mother may i?

no you may not.
say goodbye to the merry merry month, my friends.
it's done.
over and out.
and not a moment too soon, really.
i mean,
i like new york in june, how about you?
ha.
nothing?
c'mon.
actually,
i like just about everywhere in june,
because it's the sweet spot in summerishness.
early enough that most young kids are still in school,
nice enough that grown-A* adults can enjoy themselves with outdoor activities,
and not only that,
but father's day is thrown in there, too.
hahahahaha.
a.k.a. the holiday that nobody cares about.
awwwwwwww.
duders,
the woodsly goodness is ALIVE with super-elite ultra-expert natural beauty.
flowers and vines and all the good sh!t you could ask for!
i mean,
check the teleport:

wooohooo!
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is home to some rad stuff,
and it's all unfolding from it's tender tendrils
and climbing up and out into the wider awoken world of foresty freshness
into some big action and opportunist awesomeness.
i mean,
these little neighbors are living six feet up in a tree:

so cool!
the big what next is tomorrow already,
and i'm ready for it.
however, before the new hottness shows up,
we've got to say adios to the old bustedness-
last night,
it was time to grill it all over again,
and man was it ugly, and boy oh boy was it also dope!
teleport:

ugh.
sausages and charred onions,
not dogs and toasty potato buns,
pasta-mutha-ucking-rainbow-salad,
and balsamic-molasses-soy glazed brussels.
it wasn't pretty,
but there was a whole lot of it.
that's fairly representative of real life in these hills.
i don't want to eat ugly food, dudes-
but i'm not NOT gonna eat it if it's delicious and it's vegan and it's waiting for me.
it's all really happening,
and that's the whole point.
hare-brained and hairy today,
rabbits and rabbits tomorrow;
never quiet, never soft.....

mo' mo' mocha.

coffee and chocolate are a good team.
i mean,
they're SO good they have their own name when they're combined.
that's something to be proud of.
i mean,
everything else just gets called 'chocolate-and___'.
besides,
chocolate and coffee separately are super rad anyway,
but, the tag team?
mmhmm.
it's mocha,
and mocha is all the way expert.
neighbors,
i wanted to have that hottness in my hands.
yup.
so,
i made something,
and it's pretty good.
check the coffee-chocolate-type teleport:

no joke mocha for you no-joke jerks!!!!!
mmmmmm.
ground coffee, and extracted coffee essence,
and instant coffee, too-
mixed in with butterish, and sugar, and salt, and applesauce-
tell you what-
just do this:
-
6oz of applesauce;
1.5 t vanilla;
.75 t coffee extract;
.5 cup butterish (one stick, if that's your thing)
1 cup sugar;
.75 t salt;
3T instant coffee;
2/3 cup coco;
2.5 cups of plain ol' flour;
very finely ground roasted coffee beans;
and half a bag of BIG chocolate chips.
-
that's the stuff.
generally, cookies get baked at 375F for 11-13 minutes.
these did, too.
haha.
i'm just sayin'....
i made sure memorial monday had a whole mess of mocha magic
just so i could charge up my batteries on burly chips and coffee hottness,
all packed into smooth, softy, rich circles of pure delight.
...but, again,
too much is the right amount,
so i also drizz'd on 'em with french vanilla espresso icing!!
WORD.
more often than not,
nobody is going to just hand you treats, guys.
therefore,
if you don't create the treats,
you can't eat the treats.
that's the little red hen rule,
and when it all settles down and seeps in,
the bottom line is: rules is rules.
....yeah.
*
today is the day-
memorial day,
and i'm packed full to the gills with tattoos on dudes.
honestly,
i'm not in love with any of that.
i'm glad for the work,
and i'm glad that dudes show up with worthwhile budgets,
but damn,
it might actually feel good to get into it with some good ideas on good girls,
or even bad ideas on bad b!tches,
or heck,
a few terrible tattzapps on a trashy ho or two.
hahahah.
oh, c'mon.
i'm only mildly serious.
anyway,
there's work to be done,
and that's what i do whenever that's the case.
it's all really happening,
and the big action is bound to be lucrative, if not intrinsically rewarding.
i am lucky,
and i know it,
and i've got the cookies to prove it;
never quiet, never soft.....

the CHAR.

