Watch Out For Falling Torches

In 1985, I lived by myself in a gorgeous apartment overlooking the Hudson River in NYC.  With Zabars located a few blocks north and Central Park a mere three blocks east, 72nd Steet was a fantastic place to live.. Being alone in New York was not so fantastic.  A sea of people.  A city of strangers.

I planned a trip to Kentucky in the summer of  '85 to visit an old college roommate and  leave the City for green grass and fresh air.  On July 4th of  that summer, I called Homer to finalize the  trip.  Michael answered the phone.  Peppered with mindless chatter, we talked for a while about our individual plans for the 4th of July. We knew we'd probably meet and see each other on my vacation to Kentucky. As he passed the phone off to Homer, Michael said, "Watch out for falling torches."  And that was it.  The day we met. Watch out for falling torches. Mystical.

A few weeks later we met in person when Marge handed me off to Homer at the Sonora Truck Stop to  wind up my short  vacation in Richmond before heading back to New York on Amtrak.  The Sonora Truck Stop.   Michael walked into the truck stop wearing purple gym trunks and a white tank top.  He was tall, tan, and very cute. Extremely cute.  Not the kind of guy I'd encountered  at  swanky Upper West  Side bars in the mid 80's.  I was intrigued.

A week of fun and mayhem insued.  There were many many trips to Johnny Angel's, a few cook-outs, dancing, swimming, and a lot of preening.  The entire Lexington gay scene fascinated me.  It was outrageous, fun, explosive, and more interesting than an insane night at the Manhole in New York  watching beautiful Thai women open beer bottles with thier vaginas while dancing on tabletops. Lexington was totally different. It felt real. People in Lexington and Richmond seemed to care about each other.  Even through the bitchiness and cattiness, there was community. I wanted it.  To belong to a community.  To know that people cared if I woke up in the morning.

Michael and I found each other that week. Big time found each other.  The soundtrack to Streets Of Fire was our soundtrack.  Every beat and every lyric belonged to us. Ours.

I reluctantly left that paradise,  boarded my train, and quietly returned to New York. That night, I spent 16 hours in a train seat staring through the darkness and  dreaming.  The world had changed.  New York had changed.  I had changed. My heart was mush.

We didn't know what to do about us.  The miles.  Individual lives.  Lost chances.  Long before Twitter, Facebook, texting,  or e-mail, we constantly  wrote to each other.  Letters.  Poems.  Promises.  As if we were both at war longing to be home.

Later that summer, Michael flew to New York to visit.  My apartment was our home. New York was our playground.

We sealed the deal.

I left New York and moved to Kentucky.  I arrived with very little. A suitcase....hope....love.

Michael was waiting for me.

I was home.

26 years later, I am still home. Happy. Content. Full. Whole.
Happy Anniversary, Pava.

Having A Ball..or two..or three.

We had dinner at Columbia Steakhouse last night.  We have been going down for dinner more frequently ever since we adopted one of the rooftop-born kittens.  We sat in our regular booth with our usual cocktails and traded photos of cats and kittens with Flo.  Flo took in Midnight, the mother cat, after she gave birth to a litter of kittens on the roof of Columbia's.  I guess that makes our kitten, Celie, Flo's granddaughter.  Photo swapping and tale telling is an essential family thing.

I really wanted to be adventurous with dinner last night because I can be predictable at times.  Michael ordered his usual Nighthawk Special with assorted sides.  I bit the bullet  and ordered their famous Lamb Fries.  Confession:  I have never had Lamb Fries, Mountain Oysters, or fried balls of any kind.  I can eat anything.  There is nothing I won't try.  But, I always thought  it took balls to eat lamb balls.  Period.  I have heard that people love them and know that anything deep fried is good. Sold!

 As I finished  my garden salad, drenched in thier fantastic blue cheese dressing with bacon, tomatoes, and deep fried crunchy croutons, my plate of lamb fries arrived steaming and piping hot with a small dish of cream gravy to the side for dipping.  A heaping plate of fried lamb testicles.  All for me.  Hmmmm.

They looked like chicken livers, my favorite fried internal organs. Good start, I thought,  until the right side of my brain kicked in. "Oh, wait!", these aren't internal organs. Back to business.  I ate the first one dry without any dipping sauce.

I ate with my hands.  Who needs utensils when eating balls, for heavens sake.  They are not haute cuisine.

My first deep fried ball.

