Elizabeth Speth

In Memoriam — Tragedy Strikes on a Friday Morning

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By Elizabeth Speth

lizard

RIP, little lizard floating in the water trough, your pretty blue belly turned up to the sky.

I’d seen you around the neighborhood, under-supervised.  I feared you might become a statistic.

We’ll never know if it was suicide, an accident, or murder.

Did one of the horses push you in?  You can tell me.

Maybe you had a heart defect.

Is there a history of sudden death by heart attack in your family?

I am deeply sorry that when I tipped the trough and you flowed out, Angus the Jack Russell Terrorist snapped you up and started chewing you.

I was sorely grieved when he spit you out and began hacking disrespectfully.

angus

He is in deep disgrace. Also, he is unrepentant.

I’m sorry I gagged as I dropped your several little pieces into that small hole in the ground, and covered you with hot, impersonal dirt.

I should have held it together better.

It was with acute regret that I saw Angus immediately begin to dig you up again.

I hoe you understand why I just had to walk away at that point.  It was too much tragedy to bear.

A couple more days of these 110-degree temperatures, and the winds will be scattering your ashes.

RIP, little lizard, floating in the water trough.

trough

 

Is Texting and Aging the New Texting and Driving?

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By Elizabeth Speth

text 4

 

This is an intervention.

It’s going to be awkward and painful, especially for the interventionee, my husband Neil, who has become a danger to himself and others.  Who has wrought destruction and acute embarrassment and also occasional nausea upon his loved ones.  Who needs to put down his cell phone.  And walk away.  No last-minute pictures.  No farewell texts.  It’s time to go cold turkey.

Some numbers to consider as I build my case:  According to the Pew Research Center,  83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. The average 18-24 year-old sends or receives more than a hundred text messages daily.  In the 55-64 age bracket, the number is a much lower ten or so.

In the Neil Bracket, the goal here is to get the number down to a nice, round zero.  My children will back me up here.

Our beef with Neil is based on other hard, cold statistics, like the following:

One or more times a week, Neil forgets he is on a group message chain, and sends shall we say inappropriate messages to our perpetually traumatized, gagging, horrified, eye-soap scrubbing offspring.  So far only our family has been targeted, but it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world is at risk.

It’s been going on for a while.  Neil has been chastised, he’s been warned, he’s been threatened.  There have been apologies, confrontations, ultimatums, tears, vows to go forth and sin no more.  But Neil is a recidivist.  He’s recalcitrant.  He’ll be fine for a few days, what we now know to call the Honeymoon Period, but then I get the textual equivalent of a mumble, something to the effect that he may have sent a text without his glasses again, not sure, and BOOM!  There is this, which cannot be un-seen:

text 5

You will notice he tried to bluff his way out of this, which is typical behavior for an intervention candidate.

I actually retrieved this photo off my son’s Twitter feed.  It’s in the #Neilstrikesagain series.

More damning evidence:

text 6

I have not included the texts that refer to specific body parts.  I have spared you that, but you can see them on our children’s Twitter and Instagram feeds.

I don’t mean to pick on just Neil here.  Well, that’s a lie.  I do.  This is an intervention.  But I’m probably guilty of being too old to text too.  I still try get the spelling and punctuation right, and I write in complete paragraphs with strong topic sentences and metaphors, as I was taught.  This kind of effort on my part, with the help of the auto-correct feature and my own lack of appropriate magnifying eyewear,  just results in a sort of word salad, especially after cocktail hour.

Perhaps you are feeling badly for Neil now.  You would like to suggest, in his defense, that he could dictate his texts, rather than typing them.  That doesn’t work in Neil’s case, because he does not proofread.  He can’t.  He doesn’t have his reading glasses.

Take a recent evening when he texted me while enjoying a seafood dinner, and presumably libations, with friends.  The mussels were apparently particularly tender that night, prompting the following dictated message of affection:

neil 1

In the wrong hands, this could have sparked an International Incident.  This man is clearly dangerous.  Note also the fact that this was, again, a group message.

It is time to face the fact that we are the Jitterbug generation.  The demographic for whom the straightforward flip phones with large, lighted keys were invented.  They can only be used to call 911 and Reverse Mortgage companies.  We can stay out of trouble this way.

Because it’s not just the texts.  It’s the photos.  Neil has discovered the selfie, and he’s obsessed.  I know for a fact, because I have photographic proof, that he goes into his office during the work day, closes and locks the door, takes inappropriate photos of himself and SENDS THEM TO PEOPLE  (more irrefutable numbers here) at the rate of approximately too many times per week.

text 2

See what I mean?

Like a teenager, he sends pictures of what he is wearing:

neil 2

Yes, those are mis-matched shoes.  Neil wears them exactly twice yearly.  Neil doesn’t wear his glasses when he dresses either.  But that’s a different intervention.

Neil, you know we love you.  We think you are great dad (other than the inappropriate messages to your children), a great husband, and a good, hard-working provider.

text 1

But author Sara Gruen summed it up best when she said:  “Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work, but important.”   

So, yeah.  We just want you to put down the phone. Maybe take up the saxophone?

Or just get some sleep.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

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By Elizabeth Speth

the-dinner-party-1911-2

How I love a good dinner party.

It is one of life’s best joys.  I haven’t thrown nearly enough of them in my life, but I do understand the essential elements. You must have food.  You must have drink.  You must have conversation, which necessitates people.  For the conversation to be enjoyable, I suggest people you find pleasant and/or interesting.

A few other things that are nice to have but not necessary:

— Flowers, fragrant if possible, low to the table so people can see each other over them.

— Candlelight, because it makes us look younger, and also hides the cooking splotches on your clothing.  The warm, flickering glow casts merciful doubt upon the arugula stuck in your teeth, that large splash of wine on your lapel from your too-vigorous toast, the dents in your ancient cutlery, and the stains on your faded linens, which occasionally double as dish towels.

— Live music, as from a moody, long-haired Spanish guitar player cuddling his instrument on a stool in front of the moonlit window, or a gypsy violinist, or a tuxedoed string quartet.  I’ve never experienced any of these scenarios, but I think they would be great.

A dinner party can be an impromptu affair.  Recently a few family members and I emptied out my sister’s refrigerator, and trooped out to her  deck juggling containers of humus, cheese, olives, crackers and the like, and a jug of wine.  We laughed and talked for hours while a huge bank of summer thunderclouds darkened over our heads, and only scurried inside when the first clap of thunder coincided with drops the size of salad plates landing on our heads.  That was a very fine dinner party.

Swap out the wine for water, the lamb shanks for French fries, the finger bowls for pre-moistened, packaged towelettes from the take-out barbecue place, and you’ve still got a dinner party as long as you’ve got at least one other person to sip and sup with you.

alice

Because eating and drinking and talking together is a wonderful, intimate, convivial, bonding, dare I say loving thing to do amongst humans.  It elevates sustenance of the body to nourishment of the soul.

It’s the closest you can get to people without taking off your clothing, or violating your marriage vows or sterling reputation.  For the space of that meal, until the chewing and swallowing are done, you must look each other in the eye, listen and speak, give and take.  You must let down your defenses as you replenish yourselves.  It’s a glorious exercise in mutual vulnerability.

So, working from that premise, I posed this question to scores of friends and acquaintances:

What person, living or dead, would you like to have at your dinner table?

