For Whom the Rooster Crows

A joy of travel is that it is a constantly refreshing source for stories. Travel enough, and you become adept at recognizing when you are in the middle of a story in progress.  And that is thrilling.  

We spent the recent July 4 holiday weekend in the whimsically random story mecca of...  Ketchum, Idaho.  And the "Once upon a time..." began.

When we landed in Boise*, we made the rookie mistake of deciding to wait until we got to Ketchum to have lunch. Fast forward three hours - we’re the hangry couple on the patio of a pizza place, not speaking to each other.

Rather than engage with the spawn of Satan I married (whose Hero status was restored once I had eaten), I gazed around the intersection and spied an antique shop down the block. It was one of those “antique shops” that had lots of stuff displayed out on the sidewalk - I’m sure there were some antiques out there, but it was mostly wonderful, kitschy junk.

In the midst of all that clutter a block away, I spotted - and fixated on - a tin rooster. A rooster that I HAD TO HAVE. Because fixating on this rooster during the fragile hangry phase seemed like the lowest-risk use of my attention span.

But by the time we had finished lunch, the antique store was closed. And it wasn’t going to open again until about two hours after we were planning to leave (cue sad trombone).

This trip was loosely structured around a Hemingway theme. Which makes us seem erudite and cool, but as per our usual vacation planning process, here’s how it unfolded:

1. Kelly runs across a tweet about the “coolest small towns in America” 
2. Kelly cross-references these towns with Alaska Air routes 
3. Kelly impulsively books trip 
4. Kelly researches Ketchum to figure out how to sell Brian on the trip, discovers that Hemingway died there 
5. Brian indulges Kelly with his usual eyeroll and weary affection because he is not really the spawn of Satan 
6. Brian researches Ketchum for himself, watches Ken Burns' documentary series on Hemingway, begins to look forward to the trip 

Score!

So on Day 2 (one day past the missed connection with the tin rooster), we stayed on pretty good terms by having a wonderful breakfast, then visited the Hemingway grave and memorial and talked about the Hemingway code and mythos in general.

 

Hemingway is buried in the Ketchum Cemetery, alongside his wife, Mary; his son, Jack; and Jack's daughter, actress Margaux.

The Hemingway Memorial overlooks a golf course near the Sun Valley Lodge.

Day 3 (two days past rooster fixation, one day before we leave), we poked around downtown Ketchum, including visiting a cool art gallery with an amazing ceramics exhibition. Turns out the gallery was one block away from the antiques store (but to be fair, everything in Ketchum is essentially one block away from everything else), so we went to look more closely at the rooster, hoping to soothe the heartbreak by discovering that up close, the rooster wasn’t all that impressive.

Instead -- 1) my fixation on the rooster deepened, and 2) the store was open!! The rooster was acquired!! 

Sunny the Rooster

A few observations about the store:

• The name of the store is Antique Alley, which made sense given its location. And the owner of the store is named ... Alley. 
• Alley received a call on her cell phone while we were talking to her. Her ring tone is the theme from Sanford and Son.

That night - our last night in Ketchum - we had dinner at the very restaurant (Michel’s Christiania), at the very table, where Hemingway had dinner with fourth wife Mary before going home and killing himself. 

In several places in the restaurant décor... roosters. 

A few closing thoughts on the restaurant:

• Excellent food; Brian serendipitously had Hemingway’s last meal. 
• After we were seated, an elderly gentleman with a thick French accent introduced himself as Michel and asked if we knew the significance of the table.
• He told us that back in Hemingway’s day, Ketchum got mail delivery once a week - and Hemingway would sit at that table -- our table -- to go through his mail. 
• Michel offered to help with wine selection. Since Brian was having beef and I was having chicken, we opted to go by the glass instead of a bottle; Michel went through the list of wines by the glass, but didn’t find the one he was looking for, so he wrote it down and told us to give the note to the server.
• We did end up getting the bottle - it was a lovely French Bourgogne pinot noir.
• There appeared to be some confusion among the wait staff around the cost of the wine - on the tab, it was billed as four glasses of “Michel’s red”. 

This is why I travel.

* Yes, I know Alaska flies into a regional airport that is much closer to Ketchum (SUN).  Rather... I know that now.  

Seriously.

#ThingsTimHowardCouldSave .. if he were so inclined

Sappy Rerun #2

Sappy Rerun #2 describes the trauma of taking the Golden Child to college for the first time.

As a side note -- I was fortunate to read this essay a few years ago for a Mother's Day episode of "Tales From the South" -- a wonderful podcast available on iTunes (and great fun to do).



Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Do You CUT the Umbilical Cord, or Carve It Away Slowly?

I hit a profound turning point in my life a couple of weeks ago. I delivered my baby boy (the Golden Child) to Indiana University to begin his freshman year. (It was probably a huge turning point for him, too, but this is all about ME.)

The actual day of the move was well-organized on the part of the school, given that 35,000 students were moving in at the same time, but it was hectic nonetheless. I had tried to structure the day so that we would have some quiet time at the end before I left him, but I underestimated the number of MEETINGS he'd have to attend well into the evening.

