I swear I had nothing to do with this!

Billy Mays, OxiClean pitchman, found dead.

Favorites

Today is my birthday, and I am sick in bed trying to get over the flu that rebounded over last weekend. It’s not a major birthday year so I’m not too upset that I’m not indulging my sweet tooth or stuffing my maw with things that are no longer good for me and stay with me longer than I would like. It’s not the worst birthday either. That was my 19^th birthday when my beloved grandfather (whom I was named after) died in Ireland with my father just making the 3000 mile journey within a hour before my grandfather passed away. Despite the years in between, and ignoring my name and my birth date, I think about him, and all my grandparents, a lot. Barely a week goes by that I don’t think of all them.

Since today I am being a bed-to-couch-to-bed slug, I thought I would share some favorite things.

1. Books. Well duh!

I finally finished entering all my books into a media cataloging program called Delicious Library. It saved me the task of actually counting my books, which I traditionally do on my birthday. The total as of today is (excluding 50 blank books and 100 stripped cover mass markets) 1,961.

Entering books into Delicious Library took longer than expected as I often stopped to reacquaint myself with a book, usually baring the distresses of smoke and water from the Fire, and losing myself within it for a few hours. It’s a wonderful thing to have a few hours of quiet to read a good book.

2. Food.

I used to be a thin man until I discovered I like to eat. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything was very instrumental in making me unafraid of cooking as well as enlarging my waistline.

In fact, Bittman got me brave enough to try recipes from tv shows. Here’s one of my absolute favorites recipes – it’s EXTREMELY easy and EXTREMELY good.

I don’t make it that often as I end up eating it right out of the pan. It’s been a while since I last made it so, the FIRST person to contact me about this will win: me cooking this for you (and helping you eat it).

Pork Scallopine with Tomato Basil Sauce

Martha Stewart & Chris Schlesinger of the East Coast Grill in Cambridge, Mass.

INGREDIENTS

Makes 2 servings.

• 1 pork tenderloin, about 10 to 14 ounces, cut into 4 pieces, crosswise

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

• 1 shallot, minced

• 1 tablespoon cognac

• 1/4 cup Homemade Chicken Stock

• 1 tablespoon grainy mustard

• 3 tablespoons heavy cream

• 2 tablespoons finely chopped plum tomato

• 1 tablespoon finely chopped basil

• 2 heads radicchio, quartered

• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

DIRECTIONS

i. Stand pork tenderloin pieces on end between two layers of plastic wrap. Pound meat to a 1/4-inch thickness with a rolling pin; set aside.

ii. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Season pork on both sides with salt and pepper. Add meat to pan, and cook until browned. (There will be a release of juices on the surface of the meat after it has been turned, 2 to 3 minutes per side.) Transfer meat to a platter, and keep warm. Pour off any excess fat from skillet, and discard. Meanwhile, heat a grill pan over medium-high heat.

iii. Return skillet to heat, add the shallot, and cook for about 1 minute. Remove skillet from heat, and deglaze with cognac. Return skillet to stove, and carefully ignite with a match. When flames subside, add chicken stock and mustard; reduce to thicken, 1 to 2 minutes. Add heavy cream, tomato, basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Remove from heat, and serve sauce over pork.

iv. Meanwhile, toss radicchio with remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Place on preheated grill pan, turning as it begins to color. Remove from grill pan, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, and serve with pork scaloppine.

3. Movies.

Top 3 favorite movies of all time: Vertigo, The Third Man, Wings of Desire.

But oftentimes, the trailer is the best thing about a movie. Not sure why, but I love this trailer to Where the Wild Things Are.

4. Stories.

Three of my favorite FREE podcasts are from National Public Radio and involve the telling to stories.

Selected Shorts, which is an hour-long reading of various kinds of short stories by famous actors.

This American Life. Which looks at true stories united by the barest of common themes and can be funny and heartbreaking and very, very human at the same time.

The Moth Storytelling Project: An amateur storytelling “jam” where someone tells a story under 15 minutes, live and without notes. Just last week I heard the second story by Ed Gavagan, “Victims’ Impact” continuing his account of when he was stabbed in New York City. It goes to a different place then what you would expect and had me weeping at the end in how a little grace and a little forgiveness overcomes a lot of evil.

Drowing on Sullivan Street

Victim's Impact

5. The little faces that run smiling to me when I visit my nieces & nephews.

God, I think that adds years to my life.