I’ll start.  I think about this a lot, usually while I cook.  There are so many people with whom I long to break bread, and the social barriers of polite restraint.

teddy eating

Teddy Roosevelt, for instance.  I want to talk to him about parenting.  I want to see him raise his bushy eyebrows at us leaning in,  wondering if we can ‘have it all’, be good parents and big career builders too.  I want to hear how he informed visiting heads of state from countries like Japan and Germany that their work was done for the day, because he had a standing date at 4:30 pm to play touch football with his children on the lawns at Sagamore Hill.  The heads of state were always invited to join in, but the appointment non-negotiable.  I want to ask him how he overcame physical limitations to embrace a life of such adventure.  I’d like to know how in the world he endured the loss of his wife and his mother in the same day.

I’d love to eat dinner with the first fellow who ever thought to eat an oyster.  He probably had a lot of other really marvelous ideas.

I’d have Dorothy Parker for dinner in a New York second, but I’d water down her drinks and keep an eagle eye on my husband.  Parker is of course famous for saying that she likes to have a martini, maybe two at the most.  At three she’s under the table.  At four she’s under the host.

Jane Goodall would be a wonderful dinner companion.  She would not be a conversation-hog.  In fact, you’d likely never know she was there but for a pair of watchful, intelligent eyes peering out of the floral arrangement. Occasionally you’d hear the ‘scritch-scritch’ of a pen as she observed the dinnertime behavior, especially when the more bombastic guests started chest-pounding.

jane

Jane quietlly monitoring the dinner conversation from behind the floral arrangement.

I’d love to eat dinner with Robert Duvall.  With Anthony Bourdain and Erik Ripert.  The guy who thought up the show Deadwood, David Milch.  I wouldn’t even ask him to clean up his language.  He could lay waste to the dining room with F-bombs if he wanted.

But enough about me.  Here’s what you all said.  In some cases, I have condensed and paraphrased, so please forgive me.  Curse me for it, if you like.  Call me names, but never call me late for dinner.

There was, amongst you, some duplication of dinner invitees, so I’ll cover that first.  Jesus Christ was the most popular answer, perhaps not surprisingly, and the reasoning varied.  (We all know what Jesus looks like at supper, so I have skipped the photograph.)

My lovely friend Bridget, a missionary who devotes her life to rescuing children from the sex trade in a very poor country, explained her choice:

I would have answers to hundreds of questions, like are there aliens, who first thought lobsters looked delicious.  Since His first miracle was water to wine, we’d be having the best, and Italian food, lots and lots of Italian. There would be great conversation, joy , peace and laughs because God does have a sense of humor.  I want to ask him: ‘Hitler. Why?’

My sister Anna is at the very least agnostic, if not atheistic about her beliefs, although we have certainly discussed at length the historical proof of Christ’s existence.  She said she wanted to ask Jesus:

Are you sorry you didn’t just lay low?  I mean, wouldn’t you rather have led a quiet carpenter’s life? Did you really maybe mean to be a Buddhist?

Another popular dining guest choice was Abraham Lincoln, and I agree that his eloquence at the dinner table, his sensibilities, intelligence and kindness, would be a thing to behold.

My husband Neil’s rationale for inviting him:

He was a good storyteller. He had a sense of history, and such a great sense of humor. I want to know what he’d have done about Reconstruction, and what he thought of America today.

My friend Lucinda on Abe:

How do you make decisions that result in death and suffering for so many no matter what you choose to do?

A few chose Thomas Jefferson.  He’d be on my list too.  He was a great locavore, and I think he’d have loved our California foothill wines.

My friend Mark on Jeffersonian company:

Tommy Jefferson would be on the top of my list. He invented our method of surveying, sent out Lewis & Clark, had a vision for this country before most,  He was into bi-racial (er… let’s just say  Mark said ‘relations’), and I’m pretty sure he brought an end to the Alien and Sedition Acts. He was a little clingy to the French, though…

jefferson

Jefferson’s dining room at Monticello. Perhaps we should eat at his place…

My thoughtful friend Christian opined that Jefferson, and some other historic leaders,  would have words of wisdom for a country that frequently finds itself torn in two, politically:

I’d love to have Thomas Jefferson and James Madison over for a long meal, multiple courses, dinner, coffee, and brandy, to discuss how they compromised their personal beliefs to write a Constitution that the States would ratify. Also, I would have the prophet Mohammed over for a simple halal meal, to discuss how his followers have perverted his words (or maybe he would feel they haven’t) to justify some terrible positions regarding women in the 21st century, and dealing with the rest of the world’s non-believers. I feel like we need more leaders who can build consensus, rather than stake out a position because it’s popular with their followers. I would think a couple of dinners like this might just be the ticket towards some ideas to heal our society / world.

A lot of you would like to have dinner again with family members who have died.  My Uncle John comes from a long line of artists, and he very much embraces modern technology in his work.  He opted to send out an invitation to dine to his deceased father, Merle, also a man of considerable talent.

I’d love to turn his designs into laser art,  John said.

My friend Ken suffered through the agony of his father’s dementia, watching the man fade away mentally long before he did physically.

With all the conversations we had, I would love one more, he said, and there is a lot of heartbreak behind that simple statement.

A lot of my female friends wanted another meal with their grandmothers, myself included.  We want to talk to them about their wonderful contributions to history, about those old recipes that were such a big part of our childhood.  It is our consolation for growing old, I guess, for the slow murdering of our vanity by  time, that our daughters’ daughters will not cease loving us.

But historical figures definitely carried the day, in terms of desirable diners.

Take my friend Crockett, a modern-day man of the frontier if ever there was one (his address contains the words ‘outlaw’ and ‘trail’), who chose:

Etta Place…  I’ve got not a clue to where/ how she disappeared so successfully. Also Robert Leroy Parker (alias Butch Cassidy).  These are the things I would ask him:  Where is the Rhodes Gold Mine, where is the Lost Dutchman and where is Butch Cassidy Buried?

Laurie said:  I’d go with Anne Frank, because she left so much of her life’s story unsaid. I would love to sit next to her and let her be a child again at a table where she could eat to her heart’s content and talk as loud as she wanted.

Spencer’s selection:  Alexander the Great. Questions… What makes you so confident? How were you able to conquer so much territory? HOW DID YOU DIE?  (Illness?  Poison?)

My friend Jacqueline, a woman with a colorful artistic personality, would gravitate to the table with Pablo Picasso and  Frida Kahlo, and they would eat paella.  A table always needs an artist, she explains.

frida

I imagine Frida would want to light up an e-cigarette after her dinner at my friend Jacqueline’s house, and damn the health risks.

Laura, my literary and nature-loving friend: 

It would have to be Henry David Thoreau, though he wouldn’t care for me, nor would he drink with me. He was not, in general, a fan of women, nor did he drink. He was a rather stiff and solitary fellow, as Emerson said of him, “One might as well put one’s arm around a young pine tree.” But he did like conversation, and I don’t believe he hated women, just didn’t have much use for the overall frivolity factor, in either men or women. So perhaps we would find something in common.  Hard to say. Many people found Thoreau off-putting and difficult. But then, this could also be said of me.

(For the record, Laura is neither.)

My son Leland:

I’d like to get ridiculously drunk with Ulysses S. Grant. I’d want to figure out how to be a strategist like he was.

Uh, Leland?  Not until you are 21 (you’ve got three more years, young man!), and I respectfully submit that the first step to being a great strategist is sobriety.

Finally, a last few invites to share with you.

