Fall, the season, is very nearly here. Sure, it's been in the '70s, but underneath the sun-warmed breeze is a colder, bass note. Since our house is drafty - few Southern California homes are well-insulated; particularly the older homes - throughout the winter, I rely on the oven to make up some of the difference. Winter is the season for roast pork loin (three hours at 300 degrees) or a daube Provencale (an hour at 300) but I rarely - okay, I never bake.
To remedy this sad state of affairs, I leafed through the Food & Wine cookbook...
SKILLET CORNBREAD WITH FIGS, FETA AND ROSEMARY
The long way - make cornbread
My way - buy a cornbread mix...
However you do it, add in chopped rosemary, 8 Black Mission figs, chopped, and a half-cup of crumbled feta cheese. Cook per box instructions.
The name and the fact that this pie makes its own crust intrigued me...
IMPOSSIBLE PIE
1 stick sweet butter, melted plus enough to grease the pie pans
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 cup self-rising flour
2 cups sweetened, shredded coconut
2 cups of milk
Pre-heat the oven to 350 and butter two glass pie plates
Whisk the melted butter with the sugar, add the eggs and beat until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the flour, coconut and milk and divide this mix between the two pie plates.
Bake in the lower one-third of the oven for 1 hour or until the pies are firm to the touch and golden. Let cool completely before serving.
There you have it - something good to eat and a nice, warm house in which to eat it!
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Shuttle Fever
The shuttle Endeavor's last flight is generating a tremendous amount of excitement here in Southern California. Traffic is piled up, a street in El Segundo that overlooks LAX has been closed to traffic; the 405 on either side of LAX is jammed... all to see a shuttle and a 747 doing it doggy style.
But what if it did over almost any one of the "tour points" out here -- Disneyland, JPL Labs (boom! Scientists wiped out) the Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach? If it crashed by the Hollywood sign, not so much. It's mainly cleared land there anyhow and halfway up a short mountain.
Worst case scenario: The approach to LAX flies directly over the ghet-to. What if some wag down below decides it would be fun to laser dot the 747's pilot's eyes? Or a terrorist fires off a ground-to-air missile? And it connects?
I'm sure the people behind the Last Tour have considered all such disastrous events, but.. luck is not always with the good guys.
On an even more morbid note, this final pass over various places reminds me of funerals where the route from the church/mortuary to the cemetery makes a final tour past the deceased's work place or favorite bar.
Richie can sit out on our balcony for as long as he wants to see the approach into LAX. Me? I'll be under the bed -- with the cats.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Champagne Dreams, Beer Budget
One of my Palm Springs treats is: first morning there, grab the free copies of Homes for Sale and head for breakfast. I peruse them while waiting for our food. It always interests me to see which former movie star's house is for sale and for how much. Frank Sinatra's mountain home was listed a couple of years ago for $2.5 million which I thought was dirt cheap.
Some time ago, I came across an ad for a six-unit motel for $1.5 million and I thought, "How totally cool! All of the snowbirds would come to see us and we'd have a room for them!" (Right now the only vacant space in our house is the daybed in the office which is hardly palatial.) My dream continued -- "Everyone would have their own parking space and they could hole up in their room, if they wanted to, or be sociable around the pool! Maybe put in a fire pit, too ..." But best of all, when they left, their space could be cleaned and the door locked. Belongings in our house seem to drift, almost like the driftwood in the ocean.
With the thought of building my own motel if Richie ever wins a substantial lottery sum, I went to the library and checked out a book assembled by the Architectural Record people.
In it there are extensive chapters on Motor Hotels, Architecture for Eating and Drinking and it's all as cute as it can be. The book was printed in 1953!
Motor Hotels got the most space because in the post- WW2 years, more people had spendable income and they bought cars, determined to see America or at least Grandma across the state.
In 1953, as a point of interest, this lavishly illustrated book cost our library $9.75!
Prefabrication or not? Noise control, air conditionng (swamp coolers were recommended.) Restaurants in this book were limited to the drive-thrus and walk-ins, Googie-style. The department store "tea room" got prominent mention as did the ballrooms with "private banquet rooms" off of it.
Freshly informed, I'm just waiting for Richie to win champagne big. He would enjoy being The Host of his own hotel.
Some time ago, I came across an ad for a six-unit motel for $1.5 million and I thought, "How totally cool! All of the snowbirds would come to see us and we'd have a room for them!" (Right now the only vacant space in our house is the daybed in the office which is hardly palatial.) My dream continued -- "Everyone would have their own parking space and they could hole up in their room, if they wanted to, or be sociable around the pool! Maybe put in a fire pit, too ..." But best of all, when they left, their space could be cleaned and the door locked. Belongings in our house seem to drift, almost like the driftwood in the ocean.
