Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, May 17
through
Saturday, May 23
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It’s Saturday, May 23
Welcome to the 776th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Berry in a 1958 publicity photo
Pickwick Records - Billboard, page 59, 25 November 1972
Original text: Billboard, page 59, 25 November 1972)
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2.0 Commentary
Phone visit by a podiatrist.
Must be by smartphone between 9.15am and 10.15am.
When the call comes in, I must open an app called MyHealth.
And from there call up a second app called MyChart.
And then call up a third app that turns the phone into a connective device that includes the doc and my personal history and me.
Worrying about the technology is so stressful I’ll need a session with a therapist to calm.
Does it have to be so technologically involved?
Really?
Fortunately my friend Grace will be here to help me through.
Most individuals don’t have similar helpmates.
What do they do?
What would I do?
And yet we learn or struggle.
I’m in a group that in the last week has met twice via telephone connectivity, once through Skype and once, Zoom.
Both times I had help logging on.
Electronic conferencing is now the standard and not knowing how-to relegates one to Mars or beyond.
And despite my own struggles, a good thing, I think.
Got to learn how to.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
I am neither especially clever nor
especially gifted.
I am only very, very curious.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Kali L:
Dom,
We had to sit outside at a school desk to apply for our marriage license!
These days, all I can do is laugh 😂
Blog Meister responds:
Amen to that my dear.
Great photo! Hey, good luck on the event!
Love all around.
Just think: One day your child will ask: “So what did you do during the pandemic, mom?”
And this from Howard D:
you said
“Now we know this is not a personal attack.
And yet that hand comes up so abruptly it’s difficult to accept it as an exercise good sense.
Not when we’ve been programmed to repel hostile acts.
For a flash we will experience at least a touch of resentment.
Which will require a rapid recovery leading to an understanding response.
Which will lead to a comfortable settling conducive to a friendly reunion.”
Not only is it not personal. I find it hard to imagine how anyone except someone in therapy could see this behavior as an attack.
I used to be a hugger. Took me a long time, a significant part of my life, to attain this status.
One thing I learned, it’s surprising the number of people, usually men, but also women… and I haven’t paid enough attention ever to collect statistics, even of the most casual and half-assed, and assuredly anecdotal sort, as to what ages, etc. … who shied away, when my intent was clear. Never mind the friends who know me and know what I am about to perpetrate.
I never took it personally. And I never was given any impression, passively or explicitly, that they did.
Now we have a new protocol facing us, if only purely in potentiality of outcomes of the impact of the forced changes in our behavior for months at a time.
Why you insist (because this is a trait of yours, at least rhetorically) on thinking you know what any random person will do, or more importantly think, and how quickly: “For a flash we will experience at least a touch of resentment…”
Fact is, we’re all at risk, whether we are conscious of it or not, whether we resent the fact (after processing the fact through whatever bizarre ideological filter we’ve latched onto), or embrace the fact that now everyone should be more mindful, conscientious, clued-in, and thoughtful of others, all others, individually and collectively. These latter characteristics are, at least nominally – I guess for many it’s been just mouth music, for years – the way we’ve preached to one another for a very long time. Before pandemic threats, never mind realities.
So, for one, me? I’m used to it. And I’m already inured to not taking anything personally, and frankly not caring if, by acting conscientiously and thoughtfully, not just about myself, but about others, including strangers, never mind friends and loved ones, someone else thinks I am being, well, I don’t know what… I don’t care. It had better be reflexive that we back away, raise a hand, gently, perhaps as if in greeting, but with enough of sub-text of deterrence, and even say something, also gently preferably, but some people, as we all know, don’t take a hint, never mind anything but a civil express word, like “stop.”
You got a problem with that? Let’s look forward to what we will have to deal with once we are more comfortable and completely safe (at least as safe as we are sheltering at home, with social distancing, and masks, the full megillah), and spend less time thinking, or imagining we know, what will happen. That would be nice.
xoxo
h
Blog Meister responds: Nice piece, Howard, per usual.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Thursday night I ate a the best ribs ever.
Here’s the recipe I developed.
SLOW-ROASTED/BROILED SPARERIBS
Full rack ribs (near 3 lbs)
Baker’s tray w rack
In a bowl, mix the following:
! TB Pineapple juice
1 TB soy ginger sauce
! TB AsianOil (or Sesame Oil)
touch of hot sesame oil
1 t honey
1 TB tomato paste
1 TB horseradish
1 t green curry paste
1 TB spicy brown mustard
Brush the marinade over the rack.
