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30 April 2006
Farmers’ market report:
erbette chard, kumquats, fresh spearmint, dandelion greens. We went early. The market was full of middle-aged French women. And my redhead DILF, with charming family in tow. Perhaps I worry him.
Other news in eating: the dinner
for my chums on Wednesday went well. I made asparagus soup with a little frizz of fried leeks, a vegetable ragout in the Richard
Olney manner (no water: spring onions, new potatoes (turned, of course), artichokes, sugar snap peas, and fava beans)), chicken
baked in a sealed pot (a variation on chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. I put in just one head of garlic, a bulb of fennel, thyme, bay leaf, and a little pancetta and sealed it with a luting paste, and
baked it for an hour an a half. Easier than pie), and then chocolate soufflés with a bourbon (well, rye) crème anglaise. Yum.
I woke up with a food coma the next day.
Friends were in town Friday.
I met them downtown. We went to Ginger’s Trois (the only gay bar in the financial district), and then to B-44 on Belden Place for Catalan food. We had a nice albariño from As Baxas to drink. Grilled fresh Monterey Bay sardines with
a juicy shaved fennel salad, chickpeas and chorizo baked with breadcrumbs, a monkfish stew, fideuà (aka fideus) with shrimp
(head-on), and halibut in what seemed to me to be a Sicilian treatment (with spinach, raisins, and pinenuts). An overly cinnamoned
(or rather, overly cassia’d) crema catalana for dessert.
Work is going well-enough. School:
feh (but it’s almost over). Dating: what’s that?
If it’s warm enough this
afternoon, I’ll be at El Rio. Say hi.
26 April 2006
Well, well. I have
been working again! It feels so good. An interesting little project. It’s my first time actually working at a law firm.
It’s not bad. My desk is in a room with a view, and I can hear the clang of the California Street cable cars as they climb up to Nob Hill. The best part – aside my temporary return to the bourgeoisie – is that I can
afford to have the laundry done again. I felt so proud of myself yesterday morning when I brought in a pile of shirts to be
washed and ironed.
Dinner tonight for school chums.
I don’t yet know what I’ll make. Chicken something: with 40 cloves of garlic in a sealed pot? Stuffed under the
skin? fried? à la Bourguignonne? To start: asparagus salad with orange something? A fresh pea soup? A risotto? Artichoke something?
Fava beans (do I have the time?)? A vegetable sformato? It all depends on what I find at the farmers’ market this morning.
And then dessert: probably chocolate soufflés with bourbon crème anglaise for their spectacular effect. Bourbon has become
my favorite adjunct to chocolate of late.
School, you ask? Aren’t
you in school? Don’t finals start next week?
23 April 2006
Still here. Long, long week.
Farmers’ market report:
pork, rapini, spearmint and peppermint for tisane, and the last of the tulips.
I had a three-hour interview
on Friday, and a 6-hour “audition” today (Sunday!). All this for a legal job. It went well. Maybe I’ll enjoy
being a lawyer.
No touching to report. I have
only one week left of classes this semester, which means I have only one week left of my muse.
I had a very long and involved
dream about Steve on Friday night. He had returned to my arms (as if he had never died). I was both sad and happy to be with
him. I still miss him after almost ten years. He never says much in these dreams, but we’re always glad to be back together.
I don’t know what else to say about this.
18 April 2006
Sunshine today!. My joie de
vivre waxes again!
I was awakened at about 5 AM
this morning by the sound of circling helicopters. I thought they were protecting the Federal Building down the street after
another terrorist scare (or maybe the invasion of Iran). But then I realized that they were just circling the commemoration
of the earthquake one hundred years ago today. I wanted to go to the 7 AM celebration and cocktails* at the golden fire hydrant
at 20th and Church, just above Dolores Park, but I had to read for class.
To the 21-year-old admiring his
shirtless torso in the mirror at the gym who gave me that “cute, but maybe not; he’s little pudgy” look
as I stepped out of the shower: Missy, let’s see how you’re doing when you’re in your early forties. You’ve
still got it easy. Being slim at 21 hardly counts as an accomplishment.
_____________
* Cocktails at 7 AM! I love San Francisco.
16 April 2006
I hope the Easter Bunny was good
to you. He was to me. Three chocolate eggs from See’s!
Farmers’ market report:
beef, eggs, stinging nettles, spearmint and peppermint, and something else I don’t recall.
I studied a lot this weekend,
and I slept a lot. It’s that season: finals are almost upon me.
14 April 2006
Friday List:
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Sunshine & warmth yesterday.
Could it be? Is the rainy season finally ending?
-
Keep your fingers crossed for
me. I have a job prospect for which I need lots of good vibes.
-
I made molasses spice cookies
for my meeting today. Yum.
-
Would one of you come over
and do my laundry? I’ll make you cookies or something.
-
Finals are coming and I’m
not ready.
-
My ankle is still killing me
from my slip ‘n’ fall in Chicago.
-
The handsomest man in San Francisco
is back in town from his viajes in South America. I can’t wait to see him.
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The Easter Bunny is coming
on Sunday.
11 April 2006
Back on track. That's my goal
for the week, now that the competition is over.
I still don't have DSL at home
(long saga), so I'm sitting in the hallway on a zafu near the only accessible phone jack. Not pretty.
