Just something to offset the symmetry of 09.09.09
I'm reminded of a confession Brendan Gill made about his education at The New Yorker.
Gill had been cultivating a "fancy" style, but editor Rogers Whitaker, "circling a long and elaborately balanced sentence of mine . . . had scribbled on the margin of the galley, 'If you tapped this sentence at one end, it would never stop rocking.' After that, I took care to be as little Gibbon- esque as possible."
At long last, someone with the cojos to provide perspective on those with such big mouths and such small minds:
Novotny: John, what about this controversy over opposition to Obama's speech to schoolchildren?
Harwood: I've got to tell you, Monica, I've been watching politics for a long time and this is -- this one is really over the top. What it shows you is there are a lot of cynical people who try to fan controversy -- and let's face it, in a country of 300 million people there are a lot of stupid people, too, because if you believe that's it's somehow unhealthy for kids for the President to say, "Work hard and stay in school," you're stupid.
Novotny: Ouch.
Harwood: In fact, I'm worried for some of those kids. I'm worried for some of those kids of those parents who are upset. I'm not sure they're smart enough to raise those kids. . . .
These are my friends,
See how they glisten.
See this one shine,
How he smiles in the light,
My friends,
My faithful friends . . .
Speak to me, friend.
Whisper, I'll listen. . . .
Well, I've come home
To find you waiting!
Home,
And we're together . . .
And we'll do wonders . . .
Won't we. . . ?
Not the implements Sondheim had in mind, but if the pan fits. . . .
Great minds, almost on the same frequency:
As I walked into the kitchen to whip something up for supper, Robert looked up and said: "How about some scrambled eggs?"
I'd been thinking eggs, too -- but also the tomatoes and sweet pepper that Mom had grown and insisted I bring home, and a few other things I had rattling around in the fridge: some Vidalias near their dotage, some cheeses I'd grated for other meals, a little pepperoni. . . .
How about a quiche, I asked.
Robert shrugged: "Eh. It's still scrambled eggs."
Perhaps I wasn't entirely fair the other day when I was so flat in saying the gardens had played out.
Robert was crafting a centerpiece for Saturday's little get-together -- Ben and Ken (and Toby), Ahmed and Greg, two of their friends from Atlanta, Jerry, Ward from Knoxville -- and came back from the cutting gardens just after dawn. . . .
With one of the most radiant dahlias I've ever seen.
I had a little periodontal work done Friday morning -- not the sort of thing I look forward to on my most optimistic days -- and some errands to run afterwards with half my face reminding me of what my stroke felt like.
So when I got home, and napped for a bit, and then was making myself some soup, I was still a little spacey from the drugs I need to calm the dread before and during, and to blur the pain after.
But not so much so that I knew the full moon in the lake out the kitchen window wasn't something Thomas de Quincey would have taken as a routine hallucination.
I swam through a little of ocean of maple syrup to grab my relatively new multi-megapixel camera, but it wasn't up to it: For all its tricks and skills, its software just doesn't understand "subtle." So I pulled out the trusty old low-rez Olympus, braced myself against the wrought iron at the edge of the veranda and again found La Luna singing with herself in liquid late-summer counterpoint.
As usual, we started with one foxtail fern years ago, sitting upright in a pot and putting out . . . foxtails.
Divide and conquer.
And now there are a couple in the sweet bay garden, still in regular pots. But also one hanging on the Bradford pear by the courtyard (it has at least a 3-foot drape) and another hanging high over the bench at the north end of the shuffleboard court (at least 4 feet).
And watered right, fed right, shaded right, they're putting out fruit.
Who knew?
I bought "The Silver Palate Cookbook" years before I met Sheila Lukins, one of the co-authors.
And that was almost 25 years ago, even before I had the chance to peek into the newspaper's test kitchen every day, to see (and taste!) what wonderful recipe was being tested before we published it.
Lukins died last weekend, but what a legacy she leaves behind: That book, written with Julee Rosso, is one of the top 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time. It deserves it -- though, truth be told, I mostly used it for advice on methods and combinations; I thought some of the recipes could be improved. To each, his own taste.
So, as refined and proved by the Holly Hill Test Kitchen, here's my take on her chocolate mousse -- which Robert has said (along with others) rivals the best he's had in France. It serves between 8 and 12, depending on your gluttony quotient. Eat it in good health.
