The Divamom Life Love Shopping and Food Blog

River Rafting with Wolfgar

In the early '80s I lived in an apartment building occupied mostly by single young professionals. It was a fun period in my life, kind of like living in a college dorm (which I had never done). It was an adventure. On any given night, we'd wander into each others' apartments and figure out what we were having for dinner that night or who had the best bottle of wine, etc.

On one particular evening, I ended up at Don and Tammy's with half a carrot cake and a bottle of Mateus. At that time, no one was a wine snob and in some circles Mateus was actually considered upscale. I wore a long nightgown that looked like a long T-shirt; very Preppie bordering on gender-neutral I thought. In addition to his career as a graphic designer, Don was a member of some sort of club where everyone dressed up as knights and staged medieval battles. So he was there, in something resembling armor, as was a friend of his, who he called "Wolfgar."

During the course of the evening, we all ate the carrot cake and drank the swill (which was only swill in retrospect, see paragraph 2, supra). I told my friends that I felt like a victim of the existential vacuum...hated my job as a legal editor...needed to branch out and do something that made me happy to be alive. I think Don suggested drugs, but since I declined, Wolfgar took over the conversation.

"Close your eyes," he said. "Picture yourself floating freely on the river of life. You have no raft. You must trust the flow of the river or drown..." He went on like this for awhile, and we were all transported, to the river, raftless...

This went on for awhile - this and other similar exercises - and then some musical interludes...

Finally, the evening ended and I felt energized. He later told his friend Don that he thought I was "hot" because I came over in a nightgown, and I confronted him about this.

"Nightgown?," I asked, "It was a long t-shirt. It was hardly seductive."

"Don't underestimate the backlighting," he explained.

I think I was in love, at least for a few days after that. It all made sense, yet made no sense at all.

"Damn!," I thought, "I don't have to be locked in a prison of my own device or mired into my mediocrity! One of the knights of the Roundtable just told me I could do ANYTHING."

Wolfgar became my mentor after that. I would regularly consult him for advice. One night that I remember clearly, we shared a bottle of (cheap) champagne at his mother's house (she was away on vacation in Florida). It was a strange home, in Freeport Long Island...all done in the colors of the moment (muted greys and taupes) and several of his mother's wigs were on stands in various rooms. His younger brother was in the basement, getting high with his girlfriend who said, "Roots is on again. Wanna watch it with us?"

We declined. We had serious poetry to discuss. Wolfgar was an aspiring writer, and so was I, kind of.

"This reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song," I told him.

Then I proceeded to sing "Rainy Night House."

"It was a rainy night/we took a taxi to your mother's home
She went to Florida...and left you with your father's gun alone..."

I was raftless on the river, and he chose that moment to take off one of his boots and throw it against the wall, knocking over a Precious Moments statuette.

"My mother thinks she's an art broker," he said, "but she sells Precious Moments. That's not art."

I thought that was brilliant. "I want to name you conservator of my soul," I told him, "Don't ever let me fall into a pattern of suburban mediocrity, no matter how much I'm tempted."

"I would never," he said.

Two weeks later I went to visit my mother. "I hate my job," I told her. "It's a dead-end job - it's not a career...it's a prison sentence...

"When are you going to grow up?," she said, "you just don't want to be happy. You don't even know when you're happy. Why don't you go out with someone NORMAL for a change? Don't you want children? Don't you ever want to get married? And your hair - it looks terrible. What did you do to your hair?"

Soon after, I decided to take my mother's well-intended advice. For one thing, I got a perm. And therein lied the rub...

(To be continued).

Sans Soucci Tonight

Several years back, Zimmerman and I went to "family photo day" at his school. It was just the two of us, and of course there seemed to be a lot of other families there with multiple kids.

"Do you want to wait till the rest of your family is here to take the picture?," the photographer's assistant ask.

"No," I said, "It's just my son and me."

"Are you sure?," he persisted.

At that point he was becoming annoying, so I enlisted him - and another family, to pose with us. For some reason they went along with it, and hardly anyone noticed the strangers when we sent around our Christmas cards out. No one really pays attention anyway, which is why for many years, I was able to avoid the "American Dream" without really letting it slip that I had missed the boat somewhere along the line.

My virtual daughter the High Tech Hottie asked me to help her with an essay she needs to write for an award she will be receiving , discussing where she would like to be in ten years. Since she sounded stressed about it, I didn’t give her the usual “why are you looking for guidance from the clueless” speech and promised to help. (She is my daughter, afterall – virtual or not). But I’m not sure I can.

You see - yesterday I got an email from Bev - an old college friend who told me that in addition to her husband’s other accomplishments, he could add the title “Professor” to his credentials. This was six months after I barely recovered from the annual Christmas letter received from a high school classmate who bemoaned the fact that her husband’s childhood piano (kept at their Rhode Island summer home) had been damaged in a storm. And so on...the stories are endless – and by the standards of success on which I was raised – I’m a failure – nolo contendere. The only things that save me from spiraling into depression when I face that face is that my sense of humor has never died – and that I avoid excessive introspection whenever possible."

