Promise

There are two favorite times of day: one is when I sip my morning cup of coffee alone. Usually outside, or standing at the kitchen door, looking at the garden.

The second is Just Before Dinner. I whistle at the Frenchman when it is five minutes from being ready, and he lays the table. The anticipation of sitting and sharing that meal is like a holiday in the middle of the days of madness that characterize 2018.

We sit outside as much as we can, retreating indoors only when the humidity is deeply stifling, or when it is freezing. Curiously, we also eat inside when we are freshly and deeply stressed: Outside is never really private - lots of windows looking down, and if they are open, conversation may as well be public. Like a vulnerable naked oyster we retreat into our shell.

We are strange New Yorkers. In a city riddled with excellent restaurants we rarely eat out. Partly because it is expensive - and why pay $18 for a cocktail when you can have a better one in your own [ahem: the landlord's] garden? - partly because we hate shouting at each other over a table. And shopping for seasonal ingredients at outstanding farmers' markets is also a New York pleasure and privilege; so is growing them or foraging for them.

This is the only time we really get to talk, and we save up small events from our days to tell each other. A story about an interesting dog who looked at us, for example, or two squirrels that fell out of a tree and landed smack on the sidewalk, or the old man who is always on the street when Vince goes to work in the wee hours. We hold hands.

In the garden at night there are fireflies, so we watch them as we eat. After a tentative start they are now very active, swooping high like embers from a windy fire. Sometimes they find their way indoors and hours later there will suddenly be a flash in a dark room. We rescue them and release them back to the night and their constant calling.

_____________________

Pre-Order Forage Harvest Feast