Vic Socotra

05 October 2008

Skirting the Issue

It had been good, if a bit sobering, sitting in the pews of the Christ Episcopal Church in Rockville, MD. It left me both giddy and a little disoriented. I drove up there from Virginia with the top down on the Hubrismobile, and my hair was a glorious mess by the time I arrived.

The ceremony was a celebration, and an affirmation of love in the face of middle-middle age. I was happy for my pal, the bride, and she was radiant. Her dress was off-the shoulder, with a modest train and pearl buttons down the back. She looked great, and the groom was serene.

The church is a historic place. It was to be the place of refuge for the ardent Unionists in town, and that is where they were headed when they were detained by the cavalry of Confederate cavalier J.E.B. Stewart.

Most of the solid Union men were members of the church, some of them vestrymen. They must have been terrified by the appearance of the Rebels in this placid little town north of the capital.

Stewart was in the process of riding around the entire Union Army with 5,000 men. The intent was to cause panic in the rear of the 100,000 Federal troops were streaming northwest to collide with Bobbie Lee’s army of Northern Virginia at a country town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.

There are those who say that Stewards decision to camp at Rockville is what cost the Confederates the battle, taking away General Lee’s “eyes and ears” just when he needed them most desperately.

Stuart did not meet Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia until late afternoon of July 2, 1863, two thirds of the way through the decisive conflict that decided the fate of the rebellion. General Lee was very disappointed in his cavalier, and when Stewart was killed the next year, it probably was a blessing.

He could never have lived in the world that followed the surrender, knowing that his General thought he had let his pride get in the way of victory.

The other historic thing was watching my pal commit herself to marriage, again. There was a big party to follow, but I could not stay. There were some matters that demanded my attention, and I could not outflank them. As it turned out, they were dealt with in steady order, though I felt pensive with the blue sky and bright sun calling.

I could not shed the introspective mood. I decided to cook instead.

The problem cooking for one is that no one cares. You could eat hunched over the sink and it would not make a whit of difference. I have addressed this activity by making it a hobby and coking for the whole week, making hearty lunches and dinners and pre-packing them in air-tight plastic containers.

The week’s meals would be20provided by the miracle of the Bolling AFB Commissary. I have described it before, but in brief, the leadership of the Air Force lives on base, and being surrounded by the wilds of lawless Anacostia, it is a little Stepford village.

The selection of food is excellent, to serve the Stepford officers, and hence, when the excellent meat hits expiration, into the freezer bin it goes at half-price.

The system is similar to how things worked in the Soviet Union, back in the day, to take care of the apparatchiks. Makes no economic sense, but as an apparatchik myself, what the heck, right?

I chanced to be doing business on the base a few weeks ago and chanced on the magical Tuesday. The meat in the freezer case was not even frozen yet. I sorted through the stacks of cellophane-wrapped packages and was astonished to find several skirt steaks, the cut favored by French butchers who put the long thin cuts aside to take home at the end of the day.

They do an excellent version with pomme frites at Les Halles downtown, and I have heard that skirt steak tacos are a favorite of Michele Obama. I suspect we are going to have to get used to that soon, so naturally I pounced on all the ones present in the freezer bin.

Exercise and cooking seemed like the best answer. I decided to walk with my heavy-hands, (three pound weights to swing and lift while striding briskly- perfect exercise for upper and lower body!).

In preparation, I marinated one of the thawed steaks in spicy Italian dressing with seas-salt and fresh ground pepper, the meat rolled up in a tight pinwheel. I constructed a modest casserole of scalloped potatoes (three-cheese shredded Mexican blend) and put it aside while I walked.

I chased the sun on my journey outside. The late afternoon sun blazes right down the middle of the service drive, and I have the whole road to take off my shirt and stride briskly along, a hundred reps with the weights at a time.

When I hit two thou sand I have got a pretty good glow going. It is not running, which I miss desperately, but the arthritis seems to permit this, and the hand-weights make it a complete work out. Mostly I love being outside in my skin, and walking along the edge of the Church properties, there is no one to scandalize.

The dying of the sun narrows the path, and forces me further out into the traffic lanes, but I got the better part of an hour of sun marching back and forth. A deranged man walked towards me at one point, stopping to punch the stop sign at the exit to the Big Pink parking lot, and he shouted something at me as I wheeled and marched in the sunlight to the west.

When I got back, I wandered back upstairs with the mail- pleas for funds, mostly, and accounts of my many mortgages here. I turned the broiler on "low." The broiler is a remarkable thing. I have never really used that feature of the gas stove. When I lived in the marital house it was easier to use the grill outside. When I lost that, and had to rent, why would I coat the inside of someone else's stove with eternal baked-on grime?

With the housing bubble burst, and no way to sell out of here without coming up with tens of thousands of dollars at closing, I am not going anywhere soon. So I have started to use all the features of Tunnel Eight. What the hell. I can always replace the stove when I sell, or maybe I will just die here at Big Pink. It is pleasant enough, and no Rebels seem likely to appear from the north.

I turned the toaster oven up to 450-degrees and when it was pre-heated, slid in the scalloped potatoes.

The skirt steak went into the cast iron skillet and slipped under the dancing blue flame. I sautéed the last of the fresh mushrooms with onions on the stove top, and when golden, ladled them into a de-fatted gravy I had reserved from slow-cook brisket frenzy last week.

I broiled it about six minutes on each side- it is a fairly thick cut- and when the sides were just nicely crusty and brown I pulled it and plopped it into the middle of the Swiss Diamond covered frying pan. I laded the rich sauce over the succulent steak and quickly brought the savory gravy to a bubble before reducing the heat to "gentle."

That was about the time the dinger went off on the toaster oven, and I checked to ensure that there was a luscious brown top to the golden potatoes that showed through the Pyrex below. I turned that down to warm, and made a simple chop salad. I dressed it with an impertinent vinaigrette tha t had Paul Newman's smiled face on the label and then took my drink and went out of the balcony to look to the west. The lights had come on under the green pool cover. The trees still showed the remains of the day that had been.

I wondered if I should turn on the television and see what had happened in the college football world. The baseball playoffs are in progress, and the Cubs were on the verge of being eliminated in three games, and the game was on the West Coast and late. I didn’t think I was going to make it any more than the Cubbies would.

Any team can have a bad century, right?

I thought about that and other things as I ate a portion of the steak in gravy, potatoes with a drizzle of gravy. If there had been someone coming, I would have made biscuits.

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