seeds of change

Often I come across "misplaced" seeds in my reserve, and randomly plant them just to see what the earth might give back..I love doing this.This last summer it was a packet marked "sunflowers".....I had tucked away years ago.. Carefully packing the soil around presoaked seeds I patiently waited. The results are here. After a few weeks I had a towering wall of different species of sunflowerss,..bees....,hummingbirds and a tomato patch near by that was brimming with produce.

A PERFECT TOMATO SAUCE *****

THIS recipe is based on Marcella Hazan's

classic tomato onion sauce with a tweek..

Purchase one large can of San Marzano Tomatoes...pour this into a saucepan...cut an onion peeled into 2 halves, place these on top of the tomatoes..open a small can of tomato paste ..add this to the saucepan..NOW add one full cube of butter...a dash of sea salt.. thin out with water if you want the sauce runnier ..... toss in a torn bay leaf....ALLOW this to simmer for over an hour.. when the onions are softened..(.HERE COMES THE MAGIC BULLET.)...Remove the onions from the sauce and place in the Bullet..whrrrr until they become a rosy red cream.....add back into the sauce the amount of onion you want..I used 1/2 of the mixture and reserved the rest for some other concoction later????

I boiled up extra long Italian pasta but one could used tortollini...corkscrew pasta...ziti..meza rigatoni...this sauce really stands on its own but you can add grated pecarino cheese if you want..plate with several strands of fresh basil .. and you are good to go....this sauce is wonderful on grilled sandwiches (use like mayo)...rub garlic on the othe bread side...MOMan Panini it!!!

She was the wife of head of the English Departemnt at the University of Alaska. At the time I was married to a junior member of the staff and the youngest in our literary coterie.. I met her one bone chilling day in the cemetary outside Fairbanks. I used to amuse myself by trying to read out the tombstones that had been racked by nature and frozen winters year after year..

Her name was Cheryl.. She could draw the dead..She was there gathering portrait material.. I was just looking for a friend.. I loved her instantly..I signed up for her husband's classes the next semester: a dry but interesting class on 19th century literature..They becaame ny resevoir..From the dry sadness of my inconsistant marriage came an image I wanted to be. I was 19...I saw possibility in them..He was 40 which seemed ancient then ,she was 25..Cheryll cooked.... frying bacon in the nude..said it was easier that way ..no spoiled clothing..She had a point: laundry was a BITCH back then..very few people had personal laundries....we ALL trecked to the local laundromat..oh there were some stories there...

One day I told her about the death of my brother 2 years earlier..

I was inspired in her presence..I began to draw, cook,sing more and feel alive..I was sprouting under this cold veneer of a life I was living..I joined a singing group and campaigned for Robert

Kennedy around Alaska..They flew us in a Sezna all over the State.. It seemed like everyone we met came out of central casting..What a flurry of characters..Kennedy left for SF and another red page of history was written.

When I finally moved to Vancouver BC after the announcemnt of the pipeline going thru,

Cheryl left me with a portrait of my brother she had drawn for me ( the likeness uncanny)

and Don, her husband made me promise I would at least see the movie of Moby Dick..that my essays were outstanding ,considering I chose to write my final on the one book I hadn't read..I recieved a A for best bluffer...but really they left me in full bloom...and I left Alaska with roots that would serve me for the rest of my days..I learned an enormous amount about character in that frozen tundra...presoaked and ready to grow.......