The Heart of the Party

There's soup bubbling on the burner, seven-bean with chicken and lime. There's a silver tray with a paper doily, stacked high with cheese: fontina, gruyere, a cheddar so smokey, it'll break your heart. Pastry. Bread.

Out in the garden, people are being people. They're talking, laughing, drinking. Crystal chatters as people toast; comments float through the kitchen windows. People are mellow, relaxed.

I'm in the kitchen cooking, keeping it coming, keeping it going. There's baked brie en croute; there are gougeres, raspberries tasting of the sun.

That's the secret to never throwing a bad party: how you use the food.

Damn, deb. I just ate and you're making me hungry.

there are gougeres

Oooh, are those the little cheese rolls? If so, I had some at Artesinal in NYC last year, and I nearly climaxed right there at the table.

Cooking drabble:

In my memories of Gram, she is standing at the wood-burning stove in her tiny West Virginia kitchen, one hand on her hip, her faded apron fastened around her waist. Always stirring, sniffing the air for the right aroma, testing the sauce for the necessary salt.

After raising fifteen children—six her own, six her second husband’s, three theirs together—it must have seemed there would never be enough food. Cooking must have been as elemental as breathing to her, the logical step upon waking. Light the stove, boil the water, make the coffee, break the eggs.

Feed the family.

The gougeres at Artisenal may be the best things I've ever eaten.

The gougeres at Artisenal may be the best things I've ever eaten.

Aren't they just? God, I love that place. A veritable temple of cheese.

Oooh, are those the little cheese rolls? If so, I had some at Artesinal in NYC last year, and I nearly climaxed right there at the table.

I serve them hot from the oven, and use Colette's recipe. Yes, indeed, the same gougeres. You should really come to a dinner party at my place sometime....

And that was a lovely, lovely drabble.

In my humble, etc, the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

Use sourdough bread. Lightly butter two slices, put sharp cheddar cheese between the unbuttered sides. Pre heat (over a low heat) a frying pan, put the sandwich in the pan. After a moment or two, start pressing (not too hard, but firmly) the sandwich into the pan with the spatula (a diner I know of uses a dish). Take a peek, is it golden? Flip the sandwich over and toast the other side, still giving it the occasional press with the spatula. When you see the cheese start to ooze, remove it from the pan, cut it in half, eat.

You do not need to butter the pan.

As always, the trick is the ingredients.

Long ago I put already cooked bacon in there. It was really too much flavor.

I have nothing to say about grilled cheese.

I do, however, have a history request. Where were we talking writing prior to GWW the first here? Did we have a WX GWW?

I'm trying to look up an old poem of mine that I'm pretty sure I posted somewhere in the Buffistasphere, but I can't remember where. Sometime in 2002, maybe. Anyway, it started out, "like blood, you are pervasive behind my eyes" and that's all I remember.

Blargh. I'm sick of being on the road. I know I have it in my notebook at home, but did I bring that notebook? No, I did not.

Another meaning of cooking.

Feast

"Ladies and gentlemen....

Showtime.

House lights are down, and here's the band. The frontman's got the mic in his hands like his lover's breast or his own dick, man, it's all about the rub and the power, the stand between his legs. The drummer's the heart of the mix, everything up to that, backbeat, high-hat, oh baby...

Bass and guitar, burning it up from the first note. And here's the keyboard, swelling deep and low, up the line to the high end until the crowd's weak in the knees, breathing hard, shaking their hip thing.

Oh yeah. They're cookin', now.