Kate Ruminates

grit

2010-12-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

In the face of inconvenience, sentimentality and grit prevail.

This is the first Christmas that my childhood best friend will soldier
through without her mother who passed away suddenly in May. It will be a
season of memories that cannot be reshaped, only burnished with the
acknowledgement that things just won't be the same. This doesn't keep the
snow from falling or the lights from twinkling. It is the unmovable and
natural movement of the world.

I sent her a note a couple of weeks ago asking if she might want to do a
foreign gift exchange. It wasn't a request without its considerations of
the logistics and the cost and the guessing game played by two very faraway
albeit longtime friends. I wanted to send her something to comfort her and
bring her a bit of joy and knowing that she would want to do the same, an
exchange would be necessary.

She agreed that it would be a fine tradition to resurrect after a few latent
years. Ideas were rallied back and forth. A massage, a robe, a good book
perhaps. We settled on two very different items that we each needed in our
own ways. I was to send a bottle of wine and she was to send a sharpening
stone for my knives. One takes the edge off while the other puts it on.

The grit of a sharpening stone is determined by the nearly microscopic
particle size of the stone. They are measured in microns which are
one-thousandths of a millimeter. Tiny. I have a 1000 grit (about 11
microns) stone from Osaka and needed a 5000 grit (2.5 microns) or higher to
really a polished edge on my knives. The higher the grit number, the
smaller the particles and the sharper the knife. But, stones are easy.

How does one measure the grit of a woman with multiple university degrees, a
full-time job and a little girl? How narrowly do we have to squint to see
the indomitable spirit of my childhood friend as she gave her mother's
eulogy, her future sister-in-law occupying her daughter in the lobby of the
funeral home? In her speech, she said that her mother had become a
transcendent force, able to not only move through space and time but able to
grow and shrink. I sat in the front row, my friend in white as is our
tradition, thinking about her mother zooming into the nucleus of a cell.
Perhaps in the needle of a Christmas pine. Perhaps in the organized lattice
work of a snowflake on her daughter's lapel or in a raw sugar crystal on a
butter cookie. Or maybe she's as big as the goodwill of men.

I will smile and bow my head as my friend toasts her mother this holiday
with well-traveled cabernet that will chill on her doorstep until she
retrieves it. "[My daughter] has more toys than she can shake a stick at.
But what she really needs are a mom and a dad, extended family to love her,
good food, sunshine, health care when she needs it and kindness and
boundaries. It doesn't change after your grow up, either." A few thousand
miles away, the soft, rhythmic brushing of Japanese steel on smooth ceramic
will herald a new year of refocus. It is the steel that is scraped away
which leaves the steel that remains in the shape that will best serve its
purpose.

out of the shell

2010-11-23T22:11:00.001-08:00

In my office, there is a protective layer of smooth stone that shelters me from the travails of manual labor. In cubicles and in front of screens, we toil away for hours, plotting the destiny of our stores and the customers who walk through the glass doors. Glass doors with hours on them, a sure sign of retail.

Today, I along with my "corporate" office staff members walked into our stores as helpers and, really, grocery bitches. We were there to do whatever was necessary to make things easier on our store team members as Thanksgiving encroaches. We tidied displays, pulled stock from back rooms and found products for customers. I ran around the store looking for a bearded man who wanted buttermilk that we thought was out but was actually hidden. I would walk a thousand miles for any man who is buying buttermilk to cook with.

Aside from meeting friendly store employees who were bemused by our presence and my ineptitude, the dairy case was my favorite part of the day. I stood in the chilled room with boxes and boxes of egg nog, heavy whipping cream, unpasteurized orange juice, chocolate milk... it was wonderful. The glass doors would open for the searching hands of customers and I would be the shadowy figure shuffling behind the Organic Vanilla Silk Soy Milk. There was something wholesome about stocking the shelves with dairy for the thirsty public. Lactose-free dairy too. And soy. And whatever Coffee-mate is made of.

I was on my feet for most of the day and I came home exhausted. I need to sleep early but I took the time to slice up some tuna and salmon and, get excited, shuck my first oysters. Kumamotos to be exact. I was given a demonstration by Karen and I took my Swiss Army knife to the mollusks with tentative pokes. I actually cut myself but not while shucking an oyster, of course. I knicked my pinky while trying to unfold the blade. That's classic me.

