Herban Sprawl

22 October 2009

It’s fall housecleaning time around here. Owing to a general inability to deal with the mountains of accumulata, this process is lengthy and unnecessarily painful. However, it’s a good time to get it out of here.

My particular downfall is clipping recipes. I have a new stack of them to deal with, but at least the magazines themselves went off to be recycled today. And, thanks to a very lovely week, weatherwise, the front yard is getting cleaned up on an intermittent basis. I had intended to indulge in more of that today, but instead found myself squirreled away in the kneewall storage. The last time I did an overhaul of that area was probably five years ago. Stephanie helped me, which was good. She kicked butt and took no prisoners. Today I hauled out some boxes of goodies that need to be gone through, made room for other items that had been jammed in there, and cleaned out the coffins of out-of-season clothes.

It was dusty work, difficult - thanks to the cramped space (you have to crawl in on all fours), and generally took a lot longer than I might have liked. However, the space is much more tidy and I used my spiffy labeling machine to make easy to read labels of the collection of Rubbermaids in there. I worship at the foot of the Rubbermaid Goddess!

Cheri called while I was attempting to put the puzzle pieces back together, and patiently waited while I put down the phone, juggled a Rubbermaid here and there, then congratulated me on each victory. Of course, thanks to her tiny size, she will be the likely recipient of some nice items I can’t squeeze into! It’s a bonus to know I can share a couple of beautiful silk tops, my Over Y’alls and so on.

I guess the point of all this sorting and tossing is not so much to make room for all the rest of the stuff as it is to shed old skin, so to speak. It’s good to dump things from another time in our lives, and particularly good when it relieves us of some pain or will go to a good home.

I discovered a collection of old newspaper clippings from the Illinois-Michigan Canal project my dad was involved in, and the first thing that came to mind was to send those to the visitors’ center for their archives. I certainly don’t need to keep that stuff, and they could use it. By the same token, a few years ago, I had a lovely bonfire of letters from an ex-beau. Now that was satisfying! Sometimes it takes a while before we can let loose of things, and I’m beginning to think it is to allow us time to get to that place where when we do dump the stuff, we appreciate that we can indeed let go.

The House Goddess comes tomorrow, and while I still have some things I need to deal with before bedtime tonight, at least I know I have a clean closet, the summer stuff is put away neatly and labeled so I can quickly put my hands on what I need when the first warm days appear. I do have six boxes and two desktop hanging file boxes that need to get cleaned out, but then I can also fire up the firepit on the patio and torch something like ten years of canceled checks! (Yes, Lawyer, I did sift through and pull the mortgage checks… I still have the sticky note you stuck on the house settlement papers that reminded me to save every single one of those.)

Yeah, it’s good to clean it out, get it all dusted and spruced up before the holidays. Real good…

20 October 2009
My last issue of Gourmet arrived today. I am still grouchy about this. Not even the editor, Ruth Reichl, was told or, as she told Terry Gross, she would have planned a completely different issue.

My subscription went until July of 2010, so I will be interested to see what those creeps do for the subscribers.

Meanwhile, I did a magazine clean-up yesterday, extracting what I wanted from the 2008 issues of Bon Appetit and Gourmet. This is paper recycling week, so I have been ridding myself of excess paper, and that’s always a good thing. Much to do in the way of fall housecleaning, and clearing out old magazines is always a gratifying thing to do in front of Clatterford or Lovejoy.

At least Ruth Reichl writes books - and good ones, at that - so I can still read her wonderful pieces. I am going to make sure The House Goddess sees this last editorial, as it will go a long way in helping to understand why I get so picky about how her other clients treat her. Ms. Reichl talked about why it is so difficult for her to consider having household help. She must not be messy like Big Kitty and me!

13 October 2009

My darling niece reports that had I been hat shopping in Neiman’s, I would have received a hat box for my hat. Not only that, but it appears Neiman’s does just what all the grand old department stores used to do. The box is the correct size for the hat!  Nora Charles would be pleased. There is still a store that knows how to treat lady shoppers!

Still, it remains a fantasy for every woman who loves old movies to go shopping and return with a pile of boxes in the cab. The doorman would then awkwardly stagger to the elevator, unable to see over the stack he carried. Of course, this also means we must shop in hat and gloves and high heels!That little brown cloche would be perfect for an outing like that!

