Saturday, November 24, 2012.
The Roofwalkers. Oyster Poor Boys At Home.
A few days ago, the brother of a good friend of ours came over with his roofing specialist. Mary Ann arranged this, to get started with some desperately needed repairs to the soffit and fascia on our house. I have wanted this done since a big piece of the latter fell off during a storm. But Mary Ann won't do one job if she can have thirteen going at the same time. And she says the roof needs to be replaced.
For cosmetic reasons, that's certainly true. Acid rain has rusted our tin roof a lot during the last ten years. It looks horrible. But it's not leaking. I think painting it would work. MA doesn't like that idea. Neither did the roofing guy. I am outnumbered, but I didn't give up the fight until the BOAF (Brother Of A Friend, better than a FOAF (Friend Of A Friend)) gave us a price to do the whole job that was hard to refuse. Even though it was still well into five figures.
Today, the job began. The roofer and his associate walked around on the roof like mountain goats. I can't imagine trying that, but then I wouldn't want to be a trapeze artist, either. They yanked down old fascia with an abandon that made it seem more like demolition. I will try to keep myself calm with the knowledge that they are doing a job I'm glad I don't have to do myself. (Although MA keeps encouraging me to do so. I wonder what Freud would say about that.)
Although we went through a lot of oysters on Thanksgiving for my porked-up version of an Italian oyster bake, I still had a quart of them left over. I also had at least that much reduced oyster water. I was thinking about making an creamy version of oyster-artichoke soup, since I also find myself with a lot of cream, bought to prevent our running out of that critical ingredient. (Because I overbought, we used less than usual.)
But we already have a lot of soup in the house, after Mary Ann made a big pot of gumbo with the scant turkey leftovers. How about I fry the oysters and we make poor boys?
MA liked the sound of that. I took the simple route, coating the oysters the same way Bozo's does, with seasoned corn meal. I used Creole seasoning and extra thyme, and fried the bivalves in 360-degree vegetable oil for about two minutes. Nice and crisp. Meanwhile, MA spread a whole loaf of poor boy bread--one of two left over from Thanksgiving--with garlic butter and put them in the oven.
We both had well-stuffed sandwiches out of this, plus a dozen or so loose fried oysters to pick at afterwards. I was surprised that we killed the entire lot. Mary Ann was ecstatic.
We watched Adam Sandler's remake of the 1930s movie classic "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town." It the usual sophomoric nonsense that Sandler makes a fortune with. Speaking of: in the original version of the movie, Deeds inherits $20 million to set the plot in motion. Now the amount has been inflated to $40 billion. Millions must be chump change now.
Speaking of: During the movie, Mary Leigh called to complain that after working on her new job until midnight on Black Friday, she has put in a longer day than normal today, too. Worse, however, her employer has been giving her flack about not selling hard enough. I am forbidden to report where exactly she works, but I can say that it's retail, and the sales personnel are expected not merely to interest passers-by in the alluring wares the store sells, but also to pay close enough attention to customer reactions that they can load the maximum possible amount into the sale.
Mary Leigh says she hates when sales clerks do this to her. She doesn't know why, after she gets a customer to spend a hundred dollars, she should keep pushing for another twenty or fifty. I sympathize with her, but am happy that at least she's learning a little about how the world can push you around if you don't push back.
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