Songwriter's Navel: Week 25, In Which I Crack Myself Up

Two recordings.
Megaphone vocals. (Because I hear there's a man who'll pay you fifty dollars to sing into a can.)
Live performance vocals.
(Because some people prefer less silliness to more silliness.)


I'm not going to lie to you, Marge: I had fun writing this.


A few weeks ago, we had a discussion of "fun" in class. The Kernel, who may have been exaggerating for comedic effect, or may have been giving us a glimpse into the lives of quiet desperation that musicians lead, declared that there was too much pressure to have fun, that he couldn't remember the last time he'd had "fun," and that both songwriting and performing were hard work, rather than fun.

Although this treads on my desire for OTSFM to fulfill my workplace pr0n needs, I get the point*: Songwriting is scary, often frustrating, difficult, and sometimes satisfying, but "fun" isn't a word that usually springs to mind. I mean, it's "fun" for me in the same way that having my intellectual ass kicked for 4 years as a U of C undergrad was fun, but it's not . . . amusement park fun.

Except writing this song was TOTALLY fun. Pretty minimal requirements this week: Use a diminished chord and the song should include someone's name. Early in the week, I joked that the front runners for the subject of the song were "Lothian" and "James Victor, King of Croatia." A robust and hilarious comment thread ensued.

I then spent Thursday and Friday with the King himself.

I defy you to look at that face and not write a song about it.** In addition to the powerful cuteness field pulling me in that direction, I suddenly thought it would be really funny to write a talking blues from the point of view of a baby, particularly one whose face is so expressive, he constantly looks as though he's deeply frustrated by his inability to share his deep thoughts with the world.

From there, it was just a matter of setting down a rhythm and filling in details from my visit. I listened to a little bit of Woodie Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt to get a feel for how to do a talking blues. To be honest, though, it was pretty easy to get going.

The first verse was just about how waking up in the morning looks to a baby. On Friday, Jamie was inclined to sleep in a bit, but was woken up by the dogs of the household having a fight over food. My brother had come into the guest room probably 20 minutes before and waved me back into the bed as I started to get up, saying "I don't have the baby!" After the dog fight, he came in again to change him and said, sadly, "Now I have the baby." My brother is big and bald. I'm certain he loves having this pointed out in song form.

[C] Woke up of a morning, but it wasn’t the heat
[G] Dogs snappin’ and a-snarlin’ over something to eat
[F] With my big, bald daddy leanin’ over my crib
[G] Told him good mornin’ with my toothless . . . grin

The second verse is a bit of filler (other than a diaper change definitely being the first order of business each morning—Jamie is an Olympic peer, a detail I'm sure he'll be delighted to have memorialized in blog format), but I needed to go into the chorus in such a way that it reads like the message the baby is trying to communicate.

Wasn’t but a minute, I was clean and dry
And my giggle put a twinkle in my mama’s eye
She kissed me and she asked, “How’s mama’s little man?”
Took a deep breath and answered, . . . the only way a baby can

Up until the chorus, the chords are some what irrelevant, and C does as well as any key. It figures, then, that trying to hammer out the melody and chord progression in the chorus was a real pain in the ass.

I got the [C] blues, I got the [G] blues
I got the [F] baby blues, ‘cause [F#dim] I can’t sing the [G] blues
I got the [C] blues, I got the [Gdim] baby blues
I call ‘em [F] Jamie’s not-talking blues [C]

In particularly the melody over the second line was giving me fits, possibly because that's not really an F#dim in the second position, but a D7 with an F# in the bass. (I swear at some point, I tried it as a D7, but it didn't seem like it worked. Fortunately, my Check-Plus grade for the assignment was not jeopardized, because I had a back-up diminished chord, and the Gdim was the genuine article. (On a side note, Jamie likes when I play guitar and talk music theory to him. I kept playing diminished chords and singing, "There's a baby on the train tracks!" and he would giggle.)

Continuing in the "things that are only amusing to me" vein, I thought it was funny to turn his time spent on his play mat into a kind of business meeting. There is a big elephant dangling from the mat, which sometimes sits on his head, and let's face it, "pachyderm" might be an outdated taxonomic category, but it's a great word for lyrics. Moose, with its oooooo sound, ditto. And Monster needed to be included, not just because it was a gift from me. I'm sorry to malign monster's work ethic, but the rhythm of the words dictated that he be mentioned third, and "late" rhymes with "eight."

First meeting of the morning starts round about eight
With my pachyderm and moose, but my monster’s always late
I call things to order on the jungle mat
Monster reads the minutes in a minute . . . flat

Jamie is, generally, a happy little guy, but it's true that Tummy Time sends him into a rage—a highly illogical rage, given that he can flip from tummy to back and back to tummy more or less at will. Also, the threat about blowing this joint makes me laugh, both on its own merits and because it would involve tummy time, given that his mobility is limited to the army crawl at the moment. It's also funny, because when we speak in Jamie's voice, he sounds a lot like a Jim Henson's William Faulkner Baby.

New business, first item is the heinous crime
That mama and daddy call “tummy time”
Sure, I can roll over, but that ain’t the point
If they keep that up, I’m gonna blow this . . . joint

So we do nicknames in our family. Lots and lots of nicknames. Many of them terrible, inappropriate, and carried through life with no expiration date. (Example: One of my sisters had no hair until she was nearly 3. My uncles still call her "Moonie." Klassee with a k and two es, that's us.) Jamie has nicknames to suit his moods, most of which come out when he is pointedly NOT. TIRED. I'm pretty proud of having worked the most common into this verse. Herr Professor Big Eyes gave me some trouble until I realized that it had to be at the beginning of the line (despite its being a near rhyme for "tired"), and I hit on "real live wire" for a little bit of Talking Heads flavor.

Round about nine, James Victor rolls in
He’s the King of Croatia, he’s Anger Piggs
He’s Herr Professor Big Eyes, and a real live wire
With one thing to tell you all, he’s not . . . tired

And finally, I had to work in "baby ennui," which a concept I have long embraced. Let's face it, Dr. Spock, T. Berry Brazelton, and all those other LIARS tell you that babies always have a solvable problem when they're crying. SHENANIGANS. Sometimes babies feel suffocated by and bored with the sweet baby life: Baby Ennui.

No, he’s not tired, he don’t need to sleep
This is nothing but a case of baby ennui
That was an itch, he wasn’t rubbin’ his eyes
How many times can he tell you, he’s not . . .

I made an extremely rough recording of the song on my phone and sent it, along with the lyrics, to my brother and sister-in-law so that they got first listen. (It seemed only right.) Per good suggestions from E, my voice and guitar teacher, I'd like to work on how I play this, hopefully getting to the point where I can do a stumbling, irregular finger-picking pattern instead of the Carter-family strum which is boring (and I'm not very good at).


*No, not the kind of workplace porn that has coworkers having a doubly adulterous affair on your shared desk ('cause, been there. Neither fun nor porny): Workplace pr0n involves a workplace that one does not absolutely hate the thought of going to each and every day.
**That specific face happens to have resulted from me singing "Moo moo moo moo moo moo moose" (vocal exercise) and making his moose toy dance. He thought this was hilarious.

Radio . . . off? High Tea @ 103 and Radio Macbeth @ Court Theater

I recently inherited a very fancy Franklin Covey day planner from my sinister sweetie, who ditched the big 3-ring arrangement in favor of the spiral bound incarnation. Since I've begun to use it, I've double booked myself at least 3 times. And yet my gänger has remained stubbornly undöppeled.

The worst part of my double booking yesterday morning was the fact that I didn't feel like going anywhere at all. I recently incurred the rage of the karmic keepers of migraines by telling my doctor (at my long-overdue annual visit) that I hadn't had one in a long while. She didn't rewrite me a prescription for my medication, and thus I have had at least 2 since then, one of them yesterday.

Despite feeling pretty awful, and despite the fact that I should have been attending my song-writing class, I was determined to attend the high tea at Cafe 103, which had been arranged by the superexcellent owner of my beloved, doggie-friendly local yarn shop, My Sister's Knits.

As I was pondering my wardrobe for such an occasion on Twitter (I suppose it is possible to clothe oneself without recourse to cannabis [so far removed from Texas THC am I that it took me 4 tries to spell that correctly], government hand outs, and Twitter, but I don't recommend it), pointed out that high tea was definitely a hat-wearing occasion. I located the MPage Memorial Hat and finished it off with a skirt, tights (which definitely squish), my insaneoid (but oh-so-cute and oh-so-conveniently-mammoth-calf-fitting) boots, a black top, and my newly blocked dragon-scales scarf, and dived into my trusty Corolla with about 5 minutes to get me to the tea on time.

Foolishly considering the Bears' interception of the ball deep in their own territory to be some kind of good omen, I headed in and slotted myself into the Matilda axis. (The Cafe can seat 30, 3 of us were named Matilda, and we happened to be sitting next to one another.) My hat was widely complimented until someone turned up in a tiara. (Let the record show that I, of course, HAVE a tiara, but I had not gotten the memo that this was a tiara-wearing occasion.)

The tea was lovely. We started with a basket of miniature scones and various breads and cakes (lemon-poppyseed, pound cake, etc.) served with jams, lemon curd, and so on. Next up were mimosas (Carol providing the champagne) and the first course of finger sandwiches, which included open-faced cucumber-dill on rye, turkey with an apple-cranberry chutney on a whole-grain pita, and something else my sleep-deprived brain cannot recall at the moment. The second course of sandwiches included spinach-walnut minitarts in phyllo, classic egg salad on white roles, and chicken salad with smoked grapes and walnuts on a croissant. I was a huge fan of everything, despite the fact that both the chutney and the chicken salad are things I normally would have shied away from trying.

There were various door prizes from the shop. Winning seemed to be a function of proximity to her majesty with the tiara (although the last person picked her own name out!). In addition to the prizes Carol had arranged, the owner of Cafe 103 (who, as usual, had on perfectly beautiful jewelry) announced that everyone should check the bottom of her saucer, because one person at each table would find a sticker indicating that she had won the centerpiece, which was a lovely antique cup and saucer filled with unique and gorgeous arrangements from the Blossom Boys, the super-excellent florist's shop (and more) just 2 doors down from MSK.

Before we could to anywhere, there was, of course dessert. First up, both by choice and necessity, was ethereally delicious orange mousse served in a chocolate tulip cup: One million times better than the average dreamsicle in part because of the spot-on evocation of all aspects of the dreamsicle experience. Next I tried the caramel-apple square, which was a little over-cinnamony for my tastes (almost any cinnamon at all has this effect on me, though, so take that in context). The chocolate walnut brownie was a marvel of brownieosity: Chocolatey, rich, and wonderful without being at all overly sugary. I kept telling myself that it was so rich I could only eat a tiny portion, and yet the whole thing disappeared. The final dessert had (presumably in error) described to us as something strawberry based. It was, in fact, a kind of chocolate cream cheese brownie. The slightly sour topping was in perfect balance with the chocolatey goodness underneath. Oh, there was a lemon bar in there, too, and I am a failure because I did not try it.

They owners opened the Beverly pantry to us as well, and I did lumber over there briefly. (My crazy!boots proved to be particularly ill suited to conveying my post-tea bulk around a shop filled with fragile and expensive things.) Many of us headed back to Carol's shop, which she was opening to us for an hour after the tea. Of course in our eagerness to get some food-coma-combatting fresh air, we arrived at the shop well ahead of her. I had parked in front of the Blossom Boys shop and noticed that they had a picture of Barack and Michelle Obama on their door (a specific picture of the two of them going to or coming from the kids' parent-teacher conference right after the election), and I stopped to examine it. (Turns out that the lovely arrangement that Michelle is holding in the picture is one of theirs.)

