Niyas Place

Fat Rabbits--Silo of Pudge

 

It's really all my fault. 

Most rabbits are treated as farm animals, living at the whims of nature. Some neutered and spayed, some not. Mine live indoors and are waited on hand and foot. About this time every year (spring rabbit multiplication time) they start emotional eating like you wouldn't believe. Their unfulfilled bellies, normally full of babies or proud fathers waiting, discover eating almost does the trick. So every day, the gorge starts immediately. Especially the boy who competes with everyone to eat the most, he even snorts as he eats. His body is ballooning out like a farm silo. When he goes to groom himself he rolls over backwards because he's too fat. I believe they call this emotional eating!

Now if I'm to be honest, skinny and me never got along very well. And even though the rabbits have had an influence on my diet for the better-- I eat more green leaf type things-- still my body follows it's gene pattern with nomadic composure; wandering through all the foods of world like I had 500 lifetimes left. And if I wasn't addicted to regular bike and swim excursions, I'm sure I'd look like a farm silo as well. 

Sigh, I'm on my way now to get them berry yogurt treats. I can't deny them. No baby rabbits because I made them my pets. Yeah, their life is cushy as a result. But it's a question isn't it? Is taking away their nature worth it to them? Would we all willingly give up babies and spouses for a first class lifetime seat on an airplane? Don't answer that out loud.

I have to admit though they do seem pretty happy. 

Chubby and bouncy...

• • •

Dakota: Glaring at me. 

Me: What?

Dakota: Get to the store. Get on it. 

Me: I'm busy typing.

Dakota: But look what you've made of me. Now chop, chop!

Me: I'm goin, I'm goin. jeez...

Lavendar and Wildflower Honey Crème Brulèe

Now that I live in Sonoma and the temps reach the 70’s daily, it’s difficult to consider a deep read of fiction. Not that I would have access to it, given that my books are in a deluge of boxes in the garage. But, naked now of the sub zero temperatures and howling winds that drive the mind to grow a new imagination, I find myself reading a cookbook. I linger on every word. ‘Garnish’, ‘ramekin’, ‘lavendar blossom’, ‘mesclun greens’, ‘toasty flavor’, ‘fig jam’.

While waiting for the moving truck (four days late), I found myself getting a salad to go from the charming and apparently acclaimed restaurant, The Girl and the Fig. The artwork alone makes you want to try everything. I went in for a salad and walked out with a salad, bread and fig jam, fig lotion, more jam, a side of eggs (need protein in stressful times) and a cookbook that I can’t keep my face out of. The staff was all too happy to chat with me about ‘whatever’ even though they were super busy. I wanted them to adopt me, take me home, give me a bed to sleep on and serve me Crème Brulee because the floor at my house was getting old; as I waited for the driver who had been subpoenaed for sleeping on the side of the road in the truck, and had no keys to drive the truck for awhile.

I took my food in boxes to the park and tried to convince my body that I was in ‘real warmth’, this is the real sun and it’s okay to relax and enjoy. After lunch I fell asleep in the grass. It was like a dream. I woke up with red tail hawks flying above and the view of a man in a convertible mini reading a book. Coming from Boulder, a place where there is lots of mental and physical space, I had forgotten that people sneak away to parks often in the Bay Area for an ample slice of non-demanding privacy.

Somehow in this place of plenty, Sonoma CA, reading a cookbook instead of fiction is perfect. And today, as I make Creamy Polenta, Braised Chicken with Prunes and Olives, Lavendar and Wildflower Honey Crème Brulee from my new cookbook, and assume a normal workday, I’ll be looking out my backyard at the bunny hut, a palm tree, a huge oak tree that seems to keep the Sonoma Creek safe and two baby redwood trees that Dakota goes a little nuts around when he smells them.

So, why leave Boulder and move to Sonoma? ...you are wondering. I’ll give you a hint. I needed warmth and my poor lungs couldn’t take the altitude in Boulder. And it was time to come home. But there's more! There’s always more…and much that I have yet to discover. Like maybe I couldn’t live without The Girl and the Fig Cookbook and Dakota couldn’t live without those redwoods and Caila his better half can’t live without both of us being healthy and happy. That’s the kind of rabbit Caila is, very sensitive and caring. Unlike her unruly but extremely characterized counter part Dakota.

Dakota says, ‘Any place with this many smells has gotta be good.’

ps: He's jealous of the rooster that wakes me up at dawn because he knows that's one of my favorite things and he hasn't refined his vocal chords beyond a grunt here and tiny sneeze there...

Moroccan Stew | Orange | Soul's Braille

This isn't a Martha Stewart tip on ethnic food styles or the story of orange or new age interpretation's of the human soul. (Oh, but if I were queen of the world and had that kind of all powerful credibility, who knows)? No, this is more stream of consciousness goop--a thumbprint of a busy, slightly mischievious redhead contemplating change, in a season of change.

I was on this fabulous mountain bike ride this morning, dreaming of the Moroccan Stew I would make today and how expensive saffron is--how Moroccan Stew has every fall color in it. And how I would never know anything about it if not for my Around The World Cooking Parties some years back when we made a new meal a week from a different country.
And then this little squirrel ran out in front of me, stopped, looked at me, looked at the big nut in it's paws and ran looking to bury it quick. It probably thought I would take it and use it in the stew. Animals have this infrared beam on our thoughts. It's a little unnerving.

