Joyful Simplicities

Mother's Day 2008

        Though we are grown, we never outgrow the need
        for someone special to hold us close, stroke our hair,
        tuck us into bed, and reassure us that tomorrow all
        will be well. Perhaps we need to reacquaint
        ourselves consciously with the maternal and deeply
        comforting dimension of Spirit as the Divine Mother
        in order to learn how to mother ourselves. The best
        way to start is to create—as an act of worship—a
        comfortable home that protects, nurtures, and
        sustains all who seek refuge within its walls.
                                                      --SBB

Simple Abundance, May 13th

For American women of a certain age and stage, Mother’s Day, like birthdays, can be a case of diminishing returns.  One way to reclaim this annual holiday is to re-invent it by mothering ourselves. So this Sunday, May 11th why not see how many feminine pleasures you can create for you and by you…  Here’s a few hints.  I’ll begin  on Saturday by baking my favorite and traditional  breakfast morsel, Madelines (scroll down to last year’s Mother’s Day Joyful Simplicity for the recipe.)

    Saturday night before you go to bed, arrange a tea tray for yourself, using your best china and linens, including a small vase of flowers, your favorite morning CD, and something delectable to read in bed.  Make your breakfast tray as pretty as a picture and then take a photo as a reminder that only you really know what makes you happy at any moment.

     For me right now, it’s a neat and tidy house.  I’ve been spring cleaning, “putting my rooms to right” all week long, but just a few hours each day, so I’m not overwhelmed.  I can happily report that at least all the surfaces of my house—kitchen counters, bathroom shelves, dressers, sideboards, window sills—are dust and clutter free—which equals serenity. But I haven’t had time to putter or rearrange in my nest, which for me is the fun  and art of home-making, so I can’t wait for an afternoon for myself. I’ll be wearing my favorite ruffled white and pink organza apron from the 50’ embroidered “Mother”, listening to opera, sipping mint and lemon ice-tea as I invoke domestic reveries while packing the fall/ winter crockery away (in a labeled brown box!) exchanging them for my spring/summer decorations and china for display.  To get you in the mood to putter, peruse the May 20th Simple Abundance meditation on “The Art of Puttering.

However you spend Sunday, be exceedingly gentle with yourself …  Remember, Mother knows best.

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L’Abondance dans la Simplicité…

One of the joys of writing a best-seller is foreign editions.  I’m very grateful to say that Simple Abundance has been published in 28 foreign translations ranging as far and wide as  China to  Croatia. But one of my biggest and secret publishing thrills was when we finally got a French edition--only three years after SA was No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list! The reason for the delay? French publishers kept telling us that the French were already living Simple Abundance and didn’t need a lifestyle book because the French invented “le lifestyle”. Eventually a French Canadian publisher Editions du Roseau in Montreal issued the French edition, as well as French versions of La Découverte Intérieure (Something More) and Éloge de L’Ordinaire (Romancing the Ordinary)…For a little while now I’ve been trying to teach myself French by reading both the English and French versions of Simple Abundance side by side and while I can get the gist of it, the subtle nuances are completely lost on me. But the visual always transcends language, which is why I love French blogs and think you might as well…to begin try the inspirational site Ciel D’orage (www.cieldorage.canalblog.com) and then browse their wonderful French links.

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        Drop in to Henry Miller’s choice for “the world’s bookshop” via the Shakespeare & Company website at www.shakespeareco.org for a digital tour and events. Coming up in June, a literary festival that celebrates memoir and biography. Visit www.festivalandco.com for more information.

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          What if you got a second chance with the one who got away? 

That’s the question Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy have to answer in the 2004 film “Before Sunset” which is the sequel to their first romantic encounter in the film “Before Sunrise”. Nine years have passed since they parted in Vienna. In that time Jesse (Ethan Hawke) has written a novel based on their love story and is giving a reading at Shakespeare & Company on the last stop of his European book tour. He’s also married with a son back in America.  Celine (Julie Delphy) has become an environmentalist and has a boyfriend, who is a photojournalist. Life is complicated. I’m a believer in impossible happy endings. You’ll have a really juicy joyful simplicity if you rent both movies for an armchair romance and trip to Paris, which is the real star!

