Betsy is leaving town to help her mother organize moving from Boston to NY - she'll be away from Saturday, March 8 to Thursday, March 13th. Last night, over dinner with Corinna, we were doing the run down of how our lives were, what was going on etc, and the one thing I expressed concern over is the week Betsy is going to go away - it's going to be lonely.
My mom on occasion would leave town on work trips, leaving my dad alone, who retired a few years before her due to health reasons. I would make a point of seeing him every day in those periods, and each visit was centered around food. One day he would make his day based on coming to midtown to eat at the cheap but good corporate cafeteria at the law firm I was designing at, then a digestive walk after. Another day I would pop by his apartment for dinner, either cook up a simple pasta and sauce from a jar, or order in Chinese, then TV or sitting around reading together. If it was a weekend, we'd go to the Village for either a movie, a museum, a play, an opera or shopping for books and music, but always a meal in a restaurant.
We never spoke much, I always thought he was just naturally quiet, though now that I'm married, I've come to realize that we were BOTH similar in our quietness. Alone together was our favorite way of being. I have no regrets, for when we did talk on that rare occasion, all that needed to be said was said.
He only said it once, but it kinda opened my eyes. Over some simple dinner in his apartment, he said to me, "Noah, don't tell her, but I really miss your mother. Even her yelling and nagging." I kind of knew he did, but for him to say it, to quote the Flaming Lips, a spoonful weighed a ton.
In the year my mom was alive after my dad passed away, she retired and for the brief window after she got over her grieving and before she was diagnoses with cancer, she started to come visit me at work once a week to the corporate cafeteria. After the meal, going down in the elevator for our digestive walk, she made some crack about dad (we both had very dark senses of humor and we greatly enjoyed making very inappropriate comments about dad's eccentricities, especially in his dotage.), which made me remember what he had said that time. In that elevator, I told her, you know, I remember when your way on a trip, dad said this. She didn't reply, and looked straight ahead at the closed elevator doors. I could tell she was holding back tears. For the first time, her silence was equally potent to my fathers.
ANYWAY, back to last night with Corinna. After mentioning my upcoming loneliness, we discussed her and her husband coming over for dinner - why not during that time? It's not ideal with B away, but still. Then the flash of memory of meals with my parents when the other was away and....why don't I have dinner with friends every night B is away? Why, I should cook every night, challenge myself in a new way - if I'm going to engage Culinary School properly and maybe even work in and around a kitchen, I have to do it in a concentrated way.
So in the next day or two, I'll be sending out an email to my friends inviting them to come over for a good dinner one night between Saturday and Wednesday. There will be one pizza night and one vegan night, the other three nights given to a pasta, a meat and a fish. Each night will have a starter and a dessert. Left overs will be reused the following night (risotto one night will be the next night's arrancini, etc.), though some dishes (like vanilla icecream) will be stretched to 2 nights. Hmmmmm.....the mind boggles.
BREAKFAST: 11am, organic cornflakes with good milk, .75 bowls, hunger 3/5
Woke up late, then B called inviting me over for lunch, within two hours. Wake up, lazy bones!
LUNCH #1: 12:30pm, tomato soup, 1 piece bread, 1.25 bowls, hunger 3/5
Lunch at Bar Stuzzini, not hungry. Betsy ordered this good-looking fried artichokes, but I just wasn't feelin' on fried food. I ordered 'tomato and bread soup', but the soup came surprisingly bread-free.
LUNCH #2: 3pm, baby carrots and red pepper spears with sea salt, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Rather than sprinkling the clumpy salt, I filled the bowl up with water and salted it, then poured off the water after 10 seconds. The veg is lightly and evenly salted.
LUNCH #3: 4:30pm, leftover risotto, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Damn, I love leftovers sometimes. Sitting in the fridge a few days softened the rice a little.
DINNER: 8:30pm, homemade ragu bolognese over homemade
linguine with parm, lemon seltzer, 1.75 bowls, hunger 4/5It took 2.5 hours from pulling the ingredients to eating, but was an fun meal to prep. The sauce is from the Batali cookbook, with pork, veal and pancetta, milk and white wine, oil and onion, celery and carrot, and a small bullet of tomato paste. Simmered for 1.5 hours, it thickened up nicely. Finished it with sea salt and pepper, and is surprisingly tasty in that slightly funky, meaty round way. The pasta, all egg and bread flour, was as toothsome as ever.
Eating one bowl was easy, and fully intended to eat a full 2nd, but as I was eating it started feeling full. Now I wish I waited between bowls, would of probably eaten less.
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