Warming Oven

One of my best decisions when we remodeled our Berkeley kitchen was to insist on a Warming Oven. I almost always eat a cold lunch, usually ham and Camembert on a piece of baguette, plus 3 prunes, an apple (of which one-quarter is passed along to my wife), and a small piece or two of dark chocolate. But I prefer a hot meal for supper, and that goes in our warming oven, at half the maximum heat. I like to have the evening's wine open and poured--we usually take to evenings per bottle--before my warm plate is put in front of me. Barbara prefers to call it a "Warming Drawer": either way, it's great for keeping cooked food warm, until we are ready to serve it. In Colorado, we have a different system: a shelf above the stove has two sides, each with controls for heat and light. It does a good job of keeping food warm, but there's no way to vary the temperature: the heat is either on or off. It's a minor difference, but I slightly prefer the warming oven. On the other hand, in Colorado it is always obvious if a dish is being kept warm. In Berkeley, sometimes I find that food left in the oven, in case someone wants a second helping, is left there overnight, and I find dried-out food when I open the warming oven to heat up the breakfast plates.

Splice

As I was thinking about writing this blog, I decided to ask my wife if she knew what the word meant. "Cut", she said. "No", I replied, "quite the reverse: it means to join two parts." "It also means 'cut', she told me. "My parents would speak of a splice of bread." Since Barbara's wonderful parents were Norwegian immigrants, it was perfectly understandable that they would confuse "splice" with "slice". Many folk have heard the phrase "Splice the mainbrace", and know that it is a naval term, traditionally calling for an issue of rum to celebrate a victory or some royal occasion of joy, such as a wedding, a jubilee, or the birth of a child. Wikipedia has a pretty good article, but flubs the naval term for a half-holiday: it's a "make and mend" day, not a "mend and make". That term stems from the days when the seamen would need to spend some time repairing their clothing. The mainbrace on a "square rigged" sailing ship is the cordage which controls the "yards" carrying the sails. It needs to be very strong--the mainbrace in HMS Victory is five inches in diameter. A sailing ship is helpless if the sails cannot be "trimmed" because of a break in a mainbrace. Most breaks occurred in battle: the "running rigging" was a favorite target of an enemy's cannons. It was vital for repairs to be made as soon as possible, and splicing heavy cordage was hard work. A warship's bosun would put his best seamen to the task. It became the custom to reward those men with an extra tot of "grog"-one-third rum, and two-thirds water. (The bosun would usually take "sippers" from each portion for his work of supervising the repair. A less-well-known Naval expression, remembered from my youth is "Different ships, different long splices", simply meaning that not every action had to be undertaken in the same "Admiralty pattern" way. That was a beam of tolerance in the grey of conformity which is a necessary part of a disciplined armed service.

Slow Clap

When I began acting in dramatic productions at Oxford, it was a fixed principle that the curtain went up at precisely eight minutes after the advertized time. It was explained that those who were punctual would accept that delay, whereas the perennially unpunctual would almost always have made it into their seats at that time. I went along with the system, but I chafed at the idea. I much prefer it when the curtain goes up on time. Fortunately, many theaters, including the tiny Aurora Theatre (yes, they use the British spelling!) to which we have subscribed for many years, have a place where latecomers can hear the play. They are allowed to take there seats at the first intermission--but many plays are acted without an intermission, or are written with a long first act. This isn't really a problem for us, as we take good care to arrive in plenty of time. I dislike long intermissions, especially when the seem to be dragged out to sell more refreshments. In the UK, when there was an inordinate delay, the waiting audience would sometimes break out into a song, featuring only one short lyric"Why are we waiting?" Another expression of irritation which I have occasionally heard in the U.S, but which was more common n the UK when I lived there many years ago, was the "Slow Clap". We would clap our hands in unison, allowing about two seconds between claps. It was a sort of unspoken form of sarcasm. Occasionally, it would induce an explanation for the delay, such as a car breakdown delaying a soloist or essential actor. It was easier to tolerate the delay when there was a good reason for it.

