I'm in the quiet stillness of almost 3 in the morning. I'm not well rested and it doesn't seem I will be for tomorrow either, but there is the sad hope of catching a few hours of rest during dinner time. And why not?

A Separate Peace by John Knowles
One of the first novels I read critically, analytically - and that I hated at first, but grew to enjoy after the weariness of the first few chapters (like in most novels) wore off. A lot can be said about the setting and theme and how it's so very close to Great American Novel material, but tonight I think about the instinct we have in us to destroy - that we can push our friends off the branch, and watch them fall back down to the earth.

Droll Stories by Honore de Balzac
I found this book in a perfect used book store in Duluth. I've been there twice, with Renae, while visiting with her family, but she says it's closed now and I wonder what has happened to all of the books? Were they bought up by some other used book store, or are they sitting somewhere in the dusty dark, listed on Amazon or half.com, and hoping to be shipped off to some young punk or chick's waiting hands, ready to turn the pages carefully, and to mind the crackling sound an old spine makes. I regret to say I've yet to read a story from this collection, though I'm very much inclined to augmenting my semi-often droll days with droll stories, or droll music.

Great Plains by Ian Frazier
A required text for last semester's Advanced Composition with Schaap. Frazier basically travels in his van - staying in at times, checking into hotels at others - and chronicles his journey alongside those of the other people who have lived in the sprawling sea that is the untouched American landscape: Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado etc. Non-fiction and, personally, a testament to the power and value of passionate, individual, story-hungry interests. One the first day of Spring Break, before we venture to Chicago and I meet with my brothers, I'm taking my dad to Omaha early in the morning, and driving back in time to depart from Sioux Center. At the moment, I'm looking forward to that drive back more than anything else.

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alec Prud'homme
A friend called to tell me the news that Child was a spy during her time in France. Crazy. And I learned to make hollandaise.

Mythology by Edith Hamilton
My Ancient World Lit. professor at Calvin College recommended this book to me as we sat in her office when I came in freaking out and bursting of dependency because I couldn't find the sanity to tie my thoughts on The Aeneid together, right before discussing life in Iowa (the course was an offered summer program that I attended after my first year in Sioux Center) and, I remember this, she had lived in Pella and loved it and raised her eyes as she described how the wind blows and the grass waves and... ... ... at least five years later, I found this text in the annual library book tent. It's a straight-forward guide to the characters of Greek and Roman mythology.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
It's lovely and illogical that, while one character basically exists to give to the other, both are happy. The tree doesn't crawl about, trying to have the boy show some gratitude or reverence at all. The tree doesn't hesitate to invite the boy to play in its shade or climb up its branches or eat its apples and neither does it falter when the boy declines, opting instead to leave the shade, cut off the branches and sell the apples.

Six random books - one from each of the six shelves to my right, watching over me as I sit at my desk. I've come to find that I'm gradually losing my ability to push along as I stay up at night. I'm awake, as awake as I've always been, but the obligations of the hours with the sun aren't as forceful as they have been in previous semesters and years. Is this growing up? That time and efforts are inadvertently managed for duty and stillness?

One Ingredient

I've added more blogs to the thing on the right there... I've been meaning to do that, to update it, for a long time now... and it was just spurred by Dee's new URL... ...which I've been meaning to do too for a long time - I mean really, there has to be a better address for this blog than what it currently is Come On! - but I've been too chicken to change it up for fear of losing any regular readers... I know there are some of you out there... but I can't really tell because the stalking feature doesn't really do that - ALSO because you're not commenting... ... so the bulk of the encouragement I'm able to glean for writing at all comes from...

• Friends telling me to blog more,
• Friends telling me that their mom really liked my last post,
• Pastor Herm telling me, without fail, that he enjoys my writing whenever he sees me
• ...and a comment... which is response... which means Hooray!
• Also, the stalk feature, but that's just numbers and Haha! people googled the lyrics to Total Eclipse of the Heart and found my blog! Ha! Also, a quick shout-out to my Canadian readers. Whooohooo! AND, on a few different occasions, people have googled 'jessica beimers' and have found my blog... ... which weirds me out. Mrs. Beimers, is that you? I don't think I've actually said Jessica Beimers in this blog until now...
  

WHAT was I going to say...?

Oh that's right. From watching Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain do what I wouldn't mind doing for post-Dordt days... sip wine and slowly enjoy tapas with some eloquent, learned chefs and talk about food... here... I asked my family tonight to pick one essential ingredient to use in every meal for the rest of their lives. NOT, mind you, one food item to eat alone for the rest of your life, but one ingredient to use - one that you cannot go without.

