On the Farm

When I was a kid, on certain Sundays in September we city slickers piled into a couple of cars and repaired to a friend's farm where we picked potatoes and stooked wheat. Bob the farmer was eternally an old man in my memory - a disheveled bachelor dressed in dirty overalls. He had a goiter problem, a huge Adam's Apple and bulging eyes. He was skinny and the few teeth he had were yellowed from his continual smoking; a smoldering fag always hung from his fingers. He could smoke a cigarette down to the size of a pencil eraser and watching him drag on those burning bits was both fascinating and horrifying. At any moment you'd think you could smell his lips searing.

He spoke very slowly and deliberately. Despite his gruff appearance he seemed to like kids and he usually had a surprise of some kind ready for us on visiting days. Riding on a cow's back was one such surprise.  He'd pick us up and settle us on the cows back and then pile up some fresh cut grass in front of the animal so that it would stay in one spot. The elevation seemed very lofty to me and quite exciting. As I grew older I can remember reading on the animals back - one of the more curious ways I've read a book.

During my university years, I had a garden on his property. He'd turn the earth for me and I'd come out in the spring and set the rows with my hoe, sow the seeds and set strings above the rows. My father probably forced me to do this as part of the payback for tuition...I was too self-absorbed to think about charity and he was always harnessing me to the plow, so to speak. Dad did all Bob's legal work for free and likely called in a few chits to get Bob to indulge me in my continuing farm education.

Bob did all the really hard work in advance and I got the good part - planting yellow wax beans, beets,  rhubarb, potatoes, peas and onions as soon as the frost danger was over (it was never really over in Winnipeg). Harvesting in September usually yielded bushels and bushels of vegetables which we donated to an orphanage. My boyfriend's little black Austin convertible would be loaded down...I'd ride squeezed into the back using my body to keep the peas from blowing out as we crept our way to the orphanage. We'd make several trips a day on Saturdays until the plants were picked bare and the nights were getting frosty.

Old Bob came to my wedding. It was the last time I saw him. The reception was held at a restaurant in the airport presaging how my life was going to unfold. Bob, all cleaned up, smoking longer butts in honor of the occasion, and my three maiden aunts (all in their sixties at the time), resplendent in hats and gloves, got blotto drinking Manhattans in the Fly-Away bar before the wedding. None of them really drank much in real life and they ordered Manhattans because they'd heard the drink was sophisticated. What happened afterwards I shudder to think. My father reported that they all suffered mightily from hangovers. Fortunately, the aunts lived right next door to the Catholic Church; if "morning after" confession was necessary, they didn't have far to go.

My Lapsed Judgement

I reached into my cache of greeting cards to find something to send a friend. For the fiftieth time I shuffled past the three cards, now yellowed with age, that endure as a testament to my temporarily lapsed judgement and common sense.

Here's the birthday card that can never be sent.

Here's the Christmas card......

 
When I bought these card a dozen years ago in Marlene's Hallmark I thought they were hilarious. As my own rear view "adjusts" with age, I've grown more sensitive to my potential audience. The cards survived my last vicious purge of stuff - I keep them as a sort of touchstone of bad taste.


The third card I bought when my friends were younger; there was little risk in treading on such thin ice. Now I still think it's funny but don't dare send it to anyone.

Neither brass nor bass

Intrigued by the idea of a organ recital with hand bells and brass, I went over to Grace Presbyterian Church to see the advertised concert. The organist, an enthusiast and charming woman was the star of the show. She introduced each piece with a short explanation of the music and it's origin, facts about the composer and why she chose the piece. Designed to show off the organ, several of the compositions were quite showy and made good use of the entire key board and the bass pedals. After she finished each piece with a flourish, she'd come back to the microphone, almost breathless and make a little comment about her playing, "That really warmed my fingers up!" or "That one is a real challenge!" She was adorable. She also played a bell solo and was part of the bell ringing ensemble.

