22 September 2010
 
Bring It On


(Big Pink Pool, out of its misery, Fall 2010. Photo Socotra)

There is a nearly full moon out there above the balcony, and a crispness to the breeze in the darkness that made me feel good to be alive and awake this morning. That is a refreshing change. New season, though it is the one that finalizes the death of summer, and like we used to say about deployments, now it is just one day closer to when the pool opens again.
 
Bring it on. In the meantime, start thinking about indoor activities and get the recipes together.
 
I was startled that I didn’t realize the profundity of the event at first. Peter the Pool Czar put me out of my misery yesterday. All the pool deck furniture is gone, I realized, and the green tarp is stretched over the once-blue water and this year they remembered to turn off the underwater lights and took down the clock.
 
Dinner was done, cleaned up and my son had departed. The television was on, an unusual occurrence these days, since he had dialed up the History Channel to watch one of those improbable reality shows. This was not the one about arctic truck drivers who drive on the ice, or the one where genetically challenged country folk stick their arms down the mouths of gigantic catfish. This one was about shooting, skinning and eating alligators.
 
I had only a marginal interest in the topic, and was reluctant to bring it on. I have actually been thinking about Louisiana as a seasonal refuge from what is bearing down on us this winter. I looked at the remote. It would have taken two more clicks to turn everything down than to turn to HBO On-Demand, so I did.
 
I had been thinking about Boardwalk Empire, the new HBO series set in Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition. I heard positive reviews, and with True Blood wrapped up this year, I am down a quart on things that stimulate me on the tube.
 
I enjoyed it and did not fall asleep even once. The first episode is directed by Martin Scorsese and charts the attempt of Enoch “Nucky” Thompson  (Steve Buscemi) to build a criminal empire on the profits of bootleg booze. Bring it on, I thought.
 

(Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. Image Copyright HBO 2010)

All the great figures of gangland make appearances, Capone, Luciano and Rothstein, but the novel take on the whole thing is that they are young men, not hardened thugs. The conspiracy is vast, encompassing bootleggers and sailors, muscle and businessmen, mayors and police officers. It actually is quite remarkable to think about the whole experiment, how some very resolute women- remember, they were just on the verge of getting the vote- and got America to pass a Constitutional Amendment to ban alcohol.
 
Actually, quite unbelievable, as weird as the spectacle of today’s Senate debate (and rejection) of the idea of gay people serving openly in the military.
 
In Boardwalk, Nucky’s protégé is an Irish kid named Jimmy, who has just returned from the trenches of France. He is more than a little like my Grandfather, at least by report. I have to rely on family lore about that, but I must say that the writers have transferred today’s PTSD to the Vets of the Great War, and I think they may be on to something. Just because they didn’t know what it was didn’t mean that it was not as real then as it is now.
 
It was good enough to keep me awake. I was tired though, having to find something else to do for an hour of exercise, and then cooking for my younger boy. He just rolled in from the Great Midwest, having put the greatest road car of our generation through its paces to attend the MSU-Notre Dame game in East Lansing.
 
His days of freedom are getting short. Accordingly, I wanted to have a hot meal for him when he got off the road. I stopped at the Harris Teeter on the way back from the office to see what I could find for a fresh green vegetable to cook and some salad stuff.
 
The place is overrun by Yuppies, quite unlike the grizzled Commissary crowd. In the produce section, I was drawn to the artichokes. I have had a long-standing weakness for the prickly green things. I grew fiercely attached to the idea of them while I was in Japan, 1978-80.
 
Not because I ate them there, but because I was deprived. The memory of them served by my California pals became a minor obsession in the land of sushi. On my first break from USS Ma Midway (to San Diego) I went to the Chart House restaurant and ordered two chokes as a main course.
 
They did a boil-with-bacon version I was never really able to duplicate thereafter, I mean, like do you put crumbled bacon in the pot with them in the boiling process, and who has crumbled bacon around when you need it anyway. I tinkered with all sorts of dipping sauces down through the years, drawn butter cut with the juice from the pot, mayonnaise and lemon juice with Spanish variations. Delicious.
 
