Wednesday, July 25, 2012
You say tomato...
... I say bummer!
It is time for an update on my half-assed garden.
I am pretty much flying by the seat of my pants these days so I have not had much time to work on it. It is funny, you know, just now I looked at this CD sitting on my desk, a CD of songs by Johannes Brahms. And I was remembering how that had been a plan I had had for the summer, how in addition to finishing up my book and checking everything over, I was going to listen to all the works of Johannes Brahms.
Ha ha ... HA, as Laurel and Hardy used to put it.
Or in the words of my friend Gary: Well, THAT's not going to happen.
I do get to Leonard Pennario every day but Brahms, I am afraid that was a dream. Summer was a dream. This dream of a relaxed summer, la la la la la la la...
I do not know where I got that.
But back to my garden. It is perhaps no surprise that my tomato plants, though overflowing their cages, have produced a grand total so far of three small, weak, green tomatoes.
The arugula is doing better. Howard had the idea a couple of weeks ago of putting a sprinkler out there and watering everything so I have him to thank for the tomatoes and the arugula which is growing nicely now. The spinach too, and the chard. All the seeds did not come up as I hoped but the plants that did come up are doing well.
Perhaps the tomatoes might step up production. Or perhaps they have internalized that they are living in a welfare state and they cannot keep what they produce anyway, so what the heck.
Socialist tomatoes! That is what I have. As a matter of fact remember my Old German heirloom tomato? It is Karl Marx!
Every time I go out the door I kind of roll my eyes in the garden's general direction.
But let me look on the bright side. The sunny side.
There is still time for it to surprise me!
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Walk the walk
Yesterday I kept making everyone walk.
I need to take walks. It is hard-wired into me. And I am in good company because many of the world's greatest musicians were also great walkers.
I like to listen to music when I walk. There is Leonard Pennario loaded into my iPhone for just that purpose. But it takes some fussing to get to it and I do not like to burn out on this wonderful music. So sometimes I just walk. It relaxes me and it helps me sort out my thoughts.
Plus yesterday I was counting my steps and because I had no time to get to the gym, I had to make it to 10,000. So at lunchtime I walked with my friend Lynn. She is the wife of the friend who died this week. We had lunch and then we walked to the lighthouse downtown and burned off what we ate. That was 5,000 steps knocked off!
After dinner later I needed another 1,000 steps so I made my mother walk with me. My mother is like me and likes to walk so there was no problem there. And the evening was so beautiful with the warm wind.
I still was not through! When I got back home I made Howard walk with me. We circled around to Hertel Avenue and back. That is a habit I hope to get into, walking around on summer nights. There are plenty of places you can stop for a glass of wine if you are so inclined. And as Howard said, it feels like summer.
Anyway I topped off yesterday with something like 14,000 steps.
It is therapeutic!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Crock-down
When I am through with my book on Leonard Pennario I might just have to write a Crock Pot cookbook.
It is so hard to find decent Crock Pot recipes!
Just now I was preparing to put a chicken in the crock. A whole chicken, from Tops, 88 cents a pound, that I am cooking up for my mom. I wanted to have a little fun, do something distinctive with it, not just put it in the pot and pour wine over it, whatever.
I looked on the Internet but most cooking Web logs drive me crazy. The pictures are yuchy ...
... and the writers are too wordy.
Ha, ha! Bitchin' in the kitchen. Monday mornings are for griping!
The Crock Pot cookbooks I have are pathetic too. This one book I have is typical. It comes from Britain which, a lot of cookbooks with beautiful pictures come from Britain. And often they have great recipes too. People tell you British food is bad but that is wrong. It is great.
The trouble is, though, this Crock Pot cookbook is so fussy it is useless. I keep wanting to throw it out or tear it up.
On the cover it says: "Over 200 one-pot dishes for no-fuss preparation.."
Ha, ha!
What a crock!
(Sorry, I could not help that.)
The writer -- her name is Catherine Atkinson, I name names -- almost always starts by making you brown something in a skillet on the stove. Next you have to transfer whatever you were cooking into a bowl, and brown something else. Then you de-glaze the pan, then add other stuff, then cook until it is reduced, or whatever.
