Archive for the ‘Pie’ Category

Tuesday, June 4th, 2019

This isn’t Before and After. Sadly, AFTER is when the baking plate is empty, but I enjoy every bite of the journey. Now you know that Dana’s elite-level pies are the reason I must regularly schedule a date with my bicycle. We recently cashed in on a bumper harvest of tart cherries. Thank you, Joan. Thank you, Terie. Pitting is no fun, but worth the effort. Yes, I get a kick out of taking pictures of her pies. About the steam cuts: She used to call me “Johnamo.” Eventually it got shortened to Mo. So I started calling her Mo, too. Too much detail? Hey, it’s a blog…

An Ideal Day

Monday, September 8th, 2014

There are different types of ideal days.
For me, surely today was one of them.

After what may have been the best night’s sleep that I have had in two or three months, I woke up with a cool breeze above my pillow and came downstairs to discover a nutritious breakfast smoothie and a pot of hot coffee to go with it. Thank you, Dana, for getting my day off to such a positive start. TSLA, YHOO, TJX, and FEYE took over from there, when the market opened, and I spent a productive morning managing my active trades for four separate accounts, including the Trust investment. I may have gotten a suitable entry price for a long position in VMW, but only time will tell with that. When the office intercom beeped, I was the beneficiary of a delicious roast turkey sandwich with a bowl of fresh gazpacho. It has been a fine season for tomatoes, and I am still working on getting my fill. Dana said that aging Walie was having one of her most lively days in a long time. After lunch, I noticed a new Ommatidia story by Brendan (which always makes my day), checked email, and worked a bit on my Spotify playlists, now that Marty has me successfully making the transition from Pandora. Some time ago I figured that eventually one would be able to watch any movie or TV show on demand, but I had not expected so soon to see the same be true of music. Yes, I have to listen to commercials now and then, but they are not as obnoxious as those on the Pandora site, since most of the Spotify ads are about the musical offerings themselves. Then it was into the painting studio for another session on the GAB portrait (with a few Danny Darst tunes for good company). I can say that I finally overcame the wall of fear (compliments of an old pal named perfectionism) that became attached to this commission, but now the pressing need is to find a route to the summit by the end of the month. I have pledged to myself to complete the artwork for Greg’s and Lynne’s return from their trip to France. At 4 o’clock, I crossed the street to play chess with the library group: one win, one loss (strangely enough, it usually works out that I beat the people I am capable of defeating and lose to those I am not capable of defeating). Although I rediscovered chess through vision therapy a while back, I am getting more serious about it this year, now that I can regularly match wits with local players right next door. Before I left, I checked out Is He Dead? (I admit that I wanted the Mark Twain comedy primarily to study the engravings by Barry Moser). When I got home I crossed paths with Dana, leaving to meet her spiritual group at the library, and then I jumped back into my yew-trimming topiary project in the front yard. With each passing growing season, it is easier and faster for me to keep them in shape, but more difficult to make significant changes or refinements. Nature will provide an occasional opportunity for a new direction or interesting detour, but it is mostly about keeping the whole effect under control. When the “skeeters” decided it was time to bite my ankles, it was off to Centre for some weight lifting before dinner. Being settled into the gym groove has always been a confidence-booster for me, and that goes back nearly 45 years. Peter Lupus emphasized that 100 twists a day kept his waistline small, although I have not been able to achieve the daily habit yet. In the workout room, I combine strenuous twists with the “ab chair” to manage my own belly, plus a circuit of machines and dumbbell exercises, in addition to the trusty bench press (where is that best buddy to spot me?). As I entered our back door after a brisk walk home, a blend of magnificent odors told me that Dana had been baking up a storm — sourdough bread, chocolate cake, and apple pie! We are preparing to celebrate Marty’s promotion to full-time employment at Hitachi in Harrodsburg. I am not the only member of the household on a roll. Well done, Grandson (and he got an A in his first course at the Technical College). Marty happened to be catching up on sleep (I cannot imagine handling a night-shift + school schedule the way he does), so Dana and I split a Red Hook and enjoyed a bowl of Swiss-chard-lentil soup with raw-tomato-basil-cheese salad. All that was left for me to do was to record my ideal day at this blogsite, and now I am ready to hit the sack. Tomorrow we shall begin again!
 


 

6 0 + 6 0

Monday, April 30th, 2012

My chronometer flipped over to a new decade yesterday, so I observed the occasion with a 60-lap swim plus a 60-mile ride. What else can one do, except to take a symbolic swipe back at Old Man Time? It was a satisfactory way to test my fitness. The best part is that the thunderstorms held off until dark, and Dana welcomed me back with pie.