My nephew Andres:

Bob Marley. Just to listen to this man who was so at peace with his life. I’d ask him questions about his  history, what he thinks about modern medicine, what he thinks the purpose of life is.

Andres did say what would be on the menu for his dinner with Bob, and I’ll just say that they’re both going to be mighty hungry when they’ve finished that particular form of…er…refreshment.

Tracey, my adventurous hiking friend:

Amelia Earhart is THE woman.  She said:  “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.  Decide if the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is — stop worrying.”  I would love to ask her if indeed it was worth it. 

My niece Olivia:

Esther Earl.  She was Sixteen when she died of thyroid cancer.  Through the Harry Potter Alliance she got books to kids who didn’t have access to them.  She was just a normal girl who made such a difference in a short time.  I’d  want to cook fancy food for her.  We’d have a proper English tea time.

From my niece Mari:

Carl Sagan.   I’d ask him if he’d finally made contact with other life forms. I’d make him seared ahi, sautéed spinach and mashed garlic taters.

carl-sagan-tesseract

Make sure you seat Carl next to a bowl of fruit, which he often finds helpful in demonstrating the concepts of dimensionality.

And Erin, my wonderful horse-loving, Wild West-embracing, very literate riding buddy:

Virginia Woolf, Queen Noor, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and also my great grandfather who rode with Wild Bill Cody and broke horses as one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.

My son Lyle:

Bill Murray. He is an anomaly. Humor and personality.

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Ok, Lyle, but I hope you don’t mind crumbs in the sheets.

Ideally, of course, the dinner party ends here — with you ringing a little bell (which summons people to clear our dishes, put food away, render the kitchen spotless), and me fetching the cigars and brandy.

It’s been lovely.  Let’s do it again.  And soon.

messy after

Hot, Crowded, Hungry…and Old

mostlybeautifulthings 6 Comments

By Elizabeth Speth

midlife

Mid-life crisis? What mid-life crisis?

Recently, I had a birthday during an unseasonable wave of heat, against a backdrop of bad news.

Though it was supposed to be spring — the air soft and cool and green with possibility — Mother Nature had careened right past that season, screeching to a halt on a startlingly hot day,  the anniversary of the day of my birth.

Never mind which anniversary.  Suffice it to say I am getting close to the age of measuring in portions of centuries.  In most cultures, that is not something women feel like celebrating.

We become strangers to ourselves.  We grow speckles and spots.  We soften and spread.  We look like our mothers.  The older versions of our mothers.  Men stop behaving with gallantry toward us.  No one looks up when we enter a room, and what we have to say does not seem as riveting as it did when we uttered it through the rosy lips of youth.

old

When we are young, our skin fits snugly and our clothing is loose. Now, of course, the opposite is true.

I know that there are three definite, terrifying signs that you are officially old. One is losing your memory.  I can’t recall the other two.

But that wasn’t the only bad news on my birthday.  Something else was dragging me down as I trudged sizzling sidewalks, wiped sweat from my newly creased forehead, wondered if the whole world was having a hot flash, or just me.

I was sluggishly digesting (that’s one more thing that fails with advancing years) a news story about falling rice production in my beloved home state.

California’s recent dry spell, it seems, is expected to have a dramatic effect on rice production.   That is a big deal, and not only because this state supplies virtually all of the nation’s sushi rice.  The other half of our crops are exported.

Economists say that, of all the food crops, rice is likely to be affected by the drought the most, and the California Rice Commission estimates that rice farmers will leave 100,000 acres, or about 20 percent, of their fields fallow.

This of course nudges prices up worldwide.  Which can be a tragedy, depending upon where you live.  For us, rice is a comfort food, a sticky pillow upon which to rest your sashimi.  Something to round out a meal.  But in other cultures, a bowl of rice can make or break your day.  Perhaps that is most of what you will eat in a 24-hour period, and now you can only afford half a bowl.

To complicate matters, with food stores in the pantry beginning to dwindle, a real crowd has just shown up for dinner.

California’s population grew by roughly 332,000 people in the last fiscal year — its biggest increase in nearly a decade, according to new California Department of Finance estimates.The estimated population rose 0.88%, exceeding 38.2 million as of July.

Most of that growth was “natural increase” — births minus deaths (all those young whippersnappers having babies, which used to be my job, minus old people at the end of their lives, which is what I am now).  The rest is immigration.

So let me put all the layers of the birthday cake together for you, so you can see it clearly.  (Hang on.  I will need to find my reading glasses so I can see it too.)

My world was suddenly hot, crowded, and about to be very hungry.

The sky seemed to narrow, its gaze hostile and unwelcoming.

The message I thought I might be hearing was, ‘Shove off, Grandma.  Move over.  Make room.’

In a time of contracting resources, like space and food and familiar climates, shouldn’t we defer to the talent, beauty and energy of youth?  Can we afford the luxury of a vast, aging population, sucking up sustenance and space, reminding us all that the end is coming, and it is wrinkled and grim?

Have I, at my advanced age, over-stayed my welcome?

My youngest child had become a legal adult the week before.  What would I do with myself now?  How would I contribute?  Here I was, your typical old folk, obsessing about  weather and crops and the fact that my joints, like today’s young people, are so darned disrespectful.

It’s enough to make you want to whack someone with your cane.

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As I usually do, I sought refuge and comfort in the gloaming of my horse pasture at evening feeding time.  I took comfort in the fact that I can still, for now, lift a bale of hay, and that I do still serve at least one purpose, even if it is only keeping the herd from starvation.  They need me.

I sat on the edge of a feeder and listed to the rhythmic munching of hay, and watched a feverish, fussy wind harass the tree tops.

I rejoiced as I felt one tiny tendril of cool breeze lift my hair, and then another.

I listened to the birds chirping to each other, telling stories about the day, and it did not sound as though they were complaining.  Small, colorful butterflies ignored the heat as they flirted with each other on the mustard blooms.  They don’t have a lot of time either, in this life, and they were getting on with the business of living.

I became aware of the drone of bees among the blackberry flowers and felt the world — finally, blessedly — expand.  As if drawing a breath.

Without realizing, I exhaled along with it, and the high, hot wind gusts finally quieted as the cooler breezes gathered momentum closer to the ground.

Because I had been thinking about rice all day,  I suddenly remembered something.  I remembered how many things can fit on a single grain of rice.

Grain-of-Rice-Art1Amazing-art-on-rice-grain

I thought:  If you can write entire verses — or faithfully detail the unique features of a human face — on such a small surface, how crowded are we really on this earth?  With the proper perspective, and appropriate tools, a grain of rice is enormous.

I looked around my familiar, large pasture, with its groves of trees, its seasonal ponds.

I thought, well, I have a little room.

I reminded myself that the hot weather I was finding so onerous of course meant the advent of the season of longer days.

That’s a few more hours in the day to get things right.  More time, if you will.

And my age has some benefits.  I can serve as a powerful cautionary tale, at the very least.  A walking, talking essay about things that should be done differently.

I am a living, breathing admonishment to:

— Wear sunscreen.

— Refrain from gluttony, because enough is as good as a feast.

— Live more outside of the comfort zone, even if it’s a bit terrifying, or become merely a collection of habits.

— Travel, or risk a mind that is fused shut.

— Accumulate fewer things.

— Glorify busy-ness less.

— Go ahead and get naked, because it’s only ever going to get worse.

Yeah.  That’s stuff young people aren’t born knowing.  Some unfortunate old person always has to demonstrate it.  I can do that.

