Headvoice

God Save The Visiting Employee

Off to London for ten days; expecting to blog, and this time I promise there will not be pictures of little white dogs.

Except if I see one there, of course.

Steak and Salad

This morning the plan for eating was worked out in advance. T. was coming over and I needed a Sunday late lunch menu that worked for all parties. Remember, I am still living with a no carb compartmentalist. Label that a too recent flashback and it could be considered trendy... but today I had to make it work for all.

Off I go to a local market, thinking the shorter drive would consume less fuel even though it was so cold I needed the distance to get the car's interior warmed up.

Welcome to Food Basics!

Which at first glance could be in a very remote area of... well, Toronto's massive exburbia. My search for a decent supermarket steak stumbled right away with a quick scan of the meat bunker. You could almost see through the displayed offerings they were so thin. Everything was labeled with the word simmering. No thick tender possibilities here. Thanks, but bye bye.

Off to an upscale local chain store, which I knew about because we did business there before at my previous job. Excellent produce, good meats and bakery. Surely, I couldn't go wrong.

That is, until I left the three steaks at the check out and drove home.

When I returned to the store the cashier that had checked me out directed me to "PTS", which I managed to quickly decode by glancing away towards the customer service desk, which was heralded by a sign proclaiming "Personal Touch Services." They must have my meat. I show her my receipt.

"Yes, sir. We just put it back."

She was reading from an entry in looseleaf binder. It was no more than fifteen minutes and already my idiocy was an official binder entry, with a copy of my receipt attached to the page. Impressive.

Off I went with the bagger working at that station, and we found both packages in seconds using the receipt for reference. I was in and out in 4 minutes.

Now it's time to deal with my apparent attention deficit disorder.

Googled: Son of West Highland Terrier Terrorist

Today this image of Luigi as a puppy is the sixth highest hit on a Google images search for West Highland Terriers. I am sleeping with the Shirley Temple of little white dogs.

Can it be attributed to the fact I titled the original posting with the word terrorist? The world can't be that dark. Please no.

As somewhat of a test I am reposting my favorite shots of him to see how search engines react. Some people go out to dinner on Friday nights...but nooooo.

Here is Luigi from the headvoice archives.

Laundry

I just don't know what to do. The basement ate my belts this week.

A decade of wearing a suit and tie to work every day has left me with this messy and odd collection of clothes that is quite ridiculous. Our solution was to buy about 15 rolling racks from Ikea, and thus our downstairs has looked like a discount mensware outlet for six years.

On one hand it is nice to browse the goods in the morning when dressing, and on the other you have all the responsibilities of a retailer to make sure the merchandise is clean, let alone pressed.

Tomorrow I am purging and giving to the less fortunate. Good luck if you are a poly blend shirt that has seen better days...

Bed

Another rerun image, but worth the second posting I hope.

Top Ten Headvoice Reasons to love the British

- "The Duchess of Duke Street"
- "Fawlty Towers"
- "Absolutely Fabulous"
- "To the Manor Born"
- "Yes, Minister/Prime Minister"
- "Monty Python"
- "Brideshead Revisited"
- "Are you being served?"
- "Upstairs Downstairs"
- Nigella Lawson's and Jamie Oliver's cooking shows

Jesus, do I watch too much TV or what?

Ok...so lets be clear. It is all about Winston Churchill. No, really it is.

Looking Down

Miroton

Quite a few years ago I found myself at my parents house facing the leftovers from another holiday dinner. For a long time I was blessed by having three or four generations around a table, enjoying good food and a sense of family, and it is bittersweet looking back. It doesn't seem now as if there will be much more of that to remember.

So time to make dinner, just me and a large amount of roast from the night before. It was just going to be the three of us, with my mom and dad at their place.

And then I heard it, that unmistakable burble of a voice, from the back of my mind. It was Julia Child.

Why, you could make a miroton!

And sure enough the ingredients were in the house and I proceeded with her recipe in mind. To this day I don't know if it was on video or from a book, but this morning I made it again.

An hour an a half for cryin' out loud.

Sliced rare roast beef is sauteed briefly and set aside. Mushrooms and onions are next. Fresh thyme, garlic, capers and mustard with beef stock make up the sauce, and then the meat and veg are layered with the sauce and baked in a very hot oven with a buttered bread crumb topping.

You could do a lot worse for lunch... I'm just sayin'

Google provides this recipe in French;

Ingrédients (pour 4 personnes):
- 400 g de restes de viande environ
- 4 oignons
- 50 g de beurre + 60 g de beurre en petits morceaux
- 1 cuillère à soupe de farine
- 5 cl de vinaigre de vin
- 30 cl de bouillon
- 1 cuillère à soupe de concentré de tomates
- 1 cuillère à soupe de persil haché
- sel et poivre

Préparation :
Coupez le reste de viande en tranches fines.
Emincez finement les oignons, faites-les blondir doucement dans 50 g de beurre.
Saupoudrez d'une cuillère à soupe de farine et laissez cuire 3 minutes sans cesser de tourner.

Versez le vinaigre de vin, continuez de tourner et ajoutez le bouillon et le concentré de tomates.
Mélangez et laissez épaissir sur feu doux pendant 5 minutes.

Saupoudrez d'une cuillère à soupe de persil haché, puis salez et poivrez.

Versez la moitié de la sauce dans un plat à gratin, mettez les tranches de viande dessus, versez le reste de la sauce, saupoudrez d'une cuillère à soupe de chapelure, répartissez 60 g de beurre en petits morceaux et faites gratiner au four.

Servez bien doré et bien chaud, avec des pommes de terre, des pâtes ou du riz.
Vous pouvez préparez de la même façon, un reste de porc, de veau et même de volaille.

