DAILY?headcheese

Have I locked myself into a truly daily task? 

I’m trying to upload some photos from last night’s dinner at my friend Terry’s.  Won’t let me. 

Lynn, another friend, and I braved the threatening storm and walked to Terry’s– about a half mile away.  I carried a loaf of bread in my poke that I’d just baked.  

Lynn and Terry are my elders– both in their mid to late sixties.  I sort of inherited them from my father and we became boon companions in our own rights.  This is a situation I’ve never seen elsewhere– such truly good and companionable friends of such an age disparity.  I think it speaks to my life-long desire to be an adult.  Even as a small child, I was interested in what the adults were talking about. 

Every Christmas break, the three of us go on our “Book Junket” to Louisville or Lexington.  Often, we have just been given gift certificates to various bookstores and we go and make the rounds.  Of course, a meal is a feature of these trips; we are accomplished trenchermen.  (This past Christmas, we ate at a discovery of mine called Flabby’s Schnitzelberg in the old Germantown section of Louisville:  http://www.flabbys.com/fcc.htm) 

Back to dinner at Terry’s: 

MENU:  spaghetti with meat sauce, green bean casserole, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob, iceberg salad, my bread, asparagus, and angel food cake.  Enjoyed the food and the conversation which usually consists of dredging up old stories about Lebanon characters, quick and dead.  (My wife, Wendy, calls it our game of “What was that guy’s name…?”  She can hardly abide it.  I don’t blame her.)  Most of them are unknown to me, but I have something more than a tolerance for these stories.  This makes us hard to deal with for most others.  (In fact, our Slovakian friend who works for me at Blues on Tap was a no-show.  I take a Godfather line on such slights:  Once refused, I never ask again.  Terry is more forgiving.  As Lynn and I say, “Fuck him, he’s out.”)  I like these stories, even the repeats. 

Here’s one:  A long time ago, back when the first Kroger store in town was a small storefront on Main Street, a notorious town drunk across the street watched a housewife leaving the store with her arms burdened with groceries.  He said to his companion, “Look at that!  I bet there’s not a drop to drink in the house.”

 ON GARP:  Read the chapter last night that is the beginning of Garp’s novel, the story about the young mother and the rapist.  It kept me up until almost two, but it was hard to read.  I find these subjects hard to stomach these day, especially the scene where the rapist threatens the mother by putting his knife to the toddler’s cheek and drawing blood.  Irving’s got a great style.  He can make a story move along.    I admit to a little fatigue at the onset of these chapters that are Garp’s stories– the stories within the story.  However, I am quickly drawn into them.  I recall the sidetrips that Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections would take.  You quickly care about those, too, despite the wariness. 

JOHN IRVING

Here’s a link– I think my readers may be linked to death before it’s said and done– to an interview on Powell’s with Mr. John Irving that I enjoyed a while back.  He makes some funny and interesting comments about James Joyce and George Bush.  What company!

http://www.powells.com/authors/irving.html

I loved Owen Meany which I read a long time ago.  I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to read another one of his books.  They’re like the best bites on my plate which I’ve raked to the outer edge with my fork to save for last.

Why “Dailyheadcheese”?

Because just “Headcheese” was already taken.  And the reason I chose that word is that I just recently had headcheese for the first time.  I bought a half pound of it this weekend at Findlay Market in Cincinnati and had it on my homemade bread with some mayo at home.  But, what is headcheese?  It’s like sause which is calf foot jelly, but headcheese is made by boiling a pig’s head until all the meaty, edible bits fall away and the gelatin from the bones is rendered.  The meat is removed and chopped up and put back into the strained, gelatinous broth.  This is cooled and put in some kind of casing.  I’m not sure what was used for casing in the headcheese I bought from Eckerlin Meats at the Market.  This is then sliced and used in sandwiches.  There may be other applications I’m not aware of, but as I’ve said, I’m a parvenu in headcheese society. 

Anyway, I kind of liked the idea of using “headcheese” to describe these digestible morsels from my head. 

Oh, and the headcheese was alright.  In a blind tasting, you might mistake it for good bologna.

Speaking of bologna, I also bought at Findlay Market– from Eckerlin’s and Kroeger Bros.– a variety of meats:  German garlic bologna, brats, beirmetts, Linguisa (a Portuguese sausage recommended by Travis’s Brazillian friend who was with us; it was my least favorite sausage (sorry, Marcio)), Parma (an encased sausage with yellow, red, and orange peppers inside), and some other stuff I can’t remember.  I love Findlay Market.  Go there.

 www.findlaymarket.org

PHOTO:  That’s our friend Travis holding The Boy at Findlay Market.  I think we were standing in line at one of the soul food counters from which we got lunch.

Just what the world needed…

More unsolicited commentary!

Should you care, here’s a brief summation of who I am (or, as much as I want you to know at this point).  I am thirty-six, a husband, a father, a restuaranteur, and somebody who THINKS about writing fiction a lot. 

Getting back to the restauranteur part, I don’t want to be that anymore.  My place is for sale!  http://kurtkrug.com/address.php?property_ID=30

I am now reading The World According to Garp for the first time and see some similarities between Garp and me.  He’s a bit intense and humorless for my taste, but I find parallels in our lives.  My wife works at home, but stays in her office as much as she can.  She also has occasion to travel for work.  So, before my restaurant opens at 4 o’clock, I take care of the boy.  It is an unalloyed delight.  I resent the time with him that the restaurant robs me of. 

I have to travel to nearby Bardstown to approve the proof of my new menu.  We’re scaling back a bit to the more profitable elements of the menu, adding an item or so, and increasing some prices.  Also, NO MORE FREE FRIES!  You want fries instead of chips?  Give me a dollar!  The gravy train is out of steam. 

More later, including a bit on the name of this blog.