zirconium

"Every breakup is like a snowflake. They're all different but they all end up in the same slush pile." - Chris Bluemer, during a Billy Collins workshop (Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 2005)

"It's dangerous to cry in a poem -- better for the reader than the writer to cry." - Billy Collins, during the same session

"There should always be onions in your kitchen, for should a stovetop fire occur, two quartered onions added to the center of the flames will immediately starve them of oxygen. This is a tried and true method that comes from old Europe where chimney fires were numerous, and many larger fires were avoided by applying this method." - Madeleine Kamman, The New Making of a Cook, p. 635

"According to a Roman superstition, evil spirits often lurked inside fresh eggs. Many Romans believed that before they cracked open and ate an egg, they should pierce the shell so the evil spirits could escape. The sharp point at the end of [their spoons] was perfectly designed to do this." - James Cross Giblin, From Hand to Mouth; or, How We Invented Knives, Forks, Spoons, and Chopsticks and the Table Manners to Go with Them

"My fascination with croquettes started when I was living in Amsterdam, more than a decade ago. As I was often not sober, for all sorts of reasons, I managed to fall in love with a national perversion: warm and cheesy grease balls that came out of a vending machine." - Yotam Ottolenghi, introducing a recipe for "Eggplant Croquettes" (Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes...)

Housework, hymn prep, and commissions are going to take up the rest of my day, but I ran errands this morning, which got me out of the house, which was a fine thing, because it is beautiful in Nashville today. Perfect weather for going to festivals or sitting in parks if you're not under the weather or under deadline. (Knight writes about some of it here.)

My main reason for getting myself to the Farmers' Market this a.m. was to get two kitchen knives and a penknife sharpened by Cathey Grossman, whose Edges service had gotten a rave review from Chris Chamberlain. She's located between the Tamale Pot and the pizza station. She's friendly as can be, her prices are good (total cost for my three = $9), she got the job done in 30 minutes (there was another customer's set ahead of me), and she put the blades in sleeves when I picked them up. She didn't have the equipment to sharpen scissors today, but told me to bring them next time. (This is all a huge contrast to the last sharpening service I'd tried.)

The market itself didn't seem crowded, although parking on the Rosa Parks side was already a mess at 10 a.m. I'd accounted for three-fourths of a bottle of cava last night, so I was pleased to learn that the Tamale Pot was already serving tamales, although I ended up asking for the stuffed pepper platter instead...



...and also an order of beignets. Toppings were free today, so I had one drizzled with chocolate and the other with caramel.

I'd stopped by the market earlier this week as well, so I didn't need to pick up much in the way of veg or fruit -- just long beans and raw almonds from Shreeji's. (I couldn't resist peering at the shelves of frozen Indian pastries and paneers, but I behaved myself.) It being October, the place is teeming with chrysanthemums and pumpkins, as well as shelves of salsas and pickles and sauces, and butternut squashes thicker than a football player's arm. The longest line, though, every time I've been there, is in front of the Moose Head kettle corn kiosk (they have a looong list of flavors -- I think I saw "green apple" in there...).

The last time I sewed anything of consequence with a machine was during my third year of college, for a musical. So it had been a while.

Mary Philips is a damn good teacher, the Janome machines are nice, and the handling a lot of pretty fabric for a good cause was the perfect way to get past a rather wretched Wednesday.

Although there were many good things about yesterday as well, including the Crackacino cupcake (coffee and chocolate, with a pudding center) at Sweet 16th:

Athens, October 2011

The advent of fall has made me nostalgic for walks in and around markets where the people around me are speaking Greek or French, and where I feel triumphant at deciphering simple labels.



There's plenty to do, here at home. Thanksgiving will be here within the blink of an eye. There are plenty of markets and shops within a few miles of my house that I have yet to become acquainted with.



I'm greedy. I want to linger among my souvenirs of the past and steep fully in the present and get on with acquiring and sharpening the skills my future self needs in her toolbox.



And this is what the past and present tell me about the future: you will keep losing parts of yourself, and you will keep building on what remains.