I loved the subway in Chicago (the "el" OR the "L" and, actually, it's quite a point of contention, which I always thought was rather strange). It wasn't necessarily efficient, but it was easy:
-Displays at every station that show when exactly your train is coming.
-Generally uncrowded, except for rush hours.
-Helpful announcements, at every stop, to tell you on which side of the train the doors would open.
-Teeny tiny little city, where you can get almost anywhere inside of a half hour.
Cake, right? It's not the same in New York. For one, NY's subway system is bigger. MUCH bigger. I almost went straight back to Chicago when I saw the size of the subway map alone. If you confine yourself to one side of Manhattan, sure, it's totally manageable...but why'd you want to do that? Also...displays at some stations, and they're wrong most of the time. And then there's the crowd. The trains here are almost always crowded. If you find a seat, you are wedged in. No announcements...the speakers are broken more often than not. Dear, dear me, I'd actually have to learn this whole city by heart. I'd managed to soundtrack my subway time with a friendly, unseen and soothing train voice, but no more.
But hey! I've been here for a few months now and I'm doing pretty well. I still get confused and I've gotten lost more than a few times, and I don't enjoy, per se, when my nose is smack dab up against an armpit, but I've managed, and admirably. I am, however, comically clumsy. One time in high school I managed to trip on my pants leg and do a front flip/cartwheel off of our big stage into the orchestra pit, just before opening night. I drunkenly ran down a huge hill in college and tried to clear a hedge, and ended up with a horrible sprained ankle. A couple of years ago I slipped on a thin patch of ice and was home from work for a week. And, on an everyday basis, I bump, bruise, and trip my way around this good earth, much to the delight of onlookers.
So I fell at the train station today. I was steady throughout the ride, but then I got to the evil Atlantic/Pacific station and fell up the stairs as I was walking to catch the R. Up! I think that I was walking too slowly and my foot caught on a step, my backpack did nothing to help the situation, and I lurched forward and managed to catch myself just before my teeth hit the cement. It took a moment to regain composure, but by then the kindly folk rushing past (and over me, I think) had already started yelling. I apologized profusely and ran to catch my train, but just before I got on a lovely woman started dancing right in front of me, pointing at me and screaming about "lazy bastards" or somesuch thing. It was delightful.
I'm fine with mayhem, but the circumstances this morning left me slightly shaken (probably because it all happened before 7:45). I was early for work, and thank goodness, because I had a chance to stop here. I think that they serve the best bagels in all of Brooklyn, and my toasty garlic with cream cheese, enjoyed on a bench outside of the bakery, put me at ease. I'm not sure what it is about bagels -- my family's propensity for Sunday brunch, the inherently comforting aroma of fresh baked bread -- but I never tire, especially not in New York where they are, in fact, better. And on this kind of a morning, "better" is so very appreciated...even though my body, and my pride, might still be sore.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Puttanesca
I'm making puttanesca sauce tonight for a pasta. It was my idea while talking to my darling sister on the phone in an ancient grocery shop in a neighborhood that's not my own, by the boxes and I say:
"Hi, what kind of pasta do they use for puttanesca?"
"Pasta?"
"Noodle, the noodles, what shape of noodle?"
"Um...fettuccini, I think? Or linguini. The thinner one...whichever's thinner" (She's getting annoyed. She's still at work.).
"Fettuccini's on sale. Bingo. Thanks, love you, bye."
"Love you, bye."
I do not think my sister is correct.
This does not matter. It will taste brilliant, I'm sure. I care none about nooks and crannies.
The sauce. My version is a take-no-prisoners, kick-your-butt combo of pancetta, tomatoes, anchovies, olives, garlic, onions, capers and a literal handful of red pepper flakes. Parsley at the end. It's aggressive, offensive, really...the garlic and salt, brine, spice, the red of it, it assaults. There's nothing to ease it up, nothing smooth or tender to even out the flavor that screams and bangs on tongue, cheek, mouth. Throw it in the pan and cook and toss and eat...there's no "technique," no "process" and I never feel like more of a cook for it all. But it's good. And it's comforting, despite its name and sordid history -- popular legend links the sauce to Italian "ladies of the night." But that's ok with me. It finds what needs to be found, hidden in the bubbles and the smell, in the burn all the way from fork to mouth to stomach, oh, you need this burn, oh, it keeps you alive.