 

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Coupe de Foudre …Just one look, that’s all it took. Just one look, and the earth tilted on its axis. Wham! Bam! “Thank you, Madam,” the English estate said to me, smiling broadly. As many of you know I fell truly, madly, deeply for a 900 year old former Chapel with two rooms that had belonged to Sir Isaac Newton totally unprepared for the life that would follow in its purchase. Including a second chance with the one who got away. “Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?” the 16^th century English playwright Christopher Marlowe wondered and rightly so.

  For Australian writer Vicki Archer (and her husband and children) it was a rundown French farmhouse in Provence   in 1999. “That day as we negotiated the turn into the driveway and made the our way past the line of ancient plane trees and through the apple and pear orchards…then over the canal glistening in the late September sun…I knew we were in serious trouble….The farmhouse in view was not in line with the one in my imagination: what stood before us was derelict and in total disrepair. My excitement never faltered for a moment—these were mere hurdles to be jumped. My son, Paddy, whispered, ‘This is it, Mum. We’ve found it.’ My heart was hammering in my chest, tears filled my eyes, my ability to speak vanished and the momentous truth shook me like nothing before. If you believe there can be a moment in time when everything in your life changes, then for me, this moment had arrived.”

 

  Vicki details the “simple abundance” of home comforts, earthly delights, vintage bliss and everyday grace that followed as her family restored their Mas de Berard, brought back to life the apple and pear orchard and set about planning 2,000 olive trees in her scrumptious new book My French Life (Penguin Studio Books). This is such a romantic visual indulgence (thanks to luscious photographs by Carla Coulson) and a primer of French life for budding Francophiles, that I’ve been carrying it around the house for months. And yes, I do have to keep reminding myself that her glorious Technicolor story did take nearly ten years to accomplish! For a lavish slideshow of Vicki’s irresistible French life, visit her website at www.vickiarcher.com.

 

          How to tie a Scarf…Besides perfume on every pulse point, any French woman will tell you that the secret to French style (crisp and well-groomed) is impeccably pressed T-shirts, jeans, a smashing handbag and a signature scarf style. French author Veronique Vienne tells us how in her (now out of print) book “French Style: How to Think, Shop and Dress Like a French Woman.”

 For the Sideways Cravat: Start with a traditional silk scarf square of 36 inches. “Fold your scarf in half. Again, fold it in half lengthwise. Fold a third time to get a long, narrow rectangle. Tie it loosely around your neck and move the knot to either the right or the left side of your throat. Tighten slightly to secure the knot, thowing the upper flap of the scarf over your shoulder and smoothing the other flap on your chest.

 For the Dandy Bow: Fold your scarf lengthwise three times as with the cravat. Tie it around your neck in a loose square knot. Fluff out the ends like wings. If the knot is slightly asymmetrical, don’t worry. The result is neat with being fussy. Put your hands in your pocket and straighten your spine. A square yard of silk can add inches to your height.”

 

If you haven’t met Veronique in print before, you’re in for a treat for she’s the author of an enchanting series of little books which include The Art of Doing Nothing, The Art of Imperfection, The Art of Growing Up, The Art of the Moment and The Art of Being a Woman. I keep these pocket size parcels of pampering in my Comfort Drawer for dollops of French wit, wisdom and great humor. You will too.

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Dearest Hildegard’s Abundant Blessings

If Abbess Hildegard of Bingen is new to you, there are some wonderful ways to make her acquaintance, beginning with her music which was the catalyst twenty years ago for her to be rediscovered. My favorite selection of her music is The Origin of Fire (Harmonia Mundi) by the glorious four female voices of Anonymous Four.

On those days that I feel a fragile hold on to the world, I’ll ground myself in Hildegard’s chants and before I really notice it, my soul is soaring instead of quaking.

Visit their website for more information. www.anonymous4.com

  Here’s the recipe for Hildegard’s “Liqueur of Love”.

