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GOD BLESS AMERICA
Burning trash in the
Oil drum pyre.
Down the ally
Invisibles swarm.
Keep’un warm.
Sweet home ----
America,
Land of the free .
Your Purple hearts
Pushing shopping carts.
To the end of a hero’s start.
Warmed on a grate,
In cold concrete .
Down so low,
The once elite.
A soldier ya know.
For God and country.
Lost in plain sight
The ‘forgottens’ fate,
Morning, noon, and night.
Day, week, month and Year,
The shelter rounds do make.
Or, not.
Hear the silent shot of misery!
Look at it!
Damn it,
Feet too long for the paper box
Head in the dark
A paradox----
Your hero’s welcome.
In doorways,
On piss soaked ground,
Under highway
And bridge----found:
Soldier ghosts of America.
Crack the rush
In grimy blight.
With a hundred proof pint
To squelch the night.
Wraith soldiers never forget
At dawns early light,
On cardboard skids:
‘Will work for food‘,
‘God Bless, ‘
‘Please Help,’
In toothless grin
Reeking of rot-gut gin.
Homeless of the brave
Land that I loved.
Do and die,
With blood in the lie.
‘God Bless America’
Dancing in Silence
Ni Hao!
Imagine escaping, for a short time, from the world as we have come to know it. Away from the harsh confrontation of the realities and pictures of war. Away from political campaigns and vulgar propaganda. Away from disaster, destruction and hardship-- if only for a short time.
The Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing offered just that kind of escape. Never before has such a spectacular visual delight been seen by more than a billion people around the globe.
The colors, the pageantry, the sheer numbers did not fail to impress. The technology was awe-inspiring.
And-oh yes...the fireworks
Witnessing perfection is a rare event, but this was as close as it gets. The world stage has been re-set. But that is a story for another time. Right now, let's just savor the moment.
"Ni Hao!"~ Hello from China
Summer Thrill~ Cucumber & Dill
Wow! It is August already and summer is flying by. It is hard to believe that in a few short weeks, there will be early morning sounds of school buses picking up children and vacation time will be over. Vermont has had an unusually cool and cloudy growing season, but alas it is time to start enjoying the fruits of our horticultural labors. One of the perennial challenges is what do do with the plethora of produce that comes at you fast and furiously all at the same time. While freezing, canning, and stocking up for the long winter months is the obvious answer, there is nothing that beats the gluttonous enjoyment of straight-from-the-garden tastes in every way one can conjur up. Some folks find themselves in a cuke-conundrum on what to do with too many....cucumbers. We here at the Diaries Farm would like to offer a few of our favorite simple and very tasty suggestions:
White Gazpacho
We usually whip this up by the pitcher-full and keep it in the refrigerator all summer.
Peel and halve three medium cucumbers and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut up into chunks and place in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Add to it a shinned clove of garlic, 3 tablespoons of cider vinegar, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon cracked pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (2 teaspoons dried), and one small can chicken broth. Process for a minute and then add 4 tablespoons sour cream and continue processing until smooth and creamy. Refrigerate until cold. This soup improves as is sits, but be sure to stir before serving.
A tasty garnish is easily made by chopping into 1/4 inch bits any or all of the following and tossing them together in a small bowl with virgin olive oil, juice of one lemon, salt & pepper: cucumbers, red pepper, green pepper, celery, chopped scallion, tomato, basil
Classic Cucumber Salad
This is very easy to prepare and keeps well in the fridge for a couple of weeks.
Peel and slice very thin 5 or 6 cucumbers. In colander set over a bowl, sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons course salt over cukes and toss lightly. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Salt draws out water and bitterness in the cucumbers. In the meantime, in a non-metal bowl, mix 1/4 cup cider vinegar with one teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon each salt and freshly cracked pepper, and at least one heaping tablespoon chopped dill. When the cucumbers are limp and have started turning translucent, rinse well in cold water until no longer salty. Don’t worry about draining them completely dry- a little extra water will help. Add to the vinegar mix and let marinate. We sometimes add a drizzle of good olive oil to this- sometimes not.
Curried Cucumbers
Yes- Hot cucumbers are very good.
