Uniform of the Day: Dinner Party.

Tonight we were invited to a dinner party for twelve at the home of an in-law-ish family: the parents of my neice's husband. It's a nice house in one of the "leafy" northwest DC neighborhoods. The dozen guests ranged in age from early-30s to early-60s and included a standard mix of DC types: writers, lawyers, government staffers, doctors, entrepreneurs, &c.

The weather is fine right now, the temperature today was in the 50's F. So the only real question was what would be appropriate dress? We've been to this home before, and seen other guests in jacket and tie, jeans and sweaters, and so on. Plus, it wasn't clear if this was a sit-down dinner or a drop in, running buffet.

So, I went with this:

Duck Head chinos, alligator belt with turned silver buckle, Bass Weejuns, cashmere roll-neck from Orvis, J.Press olive herringbone sport jacket, and the 1950 rose gold Omega bumper caliber 332. 

At the time it seemed a solid choice: casual but refined. When we arrived, the hosts and most of the other guests were wearing jeans and sweaters. Good: It's better to be a little overdressed than a little underdressed. 

The cashmere roll neck was a bit warm while we were all standing around the kitchen noshing. But by the time we got to the table for the dinner, it was fine. All in all, very comfortable kit for a lovely evening. 

Standing Rib Roast (Prime Rib)

Well, it is the holiday season. We and a few others enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner with a friend--who just happens to be a chef. That was a traditional turkey dinner with stuffing and potatoes, cranberries, brussels sprouts, and a choice of three desserts. On Christmas night we had pan roasted chicken at home with a really nice pinot noir. We just had Turbot en Matelote á la Normande. So tonight, a standing rib roast--prime rib of beef.

First thing, get enough people around you to make it worthwhile purchasing and cooking this piece of beef. It's pricey but with even a small roast, you have a cut big enough to feed at least four. Six or eight is no problem with a larger roast. You can plan to feed two-to-three people per pound for a bone-in rack, three-to-four people per pound for boneless. You want the bone-in. It's just better.

Here's what you need:

--The beef.
--Broccoli.
--Potatoes.
--Butter.
--Salt and pepper.
--Horseradish (as garnish).
--Wine.

You can add salad and bread, replace the broccoli with haricots vert or whatever, but the star is the standing roast. Also, spend a buck on a nice bottle of wine. A big red is what's called for. Tell your wine guy you're cooking a prime rib for eight and you need a nice bottle. Buy a case, stash a few bottles, but leave enough out to cover the meal.

To start. Take the roast out of the fridge two hours before you plan to cook it. Let it come to room-ish temp. Pre-heat the oven to 500 or 550 (some ovens only have a range up to 500). Place the roast on a roasting rack in a pan, fat side up.

You need time to cook this. Plan for about 18-20 minutes per pound (bone in) for medium rare. If you want to cook this more than medium rare or medium, you're disrespecting the meat and should go somewhere else for a recipe.

Still here? Good.

For reference, our roast weighs 4.39 pounds. Season with a little ground black pepper and (just before it goes in) kosher salt.

Immediately after you put the roast in, reduce the temperature in the oven to 350F. 

Now go away for whatever works out to be about 15 minutes per pound. For our roast, that means about an hour and five minutes (I'll round down to an hour.) At some point during this time, your guests will be arriving, so you'll have plenty to do. Open the wine.

You can also start on things like the potatoes. I'm using little white potatoes that I'll boil for a few minutes and then, before they're fully cooked, pull off the fire and drain. 

.....And the broccoli. 

OK, we're back to the roast. Here's what the roast looked like after an hour. The temperature in the center was about 110F, well below even rare. This gave me a pretty good idea of how much longer it would need to be in the oven. I added the potatoes, just dropped them around the bottom of the pan, and put it back in for about 20 minutes.  

Once you're reached 135F-140F throughout most of the roast, let it stand for about ten minutes or so. Then slice it and serve. Here's what ours looked like after about 1 hour and 20 minutes plus the ten minutes of standing. 

This 4.39 pound, bone in roast is easily enough meat for six people. I carved it into chunks rather than slicing it. This made it easier for those who really wanted their meat more well done to have it and those of us who prefer ours on the rarer side of medium rare to be happy, too. We served it with a California zinfandel.

Turbot à La Normande

Amid all the heavy holiday dishes--turkey and dressing, prime rib and roasted potatoes, multiple desserts, &c.-- I wanted to slip in some fish. I've been searching through some old cookbooks and found this in Elizabeth's David's French Provincial Cooking (1960).

Ms. David calls this dish Sole en Matelote à la Normande. A matelote is a hornpipe, but thankfully we're not using a literal translation. In this case, she means a fish served in a light sauce (often the same sauce in which the fish is poached) of wine with onions and herbs; the term comes from the word matelot, or sailor. So, after all of that, we're making fish in a light sauce of wine and herbs (with mussels). This is more or less a two step process: 1. prepare the sauce and the vegetables; 2. prepare the fish.

