15 High WASP Practices For Growing And Using Tomatoes

1. Buy an organic seedling at your locally-owned nursery. You approve of capitalism, but prefer not to ravage the planet with the chemicals of agribusiness.

2. Plant said plant in your front yard. What? That's where the sun is, that's where the tomato plant is going, the neighbors will understand. And no, we don't think it's overly quirky.

3. Install simple drip irrigation. It's very nice to rough it, and grow food, and all, but we're not going to stand around with a watering can for days on end. Thank you very much.

4. Rebel against cages. Decide you are going to stake your tomato plant simply, with dignity. Drive a stake into the ground. Imagine you are done. Spend the next couple of months tying your plant to said stake with unsightly white twine, searching wildly for more stakes, and even using your kids old stilts for yet another stake. Eventually simply lay your excess tomato plant branches on top of your basil plants and hope for the best.

5. Wring your hands at the unbearable cute of your first green tomato. High WASPs like to wring our hands, it ties us to our heritage.

6. Curse the same green tomato when it takes forever to ripen, even as all around you people are forecasting bruschetta with a chance of basil.

7. Read that you need to prune suckers, those little vestigial branches that grow next to real branches. Hear that Accordion and Lace's mother's wisdom from the old world says you prune the third branch from the third branch. Realize that since you don't have an old world any more you'll do as told. Try to prune. Get lost in the scent of tomato branches on your hand, and the marjoram that you've crushed in your efforts. Go have a glass of wine. Remember France. And childhood. Back then even sunscreen smelled good.

8. Squeal when your first tomato reddens. Look at it closely. Repeatedly, like a toddler at Christmas.

9. Pluck your tomato carefully, as though it might explode. Feel the shock as it separates from its stem. Revere the process.

10. Make Fresh Bruschetta for your son. Chop your one tomato. It really is yours. Add 2 or 3 finely chopped cloves of garlic and a handful of basil leaves, shredded by hand in a surprising fit of sensuality. Add some olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste. Slice a sweet baguette into little ovals and toast them. Doesn't matter how. Sit at the counter and eat quite impolitely, spooning the bruschetta on to toast, and murmuring in pleasure.

11. Go outside one morning and realize that you have built it and they will come. Prepare for tomatoes galore. Go buy fresh mozzarella, (bocconcini are good) combine with more basil and call it Caprese Salad. Even if you never go near a plate.

12. Roast a bunch of tomatoes in the oven at high heat until they collapse in their own sugars. Smear the resultant jammy mess on everything.

13. Make Raw Tomato Pasta With Goat Cheese.

1 1/2 lb firm ripe tomatoes
1 bunch fresh basil (leaves from as many stalks as you can grab in one hand) If you are tired of basil use some other herb. Parsley. A little marjoram.
8 tablespoons of the best olive oil you can find
salt to taste
4 oz of the best goat cheese you can find
1 lb good quality spaghetti

Core, seed, and chop the tomatoes into very small dice. Chop the basil coarsely. Combine tomatoes, basil, olive oil and salt in a large pasta bowl. Crumble goat cheese into small pieces and add to bowl. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling, salted water. When tender but al dente, drain, add to bowl, mix, serve.

Don't make cooked pasta sauce, San Marzano canned tomatoes meet those requirements perfectly.

14. Make soup. For a change-up to all-tomatoes-want-to-be Italian, try very easy Chinese Tomato Noodle Soup.

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 large ripe but firm tomatoes, cored, seeded, and cut into small dice
2 scallions, trimmed and minced
3 tablespoons Chinese rice wine or sake
21/2 tablespoons soy sauce
5 cups Chinese chicken broth (to make quickly, combine 3 cups commercial chicken broth, 3 cups water, 1/3 cup rice wine or sake, 4 slices smashed ginger. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer uncovered for 20 minutes )
1 teaspoon or less of salt
ground black pepper to taste
1/2 frozen peas, thawed
1/2 very fine noodles, somen, capellini, cooked until just tender then rinsed under warm water and drained.

Stir fry tomatoes and scallions in oil until fragrant (~10 seconds), add rice wine and soy sauce, cook for one minute, stirring. Add broth, salt and pepper, simmer for 5 minutes. Add peas, cooked for 30 seconds. Add noodles, cook for 30 seconds until just hot. Serve.

15. Give the rest of your tomatoes away. Stave off the end of summer with generosity. Pretend that this will go on forever. Tomato plants, like the High WASP species, end as abundance starts to decay, faintly, perfumed. With tomatoes, as with High WASP family fortunes, charity redeems most excesses.

Image: Me. My very own tomato. I grew it myself.
Raw tomato sauce pasta recipe via Pasta Fresca
Chinese Tomato Noodle soup via Nina Simonds Asian Noodles
(support your local bookstore)

What Everybody Ought To Know About Swedish Home Style

To some, Swedish home style means something like these below. Seats? I'm not sure.

The Grandes Dames among us might dream more grandly. Maybe of Swedish gilt.

In fact, as lived, Swedish home design is above all endearing. Made for smiling. Some things are fuzzy, some anthropomorphic. White for dark winters, and color for long summers - woven, or bended, or carved. But little seems to be made without thought, or placed without care.

The Swedish interiors I have experienced are places of comfort. Where each detail warms your heart. Sort of like one long wedding, of family to itself. Even in summer, when the interior is, well, outside.

This is my stepfamily's house on Ingmarso, in the Stockholm Archipelago, taken early one morning as everyone else lay sleeping.

Being infinitely wise about people living in close quarters, they have also built an attached little house, known as, The Little House.

My stepfather acquired this land almost 50 years ago. Recently his daughter remodeled the main kitchen, beautifully. The counters, I believe, are teak, the cabinets stainless steel, all from Ikea. This should surprise no one.

When you wake up early, pull open a drawer and find pastry from the local bakery. The plastic bag closes with a miniature clothes pin, decorated with what appears to be a sailing flag. I want 65, please, since I'm sure I would lose many and feel sad if I could not return immediately to Sweden for replacements.

As you can see, the kitchen is now part of the living room. And, other than four small bedrooms and one bathroom, that's it for the main house. Can you see the red-painted wood chairs? My favorites.

There's little need for space in vacation cottages. You live outside. You shower outside. You eat outside.

