SURPRISE

Surprise!  Laura Belle never saw this Birthday Bash coming...

This Saturday evening just past, we threw a little get-together for our friend Laura Belle.

“Little get-together” is, perhaps, a mild understatement when describing a surprise birthday bash with close to forty attendees. But there are certain occasions that demand to be celebrated, among them those Significant Birthdays on which the tens digit of the Age-O-Dometer clicks over. And Don, Laura Belle’s other half, was all to happy to let She Who Must Be Obeyed take the reins with regard to planning and execution... because let’s face it, party planning is one thing in which the ladies far exceed the gentlemen.

If Don or I had planned this thing, it would have ended up as a dinner out with a bottle of wine and perhaps a Gooey Dessert. In other words, inconsequential. Not on SWMBO’s watch.

One of the first decisions she made was that it would be a surprise party. This is trickier than it seems, because preserving the element of surprise requires extraordinary discretion on the part of all invitees. As the invitation list expands, the chance of someone inadvertently spilling the beans grows exponentially. This can be expressed mathematically as follows:

L_fu=(N_i)^y
where L_fu is the likelihood of a fuckup, N_i the number of invitees, and y the coefficient of yakkiness, a number that is invariably greater than 1.0. Here’s a graphic representation:

Aside from discretion, pulling off a successful surprise party requires subterfuge. Stated simply, the intended honoree must be sold a bill of goods, hornswoggled, and eye-enwoollened. A plausible scenario - a cover story - must be created such that the honoree can reasonably be expected to be in the appropriate place at the right time: in addition, everyone with whom the honoree interacts must have the story straight so that no unreasonable inconsistencies can creep in. This is more difficult than it seems, unless the honoree is exceptionally credulous.

[One could, if one chose to do so, find philosophical issues with such an exercise of subterfuge on a friend or loved one. Sure, you can plan a surprise party by the use of Effective Techniques of Fabrication... but does that not also rouse the suspicion that, if one is that good a liar, one could also lie about other, more delicate matters? Just a perverse thought...]

To get to the matter at hand, Laura Belle was completely taken in by the carefully planned cover story concocted by Don and SWMBO, enabling Don to transport her to our house completely unaware of the impending festivities...



...that is, until they pulled up in our driveway where a crowd of almost forty people bedecked with glowsticks awaited them. Among the crowd was Laura’s brother Bud, who had made the trek down from Philadephia to be here for the occasion... yet another surprise.

Inside, a margarita machine merrily cranked out frozen ’ritas - one of Laura Belle’s favorite tipples - by the snootful. For those who preferred other beverages, there was plenty of wine, beer, and soft drinks.

Dinner consisted of a kale salad with black walnuts, pears, and dried cherries in a walnut-sherry vinaigrette; chicken with red peppers and artichoke hearts on a bed of orzo; roasted zucchini and yellow squash with green Vidalia onions; and slabs of grill-roasted salmon.



It was quite the gathering. Friends, family, the Friday night dinner crowd, all assembled to celebrate one of those milestones that comes along only once every decade. And in the midst of all the conviviality, Bud trotted out a touching poem that recapped life with his kid sister... followed by Don’s slide show. Smiles, laughs, and not a few moist eyes.

After that, in time-honored Birthday Party Tradition, it was Cake o’Clock.


Laura prepares to blow out the candles.


A serious collection of desserts: Cassata cake, raspberry layer cake, vanilla ice cream, cherries in wine, salted caramel sauce, coconut, brandied figs, sprinkles, hot fudge.

Listen: Life is full of disasters, uncertainties, and Nasty Surprises... which means you’ve gotta celebrate the happy occasions every chance you get. And, with Laura, celebrate we did!

FEBRUARY GUILD EVENT

“We who are about to be drained salute you.”  Nine great Bordeaux await their fate. 

This evening’s Guild event - at Petite Auberge in the Toco Hills Center - promises to be something Extra Special.

The wines of the evening will all be Bordeaux of the exceptional 2000 vintage, said to be the best year since the legendary 1961. With the exception of the Speaker’s Wine, we’re talking Serious Reds - my favorite kind of grapey beverage. And these wines, while nowhere near their peak, have all been laid down long enough to soften any rough tannic edges and create that indescribable bouquet of Old Bordeaux.

I suspect Denny, the Curmudgeonly Superannuated Paraplegic, will take a pass - although both Houston Steve and I would love to see him. He’ll just have to experience it second-hand, alas...

Here’s the list of Planned Offerings:

Speaker’s Wine:
2005 Blanc de Lynch-Bages Bordeaux**

First Flight:
2000 Château Gombaude-Guillot Pomerol***
2000 Château Monbousquet Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé (Classification status as of 2006)***
2000 Château Château Beau-Séjour Bécot Saint-Émilion Premier Grand Cru Classé****

Duck Breast à l’Orange: Pan-seared Maple Leaf Farms duck breast topped with a duck jus flavored with a hint of orange. Served with cauliflower gratin.

Second Flight:
2000 La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion Pessac-Léognan****
2000 Domaine de Chevalier Pessac-Léognan Grand Cru Classé****
2000 Château Cantemerle Haut-Médoc Fifth Growth****

Beef Wellington: Beef tenderloin, ham and mushroom duxelles baked in a puff pastry crust. Served with a bordelaise sauce.

Third Flight:
2000 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou Saint-Julien Second Growth*****
2000 Château Pedesclaux Pauillac Fifth Growth****
2000 Château Calon-Ségur Saint-Estèphe Third Growth****

Grilled New Zealand Lamb Chops: Herb-encrusted rack of lamb served atop a vegetable root purée with a mint reduction on the side.

Dessert:
2005 Château Grand Garron Première Côtes de Bordeaux**

Update: Per my normal practice, I have indicated my preferences with asterisks.



First flight: Mmmmmmmmmm, good.
Second flight: Oh. My. Sweet. Gawd.
Third flight: Ohboyohboyohboyohboy, is this stuff great!

Had we eaten only of the tasty food and not consumed the excellent wines, it would have been enough.

Had we drunk of the excellent wines and not eaten of the tasty food, it would have been enough.

How much more, then, are we indebted to the gentlemen of the Sommelier Guild who have graciously opened their cellars full of excellent wines unto us, and the staff of Petite Auberge who have turned their culinary skills to the task of preparing the tasty food, that we may enjoy them together?


The Guild sits down to a serious tasting at Petite Auberge.

And wait, there’s more. A serious Wine Event tends to bring out a lot of lagniappe... the extra bottles that show up after the formal dining and tasting agenda is complete. Here are just a few of ’em:

1986 Château La Lagune Haut-Médoc Grand Cru Classé***
2000 Château Lynch-Bages Pauillac Grand Cru Classé****
1986 Château La Dominique Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé**
2000 Château Moulin Saint Georges Saint-Émilion Grand Cru****

Parks, a long-time Guild member and wine merchant, refers to the act of drinking wine before it reaches its optimum age as “vinicide,” and I suspect that we may have been guilty of that particular crime... for most of these, good as they were, were well short of their peak quality. You have to wonder what these same wines would taste like in another five years or so. With luck, I’ll be around to find out.

ON THE ADMIXTURE OF SALT AND SWEET

Salted Caramel Sauce. All this stuff needs is a nice bowl of vanilla ice cream. Or chocolate. Or dulce de leche.  Or just a honkin’ big spoon...

If there is one flavor that can pull me right back to my childhood - aside from chocolate, that is, in its many forms - it’s caramel.

Who doesn’t remember the delight of digging through a sack of Kraft caramels, hunting for the elusive chocolate caramels amongst their fairer-hued brethren? The difficult-to-remove plastic film that enclosed each piece, obnoxious as it seemed at the time, was actually helpful, ensuring a more reasonable pace of Caramel Consumption.

And then there is caramel sauce, capturing that magical burnt-sugar flavor in fluid form. As a topping on ice cream, as an essential component of tarte tatin and crème caramel, or converted into caramel icing for the eponymous cake, it’s notoriously hard to resist. Small wonder the supermarket eggheads have figured out that while people will eat apples, they will eat far more apples if they can dunk the slices into a handy tub of caramel sauce. Even the Latino contingent has gotten in on the act, with their dulce de leche, a caramelized sweetened milk confection. Formerly an exotic import, it’s everywhere now - even unto becoming a Cheerios flavor right up there with Honey Nut and Berry Blast.

She Who Must Be Obeyed developed a caramel jones the other day - unusual for her - and asked me to fix up a batch of a suitable sauce. I dared not ask her what she wanted to put it on, but I suppose I’ll find out.

