Archive for March, 2007
In italiano
Promessi
Promette, Primavera, che tornerà sempre
Fino al non tornerò io.
Promette, anche, che quando sono morta
Piangerà e far così i narcisi.
Promette, ancora, che i suoi venti caldi
Farà innamorarsi i giovani.
E poi prometterò di armarLa
Anche fra tempesto e freddo al’orlo di Giugno.
Come al solito.
In English
Promises
Promise, Spring, that you will always come back,
Until I don’t return.
Promise, too, that when I die
You will cry and thus make the narcissus.
Promise again that your warm winds
Will make the young fall in love.
And then I will promise to love you
Even through storm and cold to the edge of June,
As always.
March 15th, 2007
This is the yellow and pink chicory I served KZ, who does not eat green stuff. Is it not pretty, pretty?
And here is what KZ thought of Sunday lunch here.
March 14th, 2007
They’re so good! This should actually be called “Not Soufflé” because although I think soufflé covers anything puffy it isn’t made like a classic soufflé at all.
Toasted Leek and Potato Soufflé
You need about 3 cups of cleaned leeks cut into 1/8” or so slices
About ½ teaspoon of salt
2 Tablespoons of good olive oil
1 pound of potatoes, peeled, chunked and boiled until done with about ½ teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of butter
2 eggs
a pinch of cayenne pepper (peperoncino)
a pinch of nutmeg
about ½ cup milk
salt to taste
black pepper
100 grams or 3.5 ounces of pecorino fresco not aged
40 to 50 grams of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
When the potatoes are done, drain them and puree them. Puree in the butter and then the eggs.
Add the cayenne and nutmeg, stirring them in. Add the grated pecorino and stir it in.
Heat a wide and heavy frying pan with the olive oil. Add the leeks and salt them. Cook slowly, stirring, until they start to toast and take on a toasted flavor. They do not have to be entirely brown, but browned enough to take on that taste.
When the leeks are done, stir them into the potato mixture. Then stir in enough milk so that the mixture will not pile up, but stays level when you spoon it. Don’t go overboard. Transfer the mixture into a two-quart baking dish, then scatter the Parmigiano over the top. You can at this point cover it tightly with foil and refrigerate it until the next day, but take it out an hour before you want to cook it.
When ready to cook it, put it into a 350°F or 175°C preheated oven and cook for about 45 minutes until puffy and well-browned.
You can use different cheeses, too. Today for lunch guests I made it using Gorgonzola. Yes, good!
March 12th, 2007
About two years ago I thought it was about time to tackle carrots. I hated them all my life and that’s dumb. They are little nutritional bombs and I knew I should eat them. The problem for me is that I don’t like sweet vegetables, and almost all the recipes glaze them or add fruit juice or in some other way sugar them up.
I made carrots every way I could think of. I happily ate much of what I came up with, too, but this simple recipe was my absolute favorite.
Baked Carrots with Cumin and Thyme
For four people I cook five decent sized carrots. Just peel them and slice them and throw them into a small pot with about ½ teaspoon of salt and cover them with water. Bring them to a boil, then simmer them, covered, until they are done. Most people eat them at that point, but I can’t. There’s too much difference between the outside and that core part for me.
Drain the carrots and puree them. Add about ½ teaspoon of ground cumin, the same of thyme and 2 tablespoons of good olive oil. Stir them up, taste and add salt and pepper to suit you. Scrape this mixture into a small, well-buttered baking dish, sprinkle with a bit more cumin and stick them in the oven for about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the temperature. There’s always something else cooking when I make these, and they cook alongside almost anything. Cooked this way I can eat five carrots.
March 11th, 2007
Look at this list, which is meant to make me ready to serve a meal without forgetting any important part of it. Yeah, it’s Italian. I do all domestic stuff in Italian. It helps to keep the words at the front of my messy brain.
Primo:
Sformato dei Porri Tostati
Bere Prosecco
Secondo:
Sovracoscia di tacchino porchettato
Casseruola di carote al timo e comino
Bere Carbio
Insalata invernale
Dolce: Mele con salsa caramelatta al sel grigio e panna (Not Pie)
Pane
Venerdì:
*Pulire la casa e il bagno
*Togliere la roba fuori
*Fa la spesa
*Trovare una tovaglia
*Raccogliere I profumi e lavarli
Sabato:
*Portare dentro la legna per il fuoco
*Togliere la panna dal congelatore.
