jelyon (dot) com

5 course chef’s tasting menu

1. dayboat scallops on potato purée with chanterelle mushrooms and veal demi
   Wine: 2005 Rousset Crozes-Hermitage
2. bison tartare with potato crisp and caper aïoli
   Wine: 2007 Marchesi Incisa della Rochetta Grignolino d’Asti, Italy
3. (Courtesy course): shaved oregon black truffle on homemade fettucini
   Wine: I don’t remember, but it was Italian, and it was yummy
4. crisp duck leg confit on peruvian potatoes with roasted cippolini & apple
   Wine: 2007 Lange Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, Oregon
5. blackbuck antelope with yams, swiss chard, beech mushrooms, and cider reduction
   Wine: 2004 Glen Carlou Cabernet Blend Paarl, South Africa

desert

• wink trio
  sampling of lemon meringue pot, crème brûlée, & el rey chocolate cake
  • el rey chocolate cake
    warm flourless chocolate cake made with ‘el rey’ chocolate and zinfandel infused cherries
  • crème brûlée
    creamy vanilla bean infused custard topped with a golden layer of caramelized sugar
  • lemon meringue pot
    tart lemon curd in a crisp meringue cup with candied lemon zest and berries

This is probably my favorite Christmas story ever.

The day after Christmas a number of years ago, I was driving down a country road in Texas. And it was a bitter cold, cold morning. And walking ahead of me on the gravel road was a little bare-footed boy with non-descript ragged overalls and a makeshift sleeved sweater tied around his little ears. I stopped and picked him up. Looked like he was about 12 years old and his little feet were blue with the cold. He was carrying an orange.

And he got in and had the brightest blue eyes one ever saw. And he turned a bright smile on my face and says, “I’m-a going down the road about two miles to my cousins. I want to show him my orange old Santa Claus brought me.” But I wasn’t going to mention Christmas to him because I figured he came from a family — the kind that don’t have Christmas. But he brought it up himself. He said, “Did old Santa Claus come to see you, Mister?” And I said, “Yes. We had a real nice Christmas at our house and I hope you had the same.”

He paused for a moment, looked at me. And then with all the sincerity in the world said, “Mister, we had the wonderfulest Christmas in the United States down to our place. Lordy, it was the first one we ever had had there. See, we never do have them out there much. Don’t notice when Christmastime comes. We heared about it, but never did have one ’cause — well, you know, it’s just papa says that old Santa Claus — papa hoorahs a lot and said old Santa Claus was scared to bring his reindeer down into our section of the county because folks down there so hard up that they liable to catch one of his reindeer and butcher him for meat. But just several days before Christmas, a lady come out from town and she told all the families through there, our family, too, that they was — old Santa Claus was come in town to leave some things for us and if papa’d go in town, he could get some Christmastime for all of us. And papa hooked up the mule and wagon. He went in town. But he told us children, said, “Now don’t ya’ll get all worked up and excited because there might not be nothing to this yarn that lady told.”

And–but, shucks, she hadn’t got out of sight up the lane there till we was done a-watching for him to come back. We couldn’t get our minds on nothing else, you know. And mama, she’d come to the door once in a while and say, “Now ya’ll quit that looking up the lane because papa told you there might not be nothing.” And — but long about the middle of the afternoon, well, we heared the team a-jangling harness a-coming and we ran out in the front yard, and Ernie, my little brother, called out and said, “Yonder come papa.” And here come them mules just in a big trot, you know, and papa standing upright in the bed of that wagon holding two big old chickens, all the feathers picked off. And he was just yelling, “Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.” And the team stopped right in front of the gate. And all us children just went a-swarming out there like a flock of chichis, you know, and just a-crawling over that wagon and a-looking in.

And, Mister, I wish you could have seen what was in that wagon. It’s bags of stripety candy and apples and oranges and sacks of flour and some real coffee, you know, and just all tinselly and pretty and we couldn’t say nothing. Just kind of held our breath and looked at it, you know. And papa standing there just waving them two chickens, a-yelling, “Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas to you,” and a-laughing that big old grin on his face. And mama, she come a-hurrying out with the baby in her arms, you know. And when she looked in that wagon, she just stopped, and then papa, he dropped them two chickens and reached and caught the baby out of her arms, you know, and held him up and said, “Merry Christmas to you, Santa Claus.” And baby, little old Alvie Lee, he just laughed like he knowed it was Christmas, too, you know. And mama, she started telling us the name of all of them nuts. They wasn’t just peanuts. They was — she had names for all of them. She — mama knows a heap of things like that. She’d seen that stuff before, you know? And we was, all of us, just a-chattering and a-going on at the same time, us young’uns, a-looking in there.

