Greer Gilman's Blog, page 72

Giulia

In happy remembrance of Italy, Thrud, another friend, and I just had dinner at an excellent new Umbrian restaurant a stone's throw from my door.  The food was worthy of the conversation, which was of gods and Medicis.  I wish they did lunches:  their dinners are dear (but not arrogantly so).  We shared all our dishes but dessert.

Of their sfizi ("whims"), we chose their warm semolina cakes with lardo.  Comfort food for the Medici.   Meltingly buttery.

For our antipasti, we first had burrata di puglia with charred peppers, golden raisins, and pine nuts.   This is a lovely newborn mozzarella, only just barely curded:  a cloud of cream.  Then
what was listed as prosciutto di parma with heirloom apples, and aged parmigiano—except Thrud asked for their mortadella, and got it.

Then three dishes of pasta: bucatini all’amatriciana (house cured pancetta, tomato, onion, pecorino); lobster agnolotti (umbrian truffles, chives and lobster brodetto);
pappardelle with wild boar (black trumpet, juniper and aged parmigiano).  Subtly fiery; Tethystic—if that's an adjective—at any rate, deeply and delicately briny, though the truffles were a bit overwhelmed; earthy. The boar came from Québec:  I asked.

Then their house-made lamb sausage with broccoli rabe, pepperonata and gigante beans.  O happy peasants!

The farmer's choice of the day turned out to be a little black skillet of cardoons and artichokes done in a creamy sauce with crumbs

Then we all had panna cotta (madagascar vanilla bean, poached quince):  one each, in blissful silence.  That last is what the seraphs eat in heaven.

Speaking of dessert, Thrud again praised my "amazing" chocolate cake, saying that she'd never had better.  I glow.

I hope my friends will come and indulge themselves when they're in town.  papersky ?

Nine

Birds in the bush

Is anyone else having trouble uploading images?  I have stuff I want to show!

LJ asks me to browse; then when I've selected my picture on my hard drive, does nothing at all.

Nine

Twelfth Tide is the last...

Great joy to the new!

What do you hope for this year?

I would love to reach the just and fitting end of Jarndyce; to see much more of friends, here and elsewhere; to remember how to write; imagine something new; begin.

First catch your wren.

Nine

"... and a bit with a dog"

Just caught the Actors’ Shakespeare Projects's Two Gentlemen of Verona.  Exhilarating!  Crab is fabulous:  a slug of an English bulldog, phlegm with fur, his whole being contracted in one jowl of woe.  His ambition, as noted in the program, is to play the Dane.  On the other end of the lead, Launce (John Kuntz) was plaintively askew; Speed (Thomas Derrah) was a master class in Shakespearean clowning.  (Turns out he’s a founder of the ART, with slightly more stage experience than Burbage.  It shows.)  The two of them, the 30s wiseguy—Will Kemp as Shemp’s Curly—and the cowlicked simpleton, were all over the stage like racquetballs.  Great filthy byplay with the in-out handle of a suitcase.  Bill Barclay was a wonderfully mercurial Proteus—so fascinating to play with and so bad for you.  His adoring Julia (Paige Clark) was cute as a bug, in both her metamorphoses—she got a huge laugh, whipping off her newsboy's cap and shouting, "Behold!"  Nobody’s love Sir Thurio (Michael Patrick Kane) was waspily foppish.  Silvia (Miranda Craigwell) was about nine gorgeous feet tall in stilettos; Valentine (Jaime Carillo) was going to need that ladder.  The play began with a figured dance, a sort of a hipster Playford, with letters going hand to hand to hand, and ended with whacked-out revelry.  And "Who Is Silvia?" was done as doo-wop to a ukulele and a concertina, with the Duchess of Milan (Marya Lowry) chanelling Frankie Valli.  Three more performances.  I think you'd like it.

Nine

A maze

The sun began its journey earlier; and now the calendar sets out along the road.  The year's our labyrinth:  a road, a riddle, and the all-that-is, a moving carapace.  I don't know if I'm going in or coming out.

Walk well, my friends, in fellowship beside the sun.

Nine

Runes

Each a single word, an etymology, a riddle.

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Sepia

The sodium flares give these a queer timelessness, as if they were donated to the V&A.  Shot by streetlight.

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Thirteenth of twelve

The last full moon of 2012, caught in a witch's glass...




...and torn free.




Last night's was sheer Gothic, in a highwayman's cloak of storm.

Nine

The incredible lightness of darkness

Five of Sassafrass came to my Boxing Day tea.  It was fabulous.  The conversation was brilliant and hilarious; the tea was Golden Tippy Assam; and (for once in a blue moon) I baked the chocolate cake, the perfect paradox of dark and light.  It's a Bundt cake, not terribly sweet.  The crumb is excellent—as moist and airy as an April breeze yet densely complex.  It has a slight, ultradark crust, just a bit of crackle like a crème brûlée, but unsweet.  And it is rich—amazingly so for a cake so lightly risen.  Believe me, this cake does not need icing, though it's very nice indeed with crème fraîche.  In honor of the great occasion—a roomful of Æsir!—I used artisanal Madagascar chocolate:  Pralus Le 100% Criollo.  Spectacular.

Nine

Wassail!

Joy, health, love, and peace to you and yours.

Nine