The soft, creamy bodies of the oysters were dipped in variations of ponzu with green onion and lemon juice with Kosher salt and pepper. I prefered the ponzu and sat at my kitchen table, my feet aching, my eyes heavy with the briny, fruity oysters slowly disappearing. All of us out of our shells today. I suppose the body scanners at the airport won't be necessary.

food borne

2010-09-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

My father is a chef. He is a chef of frugal ambitions because he grew up eating meals made of the cheapest ingredients. Perhaps this requires him to be a better chef than most because he has had to make low quality meat, fish, poultry, vegetable and spices into dishes that would keep his family happy, not just nourished.

I get my food love from him and today, I realized that my sister Kelly didn't get the same food love. She asked me what I had for brunch and then asked if arugula was a cheese and what brioche is and where it comes from. We came from the same two people, yet our curiosities are so vastly different. But, to my surprise, it was she who explained my love of food to my father in a way that he understood. He doesn't get spending money on food. She helped him to realize that in my world, dollar signs don't equal stars. Taste equals stars. He can understand this, can't he? Since a dearth of dollar signs may not equate a less-than-stellar meal, so does a surplus of those $$$$ not guarantee a splendid dinner.

So thank you, Kelly. And for you, I did a little page flipping of culinary reference books (at last count I have 6). Arugula is a type of lettuce also known as Italian cress or rocket. It's got a bit of spiciness to it and is mainly used by Italians but appears in the modern cuisine of other countries like America, France and Japan. Brioche comes from France and is a yeasty dough that's supposed to be shaped by one ball on top of another larger ball. It's usually a bit sweet and is said to have been made with Brie cheese way back in the day.

poultry with a pause - part II

2010-08-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

The chicken has been roasted.

I'd pretty much eaten the four potatoes that were diced and roasted underneath the chicken and the five tomatoes that I had cut up for two salads. The chicken, or at least the bits and pieces I pulled from its carcass after I'd carved it, was delicious. I've got two breasts, two thighs, two wings in a container ready to be divvied up as lunch. I've got a carcass devoid of any slivers of meat awaiting its stock bath.

The peach jam was a success. Its production was prompted by my addiction to Fage Peach Yogurt. I pretty much eat a $2 150g container every morning and I know that it's excessive to spend so much money on yogurt. So, I purchased a large 500g tub of plain Fage for $5 and 2 lbs of peaches for $2. I used about $1.50 worth of peaches and have enough jam for about two containers of yogurt. I've learned a little bit about pectin and I feel like a country bumpkin making my peach "preserves.

poultry with a pause - part I

2010-08-18T21:28:00.000-07:00

When I set out to roast a chicken a few days ago, it was not as simple as it sounds.

On Sunday, I bought a lovely bird from soon-to-be momma bird Karen at McCall's Meat & Fish Co. It's one of those olive oil ingesting, happy feathered fowl from Kendor Farms. I was excited to take on my first solo roasting.

That night, I threw some overdue unpasteurized apple juice into a large bowl with an imprecise amount of salt and let the chicken soak. I went to sleep with the bird belly up and before I went to work, turned the bird belly flopped so that both sides would get an equal sugary salty slathering.

Then President Obama came to town. And while I don't have political leanings being that I'm actively uninformed and Canadian, I was happy that he was here. I was happy that he was schmoozing at John Wells' Hancock Park home with John Wells' friends paying $30,000 per couple to drop by, say hello and take a Twitpic with POTUS.

I was NOT happy that the uncoordinated, seemingly erratic and clandestine street closures prevented me from going up both major streets that lead to where I live. I couldn't get home in time to roast my brining chicken. Feeling trapped, I pulled over after being re-routed for the 3rd time and just happened to be near the apartment of two friends. My guardian gays, as they are now known, welcomed me, poured me wine, fed me chicken teriyaki and cookies 'n' cream ice cream. They saved me from a 3 hour commute and a midnight snack filled with the bitterness of a disgruntled resident alien.

Tonight, I placed the chicken on a rack above a pan and let the oven rip. But apparently, as I made peach jam while I waited for it to roast, the oven wasn't hot enough. As the planning was interrupted for the roasting of this chicken, so was its actual roasting. I took the bird out after an hour and let it rest for 15 minutes and when I cut into it, the meat was dark pink. The oven was fired up a 2nd time and now it's in there...sizzling and hopefully getting hot enough. At this point, the jam is done and I'm going to start eating my tomato and basil salad. Tomatoes from the Nozawas and basil from my "garden". It's not a big plant but apparently, many of my culinary endeavors are stunted. Stay tuned for part II when I actually can report on how the chicken tasted. And this time, I can't blame "the Man."

