Winter is here
Night comes early, we snuggle into the chair together, we watch TV and one of us reads through the shows. The frost on the ground is undeniable, the morning fogs are almost everyday. It’s hard to make yourself go out in the evening when it is dark at 5:30.
Sam is a TV critic. Some shows he just naps on my lap and all is fine. “Ballando con le Stelle” he will not tolerate. He at best goes over to sleep on a folded Polar fleece shawl I made up for him, placed so that he cannot see the TV. At worst he tucks his tail down and walks into the salotto and naps in his crate. He perks up and actually watches with great attention “Passaggio Nordovest” which is largely about history, archeology, nature and sociology.
He likes dinner parties, so we had a small one Friday night. He begged. BAD! After the meal he was given a tiny bite of Scottish smoked salmon on thin bread slices. He has an amazing talent for removing all of what he likes from what he doesn’t like, but apparently the salmon had flavored the bread enough so that on contemplation he decided to eat it, too.
The main dish was something old and American I used to make decades ago. I will post a recipe and photos when my connection comes back to normal. I remembered it fondly and decided to give it a go when I was given some white cheddar and found shrimps on sale. The old recipe started with a tin of frozen potato soup, but that was easy to do without. As I was finishing it up, I thought, “Maybe it really isn’t all that good. Maybe it was just good compared to the run of the mill things we ate back in the 60s.” But it really was good!
It is a dish I used to make when we went climbing and hiking, eg on one parental back or the other. One big Thermos full of the stew, another wide-mouthed Thermos held rice, I carted plastic bowls and spoons and we used to settle down to hot and delicious food at a picnic table after cold afternoons using wild grape vines to haul ourselves up the steep Virginia banks of the Potomac at Turkey Run, almost next door to the CIA.
Much as the perfume of melted cheddar invited Sam, I did not give him any, because I have no way of checking or controlling his cholesterol levels. I would not eat this often these days, because I am no longer in my twenties and no longer swinging like Tarzan up and down cliffs. It has been at least 30 years since I last ate it, so I trust I haven’t signed my own life away with this latest delicious venture.
I made apple crumble for dessert because I once again failed to make a list and failed to remember oats for apple crisp. I told Olga it was health food because it was full of apples.
Olga almost always likes what I make for them. Olga cooks well, but she cooks what she has always known and isn’t adventurous in the kitchen. Friday night was the first time she has ever asked me how to make what she has eaten! I feel flattered, inordinately flattered. The problem, of course, is that you can’t buy cheddar here. There are cheddar sightings here and there throughout Italy, but Olga is not going to entrain for Milan or even Perugia to buy cheese! I might have to see if it is possible to get an acceptable dish using some particular pecorino.
Yesterday Olga brought me a freshly-killed pigeon. I am a pigeon tyro. I have it in the fridge brining and my next step is to Google on “recipe pigeon” and “ricetta piccione.” The problem is that through the warm months I often am charmed by one of her lovely birds flying into my garden and cooing at me from a tree. I am trying to shake the image that this is that bird. Oh well, too late now.
4 comments December 3rd, 2006