Here's what you need to feed four:

--About a pound of fish. This works best with sole, of course. But sole isn't easy to find. So flounder will do nicely. You're looking for small, thin filets of a flaky white fish. For tonight's dinner, I could find neither sole nor flounder, so I was stuck with turbot. It's the correct consistency, but a but larger a fish, so a bit larger filets. 
--About a pound of mussels.
--An onion
--White wine (A true à la Normande would use cider.)
--Some herbs.
--A couple teaspoons of butter.
--Parsley butter -- you'll need parsley, butter and a lemon.
--Salt and pepper.

Step one.

Preheat the oven to about 350F. Take your butter out of the fridge; divide it into two, one-teaspoon pats. One will be for the onions. The other is for the parsley butter; set it aside and let it come to room temp. Slice the onion quite thin and sauté in a teaspoon of butter until it is translucent. Scrub the mussels and place them in a sauce pan with a glass of wine and some fresh herbs--thyme seems to work well--salt and pepper (I added some minced garlic). Steam until they open and remove immediately from the broth; save the broth, remove the mussels and discard the shells.

Step two.

Place the onions in a baking dish. Lay the filets atop the bed of onions, add salt and pepper. Through a sieve or a muslin, strain the broth over the fish. Cover the dish and put it the oven for about 20 minutes (longer for thicker filets, less for thinner...). 

Now, turn to the parsley butter. Chop a small bit (a teaspoon or two) of parsley as fine as you can. Put your room temp butter into a bowl and stir it (use a fork) until it is soft. Stir in the chopped parsley. (alternatively, you could melt the butter and stir in the parsley...) Once it's well mixed in, add a squeeze of lemon juice. Put the mix into the fridge and let it chill.

At the 20 minute mark, pull the fish out, uncover, add the parsley butter on top and spread the mussels around the edges. Leave uncovered and put it back into the oven for five minutes of so to melt the butter and warm up the mussels.

Once it's done, serve from the dish along side haricots vert amandine, a dry white wine (we enjoyed a Sancerre), and fresh baguette.

et voila. 

Chapeau: Elizabeth David. Her book as pictured above in the first edition and signed costs about $3,500.00. Luckily for the rest of us, it is available on Amazon and in cooking stores for around $20.00. The Penguin Classics edition is very good.  

Essentials: Weejuns.

I think there are a few pieces which are essentials in a wardrobe: oxford cloth button down shirts, heavy tweed jackets, deck shoes, repp ties, chinos, go-to-hell pants, and the Maine Hunting Shoe among them. In time I'll write about most of them. I thought I would start from the ground up, so to speak, and look at the Bass Weejun.

A bootmaker named George Bass began marketing this shoe in the U.S. in 1925. Bass modeled his shoe after traditional Norwegian fisherman's slippers and called them 'weejuns' in homage to the Norse models. (Chapeau: Graham Marsh and J.P. Gaul, The Ivy Look.) The shoe has been a staple on campuses and among trad enthusiasts since.

But why? Well primarily, in my view, the shoe was initially successful because it was well built, comfortable, and inexpensive. Plus, a college man could slide into his Weejuns a moment faster than his brogues, so they became go-to shoes. Generations since have simply followed in the footsteps--pun intended--of our forefathers on campus and out into the wide world. 

A couple of notes about the shoes:

--Note in the image above, the ends of the strap across the top of the foot are flat stitched to the sides of the shoe. This is the standard model. Later versions would attach the strap to the top seam, creating what became known as a beef roll. (See below)

The strap is stitched directly onto top seam. Thus, the "beef roll" on this version, the Larson. 

--But what about the pennies? Ah, the Penny Loafer. Well, again according to Gaul, women began began putting pennies in the slot of the strap. The fad spread and Weejuns have been Penny Loafers since. My own pair sport well shined pennies from my birth year. 

--And color? Well the standard these days seems to be the burgundy shown above. But in years past a flat brown was the most popular, at least at my school(s). Those all-boy schools out in the Shenandoah Valley favored black, or so I was told back in the day. 

--Socks? Well, you probably wouldn't be shot for wearing them if your grandmother was taking you out to lunch or if you were going to a funeral. But otherwise you can skip 'em most of the year. 

Sometimes polished, but not very often or only when going home or into the city, the shoes needed to last at least a full year on campus and by year's end some would be duck taped to keep from flapping when you walked. No matter, you kept wearing them. Top drawer, indeed. 

Premont

We're just back from a trip to Belgium and northern France. We ate and drank well, of course. It was cold and wet, of course.

