This week’s Indy has a piece I wrote, all about the life-changing scones Ali Rudel and staff make at East Durham Bake Shop.
The Paper is out today, and if you’re from away, here’s the link to the online piece.
Thanks for your time.
Uncategorized
Everybody’s A Chameleon…Expert
Have you ever been so tired that you got punchy? Where everything is hilarious and you laugh so hard, so continuously that you’re also crying?
Well years ago, on a seemingly never-ending road trip I’d made a rather anemic joke, and my friend Sherelle meant to say, “Everybody’s a comedian.”
What actually came out was, “Everybody’s a chameleon.”
That phrase entered my, and now our family’s lexicon. It means that everybody thinks they’re America’s answer to 90’s stand-up comic Sinbad.
By adding the “expert” part, it speaks to a phenomenon that perhaps due to easy access to the interwebs, seems to be everywhere.
And it’s kind of getting on my last nerve.
I first noticed it when we bought our house.
All of a sudden, everybody we met was a carpenter, plumber, electrician, landscaper, and decorator—sometimes all at once. 
I’d take out the trash and somebody I’d never met would tell me why my grass was more weed than grass and what combo of toxic chemicals would take care of it. Or a complete stranger would inform me that the shovel I’d picked out wasn’t the right tool for the job, even though, he had no idea what particular job I planned on doing.
Financial geniuses would insist we absolutely should renegotiate out mortgage, never mind interest rates were going up; we were just too unsophisticated to understand the complex forces at play.
Then we met a whole new raft of scholars when we were expecting, and again after The Kid arrived.
The shape of my belly denoted a boy, or a girl, or triplets. I should exercise constantly or move as little as possible. I should eat anything I want and as much as I want. Or, I should severely restrict my calories, and become a vegan. 
Lucky for The Kid, we ran into hundreds of child development specialists and pediatricians each time we left the house.
Nursing was bad, or formula was a clear-cut case of child abuse. We should enact a strict routine or go with the flow. The baby should be given a thorough bath daily, or soap or water should never tough a child’s skin and instead should be rubbed down with butter and olive oil twice a week.
Solid food should be eaten within days of birth or maybe not until the thirtieth birthday. Potty training should be early and Draconian, or child-led and have a goal of the child being fully trained by sometime around high school graduation.
The baby should never be held and rarely picked up. Or the baby should be duct taped to one or both parents for the first three years. 
Once one becomes a dog owner, it’s astounding how many authorities you’ll encounter. If you have a mutt, you’ll be shamed for encouraging indiscriminate mating. If you have a full-breed, people will inform you that a rescue dog in a shelter was put down because you have a fancy, over-bred show dog.
If you do have a an AKC registered pooch, you’ll discover 90 percent of the population is either a breeder or trainer of that variety. One should treat them like the fur-covered children they are or treat them like wolves and never show affection. 
One guy in our neighborhood has bred every Akita anywhere on the planet for the last 200 years (except ours, I guess). He’s also trained them all to obey him by blinking his eyes.
And not only is he the world’s expert, he actually invented dogs, and created the very first one in 1972 by carving it out of a block of Swiss cheese
Thanks for your time.
A Professorial Appeal
I think you’ll agree with me, Gentle Reader, that well-stocked libraries are vital to the type of civilization in which we want to live. No one can know what may be the trigger that fosters the love of reading in a young person. And books enrich one’s life in infinite and eternal ways.
Sadly, some evil-doer walked into the library in Sussex, England and stole every single graphic novel they had.
My friend, Paul Alborough, also known as international recording star and pioneer of chap hop Professor Elemental, has recorded an appeal for donations to restock the looted shelves. And if you have any books that you are able to donate, you can help. His video has all the info you will need.
If you’re new to the party and would like to discover the amazing Professor, head over to his website. In addition to his ground-breaking and delightful music, he always has ideas for small things you can do to make the world a better place. Right now he has links to donate for training support dogs for folks who need them.
Thanks for your time.
Why We Write
I went to BJ’s and picked up some Nabs for Petey. And because I got them at BJ’s, there were 36 full-sized packages of crackers and peanut butter in the pack—hey, he likes Nabs, and they were really cheap.
