Camping and a Recipe

This weekend, T and I went on a camping trip to Sanborn Skyline County Park in Santa Clara County. It's part of a chain of lovely parks that run along Skyline Boulevard, and get lots of play from cyclists and bikers alike.

If you ever go camping there, you should know that the park has great summer weather (cool but summery in the wooded campsites, sunny and warm on the picnic lawns). You should also know that all the sites are walk-in, and you climb a rather steep (though paved) hill to get to them. We knew, but it was still painful, yet calorie-burning. Next time, we'll reserve earlier, and closer to the bottom.

While we were relaxing amongst the trees, I finished the new Harry Potter book, which caused me to exclaim aloud multiple times. T was reading River of Shadows, by Rebecca Solnit, which is about Eadweard Muybridge, who could be said to be the guy who created the first timeline with photographs, paving the way for film.



I have a camping recipe to share. I think it was one of the most delicious over-the-fire creations I've ever made.

Potatoes with Leeks in Foil
Makes two servings

Ingredients
15-25 small and medium sized redskin potatoes, cut into quarters or eighths
One medium sized leek
1/4 cup Chopped Fresh Herbs (I used Rosemary, Sage and Thyme). You could also use dried herbs.
One large clove garlic, minced
Two tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon Salt

Divide the cut potatoes onto two large pieces of foil. Sprinkle the leeks, herbs and garlic among the potatoes. Cut the butter into four pieces and put two on each half of the potatoes, along with 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Fold each packet, making sure that the potatoes are in a single layer, and place over the fire or on the grill. Cook packets until the biggest pieces of potato are tender. Your time will vary. We cooked ours using charcoal, over a fire pit, and it took 20-30 minutes.

The Books of 2007, Part 1

Last year I started keeping a list of all the books I've read, inspired by a former coworker. This year has been an especially book-heavy year for me, for some reason, though I have been remiss in reading nonfiction. I think I get my nonfiction from magazines and the internet.

Here's the list for the first half of 2007, with some commentary. The bold ones are the ones that really wowed me.

Best Short Stories 2006

The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Susannah Clarke. A collection of short stories that is the followup to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and expands on the magical yet very English world depicted in the book.

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. The struggles of six outcasts linked through time. The author invents new worlds and reimagines old ones, while writing in six different styles, all of them riveting. One of the best books I have ever read.

How Much Is Enough?, Clarke, Dawson, Bredehoft. A very good parenting book about how indulging kids harms them, and how to raise self-reliant kids.

Number 9 Dream, David Mitchell

All She Was Worth, Miyuki Miyabe. A curious Japanese noir novel about what credit cards can do to a person.

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai. This book was very well written, but sort of left me cold in the end.

Jesusland, Julia Scheeres. Page-turning memoir about a girl whose oblivious Christian parents adopt two African-American children, and how they all grow up, not too happily in rural Indiana.

Best Short Stories 2004



Last Evenings on Earth, Roberto Bolano. The author was a Chilean who wandered the earth, and lived out a noveau-bohemian stereotype of the chain-smoking, hard-living writer (there he is above, smoking away) before dying in his 50s. This is a book of short stories that is deceptively simple, and a fresh new look into the Spanish-speaking world without a single incident of magical realism.

Soar With Your Strengths, Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson. An annoying business book I had to read for a training. I hate business books.

Mothering Without a Map, Kathryn Black. A parenting book for mothers (or mothers to be, like me) who had absent, abusive or neglectful mothers. This book was a necessary read for me, and it made me really sad.

Serious Girls, Maxine Swann

The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession, Paulo Coelho. This is one of the worst, most half-baked books I've ever read.

The Mistress' Daughter, A.M. Homes. Another adoption memoir, about the novelist Homes' less than idyllic reunion with her birthparents.

Drown, Junot Diaz. Fantastic book of short stories about Dominicans in New York and the D.R. Tough-minded but really kind, too.

Eat The Document, Dana Spiotta. The story of 60s radicals who go underground after a bombing goes wrong. It has a lot to say about the leftist politics of the 60s and today.

Noone Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July. Yeah, I know that Miranda July is a cool lady, but this book had a few good Lorrie Moore-esque stories and some that just weren't very good.

Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami. A surprisingly linear Murakami that was a lot of fun to read. I think I've read all of his novels now, except for his new one.

Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky. Three linked novellas that tell the story of the German occupation of France and the ways the rich, poor and middle class adapted or resisted. This author, a Russian emigre to France, died at Auschwitz, and the novel was discovered only recently.

The Road, Cormac McCarthy. This dystopian novel about a father and his son looking for safety in a destroyed world was impossible to put down and has haunted me ever since I read it.

Now I'm on to the second half of the year. I've been wanting to read a book called The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud, and have come close to shelling out $15 for it a couple of times. While walking through Noe Valley yesterday, I found a hardback of it lying on the ground, with someone's airline ticket stub and pictures of a mother and child inside.

Living in Sin

At work, I've been asked to reflect on my past a lot lately. We are using a fundraising model that asks you to put yourself into describing why you do your work, not intellectually but emotionally, so you can ask other people to care too. It's cheesy in a way, but also really powerful, and it's what I need right now personally, I think.

So I've been thinking a lot about reading, and how it really saved me from my parents' madness as a kid, and how it was my parents that gave me the tools to escape from their madness. Books helped me spin my bohemian dreams, and I think I've been pretty faithful to them, in my own practical way. I still remember in high school when we were discussing the Adrienne Rich poem below. I just looked it up, googling Adrienne Rich and "shawl"--hadn't read it since then and didn't remember the title. It means even more to me now.

In high school (see photo above), the teacher asked the class to say where the poem was taking place. Reflexively, I raised my hand and said "Greenwich Village." Right, said the teacher. All of my suburban Cleveland classmates were totally freaked out--how did I know that? I felt, gladly, different.

Living in Sin

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own---
envoy from some village in the moldings . . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Summer Fun

Last week our friend Christie came to visit from New York, which was almost as good as going on vacation. Christie and I have been friends since the early 90s, when we were both going to school at the University of Iowa. We have been to countless thrift shops together and shared numberless indie rock and alt country listening sessions.

On the 4th, Christie, T and I went to Point Pinole, a very cool piece of land that juts into San Pablo Bay. It's on the site of a former dynamite factory, and you can see overgrown industrial ruins as you hike. You can also see tons of Richmond industrial ugliness across the bay from certain parts of the shoreline, while other places look lovely and wild. The mix is intriguing.

On the pier, we saw a man catch a little shark, which scared me, but I felt I had to look because I eat a lot of fish. Christie took this lovely portrait of T and me.



We also went to the St. Francis Fountain with Hugh and Mati. I have long been aware of the existence of the Fountain, which I think is SF's oldest ice cream spot, but I had never been there or tried their affordable and abundant breakfasts until recently. Which was very foolish of me. Don't make the same mistake I did.