There are plenty of variations on the Caramel Sauce theme, but I settled on one that SWMBO had pulled up in her extensive electronic research, a recipe for a Salted Caramel Sauce from the Cooking Channel’s Kelsey Nixon.

Salted? Yes, salted. Salty and sweet have a natural affinity, with a moderate amount of salt serving to intensify and enhance the flavor of whatever it accompanies. That would explain the perverse appeal of praline bacon (bacon + brown sugar + pecans), or Mo’s Bacon Bar (chocolate + bacon), or, for that matter, chocolate-covered sea salt.

It also would explain why sea salt in its various forms has infiltrated the chocolate market. Now you can find all sorts of salt-jacked chockies, including a Lindt sea-salt and dark chocolate bar, not to mention all manner of fleur de sel-dusted caramel candies at the Fancy Chocolate Shoppes.

So this one was a natural. And it came together easily enough.

You don’t need to screw around with a candy thermometer to make a decent caramel sauce. All you have to remember is (1) not to stir the syrup as it boils, and (2) never to walk away from it, as it will change from a clear syrup to a burnt, blackened mess in mere moments. What you want to do is catch it just as it begins picking up a nice amber hue - that’s when you pull it off the heat, whisk in the cream, and toss in the butter. As soon as that cream hits the sugar syrup, caramel happens!

[Sugar. Cream. Butter. Did I say this was a low-calorie recipe? No, I did not. But then again, the Missus and I don’t eat this stuff every day.]

I used fleur de sel as my Salt of Choice, but any decent sea salt would do.

And the results? Good Gawd.

OLD VINYL

The redoubtable Stu Savory has come up with an interesting idea for a Blog-Meme (remember those?) involving old vinyl LP’s.

You know what those are, don’tcha? Vinyl “long playing” (LP) records are what the primitives of the mid-twentieth century used as storage media for analog sound files. They consisted of thin molded vinyl discs with tiny grooves in which were embedded the vibratory signatures of sounds. Those sounds could be reproduced with remarkable faithfulness by placing the record on a turntable rotating at a carefully controlled 33⅓ RPM and placing a diamond-tipped needle in the groove. Electrical transducers would capture the resulting vibrations and feed them into an electronic amplifier. The compact digital audio disc, appearing in the early 1980’s, eventually superseded the LP record... but there are plenty of us Old Goats who have a metric buttload of old vinyl discs stashed away.

Here’s how the meme works:

1. Dig out one of your favorite old vinyl LP’s and listen to it. The LP must be at least 30 years old.
   
   
2. Put up a blogpost with a scan/photo of the cover and a short review of your favorite track on the LP. Include a link back to this post and a copy of the meme rules.
   
   
3. If possible, embed or link to a YouTube video of the artist(s) performing, preferably of the same vintage.
   
   
4. Mail Stu a permalink to your blog entry. He may link back to you in the comments.
   
   
5. Repeat every week for the foreseeable future. (Stu does this on Sunday, but I’m not quite as picky about the day of the week.)

As for my Old Vinyl of the week, I had a devil of a time finding something... mainly because I have over 350 vinyl LP’s in the Basement d’Elisson, most of which are well over 30 years old. But I (of course) managed to find something.



Here’s Jethro Tull’s Stand Up, their second album, vintage 1969. I discovered it - and Tull - a few months after its release when I was a college freshman. I still enjoy it, all these years later.

The LP jacket was designed by noted woodcut artist James Grashow and featured a cutout of the band that stood up (get it?) when you opened the album jacket. It is considered a collector’s item now.



Martin Barre’s replacing Tull’s original guitarist Mick Abrahams signaled a shift in the group’s sound away from the blues and towards progressive rock, more in tune with group leader Ian Anderson’s thinking. It’s an arc that is very evident when you listen to Tull’s first three albums in sequence: This Was (1968), Stand Up (1969), and Benefit (1970). Stand Up represents the best of both worlds, a hard rock sound that still retains a bluesy, even jazzy tone.

There are several songs from this disc that, at one time or another, have bubbled up as favorites of mine, but “We Used To Know” - at least in my mind - is the standout track, with its minor key and plaintive lyrics:

Nights of winter turn me cold -
Fears of dying, getting old.
We ran the race and the race was won
By running slowly...

Give it a listen and a look-see if you get a chance. [Note: If you watch the YouTube video at the link, fast-forward three minutes to skip a lot of extraneous noise and waiting around.]

There are other notable songs on Stand Up. “Bourée,” a composition by Johann Sebastian Bach, was given a jazzy rendition in the video below:



As a side note, it turns out that JoAnn, one of our dearest friends, is actually a first cousin to Glenn Cornick, the bassist in the video above (and on Tull’s first three albums). How ’bout dat?


“Tull, schmull. Where da wine at?” JoAnn and SWMBO.

BAKN BEYGL

An unconventional assortment of home-baked bagels. Back row (left to right): cracked pepper (2), black sesame, Aleppo pepper. Front row (left to right): wasabi sesame (2), poppy seed, plain. [Click to embiggen.]

“Lign in drerd un bakn beygl. I’m in Hell, baking bagels.”

- Classic Yiddish response to the question, “How are things?”

I am a big fan of the Toroidal Breadstuff, despite my consumption of wheaten goods having been sharply reduced this past two years. There is nothing quite as toothsome as the crisp, glossy exterior and warm, chewy interior of a freshly-baked bagel. Whether toasted, sliced and topped with smoked fish, or simply ripped into chunks and slathered with butter, it is a food that speaks to my cultural roots as both an Ashkenazic Jew and an American.

It was easy enough to get excellent bagels where I grew up on the south shore of Long Island. On any given Sunday morning, Dad - Eli, hizzownself - would go down to the appetizing store (AKA the local Bagel and Smoked Fish Shoppe) and come back with a white paper sack crammed with a glorious assortment of warm-from-the-oven bagels. As often as not, he would also have scored some smoked fish: Nova Scotia smoked salmon and belly lox. To me, there was no greater Food-Pleasure on Earth than a warm bagel, sliced in twain and slathered with cream cheese, then draped with silken sheets of fish. A 50:50 proportion of novy and belly lox provided the perfect ratio of smoke and salt.

On special occasions, the salmon would be accompanied by something extra. Perhaps a chunk of kippered salmon, or a few delicate slices of sable. And, once in a blue moon, there’d be sturgeon: a kingly treat. (Even then, sturgeon was ridiculously pricey.)

As far as varieties went, things back then were pretty straightforward. You had plain water bagels, of course (boiling in water before baking being an essential part of the process of baking the True Bagel), but there were also sesame seed, onion, garlic, poppyseed, salt, egg, rye, and pumpernickel bagels. The “everything” bagel (combining all of the critical toppings in one delightful amalgam) came along later, as did the loathsome cinnamon-raisin bagel.

You can get bagels in all sorts of styles these days, but anything not included in the above list is of questionable - to me, at least - historical provenance. However, far be it from me to tell you that you shouldn’t enjoy your cinnamon-raisin, blueberry, or cherry vanilla bagel... provided you have the decency to refrain from putting smoked fish on it, an act that desecrates both fish and bagel.

You can get bagels pretty much everywhere these days too, thanks to the Bagelization of America. McDonald’s, Einstein’s, the freezer case at your local supermarket... the damn things are everywhere. And, sad to say, most of them are crap. OK, I don’t expect a bagel from Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s (home of the bacon, egg, and cheese bagel - a shanda!) or from Sara Lee or Lender’s (two freezer-case mainstays) to resemble a real, honest-to-Gawd bagel, but places like Bruegger’s and Einstein’s that ostensibly specialize in the things should know better. Feh.

I’ve actually thought of a few bagel toppings that, while decidedly non-traditional, are nevertheless reasonable extrapolations of what ought to go on a bagel. Wasabi-coated sesame seeds. Black sesame seeds. Aleppo pepper. Cracked black pepper. No bagel place I’m aware of offers this sort of weirdness, though... which means that if I want ’em, I have to make ’em myself.

Which is exactly what I did, using a recipe from Baking Illustrated, from the fine folks at America’s Test Kitchen who publish Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

The tricky part of baking bagels isn’t the boiling, or the kneading, or even the shaping - it’s getting your hands on the requisite high-gluten flour. Regular bread flour is OK, but you really want the high-gluten stuff for the right chew. Fortunately, I had a source: Tommy, proprietor of the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium, who set me up with a three-pound bag merely for the asking. (He buys it by the fifty-pound sack, a little more than I needed for my essay.)