Sometimes I need a pinch to remind me that I'm still here. Sometimes the daily to-and-from of life gets to me (and you too, right?). Routine can be a drag. When I feel like screaming in a public place but decency and good common sense prevent me, I need an outlet. I prefer to go hogwild - literally - in the kitchen, because really, where else can I get away with wielding a sharp knife and listening to loud rock-and-roll while I clank and clang pots together and sing at the top of my lungs while drinking wine, beer, whiskey...?
So I make sauce. I stir it carefully and with purpose and with feeling, because what it gives me is so much bigger and of such more import than it can possibly know. I trust the sauce and tell it so. I make a toast to the sauce and drink down my wine. And I mush it around with the still incorrect fettuccini and love it, the bit that gets on my chin and what splatters on my clothes. I dance all the while, not secret and hidden but big broad and full, serious and true. I know that this good can be ready at a moment's notice whenever, wherever I need it.
Yes, there's value in that.
"Hi, what kind of pasta do they use for puttanesca?"
"Pasta?"
"Noodle, the noodles, what shape of noodle?"
"Um...fettuccini, I think? Or linguini. The thinner one...whichever's thinner" (She's getting annoyed. She's still at work.).
"Fettuccini's on sale. Bingo. Thanks, love you, bye."
"Love you, bye."
I do not think my sister is correct.
This does not matter. It will taste brilliant, I'm sure. I care none about nooks and crannies.
The sauce. My version is a take-no-prisoners, kick-your-butt combo of pancetta, tomatoes, anchovies, olives, garlic, onions, capers and a literal handful of red pepper flakes. Parsley at the end. It's aggressive, offensive, really...the garlic and salt, brine, spice, the red of it, it assaults. There's nothing to ease it up, nothing smooth or tender to even out the flavor that screams and bangs on tongue, cheek, mouth. Throw it in the pan and cook and toss and eat...there's no "technique," no "process" and I never feel like more of a cook for it all. But it's good. And it's comforting, despite its name and sordid history -- popular legend links the sauce to Italian "ladies of the night." But that's ok with me. It finds what needs to be found, hidden in the bubbles and the smell, in the burn all the way from fork to mouth to stomach, oh, you need this burn, oh, it keeps you alive.
Sometimes I need a pinch to remind me that I'm still here. Sometimes the daily to-and-from of life gets to me (and you too, right?). Routine can be a drag. When I feel like screaming in a public place but decency and good common sense prevent me, I need an outlet. I prefer to go hogwild - literally - in the kitchen, because really, where else can I get away with wielding a sharp knife and listening to loud rock-and-roll while I clank and clang pots together and sing at the top of my lungs while drinking wine, beer, whiskey...?
So I make sauce. I stir it carefully and with purpose and with feeling, because what it gives me is so much bigger and of such more import than it can possibly know. I trust the sauce and tell it so. I make a toast to the sauce and drink down my wine. And I mush it around with the still incorrect fettuccini and love it, the bit that gets on my chin and what splatters on my clothes. I dance all the while, not secret and hidden but big broad and full, serious and true. I know that this good can be ready at a moment's notice whenever, wherever I need it.
Yes, there's value in that.
Two meals of note, in France and why
My little sister, Anna, had the great good sense to marry a lovely Frenchman named Guillaume. They got married in the states, but also traveled to France to celebrate. I got to go with. Lucky me.
Guillaume's grandparents each insisted on having us over for lunch. He still has both sets, so this meant two days in a row of...well, of this:
Meal The First: Served in a farmhouse filled with plush furniture, ornate wooden clocks and various trinkets all made and built by Gui's grandparents, entirely by hand. Yes, the house too, from the ground up.
-Apero (which is like the greatest cocktail hour ever), with nuts and chips and the most extraordinary chestnut liquor that, as far as I can tell, came into being solely for this meal and disappeared from the face of the earth soon after
-Salad of mache, from the garden, dressed with olive oil
-Black radish, also from the garden: A behemoth of a thing, which made my eyes water and numbed my tongue, but was also one of the sweetest damn things I've ever tasted. Served with salty French butter
-Foie gras from a can. OH, French canned foods. OH!
-Baguette
-Turkey leg rolled and stuffed with parsley and garlic
-Mashed potatoes
-Cheese! All French, of course, all from Bordeaux, all slightly stinky. Forgive me, I didn't take down the names. I was drunk and slightly comatose
-Homemade chocolate cous-cous pudding with glorious thick skin
-Wine all the while. I know we had Sauternes with the foie gras, but the others are lost to me. They were perfect.
Meal The Second: A more modern house just on the outskirts of Bordeaux with a breezy patio and lush yard.
