Switched At Birth

Lemon Meringue Clouds

Meringue. I am flying in a Boeing 767 American Airlines plane, flight number 52 from Chicago to Glasgow, looking out the window while most of my fellow passengers are sleeping off a viewing of Shrek 2 and City Slickers.

The clouds above the sunrise look like meringue. They make me think of lemon meringue pie. Soft golden curlicues. The last time I baked a homemade pie was twenty one years ago.

I cook when I’m happy, which is most of the time, broiling, sauteing, baking, assembling the fresh good stuff.

Sometimes when I have a temporary dose of melancholia, the lengthy peeling and chopping process necessary for making a bodacious big pot of vegetable soup or chili is cathartic, especially when a few tears spill out in the onion chopping.

The evidence suggests I only bake pies when I’m angry. There’s a story in that, but the person who lit that fire in me is still around on the fringes and my anger refreshes itself even after twenty one years when I think about that night. Nope. Like fine smoked chipotle peppers, this one needs a few more years of aging to leave the heat but tame the flame.

We made it to Scotland this afternoon, dined on scrambled eggs and toast,  bathed in a huge ancient claw-footed tub, and are about to crash out.

Don't worry. Maggie will be fine during the hurricane. She has the equivalent of a samurai named Pauline guarding her life and limb in Pensacola, whatever Ivan may attempt. Still, my happiness here would be complete with that fine chocolate head on my knee in front of this coal fire.

Note: This restored lost post was written on September 14, 2004, as Buck and I were flying to Scotland. Hurricane Ivan suddenly strengthened, made a surprise turn, and hit Pensacola two days later while we were on the Isle of Arran.

Somebody Tell Ida We Don't Do November Hurricanes

There is an edgy feel to the traffic today.  Vehicles almost running stop signs, short bursts of speed for no apparent reason, cars cutting their turns short. Pre-storm behavior. I've seen it before. I am only surprised when there is not a line at the gas station or the bank ATM.

The grocery store parking lot is full, but people are buying party food: chips and dip and beer are going out the door in greater volume than gallons of water and canned mystery meat. It's hard to have conviction about a November hurricane.

Besides, Ida is such a wholesome name. If this storm 's name was Jezebel or Buster, I would worry that it would be a trickster. Mid-afternoon here, and it looks like Ida is continuing to weaken. It has already been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm. Still, schools are closed today and tomorrow. Buck and I haven't decided yet whether to label and pull down all the plastic doors enclosing the pool. It will be a pain to go out in the rain and lug those doors into the little red storage building. But it will be a worse pain to go chasing after them in the middle of an early-morning landfall if we guess wrong.

Despite Ida's honest-sounding name, we have gassed up the car, gotten a little cash, bought a new battery for the generator, and picked up enough groceries to feed the multitudes. I didn't buy party food. I bought a chicken and a pork tenderloin to roast, ground beef for chili and meatloaf, canned salmon, eggs and veggies, that kind of stuff.

It's dark as night outside. The deer came out for a quick graze during a lull in the rain. They ran around in short, fast bursts that reminded me of the storm-neurotic drivers I saw earlier in the day.

Last night we sat on the dock at the Sugar Shack. The slow gray waves looked like a little weather was on the way. We watched as lights came on at homes across the water on the Alabama side of the bay. They were in various shades of yellow, white, lavender and blue and looked like a necklace strung with semi-precious stones. 

Buck's Inner Blonde

 
I swear she wasn't there when I snapped this photo of Buck. We were about to step into Eat! -- a new restaurant in downtown Pensacola-- where we were meeting friends to celebrate Buck's birthday.

Pensacola's annual Christmas parade was in full sway. The streets were jammed with party folk of all ages. Floats passed by right in front of the restaurant. Costumed characters threw beads and candy to screaming kids. A gaudy, raucous, music-filled parade was just the medicine this year, following closely on Hurricane Ivan's destruction barely two months before.  This was a happy, if slightly hysterical, crowd.

But  I swear, that woman wasn't there when I took the picture. Maybe she is the ghost of Buck's "inner blonde!"

. . . from The Lost Posts Archive.  I'll leave it here for a week or so, and then slip it onto the proper virtual shelf, which is December 13, 2004 07:59 AM.

How About A Story With That Bowl Of Soup?

Every bowl of soup has a story. This particular soup began life as a network of tributaries: one from the Cafe' Matisse in Rutherford, New Jersey, whose recipe provided the inspiration; one from the fecund, troubled tomato fields of Immokalee, Florida; and one from a friendship of young men forged in the cold spring waters of Jenny's Hole at Carpenter's Creek in Pensacola, Florida.

 The tributaries all came together on a recent Tuesday evening. They flowed into a stock pot at the Longleaf Bar & Grill. The bringer of the soup was Roy. He and his wife, Bette, can stop traffic with their long, lean good looks and the flashing eyes and teeth of friendly wild animals.

It's been about ten days now since Roy and Bette drove their motor home 600-plus miles from their home on Pine Island, (near Ft. Myers, Fl) to his cousin's place on Innerarity Island, (near Pensacola).  They came for the Pensacola High School Class of '54 Reunion out on Pensacola Beach, and to visit with us and other friends and relatives. 

Bill, another classmate and F.O.B. (Friend of Buck) since the cradle, lives right here in town. By day, he is an accountant, and has been keeping the IRS from putting people under the jailhouse for decades. By night and weekend, he is a passionate collector of vintage Thunderbird cars (think baby blue hardtop or white convertible). Bill is also an amateur archeologist. He has traveled to remote South Seas islands, Peru and other sites to help dust pottery shards. He is an eager light traveler, whose motto is: "Sign me up." 

Note: The photo of Bill is his "Official Photo" as Treasurer of the Panhandle Cruisers.

Buck was a such a smart little dickens that he started grammar school a year early, so while he actually graduated in the Pensacola High School Class of 1955, he was younger than everybody in his own class. That makes him just about two years younger than Roy or Bill. (Sorry, guys.  Buck wanted me to put that part in.)  However, since Buck's own class hasn't had the inclination to hold reunions every five years like the 1954 bunch, Buck got himself adopted into that group. Truth is, he just loves Bill and Roy, and wanted some excuse to hang out with them more often.

I got to know Roy and Bette during the last reunion. It was held was in 2004, just a few months before Hurricane Ivan smacked us. Roy and Bette were staying in the RV park out on the beach that was destroyed in the storm. Turns out neither Bette nor I were eager to meet each other, each figuring the other would be a dud one of us would be saddled with entertaining. Ha! No worries.    Bette is a high-powered partner in her own realty firm, a tall, gorgeous brunette go-getter who is fun as all get-out. She skin dives, saltwater fishes, bicycles, loves her man and her dog,  has a wide mischievous grin so contagious you would have to be dead not to catch it, and the heart of a lioness, too. I'm shorter and shyer, but she expressed relief after we met that I had not lived up to her low expectations. In other words, we hit it off and didn't have to tolerate each other just for the sake of being good sports while the guys relived fast times at Pensacola High.  

That's Bette, hamming it up with "Elvis," who dropped by the class reunion Luau at the Pensacola Beach Hilton Garden Inn on May 15.

What does this all have to do with that bowl of soup?  This brings us to Roy Boy. He is a conossieur of many things: sports cars, boats, wine, women (uh, make that woman), art, photography, and good food. He's one of those rare breeds: a perfectionist with a generous heart. Roy loves to cook for his friends.

On Tuesday before the Friday reunion, Bill, Roy and Bette and their sweet, funny  Weimareiner, Maggie Moo, arrived at Longleaf for a progressive dinner of sorts.  

Roy had promised to make his signature Roasted Tomato Soup with Herbs and Garlic.

I found a stock pot for Roy, and set him up with a cutting board, a knife and some oregano, thyme and rosemary pulled from my weed patch. 

First things first, though. We all jumped in the pool, except for Bill, who had rushed over straight from his office. He sat by the pool and regaled us with stories of the latest car show while we splashed around and wondered what teenagers do for fun. 

After awhile, we moved from pool to kitchen, and munched on some Pensacola bay shrimp in a caper, dill, garlic, dijon and lemon marinade, as Roy worked his magic with the soup. Part of the chef's kit he arrived with was a large ziploc bag of the distilled essence of roasted summer tomatoes from Immokalee.  Roy told us that last summer, he and Bette drove about 30 miles from their home to Immokalee to buy tomatoes, squash, okra, watermelons, cantaloupes, ten types of peppers, cucumbers, pineapple, avocados and "the best Mexican lunch from the worst looking place I have ever eaten."  

Note:  Immokalee's winter tomatoes have become a flashpoint in a national discussion on treatment and payment of farm workers. I'll be writing about this aspect of the tomatoes on our plates in a subsequent post. Roy and Bette "did it right" from the standpoint that they bought local food in season. In fact, they bought six boxes (at 25 pounds each) of tomatoes, ate what they could, gave away a bunch, and then roasted and froze the rest for soup.

When the soup was ready, Bette and I ladled it into wide, shallow bowls, and we all moved to the conference table on the snow porch. (It will never snow outside this snow porch, but it resembles the one we had when we lived in the North Carolina mountains which was our favorite place to watch snow fall.) The soup was beautiful in the bowl, fragrant with herbs, and had the unmistakable deep flavor of summertime, vine-ripened tomatoes. 

Roy's Roasted Tomao Soup with Herbs & Garlic

(4 servings)

3 pounds vine-ripened local tomatoes

8 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons minced garlic

handful of minced fresh rosemary &  thyme (oregano goes well, too)

1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper (or more)

6 cups chicken stock

6 tablespoons fresh basil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put the tomatoes, cut-side up, on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then drizzle with some olive oil. Roast about an hour. They will be tender. Cool slightly . Transfer the tomatoes and their juice to a processor. Don't over process -- keep them slightly chunky. At this point, you can proceed with the recipe, or cool and freeze. 

Next, heat about 3 tablespoons of oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic and saute until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Stir in the herbs and red pepper. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until the soup thickens slightly. Remove from heat.

Stir in basil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with baguettes and herb-infused olive oil for dipping.

After that great starter, we moved on to the wild grouper pesto I've blogged about before, and then moved into the bar for coffee and egg custard pie. Maggie and Maggie Moo lounged nearby, tacitly begging for bites of pie. 

Looking around the table, I thought about some of the common threads in these lives: curious life-long learners all, filled with an unusual zest for life, a thorough-going positive attitude, and a gentle sort of tolerant goodness.  They are all smart as a whole orchard of trees full of owls, too. 

It was beginning to get late, but no one was ready for the evening to end, and so, dogs and all, we changed venue once again, trooping upstairs to sit outside on the second story deck. The air was softly punctuated by the hooty owls deep in the woods, and night-singing passerines.

Our friends had long drives before they could sleep: Bill across the bridge to his home on Mulat Bayou in neighboring Pace; Roy and Bette back to Innerarity Island on Perdido Bay. And so, reluctantly, with hugs and smiles, we waved them off into the darkness. 

Buck and I were still talking about this memorable evening as we put Maggie to bed, brushed our teeth and turned back the covers. 

For reasons known only to the ghost of Sigmund Freud, I do not have any friendships maintained since childhood. I would be envious of this beautiful relationship, except for the fact that Bette and I both have been subsumed within the umbrella of its sweetness, our molecular parts rearranged to become a piece of their whole. For this, I am profoundly grateful.

When one reaches a certain age -- is it 20, 30, 40, 50 or beyond? -- "old friends" either exist or they will never be.  Old friends are those who have known you long enough to know your dreams, your potential, your reality, your reinventions of self over time, your disappointments, triumphs, tragedies and loves. Old friends need no explanations. 

When an old friend loves you, it must be because you are worth loving. Is it not so?

These Are The Boys My Mother Warned Me About

My mother would have had a fit if these boys had lived in our neighborhood. She would have locked me in the bedroom and put bars on the windows.

Luckily for her, (not me), they were teenagers in 1953 Pensacola when I was still a curly-haired baby in Miami. 

Bill, Tommy, Buck (yes -- that Buck) and Roy were hot-blooded young studs on the hunt. They pursued girls, of course, but also fast cars, faster squirrels, and contraband watermelons (so the story goes) to cool in Pensacola's Carpenter's Creek -- back when it was still a sparkling spring-fed swimming hole instead of the drainage basin it got turned into.

Three of the four were in town last week for a high school reunion out on Pensacola Beach. 

A few nights before the big bash, Bill, Roy, and Roy's beautiful dynamo of a wife, Bette, came out to the woods for dinner. Roy's a helluva cook and he and I had a blast collaborating on dinner.  

. . . But that's a whole 'nother story.

Tranquility

It was Monday night a week ago at The Crab Trap in Pensacola.  Our good friends Roy and Bette were in town for the week.  We were seated at a table so near the water our feet were almost wet. Perfect.

We watched mullet jump, birds fish, and shrimp boats head out for the night. We shared crab cakes and a glass of wine, talking softly as old friends do. The night-cooled breeze smoothed feathers and lulled  hearts. Our breathing slowed, deepened, forerunner of a good night's sleep and memories for the road.

Pelican

 

Just off the deck of The Oyster Bar on Perdido Key, this magnificent pelican seemed oblivious to the papparazzi.  Lunch was a dark roux, shrimp-stuffed bowl of gumbo. Buck and I watched pleasure boats and an occasional barge ply the Intracoastal Waterway, while the wind smoothed our own feathers, as we remembered yet another reason we love the Gulf Coast.

Real world. Virtual world. A blog is a chronicle, a means, not the end. Real world. Virtual world.

The pelican flies. My heart flutters. Real world. The photo is a sweet souvenir of our day.

 

St. Joe Seafood Salad

The new Crab Trap restaurant on Pensacola Bay was a perfect setting to welcome Spring to the Gulf coast. Sipping iced tea, I watched in amusement and amazement as trays of blue martinis, mai tais and pina coladas came out the door on serving trays. I enjoy a wee dram of whiskey most evenings, but my Lord, I would be a danger to myself and others if I were to get  drunk on those high-octane pretty drinks and the intoxicating tropical weather, too!

Buck and I sat outside, close to the water. He ate luscious crab cakes while I destroyed the St. Joe Seafood Salad. It was loaded with jumbo shrimp, plump fried oysters (the kind where you actually taste oyster and not just batter),  a dainty necklace of bay scallops and a generous portion of shell-free jumbo lump crab.

A yacht club regatta in the distance was a perfect prop for this atmospheric afternoon.

I am trying to recreate that gorgeous afternoon in my mind tonight while thunder rumbles, lightning flashes uncomfortably close, and sheets of rain close in on us like a great-aunt's oppressive velvet drapes.

       

   

Fried Mullet Saturday

 

Mid-afternoon on a Saturday, there are so many elderly folks scraping their walkers on the listing linoleum floor at The Oyster Barn that it looks like some old folk's home rang the bell for recess.

Nothing wrong with their appetites, though. They plough through plates of oysters on the half shell, bowls of seafood gumbo, fried mullet, cheese grits, hush puppies, cole slaw and gallons of sweet tea.

Our server is a tall, dark-haired woman with a quicksilver smile . Her royal blue tee shirt is stretched tight over the nearly full-term baby she is carrying low, a tender shelf for the trays of food she delivers to tables in the nearly full house.

We watch a young boy fishing from a pontoon boat near the bridge, the afternoon sun making a halo around him.

The mullet is hot and sweet in the way that only very fresh, local fish can be, and we enjoy every single bite.

 

Dinky Little Town

Pensacola's ancient Municipal Auditorium was torn down a few years ago. A landscaped waterfront park was installed in its place. I took a side trip there yesterday when I drove downtown to Joe Patti's Seafood.

Along with the pigeons muttering amongst themselves in low tones and the occasional sleeping pelicans, there were joggers, children ga-ga over the birds, lone fishermen, and a camera-toting tourist or two.

I was a tourist yesterday, too. A tourist in my own little town, come in from the pine woods to be reminded of the quaint prettiness of this place I once called a "dinky little town," and wondered aloud what on earth I (a star) could find to do here. Heh. That was more than 25 years ago, before I had a life and a happy home of my very own in this exceptionally nice dinky little town.