Old Photos

One of the many personal projects I've been working on is scanning the many old photos I have. The Fire in 2000 that burned down my apartment, also took the collected negatives of every photo I had. Thankfully, one of the first things the firemen did was to pile photo albums and other irreplaceable stuff on the floor and throw a waterproof tarp over them to protect them so the photos were saved. Go Firemen!

About two years ago, I read a fascinating article in the New Yorker about a professor at Carnegie Mellon, Gordon Bell, who was scanning or digitizing every photo, letter, email, book, web-page, phone calls etc. that he took, looked at, or took part in, turning it into a digital file and storing it paperlessly, rather than being surrounded by the clutter of his life.

Not a bad idea. We seem to be moving towards electronic document storage anyway. The Kindle, Amazon.com's paperless electronic reader for books and magazines, seems to be a big hit. Like most people, I have an iPod with 10,000 songs and a closet full of boxes of CD that have been turned into mp3s. Like most people, I have a digital camera and thousands of photos on my computer and backed up on disks.

I plan to scan old writings I have lying about (old poems, scribbling, my 2,500 + page journal I've kept for 28 years) but since I lack a replacement format for photos, it's best if I start with them first.

Here is a small selection of some random photos I've scanned. The photo above is of my bookshelves, circa 1988.

Beal Loch, near our home in the Knockmealdown Mountains, covered in rhododendrons. The loch is allegedly bottomless and haunted by the ghost of "Petticoat Loose" condemned to empty it with a thimble for eternity.

A shot of Manhattan circa 1986 from the Circle Line boat tours. Not depicted are the legions of little old blue haired ladies who nattered on without stop for the entire three hour ride.

Muir Woods, looking straight up into the sky at the canopy of redwood trees, several hundred feet high.

Famed City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, home to, and first publisher of, many of the Beat Poets, like Allen Ginsburg and owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti. First publishers of Ginsberg's famous "Howl."

City Light's Office Site & Wikipedia entry.

San Francisco's famous Transamerica Pyramid from its base looking up.

The Green Dog Table.

There's a long story about this I'll save for another time.

The sounds of dogs howling

Only a few of you know this about me. If I’m watching TV and a commercial comes on with Billy Mays BLARING IN HIS SHRILL CRASS SMOKED OUT VOICE ABOUT THE MERITS OF SOME CHEAP PIECE OF CRAP PRODUCT!!!!!!! I get an almost emotional and physical, averse reaction to the sound of his voice that I feel in my teeth or in my spine.

It’s so bad I am compelled to change channels immediately (whether it’s my home or not) or mute the loud hairy troll and have been known to walk out of a room and even cover my ears and hum until his sonic assault is over.

My reaction is so strong, so substantial that I’ve likened myself to one of those killer trained dogs in some bad TV movie who are fine one minute, then hear their trigger word and turn into frothing, growling carnivores, except my trigger word is the sound of Billy May’s voice BELLOWING ABOUT PRODUCT X.

Even here I’ve tried to convey his ALL BUT SCREAMING voice typographically. The man is a walking, talking car siren at 4 a.m., a living alarm clock buzz, a human pop-up window advertising something plastic and cheap in an amped up voice that has clearly been altered to make it louder than the show you were just watching.

I don't care if he makes money for whatever fly by night product he's shilling, he contributes to the unnecessary increase of noise pollution. And gets on my damn nerves!

Which is why I take great pleasure in this:

http://gizmodo.com/5288765/congress-pushing-for-bill-to-reduce-the-volume-of-tv-advertising

Congress Pushing For Bill To Reduce The Volume Of TV Advertising

Under a new proposal taken up today, Congress would give the FCC power to limit the volume of commercial advertising to match the average decibels of the show being watched.

Under current laws, TV ads must not exceed the loudest peak in a show—but anyone who has ever been scared half to death by Billy Mays exploding onto the screen for Oxi Clean knows that is generally unacceptable.

Naturally, broadcasters and advertisers want to set their own standards—they even have their own plan to reduce ad volume set to take effect within a couple of months. Many believe that the Congressional bill with pass, but it may not be necessary if the broadcasters set acceptable limits. Either way, it looks as though loud pitchmen are going to be the only ones losing out on this. [York Daily Record]

Cough, cough. Sniffle, sniffle...

Not sure if allergies triggered it, or if I got a case of the frog flu, but I've been laid up with some nasty summer cold.

