Alberty's Blah Blah Blog

I don’t know where this post is going because, quite frankly, I had a bottle of wine for dinner at a nice little restaurant in St. Cloud called Jules. Local ingredients, sandwiches, salads, and pizza. But they have this date night deal for appetizer, pizza, and bottle of wine for $30. My wife is pregnant, so I got the bottle of wine. Huzzah! She gets to drive.

Anyway, we are staying at the house of her friend, here in St. Cloud. They live on Lief Erickson Place. Or is it Leif Erickson Place. I don’t’ know right now. There are three street signs for this street. Two spell it Leif and one spells it Lief.

Our GPS takes it very seriously. If we ask for Leif Erickson Place, it takes us one way. If we ask for Lief Erickson Place it takes us another. I am not kidding.

So, intoxicated as I am, I have begun my quest for the truth, as I may find it.

Here is it, as it is.

MapQuest spells this road Lief Erickson Place. Now the two important things to note are the “ie” in Lief, and the “ck” in Erickson.

Now, the Scandinavian explorer spelled his name — assuming that he could write it — Leif Ericson, or really, Leifr Eirīksson, if Old Norse didn’t use runes.  But whatever. So, already, I find that kooky since Leif Ericson’s dad’s name was spelled Erik: note the “k” not the “c”. Have you checked out already?

To muddy the mud, if you go to the web site for St. Cloud’s Leif Erickson Day celebration, you will find his name spelled Leif Erickson in the header, and Leif Ericson in the content text.

Now another kink in this kooky chain is that there is a Leif Erickson who was an actor in the first half of the Twentieth Century. His main claim to fame is that he was married to actress Frances Farmer. Then on the day he and Frances divorced, he married another actress named Margaret Hayes.

The street I am presently on is called either Leif Erickson, or Lief Erickson. But, the actor Leif Erickson was born in Alameda, California, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t named after him.

Also, the other streets around her are named Cortez, LaSalle, Lewis, and Clark. I have to go with explorers, right?

Granted, there is also a street in this neighborhood called Pierz. I checked this out and it’s named after Father Francis Xavier Pierz, a Slovenian born Catholic priest, so even the once clear explorer theme is called into question.

I love wine.

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So, right now I am sitting in a kitchen in St. Cloud, Minnesota, listening to my wife’s best friend’s father playing the ukulele like a pro.

Yup, you read that right.

My wife’s best friend just had a baby. It is 21” long, which is a long baby. However, it is also 9lbs 15oz. No joke. Hyooo-mung-gous!

I really don’t know where this post is going.

Kind of like life, right? That sounds silly and clichéd, but things are usually clichés because there is at least a grain of truth.

This week was to be appointments and business meetings, car tune-ups, and a dinner and movie with my wife. Some relaxation, after a stressful end of the year.

Instead, I am 350 miles away, sitting in a strange kitchen, getting to know some lovely people, who my wife absolutely adores, welcoming a new life into the world.

What a lovely turn.

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Christmases at the Alberty house are a swirl of sound, activity, yelling, defensiveness, joy, and exhaustion. And most of that miasma swirls off of my grandmother, whom we call Ganny. This is the same woman we refer to as Banana Grandma.

She is, as I think I have said in other writings, a pot stirrer.

This year my father wrote poems for certain gifts. He likes to indulge in the Christmania, and I kind of like it when he does.

Anyway, planned or accidental, Ganny was able to interrupt nearly every poem as it was being read, by some interjection of surprise or joy at her own presents. It was as if no one else was there. It was kind of incredible. I got to the humor pretty quickly, but my mom had some problems with it. But what can you do? I laughed.

Now, one of the creepiest things for me in horror flicks — trust me this will make sense — is when they throw in that creepy whispering underneath stuff. Yeah, that wigs me out.

Well, she is not only from the South, she hails from a Pentecostal Free South. So her religion is pretty much right out there and emotional. Anyway, every year during the prayer for our Christmas dinner, she always whispers, just audibly. Sometimes you can understand the “Praise Jesus.” Sometimes you can’t quite understand it. Our Christmas prayer becomes this weird horror soundscape for me. It’s a bit of a trip.

We also have a family photo. It is my job to take it. It is like herding the proverbial cats. This year my two nieces — one in college, the other a senior in high school — were standing next to each other. I asked them to pretend they liked each other and scoot closer together.

