Sunday, January 31, 2010

It's NOT the "Stuff"

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In the back of our Ford Explorer (taking up every bit of the storage area!) now sits a grand collection, every Gourmet magazine printed from 1975 to the last issue, a lovely gift from Fran, a great broad who is downsizing.


It makes me reflect on “stuff.” “It’s not the money, it's the STUFF!” is my favorite line from the movie, THE JERK. For me, “stuff” is all about culinaria: bowls, copper, linens. You know how some women are into shoes? Well for me it's dishes: old, new, chipped, mismatched, Limoges - it's all good. Ironically, I am a klutz. (No, really - in the middle of a room with no rug or even furniture, I’ll trip.) I go through more glassware in a year than Walmart. Mostly I’ll shrug and say (as the Buddhists do) that “the glass (bowl, vase, you name it) is already broken” even as I am paying for it at Macy’s.


But sometimes, when it is something of sentimental value, I’ll grieve anyway. Recently I broke a large decorative platter I had schlepped back from Italy. We were so broke on that trip, and this was my one souvenir. I’ve cheered myself with the thoughts of how much good use I really had from that platter, and how happy it made me to see it filled with something tasty that my family dined on.


My mother and her mom kept the good dishes captive, shut away, to be used “someday” “for company” - but they seldom were. I wonder how much ends up at resale stores, still packed carefully in yellowed newspaper, never even having been at the family table. My grandmother’s Waterford stood waiting, never to be used. If the Buddhists are right and my Italian platter was already broken at the moment I first laid eyes on it, then, dammit, let's USE it and make some memories with the stuff!


This past November as I set the table I felt a twinge for the loss of ten charming Thanksgiving country-style plates I had broken several years ago by walking into an open cabinet door. I sigh more deeply, however, when I remember that I broke them on the very last Thanksgiving I shared with my old best friend, Danny. That was a loss no piece of pottery can compare to.


In the long run - it's not the money OR the stuff. It's the memories, and the laughs, isn't it? And boy, how I am going to remember Fran’s generosity for the gift of all those Gourmet magazines. Right after we find a place to put them.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

BLOG

Q: How did I spend my holiday vacation?
A: On the Mediterranean, with Clifford A Wright.

Well, in all fairness, I was really curled up with his book, THE MEDITERRANEAN FEAST. What a work of culinary art! My God, if I started last year and wrote until I dropped dead, I could not write such book. It has everything you want in a book: drama (how about those Crusades!?), happiness (just reading about cannolis is erotic.) There was a staggering number of facts I did not know, from the culinary gifts of the Arabs to the very foods we eat today. The book is also a cornucopia of horror stories: aside from hoardes of nutty royals and emirs, it chronicles plagues, famines - and even nuns .

And it has wonderful recipes galore!!! My head spins with the number I tagged to try later. Aside from being a gentleman, Clifford is a machine.

I can't wait until Thursday night at the Pasadena Library to bow to this amazing cooker and scholar.

Until then I'll be reading "THE LOST RAVIOLI RECIPES OF HOBOKEN: A Search for Food and Family" (more about that wonderful book next time) - but I'll be dreaming of harissa! (That reminds me - when I talk to Clifford, I will ask him if he ever met anyone who really likes cassoulet.)

I wish you good friends, good deeds and good cooking!
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Monday, November 16, 2009

Pie pie me oh my

Screw cheesecake think
Pie. I mean even before George and the boys were ditching the Brits pie was the dessert on these here shores.
Speaking of Shores my grandmother shore made the best apple pie ever.I never eat it any where else cause I just know...,flat crust, apples swimming in goo sand the whole sweeter than a snicker bar.
Fall makes me long for just one more lesson in her kitchen in Bellows Falls Vt. Do not go all currier and Ives on me her.She lived in a big old house but upstairs with a beat up kitchen that always smelled of fresh baked donnuts an of course pie.
It was the same year Elvis died that I saw her last . Crippled with Arthritus her hands bent like claws and with only one or two fingers still work correct she began. I tried so hard not
To get all sappy as I watched and listened perhaps I knew it was the one and only cooking lesson she would give me. She was a swell old board who had seven kids years apart saw her family loose it's wealth in the depression . I only know this from old pictures she only spoke of the present except when she spoke of having four sons at war at the same time . I
Have one son now and I can bear it. I can not even imagine living that fear for years. '"I pomised god she said if my boys came home I would never ask for anything again ever" and they all came home. I am sure she kept that promise too.
Well she made those pies hands

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Pie

Forget cheesecake think pie. I mean since Washington and the guys
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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Best breakfast in Pasadena t

You order the goat cheese and arugula salad e a softboiled egg toss together gently and yum



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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Simple

the more i cook the more I believe simple is best . I mean by that
leaving it alone Iwhat is better than a great piece of fresh fruit
Do we really need to have a perfect French fry with truffle oil or a
juicy shrimp coated in coconut
Or fragile salad greens drenched in a dressing
Made from fake herbs and mystery oils. How about a great tasting
cookie that is not the size of your head and filled with waxy chips.
Al piece of chicken that has taste without every spice inthe
cupboard on it ? A pork rib that melts in your mouth with taste not
some kind of "special" sauce . Pasta ! Oh my god it's gone extreme
Mrs Turi my Italian niegbo in Pittsburgh would shriek to see the junk
stuffed in Ravioli out there. Enhance what is ready delicious. Enough
whinning I am going to enhance a good olive by surroundingu it with
some hgood gin

q


Ple