a bountiful trip home

That would be around 2 pounds of Japanese eggplant, three globe eggplants, a cup of blackberries, a small canteloupe, baby zucchini, grown-up zucchini, some tomatoes, and that ziploc bag is full of kohlrabi. Two quart bags of sweet corn in the freezer, too.* Despite more tomatoes and cucumber than anyone knows what to do with, there is still talk of how it has been a bad year for the gardens - the beets were disappointing, and no one's beans were worth anything. But I made enough gazpacho for a gathering the other night to fill a jumbo punch bowl. I love my aunts and my parents, and I love that they let me plunder their gardens, too.

The blackberries take something back, though. We have canes in the backyard that my dad transplanted from our place in Carbondale -- they were by the barn, and then another wild stretch of them on a fence. I have memories of spending a decent amount of time picking when I was younger. I have more patience for blackberries than I probably should, but I'll stand out for hours getting the canes out of the way of the berries and pruning. This was part of Friday and Saturday afternoons for me, and it's also the reason that the backs of my knees and calves are sunburned. But every so often, one of the berries was the Proustian moment** and I remembered sweating it out by our pond and how big the berries used to be. It was satisfying to do, even if it did require extracting a few thorns and a funky sunburn. I worked for so long on the canes this weekend because my niece and nephew are coming to see my folks next week, and I wanted to clear them a path. I am a sentimental kid.

The other fascinating thing for me was how things come together when your neighbors are your relatives - and how you can mention a vague plan for dinner and three hours later, you have a table of 7 and a crazy overflowing potluck. There is some contradiction in living close by your friends, in a city, but taking the care of planning and tinkering and managing things in advance. It's wonderful when it works, but the pace is so different. And then living within miles of relatives, a minimum of tinkering yields a whirlwind of activity. I don't know if I could do it everyday, but it is wonderful to soak up for a week. And when it is quiet, it's so very quiet.





* the TSA re-ran my carry-on bag in St. Louis, which held the two bags of sweet corn and a cool pack, and I said to the guy "if it helps, there's sweet corn..." and he just smiled at me.

** forgive me, I bought a copy of Saveur in the airport, since my beloved Gourmet disappeared, and I think the writing is a little more...obvious? But I also got up at 4:30 to drive myself the 2+ hours to the airport, and there's a bit missing in my brain power today, too.