Agricultural revolution

On a recent morning, as I walked my dog around the block, she lunged at something just out of my sight, on the other side of a neighbor’s car. Probably a cat, I thought.

No. A chicken.

Two chickens, in fact.

And I live in Takoma Park, a Washington, D.C. suburb within walking distance of a subway stop into the city.

The chickens did their high-stepping waddle around the back of the car, scolding the dog in their gentle clucking voices as they went. The dog, utterly confused, and, thank goodness, on a leash, alternately lunged and backed off. 

I know these chickens. They belong to a friend who lives across the street from where they were pecking at the neighbor’s lawn. They are out during the day, but mostly stay close to the coop and are gathered in at night. I thought of knocking on the door to let my friends know “the girls” had wandered across the street, but then they started to cross on their own. In front of a car.

Oh, no! I put out a mittened hand to alert the driver, who stopped to let the birds cross.

At this point I was laughing at these busybody hens bustling themselves home after their morning adventure, oblivious to automobile traffic and focused only on the patch of ground in front of them. The driver, unbelievably, was not amused, and acted as though she was waiting for a child to cross the street, nothing unusual about two chickens in her path. She continued her conversation on the cell phone and never made eye contact with me, or the chickens. 

I chuckled all the way home.

Then I toasted some cornbread for breakfast and slathered it with honey from the hives of another neighbor, across the street.

Who says you have to live on a farm to have the best of everything? 

 

A whelk to remember

New York Times, food section article: Elaborate photos of a little seashell-encased delicacy served beside a ramekin of unnaturally bright green parsley and garlic butter, with a glass of white wine in the soft-focus background. International overtones: the Italians call them scungilli, the English have popularized them as whelks – along with talk of executive chefs and lists of high-end-sounding restaurants that serve them mixed with “crispy duck tongues,” or dressed with “fenugreek-cashew pesto.”
Really?
These are the same little seashells I picked up on the beach when I was a kid, excited to be gathering up something we’d be eating for dinner that night, far from the linen-covered tables of Manhattan.
As I remember it, the whelk is a humble little critter, in the way a dragonfly is humble: common, in its habitat, but stunningly and intricately beautiful when you take time to really look at it. The whelks I encountered all those years ago were a study in black and white, like a houndstooth tweed whorled around a spiral snail house.

I don’t remember exactly how we ate the whelks – probably steamed until we could ease them out of their shells, and dipped in butter, if we had it. We were living aboard the Glad Tidings, a 40-foot sailboat that was home for a family of five (sorry, Jean, you’d disembarked by this time), and on this particular occasion we were in Virgin Gorda, in the British Virgin Islands. One expanse of coastline, called the Baths, is all rock, great for 9-year-old girls like me: I climbed and scrambled and explored, discovering the dips and recesses in the rock where centuries of crashing waves had worn the granite into smooth recesses, now filled with seawater warming in the sun. These still pools were full of tiny fish and shellfish, the sort that are perfect for filling small pockets. And they were full of whelks.

Our guide, Cap’n Tony, a boisterous, dark-bearded sailor and ex-pat we’d met at the dock a few islands back, told us the whelks were edible. Full of 9-year-old purpose, I began to collect them.
I kept one of the shells for years, proud to know the provenance of such a thing – but aside from that keepsake, I’ve never encountered whelks since. Until the New York Times.
In typical fashion – it’s what I love about this publication – the Times is thorough: I read that whelks are closely related to conch, the other Caribbean shellfish we learned to eat on the boat (we would follow their trails in the sand, visible through gin-clear water, then dive down for them). Whelks are usually sold as scungilli, often for Italian pasta sauces, and they are a by-catch (like the rock shrimp and stone crab my dad used to get in his shrimp nets, years later in Florida).
All good information. But the most important thing to remember about whelks, for me: that magical day I spent gathering them from the rocks, under a Caribbean sun.

Winter jam

This town knows how to do winter.
We do not slouch around in our pajamas all day, mourning the light and warmer weather of other seasons. No. We make an effort.
One recent weekend, I met with friends to celebrate three birthdays at Takoma Park’s OliveLounge. We had so much fun we decided to make it a weekly gathering. And we went again this past Friday. I saw two other friends there and the outing turned into dinner. What a great place to hang out! I always see neighbors, the wait staff is good-looking and attentive, and they let us hold a table until all in our birthday party had arrived. But mostly, it’s the gathering of friends that makes this place work.
Some of the folks who gathered this past Friday went on to hear some music two blocks away, at the Carroll Cafe. Another group went to Restaurant Week in Washington, one of the perks of living so close to the city’s border: during slow months (like February) some of the more expensive restaurants give a deal for a week, fixed price for three courses at lunch or dinner. I’d done the same thing for lunch earlier in the week. Yum.
On another weekend, I missed a writer’s meeting in order to get some housework done –but I could also have met my new neighbors, who had an open house to get to know the folks who live around them. The Takoma Park Jazz Fest sponsored its annual Jazz Brawl, for musicians to compete for a spot at the June festival. And on a Thursday night, a blues band was playing at El Golfo, a Mexican restaurant just over the Takoma Park line in Silver Spring. Midwinter Play Day was also that Thursday, with board games, yoga, dress-up, live music and more for kids and adults at the Takoma Park Community Center.
I did get to my hairdressers, Salon Jam, for a Valentine’s Day Art open house, where I saw my friend (and artist) Bobbi Kittner and met a couple artists I didn’t know before. The housewares store, Trohv, had a pop-up coffee shop the same day, with luxurious-sounding coffees described as if they were fine wines – and while "almond and sage aromatics, full body and cherry acidity" isn't everyone's cuppa, I loved sipping along with my friend.
The list goes on: yoga classes at the fabulous Willow Street Yoga; dance performances and classes at the Dance Exchange, and in nearby Brookland at the Dance Place; local bands at the VFW-HellsBottom, where anyone can pull up a stool for $1.75 beer; house concerts a block from my home; community center concerts with international musicians as well as local (in a Community Center that feels less municipal than professional, with new sound and lights for the stage); art shows and openings, also at the community center; everybody-sings events through Carpe Diem, a local ad hoc chorus; weekly open drum circles at the Electric Maid.
The problem with winter is not so much the hibernation that draws us all in – the problem is all this effort to overcome the urge to withdraw is packing our calendars so that the occasional evening cuddled by the fire becomes the exception. Which is not really a problem, after all.
Photo is from the house concerts I mentioned -- and it's by Sam Kittner, yes, Bobbi Kittner's husband. Thanks!