Of Loss, Resilience and Comfort Food

Born in the U.S.A., and it's still my sacred ground, no matter what happened November 5. Image copyright Columbia Records.

It's 11 days after the 2024 presidential election, and I only just now watched Kamala's full concession speech from Howard University. What a time, what a loss. I guess I've been taking things in slowly. Not all at once.

Between the daylight savings time change and the election results, I've been tired. It gets dark early. I lace up my sneakers to walk and then decide not to. That kind of tired. My Apple MacBook also died after seven years, so I had to scramble and buy a new one. You know that stress. Didn't have $1,000 lying around and don't use credit. I jumped on Dan's laptop early in the mornings and went to public libraries in Montclair and Verona, but you only get an hour at a time on the free desktop computers before you're knocked off.

Finding our way in the dark. Keep on keeping on. But this is America. The people spoke. I don't have to like it, but short of moving to Ireland or Scotland (dreams), I have to live with it. I will continue to speak my truth as best I can, to be honest and fair. I will donate blood. I will pray. I will contribute food for families who need it. I will believe. I will keep close my promise to be a good person in my own life, under my own roof, and out in the world. I will tell stories. I will write. I will help guard what I can. Figgy and I were talking about some ways to do that.

BTW, did you know Kamala's plummy pantsuit with blouse for her concession speech was custom-made by Tory Burch? (Thank you, Vanessa Friedman, queen of fashion reporters, reigning at The New York Times.) 

I made meatloaf tonight. I turned the oven to 375 and let it bake.

I filled a big blue glass pie dish with blueberries and topped them with a quick stir of raw oats, cinnamon, ground ginger, almond flour, toasted pecans, pinch of French sea salt and 2 T organic turbinado sugar, which is sweet and sandy, and maybe a tiny bit less deadly than full-fledged sugar might be for some. Known as raw sugar, it is less processed than the fully refined kind. Anyway, it was on sale at Kings so the bag hopped into my shopping cart.

Well, I have to try to talk some sense into someone and her friend upstairs at 10:28 p.m. on a Saturday night. Yeah, good luck with that.

16 Sweet Gratitudes, Catching Up

1. New Prada lipstick in the house. I bought my first tube in mid-May at the Nordstrom flagship in NYC and used it down to the nub. The colors are so stylish. Prada is so stylish. A lot of lettuce, $50 plus tax, but very worth it. The counter guru helped me find two great hues in person now. But the matte is a bit drying, so best to put the Prada lip balm under or on top, or even dab on Vaseline.
2. Lunch with young MTM*, my colleague and friend, a couple of Sundays ago in Princeton. We ate on Witherspoon Street. MTM had a salad and I had the chicken pot pie. It was a beautiful day, and we had been talking about reconnecting for years. :)
3. Chef Lidia Bastianich at the Ferguson Library in Stamford on a weeknight with Sis and Diane. We soaked up Lidia's hints, such as how to tell if you're buying real Italian San Marzano tomatoes. If a food is made in Italy, the packaging will say PRODUCT OF ITALY, Lidia said. I used that rule when selecting prosciutto last weekend.
4. "A Wonderful World, The Louis Armstrong Musical" on Broadway. I went to the matinee yesterday with Sis and Edie. It was.very.very.good. I've played Satchmo's music today. 
5. Post-theater dinner two blocks away at Patsy's, a landmark Italian restaurant and celeb magnet on West 56th Street since 1944. Best shrimp scampi with spaghetti that I have ever eaten. In my life. The simple pan sauce was intuitively done, "broiled with butter, garlic and lemon," per the menu. Tender butterflied shrimp. And if I were still indulging in desserts, I'm quite sure the ones I eyed on the old-fashioned rolling cart, pushed by a waiter, would have been winning. Especially that fancy ruffled chocolate cake or tiramisu.
6. "Conclave" film about electing/selecting a Pope. Dan and I saw it on opening night of the  Montclair Film Festival. Very well done. The acting (Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow) is superb as are the settings and secret rituals of selecting a Pope. Director Edward Berger was there at the Wellmont Theater and took questions afterward.
7. The New Yorker Festival. Drove into NYC with my friend Anne to see New Yorker Magazine editor David Remnick interview Rachel Maddow.
8. The cold opening of SNL last night, Saturday, November 2, with Maya Rudolph and the real Kamala Harris. (Thank you, Nan, for texting link.)
9. A hike in the Stamford arboretum woods with Sis and Galena.
10. Walks around our block and in Anderson Park and Edgemont Park.
11. Tea nightcap at Figgy's apartment the other night.
12. Dinner in a Dumont tavern with Moey and Tish.
13. "Godzilla" movie. Newest version, made by Japanese writer and director Takashi Yamazaki. 
14. Ina Garten's memoir.
15. Seeing my friend Rachy for late breakfast, another thing that's been put off for months.
16. Work clients, including two new ones. I'm grateful.

