28 January 2006

More Parents, pouring rain, and Portland -- Discovery

When I walked into the intensive care unit early Monday morning, I knew I would hate what I saw. My mother is among the least patient patients on the planet – something she shares with many other medical professionals. But lying in the hospital bed, just 12 hours removed from surgery and general anesthesia, she looked passive to me. I didn’t know this Virginia, and I didn’t understand how this came to be. I read the monitors and saw that her vital signs were fine. The burbling of the chest suction, the beeping and whirring of the various infusion pumps and all of the machinery of medicine were distracting both my mom and me. The ICU nurses assured me that she was recovering remarkably quickly from an invasive and serious surgery.

Her surgeon went into great detail about the circumstances of her illness, surgery, and prognosis. I asked him questions. And yes, it was pretty much the shorthand you see here. Talking with surgeons is better if you keep it terse. Surgeons know how to cut. Diagnosis, talking and compassion is better left to other medical professionals.

Me: Diseased gall bladder?
Surgeon: Yes, very.
Me: Cause? Possible malignancy? (He was a surgical oncologist. He would know.)
Surgeon: Very doubtful. I’ve done a lot of these. I didn’t see anything to make me concerned.
Me: Possible mass on her liver?
Surgeon: No, a liter and half of pus.
Me: Pus? (!!)
Surgeon: Yes, your mother’s gall bladder was necrotized. The bladder was probably decaying in her for three to six months before it perforated. (For you, gentle readers, read “gangrenous” for “necrotized” and “exploded” for “perforated.” Think of a dead, exploding “Chestburster” stage of the xenomorph in “Alien” for my internal reaction. Outside, stoic: I’m talking to a surgeon, remember? )
Me: So what did you take out?
Surgeon: Well, because her gall bladder was so diseased, I had to make a large incision along the length of her abdomen, retract her abdominal muscles, remove pus and the diseased gall bladder, and clean and cauterize any other possible sites of infection, and lavage all the remaining pus from her abdominal cavity. I left part of her gall bladder attached to the base of her liver.
Me: Wow. That’s a lot of surgery for an 82 year-old woman.
Surgeon: Yes, it is. She had a very sick gall bladder.
Me: So, what do you think her recovery will be?
Surgeon: She’s a tough old bird. (A unique and accurate description for my mother that seems offensive but isn’t.) She had no co-morbidities and her vitals were strong throughout the operation. If we can avoid sepsis (of course, there has to be more rotting and pus), I’d say she’ll be fully recovered in about six months.
Me: OK. What about the next few weeks? (I’m venturing into dangerous territory here, asking a surgeon for a medical prognosis, and I know it.)
Surgeon: Oh, she’ll need a lot of care, probably in a skilled nursing facility, for up to three months. Assistance with moving from the bed, walking, bathing, care of her drains and chest tube: that kind of thing.
Me: Wow. OK. Thanks.
Surgeon: You’re welcome.

Well. That put everything in perspective. My mom had been ill for a long time. But I knew this: she’d claimed for ten years that old age had forced a change in her diet, and, loving son that I was (and am) accepted this as gospel. Clearly, something else was the cause of the change. The “something else” was that her gall bladder had failed, and had been failing for a very long time. Without providing bile, Mom wasn’t digesting fat effectively. Which lead to a variety of unpleasant side effects that Mom had catalogued in our conversations for, well, about ten years.

So, the first revelation: Listen to your body. Get medical attention. If the first diagnosis doesn’t fit, keep at the process until the diagnosis and treatment actually correct the problem. If the problem is with someone you love, gently but firmly convince them to follow the above process. General medical treatment is a lot more pleasant than surgery and recovery in an ICU.

Now, aside from being able to joke about rotting from the inside with my mother and the hospital staff, I knew two things: One, Mom was going to be OK. I now understood why she looked the way she did in the hospital bed, and I knew that her condition would improve. Two, I could do something. Mom was going to need more attention than I would be able to provide (because G2 and my work, while allowing – and encouraging and supporting -- me to attend to Mom and her needs, weren’t really going to be happy if I were to move to Mt. Angel/Silverton, Oregon for the next three to six months). So I went in and talked with my mother, and the ICU nurses, and left them to make my to-do list. And started to work.

