MY OWN MADELEINE

 

After the wonderful cream of crab soup I slurped up so voraciously at the Lemon Leaf Café in Chestertown last week and after JR, the owner and a friend, told me the recipe began as an old family one, I searched to see if I could find an authentic recipe for cream of crab soup in one of my many cookbooks, to establish a starting point for my own creative version. Surprisingly, I didn’t have much success; most recipes were for “authentic” Maryland crab soup, but all gussied up with unusual ingredients and none of the creamed variety. But the search finally took me to a cookbook produced by the WSCS (Women’s Society of Christian Service) of the Unity-Washington Methodist Church in Hurlock, Maryland. It’s an old cookbook, one of my first, spiral-bound with some of the spirals missing and with a green cardboard cover, smeared with the dried remnants of ingredients used long ago. Probably created as a fund raiser for the WSCS, I thought it the perfect place to find what I was seeking. But, alas; there was no recipe for cream of crab soup. However, in perusing the seafood section I discovered a recipe for tuna noodle casserole, like Ribbon Salad from Mrs. Ira Brinsfield, or Apricot Bread from Mary Payne, attributed to Mrs. W. V. Smith. Like Proust with his madeleine, dipped in tea and instantly returned to his “things past,” I was immediately thrust back into 1962, when I came to Baltimore from the Eastern Shore to work as a designer/salesman in the Designer Gallery of The Bagby Furniture Company. I remembered all my fellow-salespeople: John, tall and thin, with glasses always sliding down his nose, a man very good with our dealer customers; Courtney, the somehow wayward – we never learned how - brother of the owner of the firm, a man who liked to tell off-color jokes and who blew his nose on a giant white handkerchief he always produced from his pants pocket. There was also Miss Willey, a proper old-maid-school-teacher type, with an incredibly correct posture and beautiful handwriting, who taught me how to make a white sauce and to remember to always wash the remnants of egg off my plates with cold water; hot water would only cook the eggs. And Schaffer (as we all called her), with the heavy make-up, the dyed black hair, glued-on fingernails and five-inch heels. Like Giada on the cooking channel, Shaffer was Bagby’s sex appeal. She always wore a tight skirt and had great legs. And the owner’s son, Hugh, who was so large we called him Huge (behind his back, of course), a buffoon of a man, just smart enough to be surprisingly dangerous. And I remembered the designer customers who brought their clients to me: Debby Goodman, who always said, “fine; how are you?” before I’d even asked her how she was; Emma Samuels, who lived in Temple Gardens and was married to a judge; Gert Rocklin, with red hair and always perfectly groomed; and Florine Macks who often absent-mindedly snapped her girdle to let a little air onto her thighs. I loved them all. And I sold them, and their clients, a lot of furniture.

            Seeing the recipe also reminded me of my earliest attempts at cooking, making the dish in my first apartment in Baltimore, a third floor walk-up in the 900 block of Calvert Street where, spurred on by my latent talent for design, I installed cork walls, Roman shades, felt-covered bookshelves, and a bar in the kitchen made from unfinished bookcases bolted together and covered with blue burlap. The top surface was laid with imperfect pieces of white marble originally destined for occasional tables at Bagby but damaged in transit. It was also where I enjoyed, and mourned, my first great love affair in a spectacular whirl of light and color and sound, joy and tears, like none since then.  

            Reading the recipe, I was so attracted to it that I checked my pantry to see if I had all the ingredients and, except for the cream of mushroom soup, the potato chips and the small can of LeSeur peas, things I would never normally eat now, I had everything I needed. So after a trip to Eddie’s where I procured these essentials, I created the casserole, complete with slabs of cheddar cheese layered on top and some more, shredded and mixed with the crumbled potato chips. Although I only made half a recipe, there was still far too much for one meal so I filled two casserole dishes, baked one and put the other in the freezer. The casserole dishes themselves – three in various depths, all nested together, white and tan, with star designs on the outside, probably from Pyrex – came from my brother and sister-in-law as a gift when I moved to Baltimore. I haven’t used them in years, but never had the urge to toss them out. They’ve moved with me from Calvert Street to University Parkway to Park Purchase to Maine to Saint Martin’s Lane, back to Park Purchase on now on to The Fitz. They’re almost as well traveled as I am.

I enjoyed my portion of tuna noodle casserole at my dining room table, which started life as an old, round, oak, farm table, given to me by my sister and brother-in-law as a start-up for my new digs on Calvert Street. I remembered laboriously sanding down the top and staining it with thinned white paint in an attempt to make it look like pickled oak. Some years later, after Calvert Street, when I decided to put the green marble on its top, I had to reinforce the base to hold the added weight. Wouldn’t Barb and Wayne – if they were still with us – be surprised that such a modest $15.00 item is now having its glamorous Cinderella moment?

Like Swann, in Proust’s epic saga, I left something sweet and tender irrevocably behind in that first love affair on Calvert Street, something I never recovered. Perhaps it was my awakening to the freedom of sexual self-awareness, which once dawned, can never be re-experienced. Or maybe it was my innocence, then lost and never recovered. Life now seems faster and much more complicated. The Bagby Furniture Company building, once bordered by decrepit and largely abandoned railroad sheds, now has a resurrected life as an office complex, firmly planted between old Little Italy and the new and fashionable Harbor East. Like the nearby President Street Station, where Lincoln arrived on his way to becoming president, the Bagby building seems an anachronism, slightly out of place, old but nestled now among the new. Its modest shipping dock where I once parked my car now houses the glamorous Fleet Street Kitchen, where today I might enjoy a seared tuna salad or tuna tartar. How much my life has been altered, by, well, life. But some things never change. The tuna noodle casserole was just as good as I remembered it. Mrs. W. V. Smith lives on through her simple recipe. She would be so proud.

