College Art

Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:53 PM
Angst is a recurring theme. And what's with all the cartoon art? After work, over a beer, Anthony talked lucidly about letting the materials speak. I just nodded, leaning strongly that way myself. Natural edges. Hauled the last case of wine and 175 glasses to the Waller house for the benefit wine tasting, also an easel and chalk board (the use for which I have no clue), also champagne flutes. Limited to 24 people at $125 a pop. Wines of Australia and New Zealand. A Kiwi tasting. Got me off work a bit early, but I came back to town (the Waller house is in my direction) to go over to the college, visit with the janitors in the Art Department, and check out the doings in the pottery studio. A beer after, with D and Anthony, listening to them beef about unmotivated students who mostly tweet and play video games. I swear, every student I saw was talking on a cell phone, except for the attractive young lady wearing a mask, mixing clay. I like a girl who's willing to get dirty. The drive home was stunning, color is peaked, leaves are falling, and the sumac is luminous. A red-orange I'd be hard-pressed to describe. They're funny plants in the fall, because the color starts changing from the outside in, so the inside leaves can still be emerald green while the outside ones are a luminous flame. In a clear-cut, they are an invasive species, and there are patches of them that dazzle. So many leaves that the verge is blurred, some places, you can't see the road. Approaching a Zen state when a grouse gets careless on the side of the road and flies into my grill. I was going slow enough that she's not bruised, merely dead. I pull over and pluck her. Go a bit further off the side of the road and dress her out, saving the heart and liver, not really wanting the clean-up committee to be right at the edge of the road. No one likes being interrupted at a meal. A smallish bird, I break her along the back bone, and fry her, in bacon fat, under weight. It was a really good meal. I had some grits-polenta, and half an avocado. Colder weather is cooking time. If you pluck a dead bird when it's still warm it's much easier. I only pluck warm birds, otherwise I skin them, even though fried skin is one of my favorite things in the world. Fried chicken skin. Don't get me started. When I do a cooking gig, I always cook chicken thighs, somewhere in the rotation, in an enchilada sauce, and I like to cook them skinless, so the sauce penetrates, and I always render out the skins, fry them crisp, as a kitchen treat. They always cause a crush in the kitchen. Next month, for instance, when I cook this for my family, my brother and my daughters will be fighting over who had how many. Then there'll be the crab cake marathon. Not being a traditionalist, I hope to talk the family into steamed crabs for Thanksgiving, with hush-puppies and coleslaw. And there would be some crabs leftover for the cakes later. Best to pick the meat when you're no longer hungry. A finite number of people can eat an infinite number of crab cakes. I make a mean sauce of home-made mayonnaise with garlic and sweet relish. I'll do ribs while I'm there, probably some pork tenderloins, and Mom will want some soups. I'll want meatloaf sandwiches, for the trip back to Ohio, so I'll have to make some of them, for the freezer. A meatloaf sandwich with a slice of onion is a gift from god. Stop some place in the Smokies, a turn-out, and bite into a meatloaf sandwich, you will fucking believe. 50 ways to meet your lover. The Indigo Girls covering Bob Dylan. Homeward bound. Actually, I love everything. That sumac, today, blew my mind.