Looking back, I realize that I probably didn’t have a viable “five year plan” - EVER. I'm fine with planning what to wear or what to serve at a party of course - but long term? Not so much. In fact – I don’t know if I have a five minute plan (other than to put the clothes in the dryer before mildew sets in). All I want to do is laugh and write and live my life and not worry – because even when I had nothing to worry about – ‘sans soucci’ was not exactly my theme song. And this year – I asked Dylan to learn it for me as my mother’s day gift. How did this happen? I was the one who lived by the credo “No sex before jewel-uh-rhee” for a number of years. Now - I’m living like a college freshman except that I’m in my 50s and don’t have posters of the Jonas Brothers on my walls. An associate who is far more successful than I could ever imagine being – in every possible way - recently described himself as “whim boy” and my immediate thought was “Well, that’s one area where I know I will always be able to surpass him.”

In the 1970s, When Jim Morrison’s death was announced, my closest friend Lucy and I walked from one end of East Meadow, Long Island to the other with a lit candle. We couldn’t believe it. The next day, my sister DiDi and her husband Mikey took me to Jones Beach. DiDi brought me a copy of LA Woman and the three of us hardly spoke, as we listened to various tributes on WNEW FM and other stations.

“I can’t believe he died,” DiDi said, every hour or so. Don’t remember exactly what Matty said – probably something sarcastic or wiseass that got her aggravated which caused a tiff. Then we all went to Nathan’s. Those were the good old days.

What seems like three lifetimes later – I still wonder if Jim Morrison’s words “All our lives we sweat and save/building for a shallow grave” enter anyone’s mind when they visit his (shallow) grave in Paris. Certainly his posthumous fame must be some consolation to his poetic spirit, which lingers from one generation to the next. Every time I listen to the Doors (which I do every summer, out of habit, even more than in the winter)

My virtual daughter Cartier and I watched Revolutionary Road the other night which depressed both of us to the point where we actually stopped talking (to each other and to ourselves). It was a grim depiction of a suburban couple trapped in the existential vacuum (there we go again!) whose joint and separate surrender of their dreams ended up unraveling their lives. Although it was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it was of course based on a recurring theme and pretty much it was the Ingmar Bergman version of “Leave it to Beaver” with better actors.

Having lived in suburbia for most of my life (if Queens, Hoboken and the ‘hood – where I live now – actually qualify as the ‘burbs) – I understand the problem. People move to the suburbs to live the “American dream” – to get away from the noise of New York (or whatever big city they live near) – and to find “wide open spaces” – but it becomes a vicious cycle for some. Bigger, better, more…with less time to enjoy it…having to work twice as hard for half as much pleasure…and for what?

People laugh when I tell them that when I was married, my sex life immediately went on the decline when my then-husband fired the lawn boy and got a mower. It wasn’t because I was sleeping with the lawn boy – that’s so Desperate Housewives… (Although he did look like Charlie Sheen and sometimes fantasizing about him was tempting); it was because right before my eyes, he morphed from long-haired playwright with long hair to Joe Suburbia. Suddenly the guy who used to drag me to midnight movies became someone who napped on the couch and yelled at me for leaving candles in the yard because they got in his way when he was edging.

I saw the same thing happen to my friend Gloria’s husband Artie. Artie was a few years older than we were, and had lived through the sexual revolution – plus he grew up in the Bronx so he had that “street wise” edge to him. At one point, he taught me how to properly use a bong (Zimmerman – if you’re reading this – it was when I was way over 21 and I didn’t inhale) – and he was tall and kind of sexy in an edgy way and when we were all not inhaling, sometimes Gloria would tell me stories like when they were in a group ski house and he was there with some other woman but he looked so hot chopping carrots that she forced him to sleep with her. “You had no choice,” I would say, sipping cheap champagne as we ate popcorn, M&Ms and everything else that wasn’t nailed down.
and then one day, after they bought a big Victorian home in Upper Montclair, I went to visit and saw an elderly man mowing the lawn wearing a golf shirt as Rosemary Clooney emanating loudly from Bose speakers on the newly –renovated porch.

“Where’s Artie?” I asked Gloria.

She pointed to the lawn and I did a double take.

“Oh my God,” I said, “What happened to him?" It was as though aliens had kidnapped him; he was a Stepford Husband.

"ROSEMARY CLOONEY?," I said, as though in a trance, "He used to listen to the Stones."

"Sad, isn't it?," she said, searching the beautifully renovated kitchen cabinets for ye old bong.

Last year, I had a reading by Julia the “Angel Lady” who, among other things, told me that my first gift was “feeling” and that I was doing myself a disservice by trying to bury that gift.

