, these two can walk off a red-eye and into your living room and pick up with your three little peeps right where they left off.  As though that were a few days ago, and not a few seasons.  How even your most quiet and cautious child will wander down a ravine and up an overhang with someone he hasn't seen in over half a year.  Maybe because she taught him baby tae bo before he could sit solo.

How they work together like a crackerjack team of 20-year UN veterans to defuse Ye Olde Dutch Restaurant Crisis.  How in a matter of minutes, they take an offending meatball that was entirely too 3-D and the ensuing Spaghetti Standoff, and somehow turn the whole hideous cross-contamination incident on its hysterical head.    

How no one else in Ohio or Washington or, I'm pretty sure, anywhere in between, can get Max to flash his special sweet smile like these two can. 

Maybe I was the wastrel for slipping that brisket in the oven before they arrived.  I was planning ahead, sort of.  I was planning on preferring games and hikes and ennui-among-friends to prep work and cooking and washing up after.  On still wanting to eat well, whenever.  On applying whatever time and energy we'd saved on dinner to sampling lots and lots of ice cream.  Lazy, maybe, but lovely all the same.

Braised Brisket
Adapted from Gourmet, November 2005

This began life as a five ingredient recipe, and could easily remain one.  I brown the beef if I've got time for the lovely caramelized layer it adds, and de-glaze the pan with a little red wine for added oomph.  Skip these steps and you'll still have something pretty sublime.  A dutch oven is excellent here.  Oh, and all those onions?  They soften and turn translucent and then mostly disappear, leaving their sweet savory fragrance behind. 

5-6 pounds beef brisket
3 pounds onions, halved lenthwise, then thinly sliced
2 tsp. allspice
10-12 garlic cloves, chopped
3 Tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1-2 cups red wine

Place oven rack in lower-middle position and preheat oven to 300°.

Pat meat dry, and season well with salt and pepper.  Slice into a few pieces, if needed, to sit flat in  pot.  Beginning on the fatty side, brown beef over medium-high heat, 5-8 minutes on each side (no additional oil will be needed). Continue until all are browned on both sides.  Set beef aside. 

Pour wine into now-empty pan, and scrape up crusty bits.  Reduce by half.  

Lay half of onions and garlic in pan.  Set brisket on top, then season with allspice, salt and pepper.  Cover with remaining onions and garlic.  Place in 300° oven for 3-6 hours, turning meat over every 1-2 hours if you remember, until onions have all but melted, broth is a deep savory brown, and beef is spoon-tender.  (This can be accomplished in 2-3 hours at a higher heat, say 350°-375°, but I usually find the longer stretch easier for me.  Do what suits.)

Cool brisket in broth, uncovered, overnight.  When ready to eat, pull apart brisket into generous chunks, then reheat in broth*, covered, on medium, 10-20 minutes. 

*The quantity of broth generated by any given braise varies significantly.  Once brisket is ready, taste the broth for flavor and salt.  If it's thin, put the broth (brisket removed) back on the stove, and reduce (boil) until the flavor suits you.  Sometimes I'll reduce by half, sometimes not at all.  4 cups is a nice goal, but taste is your first and last measure.

If you like your broth with a little more body, try this:  mix 1-2 Tbs. of fat from chilled broth with 1-2 Tbs. flour (1:1 ratio) in a small bowl.  Stir your "bouef manier" back into the bubbling broth, until dissolved and slightly thickened. 

 

 
 

 

every last inch

The thing is, we're a St. Bernard family, moved into a toy poodle yard.  I brooded over this a little, in the beginning.  I've long been a city girl at heart, but never at home.  My houses have always sat on rambling, brambled suburban lots, the wilder the better.  Every last one was well stocked with endless dirt hills and mile-high trees and ripe with potential we planned to fulfill, someday.   

How do we just switch up to a tiny city lot, a patch of dirt better measured in feet than acres?  We'll feel trapped by asphalt, cut off from everything green and growing. 

Surrounded by concrete, we'll have to drive hours for even a whiff of nature.  Wildlife will be something my children know only from DK books and Nova specials.  I mean, what sort of critter, free to roam wherever, would squander their open range on the urban jungle?  So long, bugs and bees and beetles.  We'll catch up with you again, someday.

Then there's The Flower Problem.  Even though the yard was billed as "English garden-style", carved out over decades into a dainty set of beds and borders, we'll never manage cut flowers from such a miniature display.  One bouquet, and the whole garden will go bald.  

Besides, everyone knows children and flowers don't mix.  They're always making a mess of the lilies, forever trampling the peonies.  There's a reason roses have thorns. 

And where will the children play?  Indoor gyms, I suppose, and soccer fields.  Astroturf will replace Kentucky Blue as the grass of my children's childhood.  With no forest out back, no yard to speak of, they'll turn tenderfoot, scared to leave the house without sweat socks and sneakers.  At fourteen, they'll ask me what a callous is. 

And how will they possibly get their pound-of-dirt-a-year?  They've always been wallowers, these mudpuppies o' mine.  But this tidy little lot's all order and ornament.  They'll forget that perfect water:dirt ratio, forget to love the cool squish of fine mud.

 

They'll forget to even ask to go outside.  They'll become one with the couch, preferring a compact flourescent's flicker to the the sun's bright light.  No way can a postage stamp half given over to flowers accomodate three active kids. 

Or vegetables, for that matter.  I always wanted a vegetable garden, always meant to cultivate enough earth to keep our family in food, or at least a few salads.  And even if I never did get much past the stunted radish stage, I'd best put my petite potager on hold for now.  Better dedicate what little dirt we have to the coneflowers and the rugrats.  Even if it does mean my kids forget where food comes from. 

Even I'll forget, or maybe just whine a lot, about how lovely it used to be to walk out my front door and snip a branch of this, a twig of that, to sassy up supper.  Herbs take room, too.  Maybe we should just throw up our hands in good old fashioned surrender. 

Or maybe we should give it a whirl.  Maybe we'll discover that when your back yard's the size of your living room, you treat it like one.  That being able to step right out of the sunroom and into the sunshine is an open door policy everyone uses, every day.  That even if it's tiny, at least it has high ceilings.  

Maybe we'll eke out every last inch of joy this little piece of land has to offer.  Maybe, we'll even be able to wander out, just before dinner, and pick a fistful of mesculun and a Big Beef or three for BLT's. 

Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches

No one needs a recipe for BLT's so much as a reminder: make them now, if you can scrounge up a few of those last, local, buck-a-piece beefsteaks.  Otherwise, wait until next August.  There's a universe of difference between the year-round deli-counter BLT (bad, loathsome, tired) and the September sandwich made with good guts.  These are the ones that make me swoon:

1.  Toast two slices of Great Harvest White Bread.  (We are a dedicated Honey Whole Wheat family, but for a few nights in late summer, it's Classic White season at our house.  A BLT on wheat is sort of a waste.  On a fine white, it's one of the world's seven wonders.)  Spread mayo on both toasted slices, then season well with pepper and salt.

2.  Layer lettuce, bacon (Niman Ranch is nice, as is any thick-cut hearty variety), and as many slices of tomato as you think you can manage without losing all dignity.  Season tomatoes with a touch more salt and pepper, grab a few napkins, and salute a summer well-lived.