To Blog or Not to Blog or "I Blog, Therefore I Am"

I haven't been blogging lately because I've been writing my pantry book, among a few other assignments and general distractions. Right now I am holed up at an undisclosed but luxurious location near the Lahey Clinic where my husband has had his fifth surgery in nine months (three emergency up in New Hampshire; two planned here in Massachusetts). While he recovers for several days, I am only a mile away and brought my laptop and numerous research. It has been a productive mixture of caring for my husband as best I can while he is in the hospital and being completely selfish in indulging my down time in the hotel room. Here I have no meals to prepare, no children to interrupt me, and 300 count cotton sheets with a duvet (part of the hotel's new upscale campaign). There is even a hotel shuttle that will whisk me within a mile of here for any errand or need: as Lahey is having a lot of parking and construction issues, I am happy to rely on this service. Meanwhile, the Burlington Mall is a mile away and I discovered a Trader Joes tucked around another corner of the town, just off Route 128. I couldn't live here but I could certainly live in a hotel like this for a while--if I'd had half-a-brain when I left, I would have packed gym clothes and shoes as there is a great workout center here, too.

Because of the book and various other things I have often felt guilty about even thinking of blogging. On one hand it seems so silly and self-serving, on the other it is a purging and almost necessary. There is a certain level of self-awareness or perhaps consciousness that accompanies my blogging. I am happy to write here but I find, too, that perhaps too much of my writing energy has been spent in the blogs this year.

Tomorrow there is supposed to be a huge Northeaster, not one that will just impact New England but most of the upper east coast. I am looking forward to sitting in my hotel room, with my lap top, watching the flakes fall past my 8th floor window, and knowing my husband is recovering down the road and that my children are in good care with our friend Judy in New Hampshire. Sometimes we have to give ourselves permission to just do what we need to do. Too often, especially in certain partnerships or as parents, we put our own needs last, but only to our detriment.

I am in major write-zone now. The next six weeks will be especially so--besides, mud season in New Hampshire. What better time to be holed up with a project? I promise to write more about it in the coming months--a preview of pantries, so to speak. I have been reluctant to discuss pantries too much in this blog site until the book is written. Otherwise it seems a bit like taking the cake out of the oven before it is ready: it may look done but it is all gooey on the inside and is rather disappointing in the end. I grew up with a writer friend who never even discussed her books or the ideas behind them until they were published. It was intrusive to her to have a discourse about ideas that were not fully formed in her own mind. She said that while the book was a still a secret, it was still "hers" and then it became the world's. There is something to that sentiment, something quite confident and noble in the grand scheme.

This author would have never blogged--I don't even believe she kept a diary except when she started out writing. That, too, was an intrusion on a very private world not to mention a distraction from a disciplined writing life. This friend of mine did not have children--when you look at some of the greatest female writers to date, most do not have children or wrote from an older period in their lives. Let's see: Mary Shelley, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Emily Dickinson...just to name a few. I'm sure this is not the case today but I don't know enough about contemporary women writers to be certain. But I'm willing to wager that most either aren't yet married or don't yet have children or have had their children, and their marriages, and are into another phase of their lives.

There is a high degree of energy that accompanies parenting, coupling, and the day-to-day. Writing seems like frosting at times but yet for the writer, something that must be written. It is as necessary as the easel for a painter or instrument for the musician: a writer can't not write and if it comes out in a modern 'blog' or the occasional published work, or a hidden journal meant only for the author's eyes, or even a torn piece of paper with an elusive idea, it is the process of writing, not necessarily the conclusion, that drives us on.

Dream Shopping along the Connecticut River

Walpole is in Cheshire County on the Vermont-New Hampshire border but it seems miles from here. It is a large and lovely New England town, redolent with millionaires and other luminaries (Ken Burns, the documentarian, lives there) and naturally, over time, along come the "cute little shops", often a curse to a lovely New England town.

But Walpole's are different: they fit in, with locals and tourists alike. L.A. Burdick's for instance doesn't need any more publicity but what a destination! You can sit among the luxe surroundings on Main Street in the center of town and sip on a white or dark hot chocolate (we had ours with pain de chocolat, equally yummy) or pad things up with a gourmet brunch. Next door you can buy their cocoa mix (comprised of shaved chocolate) or any number of chocolate items made right there. [NOTE: Burdick's website, at right, lists links to other Walpole destinations and their other New England cafes/stores.]

