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Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
GRILLING RIBS
"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity."
- Frank Lloyd Wright
My friend, Richard the Sage, has invited us over to dinner at his place. He’ll be grilling his famous ribs. Well, not his ribs. I imagine he’ll be keeping those. But he does have a way with ribs on the grill. I can attest to this personally as last summer Lucy and I had an opportunity to spend an evening at his dinner table feasting on ribs and some tasty but unnecessary side dishes (I say unnecessary because, once you have tasted Richard’s ribs, there is little reason to turn your taste buds to anything else on the table – except for, perhaps, the wine).
My mother is here visiting and so the Sage was kind enough to include her in the invitation. I have bragged to her about his ribs, explaining that she has a true gastronomic festival to look forward to, particularly since she is something of a gastronome herself. I had an email from Richard this afternoon asking me whether my mother has any particular food aversions he should be aware of. (My wife tells me that it is proper to ask such a question anytime you invite someone to dinner as food allergies are all too common these days.) I assured him that she, like everyone in my family, will eat most anything. We Behans are all enthusiastic eaters. We eat freely and we eat often. So far as I can remember, in my entire lifetime I cannot recall anyone in the family ever taking a bite of something, grabbing their throat and keeling over onto the floor.
I even eat sushi. I realize for some people the thought of raw fish is disgusting but I have always contended that most of the revulsion surrounding certain exotic foods is purely psychological and that most anyone could overcome the mental block with the help of a dollop or two of wasabi and a couple dozen hours on the couch of a good therapist. A glass of good sake can also be helpful (presuming there is such a thing as good sake). Perhaps the only food difficult for me to enjoy is the stuff they had the nerve to serve up in some of the London pubs we visited. I had so looked forward to experiencing pub food in England, but after three days of it we’d had enough. This is a nation that serves baked beans with scrambled eggs.
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
- Fran Lebowitz
A few years ago a chef friend of mine prepared a fantastic multi-course meal for Lucy’s birthday. I had surprised her by inviting four or five couples over and having chef Walt show up with enough ingredients to satisfy a small city. During the salad course, Walt brought in plates of greens arranged around a certain fish. He wouldn’t tell us what it was until we had all tried it and expressed agreement that it was delicious. Then he went around the table asking everyone to guess what sort of fish we were eating. The fifth or sixth guess nailed it: eel. Smoked eel, actually. At that point a couple of our friends put down their forks and refused to take another bite. They loved it until they found out what it was.
Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
- Oscar Levant
- Frank Lloyd Wright
My friend, Richard the Sage, has invited us over to dinner at his place. He’ll be grilling his famous ribs. Well, not his ribs. I imagine he’ll be keeping those. But he does have a way with ribs on the grill. I can attest to this personally as last summer Lucy and I had an opportunity to spend an evening at his dinner table feasting on ribs and some tasty but unnecessary side dishes (I say unnecessary because, once you have tasted Richard’s ribs, there is little reason to turn your taste buds to anything else on the table – except for, perhaps, the wine).
My mother is here visiting and so the Sage was kind enough to include her in the invitation. I have bragged to her about his ribs, explaining that she has a true gastronomic festival to look forward to, particularly since she is something of a gastronome herself. I had an email from Richard this afternoon asking me whether my mother has any particular food aversions he should be aware of. (My wife tells me that it is proper to ask such a question anytime you invite someone to dinner as food allergies are all too common these days.) I assured him that she, like everyone in my family, will eat most anything. We Behans are all enthusiastic eaters. We eat freely and we eat often. So far as I can remember, in my entire lifetime I cannot recall anyone in the family ever taking a bite of something, grabbing their throat and keeling over onto the floor.
I even eat sushi. I realize for some people the thought of raw fish is disgusting but I have always contended that most of the revulsion surrounding certain exotic foods is purely psychological and that most anyone could overcome the mental block with the help of a dollop or two of wasabi and a couple dozen hours on the couch of a good therapist. A glass of good sake can also be helpful (presuming there is such a thing as good sake). Perhaps the only food difficult for me to enjoy is the stuff they had the nerve to serve up in some of the London pubs we visited. I had so looked forward to experiencing pub food in England, but after three days of it we’d had enough. This is a nation that serves baked beans with scrambled eggs.
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
- Fran Lebowitz
A few years ago a chef friend of mine prepared a fantastic multi-course meal for Lucy’s birthday. I had surprised her by inviting four or five couples over and having chef Walt show up with enough ingredients to satisfy a small city. During the salad course, Walt brought in plates of greens arranged around a certain fish. He wouldn’t tell us what it was until we had all tried it and expressed agreement that it was delicious. Then he went around the table asking everyone to guess what sort of fish we were eating. The fifth or sixth guess nailed it: eel. Smoked eel, actually. At that point a couple of our friends put down their forks and refused to take another bite. They loved it until they found out what it was.
Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
- Oscar Levant
Monday, June 23, 2008
REALIZATION
I had another weird dream last night. I woke up in the middle of the night gripped with fear. I realized with striking clarity that... Doom had slipped into the bedroom under cover of darkness and wrapped itself around me while I slept and ever so slowly began to squeeze me like a constricting serpent, a python or a boa. There was no escape. It had me. It spoke evenly, without inflection. It said this to me:
You are doomed.
And, though it was hidden beneath a dark cloak it did not bother to remove, I knew it was telling the truth. There was no escape.
I pulled on a robe and found my way downstairs, Doom following me like a shadow. I clicked on a lamp, plopped into a chair and stared across the room at Oswald Chambers lying on the coffee table. He was next to Tozer and Chesterton.
The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
Hmm.