You knead the crap out of the dough - before electric mixers, bagel bakers all must’ve had arms like Popeye - and then let it sit in the fridge overnight to slow-proof. During this step (the retarding process), slow bacterial fermentation takes place that gives the bagels their characteristic mild lactic acid tang.


They ain’t real bagels unless you boil ’em.

Before you bake the bagels, you give them a brief immersion in boiling water. Mass-produced bagels are often steamed instead, a labor-saving step that results in a fluffier bagel. Yech. (Characteristic grate marks on the bottom are a dead giveaway that the bagels have been steamed.) Thirty seconds is all they need - then the toppings are applied and the bagels go into the oven.



Inquiring minds will want to know: How did they turn out?

Too damn good, actually. It’s been a looooong time since I’ve ripped into a sack of warm bagels and snarfed down a couple in one sitting - nowadays, I am, like as not, to limit myself to half of one, with the lovely chewy insides scooped out and discarded... much like a potato skin. But not today. I dispatched two of these lovelies within minutes of extracting them from the oven.

Am I ashamed? Hell, naw.

Do I want another one? Hell, yeah.

AN OBSERVATION WHILST WATCHING STAR TREK

Kirk is Kirky
Spock is Spocky
Lieutenant Sulu
Drinks his sake

Len McCoy
Is acting docky
In more sequels
Than ol’ Rocky

Them writers didn’t
Have no blocky
Movie scripts, they
Wrote a flocky

[Inspired by Scott McCord, Trekkie extraordinaire]

THE BITTER CUP

“They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.” - Matthew 27:34, KJV

The Romans of Biblical times may have been able to build a mighty empire, but they sure as shit didn’t know how to mix a cocktail. Nevertheless, they had one thing right: Bitters are an essential ingredient.

Bitters - infusions of aromatic herbs in alcohol - have been around for a long time. Used as digestives and patent medicines, it was inevitable that they would find their way into Tasty Potables, there to contribute their unique flavor notes.


The extensive assortment of bitters at Seed, a new local eatery with a talented mixologist and a well-stocked bar.

There are bitters of all varieties. Digestive bitters are consumed neat or on the rocks after a meal, and there are some - Campari, Pimm’s No. 1, and Fernet Branca come to mind - that are major components of cocktails. If you are not familiar with the Negroni, the Pimm’s Cup, and the Fernet and Coke (a favorite in Argentina), you’re missing out.

A few others in this camp include Aperol (a little less assertive than Campari), Averna (a little sweeter), and Underberg, with its powerful gentian kick. Underberg is the one that allows Germans to survive their massive meals of wienerschnitzel mit spätzle, wild boar, and sauerkraut: served in a small glass goblet, it can keep your kishkes from locking up after the most monstrous of Mittel-Europaische dinners. It’s good stuff to have around the house.

And then there are the types of bitters that add subtle flavor notes to cocktails instead of jumping all over center stage - like the ones pictured above. Angostura bitters (from the eponymous town in Trinidad) (essential to the Manhattan), Peychaud’s bitters (can’t make a Sazerac cocktail without ’em), and orange bitters fall into this category.

Long experience has taught me that where mixed drinks are concerned, a bit of bitters can mean the difference between a pedestrian tipple and one that is exceptional. Anyone can enjoy a sweet drink - think of all those so-called “martinis” offered at your local drinkery - but it takes a refined palate to appreciate something that plays to those other, underappreciated taste buds.

Medicinal? Maybe to some... but medicine does cure what ails ya, don’t it? Pass me that bitter cup, Buttercup!

Update: What better tipple on Mardi Gras - Tuesday, February 21 - than a Sazerac? Get out that bottle of Peychaud’s, cher!

AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD: A 100-WORD STORY

Ernie chuckled as he remembered that old joke, the one with the two buddies who wondered whether there was golf in Heaven. “Yes, there is,” went the punchline, “and your tee-time is tomorrow morning at nine.”

There was, indeed, golf in Heaven. Ernie played wearing his brand-new Forever Body, in a foursome with Jesus, Moses, and the Almighty Himself. He would drill 325-yard drives right down the middle and play flawless bunker shots. “Sure beats living,” he thought.

But one morning when his tee shot found a water hazard, he keeled over, half-paralyzed.

“That’s a one-stroke penalty,” said the Lord.

THE GENUINE ARTICLE

Valentine, circa 1938, from the collection of SWMBO’s late Daddy.

On this, the kinda-sorta holiday cum civic occasion that celebrates the idea of Romantic Love, it’s not a bad idea to take a good look at that Noble Institution.

The chocolate and flower crowd - aided and abetted by the restaurant and greeting card industries - like to portray love as that warm, melty emotion indulged in by young, attractive couples (and the occasional cute, wrinkly seniors, provided they look reasonably presentable). A nice dinner out, a bottle of wine, perhaps a handful of all-too-perishable flowers, and we’ve followed the norms of the day, made our obeisance to Eros, AKA Cupid, the little dude with the wings and arrows.

And that’s all fine, as far as it goes. I mean, hell, after 36 years I still get all hot and bothered when I gaze into the deep blue eyes of the Missus. We’re not kids anymore, but she still can make me feel like one. (Plus, we still crack each other up. If that’s not romantic, what is?)

But love - real love - is way, way more than a box of truffles from Russell Stover and two dozen red roses.

Love is what you have left when everything in your daily routine is stripped away from you. Love is what sustains your mind when your body doesn’t want to do what you tell it to do.

Love feeds you, literally and figuratively, even unto bringing your meals to your lips, spoonful by spoonful. Love sits by your bed and watches over you while you sleep. Love makes sure the doctors and therapists are doing everything they can to bring your life back to a semblance of its former self.

Love is what you have when someone says the words “in sickness and in health” and takes them seriously... especially the “in sickness” part, the part that has very little to do with candlelit dinners, or chocolates, or vacations, or cruises. It’s the messy part that the greeting card folks don’t talk about much.

Love is what you have when you’re fortunate enough to have someone in your life that, when put to the test, puts on the Big Girl Panties (or the Big Boy Pants) and does what must be done.

I have never doubted that that’s the kind of love She Who Must Be Obeyed and I share. And that is most certainly the kind of love Eli (hizzownself) and Toni share, for I have seen evidence of it every single day since Christmas morning last.

That’s one tough, hard-ass Valentine, the Genuine Article. The wine and candles will have to wait; there’s work to be done. Love-work.

Listen: Today is Valentine’s Day, and I will celebrate it with my own Valentine. We’ll enjoy a nice dinner, a glass or two of wine. Flowers may, indeed, come into play. Huggage and kissage may even take place, if I’m lucky. But in the back of my mind, I will be thinking of Eli and Toni... and the kind of love you don’t see in the Hallmark store.

FAREWELL, WHITNEY

Whitney Houston, 1963-2012. There is a certain wistfulness in her expression here that hints at a deeply troubled soul.

There is really little point in my adding my two cents’ worth to the outpouring of post-mortem media bloviation in the wake of Whitney Houston’s untimely passing this Saturday past. The newspapers and teevee stations will have a completely predictable field day rehashing the high and low points of her career, the sad and sordid details of her death, the sound bites from the bereaved.

It’s an all-too-familiar script, one that practically writes itself. Talented singer and/or actor sets the world on fire with his or her brilliance, develops an unhealthy reliance on Pleasurable But Dangerous Chemicals, suffers miscellaneous setbacks and is no longer a Big Name, then dies at an early age - generally as a result in overindulgence in the aforementioned Chemicals.

In the case of Ms. Houston, it’s an especially poignant loss. When she was at the peak of her game, nobody could touch her: She had a voice that was completely incomparable, coupled with extraordinary beauty. Her smile could light up a room with megawatt brilliance.

Alas, brilliance always seems to have its dark side, especially in the world of music. A short list of great artists who self-destructed far too early would have to include Ms. Houston along with Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, and Amy Winehouse. What a sad, fucking waste.

She was, for a while, a local presence here in the Atlanta area. The house she shared with husband Bobby Brown stood adjacent to (if I recall correctly) the sixteenth tee of Country Club of the South in Alpharetta, a course I used to play frequently in the context of my duties at the Great Corporate Salt Mine. In a neighborhood of magnificent houses, the Houston/Brown residence stood out, just a bit more opulent than the others surrounding it. And yet, one could sense that there was no happiness there... even before the revelations concerning Brown’s abuse of his wife were made public.

Requiescat in pace, Whitney. Your voice will always be with us to provide a measure of bittersweet comfort... a comfort you were never able to find for yourself.

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Technology-enabled information sharing has revolutionized the business world. Videoconferences have begun to replace expensive travel and face-to-face meetings, while purveyors of everything from print media to music CD’s have had to adapt to the realities of the Digital Age.

