Stuff It Squash

There are many recipes out there for making a stuffed acorn squash, but as I surveyed them they all had some fatal flaw. Either they were too fussy about the squash, the stuffing lacked sophistication, or in one awful case, the squash and stuffing were prepared separately! That's false advertising!

I decided to invent my own recipe, and luckily the farm I subscribe to had a bumper crop of acorn squash this year, so I had ample opportunities to refine it.

Serves 2

Stuff It Squash

• 1 acorn squash
• 1/2 cup white rice
• 5/8 cup (5 ounces) beef stock
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Fresh ground pepper to taste
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 medium carrot
• 1/2 honeycrisp apple
• 4 slices of bacon
• 1 shallot
• Vegetable or olive oil

Start by cooking the rice in the beef stock. Always start by rinsing the rice until the water runs fairly clean. I use a sieve and the sprayer setting on my kitchen faucet. For cooking, I use my Japanese rice cooker, so just toss it in and hit one button. Use whatever method of rice cooking works for you. The proportions are 1 part rice to 1.25 part cooking liquid.

Don't skip rinsing the rice.

Cook your bacon strips using your preferred method. I use the air fry setting on my range at 425 for 13 minutes. Chop finely and set aside.

Chop your vegetables and apple finely and set aside.

In a sauté pan, add about a tablespoon of oil and add your shallot. Cook until it begins to brown.

Preheat your oven to 425F.

When you rice is done, combine it with your sautéed shallot, bacon, vegetables, apple, salt, and pepper and mix.

Fill the squash with the stuffing mixture. Pack the cavity firmly and mound the dressing a little above the edge of the squash.

Cover tightly with tinfoil and bake for approximately 1 hour. Squash are done when a fork easily sinks into the flesh.

Remove from the oven and let rest covered with the tinfoil for about 15 minutes.

I added the last of the butter before cooking this time. I should have waited.

Cranberry Apple Sauce

There is one thing and I and my husband will never see eye to eye on; cranberries. I absolutely love things that are tart, and he is more of a sweet guy. When we have had holiday meals together, I always have the cranberry sauce on the side for myself while he eschews it.

Since we have to have our Winter Solstice Banquet online this year due to the pandemic, I will be using this cranberry apple sauce as a glaze on a pork tenderloin roast. It is also great on turkey sandwiches, and as a topping for vanilla iced cream.

Cranberry Apple Sauce

• 2 Honeycrisp apples
• 12 ounces fresh cranberries
• 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water

Wash the cranberries being careful to discard any that have become mushy or whose skin has broken.

Wash, core and slice your apples into chunks

Add sugar, water, and fruit to a saucepan.

Cook over medium low heat until all cranberries have burst and apple chunks are soft.

Use a potato masher to pulverize the fruit in the sauce pan.

Place a sieve over a mixing bowl and put the cooked fruit into it. Allow the fruit to seep through as it cools for approximately 30 minutes. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the drained mixture up away from the mesh so that undrained portions can make it through. Continue until what remains in the sieve is mostly skins, stems, and other things you don't want in a sauce.

If you want a thicker sauce, return the strained fruit to a clean saucepan and reduce over low heat until it reaches your desired thickness.

Once the strained fruit mixture is cool, stir in the citrus juices. Never add the citrus juices while the mixture is too hot, as it will destroy the vitamin C in the juice and leave a bitter taste.

Solstice Salad

This recipe started out many years ago as an upscale version of a Waldorf Salad, but I have made enough modifications over the years of the Winter Solstice Banquet, that it deserves its own name. I know that many of you might have been served something that was called a Waldorf Salad, but believe me, if you hated it, it was not this salad.

Give this wintry creation a try!

Serves 2 or 3

Solstice Salad

• 1 Honeycrisp apple
• Juice of 1/4 lemon
• 1 1/2 stalks of celery
• 3 spears of red pepper
• 1 scallion
• 3 heaping tablespoons raw shelled pistachios 

For the dressing

• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• 1 1/2 teaspoon honey
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put it together

Preheat your oven to 200F and spread the pistachios on a baking sheet. Lightly toast for about 20 minutes. Chop finely in a food processor or mill and set aside

Peel, core and quarter the apple. Cut into pieces about a 1/4 inch. Toss with the lemon juice.

