Products |
Weekend Butler: This winter will be even colder than you may think. What will happen to Kanye’s stuff? A great use of an hour. A Halloween joke. Recipe: Porcini & Sausage Stew. And more.
By
Published: Oct 27, 2022
Category:
Weekend
WINTER APPROACHES…AND IT WILL BE COLD IN SO MANY WAYS
The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts:
For most of the western half of the United States, the almanac predicts a winter that’s “Wet & Mild.”
For much of the Midwest and along the East Coast, it predicts “Shivery & Snowy.”
The eastern half of the U.S. should brace for potentially record-breaking cold. This frigid forecast extends to the Deep South and Texas, which could see the mercury diving as much as 8°F below normal!
The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s prediction is limited. It omits the human factor. Which is dire. Consider this an urgent telegram: The real chill is a political wind that blows no one good.
The first blast of cold air comes from Saudi Arabia. Long story short, from the Times:
This summer President Biden’s top aides thought they had struck a secret deal to boost oil production through the end of the year…. It didn’t work out that way. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by two million barrels per day.
Then there’s the Putin factor. From Thomas Friedman, in the Times:
As the Russian Army continues to falter in Ukraine, the world is worrying that Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon. Maybe — but for now, I think Putin is assembling a different weapon. It’s an oil and gas bomb that he’s fusing right before our eyes and with our inadvertent help — and he could easily detonate it this winter. If he does, it could send prices of home heating oil and gasoline into the stratosphere. The political fallout, Putin surely hopes, will divide the Western alliance and prompt many countries — including ours — to seek a dirty deal with the man in the Kremlin, pronto.
Some thoughts:
Keep your car’s gas tank full. Gas prices will almost certainly increase after the election. Later? They could double.
Get a flu shot.
Get another COVID booster. From the Harvard Gazette:
In a study that represents the largest to date to examine the severity of Omicron BA.2 — the COVID subvariant making a re-emergence this fall — a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital has determined that the strain is weaker than both Delta and the original Omicron variant.
What that means: COVID may not kill you. But it may weaken you so other conditions do.
Inflation’s a bitch. Do everything you can to reduce your costs. Winterize your house. Seal off rooms you don’t use. My apartment (photo above) has a wall of windows in the living room. Heating bills in winter used to be outrageous. A sheet of plastic film over the lower windows did nothing. Last year I built a wall of books. They got very cold, but they did the job. And they reduced the pile in my library nook.
Dress appropriately. Get used to wearing sweaters indoors. And learn to love zip fleeces! The other night, at a restaurant, a rich woman touched my shoulder. Loro Piano? She asked. (The Loro Piano cashmere half zip is $3500. “Costco,” I said. I did not say: $16.
Be your best self. It’s often attributed to Plato, who didn’t say it, but it’s still true: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” On my way to the track, on the bus, in stores – I’ve learned that a greeting and a smile generate warmth. And not just for the recipient.
WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ALL THE ADIDAS AND GAP STUFF KANYE DESIGNED?
Adidas finally cut ties with Kanye. Gap ended its partnership with him in September; this week it announced it’s pulling all of his remaining merchandise from its stores and online. Footlocker did the same. And then? I predict it will be solid in bulk to wholesalers in Africa and Asia, where it will be sold for pennies, and, in a brutal irony, we’ll see his designs on people of color.
WHAT TO SEE IF YOU’RE IN NEW YORK
ASI WIND’S MAGIC SHOW
The Times on Asi Wind’s magic show.
The video preview.
Tickets (closes January 1).
INTO THE WOODS
I don’t see anything twice. I saw this twice. The second time I wept so much in the second act that the woman next to me handed me a dozen paper napkins. She knew: the tears were a healing. Go get healed. Closes Jnuary 8.
The New York Times review.
Tickets (closes January 8).
LITERARY QUOTE
“Though she had no one to write to, she had bought herself a blotter, a writing case, a pen and envelopes; she would dust off her whatnot, look at herself in the mirror, take up a book, and then begin to daydream and let it fall to her lap… She wanted to die. And she wanted to live in Paris.”
– “Madame Bovary,” Gustave Flaubert
YOU COULD STREAM SOMETHING FOR AN HOUR, OR YOU COULD WATCH JASON ISBELL AND GEORGE SAUNDERS HAVE AN EPIC CONVERSATION
Samples: “I didn’t set out to make music you hear while you do something else.”
“I could live with being forgotten. What I couldn’t live with: that I had a platform and didn’t use it to explain myself.”
“The muse likes to find you working.”
Click to watch/listen/learn.
AND NOW FOR A JOKE THAT’S PERFECT FOR THIS WEEK
A cabbie has his cab hailed by a nun and he picks her up.
The cab driver looks in his mirror and stares at her.
She asks him why he’s staring, and he says, “I’ve always had a fantasy to kiss a nun.”
The nun smiles and says shyly, “I’ll kiss you if you’re single and Catholic.”
The cab driver says, “I’m both.”
The nun says, “Pull the car over and jump in the back seat with me.”
He does, and the nun kisses him in a way that would make a hooker blush.
Back in the driver’s seat the cabbie starts crying.
“I’m sorry sister, I lied, I’m married and Jewish.”
“That’s OK,” says the nun. “My name is Kevin and I’m going to a Halloween party.”
OBITUARY OF THE WEEK
From the Times: Pierre Soulages, Leading French Abstract Painter, Dies at 102
He continued to work at a brisk pace throughout his 90s. “I only think about what I am going to do tomorrow. And tomorrow, I want to paint.”
THE WEEKEND RECIPE
from The Bon Appétit Cookbook
Porcini and Sausage Stew
serves 4
1 pound sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
6 garlic cloves, chopped
4 14-and-a-half-ounce cans of diced peeled tomatoes with juice
2 ounces of dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in 2 cups hot water
3/4 cup dry red wine
2 bay leaves
Sauté sausage and garlic in a heavy large pot over medium heat until sausage is cooked through, breaking up with back of fork, about 10 minutes.
Strain the mushrooms, saving the strained water with the porcini.
Add tomatoes with juice, mushrooms and mushroom water, wine and bay leaves. Bring to boil.
Reduce heat. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens and is reduced to about 6 cups. This will take about an hour and 15 minutes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper. Discard bay leaves.
Excellent served over pasta or polenta. Suggested wine: an Italian red, such as Barbera or Dolcetto D’Alba.
Note: This stew can be made a day or two ahead.