Set the rack on the baker’s tray.
Using the lowest oven rack, slow roast (200* oven) the rack of ribs for 30 minutes per pound.
Turn on the broiler and broil each side of the ribs until it is deliciously browned, about 7 to 10 min per side.
Serve
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11.0 Thumbnail
In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records.
Berry thought his blues music would interest Chess, but Chess was a larger fan of Berry's take on "Ida Red".
On May 21, 1955, Berry recorded an adaptation of the song "Ida Red", under the title "Maybellene", with Johnnie Johnson on the piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass.
"Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart and number five on its Best Sellers in Stores chart for September 10, 1955.
Berry said, "It came out at the right time when Afro-American music was spilling over into the mainstream pop."
At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reached number 29 on the Billboard's Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56".
He and Carl Perkins became friends.
Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by country music. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great."
In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957", touring the United States with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.
He was a guest on ABC's Guy Mitchell Show, singing his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music".
The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the US Top 10 hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode".
He appeared in two early rock-and-roll movies: Rock Rock Rock (1956), in which he sang "You Can't Catch Me", and Go, Johnny, Go! (1959), in which he had a speaking role as himself and performed "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", and "Little Queenie".
His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 was captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day.
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was a high-profile established star with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career.
He had opened a racially integrated St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand, and invested in real estate.
But in December 1959, he was arrested under the Mann Act after allegations that he had had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old Apache waitress, Janice Escalante, whom he had transported across state lines to work as a hatcheck girl at his club.
After a two-week trial in March 1960, he was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.
He appealed the decision, arguing that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him.
The appeal was upheld, and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961, resulting in another conviction and a three-year prison sentence.
After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one-half years in prison, from February 1962 to October 1963.
He had continued recording and performing during the trials, but his output had slowed as his popularity declined; his final single released before he was imprisoned was "Come On".
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It’s Friday, May 22
Welcome to the 775th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Veal on the Hoof
David Monniaux - Own work
Bos taurus: cow and calf in Scotland
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2.0 Commentary
Real warm weather, defined as short-sleeve shirt weather,
is arriving tomorrow.
Am planning a walk along the Charles River to Harvard Sq to celebrate.
A perfect moment for an interesting lunch, but
Restaurant-dining-in is Xed from our list of to-dos.
That sucks.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
We are slowed-down sound and light waves,
a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos.
We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and
our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
With regards to Howard's comments on the size of a piece of steak: Had the "dude" ever been introduced to the concept of chewing? Or of a steak knife to prepare bite-sized pieces?
I like smaller pieces that I can savor with lengthy chewing. Especially if 1) I've paid a pretty penny for it and/or 2) it's a really succulent piece - well seasoned, medium rare, and tender. (I've always been a slow eater; all the more reason to enjoy every bite.) I think I remember that a minimum of thirty-two chews per bite was recommended by an oddball character in one of those plays popular with high-school drama clubs - "Arsenic and Old Lace" or You Cant Take It With You" - one of those ...
(Hey, Howard, please post more pictures of your bread. Of course, it's getting on toward supper time and I'm getting hungry.) Maybe I should have taken a picture of the applesauce-blueberry cake I made on Sunday - it's the best cake I've made in years! The paltry blueberry cake we got from the local bakery inspired me to do it better - nice texture but no flavor whatsoever and a dearth of blueberries. Too late for pictures now - it's more than half gone.
Happy gustation, all! 😁
Sally
Blog Meister responds: Good food certainly has a friend in you, my dear.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
How to: Veal Cacciatore
In a Dutch Oven fry the veal (10 ounces per person is generous) in 2TB olive oil until a healthy brown.
Sprinkle 1 level TB flour over the veal as it cooks.
Salt and freshly-ground pepper.
Remove.
Fry lots of mushrooms, large pieces, s and freshly-ground pepper and remove.
Add 1 TB of olive oil.
Fry sliced bell peppers, onions, fresno chili, s and freshly-ground pepper.
Chop a large heirloom tomato into small pieces and add them to the vegetables.
Add ½ cup white wine and copious amounts of chopped fresh Italian parsley and basil.
Return the veal to the Dutch Oven.
Cook in a 375* oven for 45 minutes.
Use the cover when the stew’s liquid is reduced to your taste.
Serve with crusty bread.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Veal is the meat of calves, in contrast to the beef from older cattle. Veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any breed; however, most veal comes from young males of dairy breeds which are not used for breeding.[2] Generally, veal is more expensive than beef from older cattle. Veal production is a way to add value to dairy bull calves and to utilize whey solids, a byproduct from the manufacturing of cheese.
