Epicure in Three Acts

Act I - The Game
About two months ago I started planning for what turned out to be the biggest catering gig I've had to date... not the most people, but the most complicated by far. Seemed fairly simple in the beginning - 200 people, fancy hors d'oeuvres, filet mignon, full bar, etc... same old drill. Soon after my first meeting I got an inkling of what I was in for - I met with the food committee comprised of three volunteers excited to sink their teeth in, an off shoot of a larger event committee made up of 15 people. The event committee's first meeting apparently was pretty short, and the only minutes I ever came across simply said "All in favor of making the caterer's life miserable? Motion carried. See you next Tuesday at 11:00."
So we start to plan, and the jobs pile on... can you make us a seating chart? Table diagram? Would you mind ordering the tables and linens, and while your at it, the glasses for champagne, wine, water, soda, beer... and how about making us a signature drink? Nothing much I can do about it though. A few more jobs, a little more planning, as long as they are happy, life is good.
Before I go on, let me just tell you how much I love what I do. I'll complain endlessly to anyone that will listen, tear my hair out, sit on the couch at 4AM thinking about what I need to do tomorrow, tear someone in half if I'm paying them and they aren't pushing hard enough, burn myself and bleed out to get something done on time, post on this blog... but you know what's amazing? Right in the middle of it all there are moments of such clarity, moments when everything is running perfectly and watching a party unfold is like sitting in front of an orchestra...
Act II - The Offer
Morning of, one of the workers is throwing up... which is not such a wonderful thing, because hurling isn't a quality I really look for in a server during a black tie event. A few calls later, I'm still coming up empty, and Sara says, "maybe we can get a babysitter, and I'll work with you."
Stunned silence.
Halting, nervous laughter as I try to think up a response (this was days ago, and I still haven't figured out what to say)...
Tricky business, this... Sara has a sort of "let me just do one more thing before I go" work attitude. She works longer than almost anyone I've ever known. I can't even count how many nights I've rolled over at 3AM to find her spot empty, and heard her computer clacking away downstairs. She's been back and forth to Miami, Prague, and London in the past months (and is in London again for the week right now) and just slips right back into the groove when she gets back. Do I want her to work with me though? Uh, no. That would be a no. A big juicy no. Just to be clear, no. Why, I'm still not sure... rather, I don't really know how to explain it without sounding like the TV Guide description of a Gordon Ramsay reality show. I guess, I'm not sure I want her to see the person I am at work. At home, I'm fairly lazy. I'll sit on the couch all day if I can get away with it (which I never can). At work, I'm occasionally an asshole. I like nothing better than being able to work harder than everyone else. I want everything to be done the way I want it to be done, I love finding someone green and malleable that I can show things too, and I'm happy to yell at them when they don't do their best. I love to boss around a team, and would rather burn myself than drop a hot pan of something I spent time working on. Love seeing people exhausted, love watching them wait for me to pay them so they can go home, and I love buying them a drink after we're done. On top of that, I like who she is, and I don't want to her to be a part of that world. Almost everyone I know in the restaurant industry needs to be fixed. Need to find a drug addict or an alcoholic? A narcissist, misogynist, sociopath, masochist? Wander into the back of a restaurant. During my busy weeks, especially when I have to hire people, I feel a little bit like I'm leading a double life. On one hand I have this amazing family - and then I go off to this bizzaro world that's like walking into a three alarm fire - where I've been yelled at (and yelled back), been sent to the hospital, watched people drop like flies, have panic attacks, steal lobsters by putting them down their pants, watched people do drugs and drink to excess, leave their wives, and had some of the best and worst times of my life. Do I want you to work for me? No. Wait, lemme think, uh, no.
See? How can I possibly explain that...
Act III - The Sting
I finally get a just-out-of-culinary-school girl to work for me, it's five hours before people are supposed to show up, and I'm already behind. Filets to sear, dressings, sauces, food displays to make - and I'm getting calls from committee members. Can we get more ice delivered? Do I have extra linens? Can we move the stage?... on and on... Two hours later Ken (my favorite, and by far the most dependable food guy I've ever met) shows up, and dives right in... Two hours later I'm pressing a towel into my hand to stop the blood from flowing while screaming into the phone at three servers who decided to carpool and got stuck in traffic (two minutes later I'm devising a plan to make their lives miserable)... and before I know it, it begins. The bar is humming, and food from our perfectly sculptured hors d'oeuvre table is disappearing... and for the next seven hours I'm jogging... Around ten o'clock I take a breath and stand at the back of the room - and here's the rub - three people working the bar, two servers setting up desserts, two in the kitchen breaking down, and I feel like I'm on a first date. For a minute, standing still, everything I've been thinking about for weeks is spread out in front of me, and it's like an orchestra all over again.
Two days later, I finally see the head of the committee, all smiles. "I had a meeting with everyone this morning... and you" he says, "are a rock star."

"Thanks" but no "thanks"

You know, I may not be the best writer in the world, and I've certainly made my share of grammatical errors, typos, sentence fragments, etc... but you know what? If you can't write, don't write to me. I know it sounds snobbish, but I really don't care.... Here is the deal, can't complete a sentence? Having some trouble saying something? Never had an english class? Fine, email me, but get to the point. Want to spill your soul to me while asking for some catering advice? Buy a copy of Strunk and White, read it, learn it, live it, and then write.
Why am I acting like an ass, you ask? I am in the middle of negotiating this catering deal, and the guy who I'm writing back and forth to keeps freakin' putting things in quotes.
Thanks for making this "easy" (he says) I'm sure it will be "Fun"... You should talk to "John Edwards" when you have a menu (and the most random of all) I'm sure that "you and Kate will do a great job" for us.
"You and Kate will do a great job"... in quotes? Seriously? I really have to hold myself back from writing - Hey, I have an idea, why don't you make your own fucking "food", because you're driving me "insane" and I don't think that I'll "be able" to meet you in "person" without slapping you across the back of the "head". As it is, every "time" I get an email from you I feel like "stabbing my eyes out with a fork".
Sorry, I'm a little "tense" today.