 

 

Phil Cooper

February 2014

 

 

 

 

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, LAMAR, AND ME



The many column inches and sound bites recently devoted to the life and death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the memories of him expressed by his friends, have reminded me of my own dear friend, Lamar, who was also an addict, in his case, to alcohol. I knew him for only a short time while he was still drinking but I saw the effects of it when, at a party I attended, he mounted the host’s wooden cocktail table and jumped up and down on it until his rage at whatever set him off had reduced the table to just a pile of splinters scattered across the floor. Fortunately for us both, shortly after that he became a “recover-ing” alcoholic – I suspect alcoholics are never “recover-ed” – and remained so for most of the 25 years I knew him. During that time, we were very close friends. He was very bright and funny, a tad iconoclastic, and an unusually elegant dresser when the (not usual) occasion suggested. I admired him tremendously and he became a kind of mentor for me. Eventually, he substituted marijuana for alcohol, but he was able to handle that – I never saw him on a cocktail table again – and I learned from those who knew him in Alcoholics Anonymous, that he had become an icon in the local chapters and sponsored many. I remember a time when I served some dessert that had been flavored with rum and so vehement was he about not consuming even the smallest amount of alcohol, no matter how innocently, when he learned what he had in his mouth, he spit it out, dramatically, into his napkin. Unfortunately, late in our friendship, he suffered many reverses in his affections, including the death of his long-time lover from AIDS, and one night at my dinner table, to my dismay and horror, he insisted, over my objections, on drinking a small glass of wine, saying he only wanted to sample it, he could manage it, not to worry. Lamar moved away shortly after that, to a small house in Florida where he immediately went on a binge so severe that his brother came from Mobile, their family home, to rescue him from the local hospital’s psyche ward and drag him back to Alabama so he could be closely watched by his family. I called him there several times but he became increasingly distant and I learned, sadly, died only a few years later from alcohol- induced Alzheimer’s disease.

            On a recent program on the Diane Rehm show, where after Hoffman’s death, she was exploring heroin addiction, I wanted to call in to ask a question about an aspect of heroin her guests were seeming to skirt. Why become addicted to heroin in the first place? What was its appeal? How, or what, did it make users feel? In truth, I guess I can answer my own questions. While it would be a disservice to every addict to compare Lamar’s situation or Philip Seymour Hoffman’s to my own, I have recognized and do acknowledge my own addiction, in my case to some food, particularly sugar. I use it for solace – when I’ve had a bad day – and for celebration – when I’ve had a good one – all of which makes me feel satisfied, that fills, literally, the holes in my psyche. I guess any addiction is like that, like (to mix my metaphors) an itch that cannot be ignored, and once scratched, only itches more urgently. (I know a lot about that, from my extreme allergy to mosquito bites.)

            There was a period, a year or more ago, when my own life suffered some reverses, of both health and affection, and I stopped thinking about what I was eating, until I had gained so much weight that my clothes no longer fit and I was forced to buy new ones. And then I decided, in my head, as I have advocated on my blog as being essential, that I was going to lose weight, or, to be more active about it, that I was losing weight. That’s when I started the Medi-fast program, which was, for me, incredibly successful. As those of you who’ve followed my progress know, I lost almost 40 pounds in just two months. That dramatically changed my eating habits and by remaining conscious of what I put in my mouth, I’ve been able to hold my weight loss at what is called “goal weight” since early September, even through the incredibly tempting holiday season. But lately, I’ve begun to eat again, unconsciously, to have some snacks and a cocktail before dinner, to revert to my old habits of eating what I want (except for bacon and ice cream, which I haven’t had since July), and for indulging in my nemesis, sugar. I would buy a bag of cookies in the morning and they’d be gone by the time I went to bed. During this time, my weight has varied some, up and down a pound or maybe two, but in the last month, I’ve gained a solid five pounds. This will never do. And so, I’ve rededicated myself to going back on the Medi-fast program completely. This requires once again becoming conscious of what I’m eating, of rehydrating Medi-fast’s 110 calorie meals and consuming only those every day, five times a day, drinking ten glasses of water every day, and consuming “real” food only once each day, and that made up of – as Medi-fast calls it, “lean and green,” a lean meat and two green vegetables. This works. I’ve done it before. And I know I can do it again.

            In preparation for my new regimen (now called “regime”), I’ve not only psyched myself up by making the absolute decision to lose weight, summoning my dedication to success, and setting a specific day to begin my program (yesterday), but also by purging my refrigerator of temptation. Out went the leftover soup made from the sweet brisket vegetables. Out went the little bit of whole milk, the half and half and the cream that were ingredients in my recent kugel. Out went the cottage cheese, the mayonnaise, the sauce for baked potatoes, as well as the potatoes themselves. From out of my cupboard, I tossed the chocolate chips, the peanut butter morsels, the caramel syrup. The last of the Sofia, a blanc de blanc from the Francis Ford Coppola Monterey County vineyard, went down the drain. I ate the last of the pasta with meat sauce for dinner Sunday night and slapped the rest of the sauce into the freezer. Now my refrigerator is again pristine, with only a little leftover chicken (white meat) and a few pea pods for dinner tomorrow. So far today, I’ve had a Medi-fast strawberry shake, a Medi-fast chocolate crunch bar, some Medi-fast Mac and Cheese and five glasses of water. In mid-afternoon, I’ll have some Medi-fast pretzels before dinner, out, where I’ll east some salmon and broccoli (or maybe the baked oysters), and I’ll have another Medi-fast shake, this time banana, before I go to bed. This should rev up my metabolism and reduce my calories.

            I suppose we’re all addicted to something: alcohol, drugs, nicotine, sex; our appearance, our reputation, our degree of acceptance or the acquisition of more and more things; our grandchildren, our health, the garden, food. Mine is sugar. So can I overcome my addiction? At least for now, I’m sure I can. As Philip Seymour Hoffman and my friend Lamar would say (but perhaps not in that one last moment when they gave up), “One day at a time.”

Stay tuned

 

Phil Cooper, February 2014

ON FACEBOOK

Here, at the very beginning of my comments, I should say that I’m not a huge fan of Facebook. I know its avowed mission is to surround you, the user, with friends of your own choosing, and by your own postings on your own timeline (as it is called), keep them informed of what you want them to know about your life, and by reading what they’ve posted on their timeline, to learn what they want you to know about theirs. By the very act of becoming members, millions of users – is it billions by now? – seem to approve. After all, what’s there is all voluntary. But I find most of the information shared on Facebook to be pretty mundane and well, frankly, boring. Someone is in a particular restaurant, having lunch with someone else. Another friend is in an airport, waiting to go somewhere. Someone is celebrating a birthday (so I do get a chance to wish them a happy day). Someone is posting a photograph of their Christmas tree, or a sunrise (which I have done), or a grandchild, or their new kitchen or bathroom. There’s nothing wrong with this. I've done it myself, so I can hardly criticize. And these postings do keep me informed, perhaps more than I needed, or wanted, to be. So Facebook accomplishes what it intended.

