Eastern Standard Randomness

After a long summer and the warmest October in Western New York in over 130 years, fall has finally, permanently arrived. The first “killing frost” of the year occurred the other night, and the leaves are quickly dropping. Last night we were all sitting at the table eating an early dinner—-though 6 pm no longer seems so early to me—-and three fawns wandered through the backyard. “They’re females,” said Bill. “How can you tell?” asked Susie. “No antlers,” he replied.
I’ve taken responsibility for cooking on Saturday nights, and had been craving pork, bitter greens, and cannellini beans (you can take the boy out of the restaurant industry…). I couldn’t find a reasonable cut of pork with the bone in that would feed six, so I tried this chicken saute with forty cloves of garlic instead. And we didn’t have any butter or white wine. Don’t tell Julia, but I used olive oil and a little bit of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” (which frankly I should be using more of, period) and substituted lemon juice and white wine vinegar for the wine. What you really need is simply an acid, and I’ve had chicken with vinegar sauces before. The beans were canned cannellinis—-they were on sale at Wegmans, 69 cents a can—-but I cooked them with half a pound of bacon, red onion, celery, and oregano. I let them cook a long time and they were creamy and rich. The chicken turned out just fine, and what with the steamed carrots and the sautéed escarole, we had a nice dinner that had sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. All fairly inexpensive and easy. Then we had some leftover apple pie with ice cream and sat on the couch nodding off for a while. The girls were hyped up from the sugar, however, so we piled in the van and drove to Target.
Saturday night at Target in the ‘burbs: I couldn’t believe how busy it was! It almost seemed to be the place to be. I do like Target for various things, including clothes, but I hate, hate, hate shopping; my dream would be to have a “uniform” I wore every day in which I always looked good, something classic, like the late designer Perry Ellis’ everyday blue shirt and khakis (the ones he wore; not the ones he designed). Then I wouldn’t have to think about what to wear at all. I especially didn’t feel up to shopping for clothes after that big dinner, but my brother is kind of a shopaholic. He’s always online, checking out new cars, new computers, new whatever. I like to have a clear idea of what it is I’m looking for, get in, get it, and get out. I did pick up a few basics, but I am overdue for some new clothes. Before I left Manhattan I wore all my clothes one last time and then threw them in the trash. They weren’t really in proper condition to donate to charity.
Speaking of restaurants, and maybe holiday crunches, a friend who used to work in restaurants used to laugh about Tea Hell—-that was when you worked as a waiter in a place where you prepared your own pots of tea. If you found yourself with multiple orders from multiple tables, that was Tea Hell. We’re approaching Nutcracker Hell—-which for some may be a redundancy. The next four weeks are going to be busy. We do have a nice break at Thanksgiving, but that’s only a break from classes and rehearsals. By them I’m sure my brother, sister-in-law and I will be running around in circles. Or maybe not. Bill likes to work under the pressures of self-induced procrastination, and Susie is methodical like me. As long as we get all the candy-fundraiser-orders in, and the fleecewear preorders in, and the patron ad forms in…