Codependency

2010-07-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Carbon dioxide is a gas which plants "enjoy". Photosynthesis is a complex biological process that I could have sketched for you years ago. But nowadays, the cycle is a generalized concept of which I rarely think. Simply put however, the chlorophyll in plants which makes them green churns carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. As you know, oxygen is what humans use to power our body engines, expelling carbon dioxide from our mouths when we exhale and speak. They say it's good to talk to plants for this very reason.

Mo is still not well. Tonight, I had to remove another yellowing branch that serves as a visual symptom of illness. From the biology classes that are now foggy in my memory, I recall the structure of xylem and phloem, funneling nutrients from plant roots to their stems, branches and leaves. Mo is lopsided and I suspect that half of his roots on one side are suffering below the dark soil.

This morning, as I said goodbye before work, I noticed that Mo was salty. That is to say, he was dusted with what I think are bug eggs that looked grains of sodium chloride. Aphids. A few of his leaves looked to be the venues for aphid outings; tiny flat green bugs were gathered and still. Mo looked itchy and I wanted to scratch him.

Miranda reminded me of the brilliant insect food chain and the hierarchy of predators. On my way home from dinner, I stopped at Home Depot to play pimp and find Mo some ladies: ladybugs. Unfortunately, I didn't get any action as they were out so I decided to rid him of the encroachers myself. I could buy him another day's worth of time until I find a harem of spotted red coquettes for my dear tomato plant. He needed cheering up.

So, in a silky black blouse with cream colored lace trim, I stood next to the kitchen sink. I ran Mo's branches gently under a steady stream of water from the faucet. I tilted the pot with my left hand while the aphids were swept into the current of water circling the drain by my right thumb. I brushed the leaves with my finger tips, his spiky hairs rough to the touch. I didn't speak but I breathed deeply and gave him much needed attention.

After the bath, I cut open the new bag of fertilizer. I detected a faint note of delicious cocoa, spooned out the prescribed dosage and mixed it with the soil. Then, an ample shower followed by a patient draining of the excess water. Quick trim of the weakened branch and a few leaflets and he was done.

He's back outside in the cool night air. Tomorrow, I'll try another nursery for Mo's ladies. I'll move him into the sunlight on my way out and hope that he'll be warm and comfortable for the day before I blow him a kiss goodbye. He enjoys the carbon dioxide.

no you don't, Mo

2010-07-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

When I read books about ingredients or "food encyclopedias" as they are called now, I particularly enjoy the entries for various fruits and vegetables. Bereft of recipes, whether it's the Food Lover's Companion or a 1961 Larousse Gastronomique, the produce listings always have detailed illustrations or color plates to demonstrate the painterly allure of everything from artichokes to a strawberry. The description will include the biological origin of the species, the proper names of a few varietals, general directions on how to consume it and maybe a dish name or two. Often, the phrase "out of hand" is applied to how a fruit or vegetable can be eaten. This I know how to do.

What these book don't tell you is that humans are not the only organisms that enjoy fruits and vegetables. I suppose it's not a botany book or a biology book. When the bugs come to nibble at the same succulent kernels of corn, you pretty much have to accept it and salvage what you can for leftovers. Bug leftovers.

I stood before the rainbow of produce at Chino Farm on Sunday, bewildered by the array of perfect specimens. Swiss chard in various hues. French carrots in milk, saffron, carrot, salmon and beet colors. Kale, at least 5 kinds. I can't do justice to these things yet. I cannot wrangle the boldest iteration of a butternut squash using heat and forged, sharpened metal. All I can do is photograph the cornucopia of California's bounty. For Mother Nature's efforts, my respects are paid by holding her gifts gingerly as I taste them, preserving her work and enjoying each masterpiece out of hand.

When I returned to the city and its soot stained palms, I felt a stronger desire to tend to my own plants. I'd been moving Mo, the tomato, to the sunniest part of my walkway but he was still looking spotty and unsure. I'd been told that Mo was ill and that I needed to protect him from the bugs which were slowly eating him alive. The other night, I went to Home Depot and Whole Foods to find an organic pesticide. I couldn't bring myself to purchase anything I saw. The bottles were either horribly marketed to be safe (Home Depot > Ortho "ecosense" all lowercase, pretty pastel colors hiding chemical names pesticide) or expired (Whole Foods > some random probiotic spray that was safe yet 2 years old and probably dead inside). I decided that Mo needed to see a doctor.

