Category Archives: Food

Surprised (37)

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I’ve never lived before in a place where there are so many citrus trees. Here there are grapefruit, oranges, lemons, tangerines, tangelos. One grower at the farmer’s market even has a cross between a Mandarin orange and a kumquat, the size of a slender plum tomato, sweet skin and tart fruit. People pile up mounds of grapefruit on their lawns for passers by. They send home friends with bags of lemons. I am blessed with a kind man from my old neighborhood who still brings me grapefruit and Meyer lemons even though I’ve moved away. The trees are everywhere, but unless they are bulging with unpicked fruit I don’t tend to notice them. I do wonder who started the tradition. I notice people are quick to complain about all the golf courses but never mention this hidden forest of citrus trees we seem determined to grow here in the desert. But in February I can’t imagine being without them. In February, their fragrance finds you everywhere. It catches you in odd places, not a citrus in sight, the ambrosia wafting on some secret current of air. And every year I am surprised, again and again, breathing deep, as though the scent alone might sustain me. I look around. Is it that little neglected lemon tree beside the empty home? I’m never sure I really want to find the source. There is an added delight in the mystery, I think, knowing the sweetness has traveled unseen and who knows how far across the neighborhood to find you.

Eating the Cherimoya (36)

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I pick up the cherimoya from the counter and press it to my nose. I don’t smell anything, but it’s soft, ready to eat. I slice its reptile hide across the middle. It has a star pattern like kiwi, like Fuyu persimmons. I stand beside the kitchen sink and spoon the white fruit into my mouth. It is good, but I am not transported. The flesh is filled with seeds, big dark brown lumps I remove from my mouth, pile up on the cutting board. They are shiny and smooth, beautiful. They make a delicious sound when they knock against each other. I am more interested in playing with the seeds than in eating the fruit (saved, I think, from future extravagance). I move the pile of seeds to a small clear bowl and cover them with water. They make music against the glass. It is after midnight. I’ve just finished grading for the night, and I’m too tired to clean them now. I leave them soaking and wonder what I might do with them. I imagine them marked with color, coated with polymer to keep them shiny and wet. Maybe I’ll use them to count my laps at the pool. Or maybe I could make a set of tiny runes. I am sleepy but satisfied as I make my way to bed. My grading is done. I have a belly full of cherimoya. I fall asleep picturing the small dark seeds painted with symbols, bright orange lines against their rich brown shells.

Cherimoya (34)

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cherimoya sitting on the Saturday section of the L.A.Times

I am holding a bag of lemons. Should I buy one bag or two? The farmer is describing the cherimoyas to another customer. “They’re creamy like a custard,” he says. “They taste like vanilla and coconut.” I remember seeing them in Mexico, but I can’t remember if I ever ate one. I like the odd cactus and reptile look of them. I read the sign—it says $6 per pound. My mind must balk because it plays tricks with that. My lemons are $5 for a bag of nine. I have already counted. I think, oh, the cherimoyas are really cheap. They must not be very popular in this country. My mind is thinking they are six for a dollar. I choose one that is not yet ripe, select five tangerines, pay, too, for my lemons. After, I find out the cherimoya cost $3.40. Now it is sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to ripen. I don’t know whether to hope I love it or hate it, though hating it would be easiest, I think. If I love it, I will have to buy more.

Thyroid Fun, or Keeping the Faith (18)

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I started back to work on Saturday, but because it was the weekend I could pretend I wasn’t really working yet. I did my work in spurts then retreated to the novel I am reading in between, setting my laptop aside and burrowing under the down comforters, cozy during the end of our cold spell here, echoing my blissful holiday habits. I even made popcorn Sunday night, filling the big green ceramic bowl. But Monday arrived, and I could pretend no longer. Work was in full swing. Still, in the midst of being sucked up by the intensity of keeping up with the work I remembered to be happy. I stood beside the kitchen sink at noon chopping garlic for my belated breakfast and sang a little song. “I’m back at work, but it’s okay,” I sang. I bobbed up and down along with the movement of my chef’s knife. “I’m not going to let my neck and shoulders get too tight,” I sang, tilting my head from side to side. I learned a tight neck and shoulders can cut off blood flow to the thyroid I am trying to protect, but I was grinning as I sang, glad to be having goofy fun. In the afternoon I told myself I could have two hours, and I did my yoga in the courtyard while the sun sank behind our mountains. My neck and shoulders were tight, but the yoga helped. Then I sat outside to write, my notebook perched against my thighs. I reminded myself to breathe. “You can do this,” I whispered. “I have faith in you.”