Veal has been an important ingredient in Italian, French and other Mediterranean cuisines from ancient times. The veal is often in the form of cutlets, such as the Italian cotoletta or the famous Austrian dish Wiener Schnitzel. Some classic French veal dishes include fried escalopes, fried veal Grenadines (small, thick fillet steaks), stuffed paupiettes, roast joints, and blanquettes. Because veal is lower in fat than many meats, care must be taken in preparation to ensure that it does not become tough. Veal is often coated in preparation for frying or eaten with a sauce. Veal Parmigiana is a common Italian-American dish made with breaded veal cutlets.
In addition to providing meat, the bones of calves are used to make a stock that forms the base for sauces and soups such as demi-glace. Calf stomachs are also used to produce rennet, which is used in the production of cheese. Calf offal is also widely regarded as the most prized animal offal.[9] Most valued are the liver, sweetbreads, kidney, and bone marrow. The head, brains, tongue, feet, and mesentery are also valued.
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It’s Thursday, May 21
Welcome to the 774th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
A close up of a bottle
with permission from Howard Dinin, photographer
Tuna in a Jar
A close up of a bottle
with permission from Howard Dinin, photographer
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2.0 Commentary
I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t hesitate to pick up a large chef’s knife,
turn the protesting critter on its back,
and stab into its chest,
Dispatching the lobster in three seconds.
The kind who takes a clam knife, inserts the blade into the crease where the two shells meet, and
force it into the live clam, cutting it in two and
with relish, eating both the lobster and the clam in an appropriate style.
So when it comes to making a cacciatore, my three choices are chicken, shrimp, or veal.
Some are squeamish at the thought of eating the young of a dairy herd.
Except to write about it, eating veal or beef is a morally indifferent choice for me.
Tuesday night I had a most delicious Veal Cacciatore.
Why I chose veal?
For its uniquely firm texture and subtle flavor.
I will write up and print the recipe tomorrow.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
When you sit with a nice girl for two hours,
it seems like two minutes;
when you sit on a hot stove for two minutes,
it seems like two hours.
That's relativity.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Kali L:
Hi Dom,
I'm glad to hear you're getting on well with your knee.
I have found K-Tape to be very useful for pain areas. I have shoulder problems and shin issues and it's always helped me quite a bit.
https://www.kttape.com/pub/media/plumtree_video/video/file/k/t/kt-tape-full-knee-support.pdf
I just thought i'd send you the information in case it is useful for you.
All my love,
Kali
Blog Meister responds: Useful indeed. Love that' it’s concealed under pants.
You laways have my back. Thank you, love.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
This came in as an email from Howard D; but given its subject matter, length, and interest I decided it best fits here –Blogmeister.
I’m always interested to learn what others do to make what they think of as tuna fish salad. Not interested enough ever to ask – I mean, if I think my preferences are not so much my business, but, simply, my preferences and unaccountable to anyone, everyone else is entitled to the same magnanimity; and there’s too much risk opening the conversation by asking, because too many people think it’s an invitation to friendly debate, and I’m not interested; it’s kind of like explaining your fierce loyalty, if you have it, to the local sports franchise, and choose your own sport, it’s all of equal indifference to me… when you start talking you have to realize, with even a gram (one twenty-third part of an ounce) of self-awareness, that there is no scientifically provable reason to root for the Pats or the Sox or the Sixers or the Hornets or the Wasps or the Bees – but when the information about tuna fish comes up spontaneously, I pay attention).
I’ve come to prefer to call it dressed tuna fish. I think tuna fish is the main attraction, and whatever is added surely should be there for its own alluring and tasty properties to be savored in their own right for sure, but added to provide a mutual enhancement, kind of like a chamber music piece with the tuna primus inter pares. I mean, most people wouldn’t, under ordinary quotidian circumstances at any random time of year, cut themselves a healthy slice of fresh onion (whatever kind of the usual suspects: white, yellow, red, etc.) and dine on it as a snack. I’ve been known to, but usually it’s around this time of year when the inestimable Vidalia (the AOC kind, not those anonymous “sweet onion” varieties available almost year-round at WFM (say) appears in the produce section in abundance) appears in the produce department.
To me, onion is the first thing to think of adding. I’ll get to the few other additions in a minute. But back to the star ingredient.
