I think back on this day. All that comes to mind is how I struggled to fall sleep as my wife watched, enthralled, Antiques Road Show. I could just vomit.
Early Morning
15 Tuesday May 2018
Posted in Relationships
Author Archives: David
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11 Friday May 2018
Posted in Tasteless Gifts
From Dunkin’ Donuts:
Did you get Mom’s Present yet?”
Seriously?
“Here Mom. Thought you might like these, if you get the munchies tonight.”
I mean are we so lacking in imagination that D-Squared is the best we can do?
And so personal too. Nothing means more to Mom than a dozen of her favorites, perhaps the same as the ones she scarfed down when she was carrying you.
I am glad my Mom has passed away, so she doesn’t have to see silliness like this, Oh, and her death was related to her Type 2 Diabetes.
5:00 AM. 0500.
09 Wednesday May 2018
Posted in sleep
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Either way, I am wide awake. Miscellaneous aches and pains, in my shoulder and back, are bedevilling me, prevailing over a deep desire to sleep. I have been up and down since 1:15. When my wife had a nightmare around 3:45, screaming in her sleep, I went back upstairs, thinking I might be lucky enough to nod off. I’m tired now, and think I might be close to sleeping. To me this is the really suck-y part of getting older.
Brisket On A May Evening.
09 Wednesday May 2018
Posted in cooking, Relationships
Sunday I went by Food Lion to get something I didn’t really need and serendipitously found a good deal on a fresh, not corned, beef brisket. Yee Ha! I can use that killer brisket recipe I found on the BettyCrocker.com website. It is cooked in a slow cooker. The trick is it uses a fantastic brown sugar spice rub to coat the meat.. Take 3 tbs brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, celery salt, garlic powder, any other stuff you think might be yummy together and rub it on the brisket.
The original recipe called for ketchup as the basis for a barbecue sauce. Well, doggone it, I was out of ketchup, so I substituted a can of diced tomatoes, added a chopped onion, 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce and about 3/4 cup water. I put the slow cooker on the low setting and let it cook for 5-6 hours, (Hint: use your meat thermometer to gauge you preferred degree of doneness.) Not using ketchup, I decided to “deep six” the idea of a sauce altogether. I just ladled the tomato/onion/cooking liquid over the sliced meat.
I made a salad with romaine, fresh mandarin orange slices, diced cucumber and alfalfa sprouts. I added some dried dill weed, tarragon, poppy seeds and lavender. I made a salad dressing from lemon juice and canola oil, mixed it well to make an emulsion and poured it over the green and orange stuff. Finally I added toasted slivered almonds and parmesan cheese (from the shaker can, think Kraft). I tossed it real good. The lavender accents in the salad are sublime.
The last part of this meal was roasted corn on the cob. I husk the corn, wrap in parchment and cook at 325°F for about 30-45 min. I use the convection setting on my oven. This method is so much better than cooking the corn in boiling water and the clean-up is much easier.
Tomorrow I will be fixing a black bean & corn salad. I will also fix another black bean salad, but substitute quinoa for corn.
As I said the other day cooking is very erotic. It is life-affirming, in my opinion. There have been so many beautiful moments in my life centered around a dining table. And new meals create new memories. Some meals are focused around recapturing the past, like Thanksgiving dinner, or a Passover Seder. Other meals thrive on their novelty. Sometimes not trying to recapture an old memory opens the space for fresh experiences and enriching deep relationships.
It is good to be alive.
Sunday Break
06 Sunday May 2018
Today was a repeat of yesterday. Get a meal ready before she decides she wants to go out. This gets me moving around and using my imagination and skills. All around a win. I figured we’ve saved about $70 this weekend with this strategy.
I found a Boston butt section at Food Lion Thursday, It was reduced meaning it needed to be prepared sooner rather than later. With Goya Mojo Criollo marinade I fixed Cuban-style “roast” pork in the slow cooker. It is a) fool-proof, and b) delicious. You can look it up. Hint): Put the meat in the cooker, pour over the marinade. Cook on the “low” setting for 5-6 hours.