 You will need:

  2 cups brandy

2 ¾ cups brown sugar

1 vanilla bean, slit

1 lemon, cut into quarters

2 cups whole milk.

  Combine all the ingredients together in a large jar. Shake thoroughly until well mixed. Let sit for 24 days in refrigerator, taking out every couple of days to be stirred well.

Filter the finished liqueur through a coffee filter into a clean bottle.

From Saint Hildegard’s Kitchen, Foods of Health, Foods of Joy by Jany Fournier-Rosset (Ligouri Books), here’s a recipe to bring a smile and sense of adventure to your week.

Cookies That Bring Joy

You will need:

12 tablespoons, plus one teaspoon butter

¾ cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

4 egg yolks

1 teaspoon salt, 2 ½ cups spelt flour

2 rounded tablespoons for “Spices That Bring Joy” mixture

which is 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg, 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon ground cloves.

Melt the butter under low heat, add the sugar, honey, and egg yolks, beating lightly. Add the flour and salt, combine gently.

Refrigerate the cookie dough for two hours. Remove from refrig  and roll out onto a floured surface. Cut with a cookie cutter. Bake the cookies on a baking sheet at 400F, 180C

for 10 to 15 minutes until just golden, watching closely.

 

“Take one whole nutmeg, add equal amounts of cinnamon and a pinch of cloves, grind this together until it forms a fine powder, add the flour and a little water. Make small cookies and eat these often. They will reduce the bad humors, enrich the blood and fortify the nerves” directs Hildegard.

 

“Children may eat up to three cookies a day, adults may eat five.

These cookies may help strengthen the five senses and may prevent aging. They make remove hate from the heart, assure good intelligence, reduce harmful juices (secretions) and make one have a joyful spirit.”

 

Didn’t I tell you cookies were good for you!

 

If you’re in the

U.K.

, visit www.dovefarms.co.uk for more information about spelt and to order spelt flour.

 

Dorset Cereals UK (www.doresetcereals.co.uk) has a fabulous cereal blend of toasted spelt flakes, barley and oat flakes with dates, sultanas, raisins, pumpkin seeds, roasted hazelnuts and almonds (all her foods of joy) that brings a smile to your body and soul. Just a little (half a bowl) is very filling and every scrumptious bite feels as if it’s doing you a world of good. Blessed Hildegard would be so proud!

If you’re in the US, Delicious Organics (www.deliciousorganics.com)  carries White spelt flour and a fabulous assortment of spelt made pasta.

 
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A Celtic Devotional - Divine Fettuccini

You will need:

½ pound fettuccine (large, flat ribbon noodles, spinach if you can get it).
½ stick unsalted butter
½ cup light cream
½ cup low-fat milk
2 egg yolks
Coarse kosher salt
Freshly grated black pepper
Grated Parmesan cheese.

Bring salted water to a boil and add fettuccine.  Cook according to pasta instructions.  If the instructions read 8 minutes, don’t boil it for 15.  You don’t want it to turn to glue.  At the proper time, drain and then pour back into the pot.

In a skillet, melt the butter.  Add the cream and milk and heat just until boiling.  Beat the egg yolks together and slowly add to the butter/cream mixture, a little at a time, whisking until completely blended.  Simmer on low heat for a couple of minutes. Don’t walk away!

Now pour the sauce over the drained fettuccine, mix well, and slowly warm the pasta over low heat for a minute or so.  Lather it into a big bowl, and season with as much salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese as you desire or know what’s good for you!  Around here, discipline ebbs and flows.

Light the candles. Pour the wine.  Say grace. Take a bite.  Give thanks.  Savor! Most of all, taste and see, how good is the Lord.


--------XO SBB-----

Indoor Easter Joyful Simplicities

Two of my favorite Easter traditions fit right in with Mother Nature’s plans this year.  Trimming an Easter egg tree, and making Hot Cross Bun pudding for Easter breakfast.

    Like the Christmas Tree, the custom of the Easter Egg treated originated in Germany.  I found the earliest description of it in the April 1906 issue of   “Mother’s Magazine” which was one of my wonderful Victorian resources in the writing of my first book.   

