January 3

O.K. Gary, this one is for you. You'll have some substitutions to make in order for it to be Vegan, but I'm sure you will make it uber tasty.

Best French Onion Soup
     from Cook's Illustrated

Serves 6
Notes from Cook's Illustrated: Sweet onions, such as Vidalia or Walla Walla, will make this recipe overly sweet. Be patient when caramelizing the onions in step 2; the entire process takes 45 to 60 minutes. Use broiler-safe crocks and keep the rim of the bowls 4 - 5 inches from the heating element to obtain a proper gratinee of melted, bubbly cheese. If using ordinary soup bowls, sprinkle the toasted bread slices with Gruyere and return them to the broiler until the cheese melts, then float them on top of the soup. We prefer Swanson Certified Organic Free Range Chicken Broth and Pacific Beef Broth. For the best flavor, make the soup a day or two in advance. Alternatively, the onions can be prepared through step 1, cooled in the pot, and refrigerated for up to 3 days before proceeding with the recipe.

Ingredients
Soup
          3 TB unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
          6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds) halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4 inch thick slices
          Table salt
          2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
          1/2 cup dry sherry
          2 cups beef broth
          4 cups low sodium chicken broth
          6 sprigs fresh thyme, tied with kitchen twine
          1 bay leaf
          ground black pepper

Cheese Croutons
          1 small baguette, cut into 1/2 inch slices
          8 ounces shredded Gruyere cheese

Instructions
1. For the soup: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Generously spray inside of heavy-bottomed large (at least 7 quart) Dutch oven with nonstick cooking spray.  Place butter in pot and add onions and 1 tsp salt. Cook, covered, 1 hour (onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove pot from oven and stir onions, scraping bottom and sides of pot. Return pot to oven with lid slightly ajar and continue to cook until onions are very soft and golden brown, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours longer, stirring onions and scraping bottom and sides of pot after 1 hour.

2. Carefully remove pot from oven and place over medium-high heat, using oven mitts to handle pot, cook onions, stirring frequently and scraping bottom and sides of pot, until liquid evaporates and onions brown, 15 - 20 minutes, reducing heat to medium if onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until pot bottom is coated with dark crust, 6 - 8 minutes, adjusting heat as necessary. (Scrape any food that collects on spoon back into onions.) Stir in 1/4 cup water, scraping pot bottom to loosen crust, and cook until water evaporates and pot bottom has formed another dark crust, 6 - 8 minutes, Repeat process of deglazing 2 or 3 more times, until onions are very dark brown. Stir in sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until sherry evaporates, about 5 minutes.

3. Stir in broths, 2 cups water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt, scraping any final bits of browned crust on bottom and sides of pot. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes. Remove and discard herbs, then season with salt and pepper.

4. For the croutons: while soup simmers, arrange baguette slices in single layer on baking sheet and bake in 400 - degree oven until bread is dry, crisp, and golden at edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

5. To serve: Adjust oven rack 6 inches from broiler element and heat broiler. Set individual broiler-safe crocks on baking sheet and fill each with about 1 3/4 cups soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices (do not overlap slices) and sprinkle evenly with Gruyere. Broil until cheese is melted bubbly around edges, 3 - 5 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.
         
This takes some time to prepare, but is well worth it. Bon Appetit!

January 2, 2012

I resolve to make no resolutions...unless, of course, I can resolve to gain 6 inches in height and have that happen. I'm tired of being short and not being able to reach the tall shelves in my kitchen without a ladder.

Assessment since last year...down 20 lbs. And that's with a total gain over the holidays since Thanksgiving of 2.6 lbs. Not bad considering I put few restrictions on what, when and where I ate. So, kind of holding my own on that account.

Christmas decorations down and boxed up ready to be hauled to the shop.

And might I just add that I have immensely enjoyed not being at work for four days? I am seriously considering taking today off, too. It's a holiday for the regular office folk. I may just use up a little more PTO and call it all good.

Made killer French onion soup last night. Guess what's on the dinner menu today?
Happy, Tasty New Year!

Happy New Year

It's 2012. Let's get this party started.

Pay it forward...

And the winners are:

Linda Starr
Jennie
Bonber - Bonnie Williams Bertolino
Kobby (Katherine)

Linda I have all I need for you.  I will send yours out tomorrow.  Jennie I need for you to pick a color.  Bonnie, I need your address.  I have the color for the hat band.  Kobby you can drive out and pick yours up.

Thanks for playing along everyone.  Now, pay it forward.  You should create a post and then make something for five new people.  Keep the kindness going folks.