Several doors down is Tole's Variety, the most amazing gourmet market I have ever seen in roughly 12x30 feet of space: we opened the door to luscious produce, cartons of fresh berries, beautiful leeks, even kumquats (I was on the hunt as Shaw's no longer carries them). Such fresh beautiful abundance you would think it was the height of summer! Further along near the cash register is a large cheese case, the size of most ice cream freezers: here you can find every world cheese imaginable, or so it seems, from New England artisans to Spain's finest to Walpole's own Boggy Hollow farmcheese. At the end of the market is the most beautiful meat counter I have ever seen. Displayed in between are shelves of hard to find items as well as the more practical: lots of salts, olive oils, vinegars, a perfect gourmet pantry. The store was bustling and we want to go back (Edie, Rosemary, my daughter and I took a day trip up that way on December 21st) when we won't be away all day first.

Around the corner is a store called Ruggles & Hunt: the perfect gift shop with high end and lower priced items all combined into one pleasing place to browse. My daughter was able to find things for her friends and I was able to find some items for my hard-to-buy-for husband. The store has toys, gifts and the most beautiful clothes and shoes. It, too, was bustling.

Further along our route we stopped at the King Arthur Flour Company Store in Norwich, Vermont and then crossed the Connecticut River again to Hanover where we went to the Co-op up there. Another beautiful store--the kind we are clamoring for down here in the Monadnock Region where many of us are convinced that such a co-op or a Trader Joe's would do a bang-up business! Anything but Stop & Shop, please...but Peterborough has Roy's and I am grateful for that surprisingly ample but small market where most items are even less than the larger supermarket in town.

It just goes to show you that true Foodies will drive just about anywhere on the planet for a good meal, a hot chocolate to die for, or a good box of kumquats. We want to plan another Walpole day soon, although I imagine this time we'll end up stopping at Stan's Discount Center in Westmoreland on the way home. Who can refuse 4 containers of perfectly good organic ricotta for $2.50? It's that kind of place: a bit grungy, well-traveled, and full of unexpected bargains. The produce can be iffy but where else will you find 20 kinds of canned red peppers or balsamic vinegar amongst damaged boxes of Cocoa Puffs or stashes of organic soup?

Wierd Blogging Comments

Now I know they must have a software program that looks for Keywords in blogs, but really, getting a "Gee, I really like your Blog! I can relate to everything you are saying! So, check me out at DAN'S CARPET WORLD, ok? Keep blogging!" makes my blood curl. Now the burden is on me to go through each blog posting and selectively delete these advertorials--bloggertorials? Whatever they are I'm hoping someone has invented a software to prevent them.

Blogs are being used to advertise. I just "blog because I am". It is a great place to write and the fact that a few people actually read it and comment on occasion--genuinely comment!--makes my day!

So I promise I will sort through the 18 Comments left with a blog and will hope I find the diamond in the rough: the words from one who takes the time to be here--a true reader.

Thank you!

New Year ~ New Gear

I haven't been writing much, in general, and this pattern must end. Next week I will start mini-blogging as a warm up to my writing mornings for the pantry book. The photos are complete, the outline fixed, the research done...the bulk of the writing remains. Now that the holidays are over, health concerns in my family have been alleviated, etc. I have no more excuses not to hunker down and finish what I've started. Oh yes, and there is a foot of snow on the ground and no gardens to worry about!

Christmas came and went--it was lovely but I was quite sick with strep and thus didn't have a chance to really reflect or pause or anything that might be blog-worthy (if so I might write a few snippets in the weeks ahead). It was a quiet, peaceful and lovely occasion with immediate family and that was enough. On January 1st we threw an Open House in honor of my husband's 50th (he had turned 50 a few days earlier)--it was so much fun that we want to have an annual open house to celebrate the year ahead and see good friends (but next time I'll do most of the catering--this year it was wonderful to have someone else do it because I had been so ill the week before).

But on Epiphany, January 6, the Twelfth and last day of Christmas, my friends Edie and Rosemary and I got together, exchanged gifts, and had some of R's incredible stollen, so incredible that it would convert even the snarliest of the Stollen & Fruitcake Defamation League. It was more moist than dry and laden with the most lovely fruits soaked in rum to which she added smoodges (for lack of a better word!) of almond paste. None of that yucky candied peel! If she were to ever market this bread, I would be first in line and likely a financial backer (did you hear that Rosemary?). It was so yummy that if you added butter, even a skim of it, it would have ruined the flavors or at least blurred them beyond distinction. Rosemary is an incredible baker--and used to be a professional. She lives in a darling late-Victorian house, complete with original pantries and a vintage-style kitchen (her kitchen will be featured in an upcoming OLD-HOUSE INTERIORS article and her pantries will be in my book). And now I have visions of a program for her on FoodNetwork, filmed in her charming kitchen: "Baking with Rosemary" or something sweet. She could be the Midwest's answer (by way of New England) to Paula Deen! And that Rachel Ray needs some competition. Rosemary grew up in Michigan with a mother and grandmother who baked--pies, cakes, breads, cookies--often for the whole week in one day. She also collects old vintage cookbooks and kitchen things and loves pantries--in these regards we may very well have been twins separated at birth!

