Category Archives: Scent & Place

The Future Syrah

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I stood with the bottle in front of me, corkscrew in hand. The note on the bottle, written in my own handwriting, told me that it was “not to be opened before May 22, 2015.” I cut the foil, and slowly rotated my key into the cork.

Five years prior, I was getting ready to leave a job at a local winery as the summer waned. It was my first post-college job, the answer to the question about “what I was going to do” after graduation. I attended a small conservative Christian college, and I got quite a few raised eyebrows when I said: “I’m going into the wine business.”

The long hours and the free wine created an experience I will never forget, but not a sustainable one. My career in the wine business was short.

As I worked my way through the summer, getting more comfortable with our wine offerings and going tasting with co-workers on the weekends, I noticed that my sense of smell was heightened. On evening walks, I could smell subtle flowers and herbs. I was overwhelmed by the smell of laundry. I could sense the faintest hint of smoke in the air.

That summer, I went on a few dates with someone new. I’d always fallen into relationships somehow, skipping the first few steps of courtship. When he asked me to dinner, it was my first real first date. He came to pick me up and we walked a little ways to a restaurant not far from my parent’s home. We sat on the patio and talked and laughed without looking at the menu. I kept smiling apologetically at our server, but if he was frustrated with our indecision, it didn’t show. Finally, we ordered a bottle of wine.

It was a Washington Syrah, smooth and supple. I hadn’t yet learned then that when I drink wine, I like to eschew the hard edges. I look for something silky that touches my tongue tenderly without a trail of tannins. This was one of the wines that taught me that, one sip at a time. That Syrah is still in my top ten wine experiences.

During my summer of wine, I looked for a way to commemorate the momentous nature of that season. I decided to buy a bottle of wine to store for five years, opening it near the anniversary of college graduation. I consulted my wine stylist, a person I still keep on speed dial, a local wine whiz who occasionally chills bottles for me when I text him so that I can pick them up later. He suggested that a Syrah would hold up well over time. Washington is known for her Syrahs and it seemed the perfect choice, something that would remind me of lunch breaks in the vineyards and my swirling glass in the evening after I got off work, paired with oyster crackers.

When my wine stylist suggested that particular varietal, I knew that I would buy the same vintage as that first date. I wrote the date it was to be opened on a yellow sticky note in the shape of a star before covering it in tape.

That bottle followed me from my parents house to the light-filled one I rented with a purple-painted porch. Every time I went to find something to open, for a date or dinner with friends, I noticed that gently sloped bottle, designed for Syrah. It lay in my wine rack, surrounded by bottles of table wine, Perrier, and other special bottles, waiting for its moment. Though new jobs, publications, relationships and breakups tempted me, I never reached for my corkscrew.

This May, I brought the bottle back to my parents’ house and my mother and I made bruschetta from fresh tomatoes and basil. I opened the wine to let it breathe and immediately, I recognized the scent, my nose still sensitive to all of those stimuli. The wine had mellowed over time, but there was no mistaking it. Even though that restaurant has closed and reopened twice under different names, I was back on that patio with my cardigan draped over the back of my chair. I was hopeful about post-college relationships and jobs and life.

I poured myself a glass, a little nervous that five years was too much after all, that this wine was history. One sip was all I needed to realize that the future Syrah was not ruined, as I had feared. She had not passed her prime sometime in the midst of those years. In fact, she was smoother than I remembered.

***

caraCara Strickland is a freelance writer living in Spokane, WA. She writes about food, faith, singleness and relationships for a variety of publications in print and online.

She’s delighted that her current career allows her to drink wine (and write about it).

Swabbing at Memories

Posted on by under Guest, Scent & Place

For years, I shot up nightly. Didn’t matter where I was, I had a small vial, a hypodermic needle and an alcohol swab. I had to have my “fix” at the same time every day, so if I was at a friend’s for dinner I’d take my stash into the bathroom and do what I needed to do.

