This is Phyllis, the hydrangea right across the garden path from Margot. Phyllis blooms like a champ while Margot keeps getting cut off at the knees, or the buds. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
“BLOOM WATCH has begun at the Tidal Basin,” the Washington Post has announced. We might expect blossoms in three weeks, they say. Early again is the threat.
“When is the last frost date?” My Prince asks, hugging to his chest the sago palm he has lifted from its winter pedestal in the front hallway.
“April 21st, in the city,” I tell him, “NOTHING can go out yet.”
“But it’s 70 degrees,” he says.
“Put it back,” I say, and he does, grunting with the effort. The cast-iron pot the plant lives in is not weightless.
March is upon us and I’m already polishing my spring umbrage, which along with global warming is arriving earlier each year.
He’s already gone and clipped Margot’s buds—again.
Margot is one of two hydrangeas that straddle the path to our charming carriage house, also known as the garage. The Prince leaves Margot’s companion plant, Phyllis, alone, and she blooms like a champ.
Margot is named for our 94-year-old German friend, who brought it as a dinner gift many years ago. Margot, as I may or may not have mentioned before, is the friend who visits a secret spa in some Alp or other for several weeks each fall where she fasts and hikes and saunas and comes back 10 years younger. “You vouldn’t like it,” she gutturals.* That’s an aside.
Margot, the hydrangea, completely outgrew her narrow border a few years ago, sprawling her heavy pink (I think, it’s been so long) blossoms onto the river rocks that line the path. A deep and rich new hole was dug a couple of feet back and she was carefully moved. She hasn’t bloomed since.
The first year that was understandable, as she was in shock. Last year, in a fit of I-don’t-know-what, my beloved took it upon himself to prune her in March, destroying any chance of blossom. Hydrangeas, in case you do not know this, bloom on buds set the previous fall.
“Did you prune her?” I asked in what I imagine was a completely calm tone of voice.
“No,” he said, though I noticed a delicate beading of moisture on his bald crown. “Certainly not,” he said, “It must have been . . . an animal.”
One with scissor-sharp teeth,” I sallied. “Those are clean cuts.”
He skittered away in a huff, which is a picture—skittering and simultaneously huffing.
The other day, still in recovery from my near-death experience having my hip replaced, I limped down into the garden and limped back up, step by painful step, to where he sat with glasses slithering off his skinny Irish nose, pondering the Sunday paper. Drawing myself up to my full five-foot-four on one side and five-foot-four-and-a-half on the other, I said, “You clipped her AGAIN?”
“No,” he said.
“Liar,” I said with absolutely no drama, as I do: “There will be no flowers again this year, might as well yank the plant and throw it out. Add it to the trash heap, she’s completely ruined.”
That was another aside, the part about his pruning the hydrangea, though come to think of it, don’t you do it either.
My entire point here being: Never mind the weather report; it’s too early to put your tender plants out—and too early to plant anything except pansies and other spring stuffs. Next week we’ll talk about making things a little prettier while we wait for the cherry blossoms to bloom.
* Not a word but should be.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” reports from her urban back 40 every Thursday.
Ah, mac and cheese! / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.
MANY YEARS AGO, when I worked on the staff of the Washington Post Food section, we decided a really great idea for Thanksgiving would be to produce a timeline in which we guided readers through executing the turkey-day dinner on time. We worked on the timeline for many days, and we thought we had it all covered: We had the turkey cooking, gravy made, stuffing, side dishes, the works.
That was, until the paper hit the streets—yes, it was when the paper version was the only version. The phones started ringing first thing in the morning. The callers all had the same complaint: We had left out a key dish—the macaroni and cheese. What could I say? It had never occurred to me. Mac and cheese wasn’t part of my family’s tradition, and for me it wasn’t a holiday dish. It wasn’t even something you planned on. From a box or from scratch, macaroni and cheese was the best-ever emergency meal.
When I was growing up, it was the mac and cheese in a box that saved my mother. It was one of the first things I could make all on my own. As I got more skilled, I learned how to make the from-scratch kind and I was hooked.
And for many years, it has been my dinner on the fly. I’d make the key components—the cheese sauce and the pasta—in the morning, and refrigerate the sauce and pasta separately. When we rushed into the house after a baseball game, music lesson or meeting, I’d mix the pasta and sauce together, pour the combo into a shallow casserole dish and transfer it to the preheated oven. Add a salad and some sliced fruit and dinner was ready.
While the basics of making mac and cheese don’t vary much, everyone has their own take. Some cooks like a cream-based sauce, but I use a classic béchamel, a milk sauce thickened with a roux, a mix of butter and flour. I use the béchamel because I like it but also because I have always have flour, butter and milk in the house, whereas cream is a specialty item. Once the sauce is made and seasoned, I slowly add the cheese into the cheese sauce with the heat set no higher than medium-low. Adding the cheese slowly is key: It keeps the sauce from getting grainy. I taste as I go along, so I add enough cheese to make the sauce have that depth of flavor with getting too goopy.
Now, people debate which kind of cheese is best, how many cheeses to use, which cheese melts the best, etc. I use what I have because I have discovered the absolute hands-down secret to great mac and cheese is to keep it saucy. Plenty of different cheeses will work, but if your mac and cheese is dry, you’ve ruined it. This is not a dish that calls out for restraint—you want plenty of sauce. To that end, I add the pasta to the sauce, and not the other way around. That way I can stop adding the pasta while combo still looks saucy.
My basic formula for a large pan of mac and cheese is:
1 pound pasta, cooked and drained
1 pound grated cheese
4 cups hot milk
5 tablespoons butter
6 to 7 tablespoons flour
The butter is melted in a 3-quart pot over medium heat. Add flour until the roux has the consistency of wet mud. Let it cook for a minute, then slowly add about 3 cups of the heated milk, whisking constantly. Keep whisking and the sauce will thicken as it starts to simmer. Add more milk as needed. You want the sauce to completely coat the back of spoon. Season with salt, pepper and whatever else you’d like. Reduce heat to medium-low and slowly add the grated cheese. Remove from heat as soon as you have the sauce where you want it. Transfer to a large bowl and add ¾ of the cooked pasta. If the mixture is still too saucy, continue adding pasta. The mix goes into a large shallow casserole dish or two smaller dishes. It will need to bake in a 375-degree oven until bubbly, about 20 to 25 minutes. Then run it under the broiler.
The last controversial element is the topping. I like to top simply with some of the grated cheese. Many like to use buttered breadcrumbs or crushed crackers, or a combination of chopped nuts and crumbs, or bacon and crumbs. I could go on and on, but it’s up to you.
My kids are teenagers now and the crazy nights are fewer and farther in between. Mac and cheese has made the leap from emergency food to a special family favorite. So now, for all those readers who were so adamant about mac and cheese as a holiday dish, I’m right there with you.
