DEPENDENCE

TODAY’S WORRY

I like to think of myself as a fairly independent person. But when I see young women out in the working world, I realize how really sheltered I am. And since John retired, I find it even more so. He rents the cars, does most of the driving, and deals with people at hotels and stores. He stays with me at social events where I don’t know people so I won’t have to be making chitchat on my own. What a good person! I think I was more independent when I first came out of college. I did a little traveling for my job and even stayed by myself in a hotel once but I never rented a car on my own until about 10 years ago. It is so easy to slip into a mode of avoiding all the “hard things.” I really need to force myself to do the tasks that are the most difficult for me before they become impossible.

Fewer and Less

First a quick note; did you find the NY Times Sunday crossword just way too easy today? I think the theme clues really set up the puzzle to be done in about a half an hour or less. Interestingly, the word, “interstice,” was in the puzzle today. Because it was the one of the words for the day this week, I remembered what it meant. Yay!

The other day, Sarah and I were discussing the usage of certain words and how we tend to modify our sentences to avoid using them altogether. Words like “lie” and “lay,” and “further” and “farther.” My friend Sophie, who was an English teacher, has a good rule for lay and lie but I can’t remember what it is. Hopefully, she will write in with it. So I thought I’d start with something a little easier.

Have you ever been in a grocery store line and the sign says, “Ten items or less?” Here’s the correct usage for less and fewer.

The traditional rule holds that fewer should be used for things that can be counted (fewer than four players), while less should be used with mass terms for things of measurable extent (less paper; less than a gallon of paint).
(dictionary.com)

So the sign in the grocery store should say, “Ten items or fewer.”

Left Bank, Menlo Park, CA

On Friday, all five of our family went out to Left Bank in Menlo Park for dinner to celebrate Jon’s recent birthday and our return from Florida. Left Bank is a bistro type restaurant with a large open seating area and a bar in front. It was pretty crowded and warm on Friday. We were seated at a large octangonal table which, given how noisy it was, did not promote a lot of conversation except with the person nearest you. This may be an older person problem; the kids seemed to have no trouble hearing each other. The waitstaff appeared promptly to take drink and food orders. We were given an interesting pitcher of water to keep our glasses filled. This was much appreciated since we tend to drink a lot of water.

Ryan ordered prawns with Pernod with garlic and citrus butter and Brussel sprouts with bacon. This was very good and everyone enjoyed dipping pieces of bread in her leftover sauce. Jon said it was quite complex. Sarah had tart Camembert and fondue Savoyarde, a fondue of goat, brie and bleu cheeses. So you could say she had a pretty cheesy dinner. Once again everyone enjoyed dipping pieces of bread in her fondue. Jon had the sausage special which he felt was rather bland. However, Jon likes everything pretty spicy. John had steamed mussels with pommes frites and the Brussel sprouts. This was a really big portion at a very reasonable price. I had sea bass with leek fondue and butter braised potatoes. I ordered the fish rare and, guess what, it was cooked exactly as I had asked. I found the potatoes and leeks a little heavy what with the butter and cream.

All the food was mostly very good and the bill, including two glasses of wine, only came to about $100. It’s not easy to go to a restaurant and get this quantity and quality of food for five people at such a reasonable price.

Pluses – well-cooked and interesting dishes, good service and reasonable prices
Minuses – noisy and warm; some of the dishes were too buttered, baconed or creamed (for me)

Mary – B+
John – A- (John thought his meal was really great but agreed about the noise and the warm)

Icons

TODAY’S WORRY

Back in the day when icons meant more than pictures on your desktop, we were indoctrinated with “doing the right thing” by Smokey the Bear and the Litterbug. Now being a suburban New Jersey girl, the chance of setting forest fires was remote, but I took to heart, “Don’t be a litterbug.” I remember giving my dad a really hard time when he would open a pack of cigarettes and throw the cellophane on the ground. (A few years later we would castigate our parents for smoking.) We children of the 50’s were a small army of litter police. Driving around in Florida, California, Nevada and Utah in the past few months makes me think that perhaps we need a new army of children indoctrinated with the “Don’t Litter” mantra. They will take it upon themselves not to litter but, even more importantly, they will call upon their piggish parents and acquaintances not to do so.

interstice

Another reason I like to be home is that I have a great big dictionary open on a table in the family room. I can get up from my chair (do you have a special place to sit at home?) and go look up a word easily. I like dictionaries because while you are looking for your word, and singing the alphabet song in your head, you see all these other words. As I said back in December, my English teacher from junior year always made us responsible for all the words around the “Word for the Day.” Of course, I’ll go on using dictionary.com for words here because it’s easier.