To this my grandmother said, “Get those titties together. Press ‘em in!”

My oldest niece said, “We don’t want to ‘get our titties together.”

“What’s wrong?” my grandmother said. “Don’t you two like each other?”

“Of course we like each other,” my niece rejoined. “Just not that much.”

After the photo, my grandmother said to my father, “I hope my great granddaughters don’t think I’m a lisbethian.”

I thought at first she said Elizabethan, which made even less sense — though I’ve come to understand that sense doesn’t really matter with her.

So, within moments after her fear of being seen as a ‘lisbethian,’ she said to me, “Get a picture of me with your wife. I like her.”

I said, “Okay.”

She turned to my wife and said, “Take your leg off. I’m going to kiss you.”

This makes only marginally more sense if you know that my wife has a prosthetic leg.

Finally, my dad went over to my grandmother’s the day after Christmas. This is the conversation he had with her, as relayed to me.

Dad: Mom, did you like that nightgown that Jawonda (yes that it my mother’s name) got you?

Ganny: Yes. It’s very nice. You usually don’t find things this nice at rummage sales.

Dad: Rummage sale? She didn’t get it at a rummage sale. She got if from Von Maur.

Ganny: No, I’m sure she got it from a rummage sale.

Dad: Mom, I’m telling you she did not get it from a rummage sale.

Ganny: You don’t have to lie. There’s nothing wrong with rummage sales.

Dad: Why do you think she got it from a rummage sale?

Ganny: Because it’s got that lady’s name in it.

Dad: What lady?

Ganny: That lady that owned it.

Dad: Let me see it.

Ganny: See! Right there. I ain’t lyin’ to you. Right there is her name. Kay Anna. She done wrote it right there.

Dad: Mom! That’s the tag!

She certainly spices up life for my parents. Not always in a good way. But she sure does make the holidays memorable.

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Okay, there are times when I really wonder how I have survived this long. I have a storied and professional career of doing stupid things. Some of them multiple times, even knowing better.

Examples? I lick knives. Yeah, that’s bad. Let me clarify. I don’t just pick up a knife and lick it. That would be stupid and crazy. No, no. I’m just stupid. It’s a post cutting/slicing move for me. If I’m cutting some soft cheese with my Victorinox paring knife, I will usually lick the blade before I wash it. Cutting a sandwich? Perfect for post knife licking. All that mayo and mustard and cheesey meaty goodness.

I know it’s stupid. And yes, I have cut my tongue before. It has, unfortunately become a bit of a habit. But my real problem is that I will do it while my kid is in his high chair eating, watching me stick this deadly weapon in my mouth. I know, I know. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I mean, I say “booger” and my kid goes, “Booger, booger, booger!”  What makes me think he won’t go stab, stab, stab? Stupid, stupid!

Anyway, I’m hoping I’ve broken myself of this problem, at least in the kitchen.

A couple of days ago I was cooking with my saucier. Let me say that my son was napping and did not see this upcoming moment. Anyway, I was reducing a sugar-brandy sauce for some glögg (I‘ll write about the recipe soon, because it is mmmmhubbahubammmyah!). I poured it into the wine mash and noticed that the pan had this delectable looking thick golden sheen of sweet brandy sauce in the pan. And there was a drip of it, lounging tantalizingly off the rim of the pan.

Yes. And no. I unthinkingly raised the pan to my mouth but, thankfully, I felt the still scorching heat from the pan just moments before my tongue would have seared itself to the molten sugar and the hotter pan.

That was one of those tiny seminal moments — at least I hope it was — that has the power to change habits. Well, we’ll see what happens. As with all habits, it will take time to see how the moment takes in the long term.

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You just never know when the lightening is going to hit you. It’s hit me twice this week.

I read a script this weekend that absolutely stunned me. It is one of the best plays I’ve read. It’s David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole. The topic is devastating: a couple dealing with the accidental death of their four year old son. But the dialogue is so real, so natural, and Lindsay-Abaire so eschews the maudlin and melodramatic that the play actually becomes sublime — in the D.D Raphael definition.

The play certainly means more to me now that it would have two and a half years ago. There were times that I wasn’t sure I could continue reading it. And even though it is a painful play, I desperately want to direct it. Strange.