Everyone has a favorite version, we’re always torn between the classic, a mix of mild and extra-sharp cheddar; and the Swiss version, Gruyere, Emmentaler or Comte with small chunks of ham and peas. It’s a great debate to have because it means a favorite comfort food is going to be served for dinner.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” keeps dinner in mind at all times, and shares her thoughts every Monday.
Botanical necklace by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Lauren Kimble.
Botanical necklace and earring by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by The Red M Studio.
Botanical bracelet by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Francoise Weeks.
Botanical necklace by Francoise Weeks. Model, Ella Con Tessla. / Photo by Ted Mishima.
Botanical ring by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Ted Mishima.
Botanical necklace by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Ted Mishima.
Botanical bracelet by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Gwen Severson.
Botanical ring and necklace by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Ted Mishima.
Botanical ring by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Theresa Bear.
Botanical earring by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Francoise Weeks.
Botanical rings and earrings by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Ted Mishima.
Botanical necklace by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Ted Mishima.
Botanical shoe by Francoise Weeks. / Photo by Gwen Severson.
IT SOUNDS LIKE a witch’s brew. Prickle together tilansia, pieris, green blackberries, green hellebores, a snippet of amaranthus and a sprig of pokeweed.
Hardly a horror: Thus begins the recipe for a glorious necklace, a breathtaking floral fantasy that also includes tiny phalaenopsis orchids, minuscule green tomatoes, beauty berries and then, most grandly, a sinuous drift of Tillandsia Xerographicato tickle the sternum.
“Oh, and bits of fern,” adds floral designer Françoise Weeks. Don’t forget the bits of fern.
“How gorgeous this would be for a bride,” I say, nearly eating the photo. “With headpieces and rings for the bridesmaids.” Like woodland creatures. Nymphs . . .
“It takes a particular client to appreciate it,” she replies with a laugh. “I love doing the jewelry, it has so much more impact than a corsage, whether it’s rings, earrings, necklace or a bracelet, they’re wonderful, and fun to make.”
Or shoes. Yes, shoes. “The plant material needs to be sturdier,” she says, as your heels will rub, and the construct is easily ruined.
But to get to wear such a thing once . . .
Born in Antwerp, Belgium, and living in Portland, Oregon, since 1977, Weeks started arranging flowers in her basement, eventually moving to a backyard studio. She’s never had a shop yet has done more than 800 weddings, among other projects and events.
Now more focused on teaching, she travels the country armed with secateurs and tweezers. “I happened on jewelry design by fluke,” she says. “I was in Los Angeles and a student showed me a ring, asking how it was made.” Easily, she thought, “I had some wire there and made one.”
Floral Couture, she calls it, quite accurately.
Like corsages, these floral fantasies, which start at $35 for a ring, $65 for earrings and $175 for a necklace, last but a day or two, though in some the more delicate accents such as orchids can be replaced with a fresh flower or leaf to extend the life of the piece.
Modestly priced for such splendor, I say. “They’re Portland prices,” she says, laughing out loud. “People say, ‘Oh, honey, you should charge blah blah blah.’ Well, if I priced it like that in Portland I wouldn’t sell any.”
She’s almost shockingly generous about technique and tools, but if you need more help she offers online tutorials. For instance, necklace collars are started on flexible one-inch-wide wire that she gets from Oasis Floral Products, which is best known for that green foam used in flower arrangements.
Leaves are overlapped and glued down to the wire frame to form a base, and then, going where your whimsy takes you, attach bits of this and that, an orchid or two, a berry and perhaps a pinch of purple cauliflower, until you have . . .
“Right,” we say. “Until you have glued your elbow to your eyebrow.”
“You always get floral glue on your fingers,” she reassures. “Just spray them with citrus air freshener—citrus oil takes it off easily.”
If nothing else, we can handle the clean-up.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” shares floral finds, mostly from her own garden, every Thursday.
I’M ALWAYS SO busy extolling the virtues of the quick-cooking boneless chicken breast, I neglect my true favorite—the whole roasted chicken. Talk about easy. First I try to find 4-to-5-pound chickens; they cook evenly in about 60 minutes. I take the whole chicken and rub it with oil, salt and pepper. The seasoned bird goes right into a disposable aluminum-foil pan. No beer-can shenanigans, no spatchcocking, just a chicken in a pan on a grill.
Normally in February I wouldn’t be talking about the grill, but this winter’s crazy weather is delivering some great days for grilling, so why not? By cooking the chicken on the covered grill, you basically have a convection oven, and it makes magic with that simple chicken.
The trick is to cook it over indirect heat. (If you place that chicken, even in a pan, over direct heat, you will have a grease fire in no time.) On a charcoal grill, this means placing the coals on either side of the grill, with the chicken, in its pan, in the middle part of the grill. On a gas grill, you place the chicken, in its pan, on the preheated grill with the heat on on either side for a three-burner grill, or just on one side for a two-burner grill. Cover the grill and let the chicken, assuming it’s 4 to 5 pounds, cook for 50 to 75 minutes—the exact timing will depend on the size of the chicken and the variables of outdoor cooking—with the grill heat hovering between 375 and 400 degrees.
I love this method for many reasons. First, it makes a very juicy chicken, which I cannot replicate in the oven. Second, barely any clean-up. And third, it’s so easy. You walk in the door, preheat the grill, season the chicken and onto the grill it goes. After 30 minutes, it’s good to turn the pan around, especially on a two- burner grill, but that’s about it. When the temperature reaches 165/170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, you and the chicken are golden.
You don’t need to make a plain chicken: You can season with an herb paste, glaze with barbecue sauce toward the end of cooking or make a spicy marinade and let the chicken marinate until you’re ready to cook it. I’m partial to lemon zest and juice, oregano and garlic, mashed into a paste with olive oil, salt and pepper. The garlic chars a little in the grill, but it flavors the chicken beautifully.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” thinks about dinner every Monday.
THIS STORY was supposed to be a piece about a city girl in country mode. Some high-minded reactions to leaving an environment populated by some 500,000 souls and finding yourself in a village of 500 people, where roads are too narrow for traffic. What happens mentally and emotionally with such a change.
Well, self-deception mostly.
What some call vacation, others call escape away from and into other scenes. I chose Greece again for eight glorious September days in retreat from the usual urban noise. The sun setting in the west over the Aegean from the terrace of the Lagou Raxi Country Hotel on the Pelion Peninsula becomes a revelation, an almost unnatural occurrence because of its too-rare unobstructed views at home. Awe and wonder. Such peace.
