Anger Management

Phone rings. I was just finishing a couple of flattened, rolled and stuffed veal birds, They're actually called birds, I'm not making that up. I'd found the recipe for a dish B's Mom used to make. Reading the recipe started me on a long campaign of flattening, rolling and stuffing. I was never satisfied with using toothpicks as an attachment and finally modified a set of 16 penny finish nails into what I still think of as an elegant solution. Heat is an issue, so when I'm serving this dish I use a small pair of craft pliers to remove the picks. If you have access to a vise these are very easy to make, and they neatly solve that nagging issue of holding things together while you cook them. I'd made a nice stuffing with wild rice and a mushroom duxelle, some minced peppers. I knew it was going to be good, I'd pounded out the veal until it was wonderfully thin and when I sampled the stuffing, before I rolled up the birds, it was, what? toothsome, I don't have a word, it was so good it made me want to roll over onto my back and paw at the world. So the phone rings. It's a call about my electric rate. I unload an invective against his mother and the crazed camel that must have been his father for interrupting me. Hang up. He calls me back, curious about why I should be so upset. I tell him, patiently, that most of Scioto County gets power from AEP (American Electric Power) but that some of us get power from the west, a rural electric cooperative, and that I'm not a part of his data base. The third call, this is unprecedented, he actually apologizes that I'm not actually part of their study. He does tell me that I'm paying way too much for electricity, but that there is no alternative. Good to know. He gets paid extra for working holidays. It's raining in the Philippines, what to wear, I ask him, rubber boots, he says, and an English slicker. He argued that the first amendment allowed him to say whatever he wanted to say. I tell him there is no reason to be calling me at dinnertime on a Sunday that's also a holiday. He didn't know it was a holiday (Father's Day?), he didn't know it was dinnertime, and why did I have a land-line anyway? I don't feel like discussing this with him, however nice he may be, fucking fuck-headed fuckers. Twice in three days they've violated my dinner. Unplug the phone, make a nice milk gravy, reheat the veal birds, but it's not quite the meal it would have been, everything is conditional; but it's very good, the meat is a little resistant and the stuffing is divine. Not a word I'd ordinarily use, but it was heaven sent. Wild rice isn't even rice, just another grass, and I had some dried mushrooms I reconstituted in sherry, some minced black olives, some sharp Spanish onion. My anger was cut short. I strive toward cutting anger short, actually I strive to avoid it all together. When I realized theater was using my temper as a management skill, I left theater, and I never got mad on a job site, building a house, unless someone broke a safety rule. Ten years at the museum and I only lost my temper once. Occasionally, listening to the news on a Sunday morning, I do a little stylized dance, halfway between country and Kabuki. The day-lilies are everywhere and I've eaten day-lily bud tempura for several days, to justify the use of oil. They are quite good, but it occurs to me that anything non-toxic, cooked as tempura, with a decent dipping sauce, was going to be pretty good. I cooked a sliced artichoke heart in the batter, and it reminded me of avocado, which I also cooked in the batter and it was completely cheese-like. I plan these fried food dates, making sure I have interesting things at hand, because I feel guilty about the oil use, so I need to utilize everything completely. I strain the oil a couple of times, add a vitamin E cap, against oxidation, and finish with the usual fish and hush-puppies. I put the depleted oil, with whatever solids, in a stainless steel bowl out at the compost heap, and it is always completely clean the next morning. Every living thing craves fat. That's probably not true, but I like the way it sounds. I hope the fox got her share, she looked like shit, the last time I saw her, recently kidded and losing her winter hair; kitted, I suppose would be a more accurate term. I know I'll see a couple of young foxes soon; in her post-partum depression she wanted an apple. I rolled her one, and all was right with the world.