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September 26, 2025

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

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Food Friday: Rhubarb Spring

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There are many issues that can drive us nuts here in the Spy Test Kitchens. We are only human, after all, except for Luke the wonder dog, who is sanguine and tolerant of almost anything but a knock on the door, or a passing UPS truck. We like simple, reliable, and tasty. We do not like recipes that call for extraordinary ingredients that can only be found in exotic Middle Earth market stalls one week out of the year, or in haute organic Brooklyn food co-ops. Our time is valuable, and who wants to waste it searching for obscure and expensive ingredients? Not us. We have books to read, streamers to watch, and garden weeds to ignore. Please – be sure that the ingredients are easily found.

As you wander through the farmers’ market, or the more prosaic grocery store produce department, these warm spring days, you will see piles of lovely, gleaming, jewel-like fruits and vegetables, and you can channel the excitement of all the fancy pants food editors: suddenly, you can see why Bon Appétit has a page about the beauty of rhubarb. Or why Felicity Cloake of The Guardian is practically waxing poetical about Rhubarb Crumble

Just look at that rhubarb! Look at the chartreuse greens – the shocking rosy pinks! Rhubarb could be a charming vintage Lilly Pulitzer print, without all the cumbersome Palm Beach pretenses. Rhubarb, that coy herbaceous perennial, is here, but it isn’t going to last forever, so get out your thinking caps and pre-heat your ovens.

I was super pleased to find this recipe for rhubarb scones on the Food52 website. Rhubarb Scones I had gone off on an internet stroll, looking for something timely and spring-y for this week’s column. I like rhubarb. It reminds me of spring, and makes me think about strawberries and cream and picnics and garden parties I have only read about. Which leads to clotted cream and scones and a long ago tea I had with a dear chum in a churchyard in England. So much of food enjoyment is thinking of connections, and remembering ideal meals and happy times.

What is best about this recipe is that it is highly adaptable. What? Your grocery store doesn’t have rhubarb? Rhubarb hasn’t ripened yet in your area, so there isn’t any at the farmers’ market? Don’t panic – substitute! The comments on this recipe in Food52 are loaded with helpful suggestions. Use strawberries! Use peaches! Use strawberry jam! Try frozen rhubarb. We are baking the scones, after all, which transforms the fruit. We can wait until June to decorate these scones with tiny fresh strawberries and raspberries. Right now we need some comfort food, and we need it fast.

Growing up, we had a couple of rhubarb plants growing in the lower garden, near the compost pile by the barn. We never ate the rhubarb. My mother was never going to serve Rhubarb Spritzers, so I think it they were plants she inherited from the original owners of the house. Like the Jack-in-the-Pulpit by the back steps and the bank of Lilies of the Valley by the stone wall. I have to use store-bought (or farmers’ market-bought) rhubarb, as yet tariff-free.

Every spring there are cascades of recipes for rhubarb and strawberry pies, cakes, jams, lemon bars, tarts, crumbles and fools. Which are all wonderful and delicious, but this year I want to try a couple of new recipes; where rhubarb isn’t just a novelty ingredient, but is included as a subtle and unusual spring flavor.

Martha has a very posh rhubarb dessert, if you stumble upon a great stash of rhubarb: Rhubarb Pavlova

Maybe you want to have coffee instead of tea? Here is a Brooklyn coffee cake recipe that you can try. There is nothing in it that can’t be found at our less-than-fancy corner grocery store: Rhubarb Coffee Cake

And you can re-visit the 1950s with a rhubarb upside down cake, with help from Betty Crocker. Sometimes a cake mix is worth it! Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

More modern is a Rhubarb Pound Cake

But I am saving the best for last – a Rhubarb Collins. This is the way to enjoy spring, a nice tall Collins glass in hand as you sit on the back porch, watching the cardinals dart from the bird feeder, while that bunny sits calmly in the back yard, nibbling the grass that you had no intention of mowing today. Pour some more Champagne, please! Let there be fireflies!

Rhubarb Collins
1 stalk rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2 -inch pieces (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup sugar
2 ounces gin
1 ounce lemon juice
2 to 4 ounces Champagne

Make a simple syrup with the rhubarb and sugar: combine the rhubarb and sugar with 3/4 cup water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to moderately low and simmer until slightly thickened and bright pink in color, about 20 minutes. Let the syrup cool then pour through a colander set over a bowl. Press down gently and toss the solids. (The rhubarb simple syrup can be made in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week.)

Combine one ounce of the rhubarb simple syrup in a cocktail shaker with the gin and lemon juice. Fill the shaker with ice and shake vigorously until completely mixed. Strain into a chilled highball glass and top with Champagne or Prosecco. Add a straw, and a strawberry for decoration. Drink. Repeat. Enjoy. Spring is fleeting!

“Well, art is art, isn’t it?
Still, on the other hand, water is water!
And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” —Groucho Marx

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Looking at the Masters: Renoir

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Pierre August Renoir was born in 1841 in Limoges, France. The town of Limoges was the center of the famous hand-painted porcelain works. Renoir’s parents were members of an active artist and artisan community. His father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress.  The family moved to Paris in 1845, and they lived near the Louvre. At age 15, Renoir served as an apprentice at the Paris Limoges Factory, earning enough money to help his parents buy their house. His initial training as an artist required mastery of intricate brushwork, attention to detail, use of rich colors, and a love of flowers.

In 1862, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he became great friends with fellow students Sisley, Bazille, and Monet. Chaffing from the realism of the classic style, they searched for new techniques and subjects. They began in 1864 to work outdoors in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Discoveries about the effects of light on subjects from the development of photography spurred the artists to create what became their signature style: Impressionism.