And suddenly I realized I don't know the symptoms of the H1N1 (aka Swine Flu) virus and looked it up.

The symptoms of this new H1N1 flu virus in people are similar to the symptoms of seasonal flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. A significant number of people who have been infected with this virus also have reported diarrhea and vomiting. Also, like seasonal flu, severe illnesses and death has occurred as a result of illness associated with this virus.   From the CDC

Going now, to drown in my own juices. 

Screaming Frogs

I babysat Ryan & Grace yesterday on this glorious late spring Saturday - one of those days when the world is all blue and gold, bright and beautiful - one of those days you want to live in forever. We took a short walk up the road to chase frogs at Peck Pond, which was once the local swimming hole and now a nature preserve stocked with fish by the town.

It was late afternoon when we got there and the pond was half in shade. There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of tadpoles with bellies about the size of a pinky nail, hiding in the little coves of shallow water near the shore. They still lacked any limbs other than a tail, like flattened out commas, but their faces were staring to take on a froggy shape.

We could hear the adult bullfrogs gulp and rmrrrrr-rou, and I, able to manage a pretty good ability to mimic (yes, I know –I am a man of many talents), started calling them out. Rounding the sunny side we found a big bullfrog, a bit larger than a kitten, sunning himself on a rock and giving the kids an enormous amount of excitement when he leapt into the pond away from us and managed to elude a hungry perch as well as two little kids and an uncle.

I did manage to capture one little guy (another talent) and passed him around to Ryan and Grace who were just silly with excitement over this poor creature. Before I returned him to his pond, Ryan reminded me of the screaming frogs.

A while back, when Ryan was in animal phase, and before his all consuming Star Wars phase, I stumbled over many videos on YouTube of screaming frogs. All the times, as a kid, I caught frogs in Peck Pond myself, I never even knew frogs could scream, let alone do anything other than croak or leap, but that’s the internet for you: showing you things you never knew existed on which other people have spent lifetimes obsessing.













They are just so hysterical in a weird/funny way.

Those are some ticked off frogs.

The Cruelest Month

“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
- T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

Recently an old friend of mine flew out from California for the funeral of his wonderfully funny and sweet mother. As with most funerals people reacquaint themselves with old friends and after the business of transporting the deceased to her resting place, I spent some time with Fred, recounting the exploits of our twenties and updating each other on our current lives.

Fred is a programmer and I am interested in tech so the conversation steered towards the topics of Facebook, Twitter, blogging etc. When I commented on how I don’t see the usefulness in Twitter, microblogging the minutiae of your life, as I had a blog I keep forgetting to update, he responded with a “yes, I know. I stopped following it because you stopped posting.”

Oops. Let me explain.

I had not intended to let April pass by with few or no posts, but April began to get a little weird on me and I decided to wait it out.


Wait it out? Yes. April and I have a bad history together.

I’m not sure when I became aware of my dysfunctional relationship with April, but I do remember hearing a seemingly happy girl at a party in early October some years ago relate how bad things happened in October to her. A parent’s death. An eviction. A boyfriend in jail. Several relationships dissolving into mess. A car accident where she was injured and hospitalized for two months, bones broken, etc… She seemed to be not so much confessing these things happened than warning us just to wait, it’s coming, the next bad October thing.

Years later I’ve forgotten that girl’s name, and even some of the details of the party, but I distinctly remember her sitting on a blue futon, in a yellow sweater and white shirt and having a eureka moment: “Aha! That’s me and April.”

Despite March ending as a lion or a lamb, despite beginning with April Fool’s day, having Shakespeare’s birthday, National Poetry Month, Earth Day and usually Easter, April contains Tax Day, cold April showers, Hitler’s birthday (a national holiday for the ultra right nuts in the US), the anniversary of Colombine, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

But for me, the first creeping of warmer New England weather brings bad, bad things. I have my own history of fights, break ups, friendship ending confrontations, depressive episodes, long periods of insomnia, car crashes, job drama, injuries great and small and a mass of other misfortunes occurring in April. When I die, it will probably be in some April, hopefully, years from now.

Twenty-one years ago a friend of mine killed herself in April and her death left me in shock for a weekend and emotionally bruised for years. And in 2000, when my apartment caught fire with me in it and destroyed or ruined or marked every single thing I owned, it was in April, damnable April, that it occurred.