This was probably for the best -- I had been dreading the painful good-bye, anticipating another cut of a metaphoric umbilical chord, this time sans anesthesia.

The dramatic parting didn't happen -- we ran out of time. GC walked me to the car, obviously anxious about being late to his next meeting and eager to get there. He hugged me, gave a little wave, and headed off.

It wasn't at all satisfying. Here was this monumental moment, passing with just a squeeze and a wave.

"Bye, Punkin!" I called after him.

"Bye, Mom," he replied with impatient affection, still walking away.

"I love you!"

"I love you, too, Mom."

One more turn of the sidewalk and he'd be out of sight. I was desperate for adequate closure.

"DON'T DO DRUGS!"

"MOTHER!"

And he was gone.

At first, I found "good" reasons to call him often. I called him to let him know I was headed to the airport to fly home. I called him to let him know I made it home safely. I called him to make sure he had gotten everything unpacked and to see if he needed anything else. I called him to let him know the Season 2 "Lost" DVDs would be out on Sept. 5. And that was the first two days.

I was shocked out of my hovering ways on Day Three by a stunning realization: almost overnight, GC had become a Mumbler.

We managed to get all the way through his high school years without seeing the symptoms. Before getting off the phone with him, I would always say, "I love you." He would always say back, clear as day, "I love you, too, Mom." Regardless of who was with him.

Three days into his college career, that response became, "loveyoutoomombye."

Since then, I have resisted the urge to call every day, every hour, and it's been very, very hard. He's my child -- when he's not WITH ME, he's IN DANGER. He's going to be faced with new challenges and new decisions, and he can't possibly manage without the benefit of my experience and wisdom.

But I couldn't keep calling. No, that would be intrusive. So I hacked into his computer account at the university.

I just wanted to make sure his meal points had been posted!! Really!! After all, he was going to have to figure out how get his own meals, it was going to be hard enough for him without the added burden of having to straighten out an accounting error with the Bursar's office.

Not only had the points been posted appropriately -- he had already purchased food. He was eating at college without my help. A few days later, the knife in my heart got an additional twist: he had used his campus access card with its associated funds to do laundry. LAUNDRY!! BY HIMSELF!!

I was devastated. First, the Mumbler appeared; now, this. It was almost too much to bear.

After holding out for five whole days (a perfectly respectable phone hiatus), I called on the weekend to see how his first full week of classes had gone. He mentioned in passing that he had injured his wrist.

"What happened?!" I asked.

"I was playing soccer and tripped on the ball. I landed on my wrist wrong."

I was appalled. "Punkin!!!"

"It's okay, Mom. It doesn't hurt as much anymore, and most of the swelling has gone down."

"You played SOCCER???!!!"

Every day, someone asks how GC is doing at college. I force a smile and say, "He's doing really well." That INGRATE.

Deja Vu -- But Different

Brace yourselves -- today, the Golden Child is graduating from college. Yes, really.

Never mind that he's taken what we diplomatically refer to as a "non-linear" path through higher education. Or that it his college career is coming to a close seven years after it began.

Looking at the man he is today -- smart, confident, kind, clever, thoughtful, with a wit-driven sense of humor -- I know that none of it was wasted time.

Rather than descend into a fresh rush of sappy sentimentality -- I'm going to recycle historical sappy sentimentality by re-running two posts from previous Golden Child life events. I'm all about sustainability.

Rerun #1



Milestone #1,536

When my son was four, we went to a park to collect pine cones for a centerpiece for the Thanksgiving table. We were looking specifically for those big, woody brown ones, the ones you can buy by the bag at Hobby Lobby (scented with cinnamon). It was a task my son took very, very seriously.

While we picked through the pine cones on the ground, we talked. He had a big event coming up -- his fifth birthday. In his little toddler way, he was convinced that his life would suddenly change, and he would be all grown up.

"When I turn five," he told me with four-year-old decisiveness, "I'm not going to call you Mama anymore."

"You're not?"

"No. I'm going to call you Mom."

"Okay. What would you like for me to call you?"

He thought about this for a few minutes, looking very pensive as he tossed aside reject pine cones. "You can still call me Punkin."


***********
One Saturday morning when he was about eight, he came into my room and asked if I would play with him. I explained to him that I needed to stay in bed for a while, because I had a migraine and was waiting for it to go away. He understood and left the room quietly. About half an hour later, he reappeared at my bedside carrying a cup of hot black coffee.

"Where did that come from?" I asked apprehensively.

"I made it," he said.

I took the coffee and stared at it, then stared at him. "Tell me exactly what you did."

"I went to the cabinet with the cookbooks and got the red and white one [Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook]. I looked up coffee and followed the directions." He then told me each step he took to set up the Mr. Coffee and brew. It is, to this day, the best coffee I've ever had.

***********
When he was about ten (and I was in graduate school), he asked if I would come outside and throw a frisbee with him. I said, "I can't right now, I have to finish this paper. It's due tomorrow." He thought about this for a moment, then proved that he was 100% my son by saying, "What time?"

