What a trip

There will be no photos shared publicly about my trip, save a few generic skyline shots and, perhaps, an approved shot of the hostesses (once they okay one). I will also not share much about this one here, except the Slow Food Nation event, as Marcie would have been in heaven there.

Suffice it to say that this was the first trip that I went on really more for myself and my future than for her and my past. This is not the place for such things.

Pictures of it all later. For now, we're going back to my memories of moments of my Marcie. I have some thoughts to share about Marcie and how I felt looking out on my next home city, one she almost joined me in. That will be all that one finds here.

Friends, of course, can ask in person or email. I will have some private albums to view...

F.

Photos from the Debauch, Much to share

The trip has been outlandishly lavish. I'll share more and photos with it when I get a chance. For now, I have to get ready for more lavish outlandishness. My God, I love these women named Christina and Jane, if you didn't know. They simply rock.

They have kept me guessing. Today, they had me at the Slow Food Rocks, the musical component to the Slow Food Nation Festival. Awesome fun was had and pictures (evidence) will be posted.

There was a Marcie moment... I'll share later. Night for now,

F.

Here in San Francisco...

Well, my journey to San Francisco is complete. I checked into my hotel at 11:00 PM after a great little trip to the Slow Food Preview with Jane and Christina. I tried to get pictures, we'll see how they turned out...

I will take some pictures of the grand debauch as it unfolds. I keep wondering what Marcie and I would be doing if she were with me, but then I catch myself and I am back in the moment where I belong.

I guess that seeing her (now my) friends is going to have me slipping back into those memories and that nostalgia again. But I am not complaining. It's a comfy place and an influence I prosper from.

San Francisco Trip Part 2

Ah, vacation(s). On August 29th, I will be in San Francisco, visiting Jane and Christina and perhaps scouting. This is something I have been forced to put off time and time again as the school district and other items have thrown me curve balls.

Just know that there will be many images and possibly some films. Unfortunately, the long trip along Big Sur from last time will not be repeated. I am a flying fool.

There will be a visit to Izakaya for sure. I wonder if everything is still "gorgeouth."

Muahaha. I plan to wreck the place. Hell, I need to. In a Marcie-approved way, of course.

When booking my little room in Japantown, I noted all rooms are for two adults (assumed) when reserved. Sure I am happy to be going, but those little things really sober you up.

Times Apart That Were Just In Time - Visits to Jane

Marcie's departure for San Francisco was no sudden whim. She had actually long planned it with Jane. But, as was her wont, Marcie did not distinguish random circumstance from those more intentional. However, she had only told me she was going after our long breakfast war, which began before her plans were firmed up.

We did make up somewhat before she left, and by Wednesday afternoon we were healed and things were normal. But the bad weekend morning were taking their toll, an I was glad, I admitted, to have a weekend without the tension.

She slid into my lap and in a smooth motion curled into me, one arm behind my neck and her free hand on my chest. She laid her head against me and kissed my chin, watching my eyes with her mischievous smile. "Will you miss me?" she asked, watching me carefully, her very acute dishonesty sense completely engaged.

"Yes, I said. "But I won't miss fighting over whether bacon should take an hour to cook."

She nodded, tight-lipped, a little miffed, for sure. "I hope you realize when I am gone just how much I do for you, Frank," she said. "Most women would not do half of what i do, or put up with all your shit all the time."
I just listened and nodded, and I was a little miffed now. "I know, honey," I said. "I appreciate what you do, but sometimes you start doing things that just drive me nuts. Let's not talk about it, since you're leaving tomorrow, okay?"

She did not say anything, but curled into my lap again and rested. She soon fell asleep, and I stayed there until a documentary on whale's songs lulled me into sleep with her. We slept on the couch the whole night, a rare treat. But in the morning, the smell of war filled the air. Bacon fried in the kitchen, its intoxicating fumes filling the apartment.

I went in and checked my email, then did some working out, trying to block out the smell and my natural desire to get it on my plate and into my mouth immediately. I Built up a sweat and took my sauna clothes, stopping to ask "When should I come back?" I did so very gently.

"Why do you have to leave?" Marcie asked, biting her lower lip. A test!

"I don't have to," I said. "But I just worked out and I want to take a steam before we eat."

"I don't know," she said. "I'm making coffee cake and I haven't started that, yet."

She had the morning off for her trip, and had decided to test me, knowing I had the whole day off as well. I smiled and kissed her cheek as I left. She did not look me in the ey, but as I left she said, "The coffee cake will be about 45 minutes."

The bacon would cook for a record-shattering 2 hours. I croaked a meek, "Okay," and left.

I came back 40 minutes later and she was putting the coffee cake into the oven. I could swear she had waited on me to put it in. I bit my lip and went to take a shower. I took my time, letting the water soothe away the tension.

It was thirty minutes after I emerged that breakfast was served. I ate it quietly and looked up at her, smiled and leaned across the table, whispering "Thank you" as I kissed her.

"That's all I want, Frank," she said. "Just be sweet and thank me, and don't complain and pressure me because you're hungry. I took my time this morning because I wanted to see if you had the patience to wait. You know you can be patient, so just lay off and we'll be okay."

