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2003-02-18 - 2:06 p.m. Mistress Theo�s Wild Ride (Sounds like a bad porn flick, doesn�t it? Yeah, that was the Friday night Nia quote I can see it now � the PowerPuff Girls go to an adult video store�.) (Think I felt D. develop a new fantasy.) So, Anne calls Monday to check whether Nia and Nikulai are still safe at our house or on the road back to North Carolina. Though I *try* to wrest the phone from Nia�s grasp and defend myself (Don�t even try to inject reality here says the wiser and more experienced Nikulai), while Nia tells Anne the story of our weekend. Once says Nia snow came down, like we were in Russia, but alas we were in Maryland. Stranded in Maryland with mouthbreathing people who don't know how to drive or walk in snow. Go ahead and come up this weekend, Theo says. It�ll be fine, she says. They�ll clear stuff and you can head home early Sunday before it really starts snowing heavily. She lies like a rug. So, Nia and Nikulai came to visit. Nia wanted to learn more about cooking and hang out on a weekend where we had no pressing plans, engagements, events, or appointments and could stay up late talking about anything and nothing. Nikulai came cause we whined at him. Last Sunday at Ymir, I say to Nikulai. Nia is coming up next weekend to go grocery shopping. Excuse me? We�re going grocery shopping. We, um, have grocery stores in North Carolina. But, I�m *fun* in a grocery store. Really. Sometimes, too much fun. I was once thrown out of the cereal aisle for an incident involving Barbie Fun Crunchies. It will be fun. Please� Nikulai came despite the whining. So yay. Day 1: Saturday. Saturday morning, we read through cookbooks, while I explain the phenomenon that most recipes follow patterns. Once you know the pattern well enough *and* you know enough about the raw ingredients you like to use, you can adapt the recipes. Nia buys this. (Hee hee, she is in my power.) I introduce Nia and Nikulai to Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. All the food is shiny and pretty � pet, pet - and, hey, it�s not that hard. I could make this stuff. But what�s kosher salt? If you ever want to persuade someone it�s worth buying better than average spices, try this. Line up cans of salt � table salt, kosher salt, sea salt � and make your victim taste the spices, worst to best. Nia starts making a list of things she wants in her kitchen. I gave her my pile of Cuisine magazines. These are addictive magazines � big friendly pictures, ingredients explained, terms defined � very cool. Nia loves them. Nikulai loves them. Food snobbery spreads. Go me! Nia adds food to her list. Grocery store, ho! Tour through the myriad types of apples, green, peppers. Now, I don�t cook much Mexican, so when we got to those bins, Nikulai and I just made stuff up. Nia was not amused. You cannot play with Nia unless you play nice. Do you see this face that says we�ll just get in the car and go home? Repressed, Nikulai and I slink through the potatoes aisle. But, we recover ground in the exotic vegetables, where Nia wrinkles her nose at fennel. What's a kohlrabi, I ask. And, Theo, says, �It's a kohlrabi.� It is what it, Theo says, cause apparently she was Descartes in another life. Then Nikulai found this broccoli asparagus thing, which looked promising, but was, by the way, nasty when we cooked it. But Roland ate it, cause he had that look that said, well, now that it�s all cooked and there in front of him, what the hell. Then, Nikulai turns to me and says, �Let me see the list. How much chard do we need?� Hmmm, I say. Hmmm, says I. No one *told* me you need to put amounts on the list. Amounts help. Hey! I say, I�m new at this cooking stuff. But they are heartless. Then, we get salmon, cause the whole fish is on sale. And the nice man says he�ll cut it up for us. Theo and I think he�s making us filets, but, no, he just cuts them into chunks. He lies. He is evil. So we take them home and try to cook them, but we�re bone traumatized. But we do eat them and no one dies, so okay then. Meanwhile, Nikulai takes the fish head and feet (Fins, not feet. Fins. Whatever.) and wraps them in cheesecloth and puts them in a pot with milk and makes chowder. (Nikulai�s cell phone battery dies. Anne calls back on our house phone. I reach the phone first, but they are all against my adding harsh reality to the Nia story, and Roland chews on me until I give Nia the phone.) We made orzo, with what was supposed to be chard, but we used spinach. But we bought some chard anyway, just to try it. And you know what? Turns out it tastes like spinach. We round out the 3 hours grocery story tour with a salubrious discussion of virgin versus extra virgin olive oil and several boxes of the Skinny Cow Fudgeciles. Meanwhile. So, Theo decides she wants a fire. Roland has doubts. Sweetie, says he, the wood it wet. But Theo wants a fire and is darting about saying �la la la, I cannot hear you because, I want a fire.