grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

  • Home
  • About
  • Media
  • Crafts
  • Farm
  • Food
  • Garden
  • Reading & Books
  • Sunday Letter
  • SHOP!
  • Privacy Policy

Parmesan Croutons – take your salad to a whole other level

July 21, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner 2 Comments

Parmesan Croutons

The next time you make a salad, add homemade Parmesan croutons to take your greens to a whole other level. Like the top floor. The ease of preparing these croutons compared to the flavor added will leave you wondering why you don’t always have homemade Parmesan croutons on hand. I call this the Flavor Multiplier Effect (FME) something I just created based on all that economic theory I learned at Baylor in the eighties. Sounds official, doesn’t it?Continue Reading

Fiscal Cliff

December 31, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner 8 Comments

Today is a big day. 
Yes, today is New Year’s Eve and my husband’s birthday. But today is also the day we fall over the Fiscal Cliff into new territory. 
My only cliff jumping experience involves summers spent at the lake. Jumping into the serene waters of Lake Norfork in Mountain Home, Arkansas is not the same as falling into economic uncertainty caused by the political muck and mire of Washington DC.  But it’s my only basis for comparison.

In a nutshell…
Standing on the edge of the cliff can be intimidating, especially when the lake water is low from drought. Further to fall…one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi YIKES! The hike to the top is invigorating, don’t look down, one step at a time, the sun warms my skin, the rocks glisten like quartz. I didn’t realize how far down the water would be… The lake is beautiful and expansive. But so far to fall…
It’s too late to change my mind. I can’t walk back down, no way. I should have thought it through better before I got to this point. No choice now but to jump. 
The angle of entry is critical. A straight stiff body with tightly held arms glides into the lake smoothly but the water is deep and cold and dark before re-surfacing. 
Jumping with loosey-goosey arms and legs is never a good idea. The water slaps and stings the skin, maybe even bruising. Boaters gathered in the cove all moan a collective “OUCH!”
Diving? Heaven forbid! This ensures a nose full of water which is never a good feeling. But my sinuses will be clean, unless I break my neck on an unseen rock deep on the bottom of the lake.
The choices…
a) the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts go into effect, resulting in decreased deficit and rapid recession with loss of jobs and broken necks; 
b) some or all of the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts are cancelled, resulting in continued soaring, bruising debt and a potential crisis like that of Europe; 
c) something in the middle—a compromise with higher taxes and reduced spending to lessen the impact on growth. (deep dark cold but more smooth)
Regardless, I’m afraid we will get a snoot full of water before we re-surface. 

talya

Musical Pairing:

A Change Would Do You Good, Sheryl Crow

Choiring Trees

June 6, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner 13 Comments

My brain hurts. Writing and thinking and revising and listening is exhilarating to the point of exhausting. Especially listening. Listening is the tricky part, listening to my own thoughts and hearing what I have to say. What if there is nothing to hear? A dull ache had been building all morning behind my left eyebrow. I found myself rubbing this spot, trying to get the ideas to flow from behind the throb. After lunch I took a break, disappearing beyond the barn, beyond the trees to a grassy patch, underneath an old tree that has likely kept watch over this property for years. Flat on my back with shut eyes, I felt the warm sun on my arms and face. The birds chattered. A distant train. There was a nice breeze that moved the trees to stir, to sing.

My canvas book bag became my pillow. Inside, a short story I had written. Dr. Lott had edited it this morning, returning the pages to me over lunchtime lasagna. My first feedback at this retreat. I was excited to read his comments, but anxious, like waiting on a big test grade in school. Right off I saw the pages were filled with comments, blue ink scribbled in the margins, his thoughts, his professional opinion. I stuffed it in my book bag, like a note passed in school tucked away to savor later when all was quiet and my head was clear. Afraid to read the suggestions but longing for reaction, I would digest it after the aspirin had a chance to work its magic. These pages, my words, now made the stuffing of my makeshift pillow. I was careful not to crumple them.

Opening my eyes, I studied the leaves, imagining the view to be that of Donald Harrington’s as depicted in his Ozark tales of fictitious Stay More, Arkansas. His tree colors included every shade of green from spring pea to black forest, like crayons in the jumbo box, the box with the sharpener in the back. But more than the shades of green, he described the lilting sound of the trees, the choiring of the trees. I heard the choiring of the trees this afternoon. 

Studying for final exams in college we often joked about sleeping with a book, with our head resting against a bulky economics textbook. As if the sheer nearness of the written theories and definitions and charts inside would seep into our brains allowing us to awake with amazing clarity, with the ability to discuss the Keynesian spending multiplier with the same ease of counting to 100 or making skillet cornbread. Maybe as the trees sang, Dr. Lott’s wisdom would percolate on the pages of my short story, filtering into my head. 
This peaceful moment was interrupted with a bee sting on my arm. It was a sweat bee, more of a nuisance than a sting. I hadn’t thought of a sweat bee in years. Do they only exist in Northeast Arkansas? I gathered my book bag pillow and returned to my writing spot inside the barn. Pulling out the marked up short story, I was thankful Dr. Lott doesn’t use a red pen.

Immediately I noticed, “Perhaps a bit of description here?” My husband begins sentences with ‘perhaps’ when he is attempting to be diplomatic. But I understood this suggestion, and it was easy to add. We had spent time this morning discussing story endings. What makes a good ending or a confusing ending, a strange ending, an ending that makes you wish you had not wasted your time, or an ending that leaves you wanting more? Quickly jumping to the last page of my story he had written, “Good ending… the characterization is very good.”

Nowhere on the paper did he offer, “Perhaps you should return to banking…”

Whew. 

talya
“February came. He imagined the buds were a-swelling. The trees were not going to sing for another month or more, but the buds swole up as if the trees were humming in practice and tune-up.” Donald Harrington, The Choiring of the Trees

Talya Tate Boerner


Hi! I'm Talya. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE (2016)

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law (2020)

BERNICE RUNS AWAY (Now Available!)

Click to BUY NOW!

Talya Tate Boerner books
Gene, Everywhere

Never miss a blog post! Subscribe via email:

Receive my Monthly Newsletter?

Most Popular Posts…

  • Chicken Tortilla Soup
  • Yum Yum Cake - old southern recipe!
  • Nana's Strawberry Cake (the real one)
  • Peking Roast (a Keiser's Kitchen recipe)
  • The Best Beef Stew!

Most Recent

  • Chicken Tortilla Soup
  • Sunday Letter: 01.29.23
  • Sunday Letter: 01.15.23
  • Sunday Letter: 01.08.23
  • Sunday Letter: 12.18.22

Prior Posts

Search Categories

Tags

A to Z April Blog Challenge Autumn BAT Book Reviews childhood Christmas creative writing prompt Dallas Desserts Eureka Springs Fall Fayetteville Food Gracie Lee Halloween Hemingway-Pfeiffer home humor Johnson Family Keiser Lake Norfork Lucy and Annabelle Mississippi County Mississippi Delta moving Munger Place Nana nature Northeast Arkansas Northwest Arkansas Osceola poem Reading Schnauzer simple living simple things spring spring gardening Summer sunday letter Talya Tate Boerner novel The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee Thomas Tate Winter Wordless Wednesday
Follow on Bloglovin

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!

All content and photos Copyright Grace, Grits and Gardening © 2023 · Web Hosting By StrataByte