All is well

The news came this morning. My heart is light and bursting with joy. My baby is safe. All of the uncertainty and wandering of life is over for her, she has achieved happiness. I spent the day yesterday wondering if all had gone well and this morning brought the good news. I spent much of the day yesterday tempted to call her and find out but each time I reached for the telephone I stopped, realizing that this would be a busy day for her and the last thing she needed was for her cell phone to ring during the ceremony and hear the voice of Cassandra on the other end. No dire predictions, I see love and peace and happiness and rainbows and a child not just walking through life but skipping and singing and laughing and HAPPY! "A kiss for luck and we're on our way!".

Oh won't you stay, just a little bit longer?

And so, once again, Christmas passes. The season of warmth and compassion and cookies and the glow of anticipation and stare of wonder in the eyes of a child slowly withers as the petals of a rose. Christmas is the time when the cold, calculating, balance sheet minds of Western civilization fold their ledgers and remember that Mankind is their business. It is a time when the memory of home and family and lights and warmth and love are dusted off and held close. It is a time when the memory of the financial triumph is replaced by the memory of the stableboy. It is the time when getting is banished by the joy of giving. What is the part that we remember most? It is not the getting,a moment of unwrapping, a smile, a thank you, a feeling of peace because someone took the time to remember you. It is the giving, the planning, the consideration of the mind or needs of the receiver, the warmth that spreads from the mind to the heart when the final bow is tied and we can tell ourselves "Well done.". We don't remember the packages we opened but we do remember the look on the faces of those we love when they open the package we brought or the meal we cooked. It is the time when Mankind can be proud of itself. It is sad that it comes at the end of the year and marks a short period of our life in that year instead of coming at the beginning of the year and being a harbinger of the entire year to come.
There was a time when I thought the words of a Demi-Prophet were the wisest thing that I had ever heard. I had not experienced much of life at that time but now I have. If he were alive today, I would ask him "Imagine, above us only sky
Imagine, below us only dust
Imagine, where does your heart yearn to be?".
Christmas passes but I have a gift for Mankind. It is not a tangible thing, only an ephemeral, seasonal feeling. "Mankind, I am proud to be one of you today.".
Most of the world marks the year to come with a "Happy", "Happy New Year!". There is a unique place where the unity of mind and heart mark the new year with another "Happy", "Happy Christmas!". We will see which is appropriate for the year to come.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday. None of us knows what year you were born, never mind what day but this is the day we celebrate your life.
You sat on a hill and set the bar so high that none of us could ever reach it. We had a hard enough time with the first ten rules and spent our lives looking for an asbestos suit to wear to our funerals. Then you negated the ten and said there is only one. Love one another, that's the One. Suddenly the rules from the hill became easy, just follow the One. You did away with justice and installed mercy. Justice is for the deserving and the innocent. Mercy is for the undeserving and the guilty. There is little need for justice, the world cried out for mercy.
Happy Birthday! May this be the best day of your life, it is ours.

History

And it came to pass that on Christmas Eve of 1917 in Moscow, one of the founders of communism in Russia, Rudolph Kemenev, and his wife were sitting in their dacha by the fire. Rudolph's wife, Emma, said "OOH I think that I hear the sound of Santa's sleigh on the roof. I can hear the pitter patter.".
Rudolph said "Don't be ridiculous Dear, there is no such person as Santa Claus. That is simply rain that you hear on the roof.".
Emma said " Don't you be ridiculous. This is Moscow in December. It can't possibly be raining outside. Snow maybe but the pitter patter can't be rain because it can't be raining.".
Rudolph went to the window and opened it and stuck his hand outside. When he brought his hand back in it was soaking wet.
Emma said "I'm sorry, I should have never doubted you.".
Her husband replied "Of course because as everyone knows, Rudolph the Red knows rain Dear!".