I walk 15 minutes into Lafkos village and sit in the central square beneath towering cypress trees—nature overshadowing my minuscule self, putting my selfish wants in proportion. An elderly couple I meet along the way hand me an apple plucked fresh from their front-yard orchard. And smile when I thank them in fractured Greek. They reply as though I can understand their words. Except for delivery vehicles, the narrow streets are closed to traffic, so the baker conveniently stacks the wood needed for his oven in giant piles outside. I pass Maria’s taverna and see her seated in a cellphone trance beside a rack of folded aprons. These are gifts from patrons coming from foreign lands.
I walk 45 minutes downhill on an ancient stone path hundreds of years old and stop briefly to admire the view and drink from a spring blurting pure water from a rocky surface. I’ve come to Milina village to swim in the salty blue sea and walk a shoreline lined with small shops and cafes. Signs advertise fishing trips and evening entertainment, though clients must be limited this time of year. The tiny tourist office is closed. September is already “off season.” I banter with the only tourists I see, a couple seated next to my table, where I order a raki. They are Romanians pausing on their drive south, wide-eyed toddler in tow. Their English is perfect.
So, too, is my swim off a pebbly beach shaded by some wispy pine trees next to a concrete wall.
And so should be the Greek salad I choose for a late lunch at another seaside cafe farther down the road. My waiter, the owner, is curious, courteous and direct—Greeks at their best, by right the equal of any man.
“I can tell you were once a beautiful woman,” he volunteers, putting before me my plate of juicy, well-oiled tomatoes and peppers alongside a loaf of fresh bread. I’m taken aback, unsure whether to feel flattered or insulted. What else can I do but thank him?
He walks away before I can reply.
The past always catches up with you, I suppose.
—Ann Geracimos
Ann Geracimos is an “ex-feature-creature” for the Washington Times and now blogs at www.urbanities.us.
Photo illustration by Stephanie Cavanaugh, with apologies to Goya.
PASSIONATEABOUT hydrangeas? African violets? Bonsai? Orchids? There’s a Facebook group for that.
Plonk the name of your obsession into the search bar at the top of your Facebook page and the choices mushroom with references, resources, photos, and mentions.
(If you don’t have a Facebook page, feel free to stop reading now).
Let’s take hydrangeas (because I love hydrangeas). There’s a business called Hydrangeas Plus, offering more than 150 varieties, which is good to know. There are pages with instructions for how to dry them, how to turn them from pink to blue, make centerpieces and wreaths, and how to get more blossoms out of your plants.
But for the truly obsessive, Facebook is the place: There’s Hydrangea Happiness, with 1,843 members, that bills itself as a group for sharing photos, tips, and such—with up to six posts a day.
I got tired of counting the number of FB pages devoted to roses, stopping after 25, though there must be at least 100. There are many unimaginatively named groups like “Roses” and “I Love Roses” and “Beautiful Roses,” which are just what they appear to be, pages devoted to photos and comments about the plant.
As you weed through them, the curious emerge, like “Roses . . . Just for You.” Which is devoted to “appreciating the beauty of GOD’s creation,” and cautions that there are “no nude pics and videos.” I would certainly join this group except for the absence of nude photos—which I never realized I wanted to see until now.
Then there’s Skulls and Roses, which boasts 10+ photos a day from its roughly 13,000 members and is billed as just what it says, “a place where you can post pics of Skulls and Roses.” Unfortunately, I can’t describe a typical post because you have to join the page first, something I am reluctant to do—even for you.
Some groups have marvelous monikers, like “Lawn Care Mafia.” There are currently seven groups that share this name, or some slight variation of it, like the 20-member “Deaf-Lawn Care Mafia.” Posts feature really cool, loud and large equipment and photos of complete irrelevance, such as the pimply-faced kid sitting in a car with what look like 65 acupuncture needles stuck in his forehead who asks, “How would you title this picture.” In a word: idiot.
“Container Gardening Gone to Pot” is the first plant group I ever joined. This was because of the name, which amused me. Here you can find gorgeous posts like a recent video of the orchid show at England’s Kew Gardens alongside items like what is clearly a pot of geraniums with some innocent asking, “What is this interesting flower?”
“Mid-Atlantic Tropics,” another of my favorites, is a non sequiturial* group of fools like me who insist on trying to grow Bird of Paradise among other clearly tropical plants in places where snow is known to fall with some frequency. Here you can share both triumph and tragedy.
No matter which state or country you live in, there’s a Facebook gardening group for you—frequently there’ll be several, so you’re covered within any state from mountain to shore.
In Washington DC there’s DC Gardeners, which goes way beyond the cherry blossoms to ferret out special events and garden tours, host a garden book club and book signings—and generally promote public gardens and city gardening, from ponds to vegetables to native plants.
Enjoy hands-on, hit-you-right-on-the-nose garden inspiration? The Philadelphia Flower Show, the Big Mama of U.S. flower shows is March 3 to 11, 2018. Wonders of Water, this year’s theme, features a rain forest jungle with a 25-foot waterfall, and an extravaganza of garden displays, presentations and demonstrations—plus a drool-worthy assortment of plants and accessories to buy and take home.
Here comes spring! Are you ready?
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
*Not a word, but should be
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes every Thursday about the triumph and tragedy of city gardening.
“PRIMITIVE” PEOPLES have it right: A photograph of a person can indeed steal his or her soul. We “sophisticates” are only now learning this big-time in the age of the selfie.
That may not be the message behind Gustavo Ott’s La Foto: A Selfie Affair, playing through February 25 at
Luz Nicolás as Laura in ‘La Foto: A Selfie Affair,’ by Gustavo Ott and playing at GALA Hispanic Theatre.
Washington’s GALA Hispanic Theatre, but it was certainly my takeaway. Once that image is out there, well, it’s out there, never to be corralled again. And once the pieces of the universe realign themselves to make way for that image it’s nigh on impossible to go back to the way things used to be.
As a devotee of Law & Order reruns, I’m pretty inured to selfie damage—college girls baring their breasts at a drunken frat party and suffering the consequences (try explaining that at your first job interview); an accidental snap of two people who shouldn’t be together. But that’s not exactly what’s on the mind of Venezuelan playwright Ott, who in 2016 gave us Señorita y Madame, the epic battle between 20th-century beauty titans Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein.
In a way, Ott’s conceit is quite a bit more disturbing, because this time it’s Mom who is guilty of taking the very naughty selfie and sending it to a long-lost (married) boyfriend, to show him what he’s missing. Of course the image goes viral, sent to friends by the man’s son, who thinks it’s sexy and cool. And of course Mom’s daughter is humiliated when schoolmates figure out who the woman in the selfie is.
As the play’s slogan has it: It’s not the world in your hands . . . it’s you in the hands of the world.