So, before work this morning, I took Mo and my basil plant to the Hashimoto Nursery on Sawtelle. The basil plant has been suffering as well with huge holes in its leaves. Someone clearly has been enjoying its sweet flavor, leaving me with nary a whole leaf for what I would call the world's tiniest caprese salad.

Admidst the narrow dirt paths between flowers and vines and pots and bagged soil, I teetered in my fancy shoes; Louis Vuitton purse on one arm, Mo and the basil plant in the other. I showed them to the man at the nursery. Deadpan, he told me that Mo wasn't going to make it and to throw it away. I told him that I didn't want to give up. He didn't seem moved. He suggested a bigger pot, no water for a week because I'd been overwatering and then some fertilizer. I asked him about pesticide and he said not to use any as I'd want to eat the tomato. Tomato. Singular. I'm hopeful that Mo can squeeze out just one, red orb. As for the basil plant, it needed more water and also a bigger pot. Later in the day I would remove two green worms from the underside of its leaves. Hopefully that would make a big difference.

I purchased two new pots, a bag of potting soil and a small bag of fertilizer for about $16. Tonight, after whipping up a batch of cookie dough, I set about putting Mo and the basil plant in their new containers. In lieu of insecticide, the nursery man told me to just use water to wash the bugs away. A shower in both senses of the word. Down the drain the bugs went as I ran the kitchen faucet over the green branches and leaves of Mo and the basil. I even removed a tiny millipede and a worm by hand. Not wanting to leave out the thyme, I put it in a new pot as well even though the thyme is flourishing like a weed. A weed. Not weed.

These plants are under my care and I will not give up their health and wellness without a fight. I know that Mother Nature is responsible for bugs and soil and all the rest, but I'm not letting them get Mo. I cannot cull culinary brilliance out of a bushel of perfect produce but I know how to care for things, especially those that cannot care for themselves. When I shucked an ear of corn from Chino, I tore into the home of a thick green worm, somnolent from carbohydrate overload. I touched it with my fingertip and it twitched at the sudden pressure but didn't feel the need to shrink into the cornsilk and husks. I stared at it for a moment before cutting off that bit and tossing the end and the worm into the trash. This time, I was about to eat it out of hand and house and home.

Smells Candies

2010-06-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

On La Cienega Boulevard, just south of Jefferson, a large white building houses the See's Candies factory/plant/calorie cloud from heaven. I assume this building also serves as a distribution center, watering the West Coast malls and airport stands with their milk and dark chocolate bits.

They're making minty chocolates today, the scent of menthol puffing out of a vent somewhere. I can usually smell the day's work when I drive by every morning and you can imagine, for me, how amazing this opportunity is. I probably eat See's Candies twice a year but the yummy smells on La Cienega make dodging LAX-bound taxis every day infinitely less annoying.

Epilogue

2010-06-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

Today, I write from a gardening workshop in Little Tokyo. Not knowing that the workshop would be conducted almost entirely in Japanese, I'm quietly typing away as the room of Japanese speakers takes notes on handouts. I've heard a few words I know; "soil", "loam", "mulching", "tomato"; but without the context of their usage, they are just gardening basics that will be Wikipedia'ed later.

Yesterday afternoon, behind a bowl of leftover ramen with its slices of fatty pork, I sat down to watch "Food, Inc.", lent to me by a co-worker. We both love food and gardens and we both work for a grocery store. At the end of the film, this last similarity would affect a sentiment in me that would not have existed 6 months ago.

I own "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and I haven't read it. Most of my "big food" information is gleaned from Chef Dong Choi's nighttime rants about corn or diabetes or from the fan postings on the grocery store's Facebook fan page wall. It's interesting that supposed fans wander by their own free will onto the pages of companies of which they clearly are not fans. It's so un-American (read broadly: socialist).

The film's chapters take you through the costs, secrets, consequences and coersions of the food industry. Nevermind the visuals of chickens who can't walk, their swiftly fattened bodies outpacing the maturity of their bones. Forget the image of a cow with a rubber stent into one of its stomachs and the scientist happily digging around to test the E. Coli it the ruminant (the verb of and after which this blog is named). Forget the shock value. The most disconcerting statistic I learned is that 4-5 companies in the United States produce about 80% of its beef. And the largest customer of beef (and potatoes) here is the McDonald's corporation.

