Texas and convertibles

Texas is hard country in which to drive a convertible. In summer, the sun is too intense (and I've gotten a bit fearful of skin cancer after three go-rounds with it), and in winter it's too cold, though I had a friend who once owned a convertible and swore he would drive it in summer or winter, top down, with either the a/c or heat blasting. I'm not that brave, but it's lovely to drive top down in those brief periods we call spring and fall.
I drive a VW bug convertible, and I'm the proverbial little old lady from Pasadena who drove her car to church on Sunday and that was all. Since 2004, I've managed to put 27,600 miles on it. But one reason I got it was because I didn't want to be a stuffy old grandmother. Fat lot of good that did me--Jacob doesn't like the top down because it messes his hair. The other day we were on our way to a swim lesson, and I asked what possible difference it could make. "I want to look good when I get there!"
But one of the joys of summer to me is coming home from my daughter's house about eight o'clock at night with the top down. It may still be in the nineties, but the sun is down and the breeze is lovely.  Jordan and Christian often host a Friday night potluck, and I usually leave early to get home before dark. I put the top down, leave off my visor so the wind can blow my hair, and come home the scenic route, through residential areas with tree-lined streets and, then finally, through the park by the zoo. It's a heavenly feeling, and I am sometimes tempted to drive around just a bit more.
Other than that, this was a day of confusion--two medical appts. left me thoroughly confused about my insurance, I can't understand why the tax assessor's office billed me for my car license when the sticker on my car says 2/14--the office says their records show I last paid in 7/13--go figure! Next the grocery declined my debit card--two separate trips--and I forgot to take the chips for the dip I brought to Jordan's potluck. Everyone else there had that kind of day too, so I didn't feel bad.

An amazing man

The TCU Bookish Frogs had one of their potluck supper/programs tonight. The speaker was a man who has long been a good friend but is known outside TCU as the best-selling author of popular books on the American presidency. Paul Boller came to TCU as a professor of intellectual history (that's what I always heard was his specialty, but we think of it as the presidency.) His books include Presidential Anecdotes, Presidential Campaigns, Presidential Wives and many others. At TCU Press, during my tenure, we were privileged to publish Memoirs of an Obscure Professor, the title being Paul's poke at a Chicago Tribune article's reference to him during the McCarthy days, when he was teaching at SMU. Among other things, the book contains an essay on his work as a Japanese translator during WWII. A man of many talents and great intellectual capacity, Paul was always a strong supporter of TCU Press during my years there; more recently, when the press was an endangered species, he stepped forward to ask, "What can I do to help?" And help he has.
Paul is, if what I hear is correct, 95 years old, and he's still tooling around town in a smart car.And he still gives a wonderful talk. Tonight he had us all laughing as he talked about his new book from TCU Press, Essays on the Presidents; Principles and Politics. No, folks, it's not a dull, political science text. It's a lively look at some of our presidents and the way they thought. For instance, there's a chapter on the presidents and Shakespeare, many of whom studied the bard and quoted him frequently. On the other hand, there's LBJ who, when presented a speech with a quote from Aeschylus, asked, "Aeschylus? The farmers aren't going to know who the hell Aeschylus was." When the speech writers said they'd immediately take the quote out, Johnson said, "No. Leave it in. I'll say my daddy said it." LBJ always liked to claim he was born in a log cabin until one day his mother turned on him irately and informed him, as he well knew, he wasn't born in a log cabin. Paul said it's his opinion that if Johnson hadn't inherited the Vietnam War, he'd have gone down in history as one of our great presidents because of his social programs. There's a chapter on "Bush-Speak"--referring to the first Bush. I once heard Paul give an after-dinner talk on this subject that was so funny women had mascara running down their cheeks and men were falling off their chairs in laughter--even Republicans. The final chapter is "They Really Said It: Quotes from the Presidents and their Wives"--I can't wait to read that one. Folks, if you're interested in politics or not, read this book. You'll laugh, and you'll learn a great deal about American history and the presidency. It may help put today into perspective. Did you know that in the early days of the government, it was considered rude for a candidate to speak on his own behalf, let alone ask for money? They had a derogatory term for it--electioneering.

A neat touch to the book and the evening: tonight they unveiled a portrait of Paul by Jeff Barnard, a longtime friend of Paul's who has, in his own words, been his carpenter and his driver on book tours as well as his friend. The portrait perfectly captures Paul's wit and sense of adventure. It serves in place of an author photo on the back flap of the book jacket.
P.S. The potluck supper was good, and people, including me, liked the ever-so-simple cobbler I made.

