2018 Life Logs, Day 34—For the Love of Artichokes
Date: Saturday, February 3, 2018
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Cold; High 29, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
I spent my day messing about with photos, putting them in frames to hang and hanging a couple of canvas prints I ordered through CVS. These were both photos of Windbird and the canvas printing is beautiful. I now have them on the livingroom wall, but not sure that is where they will stay. Once I get everything framed, it will be easier to decide what goes where. But for now, I’ll just keep playing around with various ideas. I will not, however, continue to clean up old frames to reuse. While cleaning some glass panes from one of those frames where you can insert nine 4 x 6 photos in separate but connected frames, I managed to slice off a small circle of the outside of my right-hand pinkie finger. It is deep enough that I cannot get it to stop bleeding. When it first happened, I did all the things one normally does to stop bleeding, but nothing worked. I put on a band aid, but the blood soaked through that in just a couple of minutes. So, I made a thick square of sterile gauze, put that over the area, then secured it in place with two band aids. After I put the boys to bed tonight, I took off the bandage to see how it was doing and the bleeding started all over again. Ugh. Not sure what to do next.
I picked up Sam and Ollie late this afternoon for an overnight with Oma, giving Heather and Jed a night out. Jonah had gone swimming with a friend and was dropped off a little later. The boys have inherited my love of artichokes through their mother, so tonight we had artichokes and calamari for dinner. If you have never prepared and eaten a fresh artichoke, it can seem quite daunting.
I don’t know who figured out how to peel the leaves off, one by one, and scrape the meaty flesh off the leaves with your teeth, but the Goldpebbles have figured this out and do it quite efficiently. I think they love the butter they dip the leaves in more than the artichoke leaves themselves, but the butter is an integral part of the ritual. Ollie and I are the only ones that eat the artichoke hearts, however, so we had extras and saved a couple of those to have for breakfast. Since I was introduced to artichokes when I lived in South Philadelphia in 1969, they have remained my favorite food. Heather gets her love these prickly thistles honestly. A little artichoke trivia . . . in 1947, the year I was born, Norma Jean Mortensen, better known as Marilyn Monroe, became California’s first Artichoke Queen in Castroville, the Artichoke Capitol of the World. In March of 1975, Mark and I were living in the cabin we had built in the mountains of Idaho. On my birthday, we walked the seven miles to town to look for an artichoke. I was three months pregnant with Heather and had been so sick for two of those months that I could hardly eat anything, morning, noon, or night. But I wanted, really craved, an artichoke and there were none, not fresh, frozen, or canned in Fernwood, Idaho on my 28th birthday. I won’t bore you with the long story, but we left Idaho that evening for California and I got my artichokes. And the most wonderful part of the story is that I had no more sickness after that!!! So, I really LOVE artichokes and it is so much fun to share that love with Sam, Jonah, and Ollie.
Tomorrow we will share another thing the boys and I love . . . watching the Patriots play in the Super Bowl. Go, Pats!
