Crackers With Holes In Them & René Clair's I Married A Witch
Sunday, January 05, 2014
When you are retired, the week, as in a seven
day week, slowly but surely leaks into irrelevance.
I can recognize the order of the week
sometimes because of some patterns that are left. There is no Vancouver Sun outside the door. I know it’s
Sunday or one of many (as in many) days when the paper does not publish. I know
it is Saturday night when around 9pm I hear a very loud bang outside my door. I
know that is Sunday’s NY Times being delivered.
But the most important day of the week,
Saturday is always a day that Rosemary savour in anticipation. Not too long ago
it marked the afternoon and evening of a visit and dinner by the Stewart
family. Of late that Saturday has been diminished by the fact that one of the Stewarts,
our older granddaughter Rebecca, 16, is holding a job that day. This means that
we get her sister Lauren early afternoon (when her father Bruce goes to work)
and by 7 in the evening, mother and daughter, Rosemary and I sit for dinner and
usually a film after.
This Saturday, yesterday, was a funny and
memorable Saturday. When Lauren arrived at 2 she had a peculiar question for
me, “Papi, do you remember those crackers with holes in them?” Indeed I did but
I could not fathom the reason for the question. I answered with a curt, “Yes,”
and that was the end of it.
I then told Lauren that I had found the
2002 The Very Muppet Christmas Movie for $2.50 at a bin at the Canadian
Superstore. I put it into the DVD player and we watched it. I can report here
that the film is excellent particularly in its connection with It’s a Wonderful
Life. I told Lauren that she could take the film home and we can perhaps make
it a Christmas tradition every year alongside our favourite Christmas album,
John Denver – The Muppets – A Christmas Together. The music album began as a
tradition when my two daughters were teenagers.
For dinner I prepared a variation of Len
Deighton’s Cookbook recipe of his French onion soup, this time by using red
onions. A recent NY Times recipe for the soup suggested that a shot of brandy
would help. I emptied what was left of my Calvados when the onions were frying
in butter. Lauren who refuses to eat raw onions considers my onion soup to be
the best soup she has ever had.
For dessert I tried my mother’s The Joy of
Cooking recipe for baked apples. With whipped cream they were a success.
Our film was a beautifully restored (The Criterion
Collection) I Married a Witch, directed by Frenchman René Clair in 1942. It
stars Frederick March, Veronica Lake
and as a very bitchy second fiddle, Susan Hayward. For reasons that escape me
all of the 14 copies at the Vancouver Public Library were out so thankfully I
had Limelight Video on Alma and Broadway as an excellent Plan B.
We had a surprise for Hilary Stewart, our
daughter and Lauren’s mother. In the picture you see here both mother and
daughter are about the same age. Perhaps Hilary was a year older. You can
clearly see that Hilary is eating those crackers with holes in them. Of course
they are Swiss Cheese Crackers.
I took the two girls and drove back home
with a smile on my face.