But the upshot was that I was standing in my kitchen wondering how and where to store enough Nabs for, literally, the whole class. I decided to check our guest/box room for a forgotten basket or vessel of some kind.
While I was in there, I noticed an old Duke three-ring binder. I opened it to see if there was anything interesting in it. In it was pure comedy gold.
Among the many camps The Kid attended while in school (cooking camp, camp at the Museum of Life and Science, a history museum camp that was an immersive experience in the WWII Homefront) was a Duke-sponsored writing camp. The first year our child was a day-student. The second was extended day, and for the last year it was sleepaway camp.
The Kid has always had an interesting imagination, and a way with words. Not long after learning to write, my child wrote a story about a pirate that was both afraid of the water and prone to extreme seasickness. I know that’s my baby, but c’mon, that’s hilarious—I mean, just picture that poor guy. Somebody’s junior high had the world’s worst guidance counselor.
Each morning at camp they had a writing exercise. They were given a prompt and had a set amount of time. Where they went was up to them.
I’m guessing that this particular topic was handed out in either later days of a session, or if early on, not The Kid’s first year at camp. There is a certain element of smart alecky-ness to the result.
What follows are The Kid’s own words. Comments from me are in italics.
I write because:
Because I think my dog is writing about me. Our new dog doesn’t write, he instagrams and snapchats.
Because the mole men tell me to. They’ve stopped urging creativity and are now focused on digging and building an underground kingdom into which I’ll one day fall while mowing the lawn, never to be heard of again.
Because the lady at the drive-through gave me the evil eye. She still does.
Because I want to scream but am in a library. Nothing’s scarier than a librarian’s glare.
This guy says, “write”, I write.
Because a leprechaun I met when I was three told me I had to. But not one word about that darn pot of gold.
Because my mom likes purple. Yup.
Because I once saw a gremlin on a plane. First I’ve heard about that.
Because they serve a combination of chicken and fish called a chish. Gross.
Because I expect the mother ship any day now. Is mother ship one word, or two?
Because stereoditional is too a word. It kind of sounds like one of those huge German portmanteau words that possess a paragraph of meaning. Here’s my take: stereoditional is an object, or a state that can only exist as a pair, like bookends. Or, an old lady’s purse and Kleenex.
Because I have a chalkboard full of ideas and I can’t write about just one. Lay’s potato chips of the mind.
Because the spirit of Bob chooses you to read your writing. Don’t know a Bob. I think maybe The Kid was running out of gas here.
There you have it. A hopefully humorous, but more likely unsettling look into the mind of my one and only progeny. Who’s now living as an independent, unmedicated adult.
Heaven help us all.
Thanks for your time.
Fresh, Hot, and Indy Week
One of the best loaves I ever made with my own sourdough.
The Indy came out with a bread issue today. I have a piece in the print edition about sourdough.
There’s a second piece online, about favorite breads and spreads.
I hope you enjoy them.
Different loaf, same sourdough.
Thanks for your time.
Trigger Warning
You know, when it came to spouses, I think I got pretty lucky.
If I had to put up with me, I would either run for the hills, or drop a piano on my head (although where I’d get a piano, or get it airborne, is a puzzler).
Billie Holiday, and her puppy, Mister(!).
My capacity for self-knowledge is on a similar level of my ability to sing like Billie Holiday or sit through more than five minutes of the Bachelor. But I do know this much. My last nerve can get strummed at the drop of a fedora. But, my ire disappears just as quickly. And, I have enough self-control that when I do pop off it’s directed only at the offending situation, not innocent bystanders.
I am not one to ‘take it out’ on people or animals who are at hand, but in no way responsible for my pique. I only hurl my stinging invectives toward the situational catalyst.
So, furiosity comes easy, goes quick, and I rarely lash out at the people around me. The main reason is I know what a giant pain in the keister I am at my default setting. I’m not going to go out of my way to be extra-double-secret-vexatious and alienate friends and family.