I also now look at my son with a different vision. There is something a little more golden, a little more fragile to him. Loving him is a little more precious and, oddly, a little more dangerous. We had more fun Monday, even though we were stuck in doors.

The second strike came yesterday. I got a call from my friend and Theatre Cedar Rapids’ artistic director. She called to tell me that Dave, a long-time volunteer, sound-man, and friend, had died. It was absolutely stunning.

Only a couple of weeks ago I was ushering at a sold out performance. Before the show I walked up to him — he was sitting at his sound board — and I said, “They told me it would be okay for me to take your chair, as long as you didn’t mind sitting in my lap.”

“It would be more excitement than you could handle,” he deadpanned in his understated way.

I simply took it for granted that he would always be there.  I can still see him rocking back and forth as he tosses out one of his biting observations. It’s so unreal. I think the whole TCR community — at the least those who worked closely with him — are in a state of shock. For most of the day I felt like I was thinking through water.

Lightning. Stunned.

Sometimes I think Einstein was wrong: I think God might play dice. Some things just don’t make any sense.

I’d like to believe that Dave knew how much I liked and respected him. I sure had a deep fondness for the guy. He just made me comfortable. I would go out of my way to talk to him, which, if you know me, I don’t do a lot. I’m going to miss him.

If you love people, tell them. It’s no skin off your nose. Having friends you love is precious. And dangerous. The hole left by their loss might be that much greater. But, let me tell you, the love is worth it, because we live in the now. And nothing makes now better than a room filled with people you love.

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Look, I’m a snob about a lot of stuff, I know that. I’m pretty critical about theatre, although I usually keep negative opinions to myself. I’m critical about certain types of music and some cultural — especially pop-cultural — hoodyhoo. I don’t like it and I try to subvert my snobbery.

But certain parts of my heritage really do get the brunt of my snotty snob snubs.

As much as I don’t like to admit it for various reasons, I am a child of the South. Yes, I was born in Southeast Asia, but my father is an Okie and my mother is from southern Arkansas.

My dad is a good-ol-boy who made good by escaping his small town but not his upbringing. My mother still slathers on the deep dialect like frosting on a red velvet cake. My living grandmother still calls people “Neh-gras” and “them Mexicans.” My deceased grandmother called people worse.

One of my father’s biggest regrets was allowing me to “get learning” in that bastion of liberal thinking, Boston. And when my father says “liberal” it sounds like he may as well be saying “festering bloody ass-boil.”

But I digress.

There are moments when my Southern boy absolutely rings within me. I had one of those on Sunday morning.

I love Sunday mornings. We wake up when the boy wakes up. Sometimes it’s seven-ish. Sometimes we get lucky and it’s after eight. Anyway, my wife usually takes care of the boy, and I wrangle the breakfast. Often it is oatcakes and eggs and bacon. But this Sunday I went with the biscuits and gravy.

Now it is, of course, quintessential Southern, the biscuits and gravy. But that wasn’t the “moment.” It was when I swirled some butter and molasses together, slathered it onto the sweet biscuit and took my first bite.

There was such a visceral response. It tasted like the Mississippi River. It tasted like the lost and lonely, broken gray wood houses set back off the old county highways of southern Arkansas. It tasted like my grandfathers’ silence.

I was, honestly, transported.

It really came as a surprise. But I stopped at one. I guess a psychoanalyst could perhaps run with that one.

I have grits at least once or twice a month — another quintessential Southern culinary anchor — but it doesn’t send me. Perhaps it’s because I have it so often that it has lost that singular connection. I don’t know.

And as much as I hate to admit it, I liked that moment. I may have even loved that transportation back to my youth, to my South. Sometimes, snob be damned.

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I get the joy of feeding my 18 month-old breakfast. I do not mean that in any cynical way. I do enjoy it. It is a time for the two of us to connect over one of our favorite things: food.

He eats food in the way I wish I could eat food. He shoves in and celebrates the things he likes. He throws food he doesn’t. It is almost as primal as eating can get. I would love to be able eat at a restaurant the way he eats at home.

This morning he had water, grapes, bananas, and little cinnamon animal crackers. I was having some peanut butter on toast. He almost always wants what I’m eating. I could be eating boiled eel on puffed rice cracker and he would want it. Anyway, this morning he points emphatically to what I am eating and says, “Moa! Moa!” More, more.