12 October 2009

Happy Birthday, Mopstick!

The insurance industry has its collective knickers in a knot over the health care overhaul. That, my friends, is a sign that we are on the right track. We will absolutely need a public option with none of this so-called co-op nonsense. The Congress needs to quit dicking around and get down to brass tacks.

If they are too beholden to the insurance industry, well, there is a solution. It’s called strength in numbers. If every single one of them who has taken so much as 5 cents from any insurance or pharmaceutical entity will ignore their lobbyists and DO THE RIGHT THING, this plan can get hammered out. It didn’t take this damn long for Medicare to happen, and this isn’t that complicated. If it’s too hard for them, I know a couple of retired schoolteachers who are as fair as they come. I’m sure they could do the job…

9 October 2009
It all started out innocently enough. I had to go to Macy’s to return a lipstick that I bought in Chicago when I had my face painted on for da Neph’s wedding. When I walked in the door, I saw a display of hats. It was a Nora Charles moment when I spotted the red cloche. It was simply darling. I popped it on my head, found a mirror and checked it out. Oh, yeah. First things first. Returned the lipstick, easily resisted the gift with purchase gimmick, and returned to the hats. I tried on a few others, but it was the 1969 Pontiac red one that stole my heart. I asked two ladies standing nearby what they thought. “Oh my!” the elder of the two remarked, “It’s right out of a Clara Bow movie! But you wouldn’t know who that is!”

“The It Girl!” I giggled! “You think maybe I need a lot of eyeliner with this?”

“Most definitely!”

I walked out of Macy’s with a hat, in a bag. Ponder that a moment…. Would Nora Charles have left Macy’s with a hat in a bag?

After a number of other errands that involved returns, a large bag of cat food and feta cheese, I wound up at T.J. Maxx. I scouted the handbags as I have had a run of good luck finding really lovely Italian purses. As I was moving toward the shoes, there they were…more hats, scarves and more scarves.

The black number was straight out of 1913…I popped it on my head, found a mirror and immediately decided it went with the Studebaker. A man passing by commented favorably. I went back and looked some more. And there it was. A chocolate brown cloche with little mink flowers. I went back to the mirror. The same guy was going the opposite direction, in search of his wife. “Oh, now! That’s the one! Get that one! Honey, come look at this hat on her!”

“Oh, it’s darling! You have to get it!” He agreed. I still held the black one and tried it on for her.

“Mmmm. How much?” She looked at the tags. “These are made in Italy! Buy ‘em both. You can’t go wrong! The black is classic. The brown is YOU!”

Sold.

I also found a pair of silk scarves in elusive colors, and made my way to the check-out. The hats got a lot of positive attention. I left with my hats, in a bag.

It’s a lucky thing to have been born when I was, lived where I lived as a youngster, and to have experienced the culture of women shopping as I did. Back in the day, Blakely’s Department Store had a couple of tiny vanities in the hat department. Ladies would sit at those vanities and the salesladies would bring them hats, put them on their heads adjust them to fit and when the selection had been made, the hat was carefully wrapped in tissue and placed in a Blakely’s Department Store hatbox. Ya just didn’t waltz out with a hat in a bag! Nora Charles brought home nothing in bags. Everything was carefully folded and placed into department store boxes - even undies!

I had a very friendly salesperson in Macy’s today. She liked my T.J. Maxx purse and lusted after my little Coach card case, which is mine because my niece couldn’t stand my cache of rewards cards held together by a thick broccoli rubber band. She liked the red hat, but wanted to see a grey one on me. I haven’t had a sales person take that kind of interest since I left Chicago in 1981! (I had a lady in Field’s undie department who would let me know when my favorite panties were going on sale.) Anyway, the red hat won her heart, too.

We live in a culture of speed and no service. Things are jammed into plastic bags and off we dash. When a sales person takes time with us, we honestly don’t know how to act. If I had been sitting at the little vanity in Blakely’s there would have been others milling about, ready to give their thoughts about this or that hat. Today, I had passersby cheering on a hat blitz.

