3/2/08: In search of Proust time

I think of it as "Proust time" in honor of the first few pages of Swann's Way which I've enjoyed many times despite never making it through the entire book. Proust does such a good job of describing that liminal state somewhere between sleeping and waking. I have learned to enjoy the weirdness that often results from that state. Sometimes I even use the snooze button on my phone to perpetuate it just to see what odd products my mind will conjure up.

This morning I found "Allan Coe" and "Allan Poe" conflated and came away with something like this (as best I can remember it). Sing along, you know the melody:

the sole occasion I know
I might expect to hear called "Edgar Allan Poe":
should there be a final judgment day.

I'll remain here as long as you will allow it
I shall content myself to wait here, even standing in the rain
you needn't call me your beloved, my darling
you've never once addressed me by my name.

I can see a novelty act/karaoke singer bit in this. But should it be David Allan Poe or Edgar Allan Coe? I'm thinking the former.

As much as I enjoyed waking up to that, I think last week's Proust time detritus is tastier. I came up with a sandwich. I remember watching it being cooked in my mostly unconscious dream state and it looked so good that I was able to remember it. I think of it as the "Louisiana Dream."

It consists of: one link of andouille sausage, split down the middle then grilled. Cover the sausage in a medley of grilled peppers and onions (red preferable to green I think). Top it with thinly sliced deli ham and provolone cheese. Dress the roll with creole mayonnaise (had to go and find a recipe for that), lettuce and tomato.

Every time I think of the Louisiana Dream my mouth starts to water up. So I went to the farmer's market and got the sausage and peppers, then to the deli for the ham and cheese. Can't really get a good sandwich roll in Atlanta (not at the grocery stores anyway--if they are to be found elsewhere I have yet to find them), or the South generally in my experience, New Orleans being the exception of course, so I've improvised with a baguette. Good deli meat can be hard to come by as well. At the farmer's market you order a half pound of deli ham and you get two quarter pound ham steaks. So I have to go to Publix and hope that the deli person actually knows how to cut deli meat. Got lucky this time. I'll let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, my mother was just released from the sanitarium and I must go fetch her in my carriage lest she in her delirium stumble before an infernal steam engine train.