How we went to California, Part 4
Oct. 17th, 2003 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanHow We Cooked the Sand Dabs
We came home and located the cat. I forget where he was on this occasion, but locations from which he was hauled during our brief stay included under the bed, under the armchairs, under the chest of drawers, and nowhere in particular -- well, he wasn't hauled from there, he just appeared. Having made much of him, we turned to the problem of dinner.
When we originally arrived at the hotel in the dead hours, the kitchen looked pretty good. Decent-sized refrigerator, stovetop, pots and pans and plastic dishes and real cutlery and knives and a cutting board and a sink, everything handsome about it.
When we got back from Moss Beach, tired and hungry, the kitchen began to reveal its deficiencies. There was no oven, although there was a microwave. The bottoms of the cheap non-stick pans were warped, so that they made only occasional contact with the electric burners of the stovetop. The knives were appalling. We were tolerably cheerful about this, however. The person behind the fish counter at Whole Foods had told us to pan-fry the sand dabs with a little breading, maybe cornmeal. We had sensibly not bought cornmeal, and decided to use breadcrumbs. Failing to find a toaster, Eric started toasting two pieces of bread in the large skillet while I found a half-inch of knife-blade that worked and minced some garlic and then started cutting the brown bits off the ends of the Brussels sprouts and cutting little crosses in them.
The bread, even when toasted quite dark, persisted in being too moist to crumble adequately. I suggested pounding it with the back of a spoon, and after it had been returned to the skillet for more drying-out, this worked very well. Eric put the hard-won breadcrumbs on a plate and added a bit of soy milk and dredged the sand dabs in it. I worked on the Brussels sprouts and the sweet potatoes. The latter were easy; they just went into the microwave after being scrubbed and poked with a fork. The Brussels sprouts ended up in a kind of omelet pan with a couple of inches of water. This worked remarkably well. It all worked remarkably well. The garlic got a little scorched, but I kind of like that flavor. We sat down to baked sweet potatoes, boiled-or-steamed Brussels sprouts, and sand dabs with actual breading, cooked in really good olive oil with, oh, what should we call it, seared garlic maybe. It was extremely good. The breading was just like breading. I made a brief fuss about the bones in the sand dabs; then I realized one could get the whole skeleton out pretty easily; then I made another fuss about what Eric called the "whisker bones," the soft ones that won't hurt you. I calmed down shortly and ate my fish. Eric was very patient with me. He doesn't take many things personally and finds having food neuroses perfectly understandable.
The sand dabs tasted lovely, with a fairly delicate flavor, and they had a nice firm texture. I hate slimy fish, and they were absolutely not that. The Brussels sprouts had been very fresh, and they were done well short of mushiness. The sweet potatoes were fine. It was vastly entertaining, after the first edge of hunger was off, to see how the same condiments, olive oil and ginger soy sauce, made very different tastes on different foods, or how the different foods brought out different aspects of the condiments, however one was pleased to look at it.
Afterwards Eric went outside for a cigarette. I had just started on the cleanup, since I had not masterminded the cooking, when he came bounding back in, drew me over to the window so I could see the thin crescent moon just setting, and waited for me to grab a sweater. Outside the moon was even more spectacular, and at the precise right moment to be watched as it visibly sank slowly below the horizon, behind the freeway and the low hills sprinkled over with lights. Eric stood behind me and put his arms around me at collarbone level, a cozy and familiar posture from which we had often watched astronomical phenomena. When the moon had gone down and the sensation that the solid ground beneath us was hurtling through space at huge speeds went away, we walked about until we found a place from which we could see Mars. This was on August 29th, and it was still enormous and very red.
We went back in. I cleaned up the dishes and tried to play with the cat, but he wasn't having any. We both read until we were sleepy, which did not take very long. I was still working on Montgomery's Emily books, and Eric was reading Have His Carcase.
Since this is a somewhat shorter entry than the others so far posted, I wanted to make a couple of notes. First, I called home six or seven times while I was gone. I actually reached Raphael and had a conversation every time I tried. I got David's answering machine twice but did talk to him once. Aside from private topics and cat news, the main item of discussion was the matter of getting a new refrigerator for the upstairs, the original one having quit on us and been declared by the repair guy as not worth fixing because it was leaking freon somewhere.
Second, a phenomenon that distressed me intermittently during this trip, but that thought has revealed to be commonplace to my experience, is that we had no really intimate or wide-ranging intellectual conversation. We talked about what we had seen and done, in a kind of instant reminiscence and interpretation that is one of the things I treasure particularly about Eric. We talked about practical matters, how to cook what, what time to set the alarm for, what to do with the cat between the time we got to San Francisco and the time we could move in to the sublet, where to get gas.
