tri-state whirl­wind

I’ve been ground­ed, temporarily.

It all has to do with buy­ing a mattress.

Per­haps I should explain.

When we bought this lit­tle house sev­en years ago, Avery and I weren’t even around to do it.  We were in Maine for a sum­mer vaca­tion when the papers were signed and every last T was crossed and I dot­ted.  So John was left to han­dle the last-minute details like oh, say, mov­ing in, and buy­ing all the fur­ni­ture.  And he would be the first to tell you he is the last word in CHEAP.  So our mat­tress­es were the cheap­est that Sears could offer, and grad­u­al­ly, over the years, ours has not shown itself equal to the task.  My hus­band is 6′2″ or 3″, and by no means a sylph, so when he decides to turn over in his sleep, there are ramifications.

The mat­tress sales­man yes­ter­day described the phe­nom­e­non as “motion trans­fer.”  And it sim­ply isn’t done, in the best of bed­rooms.  We need­ed a new mattress.

“What you have is coils,” he explained in dead­ly earnest.  “And that’s going to give you motion trans­fer.  Now, are you a hot sleep­er?  Then the Tem­purpedic won’t be for you.  A lot of sleep­ers will tell you they hold in the heat…”

And on and on, mat­tress after mat­tress, until final­ly we came to… The Doc­tor.  Yes, it turns out that while many peo­ple’s PhDs turn out to be less than use­ful after a decade or so (mine, for exam­ple, gath­er­ing dust under a pile of cook­books), Dr Michael Breus, PhD, is The Sleep Doc­tor.  “What’s his PhD in?” I ask.  “Sleep,” our Mat­tress Pro­fes­sion­al Fred answers, dead­pan.  “In the sleep world, he’s a celebri­ty.”  Who knew there was a sleep world.

There is.  And for bet­ter or worse, The Doc­tor has designed the per­fect bed for us.  After at least an hour test­ing beds (and get­ting remark­ably sleepy in the process), we alight­ed on the right lev­el of firm­ness, with as lit­tle motion trans­fer as pos­si­ble.  Then we took Avery with us on the way to play­ing ten­nis, to con­firm our choice.  “Mat­tress longevi­ty has to do with the break­down of mate­ri­als,” Fred explains.  “Now with your latex mat­tress­es, you’re deal­ing with a rub­ber prod­uct.  No break­down.”  [Which is in itself a bit troubling.]

“There’s a lot more to this mat­tress busi­ness than I would ever have dreamed,” I said to Fred, who remind­ed me a lit­tle of a down­mar­ket Leonar­do di Caprio, com­plete with goa­tee and slight­ly men­ac­ing smile.  “Not real­ly,” he answered, bitterly.

We came home and I looked with dis­fa­vor at our old mat­tress, crouch­ing on the bed with elder­ly defi­ance.  I had washed the sheets that day so the poor thing had nowhere to hide.  As I made the bed, some malign fate put the bed­frame in COM­PLETE­LY the wrong place and I smashed my kneecap into the cor­ner.  “AAAGH!” I bel­lowed, as the wood made con­tact with my poor mid­dle-aged Osgood-Schlat­ter’s inflamed car­ti­lege, the bane of my knees since my teenage years.

And so here I sit, on my cool and peace­ful ter­race, unable to play ten­nis for the time being.  We went off to the court this morn­ing, hop­ing to tease my poor knee out of its bad mood by exer­cise, but it isn’t coop­er­at­ing.  So I shall sit here for today, wait­ing for my new mat­tress to arrive, plot­ting out the cru­cial trips up and down the stairs instead of rac­ing about as I usu­al­ly do.  Get­ting old and run­ning into things sucks, as it turns out.

Thank good­ness this did­n’t hap­pen on Mon­day, when we ven­tured into the city.

It’s always excit­ing to make the nos­tal­gic dri­ve down the Hen­ry Hud­son Park­way to Man­hat­tan, say­ing all the same things we say every time.  “Isn’t the GWB — the George Wash­ing­ton Bridge — beau­ti­ful?  Why are these high­ways so pothole‑y?  Look at the gor­geous sky­line.  Aren’t you lucky to be a native New York­er, Avery?”  We head­ed down Broad­way, watch­ing the crowds seethe hot­ly across the inter­sec­tions, and dropped me off at 20th Street to meet Alyssa at Beecher’s New York, the new super-fash­ion­able cheese shop sprung from its orig­i­nal in Seattle.

Sam­ples, sam­ples!  Alyssa and I wan­dered around try­ing every­thing, except that she turned up her pret­ty nose at “fresh curds.”  “It’s against my reli­gion to eat any­thing with the word ‘curd’ in the title,” she main­tained, but she was real­ly miss­ing some­thing.  Such an intense­ly DAIRY fla­vor, and the squeaky nature of a hal­lou­mi!  When I got home, I put them togeth­er with grilled beets, and the curds were deli­cious, but to be hon­est, the dish need­ed anoth­er ingre­di­ent to tie it all togeth­er. Ideas?