Later that week, the oldest trainer in Kentucky Derby history, Art Sherman, 77, won that race handily with his horse California Chrome.  This duo — this perfect balance of very young horse and wise old man — also hails from the state of shrinking rice crops and swelling populations.  That made me feel better.

There was time, maybe, I thought.  Perhaps even for something amazing.

So, even though there is less and less room for me in the world, everyone knows people shrink as they age. I will take up less room. Well, vertically, at least.

birthday

What Value, the Soul of a Dog?

mostlybeautifulthings 13 Comments

By Elizabeth Speth

Angus 4

This will be a hard post to write. I’ve been putting it off for more than a week.

It’s about a beloved family member who stretched out to sleep in the warm sun on the front steps last Friday morning. It’s about Death coming quickly to claim this gentle creature, mid-nap, in his favorite snoozing spot.

I’m talking about our dear friend Dobra the Doberman, who came to live with us as a foster rescue dog when he was a young adolescent. He stayed for more than a dozen years, helped us raise our children, roamed our three and a half acres, kept its borders safe. He kept the horses in line, fended off intruders of all species. If you posed even a possible threat to any Speth creature — equine, feline, human or otherwise — you had to go through Dobra first. And God help you.

Angus 5

Dobra the Doberman, with my son Leland, whom he helped raise.

We don’t know if he lifted his head in surprise those last seconds, somehow understanding what was happening to him. We don’t know if he fought his mortality, twitched in protest as he struggled up from sleep. We don’t know if he woke at all, or experienced any discomfort. We weren’t there for any of it. Only his best friend was with him. Angus, the Jack Russell Terrorist was there, lying beside Dobra when we found him, keeping watch while the slow humans finally got around to understanding what we’d lost.

I was very sad that Dobra was suddenly gone. It was so unexpected.

But then I was so grateful.

He had just begun to experience some arthritis, but otherwise seemed youthful. So I didn’t have to agonize about the ‘when do we put him down’ decision, which is so hard.

I rarely have the luxury of having the decision made for me.

Let me just say for the record that Dobra had an epic morning, which was typical for him. He chased some horses, cornered a rodent in the woodpile (that was VERY exciting).

I was scrubbing horse troughs, a game he loved.  He chased the water rivulets as though they were live animals, which he killed by digging holes quickly in their paths to stop them. The holes always drove me crazy — I had to fill them before the horses or I broke a leg in the dark, but I’m glad he got to enjoy the activity on his last day.

Angus 2

Dobra supervising morning horse chores.

I scooped loose dirt back into those holes with such a heavy heart.

He had a ginormous plate of leftover spaghetti for breakfast — his favorite meal ever.

Exhausted from our morning chores, he stretched out on the front steps. I stepped over him coming out the door, on my way out for a horseback ride. He raised his head, and I could tell he was grateful I hadn’t made him move out of my way. He put his head back down and went to sleep.

My husband Neil and I got a call from our son Lyle that afternoon. We were deep in the American River Canyon, at least two hours over rugged terrain from our truck and horse trailer. Lyle was devastated, and said Dobra had not moved from his napping position, but that he was gone.

Neil and I had miles to ride to get back. We both cried all the way home.

We buried Dobra on the property, as we have all of our beastly friends over the years. We thanked him for all his lovely companionship, and we gave thanks that he had not suffered. We were shell-shocked. Diminished.

But the hardest hit was Dobra’s buddy Angus, the Jack Russell. He has not made a peep since Lyle found him lying beside Dobra, whimpering a little.

When Lyle wrapped Dobra in a sheet to bury him, Angus started pawing at it. He looked to us to fix it. And of course we could not.

Angus

Angus on a typical day. He is usually pretty feisty, which is how he earned the Jack Russell Terrorist classification. He is not the same right now.

I dragged Dobra’s favorite sleeping blanket over next to the fresh grave, and Angus has been sitting or lying on it ever since, except when I make him come inside for the night. He is not eating. He just keeps sniffing the air and looking around, as if he can’t quite figure out where his friend has gone, or from which direction he will come when he returns. That makes me the saddest.

We are not supposed to anthropomorphize animals. They each behave and think according to their unique, species-specific programming. They are not people, and woe to any of us who assume their behaviors are explained by our own human motivations.

But, after this sad week watching poor Angus in the enormous bewilderment of his loss, I know that animals are capable of great grief. It follows that they must be capable of great attachment. That is why we love them so, and are so grateful to walk with them a ways in our much longer lifetimes.

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Many, many animals, horses and dogs and cats, have passed over this property, leaving footprints that eventually fade, fur and fluff blown away in the winds. We have fostered them, dogs and horses and cats in various stages of transition, some traumatized. Some have gone on to wonderful homes. Some, damaged beyond repair by neglect and cruelty and human failings, have been put down as humanely as possible, which is a weak apology at best. Some have just quietly told us, in one way or another, that they would stay.

Some of them have been very special, for whatever inexplicable reason. They have burrowed particularly deeply into our hearts. I still see them in the corner of my eye if I turn suddenly, or gaze into the smudged shadows of the pond, deep in the trees at sunset. I see a lolling tongue and a trotting dog, the flick of a horsetail and the twitch of a mane. I hear a faint nicker in trees that creak as they are nudged by night breezes.

I know it is these creatures I will rush to see, first thing, when I get to heaven. I hope I can find them right away, because I will be so eager to throw my arms around them. I will catch up with my lost relatives and friends afterward. But everyone knows you always say hello to the dog first when you get home.

My horse Santa Fe. My blue Doberman Baron. I hope they are waiting, that we will see each other again.

And I powerfully, profoundly wish to see Angus and Dobra, together once more, as they most certainly belong, the loneliness of their separation a mere memory. That would be an appropriate end to this story, I think.

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A (Textual) Conversation With My Son (About Monkeys and Really Bad Parenting)

mostlybeautifulthings 4 Comments

By Elizabeth Speth

monkey 3

This poor monkey is being raised in a Monkey Orphanage by Kind But Impersonal Monkey Nuns. He is waiting for Leland to adopt him.

Leland, my youngest, wants many things.

When he was Five, he wanted a robot. That never happened.

Bitterly, he built his own robots — so many of them — out of things he stole from our closets (shoes, hats, watches, jewelry, lingerie), and he left them lying around the house like reproaches.

When he was Seven, he thought he should have a parrot. He faced a wasteland of disappointment on this score also.  I once offered to make him an egg sandwich to ameliorate his grief.  He said he would rather have counseling.

When he was Twelve, he thought his own hut on a beach near his very own rum plantation was a reasonable request. I gave him ten years’ worth of Halloween pirate costume bits and pieces (including a very nice loin cloth) and wished him my very best.

I even demanded:  “Why is the rum always gone?” to express my sympathy, with a hearty “Yo-Ho!” as punctuation.

He squinted at me, sharpened his plastic swords, and said nothing.

This year, he wanted an unsupervised alcohol-rich party at our house (his father and I were meant to furnish large quantities of alcohol, and then cool our heels at a nearby motel, ignoring the sound of sirens and the frantic buzzing of our cell phones) for his 18th birthday.

The Glorious and Much-Deserved 18th Birthday Present (in time for the creature to perform tricks at said alcohol-soaked, unsupervised party) was to have been: a monkey.

Any kind of monkey. It just had to be cute and smart, according to Leland.

If you ask him, Leland will tell you he never gets what he wants.