Mom: Rice. (I do not doubt that she would eat rice with every meal, if she had the chance, so this doesn't surprise me.)
Dad: Cow. (Clever man...)
Jinny: Rice cake (She's a high school girl, leave her alone.)
Paul: "Ikura... or... wait, is cow one ingredient? Then I choose blue whale." (I thought, for sure, that he would choose sea urchin.)
Me: Eggs.
David: "I'm with you. Eggs. Wait. Dad said cow? I say pig!"

Eggs are comforting, familiar yet versatile and either 1) allows dishes to exist - for body, flavor or as a binding agent or 2) elevates well-thought out dishes to ass kickin' dishes JUST by adding a poached/fried egg on top. Resourceful roommate extraordinaire Matty K manages to supply the apt. with farm fresh eggs from the lovely Wesselius family farm just outside of town. The eggs are delivered to our door every week it seems (it is less?). The last dish with egg that I had was a hummus sandwich, on toasted bread, with spring greens (from HyVee), balsamic vinegar/olive oil dressing and a lightly fried egg. I freaked out.

(I almost, almost said green onion because there is probably nothing more visually, and often sensually, perfect to use as a garnish on a lovely dish than chopped scallions. SO simple! But I refrained because sometimes it doesn't work - that bright onion flavor, even IF the color is damn near flawless - and when it doesn't work, dear reader, it really doesn't work. I'm telling you that it often does, and I'm not going to abandon the green onion anytime soon and it really brightens up a sauce too, but it shouldn't go on everything and the things it shouldn't go on, it REALLY shouldn't go on. Eggs too, but not to the same all-caps severity.)

Someone my brother was hanging out with when I asked him said salt. Completely true, and smart, given that anything she eats for the rest of her life can be... basically anything. Salt brings out the flavor of all that it is added to. In countless ways, salt actually makes food edible. So... another clever answer, and maybe a geeky one, but kind of boring too.

Paul Hanaoka said... either garlic (which I got excited for) or olive oil (WHICH I briefly considered using too).

What about you? Ground beef!? Greek seasoning!? Organic mango sorbet!? Heirloom tomatoes!?

I howled, laughed and cheered tonight. None of us this is alien to me, you know this, but I had a lot of fun at T/X tonight. And why not? Magic, dance, mixed storytelling, music, music, music, music and a fair amount of electric guitars. It was difficult to keep from comparing it all to that one T/X when we were juniors at Unity, and we went to the auditorium when it was packed, bulging at the seams and EVERYONE was howling, laughing and cheering on their feet. Again, why not? Events like T/X are for people to come be thrilled and have a good time. Just for example, Ephron and Wendy gave a raw, intimate and lovely performance that relied, I think, on the minimalism style of performance - minimal spotlights, two microphones.
But remember that one performance of White Snake's Here I Go Again ? Dozens of people flying all over the stage, color streaming out of them, the audience up on their feet, gaping with their eyes blasted open as if fireworks were exploding in the skies, and LOUD MUSIC. It's a different memory than what happened tonight.
This year's T/X was a lot of fun and my voice will be gravely for the rest of the week but YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES, reader. You watch a performance and cheer, howl, laugh and refrain from screaming out, "Yeah! Fuckin' right!" and you imagine a light show, interpretive dancers, people shakin' their asses in the pews (a blasphemous thought, I know) and you think about how much fun that would be. Theatrics, man; I wanted a show tonight.

-

Another response to Slumdog Millionaire.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/185798

17) I don't get mad about this anymore, but when people don't like delicious food, I get kind of miffed. That whole "Fine. More for me!" attitude is not how I roll. Please, please, please try a mushroom. Just taste one. This, strangely enough, does not call for the guilt trip (and I'm all about the guilt trip). I don't know. Food - preparation and consumption - is a sacred practice and, I say doubly so when you share with loving people. Bourdain once compared the primal satisfaction of creating food for others to enjoy to that of giving oral sex. OK!

-One of twenty-five things that I wrote about myself on facebook.

Today was Valentine's Day and, moreso, it was Italian food and Frank Sinatra night. We gathered in the small kitchen in our apartment, Paul, Christina and I having had delegated the dishes, sharing the role of chef (Christina was closest to pastry chef; Paul to saucier; I, as it was my kitchen, the expo) and Adam and Travis playing prep cooks. Lots of fun and cramped spaces and calling out, "Travis! Do you have two hands?! Can you stem the oregano?!"

