Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

This may be slightly premature as we have not yet crested upon the official mid-point of winter, that will arrive the first week of February I believe, but I’m looking quickly forward to the future and hoping to hasten things along, particularly with the current state of the world. Everyone is a little uneasy, and we are certainly right to feel so. These are indeed perilous times – perhaps more-so than we even know.

This blog was created, and still exists for the moment, as an antidote to such times, if not for the entertainment and delight of you the reader, then certainly for the entertainment and delight of myself as the creator. Writing and conjuring images is the alchemy in which I practice, and I always hope the end result is something that leaves me slightly changed for the better, or at the very least feeling less alone.

Thus far, in the seventeen years I’ve had this website (we’ll begin our 18^thyear this month!) I’ve found this work a form of peace and solace, a form of creative and artistic expression that has worked as well as therapy. Because of that, I’ve kept it going, even on the days when my ambition slags, and inspiration is difficult to find. I do feel like we are deep in the winter of this blog’s life, but there’s no telling how long a winter might be. 

Pining for the baked goods at Cafe Madeleine in Boston, I searched the web for an approximation of their Cape Cod cookie. Typically this time of the year finds them closed until early spring,  and it is always with great sadness that I find the sign on the shop that says see you in March. In that respect I’m accustomed to going without their deliciousness through the winter – but with COVID I haven’t had a sweet treat from them in almost a year. And so my thoughts have been obsessing over a cookie which is not usually my style (the cookie, I mean, not the obsessing – I’ll always obsess and I’m not sorry about it).

Many people enjoy an oatmeal and raisin cookie, but I get a hankering for them maybe twice a year. The Cape Cod cookie is an exception. It uses oats and golden raisins, cranberries and candied orange and ginger (I think) so I set about to capturing that and found a recipe that looked good. 

It’s got a lovely trio of spices so it packs a flavorful punch, perhaps more than the original. In this version there is freshly-grated nutmeg, ground cloves, and cinnamon. 

Of course there are oats, though I used the wrong sort (I think I needed rolled instead of quick – this being my first shallow-dive into the word of oats I was already annoyed.) 

Luckily there was candied ginger and since I wasn’t the one making it there was nothing that could go wrong with that ingredient. I chopped them up and enjoyed the sharp, sweet fragrance. 

Cranberries took the place of raisins, as it should be. They formed the tart heart of the whole affair, blending magically with the sharpness of the candied ginger, and mingling magically with the trio of spices to conjure a winter respite for the tongue. The recipe I found called for a half cup of dark chocolate, so I added some mini chips because chocolate is never wrong.

Cozy and spicy and warm, this was the perfect cookie for a snowy night. I’ll tweak it a bit the next time I make it. I’d like to find some candied orange, and I might try adding some golden raisins like the original. There also must be a way to make it a bit bulkier with less tendency to spread, as in this magnificent beast. 

Winter is a good time for cookie experimentation, especially when it reminds me of Boston and cafe-culture and a world that feels centuries away…

The snow in these photos is long gone, brushed out of the boughs by dry winds that either soaked it up or knocked it to the ground. Such snowy prettiness doesn’t last long in these parts, when snow is too often accompanied by wind, but on the morning of our most recent storm, it was good enough to let the beauty linger. The delay afforded my late morning venture (hanging out the window to get these shots), allowing enough time to grab the fluffy white stuff before it went away. That was days ago. The branches are bare now, and the skies are gray. There is wind too, but no more snow to pull down. 

It is said that we just had the most depressing day of the year (January 6). This time it was depressing for more than the typical post-holiday-blues reasons and the seemingly endless stretch of winter days ahead of us. The world is in turmoil, the world is in tumult. We hang onto whatever is around us, grasping desperately for what we know, what is comfortable, what is safe. And maybe nothing is anymore. 