Sure, I could be off by a short time, but I was compulsive about maintaining the consistent schedule. If that meant that I had to quietly excuse myself from a picnic in order to go to the car and dose up, I’d do it. I even fashioned my own sharps container out of a small Tupperware container until I got home and could dispose of the needle. On my dresser sat the official version– the one I got each month from the pharmacy. With one or the other, I could safely dispose of the tools necessary to administer meds for infertility.

“Super ovulation” drugs are meant to crank up the volume on the normal cycle of things. Where a woman’s ovaries might typically release one or two eggs of a size sufficient to be found by certain swimmers, the drugs took me from your basic medium size scramblers to a dozen or more extra jumbo free-range beauties. Basically they helped provide a larger, more enticing target for the swimmers. The drugs also helped create a cozy den in which those two crazy kids could get to know each other.

Every day for half of the month, I’d administer the injections. Open the alcohol swab, inhale that fresh, sharp scent and reach for the needle. For balance, other days featured numerous extractions, as I had blood drawn every few days to see how things were progressing. The smell of those alcohol swabs before the blood draw was somehow sweeter because it meant I was closer to an answer.

And then I would wait.

The reminder alarm would continue to go off each evening, and I swear I could almost smell it. I became one of Pavlov’s dogs. Only I didn’t salivate, I hallucinated the smell of rubbing alcohol. Most months, I was betrayed with a crimson enemy confirming that the target wasn’t cute enough, the swimmers weren’t charming enough and the party den wasn’t alluring enough.

But I needed to wait until three days after the betrayer had left, in order to begin the cycle anew.

Those days of waiting were roller coaster rides of a different kind. The highs were stacked up ridiculously tall, strengthened by brand new hope for the coming month. It was like the fresh feeling of a brand new backpack on the first day of school. Hope and possibilities abounded. This one’s going to be great. This one’s going to work.

My stash – the drugs and the supplies – became my tools. Tools I prayed God would use to help my husband and me be fruitful and multiply. I prayed over all of it. From the prescription, to the box delivered by UPS, to the tiny glass vials of what looked like very expensive water.

My routine became part medical intervention, part sacred ritual. Though the details would change each day, a typical evening went like this:

Wash hands – Father you know the desires of my heart; let them be fulfilled through this process – Gather supplies – Lord, thank you for this medicine and the doctors who use it on my behalf – Swab injection site – Please, please, please, please, please (and yes, I believe that is a holy prayer) – Injection – God, I am in your hands; I trust in your wisdom that you have a plan for me.

I remained in God’s hands, continuing to trust in his plan for me as I stayed on the roller coaster for five years. As I approached the top of each month’s ride, the combination of excitement and dread built up anew until I reached the top and had to wait in that in-between space that seemed to take forever. Most months I was sent crashing downhill at breakneck speed, spun around until I was dizzy and confused, and ushered to an exit where I came to a stop, exhausted and shaking.

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A few times, the roller coaster rides indeed ended with the desire of my heart: I became pregnant. The fear of the never-ending-ride gave way to grateful, giddy joy when I was able to step off the platform of constant cycles. My heart pounded loudest of all when I heard the heartbeat of my own baby, and my heart broke hardest of all weeks later when the heartbeat stopped.

It took several months – physically and emotionally – to get back on the roller coaster. But I eventually climbed back on and resumed my nightly rituals, perhaps with a tad more urgency. Wash hands – Father you know what I want;  Where’s the needle? – Thanks for giving me another shot!  (Sometimes humor is what got me through.) Swab, swab, swab – Please let this work; Injection – I’ve done all I can do, it’s in God’s hands. Round and round I went until the doctors gently suggested that the ride was likely to always end at the same empty destination.

That was six years ago, and I still sometimes struggle when I see a pregnant woman (which, by the way, to wannabe-momma me, seems to happen almost daily). But God has been faithful. I used to have to pray away envy – Lord let me happy for her, (i.e., not secretly “hate” her) – and now I can truly pray for her well-being – Father keep her safe and healthy that she might raise a child who serves you.

I still have a long way to go. But whenever I happen to catch a whiff of rubbing alcohol, I smile. Sometimes it’s bittersweet and those roller-coaster days seem like a dream. But I like to think that God is answering my prayers in some small way by reminding me that he is not done with me. He continues to help me heal. The fact that he might use the smell of an alcohol swab to encourage me to keep trusting and seeking him? I take delight in that.

