Month: July 2008

Wade Wharton’s sister, Nancy, emailed me that the Huntsville Library Atrium Gallery (at the main branch – the one over by the VBCC) is exhibiting some of Mr. Wharton’s art through the month of August!

It has been so much fun seeing the dorm-room displays in some of the shops here, since it’s time for everybody to start thinking about getting back to school. Some places have very boutique, dreamy custom bed linens for those extra-long beds, and other places are all about organization. It’s had me daydreaming about how I would decorate if I had to do it all over again.

My dorm room was in Clements Hall at Troy State. I was lucky that my roommate was a sweet girl named Kelli, who was from Lincoln, and practically right across the hall was my other best-friend, Erika from Clayhatchee (they were bridesmaids at my wedding too!). The building was co-ed, and downstairs was my boyfriend from all the way back to middle school, Jeff.

Y’all, we all had the biggest time in college. And one of the nice things was that Troy was close enough to the beach that every weekend, big groups of us would drive down to Panama City and spend the whole time on the beach. I don’t remember how many people we could fit in a hotel room but it was always just the very best fun. Aaaahhhh….

Anyway, Kelli and I were really good friends and roommates, and we wanted our dorm room to be fun and cheery too. We weren’t allowed to paint the metal cabinets in our room, but we were allowed to use contact paper. Oh did we ever contact paper that room!

Av’s brother went to CMU – Carnegie Mellon. He had done a summer run of ‘Dracula’ at his high school while also working for a local theatre group during the day. That year, in his dorm room, he constructed a raised platform about two feet tall and at night he would open a trap door in the platform, under which was his mattress. So during the day, he had extra floor space and at night he was in something straight out of ‘Dracula’ – it wasn’t supposed to be goth or anything, he just thought it was a good way to use the very little space in his dorm room. Pretty smart!

When Av was at UVA, after winter break, some group had built a shanty near the Rotunda. It was to protest apartheid in South Africa, in the late 80s. Late in the evening, Av and his suitemates were sitting around having a few beers, talking about how ugly the shanty was, especially with it next to Mr. Jefferson’s masterpiece. Someone said “what would happen if they came back tomorrow, and the shanty wasn’t there?” and everyone got a good laugh and said “nah…” and then there was silence.

And the next thing heard was, “let’s do it”.

So they sent out a team to scout the area. At 2am, they marched in pairs down Stadium Road dressed in dark clothes and then went off by teams in different directions to positions around the shanty. At a given signal, they all converged on the shanty. Several of them lifted it up – it was about the size of two outhouses – while four or five people fanned out in a circle to look for police or security. They carried it up toward the Lawn, which is UVA-speak for the long stretch of grass between the Rotunda, Mr. Jefferson’s original dorm rooms, and some later academic buildings. It’s basically the center of Grounds, which is also UVA-speak. They never say “campus”. And they never call T.J. anything other than “Mr. Jefferson”. So much to learn for us commoners.

Going through the wind tunnel by the Rotunda to get to the Lawn, the corrugated metal roof of the shanty slid off and clattered on the brick sidewalk. Students live in those rooms along the lawn – this is also the stretch of rooms where they keep Edgar Allen Poe’s room preserved. They dropped the shanty and dove flat onto the lawn in the dark because they knew it was going to wake someone up and they were all going to get caught, etc.

But no one emerged.

So after a few minutes, they picked up the shanty again, and Av wound up carrying the roof. They slowly made their way down the Lawn, down behind Cabell Hall, across US 29, then back up Stadium Road, to their dorm. They brought it up the front stairs but the shanty was too large to fit through the door to their suite. Av remembered that he had a hammer, so they started taking the shanty apart. Their R.A. came out and said “it’s 4am, you’re making too much noise. I thought for sure the cops would have gotten you” and went back to bed.

They reassembled the it inside their suite, where it stayed for the rest of the semester – and it became *the thing to do* for people to visit their suite and have a drink in the shanty! The group that built the shanty still did their protest – they even planned a couple more shanties.

There was absolutely no political statement being made by taking the shanty, it was just one of those things that (intoxicated) college students think of at 2 in the morning for fun. Later, an anonymous call was made to the Honor Committee and Judiciary – neither of which claimed any jurisdiction so there was no disciplinary action. At the end of the semester, they took apart the shanty and put it in the woods behind the dorm, where it still may be today.

So my husband’s record is clean. Thank goodness. Can you imagine telling people you spent a night in jail in college for moving something that looked like a big outhouse?

Hopefully this is the end of it and he will be free to continue creating…

(above: my tomato aspic)

Remember the other day when the LDS missionaries came to our house? Well, I really thought that was it, but Saturday night when we came in, I had no more than walked in from the garage when there was a knock on the door, and the same two boys were there.

I said something like that it was nice to see them, but that we weren’t interested in converting…but just before I was going to wish them a good night, I noticed that they were just dripping wet from all the heat and humidity (it’s been something like 95*+ here the last few days).

Well, I couldn’t let them go looking like that. I offered them in to get out of the heat for a while, to come on in, sit on the couch, and I’d serve them some ice water (and I made them some of those chocolate chip cookies too, which they gobbled down). They didn’t want milk, and I knew they couldn’t have ice tea because of the caffeine.

Av walked in – and gosh they were here for the next hour or so. Av’s degree from UVA is in Religious Studies so he can talk to anybody about any religion, and they remembered that we were Jewish so they had a zillion questions and it just kept going & going & going.

And going, until I reminded everybody that it was Shug’s bedtime…

Welllll…..I think the three of them could have talked all night, so I offered them to come back this week and have supper with us.

Y’all, I just tickle myself sometimes. One boy is from Utah and the other is from Washington state, so I thought I would show them how Southern Jews eat.