Plans for the week:
-
Back to the gym (but no calf
exercises, since I messed up my ankle in Chicago)
-
Job search (revise résumé and
writing sample)
-
Thank you notes to those who
helped me out in the competition
-
Laundry!
-
Start outlining so that I can
study for finals
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Pay the bills (oops)
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Finish reading Getting Things Done
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Bake cookies (molasses crinkles)
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A little touching?
-
und
so weiter
8
April 2006
I’m waiting at O’Hare
for my flight. I don’t know when I’ll be able to upload this because I don’t have wireless at home and I
accidentally left my Ethernet cable with my colleagues back at the hotel (long story).
Other impressions of Chicago:
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I had some cheese popcorn from Garrett’s. It was worth a long wait in line. It’s as addictive
as crack.
-
I had better pizza (not deep-dish) for lunch today.
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It’s cold here (36 degrees when we went out for pancakes). But it didn’t rain once.
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Everyone is bruskly friendly.
-
Services in stores is s – l – o – w. La-la-la. Everything takes forever. It didn’t
seem spiteful, just low-ambition. I had to restrain myself more than once from drumming on the countertop in impatience. I
sometimes wanted to reach over the cash register and start drumming on someone’s forehead to get them moving.
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Two hotties just checked in with gate attendant for my flight.
I always try to guess who’s going to sit next to me. I hope my hair do is working today.
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So many overweight people here at the airport. Honey, drinking that big bottle of acidic sugar water
is not going to do anything for your teeth or your figure.
-
I had planned to spend Saturday afternoon walking around gawking at things, but it was so cold that I
ended up at a spa. I deserved it. CAOP.
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I rode the El. I loved all the creaky wood and thousand-times painted metal of the stations. None of
the elevated tracks looked as if they could withstand a 2.0 earthquake, but I tried not to think about it.
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I wrote a postcard to my sister in German.
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A wide variety of accents. Southern Illinois is practically in the South.
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Middl
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I got another job lead from a totally unexpected source.
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No one eats vegetables here, as far as I can tell.
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No one bicycles here, as far as I can tell. Hello? No hills. Lots of wide quiet side streets.
6 April 06
OMG! Palindromic Date! And happy
birthday to my former young gay lover. Hurrah! I hope you're not reading this!
Chicago is lovely. Cold, but
lovely. My hotel is nice, though, as a good Gay, I did have to rearrange the furniture after I spent 15 minutes in my room.
It was All Wrong. What were they thinking? The people are nice. The portions
are huge. I can only eat half of what's served to me. And there’s a bar on every corner. I’ve had the famous pizza.
I don’t need it ever again. We’ve done a lot of walking. I feel like a rube with my head tipped back gawking all
them tall buildings. Did you ever see anything like that?
I saw a number of Whistlers at
the Art Institute. I almost peed my pants when I saw their collection of Joseph Cornell boxes. I was giddy. I might go back just to revisit them at leisure.
No touching to report. I haven’t
done anything with the Gays yet. I’ve been hanging out with my schoolmates, which has been fun.
3 April 2006
Another month gone by! Did you
remember to pay the rent? I didn’t.
Farmers’ market report:
beef, mustard greens, dried pears, and 10 lbs. of oranges for just $2.50.
I had made plans on Friday evening
to have dinner with friends—we were going to go out for pizza to make it easy on ourselves, but I couldn’t stand
the idea of restaurants and restaurant food. So, in a flowering of avoidant behavior, I cooked when I should have been studying.
I was downtown anyhow on Friday afternoon, and I picked up a four-rib pork roast and some cabbage at the Ferry Building. Since
the butcher had to cut the roast for me, I asked him give it a good coating of kosher salt so that it would have a chance
to get seasoned before I cooked it. I got wine from my local wine shop (a Jurançon sec and a Salice Salentino). A few leeks
from the only grocery store in the neighborhood and I was set.
I studded the roast with garlic
and rosemary sprigs, frenched it, tied it, and browned it. I used the trimmings and the deglazing liquid (? surely there’s
a word in English that corresponds to fonds) to make a little sauce.
I used the tomato purée that
I made last summer to make a little tomato-rice soup (aromatics: onions, leeks, garlic, fennel seeds, thyme, bay leaf, and
saffron).
And since the guavas weren’t
going to keep, I cooked them down, sieved them, added some milk, eggs, and sugar (brown and white), and turned them into little
custards to have with the cornmeal-almond biscotti I had made that morning.
Saturday night I was forbidden
to cook, so we went to Zuni for cocktails and then a red-wine squid stew, Caesar salad (but not for me), polenta with mascarpone,
yellowfin tuna with Enormous white beans, grilled onglet, and grilled Guinea hen. Coconut ice cream for dessert.
On Sunday, I made cornmeal waffles
with homemade strawberry jam for my friend and Diane. I wish I had a digital camera to illustrate all of this for you
as Aaron does so admirably.
There was a little touching in
there on Saturday afternoon.
And I finally introduced myself
to my little crush at the gym. He has a sardonic smile and a nice little body. And he's South American! (but he doesn't look
it). The first step of the outreach program has begun.
I’ll be gone for a few
days. I don’t know about my internet access. I’ll try to keep you posted. I’ll be in a city that’s
completely new to me. And I’m traveling alone tomorrow, which will give me a much needed respite.
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