I just realized many of these are Italian--numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6. And 12 is famous for its pizza.

*Dan gave my friend Eileen the "young MTM" nickname decades ago, before she was married, when we went to a party she hosted in Weehawken in her pretty little Mary Tyler Moore-style apartment with a view of NYC's sparkling skyline across the river.

Does the Recipe Need More Cream? A Shower of Dark Black Pepper? Straw & Hay and "Ashes & Ink"

By Alice Garbarini Hurley

    Many Italian chefs offer a pasta classic called Straw and Hay. On Friday, I made Lidia Bastianich's version from her book of favorite recipes. The straw is regular (straw-colored) fettuccine and the hay is green (spinach) fettuccine. Add Parmigiano Reggiano, chicken broth, heavy cream, EVOO, prosciutto, baby peas, scallions.... It's an appealing idea, the recipe takes only one page in the book and is prepared in a skillet. But it wasn't all I hoped for. 

Spice, teen taster, thought it needed salt, and I thought it needed more clingy richness, like that first Fettuccine Alfredo sauce I made at Dumont High School in the International Chefs' Club. I opened The Pollan Family Table cookbook (Corky, Tracy and Michael Pollan) and found another pasta in a white cream sauce---with butter, garlic, grated Parmesan, and more cream and black pepper than Lidia uses. Also: Plenty of spinach to boost the nutrition. So I made those additions.

In the end, it was good enough. But I think next time, I will also add some grilled chicken.

***  

 

Julian Shatkin as Quinn and Kathryn Erbe as his mother, Molly, in "Ashes & Ink," about addiction. Photo by Thomas Mundell.

Another two-noun title this week that was not quite everything I wanted/expected it to be: The off-Broadway production of "Ashes & Ink," a drama about addiction. The A word is almost a character.

Molly (Kathryn Erbe) is a pretty widow in an Eileen Fisher-style sweater coat. She lives in her tidy city apartment, wearing a headset, cataloging an extensive library of birdsong with a computer program. It's her business. She and her belated husband listened to birds of all feathers. The recordings also include their son, Quinn. Listen: A baby babbling, then the chirp and trill of a juvenile song sparrow. As a young mother, Molly compared the two sounds.

Now an addict in his 20s, Quinn (handsome standout Julian Shatkin, a boy in the 2014 film "Like Sunday, Like Rain") returns from Serenity House rehab, drops his duffel, sits in the chair where Molly had arranged a folded, fringed throw--stylish, homey. "That place was bullshit," he says. Right off, you know. His disorderly conduct and unpredictability are in stark contrast to the calm home, with a few bright Post-it memos on the wall and yellow No. 2 pencils neatly arranged in a cup.

Good luck with such serenity when an addict's sure foothold (in this case, in black Converse high-tops) is in the house. With his black leather jacket and silver rings, Quinn's surprise return is jarring. Molly's love partner, Leo (Francisco Solorzano at this performance) is a widower with a young son, Felix (Rhylee Watson), who adores Quinn but finds a crack pipe big brother buried under an oak tree at the country house. Felix was digging for acorns when he cut his hand. A deep cut for a parent. Shame. Your older child modeling substance abuse for a younger sibling. Making a faint effort to bury it, but no. You failed once, now might fail again because you could not nip the problem in the bud. What a loser you are. Two lives now about to be wasted at your hands.