When data travels at the speed of light, the paperboy just doesn’t cut it anymore as your go-to News Delivery Option.

Social media now have real impact on corporate and NGO decisions: witness the recent case in which a firestorm of Twitter- and Facebook-fed indignation forced the Susan G. Komen Foundation to reconsider their decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood. Regardless of your personal feelings on the Komen debacle, you’ve gotta admit that it showed how Media Electronica have changed the way things get done... or get criticized for the way they get done.

It also means that Andy Warhol’s oft-quoted comment about celebrity - “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” - has not only become a reality, it’s almost behind the times. These days it seems more like the world has a five-minute attention span for practically everything.

Submitted for your consideration, the recent Internet-driven phenomenae of planking, owling, storking, horsemaning, et alia. All of these forms of silliness are being superseded at an ever-increasing pace by even sillier behaviors.

Breading.

Lion-Kinging.

Some of the new memes have been inspired by gridiron heroes. Perhaps the best known of these is Tebowing - imitating the posture of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow as he prays for divine assistance in his quest for victory. (Alas for Tim, sometimes when God answers our prayers, He says “No.”)


Tim Tebow demonstrates the posture that turned his name into an Internet Gerund. Photo © TebowingNation/Facebook.

According to TebowingNation, a Facebook group, to perform the act of Tebowing means “to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different.”

Tebowing was bad enough, but in the wake of the New England Patriots’ loss in last Sunday’s Super Bowl, we now have a new meme: Bradying. That’d be mimicking the defeated posture of Patriots QB Tom Brady as he sat on the field, legs outstretched and head down, mourning an intercepted pass.


Abject misery: Tom Brady, knowing that he has failed to secure the Super Bowl XLVI title, decides to become an exemplar of Internet silliness instead.

Both Tebowing and Bradying seem to incorporate the element of Supplication Before a Higher Power. In Tebow’s case, it’s “Oh, Lord, please help me to win this game for Thy greater glory and the glory of my teammates... and, not incidentally, mine own.” Brady, meanwhile, is probably thinking, “Oh, Lord, why did you show your displeasure in this, Your servant, by allowing that ball to be snatched out of Gronkowski’s eager hands?”

But we Red Sea Pedestrians have been playing the Supplication Game far longer. Thousands of years, as a matter of fact. And so, I offer up a new Internet meme for your consideration:


Yours Truly, in chubbier days, demonstrates Tachanuning: We got yer abject humility right here!

Tachanuning!

Tachanun is the part of Jewish weekday liturgy in which, simply put, we ask the Eternal One to Play Nice and Not Smite Us, Pretty Please. Parts of it are recited while in a humble posture, head resting on arm (described as n’filat apayim, literally “falling upon one’s face.”)

Like Tebowing or Bradying, Tachanuning involves striking a pose of abject humility - yet it has the advantage of not requiring that one kneel or sit upon the ground. It’s easy enough to adapt it for an Internet meme, don’tcha think?

I figure if Tachanuning catches on, I can be world-famous for about three minutes - that appears to be the going rate these days.

Update: Kevin Kim offers a thoughtful analysis of the ever-accelerating Internet meme lifecycle.

A TU B’SHEVAT QUESTION

Today is a Jewish kinda-sorta holiday so arcane, most Jews don’t even know about it: Tu b’Shevat.

Tu b’Shevat - literally the fifteenth day of the month of Shevat - also known as the New Year of the Trees, marks the beginning of the agricultural year of Talmudic times. I did say it was arcane, didn’t I?

There’s not much in the way of observance, since Tu b’Shevat is not a holiday per se. Tachanun, the series of penitential prayers typically recited at weekday services, is omitted... and it is traditional to eat nuts and dried fruit, agricultural products reflective of the Land of Israel. You could think of it as Jewish Trail Mix Day.

And the question: If you were a tree, what sort of tree would you be?

RHET BUTLER

He’s back!
(Who better to pose a rhetorical question than Rhet (orical) Butler?)

MICROPICKLE

Now, this...



...is one tiny-ass pickle.

She Who Must Be obeyed loves these little guys. Sweet gherkins - another kind of miniature pickle - are a favorite of hers, but this is no sweet gherkin. It is a cornichon, a Frenchified dwarf pickle with a subtle flavor.

Any time I bring home a pint of cornichons from the local Pickle Shoppe, SWMBO can be relied upon to demolish them in short order. And why not? They’re low in calories but packed with vinegary flavor.

Best of all, the cornichon is a perfect garnish for the Pickletini, being, as it is, a Teeny Pickle. Have one today!

CRACK-KUNA

Hakuna has, of late, taken to nestling herself into the crack between the cushions of our family room sofa. The result - aside from a lot of cat hair on the sofa, that is - is a vaguely heart-shaped kitty, the very picture of Feline Comfort.

POP GOES THE QUESTION

Today is a day of great significance... for various unrelated reasons.

Most Americans will know it as Super Bowl Sunday, the final day of the postseason when the NFL Championship is decided. This year - Year 46 (or XLVI, as it is more commonly styled) - the New York Giants will square off against the New England Patriots. Living in Atlanta as I do, I don’t really have a dog in this hunt - but as someone who grew up in the Noo Yawk suburbs, I would be marginally happier if the Giants were to grab the trophy.

Being that it’s Super Bowl Sunday, it is also the day of the World Wide Wrap, an event of significance to Conservative/Masorti Jews in which the ritual practice of wearing tefillin (AKA phylacteries, little leather boxes containing words of Scripture) is taught to Red Sea Pedestrians around the globe. It began twelve years ago as a program at the Men’s Club of Temple Israel in Charlotte, North Carolina - today, under the auspices of the International Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, it involves over 250 congregations and well over 10,000 participants.

It also happens to be the 88th birthday of the Missus’s stepdad David. Happy birthday, David!

But most important for me and the Missus, this is the very day when, thirty-five years ago, I asked her to tie the knot. (Fortunately for me, Elder Daughter, and the Mistress of Sarcasm, she answered in the affirmative.) Yes: It’s our 35th engage-a-versary!

We ask many questions in our lives, but this is the sort of query that carries especial significance. Perhaps it is for that reason that a special verb is used when speaking of Proposals of Marriage. Regarding said proposals, one does not “ask” the question, one “pops” the question. Why this is, I have no idea... but I can happily say that my pop, evidently, was perfectly acceptable.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

It was sometime in 1956 or ’57 when the four-year-old Elisson noticed big doings going on next door.

Gargantuan machines came and dug out a humongous hole, piling up mountains of dirt around its perimeter. It looked like a perfect place to play, but the young lad was given strict instructions to stay the hell away from that big hole and those mounds of earth lest he be swallowed up in an unfortunate accidental manner. Soon other machines came, and with them an army of men with hammers, nails, and great planks of wood. And as the days wore on, a house - a big one, with two stories - began to take shape.

How long it took to build that house, who can say? Little Elisson certainly cannot, for it is some 55-odd years later, and his memories of those days are necessarily befogged, seen as if through a scrim of cheesecloth. But whether it was a process measured in weeks or months matters not at all. All that does matter is that it was, eventually, complete, whereupon a family moved in... and I met the Girl Next Door.

She was a dark-haired beauty, and despite her having three years on me, I was smitten. As smitten as a four-year-old could be, I suppose.

TGND, as it happens, was the youngest of four, all sisters, the eldest of whom was a full eighteen years her senior. Shortly after the family moved in, said eldest sister got married, and in true Italian family tradition, ended up living just three doors up the street in a house that her father and husband built.

We would spend lazy summer afternoons watching the butterflies flutter around the towering buddleja bush in our back yard, doing whatever little kids do. Of course, being that we were so different in age, TGND and I traveled in different circles, and as the years went by we would see less and less of each other... except on those occasions when she was called upon to baby-sit for me and my brother, the Other Elisson.

Eventually, we relocated. It was all of three blocks to the southwest, but it meant that The Girl Next Door was no longer Next Door, alas. By that time, she was a newly-minted high-school graduate anyway; she would not be spending much time in the neighborhood any longer. And three years later, I moved away - first to university, then to Sweat City - and I saw no more of TGND.

* * *
Last Monday, on the way to visit Eli (hizzownself) at the hospital, I took a brief detour and stopped in at the West Islip Public Library.

After waiting for a suitable opportunity, I walked over to the desk where sat one of the librarians and leaned over toward her, in the manner of someone who was about to ask a question but was not quite sure what it was he wanted to ask. She looked at me, puzzled at first, and then the light of recognition dawned. “I can’t believe it.”

