Food and Football?

I realize that my blogging has been pretty limited these days to food and football. Since baseball and bullfight seasons are over, and politically I am in observation mode (mainly wondering if Der Gubernator is going to be the disaster I am predicting and too depressed by the Massachussetts homosex marriage disaster to really want to comment with verve), it leaves arts, literature, spirituality, family, food and football.

As for arts, I am writing about music every week for the newspapers, and should probably get back to Building Blocks of Music and the Analyses series. Mea culpa. At the rate we are going, we should hit the Renaissance in 50 years.

In literature, I have not been reading anything that is really bloggable. I am working on a piece for the North Beach Lectura Dantis on La Vita Nuova, but it is really too focused around our discussion to be of general interest, I am afraid. I have not read a good novel for a couple of weeks, and most of the poetry I have been reading is of interest for very specific reasons, and not that interesting to talk about. I have been reading Etienne Gilson, which is interesting and will probably show up on an arts-related post sometime soon.

As for arts, not too much is going on in the Bay Area right now. There is the Degas sculpture show, so maybe something blogable in that. We'll see. If I get to a performing arts event I usually have to write about it in the paper, and I really doubt that anyone outside the Bay Area cares about how Michael Morgan conducted the Overture to Fidelio (yawn, in case you were wondering. Poorly articulated string passages made an uninspired mush of a fairly weak piece. He redeemed himself in the other pieces).

So, since I cannot speak of any great spiritual or philosophical insights (at least any that I remember an hour later), you get stuck with postings on food and football. I am sorry. Thank you for bearing with me in this dull period. I will work on something spicier over the vacation. I realize that it has been far too long since I have hurled invective at heretics and infidels, but since we are approaching their day of celebration (I celebrated my Thanksgiving Day last Thursday, merci), I am sure I will find some good incindiaries. Perhaps a recipe for turkey burned at the stake (uh oh, Mr. Riddle is going to be annoyed at me, but really, there has to be something fun to do with a typical commercial bird).

Speaking of that holiday, if you are looking for a wine that somewhat goes with turkey and all the trappings, a pinot noir is probably the safest, unless the menu is heavy on the gooey sweet potatoes (which I always find the least objectionable thing on the table), in which case beaujolais nouveau is probably a fit match. It is light and fruity, yet dry, so it actually cuts the sweetness and can wash down accidentally ingested bits of white meat. Or you could stick with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Yum.

But whatever you do, get your shopping done tomorrow. You might think, "well, I can run to the store Wednesday morning," but you are forgetting how awful an experience that ALWAYS is. You might rationalize it with "it will be just as bad tomorrow" or "well, maybe it wasn't really that bad last year," but you only fool yourself. This year I will absolutely not be in a supermarket or food store of any sort after 10 am Tuesday. If I don't have it then, it can wait until Friday.

Maybe hordes of shoppers are better behaved in your area, but they are beasts here in the Bay Area. Normally polite people become raving maniacs behind the shopping cart this week. I hear that serious drinkers take the night off on New Year's Eve. I recommend that foodies take the week of Thanksgiving off. If ever there was a time to retreat, thaw stuff in your freezer and let the field be torn up by novices and hacks, this is the week to do it.

With that, I will be preparing for my last meal tomorrow night and will be in quasi-hibernation in a remote town in the shadow of a volcano starting Tuesday. I might post Tuesday night from Sacramento, but after that it is Northward bound and nothing from me until next week.