An Anniversary Poem

If memory serves, and my calculations are correct, today is Cathy and Jason’s 5^th wedding anniversary.  I thought about doing a five for five, but I’ve already done that for someone else, and I don’t want to feel like I’m copying myself.  So, I regressed to my first day of ninth grade and devised a name poem in honor of this momentous occasion.  Hopefully, the words have meaning to them (I’ve supplied explanations below for the rest of us saps).

C – Cookies
A – Anachronistic
T – Troubadour
H – Honeymoon Suite
Y – Yummy Food

A – Adamant
N – Napa
D – Data Mining

J – Jamestown
A – Affinity
S – Sugar Mouse
O – Olive Garden
N – North Carolina 

Cookies: Cathy has always been a great baker.  She made cookies for us at least once a week.  I knew this match was perfect when she came home (all dreamy-eyed) from the first time Jason made dinner for her and announced that he had his very own cookie recipe.
Anachronistic: Their wedding was medieval themed.  The entire wedding party (except the priest) was in medieval garb.  To further crash the eras together, Jason and his groomsmen performed a parody of Wild Cherry’s “Play that Funky Music (White Boy)” – it became “Play that Funky Music (Knight Boy)”
Troubadour: Because this was a medieval wedding, they hired a troubadour to entertain us during the reception.
Honeymoon Suite: The hotel lost their room reservation for the first night of their married life.  I still can picture the scene of Cathy in her wedding gown on the phone in the lobby with the reservation office trying to track a room down.  In the end, they got a totally appropriate room and lots of champagne.
Yummy Food – Excellent reception food, complete with make your own pasta bar.
Adamant: Cathy’s ring is set with a polished emerald.
Napa:  Jason proposed at a spa in Napa.  The funny side to this sweet story is that he managed to trick Cathy about where they were actually going.  What makes this even FUNNIER is that this is the second time he managed to do this…to the same spa.
Data Mining: This is my favorite sweet story.  Jason designed and made Cathy’s wedding ring.  Cathy is a musician (he is not); her ring is two eighth notes encircling her finger.  The two note bodies overlap, which is where the stone is set.  He attended a jewelry-making course one night a week for a semester and told her he was taking a course in “Data Mining.”
Jamestown: The town where their wedding was held
Affinity: Do I need to explain this? So, no explanation, but my wish that they have many more happy years together. 
Sugar Mouse: My second favorite sweet story.  Cathy’s favorite childhood book was called The Sugar Mouse.  It’s this wonderful story about friends going to extremes to help each other succeed.  It is out of print.  Her mom stalked eBay until she won a copy.  The wedding cake designer copied the cake from the book (complete with sugar mice) for their cake.  It was amazing!
Olive Garden: This was where the rehearsal dinner was held.
North Carolina: The state where they were married.

 And oh, all right, one for the road.  The night before the wedding, Cathy and I (as Maiden of the Moat) were sharing a hotel room.  I was having a hard time sleeping (as I often do in hotels).  I also was trying VERY hard to not wake up the bride.  At some point during the night I got up during the night to use the restroom.  While trying to find my way back to bed in the dark, I tripped over my suitcase.  I then tried to climb into bed from the foot (to avoid tripping over anything else) and misjudged where the edge was causing me to fall unceremoniously to the floor with a loud “thunk”, hitting the night stand on the way down.  Cathy swears that she slept through the entire thing.

Today is also Cathy’s birthday.  While she thinks she’s turning an unlucky number, I think it’s cool because the second number is a power of the first number.  PLUS she can divide the first digit of her age not only into the year of her birth but also into both digits of the year.  Happy day!