The stiff hard crust snapped between my teeth and gave way to a creamy salty mouthfeel with a silky mineral taste. Familiar. Tasty, even.
I took a second ball and swiped it through the creamy side sauce. Perhaps too much sauce, it seemed, as it dripped  and oozed  down my chin. I grabbed  another fried morsel to wipe the dripping face cream and stuck it in my mouth.  Oh so good.  
The pile of lamb fries had the appearance of something to be eaten quickly, like drive-thru fried meat popcorn bits, but these fried balls had a hard smooth texture that invited a slow chew. A salty melt-in-your-mouth swallow.  Something to be savored and not rushed. That's how I ate them, with each bite and gulp warming my lips and throat.

Funny, they weren't round, as expected.  They were triangular orbs. Tiny fried fat boomerangs.  I asked Flo why they were shaped like that.  She replied, "You should see what they look like before they are prepped."
All righty, then. That visual closed the small window of my fried testicle fantasy.  I ate plenty of them because they were really really good and I will have them again without the drama!. I'm not sure that I could have eaten an entire plate of fried lamb balls.  A few in any given night would be eventful and I surely didn't want to be tagged a testicle glutton. Anyway, after the clean up, I was sated and spent.

Our server stopped by to ask if we wanted them boxed up to take home.  That's when Michael put his foot down. "There will not be cold balls in our refigerator.", to which a smiling  Flo replied, "They are better hot than cold, anyway."

Shower, please.

Clam Sauce: Red Or White?

I typically make Linguini Alle Vongole, pasta with  white clam sauce. The white wine, garlic, and red pepper flake infused sauce accentuates the clams and linguini without masking their beautiful flavors. My pantry is usually always  stocked with ingredients for white clam sauce.  Last night, I had imported San Marzano tomatoes in the cupboard and thought I'd take the white sauce version one step further with Linguinu Alle Vongole con Pomadora, pasta with red clam sauce.  The method for the red sauce is actually an extension of the white sauce method and is very simple.

I purchased fresh Littleneck clams from a local seafood source and let them rest on a bed of ice until bath time.  I sliced green peppers, Vidalia onions, and garlic to reserve while I prepped the lemons, fresh basil, fresh oregano, and fresh parsley.  Mise en place.

After heating a large saute pan until screaming hot, I added a few butter pats with a few tablespoons of olive oil (butter for the flavor, olive oil for the smoking point).  When the end of a wooden spoon sizzled when touched into the combined fats, I tossed in the peppers and onions to soften and caramelize.  Once they had wilted, I  added 5 cloves of thinly slliced garlc to toast without burning. The nose knows.  Once the aromatics were soft and tender, I deglazed the pan with a cup of white wine  and fish stock. When the stock had reduced by half, I added  sweet San Marzano tomatoes,  fresh basil leaves, fresh oregano, salt, and pepper. Partially covered, I let the sauce simmer for an hour while I enjoed a few glasses of wine.

After an hour, the sauce had thickened and reduced to almost a pulp consistency.  Not wanting to waste any of the tomato left in the can, I swirled a bit more stock in the can, releasing the stuck-to-side-of-the-can tomatoes, and added it to the sauce to loosen .  I let it come back to a simmer, tossed in two dozen clams, covered the pan, and let the clams steam open.

I boiled linguini in heavily salted water until al dente and mounded the wide strands in large pasta bowls.  Using tongs, I plucked the clams out of the sauce and placed them around the pasta.  I  poured the steaming sauce over the clams, squeezed fresh lemon over the sauce, and sprinkled unsliced  individual parsley, basil, and oregano leaves over everything.  A dusting of fleur de sel for crunch and flavor finished it off.  With no artisinal bread in stock, simple toasted and buttered Baby Bunny sliced white bread had to do for a sopper.

The  sauce had an enormous layered  depth of flavor!  The usual white wine and garlic white  sauce was transforrmed by the sweet acidity of the tomatoes.  The fresh basil and oregano infused the sauce with  subtle anise notes while the juice released from an army of clams gave it briny mineral undertones. Drinkable.

The clams were sweet, tender and plump. Perfect vehicles for such an assertive sauce as thier juicy mouth pops sweetened the tomato brine. The cheap white bread side sopper turned into savoury summer bread pudding when swiped into the swimming sauce and the linguini was cheek smacking slurpable.  Wonderful drippy and  messy  finger food with face painting!  What could be better?

Steamed hot napkins for clean up, maybe.

So, red or white clam sauce?  Both are good,

but red has both.

A Humble Gardener

I am a very humble gardener. My successes are always balanced out with great failures...but I persevere. I've always loved flowers, hanging ferns, and window boxes bursting with color.We purchased this house several years ago and before we even moved in, I was out digging and tilling the sparse back garden.  I had two tons of dry stacking stone shipped from North Carolina to build raised beds and filled the beds with ninety-five 40 pound bags of Barky Beaver top soil.  Underneath the soil I buried 80 feet of soaker hose.  Against the advice of every gardening book, I then filled the garden to the brim with perennials, spring bulbs, evergreen shrubs, flowering bushes, summer bulbs, and statuary. On the back deck I would have an occasional tomato plant and a huge pot of herbs.  I was totally impressed with myself.

