Big Yellow Corn Bread

I am a corn freak. I even had a cat that was a corn freak. He was an orange tabby stray we picked up because he rubbed noses with our dogs and was unafraid. We adopted him and named him OJ. As it turned out, he was really a dog in a cat's body. OJ would grab corn on the cob right out of the pot when we weren't looking and jump off the kitchen counter with a cob in his mouth. He would brazenly reach in and eat corn chips right out of the bag! Anything made from corn he would go wild over. On the other hand, our other cat Powie (named after Powhaten Street in Providence, where we found her as a stray kitten) loved raw kale. Powie was really a cat in a cat's body, but her fur was silky like a bunny. Go figure.

I love baking with cornmeal, and especially love pancakes with cornmeal and apples. The other day I made a big yellow cornbread in my gigantic cast-iron skillet. At the last minute I added four chopped-up Macintosh apples to the batter, keeping the red skins on. It came out great! The moist apples countered the dryness of the cornbread and added a pleasant texture, color, and sweetness. Then today I tried it again, but I had no apples so I used one gigantic chopped-up white onion. The cornbread was equally good with my morning coffee. Remember, onions get sweet when they cook.

The Clowning Arts

I first met David Shiner while he was performing for the Broadway show Fool Moon. My old pals from my North Carolina days, the Red Clay Ramblers, provided the music. David designed and directed a show for Cirque du Soleil called Kooza, which is showing in Hartford until the end of the month. This quote is from the website.

As a clown, your main responsibility is to be the biggest fool you can possibly be. You're an idiot, you're stupid and brainless, a misfit that's trying to fit in but always falls flat on your face. That makes us laugh, because life isn't easy, it's a struggle, and there's great beauty, great tragedy and suffering, and that's what the clown communicates. The more aware a clown is of the suffering of others and of his own suffering, the more laughter he can create.

     - David Shiner

Quotes of the Day

An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner
of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.

     - Henri Matisse

One of the many distinctions between celebrity and hero is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society.

     - Joseph Campbell, as told to Bill Moyers
       in The Power of Myth

I've been digging stones out of my heart such a long time, biting into each one to make sure I'm not throwing away gold.

     - Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Thirteen Mexicans

Music is a release from the tyranny of conscious thought.

     - Kevin Burke

Teaching in the Arts: A Muscular Metaphor

My dear friend Susan is a muscular therapist by trade, and she tells me that as people get their bodies worked on, their emotional "stuff" comes up. She explains that emotions live tucked into the body pains; shoulders, hips, face muscles, the body carries it all. These knots get loosened when Susan works on them, and the physical and emotional pain is released. She can't ignore or abandon what surfaces from her clients as she helps release the pain in their muscles. This emotional element is part of her work, whether she wants it or not, and sometimes what surfaces from a body is a torrent of grief, or anger.

This also happens to anyone painting, drawing, writing, acting, etc. The emotional stuff surfaces like rocks in the spring soil. We have to attend to it, and the creative and emotional work is all part of the whole person living, of a human who is building and making a life. Of course when our emotions are agitated and the drama is loud within ourselves, demanding all of our attention like a roomful of screaming infants being vaccinated, it can distract us from seeing that other people need healing too. This is why we must try to be clear and honest in our work, to brave the pain, so we can be accurate reflectors for those around us trying to see themselves through our help and example.

For me, teaching in the arts means helping kids develop life-long emotional rescue tools, so they can go to their notebooks and sketchbooks and write and draw to release their pain and to heal. They are struggling with more than we can even imagine; empowerment through these tools of expression is the best thing we can give them. An expressive society is a healthy society.

Being a Ziti

I call it being a ziti
when you let all the light
and love
and ideas
flow through you
and you are the channel,
you are not the sauce
or the noodle,
just the space the macaroni makes.
(4/8/08)

Angel

Last week Angel Quinonez was my guest at Beacon. He is an amazing painter and tattoo artist. He told the class that he grew up in Central Falls, getting in and out of trouble. He got a scholarship to Brown University and majored in religion and philosophy. He supported himself doing tattoos. Now he works at the AS220 Broad Street Studios and teaches at the juvenile training school. I wanted my boys especially to meet him, and they were enthralled! After class the principal offered Angel a free space for teaching after-school art at Beacon. It was an inspiring day for all of us! Angel loved Beacon and said it was the best reception he'd gotten! Good karma sparks all around!

The Winter Cactus

Forgive me that I am often so sad in April and May and June. I am a strange woman, one who blooms in winter, happiest with frozen ground. I am a winter cactus, a bright flower with thorns! A fire-and-ice picnic is my joy: being outside under the winter stars in December, playing instruments around an open hearth by the woods on the longest night!

