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Wine, Chorizo, Regina Carter, and the Love of a Dog
Another dreamy Bay Area evening of no particular import
I’m cooking up chorizo on the stovetop. Chorizo from… Gilroy. I was hoping to see the name of some quaint (or at least quaint-sounding) Portuguese village on the label, but no, this chorizo is from our very own Gilroy, California, by way of Costco. The fact that it’s from the U.S. makes me trust it less, I’m afraid. I don’t trust many of the foodstuffs here, where shareholder satisfaction is more exalted than, God forbid, a person’s health or wellness.
That’s just a fact of life in this country.
But that’s not what this essay is about. This essay is about jazz, and wine, about sizzling, and rutabaga, and saffron-scented rice, and… what else do I have going? Oh! A pot of white cannellini beans simmering with a yellow onion and two bay leaves.
This is the milieu of my kitchen tonight. Regina Carter’s Love Theme from Spartacus plays while Daisy watches me intently from her position beside the stove. If I glance her way, she’ll begin to gather her legs under her to come to me, but she’s getting old, and it’s an effort, so I try to admire her surreptitiously. It’s not working. She’s trying to come to me, so I immediately drop to the floor to show her I am here, I see her, I understand she loves…
