Morsels

It is our anniversary today (happy us!) and we are up in soggy finger lakes house. I know it has been forever since I have posted but I did want to tell a funny story about yesterday and our marriage (as it relates to food of course) and also post the recipe for a wonderful souffle I made (if I do say so myself).

Here’s the story: we went shopping at Wegman’s yesterday. Some weekends we cart all our necessary food up and sometimes we (read I) are too disorganized to do anything more than make sure there is milk for coffee in the morning. So this weekend was a disorganized one and we needed food for our anniversary dinner. The idea in my brain and vetted with Dennis was duck breast with cherry sauce, rice pilaf and snap peas. Grand Marnier souffle for desert. Well, we get to Wegman’s which was more packed than I have ever seen it — I guess it’s the only thing to do around here when it is pouring rain? And they have no duck. Well one frozen one but it didn’t look like it was going to cooperate with being cooked for dinner in a few hours. So I grabbed a couple of little fresh cornish game hens and figured we’d be down with that.

Get to the check out line and as I lift them up to the conveyor belt thingy I show them to Dennis and say “here’s what I got instead of duck.” Poor guy’s face fell. “Oh,” he says. You see how sweet he is in the face of a disappointment? So I said, “you really wanted steak didn’t you?” and he nodded. So I sent him back to the meat department on his own to return the two little game hens and bring back a steak.

Now we all know what it is like to get to the check out line with all your variously gathered goods and realize that you forgot the sage, or garlic or whatever. The pressure IS ON. Luckily, we had the two slowest check out guys I have ever encountered. So Dennis was able to return with his steak. It was a three pound (at least) sirloin. Huge. All I could see when I looked at it was the slaughterhouse (sorry). I am eating meat again, yes but I am trying so hard to keep it to local and at least grass fed. Food is rumbling along the conveyor belt. He has just dodged about six women in carts and a couple of really old ones who seem to do a lot of standing in the middle of things all with this huge bloody steak in his hands. I looked at him and said. “Umm that’s a lot of steak. Mind if I go grab some smaller grass-fed ones I saw?” He shakes his head no. And now I’m the one running through the aisles past the very same women who are still standing around with the same piece of meat ( I mean I have the piece of meat and THEY are still standing around). I actually started laughing at the spectacle, which only made it more spectacular I guess. Anyway, got my little more appropriate steaks and phew! made it back.

So there you have it. Our daily negotations. Particular to us at that moment I suppose but really not at all. We are all (us marrieds and committeds) juggling daily details and back and forths. Sometimes more gracefully than others. It certainly helps to have a sense of humor and (thank you Dennis) patience.

And it also helps to make a souffle now and then. I took this from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything book and switched it up because we had no Grand Marnier. But we did have Amaretto and it was really, really good and really easy. Believe it or not, this was my first souffle. I am going to make more.

I was in New York City and Jersey City this past week for meetings related to work and Big Project. I didn’t at all NEED to be in NYC for the trip, in fact it wasn’t the most practical decision. But I was able to have dinner with two of my best friends, Sabina and Andrea and to walk every morning down sixth avenue, past Bryant Park and to the PATH. Just being on the streets. My room looked over a section of Times Square and the digital signs with their lustrous, saturated colors — in the night with the rain splashing the huge windows, it all looked very Blade Runner(ish).

Sabina, Andrea and I ate at Marseille on 9th Ave which was quite good. We had a salad that was comprised of pear, gorgonzala, smoked walnuts and lettuce. What I want to know is how does one smoke walnuts? (no smart remarks please) because they were really, really good and I have never had the like.

And here is my most recent painting. It is after an image that I have toted from Maine, to apartment in NYC as a young woman, to office at New York Woman. Most recently, I rescued the picture from the back of a closet and put it up in the Finger Lakes house. And since painting an image that haunts you and that you want to BE with over a period of time is important and worthy and etc….I decided to work on that.

Here it is.

