On our grey and wet, and mildly chilly, December mornings, the pleasures of life include a hot cup of strong coffee --in my trusty old thermal Starbucks mug-- and a nice chunk of panettone from Dianda's bakery in the Mission, courtesy of Mr B.
My old friend C, mon frère ainé, died on the weekend. Infirm for the last several years, it was a chromosomally-originating blood disorder which carried him off. Blessedly, and despite my own recent negligence, I got to visit with him in Toronto while I was back East for Thanksgiving, and to say goodbye to a 37-year connection. He was a very good-hearted and very complicated man whose life was full of painful contradictions. And the best of cooks. I feel sad for the loss of him, and sad for his partner of almost 40 years, who tended to him faithfully to the very end and who must now face life without him.
I have always liked Advent. It's the introvert's season. And without the obsessive moralizing of Lent.
Mr B and I had our eighth (!) annual Santa Lucia dinner at his house on Saturday. The feast of that saint was the first time he invited me to his home for a meal, back in 2007, a few months after we first met. I remember it very well. This year the festivities included a rack of lamb (my contribution) and roast Dungeness crab (his). Yum.
How can anyone be a vegetarian?
Everyone has a dominant fault. At least one. The one of mine that I find the most irksome is procrastination, a variant of sloth. But if I could boutique my next lifetime (just imagining, not asserting at all), what other fault would I choose to dominate it instead? The seven capital sins are pride, rage, sloth, gluttony, greed, lust and envy. What a cheery set of choices.
I think I'll get back to my panettone.
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