Close Reading

Jude sent a copy of the Robert Macfarlane book, Landmarks, and it's a wonderful piece of work, great vocabularies of landscape. As Jude said, I share a brain-chip with this guy. Also some library books, fiction mostly, to sit out the hot afternoons. Heat index over a hundred. Listened to a very interesting program about storing energy. I've thought about this for decades. The easiest thing to do is to use surplus electricity to pump water uphill, then generate power on the way back down. For years I imagined a huge mass of insulated lead that would be melted by a lightning bolt, or a large flywheel. Turbines have gotten more efficient, still, the grid is crude, especially when you live at the end of their service. Tesla offers a home generation--storage system that looks interesting, I've lived without electricity for long periods of time and I always miss just being able to turn on a reading lamp. An oil-lamp and a couple of candles make enough light to read, though; you don't actually need hot water on tap, and flush toilets are a bad idea. Didn't write at all yesterday, completely entranced with the Macfarlane book. If yesterday be an indication, I'll be reading it all winter. At the end of the day's reading (after food and a nap, about four in the morning) I was hemmed-in by tottering piles of reference material. He'd mention a passage in a particular book and I'd have to go find my copy, finding it more and more curious that we cross-referenced on so many of them. Not strange, actually. Slept again, then a hardy breakfast of hash and eggs and a short walk before the heat. A small flock of grouse, a hen and her poults, drummed off the verge and stopped my heart for a couple of beats, but I found a couple of lovely mushrooms for tomorrow's omelet. I have to dry them first (all of the Boletes are much better dried) then reconstitute them in Madeira, caramelize some onion, then make the omelet. This repast takes 24 hours to make and about seven minutes to eat. I'm experimenting with a different technique for cooking the dish, in which I make a couple of two-egg omelets and layer them with the mushrooms and onion. A little grated cheese is nice. The secret here is to make both of the omelets in separate skillets, have the filling hot, spread it on the bottom portion, flip the other on top, pull it off the heat, add a bit of the Madeira juice and put on a lid. Let it rest for about the length of time it takes to spread butter and marmalade on a piece of toast. Serves two. Don't say I'm not romantic. I want to go to the farmer's market tomorrow, and get tomatoes for another week of BLT's; I don't even strain the bacon fat anymore, to remove debris: I think of suspended particles as bits confit. I store this fat in a quart Mason jar that I keep on the back of the stove, a heaping teaspoon fries two eggs, mid-winter I use it to make cornbread. Hoecake Annie. It's interesting that wherever I've lived, a simple pot of beans and an unlimited number of corn-sticks always brings the sceptics around. It doesn't surprise me, I've loved corn-sticks my entire life, I'd beg Mom to make them, so I could dip them into whatever sauce was available. Usually just pot-liquor from cooking greens and a dash of vinegar from the pickled peppers. Late summer salads are almost too bitter, and in the interest of decent BLT's I buy a head of Romaine. Good thick-cut bacon, and the tomatoes, right now, are extraordinary, a little sea-salt, a grind of pepper, this is one of my favorite things in the world, add twice fried puffed French fries and a red cabbage slaw, this could be one of the greatest meals ever.