guys,
i left work twenty minutes early!
yeah.
i felt like i HAD to-
i mean,
it's s'posed to rain all day today,
and it was lookin' pretty menacing up in the sky yesterday,
so i wanted to get home,
get some charcoal lit in the big burly barbarian hotbox grill i've got,
and fire up some three-day weekendedness for our faces.
yeah!
ampy-d had the party started already,
making fancy stuffed mushrooms,
and preparing some pretty little fingerling 'tatoes, too-
guys,
the fire was HOT,
the flames were licking at all the oil-drizzles i could drip on the coals,
and the eats were especially smoky.
in fact,
they were downright charred.
check the big-black-grillmark-type teleport:

wow.
that's a lot of food for one person.
holiday weekends aren't too much of a big deal up here
at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
but shark-gluttony will find any excuse to really activate a heaping plateful
of superfat blarpity overidulgence,
and this was that opportunity for us to showcase our own lack of restraint.
mmmmm.
vegan sausages? yep.
vegan hot dog? yuuuuup.
vegan tummyache? word!
too much is the right amount,
and exxxtra garlic in the onion and kale stuffed 'shrooms was a good idea-
topped with baconical bric-a-brac and pretend smoked gouda,
they had the joint jumpin',
even as all those tubes on buns with peppers had it poppin'.
that's no joke.
***********
hot, hard walks in the woods mean getting the drop
on drips and drabs of sweaty everything.
there're soo many ticks taking shorts on our skin whenever we wear shorts,
and it's hard to make lemonade out of lyme's.
ugh.
so it's long pants, hiking boots, and a dog who only wants to roll in the mud
on the banks of the streams we come across three times per walk...
that's what midmornings are made out of up here.
it isn't the worst, but it sure is time consuming-
also,
my poor little crabtree has allergies when it comes to bug bites.
his thin little piglet skin gets SO effed up by 'squitos and flies and chiggs,
but he only ever wants to be outside tempting them with his scrumptuous blood.
i respect it.
i mean,
the wrench isn't only a choice for people.
anybody can opt to enact the hard styles in place of the safe bets.
even crabby.
...and he does.
we're off on adventures at the cost of a big itch, and some twitching,
and the gloved removal of any and all ivy of the poisonous variety,
destroyed as we find it along the trails.
huh?
yeah.
i bring a pocketful of clippers with me,
and i snip away all the invasive natural growth
that promises to ruin our outdoor time together
more than the dog could all on his own.
that's real.
he's out cold,
sleeping in,
and recovering from a spell of puffy-skinned suckiness,
brought on by bugs and bites and a little attack of the sneaky wheat flour temptations.
y'know?
oh.
he chewed a bag of flour, ate a bunch,
and his dumb purebred terrier DNA couldn't digest it,
so he's a bumpy hot mess of lumps and discomfort-
which HE deserves, but is such a whiny little baby about
that we're BOTH being punished.
hahahaha.
i love this little A*-hole,
despite my firm intention not to become a crazy dog person.
really, i s'pose i'm not,
since i could give less than no F*s about any other domestic animals out there.
me and my battle-beast have a relationship, though,
and an understanding.
every day is a chance to mess around with the other,
testing the limits of good faith and good fun and good sense,
and it really is better not to do that all alone.
i'm grateful for this little siphon of time and money,
and for the minor joys he brings on occasion;
never quiet, never soft.....

fast and hot.

duders,
yesterday was a blur-
tattoos in every direction,
defections,
insurrections,
and conjectures and corrections-
all at the tattoo studio, all day long.
i'd love to tell you it was such big fun,
but,
i only tell true stories,
and this one was a bummer.
yeah.
one of our own ducked out under cover of darkness,
never to return,
right as the real action officially jumps off.
...i do believe that's called 'leaving us in the lurch'.
and hey,
i'm sure there are plenty of legitimate and inarguably good reasons
NOT to stand still in a place where progress seems impossible.
heck,
i'll bet i have a whole lot of them right here in my own head-
however,
the studio will not function as effectively,
at a time when the kind of multitasking we need has just left the building,
and that negatively affects all the rest of us who're still stuck here;
sour grapes make the bitterest bites,
which is just another way of saying i'm jealous and angry at the same time.
so,
while i think it's probably best for our asylum-seeking fleet-footed fleeing figbat,
the rest of us had a pretty sh!t day-
which is exactly why i HAD to drop the hammer
on a quick, but heavyweight, superduty drumbeat of bass-boosted
supersubsonic succulence and stuff my face with feelings-numbing new hottness.
hahahahha.
bad days and mixed emotions?
fill in the blanks with food.
the solution to everything is MORE FOOD.
oh, c'mon.
it's all vegan, it's mostly sorcerous, it's very woodsly goodsly,
and it's endorsed by druids, probably.
besides, if it's good for you,
and too much is the right amount,
then i'm basically just improving the myriad aspects
of my weird Folk Life with these nutrients...
bad day?
munch up some treats.
great day?
celebrate with some treats.
day off?
no such thing, but power up with treats.
early day?
more time for more treats.
late nights?
easier to fit in one more treat.
guys,
i think i might have a problem.....
i can't stop blarping out,
because i won't stop gluttoning up!!!!
check last night's i-hate-goodbyes-especially-when-there-isn't-one-type teleport:

HOLY CREPES!
neighbors,
i whipped up a thin and lovely half-and-half blend of buckwheat and all-purpz,
with salt, and soymilk, and a milled flax/chia mix-up of binding bits...
and i got those crepes poppin' like i was in a championship deathmatch with taste,
and like eddie vedder, i'm still alive!
word.
the crepe game was tight.
i just needed the noise for the insides.
i mean,
what good is a nice venue with sh!tty bands playing?
right?
savory-seasoned poultry-style tofu cubes had all the moves i needed to make-
parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, ground mustard, smoked paprika, black pepper,
nootch, GPOP, and shallots, cooked up slow and low in a splash of five of olive oil,
until the barbecue-potato-chipesque flavor really set up, and seeped in,
and the herb-crusts were crisp.
mmmmmmmmm.
delicioso.
those fit snugly in amongst the radicchio and baby kale slaw, with a hint of salt,
and stirred up with a blop of vegenaise.
caramelized onions,
and sweet tomato sprankles finished each one.
except, they weren't finished, per se-
uh-uh.
i kept some cukes on the side to crawnch 'em up and maybe cool 'em off,
and added a little puddle of that texas ho' sauce to heat it all back up again.
that's how you do it.
i ran up into the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
mixed up some batter, squared up some 'fu,
and put those onions on high heat.
boom.
despite long, hard, underwhelming, marginally fulfilling hours preceeding
reentry into the manual override control room navigating of my time,
if there's still work to be done, and done well, exclusively for me to enjoy?
i doo-doo that secret-universal course-plotting sh!t,
even if i know i'm already running on empty.....
that's the secret to taking it to eleven-
you get in, you hit hard, and you don't hold anything back for later-
treat everything as a one way ticket, and save nothing for the return trip,
whatever it is, wherever you are, however you feel-
worthy warrior poetry means going full-force at all the ins and outs of all of it,
as it unfolds and reveals itself in full real-time 360 surround sound fresh-to-hi-def
hard-style happening.
it's never just making supper.
it's creating the mindset that overarcs every aspect of a valuable life.
and that, kids,
is the most correct answer;
never quiet, never soft.....

FIRE!

wanna talk about food?

i hope so,

because that's becoming more and more of what i do on a daily basis.

here's the situation:

i needed to spice up my night.

for real, though.

because nobody wants a bland friday night, do they?

well,

maybe you do....

which is pretty weak diapery little baby business-

and honestly, 

i'm a little disappointed if that IS your style. 

but, 

if i'm all on my own for suppertime,

and i'm left to my own devices,

and there's ingredients awaiting my activation by my imagination in the fridge?

uh-huh.

you had best believe i'm about to turn it up to eleven 

and make myself a powerful plateful of rainbow hottness.

word!

check the super-spicy-type teleport:

c'mon!!

big fat noodoos, dudes!

thick cords of tastiness,

soaked in thai-style hot broth!

with shredded carrot, bias-cut celery slivers, 

huge chunks of garlic, crushed garlic, and garlic oil, as well-

the better to saute the red chilis and the sweet onions in, of course.

all of that, plus chili-garlic paste,

and red and napa cabbages,

as well as a LOT of cilantro, and some scallions too!!!!!

guys,

it's good in all the ways you want wet noodley dinner to ever be,

and then it's good in a few more ways, too-

like,

the dry-fried crispy tofu squares,

and the sriracha drizzle on top showboating another 'nother level 

of colorful kitchen conviviality.

so expert.

and that dark-lookin' peppery fire above it?

spicy spicy black pepper seitan,

with red and green chilis, and yellow and orange sweet peppers,

fried up with garlic, onion strips, paprika, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar,

GPOP, big green onion shanks, and fresh torn basil leaves!!

it's pure wu-TANG, and it's a seitan sword style 

that could be dangerous to all following meals,

as they may not measure up to this 37th chamber of illicit razor's edge dopeness.

scallion sprankles?