“A Girl with a Watering Can” (1876)

In 1876 Renoir began to paint figure subjects along with landscape and flower paintings. “A Girl with a Watering Can” (1876) (39”x29’’) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) is a portrait of a young girl who lived in his neighborhood. It illustrates Renoir’s fully developed Impressionist style along with lessons learned from porcelain painting. The charming, young girl is enjoying the sunny day. She holds a green watering can and two daisies. Her eyes are blue and her cheeks rosy. Her elegant blue dress is decorated with wide white bands that look like lace, the type of detail Renoir painted in Limoges. Her outfit is completed with a pair of matching blue shoes. The tops of her white stockings call attention to her lacey bloomers. Renoir used the color red to guide the viewer’s eye through the composition: red roses in the front, red lips, and red flowers in the background. The red bow in her hair draws the eye from left to right, to the group of red flowers behind her and the one red flower in the distance to her left.

Renoir used color dots of yellow, purple, red, pink, and blue, visible only up close, to portray the beige path that runs diagonally across the painting. He painted the lawn vibrant green, blue, and yellow, using visible but subtle brushstrokes. He used broader brush strokes to portray the leaves and flower petals of the plants in the foreground. In contrast, his brushwork on the flowers behind the girl does not attempt to create an individual flower or leaf. 

Renoir’s paintings of people are appealing. They also fulfill his desire to create a complex work of art. 

“La Promenade” (1876)

“La Promenade” (1876) (67”x43”) (Frick Museum, New York City) is a winter scene in a city park. The focus is on two young blond girls, who look as if they could be twins, and their older sister.  All are dressed in winter clothing. The eldest wears a blue velvet jacket with fur trimmed sleeves. The younger girls wear matching blue-green outfits trimmed with fur. One has a fur muff and the other carries a doll. Hats of flowers and fur are perched on their heads. White hose and leather boots complete their outfits.  Beyond them on the path, eleven other people are suggested.  Two black and white shapes on the path suggest playful dogs. 

Renoir grew up with a tailor and a seamstress as parents, and he fell in love and married a dressmaker. His paintings show an unusual amount of knowledge of and interest in depicting the fashion of the time.  “La Promenade” was in the second Impressionist Exhibition in 1876. Although the work did not receive much notice at that time, Renoir’s ability to present fashionable and delightful women and children eventually brought him international fame.

“Children’s Afternoon at Wargemont” (1884)

As a result of his earlier successes, Renoir gained patrons and friends from the new professional class. Paul Bernard, a banker and diplomat, became a friend and patron in 1879. “Children’s Afternoon at Wargemont” was one of his many paintings Bernard and his wife commissioned. The setting is the Chateau de Wargemont in Normandy, the Bernard’s second home outside Paris. In the painting the Bernard daughters Marguerite, Lucie, and Marthe enjoy a pleasant afternoon.

Renoir made several trips to Algeria and Italy beginning in 1881. On the trips to Italy, he studied the paintings of Raphael, Rubens, and the Rococo artists Boucher and Fragonard. Their work influenced Renoir to alter his style, and he entered what art historians call his “classical” period. “Children’s Afternoon at Wargemont” (1884) (50”x68”) is still full of bright sunlight, and the theme of a peaceful family day continues. Gone are the suggestive and flowing brushstrokes. They are replaced with precise details in clothing, furniture, wood floor, carpet and curtain patterns, wall paneling, and a pot of flowers. 

The two girls are dressed in the fashion of the time and in accord with their ages. The girl in the blue and white sailor dress holds onto her doll, and her eyes directly engage the viewer. Her sister is sewing, and her other sister, slouched on the nearby couch, reads a book. Renoir created a composition of blues and oranges, complementary colors, and complex designs.   

“Gabrielle Renard and Infant Son Jean” (1895)

Renoir suffered from arthritis beginning in 1881, and the disease became increasingly debilitating. He had the first attack of rheumatism in 1894. Renoir had married Aline Charigot, a seamstress and model he met in 1880. They had three sons, Pierre (1885), Jean (1894) and Claude (1901). “Gabrielle Renard and Infant Son Jean” (1895) (26”x21”) depicts Gabrielle, Aline’s cousin, who moved to the Renoir home in Montmartre at age 16 to act as Jean’s nanny. She often modeled for Renoir, and she helped him to paint when his hands became crippled by placing the brushes between his fingers. Renoir never stopped painting, but in his later works he necessarily returned to looser brush work. His love of his family is evident in this work and many others.

“The Artist’s Family” (1896)

“The Artist’s Family” (1896) (68”x54”) is Renoir’s largest portrait with life-size figures. The setting is the garden of the family home, Château des Brouillards in Montmartre, where the family moved in 1890. Aline stands at the center with their eleven-year-old son Pierre, standing next to her. Aline’s hat is a remarkable fashion creation of the time, and a red coat with a fur collar are draped over her arm. Pierre leans in affectionately, holding onto his mother’s arm. 

Gabrielle kneels down to support young Jean as he stands for the painting. Jean’s elaborate white bonnet and dress are certainly fashionable. The composition of the family forms a triangle that Renoir creates with Aline’s light hat and blouse at the top, the sailor suit and black skirt in the middle, and the white clothing of Jean and Garbielle at the bottom. The protruding edge of Gabrielle’s black skirt anchors the triangle. Necessary to balance the composition is the young girl in red, one of the neighbor’s children. Her red dress and pose, direct the viewer’s eye to Aline. The black sash on her dress and the black ribbon on her hat also carry through the dark elements of the composition. She carries a ball with red, yellow, and green stripes. The ball is a simple device that connects the touches of beige and yellow, and the green landscape in the distance. Renoir kept this painting for the rest of his life. 

The Renoir family moved in 1907 from Montmartre to Cagnes-sur-Mer, near the Mediterranean, to enable Renoir to take spa treatments and for better weather. Renoir tried sculpture as another outlet, but he never stopped painting no matter how disabled he became. He died in 1919. His last words were “I think I’m beginning to learn something about it.”

His painting and his family were his passion. He described his thoughts on his art: “The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.”

Happy Mother’s Day

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Chicken Scratch: On Being Green by Elizabeth Beggins

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Some summers ago, my industrious other half launched a crawl space renovation that had him under our house for hours, on his hands and knees, in the slick, heavy clay that is a hallmark of the soil in this part of the world. Though I am blessed with his good attitude, to say it was grueling work would not be an overstatement.