I was pissed. She admitted to testing me. I put my fork down, and though I was hungry, I walked out and set my plate in the kitchen. "I'm done, honey. Save the rest and I will eat it later, alright? Or I can put it away when I clean the dishes."

She sniped at me the whole way to the airport in her mothers car. "Remember what I said," she cajoled me. "Think of everything I do for you and everything I put up with for you. You're very lucky."

As true as all of that was, I could only think  was lucky at the moment to have her flying away to San Francisco for a weekend.  As we waited and she talked to her mother about what she had planned for her visit, I spoke up. "Well, as long as bacon is not on the menu, there should be plenty of time for all that."

The cold stare and pursed lips told the whole story. Barbara looked confused, a look she seemed to have mastered long ago. Marcie got up, grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the bar at the center of the terminal. I followed. "You had to? Really? You were so close and you just had to shoot your mouth off?" She searched my eyes, her own going back and forth. She slapped my shoulder and then her hand went to her mouth. She was near tears.

I tried to hug her but she wouldn't. Barbara excused herself to get some food. I tried again, and she looked away. Se left me without a kiss when her flight was called to the gate. I did not hear form her when she landed or for three whole days.

I did, however, consider her and all the things she did for me. Barbara called Sunday and said that Marcie was on her way but she wasn't going to pick me up to go get her. My mind went wild with speculation, and I was distraught.

Thoughts of Food and Marcie (Breakfast)

A friend recently asked me to recall the foods Marcie loved to eat and those she preferred to not. I have been trying to sit down and write it, but what I realize is that just about everything I eat every day had a mark on it from Marcie, from enthusiastic approval to distaste and dislike or hatred bordering on fanaticism. There was little in between with her.
 
So, this recent request has me evaluating everything I eat through that lens of Marcie's tastes. It's sometimes very telling about the impact she has had on me. Rather than just spit out a list, I have decided to post for a bit about Marcie's food tastes as I live my life, and eat, without her.

Yesterday, for instance, I went with some new neighborhood friends to Rosie O'Grady's for Sunday brunch. We had a variety of egg and potato dishes, some soda breads and sides. I thought of Marcie's breakfast tastes the whole time.

Ham had to be thick and delicious and from a ham steak, not a pressed can. She preferred bacon thick and crunchy, not thin and greasy or crispy. Marcie loved Spam, but she would get ham first, if possible. She liked sausage cooked in some water, the thick links if possible, occasionally she made patties from ground tubes.

Marcie loved breakfast, but she was picky with her preparation. Scrambled eggs had to be fluffy, not greasy, not overdone and not hard. She liked over easy eggs. Omelets were to include mushrooms and cheese of any variety would do. Marcie's  favorite way of cooking her eggs was in the pan used for the breakfast meat, draining the excess fat (mostly) first, but not scraping the pan. I once commented, early on. She lectured me as she cooked, then shooed me out of the kitchen

"There is no way I am letting all that flavor go down the drain or into the grease container," she said once. "If it's not healthy, too bad. I like it, and that's healthy enough for me. It's ridiculous that people agonize over every little detail when they eat, it just takes away from the whole experience."

I never brought it up again.

Potatoes either had to be roasted or home fries, deep- or pan-cooked. "I hate, absolutely hate, mushy potatoes and greasy, soft hash browns," she commented once at a restaurant.

Marcie always had some fruit with breakfast. Strawberries were always welcome, and she occasionally liked to make an entire fruit salad from whatever was in the house. But Marcie squeezed orange juice fresh or avoided it.

"No matter how expensive or good it is supposed to be, it always tastes like tin from a carton," she said. "It's like I am drinking part of the orange juice factory with every gulp."

She had coffee black, no cream, no sugar, or would take a caramel macchiato as a treat with a light pastry as a whole breakfast.

Marcie loved oatmeal with raisins and loved making biscuits, hand-dropped from scratch or Bisquick, occasionally using a cookie cutter to make round ones. She was a baker and, from time to time, made scones, cinnamon sugar for me and chocolate chip for both of us, cranberry or dried cherry and almond for herself.

Marcie, oddly, was not good with French toast, but she loved it. I would make it for her, using Texas toast if possible, and serving thick, crispy slices of bread dipped in some sugar, egg wash and cinnamon, then doused in maple syrup and melted butter with a sprinkle of powdered sugar on top.

For me, Marcie made waffles. I could make them, but she liked to make them for me, as one of my favorites and as a little way of telling me she was happy, because she herself preferred pancakes. In fact, she bought a large griddle just to make pancakes on, which is in its box, clean but well-used.

She loved crepes, especially fresh from the Hillcrest Farmer's Market, but she did not make them herself.

Basic Marcie breakfast rules were:

1. Butter, real butter, is always the only butter.
2. Similarly, the only syrup is maple, even if it is not pure.
3. Eggs done fast, bacon done slow.
4. Potatoes are firm or crispy or sometimes both.
5. Waffles are just browned, like pancakes.
6. Juice is fresh, or not at all.
7. Fruit will be had if fresh juice is not. Old fruit makes good salad.
8. The meat residue is a flavoring, not a health hazard. Cook the eggs in it.

That is about all I can recall for now. Live by these rules and by her diet, and you live her joy for cooking. I never realized how much I missed those elaborate Sunday mornings until yesterday. It's hard to think about.

F.

