Help.

Okay, this is gonna be one idiotic list. Full of bathos. But as usual...semper blogelis. Smyblog.

1. I can never exit the Kennedy at Ohio without thinking about Mal*chi Ritscher. That spot is haunted, as sure as sure. Has a haint.

2. Dick's Last Res*rt is closing. The good times are over? Where will bachelorette parties from Schaumburg go? With paper condoms on their heads?

3. Surprisingly super-good: vegetarian bulgogi from Mana Food Bar on Division. That marinade would be good on a cardboard box, but still, yum.

4. Shiny things I'm enamored with right now: Lustreware, especially Czech/Bavarian and Japanese, only the solid (non-patterned) kind bordered with black; guilloche enamel--big solid colors; antique Georg Jensen and Christofle flatware; hotel silver; railroad and ship china/silver; Aaron Basha shoes; semi-precious cocktail rings; Tiffany Paloma Sugar Stacks; mirrored furniture...anything. Sparkly!!! Je suis en racoon. Also traditional brightly colored stuff like Fiestaware and colored bakelite. Colors, sparkle.

5. From today's Times: 100K people on just a regular campaign stump in St. Louis to see Obama yesterday. Amazing.

6. This is kinda Jerry's Kids, bringing it up here/like this, not to mention burying a lead, not to mention I'm not givin the topic enough room, but I have lipo-lymphedema, and I feel like being halfway public about this, as it is a condition that affects my every day life tremendously, down to the way I never stop getting hippier, to the pain when I walk. More at some point, but, whatever, I'm just throwin it in for the moment.

7. If J*mes Cameron doesn't just give that broke 96yo Titanic survivor a fistful of residuals I will lose all respect for him.

8. One reason I love my Skip: I discovered recently we both had issues with Cook's Illustrated's recommendation involving vanilla extract. Only she actually wrote them a letter, bless her.

ONWARD AND UPWARD!!!!!!! EXCELSIOR.

You know, I'm taking my temperature here, but I have absolutely nothing to say about M*dge and Guy breaking up. There was, of course, an initial gasp-with-paw-to-chest that necessitated an email to my friend Fred, but now I feel very meh. What does that mean? Oh wait, it means nothing, doesn't it. Eh, I dunno. All I can say is that this news FITS with this world of chaos we are living in. And it will be interesting to see her enter her Tom Hayden phase--I'm assuming that's where she is on the Jane Fonda timeline.

In the meantime I give you Madeline Kahn choosing participants for the orgy. :45-1:25 shoulda been enough to get that woman an Oscar, yo. Happy happy joy joy.

St. Apollonia is the patron saint of dentistry and dental work. If you have a moment, cast a few sou or some obeisance in her direction today. I myself will be leaving an offering of Glide dental floss (won't get stuck!), Stim-u-dents (mint-flavored!) and some valiums. Oh, and piles and piles of cash.

more receets

Creamed Chicken...Backwards*!
with a bonus sidecar recipe**

I kinda thought this one up--made it--in stages as laziness, defrosting times and annoying kitchen temperatures permitted.

1. Cook an entire bag of Lundberg's Countrywild Brown Rice (about 2-1/2 c. dry) in appropriate amount of chicken stock, thinned with a lil water if necc, plus salt and a little butter. (Lundberg's rices are so delish--this blend is long grain brown, Wehani and Black Japonica). About halfway through the 50 min cooking time add an additional 2-1/4 c. chicken stock. 12 minutes before cooking time is over stir in a cup of uncooked quinoa. Let it stand when finished; fluff.

Now you have rice for days, which is good because sometimes that 50 minutes is a very long time, but still...that's a lot of rice. *Let's think up something to put on it. Many many portions of it. I know, that chicken in the freezer. Here we go.

2. Poach five big chicken breast halves in 1 quart chicken stock, 1/2 a bottle of white wine, some apple cider vinegar if the wine's too sweet, an entire head of garlic (depapered, whole cloves, say 10-12), whole coriander seeds, bay leaves, peppercorns (if you can get them out of the mill). Doesn't take too long. Remove chicken to chill, strain poaching liquid into another container, adding back the garlic cloves. Let everything chill overnight cause yer sick of chicken.

3. Pick over and then shred the chicken breast halves (I find it good to watch TV or listen to the radio during this part...so boring). In a separate cup, make up a quick mini "marinade": a big spoon of grainy mustard, a little maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, soy, a little balsamic, lots of salt and pepper, and I added a squeeze of this funny pomegranate glaze I have. Stir it to mix, then stir it into the plain poached chicken, mixing well, letting it soak up the flavors a lil.

4. Pour the reserved poaching liquid--the wine and stock--into a pan and heat to a boil. Add a cold cornstarch slurry (say 2-3 T.) and let it start thickening up, whisking hard. Then **add all but about one portion of the shredded, marinaded chicken. Stir, and let cook and continue thickening for 10-15 minutes.

Then it's done! When the heat came off I felt the urge to suddenly add sage and oregano, so I did.