Enid and the Nor'easter

As an homage to Regina and all of her trademark wiseass 'you're always sick' comments, I'll write a blog since I'm sick...
Amid the increasing chaos of menu writing and staff hiring that I have going on, I seem to have come down with a sinus infection or something... and the whole breathing thing isn't as footloose and fancy free as I'd like it to be. As a result, I haven't been in the best mood. Of course, Satchmo can sense all of my moods no matter how hard I try to disguise them, and has displayed his concern for my well being by becoming increasingly gassy. I should be flattered, I guess, because every time I doze off on the couch at night I am jolted awake by an odor which can only be described as alien - I suppose a dog's version of a cold shower and a slap - and he'll give me a sad puppy look as if to say, "did that help at all?". So as not to hurt his feelings, I've tried not to gag while giving him a reassuring pat on the head.
As stressed and crappy as I've been feeling, there are bright spots every day. Friday was a date night, and Sara and I went out to dinner for the first time in ... I dunno... forever. I had some raw yellowfin which was as fresh as it gets, a perfectly grilled lamb loin with creamy mint and pea risotto, a Cline Zinfandel, and a lovely wife that has been marinating in her own juices for almost 36 years. To top it off, our babysitter worked her magic and the next day Sam asked when she could come back... and at that moment I could have dashed into the street, raised my arms to the sky and screamed for all the world to hear "LET THE CHURCH BELLS RING, THE SIRENS BLAST! OPEN YOUR EYES AND WINDOWS WIDE, LET THE DOGS RUN AND THE WINDS BOW THE TREES! LET THE TIDES RETREAT, THE CLOCK STAND STILL, AND THE STARS WINK MY NAME IN MORSE CODE! STOP THE PRESSES AND SAVE AT LEAST 24 COLUMN INCHES ON PAGE B3 TO PRINT A PICTURE OF MY NAKED BUTT FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE - THEY WANT US TO GO OUT! US! TO GO OUT OF THE HOUSE!" Instead, I went with, "OK, I'll give her a call to see when she can come over".
Yesterday morning was a little bright spot too - two days of constant drenching rains had worn me down, and Monday morning's first glance out the window was a shocker. I expected dreary, but saw our big tree in the back yard completely caked with frozen snow like an enormous craggy twist of white coral staring back at me. Since power lines all around town were coated with ice and torn down by the wind, I had the day off while our daycare miraculously stayed open... so my sinuses and I stayed as motionless as possible and watched Tremors and Tremors II: Aftershocks, a pair of Kevin Bacon classics. As exhilarating as that may sound, I actually felt crappy enough to call the doctor who, as luck would have it, was closed because she had no electricity in her office. By last night I was praying for the sweet relief of death by the time Sara got home, and just barely made the trip back down to the couch while she put the kids in bed. As I was drifting off to sleep on the couch she came downstairs and told me that a woman named Enid at work started reading the blog, and I happily drifted off... thinking maybe there were other Enids at other offices, maybe even Margarets or Bobs, or a legion of Eds waiting with baited breath for the next post...

Bacchanalia

I finished teaching my latest semester of wine classes last week, and I'm a little sorry that it's over. It's a pain, to be honest, because it actually takes a decent amount of prep before each week's class - still, I'm sad they're finished. Aside from the refresher course that I get from teaching the class, and the wine tasting of course, it's nice to stand in front of a room of people who pay to listen to me jabber on for two and a half hours every night... even my wife's eyes glaze over after five minutes, so apparently, only people who don't know me find me entertaining... strange...
Another bonus is that it usually reminds me to check on our makeshift wine cellar, which I don't do all that often (what with the two kids and all). Every time I go down there, I kick myself for not taking stock more often. There are a few things that will be ready to drink soon, and more than a few that I moved to one corner so I wouldn't forget about them before they started to go downhill... but most importantly, there are the ones that I love to see again.
The first Barolo I ever had was a 1992 Villadoria - in the back yard of our apartment in philly on a warm spring day before we were married, Sara was wearing a black tank top, we were sitting on our white plastic patio furniture & everything was carefree and perfect - and we have some of them downstairs now... a Villadoria, Viberti, Marchesi, and Giacosa to name a few. There is a '69 Grumello and a '71 Valpolicella that I lugged down a looooong hill in Orvieto along with 10 other bottles - a feat which left me sore for days (and I think might have made my right leg a little shorter). A Pine Ridge Andrus Reserve that is worth more than my life - a wine I first had while I was talking about it to a class... I recommended it to someone as something they should consider for a private wine tasting in their home because I knew it was good and this was the only chance I'd be able to taste it - they went for it, and bought me an extra bottle to boot. So there I was, describing (in detail, in front of 30 tipsy women) the wine I had never tasted, when I finally got to have my first sip, and remembered why I love doing this... black cherry, currant and chocolate. Perfect.
There are 1994 Vintage Calem and a 2003 Fonseca Ports, which will both be perfect when Sam and Lily are in college and we have a moment to ourselves, and probably even better when they have kids of their own and we can giggle at them making the same mistakes we did... and on and on it goes... Beaux Freres, Chateau Laforge, Talbot, Beychevelle... each one tagged, gathering dust and the occasional crumb of masonry from the basement wall. Each one with their own little story, waiting for just the right day to make their way upstairs.
On Friday, with a sushi-boat-to-go waiting upstairs, I found a Saisons Des Vins L'ete that I bought in California a few years ago... and even though I feel like we are light years away from that sunny, carefree backyard in philly... for a minute or two all was right with the world. Things around here seem to change faster than I can keep track of, and I don't remember all of the twists and turns that brought us to this house with a four year old artist in residence and a two year old princess... and some of the wines I don't ever remember seeing before, but I still have some of the same shoes, some of the same dreams, and little reminders of who I used to be sitting around the house. Turns out, it helps to remember and appreciate what you have, downstairs and upstairs, even if I can't remember exactly how they got there in the first place...

