menu for August 24th, 2024

Sayuri’s note

The combination of weather, critters, and seeds make harvest times and amounts different every year. August explodes with weeds and bugs. I've been weeding the garden a lot and sweating like steady rain. When I'm done weeding I feel like the garden got a refreshing haircut. We have to roll along with the weeds, bugs, and creatures, like we're doing jazz. According to Joe, old timer Carl Jarrard used to say that grass won't grow much again if you cut it near the August full moon. August 19 was a “super blue moon,” so it should work. It was a beautiful bright moon! I am very much looking forward to seeing the grass slow down!

I also canned tomatoes and pickled cucumbers recently. Summer time canning is tough sometimes but all the work will pay off when we eat it happily anytime. Hopefully you will feel happy when you eat today's soup.

We have Obon in August in Japan. We honor our ancestors and invite their spirits home for a couple days once a year at home in the middle of August and family get together. To help the spirits return home from “the other side,” we decorate cucumbers as horses so that they can return quickly, and decorate eggplants as cows so that they return slowly. In many parts of Japan we celebrate their return with an outdoor dance called “Bon-Odori.” 

This summer we are remembering Joe’s Grandpa Joe Ezio Farinelli. He immigrated from the Spoleto region of Umbria, Italy when he was a boy and worked in the silver mines in New Mexico and then married Grandma Nina who said she was mainly Scottish but had a Cherokee grandmother too. They loved pasta so l chose Tortellini because the pasta’s shape is interesting, and they make me think of small dumplings, gyoza in Japan. One legend in Italy says that tortellini was first made by an innkeeper at Castelfranco who was inspired after he saw Venus's navel when he peeked into Venus’s bedroom. The shape makes sense to me (“なるほど Naruhodo”). We had a fun time making this dinner talking, learning, and remembering our ancestors. 

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