Writing Prompt (7)

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Write about what stirs you. What stirs me? I like making big pots of soup. I stir them with a wooden spoon. But when I want to taste them I dig a big metal soupspoon out of the drawer. The texture and the flavor of the wood interfere. I like stirring soup. It stirs me to smell it, to imagine sitting down to a big bowl of it, the hot ceramic cradled against my belly when I lean back on the couch or the bed, my kitchen towel napkin draped across my torso as though I’m preparing to eat lobster. What stirs me? Taste, color, texture, the exquisite beauty of our natural world, the craggy rocks on our mountains on a clear day that make you want to rub your hand across them, feel the ragged edges of the ridge. I am stirred by little things. My father gave me this, I think. I can be stirred to awe, stirred to pity, stirred to anger, excitement, gratitude. I am stirred when people take the time to reassure me, stirred by their kindness in that act, their generosity. I am stirred by injustice, by empathy. I’ve always rooted for the underdog. I hated the roadrunner cartoons when I was a little girl. I always felt bad for the coyote.

Lean In (5)

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I have an ailing cat. She keeps losing weight but on most days will still climb the fence to go exploring. My godmother has a beloved older dog who is undergoing one thing after another. She hurts her wrist and her shoulder grinding up Annie’s pills. She’s been through this before. My friend Audrey has a friend who may be heading into the last stretch of a long debilitating illness. She isn’t eating enough, so Audrey brings her to her home and cooks her an omelette. She thinks she’ll only eat a few bites, but her friend polishes off the whole thing. Another friend falls apart when one of her sisters calls to let her know their mother has broken her hip. It stirs everything up, sinister foreshadowing, the beginning of the end. I think the unknown is the hardest part. She feels the death of her parents looming, then makes the jump to the ailments and death of all her friends. “It all looks pretty bleak,” she says. Wait, I think later. Come back. We may have decades of healthy lives ahead of us. I buy organic liver cat food, and my Sofia licks the bowl clean. The next day she won’t touch it. I worry when she leaves the courtyard and doesn’t reappear for six hours. When she comes back in the late afternoon, I fall in a heap and cry, the sun spilling across me on the kitchen floor. We all know this, are on one side of the equation or the other. We’ve been through this before. Our hearts sink and soar. Our courage, our hope, ebb and flow. Life becomes moments. Savor the taste of the cheese omelette in our mouths. Thrill at the sight of the red glass bowl on the floor licked clean. Rejoice in watching your too-thin friend enjoying the breakfast you made her. Lick the last piece of liver off your paw. Bury again and again the part of you who wilts inside at the way the ribs show through the woman’s skin, the cat’s gray fur. Breathe. Lean into laughter when you can. Kiss them on the forehead every chance you get.

Summer Day, Summer Night (1)

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I can hear the crickets through the open windows. Sofia is snoozing in the bathroom sink. (I almost yelped the first time I walked in and saw her there, so unexpected, like finding a tiger in the bathtub.) Sable is asleep at the foot of the bed. My eyes are heavy, but I want to post this tonight. April 8th, a summer night for anywhere normal. I’m not used to the heat yet, so today’s 96 degrees or so felt hot, but the night is gentle, soothing warmth. Long luxurious day but going since early morning. Qi gong class, then celebrating my birthday with Mami and Auntie Gardi, then easy weekly grading and finishing my four daily things. The three of us walked to lunch, my yummy yellow lentil dal. Opened presents under the umbrella here in our courtyard, all bright colors, paper and fabrics, yellow tulips, orange star flowers in the red and orange metal pot. I made iced coffee, and they oohed and ahhhed the garden, enjoyed “my” birds. I think it was a grosbeak who came to the small tray feeder, then hopped into the palo verde before he flew away. I read they were passing through. Sofia played with the ties of Auntie Gardi’s blouse, cheered us all to see it. Mami got teary when they left. I remember crying every time I drove away from her house. I’d forgotten. Now she drives me to the train station. Their visit stretched the hours, no rushing, like summer days as a kid. Now I listen to the crickets in the rich dark, a sleepy, lucky 56-year-old who’s completed the first of her 56 posts.