And, on the face of it, as I sift through the tattered pieces of his childhood under our fumbling supervision, I have to conclude that he may be right.

But the negotiations, which have evolved over the years from face-to-face disappointment to electronic embitterment, are always fun.

monkey picture 1

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Leland, dear boy, as penance, I am turning myself over to the proper parenting authorities.

Please accept my blanket apology for the Childhood of Deprivation (we know what horrors this phrase encompasses, and we won’t speak of this again).

But.

You still can’t have a monkey.

Leland?

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A Green(er) Margarita

mostlybeautifulthings 3 Comments

 By Elizabeth Speth

avacado 2

Behold the Avocado Margarita

Last night I watched Anthony Bourdain’s ‘No Reservations’ exploration of the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX, a rerun of a great episode I had somehow missed.

SXSW (as in ‘South By Southwest’) is a film and music festival/conference that settles on the city like an electrified storm cloud each year in mid-March. It began in 1987, and it’s been growing ever since.

That is not what I mean to write about here, though. Because SXSW is a thing for another generation.  I’m sorry about this.  It looks like a lot of fun.  I would have no objection to giving it a once-over in person, but there doesn’t really seem to be a place for someone my age there.

Even Bourdain — the epitome of coolly cynical and dissolute living, the expert on naughty pleasure, all close-cropped gray hair and rangy frame, his blood-shot eyes inscrutable behind Ray Ban aviators — Bourdain himself noted that he felt like someone’s perverted uncle as he followed all that exuberant, writhing, partying youth around with his camera crew.

My point here is this:  Somewhere in the tangle of roasted pigs, tacos, blues, grunge, tattoos, etc., the subject of Avocado Margaritas came up.

A throaty-voiced, dark-haired, laughing siren named Sleigh Bells brought it up, actually.

I watched her mix half a blender’s worth of tequila, some other stuff, and the innards of about three avocados into a green, frothy, salt-rimmed glass of brilliance.

When Bourdain said: “This should not have worked, but it did”,  I admit I was hooked.

Now I must see this thing through to its conclusion.

There was no recipe offered on the show. Everyone was lurching around too much.

So I’ve done some research, some soul-searching, some recipe-searching, some blending on my own.

Here is what I have come up with so far. I don’t drink blended margaritas generally, but in this case, we must make an exception. Thank me or curse me, and proceed at your peril.

Ingredients:

avacado-margarita

– 2 cups crushed ice
– 6 oz. tequila (white or brown, make it good)
– 1 avocado, peeled, sliced, and pitted (if a little firm, no worries — blender time ahead)
– 2 oz. triple sec
– 4 oz. lime juice
– pinch of cilantro
– salt on your glass (please see below for an important note)

Directions:

Place ice, tequila, avocado, triple sec, lime juice, and cilantro in a blender, and blend until desirably smooth. Add agave syrup, a dash at a time, if additional sweetness is needed.  Salt your glasses if you wish. Close your eyes, take a sip, think of it as a healthy smoothie.

I am still trying to figure out how to incorporate jalapeno peppers.  Because that warmth in the mouth is the only thing missing.

Here are my thoughts:  If you have a week ahead of time, infuse your tequila with a jalapeno pepper.  Then proceed as above.

If you don’t have a week, rub the rim of the glass with a cut jalapeno, getting the oil from the seeds and the pepper.  Discard any seeds or membrane in or on the glass.  Dip rim quickly in lime juice, then salt with a little lime zest mixed in for color.  Proceed as above.

Below is a picuture of Bourdain after his Avocado Margarita, which was followed by a whole roasted pig and then this massive crawfish boil.

anthony

Apparently, this is how musicians eat now.

This is obviously an enlightened man, to whom good and bountiful things happen.  A man completely without regret.

Blame the margarita.

 

Conversation Is An Uphill Battle

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By Elizabeth Speth

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Me:  (Pant! Pant! Puff! Puff!) What would you say the grade of this hill is, averaging it over the mile of climbing?

Neil (my husband):  I’d say it’s about a forty percent grade, give or take.

Me:  And we are climbing it today for the second time why?

Neil:  You need the exercise.  I’m kidding!  But you do.

Me:  Ok.  Fine.  Let’s do it.  The rain’s picking up, and now that we’re wet we won’t get warm again.  So let’s just get it over with.

Neil:  We’ll go slow and steady.  No rush at all.  You set the pace.

Me:  (Pant!  Pant!)  Neil, walk in front of me. You’re faster uphill.

Neil:   I’m walking in your footsteps, so I’m taking it super easy.

Me:  What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Neil:  Look!  We’ve already been walking for two minutes.  We’ve probably only got another 28 minutes to the top.

Me:  (Gasp! Pant!)

Neil:  We are easily an eighth of the way up now.

Me:  Listen, you can’t talk about distance or time until you’ve passed the halfway point.  That’s, like, Sports Psychology 101.  Reminding someone they have most of the way still to go is not uplifting.

Neil:  I’m not trying to lift you up, Elizabeth.  I’m trying to break you down.  So you can come back stronger.

Me:  (Gasp!  Pant!)

Neil:  This is the steepest part.  It’s a breeze after this.

Me:  No it’s not.

(More panting for a few minutes.)

Neil:  Maybe this is the steepest part.  Then it’s all easy after this.

(A few minutes of panting.) 

Neil:  Ok.  I think this is the steepest part after all.  Then comes the easy part.

Me:  Neil, this is not the easiest part.  There is a lot of steep stuff yet.  And you are not allowed to talk about distance or time or terrain.  It’s not helping.  Every time you open your mouth I’m a little more dismayed.

Neil:  That’s not a nice way to talk to someone who is being so supportive.  See how I’m staying with you?  If I were alone, I would be running up there now.  But I’m here.  Right behind you. Supporting you.

Me:  (Stony silence, punctuated by panting.)

Neil:  Why do women who are self-conscious about their weight tie jackets around their waists?  It only makes them look bigger.  Er, not you, of course.  You always look very nice.

Me:  (Tightening the jacket knotted around my waist.)  Neil, I want you to go ahead of me now. Run.

Neil:  Are you sure?

Me:  Yes.  Go.  Run.

Neil:  Ok, but don’t laugh when I flap my arms.  I always flap my arms running uphill.

(He does.)

Neil:  Yay!  You made it!  Hey, let’s take a picture of me collapsed here at the top!  How fun would that be?

Me:  Ok.

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Neil:  I figure it’s going to take about thirty minutes to get back down.

Me:  The rain is really coming down.  There’s no trail left.  It’s all running water.

Neil:  Just one step at a time.  We’ve already gone one min–

Me:  Shut up.  Hey, look at that beautiful mist coming up out of the canyon.  I’m going to get a picture of that.

Neil:  Move out of the way.  I’m going to get a better picture.  Let me show you how to do it.

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(About twenty minutes of silent panting, me carefully placing my hiking poles on slick, shiny rocks.)

Neil:  Be careful.  You usually fall going down.

Me:  Have I told you lately how much you don’t need to try to inspire me while hiking?

Neil:  Have I told you lately how grumpy you always are when we hike?

Me: Have I told you lately that you can go straight to h–

Neil:  How about I buy you a beer afterward?  We’ll go to the Auburn Alehouse.  Get a sampler.

Me:  Really?  Ok.

top2

Neil:  Great hike today.

Me:  Yep.  Super fun.

 

Interview With The Equine — What Really Goes On Behind Those Eyes

mostlybeautifulthings 3 Comments

By Elizabeth Speth

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A toast to my interview subject, Rushcreek Newly.

