I had forgotten all about Bob Ross until a few months ago when Gabe reintroduced me to him via one of Ross's TV shows on PBS. He was a painter for years and his PBS show is still broadcast at various channels across the country.
Then today there was a charming and informative and quite amusing video about Bob Ross and his paintings in the New York Times. I am giving you the link to it here because it is worth watching for many reasons, one being the women at the Bob Ross Incorporated offices. And also for the two shots of Bob Ross and his squirrel.
It is going to be blistering hot this weekend and I anticipate long, sweaty shifts at work. But this video started my work week with a smile and for that I am grateful. Check it out.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/100000005865824/bob-ross-paintings-mystery.html?module=inline
Thanks to the cooperative efforts of my brothers Steve and Joe, there was a mini family gathering at Steve's house yesterday. Me, Steve, Kate, Joe and Donna brought food and wine and Pie and enjoyed a good dinner and outstanding laughter. We were outside on Steve's porch until the heat drove us inside, then back outside after dinner when the heat turned itself down a few notches.
We all know families whose members are estranged from each other. In our family, the six siblings often have squabbles, disagreements and sometimes real arguments. But so far we have been lucky: no one has walked away and severed the connection. As we get older, all in our 60's and one at 70, I think the importance of that connection becomes more tangible. Minor emotional infractions eventually fade away and we come back together.
And yes, as I said yesterday, family is not always about blood relatives but it is nice when those blood relatives can still be counted as family, not as strangers.
Enjoy your weekend.
My six kids took me out to dinner tonight to a very tiny and special place in Petaluma. The restaurant is down an alley, seats about 16 people max (we were a table of 7 and there were 4 others in the restaurant. Very small.) There is one menu with 4 courses and there are three options for each course. You can have your meal without wine or you can opt for the wine pairings. You don't bring in wine. You either have the wine pairings or you don't have wine. Some nights there is live music. Tonight was one of those nights. The food was amazing, the ambience is so intimate and special without being anything but casual and the owners were gracious, charming and generous.
When we left the owner gave me a bottle of 1973 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel. He GAVE me this bottle, no fanfare, no strings, he simply gave me the bottle of wine. As the seven of us were meandering out of the restaurant, onto the street, he followed us out and told us that the entire staff (which was him, his wife the chef, a sous chef and a helper) said that they wanted our group to be there every night, that's how much fun we were.
I cannot express in writing how much love there was at that table. My two kids Jenn and Gabe, my two other kids Annie and Dar and my additional daughter Stacey and her husband Ben, my extra son. (I don't think Ben knows that I think of him that way, but there you have it.)
Everyone of those kids is connected to each other in huge ways, every one of them would do anything for each other and I just got to sit there and revel in that connection and that love and know that they are my real life forever.
Family is exactly that: family is this person and that one and another one here and there. Family is who you can trust, family is who makes you feel like life is worth something. Blood has little to do with it other than sometimes that's where it starts, but that is never where family ends. It never ends, if you are lucky. Tonight I saw how lucky I am.
So, although I know they don't all read this, my giant love to Jenn, Gabe, Annie, Dar, Stacey and Ben, not just for an amazing dinner and wine and music and laughter, but for being my family. And for all that love.
xoxoxoxo long time, big time, all the time.
Not only is the cause a just and noble one, the photography is stunning. Yes, there are gaps in the narrative (like how did they afford all this from those silent few investors) but for a film on natural farming, for a movie with the cutest pigs ever, for a documentary about working the land, it's a really good movie.
A young couple decide to get investors, purchase 200 acres north of Los Angeles and turn a wasted plot of nothing into a thriving and possibly lucrative farm, using no pesticides, no fertilizer other than natural manure. The photography is gorgeous, the film is populated with lovely looking people and cool characters and those aforementioned piglets are almost worth the price of admission. How nature can be in balance and how the good and not-so-good can coexist and even be beneficial to each other is a great lesson in harmony. Harmony is something this country does not currently possess, so the movie is a small slice of hope in the future.
I would encourage you to see this. No, it is not perfect and yes there are some times when I felt a smirk on my face, but I have to say that there were a couple of tears in my eyes at the end, at the beauty of the cycle of life and death and the product that comes from a lot of hard work. (And a lot of money.) Even cynical Julie says "Two thumbs up."
It should be obvious, but sometimes it still surprises me that chopping, grating, mixing, sifting, slicing and dicing all create havoc in my kitchen. But yesterday I decided that I wanted to cook, mess or no mess. Cooking to me is not grilling a chicken or tossing together a simple pasta. That's not real cooking, it's just a simple meal. Cooking is getting into the ingredients and transforming them from a list of miscellaneous food items into something delicious and sometimes nutritious.