The garden is now too full.  Plants actually do fill in over time, it turns out. The experts were right.  It is  overflowing,  beautiful, and full.  Fine with me. 

My garden philosophy has shifted and changed over the years.  I still love growing flowers and watching them change and evolve during the growing season.  Growing things to harvest and  eat has  consumed me. We have limited space and odd light patterns, but that hasn't stopped me. I want to grow food on our land.  Our urban downtown land. Within reason, of course.  No corn fields, pumpkin patches, or winding melon vines. I do what I can;  and without room in the perennial garden, I have resorted to container gardening.  I am  not an  urban gardener, by any means.  I could not park my PT Cruiser by the side of the road with the latch up and sell produce.  Hardly.  For a long time I couldn't even grow a proper tomato. 

Last spring I was inspired by an article written by  Chef Dave in AceWeekly about starting vegetables and herbs from seed.  Seemed like the perfect way to quell the late winter wishful garden dolldrums. It was a total miracle.  I was stunned and amazed. We had cucumbers, jalapenos, green bell peppers, and tomatoes. I put up 75 quart and pint jars of pickles, relishes, chutneys, salsas, and juices. I was a canning madman!  All from the containers on our deck!  It was garden hysteria.  Obsessed and crazed.

Funny, the more you grow and eat what you grow, the more you want to grow to eat.. Ha! There is something to be said for container vegetable gardening.  The soil  can be manipulated and the water can be easily controlled.  When the light source changes throughout the course of the season, pots can be moved around to adjust to it.  In my case, it made perfect sense.

This year was and is no different.  Peet pots were everywhere in late March, domed with their plastic imitation glasshouses until sprouting.  They seemd so delicate and frail as they poked up through the airy peet. The tomato seedlings didn't quite survive my haphazard watering spells as well as the herbs and pepper plants. Michael ordered a slew of heirloom tomato plants to compensate.  A big slew. Principe Burghese, Pink Oxheart, Abraham Lincoln, and Sunset Red Horizon stand in tow with the standard  Big Boy plants.  We usually have three tomato plants with cages.  This year, we have nineteen! 

The peppers and herbs were hardened outside for a while before planting. When it was safely past the last frost date, I sewed cucumber seeds directly into containers and nestled them alongside the flowers with supports to vine up and through.  One is tucked into a bed of daylilies and is winding its way around an ornamental garden cage. The corner of the garage has a pot filled with cucumber vines climbing up through a cage onto a double hung cheap trellis I nailed to the side of the garage. As they blossom, form, and grow, the supports make for easy harvesting.  They will dangle and beg to be picked.

The peppers and tomatoes are producing and the herbs flourishing.  All in containers lined up side by side or tucked into available space.

We used to sit on the deck and look lovingly out onto our flowering back forty.  The tomato plants have totally obscured any view as they grow taller up into the sky and wrap around each other for support.

A samll sacrifice for the bounty to come.

Urban gardeners? Nope.

Just trying to grow a few things and live off the fat of our little piece of land.

With joy.

The First Fruits Of Summer

We had a little cookout the other night.  Just the two of us on our back deck.  It was hot with a slight misty rain that  helped cool the air and soften the heat..  It was a routine cookout with barbecued  brined chicken slathered in a molasses based sticky sauce grilled until slightly charred and caramelized. My favorite part of barbecued chicken is the sauce candy that forms on the crisp skin when cooked over flames. Smoky sweetness. The chicken was very moist from the brine and sweet from the molasses-brown sugar based basting mop. A few  fresh pineapple shards thrown onto the grill to char alongside the chicken  provided an interesting sweet and smoky fruit acidity that totally complimented the chicken. 

The stars of our cookout were the side dishes. I grilled bacon-wrapped corn until poppingingly tender and slathered them with lime butter, hickory smoked salt, freshly ground pepper, and shreds of reggiano cheese.  The lime zest/juice infused butter gave a bright tartness to the buttery bacon fat kernels and helped cut through  the sweetness and richness of the smoke bathed chicken. As the lime specked butter melted through the corn shafts onto the plate, it mixed with the barbecue sauce creating fantastic sweet and sour flavor pools. The swirled puddles were great for dipping bread, swiping chicken meat, and licking. Uh huh, I licked the plate.  Clean.

