Rosalind > Recent Status Updates

V - Vanilla
(Yes I read all the other letters and just didn’t post about them) A meditation on performing femininity in terms of the girlish teenage vanilla scent, specifically the one from Bath & Body Works (we all know the one). I never wanted to be that girly. I wanted to be tough, and stoic, and capable, much like the girls in my favorite books. But I still love a slinky dress and vanilla - best beware of boxes

S - Sugarcane
I would love to see Kara Walker’s work - The Marvelous Sugar Baby sounds like an amazing piece that truly captured the horror and blood and life tat went into the sugar industry in the Caribbean

R - Rhubarb

I knew that rhubarb leaves are poisonous and bad to eat, but what I learned here is that rhubarb’s roots are a powerful purgative or alternatively a cure for diarrhea. What a powerful plant.

Q - Quince
Thought by many Jewish scholars to be the fruit of good and evil from the Garden of Eden, as it has a strong, rosy, perfumed fragrance but an extremely astringent and sour taste. It also has so much natural pectin in it that people would make hair pomade (an early hair gel) from the excretions of its seeds in water, in high demand by hairdressers.

P - Pomegranate
Considered a fertility helper by the ancients, but in reality inhibited it.

Osage orange - I first saw one of these “monkey brains” in Prospect Park and found it terrifying yet awesome. Who could have guessed that nature makes Frankenstein’s brain? I learned here that they are inedible, good for nothing, and that Martha Stewart thinks they’re cute. I think she needs to get her eyes checked.

Umbilicaria: The belly button of the world - “My parents will celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary this year and seem to have just that kind of symbiosis, a marriage in which the balance of giving and taking is dynamic, the roles of giver and receiver shifting from moment to moment. They are committed to an ‘us’ that emerges from the shared strengths and weaknesses of the partners…”

Putting down roots - “At graduation ceremonies at Carlisle, the young men were required to take an oath: ‘I am no longer an Indian man. I will lay down the bow and arrow forever and put my hand to the plow.’ Plows and cows brought tremendous changes to the vegetation. Just as Mohawk identity is tied to the plants people use, so it was for the European immigrants who sought to make a home here.”

Burning Cascade Head - “The burnt and blackened soil heats up quickly and urges the shoots upward, fueled by the fertilizing ash, giving the elk and their calves a lush pasture in the midst of dark forests of Sitka spruce. As the season unfolds, the prairie is awash with wildflowers.”

Sitting in a Circle - I don't have a great quote for this one, but it's been fascinating to read this book alongside THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER and seeing Sinners too.

The sound of silverbells - “The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. My job was just to lead them into the presence and ready them to hear.”

In the footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming indigenous to place - “Every being with a gift, every being with a responsibility. He considered his own empty hands. He had to rely on the world to take care of him.”

The Honorable Harvest - so many good quotes from this it’s hard to choose (and I want to cook leeks now)
“Whether we are digging wild leeks or going to the mall, how do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives that we take?”

Maple Nation - A Citizenship Guide
“We do not pay at the pump for the cost of climate change, for the loss of ecosystem services provided by maples and others. Cheap gas now or maples for the next generation? Call me crazy, but I’d welcome a tax that would resolve that question.”

Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass
The “Western science worldview, which sets human beings outside of ‘nature’ and judges their interactions with other species are largely negative” was in opposition to the findings that harvesting sweetgrass actually stimulates growth.

Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket
“Slow down - it’s thirty years of a tree’s life you’ve got in your hands there. Don’t you owe it a few minutes to think about what you’ll do with it?”

The three sisters - I’ve learned about beans, squash and corn being the three sisters of indigenous and early American agriculture, but I did not realize the extent to which they complement each other - or that corn kernels are the analogous ovaries of the corn, the silk the canal through which they are fertilized.

An epiphany in the beans - how can we say the garden does not love us back when it flourishes with our love, care, and attention?

An epiphany in the beans - how can we say the garden does not love us back when it flourishes with our love, care, and attention?

N - Norton Grape
The only wine grape native to America. Useful recipes too (how to make red wine vinegar? Yes please)

N - Norton Grape
The only wine grape native to America. Useful recipes too (how to make red wine vinegar? Yes please)

M - Medlar
This fruit is only ripe once it’s rotten and was a Shakespearean term for slut. I think that’s enough.

L - Lump
This is a chapter not about a fruit of the vine but a fruit of the body, as the author typifies it - cancer. The body ripening in a way it is not supposed to. She writes of a friend whose 2 year tumor was at first mistaken by the student health center as a pregnancy, and her own cancer scare felt like a blueberry tight beneath the skin. Thoughtful and kind.

K - Kiwifruit
Renamed for the bird, who knew? And to avoid customs confusion over its original English name, Chinese Gooseberry (I suppose we’ve been putting tariffs on China forever). And it can be used as meat tenderizer because of an enzyme it contains? Fascinating. I enjoyed the vignette about working at a nursing home with her mother too.

K - Kiwifruit
Renamed for the bird, who knew? And to avoid customs confusion over its original English name, Chinese Gooseberry (I suppose we’ve been putting tariffs on China forever). And it can be used as meat tenderizer because of an enzyme it contains? Fascinating. I enjoyed the vignette about working at a nursing home with her mother too.

J - Juniper Berry

I wouldn’t have expected a chapter on abortion in this book, necessarily, especially in a chapter where the author continually cannot find much information or evidence of juniper being used for abortion. Still an interesting read, especially when the zine on using herbal remedies to abort suggests that a woman could feel guilty for a non-natural abortion. We really shame women for everything.

I - Italian Plum
This tree fruit is not so difficult- it requires very little active care to fruit - except that if you do not tend it’s harvest, it will rot and attract flies and vermin. Technically, like the author’s former paramour, it asks for nothing, but in reality, it needs care and attention.

H - Huckleberry
My favorite of the last few chapters. Huckleberries cannot be domesticated and are inherently wild - the easiest way to harvest them, raking and ripping leaves and branches, also means that next year’s harvest will be poor. The best way to harvest is by hand, peeking under each leaf. However, huckleberries do better after fires, so the indigenous people would set controlled fires to feast.

G - Gooseberry
Like most, I’ve only ever heard of these in the context of Snow White’s gooseberry pie. Apparently they are very sour and also full of pectin, the fruit starch that helps jellies gel and pie insides stand up straight. Judging the pies made at the state fair, the author tells us that the secret ingredient to a gooseberry pie is sugar. The ice cream recipe sounds amazing though.