Kristen Orser's Blog, page 7

Notes on being a daughter

I imagine it’s not easy to be a dad.

My own Dad continues to teach me about happiness. Always, simpleness is happiness. He advocates sitting on the porch, asks if I’ve gotten to run outside, and talks about really small details. Things that have less fuss, to my father (and to me), are things that make you really happy.

So when Father’s Day rolled around, ice cream was the most logical gift: unfussy luxury that totally reminds me of sitting around with my Dad during summer usually, at Lake Chautauqua and, always, with a sundae in our hands or on our minds.

My Dad’s a simple guy.

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream is also fabulous, innovative, and super simple to order online. This was a Father’s Day success.

Which brings me to some notes on being a daughter: it’s also hard.

I want it to be simple because it’s easy (for me and I don’t doubt that I’m lucky in this respect) to love my Dad unconditionally. But figuring out how to sort through the muchness and just be thankful for my Dad, isn’t always easy. I mean, it’s not easy to make time for the phone call, to help him figure out the details of FaceTime, and to have patience for some of his more old-fashioned ways.

This week, I did cull through all my complaints and had a conversation where my Dad and I talked about how long it’s taken me to grow up in my career-thinking. Wanting less and wanting happiness, the values he taught me, sometimes neglected necessity or the real reality of having to “give up” a little in order to have easy-living.

So we talked about it. We talked about how maybe some of my dreams are too-big, aren’t really rooted in simple living. We talked about it and we both cried about the really difficult position of realizing that dreaming big and living small don’t always match up.

That’s not to say either of us suggest giving up or not dreaming big, it’s just to say that both my Dad and I are learning a paternal attribute of being practical. It’s tough.

In this way, we’re both a bit father and daughter.

This year, so many friends are celebrating their first Father’s Day and I can’t help but think that my paternal figures include more than just my father: Walter. Albert. Mac. Jesse. And these aren’t the only people who taught me strength, protected me, and offered that kind of guidance we associate with masculinity. And I’m proud of my father for letting me, sometimes, father him a bit.

The lines aren’t as clear as we’d like them to be.

follow (past people)

Okay, Paul Klee could be tough to follow. I mean, it’s not like he’s live tweeting or anything. But his diaries are worth going to the library and checking out and, well, you can go to an exhibit and be really moved.

I spent Thursday in the house weighing some options and moving toward being practical (and writing a book review that’s driving me to the limits of words). AND reading Klee’s diaries.

It stands out that Klee was a poet, that he saw himself painting poems. There does seem to be an investigation or interrogation of signs and symbols. In the diaries, more pencil sketches from his notebooks (as a schoolboy even) and, still, the sense of a context around the sketches: a storm, a war, a disaster.

It all seems like a wandering line. That, for a second, the line has individuality for a moment and then it gets abstracted into an image and–if possible–re-abstracted by Klee. With the lines, these impressions come, he creates a common measure.

It’s that, it’s that point of contact that I’m always trying to make and that Klee does so successfully.

“unlimited”

We’ve been unplugged a bit (digital vacation).

More beach walks, better gardening tending (my black thumb might be turning green), and even some chess. Jesse and I are still not quite our usual routine of making, reading, and writing, but we remain a bit hermetic: building layers within.

Oh, and it was Ellery’s birthday on top of the new addition to the Truby family, Jesse’s job transition, and connecting with Chelsea before she goes to Italy with our book!

Ellery’s first birthday…made me nostalgic for William, Emery, the Schober family too. I’ve been lucky to help nurture some lovely families and beautiful children over the years.

Over dinner, we talked about beauty. Mostly, of the ways I’ve been pushing Rasa (through writing at least) to start articulating internal beauty, beauty that comes from feeling good. It’s been a little hypocritical since I’m just starting to feel good here and take better care of myself. It took awhile–the move really interfered with self care. The book being finished helps, the books that are in progress (and happily looking for publishing homes) help too.

Chelsea Cossu and I made a little book. It’s on its way to Italy to look for a home…bon voyage little book.

Beauty in California is different. The Pacific has a different look/feel; the whole place does too. All the ideas about beauty that were handed down to Jesse are distinctly Midwest: friends, family, and bread baking. My own are East Coast (and maybe more troubled): success, tradition, and innovation (see the troubles?). On the West Coast there’s more talk about a whole kind of beauty, but we do wonder about what’s been handed down to us and how we want to start (as a family) approaching well living.

