Falling

Does anyone else's heart beat faster with the first hint of crispness in the air? Fall has finally made an appearance here in sunny Southern California, and it's lovely and cool and I can finally wear tights and boots and sweaters and scarves. Even better, it's cool enough to bake turning the kitchen into a hothouse, so I can start making shortbread and cookies again on a regular basis. I'm especially excited to try this scrumptious looking recipe for Chocolate Earl Grey Tartlets from this blog. A cup of coffee, a chocolate tart, and a cloudy afternoon- what could be more perfect?

Bluebells

"The house they had built was quite modest--it even had a thatched roof--but their gardens soon became one of the wonders of the land. It was said that Abdullah had help in their design from at least one of the Royal Wizards, for how else could even an Ambassador have a bluebell wood that grew bluebells all the year round?" -Castle in the Sky, Diana Wynne Jones
I know it's fall, and I love fall, but these images from Bright Star and I Capture the Castle keep popping into my head. I love bluebells--I don't even think they grow in this part of California, but they're one of my favorite flowers, and I wish I could have a bluebell wood that grew bluebells all year round. Wouldn't it be lovely to wander about at dusk with a lantern lighting your way and revealing that perfect, autumn-sky blue around your feet?

Kindred Spirits (Time Travel Edition)

Thanks to Ken Burns' new documentary The National Parks, I've discovered another person whom I intend to befriend once I have my time machine up and running. Her name was Margaret Gurkey (I'm not sure about that spelling of her last name), and she and her husband traveled around the U.S. visiting National Parks nearly every year of their marriage, beginning in 1915 and continuing into the 30's and 40's. They began by taking the train, but quickly moved on to car travel and camping. Along with a succession of dogs, they criss-crossed the nation, taking in the scenery from Maine to California. Margaret's goal was always to get away from the crowds and experience what she referred to as the silence of the woods. At times this required a certain amount of adventure- rough roads, no easy access to supplies or assistance in an emergency, being at the mercy of the weather- and Margaret admitted that at times their decisions weren't exactly in line with common sense, but in her words, "to be sensible is to be commonplace, and to be commonplace is unpardonable."

Cheese Festival, Anyone?

The Great British Cheese Festival at Cardiff Castle.

I want to go to there.

And yes, that is a model of Cardiff Castle made out of cheese (via Light Reading).

The Bee's Knees

I may have been incredibly inactive here over the last few months, but the weather is (sort of) cooling down now that September is here, which means I'm back up to my old tricks in the kitchen. I recently checked Richard Bertinet's Dough out of the library, and the first thing I made was his ridiculously good lavender and honey wheat bread. The best part, in my opinion, is that Bertinet prefers to do everything by hand, so I got to play around with a bowl full of flour, rubbing in the yeast and dried lavender. Can anyone say baking win?
And the finished product (which, incidentally, was fantastic with the lovely soup that my sister made the following day):

Come Out to Ramble

It's been a lovely rainy day, with patches of sun breaking through and big heavy clouds. The sweet peas are blooming, the orange blossoms are opening, and I got my lettuces in the ground a couple of days ago. It smells like spring, all green and floral and damp. Here's a snippet of A.E. Housman, because hey, it's Wednesday:

'Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found. -from A Shropshire Lad

Of course, with so many nice things growing outside, one simply must bring something indoors. I've been putting little bunches of one kind of bloom (or tree, in this case) into tiny Moroccan-style shot glasses I found at Sur La Table this past weekend, and I bought a gorgeous bunch of ranunculus at the farmer's market that is a perfect fit for the Austrian pottery vase I stole from my mother:

More Midweek Poetry

Here, courtesy of Davey Talbot's PoemaDay, is a portion of a poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado:

From Proverbs and Songs (translated by Robert Bly)

XX
Sing on, sing on, sing on,
the cricket in his cage
near his darling tomato.

XXI
Form your letters slowly and well:
making things well
is more important than making them.

XXIV
Wake up, you poets:
let echoes end,
and voices begin.

XXV
But don't hunt for dissonance;
because, in the end, there is no dissonance.
When the sound is heard people dance.

XXVI
What the poet is searching for
is not the fundamental I
but the deep you.

.........................

XXXIV
If a poem becomes common,
passed around, hand to hand, it's OK:
gold is chosen for coins.

XXXVI
Sunlight is good for waking,
but I prefer bells --
the best thing about morning.

XXXIX
Now, poet, your prophecy?
"Tomorrow what is dumb will speak,
the human heart and the stone.

XXXI
Pay attention now:
a heart that's all by itself
is not a heart."