He went outside to play with his friends until I got finished. About an hour later, he dashed back inside, handed me a small bouquet of purple and yellow wildflowers, then dashed back out again without a word.

***********
I could provide many, many more examples of the moments of sheer joy and serendipity this child has brought me throughout his life.

He played the part of Chicken Little in a preschool play.

He learned about death via a bee in a ziplock bag.

He once declared that he could teach me to relax -- he led me to the couch, made me lie down, and declared, "Okay. Relax." (Only when he said it with his toddler speech, it was more like, "Rewax.")

When he grew into a teenager, I prepared myself for all the teenage angst and aggravation every parent endures (and which I certainly inflicted on my own parents at that age).

It never happened.

Instead, he became a young man who would talk to me about things that bothered him without ever becoming mouthy or disrespectful -- and would listen to my point of view, even when he was mad or frustrated. He became thoughtful, sensitive, and considerate of other people (even his parents). He also became one of the wittiest, funniest, most clever people I know -- and someone I would choose to hang out with, even if he weren't my son.

On a recent trip to Washington DC, he listened patiently while The Golden Spouse, ever the professor, gave a mini-lecture about the history and structure of the American political system. I jokingly said to the kid, "Did you get all that?" He deadpanned back, "Yes. Whenever he said I word I didn't know, I just substituted it in my head with something like 'puppy' or 'kitty' and it all made sense."

Last week, he was graduated from high school. I cried when he walked into the arena in his red cap and gown, the tallest graduate on his row. I smiled at the robust applause that burst out when his name was called (even though everyone had been admonished to hold their applause until the end). And when I watched him after the ceremony, calmly organizing his post-graduation activities with confidence and assuredness and with consideration for making everyone feel included and welcome, I rewaxed.

Congratulations, Punkin. I no longer worry about the kind of man you'll be -- I know. And I'm so very proud.

Two Roads Diverged in a Wood.... and I --

Now that all the i's and t's are dotted and crossed (respectively), I can say it out loud:  we're moving to Seattle. 

As a public service, I'm going to go ahead and give you the FPA's (Frequently Provided Answers):

1. Yes. Between July 5 and October 15, though, the weather is perfect -- which nets out to be more days per year that we can actually enjoy being outside than we get in Memphis. (Q: You know it rains a lot, right?)

2. Probably because of the rain. (Q: Why is there a disproportionately high number of famous serial killers who were based in the Seattle area?)

3. Not most days. (Q: Are you worried about becoming a famous serial killer?)

4. Two hours. (Q: How far/long do we have to drive if we become desperate for some sun?)

5. Thirty minutes. (Q: How long does it take to get to the nearest winery?)

Juanita Bay, Kirkland

6. $11.00 - $60.00, depending on location. (Q: How much are Mariners tickets?)

7. $55.00 - $394.00, depending on location. (Q: How much are Seahawks tickets?)

8. Don't care. (Q: Are the Kings really going to move to Seattle and become the Sonics?)

9. Yes. (Q: Really.. you DO know it rains a lot, right?)

10. December. (Q: When will recreational marijuana dispensaries be up and running?)

11. Don't know yet, but he'll have many, many more opportunities there than he has in Memphis. (Q: What will Brian do?)

12. They'll have to put on their big dog collars and suck it up. (Q: Don't Jack and Katie refuse to go outside when it's raining?)

13. He's already planning on moving into our basement when we get settled.  (Q: How does the Golden Child feel about it?)

14. Don't know yet, but we'll figure it out. (Q: Any other question you can think of)

15. Fresh seafood, wine, professional sports. (Q: Any remaining question not covered by #14)

We are very, very excited about this -- it's something I've been wanting to do for twenty years (since I was eight... cough).  

This weekend I'll head up the Emerald City to find us a place to live -- preferably without a basement.

No, Really... I MEAN It This Time....

Since being coy and tempting with teasers only works if you follow through quickly, let's cut to the chase and close on the things I alluded to ... uh, fifteen months ago.  (erp... sorry)

• The Golden Child is now taking Valtrex (for the sake of his continuing affection for me, I'll go ahead and reveal that it's NOT because he has a sexually transmitted disease)

 Let me condense what was a four-month ordeal into one sentence with too-much punctuation:  GC had a sore throat, for which he was prescribed antibiotics, followed by a migraine, for which he was prescribed.... uh, something else, I can't remember, followed by severe neck and back pain, for which he was prescribed a high-powered painkiller, but the day after he started taking the painkiller, he woke up with one eye rolling off to the side like Marty Feldman, which caused him to call me...  

...which made me immediately drive up to Indiana to go to the doctor with him and demand that they stop treating these as symptoms and look for a CAUSE, dammit (display of maternal wrath), which led them to order an MRI which would have taken too long unless he went to the ER, so we went to the ER and got the MRI which showed lesions in his brain so he was put through all sorts of other tests (including a scary spinal tap)...