And, of course, we had a great time. But we also spent some time contemplating the Great War. We visited the battlefields of the Somme where between July 1 and November 18, 1916 more than 1.1 million soldiers were wounded or killed. The British had more than 57,000 casualties on the first day of the battle alone. The distances gained and lost between the French and British on one side and the Germans on the other are such that one could walk them at a leisurely pace between breakfast and lunch.

We also toured the area where my grandfather fought as an infantryman during the summer and fall of 1918 as part of the 119th Infantry, 30th U.S. Division. The regiment was assigned to II U.S. Corps, and further to the Fourth Army under British General Rawlins. They were, in effect, borrowed soldiers (the title of Mitch Yockleson's book about the U.S. troops.). My grandfather was a draftee from the mountains of western North Carolina. He had never been out of the state, except maybe just across the border into Tennessee or South Carolina, before the war.

I knew my grandfather only reasonably well. He never travelled to our house in Virginia Beach from his home in Hendersonville. And although we travelled to see him many summers, I don't remember spending long hours with him listening to stories. I wish I had.

I do remember hearing him tell about how he was wounded. He said he was on a small patrol ahead of the established U.S. lines and came under fire. I don't remember if he said all or most of the others on the patrol were killed. He said with a laugh that he ran three Germans to death--he was in front of them. He was wounded, shot in the heel, and said he was so cold and so scared that he didn't even really know he had been shot until he reached his own lines. That happened, according to a history of his unit, on October 10th, 1918; about a month before the Armistice and only a week after the regiment had crossed the St Quentin canal, a significant obstacle and part of the Hindenburg Line.

This map is part of the Somme Bellicourt Memorial to the U.S. 27th and 30th Divisions. You can see the position of the Riqueval Bridge (over the St Quentin Canal), centered in the 30th Division sector.

The Riqueval Bridge was captured by a unit of the 6th North Staffordshire Regiment, an English infantry regiment. But it appears to be in the center of the U.S. 30th Division sector. I suppose that shows how inter-twined the units were, and how chaotic things must have been amid the smoke, fog, and shelling: a British company commander told historians that he led his company across the bridge "having accidentally discovering it was intact after getting lost." 

This is the Riqueval Bridge on October 2, 1918, three days after it was captured. Brigadier John Campbell, VC is addressing his regiment. 

Here's the bridge today. Not much has changed. 

My grandfather's division was relieved by the Fifth Australian Division the following day and spent a few days in reserve, resting and refitting before returning to the line on October 5 and fighting through the evening of the 10th. The wound card I've seen for him said he was shot near the town of Premont, but the maps of action shows the regiment considerably further east-north-east on 10/10. Premont was likely the divisional headquarters or the rear area hospital where he was taken. 

Premont itself is a small town, with one main road and a single church. There is farmland and rolling hills all around. It is really quite a lovely place. The picture above is on a small dirt and gravel road just entering the town from the west. 

The Catholic church in Premont with a memorial to the fallen of the Great War.

The main road through town is named Rue du General Tyson, after the commander of the 59th Regiment -- the other regiment in my grandfather's brigade. 

Regardless, of precisely where he was when he was wounded, October 10th was the end of his fighting in the war. He left the front as a private first class and was awarded the Purple Heart Medal. At some point during his recovery or during demobilization, he was promoted corporal.

Once he got home in 1919, I don't think he left town again, at least not for long. And while I'm glad I had the chance to see the area he fought through, I wish I had been able to do so with him.

Gravestone, Berea Baptist Church Cemetery (aka Capps Cemetery), Flat Rock, N.C. 

Uniform of the Day: Travel Edition--Bruxelles, le nord de la France, et Paris

Normally, I shun the merest thought of travel during the Thanksgiving week. This tritest, Hallmark-i-est, most maudlin of holidays, is fraught with forced family gatherings that inevitably lead to trauma when cousin Zach comes home from his freshman year at university in full Ru Paul, or Aunt Kelly finally lets loose on Uncle Morris after all those years of sublimating to the pencil-dicked, Limbaugh-swilling putz. Then there's the travel aspect of the holiday: roads packed, planes stuffed, tempers steamed. It makes me crazy, all of it. So, thank you, but no. Me, I prefer to stay home and have a few friends over for a nice Pinot Noir and some Cubans.

Unless I'm getting out of the country. Which we are. Ms F and I are on our way to Brussels, the north of France, and Paris over the next week. We're going to explore the area my grandfather and his regiment fought through during that last weeks of World War One, and the town near where he was wounded a month before the armistice. It's a blended trip, partially in the fields and partially in the cities; we fly into Brussels and have a day and a night there, then take the train to Amien and two days on the battlefields--The Somme, the Hindenberg Line and the San Quentin Canal, and then on to Premont. Then train to Paris for a few days and out.

Since we're going out to the battlefields and to the cities, we need a mix of clothes that will be country friendly and city acceptable. The added degree of difficulty is that it all has to fit into a roll-aboard--no checked luggage on this trip, and it's cold. 

