On Monday, just before heading back to Jersey City, I grabbed my big steel knife and marched off to the rhubarb patch across the road from my farmhouse. Several years ago I discovered some rogue rhubarb growing in the field, a possible remnant from the time when our farmhouse was the residence of actual farmers, not city dwellers playing as country people. Whoosh, whoosh, the large, very sharp blade cut the abundant plants. Another whack of the knife and the leaves, which Rich tells me are poisonous, fell away from the firm green and red stalks that were the object of my foray into the fields. I got just one little nick to my finger from the blade which would have done Lizzie Borden's job very nicely. It's a scary damn thing, but that knife cuts like the dickens when I sharpen it on the whetstone. Note to cooks, steel blades are much easier to sharpen at home than stainless steel knives, just don't put 'em in the dishwasher, they will rust.
My hoard of rhubarb was dumped into a bag which was then piled into the car with the rest of the crap that travels between the city and the country each weekend. (WHY is there always so much to pack each time we go back and forth between the two houses?) After a long side road detour to avoid Memorial Day traffic on the Quickway, which was not so very quick on Monday afternoon, past pretty small towns and the most amazing black, black earth planted with rows of tender young vegetables in a small, very flat patch of Orange County, we arrived home. Rich headed to town for an appointment and I headed to the kitchen with rhubarb in hand. I like to make (and eat) pies, and rhubarb is one of the easy ones to make. Cut up the rhubarb and put it in the pan lined with crust, dust with flour for thickening, put in the sugar mixed with an egg to make it custardy, sprinkle with ground nutmeg, dot with butter, put on the top crust, and stick it in the oven. Rhubarb pie practically makes itself.
That pie, a lovely fresh salad with baby greens from the garden, and a pork roast ringed with carrots and new potatoes made for a very nice topping off to a delightful weekend in the country. Sweet! Over the long weekend, the country vegetable garden was planted, a delicious lunch was had with friends at the charming Old North Branch Inn, a restored hotel in a pretty little town not far from the farm, a dinner party offered us amusing new friends and a Saturday night dance brought together the gay Sullivan County community for the first time this season. It was a perfect mix of hard work and good social time. But best of all, I was published by the New York Times this weekend. Now that was really SWEET.
Inspired by the Nutrition Facts box that appears on all food products, some design colleagues and I had a clever idea for a new kind of simple, clear credit card disclosure that should be placed on all credit card offers and statements. The Times liked it and published it as an Op-Chart in the Week in Review on Sunday, May 24, 2009. Since it appeared, I have been called brilliant, very brilliant, and really smart. What this tells me, other than the obvious about my intelligence, is that simple, strong design ideas are smart and can be effective tools to help everyday people make credit choices, buy mortgages, decide what to eat, and so on. My co-authors and I are part of a group called Design for Democracy. We are using design thinking and design ideas to improve the quality of public communications in America.
As the D for D team were making plans Tuesday to spread the word about our triumphant New York Times editorial, word arrived that the California Supreme Court had upheld the legality of Proposition 8, the ban on same sex marriages in that state. Damn, that was BITTER news. It is curious how easy it is to legalize discrimination and how hard it is to end that discrimination. My only hope is that this defeat for gay marriage will fuel the righteous anger of gays and lesbians who once again feel excluded from the mainstream with its rights and protections.
There was a demonstration yesterday evening in Sheridan Square to protest the court decision. I wanted to go, but it was cold and damp out and I was tired. Leftovers from Monday night's dinner beckoned, cold pork, fresh broccoli shoots from the city garden, more salad, and of course leftover rhubarb pie. The prospect was enough to fuel my journey back home after a long rollercoaster day at work. What greeted me as I entered my beloved Jersey City kitchen was a pile of just picked broccoli shoots and an EMPTY pie pan. Rich had loved my pie so much that he just had to eat the whole second half of the pie himself. Now that's BITTERSWEET. I gladly ate the leftover pork, the broccoli, and the fresh salad. Delicious, but I wanted a sweet. So I made some cookies...but that is another story.
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