Posting news, and some odds and ends

Here is our oldest son Mac in a high school production of "Guys and Dolls". He is now serving in the U.S. Navy, and got his orders this week. There's a LOT of gobbledegook I couldn't figure out, much less explain to you, my dears, without at least an undergrad degree in Institutional & Bureaucratic Doublespeak. But the bottom line is this: when he completes his training, he'll be posted at a location about an hour and half from HOME. This is news of the kind that makes one's heart sing with joy, the kind that makes one shout from mountain tops, the kind that makes one's heart feel like frantic hummingbird wings...you know what I mean. He'll miss a few homefront things during training (Katie's welcome home gathering, my birthday, the wedding of his oldest friend) but having him so close to home will be sweet beyond measure.

In other Eat Here news, I'd like to thank those of you who have replied to my request for opinions and thoughts on blogging. In my relatively short lifespan as a blog author I've found amazing, unique voices and consistent intellectual generosity (thank you again, Ms. Moon!) and much inspiration. It's a mark of the generosity I mentioned that all these comments were from people I've never physically met. Thanks, one and all.

And finally, here is how you make the leek and potato soup I learned from Julia Child, with my own particular touches. It's easy and wonderful and if you've never made it before, make some before the end of the winter.

Potatoes first: I love those beautiful Yukon gold potatoes, but you can use whatever is on sale. Peel (or just wash, as you prefer) about 3 pounds of potatoes for a nice big batch; cut into medium-sized chunks. Once you've made this soup you'll be able to figure out the proportions to make the size you like, and it does freeze well for a second go-round. Boil the potatoes as you would for mashing or whatever (remember to season with a little salt and pepper), drain and set them aside. You'll need a pot big enough to hold a 4 quarts comfortably so go ahead and put the cooked potatoes in this pot; it'll make it easy to finish the soup. This is the point at which you can throw in other root vegetables like carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc., and if you want to add other cooked vegetables you can throw them in later, when you simmer to marry the flavors.

Leeks are tricky: you have to clean them really, really well. Do that first, and then slice them pretty thinly. I use just about the whole thing, with the icky ends trimmed off, and I usually use 2 or 3 leeks.

In your cast iron skillet, put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil or butter or a combination. If you're watching fat, you can use less and compensate with water or a little wine. Put the leeks in the skillet (add some finely minced garlic if you like), season with salt and pepper, and cook until they're reduced and very tender. Deglaze the skillet with some white wine.

Add this to the drained potatoes in your big pot. Top off with chicken or vegetable stock (about 4 cups or enough to make it look like soup) and simmer for 10 minutes or so. Using a stick blender, cream the mixture together. Use your own judgement about how creamy you want this - you can choose to set some of the vegetables aside before you blend for more texture.

Return to a gentle simmer and correct for seasoning. At this point I add some ground red pepper, but that's a matter of taste. When you're happy with the seasoning and have a nice simmering pot, turn off the heat and add a touch of cream to finish the soup. Don't let the soup come back to boil once you've added the cream. Serve topped with a little grated cheese or fresh chopped parsley.

This is one of my favorites because it's the culinary equivalent of a canvas you can use to create your own magic. And this is really at the heart of Julia cooking: she always encouraged exploration. You can start with a finely diced jalapeno pepper along with the leeks, for instance, season with some cumin and fresh cilantro and have a Southwestern version. It's fun, it's delicious AND you can bring it to the next Julia Child party. Bon chance, my loves!

Fault lines, family and pecan pie

Interesting patterns sometimes happen in families; some represent time-honored traditions, warm memories and good feelings, and serve to underscore our connections. Others are not so positive, and can carry hurt and even destruction down through the generations. I imagine almost every family has its share of both; ours is no exception. I thought about this when I wrote about Mac and Dylan as little boys, and thought about it again last night when I mentioned Pop in my post. These fault lines, like the geophysical ones responsible for the catastrophe in Haiti, may change. We may grow in our abilities to cope with them, take their good and avoid being crippled by their bad. But the fault lines are immutable.

Though the pattern I'm thinking of tonight didn't really present itself in painful, undeniable focus until Pop was probably pretty far gone down the dreadful road to hell that is Alzheimers, it must have been repeated over generations from whom we cannot hear. And maybe our collective family view of it isn't even accurate, though it's all we have to go on. Briefly, then: Pop's family pattern, from which he seemed unable to deviate, was that the family had a son of whom he generally approved (Rodney's brother, and eventually, Mac) and one of whom he generally did not approve (Rodney, and eventually, Dylan). This confined his interactions with our sons, while Pop lived with us, to the limitations of those roles. And it created a break, in the long run, from which Pop's family wasn't able to regain its equilibrium. After Pop entered the nursing home, neither of the boys would ever see him alive again. When he died, the two men of our nuclear family who were present at his funeral were Rodney and Mac. (His very kind sister and her husband came down from Wisconsin to be present, that very kind brother-in-law delivering the brief homily.) Mac wore the uniform in which he graduated, his rank above that of his grandfather's, but his title, Machinists' Mate, proudly identical. All of us felt the absence of Dylan sorely. Perhaps Pop, resting at last, felt it most profoundly of all.