Well, I’m sitting here today at a popular watering hole in the South Pasture with my Arabian friend Rushcreek Newly, who has been kind enough to grant me an interview on the condition that we avoid a few sensitive topics.

Off-limit subjects include but are not limited to the whole gelding thing, sheath cleaning (look that up if you don’t know what it is), thrush, looking a gift horse in the mouth, and changing horses mid-stream.

Otherwise, it’s all on the table.

Me:  Newly, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

Newly:  (Blink.  Blink.)

Me:  (Uncomfortable pause).  Ok.  Well.  I have often said that you are an honest horse.  What do you think I mean by that?

Newly:  (Blink.  Blink.)

Me:  Newly, you have to say something.  This is an interview.  Give and take.

Newly:  I’ll answer the questions I find interesting.

Me:  Sheesh.  Ok.  Fine.  I’ll explain an ‘honest’ horse.  You have no vices.  You don’t pull back on a rope, or chew up a barn, or kick or bite.  You don’t pretend to spook at things out on the trail because you don’t want to move forward.  When I get off-center in the saddle, you usually get me back where I belong instead of trying to dump me.  You’ll trot forever.  You’re an honest fellow.

Newly:  Thank you.

Me:  Do you…uh…have anything you’d like to say about me?

Newly:  You could stand to lose a few pounds.  You are sometimes late with breakfast.  You make a good bran mash.

Me:  What do you think about the fact that, most of the time, you stand around and watch me work?  You chew hay while I pick up your poop, you look amused and rested while I haul sacks of feed. That’s some role reversal.  A mere century ago my species worked your species nearly to death on a fairly regular basis.

Newly:  Well, we have a saying in the pasture.  Karma is a mare.

Me: Speaking of ‘in the pasture’, there is no doubt that you are the alpha horse out there.

Newly:  The what now?

Me:  The alpha horse.  The one in charge.  You’re not mean about it or anything.  But you get to the hay first, you get the good spots in the shade.  When you move up, the others move off.  I’ve never seen you do anything aggressive.  It just happens.  How do you do that?

Newly:  I am a natural leader.  My mother says I was like that from the moment I plopped out of her onto a pile of clean straw.  I stood up, and I was in charge.  It helps that I am very, very tall.  I’m also calm, which inspires confidence.  And I have the You Are In My Space Look pretty much nailed.  I invented that look.

Me:  The You Are In My Space Look, eh? Can you demonstrate it?

Newly:  (Blink.  Blink.)

Me (stepping back a bit):  You were born in Nebraska, on a very large ranch, where you ran with a big band of horses, and generally had a wide open childhood.  It must have been wonderful. Do you miss it?

Newly:  Nah.  I infinitely prefer this tiny one-acre pasture that turns into a fly-ridden dust bowl in summer, and includes a view of your neighbors’ recreational vehicles and barking dogs.

Me:  That is very snarky, Newly.

Newly:  I miss eating the snow, and those Rushcreek cowboys.  They were very sensible.  I miss dominating the cows, and walking down the trail.  I will never understand your constant need to trot everywhere.  I’m not going to lie about that, being such an honest horse and all.

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Newly, showing his enthusiasm for trotting.

Me:  We have to trot.  Our sport is endurance.

Newly:  My sport is endurance.  Yours seems to be long-distance sitting and flask-swigging.

Me:  That is a water bottle.

Newly:  Sure it is.

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Newly, shaking off the vestiges of his work day. Post-ride roll in the pasture.

Me:  Change of subject.  A lot of different people are credited with saying that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.  Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, even Benjamin Franklin.  Do you know who actually said it?

Newly:  I think the more important question is:  Why did no one asked the horse if he wanted to be doing the man any good in the first place?

Me:  Man and horse have a history of deep connection, a strong partnership.

Newly:  It would have been a different history entirely without the ropes and the fences.  It’s not really a partnership,  is it, if only one of us knows how to tie a knot and open a gate?

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The outside of Newly trotting through endless fields of lupine. On the shores of Folsom Lake this spring.

Me:  I’ll show you how to open the gate later.

Newly: Will I be using my opposable hooves?  Oh, wait.  I don’t have opposable hooves.

Me:  You can thread a needle with that upper lip of yours.  You’ll figure it out.  I wanted to ask you about the proverb:  ‘Show me your horse, and I will tell you who you are’.  Can you tell anything about people by their horses?

Newly:  That’s an interesting way to look at it.  I can tell a lot about horses by their people.  If I see someone running a thin, wheezing horse nearly to death on the trail, with equipment that leaves sores, with heavy hands, flopping body weight and big spurs, I know that I’m in the presence of a very sad horse.  When I see someone who is being steered under low-hanging branches, stepped on, bitten, kicked at, I know I’m looking at a spoiled horse.  If  I see a person riding a horse with all kinds of silver trim on its tack, clean as a whistle from its blanket and stall, pooping out really expensive hay and vitamin supplements, I know I’m looking at a very wealthy horse.

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More Newly and lupine.

Me:  Why DO you let us do things like, say, coaxing you into a little box on wheels for transport, or climbing on you to ride after having strapped the hides of other dead animals on your back?  And dressage?  I mean, I can’t believe that some horses consent to essentially dance ballet.  You horses are bigger than we are, faster than we are, and stronger than we are.  Why do you do it?

Newly:  Well, I think most horses are basically agreeable creatures.  We start out giving the benefit of the doubt.  We are gentle plant-eaters, with big, silly teeth and no claws.  I think horses are a very strange combination of terrified and trusting.  It doesn’t take much leverage to bring us to our knees, mentally or physically.  There will always be people who will figure out how to take advantage of that.  I don’t know why, but that’s the way we were made.

Me:  Lucky for us.  You gave us a tremendous leg-up, so to speak, as a hunting and war-fighting species.  Not so lucky for you horses sometimes.

Newly:  Yes.  I think humans are lucky that we are not carnivores.  We would rule the world.  Speaking of which, is that a new mare in the neighbor’s pasture?  I’ve never seen herbivore.

Me:  When I first met you, you had just stepped off a transport truck and were being walked up my driveway for the first time.   I’d bought you sight unseen, based on a lot of nice people who knew you, and the fact that you are a Rushcreek Arab, which is something pretty special.

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Newly’s Ruschcreek brand. This mark says a lot about who he is and what all went into making him the horse he became. It tells a story of a wonderful chapter in the history of American horse breeding.

I’d been waiting for you all day, and I thought you were the most beautiful horse I’d ever seen, walking up that driveway.  What did you think when you first saw this place?

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Newly, all his belongings in a cardboard box…

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…arriving via transport service to start his new life.

Newly:  I thought:  ‘I wonder what time they serve dinner here.’

Me:  Seriously?  That’s all you were thinking?

Newly:  Well, look at it from my point of view.  When you are a horse, and you are bought and sold, suddenly your whole life changes.  You don’t have a say in anything.  It’s completely the luck of the draw.  Will I ever see my family, my old pasture mates again? Will I be beaten?  Will I be neglected?  Will I be forced to run until some part of me breaks, and then left to die a languishing death, covered with flies, malnourished and suffering in some pasture somewhere?  Animals don’t have control over any of it.  So I just concentrate on dinner.

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Newly, eating dinner in his new home immediately upon arrival. Carrots, soaked beet pulp, grass hay. Equine comfort food.

