Monday

Well, look at this. Welcome, 2022!

Last night and this morning.

Not a big deal, but it is the first snow that stuck at all since, I think, December 2017 – the Immaculate Conception, to be exact. I remember because we couldn’t get out to get to Mass until that night, and we ended up at the tiny Holy Rosary. In the linked post, I describe a Mass there in the Anglican Use form – but that wasn’t the IC Mass.

Anyway, this will all be gone in a few hours, I’m sure, and the forecast pushes us back – if not to the 70’s it was on Saturday – into the sixties for a couple of weeks.

I mean, if snow is your priority, don’t move to Alabama.

Let’s move on.

Writing: Lots and lots of blogging over the past few days. I wanted to finish up 2021 and collate the halfway decent posts I wrote, not so much for you but for me. Inspiration, assurance that I’m not lame and all that. Here’s the December post, and all the others are linked there.

But that’s done.

And for today – you can see….when Lent begins! No rest for the liturgically weary, I say. Although it does start late this year. Unfortunately.

I am making good progress on the book that’s due in a couple of weeks. I finished the major chunk that requires the hardest thinking, and have a bunch of little bits left to go, plus two introductions (one for adults, one for children).

Process? Revise one of the parts of the big chunk every day, write one of the little chunks. Takes about two hours if I don’t screw around too much.

I have a Living Faith set due tomorrow. That’s done, just needing one more look to tighten it up.

Light…do I see you at the end of that tunnel?

Reading:

I read! A book!

Great-Granny Webster is a NYRB edition, which I always take a look at when I spot one at the library. Plus this was short, so I read it in a couple of days.

It was certainly interesting, but I think Philip Larkin was right when he voted against it for the Booker Prize saying it was too autobiographical. I mean, it doesn’t come off, on the surface, as autobiographical, but the problem to me is that there’s a first person narrator, but she’s nothing more, really, than an observer. She interacts with three women in her family, has perceptions and views, but it’s hard to see what the point is for her. And while there are sharp observations, the figures end up being almost stock characters.

Going for another mid-century female English writer, I’m now reading Ladies with a Unicorn by Monica Stirling, discovered via the Furrowed Middlebrow end-of-year list. The description was like catnip to me:

Ladies with a Unicorn, meanwhile, is in what I call Stirling’s Proust Lite style, with its characters’ present-day, postwar dramas largely filtered through their wartime traumas. Scintillating elegance and high fashion in the Roman film industry combines with gritty recollections of darker days, and I found the combination impossible to put down.

I’m enjoying it quite a bit, and finding it surprising. Of course our library doesn’t have it and my usual suspects, including archive.org, failed me, but she persisted and found a “copy” through the Hathi Trust site. It’s not effortless to read, but it’s worth it.

Also, everything I can find indicates Stirling is still alive at 106 years old…

Also began on my magazine binges again (I hadn’t been to the library in a month or so), so expect exciting reports on that.

Listening:

I think I’m sick of Christmas music. I mix it up a lot with medieval, renaissance, jazz and bluegrass, but I reached my limit over the weekend. Store that playlist.

How about some medieval dances or some gypsy jazz? Sure.

Watching:

I’ve watched a couple of things, but need to write them up separately. Coming up? The Joel Coen/Denzel Washington/Frances McDormand Macbeth, coming to our local independent film venue this weekend.

Cooking:

One of the guys has been gone, and the other out and about quite a bit. There’s a return schedule for this week, but then another departure for school soon after. So that calls for, “I cooked this, it’s in the fridge. Have some if you’re hungry.” Which means last night I cooked up a batch of Mexican braised beef. There’s beef stew and red beans/sausage in the freezer, so we’re about set for the week.

Note on the beef: I don’t own a slow cooker, so I do it stovetop and then oven. Instead of plain canned tomatoes, I use Ro-tel. Two cans. Extra spicy. It’s delicious.

Also, the red beans/sausage recipe?

I don’t know how “authentic” it is, but people like it, so here’s what I’ve developed over the years. The amounts are all determined by sight, although I start with two bags of beans.

1. Soak red beans. (I prefer smaller beans – Publix sells them).
2. Sautee the holy trinity (celery, onion, green pepper)
3. Drain beans. Place in pot with vegetables and 2-3 smoked ham hocks.
4. Pour beer in – I use a darker ale – not super dark, but darker – about 4 bottles. Then use water to cover the rest.
5. Mix in cajun spice. Or whatever you use.
6. Boil/simmer for a while. Maybe 2-3 hours? I’m not sure.
7. Put in sausages, cook for about an hour more.

I go by the tenderness of the beans and the consistency of the sauce – velvety, smooth – to determine when it’s done.

It’s…not scientific. But it hardly ever fails, and the one time it almost did, spectacularly, was my own fault and due to my own ignorance.

This wasn’t that long ago. I wasn’t young and generally stupid. It was maybe five years ago? One of my adult kids was coming, he likes this, so I decided I would make it for him. When looking for beer at the store, I surveyed the shelves and said to myself, “Well, I use a dark beer for this. Maybe even darker than usual would make it even better? This IPA stuff is popular. It’s dark, right? Maybe I’ll use that”

So I bought a six-pack, took it home, merrily dumped four bottles in the pot, stirred it up, and a couple of hours later, tasted it.

WHAT.

Of course, most of you are reading this, going….what were you thinking?

And so, gentle reader, I discovered that IPA doesn’t equal “dark” but “incredibly bitter with hops.”

Did I rescue it?

YES.

For you know, one of the only good things about the internet is that you can find evidence that somewhere, someone has done the same stupid thing you have and might even have figured out a way to repair the damage. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I think it involved a (counterintuitive) combination of acids – vinegar/lemon juice – and a sweetener.

It was saved, miraculously, and was even pronounced very good.

Phew.