Ruth Doan MacDougall: "Ruth's Neighborhood"

DANDELIONS AND JOY

April21, 2024

          Recently when my dear friend Winifred and I were discussing dandelion greens, I explained that I’ve never picked or cooked them because Don had dandelion-greens PTSD. In his childhood, he would relate, he had to traipse around lawns after his grandmother, carrying a bag for the millions of dandelion leaves she would harvest. Then came washing them, which took FOREVER. His grandparents and parents lived in the Weirs, the lake-resort section of Laconia, and he could have been SWIMMING.
          Still, he did join me rejoicing at the springtime sight of dandelions and we never tried to rid our lawn of them.
          A coincidence: Soon after my discussion with Winifred I was reading the spring issue of THE LAKER HOME magazine and came to an article by Rosalie Triolo,

“Dandelions: Weed or Herb?” It told me, “For much of recorded history, dandelions have been used by humans as a source of food and as an herbal remedy used for medicinal purposes. Dandelion flowers were enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and for centuries the Chinese used dandelions to treat liver diseases and digestive problems.
“The dandelion was introduced in America at the time of the Mayflower landing. Afterwards, Native Americans learned to boil the dandelions in water and use them as a remedy for upset stomachs and as a digestive aid. Dandelions are a rich source of vitamins A, C, and K, and the minerals calcium, iron, and potassium.
“Because its jagged-edged leaves resemble the sharp teeth of a lion, the plant derives its name from the Latin DENS LEONIS and the French DENT DE LION . . .
“The green dent de lion-shaped leaves are a delicious addition to salads, sandwiches, and omelets, or sautéed with garlic and olive oil . . . there are several dandelion recipes you can find online: dandelion fritters, baking with dandelion petals, and brewing your own dandelion root coffee/tea . . . A country wine, dandelion wine, is brewed with citrus fruit, raisins, sugar, water, yeast, and dandelions.”

          Wine! One spring I collected (on my own, sparing Don)) millions of dandelion blossoms from our lawn and neighbors’ lawns and made dandelion wine.
          Another coincidence: Last week on PBS I happened upon a program called AMERICA THE BOUNTIFUL and it mentioned making dandelion pesto. If I’d known, I would certainly have made that pesto in my serious cooking years.
          Our local Yeoman’s Fund for the Arts posts poems on the Sandwich Board throughout National Poetry Month. Here is one I liked a lot, by Holly J. Hughes:

          Mind Wanting More

          Only a beige slat of sun
          above the horizon, like a shade
          pulled not quite down. Otherwise,
          clouds. Sea rippled here and
          there. Birds reluctant to fly.
          The mind wants a shaft of sun to
          stir the gray porridge of clouds,
          an osprey to stitch sea to sky
          with its barred wings, some
          dramatic music: a symphony, perhaps
          a Chinese gong.

          But the mind always
          wants more than it has—
          one more bright day of sun;
          one more clear night in bed
          with the moon; one more hour
          to get the words right; one
          more chance for the heart in hiding
          to emerge from its thicket
          of dried grasses—if this quiet day
          with its tentative light weren’t enough,
          as if joy weren’t strewn all around.

© 2024 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.  

FIDDLEHEADS AND FLOWERS

April 14, 2024

            I’ve been traveling in my imagination to two places in Maine that are described in the March/April issue of YANKEE magazine by Bill Scheller: “Spring Flings: Longer, warmer days give even more reasons to explore these colorful, feel-good events and seasonal attractions.”
           The first Maine place that got my attention:

“Aroostook County Fiddlehead Festival, Presque Isle. Fiddleheads—those tightly curled, bright green ferns freshly popped up from the damp spring earth—are a popular foragers’ quarry in Aroostook County. They’re also the centerpiece of this annual festival featuring a fiddlehead cooking contest for both amateurs and professionals, a craft fair, live music, and fiddlehead picking at a designated spot where the tasty morsels grow. 5/18.”