In my food-induced haze, I failed to note that there was someone inside the shop, even though it was close. Naturally, my mug pressed to the screen door was sufficiently alarming that he came to see what was up. He immediately recognized our gaggle as having been at the tea and invited us to come in until Carol arrived to open her shop. I narrowly escaped buying a number of pieces of jewelry and some other things. I did not escape buying yarn, however.

In the car on the way home, I discovered the awful truth about the Bears game. We have no wish to discuss it.

In the evening, we were scheduled to have dinner chez Editrix, as she was eager to cook dinner in her new and improved kitchen, and thence repair to the theatre to see Radio Macbeth. We were of the impression that RM was not, you know, The Scottish Play, given the different title and all. In fact, we were under the impression that it was a play about a group doing a radio version of TSP, which would be interesting. Sadly, it is not. Not about a group doing a radio version of TSP and, really, not interesting.

It's important to note that the performance was by a group called SITI. Although this seems once to have stood for Saratoga International Theater Institute, it seems now to be SITI forevermore. SITI is dedicated to training actors in a combination of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training (which, apparently, has no relationship to the Suzuki Method of Musical Instrument training, although I think a foot-based approach to musical instruments will soon be sweeping the globe) and the Viewpoints method .

It is further important to note that Kate Bredeson, the dramaturg for RM says:

In the world of SIT, the Scottish play is a 1940s radio drama in rehearsal . . . the company tells the story of the play through the ebbs and flows of sound. As in the most masterful classic radio dramas, the focus on sound in lieu of sight creates a world in which chatter is heightened and screams are more devastating — a world where silence creeps and menaces. In this stylish take on Shakespeare's tragedy, SITI gives us a full, albeit subdued visual terrain as well. The resulting crash of sight, sound, and a classic, iconic text is pure SITI: grounded, full, stylish, smart, raw."

Um. Sure.

There's almost no set for the show. Which is fine. The black cinderblock wall is exposed from floor to ceiling, except where a single, paint-splattered white drape descends from the ceiling to puddle on the floor up left. An upright piano is against the back wall up right. Other than that, at the top of the play, a small table is down left with two folding chairs in front of a microphone upstage between it and the aforementioned drape. A long boardroom table is set diagonally, running from down right to up center, and a handful of mismatched folding chairs are around it.

As the audience filtered in, a lone individual was visible slumped in a folding chair at about center stage. As a crowd of people was heard off stage left, he jumped up and ran off stage as the lights went completely down.

Four people seemed to enter in the dark with only a lighter's flame to guide them. As the lights came back up, two women were revealed. One was a young Japanese woman in black plastic-framed glasses and a convincing 40s-era skirt suit, another was a young woman in high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and a blouse and scarf. The former bustled around helpfully, the latter sat at the small table, seeming to concentrated on spiral-bound script. Also on stage from the moment the lights came up was a small, dark man in an argyle sweater.

Shortly, a man (apparently the one with the lighter) entered from the right-hand wings, presumably having been responsible for getting the lights working. He wore a cap and flannel shirt and had a pencil tucked behind his ear. This group was soon followed by a man and woman, also entering from the right, who were altogether more flashily dressed. The man had a pin-striped suit, the woman a red wrap dress, very 40s hat, and a fur coat.

Probably close to 5 minutes elapsed during which the Japanese woman continued to bustle, the woman in the red dress stalked about giving people the hairy eyeball, the woman in the trousers continued to focus on her script, and the men seemed to wander around whispering to one another and making "whaddaya gonna do?" gestures at one another.

It did seem as though relationships among these people were being subtly established during this time. For example, it seemed to me that Trouser!Woman and Red!Dress Woman were being contrasted: T!W was clearly a METHOD! actor, whereas R!D was a soap opera diva type who relied on histrionics. The Japanese woman was a Girl Friday type intent on convincing everyone of her indispensibility. There wasn't much to go on with the men other than perhaps a class difference between the two men who had entered first and the man who entered later with R!D.

With little obvious impetus, W!T launched into "When shall we three meet again?" reading all parts with very little differentiation between them. She moved more into characterization as Macbeth (the richly dressed man in the pin-striped suit) and Banquo (the guy in the newsie cap) entered the scene. From there it seemed as though the players were established: Pinstripe = Macbeth; R!d = Lady Macbeth; W!T = witches (and later the Porter, Lady Macduff, and Lady Macbeth's maid); Newsie guy = Banquo, Malcolm, and a handful of other characters; Argyle guy = miscellaneous characters; Japanese skirt-suited woman (who turned out to have a very heavy Japanese accent) = Various characters.

EXCEPT!

Right around Act I, scene iv, when we see Duncan for the first time, the pinstripe guy started to read the part, pulling out one cheek and doing a very distinct voice for him.

AND THEN!

When Macbeth is next set to speak, the guy who was on stage before the lights when down appears at the top of the house left audience, starts to say Macbeth's lines over pinstripe guy, and does some directors' notes type dialogue about what the play is about.

So, thought I, we are finally, after four scenes, getting into what this play is about! Sort of a leisurely pace for self assertion, but now we're cooking.

Yeah, not really. The second guy just read Macbeth for the rest of the play, while pinstripe guy moved into playing Duncan and then Macduff, and no attention was ever paid again to this godforsaken mid-performance improv freeze tag. In fact, there seemed to be no further acknowledgment of any other identity for or interactions among these players. They just . . . did an abridged staged reading of the play. And lo! We were mightily confused in an apathetic way.

Certainly, they used those mics to good effects sometimes! There were person-created storms. To be sure, there were a handful of radio foley techniques—slapping the big table with a piece of 2 x 4 to simulate the knocking at the gate before Duncan's murder is discovered, for example. Yes, there were some coffee moments among the players, but they seemed reducible to nothing more than a minimalist way to stage the various banquets. But other than that it was just sort of Speed!Macbeth. Why the 40s? Doesn't matter. Why the markedly different styles of dress? Who knows? WHY GOD WHY DO WE HAVE 2 MACBETHS? This question is as elusive as the truth about the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

The performances weren't bad. In fact, I thought Barney O'Hanlon (newsie cap guy) was quite good in particular, and once I realized that nothing interesting in the way of interpretation was going to happen, I clung to hope that I'd at least get to see some of his Macbeth. The Editrix did forcefully question whether Elizabethan English is really the best medium for a non-native speaker with a very heavy accent. M and I were divided on whether Akiko Aizawa's accent was real or part of her character-not-really-within-a-character. (I gave up on this idea toward the end, but the ZK still thought he'd heard her making some accentless witch contributions.)

In terms of the text presented . . . I'm not sure why one would include the bulk of the extended witches scene that most agree was not written by Shakespeare and not performed by the company in his lifetime, especially if one is going to cut "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" down to about five lines, delivered in painfully flat style that cashes in on none of the possible readings of that speech.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all a Bard purist, but the shaved down play, as presented, did little to make me think. The additions, which included random stage directions (more frequent toward the end), the aforementioned replacement!Macbeth entrance music and pyrotechnics, and W!T ending the Macduff/Macbeth confrontation with a whimper as she yelled "Enough!" (This last was particularly snicker-inducing for M and me, as the two men were facing one another with folding chairs raised in menacing fashion. Been there, done that, bought the Luchador mask.)

RM would probably have been disappointing to us on the grounds that it was not at all what we thought it would be, and I think that SITI bears some responsibility for creating those expectations and not delivering. Observe:

“A great ghost story is best heard in the dark or by the shadows of flickering candle light. Darkness plays tricks on the mind and the ear; the smallest rattle will make our imagination churn. Macbeth—in my mind the ultimate ghost story.”
–Co-Director Darron L. West


But despite being doomed to disappoint, it needn't have . . . bored . . . to the extent that it did. Perhaps if we'd arrived a little earlier (we were enjoying QUITE TASTY chicken with potatoes and kale chez editrix until sauntering theatre-ward quite late), the boredom would have been prophesied in this from the OTHER director:

In the heat of the shared theatrical experience, an audience becomes its own society. You are here with a roomful of other people. Can you handle that? We are a community of people dealing with one another and challenging one another. The theater is about social systems and how individuals in communities function in concert. Can the planet be shared or does it just belong to me?


Why I do believe those are the second worst director's notes I ever did see. I'd have said they were the worst, but I presume that they are directed toward agoraphobic virgin theater-goers from Mars, rather than, you know, normal people like us.

The Rock Loves Pie: Alton Brown's "Super Apple Pie"

Well who doesn't, right? But "love" is probably an inadequate term to describe the M's feelings about apple pie. Several years ago, he watched in awe as the Penis Lady decided on a slice-by-slice basis whether a particular apple was good enough for the pie she was making (making in an extremely old school and temperamental oven, I might add). So when the "Apple of My Pie" episode of Good Eats aired . . .

eing dewey-eyed optimists, we'd gotten esoteric software like Applejack, tapioca flour, and grains of paradise a while back, thinking we'd be able to saunter out to a Blood, Bath, & Beyond for other necessities. However, in an unusual turn for AB, the Super Apple Pie requires hardware not necessarily found by default in the standard American kitchen. Or in a standard (or nonstandard) American kitchen store. Specifically, one needs:

1. Not just any old apple corer/slicer, but the jumbo kind. By reducing the forbidden fruit to no fewer than 12 uniform slices, the jumbo corer unlocks the secrets of uniformly delicious filling.
   
2. A 2-part tart pan. Ok, I'm absolutely willing to own up to the fact that the number of tart pans in my kitchen is (was) zero, but had I had a tart pan, it certainly would not have been the right kind, as AB demands a tart pan that is 2 inches deep. Trips to several up-scale cooking stores and one cake-decorating store (hey, it's around the corner from my local yarn store, and I scored an awesome set of H. P. Lovecraft-themed cookie cutters for Chicagowench, what do you want from my life?) later, I can tell you that's not easy to find. But it was the Swedes (via Amazon) to the rescue.
   
3. And, of course, you'll need a pie bird. What's that? You're neither a spinster aunt nor a character in an Agatha Christie mystery and you've never heard of a pie bird? Fear not, once you're over your ceramic/glass hen dish obsession Amazon is there for you.
   

The hardware did all arrive eventually, and I decided that today was my day. I braved the positively disgusting weather to hit the local grocery store for the apples, apple jam, and a few other items not specifically devoted to this project.

I began with the dough and encountered my first hurdle: lack of a real food processor. We have one of those multi-attachment hand blenders, and it works just fine for many things. Blending pastry dough is not one of them, as the only real food-processor like arrangement with any appreciable capacity is a tall, narrow blender pitcher with the blade whirring very close to its bottom. I should've just done the dough by hand, but I was trying to adhere as closely to the recipe as possible. Anyway, I did eventually have two discs of dough WRAPPED IN PLASTIC in the fridge.

On to apple duty. I'd gotten braeburns, golden delicious, granny smiths, and in the absence of honeycrisps, something from New Zealand that sounded likely. In the process of peeling and coring/slicing those bad boys, I rediscovered that using those corer/slicer really takes some forearm strength that I haven't got. Also, I really hate peeling shit. Oh, and I managed to find a parallelogram-shaped apple. Seriously, the core of that bad boy was at a 45-degree angle to the horizon and took a left turn at Albuquerque. I was so disturbed by this freak of nature that I then forgot to peel the last golden delicious, meaning that I got to shave the peel off each individual slice. Aces!