With the thought of building my own motel if Richie ever wins a substantial lottery sum, I went to the library and checked out a book assembled by the Architectural Record people.
In it there are extensive chapters on Motor Hotels, Architecture for Eating and Drinking and it's all as cute as it can be. The book was printed in 1953!
Motor Hotels got the most space because in the post- WW2 years, more people had spendable income and they bought cars, determined to see America or at least Grandma across the state.
In 1953, as a point of interest, this lavishly illustrated book cost our library $9.75!
Prefabrication or not? Noise control, air conditionng (swamp coolers were recommended.) Restaurants in this book were limited to the drive-thrus and walk-ins, Googie-style. The department store "tea room" got prominent mention as did the ballrooms with "private banquet rooms" off of it.
Freshly informed, I'm just waiting for Richie to win champagne big. He would enjoy being The Host of his own hotel.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
All Very Idyllic, But...
"A Year in the Village of Eternity: The Lifestyle of Longevity in Campodimele, Italy" by Tracey Lawson Bloomsbury 374 pages $30
Lawson writes that 111 of the 671 people living here are between 75 and 98 years old. She adds this means that 16.6 per cent of the population is over 75. The Italian average mortality age is 77.5 years for men; 83.5 for women.
She reports that they work like beavers in the fresh, mountain air to grow their crops, can and preserve food and eat as little processed food as possible. The women make pasta/bread daily, can during the summers to provide food for the winter, tend the chickens and work in their fruit and vegetable gardens. The men keep an eye on the goats, plant crops, tend the olive trees, use horses to gather wood for the home fire. All of it active work.
They eat very little meat, mainly the odd chicken that's grown too old to lay; a Fall wild boar, every scrap of which is used to make something. They make their own sausages and either air dry them or pack them into jars and cover the sausages with olive oil.
Their main seasoning is this (always this) -- olive oil, white wine vinegar, pinch of salt and another pinch of chilies. White wine vinegar? What happened to balsamic?
The book has a double section of 4/c photos of many of these older people (all of the women are fat, not overweight. Fat) and the simple dishes they prepare. Seasonal is stressed above all -- the first asparagus, sour cherries, etc. But: they can tons of tomatoes to use in the winter. Slow fast food?
It amazed me to learn that they seem to depend primarily on eggs for their protein. Time after time, a recipe says, "Stir in four beaten eggs;" for a frittata "beat 10 fresh eggs..." A perfectly acceptable light lunch is two eggs, fried in olive oil, eaten with bread and some fresh fruit for dessert. (By contrast, Richie and I each eat one egg every Sunday.)
She paints an idyllic picture, but the reality depressed me. Olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and chilies to flavor EVERYTHING? I think of the wonderful varieties we eat all of the time -- Thai or Asian or Barbecue...
They don't even add garlic! "Flatten it with a knife blade, cook it a little bit and discard it. You just want the olive oil to absorb the flavor." One of the great joys of my life is a clove of garlic, grated, in olive oil and chunks of baguette to dip into it and eat!
I wish all of them well, but no civilization could stand to live like that even if the person made it to 100 and beyond. Only to eat more of the same seasoning? Feh!
Lawson writes that 111 of the 671 people living here are between 75 and 98 years old. She adds this means that 16.6 per cent of the population is over 75. The Italian average mortality age is 77.5 years for men; 83.5 for women.
She reports that they work like beavers in the fresh, mountain air to grow their crops, can and preserve food and eat as little processed food as possible. The women make pasta/bread daily, can during the summers to provide food for the winter, tend the chickens and work in their fruit and vegetable gardens. The men keep an eye on the goats, plant crops, tend the olive trees, use horses to gather wood for the home fire. All of it active work.
They eat very little meat, mainly the odd chicken that's grown too old to lay; a Fall wild boar, every scrap of which is used to make something. They make their own sausages and either air dry them or pack them into jars and cover the sausages with olive oil.
Their main seasoning is this (always this) -- olive oil, white wine vinegar, pinch of salt and another pinch of chilies. White wine vinegar? What happened to balsamic?
The book has a double section of 4/c photos of many of these older people (all of the women are fat, not overweight. Fat) and the simple dishes they prepare. Seasonal is stressed above all -- the first asparagus, sour cherries, etc. But: they can tons of tomatoes to use in the winter. Slow fast food?