It's nothing we haven't heard piecemeal or assumed. The scope of this continuity of supply and demand makes me lose my appetite. I don't eat a lot of meat and now, I can't look at the steaks and chops and thighs at the grocery store, at my place of employment, in the same, salivating way. I was lucky that I had already finished my ramen.

In an act of precognition, the producers of the film evaded the sense of helplessness pervading the bulk of the film and included a literal epilogue. In it, reminders and suggestions were typed onto the screen. Shop at farmer's markets...plant a garden...change the world with every bite. Stop working for a grocery store that sells questionably raised meat was not among them.

While I didn't understand the lecture, like any good student, I'm still taking my homework seriously. I'm about to pay for thyme, basil and tomato seedlings that will hopefully flourish in the indirect sunlight that finds the top of my air conditioning unit. In size and distance, it's far from a field but it holds my dreams of being a honorable and informed food enthusiast. Delicious.

A Birthday

2010-05-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

When you're 13, you don't know to be modest. You might be shy or bashful but you won't deflect flattery whether justified or convenient with a gracious smile. When you're 13, your birthday means your wishes come true with your pimpled friends, a cake and pizza.

The day I turned 33, I was modest. I hadn't planned a party or a fancy dinner or a masquerade ball in the French Quarter with doormen and coat check girls like I've always dreamed. My plan was to hang out afterhours at McCall's Meat & Fish Co. and maybe eat a hamburger. No cake.

Instead, at the last minute, one of my closest (in proximity) friends got tickets to see David Sedaris speak at UCLA and he invited me to go. David Sedaris is one of my favorite writers; his calm, resigned observations bring giggles up from my belly like bubbles in ginger ale. This friend and I once sat at my kitchen table, me with David and he with a script for a pilot TV show. I sporadically laughed so hard that I had no choice but to read passages aloud. One passage was about Halloween candy in a chapter from "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim". My friend knew how much I loved Mr. Sedaris and I was grateful that he remembered.

On the evening of May 5, since my friend had already had a snack, my birthday dinner was eaten from its plastic wrapper in the car on the way to UCLA. I had a leftover fresh&easy Italian Sub Sandwich with spicy, salty sliced meats, provolone cheese hugging slowly drying ciabatta bread. Pepperoncinis were pretty much for decoration as they packed a tepid but helpful punch. I was so hungry that the sandwich was delicious.

What might have followed as a cake monstrosity in previous years was replaced by kind and witty company and a writer who was funny, inspiring and shared with an auditorium full of people. For he's a jolly, good fellow and I was satisfied by just being there. The gift of presence was more than enough.

links

2010-02-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

My friend Karen and I have shared a lot of great memories. I've known her since we were just freshly graduated from college and since those youthful days, we've lived together in New York, gone to Hawaii for her wedding and among other silly girl miscellany I can now tell our children one day that their mother and I stuffed ground pork with fennel and orange zest into pig intestines called hanks. We made sausages by hand.

Karen and her husband Nathan have opened a butcher shop on Hillhurst Ave. in Los Feliz. If you are a discerning carnivore, you must stop by to marvel at all kinds of meaty madness, carved and curated by two professional chefs who love food. When Nathan cuts a steak, he thinks of the final dish as he guides his knife. How many butchers do you know that can say they've worked in three Michelin star restaurants? It's like your school nurse telling you she was a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic before she came to hand out band-aids and condoms.

Every morning, before I even begin to have weird dreams about orange blue cheese (true story), Nathan is headed downtown to the fish market. By 6:30am, he's given a humble nod to Mr. Nozawa, yes, of Sushi Nozawa, an unofficial mentor and a McCall's customer. Traffic isn't even an issue this early as he heads back with incredibly fresh seafood that's in season. Salmon, tuna, oysters, scallops, mussels...they're all sitting in the case early everyday, shiny and briny and begging to be devoured. The array changes every day so if you're on Twitter, you can follow them to know what's wriggling. I follow them. And Lady Gaga.