Cut the celery and red pepper into pieces smaller than the apple pieces and add to the mix.

Chop the scallion into really small pieces and add them in as well.

Whisk together the sour cream, mustard and honey. Add salt and ground pepper to taste.

Toss the salad and dressing together. Plate using a slotted spoon, allowing excess dressing to fall away.

Dust the salad generously with the toasted ground pistachios.

Chill the plated salads in the refrigerator before serving.

I know there are only two red pepper spears here. I had to adjust!

Pistachios ready for toasting

Dressing whisked

Chopped and tossed

Such a great aroma!

Let the Winter Solstice Banquet begin!

Sukiyaki: an evolutionary update

Since about the second month of the pandemic I’ve been delving deeper and deeper into Japanese cuisine. Mostly that has been learning new recipes from JustOneCookbook.com but in addition to that, I have been learning more about my favourite dish, sukiyaki. I wrote a piece about my connection to that dish and more broadly to Japanese culture here: Gagne Family Sukiyaki: This is going to be complicated

So, why am I writing about this again? I want to show how my sukiyaki making has evolved over the last few months as I have learned more about the tradition. I will rush to note that nothing I learned about making this dish as a child was wrong and the results are the same level of deliciousness. The two main differences are 1) using more traditional Japanese ingredients and fewer substitutes and 2) using a traditional iron cooking pot. My mother didn’t have easy access to a specialty Asian / Japanese grocer as I do now, so I don’t blame her one bit. Also, my Dad would have never eaten tofu.

Here is where you can get yourself a tetsu nabe - a cast iron cooking pot. I have a 28 ounce one, which feeds me when I’m starving. If you were including other dishes, then that size would likely feed two.

Fuji Merchandise Japanese Style Cast Iron Sukiyaki Tetsu Nabe Pot

Sauce

• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup sake
• 1 cup aji-mirin
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup awase dashi

I make this sauce in double batches and keep it on hand. It’s never going to go bad, and I make this dish a couple times per month in the fall and winter, so it gets used up quickly.

You can buy instant dashi powder, but I prefer to make my own following the instructions by Nami Chen on JustOneCookbook.com How to make dashi

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon neutral flavour oil
• 1 finely chopped shallot
• 1/2 pound beef cut for sukiyaki
• 3 scant pinches aji-no-moto (don’t believe the anti-Asian propaganda about MSG)
• 2 green onions
• 2 napa cabbage leaves
• 1/2 cup shirataki noodles (nearly 0 net carbs!)
• Shimeji and / or enoki mushrooms
• 2 stalks of celery
• braised tofu
• bean sprouts

Prepare your sauce and ingredients in advance. Use a culinary torch to braise the tofu.

Heat the oil in the iron pot and being to sauté the shallot. After a few minutes, add the beef to brown it. Sprinkle with aji-no-moto. When all the pink is gone, remove the pot from heat.

Pile the beef up in the center and arrange the other ingredients around it, leaving the bean sprouts out for now.

Add sauce until is it about a half inch from the lip of the pot. Return to heat and bring to a rolling bubble. Place the cedar lid on the pot and reduce heat to low. Simmer covered for 8 minutes.

Add the bean sprouts to the top and cover for an additional 2 minutes.

Serve immediately.with a spoon and chopsticks.

Photos

There is no substitute for the beef. You just have to find an asian grocer who prepares it.

Cooking with Flame

I have grown attached to cooking with a flame, so I bought a Japanese butane burner unit like the ones used in every hotpot restaurant in the world. The accompanying instructions tell you to never use it indoors, but that is really just for insurance purposes. What you have to do is not use it in an enclosed space like a tent or camper and also not use it for extended periods of time. Butane burns much cleaner than propane, so as long as you have significant ventilation, you’re fine. The risk is that if you are in an enclosed space and the oxygen supply starts to get used up, then the butane flame will stop producing carbon dioxide, which you can handle, and start producing carbon monoxide which will kill you in minutes. I keep mine on top of my electric range with the hood vent running and do not have any concerns. Here is the model I have. It has the best safety rating.

