The Cast of Characters & Quick Guide to the Story

Sunday, August 28, 2011

What Are You Going to do Next?

I'm going to be very very busy. I've got so many different lists. One for all the things I want to do in New York this week. I've got another list of food tricks I want to try:

1. Sous vide - it seems like the kind of thing every chef should know
2. Pop Tarts - can't really explain why, but I still want to try this...
3. Yoghurt - I mean, if Smith can go home and do it...
4. Paneer - Again, if the woman in Trader Joe's makes it all the time...
5. Ricotta
6. Petit choux
7. Homemade dumpling wrappers
8. I want to cook a lobster... I never have!
9. Jello shots
10. Fried rice noodles like in Mee Grob

I've got the list of things I'd like to do someday. Not The Bucket List; it's the "would be nice to do" rather than "is necessary to do" list:

1. Build something: a tree house, a boat house, a garage, something...
2. Cross the Atlantic or the Pacific in a sailboat
3. Learn to play the cello, or, even better, the viola de gamba
4. Have a garden
5. Be self-sustaining (except for meats and grains and dairy)
6. Own my own business
7. Visit Shanghai, Vietnam, Bruges, Egypt, Morocco, Buenos Aires, Corsica and New Zealand
8. Live for at least one month in Italy, preferably Rome
9. Learn to speak another language as well as I speak Swedish. (I'm thinking Spanish might be my best bet.)
10. See a blue whale

And, then of course there's the list you might be interested in - the real reason you clicked this link. Because you're one of those people who keeps asking: But what are you going to do now that you don't have a job? Now that you don't have ten mouths to feed three times a day?

Today I ran to Petoskey and rented a bike, then biked 18 miles to Charlevoix and back. On a lawn in Charlevoix (do you sense a lawn theme in my life?), I alternated between napping and reading another thirty pages from The Long Way. Then I went into a place called Whitney's and ate at a bar that was made out of the hull of a wooden boat. 

And I as I sat there, enjoying my beer, I worked on my list...

Sunday's Menu
Lunch
Leftover Thai curry - just as delicious the second time
Dinner
Six Malpeque oysters and delicious mussels cooked in sherry and butter with garlic, parsley and tomatoes. A pint of the house ale. Sometimes the simplest things are really the best...
After-dinner
Fries at It's Knot Just a Bar in Bar Harbor, where Seth #2 and Eve (and some local captain) all bought me a round of whiskey

6 comments:

  1. Ah Charlevoix, land of my childhood summer camping trips to Young State Park, lake where I learned to sail with my dad, town where we'd go to watch a movie when it was pouring rain and my folks needed a break from us rampaging in the huge green tent. I had many Charlevoix T-shirts as a kid, most with sailboats on them. Buy one!

    And, in the overlapping life lists category, if you come up and help G and I build our cabin next summer, we can all go to Morocco in the fall (it's next on our international list...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Who are you? Is this CB? If so, you're on. I'm totally game for cabin building and Morocco!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, it's me, I forgot to sign! CB it is. Let's start the plan. You can live in the yurt while we build and we can take turns cooking. Tonight, we had razor clams (we dug them this summer!) and shallots on pasta with herbs and new broccoli. Come on up!
    CB

    ReplyDelete
  4. seriously? you've never made jello shots? try lime jello w tequila for margarita shots
    2. yay poptarts
    3. i got yogurt made from raw milk as my starter, like from the dairy farm itself (tho i'm sure a farmers market would have some)
    5. make farmers cheese or queso fresco and witht he whey simmer it down for the ricotta curds!
    8...but you eat lobsta right?!?!?!
    1-10. yessssss

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have a friend who has a cousin that builds boats in upstate NY. Let me know if you want a hook-up!
    -iz

    ReplyDelete
  6. Paneer - super easy, I have a very simple recipe, only tried it once but it worked out quite well... :) /Kimi

    ReplyDelete