tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4359737494524511362024-03-18T22:01:37.578-05:00Letter From GraceylandMusings on food, cooking, travel, music, and life its own self from Joe Gracey, Jr., music producer, food and travel writer, cancer survivor, frequent contributor to Saveur magazine, musician, gourmand, and borderless bon vivant.Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-69354637386398133962011-09-09T19:30:00.000-05:002011-09-09T19:30:20.223-05:00Austin Statesman featureThis is a nice feature with photos in the Austin Statesman. I thought it was well written and well-photographed, and is a good summary on my little cancer saga:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Consolas; font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://www.austin360.com/music/former-austin-djs-wit-humor-remain-through-new-1793754.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">http://www.austin360.com/music/former-austin-djs-wit-humor-remain-through-new-1793754.html</a></span>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-5525274529079665302011-08-20T14:08:00.000-05:002011-08-20T14:08:29.965-05:00Hello from Chemoland!!<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Good Morning from Houston</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I figure I should catch you up on where things stand in <i>Graceyland Health World</i> now that I have hit a landing place. I promise I will start blogging about interesting things very soon now that I feel better, but therein lies this story…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have been diagnosed with 3rd/4th Stage esophageal cancer since January. This pretty much throwed me from my hoss but as I have said before, you do what you must to survive. This has meant chemo every two weeks since then with the strongest drugs I could ask for and withstand, since I figure the side effects (nails falling out, hair disappearing, weight loss, severe fatigue, neuropathy in limbs, stomach feeding tube [“Nil by Mouth” now joins me to Sir Roger Ebert], etc.) are nothing compared to an early death. It’s like I told my oncologist, “don’t go easy on me, I don’t need nice nails at my funeral”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>However, one aspect of this bravado has been having to grind through the side effects in reality, not just in talk. So, it has not been a very fun year thus far. I have gotten to go home some, see the family, cook a little bit (can’t eat at the moment) just for the cook’s pleasure, but most of my time has been spent in dealing with all of this and in going in and out of the hospital as my white blood count dipped and vicious little infections roared to life in me. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At last we came more or less to the end of the chemo and started radiation this week to try to kill or nearly kill some of the major cancerous spots that were beaten down by the chemo but not dead yet. Four more weeks of radiation and I'm catchin' the first thing smokin'- first to Paris, then to our newly renovated little home in the Languedoc for some actual Life Its Own Self and not just jabber about living longer. I’ll come back to Austin for holidays and family and friends but first I need my France fix, and it is almost harvest time there and I can’t wait to see the red grapes being hauled into town in the hopper trucks and taste the grape juice and eat some nice food at last. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, there you have it, minus all the little stuff that so interests the patient and so bores the friend. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have more to say about the effects on my thinking, my life, and my newfound (again) love of this sweet existence, but that must wait for more energy to accrue in the batteries. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Thanks for your condolences, cards and jokes and I hope to repay you in the future!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Love</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Joe Gracey, Jr.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com7Houston, TX, USA29.7601927 -95.36938959999997729.4666387 -95.817134099999976 30.0537467 -94.921645099999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-63725686012942317012010-11-28T07:12:00.000-06:002010-11-28T07:12:24.357-06:00A Soft Landing in France<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Somewhere in the Languedoc, Southern France</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> – Talk about a soft landing! After fourteen months of cancer surgery (gone), reconstruction surgeries (done), teeth implants (done), and one final operation to allow me to swallow again, (plus a cut finger, but that’s another silly story), I have landed in the most impossibly soft bed of French lavender. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here in the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Minervois en Languedoc</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> ensconced in a village over a thousand years old, we wake up to the sounds of the birds and the breeze and the couple who walk their dogs; sometimes the dogs wear bells. This village was built as an outlying stumbling block on the way to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Carcassonne</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. In the shape of a snail’s shell, it winds around a central green where the ancient church serves as the final refuge after every foot of the circulade has been defended. Under the Romanesque church, there is an altar from an even earlier chapel which is easily as old as the first whispers of Christianity in Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now the village holds two hundred fifty people, mostly artisans, vignerons, ex-pats from various parts of Europe. We are only the second Americans to come here, and certainly the first Texans. I intend to put a Cathar flag and a Texas flag out front soon as it warms up.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApNvQXd1NQEGzLsPH2oTbJrORqqZMtijeLojHtaQ3GU_p49AP7Y5PLfoypsnxP5ch5NBnEM-BpBIs9Dd82reXjKMuOKHxZ0cKAfFhVmjX1rUGHf3P3RiEmF8Pl-FW4_NZJ0F8Gz1yewg/s1600/IMG_0169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApNvQXd1NQEGzLsPH2oTbJrORqqZMtijeLojHtaQ3GU_p49AP7Y5PLfoypsnxP5ch5NBnEM-BpBIs9Dd82reXjKMuOKHxZ0cKAfFhVmjX1rUGHf3P3RiEmF8Pl-FW4_NZJ0F8Gz1yewg/s320/IMG_0169.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I had no idea when we first decided to buy a little home here that the area was teeming with history, both bloody and benign. This is the home of the Troubadours and the Langue d’Oc in which they couched their poems set to music; courtly love, knightly bravery, the beauty of existence. Later it became the center of the first protestant movement and the Pope in Rome used that as an excuse to join with the weak King in Paris </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">view out our front window</span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">to come here with a band of brigands and plunderers to dethrone the Count of Toulouse, who was as powerful as the King. Money, land, and power were of course the engines of this invasion but Christianity was the cover story. Every single protestant </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cathar</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> was slaughtered, starved, or maimed and marched away to death on a bonfire. The Catholic Church resumed its collection of tithes and lands, the Counts were de-fanged, and the land became ostensibly Frankish, but in truth it never happened in the hearts of the people here. The accent still reflects the old langue d’Oc, the sense of independence and grace still flourishes, and the food is very different.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is almost December now, and cold by Texan standards; about 45 to 60 and going down. Last night it reached 34 or so. I finally learned how to wear enough layers and a wool scarf and heavy overcoat. Some locals are still going around in shorts or normal outfits, which beats hell out of me; must be thicker blood. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is wine and olive country and has been since the Greeks and Romans brought their cultivars here and planted them to foster trade. Grapes spring up here un-planted like Johnson grass in Texas, and olive trees stand silvery in every little corner and wedge and otherwise unusable piece of land. Apricots, cherries, peaches are on sale everywhere during harvest. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The wine is in the tanks now, the harvest finished on about October 20</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. I will be tasting them this week and try to form a sensible opinion, though I don’t really know what the hell I am talking about yet. That is my next mountain to climb – viticulture in this beautiful part of this ancient land!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Next: the perils and insanity of renovating a thousand year old stable!</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment-->Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-41622173727104079582010-08-18T16:35:00.001-05:002010-08-18T16:38:56.783-05:00Red Rice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6hyDh0QaNp4rsaRPp3ExJWdiLo7s_WDKWWT8Goqlth77xXuyPtxK8FMlRNPHEwtWgKq2Ru_67br8rGkU1ofaDcKzBSC1Bf7jA8bqzlKff04MUJj000JN3VNzqrGlxrCC7-4m8bgvdtH8/s1600/Joe+Weinie+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6hyDh0QaNp4rsaRPp3ExJWdiLo7s_WDKWWT8Goqlth77xXuyPtxK8FMlRNPHEwtWgKq2Ru_67br8rGkU1ofaDcKzBSC1Bf7jA8bqzlKff04MUJj000JN3VNzqrGlxrCC7-4m8bgvdtH8/s320/Joe+Weinie+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Joe near Rice U campus</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">well, i'm blogging painfully with one hand this time- another story- but <a href="http://www.apronless.com/">Miss Apronless </a> demanded that i put my arroz recipe where my mouth was, or something, so here is my basic go at the idea from a couple of years ago. I might make minor adjustments to it now, but this still holds true until i can get my other typing hand back in the game. Here ya go, madame, and thanks for luring me back to work:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 18pt;"><b>"Spanish" Rice or "Red Rice"</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">This makes enough rice for four people as a main dish or six people as a side dish. Try to use Texmati, Cajun “Popcorn” rice, or Basmati as they are the best long-grain rices on the market these days. They have extra flavor and aroma that standard white rice lacks. I am using a sort of pan-Mediterranean method here, as I think it gives the best flavor and look. This works equally well for Cajun or Mexican food, as they are both derived from this method of cooking rice. I try to use broth made from the ingredients of the other dishes in the meal- for seafood, use a seafood broth, for chicken, chicken, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">1 cup long-grain white rice<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Extra-virgin olive oil<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Butter<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">1/2 yellow onion chopped<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">1 short stick celery, chopped<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">1/2 carrot, diced<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Half a tomato, chopped fine or liquified, or some tomato paste in a rush<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Handfull English peas, frozen (raw) or fresh (cooked)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Dry white wine (leftover wine is good) <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">2 cups broth<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">1/2 t. Salt & Pepper<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Sauteé the onion, celery, and carrot in 1 T. butter and 1 T. olive oil until soft. Add the rice and heat until it becomes opaque. Add wine to cover, simmer until evaporated. Add tomatoes and heat until they lose their liquid and become soft. Add peas, broth, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer, cover, turn to lowest possible flame, heat for 20 minutes. Rest covered for 5 minutes and serve. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-38176236576759011282010-05-07T12:46:00.023-05:002010-05-07T14:20:48.632-05:00Mother's Day Altar<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX2wgr5XkKT4wkjVoxFBtL9xDrnPhJsWs43q2QAOkMMJDMZhv3sEIhJvfXKp6rowyeWL8uCe5hv2nWl-6kCUd9CzXguQikrBiWyWvcD4hJdaEg6_y2758u8BCKGc1T4jMZ0ITrLScLltA/s1600/IMG_0090.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX2wgr5XkKT4wkjVoxFBtL9xDrnPhJsWs43q2QAOkMMJDMZhv3sEIhJvfXKp6rowyeWL8uCe5hv2nWl-6kCUd9CzXguQikrBiWyWvcD4hJdaEg6_y2758u8BCKGc1T4jMZ0ITrLScLltA/s320/IMG_0090.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468606879319500786" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It being almost mother’s day here in the U.S. I thought I would try to honor my own mother (my eulogy blog post for her is </span><a href="http://graceyland.blogspot.com/2009_08_03_archive.