Iwatani Corporation of America Iwatani of America ZA-3HP Portable Butane Stove Burner

Why It Took So Long

The love of my life is Doug Barr. He was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, and I in the Seattle area. We met on 7 April 2001 at the Scottish Cultural Centre in Vancouver BC, where a very famous Scottish Gaelic singer, Cathy-Ann MacPhee, was performing. We had our first date in Seattle the next weekend and on it went.

October 2001, Whistler. See the bunny ears?

One thing that you have to know about Doug is that the literal meanings of words are very important to him. We have never been ‘boyfriends’ because we are definitely not boys anymore. I adopted the alternative title for myself of Potential Pre-Husband.

When I met Doug, he was working for the Royal Bank of Canada. He held several positions there, and the last was the worst. It involved early morning shifts on the weekends, which were the only times we had together. One particular Sunday morning - and I mean morning - I helped with us getting up an dressed and drove him to work. We both smoked at the time, (we’ve quit - SHUSH!) and so were having a cigarette in the parking lot before he went inside.

He put his hand on my shoulder and said softly “Thank you for getting me here this morning.”

I said “That’s what Potential Pre-Husbands are for!”

“That’s a really long title.” he said.

“You’re the one who doesn’t like ‘boyfriend’.” I quipped.

“I think of you as my fiancé.” he said.

“I WILL!” I answered.

And we were theoretically engaged. We didn’t speak of it again for years. After all, legal marriage wasn’t available to us and neither of us have any interest in empty gestures.

Then, on July 20th, 2005, Canada legalised same-sex marriage nation-wide. Our close friends Geoff and Joe who are American decided to have a wedding ceremony in Vancouver, though it wouldn’t have any force back in the States. They arranged a lovely ceremony on the upper deck of a harbour cruise boat, and afterward, we headed out into English Bay to enjoy the annual fireworks competition overhead and pretend it was for our friends.

Enjoying the views and each other we strolled the decks. The muzak was light jazz, which neither of us like and Doug turned to me and said “Tell me at our reception we’re not going to have...” I didn’t let him finish “No. No light jazz.” And that was the second time we talked about our wedding.

In the intervening ten years before the United States got around to recognizing our fundamental right to marry, many things happened. Doug decided to give post-secondary education a try for the first time. As someone with ADHD which remained undiagnosed until his mid-30s, it had never seemed a realistic goal before. I released my first solo CD which is a mountain of hard work.

Then, in 2013, I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. Doug got me through the initial shock, lifestyle changes, and self-education. When things were calm again, on a certain Sunday before I drove home to Seattle, we had dinner out and I broached the subject.

“Honey, I’m OK, we’re OK, and we’ve got this now. But, if true disaster befell me, you wouldn’t be able to take me in because of that border. In the eyes of the law, we’re just friends.” I said.

“We should start fighting about the guest list.” he answered and went back to enjoying his hot pot. It was getting cold, and the man is nothing if not practical.

I was one of the founding Board members of Slighe nan Gaidheal, Washington’s Scottish Gaelic Language and Cultural Society and had served continuously since its beginning in 1997. Our terms were three years long, and so when I was up for reelection in 2012, I had announced that it would be the last term I sought. I had all these things I wanted to do in my life that weren’t making any progress and part of the reason was the 10+ hours of volunteer work for the society every week.

Right on cue, I retired from the Board of Slighe nan Gaidheal and marriage became legal for us in the United States in 2015. I supposed that’s really where the journey to our handfasting, and on to our wedding began.

Forming a cross-border family is trickier than you might imagine. Deciding where each part of the process will happen is fraught with politics. It’s even more complicated when the marrying parties are of different religions, with one of them having been raised by evangelical atheists.

Rev. Judith Laxer ties the knot

But we managed it in the end. We were handfasted (formal betrothal in my religion) in Seattle on 2 October 2019, and cast the spell together which said “let all things be put in motion so we are ready to marry on 3 October 2020.”

Of course, we naively thought it would happen as planned at the Scottish Cultural Centre in Vancouver BC where we first met. But no.

The “all things put in motion” apparently included providing extensive material assistance to a parent transitioning into care, an extremely dramatic real estate deal to close my mother’s estate after 20 damn years, a global pandemic, a closed border, and re-planning the wedding four times as rules changed.