“This shows,” she said, with concern, “you were never so rigid before.”
Of course I bristled instantly.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, “how should I be?”

“Look around your house,” she said, “Everything is in its place,” she said, “which means you’re not using your first gift…usually ‘feeling’ types don’t care so much about appearances.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” I said, straightening the tablecloth. Then I realized that on some level she was right; at that point I was still living in my old home – where my friends told me I morphed into Doris Day.

Things later changed, and I now live on the first floor of a two-family house (which I don’t own) which happens to be close to at least three stops on the Soprano’s tour and where I occasionally skip making the bed for a whole day (gasp!) and where I sometimes leave dishes in the sink and don’t beat my son up for leaving his long board in the front foyer (although I don’t necessarily like the shoe collection).

Someday soon, maybe I’ll grow up and catch up to my friends who don’t have to sell their collection of “break-up” gold to try to get a seat at a lawn concert in the Hamptons. Maybe I'll someday finally have that book signing at Barnes & Noble (I've been practicing the photo-ready smile and have hair and make-up on standby). Today? I’m thrilled that I made enough money writing an article to afford a Michael Kors bag. And maybe get a whole case of Pellegrino. And hell – maybe I’ll get the Taittinger.

Because, as the late great Jim Morrison also wrote “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”

(Roll, baby, roll).

I Love You, Mrs. Paul

My friends, especially Kagee, tell me that I’m hard to please when it comes to food. Not sure if that’s true, but let’s just say that it’s a good thing that I’m not a restaurant critic because if I were, people would lock the doors before I walked in.

Example: last September, a few of us went to The Melting Pot to celebrate Cartier’s birthday. For those of you unfamiliar – it’s a “fondue” restaurant where you have a choice of oil or broth in which to cook your food.

First of all, I don’t like food that looks too “uniform” when it’s prepared. It’s nice if it’s pretty- but I’m a sucker for the perfection of imperfection. So when I saw chunks of meat that had a cookie cutter look to them, I was less than enchanted. Then there was the shrimp. It tasted fishy. And so on. So when HTH later mentioned wanting to go back there, I casually let it drop that I thought the food was “revolting.” This coupled with my antipathy for all (or most) chain restaurants make me an annoying person to dine with.

But last night, when a few of us went down the shore to Avon By the Sea to celebrate Soffeea’s birthday, I vowed to eat whatever was put in front of me, no matter how much I hated it, because I knew that if I didn’t, Kagee would roll her eyes and tell me that I was “impossible.”

I could tell she was giving me the eye when I was a little annoyed that earlier in the evening, the bartender had never heard of a sidecar, a mojito or a caipirnina. A sidecar I could accept – but a mojito? And the National drink of Brazil? “What’s it called?,” she said to Kagee, “A caperdillo?” At that point, I suspended expectations and leaned into the whole “Jersey Shore” scene with big-haired over-bedazzled middle-aged women dancing and singing as our friend Joel (not to be confused with Billy Joel) played “Brown Eyed Girl” for probably the ten millionth time that week, glancing imploringly at the non-caipirnina knowledgeable bartender for another Bud Light with a tequila chaser.

Once at dinner, I really felt like ordering steak, but didn’t dare. The last time I had steak at Morton’s in New York I found it to be tough and flavorless (and brought most of it home to Deva), so there was no way I was going to order one at a seaside resort restaurant in South Jersey. One would think that ordering seafood in a shore town at a place where there was a lot of turnover would be “safe.” It would, one would think, at least be fresh. And it’s almost impossible to screw up squid or shrimp (or so I thought).

But when I ordered some type of seafood concoction with fra diavolo sauce over pasta (shrimp, squid, scallops) – it was all that I could do to swallow it. Everything was tough, the pasta was gummy, and the shrimp tasted like it had come out of a can. I was wishing I was at home, eating Mrs. Paul's Deviled crabs and watching a Law and Order Marathon. Of course, I acted like I thought it was great, picked at it, and diverted the attention by talking about – I don’t know – the weather? Sex? Anything so I wouldn’t have to hear the “You don’t like anything,” speech. Oh and by the way – the bread was stale, cold and tasted vaguely like drywall – I took one bit and discreetly spit it into my napkin.

But since I’m a complete advocate for the adage “Life is Uncertain – Eat Dessert First” and since it was Soffeea’s birthday – I knew that if I got through the food – there would be a valid reason to order everything on the dessert menu. I mean –s he was turning 50 – what choice did I have?

Kagee and I both love key lime pie, and the mere thought of it made my heart sing. So I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room and asked the waitress to bring some – in addition to a lava cake – to our table and sing happy birthday to Soffeea.
What seemed like two hours later, the waitress arrived at the table with lukewarm key lime pie that tasted like it had been left out in the rain (and she couldn’t get the recipe again, oh no) – and lava cake that wasn’t hot or explosive – sans candles.