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">), wh</span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">o passed away this year. I was reminded that </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_D'Arcy"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Father Brian D’Arcy</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, our progressive Irish friend, once said to Kimmie, “never forget to pray for the dead”. That seems to me to be a very Catholic idea; growing up in the Disciples of Christ, a kind of liberal Protestant bunch, I don’t think I ever heard anybody make that statement, and the only praying for the dead I ever heard was at a funeral where it seemed natural to do so on that day. However, we never lit candles or went out of our way to address the spirits of our ancestors, or worry about things like Purgatory or Hell or where our relatives had ended up. Nothing in our services ever addressed it as some sort of problem, or undertaking.</span></span></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 246px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eKrHL-7YgXo9Ro_8ehiVh7KTMdwW6y38jSE_UD1jwXlgmnCMyA5-XZwDkGdWYZMWfHWfTHAS95ShR8TCTPqT5BoYMKlknl9u3Zabr2cy0-aLNrI9csK3nS0goo8KCTk3-L74ccCLG-M/s320/Posada2.Catrina.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468607110782285762" /><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">When I became aware of the Day of the Dead </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">(Dia de los Muertos</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">) ceremonies in Mexico and in some Mexican-American communities in Texas, it was a revelation to me and seemed sort of spooky but fun. Anglo Texans have adopted some Day of the Dead trappings as an addition to our celebrations of All Hallows Eve and Halloween. (Texans, apparently unlike our brethren in Arizona, treasure our shared Mexican heritage. Or most of us do, anyway…)</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsPobjrnZzNepora4N3b6LYo-B9QQU_lF1GLwbVst-67aux5OpmV4_DO5qt5Dy0CWCDRIrISlo-ZKn8032cIzvFhORoF6zHLD4gEHlIsVwwu8dr9LOMsIOqvq8VoSPJTZPRBc8SIYBlRY/s200/J23Mass-tiaras.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468604447824309010" /><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I think most Protestants miss the magic of some of the Catholic ritual, most without realizing it and be damned if they’d admit it. Humans apparently need ritual and magic and a sense of being able to address The Gods somehow with some tool. We pay people to be our “ministers” or shamans, even the most steely-eyed Protestants of us. The story of Jesus as actually told in Protestant churches is impossibly filled with hoodoo and magic and spilt blood, allegory and horror, but all of that is merely alluded to. Only the Catholics come right out and say that it is really magic and stuff really does happen in the ritual of the bread and wine and that you really can help pray your relatives out of purgatory and into heaven, as I understand it anyway.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">So, it came to me that I would set up a little “altar” to my newly dead mother and my dead father and light a candle like we see in all the big cathedrals we visit as tourists in Europe. I have no idea what I am doing, and barely why. I just feel a yearning to do something more concrete than mourn, or cry, or think about them. More concrete and yet totally allegorical and magical, in fact.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 252px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAISHYBQGpArK9613vx1s1-CS_rDXWsaDCuwrBXY4pCL-GBe6PPIzvAFVo25KzB2dPqZCLmmw6_FccTphKwn1rwHDMOj_L_EU8khIfEIjHkLka9JsJncRvaH-qLpesEptRgQNp-bfv8mI/s320/altar_burnt_offering.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468609458051496594" /><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Mankind has been lighting stuff and waving it around and using the smoke to carry prayers for thousands of years, of course. Plants like sage in the Native American religions, remnants of slaughtered animals on the altars of the Jews, candles in cathedrals, those incense burners the priests wave in the mass. We hope the smoke, the aroma, will carry all the way to God and he will hear our pleas. We ritualistically roll a joint and pass it around the circle of friends as the fragrance of skunk weed lifts to the sky. To me the candle’s flame is like an ongoing prayer for my parents’ souls that carries my love and admiration and longing to them, I hope.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It is odd to me that I find myself doing this, or even thinking it. I am not religious. I have no concept of “God”, do not particularly care if he exists or not, and do not find that worrying about my own afterlife is a profitable enterprise. I hope, but I do not worry. No religion has a hold on me, or power over me one way or another. I think one basically as silly as the next. So what on earth has possessed me to set up an altar now?</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; min-height: 23px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I think trying to come to terms with my mother’s death, in the midst of my own battle for life against cancer, has caused this. Mourning is difficult for me. Big boys don’t cry, and Texas men are made of stronger stuff. My ancestors tell me to buck up and get on with it. Well, sometimes you just have to cave to the need for ritual, for healing balm, for something outside your own little tiny speck of self. I guess this would be it. God bless you and keep you, Mother and Dad. He’ll be needing a good laugh, after all...</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 274px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7z2t4CZjs3iZFT80LwOtgw3axgGA1_VyjojM7kMPUoESeXMYkU-v2ogeWLTONNpGUOPTKZkLXFc9OnoEqVqbtGaFA3g99ZlbhDklTyycIPSwTy5vRbUnOB2JIN7yEkNgA8w-gy6QVNWY/s320/bs100427.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468607937584400562" /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-25257117193548217452010-03-02T13:18:00.012-06:002010-03-02T14:00:49.871-06:00Richard Olney's Pork Chops with Mustard Apple Sauce<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></span></span></span><img style="text-align: center;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 136px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFiLiz9Buq52CnPV7lUsTwRF5xNFrJxOZ_7gigCBWQbSbnm0yHPpAt6eaN14y8vvPoUqXNYgyj5-MBWojQH-DvJr84SMF4rebKutdRR1SHAcygAtbZhaux2HiahkrUtcnF_jU15HSz3nQ/s320/chez_panisse10.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444125936395258130" /><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">I noticed recently that some of my twitter friends had posted adaptations of a pork chop recipe from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Olney_(food_writer)">Richard Olney</a>, one of the first and still maybe the best American food writer on French cookery. His work studs my cookbook shelves, for he was prolific and brilliant. </p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_yLENmu93tp_OrF12ve4cbhYEVgRNnm6kutmH0T_n6vrK02p2fKtPe4Wc6PI1ZWMq1TZu5P5dezFvVHtj2FMY2n9d3J4vaR4nfxknssJkbA_6x2DsZT3ot3VE2wwvvUAm351Ba2C-UI/s320/1883283434.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444126312025147874" /><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">From him I and many others became inspired to cook real French food with an emphasis on Provence and on good wines. He mentored Alice Waters and Kermit Lynch, among others.</p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"> I never met him but I feel like I did after having immersed myself in his books for years and cooked hundreds of his recipes and techniques.</p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz45d2OtFxokSn0uDAqsvAO-Lv2ZABZTjF19OkDtH9wrU4l9dwZ8-A9K0Vi4Poxa8N4-abSGyoRTZP83CRaDyCTV7bNsNzgEkOkRSd9-rJic17b7qh3hXVpaJXBfog1SkLY7LAPyMitH0/s200/Bella+Cucina+Grill.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444127522691748850" /><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">We have a really cool <a href="http://www.specialtyfood.com/fileManager/47364BellaCucina.pdf">fireplace grill</a> that was marketed here by Alice Waters, made in Italy of very sturdy iron. We use it to cook all winter over oakwood fires. I thought I would do one of our typical evening’s meals adapting this Olney recipe:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: center;"> <b>Pork Chops with Mustard Apple Sauce<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Adapted from Richard Olney <i>Simple French Food</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">4 thin pork chops, rib or loin, brined<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">2 T. butter<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">2 lbs. cooking apples, peeled, cored, sliced thin<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Pork brine*<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">8 oz heavy cream<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">5 T. Dijon mustard<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">4 T. white wine<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Freshly ground black pepper, sea salt</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Brine chops for 1 hour. Pat dry, moisten with olive oil. Heat grill in fireplace over high heat. Put apples in buttered earthenware vessel uncovered (tajin or cazuela) in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Grill chops for about 7 minutes on each side over very hot coals while apples roast. Put chops on top of apples in earthenware dish on front of grill over lower coals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Add splash of white wine,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>place back over coals, reduce. Mix mustard with cream and pour over chops and apples, shaking to let it sink into apples. Grind pepper over top. Simmer over coals for 15-20 minutes or until sauce is reduced slightly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>*brine</b> – 1/4 c. kosher salt, dissolved into 1 qt. Warm water. 1 T. ground sage, 1 crushed garlic clove, 1T. Steens Syrup or brown sugar. 1 T. dried thyme. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-71917904985497057022010-02-23T15:58:00.018-06:002010-02-24T15:32:42.909-06:00<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg441wM4sUbYP4RRBuaw_bkY_BUVJmTwY1Qh-0ozRjGk4rJ7sKX6OCMUymLHWsv1IHaG4O0S5LSp3-VVB1Fay5p91YazDTgkeopSLaKl7dF3z9ZXsH4dnti0EY0bwHqMyghjvvJMNusckQ/s1600-h/IMG_0053.JPG"><img style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg441wM4sUbYP4RRBuaw_bkY_BUVJmTwY1Qh-0ozRjGk4rJ7sKX6OCMUymLHWsv1IHaG4O0S5LSp3-VVB1Fay5p91YazDTgkeopSLaKl7dF3z9ZXsH4dnti0EY0bwHqMyghjvvJMNusckQ/s320/IMG_0053.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441562782632441106" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It is snowing in Austin! I know, for you living in cold climes snow is a big drag once the intitial prettiness wears off and it turns to gray slush.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> view out the back door of the wine cellar and studio </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">For a Texas kid however, snow is a rare thing known mostly from books and Christmas carols and movies. We actually took our daughter Jolie to Switzerland just to see some real snow. So when it snows here in Austin, this far to the south in Texas (we can grow olives and palm trees here) it is a large deal. It never stays more than a day or two, and the roads almost never freeze, but people here start driving like bloody fools and running into each other every time.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">§</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">We just got back from a nice little tour around the UK and then finished up in Rome for some rest and Culture. I still can't eat due to the tiny little opening in my new esophagus, but I can eat </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">pasta y fageole </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">and nibble on some things a bit. The amazing thing about Rome is that no matter how well you think you are prepared for it, you are not. I mean, after all, we've all seen a jillion movies, read the books, watched the travelogues on TV. We've seen the Pope creaking around St. Peter's in his silken robes waving his hands around in the air like an old man on the front porch shooing flies (speaking of which, one curious fact about Ireland is there isn't one single front porch on the island- I think a saint must have banished them a long time ago). But until you get down there on the ground in front of the Colosseum and gawp up to the top, or walked softly around in St. Peters listening <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">to the ghostly choir reverberate against the stone and then run smack dab into Peter's tomb </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">right there in front of you </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">you just can't know how vast it all is. So big that you almost can't cram it all into your eyes and brain. These guys build big, and they build to last. We can't wait to go back.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Had great gigs, and some surprisingly good meals in England. More on that later, if I can ever jar my anesthesia brain back into reality...good to be home again.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKXOjBjC3zCr8NidovXEbvAXVjKvEqLzaF10RRTqnzgmlrnEReiO8zwcniSSPqoH0qMgPNK7yBZ8xKC1ACpSLzXLRE45SgWou29DcgolOEknnh1oXZH7ctINYLBDd35xg3ZolB4LcWTOY/s320/IMG_0609.