Of course it was The Girl Next Door. It might have taken her longer to figure out who I was, had it not been for The Other Elisson having stopped by the previous week. Still, not bad - given that she had not laid eyes on me in something like forty-five years.

Remarkably, she hadn’t changed all that much... and her bright-eyed smile and little-girl voice hadn’t changed at all.

We spent the better part of an hour swapping stories, learning about each other’s families, and reminiscing about the Old Neighborhood. TGND was appalled to hear that Alec Baldwin had bought the old Bookmobile... she used to babysit him and had nought good to say about him, his obnoxious brood of brothers (except for Billy), his lecherous, Fred Flintstone-like father, or his house, which had a back yard filled with debris, unmowed grass, and raw sewage. She recalled the old butterfly-chasing days (“You used to stick ’em in that jar and kill ’em”) and her admiration for my mother, who (unlike all of the other suburban mommies in our neighborhood) showed her independence by playing golf three times a week.

Ahhh, memories.

The time flew past: All too soon, it was time to go and catch Dad as his lunch time began. And so we said our goodbyes.

As we move our playing pieces across the gameboard of Life, there are people who become part of our daily existence - family, friends, business colleagues, and the like - and there are others who, in the grand scheme of things, form the backdrop against which that existence plays out. Perhaps The Girl Next Door falls more into that second category, as do most of the people of my early days. Yet, in a small way, she will always be part of me, for she made an indelible impression fifty-five years ago, when I was of an impressionable age.

And how could I ever forget her, anyway? Fate would never allow it: She shares her given name with the real love of my life, She Who Must Be Obeyed.

THE DAY OF THE GROUNDHOG

©2006 King Features Syndicate.

Today is Groundhog Day. The excitement on people’s faces is almost palpable.

I don’t know about you, but I’m almost relieved when it’s finally over.

First of all, the relentless hype has really killed a lot of the joy for me. It used to be, you didn’t hear Groundhog Day music in every frickin’ retail establishment in the world - at least, not until right after New Year’s Day, when the holiday season “officially” begins. Not any more. Now, Groundhog Carols are the order of the day, 24/7, starting right after Thanksgiving. It’s relentless.

The malls are packed with people doing their last-minute shopping for Groundhog Day gifts, and post offices burn the midnight oil to keep up with the volume of packages and Groundhog Greeting cards. And it’s almost a given in the retail business that 60% of their business is done in the weeks leading up to Christmas; most of the remaining 40% comes from Groundhog Day. A successful ’Hog Season often means the difference between success and failure for small businesses.

That, of course, means hype. Advertising. A constant barrage of TV ads. Postal workers straining under mailbags laden with massive Groundhog Day catalogs.

And then there are the decorations. It seems that everybody is constantly trying to outdo the Joneses, putting up ever-more-elaborate displays. Lights by the megawatt, inflatable groundhog lairs... sometimes it makes me yearn for a simpler time, a time when every family dug a simple hole in the front yard, and Dad was content with a handmade cardboard top hat.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m hardly a Groundhog-Scrooge. I love this time of year as much as anybody. Holiday parties, the special seasonal foods, Hog Nog - it’s all good. But sometimes I worry that the real meaning of the day has gotten lost amidst all the hoopla.

After all, isn’t the holiday supposed to be about Phil?

Not Phil as we see him today, surrounded by handlers and media flacks. Just Phil, the simple woodland creature, on a mission from God to predict the weather. His message is one of peace and dignity, one that is immune from the cares of the everyday world. Politics? Global warming? Kyoto? Photo ops? News reporters? Pfaugh. Punxsutawney Phil cares not for these things.

They are merely temporal - and temporary. But the light of Phil’s love is eternal.

Put the Ground back in Groundhog Day! And may your Groundhog Day be sweet.

[Adapted from a post originally published at Blog d’Elisson on January 31, 2008.]

MOVING DAY

My Dad - Eli, hizzownself - hasn’t moved around a whole lot in his 86 years.

He grew up at one address in Bensonhurst, in Brooklyn. When he got married in 1950, he moved to an apartment with his bride, and then to a house on the south shore of Long Island a few years later. Fourteen years after that, we picked up and moved... a grand total of three blocks away.

His next move was 24 years later, to the house he shares with Toni, his bride of 21 years. That’s five residences in all the years he has walked this planet.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have that beat. We’re on our seventh house in less than 35 years... and I haven’t even counted the two of my childhood.

This is all a long-winded way to say that the Old Man doesn’t shift his residence very often. Today, however, was Moving Day. Today was the day Eli moved from his place in the hospital rehab wing to a separate short-term rehabilitation center.

He had spent 38 days in the hospital: five days in intensive care, the rest in the rehab wing. And every one of those days in the rehab wing was filled. Occupational therapy, to help him relearn the tasks of daily life. Physical therapy, to help him regain mobility in his limbs. Speech therapy, to help him recover from his stroke-related dysarthria and to help him manage his swallowing reflex. (This last one is important if you ever want to be able to drink regular, unthickened liquids.)

But in the world of Modern American Medicine, after a month, the money for acute hospital care runs out. You either go home or you find a place that can deal with your issues. We managed to do the latter, the former being an untenable alternative - for now, at least.

Going home is the goal, of course. The light at the end of a tunnel of indeterminate length. All we know at this point is that the Old Man isn’t quite ready to live at home without massive assistance... and yet, he has made slow, incremental progress toward that goal.

Stroke changes everything. In one fell swoop, it has converted a vigorous, active man into an invalid. And yet, diminished as he is, he is still Eli, Hizzownself. His personality and wit shine though in everything he says and does. And that will help him in his new - and, we hope temporary - home.

THE CHEESE AISLE DICTIONARY, Vol. 9

Yet more stuff that should be in the dictionary but isn’t.

Long-time readers of my previous site may recall the Blog d’Elisson Dictionary, installments of which may be found in that site’s Archives.

For other entries in the Cheese Aisle Dictionary, simply click on the sidebar link for Cheese-Dic.

And now for the Word of the Day...

paninus [pa-ni-nus] (n) - 1. The singular of panini; 2. The unfortunate result of copulating with a woman suffering from a yeast infection.

“Roger hasn’t spoken a word to Jeannette for a month - he came down with a massive case of paninus right after they had a hot and heavy New Year’s Eve, and he hasn’t forgiven her for it yet.”

IMAGES OF SAVANNAH

We spent last weekend in Savannah with the Mistress of Sarcasm and her BF Aaron, who played a set Friday evening at The Sentient Bean, a little coffeeshop at the south end of Forsyth Park. And just for shits and grins, we dragooned Houston Steve and his lovely wife Debbie into coming along with us.

It was a delightful couple of days. It had been a long time - something like four years! - since we had spent more than an hour or so visiting the Lady with a Dirty Face, and getting reacquainted was delightful. We stayed at the Planters Inn on Reynolds Square in the historic district, a venerable hostelry in a building that is over 200 years old. Here are some photos:



Good food, good music, good friends. I suppose we’ll just have to go back for a return engagement...

’COON AND CAT

Seen on our recent sojourn in Savannah:


Rocky, the Rabid Raccoon.

This little fellow was perched on a stick in a vintage record store. Yes - a place that sells vinyl LP’s, just like the 350 or so that I have moldering in the Basement d’Elisson. But why buy an old, scratched-to-hell copy of Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers when you can take this rabid-looking beast home with you to scare the snot out of peddlers?


Say hello to Amelia.

Meet Amelia, the resident Mascot-Kitty at Terra Cotta, one of the Mistress’s old haunts just off of Broughton Street. Houston Steve and I were perfectly happy to give Amelia a little skritchy-love, the which helped keep us from going insane while the wimmin looked at shoes, dresses, and handbags. Gahhhh.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF HOUSTON STEVE

“Have you ever noticed that the back end of a milking barn has a Dairy Air?”

DOCTOR ZAMENHOF’S SILVER BULLET

You may think it odd of me,
But lately I have been studying the Potawatomi.
In so doing, I have learned one fascinating fact about the Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto:
He was fluent in English, Navajo, and Sioux, but spoke nary a word of Esperanto.

[Apologies to Ogden Knish.]

PATTY-CAKE

Despite my general avoidance of Baked Goods these days, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of being able to bake.

Maybe it’s the Appeal of the Unattainable. The baked goods I grew up with almost always came from the local bakery - Lord’s, on Merrick Road in Massapequa, New York was a heavenly place, the aroma of which still lives strongly in my mind - or from the basket of goodies that the Dugan Man would schlep to our back door twice a week as he made his rounds. My mother, a good enough home cook but no Cat Cora by any means, baked exactly one cake in all the years of my childhood; bread and pies were completely out of the question.