The first night, we had salmon, salad, and potatoes. This should surprise no one. Potatoes are to Swedes as snow, mythically, is said to be for the Inuit. They have even invented special potato-poking tools to assess doneness. Often decorated with a carved wooden moose head. See the printed napkin on the right? Blue, white, gold, and paper. Oh boy.

Warmth, humor, and detail carry out past the home and into restaurants. One day we all got into a large boat, owned by my stepsister's colleague, and went to Sandhamn. Another island. One with a delicious restaurant. Where they serve chilled water in glass bottles decorated with a rope braid collar. My sister held the bottle and poured. Thanks, sister.

The napkin ornamentation was nice too. I love a monogram and chain stitch.

The kind restaurant owners had painted the ceiling a gorgeous cerulean blue, and mounted cobalt chandeliers for contrast. A gorgeousness overdose, really.

The brass hinge on the window next to my seat. They had me at cerulean, hinges were unnecessary.

What appears to be Libby's Corned Beef Hash, below, is in fact a dish called Pytt i Panna. Cubes of beef, ham, potato, onion and beets. While my tongue craved a crayfish stew, Pytt i Panna is what my stepfather wanted me to cook when he first got out of the hospital so I felt that fate was saying this needed to be my lunch. It was pretty good. Jamie Oliver agrees with me.

Even the most casual of places cater to aesthetic sensibilities. Later in the week we ate at the Ingmarso harbor cafe. This place used to be called something like Armadillo Willy's but came to its senses for the most part and reverted to cultural roots. Except the nachos but we will gloss over those quickly. A blue metal pail full of utensils and napkins. Sigh.

To say nothing of something called Planka, meaning "board." An aquavit and sealife taster. For my brothers-in-law.

I had beer and fried Baltic herring, or strumming. I can't eat pickled herrings, no matter how they pickle those poor critters, but fried in batter and nestled into some mashed potatoes and melted butter? Oh boy. Oh boy.

Finally, the stairs leading from the inlet dock up to the house. Whether the builder knew that the top landing would make a perfect place to sit, mug in hand, and watch the sun play on the water, I do not know. In a Swedish summer, home style includes skylight. And I love the way unfinished wood smells when it gets warm. Especially when it's old enough that you don't have to worry about splinters.

I can't forget my manners. The only Swedish word I know is thank you, but it's the most important here. "Tack," Swedish family, "Tack sa mycket."

Images:
Bended thingies from life is carbon, all about Scandinavian design
Mirrors from Cupboards & Roses, specializing in Swedish antiques
All others by me

Note: The scenery is yet to come. I haven't forgotten that all these home goods sat in the middle of the sky on some water.

Would You Like To Win A Copper-Clad Omelette Pan?

It's time for another giveaway.The fine folks at CSN Stores got in touch with me. CSN has all sort of online shops - they supplied the Rowallan jewelry keep last year. The company also sells mattresses, garden furniture, and things like TV stands. They appear to do almost no marketing, except this bit where they contact bloggers and offer to give goods away. It's an interesting business model, were I still in the business of business models. But I digress.

This giveaway also boasts a harmonic convergence of epic proportions. In this case, a reader request for my simple spinach and goat cheese omelette recipe, and recent forays to France, converge at an All-Clad, copper-covered, 8-inch frying pan. I have one just like it. You also get some cleaner. Because you may like to keep your copper looking like, um, copper.

All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us about the first omelette you ever ate. Or your favorite omelette recipe. Or, what else would you use an 8-inch frying pan for? Imagination is a good thing.

The first time I ever had an omelette was on Mont St. Michel, in France. The year must have been 1977. Yes, some of us were alive and eating omelettes back then. My sister and I spent that summer traveling through France. We took a train out from Paris, if I remember, to see the small island. Omelettes were famous on Mont St. Michelle. Still are, although now it's quite a tourist industry. My sister and I just sat, and ate the souffled omelettes, in wonder at how delicious they were. Then we got back on the train, if I remember, and went back to Paris.

Nowadays I eat omelettes because they a) are full of protein b) make a good container for vegetables c) use few dishes d) are easy to make, after 30 years of practice.

Omelettes are also the key to entering the kingdom of High WASPs. Surprised? Have you ever watched the original Sabrina? (*cue sound of 15-year old Lisa, sighing*). Audrey Hepburn comes home from Paris, having learned how to cook an omelette. Which causes Humphrey Bogart, eldest son of the estate, to fall in love with her. Oh, indeed, it's a terrible story from the perspective of class and gender. But what do we know at 15?

Do you need any more encouragement? Here's my recipe.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
(1 tbsp of water or milk is sometimes advised. I fail to notice any impact whatsoever)
Some goat cheese from California. Just because.
Two handfuls of frozen or fresh spinach
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Required Tools:
8-inch frying pan
Fork or spatula
Small mixing bowl
Strainer

Steps:
Let me say first that despite my experience in Mont St. Michelle, I don't cook souffled omelettes for myself. Jan does, here. I will be trying this recipe, and it may change my life forever.

Neither do I like the thin rectangular egg sheets that pass for omelettes at many diners, nor the masses of compacted scrambled eggs often seen in Northern California breakfast havens. I like my omelettes tender, moderately fluffy, and cooked all the way through. Just like salmon. Except the fluffy part.

So the entire art to omelettes is what you do in the 45 seconds between when the egg hits the pan and when you fold the resultant material over whatever filling you've put inside.

First, get your goat cheese out of the refrigerator, where you keep it, although you wonder if you're doing something declasse keeping cheese too cold. Unwrap it. Put it on a cutting board. Wonder why on earth no one has solved the problem of good/reusable cheese packaging. Separate 4-5 clumps of goat cheese from the mother ship, each about the size of a teaspoon. Put the cheese back in the refrigerator and quiet your inquiring mind.

Second, take out the butter, and some spinach. If you are using fresh spinach, be virtuous, take out olive oil which is good for your heart, and saute at low heat until wilted. Not your heart, the spinach. Then dump said spinach into a strainer. Probably good to squish a little, overly wet fillings are anathema to omelettes.

If you are using frozen spinach, put it in a glass bowl with a little water, cover with a paper towel, and microwave it for a minute until thawed. Then dump the spinach into a strainer and proceed to the squishing.

