I like to think of myself as the former, though am becoming the latter. We moved a lot when I was a kid. I learned to save a few things, cookbooks, silk scarves from Dad from Ferragamo, trinkets from his travels.
My great Aunt O was married to a man who made Canadian pea meal bacon (wet-cured pork loin) braised in beer. Auntie O gave me one of his cookbooks, Larousse Gastronomique, before she died. Twenty years later I cannot open it because it reeks of cigarette smoke.
My Aunt L received a desk from her estate, charred with cigarette smoke for 40 years. My aunts cleaned it up and it is Chippendale, authentic, and gorgeous. I prefer more modern or rustic furnishings. They have the right home for it.
Different am I, not just left-handed. Great Aunt O was a milliner who flew to Paris every year to choose hats for the chic and trendy in Montreal. Very high end. Sometimes a special client would come in for a $500 hat (this is the 60’s so compare that to a Prada bag) and wear it to an event then return it the next day without the tag. She accepted the hat and gave it to me at age five, as she knew it had been worn and could not be re-sold.
I was wearing a $500 red Dior cloche with pigtail at age five. I hated it. The kids always made fun of me anyway for living up in the hills in a great house and a view they could only imagine, and taking the half-bus (the retard bus, they called it) to school. I wore boots because it snowed up there earlier than it did in the village below.
No, I have never been The Grinch. I have always been the fairy who somehow makes the world better. Education, art, theater. I’ll have to talk about philosophy in another post. Age-old wisdom, soc and psych. I took the first training class co-sponsored by Red Cross and the Humane Society of the US.
Yes, dogs and cats are in my sights as well. We’ve an old dog who is sleeping a lot. I would like to get a stethoscope, as advised in my class kit many years ago. If fairy dust has any meaning, may she live a while longer. Live long and prosper. Dee
Cooking with Dee 