Dreamingly Longingly, Tending Lovingly & With Winter, Rugbrod!

I have a dream. A deep and persistent and longing dream. It is a farm. If not a farm, then a farm life. I have learnt to long for just enough, and no more than I really need. Dream longingly, yes, but quietly too, easy, easy, easy does it. A farm my own? A patch of earth to call my own entire? I ask nicely. But no. Not yet. For now, I am in a small cottage, with two cats. Not at all my own. But my dream will not be deferred too long.

I plant its seeds, daily. The seeds of my dream.

I begin on a fresh morning in early spring with the dandelions as they come up to greet me. ‘Tooth of the lion’ their name means I learn. I think yes, that is a good name. Noble.

I am spurred on.

I read, and read, and read all I can, this first spring. Walt Whitman one day. Robin Wall Kimmerer another. I fall in love with Mary Oliver. And with this, I collect more seeds. Seeds I keep for safekeeping in my notebooks, my many journals, keeping too sharpened pencils scattered all over in case, sharpened pencils for the pages I cannot fill fast enough. Quotes. Or poem. Even song. And words and definitions one after another. Seeds, glorious seeds.

Sylvan. More mysterious. Arboreal. Strong. Of trees. And I look on the wild willed milkwoods here with a newfound wonder.

Arable. And I tread on a clod of dirt after the rain all the more gently.

Verdant. And the unruly grass growing long seems all the greener.

Yes, these seeds will do. For my dream. They feel at home in my mouth, on my tongue, and I feel at home in them. Each and every one of these seeds a homecoming.

Then comes summer.

I long for a taste with the sun blazing, a desire surprising in its boldness, my body craving more beyond words. A sudden, and overwhelming burst of thirsting. Though the words have sustained me well through spring, it is the taste of liquid sunshine I crave as seasons shift, in my awakened and palpable body. Mind can wait. And this craving, it comes to me. Its name is limoncello. A taste flooding back to me from summers long since, with an Italian family. Why now? But question not too much.

I strengthen in resolve, to satiate my craving. For I am learning to listen to cravings, when they stir. The nature of my own body. My mind fed its full. It is time, my body is telling me, to make something of summer’s abundance. And to me, on a warm and balmy day, recalling so vividly, there is nothing more sublime than a chilled sip then two then three before siesta, of that bottle bright limoncello kept icy cool in the back of the deep freeze.

It takes time, and patience, and work, this servile attendance to my body’s craving. The lemons are from my grandmother’s tree. Hand-picked. Each one, hand-picked, and each one brought intimately close to my nose for the sharp bittersweet scent of them. And I try one recipe then another and begin to adapt them and adjust ratios till it is just right to me. And when I get it just right, I delight in what I have made, and it was worth the time and patience and work. Seeds to fruition. I have made my own limoncello by the bounty of the summer sun.

It is a lesson for me. The time and patience and work for a satisfying reward. Truly satisfying. Wholeheartedly satisfying. Edifying even. And I am learning day by day, to no longer hurry so, or rush in tasks, learning from nature, nearing my forties. The manic ascents and depressive downward spirals of my bipolar have demanded it of me too, this fundamental ease in my ways, three long hospital stays I have had since the age of 29 when I was first diagnosed. The dizzying mania, the sunken depressions. These I remember and remind myself again and again not to hurry or rush – no more – and to care for myself better.

There is time for work. But there is time for rest too. There must be. My sanity depends on it. A sanity, my clarity, that depends too on this farm life, this dream, I am slowly bringing into focus, in small ways, each and every day. By collecting seeds of learning, learning names of tree, flower, bush, bird. Learning song of bird. Learning properties of plants. Here, a salve for an itchy bite. And wild garlic for cooking alongside. Both wild. In purples and yellows. Blossoms for bees too. A gift. Always giving. Like seeds finding root, and young tendrils, in spring. Like lemons bottled in summer, for limoncello soaked in the sun’s rays. Nature so giving.

And I pick most mornings, whatever the weather, from my potted mint as I know now that this thirsty herb is a tonic for depression. Good for me then, on my darker nights of the soul especially. But invigorating for mornings. I make sure to pick it tenderly, knowing now the myth that mint was once the naiad nymph beloved by Hades, king of the underworld, and transformed into a mint plant by his wife, Persephone. Poor Minthe. Nymph become nourishing mint, brewed, fragrant, lifting me in body and spirit when I need this dear plant most.

I mull more these days. With seasons shifting, shifting as the year unwinds. Over mythology and Persephone as the days grow shorter and nights longer and longer still. Tricked by Hades with a split pomegranate. Some think too the jewelled pomegranate the original fruit of temptation in the Garden. But I return to Persephone. In this winter. Where did autumn go? Lazied autumn. Gone. Just like that it feels. And Persephone is lost to the earth altogether, and with her husband in the underworld. Her mother, Demeter, forlorn.

Like Demeter, I suffer Persephone’s absence too, as the darkness encroaches heavy on my heart and makes my limbs tired, leaden. Depression may return, I know, creeping in with the chill under the crack in the door. But dreaming still, in my small ways, in rituals made, I try and invoke everyday joys and everyday comforts as the natural remedies for this depression unbidden. Readying for the farm life I will have one day, I will, with everyday incantations in these small rituals, I try, and I will the depression away. No I will not succumb, not this winter, not with a farm life I can coax to come ever closer even in this little cottage.