I had an episode this morning involving brisket, feelings of utter organization, competency, rapid shift to INcompetency, safety glass, disintegration and the sense that if anyone actually peeked in my kitchen window they might get very, very worried.

Here’s the thing. I decided this weekend to try and “live out of the freezer” as my mother used to declare (usually towards the end of the month, hmm) and yesterday grabbed a huge Bucky Brisket from the freezer. Last night I made a chinese beef stir-fry from it but it was really large and so there was plenty to put in my trusty crock pot this morning at about 7 am. So, I salted and pepper and dried herbed that old brisket and sauteed it in a pan (meanwhile, packing C’s lunch, checking my email, the headlines, inhaling first cup of coffee — the usual). And I popped it in my crockpot with a couple of cups of beef broth and headed upstairs for a shower. Well, it all took longer upstairs. There was laundry to move from one place to another, earrings to select, and so forth. I got downstairs feeling somewhat on the late side and went to check said brisket.

Ever have one of those moments when you are looking at something that you simply do not expect and therefore can’t quite see? Think Escher or one of those crazy eye/mind exercises where you are supposed to see a fish in the midst of something if only you could get that soft-focus thing happening. What I saw was just not registering at first because it was so unexpected.

The top to the crock pot had shattered. The handle plummeted with various bits of glass all over my lovely seared brisket. First I tried lifting the top, hoping to get if off of the pot without getting any more glass on the meat. I had this wild thought (not kidding) that I could remove the top, rinse the meat and re-cook the whole thing.

Luckily, it was GARBAGE DAY. So I gathered my trusty, mis-matched potholders and took the crockpot, brisket and all and dumped it in the garbage can which was waiting expectantly on the curb. And I hoped that none of my neighbors were watching. Because if they were it seemed to me that I looked as if I was violently rebelling against my suburban existence. TAKE THAT! Damn brisket. Damn crockpot.

So much for planning ahead.

I have a (very) soft spot for Oprah. I am not sure that that is a “cool” thing to say. But I love her magazine. I actually never see her show. In fact, I don’t know that I have ever watched it? But I love the ideas, the writing, the spirit of the magazine and so I bought the latest issue for our drive to Haverford for our first viewing of my new nephew, Luca. And I found this delightful piece by Michael Lewis on fatherhood. Really, the beginning of the piece, which is about being somewhat uninvolved and lackadaisical didn’t interest me much. I like an involved, loving father, I say. BUT he tells a story about his daughter Dixie standing up to some boys in a pool in a Bermuda resort that is just priceless. And I am somewhat irritated that I can’t link to it because it doesn’t seem to be up on the Oprah website.  The anecdote is really long but I am going to go ahead and type it out for you because I love it and I hope we all buy his book:  Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood which is coming out in June.

Here goes:

We’re at a fancy hotel in Bermuda. Like fancy hotels everywhere, the place is paying new attention to the whims of small children. The baby pool is vast — nearly as big as the pool for the grownups, to which it is connected by a slender canal. In the middle of the baby pool is a hot tub, just for little kids. My two daughters, now ages 6 and 3, leap from the hot tub into the baby pool and back again. The pleasure they take in this could not be more innocent or pure.

Then, out of nowhere, come four older boys. Ten, maybe 11 years old. As anyone who has only girls knows, boys add nothing to any social situation but trouble. These four are set on proving the point. Seeing my little girls, they grab the pool noodles — intended to keep 3-year olds afloat — and wield them as weapons. They descend upon Quinn, my 6-year-old, whacking the water on either side of her, until she is almost in tears. I’m hovering in the canal between baby pool and grown-up pool, wondering if I should intervene. Dixie beats me to it. She jumps out in fron of her older sister and thrusts out her 3-year-old chest.

TEASING BOYS! She hollers, so loudly that grown-ups around the pool peer over their Danielle Steel novels. Even the boys are taken aback. Dixie, now onstage, raises her voice a notch.

