Happy Reading

A NOMAD OF SPIRIT

From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist 

As I now firmly inhabit the classification of “senior citizen” there are moments in which my thoughts turn to what my family might inscribe on my tombstone when the time comes. Various labels come to mind, but I wonder how they would also include on that small slab of marble the fact that I am a collector of strays, not of stray animals, but of stray people, people adrift who show up in my orbit seemingly unsolicited. But the truth is that there is nothing random about it, because it is a matter of mutual attraction among kindred spirits—of wandering souls drawn one to the other. 

Once upon a time, for a short time, I had a boyfriend who nicknamed me “Gypsy.” I think he might have been the only person in all these years who saw me for who I really am not a globetrotter in the physical sense, but rather a nomad of spirit. It’s a tough thing to go through life knowing that you don’t really fit in anywhere, knowing that you think about and feel things differently than others you encounter along your path. I have never been able to be just “one of the guys (or gals).” Not that I haven’t tried, and in the trying, I became a master quick-change artist: changing my persona to fit in this situation and then changing it again to fit in that situation, ad infinitum. It’s exhausting! There is little doubt that one reason I became an artist, and a writer, is because in those solitary exercises, I breathe a huge sigh of relief and shed the masquerades and be me with only me as companion. An enormous saving grace for me and others like me is social media. Lo and behold, it turns out that there slews and slews of strays the world over with whom I connect on the Internet. Oh, how I wish I could welcome them to my physical neighborhood.

I read a case study in psychotherapist M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled and Beyond that nailed me. A woman came to him for analysis. Her complaint was just like mine. She was a misfit. “Tell me what I’m doing wrong, please? Please fix me!” she entreated the doctor. Following extensive scrutiny of this patient, Peck finally informed her that there was really nothing the matter with her. He helped her to see that she was different and always would be different, and it was okay—and then they explored ways in which she might find comfort and satisfaction in her differentness, the way I find it in my art and writing, and in my relationships with the strays who have a taste for my world. 

I lost my two best strays in the recent past—their last grain of sand fell to the bottom of their hourglass and the Grim Reaper cut them free of physical life with his razor-sharp scythe. Consequently, I’m keeping my door open to the next stray who ambles in. When that day comes, I will sit him/her at my table and ladle up my latest kitchen concoction, a mightily flavorful and easy-to-make soup, Butter & Cheese Celery Soup that makes 4 servings. The recipe is below for your pleasure and as a “thank you” for taking time to read my lonely little confession. 

BUTTER & CHEESE CELERY SOUP

1 pkg. celery

¼ cup bacon bits

1 tbsp. grated garlic

1 envelope onion soup/dip mix

16 oz. vegetable stock

1 tbsp. dried thyme

1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

1 tbsp. dried chives

4 generous shakes coriander powder

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

¾ cup butter

¾ cup mozzarella cheese

Chop celery into bitesize pieces, transfer to a colander, wash thoroughly, and then place in Crock Pot, or Slow Cooker, or stove top kettle. 

Add bacon bits through salt and pepper. Adjust spices to preferred taste.

Cook until celery chunks are fork soft. 

Remove lid and while soup is still hot, stir in butter until it is dissolved. Blend in mozzarella or any other type of grated cheese and stir well to dissolve.

Just before serving, place the soup in a bullet blender or free-standing blender and emulsify it to a creamy consistency. 

Leftovers freeze well.

Enjoy!

Linda Lee

Here’s a peek at multi-award-winning author and artist Linda Lee Greene’s latest book, Garden of the Spirits of the Pots, A Spiritual Odyssey. It is a blend of visionary and inspirational fiction with a touch of romance. The story unfolds as ex-pat American Nicholas Plato journeys into parts unknown, both within himself and his adopted home of Sydney, Australia. In the end, the odyssey reveals to him his true purpose for living. The novella is available in eBook and paperback.

Driven by a deathly thirst, he stops. A strange little brown man materializes out of nowhere and introduces himself merely as ‘Potter,’ and welcomes Nicholas to his ‘Garden of the Spirits of the Pots.’ Although Nicholas has never laid eyes on Potter, the man seems to have expected Nicholas at his bizarre habitation and displays knowledge about him that nobody has any right to possess. Just who is this mysterious Aboriginal potter? 

