Three Mighty Pans
364 days ago, I wrote a love note to the cast iron skillet entitled One Mighty Pan.
10 days ago, I announced a giveaway so you could win one of your very own.
After tabulating all the entries, assigning all of the entries a number, and running the random number generator from random.org three times, we have our three winners. They have all been notified directly, but I thought you all would like to know who walked away with the prizes.
Granted, this giveaway brought in a whole bunch of new faces to the FUSSYlittleBLOG. I am pleased that they came, and I hope that they stay. Otherwise, I think I’m just going to feel dirty.
Anyhow, new readers Schmidty and carmen in addition to regular commenter maltnsmoke all got lucky and have received their $20 credit to CSN Stores that I hope they will put towards the cast iron skillet for which it was intended. Congratulations the them all.
Let’s look back on what the winners said in their entry comments.
Organic Junk
Sometimes we do well. Yesterday was one of those days. It was the first day of our new CSA. The farm we subscribe to isn’t just organic, it’s biodynamic. And we received more dark leafy greens than I ever imagined would be in my home at any one time: Red Russian kale, spinach, head lettuce, loose-leaf lettuce, broccoli rabe, turnip greens, radish greens, and bok choy.
Young Master Fussy came along for the vegetable pick up. He got to play in the sink with some water, as his arms became a “swishing machine” that washed the greens. And he helped Mrs. Fussy braise several different greens with garlic scapes, and toss them with some pasta and Parm Reg.
Then we watched this young man, who eschews leafy greens and avoids them at all costs, eat two platefuls of pasta. For dessert, I let him have a few sips of 12 year old balsamic. He said it tasted like honey, and he was right.
But that was dinner. We did well. Let me tell you about snack time.
Long Time No Eat
When I was living on the West Coast it was bagels. I couldn’t get a good one to save my life. Although after enough time away from my favorite bagel shop on Long Island I would forget exactly how good a bagel could be.
At that point, I thought the bagels at Manhattan Bagel on Fourth Street in Berkeley were pretty good. You know, provided you had the wisdom to avoid the blueberry ones. But all it took was one trip back to the East Coast, and I couldn’t bear to set foot in a Manhattan Bagel for months.
I would like to think my acceptance of these inferior bagels had less to do with my standards falling than it did with my expectations of what could be attained.
This is cogent because recently I went into a new Asian teahouse in Albany and was compelled to order something that I love but haven’t had in a long time.
Summer Whites: An Old Favorite
Some people hate Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a white wine grape that is grown around the world. You will see a lot of it from New Zealand, California (where it may also be labeled Fumé Blanc), and South America. But it also is widely grown in France, especially the Loire Valley where it is bottled as Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.
But I love it, especially around this time of year. At its best the wine is light and lively, crisp and citrusy, tart and herbaceous. I like to drink them young before they lose any of their vitality.
So why would people hate this?
Many also smell like cat pee. But in a good way, if you can imagine such a thing. Some people also dislike the grassiness that can dominate a nice sauv blanc.
My friend John was one of these people. Although I didn’t know it.
John was my serious wine friend, who I had known since freshman year at college. After buying a house in California, John built the several-hundred-bottle wine cellar he always wanted. And thanks to his generosity I have tried bottles of wine that aren’t available anywhere.
Whenever he and his wife were coming over for dinner, I would fret for days or weeks about what wine to serve with dinner. One time I decided to pour him my favorite sauv blanc.
Make You Strong Like a Lion
The thing that’s best if you’re feelin’ glum
Is coconut water with a little rum.
Are YOU going to argue with Harry Belafonte on the matter of tropical drinks? You do know that he is Jamaican. The song is Coconut Woman, and ever since I heard it, I’ve been hankering to try the drink.
Now that it is officially summer, and since I’ve had rum on the mind, today seems like a perfect chance to talk about this cooling beverage.
This cocktail is all over the Internet. But I do love what the good folks at Esquire had to say on the subject of this drink and tropical drinks in general. For the most part we are in agreement, but we have a few philosophical differences.
Early Traumas
Sometimes questions require dedicated answers. The questions themselves are so good, that I cannot wait until the next Ask the Profussor. And the answers are so long that they really justify a post of their own.
Maltnsmoke seems to know how to ask just this kind of question. Last night, he asked several, some of which will just have to wait. Here is what needs to be addressed today:
Childhood trauma of losing ones ice cream? Seriously? If, as an adult, I avoided everything that I lost, damaged or screwed up as a kid, let’s just say “Jack would be a very dull boy”. One does all these things as a kid and recovers so as to be able to eat ice cream and do anything else that makes one sticky…LIKE A BIG BOY. Then he washes up and moves on.
Granted, these are minor traumas. I consider myself very fortunate that the most significant tragedies of my early childhood are melted ice cream, the birth of my little sister, and our family’s move to Florida.
Still, I think about this, and remember my old friend who snuck too much champagne at a family wedding, and could not touch the stuff 20 years later. We all know people who have been through situations like this. Some of them are able to work past the trauma. Others to their dying day won’t touch tequila. Or Jägermeister.
However it also brings to mind something else. Maybe just a little more poignant.
Living on the Edge
I’m a little late on the Dennis Hopper memorial bandwagon. And while I loved him in Blue Velvet, my favorite thing he did was Apocalypse Now (don’t worry, this all comes back to food in the end):
Hey, man, you don’t talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll… uh… well, you’ll say “hello” to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you. He won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, “Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you”… I mean I’m… no, I can’t… I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s… he’s a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…
Officially, Dennis Hopper is the only actor who could ever hope to make sense of those words. And he did it beautifully. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, or read Conrad’s short story upon which it is based, the Colonel is Colonel Kurtz, as played by Marlon Brando. And one of these mind-enlarging poems dropped by Kurtz in the film goes like this:
I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream; that’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor… and surviving.
For me, that’s a pretty good description of how I feel about eating ice cream.
I know this is crazy, but just give me a chance to explain.
Ask the Profussor – Keeping on Track
Summer is here. Lost is over. I survived the desert. You all have helped me get closer to understanding what is going on with Albany restaurants. It has been one helluva month.
If you are coming back from a long weekend and are backlogged on your blog reading, don’t forget to leave a comment on my giveaway post to enter for a chance to win one of three cast iron skillets.
For those of you who may be new to the FUSSYlittleBLOG, I have made a commitment to answer all reader questions. And while I may not be able to do this on a daily basis, every few weeks I delve through the comments to find out what has remained unanswered and settle all affairs.
Now without further ado, onto the questions.
A Summer of Plenty
Mrs. Fussy is nervous. And she has good reason. We may be in over our heads.
For the first time in several years we have joined a CSA. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Local farms solicit members for the season, who essentially buy a share of the farm’s crops. Every week members get a box of what was harvested that week. It’s a great way to eat local and seasonal.
Anyhow, we actually joined a few months ago. I filled out the forms and sent in the check, but I heard nothing. The paperwork mentioned that our cancelled check would be our receipt. So I wasn’t really expecting to hear anything.
Still, despite seeing that the check had been cashed, I was not fully convinced we would be getting our weekly parcel of farm fresh vegetables until my local coordinator sent an email last week.
So, why is Mrs. Fussy nervous?
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