Friendships unravel, a marriage disintegrates, a child is mortified. But Mom insists loudly that the photo was about her, and only her, and she had the right to take it and to send it out. The more the world around her collapses, the more she digs in her heels.
Bad Mommy! And yet. . . . she’s played with such pained ferocity by Luz Nicolás that it’s hard not to feel her anguish at having to pack it in. No more romance, no more cozy conversations in bed. Nothing more than standing in line at the supermarket, declaring herself old, and then . . . death.
Yes, rage, rage against the dying of the light and all that—but maybe don’t do it with a smartphone in your hand. Yes, listen to your daughter when she teaches you how certain apps can, um, enhance your physique. But also listen to her when she, young but wise in the ways of social media, begs you not to do what you’re aching to do.
In the end, I have a feeling that it’s ourselves we’re trying to reassure, that, yes, I was there, I was part of the world. Photos have always done that, but the smartphone has given us the camera equivalent of a semi-automatic—and we’ve trained it on ourselves.
—Nancy McKeon
“La Foto: A Selfie Affair,” GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th Street NW, Washington, DC; galatheatre.org; 202-234-7174. Performed in Spanish with English surtitles. Playing through February 25.
My Dinner With . . . Ingredients From Another Dish
iStock photo.
IN THE MERRY-GO-ROUND of bring-a-dish events, I am not always great at deciding what to make. The past few months have seen a lot of me changing my mind on the day of the party. For fantasy football draft night, I bought all the ingredients for gougères (gruyère cheese puffs) and decided to make deviled eggs—more footbally—instead. For a big holiday party, I put my name down for grilled herbed chicken skewers, but the frigid temps had me backpedaling and I ended making mini chicken salad sandwiches—no standing in my parka over the grill. My most recent change of plans came the morning of Super Bowl Sunday, when I decided I wasn’t in the mood for frying and dropped the plan to make eggrolls, opting to make pizza buns instead.
My seesaw approach to planning is no big deal, mainly because I have a very understanding husband who is almost always willing to make an emergency run to the supermarket, and all most hosts care about is that I fulfill my promise to bring a platter full of food. The main problem is that I’m stuck with the ingredients for the dish I never made and I can’t convince my family that cheese puffs constitute dinner.
One of the guiding principles of my approach to dinner is that I can usually make a meal out of whatever is in my fridge and pantry plus a little imagination.The gruyère problem was an easy one. Dinner the next night was a gruyère-and-ham mac-and-cheese. The unused herb marinade for the chicken was easily turned into salad dressing, but the Chinese cabbage, marinated pork and shiitake mushrooms meant for the egg rolls was more of a challenge.
Then it came to me: Pork-roll filling is a lot like . . . Moo Shu Pork, so I started there. I had already marinated two pork tenderloins (in a mix of hoisin, soy sauce, honey, ginger, garlic and oil) and roasted them, so all I had to do was cut the cooked pork up into matchstick-like pieces. I julienned the cabbage, shiitakes, scallions and a carrot. Out came the giant sauté pan. First I beat a couple of eggs and scrambled them in a mix of canola and toasted sesame oil. I took the egg out of the pan, added a little more of the oils, and sautéed the vegetables until just tender. In went the cut-up pork, which I stir-fried with the vegetables just long enough to heat the meat up. I added the egg back in and the dish was ready to serve. Okay, the traditional pancakes were missing and I didn’t have any plum sauce, but I did have a pretty nice dinner and the refrigerator was cleared out. Mission accomplished.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” supplies dinner inspiration every Monday.
Garden sheds, on this page and the front, found on Pinterest.
NO DOUBT you’ve heard of Man Caves.
The very name conjures a whiff of dirty socks, decaying mice in unswept corners, leaking pipes, a hint of mold and ancient leather chairs silvered with duct tape. It’s a place where guys do . . . stuff, where there’s an unspoken message on an invisible white-washed fence slat: Girlz Keep Out!
Now meet the She Shed, about as opposite to a Man Cave as you can get. Requiring a great deal of effort and shopping, no matter how small the space, no matter how simple the concept.
The only requirement: It must bring a heave to the bosom and a sigh of intense pleasure. Also, plants.
To my mind, of course, a greenhouse is the ideal, either attached to the house, or free standing. I’m easy, see?
I saw a photograph of perfection once. It was set in a Connecticut garden a dash through the snow from the side porch of a fancified farmhouse. Within were orchids and hibiscus and lemon trees in bloom and palm trees tickling the ceiling. Flagstone pavers surrounded the freeform heated swimming pool. Imagine floating in this wonderland, staring up through frosty glass panes at the stars. Sipping bubbly, wrapped in a monogrammed robe. . . . What noise do I make in my throat to sum it up?
Short of that, so very short of that, a She Shed might be . . .
Something as simple as a corner of a room, a sunny spot near a window with a white wicker chair heaped with cushions, a pouf for your feet and a potted palm to tangle in your hair as you reread Jane Eyre for the 49th time. A small fountain might be a nice addition.
Or just let the faucet drip in a bathroom and deck the walls in rose-strewn paper, a billow of lace curtain at the window, baskets of ferns hanging from a deep green ceiling, and an oriental fan-back chair in a corner, for pulling on your socks.
Growing more elaborate, consider a freestanding structure, say a miniature chapel, all white wood and bleached floors with a steeply pitched roof from which dangles a crystal chandelier. A purple velvet chaise, all deep pile and pillow-strewn, would invite lounging, and French doors would open to an exceedingly lush garden (cue birds and butterflies). All in all an elegant spot for tea; porcelain cups and a silver service required. In general, this concept requires servants. By the way, if you can do it all yourself, you are not my friend.
Or perhaps it’s a trailer. A blazing path of pink and orange zinnias lining the walk to a Harold and Maude* gypsy wagon strewn with ragged oriental rugs and shimmering, glittering scarves and beads and turquoise walls and bits of stained glass to catch the light and turn dust motes to rubies and emeralds.
Meanwhile, an aesthete might prefer a rooftop atelier with floor-to-ceiling windows, a curve of Roche Bobois leather sofa and a single large ficus.
If you’re agile, it could be a tree house. If you’re very short, consider a child’s log cabin from Walmart.
Now, sketch up or print out your fantasy retreat and slip it under the Man Cave door with a reminder: Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Who needs roses?
*Among my top 10 favorite movies, Harold and Maude is a 1971 black comedy starring Ruth Gordon as a fabulously eccentric 80-year-old and Bud Cort as her 20-year-old lover.
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Victorian England was “dome central,” says collector John Whitenight. He is thought to have the largest collection of domes in the world. The “shades,” as they were called, displayed more than hair work; they enclosed taxidermy, preserved rare flowers, exotic fruits fashioned from wax. / From the collection of John Whitenight and Frederick LaValley; photo by Alan Kolc.