* * * * *

AldermanPatricia Alderman’s passions include serving and doing life with those in her church community, maintaining the home she shares with her floppy-eared beagle, and getting her hands dirty in the garden. She also solves many of the world’s problems while relaxing with a skein of yarn and a crochet hook. She can be found online at patriciaalderman.com and @patricialderman on Twitter.

“Cotton Ball Clouds” photo by Swerz on Creative Commons

A Thorn In My Side

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“AAAAAAhhhh-chooo!”  (That’s me, sneezing!)

My eyes water.

My nose runs.

Desperate thoughts drive me to find the quickest access to a Kleenex.

Yep, I’m the girl with wadded up tissues in her purse, the girl with skin that is raw and sore from from wiping her nose with toilet paper or a napkin in a pinch.

I have allergies.

My eyes begin to itch.

My throat begins to scratch.

Clumsy fingers scramble to unlock medication from it’s protective bubble and I wait eagerly for it to take effect as I gulp it down.pollen-allergies-clip-art-1909082

A whole chain of events is triggered with a simple inhale. Unseen particles of fragrance or pollen float around in the wind until they find their way into my nose.  Then, I’m a goner.

Recently, I moved away. Remarkably, my allergies were gone.  But now, they are back with a vengeance. Thus, I must sadly conclude that I’m allergic to home.

The landscape that I call home is loaded with plants who have adapted to survive. Unrelenting desert sun forces native plants to develop a toughness.

The most annoying are sand burrs, a long grass that looks innocent enough but secretly lodges nasty little spikes into soft spots in your skin.  In an effort to avoid a carpet full of prickers, brought in on shoelaces and rubber soles, we choose to fight against the persistent plant and its painful thorn.  Eradication from the surrounding area is our goal.

Dad starts with a flamethrower as his instrument of destruction, attempting to conquer the seed pod by a fiery death.  After hours of work, contained to a small patch of land, he declares defeat.  “The plants are too green,” he grumbles, “the seeds just fall on the ground and I’m wasting time and fuel.”

ThornMom advocates for weedkiller, the heavy duty kind that comes in a five-gallon jug from the feed store.  As the sickly orange fluid pours into the plastic sprayer, the odor wafts up. It’s a cross between vinegar and cough syrup. Not pleasant. Strapping the plastic jug of poison to his back, Dad walks around the front of the house, carefully directing the nozzle to the dreaded plant.  As the poison does its work, we discover that killing the plant just knocks the burrs to the ground. Next year, we will pay the price.

Shovels are our last hope. Hauling large garbage barrels to the edges of the back yard, we point the steel tip at our target, the shallow roots of the grass.  My dad and I, with gloved-hands, walk slowly through the field, analyzing each weed and attacking our common adversary.  With a light shake to remove the dirt from the roots, we toss the de-earthed plants into the black plastic of the bin.  Pressing my arm down to compact the growing stack, the smell of cut plants and dirt and plastic merge and begin to tickle my nose.  Two sacks later, we darkly joke that we could play an awful trick on a neighbor by leaving a bagful of seed heads in their grass.  

By that time, I am a wreck.  Those hours, spent in close relationship with the native weeds, did a number on my allergies.  Between the hot sun, the allergies in full force and the stickers working their way into my socks, I am grumbling between sneezes, brought low by an unseen enemy.  

“AAAAAAhhhh-chooo!”

I take off a glove, remove a thorn from my fingertip, and dig a Kleenex out of the pocket of my stained work jeans.  At least the tissues smell of baby powder and momentary relief.

 

Scents of Summer

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“Watch out for the cow piles,” my grandmother said as we headed to the barn for milking. I skipped behind her, hopping over and around the cows’ contributions to the fertilization of the earth. Even a smidgen of one of these smelly deposits on my shoe would necessitate a thorough scrubbing to remove the odor.

