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Brahms to the Rescue

Brahms to the Rescue

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Brahms came to the rescue yesterday. He didn’t ride in on a white horse, but he was there with his complex melodies and lyricism, with his passion and playfulness.

He was there in the morning when I walked, he was there in the evening when I bounced on the trampoline. And he stayed with me as I sautéed squash and onions and mixed it with farfalle pasta, as I broiled and plated the chicken, as I remembered I had fresh basil to season it all.

What a utilitarian composer! Brahms is not just for bedtime or funerals or academic processions. If you give him a chance, he will stay with you all day long.

(Photo courtesy New York Public Library Digital Collection)

Ah, Nuts!

Ah, Nuts!

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Today I finished off the last few pistachios from a giant bag that’s been hanging around for weeks. I enjoyed every last morsel, and found myself thinking about the first time I ate one — and crunched into the whole thing, shell and all.

Pistachios were the expensive nut I could never afford with my allowance, you see. When someone bought them for me as a treat, I couldn’t believe my good luck. But having only admired them and never tried them … I didn’t know the shells weren’t edible.

The early confusion hasn’t stopped me from loving them, though. And they are instructive, an early lesson in how things aren’t always what they appear to be.

Feasts and Famine

Feasts and Famine

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It’s our last full day in Ireland, and there was much left to see: the Cong Cross and the bog people at the Archaeology Museum, reading from The Dubliners at Sweney’s Pharmacy, St. Patrick’s Cathedral … and … the famine museum.

The Jeanie Johnston is a replica of a ship by the same name, a ship that carried more than 2,000 Irish emigrants to the New World, 200 at a time, people who might otherwise have perished during the Great Hunger.

The people who traveled in the Jeanie Johnston were some of the lucky ones. More than a third of those who left their homeland in so-called “coffin ships” died at sea.  But the Jeanie Johnston has a staff doctor and required passengers to spend 30 minutes on deck a day (rather than 20 minutes every two weeks). None of its passengers died at sea.

Still, the voyage was no picnic. People crammed five to a bed, ate hardtack and tried to avoid dysentery and cholera. This after a year or two of existing on a starvation diet when a blight killed the potato crop.

It was a sobering reminder of the agonies they and so many (including my relatives) endured to reach the United States. And it made me appreciate all the more the lovely feasts we’ve had on this vacation.

Historical Aroma

Historical Aroma

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One of the fringe benefits of working at home is catching little household emergencies before they become big household emergencies.

I’m stretching the term “household emergencies.” Today, while pulling cereal out of the pantry closet, I was met with an aroma that was only slightly less putrid that a decaying animal. It was a rotten potato. This was not a problem last night, but it would have been an even larger problem by 6:30 p.m., which is when I usually roll back in here. Today, though, I could remove the offending vegetable and compost it before too much damage was done.

The point of this post is not to highlight my less-than-stellar housekeeping skills, but to ponder whether there is such a thing as an ancestral aroma sensitivity.

This potato smelled so noxious that I wondered if it had something to do with my Irish ancestry, with the fact that Mom’s relatives mostly came from the west of Ireland and were driven away by the potato famine.

Could I be especially sensitive to this because my great-great-grandparents smelled it all too often?  Putrid potato PTSD?  You never know.

Wild Thing

Wild Thing

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It was one of my favorite songs in the old days. Short on finesse, but full of raw energy. Even the name of the group evoked primal power: the Troggs.

“Wild thing/ You make my heart sing/You make everything/ Groovy … /Wild thing.”

It was a song that seemed radical in its day, and I was always a little proud to claim it as one of my favorites. Especially since it consisted of about three chords, played over and over again.

So imagine my surprise when I heard it recently during an Olympics interval.

“Wild thing/ You make my heart sing.”

And what was this wild thing being shilled? A fast car, a new show, a brand of mascara?  Uh, none of the above. The “wild thing” in question is … an Applebee’s hamburger.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Just a Spoonful

Just a Spoonful

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Last month, the Washington Post health section ran an article on sugar’s addictive quality.  Convincing, but poorly timed. Who wants to read that right before the holidays? Still, it left an impression, and I thought about it again this morning as I shoveled far too much sugar into my tea.

For the most part, I’m a healthy eater. Lots of vegetables and fruit, not much meat, trying for more calcium these days. Where I fall apart, though, is in the sweets department. I know too much sugar is bad for me. But tea doesn’t taste like tea unless it’s milky and sweet.

I sometimes fantasize that I could cut down my usage one grain at a time. Would I never notice it that way? Or would there come a point, the proverbial straw, that would halt my experiment and send me screaming back to the heaping teaspoons?

At this point I’ll never know … because I’m not about to try it.  My tea is already decaffeinated; it can’t be de-sweetened, too.

Leftover Lasagna

Leftover Lasagna

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In the homespun calculus of cooking, lasagna does not present a terribly difficult equation. But recent attempts at concocting the dish have reminded me that shortcuts make a difference.

Take no-boil noodles, for example. They save time but require liquid. Which also means they require more thought, especially if one uses a recipe meant for boiled noodles, which I did.

In the end, anything made with six cups of cheese is bound to be good. But now that I’ve started this lasagna gig, I’d like to perfect it.

Next time, I’ll make a more liquid-y sauce. That is, after I eat up all the left-over lasagna from this round!

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Letting it Soak

Letting it Soak

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Yesterday I returned home from work to find the crockpot I’d left full of sudsy water the night before. It wasn’t warm, sudsy water anymore, though. Now it was cold and gray and uninviting.

As I refilled the ceramic with warm water and soap and scrubbed it clean, I thought about how the great procrastination device of children (and adults!) everywhere — letting it soak — is often just what’s needed.

Cleaning this the night before would have been a much harder task. Now I could whisk the stew remnants down the disposal, easily peel away the potato bits that had stuck to the sides. Water and time had worked their way.

Not a life-altering realization — but further proof that rushing through life is not always the best way to go.

Fruit Bowl

Fruit Bowl

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I’m not sure why I did this, except that I felt energetic this morning, like I was coming out of a fog (post-Thanksgiving funk?). The fruit looked sleek and display-able, and the basket was on the kitchen table, holding napkins, and suddenly it seemed a crime to keep the fruit in its net bags and not in this pretty braided ceramic basket-bowl that Ellen gave me several Christmases ago.

So the napkins now sit in a pile on the table and the fruit poses on the counter. It’s become a still life, an object not just of utility but of beauty.

Isn’t the best kind of beauty the accidental kind? The graceful arching of tree limbs over a road. The glitter of icicles in the sun. And the gathering of fruit in a bowl.

Overstuffed

Overstuffed

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As in a cushy chair or ample love seat.

Or a wicked stepsister’s foot in a delicate glass slipper.

Or a bag of leaves crammed to bursting (as I look over a backyard full of leaves that need cramming).

Or a two bushel baskets of gourds in one bushel basket.

Overstuffed is how I felt last night after the turkey, dressing (two types), mashed potatoes (two types), green beans (two types), corn, cranberry sauce, roasted brussels sprouts and cauliflower, roasted root vegetables, autumn slaw and rolls.

And that was before the apple crumble, chocolate cookies and pumpkin praline pie.

Maybe no eating today?