As I see it, usually the darker the meat, the tastier the tuna, and so, like the Europeans, but especially the French, the Italians, the Portuguese, and the Spanish (you can admonish me if I’m leaving somebody out, but there’s a limit to what’s available to me – and serves as context – to buy with regard to sourcing of the tinned and jarred varieties), I think the best tuna to use, if you’re not starting out fresh (to utterly different objectives) are the cuts of this noble fish usually abstracted from the Bonito, which is not strictly a tuna fish, but very close, and otherwise known, especially to Americans, as the Skipjack. The designation as to species sometimes reduces, depending on what country you’re in, to a matter of legalities and labels. But though it’s the same family as tuna, as I say, it’s a different species. However, the important thing is, seeing bonito on the label is assurance you are getting a darker, i.e., a gamier and somewhat tastier, usually, bit of fish flesh.
he best packing is olive oil. And it needn’t even be EVOO, though it’s out there in the form of more luxe products, with concomitant prices to match. But olive oil, with or without salt, and the fish of course, should be all the ingredients you see listed. Before I learned about the more premium brands, and alternatively, the more abundant equivalent, though ordinary supermarket, brands over in France, I used to buy tuna that was Pastene or Goya branded, i.e., in the “international food” section of what are otherwise white bread groceries in this country. Even the biggest chains today sequester a much smaller selection of much tastier foreign (and nothing says exotic, which it isn’t and shouldn’t be, like “foreign,” or “imported” or, yeah, “international,” which is a euphemism for “them” and “other” and always has been, and I don’t care what you say). And they congratulate themselves for doing so.
And the reason I bought it was because this was the authentic – or as close to that quality as one can find in urban centers, especially outside of New York and Los Angeles, and certain ethnic neighborhoods, if they exist, in other American cities – choice of tuna to crown the only thing I would eat that genuinely joins the words salad to tuna. I mean, of course, salade Niçoise, that amazing, and amazingly simple, and straightforward concoction that is a staple of my Mediterranean summers, when I am over there. It entails what you’d expect in a salad – fresh vegetables – and is garnished with three absolute essentials, the only natural food items that have anything done to them aside from being cleaned of surface deposits, with nothing stronger than fresh water: anchovies, small black olives (there are two or three optimal varieties, any one of which can be, and is, called Niçois), not pitted, and fillets of anchovy. But the crown, as I say, is a significant mound of tinned (or canned, if you prefer not to be British, or the jarred, which are usually the premium brands) tuna. And it’s usually dark meat, and it’s usually glistening with oil and nothing else, the oil it was packed in.
But back to my main subject: dressed tuna fish.
I like to use either of two brands, both caught and packed in Portugal (Ortiz brand) or Costa Rica (Tonnino brand), and usually to be found in one of three varieties of the fish species we all, let’s face it, basically crave periodically for inner peace: yellowfin, bonito, and albacore, or name your species. And unpredictably it’s available in greater or lesser abundance in either of two cuts. There’s the one that’s called “white” or “white meat,” and usually sources from the albacore, as well as from the bonito. And from the latter, also, the meat may have a much ruddier hue naturally, and there’s the one that’s called “ventresca,” which is what Sicilians call the Italian word for the belly of the fish, the “ventre.” And this latter cut is meatier, juicier, fatter, and hence more flavorful. And it’s also costing a prettier penny.
In any event, from those two brands, and from, admittedly, a good number of others, but these are the ones I see in my local stores, but there’s, for one, Genova Seafood, an Italian brand, and eminently typical of what can be found in even the most pedestrian of super markets in rural France (let’s say). These brands are a bargain, actually, as the same fish and the same cuts are packed in the same olive oil, and tinned usually in somewhat smaller packs (doubtless to keep the prices from seeming exorbitant). And you couldn’t go wrong with this category either.
I open the tin, but, purely as a matter of purely personal subjective preference, I prefer the glass-jarred products (maybe it’s that I can see what’s “swimming” in there; maybe it’s the somewhat false perception that glass is more readily sterilizable and clean than sheet metal, usually steel – I say all this, and then I’ll admit, when I’m in Provence, I do as the Provençals do, and I buy my thon [tuna, tonno, whatever] in a can). I upend the container with the fish and the oil into a strainer bigger than the opening of the jar and let the oil drain out into a fat and oil receptacle I keep nearby to keep the oil out of the household trash.
When it’s fully drained, I empty the chunks, and they are usually large whole bits, intact, of even larger cuts of fillet, into a non-reactive bowl, usually stainless steel, and I gently break it up for a minute or so with a cooking fork, of the skinny three pronged variety. I then rinse the skin and towel dry a whole fresh lemon. I cut it into halves across the middle (that is, a latitudinal cut through the middle, rather than a longitudinal cut from stem end to south pole) and I use a juice squeezer to squeeze out of every drop of juice, and withhold every pip or seed, on top of the tuna.
