Category Archives: General

Egg-in-the-Hole

Several years ago we travelled to Sardinia and stayed on the coast at the north end of the Island near Porto Rafael in a mountain-top residence called Villa Luna overlooking the Mediterranean sea and nearby Corsica and the Maddalena archipelago.

Villa Luna

The Villa is located on a sizeable estate which in addition to sprawling lawns and adjoining wooded areas unexpectedly affords thriving and luxuriant rosemary bushes at the garden door leading from the spacious marble-countered and stone-floored kitchen. Without particular design I had purchased at the local bakery and butcher shop a massive and dense loaf of bread, Pecorino cheese and ham slices, items which I considered authentic Italian partiality. Naturally our cooking provisions already ncluded elemental ingredients such as extra virgin olive oil, eggs, tomatoes, salt and pepper.

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Things are getting busy here!

After what was undeniably a quiet and relaxed winter on Hilton Head Island – what I often likened to a private retreat – things have begun to change.

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In early March on the Island there was a demonstrable uptick of grandchildren. They were visiting their vacationing grandparents possibly as compensation for the parents on the heels of Christmas and the traditional misery of February in northern climes. It is I suppose remotely possible the grandparents actually wanted to see their grandchildren (though in any event I can safely conjecture that the grandparents were ultimately just as pleased to see the grandchildren leave). This alteration of the landscape was modest and largely tolerable (small children do not for example engender poolside barbecues and late night antics). But this low-key transition of local demographics lasted only until mid-March when a floodgate opened.

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What does it mean to be in love?

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Fathoming what it means to be in love is an unsettling exploration. For one thing it is awkward to wonder whether one is in love at all.  Not to mention the prejudice that love is swamped in lachrymose and saccharin additives rendering it as sentimentally preposterous as a Hollywood fiction. Even without that bias, whenever the topic arises it is impossible to distinguish it from drama and storytelling. Seldom does its analysis approach anything as neutral as a discussion of one’s health or the weather. The mere mention of love inspires an outburst of maudlin overtures which invariably overtake a balanced view. There is besides an unmistakeable enthusiasm to label almost any confederacy one of love as though it were the quintessential approbation.

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Idem

Do you ever look back upon your life and reflect upon the grand total of what you’ve done and who you are? Are you one of those people whose life is – to speak charitably – unpretentious? Perhaps you consider that you are justifiably self-effacing? If so, I’m right there with you. To be candid an account of my life is unexceptional, passable at best. It would for example impart more tang than merited to my insipid existence to suggest that any day is much different from another. Nonetheless I rejoice in every boring moment, even to a fault. As inclined as I am to itemize the particulars of my ineffable life, I will resist if only because I fear their public recitation may be tedious though strangely that does nothing to dampen my private gusto.

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An Adventuresome Day

If you dispel the obfuscating fog of everyday living, life has I think you’ll concede its discernible – though subtle – drama. The source may be unpredictable and even unlikely. Don’t let a facade of placidity dissuade you! Behind a veneer of composure may subsist one of daring enterprise. Permit me to observe that while I am not perpetually living on the edge I too have my moments. Consider for example the following account …

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A Real Breakfast

There are few topics about which I am more willing to prattle so vibrantly than breakfast. Scoff if you must, but the subject is a noble one illuminated by the hopes of a new day, new beginnings and fresh starts. It may as well be the fodder of poetry! It enjoys the benefit of maternal condonation, not to mention the nutritionist’s admonitions regarding cognitive functions, energy needs and long term health. Like politics, religion and the weather, it is something about which any one of us can have an opinion. Entire nations have adopted their own partiality – French pâtisserie and coffee; Italian Cappuccino and biscotti; Canadian eggs and pea meal bacon; Québec cretons; American waffles; Jewish lox and bagels; Mexican Huevos Rancheros; Russian blinis; Vietnamese Chao Ga (chicken rice porridge), Chinese Baozi (steamed filled buns) and Dim Sum.

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Grey Sunday afternoon

At precisely 1:30 p.m. this afternoon we cycled out of the beachside condominium parking lot and immediately connected to the path adjacent South Sea Pines Drive.  This account is hardly news for we do it practically every day.  What however was novel was that overnight the ambient temperature had fallen from a midday high of about 75ºF to 57°F.  In preparation for the jaunt I resisted donning woollen gloves but I sported a large woollen cardigan over my thin cotton hoodie (under which I wore a white T-shirt).  Even thus clad in so many layers it was noticeably cool. Indeed very quickly I remarked that the weather resembled what in Ontario would qualify as an early autumn day though here it passed as a winter day. The dry fallen leaves on the path crackled under our wheels as we rolled along.  Within an instant I imagined a roaring fireplace in a cozy study, sipping a frozen martini and reading an improving Jane Austen book. I inhaled deeply and rejoiced in the uncommonly fresh sea air.

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You are what you think

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

Walden (Life in the Woods), Henry David Thoreau (1854)

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The Confederate Snob

Once one has alighted upon Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – howsoever briefly- it is impossible to ignore the pungency of privilege and entitlement. This is especially so if one roosts in one of the private gated communities such as Sea Pines or Palmetto Dunes whose history hearkens back to the original Sea Island Cotton trade or oyster plantations financed by Irish nationals and Wall Street tycoons and built upon the backs of the uneducated and the disadvantaged (primarily ex-slaves who flocked to Hilton Head Island once it fell to Union troops during the Civil War). Even today – a century and a half later – when the narrow-headed blond Patrician is being incrementally crowded by the stout, broad-faced descendant of the Incas, the Republican flavour of the Island is indisputable and unmistakeable. Everything contrives to sustain the preference for exclusivity – the mansions, the manicured lawns, the parade of high-end imported motor cars, the ubiquitous golf courses, tennis courts, country clubs, sailing yachts and swimming pools.

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