Once the dough is chilling and the sugared apples are draining, there's kind of a lull in the proceedings, so I decided to try to get some things ready for dinner. This would prove unwise, but it seemed so simple at the time: Soak some corn in the husk for grilling; peel (grrrr, but I did it with my orange monkey peeler, and the orange-on-orange amused me inordinately) and parboil sweet potatoes, also for grilling; mix up some marinade for chicken and vegetables to be kebabbed.

So the sweet potatoes were ready to be drained just before I was ready to roll out the bottom disc of dough, except that they WEREN'T quite ready, so decided to set the timer for 3 more minutes for them. No problem, I thought, I can roll out the dough in 3 minutes! HEY, YOU! TROUBLEMAKER IN THE BACK! I CAN SEE YOU TWITTERING THAT!

The fact of the matter is, I COULD have rolled that dough out in under 3 minutes if (a) I'd checked before starting things to see that I had wax paper, (b) if my Oxo rolling pin—a rolling pin by a company that makes many, many fine kitchen products, and by those products I usually swear—if my Oxo rolling pin did not suck the testicles of the donkey ridden by Lucifer himself in hell, and (c) if I had not been attacked by peppercorns.

You see, the wax paper doesn't get a lot of use in my household (AB's chocolate chip cookies, of course, call for parchment paper). As stated above, I wasn't even sure I had wax paper, so when I spied wax paper at the back of the pantry, I was so innocently pleased at not having my baking project derailed, I failed to spot the peppercorn ambush.

Those peppercorns, I would also like to make clear, have been missing for at least 3 weeks. I was being stubborn and holding out on buying more because I knew, I knew that I had container filled to the brim with them. I did indeed, at least when they weren't away berry terrorist training camp. So, yes, just as I reached for the waxed paper, the container reappeared, lid loosened, and tipped over into the box of zip lock bags, on to the shelf, on to the shelf below that shelf, and the shelf below the shelf below the shelf, and so on. Naturally, a healthy amount made it on to the floor just in case I wanted to reenact the fight in the arcade from Thunderbolt. (I cannot believe that Google Image Search is letting me down on the pachinko front here.) I swept the floor. There are still roly poly peppercorns all over the pantry. They will be cleaned up, but today is not that day.

So after the peppercorn attack, I spent some time overhandling my already overhandled dough, as the dread hell-forged rolling pin kept tearing it up. But eventually I did get it into the pan. Sort of. I had a whole arc along which there wasn't enough dough to be pressed up and into the flutes, but I told myself I'd compensate with the top dough.

Now those of you who have been reading along with Og for a while might notice that all of this surely took a lot more than three minutes, and yet nowhere in the midst of the peppercorn onslaught did I mention the timer going off. It turns out that hitting start is crucial to timer use. Ah well, in a perhaps prescient moment earlier at the grocery store I'd bought some chipotles in adobo, so I figured I'd punt and make—you guessed it, AB's—chipotle-smashed sweet potatoes.

So, bottom dough is in, apples have drained for their required amount of time, drained liquid is transferred to a sauce pan for reduction purposes. It's time to turn my attention to the filling. Having tossed the apples once with just sugar, it's now time to toss them with a mixture of more sugar, tapioca flour, lime juice, apple jelly, apple cider (I just went with another TBS of applejack, as suggested in the episode), an eensy bit of salt, and those grains of paradise.

We'd found this in one of those built-in grinder jars at Whole Foods. Convenient enough, I suppose, unless the plastic neckband is impossible to get off. I struggled and struggled with it, finally ending by taking my paring knife to it. And with a sense of triumph, I pulled the neckband free! And the entire top of the fucking grinder came off, dumping easily a quarter cup of them into my mixture (the recipe calls for a quarter teaspoon). Fortunately, mixture take 2 was more successful, and it was time to layer in the apples.

Except I've completely forgotten how he did that in the episode and the recipe directions are not winding up with me having a heap that's higher in the center than at the edges. But eventually, I come up with a workable set of concentric circles and appropriate heaping. After another round of being cruelly used by the evil rolling pin, I got the top dough on and even managed to get a really good seal all the way around, even where my bottom dough had come up short.


For once, my somewhat temperature-twitchy (but much beloved) vintage oven had not wildly overshot its mark. It was sitting patiently at 425, waiting for my most beauteous pie. Cooking was completely uneventful. Pulling away the sides of the tart pan with the aid of my oatmeal can was completely uneventful. Cutting the first piece, sadly, resulted in all-too-eventful and unwanted tectonic activity (not catastrophic, but it wasn't the two pretty pieces I'd been hoping for). It also almost resulted in some quality spouse stabbing as M said, while I was still holding the damn serrated knife in my hand, "You're supposed to use a serrated knife."

Diagnosis? That is, excuse me, some damned fine pie.

Unwitting A-Team, Gustatory Division: Atwood Cafe and TRU

One of the advantages of being a Lyric Opera subscriber, even one in the comparatively scabby seats, is early access to individual tickets. I usually try, with indifferent success, to coax friends, enemies, and passing acquaintances into accompanying me. This year, wire monkey mother fell for it twice over. We wanted 2 operas: One for her and the Lad to attend and one for a girls' weekend. Barber of Seville (in March) was the clear choice for the two of them. WMM and I were chatting about "our" opera, when I suddenly realized that my La Traviata date featured Reneé Fleming. "That one!" We shouted simultaneously, and lo! A plan was born. I am still not sure how I scored that ticket, though, as it was not just Fleming, but closing night of Fleming. Ironically, this part of the entry is Fleming free.

Our evening was book-ended with food. We began with dinner at the luscious Atwood Cafe (It's tragic that there's only one dinky picture of the dining room, which is sweet, sweet deco [WMM was trying to figure out how to fit a wall sconce in her evening bag]). We were forced to resist the extremely tempting Chef's menu, as we had . . . other dessert plans.

But no matter, we had two lovely courses each. I started with the tuna and salmon tartare, which was beautifully subtle, with jicama and fried wontons for texture, with just a hint of wasabi vinagrette. WMM, of course, had the trayf-wrapped trayf (pancetta-wrapped prawns, and positively outstanding they were). M had cheese tortellini in chicken broth. For our entrees, I went with the scallops with garlicy greens and parsnip flan. Very nicely done, although the reduction in which they were served was a little sweet for my tastes. WMM had the crispy mace-roasted duck breast in duck confit, which was fantastic, even if it was rather incidental to what she was really ordering, which was the wild mushroom risotto. ZK went for the porkchop, which I didn't try. However, I think I heard Gil baying in distress all the way from our house because he wasn't getting any, so I take that as a good.

But let's skip to the end of the evening for just a moment, shall we? When contemplating dessert, naturally our thoughts turned to the Peninsula's chocolate buffet. We were, however, denied most cruelly, because they begin breaking down the buffet at 11 PM, despite the fact that their very own website proclaims that it lasts until midnight on Saturdays. Bitches.

We were mulling over our choices when WMM said, "We could try dessert at TRU . . ." Now, I've never eaten at TRU. I'm reasonably certain that I would not be allowed to eat at TRU. I am now morally certain that I will never be able to eat at TRU again. But they had WMM at "latté martini," so what can you do? So, I called, stumbling over my words from the get go, as I said I'd like to make a reservation for dessert in the bar area. The reservations person was perfectly helpful and friendly, but asked "Main dining room or lounge?" "Lounge! Bar! Thingy!" responded I, "Dessert!"

When WMM and I arrived, having shamelessly waded out on to the street to divert a cab from the queue, the staff in the hushed, heavily curtained entryway swept into smooth, low-voiced action as they took our coats and informed us that "our guest [was] already waiting." (Sad note: I gave them my Pompous Program and I LEFT IT THERE!) We slipped into seats at the table with M and soon had two latté martinis in hand plus coffee complete with a wee, individual service (complete with sugar tongs, although M overlooked these the first time).

Contemplation of the dessert menu was brief, as we saw the magical words, "Three-course tour." We rapidly agreed that this was the only way to go considering the already-high-and-increasing-by-the-moment likelihood that they were never, ever going to let us eat there again. Our tour began with an amuse bouche. As they set down the lovely white shield-shaped bowls, WMM suddenly blurted, "Pop Rocks!" I was confused and a little alarmed at this sudden development of Tourette Syndrome, but she is the sister of my heart. And so, rather than retorting, "Big League Chew! Bitch, what is your DEAL?" I gave internal thanks that it was manifesting in 80s candy rather than going to the well of her profane vocabulary (which, I happen to know, is spectacularly colorful and inventive). Meanwhile, M began eyeing up the centerpiece with some alarm, asking, "Is it coming from there?"

I smiled in what I vainly hoped was an engaging way at the staff who were patiently waiting for my companions' neuroses to subside so that they could explain the dish. It turned out to be a devonshire cream panna cotta topped with champagne gelée and resting in a pomegranate soup with pomegranate seeds and—wait for it—Pop Rocks. We went to TRU, and they gave us Pop Rocks. You know that scene in Pretty Woman when Hector Elizando, shows us the true meaning of being a concierge in a snooty hotel by running interference for Julia Roberts at the fancy schmancy dinner? Hector Elizando has exactly squat on the staff at TRU, who took one look at us, and said, "Those three must be made comfortable! BRING THEM POP ROCKS!"

We, of course (or at least M and I) are uncouth enough not to know when we should be feeling out of place, so this lead to a raucous discussion on how, exactly, a place like TRU goes about obtaining their Pop Rocks. Do they have a Pop Rocks buyer? Does s/he also procure Lik-M-Aid and the bubble gum cigarettes that are dusted with a white powder so one can blow through them and simulate smoking, just like mom and dad? Do they send some of the scabbier and/or more junior staff to the 24-hour Walgreen's on Michigan Avenue? In addition to procedural questions, we were naturally curious to see what the real courses would bring. Would everything be deep fried or merely be served on a stick?

For both the first and second courses, we each received something different. For the first course, I had roasted pineapple, fresh pineapple, and a shell of coconut sorbet with candied cashews. M looked at mine and declared, "You lose." This left me perplexed, even more so when he said, "You hate pineapple." WMM's brow, too, furrowed, as she repeated,"You hate . . . pineapple?" I do not, in fact, hate pineapple. I quite like it. My beloved spouse, was thinking of my distaste for fake, shredded coconut, which is so great that I often avoid coconut-based desserts altogether. At a place like TRU, I'm not really worried about them sticking me with fake coconut. (Although after the Pop Rocks, perhaps I should be worried about them harvesting it from Zagnut bars or something.)

With that clarification, I will say that I did lose for that course. M had fantastically moist and subtle lemon chiffon cake topped with pot de creme plus a side of lemon curd ice cream over a citrus salad, and WMM had a positively beautiful apple confit on a spiced cider caramel. Mine was good, theirs were great. For the second course, WMM won the chocolate orange lottery. If smoked chocolate does not sound good to you, you are wrong. If smoked chocolate in STOUT does not sound good to you, you are dead to me. M got a magnificent flourless chocolate cake topped with hazelnuts and hazelnut ice cream, served with a side "espresso fluff" topped with vanilla foam.