So here's the rough packing list:

The lay-out

Blue and black jeans (a pair of chinos worn on the plane), two black half-turtlenecks, a couple OCBDs (plus another dress shirt worn), for evenings we're in town. Vintage (I bought them new and I've had them one month shy of twenty years) Timberland Gore-Tex lined boots for the field and longer walks in town, plus some wool socks to wear with them; cotton crew socks to wear with the black Gucci horsebit loafers I'll wear at night and during travel.

Two Brooks Brothers 1/4 zip sweaters, one lambswool and one cashmere (respectively, grey and blue); a black merino wool polo sweater. A tweedy RL Polo hound's tooth sport coat, and at the risk of being presumed to be one of Les Rosbifs, my Barbour Beaufort jacket and a Burberry cashmere scarf. 

As for accessories: For the head: a fleece cap, in case it's really cold in the field, and maybe a ball cap but I'm not yet sure, and Ray Ban aviators. For the hands: a couple pairs of gloves--fleece and rabbit-lined leather. I suspect the Submariner 5513 will be on my wrist, although the Omega Seamaster calibre 351 would also be a good, understated choice. 

In the backpack: the iPad will have to do, no laptop on this trip--though I'll likely stash a bluetooth keyboard; Bose noise-canceling headphones, two small notebooks; I'll have a small Canon digital and Ms F will have her Nikon DSLR. The iPhone will serve mostly as iPod, audio recorder, and storage device because we have an old flip phone we'll put a European chip in so we can have a local phone number; an old Business-Class amenities bag filled with chargers and plug adapters. Plus, a book about the 30th Division's war as a reference--my grandfather was a corporal in the 119th Infantry.

Now, about those horsebit loafers. One of my very favorite clips from The Trad's many blogs and tumblrs is this question and response from The Trad Rejection:

Anonymous asked: Gucci Horsebit loafers: Are they only for Persian nightclub owners and Douchebag Hollywood actors? Or, are they an essential part of a well dressed man's wardrobe?

Good question. It carries a lotta baggage for a shoe. It’s also a very comfortable shoe and can be worn with Bermuda shorts or a DB suit. My ex-wife hated ‘em. She had more taste than I ever will. I still have a pair but wear them sparingly and only around friends who know I’m an asshole.

Well, to paraphrase just a bit, TinTin's rejections page has more style than I ever will, and I absolutely agree with him on this, the shoe carries a ton of baggage. My personal take on this shoe and its baggage was to purchase the version with the thicker, chunkier sole. I've not seen many of this model, especially on #menswear blogs and Tumblrs, so I suspect it's not popular. I bought this version because it walks a whole lot better than the thin-soled 1950s version--especially in cold Paris and Brussels, but also because that sole takes away some of the edginess of the shoe (particularly because I can't wear them with anything but jeans) and thus, I think, some of the Douchebagginess that Anonymous questioned above. At least I hope so.

What about guides, you ask? Yes, to all: human, paper, and digital. We've engaged a battlefield guide. I've studied the war; I've learned the routes of my grandfather's division and regiment, but why not have an expert to fill in what we don't know. It's a once in a lifetime event, let's do it right. For Paris, on paper and online, we consult Pudlo, the guide locals use.

Pan Roasted Pork Chops

What is it this year? I've been completely captivated by pan roasting. Tonight: pork chops.

Pretty simple dish. Here's what you need:

--Pork chops.
--A cast iron skillet, probably a 10" one.

No seriously, you're going to need to brine them first, but in the end, it's the chop that makes the difference. So buy some good ones. I got two from our butcher on Massachusetts Avenue, and threw them into a brine this afternoon. You can spend lots of time making a brine--boiling it, adding lots of herbs and spices--or you can just use water and salt. I compromise and use water, salt, some brown sugar, and sometimes apple cider.

Drop the chops into a bowl and cover them with the brine. Refrigerate, covered, for half a day at least.

When it's time to cook, preheat the oven to about 400.

When you're ready, pull the chops out of the brine, dry them well, add salt and pepper.

These are the chops, fresh out of the brine, dried, salted and peppered, ready to go into the pan. 

Heat the skillet over medium high heat. Once it's ready, add the chops and brown both sides for about three minutes each. Then stick the skillet in the oven.

Now you can start on the brussels sprouts and potatoes. 

Add a few small red or yellow potatoes to a pot of water and boil until the potatoes are soft enough to pierce with a fork. Drain, salt and pepper, add a little butter to the pan and coat the potatoes well. Some chopped parsley if you have it is a nice addition. Re-cover and let sit. 

