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Jam Today

Tod Continues to Talk Food and Life but Mostly Food.

Smothering Broccoli instead of Smothering a Friend.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

A perfect example of how cooking can work to relieve aggression.

So a really good friend of mine came over. We don’t have much time to see each other and talk this time of year, since she’s really busy at work. We miss that, or at least I do. Anyway, she brought her significant other, also a friend, though, as can happen, one who drives me out of my mind from time to time with their cluelessness to the needs of others. And the significant other sat in my friend’s usual chair, as if by right, and proceeded to be more than usually clueless. Meaning my friend had to keep interrupting our conversation to try to make the S.O. feel included. Since the S.O.’s idea of being included can be that everyone needs to stop what they’re talking about and listen to the S.O.’s monologue, this can sometimes be a trying event. Which on this particular evening it was.

At least for me. Who is not the most patient of persons. Especially at the end of the day when I’m looking forward to a real conversation and a glass of wine. Especially AFTER the glass of wine.

At one point, our dogs acted needy too, her dog and mine, and my friend asked if I wanted her to put them outside. I suggested the S.O. be put outside instead. My friend cracked up. Now we both love the S.O. But this was not the moment for their monologues. I suggested we go over to the kitchen area instead and leave my husband with the S.O. Gratefully, my friend accepted. “I need to get our dinner started anyway,” I said loudly to make our excuses, as we both made our way over, and poured out two more glasses of wine.

Now I had a small conundrum. I had planned on making baked eggs and toast for supper, with roasted broccoli on the side. In preparation, I’d trimmed a head of broccoli and cut it into small florets. But I wanted to pay close attention to my conversation with my friend. And also I wanted to drink more wine. Baked eggs need their own close attention. Very close attention. More attention than I wanted to give them while I listened to my friend. And drank more wine, which tends to interfere with precise timing.

What to do?

I idly considered what I had in the fridge as my friend explained a particularly knotty and interesting problem she’d solved at work. I had a bowl of grated parmesan left over from the night before. This suggested pasta. I can always chop onions and garlic no matter where my attention is. This suggested a pasta sauce of said onions, garlic, and broccoli, with parmesan at the table to scatter on top.

Then I heard the S.O. in the living area holding forth on something or other, and my husband patiently responding. I had a moment of wanting to go over there and hold a pillow over the S.O.’s head. In a friendly way, of course. Even a loving way. Sort of. I felt guilty, but there it was. And then, in a flash, it came to me! Smothered broccoli pasta sauce!

Now smothered broccoli pasta sauce is a bit retro, given our present love of barely cooked veg. And also kind of a muddy green color when it’s properly done, since properly done means simmered in some red wine, which does nothing for its attractiveness but everything for its taste. I hadn’t made it in a long time, even though I love it.

But there I was, drinking red wine and idly laughing at myself for wanting to smother the S.O. All at once it came together. So as my friend and I chatted and laughed, relieved to not have to prop up another person for a few moments while we did it, I made smothered broccoli pasta.

Like this (for two):

 

–A head of broccoli, broken into small flowerets, coarse skin removed from stems, chopped.

–A sliced onion.

–3 cloves of minced garlic.

–A bit of olive oil to cover a sauté pan.

–Heat olive oil with a medium flame. Add veg to heated olive oil, stir to coat. Add a little salt.

–Attend to your friend. Pour you both out another glass of red wine.

–The veggies are now making cooking noises. Add a few glugs of wine from your glass. Lower heat when bubbles appear. Simmer away.

–What you want here is for the veg to be soft and well done. Doesn’t really matter if you cook it too long, as long as the pan doesn’t get dry. As it does dry, add more glups of red wine until it’s saucy again.

–Put on a pot of water to boil.

–When the sauce is done to your liking, and the pot of water boils, if your conversation continues, simply turn off the heat.

When your friend gets up to leave with the S.O., go and hug them both, the S.O. especially with a guilty but affectionate peck on the cheek.

Then return to the kitchen. Turn the pot with the water back on. When it boils again, add a half pound of pasta, which is enough for two people and a bit leftover to have for breakfast if one of you is so inclined (I was). Spaghetti, linguine, penne, any of those are nice—I had spaghetti, so I added that.

When the pasta is just about done, turn the heat on under the sauce to warm it up again. When they’re both at the right point, combine (in either pan, or in another bowl). Serve out.

Observe critically and realize you want a little color on top. I just scissored a bunch of chives I had to make a bright green sploot atop. Scattered some parmesan on the sploot, called the husband to table, and had at it.

Boy, was it good. And leftovers good cold for my breakfast, too. Best of all, I had made myself laugh and made myself something good to eat rather than going over to the living room and smothering my friend.

Life can be great that way sometimes. It’s kind of like making lemonade from lemons, isn’t it?

I always like a way to do that, don’t you?

A Tale of Brandade.

December 31, 2024 by Exangel

So for Christmas this year, I really had a craving for roast duck. No problem with that. The only issue being that my Beloved doesn’t eat meat. He does, however, consume fish with gusto. What would be festive enough in the fish department for Christmas dinner, easy on the cook who is also roasting a […]

Baked Apple for Breakfast.

November 1, 2024 by Exangel

It’s fall. The weather has changed. It even snowed last week on the mountain above me. All that right after a heat wave, so I, the dogs, and the trees heaved a sigh of relief. The trees that can showed their gratitude by beginning the turn to a brilliance of color. The oaks, the mountain […]

Every Day is a Good Day to Eat Something Good.

June 30, 2024 by Exangel

Even with taste compromised by cancer treatment, I’m telling you, I can enjoy my meals. I’m at about 85%, at the most, of my usual ability to taste. It goes up and down, but has plateaued presently. Some things taste more like themselves than others. And as usual, I listen as hard as I can […]

A Matter of Taste.

March 31, 2024 by Exangel

If you’re reading this, you probably think of me as someone who obsesses about food. And you would not be wrong. I have always, ever since I can remember, thought a lot about food: about the preparation of it, the serving of it, and the eating of it. It has been, since I was very […]

Iceberg Lettuce is Your Friend.

October 1, 2023 by Exangel

“I just bought two heads of iceberg lettuce on sale. What can you do with iceberg lettuce?” This from a friend of mine, my own age, who remembers iceberg lettuce as the only extremely boring lettuce our parents used to get at the supermarket when we were kids. Yes, young ones, there was a day […]

Puffballs as Big as a Baby’s Head.

June 30, 2023 by Exangel

Do you know puffballs? They’re a wild mushroom, one of the few that once identified won’t make you sick. They vary in size from a marble to bigger than a basketball. And they’re delicious. We usually find smaller ones on our property. I’ve never been able to figure out where or when, they just seem […]

Shrimp Shells.

April 1, 2023 by Exangel

As those who know and love me best realize that one of the things in the world I hate most is waste. One of my favorite fairy tales, in fact, is Stone Soup—how two travelers convinced a town that they could make a nourishing soup from a stone and some boiling water. They just needed […]

What Makes Life Worth Living.

December 31, 2022 by Exangel

My mother is at the end of her life. She’s in hospice care, cared for in a place where she’s lived for many years, near one of my four brothers. When it was obvious to us all that she was beginning her downward journey, she said to me, “I don’t mind what happens next. I […]

Memories of Delicious Revenge.

September 30, 2022 by Exangel

Sometimes when I have insomnia, I lie awake thinking about the best, the nicest, the most delicious meals I’ve had. I find this comforting. It helps me fall asleep. This is where I admit to being more than a bit mean spirited. It so happens that, once in awhile, my memories linger on meals that […]

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Check Out Our Magazine.

In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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