Spargel for Edward Gorey, Harvard '50

A bit of ghostly asparagus (from Germany, last summer...therefore, Spargel long gone) for Edward Gorey. Because. I think he might've liked the idea, the impermanence of it, the colorless tremulous sproutiness of it. And boy, is it good (when fresh) with a little butter or in a bit of heavenly soup. 

My favorite Gorey story is one I heard in a knitting class (I have taken approx. 3.5 knitting classes in my life, and none of them stuck). It was in Santa Cruz, of all places, and we were sitting there quietly making dolls (okay, I quit the knitting class and took the dollmaking class instead...it suited me better. But it did start off in a knitting way...). Anyway, somehow, as we were sewing our little doll bodies we must've been talking about children's books and one of the other moms volunteered that she had grown up in the very same town in which Edward Gorey lived, and I almost fell off my chair in rapture, to think that I was sitting in the same room as her. Whatever. Well, she thought it was funny that I was so amazed and then she told the story I love...

which basically was: when our wonderous Mr. Gorey passed onto to the next stage of ultimate Goreyness, he left note in his will that his house was to be opened up and whatever any of the town's people wanted they should just wander in and take. Or something like that. 

Have I made this up? Def. not. Have I remembered it correctly? Perhaps not. 

Do I love it anyway, the thought of the bemused folk coming to 8 Strawberry Lane, Yarmouthport, Massachusetts...wandering through Edward's seminally Gorey house and quietly, curiously, one by one, carting away his things? Yes. No question. I love the thought of it, of his generousity, of his quirky open-mindedness, of his gifts.

Well, I've just linked this to the Edward Gorey House, so when I return from buying milk and eggs I will have to have a look myself and see if there's any bit o' truth in it...anywhere.

For now, may I suggest "The Haunted Tea Cosy," and a sweet biscuit or two for dessert?