I add the following (and these are approximate measures; as with so many dishes of casual, but still very vital and compelling, intimacy in my usual diet, I do it by eye and by hand… true enough, but if I told you “a scant handful,” it would mean very little, because you have no idea the size of my paw):
3-4 Tbsp of walnut halves, roughly chopped
3-4 Tbsp of your favorite fresh onion (Vidalia if you got, but this makes the result particularly mild), finely diced
1-2 Tbsp of poppy seeds (make sure they’re still fresh)
¼ - ½ tsp of celery seed
That’s it.
Now gently break up the tuna and blend with the other ingredients, until the tuna is in large shreds (at their smallest) and has blended evenly with everything else, and the tuna has absorbed the lemon juice, and so that all the ingredients mildly adhere to one another, so they would make a mound in a tablespoon without crumbling.
I like my dressed tuna in a sandwich of really good crusty bread – but it works in a ciabatta roll, or on strips of the same bread you prefer otherwise for a nice croustade or avocado toast. Really, it’s good on any decent bread you’ve got left before you can justify venturing out (literally, or virtually online) to get your hands on some more bread – unless of course, you’ve taken up baking your own. I will admit to liking mayonnaise, in incredibly moderate amounts. However, I’m not crazy for the iconic American diner version of tuna fish salad, in which the fish, and whatever else is added, which you can’t usually discern identifiably, is drowned in a sea of mayonnaise, so it’s more an unctuous tuna spread, and far removed from being “tuna salad,” never mind my more dainty designation of dressed tuna fish.
So I may (and I may not, though I usually do) put a thin layer of mayo, spread on at least one slice of the sandwich, as long as the mayo is really good and still fresh.
My thinking is, simply, in terms of culinary philosophy, the star and main attraction of this dish, if it’s to be glorified by even this clinical designation is... (the further I get in writing this, the more “dressed tuna fish” sounds not just kind of dainty and hoity-toity; it’s not honestly, this is just the way I like it)... the tuna. The other ingredients? Not just there for the ride, but as enhancements and amplifiers of the pleasure of eating this delicious fish. They are not there just to season it in a somehow organically complementary way, but to help glorify it a bit further.
I've made this version of this indubitable comfort food staple for at least 25 years now. I try variants, mainly by way of adding other ingredients, and sometimes by way of adding tinned (or jarred) tuna prepared in something other than olive oil. But I always come back to this basic recipe.
It's tuna, and it's the other ingredients working together, to their mutual esteem as a dish. And maybe to solemnize it, to the degree it really does deserve, as does all good food, however seemingly humble, to be thought of and consumed as having a sacramental quality, along with being pleasurable and nutritious and life affirming.
Stay well, and stay safe.
xoxo
Blog Meister Responds: Kinda wonderful. Thank you, Howard
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It’s Wednesday, May 20
Welcome to the 773rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Saeeda Imtiaz
Central Punjab Deputy Information Secretary.
Pakistan Peoples Party
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2.0 Commentary
Well I got my appointment: haircut on Tuesday, the 26th.
Reopening is on us.
We’re all walking on eggshells.
I see plastic dividers between tables mentioned more frequently as a solution to
one of the problems of restaurant openings.
Let’s add ‘clear’ to the phrase plastic dividers.
The ‘clear’ makes the dining more communal.
And ‘of course’—to the objection that the dividers have to be sanitized between seatings.
As to our personal take on protection against germs,
we each have our own level of anxiety.
As the restrictions against social gatherings abate, our days will be filled with instances of seeing people we know and like.
Who, in the past, we’d have hugged; or
at least shaken hands.
Not giving the greeting a second thought.
Post pandemic, at least one of us is going to balk.
To raise a hand, stop!
Now we know this is not a personal attack.
And yet that hand comes up so abruptly it’s difficult to accept it as an exercise good sense.
Not when we’ve been programmed to repel hostile acts.
For a flash we will experience at least a touch of resentment.
Which will require a rapid recovery leading to an understanding response.
Which will lead to a comfortable settling conducive to a friendly reunion.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but
no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Howard D after his email on the pandemic.
of a more upbeat nature, I thought you’d like to see this.
Second attempt at sourdough bread, in my learning curve to bake my own bread.
Many lessons already learned. Many to go.
