The Pleasure of Pie

For the Love of Pyrex

READSTOWN, WI

My love affair with Pyrex all started with a tiny blue glass container that I later learned was a refrigerator dish, a remnant of the fifties. I stumbled upon the tiny rectangular dish in a thrift store, along with its slightly larger partner. I loved the robin’s egg blue glaze, and the perfectly fitted glass lids. While I must admit I was oddly charmed by these simple little pieces, and their $1 price tag, I ultimately loved them most for their practicality. The smaller of the two dishes turned out to be exactly the right size for a single serving of just about anything.

The purchase of these Pyrex dishes was followed by a few more refrigerator dishes, including two red ones that I flew half-way across the country. Then there was a tiny yellow casserole dish that was hard to justify buying, but harder still to walk past. The best find yet has perhaps been the trio of mixing bowls that I found at a thrift store for $5. The largest of the original set was missing, and I half-heartedly searched antique stores and flea markets for a replacement. I came across the bowl in a few places but never for less than $40, so I settled for three. Years later, my godmother completed the set for me, and though I have not had a kitchen to call my own since I acquired the sunshine yellow bowl, I grin a little each time I spy it in my storage closet, and imagine someday using it for large batches of bread dough. Beyond the pleasure and practicality of a set of nesting mixing bowls is that satisfaction I get each time I see the set on sale in a flea market, usually with a price tag in the neighborhood of $60.

Last weekend, my farm-owning friend and I went into town and wandered into what might be one of the most fantastic flea markets I’ve found in quite some time. Housed in an old tobacco warehouse, it’s the sort of flea market with heaps of dusty treasures, some more gently used than others. It was here that I found a lovely pink Pyrex pie plate. I’m not particularly fond of pink, but when it comes to Pyrex, I’m willing to make some exceptions. I’d never seen pink Pyrex before, at least nothing that started out as pink. Somehow on a pie plate, it seems perfect. On the way home, I may have been caught actually hugging the pie plate.

Tonight, rhubarb pie fills the dish, and aside from the anxiety that my lovely little treasure will meet the concrete floor in a fatal altercation, I can’t help but grin. 

The Weeds May Be Winning

READSTOWN, WI

I’d like to think that I’m winning the war on goldenrod, which if left unchecked, I am quite certain would take over the entire acre. Distracted from mulching by the new growth, I’ve spent whole mornings hoeing and hand weeding around the tiny tomato seedlings, leaving a trail of wilted plants behind me. But the goldenrod inevitably responds with enthusiastic new growth the next day, bright green stalks stretching up into the morning sun.

While all of suburbia seems to spend their Saturday afternoons convincing grass to grow on their lawns, we seem to have no trouble growing it in the garden, despite our countermeasures. It would seem that our efforts to keep the pea sprouts sufficiently watered are paying off in sod.

Meanwhile, across the aisle in the east side of the garden, the parsnips are coming in rather nicely. In the potato trenches. With no interest in eating the wild parsnips whose leaves are known to raise boils on gardeners’ skin, I carefully pull each individual stalk from deep in the newly turned earth with gloved hands. With the potatoes a ways off, the primary competition for the parsnips is a prickly weed that has run rampant in this small section of the garden. Fortunately, they have not spread much beyond the potato beds, but I do believe they increase in size and ferocity with each passing minute. What started out as a grisly little patch at breakfast is by lunch a vicious bush of thorny leaves. I find pulling these prickly weeds to be particularly satisfying, yanking the harsh green plant from deep in the earth, leaving behind me a bare patch of earth where I envision the lush foliage of the potato vines.      

I'd like to think that as time goes on, the ratio of weeds to vegetables will tip in our favor. In the meantime, I'll be cursing the grass and pulling out goldenrod. 

Dirt Under My Nails

READSTOWN, WI


My cheeks and nose are red, stained by the sun in spite of my hat and sunscreen. There is dirt under my fingernails, and a half-dozen or so small scratches on my arms from blackberry brambles. It's been nearly a week since I arrived here in central Wisconsin to help a friend start his organic farm. 