The tree was an evergreen, and instead of a Santa Claus or Fairy at the top of the tree, “Br’er Bunny” had the post of honor.  This was a large toy rabbit and everywhere among the branches hung gaily colored eggs by loops of ribbon.  Little baskets were made from eggshells, with fine wire for handles, and hung from the very tips of the branches.  They were filled with tiny candy eggs.  Rabbits and little chicks of candy and cotton batting peeped out from among the branches.  Eggshells were painted and finished up to represent clowns, brownies and gnomes.  The tree was lit with candles in tin holders, and every one, both young and old, voted the tree as pretty as any Christmas tree.

    Now Easter tree decorations are widely available in card and stationery shops.  But what I’ve started doing, and I think you’ll enjoy as well, is turning vintage Easter postcards and greeting cards into spring ornaments.  I’ve included the ones I’ll be using for my tree for you to download.  I recommend you print them on a thin cardboard stock, then cut them out, use a paper punch to make a hole and thread thin ribbons in pastel colours.  It will make an absolutely charming, vintage centerpiece for your seasonal table.

    As for the tree itself, use either a plain tree limb with many branches spray painted white, or branches of flowering cheery, dogwood or pussy willow. 

Hot Cross Pudding

No sooner do they take the Christmas cake off the shelves in England (about the second week in January) do Hot Cross Buns appear.  But I’m a bit of a traditionalist (no, you don’t say, SBB!), so I only treat myself to them Easter week-end, beginning on Good Friday.  There’s just something marvelous about eating particular foods at very special occasions which raises the ritual into an indulgent, blissful and blessed pleasure.      

For Easter breakfast, try this simple, absolutely delicious Hot Cross Bun pudding.

You will need:

    6 Hot Cross Buns
    Butter
    A jar of the best marmalade (thin cut oranges)
           Or Apricot jam
    Vanilla custard pudding (either store bought or something simple like Jello)
    Cinnamon
    A large handful raisins.

Butter a medium size ovenproof dish (the kind you’d use for lasagna) and layer the hot cross buns in it.  Now empty the entire jar of jam or marmalade on top, spread it evenly.  Scatter the raisins on top.  Next, pour over this concoction the prepared custard. (If you need to make your pudding before hand, it’s done now).  Sprinkle ground cinnamon to taste (for me that’s a lot) and pop into a preheated oven (180 C or 400F) for about 15 minutes, watching the top to make sure it bakes but doesn’t get any darker than golden brown.

They will think you are a genius and I thank Jamie Oliver for the inspiration.

What Women Do When They Are Alone

In a 1944 essay from the book It’s A Woman’s World, the English writer G.B. Stern mused about what women do when they are alone other than make lists to push away melancholy.  This is how he imagines we squander away sixty golden minutes.

“You have, like nearly all women, amassed a hoard of odd bits of broken jewelry, painted buttons and clasps and monograms from disused handbags, beads from an unstrung necklace, old-fashioned pendants, an earring without its fellow, lucky charms and birthstones, a gold pencil, the small silver and tortoise-shell etui that Aunt Teresa had said you were to have when she died, regimental badges with long-past romantic incidents to explain them…This heterogeneous collection, as distinct, of course, from orthodox jewelry, is usually kept in a lidless box in the left-hand top drawer of your dressing table. You will now, in your hour of solitude, pull it out with the idea that sometime useful and astringent can be done about it, such as seeing whether the buttons will match a new cocktail dress; whether one of the pendants will do for a niece’s fourteenth birthday; and surely this old badge which catches in everything can be thrown away at last?  I mean, what’s the sense of keeping it when you’ve almost forgotten the name of the man who…They say cameos are coming back into fashion, worn in a different place, of course…My God, that reminds me!  Back goes the whole collection in to the box, the drawer banged….”

I love this whimsy, because where does a woman’s mind goes when she’s given an hour alone, other than take a nap?   