This bread, for its flaws, is delicious regardless. This batch, based on a recipe in Hamelman’s book on Baking (he’s the head baker of the King Arthur Flour Bakery in Norwich VT) called “Vermont Sourdough, with added whole grain flour” should now technically be called “Pennsylvania Sourdough, with added whole grain flours,” for reasons too complicated to get into here, but mainly because that’s where I am, as opposed to Vermont (each place has different microorganisms in the air in the kitchens where the baking takes place, so…
But screw all that, it does taste really really good. Crunchy crust, chewy crumb…
Blog Meister responds: Really does look. Jokingly asking Howard (he lives in Philadelphia) he should save a piece for me brought on this email:
I’ll be sending you a bite in a Ziploc bag mailed in a padded envelope. The bite will be bigger than a hazelnut and smaller than a pack of cigarettes (which I’m told is the size of a piece of steak ingested by a dude who got it caught in his windpipe and they didn’t get to administer the Heimlich maneuver — actually, and I kid you not, I remember it vividly described in the news piece as a hunk of meat the almost the size of a box of Marlboros).
Watch for it.
Blog Meister responds: I will. I will.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I finished off Sunday’s roasted duck with
an excellent Chateauneuf de Pape, redolent with fruit.
I had saved the duck neck and added it to the carcass
and two quarts of water, simmering the pot for four hours
to extract every bit of flavor and to reduce the liquid.
After straining, I chilled the remaining two cups of stock.
Tuesday morning I skimmed the fat and reduced the two cups to a single cup of
duck essence which I added to my tub of duck gravy and froze.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Imtiaz attended Stony Brook University, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in sociology. She has eight siblings.
Imtiaz worked as a model, both in shows and in photo shoots, starting in 2013.
She has continued this aspect of her career after she began acting however in 2018 it was said that she was done with modeling.
In 2012, Imtiaz filmed a bilingual Pakistani film, Kaptaan: The Making of a Legend which was shot in Pakistan.
It is based on the biography of Imran Khan and his life after the cricket world cup victory 1992. Imtiaz portrays Jemima Khan, the ex-wife of Imran Khan.
Imtiaz was featured in Wajood, a Pakistani film directed and produced by Javed Sheikh[3] released in June 2018.[4] She also appeared as a guest actor in the ARY Digital sitcom Timmy G Reloaded in the episode of 18 February 2012.[citation needed]
She joined the Pakistan Peoples Party in 2018 by uploading a picture on her Instagram account with Bilawal Bhutto.
The reason for Joining PPP is the vision of Bilawal which she found quite impressive and the affection which she has with Shaheed Benazir Bhutto encouraged her to join this party.
She has been appointed as a Central Punjab Deputy Information Secretary.
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It’s Tuesday, May 19
Welcome to the 772nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Omar Khayyam
Photo scannée par Utilisateur:Atilin depuis la source soviétique sans droits d'auteur. auteur du dessin : A. Venediktov
The original uploader was Atilin at French Wikipedia. - Transferred from fr.wikipedia to Commons by Bloody-libu using CommonsHelper.
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2.0 Commentary
My knee continues to improve rapidly.
I walked a couple of miles on Sunday without the knee brace.
Then stayed home.
I’ll hear the results of the MRI mid-week.
I ordered a small knee brace and a cane.
Think they will help.
Monday morning and we are all waiting anxiously to hear
the governor’s proposal for a good sense approach to reopening the economy.
Please include cafes and restaurants.
Impose whatever protocols seem to make sense but
Please include cafes and restaurants.
And the Museum of Fine Arts.
Am watching Taxi Driver.
It really holds up well.
Kudos to this early DeNiro/Scorsese collaboration.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
If you want your children to be intelligent,
read them fairy tales.
If you want them to be more intelligent,
read them more fairy tales.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
Tommie T from South Carolina liked reading about the Walden Pond walk and cautioned me against exacerbating my injury. And added this kind thought:
"I am grateful for the health we have and the life we have. And I am grateful for people like you, Dom, who contribute to the richness of life."
Blog Meister responds: Very sweet. Thank you, Tommie.
And this from Howard D:
Subject: couldn't resist ... answering your question
written specifically to appeal to your one sentence per paragraph idiosyncracy…
Which I suspect (hope) was, in spirit, rhetorical.
“What’s going to happen when restrictions are eased?”
Now.
What do you think is going to happen?
There will be a reverse in the curve tracking infections, and it will start to climb.
Ditto: the curve tracking Covid deaths.
I have a question for you.
How long do you think it takes for a torn meniscus to heal properly?
