HAPPY NEW YEAR / BONNE ANNEE

Today, no picture ! I would like to share with you the following text written by a reader that I have been in contact for a while. His name is Rein Whitt-Pritchette from U.S.

Happy New Year
Thank you for reading blog Brutos Eros.


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The Salad Called Caesar
by Rein Whitt-Pritchette

Several Sundays ago, while getting my Sunday dose of CBS’s Sunday Morning, I got the presentation of piece by Mo Rocca on the history of Caesar Salad . . . its invention . . . history . . . its presentation. I’ve actually had many great memories of the traditional Caesar Salad. When I was a kid, on very special occasions . . . Mother or father's Day . . . Birthdays or Anniversaries . . ., my family went to the old Stapleton Airport in Denver for a celebratory meal. I believe we might have been the first African-American family to ever eat there . . . it was another time and another place back then. Anyway, it was my birthday and our waiter . . . [also an African-American] . . . asked me what I "desired." Being a kid of course it was a hamburger. "And for your salad . . . ? " "I don't like salad." "Then, I must prepare for you a salad that you will remember for the rest of your life . . . it will become a staple of your existence . . . an integral part of your being." And this he did. He created a Caesar Salad.

His performance was that of a symphony conductor dealing with lyric poetry. His stage rolled to our table dressed in the starkest of white table-linen laden with the ingredients for a masterful presentation. It seemed that the entire attention of the restaurant had suddenly turned to him. The dressing “makings” danced with syncopations upon the sides of the wooden bowl; the raw egg cascaded down from heights high above our head; the muted Romaine lettuce turned into a glistening bouquet with the promise of savory, zesty tangs.

Our waiter was right; Caesar Salads DID become an integral part of “myself” . . . high school years peppered with dinners for homecomings dances and proms. It amazes me still to think how something as simple as a salad can change one’s posture . . . influence one’s stature among one’s peers. Watching Mo Rocca’s piece brought all those fantastic memories back; I sorrowfully contemplate what our society has lost with extremely poor substitutes and miserable imitations. My real regret was that I didn’t have a DVD recorder or a computer younger than the stone age and accepting of UTube. This would have be a segment that I would have kept and studied until I got it right.

I’ve spent several days thinking about what I would do to somewhat have an experience that could equal my first introduction the Caesar Salad. One would have to start everything off with a Jemez-desert-dry BLUE SAPPHIRE GIN MARTINI in an iced Tiffany cut crystal glass [ . . . my own invention . . . ] with LOBSTER STUFFED MUSHROOMS as an introduction to a first course of VICHYSSOISE accompanied by custard cups of newly grown CHIVES that one could clip to taste and a second course, of course, of the CAESAR preformed in elegance served with icy-cold crystal- clear spring water also in Tiffany. Next would come the most tender RACKS OF LAMB marinated with rosemary, greek oregano, garlic and Colorado Sandhill sage served with French booties and CORNISH GAME HENS stuffed with Illinois WILD RICE and CHESTNUTS . . .my Grandmother Pritchette’s and my Grandmother Derrickson’s “receipts” respectively . . . ; POTATO’S DIANE; fresh GREEN BEANS with long silvered CARROTS and fresh PEARL ONIONS steamed over sliced lemons in boiling water; crystal cups of FRESHLY CHURNED BUTTER served with my mother’s DINNER ROLLS that would literally . . . and I DO MEAN LITERALLY . . . melt in your mouth; all served with a ROSÉ to tie everything together in a modest, pinkish, watered-taffeta bow.

After thirty or forty-five minutes of laughter and conversation . . . finally, the finale . . . APPLE-ALMOND CREPES toped with TAPIOCA and tons of fresh churned-peaked WHIPPED CREAM . . . my own modest contribution to an illustrious history of cookers who enjoy their own cooking . . . warmed APPLE BRANDY and HAITIAN COFFEE. WHAT CAN ONE SAY ? ? ? . . . After 300 years of selective breeding, at what point can anyone go wrong . . . [Smile].

MINE would be an evening of candlelight and music. THERE WOULD BE no gossip to disparage, but rather stories and tales that endeared and regaled. MINE would be an evening where a painter would be hearing a car salesman who job was in jeopardy because he made it possible for a person who had nothing — a beginning toward something; where a writer would be bowled over in hysterics by the grocery-clerk whose only claim to fame was greeting everyone with a smile and asking how everything was goin’; MIME . . . an evening where a mentally challenged teenager would be assisting the singer-songwriter find a perfect lyric to a perfect song; and, a librarian who would just happen to have at hand the right book-title to lead a young ghetto-man, or a woman with to many mouths to feed, into a world of promise. MINE would be an evening wherein a gay couple and a fundamentalist would break bread discovering the good that God had created among them rather than the evils they’ve created between themselves. MINE would be an evening of friends and other strangers. MINE would be an evening where, at it’s end, one might consider releasing one’s molecules back into the universe.

This thing has been careening around on my hard-drive for weeks now. Never quite knew what to do with it. For years I’ve always intended to silkscreen a Christmas Card . . . all numbered and signed. I never have gotten around to it; I guess I should be proud that fact. If I strived for any kind of records in my life, this ONE still appears to have remained in tact. It probably has something to do with eating all those raw eggs. So, what can I do in this season of joy where, for the first time in my life, I am totally alone? I ask something of you. In some quiet moment that might happen to come upon you: turn off the lites and light a couple of candles; put some old Nat “King” Cole music on the turntable; sit and take off your shoes.

You are invited to have this imaginary feast with me, with imaginary friends and imaginary other strangers.

Remember the good times of those [ . . . both the good and the bad . . . ] who are no longer with us. Who knows? Perhaps even the bad gave to us something that was good.

HAPPY HANUKKAH and M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S
LET US TAKE THE MANTLE UPON OURSELVES . . . THE MAKING OF A FAR BETTER NEW YEAR.

Rein

REIN WHITT-PRITCHETTE
Artist | Serigrapher
New E_Mail Address: rein@reinstudio.com
New WebSite: www.reinstudio.com