Of course, Facebook is also a vehicle for advertising. How else could it make money? And I also must admit that I joined Facebook to announce the publication of my book, hoping to spread the word to my friends and encourage them to buy it. Is that not advertising? And I now (mostly) use my posts to advise my friends when I’ve written on one of my four blogs. Is that not advertising? Yes. It undoubtedly is. And are not my friends who see these messages as offended as I am when they have to wade through advertising, or my boring postings, to get to something perhaps more interesting that they really might want to know? The answer to that, too, is, yes, I’m sure they are. So an essential part of the Facebook phenomenon is undoubtedly our forced exposure to posts that encourage us to buy something, or read something, or go somewhere, and those that tell us of the mundane lives we all share. So despite my sometimes irritation at this reality and my not being a rabid fan, Facebook does serve its purpose. And is that a worthy one? Millions – or is it billions by now? – agree that it is. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for debate about that, but that discussion is for another time. And so, every morning, after I’ve checked my email, I go to Facebook to read these ads and to learn of my friends’ lives (or at least what they want me to know of them, which may be an entirely different thing). Is this not catering to our lowest common denominator, my yearning to hear and to be heard? Are we all that lonely?

But once in a while, there’s a posting on Facebook of (what I think of) as of a higher nature, something that really grabs my attention and provides information I consider a valuable contribution to my life. Like the time one of my acquaintances (not really a close friend, but someone I knew, like so many of my “friends” on Facebook) posted a laudatory comment about their satisfaction with meeting their weight-loss goals with the Medi-fast program. That post, my introduction to Medi-fast, which helped me to lose 40 pounds, changed my life. And this morning, I read on Facebook a post that really shook me up, that I thought was a real (in all senses of that word) contribution to my world.

There have been many times when I’ve felt guilty of not contributing more than I have to the LGBT movement. Oh, I’ve given money, been to benefits, donated photographs or dinners to be raffled off. All passive. I did publish (myself) a book that described my life, hoping that my experiences would have some positive effect on the world (if not on my pocketbook). But I was not a member of ACT UP and I’ve never testified in Annapolis in support of gay marriage. I’ve been, honestly, pretty passive. But this morning I listened to a posted video on Facebook of an Irish drag queen share her experiences of homophobia. That speech was so much more revealing, honest, brutal and moving than the words in my book that I was amazed at how she was able to portray in only a few minutes what it took me 70,000 words to only try to convey. And, at least from my perspective, with so much more impact.

 It seems that Panti Bliss appeared on a TV talk show in Ireland where she called an Irish organization, the Catholic Iona Institute, “homophobic” because of their stand against gay marriage. Iona sued the RTE network where Panti appeared and RTE paid a penalty of 70,000 pounds to settle the suit. In response, Panti appeared at the end of a play at the Irish National Theater where she spoke about homophobia and oppression in a way that surpassed in impact all the comments in all the books, and news articles and column inches I’ve read. She was truly amazing.

I shared the post on my own timeline with the hope that many of my friends on Facebook would react to it. Some of them may have  read it; Facebook doesn't provide a way to know that. But no one, not one, clicked on a “like” button, or the “comment” button, or the “share” button, which only proves to me that my friends, at least, are more interested in who’s eating where with whom, where someone is going or who saw a bird or had a spectacular Christmas tree. What a shame. I wish Facebook, my friends, and most of all I, were a little more active.

(If you want to hear Panti’s speech, go to www.pinknews.com.uk. That will take you to a Bing list of sites where you can choose pinknews.co.uk. Choose the “Trending Right Now” column on the right and click on the top story. If you’re like me, you’ll be glad you did.)

 

TIME AFTER TIME, OR SCAM AFTER SCAM

I seem to have become a favorite of all those scammers who like to tell people like me that we're the beneficiaries of a large sum of money, anywhere from $1.5 million to $11.5 million, which seem to be favorite sums. I wonder if this is because they believe these sums are believable enough to snag a fish. Their information comes in all sorts of guises. I'm the winner of a European lottery, or my credit card has been selected at random by an official in some office in Benin, or some wealthy winner of the lottery - usually a legitimate one - wants to give part of his winnings away, or a wealthy widow is dying of cancer and wishes to be sure her legacy goes to someone who will use the money for a charitable cause. Some of these notifications come with instructions to email someone further, who will provide details of how to claim my prize. These details are usually very long-winded but somewhere there is always the catch: I have to send some money, varying from $75 (the lowest I've seen) to as much as $750 (the highest) which will assure that my ATM card loaded with my inheritance will be transported to me safely. I've even had calls, sometimes in the middle of the night, informing me that the courier who is carrying my legacy is at an airport - JFK and DFW seem to be favorites - and needs to clear customs for a sum before flying on to BWI to bring me my legacy in person.

All of this is very alluring and although I know they're scams, I've become fascinated by the gyrations of the come-ons and the instructions for collecting. I've even had calls, one right after the other (when I've hung up on the first) from two different numbers - I can see this on my iphone records - but with the same caller. The scammers must catch a lot of people for them to be so prevalent, and so insistent. Lately, I've emailed back with strident instructions of my own - "send me my money immediate, without further delay," or "where are the funds you promised me" - ignoring, and without responding, to the things, especially the money, they've asked of me.

It's become a kind of game. But I grow weary (just as I've grown weary of Candy Crush Saga and Words With Friends on Facebook - and even maybe Facebook itself, but that's for another topic) and the game has  become a bore, even though I'm still attracted to the possibility that I've actually won something. (All I ever won was a cookbook, which I surely didn't need.) So enough, already! Scammers beware. I'm not playing anymore.

There must be some new game I can play, that might give me more satisfaction.

Stay tuned.

I STAND (HERE) CORRECTED

I'm happy to report that today I received a very thoughtful and generous thank-you note from my married friends. The delay was apparently due to their wanting to use wedding photographs on their thank-you cards. It was a lovely gesture. My faith in (at least some) humanity is restored.

Stay tuned.

IN PERPETUUM

At this time every year I have the same dilemma. Should I send a Christmas card to the Brazilian couple I met in 1999? With three friends, I was then on a cruise in Chile, from Puerto Mont south through the Chilean fjords to the San Rafael Glacier. The scenery was glorious. But the crew on the Scorpios, a Chilean cruise line, spoke only Spanish - the foreign quality of the cruise was part of its charm -  and without Jose and Lisette, who spoke Spanish and English and were fortunately assigned to our table, we would have been in the dark at every meal. But they translated the Spanish menu into English for us, and our choices back into Spanish for the waiter. We all became friends. But as most cruise friendships go, I expected this one to fade into acquaintance once the cruise was over. But that next Christmas, I received a Christmas card from Lisette. How was I? Jose had been to a fabric fair in Frankfort. They had a daughter in Fort Lauderdale and visited her occasionally. She hoped she would see me again. We had had such a good time, hadn't we? Like me, my friends received similar messages from her. We were all surprised. And pleased.