YOU JUST SHUT UP YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE!

To the extent that all hell can break loose around a baby pool in a Bermuda pool, it does. A John Grisham novel is lowered; several of Danielle Steel’s vanish into beach bags. I remain hovering  in the shallows of the grown-up pool where it enters the baby pool, with my entire head above water. My first thought: Oh…my…God! My second thought: No one knows I’m her father. I sink lower, like a crocodile, so that just my eyes and forehead are above the waterline; but in my heart a new feeling rises: pride. Behind me a lady on a beach chair shouts, “Kevin! Kevin! Get over here!”

Kevin appears to be one of the noodle-wielding 11-year old boys. “But Moooooooommm! he says.

“Kevin! Now!”

The little monster sulks over to his mother’s side while his fello Orcs await the higher judgement. I’m close enough to hear her ream him out. It’s delicious.

“Kevin, did you teach that little girl those words?” She asks.

“Moommm! Nooooo!”

“Then where did she learn them?”

As it happens, I know the answer to that one: carpool. Months ago! I was driving them home from school , my two girls, plus two other kids - a 7-year old boy and a 10-year old girl. They were crammed in the backseat of the Volkswagen Passat, jabbering away; I was alone in the front seat, not especially listening. But then the 10-year old said, “Deena said a bad word today.”

“Which one?” asked Quinn.

“The S word,” said the 10=year old.

“Ooooooo,” they all said.

“What’s the S word?” I asked..

“We can’t say without getting in trouble,” said the 10-year old knowingly.

“You’re safe here,” I said.

She thought it over for a second, then said, “Stupid.”

“Ah,” I said, smiling.

“Wally said the D word!” said Quinn.

“What’s the D word?” I asked.

“Dumb!” she shouted, and they all giggled at the sheer illicit pleasure of it.

The the 7-year old boy chimed in. “I know a bad word, too! I know a bad word, too!” he said.

“What’s the bad word?” I asked brightly. I didn’t see why he should be left out.

“Shutupyoustupidmotherfuckingasshole!”

I swerved off the road, stopped the car, and hit the emergency lights. I began to deliver a lecture on the difference between bad words and seriously bad words, but the audience was fully consumed with laughter. Dixie, especially, wanted to know the secret of making Daddy stop the car.

“Shutupmotherstupidfuck” she said.

“Dixie!” I said.

“Daddy,” said Quinn thoughtfully, “how come you say a bad word when we spill something and when you spill something you just say, ‘Oops’?”

“Stupidfuck!” screamed Dixie and they all laughed.

“DIXIE!”

She stopped. They all did.  For the rest of the drive they whispered.

So here we are, months later, in this Bermuda pool. Dixie with her chest thrust out in defiance, me floating like a crocodile and feeling very much different than I should. I should be embarrassed and concerned. I should be sweeping her out of the pool and washing her mouth out with soap. I don’t feel that way. Actually, I’m impressed. More than impressed, awed. It’s just incredibly heroic, taking out after this rat pack of boys. Plus she’s sticking up for her big sister, which isn’t something you don’t see every day. I don’t want to get in her way. I just want to see what happens next.

Behind me Kevin….. is relaunching himself into the baby pool with a real malice. He’s as indignant as a serial killer who got put away on a speeding ticket: He’s guilty of many things but not of teaching a 3-year old girl the art of cursing. Now he intends to get even. Gathering his fellow Orcs in the hot tub, he and his companions once again threaten Quinn. Dixie, once again, leaps into the fray.

TEASING BOYS! She shouts. Now she has the attention of an entire Bermuda resort.

YOU WATCH OUT TEASING BOYS! BECAUSE I PEED IN THIS POOL TWO TIMES! ONCE IN THE HOT POOL AND ONCE IN THE COLD POOL!

###

It goes on but you just can’t top that. Oh, O love her. And I do believe, whenever I hit a snag or a bump or an irritant I will remember TEASING BOYS!!! It’s a wonderful alarm call.  Ladies, channel your inner Dixies as appropriate.

