![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The shallow drowned lose less than we
My short story "ζῆ καὶ βασιλεύει" has been accepted by Ideomancer. It's not my first foray into alternate history, but it is possibly my most specific—ancient, not modern—sparked by a dream I had in September. The title means s/he lives and reigns; it is the answer traditionally given to the siren Thessalonike when she rises from the sea and asks ποῦ εἴναι ὁ Μεγαλέξανδρος—Where is Alexander the Great?
For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel's birthday, I took him to Coppa. We had never been before; I wanted to take him somewhere entirely new and it was a surprise until we came up the block. He has described it over on Facebook as "where good carnivores go when they die^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthey want insanely delicious meat dishes," which I can substantiate. Coppa serves small plates for sharing. Ours were duck prosciutto, oven-baked meatballs, parsley cavatelli with prosciutto-braised snails, spaghetti alla carbonara with pancetta and sweet curds of sea urchin, and a bone marrow and beef heart pizza that was possibly the best experimental pizza I have ever eaten, displacing at last the Blue October of late lamented memory. We overreached ourselves by exactly one small plate of pasta. (Between the two, the carbonara was the better dish, all ingredients sumptuously integrated: rich without being cloying, peppery without being overspiked, with the uni providing a creamy cross-current of brine. The cavatelli themselves were wonderful—although they looked almost exactly like green beans—but their sweet, herbal, slightly cool flavor was more or less blown off the plate by the dark, savory meatiness of the snails. I can see the earthy theme their pairing was going for, but it didn't quite balance. On the other hand, tonight I had prosciutto-braised snails. I have no regrets.) We did not have nearly enough room to sample their amazing array of salumi and cheese. Rob had favorable things to say about the Nutella tiramisu and I want a recipe for olive oil cake now that I have had it with cream and fruits and we have this bottle of oil straight from Pylos sitting in our kitchen. Their cocktails are also very fine, but it's the heart-and-marrow pizza I want to go back for. I have no excuse for being anemic these next few days.
Afterward we walked home by way of the Esplanade, so that we saw the Citgo sign reflecting a blueshift column in the motionless water and the glossy seams and seals of ice spreading out from the banks and the construction on the Longfellow Bridge glare-lit from under the arches like an industrial portrait. There were barges on the half-frozen river, green and red lights steering starboard and port. Coming around the Museum of Science, a pair of mallards sculling in the lock of the old Charles River Dam, their webbed feet busily visible in the clear black water. I was badly chilled by the time we got home, although I suppose the adrenaline drove it out of my head when I discovered that, in our absence, one or more little cats had slipped the lock on my office door and scattered half of my contributor's copies across the floor. There was yelling. I am finding somewhere else for those books and magazines stat. They are personal; they are irreplaceable; I have moved them with infinite care through dormitories, apartments, and boxes, and I will not have them torn to pieces by cats who think their tops look like a nice place to knead their claws.
Hestia has been alternately sleeping, grooming, and purring in my lap for something like two hours now, though, so you can see how long anger at a cat lasts. Autolycus is sleeping in his tote-bag nest beside the radiator. They have been truly the salvation of this last year.
Today was good. To a better year. And more offal-based pizza.
For
derspatchel's birthday, I took him to Coppa. We had never been before; I wanted to take him somewhere entirely new and it was a surprise until we came up the block. He has described it over on Facebook as "where good carnivores go when they die^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthey want insanely delicious meat dishes," which I can substantiate. Coppa serves small plates for sharing. Ours were duck prosciutto, oven-baked meatballs, parsley cavatelli with prosciutto-braised snails, spaghetti alla carbonara with pancetta and sweet curds of sea urchin, and a bone marrow and beef heart pizza that was possibly the best experimental pizza I have ever eaten, displacing at last the Blue October of late lamented memory. We overreached ourselves by exactly one small plate of pasta. (Between the two, the carbonara was the better dish, all ingredients sumptuously integrated: rich without being cloying, peppery without being overspiked, with the uni providing a creamy cross-current of brine. The cavatelli themselves were wonderful—although they looked almost exactly like green beans—but their sweet, herbal, slightly cool flavor was more or less blown off the plate by the dark, savory meatiness of the snails. I can see the earthy theme their pairing was going for, but it didn't quite balance. On the other hand, tonight I had prosciutto-braised snails. I have no regrets.) We did not have nearly enough room to sample their amazing array of salumi and cheese. Rob had favorable things to say about the Nutella tiramisu and I want a recipe for olive oil cake now that I have had it with cream and fruits and we have this bottle of oil straight from Pylos sitting in our kitchen. Their cocktails are also very fine, but it's the heart-and-marrow pizza I want to go back for. I have no excuse for being anemic these next few days.Afterward we walked home by way of the Esplanade, so that we saw the Citgo sign reflecting a blueshift column in the motionless water and the glossy seams and seals of ice spreading out from the banks and the construction on the Longfellow Bridge glare-lit from under the arches like an industrial portrait. There were barges on the half-frozen river, green and red lights steering starboard and port. Coming around the Museum of Science, a pair of mallards sculling in the lock of the old Charles River Dam, their webbed feet busily visible in the clear black water. I was badly chilled by the time we got home, although I suppose the adrenaline drove it out of my head when I discovered that, in our absence, one or more little cats had slipped the lock on my office door and scattered half of my contributor's copies across the floor. There was yelling. I am finding somewhere else for those books and magazines stat. They are personal; they are irreplaceable; I have moved them with infinite care through dormitories, apartments, and boxes, and I will not have them torn to pieces by cats who think their tops look like a nice place to knead their claws.