Finally you transfer it all laboriously to the Crock Pot and it cooks, say, on high for one hour and then on low for two hours.
What in the world, you know?
How does this make my life easier?
Obviously whoever wrote this book does not understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Crock Pot.
Long story short, finally I settled on this, kind of a basic spice rub, nothing special.
But at least I am cooking.
Finally!
It is so hard to find decent Crock Pot recipes!
Just now I was preparing to put a chicken in the crock. A whole chicken, from Tops, 88 cents a pound, that I am cooking up for my mom. I wanted to have a little fun, do something distinctive with it, not just put it in the pot and pour wine over it, whatever.
I looked on the Internet but most cooking Web logs drive me crazy. The pictures are yuchy ...
... and the writers are too wordy.
Ha, ha! Bitchin' in the kitchen. Monday mornings are for griping!
The Crock Pot cookbooks I have are pathetic too. This one book I have is typical. It comes from Britain which, a lot of cookbooks with beautiful pictures come from Britain. And often they have great recipes too. People tell you British food is bad but that is wrong. It is great.
The trouble is, though, this Crock Pot cookbook is so fussy it is useless. I keep wanting to throw it out or tear it up.
On the cover it says: "Over 200 one-pot dishes for no-fuss preparation.."
Ha, ha!
What a crock!
(Sorry, I could not help that.)
The writer -- her name is Catherine Atkinson, I name names -- almost always starts by making you brown something in a skillet on the stove. Next you have to transfer whatever you were cooking into a bowl, and brown something else. Then you de-glaze the pan, then add other stuff, then cook until it is reduced, or whatever.
Finally you transfer it all laboriously to the Crock Pot and it cooks, say, on high for one hour and then on low for two hours.
What in the world, you know?
How does this make my life easier?
Obviously whoever wrote this book does not understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Crock Pot.
Long story short, finally I settled on this, kind of a basic spice rub, nothing special.
But at least I am cooking.
Finally!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Aloft
Today I saw the Memphis Belle one last time. It flew over St. Anthony of Padua Church downtown while a bunch of us were standing around after Mass talking. We all looked up and admired it.
I am kind of going to miss the Memphis Belle!
Hilarious morning at church I have to say. I was just sleepy! Other people were too and we were laughing about it later. It was warm in the organ loft and a fan was oscillating. There is nothing like church in the hot summer, you know? It is this special feeling. It was exactly the same when I was a kid.
So I am sitting there under this statue of the Good Shepherd. Well, someone told me it is not the Good Shepherd, it is some saint, so whatever, it is this robed figure holding a lamb, and I am sitting under that figure just kind of dozing.
But I never quite fell asleep because every few minutes someone would rouse me and I would be yanked to my feet and Latin would be held in front of me, and I had to sing.
That is a photo of me at the top of this post!
It is perhaps no surprise that things were not perfect. For instance there was "O Esca Viatorum." Looking it up I see it is by Haydn. Do I recognize quality when I hear it or what? We have sung this before and although it was listed in the book as being by "Traditional," I remember telling someone that whoever wrote it was good. I said, "If someone told me this was by Mozart, I would believe it."
Listen and judge. (This is some other choir, not us at St. Anthony's.)
But back to St. Anthony's. As Richard Nixon said, mistakes were made.
We hit verse 3 of "O Esca Viatorum" and everyone just stopped. Josephine, the organist, kept playing. She looked at us and sort of mouthed, "What??"
A few minutes later there was a whispered investigation into the disaster.
"Why did you all stop singing?"
Mike, leading the guys: "We just didn't know we were supposed to sing the next verse."
Me, unofficially whispering for the women: "The organ just sounded quiet. We didn't know we were supposed to come in."
And Josephine is looking at us as if to say, you idiots.
Life in an organ loft, hilarious. It always cracks me up, how often you hear whispers like, "What happened there?" or, on a brighter note, "That wasn't too bad."
It is another thing that makes me affectionate about St. Anthony's, aside from the Pennario connections.
My Sunday mornings are so memorable!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Look up! Look up!
Not to continue on my funereal slant but this was just too cool.
