Birthday month

Where did September go? Where have the last 27 years gone?!

October 4

Confession: I got drunk.

Kind of.

Not really.

But just you wait for the anticlimactic ending of this story.

The idea came to me in a dream about peaches: since September was Roald Dahl month, and earlier in the week I had sent a virtual peach to Jesse as a token of my undying affection, I would make a peach cake. As a surprise for Jesse. So as soon as he left for work, I drove all over the greater Warwick area in search of a cake pan.

The cake was inspired by James and the Giant Peach, but ended up looking more like James and the Giant Butt Crack, if you’re in a puerile mood. I made a Sculpey James too, but he didn’t get painted in time before Jesse got home, so I’ll save him for next year.  

I emailed Jesse and said I had a surprise waiting for him when he got home—the butt crack cake. I knew he would find it amusing.

And then he came home with a surprise for me—red velvet cake and roses. Ha ha. So now we have a fridge full of cake. I’m going to eat it for breakfast for the rest of the week.

We went to Portofino’s, an Italian restaurant that got lovely reviews in last week’s paper. Here, the waiters bring you complimentary limoncello after they take your check. I gulped mine down without a second thought as to why it tasted like nail polish remover, or the fact that it was served in containers that looked like skinny cousins of the shot glass. Then we wondered if it was alcoholic. At home, Google revealed all. Every limoncello recipe online calls for vodka. Whoopsie!

October 7-10

We went to New Hampshire.

We saw the beginning of a late New England fall.

 

Wouldn't you be sad too if your 28-year winning streak had been shattered?

We played checkers twice. I accidentally won a game. Which means Jesse lost at something. We had to document this historic event.

We went to Chipmunk Lodge where the Bisports—my dad's cousins—treated us to belated birthday dinner! Corn “chowdah” and apple crisp.

After dinner we got a tour of the field behind the lodge. When we were told turnips had been planted there this summer, or spring, or whenever turnip season is, Jesse and I pictured two or three rows neatly planted in one corner. Instead, the turnips had popped up all over the field, and were planted for the sole purpose of feeding the deer and bears that hang out in the woods.

Since most of the turnips would end up rotting anyway, we plucked one out of its spongy bed and dubbed it the "Birthday Turnip Monster."

Neither Jesse nor I have eaten turnips before and are wondering how best to cook it. To celebrate the momentous occasion of picking the turnip, Jesse did 500 pushups, and I did some research. My question: “Who the heck eats turnips?” Apparently, everyone does.

Pliny the Elder thought highly of turnips, rating them “directly after cereals or at all events after the bean, since its utility surpasses that of any other plant.” Indeed.

For Nordic people, the turnip was the king of crops before it was ousted by the potato in the 18^th century. In Turkey, turnips add flavor to a cold juice made of purple carrots and assorted spices. Austrians serve raw turnip root in a cooled remoulade, and the Scotts made candle lanterns by carving hollow pits in the bulbs. Turnips came in handy at Celtic festivals when carved with faces to discourage evil spirits from loitering outside your domicile. In Iran turnip roots, boiled and salted, cure fevers. The Japanese pickle them and reserve a place for turnips in the ritual of the Festival of the Seven Herbs—the ritual involves chanting while cutting the herbs (one of which is called Nipplewort) to sprinkle over a rice porridge that purportedly wards off evil and promotes longevity starting every January 7th. 

My personal favorites: Charles Townshend, 2^nd Viscount Townshend and rather uppity looking British Whig politician with fake hair was made famous by the turnip.

His contribution to the British agricultural revolution was being the first to think of planting turnips on large scale four-field crop rotation.

And best of all, turnips were used in heraldry. The turnip remains an emblem of coats of arms. Among others, it's on the shield of Leonhard von Keutschach, prince arch-bishop of Salzburg. Dude. The turnip is so cool.  

From A DISPLAY OF HERALDRIE: by John Guillim (c1551 - 1621)

SECTION. III.

CHAP. XI.

He beareth Sable a Turnip Proper, a chief Or, Gutte de Larmes. This is an eatable and wholesome roote and yeeldeth great reliefe to the poore, and prospereth best in an hote sandy ground, and may signifie a person of good disposition, whose vertuous demeanour flourisheth most prosperously even in that soile where the scorching heate of Envy most aboundeth. This roote differeth much in nature from that whereof it is said: And that their should not bee among you any roote that bringeth forth Gall and Wormwood.





This research was not pointless, by the way—I could totally write a children’s book about the supposed origins of the Festival of the Seven Herbs being a magic turnip that saves a village of starving Japanese peasants…

October 15

We are going to an orchard in Northboro, MA to pick apples and pumpkins and pet baby animals with the Geigas.

 

October 16-31

Jesse has more surprises no doubt. In the words of the old man in James and the Giant Peach, “Marvelous things will happen!”

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