And all of a sudden, we heared papa call out, “Merry Christmas to you, Sam Jackson.” And we stopped and looked. And here comes Sam Jackson a-leading that old cripple-legged mule of his up the lane. And papa said, “Sam Jackson, did you get in town to get some Christmas this year?” Sam Jackson, you know, he sharecrops over there across the creek from our place. And he shook his head and said, “Well, no, sir, Mister. Well, I didn’t go in town. I heared about that, but I didn’t know it was for colored folks, too. I thought it was just for you white families.” All of a sudden, none of us children were saying nothing. Papa, he looked down at mama and mama looked up at him and they didn’t say nothing, like they don’t a heap of times, but they know what the other one’s a-thinking. They’re like that, you know. And all of a sudden, papa, he broke out in a big grin again. He said, “Dad-blame-it, Sam Jackson, it’s a sure a good thing you come by here. Lord have mercy, I liked to forgot. Old Santa Claus would have me in court if he heared about this. The last thing he asked me if I lived out here near you. Said he hadn’t seen you around and said he wanted me to bring part of this out here to you and your family, your woman and your children.”

Well, sir, Sam Jackson, he broke out in a big grin. Papa says, “I’ll tell you what to do. You get your wife and children and you come down here tomorrow morning. It’s going to be Christmastime all day long. Come early and stay late.” Sam Jackson said, “You reckon?” And mama called out to him and said, “Yes, and you tell your wife to be sure and bring some pots and pans because we’re going to have a heap of cookin’ to do and I ain’t sure I’ve got enough to take care of all of it.” Well, sir, old Sam Jackson, he started off a-leading that mule up the lane in a full trot, you know, and he was a-heading home to get the word to his folks and his children, you know.

And next morning, it just — you remember how it was yesterday morning, just rosy red and looked like Christmastime. It was cold, but you didn’t notice the cold, you know, when the sun just come up, just all rosy red. And us young’uns were all out of bed before daylight seemed like, just running in the kitchen and smelling and looking. And it was all there sure enough. And here come Sam Jackson and his team and his wife and his five young’uns in there. And they’s all lookin’ over the edge. And we run out and yelled, “Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.” And papa said, “Christmas gift to you, Sam Jackson. Ya’ll come on in.” And they come in and mama and Sister Jackson, they got in the kitchen and they started a-cooking things up. And us young’uns started playing Christmastime. And it’s a lot of fun, you know. We’d just play Christmas Gift with one another and run around and around the house and just roll in the dirt, you know, and then we started playing Go Up To The Kitchen Door And Smell. And we’d run up and smell inside that kitchen door where mama and Sister Jackson was a-cooking at, and then we’d just die laughing and roll in the dirt, you know, and go chasing around and playing Christmas Gift.

And we played Christmastime till we just wore ourselves out. And papa and Sam Jackson–they put a table up and put some sheets over it, some boards up over some sawhorses. And everybody had a place, even the baby. And mama and Sister Jackson said, “Well, now it’s ready to come on in. We’re going to have Christmas dinner.” And I sit right next to Willy Jackson, you know, and he just rolled his eyes at me and I’d roll mine at him. And we’d just die laughing, you know, and there was an apple and an orange and some stripety candy at everybody’s place. And that was just dessert, see. That wasn’t the real Christmas dinner. Mama and them had done cooked that up. And they just had it spread up and down the table.

And so papa and Sam Jackson, they’d been sitting on the front porch and they come in. Papa, he sit at one end of the table, Sam Jackson sit at the other. And it was just a beautiful table like you never had seen. And I didn’t know nothing could ever look like that and smell that good, you know. And Sam Jackson, you know, he’s real black and he had on that white clean shirt of his and then them overalls. Everything had been washed and was real clean. Papa, he said, “Brother Jackson, I believe you’re a deacon in the church. I ain’t much of a church man myself, but I believe you’re a deacon. Maybe you’d be willing to give grace.” Well, Sam Jackson, he stood up there and his hands is real big and he kind of held onto the side of the table, you know. But he didn’t bow his head like a heap of folks do when they’re saying the blessing. He just looked up and smiled. And he said, “Lord, I hope you having as nice a Christmas up there with your angels as we’re having down here because it sure is Christmastime down here. And I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to you, Lord.

Like I say, Mister, I believe that was the wonderfulest Christmas in the United States of America.”

Link to story on NPR, with downloadable MP3.

The Ballad of the Harp Weaver
Edna St. Vincent Millay

“SON,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.

“There’s nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
Nor thread to take stitches.

“There’s nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman’s head
Nobody will buy,”
And she began to cry.

That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
“Son,” she said, “the sight of you
Makes your mother’s blood crawl,–

“Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you’ll get a jacket from
God above knows.

“It’s lucky for me, lad,
Your daddy’s in the ground,
And can’t see the way I let
His son go around!”
And she made a queer sound.

That was in the late fall.
When the winter came,
I’d not a pair of breeches
Nor a shirt to my name.

I couldn’t go to school,
Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boys
Passed our way.

“Son,” said my mother,
“Come, climb into my lap,
And I’ll chafe your little bones
While you take a nap.”

