The Booksmith and September 11

This is Guana State Park, St. Augustine, Florida, on September 11, 2010, forming the blue-washed backdrop of my reflections.

One fine morning many years ago, I was scheduled to open The Booksmith, the small independent bookstore of beloved memory in St. Augustine. Though more than 20 years have passed I remember it quite clearly. It was the day we were scheduled to place Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses on the shelves for sale. Shop owner and dear friend Diana was out of town, but I remember a serious, thoughtful phone conversation in which we worried together about the possibilities. Threats had been made on Rushdie's life and on the lives of those who dared to sell the book. I was surprised to find that I was actually afraid, a little, though St. Augustine's Muslim population at that time was certainly very small, and no less peaceful than anyone else. Diana left the decision to me: if I didn't feel secure enough, I should just go home and not open that day. She'd call me later to check in.

As I hung the sign out, the very same sign I'd been hanging up the day Peter Bogdanovich shouted at me to get off the street, I looked around at the quiet Plaza and down the street toward the Bridge of Lions and the outline of Anastasia Island, then up the street toward St. George Street and Flagler College. I remember the feeling, if not the actual physical gesture, of shrugging my shoulders. How could I not open the store? How could allow I myself to be scared enough to even consider not selling books? Why had I been foolish enough to allow the threats of bullies to make me hesitate?

None of this, of course, was viewed through the lens of the events of September 11, 2001. And certainly none of us had yet considered the position of a lunatic who would, 9 years after that, threaten to burn a sacred book in order to make some sort of deranged statement. But how much distance can there be between a Muslim religious leader declaring Rushdie's book forbidden and invoking the threat of violence against its author and those who might put the book into the hands of prospective readers, and a Christian religious leader threatening to burn copies the Qur'an?

Before the book burning was called off late this week, I heard several callers to a discussion on public radio suggest the idea of purchasing copies of the Qur'an in protest. I stand with these people. While I have no more genuine interest in curling up with the Qur'an than I do with the Bible as relaxing reading in the next few months, it's high time for me to read The Satanic Verses. I'm no religious scholar, but no one knows better than I do that reading lies at the heart of education, and I believe education lies at the heart of tolerance and compassion. Christian or Muslim, Jew, pagan, atheist: surely tolerance and compassion are the real lessons in which we should be schooling ourselves in the wake that dreadful day in 2001. Read the Qur'an, read the Bible, read War and Peace, read anything you like But read on, everybody.

N125

In beautiful Guana State Park, we're having a banner year for turtle nests. As we see more news stories about turtle hatchlings being released in other locations than the Gulf of Mexico, including the northeast Florida coast, I find myself fascinated with the topic. Well, after all, who doesn't like to see pictures of what we like to think are rescued animal babies, being released into what we hope is safe habitat? In species like most of the sea turtles still extant, we know nature is doing its best to ensure survival against daunting odds, if for no other reason than the sheer number of eggs one female produces in a season. There are lots of nests every year, each with many dozens of eggs. The hatchlings face human encroachment, predators, artificial light, beach driving, inadvertent daytime hatching...so many obstacles that serve to prevent their reaching of the open ocean and relative safety.

And it's one of the very few things we can all feed good about in the wake of this incalculable disaster. Most realistic people probably realize that this will be with us long, long after the well is finally sealed and cleanup efforts solidly underway.

Okay, okay. Nevertheless, most years see 90-100 turtle nests along the beaches of Guana in northeast Florida. These are watched over by a tiny, dedicated army of volunteers who get up in darkest dawn to check the nests, to mark the new ones made during each long, starlit evening and report the status to the biologists who keep careful track. The biologists in turn mark the date of the nest, and know down to a pretty specific estimate, when the hatchlings are due to emerge. They monitor nest viability and do all they can to ensure the success of each clutch.

But except for extraordinary interventions like the ones the news channels are reporting occurring as a result of the oil spill, they can't affect the number of nests. The turtles labor up the beaches every summer season, and most summer seasons they produce roughly the same number of nests. But not this year. As I've discussed before, this year, there are nearly 200 nests along the Guana beaches. This Sunday Rodney and I were delighted to photograph N125, which is the 125th nest in the northern section of the state park's environs. I find this nothing short of magical, and wanted to share pictures of some of the labors of the turtles, who must find their way from the water to the safety of the high beaches near the protective dunes to lay their precious eggs. And of course I couldn't finish without including a closeup up of N125, for which we continue to root as though for the Braves or the Red Sox. Yay, sea turtles!