           Imagine, all those fiddleheads! In the 1970s Don and I studied up about the baby ostrich ferns in two cookbooks, THE EDIBLE WILD by Berndt Berglund and Clare E. Bolsby and THE WEED COOKBOOK by Adrienne Crowhurst. We picked one meal in our yard but were a little nervous about our identification so afterward we bought fiddleheads at farmstands. Those cookbooks had recipes for steamed fiddleheads and fiddleheads with mushrooms or eggs and ham and pepperoni or oil and vinegar or creamed. I always just steamed them and we added lots of butter, salt, and pepper. Lovely.
           The other Maine place:

 “McLaughlin Garden and Homestead, South Paris. With more than 125 varieties of lilacs and gorgeous displays of phlox, daylilies, hostas, irises, primroses, and other spring-blooming favorites, one of Maine’s best-loved gardens was the vision of Bernard McLaughlin, ‘the dean of Maine gardeners.’ Mother’s Day weekend marks the beginning of lilac season and the opening of the garden’s two acres of colorful plantings and  its pond, rock, and pollinator gardens. Perennials and wildflowers are on sale from then through October.”

           Imagine the sight and scent of all those lilacs! Imagining, I look out the back door’s window at the dear old lilac bush that welcomed us when we moved here in 1976 and has kept us company ever since. And I remember how on hikes there were the poignant occasions of seeing a lilac bush still surviving beside a farmhouse cellar hole, the fields gone back to woods.
           As Amy Lowell wrote in her “Lilacs” poem:

Lilacs,
          False blue,
          White,
          Purple,
          Colour of lilac,
          Your great puffs of flowers
          Are everywhere in this my New England.
          Among your heart-shaped leaves
          Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing
          Their little weak soft songs;
          In the crooks of your branches
          The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs
          Peer restlessly through the light and shadow
          Of all Springs.
          Lilacs in dooryards
          Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;
          Lilacs watching a deserted house
          Lilacs, weather-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom
          Above a cellar dug into a hill.
          You are everywhere.
           You were everywhere . . .

© 2024 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.  

PASS THE POEMS, PLEASE

April 7,2024

          I spent the start of National Poetry Month driving myself crazy trying to remember a poem. I’d been listening to the audiobook of Patrick Taylor’s IRISH COUNTRY VILLAGE, which has quotations and sayings at the start of each chapter—without attribution. One of these quotations was “Full many a glorious morning have I seen.” It was so familiar! When I said it aloud, I could almost say the next line. I kept trying, refusing to give up and Google. Shakespeare too obvious? Wordsworth? WHO? The meter pulsed through my mind. And finally I gave up. Google told me it was indeed Shakespeare, his Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy . . . Okay! Now National Poetry Month could really begin! I was tickled to see on the Sandwich Board a description of how the Bearcamp Center for Sustainable Community in nearby South Tamworth is planning to celebrate the month with a “Pass the Poems, Please” dinner on April 12:

“The menu includes: rolls with herbed butter and oyster mushroom rillettes (a chunky, creamy spread); roasted asparagus and leeks tossed with walnuts and tarragon in a light white wine and mustard sauce; whole roasted onion stuffed with goat cheese mousse and topped with balsamic grapes; grilled carrots with pumpkin seed zhug and crispy ginger (zhug is a blend of seeds, herbs, citrus, and spice drizzled over the carrots); slow roasted lamb with plum sriracha; and bread pudding with heaps of whipped cream. A vegetarian entrée is available

. “Whether you love poetry or not, you’ll love the food and, if you dine in, the company. We’ll have poems for you to take home and just a few poetry readings at the beginning and end of the meal, and the rest of the dinner can be spent with your lovely table companions. “

The meal, as ever, is offered totally by donation. Some folks reserve a meal because they need a little extra food or to stretch their household budget, others join us for companionship, especially after a long winter. Some people simply want a delicious dinner they wouldn’t cook at home. Whatever your reason for coming, you’re welcome! Pay what or if you’re able or what you think the food is worth to our community.”

To end this with another poem—On March 23rd winter returned, bringing Sandwich two feet of snow. Melting ensued in springtime sun and rain; a northeaster storm with more snow arrived last Wednesday and Thursday. I reread Robert Frost’s lines from “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” which I’m apt to post here in April:

  The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
          You know how it is with an April day
          When the sun is out and the wind is still,          
          You’re one month on in the middle of May.          
          But if you so much as dare to speak,          
          A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
          A wind comes off a frozen peak,
          And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

© 2024 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.