5. Oh yeah, there's no cream in this creamed chicken, that's how I roll. I bet it'd rock though. As would (I keep thinking) some easy-melting Italian cheese like fontina or asiago in some fashion, or all kindsa herbs and obviously you could stretch the whole thing much further with some complementary vegetables like asparagus tips, mushrooms, carrots, thin beans...it doesn't seem like it'd much enjoy sharing room with stolid parsnips and things. I like my dish pretty severely plain, though, and my vegetables in a separatist, usually uncooked fashion. So his recipe is kind of a base. And the plan is to have this on my fabulous brown rice for many moons, freezing enough that I don't get horribly sick of it before it's gone.

**So you have this extra, poached, and over-seasoned chicken. That is, in case it wasn't clear, the "marinade" is a little too strong on a bite by bite basis, but in the creamed chicken it becomes diluted in the somewhat bland poaching liquid and everything seasons up right. Using the same principle, add some mayonnaise to the reserved chicken, let the flavors marry for a moment or two, and you have amazing chicken salad--great (as I had it) on Brownberry 7-Grain bread with sprinklings of leftover but good freezer cheese (Havarti, cheddar). Would also rock with apples, almonds, grapes, celery...

Per N*gella Lawson, I tried bashing my pomegranate half with a wooden rolling pin to release fruit from flesh. It really worked. Two red-stained thumbs up.

So, just to cast my vote: when they start divvying up nouveau WPA jobs in the next couple years, I would like to be doing murals, printmaking or design. ( I don't want to be immodest, but suddenly the trajectory of my GenX life is making sense.) And I will have somewhere to channel my constant desire to create/decorate/paint every bit of my own architecture folly for a while until I can afford a place to play with. I actually have a great aunt, with the same two first names as I, who was an artist and did dozens of WPA murals around Chicago, especially in the public schools. Perhaps the whole thing is sort of inevitable. Either that, or I shall restart/join the Roycrofters.

Hilarious fact from most recent Cooks Illustrated: If you run cheap vodka through a Brita, it does a decent job of filtering it; up-marketing the flavors, bringing it closer to high-end stuff. Party on. Store some on your fridge door now.

Last night TCM tried to raise America's spirits with a late night showing of...Roller Boogie (1979). All I can say is...where has this been all my life? It's a two-hour paean to (Linda Blair in tiny clothes, the Dry Look and) the 70s dictum of Not Matte. SHINY AT ALL COSTS. Everything. Totally fabulous, down to the token homeboy rollerskater and the effeminate twirling, jumping roller-skating leading man. Tonight TCM's showing Hud, which I plan on watching if I'm around in a miasma of horny sadness. Errrrr.

Sexdrive = The Sure Thing?

This week was really kind of ass. Awakening yesterday to the sight of W trying to reassure, even as numbers fell around him like the dying embers of fireworks, made it feel just a little too much like 9/11. BAD WEEK.

The Party's Over

Extraordinarily bummed to have missed an outing to Smoque this week...I couldn't chew. Still can't, particularly, but making do. Cor...the more I couldn't chew, the more I longed for delicious sweet brisket! *homerslobber* Sometime soon.

In Barbara Pym novels the characters often gleefully pounce on cookbooks of invalid cookery (for one of the wan illin' curates)...I thought about that this week. So far my best best for food has been ______[Whatever] Rarebit. I made a chicken stock-based cheese sauce with (freezer!) Havarti, sharp cheddar, and parmesan (also dry mustard, thyme, etc.), and ate it on orzo and on sogged-out toasted cornbread, among other sauce vehicles. Very good, although I still long for brisket. I am branchin out into rice today!

The back of the freezer became clearly visible last week, by the way, despite adding containers of chili and sludge to the melee. Archeologists everywhere rejoiced. I am down to just one package of chicken in terms of serious Up-Using-Must. Whoo hoo! And an awful lot of soybeans...just dunno what's gonna happen to them. The biggest problem? DISHES. Can barely keep up.

Perhaps I'll make myself a nice blancmange or 'shape' later. And knit myself a pair of curate-gray socks...

I am pretty sure that my hands-down, fav version of "I Thought About You" is Nancy Wilson. No, she's not always the go-to Songbook person, but the way she plays with that song's funny chorus, to the point of even being almost off-key...too much! Sass personified! All under the sincere maudlin lyrics, even. Plus it's just so dang...energetic. It feels like a train ride, fast. Thank you for helping me clear this up.

What a MONDAY that was! IN which...

...money dwindled exponentially, further invasive dental procedures were performed, I address out-of-date internet issues in my blog and at least one cat chose to express herself scatalogically, the little fucker.

* Crowns not as miserable as root canals (quite), but still in the miserable ball-park. And oh do they take a long time. Jaws are achin/sore, now more than anything from chewing weird. Dental work must be frightening for chefs, it occurs to me.

* More backstory for the Reader bankruptcy, which is really about the Loaf/BE. It feels much more spot-on than previous published attempts to explain.

