Bent Notes

6:20 AM - I’ve had Randy in the oven for about forty minutes.  (I try to choose gender-generic names for holiday birds, since I usually can’t determinte whether they’re toms or hens.)  Got up at 4:20, went down to the salon and got all the dressing and stuffing I made yesterday, the pies, and Randy out of the fridge there.

For the second year, I’ve made pancetta, prune and chestnut stuffing.  I got the recipe out of the November 2006 issue of Gourmet.  It should be a whole different ball game this year.  Last year, I couldn’t find chestnuts, so I substituted, I don’t know, pecans or walnuts or something.  But the other day I came across peeled, canned (preserved in water) chestnuts at Sahara Mart in Bloomington.  I think it’s going to really change the character of the stuffing.

The next task is to trim a mountain of green beans.  I’m gonna chill a while first.

I’ll post pix of the finished product later.

Of course, the Colts play today.  I’ll have to plan my inevitable crash (I didn’t get to bed until 11, after playing guitar at a funeral downstate in the morning and cooking all afternoon and evening.) around that.

12:10 - I have Randy resting under foil on the counter.  The last few times I’ve roasted turkeys, they have gotten done considerably earlier than I’d estimated.  This is one done bird, for sure.  If I give the legs one more wiggle, they’ll fall off.

4:00 - Randy wasn’t the most photogenic of turkeys. I’m afraid.  This business of getting done faster than expected caused skin peelback.  Sure was tasty, though.  And there’s a veritable ocean of the most gorgeous gravy you ever saw left over.  Repeat dinners for the next week!

Tutto Bene’s chow was the stuff of all-day raves: grilled smoked sausage, cheddar grits, black-eyed pea salad, with green and red bell pepper, onion, and vinaigrette, sliced watermelon.

Melvin Rhyne and company were loose, natural, funny, musically eloquent and appreciative of the vibe.  Avenue archivist David Williams was touched that so many people wanted to puruse his exhibit and learn more about that magical, long-gone world.

I sold some books and met some great folks.

I hereby declare Barbecue at the Sunset Terrace a great success. 

Photo 2: Melvin Rhyne, keys Cliff Ratliff, trumpet, David Young, tenor sax, Billy Meyer, bass, Larry Clark, drums

Photo 1: Keyboardist / musical bud / JfB founder Monika Herzig, WFIU jazz programmer and announcer David Brent Johnson, JfB publicist Chris Schleicher

I’ll be a guest on Joe Bourne’s weekday-afternoon jazz show, Just You and Me, on WFIU-FM at 4 PM today to discuss Barbecue at the Sunset Terrace.

That event is shaping up to be gala indeed.  Melvin Rhyne has put together a stellar quartet.  Marci, the proprietor of Tutto Bene gave me the finalized menu last night.  I got in a fresh supply of copies of my novel for signing.  Some cool stuff is showing up for the silent auction.  An artist friend of mine specially painted a work called “Feels Like Jazz.”  I haven’t seen it yet, but some folks have told me it’s really evocative.

You’ve no doubt noticed a dearth of observations from Bentnotesmanhisself the past week.  Along with Mrs. BN I’ve been in central California.  Several wine-country excursions, a day in San Francisco, hiking in the Sierras.  Good meals till I thought I’d burst.

In the Sonoma Valley, may I recommend the Eric Ross Winery and Imagery, a combination estate winery and art gallery. (They call their 06 Sauvignon Blanc Wow Oui and it is; oh-so-citric and summery.  We have a bottle on its way to us.) Also, in the town of Sonoma, an Italian place called Della Santina’s (spit-roasted rabbit w/ fresh herbs) and a Portuguese place called La Salette, where I had dishes I haven’t had in years, some since my trip to Portugal twenty-plus years ago: baccalhau (a cod-and-potato casserole), pork alentejana (a stew of braised pork cubes, clams, and sauteed onions and pimentoes - and by the way, the first recipe I ever did on Stirring Something Up), grilled sardines.

The friend with whom we stayed lives in El Dorado County, west of Sacramento (Sierra foothills), and I got enlightened on what a great wine region that is as well.  Mourverdre, Syrah, Tempranillo, Grenache, Counoise.  May I recommend Holly’s Hill, Boeger Winery, Oakstone, and Miraflores.  Miraflores is still buying lots of grapes from other vineyards, but most of their stuff should be estate-bottled next year.

In San Francisco, had cocktails at the Cliff House, a dining destination out at the west end of Geary Avenue, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In the nineteenth century, it was the site of a big health-and-fitness facility called the Sutro Baths.  I think that establishment met its fate in the 06 earthquake.

Hiked from Carson Pass to lake Winnemuka and had a picnic lunch.  It was kind of weird to need a sweatshirt, seeing as how even at our friend’s house, let alone down in Sacramento, there was a record-setting heat wave going on (kind of like we’d hoped to leave in Indiana!)

This will be the first time in seventeen years of marriage that I haven’t spent Independence Day with Mrs. Cue.  It feels weird already.  I put the upcoming holiday up there with Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas.  It marks a singular moment in human history - the founding of a nation-state not on geographic or ethnic happenstance, but rather an idea, that idea being human freedom, and freedom as being a creation of God.

It draws on a lineage of thought in the development of Western civilization that includes Plato’s Republic, the Magna Carta, the documents and occurrences that came out of the 1688 Glorious Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic, and John Locke’s notion of natural law and the sovereignty of the self.  It paved the way for the uniquely Western notion that slavery was reprehensible.

I’ve always read the Delcaration of Independence to her on July 4, usually before she gets out of bed, so I’m sure I have a captive audience.  Certainly no later than when she’s brushing her teeth.  Maybe I’ll call her from the workshop and read it to her.  Actually, I doubt if I’ll have time.

We also have liked, for the past several years, to put my custom-compiled CD of classic American party music on the boom box on Independence Day morning.  Some of the tunes on it are listed on last year’s ID BN post.  Should I take it with me this year or leave it for her and my step-daughter and granddaughter, who are coming to visit that week?

I wonder if Jamey does anything special at the workshop to commemorate ID.  Jazz is about as American an art form as there is.  Surely there’s some kind of tie-in.