housebound

don’t worry, i do not plan to turn STILL into a food blog. i simply have been house bound for a few days with with a case of shingles (aren’t i supposed to be older before that happens?). so, since i am not out walking my usual trails, i have had to turn to what i have in the house for my daily inspiration. yesterday, while i was cleaning the spice cabinet, i came across a ball jar of fennel stems and seeds that my husband @sjrhoffman harvested just as we were leaving southern france one year ago this time….one year ago…in france…only one year ago…sigh…i instinctively put one of those seeds between my front teeth and bit down, and i was temporarily driving down our local anise-scented country highway, with wild fennel stalks blowing in the wind, and grape vines sitting in well-behaved rows, before i was brought back to 10 inches of minnesota winter snow.

wild fennel stems and seeds (Foeniculum vulgare)

superfoods

remember just a few years ago? it was  sometime after wheat grass. if i had to guess i’d say between blueberries and açaí. anyway it was the brief, golden era when pomegranates sat atop the superfood pyramid. in fact i think someone said, although this is hard to believe, that pomegranate juice might have more antioxidants than cranberry juice or even green tea. i know, right?  all i can say is thank heavens we have nutritionists to crush pomegranates into juice for us, and pack their extracted seeds into plastic packages, so that we can gain access to their disease fighting capabilities and their constituent nutritive properties. certainly, that is more important to humanity than the sight of a halved fruit, bursting with faceted crimson jewels that one can, if one wants to miss the whole point of pomegranates, pluck one by one from their tight quarters, and burst between wet teeth.

pomegranate (Punica granatum)

freebie

some days i have to search high and low for a still blog subject. today, one blew in on the wind. over the course of a blizzardly winter afternoon, the sky let close to a foot of snow fall on my deck, and then the wind set about sculpting some of it into an abstract but evocative little ridge right outside my back door. i just opened the door, squinted a little bit into the spray of frost on my face, and took this photo.

snowdrift

the moronic sport

my two minnesota boys went out to do the classic minnesota thing today. they sat on the ice of our lake for a couple hours, looking down into holes where their fishing lines disappeared, and eventually brought home a light appetizer of two bluegills. then they went to watch the minnesota vikings lose another chance to go to the superbowl. a quintessential minnesota day. i think they would say it was fun.

freshwater bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) in the sunfish family

nesting

i don’t know what this is. i didn’t have a vision for it when i started and i didn’t try to impose a vision as i pulled it together. it looks like an apple or a maybe a nest. i’ve been operating at capacity for a long time. i could use a little bit of nesting. my hands made a nest of tangerine leaves almost in spite of me. it doesn’t have to make sense. but it does make perfect sense.

dried tangerine leaves