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441925498380217842" /></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-22574311841748534252009-12-11T16:13:00.010-06:002009-12-11T16:54:20.474-06:00<img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 204px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1551NXR9YFiTExvigHVfUPIfht4chB6hSH5893q6eovvqHpp9vYm01yTpNtAfwbHUlOJsTMPlgojgQcwByG_J0yDsxbG9lr4haZuQlA4Bf9ofsq4kAZ7lsKjBEi3AN9DZSM28oCMGqg/s320/Slate+Top+copy" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414106480572681138" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span><div><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Well, here I have landed. After a thirty-year cancer recurrence last May, a bunch of surgeries and follow-ups and dental implants, new teeth, new speech prosthesis (fo</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">r an example of what I am doing, click </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="http://www.webwhispers.org/Library/TEPProsthesis.asp">here</a>)</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, some triumphs and some blasts of disappointment, I have landed here yet again.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Lots of dentists and doctors over the years said, “nope, no dental implants for you buddy- too much radiation, too risky, might bust the jawbone and ruin your life forever” so I gave up on that. One day the BLD (Brilliant Lady Doctor/Dentist at <a href="http://www.mdanderson.org/about-us/index.html">MD Anderson Cancer Center</a> Houston) said, “oh, yeah I can” and she proceeded to do so and now I have implants and new, functioning teeth and a smile.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Lots of doctors over the years said “I wouldn’t operate on </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">that neck flap area, too risky, might not heal. Sorry you look funny, but that’s just life.” One day the BCD (Brilliant Chinese Plastic Surgeon Doctor at MD Anderson) said “hey, let me do your new flap and I will fix that old ugly stuff too” and he did. He said I had plenty of good blood supply to the area, healing no problem. I’m fully healed, I look much more normal, and I can go to the grocery store without small children running screaming into their mother’s arms pointing open-mouthed and speechless at the monster-man carrying the </span></span><a href="http://graceyland.blogspot.com/2009_02_09_archive.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">pigs’ feet</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">First thing the BLD surgeon said to me on my first day there was, “Hey, how long has it been, we should get you talking”. Not “sorry, this is going to be long and hard and may not work” or “not sure what to do about this” or “half your head and jaw are about to disappear”, but “hey, you should be talking”. And now, I am. It took her three tries, the first two failures, third time the charm, and today I am talking. After thirty years of silence, writing pads, frustration, sadness, you name it- I am talking. Not pretty yet, kind of gurgly and burpy, but saying words and cussing my brother on the phone. He said I sounded just like "the old me, drunk". She didn’t give up, shook off the advice from one doctor not to bother, kept on trying, and never stopped smiling with me.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I still can’t eat solid food because I can’t open my mouth wide enough to get any in there, or chew it once it is. But, the BLSpeechTherapist is getting me a device </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">to </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">exercise </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">my</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> mouth, stretch the scar tissue in there, and one of these days I am going to inhale a bratwurst, a tamale, and an entire roast chicken, and then I am going to commence to eat some by-God food like a real Texas man.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I am not saying bad things about those doctors who wouldn’t or couldn’t fix me. They were giving what was the best advice they had to give. I guess I am saying that if you want to get something done and you have cancer, you should go where they are going to fix it, and usually can, and if they can’t that day or that year they probably will have invented a way to do it by the next.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Speaking of soup, this is a basic idea that I have been doing variations on this week:</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">Winter Vegetable Soup</span></span></b></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 Russet Potato</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 Carrot</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 Sweet Potato</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 Celery Stalk, ends put into the stock pot</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 Yellow Onion or a couple of leeks, peeled, washed, chopped, green parts into the stock pot</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Chicken Broth that you made from scratch from said stock pot</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Dried wild Thyme gathered in the Minervois in your Secret Spot</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Bay Leaf from your tree out back</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Parsley from your potted plant that never freezes</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Winter Squash, roasted and scooped out. (Place in a 350 oven for whatever it takes to cook the flesh.)</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">2 or 5 pieces of good bacon or dry-cured pork or whatever you feel like along that line</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Couple of tablespoons of good butter or some heavy cream to tas</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">te</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Bread</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Gratitude</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Good wine from <a href="http://www.domaine-sainteleocadie.com/">Domaine Sainte Leocadie</a> down the road </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Good <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnzEeCbGkY">mess around</a> music going in the background</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Peel the potatoes, cut into chunks. Chop celery, onion, add all vegetables and herbs to heavy pan, cover with cold clean water, simmer until done, about half an hour. Add three pinches of coarse sea salt, a couple of grinds of pepper. Use an immersion blender or food processor or blender to puree the vegetables. Remove the bay leaf unless it is too late, in which case it didn’t matter anyway. Add the butter and stir, or add some cream and stir until the color is inviting. Serve it forth with bread and gratitude.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">You can use any combination of potatoes, squash, celery or </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">no, pork or no, thyme or oregano or sage, butter or no. Just feel it, baby, feel it. Good for the soul. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Peace and Love,</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Joe Gracey December 2009</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 78px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDioMxbXnRVKbPt5_CkmtmdIqWCC92otbnfrjc_P5Rr-UR42X6CGv1btfgF8KY-_Y7CBcvSaugXx_Ri5woPWA_5xs0JDOvoAZqEE3L_oJ2EO8MAelULmfr88UXpeElPjMyVmwziDIpdI/s320/Slate+left+copy" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414114443361679730" /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 62px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfW3_TpyyPIPP_1mE0wtF_ucT8ei8Xy303_XILsRREytRtzioM1QKIeKcAx1xjPzfeFOyvm1zRUIGDwrUkgDiHEZbYsyKpUPt8XjyfeulwlFgzhmT_kh-C6d3zoMSXwuKMUfDSeQR0bp8/s320/Slate+Right+copy" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414114846391400706" /></div></span><!--EndFragment--><p></p><!--EndFragment--></span></span></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-83309159009598050842009-08-20T11:52:00.002-05:002009-08-20T13:10:41.031-05:00Soup, Soup, Beautiful Soup!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qYBuGnvGrfbLilHZIm-fKf2pha8e_b6ftNbBDGGdhK__OF28LcEQMkNLuhzeAVikHvVJBr_hVXzgCdnmOenkXbnGVfDBlX5W4FeSZSJhqQJl_cIISPTW-P6coQEQIcXP7KtJi_fXlQ0/s1600-h/pea+pod.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qYBuGnvGrfbLilHZIm-fKf2pha8e_b6ftNbBDGGdhK__OF28LcEQMkNLuhzeAVikHvVJBr_hVXzgCdnmOenkXbnGVfDBlX5W4FeSZSJhqQJl_cIISPTW-P6coQEQIcXP7KtJi_fXlQ0/s200/pea+pod.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372109674845478114" /></a>Being on a liquid diet for six months has been a test of my patience, as has much of my life over the past three decades. I'm halfway through now and I cannot turn back so the only way out is to churn forward toward the distant shores of paradise, a plate of real food.<div><br /></div><div>However, I can make and eat soup. Pureed soup only, which limits things rather sadly. Here is one that I really liked, though, and you could even do a cold version with mint like we had at the restaurant <b><a href="http://hungryinparis.com/2008/09/13/fish-la-boissonerie/">Fish</a></b> in Paris at our home base in St. Germain.</div><div><br /></div><div>Split Pea Soup</div><div><br /></div><div>1 cup dried split peas</div><div>4 cups boiling water or broth</div><div>1 yellow onion, peeled and chopped</div><div>1 large garlic clove, minced</div><div>1 stalk celery</div><div>1 T. dried thyme leaf</div><div>1 bay leaf</div><div>1 handful fresh Italian parsley, chopped</div><div>1/2 lb cooked or dried ham, chopped</div><div>Freshly ground pepper, sea salt</div><div>Ground parsley for garnish, reserved</div><div>Heavy Cream, for garnish, reserved</div><div><br /></div><div>Put the peas into boiling water or broth, turn the heat off, and let rest for one hour. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until peas are soft, about two hours. At this point I pureed the soup and served it in bowls garnished with a sprinkling of parsley and a nice little ribbon of cream floating on top.</div><div><br /></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-52552170967578090392009-08-20T11:33:00.019-05:002009-08-20T14:15:38.125-05:00Random Thoughts about Health Care<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5gIsmnAowpzS314ECTtud6Jlhik0sfplZr4eMrzGxvlGPlN42fyK85-2KtAdxfB3xg81AnY0CdguVzGg_OH7An_wIFySHydAaJevyU0cJj0nibAQdJZFAtwOfy5VXXQcEY2c04vlaws/s1600-h/5615_140726320751_738715751_3363854_8062737_n.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5gIsmnAowpzS314ECTtud6Jlhik0sfplZr4eMrzGxvlGPlN42fyK85-2KtAdxfB3xg81AnY0CdguVzGg_OH7An_wIFySHydAaJevyU0cJj0nibAQdJZFAtwOfy5VXXQcEY2c04vlaws/s320/5615_140726320751_738715751_3363854_8062737_n.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372113508575946194" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;">We just played at the Edmonton Folk Festival up in Alberta, Canada. Great festival,smoothly run and one we wish we could play every week forever. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I made it a point to ask the Canadians how they felt about their health </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">photo Alan Budd </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">care and the answer was uniformly positive, even effusive, with tales about how people had been spared bankruptcy and death by it. Not one negative word. The Canadians thought we were rubes to be so afraid of what they have.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It has been the same experience as we have traveled and worked in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia. Not one horror story. Sure, you may have to wait six months for non-emergency surgery if it involves a very specialized type of care, but you can also get really good quick treatment in the most out-of-the-way locations as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This swill that the right wingers are peddling about this subject is irritating when it is merely ignorant and makes me mad as hell when it is cynical and calculated, as in the case of Ms. Palin, that most despicable of humans, or William Kristol, whose ego long ago eclipsed his sense of decency. Or in the case of John Mackey, whose wealth and power have turned him into a selfish, nasty little man. I won't go back to Whole Foods, John, and thanks so much for your sense of mercy and kindness to us little guys down here at your feet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am literally living proof of the necessity for humane, affordable health care. I have been dealing with cancer now for thirty years and I won't go into the financial details now, but let me be clear: if it were not for the fact that I have access to health care, I would be bankrupt (or rather, my family would) and dead. I am uninsurable; I have pre-existing conditions. Apparently the Republican Party is ready to cast me and all the others like me onto the ice of greed and let us float away into the darkness. If John Mackey thinks that be eating food from his grocery store would keep me from any of these problems, then he is a fool.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am tired of shallow thinking, lack of understanding, and loud nonsense about Hitler and Socialism. Americans had better lift this country up out of this petty little mire we are in, and fast, or we won't have enough left to cry over one of these days.