Nothing Gold Can Stay, Ponyboy

Odd week - happy, sad, and nerve-wracking things happening over here. I'll skip the last two, just for blog's sake, and mention the good one. Finally came to terms a bit this week with the whole leaving-the-catholic-church thing. To be honest, I'm ashamed to say it wasn't really the biggest deal, not really a big church guy... It did give me pause, however, to admit to myself (and here) that for now, those days are over for me. Faith, my version of it anyway, has remained unchanged.... and for the moment I have left behind what was growing into a seething anger at the politics, hypocrisy, blah, blah, blah.. sure you don't want to read this. Suffice to say, it took a while to slough off the hostility (do I sound too angry?) and move on. So the small part of me that pays attention to these things is at peace for the first time in a while - and thinking for some odd reason of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep". Makes sense to me, and this blog is free, so you'll have to deal with it.
Ok, short little list for my sister - who has blogged these sort of lists before, and is probably bored out of her mind right now - things I have said (since I've had children) that I never imagined I would have said... None of these, by the way, are made up...
1. Why is there a Llama in the refrigerator?
2. You won't eat anything I cook, but you'll eat dried corn with duck shit on it?
3. Will you stop trying to pick my nose?
4. What are you doing with your penis?
5. and the best from today, sure to become a classic, "can I use this thermometer, or has it been in someone's ass?"

Google Me, It Tickles

I have this thing attached to my blog, for those of you who don't know, called a tracker. It doesn't do much of anything except show me a list of cities that have logged on to ticklecookbreathe, and the date and time they have visited. I put it on there just for funzies, and because I was curious about the amount of traffic I was getting. For the last six months or so I've been checking it every couple of days, and for the most part, I can identify who was peeking in... except for the occasional visit from Salt Lake City or Guam.
After the last post though, things have exploded. I don't know whether it was the Kopi Luwak or Alpha Gamma Civet references, or just the 'crap' joke - but something or other was just the right Google search term to get this blog hummin'. In the past week or so I've been getting hits from all over the country, as well as hit from Santiago, Fujian, Burnaby, Sydney, Shanxi, Barcelona, Rome, and on and on...
So before I write another post let me just assure my faithful followers, I will never post breaking news about Paris Hilton... as a matter of fact, I'll never include the name Paris Hilton in my blog just to get hits, from the name Paris Hilton. As a matter of fact, if Paris Hilton and Britney Spears just happen to drop by to discuss a new sex tape, Brad and Angelina pop in for some Kopi Luwak, or Patrick Dempsey and Oprah need to use my internet connection to search for some Cindy Margolis info - I probably won't mention it. It's just a cheap way to get hits, mentioning Paris Hilton (or Nicole Richie for that matter) over and over just for the sake of writing the name Paris Hilton.
I'll also be true to the art of blogging by not endorsing any products just to profit from your kind attention to my site. For example, I have always been a big supporter of Dulcolax brand laxatives. Personally, I don't use it that often, but I'm glad to know that it is in my medicine cabinet - so on those days when I'm just not feeling particularly regular and I want a stimulant laxative that is gentle yet effective, I know I can rely on Dulcolax brand laxative (the worldwide number 1 selling overnight laxative) to provide me with comfortable relief by the time I wake up the next morning - and with no chalky aftertaste! As a matter of fact, I'm sure if Paris Hilton ever ate anything, she would probably choose Dulcolax brand laxatives to get it out of her system as soon as possible - it's that good. I wouldn't endorse them though, cause that would be wrong... but you're welcome to learn more about this wonderful product yourself by visiting http://www.dulcolaxusa.com/ for more information.
To sum up, I'm glad you're here. It satisfies my gigantic ego, and helps me numb the pain of my countless insecurities to know that you are visiting me for me - and not just news about naked celebrities.... or just because you Googled the name Paris Hilton.... or Dulcolax....
Thanks,
Joe
Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton

Cuppa Weaselyak

The first step, I understand, is admitting that you have an addiction. There it is, I've written it down for all to see, I am addicted to coffee. The good thing is, I don't often start off my day trolling the streets for a fix - and end it by waking up in Camden snuggled next to a pants-less man named Armando. Usually, I just stay up a little too late looking for good deals on green beans that I can roast, or scanning coffeegeek.com to see the new commercial espresso machine reviews... Tired the next morning? No worries, I can fix that...
I know, it's a bit dorky, but I read a lot of reviews and tasting notes on beans - and every once in a while I come across articles about kopi luwak.... here is the deal... there are these weasel-like mammals calm Palm Civets in Indonesia that love eating ripe coffee cherries but can't digest the beans - which are affected by the enzymes in the digestive tract, and are changed by the time they come out the other end. Poo, that is, in case you haven't caught up. These are such great coffee beans by the time they come out though, that they are hella-expensive, and apparently have created jobs for anyone who feels like following civets around until they poop (a career which really gives your resume a little 'pop'). In Vietnam, they have something similar called 'weasel coffee' which is made from beans that another weasel-like cat has eaten and then thrown back up. This is a much cheaper version of the same sort of coffee for a couple of reasons -

1. There is more of the stuff in Vietnam, and it isn't as popular, hence the lower price.
2. Apparently, it is very easy to convince Vietnamese weasels to join weasel fraternities. The hazing is a bit rough ("chug the beans! chug the beans!"), but having AGC (Alpha Gamma Civet) shaved into your back fur really gets weasel chicks going...

Anyway, after a while I just couldn't take the curiosity anymore, and had to try it. A short search later, I found a weasel coffee dealer in Vietnam that sold in the US (god bless the internet, seriously, how many people in 1970 could find themselves some weasel coffee?) and bought a wee little bag to try.