Still – I didn’t say much – just smiled and started talking about how 9 out of 10 women fake orgasm (again – to divert the attention away from my picky eating habits).

Thank heaven for Kagee though – she made a face the second she tasted the key lime pie and said “This is disgusting.” I almost kissed her on the lips.

“YES!” I said, “It SUCKS! YES – it’s TERRIBLE!”

So we agree that somehow – someway – later in the night – we would have “real” dessert. At that point, I would have settled for M&Ms from 7-Eleven because my chocolate jones was acting up.

The night progressed, and we later ended up at Pier Village at a dessert café. I was nothing short of ecstatic just glancing through the glass (as an old Italian man sang Frank Sinatra songs). Kagee and I asked about every dessert and one looked better than the next.

Finally, since I order not one but TWO things – a black forest cupcake and vanilla gelato. Kagee got peanut butter chocolate biscotti.

And – everything sucked. I took one bite of the stale black forest cake with its plastic frosting and Smuckers’ cherry preserves and said “that’s it – I’m not meant to have dessert.” Never mind the gelato; it tasted like Sealtest (remember that?) after it had survived freezer burn.

Kagee was, at that point, ready to lecture me – or at least roll her eyes – but then she bit into the biscotti.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to taste like this,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “try it.”

So I did. And I figured out another way to spit it out discretely.

“Gee,” I thought, “I would have been a good bulimic back in the day.”
The bad news is that none of my food cravings were satisfied, and when I finally got home, I ended up eating peanut butter out of the jar and at least 6 “sugar free” popsicles. The good news is that even after a weekend binge I don’t have to worry about taking on another half hour to my “already pushing it” workout tomorrow.
And now?
There’s Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream in the freezer, which I bought for Dylan and if he doesn’t come home soon, I might have to eat it and tell him “the dog did it.” Either that or I’ll pop an ambien and call it a night.

Here is what you need to make a caipirnina:
1 lime
2 Ounces Cachaca (rum, baby)
2 Tablespoons White Granulated Sugar
Crushed Ice

Cut lime into 8 pieces. Muddle lime and sugar in the bottom of a glass or cocktail shaker. Add rum. Add about 1 cup crushed ice. Cover and shake vigorously. Garnish with lime.

Bye Bye Boone's Farm (after they've seen Paree)

Last blog, I questioned whether or not romance is dead. Well, dead or alive, from what I know - women need it as much as they need air. Well, men might too; but little things mean a lot to most of the women I know and they love thoughtful gestures, or, barring all else, at least some semblance of chivalry. One of my friends based a whole relationship on the fact that her boyfriend not only made crème brulee for her – but that he went to Williams Sonoma to buy the ramekins. Another married someone she hardly knew and with whom she had little to nothing in common because he wrote her name in crayon on a paper table cloth on their second date – and spelled it correctly. (Oops – that was me – nevermind).

Anyway - someone who I had been seeing but in whom I completely lost interest quickly, based, among other things, on his lack of social finesse, has been trying to get into my good graces. Simply put, it’s just not gonna happen, for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to his complete lack of social graces, finesse and the fact that when I told him I was a blogger he said “I used to run too…but it’s bad for my knees.” And he brought me a bottle of wine without a cork, in a box. I was so offended.

“Oh, Ingelnook,” I said, “how thoughtful…I didn’t know they still made it.”
“Yeah,” he said, “My daughter had some friends over and I know you like wine. What’s the one you like that starts with a ‘b’ again?,” he asked.

He was referring to Beaujolais; I celebrate Beajolais day every November, and start getting chills when I see signs saying "Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrive!"

“Boone’s farm,” I said, “nothing like that Apple Wine…so hard to get it anymore.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, “but did you ever have the Melon flavor?”

The glaringly obvious question is “why did you go out with the clart in the first place,” and the answer is unclear to me. He seemed harmless and at times could be mildly amusing, and he picked up a piece of plywood for me from Home Depot – plus he was really into me – and having recently gone through a few traumatic experiences, I wanted companionship and he was kind of cute and very attentive – albeit a little rough around the edges; it just wasn’t apparent early on just exactly how rough.

Now, I’m certainly not trying to misrepresent myself as someone who should be teaching seminars on etiquette. For one thing, just before I started writing this, I shoveled cold leftover pad Thai into my mouth and drank diet soda out of a can, while barefoot on the couch watching “Entourage” with my son, who is dressed in a wife beater and boxers. (Sounds like we’re in the Green Room for Jerry Springer, doesn’t it?) The difference is, that for me it’s definitely the exception and not the rule; I clean up “real good” and would never do that in public (and I never even eat at networking events because if I have a choice between having one hand free for a drink and the other for my business card – as much as I love congealed meatballs and soggy dim sum – the food loses out). But I do like to set a table with aplomb, and keep fresh flowers in the house at all times...plus there's the high maintenance thing...nails, hair, etc. etc. etc.