We tried some­thing called “break­fast stra­da” as well, a sort of supe­ri­or savory bread pud­ding with roast­ed veg­eta­bles and curds, and may I tell you, I shall be repli­cat­ing it as best I can tomor­row for brunch.  Salty, cheesy, creamy, sausagey.  A very good idea indeed.

From Beecher’s we went across the street to an old favorite haunt, Fishs Eddy.

Now I must be a tire­some old per­son and rem­i­nisce about the old­en days, when we lived in New York in the ear­ly 90s, and Fishs Eddy was a mec­ca for any­one who loved one-of-a-kind vin­tage castoff porce­lain and chi­na.  They bought up all the chi­na from din­ers and men’s clubs that had gone out of busi­ness, along with old flow­ered Ital­ian wine glass­es, sets of sil­ver­plate from train din­ing cars, giant plat­ters with the names of old steak joints paint­ed in gold on the rims.  Glo­ri­ous stuff.

Now the world has run out of such bril­liant flot­sam, but Fishs Eddy has stayed cool.  The shop is filled with hilar­i­ous cof­fee mugs bear­ing such uplift­ing images as “You’re not perky; you’re obnox­ious,” New York­er car­toons show­ing a doc­tor look­ing at a naked patient and say­ing, “TMI, TMI,” draw­ings of male mod­els wear­ing noth­ing but boas and car­ry­ing feath­er dusters.  And one tiny sec­tion of old trea­sures, includ­ing these dies from a sta­tion­er’s shop, bear­ing cus­tomers’ address­es in reverse script.

“Look, Alyssa!” I whis­pered excit­ed­ly.  “It’s Russ­ian!”  She looked close­ly, then at me pity­ing­ly, “Hon­ey, that’s just ‘Penn­syl­va­nia’ upside down and backwards.”

From Fishs Eddy we saun­tered in the blis­ter­ing heat to the incom­pa­ra­ble ABC, which used to be called “Car­pet and Home” but is now just ABC.  Quite sim­ply, do NOT enter this store unless a) some­one has tight hold of your purse-strings or b) you already own all the cool items you could pos­si­bly want.  There are can­dles pur­port­ing to smell of every­thing you can imag­ine, includ­ing “cash­mere” and “bam­boo,” (call me a suck­er, but I could smell the clos­ets of rich New­port wives and the fields of Viet­nam), piles of beau­ti­ful fab­rics that could be made into every sofa cush­ion you could ever want, note­cards with New York yel­low cabs on them, and glass cas­es of hand­made jewelry.

“Look, these lit­tle bracelets have inspi­ra­tional mes­sages on them,” I cooed, think­ing they would be nice for a Christ­mas present for Avery.  “Aw, lis­ten to this: ‘the ones you love are life’s most pre­cious gift…’ ”  Lat­er, when I described these bracelets to Avery, she snort­ed and said, “Real­ly?  You read inspi­ra­tional mes­sages and thought of ME?  The ‘you’re not perky; you’re obnox­ious’ mug sounds MUCH more my speed.”

Final­ly we tore our­selves away from mer­chan­dise and head­ed to the restau­rant, abck­itchen, for lunch with my divine edi­tor Ivy, she of the peer­less Vin­tage Mag­a­zine.  Alyssa and I were ear­ly and sat for a bit chat­ting in the gor­geous inte­ri­or of this, Jean George Von­gericht­en’s new ven­ture, loca­vore-obsessed and filled with all the most beau­ti­ful peo­ple in Man­hat­tan.  None more so than my beloved chum.

Ivy arrived and we dug in: roast­ed heir­loom beets with “house­made” yogurt and micro-herbs, to start.  I would carp slight­ly and say that I like my roast­ed beets with a bit more bite, not quite so thor­ough­ly cooked, but the sev­er­al dif­fer­ent vari­eties and col­ors were intrigu­ing.  Then I had a tuna burg­er with shred­ded radic­chio and wasabi may­on­naise on a tru­ly inter­est­ing roll.  I have every inten­tion of mak­ing a tuna burg­er very soon, so I shall report when I do.

We were Ladies Who Lunch!  It is a beau­ti­ful atmos­phere with love­ly wait­staff and a very heart­felt, sin­cere menu, list­ing EVERY sin­gle source for EVERY sin­gle ingre­di­ent.  An earnest menu.

Final­ly it was time to say good­bye and jump into the car when John and Avery pulled up out­side.  They had spent the hot, hot after­noon shop­ping in SoHo and were ready to leave the teem­ing streets behind.  Hugs all around, and out to New Jer­sey for the evening and to spend the night with our pre­cious friends Lille and Jan­ice, they of the most per­fect house in cre­ation.  White, white every­where, dark floors, oil paint­ings, Steiff ani­mals over­flow­ing shelves.  The most peace­ful spot on earth, and the scene of so many cozy overnights, going back 20 years ago, to our new­ly­wed days.