I was fascinated by the gloves the bell ringers wore and did a little research when I got home. Some play the bells "naked" - without gloves, others claim gloves are necessary to protect the bells from oils and sweat on the hands. 

Turned out there was a typo in the flyer advertising the concert. It wasn't brass, but rather bass accompaniment and it turned out that the bass player had an emergency and couldn't be there. No brass and no bass either!

Enthusiasm makes a huge difference no matter the endeavor. I enjoyed the concert and the almost-one-woman show very much. 

Aidez moi!!

Every year I swear I'll get my taxes done in January. Then I shoot for April. Next thing I know it's September and my accountant tells me I face a 25% fee increase if my information isn't in her hands by September 15th. There's nothing like a good deadline - one with a bit of pocket pain attached, to make you finally face the music.

Why am I writing a blog entry instead of drilling away at the paperwork until it's done? Because nothing brings out the procrastinator in me like this one task. I can think of at least a hundred things that should take precedence.  After the hundred things are done, I get an attack of ADD.  I can't focus on anything for longer than 30 minutes without taking a break, which leads to a distraction and then another break and so on. I've read that there's some kind of ego depletion phenomenon that occurs when excessive procrastination sets in and I believe I suffer this. Who am I anyway and why am I trapped here wallowing in paper?

Every year I imagine the dreaded audit is imminent.  In my nightmare scenario, I mail in the return and some young zealot gets hold of it and finds hundreds of errors. A viciously precise scrutiny ensues and a precious year of my life is wasted justifying my $19.95 subscription to Food and Wine magazine.

As I shuffle the papers around, I find myself gradually getting numb. My tongue went first in this year's case of  tax paralysis, starting with a specific cluster of nerves down the middle - I can barely cry out, "Save me from all of this....someone, anyone!" In other years, 1992 if I remember correctly, the finger nerves, specifically the nerves involved in gripping a pencil, failed utterly. In '04, I couldn't keep that rubber finger thingy on and it would fly off my paper flipping finger like a boomerang or something out of a Kung Fu movie. If I was prone to headaches I suppose I'd develop one of those. Stressed, my body is sending out random alarms. I need a Canadian aspirin or two (they put some codeine in the mix) and I have a bottle of 500 reserved specifically for the temporary relief of the pain in the ass our tax code has become.

My husband took one look at me a few minutes ago and decided to go to KFC and pick up some fried chicken for dinner. I'm headed for the wine bottle.

Truth and Fiction: Clara Peeters

Osais Bert was waiting outside the door with the cloak over his arm, pacing back and forth and ruining her concentration.  She sighed, reaching for her loupe and glass. When would he cease his hounding? Hunching over the canvas she used her finest brush to finish her own reflected image in the silver candle stick.  The idiot Osais could try 1000 times and never reach the perfection she could achieve.  In the atelier, when a detail was necessary Clara was summoned. The first and only woman to ever work here her steady hand and perfect eye could capture the smallest, finest details. And the master reaped the benefits in prized commissions and higher fees. He needed more money.  After all it was 1607 and inflation was rampant since the Burghers had money to lend and the Church no longer counted usury a sin.

More frequently now the studio was accepting private commissions.  Gone were the days of painting only for Rome, recreating ponderous Biblical scenes to hang in obscurity in dark churches, monasteries and clerical residences.

When Clara was twelve she began painting insects. Her lady bugs were marvels under the glass - she captured every hair, every detail. Her reputation and genius quickly grew. Clara's flies were unequaled - layers and layers of paint were built up with her fine sable brushes; textures and light grew with impasto until the viewer was mesmerized.  Later she applied the same technique to painting other insects, grasshoppers, crickets and spiders; then small objects: mirrors, vases, thimbles. Now three years later, Clara - a woman - barely more than a child, was acknowledged not by all, but by a growing number as a skilled studio painter. The cloaking ritual, sneaking her into the studio in the day and out at night was still necessary. Osais felt the need to hide her from plain view to protect her honor although more and more often commissioners requested a painting by "the girl".
 
