I don't know what kind of bbq grill you have there at your homestead, all I know is that it is big enough to cook up salmon for guests, and from what I gather those pieces of salmon are mighty big! Me, well, I have had a very large Weber kettle for years and it has served me well. Had a small kettle for awhile, too, until some stole it, then found another and then let it lay fallow. But after my mom passed away I had an extra bit of extra cash laying around and sunk it into a Weber gas grill. The first few times I thought I had been gipped. The flame kept going out and and food never cooked right. But a few seasons out in the weather cured any kind of attitude problem it may have had and now it cooks up just fine.
Last year I put it to the test with Sunset and Nigel Slater recipes, but this year it has been cruising along with basic fare like 'dogs and burgers and simple cuts of meat. Two nights ago I grilled up some pork country ribs marinated in teriyaki sauce and they turned out wonderful. Tonight I did the same with burger patties and the meal turned out to be sublime.
The deal, it seems, is the sauce. I suppose I could make my own, and considering where I am headed I could take that as being gospel. But for the moment I buy my sauce at Trader Joes, which is their take on a pretty tasty sauce they used to carry. No matter, it was good to go, and was loaded with ginger and sesame and the right amount of soy sauce. It flavored up those patties with just the right amount of zing and the rest of burger went along with it. I served mine up on a toasted English muffin, with a dash of that truly grand garlic sauce that can only be found in this part of the world (do I see road trips in my future?) along with red onions, cilantro, tomatoes, grilled pineapple and slices of mozzeralla cheese. What was that phrase from that old movie? "Wowsers"? Okay, that applies, mighty good burger!
So, just know that when I was eating my burger over the sink tonight I thought of you, thought of the day when we made that impromptu visit to Saars and picked up burger fixings and fried a mess of them up in my cast iron skillet. Ate a mess of them over the sink, dripping grease, side by side. Who was to know that that evening would register so high my culinary memoirs, would make me think of you so many months and burgers later? Tonights burger fest was grand. Take that recipe I made tonight and run for the hills. Or maybe to the coast, to a place where pineapples grow. Enjoy, my dear, the fruits of this summer's grand bbq harvest and eat a teriyaki burger tonight!
Your WHMB
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thinking outside the box, summer 2009
Pity I can't pack sunsets into that old wooden box of mine, but then again, not everything travels well in wooden boxes.
Last night I stood on the porch and watched what seemed to be the world's longest sunset. I sat there with my cooling drink in hand and took in the Technicolor delights before me and marvelled at the number of glowing burn patterns I registered whenever I closed my eyes. The cloud cover was light but fantastic, the hues orange sherbet and burnt dusk. It was a truly one of the best sunsets I have ever seen, least ways, in that "practically missing all cloud cover" category. There are many unregistered sunset categories out there but as far as a heat saturated, end of day type of one, that qualified particular 'set qualified as a winner.
I came away from that viewing filled with longing and jumped in my car. The heat had been practically unbearable all day long but it was nice enough, finally, for a walk. Got to the Woods and drove around once, figured on seeing a particular stroller on but only saw two old guys walking their tongue wagging dogs. Still too hot even for pooches. Went home and sat in front of the tele, watched Panic in the Year Zero and then let the sweat roll. Oh, so much excitement I have never seen.
The reason for the above narration was not so much to give you a slice of life as it stands, but to let you know, rather, what it is that I want to let go. I've overstayed my welcome in this house of silence, spent too much time pacing it's floors and shifting things about in order to have new insight on my surroundings. I have spent too many minutes packing and unpacking boxes and moving furniture, spent too much time worrying about paint swatches and where plants should go. I know that all those things above are the kinds of actions and movements one should expect when you own a home, but I am tired of doing those things in this house, in this house of spirits. It's time to move that furniture and shift those boxes and dally over paint swatches somewhere else.
See, I was called on that ghosting thing this morning in an email from a friend. I really don't understand why it came it up, but she called me on it as if she had been hiding in my pocket and could read my mental mail. Yesterday I obsessed over you. It all started with that damn grey casserole. For the want of fifty cents I would have called. I drove damn near everywhere I could think of where you might be shopping and strolled big box stores not only for the air con but for the pure chance that you might be about. I blew a quarter of a tank of gas, drove almost fifty miles, over the course of over a day, just to see if I could somehow cross your path. It was all too much, especially for the payoff, which was zero. Nada. Zilch. Says to me that I need a new life, a new place to go. Someplace that isn't quite so haunted, that isn't filled with so many touchstones.
