We’ve migrated on over to a new nest at Loiseaufait
Please come and see us at our new blog address! Movin’ on up…
Home Sweet Nest.
Tonight, we made this for dinner. I happened to chance on Renee’s newly resuscitated blog today. Renee is one of those marvelous Venn-Diagram friends that you wish you might see more of, but are happy when the your two disparate circles cross ellipses (over Katie Rose). Renee makes macarons and hard candy, crepes and canapes, beignets and souffles, and I bet she’d make one of those whole pressed ducks with duck juice if she could get her mitts on one of those crazy presses .
What I love about this blog, and this recipe, is that it reminds me of cooking when I really didn’t know beans about cooking. Second year of college, in my first real Kitchen. Following simple recipes slavishly to learn how things worked. Steak Diane calls for 1/2 tsp parsley- let’s get out the measuring spoons- (even that I’d pick to make “Steak Diane” at all is ridiculous, undoubtedly for a boy), Green Beans with Champagne-Shallot Vinaigrette (which I stumbled across the paper recipe not too long ago- on which I had written: “works with canned beans too!”), Grilled Pears with Cardamom Cream… all in search of the humble homey recipes that I could toss in whatever I had at hand, add what I knew would make it special, and go.
You can’t just start like that, you can’t just assume that because you have half a can of coconut milk and a big miscellaneous brown and yellow squash that curry and cloves are the way to go (and if you have half a thing of plain yogurt, hell might as well make the thing spicy!). Funfetti is delicious for a reason and that is so that little girls who love horses can figure out what it means to add eggs to something and have it make magic.
Renee’s lentils are so simple and easy in their simplicity that there’s something elegant about them. Even moreso that only one of the ingredients is fresh. This kind of recipe is the kind that takes you back to your roots (or at least makes you want to put some down, just a few shallotty feelers), the kind to put in your quiver to keep for rainy drizzly nights when you want to feel like you feathered your nest with home.
And beans.
Ain’t Nothin But a Thing
An Ipod is a funny thing. I’ve had mine for a few years- The last one crapped out and no matter how many times Daddy dropped it from an approximate height of 1.5 feet of the ground (this salvaged it once) it still made that horrifying sad face. The last one (“Le Poot”) had been carefully curated and filed and tweaked all the way from the salad days of Napster, when one had time to rename Elton Juan: Tinie Dancer.mp3 to the correct title and slap some album art on there and the leisure time to make sure that all songs under “Flaming Lips” were renamed to go under “The Flaming Lips” and things that shouldn’t be named “Flaming Lips” are put in their correct place (even though you never really want to actually listen to that KCRW business- it’s more for when someone else is looking through your ipod- “I-smug” as Eben calls it).
Ahh salad leisure days. In my increasingly scheduled life, I don’t have the time I’d like to go through and actively curate my pod (I can barely keep my pants clean/on and my records alphabetized). This pod (“Pooty Two”) has fallen prey to whatever Huey, Louie, and Dewey decimal system of categorization I got willy nilly when I dumped music from my Dad’s hard drive, and my brother’s hard drive, Jocie’s hard drive, and every CD I could find over the Christmas holiday when I got it.
Basically, I have no idea what’s on the thing. I don’t have things I think I should have and I’ll only have a random Q side of something I love (I only have “Brooklyn Go Hard” when I used to the Black Album and the Grey Album saved in two places), and genres such as “Chamber Pop”, “Krautrock, Disco”, and “Swedish Murdercore”. Wha happen?
Today, I experienced an interesting corollary to this hunt-and-peck style of organization. Sweetheart doesn’t like to shuffle (thanks Harriet). “An album should be listened to in its entirety and in the order which it was produced”. I get it. I like it. Fine. After taking it off of shuffle for Red Headed Stranger (again) he left it that way and left me to my own devices.
I went Ipod>Music>Songs>Ain’t No More Cane
45 minutes later, still thick in songs that begin with the word “Ain’t”… it was awesome. Songs I didn’t know I had, multiple versions of songs I’d never heard before. A freeform jazz odyssey for a festival crowd.
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Michael MacDonald (omg)
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, The Supremes
Ain’t No Sunshine, Bill Withers
Ain’t No Telling, Jimi Hendrix
Ain’t No Woman like the One I Got, The Four Tops
Ain’t Nobody Home, BB King
Ain’t Nothing like the Real Thing, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (I have this song three times in a row)
Ain’t That a Groove, James Brown
Ain’t That a Kick in the Head, Dean Martin
Ain’t That Good News, Sam Cooke
Ain’t That Love, Ray Charles
Ain’t That Love, Brenda Lee (the overlap between Nashville and Detroit here is bonkers)
Ain’t That Peculiar, Marvin Gaye
Ain’t That Peculiar, New Grass Revival (amazing hair)
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, The Temptations
Ain’t Wastin Time/Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, Allman Brothers and The Allman Bros respectively.
Ain’t You Wealthy, Ain’t You Wise, Bonnie Prince Billy
All in all an excellent run. The disorganized pod occasionally leads to gems that last an entire morning- ain’t that nice.
The Key of “S”
Informational programmes too often neglect to mention the boite diabolique.
Long time no doop, eh?
exponential thanks to Eben for this one.
God Bless the Stencils
From the west coast: these lovely delicate numbers (and who can’t appreciate a kitchen that has a special plate just for holding vertical toothpicks? Talk about corralling!). We all know you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, but I hope pancakes were made with the fruits of these beauties. Thanks Mama Stencil!
