Oddities and Obsessions

Have you ever met a famous person and felt let down?  I have.

Years ago, I was obsessed with an actor in a series of television commercials.  Obsessed.  I stopped what I was doing to watch his overly aired ad.  I was in love.  He not only had charisma, but attitude.  Not hot like Johnny Depp or anything, but he possessed that je ne sais quoi.

I just HAD to meet him.  There had been a lot of publicity about him and I knew one thing — he lived in Chicago.  Well, I just happened to be in that very city.  So, I made a few phone calls.  I was an actor in commercials, he was an actor in commercials.  I knew people.  Those people knew his people.  Someone pulled some strings.

A man from a huge ad agency would be picking me up at my hotel.  My actor lived outside the city.  A 45-minute drive.   Some really nice person I didn’t even know was willing to make the introduction.

I’m beyond excited.  I got all geared up, couldn’t sleep the night before.  I never cared much about how I looked, yet I dressed my best.  Put on a little makeup.  I was ready early, waiting for the car in front of the hotel, over-the-top excited.  It would be magic when I met my crush live and in person.  We would run into each other’s arms and he would insist on living with me for rest of his life.  I’m talking non-stop to this random ad agency dude the whole ride out about my deep infatuation.  He’s humoring me, pretending to be in rapt attention.

The Brussels sprouts pictured are awesome. 

I recently made these Brussels sprouts, and at sometime, either before of after making these amazing sprouts (I’m really not kidding, people who don’t like Brussels sprouts like this dish) I chomped on a medium-sized handful of pine nuts.  It was only about an eighth of a cup of these sweet, resinous kernels--not a big handful. But, something strange occurred in my mouth the next day. First, my morning oatmeal tasted so BITTER. Was there something wrong with the oatmeal? Was there some sort of cream on my face that I was inadvertently licking (?!!?).

Later on that  same day, I ate a few Marcona almonds, and I couldn’t believe how horrible they tasted--and they’re so expensive. At dinner, food tasted fine while I initially chewed it, but after swallowing, the aftertaste was strangely metallic. My condition (that lasted only 2 days) subsided, and I forgot about it. UNTIL, I worked at the BON APPETIT magazine offices last friday, and learned that three people there had all recently suffered from the same bizarre ailment!

Charlotte Dean

I was reading the waffle recipe that comes with the Toastmaster Waffle Iron and it says that you put ½ cup of batter in your waffle iron to make a 9-inch round waffle.  Seems simple enough. 

About three years ago, I was in Nashville at a weekend songwriting workshop. I stayed at a hotel that claimed to be next door to a Waffle House. To me, when you say “next door,” that means you can walk out one door to the sidewalk then walk up a path to another door.  That’s “next door.”  To get to this particular Waffle House from my hotel I had to hike up a short hill to the highway, walk about 50 feet to the next clearing, then down the same short hill to get to the parking lot of the Waffle House.  Clearly it wasn’t designed for foot traffic from the hotel. Then again, I didn’t really stay in Nashville long enough to explore this design further.

So I’m playing tourist, mooching off my galpal Corinne’s retired Redwood City, CA dream life.  Boy, has she ever set herself up well in her hometown, recently redeveloped into a vacation paradise ideal for a freeloader like me.  Not only is her late parents’ house, in which she grew up, replete with a view of verdant hillsides and well-tended homes – and a large garden full of a festival of fruits in rotating seasons of ripeness – she’s got the sensuous cuddle cat and the darling ditzy dog, and the friendly, easy kind of community about which we all fantasize when things start to sloooow down.

Redwood City has Zydeco dancing for free with a great Cajun group in the renovated town square on Friday nights all summer, in a great contrast of stately buildings and Southern hoedown hick apparel.  It features screenings and dance classes at the local community center every week all year long. People actually picnic in its parks.  It’s got great walking areas, fine dining, funky shops with great one-of a-kind finds, a train station, and, holy shades of civilization, all the familiar franchises plus a Whole Foods with slightly different fare from local farms than the Los Angeles local branch.

They sell ostrich eggs.