The Easter Train

This beautiful spring weekend was spent with the lovely CLOeey and her hubby Jason.  It was a fabulous time of visiting, cat torture, Cooking with Chong: Indian style, wine, movies, and lovely doughnut muffins (yes, Yoli, the same recipe YOU made).  With the beautiful weather, CLO and I even took a three mile stroll around the lake while Jason indulged his perrophilia (though, technically, I suspect the term should be “canidophilia”).  In any case, it was a wonderfully sunny day, as the v-neck outline complete with fish-pendant shaped void on my chest proves.  Someday, I will actually remember that I am of pale complexion and sunscreen should always be liberally worn. 

I opted to skip the hassles of a holiday weekend drive and took the train.  This worked out pretty good – the train ride was 2.5 hours, and I really couldn’t have gotten better time driving, particularly if I hit traffic.  Plus, I could relax and work on some crochet projects or read.  The only minor hiccup was on the return trip.  I accidentally got on the wrong train (a fact I realized two seconds after the doors closed), which meant I got a bonus trip to San Jose, where I hung around for an hour and then reboarded the same train to go the correct direction to get home.  I got home a couple hours later than I intended, but since I wasn’t in too much of a rush, I wasn’t horribly annoyed by this.  I felt like a complete and utter idiot, though, and the nicer the conductors were about it, the dorkier I felt.  Ah well.  Lesson learned.

Thanksgiving Leftovers, 2006: The Dinner

The table looked amazing.  It was practically groaning under all of the dishes.  Steam curled out the dishes.  We sat down with anticipation and began to pass dishes.  Without preamble, we tucked in.

Cathy and Jason are too polite to say, but amongst the hosts we’re pretty much in agreement.  Here’s what was great: Cathy’s salad (spinach with apples, celery, and bleu cheese, topped with a light vinaigrette), her quick breads (a molasses and an amazing orange cornbread), the stuffing, squash, potatoes, and asparagus.  My eggplant, after being made on Tuesday, transported one hundred miles and reheated two days letter, were the consistency of shoe leather.  My mom and Margaret both regretfully agreed that the turkey was “the worst I ever made” and “just not very good.” 

In any case, there was certainly more than enough food, and we all pushed back from the table, satiated.  “How are we going to wash all these dishes?” Margaret asked.  We looked at each other.  The plumbing to the kitchen sink was still in pieces; all that was catching the water coming out of the drain was a bucket.

“We could take them out to the garden and hose them off in the bathtub,” my mom suggested.

I looked at her.  “You have a bathtub in the garden?”

“Gopher problem.”

“We could scrape them into the trash and use the sink in your room.”  My mom’s “room” – read office – was formerly an artist’s studio (I counted over twenty windows in it one day), and as such was equipped with a slop sink.

We put this plan in action.  Within five minutes, we realized that we had made a horrible mistake.  By the third plate, the sink began to back up.  “It’s on the same plumbing line!” Evan exclaimed. 

Well, that tore it.  We piled all the dishes into the sink and moved into the living room.

Cathy and Jason brought Cranium, and we settled into play, splitting into two teams.  I’d never played the game, but I rather liked the charades/Pictionary/Trivial Pursuit combo.  We settled in for the evening with some port and pie (on paper plates!).

Roto-rooter was called the next day.  He snaked the drain for 1/2 an hour and could not get it clear.  “You have a broken pipe somewhere,” was the diagnosis.  It took a week to get the pipe pulled, matched, and replaced (and involved ripping the side of the house off).

I’m sure my mom would disagree, since I didn’t have to deal with all the headaches that followed, but I will always remember that evening as one of the best Thanksgivings.  I look upon all the “catastrophic” disasters as proof that, despite everything, the food takes a back seat to the company.

Thanksgiving Leftovers, 2006: The Preparation

I thought I would spend the next week sharing my memories of some Thanksgiving pasts.  There is a purpose to this, one that is hopefully therapeutic for me.  This will be the second Thanksgiving in a row that I’m facing after having lost someone important in my life in the previous year.  So I look back in an effort to move forward.  This first post turned into a monster, so I decided to split it in half.  I present, here, part I.  It is a series of events that feel germane to a badly written sitcom, but I swear they’re true.