Me:  I see your point.  If it’s any consolation, you can stay here forever.

Newly:   Well, if they ever need me back on the ranch, I would like to go there.  That’s a nice place.  I’m supposed to be wandering and eating all day.  Anything else isn’t very natural for me.  You can do that at the ranch.  Look, you can come with me, if you don’t talk too much.

Me:  That’s nice.  I have really appreciated the opportunity to ask you some questions.

Newly:  I answered a lot of the uninteresting ones after all.

Me:  Well, I have just one more.

Newly:  Okay.

Me:  Newly, why the long face?  Ha ha ha ha!  Get it?  ‘Cause horses have — Newly, come back.  Get back here.  Whoa, boy.  Come on.  I’m sorry!  Newly!  Neeewwwllly!

Newly

 

In which you do NOT die…because there are things you must eat.

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 By Elizabeth Speth

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heavytable.com

I love lists.  I really do. I love the lists I make — several every day — as well as the lists upon which I stumble.  They have the most marvelous way of prioritizing things.  Streamlining.  Directing.  Funneling our energy.

How often in life do we get the loud and clear message:  First, do this. 

Then, do this. 

And so on, and so on, and so on.  Without lists, life is ambiguous.  With them, we have a mission.  Broken down into manageable sections.

Our lists say a lot about us.  They reveal our aspirations, as well as the things we cast aside.  Show me your grocery list, your To-Do column, and I will tell you who you are.

If ever you want me to do something, put it in a list format and I’m your huckleberry.

Recently, I was browsing a favorite web destination, the Huffington Post’s Taste section.  And I found (cue long drumroll and then angel music):  The List To End All Lists.

It is called:  25 Things To Eat Before You Die.

This is a win-win-win-win list.  It involves many of my favorite things.  First:  Lists.  Second:  Eating.  Third:  Food, prioritized.  Four:  Something To Do Other Than Dying.

Win-win-win-win.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Number one item is: Chocolate Chip Cookies from Levain Bakery  .   Never having heard of this place, I had to look it up.  It is A Thing.  A Very Serious Bakery.  You can find one in Harlem, one in the Hamptons, and one in New York’s Upper West Side.  A gift box of four Levain cookies retails for $27. Plus shipping if you buy them on-line.  Obviously, based on the price, and on the website pictures of several tiny angels hoisting one of these miraculous cookies toward heaven, these are The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies In The World.  Obviously, we have to have them.  We have to travel to one of these Levain bakeries, or order them on-line.  But first we have to save some serious cashola.  Or take out a second mortgage.  Or wait for a significant inheritance.

Now, this is where you do NOT despair.  This is a gastronomic bucket list.  If it were easily dispensed with, death would be imminent.  Right?  Think about this for a moment:  You are not allowed to die until you eat these things.

Take your time on this.  Please.

Second item on the list:  Sweetbreads.  You know what that is, right?  It’s not a variety of rolls and loaves sprinkled with sugar.  We’re talking calf or lamb glands.

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Sweetbreads can look something like this. They can be served with artichokes, potatoes, and a lovely tomato compote. We can do this. We just need a little time to work up to it.

Don’t cringe.  We have to trust The List.  Have a little faith here.  If it takes you a few years to work up the nerve, no worries.  You’ve got a lot of living to do yet.

Item number three:  A roast chicken that you make in your own oven.  This, my friends, is so easy.  I’ve already done this for you.  Please check out my recent blog post: https://mostlybeautifulthings.com/2014/03/14/a-letter-to-my-children-about-love-butter-and-chicken-bones/.

Four is:  The Lobster Roll.  This is a very beautiful thing.  Ideally, you should travel to Maine for this.  If you cannot, it is a very easy thing to make for yourself.  Check out my favorite recipe for this, from Ina Garten:  http://barefootcontessa.com/recipes.aspx?RecipeID=837&S=0.

We are talking lobster here, and fresh dill, mayonnaise, capers, a crisp roll.  Beer.

But really?  Go to Maine.  There is time.

Next item:  Real ramen, not from the package.  So, not those little plastic-wrapped, freeze-dried bricks starving college students are famous for being able to afford.

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This seems like a very worthwhile thing to eat, doesn’t it?  Since Ramen is a Japanese dish, and this is one of 25 dishes standing between you and death, you obviously have to go to Japan to have this wonderful combination of fish broth, onions, noodles, eggs, pork, seaweed and heaven knows what else.

In the meantime, to tide you over during your very long life while you are waiting to eat ramen in Japan, do what my son does.  Spend a few cents on one of those freeze-dried bricks.  Any flavor.  Follow package directions.  Add anchovy paste, minced seaweed, fresh shrimp or beef or chicken, hot chili oil, chopped scallions.  Just a few minutes before you serve, gently crack an egg into the bubbling broth and let it poach.  Ladle the ramen into a bowl, pierce the egg with a spoon and let its yolky contents run amok over everything else.  Slurp.  Dream of Tokyo.

Number five is:  Beignets at Cafe Du Monde.

beignet

You can buy a mix for this.  You can find the recipe online.  Don’t do it.  Life is short enough as it is.  Grab yourself some beads and a mask, and go to New Orleans.  No rush.

Moving steadily along to the next item:  Raclette .

This confused me, a bit.  It appears to be a heaping pile of cheese.  Swiss cheese.  Melted over an open fire and piled onto whatever you already happen to be eating.  Potatoes.  Maybe with pickles and cured meats.  It’s got to be good, because the Swiss are very proud of it.  As I sit here in front of my computer in America, something is lost in the translation.  I’ve got nothing against melted cheese — I love it — but this is apparently something special.  Melted cheese to the nth degree.  Hence, we must go to Switzerland.  Clearly.   Whenever it is a good time to do so.  No hurry.

I love what’s next on the list:  French Fries with home-made mayonnaise. I love French Fries.  I love home-made mayonnaise, which is so simple I don’t know why you don’t make it every day.  Add herbs.  Garlic.  Spices. Customize it.

Maybe the fries should be home-made too.  Yes.  I think they should be.

Here is a recipe:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pommes-frites-french-fries-with-fresh-mayonnaise-recipe.html.

This (discreet burp!) is fun.  Carrying on:

Pimento cheese, aka ‘the caviar of the south’. It appears to be grated sharp cheddar, mayo and pimentos. In most of the recipes I see, it is pictured alongside Ritz-type crackers. I dunno about this.  It does not appeal.  Perhaps we can get a Papal Dispensation to skip this one, and double up on something else on the list. If I’m wrong, and it’s worth having, I at least exhort you to use the last of the home-made mayonnaise (see above).

Up next:  Hot roasted chestnuts. I made these last year. They were good, rich, slighty suggestive of a macadamia nut, but very much less than that in terms of flavor. I suspect it is more the experience of warming your hands on a newspaper cone of them as you walk through the streets of London. Or Paris. So I’m going to suggest a side of London or Paris streetscapes at twilight with this dish.

All right…what’s next?

Ah.  Ceviche.

Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes indeed. This is marvelous, and there are so many south American and Mexican variations on this theme, all wonderful. There are entire restaurants devoted to the beauty that is ceviche. The main point is seafood, cooked only with an acid component like lemon or lime juice. Add herbs, toasted pine nuts, onions, avocado… Slightly charred tortillas or other flatbread. Beer. Shots of tequila. Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. Indeed.  You must eat this many, many, many times before you die.  On the beach.  In the rain.  On a train.  In a box,  with a fox…  But I digress.