Finally, it arrived in the mail. I'll spare you my lengthy review, because I'm sure you really don't give a crap (get it? crap? ha! oh my god, I'm hysterical) but suffice to say, it was pretty damn good coffee. Honestly, remarkably different from your average cup of joe. So good, as a matter of fact, that I went against my better judgement and told Sara about it, and then had to quick think up a good answer to "Seriously? You put weasel barf in my coffee maker?" which, apparently, is anything except "and I just ordered a sample of the poo one..."

Little Blue Case

I went through most of this week being frustrated, angry and depressed for some unknown reason. Not that it affected me that much, but it was a noticeable change for me, and colored my mood for a good part of the week. The snow was part of it - I spent the last few days wondering if I would be able to get my car out of the street, and back in when I was gone. Aside from that, I'm not entirely sure what was wrong, but I was more stressed than usual - I suppose an accumulation of worries from the last few weeks that finally caught up to me. Weekends without plans are a crap shoot too - you never know if the days will fly by with art projects and pizza making, or the weekend will be filled with nose blowing and tantrums.
It started on a bloody note - Lily had her third or fourth cold in a row, and by Friday evening I was hauling out our last working humidifier so she could sleep through the night without caking herself to the sheets with snot. Sara had neatly tucked it away on the top shelf of Sam's closet and I had to wrestle it down from between the sheets and aquarium filters. With a little jiggling and one last tug I freed it from some unseen entanglement on the back of the shelf - and the water tank jumped off of its base and fell squarely onto my chin before clattering to the floor. As it sat in the tub filling, I checked out the damage in the bathroom mirror - a gaping dime size slice underneath my goatee that yawned angrily back at me, spilling a line of blood down my chin... perfect start to a weekend.
Turns out it wasn't a bad omen at all though, we had a pretty good time despite the Kleenex and slippery roads. Went out to lunch and painted some pottery on Saturday, and got the kids to bed with a minimal amount of drama. Plus, I spotted my little blue plastic case in the basement as I was rummaging through some things, which was a bonus. I've had it for as long as I can remember - it's a little plastic case that snaps shut and has "Trantec Supercable" marked on the front (whatever that is) that I have used since about the 5th grade to store notes from girls. Nothing particularly seedy or private in there, but it's funny to look back and see torn bits of homework with notes ranging from "Jean asked me to ask you if you are going to the dance" (somewhere around 5th grade I'm guessing) to "I know it's been a hard year, and if you need anything, please know that you can call me anytime and I'll be there for you... oh yeah, and Jean is wondering if you are going to the dance" (somewhere around 12th grade). Most of the notes in there aren't all that special, but the box always was - because there was always something exciting about getting a note from a girl, and the box was a few pounds of creatively folded bits of paper - each one hiding a little secret, or a little crush.

On Sunday Lily seemed to be on the road to recovery, and was in a good mood for the most part, but Sara wanted to leave her at home when she went to church (hooray for me!) and I happily agreed to remain un-showered and stay home with her. Lately, she has been a bit of a mommy's-girl, and always picks Sara over me when it comes to comfort or companionship, so it was a nice change of pace to sit next to her on our bed and watch Diego & Dora without her calling out for mom. After an hour or so of Diego saving a lost myasaurus, a pygmy marmoset, and a pair of wayward tree frogs (all with the help of his constant companion Baby Jaguar, who's only discernible skill seems to be the ability to let out a feeble roar just at the exact moment a feeble roar is required) Lily rolled over to say "Dad, you're my best friend". Just so you know, if you hang around her long enough she'll say it to you too, because she says it to pretty much everyone - but it was just what I needed at the moment. Of course, since we aren't living in a Hallmark store, she punctuated the moment by turning back to the TV, slipped on the covers and slammed the back of her head into the almost-healed gash on my chin with such force that I saw stars and tasted a steel-y flow of blood seep into my mouth. Luckily, her enormous head is like a rock and she didn't seem to notice, but I had to catch my breath and shake off the pain a bit before I could see straight. Despite the searing pain, it was a moment I wish I could have saved in a little blue case of it's own. Things aren't often calm around here, and it isn't that often I get to sit next to her in the quiet, her warm shoulder nestled into my arm, without a care in the world.

Your Force To Break, Blow, Burn, and Make Me New

Strange week, in general - successful in that I had a good week with the kids while Sara was in London, but crappy because of a somewhat unhappy customer yesterday. A good balance I guess, I was really pleased that I seemed to manage my time pretty well. I had a decent amount of work to do, but got everything done when I hoped and the kids were blissfully unaware of my stress level. On the other hand I had a disturbing discussion today - I went against my better judgement & sent out something I wasn't particularly happy with & it came back to bite me on the ass. My own fault, really, and luckily it's a fixable situation, but I've been kicking myself all day. The fact that I only slept for three and a half hours last night isn't helping either, and part of my stewing over the whole situation is probably due to my pissy attitude today. Everyone needs a good kick in the ass every once in a while though, and I'm trying to keep in mind that days like these keep one from comfortably slipping down the path into mediocrity.
Aside from all of that, my drowsy spinning head has gone in all directions today. Most days, I can keep to myself for a good chunk of time if I choose to, which has made me into a bit of an introvert.... especially on days like today. Lost in thought, I stumbled around through high school and college, and for some reason wound up in an english class reading Shakespeare with Mrs Betancourt... and for the rest of my morning I was stuck with iambic pentameter in my head.... (please excuse the occasional rhythmic inversion - poetic licence, I'm tired, and you are a big dork for noticing in the first place)
To make the crab and pumpkin soup I need
My stock, a pot, an onion bag of mesh.
Pumpkin from a can? Why not, it's winter
and Bob, my produce guy, can't get them fresh.

... and on and on...

Is it itchy in here, or is it just me?

