Vignette: Stars

      Ophelia by Frances McNair       

         Okay... look up, now.
I had never taken someone to this part of the city; specifically this level of the city. Penn's Landing is one of those places that doesn't look like much during the day. But at night, it lights up like a beacon of all that is good and hopeful in this world with pubs starting parties and bringing people to dance in the street, down sidewalks, through lanes packed with cars. Little lights dance across the Delaware River  and dance on the tide like will-o-wisps. In summer, the feeling of being on top of the world elates itself, coming to life with the subtle heartbeat thrum of music eking from restaurants, clubs and apartment complexes. Now, here I was removed from all that, sitting on the rooftop with a man I had only known for two years.
  "You're not scared of getting caught?" Ben asked, quietly watching a few cars parallel park.
  I shrugged. "I know the landlord. He wouldn't call the police unless some dumb kids decided to play ninja."
I paused, closing my eyes. A smile settled on my face as a warm breeze rushed between us. I let my hair rest between my shoulder blades, watching Ben peripherally. "Ian and I used to watch the fourth of July fireworks up here... I realize the irony in my telling you this, don't worry."
   "Why bring me up here?" Ben placed a loose arm around my shoulders. There were plenty of reasons: to show my dear friend from across the pond the best view of Philadelphia; to be nostalgic, to feel something vaguely romantic... The list could have been longer but, truly, there was one concrete reason. Why else would you go to someplace beautiful on a dark summer night?
  "Come here." I directed, walking to the middle of the roof and sitting down. I patted the ground next to me and Ben mimicked my actions. "Close your eyes"
He did as I asked, and I pushed him slowly onto his back with a soft hand. I let him settle a moment.
   "Okay. Now, look up."


{Author's Note: Real quick, I promise! This is from a set of about 20 vignettes I am doing with four characters: Ben, Lila, Ian, and Amie (the narrator). It's for my writing seminar, which I am currently not doing the greatest in, but I felt like sharing this nonsense with you! Sincerely, CLE}

A Little Excerpt

Yesterday was warm and sunny, perfect mid-April weather. Today was the exact opposite right down to each clammy, damp raindrop. As I am officially done with today, I have devoted a good chunk of time to reading and scribbling in my notebooks. One of said notebooks - a lovely blue number with the London skyline screen printed on the front - is used only for vignettes and short stories. Just like my tripartite string of memoirs, I will post one every so often. 

Give the blog character, y'know?

CLE

P.s. To you all who read this, I am very curious about why you continue to read (if some of you are regulars anyway). How on Earth do people find things so deeply buried in the bowels of the interwebs?

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The November sky was gunmetal-grey and tinged with lavender; the mass of clouds covered what was surely a spectacular sunrise. Waves pushed up the shoreline lazily, a strange cobalt blue that receded fully from the pebbles each time. It was not the first time either of them had snuck out at four o’clock to watch the sun come up. At least twice a week - there was a schedule set in advance, altered when necessary - Emanuel and Oliver would sit side-by-side where the beach met grass, mostly in silence. Books were allowed, but only if they were read aloud. Sleeping was prohibited, much as it was even in the most stale lecture halls. Sometimes they talked, but conversation was sparse or heavy with accompanying drowsiness.

Emanuel was wrapped in her uncle’s army jacket. She’d probably stolen it out of her father’s closet the night before and would absolutely be yelled at for it when she returned it the following Saturday. No matter how much she moaned about it, the girl loyally returned home every available weekend. To Oliver’s mind, it was something akin to self-induced torture; she had a martyr complex, but God help the person who even alluded to the fact. He was damned if he was going to bring it up now, when she was happily leaning against his shoulder. Well within their senior year, Oliver still harbored affections for the girl snuggled into him. He had never told her, never admitted into anything. Things had changed this week, however, when Emanuel announced her determination to finishing her schooling in the United States. She loved Cornell and Columbia Universities, but often joked about how she didn’t have a shot in hell for either. He hadn’t thought much into it, thinking he was just going after his brother to Trinity - and for what, he didn’t know.