Little Things She Might Have Liked (pt. 2)

So, today I took a big step in my life that touches on Marcie and my relationship on a number of levels. Marcie was a little paranoid about me. She was protective, true, but paranoid nonetheless.

I did give her a few reasons to be cautious. I was fast to the sword, so to speak, when I felt she was being slighted (or picked up on). I wrote for "underground" newspapers and fanzines, and had a very adventurous social set to run with.

I did not always show the most prudent judgment. I liked to do little feats, walking on my hands or balanced on handrails around City College, where I was the AS Senate President, or standing on tables in the cafeteria to emphasize a point or a joke.

Extra money came from working doors at punk shows and concerts. My whole approach could be called, "risk management be damned." So I understood to a degree.

I remember the day she let me know that I was going overboard. I was carrying a full load of A's at City, plus AS, running a side business, putting in late nights working doors and writing.

She took my hands, and stood very close, wringing them with her own and nodding, "Honey, you have to slow down," she said. "I am worried."

She gave me a tearful list of concerns, admonishing me from hugging her, as she had a lot to say. In the end, I reassured her, mostly by letting her know we would talk about initiatives before I launched them. I stuck to that.

Motorcycles were one of those risks she just set her foot down and refused to budge on for me. I wanted one, she couldn't see it.

"No, I would be worried sick about you all the time," she said. "Frank, just let it go. You bring it up like once a year and it just freaks me out. Just drop it."

And usually with a harrumph and an abrupt exit, she would go somewhere and close the door. She would remain tense and stern until the requisite apologies and placative gestures were proffered, including but not limited to gifts and some concession to her wisdom on the matter.

This ritual continued until 2004 and her cancer ended most of those ritual discussions. But the issue did not go away, though I had forgotten it.

It might be easy to magine my surprise to receive, during one of her trips to San Francisco to see Jane, an email from the aforementioned friend with the following contents:


Motorcycle Mamas

I quizzed Marcie and probed, then told her, "I guess I'll get a motorcycle and take you out into the hills on it from now on, won't I?"

"Sure, honey," she said. "When I am better. I think it would be fun, but I don't think you should go buy a bike, because I don't want to worry when I am sick like this on top of it."

Today, I bought a Harley Davidson Sportster from Buddy Carr, a former professional skater and businessman. His wife Tracy reminisced that he had caught her eye with the bike. Son Tosh came out and joined us when Buddy turned the engine over. Nice folks.

My Uncle Tim and I looked it over. It's Beauty. We both agreed it was 1989 Sportster with a belt drive, cam kit, lots of chrome and plenty of good maintenance. Here's Uncle Tim, with it as we prepare to unload it from his truck .He seemed pretty delighted:



I had worn my leather jacket, gloves and biker boots (all but a helmet) for the pickup, and immediately took the bike for a short spin down the block. Immediately meaning "shortly after I was browbeaten by Uncle Tim and Neighbor Jim."



It was awesome.

My plan is to take my time, get to know the bike, get a learner's permit and the registration changed, working on the bike as I go. When I have my license, I will, for my first freeway trip, take Marcie out to the mountains on it, as we said we'd do.

When I go, I'll find someplace pleasant and gentle, or a place she had loved, and leave a little of her.

The Wok

It is often the case that I say too much. This can be to the embarrassment of others or myself, and I am one who needs to work on such habits. But it is also the case that at times I say too little and deprive the people I love of what they deserve to know.

Such a thing came up when Christina and Jane visited. To be forward, I was hiding nothing, I just thought better of sharing what first came to mind. But I realized afterward that I should have been more forthcoming.

It started with an innocuous enough comment.

Christina wandered in as I prepared the rice and started the stir-fry. She saw the wok before I loaded it with food and began to cook,

"Look at that wok," she said. "That is a well-seasoned wok."

Instead of responding directly, I took a second and asked, "Hmm?"

"That's a well-seasoned wok," she reiterated.

I nodded to buy myself more time, and then chose a simple, "We've had it a long time." I looked into her eyes and smiled, then began to cook.

There was a reason I had to pause. It's how I buy myself time to not blurt out whatever is on my mind and sometimes save myself embarrassment or pain. I have a tendency to do that, In this case, I should have just shared.

Food was central to Marcie and my life. The taste of food was important, but the ritual of it, preparing, serving and pleasing each other from creation to ingestion was ritual akin to the high mass of our own little uniquely culinary religion.

Our tools and spice rack and utensils and pots and pans all have innumerable meals under their belts. But the wok is the oldest of them that is also unique to us. No other cooks used it, just the two of us. And until recently, only we had eaten from it.

I should have sit Christina down on the kitchen step with me and told her that I bought the wok with her and cooked her a stir-fry meal in it as the second thing I had ever made, the first being chicken fettuccine Alfredo. She loved it, and we fell in love a little deeper.

I should have told her that, for 14 years, Marcie and I cooked for each other, sometimes together, with the wok the central focus more often than not. Countless dim sum, sauces, vegetables, meats, spices and oils have burned in it and burnished it. All of them have left a mark.

It is a deeply layered wok. Every mistake, every experiment and every success in our relationship is preserved between layers of flavors and heat and colors that themselves are changed by those that came later.