1½ pounds (24 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
½ c. espresso or very strong coffee
½ c. Grand Marnier or other flavoring *
½ tsp vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
8 egg whites plus a good pinch of salt
1 c. heaviest cream, chilled
¼ c. granulated sugar
Melt chocolate chips in a heavy double-boiler or a copper bowl set over medium-simmering water. Add espresso by dribs, and whisk to incorporate and re-smooth chocolate. Remove from heat, add vanilla and add flavoring by drabs, again whisking vigorously to re-smooth chocolate. Add egg yolks one by one, whisking each till smooth.
Beat egg whites and salt to soft peaks; in another bowl, whip cream and sugar to soft peaks. (You can do these steps, IN THIS ORDER, without cleaning the beaters; if you reverse the order, the fat in the cream left on the beaters will keep the egg whites from reaching their maximum volume.) With a rubber spatula, carefully fold egg whites and cream together. Do not overmix, because each mixing drives out some air, and this finished mousse is quite dense enough, thank you.
With your spatula, blend one-fourth of egg white/cream mixture into chocolate mixture to lighten it. Gently fold the two mixtures together completely. Again, do not overmix. You'll know when the mixing is complete when a good turn through the bottom of the bowl results in no dark-chocolate ribbons.
Pour/scrape the mousse into individual serving cups/bowls or into one large bowl for the table. Cover with airproof wrap and chill an hour or two until set. It'll hold for a day or so, refrigerated.
Serve by itself for a pure chocolate encounter, or garnish with whipped cream and/or fruit, or pass cream/fruit separately.
* You may also use Kahlua, Amaretto, Framboise, Frangelico, creme de menthe or any other chocolate-friendly liqueur. Non-alcoholic hazelnut syrup (Da Vinci Gourmet is a good brand) is also good, but cut the amount to a tablespoon or two, or to taste. Alternatively, try a few drops of tangerine essential oil and garnish with candied citrus peel.
----
For whipped cream to garnish:
1 c. heaviest cream, chilled
¼ c. granulated sugar
(up to 2 tbs liqueur to match mousse flavoring, optional)
Mix well, then whip into soft peaks. Chill bowl and beater for best results.
. . . Everything looks fine. But take a closer look, and the little marigolds are end-of-season parched, and everything in the beds has gone gangly.
In the pots, either the underplantings have crowded the bananas, or the bananas' babies have crowded the underplantings; in either case, they're both sickly, and the soil is so packed with roots that it's hard to hold water.
Around the corner, the herbs are OK, but the tomatoes just look worn down. They've done their job, and they're tired.
It's September, after all, and these things have been doing yeoman work since the first of May. Hydrangeas may be named "Endless Summer," but reality trumps hyperbole with every dwindling day.
Just about time to clear the slate, thank the annuals as we toss 'em and let the rest take a long winter's nap.
The phone rang Monday afternoon, and the sweet, young female voice chirped, "Hello, is this . . . ?" It was, I said.
She gave her name and said, "I'm calling on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and I'm so happy I got in touch with you today."
I explained, briefly and politely, why I was not as happy as she was that she'd gotten in touch with me.
Yes, she said, she'd take my name off their call list.
We've finally had a chance to talk with the wood sculptor Ken recommended for our massive and now-dead oak on the summerhouse lawn -- and as Rick famously says to close "Casablanca," I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
We've sent him pictures of the tree, and talked possibilities (Robert is more figurative, I'm more abstract), and he's coming to see the real thing after he gets through a gallery swing in middle September.
I think it might be monumental.
It's eight weeks to Fantasy Fest, and the king and queen candidates were announced Friday (the winners are determined by how much money their supporters donate for AIDS Help during the run-up, and last year it was about a quarter-million dollars).
As it happens, one of the queen hopefuls, Vicky Gordon, is an old friend of our friend Gene -- who was here for dinner Friday night with Jerry, and Ben and Ken and Toby, and besides shuffleboard and general gossip, we talked costumes: G & J are coming down for the 30th annual bash, and though B & K can't make it then, they are happily visiting later.
At any rate, since this year's theme is Villains, Vixens and Vampires (our friend JT is has yet again won the bakeoff to do the official poster), Robert is having four fetching little bustiers whipped up to unify our foursome in vixenish fashion, with accessories making the difference. Robert is theming his with, erm, black leather stuff. Gene is taking a trip down "I Dream of Jeannie" lane. Jerry is doing something interesting with gold lamé and some things he picked up in India or Burma or wherever.