Last year was my first holiday season after Mark left me.  We always celebrated our ”anniversary” on November 21st which, of course, meant that it often fell around Thanksgiving.  Realizing that I would likely be feeling depressed and lonely, I actively arranged someplace to be for the day of thanks.  This involved a certain amount of somersaulting because my original plan involved spending it with my mom.  I love my mother dearly, but it can be very difficult to “make plans” with her.  Her household tends to operate on a certain amount of spur of the moment mentality.  I, however, am a planner, and particularly last year, wanted to know, for sure, that I would not be alone that Thursday.  So, I called on my friend and former roommate Cathy.  If my mom was unavailable, I would spend the day with her husband, Jason,  and her.  As it turned out, my mom decided to host the dinner and Cathy and Jason would join us.

My company gives away turkeys to all employees for Thanksgiving.  Or rather, they give certificates that can be exchanged for a turkey.  We stopped being able to buy frozen turkeys directly from a grocery store because they couldn’t accommodate such a large order so close to Thanksgiving.  I was not sad about this – by the time 50 frozen turkeys had spent the day defrosting on our operations department carpet, the entire office smelled like a butcher’s counter.  And, inevitably, someone always forgot to pick up their bird, which involved trying to find space in the company fridge for it.  The exception was the last year we did actual birds – people took more than one and so we ended up short.  That was the last straw and we moved over to certificates the next year. Since I’m a vegetarian, I often don’t take mine, but this year I sent my certificate to my mom.  If I was “forcing” her to host, I might as well help provide the main course.

The three households planned the menu via email.  My mom, who’s not quite a technology virgin, was delighted with the ease of the process.  A couple emails in which we cc’d everyone, and the menu was set and we all knew what we were responsible for.  I was responsible for the veggie main course; Cathy and Jason were bringing a salad and some baked goodies (she is an amazing baker).  I also suggested that they bring some wine as they’re more wine literate than I am, and the last time I looked at the wine rack at my mom’s there was something growing on it.  My mom would provide the rest.

I drove over Wednesday evening with my quinoa stuffed eggplant and found the prep work well under way.  When I expressed my amazement (the stock was done, the bird was brining, the pumpkin pies were finished), my mom replied, “I’m retired now! I didn’t have to work today.”  Of course.

Thanksgiving arrived.  I wandered out to the kitchen to find mounds of celery and onion waiting to be added to the stuffing and the bird wide open ready to be, well, stuffed.  “Did I tell you about the turkey?” my mom asked as I poured a cup of coffee and snagged a chestnut out of the bowl. 

I eyed the bird and took a small sip of coffee.  My heart began to race instantly – my mom is quite fond of strong coffee.  “What about the turkey?”

“Well I went to Safeway, and they didn’t have the brand that the certificate was for.”

Oh god, I thought.  Please tell me she didn’t buy a turkey.  “OK, but the store’s supposed to let you swap out for a different brand if they don’t carry it.”

She began emptying stuffing mixture into two bowls.  “Right.  So I went to Linardi’s and they didn’t have it either.  So I looked through the fresh turkeys and found one for 17.99 pounds and convinced the checker to accept the certificate for it.  After all, it was under 18 pounds.”

I stared at her.  “But, the certificate was only good for frozen turkeys.”

“It doesn’t say anywhere on that piece of paper that it is only good for a frozen turkey.  It says it’s only good for a turkey up to 18 pounds.”  She dropped two sticks of margarine into a pan of turkey stock.

“Wow.”  I snagged another chestnut, amazed yet again at how well my mom is able to negotiate bulldoze wheedle the unsuspecting public.  “Linardi’s is going to be pissed when they only get reimbursed for the cost of a frozen bird.”

She handed me a bowl.  “That’s not my problem.  Here’s some vegetable stock; start mixing your stuffing.”