* Three things I'm coming back with in another life: broad, broad shoulders so that another purse never slides off; a huge mouth that unzips side to side like a Muppet's, so that dental work is easy-peasy; and a truly, solidly, iron-clad digestive system that tolerates anything at anytime, anywhere and is as regular as a good train. Oh! And a non-jowly/double-chinny chin/non-fat neck, although that one is half practicality and half vanity--regardless. Better design for human living.

* Can "Surprising Dancing With the St*rs Casualty!" really be the kiss-ass Yahoo headline puts up every fucking week when that show's on? OH NO THERE'S ONE LESS OH WAIT THAT'S THE PREMISE OH GOD OH GOD BUT STILL WHAT WILL WE DO OOPS THERE WE GO.

* Of course: I didn't exactly think what I do with scrambled eggs was new--adding strips of tortilla to the butter and cooking, before adding eggs, kind of like a matzoh brei--but I also didn't quite realize I had basically reinvented migas. Which I did. Cool!

* Much on http://cuteotters.com/ about the demise of Nyac at the Vanco*ver Aquarium, who survived the Exxon Valdez oil spill only to gain viral internet fame as one of the hand-holdin otters (has there ever been such a sentence?). There is something about the arc to that otter's life, though. Intense.

* It's Sig*r Ros, or should I say "Sig*r Ros," if you wondered what the almost/not quite music of the Audi commercial is. Duh.

* Seen recently: Ladies in Lavender, directed by Charles Dance (looking as hunky as ever in the after-bits) w/ Maggie Smith & Judi Dench. It's the kind of movie I am a little loathe to admit I like, since it's such my type and so obvious (domestic, English, small in scope, involving Judi Dench in any form whatsoever, although that's just life), but it was pretty good. A little beginnerish but good. Most interesting aspect was close look at how an older woman might fall in love with much younger man whether it was remotely appropriate or if she even wanted to. The sisters in the story the film's based on are in their 40s; having (amazing, yet) 70-yo actresses changed the flavor of that situation somewhat, I'm still parsing out how. But that Judi Dench...jebus. She looks beautiful, for one thing--all pink and gray and matching the Cornwall coastline--and her face is just a miracle of expression. It's astonishing what she conveys before even opening her mouth.

* By contrast: the things S*rah P*lin are saying right now about Obama, even if people are smart enough to see them for what they are, are diminishing us as a whole, it feels like. It makes my blood boil in my chest ("doesn't see America like you and I see America"?????), but it's also just...everything bad about American parochialism and jingoistic no-thinking political mud. Oh, and it's fucking racist, in the only ways she can really be on paper right now. I can't believe she's reaching for the WU.

* The most harrowing, real (ooo! so meaningless, that word, but still), vulnerable, actual reality TV on TV: Intervention on A&E. Jesus Christ. Some incredibly heartbreaking, amazing television and it manages to address a lot of issues besides addiction--because it's about addiction. Scary.

oh yes she did!!

Seasonal treats from the bff, how lucky am I!!! Thank you KAM!
The box is held to obscure my swollen, drooling mouth with the rubber lips and novocaine-ed cheek (I just got home from having first part of crown done. More soon on that.) So that means I can't eat them yet, but for now just the smell is OOOO.

Twiggy Muddy Sludge!

How to make a steaming cauldron of

Twiggy Muddy Sludge

or Lentil, Potato, Snausage & Wild Rice Soup

Good for: plastering holes in thatched roofs; drying into bricks for adobe-based architecture; tuck-pointing; drawing splinters; soothing the burning and redness of anaphylactic shock associated with those allergic to bee stings, in the form of a poultice; general nutritional needs; camouflage markings in deep jungle military maneuvers.

1. Saw off a decent pile of lardons from a package of frozen thick-cut bacon and render them slowly in a big pot you'll be cooking A Lot of stuff later. When they are nicely crisp, drain them with a slotted spoon on paper towels and pour off all but 1 T of the bacon fat. You'll have about 1/2 c. of lardons when you're done. Set em aside (bundle the paper towels in a bowl and cover; they'll keep their texture in the fridge okay).

2. In the meantime pick over and rinse a pound of lentils. Cut up some aromatics, whatever you have (even none is fine--doesn't matter): an onion, carrots, celery, a pepper, garlic, whatever and cook those first in the bacon fat, stirring, stirring. Then dump the lentils in. Add a couple quarts of chicken stock, some bay leaves, vinegar, tomato paste, cumin, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, Worchestershire sauce. Cook a long time. 35-40 min recommended; if you let it go 20 min too long and come back to find it (from the top at least) a steaming cake of drying lentils, stir up the liquid from the bottom in relief and take out the bay leaves. You do want to end up with a liquidy mess when done. At this point it's easiest if you get exhausted with the whole process and throw beans in the fridge overnight, because the next step's easier cold.

3. Puree your lentils, however you have to do it. If you use your blender, do it in batches, and this is where Cold makes it easier (those sitcoms where people blender stuff all over the kitchen are real, man.) You want the mixture quite pureed--lentil skins can taste less like textural contrast and more like a mistake to the tooth. Reserve puree in a bowl to the side.

(4,5 & 6 happen semi-simultaneously, depending on stove size, etc. Also 3, kinda.)