Here is our Szechuan fascination from our early dating days. Here is our first dim sum night, where the blackening is as much from an oil fire as the cooking, because we forgot to turn off the stove as we pigged out while watching the X-files. Here is the big brown ring that never came out after I left her sweet and sour, pineapple and pork stir-fry in it overnight. Other interests left dishes for the morning.

So many others, and some I can still discern in the ringed metal of our wok.

The food we cooked each other was intended to nourish our bodies, hearts and love, and it did. The wok is the record of all that, and a reward for our love, our gentle creativity, and our very joyous collaboration. Every tryst is marked by a taste in its darkened metal.



I could have shared it at the table. I could have told Christina and Jane that they were eating a meal fourteen years in the making, then explained the wok, and the bamboo spatula and the day I bought them, and all of what I have written.

I didn't, even though I was thinking about it as I arranged the Thai tomato ladybug sculptures I had first carved for Marcie and served them both.

But that pang of guilt and moment of hesitation when Christina mentioned the wok, which passed and left me with regret, was replaced by the warm glow of their company, and the explanation slipped my mind again as we lay later, languishing on the couch.

I was too content.

I should have made it a conversation then. However, I have no regrets. I am opening that conversation now, for everyone to share.

To my two San Francisco angels specifically, though, I must say that I was honored to have you eat with me, to taste a little of what fourteen years of my wife and lover forged in iron.

It was wonderful to share that with you two, Jane and Christina, and to add a little layer to the wok with a flavor all our own. I look forward to many layers with your flavor in them. And I hope our wok fed your soul as well as your company fed my heart.

As for the rest of you, let me know when you would like a taste, too.

Good night, folks.

F.

A Moment of Marcie: Jane's Dream

Jane, who everyone here knows from many entries in the blog and many of our other from Marcie's loving tales of her, wrote me an email and told me I could share the following dream she had. I hope you enjoy her gift as much as I did.

From Jane:

Hellllo Francis,
I had a Marcie dream finally. I'm sure I have them all the time, but I haven't had easy access to my dreams for quite some time now. The details are a bit sketchy, so I'll just tell you that it was in a big beautiful church that was full of light, and it was a memorial for Marcie.

The pews were full of family and friends, and people were sharing stories. There were some heartbreaking moments, but the overall feeling was one of love and community.

The crazy part is that in the midst of all this in comes Marcie. All beautiful and radiant, she walked into the church and she started singing.

In my head I was thinking that I'd never heard Marcie sing, and that it's so unlike her to sing in front of a large group of people. But sing she did.

And it was beautiful. That's all I remember, but I was grateful to have that dream, no matter how vague.

The Last Recipe - Marcie's Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, everyone has always asked about Marcie's chocolate chip cookies. Well, as she always said, they are very simple to make and don't deviate much from the stock tollhouse cookie. But they do deviate a bit...

These cookies were made dozens of times. Sometimes, we made them for friends, sometimes for coworkers, sometimes just for us and even for family. They had a number of iterations, from those with nuts to those with toffee, chips or chunks, peanut butter chips, M&M versions, Reese's Pieces and almost anything you can imagine.

Just substitute some of the chips with your favorite confection. It's all delicious.

Marcie's Monster Cookies of Delicious Delight

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
vanilla extract*
2 extra large eggs*
2 cups of chocolate chips, toffee bits, whatever you like
1 cup chopped nuts (very optional)
A friend or two to lick beaters with (not optional)


*These items vary from the original recipe. Go with extra large eggs and just use the vanilla extract as I describe later. This is where the difference came in with Marcie's cookies.

PREHEAT oven to 375° F, but only if you are not making dough to eat instead of cookies (we did that a few times).

Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Beat the butter, sugars, a teaspoon of vanilla extract in a bowl until it's smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, using a mixer to really work them in. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. If the mix gets stiff, add another teaspoon of vanilla. You will probably use it 2-3 more times... Stir in the chips and any other goodies you love.

You can eat it if you wish, but even if you do not, you must lick the beaters clean. It is ok to make a "mistake" and have to reuse the beaters after "cleaning them" once, but don't overdo it :)

If you must cook this, and not simply devour a bowl of instant diabetes, then give it 9-11 minutes in the oven at 375, or until golden brown. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for a bit, then remove them to a plate or other cooling spot. Act too soon and they break.

I highly recommend raiding the pan when the baker is not looking, then running away cackling with chocolate-covered fingers, leaving only a smudgy cookie outline where you struck. There really is no such thing as a cookie too soft to be snitched.

Night, folks. Salsa time. Recipes come down this weekend, so save away. The last dream from Christmas will be posted soon.

F.

Nutty Rice and Mixed Stir-Fry... plus...

This is the most important recipe of all of them. I invented it for our first anniversary. Marcie instructed me to come up with something a little different and tasty that would not remind her of teriyaki or sweet and sour. The following is what I came up with as a base starch.

Originally intended to be a reddish sauce that would color the food the same way, the dish evolved when the rice came out brownish instead. I had called it "redhead rice" but Marcie changed it to "nutty rice," reflecting its flavor and smell, as well as her opinion of the ingredients as I worked on the whole thing.