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Kimmie Rhodes and Joe at the Edmonton Folk Festival</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">photo Alan Budd</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL5gLwm1pkG6FZRnENFUw4mAVVtCFRwnwMwYP3XY4EeE6QVNkmHFkIPeFB8I5Tm_8D_1-R9Hzddn3397sa2waSQHrFhg_97jSChyphenhyphenKxAWXAFGanyOxd_PBK1gS6PAJfctSl9R40TFchhU/s320/5615_140722580751_738715751_3363720_2212527_n.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372113638732930210" />Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-64817204307038550892009-08-03T12:51:00.007-05:002009-08-12T12:15:48.056-05:00Eulogy for My Mother<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxoTkNl214kDkrAVTw9ZtOi2EGPcC5FdVHqllEa9A5g02uYR5IMd6HggBF6UcJjnVHUaBPf-JOM2TFOMqLgSMIWFOfh3_uwNsphurUeEDRW7P5hr3eQjeQ5OPn_h78VwE9Lsi3yjGUFhE/s1600-h/24.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxoTkNl214kDkrAVTw9ZtOi2EGPcC5FdVHqllEa9A5g02uYR5IMd6HggBF6UcJjnVHUaBPf-JOM2TFOMqLgSMIWFOfh3_uwNsphurUeEDRW7P5hr3eQjeQ5OPn_h78VwE9Lsi3yjGUFhE/s320/24.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367237568838400338" /></a><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">My mother died yesterday. We all miss her terribly, but are glad that she is no longer suffering. I am putting down a few thoughts as they come to me:</span></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Now, as Kimmie and I get to travel Europe in search of new venues for our music, and as we sample the foods and cultures of each place we are in, I think back to my mother’s insistent drumbeat- travel is good, food is worthwhile, new experiences will make you a better person. I would simply not be who I am had she not been there to weave that into the base fabric of my being. </span></span></div><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><div align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />I would not be writing now, for the same reasons. "English is a beautiful language and writing an art that is worthwhile. Reading is fun but it is also a learned skill and one that will repay you a thousand ways. Intelligent people read newspapers and books and learn from them, and never stop. A writer is as much an artist as a painter or a violinist or a dancer." I didn’t just make those things up; she taught me those things, over and over.</span></div><div align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />I like to tease her friends by saying my mother was a closet liberal, but there is a kernel of truth to this; we were raised to have respect for other cultures and races and languages. I learned from her to despise racial and cultural bigotry . I learned the story of the Jews and the terrible history of the African-Americans. I learned to respect and tolerate other opinions as long as they were morally acceptable. There were no closed minds in my home. Everything was open to discussion and debate and sometimes opinions were changed. We even managed to get through my Vietnam marching and long hair and dropping out of the fraternity, somehow. She hummed along to my Beatles records and drove me to Dallas to get my first bass guitar at the Sears there, and drove me to get my first radio job (but only because that’s how Tommy Vandergriff started). She cussed the liberal media but loved Walter Cronkite, and was proud of me when I started writing for the Austin Statesman, even if it was a column about rock & roll music, and thought it was funny when my father’s friend Walter Caven said “Joe, our kids would be fine if we could just knock some of these damned principles out of 'em”. </span></div><div align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />She guided us in ways overt and subvert. She offered good advice when my brother was casting about for a good career path. She kept her own counsel when we would make bad choices, most of the time. She tolerated my wild lifestyle, perhaps knowing that I might just grow out of it someday. She sat by my bed for months when I fought cancer at 27 at MD Anderson, and called her friend there to get me a good doctor when I needed it badly. </span></div><div align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />She took us to the library and the bookmobile religiously, long before there was anything called a Summer Reading Program. She bought us Glen Miller records and broadway musicals and took us to Casa Manana and the symphony and to the Louvre in Paris, and got us into chic restaurants in New York so we would know what really good food was and be citizens of the wider world. She set us up so that we could take off from where she had to stop, and wished us well. She gave us the tools to live these amazing lives we now have, and she did it on purpose, too. I can’t take a step now without thanking her for it. And now, in her passing, she is ours forever. She lives on, very alive in our hearts and minds and actions. God Bless Maryann.</span></div></span>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-85009840734746011892009-07-12T13:57:00.017-05:002009-07-13T11:02:16.325-05:00Dangerous Beauty<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCh6HZNX1y82EjyPVnoK_d7PBniWMmckgVRwTNyGyQR9EYM3CxUC7ISqZId68-BvAwv-dOT7q_YE1_1xbdnpevofspwDnHyPpjGNLllf4mT972zOoVRTGBWv0AtOtIavzXvn_95qlB7U/s1600-h/800px-Boletus_edulis_EtgHollande_041031_091.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCh6HZNX1y82EjyPVnoK_d7PBniWMmckgVRwTNyGyQR9EYM3CxUC7ISqZId68-BvAwv-dOT7q_YE1_1xbdnpevofspwDnHyPpjGNLllf4mT972zOoVRTGBWv0AtOtIavzXvn_95qlB7U/s320/800px-Boletus_edulis_EtgHollande_041031_091.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357676463572554818" /></a>Mushrooms are fascinating; there is something mysterious, even frightening about them. They can make you sick, or kill you, or make you high, or fill you with pleasure. They have a strange, fleshy texture and they can taste like meat or seafood. To me, there is no aroma any more compelling than that of dried <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boletus_edulis">cepes</a>. I keep them on hand and throw them into all sorts of braises, stocks, and the odd dish just for the little jolt of richness and beefy gravity they introduce. <div><br /></div><div>They also make a huge difference in a regular cream of mushroom soup. We ran across some beautiful portabellos in the market and decided to work on our mushroom soup recipe. I have never done a side-by-side tasting of portabellos and regular white button mushrooms, but the brown color makes them look like they have more flavor to me, so I use them or crimini. </div><div><br /></div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOxJm5kMhjkScEaLy7fGPUYMebX58L2CSx26Cwh18VXK1a3f_2g6SdDelHlr0_bd-J05ln9RA2drd2boZ4FQdFCX2gNHcik-7YdkJgWNStcTADnrrTkW9oHndc8XGqFrYLAwyHGRJINC0/s320/IMG_7694.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357674598915588002" /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose their are two choices when making a cream of mushroom soup. It needs to be thickened, which means either a roux of oil and flour or an addition of an egg yolk and cream liaison. For this version I used a roux, some stock, whole milk, and just a soupçon of cream at the end. I also used another one of my secret weapons, a dash of black truffle oil.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Cream of Mushroom Soup</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1 oz. dried cepes</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">2 c. chicken stock</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">4 fresh portabello mushrooms, stems removed & reserved</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">4 T. butter</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">4 T. flour</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">2 c. whole milk</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1/2 c. heavy cream</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1/2 t. black truffle oil</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">s & p</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Heat the chicken stock until warm, add the cepes and let them hydrate for ten minutes. Remove and reserve the cepes. Add the onion and the cleaned stems to the stock and simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, roughly chop the portabello caps and the cepes together and sauté in a mixture of olive oil and butter until they are browned and give up their liquid. Remove and reserve the mushrooms. Heat the butter until bubbling and add the flour, whisking, for just a minute or so. Add the cold milk and strain the stock into the pan and stir. Add salt & pepper, mushrooms, and the dash of truffle oil. Simmer for 30 minutes and taste for seasoning. Now use a food processor or immersion blender to puree the soup. Add the cream and gently reheat to a simmer and serve. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Should make 4 one-cup servings</span>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Sources:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.dartagnan.com/search.asp?criteria=11&criteria1=11&utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Truffles+%26amp%3B+Mushrooms&utm_content=jgracey%40austin.rr.com&utm_campaign=090713+-+Sizzling+Summer+Sale">D'Artagnan</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://oregonmushrooms.rtrk.com/?scid=406053&kw=3704298">Oregon Mushrooms</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Porcini-Mushrooms-Grade-Extra-oz/dp/B0002NVKZ4">Various</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-66566556545153744552009-07-01T13:48:00.009-05:002009-07-02T15:52:31.332-05:00Chef Paul's Tomate-Suppe<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIlHES8IR8-hPLvOtnRT5lHnE_kl4ojkLUQnEt0wd0DuXhxVY3GuyTPfHEhspEO4eUa3X7DChm3JNrloeuhjsoCvu6no9RsEj81jsPvfavDR_Gq07_pIPCy4CKbst3Z8jnnjVTV05At8/s1600-h/IMG_7564.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIlHES8IR8-hPLvOtnRT5lHnE_kl4ojkLUQnEt0wd0DuXhxVY3GuyTPfHEhspEO4eUa3X7DChm3JNrloeuhjsoCvu6no9RsEj81jsPvfavDR_Gq07_pIPCy4CKbst3Z8jnnjVTV05At8/s320/IMG_7564.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353968424884581266" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">One of the good things about being a traveling musician is you meet people along the way and some of them become good friends. As a result of this, we now have “close” friends scattered from Belfast to Prague. The flip side is, sometimes you lose track and it is very hard to locate them. One of our best buddies along the way was Chef Paul Bumgartner, who ran a little hotel and restaurant in Buchs, Switzerland. Paul loved music, and musicians, and the chapter in our lives spent in his hotel jamming all night with Gypsies, eating his great cooking, and soaking up the culture is one of our fondest memories. His recipes pepper our cookbook,</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1uwxZukp2zA3oLsHRmo6dO5m_l3aXiOqW1-CaXvpgcoTOkxSl12_gOrocH3-fIzrJtPVje390Zu9xG76kx3TwZ6X0WQFjJbOck3lfQV6L-f0HlMD8kJCvSZa4Kcr5doiG13nxBtG8MA/s1600-h/IMG_7443.JPG"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><a href="http://kimmierhodes.com/zimmbook.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Amazing Afterlife of Zimmerman Fees</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, and the war stories from those days are never far from being retold. However, Chef Paul disappeared years ago and we never could find him. We haven’t been back to Buchs, or played any of those gigs, in years. That’s just the way it is with our kind of business. Scenes open up to you, you run with it, and then they close and go away.</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">We were playing a show in Switzerland last year not far from Zurich, but a long way from Buchs, and we wondered idly where Paul had disappeared to. That night, somebody came up behind Kimmie and tapped her on the shoulder and there he was, The Paul Himself, back in our lives again. At last I was able to find out the secret of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="http://graceyland.blogspot.com/2009_04_16_archive.html">Spargel-Suppe</a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">! (It was an egg and cream laison.)</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Since I am currently confined to a liquid diet, soups are the obvious answer for a gourmand yearning for real flavor. We were just in the Dallas Farmer’s Market, on our way home to Austin, and bought a ton of ripe tomatoes. One of Chef Paul’s good soups was a cream of tomato, and he told us how he did it. This one stood the test of time very well; we make it all the time, liquid diet or no:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Chef Paul’s Tomato-Bacon Soup</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 yellow onion, chopped</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">3 slices smoked bacon</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 oz unsalted butter</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 24 oz canned peeled tomatoes</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">with juice</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">2 cups chicken stock</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">sea salt, freshly ground pepper</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1/2 c. cream</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Makes about 6 one-cup servings</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Gently sauté the bacon until the fat renders out. Remove bacon. Add an ounce of butter if needed. Add the onions and sauté them for about 20 minutes until soft. Add the tomatoes and juice and 2 cups of stock. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add the bacon and puree the mixture completely. Adjust the salt & pepper. To serve, drizzle some of the cream over the top of the bowl of soup, or whip it and add a spoonful to the soup as a garnish.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-59116567188988157152009-06-22T12:44:00.006-05:002009-06-22T13:26:49.813-05:00<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Joe Gracey’s Texas Chili Non Carne</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">If you were a Native Texan 400 years ago and you had a mess of peppers and onions and beans and garlic and corn and handful of herbs like oregano and comino, well, your first idea would be to throw them all in a pot and stew them together. All of these things grow wild in Texas and Mexico so the cooks of the bunch developed this soup/stew ten thousand years ago.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">When Cattle Culture became paramount in Texas and Northern Mexico, this stew came to be called “chilis con carne” since beef was easier to come by and meat was less of a delicacy.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Texas kids in the 50’s grew up eating Chili Con Carne and Beans & Cornbread once a week or so, and every cook in Texas has her own unique interpretation of the dishes. Little of the “chili” made north, west, or east of Texas is what a Texan would recognize as a Bowl of Red.</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Additions such as pasta, kidney beans, tomatoes, turkey (!!!) etc. have caused considerable confusion and panic amongst the people, but here I attempt to set the record straight.</span></span></span></span></span></p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8E9m_q87Dyqr38t90CT-EQDQhIfkAH0QIdDQnEn0UT9qUJSYxYZmFxLwT8_Ry9sECaNmiiCNBqjjbasb3vb4k97YPW9_HQwz0wWlx5XOQvxxCSkHF01QyMsrM1KzqxrHqohI2mz6I80/s320/Pinto_bean.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350218522912811538" /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">With the modern-day interest in non-carnivorous eating, it is but a short step back to the aboriginal intent of this dish and so I present my version to you here. The only bean that has the correct flavor for this stew is the Texas Pinto Bean. It cannot be a white bean, or a kidney bean, or a black bean. They all have their place in the pantheon of bean dishes, but only the Pinto will do. Nothing else has the earthy but delicate assertiveness required. If you are desperate, try what Americans call “red” beans, or try the Italian “borlotti” bean. The flavor of this dish depends on the presence of the “poblano” pepper, which is called the “ancho” chili in its dried state, or the dried powder of this pepper which makes up most of the “chili powder” sold in Texas. You can get this online from </span><a href="http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeysancho.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Penzey’s.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> Please note that there are no tomatoes of any kind in this dish. The characteristic deep red-brown color and flavor of Chili does not rest in any way upon tomatoes; it derives from ancho chilis.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> And so, with those caveats, I give you this dish:</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 pound Pinto Beans, soaked overnight, water discarded</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">2 yellow onions, peeled, chopped and lightly sauteed in oil</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">3 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">6 ancho chilis (simmered and processed or chopped, or 6 tablespoons of Texas chili powder) </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Kernels from 3 ears of corn </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 tablespoon of cumin (or more, to taste- careful, there is a delayed reaction with each addition)</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 teaspoon of Mexican Oregano, dried</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">salt and pepper</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">vegetable stock to cover</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">fine cornmeal</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Drain the beans. Cover with stock, add the vegetables (except the corn) and the herbs and salt and pepper. Use the chili pepper simmering water as part of the stock. Simmer until the beans are done. Add the corn and simmer for another half hour or so. Add cornmeal as needed to thicken.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Adjust salt and pepper, and serve it forth!</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Serve with ice-cold beer, Iced Tea, corn and flour tortillas, and garnish with chopped white onions and grated Monterrey Jack or </span><a href="http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/2155-a-guide-to-mexican-cheese-queso-mexicano"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Queso Chihuahua</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> cheese.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-17407952873819617632009-06-20T12:23:00.006-05:002009-06-20T14:58:01.437-05:00<div style="text-align: justify;">Some of my friends have asked for a medical update. Although I generally shy away from this type of blogging (I'd rather be writing about other things), I will give you the short answer: I just got back from MD Anderson. I am still cancer-free, as would be expected.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They tried to insert a <a href="http://www.webwhispers.org/Library/TEPProsthesis.asp">TEP prosthesis</a> and for various reasons, it had to be removed. I am going back in late July to try again. Try googling <a href="http://www.webwhispers.org/Library/TEPProsthesis.asp">TEP</a> and listen to the people using them, it is rather amazing. Not entirely new, but only about ten years old now and really good.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of my doctors recommended that I not do the TEP but I think he was wrong and I am proceeding, based on the advice of the rest of my team there. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As for food, I am still on a liquid diet- i.e. soup, diet supplement drinks, and red wine. I am slightly dejected because it will be November or December before I can eat food again. Having built such a large part of my existence on cooking and eating and writing about food, you may imagine how miserable this makes me. However, soup is a good thing and I am trying to accept what has been handed to me and perhaps I will write a soup book or something. I started out in that direction when it hadn't really sunk in that it would last so long, so I am in the process of attitude adjustment now. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I tell people, soup is just fine as long as it is not your only option three times a day, when it begins to pale. Going to a grocery store brings its own little agony every time I spot something and think "oh I'll do that tonight!" and then remember I can't eat it even if I do cook it. Some normal dishes actually do go into the food processsor and become soup, even if it is mildly ridiculous, but any foxhole in a fight, right? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last night we had a tomato soup that we learned from Chef Paul Baumgartner in Buchs, Switzerland. Soon as I write it all down clearly, I'll post it here. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;font-family:Arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;font-family:Arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;font-family:Arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;font-family:Arial;"><br /></span></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-30781594412365366492009-05-04T14:05:00.007-05:002009-05-04T14:32:07.989-05:00Ripe Fruit<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0myaiBqCnTjvTVQoH5Fo-3q7LBw-MiY5TRe5FcTo-rLUZJEV52S5NE4DsZV2hiTzKR5eWJLJDnpddIOPC_cp7ilg3v757GtnnROQq2JmMLSWix3ID9EKD5fkodU_5IQOV0vdzUfX8l0/s1600-h/Photo+4.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0myaiBqCnTjvTVQoH5Fo-3q7LBw-MiY5TRe5FcTo-rLUZJEV52S5NE4DsZV2hiTzKR5eWJLJDnpddIOPC_cp7ilg3v757GtnnROQq2JmMLSWix3ID9EKD5fkodU_5IQOV0vdzUfX8l0/s320/Photo+4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332052514455724610" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peaches on the tree in the back yard. I'm still all stove up from surgery but I am determined to pick as many of them as I can reach, standing precariously on a chair, fighting the yellowjackets for them. This tree rises from the middle of a giant rosemary bush, so as I plunge clumsy below trying to get to the ripe ones, the scent of rosemary swirls around me. A mockingbird sings the dove's song goofily. Ripe peaches have a scent too, and these have none of the melony aspect that the supermarket varieties have, thank a loving God. I find myself doing something very human, cartoon-like, old as ancestors - I grab a branch and bring it down to me so I can reach the big ripe ones that hang against the sky above me. Some of them are already too ripe, too fed-upon by birds and hungry creatures, and they fall to the ground under the rosemary and I find myself thinking "the gods' share, of course" like a Greek pouring out the first tip of the wine to the gods, or a priest placing a bone wrapped in fat upon the altar so that the aroma might rise to meet Them/Him/Her/It and they be pleased. You cannot get every peach - the gods will have theirs, too! I expect a farmer learns this pretty fast. Peach ice cream soup tonight!<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What better way to be reminded to love life, and love the earth, and love a ripe Texas peach? With sight, smells, sounds, tastes? To love my wife with a love like an ache, who "like a fruitful vine" planted this tree long ago with a vision in her heart that is now real, here, now? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm very, very grateful.</div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-56804957510466551142009-04-27T11:06:00.017-05:002009-04-28T15:23:18.544-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXFkFS7IkPAInplpq3p2XfyTKrW_geJ3AD099X9s7QCF063CSSpCu_2DWfZVW27siHc0_2eY5J8UO0JxkmCzimdJhI_4_YfvrkDpnTtn_etS8sIseDXA7i51mJ2sQcM1J7n66YDNgM9xQ/s1600-h/IMG_2126.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXFkFS7IkPAInplpq3p2XfyTKrW_geJ3AD099X9s7QCF063CSSpCu_2DWfZVW27siHc0_2eY5J8UO0JxkmCzimdJhI_4_YfvrkDpnTtn_etS8sIseDXA7i51mJ2sQcM1J7n66YDNgM9xQ/s320/IMG_2126.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329411127519224178" /></a><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Since I’m confined to a <a href="http://graceyland.blogspot.com/2009_04_16_archive.html">liquid diet</a> for the immediate future, I figure when life hands you the proverbial citrus fruits you turn them into margaritas. Soups it is, then. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Since it is now springtime in Austin, the sweet corn is starting to come in and the Gulf Shrimp is on sale, both glorious flavors that go together so well. To me, the important thing with this idea is to maintain the lightness and freshness of it while grabbing as much flavor as you can, too. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">Joe in the Minervois</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I realize this may bear no resemblance to a classic bisque, but I care not. Although I do think it is important to learn to do things the "right" way, whether it be music or painting or cooking, before you start to experiment, I have made classic bisques, so those dues are paid. Serves 4 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Joe's Shrimp and Corn Bisque</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 lb shrimp</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, mediu</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">m or small, peeled, with shells reserved. Heads-on adds flavor, if you can find them that way</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">4 ears fresh sweet corn, kernels cut from the cob and cobs scraped. Reserve kernels and juice. Reserve scraped cobs</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">4 cups seafood broth (see below)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 cup heavy cream</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">4 T.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">finely chopped shallot<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">*secret ingredient below</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Broth</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 carrot, roughly chopped</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 celery stalk, roughly chopped</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1 yellow onion, roughly chopped</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Parsley</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Bay leaf</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Thyme- a teaspoon or so dried, a sprig fresh. Go easy. Or omit.