Hedonism

Hot times in the bedroom

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

006Those of you who hang out with me on Facebook know that I’m still in the seemingly-endless pursuit of organizing The Barn.  I go in fits and starts with this, but lately my fervor has been renewed.  I love an orderly, clean house.  I’m just not very good at it.  (But I’m getting better!)

For all of my short-comings in the house cleaning arena, I’m pretty good about keeping my bedroom orderly, in part because I love my bed.

I have a grand bed.  I think everyone should have a bed so imposing it is reminiscent of a throne.

I bought the bed along with the Beloved Vanity and other pieces a good 8 years ago.  The furniture is so big that they couldn’t bring it up the stairs, but had to lift it to the top of the truck and then from there hoist it through the French doors in the master bedroom.

003I decided that since I spend a third of my life, more or less, in bed, that bed should be a haven, a sanctuary, a symphony of hedonism.   The bed is appointed with luxurious coverings including very high-thread count sheets.  There is a mound of pillows that I remove each night, but leave in place for afternoon naps.  I love sprawling among the pillows and watching the sun come through the French doors.

I love my bed.  It’s king-sized in keeping with my throne desire and I can sprawl all over the thing without body parts hanging off.  The animals sometimes join me in the bed, though not regularly.  There’s room for all of us.

In the winter time, I love keeping the bedroom cold so that I can burrow in the bed like the cocoon it is.  It’s simply delicious to wallow.  It’s only when it gets blazing hot outside, as it is now, that my bed is not quite so wonderful.  The bed linens are heavy especially so with the goose down-filled comfortor.  While I have central air, the construction of the barn is such that cooling the upstairs when it’s 80F at midnight means keeping the downstairs at freezer level.  I don’t want to pay Appalachian Electric that much.  So, tonight I will lie on top of the covers and let the ceiling fan swirl air over me.

I realize this is a first-world problem and that I have no reason to whine.  I’m not whining,  not really.  I think I’m marking the entrance of Summer to what has been a very strange Spring.

DragonMan

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bonemanWhen I wasn’t calling him by his real name of Doug, I called him either HMO’Keefe or Dragonman (sometimes shortened to DMan.) The former was a nickname of his choosing based on an historical character. The latter, and the subject of this blather, is my nickname for him. Once in a great while, I called him Boneman which was his online moniker when he wasn’t using HMO’Keefe.

I don’t really remember how it got started.

We met on an anthropology listserv (a kind of online forum.) I was the middle-aged undergraduate student with no fear and he was the gentle scientist. As is my wont, I blasted into the group with questions and commentary. He was one of the first to respond. In his gentle manner, he told me I might want to tone it down a bit. I said, and I’m pretty sure this is exact at least in meaning, “Ah hell, y’all are hollering ‘fresh meat’ and loving every second of my nonsense.” He laughed. The group gave me a hard time, but they gave everyone a hard time. They also seemed to like me. I’m kind of likeable on some days. Doug became my academic mentor.

columbus in the springWith respect to the listserv, I think, he said something along the lines of “I’ll help slay the dragons.”

I said, “You are the dragon! And, besides, I’ll slay my own dragons, thank you very much.”

We were friends a good while before we were lovers. During that friend phase, he was the Dragon in the Computer. It wasn’t until later when we both left our marriages that we became a couple. I don’t know when it was that we went from platonic to romantic, but I do know when, where and how it was consummated. Most of our time together was spent 800 miles apart. I remember our 3D meetings in vivid color.

Boston in the snowI think the nickname tickled him. He adopted Dman. I have mixed CDs he put together for me labeled A Dman Compilation. I called him DragonMan. I had no interest in slaying the dragon, but I may have tried to tame him. He had a stubborn streak particularly with respect to his leukemia and the ensuing chaos. There was friction. Oddly enough, I was the fire breathing one.

For Mother’s Day this year he gave me a gift certificate to a gardening catalog. After much fretting and carrying on, I chose the lawn dragon. I didn’t tell him what I ordered. I wanted him to be surprised. At the time, I was sure it was priced too high and would be too small. I was wrong. It’s quite substantial, just the right size, and a fitting memorial. It was delivered a few days after his death.

