One Fun

Graduation Presents

Since we're in the midst of graduation season, a lovely time of year which is also the season of incredibly boring, self-righteous speakers and speeches, it feels right to bestow gifts on people I like and admire, whose accomplishments I wish to celebrate. However, since we're still in an economic recession (that's what it feels like to me, even though a person in the class ahead of me at college whose job it is to officially deem recessions "happening" or "over" has declared this one over), I haven't much to give, so I'll keep it simple until I can think of something better:

1. First, I recently read the commencement remarks at Smith College made by a particularly unpleasant television pundit. Bombast, hatred and sloppy thinking issue from many quarters these days (always, I suppose), but this woman really gets on my nerves. She said to the graduating seniors:

"Be intellectually and morally rigorous in your own decision-making and expect that the important people in your life do the same if they want to stay important to you."

My first gift is to advise you to ignore what that dreadful, hate-spewing, unfunny, hypocritical woman says and instead think of the words of the English poet Philip Larkin in his poem The Mower:

"we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time."

For reasons that I hope are obvious, I think those are much better words and sentiments. 

2. My second present, also simple, is the following recipe for Chocolate Cream Pie, which looks incredible. It was discovered suddenly by Miss J.B. Cravan during a journey from New York to Pennsylvania last week, and she  marked the moment with a cry of "Eureka!" (which wouldn't be a bad one-word commencement address) from the back seat.

Chocolate Cream Pie

A crunchy crust and pudding-like filling make this pie a standout. This pie should be well chilled before it’s served.
Source: Saveur

16 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 1⁄2"
cubes and chilled, plus more for pie plate
1⁄4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 9-oz. package chocolate wafers,
such as Nabisco, finely ground
(about 2 1⁄4 cups)
3 1⁄2 cups half-and-half
2⁄3 cup plus 2 tbsp. sugar
1⁄4 cup cornstarch
9 egg yolks
9 oz. semisweet chocolate,
finely chopped
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate,
finely chopped
2 1⁄2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream
Dark chocolate, for garnish

1. Heat oven to 375°. Grease bottom and sides of a 9" glass pie plate with butter; set aside. Heat 8 tbsp. butter and brown sugar in a 1-qt. saucepan until sugar dissolves. Transfer butter mixture to a medium bowl; stir in ground wafers. Transfer mixture to pie plate; press into bottom and sides, using the bottom of a measuring cup to compress crust. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Bake until set, about 15 minutes; let cool.

2. Heat half-and-half in a 4-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat until it just begins to simmer; remove pan from heat. In a large bowl, whisk together 2⁄3 cup sugar and cornstarch; add egg yolks and whisk until smooth. Drizzle half-and-half into egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly, until smooth. Return mixture to saucepan; heat over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, until bubbles rise to the surface and mixture is very thick, 3–4 minutes. Remove pan from heat and add remaining butter and chocolates in small batches, whisking until smooth; stir in 1 1⁄2 tsp. vanilla. Set a sieve over a medium bowl and strain chocolate mixture. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing plastic onto surface; refrigerate until set, about 4 hours.

3. Remove plastic wrap from chocolate filling and, using a rubber spatula, stir mixture until smooth. Spoon mixture into reserved crust, forming a dome, and smooth surface with the spatula. In a large bowl, whisk remaining sugar, remaining vanilla, and heavy cream until stiff peaks form; spread on top of filling, forming a dome. Using a peeler, shave some of the dark chocolate onto top of pie. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.


School is over. Summer begins. Eureka!

Animals In War Memorial, London

Several years ago, while visiting London during our “Big Ben/Loch Ness Monster/Leprechauns” tour of England, Scotland and Ireland, we encountered unexpectedly the Animals In War memorial at Brook Gate near Park Lane when we set out on a walk from our hotel in Park Street.  We had stayed at this hotel, which was barely a minute from the memorial, many times before, but not for a couple of years, which allowed the appearance of the memorial to come as a complete surprise to us. 

It is a handsome and enormously moving tribute to animals (mules, horses, dogs, elephants, camels, canaries, even glow worms), all “conscripted”,  who served and toiled with men across centuries in the horrifying but universal enterprise of war.  As the legend on the monument says “They Had No Choice”.

The memorial was designed by the British sculptor, David Backhouse, and has been described as “a curved Portland stone wall [that] symbolises the arena of war, with the animals depicted on it in bas-relief. Two life-size heavily laden bronze mules struggle up the steps towards a gap in the wall. Beyond the gap a bronze horse and dog gaze into the distance.”

I hope all of you will have a chance some day to see the Animals In War memorial and to think about the animals whose lives it commemorates. (Note: Clicking on the uppermost photo gives a clear view of the inscription on the memorial.) 