And as one of the other things we share in the face of grief is food, I thought I would offer you one of our family's most beloved recipes, which my dear friend Tracy gave me long ago. The time year I made it, years before we realized Pop had Alzhemers, I served it for dessert at Thanksgiving. Pop and his wife, our own tiny little saint, Bernice, were staying with us for the holiday. (One of these days, I will be courageous enough to write about Bernice, who truly was loved by every person who met her.) After his first taste, Pop leaned over to me and said, "I'll meet you in the kitchen at midnight with two forks".

So: into a slightly pre-baked deep-dish pie crust, you pour this mixture (I usually just throw it all into the mixer and whirl it together): a stick of melted butter, 1-1/2 cups of sugar, 1 heaping teaspoon of cornstarch, 1/4 cup of buttermilk (see me after class if you need to know why you have to use buttermilk), 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 3 lightly beaten eggs and a cup of so of chopped pecans. Bake it for about an hour at 350. It's not impossible that some family fault lines -- the tiny ones, the ones that CAN be repaired -- could be made at least a little better by a slice of this pie.

Little boys, little Ty, little seashells

Here they are. Little boys. And most of you know my boys to be WAAAY bigger than this now. And they're wonderful, each with his own astonishing talents and powers and dreams and marvels, each of them a blessing beyond price to their dad and me. But even in this sweet picture is captured a memory presaging their more modern-day selves; it's like a ghost image that only their dad and I can see. There is tiny Mac, making certain Dylan had his own ice cream, and working very hard to be tidy, tucking his Tracey Long nightshirt around himself neatly, looking around to check on things in between bites. There is Dylan, making us all laugh with his laissez faire view, going for the laugh, and putting his nose into the ice cream cone with confident abandon...this is all caught in the ghost image immediately before the photo was snapped and frozen for us forever. And now? Mac, making everyone proud with his service to our country, putting others before himself, trying, in fact, to be sure we all have our own ice cream, in his small way. Dylan, about 6 or 7 feet tall, still making everyone laugh, finding his voice as a singer and more, and (tanks be to GAHD, as my old friend Father Terry would say) proofreading this blog before I post it. (Yes, I know. You can always tell the ones Dylan hasn't read first.) And everyone always says this to you, and sometimes it seems like The Biggest Lie in the World, but it really DOES just go by so fast. And, oh, the wonders those boys have taught me...but those are tales for another night, my dears.

Little Ty, for short. She is the very patient, slightly vexed-looking aging debutante in the front right of the picture. Most Boxer rescue people will tell you that it's a dicey business having more than one female Boxer together, as one tends to be the dominant one and this can work out poorly for the others. But here is sweet old Ty for Short, tolerating incursion upon indignity, and making way as she must. I know dogs live only in the moment, but I can't help but think she has some dim memory of being herself a castoff, lost from her people for reasons she would never understand and taking what kindnesses were on offer. This is certainly anthropomorphizing, but that old grey face does serve to remind me of some important things, not the least of which is humility in the face of change. Which, it should be remembered is far easier to say than it is to do. Just look at that face.
My last little miracle will take you back to a previous post in which I talked about a sort of informal, organic, living art installation you can see at the northernmost point of the beach at Guana. I told you about it, but I think I was distracted by a recipe that night (can you imagine? Me? Distracted by a recipe?) and didn't get to the most important part. I even showed a picture, but I don't think I did it justice when I wrote about it.

There are little sections of this monument where people have created tiny bits of beach sculpture-within-sculpture. You'll see a corner dedicated to beach glass in all colors and shapes. For a time there was a lovely collection of those delicate scallop shells with the pink and white variations of color; it was lost to one of the winter storms whose tide was too high and strong to be withstood. There are artistic arrangements of beach detritus, wood, fishing tackle...just about anything you can imagine amassing itself on a beach. There are even arrangements which are eclectic and have their own standards and criteria not related to a focus on one kind of shell or bone or color. They are like an exhibition in a gallery, hung by a different curator, with a different eye, a unique sensibility.

And there is my collection of cats' eyes. It changes all the time, but seems to remain intact as a collection and I believe I'm not the only one who notices it. Too Young Looking to be a Grandmother, who told me she collects shells for her grandson (though she honestly looks about 30) finds them beautiful. Another lady told me she collected cats' eyes for artwork of her own. "Oh, that's YOU?" she asked me, "your collection?" I said that I collected cats' eyes for it, but that it wasn't mine, it belonged to all of us, and she should feel free to take any of them she wanted to use in her artwork. "Oh, no," she said. "It would feel weird to take them from the collection," and I knew just what she meant.

And it has another fan, or at least someone who's taken note of it. Hippie Segway Guy talked to us about it one day, how people have become curators of the whole thing, or perhaps just one small section of it, and how much it means to him to share this unvoiced connection with all of us. We finally stepped past that respectful reservation all of us observe with each other on this shared landscape and introduced ourselves. "Well," he said, in a sort of "can-you-beat-that" voice, after Rodney told him our names, "I won't forget that. Not only is my name Rodney, but my wife's name is Angie." Can you beat that?