Although they are as mismatched as two persons can be, a strangely inevitable friendship takes hold between them. It is a relationship that can only be directed by an unseen hand bent on setting Nicholas on a mystifying voyage of self-discovery and Potter on revelations of universal certainties. 

A blend of visionary and inspirational fiction, and a touch of romance, this is a tale of Nicholas’ journey into parts unknown, both within his adopted home and himself, a quest that in the end leads him to his true purpose for living. 

AMAZON BUY LINK 

Multi-award-winning author and artist Linda Lee Greene describes her life as a telescope that when trained on her past reveals how each piece of it, whether good or bad or in-between, was necessary in the unfoldment of her fine art and literary paths.
Greene moved from farm-girl to city-girl; dance instructor to wife, mother, and homemaker; divorcee to single-working-mom and adult-college-student; and interior designer to multi-award-winning artist and author, essayist, and blogger. It was decades of challenging life experiences and debilitating, chronic illness that gave birth to her dormant flair for art and writing. Greene was three days shy of her fifty-seventh birthday when her creative spirit took a hold of her.

She found her way to her lonely easel soon thereafter. Since then Greene has accepted commissions and displayed her artwork in shows and galleries in and around the USA. She is also a member of artist and writer associations.

Visit Linda on her blog and join her on Facebook. Linda loves to hear from readers so feel free to email her.

French Dessert

LET THEM EAT CAKE!

 from Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist 

Jill: “How are workers expected to survive on minimum wage when every dollar goes toward their rent?”

Jack: “What do I care? Let them eat cake.”

Jack: “Our budget shows that every one of our managers will get an end-of-year bonus.” Jill: “What about the rest of the employees?”

Jack: “Such is life. Let them eat cake.” 

Marie Antoinette, queen of France in the years before and during the French Revolution, to whom the idiom is famously attributed, never said, “Let them eat cake” in response to being informed that her starving peasant subjects had no bread to eat. It got stuck to her through time because she was the epitome of indifference and insensitivity among the ruling and upper classes toward the realities of life of ordinary people. This type of obliviousness of their own advantages and numbness to the misfortunes of working-class people on the part of the privileged is a feature of all of human history, unfortunately. 

While Antoinette’s head was being lopped off by the guillotine at the Place de la Concorde, a major public square in Paris, plantation slaves in the Caribbean were fermenting molasses, a by-product of the sugar refining process, into alcohol. Distillation of the by-products concentrated the alcohol and removed some impurities, which produced the first modern rums. It didn’t take long for rum to find its way to delectable French pastry and voilà—the soggy, boozy, classic French dessert, Baba au Rhum cake was born in Paris—too late for Antoinette, who would have relished it, no doubt, but just in time for us to delight our guests with it at any special get-together.

The cake recipe was created by David Tanis and yields a dozen babas.  The frosting is from a cookbook by Shelia Del Guercio that is now out of print. The beauty for busy cooks is that a small, unsoaked portion, or all of them, can be stored away in the freezer for up to two months. A day before their debut on your table, defrost and then keep them in an airtight container. If yours is a big and/or a really hungry crowd, bake up several batches ahead of time and freeze them. For best results, you need a tender and sticky dough, so be sparing in the amount of flour you incorporate into the mixture. Or, place the dough in the refrigerator for a while, because cold dough is easier to handle.   

BABA AU RHUM

2 tbsp. active dry yeast

3 tbsp. granulated sugar

¼ cup lukewarm water

4 large beaten eggs

1 pinch sea salt

½ cup (1 stick) softened unsalted butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup golden raisins

½ cup water

Butter for baking tins

Flour for dusting

 Place yeast and sugar in a medium-size bowl. Add water and then stir until dry ingredients are dissolved. Set aside for 10 minutes or until mixture is bubbly. Whisk eggs and sea salt into yeast mixture. 

Soak raisins in water while you prepare complete the next step. In a separate medium-size bowl, work together butter and flour until the mixture resembles wet sand. 

