Monday, December 19, 2011.
The Fallen. Roast Beef Poor Boy Reborn.
After four hours of writing this morning, my brain is prime to keep going, but my eyes aren't. There's a solution, one I don't use often enough: getting up from the desk for a walk through the woods.
It was damp out there but not squishy. The cold weather of the past month has made some changes. Most of the leaves are now gone from the deciduous trees. Those make up about forty percent of the canopy. So a lot more light filters down than was the case last time I was in the woods, over a month ago.
But a bigger change awaited me further down the trail. At the intersection of the original route and an alternate path I cut a couple of years ago, a large, long-dead pine finally became too rotten to hold up its twenty-foot trunk. The upper half fell down last year, but now the big part lies right down the alternate trail and over the original. Easy to step over, and so soft it won't be a big problem to clear away.
But not far down the trail from there was a bigger problem. An enormous and apparently healthy pine had fallen across the trail. Its branches and those of other trees and bushes kept it from lying on the ground. To get past it, one has to pull one's butt up on the trunk, rotate a hundred and eighty degrees, and keep going.
When I returned to our road, I saw why this tree was down. It had been cut--cleanly and professionally, leaving only the smallest of stumps. Who did this? And why? The prime suspect is the electric company, whose power lines are nearby. But when did they do it? I'm here most of the day every day, and I surely would have noticed.
Mary Ann called from the road and asked whether I wanted to meet up for dinner. I could tell that she didn't really want to, but that she was looking out for my hunger. In any case, I have a lot of work to do in getting ready for the holidays. She said she'd pick up a roast beef poor boy from Bear's in Mandeville.
I don't like take-out, but there's an easy way to heal a poor boy that's had to travel fifteen miles. Just put the whole thing into a preheated 400-degree oven for about three minutes. Bear's roast beef is sliced, and its gravy is on the lighter side. Both conditions adapt well to the reheating. It was delicious. Why I ate the terrible fries that came with them can be ascribed strictly to their being there.
Food that is merely there, and nothing more, is the greatest evil in eating this side of actual poisoning.
Bear's Grill & Spirits. Mandeville: 1809 N Causeway Blvd. 985-674-9090.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
