Sal Gal Central

While I do realize that a great abundance of lemons is a problem peculiar only to those of us who live in certain climates, when you've got a lemon tree that's a serious overachiever, there's really only so much lemonade you can stand. (See what I did there? Lemonade Stand?)



Lordy, lordy, WHAT do you do with them all? You can't really give 'em away. Almost everyone's got a lemon tree and they'd love nothing more than to give you theirs. And shipping them to relatives in lemon deprived parts of the country is just too expensive...though I do throw a big bag in my suitcase whenever I fly somewhere for a visit. Perfect gift, and the TSA mostly leaves 'em alone.

But even if you've transported them to Scurvy Land and you STILL have a surfeit, here's what you do. You PRESERVE them.

I've been asked before to do blog posts on all the preserving we do, and maybe this summer I'll get around to doing the step-by-step of fig jam, grape jam, pickled squash, pickled pepper relish, etc., etc.,...or not. Because by mid-summer, when we're up to our elbows in garden bounty, it's all we can do to keep up.

But lemons. Couldn't be easier. A six year old could do it. And preserved lemons are THE magic ingredient in MANY dishes from Morocco. Lemon chicken cooked in a tangine is on the menu in any Moroccan restaurant. It's the law.

So here ya go. Aside from lemons, you'll need jars and Kosher salt. Any old jars with any old lids will do. Because there's NO COOKING or sealing involved. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.



Cut the ends off the lemons and quarter them. And pour yourself a big old bowl of salt. Yum.



Dredge the lemons in the salt. Thusly.



Then cram 'em into the jars. Mash as many of 'em in there as you can, without having them hit the lid. In canning, we like to call that "head space". Like, "Man, you GOTTA leave me some head space or I just cannot FUNCTION."



If, in cramming the lemons in, they've not released enough juice to cover themselves up, juice a couple of lemons and add the liquid to the jar to cover.



When you're done, don't leave 'em on the sill like this. They're just there for the photo 'cuz they look pretty. Put them somewhere cool and dark and turn the jars over once a day, every day for 2 weeks.



And that's it. They're now preserved. HOW, you may ask? In most preserves, the preservative is sugar or a combo of salt and acid, and these babies have enough salt and acid in them to preserve just about anything. Including your sanity.



Now, hit up google for preserved lemon recipes and you're GOLD. Give the jars away with a recipe or two as a host or hostess gift. Because even if your host or hostess has a lemon tree themselves, I guarantee you they've probably only made lemonade.



And then you can feel like the enlightened soul of the century for showing them the righteous path of the preserved lemon. Selah.

Four years ago two freaked out young hens arrived at our home via overnight mail. Seriously. They were mailed to us.

Henny and Penny, the first hens I've ever owned. If you've never spent any time with chickens, here's what you couldn't possibly know: they have distinct personalities.



Penny was the sweeter of the two, always willing to be held, while Henny was definitely the yard boss, even known to occasionally peck Dixie if she got too inquisitive.



But most of the time, everyone got along just fine, and there was peace in the backyard Back 40. Then, sadly, Penny passed away. And since a hen needs a flock, we got Henny a new one. Two new young hens for her to boss around - Pearl and Betty Jane.



They were the Black Rebel Hen Club. But then Pearl left the club, and there were only two.



Henny did have two new kittens to whip into shape, though, and she did her job well. As she did with Garcia when he came to us. He's a bit of a bird chaser, but out Henny stood her ground.



But the years add up quickly for a hen, and Henny had stopped laying eggs and had become fragile in her old age. Though during her last few days on earth, she felt well enough to kill one of the artichoke plants, completely demolishing it to get at the tasty bugs that nestle in the base of the leaves.

Last Friday morning at dawn, when I went to let the hens out of the coop for the day, Betty Jane was alone waiting for me at the coop door, crowing to get out.

After I released her, I went to the roost and found that Henny had passed away peacefully in her sleep, ascending into Hen Heaven, where watermelon is served every day.



Betty Jane was now all alone, and hens don't do so well all by their lonesome, even hens who let you pick them up and hold them like a baby.



No, a gal needs a flock, so I went out and got Betty Jane some new young hens to pester. Meet Coco and Alice.



Coco is a Black Copper Marans, an old French breed. When she's old enough, she'll lay eggs that are so dark brown they look chocolate.



And Alice is an Ameraucana, which is a cross between a Peruvian Arucana and an Old World breed. These hens are known as "Easter Eggers", and here's why -



Blue eggs! She'll lay BLUE EGGS!