Please send contact information to: lwilliams315@gmail.com

The Theme for the Weekend has been...

suicide. O.K. All together now: eeew.  Yeah, I know.  I feel the same way.  It all started with a random reference in a book to a man who I knew 30+ years ago who had committed suicide at the ripe old age of 26.  I blogged about it and later was having a conversation with my sister about it.  She told me about the brother of a friend who, years ago, committed suicide on the day of the brother's wedding. How is THAT for spectacularly selfish?  We also discussed the death-by-his-own-hand of Robert Ramage, a charming Scotsman with a delightful accent who had worked with our father in the newspaper business.  Dad's accurate assessment of the act (especially since Ramage had left behind a wife and children) was "selfish bastard".  I have to admit I agree with him. 

So, my sister and I had our conversation about suicide. (And many other things since her husband had time to go to a fish fry, eat, socialize and return before we got off the phone. I have a knack for keeping people on the phone.  Reach out and touch someone indeed.)

About two hours later the phone rang.  From the area code I could see it was a call from WVA.  I have a dear friend, Gladys, who just moved to the Mountain State a month ago so I presumed it was she.  Sure enough it was.  She told me that a mutual friend of ours whom we had worked with in the Neurosurgery Department at Harborview Hospital back in the 90's had committed suicide by jumping off of the Admiral Way Bridge in West Seattle on Tuesday.  Boy, was that a surprise.  I didn't know Sheila as well as Gladys had, but we had been on a friendly basis and I liked her. She was a spitfire with a quick laugh and smile and a joking manner.  Who knew what was brewing in her head to make her do something like that? Gladys had lived in Durham not too long ago and Sheila and another friend from the Neurosurgery Department had traveled out to visit.  They were gracious enough to make the trip up to visit us in Charlottesville. Sheila was the same old friendly, happy-go-lucky gal whom I had known in Seattle.  Apparently shortly after they returned from that trip Sheila started hanging out with an older man and cut off a lot of her ties to old friends.

Gladys told me lots of folks from the old Department (Sheila had moved to a different Dept at Harborview by this time) had tried to get in touch with her over the years.  Apparently there had been rumors.  Drugs, money problems...that kind of thing.  Of course that's all pure speculation at this point.  It's folks who cared, but couldn't get through to her who are trying to justify this horrid act in their own minds.  Can't blame them.  I do know some of these people and I know they would have helped Sheila if she had let them.  So, I am saddened by the news.  I do know that it is a supremely selfish act. I am sorry for Sheila and her family. I am sorry that her brother had to go to the police station to file a missing person's report only to be led to the morgue to identify her body.  I am sad for all the patients, co-workers and friends who won't have Sheila around to share a joke or a Seattle sunset.  I am sad for all the folks who may have seen her jump from the bridge and whose lives will be a little darker for that vision. 

In case anyone reading this doesn't get it, suicide is selfish.  It is a horrible way to leave your friends, co-workers, family and even random strangers on the street who have to deal with the aftermath.  There is no money problem so big, no addiction so great, no angst so deeply felt that it cannot be overcome if you just get the right kind of help.  I'm not saying that you need to just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again like the old song says.  I'm saying there are good, honest, caring professional people out there who can help you no matter how bad you think things are.  I think folks who end up committing suicide are living inside their heads too much.  They're blinding them selves to the efforts of family and friends who are reaching out to help them.  I have no idea why. I just know that there are lots of solutions out there no matter the problem.  So, this is my PSA for the week.  If you're considering suicide seek help.  Call a hotline, visit your minister, pray, go see a friend, reach out and touch someone.  Just don't go jumping off of bridges.  Leaving behind a legacy of pain, guilt and anger is not the way to go out.  Just don't do it.

Happy Birthday Lee

Happy Birthday Lee.  Your style, wit, charm and grace are missed.  Love you lots, Les

A Literary Lagniappe

I love a good story; one that is well told with a good turn of phrase. Consequently, I was delighted to discover Andre DuBus, III recently. I picked up a copy of Townie – A Memoir. I wasn’t far into the book before I was doing a Google search on his name. I discovered that he is a cousin of James Lee Burke, one of my favorite writers. In fact, the extended DuBus/Burke family is chock full of talented writers I was happy to learn.

But this was not the lagniappe of which I speak. As I was far along in the story, DuBus was lamenting that he wished he could write like Breece D’J Pancake, a writer whose prose was, in DuBus’ words, honest. I could scarcely believe this reference to a name from my past. I knew Breece. In fact I went out with Breece once in college.

