The Refracted Shell Jar

Shadows in early morning

sun shining through leafed out trees

and those jostling branches painting

their moving self-portrait

on an interior wall

through a light shadow lens.

 Delightful whimsy. That moment where nature and science unexpectedly charm.

***

We’ve sunken into the deep freeze. I woke up this morning to cool air in the bedroom, despite the fact that I had closed all the windows before I went to bed last night.  This morning the temperature outside is 9 degrees F.  The wind chill is minus 9 degrees F.  Upstairs, the water pipes running through the baseboard radiators have frozen, so our bathrooms and bedrooms have no heat.  The residual heat is at 66 degrees.  We’ll put electric heaters in each room so we can sleep up there until the ice in the pipes melts, probably in four to seven days—after the temperature hovers above freezing for a few days.

Somewhere in the remodel construction of 2012, a pipe in a wall was left ass bare of insulation, so if we have enough below freezing days in a row, we lose all heat upstairs.  We have had contractors and plumbers come out and scratch their heads at this situation.  Our normal plumber said that he thinks the problem is in the addition as newer pops are resilient to bursting.  I hope that is still the case this winter. 

Last week, I bumped up the heating to 72 when the outdoor temperature dipped to the 20s.  I was hoping if the water moved around faster the pipes wouldn’t freeze.  With the hot water racing, the rooms were scorching hot.  Except Liam’s.  In the same remodel his radiators seem to have been left out of the loop.  His main heat source is an electric radiator.  Will slept with his window cracked open as did Bill and me.

That same morning, I lifted the shade in the upstairs hallway and opened that window as well.  I never let light in this window as people coming down the hill in front of our house can see right inside to the painting on the wall twenty feet from the window.  But this piece is about whimsy…

All day, the blinds on the narrow window in that upstairs hallway were up as high as they could go.  Around 4:30 I walked out of my bedroom and was stunned by the sight of my giant sea glass jar sitting on the hall table—and the light shadows cast onto the wall behind it.  I snapped pictures with my phone even though I know it’s hard to capture whimsy in a frozen moment. 

Maybe this is why I prefer early and late sun.  It shies horizontally, peeking through windows and creating art via objects through which it travels.  This whimsy makes my eyes and heart fill up to giddiness.  A rush perhaps akin to… honestly, I don’t know who gets this feeling from what moments in their lives.

I called Liam up to see it and to take pictures.  For ten minutes we watched the sun dip through the window’s horizon, changing the light art second by second. 

At minute 9 of the show, Will came out of the bathroom off the hallway where he had been taking a shower.  Will joined us in the light gawking, and seconds after he opened the door the scene changed.  The square of solid light framed by the window began to move.  The edges bounced and the boxed light shimmered with movement.  Heat.  Wet heat from the bathroom poured invisibly into the scene and was lit and recognized by the stream of light. 

Not all shadows are dark; some are filled with glorious, refracted, motion-filled light.

(Take a look at The Refracted Shell Jar over ten minutes in my Whimsy Photo Gallery.)

Emulsification

A few days ago, I reserved the kitchen for cooking, singing, and dancing.  And, to be honest, for talking to myself.  We have been cooking a lot over the last year—mostly cooking to eat.  Thinking about routines and rituals last week pushed me to the kitchen where I could go on autopilot and make my old standby, chicken and rice soup, and also test out a new lasagna recipe.  With the counter completely cleared and not another human in sight, I put dance music on and pulled out the biggest knife and the biggest cutting board.

I can make chicken and rice soup from memory.  When I included this recipe in my book, I used a roasted chicken from the store to make the broth, but since then I bumped into a recipe where a fresh, whole chicken is simmered in a stockpot for an hour-and-a-half.  The chicken cooks and makes its own broth for the following soup all at once.  That’s where I started the morning. 

The lasagna took more discipline as I followed a recipe with a list of twenty ingredients and layered preparation.  Although I sang and danced while putting the soup together, I turned the music down and struck up a conversation with myself over making that lasagna sauce. “OK, the meat is browned… now I add sugar through parsley.  Sugar through parsley.  Sugar through… parsley.” Maybe if I make the lasagna often enough, it too will become rote like the soup—or risotto or chili.

Once the soup and sauce were set to simmer, I glanced at the narrow shelves next to the fridge and saw the vinaigrette jar was empty.  It was time for an episode of emulsification—a wholly satisfying endeavor of beating ingredients to the point where there is unequivocal bonding of molecules that are polar opposites. 

At my emulsification station in the far corner of the kitchen, I can reach all ingredients and tools with only slight turns and small steps.  From the upper corner cupboard, I pull my old plastic two quart bowl with a handle and pour spout, as well as my Pyrex 1-cup measuring cup with a pour spout.  The vinaigrette whisk jumps from the utensil jar, much like a dog that heads to the door upon hearing the word “walk.”  I open the skinny vinegar cupboard door to see the sly, potent white balsamic vinegar waiting for its name to be called. 

To the left of that cupboard lays in wait the bulb of garlic; I break off a clove and watch garlic papers waft to the floor.  They join the other cooking evidence of the day: bits of carrots, celery, and onion already scattered in my cooking galley.  Near the beginning of a cooking session, when the first ingredient falls to the floor, I mutter knowingly, “Now we’re cooking!”  If it weren’t for the floor, I wouldn’t be able to cook.