While the potatoes are cooking, cut off the hard stem remnant off of the sprouts, then slice them in halves. Clean and slice lengthwise half a leek, then slice into 1/4 inch slices. Add some olive oil to a heated skillet, then add the sprouts and the leeks. Stir in salt, pepper and a pinch or two of thyme, then heat through, allowing the sprouts to brown just a bit and the leeks to soften, about 6 or 8 minutes. Pour about two ounces of water into the pan and cover, allowing the vegetables to steam for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and leave covered. 

Leeks and sprouts a few minutes before I added the water to steam them. 

All this should take about twenty minutes. By then, it's time to check the temperature of the chops. Pork should be cooked to 160 degrees F according to every cookbook in the world, so I won't tell you to pull them out earlier. But I pull mine out at about 140 and they are perfect. 

Ready to go.

Let them rest under foil for about five minutes--which likely brings them up to a safe temperature--and serve. I set them up with an Oregon Pinot Noir that worked quite well. 

Uniform of the Day--Creative Mornings DC

So my friend Jason Steinhauer is a curator at the Library of Congress. Jason has curated a number of big shows including "Ours to Fight For" for the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This morning he was the speaker for Washington DC's Creative Mornings event on the subject of bravery. He invited me to join him on stage to discuss some of the work we do at the Veterans Writing Project and to read some of my poetry.

Creative Mornings is a global phenomenon of which I had heard nothing up to this point. So I learned as much as a could and dove in. It's very cool and I was very pleasantly surprised that my work and my reading was quite well received.

This is a group formed around the idea of sharing creativity, so I chose to be a little creative--but it's hard for me to give up classic. So I went with this: Grey Harris Tweed jacket, black suit vest, RL Polo chambray shirt with a vintage Brooks Brothers red and cream spotted tie, some olive jeans from J.Crew, an alligator belt with a sterling buckle, Allen Edmonds Jefferson brogues and the Submariner 5513. 

Here's an image captured and tweeted by one of the creatives attending, Jackie Titus. @Jtitus 

Artichoke and Pecorino Risotto

It's cool outside and now is a great time to begin making some of the comfort food dishes that get pushed aside during the summer heat. Tonight: artichoke risotto.

Here's what you'll need:

Some fresh (or pre-packaged grilled) artichokes.
Chicken stock
Butter
An onion
Risotto
White wine
Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

To start this off right, acidulate some water (add the juice of half a lemon to a bowl of water). Trim the rough, stiff portions of a dozen artichokes and peel off the fibrous stalk. Drop them in the bowl of water and go light your grill. Once the grill is ready for direct heat. Grill the 'chokes until the edges are beginning to brown, about five minutes. Remove and go back to the stove.

... Or, you could use pre-grilled artichokes available in the vegetable section of the Whole Foods.

Most of the ingredients; the artichokes are already chopped here. The onion is already in the pan with half the butter. That's wine in the smaller measuring cup.

Dice a medium onion. Melt half a stick of butter in a large skillet. Add the onion to the butter and stir until the onion is soft and golden translucent, about ten minutes. Stir in 2.5 cups of risotto rice and continue stirring until the rice has absorbed the butter and is warmed through. Add 2/3 of a cup of dry white wine and rapidly bring it to a boil to remove the raw alcohol taste.

Begin adding the chicken stock--for a vegetarian, but not vegan version, use vegetable stock. Professionals say to keep the stock warm, but I don't bother. Just pour it into the pan and stir the rice. Keep the rice covered and don't let it dry out. Stir every couple of minutes to make sure all the rice is absorbing all the stock. Keep this up until the rice is creamy. This should be at least 20 minutes and take four to six cups of stock.

This is about half way through. You can see the swirl in the center where I've just been stirring. 

In between stirs, chop the artichokes into small pieces.

Add half a stick of butter and about 3/4 of a cup of freshly ground pecorino or parmesan cheese, stir until it's all melted in and blended. (For this batch, I used a mix of these two cheeses.)

Add the artichokes and blend.

Ready to go. 

This will also work well if you substitute mushrooms for the artichokes, too. And you know, a little slab bacon can't hurt either.

Serve with a dry white, maybe a French chardonnay.

-- Chapeau: Maxine Clark.

Uniform of the Day--On Capitol Hill with Americans for the Arts

I was asked by Americans for the Arts to brief invited Congressional staff on the work we do at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. American for the Arts has just released a white paper on their National Initiative for Arts and Health in the Military. This was the roll-out for that paper. They asked me to talk about the therapeutic work I do at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) as part of National Endowment for the Arts programming. My role at NICoE is as the curriculum writer for their expressive (therapeutic) writing program and as the lead instructor for the creative writing program.

I went with a Ralph Lauren Polo blue pinstripe suit, white (double cuff and straight collar) shirt and Ferragamo tie featuring hedgehogs and apples. I added some spotted socks and Allen Edmonds Jefferson full brogues. I wore the 1950 Omega Seamaster gold-top cal 531 and some Florentine-style gold cufflinks I think I got at the Metropolitan Museum store a dozen or so years ago. A pretty conservative look, I suppose, but Congress is a pretty conservative place--even when we're talking about the arts. 