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Reserved corn cobs</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">To make the broth, peel the shrimp and place peels into a pot with 5 cups of cold water. Add celery, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, bay, corn cobs. Simmer for half an hour or so until the broth takes on some flavor. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Taste it!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">No arbitrary time limit is a substitute for tasting</span>. Strain and reduce to about four cups. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">For the Bisque</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Put the chopped shallot in a pot with a knob of butter and a splash of good olive oil. Sauté until shallots are softened, just a few minutes on medium heat. Do not brown. Add broth and corn kernels and juice scraped from cobs and simmer for 20 minutes. Add shrimp and simmer for 3 minutes. Add cream and bring to a simmer. Serve. You could sprinkle some finely chopped parsley over the top or a little pinch of smoked Spanish pimiento, or both, for color. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Secret Ingredient</span>: If you wanted to get really racy you could sauté a few minced pieces of good fat pork in with the shallots, too, just for added funk. In the South, we would. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-55751775899385345402009-04-20T13:46:00.007-05:002009-04-20T14:27:54.566-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht4RLpHbKYYmPqBGnh9IEDvGF1a1M2pDsJ5xpPosdRIlJBviKg1S39XfJqQgGQwxK8KfIf4b4FcH1RMRFLo7mNVAru9mmBvk0GAl39G4D2zaAhDtGZ2Pr0oY0nM1JotCLwZipFoFU4nDk/s1600-h/002c01c51948$36b8d630$6401a8c0@drenln9uk77f0q.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht4RLpHbKYYmPqBGnh9IEDvGF1a1M2pDsJ5xpPosdRIlJBviKg1S39XfJqQgGQwxK8KfIf4b4FcH1RMRFLo7mNVAru9mmBvk0GAl39G4D2zaAhDtGZ2Pr0oY0nM1JotCLwZipFoFU4nDk/s320/002c01c51948$36b8d630$6401a8c0@drenln9uk77f0q.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326854661032348962" /></a><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I’m impatient. I want my full sense of taste back. I want the swelling to go down and go away so I can see what I am going to look like now. I want a new dental setup so I can chew real food again.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I want my leg to stop feeling weird and numb and weak.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I feel slightly ashamed of this, because I should be grateful and gleeful. After all, a few short weeks ago I was climbing the walls of a deep dark place in my mind, fearing terrible new ordeals and trials. Cancer had returned. I was facing more long, serious surgery and reconstruction. My thirty-year journey through the desert toward this new promised land was ending, with no idea what I would face when I reached my new destination.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">And then, when the Promised Land did show up, it was beautiful. No serious after-effects from the surgery. No involvement with the jawbone, and thus no awful complications. The plastic surgeon did amazing things with his part of the surgery, making my breathing much better, getting rid of some old scar tissue and making me look and feel better for the next thirty years. Making my eating and swallowing better with a tissue implant into the floor of my mouth. No involvement in the lymph nodes or surrounding tissue. All clean, all done, all healed. Nothing left but to rest, heal, and go back for followup stuff.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Next stop, a way to perhaps speak again…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">So, why am I not happy and gay, to quote <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MZWq14uD-A">W.C. Fields</a>? I am, but I am having to get used to the concept. After gearing up, girding myself, setting my muscles and my mind for a blow, the blow went past and nothing happened and here I am sipping coffee in my little sweet office at my beautiful home tapping out my thoughts like any old guy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It is sort of like when they tell you a tornado is coming, and you do all the stuff you are supposed to do, the candles and foodstuffs and blankets and flashlights and battery radios and a good bottle of cognac and you run down into the wine cellar and the guy says “oops, already past, never mind”.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Ok. Well, then. Let’s see, what were we going to make for supper?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Or in football where you see the middle linebacker coming at you to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfJybuzkMT0">smash your brains out</a> and you duck and weave just in time for him to miss you…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I think some people are wired to be positive and to go to the higher place every time. I seem to be wired to go to the place I am in and then whine about it. I am not proud of that, it is just an observation. It drives the positive types crazy. I have tried all my life to change this, and get better about it, but it is a little bit like trying to stop being Woody Allen; good luck. I am one of the few human beings who could have his life, his face, his voice, and his sense of taste handed back to him after a close shave and then whine because I have a swollen place on my leg. And then whine about being such a whiner.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Another peculiarity about being this me is that almost nothing of what I say is really true. I seem to have several “me’s” and the one I describe above is only one of them. I also have the tough-as-nails me that can do anything required and not give a damn, and just did. I have the completely happy me that is in fact out walking in the rain right now in the Texas Hill Country and so grateful and joyful that it would make a puppy sick. The whiner me is just one facet of the total boy, but one that I must address as I rotate around to the next me in the circle. I have the happy, positive, laughing me that is ready for the next stage of what has turned out to be a rather remarkable life after worrying for years that I would be just average and not turn out well.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I have the guy who goes out to a restaurant to celebrate with friends over a good bottle of Rasteau and is deeply grateful for every moment of life, of friendship, of happiness that comes his way.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Are we all built this way? Probably. I guess the trick lies in being able to choose the one that will lift you, take you up instead of down, do some good for somebody else along the way.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Although the thought just occurred to me that I may be experiencing the curse of the actor, who is equally adept at “feeling” all sorts of ways but sometimes doesn’t know which one is real, or even if there ever is a real one.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Am I an actor who is able to sort his personality into distinct types and then inhabit any one of them at will? This could explain a lot of things. Hmmm…</span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-19009822511670145312009-04-16T13:30:00.004-05:002009-04-16T15:58:23.954-05:00Home Again<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKUTzMIGRgU-oQe09UMJEUQ8_g_a63JvO0JTz6YNYUKgtpmsKR5-LGbE3EFgS-FYf6098ykfhqHtEjqcV1TuO4Fw-nId9C_lcOTGtGryJjaMlkBRJUiWHfywzFRZ52GCCPtc_q3D0fUs/s1600-h/Photo+3.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKUTzMIGRgU-oQe09UMJEUQ8_g_a63JvO0JTz6YNYUKgtpmsKR5-LGbE3EFgS-FYf6098ykfhqHtEjqcV1TuO4Fw-nId9C_lcOTGtGryJjaMlkBRJUiWHfywzFRZ52GCCPtc_q3D0fUs/s320/Photo+3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325396346924554402" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Home is nice…stuff is where you expect it to be, the food is fabulous (Kimmie is making great soups for me now), and Miss Liliana the Golden Retriever and Mama Kitty are offering full support, no questions asked. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> My emotions seem to be lined up in order, though- I should be dancing around the rooms in ecstasy, but instead I am apparently going to be forced to experience all of the old fear and sadness and then after I do that, I get to feel all happy. Stupid lizard mind….</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I still can't eat anything solid, or even semi-solid, yet. So, soup it is. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> I think we will make an asparagus soup tonight. It is asparagus season, after all. Easy as pie, too. Easier, actually.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Asparagus Soup</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">1 lb white asparagus, or green, snapped in two, blossom ends chopped into one-inch pieces</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">1 yellow onion, roughly chopped</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">4 cups broth or cold water</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">1 cup heavy cream or whole milk</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Good salt, freshly ground pepper</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">4 egg yolks</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">More heavy cream or milk</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> Makes 4 servings</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Cut or break the tender ends of the asparagus stalks and reserve them. One good way to find the spot in the stalk where tenderness begins is to hold the ends of the stalk in each hand and bend it until it snaps. The root end will be too tough to eat pleasantly. Put the root ends and the onion into the broth and simmer for twenty minutes. Strain, reserving the broth, and put the blossom ends into the broth and cook until just tender, about ten minutes. Turn off the heat, add the cream or milk, salt and pepper. Put the egg yolks into a measuring cup and add an equal amount of milk or cream to them and stir well. This is called a “liaison” and is a wonderful way to thicken a soup or sauce, but do not turn on high heat after you add, or it will turn into scrambled eggs. Add this liaison to the soup and stir. If necessary, turn on a very low heat until soup is just heated through, stirring, and serve. </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-44023387234749310422009-04-13T15:46:00.003-05:002009-04-13T15:53:01.109-05:00Flee! He's Coming Out!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMoIPOYY5H_O-wyoMSG9WzPQr-K6T63xJGJk-T9OvN5bHN2bRwjc_PJRtybw0Qz-EobczbJM3xeMdzDQ1y7lXVCSYoT1XVOHl5bK8iqL_iy3S3KjmkQnvfqIvCprBj14SuTBt18ESBvzQ/s1600-h/Photo+64.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMoIPOYY5H_O-wyoMSG9WzPQr-K6T63xJGJk-T9OvN5bHN2bRwjc_PJRtybw0Qz-EobczbJM3xeMdzDQ1y7lXVCSYoT1XVOHl5bK8iqL_iy3S3KjmkQnvfqIvCprBj14SuTBt18ESBvzQ/s400/Photo+64.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324281450961188434" /></a><br />Wow, sitting in the cafe at the hotel. Biopsies all clear, tubes out, stitches out, real clothes on, a Shiner Bock in front of me. Wow. What a llovely day!!<div><br /></div><div>MMMmmmm, live it, boys and girls, live it while you got it...</div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks for all the prayers, thoughts, wishes, and dreams.</div><div><br /></div><div>Peace and Love,</div><div><br /></div><div>Joe Gracey</div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-41327229905214384212009-04-10T16:06:00.021-05:002009-04-11T12:55:44.458-05:00It's Alive!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSiuDhvTyZeRzlGBuED0Km4vLwo694Mp3HQDs9I7M5nGlShzT8ls1IZqz6xm4LMNLqrwSbJIiNsJwzJWbKrgiHRguGf7PZivxaqxBkFAwO41-aKb9VPYyOXQg8EFZ6bqBOy57Kj25Bogk/s1600-h/MyPicture.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSiuDhvTyZeRzlGBuED0Km4vLwo694Mp3HQDs9I7M5nGlShzT8ls1IZqz6xm4LMNLqrwSbJIiNsJwzJWbKrgiHRguGf7PZivxaqxBkFAwO41-aKb9VPYyOXQg8EFZ6bqBOy57Kj25Bogk/s400/MyPicture.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323489482542161298" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">think I can cram cassoulet down this tube?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">For all of you who have asked for an update on my situation here at MD Anderson in Houston. Thanks for all the "Good Thoughts", 'Sláinte!', and "Hook 'em Horns", - they seem to be working like a charm, so to speak.)<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Dear Friends,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I'm out of the hospital recovering at a nearby hotel (the </span><a href="http://www.hotelzaza.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">ZaZa</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, which Kimmie dubbed the "Zaspital") thanks to their special "MD Anderson" rate, and Monday I go back for a last series of tests and pokes and prods, after which I may get to go home. Some observations:<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- Surgery is now much easier on the patient than it was thirty years ago. Last time I was in an operating theatre for eight hours the after-effects of the anesthetic were almost as bad as from the surgery itself, and waking up in intensive care was miserable in every way. This time, the after-effects were almost zero. Amazing.