Bounty/Time Bomb

As of last night I have 63 pears in my closet. 63 pears that will all achieve ripeness simultaneously. I live alone, with very little free cupboard, freezer or counter space, and am responisble for feeding only myself and, occasionally, the Yankee Fan, who has very strong policies regarding the consumption of cooked fruit. And I have 63 pears.

The thing is, I have a hard time passing up free materials. Self-contained items aren’t so much of a problem; I’ve gritted my teeth and sailed by plenty of books and small appliances and delightful knick knacks. The problem is when potential rears its ugly-now-but-think-how-pretty-I-could-be head. The potential for demolishing and rebuilding an unflattering polyester dress, the potential for turning an crusty chair into a tiered planter (more on that soon), the potential for making a bunch of wastebaskets out of banner scraps from work. I face the triple threat of being really cheap, really into recycling, and really prone to procrastinating by crafting, and I usually lose.

So, the pears. In the front yard of my building, there is a pear tree. Since moving in this spring, I’d been watching its wee baby pears fatten up. A few days ago, I noticed some pears lying on the lawn, still green and hard. Was the tree ill? Underwatered? Harassed by neighborhood hoodlums? According to the internet, no. Apparently, you have to pick pears before the seem edible (but after they ooze juice upon being sliced) and squirrel them away in a cool dark place to ripen. And one of the signs that it’s harvest time is dropped fruit. So harvest I did. I felt so satisfied and pioneer-style, carefully laying out my ranks of pears, standing them at attention inside fruit-fly deflecting pillowcases.

Now what? I have a lot of pounds of free pears and unlike a polyester dress, they can’t just hang out in the closet for 3 years until I get around to using them for something. To be honest, I don’t actually like pears that much. But they were free. And about to go to waste, because who the hell besides pear farmers knows that you’re supposed to pick pears when they’re nasty and hard. I’m hoping my oven can sustain an even, low temperature well enough for some serious drying. Perhaps I could even set up a pear-leather stand on the stoop and raise enough money to buy the full-size food processor I’ve been dreaming of lately.

In the meantime, if you know a good pear recipe, pass it along.

The Spicy Smell of Success

When I went all crazy planting a vegetable garden in pots this spring, I was more than a little afraid that all the crops would fail miserably, not to mention publicly, since my “garden” is really a strip of dirt along the front wall of my building. The dill did succumb to mildew a couple weeks ago, and the zucchini contracted some kind of tragic disease and withered leaf by leaf, but other than that, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

My jalapeno plant, which I selected based on its delightfully lame name (Much Nacho) has been the biggest thrill. It currently sports 9, count ‘em, 9 glossy, green beauties of varying length, and there are still many more flowers just starting to bloom.

I’m already planning a harvest feast in my head: 100% homegrown salsa (I’ve got the tomatoes and cilantro, plus Davis-grown onions and garlic from my dad), some black beans stewed up with fresh epazote, mojitos starring the mint that has rebounded from an earlier caterpillar attack…We’ll sit on the ever-more-brown front lawn in the shade of the maple tree and watch the parade of neighborhood dogs and crazies until the sun goes down. It might not quite be country living, but it’s close enough for me.

Love is New York

This was my fourth trip to New York, and I know I’ll be back soon, so aside from an ironclad determination to be engulfed by giant waves of steel at the MOMA, I felt pleasantly unobliged to go to 20 museums in a day or to do anything in particular really. It worked out well, at least by my standards.
A few highlights:

1. I stuck my feet in 3 new bodies of water (the Hudson, Long Island Sound and Esophus Creek)

2. I saw some large, dead horseshoe crabs.

3. I bowled my best game ever.

4. JB and I went to the Peter Pan Bakery in Greenpoint where we purchased an obscene quantity of doughnuts, drank an egg cream, and watched old Polish men gossip. I was tempted to order a cup of Sanka just because it was available, but cooler heads prevailed.

5. I saw baby swans, baby robins, and teenage ospreys.

6. At a souvenir/crap shop in Phoenicia (in the heart o’ the Catskills) the Yankee Fan and I got the best mugs ever for only a dollar each. His says “Roommate You’re the Best” and had a clip art of a key. Mine says “Love is New York” and has a lot of colorful hearts.

7. I ordered and ate a completely spherical and very messy pastry from a Polish bakery without every really figuring out or worrying about what it was.

8. I did not get lost even a little bit. Except when I was going from the train station to JB’s apartment but that doesn’t count because it was very early in the morning.

9. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with a cute boy.

10. The Yankee Fan’s mom bought us 5 boxes of vegetarian sushi to eat on the airplane and offered to do my laundry.