Surf report, more or less brought to you by Troika Studio

Lots of people make a living; lots of people do what they love, but everyone knows these aren't always the same people. The people at Troika Studio mostly manage this juggling act. Sometimes they just have to shut down at lunchtime because the waves are good. They work hard. But sometimes the waves are good. The waves are good, but sometimes they have to do their work. These photos were taken with both ends of the continuum in mind, and because it's light work being a Wendy to The Studio. So the photo at the top is a tale of Why We Go to the Beach. If this is your first introduction to Troika Studio, you should know it's a talented agency in St. Augustine, focused on integrated marketing. And though they do a great deal of local business, their connections and personal interests in surfing and skating have brought quite a surprising range of international clients to the door. But, sometimes, the waves are good.

This weekend was hit-or-miss at the beach, but after Friday there was a strong west wind taking the very tops off the waves, but making them taller. All the intrepid surfers we saw were in wet suits, for despite the warm sun the water temperature has dropped below what subtropical surfers are probably most used to.

I walked suddenly upon a jellyfish of considerable size. This isn't unusual, of course, but if they're washing up on the beach it's usuaully in numbers. The lone big one, like this, is one fairly good reason for staying out of the water, though hardly a Troika Studio-worthy reason.

As the weather changed, cold coming in with wind and eventually a line of thunderstorms, there was another reason to leave the beach. It was a bitter departure, I admit, for the tide had fallen very low so the sharks' teeth and other bits of fossils easy to find. We had noted the dramatic change in the high tide line, gone from sharp drops to a smooth gradient in less than 48 hours. Winter is the season many fossil hunters prefer; it's also a nice time to be at the beach, because there are very few people braving the chill. So here's a surf report, Troika surfers. Be safe out there.

In the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that not one single person associated with Troika Studio reviewed this before I posted it and I'm not on their payroll. I just like their business model and love their principals.

Little boys, little Ty, little seashells

Here they are. Little boys. And most of you know my boys to be WAAAY bigger than this now. And they're wonderful, each with his own astonishing talents and powers and dreams and marvels, each of them a blessing beyond price to their dad and me. But even in this sweet picture is captured a memory presaging their more modern-day selves; it's like a ghost image that only their dad and I can see. There is tiny Mac, making certain Dylan had his own ice cream, and working very hard to be tidy, tucking his Tracey Long nightshirt around himself neatly, looking around to check on things in between bites. There is Dylan, making us all laugh with his laissez faire view, going for the laugh, and putting his nose into the ice cream cone with confident abandon...this is all caught in the ghost image immediately before the photo was snapped and frozen for us forever. And now? Mac, making everyone proud with his service to our country, putting others before himself, trying, in fact, to be sure we all have our own ice cream, in his small way. Dylan, about 6 or 7 feet tall, still making everyone laugh, finding his voice as a singer and more, and (tanks be to GAHD, as my old friend Father Terry would say) proofreading this blog before I post it. (Yes, I know. You can always tell the ones Dylan hasn't read first.) And everyone always says this to you, and sometimes it seems like The Biggest Lie in the World, but it really DOES just go by so fast. And, oh, the wonders those boys have taught me...but those are tales for another night, my dears.

Little Ty, for short. She is the very patient, slightly vexed-looking aging debutante in the front right of the picture. Most Boxer rescue people will tell you that it's a dicey business having more than one female Boxer together, as one tends to be the dominant one and this can work out poorly for the others. But here is sweet old Ty for Short, tolerating incursion upon indignity, and making way as she must. I know dogs live only in the moment, but I can't help but think she has some dim memory of being herself a castoff, lost from her people for reasons she would never understand and taking what kindnesses were on offer. This is certainly anthropomorphizing, but that old grey face does serve to remind me of some important things, not the least of which is humility in the face of change. Which, it should be remembered is far easier to say than it is to do. Just look at that face.
My last little miracle will take you back to a previous post in which I talked about a sort of informal, organic, living art installation you can see at the northernmost point of the beach at Guana. I told you about it, but I think I was distracted by a recipe that night (can you imagine? Me? Distracted by a recipe?) and didn't get to the most important part. I even showed a picture, but I don't think I did it justice when I wrote about it.