It was much the same when I went to Arizona or northern Minnesota with Raphael, and to England with David. The travelling and the moment filled up conversation; other things went into abeyance, or were conveyed by means not verbal. In all these cases, and for various reasons most particularly in the case of this trip to California, the entire experience was profoundly intimate, and increased our knowledge and trust of each other. But this happened by means mostly other than words.
Pamela
We came home and located the cat. I forget where he was on this occasion, but locations from which he was hauled during our brief stay included under the bed, under the armchairs, under the chest of drawers, and nowhere in particular -- well, he wasn't hauled from there, he just appeared. Having made much of him, we turned to the problem of dinner.
When we originally arrived at the hotel in the dead hours, the kitchen looked pretty good. Decent-sized refrigerator, stovetop, pots and pans and plastic dishes and real cutlery and knives and a cutting board and a sink, everything handsome about it.
When we got back from Moss Beach, tired and hungry, the kitchen began to reveal its deficiencies. There was no oven, although there was a microwave. The bottoms of the cheap non-stick pans were warped, so that they made only occasional contact with the electric burners of the stovetop. The knives were appalling. We were tolerably cheerful about this, however. The person behind the fish counter at Whole Foods had told us to pan-fry the sand dabs with a little breading, maybe cornmeal. We had sensibly not bought cornmeal, and decided to use breadcrumbs. Failing to find a toaster, Eric started toasting two pieces of bread in the large skillet while I found a half-inch of knife-blade that worked and minced some garlic and then started cutting the brown bits off the ends of the Brussels sprouts and cutting little crosses in them.
The bread, even when toasted quite dark, persisted in being too moist to crumble adequately. I suggested pounding it with the back of a spoon, and after it had been returned to the skillet for more drying-out, this worked very well. Eric put the hard-won breadcrumbs on a plate and added a bit of soy milk and dredged the sand dabs in it. I worked on the Brussels sprouts and the sweet potatoes. The latter were easy; they just went into the microwave after being scrubbed and poked with a fork. The Brussels sprouts ended up in a kind of omelet pan with a couple of inches of water. This worked remarkably well. It all worked remarkably well. The garlic got a little scorched, but I kind of like that flavor. We sat down to baked sweet potatoes, boiled-or-steamed Brussels sprouts, and sand dabs with actual breading, cooked in really good olive oil with, oh, what should we call it, seared garlic maybe. It was extremely good. The breading was just like breading. I made a brief fuss about the bones in the sand dabs; then I realized one could get the whole skeleton out pretty easily; then I made another fuss about what Eric called the "whisker bones," the soft ones that won't hurt you. I calmed down shortly and ate my fish. Eric was very patient with me. He doesn't take many things personally and finds having food neuroses perfectly understandable.
The sand dabs tasted lovely, with a fairly delicate flavor, and they had a nice firm texture. I hate slimy fish, and they were absolutely not that. The Brussels sprouts had been very fresh, and they were done well short of mushiness. The sweet potatoes were fine. It was vastly entertaining, after the first edge of hunger was off, to see how the same condiments, olive oil and ginger soy sauce, made very different tastes on different foods, or how the different foods brought out different aspects of the condiments, however one was pleased to look at it.
Afterwards Eric went outside for a cigarette. I had just started on the cleanup, since I had not masterminded the cooking, when he came bounding back in, drew me over to the window so I could see the thin crescent moon just setting, and waited for me to grab a sweater. Outside the moon was even more spectacular, and at the precise right moment to be watched as it visibly sank slowly below the horizon, behind the freeway and the low hills sprinkled over with lights. Eric stood behind me and put his arms around me at collarbone level, a cozy and familiar posture from which we had often watched astronomical phenomena. When the moon had gone down and the sensation that the solid ground beneath us was hurtling through space at huge speeds went away, we walked about until we found a place from which we could see Mars. This was on August 29th, and it was still enormous and very red.
We went back in. I cleaned up the dishes and tried to play with the cat, but he wasn't having any. We both read until we were sleepy, which did not take very long. I was still working on Montgomery's Emily books, and Eric was reading Have His Carcase.
Since this is a somewhat shorter entry than the others so far posted, I wanted to make a couple of notes. First, I called home six or seven times while I was gone. I actually reached Raphael and had a conversation every time I tried. I got David's answering machine twice but did talk to him once. Aside from private topics and cat news, the main item of discussion was the matter of getting a new refrigerator for the upstairs, the original one having quit on us and been declared by the repair guy as not worth fixing because it was leaking freon somewhere.