First of all, let me just say, I liked the last post. A little slice of my day, it was. I'm not waiting for columnist job offers to pour in necessarily, but my lovely wife seemed to think that it sucked. I think her actual words were "did you mean to publish that last blog, or did you submit it by mistake, ass". Actually, I added the "ass" part, but you get the drift. Lets try another little slice, and see if it passes muster.
So I get to work the other day just in time to find our fish delivery guy wheeling in a hand truck full of fun. Twelve sides of perfectly red salmon, wee little fins still quivering on the sides; a ten pound hunk of Mahi, firm, white and odorless; and five pounds of skate wings, which for those of you who haven't experienced the majesty of skate, is a marvelously mild half-moon shaped filet with little ridges that make it look a bit like a pair of corduroy pants. Big fan of corduroy pants, by the way, but they make my butt look like an enormous panini, so I try to stay away from them.
Salmon first, I trim the fins and wrap each filet individually to go into the fridge. Then the Mahi, which gets chopped into 2 1/2 pound pieces, to be used for soup or some future catering event, and tossed into the freezer. Skate is last, because it's the easiest and I like to feel like I'm getting faster at butchering - it just needs a quick wrap and away it goes. Suddenly, I notice that my hands are getting a bit irritated - I figure from 20 minute of fish slime, so I wash them off and keep going. Again, my hands start itching like they're on fire... and suddenly it dawns on me, I think I'm getting a seafood allergy.
As soon as I'm finished - because I'm half curious and half freaking out - I google 'skate' and 'allergy', and the first thing that comes up is an article about a chef that developed a fish allergy and can't even serve lobster or skate in his restaurant anymore.

shit.

At the moment, it's just an itch, so I'm trying to contain myself.... and thinking maybe I'll start a cookbook for the fish haters out there... or maybe just make up a Benedryl Bouillabaisse... yeah, that's the ticket...

Stranded At The Drive In, Branded A Fool

"Girls in this school are crazy."
That's how it all started. There I was sitting at my desk, getting ready to leave for the day, when a 16 year old girl named Heather came in and plopped down next to me.
"Yes, yes they are."... doing my best not to get roped into another one of these conversations with her.... which, of course, doesn't work.
"All I said to Lindsey was that she shouldn't be so mean to her boyfriend because he's a nice guy and it's just not right to treat him like that in front of everybody and now she's all mad at me but I had to say something because like I think that the way you treat people now is like how you're going to treat people when your older and she's my best friend and who is going to like her if she keeps treating people like that whenever they say something you don't like..."
"But Heather..."
"... and I saw her talking to Jen and now the two of them aren't talking to me even though all I meant was she should be mean to people and yesterday I got this weird rash on the top of my legs and it's all bumpy so my aunt who's a doctor came over and said that I should take benedryl to see if it helps but I can't because I'd just sleep all day..."
"So did you try to..."
"...and my parents are going to the Bahamas for five days and I get to stay home by myself for the first time and I can't believe they're actually going it's going to be killer so if I'm not here I'm probably skipping or I missed my train..."
... and on and on it went. Seriously, I even toned it down a little... and all I could think was, for the love of god, please let Lily skip this stage.

Chapter Four - Unwrapped

So I've finally finished a ... challenging, I suppose would be a good word... month or so. It's about 10:00 on Monday night, and I just walked back in the door after my final party until January 5th. Its odd how this blog thing works... I know I don't write as often as others, but often think to myself how I should write about this or that, and over the last few weeks I thought off and on about what I should write after the month's work was over.
Funny part is, I can't remember a spot of it at the moment. I learned this afternoon that one of my server's brother in law committed suicide last night - but she came tonight anyway just to keep her mind off things... and for the woe is me part, I am crispy with burns, have used up all of my band aids, and between the methylprednisolone for my foot, the silver sulfadiazine for my arm, and everything else I feel like I need a pill fob to get through the day. Aside from that, I am completely spent. Tired of keeping track of things, tired of standing all day, tired of answering questions, fixing everyone's problems, smiling and being introduced, and tired of waking up in the middle of every night thinking about tomorrow. At the moment, I have nothing funny to say, I'm just gonna take my dishpan hands and go to bed.

Chapter Three - Artwork, and The Top Ten Reasons My Mother Will Never Talk To Me Again

In the midst of my week from hell, there were a few saving graces. First of all, kids and wife - adorable. Second, the parties I catered, even though they were somewhere in the middle of a chaotic mess, went remarkably well. Walmart executives, a financial consulting firm, a random collection of Woodlynde alumni, and a birthday boy were singing our praises as we skulked in and out of each function as quickly as possible. Third, I was the lucky recipient of two pieces of artwork as the week dragged on. The first (pictured on the top of this blog) I found on the inside of a case of red peppers packaged by a company named Vantaggio all the way out in sunny California. I was so tickled by it, that I actually brought it home to take a picture of it... not because it was such a marvelous piece of work, or I was so intrigued by the O'Keeffe-esque sexuality of the piece, but more that it was such an unexpected surprise. I wondered all day how I was fortunate enough to get this particular box, or if some mad scribbler had spent the whole day drawing on the inside of cardboard pepper boxes before he/she sealed them up. Was it the outburst of a struggling artist just longing to create? An ill-conceived anatomy lesson in the middle of an otherwise uneventful pepper-packing-plant day? Perhaps it was created by a young man named Steve, trapped in an endless sea of red peppers only hoping that his girlfriend Monique would still be there waiting for him when he got home to soothe his aching feet and gently wash his produce stained hands before serving him a delicious pepper-free meal and letting him have the last Miller Light while they watched CSI Miami together.... or will Monique have gotten tired of his endless talk of peppers and box folding, and left to go north with Anthony, who shucks oysters all day, smells of the sea, and prefers CSI New York.... or maybe it was a twelve year old with a sharpie... either way, in the middle of a shitty day it cracked me up, which is almost as valuable as finding a copy of the Declaration of Independence taped to the back of a painting of dogs playing poker that you get at a garage sale.