There are little sections of this monument where people have created tiny bits of beach sculpture-within-sculpture. You'll see a corner dedicated to beach glass in all colors and shapes. For a time there was a lovely collection of those delicate scallop shells with the pink and white variations of color; it was lost to one of the winter storms whose tide was too high and strong to be withstood. There are artistic arrangements of beach detritus, wood, fishing tackle...just about anything you can imagine amassing itself on a beach. There are even arrangements which are eclectic and have their own standards and criteria not related to a focus on one kind of shell or bone or color. They are like an exhibition in a gallery, hung by a different curator, with a different eye, a unique sensibility.

And there is my collection of cats' eyes. It changes all the time, but seems to remain intact as a collection and I believe I'm not the only one who notices it. Too Young Looking to be a Grandmother, who told me she collects shells for her grandson (though she honestly looks about 30) finds them beautiful. Another lady told me she collected cats' eyes for artwork of her own. "Oh, that's YOU?" she asked me, "your collection?" I said that I collected cats' eyes for it, but that it wasn't mine, it belonged to all of us, and she should feel free to take any of them she wanted to use in her artwork. "Oh, no," she said. "It would feel weird to take them from the collection," and I knew just what she meant.

And it has another fan, or at least someone who's taken note of it. Hippie Segway Guy talked to us about it one day, how people have become curators of the whole thing, or perhaps just one small section of it, and how much it means to him to share this unvoiced connection with all of us. We finally stepped past that respectful reservation all of us observe with each other on this shared landscape and introduced ourselves. "Well," he said, in a sort of "can-you-beat-that" voice, after Rodney told him our names, "I won't forget that. Not only is my name Rodney, but my wife's name is Angie." Can you beat that?

Yes, yes, it's still cold.
No, I didn't take this picture today, although I wish I had. But it does have the delicate pink frosting provided by the sunset, and I couldn't resist sharing it, especially when it was far, far too almight cold to go to the beach today. And if you couldn't make yourself get out of bed and go to work (I did, I promise) you could have stayed at home by the fire and watched William Powell movies. Even now, and it's after work-time, there are William Powell and Luise Rainier and even - yes!- Myrna Loy. If you can't go to the beach, and your husband has just baked an apple cake with a sinful glaze made of butter and brown sugar, you can just stay in and watch. And it's fine, indeed.

If you're a dog person, there's that other fine thing about staying in by the fire: it makes your dogs positively blissful. First they tell you how happy they are by greeting you with appropriate enthusiasm. And then they indicate bliss in that time-honored dog way: they immediately go to sleep. If they are Meg, they may sit in chairs in distinctly unladylike positions between moods.


But then she goes to sleep. In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably warn Ye Who Read This Blog that we help when we can with Boxer Rescue, and there are three Boxers who moderate their lives, roughly, between our bed and our couch. See? The person sitting on the floor is a well, person. The people, er, dogs on the sofa to the left are...umm...dogs.
And there are many dog stories to tell, though for now I can say we have Meg (she of the appalling pose), Ty For Short, who came to us as Tyson (I know - people think it's hilarious to name the dogs after that other kind of boxer) and Calvin. He also came to us with that name, and I never say it without thinking of the scene in The Bells of St. Mary's where Ingrid Bergman introduces a kid named Luther to the new priest, Bing Crosby, who says quietly, "How'd he get in here?" So it is with Calvin. But so it is with rescue and especially fostering. We never meet the same dog twice. So there's more to tell you, my dears, but since people keep telling me they've actually make some of the recipes I've shared, I can't resist them temptation. I warn you: you'll freak out. It's not vegetarian-friendly. It's not remotely healthy. But it IS the foundation of Eat Here, as it was the first meal I cooked that made my family say, You should open a restaurant, and it should be called Eat Here, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So here is my mother's meat loaf recipe. You can use ground turkey or chicken, but I confess to using good quality ground beef and pork in roughly equal proportions. Put this into a bowl and add some very finely chopped onion, green pepper and garlic, pretty much as you like - you can leave out any of them if you don't like them. Add an egg (I like a nice big one; If Ms. Moon was your friend you might be able to get a beautiful blue or green one) and some fresh bread crumbs. If you have an old hot dog bun or just any old bread, crumble it up yourself, right into the bowl. Dash in some Wocestershire sauce, a tablespoon of kosher salt, some pepper, and seasonings you like; I put in fresh rosemary and parsley (though I'll tell you later, my loves, how I cannot grow fresh rosemary) and marjoram. A dash or two of Texas Pete can't hurt, and you squirt in some ketchup, maybe 1/4 or 1/2 cup. Mix it up and shape it into a loaf, and bake it in your cast iron skillet at 350 (a 1-1/2 lb. meatloaf takes about an hour and a quarter to cook). About half an hour before it's done, mix about 1/2 cup of ketchup, 3 or 4 tablespoons of mustard, a palmful of brown sugar and just a touch of ground cloves. Stir this together and pour it over your meatloaf.