I must pause here to wax rapturous over my mother’s stuffing.  It is this fabulous mixture of sweet and savory, crunchy and chewy.  It has the basic celery and onion, but she also throws in roasted chestnuts, sauteed mushrooms, and dried cranberries.  Then she douses it with sage, oregano, and thyme.  I can eat the stuff by the plateful!  It is always the first leftover to disappear.

Since becoming a vegetarian 13 years ago, I have spent only a few Thanksgivings with my mom (this has less to do with my eating habits and more to do with our schedules).  She always buys extra stuffing mix and has a veggie stuffing made.  Last year I made it, imitating her to the best of my ability, as she stuffed the bird.  By 10, it was in the oven, which was doing its best to smoke us out of the kitchen.  Cathy and Jason were coming sometime between 2 & 4.  Dinner was on course.  We set ourselves to the tasks of the remaining side dishes.

At two o’clock my step-brother, Evan, arrived.  My mom began to diligently check the turkey.  She changed thermometers and checked again  And again with a third.  My step-mother, Margaret, turned to me.  “When are Cathy and Jason arriving?” she asked. 

“Sometime between two and four – probably closer to four,” I replied as my mom dug through the drawers for another thermometer.

“Two and four?” Margaret exclaimed.

I muttered something about that being the time frame I was given.  Evan sat down at the counter.  “You can make clam dip, Mom.  It’s not Thanksgiving without clam dip.”

As Margaret began to gather the ingredients for the bi-valve concoction her entire family loves, my mom pulled The Joy of Cooking out, checked it, pulled the original edition out, consulted it, and visibly began checking her math.  She looked at the clock and shrugged.

“Problem?” I asked.

“Turkey’s cooking slow,” she said.  “But we should still be in our estimated time.”

At some point, I was put in charge of the mashed potatoes.  I should mention at this point that I live in a fairly modern complex.  Read: my plumbing works and is of this century.  Mom and Margaret live in a funky, old ranch house that is pushing the century mark.  It is falling down about their ears a bit, and minor “repairs” tend to lead to substantial remodels.  The kitchen is really awkward in many ways, particularly for multiple people, and for cooking large meals.  As an added bonus, it is often the warmest room in a house that averages 63 degrees, so people are always congregating in it.

So, back to the potatoes.  I grabbed the vegetable peeler, and without question began peeling the potatoes into the sink.  When I finished, I whisked them down the garbage disposal and turned to the next task.

Within 20 minutes, the opposite side of the sink began to back up.  I didn’t think too much of this; I ran the garbage disposal for a few more minutes, assuming it would grind up whatever was causing the back up.  I was wrong.  Not only did it not grind up the clog, it increased the water level on the clogged side.  “Um, guys,” I said.  “We seem to have a bit of a problem.”

Margaret looked over my shoulder.  “What did you do?” she asked.

“I peeled potatoes.”

“Into the sink?!”

“Yes, into the sink.  I do it all the time at home.” 

Evan left the kitchen, returning with a plunger.  “This should clear it.”  He plunged.  He reached into the disposal (and came up empty).  He plunged some more.  “Hmmm,” he muttered and stuck his head under the sink (my mom, due to the incredibly awkward set up of the kitchen has been trapped in the pantry with the oven since I first noticed the clog).  Evan got up and left again (my mom took the opportunity to escape the pantry), returning with his tools and a plumber’s snake.  He undid the trap (also empty) and began to run the snake through the drain.  Several times.  When he tried to put the trap back together two problems emerged.  The first was that the washer snapped; the second was that the pipe into the wall had been cross-threaded, and he could not get it to seal.  Oh, and the sink was still clogged.  Realizing that nothing was going to get fixed that day, he stuck a bucket under the drain.  It was now four.  My mom declared victory on the turkey and pulled it out of the oven.  “Where are your friends?” Evan asked. 