And, oh, but we were silly
For half an hour or more,
Me with my long legs
Dragging on the floor,

A-rock-rock-rocking
To a mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
For half an hour’s time!

But there was I, a great boy,
And what would folks say
To hear my mother singing me
To sleep all day,
In such a daft way?

Men say the winter
Was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce,
And food was dear.

A wind with a wolf’s head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat upon the floor.

All that was left us
Was a chair we couldn’t break,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Nobody would take,
For song or pity’s sake.

The night before Christmas
I cried with the cold,
I cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year-old.

And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
With love in her eyes.

I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair,
A light falling on her
From I couldn’t tell where,

Looking nineteen,
And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Leaned against her shoulder.

Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-weaving
Wonderful things.

Many bright threads,
From where I couldn’t see,
Were running through the harp-strings
Rapidly,

And gold threads whistling
Through my mother’s hand.
I saw the web grow,
And the pattern expand.

She wove a child’s jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.

She wove a red cloak
So regal to see,
“She’s made it for a king’s son,”
I  said, “and not for me.”
But I knew it was for me.

She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat.

She wove a pair of mittens,
She wove a little blouse,
She wove all night
In the still, cold house.

She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
And the thread never broke.
And when I awoke,–

There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen
And not a day older,

A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead.

And piled up beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king’s son,
Just my size.

From “Six Winter Privacy Poems”

III

More of the fathers are dying each day.
It is time for the sons.
Bits of darkness are gathering around them.
The darkness appears as flakes of light.

12/21/07 – On their 44th anniversary, dad comes home from the hospital. Despite coming home, he still has problems swallowing, hence, eating. This will continue to be an issue.

Today would have been their 45th anniversary. I’m glad my mother is visiting my sister this week.

A year ago today:

12/13/07 – I speak by phone with the neurosurgeon, who says he doesn’t know why dad has “struggled.” Dad’s recovery is not typical, but given he’s had a chunk of his brain taken out, we understand there was the risk things wouldn’t go as planned.

The doctor asks how we felt dad did on the steroids prior to the operation. He notes that generally, when someone does well on them pre-op, they tend to recover better post-op. I felt that dad had improved, and my sense was that mom and my sister felt he’d improved as well. The doctor tells me that he thinks dad has improved since he had the surgery. He said his interactions with dad had been pretty normal.

But we continue to be concerned.

My Father’s Wedding
by Robert Bly

1924

Today, lonely for my father, I saw
a log, or branch,
long, bent, ragged, bark gone.
I felt lonely for my father when I saw it.
It was the log
that lay near my uncle’s old milk wagon.

Some men live with a limp they don’t hide,
stagger, or drag
a leg. Their sons often are angry.
Only recently I thought:
Doing what you want …
Is that like limping? Tracks of it show in sand.

Have you seen those giant bird-
men of Bhutan?
Men in bird masks, with pig noses, dancing,
teeth like a dog’s, sometimes
dancing on one bad leg!
They do what they want, the dog’s teeth say that.

But I grew up without dog’s teeth,
showed a whole body,
left only clear tracks in sand.
I learned to walk swiftly, easily,
no trace of a limp.
I even leaped a little. Guess where my defect is!

Then what? If a man, cautious,
hides his limp,
somebody has to limp it. Things
do it; the surroundings limp.
House walls get scars,
the car breaks down; matter, in drudgery, takes it up.

On my father’s wedding day,
no one was there
to hold him. Noble loneliness
held him. Since he never asked for pity
his friends thought he
was whole. Walking alone he could carry it.

He came in limping. It was a simple
wedding, three
or four people. The man in black,
lifting the book, called for order.
And the invisible bride
stepped forward, before his own bride.

He married the invisible bride, not his own.
In her left
breast she carried the three drops
that wound and kill. He already had
his bark-like skin then,
made rough especially to repel the sympathy

he longed for, didn’t need, and wouldn’t accept.
So the Bible’s
words are read. The man in black
speaks the sentence. When the service
is over, I hold him
in my arms for the first time and the last.

After that he was alone
and I was alone.
Few friends came; he invited few.
His two-story house he turned
into a forest,
where both he and I are the hunters.

(December 13th, 2008) I decided to try another experiment with a bokeh technique about which I read. I’m fairly satisfied with how this one came out, though my contraption and technique need some refining, I think. The Santa was purchased in Sitka Alaska in September of 2002.

I think the moment was lost on her:

Emma: I keep swinging it in circles and when I stop it keeps going in circles.
John: Emma, I believe you’ve discovered Newton’s Third Law of Motion!
Emma: Can you cut this ribbon off of this for me?

Late Update: I think maybe she knew I was wrong. I think it should have been Newton’s First Law of Motion. Although if she knew I was wrong, she would have told me so.

(December 5th, 2008) Emma attended a party at Children’s Therapeutics. Apparently this old dude was invited too. She informed him that she wanted dress up clothes for Christmas.