27 January 2006

Parents, pouring rain, Portland

So if I had any readers, I’ve surely lost you by now. I’m still writing up dinner, even though I’ve successfully worked off the weight I must have gained that night.

Please forgive me, dear readers, for I have sinned. It’s been over three weeks since my last entry, and I have no good excuse. Well, I sort of have an excuse. I’ve spent most of the last two weeks in and around Portland, Silverton, and Mt. Angel, Oregon, attending to my mother after she underwent emergency gall bladder surgery. But let me proceed with the latest shaggy dog stories.

So – I’m recovering from a very fun Blowoff on MAL weekend. Our dear friend R was in town from Manhattan. We hadn’t caused nearly as much trouble as we might have, so it must have been about 10:30 on Sunday morning. We’re reading the Times, drinking coffee, and talking when the phone rings.

Now, a call that early on a weekend almost always means a parental call, and when one is the teeniest bit tired and hung over, parental calls become torture, plain and simple. Avoid at all costs.

When I saw “Silverton Hospital” on the caller ID, I knew this call would be far, far worse. I was surprised to find that it was my mother on the other end of the line. “What are you doing at the hospital?” I asked? “Didn’t you get my messages?” Her voice was full of pain, confusion, and loneliness. I reached for the keyboard, a pack of cigarettes, and shushed R and G2.

First from my mother, and then from the nurses on her unit, my mom’s medical situation was made clear to me. She had experienced pain in her abdomen for almost two weeks, as well as some seemingly associated pain in her right shoulder. So she’d gone to the hospital, only to be discharged when it was obvious she was having neither a stroke nor a heart attack.

Now, my mother is 82 years old, and on her very best days she’s not a model of clarity when explaining herself, particularly when describing her pain or discomfort . These were not her best days. Mind you, she was a professor of nursing, taught physical assessment, and expected everyone she taught to be almost psychic in their ability to infer the cause of symptoms and diseases. Teaching how to assess patients’ pain apparently didn’t prepare her for describing her own.

The pain remained, and she became a “frequent flyer,” returning to the Emergency Room. Much diagnostic imaging, and (presumably) some careful physical assessment lead to a diagnosis of a diseased gall bladder. (Just how diseased figures into the story later. Hold the thought.) Oh, and a liver obscured by a mass, which no one I spoke with seemed to know much about. By this point of the phone calls, I’m shaking. With good reason I think. So action was taken.

Frontier Airlines obliged me with seats on the 6:15 from National to Denver, and at 9:45 from Denver to Portland. Mr. Hertz provided me with a car, and G2 and R helped address my anxiety. (G2 is the best, most supportive partner a human being could ever hope for, and R is my best friend and fellow traveler through life as an only child.) With the appropriate mix of concern, support, and shot of whiskey (Baleveine 12 year old, “double wood”), they sent my on my way.

The flight was completely uneventful. Arriving in Portland was uneventful. Sleeping in my mother’s abandoned bed was deeply disconcerting, as was navigating an apartment that had previously been defined by her presence. Without my mom there, everything seemed completely anonymous.

How much of a shock is it to see your parent in a bed in intensive care, looking more like a porcupine than a human being? It was a huge fucking shock. I’d seen my mother in many settings through the 44 years she’s kept me around: professional Virginia, leading nursing students through the maze of knowledge, skills and experiences required to make them trained and effective medical professionals; queen Virginia, holding forth on all sorts of matters, sometimes knowingly, sometimes full of shit; drunk Virginia; saint Virginia; a whole host of Virginias. But I’d never seen medical Virginia, held hostage in a hospital bed by disease and technology. Medical Virginia was something I never wanted to see.

I never want to see it again, after having seen it.

There’s more to come on the medical front.

I haven’t spent two weeks in Oregon in over ten years. I’ve never had to provide post-operative care to a parent. And it’s been well over twenty years since I’ve been in Oregon during the suicide months of January or February.

I wasn’t surprised to find rain. That’s a given. But most of the time, the storms that blow in from the Pacific across Oregon do so pretty quickly, with a solid shot of rain and wind, then showers, and finally a break between storms.

That’s not the current weather pattern: this year, the storms just seem to keep coming, and the rain is both more constant and much heavier than usual. The two effect of this new pattern are: it’s always damp. Not just a little damp, but soaking, bone chilling damp. And people are both tired of the weather and are constantly talking about the rain, cold and fog.