Collective Economics

Although Berkeley's "Gourmet Ghetto" has lost its Charcuterie and Cocolat, the venerable Cheese Board is still there, its finances bolstered by its adjacent offshoot that serves ready-to-eat pizza five days a week The Cheese Board is a "Collective", meaning that its employees all have a voice in decision-making. It seems to work. One of the hallowed features of the Cheese Board has been its policy of allowing discounts to those over 60. Starting with 5% off, the percentage increased every few years. At 100, "What you see is what you get"--in other words, it was free. We could fantasize about reaching that age, and proudly taking advantage of the system. Barbara & I enjoyed those discounts: we were 20% off in our eighties. All this is in the past, because the discount program was discontinued on October 1. I'll miss it, but I think the Collective made the right decision. Ingredient costs have risen somewhat, but the prices haven't changed. Most of the largely middle-class retired customers are doing better financially than many of the younger crowd. Even without the discount, the price is reasonable, and the variety of cheese is impressive. Some ready-wrapped cheese can be picked up and paid for, but most buyers enjoy the tradition of having a small taste of the selected cheese before buying it. We also love the vegetarian pizza, the English muffins, and the baguettes. Yes, we'll continue to patronize the Cheese Board as long as we are able to do so..

Second Thoughts

I don't make New Year's resolutions normally. If I convince myself that I need to make a change, why wait until the next year? But I do think that my very recent understanding of how my style varies from that of my dear wife could be considered a Resolution. I might word it as follows: Don't assume Barbara's first response is her "final answer". This is the politer version of stating that it's a woman's privilege to change her mind. I err in the other direction. When I make up my mind--normally very quickly--I seldom change it, and when I do, it is usually after a long internal struggle. Sometimes, I think it's a miracle that we are still together after over 40 years. ( I am certainly not alone in this wonderment...) Happily, we still love each other, and are usually publicly tolerant of each other's shortcomings. (In private, we do communicate robustly about the other's failings...) I usually make the choice of the breakfast dish, leaving the choice of fruit (cut, raw, or smoothie) to Barbara. As for the main course at dinner, I like to know what we'll be eating in advance, so that I can choose the wine and set the table appropriately. So I am inclined to ask "What's for dinner?". What I need to do is to eliminate the assumption that Barbara's first response is immutable. I am trying to do just that this year.

Reading Matter--Part ll

Since childhood, after being taught to read by my elder sister when I was four, I've enjoyed the work of many authors. Because I was reading well above the level of my contemporaries at my first school, I was privileged to read aloud The Water Babies, by Charles Kingsley, to the Head Mistress in her study. (I didn't really like the story!) At home, having graduated from Beatrix Potter, I really loved the animal stories of the Canadian writer, Thornton W. Burgess, and the series of books by Arthur Ransome, beginning with Swallows & Amazons. (These stories have also been enjoyed by one of my sons and his daughters.) I was lucky enough to move to a (British-style) boarding prep school at the age of 8, and it featured a well-stocked library. I enjoyed the adventure tales of Percy F. Westerman; The Saint stories by Leslie Charteris; and the novels of John Buchan, to whom we were introduced by Harold Elbourne, our wonderful Math teacher. (At the end of one term in 1938, he read The Thirty-Nine Steps aloud to us.) I also enjoyed C.S Forester's Horatio Hornblower Naval novels. I'm a bit ashamed to report that I haven't read most of Dickens, preferring Jane Austen, Trollope, and Thackeray. I keep a record of the books I read, and I am hooked on anything by my fellow Lincoln College alum (David Cornwell), who uses the pen name of John Le Carré. Also Laurie R. King, Patrick O'Brian, and Patricia Cornwell.

Guest Blog

This week I am yielding this space for my weekly blog to my wife, Barbara Renton. Here is a letter she sent to a local paper, which is unlikely to publish it: In the late 1950s, I was living with my children in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One day I walked out of the front of our house and was greeted by our next door neighbor. She said “Barbara, I feel so much safer now that Harold has gotten me a gun for when he is gone.” My immediate reply, aware of my young children and her baby and two year old daughter was “Marge, don’t have a gun around the house!” She became angry and went into her home. I was sorry that I had spoken so forcefully. Six months later, Marge, her nine month old baby and her two and a half year old daughter were shot by her husband. Harold then phoned the police, and told them what he had done. Two and a half months later, he committed suicide in prison. Previously, I had learned when I lived briefly in Texas that a police officer’s teenage son was killed because he had shown his friend his father’s gun, and his friend had shot him accidentally. At that time, I made the decision never to have a gun around the house. There have been a couple of times in our long marriage when I’ve gotten angry with my husband that I’ve wondered, if I kept a gun in the house would I use it? We’re both very thankful that I don’t own a gun. The Sandy Hook tragedy brings to light how imperative is the need for gun control. These tragedies happen every day. We cannot let more time pass. The time is now.