And now at last she was painting a whole canvas in the new still life style, the style she was developing. The burghers, trying to achieve immortality desired records of their possessions  - a way to live on beyond the grave. Newly wealthy, they loved paintings of dark rooms packed with their treasures from top to bottom.  But this one was a happier canvas. Stepping back she assessed the almost completed current work. Commissioned for the wedding of a Burgher's daughter, she had carefully chosen the most iconic objects to work on the canvas in her lovely composition, which radiated lasting beauty and was neither overly religious nor profane.

As the painting would be the prized possession of the young couple and their most important wedding gift, she was careful to include the pieces the couple loved along with  symbolic food and objects associated with love and marriage. A long twig of rosemary was hung with tiny ornaments, perfectly painted. Rosemary with its long lasting strong scent represented the persistence of young love. The beautiful tiny ornaments, exquisitely painted gave Clara the opportunity to exhibit her great skill.  She liked to include a candle light for balancing the glow on the canvas and she was pleased with the soft light on her scene. Just as life and love progress, candles represented the flare of passion, followed by radiation of a constant light, flickering occasionally and then finally simply dying   Two large wedding pastries rested on the marital plate and the "P" was the initial of the new couple but she painted it with extra joy as it was her own last initial. The two glasses represented the bride and groom. Their wedding ring at the edge of the plate added whimsy to the composition and balanced the magnificently painted fly creeping across the tablecloth in the background, the unsuspecting insect being in imminent danger of discovery, swatting and extinction; it represented and reminded the viewer of the the brief time we have on earth.

She wiped away a bead of sweat as she worked her own tiny reflection into the candle stick. Clara enjoyed painting this quirky signature, known only to her and the only way she could get credit for her work. Soon after this trademark was discovered by a discerning eye,  the burghers began to request that she include it in all her paintings for authenticity.

She turned back to the canvas to draw more tiny lines which the waning studio light revealed were wanting. After a few moments, her eyes raised and she met the burning, impatient glance of Osais. Her day was over. Clara reluctantly stood up from her chair.
 

Mixed media: Dance and food

Down the alley, behind Jose’s Rotisseria, 17 chickens marinated in rum, brown sugar and lime juice turn slowly on a spit and begin to drip, the juices sizzling on a bed of red hot BBQ coals. A sweet rumminess rises up, catches the air and wafts 3 blocks east through the open window of Anton’s nightclub, flutters round the dressing room curtain and into the flaring nostrils of Ricardo Perez, tango dancer. Perez snaps to attention, his appetite alive; he reaches for one of the spicy empanadas on his dressing table, bites down, his lips and tongue slowly burning as the meaty filling and buttery crust melt in his mouth.

On the other side of the curtain, Lucinda straightens her bodice, checks her makeup and takes one last sip of her Pisco Sour. Salivating, her tongue is prickled by lime juice and her cheeks pucker from the alcoholic Pisco. She smells the charring chicken and stamps her strappy black heels.

The strains of the tango music start; Ricky and Lucinda swirl out onto the dance floor plastered against each other, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, nose to nose, moving sinuously to the torrid tempo. As they swoop past the birthday table Lucinda’s little finger, dangling, scoops up icing from the tres leches birthday cake. Gracefully, her hand passes her mouth and she laps up the milky icing. “Sweet”, she sighs. 

Another a low dip and over Luncinda's raised bosom, Ricky sees the remains of a large platter of grouper in lime sauce on the table while a limoncello bottle is being passed around. Bowls of deep yellow pineapple chunks sprinkled with cilantro are scattered around the stained table cloth red blotched from splashes of the house salsa picante. Half eaten plates of flan swimming in caramel sauce are piled at the table's end. The diners have pushed their chairs from the table and lean back, sipping their mojitos, toothpicks at work. The dancers hear a belch of satisfaction as they make another pass. 

