For many years when I lived alone, I didn’t have a Christmas tree. I would get some boughs and hang some bells, but saw no reason to untangle the lights and grapple with a Christmas tree stand. (I still don’t get how something with so few parts can be so specially designed to test one’s…
It’s time for a progress report on the homemade vanilla extract. On October 8, I poured myself two big jars of booze, stuffed each one with 32 vanilla beans, and promised to report back in two months. (See Vanilla Extract: Day One for details about getting started.) The first jar was a quart of straight…
I’ve spent the past few weeks staring at a fig. It’s just a fig. But it had something to say to me — and so did the stately tree that it came from. (If I could show you something for scale, you would see that this tree is taller than a very tall house. It’s…