<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- No more cancer. Brilliant Lady Surgeon removed the cancer tissue and this time a brilliant zen master plastic surgeon took a hunk of unused muscle and tissue from my thigh and used it to fill in the gap. No cancer in the jawbone. None of my fears came true. No bone removal, bone grafts, mutilation, nada. If I can pass the swallowing test on Monday, I can get this plastic feeding tube out of my nose and make a beeline for my favorite Houston restaurants (</span><a href="http://feasthouston.googlepages.com/home"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Feast</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, </span><a href="http://www.caferabelais.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Café Rabelais</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">) and start inhaling soup in a serious fashion. And, as a nice present, the plastic surgeon miracle guy gave me a neck-lift!<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">As for the philosophical stuff, I must confess that one lingering effect of the anesthesia combined with the opiates (for pain) has been a rather dull mind this week, but a few random thoughts straggled to the surface after ten days of post-op recovery with a feeding tube and no food or drink by mouth allowed:<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- Never, ever drink a glass of cold ice water again without stopping to enjoy it. I would scalp you and eat your eyeballs raw right now for a glass of ice water.<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- Same goes for an ice-cold cerveza frosting the sides of a glass, foam dancing on top. I won't take this for granted again. <br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- This is much like my </span><a href="http://graceyland.blogspot.com/2009/02/food-is-life.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">previous epiphany</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> only more basic; a cool glass of water, a spoonful of warm soup, the aroma of red wine as you tip the glass to your mouth. I'm being whipsawed by longing and gratitude in equal measure. Is it possible to regard such mundane things with tenderness? I am now. I bet I continue to, too.<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- One of the larger ironies of this whole thing is that had I not had cancer again and come to this hospital for treatment, I might not have learned that I was a candidate for speech after thirty years of not speaking. Not pretty speech, or particularly easy to understand. But what the hell? Am I complaining? Do I look like such a putz?<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- It is humbling and touching to be told "we are praying for you" or "we are sending good thoughts your way" or "our prayer group prayed for you today". While I remain a grumpy old skeptic, my heart is made tender by this constant inpouring of sweetness and faith directed into the aether on my behalf. Thank you all. I accept it gratefully.<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- this has all happened so fast that it is almost impossible for (my) mind to process. From cancer diagnosis with its plunging primitive fear to "cured and healing" in a few weeks is as mind-blowing as any trip I've been on so far. I'm still way back there trying to deal with the past and already the future is crowding it out. <br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- TV news has it's place, and it is valuable, but unless you take the time and mental muscle to read a good newspaper you still won't know what is actually going on in the world. I am now an expert on TV cable news, having just watched it 18 hours a day for the past twenty days or so. There is a lot of repetition of content, bloviation, and a lot of really dumb viewer input. I understand why; it is a matter of economics, ratings, viewer interest. Still doesn't alter the fact that TV is mostly eye-candy in bite-size bits, repeated as necessary to fill time. MSNBC does excellent night-time programming; CNN also, but less skewed towards my biases, and Fox should be hosed off the field into a swamp of their own bilge. Yeesh, what nonsense they peddle. Is there anything more amazing than the self-satisfaction of the know-nothing? Or worse, the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">professional pretend to know-nothing</span>?<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">- Nurses rule. Literally. They make the rules on the ground. We need more and the job finally pays good money, so think about it. Thanks to you all for your dedication, knowledge, and aid to the sick and helpless. <br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I shall return!<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Joe Gracey, Jr.<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-87338827060460962392009-03-30T16:57:00.002-05:002009-03-30T17:07:36.668-05:00It has been a hard week. I'm down to the last supper before my surgery at 5am. Today the doctors laid out all the different things they are going to cut and splice and paste out, onto, and into me. I still feel eminently lucky to be here at this amazing hospital and am thankful for the dedication and ability of these people, but I am a little scared as I get closer to the reality of the thing. <div><br /></div><div>I have learned a lot about dining out in Houston this week- Houston has become a much better food town in the past few years and we have had some truly memorable meals here in preparation for a month of taking food in through a little plastic tube that will run into my nose and down to my stomach. </div><div><br /></div><div>Today a nurse wrote on my skin "this side" so they would cut me on the correct side of my neck. I was reminded of thirty years ago when I had big red squares on each side of my jaw to aim the radiation machines at, and when Stevie Ray Vaughn and Bobby Earl Smith saw me, they went upstairs at the Rome Inn and got red markers and drew big red boxes on their faces in solidarity with me after some asshole at the bar made fun of me. I loved Stevie, he had a large, sweet heart. </div><div><br /></div><div>And, as Paul Bumgartner would always say, "And so we go..."</div><div><br /></div><div>See you on the other side!</div><div><br /></div><div>Peace and Love,</div><div>Joe Gracey, Jr.</div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-33437107023225538052009-03-20T12:08:00.019-05:002009-03-27T12:41:07.093-05:00What, Again?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwf75_Eps0xF1ZM1dY49c-ZRdpAn_sa3gHxDaAsfK7YOzGLUyxLQrq70d9XOIM4RPqHIY3TKmy42Xhy22MObPDBDDs4ilMxOE4kjuwUQeOyaMC7mqwXpmIdYTWPLX6oz_zgitpkN-nNAs/s1600-h/IMG_0573.JPG"><img style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwf75_Eps0xF1ZM1dY49c-ZRdpAn_sa3gHxDaAsfK7YOzGLUyxLQrq70d9XOIM4RPqHIY3TKmy42Xhy22MObPDBDDs4ilMxOE4kjuwUQeOyaMC7mqwXpmIdYTWPLX6oz_zgitpkN-nNAs/s400/IMG_0573.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315323235645466178" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">J</span></span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">oe in Lyon, France with chicken liver salade, happy</span></span></span></span><br /></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I figure it’s time to talk to my friends and readers who may be interested in what I’ve been up to lately. The quick answer is I learned that I have cancer. Again. After thirty joyous years of being a proud “survivor” I’m back being a “patient” again.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I have written about here in the past, my first experiences with cancer and recovery actually led to some good things, like my intense interest and pleasure in food and wine and “life its own self”, to quote the sainted <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_6_52/ai_75622956">Dan Jenkins</a>. Most of my cooking and eating experiences since 1979 are the outgrowth of those battles with cancer and the aftermath in which I began to reprioritize my new life.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since then <a href="http://www.kimmierhodes.com/">my wife</a> and I wrote a quirky little cookbook/novella, <a href="http://kimmierhodes.com/zimmbook.html">“The Amazing Afterlife of Zimmerman Fees”</a>. We teach cooking classes at Central Market in Austin and we have been known to cook for parties and dinners for money, and to be serious about it. I have written for Saveur magazine and others. We cook for our own pleasure and the pleasure of our friends and family and guests, as another expression of our artistic personalities. Cooking is fun, is expression, is life, family, reunion, reinforcement. And, as one of my writer heroes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harrison">Jim Harrison</a> says, “Eat or Die!”<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, to find out I have cancer now is rather unnerving. I have a small cancerous area on the inside of my gums, next to my jaw. Nobody knows yet just how large or deep it may be. I plunged into fear- fear that I would lose the ability to eat at all, much less slowly and laboriously as it is now. That I would lose my lower jaw, that I would lose my face, or my life. When you learn something like this your imagination runs as wild as a pet chimp let loose in a mall of horrors. What if this? What if that? What will they do to me? How much pain? Horror? Misery? Blood? The human mind is capable of both soaring sweetness and mindless blundering fear.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, there is a vast beaming City on a Hill (a hill of hope only, since Houston is so flat the gutters don’t flow) called M.D. Anderson. On going there last week I met a team of brilliant doctors and speech pathologists and nurses and beaming staff, smiles and kindness at every turn. Capability everywhere brought to an acute point- you realize you are in the place where the best people are doing the most advanced and specialized things.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Instead of sadness and despair, people are undergoing treatment with hopeful eyes and confident faces. Treatments that out there in the world look sci-fi. Chemo, radical surgeries, skin and tissue grafts, skin radiated until it is literally glowing red. Out there we are great oddities and people stare at us uncontrollably (more on that later, I have thought about that a good deal over the last 30 years) but inside MDA we are all just people being worked on, no big deal.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a week I went from runaway terror to runaway giddiness after I finally got a dose of reality. A brilliant lady surgeon who made me feel a hundred times better within an hour. A chemo specialist whose intelligence and sense of humour were like a cool drink of water on a West Texas summer day when the grasshoppers are louder than the oil derricks. I am apparently to be surrounded by a team of doctors and researchers all of whom would be considered the best in their fields in any hospital in the world. An oncological dentist whose mind, while examining me, begins to fly through vast expanses of possibilities and then quickly draw up tentative plans and ideas to make me better, almost whole, again. We ask her what she is going to do and her answer is “I’m going to think!” And when she thinks, big stuff happens.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I like being in the care of women. It reassures me. There is nothing in the world more competent than a woman who has triumphed in a man’s world, as this Western medical world surely has been for hundreds of years . As I observed to Kimmie afterwards at late lunch at our favorite Houston bistro, <a href="http://www.caferabelais.com/">Café Rabelais</a>, you can bet that any girl who makes it this far would have been able to kick the classroom-ass of any guy in school, both because she is really, really sharp, and because she has had to work harder to prove it.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And, now, as the final, wild, impossible cherry on top of this sudden Gulf Coast Good News Sundae, the women (again) in speech pathology say I should be able to speak again. Uh-huh. I, in my sternest fashion, say that I come here with very little hope of that possibility. Jodi the speech pathologist is not fazed by my fatherly gravity. She sneaks up on me and jams a little white tube up my nose and down my throat and tells me to loosen up and quit whining. When she has it halfway to China, she tells me to breathe in and when I breathe out, say “One, Two, Three”. Ok. I breathe in, open my mouth which I haven’t used to speak a word in exactly thirty years, and out comes a gurgling, deep “one, two, three” and it is me, talking quite clearly. I look over and Kimmie has tears coming out of the corners of her eyes and down her sweet cheeks and she says “that is the first thing I ever heard him say”. I laugh and say I sound like one of those movie swamp monsters. They ask me if I want to say anything else and instead of saying “I love you” to Kimmie like I, played by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Crowe">Russell Crowe</a>, will say when they make this movie, I just raise my hands in claws and gurgle “AAAaaaaarrrrghhhhh” like a swamp monster. It gets a big laugh but I notice the other speech lady also has tears and she has to leave. My nose-tube taskmaster Jodi tells me about this patient she has who is in exactly the same shape I am in- no larynx, no tongue, but he is, like me, shaped correctly to be able to use this method to “speak” and has been now for six years. She will put me in touch with him so I can get it from the horse’s mouth, via email.