In the Saddle

It’s been a crazy few months of work, as balancing my Equinox and Composite obligations has made my schedule more than a bit nuts. And, it appears, this blog was one of the many things that got back-burnered as a result.

Still, as I’ve learned over the years, you can reboot a habit as easily as you fell off it – you just do it again once, and then the next day you do it again, and slowly you accumulate enough days (ideally even sort of in a row) that it once again becomes second nature.

To that end, one day down, and hopefully a bunch more to come.

October 14, 2019

Wax On, Wax Off

We rolled into this holiday weekend with grand plans. But, last weekend, I was down for the count with a summer cold. And, this one, Jess got hit by it in turn.

So, while we started off as intended – a dinner date, followed by the Met Opera Outdoors at Lincoln Center – we didn’t make it to the end of La Fille du Regiment before Jess had reached sufficient zonked-ness to warrant heading straight back home.

Thereafter, as she was feeling even worse, the day at the beach was scrapped. And then the hike down one of our favorite scrambling-required trails.

By this morning, Jess was feeling doubly down – still sick, and also sad to have let the weekend disappear.

Fortunately, however, I had a trick up my sleeve: Jess, an inveterate candle-lover, had for months and months been saving the mostly-empty carcasses of burned-down canister candles, and the piles of wax from melted pillars and tapers, in a giant bag under our sink. I found them piled there a week or so back, and popped onto Amazon to buy a cheap pack of cotton wicks.

So, this afternoon, we were in full chandler mode. And though it was extremely slow going (melting wax, in either the microwave or a double boiler, takes approximately forever), with a good handful of missteps along the way (helpful hint: hot wax is burn-ey), we managed to kick out an even dozen candles, all of which looked wildly more professional (and, really, just more candle-like) than I was honestly expecting when I sprung the idea.

A first few are already burning nearby. And Jess, in the end, is feeling much better about the weekend, and life.

J&J Candleworks, apparently est. 2019.

September 2, 2019

So Sous Me

Years back, I remember seeing a comedian do a bit about how he wanted to open a restaurant called I Don’t Care, You Choose, so he could finally eat at the place his wife kept requesting.

Which, in short, is how my dinner conversations with Jess tend to go. And while that’s sort of an issue on date nights when we’re headed out somewhere fun, it’s even more of a disaster on the majority of nights, when I instead cook at home.

Between Equinox and Composite, my schedule is already pretty nuts, and I often get home later than I’d like. So, frequently, I end up texting with Jess from the subway, then calling her from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, trying to coordinate a high-speed shopping and cooking plan.

Until, that is, two or three weeks ago, when I cribbed an idea from my old friend Helen Jane, and started planning out the entire next week of meals every Saturday afternoon. The secret, I discovered, was catching Jess late on Saturday afternoon. The rest of the time, she didn’t really have strong opinions on food. But sufficiently hungry pre-dinner, she’d suddenly come up with remarkably creative and impassioned ideas.

Mostly, I do the actual cooking in our house. But it turns out that Jess makes an excellent executive chef to my hands-on sous, dreaming up meals I’d never suggest on my own. This past week, she requested scallops with a cream drizzle and summer succotash; tacos al pastor; watermelon gazpacho with fancy grilled cheese; Chic-fil-a style chicken sandwiches; and a steakhouse wedge salad.

None of which I had made before, precisely. But, with her executive chef-ing complete, I could put on my sous chef hat and figure out how to execute. Anal retentive as ever, I could even bang out triaged shopping lists – what to grab at the Sunday UWS farmer’s market; what I could stock on an oversized weekend grocery run; and what I’d need to grab on the way home the day of, though far more quickly than I had previously on my undirected post-work passes.

And I could strategize over the span of the week, rather than just day by day. Tacos al pastor took three days of cooking, and achieving Chic-fil-a juiciness required brining the breasts overnight. By banging out a bunch of fried tenders at the same time as the sandwiches, I could serve the wedge the day after, with chicken as the protein (along with an excellent cucumber dill dressing). And I could put half-used veggies, herbs, and sauces to subsequent-day use, wildly reducing our food waste.

So, in short, there seems to be a partnership-inspired restaurant to be had after all. And all it takes is a little stomach-timing savvy along the way.

Sign Me Up

For years I’ve joked that, as I’m born on July 16th, I’m a Cancer, which supposedly means I’m quiet and withdrawn, and therefore also means I don’t believe in astrology.

However, as was recently explained to me, while a sun sign may determine the core of your identity, it’s actually your ascendant sign that drives your outward-facing personality in the world, while your moon sign explains the soul behind that identity.

I bring this all up because my parents recently found my original birth certificate in their garage, and mailed it off to me. So, newly armed with my time of birth (2:30pm), I was able to figure out my whole ‘star chart’ (thanks, Cafe Astrology!) rather than just my birthdate-driven sun sign.

And, it appears, I’m a Cancer with Scorpio rising and the moon in Aries.

From my end, I don’t actually have a clue what any of that means. But Jess, at least, thinks this new revelation tells you pretty much everything you’d need to know about me. And while I still don’t believe in astrology, and therefore shouldn’t care much either way, I’m still oddly glad to learn my full sign is a far better fit.

August 14, 2019