As I approach Christmas each year, I fret over my Christmas card design. For many years, I sent the traditional card, usually purchased at a museum, ice skaters on a lake, a Wegman dog holding a candy cane, that sort of thing. But for the last 10 years or so, I've insisted my card be made of one of my photographs, from some place exotic I've visited in the world, some vista or object reminiscent of Christmas. A triangular cut-out in a Mayan temple complex, a doorway in China, a bell in Thailand, lighted houses here on 34th Street in Hampden. I'm sure part of this insistence is rooted in  my egotism, making people aware that I've been to this location, and showing off my abilities at photographic composition. I'll own up to that. But I also like to think the receiver will feel the card is special, that I took the time to make a card of my photograph, a kind of unique gift to them, a card like no other.

 I usually send these cards willy-nilly, to everyone in my address book, friends near and far and without regard to their ethnic or religious persuasion (although the cards have  recently always said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"). And true to my Type A personality, I keep a list of those to whom I send my cards, and I admit to a similar list of those who send cards to me. So as I approach the holidays, I wonder each year about those I haven't heard from, especially those far away. Had they moved and I'd addressed the card to the wrong location? Or worse, had they died?

In an attempt to answer this question, I once called a girlfriend I'd known since childhood, a widow now living in Florida, someone with whom I exchanged cards each year but whom I hadn't seen since 1997 when I visited her on my way to Key West and from whom I hadn't received a card that year. Was she still alive, I wondered? Yes, she was. But very cool on the phone. I could tell she wanted to end our conversation almost as soon as she realized who I was. Had something I'd said in my previous year's events letter offended her? She'd always known I was gay. Had she gotten serious religion in her elder years and decided I was sinful? I never knew. But I never heard from her again either. Sad. I'd known her since we were in grade school, when she had a pet alligator she kept in her bathtub. How could someone so grounded in the unusual decide late in her life that I was too unusual to be acceptable? And this year, I received no card from another friend I've known for close to 50 years. We even used to exchange gifts. But this year not even a card. Have I offended him? Or have we just drifted so far apart that he no longer considers us friends? I'll never know. 

I've made some efforts this past year to simplify my life. I almost didn't send cards at all. But I found a lot of what might be called leftovers in my card drawer, extra cards not sent from many years before. So I rationed them out to friends I really care about, leaving out my Jewish friends who'd never sent me cards in the past, and some of those so far away I haven't seen them in many years. I pondered over the address for Lisette and Jose, and decided to skip them this year. But yesterday, her annual card came. Bless her heart.

The thing is this. If I leave someone off my card list this year, and I receive a card from them, like I did from Lisette, I'll feel it necessary to send them a card next year. But not having heard from me this year, next year these people will cut me from their own list. And then the next year, I'll cut them, but since they heard from me the year before, they'll add me back again. And so it goes. In perpetuum. 

Stay tuned.


 

CHRISTMAS DINNER

Oh. I forgot the palmiers. They're little elephant-ear-like hors d'oeuvres, made with folded puff pastry layered with goat cheese, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts. I'd never made them before and I'm a little leery about puff pastry, but I remembered to thaw it, and I'd seen Ina do this many times. It looked easy. It wasn't so hard. I made two rolls, covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. I could slice them and bake them just before my guests arrived. I wanted them to be warm when served.

I made the ganache and assembled the cake. Glorious! But would the cherry jam run over the edges? Would the ganache harden properly over the wet jam? At this point, it was done. What will be, will be. Que sera and all that. I put the cake on a pretty cake stand (a wedding gift to my parents), covered it with the top and put it on top of the buffet, the only surface left open.

I still had the Oysters Rockefeller to prepare, a tenderloin to cook, the potatoes and now-infamous gorgonzola sauce to reheat, the tomatoes to bake and the palmiers to cut and bake. How to do it all? I realized I needed a time table. Not my usual casual time table I sometimes use to prepare for guests, but a complete, minute by minute schedule of how to make all this work, and including the changing oven temperatures. So, from 3 PM, when I took the meat and the gorgonzola out of the fridge to bring them to room temperature, until we sat down to dinner at 6:30, I followed my own instructions, carefully printed out from my word processor, and I kept my timer in my pocket, even after the guests came. A sample of the schedule: 4:00, heat oven to 400; 4:30 palmiers on a cookie sheet, 4:40, palmiers in the oven for 14 minutes;  4:54, palmiers out, plate, raise oven temperature to 500; gorgonzola sauce on low heat; stir. 5:00, guests arrive. You get the picture.

And eureka, it worked! Still, as might be expected, there were a few bumps. I almost spilled the (very hot) sheet pan that contained the oysters (in their shells on a bed of rock salt) when I took it out of the oven, raised the rack, and put the oysters under the broiler. Can you imagine the mess on the kitchen floor? Hot oysters, hot rock salt, a hot pan? Fortunately, I saved it just in time. I only forgot to release the timer once and had to guess at the timing, so crucial to successful medium rare beef. It came out a hair early and was a little on the rare side, but no matter. And when I heated the now cranky gorgonzola sauce, it separated. I had to whisk it like mad to get it back together. But the candles got lit, the champagne and wine got opened, the meal was served and my guests said everything was delicious. I was very pleased.

Oh, and the guests? They melded very well,  even voluntarily mixing it up at the table so they got to talk to people they hadn't met before. I pronounced the dinner a big success. But never again. It's too much work. And I'm not as spry - or as daring - as I used to be.

I'm having the leftover tenderloin in a sandwich for dinner tonight, just spread with cold gorgonzola sauce. I'm not risking put that venomous stuff back on the stove again!

Stay tuned.

THE DAY BEFORE CHIRSTMAS DINNER

Now, with seven of us for dinner, I had to think seriously about how to manage cooking seven multiple dishes in one oven all at the same time, and at different temperatures. As it turns out, that's patently impossible. I should have planned the menu more carefully. (I'm sure Ina Garten, from whom several of the recipes came, has more than one oven. After all, she's in the business. But I'm in an apartment building where most of the youngish residents eat pizza and carry-out so no extra oven space, nor for that matter much counter space, for an adventurous, Christmas-celebrating cook.) I had to go to my meal-time drawing board and use my managerial skills to figure this out.