The full menu:

stuffed Baby Bella mushrooms with feta and goat cheese, garnished with green onion (Paul)
bruschetta on rosemary toasted pita (Christina)

One of the best pesto I've ever tasted w/ angel hair pasta(Paul
A simple tomato sauce with Italian sausage w/ angel hair pasta(self)
garlic bread (self)

angelfood tiramisu (Christina)
Cabernet Pinotage - Sebeka 2007
Green tea

While we were cooking, Adam made a comment about Bourdain's oral sex comparison and we all decided to speak plainly, like adults, with Travis nodding furiously. I'd like to do the same here. Preparing food for someone is, I'll say it again, a sacred act that engages every sense, perhaps one more than the rest, but every one of them with every bite.
When the tomato sauce was just coming together, having had started with sauteed onion (already one of the best smells in the world), chopped garlic and canned tomatoes (it's February, and they were naturally prepared), with small doses of Mediterranean olive oil at each phase, a few spoonfuls of Paul's pesto along with fresh basil, oregano and just a little rosemary, and the beautifully efficient noise it makes when all it needs then is to work the flavors out and together, attuning them with salt and pepper, with the steam slowly, steadily rising from the pot, and you close your eyes and breathe it in, the sauce growing darker and darker, more luxuriously red, and it smells like history.
That's what I thought when I smelled it today, right before yelling at everybody else to smell it too. As rich and complex and bold as history, as the story of entire countries and generations of culture - simmering away on a pot in an apartment with five college students in Northwest Iowa. And there were smiles.
All of that, in just one element of one dish of one meal, prepared with the intention of the diner to sense - hear, see, smell, taste, feel - and, with the first bite, to stop and savor, as it nourishes the body and keeps it running, keeps it alive.
Joel Veldkamp once said, over dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in Des Moines, that food is proof to him that God exists because of the beauty of something that can taste so good, to also be necessary for your ongoing existence.
In regards to that, in regards to tomato sauce, in regards to comparing it all to giving oral sex to someone you love, to sitting with friends you love to eat food that you all had a hand in preparing, and not being able to imagine it would taste so fucking good, I hope that, if you're reading this, that you can enjoy what we did tonight. And, especially if you have friends and family over, to relish in providing for them. I mean that completely - if people are eating food that you prepared, you better own that.
We made too much food, even with Matty arriving early and Bailey arriving late, there are jars of gorgeous leftovers. There is an abundance.

One more.

I came home one evening and saw, in the lobby of Covenant's first floor, that Laura and Neal were hanging out. I approached them with tired shoulders and, they looked up with smiles.
"Are you guys dating now?" I asked.
They said yes, still smiling, and I went inside to my apartment to prop open the door and play soft jazz music.
It wasn't too far into the fall semester, I still had a few handfuls of pear tomatoes that had been growing in my backyard plot. Slicing them in half, seasoning with salt and a small amount of pepper, and dousing with olive oil, in the oven to roast slowly, for a long time, and the sugars develop in them, the chemistry of the flavors dance more boldly and, really, I could eat these plain all year long - they're that good.
Toasted pita, a rich goat cheese, a sprinkle of Italian basil-infused olive oil (the basil grew on the front porch over the summer and smells better, more romantic, than hugging a girl), and a few tomatoes. Nothing complicated, really but every ingredient of this night time snack, shared with two friends who have decided to begin an intimate, trusting, terrifying and exciting relationship, every ingredient carefully chosen and applied to a taste that I still remember vividly so many months after.
To play around with after - figs, goat cheese, balsamic vinegar. I've said this too much already, but I love figs. I love goat cheese. I love balsamic vinegar. Imagine how that all works together.

"I can't stress enough how despondent graduate students in the humanities often are at this point. They're some of the most admirable people to be found in their generation. With their prestigious undergraduate degrees, their splendid grades and board scores, they could go on to big-money careers in business and law. But they refuse. They want to study something that they're passionate about. Yet over time, almost all of them see that to thrive in the profession, they must make themselves marketable, and that often means betraying themselves. It means picking a subject that fits into the current conformity. It means spending years writing things that, on some deep level, they do not believe to be true."

-Mark Edmundson

Blogging

There was a good amount of time in my life when I would write anything, anything, anything at all on here. But tonight there are some things that I don't want to be read by anybody who manages to find themselves on this minuscule, digital space of bad writing and unstoppable opinion barfing. So, here's this instead.

Revolutionary Road was brutal and just fantastic.
High Fidelity is still my hang-out movie.
How To Lose Friends and Alienate People is very funny so far.
Slumdog Millionaire was overrated... but that shouldn't keep you from taking your girlfriend out to see it.