Apple Blossom Sky

Dear Seasonal Ones,



Two folk heroes named John have been my lodestars since I was a wee bairn-  John Henry and Johnny Appleseed.  The first, for the very reason that I am writing to you now:  the grace and beauty of humanity must try to come out ahead of the machines that our clever monkey ingenuity have wrought;  and the second, because we must also try to leave a trail of seeds we have planted.

The tree is full; it is time for an Apple Tarte Tatin.  I offer first, the utterly disarming Julia Child.   Nobody says it better than her, and I hope you will take the time to watch even a little of her Apple Dessert episode. If you must multi-task, you may peel apples as you watch.  When you are done with her thoroughly enjoyable instructions, I will give you the hybrid recipe that I use whenever I tarte tatin apples.  Oh, by the by, if you think the video is good, the dessert is at least as good- I know, you are thinking, 'sure, they rave over anything with sugar in it at the Dodo.'  But, really, this isn't going to taste like anything you have had anywhere out- It will be better than the best restaurant and better than the best bakery you have ever tried. 

Tarte Tatin

This recipe is adapted from Donna Hay's beautiful dessert cookbook Modern Classics Book 2.  I got this book from a dear friend, who told me that Australian Donna Hay is a sort of Martha Stewart of the southern hemisphere.  Meet her here; you will two will get along fine!


4 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs water
3/4 cup sugar
4 or 5 apples

rough puff pastry (see recipe following)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Peel and core the apples, cutting them into 4 quarters.  Melt the butter in a skillet with sloping sides of 10 inches or so in diameter.  Add the sugar and water and bring it to a boil over medium heat- once the sugar has dissolved, place the apples into the pan, core sides up.  The smooth peeled sides with be the top, once you invert your tarte after cooking.  Let the apples cook, without scorching, until the sugar has begun to color some- a light to medium caramel color.  This should take 10 to 15 minutes.

Roll the pastry dough into a circle that will cover your apples and fit your skillet. Lay it carefully over the hot apples and sugar, and put it in the oven for 20 to 28 minutes.  The pastry should be puffed up and golden brown. 

Let it cool for 5 minutes or so; now, here it gets tricky:  Put a plate over the top of the skillet, and then flip the whole burning hot sticky thing over, lifting the skillet slowly, so you don't fling caramel all over the kitchen.

Cut it up and eat it- it is best warm,  so just finish it all, or run what's left over to the neighbors house.

Rough Puff Pastry

This recipe is adapted from Judy Rodgers' cookbook:  The Zuni Café Cookbook.  This book is a pleasure to read- Ms. Rodgers has a charming, gentle, guiding voice, and her recipes are terrific, too.  Dine at Zuni, if you ever get the chance. 

1/2 cup salted butter; cold
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 to 6 tablespoons ice water

Get a 2 by 2 foot space of counter to work on.  Mix the sugar into the flour well, and pile it into a mound in the center of your space.  Slice the butter into 8 or 10 square slabs or pats.  With your paws well into the mounded flour, pinch each slab into a much thinner square of butter- maybe 2 x 2 inches. Layer these pinched thins pieces with flour.  Don't worry, they will break and crack; stack them up anyway.  What have you got now?  A messy mound of flour and broken butter sheets.  Spread it out into a shallow circle of materials about 10 inches across.  Drip the ice water onto it, and then use a bench scraper or hard edged spatula to lift and fold the outside towards the center.  Fold it over itself enough to square it up into rectangle a little larger than a postcard.  Wrap it up loosely in waxed paper and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. 

Use a little flour on your space, and roll your postcard of dough out to about 1/2 inch thick- fold it over itself in thirds.  Repeat the rolling and folding, and then put it back in the refrigerator for another 20 minutes. 

Repeat the previous step two more times, using as little flour as possible on the counter.  After the third rolling and folding, leave the pastry in the fridge for an hour before using.



Would you like to dress apple, too?

One more Appleseed for you.

In Scarlet Town

Dear Ones,

It is time for our sing-a-long.  My songbook tells me this song came over with the Pilgrims from England and Scotland and that folks have been singing it for 390-odd years.  We can make it to 400 years easily. 

Like all the good old songs, there are many verses and versions- I have given you the verses I used. Lift your voices up, and join me and all the many singers of the ages! 


Barbara Allen

In Scarlet town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling
Made every youth cry well-a-day
Her name was Barbara Allen.

