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Monday, October 29, 2007Duck, Duck, GravyI’m personally a big fan of Sally Schneider’s ultimate roast duck recipe, the this story that in the Times magazine was so good I wanted to post a shout-out: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Food-t.html I’m so glad it’s fall in the Midwest again ... time for knits, stews, roasts, and wood fires in the den ... Sunday, October 28, 2007Go Ask Alice
And what I love most about it is the philosophy that undergirds her approach to cooking. Good food costs ... some money, yes, but more time and attention, and our respect. Tonight Honey P. is away for business. And normally, I’d order a pizza and rent a sci-fi movie that I know I’d only get to watch to the end alone. Not tonight, thanks to Alice. I went to the market for fresh greens and homepage sausage. Between stints at my desk writing at a report, I made pizza dough, spun dry organic romaine, grated mozzarella, sauteed sausage and tomatoes, emulsified egg and oil and chopped anchovies for homemade caesar dressing, Total elapsed time making dinner for one: two hours. Total time consuming a salad and two slices of pizza: 20 minutes. A wonderful meal in solitude during which I flipped through Saveur and Gourmet and planned our upcoming Thanksgiving celebration, priceless. I saved some pizza for an eighth-inning bite (go, Red Sox!). The crust was a little soggy, but it was still pretty savory. Alice would approve. Sunday night, very good night! Read Salon’s interview with Alice Waters ... Remembering It“All of the loves .... are unrequited. The baseball game is always lost, the test score is always D-minus, the Great Pumpkin never comes, and the football always gets pulled away.”
Honestly, that’s not the way that I remember it. A couple of weeks ago, The Times ran a story about the recently released biography of Charles Schulz, the man behind my childhood. Let me explain. I grew up on the Peanuts. Every week, while my mother did the groceries, I’d head to the paperbacks and pick out a new book of cartoons to buy with my $1 allowance. Usually, they were black-and-white. From time to time, I’d have to save a couple of weeks to buy a special-edition four-color set of cartoons. I lived on these compilations. I compared my real-life friends to my paperback archetypes. I had my own security blanket. No, really, I did! I completed and hung on my bedroom wall a latchhook rug of Linus. I cursed the Red Baron, desperately hoped that PigPen would discover personal hygiene, wanted Peppermint Patty to veer away from a blunt bob with bangs, and wondered (granted, in retrospect) whether Schroeder swung with Dumbledore. I bought a Snoopy telephone (my parents still use it). It shouldn’t come as a surprise or disappointment to any of us that Mr. Schulz was occasionally depressed, from time to time mean and withdrawn ... or that he embedded some profound sadness from his personal life into a slyly written snippet adored by children. Aren’t we/don’t we all? But in my memory those kids were happy, occasionally surprised by success, and otherwise meted out disappointment in four-frame chunks that made life livable, if nothing else for the promise of hope--the next kick, the next kiss, the next pop quiz could be theirs. I think that’s what I miss most ... The Glass is Ralph Empty
Wednesday, October 24, 2007The Future Smells Like Faulkner Trail
Postcards From the Edge. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. Oh, but back to the point of this entry ... I’ve made no secret of the fact that Honey P. and I have dreamed of moving to the East Coast. Our trip to Woodstock this past weekend sealed the deal. As we drove from in from Burlington, my honey said to me “I can feel my roots reaching out to embrace me.” And my inner voice said to me “goodbye city life, hello cheddar!” And for three solid days, sugar dreams danced through our heads: driving the backroads in our sometime-soon-to-be-purchased Pontiac Solstice, walking our matching golden doodles (Anyang and PopPop) into the Green, warm nights cuddled by the fire as snow wafts down carelessly down from a start-spangled winter night’s sky. We dinned at the Wethersfield Inn, shopped at the Norwich Farmers Market and Woodstock Farmers Market, enjoyed a fabulous dinner at pane e salut, hiked up Mt. Tom, and picked out our fantasy homes on lovely streets off of the Green. It will be five years from now, but the time passes quickly and perfect homes come on the market seldom. And then there’s all of that gear and plaid to purchase from L.L.Bean. I’m too tired to say much more (it’s the first night of the World Series and it was chest day at the gym), but check out my Woodstock photo album at your leisure. Wednesday night, good night. P.S. The photo above has nothing to do with Faulkner Trail, but such pretty colors ... |
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