Meanwhile, On the Cooking Front

A pretty low key and traditional Thanksgiving meal, nothing from the Cosa Nostra. Turkey breast, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts in honey-bacon-mustard sauce, fresh cranberry relish.

I've Got Plenty to be Thankful For

The list should be obvious: my health, the divine Miss S., a great place, the City of Chicago, but, of course, I'm thankful for our annual viewing of Holiday Inn. How many of the phrases of our daily life come from this movie???

"Don't Ask Why, Just Go and God Bless America"
"I'm Linda Mason"
"A dozen orchids. Loose. Looking like they don't care."
"The lady must have been willing."

And, I didn't realize until this year's viewing, that the pose for Afro-Dafny, the Goddess of Vacation, came, in part from this movie. Check out Bing's attempt to dance in "You're Easy to Dance With." Just take the hand position, turn it 90 degrees up, and you've got Afro-Dafny.

Merce-O-Rama

On Friday and Saturday, we went to two nights of Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the new Harris Music and Dance Theater. It is always an enormous pleasure to see Merce, and there was a great atmosphere because the fabulous Bonnie Brooks put together a great series of programs over the weekend. Everyone was there: board president Sage Cowles (who we know from Minneapolis), Carolyn Brown, Elizabeth Streb, and on and on. Merce read with David Vaughn for "How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run." Absolutely great.

Dinner with Scott and Matt

Tuesday we had my nephew Scott and his roommate Matt over for dinner. They are both med students: Scott at Northwestern, and Matt at Loyola. They both went to the Air Force Academy. We picked one recipe from the Cosa Nostra, Tunnel of Fudge Cake, and one recipe, African Beef, that we plan to put in the 25th anniversary edition. And we made butternut squash soup, just because we had butternut squash, and the weather's finally turned cold enough that a good butternut squash soup sounded good.

Even though I told Stacey I wasn't going to buy any new stuff while I'm unemploy...I mean tell-Mom-I'm-consulting, I couldn't resist going to William Sonoma to get a new bundt pan that I've been eyeing for like two years. It's got a cathedral/castle shape, and when you top with some powdered sugar it looks fantastic. Presentation counts.

African Beef has become an old favorite: beef marinated in cayenne and lemon juice (very hot), cooked with spinach, and served over rice. Bad news--when we make it for ourselves, we make it REALLY hot, and I backed off too much--it lost its distinctive totally hot flavor, though it was nice to have the lemon flavor coming through. The boys would have like it hot. Oh well.

The Tunnel of Fudge cake was good, but we all thought it was misnamed or mis-made. I vote for mis-made. One issue is that it calls for "a package of chocolate frosting mix." I think times have changed--most of the frosting on the shelves is already made, and there were limited choices for straight dry frosting mix. And also a) our oven runs hot and b) the bundt pan has a dark finish, so I think it was a bit overcooked. It was a good, solid bundt cake, but didn't have any of the gooey, fudgy texture that I thought I would get. Still, it looked great with my new pan and all.

A good time was had by all, great to catch up, and I think I talked Scott into coming over to help when we get to Chicken Kevi (boning a whole chicken without cutting it up). We'll need his surgical skills.

Weekend (And Week) Update

Delinquent on the blog. What's the story? I have ALL the time in the world. So, I'm going to mend my ways, but a recap of our life last week.

Went to two art lectures: Helen Molesworth, the new Chief Curator of Exhibitions at the Wexner Center (who I had not met) discussing her recent exhibition "Work Ethic," which just opened in Baltimore. She had a fun, offhand style, very approachable, but very smart. The next night, Eric Fischl talking about his work in general, but mostly about "Tumbling Woman," a piece he create in response to 9/11, which has just been installed at the Smart Museum at the U of Chicago.

On Saturday, our friend Michael Clifford was in town for a conference, so we had lunch at the Melrose, then went to tour the teapot exhibition at the Cultural Center. That night, we went to a party with Stacey's workmates, a great place on Lakeshore Drive.

Kiss Me Kate

Also went to see Taming of the Shrew at the Shakespeare Theatre on Saturday. OK, how confused is the theme of the weekend: Il Fine Del Monde, Kate and Petruchio, going through our journal and pictures from our trip to Italy a year ago, and Day of the Dead?

Italian for Beginners with a Mexican accent?

Day of the Dead

We also visited the Mexican Fine Arts Museum to see their Day of the Dead exhibition and pick up some sugar skulls for our altar. It's the first time we've done one, and it is pretty impressive, I must say. Stacey was the chief architect and instigator.

She also made a wonderful tortilla soup for our Sunday supper.

"Thank You for Being Born Into Your Family"

We were going to save Il Fine Del Mondo for the seventh game of the Cubs vs. Red Sox World Series, but...

Gathering the ingredients (veal, prosciutto) was an excuse to visit the Pauline Meat Market--we had driven by frequently, but never stopped in, and our friends Brad and Don reminded us that it was a required stop for serious cooking.

When we order, the butcher is delighted, and seems to approve of the choice of veal and prosciutto. I tell him it’s for a family recipe, Il Fine Del Mondo, the end of the world. Later he asked the name of the recipe again, and I defer to Stacey (imagining how bad my pronunciation might have been), and he says, “oh, now I understand. I’m from Tuscany, so I didn’t recognize the name with the Sicilian accent…”

While the veal is not cheap, making it is ridiculously easy. A little veal, a little prosciutto, mozzarella, and Marsala wine. It truly, truly, truly, is a dish to make you cry:

Burn My Clothes Ma, I'm In Heaven!