� So they dig out the wood pile, and Roland goes shuffle, shuffle, shuffle to Siberia and back and lo, there is wood. And Theo makes a fire like an engineer makes a fire, a fire that can be seen from space. Not, only does she want a fire. She wants smores. So she brings out these 6� long telescoping marshmallow forks. Long, pointy, very frightening. Very long � you can sit in the kitchen and make smores over the roaring fire that can be detected from space. Which was not so interesting until Roland laid down and stuck it straight up from his stomach. Nikulai and I look at each other and we're thinking, hmmm, 6 feet, lucky Theo, except the fork thing is kind of thin. Theo, it turns out, approaches marshmallow roasting, with infinite patience that is odd for her. (I lunge for the phone, unsuccessfully.) by waving her marshmallow about 3 miles from the flame. Versus, Nikulai, Roland and I who are of the immediate gratification school of burning the marshmallow and blowing it out, cause, how cool is it to have burning food in your hands? Nikuali, it turns out, has never made smores, possibly because he never went to Mormon girls camp. So then, we cook. And I learn to chop with the nice knife they made me buy at Target, which is the kind Theo likes, I don�t remember the name, but it have a little guy on it. So I cook. I chop eggplant and peppers. And brush mushrooms, cause you are supposed to brush them to clean them, not wash them, who knew? I mince parsley. Maniacal Nia laughter, cause I love my new knife and Daemon will be proud. Nikulai makes his fishhead soup. (Chowder, it�s chowder! Whatever. Fishheads, fishheads, la la la fishheads) And I won�t let Theo use her kitchen aid mixers to make the custards, cause I don�t have a kitchen aid. She pouts, but I do not care. So I use a spoon. I love wooden spoons. They are on my list of stuff to buy, along with kosher salt and dozens more dishtowels, cause, by now, we�ve soaked sixteen dish towels making all this stuff, like the eggplant spread. So, we ate ourselves into oblivion, which was fabulous. And watched this crazy guy on the Food network make a box from chocolate with tile tools. Then, we watched �Iron Chef!� which is run by a crazy Japanese man, and they made chocolate & banana Valentine�s Day desserts � and they made chocolate pasta � but the challenger won, which was good, cause the Iron chef�s food was not pretty. Meanwhile, the snow continues to fall. Day 2: Sunday. Morning: We all lay around on the office futon, while Nia copies page after page of Cuisine magazines. Nikulai, meanwhile, takes the direct route of subscribing to the magazine. We watch the snow fall. Roland and I put on layers and boots and shovel out the driveway, figuring that it they are leaving at all, they have to leave soon as possible. So we shovel part of Nikulai�s car, stop and take pictures of the snow depth, then work on the rest of the driveway. Nia and Nikulai wander about the driveway, check the weather and road reports and decide to stay. (Woot! The wild Nia and Nikulai are trapped. Move quietly so as not to startle these creatures we are studying in captivity.) (Being snowbound with your friends is always fun and educational � like who knew Nikulai had so many wombat centric issues. Did you know there�s even a religion based on the wombat? Everyone buy Nikulai wombat stuff.) I whine at Nia to make lunch, so she makes the big pot of orzo, where she learns about blanching greens. After Nikulai and I drive her crazy with various elaborate explanations about the way to approach the process, Nia says, Huh. So blanching is just barely scaring the greens with hot water. Got it. Then, we made fettucine, cause Theo is an alien person and does not have boxes of fettucine. No, no, we must make fresh, and I want her to teach me to make lightened alfredo sauce, which involves learning words like �roux�, which is not the small Pooh �roo� animal nor �rue� like �you�ll rue the day�, but this browning flour thingy to make saucen thicker. So we made pasta, which was cool. And I made alfredo sauce, which was fantastic. And Theo makes this apple crisp. After dinner, we make Nikulai watch Lilo and Stitch, and (be proud Gen) create another fan. Nikulai and Nia are patient while Roland and I quote �Lilo and Stitch� the rest of the evening and dance around the living room to the music. Day 3: Monday. Adventurers of the mouthbreathing sheba monkeys. Roland and I shovel some more. Nikulai offers to strip his bed, to which I say, Maybe we should see if you can get out today, or if you�ll need the bed again. So we shovel, and call G&A, who are out, to check the roads. The verdict is the usual �not bad, once you get out of the neighborhood�. Nikulai calls NC and Cho says �We have 3� of ice. Stay there.