GC during his first hospital stay

... and he was ultimately admitted and treated for meningitis while they waited for tests to determine if he had multiple sclerosis (he didn't), but after four days in the hospital, he wasn't much better (and still looked like Marty Feldman), so they released him with instructions to go see a neuro-opthalmalogist immediately...

...so I brought him back down to Little Rock to be treated at the Jones Eye Institute (who are wonderful, wonderful people) who were wise enough to LOOK IN HIS EYE (something they didn't do at the hospital in Bloomington) and saw some deadening of the tissue in his retinas, which led to more tests (details withheld because it involved creepy eye things) then immediate admission to the hospital again and round-the-clock IV anti-viral medicine for 24 hours -- he was 5000% better the next morning.

Okay, looks like we'll need two sentences. Maybe more.

It turned out that the sore throat (remember that?  Seems pretty minor now, doesn't it?) and associated fever got bad enough to suppress his immune system, which allowed the dormant chicken pox virus to be reawakened (think Godzilla), and wreak havoc in his spinal fluid and brain (think Tokyo), causing viral meningitis and something scary called acute retinal necrosis (yes -- the virus ate away the edges of his retinas). And to answer your question -- yes, it is like shingles, only in the eyes. Ick. 

After three weeks of IV anti-viral meds every eight hours (administered at home by yours truly), several treatments that involved lasers being shot into his eyes (which did not result in super powers, much to his dismay), frighteningly high doses of Prednisone (orally and by way of drops in his eyes, which caused scary hallucinations at one point), he was finally able to go back to Indiana a reasonably healthy young man.  There is some permanent damage -- loss of peripheral vision, increased risk of detached retinas, and almost-total hearing loss in one ear (yep, virus got there, too) -- but it could have been a lot worse, and he is adjusting well.  He's just a great kid all around.

Celebrating GC's last IV

Oh, and the virus that caused all this damage? Herpes Zoster. Yep. So the anti-viral IVs and pills he took for almost a year? Valtrex. ("Avoid sexual contact while having an outbreak or if you think you are about to have an outbreak.") We got a LOT of mileage out of that one. ("It's ACYCLOVIR, Mom!") 

Also -- note that I used the word "scary" three times in this description and still didn't adequately convey just how arduous and traumatic this whole ordeal was for me.  (It was tough on GC, too, but this is MY blog.  If you want to see his distress, he has a fantastic poetry blog -- A Passin' Bird -- that I highly recommend.)

• I can get you a good deal on a lightly-used kayak

After taking care of GC for almost three months and focusing completely on him, I may have gone off the deep end when he went back to Indiana.  I may have been an aimless crazy person for a little while -- one of those few who wander and ARE lost.  I may still be fighting my internal aimless crazy, even now.  But in my quest to find a new object of focus, I bought a kayak.  I went kayaking one weekend.  I'm done now.  (We also got another dog, but she's not available -- I'm still playing with her.)

Katie: "What crazy phase?!"

• This is probably the last Thanksgiving in which our drive to the family celebration only takes a few minutes.

In the middle of taking care of the GC and during the aftermath of crazy, there was a major HR restructuring going on at work that I didn't pay enough attention to -- until I realized too late that I needed to take a more proactive role in figuring out where I fit in the new world rather than resisting the change and not playing well with others.  Six months later, I was fired. (Whine, whine, whine.... I know, me and millions of other people.) 

I am fortunate in that I was only out of work for four months (NOT like millions of other people), and that the job I am now in pays better, is more fun, is more rewarding, and challenges me professionally and intellectually in ways I hadn't been in a while.  The downside is that it took us away from our friends, family, and favorite wine bar in Little Rock. 

We also couldn't sell our house -- so after living in different states for eight months while the Golden Spouse shouldered the entire burden of having a house on the market, we threw in the towel and leased it out (to some very, very good tenants, so at least that's going well).

Now we're settled in Memphis, which means Thanksgiving will require a two-hour drive.

So we're in a new city about which we are ambivalent, I have a new job that requires lots of travel (while most of the region was sweltering in 100+ temperatures in July and August, I was cavorting around Italy, Germany, Turkey, China, Russia, and Mexico), we have TWO rambunctious dogs and a mischievous cat*.... if I can't find blog fodder in any of that, I may as wall hang up my .. whatever obselete bloggers hang up. 

Stay tuned.   :)

* We do have a mischievous cat, but it's a different mischievous cat.  Our beloved Rex died last summer.  The newest member of our family is Desmond -- and he's well on his way to carving out his own place in the family lore.  

Rex guards GC after his IV

Desmond adjusts to his new home

I Must Have Overslept

Two years since my last post? Seriously?

Last year at about this time, I toyed with the idea of posting as if it hadn't been an entire year, hoping that no one would notice the date. After all, my last post was about Thanksgiving disasters. I tend to have disasters of some kind EVERY Thanksgiving, so it would have a natural flow to it.

It would have been tough to pull off after one year -- but after two years, I admit defeat.

I'm ready to pick it up again.

