What I remember: Well, at this point, I remember most of it, since there are less than four months of the Q in our lives to recall.

Q was born in the city of Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, China. According to local police records, she was found at the age of 3 days, on the steps of a local hospital in the early hours of the morning, wrapped in a small pink quilt. She was born with a cleft lip and palate, which is most likely the reason for her abandonment, since many people in China are unable to sustain the medical costs of the various surgeries and speech therapies required to repair a cleft. She is also, of course, a girl, which could also have been the reason for her abandonment. Thanks to the one-child policy enforced in many Chinese provinces, many people would prefer to have a boy than a girl as their only child, since in China the boys are the ones who support their families into their old age.

Whatever the reason for her abandonment, we feel profoundly fortunate to have the opportunity to raise this amazing child.
I remember that she was placed in my arms, sound asleep, flushed and sweaty after a five-hour journey in the summer heat from her orphanage to the adoption office in Nanjing, where we met her for the first time.
I remember her resilience, her fortitude and her cheerful attitude during those first hectic days. I remember how many layers of history and culture we were privy to during our stay in China, how fortunate we felt for the opportunity, and how very, very ill we both were at certain points during the trip. I remember our first weeks home, sick as a dog and weak as a puppy with the parasites I picked up overseas, trying to come to terms with new motherhood, and this tiny, forceful individual with whom we had been entrusted.

And, of course, I remember the weeks since we have been together as a family. Quite possibly the most amazing weeks of my life. The astonishing fact of being parents to this unique, comical, brilliant, fiercely independent miniature human being. I remember her wacky sense of humor, evident since the start...her Marx Brothers eyebrow waggles, her giggles and face-squinches and belly laughs. She is so much more than we ever anticipated when we first dreamed of becoming parents. These days, we never tire of saying, "Can you believe....?"

p.s. - Do you not love the craquelure on the second Polaroid? She did that herself, with her own tiny fingers. At first, she was intrigued by the Polaroid, when I pulled it out of its dusty nook. But after she really studied it, noticed the photo paper emerging creakily from the slot after the flash went off, saw the image developing gradually from the chemical mist as she held the paper, she decided that Polaroids are an instrument of the devil - highly unnatural, and not to be trusted! Now, she runs to me and sobs against my chest every time the black machine noisily disgorges another piece of preternatural paper. And then she grabs the picture from me and crumples it. Sigh. On the bright side, she is now a part of my creative process.

What I remember:

My father was an artist, a metalsmith, a wood carver, an architect, a folksinger, a terrific cook and a brilliant flamenco guitarist. He jammed with Bob Dylan and with Woody Guthrie. He was charismatic and difficult. He was intense of emotion and quick of temper. He was a fast driver and a restless adventurer. On Halloween, he dressed as Emiliano Zapata, complete with real antique bandoliers and a greasepaint moustache. He often picked me up from school in a topless brown MGB, and the last car he owned in his life was a vintage British khaki LandRover with a hand-painted sign on the door that read "No Tengo Rancho". His hands were beautiful, and with them he could create absolutely anything he set his mind to. When I asked him for a sailboat, he carved me one from fruitwood, sanded and varnished to perfection, with a working rudder and a linen sail. He never went to the doctor and he never got cold. In the bitterest of winters, he wore a cotton shirt, a down vest, and buckskin gloves. He was never without his worn and flattened cowboy boots or his faded red bandana. When I was a child, he and I used to sing a duet of "Me and Bobby McGee" at parties.

Today's found photo

I love to browse antique markets, but often can't afford to buy anything. So it is always with an easter-egg-hunt sense of intrigue that I come upon the ubiquitous basket of vintage "found photos". At a quarter or two per photo, I can always afford to dip my hand into these treasure troves from the lives of others. Some people find it morbid, I suppose, but I love the mystery, the intrigue, the densely-scribbled pages of the book that was this or that unknown life.

This one, I love. Those outfits! And on the deck of a ship! It just doesn't get any better. How I covet those shoes (not that they would have fit on my size 11 tall-girl-feet)! The pearls! The cloche hats! And, oh, best of all...the gentleman in the middle. How can I choose what I love best about his outfit? I guess I'll have to go with the striped socks. Oh, how I love that man for wearing those striped socks with his knickers!! And look at his David Niven moustache!! Beautious.
Oh, P.S., Who do you suppose was torn out of the right side of this photo?? Intrigue, to boot!