The word today is one that has come up a lot in crossword puzzles. Every time I see it, I think, “I’ll remember it for next time.” Then I don’t. I’ve tried reading it and saying it out loud but it just doesn’t stick. Maybe I will always remember it if I write it here in my blog.

interstice – A space, especially a small or narrow one, between things or parts. (dictionary.com)

This word comes from the Latin intersistere, to pause, make a break . You’d think after four years of Latin I’d know this. For all you Latin fans, Omnia Gallia est divisa in tres partes.

Cafe de Marco

Cafe de Marco, Marco Island, FL

Where do I begin? I guess with the article in the newspaper that Peg read to me extolling this restaurant’s many virtues and awards. Ted said, “maybe they wrote it themselves.” We should have listened.

The place, billed as a bistro, had the decor of glitzy, aging grand dame. Pink walls, swags at the windows, and fake, sparkly flowers above the lighting fixtures. I couldn’t figure out whether it was left over from Christmas.

The menu was primarily fish and seafood and the prices were in the $20-$25 per entree range. We ordered a bottle of wine and oysters Rockefeller to start. Other people had a basket of bread. Not us. When we finally asked the waitress to bring some bread, she feigned surprise at the oversight. In the oysters Rockefeller the bacon was tasty, the oyster almost non-existent and I think I was lucky enough to get a piece of shell (or maybe it was a pearl.) Next came a salad with lots of dressing.

For our main courses, John ordered the sea bass special and I ordered prawns and scallops. There was some confusion at first because I called them shrimp. duh. I guess if I were a waitress I’d know that shrimp and prawns are about the same thing. Both of us stressed that we wanted the fish and seafood cooked rare. Then we had a long wait. We drank most of our wine. Ate the three little rolls. (No more bread was ever offered.) Looked at the decor. Finally the order came.

John’s fish was cooked perfectly. I had scallop hockey pucks and dried out shrimp. So we sent mine back. We order more wine because we’ve gone through the bottle during the long wait. The waitress seems surprised. More people from the restaurant come to our table because we’ve complained. We explain that the dish was ordered cooked rare. We are told that most people like it cooked through. We explain that that is the reason we specified “rare.” I change my order to the sea bass. A new dish comes almost immediately. It was someone else’s. I feel sorry for the person who is not getting his dinner. The fish is good. The green beans are very crunchy. They really needed more cooking. It seems strange that they think that their clientele would like overcooked seafood and undercooked green beans.

To cap the whole experience off, the waitress makes a snide comment about the additional wine. And so, we celebrated our last night in Marco Island (or tried to.)

Mary’s rating – D- (this was only saved from an F by getting a piece of adequately prepared fish fairly quickly)
John’s rating – B- for his dinner and F for the whole experience.

EUREKA!

TODAY’S WORRY

Does everyone think that where they live is the best? I have just returned from four weeks in Marco Island, FL. As we flew over the Sierras, the Central Valley and then finally into the Bay Area, I thought, wow, this is the best place on earth. Maybe that’s a reaction to being home. I can remember feeling a similar way as we approached Boston or Raleigh. But yesterday, the sky was so blue and the temperature in the mid-60’s. Flowering trees are blooming and daffodils are out. Everything is so green. Then I went to the grocery store. The aisles are so wide. They are not filled with people who are 55 and up, standing in the middle of the aisle trying to remember what they went to store for. And the produce. It made me want to weep. What variety! I actually went over to the produce manager and told how wonderful his produce was. There were piles of leeks and fennel (and not for $4.99 each), many kinds of eggplant, all sorts of lettuces and mushrooms. I know as the glow of being home wears off, I’ll start to notice less attractive aspects of California, but right now, this is the best place to live.

dungarees

First, a big thank you to Sarah and Leigh who sent excellent palindromes. In case you don’t read the comments, here they are.

Was it Eliot’s toilet I saw?
Go hang a salami; I’m a lasagna hog!

The other day my brother-in-law, Ted, mentioned that he was going to put on his dungarees. That comment prompted a discussion of the word. When I was going to college, other girls were wearing jeans but at my house we always referred to them as dungarees. Is this a New Jersey thing? What a strange looking word. So I thought I’d look it up.

dungarees – Trousers or overalls made of sturdy denim fabric. (Dictionary.com) Dungaree is the name of the fabric.
Here’s the derivation – from Hindi dungri “coarse calico,” from the name of a village, now one of the quarters of Bombay. (etymonline.com)

Interesting.

Serves 4?

When the kids lived at home and there were four of us, I always made recipes that served 6 or 8. Invariably, everything was gone when dinner was over. Now that they are in their own places and cooking their own meals, I tend to make recipes that serve 4 for the two of us. Invariably, everything is gone when dinner is over. So the diet tip for today is, make the correct serving size for the number of people who are eating! If you are convinced that you must have leftovers, the leftovers should be put in the refrigerator or freezer before you sit down to eat. Maybe you have a lot more willpower than I do, but probably you don’t.