Third, take that SAME glass bowl from the microwaving process, (you see, the goal is to have as few dishes to wash as possible), once it's cooled down, and crack in 3 eggs. Some people will tell you to use 2 eggs. In my opinion, 3 is perfect, leading to the right balance of you-can-cook-all-the-egg and the-resultant-egg-layer-is-substantial. Mix until whites and yolks are one yellow mass. If you don't, you'll get streaks of egg white - like fried eggs - in your omelette. To me that is a sign of a Diner Omelette and is not my preferred mode. To each his or her own, however. In all my 30 years of cooking the Omelette Police have never paid me a visit. I believe them to be apocryphal.

Fourth, light a medium-high burner under your frying pan. Go get slice a tablespoon of butter off a stick and walk across the kitchen balancing the butter on your knife, hoping it doesn't slip. Throw it into the pan. Let it melt, then foam up, but not burn. As you can see, sometimes one forgets to pay attention and butter browning commences. Forgive yourself. This is not the worst thing one can fail to notice in a lifetime.

Swirl the butter around so that all the pan is covered. Or spread the butter around with a spatula. This is effective, just less graceful.

Now pour in all the eggs. If there's an art to omelettes, here's the moment. This is my way - taught me by my mother. There are other ways, and other mothers in the world.

• Let the egg cook for 5 seconds. You will see the edges foam and puff a little bit.
• Start to shake the pan gently. The egg mass will loosen. Move it from side to side inside the pan just a bit.
• Take your fork and hold its tines horizontal to the layer of egg that has cooked, stirring the uncooked liquid. Do this for 5 seconds.
• Now move your fork down towards the pan, keeping the tines horizontal. Do this in an area halfway between the center of the pan and the edge. Use the flat fork to press on the cooked egg layer and pull it away from the edge, towards the center.
• Tilt the pan so the edge you've pulled the egg away from is down.
• Liquid egg will run into the now-empty part of the pan.

• Repeat all around the egg mass, fairly quickly, making sure you are creating a circular form of cooked egg, and letting the uncooked egg run UNDER and AROUND the cooked part, so that it gets cooked in turn.
• Once the egg is mostly done, you can pick up the edges of the cooked circle here and there so the last bits of liquid egg run out and cook. If you're obsessive about raw egg, *raises hand*, you can scrape any liquid left over the edge of the cooked mass onto the pan surface.

Now it's time to put in the filling. Place the gobs of goat cheese at regular intervals on one side of the egg mass. Now spread the spinach on top of the cheese. Tilt the pan and slide the omelette in one direction, up the side of the pan, about an inch. Then pick up the edge of the omelette that's still on the flat part of the pan, and fold it over on top of your fillings.

Turn off the heat, leave the omelette to sit in the pan for a minute so the cheese will mostly melt. Salt. Pepper. Serve. Goes well with whole grain toast.

Now I'm hungry. The winner will be drawn next Tuesday, June 7th. Please enjoy.

They specified that I say the words, "TV Stands," linked, up here at the top of this post. Why "TV Stands," I can't tell you. But it seemed a reasonable price to pay. Think about it, if someone said to you, "Say, 'TV Stands' and I will give you a copper frying pan," wouldn't you do it?

BTW, The Cape House is ALSO hosting a CSN giveaway, in her case for a gift card. Go here and double your chances.

Images:
Frying pan from CSN
Mont St. Michel
Omelette in process, me

Eating In Paris Is Not Like Eating In Other Places. Some People Talk To You, Some People Don't.

For those of us who like to feel we've snagged the best of the best, eating in Paris can cause Street Fair Anxiety. You know the street fair fear of Not Finding The Best, or, Settling For The Not So Good? Wandering from booth to booth not knowing where to stop? Oh. Maybe it's just me. In any case, a similar feeling can accompany trying to figure out where to eat in Paris.

There are so many good places. Great places. And yet the awful lurks. If Paris offered only mediocre food, we'd feel no anxiety. Just grit our group esophagus and bear it. But how to plan to eat without organizing an entire visit around food? I mean, one can. One can, and many do, plan an entire trip to Paris just to eat well and on purpose. But if you also like to shop, and sight see, and you in particular want to leave room for serendipity, you need an eating strategy that allows for random choice.

Et voila.

You can ensure that you hit some high points by following recommendations from any or all of these sources.

Guidebooks. As long as you pick one suited to your demographic, i.e. no Lonely Planet for the Grande Dame, you should be fine. I like Fodor's, myself. Maybe their recommendations aren't the latest and coolest, but the company makes its living on giving good advice, and tries hard to deliver. Sturdy Gals like that.

Concierges. The role of concierge in Paris is more honorable than in the US. Hotels are less likely to send you to the restaurant down the street that has contributed to someone's coffers. Particularly if you cross-check recommendations with a guidebook, direction received should be useful.

Cognoscenti. Best of all, get advice from someone who lives in Paris or travels there often. If you don't have personal connections, in the US I can also recommend Chowhound.com unreservedly, having frequented the SF board for a while. An online set of cognoscenti argue passionately about their favorite restaurants and leave marks of battle we can all follow.

In parallel, you can avoid bad food by staying away from these places exempt from Parisian market forces. The French like to eat and are proud of their country's food. They won't patronize some place mediocre unless absolutely necessary.

Large American hotels. Captive customers at large hotels don't bring out the best in food service.

Chains. Chains draw business via their brand, which can trump actual eating.

Places that show no evidence anyone likes them, i.e. restaurants empty at lunch or dinner. Again, Parisian market forces show you the way.

As example, here's the story of my friend and me, eating in Paris during a long weekend.

Friday Evening, Eating Somewhere Random After A Chef Yelled At Us

The first night, we tried to eat here.

There's sentimental meaning to this place. My friend has 3 boys. Rather physical boys at that, albeit very lovable. Years ago I gave her a charm for her keychain that said, "Rue Des Mauvais Garcons," which is where this restaurant is located.

We tried to eat there after touring the Marais in the rain. They were closed until 7pm. OK. We wandered. At 7pm, no one was there. OK. We wandered some more. At 7:20pm, we could see the chef in the kitchen. The door was still locked. I gesticulated through the glass. He waved back. I gesticulated again and spoke loudly in my broken French. "Are you open?" More hand-waving on his part. Finally, realizing I was not going to go away, he came to the other side of the glass. But did not open the door. He began to wave his hands some more and speak. For the life of me I could not figure out what he was saying. I could see he was Asian, I could hear he was speaking French, I could see his hands waving. All for naught. I was embarrassed about my broken French, and wondered if I were a native speaker whether I would understand what on earth was going on. He never opened the door.