Breathing in April, May, and June is often hard for me. The molds and mushrooms torment my neurotransmitters into a deep melancholia. I carry the canister of chemicals to open my lungs lest they shut down leaving me breathless. While the teens are kissing in the park, dancing in summer shorts and dresses, I am gloomy, wishing for the winter ice storms to return. But I can still swim the icy ponds in spring, before they warm up!

Quote of the Day

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either will power or inspiration. Consequentially, there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain number of words is established. There is no possibility of saying I'll do it if I feel like it. You start out putting words down and there are three things - you, the pen, and the page, then gradually the three things merge until they are one and you feel about the page as you do about your arm only you love it more than you love your arm.

     - John Steinbeck

Craving Spinach Pies

Today I am craving spinach pies from Jeanette's bakery on Branch Ave in Providence! How long does it take to bike to Branch Ave from Woonsocket? Maybe I can use the bike path; is it completed yet? Jeanette's sells out their fabulous garlic-and-black-olive-infused spinach pies by noon!! They are divine! Heck, maybe I should make them myself. Could Chef Nick over at Beacon sell me a few buckets of whole wheat flour to hold me until payday?

I'm off to walk Honey in the ice-cold sunshine. I've been having too much fun writing letters since the pink and blue dawn sky. Later I'll pedal off to teach ahhhhhhhhhhht for 90 minutes, then bicycle home to honk the long bari tones on Joni songs for our next show. Gotta post a few new recipes too.

St Paddy's Day

Saturday night we had band rehearsal in Ivoryton (named after the tusks brought to the old piano factory.) We cooked corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and parsnips and turnips in my two Presto pressure cookers and it was all so delicious! I gathered up the steaming juices left over and brought it home. The next day it was great heated up over Brussels sprouts and leftover buckwheat noodles! It made an instant gloopy yummy soup.

I also served up a loaf of whole wheat Irish soda bread, one of two loaves I had baked that morning. Bill and I ate most of the second loaf on the way home after rehearsal. Everyone going out of town was being stopped at a police road-check. The state policeman shined his flashlight into the car; "We're just checking everyone to make sure there's no liquor." I said "No, just Irish soda bread, want some?" I showed it to him, but he declined. I really wish he could've had a few bites.

At school on Monday all the kids wore green Mardi Gras beads (St Patrick's Day beads!) and plastic green bowlers. The girls had four-leaf-clover stickers under their right eyes. They are all so cute. I hope they know it. At home, I baked two more of my Irish soda breads, this time using my freshly-made yogurt. Then I pedaled over to Shaw's Meats to see if Jamie Sullivan had any corned beef left. He corns his own beef in the weeks leading up to St Patrick's day, filling barrels of brine with cuts of beef. He dyes the beef red by throwing in a couple of beets!

Simulating Ireland

This is a recipe for Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread, adapted from Marion Cunningham's Fanny Farmer baking book. It's so simple and wholesome - we made two loaves, one to nibble on right away and one to bring to our band rehearsal supper. I like to bake using greased stoneware or greased cast iron but anything will work. Stir, then knead the ingredients for a minute. The dough will be sticky and lumpy but it all is part of the rustic charm. Shape the dough into a ball and squish it down flat and slash an x into it. The dough it will expand and rise in the oven - the baking soda and the tangy yogurt set off a fast chemical reaction like the quick-foaming baking-soda-vinegar volcanoes we all made in 4th grade!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4 cups whole wheat flour
two teaspoons Kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk +1 cup yogurt mixed (or two cups of buttermilk)
(optional - one cup raisins)

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Take the hot loaves off the stone when done and wrap them in a clean, slightly damp kitchen towel. Keep it wrapped for up to eight hours (but have bites as you wish!) As the bread cools, the dampness (apparently simulating Ireland) softens and seasons the bread.

Happy Holy Week!

I am happy because the light is back but the allergens are still dormant.

I am loving teaching the teens in this urban arts high school! The more troubled the kids the more I want to dive in and connect, which always turns them around! The principal is surprised that I want him to give me the most difficult kids. I told him I was looking into working at the prison before he hired me. Now I think I have found teaching as my new calling!

Today I got a gallon of skim milk from the dairy farm to culture my own yogurt in glass mason jars on our boiler, the only warm place in our home in winter. First I mix the milk with nonfat dry milk to boost the nutrition content, then I bring it to 180 degrees in a double boiler, then I cool it to 110 degrees and add the starter, a dollop of yogurt. You can make your own yogurt cheese, too. Pour a cup or two of yogurt into a coffee cone filter and let it drain overnight into a jar. Save the whey for soup or bread, or just drink it straight! Add herbs to the finished yogurt cheese if you like. It is like a healthy Boursin cheese.