My friend Bob, my friend who died, he was a history fan and he loved historic airplanes. He loved World War II planes because his dad, like Leonard Pennario, had flown in one. Bob went to air shows and had just been to one recently.
So we are there at the cemetery, and people are sharing their remembrances, and all of a sudden there is this noise that drowns out the speakers' words.
It was an old warplane, flying overhead.
"You don't see too many of those these days," the bagpiper said to me. Of course I had made friends with the bagpiper.
He said it was a World War II bomber.
Later we figured out it was probably the Memphis Belle.
The Memphis Belle was in town for the weekend. And there it was, flying overhead, giving our friend a salute. Howard said, how expensive it would have been had we arranged to charter the Memphis Belle and have it fly overhead. Now it had done it free.
Too cool, you know?
Thank you, Memphis Belle!
Friday, July 20, 2012
Music medication
Does anyone else use music to self-medicate?
This week I lost a friend very close to me. Normally I do not like to write about sad things but I loved this man. He was a friend from my 20s and he died of a heart attack.
I had to write his obituary. He was a great painter. I went to the city desk to ask to write his obituary and our city editors, they are so great, they recognized it right away that we had to commemorate him.
Onto the self-medication (a topic I love!).
My friend loved Mississippi John Hurt.
He actually gave Howard and me a portrait of Mississippi John Hurt for our wedding present. We treasure it. It is the only portrait of Mississippi John Hurt ever to be given to anyone as a wedding present. We know that for a fact.
Even Mississippi John Hurt, when he was married, did not get a portrait painted of himself!
This painter, Bob, and I knew each other from that medieval group I belonged to when I was in my 20s when you think about it was not, ahem, THAT long ago. I was, am, friends with him and his wife. They would let me crash on their couch. I cannot count the number of weekends I slept on their couch, back in the day.
With all the medieval associations I like to play this song and think of him.
So many times in my life when I am sad I listen to Franz Schubert. He expressed sorrow so beautifully. In this song you can imagine him with stars in his eyes, bewitched by the poetry of Sir Walter Scott. You hear the beat of the drums, feel the flash of the swords.
That is sad at the end of that video, when they show the warrior's coffin!
That is my life, lived to the soundtrack of Schubert songs. Pennario loved them and so do I.
Raste, Krieger!
Krieg ist aus.
Wouldn't it be great to be up all night listening to records?
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Theater of the absurd
It feels as if it may have rained somewhat last night. And if it did, my mother called it.
Last night my mother predicted rain. "It just feels like it," she said, looking up at the sky, as we sat in the back yard eating beef souvlaki and listening to the cicadas.
Howard said, "Mothers know these things."
I wish this heat wave would break, you know? I like the heat but it is tough on my mom especially since she is funny about cooling devices. She does not like air conditioners because you cannot open the windows. She does not like even to sleep with an electric fan on because she does not like the whoosh.
So I find myself thinking about things like getting her out to restaurants and movies to chill her out. My mom suggested "To Rome With Love," the new Woody Allen movie.
Which, we will probably go to that. I think I have an unbroken streak of Woody Allen movies going over the last few years. Going back to "Cassandra's Dream," which I saw with Leonard Pennario. I still have the movie stub in my wallet because I am sentimental.
Anyway, "To Rome With Love." I looked it up to see if there was anything objectionable in it although I figured there was not.
And what in the world?
"To Rome With Love" is rated R!
We will probably cross our fingers and go and see it anyway. But can't anyone make a movie not rated R? When even Woody Allen cannot you know the situation is grim.
Another thing, whenever I go with my mom to the movies they always show you a bunch of previews and these previews have gotten excruciatingly trashy. Society is sinking and I am sinking too, down in my seat.
Oh well.
At least we will be cool!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Walk the walk
My garden might be tanking but I am having good luck with the pedometer.
Ha, ha! I was thinking today of all the little games that brighten your day. The pedometer is one. When you get up in the morning you get it going. 13 steps down the stairs to make your coffee. 13 steps back up. Five steps into the bathroom. You are off!
