My husband’s new Retirement Garden (aka The Graveyard) will not sit idle until spring. With hopes for a warm October, he went ahead and put in a bunch of seeds and surprisingly, they all sprouted.
He planted spinach, radishes, Swiss chard and four kinds of lettuce seeds.
Also, he now has a spigot out there. 💦
For my friends facing knee replacement: his two new knees are really pretty darn good now. Walking is not a problem. Stairs are not a problem. I would say that this optimistic return to his lifelong love of plants and gardening has been made possible by those surgeries.
I had a recipe for “Dutch Pear Pie” printed out in a 3-ring binder. I had scribbled “good” in pencil across the top—and so it is.
My husband did the hardest job of chopping up most of our remaining Asian pears. The rest is pretty easy. Something about a streusel-topped pie that’s just so delicious. And it’s really not that hard. No special equipment required. I just softened up the butter for about a minute in the microwave on 50% power and then made the streusel with a fork.
How do you like my “staging” of my pie in this photograph? I feel like I really nailed it. I’m getting a lot of compliments from my friends on Instagram. So many, that I’m reminded of a Josh Johnson comedy bit about how much white ladies LOVE autumn. (Oh they do, they really really do. I’m a summer lover, but my friends love fall.)
Side view of a slice 😋
This is one of the rare baked fruit pies that doesn’t require ice cream or whipped cream. (I mean, they won’t hurt, but they’re not needed.) It’s a complete dessert on its own. I think the sour cream in the filling fulfills the dairy role.
1 box Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts, softened as directed on box
Filling
1 cup sour cream
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon Gold Medal all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg, beaten
3+ cups coarsely chopped fresh pears (6-8 pears, or as many as will fit in your pie shell)
Crumb Topping
1 cup Gold Medal all-purpose flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup butter or margarine
Instructions
Heat oven to 425°F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell, using a 9-inch glass pie plate; do not prick crust. Carefully line pastry with a double thickness of foil, gently pressing foil to bottom and side of pastry. Let foil extend over edge to prevent excessive browning. Bake for 10 minutes. Carefully remove foil; bake 2 to 4 minutes longer, or until pastry just begins to brown and has become set. If crust bubbles, gently push bubbles down with the back of a spoon.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the filling ingredients. Pour into the warm baked pie shell.
In a medium bowl, mix the crumb topping ingredients with a pastry blender or fork until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the filling.
Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the top is light golden brown. After 30 minutes of baking, cover the top of the pie with foil to prevent excessive browning. Cool at least 30 minutes before serving. Store in the refrigerator.
How does your mindset affect your financial success?
One thing that people who are on the other side of the political spectrum from me (my father for one) love to say is that there’s no other country in the world where people can just “have an idea” and make millions of dollars. They say that’s a uniquely American thing.
Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal that doubles down on this idea that America is great because anyone who works hard can get rich. I’ve also noticed that these same people tend to say Europe is poor and declining. “They don’t even realize how poor they are,” I heard one Conservative acquaintance (another white man) say.
I’m all for people working hard and doing well as a result, but this idea that everyone should just “have an idea” (like opening a hot dog stand) and through sheer grit and a positive attitude make a fortune seems…naive. And also, given who tends to espouse it, the height of privilege.
If your pet an elephant could talk, what would be the first thing it says?
100 life-size elephant sculptures, each hand-carved from the invasive plant lantana camara by roughly 300 Indigenous artisans from India’s Nilgiri Hills and modeled after real, named elephants, are on display for free along Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall. They’re all facing in the same direction—moving as a herd down Comm Ave.
Once, for my Book Group, I selected a classic that was highly recommended by the author Ann Patchett on the Instagram account of her Nashville bookstore—Parnassus Books. The book is called Independent People by the Icelandic author Halldór Laxness. It was written a long time ago and considered a seminal work. It led to the author getting a Pulitzer Prize.
It was awful. Nobody in my book group made it through to the end, but I felt like I HAD to finish it, because I chose it.
I’ve mostly blocked it out, but let’s just say I know more about sheep and their various disgusting ailments than I ever wanted to and Iceland is permanently OFF my Bucket List. 😉
What’s the most annoying trope in books or movies?
Listen, one thing I know about is Massholes. I grew up with plenty of them. I know when the accent is real.
In movies, they never get it right. Even Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who grew up in highbrow Cambridge, don’t get it quite right. (Despite that slight flaw, I loved the filmGood Will Hunting. It captured one of the key characteristics of Masshole mentality—class awareness. “You think you’re bettah than me cuz you go to Hah-vahd? Well Faaaack you”)
Mark Wahlberg, on the other hand, is an objectively terrible actor, but an authentic Boston Masshole. Did you know he grew up in the infamous South Boston “projects” and was involved in a number of serious racially-motivated assaults and harassment incidents as a teenager in Boston during the mid-1980s? I did! He’s the type of guy I would’ve avoided like the plague in high school.