After that I decided April cannot brutalize me anymore and has no more evil to do to me. But late this March, I kept seeing coincidences that were either remembrances or foreshadowing of unpleasant events, so I decided to go to earth, as it were, and keep a low profile till May came.

Nothing bad happened, knock wood, and I should have poked my head out of by blogger hole in early May when I saw lilac trees blooming. We’ve always had some lilac trees growing up in our home in Connecticut. They bloom regularly, early to mid May, for only two weeks. Their appearance and the powerful sent of their tiny blossoms are the sign that the dark clouds of April are gone and the beauty of May is here.

I have no excuse for not posting in May, however.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Amid all the faux Irish stuff floating around today, my parents will be on the radio playing authentic Irish music on WNHU 88.7 FM, out of the University of New Haven in West Haven CT.

You can listen to them live streaming here.

Another of my favorite Irish poems, this one by Austin Clarke (the Irish poet, not the Canadian novelist)

The Blackbird Of Derrycairn

Stop, stop and listen for the bough top
Is whistling and the sun is brighter
Than God's own shadow in the cup now!
Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins
Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.

Faintly through mist of broken water
Fionn heard my melody in Norway.
He found the forest track, he brought back
This beak to gild the branch and tell, there,
Why men must welcome in the daylight.

He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse,
The shouts of gillies in the morning
When packs are counted and the swans cloud
Loch Erne, but more than all those voices
My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.

In little cells behind a cashel,
Patric, no handbell gives a glad sound.
But knowledge is found among the branches.
Listen! That song that shakes my feathers
Will thong the leather of your satchels.


Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!

With St. Patrick’s Day nearly upon us, I though I would take time to share some of my favorite examples of Irish poets in English and Irish.


Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is probably one of the best-known poets writing in the Irish language today. I heard her do a reading at the cavernous Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale years ago and despite her small stature, she captivated her audience with her strong voice and ready sense of humor. Her poems are often a mix of culture, history, and femininity. She says she cannot write poetry in English and relies on others, often major poets themselves, to translate her work. The English version here was translated by poet Paul Muldoon.

Ceist na Teangan

Cuirim mo dhóchas ar snámh
i mbáidin teangan
faoi mar a leagfá naíonán
i gcliabhán
a bheadh fite fuaite
de dhuilleoga feileastraim
is bitiúman agus pic
bheith cuimilte lena thóin

ansan é a leagadh síos
i measc na ngiolcach
is coigeal na mban sí
le taobh na habhann,
féachaint n'fheaclaraís
cá dtabharfaidh an sruth é,
féachaint, dála Mhaoise,
an bhfóirfidh iníon Fharoinn?


The Language Issue

I place my hope in the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant

in a basket of intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch

then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and bullrushes by the edge
of a river

only to have it borne hither and thither
not knowing where it may end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh's daughter.


Another favorite poet of mine, is William Butler Yeats. Here are two shorter examples of his work.

Brown Penny

I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

and the more popular:

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

“Mais ou sont les Blog Entries d’antan?”

Yes, I know I’ve left all you BookKook fans in limbo wondering where I’ve been. While I would rather confess that I was off tramping around the Lost City of Atlantis using Google Maps - Viola! -sadly, I was not.

Like everyone else in the bloggosphere, I hit the great blank wall of midwinter and decided to ride out bleak February until more hopeful spring arrived. I have been busy reading and writing. I did learn some things in the interim:

That a little snow can shut down Ireland & Great Britain!

What the Stimulus Bill means to my home state of Connecticut (according to Senator Chris Dodd) Here.

That even before the horrible attack in Stamford, no one should own a pet chimp: (warning:disturbing images) and (more here too).

That Shakespeare looks a little like me: (oh go on, yes he does!)

That the Kindle is the next iPod: (although it is NOT a book and CAN NEVER replace it, EVER!!)

That only four times in U.S. history has a president asked a poet for an Inaugural Poem:

-John F. Kennedy of Robert Frost

-Bill Clinton of Maya Angelou in 1993

-Bill Clinton of Miller Williams in 1997

-and Barak Obama of Elizabeth Alexander in 2009

(What’s the matter? Are Republicans anti-poetry? Well, honestly, only Maya Angelou’s poem is any good.)

What a Mondagreen is.

And immediately found an example.

That the Kepler Space telescope, looking 3000 light years up our spiral arm of the Milky Way could discover Earth like planets. Hello!

That the Japanese love of transforming robots has now crossed over to aviculture.

And even a wild animal has a heart..

