Black Friday

In the days of our youth we could do our Christmas Shopping in downtown Plymouth.  This is not to say a trip to Boston wasn’t a highlight of the Christmas season, but we really didn’t need to go to Filene’s or Jordan Marsh because there was a wonderful selection of merchandise set out on Main Street.  The prices were firm, at least until the January sales.  Looking back I realize how nice that was.

 Black Friday is nearly upon us, and it’s not a comforting thought.  Thanksgiving is a busy day at our house. If we’re satisfied that the food was tasty, everyone had a good time, the dishes are washed, and the leftovers stored, we fall into bed contented and ready for a rest.  We’re not likely to haul out at two in the morning to get a deal on a Disney princess. 

But if I pay more than someone else, I’ll feel like I’ve been taken.  If they can sell something at a discount in the middle of the night, why can’t they sell it to me for the same price at a civilized hour? I consider Christmas shopping a necessary evil.  The important thing is to choose a gift that will bring delight.  That’s hard enough without worrying that later on the store will hold a one-day sale and offer the same item to someone else for 30% off.  

If they do I could find the sales slip, return the merchandise, and buy it back for the discount, but that would require a second trip to the store.  I could wait in line at the returns counter, and maybe – just maybe – there wouldn’t be a technicality that made the whole rigmarole a waste of time.

I plan to pass up the Black Friday door- busters.  I don’t want to turn up in a news item about the fogy who got trampled because he stopped to look at cookware in an aisle that led to the electronics counter.  I’ll consider that those bargain-crazed sprinters earned their discounts with the sweat of their brows.  The thought will help assuage my guilt for having paid too much.

Fish Chowder

My fish stock came in handy the Saturday before Thanksgiving when the grandchildren came to see the Plymoth Thanksgiving Parade.  I chopped the onion and peeled the potato, Annette put the chowder together, and my daughter Becky heated it up and added the cream. 

Skyfall

“Skyfall” starts out like any other James Bond film with the secret agent battling a bad guy on top of a train.  We settle back and get ready for the fun.  But the mood shifts – not just in the picture, but in the series.  Bond is wounded and presumed dead.  We know, of course, he isn’t really dead because, even with a senior discount, the tickets were a little costly, and they’re not going to get us to vacate our seats ten minutes in.  Our hero reappears with a drug and alcohol problem that gives him the shakes so every time he shoots at something, he misses. We fogies are not surprised.  We learned long ago that which does not kill you is liable to make you weaker. 

It gets worse.  Bond is in handcuffs, and the bad guy opens his shirt and begins caressing the super spy’s manly torso.  He makes a lewd suggestion, implying that Bond is in for a new experience.  James replies, “What makes you think this is my first time?” 

Huh?

Sean Connery’s Bond in “Goldfinger” converted Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore to the side of the good with a roll in the hay.  The tradition of the Bond girl started with Ursula Andress in “Dr. No.” When Connery removed a sea urchin spine from her foot using his teeth, that was kinky enough for 1962. Bond picked up women everywhere and ended up with one as the picture closed.  He’d turn off the homing beacon on the life raft and drift away into the vast ocean and the movie-goer’s imagination. 

Fantasy was the main attraction.  Bond could identify a Faberge egg at a glance, but you never saw him in a museum or a library. He executed impossible shots, but never frequented the firing range.  He had sex without complications.  When he was finished with the women, they disappeared, and casting began for the next picture. 

The old Bond movies were comedies.  The villains he conquered were larger than life.  It may have occurred to you as it did to me that the undersea or island hideouts would have been pretty easy to find, having required engineers, contractors, shipments of building materials and huge labor forces.  No one ever explained how a functioning orbital rocket was conveyed into an underground lair without anyone knowing about it.  You chuckled at Bond girl’s names such as Dr. Holly Goodhead, and when your hero dispatched a bad guy, he always had a quip. 

James Bond was a man without a past, and “Skyfall” changes that.  You realize that, if he can shoot and miss, the old rules don’t apply.  Although Bond is English, the movies are American, and maybe we were a little cockier in 1962, less than twenty years after World War II when we were still getting used to being a superpower.  Now we feel older and a little shaky.

But perhaps that’s too psychological.  It may be that all the super villains have been done.  Nuclear devices with digital countdowns are passé. We were getting a little tired of them, and Austin Powers dealt the final blow.  Bond had to change. 

The critics are divided.  Some are nostalgic for the old hero, and others say this is the best Bond film yet.  I’ll still watch a James Bond marathon on TV, but I liked the new movie.  As a fogy I still find James Bond a fantasy figure.  Even though he is diminished, I like to see him fighting hard and doing pretty well.

Stocking Up

The Jews, the schools, and the auto companies all have the right idea.  The year begins in the fall.  The cooling of the weather puts you in the mood to restart your life.  Naturally I’m making resolutions.  One is that I’ll keep the freezer and refrigerator full of material for good homemade soups.

I made a batch of chicken broth.  Old cooks say that you can’t make chicken soup properly without the feet so when I’m near a Chinese market I buy a pound of them to keep on hand, but my supply was a little outdated, and a freezer burned chicken foot is not a pretty thing.  I omitted them in this latest batch. I got two family packs of drumsticks on sale and put them in a tall pot with parsley, celery, onion (including the skin for color) carrot, and peppercorns.  I added no salt; it can be put in later if needed. Why you have to pay extra for salt-free chicken broth in the store, I couldn’t say. 