Uniform of the Day--Washington Ideas Forum//Aspen Institute

So, I don't usually get invited to Big Think idea festivals like the Washington Ideas Forum, but my friend Richard Marks does. He's stuck up in NYC because of a family medical emergency--fingers crossed, Richard--and he offered his slot at the forum to me. He is such a mensch.

The forum is run by the Aspen Institute, which is a pretty Big Think kind of organization to begin with, and The Atlantic. But the whole idea of the WIF is to get as many Big Think-ers together in one place as possible and let them speak about what's on their minds. I hope this is really a good deal and not just the usual Washington bloviator fest. Given the list of blow-hards politicians on the speakers' list, there's a chance it will be all blah-blah-blah.

Regardless, I'm relatively sure I won't have much to say and not only because I'm just an invitee and not on the rostrum. I suspect I'll be in total submarine mode: Run Silent, Run Deep.

Since I did the grey suit thing yesterday at the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, today I chose something else.

Brooks Brothers olive wool suit, lavender dress shirt (sorry that the color only really comes through at the bottom of the photo), a black and purple Ted Baker tie, Allen Edmonds Jefferson full brogues, some Ben Silver dragonfly cufflinks, and because I plan to Run Silent, Run Deep: the '85 Submariner 5513.

Uniform of the Day--National Endowment for the Arts

So, the most formal of the three events was today, downtown in the Old Post Office building, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Art, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the President's Council on the Humanities. I was moderating a panel discussion with novelist Richard Currey, author C.Q. Tillery, and blogger Kate Hoit--common denominator: all veterans.

We four gave our own thoughts on The Healing Power of Narrative, our subject, then had a nice back and forth with the audience.

I went with this:

A charcoal grey suit, a pink puppytooth dress shirt and spotted red tie both from Piero Politi in Florence, brown suede cap toe oxfords from Johnston and Murphy's handcrafted in Italy line -- highly recommended, very comfortable and sharp looking. I added the 1950-ish Omega Seamaster cal 531 and some typewriter key cufflinks.

I thought the grey suit was conservative enough for a government office and that the pink shirt and red spotted tie loosened it up a bit given that our hosts were arts and humanities people.

Uniform of the Day--Veterans Day

Veterans Day. Each year we host a public event, a reading, at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown, DC. I invite a mix of more or less professional writers and writers we've recently published or who have really just gotten started.

This year we had Vietnam veterans Jeff Stein (who has been a professional journalist and author since the late 1960s) and Jay Snyder (who was a professional tennis umpire and the director of the U.S. Open after getting shot up while serving as an airborne infantry company commander in the 1st Cav). We had Iraq veteran Alex Horton (who this morning had a piece published in The Atlantic and is a real fast-burning up-and-comer, a student at Georgetown following an infantry tour in Iraq); Afghanistan veteran Lisa Barber (a medically retired USAF officer who was pretty badly worked over leading convoys during her tour). We also had Marine veteran Kyle Noe, a homeschooled former grunt sergeant who got out of the Corps just before 9/11, served as a CI agent in the FBI and who took part in the most recent bust of Russian spies in DC. And I also read, so we had a good mix.

This required slightly dressier look than the jeans and tweeds look from yesterday, but it's still autumn, so tweeds rule. I went with this:

I figured you can't go wrong with Duck Head khakis and Bass Weejuns. To this I added a yellow Lands End Sail Rigger OCBD. This is their old-school, heavyweight oxford cloth that takes about half an hour to iron, but is totally worth it. This shirt is substantial, like the old ways. I put on a maroon (not burgundy, but maroon like paratroopers' berets) knit tie with it. On top, I wore a tweedy Ralph Lauren houndstooth sport coat in some great Autumn colors. I also wore a Waltham A-17 military watch from the early 1950s and my Bronze Star Medal lapel pin. 

Lest we forget, Veterans Day in the U.S. evolved from Armistice Day, marking the end of the First World War -- on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns in Europe fell silent. It's known as Remembrance Day in Canada, which I think is proper. 

North of the 49th parallel, this poem is recited pretty much everywhere on this day. It's dated, to be sure, not a modern poem in any way. But it's still fitting today that we mark it here. 

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. 

--Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

Canadian Army Medical Corps

Uniform of the Day--Literary Reading

It's a busy time, Veterans Day weekend. Today was day one of a three-day public-event-fest I'm involved in. This afternoon I took part in a reading at The Writer's Center just up the street from us in Bethesda, MD. There were several of us reading from works we've recently had published in The Delmarva Review's 6th edition. I read a piece called "Writing My Way Home," which will also be in my book. Here's a link to the essay that was re-published by one of the local papers on the Eastern Shore//Delmarva Peninsula.

