Eat Food

James Beard was one of the first food celebrities I followed.  He was a giant in more ways than one, but he was finally told if he wanted to live he must diet.  He said it was a sensual experience, but I never believed him.  His body shrunk faster than his skin, which hung from him like the hide of the Saggy Baggy Elephant.  I of course only saw him on television, but he looked unhappy.  Then he died anyway. I resolved never to be cowed by the food police and to hold fast to the good life.  Now I have accepted the eater’s manifesto of Michael Pollan, who famously said, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” 

From the time I came home from the hospital, Annette has worked hard creating tasty heart-healthy food.   Tonight we supped on slices of fresh tomato (red and yellow) lightly salted, with fresh mozzarella and basil leaves dressed with a lovely California olive oil.  There was a second salad of locally grown cucumber with chopped tomato dressed with wine vinegar and a light sprinkling of sugar.  We ate corn on the cob picked this day and roasted in the oven.  Dessert was fresh local raspberries a little sugar and a dab of the first real ice cream I’ve eaten in two months.  The flavors stood out clean and pure. 

Of course September is the ideal time for fruits and vegetables.  Annette marveled how much she paid for the yellow tomato, but eating less meat is good for the budget, and we don’t go to restaurants much any more.  A modest lunch for two can run forty bucks, which will go quite a way in the farmer’s market. 

One thing I like about Pollan’s succinct philosophy is its not confining.  I am not forbidden the flesh of every creature.  I like the “Eat food” part.  I have taken a vow against fake food.  Fat free sour cream is an impossibility.  Cream is fat.  I’m willing to eat it seldom if at all, but I won’t settle for some laboratory concoction badly simulating the real thing. 

I’m trying to follow the “Not too much,” part.  There’s nothing like hunger for making food taste good.  I don’t suffer all the time, but I don’t need a watch to tell me it’s mealtime. This is no fancy diet, just don’t eat too much.  I hear that it takes one to three years to really change your habits, but so far it’s working.

Nutrition is a young science, and research is difficult.  Everyone notices that proscriptions change.  No one doubts that in ten years the advice will have altered again.  Meanwhile, if we want to eat healthily, we have to decide how.  I like Pollan’s way.  It seems sensible that Americans should eat less.  We should get our fruits and veggies, and avoid fake food.  Common sense is an uncommon thing, but I’m finding it a health plan I can follow. 

The Magic Bookstore

This is the final week of Border’s going-out-of-business sale.  The selling area has moved inward like Fantasia growing smaller under the attack of the Nothing in the film “The NeverEnding Story.”  The children’s department, the art books shelves are barren. 

My feelings on entering were mixed.  I felt like a scavenger robbing corpses on a battlefield, but there was a pleasanter change.  All the discounted best sellers, new arrivals, and other popular trash displayed as you enter were gone, and it seemed the store had turned into a shop where a person with esoteric tastes and moderate means could find a treasure. 

At 80% off, I got a book of essays by John McPhee and Six Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  There was a poetry shelf where I found Flower and Hand by W. S. Merwin, Auguries of Innocence by Patti Smith, and The Poets Laureate Anthology published in association with the Library of Congress.  It says in the forward that the poet laureate Joseph Brodsky wanted to place poetry books in motels and supermarkets.  Imagine finding Longfellow or Sylvia Plath next to the Gideon Bible. 

Delight was still tainted with guilt.  I saw a stack of unsold Good Poems, American Places selected by Garrison Keillor.  It’s a wonderful book for dipping into at odd moments, and I got a copy from Amazon.com. 

It had been so convenient – just a few keystrokes and some clicks of the mouse and it arrived at my door.  Why drive to the mall, find the shelf and take the chance it wouldn’t be there?  It was this that did Borders in.  I was not only pillaging the aftermath of a lost war; I had fired some of the enemy shots myself. 

At these prices the enchanted shop was filled with book lovers and some others whom the magic never touched. A man was paging through a large atlas, his visage bathed in delight.  His wife’s face revealed her opinion that she had married an idiot.  “Is it just maps?” she asked.  

The Omen

It was a small dead tree

so the seven or eight crows

seemed like a flock,

stark and black,

on bare branches

against gray sky.

Not a flock – a murder of crows,

as the saying goes.

They looked like an omen

predicting death,

but there were people around.

We couldn’t all die,

or rather, one by one,

 we could.

It’s just that the crows

weren’t saying when.

Turning Year

Labor Day is an arbitrary boundary, but real none-the-less. Summer ends.  No matter how many hamburgers we grill, horseshoes we toss, or strokes we swim, this is it; we’re on to other things. Like all milestones, it’s a time to look back and ahead. 

As children we despaired to see the back to-school signs in the windows of Woolworth’s.  Equipped with pencils, erasers and shiny shoes, we trudged off on the appointed morning, but there was an aura of anticipation that added a couple ergs of energy to our Shakespearean snail-like creep. 

So it is for us all. Things start up.  Throughout July and August the year holds still, but with the gentle lurch of Labor Day it starts again.  Activities resume and a feeling of normalcy returns. Like school, it’s a change for good or ill. There’s tonic in the cooler air that starts us moving. Orchestras return from firefly lighted venues to perform in their accustomed halls, plays open, and clubs meet.  Like the children, we greet tanned and rested friends who are ready to resume normal life.

Labor Day is as much the beginning of a new year as January 1^st, and I make resolutions. I will walk the streets of Boston and forsake the seaside fish houses for the flavor of French cuisine.  I’ll pick apples or at least buy some at the orchard’s edge.  I’ll notice the turning of the leaves.  A visit to Myles Standish State Forest revealed that a couple of trees are performing opening numbers before the headliners take the stage. 

Happy Labor Day.  Look back at the summer with a sigh, but look ahead as well.  Maybe not too far ahead; we need not dwell on puddles of slush, but there are good things to come and duties to be performed. It’s time to square our shoulders, step up to the blackboard, and do our sums.

Fairy House

Experts agree that a fairy house must be constructed exclusively of natural materials.  I have seen pictures of them on the internet that I’m sure have felt the sear of a glue gun, but if fairy noses detect the chemical stench, the tiny creatures never come to dwell.  My granddaughter turned five the other day, and received a book of fairy stickers and a cake decorated with images of our little winged friends.  I built a fairy house. 

I walked in the woods collecting clumps of moss, sheets of bark from a dead tree, lichens, sticks, Indian pipes, and a baby pine. The sticks were stuck in the ground, bark leant against them, and a lightweight roof was constructed of arborvitae branches and English ivy.  A forked stick served as an open door, and the blossoms of flox, hosta and black-eyed Susans served as decoration. 

When the birthday girl arrived, I showed her the dwelling and observed that if I’d done my job well enough a fairy might decide to live there.  She was of the opinion that one was in residence already.  All three of my grandchildren got down and peered in the door to see if they could see it. 

I was gratified, but if the fairy moved in, it vacated the next day when the flowers wilted and the roof began to slide.  My glueless creation was ephemeral and had to be relegated to the humus pile, but for a moment the magic was there.

Ah September!

It’s dark when I wake, and the air blowing through the screen is chilly.  I see the sunrise through the bathroom window. There are asters now, and apples are on the way.  The tourist throngs will dwindle, and perhaps the price of lobsters will go down.  Before the cold, I walk in the cool.