WOTblog

1/4 c light brown sugar 3 medium nectarines, sliced 1 c gluten free oat flour 1/2 c buckwheat flour 1 t baking powder 1/2 t baking soda 1/4 t salt 1/2 t ground nutmeg 1/2 t ground ginger 2 large eggs 1/4 c agave syrup 1/8 c olive oil 1/8 c virgin, unrefined coconut oil 2/3 c plain greek yogurt 1 1/2 t vanilla extract Preheat oven to 375 F Put oven rack on lowest position. Lightly grease a 9 inch pyrex pie plate with coconut oil. Sprinkle the bottom of the pan with the brown sugar and using the back of a spoon press the sugar down evenly. Arrange the nectarines on the bottom of the plate in the design of your choice. In a mixing bowl combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and ginger whisking them until blended. In a separate bowl combine the eggs and agave and whisk until smooth. Add in the oil, yogurt and vanilla stirring until mixed, then fold the flour mixture into the liquids. Pour the batter over the nectarines in the pan being sure to spread the mixture e...

by Jane Monson © The earth parts above its head and light pours through the hole like rain. Until now, the dark had been its roof. Then broken by a crown that could thread the eye of a needle, this smooth patch of mud is undone; unlevelled from below. In one burst, this lowly penny-sized plot of land is given character; from a single shove, a hill is formed; the effect barely more than a pin’s journey through a wall, the plaster behind the paint opened into, the silt falling, moving and settling either side of the wound. Outside, the weight of sun and rock barely felt upon its back, the ant starts to build with the earth. In the journeys between one boulder of soil and the next, paths are being formed. The ant returns again and again to the same hill through crevices, drying lakes and a particularly windblown stretch. Soon the land starts to behave like a place; a setting without a name, where the ant goes about its business, deafening the world below as it works between the light and ...

The boat turns round. The Asian shore to the left, so close, slides silent, composed. Restored yalis line the shore; these Ottoman palatial houses have had their wood replaced, some are painted in a sugared almond palette, some in faint butterscotch off-whites, others in rusty red. Some are perched on the lush hills rising close to the Bosphorus. There, they sit alone, serene, engulfed by a sea of green. Their oxide-red keeping them in perennial autumn. Somewhere, the sun is bidding farewell, its light bathing the yalis with the calm intensity of a moment suspended in time. The windows; alight with the last rays, cast back a subdued goodbye before settling for the night. We pass the massive military academy, its long rectangular mass pinned by square towers, their black peak-like roofs standing out against the white body. Further down, the spectacular flame-red sunset unfolding over Istanbul hits my chest and makes me gasp. An invading background, dwarfing the minarets of the majestic ...

by Jane Monson© She moves in over the land, picks a pebble from her last tide-line and swallows it whole. The earth stirs in grains. Wood baked light from a fire is siphoned from a shallow pit. High on the sand-bank, an abandoned boat begins to expand – in a constant state of drying out, the blue paint splinters in the wind. The dye unfurls over the body, lifts off the wood in little hands. They beg towards the ocean. Stones are varnished with the slide of each wave; nothing dries before the next onslaught. The colours have a sound, of breath held in anticipation. Gulls puncture the air. Trees on the cliff begin to wrench up their roots – the branches tighten over the nests and the birds begin to shriek as the leaves fasten their wings. Sap glues over the bones and the birds begin to slow their fight. Below the land is disappearing; the beach pulled towards the sea like a rug heavy with objects. The effect is of a child’s magic board, written on, pulled, then gone; written on, pulled, ...