Back to the issue at hand – aside from being rough-hewn, he’s clueless about romance. That I knew from day 1, when he told me about the demise of his marriage.
“She was a snob,” he said, “nothing I did was good enough…she said I wasn’t romantic…so I said ‘hey – I was in the delivery room – I saw everything – I don’t have to sweet talk you now.”

Of course, again, I couldn’t begin to tell him what was wrong with that statement. He continued, “She said I was cheap but I’m frugal and I like getting good deals…
“One year I went to Costco and got a cashmere sweater for $39,” he continued. “It was just like anything you get in a good store like Target.”

Of course, there were so many things wrong with that story that I didn’t know where to begin, but just trying to explain that Target was not a “good store” would have taken me an hour. (Although he did pronounce it as “Tar-Jay” to add to the perceived cachet (pronounced “cach-IT”).

Since I had to say SOMETHING – the knee-jerk sarcastic response leaked out.
“Gee,” I said, “I can’t imagine why…there’s nothing a woman likes more than marked-down, picked through, stretched out sweaters that you picked up on sale with absolutely no thought a day late – and at COSTCO. You could have been completely thoughtless and gotten her paper towels or a 6-pack of Ragu sauce…at least that was a personal gift”
But, as I’ve said before, it’s not about the cost – it’s about the thought.
To make a long story even longer, I thought I had paid back the plywood delivery, so as far as I was concerned it was over, but before he told me about Costco – I had invited him to a party at my home, so he contacted me to see if he was still invited.
“Sure,” I said, “you can come…but you need to refrain from making homophobic, sexist, racist or phallic jokes (he proudly told me he recently finished a compendium of penis jokes– how proud his daughter must be – maybe they broke out the Carlo Rossi to celebrate?).

He was affronted – and sent me an email saying I “insultid” him. (Note the misspelling).

So – I thought (prayed) that would be it – but he emailed me again.
“I really like you,” he said, “we could be an aces couple…I was going to get you some flowers from Costco and leave them at your house but I didn’t know if I should.”
My blood sugar was low - so I decided to be direct.

“The fact that you think we could be ‘aces’ is ridiculous,” I wrote, “you know nothing about me – and we have nothing in common. I’m a snob – just like your ex-wife. By the way – façade is not pronounced “Fah-Kade”

“And,” I wrote, “I can’t believe you think flowers from COSTCO would be appropriate…I’m not even worth of a plastic plant from Target?”

(By the way, I need more plywood, but I’m braving Home Depot myself; maybe if I’m lucky I can get one of the clerks to help me carry it to my car without calling me “M’am” or flashing his wedding ring if he thinks I’m being “seductive” because I’m not dressed in overalls).

Hunting for Signature Sauce

Time heals all wounds, so almost ten years after the fact I thought it was “safe” to have déjà wu with a former love interest who I’ve mentioned a few times before – the Patron Saint of Emotional Unavailability, who I’ll call “Trey.”

The thing is, I never have a problem being friends with my exes; I’m an Aquarian and we’re known to be everyone’s friend. I’ve even gone so far as to recycle ex-love interests, like some of the beautiful sweaters or bags I got while on a spending spree that never really fit me. Hell – I even do it if I’m the one who was dumped; in fact – one of my old friends (Rizzo) was originally a blind date who didn’t like me, so I subsequently fixed him up with half a dozen other girls over a ten year period. (Note: he didn’t like any of them either, and the whole exercise served the dual purpose of building up some good karma and having some satisfaction in knowing that in that case – it really WASN’T me – it was him – he’s just not that into anybody).

Moving along – Trey – for all our problems – said I was the “smartest person he ever met” he always enjoyed – and actually read – my various articles and rants and short stories and in fact, he was the first one in my life who ever heard the term “blog.”

“You have to do this,” he said, “this is what you do anyway.”

One good thing about Trey was that he liked to cook and we actually had fun together in the kitchen (no – not that kind of fun – he didn’t have that much imagination). But he would, for example, suddenly have an urge to make broccoli rabe with sausage and create it with no help from me – or take half a day to make oven roasted potatoes, never forgetting to check their texture no matter how drunk he got on grappa.
A sticking point was that he wouldn’t acknowledge my abilities; told me I had no “signature” dish.

“What about my tri-color green salad with gorgonzola and cranberries? I was making that before anyone else did…”

“No,” he said, “a salad doesn’t count.”

“Well then,” I bristled, “what about my wasabi stuffed eggs? You eat the filling with your hands.”

“No,” he said, “they're good - but they don’t count – an appetizer is not a ‘dish.’”

“My stuffing,” I said, “what about that?”

“No,” he said, “it’s a SIDE dish – it has to be an entree.”

This really pissed me off and I found it more insulting than when he bought me a Chiminea for our first Christmas together.

“Mine is eggplant parm,” he said, “everyone loves my eggplant parm.”