A bright point was the predictable presence of a bullfrog. Sometimes, she appeared to be watching from across the muck, like a golf spectator. Other times, she splooped into a soggy puddle, vanished for a day or three, then reappeared just like that. On occasion, I heard a voice drifting up through the drain pipes into the house and understood that my husband was having a little chat with his amphibious companion.

Hosing down at the end of a long day.

By late fall, drainage systems were working to de-swampify (a highly technical term) the space. Water that once ponded across the entire area was now shunted off into newly dug ditches wrapping the perimeter. The mission was suspended as winter moved in, but just ahead of a freeze, the frog was captured —a remarkable feat unto itself given how nimble they are—and taken down the road to a marshy site where she could hibernate underwater.

Long before this project began, access to the crawl space was deliberately restricted, to keep our cats and other varmints out. We have no idea how our bulgy-eyed friend gained entrée in the first place, but we were proud of ourselves for releasing her from bondage.

Had she made such a house call on the other side of the country from us, or in many other places around the globe, this frog would likely not have been greeted so warmly. And, that is a story that needs telling. I promise to get back to Kermit’s cousin shortly, but it’s important to situate her in the context of a larger environmental picture.

The American bullfrog is considered a highly invasive species in the western United States, Europe, South America and Asia. As with many creatures that now proliferate outside of their native ranges, bullfrogs were introduced to these areas accidentally-on-purpose. Some slipped in with fish stocking operations, some were discharged as a game species. (Frog legs anyone?) Over the years, they’ve been released by the unknowing and escaped from the unsuspecting. Now that they’re free, they’re going bonkers.

A single female bullfrog can lay up to 20,000 eggs at a time. Predators native to the eastern U.S.—large-mouth bass, blue heron, snapping turtles—consume eggs, tadpoles, and adult frogs. Lacking this competition in other places, bullfrogs devastate their newfound habitats. They will eat anything they can fit in their mouths including birds, bats, reptiles, fish, insects, rodents, even each other. Unfortunately, nothing keeps their populations in check. On top of their reproductive vigor and voracious appetites, they carry a fungus to which they are mostly immune but which further decimates other amphibians.

Photo by Thomas Shockey on Pexels

Twenty years ago, in National Geographic, John Roach reported on the unstoppable surge in non-native bullfrogs around the world. More recently, Ted Williams blogged for the Nature Conservancy about the bullfrog plague, as well as ongoing efforts to control them. Neither writer offered evidence of any programs that are really getting a leg up on the frogs. There are just too many of them.

Counting aquatic and terrestrial plants, mammals, arthropods, amphibians and other organisms, the American bullfrog, known scientifically as Lithobates catesbeianus, is one of about 1500 total species categorized as invasive, foreign, non-native, or alien. As I thought about these labels and how many other things are stuck with them, I was struck by how similar they are to terms used to describe humans who move from one place to another. I couldn’t help noticing the combative and nationalistic tone of the words and of those associated with their management. Verbs like “eradicate,” “eliminate,” “kill,” and “euthanize” show up with frequency in articles about forms of life that have moved beyond their original locations.

NOAA defines invasive species as animals or plants from another region of the world that don’t belong in their new environment. But what determines belonging, and who decides what does and does not? Has the line between the new environment and the original one always existed? Do we understand enough about how species migrate, breed, hybridize, and evolve across time to make such determinations? Most importantly, and especially because humans are directly or indirectly to blame for almost every redistribution, is there room for compassion in how we manage them?

Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

It didn’t take long to discover others who have taken questions like mine to the next level, identifying biases and inconsistencies within the field of invasion biology and calling to attention the need for a more nuanced lens. Rather than searching for ways to rid our environment of non-native species, Nicholas Reo, who is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and an Assistant Professor of Environmental and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, says, “It is our responsibility to figure out how they are useful.”

When I set out to tell the tale of a resident amphibian, it was not my intention to jump into a much broader and more provocative exploration of our anthropocentric tendencies, but if I look at where I’ve landed from the frog’s perspective, it makes perfect sense. Indigenous principles teach us to see ourselves in kinship with all other beings. Frogs are members of our planetary family and, therefore, are deserving of the possibility of shifted thinking.

 

Our amphibious friend, spring 2018. Isn’t she cute?!

Our green playmate kept us company that whole summer, but once she’d been rehomed we didn’t think much more about her. We certainly never expected that when we opened up the crawl space the following spring we’d find another bullfrog hanging out in the damp darkness, looking ever so familiar.

We’ll never know for sure if it was the same one, but it’s fun to believe she liked us so much that she returned. After all, bullfrogs can travel over a mile in damp environments.

We removed her a second time, all the while speculating about her solitary existence in that dank habitat. We decided she needed a she-shed, a place to get a break from the males whose noisy, nightly advertisement calls we hear undulating from the marshlands that surround us.

It’s been seven years since we first made her acquaintance. We’ve not seen her again. But this winter, when the house was very quiet, we often heard soft, raspy sounds coming from somewhere just below the floor.

 

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in realistic optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, become a free or paid subscriber here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Fiesta

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Cinco de Mayo is coming already. There will be tacos, and maybe some good Mexican beer. I have to confess that I came to the taco party late. When I was growing up our cooking spices were limited to Christmas egg nog nutmeg, cinnamon for cinnamon toast, black pepper and baking powder. Garlic was an exotic commodity. Red pepper was on the tables at Italian restaurants. I doubt if my mother was acquainted with cumin. We never had Mexican food. My mother’s idea of adventurous ethnic cooking was preparing corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day. And so my indoctrination came from my peers, as do so many seminal youthful experiences.

The first tacos I ever had were at my friend Sheila’s older sister’s house, down near the beach. Margo was sophisticated and modern. We adored her and the string of characters who wandered through her tiny house. She made tacos with regularity, and we mooched often. From her I learned how to shred the cheese and the lettuce and chop the onions that went on top of the taco meat, which we browned in a frying pan and then covered with a packet of Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix and a cup of water. I thought it couldn’t get any better than that.

