Everyone carries with them a list of things that they would like to have, I think, this secret list of wistful belongings. At the very top of mine – not surprisingly, I suspect – was a stand mixer, which I have wanted for YEARS. Stand mixers say Serious Baker, I think, and how I WANTED one. Every Christmas, my husband would get a list from me of the books and various odds and ends that I wanted, to dole out to various interested family members and you may gather, of course, that a stand mixer featured prominently on every year’s list. If I was more mature, I’d likely have said an offhand "Oh, whatever you get me will be more than fine", but I’ve never claimed to be particularly mature.
Look what Cuisinart sent me on Friday:
So this year, whatever you want to get me for Christmas is FINE.
And what else did I do this weekend, besides having longheld wishes gratifyingly satisfied? Well, I was SICK. I had felt sort of off for much of the week, a combination of having mysteriously lost my generally astounding appetite and feeling vaguely headachey and tired and if you read my blog on Saturday you already know how I spent Friday (short answer: throwing up.). I was SO sick that I lost seven pounds in two days, which sounds grand in writing but in real life? Oh, not so much.
So anyhow, by Sunday I was recovered enough to spend the evening cheerfully couched with a large stack of brand new December magazines, the most cheerful pastime that I can even think of. The bonhomie induced by the holiday-themed magazines makes me generously inclined to magazines I generally pass over – like Bon Appetit, which informed me last night that Vienna has a "vibrant mod cuisine" ("Oh, who DOESN’T know that?" said my husband, when I informed him of Vienna’s vibrant modishness.) and included a menu for a grim God-Is-Dead Christmas dinner. ("Wild Mushroom Ragout on Crispy Polenta with Comte Cheese"? WHERE IS THE STUFFING?)
It also included an interview on the very last page with a young author. I can’t imagine that being interviewed by the terrifyingly pretentious folks at Bon Appetit would be a comfortable experience, needing the combination of extreme amounts of the Right Sort of world travel, culinary sophistication and the general air of formidable wealth. The young author – who I won’t name out of kindness, since everyone googles themselves – did her very best, saying that the three writers she would like to have for dinner would be Virginia Woolf, Henry James and FREAKING DOSTOEVSKY. What a coincidence! Those would be the three writers I’d pretty much least like to have for dinner – Virginia all droopy and depressed and eating a few leaves of lettuce, probably, Henry with his ferociously bad digestion and Dostoevsky wolfing everything down and speaking only Russian. What a grand evening THAT would be, with me encouraging Virgina Woolf to just have one bite of the delicious wild mushroom ragout and Henry James letting out apocalyptic belches. Oh, and Dostoevsky glaring at everyone. Fun.
I don’t know WHAT I’d answer to the three authors question – offhand, I’d say C.S. Lewis, who was apparently a nice, pleasant man and someone I find theologically inspiring, Agatha Christie, because I think she’d be fun, and Emily Bronte, because I think she needed a cheerful outing. And who would you choose?
Mostly, though, I’m not into speculative (and deceased) dining companions. Mostly, I’m just glad to be feeling well enough to make cookies for – and with – my three children, and very delighted to be using my splendid new stand mixer which is, I think, a very cheerful state of affairs, being happy with daily state of your own life and the real people around you.
Hands off, buddy. They’re not gluten-free.