James Joyce met Marcel Proust once at a literary dinner, and Proust asked Joyce did he like truffles, and Joyce said yes, he did, and I know Joyce was very amused afterwards. He said, “Here the two greatest literary figures of our time meet, and they ask each other if they like truffles.” . . . Arthur Power in W. R. Rodgers’ Irish Literary Portraits

…mushroom photo from www.boisdale.co.uk
…truffle photo from www.whitetruffleauction.com

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Alfred Hitchcock had declared his profession “producer” when a customs officer could not contain his curiosity and further questioned him.
“What do you produce?” the officer inquired.
Gooseflesh,” Hitchcock replied.

Hitchcock, whose gourmandising produced his own flesh, too, was once a guest at a dinner party where food was hardly in profusion. While serving the coffee, his hostess said,
“I do hope you will dine here again, Mr. Hitchcock.”
“By all means,” he replied. “Let’s start right now.”
  . . . from The Ravenous Muse, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
  . . . photo from networkedweekend.com

In time for Halloween – the temperatures are finally abating today. Good thing since goblin and ghost costumes don’t generally come in summer weight. Yesterday I spent the entire day in San Diego. First I attended a cooking class taught by Carissa Giacalone, one of the finalists in the TV Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star” back a few years ago. She lives in San Diego and has a catering business. I’ll have several recipes to share from that class. Maybe starting tomorrow. Then, since I was already there, I met up with my friend Linda from Carlsbad, and she and I attended a Phillis Carey class in the evening. There were 52 people in that class! Whew. Phillis prepared a very ambitious menu (four meat entrees and a dessert). I’ll be sharing some of those recipes as well in coming days. I took a bunch of photos so you’ll get to see what all the dishes look like. So, stay tuned.

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This photo was taken quite a few months ago. You can’t see much of the horizon (the Pacific Ocean, out there about 10 miles), but in the far distance is Catalina Island, and off on the right side is Palos Verdes, a ridge of low hills right along the coast northwest of Long Beach.>

We’re experiencing a week of warm temperatures. Again. Usually I say to myself that by Halloween we’ve finally cooled down to Fall temps. We’ve had some cooler days, but then it heats right back up again. It was close to 90 yesterday. At least the humidity is low, so we don’t feel it as much. We’ve had some fires in Southern California, but nothing near us, thank goodness. But then, over the last couple of years nearly everything that could burn within 10-20 miles of us has already burned.

As many issues as we have had with our property (house) in the last year, our jacuzzi developed a new leak. Actually two. These are the 3rd and 4th ones in about 3+ months. Yesterday and the day before the leak detection people repaired them (the major one was a copper pipe about 20 feet away, near the filtration equipment), and they had to dig down about 6 feet, including jackhammering about a 2.5 x 8 foot length of cement walkway. The second one was near the jacuzzi itself. Sigh. We are so gosh-darned tired of fixing these leaks. Not including being tired of having to PAY for the repairs.  But then, our house is 40 years old. And, if we’ve found and repaired these two leaks, that means it’s less water that is draining out into the soil on our hill. One of these leaks, probably a slow leak,  may have been there for a very long time undetected. The bigger one – well, we knew we had a problem when the jacuzzi was losing 3-5 inches of water a day. Isn’t home ownership wonderful?

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A rat who obviously didn’t know how to read nevertheless loved books. So he set up house in a library where no one went any longer. He would walk on the books, between them, run along them, contemplate them with a tear in his eye, and his mouth watering. It was his home, he was happy there; these are my books, he said.Occasionally, he’d stop to nibble at a part of one book or another.

–Phew! The new books stink of glue and ink, and their pages are flimsy and damp and stick to the palate.

Instead, he regaled himself with the most ancient pages, the dry and yellowed ones, which were very crunchy, for example his old edition of Diderot’s Encyclopedia; he would always remember the article consecrated to God, which he made quite a feast of.
There’s also a telephone book dating from 1916, full of names of dead people and obsolete addresses which he offers bites from to his buddies when they come to visit him and which they highly prize.