What I'm Having For Dinner Tonight:

  Kama Sutra Sausages with Ambrosia of Sautéed Figs

    When she turned fifty, the Peruvian writer Isabel Allende realized that her biggest source of sighs—both of pleasure and remorse—were associated with her senses. And so, repenting of her diets (“the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity”), as much as lamenting “the opportunities for making love that I let go by because of pressing tasks or puritanical virtue,” she set forth on a “mapless journey through the regions of sensual memory with pen and spoon.”  The result became “Aphrodite: The Love of Food and the Food of Love” (HarperPerennial, 2005), which is a luscious, charming, and saucy exploration of the sensual arts of food and love.

Here’s another cookbook meant to be savored in bed as much as in the kitchen, for it’s a glorious celebration of the aphrodisiac power of the imagination and of the bewildering array of substances and practices down through history and from different cultures around the world believed to arouse passion and desire before Viagra was invited.  But getting past the taboo of even the word aphrodisiac, named in honor of the Greek goddess of love, is an enormous feat for many women. If it makes you uncomfortable, take a deep breath—you’re not alone.

What comes to mind?  Half-told tales of “Spanish fly” or ghastly concoctions of crocodile semen and powdered rhinoceros horn?  Why not think cheerier thoughts of violets, chocolate, coffee, asparagus, honey, basil, peaches or pears? This stormy winter’s day who wouldn’t feel better with this wish list, yet throughout history, these Divine gifts and natural wonders have also as condemned as coveted because of their abilities to kindle romantic urgings. 

    Well, if that’s the criteria, one could add Cole Porter and a chilled glass of champagne to the list of the forbidden.  Better yet, let’s not.  I’ll just pop the cork and instead of facing the music, let’s just listen to it and shake off a tabootie or two.

    For at the end of the day or at the end of a life, “the only truly infallible aphrodisiac is love,” Isabel Allende reminds us.  “When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.”  And Love comes, bidden or not in many guises.

    In that spirit, and of course, with rapt appreciation and fond memories of Sir Richard Burton’s life work—here’s what I’m having for supper tonight. 

Kama Sutra Sausages with Ambrosia of Sautéed Figs, served on a bed of rice.

Your will need:

½ cup sugar
1/2/ cup red wine vinegar
1 stick of cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 slices fresh lemon
1 pound fresh or canned figs (drained)
½ pound sweet Italian sausage
2 tablespoons red wine
2 teaspoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

For the fig sauce, combine the sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and lemon slices in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Add the figs.  If you’re using fresh figs, cook on a low heat for 20 minutes; you need only 5 minutes for canned figs.

Cool the fig sauce in the refrigerator.  The next day, cook the sausage in the wine and olive oil in a skillet until thoroughly cooked and the wine has evaporated.  Warm up the fig sauce with the sausages.  Serve on a bed or rice and add salt and pepper to taste.

Luscious!
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Feeling the Earth Move

    Last night, tired of my sackcloth and ashes routine,  my husband gently persuaded me to join him sharing some left over maple syrup bread and butter pudding and a boogie or two around the kitchen. Around midnight we fell sound asleep in a good mood, happy and I had once again 3 lovely items for my Gratitude Journal.

    A little while later the earth moved—literally--and I was awakened by England’s first earthquake in 25 years! With the Lincolnshire epicenter just a few miles away, you could feel some fierce trembling coming up through the floorboards.  “Jonnie, wake up! I think we’re having an earthquake,” I said, as the bed rumbled again tossing me up in the air.  Oblivious to it all my husband reassured me with a cuddle that I was only dreaming. Soon I fell back asleep, wondering why is it that some dreams feel so real, you’d swear they were true?

    Well, this morning I found out— why indeed, it was a 5.2 Richter scale earthquake and entire villages up and down the Middle of England have their own tale. Gratefully, no loss of life, and little damages for such a whole lot of shaking though by closing time at the pub tonight, it will be a wonder we all survived the excitement!  Thanks so much for the postings on the forum wondering about us and our lovely Newton’s Chapel—it touches me deeply that you all care so much and the love is returned to you in deep measure.

