The Soup Song

Wake up on a rainy day
Stealthy stalk your wild prey

With apologies to the critters,
Cut your leaves- I did mine with scissors

Go inside and wash off the dirt
Listen to music if it helps you work

Peel and chop with a quickness
They call it a chiffonade in the business

Get the pot and heat er up
Throw in one or two sizzling pups

Finish soup
Warm the bread
Eat your supper
Go to bed

29.5.08


Kale and Potato Soup (a variation on the Portuguese caldo verde)

1 bunch kale (about one pound)
2 pounds boiling potatoes
2 quarts water
1 teaspoon salt
Optional: 1 garlic sausage
Extra-virgin olive oil

Remove stems from kale, wash the leaves, and cut them into a chiffonade. You should have about 6 to 8 cups.

Peel the potatoes and chop them up very fine (Yellow Finns are good for this- or use some other flavorful boiling potato). Bring the water to a boil with the salt. Add the chopped potatoes, return to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes, covered. Add the kale and cook 2 minutes more. Taste for seasoning. If desired, serve with sliced garlic sausge heated briefly in the soup and a splash of the olive oil.

-Alice Waters, "Vegetables"

This is a mystery soup. Where does the flavor in the broth come from? Can someone tell me that in like one paragraph?

Go Bert

Supperklub stumble towards ecstasy.

((((((Steal Your FACE))))))

Smithers, Jack, Martin, and I took a trip to the swamp this weekend. Merchant's Millpond is in Gates County, surrounded by broken mill towns and broad countryside. The swamp is a lovely fluorescent green this time of year. I prepped for our sojourn by reading some Alan Moore. I was on the hunt for a psychedelic yam.

We're now back on the grounds of Eaglewing Farm. I just fertilized the back garden. Steve Young's on the box.

RAIN IN ALLEGHENY

standing in the thunder-pouring
heavy drops of water
-dusty summmer-
drinking beer just after driving
all the way around the
watershed of rivers

rocky slopes and bumpy cars
its a skinny awkward land
like a workt-out miner's hand
& how we love it
have some beer and rain,
stopping on our way,
in Allegheny

-Gary Snyder, 1972




Merchant's Millpond 22.5.08


Swamp Fox Martin (aka Our Lady Abigail of the Swamp) 22.5.08


Smithers and Jack 22.5.08


Merchant's Millpond 22.5.08


Swamp Thing/Clouds 22.5.08


Merchant's Millpond 22.5.08


Back garden 24.5.08

Pretty much your standard ranch stash...

To welcome the coming summer--marked here at Eaglewing Farm by rapidly growing green beans, the smell of freshly mown grass, afternoon thunderstorms, moon shine, and a pile of books by Michael Moorcock and Spider Robinson--we've delved into the dusty stacks to put together a righteous mix of British and Irish country groovers. Spark one up and dig mightily.

Weed, Whites, & Barleywine

featuring...

0:00:00 Let It Be Gone :: The Grease Band
0:04:33 For A Little While :: Ernie Graham
0:11:09 Rock & Roll Runaway :: Ace
0:14:18 Faith To Arise :: Terry Reid
0:18:50 Homegrown :: Andy Roberts
0:21:45 Silver Pistol :: Brinsley Schwarz
0:25:22 Your Eyes Are Looking Down :: Help Yourself
0:29:50 Bright Phoebus :: Lal & Mike Waterson
0:32:45 Richmond :: The Faces
0:35:50 Anymore For Anymore :: Ronnie Lane & Slim Chance
0:39:33 Anniversary :: Ronnie Lane & Slim Chance
0:42:30 I Wanna Roo You :: Van Morrison
0:45:54 Open Up The Watergate :: Bert Jansch
0:48:30 Across From You :: Eggs Over Easy
0:52:01 Jug Of Love :: Mighty Baby
0:58:21 Eternal Circle :: McGuinness Flint
1:01:20 Old Man At The Mill :: Ian Matthews
1:03:51 I'm Turning Off A Memory :: Richard & Linda Thompson
1:06:21 You Better Run :: Henry McCullough

P.S. Pardon the bummer upload delivery service.

