Lady T

I'm one of those people who needs to spend up to three or four days staring into space and being grim and inconsolable -- followed by up to a couple of weeks of ferocious, every-minute-accounted-for activity. Stage I generally begins with an horrific solitary wine binge, and is afterward marked by comfort food alone at home (pasta with sauteed greens, wild-mushroom risotto, quesadillas and the like); Stage II usually is accompanied by major restaurant activity with friends. Then I start thinking about how nice it would be to make that risotto for two... Hope you get back to that stage soon, Ondine!

I wouldn't doubt that Santa Lucia helps some folks with their spatulas...but St. Anthony has been freelancing for me for years: lost paperwork, corkscrews (ten minutes before company arrives), bills I haven't paid, receipts I need to produce for bills I have paid, the crimini mushrooms I've set my heart on cooking and I can't find in a badly-designed produce section -- you name it, the good saint's bopped me on the figurative head and pointed me to it. Tony, Tony, look around... Something's lost and can't be found! St. Cecilia (patroness of organists, and by extension, church music in general; November 22nd is her day) has gotten me through more church services without (a) screwing up my solo work; (b) laughing out loud at the sermon; © falling asleep at the sermon and snoring at embarrassing volume. I cannot for the life of me recall whether it's St. Blaise or St. Joseph who guards and comforts the health of the human throat. I would bet good money, though, that I'm going to be reminded which one it is before the spring flu season's over. And finally: I have assumed for many years now that it's St. Jude, patron of hopeless causes, who has brought me my tax refunds, because surely it's not my skill at tax preparation. Now tell me, someone: is there a patron/ess for endless niggling detail, such a one as editors and proofreaders might address to plead for patience and a sharp eye and a tactful tongue?

Oh, they're together in whichever of the boxes they reside (Murphy's Law/Corollaries: they'll be in the highest-up, hardest box to access and/or the last one into which I burrow.). But with what will I entertain my fellow home-for-the-aged inmates long years in the future, if I give all the recipes away now?

Blazing braindead dropjawed Hell! That's as outrageous as anything I've ever seen. "Fussy little bitch" my left foot: those drooling twits would have given my companion a fresh, correctly cooked steak, and they would have comped it too, before I was done! Bless you in your restraint, Ronnie: I'd never have managed it.

Well, yes. Actually, I go a short ways further: at home alone, I lick virtually anything that has something tasty on it: spoons, plates, forks, the last aromatic drop in the wine glass, you name it -- with the exception of knives, which can be dangerous (and never more so than after the second glass or so of wine!). My towels are cleaner, and so is my conscience, since everything ends up in a fine hot dishwasher. After that description, I think I need to roast some pork this weekend.

Cool pictures. Have you sampled one of these? What is Chef Burke charging for them?

Me, I vote for the joyride every time. Dump that diet...or at least have a bigger croute avec fromage! That St.-Marcellin sounds sumptuous!

You comfort my soul. Without that disclaimer, I'd've omitted the booze from the recipe for safety's sake, and what fun'd that be, for pity's sake?! *Salutes and runs.* I'm diggin', Marlene, I'm diggin'!

Excellent point, Busboy. If Sex and the City acknowledges the growing cachet of being a 'foodie', even negatively, we must be arriving. Just don't ask me from which direction...or where we're going...

Shall do. Once (eep) I locate it. But Marlene: how does eGRA work with inexact, by-guess-and-by-gosh measurements? Dad always did the punch (therefore, so do I) by pouring things into the punchbowl purely by eye.

. . . only if Shmuley Boteach doesn't give Jacko semicha between now and then. Reb Michael of Neverland? I can juuuuuust imagine the bar mitzvah parties. Gah. And Cusina...I'll dig into the moving boxes at home, see if I can locate that recipe, and PM it to you. (Or would everybody like to have it? Don't think Dad got it from a published source; therefore, it can be published with impunity by an heir[ess] of his, namely moi.) Got a bride you need to bemuse? Or bridesmaids to bomb? Parents-in-law to pacify, perhaps?

Who would be the third sage for such a Bet Din? Jessica Simpson?

Word, GG. It goes without saying that he's still hearing about it. She's getting it from the entire rest of the congregation *and* their wives every fall, though, whether they were present for the historic (oy) occasion or not.

The first time an overnight gentleman guest used my sacred bread knife to slice a tomato, I drew a deep breath to take his ears off by sheer force of invective -- and then let the breath out without speaking, smiled, and thanked my guest for making me breakfast. No damage was being done, for cornsake: I hadn't told him where the tomato knife lives, and the bread knife is serrated, and sharp, lives in public view, and is heavy enough to do a dandy job making nice thin unmangled slices for the bagel the good man was toasting for me. I decided then and there that I needed to be waaaaay less petty and hung up, and waaaaaay more grateful for the good stuff the Universe sends me. Even if it doesn't happen exactly *my* way.