Two revelations

It is not often that I get two revelations in one day. Last night I read two. They were written by different authors but in the same tone. Who would have ever guessed that Robert Frost and Garrison Keillor had anything in common? Why two? I always have three or four books partially read lying open beside the bed. Before I go to sleep and if I awake during the night, I read what strikes me at the moment. Frost's poem was "The Masque of Reason". It is about Job and God and I am sure it could be on Prairie Home Companion if they could get Gloria Steinem to narrate it. The Keillor book is "Liberty" and I recommend it to any man over sixty. It has the same theme as "Ethan Frome" but is in a lighter and more contemporary vein. Both reveal how life is what happens while you are making other plans. Things will work out somehow, there is just no rhyme or reason to what happens in life. Just don't mess with a diety with an agenda or a woman with a revolver.

An old friend

I awoke early this morning and looked outside to see that the snow had stopped falling. The sky was clear and dark but the stars seemed to have used this time to recharge their batteries.
Yesterday a question from one of my daughters led me to the volume of Robert Frost's poems. That volume was a birthday gift from my eldest daughter in 1999. I spent some time looking for the answer to the question and eventually found it. There I was with much to do and the volume of Frost in my hand. The to do is still to be done and I spent the day reading the thoughts of an old friend. I chuckled when I noticed that I again skipped over "Death of the Hired Hand" as I have done since I read it in high school. There is just to much to consider in that poem. I remember the darkness that I felt when I first read it. That was when I was young and wanted no part of such thoughts. Now that I am older, there are kinder facets to its theme and life has shown the relevance of how the harshness of expediency can be tempered by tenderness and human compassion. I will have to re-read it as I probably don't remember all of its message. The wall of pseudo-knowledge that I have built up around me must come down. There is more to life than tidbits of esoteric knowledge. There is something about a wall. As the new year begins today, perhaps a new outlook on living will come also. There is hope (when I addressed the wall I almost started off on a tangent about the Minoans but I stopped and thought about what I had just said and I didn't.). The Minoans will remain my own personal pleasure but that volume of Frost that came from a heart that truly understands what is important to me, will remain my own personal treasure!

Blanket of Peace

Yesterday was very peaceful. I went walking in the snow twice. The first time was so moving that I went again. There was close to a foot of snow on the ground and the snow was still falling and the wind was tolerable. It is so peaceful when it is snowing. The brown leaves and the dog waste are all covered up and it is very quiet.

This is the time that defines New England, the time of rest and reflection. If you spend time looking out of the window in the other seasons, all you see are things that have to be done. Mow the grass, trim the bushes, wash the car, or fire up the grill. If you spend time looking out of the window at the snow falling, all that you see is peace. All that you hear is peace. No dogs barking, no radios blaring, just the whisper of the snow as it settles itself in for a long Winter's nap. It is an alluring peace that holds your attention for quite some time until you start thinking of cocoa and baking and roasting. That is New England to me. A place and a people that are beautiful and peaceful. A place and a people that take the time to reflect on and value what is important. Peaceful, pensive, and pot roasty. The cities of New England are not all like that but the back roads and small towns are repositories of peace and quiet and people that don't speak unless they have something to say. Where else would someone write a poem about birches or write a diary about growing peas and cracking ice and walking beside the ocean? Watching peas and watching waves and appreciating them doesn't just happen. One has to learn to silence the cacaphony that is conversation and listen to the symphony of one's own mind. That rare skill is endemic to New England and learned by watching snow fall. That same snow falls on Chicago, hog butcher to the world, falls on the Northwest, where survivalists have guns as clean as their minds are clear of rational thought or thoughts of peace. When that snow falls on New England it finds peace. The west coast has surfers and Hollywood, the south west has Las Vegas, the South has Nascar and country music, the mid-atlantic states have the hustle and bustle of New York and the joy of Washington D.C. where northern hospitality is combined with Southern efficiency. New England has maple syrup and baked beans and fried clams and scallops and lobster and SNOW! A time to rest and reflect on what is really important. We don't have spaceports and mega-amusement parks and huge military bases and gold mines and copper mines and coal seams and oil fields. We do have beaches and parks and colleges and hospitals and museums and Fenway Park. The snow falls on all of them. We are poor in many things. There is a serious lack of failed banks and of failed financial organizations and government scandals and riots and natural disasters. The major historical disaster in New England was the Molasses Flood. We do have Fenway Park and snow. We also have a building with a light on top that forecast rain and snow and the state of the schedule for Fenway Park and our State House has a statue of a hooker in front and a model of the Sacred Codfish inside. We also have snow.