And here's the Eat Here part: put a couple of slices of leftover meatloaf on good hearty bread, like oatmeal or 7-grain bread. Add a slice of good cheese (if you're going to do it, just do it, for heaven's sake) and if you still have it, a bit of the leftover meatloaf sauce. No one will ever forget it. And I do promise to get Lauren's excellent hummus recipe and Lis's sweet potato soup and make it up to those of you who'd rather die than eat any of this. More to come, my darlings. Thank you for reading.

A winter walk, a glimpse of gold, and something to cook

So this is what it looked like, when I was warmed enough by layers of clothes and the briskness of our pace to be able to focus the camera. The wind was not quite howling, but was blowing hard and steadliy, as though it had promised its mother to do so and was afraid one of its aunts might drop in unexpectedly to check. This meant it was damned COLD at the beach, but considering the sudden, brilliant appearance of the sun and the astonishing blue of the sky, Rodney and I found we couldn't stay away. If you look closely at the sea shells you'll see a fine lace overlay in rainbow colors, the residue of the sea foam cascading all over the beach like wet tumbleweeds. We walked half a mile or so to the south, just a few hundred feet to the north, gathered a small collection of fossils, and began to think about a nice fire, a cocktail and the golden hour.

Clean up awaits, at home. Thanks to the continuing cold, the detritus accumulates and changes; the fallen branches need to be cut and stacked, the sad, melted cannas and elephant ears trimmed away, and so much more. But it's too sad, and anyway, it's too soon; there may be still be protection afforded by fallen plants to those growing in their shadows. So we wait. And today, waiting, we walked down the narrow path that connects our front yard with the delicate finger of the Tolomato River that folds back in upon itself and winds its way to us as Stokes Creek. The light changed quickly, as it does this time of year, and Rodney took photos.


I thought about what to cook, and though in the end we ate leftovers, I was prevailed upon by Dylan to share this favorite of his. When you have boneless, skinless chicken breasts, part of a bag of potato chips and some butter, this is the easiest way in the world to please the still-maturing palates of the young. Cut the breast meat into fillets and dip in melted, cooled butter, then dip in crushed potato chips. When I say crushed, I mean you should have your youngest family member take the bag of chips and do with it what they've always wanted to do: roll it around, crush and smash (taking care not to tear open the bag). When the chips are very fine indeed, dip the chicken in, and place it into a lightly greased baking dish. Bake at 350 or so for about 40 minutes or until lightly browned. Why do they love this dish? I have no idea, and I suspect my own mother may have learned it from Woman's Day or Ladies' Home Journal or some such magazine in the 60s. But though I can't explain it, no matter how many times I ask my sons how they'd like chicken breasts cooked - and I am telling you I have some perfectly marvelous ways to cook them - this is invariably their request. Kids. Palates. What a mystery. Never fear, my loves: I shall soon tell you the story of Julia Child, Le Pavillon, Jacques Cousteau, exotic birds, a Boxer dog and the Lamented Claude Sinatsch. Soon, soon.