A cornucopia, or nosegay., both above in detail on the front. / From the collection of John Whitenight and Frederick LaValley; photo by Alan Kolc.
A hair-work remembrance from 1882. / From the collection of John Whitenight and Frederick LaValley; photo by Alan Kolc.
An elaborate wreath and family photo. / From the collection of John Whitenight and Frederick LaValley; photo by Alan Kolc.
TWO THINGS to be grateful for on this winter afternoon. One, that the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia doesn’t have a cafeteria. It might be hard to chow down on, say, a roast beef sandwich after viewing medical oddities and anatomical specimens. (Even the museum’s website suggests its exhibitions may render a person Disturbingly Informed.)
Two, as we learn from the current special exhibit, “Woven Strands: The Art of Human Hair Work,” that “hair work” was not confined to Victorian-era mourning jewelry. Your loved one could be alive and kicking and still have his or her tresses fashioned into a keepsake attractive enough to mount on a wall. Or a freestanding piece to display under a glass dome, as many Victorian households did.
I’d wager that many of us have viewed these complex compositions in antiques shops without knowing what they are. We don’t see hair; we see bouquets of flowers, intricate small-scale wreaths, hearts formed by connected blossoms, possibly a willow tree weeping into an unseen lake.
Makes a hair clipping in a gold locket seem not so special, doesn’t it.
The hair work on display at the Mütter comes from five private collections that have never before been displayed together. The assemblage is the work of the museum’s special projects manager, Emily Snedden Yates, and specialists/collectors John Whitenight and Evan Michelson.
This hair’s not going anywhere any time soon. The exhibit is open through September 16, 2018.
—Nancy McKeon
“Woven Strands: The Art of Human Hair Work,” through September 16, 2018 in the Thomson Gallery of the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103; Monday through Sunday 10am to 5pm; 215-560-8564.
Already-cooked chicken mixes nicely with sautéed asparagus and fresh pasta. / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.
A FEW WEEKS ago, we drove our son Ben back to college. The trip posed a series of meal-related problems. I needed a dinner for all of us for the Friday night before we left, the makings of a picnic lunch for the car trip on Saturday, something the teenager I left behind could eat while we were away overnight and the setup for an easy dinner on Sunday night when we returned. And, of course, no one wanted to eat the same meal over and over again.
It sounds complicated, but I had a really simple solution. I bought a large pack of boneless chicken breast halves. I sliced them into cutlets and coated them with oil and salt and pepper. I lined two rimmed sheet pans with heavy-duty aluminum foil and preheated the oven to 375 degrees. In a large sauté pan over medium-high heat—an electric griddle works as well—I browned the cutlets in batches and transferred in a single layer to the prepared sheet pans. Into the oven they went for 7 to 10 minutes, until the thickest piece reached an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees. Bingo, food for days.
Sautéed: Friday night, we ate the cutlets topped with sliced mushrooms sautéed with garlic and a little white wine.
Sandwiches: Saturday, we ate chicken-salad sandwiches in the car heading back to Ohio with Ben. At home, Sam had plenty of chicken cutlets to snack on.
Chicken With Pasta: Sunday, we got home in time for me to make a pasta with sautéed asparagus, red onions, sliced chicken and a quick Alfredo sauce, made with heavy cream and Parmesan cheese.
I could just as easily have made fried rice, arroz con pollo, tacos, chef salad—you get the idea. Just having that cooked chicken ready made it so easy to quickly put together a few meals that bore little resemblance to one another. And yes, in warmer months you could go ahead and cook the chicken on the grill—even easier!
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” shares quick dinner ideas every Monday in her My Dinner With . . . column.
This fake ficus–or fauxcus, Stephanie Gardens suggests–is healthier than her Boston ferns, which she claims are suffering from Princely neglect. That’s a spectacular elephant ear peeking around from behind the “tree,” on the left. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
PRINCES ARE great as long as they do what they’re told.
You have to keep an eye on them lest they get distracted and gallop off to play elsewhere. This frequently happens when you ask them to do something they’re not particularly enthusiastic about, like watering, oh, maybe 120 potted plants. A project that takes, oh, maybe 60 trips back and forth to the bathroom to fill the watering can.
I do believe that is how we lost the two gorgeous Boston ferns that normally hang outside from the back porch roof but had been taken into the minute greenhouse off my second-floor office for the duration; something more alluring than watering must have caught the Prince’s eye.
That said, Boston ferns are not a fun thing to care for in the winter. They’re not much fun to care for in the summer either, come to think of it, but worth it for their lush greenness. Just give them an endless stream of water morning and night (and a semi-shady spot) and they’ll erupt in a poof of leaves that spreads and flounces like a gorgeous green tutu.
Troublesome as they are, requiring a shower in the bathroom at least once a week, Boston ferns are wonderful in the sunroom, dangling from the ceiling so the eye is forced to move around the space most luxuriously (and hiding a few, shall we say flaws, in the meantime).
Our two are now a sad frizzle. Touch one and the brittle leaves strew themselves across the floor, fly down the stairs, turn to powder underfoot and will no doubt blow about the dining room on their sad march out of the house.
Meanwhile, sniff, he insists he watered them. “I stuck my finger in but can’t feel anything,” he says, holding up one shabby fern.
“Bring that here,” I tell him, and he crunches over to where I am ensconced on the bed, nestled in a pile of pillows.* Sticking my finger down through the tight web of branches I feel nothing. “I feel nothing,” I tell him.
“But look,” he says, pointing to a single frond emerging green and pliant from the mess of dried-out, shedding thatch. “I think it’s coming back.”
“Mmmpf,” I say.
“Maybe I should give it a trim and see what happens,” he says, swishing at the dried mess and sending a flurry of dead stuffs across my lap.
“Fine,” I say, brushing them off.
So he scurries away and clips and snips and clips and snips some more until what is left is as pathetic as a shorn sheepdog with ringworm.
Now, remember that 6-foot-tall fake ficus—or shall we say fauxcus—he found last week lying curbside in front of an office building on Pennsylvania Avenue? Here is where it might just come in handy.
While the ferns are in recovery—and without blocking the light from healthier plants that are pressed against the sunny window—I’ll just plonk that fauxcus in front and . . . man, is that thing ever healthy-looking.
Et voilà!
Mmmm. Or maybe not.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
* I had a tiny setback with my new hip, drat it, and have been packed in ice much of the day. I am getting very fat, sigh.
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes about gardening and hip replacements and other things every Thursday.
AT MY HOUSE, and I suspect at many others, the most common last-minute dinner is pasta with spaghetti sauce. It’s a pantry meal—you literally can cook a package’s worth of pasta, add a jarred sauce and you’ve got dinner. Sadly, like most things you can cook with very little effort, it’s filling but not very interesting.