Peel and seed 2 cucumbers and cut into 2” strips. Saute a large minced clove of garlic in a tablespoon or so of olive oil until it just starts to turn golden. Add the cukes and cook only until they appear wilted (a couple of minutes). Add 1 teaspoon of curry powder, 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar, and 1/4 cup of heavy cream to the pan and simmer only about 3 minutes more until the cream thickens a little. Salt and pepper to taste.
* * * * *
Cucumbers can be cut up into chunks and blanched in boiling water for 1 minute and cooled under running cold water. Try adding them to 1/2 cup of plain yogurt or sour cream with a tablespoon or two of any flavored vinegar or lemon juice and chopped mint or tarragon, a pinch of salt and crack of pepper.
For a quick picnic snack- arrange slices of cucumbers on a plate and sprinkle lightly with salt and then a heavier powdering of good lemon pepper.
Cucumber sandwiches-anyone? Spread thin party rye bread with a light Boursin or cream cheese and top with thin slices of cucumber and a fresh herb sprig.
If you slice a cucumber 1” thick or more and hollow out the center half way with a melonballer, it makes a tasty vessel for a wide range of tasty treats from crab or shrimp salad to shots of good vodka. For a decorative look, run the tines of a fork through the skin of a cuke lengthwise and then slice.
Add slices of cucumbers to water or iced beverages. Place slices over your eyelids to sooth tired eyes. Attach skins to your forehead on a hot summer's day- 'cool as a cucumber'.
Next time, let's do tomatoes...
'Be All Right'
Vermont Country Journal~ 'By the Sea, by the Beautiful Sea'
Summer! What can be better than the halcyon days of sun and fun? Give me endless summer. Shhhhh!...don't tell anybody: a Vermonter who doesn't like the cold! Nope. I don't find anything refreshing about cold anything-unless it is in the beverage department. Between you and me, I'll take planting season and growing season over brief glimpses of a quaint winterscapes seen through arctic-frozen window panes any day. An integral part of the Joys of Summer is being close to water. Nice large swimmable bodies of water. In the early days, a perfect summer's day was a long barefoot walk down a country road to a pond with a small raft anchored in the center of it. In order for those of us in the 'under-3-feet-tall' set to be able to have fun with the older crowd on the raft, we had to prove we were capable of saving ourselves from going under by swimming the length of the pond back and forth, twice. They didn't just let any ambitious imp hop in a try the marathon swim- one must undergo swimming lessons first. We would set out from my grandmother's house bright and early and get there before the sun had gotten a chance to warm the water from the night's chill. Guess who was the last one in? The peer group pressure from my tiny buddies must have been enough to keep me from showing them my lips blue, but there was some humiliation when I had to be saved in my first attempts to swim the big drink. Yup---had to be saved...by a girl. She was a big girl. And very kind. She had to have been in high school, or maybe even one of those Bennington College gals the town talked about. She took time out in the warmer watered afternoons to help me earn my waterwings, and before long, I was splashin' & playin' on the raft with the best of them.
A few of my childhood summers had to be spent in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Sprinklers and hoses and cheesy blow-up kiddie pools had to suffice on hot summer days. Maybe (if we were lucky) twice a season, we took a very long drive over to the Jersey shore. OCEAN CITY: with its long shallow beaches, gentle waves, and throngs of people. I loved it, and of course took home every souvenir I could find in the sand. The smell; the grit; the gulps of salt water forced into our lungs---it was all good.
A trip to Cape Cod as seen thru old postcards. Slideshow by MandT
(Patti Page singing ‘Old Cape Cod’)
When I became older and joined the ranks of the 'Tall People', I again found myself in the sweltering City of Washington, DC. I had come down from the north in the fall and, after first landing with my parents, I found myself subletting a small second-floor apartment in Georgetown. Besides my newly budding cooking career, I worked as a waiter in the bistro right below me. As it turned out, by day, the joint was a very popular eatery for every facet of life and position. By night, a very fun gay clientel turned it into a cabaret-especially on weekends. The restaurant was one of several by the same name spread out in the city. In one of them, Roberta Flack played piano on the weekends. 'Killing Me Softly' had just started becoming a hit. She played the Back Room at my restaurant as well as the one on Capitol Hill. Shortly after I'd started working there, I fell under the protectorship of a very warm and worldly gay couple. Upon hearing that I had no alternate plan for the summer than to work at 'Mr. Henry's', they came to me and said "You cannot stay in the City for the summer and we are taking you to Cape Cod with us". Ah-------how nice to be swept away!