And most importantly, I’ve discovered what Anthony Bourdain really thinks of his fellow chefs. Sorry, Rachel Ray!

Just what our challenging times need: a young, smart, history making Irishman in the White House!

Wish this man luck. He's gonna need it!


Barry O'Bama from Offally (Well, actually, a Fulmuth Kearney from Moneygall):

Photos I forgot were on my cell phone... (click 'em)

Ryan the Star Wars Kid - Christmas 2008

Happy Holidays!

Christmas came and for once I was not exhausted, lethargic, emotional, over worked, resentful, disgusted, fearful, etc. … all the emotions of working the holiday season in retail. Since I did the majority of my shopping on “Black Friday” I felt I missed a little of the Christmas rush and did a spot of shopping on Christmas Eve just to “feel” the holiday season a bit more. It was quiet odd that this holiday season, even with the present economic uncertainty, seemed to be unrushed and, in fact, calm.

I even got up early Christmas morning and drove to Ryan’s house about 9 a.m. to wallow in the joy of watching the kids on Christmas morning. A few waves of visitors and my other brother showed up with his cute kids and the third wave of opening presents commenced. I brought two cameras with me (one digital and one film) and snapped a few hundred shots of the kids ripping through gift wrap or playing together peacefully. We even got a family photo, the first with all twelve of us (so far + one dumb mutt).



These people are what I am thankful for.

The Whole Clan:



Ryan using his light saber to protect Xmas from the evil Sith Lords:



Aiden wondering what the heck I'm doing:


Molly more interested the in the toy oven than anything else:



Grace in a bag (no, we are not trying to regift her):



And little Sarah who was more outgoing and less shy this time around.



Happy Holidays to all!

End of the year books...

Like everywhere else, the economic tsunami is also hitting the book industry hard. At a time when different sources are publishing their Best of 2008 lists (like The NYTimes and and NPR ), dire news has been coming from all levels of the book business (NYT). Many of the big name publishers announced staff cuts (including last week, nice timing) and booksellers announced the lowest sales for the holiday period, ever. A few publishers also announced they were not accepting new manuscripts at the present time (!) which hopefully appears to be a temporary thing - you can’t make money without new product.

In fact, sales have been so bad that an informal group of authors and celebrities have been pushing books as an inexpensive, and lifelong, gift. Read what Salman Rushdie and Fred Armisen and others recommend here.

One other issue the publishing houses have rumbling about within all the economic bad news is the practice of publisher returns. Publisher returns means that when books are sent out to a bookseller, the bookseller can return unsold copies en mass for a full refund. Ironically enough this was started in the Great Depression to convince booksellers to take chances on lesser known authors. Currently, publishers take back about 40% of their books and either pulp them or resell them as remainders. 40% of a run of thousands of books is a lot of waste and expense and the way the most of the big publishing houses are talking about it means that it will soon change.

I was going to write my list of my top books of 2008, but as I only saw a few newer titles and read or reread a lot of my older titles from my own library (why my cataloging took so long) I felt I am a little out of sync with some newer titles. I will however give you my list of the best book I read (and in some cases RE-read) this year:

Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler. The second Philip Marlowe novel, peppered with lines like: "He looked as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake."

Over by the River and other stories – William Maxwell. Incomparable short stories by the master of the form and author of my favorite novel, So Long See You Tomorrow.

Novel in Three Lines – Félix Fénéon. A collection of a thousand three line reports Fénéon wrote for Le Matin in 1906 with wit and economy and a sense of the absurd.

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote. One of those books I am embarrassed to say I never read till now, after being prompted by the films Capote and Infamous and a similar home invasion/murder in a nearby sleepy town.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby. See my review a few posts back.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz. Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and well worth it!

Netherland – Joseph O’Neill, about cricket and a post 9/11 world.

But the best book I read last year was E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, Winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A wonderful stylist on Newfoundland, the sea, winter, knots etc etc etc. Just made me shake my head in wonder on how well it was written. Here's a favorite bit:

"Suddenly, he could see his father, see the trail of ground cherry husks leading from the garden around the edge of the lawn where he walked while he ate them. The man had a passion for fruit. Quoyle remembered purple-brown seckle pears the size and shape of figs, his father taking the meat off with pecking bites, the smell of fruit in their house, litter of cores and peels in the ashtrays, the grape cluster skeletons, peach stones like hens' brains on the windowsill, the glove of banana peel on the car dashboard."