Second, a phenomenon that distressed me intermittently during this trip, but that thought has revealed to be commonplace to my experience, is that we had no really intimate or wide-ranging intellectual conversation. We talked about what we had seen and done, in a kind of instant reminiscence and interpretation that is one of the things I treasure particularly about Eric. We talked about practical matters, how to cook what, what time to set the alarm for, what to do with the cat between the time we got to San Francisco and the time we could move in to the sublet, where to get gas.
It was much the same when I went to Arizona or northern Minnesota with Raphael, and to England with David. The travelling and the moment filled up conversation; other things went into abeyance, or were conveyed by means not verbal. In all these cases, and for various reasons most particularly in the case of this trip to California, the entire experience was profoundly intimate, and increased our knowledge and trust of each other. But this happened by means mostly other than words.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-18 12:18 am (UTC)Eric was reading Have His Carcase.
Oh, hurrah for Dorothy Sayers.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-20 10:50 pm (UTC)As for Dorothy Sayers, indeed. It was a tremendous pleasure to introduce her to an appreciative audience. Most people I know have already read her.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-10-18 12:35 am (UTC)If you crumble soft bread into crumb-like bits first (I sort of rake it with a fork) and *then* pan-fry it in a tiny bit of butter or oil, the result will be crispy bread crumbs.
And yes, I've found that just being together can sometimes transmit more intimacy than any amount of words ... which, to this highly verbal person, can sometimes feel distressing until I relax and just live it.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-18 06:24 am (UTC)I had a curious inversion of this while in Arizona. I was taking our keynote speaker, an Englishman who has a contemplative streak bordering on the mystical (judging from his writings), though the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, as a sort of "welcome to the desert" orientation to the flora. I was chattering on in tour-guide fashion and he was answering in monosyllables or not at all, and after fifteen minutes or so I got the message and stopped talking.
We spent the rest of the ninety minutes or so that we were there in virtual silence and I do remember thinking about the intimacy of wordless sharing and feeling vaguely uncomfortable because I didn't know this person well enough to share silences.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-20 10:53 pm (UTC)You remind me that I once refused to watch HAMLET with someone I didn't know well enough.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-10-18 06:20 am (UTC)On the other hand, I am finding that the older I get the less I feel the need for introspection, and in fact I only stop and consider the interior landscape when someone else's self-contemplation sparks a "hey, I wonder" response in me. I'd like to believe that's because I'm entirely comfortable with myself but it probably just means that I'm now much more focused on looking outward.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-20 10:55 pm (UTC)I am more introspective as I get older, but this seems to be largely a function of needing to grow as a writer, rather than an intrinsic part of ageing.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-10-18 06:30 am (UTC)I have found the same experience to be true on my good travels. (The rare nightmares being trapped with what turns out to be totally uncongenial people who just want to talk about the minutae of home, or shopping, or how weird the locals are and how inconvenient their living styles.) I discovered that I need to be on one place for a time. That somehow engenders conversation that might spark off what we were doing or saying, but then would soar off into historical conjecture, or linquistic observation, book talk, cultural question.
And sometimes this being away from home and having a quiet moment initiated memorable discussions: I can remember debating, amid quite a bit of laughter, Hemingway's attitude toward women while lounging under the Cinzano umbrellas in Chur, the river thundering below us. We sat in the mellow morning sunlight, sometimes leaning forward on our elbows as we rummaged our brains for citation, knowing all our books lay home on their shelves. Another time I fell into a history-rampaging conversation--well, it was probably mostly gas--speculating on the cultural influences that caused language development in Western Europe post-Charlemagne while sitting on a fountain in Paris while watching the street's human tapestry weave and reweave.
It's as if the stimulation level has to subside to a more subtle stream so one is not constantly reacting to one's environment, but one can gradually take one's place in that environment--and after that permit the environment to form a background for a time, setting thought and imagination free to range and swoop and dive before being called back behind the windows of the senses to observe during the next leg of the journey.
Writing this makes me reflect on just how much I love travel.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-20 10:59 pm (UTC)I went to England and Wales with Pat Wrede in 1990, on what we called a castle and garden tour; we were both doing research for novels and our husbands were not very much interested in our itinerary. We had exactly one animated intellectual conversation, after a production of "Coriolanus," in which we suddenly dredged up vast amounts of historical speculation and compared Shakespeare's characterization of the Roman characters with what we knew about politicians and generals more local to him. The rest of the time we were entirely absorptive or else concerned with practical matters like how to get to Beaumaris and how to pronounce it.
Pamela