For this evening, move a bit closer to your warm fireplace, wrap that soft, warm blanket a bit closer around your shoulder and if you have the luxury of a love to hold you close, do. Here is one last look at the fading view of the golden hour at our house tonight, and a look at another kind of cold-evening blanket, this one called Meg. But this, my darlings, is a tale for another evening.

In Paradisum

Not long ago someone said to me, "I think we live in paradise," and I think she might have been right. There are lots of examples, like the inside of the Alcazar Hotel, downtown in St. Augustine, where the ground floor was long ago a swimming pool, and the beautiful rough surface still slopes gently downward where the deep end of the pool once was. And here is another deep end of a pool, even grander and far more deep, graced by the backdrop of a crystalline winter blue sky. Welcome to the Guana Tolomato Marine Estuarine Reserve, known to locals as simply Guana, where the northeastern Florida beach stretches out comfortably with no development on either side. It is pristine, sparkles with shimmery shark teeth and other fossils and is carefully protected by the DEP's law enforcement team.

Late this summer, Rodney and I spent one long evening walking together, looking for fossils, kicking our feet in the surf and we stopped to picnic as we often do. Some yards down the beach, we saw a man approach, carrying a plain styrofoam cooler and watched him with suspicion: turtles lay their eggs along this beach and most everyone keeps an eye out for them and their terribly vulnerable nests. As we watched, this lone guy approached one of the well-marked nests with his cooler and began to dig. Imagine! We approached, with every intent of calling some number (what number? would we call the police?) and suddenly Rodney recognized the guy: he was the state's working scientist, responsible for monitoring the viability of the nests.

By the time we arrived, one corner of the nest had been excavated as the guy ensured the hatchlings were thriving and in fact expected to emerge from their nest that very night. Was he sure? He was. He opened the cooler and showed us the damp old towel at the bottom, forming a temporary resting place for 5 small, frantic baby turtles. He would return at sunset to release them and keep an eye on their siblings who would be seeking their mother ocean around dark. This, he told us, was the method of the turtle patrol, who try to take advantage of the 24-hour-long burst of energy and instinct by which the babies attempt to propel themselves to the sea. One, ONE, in one thousand of these tiny creatures, manage to reach the surf, pass its tumult and all the eager predators along the way, to survive.

And there were 5 of the contenders. Right there.

Last winter, it should be noted, Rodney saw a North Atlantic Right whale, traveling with her calf. Her name is Arpeggio. But that's a tale for another evening. For now it's enough to note that we may, indeed, be dwelling In Paradisum.

Welcome to Eat Here Eatery

Eat Here is the name of a mythical restaurant, one that exists in the mind of my family, where real, honest, homemade food is served to real hungry people. Real food is a fine thing, more easily prepared than some people think, and eagerly sought after in today's world. There's more to the myth, of course, but that's a topic for another blog post. At its best, good food is served fresh, seasoned by good conversation, complemented by good wine and warmed at a big table surrounded by interesting people. With a little luck, that's what I'll serve up here, more or less, so for now the Eat Here moniker belongs to the virtual space, where we don't really eat but we feed ourselves, nonetheless.

Eat Here, inspired by beloved bloggers like Pablo (http://pablonotes.blogspot.com/) and Ms. Moon (http://www.blessourhearts.net/), aims to serve an eclectic menu, including thoughts about family, friends, the beach, dogs, fossils, music (need I say more than "Deep"? Well, maybe the MadriGalz...), writing and the beautiful Golden Hour that descends, most evenings, through live oaks and Spanish moss, spilling indescribably beautiful light into my back yard. We can go to the Lake Country, where music is made and lifetimes of friendship are shared.

Often I'll try to show you the sea through the stunning, tiny, fragile view at Guana/Tolomato Marine Estuarine Reserve.
Sooner or later there will be a remembrance of Julia Child including recollections of our late friend Claude Sinatsch, questions about political mysteries (why on EARTH should gay people not be able to get married?), and warm affectionate gossip about What People Are Up To.

Come along for the ride; I'll be so honored if you do. There's much to tell, much to figure out, much to talk about. And it's always nice to sit by the fire with a glass of wine with a friend, as the fire dies down and the restaurant closes up for the night. Here's to many more.