Oliver felt the weight lift off his right side, glancing over to see Emanuel staring bleary eyed out to sea. Rays of the sun caught on the fleeting strands of red in her dark hair, making it light up copper. She was porcelain doll pale with exhaustion, but an untrained eye would not have noticed this. Emanuel wore a touch of lip gloss - something not oft seen in these early hours. She preferred to apply her makeup on the bus, saying "It steadies my hand better". Oliver shrugged at this because he really did not care. His dad told him: "Women'll do wha' women'll do. There's no point in tryin' to keep 'em from wha'ever 'tis they're gonna do". The older man could not have been more right.

The sun finished it's promenade into the center of the horizon line. The sky was harvest moon orange, weak and warm. Emanuel reached down, fingers disturbing the pebbles' peace. Oliver did the same, but eventually tossed an unlucky stone into the steely waters.

"I wonder if we're closer to the Channel or the North Sea..." Emanuel murmured.

"I'd say we're in both, if that makes sense." Oliver slurred a reply. His jaw had yet to get into shape for the day's worth of talking.

Emanuel nodded in agreement. "The North Channel, then?"

"The North Channel it is." And she grinned that bloody brilliant grin at him. Oliver felt his heart tug but stayed where he was. He willed his brain to keep control, maintain as well as it had all the days until then. He half-heartedly returned the gesture, but it felt disingenuous.

III. Affairs of the Southern Holiday

 Despite being a Pennsylvania-raised Yank, I was born in Virginia and deem that close enough to claim Southern citizenship. It’s not a very well kept secret that Sarah and I could join the Daughter’s of the Confederation, if we ever felt crazy enough. My grandmother, a born and raised Tennessee woman, would be happy enough with our becoming Kappa Deltas in college – my mother affectionately calls them the “crappa deltas” because “it takes one to know one”.

            One does not truly understand life below the Mason-Dixon line until one has fully grasped the love of pie. Tarts are for sissies; pies mean business. Pecan pie is not the same without Karo syrup and you never chince Lemon Chess on sugar. Humans with aversions to anything full-fat, sugared and rich, be gone!

A blender is an odd thing to use for pie making. I have had this thought every Christmas Eve-eve for as long as I can remember. Big holidays equal Grandmother Frances’ Fudge Pie. I should correct the name, considering she was my great-grandmother, but I am my mother’s daughter when it comes to terms of address. Besides, Frances always seemed more like a grandmother than my own with her long silver hair perpetually tucked into a French twist and her Sunday-morning robin’s egg blue bathrobe. Fudge Pie is a time honored tradition. If one does not fulfill this one simple task at each year’s Eleventh Hour, expect both daughters to rain holy-hell and rebel-yells upon the kitchen.

            Our family rarely travels for extended-family Christmases; mostly because we have realized how insane our cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters are. Eddy crazy is a lot different than Dunlap or Johnson crazy; they don’t mix very well either. My grandmother is primarily skilled in the arts of homemaking and knows how to put people to work. Mom knows that I can’t stand any of them – my aunts that only ever talk about clothes and makeup, my uncles who won’t converse with a teenage girl because “what do you know?” -  so she brings me to our kitchen safe-haven.

            Making chocolate pie in an eggshell-white kitchen is a scary endeavor. Grandmere was an interior designer at one point and fell in love with china blue and white Ming dynasty pottery. She’s very proud of her collection, so I refrain from divulging the birdhouse and a few vases’ secret origins (that is,  a reproduction factory on the outskirts of Hong Kong. National Geographic did a spread in 2009). It is an honor to be trusted with Grandmother Frances’ sacred pie. The ingredients stack on one another in the blender vessel in the adult culinary version of bottled sand art; dull Dutch-processed cocoa congealing by the creamy yellow egg yolks about to seep down into the crumbling sugar wall protecting the sleepy layer of baking powder, cream of tartar and a pinch of cayenne. The cayenne is an illegal addition, but only if Grandmere and Mom find out.

            “Good night nurse!” Grandmere exclaims as the blades whir to life. The brown and white stripes twirl into Mississippi mud sludge. Two pale pie skins sit in twin porcelain molds. The mud fills each two-thirds of the way up. When the pies are unloaded from the oven (a solid hour and fifteen minutes later at this altitude), Grandmere will use another one of her nutty expletives to express her amazement.

“Day-law!”

