blood’s a rover

Last Sunday I decided to make a sandwich that couldn’t be any more British or tasty:

Rye bread, roast beef and stilton cheese topped in a butter and brandy pear and raisin sauce. It turned out to be one of the most delicious sandwiches I can ever remember eating.

Stilton is a strong, salty blue cheese that perfectly
counters the sweetness of the pear sauce.

“Stiltons, with the exception that they make no noise, are more trouble than babies.”
Statement of Stilton cheesemaker, 19th century

“It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but
a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption.”
-Edward Bunyard, The Anatomy of Dessert

Melt 2 tablespoons each of butter, sugar and brandy and mix in
small chunks of one pear and a handful of raisins. Simmer on low
heat until the pears have softened enough to mash into a sauce.

“Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy”
 -Samuel Johnson

Toast the bread, assemble 1/3 lb. of roast beef and several
slices of cheese and top with the pear sauce. The heat from the
sauce will simultanously melt the cheese and improve your life. 

The recipe above will make two sandwiches, which are best served with a
dark English brown ale- I’m partial to Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, myself.

The only valid excuses I can think to not prepare this dish yourself is if you’re a vegetarian, allergic to shellfish, Muslim or Jewish. And even then, it will probably be worth it. I don’t think there’s another recipe so rewarding that takes so little work.

C’mon, you know you want to.

Obtain brown sugar, bacon and jumbo scallops.

Wrap scallops in bacon and hold in place with a toothpick.

Arrange on a greased baking sheet and top with brown sugar.

Broil 3-4 minutes on each side.

Place into your mouth, moan, chew, swallow and repeat.

My immediate reaction upon tasting these was that my tongue was flirting with
my brain. And in response my brain waved back dismissively and said “Oh, you.”

Update!
It died.

Weeks 4 & 5
It has begun creeping.

Continue Reading…

“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the
beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the
end of the world there will not be another child like him.”
-Pablo Casals

My recent ”Something Right” post seemed to resonate with a number of people, so I wanted to talk a little more about why that experience and others like it are very precious to me.

I really adore children. Unlike the many adults who long ago set their personal preferences in stone and often ignore or avoid anything new, children experience the world with pure, inimitable enthusiasm. They use their senses to explore their enviroments in the most complete way imaginable. For instance, a couple of years ago my nephew Luke and I played in the leaves outside of his house, and it was very instructive to watch how he did it:

First he touched all the leaves, sliding them around and tearing them apart.
Then he listened to the leaves rustling.
Then he held one leaf close to his eyes and looked at the light coming through them.
Then he pushed his nose into a pile of leaves and smelled that damp, mulchy scent.
Then he tried to eat some, presumably tasting them.

My point is that whatever there is to know about autumn leaves, Luke found out that afternoon. He exausted every manner in which they can be experienced. It seems to me that there is something noble and adventurous about that.

Besides curiosity, another reason I admire kids is for their utter lack of self-consciousness. If there’s music, they dance. They laugh long and loud for the smallest reasons. They sing and play and create not because they’re particularly talented, but simply because it feels good. They’re amateurs at everything in the truest sense of the word.

Children also make friends with ease. Many childhood friendships are founded mainly on proximity: going to the same school, living on the same street or being at the same playground one afternoon are all completely sufficient reasons to enjoy a person’s company. You never see children rattle off a series of questions about political affiliations or favorite music and movies before deciding to befriend each other- there are no qualifications, no judgments, no tests.

That little boy’s expression kills me.

Sometimes when I photograph a child wherever I happen to be in the world, I feel uneasy due to the possibility that some parents don’t actually want their child’s picture taken by a stranger. Although I respect and applaud that protectiveness, how else can I capture that specific kind of joy and wonder without, well, attempting to capture it? That said, I also like photographing children with their parents, and I usually won’t hesitate to document that bond, either.

Maandaa lae nohn (Mother and son)

Père et fille

Madre y hija

Père et fils

While it’s difficult for me to imagine raising children myself, I think I understand the main appeal of becoming a parent- a child is likely to be the most beautiful, valuable, remarkable thing that any person can hope to have a hand in creating.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that children are innately good at living. They’re interesting because they’re interested, fearless because they have yet to be injured, and easy to love because of how easily they love.

In other words, they’re perfect.

Having been born in Vermont but living in Oregon now for nearly a decade now, I was thrilled when an older cousin of mine gave me a gallon jug of Grade A Vermont maple syrup as a graduation present two and a half years ago. But it was not until this past year that I used very much of it, and not until very recently that I was able to hear something special rattling around the bottom- spontaneously occuring maple syrup rock candy:

To be honest, I was kind of hoping this would happen. When I was a kid I remember my mom once having a metal tin of maple syrup that had grown large sugar crystals across its entire base, so I cut the bottom off with a can opener and had at them. The syrup jug I have is plastic, so I didn’t know if the same phenomenon would occur, but luckily it did.

Ah-

may-

zing.

Besides getting to eating them, my favorite thing about discovering these crystals is that I get to examine the incredible way that sugar (and salt, quartz, beryl and many other crystals) display their microscopic properties macroscopically.

Check it out- this is what a single molecule of glucose looks like:

The “O’s” are Oxygen atoms, the “H’s” are Hydrogen atoms, and
the “C’s” are Carbon atoms. That makes sugar is a carbohydrate.

Notice the hexagon shape above? As crystal lattices form, that shape gets repeated over and over and over millions of times. As it does so it becomes a substance large enough to see with the naked eye, a.k.a. granulated sugar.

Diner counter close-up

Usually things stop at that size and end up in your morning coffee. But under the right conditions, the crystals will grow into gems large enough to hold in your hand and examine closely.

Those pieces (the ones in my maple syrup jug) exhibit the same exact same hexagon shape as the molecules forming them, only on a massive scale. The fact that you can infer the orientation of atoms in sugar molecules from a piece of rock candy is simply incredible to me.

 To see a world in a grain of sand piece of candy,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your, um, uh, handy
And eternity in an hour.

-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

And speaking of pumpkins…

Buy a pumpkin.

Remove seeds, add several tablespoons of butter, lots of cinnamon, lots of nutmeg,
and a cup of maple syrup. Cover with foil and bake for 2 hours until tender.

Be amazed at the change in color and texture.

Spoon out butter/syrup/pumpkin gravy and set aside. 

Scoop out pumpking meat, drizzle with gravy, and eat.