*Preparare il tacchino con i profumi dal orto
*Bollire le carote e macinarle, condirle e fa a posto nella forma nel frigo.
*Pulire e tagliare I porri, spellare e bollire le patate.
*Grattuggiare il formagio
Lavare l’insalata e asciugarla poi metterla in frigo.
*Lavare I piatti voluti (I piccoli per l’insalata e il dolce, I piatti portatori)
*Lavare l’insaltiera mela verde e 4 piccoli)
Mettere in frigo il prosecco
Domenica:
Fa un fuoco nel caminetto.
preperare lo sformato per il forno
Togliere le carote dal frigo per riscaldarle
Infornare il tacchino alle 11.
Infornare le carote e lo sformato alle 12
Cucinare le mele.
Apparechiare la tavola
Looks pretty good, eh? Looking pretty isn’t enough.
Look at it again. Anything left out? Don’t think so? Think again. Who is going to arrive with meals for me? When will I shower or bathe? What if I spill something and have to wash a floor? OK, things happen, it isn’t a tragedy on the scale of the Johnstown flood if you are a few minutes late.
But I have consistently left out living! I can figure the timing for almost every part of that list. If I add it all up and it fits the time I have, then I’m in trouble. If I don’t learn to add in time off to eat, use the bathroom, shower, dress, make up, talk on the phone, feed the cats, help a neighbor – I’m in trouble. And I have often been there.
This week the butcher did not have the cut of meat I’d ordered when I went to get it. Thank goodness it wasn’t left to the day before! I had to alter every part of the menu except the dessert. And invent a new main dish based on what I could buy.
No wonder I have had difficulties with parties in spite of years of lists! I do know that 85% of the people I entertain would accept a nice lasagna and a salad, but 85% of the time I feed people, it’s in my mind to honor and please them with a little effort expended. Drop by and whatever placemat is ironed is what will be on the table, but if invited, I think what I do should be designed for you. I think it’s quite doable if I remember to make better lists, lists that have room for life.
March 10th, 2007
I am helpless in the face of this. I may have to be made surgically chestless to have it.
March 7th, 2007
Jeans have been an almost impossible wearable for the imperfect of body for several years now. Waistines have plunged, legs have narrowed, appliqués of everything from Swarovski crystals to weird ethnic embroideries have confused the meaning of jeans.
Today the Telegraph published an article that claims to have solved the jeans worry by saying which jeans are for whom. I’m not so sure. The main problem I found was that they identify as high waisted a jean that starts a good 3″ below the natural waist. By today’s standards that may work as a definition, but bodies don’t adopt current standards.
A bosomy type, a curvy Sofia Loren, many women currently accepted as gorgeous would look awful in that waistline because it sets an impossible proportion between top and bottom.
What do you think? Have they left out some important types or am I nuts? Just wearing jeans is a statement for me here and now. I’ve found absolutely no jean adapted to me and so I still wear my old standard classic or straight cut jeans and hope they’ll last this trend. Even if there were mom jeans here I couldn’t and wouldn’t wear them. I don’t have that butt-sprung shape at all. Mom jeans don’t get a mention at all in that article, presumably because they have little to do with style.
Later today I have to go try on the challenging Donna Karan black straight leg jeans. I should have a drink first, but I’m on a diet. Maybe I should start anti-depressives first.
March 7th, 2007
Know yourself. It hurts less that way. I’ve never had anything but trouble when I’ve tried to be anything different except on stage.
It starts in my kitchen. It lately became more chaotic than even I can deal with, because there are new objects and new comestibles. They come, one by one, and each in itself doesn’t present a problem and I can find a nook or a corner for it. But over a short time you can be tempted to get another, then another, and before you know it, there’s a slum in the corner of your kitchen.
This time it was silicone baking dishes. They’re cheap here. Hmmm. They don’t burn you when you touch them. Nice. Oooohh, look! Here’s a darling shape I’ve never had before! Cute! I could use it instead of muffin tins! Then you see muffin tins and buy those too. A bundt cake form, a cake tin that can double for a pie plate, can you see what I mean? They made a pile in my pantry cupboard back in the dark and took away the room I needed for staples and special ingredients. When I tried to find one I hunted by touch and pulled out bunches of stuff before I got what I wanted and that stuff didn’t get re-organized, either. The pantry was a mess. Often the one I pulled out was warped and had to be filled with warm water to reshape it. That’s a pain in the neck.