4. Prepare the Meat for your soup in your big pot that you've rinsed out. I sauteed very slowly in a little olive oil: cubes of leftover ham, very thin slices of frozen breakfast sausage and some thin slices of leftover flank steak. Add the bacon bits too. Get em going.

5. Set 3-4 peeled cubed potatoes in a pot of cold salted water to parboil. I used starchy russets; I think red waxys (you'd use more) would actually better in this case--they were hard to keep from disentegrating. But whatever. Cook them until underdone, drain in colander and cover with a tea towel. Note: RESERVE 2 c. of the potato cooking liquid in a pyrex measure in case you need to thin out soup.

6. Cook around 1-1/4 c. wild rice in all chicken stock (around 2-1/3 c.). It's not going to smell that good. It will take around 45-50 min including resting/fluffing time. Wild rice...such an adult film star.

7. NOW TO MIX! Add beans to meats in pot. Then add potatoes, stirring well, then add wild rice for the twiggy finale. Stir and heat through. Add potato water as necc.

8. You will now have a pot of greyish grassy lumpy soup that weighs about 30 pounds. There will be enough salt in it probably from the meats. When it go to this point I was sick of dealing with it so I dished myself a bowl and put it in the fridge once it cooled, let it do its marrying of flavors in the cold. If I had a bigger/soup pot or a bigger stove, I might have done more cooking/fidgeting/marrying there, but it wasn't gonna work for me.

It ages well. Makes enough for a good 2-3 Tupperwares'-full in the freezer, once you're sick of it again. Here it is with toasted buttered cornbread (have you ever seen so much fiber in one bowl? it should have imploded), but it sure doesn't need much accompanying.

It's Back

From exactly the first episode of the second season through the last episode of the fourth, and a herky-jerky way descending through the fifth, Roseanne was the best show on TV. It had found dramatic rhythm (the first season is sometimes more like an uneasy stretched-out stand-up bit), and also had great narrative momentum, amazing actors, an absorbing sense of place/purpose, story arcs of every length, and best of all, it surprised. It swerved. The writing was fantastic. It made you gasp sometimes at the unexpected. It didn't fit sitcom patterns for joke or dramatic pay-off, and was exhilarating.

It was also very much the sitcom that kept me company (this would have been 1989-1993, the period I'm talking about) during my post-college, George Bush I, post-1987 crash, recession-filled, doyouwantfrieswiththat years. The years I was fighting other recent college grads for telemarketing jobs, that the help wanted section became an arid, mocking joke, that the dream of the goose from a college degree came crashing to a stop.

The fact that Roseanne had so much to say about the recession, the hunt for jobs you didn't want anyway, the frightening limits of evil bosses and constant worry about the future was not an accident. It was really comforting, partly because it was so smart and one step ahead of my problems.

The point now is that, especially if you're lucky enough to catch reruns in the 2nd to 5th season cycles, the shows are delivering a world-weary and perspicacious punch due to our current financial crisis. They sparkle, can make you gasp at their twisty turns and satisfying fuck-you-ness. Most of all they comfort. They were always great, but now, one Clinton and another Bush later, I'm even gladder they're still around.

Fatty Life in America

Fatty Life in America
A Play in One Act
by Elizabeth M. Tamny

first performed on the blogger stage Oct 4, 2008
an EMT production

TIME: No time particularly fun
PLACE: The office of a medical professional, any kind
SETTING: Fluorescent, icky, silence broken by occasional crinkle of paper a FAT CHICK is sitting on.

ACT ONE

LIGHTS UP: Enter medical professional of any variety, reading chart.

MED PROF

(Almost disappointed, certainly confused) Are you [emph] sure you're not hypertensive?

LIGHTS DOWN

The End

NOTE: If desired, line can be repeated 20-30 times before lights down.
* All Rights Reserved *
* Please contact EMT agency for performance in schools and community centers*

more kitchen mumblings from the penurious-ish

Other recent successful happenings (small h)--to keep myself interested/inspired. Look away if yer bored!

- Adding acai berry sorbet to my Wacked-Out So Very Un-Dairy Smoothie--muy bueno. Don't like it so much straight, so it's perfect in there. Current lineup is fruit juice/seltzer/juice concentrate/sorbet base in some variety, with flax seeds & oil, wheat germ and various powdery potions. Have learned moderation with it, too--much better to fling a blender-full on a container in the fridge and have some every day (keeps better than I thought--used to think I had to drink it all at once). I also bought a cheap plastic bin for my freezer to separate all the bags of frozen fruit and keep track of them better (I buy only on sale...they are spendy).

- Delish! Buttermilk chocolate chip pancakes (mini chocolate chips). This batch a little deflated because I used the batter two days in a row and by day 2 the oomphy buttermilk height is gone. Chocolate chips are perfect things to stock in the freezer, I've realized. Like little boxes of soy milk, they make all sorts of desserts possible. I don't like using them where 'real' chocolate is required--too waxy--but they are great for quick toppings (melt w/ soy milk for ice cream) and cookies and such. I like the Ghirardelli 60% chips and the Hershey's minis, which are especially fabulous in oatmeal cookies. Also good to buy on sale.

