Eating Alone

Officially Spring, though it was 28 degrees this morning, but, again, only in the bottoms. The ridge was 36. I spent several hours preparing the barely remembered (not Portugal, I think Cape Verde) dish. Marinated pork cubes, 24 hours in a wine, hot sauce mixture with copious ground chilies. Made a pot of saffron rice. Caramelized onions and sweet red pepper, reduced the marinade into an unspeakably hot sauce, cooked a small pot of mustard greens. I read an entire mystery novel during the prep. I went outside a couple of times, to be braced by the weather, a sip of Irish and a smoke. Occasionally a small gust of wind would lift some dry leaves, and they'd rattle off. The quiet is certainly one of the reasons I live the way I do. I can't imagine living with all that interruption. It's about mediation, how much you allow anyone (or thing) to separate you from the natural world. When I finally serve up a plate, long after dark, I don't know what to think. It's very good and it's not too hot, but I have no way of knowing if it even resembles the dish that I remembered. It's good enough to remember, so I file it under "Upper Twin Pork" which put it just after "Twice Cooked Pork" in my memory bank. Cold for another night, then it's supposed to warm back up. The maple catkins are starting to fall, so I'll have to start filtering all of the wash water. I'd picked up a bag of clean tee-shirts at the Goodwill and cut out a nice pile of filters, and I keep a clean five-gallon bucket around at all times, food-grade, so in terms of harvesting water, I'm always ready. I think this last year, in terms of water usage, was probably my most conservative ever. I don't think I used 365 gallons. I wash some underwear and socks in the creek, wring them out and dry them, and I don't know how to count that water. I don't count it, actually, making an assumption that if I don't interrupt the flow I haven't used the water. If, for instance, you had a large perforated bin of cracked acorns, and the out-flow at the dam was dispersing tannins downstream, do I have to count that water? My rule of thumb, a haphazard scale.

It's green, under leaves,
I love the deer nosing around,
nothing but blue skies.