This is a famous image by Stanley Forman. Titled “The Soiling of Old Glory,” the photo won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. Forman took the picture on April 5, 1976, for what was then the Boston Herald American. A young white man lunges at a black man (Ted Landsmark) with the sharp point of a flagpole, with the American flag attached.
Well, this is all a long-winded way of saying that I finally saw an authentic portrait of that trope last night. The film Tony about one summer in the life of the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has a great Masshole character played by Leo Woodall. He’s SO good in this. In my opinion, he steals the film, which is largely set on Cape Cod in the summer of 1975. His accent and demeanor are perfect. It just figures that he’s a Brit! He totally nailed his part. GENXers should go see the film for Woodall and the soundtrack (including some classic Jonathan Richman) alone.
Leo Woodall as the Masshole character—a restaurant worker named Sal—in Tony (in theaters now)
Here’s me at a dinner with Ted Landsmark (from the Pulitzer Prize winning photo) in 2013. It was an honor to meet such a distinguished Bostonian.
Thanks to Laurie’s prompting, my husband and I went and got the new updated COVID vaccine yesterday. It was free at CVS—actually, better than free—we each got a $5 coupon. The pharmacist said she had eighty appointments to give the shot yesterday, so people in Massachusetts are taking it seriously.
Sadly, we’re not getting good public health information from our federal government any longer in the United States. Fascists and quacks are running the show. People are actually dying of measles again here in the US, while Dear Leader breaks ground on his Triumphal Arch.
What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street?
Money. That’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever found in the street. I don’t think I ever found more than $20, but one time a twenty-dollar bill floated right in front of me in the ocean. It glided by on a gentle wave. Turns out that a wet twenty needs to dry out in the sun, but then it works just like a regular twenty. 😉
Quick update on the fruit trees—the fruit picking tool arrived! And there’s plenty of fruit left out there. The squirrels are still MIA.
My second Winesap apple pie of the year just came out of the oven. I’m using the recipe on a ceramic pie plate that I’ve had for at least twenty years. I believe my mother got it at a “garage sale” for me.
So maybe this pie plate is a better answer to the prompt. Around here, “Garage sales” typically take place on the street in front of the home.
I am happy to report that the young fellow we hired to install some new garden beds and a deer fence for my husband was successful. Matt was our “plow guy” last winter, but we discovered he also does landscaping (as many plow guys do). Matt brought along two actual children with him as helpers and they worked all weekend long. When I asked if the boys were his nephews or younger brothers, he said that they were just two industrious boys who asked for work. It turns out they were 14 and 15 years old. I have never seen boys that young work so hard. I was a bit worried about them, but the weather was perfect and they seemed fine. I brought out snacks a few times and my husband gave them each a cash tip.
Matt in the new garden area on Saturday morningHere’s how it looked Saturday night And here’s how it looked last night after they left—my husband entering the raised bed enclosure for the first time. Does it remind you of anything??I’m sorry, but to me it looks like a bunch of freshly dug graves 🤣If we got more trick-or-treaters, I’d attempt to create a graveyard scene for Halloween. I mean, it would be PERFECT.A blank slate for my husband to pursue one of his great loves (plants) in his upcoming retirement. You can see two of our fruit trees behind the raised beds, and the big clump of cannabis plants on the right. (They’re going to get moved inside the fence next season.) If this were an actual family graveyard, I think I’d want to be buried in one of the big containers inside the deer fence. This big grave seems too exposed. It is slated to become a butterfly garden 🦋
So, back to the prompt (sort of):
What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
I think it was pretty darn kind of me to help make one of his retirement dreams a reality. (I found Matt and had the bright idea to contact him for this job.) Last weekend was supposed to be my Bucket List trip to Acadia National Park, which I canceled mostly because my husband was not feeling well enough to travel. (Weather would’ve been perfect for it too.)
I trust my kindness will be repaid in organic vegetables, pretty flowers and cannabis galore in the coming years. And I’m sure I’ll make it up to Acadia – eventually.
For what it’s worth, I think very old people should retire, especially from Congress.
At age 80, Ed Markey is too old to be elected to a six-year term as a Massachusetts senator. I voted for his 47-year old primary opponent Seth Moulton—a Harvard graduate (Physics Major), multi-term U.S. Representative, decorated Marine Corps veteran, and married father of two daughters.
The main objection to Moulton seems to be that he once said something along the lines of “I don’t want my daughters to have to play contact sports with formerly male athletes.” This seems like a ridiculous reason for Massachusetts “progressives” to throw him under the bus, but that’s exactly what they’re doing, including many of the activists from my church.
So now, I keep my mouth shut. I’m obviously going to vote for Markey over any Republican in the general election.
Markey is a tall old white man (not a known member of the LGBTQ community). He has no children. I believe he served in the Army Reserves during the Vietnam War. My favorite thing that he’s done as Senator was to speak out against the TikTok ban.
Here’s what the New York Times had to say about this race.
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