Category Archives: crust

Double crusted pie with roasted mushrooms, french lentils and spinach: The ur Ordinary pie

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Ordinary pie

Ordinary pie

It’s national pie day! Who knew? Not me. And yet, strangely, I made a big delicious pie, only last night. And not just any pie, but the ur Ordinary pie, the pie that started it all. I feel like the kitchen gods have left me, lately. They’ve fled the city with their suitcases in hand, not stopping to say goodbye or leave a forwarding address. It’s not just that things haven’t been working out culinarily (they haven’t), it’s not just that things I’ve made before aren’t turning out the way they did last time (they aren’t), it’s that I’m not in the mood. I still want to cook and eat, but I feel sort of foolish and despondent about it. I’ve lost some part of my appetite that’s hard to define. I know it doesn’t really matter – it’s just a dinner or a batch of cookies, there will be plenty other meals, thousands of other cookies, but it doesn’t help that it doesn’t matter. That’s part of the problem! It’s so easy to forget about the importance of ordinary tasks, about the extraordinariness of doing them, not well, but with a full heart. It takes an effort to make these tasks, these inherently necessary and essential tasks, significant as well. I haven’t had the energy to do that, lately, so I thought I’d start at the beginning. Go back to the comfort of making the first thing that gave me deep pleasure to invent and to share. Malcolm and Isaac are crazy, creative artists, but they both have things they draw over and over, that they return to and reinvent from time to time. Little figures, eccentric characters, that show up frequently in their work. They feel good about having invented these characters, they know they can draw them, and it seems to give them confidence to go back and revisit – from that safe place, they can venture off into unknown realms. I would imagine for a musician trying to learn something new, it would be heartening to go back and play the first piece you knew well, the first piece that made you feel confident enough to share with an audience. And so it is with this pie. In making it I remembered the joy of playing with dough, of combining flavors and textures. In serving it to an appreciative audience, I remembered the pleasure of sharing something I’m happy to have made. It’s not much, it’s just a meal, I know it’s trivial in the broad scheme of things. We have to eat, we have to feed our children. I’m starting to remember again why that matters.

Mushroom and fench lentil pie

Mushroom and fench lentil pie

This pie has some of my favorite flavors! The crust is simple, but there’s lots of pepper in it. It has french lentils, which I love.
french lentils

french lentils

And roasted mushrooms, which I also love. I combine these flavors a lot, because they’re my favorites, but this is them in one big package.
roasted mushrooms

roasted mushrooms


Here’s Train to Chicago, by Drink Me, which happens to be the only song I can play on the guitar and sing all the way through.
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Parsnip and juniper berry tart with a walnut crust

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Parsnip tart with a walnut crust

Parsnip tart with a walnut crust

In mid-February, a meteor streaked across the sky in Russia’s Ural mountains, which is news to absolutely nobody at this point. It’s one of those events that is almost too big to worry about – it’s so completely out of our control and (apparently) unpredictable. It’s one of those events that makes you see your day-to-day concerns in a new light. All of those gnawing anxieties, which you lie awake trying not to think about – are they suddenly incredibly important, or completely inconsequential? Typically, I have only a foggy notion of the facts relating to the case. What sticks with me is this video, which I’m sure everybody has seen. It’s a series of shots cobbled together from surveillance cameras mounted on cars and buildings. I find it so beautiful as a film! I find it so moving – the first time I watched, it made me weepy. (If you’re thinking to yourself “Pshaw, that’s no uncommon feat these days!” you are, of course, absolutely correct.) The landscape is austere and wintery, bare trees silhouetted against a pale sky. And the camera’s lens distorts the shot to focus everything on the horizon, the distant space where the sky meets the road, where the colors deepen. On the horizon the light changes in colors of dawn or dusk, which makes the road seem strangely lonely. We get a glimpse into the life of a series of strangers as they see it themselves. We hear what they’re listening to, we see what they’re seeing, we catch a hint of their voices. Each one is different from the other, and so distant from my life, so literally foreign. The scene repeats, starting from the same point in time. The light changes, the music changes, but the movement of the car and the movement of the meteor form a pattern, a rhythm that we follow across the sky. And they couldn’t have known about the meteor! As we watch, we know what it is, we know what happened, but the people in the cars, the people in the apartment buildings and walking by the side of the road, they didn’t know. They didn’t know what it was, where it came from or where it would go – this awesome, frightening, oddly beautiful glow. It moves across the sky, transforming the light like the hours of the day or the seasons of the year, but all in one smooth arc, all at once. The silent shots from buildings, with huge flickering shadows giving way to a burnishing radiance that obscures the scene entirely as it passes over, feel like a dream of a memory – too strange and huge to be real, and yet it is.
Walnut-crusted parsnip tart