I bought a tiny bit of Alaskan black cod the other night and poached it. I concocted a simple sauce of soy, mirin, rice vinegar and sesame oil in which the black cod was dipped. After the first white flake of fish met my taste buds, I immediately wished that I had bought a pound of it. All for me. The texture was silky with a slight bounce. It possessed a hint of fishiness, mainly from the skin, that was beautiful with the acidity of the rice vinegar.

On dry land, they're sourcing cuts from purveyors that only sell to restaurants. So when you wonder why you're such a bad cook because you can't seem to get things to taste like what they serve at your favorite restaurant, know that not all ingredients are created nor available equally. A flimsy Vons pork chop isn't a Berkshire pork chop. One night before they opened, we were all chatting when they told me that they could find super-foodie ingredients like white truffles and foie gras...things that you can't normally get at the market. My mind started to wander into the land of things I can shave white truffles onto. It was an endless landscape dotted with pretty much anything edible.

If farms were strip clubs, Nathan and Karen would be bouncers who can get you into the champagne room while discreetly slipping you your $100 bill back in ones. I've now discovered my new food love: the very hard-to-find natural certified angus beef prime dry aged short loin (where you get a T-bone from). Nathan had fried up a tiny bit to test and the flavor was complex with notes of Parmesan. As I chewed and let the juice seep out from the sinews, I knew that some people won't ever get to experience a steak like that. You know, an extra lap dance from the hottest stripper at the strip club type of steak.

And not to go on and on even though I am, I just have to tell you about the eggs. I haven't had them personally but the chickens and the eggs are apparently the most incredible tasting chickens and eggs that both of them have ever tasted. Kendor Farms is in Van Nuys so the which came firsts are local. But the best tidbit is that they mix a little olive oil into the chicken feed. Uh, I'd be pretty delicious if I ate olive oil every day. I'd be fat-astic.

And of course...the sausage. As a bonus for randomly being there the night sausages needed to be stuffed and helping Karen while Nathan butchered some fish, they gave me a sausage I had "made." Nathan's mixture of pork butt, orange and fennel was amazing. A little salt, a little love and into the pig intestine it went. I fried it up at home one night along with a little bit of extra, unformed stuffing and I had to stop myself from eating the entire pound of seasoned juicyness in one sitting. The fennel is potent and the orange comes in towards the end and the fattiness of the pork just made me want to hug someone.

At any rate, I'm always excited to pop-in to their tiny, maroon shop on Hillhurst. Where my best friend Karen wraps up protein jewels in brown paper and sends me home with little projects. I gave them an old book I found at a used book store simply titled Meat. I hadn't paid much attention to the author but upon presenting them with it, we took it as a sign that it had in fact been written by the Lobels of the eponymous butcher shop in Manhattan; the shop that sold them the steak that inspired them to do what they did. I'm fortunate to have them be my culinary guides but we're all lucky that they've put the entirety of their time and energy from the past year into an endeavor that I hope will change the way people shop for meat and fish...and eggs...oh my.

The Worst Aversion

2010-01-19T23:56:00.001-08:00

On Sunday night, around 9:15pm, I ate a slurp of stir fried chow fun noodles sliding under an egg drop sauce with slices of cod and green onion. My father's leftovers. For dessert, I finished what was left of a small square of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and washed a bowl of Mexican blueberries I had purchased the day before at the farmer's market. I went to sleep happy and full until around 3:30am when I woke up feeling slightly strange. After playing a mental game of Battleship with my stomach, I had to surrender when my devilish dinner wanted OUT.

I know you're not supposed to blame the most recent thing you've eaten when food poisoning strikes, but after 9 hours of sweaty fits, troubled sleep and undignified bathroom behavior, I'm pretty sure I can't stand the sight of blueberries anymore. I caught a glimpse of some in a photograph today and I had to blink away my disgust. I suspect it was the blueberries since everything else I ate on Sunday had been shared with people who weren't sick at all. But worse than this reasonable deduction...am I really to believe that I won't love chocolate cake anymore? This cannot be.

Taste aversion is a well-studied topic amongst psychologists and behavioral scientists. I once read a report about wolves that happened to feed on strategically placed rabbits injected with a solution designed to induce vomiting. The result? Farmers had more bountiful hare crops that year.