2010 has been a particularly challenging year for several reasons. We are now at the close of the year... the end of the harvest... ready to hunker down for the next phase in the cycle. Old challenges are behind us. But the resolutions of the 2010 crises are sending us down a new path in 2011 on which, so far, we can only see a few feet ahead. If I turn this path into blog fodder, I can keep my sense of humor about it. (Note that I am steadfastly avoiding the use of the term "journey." This is not Lifetime television.)

But first I'll have to recap 2010. Tune in over the next several days and find out why:

• The Golden Child is now taking Valtrex (for the sake of his continuing affection for me, I'll go ahead and reveal that it's NOT because he has a sexually transmitted disease);


• I can get you a good deal on a lightly-used kayak; and


• This is probably the last Thanksgiving in which our drive to the family celebration only takes a few minutes.

Of course, there will likely be a Thanksgiving post thrown in. After all, disasters are imminent.

P.S. An update on my last entry: We didn't get the oven fixed until the next week, so I had to transport my food to my mother's house and use her oven. But I had to get in line, because others (out-of-town family who were also contributing to the meal) had already reserved it.

After they all finished and left for the meal, I put my stuff in and waited impatiently for it to cook/warm/whatever it needed to do. When it was finished, I carried the food out to my RAV4, put it in the back for the short ride to my aunt's house, and pushed the back hatch closed -- at which point the entire back window shattered. That was my most challenging T'giving yet. Coincidentally, it also set a new bar for special-event wine consumption in the annals of family history.

Of Gasless Ovens and Home Warranties

You will probably note that this post doesn't contain a lovely, if slightly moody, picture of a TWD Two-Fer pie. You may even think, "There goes Kelly, slacking again. Loser. Stupid Donkey."

As usual, my intentions were good. But there is one critical ingredient that I am missing in order to pull off this Thanksgiving dessert coup.

That would be.... a working oven.

The Golden Spouse tried to heat up some leftover beef on Saturday. Turned the oven on. Put the beef in. Came back in twenty minutes. The beef and oven were still cold (and may in fact have been colder than when he first put the food in.)

You are now thinking, "You probably just need to re-light the pilot light." I know that's what you're thinking because that's what everyone I have complained to about this has said. If there is a pilot light on this oven, I'll be damned if I can find it. And you know what? I'm not going to stick my head in the gas oven waving a flame around trying to find it. (Moot point anyway since we don't smell any gas.)

And yes, all of the other gas appliances in the house are working. (That's the second question everyone asks.)

Our assessment, based on a rigorous ten minutes or so of internet research, is that something has gone wrong with the starter doohickey. Please don't make me explain it beyond that -- just trust me. I'm a researcher.

So here we are, two days before the National Day of Gluttony, and I have no oven.

I called the Home Warranty folks yesterday morning, who politely and cheerily told me that they would have the service guy (Kevin, I assume, from Kevin's Appliance Repair) call me. They even gave me his number in case he didn't call me fast enough (what are the odds...).

Didn't hear from him by this morning, so I called the number they gave me. I got those three tones you hear before learning that the call could not be completed as dialed, I should check the number and try my call again.

I called the warranty company back. They politely and cheerily assured me that they would find another service person to call me. I reminded them that Thanksgiving was upon us and I needed my *&^%$ oven and they should light a damn fire under SOME service guy (regardless of the status of his starter doohickey).

As usual, the hostile approach gained me nothing. Tuesday afternoon, 4:45 -- no word from anyone about fixing my oven.

We expect to spend the rest of the evening learning the intricacies of baking on an outdoor grill.

UPDATE: We are now T'giving Minus 24 Hours. No call from contractor, on interminable hold with warranty company.

Staying in the Kitchen (in Spite of the Heat)

I was ambivalent about this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie assignment (Arborio Rice Pudding, selected by Isabelle at Les Gourmandises d'Isa).

Not because the recipe was complicated (it’s not – it’s very simple) or required special ingredients (it doesn’t – I had them all on hand). It’s not even because it required 20,000 hours of preparation (it doesn’t, unless you count the six hours of chilling, and I don’t).

No. The anxiety was there for a different reason.

Arborio rice.

Now, stay with me. Arborio rice = risotto. I like risotto, and I make it at home occasionally and am happy with the results, but only because I don’t have to share it with anyone other than the Golden Spouse, who loves me and is well-versed in handling those arcane situations in which I am unnaturally fragile.

Still not clear? You’re going to make me go there, aren’t you? The explanation for my deep-seated fear of risotto? Okay.

It’s because every time I make it – frantically stirring and obsessing over whether or not it’s absorbed enough of the liquid to add more – I hear Chef Gordon Ramsey screaming in my head. “What are you doing?! This is inedible!! Do it again!!”

Sometimes… he calls me a donkey. A stupid donkey.

GS knows this, and will occasionally come into the kitchen to pet me. It helps. He then assures me that although he likes my risotto, it would be okay with him if I never, ever put myself through that kind of abuse again. He’s a good man.

But I’m trying to redeem myself from my extended absence in October, and after missing the Kugelhopf (bless you!), I didn’t think I could miss another week.

