Mundane-nesses

One is food related. This could, I swear, be a food blog. And I’m pretty much continually fascinated with what people do and don’t eat.

Anyway, an old boyfriend, one of psychotic ones, once called me a little hedonist and while he meant it as an insult, I’ve come to embrace it. Yes, I’m a hedonist. Good. I like good things. The trick is that I get to define what is a good thing. I’ve never been attracted to the idea of a city of gold or any such thing. I don’t find the idea of enslaving someone else to do my bidding an attractive thing. But a really fine ice cream that I made out of cream that I skimmed from milk that I milked from a cow that grazed on my pastures and that fertilized my garden to boot, that is a really fine basketful of pleasures worthy of savoring.

And there is something about eating the food of your childhood. And your parents’ childhoods. And their parents’ childhoods.

We had a failure crop of turnips. A “failure” because not many had germinated, but what had got planted out and grew nicely. We harvested all of them the other day. I’ve found many people don’t know turnips anymore but they are a wonderful vegetable. My mother told me tales of how her grandmother would “scrape” a turnip and feed it to her when she (my mother) would be sick as a child. To do that, you cut the top off and take a spoon and scrape out the insides, like many of us have done with bananas and apples and the like for our babies’ first bites. When this process is finished, you have left what were the original versions of jack-o-lanterns. But mostly we boil or steam turnips -- which is largely the same thing -- just slice pealed turnips into a pot with some water and boil/steam until done, then dollop generously with butter.

Turnip tops are terrific as greens, another food I’ve found many people don’t really eat. I don’t get it. I love lots of different greens. Spinach is perhaps my favorite, but so is kale. I love the weed lambs quarter cooked as a green, and also poke. Turnip tops are not my favorite, but they are a good treat. Especially with a dollop of butter on top.

The snap peas are just beginning to come in, not enough to sell yet but enough for us a mess, steamed. Same with new potatoes -- not really enough of them and not really big enough yet to offer them for sale, but enough for us a treat.

So the other day we had all these things for a late afternoon dinner, along with corn gems made from our own hard corn, freshly ground, and our own butter and sour cream. Oh, and our own pork tenderloin too, grilled in the method I call “naked”. It was so good. With enough left over for a couple of lunches too.

Another mundane-ness worthy of celebration was my clothing haul. I spent less that $30 total and got home with 3 pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts, and 5 shirts for my teen who had outgrown every piece of clothing he had, plus a shirt for each of my other three kids, plus two pairs of jeans for husband. But the most magnificent find was a pair of jeans from my favorite jean manufacturer in just my size. I haven’t been able to afford that brand in forever, and my size is evidently the most rare in the universe. I’m so thrilled because deep down I really am a cowgirl in the same way that Bonanza Jellybean is/was a cowgirl (can a fictional character really be dead?) and these are MY cowgirl jeans. Bootlegs and all. Too cool.