As the last few squawks wheeze from the ancient accordion, Ricky and Lucinda assume the classic tango pose, her leg draped over his thigh, her stretched back arched outward, arm raised high in the air; as if mimicking the tortured tango melody, their two taut young stomachs begin a yearning growl . 
 

 

Hot nights in Cincinnati

Cincinnati was hot and humid..a typical summer evening - throngs of people dressed in bright red t-shirts and hats walking to the downtown stadium for a Cardinals game. In the Hilton Hotel a couple of hundred people gathered for the Acoustic Neuroma Association meeting. Eh? What's that? Sorry I can't hear you? Could you speak louder? - these were the kind of comments floating in the air. As we waited for the elevator's arrival heralded by a ding,  all 12 people in the lobby started circling around, looking at the lights, having no idea where sound is coming from. Richard was the only person with sound localization and he shouted out, "Walk this way!!". We followed him like a line of chicks following their mother.

Over the weekend, we listened (ha) to lectures and presentations learning a lot. Surgeons, radiologists, epidemiologists, public health professionals and audiologists made presentations. Highlights of general interest from the causation front: childhood radiation is linked to development of brain tumors in adults, radiation from thyroid treatments in particular. There's a huge Israeli study on-going.  N. African children emigrating to Israel in the early fifties were irradiated to treat head lice..lots of data available for study. Smoking may protect against certain kinds of cancer, although nobody is suggesting you risk lung cancer for protection from other cancers. Another development is that is that people who have allergies have less cancer...they speculate that developments in the immune system might have something to do with it.

Just what everyone wants - plastic brains

Cruising the exhibits, we picked up a couple of plastic squeezable brains - I'm thinking of making them into giant earrings - and we saw demonstrations of surgical apparatus that was being sold to the physicians in attendance - cool new cutting, sawing, boring stuff for brain surgery that they demonstrated on a grapefruit, cutting the segments out carefully. Actually, I can do as well with my saw toothed, curved grapefruit cutter (ha). Because everyone has wonkiness and dizziness to some degree we bumped into each other frequently. It was pretty funny watching people veer off into walls or miss a doorway. When the whole community shares a problem like this, it is not longer the problem. The unaffected people are the ones who stick out like a sore thumb.

Met a few poor bastards with NF2...with this condition, tumors- usually benign, spring up everywhere. One fellow had nine in his brain and twenty or so on his spinal cord. These people have as much surgery as they can stand but eventually they are just overwhelmed and things stop working because the neural pathways (and other things) are crowded out by the tumors.

Many of the people attending were "watch and wait" - they have slow growing small tumors and the luxury of time. They can wait until the tumor starts causing symptoms or decides to bolt, like mine did, then get to decide between three kinds of micro-surgery and three or four kinds of radiation. Every procedure has advantages and disadvantages. There are constant improvements in the treatments. In the two years since I was irradiated they are apparently modifying dosage. I received 18 grays and now they are delivering closer to 14 grays during the same procedure. Obviously the lower the better.

It was encouraging to hear that there's hope on the horizon for tinnitus sufferers. Because tinnitus is in the brain - it's actually the brain creating noise to replace the stimulation of sound, the only thing that really works now is a kind of retraining where the brain is conditioned to ignore the sound. Interesting that tinnitus can take so many forms - some people just hear a whooshing, others clanging, others sirens - I have a whistle and a buzz and can mostly ignore it except when I can't.

tinnitus sounds


     

Lake Arrowhead - a short break

I'll always remember the next to last time I was in Lake Arrowhead. It was July 20th, 1969 and Apollo 11 landed on the moon. My girlfriend and I pulled off the road so we could listen to the historic broadcast on the radio. The place has changed a tad since then. In fact they burned the whole village down rebuilt it and now it looks ready for still another face lift.

As we drove up the mountain, we found the price of gas going up along with the elevation....

Right after we got out of the car at The Oaks, two cabs from the Santa Monica Cab company pulled up. Out jumped five guys speaking Arabic, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. They huddled around talking for a while ignoring the friendly remark from a local who asked, "Took a wrong turn did you?" They soon jumped back into the cabs and off they went.