And after weeks of agonizing, I've decided on my own fruity theme. The only question is whether a fresh pineapple will leak too much to be speared into a headdress.
The things you find on the net. Here's Sir Eric, who built our house (his bedroom is our den), showing Her Madge how a paper mill works.
The photo is undated, but it was probably 1959, when she came across on the Britannia to open the St. Lawrence Seaway.
In another closer-than-six-degrees event, one of the enterprising old-school reporters I worked with got headlines for a supposed "exclusive" interview with her when she reached Chicago. As the legend goes, he'd taken a small boat out to the yacht, reportedly saw her on deck and shouted, "Hey, Your Majesty! How are ya?"
She is said to have waved and said, "Hello."
End of interview, but it made Page One.
He was the son of a bootlegger and a Nazi sympa- thizer, and a child of privilege. His eldest brother died in World War II, and his two surviving brothers were shot dead in public. I don't think it's surprising that he had problems after that with sex and alcohol. He was vilified almost daily by people who do that for a living, such as it is, and in my youth I was continually reminded what a horrible example he was -- of almost everything.
And yet over the next decades he got his act together, sponsored or supported legislation that focused on those without power, respect or influence -- women, children, poor people, sick people, old people, gay people, immigrants -- and made their lives better. If you need a reminder of his voting record, go here.
And when he died late Tuesday I felt, like millions of others, as if I'd lost someone among the damn precious few who cared about me, raised his voice to say so and worked to make our world better.
Farewell, senator. But . . . . “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”
I mentioned having to hack back the macho ferns around the Key West pool.
Up north, we confine them to pots, so we can take them in for winter -- and they still get huge. The one behind the impatiens here under the sweetbay trees is at least 5 feet tall. (The impatiens aren't so small themselves; they're happy with a good feeding every three weeks. And that big old hanging Boston fern is so heavy we bend rebar to make the hooks.)
We brought two little machos to Tennessee a few years ago. Every winter, they overflowed the benches in the greenhouse, so we divided and repotted, divided and repotted. . . .
Stop us before we fern again.
We are down to a precious few cousins-once-removed who haven't had nuptial parties here, so it is with a particular sweetness that we learned that Cousin Sally's daughter, Mary, and her intended, Dale, have announced a wedding date for May. And have graced us with the chance to have their reception at our house. It is a woo beyond woo-HOO.
So when Dale and Mary and brother Michael, and their dad Mickey and his wife, Marie, came out to scout the house Sunday (though it will be far different in May) it was such a pleasure to show them the basics of the place.
Including these sweet-smelling brugmansias. If only the greenhouse will store them in condition to ring, a la Poe . . . .
Hear the mellow wedding bells
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
The big plumerias we got from Jack's mom and sister -- in this case of course Ethel, the blond one -- put out dozens of blossoms a day. Each of the mother plants is 6 feet tall and 6 feet wide, after all, and that's a lot of bloom room.
Most of the flowers fall on the pool apron to dry and fly away. A few dozen blow into the pool itself, and look as if we planned them to be that pretty floating around before they're sucked ingloriously into the drains. But . . . plumerias, frangipanis, call them what you will. Sniff 'em. I call them spectacularly sweet.
"Pappare" means to gobble up, in Italian. And pappardelle are my favorite noodles, wide and wonderful.
So when I discovered a classic pasta roller, vintage 1970, in my mom's garage -- complete with original sales ticket for 20 bucks, plus attachments for turning out spaghetti and fettucine, and even making ravioli -- and noticed that it had never been used. . . .
Well, I determined to use it. Simple: flour and egg, a while to rest, and then start cranking to roll and roll and roll and roll.
Then make a sauce: Get pancetta, garlic and pine nuts crispy. Add cream and the best parmesan, coarse-ground black pepper and tiny tomatoes, sage and basil from the garden. Toss it all. Add more cheese. 
Always more cheese.
All you need then is a fork and a mouth: Pappar- delle alla Romana.
Robert took a bite and said the nicest thing: "Velvet!"
Robert and Brenda did a great job of keeping our pots from parching while I was away -- especially these, on the summer house wall.
Given their morning sun blasts, 
and the heat of the brick behind them, and their relative dearth of moisture-holding soil, and the fact that the eaves shield them from rain . . . well, sometimes the impatiens need a good, cool drink twice a 90-degree day.