So, Betty Jane is working on welcoming Coco and Alice, her exotic new coop-mates, and relishing her new role at the top of the pecking order.



But even though there's been a changing of the guard, the original Boss of Us All will always live in our hearts.



Kick ass in Hen Heaven, Henrietta.

Since my darling Dixie left me, I've wanted something physical to keep her near my heart. And while Garcia has filled the bill, making me fall in love with DOG all over again -



- I wanted something that was HERS to keep with me always. A talisman. Her dogtag yes, but something more.



Enter my dear friend Joe Campos, who turns molten silver into something spiritual - an ex-voto, of sorts. Joe@XVOTOS.com should you want to contact him yourself.



He loved this photo of me superimposed over him & made me promise I'd load it up, so here it is. But this is what he really looks like, as he packs sand into the casting mold so we can cast Dixie's dogtag in silver.



The two halves of the mold - one side with Dixie's tag imprinted, and the other with my thumbprint - are then fitted together.



I brought scrap silver, old rings I haven't worn in years, and Joe put them in the crucible to melt them down.



His dog, Kitty, kept watch. It was nice having a dog around as we commemorated mine.



Finally when the silver was molten, it was time for me to do that which would make this much more than a mere piece of jewelry.

I took some of Dixie's ashes, and sprinkled them into the crucible, mixing them into the metal.



Then Joe poured the very special silver into the mold.



Off a first molding, you don't usually expect to get what you want. You usually have to re-cast a number of times before you strike it right.

But I knew I didn't want an exact copy of the tag - I wanted something that looked less literal, but that carried some of the engraving of the tag she wore most of her life.

Joe took the searing, blackened piece out of the mold, doused it in water and sawed off the excess silver from the spout.



Then he did a preliminary buffing.



And had a closer look.



We were both completely amazed at what he'd struck with that first, and final, mold. Mind you, he'll do more buffing, oxidize the lettering and solder a jump ring onto the top so I can wear it on a chain, but what we got was nothing short of incredible.

It's heart-shaped, and as you can see, carries whispers of the most important words -



Dixie. Belong to. Nemeth. Valentin. Angel.



Pure magic. I can't wait to have him finish the piece, and I'll wear it constantly, like Dixie wore her tag.



So if I ever get lost, I can find my way home.

I've clearly missed my calling. I AM the rainmaker.



Or actually, in this case, snow.



But seriously, for the past four or five trips we've taken, we've gotten DRENCHED. It's absolutely uncanny. We plan a trip and it POURS.

So this time, to celebrate my annual orbit around the sun, we decided to get outta town and head for the sunny, warm desert.

We found a fantastic place to stay that allows dogs, so you-know-who could join us. And on the day we were to leave, an EPIC rain started to batter LA. But still, we headed for that wonderful, relaxing spa of our dreams, where surely the sun would shine.



It's the Dog Spa Resort in Desert Hot Springs - http://dogsparesort.com - where dogs do indeed rule the pool, if they're that kinda dog, that is.



Garcia likes water he can walk into. He's much more of a beach boy. And a trailblazer. Oh yes. Semi-lousy weather aside, we went for a hike in Joshua Tree.



It was WINDY. I'd expected much more to be in bloom. By mid-March the desert is usually in full, glorious technicolor.



But really only the Joshua Trees themselves were blooming.



The jumping cactus was pretty, though. Doesn't it make you just wanna TOUCH IT?



So anyway, we were on our walk, taking in the flora, fauna and rock formations -



When across the desert, this dark, roiling cloud started sweeping toward us.



Yet another rain shower? Nope.



A SNOW SQUALL. In March. In the desert. Good thing I had on MANY layers of clothing. And Garcia of course was wearing his fur coat.



The most amazing thing was that you could turn in one direction and see this:



And in the opposite direction it was sunny and gorgeous.



A dramatic place, the desert, where only the spiny survive.



To survive the drama life has in store, we all need a certain amount of prickliness and some seriously deep roots.



And then we all can flower.



So as I begin my 2012 orbit around the sun, I wish you all peace, love and blooms galore.

In this blog there will be many stars, all shining BRIGHT!

I was just in Alabama, where all the stars fall -



- and was able to attend this GRAND event at my alma mater, which is not-so coincidentally the alma mater of John and Hank Green - Indian Springs School.



ISS is, in fact, the setting for John's first novel, the Printz Award winning LOOKING FOR ALASKA.

But that is not the novel currently on tour. No. That novel is the brand new THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, which John is seen reading from here:



John and his brother Hank have created a wonderful web community called the Nerdfighters, who do good deeds and make great videos, and John and Hank vlog back and forth weekly discussing pithy things. If you've not witnessed the brother in action, do go to the YouTube and look up VLOGBROTHERS. You won't be sorry.