I simmered the stock slowly for about six hours, occasionally taking off the gray scum  that rises to the top.  Then I cooled the stock in the refrigerator.  When it was cold, I skimmed the fat from it and froze it in two-cup portions in Zip-Lock bags.  I recommend the name brand product for this because the store brand bags tend to leak.  Remember to label and date the bags before you start filling them. 

Chicken stock is a useful ingredient to have on hand.  With it you can make a soup out of almost anything, and it will have that long simmered flavor.  You can use it in sauces, casseroles, and stir fries.  I make beef stock as well, but chicken is more versatile.  Stocks you make yourself are better and cheaper than those you buy in the supermarket.

Today I made fish stock. This used to be easier because all fish markets cut their own fish, and you had only to get there early in the morning before they threw away the bones.  Now you have to order them, and they’re no longer free, but this morning I found myself in Brant Rock having breakfast at my favorite restaurant, Arthur and Pats.  I popped over to Brant Rock Fish Market because its owner, Henry Dunbar, still cuts his fish.

My fish stock recipe is based on that of Jasper White.  I admire him as a chef, and have never gone wrong with his cookbooks, but I started breaking the rules while I was still in Brant Rock.  I got two cod frames, or racks as Dunbar calls them.  White says cod makes an inferior stock, but he uses his stock for delicate sauces that might be overpowered by the stronger flavor of cod.  I use mine mostly for chowder, and I want the heartier taste. 

White tells you to trim off all the skin, but the same old time housewife who insists on using chicken feet says you can’t make good chowder without the head so I put it in the pot.  After that I followed the recipe pretty closely. 

I cut up a leek, an onion, two peeled carrots, and three stalks of celery.  I melted two tablespoons of butter in the bottom of my stock pot and sweated the vegetables along with some parsley.  I think White calls for six parsley stems, but I like parsley so I tore a handful off the bunch and threw it in the pot.  I’m a little bit haute cuisine and a little bit rock and roll.

I also used more fresh thyme than he called for on the theory that all this flavorful cod can stand up to more herbs than flounder.  I’m not going for nuance, I want bold flavor.  I tossed in two bay leaves and a handful of peppercorns.

When you sweat vegetables and herbs you don’t sauté them.  You turn the heat down and let them loll around in the melted butter over low heat until they give up some of their flavor.  One rack weighed three pounds, which was the amount the recipe called for.  I cut it into small pieces and put it in with a cup of white wine. 

Will my chowder have the flavor of wine?  Not really, and you can leave it out and use water.  I had a bottle of vermouth in the refrigerator. It makes a great cooking wine and is handy when you’re in the mood for a martini.

This wine settled down among the sweaty vegetables and made a fragrant steam that gently cooked the fish.  After a few minutes I covered the fish bones with water and brought it to a boil. I skimmed the surface and then turned it down to a simmer.  You can simmer chicken stock all day, but ten minutes is all White recommends for fish stock, and that’s what I gave it.  Then you let it sit for ten minutes more.  Don’t walk away and read a book during this operation.  Big flavor is great, but it can be overdone. 

We poured the stock through a fine strainer.  I say “we” because it’s a good idea to have a helper hold the strainer while you wrestle with the heavy pot.  The bowl of stock went into the refrigerator to cool before freezing.  For some reason, Annette prefers plastic freezer containers over bags for fish stock.

The nights are getting colder, but I’m ready to warm body and soul on dark winter evenings.  Annette will use the stock to simmer a haddock or cod fillet cut into chunks, adding potatoes, onions, salt pork and whatever else her recipe calls for. She adds milk at the last minute. A grind of pepper, a sprinkle of fresh thyme leaves, and a pat of melting butter, and I won’t wish it was summer -- at least not as much.  

Sunset with Windmills

 

Night falls over Plymouth Harbor as windmills turn slowly in the evening breeze.

The Windmills of Your Mind

In those first days when every chimney sprouted a television antenna, people thought the gray aluminum appendages were discordant notes in otherwise pleasant architecture. My grandmother remarked that folks complained about telephone poles when they were new on the scene.  If you think about it, telephone poles are unbeautiful. We’re so used to them we’ve learned to look at the landscape as though they weren’t there.  

Now it’s windmills.  They’re large, sometimes huge, and pretty hard to ignore.  There’s one in Plymouth that stands before the graceful line of the Pine Hills, and it’s not getting good reviews.   I wonder if the Dutch, or for that matter the Cape Codders, ever  thought those early windmills with the canvas sails were a blot on the countryside.  They were necessary and designed for function rather than esthetics.  Perhaps they got in the way of the view. 

I’m taking what may be a minority stand on windmills.  They remind me of modern sculptures moving slowly and gracefully.  I like to think of power coming from the wind, which is going to blow anyway.  I’m pro windmill.

Antique windmills are a popular motif in oil paintings and those that have survived are admired by sightseers.  The tall, fan-like windmills that pump water on the Great Plains are symbolic of rural America and have become the subject of knickknacks sold in gift shops.  Perhaps today’s giant windmills will be thought picturesque, but they’ll have to become scarce first.

We can imagine an era when another power source displaces wind, and the controversial behemoths are one by one dismantled and sold for scrap.  As their number dwindles there’ll be committees of citizens who want to preserve those that are left.  Like lighthouses they’ll be seen as quaint.  Tourists will admire them for their sleek functionality.  Cameras will snap, or whatever cameras do in that future time.