The eye of the dragonI put it out Monday, finally, just before the first snowfall of the year. I set it amidst a bed of white stones. The stones are temporary. This spring I will plant the area with Irish Moss.

I bought one small clump of the moss this year and plopped it in the yard to see if it would thrive, just survive, or plain old die. It has thrived and is remarkably beautiful. I was loathe to buy more than one as it was expensive and I need about 20 of them, but since it’s doing so well I’ll get what I need or maybe more. I’ll probably have to take out a mortgage to fund this, but it will be spectacular.

snow dragon in the gardenI enjoyed seeing the dragon frosted with snow this morning. As much as DragonMan bitched about it, I think he liked snow. I don’t think he could have done 30 years in Boston otherwise.

I miss him, but the dragon makes me smile much the same way he did.

—————–

I typed the draft of this post on a Neo2. The Neo is a nifty little keyboard with a small screen. It can hold 8 small files. Allegedly it’s all the rage with writers, although designed for classrooms. It weighs next to nothing, is cheap, uploads to word processing programs easily, and nobody would be interested in stealing it unless you’re in a room full of writers. My dad showed me his and I drooled all over it, so he gave me one for my birthday.

It’s great for dragging out to the garden, or the auto shop waiting room, or any place that a laptop might take a beating. It runs on AA batteries and is just a little gem. If it breaks, or is lost or is stolen, you haven’t lost your whole life. It’s a nifty little tool and I’m quite impressed with it. It reminds me of my misspent youth when I worked in a law office on IBM’s first electronic typewriters. They too had a tiny memory, but were tremendously useful for storing paragraphs or legal descriptions used over and over in a case. I think I love this little thing.

http://www.renlearn.com/neo2/default.aspx  (Aw damn, like they’re discontinuing you them in the states.)

The Things That Go Together

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

Chef Boy ‘R Mine left today to return to his life in Charlotte. We had a nice, low-keyed visit. For once, he got out of here without having to cook for me. I served him a bad breakfast (unintentional), but one that involved champagne. I also had a dozen, fresh Jolly Pirate donuts on hand and some homemade bread, so I don’t think he felt unloved.

The Boy can wax poetic about Jolly Pirate donuts.

While I’m slowly returning to a past hobby of cooking, I spent this holiday largely outside the kitchen. But as last night was The Boy’s last night in town, I rummaged around in the cabinets and freezer and collected food for a late night repast. A wonderful one.

Last Christmas, Chef Boy ‘R Mine rolled into town bearing my gift. It was a gift of labor, love, food and luxury. It was a gift from Super Foodie to Regular Foodie. It was sublime.

It was a torchon of foie gras with the appropriate accoutrements – port, kumquats and maple syrup.

Foie gras is very controversial.  I loved it before I knew how it was made. (In fact, while not the same thing at all, by any means, I loved Armor potted meat as a child. People think that’s gross and, what can I say, apparently I love spreadable organ meats.)

Foie gras is the super fatty liver of a force-fed goose. It’s the texture of soft butter and just melts in your mouth oozing the most astounding flavor considering we’re talking liver. It’s sweet with a hint of salty. It doesn’t taste like meat. It doesn’t taste like anything else on the planet. Wittgenstein might as well have said, “Describe the taste of foie gras” instead of “Describe the aroma of coffee.”

As a visual aid in explaining the process of making the torchon, my son showed me a video by Swedish Chef Francois Xavier which is a hoot and a holler and said video also pretty well sums up my feeling on the foie gras controversy, to wit:

If you are a person who does eat meat, a person who does wear leather shoes for your feet, or perhaps have a leather wallet, in that case, I think, before judging people who eat foie gras you might visit your local slaughter house to see how the other animals you are eating are treated. I think you are in for a very bad surprise.

[I had a hard time capturing all of his words, if the quote is not exact, well then, piffle. I’ve captured the spirit of his thought, if not his quirky, musical voice.]

Watch the video, but bear in mind, he’s making a terrine, not a torchon.

