This Would Never Have Happened if Gilmore girls Was Still on the Air

My job is the result of a project sponsored by a foundation back east. They are wonderful people and very passionate about what they do. Tonight they are hosting a dinner at one of the best restaurants in town, a place so nice that in all my 33 years in Seattle I've never been there. It's a schmoozy affair for big brass and board members and such like that. Yesterday MAB said, "Oh, we want you to come to the dinner tomorrow night...I put you down as a 'yes' but it occurred to me that I should ask you properly".

"Well, golly, MAB," I said. "I don't know. I'll have to make some calls, rearrange a few things, but I suppose I could be there".

Golly gosh, I'm excited. Fortunately, I've been at the job long enough to know just enough of the people involved that I won't feel like a complete idiot when we arrive. I'm never very good with the "hi, my name is...what do you do..." sort of chitter chat that these sorts of affairs usually require. But under the circumstances I think I'll be able to manage; especially since a nice dinner is involved. I know how to eat.

Alleluia!

In the Catholic tradition, the "A word" is buried for 40 days. Not until the Easter Vigil do we again sing "Alleluia". And last night we sang it probably 100 times, at least, stuffing it into every possible acclaimation and chorus there was. It was awesome. Funny how you can take a word for granted. Because I'm telling you, it choked me up the first few times.

Mass was wonderful and now, well, now I'm getting ready to pull out the strata and fry up a mess o' sausages for the brunch guests.

It's pouring rain so the Easter Egg Hunt will be indoors. Which is good because it forced me to sweep hours before I might have otherwise bothered. Once the guests are sated and wend their way home, mommy is going to hit the rack for her traditional Easter Afternoon Nap, a sacred and wonderful tradition. (I did a lot of cooking yesterday and have very little to do for tonight's feast. I'm smug).

For those of you who observe it - Alleluia, He is risen indeed.

For those of you who don't - what the hey hey; Alleluia anyluia!

Pass the Pie

Here's what I'm not going to do today: get on the scale. Nothing profitable can come from knowing the truth.

Yesterday I was singing a little song. It went something like this:

"I'm so tubby, tubby, tubby, tubby. All I do is eat. Tubby, tubby, tubby".

It was sung to a light and trilly tune.

Thursday it was turkey and carbs.

Friday it was cocktail treats at Stina's 40th birthday party.

Saturday it was a "traditional" Seattle meal of salmon with hollandaise, chanterelles sauteed with garlic, butter and sherry, roasted golden beets diced and served on a pool of balsamic vinegar reduction, steamed broccolini and cheese tortellini in cream sauce with salmon roe.

Last night we had an amazing Tex-Mex dinner lovingly prepared by Buck: the world's most amazing flank steak fajitas, refried beans (from scratch), Spanish rice and a fresh salsa plus guacamole.

And every meal was capped off with Sortilege, that fabulous whiskey/maple syrup cordial we first enjoyed in Chicago.

Know what's on the menu for this week? Leftovers.

Our time with Buck has been just lovely. He got a little tour of Seattle on Saturday and met some of our friends. I feel a little bad about the fact that the tours haven't been more grand and that what we've mostly done is cook and eat but he doesn't seem to mind. He got to go to mass at the Cathedral yesterday; it was the feast of Christ the King, the last big blow out of ordinary time before Advent begins. It was grand, although the fact is, the liturgy at the Cathedral is always grand. It was nice to see his reaction, though. Reminds me of what a gift it is to go to a church that does liturgy so beautifully.

We have also played multiple games of speed Scrabble. Our minds were kept sharp and lean even as our bodies were being transformed into dumplings.

Things are slowly returning to normal. The Child is off at school, The Spouse at work and Buck and I will just be hanging around talking (and yeah, probably eating something) before I have to take him to the airport this afternoon. The Child has been sleeping on the couch for 4 days and this morning I asked her if it will be nice to have her bed back. She shook her head "no".

"You like sleeping on the couch?"

Again, the head bobs with a "no".

"You're going to miss Uncle Buck, aren't you?"

"Yes".

Awww. It's nice when friends become family.

I'll post some pictures as soon as the camera battery charges up.

Hi. I'm Not Hungry.

We recovered sufficiently to have dinner at Lao Szechaun. Ouch.

The food was very, very good; the company even better. We met up with Harry, Jack and Steve (from the other night) plus their friend Ken and his buddy Euan. And then we ate and ate and ate and then I wanted to die. Mineral water is my friend.