I smeared some peanut butter onto his cinnamon cracker. He grabbed it and shoved it into his mouth. He pulled the cracker out, nearly wiped clean of peanut butter, and he said, “Wha? Wha?”

I said, “It’s peanut butter.”

He goes, “Budda? Buddah?”

I said, “No, buddy. It’s peanut butter.”

He reached his cracker out to me and said, “Moa? Moa?”

I scraped some more peanut butter on his cracker.

He grabbed it with both hands, raised it above his head and screamed, “Pebble buddah! Pebble buddah!” Then he gritted his teeth, shook all over, and made a growling sound before plunging the whole thing into his mouth.

The next one he rubbed into his hair before eating it.

I want to do that.

Imagine.

Jason Alberty sat quietly, gazing lovingly at his wife, who sat across the white linen covered table. This was their sixth anniversary. They were celebrating at Zins, a local wine bar that served tappas-sized portions of tasty combustibles.

Sitting just off to the right of his place setting was an as yet untasted goblet of his favorite Schug Cabernet.

The waitress set a triangular white china plate in front of him, turned it ever so slightly.

“What is this?” he said.

“It’s lobster risotto,” the waitress said through a warm smile, “with, corn, grape tomatoes and sherry syrup.”

Jason took the fork and felt the heft of it in his right hand. He scooped a tentative dollop of the pillowy risotto onto the tines and brought it up to his lips. He paused and took in the rich scent of the lobster and the butter that plumped the risotto into little grains of savory heaven.

He slowly placed the back of the fork upon his tongue and closed his lips around it. As he slid the fork out, the risotto melted onto his tongue and the aroma wafted back into his warming throat.

He chewed and swallowed.

He closed his eyes.

Then, with lightning alacrity he threw the fork to the floor and plunged both hands onto the plate, taking two fistfuls of the risotto. He stood, knocking the chair backwards, his fists filled with the creamy rice raised triumphantly into the air as he bellowed, “Lobstah risososostaaaaaah!”

He smashed the risotto into his face and ran his hands over his head, smearing the lobster infusion into his ears and mouth as he bellowed joyously to the gods of grain and the sea.

He grabbed the goblet of wine and lifted it above his head, pouring it at arms length into his gurgling maw. And with a flourish he threw the goblet to shatter against the dark wall.

He sat down and looked up at the waitress. “Moa?”

I kind of want to do that.

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I’m a bit of a Christmas music snob. I readily admit it, and I do not apologize for having at least some sense of aesthetic opprobrium for the commercial and cynical pap that oozes from most of the radios these days.

Do not, however, mistake me for a purist. Sure, Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song” can make me excuse myself from a conversation so I can weep with abandon alone in a public restroom. But there are several contemporary tunes that really trip my tinseled trigger.

There is tune called “Ciara” by Luka Bloom that is a beautiful song that turns me into nostalgic jelly. What does it have to do with Christmas? Nothing — that I can tell from the lyrics — other than it came to me on a disc called Celtic Christmas and the first time I heard it was Christmas time.

There is a gorgeous and lush tune by the Smashing Pumpkins called “Christmas Time” that pulls the lump into my throat. That one is decidedly not a traditional tune.

But my favorite “new” Christmas tune was actually written by a friend of mine. If he reads this post he will of course hate this, but he is truly one of the few people in my life that I would, without reservation, call a genius.

Several years back I was in an original Christmas show at Theatre Cedar Rapids called A Hans Christian Anderson Christmas. It was a hell of an experience.

Tangent: I spent most of the show in a single pair of pants with my best friend: we were a two-headed monster. I am 5’7”. He is about 6’1”. Stairs were terrifying! And the worst part … I think it was my idea.

Anyway the final song of this show was a little number called “The Spirit of Christmas.” The hook gets into your head and just does not let go. And the lyrics are deep and meaningful: “Hope, love, the gifts within us, that is the spirit of Christmas.”

Anyway, I’ve been wanting him to produce this for public consumption, but he’s a humble guy. Even worse, once he’s done with something, he moves onto the next project with nary a look back.

Tangent: When I was in middle school I took up the alto saxophone. When I finally learned how to play “Moonlight Serenade” really well, I quit and moved onto the electric bass. It was stupid, but I accomplished my main goal. That and I had Floyd’s “Money” to learn.