Usually when I get to the office after crossing the parking lot I am up to about 850 steps. Get another cup of coffee and run up a couple more flights of stairs and you hit 1,000.
The first 2,000 steps are pretty easy in my experience.
But then you are only a fifth of the way there.
You must try to nail 10,000 steps in a day!
This is how the screen looks.
The plot thickens because sometimes the pedometer shortchanges me. It might not count if if I walk somewhere. That is annoying. It lets me listen to Leonard Pennario on my iPod while I am walking but sometimes I think it starts listening to Leonard Pennario too. Because it forgets to count my steps!
Still it is all in fun. It is a good game to play to boost your day and I have to say this, I have lost a couple of pounds playing it over the last week. It works! Because all of a sudden you want to get in a few more steps because you are short a few. So you park at the other end of the lot or run to someone's office instead of emailing him. Things like that.
Once I made my mother go for a walk with me.
My friend Tracy came over another night and we knocked out another few thousand steps.
One evening at Big Blue I found myself just running in place to log another thousand steps.
End result, as we say here in Buffalo: Pounds lost.
There's an app for that!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The frustrated farmer
Remember my garden? It is not living up to my expectations.
There are a few tiny tomatoes emerging on the tomato plants. But a few of the tomato plants are at death's door. Old German and Pineapple are the heirloom tomatoes. For a long time Old German was on the fence and Pineapple was doing well. Now Old German has pulled ahead of Pineapple. Neither of them is exactly healthy however.
After all those midnight waterings! This is how they reward me.
The Arugula, as far as it goes, I have about three plants that I cut and use for salads. A bunch of other Arugula seedlings never advanced past about an inch tall.
I am better off shopping at the Farmers' Market.
I am no Farmer.
I just play at it.
Even the Nasturtia. Kids can grow Nasturtia. But, alas, not I.
Plus some of the plants I thought I was cultivating wound up being weeds. I am not growing Purslane. Also known as Pigweed.
Oh well.
More time to work on the book!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Jaws
I am enamored of the fish's Wikipedia page!
I love how it refers to aquaria. One aquarium, two aquaria. It is not altogether consistent on this but I love the page for making the effort. Pennario would love it, with his correct grammar.
Then there is this paragraph:
They have very poor eyesight, so any foreign movement they detect outside of their habitat, they will see as an utter threat. If stressed, their first instinct is to flee, and such a blind dash can result in injuries, especially in an aquarium environment. These flights may be terminated by the fish sinking to the bottom, where it may lie on its side or back until it recovers.[5]
If stressed, the Swai flees!
Finally I love that name "iridescent shark."
I would not like running into one in the ocean but that is one great name.
That is an iridescent shark at the top of this page. The name makes me think of when you get to the bottom of the ocean and the fish are lit by little fluorescent lights.
I found this letter on a board.... hahahahaha...
Iridescent shark... what to do??
Like a complete idiot and a newbie, I bought an 1.5 inch iridescent shark a while back from a local pet store. The associate there assured me, "It'll only grow a couple inches more... a good tempered fish... great for the community aquarium...." Three years and 4 inches later my iridescent shark lives in my 20 gal along with a couple of neon tetras (there used to be nine... he probably ate the rest).
My dilemma is this... Should I just keep my shark or give it away to another lfs (a different, very family-owned nice one)? I'm going away to college in another year, and I doubt my parents would be able to care for him... Don't get me wrong, I love my "Big Phish" as I affectionately call him, he's good tempered and very beautiful but also rather hyper and he just keeps growing!!
Any suggestions???
As Michael Jackson and Weird Al Yankovic said...
Just eat it!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Why? Swai
Howard and I have again dined on the tasty Swai fish.
Remember the Swai fish? It comes from Vietnam. And whereas most fish costs upward of $5 a pound, the Swai fish weighs in at about $2 a pound. There is a discussion on whether or not we should buy it but if you can figure it out, be my guest. It is too deep for me.
Yikes, it seems that Swai is also called iridescent shark.
Oh well. For me the important thing about Swai is ...
It is yummy!
The San Francisco Examiner, where I found the picture above, agrees with me.
I find no reference to Swai at Epicurious or at MyRecipes.com.