I next had some black beans on hand that I then cooked with shallots, garlic, cumin, a dash of turmeric and a couple shakes of Badia Taco Seasoning. Badia is another Latino foods line that has some good products
I had some zucchini cooked with tomatoes, mushrooms, shallots and garlic that I seasoned with Herbes de Provence simmering away.
Lastly I fixed some cornbread. Good. Old. Cornbread. I make it from a recipe I took from the back of a bag of cornmeal. A sure winner. Again easy. Mix 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/4cup sugar, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp.salt in one bowl. I sift the ingredients, but that’s not necessary. In another bowl, beat an egg ,add a cup of milk (or buttermilk or kefir), and a quarter cup oil. Add the liquid to the dry, mix “real good”, and bake in a greased 8 x8 pan at 425 for 25 minutes or till golden. Foolproof. Delicious. Southern.
I enjoyed our lunch with a glass of hibiscus tea. Luzianne sells hibiscus in tea bags and its red color and tropical flavor is a delight.
I’m sitting, thinking about the bad broadcast coverage of the Kentucky Derby on NBC. The Suits at the Peacock Network thought they could make an interesting 2-hour show out of a 2 minute race. Well they couldn’t. I don’t care who Dale Earnhardt, Jr. or Al Roker thinks might win. Or the profound insights of the owners, trainers and jockeys. I did notice that Bob Baffert has a hairstyle similar to legendary professional wrestler, Ric Flair. Greatness imitates greatness.
As near as I can tell, the jockey gets on the horse, points it in the same direction as all the other horses are running and hopes for the best. (The Best includes horse and jockey living to race again.)
All in all, it was a very exciting race. I don’t follow the horses much, not being a bettin’ man. It is obvious from the desperate attempt to gin up interest that horse racing is dying out.
This quiet Sunday is what I needed. I have had a late sleep, a nice meal and life is good. I needed the rest.
Resting A While
05 Saturday May 2018
Posted in Catholic Life, cooking
The First Friday/Saturday of the month brings Nocturnal Adoration. Since my insomnia can easily have me up at Four AM, that is the time for my Holy Hour. I sit, meditate, pray The Rosary. It is a time for contemplation.
Much as it is rewarding for me, I feel it the next day. I have had a couple of naps. When Mrs CorC? woke up, I decided to fix breakfast/brunch. Having a brunch ready preemptively means we don’t go out and spend an absurd amount of money for a meal not that much better than what I can fix at home.
The selection today was a savory breakfast crêpe with a mushroom, bacon, cheese filling. I use the Fannie Farmer Cookbook recipe. I think it’s the most recent edition, put together by Marion Cunningham. It is a simple batter. The trick to a thin crêpe is to use very little batter (2 tablespoons) per crêpe. The brunch was well-received. I think we would have spent $25-30 easily going out.
I’m sitting now. Tired finally. The clean-up kicked my butt. Now I’m watching the end of the Yankees/Indians game. Yankees won, winning 14 of their last 15.
Honesty Advisory:
I find cooking highly erotic. The tactile experience, the smells, tastes, and, most importantly, the shared experience of eating with my lover. I can even forget the absence of a sexual component to our marriage.
I am always reminded of the marvelous film Babette’s Feast. A Parisian chef uses her lottery winnings to prepare an unforgettable meal for the Danish sisters who gave her a home during a political exile. It is from a story by Isak Dinesen.
So I will swim later. I have not been swimming consistently for a while. It is good to go back. I literally am working through the grief of a lost friendship.
A little passion would go a long way toward working through this pain.
Short Post
04 Friday May 2018
Posted in Family, Relationships, Tolerance
Last night’s post The Truth really opened up some space for me. Telling the truth about my loss and my feelings are helping me work through this horrific experience.