*Nutty Rice*

1 cup cashews, unsalted:
1/2 cup broken
1/4 cup whole
1/4 cup crushed

1 tbsp crushed sesame seeds
1/4 to 1/2 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp crushed ginger
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
2 tsp La Yu Fire Oil
1 tbsp red bell pepper olive oil
1-2 tsp sesame oil
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 ton of heartfelt devotion
4-6 cups of steamed rice (2 cups uncooked)

Mix all the ingredients, save for the rice. Dump them into a heated pan or wok and immediately fold into the steamed rice which should be added just as the oils and soy sauce begin to boil. Can be eaten alone or used as a base for stir fried food.

*Sticky Mixed Stir-Fry*

1 steak, cut into shirt strips
1-2 chicken breasts, cut into short strips
The night before you are to serve, mix 1 tbsp Hunan red chile paste with 2 tbsp honey and 4 tbsp of black bean garlic sauce. Marinade the meats and make a small additional amount for cooking with.

1 diamond-cut red bell pepper
1 onion very thinly sliced
8 oz mushrooms, to suit tastes
2 cups Chinese/snow peas
1 cup Bean sprouts
1 cup cashews
2 tsbp peanut oil
A little bit of deviltry (2 pinches and a kiss)

Heat the peanut oil and add the meat first, with the cashews. After the meat has been stir-fried a bit, add the onions, the bell peppers, the mushrooms and any other vegetables, the heaviest first and the fastest-cooking last. Add any additional sauce reserved before the marinade. Cook until the onions become dark and caramelized, then remove. Serve over rice (as above) or noodles.

The caramelized onions will help make the rice and other items stick for novice chopstick users because they are sticky and circular to boot.

Tomorrow, I will post Marcie's modified cookie recipe. Everyone wants to know what is different about it, since it is a basic tollhouse recipe... There are some differences, which I will share. I may not post the last dream right away. Eventually, though. I have a lot more to post after they are done. More moments, more memories...

F.

*Heartening Dumplings and Pot Stickers*

The last warm-up course from the dinner I served Jane and Christi was pot stickers and dumplings. Had I been able to find a source, it would have been pot stickers, dumplings and Shu Mai, but sadly, no Shu Mai were to be found last week. Still, our two-variety mini dim sum was fun and tasty.

Before cooking the pot stickers and dumplings, heat an oven or toaster oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. This will allow you to keep a course warm while the other finishes cooking...

Use the "pan frying" method detailed on the packages, as it is far superior and allows you to be creative with the process, such as putting some pulverized ginger into the water when you add it (which I did not do this time... next time, though).

The most important part of this dish is the sauce selection. We had three, two of my own and leftovers of the cilhini plus Marcie's favorite, the Ling Ling company's base sauce. Christina invented one of her own combining two of the sauces, which I have added here. It was good!

Red Hot Marcie Dip

This is a sauce about how I felt about Marcie, not about how she liked to eat. Marcie was, simply put, hot. HOT hot HOT hot HOT! She like to be spicy, something I appreciated. But she was also flavorful...

2 Tbsp Hunan Red Chili Sauce
2 Tsp honey
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar(spiced)
1-3 drops almond oil
A pinch of lust for life and love

Taste liberally as you work. Mix the honey, almond oil and the vinegar together first until the former is thinned into the latter and the middle ingredient is obscured. Add them to the chili sauce. Let the sauce settle in a refrigerator to thicken and separate a little (overnight).

Sweet Hot Jane Sauce

This sauce is not ready to go as soon as you have made it, so I named it after Jane. It will be ready in its own time. This sauce is laid out in proportion, but flavor to taste! Some like it hotter.

1-2 Tbsp Hunan Red Chili Sauce
4 Tsp honey
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 drop sesame oil
1 light pinch of powdered ginger
A moment of careful consideration at each step

Mix the honey and soy sauce, add the pinch of powdered ginger, more if you would like, but don't overdo it. Add the drop of sesame oil and watch it float a bit, then stir it in, too. This must sit overnight so that the ginger saturates the sauce. Stir and then serve; never serve it settled.

Auburn Sauce Christina

This mix cannot be made in advance, but must meet exacting standards on the fly instead. Leave it to Christina. This does combine for a distinct flavor separate from a simple combination of the others.

1 portion Red Hot Marcie Dip
1 portion Sweet Hot Jane Sauce
1 portion Ling Ling dipping sauce
1 small portion Mischief (hold the capers)
1 portion Verve

Gather the remains of the above two sauces on the table after eating for a while. Mix them together on your plate and demand everyone else do the same. Enjoy. Proclaim loudly and happily that it's delicious. Accept consensus of same.

I hope you enjoy the sauces. We did. I recommend this all be served with red wine (Barefoot Zinfandel is nice) or Vodka, up with olives.

In Defense of Romanticism - Francis the Fool Speaks

So, here it goes. Some people need to back off, some need a little backup.

I talk about, write about, live about and, for a little while longer, at least, breathe about my (our) beautiful Marcie and the love we had and may still, if part of me is to be believed, retain. I know it is not a surprise to some who have known me for a long time that I tend to some outmoded sentiments on love in this modern age. I have tried to place my finger on the issue of why, and I have decided to not, but to face facts.

My "heart's" workings are, simply, anachronistic. More on that later, but suffice to say that, in terms of how I love and how I show it, I am old fashioned. My emotional intelligence may be flawed in that I choose to enjoy and celebrate romance, to reflect on love as and enduring and healing, sustainable force. But I am content to be such a fool if the measure of emotional intelligence is distance from passion and immunity from being consumed. Those who take some comfort in my assertion of potential foolishness should read on.

