Real Soup

On Moving into Blue Sky

We move in circles. Orbits. Little closed and semi-closed systems that wander about among similar entities, seeking to intersect in different ways.

Inheriting these revolutionary tendencies from our host, the sun, itself but a flicker in the vast universe, we spin internally with atoms, with mixed symmetries of breath, blood, protein, and electricity as we spiral down out of

the past.

Waltzing along the familiar paths in our homes, in the workplace, through the landscape, we tend to pivot and return, pivot and return, as we play out the routines of daily life.

It is comforting. One of my favorite diagrams is still the one that teaches, to youngsters, the water cycle. Clouds carrying the water from great surly ocean storms to my backyard, blessing the inland forests and farms, all the while making lovely and enormous picture puzzles all across my panel of blue.

Perhaps these images were messages, I would tell my dolls. And so began jotting down translations of the curious dramas overhead. Tired pig races. Dissolving elephant skulls. Frothy angels headed off toward China, one after another, surrounded - were they? - by soft, nearly audible choirs of Gregorian chant.

What did it mean? we asked each other.

It meant, of course, that the weather was changing and my slowly bustling parades would eventually conglomerate and send me indoors, acquiescing to reason, yielding to the seasonal canon where I would dry off my notebook and enjoy the listening. And wait for the circle to turn again, back into sweet, grassy smelling sunshine.

If there is a season we can identify with pure caprice, it is Springtime. It rolls in, often ahead of schedule, waking the irises, setting the gardeners to rattling their seed bags and talking among themselves about compost, fencing bugs, hybrids,manure teas, catalogs - all so sparkly with anticipation - then just as soon as they decide to chance it, just when the pets are beginning to shed, and the blood is mysteriously thinned, and the weeds start getting the advantage, the sky flattens, goes white, and yields, on the crest of an icy wind, snow and hail and sleet and frost, sending everyone off to the coffee shops where "It's April!", they say.

So it is. The month wherein the weather is hooted at and maligned until it turns its cheek, caressing, smirking, With its witty forms, and starts sending in meadowlarks.

There is solid evidence of easy days coming. With the rise of the sun into our hemisphere, the price of artichokes does descend accordingly and we can afford to experiment with this most satisfying vegetable.

If you are accustomed to steaming artichokes until tender and serving them with melted butter, lemon sauce, or fresh mayonnaise, I invite you to step out - try Artichoke Bottoms with Mushroom Sauce for a change. It is sufficient, in fact celebratory, with light pasta and a green salad.

Prepare the bottoms just as you would, ordinarily, to steam, except that you need to trim the stem and tops so that the whole base is about an inch thick. Rub the cut areas immediately with the surface of a lemon, halved, so that the edges will not darken. Drop the lemon into the steaming water and proceed as usual until the base is tender.

Allow to cool. Remove the fuzzy choke center and all the leaves.

In a skillet, melt:

2 T. butter

Add:

2 T. olive oil

1/4 pound mushrooms, diced or sliced

Cook until almost tender. Season with salt, pepper, and tarragon to taste.

Reheat the artichokes gently, in a little salted hot water.

Now add to the sauce:

1/2 C. cream

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 T. lemon juice.

Arrange the artichoke bottoms on a serving platter and spoon the mushroom sauce over them.

Chopped, crisply fried bacon, grated cheddar cheese, chives, fresh parsley are further luxuries.

Rush around now. Plant something. You'll feel better right away.