I am sitting under the shade of a neighbor's maple tree, enjoying the cool breeze blowing across the ridge. It's nice to sit in the cool and relax after another morning of solid work in the sun. This morning I planted the seeds of half a dozen different types of beans, which made up two rows, each about 40 feet long. Earlier this week, I put in about 650 small seedlings, including peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos. 


I enjoy the work, but I must say, dreaming of fresh tomatoes while staring down a bare patch of earth makes me terribly impatient. What a tough time of year, to be working the earth each day, drooling over seed packet pictures of speckled purple beans and golden beets, and knowing that the bounty is weeks away. 


Fortunately, the local farmer's markets have started for the season, and I have snagged asparagus and rhubarb. These early season delicacies with their short harvest seasons are real treats and help to quell my cravings for fresh produce. Still, I look forward to the satisfaction of eating what I have planted with my own hands, something I have not done for quite some time. 


Though there are to be other adventures mixed in, this summer will be dominated by dirt and weeds and beans and tomatoes, and I expect my writing here will reflect that. Stay tuned for more on the trials and tribulations of getting a small organic farm off the ground. (Or out of the ground....). 

Family Visit

CHICAGO, IL


Four-year-old niece: "Aunt Kit, can you reach that branch and get those berries for me?" 


Me: "No, F. (And as a quick distraction...) Hmm. That looks like a Juniper." 


Niece: "No, Aunt Kit. That's a Jupiter tree." 


Right. Of course. I always have had some trouble keeping my planets and trees straight. 

Hungry in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

Buenos Aires was colder than expected. The meager blankets provided by the hostel were hardly adequate and each night I found myself pulling on my puffy at some point in the middle of the night. The handful of people I saw sleeping on the sidewalks and church steps cocooned in threadbare blankets reminded me as always of how grateful I am to have a bed of some sort each night. It's not always in the same place, and that bed could be a sleeping pad, a borrowed couch, or an air mattress, but a bed nonetheless. 

The cool temps made for pleasant days wandering the city. The city is rife with shady tree-lined boulevards and public parks and gardens which made it an altogether pleasant time of the year to be in Buenos Aires, which I imagine in the height of summer turns into a sweltering concrete jungle. My travel companion and I wandered the neighborhoods, seeking out particular cemeteries, cathedrals, and art museums, and admiring the gardens, sculptures, and architecture as we walked. 

I must admit that my food experiences in Argentina, along with Chile and Uruguay, was a little disappointing. I am certain that there are some fantastically amazing restaurants to be found in the southern reaches of the Americas, just as there are to be found anywhere in the world really, but when it came to local cuisine, that which is readily available to a budget traveler such as myself, I was faced with the same three mediocre choices: pizza, pasta, sandwiches, and the occasional Empanada (which I love. It's true. Anything stuffed into a little pocked of dough and fried is alright with me). 

It is true that Argentina is well known for its beef, and perhaps rightly so, but even Argentina's beef failed to make me an enthusiastic carnivore, in large part because of the lack of imagination in what they do with it. (As a disclaimer, I should perhaps remind you that I was in only a handful of places in the country, and for not more than a couple of weeks total). There were plenty of Parrillas serving up grilled meat of all sorts and from all parts of the animal (I stuck to eating the more familiar parts like loins and avoided things like intestine), but that was the extent of the options: which piece of what animal you would like off the grill. No added anything. No sides, no fixins, no incorporating the meat into dishes. 

Perhaps traveling in places like India, Thailand, and Vietnam, has set my standards high for food while traveling. In these places, what I ate was intimately intertwined with my experience of the place, and in many ways defined it. Perhaps it would be silly to choose travel destinations based entirely on local cuisine, but this particular trip made me realize that it's a consideration to be added to the list.