Speaking of green eggs and ham, the next to-do on the 25 is breakfast at a diner. Any diner. Okay. Well, you’ve likely already done this, but it doesn’t count, because you didn’t know it was a Do Before You Die.  So do it over.

I, personally, don’t get excited about diners.  My husband, Neil,  is passionate about diner breakfasts. On our very first date, we went to a diner.  Where he would not allow me to order my own cup of coffee.

“We’ll share,” he whispered, leaning conspiratorially across the table.  “Free refills.”  Reader, I married him.  I married him in spite of this.

Again, I think this is an atmospheric thing. I believe in simply prepared food, but diners are about cooking eggs in vegetable grease, and margarine on your thin toast, and corned beef hash from a can. Your gravy will likely come from a can too. Your hollandaise sauce may well have originated in an envelope of powder. I’ve given you the ammunition to wreak this havoc at home, but just get thee to a diner, and get it over with for $1.99. As a side dish…er…note, I imagine the appeal of this food improves dramatically just before or during a hangover. So maybe plan ahead, over-do it a bit on the tequila accompanying the ceviche, and kill two birds with one stone.

Up next:  Hot stone bowl bibimbap. This sounds very much like something a hobbit would eat for third breakfast before setting out to recover lost jewelry.  Not so.

This is a beloved Korean dish, a bowl of mixed rice with  meat and vegetables.  It sounds wonderful.  Go to Korea.  Eat this.

Did you save room for dessert?  Well, we’re not there yet.  You have to next eat the Stone Crab at Joe’s Stone Crab.  Where the mustard sauce is apparently to die for. You will have to go to Miami Beach, Florida.  Also, order the Key Lime Pie.  Everyone says to.

I love the next item on the list.  Strawberries picked fresh from the field. There are strawberry fields all over near my home in Loomis, Ca. The fresh strawberry stands pop up in early spring, and those berries are very fine, albeit it a bit tart and restrained. They are wonderful macerated in a bit of balsamic vinegar, sugar and pepper, and served over vanilla ice cream. I’m not kidding.  About a tablespoon of very good balsamic, an eighth of a teaspoon of pepper.  Sugar.  Let it sit for a bit.

However, to really appreciate the lush, wanton, sensual pleasure of a strawberry from the field, wait until a few weeks after the really hot weather sets in. Heat does something to the sugar in the berry. You can smell it for miles in the summertime. All good things come to those who wait. Add nothing to these berries but your teeth.  Eat with abandon.  Life is short.

Home-made fresh whipped cream is on the list.  This is too easy.  It makes me uncomfortable, inching us ever closer to our mortality.

We love whipped cream in my house.  Never out of the can or plastic tub.  It has to be the real thing, with a little powdered sugar and vanilla, whipped just until stiff peaks form.  My boys grew up eating it plain by the bowl.  My daughter loves it layered with chocolate cookies that grow soggy if left to sit in fridge for a few hours.  For a little bit of a lark, add Grand Marnier and a little grated orange rind.  Stack it between layers of cake, fruit and more liquor and call it Trifle.  I can’t help you delay this one.  You are going to cross it off your list pretty quickly and easily, I’m afraid.  Vaya con dios, my friend.

Next please.

Ah, Lardo. There you are.

Lardo is not an unimaginative pejorative term for someone who is rotund, despite what my classmates called me in school. This is Italian cured back fat, and it is a fabulous appetizer. You want to hold it in your mouth forever, but it melts away too quickly. Don’t be squeamish about the fat. You’ve likely got some of your own, so no throwing stones. Eat with crusty bread and cheese, maybe some olives.  A very robust Chardonnay, or a lovely rose. Maybe some fresh herbs and nuts.  A light Pinot might work, too.  Eat the lardo. Drink the wine. In Italy.  Let the sun bake the last of the day away while you chew and sip outside, and slip into a twilight coma of bliss. You will forget about moving on to dinner. That’s okay.  You have your whole life to eat dinner.

An avocado in its shell, with only a spoon. Huff recommends Hass. I, personally, never met an avocado I did not like. It’s green, earthy butter.  Close your eyes while you let it glide across your taste buds.  Show some respect.

Pancakes with real maple syrup. That’s easy. Just be prepared to shell out some money for the maple syrup. Brattleboro, Vermont is my favorite terroire for maple syrup. Chew slowly.  We’re getting near the end of the list, and I, for one, do not have my affairs in order.

Home-made ricotta cheese. Why haven’t you done this yet? The hardest part of making your own is finding cheesecloth for the recipe. Here it is: http://allrecipes.com/recipes/cheese/ricotta-cheese/.

ricotta

lemn-sugar.com

So stinkin’ easy. Drizzle the cheese with honey, serve with fruit. Figs are best. Thank me later.

Steak tartare. This is raw meat. Good quality raw meat. Some recipes call for raw egg in the preparation.  I’m a vegan, but I’ll have to do this, obviously, when I am ready to die, or I won’t be allowed to. So do it I will. My grandmother, who remains the cook I admire most in this world — I learned everything I needed to learn about food fundamentals at her apron strings by the time I was twelve, and everything after that was just fleshing out what she taught me — loved raw beef. She would sometimes down a bit of raw hamburger meat while cooking. I won’t do that, but I understand that for some folks this is a big draw. I respect that.

Chocolate croissant from Tartine Bakery, San Francisco. That’s easy for me to say. I live in Northern California. But it’s cheaper (for me) than a trip to France, and Huffington Post swears these are better than the French make. There is, apparently, often a line out the bakery door and down the street, and they come with a good helping of attitude from the staff behind the counter, according to one reviewer.

A loaf of bread from Sfoglia Bakery. Easy for you to say. If you live in New York City. It’s nearly ten dollars a loaf. It must be good. Get a loaf, eat all ten dollars’ worth while you stroll through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is one of my favorite places on earth. Get three loaves. It’s going to take you at least three days to get through the Met.

Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Well. Duh. Campbell’s and Kraft slices and even Wonder Bread are just fine for childhood, or any day you need to revisit childhood. Give yourself permission. If, however, you are feeling like a grown up, roast the tomatoes with sea salt and then make the soup with good cognac. Use brioche for the sandwich, and chutney and brie and Gruyère. And butter. You’ll be fine. You’ll be better than fine.

 

Tamales. Well. This is a labor-intensive effort. But make no mistake — it is not a labor of love. In my native Santa Fe family, I remember the women working together to assemble these in mass quantities.  While the men stood around and drank beer.  So the women invariably complained about the men, comparing notes, working themselves into a bit of frenzy as they cushioned beautiful masa around slow-cooked pork and beef, wrapping it all in corn husks as austere as the robes of our priests.

These must be home-made. In my family, we turn them out every Christmas, and top them off with just-simmered mole sauce. My husband is smart enough to stay in the kitchen and help.  However, if your tamales are plunked down a bit brusquely in front of you at mealtime, if you are glowered at and told tersely to enjoy them, you are likely a man, and you are likely in trouble.

And now, we come to the moment of reckoning.  The end of the list.  I have a few things I’d like to add (raw oysters, my grandmother’s Eggplant Parmesan, my grandmother’s Cioppino, fresh wild figs plucked quickly from a tree as you pass under it on horseback), but no one asked me.

I still (whew!) have a few items on this list I have not checked off.  Eight of them, in fact.  I am eight items away from the hereafter.

And you? How many of these stand between you and your ultimate reward?

Check, please.

Amen.