"What of it?" some of you might ask. "So what?"

Well, my soft-heartedness has, upon occasion, been mistaken for soft-headedness. Let me disabuse those of you harboring that notion throughout this post. For now, I have a few shots to fire off less directly, a poem or two to call on, and a challenge for the readers who are sitting in sympathy, guarded or not, with my point.

I have observed the state of most who claim to have loved and I can, in cooler moments, see the logic of the assertion that love fades. I have also heard the cynical and clinical evaluations and insecure, snotty, pseudo-intellectual appraisals of romance by those whose fields of endeavor, or perhaps breadth of romantic experience, makes it crucial that they deny and decry anything they have been unable to have or maintain themselves.

It is an enjoyable pity that the host's intellect rarely sustains the capacity for such a rigorous-sounding, hard-nosed thesis... but I digress. Suffice it to say such proponents dismay me, but often it is to my comfort, as they are often of little enough impression otherwise.

Some need romantic love to fail for strictly economic reasons. Anything to sell a viagra, a paxil, or an ill-considered marriage license and, later, divorce services, one supposes. Perhaps their support of the idea that we are unable to form passionate bonds over time is a way to dissolve or weaken those we could.

We are bombarded by the seduction of failure and an inflated likelihood of insecurity or inadequacy by our media machine. This is excusable among my pedestrian and lackluster detractors. They are subjects to, not rulers of, their manipulators. Their filters come right off the shelf and over their eyes and hearts.

But I am saddened at times and in other cases. I am most disappointed when I hear from those who, one-time romantics, found themselves betrayed, subjected in some damaging, lasting way to the ugly side of faded love or dimmed fascination.

If I am sufficiently impressed by some one's quality, I dig and find this almost every time I hear these ideas of romantic love's ephemeral state from otherwise warm-hearted people. But sometimes they are an excuse for poor behavior in love and lust, regardless the cause cited.

When I recognize a truly fallen heart, I am devastated. It is an even more acute sense of that sadness to know someone given to romantic sentiment has been stripped bare and chooses to remain there, or to seek the transient luminance and utilitarian company of unsuitable but available mates. There are plenty, regardless one's circumstances, I have noticed of late.

From now on, I think that instead of continuously rebuffing or tolerating, red-eared, assaults on my perceptions, experiences and the relaying of them, I will dispense with the absolutism for the focused. I simply proffer that, much as Gould's rejection of the dichotomy between science and faith, I perceive matters of the "heart" to be "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" with those of the more concrete, scientific mind.

That goes for a more "realistic, straightforward, utilitarian" outlook, too. Lump that in with the clinical and the cynical. You who hide the hurt under a layer of rational justifications and vile blandishments? Pretend to patronize the romantic and smile in some falsely wise way, if it helps. But read on.

I believe, in fact, that the rational and emotional are separate for a number of reasons. But neither can truly overshadow the other in any case I would entertain.

How many times have our evils been tempered, in wrath or dogma, by mercy? Suffice to say not nearly enough by the looks of the world, but sufficiently to have anecdotes of such a sentiment overruling a better selfish course. Thank goodness the emotional mind helps us hide people in our attics when we could simply spare ourselves and perhaps be rewarded for turning them over to authorities.

There are other acts, more attributed to love by even those who decry romance. How many mothers or fathers give their lives to save a child's? Or disacknowledge their own peril to save a stranger's? Altruism is often vilified as a soft-headed nonentity. The savior of a drowning man is working on his own desire to be rescued, the child is saved to continue the genetic legacy of the parent...

Cynics and hard hearted, maladaptive and potentially abusive people dream of ways to depose romantic love just as they do altruism. But this is no cutting-edge notion, the disutility of that sentiment of love. It's at least a couple of decades old. And old Hecht, so angry and vile in his attack on love, went back over a century to mock at least one confederate of mine, poet Matthew Arnold, and his work:

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

This was a call to a woman, but in metaphor to all of us, to love romantically in place of faith in gods and certainty, to find certainty in the sentiments we experience as they happen. But in getting there, he deposes religion, the power of the individual to shift the tides and not be washed in them against black shores of a random and chaotic world, and acknowledges drudgery as the existence of most (my own interpretation).

But even this call, to simply enjoy and be caught up in a more romantic place, to shelter and wrap each other in our love for one another, especially romantically, was not to be unmet by cynics and would-be advancers of the theme of futility. Sneering and sad, Hecht arrives with his retort to a long-dead better, incognizant and arrogant, broken and small, but splashy.

The Dover Bitch

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.'
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come.
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.

So here is the undoing of romance, the assertion of the truly vain and vapid in supremacy over the substantial emotion? Yes. Here is the debasement of sentiment and the analog to so much of the anti-romantic vogue of 40 years. Pathetic and pedantic, but celebrated as genius by a generation of people we all know as traitors to every value they once claimed ruled their ways. Hecht wrote this in 1967 to great celebration, I am sure. In response to a poem from the 1850s. Bravo.