But see, I already have a plan to fill my pocket with Kryptonite before I go. I have a fair sized wooden box that I plan on painting, lining and using for a final resting place for the satchel. It's big enough for the stuff that needs to be packed way. Wide enough for books and letters, small enough to leave out big things like that damn bird bath and the junk that needs to be left behind. I want to stain it, line it the fabric of that famed chambray library shirt. I want to fill it in such a way that it won't shake or rattle, paint it such a way that it'll look like an short end table. Be inconspicuous. Have it blend in, just like we did.
I want that trunk of sorts to be the place where those old dreams reside. I want it to be opened someday when the power of it's contents have been worn down by time. I want it to be sent to you in case anything happens to me, but of course, I would rather have it be opened, somewhat like a time capsule, by the both of us someday when we are old and grey, when our wrinkles and time have null and voided all the anxiety that we caused when we loved hard back in our day.
Meanwhile I have paint to lay down and boxes to pack. I have places to go yet, applications to fill out, places to visit online, if only to see where I am going to next. I will take along my box of Kryptonite to remind me of my past but otherwise I wish to find a place that is relatively ghost free. I want that next place I go to to be filled with the laughter of a my children, the glass clinkings and chair scrapings of my friends. I want it to be a good place to walk, a quick drive to good bookstores and to the neighborhoods of friends. But what I want more than anything is for you to be far away, if only to help me lay down the past that I continue to carry with me. I know I will carry around fewer and fewer things as the years go by that remind me of you, but know, too, that I can unload only so much. In the end it will come down to a nugget in my heart and a wooden box in my attic. Those things will always be here, if anything, to remind me of my mortality, my recklessness and my willingness to love outside the box.
Your WHMB
I came away from that viewing filled with longing and jumped in my car. The heat had been practically unbearable all day long but it was nice enough, finally, for a walk. Got to the Woods and drove around once, figured on seeing a particular stroller on but only saw two old guys walking their tongue wagging dogs. Still too hot even for pooches. Went home and sat in front of the tele, watched Panic in the Year Zero and then let the sweat roll. Oh, so much excitement I have never seen.
The reason for the above narration was not so much to give you a slice of life as it stands, but to let you know, rather, what it is that I want to let go. I've overstayed my welcome in this house of silence, spent too much time pacing it's floors and shifting things about in order to have new insight on my surroundings. I have spent too many minutes packing and unpacking boxes and moving furniture, spent too much time worrying about paint swatches and where plants should go. I know that all those things above are the kinds of actions and movements one should expect when you own a home, but I am tired of doing those things in this house, in this house of spirits. It's time to move that furniture and shift those boxes and dally over paint swatches somewhere else.
See, I was called on that ghosting thing this morning in an email from a friend. I really don't understand why it came it up, but she called me on it as if she had been hiding in my pocket and could read my mental mail. Yesterday I obsessed over you. It all started with that damn grey casserole. For the want of fifty cents I would have called. I drove damn near everywhere I could think of where you might be shopping and strolled big box stores not only for the air con but for the pure chance that you might be about. I blew a quarter of a tank of gas, drove almost fifty miles, over the course of over a day, just to see if I could somehow cross your path. It was all too much, especially for the payoff, which was zero. Nada. Zilch. Says to me that I need a new life, a new place to go. Someplace that isn't quite so haunted, that isn't filled with so many touchstones.
But see, I already have a plan to fill my pocket with Kryptonite before I go. I have a fair sized wooden box that I plan on painting, lining and using for a final resting place for the satchel. It's big enough for the stuff that needs to be packed way. Wide enough for books and letters, small enough to leave out big things like that damn bird bath and the junk that needs to be left behind. I want to stain it, line it the fabric of that famed chambray library shirt. I want to fill it in such a way that it won't shake or rattle, paint it such a way that it'll look like an short end table. Be inconspicuous. Have it blend in, just like we did.