(Oregonians on the whole don’t complain. Well, they do. But not directly. Think of Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” with fewer Lutherans and more talk about rain than snow. You’ve got the picture.)

Finally, Portland: There will be much more on Portland, and specifically about retail therapy and restaurants. Nordstrom, Gotham Building Tavern, Family Supper, and Blue Hour – these are some of the things that helped me stay focused and calm while I was attending to my mother.

Part Three: The Eating - the First Two Courses

(This is coming in fits and starts. Yes, this dinner took place a month ago. My apologies.)

G2 artfully uncorked the Goerg champagne. There was a pop, and while I ducked, there was no need to. (The DP is a professional. I teeter on the brink of being a drama queen.) He poured, we toasted to friendship, the end of the year, and the start of a new one. And then we sat to a table full of oysters – eight for each of us. Champagne and oysters: simple, rich, complex. The champagne actually tasted like real wine, with structure, and interesting yeasty flavors. The oysters were briny, with that perfect slippery texture, and the mignonette a perfect final note. Champagne was brought to the lips – and the bubble tickled our lips and noses.

Once we finished the first course, we paused. Out of necessity – the second course had to go directly from the stove to the table. So the prepared pears, fois gras, and nuts were pulled out; sauté pans heated; and butter melted. The pears went in first, and I quickly carmelized them, threw in some hazelnut pieces, and poured an ounce of cognac in the pan. A quick toss, a hurried call for a match (the chef’s trick of flaming off of the stove’s burner failed, much to my dismay) and the pears were finished.

I put the fois gras in the other pan. There’s a certain irony in putting fat in a pan full of hot fat, but that’s how one cooks fois gras. The pan has to be really hot to seer the liver, but you can’t linger. If you do, the goose liver quickly becomes a puddle of very expensive fat. It takes about 45 seconds a side to seer the liver, and only a few more to melt the liver. I avoided melting the liver, and quickly moved it from pan to cutting board.

I sliced the seered liver, placed slices between slices of pear, and spooned the liquid and hazelnuts from the pear pan over the top of the pears and fois gras. G2 opened the Palatum and poured.

There might b a picture of this course, somewhere. What I remember vividly was the composition of the slices of pears holding the fois gras. It looked perfect. It looked like Jaques Pepin or Julia Child had guided my hands. I impressed myself even before I took the first bite. Both V and G2 were impressed, too. And then we put knife and fork to the plate. The first impression was the texture – the pears were just soft, but still had that indefineable grainy texture that pears have, even when perfectly ripe. The fois gras melted like butter under the knife. The nuts added a tiny bit of crunch.

The taste was beyond the pleasure and experience of the texture. I’ve been playing with the idea that balance in flavor comes from variations on three types, or notes of flavor in a dish. This achieved a great balance of three – the roasted nuts with a rich, earthy flavor, the sweetness of the carmelized pears, and the – for want of a better term – richness of the liver. The wine reinforced the flavors of the dish. And it was a big white wine, too -- so big it was almost overwhelming. We kept eating and talking. Honestly, these two courses would have been enough for any people. But I had clearly lost my mind when I was planning this.

The unbelievable whiteness of Oregon

The DP and I just returned from “five fun filled days” in Oregon visiting my mother during the final leg of the annual family holiday pilgrimage. In all, it was a lovely visit, with both parties being civil to each other, and the snark level remained well below the pain threshold (or that encountered at most any gay bar).

The trip allowed G2 to see a little more of Oregon than his first, brief trip four years ago. I grew up in the state, so my views and opinions as an expatriate Oregonian (or Oregonian in exile) are somewhat skewed. His eyes and ears were fresh, and provided both confirmation of long held opinion and some challenging new thoughts.

1. Portland is an incubator of microcultures. Walking through downtown Portland was fascinating. The sheer variety of personal style on display was amazing. The personal statements were supported by a profileration of small, independently owned business that cater to niche markets (and a few larger businesses, such as Powell's Books that overwhelm with the sheer diversity of material they stock). Is Portland a kind of autonomous cultural zone? Hard to say. In many ways, Portland doesn't feel like an American city. And its relation to its suburbs and the rest of the state is far from clear. File this under “new matter for further consideration.”