    Thinking about how frazzled these last few weeks have been, I thought we could all use something soothing and healing for supper tonight. A book that I cherish, which always gifts me with comfort and joy is the English chef and writer Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries.  I love this book so much I have two copies—one for the bedside and the other in the kitchen.  Arranged as a food diary, with notes, memories of wonderful meals and his recipes for the “right food, right place, right time” throughout the year, it’s teaching me again, what’s so intrinsic and healing about living authentically, in season and in the moment.  I’m often asked “What is Simple Abundance” and the best answer I’ve come up with so far is finding comfort, restoring passion, receiving grace and giving thanks everyday.  Since Nigel Slater’s meals appear in my Gratitude Journal frequently, I thought I might introduce you to him.

     “There is something deeply, unshakably right about eating food in season: fresh runner beans in July, grilled sardines on a blisteringly hot August evening, a bowl of gently aromatic stew on a rainy day in February … a crab sandwich by the sea on a June afternoon; a slice of roast goose with apple sauce and roast potatoes on Christmas Day; hot sausages and a chunk of roast pumpkin on a frost-sparkling night in November.”   Are you getting hungry yet?   

    This is what I’m having for supper tonight and I suggest you write down the ingredients and have it one night this week.

“A Herb and Barley Broth to bring you back to health”

Nigel says “The herbs are essential and I don’t suggest goose fat just to be annoying: it contains certain magic.”

I agree.

You will need:

Pot barley – 100g
Carrots – 3 large
Leeks—3, trimmed and rinsed to remove any grit
Celery 3 medium sized stalks
Onions- 2
Garlic 4 large cloves
Dripping goose fat or olive oil—a couple of tablespoons
Enough good chicken stock to cover
A few bay leaves
Thyme—3 or 4 sprigs
Sage leaves – 6
Potatoes—4 small to medium
Parsley—a small bunch

Simmer the rinsed barley in salted water for about twenty minutes till it feels reasonably tender, then drain it.
Set the oven at 180C/Gas 4/350F

Peel the carrots and cut them into large chunks, then cut the leeks and celery into short lengths.  I think it is important to keep the vegetables in fat, juicy pieces for this.  Peel the onions, cut them in half and then into large segments.  Peel and finely slice the garlic.  Warm the fat in a large, deep casserole.  Turn the vegetables and garlic in the hot fat and let them soften a little but don’t allow them to colour.  Bring the stock to the boil in a separate pan.

Now add the barley to the vegetables, pouring over the hot stock and tucking in all the herbs except the parsley as you go.  Slice the potatoes the thickness of pound coins (quarters) and lay them over the top of the vegetables—some of them will inevitably sink; others will sit on top, the stock just lapping at their edges.

Cover with a lid and place in the oven for an hour and a half, by which time the vegetables with be meltingly tender.  Remove the lid (the smell is part of the healing process), turn the heat up to 200C/Gas 6/400F and leave for thirty minutes for the potatoes to colour here and there.  Remove very carefully from the oven—the pan will be full and very hot—chop the parsley and sink it into the broth.

Spoon the vegetables, barley and plenty of broth into shallow bowls with flakes of sea salt and sever firm grinds from the pepper mill.”
--Nigel Slater
Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater

I’m adding to this alchemy, a fresh loaf of French bread, good butter and several glasses of red wine.

So ladies, let us sip, savour and sup at the Simple Abundance table tonight with thanksgiving.  Blessed are we among women and what’s more, we know it.


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This Too Shall Pass

    I wish I could tell you that spiritual and creative growth was smooth, predictable and without pain.   Especially on the Simple Abundance path. Maybe I could fantasize on the page if I hadn’t spent the last week shuffling around in a grey, impenetrable fog of sorrow, as well as my decade old Lands End grey cashmere bathrobe, when I wasn’t lying in bed with my face to the wall. Staring out the window at frost covered branches of the apple tree,  I couldn’t read, think, dream, visualize. I did have several good cries though, which scared my husband and cat—real tearjerkers—for which I’m very grateful.  They left me alone to sob, which is exactly what I needed.