Walnut-crusted parsnip tart

Last week I wrote about the fact that I didn’t have juniper berries. That same day, my generous friend Diane left a little jar of juniper berries in my mailbox! I’m so excited. They’re lovely, a little piney, a little citrusy. I decided to use them to flavor this parsnip tart. I kept the tart very simple otherwise, so that I’d be able to detect the juniper flavor. So the only other seasoning is thyme. And the only other ingredients are shallots and garlic, which play more of a starring role in this tart than I usually allow them. I used gjetost cheese, because I had some left from the other week, but you could easily substitute cheddar or mozzarella, or whatever else you like and have on hand. (And if you don’t have juniper berries, the tart would still be tasty. You could substitute a bit of rosemary, if you have some lying around.) This isn’t a light and fluffy tart, it’s dense and flavorful, and very delicious!

Here’s Regina Spektor with On the Radio, in honor of the curiously effective soundtrack of the video.

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Jerk patties with pigeon peas, butternut squash and kale

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Jerk patties with kale and butternut squash

Jerk patties with kale and butternut squash

Malcolm has been trying to remember a song. It’s a song I listened to all the time when he was little, that I sang along to. (These claims check out, because I do tend to become obsessed with songs and sing along with them over and over.) Malcolm is the boy with the long memory. If we’re trying to remember where we put something, or if we watched something, or who said what, we ask Malcolm. I love to think about Malcolm looking out on the world with his wise, observant, beautiful eyes, these past ten years, and collecting a trove of thoughts and images and recollections, and storing them in his remarkable brain. It’s one of the things that makes him seem wiser and more mature than his years. (As opposed to, say, giggling over fart jokes with his brother in the back seat. And there’s also plenty of that!) I used to have a good memory for strange, inconsequential things, but I feel as though my memory is fading with my eyesight, which is a weird sort of impaired, half-awake feeling. So we’ve been trying to recall this song. On Saturday night we sat on the couch, and he leaned heavily against me in the sweet way I’m sure he won’t do for much longer, and he played songs on his iPod (or fragments of songs – he’s an erratic DJ!). We thought about all the songs we’d listened to when he was very little. We listened to songs that used to make me burst into tears when I was very pregnant or just after he was born, because I was overwhelmed with the scale of our impending change. We tried to remember all of the songs he’d sing along to, with delightfully incorrect words. And there’s no medium more powerful for conjuring recollections than music! And as we listened for old memories in the songs, we were weaving new ones as well, so that years from now these songs will have layer upon layer of remembrance. We never did figure out which song he had in mind, but in the end, of course, it didn’t matter. The joy was not in remembering this one song, the joy was in remembering.

Food is another great trigger of memories! I remember walking around Central Park in the blazing hot sun during a street festival. I coveted the jerk patties, so bright and festive and fragrant, but they usually had chicken or beef in them. Not these, my friend! These have kale and pigeon peas. And I developed a new technique with the butternut squash. I grated it and then roasted it. I like it this way, especially in a pie – it turned out more roasty, and a lovely texture. I tried to minimize the time it took to make these by rolling out a long thin sheet of dough (two feet by ten inches, maybe) putting big glops of dough along one side, folding over, sealing, and then cutting apart. Kind of like making ravioli. If this seems, actually, to be more work, feel free to divide the dough in six, roll out thin rounds, and make this half-circle shaped.

Here’s Stars of Track and Field by Belle and Sebastian. Malcolm used to sing “Stars and dragons still too far.”