We left. And went and ate at a place that advertised Happy Hour, faced a pedestrian walkway (which I believe was Rue Cloche Perce), and was Full Of People. Had steak, fries, a salad, red wine. Straightforward and delicious. Fantastic hipster watching, always a plus.

Saturday Morning, Eating At A Large American Hotel

The next morning, my friend and I had the buffet breakfast at the Westin Paris, where we stayed. The eggs were cold. It cost 60 euros. I do not think I need to say more and I certainly do not need or want to show you a photo of cold eggs.

Saturday Lunch, Eating At An Historic Tea Palace Recommended By Cognoscenti

We ate lunch, after a lot of shopping, at Laduree on the Champs-Elysees. Laduree is known for les macarons, those multi-colored cookies Martha Stewart has made famous. But Tish clued us in to the fact that Laduree also offers lunch. And a fabulous staircase which you will get to ascend whether you eat upstairs or downstairs, as the WCs are above.

I had a shrimp salad which was, as Faux Fuchsia would say, an 11 out of 10. And a glass of Sancerre. Yum. The greens were well-dried, the dressing citron-y, the shrimp fresh, the wine crisp.

Then we had to go have a nap.

Saturday Dinner, Eating At A Well-Known, Highly-Rated Restaurant Found In A Guide Book And Confirmed By A Concierge

Having recovered from lunch, it was time for dinner. I read the guidebook we had acquired that morning. Found a place that sounded perfect for my friend's tastes. Cross-checked it on Fodor's website. Le Pre Verre. Went down to talk to the concierge. But no madam, Le Pre Verre is always booked, even on the weekdays! Well, just give a call. Yes, of course, it cannot hurt to try. Et voila! We can have a table for two, but only for two hours and then we will turn into pumpkins. Well then.

Le Pre Verre is known for Suckling Pig Poached in Spicy Sauce. Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear. Chunks of white, melting pork. Star anise. Al dente strips of some kind of cabbagey green. And a light, light curry-ish sauce with probably lots of cream fraiche. An oxymoron but never mind. If your eyes are rolling back into your head about now, correct response.

Our two hours ran out just as we began dessert and our second bottle of wine. The maitre d' told us he could move us outside to the sidewalk with heat lamps. We decamped. And wound up sitting next to a couple, a little older than I, and talking, until close to midnight, part English, part my broken French. And walking out into the streets like this.

Sunday Lunch, Eating At A Very Picturesque Restaurant Where The Picturesque Grandmother Cooked Disgusting Food

On Sunday I forgot to live by my own principles. We went to see the Sainte Chapelle, and Notre Dame. I asked the concierge where to eat nearby, and he pointed me to the Ile de la Cite. That was a good idea. However, I got possessed by an urge for Poulet Provencal, advertised outside this place. Bad idea. Because no one else was eating.

The cook was a terribly adorable grandmother. The maitre d'hotel a very nice man. But the food tasted like propane. Or some other random petrochemical. Never mind. The walls were old. We had chocolate. One can always find bread. And it was time for the Gare du Nord, and the Thalys train back to Brussels.

Note. Philippe Delacourcelle has a cookbook here. I may succumb. Another note. You can book lunch at Laduree online.

The Best Minimal-Prep, Little-Clean Dish For 3 Days Of Eating Alone

Raw chicken is scary. But I like the cooked kind.

Much as I love a perfect cashmere sweater, we can't live on style alone. Turns out we have to eat. And there comes a time for almost all of us when we will be eating alone for a few days. Maybe you're single and living alone, in a week where the usual diversions haven't materialized. Maybe you're coupled, but your partner is traveling out of town for the week. Of if you're divorced, your children are with the other parent.

Grandes Dames may dine out in solo majesty. Order take in from the best restaurants in town. Artsy Cousins may have tabbouleh in the fridge, with exotic yogurts from Bulgaria as accompaniment. Many cucumbers. Follow the Raw Food movement. But we Sturdy Gals prefer to cook. Something tasty and healthy. Something easy to make and easy to clean up. Enter Roast Chicken Pieces With Diverse Vegetables. No measuring. Minimal washing-up. Excellent leftover reuse.

Best of all, roasting vegetables is a transformative act. While their resultant caramelization rescues roast chicken from chewy hunk of protein status, they're still vegetables, those foodstuffs we want, in theory, to consume in large quantities.

Directions

Go to the market. Buy three large bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. I spring for organic. Your choice.

Swing by the produce section. Buy two large yellow onions, plus two large handfuls each of two of the following vegetables: brussels sprouts, beets, fennel bulbs, red bell peppers, butternut squash, or russet potatoes. Granted, sizing up a handful of butternut squash requires a little imagination, but it's doable. Pick a harmonic vegetable pairing. Beets with fennel would insult nature. Onions get along with everything.

Go home. Preheat your oven to whatever temperature you like to use for roasting chicken. I'm a 400 degrees for 45 minutes kind of gal, but this recipe is beyond flexible. 450 degrees for 30 minutes should also work, as would 350 degrees for an hour. Your choice. Mark Bittman says 450 degrees for 30-40 minutes. He is a god of Sturdy Gal cooking and you should probably do what he says. On the other hand, he gets all fancy about when to add herbs and when to baste and I don't pay too much attention for this recipe. The whole point is not to have to pay attention.

Cut up whatever vegetables you have into 3-inch cubes. Approximately.

Take out your battered old roasting pan. The one that came with the oven. Cover it in tinfoil and apologize to the environment. This is to make cleanup as minimal as possible. Now splash in some olive oil and squooge it around. Enough to make everything slidy, not so much that anything will sautee instead of roast.

Next, unwrap your chicken. I have terrible chicken bacteria phobia, so I like to stab the chicken breasts with a fork and move them DIRECTLY to the pan, crumple up the chicken packaging, throw it away, and wash my hands. Phew. Then I salt and pepper the chicken breasts as I please.

Now decide on the herbs. As much or as little as you like. Two or three tablespoons is probably about right. Feel like Indian food? Get out that curry. Add some extra turmeric, it's supposed to be good for your memory. Nothing wrong with self-medication when spices are involved. Mediterranean? Thyme, basil, oregano. Moroccan? Cumin, coriander. And so on. Make sure your herbs go with the vegetables. I think coriander might distress your brussels sprouts. I could be wrong.