So I pulled them all out one day and put them on a chair in the kitchen. My thinking was that if I had to look at that pile all the time, sooner or later I’d figure out what to do next, but time dragged on and they eventually had to be washed to get the dust off them and they were still in a pile in the kitchen.
One day last week I noticed that a deep drawer had developed an empty space. The drawer above it had been infected with weevils and needed cleaning out. So I did the dirty work of removing everything, dumping it into a sack for Olga’s hens, and scrubbing all the containers and then the drawer itself to be bug free. When the new things were put into the drawer, it was suddenly more spacious. So I cleaned the lower drawer. And it too became roomier. Now what was it that I needed a space for? Ahhh, yes. The silicone stuff. It wouldn’t fit. But the space looked big enough for the pile of ceramic casseroles behind the pot lids! Yes! Wow—look at that! But if I put the silicone pieces behind the lids on that dark upper shelf, I’d never see them again. Where’s the gain in that? If you don’t see it, you won’t use it.
I measured what was on the brighter and more accessible lower shelf—just possible. Out everything came and the cupboard washed out, in went the stockpots and the Dutch oven and the salad washer and behind them the pasta roller. Next to them went the gigantic lids that don’t fit in the lid rack. Yes!
The silicone went at the rear of the bottom and I slid the rack, which looks like a toast rack for a behemoth, then filed the lids in a row in that. And there was space left over, so I pulled out the cooling racks and the Italian toaster and racked those too. And gained room in the drawer under the oven for my Wasa wafers to keep them crisp. I was some kind if pleased with me.
I walked away feeling like a champion, and thought, “I could do that to the whole kitchen; rethink every part and make it all neat.” Well, yes, I could. If I were someone else, I could and probably would.
The truth is that as I thought about it I realized that I would rather be staked out on an ant hill or set loose in a forest with nothing but a match. The vision of pulling everything I own into the middle of the floor and shopping for organized space for each thing, meanwhile, of course, scrubbing out every cupboard at once was appalling. I can do two, three maybe and feel great. I even pull out the used-once-year extra champagne flutes from the tiptop and wash and polish them—once a year. I use a stepladder and leap over the sink to the big counter space behind it to do a really good job on everything back there—knife rack, dish rack, window, beams and the mask of a pig—twice a year. I get in there and go at every single part as I need to, but I never pull it all apart at once. I have this deep-seated fear that something will happen and I will never get it back to usable again.
If you don’t understand how someone could have cleared a 4000 square foot house, divided the shippable from the not needed, had a gigantic auction, packed up 6200 pounds of stuff and moved it all to a foreign country where her grasp of the language was 400 years out of date, join the crowd. I don’t know why I can’t do this.
The important and operational thing is to realize that I can’t do it. Maybe I used up all those skills doing it once.
There are people who sanitize their garbage bins every week. Bless them. Others iron Jockey shorts, socks and washcloths. (They’re nuts.) I read recently that there’s a woman who goes up to her bedroom every night, turns the bed down and sprinkles it with lavender, places a full carafe of water with its matching glass on the bedside table, then opens the window and closes the door, this all before dinner, so that when she goes to bed, it is all perfect. I would just go to a hotel if I had those standards.
I think my best recourse is to celebrate that we are all different and all wonderful. If I can get that into my mind I might even be able to skip washing that pig mask this spring. Except that I don’t think it is wonderful to have a plastic pig face coated with oil and dust from cooking.
March 5th, 2007
Nowhere to hide.
I like this a lot without thinking I could ever wear it. You could, however, run in it, and sit in it. Just don’t eat. Isn’t she pretty?
March 3rd, 2007
Enough comic relief from the dieting.You could wear a lot of the previous clothes shown, too, but they might seem a little strange in your usual venues. Here, however, is something all of us could wear. It’s feminine but tailored, and I think it is a classic that you’d never have to throw out or send to the resale shop, where I might buy it. One usually thinks of the beautiful evening dresses Valentino designs, but I think he’s done us well with this outfit. I have a pair of trousers in a very similar cashmere tweed. They’re really easy to work with. Young and thin? Wear it this way. Older or not so thin? Lengthen the hem. Wool tights and a pair of classic heels, and off you go.
I like this enough to copy it. By next autumn I might not need Spanx to wear it.
March 2nd, 2007
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