One of the greatest days of the year at boarding school was when we took the horses to the ocean for the first spring ride along the beach. They were tired of being cooped up all winter and were eager to be out, and they ran fully open and wild on the sand. For me it was the delicious combination of fear and excitement that I didn't often experience, and I tried unsuccessfully each year not to smile as we did it, because we rode so fast that I always got sand in my braces.
“The path to your heart's desire is never overgrown.”
—Kigezi proverb
THINGS TO DO
For Love of Books
If you are feeling like your head is full of fog and you haven't had an interesting conversation with anyone recently, consider joining or starting a book club. Many bookstores run several groups (and may even offer discounts if you all buy your books through the store), and community newsletters often run classifieds with groups looking for new members. Most groups we know are made up of friends who use the club as a way to get together on a regular basis. You need enough people to make it interesting and to accommodate the vagaries of people's vacation schedules, etc. Six to eight is a ballpark figure. Usually groups rotate who picks the book for the next meeting; some groups have page limits. Many book group guides now exist to help you pick books, provide discussion topics, and offer suggestions. Check with your local bookstore.
Nursing a Child
Nursing my baby is a source of exquisite pleasure in so many different ways. It's always awesome to me that I'm providing life to another being through the milk in my body. I delight in the feel of his soft head against my skin and the sight of milk dribbling from his mouth as he sucks. It's a great physical relief have him ease the pressure on my swollen breast, and it's a delight to see the joy in his little face as he looks up at me and touches my cheek or puts his fingers in my mouth—an ecstasy so complete it's like he's just had a shot of morphine. Finally, there's the pleasure I get from the smell of his baby skin and his fresh flannel clothes—a pleasure that lasts right up to the moment he pauses during his feeding to vomit all over the place.
“The great high of winning Wimbledon lasts for about a week. You go down in the record books, but you don't have anything tangible to hold on to. But having a baby—there just isn't any comparison.”
—Chris Evert
The Comfort Egg
When my second daughter was due to be born, the Jamaican doctor I was seeing said to me, “Be sure and take time for the first child—the child who will feel displaced. In our country mothers make this time a ritual—an eating ritual. They spoonfeed a softboiled egg to the elder child every day. It's a small moment to make the child feel the center of attention again, it gives eye-to-eye contact, it provides a warm and soothing taste, and it guarantees time—one on one—for the older child.”
I thought it was a great idea and when I did it, I found it was as wonderful for me as it was for my daughter. “Don't forget the comfort egg,” I used to say to myself—and it was a comfort to me to have at least one moment ritualized in the chaos of those days.
Years later, when my youngest daughter—who was then 16—was crying inconsolably for her father, who had been killed some months before in a car accident, I could think of nothing to say in the presence of her pain. So I brought her milky tea and a soft-boiled egg which I fed to her myself with the buttered “toast soldiers” her father had always made, and stayed with her until the pain had somewhat—at least on this occasion—passed again.
“What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick!”
—Nora Ephron
THINGS TO DO
Comfort Food
Where are the comforting childhood favorites of yesteryear? They're on the menu—at prices that would stun our grandmothers—at some of the trendiest restaurants. Casseroles that were the standard fare of budget cookbooks during the Depression of the 1930s, puddings created to disguise leftovers—they've made their way from humble supper to haute cuisine.
Which doesn't mean they aren't still comforting. Depending on your generation, these evocative foods could be Proust's madeleines, Franco-American canned spaghetti, Eskimo Pie ice cream sandwiches, or the sticky, syrupy apple dessert offered in the frozen dinners of the ’50s and ’60s.
Bread pudding may be the all-purpose comfort food that is easiest to reproduce. It has inspired everyone from Leon Lianides of New York's legendary Coach House restaurant to Marion Cunningham, who updated The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. (Cunningham pointed out that bread pudding was a “great pacifier” for boarding school students for generations—sometimes the only decent dish in the dining hall.)
Bread and Butter Pudding
About 5 slices firm, slightly stale bread
Butter
¼ cup raisins
3 eggs
2½ cups milk
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
½ teaspoon vanilla
Dash of salt
Nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast bread lightly, butter, and cut into cubes. There should be about 3 cups. Mix bread cubes and raisins in a buttered 1½-quart casserole.
Beat eggs, stir in milk. Strain into a bowl and stir in sugar, vanilla, and salt. Pour over bread and allow to stand 30 minutes for egg mixture to be absorbed. Sprinkle nutmeg on top.
Place casserole in a slightly larger, shallow pan in oven. Pour boiling water into outer pan to a depth of about 1 inch. Bake 45 minutes to an hour until custard is set. Serve warm. Makes 6 servings.
THINGS TO DO
Artistic Honor
Next time you host a party, create a piece of art for the guest of honor. Buy a simple canvas. Divide it into even sections using a pencil and ruler. Go over your pencil lines with permanent colored markers or paint. Provide guests with paints and brushes and have each person decorate a square. Your guest will have a colorful memento of the occasion. This works well for a variety of occasions: baby showers, housewarmings, high-school graduations, bon voyage . . .
“‘How much are your yams?’ I said, suddenly hungry. ‘They ten cents and they sweet,’ he said, his voice quavering with age. . . . I took a bite, finding it as sweet and hot as any I'd ever had, and was overcome with such a surge of homesickness that I turned away to keep my control.”
—Ralph Ellison