Though this blog is not about salt, for some reason, ever since christening it, I can think of nothing but salt. Salt is everywhere - I hear it in the books I'm reading, in the wave sounds of our daughter's sound machine, in the music I listen to. I tasted brine on my fingertips as I dipped last night's Maine lobster into its attendant bowl of rich butter. I long to head down town to the spice market to peruse the subtle shades (pink, black, mineral-red) and textures displayed on their shelves of salt jars.

Particularly after the sugar-rush of yesterday's pastry cases, I couldn't resist a little collection of salt imagery for today's entry.
Bowls of salt from betterhealthnaturally.com
Salt flakes from joepastry.com
Salt crystal tea lamps from fengshuifusion.com

Clouds over the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah
The salt-white horses of the Camargue in Languedoc, where France's famous salts are harvested.
The Book of Salt by Monique Truong...this one is on my reading list.

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
My husband has this book, and read bits and snatches of it to me aloud last year while he was reading it. It was both fascinating and lyrical. I highly recommend!

Today we woke to a thin sheet of ice frosting our world, from car windows to deck slats. Suddenly, after long, languid days of Indian summer, it was winter again. Swimming with the tide, my husband, my daughter and I bundled up and piled into the car for a little zen driving.
What should we happen upon, but a musty and vast antique market, a farm breeding miniature donkeys, and this...the Das Meyer Pastry Chalet. Who, I ask you, could drive past a sign reading "pastry chalet"? Not us.

This working farm, complete with windmill, has been serving as a family-run handmade pastry bakery since before suburbia encroached on the high plains surrounding our fair city. Three generations of farmers-slash-bakers were present on the premises, cooing to their babies, arranging pastry cases, and dreaming up fanciful wedding cakes.
What more could anyone hope for on the afternoon of a high-plains ice storm?

Welcome, and...a little about this blog.

This is a bit of an experiment - a journey to a dusty room in my mind, an attic room shot with sun motes and smelling of old maps. It's a room I haven't visited much in recent times, but with good reason. These have been times of great tectonic shifts in my life, times of arduous transition. I have become a wife (something I never hoped to be) and a mother (something I never planned to be). Each of these things has been a brilliant shard of happiness, something quite other than I ever suspected it of being. Now, feeling at ease in my new life, adrift on its surface like a small boat - tethered and dreaming, I feel it's time to return, and roam the corridors of my imagination once again.

Here I am, ready to open the swollen, creaky door, dust out the corners, clear out a few of the cobwebs that have collected (though not too many...since they create a nice effect) and set to work.

It's exciting...my fingertips are tingling with anticipation. What to make? What to collect? What to tack up on the walls of this room of mine? My hand is inches from the doorknob...I can just see a sliver of light from an attic window, and hear a flutter of wings in the eves.

But first, a preface. I have tagged this blog une envie...which, in French, means something between a craving and a desire, as you would crave a cup of coffee, or a particularly light pastry, frosted and dewy, set behind reflective glass. I like the word, because I often crave imagery that way - so intensely that it makes my mouth water. This "room" is where I will keep the imagery that makes me crave, like truffles in a pastry case, like sugared almonds in a paper cone, like the smell of roasting chestnuts on a city street.

The blog itself, as you see, is called "Une Envie de Sel", or a craving for salt. I happened upon it as the title of a food piece in a French magazine, and liked the ring of it, like the rap of a butterknife on crystal. I like it on multiple levels, which is what makes it right. I like it because it is more or less the opposite of "a craving for sugar", which would, of course, be too obvious. I like it because salt is a spice, perhaps the purest spice, and our life is all about food - my husband being a reformed chef, and our world centering around our cluttered and well-used kitchen. We are sybarites in this way - sybarites of meager means. What money we have, we often spend on indulging our love for food - both frivolous and essential. Then there are the more random and mystic elements - for instance, a doctor once diagnosed me as needing more salt in my diet. Who, I ask you, needs more salt? Most people are told they need less salt. This remains a mystery even to me. And then there's the fact that my great uncle Josef, the man who married my great aunt Madeleine (who was previously a nun...but that's another story) was a "salt farmer" in the south of France. I wrote an essay about him in grade school. So you see, it was just....right.

In any case, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to my secret room...