� They decide (yay!) to stay another day, so we have no need to go anywhere; but I, well - I must confess, I grew up in the Appalachians. Snow & trucks are like crack to me. In the mountains, there is a traditional rite of passage. The first winter a teenager can drive, you take the oldest family vehicle to an empty parking lot and learn how to drive in snow. My dad and I spun around the high school driving range, whipping around the old Jeep Cherokee (we did take the one with the sides rusted through) until I not only could loose control and not panic, but I could maintain control when it was sliding everyway. I am very good at driving in the snow. So, I had this manic need to drive my truck in the 25� accumulation. Besides, we live on a long sloping road, and my truck is the only vehicle on the street with a chance of breaking ruts. It was, um, altruistic, yeah. We never see a plow, because once you make it to the top of the hill, you face another long downward slope where idiot neighbors park cars on both sides, creating a zig-zag under the best conditions. Nikulai and Nia bravely decide to be in the truck while I do this. I sense doubt, cause usually we let Roland do all these manly things, but snow and trucks are Theo�s idiom. Roland stays safely outside the car, hiking along checking the drifts. I got on Mistress Theo's wild ride, because, Judgment, she is not my middle name. Theo makes the truck go � vroom vroom, forward, and drift drift back. And vroom and drift and whee and spin. She is really fantastic at driving in the snow. Then, we get to the top of the hill and she slaloms through all these parked and buried cars � whoosh, urch, whoosh. It was amazing. Then, we are on the main neighborhood road, close to freedom. But this mouthbreather was out in a Honda Accord � idiot � stuck at the end of the only road out of the neighborhood. So Theo decides to go back towards the house and find Roland, cause once she got going up the hill, she didn�t stop. Heartless woman left Roland in the dust, saying �Hey. Hello. Spouse desertion. Went back to close the house and my wife had left me.� So, we find Roland trying to push this idiot � who was out in a tiny, low clearance, little truck blocking the way back up the slalom course hill � out of the intersection. Small boys with shovels surround the truck trying to help. So they get the truck moved and then these idiot children, stand in the road, like Theo can edge around them without endangering their lives. We slalom back up the hill, which is much harder without gravity on our side, getting stuck on the hill next to the idiots who parked the street down to one lane. Yet, Theo manages not to hit anything, cause she�s amazing. And cause she doesn�t care (And I didn�t. Anyone who parks on the street when that much snow is predicted *deserve* to get hit. I hope the plow runs them over. Except, we never see a plough cause they park to block the street. Bitter. If I had hit them, I wouldn�t even had left a note. Swear to god. Idiots.) Meanwhile, Theo is darting about asking the neighbors if they need anything, to which the nice lady across the street says �We have wine and popcorn, thanks. We don�t need anything else.' So, back in the truck and through the slalom again. By now, irritated people had shoved the Honda Accord out of the way, so the path out of the neighborhood is clear. So we go to the grocery store. And buy fudgesicles. How dumb is that? 25� of snow and we buy fudgesciles. And more eggplant and brussels sprouts. And we watch more mouthbreathing sheba monkeys who are driving around in this talking on their cell phone. And all these people out for a stroll, la-la-la, walking down the middle of the road where it�s flat � la la la � not watching for cars � how inconvenient a car on the road interrupting my stroll. Safe home again, and Nia, who was afraid of kosher salt and chopping stuff on Saturday morning, takes over the kitchen and starts making soup, while Nikulai works on chicken and brussel sprouts. I was so proud. And, I got to sit on my couch while people made me dinner. For the first time in my life, thanks to Nikulai and the Barefoot Contessa, I had brussel sprouts I actually liked. After another fantastic meal, we forced Nia to watch �My Big Fat Greek Wedding� which made her laugh hysterically, especially the part about Windex. In return, we let Nia teach us to play Eurorails, which is her usual Monday night activity. Roland and I had never played, but much fun. Roland usually wins these things, and Nia and Nikulai were the expert players. However, I apparently excel when drugged on cold medicine so it was Theo that dominated the European rail industry last night. Go me! Cold medicine did make the evening pass in a strange haze, where I heard Nikulai say things like, Okay, give me another sheep just in case disaster strikes between here and Madrid. Tuesday: Day 4 and Freedom. Idle snacking breakfast on leftovers, and Nia and Nikulai were safely on the road by 10-ish. Took a bit of doing to get Nikulai�s little SUV (lower ground clearance than the Tahoe, which is like saying, many things are shorter than the Alps) up the hill. But New York snow training never fades and (vroom, urch, vroom) up they went � to find the guy at the end of the court had paid someone to plow the slalom course and it was all downhill from there. Nia sighs in relief that the way is clear. Nikulai sighs in relief that he won�t have to listen to Nia try not to scream through the slalom. So here�s to a fantastic, snowbound weekend, where we learned that everything is better with quality olive oil, kosher salt and good company. � � Scribble to Theo previous - next �