cooking misadventures continued

Because I'm busy writing 2 novels and watching tv, I haven't updated this blog in almost a month. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, at my own apparent disregard of proper protocols, and I resolve to attempt to do better. I have a series of posts in mind.

This happened a few years ago when my wife went with her tai chi group to China. It was too expensive for me to tag along just so she'd have a roommate, so I stayed at home with our dog. Now that I was on my own, I realized that I could cook and eat the wonderful piece of venison we'd been given by a guy we let hunt on our property.

So in the late afternoon I removed the package from the freezer. It was wrapped in clear paper, a long thin strip. I got out the wok and threw in some butter and added the "venison" (those quotes are the first clue that something was wrong...).

A few minutes later I looked inside the wok and saw the sizzling stuff MELTING!. Not spose to happen to venison.

Long story short: I had grabbed instead of the strip of venison a strip of dark chocolate we had gotten from somewhere.

Nice ending, though. After it cooled, I was able to chip away the chocolate and ate it over several days.
Then I cooked the venison properly.

RIP Julia Child! (great movie, by the way)...

My Souper Soup

Back in the Sixties, my wife and I worked for Time-Life Books. I was assigned to the Foods of the World series, a subject about which I knew nothing except which fork to use to eat. I was in charge of assigning photography for certain books.

In the text of one book, about French Provincial cooking, I read a phrase about “...a pot of soup kept on the back of the stove.” It made my mouth water.

I decided just before Christmas and New Year, that I would make a star-kissed bean soup. We bought bags of dry beans and one evening I added them one by one along with a ham bone and chicken stock, to a big pot and cooked them up into a great-smelling pot of super soup. 

And, after cooking to delicious perfection, I pushed the pot to the back of the stove. Of course, as I later realized, the text in the cookbook referred to country stoves, which always had a flame going. 

Next day, Penny’s parents were due in town from New Jersey and I wanted to feed them my great soup so they’d stop believing that I was an idiot.

I rushed in after work and pulled the pot to the front burner, turned on the flame and took off the lid to stir it. But before my wooden spoon entered... there was a burp within the soup; a bubble appeared.

“Hmm,” I said. No idiot I. I mentioned it to Penny, who also said, “Hmm,” and then added that she was going to call an expert, a woman we worked with who worked in the kitchen to test recipes for the books.

The woman, Fifi, was ill with flu and her husband shouted to her from the phone that our bean soup had bubbled before the fire could heat it.

Penny could hear Fifi shout back from her sickbed: “No STOP! IT’S PTOMAINE!”

I flushed the entire pot into the NYC sewer system. I hope I wasn’t responsible for poisoning the fish in the Hudson. Since then I’ve never attempted to cook anything more complex than scrambled eggs.

First Job in NYC

For some reason, this cloudy humid day, I recall my first job in NYC back in 1962. Yes, it's ancient history, kiddies. I had just received my MS diploma from Columbia U's Graduate Journalism School, and was broke and separated from my then-wife. 

She found me in the West Side bar after our graduation ceremony and handed me, with a smile, a telegram. It was from Roberta Ashley, picture editor at This Week magazine, offering me a position as her assistant. I quickly accepted the job, despite the doubts of Penn Kimball, my faculty advisor (he was right, of course). I needed money.

My first day on the job, in midtown at Lexington Avenue, I met the other staff and support personnel. And Mrs. Ashley told me to go to Brooks Brothers and buy a new suit, since my Midwestern attire, which had got me through a year of grad school, was not appropriate for work in this office.  I bought a gray wool 3-season single-breasted that I wore for years until the cuffs frayed.

There were two other guys approximately my age working on the Articles side. They didn't seem friendly. Gradually I found out why: they suspected that I was a homosexual. I retained my southern accent, a quiet slow-speaking voice and wasn't cruelly cynical in the intellectual style. The way I found out was at a party at a columnist's penthouse. My pregnant new wife decided not to appear in her old pregnancy dress, and waited in the car, so I went alone. The two articles guys appeared and introduced me to a good-looking woman... and then they withdrew, stood about 15 feet away and stared at us while whispering to each other. It was a social test. As I did with all social tests, I flunked. I didn't know what to say to the woman and didn't feel emboldened to put the moves on her. 

I started out well at the job: had an article published (I Raided Castro's Cuba, an as-told-to that I wrote in Hemingwayesque style) and some photographs, but the work was not challenging and I wasn't making any new contacts in the photographic world with people who could imagine and photograph and bring in cute picture essays. The job lasted a bit more than a year until I was let go because the weekly magazine was not selling any advertising (it had lost the Herald Tribune, its only NYC outlet). 

Desperate, with a baby coming to my second wife, I took the first job that appeared, with Time-Life Books, a friendlier place to work, yet with sharp class distinctions based on family, birthplace, and university (preferably Ivy League)....

Funny But True

Penny and I had 6 people to dinner last nite, to inaugurate our new dining room table that easily seats 8.

During the meal, all vegetarian and delicious, one guy asked me what movies I like (I'd seen him earlier perusing our DVD shelf) and I responded: "Shooting, things blowing up, guys running after other guys."

They chuckled over that and then he asked me, "What's your favorite movie?"

I responded: "Lassie Come Home."

And that's the truth.

to Christina

Dear Christina:

   I had no idea you have been in such bad shape, but I believe wholeheartedly that you'll come out of it. Everytime I do a crunch or other exercise I'm gonna dedicate it to you.

