Five Vignettes
We’ve finally set the desk up in my office, the spare room that I’ve been sleeping in that will house guests and is where I’ve chosen to write my words. I have a little calendar hung up above it. My mother found this black sconce lamp and had my father hang it next to the calendar. She stepped out of the room to look in at it.
“Oh, I love it. It’s sweet! It’s a, what’s the word? Vignette. A little vignette.”
I like that my mother used that word. I think she used it for me.
When I started this newsletter, my idea was a loose theme of homemaking, with room for me to experiment how I liked. In that spirit, I have a few more vignettes, in a different form, to share with you this week.
The Sandwich
I’ve been making this one sandwich I saw on the internet over and over. I’ll have the little video included here, but I’m also going to write out how to make it anyway, because it brings me joy.
I think part of the reason it brings me joy is because, to make it, I have to exercise self-control. When I buy the ingredients, I can’t just sit on the couch tearing at the brie with my hands until it’s gone in two days, can’t just eat the prosciutto out of the plastic sleeve until it’s gone and I’m licking the residual grease from my hands. Not if I want to make my sandwich, that is.
You start with room temperature butter and god, every time I am reminded of how desperately I want a little butter dish for my counter. Add a little honey to the butter and mix it together. You spread the honey butter on French bread, then layer the prosciutto, the sliced brie, then arugula, then sliced radishes, then a sprinkle of salt. I feel so satisfied every time I slice the sandwich in half, every time I get to see the layers before I move in for a bite.
I think another reason this sandwich brings me joy is because it feels both decadent and simple. Brie is expensive, and so is prosciutto. It's a very French sandwich, and to me French food is always decadent. It’s all that butter. And cheese. But there’s no “cooking” involved, no complicated prep work aside from mixing butter with honey, which makes me feel extravagant even in its simplicity.
I still somehow manage to make a mess of the kitchen every time I put the sandwich together, but I am mostly okay with that.
Corner Market
At some point this week I’m going to try to make this absurd Caribbean stew I saw in the New York Times that is supposedly adapted from Jim Harrison’s recipe, and I’m going to read Dalva while it simmers. The absurdity of the recipe comes from the sheer mass and variety of meat that you’re expected to throw in: four Italian sausages, four bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, one and a half pounds pork spare ribs. I got lucky at the Corner Market this week, as there was some sort of ridiculous special where you could pick five different packages of whatever meat you wanted and it would all be only $24.99. Some older man saw me with packages of meat stacked up under my chin walking back to my cart, chuckling.
The security guards at Corner Market, both in Belhaven and in Fondren, already recognize me. Probably because, though I try to limit trips to the grocery store to every two weeks, I always seem to forget something, and I find myself there several times a week for a can of tomato paste or sesame oil or some strange vegetable I never buy but now a new recipe calls for it (remember when I said I wasn’t a good cook?). The other day, I ran inside right before a storm was supposed to roll in (I needed another sleeve of prosciutto for my sandwich), and as I ran out, I heard the security guard yell, “Goodbye, see ya tomorrow!” and chuckle.
It’s funny, how something like that can both embarrass you and make you happy all at once.
Wine Bottles
I am keeping two bottles of white wine in my fridge. I want to use one for cooking, for this pork chop recipe I found the other day. Somehow, I have managed to not drink the entirety of both in a day or two, and I am taking pride in that.
Gin Vase
I bought my first bottle of Wonderbird Gin a few weeks ago. It’s made in Taylor, MS with fermented delta rice to make the base spirit. I don’t know much about the finer points of booze, but I find the gin to be light and floral and delicate and lovely. The presentation brings me joy too, from the label and the way the logo is printed on the back so you can see it through the glass and liquid, to the sturdy shape of the bottle. I made gimlets and gin fizzes and blackberry brambles and simple gin and tonics with it, and now it is gone.
I have the bottle on my table, stuffed with a bundle of purple hydrangeas I bought from Kroger last week. I didn’t cut the stems as short as I should have, and it does look a little haphazard and not as casually, naturally gorgeous as I thought it would, but part of me likes it better this way. It’s like you can see the moving parts of something, rather than a polished, finished product. Which is something I’m trying to find beauty in nowadays, rather than stressing too much about it.
It’s a little metaphor on my dining room table, I guess.