But to take away one of my true loves? The food fairies have done me wrong. I'm hopeful that the passion for my favorite dessert will return because at the moment nothing sounds tempting to me, not chocolate cake, not the wonderful leftover bouillabaisse in my fridge, not pizza from Lamonica's. I can't hate ALL of these things forever, can I? Oh, this is a very sad day. Despite the fact that I lost 5 pounds overnight, if I can get my appetite back, I won't mind the return of the pudge. Seems like those two might go hand in chubby hand.

adam and eve

2009-12-04T10:53:00.001-08:00

The last time I had BBQ ribs, it was at Baby Blues BBQ on Santa Monica, just a few blocks from my apartment. It was a disappointing though lively place and the ribs were tough and less than acceptable. I ate there with a friend from Atlanta and he said "You don't know BBQ until you've eaten BBQ in the South." Well, now I have.

I have often written about life changing foods. Delicious, paradigm-shifting dishes that have set my culinary trajectory one enormous degree closer to a lifetime of enjoyment. Over time, that one degree will have sent me to a place of flavors that I may have missed otherwise. Missed by a long shot.

At Fat Matt's, I ate my first bite of ribs. Surpassing all other bones protecting the hearts of pigs that I have tried, this first bite of soft, fatty, sweet, tangy pork and I will never be the same. I also had "Brunswick" Stew which is like pot roast with a little bit of tang blended into a chili-like consistency...with corn. It was delicious. I also had a bit of a pulled pork sandwich, a few forkful of coleslaw and some mac and cheese. You can see the menu exactly like I did here.

A white-haired man with a guitar sang silly country songs on the small stage. Men from Alabama in their Crimson Tide jackets jawed on cellphones. Black ladies on their lunch break waited for a table to open up and I, with my messy fingers and white sweater ("You wore the wrong color," said my friend Matthew) sat there, smiling next to a case of BBQ sauce for the trip home. A case.

If the bible-lovers here are right, I, my sisters, all women, nay, all people have descended from a man and his rib. And that's a great lineage I'd say.

neck bones for Jesus

2009-12-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

I don't usually go to church but yesterday I went to the United House of Prayer to have lunch at their Kitchen Café. We stood in line with our trays under the portraits of black reverends and a black Jesus. In the skylit dining room, black and white guests chatted about work as they enjoyed their lunch break.

Plates of lemon cake sat wrapped in plastic. Banana pudding in To Go clamshells. Greg ordered neck bones and rice. Karen had BBQ chicken. We shared sides of turnip greens, mac and cheese, black eyed peas and yams. I ordered crappy spaghetti bake because I LOVE crappy spaghetti bake particularly when it's covered with melted cheddar cheese. Meat sauce that has been stewed for a day combined with pasta that has been boiled for almost as long makes a squishy, lovely lunch.

The neck bones were served with brown gravy and the BBQ chicken was slathered in a dark burgundy sauce. I enjoyed the braised neck bones, the beef softened by linger, low heat. It reminded me of oxtail which I guess is the opposite end extension to a neck. I nibbled at the sides, discovering the wilted turnip greens, slightly acidic from the vinegar used to break down the tough fibers. The mac and cheese was great and so were the yams although they were so incredibly sweet. We joked that this was the only way one could spread the word of obesity. Or Type II diabetes.

For dinner, Karen and I went to Wild Wing where I satisfied a craving for hot wings. We happened upon "Two-fer Tuesday" where buying 8 wings got us 8 more. I'm a wimp when it comes to wings so we had medium spicy hot wings and Jamaican jerk wings. Not to be remiss with the terrible appetizers, we also ordered loaded potato skins with cheese, bacon and jalapeños. With a dessert of peanut butter, chocolate and caramel flavors piled into a stack of wafers, cake, cream and gooey layers, our bill came to $21 between the two of us and we were stuffed. It's amazing to me how much food doesn't cost here.

As we looked around the restaurant, Karen pointed out the many tables of black and white friends dining together. You actually see less of that in LA, a more melting pot city by most accounts. How does that happen in a place that everyone claims is so racist? I suppose that calories might be the answer to a common love that transcends external appearances.

"are y'all doin' ok?"

2009-11-30T22:37:00.001-08:00

That's what the waitress asked my friends and me about 6 times during the course of our dinner. Not once annoying, not once perfunctory...it was sincere and southern and so very different from LA!

I'm in Augusta, Georgia this week for a mini-vacation and tonight, I ate dinner at a place that had a wooden bear in the entry way and my name "Katie" tagged with a knife into one of the plexiglass windows. I was destined to eat here.