My solution is to kick up the sauce. In the process, not only does this result in a more flavorful sauce, the whole dish becomes more substantial. The obvious add-in is browned ground beef or sausage, and this makes a very hearty sauce. But it’s not the only way. I can make the sauce seem really fresh with diced vegetables, or boost the protein (the current culinary buzzword) with chickpeas, or go a little Fra Diaviolo with shrimp and red chili flakes. You get the idea—in fact, you probably have a go-to list of your own; but here are a few of my ideas.
Okay, I admit I’m not really into jarred sauces, but I need “quick” too, so when I have time I make a big batch of my own base sauce. I use Pomi-brand strained tomatoes, which comes in an aseptic box you can find at many stores, including Whole Foods and Wegmans. I like Pomi because it is pure tomato—no salt, no seeds, no peel—but canned crushed tomatoes work as well. I sauté some diced onion and garlic, add the strained or crushed tomatoes, dried oregano or a mix of Italian herbs, freshly ground pepper, sugar, salt and red wine. Let it all cook together for 25 or 30 minutes, tasting along the way and adding more sugar, wine or salt to balance the flavor. After the sauce has cooled, I pack it away in the freezer in 2 -cup containers, all ready for the next dinner emergency.
Spaghetti Sauce With Diced Carrots and Zucchini: For every 2 cups of sauce, dice 1 small onion, 2 to 3 medium carrots and 2 medium or 3 small zucchini. Sauté the onion with a little salt in olive oil until it starts to soften. Add the carrots and zucchini and sauté over medium heat until the vegetables are tender, adding salt and pepper as needed. Add the spaghetti sauce, heat until warmed through, and serve.
Spaghetti Sauce With Chickpeas and Sweet Onion: For every 2 cups of sauce, use 1½ cups cooked chickpeas and 1 small onion, diced. Sauté the onion with a little salt in olive oil until it starts to soften. Add the cooked chickpeas, the zest of 1 small lemon, and salt and pepper as needed. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, add the spaghetti sauce, heat until warmed through, and serve.
Spaghetti Sauce With Spicy Shrimp: For every 2 cups of sauce, use 1 pound raw shrimp and 2 to 3 tablespoons minced garlic. Peel and devein the shrimp. If the shrimp are large, cut them in half. I like to cut them down the back, almost like butterflying but cutting all the way through, but you can cut them any way you want. Sauté the garlic over medium-low heat with a little salt in olive oil until it softens. Turn the heat up to medium-high, add the shrimp and a pinch of red hot chili flakes. Cook until the shrimp turn pink, add the spaghetti sauce, heat until warmed through and serve.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” provides ideas for dinner every Monday. You can see previous dinner columns by clicking here: My Dinner With.
Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham in ‘The Post,’ wearing a simple shirtwaist dress on obvious good-quality fabric but not a lot of flair. / Photo from Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Storyteller Distribution Co. LLC. All rights reserved.
A quiet skirt suit is what Meryl Streep wears as Katharine Graham at a Washington Post board meeting. At the time, the pussy-bow tie was considered the female equivalent of a man’s tie. / Photo from 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Storyteller Distribution Co. LLC. All rights reserved.
MERYL STREEP, it almost goes without saying, excels playing publisher Katharine Graham in The Post, the Steven Spielberg film about The Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971, after the New York Times was ordered to stop. The story is true and the period details are accurate, as are the clothes. Oh, those clothes!
Prints and shirtwaists, blouses with bows, strange colors—and one ridiculously wonderful caftan. LittleBirds who were already wearing grownup clothes in 1971, well, it takes us back. The film’s costume designer, Ann Roth, told The Hollywood Reporter that she aimed for accuracy but didn’t clone any of Mrs. Graham’s actual dresses and suits. In the film Kay Graham is seen most often in muted skirt suits (were there any other kind back then?) and pale shirtwaists, and is the only woman in a roomful of dark-suited men. As the story unfolds and Mrs. Graham grows in confidence, the prints and stripes take over.
There’s a Gucci print that brought me bittersweet pangs. How I wanted something—anything—Gucci at the time, and how out of my price range it was! My young husband (now my “more mature” husband) bought me a bottle of Gucci fragrance that came in a signature silk-wrapped box. That box stood atop my dresser for years. The Gucci print dress now seems almost comically garish, but in its time it was a bold and elegant statement piece.
Mrs. Graham’s cinematic style progression culminates in a flowing, glittering creamy silk caftan that rivets the viewer in the scene where she makes her momentous decision, once again surrounded by men, to publish the papers. You can’t take your eyes off that caftan—talk about power dressing!
This LittleBird was fresh out of college in New York in 1971, with a wardrobe replete with flowing Indian skirts, little minis and poor-boy ribbed tops. I even recall a pair of brown suede Earth shoes, whose negative heels were supposed to promote good health. But for job interviews there were print dresses, striped blouses and a pale yellow “man-tailored” silk shirt paired with a navy straight skirt (as opposed to an A-line, my actual favorite shape at the time). In The Post, Mrs. Graham wears a light-colored long-sleeved dress (no jacket) for her historic day at the Supreme Court. When did the blazer or jacket become de rigueur for women who mean business? Not in 1971, apparently.
We grownup girls have graduated to black trousers, sleek tunics and sleeveless sheaths, but for a look back at the nude stockings, long sleeves and belted dresses that ushered us into the 1970s workplace, The Post is pure fashion nostalgia.
—Mary Wisniewski
Mary Wisniewski is a longtime friend of MyLittleBird.
The left hip of LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” is now faux, and so are most of the flowers in this gift basket. But some real-live tulips peek out from behind all that faux-silk. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
SARAH CAME OVER on Sunday with a basket spilling over with hydrangeas, glittered sticks of curly willow and sprigs of fern—a gift from our brilliant writers’ group.
“The fern’s real,” she said, perched at the foot of the bed where I am in dramatic recovery from a hip replacement.
Cue up, I am Titanium.
The next morning My Prince found a six-foot ficus of the fake variety lying on the sidewalk outside an office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in view of the Capitol—just to give it some street cred—and hauled it home. It just needs the right pot.
Perfect gifts for the partially fake person I am now.
These will be installed in my little greenhouse, an eye roll from my desk, and just beyond the Victorian screen door that serves no purpose but to delight my eye. There are already bits of fake here, mingled among the flourish of flowering and fruiting and simply green plants, all too fragile to winter outdoors.
There’s the black-and-white floor, which I painted on plywood boards cut to fit the space, and the sequined birds with extravagantly glittered tails that perch here and there. There’s a purple one on the bird feeder that Baby bought me for Christmas, a copper pole topped with copper curlicues that form a nest for an antique silver creamer that will be the water dish when it goes out with the plants when the weather warms.
