09.23.06
Beset by Cats
There is only one way that a person ever gets to take a nap in my house, and that is beset by cats. We’ve only got the two of them, yet somehow they seem like more when you’re napping. It seems to have something to do with their incredible self-plastering capabilities. Cats don’t just lie next to you, they have this strange semi-fluid property so that they flow into the negative spaces around you, draped all over you, as close to dead weight as anything that is still flicking radar-dish ears in hopes of the sound of stinky can food cans being opened can possibly be. It can make rolling over a bit tricky, on account of the sharp bits which, for cats, are their best and most instinctive defense against earthquakes. But the felines have broken me to their ways, and now a nap without at least one supervisor seems somehow wrong.
I am a little concerned, though, that the cats have begun to find ways not just to control my napping posture but to infect my dreams. During the nap from which I just woke up (ably assisted by Mrs. Calabash, the Elder Statescat) I dreamt that we all lived in a strange apartment in some foreign country in which the bed was meant to be placed in a sort of high shop-window, a waist-high platform accessed through sliding doors on the side that opened into the apartment, and surrounded on the other three sides by thick glass panes lined with sheer curtains that could be opened or shut at will. The idea, it was pretty clear, was that the bed would be warmed by the sunshine. See what I mean? Clearly a cat fantasy.
I’ve begun working on the website for Virgin: The Untouched History. I’ll be doing it all from the WordPress platform: a central blog for news, updates, reviews, related stories in the world news, with static pages connected to it to handle other things. It will be nice to have an interactive, lively, easily-updated website for it. I’m in the process of looking for a nice graphical theme for the pages, so that they look professional but a little exciting — enough to catch the eye, anyhow, since so many other book sites are all up in these hugely slick Flash and Shockwave and other whizbangy interfaces. Which, for the record, make me a little crazy, and I think often detract from the overall experience of the book and the author because they’re clearly about the tech and not the content, but monkeys like shiny things so what can you do? Right, give them some shiny things, within reason, and do your best.
Having been to the farmer’s market, I have a bunch of a different sort of work to do, too. It is apple season again, which delights me, and I have about a dozen Jonathan apples sitting in my kitchen waiting to be made into apple cakes and a batch of scalloped apples besides. (There are also a dozen Honeycrisps, and a dozen late peaches, but those are for eating out of hand.) I have beets and cauliflower which need to be roasted up, the beets in preparation for a pot of borscht in mid-week, the cauliflower in preparation for pureeing it with roasted garlic and olive oil (the very best way in the world to eat cauliflower, bar none). Come to think of it I should braise the beet greens, too. There is also a small pile of green beans which want blanching so that I can include them, later this evening, in a slightly unorthodox wor lo mein: sherry/soy/ginger marinated portobello mushroom caps cut into strips, green beans, panfried tofu, and Hong Kong style skinny egg noodles stir-fried with ginger, garlic, a little oyster sauce, and Ma La oil (a seasoned sesame oil with scallion and chili pepper infused into it). Tonight I also need to set some black beans to soak, because I am making moros y cristianos tomorrow.
This ought to set us up pretty well for the week; one of the rewards of planning the menus and the shopping ahead of time is that for the investment of a part of my weekend (and this weekend was set aside for household-based schlumphing around anyhow) I don’t really have to think about any intensive cooking again until Wednesday or Thursday. Just heat up things that were intentionally made in advance because they get better as they sit, make salads and/or cook up some veggies, and you’re good to go. Plus you have pre-made food for packed lunches that is so much nicer than just slapping together a sandwich at 6 a.m. I always think there is something incredibly civilized, as well as nutritionally sensible, about eating a proper meal at midday, and really do not care for the American tendency to treat lunch as an afterthought that must be accomplished as quickly as possible (thus leading to a tendency to eat poorly), so I get a little strident on the subject of making sufficient quantities of “supper food” that keeps well so that my family can eat well at lunchtime.
On that note, I suppose I had better stop typing and start washing and chopping.