Morsels

When I was a kid and my father was away at a conference or the like, mom would gleefully serve tacos, grilled cheese — let’s see, I’m trying to remember all the other meals that he didn’t like that we got to eat? My memory is not serving me so well but what I think the food had in common was its ease of preparation and that we always sat at the kitchen table instead of in the dining room. When we were together as a family, dinners were much more of an elaborate affair, elbows were in their proper place and the like. Which is all to lead up to the fact that Dennis doesn’t much like clams and he is off in Florida at a conference and… Arthur is just now driving up from OU in anticipation of Clam Spaghetti. And I am very happy. I am looking forward to seeing my boy and feeding him good, homemade food. I won’t even care if he puts his elbows IN his spaghetti!

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.

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.

It is Easter morning and the bunny came last night (ok just ten minutes ago but I only have one fifteen year old to manage) and left Christopher a nice organic chocolate fascimilie of himself, some chocolate eggs, malted chocolate eggs and of course, the requisite Silly Putty egg. Last night, Christopher mournfully wondered if the bunny WOULD come? Because we were up here in NY and last year he hadn’t come to Austin, Texas (where C was with his dad) I swear I packed chocolate in his suitcase last year? I say it’s hard when everyone is so far — I had to pack Arthur’s in his masive food box that I send up twice a semester — mostly granola, ramen, emergen-c and the like but I did tuck in the same Easter mix that C just got with a BIG note that said not to open until Easter. Apparently the note was either not big enough or alarming enough or whatever because he claims to have not seen it and has already eaten his way through it. I felt a little bad when I heard that but not bad enough to go out and buy/send more.

Anyway, I smartly did not buy any jelly beans because I would be eating them all right now, starting with the black ones.  And we won’t be having an egg hunt which is my other favorite part. So here are some easter images as much for me as anyone:

Oxford, the perfect dog of our childhood, running ahead in the cold Ohio spring “cheating” because he could with his happy dog nose and finding the chocolate eggs. Coming back with little bits of colored foil between his teeth. I think he may disprove the myth that chocolate kills dogs– we may tell ourselves and them this because there would be no chocolate left for us humans if we didn’t.

Our neighbor Ed Burmeister (this goes back to when I was 11?) merrily tucking a raw colored egg under a tree for someone to find. I did of course, because I was the oldest and the fastest and it is a hard balance to NOT find all the eggs before the other, really slow littler ones — an aside — as a mom I watched Arthur struggle with this one himself; it was so transparent and I thought I was being so discreet walking past that bright yellow one tucked under the almost in bloom forsythia (my mother liked to camouflage her eggs but sometimes it was more of a reference, all depended on how fast spring had decided to arive). Anyway, Arthur did a good job leaving some for Christopher. Back to the raw egg. I found it and plopped it in my paper sack and plunged on. Only to find at the end that it had exploded and covered everything within the bag with its sticky, yolky mess. Now, as a child, I wasn’t really given to letting grown-ups have a piece of my mind but I remember distinctly the sense of just plain old meanness that I thought that joke was. And I told him as much. I can’t remember if he apologized or not. But it is one of my first memories of telling someone that they really ought to think a little before they play a mean trick. And I have never been one for a mean trick since (well hardly ever, but that may be another post).

And to end on a nicer note. Every Easter as I have posted before, we had David Eyres pancake. That cant’ be quite true because it wasn’t published until 1966 but, frankly, it is all I remember. It is sweet,  hot and bubbly and rich, rich, rich and it comes to the table with a sprinkle of lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar. I smear mine with strawberry jam and serve it with cut strawberries as well. I am sure that this morning mom and dad will be having one as will Susanna and Wes (unless little Luca is complicating matters, in which case I will eat my sister’s piece).

Happy Easter to all –

Well, Susanna (seester) is taking a terribly long time to have her baby (she started at two am on Saturday morning, so she’s 34 hours in). I have tried everything…. a long walk in the woods, a sit on a big moss-covered rock, hugging my big dog and wishing away any pain that my “baby” sister is feeling. Too much drink before and after dinner so I wouldn’t think, think, think. And then about midnight I gave up and gave myself over to direct thoughts; trying to zero in on her brain and hold her up. It was exhausting. So I slept and then woke up at four this morning for good (why, you ask wasn’t I downstairs at the computer making myself useful and blogging about the results of the pheasant meal? Answer: I was reminding myself that I was raised for the sole purpose of tending to my sister) That latter statement is entirely not true of course. But everything is so stark in the middle of the night and as I said in my toast to her on her wedding day; her little baby self was one of the first lessons in love that I ever had. Clear memory of lying in the middle of the blueberry patch — it’s softer and nicer than it sounds — and holding her little body in my arms in the sun; her funny curls all about her face. And now she’s hooked up to lord knows what machines, in a hospital 6 hours away doing a very hard thing. Giving birth is crazy hard and you think you know. Then you don’t. And each birth takes its own path so no matter the plan (and this one is not going according to plan) you just have to throw it all away and be in whatever experience you are being given — sounds a little like life, yeah?

So on to more mundane and easier subjects. The pheasant was amazing and I riffed on the James Beard recipe so I will describe what I did (but remember the drinking part above? I couldn’t give you exact portions if I tried). This would work with Cornish Games Hens, chicken, rabbit. And contrary to my previous concerns, those pheasants were the very unathletic sort. I believe they were hand fed grapes and maybe, maybe did a few sit-ups once in a blue moon.

