Benblog

The first soup of fall

While the weather is still warm here, I still did my first potato leek soup tonight.

I think one of my favorite parts of fall is the harvest and the hearth, some of my favorite flavors combined with the warmth of the kitchen on cold fall evenings, the sun gone early in these parts.

While part of me hibernates during the winter, the more sensual and creative aspects of my self seem to come alive.

The Village Market

Tonight begins the countdown.

So far, two for two.

Walking into Federal Hill Liquors and hearing the word mf used almost casually, like a greeting, or just in the way drunk people in crisis tend to operate.

But even here, at this package liquor store, the wines are decent, with good, cheap Italian wines, in this oldest North American Italian "colony."

I think that is one of the extraordinary benefits of population and diversity done right - you can have the finer things more cheaply.

Things in Rhode Island at least are fluid enough that this economy could operate well without going inflationary, with the pricing on good things balanced against some of the constant flow of new people.

Here, there is also the best of the entrepreneurial minds - those doing a business to create future opportunity, but accountable to the communities in which they live and work.

The Apples Atom

It's amazing how tasting one perfectly ripe apple can arouse the senses so, make me wonder what we lose when we begin losing our sense of what an apple really tastes like. If we could get more people to eat better quality locally grown affordable produce we could reduce people's desires for the vulgar approximations, focusing on arousing salt and sweet in the pithy equivalent of soft rock or the numbing equivalent of pop metal or the nostalgic puke of pop country.

I think it may awaken us more quickly to our relationship with the planet. We are becoming more and more drone like, more responsive to authoritarian control, hopefully as another stage of rigor mortis sets in.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a police officer about his sense of some of the economics of crime. His perspective is that in the United States, without law and order, there would be chaos, the strong preying on the weak. And that an armed police force is more essential here than most places.

By and large, I think he's right, as long as that authority is balanced by more and more participatory democracy.  More people making decisions, not less, is what will help us progress. I think those of us who enjoy priviliges now forget that we enjoy that prosperity because previous generations decided to share the bounty, not only with more people in the present, more people in the future. That level of wealth sharing creates a better quality of life for all.

A new love

I hate electric stoves. One of my favorite parts of living on Arsenal was having an old fashioned, gas dragon, burn your hairs off your arms if your not careful, the gas inspector telling you they probably wouldn't pass something like that in new construction, but that you're grandfathered in. It wasn't vintage,just old and cranky, fart up the air if you let a wisp of air past its pilot lights, and sometimes sneakily drift to sleep, if you let the flame too low, or skip to 11 on the dial when you first start her up.  The Wyoming estate has only a ceramic stove top, that glows, almost for effect, I think. But the element reminded me so much of the perfect red warm glow of marshmallow roasting coals. We made the most amazing toasted marshmallows. It makes me think I should always have one around, but it would keep me inside too often, rather than working up the perfect coals outside, in the snow, circled by a starry winter night.

Stolen summer

I stopped at the vegetable stand at 46 and 231 on my way back from Bloomington and talked to the owner for a while about his business. His son buys vegetables from small growers in Florida, and drives a truck load up weekly. I feel as if I'm cheating, eating fantastic tomatoes and sweet corn this early in the season, but I can't wait to do a good cabrese salad tonight. While I understand some of the cost efficiencies of a supermarket, when it comes to food, I'd rather sacrifice convenience and pretty display for taste. And supermarkets are contributing to the loss of taste. Very few people know what a tomato is supposed to taste like. Fewer still know what chocolate should taste like. And as products reach a critical production mass, we eat more and more of nothing.

Honoring the dead

We had another restaurant night, this time the Red Room, in some alley downtown. I'm not sure I could ever find it again, and I wondered walking in if this was some secret vampire hangout, red and gothy. I think if the Merovingian from the Matrix had a restaurant in St. Louis, this would be it. The fact that each table had wooden chopsticks (sharp) gave me some relief.

In addition to good wine, good company, good food, the thing that stood out for me was the presentation of meat. While it's not as ritual as offering food up to the cardinal directions, if I'm going to eat dead animal, having it presented beautifully reminds me that I have taken a life, to honor it so.

Addiction

I think part of the challenge of integrating mind and body is that the modern mind wants quick energy, wants that snappy, quick energy to keep up with a quick and snappy world, and that sugar laden diet starts wearing on the body. It also takes so long to train the body into the state where it's delivering good energy to the body all day long. A little slip, and it's like climbing back up a wet slide.