I did a search on Allrecipes.com and catfish recipes came up. Perhaps there is some reference to Swai in the comments because it is not there in the recipes. Perhaps people are substituting Swai! But I cannot linger to find out. I started looking through the comments of the top recipe and all I saw were people writing stuff like "Restaurant quality fish." I cannot stand when people write that something is "restaurant quality." It is just too stupid, I am sorry.
I mean, it would depend on the restaurant, wouldn't it?
What, do these people only go to one restaurant in their lives?
Weren't restaurants supposed to make food taste like home cooking?
Well, long day, compounded with the fact that it is Leonard Pennario's birthday and I feel bad for how long this project is taking me. At least there the Swai comes to my aid. It cooks up in about three minutes. All the way from Vietnam, and on your table in five minutes. How about that?
I used this recipe and it was mighty good.
Why buy Swai?
Swai!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Sale of the Century
This year's Taste of Buffalo festival in downtown Buffalo is featuring my old Buick Century for sale.
Howard has it on display in front of Big Blue! And hundreds of thousands of people will see it because Taste of Buffalo is said to be the biggest food festival in North America.
Howard arranged it artfully with professional For Sale signs in its windows. A few friends aided and advised him including the former Jaguar dealer and also the automotive columnist for the Buffalo weekly Artvoice.
That is it pictured above, awaiting the festival. This is the car that was stolen from me and we found it on Lemon Street. But this car is no lemon! It is 165,000 miles young and, as Howard puts it on the sign, extremely reliable.
That is funny to remember when it was stolen. It was right before I met Leonard Pennario, maybe a month before that. That is how I date things. We found it because of the GPS tracker Howard had on it. It was stolen by some drug dealers apparently and when they realized it was bugged they thought it was a bait car and they abandoned it. Look at streetwise me, slinging around phrases like bait car.
I wrote about that theft here, remember, about how I had secretly cheered on the thieves. But since then Howard pretty much rebuilt the whole car. By then I had a new car of course.
Anyway, today my old Century could become, in our lives, history.
As our dear departed radio announcer John Otto used to say .... yes, maybe ...
Maybe not.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Ach, du lieber!
It is sad, as the paper reported, the closing of Scharf's. I like things that have been around for a while. And a lot of Buffalo's German restaurants have closed.
We all feel bad.
Cue Pennario playing "Liebesleid." It is "the sorrow of love"!
But here is something funny about last night. George who thinks he is wise found fault with Scharf's potato pancakes. "Too much grease," he said.
Cue Pennario playing "Liebesleid." It is "the sorrow of love"!
But here is something funny about last night. George who thinks he is wise found fault with Scharf's potato pancakes. "Too much grease," he said.
And my mother said, quietly:
"Better too much than too little."
True, true!
Check out the comments on the story when you get a sec. There are all these people writing passionately in about Scharf's and not one of them can spell it. Everyone writes Sharf's. One person writes Scharff's.
Ach, du lieber!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
By the light of the silvery moon
I was just outside doing moonlight gardening.
There is this big moon outside and by the light that it cast, I watered my tomatoes.
I think my Old German is going to make it!
When I was at the Clinton/Bailey Market a week ago I bought a couple of, ahem, heirloom tomatoes. One was Old German ...
... and the other was Pineapple. I had not thought of growing heirloom tomatoes. But there is a first time for everything.
Back home, I put both the Pineapple and the Old German in the ground and things did not look good.
The Pineapple eventually began bouncing back. But the Old German ...
... it just wilted. The leaves began turning yellow. That was it, I thought, for that plant.
Ach, du lieber!
On Saturday morning I watered the tomato plants and as I watered the Old German I thought, yeah, right. This is never going to bounce back.
But it did!
I could not believe it.
A few hours later that Old German was looking kind of perky! And the leaves were green again.
Who would have guessed?? I went to the Clinton/Bailey Market and began bragging to one of the farmers. And he said to me: "Yeah, they'll act stressed for a little bit, and then they'll be OK."
They sure were stressed!
Here is a picture of Old German tomatoes should mine be OK.
And Pineapple tomatoes.
Keep your fingers crossed!
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