The acquisition of the next piece was a bit more complicated. As simple as it seems, I had two different artists involved and 75 minutes of time... and at 3000 injections a minute, somewhere in the neighborhood of 225,000 wee little holes. Not to sound too much like Peter Trachtenberg, but it was a journey of sorts. For one simple little thing, I put in years of thought... not about the final piece, but the idea of it. The journey, I understand, is what's important - and at the moment I'm left with a marker of the trip.... four, actually. One to remember what I felt slipping away, one for being saved, one for luck, and one for my children. Anyway, after a little anxiety and some last minute modifications we got started... at first it's like a flu shot, and after about five minutes it's a burn that won't stop. For the next half an hour or so it's excruciating, and then, out of the blue, euphoria.

Unfortunately, for about a week or so it feels a bit like, oh, I dunno, someone just poked 225,000 holes in your arm. Plus for some odd reason, you're left with this nagging feeling that your mother will never go swimming with you again, and will look at you like you're an idiot next time she sees you. If for some odd reason this is the case, two things - 1. Just in case she doesn't know, I adore my mother more than the air I breathe. 2. Her grandchildren are too adorable, and I am holding them hostage.

Chapter Two - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Ok, back to the worst week ever...
Aside from the pneumonia thing our week continued... Sara stayed home from work last Monday because she was under the weather, which was fine with me since it let me stay at work a little longer without having to worry about the kids. When I got home I was starting to feel it too though, as if the air in our house was a blanket of germs that enveloped everyone who entered. By Tuesday afternoon I was feverish even with the Advil schedule I was on, and all I could think about was a full week of work ahead. Wednesday the fun started, and I was full into the swing of things... 293 lunches in the morning, off to Valley Forge to set up for Thursday's Walmart exec. dinner party, then back into the kitchen.... and Thursday the countdown began, out of the house by 7:30, cooking until set-up at 3:30 (I wanted to get there by 3:15, but I had to pull over in the park for a minute - afraid that I was going to throw up in the car) and home in bed by midnight.... up again by 6:30, yadda, yadda, home at 1:15AM... and in between all of that, a surprise inspection from the Health Department, my bartender went into the hospital for a check-up and stayed for heart surgery, and Kate's mother fell down the attic steps and layed on the floor for three hours. Good times.

Ok, I started writing this post three days ago, and just came back to it right now... and things have changed a bit. My idea from the get-go was pulled from 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'... if you've ever read it, there is an amazing description in there of someone watching a frog at the edge of a pond being sucked dry by a giant water bug - innards liquefied by something that snuck up under water, and drained the inside of the frog out leaving just the hollow skin behind. Tragic, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time... that was the point of my post in a nutshell, to say how sucked dry I was, but since its been a few days, I have to change focus. Anyway, my bartender, Dwight, who went into the hospital on Friday was picked up from the hospital by Kate on Sunday... and he was on top of the world. They gave him the all-clear, and she took him out for a beer to celebrate. Dwight, for everyone who hasn't met him, is a mountain of a man. Six foot ten-ish, 300 pounds if he's an ounce, and I once saw him pick up a couch as if it were a Twix bar, and carry it about a block into Kate's apartment. In the past six months or so, Dwight has changed from an occasional hire to our go-to guy. Always available on a moments notice, and works harder than anyone else around. He's been in the business for a while, knows what to do, and just dives in. Outside of work, he's a trip... back to the seventies that is... from talking to him you wouldn't guess, but he actually has a custom van with a carpet in the back, and a front license plate that says "Dr. Love". Hysterical. The last few times I saw him I couldn't help but call him Dr. Love when he showed up - and luckily since he has a sense of humor, but could eat me in one bite if he really wanted to - simply responded by cutting my apron strings, and used the pieces to fashion an apron that would actually fit around him.
Anyway, I got a call this morning that Dwight died last night from an aneurysm... out of the blue, like someone just snuffed out a candle. I've often heard people say someone was 'a good man' after they've died, but Dwight really was one. He was someone I didn't know nearly as well as Kate, but someone I actually trusted, someone I could count on. Since I lead a double life - family, regular job, kids and dogs during the day... chaotic, obsessive, occasionally perfectionist caterer at night - Sara never really knew him, or even heard most of the ridiculous Dwight stories that Kate and I retold each other all day today... but he was a good man, a good father to his 11 year old son, and a good friend.

Chapter One - Green Bean

Ok... worst week ever.
Well, that's not really true, but it did suck quite a bit. We started last Sunday with a trip to the Urgent Care Center for Lily, who was complaining of an earache. (For those of you who haven't been, an urgent care center is a doctor's office that you don't need an appointment for & is open when your doctor isn't... instead of going to the emergency room for something minor) We've been to a few before, and they're all pretty much the same - except for this one... If any of you have an abandoned drive-in theater in your neighborhood, imagine that without the enormous screen. We were driving down Main St. in Pottstown looking for the address, when Sara spotted a peeling pink ranch-style building with an "Urgent Care Center" sign leaning defiantly forward out of the weed and gravel parking lot... a sign that could have easily been replaced with a "Pottstown Meth Lab" or "Slippery Buddha's Asian Massage Parlor for the Hopelessly Single or Morally Bankrupt" sign and fit right in. With some trepidation, we pull in and wait a few minutes for them to open, finally are admitted, and shown into the back room. The doctor, who is wearing what looks suspiciously like a butcher's coat, does a quick once-over of Lily and determines that she has a sinus infection. In order to precisely determine her weight so that he can prescribe her the precise dose of antibiotic required - he plopps her onto a bathroom scale with two palm trees and some sort of yak painted on it, and then walks INTO THE BATHROOM attached to the examination room and comes out with a bottle of amoxicillin. Now, we're assuming that there was some sort of medicine cabinet or storage room back there, but were sort of afraid to ask. I was a bit tempted to ask him to check me out too though, just to see what else he had back there... "Feeling a bit under the weather? Let me just dash into the pooper and see what I can get you"... "Gout, you say? Let me get you some allopurinol from the ol' sock drawer here... and a foot brace out of my glove compartment, and we're all set. That'll be $10."