Perhaps it’s the chemist and chemical engineer in me. Baking, more than most types of cooking, is more a science than an art, with exact measurements of weight, volume, time, and temperature critical to success.

Regardless, I’ve always felt a certain amount of envy towards the people who know how to handle dough, that mysterious substance that comes of the blending of flour, water, and leaveners.

I baked my first cake when I was in seventh grade, using a recipe that was parenthetically included in one of my science textbooks (there’s that “baking as science” meme again). It was surprisingly good... so I continued to attempt more complex recipes - chocolate! food coloring! - until I managed to start fucking things up. For many years after that I stayed away from baking, only resuming sometime in the early 1980’s when I discovered the books of Maida Heatter.

Bread, though. Bread was always a mystery to me, an unfathomable challenge... for it involved yeast, a living thing, in lieu of physical or chemical leaveners.

Most of my attempts at producing anything bready have, historically, been failures. But now, thanks to the example set by Elder Daughter (a dab hand at making delicious challah bread), I have had a few Good Results. Behold!



It’s ridiculously good. Both Elder Daughter and I have independently tweaked the recipe a few times, and the loaf pictured above is probably my best one yet by popular consensus. It has gotten to the point where I am afraid to make one of these beauties, lest I be tempted to eat the Whole Fucking Thing. Hot out of the oven, it’s impossible to resist the urge to tear off a hunk (the braided loaf is a mighty facilitator of hunk-rippage), slather it with soft butter, and devour it on the spot.

I’ll be happy to e-mail you the recipe - just post your request in the comments or send me a note.

Yesterday, I decided to expand my repertoire (and, alas, my waistline) by making a batch of cinnamon buns. My rationale was that the Mistress of Sarcasm and her friend Aaron, currently visiting us as part of a whirlwind tour of the eastern seaboard, would be able to have something decadent for breakfast... and I could try my hand at giving Cinnabon a run for their money.

The dough, laden with more butter than a challah-style dough, came together beautifully and was easy to handle. The filling was simply a blend of brown sugar and cinnamon, with a dab of cardamom adding its own subtle undertone. There is no better way to give your house the fragrance of a little slice of Bakey Heaven than to stick a pan of these bad boys in a 350°F oven. (I wonder if this is what Martha Stewart’s vagina smells like: a fresh, hot cinnamon roll.)



Iced down with the traditional cream cheese goop, they were Pretty Damn Tasty. I’m more than pleased with the results... but to preserve my health and sanity, this is liable to be a Very Occasional Indulgence.

THE ELISSON BOOKSHELF

It’s been a little over a year - fifty-three weeks, exactly - since I last put up one of these “What I’ve Been Reading Lately” posts. Here are the volumes that have graced my nightstand (and my Kindle app) since then:

January 2011

• The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
  
  First in the popular three-part series for young adults, I read this mainly because the Missus, who teaches middle-schoolers, had brought it home. A reasonably well-written novel about a dystopian future in which teenagers are forced to murder each other for the amusement of the multitudes... and as a way to curb the rebellious instincts of the populace. In other words, a metaphor for middle school.

February

• Edible Stories - Mark Kurlansky
  
  Short stories, all of which share food-related themes.
  

March

• Well Preserved: Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods - Eugenia Bone
  
  I found this book in a Borders bookstore in the midst of a pre-closing clearance and figured it was an opportune time to learn about small-batch food preservation techniques. It has served as a fine introduction to the world of canning: I am now an enthusiastic practitioner. Pickled asparagus, anyone?
  
  
• Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
  
  The second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. More teenager-on-teenager killing action with a completely unsubtle political subtext.
  

April

• Theories of International Politics and Zombies - Daniel W. Drezner
  
  A scholarly analysis of several theories of international relations, illustrated with the clever use of the ever-popular zombie paradigm. Funny and surprisingly erudite.
  

May

• From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine - Joan Peters
  
  Eli (hizzownself) and Toni told me about this book after having met Joan Peters on a cruise a couple of years ago. It’s a rebuttal - supported by painfully detailed documentation - of the narrative made popular by the mainstream media and Arab propaganda that portrays Israelis as the usurpers of “Palestinian” land. Essential reading for anyone who wants to learn more about the underpinnings of the conflict in the Mideast.
  
  
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee
  
  Mukherjee traces the evolution of our knowledge of this most dreaded of human diseases... and the slow but steady advance of medical technology toward prevention and cures.
  

June

• Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children - Andrew D. Blechman
  
  A no-holds-barred look at The Villages, the very model of a Q-Tip Paradise. After seeing the place with Eli and Toni, this book was a must-read for me.
  
  
• Embassytown - China Miéville
  
  Humans and an alien species come into conflict over a matter of linguistics in this exploration of the connection between mind and language. Yes, it’s science fiction - but it’s unlike almost any other SF book I have ever read, the kind that, after you finish it, makes you scratch your head and mumble, “What the fuck was that?” In case you’re wondering, that is a High Compliment.
  

July

• Tangerine - Edward Bloor
  
  Another young-adult read, this one about a high school kid dealing with family dysfunction and life in a strange new town in central Florida.
  
  
• The Disappearing Spoon - Sam Kean
  
  Fascinating facts about the chemical elements. One of those books that looks really interesting but disappoints because of authorial limitations.
  
  
• The Frozen Rabbi - Steve Stern
  
  A young man discovers an unusual family heirloom in the Kelvinator deep-freezer in the basement of his Memphis home: a 200-year-old frozen rabbi. The book jumps back and forth between the adventures of the (now thawed-out) rabbi in modern-day Memphis and the stories of the people who brought him to the New World.
  
  
• Pump Six and Other Stories - Paolo Bacigalupo
  
  SF shorts by the author of The Windup Girl. I had read several of these in other anthologies already and was eager to see some more of Baciagalupo’s short fiction. He did not disappoint.
  
  
• The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time - Judith Shulevitz
  
  An interview with the author on the radio was what introduced me to this book, an exploration of Sacred Time in the contexts of both Jewish and American Christian culture and history.
  

August

• Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement - Rodney Rothman
  
  A temporarily unemployed young man immerses himself in the world of south Florida retirees. Kind of like “Black Like Me” with old white people.
  

September

• The Help - Kathryn Stockett
  
  Black domestics in pre-civil rights Mississippi find their voice in an aspiring writer, a young white woman sympathetic to their desire to be treated humanely. Perfect grist for the Hollywood movie mill.
  
  
• The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love - Kristin Kimball
  
  A young woman takes up the Life of the Soil and describes farming, dirt and all. This was a galley proof that Elder Daughter lent me after her summer of living on a Massachusetts farm, her way of explaining the strange but compelling appeal farm life held (and continues to hold) for her.
  
  
• The Left Left Behind - Terry Bisson
  
  A disappointingly weak collection of short stories by a talented writer, it comes nowhere near the standard of his first two collections, Bears Discover Fire and In the Upper Room.
  

October

• The Mind’s Eye - Oliver Sacks
  
  A study of the human brain and some of the peculiar conditions appertaining thereto, by the author of Awakenings, Uncle Tungsten, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Given the events of the last month, this book has especial significance for me and my understanding of some of the effects of stroke.
  
  
• A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown - Julia Scheeres
  
  The story of Jim Jones, his People’s Temple, and the events leading to the infamous mass murder at their colony in Guyana in November 1978.
  
  
• The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table - Liz Thorpe
  
  More than you ever thought you’d want to know about American artisanal cheese and cheesemakers. Since reading this book, I have made numerous cheesy (and delicious) discoveries... including just what it is that makes stinky cheese stinky.
  

November

• The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde - Norman Spinrad
  
  Vintage SF short stories by a master of the genre, the author of The Iron Dream. They just don’t write ’em like this anymore.
  
  
• 11/22/63: A Novel - Stephen King
  
  Uncle Stevie’s latest Honkin’ Thick Tome - the boy do know how to crank out the pages - this one about a portal through time and a man who sets about preventing the Kennedy assassination. One of King’s better efforts, it examines the consequences of the thousand little decisions we make every day, not just the big ones that create seismic impacts on the world around us.
  
  
• Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City - Nelson Johnson
  
  I’ve become a thoroughgoing fan of the HBO series that draws much of its source material from this book... but this is the Real Thing, with the stories of the actual people who, for better or worse, made Atlantic City what it was Back in the Day as well as what it is today. Having spent numerous mini-vacations there with SWMBO’s mom and stepfather, and having an aunt who lived there as a little girl in the Nucky Johnson days, I could appreciate the town’s vivid history better than ever.
  