So I persevered -- and it felt good. Really, really good. First-time-you-ride-your-bike-without-training-wheels good. First-time-you-go-off-to-college good. First-time-you-….. oh, but let’s not go there. (Hi, Mom!)

Except for.... well, we'll get to that.

I read the P&Q more closely this time, so I knew to extend the time on the stove to 45 minutes. Then I added a few magic Kelly-touches to ensure a successful outcome, which I will herein reveal because I am generous and non-territorial when it comes to sharing my cooking secrets. (You're welcome.)

While I was standing at the stove, staring at the sugared milk and willing it to boil, GS mentioned that we were going to have our first freeze that night.

(Simmer down, Northeasterners. Yes, we get into November before we get our first freeze. But remember, we also have mammoth mosquitos, rebel flags, and fried twinkies. And we overwhelmingly supported McCain/Palin and enacted the legal position that the only people worthy of adopting or fostering children are married heterosexuals. Our average temperature may sound enticing, but in other areas, we completely suck.)

My first thought was that it was time to switch from white wine to red and from rum to bourbon. My second thought was that there would be no more fresh-picked basil for a while. My third thought was something along the lines of, “There’s a smudge on the refrigerator. Cool.”

Eventually, it occurred to me that there were still about a dozen bright orange habaneros on the lone surviving plant in the garden that I should probably harvest. So I grabbed a bowl and went out to get them.

The disaster you are expecting did not occur. I did NOT come back in to discover the milk boiling over. I rinsed the habaneros, halved and seeded them, then put them on a cookie sheet to freeze.

Then I went to the bathroom. THAT is when the milk boiled over. (“Yes, Chef! I suck, Chef!”)

I wiped up the mess and added the parboiled rice, set a timer for 45 minutes, then settled onto the couch to commune with Facebook. About half an hour into the process, I rubbed my itchy nose and immediately realized that I had not washed my hands after cleaning and seeding the habaneros.

Oh. My. God.

Imagine the California wildfires overtaking your nostrils. I went to the bathroom to blow my nose, turning it into a flamethrower and singeing the cat. My nose was running like mad, so I kept blowing through the “this must be what it’s like to breathe in Hell” pain, thinking I would eventually expel all of the capsaicin. Then I rubbed my eye. (“You stupid donkey!”)

In between blowing flames out of my nose, pressing a cold washcloth against my eyes, and scrubbing my hands – the timer went off on the rice pudding.

I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe, but I stumbled into the kitchen and turned the burner off under the pudding, noting through the tears that it had thickened quite nicely.

I must have stirred in the vanilla and stuck it away in the refrigerator with a tidy plastic-wrap cover. I don’t remember doing it, but that’s where I found it the next morning – and it was delicious (although I don’t really know what the rice brings to the table in terms of the pudding experience as a whole).

There you have it. Maybe it was the milk boiling over in the early stages, maybe it was spending the last fifteen minutes of cooking in a distracted panic – but my rice pudding had the right consistency and tasted great, which I gather from the posts of my peers is a rare thing.

Too bad I can’t prove it. Needless to say, there were no pictures taken of the experience. They may have come in handy should we have to file my disability claim.

Gesundheit

This week's TWD assignment, selected by Yolanda at The All-Purpose Girl, sounds like a sneeze to me. (Kugelhopf. Bless you!) But I wasn't deterred!! After my brief sabbatical, I was anxious to get another completion under my belt. This week was going to be two in a row.

I couldn't wait until baking day (Sunday). I reviewed the P&Q comments. Okay, skimmed the comments -- just well enough to notice the warning to read the entire recipe first.

I figured this was because there was an odd ingredient I wouldn't have in my pantry -- so I vowed to read the recipe before going to the grocery store so as to not get caught without Portuguese crystallized ginger or whatever.

That was the plan. After my Sunday bike ride, I would read the recipe, make a careful list of ingredients, go to the grocery store, then come home and bake. I even had a contingency plan for the fact that I don't have a Kugelhopf pan (I have a monkey bread pan that would surely work just as well).

My bike ride was delayed a bit, but that was okay. I usually go at about nine, but I had to wait until after noon because I had to stop by the bike store first to replace the CO2 cartridge that I would need in case of a flat.

(On my ride last weekend, I ran across a woman pushing a two-child stroller that had two flat tires, so I gave her my CO2. Really! I know this sounds like something I'd invent to make myself look good -- I altruistically helped fix a stroller so babies could ride comfortably -- but it really happened. )

So I started the ride at about 12:30, returning at about 3:00, and opened up the cookbook. You all see where this is going, right? The dire warnings about reading the recipe first? Had nothing to do with an odd ingredient.

No no.

It had to do with the fact that there is SEVEN HOURS WORTH OF WORK TO DO before the dough ever even THINKS about seeing the inside of an oven. SEVEN HOURS of mixing, rising, and punching.

I'm sure Kugelhopf is very tasty. Everyone else's pictures look wonderful. Maybe someday I'll know this firsthand, and I'll have pretty pictures, too. Who knows, maybe I'll even have a Kugelhopf pan.

