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eG Foodblog: balmagowry - Back to the future....


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Congratulations... couldn't have happened to a nicer person!!! I'm sure your blog will be full of your inimitable wit and erudite references (at least that is what I am hoping for)!!!!

Also, can't wait to see your picture of...

ta - da !!!!

Coffee Milk!!!!

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Does this mean I get my sleep rhythms back to normal??? :rolleyes:

Funny you should ask. Not entirely.

I keep somewhat peculiar hours these days - I will explain more about this later - so although it is now noonish, EDT, my day has just begun.

Before any food is seen, I must walk my faithful dog, Luke.

i5853.jpg

Then he and Murphy

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must be fed.

And then I embark on the business of the day, starting with yogurt and coffee. There will probably be a bit of a time lag between meals and postings. We shall see, when I'm more awake....

:hmmm:

Edited by balmagowry (log)
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Could you please post a bit of an introduction -- to those of us who are joining you for the first time?  :biggrin:

May the Schwartz be with you.

Soba

Soba, dear, by the time I'm done with this you will know more about me than decent people oughta know! I still have to drag it from the pea brain to the keyboard, but what's writing itself in my head makes me feel like - was it Jules Feiffer who wrote "My World and Welcome to it"? I'm only sorry I didn't get it together to start a bio thread before embarking on this adventure....

Actually, I'm caught just slightly off guard. I have to admit I did have an inkling :unsure: that I'd be up next... but for some reason I was convinced I was starting tomorrow, not today, so I'm trying to clear my decks in a hurry, the better to devote myself to blogification (blogifaction?).

Here are some extremely bare bones to start with (I've dropped 700-plus posts' worth of hints and details all over this place, but have yet to index links to them!). My Actual Name is Lisa Grossman, and I am a hopeless food- and food-history nut. I live, garden, sail, cook and write on the South Shore of Long Island - mostly by the shores of Babylon (where we sat down and wept for thee, Zion) on the Great South Bay, but also at West Gilgo Beach, which is part of the Atlantic barrier beach, about half-way between Jones Beach and Fire Island. You may start the Pity Party any time you like. People ask me why I never go away and take a vacation, and I answer that it's because I live in a place where other people would go for their vacations.

It's a little early in the season yet, but in the course of the coming week I will try to show you something of the local goodies that fall to our share because we are so lucky as to live here. That's one reason I've subtitled this blog "Back to the Future": to give you the full picture I may have to indulge in a little time travel, because right now the water is still a little cold for clamming, the crabs aren't running yet, the wild blackberries aren't ripening yet, the garden is only just waking from its winter sleep. Since it's in a good cause, I hope I may be indulged thus far. In fact, I hope I may be indulged farther than that - but of that more anon. (Sorry for the highfalutin lingo; it is Shakespeare's birthday, after all. Actually, though... I really do write like that. Oh well.)

The work which I ought to be clearing from my decks right now instead of enjoying myself telling you about me me me me me... happens at the moment to be the re-design of a web site for a company in Mallorca (another long story). This is the vestigial remnant of my day job as owner/operator/chief cook and bottle-washer of a tiny computer consulting company called Gordian Knot Services, Inc. Kept me in shoe-leather for about 15 years, but I gradually strangled most of it because Bill Gates was spoiling my fun to an increasingly infuriating degree. So here I am working from home, and trying to figure out which book proposal to develop next. (This reminds me of something from Lewis Carroll, but I will NOT digress now.)

As some of you know, my first book proposal met with an extraordinary and unprecedented fate, and led exactly where we wanted it to: Lobscouse & Spotted Dog. It was a wild and marvelous ride, and my mother and I had more fun doing it than anyone can possibly imagine. And once the book was published there was the lecture-and-tasting circuit, mostly for maritime museums and groups of culinary historians. That, in fact, is how we became culinary historians, and acknowledged experts in our one peculiar niche. Who knew? In the Patrick O'Brian world we were known as The Amiable Sluts; Clarissa Dickson-Wright dubbed us The Two Rat Ladies. From L&SD, then, we branched out, farther into the past and the world, seeking the esoteric and the quirky, writing and lecturing about it. It's during this time that I developed my obsession with Careme; I am still hoping, before I die, to finish translating his L'Art de la cuisine francaise au XIXeme siecle (I feel very weird eschewing diacriticals, but I gather that's policy here - and it do make things go faster). Be it understood that before "finish" comes "continue" - haven't done much, yet. But there's time - I hope.

