"go to the fair, templeton. you will find that the conditions at a fair will surpass your wildest dreams."

remember how last year we finally went to the common ground fair? well, i for one am hooked on it now, and i can hardly imagine letting september get away from me without going. this year we were sans zoë, isaac, and jason "pie cone" read, but we were accompanied by mom and dad, who were also won over by the charms of organic potato chip fries, iced coffee from rock city roasters, organic wild maine blueberries, adorable rabbits and strange chickens and brilliant border collies and personable farmers.

what you can't quite see is that these guys, above, are both looking at cell phones.

our fair day last year was chilly, and we huddled beside fires and drank hot coffee and ate indian food. this year it was hot: cold cider and lemonade weather. still wonderful, and i still kind of want to live there forever.




“'I'm staying right here,' grumbled the rat. 'I haven't the slightest interest in fairs.'
'That's because you've never been to one,' remarked the old sheep. 'A fair is a rat's paradise. Everybody spills food at a fair. A rat can creep out late at night and have a feast. In the horse barn you will find oats that the trotters and pacers have spilled. In the trampled grass of the infield you will find old discarded lunch boxes containing the foul remains of peanut butter sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, cracker crumbs, bits of doughnuts, and particles of cheese. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone home to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones, and the wooden sticks of lollypops. Everywhere is loot for a rat--in tents, in booths, in hay lofts--why, a fair has enough disgusting leftover food to satisfy a whole army of rats.'
Templeton's eyes were blazing.
'Is this true?' he asked. 'Is this appetizing yarn of yours true? I like high living, and what you say tempts me.'
'It is true,' said the old sheep. 'Go to the fair, Templeton. You will find that the conditions at a fair will surpass your wildest dreams. Buckets with sour mash sticking to them, tin cans containing particles of tuna fish, greasy bags stuffed with rotten...'
'That's enough!' cried Templeton. 'Don't tell me any more, I'm going!'"

-E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

delicious autumn

it's that apple acres time of year again! on saturday mom and dad picked mark and me up on their way to a quick l.l.bean reconnaissance (isaac was busy helping to film the first episode of food coma all day), and then we drove in the direction of south hiram seeking apples and cider donuts. we were surprised to discover that there was some kind of apple festival going on, complete with a bluegrass band on the hill and what appeared to be a town-wide yard sale throughout the little village of cornish.

we ate dessert first, delicious warm donuts right out of the fryer. then we had sandwiches on the porch at krista's, where we could enjoy the attractively babbling brook that runs behind the restaurant and the colorful paper lanterns above . the food was okay--not too many vegetarian options, and towering heaps of not-quite-hot french fries--but my salad was fresh and green and enormous, and our shifting team of waiters were all extremely friendly.

 
























"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” - George Eliot

the old things go, not one lasts

and there's something i should say about troy davis's execution last night in georgia, but what is there, really, to say? every once in a while, i come face-to-face with the fact that i live in a country where we kill human beings who might not be guilty.*


however, in more cheerful news, have i mentioned the chicken haikus? no, i don't think so, and today is the day to do it. my bruddy** adam and his family have a tradition of texting each other haikus about the chickens they sometimes see and sometimes don't see on their way to and from the sweeties' school. these are san francisco chickens, to be clear. sometimes the rest of the family gets involved, also via text. the poems that have resulted are absolutely amazingly wonderful. here, for your enjoyment, is yesterday's chicken-related exchange:***

adam:

count the humans: three
chicken watch chickens: zero
humans win again!

me:

near the white mountains,
chickens scattered through a yard.
"wild chickens?" asked mark.

adam:

oh, wild, wild chickens
migrating from place to place
can wild chickens fly?

david:

no chickens at work.
maybe these are ag students
studying poultry?

mom:

chickens are scarce here
in cambridge, but yesterday
i saw a turkey.




*"but what then is capital punishment if not the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared?" --albert camus

**"bruddy" = six year-old oona-speak for "brother"

***and yes, i am aware that i have the best family ever.

i like the maps and the instability of the geography that situates places in my head*

mark and minnow and i went to grafton notch state park on saturday, a two hour drive through pretty little villages like harrison and waterford, into the white mountains (which make me say, "ooh!" even as i recognize and immediately feel apologetic for how relatively little they are, mountain-wise. they are still pretty impressive to a coastal girl like me).

as you can see, adventures ensued, many of them involving minnow sitting patiently in scenic locations while i took his picture. we saw hills and waterfalls and lots of moss, and we hiked a very little bit of the appalachian trail. minnow was an enthusiastic hiker, forging through streams and up rocky hills with fortitude. then he fell sound asleep on the back seat the whole way home. jeeze, this state is a lovely place.


*from memory of water, by reina maria rodriguez

holy donut!

my original plan was to wait until mark's birthday and surprise him with a donut extravaganza from the holy donut, which until this morning i'd only read about, hungrily. but his birthday is still three long weeks off,* and donuts were on my mind, and five dollars were in my pocket, so i headed over to the east ender after i dropped isaac off at school. weekday mornings after 7:30 it turns into a magical donut and coffee bar. i restrained myself: i only bought two of them, a ginger-sweet potato and a dark chocolately cocoa.

below, donuts for two. the flavor of the sweet potato donut wasn't as gingery as i'd expected, but the texture was light, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth--similar to a cruller. the chocolate donut was rich and decadent, more cakey. yum.