This is a totally new one on me. At your convenience, Rebbe: could you be persuaded to explain why Lubavitchers only drink "white" liquor? Whose ruling was this -- the late Rabbi Schneerson's, perhaps? What is meant by "white" ? (Are what we call white wines too yellow for them?) Of what, then, do they drink four cups on Pesach, if they can't have red wine? As to that poor Rebbetzin: the punishment fit the crime, as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how long ago this incident happened -- and don't need to know, really -- but I am certain of one thing: no matter how long ago it was, she's still hearing about it.

My late father, God be good to him, was a bartender, and I spent a lot of early years drinking small sips of whatever he chose to serve with whatever my mother cooked: hard cider, wines, liqueurs, you name it. As I approached the age when covert alcohol might reasonably be expected at the parties I attended, Dad decided to ensure that I knew my own capacity for the Creature, and learned to respect it, and to be wary of all the ways it might come to me -- including the ways I might not see it coming. Under Mom's eye and with her permission (and frequent hysterical laughter), he got me drunk. Repeatedly. We spent a number of truly astonishing Friday and Saturday nights during my thirteenth summer getting me relaxed, then tiddly, and then buzzed, and then blasted, and then utterly falling-down-smashed-beyond-redemption-with-vomiting (I also had to clean up the bathroom afterward. Gah.). None of this was done in public, though, not ever; I got walked to, or maybe poured into, my own bed to sleep it off, and any consequences I faced were at least faced in our own bathroom mirror. Dad taught me how to make sure I, and only I, opened the can(s) of pop from which I drank, and how never to put my glass or can down or otherwise turn my back on it thereafter. He showed me all the nefarious uses of vodka and rum, including complete recipes for four truly soul-destroying punches that I might use myself in time, on the condition that I acquired my victims' car keys first. (I have had more fun with Dad's champagne punch at bridal showers...!) He walked me through flights of wines with meals (continuing the lessons in pairing wines with foods in the process) until I knew the basics of how much food over how long a time needed to accompany those wines so that I could stay functional and walk a straight line (Yep. He tested me. Embarrassment is a really good teacher when you're a teenager.) when I got up from the table. I learned never to go to bed after extended alcohol consumption without drinking at least two large glasses of water. I learned, by really ugly experience, that I must never be sleep-deprived, either before or after the party, if I wanted to get up and not feel as if I'd been dragged through Hell face down. I learned to gauge how drunk the surrounding partygoers were and when to trust nobody at all for a ride home -- and call a cab. I would bet good money that anybody who saw Dad doing that kind of tutelage in these latter days would likely have had him up for six kinds of child abuse. But the lessons have stood me in magnificent stead (and my liver is just fine, thanks).

Easter weekend doesn't work for me. At many levels. At all. Virtually every other weekend in April and May can be made to work, though.

Muffins, all by themselves. Anytime. Warm sesame-seed bagels with cream cheese and nova lox and tomato and a slice of raw for lunch. Scones with tea for breakfast. Toast from a sliced oblong of fresh white bread, buttered, spread with pink grapefruit preserves. Onion-and-cottage-cheese 'gems' baked in muffin pans, served warm with dinner at home. Gorgeous caraway-seeded light rye before dinner at The Berghoff. Cornbread with chili. Oh yeah. I can finish work today: dinner's coming.

Damn. I'd ante up at competitive pay-per-view rates to see Nightscotsman do desserts, or watch Guajolote build a mole, or or or...

Word.

I recall a good friend's sister who begged and begged for chili during her first trimester. The friend and I obligingly put together a nice chili, with salad and cornbread to go with it; there was no budging the expectant lady out of the kitchen during the prep, and she sat at the table blissfully breathing beef and cumin fumes as we worked. When it was done and everything was ready, though, she took one look at the brimming bowl of red, gulped, and ran for the washroom. She explained later that what she'd needed was the aroma -- not the chili itself. The friend and I looked at each other, waited until sis had gone home with a share of the salad and cornbread, and laughed and laughed for the rest of the afternoon. First and only time I've ever heard of a lady who craved a food's smell (though I've seen quite a number with aversions to specific food smells) and not the taste, or a nutritional component of the food. Has anybody else ever encountered this?

Aaiiieeeee, the expectations! All right, all right: I love it.

Heh. I've never seen the inside of a Costco or a Sam's Club; I live by myself and the thought of buying an entire commune-worth of groceries has never looked real appealing. Particularly since I don't have a car to haul away all the boodle, nor a huge amount of closet space in which to store it. But shopping with and for an entire commune of eGullet buddies, and cooking and drinking the boodle thereafter: that's a whole other thing. If the date works, I'm in.

So how is that different from any other time? The rest of the time I snarl/mutter/purr/coo in complete sentences. And: the rest of the time I write legibly.

The snapper was a hot one; so was the tofu. By my recollection, though, the 'dear GOD that's hot!!' item was the kon pao beef. I still relish remembering how much Mags loved it, even so. Gioco? I'm listening. When, do we think?