But Petey and I are around each other most of the time, so he gets the most exposure to my displeasure, despite the fact that the true object of my ire is in the TV box, or the telephone, or doesn’t even actually exist, and I’m just bellowing into the void. My vociferous proclamations still roll over him and then recede, like some cranky ocean tide.
But, the things that provoke me are truly infuriating; they are things that should anger any right-thinking human.
The government announced the other day that the progress they’d made to keep kids nicotine-free has completely been erased—by vaping.
Vaping!
The manufacturers claim that they have no desire for children to use these products. But they sell flavors like fruity pebbles, coco pops, bubblegum, and unicorn poop (yup—unicorn poop).
And now they’re airing commercials in which adult smokers talk about how they switched from cigarettes to vaping, and ain’t life grand? I guess it’s better because…they can do it at church or sitting on the nice sofa?
Here’s the deal. There are hundreds of chemicals in each pod. But nobody’s sure exactly which because individual shops can mix up their own cartridges. Nine of the known chemicals in these things are either on lists of carcinogens or documented as dangerous to reproductive systems.
Like something you might use on a summer evening…and the bag it came in.
Plus, vaping makes you look like the kind of person who’d wear sunglasses at night or stiff a waiter and laugh about it.
Memo to Duke Energy: it is in no way “convenient” to charge me an extra $1.50 to pay my light bill online or over the phone.
Martha Stewart is a new celebrity judge on Food Network’s Chopped. There are three segments in which dishes created by participants are eaten and evaluated. No matter what the food is, no matter what course, Martha eat with chopsticks. And now, another judge, Iron Chef Jeffrey Zakarian has joined her in this straight-up affectation.
I’m sure they feel they have a perfectly rational reason. Maybe they’re trying to limit calories. Maybe it’s their way to pick through the dish and taste separate components. Don’t care.
It’s not a good look, guys. 
To Bridget, Carmen, and any other robo-calling wenches who want to help lower my credit card interest rates; I will find you. When you least expect me, and are feeling quite proud of your scamming, computer-generated selves, I will find you.
Thanks for your time.
What The Hey, Is It Hot In Here?
John Mayer, serial dater and troubadour for romantically challenged thirty-somethings sang, “Your body is a wonderland”.
But for many women, our bodies can be more of a creepy abandoned seaside amusement park; the kind Scooby and the gang would pull up to in the Mystery Machine.
It starts at puberty.
Most girls in middle school are desperate for the commencement of their monthly visitor. They think about it, talk about it, and read about it. 
When I was in junior high, they’d separate the class by sex, then show the girls films and pass out pamphlets about “Becoming A Woman”. According to them, once mature there are lots of flowers, swelling violin music, and for some reason, horseback riding.
Even Walt Disney Studios got in on it with the Citizen Kane of female reproduction, “The Story of Menstruation”. Sadly, it didn’t include a scene of Minnie sending Mickey out to the Walgreens for supplies, chocolate, and Midol.
But, once Aunt Flo actually showed up, we realized what a messy, bloated, crampy pig in a poke we’d yearned for. And as a bonus, we’d get to experience it twelve times a year for the next forty years.
There’s a break when pregnant, but a whole new garden of earthly delights awaits; from head to toe.
Pregnancy brain is really a thing. I once left my car running and in gear when I got out at the dry cleaners. How I didn’t run myself over and make the business a drive-through is anybody’s guess./cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61401577/The_Predator_Movie_5K_q2.0.jpg)
Then, there was the clicking. For weeks, I heard an odd sound coming from my belly, like the monster from the movie, “Predator”, but slower and muffled. I just assumed auditory hallucinations were another part of the gestational swag bag.
But one night, Petey heard it, and I actually cried from relief. He rushed me out to Duke for answers. None of the OB staff had ever seen anything like it, so they did an ultrasound.
Not The Kid, but it looked just like this, and we saw the removal of the thumb, too.
Turns out, The Kid was sucking a tiny little thumb, and as the digit was removed from mouth, there was a pop, which translated to the outside world, as a “click”.
Funnily enough, after birth, The Kid was not a thumb sucker…
Morning sickness? I spent nine months constantly feeling like a drunken sorority girl ready to revisit meals from preschool. 