After a quick call to Poison Control to make sure the dose was correct, we assumed she was on the mend, and were on our way. She seemed pretty good for a couple of days, started coughing on Tuesday night, by Wednesday we got a call from Denise at her daycare, and found out later that night from an actual doctor that she had pneumonia, a disease that I always spell incorrectly on the first try. If you haven't seen a baby with pneumonia before, let me tell you, it's pretty impressive. Most people (with the possible exception of my wife) try to keep up appearances to a certain extent when they're sick, but kids just let it all hang out. By the time I got home on Wednesday night her skin was the color of a canned water chestnut, and looked like it was about to melt off. Unfortunately, because every part of this week sucked, I was stuck at work for a couple of days and only really saw her in the wee hours of the morning while she was asleep, but by this morning she was almost back to her turkey gravy colored self.

In the upcoming chapters - New and exciting diseases, seventeen hour days, and newly acquired art for the masses.

A Little Thanksgiving Perspective

This morning, as I was dropping the kids off, I stopped to talk to one of Sam's teachers for a second. Random conversation, actually, she was asking about the school where I work, catering and whatnot... and I was so surprised by her next comment I can't even remember how it came up... at one point she said (referring to the kids at daycare) "oh, we all refer to them as 'the rich kids'"...
Granted, most of the families that go there have a good deal of money - and some of them have obscene amounts of money - but I never really gave it much thought. A rich kid though, I had no idea... cool... where he is getting all of his money, I have no clue. Since he picks up spare change and puts it in his piggy bank, he might actually be worth more than me. Anyway, two things that I was chuckling to myself about on the way to work - 1. If I need to rub two dimes together I'd have to run to the ATM and get another dime.. and 2. I am very thankful for what I have, and as Jimmy Stewart as it sounds, some days I feel like the richest guy in town.
One last thought, since at the moment I'm not really sure where I'll be during the Thanksgiving weekend, and I don't know when I'll write again or talk to anyone, I'll leave you all with a poem by Peter LaForge we stumbled across in our travels. Cheesy, but it gets the job done.

Perhaps I should have said it just between
The wine and grace, the wishing and the blessing.
That was a time for words, when the scene
Had just begun, before we passed the dressing.
Before the knife cut deep into the breast,
I might have paused, looked up and all around
Into the eyes of each of them. A jest
Came easier, wit tossed into the sound
And lost. Between the stuffing and the pie,
Was yet another quiet moment when
I could have told them all. Instead I sighed
And let it pass. Just once before the end
I should have cried, "Listen, before you go.
I love you. I just wanted you to know."

"allow me introduce my wife, Brisket"

Here's a little Sunday afternoon snippet of a blog for ya, a little story that I've been holding in since yesterday without telling anyone because it was so stinking funny...
After a somewhat uneventful trip to the zoo yesterday, we decided to stay out of the house a little longer and go to IKEA, since we were driving in that direction anyway. Oh yeah, before I even begin that part - it would have been an uneventful drive from the zoo to IKEA too, had Sara not decided to recreate the 'liquid oxygen' scene from the movie "The Abyss" using hot coffee instead of a breathable fluid... which resulted in a remarkably dramatic hurl/cough of steaming coffee and lung tissue onto my passenger side floormat. Luckily, about two months ago I thought to myself "gee if anyone ever spews hot coffee and lung in my car, it'll be quite a mess" and cautiously replaced my original floormats with custom fitted diamond-plate aluminum mats, so the cleanup was pretty easy.
After a quick mop we arrived, and were soon wandering through a maze of modular furniture, tiny eraserless pencil in hand. As usual when we leave the house with both kids, we split up into two groups about ten feet apart, me with Sam and Sara with Lily. We've never really discussed it, but it must be some sort of innate parenting thing - close enough to talk to each other, but far enough apart to prevent any sort of group injury that might result from Sam pulling over a Beech Bernhuuult bookcase or Lily flinging a handful of overheated lingonberry. Anyway, Sara split off to look for something and I let Sam stop in the ballpit for a minute or two. As soon as he seemed sufficiently coated with whatever-substance-I'd-care-not-to-think-about-that-might-be-in-the-ball-pit, I started gradually coaxing him out of the balls.
...little sidebar, Lily has a nickname (Bean), but Sam seems to prefer to be called whatever pops into my head. Fun for both of us, really. I usually go with the old standby, crabcake, but try to mix it up a little with picklejar, llama, shoebox, Peter Jennings... you get the idea...
So after a little trying, "C'mon lets go.... OK, out of the balls, we have to find mom... Seriously, lets roll..." I got tired of waiting and said, "ok, that's enough, Gravy, lets go" and started to walk away.
you ready for the good part?
I turned around to make sure he was following me just in time to hear an old grandmother-y type shake her head and say to the woman she was with, "I think that little boy's name is Gravy!"

(postscript to Jeanne - "and that's when the healing began...")