Anyway, since you are not going to be able to find “The Spirit of Christmas” anywhere on line, here is the demo cut of it. Don’t have a finished version yet. Sorry, G. Don’t be too angry with me. It is just a beautiful tune.

11 Spirit of Christmas

Here is a bit of my Christmas music must have list. In no particular order.

“Carol of the Bells” – George Winston: Total trance inducing hypnotic all consuming song. Great when you need to tune out the holiday hubbub.

“Christmas” – Blues Traveler: If you have not heard it, and you are generally open-minded, this tune may become one of your favorites. It is a wonderfully all-inclusive holiday (or not) tune. It’s also great toe tapper!

“Christmas is Coming” – Vince Guaraldi Trio: Yup. This is from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Pure nostalgia for me. Every time I hear this song I see unnamed kid in green, the one behind Linus, doing the mummy-walk.

“The Christmas Song” – Nat King Cole: I had to repeat this one. Excuse me, there is something in my eye.

“White Christmas” – Richie Akers: Okay, if you can’t get a copy of Richie’s version (since you had to see it at TCR) I would highly suggest the Otis Redding version. While Bing Crosby is a bit lethargic in his version, Otis fills his with a yearning that comes out the speakers and grabs you by the heart.

“Little Drummer Boy” – Pink Martini: While I generally hate and loathe this song, the Pink Martini version makes me want to put on sun glasses and grab myself a Manhattan while I sit back on my retro Mies van der Rohe chair. It is jazz at its smoothest.

There are two other notable versions of this tune.

The first is the Bob Seger version: I like this version because it always makes me think he was suffering from nearly debilitating constipation while he was recording it.

The second one is the “Peace on Earth / Little Drummer Boy Medley” with Bing Crosby and David Bowie — especially if you can get all the chit-chat before the song starts up. There is also a video of it. Listening to this song is like dropping acid. Things are happening that you know just don’t happen in the real world. Like Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing a duet.

Oh, and a note on Pink Martini. If there is a new disc to grab for your holiday music, I highly suggest Pink Martini’s Joy to the World. It is crazy good, if you are up for some new holiday music. They do a version of “White Christmas” in Japanese that takes me to some strange place, man. It sounds a little Hawaiian, which gives it a dreamy quality for me, which I like. They also have a Chinese New Year’s song that it a lot of fun.

This is certainly not a comprehensive list of my must haves. And there are some traditional recordings that I quite like — I am particularly embarrassed by my love of a disc that features the English dulcimer.\

I guess what I’m saying is don’t get in that holiday music rut. And if you have some recent discovery or an old staple that I should know about, please do send it to me.

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Okay, hopefully some of your remember the post entitled “This Dog.” It was about our dog, Fenway, eating about a dozen of our favorite Blueberry Bran Muffins. He survived both the bran and our wrath.

Well, he has done it again. Except this time he has done it with some hand-rolled sugar plums. I would guess he consumed around 40 of the 80 that I spent an hour hand rolling. The other forty were spread over the counter and looking quite log-licked.

Again, I wanted to kill him. And it was, of course my fault, which made me even angrier. I even thought, I should put these in a Rubbermaid. But nope. I made a nice little sugar plumb pyramid. Festive! And apparently it makes it easy to stick your long black nose onto the counter and curl your pink tongue around like a furry black giraffe.

Well, I mentioned it on the Facebook and a couple of people wanted the recipe, so here it is. I tasted two of them. And they were really very good. A little Middle-Eastern flavor, which I really liked.

It is, as per usual, an Alton Brown recipe.

Ingredients

Directions

Put the almonds, prunes (or cranberries), apricots, and figs into the bowl of a food processor and pulse 20 to 25 times or until the fruit and nuts are chopped into small pieces, but before the mixture becomes a ball.

Combine the powdered sugar, toasted anise seeds, fennel seeds, caraway seeds, ground cardamom, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Add the nut and fruit mixture and the honey and mix using gloved hands until well combined.

Scoop the mixture into 1/4-ounce portions and roll into balls. If serving immediately, roll in the coarse sugar and serve. If not serving immediately, put the balls on a cooling rack and leave uncovered until ready to serve. Roll in the coarse sugar prior to serving.

The Sugarplums may be stored on the cooling rack for up to a week. After a week, store in an airtight container for up to a month.

But I highly suggest that you immediately secure them in a closed container.

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