Spring is over and my seeds are sluggish in their pages. I tidy the scattered pencils. And the season is over for limoncello and siestas. Corked bottles set aside for summers to come.

For this season now, the orange haze of autumn’s gloaming gone too, too soon I lament but still, for this season I will make spiced pomegranate wine. Spiced wine for winter.

I find the recipe in an autumn journal, forgotten but remembered now, for I must have known this day would come, even in lazied autumn and the gloaming, summoning on this wintery day the restorative powers of peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, cardamom pods, and orange, sweet orange. A new ritual. Spiced pomegranate wine to honour Persephone. To console Demeter. With time and patience and work. My own hands-have-made spiced pomegranate wine to fortify me for all these cold and bleak days and long dark nights in months to come yet more. And I must remember while my home brew takes time to ferment that myths are not without hope. Mother and daughter will be united again. Hades cannot keep his bride captive forever. Cycles. So it is with nature.

But woman cannot live on wine alone. I delay a little, craving another more. Another urgent craving.

No, not wine just yet. But bread. Of course! First, bread, I am sure.

I have never made my own bread, but I have a recipe from a clever aunt I have been assured is effortless. I find it easily enough. A neon post it in that autumn journal again. Yes. Cold and bleak winter days are best faced with a warm loaf. For didn’t Sancho Panza in Don Quixote say so very sagaciously, that with bread all sorrows are less?

This will be the season of spicing, mulling and baking bread. Again there may be failed batches, as with my limoncello. But I cannot, I will not, my dream defer, even in winter when my mind may grow brooding and my body evermore lethargic. In my farm life, in my dream, I make my own wine and bake my own bread.

I can begin with this basic recipe for a sustaining loaf I crave now most.

I lose myself at first, me the dreamer. And I think now on my journals, seeded pages, sluggish in the cold, and winter days to come, for I have been collecting other recipes of bread, bread wonderful bread, along with my words and definitions in my journals, planting them in between poem and song, all these recipes.

I begin to dream of Icelandic rugbraud, a dense and hearty bread sweetened a little by honey and molasses. Slow to bake, to steam. This will do nicely with mackerel and pickled gooseberries when I need its mild sweetness and the tartness of the fruit to strengthen me on frosty days writing.

I begin to dream of Polish sourdough and rye bread, or chleb na zakwas zytni, with cold pastrami and sour pickled cucumber, a smear of hot mustard and thin slices of purple red onions when I need fire in my belly, plotting, plotting, burrowing deeper and deeper for my art, scribbling frantically in my notebook other days. Well fed, but senses alive.

And maybe, oh yes, of Lithuanian dark rye bread, or rugine duona, when I am too tired to prepare dinner, after a hard day’s work, already baked and warm still for a thick spread of salty farm butter from the market and some Anchovette, a soporific slice or two, thick, before I collapse exhausted from the day’s labour, darkness welcoming then.

Finally, dreaming finding providece, I promise to myself to make a ritual of Thursday evenings, when I will prepare the dough for rising all night long for the sweet egg-bread to bake on the Friday as I come to slow down all the more, weekly toils done, that glossy braided bread that is kitke, or challah, or even more ancient still, berches. Poppy and sesame seeds sprinkled on top to symbolise manna from heaven. Or in celebrations, braided too and made a circle, like a wreath, sweeter then with more honey and laden heavy with raisins, the dried fruit to symbolise a year ahead of plenty on Rosh Hashanah. The unbroken circle of the plaited bread for continuity, the wheel of the seasons.

I promise to myself I shall make a wreath of this sweet egg-bread. When it is soon time for Persephone to join her mother yet again. Cycles. Represented in wreath. That will be my celebration, toasted with my homebrewed wine of pomegranates.

For all it may seem, I am not even especially religious. I wonder. Not rooted in any religion really. Lapsed Catholic. But rituals remain sacred to me. And bread more sacred still. Bread and wine. Bread and wine a communion. And bread most sacred of all.

Yes, that is a good thing for my dream, I conclude. To master so the art of making bread.

With spiced wine.

To save me from myself in this, another dark winter.

Steadily, and with intention, I will go. Learning to begin first with the sustainable, for the mind, the body, and the soul. Begin with a first step. That first, singular intention. Rugbrod!

And as the oven fills my small cottage with its warmth, I return in time to find I have made my first loaf of rye bread.

I want it simply this first time, revelling in my labour and its fruits. So different to summer’s fruits. But their own gift too.

Simply I slather it with nothing but swirls of farm fresh butter.

My dream, that farm life I yearn after, well, it is beginning to taste like bread and butter should.

And it is good.

Icelandic Rye Bread (Rúgbraud or Rugbrød)

The recipe for this dense but delicious, mildly sweet and hearty rye bread was a total find! It is ubiquitous in Iceland and traditionally served in very thin slices with smoked, cured, or pickled toppings. No need to knead, this is baking at its simplest. Just mix, bake and enjoy with a bevy of toppings or even with a smear of butter and you will not be disappointed.

4 ½ cups of medium rye flour

2 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of baking powder

¾ teaspoon of baking soda

2 cups of buttermilk

½ cup of honey

½ cup of molasses

Simply preheat the oven to 150C. Next sieve and mix the dry ingredients, while in a second bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Finally, she mix 'em altogether for your rye bread dough. Into the preheated oven it goes to bake for 2 hours while you slow down and cozy up!

Banana Bread by William B. Hoyt