Early on, I experienced a sleepiness of an industrial-strength. I’d be reading or watching TV, when suddenly it would be 90 minutes later because I had fallen asleep as suddenly as a toddler passes out into their lunch.
Later on, I tried to sleep, but sometimes a solo soccer match would break out, and I’d be poked repeatedly from the inside by little knees and elbows. I very often felt compelled to walk, which would tire me out and rock my passenger to sleep. Unfortunately, when I then attempted slumber, the cessation of movement would wake The Kid, and induce a dance party.
There are random physical curveballs served up by growing a human, as well. I had a hair inside my nose grow backward. It eventually showed up on the outside. Then I couldn’t breathe through my schnoz, but I could smell anything anywhere that might turn my stomach—at one point I’m pretty sure I smelled a fish fry on Noah’s ark.
After the many splendored thing that is youth and fertility, at middle age a woman experiences the joy of menopause.
This is a voyage planned by a psychopathic travel agent from hell. Without my glasses, I can’t see myself in the mirror—which makes mascara a vision-risking adventure. A magnifying mirror works, but the suddenly enlarged, dilapidated visage staring back shocks and horrifies. My joints sound like I’m smuggling a box of broken glass. 
The mood swings and the hot flashes are a charming two-fer. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been buttered and set ablaze. If at that point, a human male informs me that it’s all in my head and I should ignore it, I suddenly experience strong desire. A desire to snap said human like a dry twig and use the resulting pieces to toast marshmallows and weenies on the raging camp fire that’s my left thigh. 
It’s not all tragedy and cold French fries, though. I’m anticipating the happy day I discard the last tattered fragment of restraint controlling my tongue.
That’s right, Gentle Reader. I shall be the brutally honest little old lady that reveals to mothers their babies look like Newt Gingrich. I’ll tell stupid people they’re stupid. And I’ll inform that guy with the particularly ridiculous comb-over that he ain’t fooling anybody.
Thanks for your time.
A Thought
Dining on unseasoned food is like eating with a condom on your tongue.
Multi-Metamorphosis
I am a woman of great enthusiasm, slightly above-normal persuasive powers, but minimal forethought.The wearing of post earrings means being continuously poked in the neck. Every time you hold a phone to your ear, every time you lay on your side, that insidious little metal shiv shanks you.
My delicate, sensitive nature precludes me from wearing such jab-happy jewelry. I now only wear the tiniest hoops they make; literally, they’re made for babies. 
A normal human might ponder such pain-inducing side effects well before the piercing and rethink the whole enterprise.
But as I said, thinking before doing is neither skill nor talent that I possess.
Pestering however, so is.
When I graduated from kindergarten, I also received a doctorate—in beleaguering. Give me a cause, and I could nag all four guys at Mount Rushmore into submission.
In the first grade, I was obsessed with getting holes poked through my tender little earlobes into which I planned to hang sparkly bits of metal and/or stone. My poor mother bore the brunt of this unbridled obsession. I brought it up and argued in its favor multiple times a day.
Finally, on the very last day of school that year, Mom said yes. A man was coming from away to our local Belk Tyler’s for ear piercing.
Even though my mother said she’d take me, I knew I had to be on best behavior until those holes were actually in my ears or the opportunity could be snatched away. So, all day, I did my very best imitation of a meek, obedient child.
When we got to Belk’s, there was the piercer, a dapper, charming man in the fanciest suit I’d ever seen in Elizabeth City.
Mom had told me they would probably spray my ears with something that would numb them, and then slip the earrings in—it would be quick and painless.
So, imagine my surprise when he wiped my lobe with some alcohol, put an actual cork, like from a Gunsmoke whiskey bottle, behind my ear, and stabbed me with the sharpened post of an earring.
My eyes and mouth were three perfect O’s in my face. I wanted to cry and run away, but I also wanted both of my ears pierced, so I remained silent.
My mother, however, did not.
The first ear was assaulted so quickly she hadn’t registered what happened until afterward. Completely out of character and against everything I’d been taught by her since birth, my mother proceeded to make a scene in Belk Tyler’s.