- Chopped grilled ham on toasted corn bread, with pan sauce made w/ Riesling and stock...very very g.

- Flank Steak a la Whatever Marinated Some Indefinite Period of Time was EPIC. I wish I could remember what was in the marinade exactly, other than splashes of the basics--a huge glug of Tropicana OJ and some spicy-ish deli mustard, I know--anyhow, after at least two days of marinating I was like gah yah must cook before it disappears. I heated the oven/grill pan to 450, and threw it in there for 10 min on each side. It was definitely past the lauded flank steak medium rare stage--not enough pink (I think the meat was pretty dark from the marinade, as well), and too high a temp when I took it out--but it was AMAZING. I started sawing off lil bits too early! (schade...shame to waste any of that juice). But I let most of it rest under foil for a while and it was just...spectacularly juicy and delicious.

Anyhow, I ate a piece of it for dinner. Sliced steak, that's it. The same day I had a root canal, which tells you something about how tender it was. I dunno, when I'm ravenous for red meat like that, it feels like it's metabolizing in about 2 seconds flat. "Folding a chop into the system" (DL Sayers). My eyes feel sparkly and fur smooth (that's MFK). No digestive rumblings of any kind, just...like you're sort of mainlining nutrition. Just to try to splain the feeling. So...good steak. And there are leftovers. I may or may not try to incorporate into the lentil soup that is coming together as we speak. If that one works it's gonna be a great success. If not...useless tupperwares full of guilt-tweaking pale green blended stuff in the freezer. Crossing fingers.

I woke up from a nap (gott sei dank) with my subconscious in a huge knot about Twitter today. Which I think is funny, because I don't understand how Twitter actually works, at all, although instinctively I see that it is making us another piece more accountable, trackable, findable...endlessly documenting of what we are doing or knowing or finding out. I was really pissed about it; while I was still way more asleep than I realized I lay there planning paragraphs of things I wanted to say that I can't even remember now. Too weird funny.

I can say that suddenly all the ramifications of such a thing were suddenly clear, all the way to the bottom, in that way they can be in dreams/subconscious. I could see into the future, see sideways into other lives.... And it's not good. There's something really wrong about it. Not exactly sure why though.

I'm off to Facebook! (verb form). Hahahahaha.

I'm currently pacing around my apartment, glaring and flicking my tail like a cat's who's glad to be out of her carrier but still pissed by recent treatment at veterinarian hands and quite unsure if she's ready to trust again or even be happy because what's the fuckin point if there are things like root canals in this world. If you see what I mean. That was easily one of the more miserable dental experiences of my life.

I am assuming the macho thrill of having survived and being DONE will begin soon, as will my thankfulness at the (relatively-speaking) pain free period of modern dentistry I am lucky enough to live in. For now, though...I hiss. And go back and sulk in the corner of my carrier.

Phood Phollies

So...back for the moment to "the trivial round, the common task," as Barbara Pym was fond of quoting (J. Keble). The Dow's dropped 700 points and I need to organize/regroup my thoughts about feeding myself in this economy.

I had a brief respite recently from relentless home-cooking due to a roadtrip, so I found myself when I returned totally out of the groove, to the point where I forgot I was getting groceries delivered the day I returned (a day late) and found them piled, sweating slightly, in front of my door. New groceries didn't help, either, because I had shopped so carefully with such an eye toward cooking/the future, that there was very little I could just...eat. So I pillaged my LU petit ecolier biscuits and moaned about having nothing to eat the rest of the time until I'd occasionally break down and get delivery.

[The ultimate urban delivery idiocy? This past Sat night I broke down and ordered dogs from Portillo's ohhhhhh yeah! only to discover as I got more and more impatient that the delivery time on my receipt was 12 PM not AM...I had ordered dogs for Sunday lunch. Ridiculous.]

I'm back though. I found myself in the very unAmerican position of having no bread at all in the house. 19,000 other starches, but no bread. So I made bread, and am now marinating a flank steak from the very back of the freezer and preparing some lentils for bacon, lentil & potato soup. I feel a little overwhelmed, but determined.

The bread is left: I found the simplest recipe for cornbread I could find, using some of the nice organic cornmeal that's been-let's say--maturing in my freezer forever, plus some buttermilk I bought in the last groceries go-round with an eye toward cornmeal activity. It tastes pretty good, but I think I really need to something to sop it in. Will probably defrost some chicken chili, although I also have a ham steak I've been planning to work into 2-3 meals this week. But I need some soppin'.

Someone I know recently mentioned cooking pasta e fagiole, which seemed so terribly apropos, economy-wise. [Thinking about LaGuardia, I mean; I was trying to picture Richard Daley encouraging us to cook colcannon or soda bread in these trying times.] I love pasta e fagiole...mmmm yum. With white beans and some bacon in the mix if possible. I think this lentil soup will scratch that desire for beany porridge, and the cornbread will be great with it. The steak I will marinate for 24 hrs (marinade is a fun experiment involving vinegars and lime and most of the refrigerator door) then just sear up and use it for whatever--sammchs, with eggs, in tacos. This'll work out. The only real question at the moment is, as ever--can I keep up with the dishes.