Luca, btw, is just adorable and I am sure he will have better manners than those bad boys.

There are a few things that I am pretty bad at — identifying small birds (it was small and brown), mushrooms (it was umm small and brown?) but one of the most seasonal frustrations I run into is my complete lack of talent in the compost-making department. It may not seem very important to those of you who do not fancy themselves suburban farmers (which, btw, is all the rage) but for anyone who wants to tuck some tomatoes into rich, organic soil, harvest some fresh-snapped peas and so on and so forth, you really must have a nice compost pile.  I will admit that Bay Village is not the most compost-friendly environment (sort of feel odd running out in the morning in my “work” clothes, heels and all, dumping eggshells, lettuce leaves, apple cores and the like into the growing pile beside my little vegetable garden). But dump I do and for those of you who are excellent and worthy composters, yes I alternate “green” material with the food and I make sure it has water and it is in a sunny spot. Poo. It is still lumpy and matted and seems to enjoy resurrecting the food that I am trying so desperately to turn into dirt. By that I mean that I think there is a potato growing out of it at this point. Now my mother? She is a damn good composter. Plunge a pitchfork into her compost pile and turn it over… you will be rewarded with rich, warm earth. Perfection. Arthur felt bad enough for me that when he left for college he made sure to print out this article in his favorite magazine (Arthur) about the Sodfather. Take the time to read the article — he’s a real character.  But read as I might, it has been to no avail.

Which brings me to my mother’s placemats. Stay with me here Since seester had her little boy Luca Mom has taken to frequenting local thrift shops very frequently and snapping all sorts of lovely little things for the baby. At some point in her forays she found what she described as beautiful, multi-colored placemats that were like little rag rugs for your table. They were perfect for the Finger Lakes house she decided if a little musty. So home they came and into the washer. Unfortunately, once removed from the wash, it turned out that they had become a little frayed. My mother said they had grown beards. And what do you do with unruly beards? You trim them naturally. By now we were several days into the saga. It took a few weeks for beard trimming what with gardening, yoga, cooking and etc. And then once they were taken off, the little mats turned in on themselves (think those pot holders we all made as kids). Apparently they aren’t as bright either. Mom skyped me last week and said she thought either they were just fine or I might want to use them as mulch. See? Compost connection made. Oh snap.

So at this point I am a little afraid of what they will look like when she presents them to me. I will take a photo and post it maybe. And then if I can figure out polls I will let us all vote: Compost? or placemat? Only I will have to think of wittier questions.

Here’s the thing. When your nineteen year old calls you up in the afternoon of say a Friday and says “mom, I’ve been thinking” it’s best to drop what you are doing (in my case packing frantically for Finger Lakes) and listen up. Turns out that Arthur has made friends with a Sri Lankan prince — or so he says. In any case, the friend has invited Arthur to Sri Lanka and Arthur is wondering, umm, can he go. Well. It seemed unwise to say no immediately. Instead I mentioned that it might be expensive. And he allowed as how he might need to save up. Course, it entirely depends on what airline you choose. Air India seems to be a mere $1200 give or take while Saudi Arabia Airlines is over $6k — guess that latter is for those who need to find interesting ways to spend all their extra money. Arthur says it could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance, which is true — Bennington tends to attract various and sundry international kids — probably a few other royal-types hanging around. OU? Not so much. Also, Arthur says his friend hangs out with elephants. That of course, cinches the deal.

I told him to work over the summer and save his pennies and then asked him if he was at all worried about travelling over there. Isn’t there some sort of civil unrest? I asked….Tamil Tigers and such? He agreed that it would be reallly embarrassing if he ended up being the American-who-gets-kidnapped. How about just plain old killed?

