The Giants Win The Pennant
Saturday was a complete day off, totally wasted, very rare, it was good. Normally, like everybody, I have a mental blueprint for the weekend by the time Friday rolls around. Serious cooking projects have dominated recent weekends and today, at least, I needed a break. Sofa time with the cats. Bad TV. It's been getting down into the low 40s overnight, cocooning is in order. Besides, I'm getting the touch of a sniffle and it's better to rest, right?
So, for my lone project of the day, a 20-minute drive to RTP and BJs. Early! The collective consciousness of the entire Triangle was screaming, "DON'T go to Raleigh today! DON'T go to Raleigh today!," because (1) The State Fair was opening, (2) NC State had a home game, and (3) The Carolina Hurricanes had a game in the evening. That means traffic, boys and girls, lots of it. So I took off driving around 8:30 hoping to get to Route 70 and out of the I-40 logjam early. Still, the collective consciousness screamed at me, "GO BACK! GO BACK!" - with the notable exception of Scott Simon on my car radio, effortlessly recalling the opening words of the Kaddish with guest Elie Weisel. There was true inspiration in Weisel's words: forsaken by culture, mankind, and possibly God he still embraced all of them with the attitude - "Where else can you go?"
Earlier Saturday morning, when my cocooning began, I had watched an HBO movie about Bobby Thompson and the "Shot Heard 'Round The World". The sincere friendship that developed between Thompson and Ralph Branca, the Dodgers pitcher who served up the pitch, belongs in Cooperstown too. Branca was understandably devastated, still he showed up the very next day to watch the Giants in the World Series. After the losing game, he had simply collapsed in pain on the clubhouse steps. Only Jackie Robinson even tried to console him. He spoke with his priest who told him that God had selected him to bear this pain because he knew that Branca alone had the strength. Running into Thompson occasionally in the years that followed, they couldn't help but speak about the moment they had shared in the eyes of the pre-Warhol world. And they became friends. But what had impressed me most was some old B&W TV footage from a variety show of sorts, where Thompson sang to a poster of Branca and Branca, in another shot, sang to a poster of Thompson. What you'd expect, sentiments of the moment set to music. But what really impressed me was that BOTH of these guys could really sing. Phrasing naturally, no bad notes, they coulda gone to Broadway.
I got to BJs and, of course, it was empty. There's a real joy in being alone in a very large store, a sense of relaxation. Nice to be someplace where no commisioned and hungry sales staff sees you as prey (on Car Talk, the guys read a memo from a dealership referring to "escaped" customers). I spent an hour there lazily pushing the oversized cart into every nook and cranny of the entire warehouse, selecting only 8 items - entitling me to go through the Express Line. No duck, that's a two-person meal, but I did buy an Exacto knife kit - to precisely cut the fat-draining V's nearly parallel to the skin of the duck's breast when I do get one. Looks like the preferred tool for cutting vents into baguettes as well. Some Nyger, which used to be called "thistle seed", the preferred seed for goldfinches, a whole gallon for 8 bucks! But I gave that to my back-surgery friend, bless her, she has to wear a full upper body brace for 5 more months. She likes to watch the goldfinches at the feeders outside her bedroom window and, once again, we wondered why all the females come to her feeders and the males to mine. She had solved the mystery of the wildly-flapping house finch we both had seen at our feeders. Other birds attack it, we wonder how it gets to eat. It had flown into her window and grabbed desperately at the screen - it only has one leg. It cannot roost to eat, it has to flap wildly to compensate balance, and it must fight for every seed it gets. Yet it has survived all summer.
At BJs, I also got some ox tail, which I planned to give to Liz, but she says no, she's moving soon and won't be fixing it before. At home, I did a lot of research about ox tail (or is it "oxtail"?) soup and will someday post that, but I was too tired to write at the time. Back to the sofa. Then out for a beer at the bar where my bodycast friend used to tend. She was there! And right proud of herself for having climbed the "fright of stairs" to get there. She didn't stay long and Dave spotted for her going down the steps. Michael, another back sufferer, was also there. It was like, you know, some sorta outpatient thing.
I went home and back to the sofa. Then there was a knock at the door. Then another. Then another. I opened the door. It was dark and drizzly out and the Fedex guy was there with a Saturday Delivery that I signed for. A 15x15x15 box of apples from Rayne!. Here's my plan for at least part of them - applesauce, maybe apple butter, but I seem to remember that some Tonkatsu sauces are based on applesauce. I have many, many emptied and cleansed Kikkoman bottles (I bought a gallon of that at BJs, soon there will be jerky) and so many Carolinians have been telling me about the natural flavor marriage of applesauce and pork that I'm willing to experiment with an applesauce/ketchup (please don't gag!) sauce with mirin, maybe ginger, maybe soy - even if I can't find the one I remember that really did have applesauce.
Don't know if I'll go to the NC State Fair. It's fun to see the livestock and all the ribbons on jellies and jams, the showman hucksters selling incredible kitchen tools, the aromas of fair food. The parking, the crowds, the incredible rudensss of strangers. My dad used to take me backstage for the shows at the Ohio State Fair. He'd strap about three cameras across his chest and could get in anywhere just by that (Queen Elizabeth II, whom he followed throughout the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway, remarked to him, "I see you still have some film left," documented in the Toronto Star!), but he always carried his Press Pass, given to him by editor Paul Scharff of the Deshler Flag, just in case. He loaned me a 35mm and I used a 1/1000s setting to catch an acrobat midair 180 in a backflip while he was warming up. Best photo of my life, at age eleven.
There I was bumping elbows with the stars, with my very own Deshler Flag press pass, meeting the likes of Bob Hope (when there was a Republican governor of Ohio), Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (Pat Brady drove a jeep recklessly as part of his comical sidekick routine. He broke an axle, which I thought was part of the act - the jeep came to an abrupt dust-cloud stop as he manically lurched it about on the track in front of the grandstand - then he came backstage saying "Shit! Shit! SHIT!", which I thought was very funny too...until I realized he wasn't doing it for any audience), Perry Como, and most importantly to me, Sky King and "niece" Penny. But that was yesterday. Nowadays, the fair rides are put together by truly frightening people at mininum wage. Carnies never were the cream of the crop, I guess, but I knew less then and it seemed safer. Anyway, a friend at the Armadillo tells me there are these three guys at the NC State Fair who have beards like ZZ Top and make chicharonnes in gigantic "vats" as you watch, listening to the pop and sizzle. Plain pork rinds, hot sauce pork rinds, garlic pork rinds, sour cream and chive pork rinds, and vinegar pork rinds. Best in the world, he says, he can't wait to go. I can, but maybe I will anyway.
Norbert Schultze passed away this week. Here is his obit. He is most famous for having written Lili Marleen, as recorded by Marlene Dietrich. What a song that was, adopted by the men fighting the war on both sides of the Rhine. It reminds me of the stories from the American Civil War, Yankees and Rebels serenading each other on the eve of bloody battles. There is nothing romantic about war, but in face-to-face battles the participants could at least share the moment, in a more mortal sense than Bobby Thompson and Ralph Branca, knowing they were a part of history and their individual fates were chosen by greater forces. They could really sing too.
2:58:10 AM 
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