As always, we sat in the white, white kitchen and chat­ted about every­thing and noth­ing, sur­round­ed by envi­able chi­na that I want always to get my greedy mitts on.  The arti­choke plat­ter!  To die for.

The cab­bage leaf-tureen, which has con­tained every per­fect soup from vichys­soise to gazpacho.

Chi­na envy abounds, in Jan­ice’s house.

We stayed up far too late, John final­ly retreat­ing to his sleep­ing porch and Avery to her bed­room, with book­shelves filled with Nan­cy Drew, Beat­rix Pot­ter, lit by Gladys the Goose.  Noth­ing ever changes, in that house.  A bliss­ful feel­ing of child­hood serenity.

Home in the morn­ing to Red Gate Farm, where we all col­lapsed in var­i­ous stages of total exhaus­tion!  I’m not as young as I used to be!  A hot day ring­ing the third-heav­i­est bell in North Amer­i­ca, anoth­er hot day gal­li­vant­i­ng in Man­hat­tan, a too-late night with a girl­friend and a bot­tle of Scotch… I need­ed to recov­er.  And to eat copi­ous amounts of spinach.  I can­not believe I have not pro­vid­ed you with this recipe already, but it’s sim­ply the best.  How else are you going to get your fam­i­ly to eat an entire pound of spinach at one sitting?

Cheesy Spinach

(serves 4)

3 tbsps butter

2 tbsps flour

1–2 tsps cel­ery salt

1 lb baby spinach, washed and spun dry

1 cup shred­ded melty cheese: sharp Ched­dar, Fonti­na, or Edam

2 tbsps light cream

Melt the but­ter and add the flour in a large skil­let, cook until foamy.  Add the cel­ery salt and stir.  The mix­ture will be rather lumpy and unpromis­ing.  Do not despair.  Turn off heat.

In batch­es, put the spinach through the Cuisi­nart until fair­ly fine­ly chopped, but not mushy.  As you go through the batch­es, emp­ty each into the skil­let with the but­tery mixture.

When all the spinach is in the skil­let, add the shred­ded cheese and cream and turn on the heat, low.  Now sim­ply stir con­stant­ly until the cheese is melt­ed and the mix­ture is thor­ough­ly amal­ga­mat­ed.  Pour into a bak­ing dish — about 9x9 will work, or a pie plate — and bake at 425F/220C for 20 min­utes, till bubbling.

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This dish is a fam­i­ly favorite, always first on the list of request­ed side dish­es.  It is a sta­ple at Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas, and has been known to make even peo­ple who “don’t like spinach” sit up and beg like a dog for more.  The only caveat I would offer is that the cel­ery salt makes the dish quite salty: do not add fur­ther salt.

And may I offer you quite sim­ply the best scal­lop sal­ad ever?  This was a dish com­piled out of what was in the fridge, and heav­en­ly it was.  The com­bi­na­tion of scal­lop and bacon is of course clas­sic, as is goat cheese with beets.  But alto­geth­er, with avo­ca­do and rock­et?  All my favorite foods, on a platter.

Scal­lops, Beets, Bacon Salad

(serves 4)

4 large or 6 small beets

2 tbsps butter

24 large scallops

8 slices streaky bacon

1 avo­ca­do

juice of 1/2 lemon

6 ounces goat cheese

2 hand­fuls rocket

driz­zle olive oil

fresh black pepper

About an hour and a half before you want to eat, wrap the beets in foil and roast at 425F/220C.  Allow beets to sit in tight­ly wrapped foil out of the oven for about 10 min­utes after roast­ing, then slip skins off and cut into wedges.

Melt but­ter in a large skil­let till smok­ing and browned, then care­ful­ly place scal­lops in, in a sin­gle lay­er.  After cook­ing for about 30 sec­onds, turn.  Cook anoth­er minute, or until opaque, but not too firm.  Remove from heat.

Cook bacon in same skil­let or in oven until crisp.  Drain on paper tow­el.  Dice avo­ca­do and toss in lemon juice.

On a large plat­ter, assem­ble all the ingre­di­ents to your lik­ing and sprin­kle with fresh pepper.

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Oh, the tex­tures!  The firm beets, soft scal­lops, crisp bacon and creamy cheese, with a lit­tle slurp of vel­vety avo­ca­do and a bite of rock­et… and the fla­vors!  Salty, sweet, but­tery, every­thing you could want.  And SO good for you.

I can­not tell a lie: I fear it will take more than spinach and beets to cure my knee.  I sup­pose rest is the only solu­tion.  Luck­i­ly, any moment now my motion-trans­fer­less bed with a doc­tor­ate will appear, and I can cast myself upon it with a Nan­cy Drew and recover.