Last night, while The Spouse and I were enjoying some wine on the Balcony of Terror, crazy weird clouds started billowing across the sky. It looked like the pipe smoke of a giant. The clouds massed together and came down to earth and for a little while there I think we both had visions of spending the night in the bathroom, hiding from a tornado. But it wasn't a tornado. Silly us.

The day has again dawned clear and warm. We'll be setting off soon to meet up with Nicole et famille for lunch at Navy Pier and then our fam will finally head to the Art Institute. Jon and maybe Iwanskis are coming for cocktails, then we go see "Wicked" and are planning on an apres theatre dinner at the steakhouse by our building because The Spouse has yet to indulge in a Chicago steak. I personally will be dining on 3 lettuce leaves dressed with salt.

Monday in Chicago

As it turned out, everyone was massively worn out from Saturday so we didn't go out to dinner. Instead, we ordered pizza, which was delicious, and watched the Michael Keaton "Batman", which truly is a heinous film.

Now we're fixin' on going to the "fried oyster" place to not eat fried oysters, pick up some groceries for the 3rd of July party and then Buck and The Child are going sightseeing with Portia-the-Chocolate-Lab-and-Best-Dog-in-the-World, while The Spouse and I have some mommy and daddy time. I think he plans on playing Star Wars on the Playstation.

Oh! And I talked to City Mouse this morning. Dig this. She's real. We're hooking up with her and the family at the Taste of Chicago tonight.

Last night, as we sat on the balcony and admired Chicago, The Spouse said, "You know, we've always said we wanted to get a condo in the city. We never said it had to be in Seattle". So the new plan is to buy the penthouse in Marina Towers and the apartment below it. We'll put in a spiral staircase and a submarine hatch. We'll rent the lower flat to Jon, for the mere monthly rent of his age and then, whenever we need a hit of Chicago, we'll be set.

And as we sat there fantasizing about living part-time in Chicago we realized something else. Next time we come here it won't be to meet blog buddies. We will come here to see our friends.

Must run. Fried green tomatoes are calling my name.

What's For Dinner?

Editor's Note: Please be warned. If you are a vegetarian you probably want to skip this post. Go in peace.

---

I was just listening to a conversation on the local NPR station about food aversions/taboos...the things Americans are disinclined to eat and why. Much about horse meat and innards, with the comments seeming to come down largely on the side of economic and class differences. Poorer cultures, people who grew up on the farm, folks out of the Depression, these are your candidates for oxtail, tongue, scrambled brains. People disconnected from the process of raising the animal or who have the resources to buy better cuts of meat are going to stay away from such foods.

There's a whole lot of food anthropology wrapped up in this conversation but what it made me think of, mostly, was my maternal grandfather.

Grandpa would, simply, eat anything. I know, because I watched him. One Christmas his sons-in-law gifted him with a tin of bees. It was like a sardine tin. He rolled back the lid with the little key and there were dozens and dozens of tightly packed dead bees. Which he then proceeded to eat on a cracker and pronounce "Delicious". Chocolate covered ants? You betcha. Deep fried cockroaches? Don't know that he ever did eat them, but if someone offered he would have.

He also loved offal. I have a vivid memory of standing with him in front of the butcher's case in a market while he ogled a very large and disgusting (to moi) beef tongue. Which he bought so grandma could cook it up. I took a pass, thankyouverymuch. That experience, coupled with the one and only time Dame Judi tried to feed us liver and onions, sealed forever in me a distaste for anything that intimate to an animal.

I have since had tongue. Exactly once, in a French bistro here in town as part of the chaucuterie platter. It was smoked, sliced very thin and absolutely lovely but the entire time I ate it I kept wishing the waitress hadn't actually pointed out that it was tongue. This knowledge hampered my full enjoyment as I kept picturing that big disgusting thing that Grandpa had bought. I managed to eat one piece.

I like my food somewhat removed from the source. I'm not even that crazy about meat with the bones in. Oh, man, when we were in France I ordered this beautiful dish of rabbit and pasta. It was just heaven. But the rabbit was full of bones and after a while I just gave up because it was too much work. And, I supposed, with the bone thing, even a little too connected to the little furry critter that had given it's life for my sustenance.