Like Tim Walz, my introduction to Mexican cuisine came via “white guy tacos” which are “pretty much ground beef and cheese.” We must have had similar upbringings: “Here’s the deal… black pepper is the top spice level in Minnesota.”

Sheila and I graduated to platters of nachos and tacos at the Viva Zapata restaurant. (I think we were actually more attracted to the cheap pitchers of sangria, which we drank, sitting outside in dappled shade under leafy trees, enjoying languid summer vacations.) And then we wandered into Mama Vicky’s Old El Acapulco Restaurant, with its dodgy sanitation, but exquisitely flaming jalapeños on the lard-infused refried beans. Ah, youth.

True confession: my children were raised on tacos made with Old El Paso Taco Seasoning, but they always had vegetarian or fat-free refried beans. None of that deelish, heart-health-threatening lard.

Beef Tacos
45 minutes, serves 4

½ cup vegetable oil
12 small 5-inch corn tortillas
1 pound ground beef
Salt & pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 fresh hot chile (like jalapeño) seeded & minced, optional
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup roughly chopped radishes for garnish
2 limes, quartered, for serving

Crumble the ground beef into a frying pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, breaking up the meat as it cooks, until it starts to brown – about 5 or 10 minutes. Add the onion and cook, until it softens and begins to color. 5 or 10 minutes more.

Add the garlic and the chile (be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after handling the chile – I didn’t and rubbed my eye and wept for a good while afterward) and cook about 3 minutes, until they soften. Add the cumin and tomato paste and cook and stir until fragrant. I added a little water, perhaps a throw back from my Old El Paso training, but the mixture just seemed too dry. Experiment for yourself.

Warm the oil in another frying pan over a medium-high heat. Lay a tortilla shell in the oil, and let it bubble for about 15 seconds before turning it over, carefully, with tongs. Let that side bubble away for another 15 seconds or so and then fold the shell in half. Turn it back and forth until it is as crisp as you want. Mr. Sanders likes a softer shell, I like explosively brittle.

Divide the meat into the lovely, crunchy shells and top with cilantro and radishes. Squeeze some lime on top. Good-bye to grated cheese. Good-bye to too much sodium. (There are 370mg of sodium in a 1 ounce packet of Old El Paso. [I still have a packet in the spice cabinet, obviously.] Plus it costs about $2.59, so just imagine how much better this recipe is for you, sodium-wise and financially.)

Open beer, pour beer, drink beer.
Other topping suggestions:
 guacamole, chopped tomatoes, shredded cabbage, chopped scallions, black beans, salsa, shredded lettuce, chopped peppers, sliced radishes, sour cream.

When my children were little, I used spinach for their tacos instead of lettuce. I don’t think they have forgiven me yet. To keep up with current trends, you could try using kale for your healthy tacos.
But don’t trust my word for it, try these excellent healthy taco recipes: Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

How to turn leftover roast lamb into mouthwatering tacos – recipe

Happy Cinco de Mayo!
“On the subject of spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five of six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full.”
—Delia Ephron

 

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday:Tender Spring Veggies

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May Day is upon us— that should put a spring in your step. I want to retire the crockpot, stash the Dutch oven, put the lasagna pan out to pasture and start digging into light, healthy, crispy fresh green salads. With crusty French bread and sweet butter and a glass or two of cool Chardonnay. In my bare feet. In shorts.
Now is a good time to get outside – whether in your own garden, or wandering around the farmers’ market. Lots of fruits and vegetables are in season again – and we should be supporting our local farmers!
In Season

We have bought four humble tomato plants, and have planted them in the raised garden bed in our side yard. There are a couple of blossoms already, which is nature’s clever way of encouraging us to believe that we will have a bountiful harvest of tomato sandwiches later this summer.

That is always the best part of gardening, seeing everything in my mind’s eye in the gauzy Technicolor future. Somehow there I am always wearing a float-y white outfit as I drop my bountiful harvest into my antique English garden trug, clipping merrily (and with surgical precision) with the vintage secateurs sourced from an obscure French flea market. Reality won’t elbow that fantasy out of my malleable brain for a couple of months…

But back to the matter at hand – salad: as usual, we are hoping that the basil container farm will be busy and bushy this summer, as well as the annual tomato exercise, which I hope won’t wither on their burgeoning vines. We are also considered trying to make our own fresh mozzarella cheese. Maybe it would be easier to just move to Italy. But that depends on the lottery officials, and I am sad to say that we don’t know anyone at the Texas Lottery Commission. Texas Lottery Scandal https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/23/us/texas-lottery-ryan-mindell-resignation/index.html We are just homegrowns.
Tender Green Salad ideas!

This will be perfect for the Friday nights when Chef Tomasso doesn’t want to fire up the oven for our weekly pizza night:

Pizza Salad
Exactly the same way you would choose your pizza toppings, free to add in your favorite toppings INTO the salad to recreate the classic flavors. Use all the extra toppings you love: olives, tuna, capers, meatballs, Nduja, onions, peppers: whatever your go-to pizza order is.

Single serving — you can do the math for more

1/2 small eggplant, diced
Handful of cherry tomatoes
1/2 red pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Sliced pepperoni – your call
2 slices sourdough bread or day-old French bread, cut into cubes
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
Handful of torn basil leaves
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella
3 ounces shredded chicken breast (if you are concerned about protein)

Garlic herb dressing
2 tablespoons Greek yogurt
Pinch oregano
Pinch garlic powder
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Toss the diced eggplant, cherry tomatoes, red pepper and pepperoni with oregano, garlic powder and salt. Spread on a baking tray. Roast for 12–15 minutes, until softened, sticky and slightly caramelized.

Scatter the diced bread cubes and a little grating of parmesan over the top, then return to roast for another 4–5 minutes until the croutons are crisp and golden.

While that’s roasting, stir together the yogurt, garlic powder, oregano, vinegar, salt and pepper for the garlic and herb dressing. Add a splash of water if you want a looser consistency.