Growing up in a political family, I learned to take political disagreement with a grain of salt. So when I encounter inflexible and hateful ideologues in the real world, I don’t know how to deal with them.
So I still want everybody in the Whole Wide World to love me for the lovable old curmudgeon that I am, just as I love pretty much all comers.
We went from day time highs of mid sixties to lower nineties within a day of each other, it seems.
Had the ball joints replaced in the ’98 Mercury Grand Marquis, my Dad’s (Junior) old car. I want it to run forever
The Truth
04 Friday May 2018
Posted in Politics, Relationships, Sexual Identity
I have been hiding out for about ten weeks. The Lenten sabbatical worked well, but not posting frequently when Ascension Day is one week away requires an explanation.
Here It Is
About ten weeks ago, a man whom I counted as a friend for thirtynine years ended our friendship because I told him that I really didn’t care what Donald Trump says or tweets. I still don’t. For someone who has followed politics since I was thirteen, this is a radical departure. Truth is I am burned out.
When that friendship ended, part of me died. I had deluded myself into thinking friendships are some sort of indisolvable bond. They are not. After two failed marriages, I should have known better. So my enthusiasm for life has faded. Maybe it will return.
I can no longer fly “under the radar”, pretending that adultery doesn’t contradict my values. The fact that many of the blogs I follow are from bloggers in sexually unconventional arrangement may seem hypocritical on my part. Maybe it is. But by now, after a couple of years of reading, I’m rather engaged by the narratives.
So I’m a hypocrite. At least I won’t die of loneliness.
Felafel
24 Tuesday Apr 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
A few years ago, before my surgeries, I went to the Indian/Halal grocery to get some goat meat. While there, I saw a bag of chickpeas that looked thick enough to stop a magnum round. It was 3 lbs. So I bought it, thinking I will make my own hummus and felafel one day. That day finally arrived. The pressure cooker makes easy work of cooking the garbonzos. And a good blender/ food processor makes the prep for the hummus easy. The Kitchen Aid stand mixer makes easy work prepping the felafel. I use Moosewood Cookbook for the recipes for both. ( Hint: If you don’t own a copy, acquire one. It is one cookbook worth owning.)
The felafel met with some push back from Mrs CorC?. She is not exactly a culinary experimenter. She did eat them and found them palatable. I experimented with how to cook them; I found cooking them on the convection setting at 350° worked very well. They browned up nicely. There was no fat used in cooking them in the convection oven. I ate them in a BIG salad (Seinfeld). Earlier I tried them stuffed in a pita half. That’s OK but the salad offers more flavors to complement the spicy felafel. Moosewood has a yummy tahini/lemon sauce that is fantastic with the felafel.
Other than cooking, straightening, organizing, and waiting for my government check, I’m keeping out of trouble.
Things Happen.
09 Monday Apr 2018
Tags
Back in late February, 24 February, to be exact, my stepmother fell, fracturing her femur. She is 92, so this is a very big deal. After surgery, and a hospital rehabilitation, she is back at home, continuing her rehab, with the hope of walking again without the aid of a walker. Her days of living alone, however, are over.
Saturday was cold and rainy, more like late February than early April. Homemade macaroni and cheese seemed like the perfect dish. I made a cheese sauce, and, upon discovering a complete absence of macaroni, broke up the linguine and angel hair pasta I had open in boxes. It works just as well. I’m taking the pasta and cheese sauce over to my stepmom in a few minutes.
Things happen. Elderly people fall. Lives change.
There are things that happened during my blogging hiatus I will eventually share. D’s femur fracture is but the first.
There is a deep emotional hurt I will post about, but it is political in nature. I’m not ready to write about it because the pain after almost eight weeks is still too raw, reminiscent of the collapse of my first marriage that ended forty years ago, coincidentally in the early Spring. I am still losing sleep over this recent incident.
More later.
Dispatches From Dystopia 