We agreed to discuss it more. But that was before I read the State Dept’s travel warning. (which is linked to under the word “killed”) I support adventure and travel but I’m thinking I will have to draw the line.  Instead, I will be sure to make him some baked cheese prawns. And when the Cleveland Zoo has elephant rides I’ll make sure to encourage a visit.

“That’s it, I’m just going to blog about you!” This was a threat I leveled at Christopher the Younger this morning for reasons that shall become clear in a minute. But of course he thought THAT was pretty funny. And it is quite the 21st century parental threat right?

Anyway, here’s why. At some point last week it came up that he has always liked pineapple and why don’t I ever get it for him and etc… also, he needs fishsticks. Because he is deprived of fish sticks. So, this Sunday, I dutifully stroll over to the pineapples (already cored and not at all local or in season or anything, mind you) and buy him some. And later I get him a box of extra crunchy fish sticks. Then this morning I carefully dice some pineapple up and place it in a lovely white bowl with a fork while he moseys around upstairs (yes, I spoil him and yes I enjoy it). And down he comes and has the nerve to eyeball the pineapple in semi-mock horror. Apparently he does not really like pineapple, just likes to say that he does. Or some such.

So I brought it to work and just now!!! realized that I forgot to eat it.

Anyway, that is why he is in the doghouse with only fishsticks for dinner.

I have a book of quotes and photographs called Offerings. The quotes are from various Buddhist-type philosophers, the photos from the Dalai Lama’s “official” photographers. They are arranged so that every day you have another quote to read. I keep the book in the place where most people keep their little books they want to peruse daily and I don’t mean by the bed so you can figure that out.

Anyhoo as they ridiculously say around here, the one for yesterday or maybe the day before? Was this:

The trouble is you think you have time.

Well. I don’t know about you but the just hit me hard and hasn’t really let me go. In fact, I framed almost every activity yesterday with that thought — buying seedlings at the greenhouse which is always a cause for celebration was just a complete joy. In part because of all the hope instilled in the act of planting a vegetable garden.

The trouble is you think you have time.

Truth is, that the writer (Jack Kornfield, btw, who is a wonderful writer about All Things Buddhist including doing the laundry) means to smack you upside the head — means to startle you. It makes me think of stories about old Zen Masters smacking the meditating monks with a stick if they begin to slump. And, it is not a depressing statement. What he is saying is that if you live your life as if there is all the time in the world, then you waste the minute to minute existence that IS life. That means not hurrying through (for example) buying your funny heirloom tomatoes but holding the plastic containers to your chest, talking to the other women about varieties, reading the descriptions on the wall with a concerned older German-accented woman who thinks (irony) that the tomatoes will all take too much time. I wanted to tell her that 90 days would be gone before she knew it. And I was feeling oddly happy about that — there’s really no other way to deal with that truth — but I think it might have shaken her to the bone. So I let the moment (in time) pass.

But to live in that particular way, relishing moment to moment, that is the joy that Kornfield is hitting us over the head with. And it is not a natural, human practice. We crave a narrative, a linear life and we are forever anchoring ourselves in either the past or the future. This is one of the reasons I love making art so much — I literally lose all sense of time.

Which brings me to today’s recipe: Herb-Marinated Lamb Shanks. I bought a bunch of lamb yesterday at the Farmer’s Market (still no vegetables, of course) including two little shanks. Now, I know I said that the time for stews was fast departing. But I’ve since made a lovely veal ragout and today will make this stew to eat later in the week. Tonight, we will have fresh Italian Sausage from this wonderful butcher/sausage maker from Berea. Not sure how we will have the sausage as of yet. I’m remembering a recipe Sabina used to make with cherry tomatoes, broccoli, sausage and a little pasta. See if I can recreate that recipe from my past maybe. And then savor it in the here and now, the tastes wrapped up in memories of Sabina’s kitchen; her tremendous, emotional friendship. The recipe all the better for it.