            “Well, I’ll be hopping!”

            People of a certain generation have strange things to say when they are amazed. Grandmere doesn’t swear and could write a dictionary of her substitutes. They come out at the dinner table during dessert, where all fourteen of us plus her nasty little dog will sit in too-close quarters. My sister and I have an unspoken claim on the two chairs at the farthest corner of the dining room table. Miraculously, we can still hear Grandmere complementing her daughter on the crust and cream and filling.

            “Kristen, you are a master!”

Apparently the “pie incident” in The Help hadn’t ruined her love of the brown pie.

Brown Butter Pecan Pie

¾ cups light corn syrup

¾ cups sugar

3 eggs

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons honey

½ cup unsalted butter

1 cups pecan pieces (plus extra whole nuts for top)

Your favorite pie pastry

1. ·         Roll out pie crust in an 11 inch circle and lay it in a 10 inch pie pan. Crimp the edges and preheat the issues to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt butter and let cook until the color of toffee. It should smell vaguely like roasted nuts.
2. ·         In a large bowl, combine corn syrup, sugar, salt, eggs, vanilla and honey. Mix well. Stir in melted butter and pecans. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.
3. ·         Arrange the whole pecans in concentric circles on the top of the filling. Bake the pie for 1 hour and 15 minutes, rotating halfway through cooking. Crust should be brown and pie filling bubbly. If the nuts on top start to get too dark, cover with aluminum foil.\
4. ·         Serve pie warm with vanilla ice cream. This is not the place for whipped cream, sorry.

II. Ice Cream

Google's 2011 First Day of Summer doodle by a Japanese Artist        

My sister hovers behind me when I do anything in the kitchen. We have just gone through the summer of the ice cream machine. The pair of us jokers, unbeknownst to our parents, spent mornings concocting flavor combos and afternoons churning the products away. Her masterpieces were chocolate-hazelnut, crunchy peanut butter, and a pretty pink raspberry. My personal bests were basil-mint, chili pepper - cocoa, and ginger tea sorbetto (a deeper flavored, slower melting sorbet). A self described "piss and vinegar" person, I have an affinity for anything with kick - sour and spicy, bitter and burn. Mustard, malt vinegar, siraccha, and ginger beer are God's special way of telling me he loves me. Life's perfect accessories to anything.

At 9 am I plopped a groggy Sarah down in a chair and told her to peel the hunk of ginger I had found in the freezer. She lifted a scrap of peel to her tongue, touched the tip lightly to the golden pulp and instantly recoiled.

"How do you eat this stuff?" She demanded.

"It's good for you and it makes ginger ale." I replied flippantly. My sister has a small sweet spot for pop, something neither of my parents indulge. Ginger ale and Dr. Pepper have the winner seats. Sarah screwed up her face, resembling someone in between a rock and a hard place.

"Fine, I'll try it..." She concedes, still glaring suspiciously at the root. "If I don't like it, I can have a milkshake for lunch."

"That is so not happening."

"Yes it is."

"If you absolutely, one hundred percent hate the stuff after I'm through with it, I'll make you macaroons for your birthday in the color of your choice."

To be certain, I spent the weekend of September 27th mixing up a batch of candy floss blue French style macaroons with blackberry filling. Because I love my sister and keep my promises, no matter how ludicrous they appear in a rear-view mirror.

You could say Sarah is picky. I, however, have personally witnessed the girl eating and enjoying beef tongue at a Kennett Square restaurant. Tell me how many 13 year olds would venture to that?

Simple Strawberry Ice Cream

1 pound strawberries, diced

½ cup sugar

1 ½ cups heavy cream

1.  Put the strawberries in a bowl and toss with sugar. Set them aside for 1 hour to allow juices to come out. When the hour is over, put all the contents of the strawberries, sugar, and juices into a food processor. Process until smooth.
2. With a mixer (standing, electric, and hand mixers are all fine), whip the cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold the strawberry mixture into the whipped cream.
3. Transfer mixture to a loaf pan or a freezer safe bowl. Freeze for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally as it freezers (I suggest on the 45 minute to 1 hour mark).
4. Before serving, let the ice cream sit at room temperature for 15 minutes or until scoopably soft.