OBviously.

i'm not a chumpy lump of lameness after all.

what's more,

i'm not about to let my mouth ONLY experience that boomfire.

a little crawnch and bit of cool, alongside even MORE zangy zinging zip,

in the form of julienned cucumber. paper thin ravishing red garden radishes,

a spritz of cilantro, multicolored fancy little tomatoes,

and of course, more red hot chili peps, drizzled in lime juice for a refreshingly

sharp palate cleanser between bigger and better bites of those NOODZ!!

*

guys,

i'm in a quandry.

i mean it.

rules is rules after all,

and one of the rules is:

stay ugly, and stay dope.

a whole 'nother one, related, but separate, is:

just be dope, or F* right off.

but,

i've always thought that we are what we eat,

and i have to admit something to y'all:

i don't want to eat ugly food.

real talk, on the ones, no jokes-

i want that superfancy unnecessary sexxxiness on my plate.

so,

what're the odds i'm subtly getting bigger and more beautifuller

by ingesting all this lovely new hottness?

what if just being dope interferes with staying ugly?

what if instead of the good looks ON the plate, 

i've got to rely on the content IN the food?

y'feel me?

like, 

i'm complicated and concentrated, 

conscientious and prolific,

luxurious but exclusive,

artfully coordinated but inaccessible,

and most of all,

good for you, but only if you know what's good for you.......

too much is the right amount,

and MORE of it will definitely sustain you, destroy you,

expand and indulge and change your fat face and waist all at the same time.

i'm doing the best i can to be better at what i do.

in large quantities, over the longview, 

as a series on intricate and extensive short spans of shark gluttony,

active participation,

spirit, memory, gratitude and generosity-

so, yeah, man-

the food gets prettier, 

but i only see evidence of it on the INside.

i can live with that;

never quiet, never soft.....

peaches and cream

neighbors,
i made a pie,
and it had peaches in it.
what?
yup.
just like that.

yeah.
it's good.
dudes,
the peaches got crystallized in sugar,
so it's not as melty as i'd have imagined it'd be,
but there's a layer of sweetened, thickened, vanilla and peach juice activated
creamchee' filling-
with powdered sugar and tapioca to hook it up right.
i just kept throwing things in a pot until it looked and smelled and tasted like
a thing i'd want to eat.

eleven peaches, peeled, pitted, sliced, sugared, and squirted with lemon juice,
before being starched and floured, tossed and turned,
and mostly laid out in the bottom of a pastry-lined pan.
that's when i dropped in the creamchee' blops,
and finished off the fullness of the interior with MORE peaches.
mmmhmmmm.
three levels of peach and cream,
and then that cripsy, flaky, buttery big action,
in leafy cut-out splendor on top.
guys,
pie is good.
peaches are good.
peach pie?
you guessed it:
it's good.
i feel like baking something for somewhere between half an hour
and forty five minutes should produce some kind of treat sparkles
in your kitchen.
i mean,
it smells so tasty,
it looks so fancy,
and you get to have it!
that's all pretty rad, no?
...i'm sayin'!
***********
i've got that strong peach game poppin' off,
and that's a delicious result on my investment of time and fruit!
eating too much pie is kind of a recent development over here,
but it's definitely become a thing in the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
i wouldn't eat some pie, anyway,
heck,
i wouldn't even just eat a lot of pie.
nope.
rules is rules-
and i rep a hard style when it comes to munching up on food:
too much is the right amount,
and that's exxxactly the number of slices of sliced peachy keenness i'm on.
the long weekend is now officially underway for all of you regular americans
with regular person jobs doing regular person things.
the woodsly goodness never enjoys such luxury.
that's no joke.
when everyone else is F*ing up the roadways, restaurants, and rivers
of this rural rocky-topped route through the mountains,
those of us who dwell here are actually working even harder
than we would be on regular workweek days.
uh-huh.
that's the pricetag on residing in and presiding over temperate paradise-
d!ckturds from away want what we've got,
and we're all making those movie checks while the makin's good.
that's a real life hustle, for real life people,
and it's currently really happening.
we're packed full of vacationers already,
and i'm right back into my favorite mood:
disgruntled.
mmhmmm.
the lamer the day in between meals,
the more i savor the small spells and spates of spellcasting sorcery i summon
from my pots and my pans in the mornings and nights.
bookending every tub of doo-doo buttery daily doings with a fresh-to death
rejuvenating repast?
word is bond, my neighb's-
i am grateful for the curated collection of crucial moments i've snatched
on either side of my workday.
there is good food and good work to be done away from what i do
to earn the stacks on stacks on stacks i stack to keep this fridge stocked.
this is it;
never quiet, never soft.....