I dig the haiku of Santoka Taneda. It's beautiful.

Legend has it that he was attempting to commit suicide by throwing himself into the path of an oncoming train when a Zen priest saved him and took him to a nearby temple to recuperate. Santoka himself was ordained as a Zen priest at the age of 44, and spent the remainder of his life wandering, begging, writing poetry, and drinking barrels of sake. Water, weeds, and mountains are recurring motifs in his work.

328
It's fall-
I sit in the wild grasses.

313
Frying fish,
Sometimes frying your hand-
Life alone.

306
(My beard's theme song:)
An uneven life,
Standing and falling.

287
What a splendid inn!
Mountains in both directions
And a sake shop in front.

266
I've something to eat
And something to make me drunk;
Rain in the weeds.

255
Scooping up the water,
Lifting it towards the moon,
Full of light.

207
If only one plows the fields,
You'll soon hear a song.

155
Will the town
Throw a festival
For those brought back as bones?

6
Wet with the morning dew,
I go in the direction I want.



It's raining outside right now, a good time to read Santoka. I'm drinking a cup of tea with cream and sugar. I could get to like this hot beverage. Bobby Bare and Skeeter Davis are on the hi-fi, singing about low-down dirty cheating.

Is there anything more beautiful than a busted grape arbor in the spring?

In the last month, things have turned one centillian (that's a one followed by 103 zeros) different shades of green here on the grounds of Eaglewing Farm. Even more amazingly, vegetables have begun to grow; the lettuce, kale, arugula, beans, and onions are reaching their arms skyward, and June Sparrow's radishes are ready for picking.

We need a good radish recipe. Besides garnishing carnitas, what else can you do with them?

And yes, that is an authentic Irish Garden Gnome. He traveled here all the way from Dublin, and plays that horn like a motherfucker. I bought him for $20 in Liberty, NC, where they were also selling authentic NC BBQ under an authentic rebel flag.

On the turntable:: A SIGNED copy of Henry McCullough's "Mind Your Own Business" (courtesy of Hari Georgeson's Dark Horse record label). What a beautiful barleywine-soaked platter.

I was recently reading a book about Harry Smith called "American Magus." It's not great, but there are some fantastic (if poorly transcribed) interviews with many of his friends and admirers.

Lionel Ziprin was one of Smith's earliest friends when he arrived in New York, and the interview that writer Paola Igliori (also a friend of Smith's) conducted with him is one of the better ones in the book. He makes some refreshingly bold claims. As someone working towards a degree in folklore (the stepchild, perhaps, of anthropology), I often think about exactly what Ziprin proposes below.

"You see anthropologists are whites, super-racists. They come to look at Indians; they come to look at Jews; they come to look at Africans. They are anthropologists. They are a superior white culture."

I return following a backbreaking month of work. I'll post a little picture/word narrative detailing the last few weeks of life here on Eaglewing Farm shortly. In the meantime, here are a few videos that have been rays of sunshine lately::


Reverend Gary brings the peace.




Ry Cooder controls it.


Oh, and did everyone in the imaginary audience hear about this craziness? Might be a good time to drop acid::

Manuel Göttsching for the first time ever live on stage in the USA !
Wordless Music: 800 Years of Minimalism - The Spiritual Transcendent
Friday, August 15, 2008 7:00 PM
Lincoln Center Out of Doors @ Damrosch Park Bandshel
7:00 Beata Viscera (Debut): The Music of Pérotin (fl. c. 1200)
7:30 Rhys Chatham: A Crimson Grail (Outdoor Version World Premiere)
9:00 Manuel Göttsching: E2-E4 (12.12.1981) (U.S. Premiere), with the Joshua Light Show (World Premiere collaboration)
There are no tickets or advance registration. The seated capacity is about 4,000, including standing room up to 12,000.

AMEN.