The Autumn List

While I find it painful to say goodbye to summer, I like to remind myself of some of my favorite things about Fall.

1. Vintage coats in peculiar colors
2. A long walk at dusk
3. Old leather luggage
4. Scented candles
5. Wool turtleneck sweaters
6. Hats and gloves
7. Cashmere shawls
8. Patterned tights
9. A purring cat on your lap (actually, that is perennial)
10. A pot of Butternut Squash Soup. My sister Loranne makes the best butternut squash soup I’ve ever had, but this one isn’t bad either.
    

Butternut Squash Soup
1 3-pound butternut squash – peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes (5-6 cups)
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons kosher salt, pinch of freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 large yellow onion, diced
3 stalks celery, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage (about 6 leaves)
6 cups chicken broth
½ cup freshly grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, toss the squash with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of salt, and the pepper. Place the squash on a rimmed baking sheet and roast in oven for 15 minutes. Turn the cubes over and continue roasting for 15 minutes or until they are caramelized. Set aside.
In a large stockpot, heat the butter and remaining olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, celery and sage and sauté, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the squash, broth, and the remaining salt and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until the liquid is flavorful. Remove from heat. Using a blender or food processor, blend the soup in batches until smooth. Return to the pot and keep warm. Top with Parmesan and croutons if desired.

Orwellian Landscape

A few years ago, before I had a cell phone, I went for a shopping trip. It was a beautiful blue-sky summer day and, with the radio on and a complete sense of freedom, I realized that no one in the world knew where I was.

I don’t have GPS in my car, but Columbus is littered with a number of cameras at traffic lights. If you run a red light, you receive a ticket in the mail, the middleman/cop having been removed from the process.

I use a magnetic badge to get into the office where I work. At work, my emails and web surfing are monitored, some even prohibited. Every website I visit registers my presence. Amazon remembers not only what I’ve recently purchased, but also things that I’ve browsed and, every time I visit, I am greeted with new suggestions to put into my shopping cart. Yahoo! Also manages to gather information about me, because the ads on my Yahoo! home page reflect recently browsed pages or searches. If you ever wondered why you need a little card on your key chain to shop at your local grocery store, it is their way of gathering consumer information on you. The coupons you receive with your receipt reflect your buying trends. I know a man who, every time his wife goes shopping, logs into the credit card account online to monitor her shopping spree.

While our Federal Government conducts none of this surveillance, it still smacks of Big Brother. This isn’t about national security and the government tapping our phone conversations, but all the tools are in place. Spy satellites are taking pictures of us all now; some are said to have a powerful enough resolution to read a newspaper from space.

And we are willing accomplices, giving our personal information at every turn without a thought of our privacy. On our Facebook profiles, we tell all of our friends what we’re doing at any given moment. We Twitter, we Flickr, we Digg. We have entire generations that think it is normal to surrender personal information to complete strangers. I’m aware that when privacy issues are mentioned, many people get a picture of a paranoid man living in the woods with a shotgun and a manifesto. I am not that man, but as someone who has had her identity stolen, I can tell you my electronic credit trail tells a very misleading story about me.

While London boasts the distinction of being the city with the most public surveillance cameras, this is a growing trend. Will health insurance companies start monitoring how much wine I drink? Will a potential employer review my genetic records along with my resume? Could I be unjustly fired for transactions on my credit card that were not my own? How far into the future will we see computers like those seen on CSI and 24 that bring up every minute detail of a person’s life?

And what would it take to fall off the grid?

The Natives are Getting Restless

Our lawns and roadsides are still littered with tree corpses. Many streets lights remain dead and policemen have been directing traffic at the busiest intersections. At work, meetings start with the same question; who has power? It’s a funny question to start a business meeting, especially as it would have had entirely different meanings a week ago. One thing can be said about this storm and its consequences; it did not discriminate. In its destructive forces, it knew neither race, political leanings, social standing nor economic status. According to the outage map at AEP’s website, there are still well over 300,000 Ohioans without power, and they are scattered over the finest as well as the most humble neighborhoods. AEP is bringing in linemen from all over to solve the crisis, but people are getting tired of playing whist or canasta by candlelight.

So, with the recognition that many people are still struggling without power, I’ve created a list of things that I didn’t have and wished that I did in the last week. File this under “Hindsight is 20/20.”
1. Nonperishable foods such as nuts and nutrition bars.
2. Solar Dynamo Radio Light from L.L. Bean. Actually, any of the solar/crank tools from LL Bean.
3. One of the big metal coolers I grew up with, in cherry red with a white top.
4. More candles.
5. A print-out of all my contacts for when my cell phone goes dead.
6. A generator. They’re all sold out now, but I plan on buying one when this thing blows over. Pardon the pun.
7. Lavender oil to rub on my temples.
8. A refrigerator designed by NASA.

Shhhh. I'm reading.

My husband called me at work this afternoon to tell me we had power.

“Oh,” I said, as though he had informed me that we would be having tripe and pig’s feet for dinner. What would we do tonight, then? And tomorrow night? The drama had given our lives a certain purpose, and now we had to return to the ordinary functions of life.

So, when I got home, I watered the flowers and started a load of laundry. We scraped the wax drippings off the kitchen table and put away the accoutrements of a black-out. The lawn was mowed and looked as fine as ever, save for a small scar where the tree plowed into its grassy surface. I can still hear chain saws from the guys down the street that are dismantling a tree that had fallen on a neighboring garage, and I can still hear the echo of my neighbor screaming over the howling winds, “Have you seen our porch cushions?”