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Hazelnut sage cracker fans stacked with roasted mushrooms, french lentils and chard

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Hazelnut cracker stacker

Hazelnut cracker stacker

Isaac gave me a card for valentine’s day. It’s got a three-dimensional heart made of red tissue paper flowers, and it says “my heart belongs to you.” Sweet. A fairly traditional valentine’s day sentiment. Nicely made card. It undid me! I get weepy when I think about it! The thought of my Isaac’s heart – so sweet and generous, odd and contrary, so singularly Isaac – the thought that it’s mine, at least in part, threw me for a loop. The gift and the responsibility of being loved by both my boys is almost overwhelming, if I stop to think about it, and my lovely card made me do just that. I like the word, “unmanned.” It’s an old-fashioned term, I know, but I like to think about men striving to be manly, working to be strong and just and mature. And I like the idea that, in an instant, some emotional force can dissolve all of that, and leave him feeling like a boy, raw and bewildered. Sometimes I feel “unwomanned.” I don’t walk through the world thinking about being a woman or a mother. Honestly, despite my advanced and advancing years, I don’t really feel old enough, most of the time. Being a mother is a fairly common pastime. Everyone in the world has one. But when you take a moment to consider motherhood, it’s awesome, it’s terrifying, it’s wonderful. Isaac’s heart belongs to me, and I made that heart! And I’m responsible for keeping him healthy, and feeding him good foods that will help that heart to grow. I work to be strong and just and mature – to be worthy of the boys’ love; to be a good example for them; to give them some core of conviction and kindness. But sometimes it feels as though all of that falls away in a moment – not in a bad way, but in a way that makes me feel more awake, more keenly aware of my power and privilege in being important to the boys. Last summer Isaac had an echocardiogram. I sat with him for an hour in a darkened room, while we watched the workings of each inch of his beautiful beating heart. It was almost too much information. I felt undone, but I had to be collected when the lights came on – I had to listen attentively, ask relevant questions, reassure Isaac, and answer his sweet anxious worries. It’s such a strange world! We all walk around each day with our hearts working so inexplicably and so persistently, and with those hearts we love people, so inexplicably and so fervently. And we can’t even think about it, or we’d be so overwhelmed we’d never get out of bed!

Hazelnut crackers stacked with chard and roasted mushrooms

Hazelnut crackers stacked with chard and roasted mushrooms

Last night, for valentine’s day, we took some time off. I made a special, strange meal. We ate together and talked together, and we let everything slide. We missed a basketball game and a meeting. We cuddled on the couch and watched a movie, and decided to skip the showers and the evening reading. It feels good to be irresponsible, some times! And, guess what? I’m a mother, so if I say it’s okay, it’s okay!! It was a really nice night. And the dinner was strange! I wanted to make something a little fancy, and less pedestrian than my usual fare. So I made some large fan-shaped crispy crackers, flavored with sage and smoked paprika, and crunchy with hazelnuts. I piled these with layers of sauteed chard, roasted mushroom & french lentil puree, cheese, and whole, small roasted mushrooms. It was very fun to make, and very fun to eat, too! I thought all of the flavors and textures were nice, altogether. I used my 8-ish inch tart pan ring to cut the dough into fluted circles, and then I cut those into quarters. You could use a medium-sized bowl with a thin edge. Or just cut it freehand with a knife. Or make circles instead of fans, by cutting with a large glass. Whatever, man!

Here’s My Heart, by Louis Armstrong. It’s bright and cheerful and serious and thoughtful at the same time, like my Isaac.
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Salt-sprinkled pastry cake (with chocolate almond filling)

