Perspective In the New Year ...

On learning perspective … Make jambalaya for New Year’s Eve … Or rum punch! … Plus a look back at our favorite books and movies in case you missed them or forgot about them! And great links …

We returned to Providence a week before Christmas, I with a touch of pneumonia. While Ann was out on errands, a text arrived to say a prescription was ready for me. I figured I had just enough energy to get to the drugstore and back. But when I hit the ignition button on my 2024 Honda Civic, multiple warning signs lit up the dashboard. Ignoring them, naturally, I put the car in reverse, but the car barely moved. When I put it into drive, it would go no faster than two miles an hour. This, the man with the tow truck told me, is called “limp mode.”

An hour later, the dealer texted the problem and repair. The repair was going to cost me: $500. “F@#% me,” I said aloud.

I hadn’t driven the car in several weeks, but when I had, it still felt brand new. Five-hundred dollars. It was brand new. Isn’t that what you’d say? Or words to that effect? WTF?

Only that’s not exactly what happened. I left out some information. The text I received from the dealership, in fact, explained that the engine harnesses and many critical wires had been chewed through by rodents. The estimate the dealership sent was not for $500. It was rather for … $10,700.

*Gasp!!!*

I immediately called our insurance company and, after reviewing the dealership’s estimate, they told me it was comprehensively covered. “All you’ll be responsible for is the $500 deductible.”

To which I said aloud: “Oh, thank god.”

Each scenario is the same. I owed $500 for the repair. But the two scenarios elicited opposite responses: anger versus gratitude.

It’s all a matter of perspective, and given the irrational nature of our consciousness, it’s useful to be aware of its nature. Our responses to stressful circumstances should be to react, not anticipate, because we can’t know the future.

Here is another story I like to tell myself in times urgent stress.

The Beatles, pre world-fame, on their way to a gig, ran into a snowstorm on a hilly, rarely traveled road in England’s Lake District. Their van slid off the road and rolled down an embankment.

No one hurt, they huddled outside the van assessing the situation. Middle of nowhere, an untraveled road, snow storm, getting dark … and Paul starts to freak out. I can see him, pacing and clutching his head, panicked but also a little annoyed by John’s lack of panic.

“John. John. What’s going to happen?!” Paul cries.

John shrugs and says, “Well, something’s going to happen.”

And John, prescient John Lennon, was 100 precent right—something did indeed happen.

What, I have no idea. (I do know that the Beatles did not die up there.) But that’s the point. As one who tends to panic and catastrophize, that story is a reminder to me that a situation is rarely as urgent as it may seem in the moment.

Of course, catastrophes happen. The Titanic sinks and 1,500 people lose their lives. That plane with the rugby team crashes in the Andes.

Those are a circumstance the likes of which you are all but certain not to be in, ever.

But, also, bad things do happen to you personally. My dad told me they’d found a spot on his left lung, Thanksgiving 2007; he was dead nine month later, age 69. Life happens.

But “something’s going to happen” is different. It reminds me to look beyond the perceived urgencies of life. “Something’s going to happen” is a reminder that we shouldn’t worry about the future because it’s something we cannot know. Act, react, plan, yes. Worry—no. Two years from now, the stress and uncertainty will be completely forgotten.

Only five-hundred dollars? Thank god.

Jambalaya! … Latkes! … Scallops!

Jambalaya! Even the sound of it is festive! Each year, Ann and I map out the Feast of Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve. This year’s included bluefish pâté, sushi rolls (tuna and salmon); Gloria-Jean arrived with fabulous Nantucket Bay scallops; we brought home stuffies and oysters from Matunuck Oyster Bar. And for the seventh fish and a main course for 18 people, I made a huge pot of jambalaya, with andouille sausage, chicken, and, fish number seven, shrimp.

These Nantucket Bay scallops are like candy; I sear them quickly in oil, dump the oil and finish with butter, season with salt and lemon, serve with tooth picks. They are a great fall/winter delicacy.

I have never made jambalaya, and learning a new dish was fun. Moreover, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such praise from the table, not for a new recipe. But this one, from Daniel Gritzer at Serious Eats, was outstanding (I doubled this recipe).

The dish begins with the trinity—bell peppers, celery and onion—cooked down with herbs and aromatics (and, not in the recipe, Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning). Tomato is added along with enough stock added to tomato juices to cook the rice (here 8 cups liquid for 4 cups rice).

What is best about this is the base can be made one to three days ahead; finish it with the rice, chicken, and sausage and pop it in the oven for a half hour or so—kind of like an elaborate pilaf; add the shrimp at the end so they don’t over cook. A brilliant crowd pleaser.

I must mention one other uncommon preparation included in this year’s Christmas celebration. As Christmas fell on the first day of Hanukah, and as some members of the family are observant Jews, we included latke’s. I used a revelatory technique I read about in a Jean Nathan recipe in The Times, a technique she discovered at a restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard. You bake the potatoes first, then simply halve them and grate them (no need to peel). The baking rids the potato of its abundant water. Brilliant.

What we’re drinking …

Rum Punch! Calling Bob Cratchit!

What more festive and inviting libation can there be for a big group? I know of nothing more so than a big bowl of delicious punch. This is a serious adult punch, not something to put sherbet and vodka in.

It is the easiest and tastiest punch I know. Three ingredients: rum, sugar, and lemon. Yep, a simple, batched, rum sour, made more complex by macerating lemon zest in the sugar overnight. The rum itself is critical: no white Bacardi here. For a great rum punch you need a funky Jamaican pot-stilled rum—this is critical. (I’m partial to Smith & Cross, though a few on FB recommended Barbancourt Haitian rum.)