Cherries: as previously mentioned, I have a lot of them. I made a wonderful cherry salsa. That involved pitting the cherries, chopping them and red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, parsely, squeezing a lime. What a mess.
Dinner: a nice piece of fresh halibut was simply sauteed on the stove but what a mess that made as well, splatters all over the stove. But the cherry salsa was perfect with the fish.
Side veggies: sauteed a bit of the red onion and jalapeno, some diced red bell pepper, diced zucchini and corn sliced off the cob. A tiny squeeze of lime juice and it went perfectly with the main course. However, more chopping and slicing and more mess!
I need a maid or a housekeeper when I get this ambitious. But the dinner was very, very good, low fat, everything complimented everything else and since it had been a while since I did a production such as this, it all made me happy.
Tonight, more mess. After visiting two produce markets in two days, I have a ton of vegetables to cook so a stir-fry is in order. Baby bok choy, zukes, red peppers, onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro, broccoli, some sort of spicy sauce. I will feel righteous eating this dinner. Maybe it will be sort of like this only messier:
.... I could have bought two pounds of just picked zucchini! At the farmer's market in SR this morning to get my weekly portion of zesty arugula and some nectarines, I passed by one of the bakery stands and realized I had not had a decent croissant since I was in France in December. Zut alors! I knew the croissants from Costeaux bakery were terrible but I was interested in those from some woman's bakery (whose name I immediately forgot). Croissants in France are ubiquitous, of course, but they are not all equal. Some are thin and very crispy on the outside, some are fat and less crispy and doughy inside, some taste like butter and some don't. I think the best one I had was from a tiny window-shop bakery in Marseilles. Perfect: barely warm, very flaky and crisp and the inside was tender but not doughy. It cost one euro, about a dollar.
The croissant this morning was quite large. The outside was crisp but not enough for me and the inside was too doughy for me. Now, other people might LOVE this croissant and I am glad I bought it but the nameless woman baker will not be getting any more of my business. The cost? FOUR DOLLARS! Seriously! Merde!
Another thing about the FM is the pricing of the wonderful produce. Zucchini range from $2 - $4 per pound! That's a huge difference in price and come on, it is squash after all. $4 per pound seems way too high, especially since every single zucchini I saw looked exactly the same. None had gold leaf, none had jewels, they were all plain green zukes. Needless to say, I got the ones that were $2 per pound. Same thing on the nectarines. My favorite Mexican guys were selling them for $3.00 per pound, which is pricey but they are perfect! Other stands had them for $2.50 - $5.00 per pound. It boggles my mind.
See, they all look the same. They will all taste the same. Some just have a higher opinion of themselves, I suppose.
It has been WEEKS since I have written. Too much work and the drama that work creates. Too much hot, hot weather which sucks energy and motivation right out of my pores. Too much bizarre stuff happening in the universe right now, keeping me off balance, cranky, short tempered and moody. There must be a misalignment of the stars because my Gemini tendencies are fracturing even more than usual so I feel like 5 or 6 different people, not just the two sides of me that are normally present.
Whatever it is, it hasn't been a good three weeks for written reflection. Suffice it to say that you, dear reader, have not missed anything. I have seen no good movies, read nothing extraordinary, cooked anything worth talking about except a cherry clafouti made with buttermilk that was damned tasty. (My neighbor has a cherry tree; I have a lot of cherries right now.)
Last week was spent at Jenn and Dar's place in Guerneville, watching the house and dogs while they were on vacation. House sitting is a strange thing: since it is not your home but since you still have to carry on with your every day life, it isn't like being on vacation but it does induce a slothful frame of mind. "Hey, it's not my house, I don't need to clean the floor." I had a five minute commute to work, which was nice. There is a pool there which was delightful on those roasting hot days when I got home from work. Dar is the operation manager for a high-end Sonoma winery so there was no end of good wine to drink. An old friend came from Grass Valley for a visit, I hadn't seen Kara in several years, so that was a treat. And Dar left her Jeep for me drive, open air, bouncy as hell and such fun.
Now I have Hannah, Gabe and Annie's dog. (June is my month of dogs, it seems.) Hannah is a sweet, lovely, neurotic girl who stands by my bed at 6:45 and sings to me, trying to entice me to get out of bed. (She sounds like Chewbacca from the Star Wars movies.) Hannah has "special" food like real ground beef and canned pumpkin for her digestion. Cooper loves when Hannah stays over because it means he gets something other than plain dry food.
That's all. (See, I told you it was a boring life.) I will write again soon and maybe I will have something more to say than the above drivel. Thanks for tuning in.