I plucked  fresh heirloom tomatoes from one of our tomato plants and halved them. Principe Burghese Heirlooms are small red plum-shaped tomatoes that are quick to ripen. The first fruits of summer that we have patiently watched slowly ripen to bright red. Our lazy hazy backyard barbecue was the ideal time to eat them still warm from the sun. Tiny, tender, plump, juicy, and sweet. Nothing better than just picked fresh tomatoes. Nothing.

Welcome summer!  You may now officially begin.

For The Love Of Food

I was thinking back and going through cruise vacation photos.  It did not occur to me at the time that I was taking as many photographs of what we ate as I was taking of the Caribbean Sea.  Funny.  In any case, everything was incredible.  The dining rooms had different levels of light and darkness On some nights the seas were very choppy and rough.

The food was always thoughtfully prepared and executed.

A foodie photo journal:

STARTERS: 

*Shrimp Cocktail: lemon, radish, butter lettuce.  

*Gazpacho: minced cucumber, tomato, pepper tomato ring with gazpacho poured around the bowl.

*Oysters : halfshell, lemon, cocktail sauce, Tobasco.

*Chilled Cucumber Soup: fresh dill, jicama.

*Rigatoni: tomato sauce, fresh tarragon.

*Lobster Bisque: sherry, puff pastry rounds.

*Cucumber-Wrapped Beef Tartar: horseradish ice cream, mint.

ENTREES:

*Panko Crusty Fried Prawns: black sesame seed pineapple,, grilled scallion, peanut noodles.

*Barbecued Ribs: creamy slaw, scalloped potato.

*Supreme of Mallard Duck: blackberry demi-glaze, steamed vegetables, pureed butternut squash.

*Pan-Seared Halibut: tomato coulis, sauteed vegetables,yukon gold potato mousse.

*Zucchini Yellow Squash Ribbon-Wrapped Turbot, tomato, creme fraiche, chive, peas, fried harico verts.

*Beef Tenderloin: pave potato, horseradish mousse, glace.

*New Zealand Rack of Lamb: rosemary, mushroom caps of bearnaise, mint demi-glaze, glazed carrots.

DESSERTS:

*Creme Brulee: fresh strawberry, mint.

*Black Forrest Tiramisu Layered Mousse Cake: shaved chocolate.

*Dark Chocolate Filled Cheesecake: glazed bluberries, mango, strawberry, candied orange peel.

*Fig Cinnamon Cake: butter pecan ice cream, caramel.

*Molten Lava Cake: butter pecan ice cream.

*Trio of Mousses: chocolate, vanilla, butterscotch, chocolate shards.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Dad. Veterans Day.

Dad.
He was not sentimental or affectionate. He certainly wasn't lavish with his emotions or thoughts.
He was very straightforward,  honest, fair, and  kind.

He was my hero.

Is my hero.

Dad was widowed in 1963, leaving him stuck with two young boys.  In those days, kids were handed off to relatives after the death of their mother.  That was the plan in the autumn of 1963.  My brother was supposed to live with one aunt in up-state New York and I was supposed to be shipped off to Western Kentucky to live with another aunt. We had to leave Arlington, Virginia.

Three weeks after my mother passed away, President Kennedy was assassinated. They're both buried at Arlington National Cemetery. You can see his grave from her grave. Their graves. The death of the president deeply affected my father. He was military. Career Army. Hard core. World War 2. Korean War. Vietnam War. Veteran.

He was shipped  and stationed all over the world.  Kids would have gotten in the way for a single military father.

He kept us.

Fearless and brave, he dragged our little family across the world.  It couldn't have been easy. At all. I didn't even realize that we were different.  We were just us.

He was older than most fathers.  Sometimes, embarrassingly so.

We moved back to the States in 1968.  Arlington, VA was where everything began and ended. The fifth grade at Zachary Taylor Elementary School was excruciating. I was an outsider, mired for months in the dreary brown section of my SRA Reading Lab folder. It seemed pointless to prolong the agony, so I stopped going to school. I'd get dressed, throw my house key around my neck, and bounce off to school. He thought I was going to school. Hardly.  I spent my school hours playing inside the dark sewers of Arlington. The dimly lit concrete cylinders were my underground passageways to adventure. I was truant from school for weeks before anyone noticed. Although disappointed, he fixed my mess.  Summer school.

On the last day of summer school, he arrived wearing his full Dress Blues. I could hear his draped medals jingle as he walked through the hallways. His starched blue pant legs scraped against each other like course sandpaper as he entered my classroom.  He looked like a knight, smiling in smart blue. Taller than I had remembered in the morning before school, he was there to pick me up.  Me.  He held out his gigantic hand in front of everyone, grasped my little fingers, and took me home. It was one of the proudest moments in my life.

He lived the rest of his life just like that day.  Tall.  Proud.  Handsome. Awesome.