His salon is furnished in paperbacks, colored and pliant. The bathroom is behind the Letters of Madame de Sévigné. An incunable* bound in vellum whose cover is buckling serves as his bed; recently, he had a nightmare in which he was taught to read.

. . . François Hébert, le Dernier Chant de l’avant-dernier dodo (the last song of the next-to-last dodo), printed in The Ravenous Muse, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

* incunabulum: 1. A book printed before 1501; an incunable. 2. An artifact of an early period.

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From a George Bernard Shaw music review: “The concert began with Mozart’s Figaro Overture. If you want to ascertain whether a musician is hopelessly belated, benighted, out of date, and behind his time, ask him how this overture should be played. If he replies ‘In three and a half minutes,’ away with him at once; he is guilty. . . . However, the overture, so treated, is undeniably useful to boil eggs by, though I prefer them boiled four minutes myself.”      -from The Ravenous Muse by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

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I spotted you as I walked by in the casino yesterday. You were dressed up in the kind of 4th of July garb my mother was fond of. She was a lucky gambler. She would walk up and down a few aisles to find just the right one with red, white and blue embellishments on your face. You were a 25 cent machine. Not up there with the high rollers, but certainly not the low-lifers like your nickel friends. My mother was very circumspect about having a relationship with any of your kind before she’d even spend a few minutes in your company. So, as you sat there blinking your lights at me, I wasn’t sure, but I mentally communed with my mother before I decided to sit down and begin a relationship with you. I carefully removed just one single dollar bill from my wallet. No going out on a limb with someone until you know them better. I thought I’d invest just that much before you and I had any further congress.

So, with trepidation I decided to just barely put my toe in the water, giving you a mere quarter to spin your sparkly rolls. My husband was standing beside me for this venture, to make sure I didn’t do anything too rash. I pushed the button. Up came a 7. Another 7. Oh, and yet another 7. Your lights went into overdrive. You voice went into a giggle of tinkling tones. I think you were very excited about having me converse with you. Were you trying to impress me? Or lure me?

So what did you do? You just handed me $20. Just like that! You must not have liked the last friend you had and you hoarded your loot. I just sat there, staring at you – looking deep into your eyes. Trying to see your soul. I couldn’t quite tell what you were thinking, though. I wasn’t sure. My mother gave me a sign. You see, she knew you better than I do. She said take it and run. I did.

– – – – – –

A bit of family trivia: my mother, who died in 1997, bless her soul, loved to gamble. She maybe visited Las Vegas once or twice a year. Originally it was the penny machines she and my dad played. Finally she moved up to the nickel machines and won. Then she really moved uptown to the quarter machines. They were her favorite, I think. She and my Dad played Keno too. She won regularly. Now, I’m not talking big money here. But on her last trip to Las Vegas (my Dad had died earlier that year, and my DH and I brought her here in 1996) she won several hundred dollars. She wanted so much for me to enjoy the slots as much as she did. She’d hand me $20 here and there to keep me playing. The $50 I’d “given” myself to play disappeared in a flash. On one trip I recall she won about $1,000. She got this cute grin on her face when she’d tell the story. I knew she kept her gambling winnings in a little bag in her lingerie drawer. After my mother died in 1997, some friends of mine came to help me sort through all the stuff. Darlene came to find me with a small drawstring cloth bag in her hand. She said, “Carolyn, I found this in one of the drawers.” Sure enough, there was about $500 in the bag – bills and whole dollar coins. I cried. It was just waiting for her next trip. Thanks, Mom. So far I’ve only invested a quarter of it.

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For the next few weeks, my DH and I are going to be on a road trip. We decided last Fall that we’d make this a domestic vacation year. My laptop is going with me, and assuming I can get internet access, I’ll be posting a few things. Likely no recipes, as I don’t think I’ll be doing much, if any, cooking on this trip. I have a few corny trivia things I can post if I have nothing to share. But probably I’ll give you some photos here and there, and likely a bit about the road food. So, stay tuned. . . first destination is Las Vegas where we’re going to see O, and Stomp Out Loud. Then we’re off for some sightseeing.

image from www.freefoto.com

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As I opened up my kitchen drawer yesterday (pictured above), the drawer closest to my cook top, it occurred to me that maybe I should explain again what Tasting Spoons is all about. Not my philosophy. You can figure that out! It’s about where the name came from. So gather ’round my cherubs and listen to the story. Some of you know it or have read it before. I’m nostalgic today, so the story is worth repeating, but in a bit more detail.