You might be thinking that I lost again, hearing of all this . You would be so very tragically WRONG, bitches. Because I got the cocoa nib macaroon with bitter chocolate ice cream, and the SOUR CREAM CHOCOLATE GANACHE OF THE GODS. The macaroon was more like the world's most perfect mirengue, and that ganache could be deployed to control scores, hordes, oodles of people. It was positively heavenly. While we were all curling one arm defensively about our plates and shoveling in this course (after having feigned graciousness while sharing), they brought our third course: the root beer float with saigon cinnamon ice cream. The root beer is made from Gale Gand's own recipe, and the ice cream, although being of my least favorite flavor ever (seriously, I'd probably give cadaver-flavored stuff the old college try before I'd try cinnamon), was in a wee enough dollop that it formed a delicious complement to the spicy beverage. Awesome, and served in the cutest wee fountain glasses ever.

After obtaining our coats (BUT NOT MY PROGRAM! WAAAAHHH!!!), we poured WMM into her waiting chariot, and M and I made up for the lack of much-needed Thanksgiving pants with a brisk walk back to our car.

Next up, the chewy, cleavage-y opera center.

Shameless Provincial Flirting: The Halifax Report, days 1 & 2

According to google maps, it's 2,608 km from the Lord Nelson Hotelin Halifax to Telecommuniculturey HQ, estimated driving time, 1 day, 2 hours. It's saying something about my deep and inevitable love for Halifax that I even want to talk about Halifax given that I am now entering into hour 15 (update: now in hour 18 [final travel time: 23 hours for a 2.5-hour flight]) of my time in Canuckian airports and it appears that by the time I arrive home, assuming no further shenanigans (and I'm not assuming that by any stretch of the imagination), I could have driven from point A to point B.

So, J and I were maritime bound for the SMBE Annual Meeting. After my traditional nuit blanche on Saturday, cursing NCBI, dbSNP, and all its evil works, we met up at scenic O'Hare International, scored the "Economy Plus" rock star seats (without paying the upgrade costs), and were on our way. The good luck associated with the lack of flight-related drama continued as we completely failed to die in a flaming auto crash, despite the fact that the driver was doing 120 kph in a torrential downpour.

After some small confusion about our rooms, we were assigned two that were exactly what we wanted, up in a sort of semi-private corner of the 9th floor. I was blown away by the view from my window of the Public Gardens until I saw the view from J's room, which happened to be the rooftop beer garden of Your Father's Moustache (something weird is going on with that website at the moment, but I'm hoping it's temporary). We tried to be good little nerdlingers and see if it was still possible to check in for the conference, but we'd just missed the end of the opening night festivities. (In all earnestness, a shame. I'd have liked to see the opening lecture, "Continents, consumption and consumers: genetic signatures of human migration.")

Due diligence done, we headed moustache-ward. Along the way, we saw and saluted a pirate in front of Robbie Burns, as one does. In the hall leading up to YFM, we saw a flyer for the Haunted Hike of Halifax and said, more or less simultaneously, "We have to do that." Also, being scientists, we intuited that the flyer's indication that the tour departed nightly from in front of the Burns statue explained the presence of pirates. You see, we were still smart at that point, our brains having not yet been eaten. Atop the 'stache, we enjoyed some absofreakinglutely kick ass fish and chips, fine fine beer, and equally fine desserts. (I had a chocolate truffle cheesecake that was, as advertised, actually truffle-y, not just chocolatey. And then this killer brownie thing.) We called it a relatively early night in the interests of Og no face planting in the dessert and/or falling off the roof.

Monday morning dawned a bit overcast, but by the time we emerged from Smitty's, our bellies full of much-needed diner breakfast, complete with crack-laden breakfast potatoes, the sun was shining and it had warmed up considerably enough that I knew I'd need to make a lunch-time run to a drugstore for knee-highs (Og packed at about 8:30 AM and left the house not long after; I suppose sie would like a pat on the head for remembering hose at all, but The Other was not in the mood to reward behavior that involved wearing full-on pantyhose underneath pants.) In the morning, we registered and picked up our superior swag bags (which actually contained pens, something that seems never to have occurred to ASHG, which also routinely saddles us with bags perhaps appropriate to carrying codpieces, but not much else). We sat in on a session about the genetics of domestication, which had a great paper on dogs and another on barley (with important implications for beer).

After the first round of morning sessions, we enjoyed the goodies provided during the coffee break (and, hello, coffee, juice and decent pastries reliably available during the coffee break? sweeeeeeet). From there, we headed to another session on tools for annotating and working with high-throughput data sets. The tools actually seem worthwhile and as if they work, which is, of course, more than we can say for NCBI on both counts. By lunchtime, we were trying to adjust to such competence and practicality in the field, and we were ready to run my, by now quite urgent, hosiery errand after having quite good food (albeit food of dubious Mexicanity) at a Mexican restaurant in the building next door to YFM.

The second of the afternoon sessions were for the graduate student award competition, and most of them were quite good: solid, important research and well presented. I admit that I was looking forward to taking the short cut to this paper about chimps having more fast-evolving genes than humans, as I've only had the chance to do a cursory read so far. The presentation was good, but I still have some concerns about the data included. The conservative approach is almost always the right one, but in this case, it's most likely to cut out genes that are genuinely evolving rapidly in humans. Still, nice papers overall.

Monday night was one of our scheduled fancy schmancy dinner nights. Our destination was Onyx, also directly across from the Lord Nelson (you could totally live at the Lord Nelson, were it not for the tragic lack of free wireless or other internet in the rooms). We had been attracted by the great rating, but worried that we were not nearly hipsters enough for this place. As you can see, the website is . . . well . . . just completely silly. Fortunately, the restaurant is not. We were both struck with an immediate need to fondle the accoutrement, from the textured silk napkins (which you could actually buy, I assume, on the hotel bathrobe principle: Everyone was taking them anyway) to the leather table runners to the real cork binders for the wine list. It was also soothingly dark and not loud (despite being on the busiest street in Halifax) (two nonnegotiable requirements for Og and J) with funky but not unpleasant music. Our server did warn us that on Fridays and Saturdays, it was strictly animal noises and whipping, so we'd come on a good night. We sucked down a caipirinha (me) and a fancy mojito-y thing (BSD) like juice as we perused the menu.

They had a prix fixe menu that, unfortunately, seemed to exclude some of the must-have appetizers. The server laughed in her friendly Canuckian way and assured us that we could have any appetizer we wanted, there was just a small extra charge for a few of the others. Rock star. We started with oysters on the half shell to share (we do not have a problem and we can stop any time we want to). I then had escargot served in mushroom caps with the most interesting sauce: kind of a mexican crema and a very light green sauce that was not quite salsa verde, but had a pleasant kick. It's not that I object to escargot as a vehicle for butter and massive amounts of garlic, but this was an interesting, very tasty, and new to me preparation. I definitely needed selections from the varied and delicious bread basket to sop up the sauces, too. J had the duck, which was sublime: It was a lesson to every dry, stringy duck slathered in nasty, jam-like plum sauce on what they should be: Perfectly done meat, not greasy in the least, with just a hint of delicately sweet sauce, all wrapped in light, flaky pastry.

For the main course, I had the seafood cannelloni. The shells were an excellent cross between a silky flour tortilla and freshly made pasta. The chipotle in the dough was smoky overall, but there was also a nice, sharp fresh chile flavor that lightened up the creamy sauce and the cheese accompanying the seafood. As for the seafood itself, it was fresh, well-prepared, and had distinct textures and flavors—no mishmash of puréed seafood and ricotta here. J had the cornish hen, which was a beautiful fusion of curry and molé. Accompanying the main courses, we scored the last bottle of the Diemersfontein 2005 Pinotage from South Africa. The cork was giving our server some gyp, which she was altogether too embarrassed about (it happens to the best of us). For dessert, we had the chocolate hazelnut mousse pyramid (me) and the creme brulée trio (J). Mine was the only thing less than great (a little on the pasty side), although it was still quite good. Judging from the inhalation of the plate as a whole, I take it that the professor had no such complaints with his dessert with which he also had a local ice wine that he enjoyed very much.

After dinner, we decided to change out of our finery and walk off some of the dinner on the water front. Based on the helpfully provided maps in our swag bags, we intuited that if we walked away from the conference, we'd be heading for water. On the way, we passed by at least three stores that I needed to check out. At the waterfront, we consulted a directory and headed for the most sticky-outy of the businesses, most of which are clustered at the north end (we and the Lord Nelson were at the south end). Along our walk, we met a very sweet rottweiler doggie and his owner, witnessed other, possibly inebriated, people trying to run up to the top of this "wave" statue," and decided that we needed to come back to visit Cow's at some point during the week. We made it already to the end by the casino before heading back south in search of a place to sit and have a drink. Most of the waterfront was rolling up its sidewalks by then (Monday night, after 10 PM), and so we headed back in the vague direction of our hotel. We came across a place called the "Golden Triangle" (not much of a web presence, it seems). We sat in the bar area, but three steps up from that was a proper restaurant, and another three up from that, an area with live music. On the able suggestion of the bar tender, I had a Propeller Bitter and, later, I did a good deed by taking the freshly pulled pint of guinness left by my neighbor whose cab had finally arrived.

Shortly after we'd come in, two guys came in, one from Wales and one from Manchester. Although they'd clearly been drinking beforehand, they got in under their own power and, for about 5 minutes, seemed fine. They ordered a couple of guinnesses as well, and then in record time, the Welsh guy was singing at the top of his lungs and pounding the bar, much to the embarrassment of his pal. Nothing more eventful than that happened, but we were somewhat baffled how he'd gone from able to walk under his own power to that hammered that quickly.

Anyway, we settled up our tab and really were virtuously heading back to our hotel when the exterior of a particular bar caught our eye. We then noticed that it was called the Press Gang, which we found amusing. We were peering inside and making mental notes for later when a man nearby said, "Don't be shy, go on in!" Not wishing to be impolite Americans, we did. As we sat down, the bartender said, "Just so you know, we're closed." We apologized and started to get up. He looked scandalized and said, "Oh, no, I can give youse a drink! Sit on down." How very Canadian. I had an IPA at his suggestion and didn't regret it (although IPAs are not usually among my favorite beers). J spelunked around their scotch list and astutely noted that they had real (well, as real as one can get nowadays, which is realer than the pernod one gets in the states) absinthe. The sazerac light bulb went on over our heads and we asked the bartender if he'd ever heard of one. He said no, but dutifully wrote down the recipe we tried to provide.

On that note, we did finally make our way back to the Lord Nelson, obtained some tasty carbonated caffeinated beverages from the vending machines, and so to bed.

Biscuits from on High: The Fried Chicken Throwdown at West Town Tavern

JRH (who is much older than I am, incidentally) claims that I hate him, despite the fact that it was I who brought him in contact with divine biscuits in celebration of his birthday. There's just no pleasing some dumbasses.

See, here's the thing: JRH's birthday is just two days before M. So every year for the last . . . 4 or 5 years at least, we've celebrated their birthdays together. This year, pulling that off involved a 3.5-hour drive from State College, PA, to Washington, DC (sorry J and W: it was an action-packed weekend with no time for side socializing), a 2-hour flight home, whirlwind changing, and a journey up to West Town Tavern. And all of that was on very little sleep to begin with plus an hour snatched away by a greedy government.