But tonight I’m reading. And when it gets darker, I may just light some candles and keep reading.

An Unruly Guest

On Sunday night, we in Columbus entertained an unruly guest. The sounds themselves tell a story. Six hours of howling winds subsided around 10pm to be replaced by sirens rushing through the streets, and then the planes that had been delayed began taking off again, one after another. The usual hum of LED lights was gone and it became eerily quiet. On Monday morning, you could still hear a few sirens, but a chorus of chain saws and generators up and down the street joined them.

While he caused nowhere near the destruction he caused in Texas, we did have several trees in our neighborhood commit suicide. Ike left a path of destruction, robbing entire cities of power, toppling trees onto cars, leaving us to negotiate dead street lights, and scramble for ice and working gas pumps.

While the frustrations and anxieties with such a fury are obvious, there were several things that caused me to pause and give thanks.

1. No one I know was hurt.
2. I don’t need electricity to heat water for coffee in my French press.
3. I don’t need electricity to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
4. I collect candles.
5. A hot shower is just as lovely in the dark.
6. I have amazing neighbors who helped us chop, split and clean up the fallen trees around our house.
7. Victorian evenings without the television, radio or computer can be magnificent.
8. I don’t have $100 Omaha steaks in my freezer.
9. It’s the perfect temperature outside where you don’t need heat or air conditioning.

Nick & Nora

William Powell and Myrna Loy were never married in real life, but their silver screen characters Nick & Nora Charles certainly had some interesting ideas on how to have a happy marriage.

Little Black Diamonds

I think it was at Bin 36, a restaurant across the street from my hotel on a business trip to Chicago, that I first tasted truffles. I should mention that Bin 36 is of a new breed of restaurants. They don't serve actual entrees. They serve tapas with six carefully selected wines to match. You order six appetizers and get six "flights" of wine to place against them. It's okay, I reasoned. I'm within legal stumbling distance of my bed. While highly civilized, it's pure hedonism.

The truffles were shaved over a cheese I selected. I like cheese. No, I love cheese. It's the fudge of the dairy world. I love mild, milky mozzarella with fresh basil and tomato slices as much as I love the feared Gorgonzola which smells like sweat socks. But the truffles ... while I enjoyed them, I felt a certain reserve. Musky, earthy, pungent – it was almost as if it was inappropriate to eat them in public. There's something utterly debauched about the taste of truffles, which explains their history.

Until recently, a truffle farmer would take his pig out to an oak grove to locate a truffle buried underground. The pig would prance along at a normal pace until he caught a whiff of something and was suddenly filled with this inexplicable urge to locate the exact origin. It smelled like a sow in heat, or, to his nose, his true love. Once he homed in on the origin of this heavenly scent, he would start digging furiously to get to her, never questioning why his true love was buried at the foot of an oak tree.

I'm not sure how this tradition changed. Perhaps the farmer felt guilty for misleading the pig into such disappointment and had to deal with the subsequent depression. Perhaps the pig dug so furiously that he destroyed the truffle itself. Now truffle farmers use dogs to locate truffles, and apparently truffles don't smell like bitches in heat. It seems that the dogs are equally voracious in locating truffles, not for any romantic attachment, but because they taste good. In fact, farmers need to carry treats to replace it so the dog doesn't devour the truffle.
I'm due for another business trip to Chicago soon and plan on staying in the same hotel, and even visiting Bin 36. But perhaps this time I'll order my meal to go and enjoy it while reflecting upon the relationship between the canine and human palette. And I'll remain mildy disturbed at the relationship of the pig's palette to both.

Memory and Desire

When I was teenager, my oldest sister Carol, who lived in New York City at the time, represented everything glamorous to me. When she would come home for visits, her embrace radiated a scent by Lancôme called Magie Niore. Unapologetically sensuous and feminine, this blend of cedar wood, musk and jasmine became for me the epitome of elegance. It remains a scent loaded with memories and associations to this day.

Carol gave me my first grown-up perfume when I was sixteen. Youth Dew, launched by Estee Lauder in 1953, is an oriental fragrance with a blend of warm rose, geranium, and amber. Wearing it daily, I felt connected to my sister. It became my ‘signature scent.’ Later, I got bold and bought Jardins de Bagatell by Guerlain. It was a heady blend of bergamot, jasmine, gardenia, tuberose, neroli and sandalwood.

Perfume companies understand that fragrance is not merely several scents blended together and bottled. Scents trigger memories, and create psychological associations. Cleopatra, the famous queen of Egypt, understood this when she drenched the sails of her ships with rose oil. Perfumes give us a feeling of being taller, thinner, richer, and beautiful. They wrap us in mystery, instill desire and inspire memories. And for those of us who cannot afford haute couture, buying a designer’s perfume is the next best thing.

Today I own several perfumes, and still manage to lust for new ones. Having married into a generous family, I have Hanai Mori’s entire line of quirky and sophisticated perfumes. I no longer have a signature scent; rather I determine what mood I’m going to set for my day with my choice. With names like Fleurs du Chocolat, Haute Couture, Butterfly, and Magic Moon, each carries its own message. One makes me feel graceful while another makes me feel edgy and tough.

I have yet to find that one perfect perfume that clearly expresses every nuance of my personality, but I’m enjoying the search, one bottle at a time.

Design by Committee

If you've ever designed something by committee, you understand.