“What is wrong with you? How could you do that? Take your hands off my daughter and get away from her!”
Meanwhile, I was paralyzed from pain and the shock of my mother raising her voice in public.
The swank disappeared from the man as he spun around to face her and growled, “So, whaddya want lady? You want the kid to walk around with one ear pierced? ‘Cause I don’t care, you already paid.”
At that point, Mom was shocked into silence along with me. Taking her stillness for acquiescence, he finished the job. Struck dumb, we left Belk’s and went home without a word.
When you get your ears pierced, you must leave the original earrings in for six weeks. Wearing those sharpened golden daggers and being continuously stabbed by them bred a loathing for post earrings deep inside my soul.
Hence, the baby hoops.
My mom?
It was like a logjam broke that day. My mother was never again hesitant to speak her mind in public. Which is very honest and extremely healthy. But sometimes, for her daughter, a bit less than comfortable.
Thanks for your time.
It’s French, Dahlink
When is a convertible not a convertible?
When it’s the fresh crusty loaf of bread with cloud-like interior that the French call a baguette. The most French of breads that actually has laws defining what is in the dough.
One might think that when prehistoric French painters wandered out of the Chauvet and Lascaux caves for lunch, they dined on baguettes and wooly mammoth nuggets.
But, one would be wrong.
Baguettes are the relatively recent sum of experience, ingredients and technology of the baking world. There wasn’t even a bread officially called “baguette” (meaning wand or stick in French) until the early 20th century.
Fortunately, even though there are laws about baguettes, as far as I know, none of them prohibit us non-French rubes from enjoying them. And, unlike your average loaf of Sunbeam, baguettes are sublime at every stage, from fresh out of the oven to old, hard and stale (just not furry—that’s no good for anybody).
Thus, the convertible-ness.
So fresh it’s still warm: break off a hunk, and smear it with a big scoop of runny, buttery brie. You eat enough of this and you will acquire a French accent. You’ll also acquire a butt so big that you need two seats at the movies, but that’s a whole other conversation.
Super fresh but room temperature: sharing a large piece with a friend on a veranda with butter, strawberry jam, and coffee (French press, of course) or thick creamy hot chocolate. On this side of the Atlantic, the very best place to do this is Caffe Driade, in Chapel Hill. Honest, it is one of the few supreme joys in this life that cost less than $20.
The top patio at Caffe Driade, in Chapel Hill.
Same day freshness: the jambon-beurre; a modest amount of very good butter, preferably from Brittany or Normandy, and thinly sliced top shelf ham. Chef Vatinet, owner of Cary’s La Farm is a Gallic rebel who adds gruyere to his version. It’s so delicious the not quite authentic recipe is not only forgiven, it’s welcome.
La Farm.
The days following baking have its own tasty gifts.
The simple: sliced into rounds painted with a bit of olive oil, seasoned and baked at 350 for 15-20 minutes, and you have crostini, a much more urbane vessel for dips and spreads than potato and corn chips.
If you cut the bread into cubes, and toast them in a skillet with oil, herbs and salt and pepper you have croutons that will make you wonder why you ever bought those sawdust squares in the bag.
And one of the greatest uses for any bread: pain perdu. What a North Carolinian calls French toast, a resident of the Loire Valley calls, “lost bread”. You make a custard with eggs and milk, flavor with brown sugar, vanilla, fresh nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Heat the oven to 375 and melt a dollop of butter in a skillet while you soak both sides of 1&1/2” slices in the custard. When the butter’s foamy, cook the slices on both sides until golden. 
As they finish, lay them on a sheet pan you’ve fitted with a cooling rack. When they’re all ready, bake in the oven until puffed and the custard’s cooked through, about 5-7 minutes. Dress and devour.
If you have a baguette, and can’t get to it while it’s fresh, freeze it. When you’re ready, dampen the entire loaf, and cook in a 350-degree oven for 13 minutes. Right before you put in the loaf, splash ½ cup of cold water into oven to bring up a burst of steam. It will come out as fresh and crusty as day one, I promise.
Coco Chanel and Gigot.
Merci pour votre temps.
bull city mom 