bananas

so,
i learned the other day that avocados and bananas
have a compatible enzyme release system for ripening.
yup.
my produce guy, austin, says that putting bananas in with unripe avocados
is a great way to get us to guac' a whole lot quicker.
i don't know for sure if it was the 'nanas or not,
but mexican monday was a success,
and that was due to the elite guacamole,
which mightn't've been ready without 'em...
also,
that meant bananas for baking with!
and i do love a good banana bake.
this time around,
i went with muffins, because i ca eat a LOT of muffins,
and it doesn't seem like such a big deal,
especially if they're mini-
check the when-life-provides-bananas-make-bread-type teleport:

word up, neighbors.
soft, warm, spongy, melty buh-nay-nay-noonoo jauns.
spelt, oatmeal, coconut, and bananas, mini-sized,
with rolled oats and demerara sugar sprankles on top!
yum.
the thing is,
i had so much batter left over,
i had to biggie-size it, and add chocolate chips while i was at it.
i mean,
if ever there was a signal to do MORE,
it's having too much in the first place.
yup.
what's in 'em?
ummmm-
1 cup of spelt,
.5 cup oat flour,
.5cup rolled oats
.5 cup ground flaked coconut
1 cup all-purpz flour
.5 tsp salt
1tsp baking kapowder
1tsp baking soda
3 big smooshed up bananas
.5 cup butterish
1 cup vegan sourcream
1 cup mixed sugars (bottom of the bags whitish, rawish, brownish style)
and a pinchy pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg.
.....
you know how it goes, bros-
fat and sugar, naners, salt, s'cream,
then flour, spices, and rising agents-
all in one spot, and then all in the oven, at right around 350F,
for like a half an hourish.
...and then?
kaboom-
you're the hero of the morning or night or whenever.
that's for real.
three dozen muffins, and there's maybe only six left already?
yeah.
true testament to the power and desirability of these treats in these streets.
mmmmmmm.
*
let's go back a minute, kids.
i wanna show you something:

spruce tree tips!!
these are the paintbrush-lookin' limb nubs of new growth
on the neighborhood's big XImas evergreens.
they're also pretty tasty.
the time is just about used up for finding the small ones,
and the big bits aren't for eating.
i'm lucky there's a slow-growing shady spot on my morning dog trek,
and that the woodsly goodness is so generous.
also,
this:

yeah.
lilac is a pretty busted looking bush/tree.
for real.
so,
the yearly dopeness really stands out in stark contrast against the
boring plainness of the other eleven months.
it's NOT the most delicious thing i've ever eaten.
it IS one of the prettiest.
and i'm willing to bet a simple syrup of the stuff would make an amazing glaze.
that's likely, but i'm not about to get into it.
why?
because it's an all-american three-day+ weekend,
jumping off this afternoon,
and entering into the barbecue zone and the yard/tag sale scene,
which unofficially begins summer.
alas,
spring flowers will have to wait until next time,
because as of now we've got grillin' to get into.
is it any surprise as i type that, there's big ol' fat raindrops pouring down?
i mean,
i'm not surprised, because nature wins,
always, and forever and ever,
each and every time...
the reminder of that comes when you've made plans
that specifically rely on her to be cool.
(she's not cool, man)
-
raindrops and dog walks,
friday work at the tattzap shack,
and friday night tight-and-bright dinnertime, too.
it's bound to be a full day in the north woods.
and i'm pretty much fired up about the whole thing-
it's all really happening,
and i'm sure ready for some more;
never quiet, never soft.....

locality.

what's in my neighborhood?
secret treats!
that's right, neighbors.
springtime in the woodsly goodness is finally really actually happening,
and that means that wild local secret bits and bobs are ready for us.
i mean it.
on my loooong, hot, uphill trek with crabtree yesterday,
i stopped to smell the flowers...
...and then i picked a few of them, too.
huh?
no.
they were not for a clipped and vased-up arrangement,
that'd be folly, as arrangements are so rarely adhered to around here,
but,
they were for a beautiful bountiful big action meal,
and i arranged for some thematic color scheme magic.
check the teleport:

MAY FLOWERS!!!!
guys,
i used stuff from right here-
asparagus from the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
fiddleheads from around the corner,
flowers and tree bits from the route we walk for exercise!!
expert?
you betcha.
*
i dry fried a whole bunch of tofu steaks,
dusted them with GPOP,
and let 'em sizzle.
when they were good and browned,
i glazed them with a agave-tamari-white balsamic sauce!
one big squirt of that sweetness,
a baby drippy-drop of the white balsamic for some acid,
two tears'-worth of liquid smoke,
and a few shakes of soy sauce,
and i was really onto something.
all day, i had those spruce tips marinating in extra-virgin olive oil.
it made them even softer, and it drew out the resiny, sappy sexxxiness
of those pitch-perfect piney babies in all the right ways.
sitting on a bed of red cabbage,
with scallion sprankles,
and garnished mutha-effing wild new hampshire violets?
c'mon.
if that's not a pretty piece of work, what is?
seriously.
the floral note floats up on the first bite,
and the spruce makes that agave-soy stuff really jump.
it's not the horrorshow of lapsang souchong tea or anything,
more like a fresh outdoorsy clean taste that rocks your face into the future.
*
and that farro salad!!!
word up.
cold farro, tossed around with a little lemon zest,
and the juicy juice of half a squeezed one, too.
mmmmmm.
that stuff is delicious.
mixed right in there, i finely chopped a real english cucumber,
skin on, because i like vitamins and nutrients an' that,
and shredded some baby kale, as well.
greens are good, but with the violets up above stealing the show,
i knew i had to hook it up, and freak it off a little more.
obviously.
so,
rinsed, plucked, and precisely the right call-
lilacs, lilacs, lilacs are on the flavor attack!
three shades of that incredible aroma,
reigning supreme, and raining down on me,
in a purple downspout outpouring of turbo-eleven sensuality!
but,
how do they taste?
THEY TASTE EXXXACTLY LIKE MY FACE IS
A BEAUTEOUS GARDEN OF FAIRY MAGIC!!
hahahahaha.
that's actually not a joke, tho...
*
y'know what IS kind of funny?
making salty, buttery pastry love letter envelopes
when you're eating dinner all by yourself.
awwwwwwwwwww.
hey man, it's cool.
the thing of it is,
i deserve a little love as much as anyone-
and who knows how to show it better than me?
nobody.
that's riiiiiight.
so i gave myself a little fresh garden asparagus bouquet,
and a couple of wrapped up sheafs of those spears,
all sealed with hearts,
because i LOVE asparagus, and i love asparagus-ish stuff, too.
mmm.
really.
garlic sauteed fiddleheads from the big spirals around the way,
and seared scallion stalks,
complete the big picture.
and it's a pretty one, isn't it?
yeah. i know.
*
nature wins,
and i think i must've been drafting in her slipstream,
slipping in on her coattails,
picking pieces off of the neighborhood,
and putting them to work over here,
because dinner sure felt like victory,
and tasted like a grand championship.
...too bad the rest of the day couldn't have been as expert.
crabby was a terror the entire day,
walking too hard, and then not enough, and then not at all,
and dumping himself in every muddy watering hole he could find-
which included all the planting here at home.
gardening takes a whole lot of money,
and easily ten times as much elapsed daylight
as working inside does.
especially if your dog wants to dig in the mud, nonstop,
and carry the plants over to places he'd prefer to water
....with his own special nutrient blend.
yuck.
still,
after a lengthy running battle with the berserker beast,
i dropped in a few replacement parts along the raised beds
of this woodsly goodsly rock-edged stone-henged garden,
but it barely made a dent in the missing pieces and empty spaces.
winter was a real sunovab!tch this year,
and the plow guy was even more of one.
ugh.
it's hard to rep a singular day off without missing out on some stuff.
like sleep,
and enjoyment,
and leisure,
and elementary communication-
but,
that's the way it is.
every year,
there are harder and harder styles as the light stays on longer and longer outside.
there's more day, in some regards,
and so much less, in so many others.
the thing is-
it's all really happening,
and it's leading us somewhere,
with or without the decoder rings and invisible ink reagents required
to interpret the secret universal roadmaps we're navigating by.
where do we go from here?
to work, obviously.
that's all there ever is to do;
never quiet, never soft.....

self-effacing.

still at it:







the trick is to keep going:








and never ever ever stop.
otherwise,
it stops being a thing,
and becomes a used-to-be.
that's not as good, neighbors.
so,
i'm still going strong:









why?
you know why.
too much is the right amount,
and rules is rules.
that means the object is still MORE:




 




all the time,
every day.
and when i get tired of it?
yup.
i do it some more:

























that's how i stay focused.
fighting through the tedious spans,
and grinding away at each morning's routine,
waiting for the day to really begin.
it's all really happening:



that's the whole point;
never quiet, never soft.....