Indeed, when I told Rosie it was finally “over” with no chance of reconciliation, as usual, she was worried more about the loss of food than anything else.

“Oh no,” she said, “I loved his eggplant.”

Also, he always made the best marinara sauce. After we broke up (for the fifth time) – or maybe during the process – I threw in “And your sauce is WAY TOO THIN and has NO TASTE…I FAKED liking it just like I faked…”

Anyway –several years passed - and I really needed a good recipe for marinara sauce – so I decided to reach out to him. There was no way he would ever try to call me as my last words to him – to end the “back and forth” were “Don’t ever contact me again. You’ll be first on the list of people to be informed in the event of my demise.”

Plus, I got married to my now-estranged husband since Trey and I split and no one wants to call an ex-girlfriend who might be married to a 6’5” police captain who was unreasonably jealous of any male that crossed my path; he once asked me if I was sleeping with my bosses at a small forensic accounting firm I worked at for a time.

“Both of them?” my friend Lara asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” I said, “isn’t that ridiculous? What does he think I am – an amoral hussy?” (This of course gave me the opportunity to throw my head back – hand on forehead – and for a fleeting moment, feel like Sarah Bernhardt (May she rest).

“Actually,” she said, “does he know what they look like? Has he met them? If he did it would be even MORE ridiculous.”

So – I called Trey – and after exchanging polite pleasantries, I finally managed to get him to leak a few of the ingredients for his sauce recipe that I used to love so much. And surprisingly – he folded like a house of cards and recited the ingredients one by one.

“Wait a minute,” I said, stopping him in mid-explanation, “you use HUNT’s SAUCE? Why Hunt’s sauce?”

“It’s my mother’s recipe,” he said.

Then I thought of his mother. Rumor has it that she was the prototype for a character in The Wizard of Oz (and we're not talking "good witches" here). She was a particularly bad-tempered woman, and very spoiled (he told me this the first day we met). Somehow, she ended up at my house for 3 nights of dinner during one Christmas season and after the second night – when I told her I planned to make lasagna for Christmas Day – said “Oh no…I can’t STAND to look at anymore pasta” – so I rushed out to King’s to get a piece of meat – which I painstakingly prepared on the “Set it and Forget it” Popeil rotisserie that someone advised me to buy. The mechanisms were apparently defective out of the box, however, because the entire time the meat rotated it created a high-pitched creaky whine (almost worst than mother-in-law-hell-no’s unending diatribe of negativity) – and the meat came out just so-so. And she complained about that.

“You should have made it in a COOKING BAG,” she said.

Once he said “Hunt’s sauce” – I stopped listening. He lost credibility. Well – not him – his sauce recipe. Then I started remembering that he kissed like a dead fish, and that while I made the disparaging comment about faking the love of his sauce out of anger - the other - not so much...

So we exchanged polite pleasantries – had some laughs – and the memory of his sauce evaporated into the ethers.

I’m now working on my own “perfect” marinara sauce recipe. Maybe it will end up being my “signature” dish.

And – in the interest of full disclosure – his saying that I was the “smartest person he ever met” was at best, faint praise; I met most of his friends and let’s just say that Mensa is definitely not missing any members in that crowd.

Going to Corrado’s today…a new store just opened in Wayne...imported tomatoes anyone?

Mango Tango

The following is a revised reprint of a post published in June, 2007. The people mentioned still exist, and "Zimmerman's" friend is still pilfering food from my kitchen on a regular basis. Last night, I caught him carelessly removing the lid of an authentic antique apothecary jar in which I had placed antique salt water taffy (for decorative purposes only). "Be careful," I said, of course through clenched teeth, "that jar is about 100 years old." He chortled. "I'm serious," I repeated, and stormed out of the room. Well, at least he doesn't call me "Vic" anymore (that's a horse of an entirely different color, which I'll discuss in a future blog). Meanwhile - here's the revived post from 2007:

When Life Gives You Mangos, Make Margaritas

My son Zimmerman’s friend Nico (who Zim and his other friends have aptly labled a “freeloader”) was at our house one afternoon and, inter alia, after rifling through the refrigerator, helped himself to a mango that was ripening in the center of the kitchen table (where it was placed, with other fruit, with careful attention to the feng shui of abundance). I didn’t notice that the mango was missing until I found a knife on the middle of the desk in our home office, and when I questioned Zim, he said that Nico needed it since our peeler didn’t work all that well. Long story short – the kid stole my mango and left the peels to rot in the upstairs garbage can, unnoticed until the next day when the stench became unbearable and Coprock was left with the task of cleaning it up (and spraying the area with Lysol).