Not all that much more to tell, really. My co-author/colleague/twin/buddy/mother died a year and a half ago, and I am gradually putting some of the pieces back together and figuring out what most writers already know: that writing is essentially a solitary act. It wasn't news to me; but knowing it is one thing, living it another. The first fruit of this discovery is the article about the Borgias that I have been plugging so relentlessly; it was originally my mother's idea, but I ended up writing it without her, a sacred trust of sorts. The garden in which I grow herbs and vegetables and (edible) flowers is also hers, another sacred trust.

So much for "extremely bare bones." Be warned now: whenever I say (sincerely!) I'm going to be brief... I end up running on at length. I love to paraphrase Pascal: I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter; if I had had the time I could have made it a shorter one.

Let me go clear my decks. I've already photographed the whole breakfast routine in exhaustive detail; shall be back a little later and post same.

Thanks for the Schwartz, Soba. Remind me to tell you about Paul Monette.

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Can Luke come over to play with Eubie (Hubie)?

He'd love to. His, um, summer haircut yesterday was rather more drastic than I wanted it to be - from looking like a bear-cub in his woolly winter coat he became an almost bald dog in a trice, and I think he's a bit self-conscious about it, even though he's the least vain cocker I've ever met. But he'll be presentable again soon....

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He'd love to. His, um, summer haircut yesterday was rather more drastic than I wanted it to be - from looking like a bear-cub in his woolly winter coat he became an almost bald dog in a trice, and I think he's a bit self-conscious about it, even though he's the least vain cocker I've ever met. But he'll be presentable again soon....

In the meantime, Luke can come and play with Streaka and Dayton. They both have "bald thigh syndrome" to a certain degree (Streaka more than Dayton) and so an "almost bald dog" would fit right in. To give fair warning though, Tighe and Rogie do tend to flaunt their furriness to the others...

I'm quite looking forward to peering in on your life in the coming week (especially the yogurt aspects of it :raz: ). I think a week at the shore is just what we need after our time in France.

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Fantastic choice, Lucy!

The things one learns about people! I'm very excited to be conversing online with another Patrick O'Brien nut, especially a published expert in the culinaria of that epoch.

Lisa, my sincerest and deepest condolences on your loss. I have lost both my parents and while life goes on, I will always miss them.

Lisa, You have a lot to live up to after Lucy (Lord knows I couldn't), but somehow I suspect that you will do it with flying colors.

All the best,

John

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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Joined: 13-February 04

I recall that this particular 13th was a Friday!

To your fellow eGulleteers pay you pennance for so lucky a choice!

Blog on! :raz:

PS: No clamming? Any oysters from the Sound yet?

"I took the habit of asking Pierre to bring me whatever looks good today and he would bring out the most wonderful things," - bleudauvergne

foodblogs: Dining Downeast I - Dining Downeast II

Portland Food Map.com

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You know, for some reason I thought you lived in either England or France. Or maybe someplace on the West Coast. Must be your avatar. heheh.

Good to know you're local.

I've only been to Fire Island once. It was a weekend of cooking food brought over from NYC -- along with locally grown tomatoes and peppers. My boyfriend at the time had a vegetable garden in his bungalow in Cherry Grove.

Soba

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Lisa, I am really looking forward to your blog as I have enjoyed MANY of your posts I've come across! Besides any dog-lover/owner has to have a sense of humour. :biggrin: (We have 3)

Looking forward to a week at the shore....

Barbara Laidlaw aka "Jake"

Good friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies.

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As some of you know, my first book proposal met with an extraordinary and unprecedented fate, and led exactly where we wanted it to: Lobscouse & Spotted Dog.

That is YOU????? OHMYGOD! A treasured book on shelf, tobesure!

I had no idea...

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Hello, Lisa,

May I take this opportunity to tell you how many snickers, chortles, "oh, no"s and downright entertaining moments I've had reading your posts since you joined e-Gullet? Don't apologize for the length of your posts, they're wonderful. From the more esoteric of your historical ponderings to your irreverent humor (my highest compliment), I enjoy it all. Looking forward to your blog. :wub:

Ruth Dondanville aka "ruthcooks"

“Are you making a statement, or are you making dinner?” Mario Batali

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Hello, Lisa,

May I take this opportunity to tell you how many snickers, chortles, "oh, no"s and downright entertaining moments I've had reading your posts since you joined e-Gullet? Don't apologize for the length of your posts, they're wonderful. From the more esoteric of your historical ponderings to your irreverent humor (my highest compliment), I enjoy it all. Looking forward to your blog. :wub:

I second that!

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