Here is what I arrived at.

A Great Rum Punch Recipe …

• 1-1/2 cup sugar

• Zest from 6-8 lemons (or a mix of lemons)

• 1-1/2 cups juice from the lemons (and limes if you wish)

• 1 each: lemon, lime, orange, sliced for the ice disc

• Two 750-ml bottles of Smith & Cross Jamaican pot-stilled rum

The day before serving:

Bury the zest in the sugar in a quart Ball jar and let sit overnight.

Squeeze the zested citrus and refrigerate the juice.

In a cake pan, layer the sliced fruit, overlapping them so that they cover the bottom. add enough water just barely to cover, then freeze. When this layer is frozen, fill the cake pan with water (or, as I did, Earl Gray tea) and return to the freezer.

Refrigerate the rum.

To serve:

Add the citrus juice to the sugar-zest mixture and shake until the sugar is dissolved (above left). Empty both rum bottles into a punch bowl. Strain the citrus syrup into the rum (the candied zest makes fine snack). Add 1.5 quarts/liters water (1 to 1 rum to water) or to taste. Remove the ice disc from the pan and add it to the punch.

This recipe served the 14 imbibers well, but there was none left over, sadly.

And now … our favorite movies of 2024 …

It’s time for a recap of the best of what we watched and read this year! A good year for movies and it seems we have another good one coming up, too (just saw Complete Unknown—fabulous! Also must see Queer, Wicked, Room Next Door, Babygirl). We love the movies. One of the great pleasures in life is to knock off work early and go to a 3 or 4 pm show, in in an empty theater, all screens dark but for the big one in front of you. But we also stream them and, living in NYC, have great non-mall options like the IFC and Film Forum.

Ann saw her best movie of the year at the IFC. I saw mine at The Film Forum. Thanks to all you indy theater owners! Such a great service you give your communities.

We’ve each chosen our favorite movies of 2024. They differ on two counts (partly because I did not see Ann’s best movie of the year). And I am totally on board with her choice.

The top two that we both chose for our top five:

• Close Your Eyes (my pick for best movie overall)

• My Old Ass

Ann’s remaining top five:

• Emilia Perez (Ann’s pick for best picture overall)

• La Chimera

• Conclave

My remaining top five:

• Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck In Time

• A Real Pain

• Inside Out 2

If you’re a paid subscriber, you will have received our comprehensive list of all the movies we saw and recommend (except Anora—cannot recommend it). You will have also received an email “What We Watched in 2024,” which has descriptions of all the movies we watched and why we liked them. A great reference when you’re looking for something to stream.

Our favorite books of 2024 …

Ann: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray is a big, generous, tour de force, and I love, love, love every word. If you want to lose yourself in a story, this is it. A tragicomic saga of an Irish family struggling with 21st century problems that are both contemporary and as old as time.

For me it was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. A mom with adult kids and a devoted cherry farmer husband, tells the daughters the story of a long-ago love affair she had with an actor who would become mega-famous. A masterful braided tale of love and growing up, anchored by a play, Our Town.

Ann’s remaining top picks in this year’s books, all of them truly great reads:

• The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn by Brian Moore

• Leaving by Roxana Robinson

• The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

• My Last Innocent Year, by Daisy Alpert Florin

• The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne

• Night Watch by Jayne Ann Phillips

• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

• This is Happiness by Niall Williams

• The Ministry of Time Kaliane Bradley

If you’re a paid subscriber, you will have received our comprehensive list of all the books we recommend. I’m also sending an email “What We Read in 2024” which includes descriptions of all the books and why we liked them. A great reference when you’re not sure what book to pick next.

Links we’ve loved during the last couple of weeks …

• This is a lovely deep dive by A.O. Scott on the short poem by Diane Seuss, “Romantic Poet.” I love this series that looks closely and carefully at great poems and why they work. If you like this one google the one The Times did on the Elizabeth Bishop villanelle “The Art of Losing.”

• Sorry this is too late for stocking stuffers, but if your partner is an outdoorsy girl, she will love you for introducing her to this personal urination device. (NYTimes)

• Have a look at Food & Wine’s best (and worst) holiday covers, beginning in 1978, the year the magazine began publishing (originally with the highbrow title, The International Review of Food & Wine).

• Or watch Cher and Captain Kangaroo sing a duet! (IG)

• One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Originally, it was considered altogether too dark to include in a holiday movie. The Times tells the story of its genesis.

• I am just old enough to remember the milkman who put bottles of milk in a little box outside our back door. Well, in England, they’re still around, as documented by photographer Maxine Beuret. (The Guardian)

• Are you the sort who rubs your palms together at the sight of a really juicy bad review? Here’s a list of some the years most scathing reviews. (Lithub)

• I haven’t heard as much buzz over a magazine story in ages. But this story, by a former Boston Globe reporter who finds himself homeless, is an exceptionally detailed account of how some homeless live and what they suffer through. (Esquire)

• And on a lighter note, have a look at our favorite sandwiches that no one makes anymore. Or do we? Why don’t I make a Sloppy Joe one of these days?

And finally …

A Herb Chambers Honda technician evaluates my 2024 Honda …

And that’s all for this week.

Thank you for reading. And special thanks to you paid subscribers. You keep me going. Hope you all have a very happy New Year’s!

—Michael