February is here, and that means romance is in the air.
I first posted this a while back when we all had old computers, which were not so old at the time. Actually they were old as computers go. We all have new machines and life around my house has changed quite a bit, but one thing that never changes is romance. Romance, a sense of adventure, and of course food, and my love of books never changes.
A Vampire Muses on Passion, Mr. Grey, Food and Marriage
The teenager is using my computer, so I am using my husband’s. It is a lovely laptop with a 17 inch monitor. I have an old PC that is one heart beat away from death. It is maybe beyond death. It has Vista on it so it was dead before it even started to die. There is also an old Mac G5 on my daughter’s desk that once screamed with speed but now seems low and is not good friend with the Internet. So the child in on my Power Book Mac and I am on my husband’s lovely Dell laptop. I know for sure it is lovely because I gave it to him for his birthday and I was the one who figured out the specs etc, etc, etc.
The point of this is not computers. It is books and romance and writing. Some of you already know this, but my husband Teddy deals in antiques, antiquities and precious metals as a business. From time to time he leaves off bits of stuff on his desk. Not long ago in a box of odds and ends of gold and silver was a book. It was “The Last Man” by Zane Grey. Forget every single thing in Fifty Shades of… Zane is the man to go to for passion and romance. He is the one to go to for the agony of the heart. His mother had to have been a Bronte.
Despite the fact that it was published in 1922 it is HOT. And who said there was no romance back then. There was – especially in the great wild Western parts of the country (where I just happen to be from.)
I opened the book, just by random chance and came upon a paragraph that I was compelled to read.
“Again Ellen fell upon the soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she groveled and burrowed their, in an agony that could not bear the sense of light. All she had suffered was as nothing to this. To have awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had imagined she hatred, who had fought for her name and had killed in revenge for the dishonor she had avowed – to have lost his love and what was infinitely more precious to her not in her ignominy – his fault in her purity – this broke her heart.”
I had every intention of coming up to my husband’s computer to blog about food and the family dinner table, but Mr. Zane Grey swept me off of my feet. I’ll take Zane over Christian anytime. I’d even take Dorian Gray over the latest version.
So back to food…
Vampires do not live on blood alone. OK we can, but we don’t.
We try to gather each night as a family, at the table. Sure the kids could ask to just grab a glass of blood and head up to their rooms, but we like the time as a family. My husband and I could just drink, but we like the time around a bit of food. Not too much just a bit.
We will gather around the table with a bit of rare meat sliced thin, maybe some seafood, hummus and thinly sliced vegetables, my own salsa, maybe some flat bread and goat cheese with fresh basil leaves or something small and light. Thick green Swiss chard and other vegetables are lightly sautéed in olive oil. Next to that is a plate of olives and cheese and some slices of fruit. It is just a bit, but enough to spark a conversation and talk about the day. As parents it is a opportunity to talk about school, and talk and talk and talk about school, both the academic and social aspects.
Tonight I was in the kitchen thumbing through one of Nigella’s books. I also like to check out Another Foodie Blogger (click here.) I make a lot of stuff. Today I cut a pork loin in butterfly fashion, pounded the jeebers out of it until it was thin and then rolled a lovely stuffing in it. That was tied with kitchen twine and put in the oven (where it still is 30 minutes later.) The stuffing was just fresh mozzarella cheese, a bit of spinach, a slice of bacon, fresh rosemary, garlic, onion and some more Italian type herbs plus any extra bits of pork that came off in the pounding. This was rolled up and then covered in a sauce I threw together of tequila, a bit of catsup, honey, dried onion flakes, a lot of herbs and spices and a splash of orange juice. And of course fresh rosemary from the yard. That was both inside and out. I know it will be good. Then I threw a couple of sweet potatoes (the orange kind) into the oven to bake (plain and whole.)
I wait for Teddy. He works 6 or more days a week because it is what he does. It is what most business owners do – they work. They work for money but there is something else that drives them. It is a passion and desire – not unlike a romance.
Some like to say that Vampires are bloodless and heartless, devoid of love and passion. That is so untrue. Even the most dead of our kind lives and breathes passion.
And speaking of sick and twisted passion (and my name isn’t Gray or Grey) I wrote a little story about pine needles and longing. CLICK HERE to read it.
My husband, the dad and the guy who works all the time is also a man of passion and romance. Right now he is downstairs with the teen discussing the latest airing of Bar Rescue with our daughter. Yes, folks you’ve come to the right place for high culture… anyway, my husband is a man of quiet romance and great passion. Unlike the men (be they Vampires, humans or other paranormal types) of movies and fiction he is here. There is no chase. There is no questioning motives. There is no mystery or inequality or hidden portraits of weird horrifying visages or any reason for me to have tears. He is just like that. And no, he never reads my blog so he won’t even see this.
But he brings home random old books, insists we sit together every single night and he loves me and his children. You can’t get more romantic than that – even if you are a Vampire (and a very handsome one at that.)
That’s it for tonight. xoxox
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Vampire Maman 