I decided to go pretty casual, but not too casual since I was the featured writer in both the journal and for the reading. It's a delicate balance.

I went with a pair of J.Crew 484 jeans, an alligator belt with a Tiffany's buckle, LL Bean plaid shirt with a Sid Mashburn grenadine tie, an Orvis light brown herringbone tweed jacket, Allen Edmonds Amok chukka boots, and the Submariner 5513. 

Throughout the next few days, each successive event will demand slightly more formal attire--short of actual formal wear. And to top it off, on Tuesday, when I need to be the most dressed-up, we're expecting snow. Joy unbound. 

Chilaquiles

I haven't done any breakfast foods yet on this blog despite the fact that I cook breakfast pretty regularly. So here goes with a family favorite, chilaquiles.

You'll need:

Eggs
Bacon or chorizo sausage
Onion (yellow and green)
Green chiles
Jalapeno
Corn tortillas (fresh or chips in the bag...)
Cheddar and/or Monterey Jack cheese
Cumin
Chili powder
Cilantro
Salsa
Sour cream

Start by cutting a couple slices of bacon--I used a thick sliced, applewood smoked bacon--into halves lengthwise and then more or less making a dice of the strips. Add these to a skillet over medium heat.

Dice half of a small yellow onion and, once the bacon has begun to render its fat and just starting to crisp, add this to the skillet.

After a few minutes add the green chiles and jalapeno.

If you're using fresh corn tortillas, slice a couple of them into strips and then again into smaller pieces and add them to the pan. Let the edges crisp. (If you're using corn chips from a bag, wait....)

Scramble the eggs and stir them into the pan, mixing well with the other ingredients.

Add cumin and chili powder to taste.

If you're using corn chips from the bag, crumble a couple of handfuls into the mix now. I usually use fresh corn tortillas, but we had this bag of corn chips hanging around in the pantry on the counter, so that's what we went with. There isn't much different either way, but I actually do prefer the thicker, crispier corn tortillas in this dish.

Once the eggs have set, grate a good couple of ounces of the cheese over the top, remove the pan from heat and cover to let the cheese melt.

When that's happened, serve with some chopped cilantro and green onion, salsa and/or hot sauce to taste, and if you like, a dollop of sour cream.

Schmidt Scores From First on a Wild Pitch.

You don't often get to re-visit a play in which two future Hall of Famers are the principals. But here's one. Phillies-Mets, April 18, 1988. All said, according to Dom Consentino on Deadspin, the game was "incredibly ugly. There were 12 walks, five wild pitches, three batters hit by a pitch, and 19 runners left on base."

"The game," Mets manager Davey Johnson told Newsday at the time, "doesn't deserve much comment."

But this play does: Gary Carter behind the plate, some kid named David Cone on the mound, and 38-year-old Mike Schmidt on first. Cone buries a ball in the dirt in front of Carter and it slips past, rolls all the way to the dugout and then continues to roll along the edge without falling in. Carter is stumbling and trying to grab the ball, Schmidt take second and continues to third, Cone (and every other infielder) fails to cover home, so Schmidt rolls home and scores standing up.

Cone and Johnson probably should be in the Hall along with Carter and Schmidt. But I don't get a vote and I'm glad fans don't or we'd end up with some real hoseheads in the Hall.

See the video on Deadspin It's pretty astounding.

And That's a Wrap. See You Next Year.

And with that,... that being the Red Sox four-games-to-two series win over the Cardinals, Major League Baseball 2013 comes to an end. I shan't wax nostalgic or bemoan the tribulations of the Nationals' season, mostly because the Red Sox, my favorite American League team, are the World's Champions--which means the H A T E D* Atlanta Braves are not. Nor are the L O A T H E S O M E** New York Yankees. Nor are the..... well, you get the idea. In 150 days or so the boys of summer will be the boys of spring training and the world will resume its proper cycles. Until then: work on the next book, Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey, the Army-Navy Game, furnishing the cottage, and other wintery pursuits shall prevail.

*Hated for the arrogance of their fans. Drop the chop, buttheads.

**Loathed primarily for their ownership and management. Although A-Rod has single-handedly driven the levels of both loathing and schadenfreude to new heights.

Comfort Food: Meat Loaf and Mashed Potatoes

Ms. F has been injured and is stuck at home for a week, recovering. The weather has just in the past 24 hours turned pretty cool here in the D of C. The World Series is on. These three events conspire to demand comfort food. Tonight: Meat Loaf, mashed potatoes, and brussels sprouts with leeks.

Just getting started. Those are onions cooking in the pan.

