Day before Lent starts

Well, this has been a nice day. Woke up late. Had toast with butter. Went to Stanford to put Two Small Farms flyers on the doors of all of the graduate students’ apartments. (My wife is the site host. If we get 40 people to sign up we get our veggies for free.) On the way to Stanford we stopped at Peet’s (I am a stock holder.) to get some coffee. We put up flyers for a couple of hours. It was the best time I’ve had with my wife in a couple of weeks. She thinks I should apply to Stanford to work on a Ph.D. when I finish the program at UMass Boston. I don’t know. I’m already 38. If I was 28, sure. But what would I do with a Ph.D. at 45? Start a new career in the highly competitive field university teaching?

The boys and I left her there to do homework for her M.P.A. program. We came home, played ball, read books, took a nap. When we woke up we made brownies and watched the first half of the Silver Chair (Part of the BBC Narnia production).

Brownies and Martinis are how I am splurging before Lent. Won’t really have time to splurge tomorrow, which is the real splurge day, Cheesefare. The brownies: Not so good. The Martinis: “…large and very strong, and very well made” as James Bond said in Ian Flemmings novel, Casino Royale. (It is a very fun book and has much to reveal about post-war Britain.)

Usually, I prefer my martinis in a small glass, a champagne goblet is the perfect size. (I have mostly large cocktail glasses but, usually, I only fill them 1/2 way up.) Or maybe, just slightly larger, like the glasses David Niven holds on that tray in the 1957 re-make of “My Man Godfrey”. Yes, that is probably the perfect size. But not for today. Today was definitely a BIG day. What, you may ask, are my ingredients? 4 oz of Beefeater London Dry Gin (the last premium gin still made in London), 1.25 oz of Gaetano D’Aquino Extra Dry Vermouth, and two largish pimento-stuffed (No exotic stuffing for me, thank you. I’m Orthodox.) olives.

Speaking of olives, if there is a Whole Foods Market near where you live, you should stop in and buy some of the Mt. Athos olives to support the monks. You will find them in the olive bar. They are very good.

So how are you splurging before the onset of Lent? Pancakes? Crepes? Milkshakes? Fondue?