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Salt-sprinkled pastry cake

Salt-sprinkled pastry cake

In my dream this morning, I made a film. I haven’t made a film in nearly thirteen years, and like all neglected things, films frequently work their way into my dreams. Unlike most forsaken activities, my dream films aren’t the source of anxiety. They don’t appear as starving pets I’ve forgotten to feed, or children I’ve abandoned somewhere, or tests I haven’t studied for. My dream films are perfect. They’re strange, of course, because they follow a dream logic, which makes them odder and better than surreal films, which are frequently too carefully calculated to be very honest or beautiful. My films look exactly the way I want them to look, each frame so lovely it’s sealed in glass. And they say exactly what I want them to say. In real life I don’t have anything interesting to say, but I never stop talking (you may have noticed!). In my films I have a perfect thing to say, and I say it perfectly, with grace and space and spirit. In my dreams, my films are never finished, but a large portion is done, and done well, and frequently I have an epiphany on just how I’ll finish it. It’s good to wake from these dreams – I wake happy, but a little disappointed, of course, because there is no film. We saw Sleepwalk with Me last night, and the main character says this, “I really feel like our whole lives, no matter how low our self esteem gets, there’s a part of us that thinks, ‘I have a secret, special skill that no one knows about.'” Well, I know what he means. I remember in high school having this talk with a friend. She was sure, she knew without a doubt, but in a way that she couldn’t even talk about, she knew that one day she’d be a successful musician. And I knew that one day I’d be a writer, a good and important writer. I’d write novels or plays, and they’d be beautiful and everyone would like them. And I’d make films, too. Perfect films. Don’t laugh, but when I was in my twenties, working on my first film, I was walking down the street feeling good. I had bright red nail polish on, and I remember imagining the New York Times reporter who was interviewing me – you know, the one who was interviewing me because of my brilliantly received film – I imagined her mentioning my bright red nail polish. I’m just not so sure any more, about having the special secret skill, but I guess my sleeping brain thinks I do. I wonder when you lose that faith in yourself. I’ve started novels, and been in a passion of hopefulness about them, only to find myself one day holding reams of paper that suddenly feel like wasted paper, with wasted words representing many wasted hours. And my films took about three years each, start to finish, but I was in love with them the whole time. You have to be! And now I watch them, I see where they’re flawed. At times that’s all I can see. It can leave you feeling very discouraged! Very scared to try! I hope nobody tells my dream self! And thank god for my boys, because they don’t have just one secret special skill, they have every skill in the whole world! They can be anything they want and they’re going to be wonderful at whatever they try.

salted top cake

salted top cake

Last week I mentioned Joan Aiken’s Go Saddle the Sea, and I quoted a passage in which she mentioned a pastry cake with salt sprinkled on top. Well! That image, of a pastry cake with salt sprinkled on top, has haunted me ever since. What is a pastry cake? I can’t find a recipe for one anywhere. Is it pastry or is it cake? I could just see it! I could just taste it! So I decided to make it. I made a pastry type of dough, with mostly butter and flour, but I added an egg and some vanilla and leavening. Then I rolled it into thin layers, stacked on top of one another, to give it an airiness of sorts (I hoped). Then I made a filling of ground almonds, bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon and sweetened condensed milk, because I thought it would be nice and dark and spicy and caramelly, and go well with the salty top. I was so pleased with this stupid cake. I took it out of the oven and it was love at first scent. It smelled sweet and complicated. It has a pleasant weight, but felt a bit hollow, too, which was a good sign because I was worried it wouldn’t have cooked all the way through and would be damp and unpleasant. I waited a while to cut into it, in a fever of anticipation and worry. It’s lovely! It’s like a big cookie with a wonderful filling, and a top crusty with sparkling sugar and salt. I’m very happy about it!

Here’s Darn That Dream by Billie Holiday, which I used in one of my first short films.

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Empanadas with potatoes, black beans, spinach and smoked gouda

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Potato and black bean empanadas

Potato and black bean empanadas

We saw the most beautiful movie the other day – The Maid, written and directed by Sebastian Silva. It isn’t stylistically gorgeous – it has the look of home videos from a decade or so ago – it is emotionally beautiful – full of honesty and grace and sly humor. Raquel, played by Catalina Saavedra in a remarkably precise, powerful and restrained performance – is the live-in maid for a middle class family in Chile. She’s been with them more than half of her life, their world is her world. She roams the house when everybody is gone, with vacuum and duster, but she has dominion over only a tiny portion, a cell-like bedroom that looks out onto the kitchen. She loves the family, and they love her, but with a stunted, confused sort of love that cannot express itself in real affection. She’s started to have horrible headaches and dizzy spells, so they decide to hire somebody to help her, despite her protestations. With a devastating blow of well-meaning cruelty, they give the new “girl” care of the kitchen and the food, thus taking away the source of Raquel’s comfort and power, the nexus between two worlds. This is the space where Raquel has control, where she is vitally important, the space from which she nurtures the family. When this is taken away from her, she doesn’t make life easy for the new maids, and the script cunningly plays on our expectations to suggest that we’re going to follow Raquel into a world of darkness and depravity. The manner in which these expectations are gratified or denied is a source of great film-watching joy, so I can’t say too much more without spoiling the film. I’ll just say that a few moments of exquisitely portrayed human connection, in all of its poignant confusion, happiness, and sorrow made this simple, understated tale of an ordinary woman one of the most powerful films I’ve seen in a long while. Honestly, I’ve put off writing about it all day because I can’t do it justice!