It amazed me to learn that they seem to depend primarily on eggs for their protein. Time after time, a recipe says, "Stir in four beaten eggs;" for a frittata "beat 10 fresh eggs..." A perfectly acceptable light lunch is two eggs, fried in olive oil, eaten with bread and some fresh fruit for dessert. (By contrast, Richie and I each eat one egg every Sunday.)
She paints an idyllic picture, but the reality depressed me. Olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and chilies to flavor EVERYTHING? I think of the wonderful varieties we eat all of the time -- Thai or Asian or Barbecue...
They don't even add garlic! "Flatten it with a knife blade, cook it a little bit and discard it. You just want the olive oil to absorb the flavor." One of the great joys of my life is a clove of garlic, grated, in olive oil and chunks of baguette to dip into it and eat!
I wish all of them well, but no civilization could stand to live like that even if the person made it to 100 and beyond. Only to eat more of the same seasoning? Feh!
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
The Strangest Book Presentation Ever
Why? Because the only words on the book jacket are printed on the spine of the book. "Before I Go To Sleep" S. J. Watson. That's it for reading. The cover is a photo of a woman's face, reflected in a bathroom mirror, clouded by steam. The back cover is more steam on the mirror.
There is no jacket flap at either end of the book. This hardcover book has been printed with the photo and nothing else.
I googled S. J. Watson and found that is Steven Watson, a 31 year old male. He worked as an audiologist for deaf children in a London hospital. In his spare time, he wrote this book which is written in a woman's voice. The book dedication is: For my mother and for Nicolas.
"What's it about?" you say? The book begins as if the woman relating the story is in her early '20s. She has woken up in a strange bedroom next to a man she doesn't recognize. Panicked, she slithers out of the bed and into the bathroom. Staring into the mirror, she discovers she is not 20-something, but 40-something instead. She is horrified.
The man in the bed awakens and comes to her in the bathroom. "I'm your husband, Ben," he says.
The reader soon discovers that as a result of being nearly killed by a hit and run driver, she has a type of amnesia that refuses to let her brain store new information. Every morning, when she wakes up, is literally a new day to her.
I won't be a spoiler; suffice to say simply that her life as she believes it to be is very different from reality.
There is no jacket flap at either end of the book. This hardcover book has been printed with the photo and nothing else.
I googled S. J. Watson and found that is Steven Watson, a 31 year old male. He worked as an audiologist for deaf children in a London hospital. In his spare time, he wrote this book which is written in a woman's voice. The book dedication is: For my mother and for Nicolas.
"What's it about?" you say? The book begins as if the woman relating the story is in her early '20s. She has woken up in a strange bedroom next to a man she doesn't recognize. Panicked, she slithers out of the bed and into the bathroom. Staring into the mirror, she discovers she is not 20-something, but 40-something instead. She is horrified.
The man in the bed awakens and comes to her in the bathroom. "I'm your husband, Ben," he says.
The reader soon discovers that as a result of being nearly killed by a hit and run driver, she has a type of amnesia that refuses to let her brain store new information. Every morning, when she wakes up, is literally a new day to her.
I won't be a spoiler; suffice to say simply that her life as she believes it to be is very different from reality.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Egos and Delusions
"January First, A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her" by Michael Schofield Crown Publishers 291 pages $25
January is Michael and Susan Schofield's oldest child. He teaches writing at Cal State Northridge; Susan is a former broadcaster for a local Southern California radio station.
At age two, January made the jump from concrete reasoning to abstract, something that normally happens when a child is much older. Daddy begins to envision a Nobel Prize for her - "For what, I don't know and don't really care," he wrote.
At three, Michael says that January could read and do multiplication and division in her head.
At four, she was given an IQ test and scored 146. There were oddities - she preferred imaginary pets to live people. She said she had seven rats, named for the days of the week and a cat named "400."
By the time she was six, she had to be hospitalized to control her violence. When triggered (for instance by calling her "January" and not "Blue-Eyed Tree Toad") she hit, bit, scratched and kicked. When the couple's second child, a son they named "Bodhi" was born, January had to be kept totally segregated from him. When told, "Don't hit Bodhi" she replied single-minded, "I have to hit him." If they hadn't been separated, she would have killed him.
That alone would give me reason to have the child hospitalilzed, but Daddy persists in believing it's only a sign of frustration at being so much more intelligent than the rest of us.
After frequent hospitalizations, drug changes and intense therapy, January is diagnosed as schizophrenic. To protect their son, the couple got two separate apartments in the same complex. Susan and Bodhi live in one; Michael and January in the other. They have dinner together.
