Moving: call for help!

You know what's the best part of having friends? They ask you to help them move, yaaaaay!

So as I have mentioned, lovely friends, I will be moving out of Elsinore at the end of May and into what is now officially Illyria, a new residence about the same distance away from Brandeis on the other side. Originally the plan was to split the moving between two days, packing up the U-Haul on May 31st and then unloading everything in the new place on June 1st. Unfortunately the truck is only available on the 31st, so both the loading and the unloading will have to happen in the evening of that day. Harrumph. I suppose that will have to be that. I suppose I will try to have all of my smaller possessions (clothes, books, cookware, etc) already moved in before then, and then have only the sizeable furniture pieces left to move during the time I'll have the truck.

So I am asking for any lovely friends who might be available in the late afternoon and early evening of Tuesday, May 31st to lend the strength of their backs to moving a significant chunk of furniture to be taken to my new place. Someone who is comfortable driving a ten-foot truck (over a distance of about a mile) is particularly welcome. More details will come closer to the date when I make a firm plan on action. To entice you to come, all those who contribute are then invited to what will be my inaugural dinner party at the new place on Saturday, June 4th in thanks for the help.

So, if you are inclined to be generous, or just want in on the reward dinner, e-mail me or comment here letting me know that you're available to help. Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Of risotto

Though by and large I am not a rice eater-- indeed, I tend to avoid all carbs in general --I confess a longstanding fascination with the dish of risotto. It is a surprisingly fiddly and labor-intensive dish, requiring many small doses of hot broth and near-constant stirring or pan shaking over the course of an hour to prepare. It takes a lot of time and effort, but as long as you follow this procedure you will be rewarded with the miraculous sight of seven cups of broth and white wine being drunk by a mere two cups of short-grain rice, which release an amazing sauce that comes from a combination of that cooking liquid and the rice's own starch. So many things about cooking seem like miracles to me, if only because someone somehow managed to discover the precise complicated procedures that yield fabulous prepared foods, but the sauce that emanates from properly cooked risotto rice is particularly amazing to me.

As I said, since I didn't grow up eating rice I don't have much of a taste for it, and I try to keep off carbs anyway, I don't make it very often. And when I do, I make a simple arborio version with sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions. But someday, when gathering a group of dear ones and I have the money to spare, I want to go to some little North End grocery store and buy myself some shanks of veal and delicate threads of saffron and make a real risotto alla Milanese beneath a flawless osso bucco, the rice made savory with the marrow bones and as yellow as the sun.