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In this issue:
Things that are short and sweet: August, ice cream, and haiku
Hi,
Today, in direct opposition to the horror of all that is happening in the world, I will be focusing on August and ice cream. Also: Haiku. First up: August.
“This morning, the sun endured past dawn. I realise that it is August: the summer's last stand.”― Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking
When I was a kid in the Northeast, August was the month I both loved and dreaded. Each day held the promise of summer but the dawn came a little later, evening a little sooner, and often, around the third week of August, there would be enough snap in the night air to turn some of the maple leaves orange. School would not be far off. I wanted the summer to last.
It never did. So, that is why it is important to eat ice cream today and every day between now and Labor Day. Eat it in a cone, in a dish, with or without chocolate sauce, chocolate bits, sprinkles, or fruit. Eat it alone or with a friend. Eat it, for once without guilt, without remorse, savor it as though this ice cream will be the last you ever eat.
That’s what I did this week. Twice. The first time was on our way home from a long lunch with old friends we hadn’t seen since before the pandemic. I wanted the good feelings to last and we stopped at Baskin Robbins for an ice cream cone. Then, two days later, we stopped there again on the way home from getting Covid tests so we could visit some loved ones with special health issues. Was it the best ice cream I’ve ever had? No, I make ice cream that is much better and I love to do it. But no matter how well I make my own, there is nothing like going out for ice cream on an August afternoon.
For as long as I held the cone in my hand, I stopped time. I held not only the summer all around me but memories of summers past. I felt the creamy deliciousness of “jamoca almond fudge” slide down my throat while the sun warmed the skin of my arms and legs.
I remembered all those times pre-Covid when I would either drive on by the ice cream store or stop and then feel remorse over the calories. What a stupid luxury that sort of worry was. What a waste of a summer’s day.
If you can’t grab a cone today, listen to this.
Two Sweet Links & A Recipe
Maybe you just want to make your own deliciousness. Here are two links and a recipe to help you out. Love a la Mode shares how to blend booze, cream, fruit, chocolate to make several unforgettable summer treats. Note: all of these can be made without the booze.
Last summer I shared this post about figs and ice cream. Well, the figs are back and so it is time for more ice cream. Here’s a recipe for you to try:
Fig Ice Cream With Goat Cheese (also works with TJ’s Frozen Cherries)
This is a little like frozen cheesecake but better (I’m not a fan of cheesecake but I love this).
Ingredients:
1 pint of heavy cream
6-11 oz of TJ Silver Goat Chevre
2 lbs figs or one bag of frozen cherries
Sugar as desired (I don’t use any)
1 oz of fruit brandy or kirsch (I don’t bother)
Steps:
Remove cheese from wrapper and let it come to room temp. It helps if you cut it up a bit.
Add fruit to the saucepanHow with a little bit of water. Heat while stirring and breaking it up until it thickens to more or less the consistency of jam.
Warm the cream in a saucepan. Do not boil. Iif you are going to use a little sugar, you would put it in the cream to dissolve while it warms. I recommend limiting it to a tablespoon or so. This ice cream gets all its sweetness from the ingredients and they let the true flavors come through; too much sugar kind of spoils the effect.
Remove the saucepan from the stove top and add the cheese. I usually use all 11 ounces but you may prefer to have less cheese, more cream so start with half and test as you go.
Add the fruit and stir
Use your food processor or blender to further combine all ingredients (they should not be too hot)
You can opt to freeze it in your ice cream freezer or you can simply put the mixture in a plastic container and freeze. If you are in a hurry, this stuff tastes great right after mixing in the blender too -- it makes a great topping over a cake or fruit.
The cherry version tastes delicious with very dark chocolate chips. But then, almost any ice cream tastes delicious with very dark chocolate chips.
Enjoy!
Haiku
How did I forget about haiku? Harald P. , a member of the Spark community, has rediscovered the art and discipline of packing meaning into 17 syllables. I’m drawn to it anew.