So John read and Hank sang and they took questions and shocked each other with jolts of electricity.



And fun was had by all - especially the teens who came with me.



My nieces Lily and Audrey and their friend Julia. Lily is herself quite the STAR. She'd just returned from Miami where she was one of the finalists in the national Young Arts Week, which is part of the annual Presidential Scholars Awards, given to high school seniors.

Lily was one of the writing finalists, and though they've not yet posted the writers readings on the site (ahem!) here's the link to Young Arts if you want to know more about this amazing program - http://www.youngarts.org And when they DO finally post the writers' readings, Lily reads last. Bring it home, baby!

So...what other STARS did I see in Alabama? These stellar gals!



Novelist Kerry Madden, Norah Lunsford and Olive the weiner dog! Kerry is teaching creative writing at UAB, I'd just spoken to her writing class and then came over to their cute house for a visit. Norah, like Lily and Julia, is a writing major at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. And Olive is just flat out a DOG STAR!



But were those ALL the stars I got to see? Not quite.

On my return to Los Angeles, I was privleged to attend a ceremony that forever enshrined my BFF Marg Helgenberger in the Hollywood firmament - also known as the sidewalk on the boulevard of dreams.



It was a rainy day, but that didn't dampen the festivities, or the paparazzi. This is Marg with her son, Hughie, facing the phalanx of flashbulbs.



And the fans, who came from far and wide to witness Marg's immortal moment, were not put off by a few little raindrops.



Marg spoke movingly about the humble beginnings of her "career" in North Bend, Nebraska. At eleven, she got her social security card and started working in the bean and corn fields during the summer, moving up to the meat packing plant when she was old enough.

"I've always said that my very worst day on any set was a thousand times better than my best day at the meat packing plant."



Perspective is everything, is it not? Even for the brightest star.

And when you know where you come from, you also know that you never arrive at your destination alone. You always have help along the way.

All over the world, the traditions of Santa and St. Nick differ, but here in Southern California, Santa is most decidedly FRUITY.

In the US, we've grown up with Santa and his elves, but I'm here to tell you there are some serious variations on the Santa/St. Nick sidekick story worldwide.

The weirdest one I've actually witnessed? Zwarte Piet in Amsterdam.

If you were to go to Holland at the end of November, you'd see things like this in all the shop windows:



Hmmmm? Right? I mean, Amsterdam ain't exactly the Jim Crow South. But it gets stranger. On December 7th, St. Nicholas Day, people cavort in the streets in blackface with the sainted one himself.



The story? On that day, St. Nick arrives in Holland in a boat from Spain with his trusty pal Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter, a Moor, and if the kiddies have been bad, Zwarte Piet will stuff them in his bag and ship them back to Spain.

Where at least it's warmer.

The Dutch insist a childhood filled with annual threats of abduction by a black man hasn't given them a complex. But I can't imagine that it hasn't colored their worldview.



And in other parts of the world, it gets stranger. Check out this link to see who else travels with St. Nick in other parts of the globe.

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-travels-with-st-nicholas/

My childhood nightmare? THE KRAMPUS, who tags along with Jolly old Nick in Austria, Southern Germany and parts of Eastern Europe.

Talk about not being able to SLEEP on Christmas Eve!

But, as I said, our SoCal Santa is MUCH more benign. Here, the holiday tradition is that in the days leading up to Christmas, Santa leaves bags of yard fruit on your doorstep, then runs away.

In one day alone, these persimmons were left by the fat man.



Then the sneaky old soul bestowed upon us these fine tangerines.



But never fear. As soon as our own tangerine, lemon and blood orange trees come ripe -



- Fruity Santa WILL return the favor. Ho-ho-ho!

MUCH better than the KRAMPUS, dontcha think?



Merry, merry, happy, happy, peace, love & chew bones to ALL!

See you in 2012.

Since my last post about the old thrift store photos I found and the story that went with them, scrawled on the backs, I haven't stopped thinking about Virgie and Ross and their sad love story.

I also took some more time with the photos, looking them over carefully. For example, the photo of the beloved dogs? Yes, I'm sure they were adored, but I don't think that's why this particular photo was taken.

Note, if you will, what lies in the middle of that marvelous pack of mutts.



Yup. A very dead snake. Someone was mighty proud of them mongrels!

So when my friend Linda Jenkins suggested to me that I look more closely at our Virgie, I did just that.