Nannie stepped briskly in her black rubber boots, leaning forward with her bonneted head two feet in front of her body. Two wooden telephone poles, lying flat and butted up against one anotherFullSizeRender(27), formed a bridge across the creek. A thick wire was attached to the trunk of a tree on each side of the creek to grab hold to as we walked across.

Nannie made short work of walking the telephone poles, without using the wire, and continued the trek to the barn. I pulled up short, clinched my teeth, clutched the wiry life-line, lifted one red, dirt-stained sneaker, and stepped on one of the poles.

On the opposite bank, Nannie must have smelled my fear because she turned and coaxed me across in her low, comforting voice. “Don’t look down.”

I looked down. The crawdads were having a party in the water below, skimming and swirling along the silty bottom. Lazy leaves floated like tiny, green boats. It seemed miles lay between my feet and the life of the creek.

I sat down. Relief slowed my breathing. I sucked in air, exhaled, and began vigorously chewing the petrified piece of Juicy Fruit gum tucked in the back of my mouth.

Splinters posed a hazard to my palms and tender behind, yet I chose to scoot across. I pressed my palms and lifted my bottom, inching across until my fingers squeezed Nannie’s outstretched hand. I fell into the folds of her faded, calico work-dress, breathing in the fresh scent of washing powers. Together we walked to the musty barn where Granddad already had the cows attached to their milking machines.

My assignment was to stand sentry beside a large plastic bucket and shovel, its blade as wide as a toilet seat. Cows warned of impending bowel action by raising their tails. I watched. At the ready. Tails twitched. Lifted. Action! I moved with the shovel; the heft of it almost pulled my slight, eight-year-old body down. Granddad joined me. Leaning over, his hands gripped the handle above mine; we joined forces to catch the imminent splat.

The deadly odor of the thick, greenish-black ooze, coupled with the straw-dust tickling my nose, provoked a fit of spasmodic coughing and laughing. Delivered of her load, the cow mooed. I mooed back.

We maintained distance between excrement, barn floor, and milking machine. Teats—freed from the suction cups attached to them—dangled from udders, no longer swollen. I looked on as Nannie and Granddad poured the creamy milk from clean buckets into tall galvanized cans.

Granddad released the cows from their individual stalls and gave a holler to the line of bovine. They filed to the pasture to laze in the shade and chew on sweet-smelling grass.

***

Laundry was done once a week—more often during stifling Southern summers—after early morning chores. Soil, sour sweat, and animal smells wove into the fabric of garments, socks, bandanas, towels, and washcloths. Nannie’s washing machine was an old-fashioned vessel, large and round, situated in the center of her small, screened in back porch. I imagined it as a tub in which cartoon characters were riding the rapids.

Nannie fed sopping wet laundry through a wringer between two rollers that pressed out the water. With my bare feet planted on the smooth stone floor, I caught flattened pieces as they came through and tossed them in a basket. Nannie toted, I followed and watched as she pinned a parade of color to the clothesline.

***

Nannie ran a bath for me at bedtime. Splashing in the tub, I created an ocean of bubbles with a slippery bar of ZEST soap. Capturing it in my washcloth, I gave myself a vigorous scrub from head to toe, then grabbed the stopper’s shiny beaded pull and watched as dirty, brown water swirled down the drain, exiting with a loud gurgle.

Days lingered long those summers. Friday evenings, Granddad reclined in his easy chair and listened to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio, while rubbing his sore hands with Cornhusker’s Lotion. As strains of Bill Monroe’s fiddle drifted into my bedroom, I grew drowsy and snuggled under the sun-kissed sheets. Nannie’s moonflowers hugged clapboard along the side of the house. Blossoms opened large in the lunar light, offering their incense as a benediction to the day.

Scan 3Nannie and Granddad’s barn—worn by disuse and time— photographed in 1984 by my mother. 

Photo (above right)

Nannie’s Bonnet

 

 

Dreaming of Feasts

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Deep in sleep, I am dreaming of feasts.

I’m dreaming of a long table set for many, holding platters piled high with meat, the rich juices pooling below.