I turned away from my computer for a scant 3-4 hours, only to find once back that in the interim my old employer's just gone belly-up. Chapter 11.

It's the latest boom in an endless series of bad news, but I am still having a reaction. A slow and confused one, staring (simultaneously) at a news photo of a protester of the bail-out with a sign that says, "Save people, not banks." It's always been complicated, how my old newspaper is dying, what was bigger than it or not, what was industry/personality, how to untweeze the web directive/fall-back/meaninglessness from it all, but that just makes me feel (now, still)...thick. Confused. Slow. I'm sad. And I wish somebody would tell a little more of the truth. I don't feel like I have the whole story, ever. I can't tell what I'm not hearing.

Oh! The bail-out just failed in the House. Okay, the moral here? Never leave your computer. Or--wait--always leave your computer.

paulnewman

Sigh, well, what to say or add to the fray, except that I liked him, a lot.

I know I saw Hud in college (it was around then that the line "Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire" crept into my understanding of the world), but I'm pretty sure I saw it on my own, accidentally, at home on TV or something, not as part of film classes or the film society, partly because I can still almost recreate the surprise I felt stumbling upon it in my ignorance. The experience resulted, I realized later, in quantum leaps--level jumps--major bumps towards adulthood and understanding I didn't expect. Art, sex, tragedy, female autonomy. Men in jeans. Need, familial pain, evening silence.

That was half due to Patricia Neal as Alma, whose performance is so knowing that it somehow drags you toward worldly wisdom whether you want to go there or not, riding on that unbelievable voice. But the rest was basically due to Newman. I couldn't stop watching him--hoping he'd be onscreen all the time--despite how awful he was. He was amazing. The hooded, coiled quality his body, his eyes had... It was too much. It was such a sexual experience, that film--a confused one, in its mores and morality--but sexy, all the more so because of the beautiful dusty black and white cinematography, which allowed the physical energy to shine through more intensely, like his eyes, which you would know were blue (even if you didn't know) from the way they shone too. His physical beauty in that film was not unimportant nor a detraction from his abilities--there was something about it that confirmed why/how movie stars are important, in the way that some critics say movie stars can never be again since the demise of b&w. The fact that the film was old, period, was part of its power for me, reaching up from the past the way it did. And Newman was a man, even if an awful, conflicted man, not a boy. What can I say, it kicked me in the pants.

I also admired the man--the actor--for insistently, but in a dignified way, demanding that we know what he looked like as he aged, via his public image. He didn't hide it or squirm away, it seems like. I don't know if he was vain or bemoaned aging, but his actions created a cumulative effect I thought was human and honest.

Country-->City

After even just three days in a Very Nice Part of Michigan--the left side of the mitten strewn with happy vacationers--I'm feeling a little re-engineered. Just because. Economic crisis or no. It's the quiet when you turn out the lights, the sound of buzzing insects in the woods, a constantly reappearing view of the lake with nothing in it, around it or blocking it. Blueberry farms, more trees, slow drivers, no computers, no real news even. I'm not camping, I'm not roughing it, I am just out of the city. It's good.

I am even, due to a clear lack of thorough planning on my part, stuck here a day extra, sort of. I should have expected not having a ride back earlier in the day. Only it was much better this way. We got up at leisure, hung with our hosts, went to the world's greatest roadside inn (I could eat fried perch every day), saw S's Aunt C.

Now I am alone in a hotel room with a window overlooking a Wal-Mart and no pool access, ready to take the train back tomorrow, and so tired I can't even crawl from the couch to the bed to watch The Devil Wears Prada, which seems (qv tired) so significant that I should be not missing a word. Only I do, and I don't get up as early as I should, which means that at 8:00 a.m. I am already calling the local cab company in a panic about making the 9:02 Amtrak into the city. I keep getting voice mail, that's it. Quite alarming quality in a cab company.

I dress in between fretful dialings of the cell, and hump my luggage sweatily into the Ramada Inn lobby, feeling rather more like more normal urban self, suddenly: peeved, aggrieved, looking for a cab driver to blame for my trouble. Only I'm also feeling just the merest thread of tee-hee in amongst all the angst. This is a huge pain; there is only one train a day, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do if I don't make it, I can't afford any of this, particularly, but still...tee-hee! Travel! Things out of my control. If I miss the train...I miss the train. It is just me and my suitcases. I love that about travel. For this and for other human reasons, I am reining in a major hissy fit. Something will come through.

It does. I am told out of the blue that a hotel employee is going to drive me to the train station. I am sleepily, fulsomely grateful. She pulls up in her mini van, I put my stuff in the back with her kids' car seats, and off we go up and down the back roads to the train station. She is very nice, and--nicely--not super chatty. She shows me photos of her kids, we talk about whether it's more boring to live Here (pretty/empty), where she does, or There (dirty/full), where I do. Country versus city. Her name is Autumn; her dad calls her to remind her it's the first day of Autumn today.

