Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Reader’s Vacation: A Weekend in Reality
wow, Wednesday, huh? This week has gotten right away from me, and it’s not just that Monday was Soldier Appreciation Day - I’ve had a fistful of busy jammed down my craw from sunup till gloamdown and more on the way, so I’d best take advantage of a moment or three this evening to catch you up with the general doings and goings-on and suchlike. Let’s recap:
First, a note of general authorial orientation: I’m writing less lately, though I’ve got plenty of notes for essays and such in my little mini-moleskine. The problem is Jamie. He’s this dude who is at the center of a blasted skellitch of a series of novels that, with no great pride on my part, I cannot stop reading. I’m on volume five of six - this one is 1400 pages long, but I’m sucking it down like, oh, I guess Jamie would say, like cold porter on a hot July morn. It’s just your basic Scottish time-travel action adventure romance medical-historical mystery hogwash, and if you want to know more, drop me a line. Otherwise, suffice it to say, I’ll be writing again soon, once that damned kiltie has been laid to rest in my bookshelf where he belongs.
So, with that out of the way:
Saturday was a day of frolics and delights. Z and I spent some quality time at Rossi Playground in the morning, where I hoped to tire him out in advance of a trip to the museum in the park with Shariar. It was a good time at the playground and a good time at the museum too - we visited some galleries we don’t often frequent, lingering over the mesoamerican doodads and some of the modernist freakouts like this:
There was also a great exhibit of art by kids ranging from very tender years up through high school, much of which was really museum-worthy. I took lots of photos but they don’t capture what I saw, so I won’t bother you with them. Suffice it to say, they were good and Zach in particular seemed charged up by them. Once Zach’s energy level exceeded my ability to manage him inside a museum, we went out to the gardens to let him romp. We started in the sculpture garden, which is actually a little barren I think, but it does have that awesome skyspace area where Zach frolicked and squealed with a delight we all shared but were too restrained to express. Here’s how he looked just before leaping up with an echoing shout:
We next wandered over to the east garden, which I really like; for a small space, it’s got great landscaping with lots of “features.” One of Zach’s favorites is the lawn that’s watered, not with sprinklers, but with misters. NO, not like “Mr.s” - I mean like this:
Sha returned to our home with us to await Helena. Before she arrived, or shortly thereafter (things got fuzzy after a while), the Paiges also showed up to share some giggles and agitate our boy, thusly:
Helena had brought in an enormous feast from one of our longstanding favorite but too-long-neglected east African restaurants, whereof we supped, once the Paiges had left for their own supper, far beyond our reasonable capacities. (That’s the thing about Ethiopian food; you eat it with bread that’s very spongelike and once you’ve finished eating it keeps on swelling and expanding inside of you, taking you from “comfortably full” to “grotesquely stuffed” without the necessity of taking any additional sustenance.) The remainder of that evening was a dead loss.
Sunday was a day of housework, a run in the park, a buttload of more housework, and a stroll back in the park during misty hours that lent themselves to some more pastoral photography. Here’s a selection of my favorites:
A twig, hanging down from a tree, cloaked in spikes of moss:
A log, with moss swirling in its whorls:
A sculpture we stumbled across in a service yard - broken and bizarre (is that a face I see on that young woman’s head? If so, why is she so disturbingly deformed?):
Sunday concluded quietly, with Zach bright-eyed in anticipation of a picnic the next day. And he was fain disappointed, because (as intimated in an earlier post, for those of you paying attention) we spent much of Memorial Monday waaaay out the other side of the bay up in Tilden Park with the Paiges and the Penns and a bunch of other families with young kids whom we did not know but liked from the outset. Kel and I ate delectable sandwiches from our favorite gourmet deli, and drank excellent beer, and ate much pineapple and strawberry, and generally lounged and relaxed. But there was more: active gaming, also, took place! I’m not the first guy you might think of when it comes to ball-and-bat games or football tossing or that sort of thing, but I had at it with gusto and it was an absolute blast. Even though I was in the presence of someone who was a) a stranger, who was b) much larger and in better shape than I was, and c) really really knew what he was doing with a bat or a football, I had a great time. It even sort of loosened up my tense, aching back. (pause for pity (("pitypause"))). We hung out till 4 pm, by which time the cold breeze and overcast skies had cleared to warmth and sunlight, and then we rounded off our day with a pit stop at the Paige’s nearby lair. Supper was consumed back at our home, including my now famous squash fritters (see below). I got Zach to sleep at 8:30 and went directly to sleep myself thereafter. I got 10 straight hours of sleep that night and it was fan-freaking-tastic.
