Easter brunch, and a Sunday dinner

Easter brunch at Harley House (not part of the Harvey House, chain, sic) in Lunenburg, Mass., with the Dee family. A miscellaneous plate to start: slice of watermelon, a slice of bacon, a scoop of homefries, a scrap of fried ham, half a mini-bagel with herbed boursin, a slice of salami, and a slice of tomato. Also the last sad wrinkled wretch of a corn fritter. Then a hot dish made to order: "eggs Charleston," poached over a sausage patty with hollandaise all on an English muffin. Dessert was half a chocolate cupcake and a slice of very nice homemade cheesecake minus the bite J. stole when she knew I was looking. Also a pair of counterfeit jellybeans, meant just for the kids and regrettably just awful. During the meal, I refilled my 8-oz glass with cocktails of orange juice, cranberry and apple, three times, in varying proportion.

Back at the house, I had a mouthful of kiwi-strawberry seltzer before getting into the car with J. to stop by a carnival open for its last day on the parking lot outside the city civic center. Bleak. But we shared a can of Coke Zero.

At home at Melville, I had a glass of lightly sweetened iced tea from the week before, while continuing to watch portions of the Planet Earth documentary on the back porch while N. read and sunned herself and the cats mewled their meows. Thinking to dinner, I defrosted from old ground beef for shepherd's pie: the beef browned with onions and garlic, and seasoned with a can of tomato paste and lots of black pepper. Above this a can of creamed corn, and finally a mortary cap of just-sprouting potatoes mashed with garlic powder, oleo, milk, and salt and pepper. We baked this about half an hour -- quite good, little grease, and strong flavor. While cooking I whipped a can of cannellini beans with some Italian salad dressing and horseradish mustard for a creamy sharp dip, well-matched to Ritz crackers. I drank thirstily of diet cola all the while. Also had a piece of wheat bread with olea and DeRuijter Hagelslag. Dessert was an apple knobby cake. I sliced three heirloom apples which we'd gotten in December from Allendale Farm, the same day we picked up the Christmas tree. This combined with the two cups of shredded apple I found in the freezer (remains from juicing for cider in the days following the great apple picking trip we took to Honeypot Hill on my birthday) made enough for a nice firm cake, with white sugar and just a single egg, and baking soda and spices and flour and a splash of the apple pie-flavor liqueur Jennifer Z. gave us for Christmas.

While rummaging in the freezer, I found a Tupperware container with berries I'd picked with N. and Sean in the early autumn, from elderberry bushes on the bank of the Muddy River at the Commonwealth Avenue culvert. I boiled these down for juice, drained them, and then boiled the juice with sugar and pectin, and a sliver of butter and a teaspoon of lemon juice. Popped the adamantly purple concoction even as it begin to jell right into a jelly jar, in which it now sits and waits on a shelf in the fridge.

Junk food day

A hot pretzel from a vendor on the Common, dipped into a repugnant cheez sauce just three times. At the cinema, a large bag of popcorn with butter-flavored topping, and a tureen of diet Coke shared with Nora. A bite of the ice cream, mint chocolate chip, Nora ordered between films (thank Darwin for free passes). During a journals work session on campus, I had perhaps a third of a bag of Garden Vegetable Sun Chips, and a can of diet Coke, and two pieces of sushi, and a chewy candy from the office candy dish. At home, the last of the spaghetti with sausage and peppers, and a can of diet Coke.

Uno's, Parts 1 & 2

Late lunch at Uno's, solo: boneless chicken wings in some kind of treacly sauce, with carrot and celery sticks, all of which had committed some kind of grave food sin because I in role of punisher was instructed to dip these poor victims head-first into a vat of ranch dressing. Their screams. Also diet Cokes; also a chicken Caesar salad. Back at the desk, an Odwalla bar I had not wanted when I was given to me, and did not enjoy when I ate it. The flavor made no impression on me. Then back to Uno's for workshop, where in order to bump up our table's tab, I ordered a Chi-Town Tasting Platter, which was really rather sad -- wilted, uniformly unappetizingly brown and depleted. I had two chicken wings on the bone, small sad scraps of tough meat with a sticky undefinable sauce. I also had some fries and some shoestring onion rings in a jalapeno mayo sauce. I drank diet Coke and two Magners. My entree was mac-and-cheese from the kids' menu, with a breadstick; the waiter brought a steak knife for the mac-and-cheese so I would feel tougher. True story. I also polished off a brownie bowl, which I had foolishly ordered believing that others would help me eat the gooey brownie with vanilla ice cream, fudge sauce, and Oreos. The cherry was succulent.