lunatic lunes

the whole enchilada?
more like-
a whole lotta enchiladas!!
yup.
mexican monday went off like a rocket, neighbors.
it did.
full-throttle high-performance hottness,
launching into the upper echelons of expertism,
with no room for error, and no room for anything else on our plates.
that's the truth.
guys,
i got home a half an hour early, and got crackin' like a whip-
but,
we ate about a half an hour later than usual.
why?
because i made a holy crapload of capital D-liscious food to stuff into both cheeks;
and to pack full up in the rest of my entire gaping, slavering maw,
a.k.a my fat F*ing face.
that's exactly what i did.
i sure am glad of it, too.
nothing quite amps up the shark-gluttonous activation like MORE.
mmhmm.
TOO MUCH IS THE RIGHT AMOUNT,
and there isn't time, or interest, in any kind of debate on the subject.
check the teleporte:

c'mon.
c'mon.
C'MON.
that's a gigante portion of pure awesome.
and it's piled on thick,
plied with all sorts of sauce,
and hot as heckfire with chilis an' that.
so,
what's poppin' on the plate?
SO MUCH.
guacamole is a must over here.
for realsies.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is focused on fresh avocado jauns.
with red onion, sweet rainbow peppers, red chili, poblano,
scallion, cilantro, garlic, GPOP, salt, pepper, lime, and lemon....
just eyeball that sh!t, and make it look the way you'd wanna eat it.
word up.
-
i got frisky with the arroz amarillo, kids.
i did.
minced onion, smashed garlic, olive oil, turmeric, rice, and a half a red chili,
steamed into silky softness, and super spice level eleven.
yikes.
it had that kind of secret heat that sneaks up on your tongue,
after the initial yum factor gets swallowed.
no joke.
it's some boomfire fuego,
and it has that creamy texture y'get when you let it rest correctly.
dang.
i almost felt badly for not having a bigger heap of it on my plate
(on red leaf lettuces, which put a nice crunch in there, for the record)
the thing of it is,
i had to make sure i cold accommodate the BIG action double headliners!
uh-huh.
that two chee' black bean quesadilla has got the support of every last one of my tastebuds.
yup.
one multigrain tortilla at a time,
with daiya cheddar melting on one half,
and black beans, cooked up with smashed tomato and scallion and GPOP,
dumped right on the sticky chee',
and then covered in daiya mozzarella, folded, squished,
flipped, and cut into thirds,
over and over, until the beans ran out, and we had ourselves a whole mess of 'dilla.
duders,
dousing them with ho' sauce promoted them to general hottness,
but the coconut lime crema?
WU-TANG!
that stuff might've granted them lesser deity status.
goodness, woodsly-style, served in preposterous quantities.
that's our move, and we make it every day.
what closed out the night?
enchiladas!
and on the ones,
if you ain't reppin' 'em like this?
you are absolutely effing up.
a fat slab of cashew-tofu rinotta-be-kidding-me underchee',
exxtra-oniony, peppery, buttery nootch-blasted refried beans,
poblano and sweet onion activated seared seitan strips, scallions and cilantro,
rolled up in flour tortillas, stacked in a pan,
and covered in homemade veggie gravy.
foil covered and steamed inside out in the oven for fifteen minutes at 350F,
and then hooked up with smoky ranchero enchilada sauce,
re-covered, and baked for another 10-ish with the heat turned up to 400.
when you hear the bubbly sizzle, that's when you know the magic is sufficient.
friends-
the sauce is RIGHTEOUS.
i mean it-
diced tomatoes, smoked paprika, bouillon, GPOP, coriander,
cumin, cilantro, bay leaves, black pepper, cayenne, ho'sauce,
onion, lots of garlic, chilis, and sweet peppers,
started before everything else,
and simmered until the last minute,
blended together, and loaded on those steamy sexy roulades of mexican mayhem.
kaBOOM.
it's an explosively dynamite dinner,
and that would've been true even if i hadn't layered those sexxy fresh tomatoes on top,
and blasted the whole shebang with scallion and cilantro sprankles.
except,
rules is rules,
and enough is never enough, y'know?
yeah.
you get me.
*
i had not one case of the mondays,
but i had one lunatic fringe of a lunes.
tonight, tho,
it's got to be leftovers,
because pizza and enchiladas go together like mixed marriages of convenience.
wait.
that's not right.
it just seems silly to allow the last slice or the last tasty tube to go to waste.
i guess it's all really happening,
even when it's all already happened at least once before;
never quiet, never soft.....

