I know I'm always droning on about making your own this and growing your own that. My life must seem like some sort of Laura Ingalls Wilder fever dream. The truth is, between one thing and another, things are pretty hectic here, too. Just 'cause I'm a country gal, it don't mean I got all the time in the world. But I do what I can, and I can when I can. Don't be put off by putting up! (OK, I'll stop now.) Seriously, just because you don't have the time or inclination to be canning pint after pint of jams and pickles, doesn't mean you can't throw together a quick batch just to keep in the fridge. Skip the whole "canning" step entirely! Make one jar of chutney or one pint of pickles. Here, for instance is less than half a pound of garlic scapes I picked up at the farmers market. I decided to pickle them and the whole process took about 15 minutes. You can do this.
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Over the Christmas holidays last year, G and I traveled to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos with our friends Lisa and Philip. We saw beautiful temples, explored the overgrown wonder that is Angkor Wat, took a boat ride up the Mekong, strolled through the art galleries of Saigon, ate countless bowls of pho, slurped down many coconut frosties, and bought way more Cambodian silk than anyone has a right to. Among the trip's highlights were the many markets we visited. The gorgeous fresh produce, the delicious food being cooked on the spot, sparkling seafood on display and, yes, plenty of other, less appetizing things—like roasted roaches (Philip ate some and said they tasted like nuts), snakes on a stick and a few unidentifiable substances in varying states of decay.

We were pretty restrained about eating on the street like that, having picked up assorted parasites on other trips (and having all become violently ill on this one after eating the homemade paté de foie gras of a French expat at his tiny bistro in Siem Reap). But thanks to the fabulous Australian Luxe guides we were turned on to a fantastic restaurant with branches in both Hanoi and Saigon. I think they were both called Quan An Ngon, but since the guide described them as being as big and packed as "Pam Anderson’s bra," that's how we referred to them.
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I've had some positive feedback on my round-ups of ingredients, so here's a new one for you. This time it's vinegar, in some of its many permutations. As children, my sisters and I called each other "Vinegar Pig." This originated from our love of drinking glugs of white vinegar straight from the bottle while dyeing Easter eggs. I've never been one to shy away from sour pickles or throat-scratchingly tart salad dressings, and I'm still known to take a swig from the bottle of balsamic, but I think by now I've learned how to employ vinegar to slightly more subtle effect.
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If only G were not out of town, this is how we would have looked today. Instead, I forged out into the wilderness on my own, snowshoes strapped onto my boots, hood up and ski gloves on. The sun was like a 40-watt bulb, its pale yellow light barely cutting through the grey haze. The path was silent, the new snow muting my Yeti-like footfalls, and just one delicate waxwing flitting along beside me. I rounded a bend and there were three deer, noses to the ground. Another step toward them and they bounded away, their upturned tails like ivory plumes vanishing into the woods. (With the clarity that comes to me when I'm fasting, I realized that I will always have this place. When I'm old, I will return to it—in mind if not in body—and it will still afford me this sense of peace.) Back home, I had a steaming cup of mint-lemon balm tea, brewed from herbs dried from the garden this summer.
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Would it surprise you to know that I'm a lazy slob when it comes to cleaning my own house? And for the last god-knows-how-many years, I've been lucky enough to pay someone else to do it. Money I consider extremely well-spent. But now that I'm  a country mouse in my own little house, living in a town where the only cleaning person a neighbor of mine could find was an unreliable meth addict (is there any other kind?), I've been forced to take things into my own hands. Before you go all Betty Friedan on me, let me say that I get plenty of help from the husband. And I also rely on a host of natural cleaning products.
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