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.