I open the hinged door to the lower corner Lazy Susan and find the half-gallon sentry of extra-virgin olive oil on the bottom shelf in the shadows, right next to my shin.  With a step out of my spin-radius, I open the fridge door and retrieve the Grey Poupon Dijon mustard that’s hiding in the door behind the ketchup.  From my corner, I step in the opposite direction to the drawer where the garlic press resides. Then finally, back squarely at the vinaigrette station, I open the cupboard door and pull out the salt cellar and the pepper mill.  All ingredients and tools are at the ready for the convening of emulsification.

We know the scientific fact-come-cliché: Oil and water don’t mix.  If shaken together in a jar, the oil breaks into tiny formations that may give the impression of combining with the water, but in fact, the oil particles stand strong via no effort, but simply because of their molecular structure.  Oil molecules are hydrophobic; they repel water.  That is where the magic of mustard enters.  The hulls of mustard seeds contain mucilage, which is a combination of proteins and polysaccharides, or a kind of gum.  The molecules of mustard mucilage have two ends: one is hydrophilic (loves water/vinegar) and the other is hydrophobic (hates water/vinegar).  Hence, mustard is a great glue—or in scientific cooking terms, an emulsifier. Its molecular structure enables it to pull oil and vinegar together.

As with the layered preparation of lasagna sauce, making this vinaigrette is not a throw-it-in-the-pot recipe.  To remain a vinaigrette—for it not to quietly separate back into oil and vinegar—key steps must be adhered to in the creation process.

These ingredients go into the bowl: ¼ cup white balsamic vinegar, 1 pressed garlic clove, 1 teaspoon Grey Poupon Dijon mustard, a pinch of salt, and 20 twists of milled black pepper.  Then these ingredients are whisked together and dissolved to form a cloudy, watery solution. Next, a large ¾ cup pour of extra-virgin olive oil goes into the same 1-cup Pyrex measuring cup used to measure the vinegar.  At this point, the call to duty comes: lean the body against the counter, place the whisk in the dominate hand, lift the cup of oil in the other hand.  Pause to say a little emulsification prayer, “Please stay together…” And then, begin.

With intensity, start whisking the vinegar concoction while ever so slowly drizzling the oil into the mix.  Just a thin thread of gold should flow into the bowl.  As the pouring continues the oil should disappear into the new liquid state.  If oil hovers near the top edges, stop the pour and continue to whisk until oil blends in, then recommence the slow drizzle.  Let the bowl bounce off the torso as necessary; the bowl is like a floating stadium where a Greek battle is ensuing.  It will move with each flick of the whisk.  Garlic skins on the floor are easier to clean up than a mustard mucilage emulsification spill.

When the last drip of oil has dropped into the plastic bowl, put the measuring cup down and with that hand grab the bowl handle to stabilize it while giving the emulsification a final molecular beating. 

This is undoubtedly one of the loudest recipes ever prepared in my kitchen.  The battle in the bowl pulls Liam from yonder corners of the house, “Oohh… Did I hear you making dressing, Mom?”  And we both admire the smooth silky thickened liquid pouring from the bowl into a jar, full well knowing the kick it will put in salad that evening. 

To serve this vinaigrette, we toss a big bowlful of lettuce with three tablespoons of dressing.  This isn’t a pooling potion like ranch or blue cheese.  With its potency via white balsamic vinegar and Dijon dressing, it is truly meant to lightly dress salad leaves.  In the days when we used to have guests for dinner, I hesitated to serve this dressing because of the high risk of an acid-up-the nose coughing fit at the table.  However, the salad eaters in our house are accustomed to the strength of this dressing.  Our bodies have adapted, and those connections between mouth and nose that elicit choking over acidic evaporation close when we eat salad.  How that works is research for another day.

Habits, Routines, and Rituals

The words routines, rituals, and habits intertwine like a thick braid.  Are they interchangeable?  Have I been taking liberties with their usage? 

I can easily parse habits from the three-some.  Those are the small things I do on autopilot which are guided by circumstances like time of day or environment. Floss and brush before bed.  Squirt hand sanitizer out of the pump when I get into the van.  Pilates on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Habits are those cheeky things that push the world just a tad off kilter if you skip one. Like seeing an unmade bed late in the day. Bill normally makes the bed, and if he doesn’t, I usually make it by the end of the day.  That moment of walking into the room and seeing the visual peace in a made bed is definitely worth the two minutes it takes to make it. Even the physicality of making it has become rewarding to me.

Routines and rituals are a bit more complex.  I’ve been muttering to myself over the last several months that I need more rituals.  Or do I need more routines? Patterns of activity over time become routines.  I could say that when the library was open, my routine on Tuesdays and Thursdays was to drop the boys off at school by 7:45 a.m., go to the coffeeshop and review the day and organize the calendar until 9:00 when the library doors opened.  Then I would drive to the library, park on the side street and carry in my weighty backpack and my water bottle.  I would stop in the bathroom then soar up the stairs to the quiet room.  I would claim my space at the end of a long table and put my backpack in the chair to my right.  After a swift unzipping of pockets, I arranged the computer, water, notebook, and pen on the table.  I left the phone in my backpack.  I popped open the lid and chose “New document.”  The next two to three hours unfolded easily under the umbrella term “writing.” 

The knowing swirl of those mornings was comforting and energizing.  And while the patter of those mornings was routine, the ruffled feathers over their disappearance have convinced me that this was my writing ritual, not merely a routine.