But not today.

Return of the Prodigal Baker (TWD)

I'm about to tell you something that you, as a reader of this blog and probably several others, already know.

Technology ROCKS.

I don't know how I managed in the pre-Internet days. The days when you needed a stamp to send a letter. You had to wait until 5:00 to get the latest news. And you never would have discovered that the guy you had a crush on in junior high went on to perform in a nationally touring drag show under the highly Googleable stage name of Lola Puffybuns.

Back then, if I wanted to know how to pronounce something that I wasn't sure I had ever heard, I would've looked it up in a dictionary, stared at the phonetic spelling, and wished I had paid more attention when we were being taught what those squiggly lines and accents meant.

But not anymore! Thanks to Al Gore, I have the internets! And the internets have given me www.dictionary.com. And www.dictionary.com has given me this: an audio recording of someone saying "rugelach." (Turns out it does NOT sound like "arugula." My bad.)

I can now talk about this week's Tuesdays With Dorie treat, because I now know how to pronounce it. So feel free to give me a call -- I've been practicing (especially the throat-clearing at the finish).

This is a fantastic cookie that comes together much more easily than it would seem, given how fancy they look. The dough has no sugar, so it relies on the filling to give it the dessert quality - which means that you can control the sweetness and complexity by changing up the filling.

There were a few tense moments while rolling the dough when I thought I was about to tear it, but it held up in spite of my enthusiasm. I refrained from tossing it like a pizza crust after the Golden Spouse gave me a shockingly loud look of disapproval.

In my defense, loading the dough was a lot like loading a pizza before baking. Unfortunately, there were shiny things in the kitchen when I assembled the first batch, so I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been -- and I inadvertently used too many of the chocolate chips, which left me short for the second batch. I liked them better without as much chocolate, so I thought I was on to something -- but then GS raved about the ones that were chocolate-heavy.

Something for everyone, I suppose.

One thing I know for sure -- a dozen tasty rugelach and a tall glass of cold milk ease the trauma of finding Lola's online portfolio.

(This week's recipe was selected by Piggy at Piggy's Cooking Journal -- read about her Rugelach experience and that of the other TWD bakers in the blogroll.)

I Miss Baking

Another Traveling Tuesday. I apologize to my Tuesdays With Dorie colleagues. This is my last trip of the year, so I'll be more diligent starting next week -- and I'll try to catch up on the recipes I've missed.

Meanwhile -- you all ROCK! I haven't had time to comment, but I am reading your posts -- you keep me motivated, even when I can't follow through.

I Could Have Been Smoking and Tanning All This Time...

I am forty-two years old. I am on my second marriage, my fourth "real" job (after countless "fake" jobs), and my sixth month of puppy ownership (a LABRADOR puppy, no less).

I put myself through college as a single parent, then compounded this gruesome experience by getting through graduate school.

I raised a TEENAGER, for god's sake.

I still manage to avoid looking my age. People are surprised to learn that my son is about to turn twenty. Other forty-year-olds say things like, "When you get to be my age...."

But that's all about to change. I'm about to start aging at an accelerated rate.

Carol is cooking again.



P.S. Ohmygod.. it's Tuesday? Really?? Um. Sorry.

Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart

Credit: www.adennak.com, which has been totally overrun with hits today.

Short but Sweet. And... Well, Soupy (TWD)

One hour to go before this becomes Wednesday with Dorie, so here goes.

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie assignment was creme brulee -- one of my all-time favorites. Only I've never tried to make it without a water bath before, so when Dorie's recipe said to just put it on a baking sheet, I was skeptical.

TOO skeptical.

I put it in a water bath anyway, and wondered how it would be different.

The difference is -- in a water bath, it takes a hell of a lot longer.

So after doubling the cooking time, increasing the temperature from 200 degrees to 300 degrees and cooking it another twenty minutes (until it was actually BUBBLING), I took it out and stuck it in the refrigerator.

The next evening, we took them out and brulee'd.

We cracked through the brulee (one of my favorite sounds EVER) and discovered that even after 100 freaking minutes in the oven, the custard had not set.

And it really didn't taste that great. In spite of the addition of cardamom (see, I TOLD you I was going to use it in everything from here on out) and orange zest.

I learned my lesson. Trust Dorie. (But I still wonder if the 200 degree cooking temperature was a typo.)

TWD: Dimply Plum Cake

One of the worst movies ever made was the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, starring Samuel L. Jackson.

The premise is that a bunch of scientists are experimenting on sharks at an undersea lab in an effort to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The experiments lead to an elevation of the sharks' consciousness and intelligence... and they're pissed.

Samuel L. Jackson stars, with a supporting cast of... a lot of people you've never heard of.

And Samuel L. Jackson stars. I keep mentioning this because I'm sure that Mr. Jackson's salary accounted for an inordinately large proportion of the overall budget. Rather like the ground cardamom in the recipe for the Dimply Plum Cake. (I promise I'll have the Golden Child's college fund repaid by next semester.)