Snowtime

A big snow storm barreled in today, quickly dumping a pile of snow on us. As is typical of New Englanders, all the local news channels quickly became weather howler monkeys, hooting incessantly on any aspect of this storm they could find to yatter on about for 5 minutes. While we expect to get 5-10 inches (12-25 centimeters for my metric friends) plus across the state (with "embedded thundersnow" no less), I took some time to walk out in it a bit and enjoy the sight of snow falling everywhere. I also slipped and fell on my @$$. So much for winter's beauty.

The view out my window:

Noon




1 p.m.




2 p.m.




3 p.m.




4 p.m.

Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree, can't you put up your own branches....

Yes, still alive. My cold continued past the date of my last posting and when I upped my arsenal against it by going to medicine of the pseudoephedrine family, I spent three nights watching the clock ticking the night away. Thank you side effects.

In any case, I had this debate about when to put up my Christmas tree and decorations. As this is “The Non-Retail Year”, I’ve fought putting it up too early and settled on December 13th - St. Lucy’s Day in Scandinavian countries. That gives me just shy of two weeks of full on Christmas decorations. In the past, if the tree didn’t go up right after Thanksgiving, it ain’t going up at all. I was too exhausted and too Christmased out by that point. (Remember: I’ve stated how on the 6th busiest day before one Christmas, I logged in 7 miles just running around in my store.)

As I was too out of it from the cold and the cold medicine to clean first, my tree has yet to go up. I was starting to wonder if by delaying it, I was somehow missing something or was behind in the season somehow. Most everyone I know has put his or hers up, if not Thanksgiving weekend, then by the first week in December. But in that fog of congestion I was fighting, I caught several versions of The Christmas Carol. In each one, according to Victorian tradition, the tree and decorations went up on Christmas Eve.

The joke in my retail days was just how earlier and earlier each year the holiday merchandise would arrive. Last year we had Christmas books arrive in store in July. Often I was physically exhausted from work that I would often see Christmas Day as a chance to sleep in late. One Christmas Eve, I actually fell asleep on my couch with my coat on when I was due at a party. As much as I love the season, it was work and commerce. This year I plan to celebrate the holiday season and enjoy it like Scrooge finally does. The damned tree will go up in it’s own time!


Some photos:








Christmas Lights on Saks 5th Avenue, NYC





The Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center

The Body Betrays Me

Sorry for the gap but I was sick as a dog all last week. I brought chocolate cherry trifle to my brother’s house and left with his in-law’s flu from D.C. - I got gypped on the deal. I thought that considering I wasn’t in retail this winter I would be spared the run of the cold & flu season where I am usually the first or last to contract it.

After little sleep, I got up at 5:30 a.m. to hit the stores on “Black Friday” something I have never done before. Usually I was working and passing snide remarks on those that did get up far to early to shop. Being on the other side of the counter for this was quite the experience. I drove to Wal-Mart armed with an annotated shopping list and some HOT black tea, and saw the parking lots for the nearby Kohl’s (opened at 4 a.m.), Target (opening at 6 a.m.) and Wal-Mart (opened at 5 a.m.) were all full to capacity.

Inside, Wal-Mart was just a few gunshots shy of a riot. I had gone for one specific unmentionable item, for certain readers of this blog, but there was a huge line to get that item and my arms were already full with extra bargains I discovered along my way. Most of the lines were for the HD TVs and Wii and Xbox stuff (or so it seemed, I know nothing about electronic games and wasn’t buying any) but since I wasn’t buying that stuff I was in and out pretty fast. I then stopped at Target where I ran into a very tired Nonnie. By then it was 7:30 a.m. and I realized quite happily that my Christmas shopping was about 95% done! I got some great stuff for the kiddies and spent about 1/3rd the money I would normally have spent so all in all it was worth the little sleep.

Later that day I picked up Ryan and took him to the other brother’s “after Thanksgiving brunch” with said trifle and said D.C. flu. The food was very good and the affair was loud and fun. There were about 13 kids, all 5 years old and under and all in various states of running, toddling, crawling around. The trifle was a hit, of course, although everyone kept calling it "Death by Chocolate".