Why hats? What else do ladies of an age do when they feel a bit blue? They shop. And today I discovered why Nora Charles and every other Hollywood character shopped for a hat when she was feeling a mite punk. Hats really do cheer up a person, and especially when they are fun. I just wish they came home in hat boxes!

For the record, Big Kitty had a Nick Charles moment, when he declared the little brown number to be strange. Nora wore her strange hat to a boxing match in spite of Nick’s assessment. I haven’t decided where I’ll wear mine, but rest assured, it will be worn. It’s too cute to stay home alone!

I read the brief blurb in the paper this morning and then checked online for more info. It’s true. The magazine that moved so many of us to experiment in the kitchen and to eat in the dining room is going to be kaput after the November issue. I’m steamed. You’d think they’d at least do the December issue for that even 12 I’d paid for!  In fact, I probably have another two years on the subscription!

Actually, I’m feeling more bereft than anything, but I’ve long felt the shift in the magazine’s ads from beautiful tableware to cars and casinos. And sometimes, it felt more like a travel magazine than a food magazine. So what went wrong? Was it really just the upscale aspect to the publication or was it that the upscale stuff wasn’t attainable by those who had aspirations? Or did the magazine no longer inspire aspirations to an elegant life?

Once upon a time, I eagerly opened the new Gourmet to the centerfold. There would be a table beautifully set with food that made my mouth water. The centerfold gave me ideas, just like it did every other reader. The ads weren’t chock-a-block with luxury vehicles and vacation resorts, but rather with beautiful china and silver and “smaller” luxuries - affordable luxuries like perfume or chocolates. Those centerfolds from the old days would make Martha Stewart look like the bush league. And none of it involved a glue gun or a trip to the craft store.

The recipes improved in terms of the layout when they started putting the ingredient list at the top, but other than that, it was still good food that stretched the willing cook’s skills. I learned a lot by making Gourmet’s recipes, and I certainly expanded my batterie de cuisine! Ads for Le Creuset had me hunting around for the elusive pots, and when a cut-rate kitchen store opened in Chicago, I finally acquired a large brown pot. Until a bad electric eye on a stove in a rented house ruined it, many a delicious concoction came from that pot.

There were two things that came to my mailbox in those days that were enough to pull me out of the doldrums - the Williams-Sonoma catalog and Gourmet. Each one sold me a lifestyle that I live today. Good dinners, the tools for making those good dinners and a creative outlet like no other.

I suspended my subscription for a while because Gourmet became more of a travel magazine than a food magazine. I got sick of endless articles about European hotels and restaurants. School teachers in Virginia can relate to how that wouldn’t blow up my skirt. In the same way, I parted company with Bon Appetit because I got sick of the endless parties with skinny hostesses making really stupid food. Photos of women “cooking” in their ubiquitous silk blouses and gold chains kind of wore out their welcome. If you can’t look at the scene and imagine any of it showing up on your own table, it’s time to rethink the need for that magazine. It didn’t float my boat.

So while I can admit to having a wandering eye, I also returned to the fold in both cases. And I have my ideas as to why Gourmet didn’t make the cut. The publishers weren’t making money from the advertising, and in this day and age, there was a shift that needed to be made and they were too slow to catch on. The demise of the English china manufacturing is a case in point. No one was hitting their marks when it came to being the trend setters, as opposed to keeping up with trends.

The future for Gourmet wasn’t with us old broads. It was with the young ones whose moms weren’t big on throwing dinner parties. They needed to be bringing them along, showing them a lifestyle of elegance that was attainable. It was all about using the good china more often, and it was all about the concept that if you equip yourself with good tools, you can make anything.

My dad never minded that I raided his tools. I generally never took anything that was expensive, opting instead for old stuff I thought he’d never miss. He laughed about it once to a friend, saying, “As long as she doesn’t find the good hammer, I don’t care what she swipes. Sooner or later she’ll want good tools and she can buy them herself, but my old shit will get ‘er started.” That was a good lesson for me. I cleared out his inventory and he bought newer and better! When I wanted to upgrade my kitchen tools, the church jumble sale reaped the benefits.

So, no fabulous place settings, no centerfold and the old elan of Gourmet got lost and then they wondered why the magazine failed to make it. One of these days, they’ll figure it out. Thank heaven there is still Fine Cooking!