More leftovers

At the office, reheated taco fixin's: red cabbage, cheese, yellow pepper, rice, guac, and a few slices of fried plantain. This with a can of diet Coke imported from home base. Dinner was leftover spaghetti, and bread with butter, and undressed salad; and a cheese quesadilla made with cheddar we had grated for Taco Monday; and a bottle of toxic Strongbow hard cider, and diet Coke. Also a bit of chocolate cake. All this feasting in front of the latest Netflix disaster, "The Water Horse." Neither water nor a horse; discuss.

Solace in noodles

Went to Uno's with my book and a hang-dog look, for a comfort food lunch: bottomless broccoli-and-cheese soup (I had two bowls), and the rattlesnake pasta, penne pasta in a creamy sauce with jalapeno peppers, chicken, and a bread stick. Diet Coke. The pleasant waitress seduced me into ordering an oven-warmed macadamia cookie with a scoop of ice cream. Met some heathens at home that evening to discuss the historicity of Jesus, also known as Christ, also known as The Man Who Wasn't There. Nora had prepared spaghetti, with red sauce and choice of either reheated ground beef and mushrooms (left over from Taco Monday) or sausage and peppers (originally prepared for Nora's birthday party). I had a scoop of both meats. I was offered but declined salad. I drank diet Coke with lime slice. I nibbled at some Tostitos, but did have more than a few. I did have a second slice of chocolate layer cake, after the first proved insufficient to the task of being delicious enough.

Give my regards to Broadway

A plain untoasted cinnamon raisin bagel from Dunkin, with a bottle of apple juice. One-and-a-half stale doughnuts, left from Sunday. Two turkey hot dogs with mayo, ketchup, and relish, from the Harvard Co-op café. At Dbar's Showtunes Tuesday, one sip of a Kentucky Iced Tea cocktail before switching to some kind of muddy mess in an old-fashioned glass. I believe basil was involved in the crime. To eat, a nibble of of Nora's spring vegetable salad (a potato basket filled with baby greens, fava beans, asparagus, onion, English peas, fiddleheads, dressed in green goddess dressing). One ounce of Shanna's lamb persillé, a 6 oz Colorado lamb steak with spring garlic infused jus, and a bite of her parsley risotto arancini. Myself, I had most of a plate of fried calamaria appetizer (rice flour & graham encrusted, with gingered green curry aioli, green papaya, & pickled red onions) and a bowl of sickly-looking, homemade tagliatelle (infused with black pepper & chive, tossed with morel mushrooms, artichokes, peas, & balsamic roasted shallots in a spring garlic sauce). I tried dipping one of Nora's taro root “chips” into her tuna ceviche, but got only a wet scoop of sesame-cucumber-carrot julienne (read: salsa), with nary a speck of the citrus- and spice-marinated fish. I managed also to suck down a Tanqueray-and-soda, and a diet Coke. Also had a slice of bread dipped into three flavors of some kind of oily condiment, and a handful of hand-cut French fries spiced with rosemary.

That is how we say goodbye in Austria

At the office, a stale Dunkin Donuts jelly doughnut, and water. For lunch, a few bites each of Najavo sandwich, Tex Mex eggroll, and Sweet Tamale Corn Cakes, left over from the previous evening's warholian Cheesecake experience. Three-quarters of a nectarine. A bottle of water during the afternoon. Naglene, that is. Went home with J.D. after a failed attempt to see Titian at the Emeffay. Decided to cook dinner, so on a lark went to the grocery store. With the booty we collected and the staples in the fridge, we made a kind of soft taco: Defrosted ground beef, cooked with mushrooms and browned onions in an enchilada sauce. Flour tortillas. Nora-made creamy guacamole. A little salad left from Saturday, refreshed with tomato. Raw diced yellow pepper. A condiment sauce of Heinz canned tomato sauce, enriched with pureed sweet hot Costa Rican peppers and some of the gravy from the beef. Fried plantains pressed in the tostonera and spiced with cumin and adobo (very good with guac). White rice. Shredded cheddar. And a cooked relish of braised red cabbage and parsnip, with fresh-picked oregano and yarrow and thyme, and honey and brown sugar and vinegar and a little oil and divers espices. I had three such tacos, and a good helping of salad. While cooking, I consumed half the fragrant contents of a bag of fried pork rinds -- for experimental purposes only. Science be damned, we won't be replicating the experiment. I drank diet Coke with lime-slice throughout the evening, save for my foolish decision to open a bottle of Strongbow -- weak stuff, despite the name, and vile. Also a Pepperridge Farm cookie, the name of which I forget but which sounded like an English manor. Dessert was a slice of frosted chocolate layer cake. It was a very pleasant meal, consumed while watching Dr. Jones struggle against Nazis and his own mistaken belief in his father's disregard.