After we talked, I went into the kitchen and made a big pot of soup from the leftover turkey. I don't imagine you know how often I think of you in the kitchen...so I thought I should tell you. Because of you, I . . .
1. Choose the glass with the thinnest rim
2. Use little silver spoons to stir my coffee every morning
3. Resist making a dinner that has more than two main parts (meat & vegetable; eggs and toast) (this is not to say that I never make that meal with all the many layers of appetizer, entree, salad, and desert...only that I resist it. Too many leftovers for one thing - now that the house is home to only two)
4. Whenever I go out to eat, I ALWAYS ask for my "doggy bag" and I take the tidbits and freeze them in tiny ziplock bags. Then, every so often, I take a little chicken stock and pour it in a pan, add the little bits of this and that, and see what happens (sometimes a little Parmesan cheese is slivered across the top with a bit of freshly ground pepper for added depth)
5. Keep a mug of 'tasting spoons" right next to the stove
6. Carry my little set of silverware with me wherever I go (I used to take it on airplanes, but someone told me that homeland security would think my silver butter knife might be a weapon...so only on road trips - like to the grocery store, the farmer's market, the library - you just never know when you might need a little repast)
7. Take the first sip of a martini with a reserved enthusiasm (one wouldn't want to look too eager) but yes, tip my head a little and say "mmmm - what a brilliant thing to do with olives!"
8. Serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a smaller plate (less to wash and I can always go back for more)
9. And in the case of Turkey Soup, resist the urge to load it up with anything more than carrots, celery, and onion - with a light dusting of freshly chopped parsley
10. Oh, and because of you and that little restaurant in Santa Fe where we sat in the warm sun and ate the finest Mushroom Soup in all the world - I am endlessly trying to replicate it. Have one good recipe - but it is not like what we tasted that day!
I write this to you now because who knows when we will see one another and when we do, how much time we will have to remember - there is always so much happening in the now that we might forget to reminisce in this way. You are not alone late a night when the house is all quiet and the past comes back for a midnight screening. I do it too. I often wonder if I will ever stop remembering the house in Connecticut - that crazy wooden bridge and the dinners that Dad and Pat carried out of that tiny kitchen! And not just there - what about the other meals in and out of their homes: the Bistro in Bronxville (does it still exist?), lunch at El Rodeo in Brightleaf? Chinese at the restaurant next to the Fabric Store on Hillsborough? The Russian Tea Room in New York? Brasserie? All these places that they introduced to me and so many more.
I had dinner at El Rodeo this week - and dinner at the Chinese Restaurant last month. I went to New York in October and had two meetings at Brasserie 81/2 on West 57th Street. Wouldn't Dad love that? Drinks one day and lunch the next in all that mod decor ... who would have thought?
We carry the past with us in a million little ways, enriching everything about the now.
More as I think of it...and more as I remember.
Always yours,
Amanda
Reposted to correct a typo...so hard to resist a deeper edit - but I will leave things as they are (19 Dec 2010)
