Recently in Nostalgia Category

I've been trying to write this post for a week now, but honestly, I haven't known how to start. For various reasons, as the result of various outings and errands, I could convince myself I simply didn't have a moment to sit down and post. I'd compose the beginning lines in my head sometimes while Stephen and I drove back up the 101 from El Granada in the dark, but those thoughts were inevitably too maudlin for public consumption.

It was wrong to wait, there's so much to tell you. Most of it is very exciting. Really, this summer should be a pretty neat time here at 2 Tasty Ladies. First though, the inevitable thing. The real reason I couldn't make myself post this before was because I was in denial. If I wrote about what was happening, I'd have to acknowledge it, and I hadn't any desire to do that. See, my partner in blog and I, we've shown a funny tendency to be to behave in the fashion of weeping, melodramatic Victorian heroines when one or the other of us is going away. I refer specifically to a scene in the Baltimore airport on January 2, 2004, of which we rarely speak. Too embarrassing by far.

So, to avoid such a moment for as long as possible, we went our business with only the faintest attention paid to the inevitable. First we had the Last Barbecue. Then, on the Fourth of July, the Last Dinner at Tejal's house. Then the Last Dinner at my house. Then Last Pizza on the floor of her packed up apartment. Although we openly called it Last Something or Other, we didn't really believe it. We'd roll our eyes about it, and then fall back into the comfortable pillow of denial.

On Monday night, Stephen and I drove down to El Granada for a final time. We got dressed up and went to dinner at Navio in the Ritz Carlton with Tejal and Glyn. Our dinner was marvelous, the service fantastic. We talked about food, beaches, what our accents say about us, how Milton had his temperature taken at the vet. For a few hours I almost, almost forgot. We went back to their empty apartment, made small talk for a few minutes, and then we had to go. I was feeling on the verge of Victorian meltdown. Goodbyes were, at long last, said, and hugs of the sort that you hug when you know it has to last a long time were hugged. A few hours later, I don't even think they went to sleep, Tejal and Glyn drove away from their apartment, their garden, from the Bay Area. They headed off to visit family in Portland, and then Chicago before Tejal stops over for a few months in New York before joining Glyn in London.

In the film adaptation of Emma starring a very young Kate Beckinsale, there is a scene where everyone goes on a marvelously indulgent picnic. They pile into carriages and tromp into a fine, sundrenched field accompanied by footmen and linens and roasted joints of meat. Every time Stephen and I tromp to the beach or the park with a quilt and a chunk of cheese, I can't help but think of myself in this context.

Even if I had access to be-wigged footmen (or could convince my Dear Boy to don a powdered hairpiece for my amusement), this isn't the type of picnic I'd enjoy. Still, there is something about nibbling out in the fresh air and sunshine that makes me think about history, both literary and factual. I wonder how many leisure activities have remained pleasurable through the centuries as well as picnicing. The unremarkable act of eating transforms into a nearly Dionysian, indulgent pastime when performed while lounging on the grass. If Manet is to be believed, this has long been so.

However, just because I'm in the mood for a picnic doesn't necessarily mean I'm in the mood to plan an elegant yet casual meal suitable for packing and transportation. Hardly anything makes a girl feel less like a relaxed Elizabeth Bennet than rearranging plastic containers of salami and olives to make them fit better in the backpack.

Many Halloweens ago, I had a fairly wild party at my apartment in Boston, though it did not even begin to compete with my neighbour's wild parties: weekends of electron-polka, screaming into the night, and a floor made entirely of mattresses--you could sort of see on tiptoes, standing on my garden wall. But that's my business.

The point is: Martha dressed as eighties style Strawberry Shortcake. She was a little bit too sexy to be the freckled cartoon character, but she paid respects to the original Strawberry we all loved from old Strawberryland, the one who skipped about in a pair of barely peeking bloomers, striped stockings, and an enormous bonnet, trailing a green ribbon and sweet Custard the Cat close behind.

Strawberry, to my complete distress, doesn't look like a lovely human cupcake anymore (Martha doesn't either, she changed right after the party). And I find they've modernised Strawberryland to seduce a whole new generation with a world that hints at the delicious psychedelics of scratch n' sniff dolls: where one's hair is perpetually perfumed by berries, unlocked houses are built of eternally ripe, massive strawberries, the gentle landscape is a rolling frosted cake layer, and the only chocolate tree-forts are in a neighbouring land run by a boy, obviously--most likely banished from society for his embarrassing, dessert theme name and naughty pet, Devils Food Ruddy Shelduck. Or something.

This morning, I received the folllowing e-mail from my parents:

"We are enjoying Portugal. Warm people, great weather and fresh food (if somewhat simply prepared). Today, we go to Belem to see the sights and try the pasteis de Belem!"

Until my week long stay in Lisbon with Portuguese and Brazilian friends, my understanding of Portuguese culture was basically defined by Bossa Nova made in the 60's (Tip: Brazilian women are tired of being referred to as the Girl from Ipanema. Seriously, no matter how tall, tan, young and lovely they may be. Stop it. Right now, stop). So the first time I heard the term "conventual pastries" I simply thought that my friends were mispronouncing the word conventional. Because pie crust plus eggy custard filling equals a pretty conventional sounding, fuddy-duddy, unadventurous, formula for mediocre pastry. Forgive me.

