For once in my life, I woke up before 8 a.m. Therefore I spent time wiping down the countertops in the kitchen and taking out the compost, as well as assembling the batter for a pound cake (to be eaten at tea time) and putting it in the oven.
We had a nice communal breakfast once everyone was awake: coffee and bread rolls and radishes and parsley and cheese and marmalade. There was also ham; J. ate it sanguinely, but I decided it would be best not to consume it at this point in its 'life cycle.' I put the sprig of parsley with the radishes under the impression that upper-middle-class Englishmen during the Edwardian period used parsley to decorate everything.
Then I went to the Turkish street market again, which was as lively as last time. Tulips in bold kindergarten-room colours are growing everywhere along the streets on the way to the market, cheerful and welcoming. Adult leaves in miniature are beginning to spread greenly on the lilacs, maples, and alders; and there were crinkly little leaves on the horse chestnut trees. Many well-grown maple trees are still 'sprinkling' their golden-censer-like flowers into the air as they did last week; it reminds me of the red maple tree that grew on the family's property in Canada and where I took a twig or two (along with tulips and a purple 'silver dollar' flower) to my grandfather in hospital when it was his birthday. But a few trees and bushes are still bare.
At the market I bought two smaller Persian cucumbers, three oranges, and eight pale red apples, but there were a few things I didn't see in the market. So I set off to a Mediterranean import shop nearby in search of white wine; a saleslady recommended a German 'Weißer Burgunder' from the Mosel region as a wine that would pair well with asparagus.
Then I went to the organic food shop that I've mentioned before (I think), the one with the air of having been ensconced in the street for at least four decades: an elegant dark green cloth awning, baskets woven of branches with seasonal produce at the sidewalk, and indoors a long wooden counter. There I found raspberries and whipping cream, a piece of poppyseed cake, and fennel bulbs. But the asparagus was eye-wateringly expensive — over 7 Euros for a little 500 g bundle — so I didn't get it.
Lastly, I went to the newspaper kiosk.
*
I've had a long-running one-sided feud against Die Zeit but was going to buy it anyway. Yet when I saw in the kiosk that one issue cost 5.70 €, I went with Die Welt instead. I'd never read it before and wanted to see what it was like. It was amusing to see the election of the Green Party described as the first stage of a horrifying dystopia — the newspaper is politically aligned to centre-right parties in Germany; and I hopped with rage when I read the relentless whining about anti-coronavirus measures by the people who seemingly in every real financial metric are affected least.
*
Lunch:
Macaroni and cheese
Pommes duchesse
I think I never want to make pommes duchesse again... Hopping around the kitchen while forcing the potato mixture through the piping tube was highly entertaining for the ringside audience, but a little embarrassing for me.
*
Afternoon tea:
***
After we had eaten our fill, I went to my room and — like a typical Edwardian young lady of means — 'took a drawing class.'
For that purpose, I took out The Natural Way to Draw. It is a textbook started by an American art teacher who died young in the 1930s, Kimon Nicolaides, but finished by his students and published by his family.
I read the introduction and part of the first chapter, found a cardboard box and a large piece of wrapping paper and paper clips and pencils, and began practicing contour and gesture sketching for over half an hour.
For the contour sketch I drew a lamp on the desk; the result looked far from good, but it was less horrible than expected. For the gesture sketches, I looked out the window at the sidewalk as dusk fell. It was entertaining sketching (mostly stick figures of) passersby. It was mind-blowing that there are such striking differences in the way in which people walk, run or cycle — and how many different things (shopping bags, backpacks, disposable coffee cups) people carry — once I really look.
As night fell and it felt better to do something else, Ge. helped me start our vinyl record player. It seems pretty state-of-the-art, but I have been pretending that it is an early 'gramophone' for Edwardian-experiment purposes. I listened to classical music while reading and perching on the coal stove for warmth. It was genuinely nice.
Programme — please excuse the laziness of not finding out the KV numbers etc.:
*
At 10 p.m. I had to stop because a work task needed to be done. So I left the Edwardian experiment and turned on my laptop.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment