It did’t begin that way, with a continued argument of some sort at 2:30 in the morning … 3am, even: a couple women raising their voices outside, and at least down a couple doors, never coming to blows but obviously consumed by fits of anger. Ms. S. wondered, should we call the police?
We did not.
The daylight hours, though, have been considerably calmer, and thus I offer reflections and reruns.
I.
Tuesday we packed the car around 1:30 when the rain was light. Into the back when the gifts and most of the food; up front when the chocolate meringue pie. The drive down, begun shortly before 2, was stormy, punctuated by moments of clear dreariness, and at time I wondered whether wind and weather might drive us from the road, but in relatively short order we arrived at Ms. S.’s parents’ place, unloaded, and got the nickel tour of a home still under significant renovation.
We eventually made dinner: pizzas!
I had provided the dough, and Ms. S.s’ parents brought all the toppings, including several varieties of cheese, pepperoni and ham for her father and me (the two women being vegan-leaning vegetarians who made exceptions for occasional cheese), fresh vegetable, olives, and much more. I had enough dough for 14 single-serving pizzas, and we had baking sheets large enough to bake four pies at once.
The first batch was good. There were two doughs, a plain and another speckled with basil, oregano, thyme, and fresh garlic. We each had seconds, and the second round was better. The dough had had time to relax on the counter, and so on. Perhaps the best pizzas I’ve ever made. Not toe mention the delicious deviled eggs.
Mmm. Deviled eggs.
Ms. S. had cocktail recipes for us and had brought 7-up and various vodkas along for the occasion; her mother provided the wine, and she and I made sure that by the end of the evening the bottles were empty.
We then moved on to the gifts and settled in a comfy back room (actually, from the POV of the actual front of the house a ‘front room,’ but that’s neither here nor there), where the dogs were not allowed. Ms. S. played Santa’s Helper and distributed gifts. All throughout lights flickered as the storm went by; during the middle of it the power went out for a minute or so and we only had candles, but the thread of getting more candles and bringing back flashlights evidently frightened the storm into returning our electricity, and no more technical glitches were had the rest of the night.
I’ll not inventory everyone’s gifts, though I’ll highlight some of mine. There was an array of stockings filled with various kinds of chocolate along with sample pouches of coffee (Ms. S. and I made out with 11 total), several flavored syrups for my coffee, and a half dozen booze samplers. On the larger scale I got a nice fountain pen set … 2013 may be the year of returning to drawing and writing letters by hand! Ms. S. got me three sweaters in celebration of my more slender figure, and one is a beautiful cardigan. I’ve not worn tops this small in half my life.
After the gift unwrapping, after trekking through the house from fireplace to fireplace, stocking to stocking, we returned to the kitchen and to dessert. Or to desserts.
II.
At the beginning of the drive down I complained to Ms. S. about the pie I’d made. A chocolate pie is just chocolate pudding in a pie crust, and I can make a perfectly serviceable (actually, better) pie crust, but I had a pre-made one left in the fridge, so I thawed it and got it settled in the pan quite nicely. I decided to follow a recipe I found online rather than just make my usual pudding because, well, I was looking for a change of pace, and the guy who baked it, who got it from his grandmother, raved about it. Plus: meringue. What could go wrong? As I made the custard I took the crust from the oven and noticed that it had begun to shrink and crack.
Not cool.
Not cool at all. Then, the custard decided to seize up a bit before I’d gotten the lumps out. Again, I should have followed my instincts rather than follow this recipe. My instincts and training and experience would have had me make a custard, even one thickened with flour, differently … much differently than ‘throw the ingredients together, heat, and stir until not lumpy.’
Really?
And the part where I knew there would probably be a problem but I didn’t listen to that voice in my head? When the recipe called for two eggs. Two yolks for the pudding, which sounds just fine, and the whites for the meringue. In what world do two whites make a sufficiently large meringue to cover a whole pie? But the guy whose recipe this was had a picture featuring a meringue-covered pie.
Clearly not a photograph of that actually recipe prepared.
After the vanilla and butter were added to the pudding/custard I got it to the right consistency and it was not seized up at all, but still there were some lumpy areas. I had mostly fixed the crust. I filled it. And the filling did not completely fill the form.
Really?
So I have a full-size crust not completely filled by this filling. Then I spread the meringue on top, and it leaves about an inch of chocolate all around between the edge of the meringue and the crust. I put it in the oven for about ten minutes, which nicely sets the meringue but does not brown it, so I put the broiler on, and a minute with the direct heat was perfect to brown but not burn.
That’s the ‘bad news,’ with which I bothered Ms. S. on our trip down. The ‘good news’ is just that it was an absolutely delicious and decadent chocolate pie with a gooey, airy, properly spongey meringue and a flakey crust. It was an issue of ‘looks can be deceiving’ and ‘don’t just a book|pie by its cover|crust.’ Ms. S.’s parents went to the local Pie Lab (yes, a pie lab!) and brought back a decadent and extremely sweet pecan pie .. but all pecan pies are a bit sweet for my northern sensibilities. This pie, however, had a hidden advantage: chocolate chips. Furthermore, it had the right balance: too many pecan pies are a merely a scattering of pecans surfing on a sea of corn syrup, but here the pecans were a thick, lush layer punctuated by the afore mentioned chocolate chips. Add to all this a honey-vanilla panna cotta layered on a blueberry sauce and some lemon-blueberry mini corn muffins, and we were set on the dessert front.
Many stories were exchanged, mainly of holidays past, of Ms. S.’s childhood, and more.
Afterward we packed up — we left the leftover pizza dough down there, but brought back the ham, some pecan pie (I gave them most of the remaining chocolate), fresh mozzarella and more for ourselves — and after saying goodbye to the dogs and packing the car stood out back and looked up at the newly clear sky. Orion was crisp, evidently Jupiter was to be observed. And what storm clouds were left were low and cruised by very rapidly. Blink … and they’re gone.
We all wanted a telescope to help us look at nebulae.
III.
Now much of our chocolate is gone. We’ve finished the leftover pie and the muffins and the panna cotta.
Well, that last bit was me, as Ms. S. didn’t want any of it.
We even had pizza last night, as Ms. S. was in the mood and we had pizza sauce and mozzarella. I made new dough and gave it even a bit more garlic. Were they as good as the x-mas day pies? No. But delicious, still.
Soon we can return to eating the right amount of food … for now I’m at the slightly higher end of my scheduled daily amount, and in eating holiday candy something must give … so fewer fresh fruits and vegetables.
But this, too, shall pass. And Christmas comes only once a year.
But Christmas gifts can come twice.
IV.
When I spoke with my father on Christmas day he mentioned gifts being in the mail and that I should expect three different deliveries. One was a care package from him and my step-mother, another a book, and the third some clothing.
The only problem, it seemed, was that when he ordered the book he entered the wrong address for me … he put in a wrong digit under the apartment number and did not catch it until the order was processed and the book shipped.
Oops.
I knew roughly when it would arrive, so I crafted a little letter, in case the residents were not home, and went to see our neighbors today. It turns out the almost elderly mother was on her way out, and I spoke with her as she was getting into her car. She mentioned that her daughter was home and that I should knock on the door and give her the letter I’d written; it had my apartment number and phone number on it in case the package was delivered. They offered to call or text so I could pick it up. Very kind of them.
Then I checked the mail. Ms. S. had a package from her aunt and uncle, and I had a card from my aunt. I also had the book … my name was correct, the apartment number was wrong, and yet it got delivered ‘correctly’ to me. Thank you, USPS (I thought it was coming via UPS).
Now I have Mark Z. Danielewski’s ‘newest,’ The Fifty Year Sword. Thanks, dad!
And the care package arrived separately; Ms. S. got a beautiful scarf, I got several varieties of sea salt, we got bath salts (not the drug variety), and more!
V.
It’s still the holidays for us in a way. Lots of time ‘off,’ even though Ms. S. had to go to work tonight. And unlike nights this previous week, tonight should be rather busy … which she dreads.
In any case: the beginning of our rotation. We had the newest episode of ‘Top Chef’ to view … alas, Bart, we barely knew you. ‘Top Chef’ was back to its traditional formula this time. Three cheftestant received significant ‘narrative’ time … family photos, background information … and one won the Quickfire, one won the Elimination, and one was eliminated. It’s sort of like a police procedural: the biggest guest star or the first non-lead met ‘did it.’ Here if you get backstory, you’re either winning or going home.
Then it was ‘The X-Files.’ Yesterday we had the circus freak joyousness of “Humbug,” and today we had “The Calusari,” an episode that owes more than a little to “Omen,” “The Exorcist,” and other devil-child/antichrist films. If you combine Denise Richards and Frida Kahlo you get Helene Clarkson, who plays the mother. There’s a lack of guest stars you would recognize in this episode. It’s also a “rehabilitate the swastika” episode in some regards. In terms of tone it’s rather dour but decently consistent in applying the dread.
I provided the third episode of ‘Dollhouse’ afterward … it’s the one in which Echo has to play the role of backup singer and our lead’s limited acting range is painfully exceeded. But it’s also our first real encounter with Sierra, who was introduced in the first episode and who cameoed as a sort of ‘Special Forces’ leader toward the end. Here she demonstrates that she could and should be the lead. Elsewhere we introduced to Victor … duh-dum!
Ms. S. did not want the next episode of ‘Veritas’ after that, so after a break we finished up with the next episode of ‘The X-Files,’ and at this rate we should finish season two before the year ends. Then we can begin the new year with season three and perhaps slow down to no more than one new episode per day. At some point we’ll have to add ‘The Lone Gunmen’ and, later, perhaps even ‘Millennium’ to the mix. In any case, we finished with “F. Emasculata,” a really rather good episode that in terms of storytelling I think could be improved with a couple minor edits. In particular, I’d eliminate the opening scenes in ‘Costa Rica’ (you mean a Canadian park outside Vancouver?) and probably the first scenes in the prison; instead I’d either begin with Mulder and Scully appearing at the prison for an escaped prisoner case, or, if we’re being generous, a scene earlier when our prisoners discuss escaping. The problem I have with it as-is is that from the beginning the viewer understands that some sort of disease-carrier from Central America has found its way to Virginia, where prisoners are being used as guinea pigs to test … something. We know from the beginning that the escaped prisoners aren’t an interesting story, and so on. We are ten pages ahead of Mulder and Scully in the script … there’s no sense of discovery or wonder.
What I do like about it, though, is how in a way it’s just ‘The X-Files’ answer to Richard Preston’s “The Hot Zone” and the movie “Outbreak.” Instead of Ebola or similar, we have another fast-acting, always or nearly-always fatale disease. We have the threat of it getting out into the general population. We just provide it with the X-Files charm … someone is behind it all. And it’s a companion piece in a way to “Ice” and the other bio-hazard stories …
Tomorrow we may get to “Soft Light.”