Lay the vegetables under and around the chicken. There should be space for air so that the food roasts, rather than steaming. But otherwise, that's it.

Put it in the oven. Baste once or twice. Fidget with the chicken if you like, using tongs to dislodge it from the pan now and then. Your house will smell like someone loves you. Remove from oven when done. Look around wondering where to put a hot roasting pan because you just don't trust granite not to explode, or shatter, upon contact with heat. Decide for the 146th time to put it on the stove burners until you buy more trivets, knowing full well that you may never buy more trivets.

If some vegetables seem to cook ahead of schedule, you can take them out and leave the rest to cook a little while longer. Or you can just enjoy really, really well done fennel bulbs. I love that little black crusty part on the edge, and the way they smoosh when cooked longer than strictly necessary.

Now you have one breast for first night's dinner, as it comes out of the oven, the next to use on salad or in a burrito, a final one to heat up again with the last of the onions and pan juices. When you have two breasts left, put the whole roasting pan in the fridge, covered in more tinfoil, to save container cleaning. Once you've only got one, wrap it up in the tinfoil already in use and clean the pan at that point. I told you we were keeping this effort as minimal as possible. If you aren't an all-chicken-all-the-time kind of person, slide in one night of frozen pizza with a salad. And if you're waiting for someone, they will be home soon.

The Quickest, Easiest, Most Delicious, Last Minute Brussels Sprouts Recipe In The Known Universe

via Flickr, grand grrl's photostream

Pancetta, lemons, brussels sprouts, oven, 15 minutes.

Or, in a slight expanded version,

1 pound brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 ounces pancetta, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 lemon, cut into quarters and then into paper-thin slices
Kosher or sea salt and freshy cracked black pepper

Preheat the over to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Toss the brussels sprouts, olive oil, pancetta, lemon, and salt and pepper to taste in a medium baking dish. Roast on a baking sheet (so as not to trap moisture, thereby steaming your little crucifers) until the sprouts are brown and tender, about 15 minutes.

Serves 4. (To serve 24 you will need some more baking sheets....)

This recipe (except, of course, the parentheses) is from the The Rose Pistola Cookbook, by Reed Hearon and Peggy Knickerbocker. Rose Pistola is the restaurant that invented roasting. Well, not really, but it opened in San Francisco in the mid-90's and has been roasting things ever since.

Happy Thanksgiving cooking to all.

Saturday Morning at 8:33am

My sisters are coming for dinner tonight. And sleeping over. In my world, sisters are A Very Good Thing.

On the menu? Something that counts as comfort food for Northern Californians. Especially when one of them was a vegetarian for a rather long time. Oh, said vegetarian wasn't me. I'm very fond of meat. Even bacon. But I love braising. The smell is as nice as the taste. Especially when sisters are in the house.

Braised Cinnamon Tofu
From A Spoonful of Ginger, Nina Simonds
(all silly commentary is of course mine)

1 teaspoon safflower or corn oil (I always use more. Can't help myself.)

Seasonings
6 whole scallions, ends trimmed, smashed lightly with the flat side of a knife and cut into 1 1/2 inch sections (this recipe has no finicky chopping requirements. I like that.)
6 garlic cloves, smashed lightly with the flat side of a knife and sliced thinly
4 slices fresh ginger, about the size of a quarter, smashed lightly with the flat side of a knife
1 teaspoon hot chile paste (you can probably use crushed chile pepper instead. If you can find it.)
2 sticks cinnamon
1 teaspoon anise seed (I imagine you can also use a couple of star anise pods)

Other
1/2 cup soy sauce
6 cups water
2 pounds firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound spinach, stems trimmed, rinsed, and drained
3 tablespoons minced scallion greens

1. Heat a large pot or casserole over medium-high heat, add the oil, heat until hot, about 30 seconds, and add the Seasonings. Stir-fry until fragrant, about 15 seconds, then add the soy sauce and water. Heat until boiling, add the tofu, and boil again. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer, skimming the surface to remove impurities and fat (although, how much fat is going to be present given that it's tofu?). Cook for 1 hour, until the tofu is drenched (don't you love the word drenched?) with the flavors of the braising mixture. Remove the ginger slices and cinnamon and discard.
2. Add the spinach clump by clump to the tofu (I am so going to use to pre-washed spinach, a great modern invention) and heat until boiling. Ladle the mixture into serving bowls, sprinkle scallion greens on top, and serve.

If this sounds good to you, go buy the cookbook. It's incredible. I promise. Also, have a wonderful weekend. For that, I can make no promises. But I will make wishes.

*And nobody gave me anything nor do I make any money from purchases. Not that I am against free enterprise, I just don't know how.

4 Kitchen Tricks To Know Before You Turn 50

I love to cook. I used to do a lot of it. In my 40s I learned a few tricks that made the type of cooking I like to do - Cal/Asian, Cal/Italian, lots of chopping - easier. I thought that in the spirit of the High WASP sturdy gal I would pass them on to you. Style is about ease. However and wherever you find it.

These, by the way, are not the kinds of tips you find in Real Simple. You know, those "Aha! uses?" As in, take some sort of oil (which you might not have) and apply it to god knows what (which you might not have either) in order to create some effect (which you would never thought you cared about)? No. These tips are for the stuff we have to do, using things we already have. I am not trying to help you be perfect. Just to avoid unnecessary mistakes. Perfection, risk, voyages, that's another world.

1. What To Do With The Rest Of The Bunch of Parsley?
Say you need parsley. Unless you have an herb garden, you buy a bunch. And you never use it all. If you put it back into the plastic bag, it turns to slime. So cut the bottoms off, and put all your leftover stalks into a bowl of water. Then eat a little bit when you pass it. High in Vitamin A. Good for breath freshening.


2. How Do You Peel Garlic Easily?
Simple. You probably know this one already, but just in case. Put a clove on your cutting board. Smash it with the flat side of your knife blade. All the skin breaks and you can slide it off.


3. What To Do With The 1/4 Leftover Lemon?
Put it in the refrigerator and you will probably find it fossilized a week later. Instead, put it on the sponge next to your sink. Every time you put something down the garbage disposal, slice off a chunk of lemon and throw it down your drain. Also squooge a little on your fingers so they smell good. One can never have too much smelling good in one's life.