I want that trunk of sorts to be the place where those old dreams reside. I want it to be opened someday when the power of it's contents have been worn down by time. I want it to be sent to you in case anything happens to me, but of course, I would rather have it be opened, somewhat like a time capsule, by the both of us someday when we are old and grey, when our wrinkles and time have null and voided all the anxiety that we caused when we loved hard back in our day.
Meanwhile I have paint to lay down and boxes to pack. I have places to go yet, applications to fill out, places to visit online, if only to see where I am going to next. I will take along my box of Kryptonite to remind me of my past but otherwise I wish to find a place that is relatively ghost free. I want that next place I go to to be filled with the laughter of a my children, the glass clinkings and chair scrapings of my friends. I want it to be a good place to walk, a quick drive to good bookstores and to the neighborhoods of friends. But what I want more than anything is for you to be far away, if only to help me lay down the past that I continue to carry with me. I know I will carry around fewer and fewer things as the years go by that remind me of you, but know, too, that I can unload only so much. In the end it will come down to a nugget in my heart and a wooden box in my attic. Those things will always be here, if anything, to remind me of my mortality, my recklessness and my willingness to love outside the box.
Your WHMB
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Cooking with Jane: "Senora, you lost your pot!"
Jane, Jane, Jane..what to do with you? I know that it's much too hot to pop a casserole in the oven, but what are you going to do without that nifty grey cast iron enamelware pot I gave you last spring? I was out and about today, looking for something to do other than sweat to death in that over heated house of mine, when I came across a familar sight. There are some things that you just know are meant to be found. When I saw that casserole I knew that price didn't matter. Once again I had something in my hands that had, at one point, rested in yours.
It's been hot, in fact, today was a record breaker both at the Bremerton Airport and at Sea-Tac (102 degrees). I needed to find airconditioning earlier, but that was just an excuse to go second handing. I could have hung out in the hardware store and done just fine. In fact I found what I needed there. What was funny to see was the dearth of box fans. They were down to seven inchers. Talk about not being prepared. But again, I found what I needed (a screen door tensioner, well, three or five different kinds...I'll need to go back with my old one in hand). But I just knew that I wasn't "done". I have to find another cool spot, so I went up the way to Goodwill thinking I would find another cookbook or a movie or two.
I was tired of overhearing the "oohs" and "aahs" over Elmore Leonard and JA Jance novels so I moved over to the cookware. Looked down and saw the grey enamel piece that had stowed away in your Capt Nemo trunk. I have to wonder why you gave it up, it you ever used it. When I see things like that I tend to wander the store, look to see if I can find anything else I recognize. Last year when I found I Hear America Cooking I also found the pear print. I don't know what else you have to unload. But if I could I would love to find that Pinto Pony shirt. Maybe I'll go back and see if I can find it.
Nevertheless it's too hot to cook indoors. I pulled together a pot of Bun Bun Noodles and have some pork marinading. I had a couple folks come through the house today but I think that they were just the first of the "lookie loos". I picture a month or two of them, then, when I least expect it, there will be someone with a bit of imagination, someone who can see the fine lines, the underlying bones of the house. It's sort of like going to the market and seeing a meal tucked away in the meat counter or in the produce aisle. This house is ready for the right person to come along. Well, maybe after I declutter it a bit more.
But anyway, nice to find that pot. I know now that it was you in the alley the other day. You might have seen the "for sale" sign, you might just have been on your way to Goodwill to unload a box or two, but all the same I know that you were close by, even if it was just to say goodbye to the house. You have have unloaded a pot, but buddy, face it, you can go the rest of your life unloading things and it will never unload your heart.
It's always the 27th, Jane, always.
Your WHMB
It's been hot, in fact, today was a record breaker both at the Bremerton Airport and at Sea-Tac (102 degrees). I needed to find airconditioning earlier, but that was just an excuse to go second handing. I could have hung out in the hardware store and done just fine. In fact I found what I needed there. What was funny to see was the dearth of box fans. They were down to seven inchers. Talk about not being prepared. But again, I found what I needed (a screen door tensioner, well, three or five different kinds...I'll need to go back with my old one in hand). But I just knew that I wasn't "done". I have to find another cool spot, so I went up the way to Goodwill thinking I would find another cookbook or a movie or two.