My fourth year at UVA (senior year at any other University), I was roommates with an English major, Greer Trotter Warren. Greer was quite a character with an outgoing personality and a unique perspective on life. One night early in the fall semester, Greer had a friend stop by. This was a pleasant tall blonde man who was a friend from the English Department at UVA. This was Breece.

I think it was a Thursday which was the night that normally kicked off the weekend at UVA. Greer and I were hanging out…not doing much of anything when Breece dropped in to say hello. Greer introduced us and the three of us sat chatting. Then Breece decided that we needed to come out to the country to his apartment – an efficiency attached to a larger home in the toney Farmington Country Club grounds – because he had a fabulous new recording of Gregorian Chants to listen to. Was this code for etchings I wondered?

So, we all piled into Breece’s car and off we went to Farmington. His room wasn’t large at all. It basically had a bed and desk with a bathroom off one end and a charming little cooking/kitchen unit in the corner. He also had, outside of his front door, a mini-keg. Seriously, he was the only man I ever knew who kept his own keg. Sure enough, Breece put on his recording of Gregorian Chants (REALLY!) and Greer sat on the bed and said she felt like a slice of sugar cured ham. O.K. it was kind of an odd evening. Then after a bit Breece pulled out a handgun and showed it to us. Creeped me out because I have a serious aversion to guns. I have a negative physiological reaction to guns and I certainly don’t like to handle them. I was ready to leave and said so and Breece piled us into the car and off we went, back to the apartment.

I didn’t think much about it, and got on with the business of being a student. Early in the following semester I got a call from Breece and he asked me out. It was the weekend of January 28th, 1977. The date has stuck with me because that was the weekend that Freddy Prinze committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. We talked about that in the car on the way to the bar (to drink beer, naturally). I remember distinctly Breece saying he would never do that because he knew a guy in his hometown who had done that and had botched the job. The resulting permanent mental handicap left this guy doing nothing more than sweeping the city streets. Breece said he could never do that, would never end up being like that.

So, we passed a pleasant evening, drinking beer and chatting. He told me about having done some traveling and how he got free breakfast by showing his driver’s license. He’d go to a diner and make a bet with the waitress about his last name. Sure enough, once he produced the license he’d be rewarded with a free breakfast. Who had a last name of “pancake”? All in all it was a pleasant evening. It was a one time deal. He was nice and I like to think I’m a nice person but there was no chemistry.

I didn’t think any more about Breece – or Greer for that matter. She had taken off second semester to go travel in Europe. Greer’s and my relationship was one based in necessity. She was a friend of a friend who had needed a room for a semester while she saved money to travel on. I had needed a roommate for at least part of the year, so it was a fit for both of us. We all went on our merry ways.

In the spring of 1979, I was working as a substitute teacher and living in an apartment in Charlottesville. I came home from school one day and picked up the paper and to my dismay saw an obituary for Breece Pancake. I was stunned. I immediately called Greer and asked what she knew. She, too, was shocked and said, “I’ll call you right back” and hung up. Greer was well connected in the English Department and she knew how to get information. I thought surely this was a mistake, but how could it be a mistake. It wasn’t like this guy’s name was Joe Smith. Breece Pancake is a pretty unique name. Greer called back and confirmed that it was Breece. I couldn’t believe it when she told me he had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a gun. How could that be, especially after the conversation we had that night of our one date. Greer said he had been given a choice assignment in the Graduate English Department and that he was dating someone he really cared for. By all accounts his life was going well, things were good.

I have often thought of Breece in the thirty plus years since that day when I found out about his suicide. So, I was intrigued at DuBus’ reference to him. I knew he was a graduate student in the English Department which meant he was probably working on his PhD. Naturally that would indicate that he had done some writing, but I was never aware of the kind of writing or if he had been successful. So I was off to Google again, to do another search. How surprised and please I was to find that he was a good writer and in fact has been recognized as one of the best to come out of West Virginia. A volume of his short stories was published posthumously in 1983 and was reissued in 2002. I am pleased for his family and his girlfriend who loved him; glad that they have a tangible representation of his talent; his greatness at his craft. I am sad, though, about the choice he made and the fact that by taking his life he prevented the rest of us from enjoying all that he had to offer.

So, that was my lagniappe, my unexpected gift. I will order a copy of his work and will read it. I am sure it will be good. I suspect it will make me a bit melancholy for a nice man who shared a couple of evenings with me many moons ago.