I guess the moral of this story is that people in love can endure incredible trials to finally make to their Happily Ever After day. (we know, it won’t all be happy - SHUSH!) Believe in Love, and in each other, and anything is possible.

June 1, 2020 Peace Arch Park

Chicken Karaage

Japanese mayonnaise is exquisite

While being in isolation during this pandemic, I have been doing a lot of cooking, and lately my focus has been on Japanese cuisine. My godmother was a second generation Japanese American named Kimiko Sakai. She and her husband Toshio lived in a beautiful house overlooking a large pond on Bainbridge Island along with Uncle Tosh’s mother, Botchan. I went to their house very often as a child when Mom would go visit, so I had plenty of Japanese food there. Mom also picked up a few dishes from Kim and made them for us at home. I don’t remember learning how to make sushi rice or sukiyaki because it was just by osmosis. In the midst of the second month of cooking for myself all the time and being alone, I started to crave comfort food and for me that meant fish and chips and Japanese food - the love of my two mothers.

I’m super careful about trimming

You can’t live on three dishes, though, so I started picking favourites from our frequent visits to Japanese restaurants to try at home. I soon discovered my new favourite food blogger, Nami Chen from justonecookbook.com. Her YouTube videos are absolutely great and she is as charming as a fresh pot of houjicha! The marinade in this recipe is the same as hers. I tried several, but this one is the best. The techniques, however are gleaned from multiple different sources and I think they are easier and give an excellent result. This recipe can be made gluten free by substituting gluten free soy sauce.

Chicken Karaage

all ingredients are per person

1 chicken thigh
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce (substitute gluten free if desired)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sake
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1-2 tablespoons potato starch
oil for frying
Japanese mayonnaise

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces trimming away excess fat. Keep any small scraps you trim off to form a nugget later. I love the nugget! When all the other pieces are done, chop the scraps to the consistency of ground chicken, sprinkle with flour (or some of your potato starch to keep things gluten free) a smoosh into a ball.

Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and set aside while you prepare the marinade.

Combine the sesame oil, sake, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger and pour over the chicken. Mix and put in your refrigerator for anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight.

When you’re ready to get frying, place 1-2 tablespoons of potato starch per chicken thigh into a large freezer bag with the chicken pieces. Seal the bag with lots of air inside and shake it baby, shake it. You want the pieces all to be thoroughly coated with potato starch.

Here’s the magic part: because you use potato starch, the coating is basically potato chips.

If you don’t have a deep fryer (go get one) you will need a heavy duty pan and a candy thermometer. Put about four inches of cooking oil that has a very high smoke point in the pot and heat it up to between 350F and 365F. I like to use a ratchet old pair of wooden chopsticks to place the pieces into the oil so that I can hold them there until they really get bubbling. That way, they are unlikely to stick.

Cook in small batches for between 3 and 3.5 minutes each depending on the size of your pieces. Place on a rack to drain, or alternatively a piece of cooking parchment.

Serve with Japanese mayonnaise for dipping. My favourite is Kewpie brand, which is gluten free by default.

On Being Useful

Overture

“All I need from you, is that you continue to exist. You are my Seumas. Just keep being my Seumas. That is all I need from you.” Cody leaned back on the other side of the table in the bar with a broad smile and gestured expansively. He looked like a man who had won a fight. He hadn’t, but he had put a chink in a set of armor that I didn’t know I was wearing.

I met this man when he was about nine years old on the day I married his father to one of my best friends; his new step mother. We had barely seen each other again in the intervening two decades until a couple years ago when he reached out. “Your card has stayed with me through three new wallets. That has to mean something. Let’s talk.”

We started to spend time together. It wasn’t instant, but we did find a way past the father’s friend / friend’s kid framework and grew comfortable with each other as peers. Over many evenings of food, drinks, and intense conversation we grew close.

Act I: But the story begins before that, of course

Like most of us, I went to public school. In 1980s small town Washington that meant graduating from a high school with only about 800 students in total, and there wasn’t a great deal of diversity. I had a few close friends, but was never well liked and never felt a part of anything other than my own small group.