Another blogger has detailed 70 steps to a torchon.  Seventy steps might be an exaggeration.

In the United States, it’s more difficult to buy foie gras. That which is available either comes from the Sonoma Valley or the Hudson Valley. Chef Boy ‘R Mine maintains that the Sonoma liver is far superior. Of course, he chose the Sonoma for his mama’s gift.

Over the course of days, he deveined the liver, soaked it in milk, cured it with salt and sugar overnight, rolled it into a cylinder, poached it, re-wrapped it and hung it to dry for 3 days. He then individually packaged it in vacuum sealing gifting me with enough to last a year.

So, last night I pulled out the last little torchon. I pulled out the bottle of Krupps Brothers Black Bart Syrah Port (2007) which is a more than respectable port. I pulled out the Blis Maple Syrup which is big deal and not something you drown Hungry Jack pancakes in. [

Per Se and The French Laundry drizzle this stuff on tasty little morsels they charge huge money for.  Part of the cost is for the syrup.  This stuff comes from old-growth forests and sold in numbered bottles.  I keep it hidden in the back of the fridge lest HMOKeefe accidentally drowns a Bisquik biscuit with it.]

I had a boule of crusty bread, which wasn’t ideal but it was fresh out of the oven. To perfectly complement a torchon of foie gras, a sweet-ish bread such as a brioche is best.

[I had a brain freeze for a minute and couldn’t summon the word brioche. I was astounded and tickled to find that Wikipedia has a list of breads. Go look at it – it’s wonderful! With pictures! Don’t go hungry.]

HMO’Keefe has not partaken of the foie gras before and, like I was the first time, taken aback by the thought of drizzling maple syrup on liver and washing it down with port. I believe he liked it, but I couldn’t much catch him with his mouth empty to get an exact quote.

After scarfing it all down, we settled into a bottle of a nice Zin and talked. It was a nice end to a nice visit together.  HMO’Keefe remarked on how charming my son is.  Well, duh.  The kid takes after his mom.

I’m not sure if my son’s foodie gifts to me explain my return to the kitchen, but after not cooking as a hobby for a long time, I find myself in the kitchen more and more.

I’ve been dabbling with Thai and Indian here lately and thus gifted by Mr. Charm with a beautiful French curry powder and other spices as well as some kick-ass plates to serve the finished product on.

But HMO’Keefe loves Mexican cuisine as do I. So I’ve been fooling around with a pozole recipe for two days as well as playing with the new tortilla press and the 5 lb. bag of masa harina. Tonight’s Pork and Pozole Stew was lick-the-bowl good and handmade corn tortillas are a gift from a loving deity. The stew changed direction three times and what ended up in the bowl was not what was intended, but what was intended proved to be uninteresting. So after adding this and that, a bottle of beer, and some buttermilk masa dumplings, culinary satisfaction was achieved. Damn good stew.

Other than wandering into the kitchen to dump something else into the stew pot periodically, I’ve done nothing but sit on this couch and watch thoughts bobble in the sludgy creek of my mind.

So. Today was a good day to be me. A few more days like this in a row and my creek might run clear. I haven’t thought of a catchy phrase for 2012. Maybe after I get the sludge out of there.

 

Everything Old is New Again

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I spent my moody teens (and one memorable night at the Charleston Holiday Inn) mooning over Emerson, Lake and Palmer.  Nutrocker was my favorite Christmas music for a long time. Even now, I use it when I need to speed-clean the house.

Nutrocker was Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s nod to the Christmas season.  The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is performing the piece.  I keep reading that Emerson, Lake and Palmer was one of their major influences.  I’d say so.  While the quality of the video leaves a lot to be desired, it is immensely better than any of the clips I could find of ELP performing.

Y’all are probably more familiar with TSO for the following:

So, I “discovered” the Trans-Siberian Orchestra a year or so ago.  Everything old is new again.  It looks like I can spend my moody menopausal years mooning over TSO.  At the moment, I’m pondering plunking down some significant cash to see the spectacle that is TSO’s Winter Tour.  [I’ve always been a sucker for a good spectacle.]

Happy Whatever You Celebrate, Y’all