It's a quiet day in suburbia. Mr Guy celebrated his first day of freedom from his job by having surgery. Now we're home, his costume is "Guy Who Had Surgery," and I'm doing his evil bidding in between feeding candy to the goblins.
I had hoped to post jack-o-lantern pictures, but today our gourds remain unpierced. We had big plans to make a pumpkin effigy of our youngest grand niece who makes an excellent kooky grin while clutching her high chair tray, but it didn't work out.
While Mr Guy was sleeping, I made stock and apple guava turnovers and beets, and when I couldn't gather the strength to cut into the pumpkin myself, I stuck it in a plastic bag and threw it off the back porch to crack it open. It worked (after a few false starts and one escape down the driveway). It's now pumpkin soup.
I have now experienced a first: a little trick-or-treater who was on the cel phone the entire time she's at my door opening her bag and saying thank you. Couldn't have been more than ten years old...
October 31, 2006
October 29, 2006
The Menu
It's about all I can do to not write about the old place. The Sunday paper's magazine section had an article about the poor punk waif who escaped the old place to find fame, fortune, and a fake British accent. And I can spend the rest of my life describing our 7 1/2 years in the old place to an astonished audience, so there's plenty of time there. I'm moving on to food.
Today, we went to an open house of a designer-built gorgeous place with a view. Then we scaled back our shopping plans after realizing that nobody is open on Sunday around here. But the Japanese market and the Japanese dollar store and the regular old American grocery store were open, so pumpkins and dashi and mirin and umeshu and gobo and the National Enquirer were all procured. Thus our dinner. After owning my Japanese cookbook for 20 years, I cooked from it:
Boy was that tasty. Next year, I'm growing shiso. In Koriyama I was served maki containing squash, maguro and shiso. I still dream of the flavor.
Today, we went to an open house of a designer-built gorgeous place with a view. Then we scaled back our shopping plans after realizing that nobody is open on Sunday around here. But the Japanese market and the Japanese dollar store and the regular old American grocery store were open, so pumpkins and dashi and mirin and umeshu and gobo and the National Enquirer were all procured. Thus our dinner. After owning my Japanese cookbook for 20 years, I cooked from it:
- Tiny plum tomatoes in a rice wine shiso vinaigrette
- Kinpira Gobo (braised burdock root and carrots)
- Homemade miso soup
- Baby turnips and their leaves
- Kabocha Nimono (simmered squash)
Boy was that tasty. Next year, I'm growing shiso. In Koriyama I was served maki containing squash, maguro and shiso. I still dream of the flavor.
October 24, 2006
Xavier Cugat
What I really want to do is talk about the weather...how right now it can be as balmy as Koriyama during the day but shrouded in fog in the morning, and the gorgeous weird sunsets lately that look like a pink cigar attack on the hills behind us. And the pineapple guavas that are ripe all at the same time and require eating. But instead I bring you Xavier Cugat.
Xavier Cugat was a Cuban bandleader far older than his hot flamenco guitar playing wife, Charo. I knew him from the TV talk shows of my youth as the old guy married to Charo. Charo's website doesn't even say that they were ever married, for whatever that's worth!
Among his many talents, XC seems to have been a visual artist. Or to have signed some paintings. Or to have sold some art that had his name on it. Or something.
This weekend I saw a painting by Xavier Cugat at an auction site and it cracked me up so I thought I'd buy it but I want to know more (painting 1).
Then I looked on the Web and saw basically the same painting with a story about how the owner's parents bought it in Mexico at a XC concert (painting 2).
Then I saw the same painting without the liver containers (painting 3).
At three and counting, the thrill is gone. Now I don't really want to own an alleged Xavier Cugat painting as much as I want to count how many instances of this painting I can find.
Xavier Cugat was a Cuban bandleader far older than his hot flamenco guitar playing wife, Charo. I knew him from the TV talk shows of my youth as the old guy married to Charo. Charo's website doesn't even say that they were ever married, for whatever that's worth!
Among his many talents, XC seems to have been a visual artist. Or to have signed some paintings. Or to have sold some art that had his name on it. Or something.
This weekend I saw a painting by Xavier Cugat at an auction site and it cracked me up so I thought I'd buy it but I want to know more (painting 1).
Then I looked on the Web and saw basically the same painting with a story about how the owner's parents bought it in Mexico at a XC concert (painting 2).
Then I saw the same painting without the liver containers (painting 3).
At three and counting, the thrill is gone. Now I don't really want to own an alleged Xavier Cugat painting as much as I want to count how many instances of this painting I can find.
October 20, 2006
Could it be?
Tomorrow I can bake a chicken, work in the garden and listen to NPR. That’s a little slice of heaven right there.
Last night we went to see the Pride of Hoboken at the local largish venue. In attendance: old people.
The last time we went to this place, we saw Spoon. We did what the other kids did, and plopped ourselves down on the dance floor to hold our spot while we waited for the opening act to begin. When we all stood, I realized that we were a dozen inches and two dozen years bigger than everyone around us, mostly students from the state college. And Spoon rocked hard but didn’t move me, bless their hearts.
Speaking of dumb, can anyone explain why old people feel the need to puff boo at concerts? It's intrusive to those of us who don't, it doesn’t make them cool, and it doesn’t improve their dancing and the guy next to me smelled like he mistakenly lit a fire in an old tuna can. The people of the past called this "ditch weed." Great, dude. Sure, you’re going to score with Girl Drummer.
Last night we went to see the Pride of Hoboken at the local largish venue. In attendance: old people.
The last time we went to this place, we saw Spoon. We did what the other kids did, and plopped ourselves down on the dance floor to hold our spot while we waited for the opening act to begin. When we all stood, I realized that we were a dozen inches and two dozen years bigger than everyone around us, mostly students from the state college. And Spoon rocked hard but didn’t move me, bless their hearts.
Speaking of dumb, can anyone explain why old people feel the need to puff boo at concerts? It's intrusive to those of us who don't, it doesn’t make them cool, and it doesn’t improve their dancing and the guy next to me smelled like he mistakenly lit a fire in an old tuna can. The people of the past called this "ditch weed." Great, dude. Sure, you’re going to score with Girl Drummer.
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