4. How To Cut Up An Avocado?
Slice the avocado open lengthwise with a paring knife. With a large spoon, scoop out the entire pit-free avocado half. For the other side, whack the pit gently with your knife. Be careful not to let the knife slip, and keep your hands out of the way. Just saying. Pull the pit out. Slice your avocado. This I got from Livin' Lousiana, (who also sells these nice fleur-de-lis coasters). In my 50s. See, I have just given you two decades worth of knowledge. I'm sure I learned some other things in that time, but they might not come with such a strong guarantee to work.


The sturdy gal likes things that are guaranteed to work. She has little patience for fol-de-rol. Or wisdom that relies on Freud. Sometimes her way is helpful, in modern times of doubt and anxiety. Just scoop out the avocado. Fast. Smooth. Good for the soul.

Rapture. Finding Lunch On I5.

I5 is a long and ugly road. Takes you past tumbleweeds and dusty orchards and feedlots full of hot, sluggish cattle waiting to be processed. Processed is a euphemism. You will see signs saying things like "Congress Created Dust Bowls" attached to wire fencing running alongside. Not much resemblance to the California of our dreams. However, I5 also makes it possible to drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to parts of Los Angeles in under six hours. My youngest sister and her family live in Los Angeles. I live in the Bay Area. My sister had just moved houses, and she asked for a visit. Down we went. And, three days later, back we came.

Lunch on roadtrips is usually such a quandary. Do you steel yourself for yet another encounter with the corporate deep fryer? Or do you risk eating actual food made by actual humans when said actual humans might do a bad job? Usually we do fast food. Long tradition born of the horrors of small, bored children in a car. But this time we had my mother along. And it didn't seem fair to make her eat Mc-Anything.

On the way down we had seen a sign saying, "Indian Food, Veg, Non-Veg." I know that's a clue the food will be real. That's how they say it in India. That's how they say it in Bay Area Indian restaurants, of which there are a good number. I was curious. We stopped.


"Taste of India". It was in a rest area. Not even a town. Just a collection of gas stations and eating places in the sun. Did I mention it was 103 degrees? In we went. The Bollywood movie playing on the TV hanging from the ceiling gave me comfort. The young woman taking our order gave me comfort, as did the purple walls and foil decorations hanging from the ceiling. I had been ready for the food to be awful but it was not. It was wonderful. You could tell it was homemade from ingredients you can find in nature. Each dish we ordered tasted different from every other dish. No one was pulling out the can of Annie's Asian Food Sauces and dousing the chicken with generic yellow.

I had chicken tandoori tikka. And mango lassi. The chicken was good to bite and to taste. The red sauce was tangy, maybe from tamarind. Onions and bell peppers had roasted and caramelized. We also had paneer palaak, creamed spinach with chunks of hard cheese. Spicy. Delicious.

It wasn't cheap. It wasn't fast. But I cannot tell you how much I love a random joy like this. Something unexpected. Unexpected and flirting with the absurd. Indian food and purple walls at a truck stop in inland California? Jolts you out of the let's-just-get-this-over-with part of travel. Fills you with happiness for people who set up a family restaurant and post a large sign by the side of something as big and industrial as I5. Reassures you that some level of risk is usually worth taking. Especially once you no longer have small, bored children in the car. Those with small, bored children are exempt.

If you drive over Labor Day, and find yourself on I5, the exit is Buttonwillow. Adding a sort of early 20th century English children's literature flavor to the entire experience.

Have a lovely weekend.

Rapture. Carnitas.

Some things are universal. Thank heavens. You know how it feels, when you are driving down the freeway, and thinking about the next couple of hours, you realize you are hungry, and then realize your favorite food is waiting for you at the next off-ramp?

Tacos. Carnitas. See that tomatillo salsa? The chopped red onions? The cilantro? Making my mouth water now even as I sit on my sofa with not a speck of pork in sight.


Best part is the side of pickled carrots. Hot. Vinegary.


Check is pretty nice too.


Gracias indeed. Rapture.

How You Know That Time Is Passing

I love to cook. I've been buying stuff to cook with for 30 years. As such, and as a Californian besides, I've always looked for the best ingredients. Going to Asian markets for actual Chinese long beans. Googling aji amarillo to find out where I might buy Peruvian chiles in the Bay Area. (Failing but that's another problem). Purchasing actual nutmegs vs. ground nutmeg powder. And, being a California, looking to buy organic wherever possible.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store. The fancy grocery store. We have more of those here than strictly necessary to support the population. I was looking for, among other things, red pepper flakes. I use them for the aromatics in Chinese food (the stuff you throw in the wok to cook for 15 seconds before you cook the rest of the ingredients), with sauteed spinach to keep the balsamic vinegar company, to throw together some enchiladas to use up last night's grill-roasted pork loin.

I gather that red pepper flakes have fallen from foodie favor. Because if I wanted organic, which I did, I had to buy WHOLE DRIED RED PEPPERS. In a glass jar. This has never happened before. I wavered. I tried to move my aging habits forward in 2 minutes, as I stood in the spice aisle. I could not. I have cooked with red pepper flakes, as I said, for 30 years.

What, I ask, was wrong with flakes? Even as I ask, I know. I know. Less full-flavored, less authentic, less something or other. One more thing to chop is what I am thinking. But I have vowed never to be the kind of old person who grumbles that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Next time. Whole dried red peppers. Got it.

High WASP Entertaining, The Family Gathering

Theme parties aside, the High WASP's most favorite sort of entertaining is the family gathering. Let's face it. It's tiring being a High WASP. All that social signaling. I am sighing at the thought.

At family gatherings, you will not offend anyone with incorrect signals. The language is shared. You may offend someone by calling them an effing princess, as I once did, or admitting that you don't like fruit desserts, but at least it's clear. Not murky. Devoid of anxiety. And more often, you will sit round the table and say things like, "Remember when we were in Mexico and the mariachi band played in the villa's living room and embarrassed us into silence and we ate all that food the cook made that we didn't even like?" You may all be amused at the tendency of New York Times book reviewers one year to use the term "luminous" in reference to prose, and wind yourselves up into uproarious laughter deciding which books were in fact, "matte."