Uh-huh...yes...why, I do believe Linda could be right. Virgie appears to be pregnant. Don't believe us? Look again.



If you recall, the note on the back of this photo said that Virgie and Ross were engaged and were to be married on May 27, but that Ross was killed in a car on February 13, 1929. And these look like winter photos, don't they? Maybe December or January, prior to Ross' death?

The plot thickens. Do you remember that this photo, with the names of the subjects, was sent to a Charlsiemas Barker by Virgie?



And that all the photos were stamped on the back "Stanford Studio, Childress, Texas"?



Off to the interwebs I go! First off, Childress, Texas is in the middle of NOWHERE.



Though Linda, who currently lives in Ft. Worth, says that MOST of Texas is in the middle of nowhere.

Since searching for women from the 20's under their maiden names is usually an exercise in futility, I did a search for Samuel Ross Barker in Childress and entered the year 1929, thinking I might find an obit or a death record.

But no. I didn't find him. Here's who I DID find. Charlsie.

Charlsie Barker was born on 12/14/1929 to Rosa Roach and Houston Barker. Which is probably why Virgie tacked "mas" onto the end of her name. She was a near-to Christmas baby, born to relatives of Ross.

Or was she? Is it possible that the single mother, Virgie, not even an official widow, had her baby Charlsie, then was persuaded to give her up to be raised by other Barker family members? This was, let us not forget, the year of the crash and the beginning of the Great Depression.

But wait - you say - If Virgie was pregnant when those photos were taken, she had to have had her baby MONTHS before December of '29.

Yes indeed, but in 1929 most babies were born at home and birth dates were...shall we say...fluid.

Back to the interwebs I went, just searching the surname "Barker" in Childress, Texas and not trying to narrow it down to any particular "Barker".

What I found was so mind bendingly odd and completely out in left field, that my story-generating brain started spinning like a hamster on a wheel.

There was a man named Melton Barker, who may or may not have been a relation. Little is known about him, except for the one most salient fact:

He was an itinerant filmmaker. That's right. Itinerant filmmaker.

http://www.meltonbarker.com/index.html

Melton would come to your town with a little screenplay titled "The Kidnappers Foil" and camera in tow, and would, for a fee, cast all the town kiddies, burghers, ingenues and matrons in this thrilling masterpiece, with Melton himself playing the kidnapper. Then it would "premiere" at the local movie palace as the short before the feature.

Here's a link to the version shot in Childress, Texas, from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image. I haven't bothered to watch the whole thing, though. 17 minutes of amateur acting. Say no more.

http://www.texasarchive.org/library/index.php/The_Local_Gang_in_%E2%80%9CThe_Kidnappers_Foil%E2%80%9D:_Childress%2C_TX%2C_1948

Now, the dates don't line up at all. But in the land of "what if" where I can make anything happen....

You see where I'm going with this? I'm not entirely sure I do, but I'm getting there, and a few things come to mind, one of them being THE MUSIC MAN, with Melton as our Professor Harold Hill.

And the other? One of my favorite childhood films - AFTER THE FOX, starred Peter Sellers as Aldo Venucci, "The Fox", a master criminal who comes to a small Italian town and poses as a film director as cover for another crime.

For your (and my) enjoyment, I'm linking in the classic animated title sequence, with a catchy little tune by Bacharach/David.



Of course, NONE of this may be true. The story of Virgie and Ross may be nothing more than what was written on the back of that faded photo, and the rest of it is sheer speculation and invention.

But that is, after all, exactly what we writers do. Speculate, invent, and write it all down.

Let the speculation begin.

We were recently in Morro Bay on the Central Coast, and on a bad weather day, I perused some of the local junk shops. I like to look through old photos, not only because I like to find gems like this one for my BFF, Suz Plunkett, photographer extraordinaire, but also because I find orphaned photos incredibly poignant.

Who were these three women, so obviously proud of their bobbed haircuts and flapper girl dresses? Who is the shadow in the foreground, taking the photo? I like to think of the stories that might go with the photos of people so long gone that no one remembers them.

In the 20's, when this group of photos were taken, photos were so precious, you didn't just snap them off any old day, or of any old thing. Photos were important. That's why I find this one so lovely.



Whatta bunch of mutts! And yet someone loved them enough to take their picture.

But sometimes, the story doesn't have to be made up. I found this photo first, and was so taken with the young woman in her avant garde modern dress, and the handsome young man, who could have stepped out of this year's Pendleton Portland Collection catalogue.



I also thought he looked like a very young John Wayne, and I liked the distinctive border printed on the photograph. On the back was a stamp that said Stanford Studio, Childress, Texas - odd to find on the Central Coast of California. But that was all. Just the studio stamp.

Then I dug through the stack of photos and found a few more with that distinctive border. First this one, of some kind of grove. Maybe oranges? Hard to tell.



Then a solo photo of the young man in front of a rock formation.



A faded photo of the young man with a young woman in the same location.



Nothing on the back but the same photo studio stamp.

And then I found the last two photos that bring it all together. On the back of this one, a dedication - To Charlsiemas Barker From Virgie B. Johnson.



The whole gang is identified, front to back - Virgie B. Johnson, Ross Barker, Fay Flowers, Laurence Barker at River Cave.

OK. So these four friends took a trip together & Virgie sent photos to a relative of the young men. Simple enough, and not terribly compelling.

Until I came across this torn and tattered picture. On the front, in ink, are the names Virgie Johnson & Ross Barker, written in the same hand as on the back of the other photo.



But on the back, written in pencil and in a different hand - Virgie B. Johnson and Samuel Ross Barker were engaged to be married on May 27, but Samuel Ross was killed in a car on February 13, 1929.

I can only guess that Charlsiemas Barker made that note, tucked the photos away, and her future sister-in-law moved on in life. Or didn't. Maybe Samuel Ross Barker was her one and only true love. But regardless, Charlsiemas is probably long gone, and no one in the Barker family laid claim to these photographs or to this story of young love, ended by a simple twist of fate.

So I did.

I hope this has moved you to at least look through the old photo bin next time you're in a junk store. Or at the very least, to make notes on your own old photos because someday it may be your photos in the bin, waiting for someone like me to give them a home.

And a story to go with them.

A VERY Happy 50th Birthday to THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH.

I was recently asked to write a short piece about the book for an article that just ran on the Los Angeles Review of Books blog - http://lareviewofbooks.org/ But I thought I'd post it here too because, hey - ain't that what a blog is for? My own darn musings?

So here, in all its glory, I bring you my short remembrance of my favorite childhood book, and what it means to me:

In 1968, I’m sure there were things I wanted desperately for Christmas, but I don’t remember what they were or if I received them. What I did get was a copy of THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, a copy I still treasure.

The hero’s journey that Milo takes, with the faithful watchdog Tock and the grumbling Humbug, was irresistible to me, a child who was, if anything, over-scheduled. The thought that any kid was so bored he didn’t know what to do with himself, and then had this great adventure dumped in his lap made me jealous. But Norton Juster swept me up and took me along on Milo’s ride, aided and abetted by the genius of Jules Feiffer.



I felt a part of Milo’s quest, clever for sussing out double meanings, and colossally let down when the rescue of Rhyme and Reason made no difference in the Kingdom of Wisdom.



But of course the rescue was never the point. As Milo and I realized in the end, his was a journey of self-discovery, and real adventure lay right outside the front door.

As I grew up I revisited the book, and each time found in it different things that spoke to me. I gave it to friends on milestone birthdays and lent it to new boyfriends as sort of an acid test. If a guy loved the book as much as I did, then we were simpatico.



A couple years after the great love of my early twenties and I had broken up, I opened my copy of THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH to find his bookmark; a retired index catalogue card from our college library. On it, he’d written this quote from the Mathemagician: “You’ll find that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that’s hardly worth the effort.”

To this day, it’s the best apology I’ve ever received, and it remains between the pages of my beloved, tattered copy, a reminder of what endures.



If you want to hear about the genesis of my (and maybe your) favorite childhood book from the author himself, click on this link for a piece that aired on All Things Considered: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/10/141240217/my-accidental-masterpiece-the-phantom-tollbooth

And if you've NEVER read THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, do yourself a favor, and take your own journey to The Lands Beyond.

Once again, it was the MOST wonderful time of the year. Halloween AND Dia de los Muertos.



Ghosts on the wind, kids dressing up, going door-to-door, cadging candy? Seriously, what's not to love? And I adore El Dia, setting up an altar in the house and celebrating with our dearest departed.



This year's altar was dedicated to our Dixie and Violet, who we still miss each and every day.



But these angelic darlings have helped.



Wait...what's that flying through the air...



Ah...yes. Dead gopher. But the kitties aren't the only ones who are gopher obsessed.

Oh no. For that, we turn to the resident gopher-aholic, who cannot make it through a single walk in Elysian Park without excavating umpteen gopher holes.

First, though, you have to spot 'em.



And then....it's ON!



Unlike Elsie and Angus, Garcia has yet to turn a gopher into a ghost...



...but it makes him SO happy to try.