This is what I served:
Starters–
Matzoh ball soup
Tomato aspic

Main course–
Sage chicken and sausage
Mashed rutabagas
Collard greens
Deviled eggs
Potato salad
Watermelon pickles
Fried green tomatoes

Dessert–
White chocolate bread pudding

You should have seen their faces!! They had never seen such in all their lives, and I sent them home with great-big plates too.

We all had a good time. I think it’s just a good-natured cultural exchange. They are interested in our religion in the nicest way, and we asked them some questions that were really interesting too (like – what tenets/policies/etc of the LDS church does a person signify that they agree with to become baptized? One of the missionaries had a little book and read probably 12 or 15 questions that they ask someone before they can become a member of the church. Most of them were pretty obvious, but one of them was something like “are you now on probation or parole?” and if you are, you have to wait until you are out of trouble and a community member in good standing before you can join.).

One funny part was when they were telling us that they were at the church today talking to an “investigator” about joining. I said something like “oh, you had a policeman come by? I bet he has some interesting stories to tell.”…and they had to explain to me that an “investigator” was just someone who was “investigating” the church and its beliefs. Not a policeman. Oops!!

Well, anyway! It was nice. The boys spend two years being missionaries, and they send one letter home a week and can only call home twice a year. It has to be terribly lonely being so far away from family but they also expect it to be among the best two years of their lives. I can’t imagine how interesting it must be, just ringing doorbells and meeting people (although I didn’t ask but I’m sure they get a lot of slammed and unanswered doors too).

It was raining tonight and we drove them home. They talked the whole way about supper and how it was the best they had in ages.

Oh – and they just couldn’t figure out what watermelon pickles were! So funny.

A week or two ago, the New York Times ran a story about the perfect chocolate chip cookie. It was called “Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and has a Secret”- and there was even a show on NPR that did a piece on it, called “How to Bake a Better Chocolate Chip Cookie“. It turns out that people have gotten together and figured out that there are really two main things that make the ultimate CCC.

One is that the dough needs to rest up to 36 hours.

The other is that cookies need sea salt sprinkled on them just before baking.

Wellllll…I’m not big into chocolate. I mean, every now and then I will have a craving for a Hershey bar, but for the most part, that’s about it. Av on the other hand *loves* chocolate and of course chocolate chip cookies. Since the weekend was coming up, I thought I would pet him and try out the experiment in the article – is there really a difference in cookies right after they’re mixed, 12 hours after they’re mixed (and refrigerated), 24 hours, and 36 hours?

Guess what? There is! A big difference!

I made four cookies each time they were baked. I didn’t know for certain how many cookies my batch would make, and I wanted to make sure we had plenty for the last test. It turns out that we had plenty of cookie batter left so we froze the rest.

These were the best CCCs I have ever made. Ever. Ever-ever.

Okay, first here’s the recipe. Now the recipe in the NYT was Jacque Torres’ recipe, and I think it’s the same as the one on the Martha site from him, here. Mine is just something I’ve made for a long time, it’s probably based on three or four different ones. The original Toll House recipe is here. If you have your own favorite recipe, use that one and just do the two ‘tricks’ in the article – let the dough set in the refrigerator, and use sea salt on top before baking.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt (regular salt)
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
12 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 tbsp. vanilla
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1 bag (about 12 oz) milk chocolate chips
sea salt for sprinkling on unbaked cookies

Directions:
Oven temperature for these is 325*. Bake them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

In one bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and regular/table salt.

In the Kitchenaid, combine the cooled butter and brown and white sugar until fluffy -very thoroughly blended. Next, add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla:

Once that is incorporated, add the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips. Don’t overmix but get it well blended:

(new trick:) Let the dough rest in the refrigerator. Actually I like the cookie at 12 hours resting time best but Av thought they were better at 24 and best at 36 hours. Either way, they were fantastic. The more time the dough has been resting, the drier consistency it gets.

Roll them into a ball shape, give them plenty of room, and (other new trick:) sprinkle the dough with sea salt.

Bake about 16-18 minutes, although I start peeking at 12. If you take them out when they look slightly underdone, they’re best because they continue to cook just a bit once they’re out of the oven.

You can’t tell too much from this pic, but here they are at the four stages: 0 hours rest, 12, 24, and 36.

Yum!

Today I noticed a car park on the street across from our house and out popped a couple of LDS missionaries. Ordinarily I would have offered them in for a bottle of water, but Shug was asleep and I sure didn’t want him waking up from his nap early.

I walked outside and told them that I was glad to see them but that my baby was taking a nap and it wasn’t a good time for a visit; I hoped that they were having a good time in Alabama (the Church sends them from everywhere to different states so the ones visiting you may be from somewhere across the country); and “good luck with my neighbors, but we are Jewish”. Not that my neighbors ought to convert to LDS or anything…I guess I am just hoping those boys are met with kindness wherever they go.

I think all my close neighbors are Baptist and Methodist, except the man next door who is either Greek Orthodox or Lebanese Catholic (Maronite). Av knows which. They like to talk man-stuff out in the yard, like how the grass is growing and what needs to be sprayed and that kind of thing. He’s really a lovely older gentleman, except every now and then when he runs his leaf blower at 7am. He likes a well-groomed yard. Anyway.

The LDS Church is, to me, fascinating. How they send the young men out to spread their message as missionaries…their beliefs, like “forever families“, etc….and how they encourage setting aside Monday evenings as “family home evening“.

I guess in a way it is a little like Shabbat every week for us: emphasizing family time together and talking about Biblical history and lessons, generosity and kindness, and how to live an ethical, honorable life. Good things.