The air is cool and it feels like autumn even if it doesn't entirely look like it. There are rubbings of red and gold on the edges of the green trees. The fruit farms look somewhat dry and picked-over, it seems like children are swept away into school. There is a slight air of being finished for the season in the signage, in the people heading to work.

Due to Autumn's knowledge of back roads, I am at the train station 10 minutes before it is to arrive. She won't let me help with gas money. It's the most adorable train station in the world, re-fashioned out of a train depot built in the 1920s. There is a cluster of about twenty of us there, including some family members seeing people off, for the 9:02. One family has both a baby and a toy Pomeranian. The dog is smaller than the baby, and when he hops down from his owner's arms--his owner looks like a grizzled old farmer--he totters around on tiny jacked-up back legs like a low rider.

I feel, still, free. My hair is looking more and more like Mrs. Claus', and I feel a little nauseous because I am both in the direct sun and across from a pickle factory, but I don't care. I'm on the road. I'm waiting for the train. The wind's blowing a little, there is a bathroom in the depot if necessary, life is good. Tee-hee.

As it is, we wait two hours for the train. This is for a two and a half hour train ride, mind you. I spend most of the time talking to a lady who has retired to this part of Michigan. She is very Chicago: Greek/Swedish, her husband Polish/Catholic, she knows only the south side, and she once went on a double-date or two with Richard Daley (M.) in high school. "He was a dork--he's still a dork," is the most I can get out of her despite multiple probings, making her giggle and me snort. She tells me she fell "for a Fonzie," instead, and has had 40 years of surprises.

The train's comfy. There isn't even a club car, just a sad little corner of a luggage area where an Amtrak employee is selling snacks, which--still--does a really brisk business. You need your refreshments on the train. The conductors are the real thing. Sort of aloof, sort of Henny Youngman, startlingly in the know. Big. It's too hot on the train, but it's still basically comfortable. Even the bleat of the horn doesn't really annoy. I am ground level with town after town of people who all stop to look as we go by. I am really good at looking out the window. I like looking out the window. I doze off. I am thinking the whole time, when I think: we have to have trains. We have to have newspapers. These are businesses of civilization and should not have any choice attached to their existence. We need them. The civic feelings and larger goals attached to their existence, once the ability to make handfuls of non income-taxed cash melted away, should stand on its own now. What is wrong with reasonable profit? Why is our economy dead? I snore.

I am very lucky off the train in Union Station and get some red-cap help right away with my heavy over-packed luggage via a little cart that I don't really know how to describe. It held four us, not including the driver, despite fitting down only one side of the gangway, next to the pillar. And it had a cart behind us for all our luggage. And it did U-turns. It was full of joints and rotating connectors, but how it really worked is still is a mystery. I don't know how this guy did it, got us all up and down and up and down these tiny narrow spaces. I put my arm around the old woman next to me in her pink cardigan in an odd moment of necessary pseudo-intimacy and whooped like a little kid. It was fun.

I drag my luggage to a cab outside Union Station, where things feel very hot, very loud, very pressing. I give my cab driver my address, shout it the second time. He gets it. Then a woman he's been honking at before, during, and after our exchange, whose car is basically blocking his way out of the taxi rank, rolls down her window and starts yelling at him. "You didn't need to be so rude," she starts, "honking like that," although this is clearly the kind of cab driver who uses his horn constantly, like the letter E. He yells back at her about blocking egress from the cab rank. She gets madder, he gets louder. He opens his door to show her the sign, she gets ready to get out of her seat.

I've been smiling at them sort of spacily as they yell. It is very clear they are both exactly right. He was rude, and she is kind of blocking his way. I can see it all. I am mellow. Everything's clear. We are going to sit there forever. I am happy to be finally home but tired, all of a sudden. One long weekend plus two hours late tired about it all. The cab driver started the meter the second my ass touched the seat, and it is the sudden awareness of this fact that kicks me into gear, makes me realize the tee-hees are not relevant. Gotta be in it.

"I'm not paying for this!" I find myself yelling at the cab driver and the woman without thinking about what I'm saying. My hands flail up then drop in the universal urban symbol of whatthefuck. "I'm not paying for an argument!" I yell louder at both of them. She closes her door, rolls up her window, scoots her car out of the way. The cab driver rolls up his window, checks behind for traffic, and off we go. I'm back.

The world's sent me bushels of signs that Time Like an Ever-Rolling Stream bears every lil thing away, but the most vanity-puncturing result of all has to be the increased, now more or less constant, need for (as somebody once put it) concealer in a drum. No matter how much sleep, no matter if there is pollen in the air or not, no matter whatever, there are always The Circles. Corrrrr! Looks like somebody plays the reverse telescope trick on me all the time.

So, the Sopranos? I'm still watching, only I've gotten so good at avoiding violence on the show that it's now making other awful bits--such as watching Janice trick the widower Baccalieri into marriage--newly unbearable. Yikes.

'Suddenly, two hairy-nosed otters!'