Bread Substitute

Bill and I conducted a three-day Science of Bread workshop last week at Beacon. We were the substitutes for Ms Fox's junior science class while she was away. The students and I made a gigantic whole-wheat sourdough molasses cracked-rye cornmeal rolled-oats dough. Bill brought ingredients (for both bread and beer) for the students to see and taste, and we explained what flour is, where wheat comes from, what yeast is, and how fermentation works. We baked the bread in the school's oven, and filled the school with the aroma. Everyone got to have a baby bread the size of a grapefruit!

Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks

Thanks to James Dufficy for sending this. James has been a friend of mine since 4th grade, and is a poet living and writing in London.

All these fellows were there inside
when she entered, utterly naked.
They had been drinking, and began to spit at her.
Recently come from the river, she understood nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The taunts flowed over her glistening flesh.
Obscenities drenched her golden breasts.
A stranger to tears, she did not weep.
A stranger to clothes, she did not dress.
They pocked her with cigarette ends and with burnt corks,
and rolled on the tavern floor in raucous laughter.
She did not speak, since speech was unknown to her.
Her eyes were the colour of faraway love,
her arms were matching topazes.
Her lips moved soundlessly in coral light,
and ultimately, she left by that door.
Hardly had she entered the river than she was cleansed,
gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain;
and without a backward look, she swam once more,
swam towards nothingness, swam to her dying.

     - Pablo Neruda

Health is Wealth

Friday I caught a cold and it has traveled to my lungs, triggering my normally dormant asthma. The medicines are helping a little but so far not enough to stop this train! Argh. I hope I'm not heading towards pneumonia. At least I am in good spirits and we had our musical performance last week and I have this school vacation week to recover. My dog is by my side fending off the ghosts of loneliness. I am reading Ernest Hemingway's letters. I love reading the letters of great writers. I have a feeling I won't be traveling to NYC tomorrow after all but maybe I can go during April vacation.

Self Portrait Self Image

We look in the mirror and what do we see? Scars, pimples, hairs, double chins? The girls in my class put on eye liner and lipstick and pierce their noses and eyebrows and lips, dye their hair a new color each night and have multiple tattoos.

One girl started a rumor that another girl was gay and because this was not true it was particularly painful for the accused girl to come to class so I sat with her on the other side of the room and talked with her about it for the whole class time. This was an important trauma to address. I told her she could ignore it and be angry at the same time. But lashing out would harm everyone. I remember how traumatic it was when my mother accused me of being gay at that age too because I was not being girly and flirting with boys like my sister was. Instead I had boys who were my close friends.

One of my students told me she doesn't like to be fat but sometimes she eats three bowls of ice cream before bed for comfort. She is 14 and her mother lives in NY with her own parents, and her father has a new woman and baby in NJ. I asked her how does that feel? This girl is being raised by her 27-year-old half-sister who I met on parents night. Is she good to you? I asked.

I told her to write down a list of everything she eats, not to show me but for herself. I told her about some foods, like apples and popcorn, that are comforting snacks but are healthy and won't make you fat. I told her that building muscles walking up the stairs and walking to school is good for her body and it can help her body become a more efficient fuel-burning machine. This girl is Italian and Puerto Rican and smart and a very good artist. She has such a classic look, like she stepped out of one of Diego Rivera's murals. She's going to NY over vacation to get her flute so she can play in the jazz band.

The Power of Simplicity

I was in Bill's shop and I passed a box of clothespins, and I thought, "I have to bring this to class for my students to draw." At school the kids said "Ma'am it's just a box of clothespins!" And I said "Yes, isn't it beautiful?" Maybe teaching is the most subversive activity I have ever encountered. Each day I have the opportunity to be present and honest and to respond with dignity, sincerity, and humor to my students. Every day teenagers are thrown out and abandoned by their parents and by society. Mostly it is because of fear. I was abandoned too and this is why it is so empowering to hear them and support them. It's mending my old wounds while celebrating new lives.

Shoes

I got my clogs re-soled for 20 bucks and they are better than new! The shoemaker polished them up too!! Now he's working on my other pair. I have a feeling he's getting more work these days - he apologized for taking a whole week to finish my shoes. I said don't worry about it, it took me three months to finally bring them in.

Happy Valentine's Day

Every year I'm reminded of the time my friend's mother kneaded her diamond wedding ring into her bread dough and baked it. Unknowingly the father ate it . . . But they never did find it.

for the true lover
everyday is
valentine's day

     - Steve Sanfield

Face Parts

I just photographed Bill's after-school music theory class at Beacon School. Yup, now he's working there too. They'll never get rid of us now! Bill's class took place after my art class, which is the last class of the day (on Mondays and Fridays).

In art class the kids were all drawing self-portraits in pencil. Unfortunately, 14-year-old girls & guys hate to look at themselves!! So I had to cajole them into seeing how beautiful they were by having them look at one feature at a time, and by looking at everyone else's features. I got them to focus on the details of the top lip, lower lip, ear lobes, eyebrows, nostrils, nose, eyes. Luckily it worked!!