In short, you are a family. In this, I imagine, much like any family. Comforting each other with shared experiences, thoughts, patterns.

One of my most dearly beloved family gatherings happened on a rare hot California night. Northern California almost always cools down at night, thanks to our marine layer. But a week or two every summer, it gets hot. This night, it was hot.

I cooked, as I always did. I don't remember what food. It was so hot, what with the night and the cooking, that someone said, "Let's take the dining table outside." We dragged my old french bread-making table outdoors. Also chairs. We pulled out the candelabra and the vase which was in fact a polo tournament trophy. Picked some flowers. Lit candles. Laid mats, and napkins, unmatched plates. There were a lot of us.

Dinner On The Patio As Night Falls by High WASP on Polyvore.com

We ate dinner on the patio fully served. Sat around the table for much longer than usual, watching darkness come. Eventually just breathing. An enormous sense of well-being overtook me. Perhaps it overtook us all, except as High WASPs, no one said anything much more than, "Um, yes, well, nice fish. " Or chicken. We're health conscious.

Because at the end it's clearly just a family, sitting at a table, eating dinner, feeling love.


Notes
- Many of the goods above are from our friend TPP
- Yes, I noticed I said love without irony. It was difficult but necessary. It's the truth after all.
- You will also find this post at the wonderful blog, The Blushing Hostess, along with other posts on grace in everyday living

Food For Belgium

My best friend moved to Belgium last year. She has been my best friend for 18 years. When I call her, her cellphone says Best Friend. When she calls me, my cellphone says Belgium.

My friend, never a fleshy person except when pregnant, has lost a lot of weight since she moved to Belgium. She's a picky eater, and hates everything that counts as food over there. I'm not sure why. She has always liked my cooking. I don't know if it's because I cook well, or just because she loves me and trusts food that comes from my hands.

She said to me the other day (thank goodness for Skype) that if I could just write something, describe some food to her, then maybe her husband would cook it, and she would like it. He is good like that. I love my best friend. So here is a recipe. It has chicken breasts, always sacred in her food pantheon, and northern European vegetables. I've added pepper flakes. She used to put Tabasco on everything.

My mother was one of the first Caucasian women in America to buy a wok. I'm sure of it. I can still remember the Taylor and Ng cookbook in our kitchen. So I am carrying on a tradition of sorts. Except that in my experience cooking rarely resembles the narrative in cookbooks. So this one, from Nina Simonds, is somewhat, um, deconstructed. It's delicious, I promise. It's for Belgium.


Flash-Cooked Chicken with Leeks - Adapted From Spoonful of Ginger, Nina Simonds

Ingredients

Chicken
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast. You will be slicing it in a certain way so don't buy pre-sliced "stirfry" chicken.

Marinade
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine or sake
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Cooking Oil
4 1/2 tablespoons high heat cooking oil (peanut, canola, corn)

Seasonings
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes*
10 cloves of garlic, sliced very thin
8 cups of leeks (about 3 large leeks), both ends trimmed, thoroughly rinsed, and shredded or cut into thin strips about 1/4 wide and 2 inches long.
2 tablespoons rice wine

Sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons Chinese black vinegar if you can find it, or Worcestershire sauce

Implements

Big chef's knife or cleaver
Wok or large cast iron skillet
Big heavy bowl - for chicken
Colander
Little bowl - for sauce
Wooden spoon - for stirring

What To Do

1. You will want the chicken to be partially frozen for easiest slicing, so put it in the freezer for a few hours. Go watch TV. Or play with the kids. Or anything you want. Then go back into the kitchen and make sure you have everything.
2. Make the sauce in a little bowl and put aside.
3. Mix the marinade ingredients in a heavy bowl large enough to hold the chicken once it's cut into little pieces.
4. Arrange the chicken breasts on a cutting board. Now start to shave thin pieces of chicken off the frozen breasts, cutting across the grain where you can, to create a pile of pieces that are each maybe 1/8 inches thick and 2 inch by 1 inch in size. Embrace the irregularities of the pieces, ignoring any secret OCD tendencies.
5. Dump the chicken slices into the marinade and toss to coat.
6. Wash your hands. Struggle with the fact that you have possibly got deadly chicken bacteria on your fingers and therefore turn the faucet with your elbow, causing water to spray down the front of your shirt. Knock over a bottle of dishwashing liquid into the sink and squeeze it with the same elbow. Rub your hands in the resulting soap and then wash them obsessively. Repeat.
7. Wash the cutting board.
8. Wash your knife.
9. Breathe sigh of relief at your narrow escape from chicken poisoning.
10. Slice the garlic. First smash each clove with the flat side of your knife to break the papery skin. Top and tail each clove. Slide the papery skin off the cloves. Then take a clove and slice off one side. This exposes a flat surface. Put the clove onto its flat surface and put your fingers in a claw shape to hold the clove, pushing your knuckles towards the knife. Put the point of the knife on the cutting board, and then use it like a paper cutter, with your knuckles as a guide touching the knife above the sharp blade. This protects your fingertips from getting sliced off. If I have failed to describe this cutting technique adequately, don't worry. Just do what you usually do. Slice all 10 cloves of garlic very thinly. Stay focused, even though this is rather a lot of garlic. Breathe a sigh of relief at escaping the danger of slicing off part of your finger or thumb.
11. Next you will cut up a LOT of leeks. Slice off the root end and the woody dark green end. Slice each leek in half. Rinse the leek halves in a colander. Obsessively rinse out all grit and dirt from between the slices. Then slice leeks into the appropriate size and shape. Some strips will be white, some will be light green.
12. Heat a wok or a large cast iron skillet, add 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil and heat until very hot. To test, throw a few drops of water onto the hot surface and see if it skittles around. Now cover all your exposed flesh with heat-protective materials. Long mitts are good. Unless you find assorted burn scars to be decorative. You should see my right arm.
13. Add half the chicken, and stir-fry over high heat about 2 minutes, or until the meat changes from pink to white and is just cooked. Empty the chicken into a colander and drain. Reheat the pan using another 1 1/5 tablespoons of the oil, heat, and cook the remaining chicken. Drain in a colander and and clean out the pan. You can just wipe it, as long as the burnt parts are off.
14. Reheat the pan, add the last 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil, and heat until very hot. Add the Seasonings and stir-fry about 1-2 minutes, tossing over high heat. Add the rice wine and continue cooking, until the leeks are tender, about 1 more minute. Add the Sauce and the cooked chicken, and stir to combine the ingredients evenly. If your sink is not next to your stove, some drops from the chicken may fall out of the colander onto the floor. I have no solution for this except to get yet another bowl dirty by dumping the chicken out of the colander.
15. Serve. With rice. Maybe some steamed broccoli, or gai lan if you have access to an Asian market.
16. Eat. Exclaim at how delicious it is. Go buy Spoonful of Ginger. Immediately. Or China Express, Ms. Simonds cookbook of even simpler Chinese cooking. The recipes are a) authentic enough b) simple enough c) do not require you to eat chicken feet, duck necks, or jellyfish, all of which would be quite reasonable if I weren't such a Westerner in my food preferences. In neither book is there any nonsense about cutting oneself, or burning oneself, or chicken poisoning.

