Once again, Kathleen is traveling. She’s sitting in the airport at Boston, actually, waiting for a dense fog to lift. The weather here in New York isn’t much better; so what ought to be a quick trip can’t. If this were a country that I could be proud of, a high-speed rail link would run the length of the Northeast Corridor, and it would take so much less time to get between the towns along the Atlantic Seaboard that no one would dream of flying between them. Or of driving, either. I live in a country where all the wrong people, serving all the wrong functions, have all the power. I can’t see that a benighted Bourbon despot would be much worse. 

You’re right: it’s the weather talking. The weather has been so awful this year that the only way it could have been improved would be by the elimination of the handful of nice days altogether. Last week — or was it the week before — I enjoyed an evening stroll to the subway so much that I realized that I’d forgotten the possibility of good weather. Today’s wet isn’t so bad in itself, but coming as it done as the latest of days and days of ick, one isn’t in the mood to mope romantically, reading Rilke while listening to Chopin. Or reading Baudelaire while listening to Bruckner. One is the mood to make rudely unpatriotic remarks. I can’t wait for Kathleen to get home, as always, but this time even more intensely, because she isn’t going anywhere for a while. When she does travel next — did I say that I include Raleigh-Durham in the Northeast Corridor — it will be to visit her father in North Carolina. 

I took advantage of Kathleen’s absence to hang out in the kitchen last night and clean out the freezer. That was fun! It didn’t really take that long. I threw everything into the sink, wiped down the compartment, and put things back in order of importance (ice, pancetta, mirepoix, clarified butter) and then of viability. I saved a big chunk of ground beef that’s going to go into a bologese sauce. I threw away several packages of — well, never mind; you’ll wonder why I didn’t think of making some frugal practical use of them instead, and I haven’t the energy to tell you that I did think of it, but knew that, not having the energy to tell you about it, I certainly didn’t have the energy to transform ageing meats into tasty pâtés and so forth. It kills me to throw things away, but the ordeal making me a better person to do so, because I really am buying less. This afternoon, at Agata & Valentina, I was able to limit myself to the brace of chickens that I will roast this evening. There were all sorts of appetizing cuts that would be “great to have on hand.” But I’m training myself to simultaneously-translate that phrase into its likely consequent: “frozen garbage.” 

And that’s just the beginning. I need to unlearn a lifetime’s worth of good housekeeping advice, so that I can let the rhythm of my days and our nights set the agenda. Being prepared to meet any situation sound sensible on paper, but it leads to overcrowded closets and forgotten supplies. There are a few things that I go through so regularly that it makes sense to keep the next box or bottle in stock. Mayonnaise. Dishwasher detergent. Soy sauce — for some reason, I have a history of not seeing that I’m about to run out of soy sauce. (Ditto sesame oil.) I’ve learned that it’s important to be able to see all of this backup in one glance. So there can’t be much of it.

While it’s always handy to have certain canned goods in the pantry, it’s better to have the habit of buying them as needed. A trip to the store is hardly an inconvenience; there’s a Food Emporium in the building and a Gristede’s right across the street; and it seems that they really are working, finally, on fitting out the new branch of Fairway that’s going to take the old Barnes & Noble up 86th Street. Agata & Valentina and Eli’s are very healthy strolls away; I can go to either and be home within the hour. In other words, I need to pay for the freedom with which Kathleen and I rearrange our dining plans to suit unexpected developments (and sudden whims for pizza) by treating cooking at home as the exception, not the rule, even if I end up doing it five or six days a week. And I need to forget that for most of my countrymen, cooking at home means driving a few miles to a colossal supermarket that has everything on offer. So not Manhattan!

In the time that I’ve noodled out these lines, Kathleen has contrived to arrive at LaGuardia! Which means that I had better get the chickens roasting. You’re right: you’d think that one would be enough, but I always roast two, one for us and one for my daughter and her family. That bit of frugal planning — the second bird gets roasted for free — is one thing that works. And like everything else in this house, I had to figure it out for myself.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 6:40 pm.