At that point I placed a phone call.    I got her voice-mail, which I took to be a good sign.  “I think they’re on their way,” I announced.  Meanwhile, Mom had four meat thermometers in the turkey and was taking comparative readings.  She sighed.  “I don’t know.  It says it’s done.  It just took really long.”  We began to put everything that needed to be heated into the now empty oven, and quickly ran out of room.  With at least four more side dishes the warm, we were faced with a logistical problem.  Fortunately, there were two other ovens on the property: one in Evan’s apartment, and one in the guest house they rented to a retired math teacher (he was elsewhere).  We decided to divide and conquer.  Within five minutes, all three ovens were filled to capacity.

Margaret pulled a third cookbook out and consulted it.  “Big birds always take a while,” she said sagely.  Mom glared at her.

At that point the doorbell rang.  Saved by the bell.  I threw open the door.  “Hi! Traffic?”

Jason looked taken aback.  Cathy said, “Well, not exactly.” 

“Oh well, you’re here now.  Ignore the voice-mail I left you.  The turkey’s out.”  I didn’t quite drag them into the kitchen.  “They’re here!” I announced.  If you’re reading this and thinking, She’s a might bit twitchy, well, you’d be right.  Extended periods of exposure to the “Mom and Margaret” dynamic cause that reaction in me. In many instances it’s unfair, but such is life.

Introductions were made, Jason was given a tour of the house (and had clam dip forced on him), wine was poured as we waited for the remaining dishes to reheat.  After such an eventful morning, our dinner appeared to be off to a good start.  Dishes began to appear on the table from the various ovens.  The turkey was destuffed and the slicing began. 

“I think we are ready to eat.”

The Countdown Begins

I always look forward to Wednesday’s paper because of the Taste section.  Looking over the recipes and suggestions today, I realized that Thanksgiving is only eight days away.  Before you make some sort of comment about the box I’ve been living in, let me explain my apparent cluelessness about the upcoming day of ingestion (or indigestion).  Thanksgiving, as a vegetarian, as a very odd holiday.  So much of it is centered around a bird that’s stupid enough to drown in rain, a bird that we don’t eat.  The weeks of preparation and anticipation are somewhat lost on us.  Yes, it is a family day.  I have often felt, though, that being a veggie at a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner is a bit of an imposition.  “This is like cooking Kosher!” my mom has, on more than one occasion, exclaimed as she juggles turkey stuffing and veggie-friendly stuffing, and crams whatever vegetarian main course I’ve provided into an already over-crowded oven.

I have hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner, once.  I participated in the days of planning, shopping, chopping.  Since I love cooking, I had a blast, though the fact that my kitchen is minuscule created some planning headaches.  In the end, though, I couldn’t help feeling that my guests were missing their beloved bird.  And before you ask, no, I did NOT serve them Tofurkey.  I braised a bunch of vegetables and served them over sliced portabellos, which allowed me do some some of the traditional sides (twice baked potatoes, yams, broccoli), and of course, the requisite pumpkin pie.  There was definitely more than enough food.  But there was something about the allure of that bird….

So as we enter into the week that heralds the start of the holiday season, and turkeys begin to lose to lose their heads (not that they have much of one to begin with), I send my respect to those who are just now starting the massive job of preparing your meal.  I will be joining friends this year in what will be, I’m sure, a wonderful and anything but traditional Thanksgiving meal, turkey or no turkey.  So, fear not, Mom, the Kosher cooking can wait until next year.  Cheers!

Crapulence, thy name is…well, me, I guess

I ate waaaay too much last night.  I must say, last night’s spread was one of the best we’ve had at a monthly party.  As I surveyed the table, I felt a bit like Harry Potter his first night at Hogwarts.  And as I sit here this morning head-achy and trying to convince my stomach that it wants the coffee I’m drinking to wake my brain up, I still drool slightly at the thought of all of the tasty goodness. 