That got me to thinking about how I was already organizing all the containers of my life for fall. How everything from work, to writing, to painting to men to cooking, to new friends, to old friends, to favorite cafes, and using my cell phone as my project manager of life...etc. etc. would all work together to create the perfect me. How boring is that? It seems fall is not only for canning peaches but for canning how to live and feel as well. I wondered if anyone else does this? Is a natural transitional vice or virtue? I wonder if we lived in a mud hut as my friend in Taos is intending to do this winter if we be burying our food for refrigeration and growing our own Saffron for the stew, never mind giving up the cell phone as project manager. I'm a ways away from that kind of letting go.

Back to Moroccan Stew. So orange and red/brown and mysterious in flavor. The braille of a foreign land -- the stories and secrets seem to be stewing in there (pun intended).

I just can't eat it and not feel a little wild.
I think of fall as this kind of inner braille. All our priorities for the year and the things we regret not doing in the summer, our joys, grievances as a year is ending all seem to culminate and surface in the fall.

I doubt this will be a fall of canned words, and calculated ways of living. Things are breaking up, change is a foot.
I think it may be a fall where I'm a little terrified that people will see the sauce from the stew on my shirt because I'm enjoying it just a little too much. That laughter will come spilling out in really untimely moments. That professional scripts that have kept me up for over a decade will begin to erode as new business and design passions lead the imagination.

As I travelled the soft dirt paths on the bike I also thought about all the 911 retakes I've watched over the past 2 weeks. And how a little instinct could go a long way at this point in our history. As our world continues to not get less scary politically and more chaotic, designs for how to live make less and less sense and a little wildness could be the beginning of real action--a revival of instinct. Could letting go of how we think we're supposed to live be the beginning of the kind of wild that is practical and sensible for all concerned? Could wild be the new sensible?

Back to the stew again. I know that I'll be serving it up as often as possible this winter. I think the secret ingredient is the saffron. So foreign, red and full of earthy flavor--it's hard to think of much else but the warm comfort of it.

I'll skip the canning this year, at least of anything other than berries, that is.

--Dakota glared at me as I wrote this. He doesn't like the word 'stew'. He's offended by the whole rabbit stew thing that only unenlightened soul's (his words, not mine) take part in.

On Tolerant Pilgrims, Rabbits and The Erotic Pillsbury Doughboy

It’s interesting to me, that the first Thanksgiving occurred in a rare moment of peace between the Pilgrims and the Massasoit’s in Plymouth in the early 1600’s. An Indian named Tisquantum had been devoted to helping the colonization of the Pilgrims; his motives to carve out the destiny of his people. You know, share the corn and furs so to speak. The evening of the first Thanksgiving marked a truce; the Governer of Cape Cod agreed to pay back losses caused by the colonist’s early grave robbing. The Pilgrim’s situation felt secure enough to have a large feast. However, some 90 Massasoit’s showed up and the Pilgrims marched around firing their guns as an early warning to ill intent. This brought about a couple hours of peace to feast and give thanks. Soon after though, the Massasoit’s wanted to execute Tisquantum but the Pilgrims wouldn’t release him. Then everything fell apart again, as you can imagine.

So, I had six of the coolest people in the world over at my house for Turkey Day Din Din. Now, while I didn’t need Pilgrims in military regalia marching around my living room to warn off any ill intent. I did need loads and loads of alcohol to calm my nerves as my first Thanksgiving baked, boiled and simmered (in one case when I somehow turned off the oven in the middle of cooking the bird; oy vey!). I tried to bake the homemade bread the day before. I shared this with one of the colorful guests coming to dinner. He said, "I like kneading bread." I said, "That's because all of our DNA is in the yeast, we like to feel ourselves up." He answered, "Does that make the Pillsbury Doughboy a kind of Porn Star?" This made me laugh so hard, I got distracted feeling so good and went outside for awhile, and then into the studio to paint. I completely missed the yeast rising part. It rose and then fell and so that batch was blown. The next morning I did it again. And this time, YUM.

So, okay now back to the actual day and where Indians and mean Cape Cod Politians come in. So, there was no brave Indian working towards the security of his people amongst us, however, there were a couple of brave rabbits that got pet til they went numb and couldn’t take it anymore. And, while I didn’t make pie crust from corn husks (as I imagine those hard working Pilgrims did), I did use spelt flour which made the crust somewhat flavorless and grimy. I also used a graphic artist roll tool to roll out the crust (with syran wrap on it). My friends were polite and didn’t say too much about the crust except how ambitious it was to take on pie crust from scratch. “But it only took 10 min…oh duh, I get it.”

And we were thankful enough for our lives, and wishful for our lives next year, and reminiscent of off-beat memories like Lesbian Mormon’s who needed support in their transition, and prank phone calls from conservatives. These memories were gone through as quickly as possible given that I had enough to be possibly embarrassed by with all that cooking going on—a Turkey Virgin so to speak. But while the mandolin and harmonica were being pulled out, a discussion of large centipedes that eat bats in South America ensued as someone else talked about recent spiritual insights. I was sorry to have missed that one!

And, although we didn’t have the thanks of a large cultural justice to share, like monies given back for food sources stolen from colonies we had plenty of thanks to share. The thanks for creativity, for a warm home to share a feast in, for all the things she didn’t get that she thought she wanted (one of my personal favorites), for growth, for good friends. And when my mom called, they all yelled ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ really loud. And I was thankful for that.

So all in all, and excellent Thanksgiving! Next year, I’ll get a bird thermometer, and I’ll put more sugar in the cranberry apricot sauce, I’ll take extra long on the crust and double the recipe on the filler. I’ll keep the stuffing the same…I’ll keep the friends the same. I’ll say no to men in military uniforms who want my Indian, who give back conditionally, who invite themselves to my dinner. I mean, really, those Pilgrims are tolerant people--about as tolerant as my little rabbits were of all of us. It was awesome. I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

To see photos of us Modern Pilgrims go to:
Thanksgiving2005