That's how "fixers" talk to themselves. People who drain their own sanity and health, thinking it is their responsibility to solve the problem, rather than remain standing, even personally thriving, in the face of it. To be better and do better, to do their best, family members eventually arrive at acceptance. 

The Al-Anon part is good. We learn about a secret society. First, Molly faces the hand she was dealt, which takes a lot out of her, out of us all. "Where are you? Where’s my little boy who loves spinach and pirates and snowy owls?" Molly asks. "You hold your beautiful baby in your arms and smell the breast milk, crusting a little behind his ears. I’d dip Q-tips in baby oil and clean back there, really gently. Rock him to sleep and then...who knew... you end up holding a body bigger than yours and pray that he’s still breathing." 

Quinn (Julian Shatkin) and his mother, Molly (Kathryn Erbe). Photo by Thomas Mundell.

"Take Care of You. Who?" She tells of "a drudgy meeting in a dark church hall," code for Al-Anon. Molly's blue denim jacket looks small, so small on her dainty frame, but she is a fighter, a would-be warrior, silvery streaks in her hair, faint crinkles around her eyes. Life's badges, which we mothers see, and celebrate. We know the little creases are hard-earned and true. No mother wants addiction at her door. She loses precious time that could go toward, among other things, bedtime beauty cream rituals. Or work, or creativity. Or other family members. 

We are tiny but mighty in the face of A's force and grip. Like Molly, we learn the three C's of Al-Anon. "I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, and I can’t cure it." It lifts the blame.  

"Having you here and not knowing where you are is a fucking nightmare," Molly finally says to her son. "Hand me your keys. Leave me be until you can learn to stay alive. You know where to go for help."

Only problem, the story may be a bit too neatly tied up with a square knot. Molly's clearheadedness, bravery and hope, her success at getting Quinn out, at least for now, with support from Leo. IRL, it can take what feels like a lifetime to get there, and maybe there is a catharsis in watching others struggle with us, not pull it together. There's nothing neatly tied up about addiction, for the addict or a bystander. Still, this story helps us ponder, find inner strength. Know we are not alone. We wonder from seat F1 how the writer, Martha Pichey, knows all this.

The play is directed by Alice Jankell, mother to the actor who plays Quinn, with that great hair, ripped* muscles--and a tattoo that may or may not be made from both his father's ashes and studio ink.

Ashes & Ink
At the AMT Theater, Manhattan.

Performance time: 90 minutes. Running through the 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, November 3.

Leo: Javier Molina.

Bree (Molly's sister): Tamara Flannagan.

Scenic Design: Tim McMath.

Costume Design: Kaitlin Feinberg.

Sound Design: Alexis Attalla.

Lighting Design: Paul Hudson.

Al-Anon Family Groups: alanon.org.

*Merriam-Webster says "ripped" means

1. being under the influence of alcohol or drugs: high, stoned
2. having high muscle definition

Setting Intentions

This beautiful photo is from the Mario Cuomo Bridge website. I can't find the photographer's name, but wish I could. What a keen eye. 

When I turned 60 in January 2021, as another pandemic year unfolded, the Tappan Zee/Mario Cuomo Bridge walking path was open. Even in the chills of winter, I wanted to walk it, but also wanted someone in my family to join, and nobody was convinced. So while I was in Connecticut in September, about 35 minutes drive from the Westchester start of the bridge, I set a Sunday to walk it. Dan drove and met me. It was all I hoped it would be, that Hudson River view, the nature, the wide expanse, the big feeling. The connecting with Dan. The guide says it takes 80 minutes each way to walk (3.6 mile span, then back again), so we did maybe 2/3 of the length and turned around. I told myself I would do it weekly. 

I think I'm going today, and hope Dan joins after trimming the hedges and also that my friend Anne comes. Otherwise, I'm good on my own, starting on the Nyack side this time.