When I was a kid in elementary school or junior high, my teacher believed haiku might be the only way some of us could ever manage to write anything besides our names. She billed writing a haiku poem as a kind of game: “Look kids, it’s a poem, only 17 syllables. If you do it right, five of those are on the top line, seven in the middle, and five on the bottom. You’ve got the next forty five minutes, Go!”
I know I wrote some but none of them have survived in my memory. I do recall the excitement I felt when I saw how short these little poems were. I liked the idea of working within bounds: the 17 syllables, the reference to nature or seasons, three lines. Then I discovered how difficult it was to pack meaning into just 17 syllables. And lately I was reminded that traditional haiku involves a bit more than my teacher explained.
Harald himself rediscovered haiku thanks to Jacob Harris who runs a bot through the New York Times to mine for hidden haikus. They are pretty free-form and don’t necessarily adhere to the haiku tradition outlined here. For example, a story about an Italian soccer team financed by the Chinese yielded this:
With all that in mind,
then, it felt safer just not
to say anything.
Harald uses his local newspapers and his own brain to see what he can come up with. Here is one that captures the seasons of life (and Harald’s sense of humor):
Eating pork AGAIN
(market ads came out today).
Ah, retirement! - Harald P.
Richard Wright, The Masters, & Twitter
The brevity and the “rules” provided writer Richard Wright with a new outlet for expression. Wright wrote some 4,000 poems that explored not only the terrain covered in his novels about racial disparities in America but allowed him to play or to plunge deeper into his own inner terrain. This brief post by Austin Kleon is a wonderful glimpse of the kind of work reflected in the collection Haiku, The Last Poetry of Richard Wright.
Here are some English translations of the poems by Japanese Haiku masters collected on on the site Haiku Poetry, a wonderful place to begin the re-appreciation of Haiku.
I kill an ant
and realize my three children
have been watching. - Kato Shuson
First autumn morning
the mirror I stare into
shows my father's face. - Murakami Kijo
From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon-beholders. - Matsuo Bashō
Haiku accounts for some of the more beautiful tweets you’ll find on Twitter here and here.
Let’s try this together
I’m hereby inviting you all to try a haiku or two and share with us. I’ll do it too, I promise. No matter how bad it is, I’ll try one and share it here in the next few weeks. Don’t let me go out on that wire all by myself. Three lines, 17 syllables: GO!
Another way to look at happiness
After last week’s post, I came across the most recent issue of Hoang Samuelson’s newsletter, Letters to a Dear Stranger which was not about happiness but about the resistance she has to overcome to do hard things even though she knows she will feel good if she does them. Her discovery: resistance or lack of motivation is just as fleeting as happiness. Neither one is a constant state of being. The implication: just do it and enjoy the happiness while it lasts and when resistance happens, gently ignore it. This too shall pass.
That’s it for this week. Next week, I’ll share my conversation with Andria Williams, author of The Longest Night. She is also managing editor at Wrath-Bearing Tree, and human to her canine assistant Yukon. She’ll share the highs of being a successful debut novelist, the angst that comes with the second novel, and the joy of helping to bring the work of other writers into the world and giving it a home.
If you’re looking for a good read, browse our Spark Community Recommendations Page where you’ll find the books mentioned in this newsletter and past newsletters. Every sale helps independent bookstores. Any extra we can raise will go to support a literacy program we choose together.
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Ciao and thanks for everything,
Betsy
P.S. And now, your moment of Zen….Summer Night
Amy Neighbor VanEchaute has an eye and an ear for nature’s beauty. Here’s one of her photos which perfectly sums up how it feels to want summer, and the sun, to linger a little longer. Enjoy more of her photography here on her blog, “My Path With Stars Bestrewn”
Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”
What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.
Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.
I can’t wait to see what you send!
(And if you’ve gotten here, liked something, and still haven’t hit the heart below, now’s your chance! )
Here’s a little haiku for you….
The figs are bursting -
juicy flowers of Eden!
Summer is waning.
I miss the ice cream. No place has ice cream like northern New England . . . bottles of milk . . . And the produce - what abundance. New Hampshire is a garden in August. Sly - yes. A special place and a special time. "LFOD" ;) Nice reflection.