Visiting Tamlin

>>>> Appendix de Grenouille <<<<
Some friends are difficult to visit. You enjoy their company for part of the rendezvous, but the rest is a trial. Or perhaps they are an old friend fallen on misfortune and you visit from the old love or (worse) from pity. Is it a pleasure or an obligation? We should all wish that when we are in such a spot we also have friends who remain with us. Bien entendu, I hope my friends will remain when I am old, I have tremors, I tell the same stories encore et encore, and I pass what reminds of Jurassic swamp gas. Certainly, they will have their problems, as well, and perhaps we will suffer each other together.

Other friends are fun to visit, but there is risk. Such it is with Tamlin. One requires a rescue troupe to intervene and prevent damage. Fortunately I am made of adamant (Etienne, as always with his tous tous charmant Yankee accent, would say, "He's a rock.")

But regardless, Tamlin is tres exciting... and hard to visit.

Au revoir,

Grenouille

Night Grilling

Rough schedule today - everyone in different directions for events, errands, local roak group's concert, etc. So we didn't get dinner until late. That meant I had to grill in the dark.

The plan was to grill hot dogs. But daughter isn't as keen on these as often as the rest of us are, so I make up patties (spiced, and with onion and garlic, of course) and freeze them so I can pull one out for her when the rest of us have the dogs. And I picked up two portabello tops, one for me, and one for oldest son. And andouille sausage for oldest son and I. More of those long red peppers I wrote about elsewhere (a Costco stray from the list).

I lit the charcoal using my new coal chimney from Weber. I love this thing. Instead of polluting with charcoal lighter fluid, I just burn two pieces of newspaper to light the coals, and they're lit faster, and without that petroleum smell. The coils inside, that hold up the coals above the burning paper, get cherry red before I dump the briquettes out in the grill.

Even though I was just outside the open garage door, it was still too dark to cook by sight. I could see shapes, but not colors. So I cooked by smell, feel, and experience. It was interesting. The coals were bright in the dark, and the camera managed to catch the lovely red glow.

The last preparations were to broil/brown the hot dog buns (we prefer potato bread buns), cut an onion (a few rings for daughter's burger, chopped for the hot dogs) and to chop up some bread and butter pickles for a homemade relish. We ate everything but one hot dog and two of the sausages. The sausages were good, but too spicy for son or I to want more than one.

>>>> Appendix de Grenouille <<<< Etienne, daughter, and I were "hamming it up" as they say in this charming country, and having sport with the camera. Daughter shook her head as we arranged on this plate, which was created by an artist acquaintance. Eh bien, Chef Etienne, but I believe mayonnaise would be a more appropriate sauce, since everyone tells me grenouille tastes like poullette. And ketchup, it is tasty, but tres chic it is not.

Au revoir (never fear, it is not adieu),

Grenouille

National Cathedral Gargoyles

These are lots of fun, but they really hurt your neck to look at for long. Click to view larger.

Travel Accidents

Not all travel accidents are the unfortunate kind. A work colleague and I had to stay in Charleston, SC recently. We found that one of the landmark hotels was running some cheap rates as a result of the fall off of tourism. So we booked at the Anchorage Inn, on Vendue Range, just a few blocks from the water, and less than half a block from East Bay street, where we had the meeting that brought us to town.

My friend's room was ordinary, without even any windows, due to the row-building situation in that part of Charleston. Mine was on the ground floor, looked out on Vendue Range, and was a suite! All for the same price. I wasn't there much, with meetings and gadding about Charleston in the one evening I had, but it was an exceptionally beautiful, clean, fresh smelling room, full of Charleston charm. I found out my suite usually lets for nearly $250 a night. I had it, on the company, for $99.

>>>> Appendix de Grenouille <<<<

Oui, you perhaps have noticed that the numbering of the appendicis c'est finis. We could no longer keep up, and the order of the posts was getting more complex than Etienne and I could keep straight. He informs me that we must keep it simple, because the brain of a frog is too small to be discovered during an amphibious autopsy (some procedure done in a human biology class, though if it is a human biology class why are the students not searching for a human brain? I hear they are equally difficult to locate.)

Au revoir,

Grenouille

Breakfast and Pesto

Another weekend, another breakfast improvisation. This one involved fine dicing of sweet red pepper, celery, and carrot, which were then saute'd in a tablespoon of butter in an eight inch skillet. Five eggs, with some salt and about four big tablespoons of pesto, were beaten in a measuring cup, and when the vegetables were beginning to soften and brown, were poured over the top. I had to break through the bottom of this several times with the spatula, to let new liquid reach the skillet, or it would have browned too much on the bottom before the eggs cooked. Finally the entire things was flipped, in pieces, and allowed to finish on the other side. Cheddar was shredded on top.

I served the resulting flavorful fritata-like thing to oldest son and myself, half a skillet for each. Strawberries for him, strawberries and calamata olives for me.

On a recent trip to Costco I strayed from the list and bought these fabulous sweet red peppers, a huge tub of calamatas, and the jar of pesto. All have been delicious. I eat olives with nearly every meal, and these are as rich and satisfying as meat. The long, comical peppers are some of the sweetest I've ever had, and have graced pizza, omelets, stir-fries, and (in long grilled strips) hot dogs and grilled smoked sausages. The pesto was used on part of a home-made pizza, in place of tomato sauce, with marvelous results. It was a good foray off the shopping list.

>>>> Appendix de Grenouille <<<< When Steve is away, it is time to play. Oui, there is nothing more refreshing than a plunge into a glass of light beer, served in the manner Americaine: chilled. In the cold months, we may speak of Grenouille de Cafe, but in the warm months, cold beer, c'est tres bon. And the songs we can sing, and our voices so grande... Never do we sound better.

Unable to Reply

Grenouille and I will be taking a break from the blog for a few weeks. I have some travel and other projects to attend to, and evenings will also be full. But just in case you might forget us while we're gone, we've set up automatic posts. Grenouille refers to Blogger as "the mechanism." The mechanism will happily record your comments, though we will not be reading them for a while. We will read them all when we resume interactive blogging.

G and S

Anteater

Sent to my Mom and Dad recently. These creatures always remind me of something cut out of a rug scrap, as if their bones don't have anything to do with the shape they ended up. And the disruption pattern of their colors further fractures any sense of animal. So I further conformed the beast to a circle piece of stock/stationery I happened to have.

My parents had to see the ant before they could get what it was, and then they realized it all at once and laughed. That's a pleasing result. Then it turned out that a few days before Mom had been joking about getting a pet anteater, because of an ant problem in their house... What fun (the serendipity, not the infestation).

Ink and Prismacolors - about 6 inches in diameter.