Intentions for this week:

• Every weekday, I get up about 7:30 a.m. I would like to shower first before doing Wordle, Spelling Bee, reading some news articles and seeing Punch out the door to the school van. Problem is, I like getting a cup of coffee with cream right away, and lingering over it. So do I do that briefly and then go back up to shower? I get sucked into the comfort of it all, the swirl of the internet and social media sometimes, too. (I would like to know what you do, friend.)
• Apply makeup (not much, but enough to look alive and bring my eyes out), earrings, necklace, skirt and shoes. Put socks and sneakers by the door so I'm ready to walk later.
• Get to my desk and get busy on writing assignments, don't work from the living room furniture.
• Take a walk every day. I have been pretty good about this, but not at a set time, and that seems risky.
• Make dinner. But our dishwasher is not working (for weeks), so we have to hand-wash every last tumbler, skillet and spoon. Even pink grapefruit dish soap only goes so far to lighten the task. But it does contain essential oils.
• Go to restorative yoga one night a week.
• Keep up with the 2 support groups I attend. That can be a lot, but also a relief.

Let me stop there for now. That list is plenty ambitious. xo Thanks.

"Standing By Peaceful Waters"

This pretty little book was published in 1973. I picked it up and put it back a few times over the years in the Cape Cod gift shop--I can't remember if it was at the National Seashore Visitor Center or the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. I've known their book inventories pretty well, with all that compounded vacation time to browse by peaceful waters. The colorful illustrated cover and the title called out to me, even if I never in my life make Beach Plum Jelly. I finally bought the soft cover one year and just rediscovered it on the bookshelves in my home office. 

With quiet time alone this week, I've been reading it. Wonderful work by Elizabeth Post Mirel (who had three young children at the time, including a baby) with graceful illustrations by Betty Fraser. I do want the kind of calm where I make a pocket of time to read Plum Crazy, because it evokes a place and a passion. Our long-time Cape Cod friends Rite and Bob picked beach plums. I don't know if I ever learned to recognize the fruit until now, but there may be some nearby here in Connecticut.

Sis flew to the Southwest (New Mexico) to travel with her Peace Corps friend and family and called on me to dog-sit her enchanting pup, Galena, for more than a week. I walk that girly at least three times a day, and never sleep past 8, because she doesn't.

I'm loving it. Sis still gets The New York Times paper edition delivered daily. I sat on the sofa drinking in the Sunday Styles section. I met my friend/magazine colleague Mary Kate, who lives nearby, for a lovely catch-up breakfast in Cos Cob (part of Greenwich). I went to Mass in Stamford, and then asked Google to find the nearest Whole Foods, so ended up in high-end Darien midday Sunday, where I felt like a fish out of moneyed water. Two striking blonde women (not together) wore little immaculate white pleated tennis skirts, in perfect contrast to their golden tans. They were coming from or going to the courts. Eyewear was on trend, as were baby carriers and the handsome young dads wearing them for weekend duty. Some branded local products (cacao pudding and whipped bath scrub) were tempting but both went the way of beautiful Ice Cream Tulip bulbs, named for their double ice-cream-cone like blooms, but over my budget. The children, for the most part, seemed well-mannered. The place was packed. Though the store was mostly stocked with the same products our Montclair Whole Foods carries, I felt an imbalance, shall we say, which I never feel in my diverse hometown.

Behold luscious Ice Cream Tulips. I want to add some to our spring garden. 

You can also find Strawberry Ice Cream Tulips (red) 

and Banana Ice Cream Tulips (yellow). 

If I revisit Darien Whole Foods, I will buy a bag of bulbs.

Galena and I have been marina-gazing here in Shippan Point, turning our faces to the birds flying over the harbor and crossing paths with baby deer and other dogs (Pluto, Milo, Bo, etc.). We went to a small beach and walked out on the fishing pier, which has evenly spaced holes in the railings to rest poles while prepping bait or waiting for a bite.

When we go out back on the short boardwalk path by tall feathery grass and a snow egret, Galena and I stop by the plaque that commemorates the trade between two chiefs of Onax Tribe No. 41, International Order of Red Men, and a white British captain in 1640 and memorialized for the city of Stamford in 1916. The original owners swapped this beauty for some coats, glasses, knives, kettles, wampum and a few other things. Read more about that here (excellent report by Chase Wright).

Harbors are calm, harbors are good, whether our paths are charted or uncharted. Which brings me to these beautiful lyrics from "Lake Marie," by John Prine, released in 1995:

We were standing

Standing by peaceful waters

Standing by peaceful waters.....