There’s this:
from OrthoBethesda, an orthopedic clinic and practice, and orthodpedic trauma center, in Maryland
· What Is the Meniscus Tear Recovery Time Without Surgery?
Ordinarily, you’ll be asked to reduce your sports activities while your meniscus tear heals. This could take about four to eight weeks. However, the time depends on the severity and position of the tear. During this period, you should do strength training to strengthen your core and glute muscles. This enables you to have better control of your femur while you run.
Most authoritative sites that venture an answer don’t really address the question in old fucks like us, and so the answer is usually couched in terms of how soon you can return to “sports activities.”
I realize you’re not on your feet in order to train for a running regimen, or to keep your place on the basketball team, but I also know something about you.
You’re an impetuous, impatient, somewhat (ha) self-indulgent, if usually sort of careful and intelligent older dude who wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it.
Now, I wouldn’t be taking 1 ½ mile walks around Walden Pond on a knee I had torn the meniscus less than a week ago. Healing of any hope of longevity takes weeks. Not saying you won’t heal, but you’re increasing your risk of tearing it worse, or again, or both.
Kind of like reopening society to social intermingling without social distancing, masking, testing, tracking safeguards in place… Doesn’t mean you’ll get Covid, but you sure are increasing the risk. Undeniably, for sure, and without question.
Same with your knee.
You’ll do what you want anyway, but I’ll remind you, there’s at least one person out here who, for reasons he still can’t fathom, worries about you.
I won’t insult you by calling it a lapse in judgment that seems to occur periodically, but I know what I’d call it if I was doing it.
Once again, take care.
stay safe, stay healthy
xoxo
howard
Blog Meister responds: Terrifically amusing and full of wisdom.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Why am I always surprised at how good duck is?
Had a roast duck last night and it was terrific.
Slow-roasted it for 42 minutes per pound and then
for 15 minutes let it broil to give it more color.
Came out medium-rare and a taste delight.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Omar Khayyam (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet.
He was born in Nishabur, in northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade.
As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided geometric solutions by the intersection of conics.
Khayyam also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom.
As an astronomer, he designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle.
There is a tradition of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam, written in the form of quatrains.
This poetry became widely known to the English-reading world in a translation by Edward FitzGerald (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859), which enjoyed great success in the Orientalism of the fin de siècle.
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It’s Monday, May 18
Welcome to the 771st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, 1920
Time / Getty - Hal Vaughan. Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War. Random House (2011), p. 20.
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2.0 Commentary
Rubber gloves suit me.
I donned a single latex glove on my offhand and
so armed, went out to register the impact the protection of the glove afforded me.
It made me comfortable.
I had no hesitation opening doors or holding on to bannisters,
bannisters especially important as I am favoring my injured leg.
I realized that the gloves were accumulating germs, just like a hand.
So I treated the glove as my hand, sanitizing and washing it
as frequently as I did my naked hand.
The point of the glove?
Gave me a designated hand with which to touch public doors and handles.
And a designated hand (the ungloved) to use to scratch an itchy nose.
And on my return home, a symbolic peeling and disposal of my protecting glove.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Evil does not exist sir, or
at least it does not exist unto itself.
Evil is simply the absence of God.
It is just like darkness and cold,
a word that man has created to describe the absence of God.
God did not create evil.
Evil is not like faith, or
love that exist just as does light and heat.
Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart.
It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or
the darkness that comes when there is no light.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Culinary delights continue to delight!
Tonight I'll be making a hash of potatoes mixed with ground-up leftover meats from recent meals: Italian sweet sausage, a broiled beef blade steak, and a couple of country-style pork ribs baked in bbq sauce.
I think it should be quite nice with a couple of eggs poached on top.
I do love hash!
Did I tell you about the cream of mushroom soup I made on Sunday?
Scrumptious!
Very rich and filling.
Tomorrow I will braise beef shanks with mushrooms, onions, and loads of garlic.
(I drool over the marrow!)
Then on Sunday we'll retreat from such decadence with "Spanish sauce" to spoon over grilled cheese sandwiches - nothing more than sauteed onions, celery, and bell peppers stewed in tomatoes with basil and oregano and other such seasonings.
Ridiculously simple and phenomenally delicious.
When in doubt, cook.
I'm also rather astonished that before this week, you had never made a hamburger.
How on earth did that get by you, o culinary artist?
I'm pleased to hear of the healing progress of your knee. The damage must not have been as bad as diagnosed, but stick with the cautionary measures!
