Outside the winter wetlands of Sweden continue to breakdown animal and vegetal matter into a rich loam feeding tree, deer, duck and wandering humans. Inside, I continue to enhance the decay of the world in a pot.
A crucial step in the final bog, that rich gumbo broth, occurs with the making of a roux, one of the most wonderful events in cooking. Butter, flour and time on low heat achieves a glorious dark, yellow, sweet and savory liquid.
As my inner lake bubbles away the ten thousand things of the world, I sweat onions and peppers and celery in a Holy Southern Trinity of bubbling goodness.
Hours later, I add the roux with veg to the stock and an orange-yellow lake forms, a bright ochre.
As bright an ocher as the bright ochre dress in Johannes Vermeer’s The Wine Glass.
Well, then come the cod and the mussels, and finally the pot of land, sea and sky squeaks into existence. Time to eat.
Time to eat and watch the ending scene of “The Secret Fate Of All Life,” a bit of Bayou Noir if you will, from True Detective. A walk with Rust Cohle through an abandoned school, twigs and twine twisted into small effigies, and the talk of what time can do to a human being.
Like a bog, I suppose. Here is the entire ending song as performed by Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness in a bog, who thought? Bon Appétit.