Summer Pleasures

One of my summer pleasures is driving home from my daughter's just before dark. It's about a twenty-minute drive, and I put the top down and blast out the Alex Beaton tape (see how old-fashioned I am? No CD player in my car!) of Scottish ballads. I go back  roads, through residential districts shaded by trees and then through the park. Lovely. No hat--don't care what my hair looks like.
Jordan has instituted a new tradition for the summer--Friday night potluck. Tonight between fifteen and twenty people in their late thirties and early forties--and me. I've known some of them since they were in high school, and I am so blessed that they always seem glad to see me, hug me, and start conversations. We talk about books, dogs, jobs, whatever. Pure pleasure. And the food is good.
Now I'm home, looking forward to spending much of tomorrow cooking. I seem to have an overcooking problem lately. I was to make Italian/cheese pinwheels (out of crescent rolls) for tonight--somehow I made them smaller than the directions but cooked them the same amount of time. They tasted okay but sure were crisp. I added a round loaf of Parmesan bread, which Rob told me was great--Rob is one I've known forever and he now works with Jamie.
Today I tried to make a curry sauce for a complicated chicken salad recipe I'll make tomorrow--and burned it. I've never been good at reduction sauces, I think becuase my patience quota is low, and this one has apricot jam in it, so in the process of reducing it, I scorched it. Threw it out and made it again late this afternoon, paying much closer attention to it while it reduced--at a lower heat.
Went to pick Jacob up at day camp midway through the sauce preparation--and he announced he didn't like the smell. I thought it was the curry sauce--which does linger even tonight when I came home. But it seems he thinks my car smells bad--we won't go into his description of the bad smell. 'Nough said.
I'm reading Susan Schreyer's Bushwhacked and ready to get back to it. Susan is one of my heroes--she got tired of the agent/traditional pubishing game and became a self-publisher. This is her fourth mystery, and I'm captivated by her characters and plots. We hear complaints all the time about the poor quality of unjuried self-publishing with no gatekeepr. Susan stands out as a shining example of the best of the new opportunities for writers.

Two very different books

Two books on my mind tonight. Late last night (too late) I finished Liz Lipperman's Liver Let Die. I'd call this first in a new series a "non-culinary" mystery. Jordan McAllister is stuck writing personals for a small-town newspaper and dreaming of a career as a big-time sports reporter when she is suddenly asked to take over the food column. Jordan knows how to fry bologna and that's about it--her cast iron skillet is literally unused, though she puts it to good use here. In one of the funniest scenes I've read in a long time, she is sent to review an upsccale steak restaurant. She confesses to the waiter that she doesn't much like red meat, so he suggests foie gras, convincing her that it's chicken. Confronted with the look and texture of foie gras, she desperateley stuffs it in a borrowed purse and escapes the restaurant. Her review includes more than  you want to know about force-feeding geese.
Jordan, like a babe in the wilderness, writes her column with the help of her assorted friends and neighbors, one of whom is an outstanding cook. Potato chip casserole becomes Budin de Papitas Frites con Pollo, and pork chop casserole is Cote de Porc a'la cocotte.
But murder is deadly serious, and the waiter who served her the foie gras turns up dead at the steps to Jordan's apartment. She's suspect #1, and her amateur attempts to find out who really killed J.T. and prove her innocence drag her deeper and deeper into something menacing that she doesn't understand at all. There's suspense aplenty before it all gets straightened out, and you'll have as hard a time as Jordan does figuring out who are the good guys and who aren't.
The other book is Lone Star Leaders: Power and Personality in the Texas Congressional Delegation, by James Riddlesperger and Anthony Champagne. The Bookish Frogs, a lay support group for TCU Press, had a potluck supper tonight. For a while, I thought we were going to have a dessert buffet but it turned out there were plenty of delicious appetizers and side dishes--from pulled pork sliders to spanikopita and mac and cheese. The desserts were plentiful and delicious, and the wine flowed. The best thing about those evenings is the interesting people who attend--had fun, for instance, chatting with a Facebook "friend" that I don't think I'd ever talked to before..
Lone Star Leaders was written by two political science profs, but it's not the dull scholarly book you might expect. Instead it's a coffee-table book full of anecdotes and enlivened by photographs and cartoons. Tony Champagne spoke tonight and was both funny and interesting, full of facts about the Texas Congressional Delegation that most of us didn't know, from stories about well-known legislators like LBJ, Sam Rayburn and John Nance Garner to some about lesser known legislators who have had a great impact on our daily lives. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop when he spoke--everyone was completely engaged. I"m looking forward to digging into the book.
Two good books--take your pick.