I wasn’t too happy about the incident, and I had a neo-Joan Crawford explosion – after which I said something like “I’m not yelling at you, Zim...I’m yelling at the (expletives deleted) MANGO PEEL”

After that, I thought I must be the worst mother in the world. However, thankfully, one of my friends (who asked me to omit her name since even her a/k/a is now recognizable) might have topped me. Anon Mom is a single mother whose Anon Ex contributes little or nothing to Anon Son’s life, financially, emotionally or in any way. Here is her story, in her words, about a conversation that took place between her and her son on Father’s Day:

Anon Mom: Call uncle Mike and wish him a happy father's day.

Anon Son: Why? He's not my father.

Anon Mom: He's more of a father figure to you then your own father is.

Anon Son: Yeah, but he didn't do you.

Anon Mom: If you had to call everyone that did me, you would be here all day.
Anon Son: Nice Mom

There's so many things wrong that conversation that I don't know where to begin.

On days like those described above, a Mango Margarita might help. Here's a great recipe:

To Make Mango Margaritas

Puree 1 1/4 pounds fresh mangoes, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar;
Put in a blender with 3 cups ice, 3 oz. Triple sec, 6 oz. Tequila or
6 oz. Rum – blend until smooth – drink until you can no longer stand upright. Oh - and garnish with something. Mint would be nice. As long as it's not IN the drink, no one will confuse it with a Mojito. But if they do, who cares? You'll be too inebriated to notice.

Pull Me Up, Blueberry

When I have trouble sleeping (which is usually 5 days a week) I try to find creative ways to get around food cravings which don't involve pulling a chair up to the refrigerator or eating sleeves of Oreos (at least not EVERY night).

As luck would have it, thanks to Facebook, I recently reconnected with Janice Mancusi, a fellow insomniac and chef extraordinaire. I first met Janice in the 70s, in a high school French class (which I took in 1971, after many years of Spanish, which means that all I remember is "Je Me Brosse Les Dents" and the Hail Mary). To help me past my writer's block - she agreed to let me post her recipe for Blueberry Tiramisu. And we're collaborating on a cookbook (but that's another story - watch for official announcements).

By way of background re: the tiramisu, research labs across the world demonstrate that there is growing evidence proving blueberries are an important part of a healthy diet. And research on Tiramisu indicates that there is no known documented mention of the popular dessert in cookbooks before 1983...I fell asleep before I could find out anymore...but here's Jan's recipe:

Blueberry Tiramisu

Ingredients
• 3 cup fresh blueberries
• 2 cup fresh raspberries
• 1 cup sugar
• Juice of one orange
• 2 pints heavy cream
• 8 ounces Mascarpone cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 7-ounce package crisp ladyfingers (savoiardi, is what I use)
• 1 cup Chambord liqueur
• ½ cup mixed blueberries and raspberries
• Fresh mint sprigs
• Powdered sugar in shaker

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine all the berries with the sugar and orange juice. With a fork, lightly mash 1/4 of the berries against the side of the bowl. Allow the berries to sit for 1 hour. Using an electric mixer, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. In a mixing bowl, fold the whipped cream into the Mascarpone cheese, along with the powdered sugar. Blend until the cream is fully incorporated. To assemble, lay one layer of the ladyfingers on the bottom of the pan. Brush the layer with the Chambord. Spread 1/3 of the cheese mixture over the sponge cake. Spread a 1/3 of the berry mixture over the cheese. Repeat the procedure until all of the ladyfingers, berry and cheese mixture are used. Spread the reserved whipped cream mixture over the top of the cake. Allow the cake to set, about 1 hour. Place a slice of the tiramisu on the plate. Garnish with fresh berries, fresh mint and powdered sugar.

Dodging Canned Ham

(The following post was originally published as a Facebook note on February 2, 2009)

Years ago, I heard a story (or maybe an urban legend?) about a wacked out fringe woman who was robbing a convenience store somewhere in the East Village; apparently she was taking items off the shelves and putting them under her shirt. The store owner saw what she was doing, and grabbed her by the arm as she was about to slip out the door - which caused a can of ham that she had taken to fall to the floor.

She immediately yelled "HELP! He's throwing groceries at me!' and caused such a ruckus that the owner looked like the one who was the aggressor, picking on a poor fringe woman. The other customers actually started yelling at him - as though he had done something wrong. And I'm sure that by the end of the episode, he might have thought so as well...I know I would have...

In the end of course - nobody won. The woman might have gotten away with stealing - but she also was forced to leave the ham behind, and go hungry (or maybe steal from another store - how inconvenient). And the store owner was subject to public ridicule or at least in the middle of an annoying disturbance, however brief it might have been .

Myth or legend or not - all of this resonates not only in matters involving convenience stores but in life in general - whether one is stealing a ham for survival or trying to get one's ham back. Someone hurts you - you hurt them to protect yourself - and no one wins...and the heart is just like a wheel "when you bend it; you can't mend it."

Unless maybe it's a movie on the Hallmark Channel - then at the end - everybody says "I love you" and even the good guys win -

and everybody gets a ham -

and they all live happily ever after...