To start: go to the butcher and get a good Meat Loaf mix. I use about a pound or pound-and-a-quarter of meat in the loaf, an even mix of beef, veal, and pork. A former relative of mine used country breakfast sausage instead of straight, ground pork. It worked beautifully. Either way, they will come in separate piles, mix them evenly in a good sized bowl with the following:

--a cup of breadcrumbs
--two or three large eggs
--half a good sized onion diced and sautéed (let it cool before mixing it in)
--2/3 cup of catsup
--1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley
--a good pinch of dried thyme
--salt
--pepper

All together now. Just dig your fingers into it and give a good mixing. 

Pile all of this on a baking pan or in a baking dish, as you prefer and put it in the oven, preheated to 350F. Cook until the temp is 160 degrees (60-ish minutes); let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Going in. 

Coming out. 

This goes perfectly with mashed potatoes. There are many ways to do these, this is one that I use regularly. Start with fingerling potatoes and slice them into 1/4 inch disks--don't bother peeling them-- seriously why so picky? Put them in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat a bit and simmer until they are just cooked through. Drain these and place them back into the pot.

Now you get to be creative. You can add milk, butter, sour cream, horseradish and/or some combination of the above. I use pretty much everything I've got in the fridge. You don't have to whip these into submission, either. If you mash them with a fork, they will be terrifically chunky. If you use a masher, they'll be about a medium mash. Mostly mash them first, then start adding extras.

We also serve brussels sprouts and leeks. Slice off the nub end and then slice the sprouts in half. Now the leek: slice off the dark green end and sprouted end of the leek. Clean it well to get the sand out, then slice the leek in half lengthwise, then into disks and then again into 1/4 inch slices. Drop all of the sprouts and leek into a heated pan with a couple spots of olive oil and maybe a tab of butter. Stir regularly until the sprouts are cooked through.

The loaf goes well with a medium red. We had a very nice California Pinot Noir.

Never, Ever, Not Even Once....

I have never ever seen this. In tonight's World Series Game One, Umpire Dana Demuth totally Magooed a call at second when Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma inexplicably let an easy toss from second baseman Matt Carpenter slide through his mitt. Maybe Demuth's arm was going up to call Dustin Pedroia out even before Kozma booted the ball and he couldn't stop it. But seriously, this call was so bad that Demuth must have been looking for a way out--remember this was barely 20 minutes into a World Series game. Almost immediately the other umpires began to move towards Demuth--circling the wagons

Red Sox manager John Farrell came out and asked Demuth to get a second opinion. Then, crew chief John Hisrchbeck joined the other five umpires in the infield. Hirschbeck and four other umpires (minus Demuth) agreed that the call was wrong and reversed it. We know this because Fox sports had a mic on Hirschbeck and we (later) heard Hirschbeck tell Cardinals manager Mike Matheny that all five umpires had agreed that Demuth blew the call and had overruled him. Here's one of probably one thousand links where you'll be able to find to a .gif of the play.

I've watched a few games over the years and I have never, ever, not even once, seen this happen. I am really, really impressed with both Hirschbeck and Demuth. Bravo.

Ms. F's Pan Roasted Chicken on the Grill

Well, we're back at that pan-roast-grilling thing again. This time it's a whole chicken. This recipe and process are Ms. F's so I can claim nothing from them except to add that it is undoubtedly my favorite chicken on the grill result.

So, start with a whole bird. Stuff some herbs under the skin--she used rosemary. Rub salt on the skin of the bird liberally, cover and place in the fridge overnight.

This is roughly the same technique used at the Zuni Cafe in San Francisco; if you have not been, you're missing out. There are, I suppose, other things on the menu than the chicken but trust me, roll with it.

The next day, about 90 minutes before you're planning to serve, you should get started. Light your grill and set it up for indirect heat. Get out a 10" cast iron skillet. Pull the bird out of the fridge and wipe off any remaining salt. Put some wood smoking chunks in to soak--we used applewood.

You should also prep whatever you're planning to serve with the bird. We served a rocket salad with goat cheese croquettes, and haricots vert with some toasted almonds.

When your fire is ready, set the skillet on the cool side of the fire. Let it get good and hot. Make sure the bird is dry, then set the bird in the skillet on its back. The searing helps insure the skin doesn't stick to the skillet. Cover the grill and go do something else for about half an hour.

When you come back, 30 minutes later, flip the bird onto its breast in the skillet. Cover and leave it for about ten minutes. Then flip the bird back over and cover for about five or ten minutes, until it is 145 degrees F.

By now, after about 45 minutes, it should be done. Check the temp and when its ready, carefully -- the skillet is hot, remember -- pull the skillet off, loosely tent the bird with foil, and leave it be for about ten minutes.

Et, voila.

This really is exceptional. I wish it were my creation, but alas it is not. All kudos to Ms. F.

Serve with a top drawer pinot noir. It deserves good wine.

The Annual Playoff Guide

I started this a few years ago. It's a pretty simple guide to how I view the teams involved. I've included both teams in tonight's game 163 elimination game.