2. Oregon is amazingly, unbelievably white. That's not suprising for a state settled by Northern European immigrants. That is not to say there aren't people of color in Oregon -- there are -- and I don't even want to start on the various flavours of racism present. The DP observed another odd thing: People were either dwarves or elves. (No feet were examined, so we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of hobbits in the state. Though we did observe one inappropriately displayed set of manicured toenails.) Oregonians were either tall, thin, and pale, or shorter, wide, and pale. There was very little middle ground. What's up with that?

Catch up (again)

There will be much posting. Most of it is catch up. I've been busy.

02 January 2006

New Year’s Eve, or a Slow Night In Part II – The Making

A Thursday reconnaissance trip to the suburban supplier of gourmet comestibles with my friend MMF and her steadfast and remarkably patient husband JF secured the goose and the oysters, but the figs were nowhere to be found. So pears were substituted. The menu now looked like this:

Fois gras and pear amuse bouche
Oysters with mignonette
Wilted greens with carmelized nuts
Roast goose with roast chestnut puree and mixed potato and mushroom gratin
Ginger sorbet
Flourless chocolate cake with chocolate sauce

On Friday morning I looked up sorbet recipes. I found a grapefruit and ginger combination that would be a perfect palette sharpener – we really would need a break between the goose and the cake. So make one more change.

There were already wines associated with some of the courses. Cleveland Park Wines is one of our wine connections. Tony helped me select a special Champagne, and knew my taste in red wines to direct me to the perfect Bordeaux. But I was stuck on a wine to accompany the fois gras (Sauternes are most often paired with it), and I knew that we already had a Sauterne paired with the flourless chocolate cake. He selected a big, full white wine and sent me on my way.

So now the menu and wine pairing was this:

Fois gras and pear amuse bouche with Primo Palatum 2000, Côte du Rousillion
Oysters with mignonette, Champagne Paul Goerg 2000
Wilted greens with carmelized nuts
Roast goose with roast chestnut puree and mixed potato and mushroom gratin, Bouquet de Monbrison 1997, Margaux
Ginger-Grapefruit sorbet
Flourless chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, Sauterne

Friday night was time to start preparing things. The cake needed to be made, as did the sorbet. So out came the baking sheets to toast hazelnuts and roast chestnuts. The chestnuts were scored. All were roasted. (None of this “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” nonsense, either. The oven works just fine, thank you.) Toasted hazelnuts had their skins removed. Chestnuts were laboriously peeled and cleaned. Grapefruit exploded into sections, and ended up in a saucepan with shredded ginger and sugar. Many eggs were cracked and separated, and were beaten – well, actually wisked – into submission.

It was a late night in the kitchen.

The DP kept swinging in to see if there was something he could do: the answer, no – for two reasons. First, we have the smallest kitchen I’ve ever worked in. So there’s not room for two people to work at the same time – unless you have a fetish for injuries caused by sharp objects or second degree burns from contact with hot surfaces. Neither appeal to us. Second, a meal like this is a labor of love – and the love of food and entertaining is my passion, not his. So I kept on working at the bits and pieces of the meal, finishing a preparation and washing the dishes. The sorbet set, and when I tasted it, I was stunned. First course completed. The flourless chocolate cake came out of its water bath, and I set it out to rest for its moment of glory. Finally, at 3 in the morning, I collapsed into bed.

The alarm rang too soon, and I pulled on clothes, picked up the Zipcar, and went on the grocery run. Balducci’s, then Giant – and a momentary sense of horror: did I have all of the ingredients? (Yes, I checked the list.) Was this a horrible mistake? (No, I know what I’m doing.) Was this just plain wrong? (This meal was a tremendous extravagance.) No – because more than once both shoppers and staff asked what I was doing, and when I explained what I was preparing, the listener’s faces lit up, and said they wished they could enjoy a meal like the one I was preparing.

I rolled home, and put away the groceries and the car. The DP prepared a lovely lunch, and once I cleaned up, I pulled out the knives and started the next round of prep: shallots, onions, garlic, parsley, apples, pears. Then I set about rehydrating figs and dried cherries. The DP did sneak in to work the mandolin to prepare potatoes – and thoughtfully simplified the potatoes to Potatoes Anna. The goose was cleaned, then blanched with boiling water to loosed up its subcutaneous fat, and was stuffed with a mixture of apples, figs, dried cherries, sage, and shallots -- all soaked in port. The wines were set in to cool to the right temperature. Finally, everything was ready.