    For centuries in the west of Ireland, women were traditionally taught the proper way to wail, or keen, which is a long, high-pitched cry of wrenching loneliness and grief.  To really sob, to truly cry, is to open yourself up to those emotions struggling for expression and relief; the anger wrestling in the pit of your stomach; the despair caught in your throat; the disbelief tightening across your chest, the shock of the blow. I think women push down our tears and resist the release of crying because to be honest, the truth is it hurts.  Heartache is real.

     Far from being self-indulgent, crying is a form of in- articulated prayer.  In Catholic and Orthodox religions tears have always been considered the special gift of the Holy Spirit, and in the Hebrew Old Testament an entire book of the Bible is devoted to crying—the Book of Lamentations.

Consider the phrase have a good cry.  Sometimes it isn’t sorrow that induces our tears but joy and disbelief. Wonder.  An overwhelming sense of gratitude.  Yet whether the origins of our tears are happy or sad, crying is a mystical blessing, antifreeze for the soul.  As the great 19th century Natalie Clifford Barney believed, “Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.”  So give me a box of tissues over Botox anytime.

 

Tender Mercies
    When a crying jag is over, it’s a bit like coming back up from a deep-sea dive.  But instead of decompressing, what your body needs is to compress: your red, swollen eyes and puffy face.

    So brew some chamomile tea and, after your pour yourself a cup, soak a large white cotton handkerchief in the tea, fold it in thirds and use it as an eye compress for your tender lids.  If you can enjoy the luxury of lying down, place a chilled cucumber slice on each eyelid and “chill” yourself, for fifteen minutes in a darkened, listening to soothing music.

    A red blotchy face will benefit from a cucumber-and-tea rinse.  You will need:

    ½ cucumber, peeled and seeded
    ¼ cup hot, prepared green tea
    ¼ cup hot, prepared chamomile tea

Puree cucumber in a blender, and strain out the juice.  Mix the teas together and add the cucumber juice.  Stir well and place in the fridge for at least half an hour. (If you’ve been crying on and off, make this and keep on hand for a day or two!).  Spread the soothing mixture on  your face, leave for a minute or two, then rinse your face with cool water and pay dry with your softest washcloth or old-fashioned flannel. (These are what you cut up from that old ratty flannel sheet for because the 12 inch squares make perfect face cloths.) My Tender Mercy Face Splash is also the lovely gift of comfort and joy to prepare and bring to a friend who is having a tough time, in a pretty basket with fresh white washcloths, a posy of flowers and a selection of vintage hankies, to which you’ve added a note that says, “For your tears of joy, soon to come.”

Sometimes a good cry leaves us feeling headachy.  Ease the throbbing with a little aromatherapy by inhaling the scent of essential-oil combination of ginseng, violet, peppermint, orange peel or marjoram.  You don’t need all of them, but a combination of two or three works wonders.  And, of course, don’t forget the scent of lavender.  Sometimes the best thing after a good cry is the nap that follows.

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Benedictus   

Sometimes we’re sad for a very apparent reason— the death of a friend, the breakup of a marriage, an overwhelming loss, or worries over money or health.  Other times we don’t know why we feel so bad, which makes us feel even worse. It could be a million different reasons—an appalling lack of appreciation (by ourselves and by others), work conflicts, a fight with your husband, a careless, unkind remark from a girl friend, cruel and unwarranted criticism, the enormous emotional energy it takes to “be nice” to a constant complainer, burn-out exhaustion, the long spate of bad weather, raging hormones, the onset of flu, or simply part of the process of personal transformation—Divine Discontent.

Days and weeks like these come to us all.  When we get the blues, babes, we can either sing them or shift gears. In my case, usually after a couple of days crying me a river, I’m ready to kick-start myself to move on.  But you know, sometimes the getting through the getting through stage of life is even tougher which is how you end up in the bed facing the wall or staring out a winter window.