The title of this post is Stacey's response...

New and Old Recipes

While we are slowly making our way through the Cosa Nostra, we're also scheming for the 25th anniversary volume--what the organization will be, what recipes we want to submit, how technology will make things much easier for us than for "Ed." aka Phyllis.

So, when salmon was in the fridge, Stacey suggested pulling out Lisa Sampson Singer's version from the recipe box. Here it is, verbatim:

Lisa Sampson Singer's Salmon Sauce

--onions
--parmesan
--mustard
--mayo
--lemon
--tarragon
--bread crumbs

Mix in whatever proportions that you have. Micro-zap salmon 2+2 until it pops. Cover with sauce, then broil for one minute or until your forget then one more minute.

And some people say I haven't progressed since "Everything In A Tortilla." Hmm.

The salmon was delicious, by the way.

Delinquent Blogger

Since I haven't blogged since the Cubbies lost, guess I must be an even bigger fan than I thought! Of course, I haven't been making anything from the Cosa Nostra either. Time to get back into it.

It is nearing the end of week two of the 52 day fitness challenge. I am, perhaps, a bit fatigued from getting up at 5:00 a.m. to work out but some research supports exercising in the early morning.

Patrick is making it easier to be healthy by making great dinners and "Tuna Tuesday" (formerly known as "Tuna Thursday"). And, of course, he is a workout fiend!

A Glaze That Will Amaze

Stacey suggested that I make A Glaze that Will Amaze as something that would go well with acorn squash we had gotten. "No, I want to make something with curry." Surprise, re-read the recipe, dummy. Curry, mustard, honey, butter.

Still struggling with adjusting quantities. We has three boneless chicken breasts, so I just used proportions of 1 part honey, 1 part butter, 1/2 part mustard. Upped the curry a bit. Baked in a loaf pan to keep the sauce compact on the chicken.

And glad I read in Mark Bittman that acorn squash can be a little flavorless. Cardamom, maple syrup, cinnamon, a bit of Japanese red pepper, butter.

Angels and Insects on the DVD (in preparation for seeing Mark Rylance) in the all-male-authentic-to-period 12th Night at the Shakespeare Theatre this December.

I Can Only Name a Few Marlin Players

Banana, rama-bo-bana. Pudge, Sludge, Punch, bo-bunch. Midge Madge. I'm, ultimately, not a real, true, intense baseball fan because I can't name players other than the Cubs. Like, how many games with the Marlins did I watch, and what can I tell you about their team off the top of my head? Ok, sure, Pudge. And Pierre, only because of the connection to a childhood book, in which the refrain was "I Don't Care, Said Pierre," which I would recite every time he came to bat. Beckett, sure. Conine the Barbarian. The OTHER Alex Rodriguez. But you know, it's really about the Cubs.

Which is odd, given that free agency, TV domination, etc. has meant that the Cubs season starting lineup had little to do with the ending season team lineup. (Thank you Kenny, Randall, E-ramos, make that Aramis.) And you know, I think I can still name most of the players for the St. Louis Cardinals of my youth. Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Tim McCarver, and my very favorite (listening at night on the radio from Halstead, KS, and I didn't even care about baseball) Orlando Cepeda.

That being said, happy for the Fish over the Yankees anytime. ABC. ABY. (Anybody but Carolina. Anybody but the Yankees.)

Kudos Eric Karros

This won't make the newspaper web sites, I'm sure, but there was a very classy full page thank you ad in the Trib from Eric Karros to the Cubs and their fans. It's been great watching him this year, with video camera in tow.

English is The Second Language

So, as we were walking through the Botanic Gardens, I heard English about, like, 35% of the time. Eastern European, Spanish, Japanese. Like anything but English. Another reason I love Chicago.

Weekend Update

Our weekend was dominated by two performances of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at the Columbia Dance Center. We've had the great fortune to be in the right place the right time as far as Bill T. goes. We think we first saw the company in 1984, the year is approximate, but the impact of the performance is not. I know that Freedom of Information was on the bill, a complex, dense work, as I remember it, with a steel or aluminum set which defined the space. I was blown away. We've subsequently seen the company at the American Dance Festival (including Bill's awesome cameo in Ruby Shang's site specific piece at the Duke campus--Bill, gorgeous, in a tiny red bikini, emerging from nowhere at dusk, and then diving into the lake to end the piece), the Walker Art Center, (but damn, damn, somehow missed the moment of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the Promised Land) and several performance at the Wexner Center, including Still/Here, which was co-commissioned by the Wex-Plex and feature several citizens of Columbus in the videos.

The company looks impossibly young. We missed the pre-performance talk, but someone told us that Bill reflected that he was now old enough to be a parent of the dancers. Both performances we great, but the highlight was Blauvelt Mountain (A Fiction). Originally performed by Bill and Arnie, the piece is now being performed by variable casts, and we saw Shaneeka Harrell and Aya Janeen Jackson. (We think, they changed the cast by verbal announcement. Amazing. I thought Ayo (I think)looked like a small, female, Bill T. What deltoids. They totally had it.

We also made our first trip to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The linked web site doesn't do it justice. Beautiful, thoughtfully arranged, and aside from the proximity to the I-94, incredibly peaceful. A chilly day, the leaves were turning, great.