Which is translated, again by Google, hilariously into this;

Ingredients (for 4 people):
- 400 G of meat remainders approximately
- 4 onions
- 50 G of butter + 60 G of butter in small pieces
- 1 spoon with soup of flour
- 5 wine vinegar Cl
- 30 Cl of bubble
- 1 spoon with soup of tomato puree
- 1 spoon with chopped parsley soup
- salt and pepper

Preparation:

Cut the meat remainder in fine sections.
Emincez finely the onions, make gently bleach them in 50 G of butter.
Powder with a spoon with soup of flour and let cook 3 minutes without ceasing turning.

Pour the wine vinegar, continue to turn and add the bubble and the puree tomaties.
Mix and let thicken on soft fire during 5 minutes.

Powder with a spoon with chopped parsley soup, then salt and pepper.

Pour half of sauce in a dish with gratin, put the meat sections above, pour the remainder of sauce, powder with a spoon with soup of chapelure, distribute 60 G of butter in small pieces and made gratiner with the furnace.

Be useful well gilded and well heat, with potatoes, pastes or rice.
You can prepare in the same way, a remainder of pig, calf and even of poultry.

Effectuated

Another close up shot from last fall with the macro lens. The color purple seems cheerful and soothing this very windy winter day.

Lots of loose ends being tidied up now. I love that feeling of finalizing and completion. It strikes me that there really isn't an appropriate word for that sensation. Completion is a little dry and doesn't convey any emotion. Wrap up and polish off are better, but too conversational. I am looking for that touch of zen.

And wouldn't you know it, the visual thesarus produced an unfamilar word; effectuate. It means to produce. Not exactly something you would put on a tee shirt... but at least we learned a new word today.

Winter Skies

This odd winter continues with snow followed by warm rain, and a forecast for a round of deep freeze coming next. Is global warming really still just a theory?

Today I am starting to plan my first trip to London. It is a business trip for sure, but it looks like I will be there for 10 days so a little tourist behavior will probably happen.

Some of my friends just love visiting the UK and I do admit to a certain level of embarrassment that I haven't visited there before. By the end of March that will be long forgotten...

Best Friend Missing

It occurred to me this evening that it has been some time since I had a best friend. Cheerful observation, no? And it isn't like I don't have much to do these days...

This is clearly a case of personal histories and the strings that pull people together and apart. That is what it means when we talk about our best friends, but you must be careful when categorizing what and who is ever considered "best".

It was a special time when we met. He was at Harvard and knew my lover at the time. We had another mutual friend who made it her mission to make the personal introduction at one of our riotous house parties when all three apartments in the Boston brownstone we shared threw open their doors on the same night.

This particular party was memorable. Joey B. lived alone downstairs in a one bedroom that was renovated; all except for the bedroom itself which remained unfinished. He lined the walls with tin foil and hung a mirrored disco ball for the party. The couple on the main floor had filled the street facing parlor with rows of potted palms and lined the bay window with white Christmas lights. Considering it was still the 70's we had it goin' on...

I was upstairs in the kitchen for most of the party. The top floor of our duplex had been stripped down to the original brick walls and the floors had been refinished to a burnished glow. The bedroom was in the front with the kitchen in the back, where you were likely to find me baking breads and pastries even during house parties.

"Where is this Stephen?"

It was him, coming up the stairs with explicit instructions from Michelle, our co-conspirator. He is a striking man when first met, whom lots of folks might assume to be of Egyptian descent. But his roots are much closer to home; as in the south Bronx and Puerto Rico.

We spent a decade or more as best friends. And then, ironically when it seemed that when we would become even closer, we actually drifted away from each other. I was living in Manhattan; just like he was, but our directions pulled us apart. It was corporate time for me, and I ran with it. He was lost in petty hospital politics and struggling to make a private practice as an MD succeed. The years passed.

The last time I saw him we met at the airport in Toronto. He had put on so much weight I almost didn't recognize him. Our conversations didn't go past shared memories.

What do you do? Can a best friend expect that status once achieved forever? And if so just how do you honor it?

I miss him.

Nested

At home for a quiet weekend, lurching from one low carb meal to another. Yes, someone is dancing with Mr. Atkin's diet again, but it isn't me. I am just a casual bystander who just happens to obsessively cook.

Oh look! Is that a supermarket special on prime rib roasts? Lets throw some butter and cheese into the basket also...

And since I am not following the regime, it will probably lead to a net weight gain for me. Grrrrr.

Grammy Mammy

It is nice to know that Madonna and I are about the same age when she can still kick some butt in an opening number for the Grammy Awards.

Lingering Laptop

Today at a trade show I managed to cut open the top of my hand when I fixed the sign I knocked over. Nothing says class more than when the third bloody napkin of your half-hour can't find a home, and it's obvious to the conference organizer.

After I left, and then finished a business lunch, I returned to the car and realized my laptop was still at the conference. A hurried drive back proved I left it absentmindedly, unlike the trade mags and promo materials safe in the car.

At this point I might be peeing on my shoes and drooling incoherently by Friday.

No Fences in Time

Long after darkness falls the little red light pops on in the living room. It is 3 AM and that cooking show with the great ricotta pasta recipe is on. Finally our long lusted after affair with PVR technology has come to fruition.

Both of us are a little goofy about it... it comes with a slap on the face moment when you realize that control is in your hands now when it comes to watching broadcast TV.

Bye bye tedious commercials. Eww.

Hello to smart saving and category listing. Finally BBC News when I want it...

However, this morning I realized that "Butterflies Are Free" looked like it was filmed in the middle ages and quickly shut it off. I saw that movie in a theater.

Looks like this thing might be a two edged sword.