Our branch has a monthly party every month (except in the summers), and we’ve all agreed that we all love dancing, and we also all love eating.  And many of us are really good cooks.  So, our potluck suppers that follow our evening of dancing are often sights to behold.  The amazing thing is that the potlucks are fairly unorganized.  No one is “assigned” to bring anything - we just bring what we want.  And in general, it works! Yes, we’ve had nights that are “dessert nights”, and once we had a “pasta salad night”, which means that everyone (unintentionally)brought the same thing, but usually we have a fairly decent mix of dishes. 

Last night, we came into the back room to be greeted by a table laden with baked ravioli, a cheesy noodle bake, lemon chicken, carrots (my contribution), and green bean casserole.  I had intended to bring a carrot soup, but I forgot to pick up soup stock (and Trader Joe’s was out of normal carrots anyway – I was going to try using a bag of baby carrots), so the carrots were added to the buffet, and now I have a half pint of heavy cream that I have no idea what to do with.

Let me expand on the green bean casserole.  I have long been a fan of the dish, with its creamy base and crunchy onion topping.  While living with Mark (my ex, I will expand on him in a later post), the dish was forbidden from the house.  He detested green beans, and found the whole idea of them in a mushroom soup base vomitous.  So, for six years I was a closet green bean casserole eater.  The only place that I could get it in those many years were the few occasions we had a holiday dinner at my grandparents (she made it religiously).  And I will admit that one of the first things I did when he left was to buy a frozen package of the stuff and eat it with relish, even though it wasn’t even close to the homemade version.  Last night’s casserole (courtesy of William) was an amazing mixture of the normal beans and mushroom soup with it’s crunchy onion topping.  But in addition it had celery, Swiss cheese, and sliced almonds.  And it made a delicious, gooey casserole.  I went back for seconds, and contemplated thirds.  But there were the pies….

Sandra brought a marionberry.  She lives really close to Apple Hill, which is a group of farms and vineyards and sells various baked goods and jams.  These pies are a tasty mixture of berries with a flaky crust and crumb topping. 

Peggy, who has gotten into homemade ice cream, brought her version of pumpkin pie.  She filled a pie shell with homemade pumpkin ice cream.  Of all the ice creams she’s made, this one falls, I think, third.  Her peach and strawberry are tied for first, followed by mint, and then arrives pumpkin.  And, I think it has less to do with the ice creams themselves and more with the flavors I prefer.  If you have never tried peach or strawberry ice cream made with fresh fruit (and she gets her fruit from a farmers market, so it’s really fresh), run, do not walk, to try it.  It is unbelievably wonderful!

So, after all this indulging, I sit here this morning suffering the after effects.  They will wear off, particularly if I return to my normal pattern of eating. And my minor discomfort this morning is well worth the deliciousness. 

10 for 10

For Garrett & Yolanda, on their anniversary

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of Yolanda and Garrett’s wedding.  So, in honor of this milestone event, I offer 10 memories I have of their wedding (and preparation for)…

1. The perfect weather
2. Spending Halloween carving pumpkins (as many people did), except ours weren’t Jack-o-lanterns, they were bases for the table centerpieces.
3. Your matching outfits
4. The anachronistic mix of modern formal wear for the wedding party and your Renaissance-based clothes.
5. The honor I had of helping you select your music for the ceremony.
6. All the apples we cored for floating candles and centerpieces.
7. The kindness of strangers: when the supermarket lost your produce order  (of pumpkins, on Halloween!), a perfect stranger at the pumpkin patch purchased your pumpkins upon learning that they were for your wedding.
8. The beauty of the setting – from the Spanish architecture and surrounding hills to the floating-candle-lit fountain that separated the on-lookers.
9. Yolanda’s voice over the phone when she told me Garrett had proposed and that she’d accepted.
10. How in love you both looked. 
11. (for good measure and the future) How in love you both look.

Congratulations you two! I wish you many,  many, many more happy years together.

*hugs*