But it was all worth it, oh yes, it was worth it. The Fried Chicken Throwdown at West Town was designed as a benefit for the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization whose mission is "to celebrate, teach, preserve, and promote the diverse food cultures of the American South"—work that's obviously more important now than ever. And far be it from pal M, TLBO, M, JRH, our pal B, and me to refuse to eat ourselves sick in the name of such a worthy cause.

Susan Goss kicked off the evening by introducing John T. Edge, the director of the SFA, who gave us a brief introduction to the SFA, fried chicken (which, he emphasized, has a silent "DEEP" in front of it, as far as any legitimate purveyor is concerned) in general, and the relationship between the SFA and the creators of the first two courses. He also explained that the complicated AV set up was required for the screening of a short film that the SFA had made about André Prince Jeffries whose hot chicken formed not only the second course, but the inspiration for next year's birthday bash. As intrigued as we were by the shiny equipment and the prospect of a little MSTing, I think we were all relieved that food was imminent and the film was definitely after-dinner entertainment.

The first course was Susan's rendition of Willie Mae Seaton's Scotch House Fried Chicken. Although this pre-Katrina reviewer foolishly leads with the pork chop, his assessment of the chicken is a good one: The batter is light and crisp, almost more like that found on really good fish and chips, but there is no question of it being heavy or trapping oil between itself and the chicken as can sometimes happen. In terms of seasoning, again, I concur with the reviewer that it is not particularly dependent on heavy spices, but mostly uses salt and maybe a little something else to bring out the juicy flavor of really good chicken. Our servings were smallish boneless cutlets accompanied by succotash and The Biscuit (more on those in a minute).

At our table, we had a refresher course on succotash before the food arrived: B hasn't had it in ages, as his wife, the possibly imaginary G, won't touch the stuff. This seems to be a girly phenomenon, because TLBO and pal M both eschew the mushiness of the lima bean. (In fact, I have it on good authority that "nothing bigger than a lentil" goes in pal M's mouth.) I have no lima bean objections, but I'm not overly fond of cooked carrots, which have always been a part of my succotash experience. (I see, however, upon checking a dictionary that this is yet another culinary fraud perpetrated upon me.) Much to my delight, then, did I note that the nasty, nasty carrots had been replaced by delicious chunks of bacon. Is it any wonder that Susan is one of my favorite chefs in the whole wide world?

And then there was The Biscuit. These are billed on the menu as Lora Tatum-Smith's Buttermilk Biscuits. I don't know who Lora Tatum-Smith is, but she is my Messiah now. That biscuit was like velvet to the touch. It was neither too dense nor so air filled that it was hard to get a handle on the taste. It was not too salty. It was not too floury. It was the Essential Biscuit. And it was only with difficulty that I did not weep when mine was gone.
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The second course was a pair of Prince's Hot Chicken wings, rampant, on a caesar salad. Having now seen Ms. Jeffries and her devotees discussing various aspects of the hot chicken, I can only assume that we were experiencing the mild version. The wings were sticky to the touch, but not with the heavy, syrupy quality that often characterizes such things. The heat, to me, seemed to have a black-pepper foundation, with a tangy, hot pepper overlay. The quality and flavor of the chicken were still discernible underneath the heat, which, again, is not what you usually find when the heat is emphasized.

The caesar salad was remarkably good as well, with a light, fresh dressing, and slivers of practically perfect cheese. pal M opined that she would have added a single crouton to make it truly perfect. This led all and sundry at the table to express their extremely fond wishes for MORE BISCUIT MISS MAH BISCUIT SO MUCH! It was then that a staff member appeared from the ether with AN ENTIRE BASKET OF BISCUITS. As TLBO noted, this sudden response to intercessory baked good prayers presents something of a problem to the godless among us, particularly when the biscuits kept a-comin'.

The third course was Susan's own West Town Tavern Fried Chicken. Considering that I've eaten there, oh, let's call it an even 50 trillion times, this should be nothing new, right? WRONG. I have been depriving myself of this chicken for years, because I am a fool. Susan's chicken is not so different from Ms. Seaton's, although the batter tends more toward the crunchy end of the spectrum, so it's not quite as light. In other words, it was ideal for a more rib-sticking third course. The garlic mashed taters and the mushroom gravy were lusciously delicious, and the greens of unspecified latin name were also good (not vinegary or bitter, which is too often the case with greens). If someone forced me to criticize something about the whole meal, I'd say that the breast for course three might have been a touch too large. I think that pal M, through her moans of distress, might have been in agreement by the end of the evening.

The movie started up while we were all eagerly awaiting the lemon chess pie and blueberries (despite our groans of fullness). The pie was an excellent capper for the meal, being about as light as desserts get, yet still giving that satisfying sweet happy ending.

Mr. Edge had been a bit circumspect about the film aspects of SFA's endeavors. He repeatedly referred to the movies as "irreverent, but respectful." They'd intended to show both the movie about Prince's Hot Chicken and that about the Scotch House at the Throwdown, but the latter has been growing and growing. It currently stands at near an hour. The Prince's Hot Chicken movie was a lean, mean 12 minutes, which is fortunate for those of us who nearly laughed ourselves sick.

Much of it features an interview with Ms. Jeffries herself, who has a hilarious deadpan delivery, even when (especially when?) she is creating euphemisms on the fly for hot-chicken-induced rumpy pumpy. Other interviewees included a pair of members of film crew who are also addicts of the chicken. They imparted useful information about using the hotness of the chicken for self-defense. Another gentleman talked trash about the heat, then revealed that that he, himself, orders mild. But holding his own against the owner was the interviewee who turned out to be the Mayor of Nashville. That is a man I'd vote for without asking any further questions about his politics.

Interspersed among the interviews were educational film clips about the urges we experience and Your Friend the Digestive System. It was something that could have so easily become labored and unfunny, and yet the SFA did an absolutely stellar job keeping things light, funny, and informative. Immediately after the film ended, JRH declared "Next year in Nashville." And so say we all.

While we lingered, both Susan and Mr. Edge came over to chat with us. M and I were gratified to learn that Leah Chase will be reopening her place the Thursday before Easter. We're determined to get there (and Scotch House, now, it goes without saying) before the year's out.

Fierce Invalids from Really Freaking Cold Climates

I could begin this entry by saying that we just dropped off L and N at the airport. However, that would be a lie, because we did that approximately 5 hours ago. The intervening time has been spent soaking my aching body in a bath tub and then sleeping. I seem to have developed at least two separate kinds of crud in the last day, which did not substantially prevent me from enjoying the weekend.


So the first thing I did after the Bears beat the Saints was to call L and let him know that he and N had first dibs on our guest room, should they want to be in Chicago for Da Bears in Da Bowl. Happily, N grabbed the bull by the horns and made plane reservations and only then asked herself and L if I had been serious. (I most definitely had.)

I soon entered a phase of Intensive Acres Cleaning, which the homestead has needed for some time. Because I got obsessed with thoroughness along the way, this did not really end until about 15 minutes before we needed to leave to pick them up. Both were kind enough not to comment on my stinkyness.

Given that both had worked a full day before getting on a plane and spreading their beads to their fellow passengers, we'd figured on ordering pizza in from Angies on the strength of the better booze selection Chez the Acres. Although both M and N were very much into playing the "here are the ingredients I don't like" game, we'd pretty quickly decided on two pizzas satisfying to all concerned. Pizza and wine duly consumed, we all called it a night pretty early.

On Saturday morning, we decided to brave downtown for the purposes of hitting the store at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and to get some photos in front of the lions. (As an aside, the craniometric difficulties surrounding this endeavor amuse me more than anyone else in the world. Pikers! If only you'd called in an expert!)

While we were having coffee, I checked the weather and informed N that it was "this many" degrees. When her face fell, I told her to cheer up, because I at least had to use two hands. Barely. We got ourselves parked and made a first attempt at pictures, but the camera was too cold to work. After some quality time warming up in the store and soaking up L's body heat, the camera decided to play nice. We got several shots and then got pressed into service taking shots of others before successfully fleeing to the Atwood Cafe.

Here, there was a brief wait for a table, which we spent warming up in a lovely room with excellent hot toddies. Our table was ready before too long, and we stuffed ourselves on great food. M and split the duck/manchego quesadillas, which were fabulous with the somewhat odd-sounding combination of fig jam and spicy crema. L and N got the gnocchi, which was good enough that N forgave it for the grievous sin of having fungus in it. For the main course, both the boys were whores for sweet potato fries and got the black-bean burgers that came with them. It was feeling like pot pie weather to me, and N got some kind of Asian salad that she claimed had peanut-flavored crack in it. The service was a little inattentive, but it was a pretty busy lunch hour, so I'll give them all a pass.

We scurried back to the car only to find that M had lost the parking ticket in the final stage of the walk. Being gouged for the 2-day price would have been irritating enough, but it also took FOR FUCKING EVER to get an attendant out to rob us.

Our next stop was Whole Foods to obtain sustenance for the main event. I hadn't really decided what to make, other than calas, but N informed me that L had not stopped talking about the gumbo, which I'd made for him and his parents last year, since they'd booked the tickets. So gumbo it was. I also imposed about L to make Plaid Tuba Bread. Ultimately, dessert was left up to M. We made it out of the maze of crabby, crunchy people in record time and pointed ourselves homeward for more hot toddies.

Saturday was the first day of the Iditarod and by extension of the Iditawalk. The Hound, L, N, and I are all registered, and we foolishly figured that it wouldn't do to fall behind on the very first day. By my pedometer's reckoning, we'd already clocked 20 minutes of aerobic time, and I figured I'd take the hound for a shortened walk just to the park and back without doing a loop of the park itself.

About a block from the house, El Hound started doing his jumpy "MY PAWS ARE FROZEN!" dance, which is usually cured by my rubbing the foot in question to free up any impacted snow, and then he's good to go. This usually happens maybe twice in the course of a walk. Saturday, it happened about 10 times, leading me to feel like the worst dog parent ever. Of course, I had to sandwich my feelings of inadequacy in between concerns that my thighs were frozen enough to shatter.

Back at home again, I tried to warm up by doing some prep work on the cooking front. I assembled the bacon dip with considerable assistance on the frying and crumbling fronts. I then made some rice (both Brigtsen's perfect version for savory calas and plain rice because M had expressed some interest in making the sweet calas). With that done, we changed for dinner at Koda.

M and I had been there shortly after the restaurant opened, and this was our first trip back. We deliberately showed up a bit early to have a drink at the bar, which seemed to confuse the hostess, thus suggesting that the staffing issues are still not completely solved. However, our waitress was generally much more on the ball and the other servers as well, although we did have to make more of an effort than usual to get a second glass of wine for N and later for me.

Foodwise, it continues to satisfy. I had escargot for my appetizer, N concurred with my diagnosis of them as delicious. She and L shared the bacon flatbread that M and I had enjoyed on our previous visit. M got a breaded rabbit loin that was new to the menu and quite yummy. For the main dishes, N was unable to resist a second round of gnocchi and L proved himself to be Of the People by getting the steak frites. M could not resist the same short ribs he'd had before, and I had salmon en croute with a scallop mousse and a cream sauce to die for. For dessert, I went the molten chocolate cake route, M went for the cranberry kumquat sticky pudding (despite his scorn for stickyness), and L was instructed to choose wisely. He did and shared a caramel-creme thingy with N.

Back at the Acres, L fell asleep almost immediately. (Well, it wasn't so immediately that it didn't offer him the opportunity to insist that he was only mostly asleep and an opportunity for some cat-sleeping person comedy.) I stayed up long enough to make some remoulade and to break the grippy part (fortunately not vital) of the pitcher for our hand blender.

