Table Talk

An interesting read: Constructive Drinking, M. Douglas editor. I started another reading of food related off-prints and books. Table manners, great recipes, and a wonderful break from the political scene. The heat is supposed to break the first of the week, and it'll be nice to get outside during daylight hours. I made a great hash from a slice of corned beef, a small potato and a small onion, formed a ring and coddled an egg in the middle (with a splash of sherry), and had a thick slice of country bread with butter and a very tart lime marmalade. Started to rain, so I cleaned and set out a bucket. I need to wash my hair. Washed dishes, so the kitchen sink was clear, then heated water for a sponge bath. I was listening to the Grateful Dead rather loudly, when I heard a repeated knocking at the back door. It was a cop, of course, a woman who had inherited the case of the stolen tractors when my previous contact had moved to Alaska. I ask her in, put on some pants and a tee-shirt (Stop Plate Tectonics) and made some coffee. I didn't comb my hair and I'm sure I looked a fright. I had to explain, all over again, why I live where and how I do, and that I didn't pay much attention to other people. She (Maria Abrams) noticed everything. The stairs were a marvel to her, the posts and the beams, and she studied the cookstove quite closely, asking intelligent questions. She thought Black Dell was quaint, and I explained my tenuous connection with the outside world. She caught me at a good time, I was glib and funny, and when she was leaving I asked her over for dinner. Don't tell me, she said, you cook too? So I have a date with a cop. No ulterior motive, I don't want a relationship, I don't have time or place for a relationship. But I liked her intelligence. It's a fucking mine field. If you choose to be alone. Mostly, the world, the big picture, is too much to sort, it's a whole lot easier to hole up and read Proust. After she left, I'm so paranoid, I wondered if I was being set-up, maybe I actually was a suspect for something, drug trafficking, farm theft, people-smuggling, but probably not money laundering. A dram of Sheep Dip (much like an American sour-mash) and a cigaret, trying to remember what I'd been thinking about. Montaigne. I endlessly read his essays, I think in the one called On Experience he talks about eating. He didn't like tablecloths, he ate mostly with his hands, and he liked napkins. There was general distrust of the fork for a long time. It wasn't a knife or a spoon. You can draw a time line, using Montaigne as the pivot, at which point eating with your hands, both hands for god's sake, transitioned into dining with implements: place settings, flower arrangements, meals in courses. Civilized. I eat with my fingers quite often, since I seem to graze most of the time, unless a more formal meal is required. I don't like tablecloths, and I hoard sturdy napkins. Doesn't mean I'm not a nice person. Tablecloths, like white shirts and summer suits, only get stained. If you eat with your hands, you're going to drip.