Notes from Puddle Time
A Recipe & A Vending Machine
Hey friends,
Popping in to say hey and that I hope you’re holding up okay, and that you’re warm and cozy as the days are darkening toward the winter solstice.
As with every year and every season, seasonal transitions are always difficult for me. I need to take some puddle time - liquidating myself like Alex Mack until I can be recomposed in a new shape that fits the time of year a little better. Here in southern Indiana we have had a looooooong, leisurely off-ramp from summer into fall. Two days ago I was outside watching the sun rise in a t-shirt, and today it’s snowing. True story!
The first thing to go during puddle time is the basic care and tending of my animal body. If left to my own devices I would probably eat a quesadilla three meals a day. Luckily, I found this recipe for pumpkin gnocchi from Nora Cooks, which I’ve been making at least once a week, and which I am now passing on to you in case you are in need of something that is filling, very easy to make, extremely tasty, and contains a seasonal vegetable.
The basic gist is this (my loosey goosey adaptation): saute some chopped cloves of garlic (shallots are a good addition here too). When it’s fragrant and golden, add a can of whole coconut milk, the scraped-out roasted squashmeat of your choosing, and a package of gnocchi. Sprinkle whatever spices your heart desires and cook until it’s all piping hot and the gnocchi is ready to eat.
Some more detailed notes:
So far I’ve used something called a banana squash that a friend gifted me from her garden, which is about the size and shape of a rugby ball, bright orange on the inside and very delicious; spaghetti squash - which is just a little weird with its texture but still good - and acorn squash, which was also delicious. Butternut and delicata are next to try. I doubt you can really go wrong.
Maybe everyone knows this already, but in buying coconut milk for this recipe I learned that sometimes in this industry monkeys are chained up and used to retrieve coconuts from trees, and treated very cruelly. Here’s a list of some brands that don’t use monkey labor.
For flavor: I have some fancy alderwood-smoked salt that I never know what to do with and this recipe is the perfect thing. Nora recommends using sage and I can say also: herbes de provence.
I don’t do anything to the gnocchi before I dump it into the pot because, as I mentioned before, I am just a puddle, but a more structurally sound person could theoretically fry the gnocchi before adding it in so that it has a crispy outside and I bet that would be bomb. A person with a lot of structure and also gumption I bet would make their own gnocchi, and that would be an incredible (but currently, to me, unfathomable) achievement!!
Do NOT sleep on the squash seeds that get scraped out in this process! Don’t deprive yourself of the sensual satisfaction of getting your fingers gooey and sticky by squeezing the seeds out of their little placental holding centers!! In the past I’ve been guilty of composting them because I’m feeling lazy, but even for a puddle it’s too easy and genuinely delightful to pass up. I toast them in the oven at the same time as the squash but in their own tiny pan, just tossed with a bit of oil and the spices that feel most compelling at the moment. I’ve used (separately, of course) everything bagel seasoning, garam masala, and this mala spice mix. “Seeds!” my partner exclaims every time. “It’s genius!” (that seeds are produced in the fruit of the plant, full of protein and carbs, not that I have made them into a tasty snack, but I think he’s glad I do it.)
There is an extra urgency and clarity around my feelings about “community” these last few weeks and even though I know I’m just a puddle, I also only really feel good when I’m doing something in that direction. Pounding metal stakes for the local food sovereignty project’s new greenhouse. Teaching friends how to make their own spicy cabbage ferments. Hauling wheelbarrows full of leaves and grass clippings up the hill at the community orchard while regaling some very nice college students with everything I know about different kinds of bees. Organizing with other people to make free emergency contraceptives easier to get here in town (more on this, with an opportunity to support if you’d like to, down below).
Aside from the doing, there’s also just showing up even when I’d rather hide at home alone, until I get there. I went to a new friend’s birthday party, where I knew zero people except for her, and ended up laughing until I cried during a game of Balderdash. The joy of that. And I have to tell you: the joy-within-a-joy that I can feel that way with a group of strangers without drinking honestly feels like an actual miracle, even almost four years out from quitting. I never thought it would be possible. The truth of it is that it doesn’t always feel easy not to drink, so I’m trying to remember that sometimes it can feel like this, too.
November in our neighborhood is all hordes of crows flying east at sunrise and coyotes howling way off in the distance at night. I wonder who I will be when I take on my new form, post-puddle. I wonder, as I always do, if I will be a puddle forever, but I know by now that new forms await me that I can’t even imagine yet.
As I mentioned briefly above, I’ve started working with a group of folks to bring free emergency contraceptives to the place I live in Indiana: this is Indiana Task Force’s Vending Machine Project, in partnership with Midwest Access Coalition, which you can read all about at the link. They’ve installed these vending machines already in Indianapolis and Lafayette with great success, and it is definitely something that we need here. Plus, I love the form of the old-school vending machine re-imagined in this way and for this purpose.
Indiana was the very first state to make almost all abortion illegal after Roe v. Wade was overturned. It is also one of the states with the highest infant and mother mortality rates in the country. If you’d like to support us with the costs of buying the vending machine and keeping it stocked, you can make a donation here.
Thanks for reading y’all - take good care till next time.
mere<3