(I'm logging off now, to make grilled cheese...)

Good-bye Kitty; I'm Back to Black

(Originally published as a Facebook note - January, 2009)

Every morning, I spend way too much time trying to decide what to wear, so last night I decided to be proactive about things and figure it out in advance. Not that there's much of a selection; although I have more than enough clothes, mostly everything is black and white; not how I live - not how I see things - but simply how I dress.

So - while rifling through my closet - and the four black suits, six black skirts and eight white blouses - an unofficial uniform - I came upon a sweater long forgotten - that wasn't black - and thought about its story. (Note: the fact that I spend time writing "stories" for my clothing could be why it takes so long to figure out what to wear).

Anyway - it was a sweater that I loved the second I saw it - from a distance - when I was shopping one day - it caught my eye. However - the price was too high so I reluctantly let it go - left it on the shelf. Then - a few months later - surprisingly - in what seemed like a serrendipitious occurrence - it was on the sale rack! I couldn't believe it.

I examined it carefully for holes or imperfections - couldn't believe it hadn't been snagged by someone else - and rushed it to the register to pay for it and took it home, hardly believing it was mine. I put it in my dresser - among the 12 black sweaters - and it stood out. For a few weeks it was at the top of the pile - then I got another black sweater, and moved it to a different drawer where I kept "occasional" clothes - like the feather boa I had bought when playing Phyllis Diller at a costume party a few years earlier - and the scarf a friend had knitted for me which I only wore when I saw her. Then - the seasons changed - and I put all of my sweaters into storage; then I moved, and kept all of my sweaters in a storage bin... Then finally - they ended up in my closet - on hangers - even though it's a a great place to keep sweaters (because they "grow" when they are hung up and stretch beyond recognition).

But lo and behold - there it was - in all of its bizarre glory - green with black specks and rhinestone (yes, rhinestone) buttons - and I almost laughed when I saw it. "What was I thinking?," I thought (about my previous thoughts), "This is hideous." So I moved it into a "to be donated" pile where it will stay until Saturday when I make my usual trip to the Salvation Army bin in the parking lot of my the supermarket.

Lesson I Learned: Sometimes the thing you want the most turns out to be the most hideous choice you can make - so if you don't get it right away - remember that it will all turn out fine - because it wasn't meant to be and it will end up in the back of your closet where you forget it until you remove it from your wardrobe, if not your life.

Feeling "Fab" Again Now that the Tides Have Turned

(The following post was originally written as a Facebook note on February 17, 2009, when I was missing my old washing machine...but we're together again at last):

I know that if I write about how enhanced features in former washing machine makes me long for the days when doing laundry was a joyous experience and not one to be dreaded, that some will assume I'm making an analogy...and I'm not -

Ordinarily I'd write about washers when really discussing relationships in an attempt at euphemism (see for example "Goodbye Kitty"...did anyone really believe it was actually about SWEATERS?)...so now I'll do the reverse...

Years back, I was in a mediocre relationship which was unfulfilling and my mother (who was raised in the "till death do us part even if our death is accelerated by this horrible union" mentality) said "Well - 'they' are all like that...it doesn't matter who you're with..." And I kind of believed her...felt that all relationships became stale and boring after 90 days and people became complacent and took each other for granted and that there was no one else in the world who liked to lick Dorito crumbs from the bottle of the bag on the morning after a night of too much Absolut or set the alarm for 3 a.m. to watch "The Hunt for Red October" or go to Chinatown instead of 7-Eleven to get emergency spring rolls or make me spew water at them because they made me laugh so hard when I was trying to drink it...

Then - I met someone who actually was in some ways "all that" and it changed my perception...and I knew instantly that my mother knew not of whence she spoke...some people are just more in sync with each other in essential ways...it doesn't have to do with arguments or values or goals...it has to do with what you do during the elipses...

So when we eventually broke up (for reasons other than lack of excitement) - while the relationship had run its course and neither of us had any regrets...it was hard for me to go back to "Joe Normal" after being with someone who would come to visit me in the dead of winter wearing gym shorts and think it was fine to stay out all night on a Tuesday because sleep was overrated...

But right now - it's about the laundry...

I once enjoyed doing laundry...there was something ritualistic and almost sacred about the experience...washing away the soil of the day and starting anew...it was downright Biblical...epic...and my old washer had so many cycles that were so specific that it was both dizzying and exhiliarating..."hand wash - light...delicate - slow wash...heavy but not overweight...soak...soak and then spin...soak, rest...spin..."

Eventually, that machine will make its way back to me...my former residence is in the final stages of closing and my former spouse (with whom the relationship "ran its natural course") is agreeable to giving me full custody of my favorite home appliance.

But for now - I'll have to put up with "On-Off-Hot-Warm-Cold" and the mediocrity of an agitator that is a victim of the existential vacuum (cleaner) and really wanted to be a motorboat...