  
• The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
  
  A classic SF novel written in the mid-1970’s and inspired, in no small part, by the Vietnam war, The Forever War imagines the impact of relativistic time dilation on interstellar conflict - and on the soldiers enmeshed in it. This is an essential part of the Science Fiction Canon that had somehow eluded me until now. If you have not read it, read it immediately, especially if you’re in any way a Mil-Skiffy fan.
  
  
• Where Judaism Differed - Abba Hillel Silver
  
  Thoughtful examination of the philosophical differences between Judaism and its daughter religions Christianity and Islam.
  
  
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
  
  Believe it or not, I had never read any of the Larsson novels until now. Larsson’s novels are not perfect - there’s a lot of extraneous material that could have been snipped out by a discerning editor - but in Lisbeth Salander he has created a most compelling pop cultural character, at once vulnerable and brutal, an emotionally stunted genius avenger. Brilliant.
  

December

• The Girl who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson
  
  The second book in Larsson’s trilogy reveals more about what made Lisbeth Salander what she is.
  
  
• The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest - Stieg Larsson
  
  The final book in Larsson’s trilogy.
  
  
• Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
  
  Thanks go to Big Stupid Tommy, who gifted me with this book, a rollicking steampunk adventure set in an alternative history version of Seattle. Priest is no Master Novelist, but she has plenty of fun material to play with. Dirigibles! Zombies! Mad scientists!
  
  
• To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
  
  Connie Willis has written several books about the adventures of future Oxford historians who use time travel to study various periods and events of historical significance: medieval England (The Doomsday Book) and the London Blitz (Blackout, All Clear) being just two examples. Written in the style of a Victorian comic novel, this book has its time-traveling historians frantically searching for a garish church artifact and doing their utmost to prevent the space-time continuum from becoming unraveled with unfortunate consequences. Winner of a best novel Hugo award.
  

That’s thirty-one books in the course of a year - not too shabby. What have you been reading lately?

THE GRIM CAVALIER

Any time you slap a picture of yourself up on the Internet - as I noted in the previous post - your run the risk of having a Photoshop Prankster grab it and run with it.

And when you are revealing unto the world a significant change in your appearance, those pranksters will have a field day.

El Capitan may have beat me to it, but I nevertheless could not resist...


The Grim Cavalier. [Apologies to Franz Hals.]

Eric is known for almost never smiling in photographs despite his generally pleasant disposition. So what better image to chop than “The Laughing Cavalier”?

I ALWAYS KNEW I WAS A HIPSTER

You never know where pictures you post on the Inter-Webby-Net will end up.

There are plenty of merry pranksters who will take the most innocent images and Photoshop the crap out of them, to ridiculous effect. I myself have been known to get involved in similar nefarious activities.

And then there are the folks over at Worth 1000, who take Photoshopping to a whole new level.

One of their current contests involves creating a hoax planking shot. Imagine my surprise at finding myself in a whole new planking pose...



I have no idea who the Photoshop artist is who found my image on the ’Net and used it as the basis for his (or her) contest entry, but I offer a happy fedora-tip! Now, where’s a towel, that I may wipe off all the hippo saliva?

Update: The artist’s name is johndiablo, and his entry scored a bronze medal in this particular contest. Now: is owling next?

WHOPPER

Over on Facebook, my buddy Eric is jonesing for a double Whopper with cheese... which set me to thinking about Fast-Food Burgers.

I’ve had an off-again, on-again love affair with Fast Food Burgers for as long as I can remember. I’m old enough to remember when the standard-issue McDungheap’s burger cost one thin dime, and I still recall my first encounter with the Whopper foldly.

Burger King was still a fairly young operation when I first tasted of the Whopper. It was in North Miami Beach - BK was, at the time, a Miami-based operation - on NE 163rd Street, and that burger was a revelation to my 8-year-old self. To my young eyes, accustomed as they were to the thin, dried-out McDungheap burgers, it was humongous... and it had a fine, charcoal-broiled taste that McDungheap's couldn't touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole. Moreover, it came decorated with the Holy Trinity of hamburger condiments: ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. (The McDungheap-burger, by contrast, would be dressed only with its traditional squirt of ketchup and slice of pickle.)

McDungheap’s, of course, had to strike back. There came the Big Mac, which upped the ante with an extra patty and layer of bread. I was not impressed. But when the Quarter-Pounder came along, that was something else again.

The Quarter-Pounder with cheese (in France, the Royale with cheese) was, at its heart, a thoroughgoing piece of crap. A plain bun, a steamed, grey meat-patty (albeit a full quarter-pound before cooking), a slice of half-molten American cheese-oid, a scattering of chopped onions, a squirt of ketchup - and yet, in some bizarre way, the Quarter-Pounder was greater than the sum of its parts.

When I drove a Good Humor truck in the summer of 1973 - the job from hell - the Quarter-Pounder was my go-to supper of choice as I wended my way back from my daily route. Sometimes I would devour two: a guilty pleasure.

Just a few years after that I found myself in Houston, where I used to roll for the Great Corporate Salt Mine’s bowling league (another guilty pleasure). On my way to the bowling alley after work I would stop off at Burger King and grab a Whopper. All too often, it was a double Whopper. This did little to help me retain the svelte figure I had when I entered the workforce.

For years, I avoided Wendy’s on account of their square burgers. Square burgers! Just like the ones that would come with our twenty-five cent school lunch back in elementary school, a thin grey patty with globs of Meat-Grease served on a (yech!) buttered bun. But one day in Houston, possibly out of sheer boredom or desperation, I tried a Wendy’s burger. Not bad! (Not great, either.)

She Who Must Be Obeyed still harbors a deep and abiding love for Whataburger, a venerable Texas chain that makes a pretty respectable hamburger sandwich. To me, the best thing about the Whataburger is the easy availability of jalapeño slices as a condiment. Yowza!

As for who offered the best Fast Food Burger, the Elisson fedora-tip has to go to Hardee’s - at least, the Hardee’s of yesteryear, once upon a time a brash start-up out of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Whether they’re still any good is open to question, but back in the day they offered a tasty charcoal-grilled hamburger that was second to none. Not even the Whopper of yore could touch it.

Krystal, White Castle, Royal Castle and the like have their fans, but the only thing these operations have going for them is Cheepnis. Their burgers are dirt-cheap, possibly because dirt is a primary ingredient. In the world of hamburgers - like the world at large - you may not always get what you pay for, but if you always go with the low bidder, you’re gonna get more than your share of crap.

An aside regarding condiments: There are real regional differences as to condiment preferences. In the New York area, burgers come with tomato ketchup. That’s all: just ketchup. In Texas, on the other hand, the standard-issue Burger Decoration is mustard. Most other parts of the country, your burger will arrive wearing a combination of ketchup and mustard. As for mayonnaise, further your deponent sayeth not.

I don’t indulge in the Fast-Food Burger these days, especially since the best one in these parts - Back Yard Burgers - folded up shop a few years back. Their offerings really did taste like the burgers you might have grilled in your back yard over a nice charcoal flame, plump and juicy. Alas. But since I need to be eating Rapidly Prepared Comestibles about as much as I need a second asshole, I harbor no regrets at their departure.

What’s your favorite Fast-Food Burger?

A TASTY ALGEBRA PROBLEM

What with Kevin Kim and Eric the Blade both deeply involved in mathematics these days, I am pleased to submit for your consideration an algebra problem posited by Houston Steve:

Let V equal the volume of a circular pizza of thickness a and radius z. What is the formula for V?

[Answer will be published in the comments.]

I FEEL FAT AND IT’S NOT EVEN MARDI GRAS YET

The old Year’s ended, and the New begins,
But one dire Fact conspires to sour my Mood:
December’s packed with calorific Sins.
Our Bodies bear the weight of festive Food.

No wonder our collective Ass is dragging
Beneath the Mass of tasty roasted Meats.
We needs must get back on the Diet-Wagon,
Eschewing chewy Goodies, yummy Treats.

Bring on the Veggies - hold the melted Butter
And keep the Chocolate far away from me;
“O, happy New Year!” I am heard to mutter,
My Bev’rages must all be sugar-free.

Fair warning, ye who like to eat much Cheese:
It might just make you Morbier’d-ly obese.

DIE, TWINKIE - DIE!

I will confess to no small amount of astonishment when I read that Hostess Brands was about to go belly-up, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in eight years.

Hostess! The evil geniuses responsible for so many childhood delights (and guilty pleasures of adulthood, at least for some): Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Sno-Balls, et alia. Who is there among us that did not devour their crap in those halcyon Snot-Nose Years?

