Bittman => Thorne => Spoerri...

Bittman took me back to Thorne, and Thorne has taken me to Spoerri (the reprint of 2/3 of The Mythological Travels of a Modern Sir. John Mandeville, which is Mythological Meatballs).

What have you done with the Cobra jewels?

Wella. The party, she approaches. Don't know if M. Thatos will be there, but thinking about her this morning I remembered her fondness for Maria Montez.

What have you done with the other one, and why is Stumpster posting? Dunno. He's even stopped journaling at this point. Just making lists, and there's hardly ever more than 4 or 5 things on them.

John Lindsay was the first mayor I was fully aware of.  I was a kid, but somehow felt connected to him.  And I'm not even a met fan.  Exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. 

I got bounce

I've been away from baking bread a bit, but got the bug again this morning.  And having just finished Outlaw Cook (Thorne) and being a little ways in to Pot on the Fire, I felt a little freer to follow my natural inclinations rather than following a scale and ratio as I had been when reading Ruhlman.

So, in I dove, and true to my mood I grabbed the drinking glasses I've recently been using instead of measuring cups.  I've learned which glasses are just about a cup, which little spice dishes (I call them eye-cups, in my head)  are a quarter cup.  And I decided I'd use as much water as the flour seemed to want, rather than measuring it at all.  I had let my starter die (or am guessing I did: I haven't feed it in a month and I didn't go look because I didn't want to clean the jar) so I used commercial yeast.  And I did everything by hand rather than by hook or blade.  Last, I decided to bake on my pizza stone and to not add steam to the oven (by tossing water onto a cast-iron skillet in the bottom of the stove - it' hell on the skillet and it scorches my eyeballs).

I guess what.  I got bounce!  Big whoppin' cross-splitting bounce.  Hadn't been seeing that in my bread.  Was it the stone?  Better kneading?  Not steaming?  The weather?  My mood?  Not splurting my energies out into posting?  Now I just want to have grilled cheese and wine in the back yard for dinner.

Wow: Overhead projector musical instrument

Via Make.

Chips, chips, happy feet

Yes, I did start Love and Sleep, but I'm also taking a simultaneous detour through John and Matt Thorne's Outlaw Cook, which has been on our shelf for years but never read.  Seeing this post by Thorne at Bittman - Eating with my mother - made me remember and want to read the book.  My idol's idol.

Anyway, Thornesque, last night I set out to make Lori's favorite chicken dish for her to have late when she flew back home (chicken a la Lori, we call it.  or, sometimes, chicken with scallion ginger sauce, rice and edamame) and along the way (here's the Thornesque part) I cleared the fridge of some past-their-prime shiitake, ramps and scallions.  These three I did up in too much olive oil at too high a heat and them salted the heck out of them (chips!  chips!) and wolfed them down hot standing next to the stove.  Ahhhh.  Happy feet.

Re Thorne's name: I've always misremembered it as Thane, which always makes me remember our old friend, Jane Thane of Ohio.  Or Jane, Thane of Ohio, which she secretly was, who's collected works on Amazons is no longer available.

Re Paolo Conte's Happy Feet.

You're not going to believe what Dan Levy just told me

Sooo...  Night before the sardine pizza I had finished rereading The Solitudes (which I had only known as Ægypt), and that was after finishing rereading the Little Big.  I was 1,000 pages into Crowleyana and teetering on the brink of starting to reread Love and Sleep and investing another 500 pages of time.  And in fact I did start rereading Love and Sleep.  But first I put it into the same paper book cover that I had used for the other two Crowley books.  Then I thought, Oh, Why not, and I reinserted each book in turn into the yellow paper cover and photographed each.  I was going to post it all, then, but, I don't know, maybe I got tipsy and didn't.  Maybe I will tonight.  (It's the same cover I used for Nixonland.  Only totally different on the inside.)

BUT, wait, there's more: this afternoon at lunch time I decided to take a quick trip up to the green market to find something to cook with ground goat (I'm on a ground goat kick - picked up some very fresh broccoli raab and some shallots - need to find me some hot pepper action.  Vinegar?  Something.) and who sits down in the subway car across from me, but Dan Levy.  Dan Levy about whom I have said so many times over the last decade and a half first recommended to me that I read Crowley.  Haven't seen Dan in I think 3 years.  Dan!, I say, I was just thinking about you.  I just reread Little Big and The Solitudes!  And Dan says, Oh, I've never read them.  I hear they're great.

Begorrah!

Meals I make when my Baby's on the road: sardine and roast tomato pizza

So, I was slipping this pizza out of the oven when I realized, Hey, This could be a really nice long-term project.  Maybe over the next 20 years or so photograph the meals I make when Lota is on the road that I would never make when shes at home.  You know, The Liver Chronicles.  The Canned Sardine Diaries.  The Trotters Tearsheet.  Yummala.

Unt da wittle fwishees swummed down di gullet im da hombade winnie - Sanguis jovis 07.  Boomfba!