My DH (dear husband Dave) and I both are only children. Neither of us felt deprived as we grew up – how could we, with our parents’ undivided attention – maybe sad for our children that they don’t have aunts and uncles – but it is what it is. Dave’s dad passed away many years ago – years before I met Dave in 1981. His dear mother died in the mid-1990’s, back in his home town of Ocean City, New Jersey. With help from a cousin and friend, we went through her household of stuff and decided what to keep, what to ship, what to give away. We shipped a variety of kitchen things and dishes. And we kept all of her silver. She had a couple of sets (plate and sterling). And a bunch of old family silverware pieces – some that are so large they’re unwieldy to use, and they must be silver plate since all the shiny silver is gone. Likely I’ll never use them, but we’ll pass them on to our kids and let them decide what to do with them.

But, in with the myriad of pieces in one silverware chest I found some small, delicate spoons. With various engraved initials in flowing script – some we can’t descern the letters, they’re so engraved with flourish. They’re likely tea spoons. There are a couple of different types and most of them were well used with dents and scratches. Most were unattractive because the silver was spotty in places. They are sterling, because they have the sterling mark on the backs, but they’re very light weight and pliable. I don’t know enough about the chemistry of sterling silver flatware to understand. Most sterling is very heavy. Maybe somebody reading this will enlighten me.

So, jump forward about ten years. Dave’s mother’s sister Louise passed away. She lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and had no children. Nevertheless, we were surprised to learn that Dave was her heir. She had married quite late in life, but divorced when she was in her late 60’s, I think it was. Prior to and after the divorce she was close with her former step-children and their children. But then, her ex, at about age 89 or so, remarried the maid. The maid that Louise had hired when she “ran” the house. The family was a bit torn – they cared for Louise – but the family wealth had come from the ex, the blueblood patriarch of the family, so the children and adult grandchildren weren’t about to snub this new “grandmother.” And Louise, after all, was a step-mum or step-grandmother herself. Thus began a saga worthy of a soap opera.

Louise had planned to leave her estate to the grandchildren, but prior to a family baby shower the new wife, the maid, was invited (she was, after all, married to the grandfather of the family and was taking care of the crotchety old guy). Louise got her back up. A big snit followed and Louise refused to go to any further family gatherings if “that woman” was going to be there. The family said yes, she was going to be included.  Louise believed these family members were traitors to her. No amount of talking or discussing would change her mind, apparently. She gnawed on it until it ate a hole in her soul, I’m afraid. So, she changed her will (and didn’t mention it to Dave). And had planned to change it more and remove all the grandchildren from her will, but hadn’t done it officially. Some of those grandchildren did get a small bequest. As her only blood relative, Dave inherited what was left of her estate, with bequests to both of his children too. Her household stuff, furniture, and some stocks and bonds. We were surprised and grateful. Some of those ex-relatives attended the memorial service (slipping in late and leaving early). Likely Louise was screaming from the heavens to refuse them admittance. Some were noticeably absent. What wicked webs we weave sometimes, eh?

So, once again, we traveled to the east coast and sorted and purged and planned the memorial service (which she specifically didn’t want, but her close friends pleaded with us to do it anyway – for them they said, so we did). Most everything was handled by an attorney/executor. We stayed at Louise’s home for a few days while we decided what was worth saving, shipping, etc. Our son got a lovely old table. We couldn’t actually pack anything – the executor was quite officious about it all because the house she was living in belonged to Louise’s ex-husband. But he’d died at about age 101, so it belonged to the family estate.