Not much to report here. As I posted to my mother recently in a lengthy email post, things have been uneventfully eventful here. 😁
Sally
Blog Meister responds: Many of us are hash fans for the same reason: using leftovers in a novel way. Your menu sounds delicious, Sally. A past devoid of burgers at home: I desereve to be chastised. And cheers for uneventful in these days.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Filled a baking dish with 11oz of Atlantic cod, 6 little neck clams, and a variety of vegetables.
Poured in some white wine and baked at 375 for half an hour.
Delicious.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer, Nazi spy, and businesswoman.
The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style.
A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her design aesthetic in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance.
Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product.
She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.
Rumors arose about Chanel's activities during the German occupation of France during World War II, and she was criticized for being too close to the German occupiers.
This boosted her professional career: One of Chanel's liaisons was with a German diplomat, Baron (Freiherr) Hans Günther von Dincklage.
After the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with von Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator due to intervention by Churchill.
After several post-war years in Switzerland, she returned to Paris and revived her fashion house. In 2011, Hal Vaughan published a book about Chanel based on newly declassified documents, revealing that she had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst.
One plan in late-1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to end the war.
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It’s Sunday, May 17
Welcome to the 770th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
A Red-tailed Hawk at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, Pennsylvania, USA.
Mark Bohn of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region
Red-tailed Hawk Uploaded by Snowmanradio
A red-tail spooking the mallards on the lagoon at the Public Garden.
Same red-tail chased up to lamp post
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2.0 Commentary
So my leg’s feeling better,
On Friday I decided to take a full morning walk and
did pretty well.
I did stop and sit on a bench in the Public Garden.
The rest lasted about twelve minutes during which
I was treated to the presence of a Red-Tailed Hawk,
on the curb of the Lagoon,
a full contingent of ducks nearby,
paddling in place and
squawking loudly in protest of the presence of the unmoving, threatening hawk,
unmoving, that is, until the arrival of a large leashed dog that
caused the hawk to fly to a lamppost,
much to the pleasure of the ducks although I observed none of them thanking him.
He may be there still – the hawk, that is.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
I once thought that if I could ask God one question, I would ask how the universe began, because once I knew that, all the rest is simply equations.
But as I got older I became less concerned with how the universe began.
Rather, I would want to know why he started the universe.
For once I knew that answer, then I would know the purpose of my own life.
~Albert Einstein
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from my son Dom:
Just read your blog for today.
The owner of Prune wrote a beautiful article about her restaurant in the magazine section of the New York Times two weeks ago.
It's a phenomenal article addressing not just the Covid experience, but also the nearly impossible challenge of running a successful restaurant in a big city.
Here’s the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/magazine/closing-prune-restaurant-covid.html?smid=em-share
Blog Meister responds: The article is lovely and well-written. And sad in its veracity.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
I love jarred tunafish.
I love canned tunafish, too.
And good bread.
So having a tunafish sandwich for dinner is a great treat.
Friday night I made a tuna salad and turned that into a sandwich using an Iggy’s ciabatta.
I added celery, heirloom tomato, lettuce, and red onion; and
dressed the lot with mayo, quality olive oil, salt and pepper, and lemon juice.
I popped the loaf into my toaster oven and crisped it a bit then
I stuffed the lot into the loaf, catching what filling didn’t fit onto a large plate.
I made my signature Old Raj Gin and tonic,
poured over a mountain of ice cubes, different sizes to reduce the spacing which adds little to the enjoyment.
Alone, I watched Keira Knightley’s Pride and Prejudice, although
I own up to preferring Colin Firth’s version more.
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11.0 Thumbnail
The red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies.
It is one of the most common members within the genus of Buteo in North America or worldwide.
The red-tailed hawk is one of three species colloquially known in the United States as the "chickenhawk", though it rarely preys on standard-sized chickens.
The bird is sometimes also referred to as the red-tail for short, when the meaning is clear in context.
Red-tailed hawks can acclimate to all the biomes within their range, occurring on the edges of non-ideal habitats such as dense forests and sandy deserts.
The red-tailed hawk occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes including deserts, grasslands, coniferous and deciduous forests, agricultural fields and urban areas. Its latitudinal limits fall around the tree line in the Arctic and the species is absent from the high Arctic.
It is legally protected in Canada, Mexico, and the United States by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The diet of red-tailed hawks is highly variable and reflects their status as opportunistic generalists, but in North America, it is most often a predator of small mammals such as rodents.
Prey that is terrestrial and diurnal is preferred so types such as ground squirrels are preferential where they naturally occur.