Puts me in the mind of an Adrienne Rich poem…

Look: this is January the worst onslaught
is ahead of us Don’t be lured 
by these soft grey afternoons these sunsets cut
from pink and violet tissue-paper by the thought 
the days are lengthening 
Don’t let the solstice fool you: 
our lives will always be 
a stew of contradictions 
the worst moment of winter can come in April 
when the peepers are stubbornly still 
and our bodies 
plod on without conviction 
and our thoughts cramp down before the sheer 
arsenal of everything that tries us: 
this battering, blunt-edged life 
– Adrienne Rich

A Twitter friend recently brought the brilliance of Brené Brown to my attention, and I’d like to share some of that with you now. There’s never a bad moment for finding inspiration, even if it happens in the newly-peaceful realm of Twitter. Here are several of Ms. Brown’s thought-provoking quotes:

“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimise the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

“Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up.”

“A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we’re defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you’re not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, â€˜Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again’—my gut reaction is, â€˜What a badass.’”

“What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?”

There is no silence as silent as the silence that follows a snowfall at night. Cradled by its blanket of snow, the world slumbers contentedly, not bothering to barely elicit the quietest of sighs. In the sky, the faded echo of the moon peeks over the shoulders of bare oak trees, then moves on in its nightly journey. 

 Not even the squirrels or rabbits seem to want to disturb this peace at first, waiting until morning to make their paths and mark their trails. I wonder what the owls do. Do they shake the snow off their heads, shifting their feet and shifting more snow as it falls from such lofty boughs? I listen for them, but no one is talking on this night. Embracing the mystery of winter, I shudder in the cold, even as there is warmth in beauty. 

Most of the time, candles don’t capture the fragrance they say they will. Lavender and vanilla scents are the most common offenders, with all sorts of weird sweet and sickly chemical odors masquerading as their real essences. As such, I’m a picky candle selector, insisting on deeply inhaling any candle I’m about to purchase unless it’s a known brand and scent. That’s proven impossible in this day and age, when I’m as afraid to remove my mask as I am to touch an object in any given store. Luckily, I know my favorites, and the one that has been my mainstay for many years has been this ‘Greenhouse’ variety by Yankee Candle. 

It smells exactly like the greenhouse/florists of my childhood, when I’d wander in as a young boy and the owners would eye me suspiciously until I started asking them questions about whether the African violet in bud was semi-double or double, and if they were due to receive any new bromeliads in the next week. Wherever we’d travel, I’d keep an eye out for the local florist – I remember a tiny little flower shop in Boston when we were visiting with Mom. It was across the street from our hotel, and it was all I cold think about. It was just a tiny little thing at the base of what I would later discover to be the other side of Beacon Hill, barely enough room for two people to turn around in at once, but it was all I needed. To be surrounded by all the lush green foliage, and that gloriously pungent odor of earth and leaves and flowers – it felt like paradise – then and now. 

So if anyone is looking for a basic, simple gift for me, you know – just because – this would make an excellent choice because one can never have enough of such a good thing. 

America just barely survived a coup attempt by Trump and the MAGA domestic terrorists, and the fact that some people are still ok with that and want to move on is so unfathomable and infuriating, I’ve needed to decompress. Here’s the brief encapsulation: at the prompting of Trump, a mob of angry MAGA Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, where our nation’s elected leaders were at work, and broached and defiled that sacred space in the name of sedition and overthrowing American democracy. It ended with five people dead, including one police officer.

My husband is a retired police officer, so this probably hit our home a little harder than all the awfulness of Trump’s MAGA terrorists has hit us over the past four years – which for me has been pretty damn hard. Hopefully justice is finally on the way for all involved in the insurrection. We have no more patience for it. Trump incited this. The GOP and media enabled it. I’ve been harping on and pointing it out for four years and I’m officially done with anyone giving space for all the hatred, racism, homophobia, and fascist bullshit that has resulted. All the ‘both sides’ nonsense, the false equivocations, the benefit of the doubt – no more. We don’t abide traitors to American democracy, and every little step that Trump supporters, Trump enablers, and MAGA terrorists have taken over the last four years has been noted. On with the recap, and on with justice.

Basement by candlelight. 

First pho of the year.

A snowy scene of calm.

Floating snowy world. 

A message for the MAGA terrorists.

Sometimes only a cookie will do. 

A moment of weariness.

A snowy night surrounds. 

Wild & crazy Saturday night. 

My Mom always makes me proud. 

I made this soup for my Dad. 

Here’s the deal: it’s Saturday night, America just barely survived a fucking coup attempt, and I just need a Cadbury Creme Egg before the world comes to an end.