The plants appreciate the attention. Less so the mantis who scrambles out of the farthest pot along the wall every time I point the water wand in his direction.
I've mentioned the guilty pleasure of tapping into the sheriff's website every morning, to see who did the "but for the grace of God" bit for the last 24 hours. (Friends of mine who run businesses say they check to see who won't be in to work that day.)
Most of the shots that catch my eye are bad-hair-day doozies, schadenfreude for the rapidly balding. Some show signs of having encountered a particularly burly bouncer. (Click on the picture for a bigger view.)
But this collection of arrest shots from the last few months -- innocent until proven guilty, remember? -- has an actual local celeb: The wife of the schools superintendent, herself a school administrator, who's charged with stealing a few hundred thousand dollars from the system in a credit-card scheme.
Ah, the Keys. Come on vacation, leave on probation.
Actually, it's looking north, but from a very Southern- most per- spective.
One of my tasks on the island a few weeks back was to hack that fern along the pool edge back into control. Locals call it a "macho" fern -- huge dense fronds, and it grows like crazy. (We brought some to Tennessee, and they're just as macho in a winter greenhouse or summer pot.)
Mind you, this is one plant that started out small in the corner, and Topsified along the north and east edges of the pool. It almost muscled out the Key West buttercups just to the right of the fountain, but I rooted out about a bushel.
And yes, that's a lovely little yellow orchid blooming halfway up one of the foxtail palm trunks in the corner. When I took the picture, the purple orchid halfway up the palm on the right was just about to pop.
And that little white spot just to the left of the fountain? White Tara, in Tibetan Buddhism a Mother Goddess who brings compassion, long life and serenity. She was a gift from my friend Lou, whose daughter Gail is now Gyelse -- a Tibetan Buddhist nun about to go on a five-year retreat, no contact with the outside world. It brings me serenity to know that I'm in their thoughts, as they are in mine.
My version of the recipe at La Bodeguito del Medio in Havana:
½ lime
6 fresh mint leaves
1 sloppy tablespoon of simple syrup
2 oz. rum
club soda
Ream lime half fully, extracting all juice into a tall cocktail glass, and drop reamed half into glass. Add mint leaves and syrup, and crush mint leaves thoroughly with a muller (you cannot overdo this unless you break the glass; extract as much essence as possible). Add rum. Fill glass with crushed ice and then fill with soda. Mix with a long spoon, and garnish with extra mint.
¡Lo mejor!
I've been by myself in Key West for the last few weeks -- oh, did I need it -- and:
-- Re- charged my solar batteries, and bathed their plates in a perfect salt/humidity solution. It was t-shirt soaking hot by 8 a.m., but oh, the pool.
-- Tended the gardens daily (amazing what they do in a few months), helped our landscaper put some new bougainvilleas in the back and adjusted to the loss of the big palm that used to cover our parking spot and shade the parking-space garden. February's frond thief had done such damage to it that Arthur cut the whole thing down, and our plants roasted. Turns out the guy is now in jail on a coke bust, which ought to keep him occupied for a few years.
-- Read just a shade less than one book a day to clear my head (or stuff it), from a huge helping of John Sandford's "Prey" series to the final installment of Peter Matthiessen's "Mr. Ryan" stories of southwest Florida, with a good bit of Key West history larded in. I love our library, and its librarians. And if you ever want to taste Key West without having to visit, or if you just want to read something beautiful, read the best novel I've come across in years, Thomas Sanchez's "Mile Zero."
-- Reconnected with the street: the dog-walkers (though Vicar Don was away in Alaska), the revelers, the bad parkers, Songman gliding down Olivia on his bike (with me shouting "Sing it!" every time he goes), the confused, Zachary on his 7:30 scooter, the lost (yes, Hemingway's house is just there,) and the weird.
-- Used the meat counters at Fausto's and Albertson's (Hey, Jimmy!, in each case) to bring home a single fresh chop or chicken breast or chunk of fish for a delicious late grill.
-- Was careful to entertain strangers, because, as Hebrews tells us, "some have entertained angels unawares." In my case, it was four guys from Orlando, a nice couple from Maryland, two fellas from the U.K., a nice couple from Germany. . . .
Tomorrow I fly north, and I'll post again when I catch my breath.