-Apero: Assortment of canapes from what was only described as the "Costco of France." OH, French pre-packaged foods. OH!
-Champagne, drunk from a bottle that I sabered myself. It was thrilling. I screamed.
-Foie gras
-Baguette
-Homemade duck confit falling, dripping, oozing with delight
-Steamed green beans thoughtfully tied with scallion bows
-Profiteroles and chocolate sauce, frozen in a box, but OH!
-Cheeses, of the French sort
-Wine, much wine
Following the meal: patriotic, rousing French pub songs, which we could only counter with "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Sorry, USA.
The food was, without exception, excellent. We were full to bursting: all red-faced, stuffed with food and laughter. And we were glad, the kind of glad that only comes along in a great while, glad in a first-love sort of way where you just can't be glad enough. These lunches, served with love and care, were extraordinary for these reasons alone. But...
There was something more, something I've struggled to put words to, and I think:
I get goofy when I eat good food. Moans, eye rolls, sweating, all of it. And someone at the table will inevitably point, giggle or comment. It's always something of note, and even though my companions are usually kind and polite, I always feel somewhat ashamed. Like I've crossed a line, the Decency Line, which one must not cross in such refined times. It's embarrassing, especially because I don't usually know that I'm behaving this way until someone calls attention to it.
In France, the food was magnificent, and several times I caught myself moaning audibly. And (here's the important bit) nobody said a thing. I was simply allowed to enjoy the hell out of my meal. I detected a tiny smile of approval from our first chef, but that's it. Otherwise, the meals passed without incident, save for the one time I tried to turn down a third helping of foie gras ("You're the chef! You EAT!"). Beautiful in the very most grand and simple way.
This is how I want to live, friends, this is how I want to eat. Slather my baguette with butter and wash it down with a goblet of good, cheap wine. Help myself and others to seconds and thirds without comment. Tell crude jokes and put my feet up. Laugh from my belly, and loudly, and the whole time I've nothing to be self-conscious about because everyone, but everyone I'm with will be laughing along with me.
Guillaume's grandparents each insisted on having us over for lunch. He still has both sets, so this meant two days in a row of...well, of this:
Meal The First: Served in a farmhouse filled with plush furniture, ornate wooden clocks and various trinkets all made and built by Gui's grandparents, entirely by hand. Yes, the house too, from the ground up.
-Apero (which is like the greatest cocktail hour ever), with nuts and chips and the most extraordinary chestnut liquor that, as far as I can tell, came into being solely for this meal and disappeared from the face of the earth soon after
-Salad of mache, from the garden, dressed with olive oil
-Black radish, also from the garden: A behemoth of a thing, which made my eyes water and numbed my tongue, but was also one of the sweetest damn things I've ever tasted. Served with salty French butter
-Foie gras from a can. OH, French canned foods. OH!
-Baguette
-Turkey leg rolled and stuffed with parsley and garlic
-Mashed potatoes
-Cheese! All French, of course, all from Bordeaux, all slightly stinky. Forgive me, I didn't take down the names. I was drunk and slightly comatose
-Homemade chocolate cous-cous pudding with glorious thick skin
-Wine all the while. I know we had Sauternes with the foie gras, but the others are lost to me. They were perfect.
Meal The Second: A more modern house just on the outskirts of Bordeaux with a breezy patio and lush yard.
-Apero: Assortment of canapes from what was only described as the "Costco of France." OH, French pre-packaged foods. OH!
-Champagne, drunk from a bottle that I sabered myself. It was thrilling. I screamed.
-Foie gras
-Baguette
-Homemade duck confit falling, dripping, oozing with delight
-Steamed green beans thoughtfully tied with scallion bows
-Profiteroles and chocolate sauce, frozen in a box, but OH!
-Cheeses, of the French sort
-Wine, much wine
Following the meal: patriotic, rousing French pub songs, which we could only counter with "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Sorry, USA.
The food was, without exception, excellent. We were full to bursting: all red-faced, stuffed with food and laughter. And we were glad, the kind of glad that only comes along in a great while, glad in a first-love sort of way where you just can't be glad enough. These lunches, served with love and care, were extraordinary for these reasons alone. But...
There was something more, something I've struggled to put words to, and I think:
I get goofy when I eat good food. Moans, eye rolls, sweating, all of it. And someone at the table will inevitably point, giggle or comment. It's always something of note, and even though my companions are usually kind and polite, I always feel somewhat ashamed. Like I've crossed a line, the Decency Line, which one must not cross in such refined times. It's embarrassing, especially because I don't usually know that I'm behaving this way until someone calls attention to it.