Cy Twombly -- Untitled (Palimpsest)

Will expand on this later. I just wanted to post it so that anyone passing by had something nice to look at.

Miss Cravan Fights City Hall

The Baldwin School

701 Montgomery Avenue

Bryn Mawr, PA 19010

22 October 2008

The Honorable Michael Bloomberg

Mayor of the City of New York

Gracie Mansion

New York, NY 10028

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

            Please try to keep the memory of the old Yankee Stadium alive.  For example, you could commission a giant painting or sculpture of it that could be displayed in a museum or outside in a public square, or even have a mural of it on the outside of the new stadium.

            Yankee Stadium has a wonderful, unusually wide left field and is built with winding staircases.  It is almost like a landmark for the team and for New York City. Think of all the great times and memories people had there and of all the souvenirs they bought.  Yankee Stadium has been in the Bronx for a long time – nearly 100 years!  Some people even say that Babe Ruth, the greatest Yankee player, built Yankee Stadium himself.

            I have lived in New York almost my whole life, always loved it, and most of all always wanted to see a game at Yankee Stadium.  Finally, I went to a game (the Yankees won by a long shot) barely a year ago.  It will break my heart when the stadium is no longer there.  Yankee Stadium is phenomenal!

            This doesn’t mean that you have to do what I’m asking since I know you are your own man, but if you do you should know that I will be very grateful and I know that the other citizens of New York will also be.  The bottom line is that I want you to please do something to keep the memory of this amazing place alive.

            Thank you for your time.  I look forward to a response. 

                                                                                                            Sincerely,

                                                                                                             J.B. Cravan (Miss)

                       

P.S.  Go Yankees!  You should go watch them play soon.  (I know you will.)  

--------------------------------

Editor's Note: 

1. I regret to inform the reader that Mayor Bloomberg ignored Miss Cravan's request and razed Yankee Stadium in an almost summary manner. His reply, via "form letter", does not merit republication.

2.  When visiting the "new Yankee Stadium" in the summer of 2009, Miss Cravan and her companions discovered that it was impossible to acquire a hot dog and an order of french fries from the same vendor.  Accomplishing this purchase required completion of a long and strenuous walk.

Fairy Tale by Ron Padgett

The little elf is dressed in a floppy cap
and he has a big rosy nose and flaring white eyebrows
with short legs and a jaunty step, though sometimes
he glides across an invisible pond with a bonfire glow on his cheeks:
it is northern Europe in the nineteenth century and people
are strolling around Copenhagen in the late afternoon,
mostly townspeople on their way somewhere,
perhaps to an early collation of smoked fish, rye bread, and cheese,
washed down with a dark beer: ha ha, I have eaten this excellent meal
and now I will smoke a little bit and sit back and stare down
at the golden gleam of my watch fob against the coarse dark wool of my vest,
and I will smile with a hideous contentment, because I am an evil man,
and tonight I will do something evil in this city!

Brown Turns To Grey -- Harvesting Joe Klein (Parody)

We flew into Marjah over a patchwork of poppy fields — not exactly a sea of poppies, but plenty of them. It was two weeks before the harvest, and the last blossoms were floating away in the dusty haze of Helmand province, leaving the prohibitively weird-looking, blue-gray bulbs bald and ready for processing, like an army of alien vegetative creatures. We landed in a wheat field just across the road from the district governor's pathetic headquarters. Remember all those "shovel-ready" projects? Well, they didn't exist. This is why your child's teacher wasn't laid off...and why the fire station has remained open, and why you're not paying even higher state and local taxes to close the local budget hole. This is yet further evidence that Americans are flagrantly ill-informed.

In celebration, before the ceremony, a Kennedy who shall remain nameless took me down to the barn for an intense herbal experience. When I returned to the house, there was Teddy — and it was immediately apparent that he was as shiffazed as I was stoned. We greeted each other like old comrades in arms, sat in a corner and talked about how he wasn't angry about the tomatoes. 

He seemed a ghost the day I met him. He was scared catatonic, of course.  We were at a classic grip-and-grin event, the annual Greek picnic in Lowell, Mass.  . He simply had no idea what to say or do. "So, uh, your family, ah, likes ... meat?" he asked.  No question about the high price of chuck.  I was beginning to feel sorry for the guy. A family conceit, he was not only the baby, but also the screwup.

The pols gadded about with antic smiles and jackets hooked over their shoulders, ties loosened. But we talked again about that day soon after, and memorably so, since neither of us was sober.  Word spread quickly, as word will do in Washington. 

And yet there was a distinct giddiness at NATO headquarters in Kabul. One called it "rushing to failure." Another called it "catastrophic success.”  

A few of the elders raised their eyebrows and nodded at each other; a few others smiled. 

I must admit utter confusion; I've never heard the U.S. military talk so ... airily before.  

It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you're a nation of dodos.