Hey kids we made it to Friday!!! (This no longer means anything.)
Yesterday morning I assembled one of my favorite breakfast items, which is ricotta on toast with honey and fresh ground pepper, and it triggered two memories:
One, I am in New York visiting my friend Sally more than a decade ago. We go to a Mario Batali restaurant (RIP, his career) late one night and order large glasses of wine and a small cheese assortment. One is a very fresh goat cheese served alongside small dishes of honey and black pepper. I, a rube, have never eaten this combination before. It is the reason I am eating this breakfast one million years later in my kitchen in Ohio.
Two, my now-husband and I have an online magazine that we are gallantly trying to make A Thing. We have a lot of connections due to our previous jobs and it is easy for us to get time with local chefs. Jonathan Bennett invites us to make ricotta with him in the kitchen of Moxie, a restaurant that no longer exists. He sends us home with a quart of it and we greedily eat it on toast the rest of the week. We always say we will start making our own, but to date, we never have. Now would probably be the time to start if it didn't necessitate going to the store, which is more of a chore than an errand.
Anyway: remember going places? Aaarrrrgh.
Tonight our neighbors are having a "social distance happy hour," weather permitting. If we were consulting a Magic 8-Ball about the weather at this moment the answer would likely be REPLY HAZY ASK AGAIN LATER, but I for one really hope it happens. I am extremely eager to sit on my front stoop with a gin and tonic in a Cleveland Indians souvenir cup and shout pleasantries at my neighbors. This thrown-together event has assumed outsized importance for me as if it is for real going to make or break me. I am like Half-Pint Ingalls going to town to get some calico and an orange!
Last week I online-shopped for an Ohio flag. Our governor has asked people to display the American flag so that we might feel more unified, and while a) I don’t like hokey stuff and b) my feelings about America as a concept are meh-to-nope at the moment, I will for sure rep Ohio. I sprung for the nicest version and it really is a nice flag. (Even if you don't agree you have to admit it could be much, much worse.)
I still need to get the hardware to mount it on the house, but I think it will look nice out there. I will have a lot of time to look at it in the weeks ahead and so will my neighbors.