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yikes. As of today, I’m still walking around this one, kicking the tires and wondering if I can drive this baby or not. It is the Porsche Cayenne of my dreams, as Rodney said later. I am imagining the comic possibilities of this new toy, saying ridiculous things, cursing, singing in a monotone in a voice like Tom Waits. Let me at it, I can’t wait to try this out. Surgery, smurgery. Pain? Gimme morphine for my pain and red wine for my brain. The memory of pain is short. Me talking again? The crazed wonder of it is carrying me away on a river of impossible happiness.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, that’s what I been doing while school was out. Wish me luck and wait for the audio file of me singing <a href="http://www.lucktexas.com/Media%20Files/PIAF%20MP3%20sample%20files/Picture%20in%20a%20Frame%20edit.mp3">“Picture in a Frame”</a> to appear soon in this space.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peace and Love,<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Joe Gracey, Jr.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-22917493410840130122009-02-09T18:08:00.012-06:002009-02-11T14:38:08.379-06:00A Pig’s Foot and a Bottle of Beer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2l4zj4LgylqG0HmV209qifkirXGSli4AS39wiaQibMIueeB5TQEytWFfmRh6Km4cGA86qAVrk44XeBprhFr0aFkHl-mLq8IqR5kx2HiNjP7Jn7SMhpMxS89cJTA-doYw68aGwI-tLNCA/s1600-h/fd_hog_illo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2l4zj4LgylqG0HmV209qifkirXGSli4AS39wiaQibMIueeB5TQEytWFfmRh6Km4cGA86qAVrk44XeBprhFr0aFkHl-mLq8IqR5kx2HiNjP7Jn7SMhpMxS89cJTA-doYw68aGwI-tLNCA/s400/fd_hog_illo.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301638524610060530" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0_6YlEJi40">"Gimme A Pig's Foot and A Bottle of Beer..."</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I</span></span> love pig. I love all of the pig that is remotely edible. Tail to snout, the pig is a most noble food-providing animal. It is slightly disconcerting to eat an animal that is as intelligent as a pig; it is kind of like eating a dolphin, or a dog- it discomfits me a little, but not enough to make me stop.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had one of those life-jarring moments involving pig, the kind where your whole direction gets jolted over a degree or two and you are not the same afterwards. It was in Switzerland, where we were living in a little town called Buchs on the road into Lichtenstien and going out from there to play shows. At our hotel we kept ordering this little Pinot Noir from the nearby village of Flasch. Flascher was delicious, bright, fresh and fruity as only a Pinot can be. To find this in Switzerland at $6.00 a bottle, with a soft drink cap on it, was damn fine. So one day we got in our car and decided to drive down there and look around the town.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 227px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2Wvv9qMtvYZGopbeGXdpkS4CtXA-KsThUBfhHOzfeO0CXfCMkfWCWtfxvndONezZjL9kQ0VsfgGfjd0bQo6nJQcUhYXs9bn3bt5jaJZTGXXdlhwkfoN6eSV-RVaPYfuiSxZgZLaM6Hk/s400/Flasch.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301637326216768450" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When we got to the center of the village we could see a balcony and people eating lunch and we wanted something to eat so we started to look for the entrance but of course by the time we sat down lunch was over, as it is in all civilized places after 2pm. It was a balmy, sunny day and we were overlooking a vineyard right smack in the center of town. We ordered a bottle of the little Pinot and a basket of bread and cheese and made do. One table over, a tiny old man watched as the waitress set down a huge roasted joint of some kind, steaming and fragrant. I asked her what it was and if I could get one, but no. It was a hog shank, but not the little wimpy ones you see here smoked and withered under plastic at the store. It was as big as a football and still had all the skin and fat and melted connective tissue. He grinned and stuck his napkin in his shirt and commenced to tackle that baby and I wanted one of my very own. I have been on a determined search for good pork shank ever since, to little avail. And, feet of course.<br /></div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><img style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 262px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXZNV6WPxZsQcDojDF73RYX_pMU4DOnwUV7CnsYhTEJwRtP9ikDUDh0WkEUS4KtLy5OkupuodG6kh3vlLbSltT_UhNGWBfWSgLuuuSnYrZ15S7yQ4Tmp5pt7cfT4_GhbvJ1gSJ3i7a0Q/s400/restaurant_resto7_BG135.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300954243452909026" /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Pork Trotter at Pied de Cochon, Paris</span></span><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pork feet, or trotters as they are called in Britain and Ireland, can be had in the stores here, but always cut up if you are in a typical grocery store and whole if you are in a Mexican grocery, but even there they automatically cut them in half or into pieces if you don’t stop them fast. However, these trotters have had the shank portion removed, so there is very little meat on them and if you cook them you are doing it for the skin, which is delicious, and the bits of meat here and there and the fat and melted connective stuff. I love to eat at <a href="http://www.pieddecochon.com/index.php?lang=en"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Pied de Cochon</span></a> in Paris, where they gently simmer them, then roll them in bread crumbs and brown them all over and serve them with béarnaise sauce.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But this is about a different idea, one that I initially came across in Thomas Keller's <a href="http://www.bouchonbistro.com/">Bouchon cookbook</a>. This grabbed me and I tried making it his way with good result, but I have modified it and it has evolved as I had other versions, notably one at <a href="http://www.chapteronerestaurant.com/">Chapter One in Dublin</a>, our favorite spot there. At <a href="http://www.bistrotsdecuisiniers.com/fr/le-bistrot-de-lyon.php">Le Bistro de Lyon</a> they served it on a "pasta flan", a bed of fettucini mixed with egg yolk and heated in a ring mold. I think I finally have it under control now and here’s my version:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Saucisse de Pied de Porc</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To make the saucisse mixture:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Pork feet, about two pounds<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 Celery stalk, coarsely chopped<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 carrot<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 t. good dried thyme, or handful fresh<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 bay leaf<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 handful flat leaf parsley<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 T. peppercorns<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 1 t. whole cloves<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- water to cover<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- sheet of heavy foil, or doubled regular foil, about 15” square<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To Serve:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Flour<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Dijon mustard<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- bread crumbs<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Bread rounds, crusts removed, toasted<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- or, cooked fettucini mixed with egg yolk and heated in a small circular egg mold<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Place the mixture ingredients into a heavy pot and simmer gently for at least 3 hours (or crockpot overnight) until meat and skin are falling off the bone. Remove all of the feet from the broth and reserve both. Strain the broth for a different use (demiglace!) Remove all bones carefully; there are very small ones that are easy to miss. Hand chop the meat and skin and fat together very fine. Place in a mixing bowl and mix in 1 teaspoon of the mustard, a pinch of sea salt, and some freshly ground pepper. Do not add any of the broth; it will make the “sausage” too loose and fall apart. Mix thoroughly and spread the mixture on the foil sheet on the end nearest you. Now roll the foil up over the mixture and roll it over several times. Twist the ends of the foil until they cause the mixture to be compacted. Put this in the refrigerator overnight.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To cook the saucisse, slice into 1/2” rounds. Roll in flour, dip into mustard to cover, and roll in breadcrumbs. Sauté relatively quickly in butter, turning gently to brown. (Gently, or they will fall apart on you.) Place on a bread round or a pasta flan, sprinkle with coarse fleur de sel and fresh pepper and serve it forth! (At this point you could also put mustard on the table, or sauce béarnaise, or sauce gribiche.)<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-63014237328488142122009-02-03T15:22:00.006-06:002009-02-03T16:22:48.378-06:00Joe's Fonky Crepes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKBrlw-ezgSAMS8R2jNfZeypf1LSR9trm4GIhBQ_DPOC6RCQkmspOD-8Ffxexdd3sYzgxaifrtslZF7szzzVG4wfsJHDZz1ZL3epGnOWV3A_kKvsjXI1EH8BFj-rVS4v5Wgk-AmLvpYg/s1600-h/IMG_5840.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKBrlw-ezgSAMS8R2jNfZeypf1LSR9trm4GIhBQ_DPOC6RCQkmspOD-8Ffxexdd3sYzgxaifrtslZF7szzzVG4wfsJHDZz1ZL3epGnOWV3A_kKvsjXI1EH8BFj-rVS4v5Wgk-AmLvpYg/s400/IMG_5840.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298699710770501906" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I made crepes last night because <a href="http://frenchfork.blogspot.com/">everybody</a> is talking about it being Candlemas, or <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; "><a href="http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2005/02/crepes.php">La Chandeleur</a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; ">and in France that means crepes. I eat crepes in France for an inexpensive quick meal, or a snack, but I usually forget to make them at home. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; ">I don't pretend that this is a classic recipe, or even that I know what I am doing. I just wanted to toss this out there as an idea and write it down so I don't forget to do it more often. And, I want to make it clear that this is no big deal to make and lots of fun to boot. By adding a bechamel I am probably committing several sins, but I care not. </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; ">I remembered that the batter becomes better if it sits in the fridge for awhile, but I didn't have time, and they turned out well anyway. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">For the batter:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;">1 cup flour</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;">1 egg</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;">enough cold water to make it the consistency of heavy cream</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;">fat pinch of sea salt</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;">Whisk until smooth and somewhere between too watery and too thick, nice and pourable.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Heat a tablespoon of butter in a non-stick pan until frothy, add about 3/4 c. of the batter. Watch for the center to become very close to done; you can see it change in texture, about 2 minutes. Flip (this is the fun part). Finish, about a minute. Add more butter as needed to just coat the pan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This made 5 relatively large crepes, would have made 6 if I had paid attention and made them smaller. The first one is never quite right, but it is edible anyway. Next time I would make double this amount and reserve half of it for some dessert crepes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the fillings, I took some leftover smoked ham I had saved from Christmas and chopped it fine. I lightly wilted some green chard leaves (reserving the stems for a gratin!!!), chopped them fine. I mixed these two ingredients with salt and pepper. Then in a new bowl I took some nice lump crabmeat and mixed some of the chard leaves in with that and some pepper. I tossed some corn kernels into both bowls just for fun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then I made a classic bechamel and put in plenty of freshly ground nutmeg. I rolled the crepes around about 3 tablespoons of filling, one ham and one crab for each small gratin dish, then poured the bechamel over the crepes and grated a tablespoon or so of Gruyere over the top. A sprinkling of corn kernels for nice crunch (drat you, Tina Fey!), and into the oven at 400 for about 25 minutes until the tops were deep brown and bubbly, and serve it forth!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>Joe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.com2