I realized I could make the dessert - a chocolate ganache cake - the day before. Or at least I could make the cake the day before. The cherry preserves I intended to add to the top (my own little twist) and the chocolate ganache and chopped hazel nuts (also my own twist) for the top, would have to be made on Christmas day. Call it my Black Forest Chocolate Ganache Dessert. I made the cake part, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Fine. Done. Easy.

Now for the gorgonzola sauce for the tenderloin. The recipe called for boiling - yes, boiling (I should have known better, and so should Ina) - four pints of heavy cream over medium high heat for 40 minutes. I poured the cream into a saucepan, turned on the burner and turned my attention to setting the table. Remember, it's still the day before Christmas. When I pulled open the drawer to my buffet to get out the napkins, I noticed that the cream was boiling over on the stove. As a matter of fact, it had almost all boiled over. The heated cream was all over the surface of my glass top burners and the pan was sizzling at the bottom with burned cream. What a mess! Cleaning up spilled cream on a hot surface is not a lot of fun. So I used a roll of paper towels to sop up the mess, leaving the burned-on parts in a ring on the burner, turned off the stove and put the pot in the sink. But I had ruined all the cream; I had to get more. But the neighborhood 7-Eleven-kind-of-store, the only thing nearby, didn't carry heavy cream. Half and half only. That didn't constitute an acceptable substitute. So, off to Eddie's, yet again, for four more pints of cream. By the time I got home, the stove was cool, so I set about cleaning up the glass top with the special cleaner, in a chore I've always hated. The burned on parts were a bitch to get off. But after several dish towels were ruined, I once again had a clean stove. Now to go about boiling down the new cream. I put it carefully in a new saucepan and turned the heat to medium low, in contrast to Ina's instructions. Watch that stuff like the mongoose watching the cobra. But I turned away for only a moment and the cream boiled over again. Oh shit! More clean-up. More delay. Time does march on, despite my problems. I did manage to salvage the remaining cream long enough to boil it down, over very low heat, to a white sauce consistency, where it was supposed to go, and added the gorgonzola - well, it was actually Roquefort, but close enough - and parmesan, whisking like mad, off the heat, to get the cheese to melt and integrate. Once that was done, I let the gorgonzola mixture cool, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it in the refrigerator, knowing the cheese would solidify in the cold, but believing I could reconstitute it with a little heat just before Christmas dinner. Whew! What an ordeal for just a little sauce.

Then I dared to also bake the potatoes the day before. They were baby Yukon Gold ones, sliced very thinly - about 1/8 inch slices - but not all the way through. So they bake as a whole, and fan out prettily when done. A little olive oil, some salt and pepper and fresh rosemary (which I had to go to two different stores to procure). This procedure went well enough - I sliced completely through only one potato - and the potatoes were done, as predicted. Now where to keep them until tomorrow? Would they darken in the refrigerator? I finally decided not to cover them and just shoved them into my microwave. At least they were out of the way.

Let's see. What else? Well, the rest of the menu consisted of Oysters Rockefeller, baked cherry tomatoes and a whole tenderloin of beef, all of which could wait until tomorrow. The day was practically over. I sighed, and took a short nap, and realized that in all my frenzy to prepare for Christmas dinner, I hadn't thought about the night before Christmas dinner. I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And went to bed.

Stay tuned

OH, AND ONE MORE THING

Just so you know (and if you've been following all this): the now-wedded gay coupled to whom I sent (now over two months ago) the (rather expensive) Tiffany (definitely not Crate and Barrel) champagne goblets to celebrate their marriage, still has not acknowledged my gift nor thanked me for it. I got a Christmas card from them, filled with happy photographs of their wedding, including one of the two of them toasting with my gift, with the Tiffany white ribbons attached, but no thanks. Frankly, I don't get it. All that grandeur but no appreciation? Did they thank the other guests who sent them gifts? Or was I the only guest who sent them one? Out of 300 invited? I don't think so. Or do they still plan to thank me the next time we meet? Which is very infrequently, maybe twice a year.

Emily Post would not be happy.

Stay tuned.

A POSTSCRIPT TO THE POSTSCRIPT TO EMILY POST

The young couple who said they'd come for Christmas dinner if they were in town did email me by my deadline of last Sunday and said they unfortunately still didn't know if they'd be here. Some complications in their lives and the weather made being here uncertain. They apologized profusely. I emailed back to say that this was okay, that I would probably serve the same thing whether there were six of us or only four, so if they were here, please come. Five o'clock.

However (and are you ready for this?), on the Monday before Christmas, a good friend whom I'd invited and who'd said he was going to be with his family for Christmas, and then said he wasn't but that he'd committed to another friend for dinner, called to say that he and his friend, and a friend of hers, would really like to come for dinner if the invitation was still open. My table seats six comfortably but I can stretch it to seven (even though I only have six of the champagne glasses I wanted to use),  but I decided it was better to have a certain number than an uncertainty. So I told him to please come and bring his friend, and her friend. Well, he wasn't certain if the friend of the friend would come - he didn't have a definite on that yet - but he and the friend would definitely be here. Was I sure I didn't mind? No. Not at all. They'd all be welcome. Yes. Please come. Well what about the uncertain couple? How would I handle that? So, in my best Emily Post fashion, I emailed the young couple to say that a back-up couple I had previously invited suddenly said they could make it for dinner, which made my table full. If the young couple were in town, please come for drinks with us. At five. Nothing more from them. And I admit to feeling somewhat guilty but I had taken them to The Prime Rib for dinner so it wasn't as if they could think I was being totally rude.

The day before Christmas, I received an email from my friend saying that the friend of his friend would also come. So there would be seven. Okay. I can make that work. And my friend, and his friend, and her friend, didn't know the trio who were my initial, confirmed guests, so that might make the evening more interesting. You never know about inviting people who don't know each other. But I usually risk it, thinking that if some guests don't know other guests, it puts everyone on their best behavior. And as it turned out, it did.

Stay tuned.

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION

A famous architect, perhaps Mies, once said that "form follows function." I presume he meant that the shell that contains the essence should reflect that essence. I wonder how he'd feel about the Walt Disney Hall or the Guggenheim Bilbao. I think he'd say that while they may be fine inside and unusual outside, even beautiful, one does not reflect the other. How can you understand a music hall or museum from all that curving metal?

