The Next Post - Number Two

The Next Post

Number Two

            Five years ago I posted a trite and short puff titled ‘The Next Post’ (Oct. 16, 2009).  Not much to it I felt at the time.

            It has gone on to be ridiculously viewed.  It is barely a read for there is only a scrid of text and three photographs.  Two of the photographs are of the baked cabbage and sausage dinner my wife was making the night before.  The scrid of text speaks of this ‘dinner last night’.  I... did not ever feel that so much and so persistent attention would be paid ‘to that’.

            Shortly after posting it became clear that this post was gathering a following.  Somehow.  Somewhere.  This did not diminish.  This did not expand.  Persistent and steady viewing has now been at it for five years.  I... would “yeah right” once or twice a year for the first three years.  This, for the last two years, extended to “yeah write” (edit it).  Nothing came of that either.

            Falls came and went, come and go.  Leaves fall down and blow away.  Rain soaks, water freezes, ice collects, snow piles.  Fireplace heating roars.  Wind howls.  Two aspects remain constant about the content of that and this post.  They were not noted in the original post.  I am not re-posting the original post.  I am not editing it, tweaking, adding or fixing the original post.  I am posting this post as a ‘number two’ to that post.  It is about... and because of... the ‘baked cabbage and sausage dinner’ my wife makes.  And the two aspects it did not include.

            First aspect.  We eat this all the time.  Again:  We eat this all the time.  Not once or twice a year.  “All the time”.  The full baking dish... with... the TWO sliced cabbages, the mound (a measured quantity) of carrots and the ‘never enough’ (a measured quantity too) onions... that are all grown... less than sixteen feet from the door to the house and actually about twenty feet from the stove they are cooked in... in ‘our gardens’.  (Note plural).  These garden vegetables are enhanced with eight ‘can be cut in half to make sixteen’ usually ‘butcher-behind-the-counter made’ “HOT” (they never are a ‘that hot ‘ [“spicy”]) “Italian” sausage.  Procured locally as we are at a ‘going by there’.  The first post sausage was from Lisbon, Maine.  The ‘number two’ sausages are from KIT-tree (Kittery).  NOT TOO MUCH THOUGHT and only a dash of FEEL goes into these “THEY ARE VERY FRESHLY MADE” sausages.

            Nor is much thought going into the ‘making this’ baking dish fabrication.  Simply cut the cabbage in chunks, sprinkle the mound of carrot in the spaces, poke the too few onion on and FLOAT the sausages on top and

            BAKE IT IN THE OVEN... ‘covered’ with ‘foil wrap’ for... ‘yeah:  longer than that’ to “OH NO I FORGOT ABOUT IT”.  Then take the foil off, up the temperature to, ah... ‘brown’ the top (‘burn it’... a heavy hand... is ...well known to happen).  OK then:

            Divvy up the pan.  ONE large third for the first meal (for two).  ONE large third for the second meal (‘leftovers’).  One half of the last third is for my breakfast.  The last half of the last third... and traditionally the smallest ‘scrid’ left... is for my second breakfast.

            “Breakfast you say?”

            Aspect two:  Breakfast.  A little snarl and testiness from me to you from ‘before you are up’.  IF... one is “LEAVING EARLY” and “GETTING READY TO LEAVE” before that... one is ‘up’** and ‘has coffee’ before ‘hitting’ the (barn) yard to ‘get ready.  Yeah.  So I’m going around with a flashlight on my head in the buildings and about the vehicles and yard with: NO THERE IS NOT electricity IN THE BUILDINGS THIS IS MAINE.  For several hours.  YES SEVERAL HOURS.  I don’t just put a Phillips head screwdriver on the dashboard and drive off.  It’s dark and it’s cold (not including snow ‘management’ and rain ‘events’) and it’s ‘lock and load’ and it’s ‘where did I put my coffee’.  Two thirds of the way through that DANCE that takes place five of seven days ‘at least’... yeah the wife is off doing her dawn scramble dance somewhere too (I do not track that; it’s ‘her problem’).  OK:  Two thirds done... BREAKFAST.

            This means that scrid of the ‘cabbage and sausage’ is... ‘in a bowl and chopped roughly then microwaved three minute (fire hot) with black coffee still warm to be the eat and drink that standing up in the dark “OH I FORGOT THAT-GOT TO GET IT-NOW”.  Then.  Done.  Bowl in sink.  One scrid left for the ‘next day’.

            IF...you find yourself eating left over baked cabbage, carrots, onions and sausage flaming hot in the dark, in the barn yard, standing up. at four in the morning with a ‘mug’ of black-black sort of warm black coffee that YOU MAKE YOUR SELF*** (I never buy commercially prepared coffee and I make enough so I ‘can have’ ‘cold’ black coffee ‘for the rest of the day’) (supply usually lasts ‘till’ ‘about’ ‘noon)’.... and IF you are looking for the “Where did I put that (coffee mug) down?” TOO you are

            Starting...

            To live...

            In Maine.

---

*** :  I have used the ...let us see... the Chemex coffee preparation system... for forty years.  At least.  I never ‘buy’ them (the glass machine) for I have always been ...getting... them from estates.  Usually estates in the Connecticut and Westchester, NY region supply-I regularly and adequately.  I have hoarded, sold, smashed and even ‘know of’ ‘collectors of’.  I know users, both aging veterans and new hipsters.  My favorite place to buy the filters is China Fair, Cambridge.  I see that Whole Foods in Portland (Maine) ‘sells them’ (the machine) ... and the filters.  I have been told repeatedly by ‘how would they know’ that the ‘system’ is ‘making a come back’.

---

** :  Historically for I ... three to three-thirty AM.  Since, like, 1970.  In the last decades... due to THE COMPUTER commerce I am ‘up’ more often two to two-thirty... ish.  Do not forget that we have to DRIVE to ‘God knows where’ doing this (antiquarian pursuit) BEFORE we “START”.  “Gone by five” “is normal”.  I prefer six.  I settle for five thirty... ‘most of the time’.

(Two Other Breakfasts)