Last summer I was in Shirlington where I used to host a monthly soiree for my professional association at the Capital City Brewery once. Across the street is the Carlyle Grand restaurant, a great institution, and we wound up there for tapas after the session. I noticed they had artichokes on the menu, their take on them being fried in garlic and olive oil after boiling.
 
I tried it at home thereafter and it has become a favorite. I had some crushed garlic in olive oil in a mason jar from the Pond Hill Farm they do up in Michigan, where I am from, long ago, and where I am dealing with the folks transitioning to assisted living from their compound above Little Traverse Bay.
 
The chokes turned out really tasty.
 
Stopping on the way home from the office, I also got some fresh Polish-style pierogies, those tempting little dumplings stuffed with cheddar cheese and jalapeño peppers. I usually just sauté the frozen Mrs. T’s version, but a brainstorm hit me.
 
Why not parboil the fresh dumplings in the artichoke broth and then brown them to semi-crispness in the garlic-infused olive oil?
 
I boiled them for two minutes prior to popping them into the hot oil left over from doing the chokes. Everything tastes better- and I mean everything- cooked with artichokes.
 
My son didn't want any carbs, since he is going to report to Officer Candidate School at Newport in a couple weeks and wants to be lean when he meets the Marine Gunnery Sergeant, and I don’t blame him. The days of his freedom are getting short.
 
Wherever Gunnery Sergeant Ronald Mace, USMC, is these days, I wish him well. He was one of the most interesting people who has ever terrorized me.
 
My son said he was thinking about heading for the mountains of New Mexico as an alternative, and I suggested Canada, since they know how to do it there.
 
Pierogies and Artichokes, al dante

(Split blackened artichokes. Photo Socotra).
 
Ingredients:
 
One package Harris Teeters Pierogies stuffed with chedder and jalpanos (twelve, approximately)
 
One large Castroville, California, artichoke.
 
Hellman’s Original Mayonaisse, fresh creamery butter, sea salt and crushed black pepper to taste.
 
One steak, marinated in Jack Daniels Garlic and Herb sauce 24 hours (unless you are a more evolved spirit).
 
Garden salad to taste- onions, olives, cherry tomatoes, grated egg on arugala, garnished with crispy red peppers and shredded cheddar.
 
Large Idaho baking potato
 
Directions:
 
Put the potato in the toaster oven and bake at 300 degrees for a while after piercing the skin to ensure it doesn’t explode. Put the artichoke in fresh Potomac tapwater and set on low boil. Come home. You know how to pick a steak, or you have gotten over the whole meat thing. If you haven’t, take out of fridge and allow to rise to room temperature.
 
Go exercise for an hour and contemplate how lucky we really are and how good it feels to break a sweat under rich blue sky.
 
Turn artichoke so it cooks on both sides on return. Check potato. Combine salad ingredients and refrigerate. Pour a drink and return the calls you missed while exercising. Greet child(ren) warmly. Turn on broiler, high temperature, and apply sea salt and crushed black pepper.*
 
Remove artichoke from rich green savory broth and reserve two tablespoons to combine with drawn fresh creamery butter for dipping sauce. Combine two tablespoons Hellman’s Original Real Mayonnaise with fresh lemon juice for an alternative. Saw artichoke in half with a serrated knife, removing the inner grainy leaves and place in skillet with hot Pond Hill Farm garlic-in-olive oil to blacken.
 
Dump Harris Teeter fresh pierogies in the boiling artichoke broth. Boil merrily for two minutes. Remove blackened artichokes and place on dinner plates to cool. Brown pierogies to pleasing texture and serve with steak, salad and artichokes. Garnish with fresh sour cream, if desired.
 
Pack the uneaten potato, piergoies, salad and left-over steak to send home with child(ren).

(Pierogies barboiled in artichoke broth, photo Socotra)
 
* if unevolved
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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