In the morning, M and I had classes at OTSFM, and we thought it would be big fun to, once again, drag our house guests out in the cold. (Sunday's weather report went like this:
Me: Let's see how many fingers we need today.
V: Oh, please, let her need toes!
Me: Not only do I not need toes, I need to cut off all the fingers on one hand. )
We headed up in gender-segregated cars to grab some brunch at Cafe Selmarie, which is right on Lincoln Square. As N and I sped from the car to the cover of the restaurant, we had to navigate around a single speaker and pile of clothing sitting in the sidewalk. It seemed pretty clear that these had been thrown out the window of the apartment directly above. I'm sure there's a good story there.

Despite the fact that Cafe Selmarie is a relatively well-known, well-reviewed place, we'd never been there. Not only had we never been there, but M had no idea where it actually was, which validated our gender segregation as L led the way. Although the place was doing brisk business, we got a table right away and N and I were soon sipping coffee as we waited for our men folk.

As M contemplated the menu, he hemmed and hawed over the various choices, finally declaring that we'd have to come back so he could try other things. In the mean time, he opted for the chilaquiles casserole in the hopes that the spicyness would help with his cold. I also went with a relatively tried and true choice of the spinach/goat cheese omelet. L opted for brioche french toast, and N shamed us all with a bowl of fruit and toast. (I must give a shout out to the bowl of fruit, which was a number of different berries and bananas, rather than usual heap of nasty honeydew and cantaloupe.) By the time we left, there was a quite a line for tables, so hitting the brunch earlier rather than later is probably a good idea.

After brunch, L and N set out to explore the 'hood (I quote N: "Nothing can keep me from shopping"), and M and I headed to our classes. After Badtz and I rocked the house in bass class, we met up with L and N and headed back to the Acres to address the serious business of gumbo and bread. I put L on the latter and enslaved N on the former.

We'd gotten all the vegetables chopped and the spice kit put together for the gumbo as well as having set the bread to rising when I started to feel not so great. All morning I'd been a little queasy, which I'd attributed to overcaffeination and some related dehydration. But I'd been pounding water for a while and the situation was getting worse, rather than better. I even tried chewing some ginger antinausea gum, but to no avail. Soon I was sweating and shivering by turns and feeling closer to passing out than I can remember. Shortly thereafter, the nausea resolved itself in its favorite way, which led to some improvement in the "about to pass out" feeling, but not much help on the poor internal temperature control front. This made frying chicken even more exciting than usual! Also, I am sure that I was a joy for L and N to be around.

M arrive home shortly thereafter bearing much-needed ginger ale (yes, I realize that the medicinal properties of ginger ale bought at a 7-11 are 9 parts placebo and 1 part homeopathy, but gimme that old time snake oil!). I once again enslaved our guests in the making of calas while I whipped up a roux (which, I'm pleased to say, went from start to finish in about 10 minutes, even using the cast-iron skillet, so I think I officially have the secret now). Dueling boiling oil! What could be more fun?

The calas were kind of a disappointment. They were too dry, probably because the rice had slightly overcooked, or maybe because the eggs weren't quite eggy enough. Either way, I wasn't entirely happy with them, although I felt the remoulade was better this time as I'd backed off the green onion content slightly (plus I'm sure the bits of pulverized plastic from the grip breaking off added that certain something!).

With all the hard parts of the gumbo finished, it was time for Da Game. L called Hester running back the opening kickoff, but it was still unbelievable seeing it happen. I, in turn, called the missed Indianapolis extra point, and Gil and I put the haunch whammy (which won us the Arizona game) on Vinatieri for the missed field goal. As for the rest of the game, let us never speak of it.

I was not alone in my cooking difficulties. The bread didn't seem to want to rise. The filling for the peanut butter pie didn't seem to want to go all mousse-y. But in the end, we didn't starve, despite our anxiety on that score. I'm also glad to report that by the time the gumbo was ready, I was actually feeling up to eating a bit. Late in the game, when things got really pathetic on the ursine end, L turned to me and said: "I know you're not feeling well, but it's time to start drinking. What can I get you?" And he fixed me a great hot toddy.

By that time of the evening, the stomach troubles seemed to have been beaten into submission by a more generic cold or flu. I had the chills (although our digital thermometer insisted that I had no fever) and I felt like someone had been beating me with a sack of oranges. My body apparently lacks confidence in my ability to interpret symptoms as a sign that I should take steps to address illness, because it later started a fun round up of upper back spasms on me. Good times, good times. A hot bath (amid the cries of "Worst. Hostess. Evar!") dealt with that, and soon after N declared that she could stay up for hours, but I looked like I needed some sleep. Bless her heart.

Festivities on Monday included sleeping in, celebrating the return to positive fingers, wailing and gnashing of teeth upon discovering that one only just barely needed toes to express the temperature in Virginia, and trying to make another dent in the leftovers, and trying on the bridesmaid's dress with supersecret low-back-converter thingamy. (Not in that order. I insisted on doing the dress try-on pre-gumbo.) Then, sadly, it was time to take our guests to the airport. Of course, we'll see them soon enough on both their current and natal stomping grounds, but it was still great to squeeze in a bonus visit before then, although I fear that it means that N is never setting foot in this arctic wasteland again. Don't worry, N, soon enough we'll be the humid jungle swamp you know and love.

Waiting for Gumbot

Roughly 12 aeons ago, my friend A asked for my Gumbo recipe (which, of course, is Frank Brigtsen's recipe). M and I learned to make this gumbo on our honeymoon when we did a class at the New Orleans Cooking Experience. We've made it several times. It's time consuming but definitely worth it. I'm just typing in from the recipe that Frank gave us and giving the notes that I think will be helpful.


Yield: 12 bowl-sized portions (14.5 cups)

MTZQ Notes: This is a cajun gumbo (not surprising as Frank trained under Paul Prudhomme, who literally wrote the book[s] on cajun cuisine), which involves making the roux separately, then adding it to a boiling broth. Creole recipes cook the vegetables in the roux once it's fully browned. Both are nice, but I like the cajun way somewhat better for a gumbo, whereas the creole method lends itself better to less "soupy" things.

Ingredients:
1 lb. Andouille sausage, sliced into half-rounds, 1/4" thick

MTZQ Note: I have used hot italian sausage in a pinch, but andouille is best, both for flavor and texture

2 TBSP Pomace olive oil

MTZQ Note: The key here is high heat tolerance. You don't want an extra virgin olive oil, because it will burn before your trinity has browned. You can also use reserved bacon grease or any other kind of animal fat.

4 c diced yellow onions, 1/2" pieces (divide into 3c and 1c portions)
3 c diced celery, 1/2" pieces (divide into 2c and 1c portions)
2 c diced bell pepper (any color is fine, but it's nicer if you have some variety), 1/2" pieces
2 Bay leaves
1 TBSP minced fresh garlic
4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp whole-leaf dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
3 TBSP gumbo filé powder

MTZQ: Note: The salt, dried spices, and filé powder can be tossed into the same dish, making a "spice kit." Resist the urge to up the spices because you like things more flavorful, at least the first time, this gumbo is nice and bold and really does require only these small amounts

12 c chicken stock

MTZQ Note: Frank says "or water" in the original recipe. Uh, no. You really do want to use chicken stock

1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces (3-4 lbs of bone-in chicken pieces)

MTZQ Note: I've always used legs and thighs, never tried this with breasts, which can be too unwieldy during frying, or wings, which seem like a lot of effort for little yield when it comes to removing the meat from the bones. Also, I just like dark meat better.

4 TBSP Chef Paul Prudhomme's Meat Magic seasoning
3 c all-purpose white flour
Enough vegetable or peanut oil for frying the chicken pieces

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Place the sliced andouille sausage on a shallow baking pan and bake until the edges have turned brown, 40-45 min.
   

   MTZQ Note: This might seem like an odd step, because frying the sausage in the gumbo pot would give you fat for sauteing the trinity. However, it's a step that makes a difference. The crisping of the edges of the sausage helps it retain some firmness in the gumbo, and you don't have to deal with too much grease/not enough grease. I'm a firm believer in baking.

   
   
2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over high heat. Add 3 c of onion, 2 c of celery, 1.5 c of bell pepper, and the bay leaves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to brown, 12-15 minutes.
   

   MTZQ Notes: First thing to realize is that this is the gumbo pot in which you're sauteeing. Eventually, the whole kit and caboodle will be in this pot, including 12 c of stock, so make sure it's big enough. The second thing about this phase is that it may go against every cooking instinct you have. When it says "high heat," crank that burner up. When it says stir "occasionally," it means occasionally. In the first 10 minutes, you might only stir these babies twice, and just a few more times in the last few minutes. It's not only ok for things to stick and brown, you want them to stick and brown. As Frank explained it "Brown is the color of flavor." Those bits that stick will be deglazed at later stages, and they'll add a lot of depth to the flavor. Also, we are talking brown on those onions. Not slightly golden, not toasty, but a nice, rich brown. Onions are hard to burn and they have a distinct and nasty smell when they are burning. If your onions look, to your panicked eyes, like they're burning, but they don't have that smell, they're not burning. Take a deep breath, salute the light in your onions, and resist the urge to stir.

   
   
3. Add the remaining vegetables: 1 c of onion, 1 c of celery, and 1/2 c of bell pepper. Reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the second stage of onions turns clear, 2-3 minutes.
   

   MTZQ Note: If you were worried about all the veggies being limp and slimy, be contented. These vegetables are both for texture and a lighter, crisper flavor.

   
   
4. Add the garlic and your spice kit, including filé powder. Reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3-4 minutes.
   

   MTZQ Note: The important thing here is to battle the stringy nature of the filé powder. The low heat and constant stirring are key for that, the timing less so. Your filé may take more or less time before it plays nice and blends into the mixture, rather than coming away with the spoon in strings.

   
   
5. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the cooked andouille sausage. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Skim off any excess oil that rises to the surface and discard.
   
6. While this is simmering, it's time to tackle the chicken. I'm rearranging a few of Frank's steps here, because this order works better for me.
   
   
   
   • Seasoning
     
     
     
     1. Seasoned flour: In a shallow baking pan, add 2 c of the flour and 4 tsp of the Meat Magic seasoning. Blend well.
        
     2. Season the chicken pieces on both sides with the remaining meat magic, then dredge these in the seasoned flour
        

        MTZQ Note: As a disciple of Frank, I must insist that you embrace the "wet hand, dry hand" rule here. Handle the initial seasoning of the chicken and initial deposit of the chicken pieces into the flour with one hand, flip them with this same hand, then use the other hand to do more thorough coating and to transfer the now dry chicken piece to the plate or whatever you have waiting. It makes this much less painful.

        
        
     
     
   • I do believe it's time for you to fry.
     
     
     
     1. Heat your skillet with about 1/2" of vegetable or peanut oil to about 350° F.
        

        MTZQ Note: Ultimately you want to fry in whatever you are most comfortable with. For me that is either my cast-iron skillet or one of my deep nonstick skillets. You could theoretically do this in an electric fry pan with a temperature control, but I don't own one. Don't try this in any kind of personal (or professional, I guess, deep fryer, though).

        
        
     2. Place chicken pieces in the hot oil for browning. Fit as many in as you can, but don't crowd. Be aware that putting cold chicken in will lower the temperature of your oil, so you'll want to monitor this.
        