Hestia has been alternately sleeping, grooming, and purring in my lap for something like two hours now, though, so you can see how long anger at a cat lasts. Autolycus is sleeping in his tote-bag nest beside the radiator. They have been truly the salvation of this last year.
Today was good. To a better year. And more offal-based pizza.
no subject
That restaurant sounds fab. Happy happy to y'all. :)
no subject
Thank you! I can still probably blame you for talking about the Siege of Tyre the night before.
That restaurant sounds fab. Happy happy to y'all.
It was incredible. (Are you interested in bone marrow and beef heart pizza the next time you come to Boston?) I do hope it's an omen.
no subject
Here's to good omens!
no subject
So noted.
Here's to good omens!
Thank you!
no subject
no subject
I highly recommend it! They are very easy to find—straight shot walking from Park Street—and their food is magnificent. The one dish that wasn't as good as the rest failed in the best possible way: it was ambitious, it was thoughtful (there is a difference between dishes that don't work because they're scattershot, like the pizza Rob had once at the Menotomy Grill that would have been fine if it had stuck with four out of its seven toppings, and dishes that don't work because their composition doesn't quite line up, as here), and it was still extremely tasty. It isn't like we left any of those snails on the plate.
Glad the two of you had such a wonderful evening--I hope it is a good omen for the year!
Thank you! Today was not bad: the weather was very nice, my orthodontist's appointment fixed the issue I'd come in for without subjecting me to further pain, and we made quiche for dinner when I got home. My e-mail collapsed and needed to be rebuilt, indicating that perhaps the chronic problem was not solved in December, but it seems to be mostly coming back all right. Fingers crossed.
no subject
I can write it out and enclose it in the much-overdue letter, if you like.
no subject
I would love that! Thank you. I do not know La Brea Bakery at all.
no subject
Here, here!
Or hear, hear!
I actually do no remember which. So both. Someone with the authority to make such things happen please hear! And please bring these things here!
That's my story.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Having read only two of his novels, I really want an explanation of that last clause.
no subject
*This is nugatory; even Homer nods; even Tolkien has a blatant narrative flaw early in LotR**.
**Which I have no idea whether Tolkien-scholarship knows this and shrugs at it, or knows this and holds whole conferences about what it means, or what; I am no part of Tolkien-scholarship. It's just one of those stumbles that novelists have. But it is right there, in my face, every time I reread it.
no subject
I shall try to stick to it.
Thank you. I hope that a year in which beef heart pizza occurs is a year that cannot be too awful, although I may have thought the same thing last year about currywurst. (The currywurst parts of the year were still awesome.)
no subject
I like it when cats claim bags as beds. It's like they've decided to travel without leaving home.
no subject
I picked up the empty laundry bag once and discovered it was empty of clothes, but not of Hestia.
no subject
That meal sounds delicious. Your cats are just a bit too ingenious!
no subject
Thank you! I'm really happy about it. It was one of the stories that attracted complimentary rejections, so I am especially glad it's found a complimentary home.
That meal sounds delicious.
Beef heart and bone marrow pizza! We would have gone away happy after only that.
Your cats are just a bit too ingenious!
Autolycus has elbows. And eyebrows. And Hestia has taken to tearing pieces off cardboard boxes because the resultant flakes look like moths, which she loves to hunt. They are amazing and I did not realize they would be exactly as much trouble as humans of the equivalent age.
no subject
no subject
Thank you! I'm really, really looking forward to having it in print.
no subject
It's hard to stay angry at cats. They are so soft, their purrs are so appealing, and they smell nice. And they're warm.
no subject
It was worth it. We used to walk around a lot at night, and then we got out of the habit after Rob broke his ankle, and then we got out of the habit because it was a terrible year, and I think we should pick it up again. Also walking around a lot during the day. I like knowing a city by foot.
It's hard to stay angry at cats. They are so soft, their purrs are so appealing, and they smell nice. And they're warm.
Yes! All of these things. I tell our cats frequently that they possess a pleasing scent.