And like the cardamom, Samuel L. Jackson is responsible for the best moment of an otherwise forgettable film -- he is unexpectedly eaten by a shark. About thirty minutes into the movie. You're left looking at your watch wondering, "What else is there?"

Having another big name on the poster -- even a B-lister -- could have carried you contentedly through the rest of the film. Likewise, a nice sauce would have saved the pedestrian Dimply Plum Cake -- a sweet, buttery concoction to serve as the Edward Norton of dessert sauces.


Would Deep Blue Sea have been even worse without Samuel L. Jackson? Would the Dimply Plum Cake have suffered without the investment in cardamom? We'll never know. And I'm left trying to figure out how to incorporate cardamom into all of my cooking (reference next week's creme brulee), because by God, I'm going to get my money's worth.

(This week's recipe was selected by Michelle at Bake-n. It has gotten rave reviews from other bloggers... so maybe it's just me.)

For the Foodies, Part II

The Golden Child moved into his first apartment a few weeks ago; his first real "go" at self-sufficiency. He lived in a dorm for a year, but that doesn't count. In his own apartment, he has to figure out where electricity, water, internet, and food comes from -- and what he has to fork over to get them.

A couple of months ago, I started cramming in whatever last minute life-training I could in the hope of catching up on the kind of parenting I had been putting off too long. I started dropping pearls of wisdom about paying bills on time, avoiding the multitude of credit card offers, nipping roommate problems in the bud, not becoming a roommate problem, etc.

And I tried to teach him that preparing food at home -- from scratch, with fresh ingredients -- was far tastier, healthier, cheaper, and more likely to impress women than ordering pizza every night. I dragged him to the Farmers' Market and narrated my dinner preparations like a taller, slower, more irritable Rachel Ray. (Sometimes he was even in the room -- most often, though, he would mumble, "Uh-huh... that's great, Mom" from the next room in between battle sequences on Final Fantasy XII.)

Mostly, I tried to teach by example. When he wanted burgers, I made the buns, ground my own meat (from TWO KINDS OF BEEF, no less), and sliced my own potatoes for homemade french fries. Later, when my mother asked him what we did for dinner, he said, "Oh, we just grilled some burgers." I made him call her back and tell her they were the best ^%$# burgers he'd ever eaten.

But something must have stuck with him -- probably the same way the "Ain't No Bugs on Me" jingle has stuck with me.

He called me last week and said, "Tell me how to cook asparagus."

He was in his kitchen, asparagus in hand, preparing dinner for his roommates. I said, "First, you need to trim off the tough bottom..."

"I know, Mom. I did that."

Then came the real test question. "Do you have any olive oil?"

He said... get this... "Yes."

I cried.

For the Foodies

I mentioned in my last post that my friend, Carol, is learning how to cook. Bless her heart.

Let the games begin.

I'll Try Not to Let it Go to My Head... After All, I Owe a Lot to the Little People

COOL!


n.o.e at The Dogs Eat the Crumbs gave me this cute award. Warms the cockles of my heart, I tell you (I'm not really sure what cockles are, but if I have them, they must be tingling right now).

It's especially gratifying because I enjoy her blog so much. She has a wonderful curiosity about cooking plus creativity supported by skill and a very engaging writing style -- that all adds up to entertaining, informative food blogging that I highly recommend.

So for n.o.e. to recognize my blog -- it's like Michael Jordan saying, "Nice shot."

Now I get to pass the joy along to some of my other favorites. They represent a variety of personalities, but they are all consistently well written, vibrant, relevant, and often a little... well, twisted.

Carol's Essay Graveyard: Carol cracks me up. She's a long-time friend, former co-blogger (from the now-defunct Falafel Sex and Other Things Best Left Unsaid), and a very, very funny writer. She has a way of throwing back the curtain on stressful times to reveal the humor that's pulling the switches. (She's learning to cook, too. Her local fire department is staffing up for the occasion.)

Painting Chef: ALWAYS a great read. Susannah is wickedly funny but has been known to charge out of nowhere to play double-dutch with your heartstrings.

Ezra Pound Cake: This blog (along with n.o.e.'s) is one of my favorite of the Tuesdays with Dorie blogs. If you ever doubted that food is a running thread through life, here's your evidence.

Jon and MacDuff in Boston: I enjoy this blog because 1) Jon and MacDuff really LIVE, and I can enjoy the kinds of things they do without ever getting off the couch; 2) they obviously have a truly successful, well-rounded relationship; and 3) we have the same dog. (My Jack is pictured here; their Dixie is pictured here. I'm linking rather than posting the picture because A. I don't like posting other people's work; and 2. I want you to read MacDuff's post about Dixie. You'll want to immediately go out and adopt a rescued dog.)


The Barefoot Kitchen Witch: Sure, the writing is fantastic, the stories are endearing, the kids are adorable -- Jayne nails all of the expected stuff. But the PHOTOS... the photos are superlative.

Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude: Mike is a funny guy who knows how turn a phrase. And he bakes. He's a keeper