Weekend Food Notes; John Raitt Passes

Coming off of a three day weekend for Kimberly, and thus for Piper and Tim. Friday night I made a lovely pizza, roasting a red and a yellow pepper and slicing up the remains of last week's prosciutto and adding in the last of the goat cheese. I made a quick red sauce with some tomato paste, italian herbs, some on the stem oregano I got at the world market on sixth, and of course some vermouth, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. This was quit successful and we had some red wine with it.

We tend to favor Zinfandel. It is Kimberly's favorite wine and I tend to get what I know she likes. I also very much like cabernet sauvignons, merlots, and, particularly, good chianti. Since I can't afford to spend much on wine, zinfandel becomes the choice more often than not. You can buy old vines blended zinfandels for ten dollars a bottle (Renwood). What about white wine, you say? I like a good clean, crisp white wine. Particularly chardonnay and pinot grigio. But I really like liebefraumilch and that other german wine...I draw a blank. Well, if it shows up I'll fix the line. Once again though they have to be of a certain quality to be fun to drink.

Saturday night I roasted a top round beef roast and made some hollandaise to have with it. I did a fruit salad with mango, star fruit, kiwi, black grapes, some banana, dressed with vermouth and blood orange vinegar. Oh, and it had a blood orange sectioned and chopped up in it. They've had blood oranges of late at the store, and I do so like them. They are red of flesh, and much sweeter than average oranges. I'd like to do duck a l'orange with blood oranges. One of these days.

Sunday night we had a pork roast, rubbed with a variety of things and roasted a good long time. We broke down and bought a pana rustica from the market and had it with some good olive oil. I spent a bunch of money last week on very few things at the sixth street market here.

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This morning on NPR they played some of the original Carousel stage recording. John Raitt died over the weekend. He sang the Billy Bigelow role. It turns out, according to this report, that the aria, "My Boy Bill", which is so central to that story, was written specifically for Raitt's rather operatic voice. A gift to us all, "My Boy Bill," begins the discussion of sexuality and male/female in modern America. He is singing along about what his son will be like and what they will do and suddently he stops, realising the child could be a daughter. And of course she is. Carousel is one of the great musicals, and one of the few times Rodgers and Hammerstein took on a serious issue. Though, really, they skirt it. Still it is there: domestic violence. And there are so many great songs in Carouosel. We all know "If I Loved You," but what about "Spring is busting out all over," and there's that song about her best friend and the man who smells like fish.

And Sandra Dee died over the weekend. She played Gidget in the back when. I always wondered how she felt abut that song in Grease, "Look at me/I'm Sandra Dee/filthy with/virginity!"

May the Lady speed them all to their rest, or to their next task, whatever it may be.