We raised sheep on the farm and when they got older, they were butchered. For meat. This was no big deal until the time that we were served a particular mutton stew. We all started happily eating and then someone asked, "Wait. Who is this?" Because of course we named all the animals and one, Endora, was the matriarch of the flock and much loved. Dame Judi probably wishes she'd been less forthcoming because upon learning the identity of our dinner, we all burst into tears and refused to finish our meal.

It occurs to me that while I do enjoy lamb, it is not and never has been my favorite meat to eat. Bet that's why.

Once a boyfriend spent an entire day (and a small fortune) on making a bouillabaisse for Christmas Eve dinner. It smelled like heaven and was brimming with a gorgeous variety of seafood. There were huge prawns perched on top, looking so inviting in all their pink gleaminess. He picked one up and declared, "Look! Shrimp roe!" and began to happily slurp the little eggs from the underside of the shrimp. As I used to say when I was little and served something I didn't like, it made my throat small. I could not eat those eggs or the mama shrimp to which they were attached. Just couldn't do it. And pretty much couldn't eat the soup, either. Which ticked off the boyfriend. Whatever. And yes, of course, I love caviar. You know I do. Caviar comes in a jar, like God intended.

Other things I don't enjoy eating and avoid at all costs:

Clams (all I ate for a week on Martha's Vineyard in the '80s. Enough to last me a lifetime). Although I will eat clam chowder.

Trout. (Too many bones).

Any fish served with it's face still attached.

Chicken skin.

Anything originally intended for procreation. (Meaning the gonads. Love me some roe...detached from aforementioned).

Cooked oysters. Love 'em raw, if they are smallish and there's a chilled French Chablis on hand. The mouth feel of cooked oysters gags me.

Insects.

Anything originally intended for digestion or circulation.

Cookies with raisins in them. (I have, oddly enough, been eating and thoroughly enjoying, cinnamon-raisin bread for breakfast).

Apple pie with raisins in it. That's just sick and wrong.

Mincemeat, either the original, which was actually meat that was minced, (had one bite of it once at a party...totally nasty) or the fruity weird stuff that comes in a jar.

Fruit cake (but I will eat pannetone).

What don't you like to eat?

We Laughed. We Cried. We Ate Risotto.

Both The Spouse and I were very excited about last night's premiere of "Battlestar Galactica". I mention this because you may not have picked up on the fact that we are, how you say, fans of the show. But first we had our typical Friday night family dinner-&-a-movie.

Dinner was one of the best risottos I've ever made. It was sausage risotto but instead of grilling the sausages and serving them on top of the rice I took the meat out of the casings and scrambled it with the onions and arborio before adding the stock. There were bits of sausage-y goodness in every bite. It was really nice.

Movie was a surprisingly good film, "The Greatest Game Ever Played".

Dame Judi had recommended the film. Which is about golf. Which she doesn't play. So the fact that she was so emphatic about our need to see it was compelling. And while I suppose it is, on the face of it, about golf it is really about following your dreams (even if your father is a jerk about them) and about class and nationalism (and how being "the best" has the power to transcend that) and about the importance of keeping your head in the game and about how mothers are wonderful people (ok, that bit might have been more subtle than some of the other themes but I picked up on it). It is stylistic, beautifully made and well-acted. Sometimes Disney really gets it right. There. I said it. Highly recommend the film.

And then....

There are not even enough superlatives in my lexicon to tell you how good "Battlestar Galactica" was last night. The show airs on the SciFi channel but the only thing remotely scifi about it is that there are spaceships and robots. (The cylons. The ones with the plan).

The premise -if you don't know- is that the cylons, created by man, have evolved and rebelled and have turned on humankind. There is a remnant of survivors and the story has to do with saving the human race, fighting the cylons (who outnumber the humans by some superfantastically high number) and figuring out how to start over again. The story is way more about politics and religion and what motivates people to do what they do than it is about aliens and technology. And. I. Love. It.

Trivia: Did you know that the reason JP thought I would like this show was because I was a fan of "The West Wing"? "Battlestar Galactica": adventure show for wonks.

This is going to be a lazy day and I deserve it, don't you think? I'm going to play "Age of Empires III", I'm going to read the November issue of Martha Stewart Living and I may even take a nap. I may make some applesauce but that's a more contemplative thing than it is a doing thing. And it will make the house smell really nice. The Child is in charge of dinner. Should be a perfectly lovely day. Hope yours is, too.