I was tired of overhearing the "oohs" and "aahs" over Elmore Leonard and JA Jance novels so I moved over to the cookware. Looked down and saw the grey enamel piece that had stowed away in your Capt Nemo trunk. I have to wonder why you gave it up, it you ever used it. When I see things like that I tend to wander the store, look to see if I can find anything else I recognize. Last year when I found I Hear America Cooking I also found the pear print. I don't know what else you have to unload. But if I could I would love to find that Pinto Pony shirt. Maybe I'll go back and see if I can find it.
Nevertheless it's too hot to cook indoors. I pulled together a pot of Bun Bun Noodles and have some pork marinading. I had a couple folks come through the house today but I think that they were just the first of the "lookie loos". I picture a month or two of them, then, when I least expect it, there will be someone with a bit of imagination, someone who can see the fine lines, the underlying bones of the house. It's sort of like going to the market and seeing a meal tucked away in the meat counter or in the produce aisle. This house is ready for the right person to come along. Well, maybe after I declutter it a bit more.
But anyway, nice to find that pot. I know now that it was you in the alley the other day. You might have seen the "for sale" sign, you might just have been on your way to Goodwill to unload a box or two, but all the same I know that you were close by, even if it was just to say goodbye to the house. You have have unloaded a pot, but buddy, face it, you can go the rest of your life unloading things and it will never unload your heart.
It's always the 27th, Jane, always.
Your WHMB
Monday, July 27, 2009
The value of words
It's been a mighty hot day today, but I must learn to take it in stride, for as the place to where I am going to the heat will not be tempered by the large, beautiful body of water that sits outside my window, the one that always finds a way to wick off a bit of coolness from the inlet. Instead, where I'll be living will right plonk in the middle of ancient lakebed, turned farms and strip malls and housing tracts. In the summertime the heat is relentless. The heat settles in and just rolls to wherever it's going. I'll hopefully find a place with a tree, a nice backyard, a wading pool and a good swamp cooler. The weather here in the Puget Sound has spoiled me for life.
I've been working like a dog for days now, prepping this house, and just to say that draws stares from my cat. I think of all that I have done around here over the last few weeks and know that it's not just me who dwells here. I look around me and see my children, see the Estranged One, see you, and know that this house is truly a house of spirits, but one in a good way. It's been a lovely, tragic and very special home and if it wasn't for my children I know I would never have the heart to leave it.
I painted the porch the other day and thought about endless battles of over color choices I had in my old life and then thought about those afternoons when we would sit on the couch, or rather, lounge, side by side, and discuss color swatches. It was never much more than a hoot, a good time, a lovely conversation. When we got through with the stack I bagged from Ace we finally agreed a color or three, then looked around at all the sheets we disgarded, the ones we tossed over our shoulder as we went through the options. I think of that porch I recently painted and how much I like it and know that when I leave here that I will carry with me not only the colors and sounds of the inlet, but also the sounds and colors of this house when you were about. The choices we made then were easy, but then again, back in those days we were, too.
Today I stripped off ivy from the back house, brought light back into that little space. It had been shrouded in greenery, in old bird nests, in the dust and busyness of overgrowth for years. I went back there today after the first major stripping and thought, wow, it's a new house. I've thought the same thing after ever step I've taken to get this place ready to sell. It feels sometimes that I've spent more time readying this place to sell than I've spent living in it, but that in itself says something about this space and the impermanence of it all. I gave my word a few weeks ago to leave this house behind. I once said the very same thing to you, and now I've said it to my children. I couldn't act on it with you, but I have to act on it now. I must go forward, do what it takes, no matter what the cost.
Three years ago I did something similar, said very important words, ones that got me to this place. I told you years ago, my dear, that I loved you, and since then I haven't been much good at living those words down. I still feel the same way about you, the same as the day I met you way back when, and to that end, all I can say in my defense is that what I said to you then is what I still feel now. I have applied that same mindset to this latest adventure of mine. I told my children that I was going to be there, be there in the Treasure Valley with them. That I would be close by, close in to see them grow, to have them over to my house to play and eat supper and sleep over. Those words were as good as gold as far as I was concerned, as good as the one's that I threw your way that day oh so many months ago. You have to understand this by now, that no matter where our paths lead us, no matter where we end up, I said what I said to you, and that's that. I'll always stand by those words.