In France, the food was magnificent, and several times I caught myself moaning audibly. And (here's the important bit) nobody said a thing. I was simply allowed to enjoy the hell out of my meal. I detected a tiny smile of approval from our first chef, but that's it. Otherwise, the meals passed without incident, save for the one time I tried to turn down a third helping of foie gras ("You're the chef! You EAT!"). Beautiful in the very most grand and simple way.
This is how I want to live, friends, this is how I want to eat. Slather my baguette with butter and wash it down with a goblet of good, cheap wine. Help myself and others to seconds and thirds without comment. Tell crude jokes and put my feet up. Laugh from my belly, and loudly, and the whole time I've nothing to be self-conscious about because everyone, but everyone I'm with will be laughing along with me.
Three weeks of sick, or: On procrastination
Outside, the current temperature is 75 degrees. It's sunny, it's lovely, the children are playing on the rooftop playground across from my building. This is the first day we've had like this, and people are fairly spilling out onto the streets to enjoy and appreciate our quite late spring weather. Yes, for the moment, Crown Heights is alive and vibrant on the kind of day that screams for a picnic in the park (Prospect Park, but Central would certainly do). It's supposed to rain in a couple hours and continue for the rest of the week, so quick, outside with you to be happy! Dance! Kiss the sky!
And me? I'm sitting up in bed and looking out the window and coughing...no. Barking. I'm barking up my lungs.
I've been sick, with one thing or another, for three weeks straight now. Food poisoning led to fever led to sniffles and then...the outstanding, lusty cough that, in fact, deserves a standing ovation for its tenacity alone, if not its incredible volume. It's been a drag. I can't sleep at night. Various, generic medications course through my veins (thank goodness for the Rite-Aid just around the corner). And I've started to feel sorry for myself. Boo. Boo, illness. Boo. Hoo.
Never one to dwell if I can help it, I've taken this sick-day opportunity to begin a new project. A food blog of sorts, I suppose, though there will be other things too. It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time, and I've finally mustered up the courage to follow through. Food is a very big thing for me. I'd like to write about it, try to figure out my (our?) complicated and ever-enduring relationship with it. I'm new in a strange city. I'm struggling (happily, for the moment) with Big Life Choices. I'm rather adrift and food, more than anything else, brings me home. It centers me. These writings will give me a chance to get to know myself again, to realign my stars and my priorities. And doing this in a public space somehow makes this whole experience more tangible. It's a scary thing, but it's not a bad thing.
I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but I'm never really sure what I'm doing, and I've made it this far. So I'll write, maybe you'll come along, and hopefully we'll all end up around a big table filled with the best stuff on earth, laughing and learning and eating all the way. For now, though, I nurse my cough and clean up the tea cups, water glasses, soup bowls that litter my windowsill.
And wait for the rain, for the lightning. I won't feel guilty sitting inside while it pours, and I always enjoy a good storm.
And me? I'm sitting up in bed and looking out the window and coughing...no. Barking. I'm barking up my lungs.
I've been sick, with one thing or another, for three weeks straight now. Food poisoning led to fever led to sniffles and then...the outstanding, lusty cough that, in fact, deserves a standing ovation for its tenacity alone, if not its incredible volume. It's been a drag. I can't sleep at night. Various, generic medications course through my veins (thank goodness for the Rite-Aid just around the corner). And I've started to feel sorry for myself. Boo. Boo, illness. Boo. Hoo.
Never one to dwell if I can help it, I've taken this sick-day opportunity to begin a new project. A food blog of sorts, I suppose, though there will be other things too. It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time, and I've finally mustered up the courage to follow through. Food is a very big thing for me. I'd like to write about it, try to figure out my (our?) complicated and ever-enduring relationship with it. I'm new in a strange city. I'm struggling (happily, for the moment) with Big Life Choices. I'm rather adrift and food, more than anything else, brings me home. It centers me. These writings will give me a chance to get to know myself again, to realign my stars and my priorities. And doing this in a public space somehow makes this whole experience more tangible. It's a scary thing, but it's not a bad thing.
I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but I'm never really sure what I'm doing, and I've made it this far. So I'll write, maybe you'll come along, and hopefully we'll all end up around a big table filled with the best stuff on earth, laughing and learning and eating all the way. For now, though, I nurse my cough and clean up the tea cups, water glasses, soup bowls that litter my windowsill.
And wait for the rain, for the lightning. I won't feel guilty sitting inside while it pours, and I always enjoy a good storm.
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