Macaroni and cheese

This recipe is from Cook's Illustrated. It serves six to eight as a main course and ten to twelve as a side dish. The recipe can be halved.

BREAD CRUMBS
6 slices whitw bread torn into pieces
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces

PASTA AND CHEESE

1 pound elbow macaroni (cook until just past al dente, it is better to overcook than undercook)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons powdered mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
5 cups milk
8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (2 cups)
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (2 cups)

1. Pulse bread and butter in food processor until crumbs are no larger than 1/8 inch, ten to fifteen one second pulses. Set aside.

2.Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Add macaroni and 1 tablespoon of salt; cook until TENDER; Drain pasta and set aside in colander.

3. In now empty Dutch oven, heat butter over medium high heat until foaming. Add flour, mustard, and cayenne and whisk well to combine. Continue whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and deepens in color, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk; bring mixture to a boil, whisking constantly ( mixture must reach a full boil to fully thicken). Reduce heat to medium and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened to the consistancy of heavy cream, about 5 minutes. OFF HEAT, whisk in cheeses and 1 teaspoon salt until cheeses are fully melted. Add pasta and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is steaming and heated through, about 6 minutes.

4. Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat broiler.
Transfer mixture to BROILER-SAFE 9 by 13 inch baking dish and sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs. Broil until crumbs are a deep golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes, rotating pan if necessary for even browning. Cool about 5 minutes, then serve.

I like to put thinly sliced tomato and onion beneath bread crumbs. I haven't tried making this with Wondra instead of all-purpose flour but I bet it would simplify the roux. The secret to this recipe is the two cheeses. Any dish that contains pasta cannot be left overnight with the pasta in it or it gets very thick as the pasta absorbs the liquid. I recently turned turkey soup into turkey Jello.

Something I enjoy not understanding

I just spent eight hours reading about nous and logos. I will not pretend to understand the two terms but it was quite a revelation to find all of the history that has contributed to the thoughts on nous and logos. It was like finding the solution to unified field. All of the thoughts and ideas that I have been reading about for years seemed to come together at one point. It is as if all of the religions and schools of philosophy decided to publish a compilation of everything that is most important and common to them all. Nothing about heaven or hell or the sacred knucklebones of Saint Sagebrush, just who and what are we. It all started when I started reading about Mt. Athos. There is more to us than just living creatures, we are beings.

Identification

Due to a recent post and a comment by one of my precious daughters, I feel it is necessary to explain the difference between Italian meatballs and Swedish meatballs.
Italian meatballs have moustaches and smell like garlic and wine. If you drop them on a foreign shore, they immediately find a job, work hard, buy a home, and raise a family.
Swedish meatballs have big square heads, smell like herring and aqua vitae, and if you drop them on the floor they go "Dinka donka dinka donka!".

Tired

I have been talking to my neighbors and peers. They all seem to have one common feeling. They are tired. The optimism and joy of living and loving that my generation held on to for so long is gone. There is a malaise in America. People are tired of wars and corruption and layoffs and disease in the food supply and spiraling medical costs and economic melt downs and bailouts. I have my own feeling. There was a time when Americans took on all adversity with a smile. They no longer do. They are not tired, they are Bushed!

Crisis averted

Yesterday's crisis was averted. While rummaging around in the freezer, looking for chicken stock, I found several quarts of tomato sauce way in the back. Into the pot with the meatballs went one and the balance between meatballs and sauce has been restored. There will be no problem with menu planning for the next several days. Life is good if the only problem one has is too many meatballs. I can remember when the problem was no meatballs and not much of anything else. I can't wait for the meatballs to be gone as I am planning turkey tetrazini. I have everything that I will need for it and I am looking forward to making the noodles. Mmmm, turkey, onion, garlic, butter, flour, cream, green pepper, and fresh noodles. Life is good.