I know they have empanadas in Chile, but I don’t suppose they have any like these! I thought of them as a sort of cross between samosas and empanadas. So they have potatoes and peas (comforting and bright!) and they have smoky paprika, smoked gouda, spinach, and earthy black beans. The crunchy crust is made with masa harina, cayenne and black pepper. These were really delicious! I felt proud of them, and happy with the combination of flavors.

Here’s Ayayayay by Pedro Piedra from The Maid’s soundtrack.

And here’s Promesas by Los Mono, which is a video I was very taken with a few years ago. Turns out Sebastian Silva is Los Mono! Who knew?!?!
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Collards, roasted mushroom and pecan pie with a spicy smoky crust

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Collard pecan pie

Collard pecan pie

Malcolm came home from school yesterday and lay on the couch and wept. I asked him if something upsetting had happened, and he said, no, he was just tired, and he really wanted some pineapple. We’d bought a pineapple on Monday, and I kept telling him it wasn’t ripe, because, honestly, I can never tell! The last time we bought one I prudently waited until it was moldy and disintegrating, just to be sure. So I gave him a dish of pineapple, and I got myself a glass of wine, and he got a blanket, and we cuddled on the couch and watched a dumb show about Merlin. And then snow began to fall, thick and fast – the prettiest snow I’ve ever seen. It sparkled! It looked like crystals falling from the sky and forming an improbably light, even blanket on the ground. And when David came home we went out to dinner. We almost never go out to dinner, just the four of us, maybe twice a year. It’s so nice when we do! I felt so happy being with my family, in our little booth, eating delicious and unexpected food. We always bring a blank book when we go out – the same book each time, and we all take turns drawing in it. We have quite a collection of crazy pictures, and each small sketch transports us back to the good meal we had and the good talks we had. Last night we talked about the things that might have been worrying Malcolm. We talked about a game his whole class plays, and he said that by the end everybody is mad at each other because they’re competing, and that doesn’t feel good. He leaned up against me. Both boys ate with good appetites, with glee, and Malcolm said, “I love food!” And, of course, I love that he loves food. We talked about all the places we’ll travel, when we’ve got the time and money. We talked about taking a plane somewhere with no plans, and just making it up as we go along. Finding a place to stay, finding a lovely restaurant, with little booths, where we can eat strange and wonderful food, and draw in our book, and talk. And then we drove home through a glittering white world to our old warm house. A good night!
Isaac's beautiful landscape from our restaurant book

Isaac’s beautiful landscape from our restaurant book

I love collard greens. I love their substantial texture, and their mildly assertive taste. I like to pair them with smoky crispy things. I thought of the crust in this as being almost like bacon – crunchy and smoky with smoked paprika. The pecans added a nice crunch, and the roasted mushrooms brought their lovely savory, meaty flavor.

Here’s Fox in the Snow by Belle and Sebastian.

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Summer-in-winter pizza with pesto, sofrito, chickpeas and artichoke hearts

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Pizza with sofrito, pesto and chickpeas

Pizza with sofrito, pesto and chickpeas

You wouldn’t believe the vast system of pantries we have here at The Ordinary. It extends for miles, beginning above-ground, with spacious, sunny rooms lined with floor-to-ceiling windows. And then it tunnels under to form a vast network of cellars, ice houses, larders, butteries, and spences. And the shelves are lined with bottles and jars. Those in the light of the windows glow like stained glass. Those in the darkened cellars shine with their own internal light. In each bottle and jar – a perfect distillation of a moment from each season from the year. We open these, as needed, to help us navigate the year as it unfolds. When you’re melting in summer, you can uncork a clear, cold, cleansing january day. In winter, we have a vial containing the cool-warm smell of a June morning. We have a whole room stocked with falling things. A jar of late spring’s flower petals – confused, whirled in a tangle; a summer sun shower; autumn leaves, curling to the ground; and a soft, quiet, gentle December snow. Each one will serve to remind you of what you’ve seen and felt, the fragrances and tastes that you have known, and each will remind you as well of the cycle of the seasons which will bring each moment inevitably back upon you. In one room, of course, we have flavors…ripe plump tomatoes, bursting with the hot sunny abundance of August, refined into a flavorful paste. Bunches of basil, sweet, sharp, and intoxicating, concentrated into one pure flavor of summer. And that’s what we used to make this pizza.