We were all into the paranormal, and eventually started a coven together. I had a leg up because I already knew a bit about the subject since I had started studying Witchcraft when I was nine. We called ourselves Shadowood Coven, and within our circle of both friendship and magic, I felt safe for the first time.

I also started studying the harp in high school, which became as central to my identity as being a Witch. It added a new dimension to my life which connected me to the world-wide network of harp players, but further isolated me from most people. In the harp world I could be special.

After graduation, I went to college for music. Not to a big mainstream college, mind you. Nor to one that had an established harp program that could mould me into a working musician. No, I went to the hippie school where I designed my own program. Even at Cornish College of the Arts, I was alone, being the only harp student. At least, however, I was among fellow musicians.


After getting my degree, I still lacked the courage to try to make my living with music. I went to work in student lending instead. I had been helped to get Summer jobs there by a commuter buddy I met riding the Washington State Ferries named Kris Abbott. It was the path of least resistance at the time, so I took it. I was unbearably awkward and made cringeworthy gaffs regularly. By the time I left that field I had a few friends, but I mostly found I had to keep all my true interests to myself.

Meanwhile, outside of work, our coven continued to meet, and it was truly what sustained me. I made a reasonably good set of connections in the local Pagan community, and served in volunteer roles. Along with that status among the local Pagans however, came drama and I made my exit.

My career as a harp player stumbled along without much effort from me. I wound up helping to found an Irish / Scottish traditional band called Wicked Celts, and that became the centre of my social identity for many years. I became a more accomplished player, which gave me a higher status with my bandmates and others in the ‘Celtic’ music community. (I hate that term)

In 1994 I started studying the Scottish Gaelic language as the next logical step in deepening my expertise in the music. My class of six people were chugging along just fine when the films Rob Roy and Braveheart happened. Suddenly our teacher had huge classes and we started organizing weekend intensives. I found many, many ways to make myself useful for the next 18+ years.

photo: michael sean morris

During that time, because of Gaelic and our society’s relationship with our sister group in Vancouver BC, I met the love of my life, Doug Barr. We have been together for 19 years now, with all the usual ups and downs. We often joke about not knowing why the other stays, but there is a grain of truth that makes the joke funny. In the early years of our time together, I was working very hard to be useful. It was what I knew how to do, having never been in a relationship before. I can’t recall when it was exactly that I stopped being afraid that he would give me the boot, but I did eventually. I had never felt as safe in any relationship of any kind in my life.

And now, Act II

The condo I live in had to have a massive remediation project done in 2015 which meant that our building was wrapped in plastic for most of the summer, and it was a hot one.

I have never been comfortable being alone in public. Somewhere deep inside I have always felt that when I walk into a place everyone there wishes I hadn’t. I know it doesn’t make much sense.

I had gone into one of our local bars, Teachers Lounge, once or twice and pulled my usual move of tucking myself back into a corner and trying to be inconspicuous. This bar, however, had air conditioning, so in desperation to escape the plastic wrapped building I overcame my social anxiety and started to go pretty often.

After a couple of weeks of dropping by regularly, Desiree the co-owner and I had chatted several times. She is a disarmingly beautiful woman with a razor sharp wit and a tolerance for bullshit that starts at zero and goes down from there. She is, therefore a woman perfectly suited to steal my tiny cold gay heart.

I have known many people who work in hospitality and the stories about patrons who interpret friendliness to be friendship are the worst. I understand my job in an establishment: 1) make up my mind 2) order off the menu 3) say thank you often 4) be patient 5) tip well. That code of behaviour has almost always gotten me excellent experiences, but I never interpret that as meaning anything other than I’m good at being a patron.

I had no reason to think that my experiences at Teachers Lounge were going to be any different, but then the most surprising thing happened. Desiree invited me to join the party at the bar instead of hiding back at a table. I don’t know why, but I said yes. I had never actually sat at a bar before, much less chatted with total strangers. I discovered I was less awkward and less uncomfortable than I had been when I was younger.

I started sitting at the bar regularly and meeting other patrons. Over time, very amicable casual friendships started to happen. Some of them have grown far beyond that. It takes a true friend to climb in a taxi with you and head to the bad part of Las Vegas looking for your stolen purse.

Then, growing more brave, I became a patron at another of my local bars. I connected with both staff and other frequent customers. I even played harp and the wedding of two staff members.