I see the extension of the theme of the removal of certainty and the casting down of the quaint. But here, Hecht fails. I have known that great comfort and that certainty in more than one relationship, and I have known women who also held it dear and knew it from me. I have known others who knew it, too. It can fade, but it can be maintained as easily.

Aside from my assertion, that Hecht's passage was against romantic love and degrading to women and to men, that it plied mocking allusions to thematic sexual liberation and limited depth of emotion, and beyond the idea that he seemed to ignore that Arnold visited Dover Beach with his wife, not a random London lover, is that Hecht missed the point.

I pity Hecht. He was too weak, or too consumed by his life of apparent pain and his honorable but amazingly painful experiences during the liberation of Buchenwald, to protect his emotional mind from shriveling and his sarcasm from overtaking him. When the emotional mind is not strengthened, however, it is easy to subscribe to a notion that romanticism is weak itself.

We could be called in Dover Beach to not cling to our positions and risk harming each other when we are actually of like hearts. Arnold's last line, it is often said, alludes to Thucydides' account of the Battle of Epipolae (413 B.C.), a walled fortress near the city of Syracuse on Sicily. The combatants, Athenians and Syracusans, savaged each other in pitch black, unable to clearly distinguish friend from foe.

So I will cease here. Some of you who have been railed against, I do love. But I will also issue a challenge. See if there is any romantic thought, if you are so skeptical of it all, that you can hold to and nurture into something beautiful. And if you can plant that seed in yourself, or remember that notion or feeling at all, then you should try to find it everywhere that matters.

If you cannot, then I concede that, for you, it is better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all, and a pity you will possibly never know it again. If you have never known it, then I am very much interested in how you came to be loved at all, even for a moment.

And if you have cheered me on, or been wrenched into a heartrending review of your own ideas by me, then I am honored and ask that you simply surrender a little to sentiment or romance. It does not require that you are altruistic, you do not have to be an anachronistic thinker, and you are certainly not a fool in my eyes. But then, I am an admitted fool and accused of sappiness, though I am happier in it than to be ruled by my traumas. My opinion may not count for much.

But then, if you who doubt are so smart and rational, and it is so easy to glide over the dissolution of love when you believe that it is inevitable that the comfort of romantic fire would wink out, then you had little need to have read all of this, and I am sorry for wasting your time.

Much love either way, anachronistic sentiments and all.

F.

Miso Francisco

A few folks in my life know that, prior to being a saucier, I was a soup specialist. I would concoct soups and stews of every stripe for myself and Marcie. One that I had always planned but never done for her was a Miso. But not just any Miso.

I have eaten Miso in Japan and I have eaten it at Japanese, US-based restaurants. I like both, but the Kyoto sweet red Miso is always a cut above. With that in mind, let us explore Miso Francisco, my own twist on the soup, originally for Marcie and shared with Christi and Jane first.

-Miso Francisco-

One teaspoon of red miso per half cup of water, adjusted to taste
Kale, shredded in strips
Soy curd/Tofu, to taste (firm/extra firm only)
Kosher salt (1 tsp per 2 cups miso)
Scallions (green onions)
Panko or crispy bread crumbs (fresh)
Patience, measured but watchful

Start by making your base. After heating the water to just under boiling, let the dissolved miso simmer in the pot for a bit, but keep it below boiling. After about 10 minutes, add the Kale and Soy Curd, raising the temperature a bituntil it simmers gently again. Taste, adding salt to your liking or more miso mix if it tastes too light. Add a little bit of panko or some bread crumbs, and reserve some of your chopped scallions. Put in the rest.

After a few minutes, cut the heat to nothing and cover the pot. Miso can be left under the lid and will stay warm for some time that way. You can also cook it a bit more if you like before serving, and it should always be served by the cook, not the guests.

Snappy Comeback Ginger Greens

This recipe takes preparation and a couple of days to really come out right, due to the need to have the flavors mesh before you serve them. Snappy Comeback Ginger Greens are basically a salad, but there is a certain way you handle this salad, and tossing is not part of it.

It was one of Marcie's favorites and its smell makes me gulp sometimes.

As an aside, try to use old salad dressing containers for sauces and dressings like this. This can stain scratched plastic or melt cheap containers, so GLASS ONLY! I actually saved mine in an old dressing container from a grocery store.

Snappy Comeback Dressing Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp high-grade extra virgin olive oil (McEvoy's for example)
• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 3 tsp ground ginger, including any liquid from the root
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp roasted, ground sesame seeds (tahini)
• two days of anticipation and giddiness
• one small clove garlic, pan-roasted, ground

For my friends Christi and Jane, I did something a little different. I soaked a little piece of ginger in garlic-infused (cheap) olive oil instead of adding garlic, then gound that into the ginger I used for the dressing, lessening the smell so they could work with the public, but keeping a hint of the flavor for them to enjoy.

As an aside, try to use old salad dressing containers for things like this. GLASS ONLY! I actually saved mine in an old ginger dressing container from a grocery store.

After grinding and mixing all the ingredients except the honey, take some solids out and drop them into a pan on medium-high heat. Drizzle the honey over them, let them simmer to a slightly darker brown, then panic and grab the pan, scraping it into the glass container.

Shake the container once closed, then let it cool uncapped if it is warm to the touch... for a minute or so. Inhale the smell and think of the people who will enjoy it. Put it away in the refrigerator and enjoy with at least two friends, or just one romantic interest or significant other.