They meant conventual as in convent. Pasteis de Belem are perhaps the most famous, but almost all of the pastries lining Lisbon's pastelerias were mastered in convents by nuns with an excess of eggs and time, who I imagine found their sweet, guilty, pleasures of the flesh in the making of pastries...the sensual kneading of the dough, the careful lining of small tins, the furious thrashing of the yolks and sugar, the quick stiffening of that wobbly, golden custard, and finally, the teasing aroma of cinnamon, caramelising butter and sugar, that filled the grounds, distracting their sisters and neighbouring clergymen from their vegetable patches, endless copying of manuscripts, counting of gold, self-flagellation--or whatever they were getting up to.

You can still buy pastries from some of the convents directly if you want to: it may involve sliding money towards a pair of eyes behind a tiny, sliding door, and in return, getting your pastries and change through another tiny, sliding door further down. Creepy.

A beautiful African Grey lived in the hallway of my grandparents' house. Anyone daft enough to stick a finger in the cage would see the bird swoop from one end of the cage to the other in one swift jump, beak first, making for the wiggling finger tip, drawing flesh and blood right down to the bone. It was best to stay on this bird's good side. One did this by feeding him raw green and red chillies--holding the stem cautiously outside of the bars of course. He would snatch the chilli, eyeing you with the googly look of an addict, examine it: seeds, placenta (or, membrane), skins, and gobble the whole.

I was terrified, always imagining him to be a bit of a scary sadomasochist bird--but, as it turns out, birds aren't sensitive like we are to capsaicin--that chemical found in chilli peppers and ladies' handbags equipped with pepper spray. This means that for the innocent parrot, it was just a tasty, crunchy snack rich with vitamin C, pro-vitamin A, B vitamins, potassium, magnesium, and iron. And as a bonus for the chilli, the bird, munching his nutritious snack, inadvertently became a vehicle for spreading the seeds, which passed through his body whole. Perfectly natural.

As it turns out, I'm the girl who enjoys those endorphins released by the pain experience that is the chilli pepper. As it turns out, I'm the bird with masochistic tendencies.

It was during Queen Victoria's sovreignty that the British Empire made its enormous expansion to superpower, a water mould destroyed the potatoe crops of Ireland, and the country entered into the Crimean War. She was the first known carrier of haemophilia in the royal line--the disease that would not affect her, but her great-grandson Alexei, you know the one. She is famous for evading numerous assasination attempts and outliving three of her children; and she is remembered still for the white dress of her wedding--which sealed the tradition of white weddings, if it did not begin it--and the black she wore after her Albert died, til her death. Among other things.

And yet, when I think of her--the Empress of India, the Famine Queen, the Widow of Windsor, the Monty Python Skit--it is not her porcelain profile on a Red Penny postage stamp but a yellow sponge cake that floats to the front. The cake is sandwiched with raspberry preserves and served, if it be that time of the month for her majesty, with a cup of cannabis tea. The Victoria Sponge.

Almost every time I really enjoy cheese I think back to a series of lectures with Thomas Badcock-real name. I wish I could get in touch with him again--the tall Englishman with a spotted bow tie who managed to highlight the history of cheese in such an intelligent and hilarious way that even the most doodle prone students were writing things down: luxury vs. survival, or Brillat-Savarin, a feeder? He encouraged enthusiasm for the cheese course, suggested thoughtful pairings, and dreamed of restaurants filled again with the aggressive stench of the cheese cart.

The Cheese Man first told me about the Family of Decay: cheese, wine, miso, cured meats, olives. Basically, things we've learned to ferment, treat, and preserve out of necessity, but which continue to evolve and change because we still eat them. Why? Because at the right moment, before ripeness turns to rot, before the Brie tastes like a bottle of ammonia, there's a window of perfectly delicious.

My family has just left after a wonderful visit here full of eating and drinking together in Napa. We ate at the French Laundry, in whose beautiful gardens my mother asked Thomas Keller, in his whites, "are you the chef? Do you know how long it took me to get a reservation here?" Oh yes. I don't know where to start with dinner at the French Laundry, I've wanted to eat there for so many years and flipped through the cookbook when I couldn't sleep. Classics from those pages suddenly appearing in front of me: Oysters and Pearls, Coffee and Doughnuts. It was surreal.

We also had dinner at Domaine Chandon, which was O.K. And we had a dinner at home. We couldn't fit eight people around our dining table, so some on the sofa, some on the floor; it really felt like home. Our menu:

mushroom foam
tiny Yukon baked with quail egg
lamb shank ravioli with spicy butternut broth

tomato granita, tomato and mozzarella creamwich, tomato water
seared scallops, fennel salad, blood orange olive oil
duck rillette, torchon of foie gras, smoked duck breast with blueberry gastrique, sauternes jelly
beetroot tarte tatin with Humbolt Fog

white chocolate, sherry, and plum trifle
rose turkish delight parfait on milk chocolate rice krispy cake

Apart from overcooking the quail eggs in the oven (should have poached them first then dropped them in the indent of potatoe), everything went really well. My dad went booze shopping with Glyn and Nishant, and had gathered a few bottles from our trip to Napa. We hadn't all been together since January and then it was only for a few days. So this was a really special meal. I'm so glad Martha and Stephen came too. And now?

Now my family's all gone, the fog is nuzzling up to the windows and I feel like drinking tea all the time. Tonight what began as tea--my mum brought me a golden bag of Kenyan--turned into an indoor picnic of various cheeses, crusty bread, saucisson sec, and some sweet sherry. I bought a Bucheron and aged Gouda at our wine and cheese store on main street, and had some leftovers from Cowgirl Creamery. Cashel Blue, Red Hawk, Humboldt Fog. They're my family now...