 




















*and also, he's spent about forty hours** in the last four days fooling around with our stupid wireless router-something-something and other silliness*** and we both needed a DONUT, you know?

**not hyperbole, though i wish it were.

***that thing where when one thing gets fixed, something else breaks. and did i mention that mark fixed the broken furnace the other day? have you ever actually met someone who could repair plumbing, take apart and reassemble a furnace, install a dishwasher, re-whatever the computer network, and fix the brakes on the car, all while working sixty hours a week and even being the one to wake up in the night and clean up dog vomit? if you knew such a person, you'd want to buy him a donut, n'est-ce pas?

all overgrown by cunning moss

last weekend mark and i drove up to the josephine newman wildlife sanctuary in georgetown, where we walked past warnings about deer ticks and braved a field of poison ivy before taking a peaceful hike along a rocky wooded path. we saw so many mushrooms, so much brilliant green moss, but not a single other human being.

i sort of want to live in the woods.


all overgrown by cunning moss, emily dickinson

you smell like plums and garlic!

wow, what a block party last night. the video below demonstrates possibly the best thing that ever happened in portland.

that's what cheer! brigade from providence, and they helped turn congress street into new orleans for an hour or so. it was magical (and watch for a plaid-shirted isaac dancing past at the beginning).

my other favorite thing was the analog tweets project by pickwick press. people could submit "tweets" and have them block printed on fabric and hauled up the side of the building. mark and i hung out with the dancer and chatted with some of our favorite people, while isaac danced down the street and assisted oliver, who was filming the whole thing as part of his intern job at pickwick.

we finished up the evening by sharing a three-taco plate at taco escobarr. the price was right (three for $7.50), and they were delicious (vegetable tacos, crispy-style), but the atmosphere was...weird. sports bar-weird, i guess. stools and high tables, kind of bad music. maybe it's just me. most likely (well, not just me, but me and my two cheap-date pals).

the trip

funny and simple:
two annoying guys driving
through the countryside.

gratuitous dog photo and granny's burritos

minnow, napping with a ball, above. note enormous muppet paws.

today i lunched with the checkout girl at the newly re-re-opened granny's burritos in the public market house. i enjoyed her company way too much to complain (at the time) about the actual burrito, which--despite claims at the counter that it was the real, authentic granny's, complete with the original recipe book--was a little disappointing. i can't entirely put my finger on why, since part of the granny's experience was a je ne sais quoi that may very well have been connected with the stoned and friendly staff on fore street. they didn't always put what you ordered in that brown paper bag, but everything tasted so good. even when ordered with "no cow," which is how melissa and i requested our sweet potato (her) and guacamole (me) burritos. here's my basic breakdown of the experience:

1. they were smaller than the old granny's, not stuffed as messily full of stuff. my first couple of bites were all flour tortilla, with a strange taste of cilantro (this wouldn't necessarily be strange in a burrito, but i don't remember it circa 2002).
2. they were bland and cold. they weren't always this way, were they? are the beans not cooked the same way? is there not as much salsa?
3. i often ordered granny's vegan style back in the day, and as long as there was something creamy in there (i.e. guacamole or sweet potato), they were full of flavor. i'm not positive there was any guacamole at all in this one, maybe just a dollop. melissa reported a similar sweet potato situation.

i'm not giving up--i will try the new granny's again. but i felt a little crestfallen at first taste. good thing i was with one of my very favorite people, because i had a lovely time catching up with her and solving all of the world's problems.

it is almost the season for cloaks*

i found myself in such a terrible mood last night, almost certainly due to my reluctance to let go of the summer and give in to the school year, which officially begins right now. even though fall is famously my favorite season of all. this weekend i cooked some delicious food and even documented it: penne with vegan vodka sauce, no vodka required. the creaminess comes from ground almonds, which blows my mind. and garlic roasted brussels sprouts, mmm.
 
























and i made a complicated, ultimately disappointing dessert that involved one pound of melted chocolate. see below if you wonder what that looks like. it was a pumpkin cake with ganache, except the cake was too heavy, kind of like a muffin, and the "ganache" was more like mousse, albeit a delicious mousse. hazelnuts were involved.

























oh, and we went to the pride's corner flea market too, so that isaac could obtain the vintage game system he'd been yearning for. i was attracted to collections of things like such as this bouquet of crutches.

























and this nest of baseballs.

as well as this guy's makeup.

.

maybe he's weird doug?

and finally, my boy just before he walked out the door toward his first day of tenth grade. he paused for a first day of school serenade (he can play this song on that thing, for real). it's also zoë's first day of classes as a college student!

























*"Tonight I stitch. The breeze off the bay smells of aria. It is almost the season for cloaks." from Waiting on the Reading by Samiya Bashir

rabbit rabbit

"Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn—

an early warning of the end of summer.

August is fading fast, and by September

the little purple flowers will all be gone."

rachel hadas