Just after we met our friends and sat down to lunch, twenty-two County Sheriffs pulled up on motorcycles. They lined up on the side of the road and we thought perhaps a personage of importance was coming up. No -  turned out they wanted lunch. One of them came into the small restaurant and the hostess asked "How many?". "Twenty two", the sheriff answered without blinking an eye.

Shortly behind the sheriffs, a few beautiful antique cars starting pulling in. There's a car show in Big Bear over the weekend.

After all this excitement, a few hours sitting by the river at our friend's tiny cabin in Benton Flats was very relaxing.

The darling cabin

You can let your hair down here

We went on to the Resort at Arrowhead and checked into a comfortable room. The resort has been updated and looks pretty good. A couple of perplexing policies make you feel ripped off - the first is the compulsory resort charge of $19.00 per room which basically gives you access to the amenities??? the spa, services like dry cleaning...it does include valet parking (but you've still got to tip) and free Internet access (too complicated to set up). You must pay the resort charge - it's not included in the room charge. Seems like a stupid policy to me...just charge $19 more for each room and avoid the controversy of having a posted charge for the room and the extra charge for having common-place amenities available. It's only a matter of time before hotels start adding charges for items like upgraded sheets, pillows, towels, hair dryers. Once I stayed in a Red Lion Inn hotel where everything in the room was pointed out...."Extra large bathroom mirror!", "Super sucker commercial grade toilet!" "EZ Glide closet doors!". They assaulted the guest with senseless chest beating (does anyone care about the glides on the closet doors?) and exclamation marks.  I could hardly wait to get out of there!!

In the interest of protecting the environment they only serve bottled water - still or sparkling. And of course they charge you for it.

Hallway lighting

Birch room dividers

The bar with birch wall paper

Private dining at the Resort

The beach at the Resort

  On the way from Arrowhead to Twin Peaks for dinner, we passed a Jensen's market - a rare sight and we decided to stop and look for a favorite ice cream topping they carried years ago. Didn't find it but we did stumble on the Tabasco Seven Spice Chili Starter, a product I developed for them 20  25 years ago and haven't seen for a decade - they sell it in the company store or on their web site. I thought the packaging still looked good. 

Parking in Twin Peaks is like parking in Manhattan. Every available space is restricted for some reason or another. Sign after sign reminds you that towing might occur. We finally stashed the car in a business designated space hoping the dire warnings applied only during normal business hours.

Remarks on "yelp" about The Grill were very encouraging and the place was a surprise. The menu offerings were creative -  I can't rave about the food but it was definitely a cut above what we were expecting. Richard had the citrus and rosemary marinated chicken with truffled macaroni and cheese. The chicken was over-cooked but the truffled mac and cheese was excellent. I had lime tequila fettucine, a riff on the dish made famous by California Pizza Kitchens. It was satisfactory. We got there about 6:30 and the place was full at 8:00 when we left. Bar does a pretty decent business - biker types, young couples pouring down shooters and a few martini drinkers.

At the resort the next morning, we had breakfast on the patio overlooking the lake. Delightful experience - perfect weather and excellent service. A pleasant short break.

Hers: Bacon and Eggs

His: Poached eggs on spinach and sausage

Breakfast View

Two Million Applications

Entrance to El Bulli (guardian.co.uk)

Two million people applied for reservations for Adria Ferran's El Bulli last supper July 30th. Talk about quitting while you're ahead!

El Bulli

El Bulli recipe catalog 

From "The Guardian",

"I never said I wouldn't feed people," Adrià smiles when I ask what he will miss when he closes his door at the end of this, his last season. "After July, El Bulli won't be a restaurant, not open every day. But I will still need feedback." Adrià's plan is for a nonprofit centre for "culinary creativity" opening in 2014, with a stream of new recipes posted on the internet. "We are excited," he says through an interpreter (Adrià doesn't trust his English to be precise enough for our purposes). "Bulli has always been about change. Why does Madonna with all her money need to earn more? She could share, not her money but her creativity. The young share, and we at the top should, too.