pizza with sofrito, chickpeas and pesto

pizza with sofrito, chickpeas and pesto

What? You think I’m waxing hyperbolic? You think this is why I earned the name “hyperboClaire?” Well, it’s totally true!! Every word! Okay, so I’m really talking about the sofrito and pesto that I made with our over-abundance of tomatoes and basil at the end of the summer. I froze them, and at the time I thought…in the middle of winter, this will make a welcome meal! And then the power went out for ten days, and I was worried that they didn’t stay frozen. But they seemed frozen! And our kitchen felt very near freezing through the time. And we ate them on this pizza and everybody seemed fine!! I also added chickpeas and artichoke hearts. I have long loved artichoke hearts on a pizza, and chickpeas on a pizza – well, it just sounded good to me! And it was good! They got all roasty and flavorful. If you happen not to have frozen sofrito in the summer, you can easily make it from a can of tomatoes (Spanish-style sofrito! Recipe to follow). And pesto can be bought in most grocery stores, if you don’t have that lying around in your feezer!! Anyway – this was a good pizza. It did taste like summer, and reminded me of golden afternoons spent picking tomatoes and basil. Very welcome indeed as the temperature plummets.

Here’s Summertime by Jimmy Smith.

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Membrillo, manchego and spinach pie

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Membrillo, manchego, and spinach pie

Membrillo, manchego, and spinach pie

Hello, extraordinary Ordinary friends, and welcome to your sunday playlist!! We treated ourselves, over the holidays to a few new CDs, and one of them was Stop and Listen by the Mississippi Sheiks. It’s a beautiful album! They play country blues – guitar and fiddle – but it has a real jazzy sophistication as well. I’d known about the Sheiks for a while, but I’d never heard a whole album, and we were completely delighted by it! Instrumentals, beautiful rhythms you can just imagine people stepping out to, and lovely, mysterious moody lyrics. Many of the songs will probably be familiar to you as covered by other artists, but these are the originals! One such track is Sitting on top of the World. I’ve loved this song for decades, and I wrote a story about it when I was in my early twenties. I can’t find the story or I’d share it with you – you’re spared the agony of wading through my juvenilia! I love the spirit of the song – the hopeful sense that trouble and worry are over, and he’s moving on. I’ve been thinking about these kinds of songs, and discovered that some of my all-time favorites fit this description. Maybe you’ve had hard financial times, bad relationships, or just unspecified trouble, but you’re moving past it, you’re not going to worry any more. I love the way that the songs themselves lift you out of the worry and woe. So that’s our subject this week – “I ain’t gonna worry no more.” Our poster child for this week, of course, is the song by Sleepy John Estes. Nothing says “I ain’t gonna worry no more” like a kazoo!! I’m just getting started on the playlist – I think it’s going to be a big one! And it is collaborative, so please add your own. As ever, instrumentals are welcome. If it sounds to you like the music is hope triumphing over trouble, it belongs on our list!!

And this pie – lovely flaky, savory, a touch of sweetness – is based on the classic combination of membrillo (quince paste) and manchego (salty Spanish cheese). I decided to combine them in a pie (everything tastes better in a pie!!). And I thought spinach would be nice with them, because I like spinach with an element of sweetness. The quince paste is quite sweet, so a little goes a long way, and be sure to chop it finely. I used my membrillo scallops. If you don’t have time to make membrillo or can’t find it, you could substitute guava paste, which is available in most grocery stores. Or you could leave it out altogether and the pie would still be delicious!!I made the pie in the shape of a rectangle, because I was thinking of the Spanish empanada gallega, but you could make it in a circle, or oval, or any shape you like!!

membrillo manchego pie

membrillo manchego pie

Here’s Our Playlist!!