Sadly this book sounded to me like a clash of egos - Daddy positive she's a genius; Mommy sure she's a sick child. When you have a six year old child, bent on suicide, you don't have a genius. The book was written from Daddy's blog - janisjourney.org - and Daddy has gone on to make something of a cottage industry of his daughter, with the book, continuing blog and appearances and interviews in the media. Exhibit A - the book's title.
January is Michael and Susan Schofield's oldest child. He teaches writing at Cal State Northridge; Susan is a former broadcaster for a local Southern California radio station.
At age two, January made the jump from concrete reasoning to abstract, something that normally happens when a child is much older. Daddy begins to envision a Nobel Prize for her - "For what, I don't know and don't really care," he wrote.
At three, Michael says that January could read and do multiplication and division in her head.
At four, she was given an IQ test and scored 146. There were oddities - she preferred imaginary pets to live people. She said she had seven rats, named for the days of the week and a cat named "400."
By the time she was six, she had to be hospitalized to control her violence. When triggered (for instance by calling her "January" and not "Blue-Eyed Tree Toad") she hit, bit, scratched and kicked. When the couple's second child, a son they named "Bodhi" was born, January had to be kept totally segregated from him. When told, "Don't hit Bodhi" she replied single-minded, "I have to hit him." If they hadn't been separated, she would have killed him.
That alone would give me reason to have the child hospitalilzed, but Daddy persists in believing it's only a sign of frustration at being so much more intelligent than the rest of us.
After frequent hospitalizations, drug changes and intense therapy, January is diagnosed as schizophrenic. To protect their son, the couple got two separate apartments in the same complex. Susan and Bodhi live in one; Michael and January in the other. They have dinner together.
Sadly this book sounded to me like a clash of egos - Daddy positive she's a genius; Mommy sure she's a sick child. When you have a six year old child, bent on suicide, you don't have a genius. The book was written from Daddy's blog - janisjourney.org - and Daddy has gone on to make something of a cottage industry of his daughter, with the book, continuing blog and appearances and interviews in the media. Exhibit A - the book's title.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Last Week
A new magazine, called "The Week," arrived on our shores yesterday. It is to news what the Readers' Digest is to human interest stories. The editors pick a story, run it and then add Op Ed to the piece by running other media comments on the same story. Done wisely, this mode can give us an idea of what the thinking is in other parts of the country, or world, for that matter.
I culled some things for your amusement. Under the column "Wit & Wisdom" I found
"History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided."
Konrad Adenauer.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." Charles Darwin.
Listed under "The Best Dorm Room Gear" we find an alarm clock. It is squat and round with a propeller sitting on the top. The user is allowed X number of snoozes and then the propeller flies off across the room and the noise won't stop until it's put back on the clock.
"Back to 1968" is a story on groups that re-enact Viet Nam! Most of us are familiar with battle re-enactments, but they're usually Civil War events. Writer Chrlie Schroeder attended one "somewhere in a wooded part of Virginia." The camp is set up authentically - the first thing he does is spot a trip wire inches close to his head. He follows it to a party popper noisemaker. In reality, he would have been blown up.
On his departure, he was asked what he thought about it all and he told the man that the racial epithets disturbed him a great deal. He, never having been to Viet Nam, was offended at the frequent use of "gook," "dink," "slopes."
Good thing he was never in Viet Nam for real.
The publisher offers six more editions gratis - do we want it? theweek.com to explore it more thoroughly.
I culled some things for your amusement. Under the column "Wit & Wisdom" I found
"History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided."
Konrad Adenauer.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." Charles Darwin.
Listed under "The Best Dorm Room Gear" we find an alarm clock. It is squat and round with a propeller sitting on the top. The user is allowed X number of snoozes and then the propeller flies off across the room and the noise won't stop until it's put back on the clock.
"Back to 1968" is a story on groups that re-enact Viet Nam! Most of us are familiar with battle re-enactments, but they're usually Civil War events. Writer Chrlie Schroeder attended one "somewhere in a wooded part of Virginia." The camp is set up authentically - the first thing he does is spot a trip wire inches close to his head. He follows it to a party popper noisemaker. In reality, he would have been blown up.
On his departure, he was asked what he thought about it all and he told the man that the racial epithets disturbed him a great deal. He, never having been to Viet Nam, was offended at the frequent use of "gook," "dink," "slopes."
Good thing he was never in Viet Nam for real.
The publisher offers six more editions gratis - do we want it? theweek.com to explore it more thoroughly.
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