Love,

-don

Enough.

I woke from my second nap this morning feeling dissatisfied with myself. Because I haven't had a real book published yet after years of writing them. A good old friend kind of pushed me into this because he wants to publish a lifetime bibliography of my work. All that could go into it would be assignments I've performed for others, nothing of myself.

I've wasted two years letting everyone know how miserable I am and now I'm fat and out of shape and I want to change things... profoundly. I intend to pull myself out of this mood and mode.

I've already begun. 

More later, I hope. Let's see if this New Me can make the changes necessary.

Island Chorus

We just finished our Island Chorus commitment for this summer (it begins again in September, when we'll probably have a major, complex, difficult song to sing for Christmas). 

The July 3 concert was easy and more relaxed. I discovered something--even if I don't learn all the right notes, I can still participate.

I do it by opening my mouth but not actually giving voice in those sections where I don't know the notes and my neighbors on each side are singing different notes (as when I'm stuck between First and Second Basses). 

But on the places where I know the notes and feel confident, I blast it out. 

This is probably a formula for Life As We Live It.

Been Inactive but Changing

I've let this blog languish. No change since May 29. 

What's my excuse? Sheer laziness?

No, my ego cannot accept that--madly searching for a Reason, not an excuse.

Nope, can't come up with one.

So we'll leave it at laziness, perhaps exacerbated by the weather.

That's it--the weather; I can blame inaction on the weather.

It's been so rainy, windy, blah...in the middle of June, no less, that somedays I simply did not want to get out of bed.

Soon Summer will come.

I keep telling myself that.

Oh, I did have a good day of work on Saturday, where I concentrated most of the day on my novel, moving it forward after clearing up a tangled patch. That has to count for something.

About Magic

I tend to read (and write) stories about magic. Why is this subject so engrossing?

Because--magic is power over the world and other people.

We all naturally want power...usually, power to do good for ourselves and others. 

We consciously or unconsciously know that our thoughts have power to shape reality. So eventually we realize that if we control our thoughts we can focus their effect on reality.

Of the ways that have been proposed to focus our thoughts, "belief" is the strongest.

Of the ways proposed to focus our beliefs, religion is the strongest. Focused thought comes from focused "prayers". In praying we focus our thoughts on desired outcomes.  

We believe (or understand) that an outcome that is prayed for will be more likely to come to pass that one that is not. Yes, a simple focus of thought can influence the Universe, as one grain of sand dropped on a scale can influence the measure.

I had a simple demonstration of this while writing this post. Looking out the window of the reading room I was sitting in, I saw a policeman checking vehicles. Oh no! "Please don't let me get a ticket!" There's a 2-hour limit on parking in this neighborhood and it's strictly enforced. I hurried toward my car, arriving just as the cop was writing a ticket.

I got in my car just as a woman who had parked her car behind mine approached the cop and asked a question. He stopped writing the ticket to reply. I started my engine and pulled out of the space. No ticket.

American Icons with Guns!

Mickey and Donald, what a team when they were together in the same action-packed adventure. But of course they could have adventures on their own.

But both of them, when in serious trouble, valued the virtues of a GUN!!!!

Being Creative

From an article in the NYT Sunday Mag on scientist Freeman Dyson, quoting his family:  All six Dysons describe eventful childhoods with people like Feynman coming by for meals.  Their father, meanwhile, was always preaching the virtues of boredom: “Being bored is the only time you are creative” was his thinking." 

I've been espousing this theory ever since we moved to the Vineyard, but haven't achieved that delightful and necessary state yet.

Another famous guy, Pascal, always stayed in bed until noon and claimed that was the secret of being creative. I haven't gotten there, either, yet.

Of course, these make marvelous excuses for my not having done anything worthwhile in a long time...

Again, A Crow

  I continue to watch and (mostly) admire crows. There are many of them around our home, especially at the backyard bird feeder. They're too large to sit on one of the feeder's pegs, so they hang around the base of the pole, finding seeds that smaller birds have dropped.

To watch a crow in action, check out this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPHxA8-aaEffeature-related.

If that doesn't work, go to Youtube and type in Crows in the search field. Lots of material there.

Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!

Maltese Falcon

Haven't seen THE MALTESE FALCON in many years, just watched it today and had this thought. The plot is set in motion by The Woman's (Mary Astor) many lies to Sam Spade (H. Bogart), and at the end he turns her in because he can't trust her to be faithful to him. She's a woman used to manipulating and using males.

What if she had told him the truth from the beginning? There wouldn't have been a mystery and no movie and etc.

But what kind of trustworthy lover is Spade? He had an adulterous affair with his partner's wife, and calls every attractive woman endearing names: sweetheart, etc. And his reason for turning in his sometimes lover is "When a man's business partner gets murdered he has to do something."

Treachery for a treacherous time or universal truths? 

River

River is his name. He's just 5 years old. His life before he came to us was (1) sterling Seeing Eye trainee, and (2) in the breeding pen, living the Hugh Hefner lifestyle.

After fathering many great pups, he was neutered and offered to us as a keeper. He is, definitely, a keeper.

Mostly he dogs Penny's steps: whither thou goest, there goest I. But in the morning he comes to my side of the bed, nudges me and encourages me to give him a good ear and back rub. Sometimes if I'm sitting quietly watching tv or reading, he comes to me and asks for some attention. He may be asking to be taken out for a run.

Great dog.