Making Force-Meat

It takes me all afternoon. I dirty every dish in the house; but most of the skillets, I clean with a paper towel and kosher salt. I try and stay ahead of the curve, still, I end up with a dishpan full of utensils and bowls. I didn't want to use all of the morels, so I bought mushrooms. Bought ground veal, bought butter, bought mixed-nut bits. I do all the cooking, and it goes on forever, on a hot-plate, because you can't crank the wood stove on a day when you're sweating. I'm good on a hot-plate. I got to the Finals last year. What you do is set up at the island, with a good book, and a book- rock, to hold the page; try and keep a finger and thumb clean, to turn the pages. I toast the nuts and saute the mushrooms, cook the veal, cook the liver, caramelize the onions. I meld them together in a twelve inch skillet with high sides, while reading at the island; then run everything through the blender and mold it in whatever containers I have at hand. If God had said there needed to be a spread, this is it. Every time I take a bite, I remember something. I've made these country pates most of my adult life. Four pounds is as large a batch as you'd ever want to make. I did, though, make another small batch of a different spread, using all the same skillets. A morel, butter, shallot, and nut version. A very small tub which I ate immediately. Butter wrappers are great for starting a fire, so of course I keep them, and I was appalled when I tossed another one into the kindling basket. Morel season will be the death of me. But going down in style. Who else, tonight, ate morel pate? After the clean-up I crashed on the sofa, intending to read for a while, Mark Twain's Autobiography, Vol. 2, a huge and heavy tome, which I actually balance on another book flat on my chest when I'm reading on the sofa; or rest it on my thighs, if I'm reading at my desk. He dictated this, inserting things as he went along, reviews, letters, short stories; it's a good read. Laborious, but worth the time. You see the person, or at least that aspect of the person you were supposed to see. I don't read for very long before I fall into deep sleep. Exhausted. Another line of thunder storms, I dodge for a exit. Almost a constant, the thunder is right on top of the lightning and the lightning is almost constant. The power is out, the phone is out, I'm reading Mark Twain with my headlamp, when the light rises in the east. Fuck me. Another day.