full moon magic

Oh my. I just went down­stairs to rev­el in the qui­et peace of the house tonight, the rest of my fam­i­ly asleep, think­ing hap­pi­ly about our din­ner par­ty here this evening with our farmer friends up the road (more on that tomor­row), won­der­ing if I could ever make a blue­ber­ry pie like Judy’s, and check­ing on the can­dles I moved from the pic­nic table to the front win­dows to keep David across the road hap­py in the late evening. But guess what I saw? The whole front of Stillmead­ow, the ancient white salt­box house across the road, was com­plete­ly lit up. Glow­ing from top to bot­tom. For a moment I was afraid! What on earth?

Then I real­ized it was the light of the full moon high above our back mead­ow, light­ing up the house as if by a street­light, only an eerie, glow­ing feel­ing. I want­ed to go out to explore, but my city-girl nature (what hap­pened to those for­ma­tive years in Indi­ana? sor­ry, Moth­er and Dad!) almost kept me from it. But to see the full moon! I had to try.

I crept out onto the stone path I so labo­ri­ous­ly weed­ed this sum­mer (must find an eco-friend­ly way to pre­vent encoun­ter­ing those same weeds next July). What if there were toads on them like the ones we had on our ter­race dur­ing din­ner? I did­n’t want to squash one under my bare feet! Or a snake, as vis­it­ed Avery’s birth­day par­ty long ago, in the leaves beside the stone wall? Any­way, I got my courage togeth­er and ven­tured out. The trees here are so mas­sive and so old that you are alter­nate­ly grate­ful for their elder­ly and gen­tle shade, and def­i­nite­ly afraid lest their branch­es land on your house in a storm.

Tonight they were black before the glow of the moon. No far­away, roman­tic light this: no, this was an assertive, glit­ter­ing, in-your-face shim­mer, seem­ing­ly right THERE. I looked over again at the house across the road, illu­mi­nat­ed quite sharply but with a fun­ny, selec­tive light that did­n’t seem to touch the shrubs and trees near­by. Just the white clap­boards. And since I’ve been spend­ing all my sum­mer read­ing time late­ly with the mem­oirs and cook­books of Gladys Taber, the most beloved of all the house­’s inhab­i­tants, I felt in an odd way that she was here. Was she hap­py I was thumb­ing tonight through her My Own Cook­book (the crazy large-print edi­tion that Anne, her grand­daugh­ter and my dear friend, had to loan me!)? Was she glad to see farm­ers and their chil­dren sit­ting at the table of the house across the road tonight, being fed as she fed count­less farmer friends, exchang­ing recipes and gos­sip, laugh­ing at each oth­er’s sto­ries as we do? Will she be pleased with the recipes I choose to repro­duce when I edit her cook­book, and will she give me a help­ing hand when I try to describe her and her life and ways, and our place here in her world? I hope so.

Today was so peace­ful. Well, first it was hot and sweaty while we played ten­nis. I love it! I think I’ve turned a cor­ner. I can actu­al­ly hit a seri­ous fore­hand with­out fear­ing I’ll miss it alto­geth­er. OK, some­times I miss it. But there are more and more times that the ball seems to just get hit! Which is a lot of fun. But from there we had a won­der­ful­ly relaxed after­noon, start­ing with the per­fect lunch for left­over roast pork:

Cuban Sand­wich­es

My friend Alyssa will laugh: this sand­wich was inspired by one you can get at the I.P.N Deli on Green­wich Street in my old ‘hood of Tribeca in my now-long ago and mis­spent ear­ly mid­dle age. It was and is the last hold­out of non-chic­dom in that fabled area of Low­er Man­hat­tan. It is peo­pled exclu­sive­ly by res­i­dents of the rent-con­trolled coun­cil hous­ing of Inde­pen­dence Plaza and the near­by con­struc­tion work­ers whose num­bers are over­whelm­ing these days. And nan­nies. But for me, it was the place for a deca­dent, wicked sand­wich on a day when I was head­ed for a non-remu­ner­a­tive and prob­a­bly dull after­noon in our sweet lit­tle neigh­bor­hood park, Wash­ing­ton Mar­ket, play­ing with my child. Now, lit­tle did I know the days of play­ing in the park would be so FLEET­ING. I am ashamed now of how I let myself feel bored, now that I have a world-weary almost 11-year-old who needs me for so lit­tle! And we’re nev­er bored. Moth­ers of small chil­dren take heart: the bore­dom is such a short-lived, sweet lit­tle gift. Not that it seems like it when you’re stuck in the park.

But my Cuban Sand­wich would have been a nice improve­ment on the deli’s ver­sion. For one thing, Tony’s roast pork is a rev­e­la­tion, and who knows what they were grilling the deli ver­sion on or in.

After lunch I indulged myself with “Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal” while under­ch­eff­ing din­ner. How I will miss my Amer­i­can soaps when we return to Lon­don on Sat­ur­day! Avery took a long cozy bath in the guest bath­room adja­cent to the ter­race and every so often one of us called to her through the screen in the win­dow: “you still in there?” John tried (one knows not yet how suc­cess­ful­ly) to stem the pop­u­la­tion of yel­low jack­ets in our vicin­i­ty, with a set of traps and some spray. All I can say is, nobody with wings vis­it­ed our din­ner par­ty tonight.

Well, more on that tomor­row. Drum­roll, though, please: this is POST NUM­BER 300 of my blog! Hap­py birth­day, or what­ev­er… it’s been a lot of fun.