Nothing Matters

Suppose to frost tonight and tomorrow night. It won't frost on the ridge because the cold air flows down into the hollow, so I miss the first few, the ground is still too warm. I went to Family Support to get firewood vouchers, but there were twenty of more people waiting and several babies crying, and I just couldn't take it. I figure I'll go back at nine in the morning on Monday. I split a batch of nice dry oak to get me through a cold weekend. Pork fried rice for dinner, I haven't fixed this in months, and it's wonderful, with hot sauce and kim-chee, made a pan of Jiffy cornbread, I have to admit to this, they were on sale two for a dollar, you just add powdered eggs and powdered milk, a little water, and end up with a cornbread-like substance. It's sweet to my taste, but it's hot bread, and there's a piece to slice and toast in the morning, butter and marmalade. I have a pan that I've altered to fit my toaster oven. I have to alter almost everything. Nothing fixed. Funny email today to go to a particular web site, which I was able to do for the first time in 6 months, and there was a new copy of "Cistern", in its hard to find original wrapper (Indian hand-made paper) being offered for $232.50. I was shocked. There were several copies available, the cheapest, used, was $42. A testament more to the content, about which I had little control, there's an intensity that's palpable, than to the production of the book itself. The printing is terrible, B and I had no experience with farming a book out to off-set print shops, and the result reflects that. I had reread Thoreau's "Cape Cod" a couple of years ago, left it out for several months, re-rereading passages, and I'd been struck with how callous he could be in his opinions. Then reading extensively about the family pencil business, and I've read the journals; then a recent article in The New Yorker which is a wonderful summation of how and why "Walden Pond" is in the canon. One thing that emerges is the question of Creative Non-Fiction. I drift toward the left here, I think almost everything is fiction. Even those videos that actually show real events in real time. I bought a slab of cheap beef, a round tip steak, and I know it's tough as shoe leather (recipes tend to be truth, in relation to news stories) so I pound it out, cover it with minced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, sear it quickly, and serve it with caramelized onions and red peppers on wild rice. You don't need wild rice for this, but I was holding quite a bit, given in trade for designing a staircase. That Louisiana pecan rice would be very good, even a plain, simple risotto, or served on rounds of refried grits. Sliced and refried with cheese it'd make a great sandwich. The original meal was stellar, a very pleasing level of hotness. I'll make variations of this for guests in the future, very good and very cheap; with a drink, later, I'm doing the math, and I get four meals for seven bucks. In a small way I'm slightly famous, everyone knows where I live, and my cooking is notorious. A simple stewed lamb shank dish I do with new potatoes and baby carrots seems to be a favorite. I do a rack of goat, without intervention, interleaved slices of bacon between the ribs. A good vegetable might be Brussels Sprouts. Rhea pulls me aside, whispers in my ear, Dad, she says, that woman is hitting on you, she writes about cooking for the The New York Times. I was flattered, known as anything rather than a janitor was a step up, it's weird that I understand things so well, and yet I don't understand what's going on.