We had fun with our gifts--each appropriate in their own way and carefully chosen--and then we each wrote out our goals, dreams, hopes, aspirations for the year ahead (on lovely Florentine stationery that Rosemary had laid out for us). We read them aloud to each other and then sealed them with wax and a stamp. Rosemary carefully tucked them away in a drawer for next year when we vowed to get together again to revisit what we had written and to write again what we imagine and want for ourselves. It was a marvelous ritual and I found it somehow energizing. I might mention a few of mine as the year goes along and then again, I might not. Sharing with two good friends who I am so fortunate to know is expression enough!

The Right Couch-Part 2

In early September I wrote about our purchasing several cushy plump love seats with matching ottoman and club chair. That lead to an entirely new room--or combination of two parlors--which is now almost complete.

We did take the wall down (it can always be returned for preservation purists) and now have a lovely expanse of space approximately 17' x 35' with two fireplaces and a southwest view. The wall removal was only the start--my husband decided to get UV glass to replace all of the old window glass (for energy and sun reasons--we are saving the glass!). We have too many items that can fade or be otherwise damaged by the sun and as we don't like heavy drapes, that was not an option (I am having Federal style swags made for window treatments--simple and not too much fabric--the question right now is what color?). The walls were repapered in a yellow damask and the wood trim painted a mushroom brown. We found a perfect rug and my husband traded a tractor and some other items for it--the rug was "bombed" for moths and cleaned. Its red, faded rose areas, and blue tones pull the room together and lighten the wall trim and couch colors.

Meanwhile, there was an old club couch at the farm--a real behemoth of a thing that always sat under a portrait of Isaac Meeker along the longest, windowless wall in the living room. It came with my grandparents from New Jersey and was in my grandfather's Newark home before that. It has huge ball feet and is long enough for a grown man to nap comfortably upon it (my own grandfather used to at the end of a day in the garden). I have many memories of that couch: my grandfather watching Perry Mason and asking me to make chocolate chip cookies, our Irish setter Rusty dying in my mother's arms the first year we moved from Ohio (he was almost 13), watching TV with family or girlfriends or assorted dogs and cats all piled in together (it comfortably seats six grown people sitting upright). No one wanted the couch or had the room. We even considered leaving it for the next owners as we have an abundance of couches. But it kept cloying at me--I couldn't leave it behind, even if we had to store it in the barn here.

[When Paulette, who helps clean our house sometimes with her sister Carmen, heard that I was salvaging the couch and having it come here she blurted out: "I used to neck on that couch!" (during one of my aunt's legendary parties)]

So, amazingly, it has become "the right couch" for our new space. It will occupy, once reupholstered (a small investment) in a lovely chocolatey fabric with blue and yellow and rose highlights in an acanthus leave pattern (very William Morris-like), the southern wall beneath the two front windows. My husband had the brilliant idea to move the blue couch that was there to the southeast parlor and bring the Queen Victoria table (there is a story to this table, too, but it once belonged to the monarch) and center it in the room in front of the fireplace. And, we still have a wall space for the Yorkshire cupboard--a piece given to my husband's family from Cousin Bob Barton and Rachel Warren when they lived in Ireland--where the blue couch was going to go.

On one end of the room we have a cozy cluster of couches and our television, complete with new coffee table that my husband hates but already it has become a place for homework, game-playing, and dinner (besides, it is so low you hardly notice it when looking in the room) and on the other we have a more formal and open but equally comfortable area. There are several "conversation" areas now and we await the large couch to complete the ensemble.

The room is a blend of Federal taste and furniture and late Victorian design coupled with modern comfort. It also marries quite well some ancestral elements from our collective family backgrounds. Somehow, it all seems to work and amazingly, Temple and I agreed on everything (well, except that coffee table!). I'll post some photographs soon when the window treatments are completed and remaining furniture is in. In the meantime, we'll be putting our Christmas tree in the corner of the front area of the room where it has always been--at least for the past ten Christmases.

After a period of time of "unsettlement" in our family, as I like to call it now, we are really nesting here and it feels good, for all of us. I can finally hang my hat and say, "Ah, we're home..." Having a room like this just off the kitchen that we can enjoy as a family or share for entertaining--finally a large accessible room for dinner party overflow--makes us never want to leave. And that's "a good thing".