My sister and I remembered, more recently, our Aunt and Uncle and seeing them as “role models.” They are, to me, classic “South Buffalo”: the porch is open, visible (not hiding in the backyard or behind a fence) and everyone’s invited over. If it’s the weekend, they’re sitting around with beers and a ball to toss around. This isn’t how we grew up, but when we visited it felt casual, easy, and like wandering without having to leave. Sure, it’s not the perfect self care picture (there was lots of beer and chips), but my Aunt also said, “I’m happy to have all the smile lines around my eyes and lips. It means I laughed. It means I was smiling.” Both my sister and I remembered her saying that, and it has to have been at least ten years ago. That’s a real impression to make.

I found the cream I want to use for the truffles, it makes the most perfect ganache. I made vegan chocolate pudding this week and wish I took a photo of how creamy the texture was, but I ate it as quickly as I made it. I used A Cozy Kitchen’s Recipe for Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding, but I didn’t use the honey, I used my new favorite sweetener: Jerusalem Artichoke Syrup. This is the best!

So drinking chocolates, chocolate pudding, and truffles are things I’m feeling good about pursuing still, but I’d love to find a chocolate technique class or a really great book. When I was baking at the bakery, I learned that I’m a tactile learner and I really do best making mistakes and figuring out why. This makes me pretty adept at quality control, but also pretty wasteful sometimes.

Still, so afraid to take this leap.

 

time away

I needed a couple of days to welcome new babies, take care of my own brain, and re focus.

So it took a little sun, a lot of coffee, and some rest, but I feel back. Almost oriented. I’m also pretty sure this music site recovered what was feeling a bit buried or stagnant. Watching these artists re-ignited that inner need to write, write, write, and write into making recent difficulties at least communicable.

Thanks to some sweet and too long distance friends, things are really looking up. Oh, and it’s Ellery’s birthday tomorrow…watching her grow up has already been amazing. She’s past my knee, walking, and almost answering questions. If only I could get her to stop throwing sand at the other beach kids–

Getting There

Summery Goals:

We’re welcoming a new baby our friends had this morning, right after the full moon left the sky. We haven’t seen her pretty face yet, but we can’t wait to see her little hands and feet.

With her here, there’s a some newness potential.

So we did a little feng shui on our kitchen (seems like what you do after friends have a baby right?). Mostly, we cleared the refrigerator (feminine energy). If you read this blog (thanks Tara and Sheena), you know the kitchen is the center of our house. Here’s our brief start at cultivating more positive chi in the kitchen:

only positive energy images/objects on the fridge (a small picture of my Dad as a kid and the directions for watering our jasmine and our mandarin plants)
nothing on top of the fridge
use all the burners (keep possibilities open)

This morning we chatted about getting a mirror to hang above the stove–to increase prosperity (you see more “burners/fire”) and to make the cook feel more comfortable (not facing a wall while cooking). I’m looking into crystal placement for the kitchen too…anyone know of a good suggestion?

What’s important about this? Like I tell Jesse all the time, I think this is all about intention. I don’t think any of these changes are automatic or guaranteed, but I think that wanting change and seeking out small ways to encourage change simply remind you that your working toward something, that you are capable of making change. This little fact from Vital Juice helps to explain it:

A lucky charm will help you ace an important meeting.

TRUE.

Studies show that using objects with special associations–like lucky charms–may boost your confidence and help you succeed at difficult tasks.

My own current goals are to figure out lifestyle blogging and share a real interest to see the world, to gather enough courage to market and advertise myself (and truffles!), and to keep pushing into my writing (a two year sabbatical from publishing and submitting was too long).

And if there wasn’t enough inspiration, the picture above is from my new favorite blog: Manufacture & Industry, which documents the craftsmanship and history of products made in the British Isles. They’ve been around for a bit and it’s really worth checking it out and remembering that you can make anything if you take the time to learn it well and make it well.

Create. Reflect. Make It New.

capturing moments

I worry about “heavy talk” and my tendency to lean on those conversations. This weekend, we beached, cooked pizza (dough raised in the sun), and lounged heavily. I mentioned, to strangers that are lovely people and new friends, that California is a good place for someone like me to live: it makes me slow down.

A slow weekend with granola, succulents, and rest(oration).

Catching up on writing and lists today, but grateful for a very slow weekend (and a delicious ginger cake in the kitchen).

I think the purpose of keeping a blog is less to do with craft, poetics, and my relationship with those things and more to do with documenting a real shift in how I think: capturing moments and sitting with them elongates time and makes things–small things–matter more. I don’t think I’d be able to consider the chocolate business, my own potential, as fully if I weren’t able to reflect on the really still and important things that are happening to me since moving to the West Coast.

It’s funny to have lived all over and to, finally, find a place that asks you to stay put. Now, if only I could get all my family to move here and unwind a bit too.

My extremely patient husband wonders why I can’t sit still.

Organic Drinking

Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing makes my coastal relocation more favorable. Read about their organic drinks here. 

I’ve missed Bells and some Midwestern faves, but this place is quickly rising to the top of my favorites list. 

Follow (poets too)

The deep pleasure that comes from collaboration seems connected to a shared rest and–equally–unrest.

When I think about the hardest part of poetics, making, anything at all–I think about simple contours.Like foundations. Basics. Butter and bread.

One class with Joan Larkin in grad school taught me this: form is necessary. My own rules: it needs practice and shaking.

This is related: Yesterday, I brought over sample truffles (a butter recipe instead of the usual cream to see the difference) to friends expecting a baby (the little baby girl is due TODAY, so I figured pre-baby truffles were necessary). I thought about the inclination toward basics–these were straightforward truffles: exquisitely spare and the exact impression of quality chocolate and attention to detail (no fluff).

I’ve been following Emma’s amazing foundations series on Poire au Chocolat, which values the same adherence to growing from foundations by offering her own foundations series. We aren’t collaborating–she doesn’t even know how helpful she’s been in guiding my own practice–but she’s really taught me that chocolate is best in its simplest way. She’s reminded me about precision.

As a writer, I’ve learned the same lesson (thank Hemingway–I mean, Kat Dixon). Collaborating with Kat Dixon heightens this, makes me have a real and sincere relationship with the foundations of poetry: this girl can give you one word that gives the entire impression of the sentiment she’s trying to say (which is probably what you were trying to say and she beat you to it).

Yup, I’m equating Kat to excellent chocolate.

from Kat Dixon’s Goodreads author page

She uses words like they are degrees: adding them only to slightly alter a shadow or highlight a tonal value. Working with her teaches me that value of specific resonance.

To get romantic, it’s like a lovely summer day when she adds a line to our strange little project. It seems so natural, like she just leapt into the words, the idea, the strong effect that she just offered. I know it’s work–her real willingness to give words to ideas and share and share and share.

Follow Kat. Read her books. Love her like I love her.

Follow Kat on her Goodreads page, her blog, her twitter feed, and her Facebook page. She’s not an equilibrium but she’s a definite direction that hurries away from foggy days and moves in the real chaos of what’s actual.

collaboration: art books and starting over

This article about Kim France, editor in chief of Lucky Magazine, is worth reading. It’s also worth (re)reading. For me, especially now.

In the article France says–after stress and headaches made her leave work–“I was surprisingly comfortable with being unemployed (…) I didn’t really feel like I knew what I wanted to do next and I waited until there was a moment when I could do something that really felt right.”

It’s a privilege to be able to wait and seek out what feels right. Of course, that goes without saying. It’s also a privilege to even be able to “feel right.” But the article goes on to discuss feeling comfortable as a writer again because she’s writing about what she wants to write about and she’s found an audience for that writing.

I do think the article doesn’t discuss that second value: having the audience for your writing. It matters that you fall into someone’s ear.

I’ve been starting over too…writing against elliptical and poetic style to see WHAT ELSE that kind of writing can bend toward. I’ve been writing children’s stories, fiction, and a few essays. And while they haven’t found an ideal reader yet, I have to say that writing what isn’t easy, what doesn’t come naturally, has been worth it for me. It makes me wonder about what feels right and what it means to also try what doesn’t feel right.

In my father’s last letter he said, “You can get around a mountain by going around it or you can just climb it. Sure, going around is easier.” He doesn’t wrap up the idea by saying climbing is better, he just implies that up has something else that isn’t “easy.” He’s a smart dude.

In the mail, I received three lovely copies of Midas Eyes.

Chelsea Cossu handbound and handcreated this collaborative book of our text and images exploring the theme of value (through her photography and my poetry retelling the Midas myth).

