People who have lived in Brattleboro, like, forever, say they have never seen the mountain like this. Wantastiquet sits on the New Hampshire bank of the Connecticut River, and serves as the eastern backdrop for the town.
There was snow on the upper half of Wantastiquet Mountain in New Hampshire this morning. The trees are on an island in the Connecticut River, just across from downtown Brattleboro, Vermont. So they belong to The Granite State, too…
There is toilet paper to be had in Brattleboro. Unfortunately, it’s the scratchy, one-ply, made-from-recycled corn husks wipe that you could read seven lines down an eyechart through. If you want the good stuff, the Charmin Snuggly, or the Cottonelle with CBD oil that plays New Age music, it’ll cost you a kidney. Or you can improvise…
As much as I love living in Southern Vermont and Brattleboro, I’ll grow to be an ancient man with a beard long enough to step on before I score a proper bagel. The English muffin (and not even Thomas’s for chrissakes) has recently served as a noble standby.
Consider the egg as a delivery vehicle for onion, tomato, and cold-smoked salmon in place of the bagel. The onion and tomato are first gently fried in butter. Then the eggs and lox are added. All of it is the lightly stirred to blend, but not scramble. This results in a pleasing cross between soft boiled and scrambled. And if you’re inclined to add cream cheese to the show? Terrific idea!
A friend posted a recent picture of the north shore of Skaneateles Lake. Taken right in the village in mid winter.
It’s amusing how something as innocent as that can flood my recall.
I recounted to her that the location in the photo was the very site where I’d caught lake trout in January. And then brought them home, mere hours from life, and cooked them into paradise.
And then I was taken to mind a story. One that reminded me of how deeply I’m rooted.
When I was barely out of childhood, visiting my grandmother in still-rural Central New Jersey, I slipped out of bed in the pre-dawn light and biked over to a section of Bedens Brook that cut through a cow pasture and was guarded only by its remoteness and the phantom presence of a murderous bull.
I bellied under the field’s barbed-wire fence and caught fish from a pool under a tree. Those fish had never seen a hook.
I kept one largemouth bass, maybe 12 inches long, and presented it to my grandmother when I got back to the farm. At a still-early hour. She said simply, “You’ll make that for my breakfast.”
And so I did. I threw that bass in an iron skillet with some eggs. To the stoic satisfaction of my grandmother. And so, years later, did the Skaneateles lake trout come full circle.
We lost our dearest friend Yann this week. He was cherished by everybody who were ever blessed by his tuition on the ski slope, were enchanted by his wiles in the mushroom woods, or were lifted right out their consciousness by his wizardry in the kitchen. Yann shared a devotion to L’Adour, his French Regional restaurant nonpareil, that became almost a play space. It was dubbed “the treehouse.” Yann, appropriately, adored having his friends in his company all the time. And he seemed to have a particular affinity for photographers. Photographers who liked to hang around and spend lots of money on food and wine. Which made L’Adour undoubtedly the most photographed restaurant on the planet. Naturally, the stories that were born at L’Adour are legion, and I’ve shared my personal favorite, “It Had To Be Her,” in an earlier post. Yann loved that story, and he loved those that followed. I know that because I recounted them so many times to others in his presence that his devilish laughter never lost it’s infectiousness. Or it’s volume…
I loved bringing Yann food, usually my one-pot specialties like soups, gumbo, chili, etoufee, or pasta gravy. Just like anyone with modest ability wants to impress a master. Whenever I brought them to L’Adour hot, he chowed down on the spot. He did that it seemed, just provoke the envy of astonished diners or peeved kitchen staff. One patron once exclaimed “you feed him!?” Yann used to say that I was the best amateur chef in Syracuse. At least that’s what said to my face. No matter if it was the corrupted praise of the well fed. It was enough for me to go home, lie down on the floor, and idly copy those words in crayon, and then put them up on the refrigerator…
But there was this one time. This one time I made soupe a l’ognion. And I made it with a broth from scratch from oxtails. Now soupe a l’ognion is like the mothers’ milk of French cooking, and it’s made traditionally with straight-up beef broth. But I thought I’d come up with a precocious little twist. It also turned out damned nicely. I was pleased. So I put on my best Sunday dress and skipped over to L’Adour. Couldn’t wait to style my friend. Yann took up the first spoonful. He looked insulted. “It’s not good,” he said bluntly. “It’s delicious!” We were now engaged in French kitchen heat. “No! It’s too sweet!” And that was the end of it. Today’s Lesson: Don’t fuck around with soupe a l’oignon.
I actually did have some modest credentials and accomplishment as an amateur cook in Syracuse. An annual event for charity involved men preparing their specialties. You know, like Larry’s Evil Chili, or Meatballs ala Ralph. It was called Men Who Cook. (Entirely sexist in my view. Show me Women Who Work On Cars…) Your checked your social calendar, paid an entry donation, and you got to sample from each of the 65-or-so Cooks. It was a big deal. Women put on their best pearls for this one. And there was judging. For several years, a few of my hardcore friends and I infiltrated the gathering with some suitably-hardcore entries. For example, my first year I made crawfish etoufee, for which I boiled the rice in actual made-from-scratch crawfish stock. For 350 people to sample. I nailed it! People loved it! Judges Meh’ed! The next year, in a fit of stubbornness, I did it again, same dish. It was even better! People flocked to my table! There was light, suggestive banter with women! The judges ignored me. Crawfish etoufee was too high end for the event. Crawfish etoufee was exotic. So the next year, like a child throwing a tantrum, I made Gulf of Maine Chowder, which featured chunks of lobster, scallops, crab, and monkfish, entirely-cooked in a lobster base. Easy pleasing. How did they prefer their opium. How indeed. I won first place. But first place blah, blah, blah. Yann was on to this for all those years. The Men Who Cook was, after all, his friend playing in the sandbox to him. The following event, feeling like I was the man, I made a sinful cream of roasted red pepper soup. It was sublime. But other than selective acclaim, it was ignored by the judges, and honestly, by many people who saw “red pepper” and turned away in fear…
I slunk back to L’Adour later that evening, as Yann and ‘Lexi were finishing up. I brought a sample of my cream of roasted red pepper soup. I whined about nobody understanding the sublime genius of my etoufee or my way with roasted red bells. And then he laid into me. “I had 72 orders tonight for filet mignon. (The rubes’ cut of meat). 38 were for well done. (A general insult to a chef, on top of a rube cut.) You want your steak well done? Go to fucking Outback. There you get it well done whether you want it or not! You cook what you want to cook and fuck the judges. You want to win prizes? Then make the fucking chowder!”
We all swim or drown in the wake of grief. When I was faced with Yann’s passing, this is treading water.
He left so very much for us, for as long as we live on to bless others like he did…
Myself, I’m thinking of making a soupe a l’oignon with a vegan bean stock. Just to see if it rains…
A half-dozen anglers on the Retreat Pond in Brattleboro Sunday afternoon reported 5-7 inches of good solid ice. A few more inches of dry, powdery snow on top of that provided good traction, as well. One of the fishermen caught a 40-inch-long Northern pike at the pond’s eastern edge.
Jim Bazanson of Vernon, VT. shows a 5-inch golden shiner he caught through the ice and was then using for Northern pike bait.
A lone angler remains on the ice on at dusk.
To observant Jews everywhere! And also to Gentiles who just happen to have caught a glimpse…
Jim Commentucci 