A plethora of meatballs

Once more I face my nemesis, the closed loop system of tomato sauce and meatballs. Several days ago I made spaghetti and meatballs. To say that I am a little bit anal about the sauce and meatballs is similar to saying that King Kong was a little bit monkey!

1. I crush the tomatoes myself, as I only use whole plum tomatoes packed in juice not puree or sauce, and they are the only product that does not have the calcium in them to promote crunchiness.
2. I make my own bread crumbs as I always have at least one loaf of day old French or Italian bread on hand.
3. I grind my own hamburger from a small roast beef and some pork. Hamburger from the market scares me and by making my own I can add a teaspoon of unflavored gelatin to the egg and therefore not have to add veal.
4. This results in a lot of meatballs therefore I make about a gallon of tomato sauce. Tomatoes, onion, basil, some crushed red pepper flakes, olive oil, salt, about a cup of minced garlic, and some tomato paste and sugar get everything rolling. One half cup of Chianti, reduced in a sauce pan first, and then the entire thing simmers for about four hours. The meatballs go in during the last thirty minutes as they have already been browned in a skillet. For hours to wait and sit in the kitchen reading. Hmmm, is that an almost full bottle of Chianti sitting over there? Don't be lonely, come over here and sit by me.
Now the problem starts. I eat spaghetti and meatballs for about three days. At this point I have quite a few meatballs left and very little sauce. The solution is easy, make more sauce. Now I have a lot of sauce and not many meatballs left. The solution is easy, make more meatballs. Now I have____________!
I have another theory, I have a lot of them, in Italy, at Christmas time, they must give meatballs instead of fruitcake. I am sure that there must be meatballs circulating out there that graced the plate of Caesar. No, that can't be right as they did not have tomatoes in Caesar's day and no person in their right mind would make a gallon of garum masala. It would be better to purchase a jar of Nuoc Mam instead. Of course to do that they would have had to journey to Vietnam, introduce christianity, set up a western style system of government, pacify the countryside, and even the Romans would see the folly in that! The Romans were well aware of the danger of meatballs. They were also aware of the dangers of HAVING A MEATBALL IN CHARGE! Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
The Romans also had a unique way of dealing with their Republicans, they killed them all and went on to enjoy the Pax Romana, a thousand years of relative peace. I read that.

Cleansing

The first snow of the season, that I can remember, is falling gently outside. The land is covered with a thin white blanket that grows thicker by the hour. We are now in the last portion of the year. It seems appropriate that the baptism of the year occur now. It has been an eventful year, filled with promise and birth and growth and disappointment and foreboding and war and pestilence and famine. It is as if the sky is saying "Go in peace 2008, your sins are forgiven and you will be remembered as just an ordinary year. There is a new white quire ready for 2009. Go in peace and sin no more.". Now all we have to do is make it through this month. Sixty-seven years ago we were in the same condition. Two thousand years ago a man of peace was born. Ninety years ago the war to end all wars was fought. That war had one day of peace right in the middle. On a certain Christmas Day the German and English soldiers refused to fight each other and had a soccer match instead. That day has troubled the sleep of generals ever since. Sixty-seven years ago another war to end all wars was born. Two thousand years and still no peace, sixty-seven years and new wars have been born and borne. We commemorate the birth of that peaceful man with a song about playing a drum for him. We march off to war to the sound of that drum. Perhaps it would be more fitting to have a soccer match to celebrate that day when the light of peace and brotherhood first glimmered forth from a humble stable in a long ravaged land. Eisenhower "The people of the world want peace and some day their governments are going to have to step aside and let them have it.". Two thousand years is a long time to learn a lesson. I just hope that we can make it through this month and start the new year with a clean slate, a clean conscience, and clean hands. The man of peace said "Turn the other cheek.", not "Lock and Load.". The CEOs of this country should be more worried about the eye of a needle than the balance sheet. The snow will melt soon, will the year 2009 be a year of a clean sheet? I hope so!