It was a lovely home, with a gorgeous view of the inlet and marsh near Gloucester. The ex had to buy the house for her as part of the divorce and she was allowed to live in it until her death, then it reverted to him or his estate. So anyway, Dave and I marked things and moved them into a separate pile to be shipped. A variety of art (mostly original watercolors) was included too. And a lovely antique music box from Austria that Louise bought in Vienna on her honeymoon, she said. We didn’t get one painting that I really wanted because Louise’s attorney insisted it had been promised to her, even though it wasn’t in the will. (The attorney’s partner was the executor, and he ruled in her favor.) My DH is quite partial to all of the paintings, some likely worth something to a knowing buyer, I suppose. And, we also earmarked Louise’s silver. It wasn’t until the shipment arrived (months and months later after probate was completed) that I discovered a bunch of spoons in one of the chests. I was tickled pink. I put them with the others and found many similar ones to Dave’s mother’s. They must have been from the two sister’s parents and their families. But these spoons had been replated, so they’re sparkly shiny and in excellent condition. Those are the ones I use most of the time. I polish them every few months and try not to dip them in egg or tarnish producing mayo.

I use these spoons every single day. Or, every single day that I cook. They’re right handy by the stove. The spoons are used and treasured, and I think about Dave’s mother Helen and his Aunt Louise nearly every time I reach for one. I’m certain they’d both be very happy that they’re being appreciated. And that they’d become the namesake of my blog.

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It was written up on somebody else’s blog – this Wordle thing. I’m fascinated with fonts (comes from my background in the ad agency biz), colors, layouts. So this website, Wordle, is right up my alley. I just typed into a window a bunch of words relating to food. I had to upgrade to the latest version of Java to do this, however. Then you click GO and up came this beautiful image using my words. You can submit paragraphs of words from your blog, or something else for that matter, and it creates it for you. (So, you have a passion for fencing, for instance, create one using all the words about fencing. Cool.) Then you can tweak it – with different color schemes, or your own, and you can re-do the screen. I took a screen shot, converted it to a jpg format, then downsized it using Picnik, and uploaded it to here. What fun. You may see a few of these now and then when I don’t have a recipe to post.

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Since I’m giving updates about things in general, I’ll fill you in on two fronts. If you’ve ever had small flea-sized bugs eating your chocolate stash, read on. And I’m finally writing an update to our 7-month saga of our backyard . . .

Bugs

I wrote up on my blog the other day that I’d discovered a LOT of little black bugs dining away on my chocolate in the pantry. Last week I cleaned out many pounds of chocolate (varying kinds from chips, squares, bars, large bars). [Never let it be said that I ran out of some kind of chocolate I needed when the inspiration hit me to bake something!]  It pained me to throw away all that stuff, but I surely wouldn’t eat any of it if these bugs (and a few tiny white worms) were even munching away on the other end of the bar. I know, we consume lots of bug fragments every day with food we eat, but I don’t ever do it intentionally. I made a trip to the Container Store the other day and bought some sealing-type plastic boxes (hopefully they seal well enough to keep these little critters OUT). So today I began cleaning out the shelf the chocolate bin had been living on. Well, let’s just say that my housekeeping skills have been lacking. It’s been 18 months since the kitchen remodel was done, and I hadn’t cleaned those shelves since. And it showed. But what was ON those shelves was not dust particularly, but bug bodies, live bugs (yes, more of them) and all kinds of detritus from said bugs and other bugs. The moths/bugs that thrive on wheat-based food/flours were in evidence too. Dave helped me, finally, when I’d just about exhausted my energy schlepping bottles, cans, boxes, bags of stuff from the pantry to the island. I smashed hundreds of the little black bugs. They’re not hard-shelled, so they squish fairly easily. But I’m quite certain I haven’t gotten them all.