Once everything is out of the oven, toss with the basil, shredded mozzarella and cooked chicken so the warmth starts to melt everything together. Serve warm with a generous drizzle of dressing. Take a plate, with your glass of Chardonnay, out onto the back porch, and plant yourself in the plastic Adirondack chair. Enjoy a cool Friday night, eating your veggies, smelling the breeze, and enjoying a tasty al fresco meal. Have fun streaking on May Day!

Here is an air fryer version: Pizza Salad with Garlic Herb Dressing

Fancier Salad

“A salad is not a meal. It is a style.”
—Fran Lebowitz

 

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Easter eggs

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Food Friday is on the road this weekend, so you Gentle Readers will have to put up with a re-run of my favorite Easter lemon cheesecake. Mr. Sanders and I are heading to a family Easter gathering in Florida, and Luke the wonder dog is off for a much deserved vacay of his own with his dog pals at the spa. Please indulge me and enjoy our making our favorite Easter dessert. Play nicely at your Easter egg hunts, and let the little ones find the eggs. You can sip on a Bloody Mary or two.

At Easter I like to haul out my dear friend’s lemon cheesecake recipe, and reminisce, ruefully, about the year I decorated one using nasturtiums plucked fresh from the nascent garden, which unfortunately sheltered a couple of frisky spiders. Easter was late that year and tensions were already high at the table, because a guest had taken it upon herself to bring her version of dessert – a 1950s (or perhaps it was a British World War II lesson in ersatz ingredients recipe) involving saltines, sugar-free lime Jell-O, and a tub of Lite Cool Whip. The children were divided on which was more terrifying: ingesting spiders, or many petro chemicals?

I am also loath to remember the year we hosted an Easter egg hunt, and it was so hot that the chocolate bunnies melted, the many children squabbled, and the adults couldn’t drink enough Bloody Marys. The celery and asparagus were limp, the ham was hot, and the sugar in all those Peeps brought out the criminal potential in even the most decorous of little girls. There was no Miss Manners solution to that pickle.

Since our children did not like hard-boiled eggs, I am happy to say that we were never a family that hid real eggs for them to discover. Because then we would have been the family whose dog discovered real nuclear waste hidden behind a bookcase or deep down in the sofa a few weeks later. We mostly stuck to jelly beans and the odd Sacajawea gold dollar in our plastic Easter eggs. It was a truly a treat when I stepped on a pink plastic egg shell in the front garden one year when I was hanging Christmas lights on the bushes. There weren’t any jelly beans left, thank goodness, but there was a nice sugar-crusty gold dollar nestled inside it. Good things come to those who wait.

We won’t be hiding any eggs (real or man-made) this year. Instead we will have a nice decorous finger food brunch, with ham biscuits, asparagus, celery, carrots, tiny pea pods, Prosecco (of course) and a couple of slices of lemon cheesecake, sans the spiders, sans the lime Jell-O and Cool Whip. And we will feel sadly bereft because there will be no jelly beans, no melting chocolate and no childish fisticuffs.

Chris’s Cheesecake Deluxe
Serves 12

Crust:
1 cup sifted flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Filling:
2 1/2 pounds cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400°F
Crust: combine flour, sugar and lemon rind. Cut in butter until crumbly. Add yolk and vanilla. Mix. Pat 1/3 of the dough over the bottom of a 9″ spring form pan, with the sides removed. Bake for 6 minutes or until golden. Cool. Butter the sides of the pan and attach to the bottom.

Pat remaining dough around the sides to 2″ high.
 Increase the oven temp to 475°F. Beat the cream cheese until it is fluffy. Add vanilla and lemon rind. Combine the sugar, flour and salt. Gradually blend into the cream cheese. Beat in eggs and yolks, one at a time, and then the cream. Beat well. Pour into the pan. Bake 8-10 minutes.

Reduce oven heat to 200° F. Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until set. Turn off the heat. Allow the cake to remain in the oven with the door ajar for 30 minutes. Cool the cake on a rack, and then pop into the fridge to chill. This is the best Easter dessert ever. This recipe makes a HUGE cheesecake! You will be eating it for a week. At least.

Perfect Bloody Marys

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg before it is broken.”
― M.F.K. Fisher

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Spring Quiches

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It is quite definitely spring. Our trees are leafing out, the dogwood is starting to flower, and tulips are bouncing in the cool April breeze. Everything is looking green and tender – although I was worried about frost overnight because I have planted four stout young tomato plants in the raised garden bed.Our summer tomato sandwiches depend on spring weather. Luke the wonder dog has a spring in his creaky step these mornings – the bushes along our walking route smell extra delicious this spring. Everything is fresh and new, ripe for discovery. We rescued a tiny green turtle the other day, doing a good deed as we got in our daily steps.

Mr. Sanders has been doing yeoman’s work out back – weeding the pachysandra bed, trimming the hedges, fertilizing the lawn – any excuse to be outside in the fresh air. I wander through and pluck violets before he reaches them. I have been replanting the window boxes with hot pink geraniums, vivid clusters of cobalt lobelia and white clouds of sweet alyssum. I’ve stuffed draperies of hot pink petunias in the planters on the front porch. And sadly, I have picked the last of this season’s daffodils.

We sat down around seven last night for dinner, just as the moon was rising and the sun was setting. The last of the daffodils were stuffed in a jam jar on the table. We didn’t need candles, but still we lighted them, because it is spring, and we could gaze out at the newly weeded pachysandra bed, which was bathed in golden light. I hope someone was enjoying a beauteous sunset, even though we could only see streaks of pink over the neighbor’s roof. The robins strutted across the back lawn, grubbing happily.

And what about the food? Who wants to stand over a stove when the garden beckons? It’s time to bring some springtime to our dinners (also very handy for leftovers for breakfast and lunch). Bring on the quiches.