Things started moving very fast. The chestnuts were sautéed, then pureed with goose stock. The goose went in the oven, and then the potatoes. There was much basting and checking of temperatures. I made a mignonette with shallots, champagne, black pepper, and lemon zest for the oysters. We showered and dressed. The table was set – with a damask table clothe, china, crystal, and silver. V. called to say she was on her way. The cake came out of the refrigerator to warm up. Wines were opened to breathe. A quick drink was prepared, and the moment we toasted, V. arrived – with her wine, a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem.

You wine queens reading will know what this means. For the rest of you, we’d just received pretty much the most written about wine made. I never believed all the hype – and the price alone put me off the idea of sampling. Now, here it was. The menu was complete

We chatted for a few minutes, and asked if we were ready to start. At the last moment, I suggested the oysters as a first course. The DP and V agreed, and the champagne was opened. It began.

New Year’s Eve Dinner, 2005

Oysters with mignonette, Champagne Paul Goerg 2000
Fois gras and pear amuse bouche with Primo Palatum 2000, Côte du Rousillion
Wilted greens with carmelized nuts
Roast goose with roast chestnut puree and Potatoes Anna, Bouquet de Monbrison 1997, Margaux
Ginger-Grapefruit sorbet
Flourless chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, Chateau d’Yquem 1999, Sauterne

New Year’s Eve, or a Slow Night In Part I – The Planning

Going out on New Year’s Eve means joining the ranks of amateurs. You’re pretty much guaranteed an off night at most bars and restaurants, and the punters are out in force. If you don’t believe me, listen to this guy. But if you’re smart, you find your nearest and dearest, stock up on the finest food and wine you can, put out the good china, crystal and silver, and live large. Which we did. And this is how it came to be.

So to end the arc of holidays in the United States that began with the festival of food – Thanksgiving – and continued through Chanukkah and Christmas I planned a little get together with our friend and fellow traveler V. Now, part of the story here is how you get to a memorable – even unforgettable – meal. So bear with me. I’d been haunted by a memory of my one trip to France many years ago. I couldn’t get the memories of walking in Paris at Christmas and seeing piles of oysters in mounds of crushed ice everywhere. Now, the DP and I love oysters, and seafood in general. So I factored that in. And planned for oysters. Lots of oysters.

I’m also fond of meats that you can’t generally get at the local Safeway. Odd poultry. Game. Really, really good beef. I chose goose for this particular meal. Goose is a particularly difficult fowl to cook – it’s both fatty, and not terribly fleshy. But what flesh there is, is remarkably rich. And geese also have large livers, which when fed a very rich diet, becomes a remarkable fatty treat called fois gras (yes, again with the French). So that was added to the menu.

V. celebrates the anniversary of her birth on 31 December, so in addition to the dinner decadence, a celebratory dessert was required. V. loves chocolate in all of its forms. A flourless chocolate cake fit the bill.

Finally, there are always accompanying courses: salads, starches. While celebrating the Christmas leg of the Holiday Arc in Oregon with my mother Virginia, the DP and I shared a dinner with our friends Erik and Arwyn, also fellow food travelers, here . Where I enjoyed another French-inspired meal that included pureed chestnuts. The night before, the DP, Virginia and I supped at a Portland classic, Jake’s Grill. (And before you get all “avoid corporate kitchen at all costs” on my ass, Jake’s was the origin of the McCormick & Schmick’s chain. So there. ) In any case, there was a fine example of a gratin pommes de terre, and that earned a place on our menu.

So when I put all this together I came up with this:

Fois gras and fig amuse bouche
Oysters with mignonette
Wilted greens with carmelized nuts
Roast goose with roast chestnut puree and mixed potato and mushroom gratin
Ginger sorbet
Flourless chocolate cake with mango coulee

Rounds of email ensued with V (the DP bowing out on the picayune editorial process of the menu setting). The mango coulee was thought to be a bit much, especially as V. had a wine in mind that she wanted to share as a present – a Sauterne. So the mango was struck.