In my dream there is plenty—not just plenty of food, but plenty of everything that we crave: plenty of room, plenty of laughter and conversation, and, perhaps most of all, plenty of time. We are all around the table, feasting together, taking our time. There’s nowhere we need to be, no agenda beyond savoring the food and one another.

As I settle into a contented, even deeper sleep, my mouth salivates, and it seems my soul is anticipating the meal every bit as much as my taste buds.

*   *   *   *   *

When I wake up the next morning, the dream is still vivid—probably because the scent of slow-roasting pork shoulder is real. It fills the house, blurring the lines between my worlds of dreaming and waking.

Yesterday, my husband Jason came home for lunch just so he could unwrap the pork shoulder and prepare a rub. Rosemary, sage, garlic, fennel seed, salt, pepper, white wine, and olive oil became a rustic paste with the help of his mortar and pestle. As he applied the rub, Jason handled the meat lovingly, like a newborn getting its first bath.

photo (24)Jason’s respect for the piece of meat in his hands runs deep; it’s rooted not only in his knowledge of the flavor the meat is capable of producing—how the layers of collagen and marbled fat will soften and melt into the meat as it spends time in the oven—but also in his friendship with the farmer who raises the pigs and cattle we eat. Jason and Stan could talk about meat for hours, it seems. Could a cook’s ability to talk at length about meat be a direct measure of his ability to magically transform it into something that demands a response? It seems entirely possible.

After bathing the pork shoulder in the redolent rub, Jason returned it to the refrigerator for the important resting period that allows the flavors to penetrate and soften the meat. Then he hung his apron back on its hook, gave me a kiss, and headed back to work.

*   *   *   *   *

I spent the afternoon writing in my home office, for the most part forgetting about the resting pork until I went to make tea in the kitchen, where I smelled the remnants of crushed rosemary and sage still in the stone mortar on the counter.

A love for cooking is something Jason and I share. But Jason’s willingness to embrace a process—to cook something that involves multiple steps and often multiple days—is something I don’t find appealing. I’m too impatient, too eager to find out what a particular mix of ingredients tastes like in my mouth. I also don’t understand (or, I suppose, care to understand) the science behind cooking—what happens when meat is seared, fat is rendered, onions are caramelized, steaks are tented under foil after coming off the grill. I’m all about the results; the taste alone tells me all I need to know about the science.

But to be married to someone with that level of curiosity, patience, and knowledge about the many complexities of food? That is a gift I willingly receive. I’ll lend support with the sides and dessert, the texts to friends asking if they’re free for dinner, and the carefully set table. Perhaps my favorite thing about pork shoulder, after all, is the imperative that accompanies it: The 10-pound shoulder demands that we invite friends for a feast.

*   *   *   *   *

Later that night, while I was washing my face before bed, I  heard Jason downstairs in the kitchen—the beeping of the oven being set at 225, and the clatter of the roast pan being pulled from the cabinet. Finally, the well-rested and seasoned pork shoulder was tucked into the oven and the kitchen lights were turned off.

As we settled into bed, the only scents that reached my nose were soap and toothpaste, and a whiff of detergent on the fresh tank top I’d pulled on with my pajama pants. Falling asleep, we had only the knowledge of what was taking place in the oven downstairs, none of the proof.

*   *   *   *   *

Around 3:00 am, though, our noses are roused by the rich scent of roasting meat, as the juices begin to drip, soaking the rosemary that has fallen to the bottom of the pan. The scent tickles our minds and pokes gently at our stomachs as the other parts of our bodies continue on in sleep.

And the dreams that are triggered? They’re the very best kind: dreams of full tables and bellies, friendship and fellowship, and a meal that invites us to sit and savor, as if we have all the time in the world.

*   *   *   *   *

profile2014“Dreaming of Feasts” is by Kristin Tennant. Kristin and her husband and two teenage daughters are settled in a small, Midwestern university town edged by cornfields. Her days in Urbana are filled with freelance writing in her sunroom office or favorite coffee shop, learning (mostly by doing) everything she can about parenting teens, cooking elaborate feasts with her husband Jason, and feeding as many people as possible in their big old home. (The photo above shows Jason with the porchetta he made during a family vacation this past summer.)