Act III Where I Try to Self-sabotage

I am a fearful person by nature. When something good happens, I start looking for the problem that is going to wreck it all. My inner demons were more than up to the task this time. A question started to form in the back of my mind as I continued to enjoy spending time with my new neighborhood friends. Why are these people interested in talking to me? They’re not into anything I am. I’m not an expert in anything they want to learn. They don’t need any of my professional skills. There has to be some mistake.

Winners get pictures

Then, in one of our continuing conversations, Cody said:

“Those of us who grew up without much sense of self worth often settle for being useful instead of loved. Please believe me. I do not need anything from you. I just love you and if you want anything in our friendship, you can ask for it.”

He won the fight. I was shaken and my armor was in pieces on the ground.

I saw clearly that I had been doing exactly that since childhood in most circumstances. I found ways to be useful because I wasn’t sure if I was much more than that. I can see now that it was never true, or at least not as true as I thought. I have had friends without many common interests before and Doug has stayed with me even when I was very needy. I suppose I have unconsciously processed those realities as flukes, but I can’t anymore. The preponderance of the evidence shows that some people actually just like me for no apparent reason.

Paying for friendship with labor was how I lived in the world and I had not seen it. That is, until a certain Canadian stuck with me for nearly two decades. Until a young woman running a bar in my neighborhood took a chance, and invited me to come closer. Until the man I met when he was a boy told me it was OK to ask him for things in our friendship.

I must be more than useful.

Miso Soup

I made myself some miso soup today for Lockdown Lunch, and realised that I hadn’t done so for an awfully long time. It reminded me how much better it is when you make it at home and can be more generous with the ingredients than is usually found out in restaurants. It’s a very simple dish, which is one of the things that delights me about it both from an aesthetic and dining perspective.

Boil the dashino-moto

Miso Soup

1 packet dashi powder

4-5 cups water

1 scallion

2 tablespoons awase (mixed red and white) miso paste

1/2 cup firm tofu

6-8 dried seaweed pieces

Mix up your miso paste with hot broth

Begin by combining the water and dashi powder. I prefer Shimaya brand, but alternatively it is very easy to make your own. I should write about that. There are vegetarian options for stock, of course, or you can just use plain water and add a couple pinches of monosodium glutamate (which is completely safe - the anti-MSG thing is just anti-Asian racist propaganda)

Bring your soup base to a boil while you slice your scallion. When the base is boiling, remove it from heat and drop the scallions in to blanche. Ladle some of your hot broth into a small bowl with your miso paste and mix. Add the miso paste to the pan.

For the seaweed pieces, I like to use dehydrated wakame which you can get from Amazon or your local Japanese market.

Lastly, the firm tofu. Cut it up into 1/2 to 1/4 inch cubes are drop in. Let the ingredients get to know each other for a few minutes, then serve.

I like to add some soy sauce to my soup bowl, but that’s pure taste.

Add the scallions

Add the rest of the ingredients

My favourite dashi

Tasty snacks also

Hooray, Hooray, for the First of May

One of the things that I have always loved about the Wheel of the Year; the cycle of eight holidays that are celebrated in the Craft, is that they are anchored to real events. You can look out of your window and see the Winter Solstice happen. Likewise the Summer Solstice, Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. They are not the anniversary of a supposed historical event, or the day when ‘our people traditionally do the thing’ but rather the reverent observation of the patterns of movement in the Universe around us.

The tricky bit happens because of two guys: Julian, and Gregory. Julian invented this calendar system, and it was predominant in Western Europe when the ancient holidays marked on the Wheel of the Year entered into a broader syncretic cultural context. The first of May, for example, was actually just about always right in between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. Same with the first of February, August, and November being just about exactly poised between equinoxes and solstices.

Gregory, however, screwed that all up. He made a new calendar and moved things four or five days away from where they previously were.

In my opinion, clinging to the human-invented date of 1 May as the day to celebrate when the actual halfway day is 4 or 5 May is an elevation of a defunct human calendar over the divine movement of the Universe around us.

In the year 2020 of what is called the Common Era, the halfway day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice is 4 May, not 1 May. That is the day that I will celebrate; the day when it is really happening outside my front door.