This is seasonal, and oh, so lovely: Sweet Pea and Ham Quiche

You can trust Martha: Martha’s Quiche

Quiche Lorraine, or however you choose to fill yours…

Preheat oven to 375°F
Ingredients for 1 quiche – serves 4
1 baked pie shell (store-bought is fine and dandy)
1 cup half and half
3 eggs
6 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
One onion, chopped
1 cup grated Gruyère or Swiss cheese, more if you like your quiche stretchy and cheesy
Salt and pepper
1 pinch fresh, ground nutmeg

Brown the chopped onion in a little of the bacon fat that you have reserved. Or butter or olive oil, remember to be loose and enjoy the baking event! Add the onion and the bacon to the pie shell. Scatter the grated cheese with abandon and artistry. Beat the eggs, cream, salt and pepper and the nutmeg until your arm is tired. Pour the mixture into the pie shell. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the top looks pleasingly golden brown. (I like to bake quiches on a baking sheet, because I have a tendency to spill.)
When you re-heat the quiches, bake at 350°F for about 20 minutes.

Other ingredients to consider adding to the mix: fresh thyme, ham, broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, goat cheese, leeks, sausage, salmon, shrimp or good Maryland crab! Also consider this dish as a breakfast possibility.

Quiche has been much maligned for the wimp factor and for impugning American manhood. Pshaw. Quiche is quick, easy, delicious and is a four seasons kind of food. Quiche is as welcome as the New Year’s Day hangover breakfast pick-me-up, as it is at a warm summer evening’s supper, with a salad, and a little cheap white wine. It will go in someone’s lunchbox, and is a reassuring friend to find sitting in the fridge at 3:00 in the morning, when you are driven from bed with tariff anxieties. Quiche.

Quiche Lorraine has long been a WASPy luncheon speciality, mostly because those WASPs are looking for something delicious and easy to prepare. Who doesn’t love bacon, cheese, and cream? I do apologize, vegans, but that heady combo is a religion unto itself. There are vegan alternatives…
Vegan Quiche

The quiche recipe I followed called for a mere 4 pieces of bacon. I am sorry, but that is not enough bacon. I used 8, crunchy, aromatic slices, which I had baked on a cookie sheet at 425° F for 10 minutes. I also used half and half, and not full-on heavy cream, just because I’d like to make it to 2026 without a major cardiac incident befalling any of us. I also used cubes of cheese from a block of grocery store brand Swiss. The way prices are soaring, Gruyére and Jarlsberg have become a just too expensive. Tariffs. And, because no one will ever notice, I used a store-bought pie shell. I know my limitations, and I just can’t bake an attractive pie crust. They always look like the bad pots I threw during my pitiful college year in ceramics; sad, lopsided, mangled pieces. Here is a gift recipe from the New York Times:

Here is a good compendium of quiches, which will encourage you to explore the inner recesses of your fridge, and use up the trace amounts of spinach, broccoli, taco meat, asparagus, feta cheese and bits of potato lurking there: Leftovers for Quiche And key to the quiche’s attraction is its ability to be reheated. Please, do not use the microwave! Reheating Quiche

Go outside and roll on the grass, like Luke the wonder dog. Spring has sprung, the grass is riz.

“The first day of spring is one thing and the first spring day is another.
The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.”
― Henry Van Dyke

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Looking at the Masters: Madonna and child in a garden

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Images of Mary and Christ are plentiful, as are images of them sitting in a rose garden. Since most of the population from the Middle Ages onward through the 17th and 18th centuries could not read, religious painting and sculpture served to educate the congregation of believers. Iconography was a significant aspect of painting and sculpture. Images and everyday objects related to the stories helped the faithful remember the lessons as they went about their daily lives.

“Madonna in a Rose Bower” (1440-1442)

Images of the Madonna and Child in a rose garden were popular. “Madonna in a Rose Bower” (1440-1442) (20”x16”) (oil and tempera on wood panel) by German painter Stefan Lochner (1410-1451) is a stunning example. Mary and the infant Jesus sit on a red velvet bolster in an enclosed garden. The ground is a green carpet of perfectly patterned leaves. Young angels lean on the garden bench, looking adoringly at the mother and child. Four angels play music on a harp, a small organ, and two stringed instruments. Roses grow on a square metal trellis behind them.  Above them, two angels hold a gold cloth of honor, placed on thrones of kings and for Mary, Queen of Heaven. God, the father, and a white Dove, the Holy Spirit, look down on the scene from above. God, hands raised in blessing, and Jesus on Mary’s lap, represent the Holy Trinity. Lochner used gold lavishly to represent the heavenly space.

White roses are symbols of Mary’s purity, and red roses are symbols of the Passion of Christ. Jesus holds an apple which has been given to him by one of the young angels. Apples represent the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Mary and Christ are referred to as the second Adam and Eve, who take away sin. Strawberry plants in the garden produce both flowers and fruit at the same time, a reference to Mary as both a mother and a virgin.

Mary’s broach and crown are examples of a painting technique used by Lockner, en rende-bosse, or encrusted enamel. In the 14th Century, encrusted enamel was applied to create three-dimensional pieces. Mary’s broach and crown are encrusted with gemstones. The figures on Mary’s broach are a virgin and a unicorn, both symbols of purity.

“Madonna and Child and Saints in an Enclosed Garden” (1440-1460)

“Madonna and Child and Saints in an Enclosed Garden” (1440-1460) (47”x58”) (oil) (National Gallery of Art) is by Netherlands painter Master of Flemalle, who has been identified as Robert Campin (1375-1444). He was a contemporary of Jan Van Eyck and teacher of Rogier van der Weyden. He settled in the Belgian city of Tournai in 1405-06, and he was a free master in the Guild of Goldsmiths and Painters. He purchased a house in Tournai in 1408. Campin was a popular artist who received numerous commissions from individuals, guilds, the Church, and civic groups. Records show he owned several houses, bought city bonds, and invested in mortgages. He was a prosperous artist. 

