The fridge

This month, on Thursdays, I have been making and delivering a batch of chile (chilli, chili) to a community fridge a mile-and-a-half north of us. A digital friend of many years is doing the same in Baltimore, and her exceptionally organized efforts inspired me.

I make enough for 10 meals. Usually, it's a beef chile, with two different beans and lots of vegetables and aromatics, but yesterday's version was chicken with white beans. The beans start soaking on Wednesday, and I build the stew the next day in the morning.

It wasn't beautiful but it was really delicious (I set aside a small bowl for myself, for lunch - the Frenchman can't do beans, sadly, so it's a treat for me).

Cooking for invisible people is not easy. What can't they eat, what do they need? Where are they from, what speaks to home? Chile - this version is a very mildly spicy bean and meat stew - seemed to cover a lot of bases, in terms of calorie content, nutritional value and possible comfort appeal. Adding the animal protein obviously excludes anyone who doesn't eat meat.

It also has to be something easy to heat, eat and serve. But it still assumes a microwave or hot plate or pot. There are none of those on the street, where people have been freezing to death. I have been pondering sandwiches.

At the fridge yesterday, half the containers left my hands straight into other hands. I was there an hour earlier than usual, and the fridge was empty, aside from a large container of cooked rice. Three containers I actually placed inside, and when I came back after going around the corner to buy some fruit and small yogurts to add, they were gone. 

All three customers were in their sixties or seventies, and the last was with two little children who looked no different from all the other little kids out of school in a high-rent neighborhood. "I am feeding seven," she said, and told me where she was from in Europe.

A few months ago I might have described the customers in more detail but we don't live in a time or place where that bodes well for anyone.

Once, the fridge was packed to the rafters, including the freezer section, with meals in covered plastic bowls, all labeled, still warm. A mother and small child were looking at them and she asked him if he preferred chicken or pork. Pork, he said.

Last week, 30 individually wrapped cookies I placed in the pantry section vanished in seven minutes flat (again, I had gone around the corner to get fruit - I don't bring it with me because it's heavy and the chile is also heavy). I have many questions, most are unanswered.

But I can't forget the two men yesterday, who said quietly when I arrived, It is empty. After my first deliveries this month I was worried that the chile would not be eaten and I went back the next day to move the containers it into the freezer for food safety. I needn't have worried. The worry, of course, is far bigger.

The citrus flock

On these coldest days - the coldest I can remember in my life in New York, and it's been more than half my life - I sometimes stay in the bedroom to work. It's where the sun and the citrus trees are. The Meyer lemon is in bloom.  

A new shoot. The word. Shoot. New growth and life, take a picture, and the intent to kill with a thing that is made only for killing.

Shoot. Like, darn, bother, dammit. Oh, shoot. 

In my eternal endeavour not to overwater my citrus trees I managed to underwater the Meyer lemon. I only discovered how badly it had been stressed when I pulled the rootball from its pot (in the bedroom, on the floor) about three weeks ago to try and figure out what was wrong. A mass of dead, dry roots about one third of the way down, but the rest healthy. It's a tricky balancing act. I removed the dead roots, added fresh soil mix (a blend of cactus soil and bark chips) and gave it a very good drink, sucking the excess out of the saucer with the usual turkey baster so that there wasn't a flood.

Its leaves have recovered, and are a good, rich green. There's that new shoot and there are hundreds of blossoms. So the bedroom smells wonderful.

The little bergamot tree has been flowering continuously for about six weeks. It won't won't stop. It has big blossoms. 

The tree is too small to support all the fruit as it has set, so if they don't abort naturally (which they often do, dropping while green), I'll have to grit my teeth and cut some off. When ripe the skin of the bergamots smell like Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet, a cologne. My father wore it. It's very disconcerting.

I've left many of the calamondin fruit on the tree, because they are pretty, and these are the fattest. But I should collect them soon and make something. Perhaps just salt them again, because I've used up last year's crop.

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Corner store tulips

Why are they on corners, so often? The all-day, sometimes all-night corner stores. The nearest one, Mr. Kiwi, is open 24/7. Need compostable-bin-bags-organic-milk-or-a-bunch-of-scallions at 1am? How about a fresh cocao fruit (why is the powder cocoa and the fruit cacao)? Or tulips.

Mostly, I buy winter tulips several blocks away. About a half-mile walk. At another corner store, called Food Train. Their tulips usually arrive on Wednesdays or Thursdays and I like them in tight bud, so that they last as long as possible Their latest deal is three bunches for $30, which is more than I want to spend. It's too much. But it's still $10 a bunch if you buy three, which is low. For here. Last year it was two bunches for $20. Now, if you buy just one bunch it's $14.99. Around the corner, it's just $12.99 a bunch but no deal on multiples. Way down 7th Avenue it's also $12.99 and very fresh tulips but cash only. 

The minutiae. 

My mother used to find it amusing that I knew what everything cost. She didn't know what anything cost. 

She would have liked the tulips.

Flars

 They help. In that moment when our glance falls upon them.

We are lucky to have them.

Those toes

If you open a sweater up, assuming that it is empty of a human and lying flat on a  nice, soft surface like a bed, Pirelli will dive right in, disappearing deep into it and curling himself quickly into a ball. This is not the time to put your hand in to stroke him. Not unless you're wearing armor. Or armour.

When he relaxes, about 10 minutes later, he will stretch his feet luxuriously, and allow them to show. You may stroke him now, and he will make a small, extended grunt of contentment, before turning himself upside-down and stretching his legs again and spreading his toes

Growth

Above: A new branch on the yuzu on December 14th.

 The same shoot on December 1st.

A mystery, and a leaping towards the light.

Bergamot blossom

The small bergamot tree (Citrus bergamia) is blossoming, and has been for a few weeks. Just one flower pumps out enough perfume to fill the room. It's not overwhelming, just there. (In the background are some ripe calamansi fruit.)

You can see the leaves are dusty. Time for a wipe-down. 

This tree barely grew last summer on the terrace: user-error, I think. A bit too much water. I have been exceptionally careful with it in the last six months and it seems to be recovering. Blossoms in themselves are not a sign of robust health; even sick trees can bloom. An evolutionary response? "She's killing us, make seed!"

There are already several tiny green fruit set among the drying petals of the older flowers. I will make the tricky decision whether to remove some (so that the tree's energy goes into foliage production). 

There are signs of green life, though - four new, tender shoots growing from the trunk. Two were below the graft line (and would reflect whatever the root stock is), though, so I snapped them off, with gritted teeth. The graft line, or union, is where the rootstock and the scion re grafted together, and apparently root stuck suckers can be very vigorous.

Outdoors, everything is frozen. So the greenhouse in the bedroom is very welcome.