Drain raisins then add to egg-yeast mixture. Whip with a wooden spoon to a soft, sticky dough, or prepare dough in a standing mixer. Cover bowl and set in a warm place about 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. 

Butter 2 mini-muffin tins or 12 mini-ramekins. Uncover dough, dust with flour, and turn it out to a clean work surface. Add flour as necessary to make dough manageable and knead lightly to a large, slightly sticky ball. Cut the dough into 12 equal pieces (about 2 ounces/55 grams). Dust the pieces with flour, roll into separate balls, and place in the muffin tins or ramekins. Cover loosely and set in a warm place for about 30 minutes or until the balls double in size. 

Preheat oven to 375° F. 

Bake babas 15 to 20 minutes until lightly brown on top. Turn babas out of their molds and onto a baking sheet. Return to oven for 5 minutes to brown all over. Remove from oven and cover the babas with a clean towel to keep them soft. Store cooled babas in an airtight container at room temperature if making in advance of imminent serving. 

TOPPING

2 pints strawberries, set aside 12 strawberries

3 tbsp. Cointreau 

3 tbsp. Cognac 

1 tbsp. Grand Marnier

2 cups whipped cream

1 pint coffee ice cream 

Meanwhile, clean and hull the strawberries, setting aside 12 of them. Place the rest of the strawberries in a bowl and pour over them all of the designated liqueurs. Stir gently and let sit for 1 hour. Then fold into the mixture with a rubber spatula the whipped cream and ice cream. For each guest, cut 1 baba in half horizontally and place on a dessert plate. Top with an additional scoop of coffee ice cream, the strawberry/liquor mixture, and crown with a whole strawberry. 

Or substitute the ice cream with a dollop of whipped cream and a strawberry on top. 

Readers were introduced to American Nicholas Plato in multi-award-winning author Linda Lee Greene’s A Chace at the Moon, which was published in 2019 and is available for purchase at Amazon. 

Greene takes readers on yet another adventure of Nicholas’ whirlwind life in her Garden of the Spirits of the Pots, A Spiritual Odyssey. In this sequel, Nicholas shows up in Sydney, Australia. The principle plotline unfolds as on one Saturday of sightseeing he gets lost in Australia’s forbidding yet alluring outback, and there he happens upon a pintsized hut on a lonely plot littered with hundreds of clay pots of every size and description. Driven by a deathly thirst, he stops. A strange little brown man materializes out of nowhere and introduces himself merely as ‘Potter’ and welcomes Nicholas to his ‘Garden of the Spirits of the Pots.’ Although Nicholas has never laid eyes on Potter, the man seems to have expected Nicholas at his bizarre habitation and displays knowledge about him that nobody has any right to possess. Just who is this mysterious Aboriginal potter? 

Although they are as mismatched as two persons can be, a strangely inevitable friendship takes hold between them. It is a relationship that can only be directed by an unseen hand bent on setting Nicholas on a mystifying voyage of self-discovery and Potter on revelations of universal certainties. 

A blend of visionary and inspirational fiction with a touch of romance, this is a tale of Nicholas’ journey into parts unknown, both within his adopted home and himself, a quest that in the end leads him to his true purpose for living. 

Garden of the Spirits of the Pots is available in eBook and/or paperback on Amazon. 

Multi-award-winning author and artist Linda Lee Greene describes her life as a telescope that when trained on her past reveals how each piece of it, whether good or bad or in-between, was necessary in the unfoldment of her fine art and literary paths.
Greene moved from farm-girl to city-girl; dance instructor to wife, mother, and homemaker; divorcee to single-working-mom and adult-college-student; and interior designer to multi-award-winning artist and author, essayist, and blogger. It was decades of challenging life experiences and debilitating, chronic illness that gave birth to her dormant flair for art and writing. Greene was three days shy of her fifty-seventh birthday when her creative spirit took a hold of her.

She found her way to her lonely easel soon thereafter. Since then Greene has accepted commissions and displayed her artwork in shows and galleries in and around the USA. She is also a member of artist and writer associations.

Visit Linda on her blog and join her on Facebook. Linda loves to hear from readers so feel free to email her.