        MTZQ Note: I use a clip-on thermometer to monitor the oil temperature, but it's awkward and no mistake. Some rules of thumb that can help. Poppy Tooker advises that one can tell that oil is just about ready for frying when a strike-anywhere wooden match that has been tossed into the pot ignites and immediately goes out. I generally use the flour test: when a pinch of pure flour sizzles and pops when dropped in, the oil is ready. In terms of maintaining the temp, it should be bubbling and popping pretty vigorously throughout.

        
        
     3. It should take about 5 minutes to brown each side, for a total of about 10 min. per piece of chicken.
        

        MTZQ Notes: You are not trying to cook the chicken to the point that it is edible here. This phase has two goals: The first is to brown the chicken skin so that it adds plenty of flavor to the broth when the chicken is added to it; the second is to add flavor to the oil, which is then used to make the roux. To that end, you do do not want to submerge the pieces entirely (yes, that is one half of one inch above). You want to brown one side (about 5 min), flip the piece, then brown the other. If you submerge or nearly submerge the pieces, the "face up" side is getting bogged down with rapidly cooling oil. That makes for greasy, heavy chicken.

        
        
     4. As the chicken is browned, remove it to a plate covered with paper towels to drain.
        
     
     
   
   
7. After the broth has simmered for 1 hour sans chicken, add the browned chicken to the still-simmering broth and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is fully cooked and tender, 35-40 min.
   
8. Remove chicken from the gumbo and place it in a shallow pan to cool. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, take the meat off the bones and set aside. Discard the chicken bones and skin.
   

   MTZQ Note: If you haven't started making the roux while the chicken was cooking in the gumbo, you can certainly take care of this step while the chicken is cooling. It's no biggie if the chicken cools all the way down. Also, I use the chicken bones and skin to make chicken broth. You'll probably want to add a few wings or something to it, just because these have already been boiled a bit in the gumbo itself, but there's still plenty of flavor.

   
   
9. Making the roux.
   
   
   
   • Take a deep breath. Banish fear from your mind.
     
   • Once your frying oil is cool, slowly and carefully pour it into a heatproof glass measuring cup.
     

     MTZQ Note: You don't want any of the browned flour bits in your oil. To keep these out, I place a paper towel in a colander or mesh sieve and pour the oil through it and into the measuring cup.

     
     
   • You will need 3/4 cup + 2 TBSP of oil.
     

     MTZQ Note: Frank's roux calls for 3/4 plus 2 TBSPs of oil. I watched Poppy do a much more casual roux with equal success. I am enough of a roux n00b that I stick to Frank's very precise proportions, and I'm happy to report that on New Year's Day, I made a beautiful dark roux in under 10 minutes.

     
     
   • Heat a cast-iron skillet over high heat and add the oil. When the oil is hot, gradually add 1 c of flour, whisking or stirring constantly, until the roux becomes the color of peanut butter. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the roux is deep reddish brown (chocolate brown). Remove from heat and set aside to cool for 15 min.
     

     
     

     
     
     • MTZQ Notes on timing:
       
       
       
       • There is a point, just when the roux begins to turn the color of peanut butter, that it starts to smoke and becomes very grainy. At this point, pull it off the heat entirely and whisk like something is after you until the smoke dies down and it gets all smooth again. Trust me, it will happen. At that point, you can return it to medium heat.
         
       • My first few rouxeseses took a long time to make, mostly because I feared the heat, panicked, added more flour, and did other silly things. If your roux takes 45 minutes, but it's lovely and hasn't burned, consider it a success. It takes practice to build your confidence.
         
       
       
     • MTZQ Notes on equipment:
       
       
       
       • I usually use my cast-iron skillet, but my most successful roux to date was in a nonstick skillet. I don't think the nonstickyness was key. I think the success is attributable to confidence and practice, but it's worth noting that you can make a perfectly lovely roux in a nonstick pan.
         
       • I recommend stirring with a wooden spoon rather than a whisk to minimize the chances of cajun napalm damage to your person. Vigilant scraping of bottom and sides throughout is key. You want to cook the flour, you don't want to burn it. However, as with onions, go with the smell. Burned flour smells foul. If your roux doesn't reek, it's not burned.
         
       
       
     • MTZQ Notes on eyeballing and roux repair:
       
       
       
       • This roux should be really dark brown and have a distinct reddish tinge to it. It should be a shiny paste, but when stirred, there should not be standing oil.
         
       • If you have violated the first rule of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and panicked somewhere along the way, the roux is probably salvageable, so long as it isn't burned. If you do have standing oil when you stir, let the roux settle until there's a layer of oil on the top. You can then carefully pour off the oil, leaving your lovely roux behind.
         
       
       

     
     

   
   
   
10. Bring the gumbo broth to a boil. Carefully pour off any excess oil that may have risen to the top of the roux and discard. Slowly and carefully add the roux to the boiling broth, a little bit at a time, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 25-30 min. Skim off any excess oil that rises to the surface and discard. Add the chicken meat, increase heat to medium, and cook, stirring gently, until the chicken is heated through until the chicken is heated through.
    
11. Serve over cooked rice.

Green-Eyed Lover: The Big Easy, Days 5.2 & 6

Gentle reader, I cruelly left you on the very doorstep of heaven. Let us go around the back and through the French doors into the kitchen of my dreams.


In the kitchen, we were greeted by Judy Jurisich, who poured us each a glass of menage e trois and ushered us into the parlor. We sat and talked about the week we'd had so far. Judy, in turn, told us how they've all been able to keep on keepin' on with help, cooperation, and some new arrangements. Business has been more erratic than in the past, with big rushes followed by lulls, but so far, so good.

We were shortly joined by two other students in the class, one a Canadian food writer, the other, I think, a travel agent (and possibly friend) who'd arranged her schedule for her. The latter is a displaced local who's been in Baton Rouge since last year. The irony is that her job is in Baton Rouge. As she put it: "I used to be a commuter, and it's like over an hour to Baton Rouge. And now . . . I'd give anything to be a commuter again."

Shortly after 5:30, we ventured into the kitchen and started the class, although we were still waiting for the pair of locals who would round out our class. Of course the four of us cleverly took up stations around the island that required the local couple to sit on opposite sides of the kitchen when they did arrive. They were very gregarious and friendly, though, and didn't seem to hold it against us.

Our chef was Poppy Tooker, a food historian, a cooking teacher, leader of the New Orleans Slow Food Convivium, a chef in her own right (though she spurned that label), and a warrior for the preservation of the most delicious elements of New Orleans culture. She is also officially A Hoot, a Spitfire, and quite possibly a Pistol. You understand that I, as an 21st urban grrrl, do not use these terms lightly, and yet they are the only ones that suit.

The contrast between Poppy and Frank couldn't be greater, and the two styles couldn't have complemented one another better from our perspective. All of Frank's tricks and techniques involved precision: Each was designed to give more control over every step of the process. Poppy made M and KJ cry just a little bit every time she eyeballed, guesstimated, or tossed in a pinch of this or that. Sorry, gentleman: no guts, no glory. And as much as I learned from Frank, I did a little happy dance to have my improvisational approach validated by Poppy (and, of course, I learned a ton from her too).

I think our collective highlight on the cooking style front occurred when Poppy suggested that you can tell when your frying oil has reached the proper temperature (about 365˚ F) by tossing a match into it. When you hear the hiss of the match igniting, then immediately going out, the oil is ready. AMB and I were oohing and ahhing over this when she turned to KJ and asked if he'd use the trick. In his inimitable, mild-mannered way, he replied: "No. I'll measure."

Poppy's storytelling was also a great complement to Frank's. Where Frank's stories were an inside look at the legendary New Orleans kitchens (Commander's Palace, K-Paul's, Antoine, etc.), Poppy's stories were about the roots and subcultures of New Orleans foods. Throughout she had a running commentary about the factors influencing the differences between Creole and Cajun approaches, and she was just as informative about the cultural differences between Creoles in the Quarter and conspicuously consuming Americans in the Garden District. We got insight into the etymology of everything from netural ground to the shallot/scallion confusion and the wacky misunderstanding that gives étouffée its name. She emphasized again and again that New Orleanians are culturally Catholic, whatever their faith may be. And she explored the happy infiltration of New Orleans cuisine by African influences by way of street vendors who used their time off to raise money against their purchase price.

Oh, she talked about other chefs, too. She poked good-natured fun at Frank, who had the audacity to question her pronunciation of "calas" when he was consulting for Vicky and Bryan Krantz before they opened Calas Bistro.

Frank: But Paul pronounces it "Cal-AY" . . .
Poppy: And what would Paul know about it? Of course he'd pronounce it that way: He's CAJUN!

Poppy also cleverly slipped in hilarious stories about Leah Chase whenever possible. Each was more hilarious than the last: "That Poppy Tooker, she's as Catholic as they come, but she sure loves that kosher salt!"; the harrowing tale of turtle processing and the subsequent hell of turtle parts stranded on a sun-baked curb; and Leah's sly references to how times change, what with a white girl doing clean-up for her.

But I was on to Poppy the whole time. She was just trying enlist us all in her crusade to get Leah to reopen Dooky Chase's. Her diabolical plan worked. I must eat there, and I ain't too proud to beg.

But on to the food. Our evening began with one of those rare moments that represent a true food epiphany. I've only had a few of these: my first samosa; discovering chorizo; realizing that I had no analogy for the taste of lucuma ice cream. Not only do calas definitely make the "food epiphany" list, I feel that I also achieved a more enlightened understanding of remoulade sauce before the first course was over.

Poppy started by having us make good friends with the tasso that would eventually go into the calas. Although AMB had already bonded with the spicy meat product at breakfast, she was not above getting reacquainted. While she chopped what we grudgingly left her, Poppy talked about the cutting and curing of tasso and why it's such a staple of Cajun cuisine (the short answer is the usual: It's a fatty cut that's considered undesirable; it can be cured in a short time; and the spices cover up any iffy flavors that result from lack of preservation methods).

She then got us started on the remoulade, which is totally easy peasy to make. So easy peasy, in fact, that if I could find any stinking Zatarain's (accept no substitutes, even though the original company was bought out by McCormick-Schilling, which still maintains a strong community presence, so that's ok then) Creole Mustard in this backwater town, I'd be putting that stuff on my pop tarts. Not that I eat pop tarts. But I will consider them and any other potential remoulade vehicles. Louisiana remoulade departs from the white, mayonnaise tradition by omitting the egg. That leaves just Italian parsley leaves, olive oil, hot sauce (Crystal, not Tabasco, for a deeper, peppery flavor with more moderate heat), green onions, cayenne, a butt load of paprika (which is what gives remoulade its color), salt, and lemon juice. And it's my favorite kind of sauce: Throw it all in the food process and process away, no supervision necessary.

The calas looked simple. Poppy billed them as being simple. But I totally choked when I went up to make one. The main ingredient is rice bound with flour and egg, a dash of baking powder to lighten things up, and then whatever ingredients one wants to add for a savory (or sweet, if one chooses to deal in such abominations) treat.

The hard part is forming the calas from the mixture. Poppy demonstrated with two large spoons, warning us not to manhandle them with a lot of pressing and molding. The idea is to shape them by scraping lightly from one spoon to another. This is easy enough to say when you have a black belt in spoons. I do not have a black belt in spoons. In fact, from the way I handled them, you'd think I was a three-fingered Martian who'd just come across an autoharp. Of course, M was a natural. Bastard.

