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Beets and Winston Churchill
Nov. 14th, 2012 07:15 amI was deeply saddened by Sabine's news… breast cancer. One wants to throw some sort of Mantle of Protection over the Good People. It's very frustrating that one can't. I was thinking yesterday that I'm not attached to being alive in the slightest. I don't mean I'm depressed — although I do think I am working waaay too hard. My ground state,as I've noted before, is a kind of detachment that many might describe as melancholy, though I personally don't. There are many beautiful moments, pleasant moments. But if the plug got pulled tomorrow, I wouldn't care. Why can't I trade that, give the gift of being alive to someone who would treasure it more than I do?
Speaking of pleasant moments – Allan and Cassandra cooked this meal last night that was beyond spectacular. Started with a beet salad with goat cheese, caramelized walnuts and a balsamic vinaigrette, and proceeded to homemade taquitos. Insanely good. Quick caramelizing trick for the walnuts: Toast them and then when they're still warm, saturate them with pure maple syrup. I suppose technically that's not caramelizing.
I fell on those beets like a starving person. I suppose there was some nutrient in them that my body just craved.
I've been reading biographies of Winston Churchill. Not really sure how I got onto this kick. There is an ancient library book on Cassandra's shelves about the Churchills that traces the family back to their first investiture in nobility back in the times of Queen Anne. It's a very odd family, made up mostly of dullards, boors and mean, vindictive people. Evelyn Waugh's famous quip – "It was a typical triumph of modern science to find the one part of Randolph which was not malignant and to remove it" – was actually made about Winston's son.
Once every 100 years or so, however, the family produced someone who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Such a person was Winston Churchill.
History has a way of creating the forces it needs to move in certain directions. There are very few human beings who buck the trend. But I honestly believe that Winston Churchill was one of the few human beings who actually shaped history. Without Winston Churchill, I think Hitler would have conquered Europe. World culture would have devolved into Hitler's peculiar Wagnerian blend of nightmare. Churchill singlehandedly saved Western Civilization, as we know it.
Speaking of pleasant moments – Allan and Cassandra cooked this meal last night that was beyond spectacular. Started with a beet salad with goat cheese, caramelized walnuts and a balsamic vinaigrette, and proceeded to homemade taquitos. Insanely good. Quick caramelizing trick for the walnuts: Toast them and then when they're still warm, saturate them with pure maple syrup. I suppose technically that's not caramelizing.
I fell on those beets like a starving person. I suppose there was some nutrient in them that my body just craved.
I've been reading biographies of Winston Churchill. Not really sure how I got onto this kick. There is an ancient library book on Cassandra's shelves about the Churchills that traces the family back to their first investiture in nobility back in the times of Queen Anne. It's a very odd family, made up mostly of dullards, boors and mean, vindictive people. Evelyn Waugh's famous quip – "It was a typical triumph of modern science to find the one part of Randolph which was not malignant and to remove it" – was actually made about Winston's son.
Once every 100 years or so, however, the family produced someone who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Such a person was Winston Churchill.
History has a way of creating the forces it needs to move in certain directions. There are very few human beings who buck the trend. But I honestly believe that Winston Churchill was one of the few human beings who actually shaped history. Without Winston Churchill, I think Hitler would have conquered Europe. World culture would have devolved into Hitler's peculiar Wagnerian blend of nightmare. Churchill singlehandedly saved Western Civilization, as we know it.