I KNOW I'm not the only one who read THAT headline this morning and got excited. Hunh! HUNH!!

Field researchers have sighted the hairy-nosed otter, the world's rarest, in a national park in southern Vietnam, a conservation group announced on Thursday. Nguyen Van Nhuan, a research officer at Vietnam's Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Programme, said he came face-to-face with two of the endangered animals in March while doing night observations in U Minh Ha National Park in the Mekong Delta. The species was believed extinct in the 1990s, but has recently been seen in several South-East Asian countries. Nhuan's was the first sighting in Vietnam since 2000. "We could not believe our eyes," Nhuan said. "Suddenly, two hairy-nosed otters! I've never had a special feeling like that."

I think one can only assume that with the rise of the shaven look--Parisian, Hollywood, Brazilian waxings--the influence of Otterboy on the public's ideal of the otter silhouette--the preference for small-clawed otters--the rise of the metrosexual smooth coat otter--Eurasian v North American Otter Krewz--that the hairy-nosed otter felt pressure to conform and was hiding out until the zeitgeist shifted and their unkempt, nay, carefree nose hair style gained a more sympathetic home in the otter-watching population. Hence hairy-nosed otter communes all through the Delta with their prevalence of pot-smoking and hemp otterwear.

Chicago named most stressful city in the US. YES. A nigh on completely meaningless accolade, but it's hard not to try it on, like a sweater. Some parts fit.

Today's idea for something that's already been done I'm sure: A warm, fuzzy--anti-Palahni*k/non-"Guts", as it were--anthology of funny, sweet and serendipitous things that happened because of masturbation mishaps. I knocked over that small wooden box and there were the keys I thought I had lost! (par example)

More culinary leftovers successes mumblemumble see last entry: tuna/potato croquettes. It might have been tuna/potato hash, given my patience level (that is the diff twixt hash/patties; one's willingness/patience to maintain preformed shapes of things, even after they hit the oil), but they worked great - just scooped mixture (eggs, tuna, leftover potato, spices, a lil flour) with ice cream scoop right into the oil and created 8 very discreet and crisp, not too stodgy patties. They really needed something cucumber-/dill-y, raita or tsaziki, on top, but still. Good. Also good? Blondies with mini chocolate chips, made with too many chips and too much brown sugar, I think, but I was suddenly incredibly impatient (note theme) about the hard rock of sugar I had to work with and I microwaved it with too much water and suddenly had...syrup. It worked, though, with the melted butter the recipe required--they are rather toffee-like. More leftover follies TK.

Mom met Obama! We are waiting for the photographic evidence. It is so exciting.

housewifely mumblings

My efforts to live as a frugal Italian housewife continue anew, spurred on in part by the rather terrifying financial news yesterday. One hits plateaus with this, yes. You cook your way through some stuff, think yay, think yum, then look around your kitchen starving and longing for a nice little sweet to round out your meal and think...I HAVE NOTHING TO EAT! Only it's such a first world idea, to look at full cupboards/freezer and think this. Granted, there is nothing to eat now I don't have to Make first, and the produce supply is in dire need of replenishing, but...still.

What usually seems to clear the decks for the next round of cooking is 1) doing dishes if necessary 2) latching onto one item I want to play with and building cooking adventures around that. #1's more to the point, though. Cooking is very much about thinking you have room to do it in. And doing dishes is about putting away the clean ones so you can do more. Did I mention I'm really sick of doing dishes?

I'm starting to have Too Many Grains. The cupboard's full of rices of every kind and guinoa and bulghur and stuff (finally used up the barley) that I'm not using up as fast as things I have to flavor/cook it it with. Shall tackle from that angle shortly. Surely with enough chicken stock and grains you can conquer the world... Plus I found a bag of lentils that I suddenly want to make do different things. Plus I'm eye-ing a stache of nuts in the freezer that suddenly seem like the doors to a world of savory/sweet possibility. I have pignolis...I want very much to make a nice, not-too-sweet cake with them...maybe a cornmeal one (have cornmeal in freezer). Also almond biscotti, which turn out, like all my favorite desserts, such as wacky cake, to not require spendy dairy products to make, just eggs. Although I must say that having the little 8-oz boxes of soy milk in my fridge are a *god-send* for jumping you to that place where you have more dessert possibilities. I would never use it as a substitute for milk in a flan or something, but for recipes where you need up to a cup (the BH&G brownie pudding recipe, for instance, which otherwise is a miracle of frugality--I love any recipe that lists boiling water as an ingredient), they are genius. I also adore the Pacific Organic one-cup chicken stock measures.

Today's big hit? A variation on "scrambled hamburger," a Tamny family comfort food from my dad's youth as I understand it, that I made with a mess o' nice (defrosted) Tallgrass organic beef and a big bag of boiled, then riced potatoes I tackled before they went bad. Cooked the beef with a flavory improvised sauce, then added potatoes. Delicious sludgey comfort food. Also? Amazing crisped up as hash later in a skillet. I have even more potatoes left, which may become croquettes, potato cakes, tuna cakes or a cake, or all three, depending on my energy level before I leave for the weekend.