“Madonna and Child and Saints in an Enclosed Garden” illustrates the tradition of symbolism in religious art along with increasing interest in depicting nature. The Madonna and Child are again placed in an enclosed garden, a reference to Mary’s purity. Although she does not wear a crown, she is placed on a golden throne with an elaborate cloth of honor behind her. Her feet rest on a brocade pillow. She wears the traditional blue robe, this time a rich dark blue with a gold embroidered border. Jesus reaches for a quince held out to him by St. Barbara. The quince is a symbol of the resurrection of Christ. It also is associated with love and fertility. From the Greeks onward, it was presented to the bride on her wedding night. 

St. Barbara, dressed in red, was an early Christian saint. Her father was a rich pagan who locked her in a high tower to protect her from the world. While he was away, she had three windows built into the tower instead of the two he had planned, because the number three was the symbol of the Trinity. She secretly had become a Christian. Discovering her conversion, the prefect of the province had her dragged from the tower and tortured for several days. Her wounds healed overnight. Ultimately, she was beheaded. Her tower stands behind her in the garden.

In the corner of the painting, St Catherine of Alexandria, Egypt, reads an illuminated manuscript. She is the patron saint of students, teachers, and librarians. The daughter of the governor of Alexandria, Catherine went to the Emperor Maxentius to protest when he began the cruel punishment of Christians. He threw her into prison and subjected her to numerous tortures intended to kill her. She was fed by a dove from heaven, and her wounds were tended by angels. After these attempts failed, Maxentius ordered her run over by a wheel with spikes. The wheel broke. Catherine then was beheaded. The sword used to behead her and a broken wheel are placed at her feet in the painting.

John the Baptist, in the bright green cloak, stands beside the throne and holds a lamb. He traditionally is painted with unruly hair and a beard, representing his time spent in the wilderness. Under his green cloak he wears only a short tunic of animal skins. The lamb is the symbol of Christ. John the Baptist recognized Christ when he baptized Him, and called him “Lamb of God.” 

St Anthony of Egypt, the elderly bearded man in the dark gray robe and leaning on a cane, was raised as a Christian and preached the teachings of the Church for many years. He later became a semi-hermit, living a life of solitude and prayer. He helped to found several monasteries. He overcame numerous temptations visited on him by the Devil. St Anthony may have been a pig herder at one time. However, he ate no meat during his lifetime. The pig, a symbol of the sin of gluttony, most likely is a reference to his surviving all the Devil’s temptations. St Anthony is the patron saint of swineherds, domestic animals, and monks. 

The paradise garden contains several other flowering plants. Behind St Catherine is a purple iris, also known as a sword lily. The purple iris traditionally represents nobility.

“Virgin Among Virgins” (1475)

“Virgin Among Virgins” (1475) (43’’x67’’) (oil) was painted by the Master of the Legend of St Lucy, whose known work is dated between 1480 and1510. Although his name remains unknown, several paintings have been attributed to this Netherlandish painter from Bruges. Mary and Christ are seated in the center of a partially enclosed rose garden. The cloth of honor behind her is held by two angels. Her feet rest on a black and gold cushion, and she wears the traditional blue gown and a crown. The background is a panoramic scene of the city of Bruges. Dating for the Master of St Lucy’s paintings is often determined by the continued construction of the tower of Bruges.

Eleven virgin saints are presented in a semi-circle around Mary and Christ. Next to Christ is St Catherine, her red gown decorated with wheels and her hand raised as she marries Christ. Opposite is St Barbara in blue velvet with her black cloak decorated with towers. She too became the mystical bride of Christ. Mary Magdelene kneels on the ground, her bare feet toward the viewer. She holds the gold pot of ointment with which she anointed Christ’s body in the tomb. 

St Agnes, in a red gown, is seated on the ground and holds a lamb. Her beauty was so extraordinary that she had many suitors, all of whom she refused, claiming she was mystically married to Christ. She holds up the wedding ring. Imprisoned and tortured, she was sentenced to death by burning. The fire went out, and a soldier cut off her head, or stabbed her in the throat. 

St Ursala, who wears a gold and black brocade gown and is reading a book, undertook a pilgrimage from Britain to Rome with 1000 virgins. Having traveled as far as Cologne, they were attacked by Huns and killed with arrows. The point and fletching of an arrow can be seen under her gown, and an arrow rests on the border of the painting.

Three martyred saints sit behind St Agnes. St Cunera, in a light blue gown, holds a small cradle and an arrow. A companion of St Ursula, she may have survived the massacre of the virgins on the pilgrimage. St Agatha, in black, holds a pair of tongs with her breast. As a Christian she also refused to marry, and her suitor was so angered that he had her breasts cut off to disfigure her. St Margaret of Antioch, in white, was to be cast into the belly of a dragon sent by the Devil. She raised her cross and the dragon’s skin parted, freeing her. Behind her, in the distant landscape, St George kills a dragon.

“Virgin Among Virgins” (detail)

Behind St Ursula and dressed in white is St Apolonia, who holds a tooth in tongs. St Lucy, in green, holds a plate on which her two eyeballs are placed. She was beautiful and much desired, as were all the female saints, but she refused all marriage proposals because of her faith. According to several stories, she plucked out her own eyes to prevent men from desiring her, or their removal was part of her torture.  The last saint, who has not been identified, holds a crown and a bell. Behind them are red roses, an apple tree, a grape vine, and a quince tree.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Radishes

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Early spring brings us delicious young vegetables: peas, asparagus, garlic, and radishes. Radishes are the pink darlings of early spring. Cherry red, fuchsia, magenta, hot pink, carmine, crimson, scarlet, carnelian, vermilion, coral, cardinal, cerise – I could go through my art supply catalogues picking out the names of vivid reds and pinks all day long – radishes are deeply satisfying to look at, and to gobble up. And they grow fast – plant seeds 30 days after the last frost and you, too, can enjoy pink spicy goodness.

I remember sitting on the back porch on summer evenings when I was a girl, watching my father transform four uniform pink hamburger patties into charbroiled hockey pucks on the tiny black hibachi. We would snack on the raw, red-skinned radishes that my mother doled out to us in small Pyrex bowls, filled with bone-chilling ice water. How could anything so cold have such a spicy kick?