Twas in the merry month of May
When green buds they were swelling
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen

He sent a servant unto her
To the place where she was dwelling
Saying you must come to his deathbed now
If your name be Barbara Allen

So slowly slowly she got up
And slowly she came nigh him
And the only words she said to him:
Young man I think you're dying

As she was walking o'er the fields
She heard the death bells knelling
And every stroke seemed to say to her
Hardhearted Barbara Allen

Oh Mother, Mother make my bed
Make it both long and narrow
Sweet William died for me today
I'll die for him tomorrow

They buried her in the old churchyard
They buried him in the choir
And from his grave grew a red red rose
And from hers grew a briar

They grew and grew up the old church wall
Till they could grow no higher
And there they twined in a lovers knot
The red rose round the briar











As an encore, join me, and the VU in I'm Sticking with You.  While we are thinking together, of how diminished our world is without Lou Reed, here is a fine obituary by his wife, Laurie Anderson, from the East Hampton Star:


                   To our neighbors:

                   What a beautiful fall! Everything shimmering and golden and all that incredible
                   soft light.  Water surrounding us. 

                    Lou and I have spent a lot of time here in the past few years, and even though
                    we’re city people this is our spiritual home.     

                    Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to
                    Springs.  And we made it!    

                    Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled
                    by the beauty and power and softness of nature.  He died on Sunday morning
                    looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician
                    hands moving through the air. 

                    Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in
                    the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long
                    live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.

                    — Laurie Anderson
                    his loving wife and eternal friend




Maybe next time we can sing the much newer (1815) "Foggy Foggy Dew."  Until then.

Tune In

     I hope your house is filled with singing- not a performance, or a recording, but humming, and spontaneous snatches of song.  You know, something like this:  "Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work we go...."  Here then, are a few more songs no household should be without.



One,

two,

three,

four,

five,

six,

seven,

eight.








Tune in again soon, for a "sing along."

A few lines

     Dear All,

Did you ever 'see' a poem?  I bet you've witnessed dozens of them.  Here's one I saw late this summer.  Imagine that I am reading it to you, and that you cannot re-read it to see if I said "milkmoon" or "moonmilk."  These are the utterly delightful choices that people who write poems make on a regular basis.  Get yourself in on the action; sharpen up a Way of the Dodo pencil and watch for a poem.  You'll be glad you did.







Half as Much


There is a towering cactus;
long wavering limbs of blue, grey, green.
Cacto super gigante.

Growing at the end of one road and the middle of another,
and it blooms
at night
in heat
in summer
in street light.

Milkmoon trumpets
sound from greygreen arms.



A boy drove his car through the night
one hundred miles an hour
through a near telephone pole,

that carries the electricity that lights our
night dark rooms

and the lights went out
and a fire burned
and the cactus burned
and slumped
and ashed. 

And blooms were
beaten off and branches broken.






   

Your Path

     Dear Seekers,


Another little noticing that I want to offer you:  What you see there, right now, out your window, is someone's un-made sculpture, their un-begun painting.  Maybe even yours?

 

 

 

 

I know you'll want to know a little more about Ellsworth Kelly, so here's a potted Ellsworth, and here, for the primary text folks, is something more.

 

 

 



Missing You

Dear Fellow-Robots,

Of course, I miss the days we'd try to turn a double dutch rope, but now we can... what is it we can do, again?  Let me just check with Wikipedia on what it was we used to do....  In the meantime, enjoy the following visual and auditory message.

Further Robots.

 

 

 

 

 

One more remembrance... I hope you are one of the lucky ones, and you will go to your HiFi and you will place your ears into the cushioned embrace of stereo headphones, plug into your receiver's 1/4 inch audio jack, set the disk to spinning, and ever so gently, guide the needle on its arm over to the vinyl groove.  What you will 'click on' here is an instantaneous, but pale shadow, of a transcendent auditory experience.  Just lie there, o fortunate ones, the whole 8 minutes,  near to the record player and listen to the sounds go to and fro in your head.  Do it for all of us.

 

appropriately costumed

Dear Costumeless and Counting,

Counting the days, that is, until Halloween.  Perhaps you only need a little costume, just a one hour change from the rest of the year...?  I have three simple costume suggestions for you:

 Lydia, the Tattooed Lady.  Or Lyle, the Tattooed Man.  Martha Stewart will show you how, here.

Anime characters- you'll need one of these.

Or, how about going to the ball as a Smoker?   You will be the only one at the party, I'll wager.  But, man, you will look good, because these people sure do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween, whomever you wish to be, and I'll see you at the Monster Mash- look for a smoking tattooed gypsy in pink hair!