Clearly, I’ve lived through surgery, an event that no one took seriously but me. Even the doctors were joking around in the operating room, nattering on about their exotic vacations as I pleaded with them to spare my bikini line—I was later assured that this was done, though it’s under a rather large Band-aid so I really can’t tell yet.
I had but one night of hospital care before they tossed me to the street, after having walked a total of 40 feet that morning and demonstrated that I could climb three steps. There are 13 steps from the sidewalk to our front door, 17 steps from our hallway to the second floor. Getting me home was . . . comical.
The Prince has been a prince, fluttering about with pillows and prune juice and various adjustments, sometimes fixing a cover or a pillow in the middle of the night, which can be irritating, if lovable. Putting my socks on, hosing me down in the shower.
A physical therapist visits twice a week. Yesterday we discovered that my left leg—the one with the new socket—is nearly an inch longer than the right. This is extremely cool. If I stand on my left leg the next time I’m officially measured I’ll be an inch taller—and maybe the doc can even me out when the right hip goes.
Meanwhile I feel fantastic. Although there’s a list of things I’m not allowed to do for six weeks, lest I knock my joint out of joint, I get about the house with no cane and no walker and go up and down stairs easily. The biggest danger is rushing things.
Hip replacement is just what people say: miraculous. Do feel free to contact me if you are wary, as I was— or want to share your experience.
Next week: back to plants.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes, sometimes, about gardening in the city.
“THIS IS ROOM 837,” I say, the stress evident in my voice. “Winnie seems to be dead!” Pause. “She’s lost the will to serve!”
The woman at the hotel desk catches on right away, thank goodness.
“Don’t worry,” she says with a laugh. “We’ll get her restarted.”
Winnie, the room-service robot, at the LAX Embassy Suites hotel. / MyLittleBird photo.
Winnie is the Room Service Robot at the airport Embassy Suites in not-so-balmy Los Angeles. I spotted her (him?) downstairs and definitely needed to try her (it?) out.
Winnie’s main task is to open the compartment on the top of her head so one of the front-desk people can insert (pricey) snacks from the lobby snack shop. Yes, I still had to talk to a human being. It went something like this:
Me: Hi, I’d like to have the robot bring us some snacks.
A male desk attendant asks what I would like.
Me: One regular Coke, a Diet Coke and some potato chips. Are they those tiny bags?
Desk attendant: Yes.
Me: Okay, make it two bags. Thanks.
A few minutes pass, not many but enough. The phone rings.
Desk attendant: I’m sorry, we have only one bag of potato chips left.
Me: Hmmm. Um, what else do you have that’s salty?
The desk attendant mentions some snacks, but I stop him when he says “Cheetos.”
Desk attendant: And we have Coke but no Diet Coke.
(Really? They’re out of America’s No. 2 most popular drink, Diet Coke? Well, maybe its popularity is why they’re out of it.)
Me: Okay. Do you have ginger ale?
Affirmative. And Winnie, built by the Savioke company of San Jose, California, for just this purpose, is presumably now on her way.
My sister, Pat, is surprised, but Winnie keeps her mind on her work. / MyLittleBird photo.
I’m in the sitting room of the suite with my brother-in-law, but I keep my face pressed against the window that looks out onto the hallway so I can record Winnie’s arrival.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Finally the elevator door opens. But it’s not just the 3-foot-tall, 100-pound Winnie. It’s also my sister (quite a bit taller but not all that much heavier), whose smile is as wide as her eyes. I signal to her not to come to the door; I want Winnie to announce herself.
Winnie, the room-service robot at the LAX Embassy Suites hotel. / MyLittleBird photos.
That’s when the telephone rings and a, shall I say robotic, voice tells me my delivery has arrived. I open the door and her head pops open. Winnie’s, not my sister’s. Her screen reads HELLO HERE IS YOUR DELIVERY. Then PLEASE REMOVE YOUR ITEMS. Pushy little gal. I retrieve the snacks, Winnie’s head snaps shut and her video screen reads BYE! Then she turns around and rolls over to the elevator—and I finally let my sister into her room. (It’s hers and Bill’s because it’s the beginning of January and their American flight to JFK has been canceled due to the snow bomb hitting the East Coast. My flight to Washington Dulles is good to go so I’ll be leaving in a little while.)
The snacks are now on the table, but I want to watch Winnie navigate the hallway and the elevator. Nothing . . . nothing. Ah, an elevator arrives, and a family gets off, smiling at Winnie. But Winnie doesn’t roll herself into the lift. She sits there. And sits there. The other elevator arrives and sits open. No movement. That’s when I call the desk.
Eventually the novelty of Winnie’s plight wears off. When it’s time for me to go down to catch the airport shuttle, the hallway is empty. So Winnie went home after all.
The elevator holds no appeal for Winnie after her exhausting trip up to the eighth floor. / MyLittleBird photo.
Downstairs, I wander over to the desk while I wait for the shuttle. You’re the woman I talked to about Winnie? I ask. (She looks right, has an easy smile even though the lobby is bedlam.) How did you get her down?
She gives a little laugh: “We had to push her.”
Considering how much engagement—me, two desk clerks and four phone calls—was involved in this little “autonomous” delivery, I’m not sure I’d bet on the future of robotics in hotels, at least not at this stage.
But I’m willing to bet that sales from the little lobby snack shop have gone up, fueled by people like me who just want to have a few meaningful moments with Winnie.
Chipotle Beef, Beer and Black Bean Stew. / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.
I STARTED MAKING stews with beer to solve a post-holiday pantry problem: too many odd bottles of beer—stouts, porters and ciders—left over from holiday parties. I wasn’t up for a stout cake, but I could make good use of the odd bottle in a stout or porter stew. Turns out the hearty beers that seemed like a good drinking idea during the holiday season are an even better post-holiday cooking idea. Those full-flavored beers turn mellow when mixed with beef and onions.
And so my version of stout stew was born. Almost any beer will do, but the darker varieties make a richer stew. I make a big pot, sometimes two pots at the same time, varying the seasonings in each, so I have plenty to stash in the freezer for the many time-pressed nights ahead. When I want to reheat, I transfer the block of frozen stew to an oven-proof pot. Add water as needed, starting with about 1/3 cup, cover and heat slowly in a 350-degree oven. While the stew defrosts, I can bake a potato, cook rice, toss a salad or do a crossword puzzle until dinner is ready. It takes 45 to 60 minutes to reheat a half batch.