In my younger days, I enjoyed the occasional Twinkie, but my especial love and admiration was reserved for the Hostess Creme-Filled Cup Cake, a dense chocolatey plug of a cupcake with a shot of sweet vanilla-flavored filling. The best part, of course, was the layer of icing, an eighth-inch-thick encrustation of semi-hardened chocolate goop with a little white squiggle down the centerline by way of decoration. Eating a Hostess Cup Cake was a little like eating an Oreo sandwich cookie: one had to decide upon the specific technique to be employed. Peel the icing off and eat it first? Eat it last? Or just shove the whole fucking thing into your pie-hole in one ecstatic burst of cakey gluttony?

Twinkies, by comparison, were boring. A log of sponge cake with that selfsame vanilloid filling... but no icing or other external attention-getting devices. A purist might argue that this was the Hostess formula reduced to its simplest form: Sweet cake and filling. Of course, it’s hard to use the term “purist” in the context of a product that is composed mainly of artificial ingredients.

And then there was the infamous Sno-Ball.

Imagine, if you will, a Hostess Creme-Filled Cup Cake, sans icing. Shave the top off so that it resembles a flat-bottomed dome. Now let it dry out for a few weeks or months so that the cake, rather than being moist and delectable, is dry, crumbly. Enrobe it in a quarter-inch-thick layer of marshmallow and encrust the whole affair with coconut. This is a Sno-Ball.

The best thing to do with a Sno-Ball would be to chuck it at one’s playmates, as one would do with its namesake. Kids with masochistic tendencies would peel the marshmallow layer off and eat it, an experience not unlike eating a Firestone tire. A sweet Firestone tire. Only the most masochistic would dare eat the dried-out blob of cake. Feh.

Hostess has its competitors in the Fattening Crap department. In New York, there was Drake’s Cakes, makers of an excellent little coffee cake as well as the beloved Devil Dog (think of a hot dog with devil’s food cake in lieu of the bun, vanilla creme filling in lieu of the frankfurter sausage). In Philadelphia, there was Tastykake. And down South, Little Debbie.

Believe it or not, I have never tasted of the Tastykake. And I have no plans to do so... for I have moved on.

If I am gonna eat crap, I will make it myself - and it will be a damn sight better than anything Hostess ever could make.

I suspect that reports of the Twinkie’s impending demise are premature. The bottomless American desire for HFCS-sweetened, preservative-laden baked goods cannot and will not be denied. And if the worst should come to pass, well, there’s always the Tokyo Banana.

What was your favorite Hostess treat when you were a kid? And do you still indulge? C’mon, now - be honest.

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Madeline Begun Kane for alerting me to this earth-shattering development!]

Update: Here followeth an e-mail from Houston Steve, received on January 26 and quoted verbatim for your enjoyment and delectation...

You want to know what sucks?

Well, I’ll tell you. The vending machine in my office has Mrs. Freshly’s Chocolate Cupcakes (marked U/D, by the way). They look suspiciously like Hostess Cupcakes, and (i) I’m in a bad mood and (ii) I haven’t had a Hostess Cupcake in years, so I spring 80 cents for them. Here’s the kicker... I figured that they would taste like a disgusting sugar cube, that my fond memories of their rich chocolaty goodness were all bullshit, and I’d be able to move on... but no, dammit! The fucking things were just as fucking good as I fucking remembered them. Now what am I supposed to do? There’s two more fucking packages in the fucking machine. FUCK!

ONE OF THOSE LIFE-CHANGING MOMENTS THAT WE WOULD, ALL OF US, JUST AS SOON AVOID

It was Christmas morning - for us, a Sunday morning pretty much like any other - when She Who Must Be Obeyed handed me the phone, a worried expression in her eyes. It was my brother - The Other Elisson - on the line. Not much to be concerned about... except my brother almost never calls us up on a Sunday morning.

“Dad’s had a stroke.”

Ohh, shit.

“It’s not life-threatening, but he’s paralyzed on his left side.”

Shit, shit, shit.

I flashed back to the last time I had gotten a similar phone call. That had been nearly twelve years ago, when Dad had had his heart attack. He had been in the midst of a racquetball game - a regular activity - when, without warning, he had gone into cardiac arrest. Lucky for him he was playing with a retired fire chief who knew how to administer CPR until the paramedics arrived with their jumper cables. They revived him and got him to the hospital, where he underwent multiple bypass surgery.

Later, he would describe the experience as not entirely unpleasant. “I was going for a shot and suddenly I thought, ‘I’m going to faint now.’ There was no pain at all. If I hadn’t woken up, it wouldn’t have been a bad way to go.”

But that was then. This was now, and even though it was not a life-threatening situation, it was most certainly a lifestyle-threatening situation... because a stroke changes everything.

It had come upon him in the dead of night. Toni had been awakened by his breathing, which had become strangely labored. When she asked him if he was OK, he replied that he felt fine... but a few hours later, when he awoke to answer the summons of nature, he could not get out of bed. His left side was completely immobile.

Even as Toni and the Other Elisson tried to assess the situation, Eli argued with them. He was fine, he insisted... despite his complete inability to sit up or walk. This sort of Denial of the Obvious, I have come to find, is not an unusual reaction in one who has suffered a stroke.

Strokes are big-time scary. A stroke can kill you outright if it hits certain parts of the brain, or it can incapacitate you and leave you unable to read, to speak, to recognize loved ones, to swallow. It can create baffling alterations in perception. Its effects can linger for months or years with varying degrees of severity.

We all go through our lives, day by day, not noticing the subtle signs of age as it creeps up on us with its little cat feet. But every so often, cat-like, it will pounce. A stroke is anything but subtle. It is a Giant Step in the aging process, a quantum change of the sort that divides one’s life into two periods: Before the Stroke, and After the Stroke.

At the hospital, a CAT scan revealed that Eli’s stroke had been caused by a thrombus - a blood clot. (The alternative - a cerebral hemorrhage - is less common but even more fearsome.) Because it struck the right side of Eli’s brain, it paralyzed the left side of his body. Fortunately, his ability to swallow was intact, albeit impaired. He would be able to eat without having to use a feeding tube.

Most importantly, his mind was intact.

That’s the thing that, I suspect, is most frightening about any condition that affects the brain. The unique spark that animates each one of us is locked into our skulls - what becomes of us if that spark is altered beyond recognition?

I knew I didn’t have to worry about that as soon as I found out that Eli was sitting up in his hospital bed, cracking jokes. His speech was slurred but clearly recognizable. He knew who everyone was and could remember things... albeit with a few peculiar gaps. He knew he had suffered a stroke, but he couldn’t quite understand why he couldn’t simply hop out of bed and go to take a leak. And the left side of his world was simply... gone. It no longer existed for him.

He’s been in in-hospital rehab now for about ten days, where, with the help of dedicated hospital staff and the loving care of his bride Toni - their twenty-first wedding anniversary was just this past Friday - he will eventually relearn the basic skills of daily life. Walking. Sitting up. Everything we take for granted.

Your thoughts and prayers for Eli’s speedy and complete recovery, Esteemed Readers, are deeply appreciated.

His days of playing racquetball, alas, are over. For now. But he’s still Eli, hizzownself. Hizzownself! I know this without a shadow of doubt.

When, as he was sitting up in his hospital bed, I asked him if he was comfortable, he replied: “I make a living.”

LIGHT MY FIRE...

...with a Kindle.

In case you’re the type who enjoys all of the latest Technological Doodads, you might be interested to know that this fine Personal Web-Log is now available on Amazon in the form of a Kindle subscription.

Yes, indeedy - for the princely sum of ninety-nine cents, you can read this drivel wherever you are, as long as you have your snazzy Kindle device in hand. Oh, boy!

Go here and check it out. Even better, write a review. We Media Whores need all the help we can get!

TIGER, TIGER

Tiger, Tiger: Painting by Rebecca B.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
                              - William Blake

I am partial to tigers, being a product of Princeton University and the Great Corporate Salt Mine, both of which claim felis tigris as mascot. They are, in my view, the most beautiful of the Great Cats... which beauty does not necessarily imply a desire for physical proximity. They are, after all, King-Shit Carnivores, and to them, the vaunted human intelligence is merely the ghost in a machine made of tasty meat.

Nevertheless, I am partial to tigers - and when my sister-in-law Rebecca presented us with the above painting, I was practically ecstatic.

Now all we have to do is find a suitable wall upon which to hang it... and where its fearsome stare will not keep me - or Hakuna - awake at night.