Punctuated Heartbeets and Alfredo

It's been wonderful to see KP every weekend since he moved to Chicago in January. We generally don't celebrate Valentine's Day in the traditional commercial sense (flowers, candy, etc.), but we definitely observe it in passing. On Saturday, he surprised me with an early Valentine's Day observance. He loves to cook, so it wasn't really a surprise that he cooked dinner for me. The surprise was in the meal choice, and the lengths he went to in order to prepare it. First, he made Cornish game hens. He started practicing two weeks earlier to figure out the best way to prepare them in his equipment. He settled on roasting them side-by-side on a bed of mirpoix. They looked so cute in the roasting pan. He consumed 3 Cornish game hens over the two weeks before Saturday to make sure he got it just right. I asked if we could roll pasta that weekend, so he had to deviate from his original plan of potatoes au gratin. He had experimented with various types of cheese, ratios of butter to cream, and methods of cooking. He made two batches of potatoes au gratin in preparation for Saturday. Instead, however, we rolled out fettucine and I made his favorite alfredo sauce.

Finally, the part that I loved the most, were the beets. He cut them into cute little hearts and arranged them on the dinner plate around the hens. He saw a picture in San Francisco magazine or something and thought, "I can do that." So he cooked beets four times over the two weeks to practice slicing and cutting the beets into hearts. Do you cut them when they're still hot, or do you let them cool? Do you cut them before cooking them? I think the answer was cook first, then cut, but only after they've cooled enough to touch them, but not cold. I'm not sure, though, because he wouldn't let me into the kitchen during the preparation. So, for Valentine's Day, KP gave me heartbeets. It was very thoughtful and cute the way he practiced for this meal.

When I shared the story with friends, one person immaturely gagged, failing to grasp the significance of the dinner as an honest way to celebrate Valentine's Day. My alfredo sauce pales in comparison to KP's level of effort, but we honored the day in a way that did not cheapen the beloved saint, patron of engaged couples and beekeepers. It was perfect.

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Alfredo Sauce

1/2 cup butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cup grated parmesan (use the canned stuff because it actually works better than the deli tub, unless you have an authentic block of aged parmesan, then totally grate and use that)
1/4 tsp salt
dash of pepper
some parsley

Over low heat, melt the butter in a saucepan with the cream until it is hot and steamy, but not boiling. Stir in the salt, pepper and parmesan and continue stirring until the cheese is melted. You can either stir the parsley into the sauce or sprinkle on top of each serving, but only sprinkle it on top if you're using freshly chopped parsley. Toss the sauce with pasta, preferrably sauce-catching noodles like fettucine or gemelli. As if you couldn't tell, this is about as bad for you as you can get. We save it for special occasions, like Valentine's Day.

Maybe the phones are down in Washington

I did my routine news roundup this morning, and I found a couple of headlines that caught my eye:

Senate passes $70 billion in tax cuts

$70 billion sought for war costs


Apparently the White House neglected to telephone the Senate to let them know about their funding issues. As if the solution could have been any clearer. The numbers actually match this time.

Way to go Alito! and other important things to say

I just read this fabulous bit of news!

I'm thrilled.

Alito met his confirmation with just about none of the fanfare that befell Chief Justice Roberts and poor Harriet Meiers. I did not have much faith in his independence from La Bushie. I mean, c'mon, the man is famous for his political hack-ivism. Harriet Meiers? So, considering what a staunch supporter of the Death Penalty that La Bushie is, this case kind of proves that Alito is not in his back pocket.

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My dear friend from high school called the other day, wanting to know if I'd be willing to talk to her niece about Notre Dame. She's a high school freshman and wants to go to a "small, Catholic school that has a marching band."

I really had to try hard to not say, "How about Boston College?" It wasn't that hard because my bigger question was, "Didn't you say she was a freshman?" My advice to freshmen in high school is to get the grades, no matter what college they think they want to go to. All schools look for good grades. You can't go wrong with good grades. You like sports? Play 'em. Like music? Join the choir or band. Like animals? Volunteer at the SPCA. Do what you like to do. But most importantly, just get good grades.

My second piece of advice? Choose a school with lots of programs. How can you possibly know what you want to study when you're in high school? I started as an art major, switched to engineering, then decided to add film. A decade after high school and I still don't know what I want to do. So, yeah, pick a university.

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Speaking of advice, I hate getting advice, tips, pointers, suggestions, or criticism from people who don't know any better than I do. I'll take unsolicited advice from people who know what they're talking about. Those are people, in my mind, who have spent at least a full, uninterrupted year doing whatever it is that they're expounding on.

Everybody else, you just think you know what you're talking about.

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I loathe health insurance companies. I had a cyst. It was removed this morning. Kind of painful, a little unsettling, but I'm just fine. But, see, in order for the doctor to remove the cyst, he had to remove the mole that was sitting on top of it. He did not realize this until after he tried to remove the cyst. I went in to have a cyst removed, so he did what he had to do in order to remove the cyst. Well, that meant removing the mole because it was cost-effective and safer for me. What's wrong with that, you ask? While my doctor was filling out the chart and paperwork, there was a sharp intake of breath, followed by, "You have Mega? Ummmm...we'll send this to a different pathologist to save you some money. It'll just take a little longer." My Fabulous Insurance Company will cover the removal of a cyst, but not a mole, unless its malignant, but it won't cover the testing for malignancy, unless it's malignant, and you can't test for malignancy unless you remove the mole. Makes perfect sense.