Pizza Party.

neighbors,
these busy busy weekends are trying to harshen up my little-bitty
insulated woodsly goodfellowship in these hills.
i mean it-
running around, running behind, and running in circles,
all without the cardiovascular benefits of a jog.
dang.
what happens when your days are overloaded and underlauded?
usually, if you're me,
you work even harder, burn even hotter,
douse the day in decibels and dour domination...
and all of that works up one heck of an appetite.
guys,
i knew from the jump it was gonna be a b-hole of a sunday.
i did.
it was.
i'm usually pretty spot on with the predictions.
so,
with the anticipation of hard-scrabblin' scramblin' for those movie checks
looming over my thoughts in the morning,
well in advance of the main host of those hard styles digging in and
doing their damnedest to eff up a perfectly pleasant sunday-
i prepared a batch of from-scratch double-dough,
y'know,
to ease my troubles, yo!
(if it rhymes, it is quantifiably truer than if it doesn't.)
ha.
that's real,
and it's a real treat to have the new hottness halfway there before you are.
yup.
no amount of bad day at the office can measure up against the best food
in the whole wide entire planet of earth.
word the F* up.
pizza night, friends.
that's the penultimate expression of expertism.
YEAH!
and,
it's the only way guaranteed way to ensure that high notes and sweet spots
are all hit in succession before the page-a-day flips over to tomorrow.
i doo-doo that freaky sh!t, and i even do it on sunday.
being hungry doesn't know what day it is,
and being dope doesn't CARE what day it is.
check the teleport:

C'MON!!!
you know that's a sexxxy-lookin' coupla pizza pies for your eyes.
delicious doesn't begin to describe the taste barrage we broadsided our 'buds with.
duders,
just LOOK at it:

that's the newest hottness on the block,
and and it absolutely brought the turbo-nitro-explosivo kaBOOMfire to the party.
daiya mozzarella, baconish strippers, and inner(ne' under)chee'-stuffed crust!!!!!!!
that's for real.
deep dish type dough,
cakey and flaky, but rolled thin,
and long,
and folded in on itself after a burly rim of stuffin' encircled the outer edge.
daaaaaamn, it has so much exxxtra deliciousness baked in there.
and with those big chunks of fried garlic peppering the crust???
expert.
and i mean, 
chee' is essentially crust-colored in tones of beigeish,
so stuffing it is a less visual and far more emotional experience...
but look a how legit this big slice of heroic day-saving delicacy is, anyway:

underchee', crushed tomatoes, daiya chee', fresh cashew-garlic blops,
and then MORE baconish,
broccoli, caramelized onions, and a few more drips and drops of sauce??!!?!?
holy sh!t.
if that doesn't do somethin' for you,
get your A* to the doctor immediately,
because you have a defective awesomometer,
and you desperately need recalibration.
no rough day could've withstood the level eleven viking victual reality
that pizza night has on offer here at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
no joke.
but,
while that jammie jaun was ready first, in about sixteen minutes of preheated 450-
and turned up with bonfuego boosters to 500 F degrees, of ovenly lovin'-
there was a whole other 'nother one waiting for us,
ten or so minutes after the numero uno was ready.
uh-huh.
you saw it up there,
now look a little bit closer:

MORE pizza than the pan can handle?
yes.
too much is the right amount,
and this guy is the poster boy for that rule in spades.
how many chee' can one pan hold?
a lot it turns out.
underchee on the bottom,
cheddar slices over that,
daiya mozzarella,
smoky paprika and GPOP juicy sauteed seitan chunks, with flash-fried basil
(a client the other day mentioned the superior activation of fried basil,
and although she wasn't paying ME for her tattoo, a good idea is still a good idea)
so dope.
plus, MORE daiya mozz',
caramelized onions, chopped baby spinach,
tomato sauce,
fresh wet burrata-be-kidding-me cashew-garlic chee',
and those giant fried garlic sprankles,
and baby basil leaves to bring it into the future?!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
holy flippin' crapola, kiddos-
the crust got so crispy on top, and so fluffy within, and so buttery throughout,
i almost couldn't believe it,
except that i was stuffing my face so hard, it had to be true.
four chee' deep dish, with triple-threat layers of lusciousness is what's good.
when you know you're in for it all day,
you just have to dig into it all night, too.
there's no such thing as too much of a good thing if you're doing it right.
*
i am a lucky man.
i've got a very small, very elite cadre of peoples;
but,
they're in the know, on the level, and down to ride or die and other 'hoodisms.
and there's plenty of pizza.
that's also pretty helpful.
Folk Life in the white mountains,
when you're not a social animal,
is a very intense and personal endeavor.
i'm happy i get to share some silver sliver of it with you,
and i'm very grateful for the time i have been given;
never quiet, never soft.....