What an exciting mail delivery!



The book unfolds, plays with how it unfolds and is “seen”, and plays with the very Ovidian belief of re-reading or being read anew each time (because of how it opens and closes / folds and unfolds). While there is a linear value, there’s also a real adherence to letting the text and images blur into each other and a new arrangement. 








We are looking for its publishing home, but I’m happy to have it in my own home now.



 More images can be seen here and a video of Chelsea discussing the work can be seen at Parlour Room Projects’ archive. 

And tucked in this AWESOME mail delivery was more that I’m soon to be tackling, excited to be thinking about, and hoping to get out there for people to see Chelsea’s great work and exciting ideas.

yogurt making (shhh, it’s really easy)

Dear Wednesday, thank you for arriving and bringing the total joy of a new washer and dryer (three weeks without laundry is like being in college again) and the promise of more sun-sitting-weekends.

But the best part about midweek is homemade yogurt for breakfasts–making the week feel a little more “fancy.”

After Benoît de Korsak shared a gift of his yogurt with us at Cooking for Solutions, Jesse and I knew we wanted to use his milk too. We wanted to keep the integrity of what Saint Benoît is doing whole; especially, the admittance to seasons, difference, and natural production: ”The cows’ milk naturally varies according to the season. For example, at some points of the year the cows’ milk contains more carotene and therefore the cream layer is a buttery yellow color. At other times of the year, the cream is whiter.” Yup, a product that isn’t stable or same-say because it’s real. 

With the slow food movements and whole food movements, I’d hoped to see this acceptance of inconsistencies articulated a bit more. When I make crackers, cheese, ice cream, anything at home, it almost never turns out identical to the last batch and it has a lot to do–not with the recipes–but with the whole ingredients, the weather, and the other variables. Thank goodness my coffee-friends and coffee-husband understand these variables (they make great dinner guests!).

So we picked up Saint Benoît milk to use with our yogurt starter and spent a day listening to music and standing around the stove with a thermometer.

In the past, I’ve used a crockpot method because I like the no fuss of it. At least, I thought it sounded simpler than making it outside of the crockpot (didn’t need to find an incubator since the crockpot served that purpose too). But Vanessa Barrington’s D.I.Y Delicious and Yvette van Bowen’s Home Made use such irreverent voices in their books that I was like, “pshhh, I don’t need a crockpot when I have a stove.”

This is the fun right: don’t use a yogurt machine, don’t use a crockpot, see what you can do with the stuff your grandmother did it with.

Scratch cooking  is something I do because it makes me remember that what seems complicated is usually pretty easy.

More than that, it makes me more capable of creating variations and innovating. Yogurt making isn’t something I’m super proud of doing, it’s something that reminds me I can do all the other things I’m proud of (like that fiction piece I’ve been working on for two years that seems to be staring me in the face daily).

I used the recipe from D.I.Y. Delicious because it was a sunny day and the “incubator” for the proliferating bacteria was my own backyard…like I said, easy. After getting to the right temperature, the milk was put into jars, the starter yogurt was whisked in, and the jars were wrapped in dark plastic bags to sit in the sun. Jesse and I sat in the sun and incubated a bit too.

It’s not the best yogurt, but it’s easy to make, great added to granola, and fun to think about what you can add next time (we were talking about lemon this morning). Jesse was, at breakfast, super proud of his efforts (he measured the temperature like a pro–making sure harmful bacteria is killed must be his calling or something).

Homemade yogurt on the left is perfect with coffee. On the bottom, add in some blueberries and, if you like, some rhubarb / rose simple syrup (I made too much this weekend and it’s amazing how great it tastes in EVERYTHING from soda water to ice cream).

I’m pretty sure this is the lore of yogurt production: milk accidently left out overnight was, appropriately, infiliatred by naturally occurring bacteria and the result tasted good, didn’t make anyone sick, and kept well. Good news for health appreciators, the lactose is easier to digest too. A win / win.

If you want to get fancy, it’s: Streptococcus thermophilus, bacteria that like warmth (which is why milk is heated and incubated) alongside Lactobacillus bulgaricus, bacteria that change lactose to lactic acid.

In the states, we’re pretty behind in yogurt and we don’t haven’t really caught on to including it in sauces, marinades and cheeses. We’ll get there.