Besides the circus-like atmosphere of Ocean City, I really had never spent much time at the shore. My friends had spent the previous two seasons living and working on the Cape. They knew every secret beach, every hidden freshwater pond. They took me places and enlightened me to beauty I had never before experienced until that point.
The beauty of Cape Cod has much to do with the light in which it is seen. My new destiny was found in the far reaches of the Outer Cape (about as far east as one can get) in and around the the old Portuguese fishing village of Provincetown. Provincetown has long been known as an artistic community-an excentric getaway of fun and culture. It is banked by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Cape Cod Bay on the other. The air is pure and clear. My first home was a most ideal honeymoon cottage (my 'protectors'-not mine) situated on a small salt pond in North Truro, which is in the highlands just before decending onto the sand bar, sea-level, last-town-on-the-Cape, which is Provincetown. It was probably the tiniest house I've ever been in-much too small for three. My wonderful friends had unknowingly introduced me to someone who was quickly to become my very first grown-up, adult, 'knock-your-socks-off' love. Wow! That was a long time ago...haha
The Cape has a very subtile beauty. Muted colors of pinks, lavenders, golds and greens. Often there is a mist and at night, fog horns fill the silent air with their different tones. Ocean waves are gentle, and the intensity of sunsets build until September when they are absolutely the most beautiful. For many years, Provincetown was home to the Provincetown Playhouse, where many famous actors and musicians would come to perform in summer stock.
The theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts where Eugene O'Neill's first play, 'Bound East for Cardiff', was performed.
There are very few places that I have been in all of my worldly travels that I would call 'one of the most beautiful spots on earth', but Cape Cod is one of them. After my first season on the Cape, I returned for two more years. At the end of the third year, I chose to persue my cooking career, which kept me in Philadelphia and then onto the west coast. But it does not fail that every summer I long for Cape Cod. It is in the blood. It is hard to say what etches such a thing in your heart and soul. Love? Beauty? Destiny? ----------- Memories?
Perhaps we shall get there again yet. After Labor Day when the town is reclaimed by the locals. The crowds have gone. The air is still warm and clear and the sunsets spectacular. If you've never been, you really should try to. You are in for a treat. But from experience, I will tell you that what Patti Page sings in the song is true:
"You're sure to fall in love with Old Cape Cod"
(The Provincetown Moors)
Tinder!
A tinderbox waiting to happen: view from a friend's house overlooking Lake Sonoma in California
Air quality in many parts of California is slowly improving. Smoke and haze linger from wildfires throughout the state after lightening ingnited at least 1,781 separate blazes (at its peak) on June 21st. Brush and forest fires have blackened more than 800,000 acres statewide, unprecidented in California's recorded history. A major blaze in Northern California is going on within ten miles of the above location. Although this photograph was taken in early spring, one can get an idea of how a fire gone unabated can easily get out of control.
Sunlight through clouds of smoke
Smoke covers the sky over inland valleys and even in between the coastal ridges, threatening small towns such as Big Sur, a scenic and popular destination within the redwoods and arid chaparral. Two years of drought, combined with disease-plagued trees and scrub bushes have made for volatile conditions.
The Piute fire burns out of control in the mountains east of Bakersfield, California.
At least 64 structures have been reported destroyed. The fire has been hot enough to melt beer bottles, jars and windows into puddles of glass. Some relief from the inferno has come recently from rainfall and fog along the coast. Around 20,000 firefighters from 41 states and Puerto Rico have been fighting more than 320 active fires around the state, and more on the way from Mexico, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Click here for more pictures.
Natural disasters are catastrophic, especially on this scale. California seems to have more than its fair share of them. Yet, return...we must.