"When we started there were eight of us, all bachelors; now we have families, kids. I don't have children but I am very happily married, with a wonderful wife. With the foundation I can give something back – my talent, my luck. I have created 1,846 dishes – 80 per cent of new cookery techniques come from here – but no one can be number one for ever. Even those that love us get tired" – though this may be news to the two million people who desperately tried to book when the news of El Bulli's closure was announced.

"I will be 50 soon, with maybe 25-30 years left," he laughs. "I want to be happy like I have always been, and I can do this  by taking away the things I don't like. Do what I want, when I want, for who I want."

Chef Ferran will now be establishing a kind of think tank for food. From the El Bulli web site, here are a couple of views of the envisioned space. Personally my best ideas about food were inspired by being surrounded by food - aromas, textures, colors, kitchen activities. Sitting in this spare space, sort of like the inside of a gourd, staring at a screen doesn't turn me on - but I'm sure I don't have to worry about getting an invitation.  Ferran is an acknowledged genius - I'm sure there's more to this than meets my eye.

Exterior of the gourd-like structure

Cave like interior

A spare space dedicated to brain work

Getting the last supper together at El Bulli (photo by Howard Sooley)

The last supper at El Bulli

beetroot and yoghurt meringue

tomato cookie

air baguette

mojito - caipirinha sugar cane

mojito and apple baguette

gin fizz

spherical olives

mimetic peanuts

pistachio ravioli

parmesan cheese "porra"

parmesan cheese "macaron"

gorgonzola balloon

olive oil chip

flowers paper

golden egg

steamed shrimps with tea

roses with ham wonton and melon water

ham and ginger canape

Japanese ravioli

soy matches

nori ravioli with lemon

asparagus with miso

tiramisu

oysters and bone marrow tartar

parmesan frozen air with muesli

carbonara tagliatelle

caviar cream with hazelnut caviar

pine nuts shabu shabu

"perrechico" cake

polenta gnocchi with coffee, safran, skin milk and capers

tender almonds perfumed with truffle

barnacle with caviar

two cooking prawns

lulo "ceviche" and mollusk

clam "ceviche"

Oaxaca "taco"

"gazpacho" and "ajo blanco"

peas 2011

sea cucumber

Shanghai lobster

hare fritter

game meat cappuccino

blackberry risotto with game meat sauce

hare ravioli with bolognese and blood

pond

yoghurt blini

"coca de vidre" – crystal cake

mini donuts

apple rose

box

The box - final course at El Bulli (photo from alifewortheating.com)

FX Francois Xavier

Swiss apple roesti - makes you want to run into the kitchen and cook something.  I love Francois Xavier's videos and his blog. There's a homey quality to the presentations - some of it is his delightful accent. The cooking techniques are sometimes great, sometimes a little dicey sort of like Julia was at the beginning. I don't know what happened to him...his blog is almost inactive and he only made a few of these charming videos.

Swiss Apple Roesti

Here's more about Francois, his interests and how he does his food photographs:


About fx cuisine

Pressing Business

Photo from liveauctioneers.com

My husband informs me that we need one of these. It's a sterling silver duck press and a similar one was featured this month in the "What is It?" section of Cook's magazine. A specially bred Rouen duck was slaughtered without being bled, then par-roasted; breast and thighs removed. The carcass was then inserted into the basket and when the handle was cranked a silver plate squished everything; blood and juice exited out the spout. The breast (further cooked) was served with this jus cooked down with Madeira and cognac.

Maybe we could use it to make guacamole?

I found the photo above of the press in action from the website FX Cuisine - great site. Check it out (link below) for accounts of really interesting food experiences. Warning - I spent an hour on it and could have easily been at it another couple of hours.
 
fxcuisine