I have some (now former) friends, one of whom became upset about something I said about her in my book, accusing me of needing - note "need," her word, not mine - to reveal what she considered a secret. I honestly had forgotten she considered it a secret - it was almost fifty years ago - or never knew. Still, I apologized profusely, several times. She could have come directly to me and we might have hashed it out, as long-time friends do, but she chose, instead, to never speak to me again and to broadcast her displeasure, thus infecting others. Now a whole segment of my old social life has calved away, and I mourn the loss, even after more than eighteen months. In the course of my normal activities, I infrequently run into one of them - we traveled in a very incestuous circle - and they invariably turn away, in order to avoid me. It seems they've become so invested in the function of displeasure that they've forgotten the essence of friendship, those qualities that drew us to each other in the first place and held us together for so many years. Oh, they will say I've changed, that I'm no longer "fun" to be with, that I depress them. And I admit to having had a bad year, with several surgeries, and the episode about my book. But since the essence of friendship is support, I would ask of those who shun me now what they have done to help me be more cheerful.

I like Pope Francis. He's eschewed many of the forms of Christianity and seems to be focused on its essence. For me, that essence - indeed the essence of any form of worship - is love, and forgiveness. I wonder why my (former) friends can't follow his example..

Stay tuned.

 

BAH! HUMBUG!

I read in The New York Times one day this past week that the Facebook game, Candy Crush Saga is played 900,000 times a day. I'm not surprised. Several of my friends got me hooked on it some weeks ago and I've been playing it ever since. Even though I've been stuck twice for more than ten days each time - and I'm stuck now on level 30, way below most of my fellow players - I keep playing, even though it's a silly game, a complete waste of time and highly addictive. There's really very little skill involved and I've played game after game without advancing to the next level. Of course, I can ask my friends for help, which I do, and they give it. Or I can buy extra moves to help me along, something I swear I'll never do. Candy Crush won't reveal how much income they derive from this silly, and highly addictive game but I'm sure it's a hefty sum.

I've also become addicted to Words with Friends, another Facebook game that's really scrabble. At least there's a little skill involved here, but when the game starts accepting words like "wot" and "Qi" and some other ridiculously long word I can't even remember, I became so incensed that I swore I'd never play that game again either. And, to make matters worse, after each move, a commercial comes on that one is forced to watch - if only for a second or two - that freezes the screen so you can't move on until the commercial has surgically planted its message in your brain.

And while I'm at it, I wonder why I am a member of Facebook at all. It may be just my particular friends, but the messages I see are by and large so mundane as to be exhausting. One of my friends in in an airport, another is at a restaurant, a third is complaining about his health, and there are any number of friends who promote their charity or their philosophy or pass on political appeals or stupid videos. What's it all about? It's about nothing. That's what it's about. Nothing!

I wonder who's on Words with Friends? Or if I can find a way to use my "x" on Scrabble.

Stay tuned.

 

A POSTSCRIPT TO EMILY POST

You'll remember my lament about my Christmas dinner, how I invited a couple who didn't respond, and an exchange of emails where I essentially dis-invited them? And the other couple who said they might be here in town and if they were, they'd definitely come? And how I didn't know where to go from there, whether to make more calls to more people, and if everybody came, to convert my dinner from a sit-down to a buffet? Well, there's more.

My back-up couple - the ones I decided to invite when I dis-invited the first couple - couldn't come; they had elaborate plans that included trips to their children in far-flung places in the world. And a back-up couple to the back-up couple (are you confused yet?) couldn't come either. They always went to their children's and grandchildren's for Christmas. So I was back to square one. Swallowing my pride, and my embarrassment, I called the first couple back, apologizing profusely, and told them, as graciously as I could, that if they weren't going to their niece's, I'd love to have them here for Christmas dinner. The wife said she wasn't the least bit offended - I think she meant it - and that she still hadn't heard from the niece. But she'd call the niece right away and call me back. The call-back came in less than ten minutes. Yes, the niece was having Christmas dinner, so the couple wasn't available. But thank you so much for the invitation, and we must get together soon. I hope they'll speak to me again.

Then I emailed the couple that said they would definitely come if they didn't go out of town. They responded by saying they still didn't know but would definitely be here if they didn't go away. I asked them to let me know, please, please, by the Sunday before Christmas because I would do the shopping on Monday and begin preparations for dinner on Tuesday. I still don't know. But it doesn't matter so long as they meet my requested deadline. A third fewer people (or to put it another way, fifty percent more) will make a big difference in what I buy. I like them. They'd be an addition to my table. And I hope they'll make it.

And the couple who didn't respond to my invitation for brunch? They called to say they were horrified that I didn't seem to have received their phone message saying they couldn't come because of the weather. (Some mutual friend must have told them I hadn't heard from them.) Our modern communications devices being programed as they are, I didn't find any call from them on my "recent calls" list, so I can only presume they called the wrong number. No matter. Their hearts were in the right place. Our current plethora of information just broke down in there somewhere.

And as for the gay couple who didn't acknowledge my wedding gift? Still  nothing from them. If the gay community (of which I'm a part) wants  acceptance from (and with) the straight community in the matter of their (our) weddings, then we should comply with the accepted etiquette as well. Were she still around, I think Miss Emily Post would agree.

Stay tuned.

DESPARATELY SEEKING EMILY POST

Where's Emily Post when we need her? The past doyenne of manners, properly published as she once was, might make at least a small dent in the rampant rudeness now seemingly alive and well in our midst. Nobody takes an RSVP seriously any more, instead waiting to decide whether or not to attend until the last minute and maybe showing up, even at a catered event, without saying they're coming. Emily Post would never approve.