Since I had this (mis) adventure, I have wanted to tell it. But the weekend got past me I guess. Anyway, I will start at the end, which is when I sat on my phone and called my mama. Now that in and of itself was amusing because she and I are so pleasantly surprised to be speaking to one another whenever that happens but it was doubly so because I had just at that moment been thinking… “well, only the daughter of a debutante who dropped her gloves in the road on the way to the dance and had them run over by a truck (that would be my mama back in the proper 50’s South – not the truck, the debutante – wow, syntax sucks) would have such a thing to happen to her.”

So here goes. I finished my painting class, which just keeps getting better and was loading things into the car when Jeff called me from the door of the building. I had meant to take a book on Thomas Eakins to study how to paint water and I had forgotten it. So I ran back, grabbed the book and cradled it on the way to the car. I was thinking about the chapter on how Eakins used photography and the other chapter about his use of tones and all the other things I would want to read about. And I got in the car, drove home and unloaded.

Only to discover that my palette was nowhere to be found. I had been working hard that evening to mix the right colors and didn’t want to “lose” them so I had been careful to keep the palette full of paint and had placed it oh so carefully on the top of the car so that I could arrange it gingerly in the back. Only I hadn’t. It was someplace between home and studio. I could only hope that it had careened off in the parking lot. But even so –  how embarrassing to have to go back and poke around and pick up the damn thing. Well, there was nothing to do but go and get it, reminding myself all along that I really ought to have paid more attention to that scene in Raising Arizona where the guys forget the baby.

I called Dennis who was on his way home from a boy’s night out for moral support. He’s so darling not to make fun of my episodes. And sure enough, there it was, half-flattened on Lake Road, which was annoyingly busy for a Thursday night. And there I was, pulling a U-ey in the parking lot by the studio and keeping my patient husband on the phone while I put on my hazards and grabbed the tray (keeping Dennis on the phone just in case I got hit – I figured he would want to be with me in my last moments, even if only telephonically). But I managed to retrieve my palette with the paint surprisingly intact. Drove home, sat on my phone, called mom and that’s the end of that.

Meantime it has been weirdly hot here (88, 90 degrees) and I chose this weekend to have dirt delivered for my new vegetable garden. It occurred to me, about ½ hour into it this morning that Christopher would appreciate earning money and I would appreciate not shoveling and hauling dirt. We made a deal. Now, all I need is my seeds and the spare time to plant the garden (and hopefully, hopefully some helpful boys who will get out there and weed – ha! Hope and vegetable gardens and weeds spring eternal)

It takes practice to be happy sometimes. Arthur literally breezed through this weekend having to go down to OU to see if he might like to transfer there and going to see the Diplo show last night. All in all I probably got in 4 hours of Arthur time. And now he is barrelling down 90 in his car, headed for Bennington and the rest of his semester. I just got back from Heinen’s and the weekly food shop, which is usually a relaxing, happy event — picking this and choosing that. But not today. I wandered the aisles with a very small list since I had just been there yesterday getting Arthur snacks for school. So I felt anxious, bereft and I could feel that little stone begin to lodge itself in my chest. I don’t mean to sound dramatic — it’s just that sometimes a mom gets sad when her kid takes off again.

Still, I wasn’t about to let that stone gain too much ground. And here’s the practice bit. It’s good to know a song or two that you have on your trusty i-pod so when you are finished with said errand and are heading back to the somewhat more empty house you can blast it just for yourself. I picked Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack and kicked that damn rock to the curb.

Yesterday, Arthur and I went to the first farmer’s market of the season and bought some lovely ground veal. I made these veal meatballs from Emeril (I subbed Tony Cachere’s for the spice mixture) and served them with fresh garlic and chive pasta from Ohio City Pasta. Nice to feed my boy. That’s another thing that makes me happy.

So does painting and I made sure to do some of that almost as soon as he pulled away.

So, bit of unsolicited advice. Know what makes you happy and DO it when you get a little sad. As long as it’s not self-destructive — scotch makes me happy, for example. You ought to do a lot of it.