SPOKEN: Many years ago along the Illinois-Wisconsin Border

There was this Indian tribe

They found two babies in the woods

White babies

One of them was named Elizabeth

She was the fairer of the two

While the smaller and more fragile one was named Marie

Having never seen white girls before

And living on the two lakes known as the Twin Lakes

They named the larger and more beautiful Lake, Lake Elizabeth

And thus the smaller lake that was hidden from the highway

Became known forever as Lake Marie...

Onward now...

Correction: When I wrote this post on the fourth floor of the Shops at Hudson Yards in NYC yesterday, I put the wrong date for the tribal trade. It was 1640, not 1612. The plaque commemorates the original July 1, 1640 sale by American Indian Chiefs Ponus and Wascussue to British Capt. Nathaniel Turner, an agent for the New Haven Colony.

Gidget Goes New Jersey

The 1961 pineapple/surfboard classic, "Gidget Goes Hawaiian."*

Who knew I would see a surf lesson on the beach today? 

Co-star James Darren (Moondoggie to 

Deborah Walley's Gidget) just died this week.

 Image from HERE. 

My iPhone camera lens is cloudy/fuzzy so I couldn't take photos of the beautiful Spring Lake beach today. I went to meditate, ponder, pray, rest, recharge and fill my soul. Dan had an article deadline. I arrived at 4, stayed two hours and was home by 7:30 to make salad with a Jersey tomato from a farmstand down that way and homemade croutons, plus quick pork chops with rosy applesauce from a jar. (Finicky Spice actually ate the whole dinner, yay. I got the jar of Red Jacket Orchards applesauce, from the Finger Lakes, at Dry Goods Refillery, a plastic-free grocery shop in town.) 

The waves were calm. I counted 13 Sunday surfers in all, though they weren't getting much action. Then I saw a petite woman giving a lesson to another woman in the sand, the student on her stomach on the board, practicing the paddling motion. Soon, they were in the water. A happy sight. Empowering.

I studied the sea and went in up to my shins. The water was mild and I probably should have worn my swimsuit, but the air was cold up here. I folded up my wool sweater into a nice cozy pillow and rested, first on my right side, then on my left. I took in the lapping white foam, the rhythm. I prayed a little. How lucky I am to live on the East Coast, not far from the Atlantic Ocean. (It took 1 hour and 7 minutes to get there.) But as I looked at the endless glassy blue surface, considered its depth, I thought, It looks so pretty but underneath, it holds some unknown, unpleasant or scary things. Nothing is perfect. The sea is a wonder but I wouldn't want to explore on my own down there. I would sink quickly, spiral down, and possibly face sharks or jutting rocks that could make me bleed.

I'm trying to say, beauty can bring pain hidden under its surface. Life, like the sea, is a gift but with tricky parts. It comforted me to realize that, to put things in perspective.

I'm going to doze. Good night.

*I rewatched this movie on Tubi TV Friday night, while Dan was out working at a party. I love the cast, including Carl Reiner as Gidget's Dad. But as we fell asleep, I said, "Please remind me never to watch a 'Gidget' movie again. Everything always works out so well, all tied up with a ribbon and a bow." Parenting teens in 1961 looks much different than it is 63 years later. Some basics are the same, since teens then and now pushed parental boundaries. But sugar-coated endings are not real in many cases.

"Mother Mary Comes to Me"

I've heard for decades about "Our Lady of Fátima," but didn't register the location (Portugal) or the full story. It was reported in 1917 that Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children. Two died in the 1918 flu epidemic. One girl became a nun and lived to age 97. Image from HERE.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote these lyrics (song released in 1970). Such gifted men, makers of beautiful art that touches the heart and soul. Look how deep their gifts were; look what they left the world. This morning I asked the Google speaker to play "Let It Be." Listening helped me through brushing my teeth, wriggling into my blue denim skirt, pouring coffee, getting by. Google played a lovely instrumental version, I think by Lemon Tart, great name. I have to get to work now at my desk. Here is another post, "Hail Marys on the #66 Bus." That was about young Figgy, but today my Hail Marys are for Spice. I decided to stop using the name Spice/Spike because that's not very kind.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be, be

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin' until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Paul Mccartney / John Lennon

Let It Be lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc