Dim Black Friday

Black Friday. Literally dark in the windowless bathroom for the fifth time today when I remember the light switch isn’t working. The power went out this morning. And stayed off all day. Heavy snow on the lines. Already feeling under the weather and literally under the non working power lines, it was a good day to observe the alternative version of the Friday after Thanksgiving: Buy Nothing Day. Between reading and resting it was time for desk cleaning and paper sorting. Piles of catalogs. Despite signing up for 40pounds.org and other junk mail opt out sites and not actually ordering anything, some retailers persistently announce the arrival of each season (or it seems, semi-season; e.g., midsummer sale edition). I decided to call these catalog hogs directly to get my name off the most frequent mail box offenders. During these calls, in the dimming kitchen, on black-no-electricity-buy-nothing day I felt like a true celebrant of anticonsumerism. I’ll still get all their glossy holiday best as it usually takes a couple of months for the system to process this type of request. But it always feels nice to take a step away from the junk mail—whether literal or figurative—that tries to clutter our lives.

Old Blue Hubbard

There’s a turkey sized blue Hubbard behind the mountain bike, balanced atop a pile of camping gear, in the shadows of skis and paddles. Thanksgiving seemed the most apt day to eat this warty, awkwardly cute, largest of the harvest, cucurbit. But how? A chain saw? The best suggestion on the internet came from a profile about an older couple that grows large quantities of large winter squash and throws an annual processing bash, literally smashing the hulking hubbards onto the sidewalk to get them open. A friend wisely suggested a Samurai sword. I surveyed the asphalt in the our mountain town alley rapidly filling with slushy snow while people in Manhattan watched Macy’s. The alley was a solid Plan B. We sharpened the largest kitchen knife in preparation. The squash teetered on the counter. It seemed a dangerous affair, no task for the clumsy or tipsy. Guided by a steady hand the knife worked from the margins to the center, a slow but manageable task, akin to watermelon slicing. Recipes recommend roasting the halves open side down, but I like watermelon cubed and ready to eat, and took that approach with the squash. The bite sized chunks are more versatile, easily to mix in a bowl with olive oil and fresh ground salt and pepper, and presumably roast faster. An hour or so later and the squash bites with their browned tips and edges sizzled in the oil and melted in the mouth.
Thankful for the Harvest and for the Hubbards!