So start small by asking for grace just to get out of the bed today, then grace to get through an hour, a conversation, a project, a day.  Call a good friend and talk but try to keep it short because, God Bless her, she has her own life and has really been a Saint listening to yours.  Put the kettle on for a fresh pot of tea, coffee, scrumptious hot chocolate (try something you haven’t before).  Take off that ratty sweater and those sweat pants. Clean your face properly and then take a shower and wash your hair while you’re at it. If you have some bath gel and special shampoo in your Comfort Drawer (and why do you not?) now is the time to use them.  Pat yourself dry with talcum power.  Put on some lipstick, perfume, and earrings. Smile at yourself in the mirror.  Straighten the living room so that you can find a place to sit down.  Talk a walk across the park or around the block to clear your head. If you’re working in an office, give yourself permission to put off that new project at work until tomorrow when you can concentrate.  Instead, clean off the top of your desk and organize your papers.  On the way home, treat yourself to a bouquet of daffodils.  Peruse your cookbook and prepare something you’ve never tried before, especially if you can’t pronounce it.

    No matter what you do, know that this too will pass, and this too, is God.  Tomorrow it should be better.  But if it’s not, nor the next day, or the next, then know that it’s okay to ask for help from friends, a support group, a therapist, a doctor, and especially your Higher Power. 

    A new book that is of great comfort to me this week is my friend John O’Donohue’s (who died suddenly in January), Benedictus: A Book of Blessings (Bantam Press UK and in the US next week as To Bless the Space Between Us, Doubleday.)  I had read several blessings out on our last monthly member call and could tell how touched many of you were by his brilliance, compassion, insight and care.

    Here is JOD’s blessing to us all for courage during dark days.  May it wrap yourself in them.

When the light around you lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside.

When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen.

When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,

Steady yourself and see
That it is your own thinking
That darkens your world…

Know that you are not alone
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night corner…

A new confidence will come alive
To urge you towards higher ground
Where your imagination
Will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!

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Nursery Fare

Nursery Fare—Breathes there woman who soul so dead, that never in January to herself has said:  I need something “to make it all better”, at least for a little while.
So if you’re cranky and cry easily, if you are so tired that your eyes burn from keeping them open, if you need hugs and someone to pat the top of your head and whisper “Shh…there, there Pet” and no one is around then you need Nursery Fare. 

    Like Picture Books in Winter, the ritual of Nursery Fare is best consume in flannel pajamas, in bed or before a brass fender and a roaring fire on a tray. Welsh rarebit, milk toast, beef tea, coddled eggs, macaroni and cheese, cauliflower cheese, toad-in-a-whole, bubble and squeak, French toast fingers, porridge with warm apple sauce, baked bananas, custard with caramel sauce, junket, tapioca, jelly, chocolate pudding with a dollop of whipped cream, rice pudding, roly-poly pudding with golden syrup.  So what has Cook sent up tonight?

    Since it’s Monday, it’s bound to be Bubble and Squeak, which uses up her leftovers from yesterday’s Sunday lunch. Bubble and Squeak is that magical combination of leftover potatoes (mashed or roasted) and leftover leeks, cabbage, or brussel sprouts.  First everything is chopped very fine and then mashed together, formed into patties and sautéed in a little oil or butter on medium heat.  If you have any leftover roast beef or corned beef, it can be added to the mixture.  Fry the patties until they are a golden brown on both sides.

    Traditionally Bubble and Squeak is served with pickles and brown sauce.   Brown sauce is a curious English creation (apples, oranges, treacle, malt vinegar, tomatoes, molasses, dates and spices) and not readily available in the US, so I’d suggest Ketchup.  If you live in the UK, then you must check out the jam purveyors of Wilkins & Sons who have been picking and preserving conserves, marmalades, jellies, lemon curd and savories such as chutneys for a century.  Recently they’ve released their Brown Sauce, which elevates this condiment to divine palate status.  Visit www.tiptree.com Unfortunately they do mail order to the UK only.

    And why is tonight’s supper called Bubble and Squeak—which is a Cockney expression? Probably because if you don’t have leftovers, you’ll boil your potatoes and cabbage (the bubble), and the sizzling of the patties in the pan is the squeak.

    Whatever it is it’s delectable.  Enjoy!

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