Once the calas have been slid into the oil, they're nearly as no-maintenance as the remoulade. They very kindly turn their deliciously browning selves over so that they don't even need flipping. And when they do come out, they are heavenly. Much, much lighter and more flavorful than you'd think a deep-fried rice ball ever could be. In fact, even though I tend to think of rice as something that you put other things on, in calas form, both the taste and texture are more than just a backdrop for the other ingredients. In this case, the salty, spicy bites of tasso were all the better for the silky texture of the rice, and the green onions were a crisp, sharp-tasting overtone. And dipped in the remoulade? Well, there's that I'm-going-to-hell-and-I-couldn't-be-happier feeling again.

Next on the duty roster was the yeoman's work of making the roux, both for the gumbo and for the chicken piquant. As we got schooled in the methodology, she also gave us a little history. Cajun food uses filé powder to thicken because sassafras leaves were ubiquitous, but flour was an expensive luxury item, taking roux of the table for the poor. When Cajun food does incorporate a roux (as Frank's gumbo does, but combined with filé), it's always added to the boiling liquid, presumably because it racks up the technical difficulty points. Creole food, in contrast, builds from the roux upward.

Poppy's roux was decidedly Creole. In making it, she gave us many useful tips along the way, usually just before she violated them. For example, she sternly informed us that using a wire whisk to stir was just asking for Cajun napalm burns, then promptly turned around to grab the wire whisk insisting that she was making the world's biggest roux. But she also gave us an incredibly liberating tip: The roux functions to add color, add flavor, and thicken. The first two are more important than the last, so a roux the consistency of thin mayonnaise is not cause for panic. I will, no doubt, continue in my quest to make the beautifully thick, rich roux that Frank achieved in two nanoseconds, but along the way, I will give myself permission NOT to stand there for 45 minutes stirring until it happens or my arm falls off. Instead, I will tell my roux that it is a good roux and a pretty roux and a flavorful roux.

Frank was big on the flavor of the roux, too, but in a completely different way. In his recipe, the incredibly precise amount of oil is harvested from the pan in which you've just fried the chicken, so it's gaining relatively subtle flavor. Poppy waited for the bittersweet chocolate color in the roux before adding the onions directly to it, followed by the bell pepper and celery. This, obviously, is going to add a much bigger and more direct flavor to the roux (and boy did that pay, particularly in the chicken piquant).

While whipping up the mother of all roux, Poppy also talked a bit about the so-called "holy trinity" of Creole and Cajun food: Onion, bell pepper, celery. Unfortunately, I went to the bathroom during the first part of this, so I missed some. However, I gather that she thinks it started out with the "mir fois" of traditional French cooking: Onion, celery, and carrots. In Louisiana, though, carrots were hard to come by and peppers were thick on the ground; and thus the new and improved trinity was born.

After dealing with these diverse approaches to roux, Poppy turned attention to the religious issue of okra. She didn't sugar coat it (because I think lovers and haters of okra can agree: That's just gross), saying that stories that slaves brought okra seeds with them across the Atlantic so that they'd have something to remind them of home were so much bunk. Okra is cheap and grows abundantly and easily, end of subject. However, she did argue for its fundamental place in a gumbo, pointing out that the very name comes from the Bantu word for okra: kingumbo.

The most important tactic on the okra side appears to be never, ever to allow it to steam. Rather, it should fried quickly and at high heat and watched carefully so that it is removed from the pan before it starts to give up liquid. I admit that I'm an okra agnostic and don't much care whether it's in our out of what I eat, but AMB, who is antiokra, seemed skeptical. However, we took turns watching each other's backs while we licked every plate clean later, so I don't think there were any adverse okra outcomes.

For the chicken piquant, once the roux is made, the hard part is over. However, it's worth noting that if you're a crazy person who doesn't want a gumbo, too, you should fry the chicken first and use the oil for the roux, a la Frank's gumbo. To continue backing up into the piquant, the chicken is marinated in hot sauce (remember: Crystal!) and cayenne. After browning, it's simmered in the roux plus trinity plus tomatoes, vinegar, bay leaves, and thyme. In the last few minutes, green onions and parsley are added. Un. Believably. Good.

In case you're getting whiplash as I move between the chicken and the gumbo, I assure you the fault is mine. I'm just unable to convey how smoothly Poppy kept both going and kept up a running commentary. I won't say she made it look easy, but it was natural, comfortable, and casual. And she did make it seem like something a a mere human like me could pull off.

So getting back to the gumbo, we got a lecture on making shrimp stock (shrimp detritus plus celery and onion, but positively no green pepper) folded into the state of the post-Katrina seafood industry: "Gumbo" crabs (which are designated as such based primarily on size) aren't really available because of the missed season. As a result, we got to watch Poppy pull apart Louisiana blue crabs with Marfan Syndrome as if they were tissue-paper flowers.

In contrast, the oysters are tiny, which made the job of chopping them for the oyster jambalaya relatively simple. They oysters were also the impetus for a sort of back-room conversation. Poppy was disappointed that the oysters had come from P&J washed. Judy said, in significant tones, that all oysters must be washed before sale. There was some amusing silent communication between them that seemed to imply that there were channels through which unwashed oysters, with sweet, sweet oyster liquor could be obtained. Judy, in turn, revealed that she was once the Oyster Heiress before both the Ps and the Js got out of the business.

For the oyster jambalaya, Poppy got to show us her perfect rice recipe, which involved filling the pot with rice up to the level of her first knuckle, then filling the pot with water (and in this case, oyster liquor and worcestershire sauce, too) to the second knuckle. Although they disagree on the degree of precision in measurements, both Poppy and Frank advise leaving the damned rice alone until it's done. In Poppy's case, she insisted that lifting the lid was not a particularly problem except for the fact that no human being has ever lifted a lid without a spoon in the other hand, hell-bent on making a glutinous mess. I repeat: Leave the rice alone.

The rice on its way, we were ready to tackle dessert. But before we could do that, we had a lot to learn about bread in New Orleans. First up, my proletarian heart was gladdened to learn the history of the Po Boy: During a streetcar strike, the proprietors of Martin's grocery was determined that until the strike was over, those "Poor Boys" would be welcome to a sandwich there. This led to collaboration with Gendusa's bakery to determine how much bread was needed to make a whole meal into a sandwich. Poppy claims that the brown paper that served as a ruler is still intact and on display.

As the bread pudding process progressed, my head began to spin. You know the "Big Wedge of Cheese Day" episode of The West Wing? Well, even if you don't, there's a part where Josh and CJ are listening to a presentation from Dr. Phlox (who is disguised as a passionate cartographer) about the fundamental flaws in Mercator Projection Maps. They're sucked into the issue against her will:

Josh: You mean Germany isn't where we think it is?
Phlox: Nothing is where you think it is.

And later when CJ sees the "upside-down" map (southern hemisphere on top):
Phlox: The map is flipped over.
CJ: Yeah, but you can't do that
Phlox: Why not?
CJ: 'Cause it's freaking me out!

Yeah, this kind of went like that. See, you may be among the benighted segment of humanity who thinks that Po Boys are served on any old French Bread. They are not. They are served on Po Boy loaves, which can only be made in New Orleans. Literally. Po Boy loaves made outside New Orleans, it seems, stubbornly refuse to get crusty enough on the outside or light enough on the inside. The Gendusas (I think) found this out the hard way when they tried to move their business elsewhere in Louisiana, only to find the that critical elements of their bread were standing at the edge of the Big Easy, waving placards that urged them to come home, all was forgiven.

Another rookie mistake one might make is to think that bread pudding involves using any old day old bread. WRONG. If one is in New Orleans, then a day-old Po Boy loaf is acceptable. Outside of New Orleans, you might as well just be using an old sofa pillow. If you must make bread pudding outside the Holy Land, Poppy recommends Vietnamese baguettes with milk added until just a bit of milk breaks out between your fingers when you squeeze. In a final act to win our hearts (as if she even needed to try), Poppy then made the hard sauce for the bread pudding and did not cook off one. single. drop. of the bourbon.

As much as I am naturally lazy and gluttonous, I can still say that there was a kind of perverse regret in my heart when we left Poppy and her clairvoyant assistant in the kitchen. In 2004, it was pissing down rain the day we did our class, so we didn't get to tour the grounds of the House at all. It was a beautiful night, this time, and Judy gave us the tour. The food writer asked questions about how the School got its start, so AMB and KJ no longer had to rely on my flawed memory of it. She was also obviously quite impressed with the experience and admitted that she rather dreaded cooking classes usually, because they all followed the same format, which didn't really allow for much other than mastering some minor kitchen task. This opened up an opportunity for all and sundry to praise the school to high heaven.

Dinner was, of course, delicious, congenial, and relaxing. Judy sat at our table and we talked about weddings (she and Tommy never got to eat a crumb of the food at their own and wound up at a fast-food drive through), Katrina (they were teaching their last class as the House was being boarded up, then Judy got in her car and drove to Atlanta where Tommy was on duty at the time), and Chris Rose (although that essay [with thanks to AJ for pointing it out] hadn't yet been published at the time). Poppy came out later to chat and answer any questions we might had, but she was understandably tired and wanted to call it a night. We did, too, not long after, and Tommy was gracious enough to drive us back to our hotel, where we bid a nearly tearful farewell to AMB and KJ.

The next morning, we had enough time to brave Cafe DuMonde and its Darwinian approach to getting a table. We prevailed before long and even managed (eventually) to flag down some service. Og merely had coffee, but M had the beignets. We were really on a mission for pralines, though, and would accept no substitutes for Aunt Sally's. This resulted in a kind of Marx Brothers routine where M tried the Decatur Street door and declared it closed. I saw someone inside and tried the door nearest Dutch Alley, which opened. Of course, it turned out that we were assaulting the proprietor the very first minute that she got in, but we secured our pralines.

If you think I got that close to Dutch Alley and didn't go in, your willing suspension of disbelief is marvelous. If you think I went into Dutch Alley and didn't get anything, I'm flattered by your confidence in my fiscal responsibility. I very nearly wound up with the glamour trash gojira earrings, but ultimately decided what I'd known to be true from the beginning: The Sapient Hair was not going to play nice with them.

I did, however, wind up with two pieces of Sabine Chadborn's jewelry. One is cord necklace has a beautiful oval agate pendant suspended from a silver semi-oval, the other is cord necklace with a a treble clef of twisted silver with a silver guitar welded on to it. That one makes me feel like a bit of a poseur, but it was just too cool for me to pass up. (Actually, I've just looked at it and realized that it's a bass, so I'm an uberposeur. Now I definitely have to buy the Bad Badtz-Maru Bass at the OTSFM members' sale tomorrow.) I also proved unable to resist Dan Fuller's art a second time. I picked up two smaller prints from his treehouse series: the firehouse and the circus.

While the earring lady was ringing us up, she noticed my shirt. Unfortunately, she tragically misread the boobies as ducks and periodically quacked at us as she wrote up our order.

So, as you can see, days 5.2 and 6 were a well-spent end to a pretty kick-ass trip. But it's a trip that has made me afraid. I'm really preoccupied with getting back there. That's not too surprising, because I feel like I've left a little more of me there with each visit and taken a little bit more of it back to Chicago. But what if, as CB says, I go in July and still think I could live there? What if death by half muff and hurricane looks like a good alternative to leaving?