Here we are in NY (the only place I seem to find the time to post lately, what’s up with that?) and it is the tail end of my mother-in-law’s visit.  And, I might add, the pinnacle, highlight as well. She has been looking forward to getting up here and having some “porch time” as she calls it on our long, lovely porch. On the schedule? wine tasting, walking and looking at leaves, cards or scrabble and, of course eating. Well, only the most intrepid will venture onto the porch today — we’re having a very blustery day. And the blusters, in turn are ripping the last vestiges of the leaves from the trees. We are a week past those beautiful, transitory fall leaves. So, I say we make it up with very vigorous wine tasting! As for the eating? Well, that got more delightfully complex when Arthur announced he would meet us for the weekend and then sent me a happy note about pie and mac and cheese. Meanwhile, back here we were making plans for Cindy’s birthday meal.

In my family there is a tradition that you get to pick your meal, any meal you like. I think I have written before about the fact that when we were kids we always thought up the most glorious menus, things you would never get in 60’s America except at the tables of women ((and some rare men) who were busily cooking their way through Julia Child in order to get to some culinary promised land. In our eden, there were roast ducks, escargots, isle flottants, etc. But my kids will ask for pure comfort (i.e., Grandma Fish). Cindy is asking for memory. She wants the Simca cake I made for her once upon a time and a Frutti di Mare I made for her last year. And she shall have it. How lovely to be requested to serve up more happy memories on the one hand and for my boy, food to soothe and comfort so that he can trundle back up to college with a box of (more) food and clean laundry.

I went to sleep last night with the knowledge that we were all together and fell into a long, dark night of quiet peace (for those who know me — a rare statement, right?)

And to ward against the bluster this morning? Omelet, fried green tomatoes because the tomatoes are begging for attention, sauteed apples (because the kids won’t touch the tomatoes) and Gary, my step-father-in-law’s famous Cardamom Bread. He makes it every christmas from an old swedish recipe his mother taught him and it is absolutely terrific. So when he arrived from California on the Red Eye with two loaves of it for us, I was most grateful. But.. when he imparted the recipe so that I could make it on my own? The most wonderful gift. He does warn that the yeast fairies have to kind to you for the bread to work so we are going to have lessons in the appropriate ablutions. No, see that is not even the word. This isn’t starting well at all…..

We were off at Bennington to visit Arthur this weekend which was wonderful, stressful and, in the end comforting. It was great to see Arthur in his environs, clearly at home and well-liked by his (mostly female) housemates. The mountains are beginning to be streaked with various shades of turning leaves; apple-picking was in full swing and the roadside pumpkin stands were replete with carefully arranged pumpkins.

We ate in the dining hall for several meals and, I have to say, I was a little disappointed with the vegetarian fare. Tofu Stroganoff? Apparently, according to Arthur, they take basic meals like Stroganoff and just re-make them with tofu. No one seems impressed. There are a pair of woks over in the corner and kids can make their own stir-fries which seems like a good option. On Sundays they have an ice-cream sundae bar in the evening and make your own waffles in the morning. So it’s fine but (and now I sound like every whinging, financially-strapped college parent out there) where the heck does all the tuition go? It’s not immediately obvious. Saturday night we did take Arthur out to a “real” meal at a local restaurant called Pangaea. This restaurant, owned by Bill Scully is really very good (that link is to a review of the place,  not to any more info about Scully — but it’s a nice review and does a good job of giving a sense of the place). I had grilled swordfish (sorry — bad but so yummy!) over a warm, wilted spinach salad. The dish was drizzled with a balsamic reduction vinaigrette and topped with a fan of avocado which melted right into the fish. It was really excellent. Scully also owns a market (Powers Market) across the street which has been around for 175 years (obviously not all under his stewardship). Again, excellent sandwiches, wraps and pastries (I am particularly regretting not buying the cinnamon roll yesterday morning because I think I am now going to have to make some to see if I can’t recreate what was obviously an amazingly rich, buttery dough).

What does this all have to do with marinated steak you ask? Well, naturally being away I did no shopping so we will be eating simpler meals this week, most of them derived from the freezer. I pulled out some bison rib eyes last night and am marinating them in a combination of equal parts soy, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup and some chopped garlic. I grabbed the recipe from this month’s Gourmet and felt pleased with the Vermontian maple syrup touch. I will report back on the results.

Well, as I posted recently, we spend the weekend in the Finger Lakes with my brother and sister-in-law and their two children my delightful niece, Gilly-girl and Harold (who I am allowed to call Harry if I like but I never do because, guess what? he grew into his Haroldness).

They arrived in time for Saturday night dinner and I made the White Bean Soup with Duck Confit from this month’s Gourmet. They devote an article in their recent issue on Paris to the joys and ease of making your own duck confit. That’s all well and good and I may do so but I happened to have myself some duck confit that I had transported carefully from Paris and saved for folks who would understand their special-ness.

When I told my brother, Alex, what I had made and also that I had saved a very nice bottle of red wine he gave me the happiest hug.

The recipe from Gourmet is supposed to be a worthy substitute for Cassoulet and it really isn’t. But it is very tasty and easy and I highly recommend it.

A favorite memory from this weekend?  Gilly (who seven) announcing at most meals that we were truly feasting — she was happy to be with everyone, enjoying the food. And yes, we were feasting.

Off to Maine tomorrow so probably not any posting unless I decide to haul this laptop with me, but there will certainly be lots of good food from my mom (which I need a little of — we should all be able to go home again even if we can’t really).