How can we resist the lure of fresh radishes? Especially when we get fancy, and doll them up with butter and a hint of Maldon salt? The butter truly tones down the peppery, hot flavor of radish and turns it into an indulgent treat. Dorie Greenspan says, “It’s a little trick the French play to bring foods into balance, and it works.”

For the data driven – radishes are high in fiber, riboflavin, and potassium. They are low in calories, and have lots of Vitamin C. They are a natural diuretic, and have detoxing abilities. Radish facts

I prefer to dwell on the spicy flavor and the crunch.

Have you tried sliced radishes on buttered bread? They will jazz up your next tea party the way cucumber sandwiches never have. Although, if you were French, you would have been eating radishes on buttered slices of brown bread for breakfast for years. Mais oui! Radishes on Brown Bread

And if you’d rather not be picking up disks of radishes escaping from your sandwiches, try this easy peasy radish butter. Yumsters! Radish Butter

Consider the cocktail, and how easy it is to add some sliced radishes to your favorite Bloody Mary recipe. I’m not sure that I would go to all the trouble that this recipe stirs up – I would have to make a separate trip out to buy sherry, after all. Easter Cocktails Radishes will add a kick to the bloodies you might need to add to your Easter brunch menu – making all those jelly beans palatable. (Don’t forget – Easter is April 20th – it’s almost time to start hiding those Easter eggs.

For your next book club meeting, here is a cocktail with literary aspirations: Radish Gin Cocktail I haven’t been able to find the Cocchi Americano at our liquor store, though. So I have left it out, and no one seems the wiser. Nor has it been noted by my well-read blue stockings that I also used Bombay instead of the requisite Dorothy Parker gin. (For the crowd that is used to extremely cheap white wine, this is an eye-opener, just like Uncle Willy’s in The Philadelphia Story. It packs a punch.)

Here’s one for Mr. Sanders to perfect: grilled steak with grilled radishes. Grilled Steak 
It makes me sad, though, to cook a radish. There are some vegetables that are meant to be eaten gloriously simple and raw – like fresh peas, carrots, green beans and celery. Luke the wonder dog agrees.

I think I will just mosey out to the kitchen now and cut the tops off some fresh, rosy red radishes. Then I’ll slice off the root ends, pretend that I can carve the little globes into beauteous scarlet rosettes, and plop them into a small bowl of ice water. Then I will sprinkle some crunchy Maldon salt flakes over the clumsy rose petal shapes I have created, and eat one of my favorite root vegetables.

“Plant a radish.
Get a radish.
Never any doubt.
That’s why I love vegetables;
You know what you’re about!”
—Tom Jones

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Chicken Scratch: I want to tell you… by Elizabeth Beggins

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I want to tell you how, one moment, the early air grabs my attention as I roll down the car window to clear away the previous night’s rain. And how, in the next moment, I yelp when the wipers sweep across the windshield, spraying water into the opening and all over me. I want to tell you how long I laugh at how ridiculous that is.I want to tell you about a remark so delightful that I say, out loud, then and there, “I want to write about that!” But I don’t take time to get it down, and two hours later it has evaporated from not one memory but two, which is somehow even funnier.

I want to tell you that I found the stamps I’ve been missing for a month. I want to tell you that I’m wearing sparkly earrings, the kind I usually save for dressing up. I want to tell you how it feels, when I splash my face in the morning and the water gets noticeably colder right before it starts to get warmer.

I want to tell you how these days, if I ask how you’re doing, I’m going to add “despite everything.” Because whatever it is that’s happening, whatever kind of liquifying, life-changing metamorphosis we are experiencing to be able to emerge into a reimagined understanding of who we are capable of being, it’s really, really painful, and I can’t pretend it’s not.

I want to tell you how fascinated I am that the iris tubers I planted last fall, the ones I ignored, left languishing for months in a basket, on a chair, at a table we never use, survived such a hard winter. And that I did, too, that we did, those of us who did.

I want to tell you how grace manifests when a pileated woodpecker who has been punctuating the clouds with his calls finally makes himself fully visible, flying into view, totem wings spread wide, red crest dancing like a bright poppy in a fallow field.

Pileated woodpecker. Photo by the author

 

I want to help a tender heart past yesterday’s misery and tomorrow’s grief by telling it the story of how, after having our too-green bananas in a paper bag for two days with no evidence of ripening, I add an apple, and my husband asks if I want them to have a friend to play with.

I hope often. I hope. Often.

I want to tell you how this lover of mine rides a unicycle, because he refuses to grow up or grow out of the pursuit of what makes him joyful. I want to tell you how, when he’s out there on his one wheel, he greets the neighborhood, how he knows their names and pieces of their stories, how he gives a little money to the couple who met while recovering from their addictions, because he knows they’re saving up to move back to the west coast.

I think about how we should give them more, and I wonder how often people with a lot of money do that, just hand over a thousand bucks, or ten, to make someone’s life a little easier.

I want to tell you about the man at the gym, the one who chooses a spot in the room as far away from everyone else as possible, the one who doesn’t chat before class or linger after to find out anything about anything, like most of the rest of us do. I want to tell you how a friend tells me she sees him out in the real world, that she nods and smiles but receives no acknowledgement. I want to say that his apparent disinterest in seeing or being seen changes the way I see him.

I want to say I’m astonished when I make an announcement about donations for a food pantry project and he hands me thirty dollars cash, no questions asked, even though I don’t know who he is, even though all he knows about me is what he gleans, once a week or so, from a 45-minute exercise class.

I want to tell you how a full four months after he trusts me to do what I say I’ll do with his money, I finally introduce myself to him as we walk outside into the intense aliveness of a spring morning, my sweatshirt still damp from being doused with rainwater an hour earlier.

I want to tell you how he shares his name and tells me he comes here from the next town over, how he and his wife used to own a business there, and how his mother’s name was Elizabeth.

When he speaks to me again a week later, tripping gently over my name, and I tell him he can’t forget, because it was his mother’s name, I want to tell you how he smiles. I want to tell you how we both smile.

 

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in realistic optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, become a free or paid subscriber here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.