Weather or not

 Hard to know how to dress lately.  Yesterday I left Concord in 93 degrees with sunglasses on and by the time I got to the highway, the sky was a dark brown and the wind was whipping.  There were branches all over the road and waves on the pond, then torrential rain.  It was 66 degrees by the time I got to hopkinton.  But we didn't even get any appreciable rain, at least in Contoocook and the garden could really use it.  Still, there's great bounty.  Incredible asparagus this year and we should probably start selling rhubarb...This was a recent, most delicious preparation from Jacques Pepin.  (of asparagus, not rhubarb...)

I'm wending my way through a variety of books lately, dipping into Bill Buford's memoir "Dirt" about his time spent in France learning to become a chef.  Pretty tasty.  But I'm more immersed in this one: From National Book Award-nominated writer Andrea Lee comes Red Island House, a travel epic that opens a window on the mysterious African island of Madagascar, and on the dangers of life and love in paradise, as seen through the eyes of a Black American heroine.

And I'm listening to Martin Chuzzlewitt...still.  Dickens really was paid by the word, but I'm savoring every one of them, filled with those wonderful Dickensian characters named things like Pecksniff, Chuffy, Spottletoe, Slyme, Gimp and Mould, the undertaker...It's a perfect delight and escape.  It probably makes me drive around more than I should.