Some months ago, I was invited to what I can only describe as a grand gay wedding - a huge church, 350 guests, tented additions to a Georgian house, black tie - it could hardly have been more splendid. Oh, I know. They were joyful at their union and wanted to share their celebration with their families and friends. And maybe some acquaintances, like me. I don't begrudge them that. They should have what they wanted, a special occasion, to remember all their lives. In keeping with the festivities as well as the formalities of the engraved invitation, I immediately ordered crystal champagne goblets from Tiffany's, my standard wedding gift, and had them sent to the couple's home. When I lamented, aloud to a friend, that I hadn't received an acknowledgement, which Emily would have insisted go out immediately upon receipt of the gift - if only to say it had arrived safely, if not to express appreciation - I was told the wedding was so big, with so many issues, that the couple was busy with their plans, and far too occupied with  those important details to send out written notes. Maybe so. But it's now been two weeks since the wedding and still no acknowledgement or thanks. Oh. I guess I should say that at the last minute a nasty and persistently cranky colon prevented me from attending the wedding where I didn't want to embarrass them, or myself, by having an accident and having to leave abruptly. I asked their best friend, with whom I was scheduled to attend, to let them know. Perhaps I should have called them. But at the last minute, just an hour or so before their wedding? I don't think so. I later heard from their friend that they toasted themselves and their guests with the goblets I sent them, complete with the traditional white ribbon Tiffany uses to tie up their traditional blue box. So I do know they were received. Perhaps they would have thanked me for them in person. But no matter. For such a formal occasion, Emily Post would have insisted that a formal acknowledgment of the gift was absolutely necessary. I suppose they may  be waiting to say thank you as a note in their Christmas card, or to mention my gift the next time they see me. Emily Post would not approve. Such a formal occasion requires a formal note.

In similar fashion, I sent several weeks ago an email to a couple, inviting them to join me here at home for Christmas dinner.  (To be fair, I suppose Emily Post would not have approved of the invitation going out by email, but then we didn't have email in her day.) Having no response, and wanting to fill the limited seating at my table, I wrote another email to the wife saying that since I hadn't heard from them, I could only think they were away on some exotic trip they've been known to take and that I was sorry they couldn't come. We'd do it another time, soon. She immediately emailed back, saying she was waiting to hear from her niece who traditionally invited them for Christmas but hadn't yet responded to her prompting about the day. And so she couldn't tell me whether they could come or not. Emily wouldn't have liked this either. First, the niece should make her plans early enough not to keep my couple hanging. And second, the wife could have explained to me that she was waiting for the niece before accepting or declining. That would taken me off hold and encouraged my sympathy at the situation. And I could have said I'd wait for the niece's decision. But not wanting to wait until the last minute to fill my table - another faux pas in Emily's book - I emailed the wife back to say I was sorry they couldn't be here and reiterated my nebulous future invitation for a later, rain-check date. I suppose the couple will never speak to me again, thinking me rude for assuming they couldn't come. And perhaps Emily could have given me advice on how I might have better handled the situation.

Then, another couple said they didn't expect to be going for Christmas to their families, both of which live some distance away, so I invited them for Christmas dinner. They responded that if they definitely decided not to go, they'd definitely come. Again, that put me on hold. So I emailed them back to say they should let me know soon because I wanted to fill my table before the last minute. I didn't want to be rude to any other invitees. But the couple has not responded and I'm still on hold. Should I treat them the same way, saying I'm sorry they can't make it? Or should I invite another couple to fill my table and if the first couple decides to come, convert the dinner, planned for my table, to buffet?  Emily would say that people should make up their minds and respond within a few days of receipt of an invitation. Or advise the host why they can't commit.

It goes on. Yesterday, I gave a brunch, planned for 12. I invited my guests by phone, and had a verbal commitment from each. One couple couldn't come because of recent surgery. Another couple, also with recent surgery, said they would definitely be here. And then it snowed. Emily would say it was okay to cancel under such emergency circumstances but that this cancellation required a phone call to the host. And two of my invited couples did just that. Two other couples called to be sure the brunch was still on and to say they would be here, if a little late. But the second couple with surgery, didn't call to cancel and never showed up. Anticipating their arrival and understanding that they might be a little late because of the weather, I held the timing of the brunch, but they never arrived. I finally put the meal in the oven, over three quarters of an hour later than planned, which was somewhat rude to my guests. And I've still not heard from the absent couple.

I don't know what it is about our current society that contributes to this rudeness. After all, we share almost everything on the Internet, on Facebook and Twitter. Why can't we share being polite? Have we forgotten our manners? Where is Emily Post when we (desperately) need her?

Stay tuned.




 

LESS IS LESS

There's a new add for Burger King on TV in which the narrator talks about the new patty as having "less calories." And watching Dee Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) on the food channel this morning, I heard her say something about having "less things to do." And on the radio, I often hear people refer to "less taxes." Wow! All of these are wrong, people. WRONG! "Less" is used for singular objects. For plural objects, the correct word is "fewer." Burger Kind has "fewer" calories, Dee Drummond has "fewer" things to do and wouldn't it be nice if we had "fewer" taxes?

I forgive Dee Drummond, partly because she's talking off the cuff (unscripted) and as a pioneer woman, I suppose she has some leeway in her use of grammar. And she has a foolproof recipe for pie crust, made with vinegar, like my grandmother's recipe. So she gets a pass. But a tax spot on FM or Burger King on TV? You know someone in an ad agency scripted  both messages. How that message was phrased had to have gone through a whole vetting process including a review by the ultimate client. And when the message was recorded, it was spoken by a real live person with real live people listening in. How did "less calories" get by all of them?

Well, maybe it didn't. Perhaps the hucksters of the world are beginning to use the word "less," even though they know it to be incorrect because it has a more immediate connotation of fewer than "fewer." I hope not. I wouldn't want "less" to creep into our lexicon and suddenly be accepted like "looking to" has displaced a perfectly good "wants to" or "searching for." "George is looking to become a lawyer." Fah! And we have less things to do? What a shame. "Less" is no longer more. It's definitely less.

Stay tuned.

 

A RAP ON THE KNUCKLES?

In the new movie, "Philomena," now at The Charles, Judi Dench plays a retired Irish nurse who, as an unwed teenager and shunned by her family, was forced by the nuns who took care of her through her pregnancy and delivery to give up her newly borne son for adoption by an American couple. She's thought of him every day since and now in her elder years decides, at the urging of a British journalist, to go to America to find him. The bathos this entails is lightened by her amazement at an American we take for granted - giant helpings of food, liquor in a refrigerator in a hotel room. Her journey takes her on a winding path toward the truth, which Ms. Dench can  so vividly impart with only her eyes, in a face furrowed with wrinkles, like a plowed field. The journalist, played by Steve Coogan, is seeking his own place in the world but is there mostly as a foil for Philomena who nudges him when he falters. He's good enough, but the movie is all hers, like most in which she appears. The movie has gotten some flack by supporters of the Catholic Church because it paints a pretty dire picture of the nuns. They claim the records pertaining to the adoption were burned in a huge fire, but are nonetheless able to produce a document Philomena signed giving up her rights. In the end, the movie's all about courage and perseverance and forgiveness, and love. Not a bad combination, especially in this holiday season. Go see it.

