Only Higher Beings could truly understand my feelings and observations. She was still learning English, and every new expression seemed exciting and full of great meaning. “I know,” her husband said. I tried to hide my sense of strangeness by trying to fit in at times, but immediately resented it when I was categorized having similar views to the group I attempted to belong to. 'All Intensive Purposes' or 'All Intents and Purposes'? She saw that the women sitting in a circle were watching the man, just as they had watched her husband. She felt as if she were recovering from a long, exhausting illness. “Go, go,” she said. I am my own person, free to keep developing my understanding and philosophies that goes beyond confined borders of specific stagnated views. ( Log Out /  15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1. Relishing the sunlight made the dark side of my days never too unbearable. My mother taught me that I was unique and made me a school uniform that was different to all the other kids to prove her point. With that thought in mind, I decided to buy several ears. It seemed to Nina that Pavlik’s functions as a host were limited to calling out that phrase. Children do not even notice differences. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. The women, with one or two exceptions, were attractive, but in an unpleasant way. I made friends with an English-speaking girl in another class with whom I played tennis. Are you home?” he shouted. Nina’s sister also didn’t know how he’d sometimes hug Nina from behind and bury his face in her hair and whisper, “There is nothing like this. Nina turned to the man, motioning to the empty drawer; she found it hard to speak, as if someone were squeezing her throat. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Pavlik’s place looked different. -Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the contents of the skillet to the pot with the lentils. 1141 Lakeshore Rd. She tried to do as few household chores as possible. “But why buy all these vegetables if you know you won’t have time to cook them?”. At five to three, he stood in Nina’s hallway, removing his bulky leather jacket and cap, sprinkled with raindrops. In short, summer on a plate and just the thing to bring me back to the sweetness of the present. Her sister didn’t ask. “Eggplant: braised chicken with onions and—137; and tomato, baked—162.” “Zucchini: and mushrooms, sautéed—34; shredded, jasmine rice with—201; soup—41; stuffed—57.”. She was wearing a long blue cardigan with drooping pockets. Awkward yet hopeful conversations, just like the one that Nina was having now. She had come to console Nina with four large bags from a Russian supermarket. On the unimaginatively named Avenue M, Nina and her husband browsed through stores that all looked alike to them, no matter what was being sold: food, electronics, clothes, or hardware. I know that understanding is an evolutional process. . More and more people are getting into gardening these days, especially to grow their own food. ( Log Out /  “Unripe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unripe. “You’re a vegetable lover, aren’t you?” asked a man who had seated himself in the opposite corner of Nina’s sofa. Children have no desire to fight over differences. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. He never stopped me. Nina liked the song. Each week, we sow over 3 million seeds & plants on our own farms in the Rift Valley & together with some of our top farmers. She told him she was sorry; she had been busy all week and never had time to cook. Nina also noticed that she wasn’t the only one sitting outside the circle. "Here’s another one, seduced and abandoned,” Nina’s husband often said, pulling a bunch of wilted, yellowed broccoli from the refrigerator shelf. Nina spent the better part of the following Saturday shopping for cooking utensils. Nina nodded. The school did tolerate this for some reason to my surprise. I now know that magical thinking kept my soul healthy. Yet, making up sad songs to entertain my brother and sister at dusk, while waiting against the warm sunbaked brick wall for our parents to return home from work, got us all in tears in time for their arrival. Silence protected me from speaking up only to be ridiculed or abandoned by those who were prejudice and unable to accept others that were different form themselves. By the time she got home to Brooklyn, it was already seven-thirty, sometimes eight, and the most she could do was make her husband and herself sandwiches, or boil some meat dumplings from a Russian supermarket. In fact, there were only a few people in it. Most of them worked as computer programmers, an occupation that they had taken up in America, where they found it easier and more profitable than trying to prove the value of their Russian degrees in science or the arts. I dreamed that they loved one another despite their merciless battles. There was still Saturday afternoon ahead, and then all of Sunday. -Put the lentils and 4 cups water in a medium pan. Do you like fennel?”. “My wife is a vegetable lover,” Nina’s husband would say, introducing her to Pavlik’s circle. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Nina’s lips moved to form the almost passionate words of the cooking instructions. Nina usually spent the evening in one corner of Pavlik’s stiff sofa, away from her husband and the other guests, who sat on the floor by the cold fireplace. -Stir, pour into a large bowl and serve. Send us feedback. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Nina had never tasted fennel. It is clear to me now, after more than six decades in this world and having experienced many lives in a variety of places and circumstances, that my search for meaning has forced my silence at times, but gave me the opportunity to observe human behaviour, including my own, very closely. In the mid-1970s, a boat captain sailing about 60 miles west of Sarasota spotted one about 160 feet under water, and an, There’s nothing like a juicy, ripe red tomato, but unlike most fruits and vegetables, the tomato’s, Perennial seeds are usually brown or black when ready to harvest and. As you might imagine, this event is causing quite a stir in its local community. The stores all offered pretty much the same selection of produce, but Nina liked to explore them all, in search of something surprising: the occasional white asparagus, plastic baskets of gooseberries, tiny, nutlike new potatoes. But I can’t say that I miss it. I wondered why they could not comprehend each other’s points of views. People’s faces too, especially their eyes, needed to be captured in my drawings. “Please Daddy, try to understand Mommy.” “Mommy, please try to understand Daddy”. ( Log Out /  She had begged him to go and get some coffee or a breath of fresh air, but he had stayed with her. His ambitions for me were to have a chain of hairdressing saloons, because he noticed my artistic nature. If you get me, you are welcome to join me, or you can choose to stay where you are in judgment. Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). Nina felt tired. There are things to be done, responsibilities to be resumed and, most importantly, the feeling that something has gone awry. She avoided touching the hairy, egg-shaped kiwis and the wormlike string beans, but she liked to stroke the feathery bunches of dill and parsley and squeeze the artichokes, which felt like soft pine cones. Adjusting to the post-vacation life is never easy. It was the simple, cozy smell of a kitchen, the smell of vegetable soup simmering on the stove, the kind that her mother used to make. She couldn’t say exactly when she’d first felt the urge—possibly two years earlier, on her second day in America, when she and her husband had left her sister’s Brooklyn apartment for the first time to explore the nearest shopping street. Enjoy the taste of summer! “Sunrise.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sunrise. 744 Adelaide St. N. London, ON N5Y 2L6 P: (519) 433-4141 SUNRIPE Hyde Park “Computer programming, like everyone else,” they answered reluctantly when asked their occupation, “but that’s not what I did in my previous life.” They preferred to talk about art or music or such exciting hobbies as alpinism, rafting, and photographing Alaskan sunsets. I love corn, I love Indian food, but would never have thought to combine the two! At that time, I was not even aware of Apartheid and that a whole group of South Africans was kept separate form us because of race, color and language. How do you cook it?” The man with the piece of tissue stuck to his cheek looked safe enough to confide in. “Let’s have a cooking date,” the man from the party had suggested. I know that confinement to my yellow bedroom, stirred an awareness of my souls’ ability to expand infinity; poverty, stirred my deepest ability to appreciate natural wealth and abundance in Nature; discrimination and segregation, woke my deepest acknowledgement for all people; reading the one book available to me at the time, opened a portal that accessed all the books in the universe; loneliness intensified my ability to love; conflict matured my responsiveness to create peace and harmony. . "We've spent nearly 100 years building an infrastructure that could back up a brand that includes a powerful word like 'Certified'. Also, despite my best intentions to go to the Indian grocery store and get some asafetida, a powdered gum resin with an oniony-garlicky flavor, I haven’t made it there yet. Pavlik’s voice made her jump. Nina was sure that, at some point in the past, she had been as excited as she was now, but she couldn’t remember when. She went to Macy’s and, breaking the fifty-per-cent-discount rule for the first time, bought two drastically overpriced skillets, a set of shiny stainless-steel saucepans, a steamer, and a pretty wooden spoon with a carved handle. A faint rotten smell stayed in the kitchen for a long time after Nina’s sister had left. With time, though, Nina noticed that she wasn’t the only person watching her husband as he played. Contrary to her sister’s prediction, the fifth week didn’t bring Nina any extreme pain. The more passionate my feelings about a certain quality I endorse, the more probable a powerful opposite side exist in the subconscious of my mind. He handed Nina a bottle of wine and a baguette in a sodden paper bag. I felt repressed even by my own culture. When it ended, the singer put the guitar down and walked to the food table. I used to be intimidated by Indian cooking too, but then a wise friend told me it was all about having a good spice collection…And I think that's true! Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. As I mentioned above, I’ve used only red lentils when making this recipe, but you can use, as Madhur suggests, either. She swerved her car in the direction of Avenue M, where, breaking the rule about never buying anything in the cheap stores, she bought a set of knives, two cutting boards—one wooden and one plastic—a colander, a curved grapefruit knife, because it looked so cute, a vegetable peeler, a set of stainless-steel bowls, and two aprons with pictures of wild mushrooms on yellow backgrounds. Lost, like someone from another planet, knowing that the humans around me did not seem to appreciate or even care to think beyond the socially acceptable, was frightening. Nina’s sister didn’t know that he often said the same words when they were making love. There’s something sad about the sun setting and the dark entering the rooms of my habitat. She was still learning English, and every new expression seemed to her exciting and rich with meaning.