On Being A Man

Let me start by saying we had a remarkable Halloween. Aside from the two parades that the kids were in, the spooky-room party at their daycare, and the costume contest - we ended up with an astounding 11 pounds of candy on Wednesday morning (yes, I actually weighed it on my handy dandy kitchen scale). Granted , Twix bars are pretty heavy, but still, since the kids don't really eat that much candy that means I'll be about 10 pounds heavier as I enter the Thanksgiving holiday. Put some braces on your chairs people, cause I'm fixin to break em.
On a completely different note, the boy is getting bigger. Not just in size, but lately he has his own little stockpile of ideas on how the world works - and some of them are set in stone. After our reaction to his eating duck-feces-covered corn, he has very definite opinions on what will get him sick, and often asks us if something will make him sick or tells us that eating dog food (for example) will make people sick. At the moment, he is a bit overboard with the sick thing, but in general he has specific opinions on how life works. Manners, ownership, and even rules of friendship are set, and he follows his own rules and applies them to others. Some of these rules he has are a mystery to me, formed it seems from daycare or conversations with his friends, and some I know he has gotten from us. For the most part he knows what he can, and cannot get away with at home and at school - and occasionally tells me (in amazement or disappointment) stories about things that his friends do.
So lately I've been thinking a bit about growing up, and how I became who I am, for better or worse. I don't remember a heck of a lot about being three, just snippets from our time in Hungary, but nothing really life changing. Lessons were learned like most people, I expect, not picked up at a particular moment but grown into. Morals and ethics worn in over time like a comfortable shoe - there isn't really moment when the leather breaks, but over time everything fits well enough that you don't even notice it's there...
There was a day, though, when I was ten (give or take a few years) and standing on our front porch I heard a spectacular noise... and the next 15 minutes or so are crystal clear in my mind. I hopped down to the sidewalk and saw at the corner a small blue hatchback rolled over onto it's roof, tires still spinning. Inside, a man about 30ish or so was slowly starting to wriggle out of the seatbelt that held him upside down. Across the street, a white-haired woman in a beige clunky Buick was sitting still, holding tightly onto the steering wheel. I remember thinking "wow, an accident... crazy..." and starting to walk toward the cars. I had taken about two steps when my father came out of the house and asked what happened, and I yelled up to the porch that there was an accident and a car had turned over.
Before I knew it he ran past me - and in an instant I was ashamed of myself. By the time I reached the corner he was already helping the man out of the overturned car, and I was already asking myself why I hadn't.
I've thought of it often since then, but recently it has taken on new meaning. These days I wonder when those moments will come for Sam or Lily, and if I'll run when I should, reach my hand out when they haven't learned how to yet. I suppose I'll never know what they'll remember years from now, or what I'll look like in their eyes... what I do know, at the moment, is only what I whisper to them when they go to bed, "Want to hear a secret?" I say every day, "Guess who my favorite Sam (or Lily) is?" and wait till they answer. Hopefully, everything after that will fall into place, and watching them move in the right direction will seem as natural as those perfectly worn in shoes.

Watch Out The Bean

I realize that most of my posts have been about the boy, so I'll take a different tack and write about the bean. She's been changing by leaps and bounds these days, and most of our conversations have a surprise new word or two in them. Yesterday she repeated things, followed Sam around, and was frustrated by things she couldn't seem to communicate - today, she has opinions and ideas... directions and demands.. and her own ideas of how we should spend our day. For example, our new game, "watch out for the Bean". I don't really know how it began, but at some point she was standing up against the kitchen island, then ran over to the couch at full toddler speed and jumped on me - and when I saw her coming I shouted to Sam (who was sitting next to me) "watch out for the Bean!".
Since then, every time she is bored and sees me sitting on the couch she'll say "watch out the Bean?" and line up at the starting point against the island, waiting for me to recoil in mock terror and scream "aaaah! Watch out for the Bean!". It's easy to get her started too... no matter what she is doing, all I have to do is whisper "watch out for the Bean" and she is off and running. Unfortunately, the game often ends in an "america's funniest home videos" type of moment, either with her splayed out on the floor with Stella standing on her back, or me doubled over in pain from her accidentally kicking me in the testicles.
This is a stupid example I know, but the point is, she is suddenly turning into a little person, and it's amazing to watch. Sam is still the leader of the pack, and she'll gladly follow him into anywhere, but chances are she is following him to say "no Sammy, stop...." There are moments when I am stunned by the things she does, and amazed by the pieces of us I see in her. There are certainly days that I am overwhelmed by work, kids and dogs... but I have discovered that I am hopelessly in love, would give her my only cracker, carry her until my arms give out, and live only on the breath she is finished with... although, if she continues to play "Watch out for the Bean", I might need to buy a cup if I ever plan to have another child...
Above, a picture of my Bean with a mouth full of potato chips, which incidentally, she stole from me...

Children of the Corn

So much has happened since the last blog I'm not going to even attempt to write about it all in detail, but I'll have to give some cliff's notes, and try my best to get on here more often. Since last time I was here, Sam put a shiny black bead up his nose - so far up, as a matter of fact, that we had to go to two different doctors before we could get it removed... I had so many catering gigs crammed into one month that I racked up a pretty decent $4482.00 food bill (wholesale, mind you) and actually lost a wheel of brie somewhere (seriously, no idea where it is... a whole wheel), plus, I wore Kate down to a little nub, and she actually crashed and left work today because she felt so beat up - haven't heard from her since, getting a little concerned ... Lily learned to sing "Bad Day" along with Sam, and asks me to play it every time we get into the car... and to finish up a seemingly endless stream of work, Sam (who must have sensed my stress level) decided that eating duck feces might be a good idea.
Should I elaborate? Sure, why not. I had Saturday morning off, and we decided to go to a craft fair at a farm in Media. We crafted, bought a couple of goofy things, then decided to have some lunch and sat down at a picnic table conveniently located next to the duck cages at the petting zoo. After a surprisingly bee-free lunch, I decided to be Elvis and buy a deep fried oreo... little sidebar, by the way, if you ever get the chance you absolutely must have a deep fried oreo. They'll shorten your life by a bit, but are well worth it... Anyway, I walked over to the fryin' vat, and as I'm waiting for my little bit of heaven to come out of the oil, I see Sara freaking out by the picnic tables. Apparently, while I was gone, Sam walked up to the duck cages, saw some corn on the ground, and even though he refuses to eat anything I make for him, decided to pick it up and eat it.
Yeah. Good job, buddy. The only thing I could really even think to say was just that too - "you won't eat anything we give you, but you eat corn out of a duck cage?" So after a call to poison control and a looooong not soon to be forgotten discussion about what things go in your mouth, all is well. On the plus side, there are only a limited number or orifices left for him to stick something in, so we should only have a few of these discussions left...
The creepy thing is (speaking of corn) since I've been ignoring the yard while I've been working, we actually started to grow corn in our lawn. Real honest to god corn, with ears and everything. No idea where it came from, but it does make the house look pretty halloween-y, so I'm letting it go. As long as Sam doesn't stick it somewhere, that is.