Caesar Salad

That it was invented in Tijuana, Mexico, by an Italian, I did not know. I was about to claim it as American. That the original may not have included anchovies? I did not know! There's a lot I don't know. And last night I did not know it so I used anchovies...

For one hungry person:

1 head of Romaine. If you don't have Romaine/Cos don't bother. You need crisp leaves that withstand the strong dressing and don't bend. Butter/Boston lettuce would be a disaster.
1 clove of garlic, squashed and made into a paste with the flat of a big knife and a little salt.
3 anchovies (or if you're proper, 1 Tbsp of Worcestershire sauce), chopped small.
About 1/4 cup grated parmesan. The real thing, no cheating.
1/2 a lime's juice.
1 egg yolk, raw. I live on the edge. Otherwise hardboiled yolk. Bo-ring.
Maybe 4 Tbsp olive oil?

So: yolk in a bowl, bit of pepper (add salt after anchovies and cheese if necessary) , and trickle in the oil, beating as for mayonnaise. Add garlic, beat. Add anchovies, beat. Add lime juice, beat. Add grated cheese.

Your lettuce is clean and you have chopped it into bite-sized chunks and put them in a large bowl. Pour over the dressing and toss thoroughly. I use my hands, then lick my fingers.

Then I deviate: I have been frying some lardons of very nice bacon, and in their fat I have been frying chunks of white bread for croutons. Croutons must be fried. If they are baked they are not croutons. Drain them on a paper towel. It's best if you rub a clove of garlic over the croutons, too. Add the lardons and croutons at the last minute. Crack some pepper over the top. Eat. Worry not: the garlic will take care of everything.

We're back

So, a little retail therapy never hurt nobody...anyway, some of it's being exported. At Lafco I stocked up on soap for me and goodies for someone else...And saw the girl I'd just seen in Dean and DeLuca, spotted easily because of the beautiful somewhere-between-lavender-and-pink-silk dress she was wearing, which she said cost her $30 at Calypso on Broome and Broadway. It looked like a million bucks.

Naturally, when stressed, one buys doorknobs.

What? One doesn't? I thought one did.

I recommend it, highly!

Now if only I can find my screwdriver...

I was not looking for doorknobs. No. I popped into Anthropology on Fifth Avenue around 17th Street and instead of clothes found, well, you know. I thought they were gorgeous. Had to have them. I need one more. Must go back.

And then, restocking the gin supply at the wine store, the desire to drink bubbly, sweet Italian wine hit me. Came out of nowhere. Doorknobs and Moscato in one day. A nice manager-type girl (not the one who's over-interested in my private life and tries to hook me up with septegenarians) guided me since I didn't know what I was doing, and the bitter girl who always says, Are you comfortable with plastic, asked me instead, Do you want another plastic bag, when packing my bag (how can you carry heavy bottles in a thin handle-less paper bag, I ask you???).

In winter she has remarks to make about my mother's mink. I do not need a dose of morals when I buy liquor. They are old, dead minks. I sat beside them in church when I was little. Yes, I agree in principle, yes, I'm rather uncomfortable wearing them, but goddamn it, They're warm. Like the scrambled eggs Garfield sat in.

Anyway, it was bloody delicious, the fizzy Italian, and apparently just what I needed...a 5% alcohol content? An aberration, maybe, but, well, yum. There's none left.

Google, you're slip-slideen' away

Well, I would post pictures of something perkier if Google and Blogger would let me. But they won't. So I'm going to drink more of what was in the picture. My Blogger days are numbered.

Sunday

I am drinking a gin and tonic at this 7.30pm Sunday evening-time, listening to French reggae, thinking about the bees still visiting the calamintha and nepeta outside, the puffy clouds in the September-blue sky, thinking about the week ahead and wondering quite how to do it all; missing One, as MFK Fisher writes, thinking rather sadly of eveything I cannot write at the moment and everything that he cannot write, of__________and _______ and red tape and ___________none of which I can really mention right now. It's a waiting game and it's beginning to tell. There is just a great suspension and not knowing, and wishing.

And a black cat, and planes landing in straight lines through the blue to La Guardia and a terrace freshly watered; heirloom tomatoes in the beginning of a simple sauce for spaghetti, and the knowledge that what one wants isn't anything. It is what we have now that is everything. I have been successful in small ways at realizing that over the last few years, and have profitted from it, and have found what I wanted from taking care of the now. But sometimes the temptation to throw oneself into an unseen and desired future can hijack...because it robs now of everything.

This is not a blog for rants and whining. So just pretend y'all took a wrong turn. Tomorrow it'll all be bright and flowers again.

And on an entirely unrelated note, kind of:

"If you have supped well, for instance, on ham baked with apples and sweet potatoes and a green salad, you will probably agree that the best possible ending to such a savourous meal is a bowl of walnuts which have been roasting in their shells in the hot oven while you ate. Coffee is fine with them, but a glass of port is even better...or an ordinary red wine."

MFK Fisher, from How to Cook a Wolf, The Art Of Eating, 1937.

Raccoons, otters and herons.

Click here to see an amazing post and photographs of a Saturday afternoon stroll around Stanley Park in the middle of Vancouver.

Dinner with friends

On an impulse (of delight?) last night I emailed the nArchitects and asked them to dinner tonight. We haven't seen each other in forever. They said yes. So this morning I set off to the farmers' market at Borough Hall to see what I could find. It was a day of thundershowers. For the worst five minutes I took shelter under an awning. Otherwise I just got pleasantly wet feet.

The market was sodden and stall keepers were pushing poles into their low-slung white canopies to pour the water off in streams.

Summer glut is upon us: tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, onions, beans, herbs, blackberries, plums, peaches. I did my usual tour and then bought some flat onions, leeks, white corn, heirloom tomatoes, donut peaches and bunches of zinnias. I chatted to Sigrun again, the Icelandic lady from whom I bought masses of red currants for the jam I made a few weeks ago. One pot found its way to Emiliano and Anna at Al di la and another to a security officer at JFK. It had been destined for Vancouver.

Tonight's menu:

Ajo blanco

Roasted red peppers (see Estorbo's comments here) with garlic and anchovies

Chicken legs and thighs roasted with leeks, lemon, tomatoes, onion and fennel

Sweet corn salad with terrace mint

Peeled white donut peaches in Prosecco

1 August

Too hot to eat.