Once Dave started helping me we discovered them – both the flying type and the little black pinheads in lots of places. I threw out nearly all of the remainder of my chocolate (including all the bars of Scharfen Berger chocolate I bought at the factory last year). These were the packages that were on the other side of the pantry that I THOUGHT weren’t affected. Uh, no way. The bugs were all over it. In crevices in the packaging. I’d open a package and they’d be in the folds inside, AND having a smorgasbord on the chocolate itself too. And leaving piles of their poop behind. Then I decided I’d better look into the grain bins I have (just big plastic unlidded boxes I use to house various types of beans and grains). I’d gone through all that stuff a few months ago when I discovered the flying critters in there. Well, they’d gotten desperate for wheat food, and had delved into the imported French lentils, for whatever reason. There were dozens of the flying ones inside a tightly sealed plastic box of polenta cornmeal (perhaps that’s where the critters came IN to my kitchen, since there were a couple hundred in one small container). They weren’t really eating the lentils or the cornmeal I found out, but they liked living in the bags or bin. Then we found them in most of the opened boxes of pasta. They weren’t eating the pasta either, but they’d made nests in the bottom of the boxes. I wasn’t enamored with trying to sift out the detritus, so all that went into the trash too. About the only good thing about this exercise was that I have a bit more room on my pantry shelves now.

The Backyard

I know . . . the back yard looks lovely, doesn’t it? That’s new brick coping around the pool and a new pebble-textured plastering job in the pool itself. But first, backtrack a bit. I think it was in January or February that I mentioned that we were having drainage problems around our house. We live on a hill, as you can see from the photo. If it weren’t for the cloud bank out in the distance you could see the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles out there. I could write several chapters of a book on the stages of drain repairs around here about that. We did get it fixed. We think. Then there is the pool (and separate spa) – we had a couple of run-ins with the county about permits, but eventually paid the piper to get them. All we did was re-plaster our pool and spa and the permits cost us upwards of $2000. In the process they were quick to inform us that if and when we replace a water heater, a permit is required. Or if we replace a single or multiple windows, a permit is required. Or replace a garbage disposal. I mean, a garbage disposal, for heavens’ sake? We were, to say the very least, astounded. [In case you hadn’t heard, our county and our state – California – are in serious financial difficulty . . . we’ve concluded the powers-that-be have decided  homeowners needs to bear a significant brunt of paying up . . . the legislators can’t get a tax increase passed, but they sure can raise fees.] Anyway, back in February we had a bunch of deep holes (shafts) dug around our yard – I think I posted pictures of one of them. We were trying to figure out where water was standing underground. We finally discovered where (just to the left of the pool in the picture above), although we only HOPE the drain repair has rectified it. We won’t know until next winter when the rains come.

So what exactly did we have to do to finish this job? The drains were repaired about 5 months ago. We didn’t have to have a permit to do that! But the pool – we had to install a second drain in the bottom of the pool (a safety code). We had to install a second self-closing gate on the other side of the house. We had to put a new lock on the fence gate at the bottom of our hill. And we had to pay for an inspector to come and look at the work three times (that alone was about $200 per pool – and spa – per visit, since we also get to pay his mileage and the time it takes for him to drive here). We didn’t have to re-fence our property, fortunately.

So about 5-6 weeks ago we thought we were “done” with the pool and spa. Then about a week after the last worker-bees left we noticed our spa was losing water. I won’t belabor it – somehow the skimmer had developed a crack (probably from all the jack hammering that had been done to remove brick coping and the plaster). That cost $1500 to replace. The next day the spa lost 4 inches of water. The worker-bees who had replaced the skimmer had jack hammered one of the Jacuzzi jets, so a hundred or so gallons of water (I guess) had drained into the soil around the spa. There were a number of expletives-deleted words said about then. That got repaired the next day at no charge. We thought THEN we were done. Wrong. Two weeks later we noticed the main pool was losing water. A lot of water. Dave went to the deep hole that’s closest to the main pool and sure enough, there was standing water in the bottom of the hole. We found out the skimmer in THAT pool had developed a crack too. We’ve now had the 2nd skimmer replaced (another $1500 for this one too). We hope, just hope and pray, that we’re now finished. And that we have no more leaks. It’s been nearly 7 months in the process. Meanwhile, our flagpole (the photo from my other post) is still leaning, and probably will continue to do so. We can’t fix that without removing all patio areas, re-grading, compacting and re-constructing. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for that. We’ll live with a leaning flagpole, thank you. 

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Oh, one more thing – the person who was stealing by blog posts has ceased and desisted – her website no longer contains any content. It’s still there, but it’s empty. Thank goodness and good riddance.

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