Dreams

I awoke this morning with the pleasant memory of a dream I had last night flitting through my mind. I started pondering the difference between dreams and wakefullness.
The awakened time seems to be dominated by logic and linear progression. "What is the reason that the sink is backing up and how do I resolve it? How many cups of garlic go into the spaghetti sauce? What would I do if?".
The dream times seem to be dominated by emotion and empathy. There are no insolvable crisises. Strangely enough there is no cooking or reading in the dreams. Complications from the past are resolved through understanding and cooperation.
Dreams seem fairer and I like myself better in dreams than in reality. The boy, with his sense of fairness and hope is alive in the dreams but has died in the awake world. I like the boy better than I like the man. The boy, who gloried in running up a hill or jumping a fence, had more life in him than the old man, sitting and reading and cooking, has in him.
I am surprised that there were no dark dreams because I spent yesterday reading Euripides. His plays appeal to a boy whose ancestors came from the land of Ibsen. Times have changed so much. Mankind has come from the days of Jason and Medea to the days of Alan Harper and Judith. So the wheel of life continues to turn. All will be well as long as the wheel never reverses itself. You can never recapture a rapture.

Balmy

Yesterday was a wonderfully balmy day. I went for a long walk in the gentle breezes, sunlight, and tepid temperature. It is unusual for such a day to occur in December in this part of the country so it must be savored immediately. I have a right to declare it balmy because if you look up balmy in the dictionary, you will find my picture. I am the poster boy for balmy!
Speaking of dictionaries, who would have thought that the making of the Oxford English Dictionary could be such fascinating reading? A good read, full of mystery and murder and tenderness and pathos. When I was in elementary school, I used to go to the library and read the big dictionary that they had on a lecturn but I never thought that I would enjoy a book about the making of a dictionary.
The English language, the lingua franca of mankind. Such a beautiful thing it is. So reflective of the English themselves. Tender, moving, ribald, thought provoking, and unorganized, it is so much English. Many years ago I wrote a paper on language and how it affects the people that speak it. There was a dual perspective to the paper. The first was the supposition that the language affects the conduct of the people. The Germans don't just open a door, they knock open the door. The second was that the people effect the language. The French, with their gentle ways and incisive intellect, can call you a dirty bum and a miscreant in ways that will make you think that they are giving you an award. A long time has passed since they were considered the most feared warriors of Europe. Even their name is a derivative of their most feared weapon.
I have spent much time studying languages, how they are different and how they are related. There are many mysteries of history hidden in those relationships. There are so many questions that arise from those topics. How can the Finns and the Basques have a common languge bond? DNA research has proven that mankind came out of Africa and settled the world but language seems to have originated somewhere near India and spread from there, in an Indo-european centered context. Mankind coming from a land of fangs and massacres and disease and language coming from a land of peace and thought and structure. This is a massive generalization but it is worth some thought. What would Linear A tell us of a people that had no walls, depended on trade and their brains to get along. People with very little resources in their native land but able to build a society that valued personal accomplishment and realized that religion was no business of men and found a way to let men rule the secular environment and women rule the ecclesiastical. Each had a value and there was no schism between the two. There is not much of them in Linear B, which was a gift of the Dorians when they came knocking on the door.
Those same Dorians became the Greeks with their incredible concept of xenia. Then the Romans with Latin and its love of order and the Romance languages with their hodge podge of thought, and English which encourages a long haired, sleeping gnome to sit up in the late hours of the night and ponder such arcane concepts. What a different world we would live in if xenia had suvived the transitions.
All of this compost heap of thought has come from the fact that I am finally reading Euripides.
That is all the news from Sesquipedalia. (Oooh, the OED is such a joy and any Scrabble player would love to lay down the last word in the OED and might finish the game with the first). Now Johanna, try to deny that my self evaluation was correct. The proof is before you!

Bliss

Yesterday was bliss. I didn't go out at all. I spent the day making turkey stock. In my life, making stock is second only to making tomato sauce. I had to use two pots as my stock pot is very small and not really a stock pot. My sister-in-law gave me a book about the Oxford English Dictionary and I had a very good bottle of wine so I simmered the stock for six hours. Six quarts of turkey stock are now in the freezer and the memory of such a blissful day is still with me.