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to California by train ~ part five

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

No major outings today, since the B’bach family is settling into Thanksgiving mode, but we did have a good lunch with Lauren and Kellie at the Dos Coyotes border restaurant here in Davis. I continued to correspond with JMM, who is in LA for the holiday (both of us in the same state, but so far away). He responded to my curiosity about the California light with these wonderful words, “Oh yes, my friend, the light is different out here. When the early 19th Century painters took their stuff back east, people exclaimed that light simply does not do what it they showed it to do in the West. Imagine Half Dome or El Capitan revealed from a mile or two, but without air to blur and soften. Can’t be done, they said. From there, we seem to love our American West very much for its revealing Air (Spiritus) and the inspiring of it (Inspiritus). The freedom from the well-worn assumptions of the American East (which is hardly ever capitalized) is necessary for the likes of us that need a new perspective now and then. Your ideas are more likely to be met graciously out West.” Mike is doing fine, but he misses his late father, of course. Oh, I know how it feels. It’s nice to see Dana so relaxed and full of smiles during the lead-up to this holiday. I suppose that part of this adventure is meant as a distraction for us, as we observe our first Thanksgiving without Bruce. It is good for her to be with her family. For me, too, and it’s also a mini-sabbatical, as I spend valuable time with books about key Bay-area painters. Looking at reproductions of Thiebaud’s pie paintings while the house is filled with the fragrance of actual pies baking was almost beyond my endurance. When the young generations left tonight, Bill and I made dinner together. The four of us had a great evening of food, wine, and conversation. It was fun to hear all the old stories of the Breidenbach heritage and lore.

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A murder of crows and David without his rook rifle

Sunday, August 20th, 2006

You know you’ve found a bit of heaven when you can have berry pie with your early morning coffee, while sitting on a porch that overlooks a natural pond, and then complete a pen and ink sketch of a woodland path in time to be served a broiler-fresh asparagus frittata for brunch.

Janet and Jerome didn’t get to stay over last night and missed the patented Simpson Cabin Lazy Sunday, which, come to think of it, ranks right up there with the patented Yorkshire Estate Lazy Sunday.

Various & Sundry, part forty-one

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

— Month of July workout totals: Swim-6; Bike-7; Run-2; Lift-3; Yoga-2

— As I continue to thoroughly enjoy my peak cycling season, I notice an increasing level of muscle tightness and pelvic inflexibility due to a decline in periodic yoga practice. Balance and discipline. Why is it so difficult to calibrate?

— On Saturday, when Dana baked Terie a birthday pie (Blue Bank blackberries plus organic red raspberries), I decorated the crust with her favorite thing that makes her happy.

— I seemed to need every available minute yesterday to meet my evening deadline, but I managed to complete three mixed media collage artworks, including a “Fifteenth Cosmosaic,” the largest composition in the series so far and the first to be executed specifically for public exhibition and sale. Dana and I hand delivered them to Kathleen, the coordinator for the Lexington CONNECTIONS show, and she accepted all three on the spot. Even though it was getting late, she was kind enough to spend some time providing framing advice. I’ve been concerned I haven’t yet developed the ability to frame my work in a manner commensurate with the quality of the art. I intend to rectify that with these pieces, which are due in the city next month.

V & S

Birthday pie for breakfast

Sunday, April 30th, 2006

What better way to assuage the knowledge of being another year older?

Various & Sundry, part thirty-six

Saturday, April 29th, 2006

— It was a small group of local runners this morning, due to the Derby Festival in Louisville. I’m sure most of them were competing in the 13.1-miler, but my pals Don and Larry were doing the full Marathon. Mort and I did ten miles at a comfortable enough pace to talk the whole time, covering a range of subjects from mentorship, aging, rail trails, grassroots activism, minority politics, and the separation of church and state, which was a great way to start a birthday. After I got home, Lee stopped by to present her gift—a copy of The Emerald Book, which she found in her grandmother’s attic. It’s troubling to think it wasn’t so long ago that third and fourth graders were reading the poems of Shakespeare, Stevenson, Kipling, Tennyson, Coleridge, Hawthorne, Riley, and Emerson. It also contains reproductions of works by painters like Hals and Carpaccio, with short lessons in art appreciation. What happened to the idea of children having the imaginative freedom to be kids while they simultaneously advance on a gradient apprenticeship to adult culture? Instead, we have a glut of twenty-something adolescents attempting to understand the roots of Western Thought by watching a Brad Pitt movie, as primary schoolers learn that “fuck” can be either a verb, noun, or interjection. Does anyone know how we let this happen?

— Although we had a good turnout at our banquet Thursday evening, most of our strong Centre College supporters were absent because, unfortunately, we were competing with the appearance of Helen Thomas as part of their Press Distinguished Lecture Series. Not surprisingly, the veteran White House correspondent directed her criticism at the president, suggesting he follow the advice given to LBJ during Viet Nam and “Declare a victory and leave”. Please pay closer attention, Helen—that’s what our enemies may already be in the process of doing. Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a desperate attempt to impede the steady rise of Iraqi democracy, revealed his appearance in a recent propaganda video. In another tape, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri pleaded impotently with Muslims to oppose our Arab allies, and he declared that militants have “broken the back” of the U.S.-led effort. In the face of such frantic attempts on the part of Al-Qaida to remain relevant in Iraq, now is not the time to abandon the fledgling coalition government.

— Terie and Marty came over for either a late lunch or an early dinner—not sure which—with berry pie and ice cream (I don’t do cake on April 29th, thank you). Marty described his new pc game, Rome: Total War, and we watched a classic M:I episode, “The System” (we used to call it “Johnny Costa” back in the 60s) while Dana and Terie finished the tuna melts, keeping an eye on the NFL draft at the same time. I’d already received my gifts of a wristwatch and set of Koh-I-Noor Nexis art pens from Dana. Terie and Marty surprised me with a Serenity DVD. Well, maybe my home is not a hotbed of high culture, but who can find fault with a full day of pleasurable cooleosity?

— Ok, it’s 54. Happy Birthday to me.

V & S