My basic formula is simple: 3 pounds of cubed stew meat, 1½ cups diced onions, ½ to ¾ cup diced celery, ½ to ¾ cup diced carrots, oil as needed, a few tablespoons flour, 12 ounces hearty beer of your choosing, a few tablespoons of brown sugar to balance out the beer, and salt and pepper. I like to dice the vegetables ½ inch or smaller so they become part of the sauce. What you don’t want are large chunks of mushy vegetables when you can add steamed vegetable that are perfectly cooked at the end. I love potatoes with stew, but I bake mine and use them as a base, pouring the stew over a split baked potato.
Making the stew’s pretty simple, though it takes a little work up front. Brown the seasoned beef cubes in a sauté pan in batches. In a Dutch oven or stew pot, sauté the lightly salted vegetables in oil until tender. Add a few tablespoons of flour and stir until the flour is absorbed. Pour in the beer, the sugar and whatever other seasonings you’re using, Add the browned beef cubes and enough water to not quite cover the meat. Season as needed with salt and pepper and whatever else you’d like. Bring to a simmer, cover and transfer to a 315- degree oven. Now the magic happens: The stew cooks all by itself for about 2 ¼ to 2 ½ hours. To check for doneness, take a piece of the beef out: You should be able to cut through it with a fork.
My basic formula is just a framework. You can add diced parsnips or turnips. You could use celery root instead of celery stalks. If you have left-over shallots, by all means use them. You get the idea; you just want about 3 cups of diced aromatic and root vegetables.
From there it’s up to you, but here’s a start:
Beer and Beef Stew: Use a full-flavored beer and add a couple of tablespoons of a strong Dijon-style mustard.
Chipotle Beef, Beer and Black Bean Stew: Use a beer of your choosing and add some chipotle and adobo, either in dry spice form, from a chipotle-adobo paste, or a spoonful of adobo and a minced-up chipotle from a can of chipotle in adobo. Add about 1 ½ cups of cooked black beans for every 3 pounds of meat; canned beans are fine. Since the beans will thicken the stew, you may need to add additional water.
Beef and Barley Stew: Use a beer of your choosing. Sauté ¾ to 1 pound sliced or diced mushrooms along with the vegetables. Skip the flour and instead add a couple of teaspoons of double-concentrated tomato paste or a couple of tablespoons of regular tomato paste. Sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, then add ½ to ¾ cup pearled barley along with the browned beef cubes. This one needs to be watched as you may need to add extra water as it cooks.
—Stephanie Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” gives us meal ideas to chew on every Monday.
Not from “The Crown”: Queen Elizabeth II emerges from Buckingham Palace to greet lunch guests in November 2017. / Photo by REX / Shutterstock.
By Nancy McKeon
THERE ARE a couple of moments in “The Crown” that made me do a mental two-step. In both incidences the young Queen Elizabeth is marching briskly through her palace and I notice she has a handbag on her arm. Now it’s been said that she carries little but maybe tissues, reading glasses and a mirror and lipstick in the bag. Maybe a bit more. Actually, that’s pretty normal for the rest of us, but still I’m kinda laughing.
And then I stop and think: Given the size of Buckingham Palace, which seems to be about as big as Missouri, of course she carries her purse with her. What if she’s at the east end of the building and needs to run out to
Hmmm, just won’t do. / iStock photo.
CVS to pick up something (like more tissues)? Well, she certainly doesn’t want to have to run back to her dressing room on the west side of the palace* to grab her bag, does she? The trip might take up half of a “Crown” episode!
My own house is quite a bit more modest than QEII’s digs. And yet I find myself shlepping all sorts of stuff with me as I travel from my lower-level office up to the kitchen on the main floor then to the bedrooms upstairs.
What do I carry around? My phone, two iPads (when one is slow I try the other). A charger and cord. (Even though I have two chargers/cords, in the past both have managed to come to rest on the same floor of the house, and sometimes not the one I’m on. Yes, the exercise would do me good, but I’d rather just carry at least one of them around.)
What else do I transport? A bottle of water, a couple of notebooks, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, which I’ve sworn I will finish and return to the library, even though I’ve already seen the Broadway musical and do not have to swot up on the man. Really. And there’s always laundry to be toted upstairs or down. And a couple of magazines I’m leafing through, in theory.
My dear departed friend Madeleine used to carry her handbag up to the bedroom with her at night. Kind of
Possibilities. / iStock photo.
a security blanket, I guess. My college roommate Violette said it was better for me to take my bag upstairs with me at night lest burglars break in and steal it from the ground floor. (Me, I’m thinking I’d rather make it easy for them to find something downstairs than to have them come up to my room in search!)
I’ve been trying to devise a carry-all, something like the plastic tote housekeepers carry to take cleaning products from room to room. But maybe I should simply follow the queen’s lead. Instead of a handbag, though, it could just be one of the 350 or 400 tote bags I have stacked in the closet, you know, just in case.
Even better, what about something that would free up my hands, so I can carry a snack or the dry-cleaning? I suppose I could tie something around my waist, but that might be awkward. What if I devised something I could carry on my back like a papoose, maybe something with armholes so I could secure it?
Even Queen Elizabeth didn’t come up with this: All the electronics and reading matter can go into this device, leaving my hands free to carry that drink or that all-important snack. You know, to give me nourishment for climbing another flight of stairs.
Hmm, seems I’ve just re-invented the backpack. Okay, I feel better for having talked this out with you. Thanks!
THIS JUST IN!: Last night I binged the entire fourth season of “Grace and Frankie.” (I know, now I have nothing to live for. But onward . . . ) This is the Netflix series starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as mismatched older and newly divorced friends. One of the plot lines centers on Grace’s knee replacement surgery, then further knee problems. But the scene that thrilled me was, late in the season, when Grace is found, embarrassed, sitting on the stairs of the women’s shared beach house wearing a backpack, the pouch side in front. Frankie peers in and discovers a mug, a teabag and a hotplate. So there: I’m not the only one who totes stuff around the house, although I would have included some cookies to go with the tea. (But that’s why Jane Fonda looks the way she does and I . . . don’t.)
FURTHERMORE: A story in the Washington Post points out that school lockers are becoming a thing of the past. The kids want everything with them all the time: books, phones, water bottles, headphones, laptops, tablets, snacks, coats and extra shoes. Himalayan Sherpas without a base camp. So there. I can live without the extra shoes.
*I’m winging it here; I have no idea where the royal boudoir or dressing room is.
I saw a photograph of perfection once. It was set in a Connecticut garden a dash through the snow from the side porch of a fancified farmhouse. Within were orchids and hibiscus and lemon trees in bloom and palm trees tickling the ceiling. Flagstone pavers surrounded the freeform heated swimming pool. Imagine floating in this wonderland, staring up through frosty glass panes at the stars. Sipping bubbly, wrapped in a monogrammed robe. . . . What noise do I make in my throat to sum it up?