This brought me to Tuesday, a day of “to’s”: I went TO Z’s preschool with him TO drop him off, then TO my office TO do my work for a few hours - then I left TO take BART TO the east bay for my annual physical. I am, by the way, fine - a healthy weight for my height and still too young for a prostate exam, which my delightful friend Dr Andy tells me is no longer an effective diagnostic tool anyway so I have that not to look forward to anymore. After an amusing chat with Andy I re-applied my pantaloons and wandered a few blocks down Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue ("where the shat is uckky") to a cool brewpub and cafe where I met an old friend from High School. We’d gotten back in touch with each other as a result of that cover story in Newsweek about my graduating class (actually, I’m not kidding), and finally arranged to share a table and some beverages and see about catching up a little. It was a provocative, entertaining, sobering and amusing conversation, and I hope to have more of them with her. But by then it was time to catch my train back to the city, and my bus back home, and to make my fried tofu with green beans, and to call it a goddamn night. Which, by then, it was, and more power to ya.
Oh yeah, the fritters: check the extended entry if’n ya want the recipe. They’re damned tasty. But if you’re done by now, I can hardly blame ya. Wish me luck with the stupid goddamn novels, and I’ll have something of literary value for you someday soon, I hope. Till then, dinna fash, sasquach - the good stuff is just around the corner.
SO: you have chosen the path of the fritter. I applaud your choice, but caution you: the path of the fritter is a one-way street. Once you’ve gone its way, there is no return. (Bwahahaha. HaHA!)
Alors: find ye first a kabocha squash. If this is difficult for you, just find a regular Kabocha, and then squash it yourself. Roast the wee bairn in a hot oven for one hour - I recommend a light coat of oil on the skin to make it extra-hot, and a nice stiff tray underneath so it’s easy to get out of the oven. When it’s done, a fork will sink easily through its thin green skin and deeply into its moist orange flesh. Let it cool enough to be handled without rousing monstrous blisters on yer hands; then cut it in half and put one-half away for lean times or battle campaigns. Yon remaining half, you can empty of seeds with a spoon, and then scoop out the flesh into a good-sized bowl. Take a little care to scrape it off the rind - don’t leave overmuch behind, ye squash spendthrift ye. Let it cool further till you can crack an egg into the orange flesh wi’out it cooking hard on ye, and then do so - crack in an egg, and add some paprika, a little ginger, black pepper, and salt. Throw in some minced scallion or chives, too. Mash it all together with a nice tattie masher, and then add one cup (or a little less) of bread crumbs. (If it’s really too dry, add a little water or chickenstock.) Mix it well with a spoon - not your hands. Let it sit for a few minutes so the breadcrumbs can soak up as much liquid as possible, and then form soft little balls of the mixture - slightly larger than golf balls, and don’t compress them down. They should retain a lightness within, like the spirit of an autumn evening that casts a hush over all who venture out into it, embracing the change of hours wi’out yet fearing the blackness of night. You know what I mean. THEN press them down a little, so they’re flat enough to fry, but not so as to make them tight and dense inside. We’ve all got enough of that wi’out adding fritters to the mix. Fry them in butter, oil, or cholesterol-free non-GMO dairy spread substitute, till they’re lightly browned on both sides (at some point you’ll have to turn them over - I do so using two spoons). Serve immediately, if not sooner.
There’s yer fritters, captain. And may they serve ye well for all your days. Now skedaddle with ya. The hospitality of this blog, though considerable, is not unlimited, and it’s time ye returned to yer own. It’s what they do in the Highlands, aye?