Stay tuned.

A BIRD IN THE HAND

Unlike some of my friends who write comments in books (and underline words new to them, to look up later, to valiantly add to their vocabulary), I think of books as sacred and would never scribble in them. But I couldn't help marking this passage in my copy of Donna Tartt's new novel, THE GOLDFINCH. She's describing the human condition in very pessimistic terms. "Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn't he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the  playground with no idea what future Hells await them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent. People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbors and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organizations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and traveled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and  texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were." 

Whew! Not a very happy point of view. But certainly descriptive, like all of her new book.

I've just finished THE GOLDFINCH and it's certainly a tour de force through Ms. Tartt's extensive capacity to spin a yarn, woven with such dense thread that it requires careful and very slow reading to appreciate the colors of the language. I've read her previous two books, THE SECRET HISTORY and THE LITTLE FRIEND, each of which, like THE GOLDFINCH, took ten years to write. I'm not surprised. She can't seem to let anything go unnoticed; every situation, every conversation, every character is so elaborately described that, like a good movie, you feel as though you're there. This is very nearly exhausting, like a marathon, or to mix my metaphors, rich like chocolate mousse, and I had to put the book down from time to time - it's also a heavy book at almost 800 pages - to catch my breath and cleanse my palate.

As everyone who's read a review of this new book now knows, her protagonist is Theo Decker who loses his mother in a terrorist explosion at the Met. He pulls himself out of the wreckage around him and with the urging of a dying man, takes the painting of The Goldfinch with him as he escapes from the museum. He becomes obsessed with the painting, which seems to be a stand-in for his lost mother, about whom he feels a certain guilt for not having saved her life, and for whom he mourns throughout the book. His adventures take him to the stilted, emotionally icy home of a friend on Park Avenue and then to Las Vegas for a reunion with his long-lost and formerly alcoholic father, where he meets Boris, a character straight out of Holden Caufield or John Le Carre.

The twists and turns of the plot come close to being contrived,. Skirting along the edge of believable but never falling off, Ms. Tartt makes them all work, in a 800 pages that are part Dickens, part Saroyan, and even part Tom Wolfe, which makes for quite an unusual combination. In the end, she waxes philosophic and tries to tell us that sometimes good can rise spontaneously out of bad - she doesn't call it evil - but even though I'd like to believe her truth, it lies just beyond my grasp, somewhere in the fog, just beyond my headlights. Still, in my view, like the painting of its title, the book's a masterpiece. Read it.

COMMUNICATIONS

I got my first cell phone in the early nineties, when I was working in New York. I traveled back and forth on weekends to my home in Baltimore and moved around in Manhattan between my office in Soho and our showroom on 59th Street. The staff wanted to be able to consult with me wherever I was - a crisis could arise at any time - and so our IT man insisted I have a cell phone. It was one of the first flip-ups, a Motorola, as I remember, with a somewhat fragile areal that had to be pulled up from the body of the phone. I didn't really use it much but it was in the early days of mobile phones, before we became dependent on instant communication. I was often irritated when I saw patrons in a restaurant in New York, talking on their phone instead of talking to the person sitting across the table, who may have been on his phone as well. And it was especially irritating when on the train I would hear people talking loudly on their phones and saying the most mundane things. "I'm on the train, now." Or, "We're just passing Philadelphia." Or, "I'm just getting out of the train in Baltimore." I wondered how important that information really was. Thank God for the quiet car.

Like so many of us, I've succumbed to the lure of Facebook. And as in the early days of phones, I wonder now how important the information posted there can be. Do I really want to know where someone is - at the car wash, waiting in the airport, having dinner at such and such a place - or hear some shared inane comment on the human condition, or see a copy of what someone else has said on some other media network, all punctuated by the proliferating commercialization of business posts, or games like Candy Crush or Word With Friends? No. Not really. But it is addictive. I've posted some inanities. I read the stuff. And I play the games. And I'm ashamed of myself. How much better to write a letter (or now an email) or call someone up (on my ever-present cell phone) and have a real conversation? Oh for the good old days.

I know. I'm an old fogy. I admit it. But I'm inclined to think that this era of burgeoning communication is not communication at all but merely noise, and that we are not growing closer together but just further apart. How sad.

Stay tuned.

HEARTFELT

For a very long time - ten years, fifteen? -  I was very close to a dear friend who decided, for reasons not entirely clear to me, to end our friendship. I apologized for anything I might have done to upset her and offered both to talk about it, and/or to take her to dinner with the promise that I wouldn't talk about it. Whatever she wanted. But she was unresponsive. After several months, and many tries to right the situation, I could only give up. The ship of friendship sank, even though I think of her, sadly, every day..

I used to travel more than I do now. Age has taken its toll and traveling is not as easy as it used to be. Further, I'm very fortunate to have been to most of the places in the world I wanted to see (and photograph) - Egypt, Bangkok, Australia, Angkor Watt, Machu Picchu, Rio, Capri, India, and many more - so my burning desire to go, go, go has flagged, and 2013 is the first year I have not been to some exotic place in the world. On each of my trips, as well as on holidays, like Christmas, and on each of her birthdays, I searched to find a heart I could give to my friend, as a symbol of our long friendship. It might be a paper weight, or a little ceramic box, nothing too expensive (although always good), just a token and reminder of how I felt about her. She must have at least a dozen. I never knew what she did with them. It didn't matter. The gift is always for the giver. Still, even after she ended our friendship, I would see hearts on my travels that I thought she might like, but didn't purchase them. What would be the point?

Today, in getting out my meager decorations for Christmas - meager is just the way I like it; the season, which I find increasingly uncomfortable, can this way come and go in a flash - I opened the box that contains a few grand ornaments for a tree, special ones that I've collected, or that friends have given me. Among them has always been a huge glass heart, six inches or so long, resplendent in brilliant red, that I've invariably placed somewhere in my home during this season and carefully wrapped in cushioning tissue paper for the next year. But this morning, and despite my efforts at preservation, I found a huge piece of the heart mysteriously broken off, as though the left atria had wanted to separate from the rest. I couldn't help but think of my former friend and of our ancient friendship, now also broken. There seemed  no reason to keep the broken heart. I tossed it into the trash.

Stay tuned.