Pairings .09 🍷🧀

Poetry for life and some simple salad dressings

Taken by my husband on a recent evening walk past our retired horsey neighbours.

It’s summertime, which means more meandering strolls and soaking up beauty and more harried travel and soaking unhappily in humidity: both are true.

Both are true seems to be a theme for me lately.

We moved to the countryside less than a year ago, and I’ve been loving our little English village, complete with its enthusiastic bell ringers’ practice at the 10th century church (which prevents me from recording anything for those hours on Tuesday evenings - always when I seem to need silence); the rentable village hall where we can host a crowd (despite the ugly 1960s housing surrounding it); and our tiny back garden where I can drink my morning coffee, toes treading on the soft mossy grass (when the neighbours’ exhaust pipe isn’t spewing out carbon monoxide.)

I recently spent time in America and was reminded of the little things I miss: the space (so much space, everywhere); tumble dryers in every home; and not to be underrated - plugs in bathrooms which means I can blowdry my hair in there!

But then, we came home to England and I found myself delighting in the beauty of our village; the availability and affordability of fresh foods; and the way everyone speaks just a little more softly.

There’s more of course - big, existential things on both sides of the Atlantic - but I’m trying to remember that my everyday is made up of small things, many worth noticing (and some worth trying very hard not to notice.) I can’t change or fix most things in the world; I can’t change or fix most things in my world.

But I can take the advice of some poets who glimpsed this world in a way I admire, who seemed to grasp the beauty and point to it for others, as if to say, “look! There it is!” not in some grandiose, imposing way, but with a few lines about creatures in ponds and the warm air of summer and the simple, sacred, necessity of silence.

I’m sharing just a few snippets of two poems that are worth reading in their entirety.

---

1. Sometimes by Mary Oliver

(originally published in Red Bird [Beacon Press, 2008]; read online here)

…

4.

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

….

6.

God, rest in my heart

and fortify me,

take away my hunger for answers,

….

7.

Death waits for me, I know it, around
    one corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened

to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.

---

---

2. How to be a Poet (to remind myself) by Wendell Berry

(From New Collected Poems [Counterpoint, 2012]; read online here)

i.

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

…

ii.

…

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.

iii.

…

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

---

3. Two Simple Salad Dressings

While we’re quietly paying attention to life, let’s enjoy summer for the salad season that it is. (Although let’s be honest, I will eat a good salad almost any time, including for breakfast.)

Here are two non-recipes that I use weekly for any salad: one vinaigrette, one creamy.

If you’re a bottled dressing kind of person but want to move towards a life of fewer suspicious additives, these are a great place to begin since they only use a few ingredients that you probably have on hand. I know if you aren’t used to cooking, not having an exact recipe can be intimidating: but I’ve also found that people who are nervous about cooking without a recipe sometimes struggle to trust themselves and their own judgment in general. Not everyone, of course! But if that does describe you, I promise that this is very forgiving and all you need to trust is your own taste buds!

You don’t need to measure: just taste-test and adjust at the end.

Ingredients:

• Olive Oil (for the vinaigrette) or Mayonaise (for the creamy version)

• Garlic - fresh, jarred, or even in powder form if that’s what you’ve got

• Dijon Mustard (you can sub out wholegrain, but don’t use yellow)

• Fresh Lemon Juice

• Salt and Pepper

For a salad feeding 2-4 people, start with a good few glugs of olive oil or a big scoop of mayo (think about ¼-⅓ cup). Squeeze in the lemon juice, ½ lemon at a time, and stir until it’s well mixed. If you’re working with mayo, you want it to be the consistency of creamy salad dressing. Add in a clove of garlic, or powdered garlic, 1 tsp at a time, and the mustard about ½ tsp at time. Stir well (the vinaigrette should emulsify) and then add salt and pepper (sprinkle generously) and stir well. 

Now, dip a piece of lettuce in it and taste! Is it too sour, too spicy, too salty? Add more olive oil or mayo. Too bland? Add more salt. Then, try adding more garlic. Too garlicy? Try more lemon and olive oil/ mayo. 

These work on a variety of salads and also as a dip for people (small children? husbands? wild party guests?) who are opposed to salad, but will happily crunch on cruciferous vegetables with accompanying sauce.

---

Tell me: do you have any poems or poets that help you see the world differently? What small things are bringing you joy? Anything you’re trying deliberately not to notice? And, do you make your own dressings? Please share your non-recipes in the comments!

---

Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying this post, you can support my work by sharing it - forward on to a friend, restack, or leave a comment tagging someone who might like it.

---

“Pairings” is a series in which I share things that go well together - not only the traditional wine and cheese, but things I’ve read or heard or seen. (Content varies widely!) If you’ve missed previous installments, you can find them here:

Pairings 01. Stereotypes, Archetypes, Housewifery & Motherhood (plus Bruschetta)

Pairings 02. Exploring Exhaustion, Life Cost, and Trade-offs (plus an allergen-friendly salad that’s actually delicious)

Pairings 03. The Gifts of Masculinity, plus a recipe for World’s Easiest Pulled Pork

Pairings 04. Arranged marriages, community & the individual, and a fun way to spice up your coffee

Pairings 05. Comedic marriage & growing up Christian in '90s America, plus the easiest way to cook a whole chicken that will never be dry

Pairings 06. Rest, busyness, and "special" meals you can make ahead for a no-cook sabbath

Pairings 07. Money, vocation, and a recipe using ground beef that doesn't dry it out

Pairings 08. Musing over mental health + an Italian-inspired breakfast "salad"

---