March

Scenes and Behind Them

It’s been a long month of flashbang fleeting moments. This week’s letter is like that, too - long but made of little snapshots - which is, in itself, a snapshot of behind-the-scenes in my brain. My seemingly disparate thoughts linking pinkies and spreading out like slimemold makes it challenging for me to present Appetites as a tidy, cohesive thing, or even coherent. For these periodic behind-the-scenes posts, I stop trying to make it cohere. Consider it a buffet, a smorgasbord, a bean supper - look around, mingle, eat only what pleases you.

Normally, the behind-the-scenes stuff is for paying subscribers, but today, the thought of employing an exclusionary device built on a bastardized concept of wealth that hurts everyone I love makes me queasy, so this one’s on the house for all you starving artists, thirsty humans, who need more than advertisements and prescriptions to stay alive. This week, there’s a little food, some a mud-season-construction-zone-new-puppy- level dirty house, a new puppy, a new season, new stairs, and the same old always thinking about poems through it all, though I’m not sharing any this week. I’m still working on nocturnes, though, and loving it. Hope you’re working on something you love, too.

I’m leaving this tip jar here instead of a paywall because I’ve loved other writers putting it in their letters. There are so many people sharing their hearts work here, and I can only afford a paid subscription for a few. I’ve found this is a nice option to be able to throw someone a few bucks whenever I really enjoy something they’ve made even if I can’t afford or don’t want to subscribe. And of course - dollars aside, because they are always only an aside - I cherish you for being here in such a churning, tugging world. XO.

MARCH

Look, it’s the sun.

My dearest friend Evan Mallet, always spilling with treats and wisdom, chucked handfuls of Meyer lemons at me when I went to visit him at his restaurant, Black Trumpet Bistro to give him a few foraged things like fireweed tea, wild cherries, black trumpet mushrooms, and pine pollen. I asked him what he would do with the lemons and he said to preserve them, so I did. I used Samin Nosrat’s method in her new book Good Things to make a fermented paste. I left out the suggested turmeric root (for color), and did not find that the color suffered at all. I am wondering if I can treat fresh sumac in a similar way but will have to wait until August to try.

Since it has finished fermenting, I’ve been putting it in everything. I’ve been on another tear with Ceasar salads, mostly grilled, with my Auntie Andrea’s dressing again which I seem compelled to do every few months. Sometimes I add a little this or that to the dressing - it does not need improvement, I just can’t help but improvise. This time I tried a little dab of the meyer lemon paste and an alewife filet along with the anchovies in the dressing and toasted dulse breadcrumbs over top - divine. I am eager to try the salad with spring wild lettuces and thistles, maybe hosta shoots.

Auntie’s dressing is perfect over medium-boiled egg snack, too, with a handful of toasted dulse crushed over.

Another beautiful use of the Meyer lemon paste and the alewives was to mix them with softened butter and rub all over a mutton roast.

It was overflowing with umami and served with a fresh herb salsa, some of the last potatoes from the garden - extra crispy - and salad a la creme. I want to try this with a venison roast, though it’ll need supplemental fat if I want any jus.

Despite many surprisingly good bites thanks to the Meyer lemon paste, the most revelatory use has been the martini. I brought a jar to my friend Kember, inn and bar keep at The Waterford Inne when she had me over for dinner. A few days ago she wrote to say she’d used some in a martini and it was good. I went to the store fo vodka, chilled it, and tried it myself that night. It’s potent stuff, so I used maybe 1/8 tsp or less for two martinis - stirred and strained, and the result was this sweet, bright, briny space I’ve never been before - right between dirty and a twist.

Along with the Ceasar salads, another dish that’s on heavy rotation on busy days is Thai beef salad with venison, either hunted or roadkilled. The storebought salad greens are rather bleak but we are nonetheless thankful for them in March in Maine. The dressing of fish sauce and lime juice and the flesh of the wild deer gives them life.

I haven’t been out to eat except for this treat of the annual beer and game dinner at Black Trumpet Bistro. My wild cherries were a dream dance with candied duck heart in this special dessert.

I don’t often forage for market anymore (the things I brought to Evan were gifts), but ocassionally, if a chef that I like wants something that I like collecting, I will. I’ve been having a beautiful time lately collecting for a chef I’ve worked with for nearly a decade now whose restaurant just earned its third Michelin star. I’ll tell you more about that soon.

Spotted our first strutting tom turkey of spring. New birds and bird sounds showing up every day now. Woodcock peenting and towering in the yard at night, phoebes are back in the eaves, the grass alive with robins, Song sparrows singing up the sun, geese, hawks, everyone chiming in. The contrast of the morning chorus to the quiet of a few weeks ago makes the blood pump.

Sal’s first on-purpose cuddle with puppy Annie. A milestone family moment.

In deep-cleaning the bedroom to prepare for building stairs, I decided to try to make my bedside somewhere I want to spend time. My Uncle Greg made the table, my mom nursed her babies in the rocking chair and wove the towel draped on it, my gram made the pillow, journals, and sketches of zinnias, my other grandmother made the watercolors, my cousin Cynthia’s Circularity News made the ceramic bowl, and friends made the fabrics. We got a maple bedframe for free online but haven’t brought it up yet. I’d like to take down the insulated curtains and put up some blinds. I felt the same energy and satisfaction of a pre-teen girl rearranging her room and sticking stars on the ceiling. I’m sure the space will evolve, but it beats the laundry heap that preceded it. Oh, and this was Fish’s last day with the loft to himself before the stairs went up and the dogs invaded. Poor kitty.

A major ground score in cleaning the loft was finding this tote full of dried acorns that I’d forgotten about. As frustrating as it is to be a forgetful person, there are a few perks, like, I never tire of people who repeat the same stories and jokes because I never remember them, and I can re-read books I love as if for the first time, and sometimes I leave my future self little treats instead of messes.

Still-life with chopsaw, grandfather’s barncoat, and a deer leg that Sal pulled out of a melting snowbank - set on an old chest freezer we keep saying we’re gonna sell but keep using as an outdoor table instead. As much as I try to class up my act, my aesthetic always ends up being something like this.

On our way to Sal’s first solo romp at the river since we got Annie, and she is puuummmpppeedd (me too).

I liked that I dressed to match the river without meaning to.

Sal enjoyed some beaver shit, and we both looked at each other with wide eyes and smiles when the beaver slapped at us.

Annie sleeps as hard as she plays.

And now that we have stairs to the bedroom, we can all sleep together. This was our first morning waking up together. It’s probably not a big deal to Annie, who is brand new to the world, but it is kind of paradigm shifting for me, and I imagine for Fish and Sal who have spent their nights, six years of them now, on separate floors. I am happy that they both seem as happy about it as I am.

Hauling water in springtime, while still a chore, now feels celebratory with the water gushing and the bare ground greening, after the winter of waiting on a slow trickle and hauling it back in knee-deep snow. Once we’re past the risk of freezing in a few weeks we can really party and pipe it to the house and outdoor shower.

And now it’s April. Giddyup.

I am leaving this tip jar here because I’ve loved other writers putting it in their letters. There are so many people sharing their hearts work here, and I can only afford a paid subscription for a few. I’ve found this is a nice option to be able to throw someone a few bucks whenever I really enjoy something they’ve made even if I can’t afford or don’t want to subscribe. And of course - dollars aside, because they are always only an aside - I cherish you for being here in such a churning, tugging world. XO