Vermonty

Nützliche Ausdrucke, Yotam, Sentient Food

Frau Holmes used to say, “Wenn Gott wolte, dass ich koche, warum hat er dann Restaurants geschaffen?” It was one of the only nützliche Ausdrucke I never really liked, although I think she meant it more as a feminist than as a creationist. She also used to tell us once you see a new word, you will keep seeing it. How true that has felt lately, when the word Ottolenghi first started popping up all over my Twitter and podcast feeds. Actually, I’d like to know how it’s possible I’ve been missing a fantastic word like Ottolenghi. Christopher Kimball says that’s where everyone is going now in food—and he would certainly know, but I’m not sure I would have said he would know first. Then again, I think the whole living on a farm in Vermont thing, like the bow tie, is a bit of a put-on. Also, maybe I did know about Yotam Ottolenghi and I just forgot. I tripped or was tripped while running in White Clay Creek over the weekend and may have hit my head—there was very little blood, unless I was bleeding from my nose again and no one told me.

A little less recently, but still not soon enough, I came across David Leite (rhymes with eat—apparently not German). Lynne Rosetto Kasper is a fan so it might have happened sooner, except that I had to stop listening to The Splendid Table because it aired back to back with You Bet Your Garden, which I think was hosted by Gilbert Gottfried. Sometimes I would accidentally hear a little bit of that show and later that day, through some sort of transference, all my plants would die. I try not to take a point from anything I read, but I hope we’re not going any one place in food. I like to make a wheat berry salad sometimes, or an #ottolenghi cauliflower cake that was very difficult not to Instagram*, but I also want to make the bacon bourbon butterscotch popcorn from Leite’s Culinaria. If Christopher Kimball or Yotam Ottolenghi or David Leite has some ideas for things for me to cook, I am very open-minded. But I do also like restaurants. So Gott sei Dank, I suppose.

*But I did text it to my brother. He said it looked sentient. He has read a lot of Hermann Hesse.

Curiosity, Politics, Shhh…

The daughter I mentioned having in another post, who was, in that one–for narrative purposes–almost eleven, is, as it turns out, actually eleven now and has started acting more–yawn–socially aware. The other day she asked me if there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. I have no idea where this came from, unless it’s that darn Montessori again. At home, we make a point never to discuss politics, calories, or Jon Snow’s parentage, but children develop curiosities all the same. You are likely not eleven, and I don’t want to be patronizing, so here’s an abridgment of what I told her:

Federalists, Abraham Lincoln, some of my best friends, blood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, Religion, things that frighten people.

I voted, you know, but I did not discuss it. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that because I’m an airhead who falls down a lot that I’ve completely checked out.

Hey, can I get sentimental for a moment? Because I’m just remembering another time my daughter asked me about the differences between people. We were living in Vermont, so she couldn’t have been two yet, and she and her little friend [boy] were playing in the river. When his mother was changing him out of his wet swimsuit, my daughter observed that [N.] “has a different bottom”.  I was sure I was out of earshot of my grandmother in Virginia, so I decided it would be all right to be kind of Vermonty and open, and not just change the subject and offer her a maple candy. “Yes he does,” I said. Not an easy conversation, to be sure, but, I mean–now that I have an eleven year-old, I’m feeling pretty smug that I got it out of the way when I did!