My dearest, I wonder where you are and how you are, I hope all is well with you. I'm sitting up here, a bit past six, after dark already, cozy black sweater draped over my shoulders. I had a very pleasant day, nothing too exciting or ambitious, but things got done, the day ambled along, and had its little gratifications, such as a gift certificate from the bakery in the mail this morning - for several times the amount of the missed loaf of bread.

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... Just a quick note again, to say thank you - I just received your very generous gift certificate & note in the mail. I am delighted - even a little blown away - at what a positive experience this little mishap has turned out to be. Truly there's a lesson in there - perhaps that we do not, indeed, live by 'bread alone' - but as well find sustenance in warm & gracious gestures such as yours. I look forward to selecting more of your wonderful breads with your gift certificate, next time I'm in Rhinebeck. Thank you very much again! All the best, Belle

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Beyond that, I did some cooking today, a wonderful lunch of roast chicken and pan-roasted root vegetables: cubed butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot, red onion, and Japanese turnips, all tossed with minced garlic, salt & pepper, and EVOO. The turnips were a revelation - an unfamiliar taste to me, spritely-delicate & flavorful - not what I expected at all. That is, my expectations were pretty low - I thought they might be rather bland, like parsnips, or possibly, on the other end of the spectrum - given their freshness, tiny size & heirloom provenance - sharp as radishes. Which in fact, I was initially thinking of using these tiny white turnips raw in a salad - which I suppose I could do - and might have - except that I still have radishes in the fridge to get to. So these turnips got roasted - amazingly delectable. I never thought I might go on and on about... turnips!

It's Wednesday, so the baguette I'd bought on Sunday was by now sufficiently "day-old" to make croutons. I'm glad I got in a workout and a walk today, because I kept sneaking bites of the delicious baguette - tiny crust ends that I slathered with butter, a couple of bread cubes that I'd tossed with minced garlic and EVOO before putting in the oven - oh so good, reminding me of wonderful meals I've had at the now defunct Caffe Carcioffo on Court Street, that would offer, as one perused the menu and sipped from a glass of wine, warm baguette and a little plate of the most magnificently fragrant & flavorful olive oil that you'd dip a morsel of bread into and pop into your mouth - heaven. The pre-cooked croutons were just like that - and afterward, baked? Oh my word.

But no food-porn here, darling, just the real deal, I did, before noon, have a wonderful time with you yet again on that settee, I've gotten really good at super-charging batteries. It's great that they're rechargeable - they take 13 hours to juice up - but I've found that if I juice them up a bit more beyond that (because once the tiny green light on the charger goes out, even if it's plugged into the wall the energy seems to run out) --- well. It amps things up mightily, and is not the time-soaker it once was, back months ago when I was a neophyte at these mechanical/imaginal practices. And so I had all sorts of time then, for walks & workouts, and cooking, and reading more of the Malcolm book on Chekhov, and wondering if 1.0 finds the St. Petersburg airport as Malcolm does (at page 155)...

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[Sergei and Nelly] met me at the St. Petersburg airport, a place that time seems to have forgotten. The terminal, of an early totalitarian-modern style, is worn and faded, leached of all menace. It was empty and silent. Here and there along the stone-floored corridor leading to passport control, a spindly potted palm inclined toward a dusty window. No other flight had come in--perhaps ours was the flight of the day or week--and it took no time to get through the formalities. Sergei picked up my suitcase, and he and Nelly led me to the car, which was parked in a small lot directly in front of the terminal. Was I in Mother Russia or at the Brewster, New York, train station?

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Malcolm's book was published in 2001. Dear 1.0, if you happen to be passing through there in coming days, perhaps you can keep an eye out for that spindly potted palm, if it is still there - such things have a way of hanging on, if barely, like the Russian people themselves.

And that's it for now, dearest love. Many kisses wherever you are. There's always room in my bed for you, in the wee hours of the night when I wake up - there you are. And I hope the same is true wherever you are - squeeze over, darling, give me a bit more of those covers and put your arms around me. You feel wonderful, every part of you.