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Ring-shaped pie with french lentils, chard, walnuts, and butternut squash

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chard-french-lentil,-butterWe had a lovely snow on Christmas eve, light and soft, the kind that makes the whole world seem clean and quiet. Snow makes Clio crazy, it brings out one of the “four formes of canine madnesse, the frantic or crazed madnesse.” She leaps about the yard, and then races in with icy snow in her pink paw pads, and leaps off of the furniture with mad abandon. I watched her on Christmas eve, and thought of Steenbeck, our old dog, buried in the yard under Clio’s frenetic paws, sleeping beneath a blanket of silent snow. I felt a sudden sadness, but it was a comforting sadness, in some inexplicable way. And on New Year’s Day we went to a party at a friend’s house, up on the hill above our small city. We walked up, it being a clear, cold day, and it felt good to shake some of the holiday-induced torpor from my mind. The party was lovely, with many children instantly interacting, as they so delightfully do, making things, and sharing things, and giggling. And we drank some good red wine, and talked to friends from town and just out of town – some we see nearly every day, some we see once or twice a year. It felt social, and cheerful, and just right for a New Year’s day. We left at dusk, which still comes early though the days are getting longer, and we walked home through the big old cemetery that over-looks our town. The stones were centuries old, but the names were familiar – the names of families that still live in our community. We read the name of the man who built our house in the 1850s, the name of the man we bought our house from ten years ago, the names of the people that own businesses in town, of families that our children go to school with. My boys raced along the paths, pelting each other with snowballs and laughing. And we walked down into town back to our old house, sleepy from the wine but sober from my thoughts, and made a warm meal, and watched a Buster Keaton movie, cuddled on the couch. It sounds idiotic, but I’d been thinking the night before about all the people that have ever lived. All of the humans that have walked on this earth, and lived, and loved, and wanted, and worked. Some in good fortune and freedom and wealth; most, probably, in poverty and servitude. But all wanting the same things, surely: affection, friendship, some degree of comfort, a kind hand, a warm meal. And I thought about it again, up on the hill, covered in a blanket of melting snow…”falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” I felt, again, that sort of comforting sadness, looking out on our beautiful town, on all of the houses lit up and ringing with laughter, with people crying, “happy new year!” Which brings us to my resolution, if I have one, and, I think I do, but in true Clairish style, it’s vague and muddled, so I hope you’ll forgive this ramble. I don’t make resolutions to lose weight, or be healthy, or give up bad habits. I’ve said before that I believe in finding a balance in everyday life, and that those things are built into the fabric of that balance, cycling continually day-to-day, working against each other. Everybody gains a bit of winter weight, but we’ll eat soup meagre for a week, run up and down the towpath with Clio a few times, and be fighting-fit come spring! To me, “resolve” doesn’t mean to give something up, but to come into focus, to become harmonious, to be solved, or healed. So I hope to bring things into focus and harmony in this new year, moment-to-moment and day-to-day. To notice everything, to recognize how vivid and poignant every moment is, how completely alive each person that I meet – how like me and how completely unique. I hope not to let fatigue, crankiness, or laziness cloud my senses or lessen my appreciation of time spent with my children and David; of strong flavors, good sounds, beautiful sights. Not to be crippled by the sense that time is passing, but to let that awareness help me to feel more keenly. Not to be distracted by our fast, cold, cluttered, cynical world from clarity, light and warmth.

Well, this is my grand ambition for the new year, and this was the pie I made for New Year’s eve and New Year’s day. To eat leftovers on New Year’s day feels like striking out in the direction of frugality and good sense! I made the pie in a ring, because I’d read that ring-shaped foods are considered lucky. I made the crust rosy-golden with cornmeal and smoked paprika, because it seems like a fortuitous color. I filled it with lentils and greens, for luck, walnuts for crunch, and roasted butternut squash for flavor and sweetness, and capers for their flavor-dynamite explosion, so that our life will be sweet, flavorful, tangy, and substantial. Or, you know, whatever…who believes these old superstitions anyway?Ring-shaped pie Ring-shaped pie[/caption]

Here’s a whole album for you. It’s Jordi Savall playing Francois Couperin’s Pièces de Violes, we bought it for ourselves for Christmas, and it’s meltingly beautiful. Full of light and warmth and generosity, like a good life should be!
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