Here’s an interesting market for super short (like one minute) screenplays. Winning entries receive a staged reading, with the overall winner going on to have the project filmed.
The current winner happens to be someone I’m proud to know—with a subject matter near and dear to my heart. Not to mention my stomach.
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The picture doesn’t do this bounty justice. All of which was less than seventeen bucks. And yes, that’s the last of the asparagus (sad to say goodbye—it’s been sooo good). The first (for me) of the strawberries—which, by the way, I learned recently, are best picked and eaten in the morning when the dew’s still on them—just in case any of you are heading out to a strawberry patch in the coming dewy days.
To the left, a pile of mini hothouse cukes, most of which got left out of the snap. (Tomatoes are also hothouse; I normally wait for vine-ripened, but it was my first day at the local farmers’ market, the sun was shining, and, well, I had a mad moment…)
From the garden, there’s this—
I’m slightly insane about salads. They would be my preferred last meal were I to face a firing squad and be offered a choice.
This one includes nettles, dandelion leaves, mesclun, arugula, lambs’ quarters and purslane. Oh, and nasturtium leaves and flowers for oomph and a peppery je ne sais quoi-ish quality that never hurts and is not hard on the eyes.
Also garlic. I couldn’t resist pulling one from the still ripening crop. Normally the ‘First Garlic Bulb of the Season’ is almost a ceremonial event around here. Not this year. I just yanked one out and diced a few perfect, crisp, translucent, completely-unlike-the-stuff-from-China cloves, then topped the whole schmozzle with my favourite dressing: olive oil and fresh lemon juice.
Anyway, definitely oodles to choose from at this time of year, right from our own ‘backyard’. (It’ll be months before I step inside a grocery store again, except to buy detergent and sardines.)
Sorting through shelves the other day, I happily re-discovered my copy of The Meaning of Liff, by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd (Pan Books
and Faber & Faber, 1983). Essentially a dictionary of words that are not words but should be. They are, in fact, place names in Great Britain that (as Adams and Lloyd write in the introduction): “…spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.”
They go on to say—
“Our job, as we see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society.”
To which I say hear, hear! Bloody lazy words. (And with so many things out there in need of a few well arranged letters to define them…)
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For example, a few under ‘A’:
Aberystwyth (n.): A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.
Abilene (adj.): Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.
Ahenny (adj.): The way people stand when examining other people’s bookshelves.
Ardslingnish (adj.) Adjective which describes the behaviour of Sellotape when you are tired.
Aynho (vb.) Of waiters, never to have a pen.
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Is is just me or does the whole world suddenly feel a teensy bit more coherent?
Matilda Magtree 