Paper cuts

Is it wrong to brag? It is. It is wrong to brag.

I know it is wrong to brag. But I am going to brag about my cooking anyways.

I saw rabbit loins in the front of the butcher's case today. I asked that a pound be set aside for me. The butcher used a number 4 and spelled my name wrong, but they were still a fresh tender pink at the end of the day, so who cares?

With safflower oil I started a mirepoix in the wok I got for my birthday. By the time I finished chopping baby carrots in two, the onions were translucent. While waiting for it all to be tender together, I washed celery. I cut the ends off three bulbs of fennel I will roast tomorrow morning, thinking about Prometheus--swift down Olympus carrying fire to man. I stripped away the feathers, diced the green stalks. It was all tossed around with pink salt--evocative of Himalayan ranges. I think of non-violent protestors and wonder if pink salt with such a label could be considered as blood-diamonds.

I turned the oven on, which wasn't as hard to do as it was two months ago, in the thick of July. Tonight's supper asks for more than just 15 minutes with the gas on high. I think, I will sleep well without the window unit on tonight. A full moon has begun to grow and shines brighter than New York's efficient grid system, try as it might to keep me from sleep.

Back on the stove, I set down a lovely roasting pan of burning orange. In its bony enamel, I drew a full circle of green olive oil which only just got warm before I threw in little teeth of garlic. But, before the garlic even had a chance to remember it burns easily, I covered it all with generous handfuls of nutty black rice, and took it off the heat. I stirred, each grain lightly coated by the oil, the garlic teeth gleaming in a bed of tiny coffins. Dracula would be wary of a kiss, should he happen by my open window.

Flicking the burner on again, I brought the pan's contents to a simmer in a shallow bath of cold water. I laid the rabbit loins to rest over the lightly writhing rice, they had been dusted by white pepper, more blood-diamond salt, and flakes of tarragon. I tossed twigs of rosemary in, and soon it was all buried beneath the bright greens and orange of summer's late bounty. I turned off the range once more.

I added brassy rings of a few chili peppers, piquant and bright, but on the milder side of flavor, I thought they might balance out carrots' sweetness. Then waters grew high with just enough pink wine to make it all pretty. The fennels' feathers from before peeked out from under the lid, I let it all sweat out in high heat. When the lean loins were pulled into tender white pillows of muscle, and the rice was firm but tender, I took a bite that billowed steam.

It didn't burn my mouth too badly, and I was able to say aloud how kinda bad I feel for the boys who will never again eat my damn fine cooking.

I have eaten well, and I think that is what I am bragging about tonight, so I perhaps it is not bragging after all.

Ellicit Groans

I'm not sure how this starts. Is it worth noting that the quadrophonic sound being parked below my bedroom window is making sure Lil Wayne knows that I know that karma is a bitch, and that I should make sure that bitch is beautiful? (I know Lil Wayne, I know. Bitch is beautiful, no doubt.) A crossword puzzle, which I am doing partly because my Papa Lars did them daily until he died, kept folded in his shirt pocket with leaky pens and cheap cigars and partly because I can see my beloved maternal Nana and my beloved paternal Grandpa Julian--what-- climbing a ladder to? Sliding down into? Dementia. Oh Dementia. I see you getting comfortable in lives that are not yours. I see your tacky mask, blocking out memories and brightness and sharp wits. I do not want your tacky mask over my life, and so I will do this crossword puzzle, and solve that clue for a three-lettered-word elliciting groans (PUN). I have been elliciting groans all day. Some of my three-lettered-words are worth a mere chuckle (LOL). But the most hilarious thing I have done all day is buy a plane ticket.

I had planned to do a tour de grandparents. Visit the paternals in the mountains, visit the maternal in Texas, fly back to Big Apple, skipping my hometown (beach, beach, beach) for the sake of valuable time with valuable folks. One week. So I called the paternals. I said, "Hey Grandma! Comin' to visit!" And the paternals said, "Oh, we'd love to see you. My, that'd be fine, but it's been such a rapid decline. Lately. Why don't you hold off a bit?" So I changed my plans. Texas, hometown (beach, beach, beach), and then back to New York. It seemed this plan could stick. Affordable enough to leave some meat on my bones. And so I gave the airline my credit card information, and I received my flight confirmation. And then, we get to the punchline, because the news is no rapid decline.

It is a tear, it is broken, it is a neck, and of course it is still strong and breathing, and of course we will operate, but of course it is risk, and of course now we all hang in this strange appreciation of mercy and I don't know what you're supposed to feel when the news is hospitalized, but not gone. Gone to a better place? Gone, gone? A fish? Not a fish? Not here. Not there. Not a clue for this puzzle.