DIY Easter Egg Reprise
My mother collects bird-nests. By now she has dozens of them, and each one has a story… ‘this one with the auburn gold hair woven in is from Sally’s Valley, the hair came from Cayman, their Golden Retriever… this tiny one is from the barn at the farmhouse in Toano where you were born… this one with the beads of amber is from two Christmas trees ago, remember when we found it there in the branches?’ Her favorite nest, a delicate little number thatched with horse-hair and poets laurel, sat on a bow-front chest in her bathroom, and held three sepia-colored eggs blown hollow and covered with gossamer photo-negative outlines of tiny ferns, clovers, and gingko leaves.
Spurred into memory by the recent changes in the weather towards the warm and supple breezes of spring (and the sudden appearance of the hollow-chocolate-rabbit Easter tableaux manifesting themselves across New York), I decided to make myself some of these beautiful eggs. Instead of traditional dye, the sepia eggs of my youth are made by boiling the egg alongside yellow onion skins (easily acquired for free, especially in the north-eastern-winter-time-farmers-market glut of root vegetables).
You will need: eggs, onion skins, a small stockpile of interesting leaves (parsley is easy to get in a city as well as the aforementioned), panty-hose or cheesecloth or gauze (I found a bunch of those footies you try on shoes with), rubber bands, some sort of ballast (I used loose change).
-Fill a deep pot with water and bring the onion skins to a boil.
-Hollow out the eggs by piercing a small hole with a pin in either end of the egg, and, positioning the egg over an empty bowl, blow, baby, blow (you can leave the eggs intact, but then the finished product is perishable, and you won’t have the makings of a delicious frittata when it’s all said and done).
-Nestle your egg into the panty-hose (or square of gauze/cheesecloth) and put in a couple of leaves flush with the shell. The leaves resting against the shell creates the relief outline, so use your imagination.
-Tie the egg tightly off with a rubber band, add enough ballast to keep the hollow egg under the water, loop the rubber band around again and drop into the pot.
-Let percolate for as long as you want, until the egg achieves your desired level of greatness.
-Remove the egg from the water with a slotted spoon and place into another bowl full of cold water until the egg is cool enough to handle. Unwrap and marvel at your ingenuity.
Sepia isn’t the only color option, though, there are many variations of natural pigments that can be used to imbue the eggs with sweet, tender, and genuine colors not found in a little tear-drop of McCormick food coloring. For yellow eggs, try stargazer lily stamens (use a non-reactive pot and watch your apron!), for purple-blue use beets, for green eggs (ham, foxes, and boxes not included) try spinach. Have some friends over, experiment, make a delicious “McFadden Ricotta Fritatta” with the egg you have left over, and have a happy spring.
Man Is the Animal Who Uses Tools
Yes, I did Odyssey of The Mind. My team and I, wonderful, bookish, stalwart middle schoolers to a man, built a life-size model of Elvis who came alive when you touched his blue suede shoes (something to do with a magic postman, a mother with a past, and a dress form in the attic… all in all it would make a great screenplay). Our Elvis played the tambourine and swiveled his hips (via a small motor and a Christmas wreath form) and had eerily realistic plaster teeth that one team member had stolen from his orthodontist. We were pithy and smart and funny and wanted to kiss each other (here’s looking at you Joey Packer). We won. Then we lost at the State Tournament to some bumpkins from Buchanan county that made a hydraulic Forest Gump called “Forest Stump” that was wholly mechanized and could stand up off his bench and put a feather in his book.
I do not begrudge the victory (that much), though, because undoubtedly at least one of those team members made this staggeringly marvelous machine. Hooray for the presence of thought, want of discovery, and appreciation of mechanized beauty. After all, that is music.
~thanks to Lucas for the video.
“Great Dimes”**
From Ken:
the draped bust dime
the capped bust dime
the seated liberty dime
the roosevelt dime*
the dime bag
the dimebag darrell
*see also: Roosevelt Dime
**official title. Other possible titles: “There aint nothin like a dime”, “It was the best of dimes it was the worst of dimes”, “March: of dimes!”, “Di Me, Sandra”, “Dimed and gone to Heaven”, and “Desperate Dimes call for Disparate Pleasures”.
Super(lative) Democracy
Ever since our devotion to America’s “most radioactive” President (see above) stranded the Ginsberg Historical Society with almost a CASE of rye whiskey left over after we threw a Tuesday Night Party in Georgie’s honor, we’ve been making manhattans and raising our glasses to the superlative nature of the American Presidency. Such luminaries include:
America’s “Hottest President“
I mean what lends itself to bodice ripping more than viticulture, horticulture, an appreciation for the rolling and verdant hills of Virginia, an apparently sensational libido, and a mane of sweet ginger locks. My type.
President Who Settles “Elvis v. Beatles” Debate
Vaguely neck and neck (if you were living through it) pretty much through Blue Hawaii, abruptly upswinging in Beatles’ favor with this handshake serving as harbinger of sad Las Vegas denoument. Alright, so regardless of what Mia Wallace says, Elvis v. Beatles isn’t the stuff of marrow, but still going from having a seatbelt on his bed to begging Tricky Dick if he can be “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is damning evidence.
“Bulliest President”
Teddy Roosevelt: Bully!
“Most Alliterative”
Runners up: Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan. Mr. Congeniality: W. Henry Harrison.
“Most Hamstrung By History”
Ahh, Thurgood Marshall, far reaching civil and economic reform, early agricultural and environmental protection and advancement, while having to enact half baked lionized policies of America’s Second Hottest President, war mongering turns the “great society” into our own “great leap forward“. Sigh. Lady Bird’s Hair slightly redemptive.
Though Mme. Palin may think that all the “hopey changey stuff” we pinned our dreams on for the recent past is a rallying cry for mediocrity, let’s lift our chalices to America’s Most Exciting President… forget “The New Deal”, this is the Fresh Deal.
“America’s Freshest President*”
*since FDR.
Tonight the Empire State Building is Red-White-and-Blue, and so is my heart. Cheers America, and all of your sons.
Doopalus Plus 