Usually Mondays around here are busy and stressful, but since we’re in Neverland or Wonderland or maybe Stranger Thing’s Upside Down world, I tried to infuse some stress back into it by filling the house with the fresh scent of rotten meat and Chinese fringeberries.
I’m on day 3 of a migraine and I’m pretty sure Jim feels like he’s married to Professor Trelawney . Since word coming out of France and Spain is to avoid ibuprofen at all cost right now, I decided it would also be a good idea to avoid my alien powered, high octane migraine prescription as well. I call it yoga for the trigeminal-autonomic reflex pathway…. I’m trying to work with the pain, listen to my body, and not just medicate and power through at 100 mph like I normally do. It’s not going well. So far my “don’t hyperventilate and work with the migraine” plan caused me to make 4 lbs of rotten meatballs. This is not normal for me, I have poor eyesight but a highly tuned olfactory system. The fact that it took me a few hours to identify the weird smell as rotten meat cooking in my oven is something that never happens in this household. I indigently thrust a freshly cooked rancid meatball under Jim’s nose while he was trying to do his job on the front line of the current healthcare crisis, and demanded he smell it and taste it. He said it tasted fine, but he’s also known to eat moldy things and uncooked chicken, so he was no help. Thankfully I caught it before I ruined the entire batch of sauce… the sauce… as in the sauce that Jim’s late Italian grandmother taught me to make in order to be married to her grandson. The one that heals all woes and is the perfect quarantine relief food (and I almost screwed it up).
That was the stupidest thing I did, the weirdest thing I did was toss a bunch of Chinese fringe berries and dandelions into the vitamix. The kids are like Pavlov’s dog when they hear the vitamix’s jet engine ramp up in the kitchen. William looked at the gray sludge and asked dubiously what kind of smoothie it was. Robbie was the only one who cheerfully volunteered to try the fringeberry dandelion concoction, but it wasn’t for human consumption. I listened to a gardening podcast about not being irritated with pests, weeds, etc but instead work with nature instead of fighting it (noticing a trend here?). Our neighbor has a Chinese Fringe tree that dumps these olive berry looking things all over our flower bed and sidewalk. I googled it and they don’t compost very quickly, but they’re full of great nutrients, so I decided to work with nature and toss them into my vitamix and then compost bin. The dandelions were just innocent bystanders that got swept up with the tide.
My compost now smells very good. Apparently you can also pickle these berries like olives and eat them (which I’m adding to my list of possibilities if the grocery store stays empty).
I love lists of links, and in case you do too, here is my current list ( know they don’t look like links, because I can’t figure out how to format my squarespace skin, but I promise they’re all clickable)
I wish our church would do something like this creative Russian Orthodox priest. Or at least keep the doors unlocked like the Catholic and Episcopalian churches.
A book review about President Hoover that is almost better than the book itself.
And last but not least: The aforementioned Sauce recipe that heals all woes (or at least it does for everyone in my husband’s family)
I’ll just be over here enjoying pepper tree tea with some sauteed dandelion and pickled fringeberries. My liver has never been happier even if my head is not. The only thing I have left to do is install a bidet.