It took a few days for the cold to waylay me and left me alternately drowning in my own fluids or too zoned out to do almost anything but crawl from couch to bed to medicine cabinet and back again. I reread one of my favorite books, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby and finished watching the excellent film adaptation by painter Julian Schnabel. At age 42, Bauby who was the editor of French Elle, suffered a massive stroke that left him speechless and paralyzed, except for his left eye. He literally blinked his dictation for this memoir letter by letter, relating being locked in his body (the diving bell) but having his mind unaffected and free to take “flight like a butterfly”. With its upbeat and life affirming elegant tone, and the fact that it is fairly short, I used to recommend this great book to people looking for a book club read or high school students who needed a quick biography subject for a report.

The film is also an amazing achievement. Aside from being a visually beautiful, poetic film, Schnabel was able to capture the first person viewpoint of a prisoner in a dead body whose mind was free to roam the world of his imagination and memory. Both highly recommended.

Lastly, I started adding little snippets of videos to my Youtube account. Take a gander and let me know what you think.

Bloated and content...

Oh, sweet tryptophan!

Hope your Thanksgiving was grand. Mine was.

Ate lots. Then waddled home to make the trifle for tomorrow. Not too bad. Bit too much chocolate pudding and I could only find regular and chocolate loaves of pound cake. Polish black cherry jam dripped everywhere in the kitchen. The cocoa on top looks more like a muddy road than a "dusting" but it'll do. It may not be Nigella pretty but I am proud of my ugly child.

Here's the baby:

Chocolate Covered Gluttony

Thanksgiving crept up on me, thanks to not being worked to death with holiday prep. For the first time both parents are in Ireland instead of just my dad, and I am spending Thanksgiving at my sister in law Andrea's family, just around the corner from me. My sister in law's mother is an awesome cook as is Andrea who is cooking the turkey this year. I've offered to bring food but was told just to show up and eat. I feel bloated already.

The other brother called me up out of the blue and invited me to his house for brunch on Friday. I am bringing my version of an incredible dessert from my one of my favorite chefs Nigella Lawson from her cookbook Feasts. Chocolate Cherry Trifle. Nigella writes "Let people fall upon it with greed and gratitude. They will go home happy."

She ain't kiddin'. I made this last year for work and got these amazed and blissful thank yous from my coworkers. Here is her recipe:

Chocolate Cherry Trifle:

2 (approximately 12 ounces each) chocolate pound cakes
1/2 cup black cherry jam
1/2 cup cherry brandy
2 cups drained bottled sour cherries (recommended: Morello)

Custard:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, minimum 70 percent cocoa solids, chopped
1 1/3 cups plus 1 tablespoon milk
1 1/3 cups plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
8 egg yolks
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup cocoa

Topping:
3 cups heavy cream
1-ounce bittersweet chocolate
Special Equipment: Large wide trifle bowl

Directions
Slice the chocolate pound cake and make jam sandwiches with the cherry jam, and layer the bottom of a large wide trifle bowl. Pour over the cherry brandy so that the cake soaks it up, and then top with the drained cherries. Cover with cling wrap and leave to macerate while you make the custard.

Melt the chocolate on low to medium heat in the microwave, checking after 2 minutes, though it will probably need 4 minutes. Or you can place it in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, ser aside while you get on with the custard.

In a saucepan warm the milk and cream. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cocoa in a large bowl. Pour the warm milk and cream into the bowl whisking it into the yolks and sugar mixture. Stir in the melted chocolate, scraping the sides well with a rubber spatula to get all of it in, and pour the custard back into the rinsed saucepan. Cook over a medium heat until the custard thickens, stirring all the time. Make sure it doesn't boil, as it will split and curdle. Keep a sink full of cold water so that if you get scared you can plunge the bottom of the custard pan into the cold water and whisk like mad, which will avert possible crisis.

The custard will get darker as it cooks and the flecks of chocolate will melt once the custard has thickened. And you do need this thick, so don't panic so much that you stop cooking while it is still runny. Admittedly, it continues to thicken as it cools and also when it's chilling in the refrigerator. Once it is ready, pour into a bowl to cool and cover the top of the custard with cling wrap to prevent a skin from forming.

When the custard is cold, pour and spread it over the chocolate cake layer in the trifle bowl, and leave in the refrigerator to set, covered in cling wrap overnight.

When you are ready to decorate, softly whip the cream for the topping and spread it gently over the layer of custard. Grate the chocolate over the top. Let people fall upon it with greed and gratitude. They will go home happy.

You can substitute chocolate cake for chocolate pound cake to make it lighter, and good chocolate pudding for custard. I add Hershey's Cherry Cordial Kisses for decoration.