*There are no pepper flakes in the Nina Simonds recipe but my best friend likes spicy food.

Food Continued

For my generation there is no longer any such thing as High WASP food per se. The dispersion of the original New England, New York, and Philadelphia crews across the nation put an end to any thought of a unique culinary set. You will find us eating caviar that thinks it's ice cream at the French Laundry, salads with roast chicken at our corporate cafeteria, congealed pizza brought in by admins for an all-day meeting at our law firms, take out poached salmon from Whole Foods in front of the entire DVD set of the Sopranos, carnitas from the taqueria in the Latin American neighborhood in the next town, offal at a fancy Italian restaurant in San Francisco, no matter. We don't use any Campbell's Soups in our recipes. We cook from scratch altogether. We are probably more likely than average to eat carefully, to watch our weight, to try to stay healthy. But that's a side effect of privilege. Once you realize you are unlikely to die of hunger, or cold, you start worrying about dying of overindulgence. And you bring that High WASP code of conduct to bear on eating. Nothing too-too.

I can make no cultural claims to what you eat. Enjoy. Dig in. Just make sure you have a napkin nearby. Because place settings are another thing altogether. China? Glassware? Silverware? Tablecloths? And let's not even get started on candlesticks...

High WASPs And Food, Continued

In the my mother's generation, servants became widely impossible except for the super-rich. And High WASPs were no longer exclusively super-rich, nor were the super-rich exclusively High WASP. What did the young women graduating from Smith and Vassar and Radcliffe and Wellesley in the 1950's do about food? They knew it was their job. They had read the books. Being High WASPs, they had a deep belief in doing a good job.

And so the modern obsession with cooking began. Now I am not going all Al Gore and saying the High WASP invented the cookbook. (Although I understand in fact he had good reason to say he invented the Internet?) But High WASP women really needed cookbooks, since they had no mother, no grandmother, to show them how to make food. No food of the homeland. No cooking culture. And since they were apt to lose touch with their family's cooks when they moved to their husband's houses. And since, in the 1950's, their husbands certainly weren't cooking. And since, in the 1950's, probably small children who usually require feeding would be arriving in the unprecedented numbers of the Baby Boom. Which Boom of course produced me, so I'm a fan.

But these women didn't want to cook just anything. They certainly didn't want to cook like the middle class, however the middle class might have cooked. Since High WASPs had no home cooking they wanted to cook the recipes of other homes, other people. Actually, other peoples. They wanted cultural authenticity to stand in for childhood recipes, which belonged in fact to the family cook. (This is my theory of course, developed without an iota of research or data to back it up.) My mother bought her first wok in 1970 from Taylor and Ng, a San Francisco company and Chinese-American cookbooks shouldered their way onto our pantry shelves next to Julia Childs' (a High WASP if I ever saw one) Mastering the Art of French Cooking. My memories of Mom's cooking involve a lot of stir-fried broccoli. Cooked with sherry. Xiao xiang wine hadn't yet made its way to suburban Northern California. But if it had been there she would have bought it.

For my mother, her comfort foods had been Spam, Libby's Corned Beef Hash, and Underwood Deviled Chicken, all the foods she ate when the cook had a night off, her parents were out, and she, her brother, and sister, ate with the nanny. I don't think comfort food was allowed in my father's house. I am not sure he even knew where the kitchen was in the houses and Park Avenue apartment he grew up in. But for my generation, comfort food was the food our mothers learned to cook from other worlds. Ironically, of course, but who knew it then, just before the women's liberation movement began to tell them to get out of the kitchen.

High WASPs And Food

In the olden days High WASPs had servants. My mother's family's cook was named Willie Mae. She was from the South. As a result, at my grandmother's house we ate fried chicken. Huge plates of fried chicken. Huge plates of fried chicken under the chandelier. And when we wanted more, we hoped we would be allowed to squirm our lower halves under the dark shiny wood table to search with our feet for the buzzer under the carpeting. And ring for Willie Mae. Food in those days seems to have been more about a display of the resources at your command. But you had to eat what the servants knew how to cook.

Once servants became impractible for any High WASPs who left Wall Street for a gentlemanly life of leisure, food became a true problem for some. My great-Aunt Priscilla and great-Uncle Bill (he was actually named Stanford but WASPs have a thing for nicknames. That whole Muffy and Biff thing is a smokescreen to hide what the nicknames really are...) lived near me when I went to college. I would visit them on weekends. They would feed me.

With no servants, Priscilla had to cook. She had no knowledge and no interest in gaining any. We would eat in the kitchen. A kitchen furnished originally for servants, so no granite, no stainless steel, no glass-faced cabinets with acres of copper pots and saucepans from obscure forgeries in Italy. None of the accoutrements of kitchens now inhabited by men and women with MBAs and JDs. Linoleum. Metal-legged tables. Priscilla would make frozen peas. Frozen peas were a great invention for this transitional phase of High WASP life. And gray hamburgers. And we would eat our meal as though it were normal for those who lived on hundreds of acres that have now become a multi-dwelling housing development to eat in the kitchen without ceremony.

After dinner we would sit in the library, which was near to the living room, which was near to the dining room we never entered, and have a drink from cut crystal as we sat on the sofas covered in cushions needlepointed in dog pictures. There was never any mention of the incongruity. To this day I do not know whether this was another example of impunity, or whether they were secretly embarassed and keeping a stiff upper lip, or whether, in fact, they just didn't mind.

image from LargeMarge's Flickr stream