So, the basement is full of garage sale items that need to be unloaded this weekend and so is the back patio. Every item checked off on the the things-to-do list is augmented by one or more new items to tackle. The back house is filling up with boxes of books and movies and such, and the big house is looking spartan and sharp and clean. Every day is one more day closer to my children, and, alas, one day closer to the closing up of this old house and our old dreams. But the beautiful part of dreams is the waking up and realizing that they were just that, dreams. How we feel about those dreams and visions afterwards and how we apply them to our waking lives is what truly matters. And what matters most here is that I am going forward with my word to my children. That I will be there for them. And that I realized, finally, that this house, this place of dreams is just that, an old dream, and that I am ready to move forward into the waking reality of my new life.
Professora, know that I love you, that those old dreams and tender words still stand, strange and crazy as that may seem, but hey, I am a romantic, and we romantics do things like that. Things like stand on our words. And those words, my love, for now will help carry me and my goods all the way to Nampa.
Your WHMB
I've been working like a dog for days now, prepping this house, and just to say that draws stares from my cat. I think of all that I have done around here over the last few weeks and know that it's not just me who dwells here. I look around me and see my children, see the Estranged One, see you, and know that this house is truly a house of spirits, but one in a good way. It's been a lovely, tragic and very special home and if it wasn't for my children I know I would never have the heart to leave it.
I painted the porch the other day and thought about endless battles of over color choices I had in my old life and then thought about those afternoons when we would sit on the couch, or rather, lounge, side by side, and discuss color swatches. It was never much more than a hoot, a good time, a lovely conversation. When we got through with the stack I bagged from Ace we finally agreed a color or three, then looked around at all the sheets we disgarded, the ones we tossed over our shoulder as we went through the options. I think of that porch I recently painted and how much I like it and know that when I leave here that I will carry with me not only the colors and sounds of the inlet, but also the sounds and colors of this house when you were about. The choices we made then were easy, but then again, back in those days we were, too.
Today I stripped off ivy from the back house, brought light back into that little space. It had been shrouded in greenery, in old bird nests, in the dust and busyness of overgrowth for years. I went back there today after the first major stripping and thought, wow, it's a new house. I've thought the same thing after ever step I've taken to get this place ready to sell. It feels sometimes that I've spent more time readying this place to sell than I've spent living in it, but that in itself says something about this space and the impermanence of it all. I gave my word a few weeks ago to leave this house behind. I once said the very same thing to you, and now I've said it to my children. I couldn't act on it with you, but I have to act on it now. I must go forward, do what it takes, no matter what the cost.
Three years ago I did something similar, said very important words, ones that got me to this place. I told you years ago, my dear, that I loved you, and since then I haven't been much good at living those words down. I still feel the same way about you, the same as the day I met you way back when, and to that end, all I can say in my defense is that what I said to you then is what I still feel now. I have applied that same mindset to this latest adventure of mine. I told my children that I was going to be there, be there in the Treasure Valley with them. That I would be close by, close in to see them grow, to have them over to my house to play and eat supper and sleep over. Those words were as good as gold as far as I was concerned, as good as the one's that I threw your way that day oh so many months ago. You have to understand this by now, that no matter where our paths lead us, no matter where we end up, I said what I said to you, and that's that. I'll always stand by those words.
So, the basement is full of garage sale items that need to be unloaded this weekend and so is the back patio. Every item checked off on the the things-to-do list is augmented by one or more new items to tackle. The back house is filling up with boxes of books and movies and such, and the big house is looking spartan and sharp and clean. Every day is one more day closer to my children, and, alas, one day closer to the closing up of this old house and our old dreams. But the beautiful part of dreams is the waking up and realizing that they were just that, dreams. How we feel about those dreams and visions afterwards and how we apply them to our waking lives is what truly matters. And what matters most here is that I am going forward with my word to my children. That I will be there for them. And that I realized, finally, that this house, this place of dreams is just that, an old dream, and that I am ready to move forward into the waking reality of my new life.
Professora, know that I love you, that those old dreams and tender words still stand, strange and crazy as that may seem, but hey, I am a romantic, and we romantics do things like that. Things like stand on our words. And those words, my love, for now will help carry me and my goods all the way to Nampa.
Your WHMB
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