When serving, pour the dressing into a small bowl and dip the greens into it, then brush the remaining greens in your salad service until a thin sheen of bright oil is on the leaves.

Inhale the integrated scents as you await your loved ones, and tell them nothing of how you made it, except that you did. For them.

F.

The Marcie Memorial Menu

So, I promised to post my recipes and my techniques. I have decided the recipes will do for now. If you want the rest, I will get to them in time. For now, enjoy the menu, the recipes and know that love went into them. There are special ingredients, you have to have them for the recipes to come out right...

The Menu for my night with Christina and Jane was:

1. Spring Rolls of Soothing Savor*
2. Snappy Comeback Ginger Greens
3. Miso Francisco
4. Heartening Dumplings and Pot Stickers*
5. Redhead Rice Marcelyn
6. Joyful Jumble Stir-Fry*

These dishes benefitted from my Cilhini spread, Auburn Sauce Christina, Sweet Hot Jane Sauce, Red Hot Marcie Dip and a little Ling Ling...

One recipe will be posted per day, folks, with sauces last. Tomorrow, I mix in the rest of the dreams. Did you think I forgot? Heck, I may last long enough to post one tonight. First, a recipe

Spring Rolls of Soothing Savor

Ingredients:
1 package rice paper
1 cup imitation crab,
1 Haas avocado, -just- ripe
1 bag bean sprouts
1 carrot
1 cucumber
1 head butterleaf lettuce
1 sad smile
Frank's Cilhini spread-
4-7 cilantro sprigs
1 lemon

-Small bowl of Frank's Cilhini spread-

3 twists fresh ground pepper,

2 tbsp warm roasted sesame seeds,

1-2 tsp rice wine vinger (spiced okay),

1 tsp cilantro juice from crushed and squeezed herbs

Grind all ingredients with a mortar and pestle or a bowl and spoon, adding
cilantro juice at the end and holding off on vinegar until a paste is made,
then use vinegar to *just* loosen it to spreadable consistency. Set
aside.

Cut carrots and cilantro into strips, roughly 3-5 inches long, depending on your rice paper size. Cut avocado to the same rough size and drizzle with lemon to rpeserve and flavor. Fill a pan with hot (not boiling) water, and soak rice paper until clear. Pull rice paper out and place with one edge hanging off the work surface. Create a line of crab, avocado, vegetables and sprouts on a butterleaf, lay the leaf on the paper half-rolled, and roll gently.

Hold the paper a moment until it "heals up," thinking of something sad about someone you loved then set the spring roll aside, thinking about someone you love who knows why you are sad. Repeat until all the ingredients are gone. Take dabs of the Frank's Cilhini spred and drop the dollops on every other roll. Dress the mass up with cilantro garnishes and decorative vegetables, such as carrot flowers.

Makes 10 4-6" rolls that make it easier to take the good with the bad and which seem to invite more good into your life.

Much Love,

F.

Second Thoughts

I had fully intended to stop making the food I did for Marcie after one last meal of them last night. Now I will just wait and see, and share them with people I care about. It was difficult to make these very intimate foods, but sharing them with Christi and Jane was well worth the emotional strain of reliving those Moments of Marcie in the kitchen.

Marcie was there in spirit the entire night, but quietly and with what I felt was a gentle intimacy and a steadying hand as we pored through albums and items and personal things. Thank you, honey, either for being there or for being so strong an influence on us that it felt like you were.

Christi and Jane both noted that she always had a very happy and joyous aspect. I agree, and last night it seemed to permeate the proceedings, if not because of her then in tribute to her. So I have been convinced and uplifted again to not bury but to celebrate our girl, and spread her influence.

To that end, my good readers, I will compose my secret recipes and sauce directions, my vegetable-carving and decorating techniques, and my cooking approach for the various courses.

I will give them each a name and I will offer a unified document and self-publish it for sale as well, perhaps on Amazon or eBay. But those of you who read it before I obscure the post will, of course, have no need to buy them, and I am sure that certain people will be able to convince me to just send them... we'll see.

Thank you to Christi and Jane, whose charming company and joy last night filled my house with warmth as we sifted through memories and trinkets that, otherwise, I simply cannot face. Much Love, Friends.

My break at work is almost over, so I will post more later (probably very much later).

F.

The Fancy Food Show

A foodie paradise settled into the San Diego Convention Center today, booth upon booth of delicious treats, sauces, oils, new twists on old favorites and the tools to apply them. The Fancy Food Show.

Marcie would be in heaven there. Marcie and I had an affinity for food. We cooked for each other, prepared food with as much show as taste, and collaborated to create dishes.

As an extra bonus to my attendance under a press pass (in order to write a nice column), Jane and Christi, the San Francisco Angels themselves, are in attendance for McEvoy Ranch.

Tonight, I will recreate one or two of those, without her, and serve Kane and Christi the dinner we planned for our anniversary. Then, I don't know if I will ever make them again. Something bland might be better from now on, at least until I connect someone else to the effort.

The food I have come to make has too much feeling in it. When you build and cook it from scratch for someone you love, it becomes assocuiateds with them. Delicious as it may be, I can't keep going back to those feelings every time I want a little nourishment.

F.