Then I really did wake up, still in bed, but seeing light sneaking in through the shutters. Doom was nowhere in sight, but I got up and checked around anyway, just to make sure. I was thinking, I should go climb a mountain...chuck it all for one day, climb on the dirt bike, ride it to where the road ends in a steep canyon, and start walking, one step at a time, to the top. Then I remembered Chesterton on the coffee table:
One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
So instead of chucking it all, I made a cappuccino and wandered out into the cool morning air.
A little later, after I had finished a production session in the studio, I was talking with a friend about all the things going on and the things that are no longer going on when it occurred to me that I have not missed doing the radio show even once since that ended last October. In fact, there was/is the sense of a burden being lifted; a burden I was aware of over the past few years but not one I was willing to fully recognize. Most days I still enjoyed doing the show, mostly, but there was also the weight of something that was often an unpleasant reality I could not escape. There was a shallowness to it all that was wearing me down. Driving up from Colorado Springs to Denver last Friday evening I had one of those moments where it was almost as if I were observing myself from an objective distance and, in the observation was the knowledge that I like myself (or at least my life) more now than I have in a long time.
I shouldn’t be writing here on the blog today. I am on a deadline with the book that looms large this week as next week I will be getting very busy with a new project. I can’t really know what it will be like to take on some new work and still being trying to finish the proposal for the agent to shop so I am trying to wrap up the writing by the end of the month.
I have never been good at steering clear of distractions.
You are doomed.
And, though it was hidden beneath a dark cloak it did not bother to remove, I knew it was telling the truth. There was no escape.
I pulled on a robe and found my way downstairs, Doom following me like a shadow. I clicked on a lamp, plopped into a chair and stared across the room at Oswald Chambers lying on the coffee table. He was next to Tozer and Chesterton.
The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
Hmm.
Then I really did wake up, still in bed, but seeing light sneaking in through the shutters. Doom was nowhere in sight, but I got up and checked around anyway, just to make sure. I was thinking, I should go climb a mountain...chuck it all for one day, climb on the dirt bike, ride it to where the road ends in a steep canyon, and start walking, one step at a time, to the top. Then I remembered Chesterton on the coffee table:
One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
So instead of chucking it all, I made a cappuccino and wandered out into the cool morning air.
A little later, after I had finished a production session in the studio, I was talking with a friend about all the things going on and the things that are no longer going on when it occurred to me that I have not missed doing the radio show even once since that ended last October. In fact, there was/is the sense of a burden being lifted; a burden I was aware of over the past few years but not one I was willing to fully recognize. Most days I still enjoyed doing the show, mostly, but there was also the weight of something that was often an unpleasant reality I could not escape. There was a shallowness to it all that was wearing me down. Driving up from Colorado Springs to Denver last Friday evening I had one of those moments where it was almost as if I were observing myself from an objective distance and, in the observation was the knowledge that I like myself (or at least my life) more now than I have in a long time.
I shouldn’t be writing here on the blog today. I am on a deadline with the book that looms large this week as next week I will be getting very busy with a new project. I can’t really know what it will be like to take on some new work and still being trying to finish the proposal for the agent to shop so I am trying to wrap up the writing by the end of the month.
I have never been good at steering clear of distractions.
Monday, June 16, 2008
SLEEP
Woke up feeling like someone had pounded on my chest all night. I spent the night hacking and coughing so today I’m calling in sick. No one to call, though, since I am... What am I? Entrepreneurially engaged? Creatively caught up? Poorly prepared? Professionally perplexed? In any event, I am my own boss, more or less, so the only one to call in sick to is me and, frankly, I’m too ill to pick up the phone. Besides, I have caller ID. I’d see that it was me. Wouldn’t want to answer the phone only to have to listen to someone complain about how bad they feel.
Despite my hacking, Lucy slept like a log next to me. Nothing wakes that woman. She has the gift of sleep. Even my constant cough couldn’t cause her to stir once she hit the major REM cycle. But in deference to her comfort and the distant possibility that my noisiness might have somehow bothered her, I spent a good portion of the night in the den watching a very old Burt Lancaster movie while sipping on a cup of Theraflu.
**
Earlier this week, Lucy sent me via email the following story, along with a note saying that I should take comfort knowing she sleeps so soundly.
NBC - Women in a happy marriage, enjoy a good night's sleep.
Nearly 2,000 woman were involved in this study from the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers asked them to rate their marital happiness and sleeping history. They found women who considered themselves happily married were less likely to have sleep problems. Overall, this group of women reported less problems falling asleep, staying asleep and had a better quality of sleep than those who reported some marital struggles. This study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
The Associated Professional Sleep Societies? You wouldn’t want to give a boring speech to that group.
Despite my hacking, Lucy slept like a log next to me. Nothing wakes that woman. She has the gift of sleep. Even my constant cough couldn’t cause her to stir once she hit the major REM cycle. But in deference to her comfort and the distant possibility that my noisiness might have somehow bothered her, I spent a good portion of the night in the den watching a very old Burt Lancaster movie while sipping on a cup of Theraflu.
**
Earlier this week, Lucy sent me via email the following story, along with a note saying that I should take comfort knowing she sleeps so soundly.
NBC - Women in a happy marriage, enjoy a good night's sleep.
Nearly 2,000 woman were involved in this study from the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers asked them to rate their marital happiness and sleeping history. They found women who considered themselves happily married were less likely to have sleep problems. Overall, this group of women reported less problems falling asleep, staying asleep and had a better quality of sleep than those who reported some marital struggles. This study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
The Associated Professional Sleep Societies? You wouldn’t want to give a boring speech to that group.
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