Rhinehart's has picnic tables each with a roll of paper towels on it. As he tried to explain the cuisine to me, my friend Greg said simply "It's a lot of fried seafood." So, fried seafood I had; served on paper placed on paper plates. Oysters, shrimp and instead of fries or grits, a side salad with honey mustard dressing. We all shared a paper plate of boiled, peel-and-eat shrimp dunked into cocktail sauce. The paper towels marched off their roll one at a time as our fingers became slick with shrimp juice.

Greg told me he was interested in what I thought of the "chain restaurant hell" that is Augusta's food scene. I told him that after many fine dining experiences, you start to become a little jaded. Then, something natural happens. You rebel against the foams and veloutés and search for the perfect cheese enchilada or the ultimate corn dog. In Augusta, Georgia, you don't have to look too hard though because here, the corn dog (and funnel cake) booth from the county fair pops up in the Wal-Mart parking lot now and again. I took a photo of it today.

Speaking of chains, at the airport, I fell in love with a Hawaiian pizza from Domino's. It was an unfortunate but delicious misstep. After 5 hours and two planes, I waited for my friends to pick me up and devoured this cheesy, doughy disc and bought the Sunday New York Times. As I read, an airport worker sat down at my table with her own Domino's pizza. Then her friend joined with her soda. Then a third friend sat with his baked potato, the green scent of it rising to my nose. I listened to them talk about how tired they were. I took in their "mmmmmm HM"s and wondered about their fatigue. Of course they were hard workers, two of them wearing navy blue dickies and fluorescent vests. Maybe they weren't eating properly. Surely they weren't. The newspaper cost more than my meal. If that isn't an indicator of the state of this state, then butter my butt and call me a biscuit.

cake pops

2009-11-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

There is a thin layer of brown dust on my kitchen. The stove, the counter, the handles of the fridge. This is what happens when I play with cocoa powder.

Last week I baked a cake for my sister's birthday, a Devil's Food cake with a dark chocolate whipped cream frosting. It seems excessive but I had to use a $300 sashimi knife from Osaka to cut cake layers because I don't own a bread knife or a similarly serrated knife of the appropriate length for the task. In producing even layers for the cake, the crumbs I sliced off were kept in a take-out container for tonight's experiment: cake pops.

Cake Pops have somehow become a cottage industry for bloggers who like sweets. There's a company in Irvine that makes them in an actual bakery and packages them for you as gifts. A friend brought some to a party I went to and I was hooked. Basically, you have cake bits mixed with adhesive (frosting works) dipped in chocolate and stuck on a lollipop stick.

I had cake crumbs but no lollipop sticks so I just decided to make them into little cake truffles. I mixed the crumbs with a mixture of cream cheese, unsalted butter, confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder. I cooled the mixture, formed them into balls and then dipped them into chocolate melted in a glass bowl on top of a pot of boiling water. In the future, I'll freeze the balls before dipping them in COOLED melted chocolate. The temperatures were too high all around and my first attempt became a soggy mound of shiny, runny chocolate on top of a slowly oozing cake falling through the grate of a cake rack.

When I gave everything a chance to cool, I resumed and produced some lovely looking truffles dusted, like the kitchen, in cocoa powder. I ate a tester and between the few that I ate to ensure the right flavor, I feel sick and jittery. This coupled with the brown smears across my chef's coat make me look like someone you'd stay away from. But I bet you can't...because I've got all the cake pops.

the average bear

2009-11-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

Call me a food Samaritan.

I was standing outside my apartment the other day with my upstairs neighbor, a stylish gay who drives an X5 and listens to loud pop music in the morning to prepare for work. I know this because he dances on my ceiling and I awake to his routine almost every day.

Mid-conversation, an apartment door opened and out came John, our new neighbor.

"Hey, how you guys doin'?" John asked, "Did I meet you already? I'm John, I just moved in."

We exchanged names and he then asked, "I have a strange question. Do either of you have a rolling pin?"

An odd request. "What are you rolling out?" I inquired.

"Pizza dough."

Now, unbeknownst to John, I know a little bit about food and about pizza dough having worked for a pizzeria as its marketer. I know how to explain the basics of pizza dough to press so I thought maybe I could help John the new neighbor cum pizzaiolo.

"You can just knead it with your knuckles." He said he'd tried but the dough was just too hard and his hands were tired and sore. Sounded a little odd to me. So I asked him about the temperature of the dough. Turns out that he had just taken it out of the fridge and it was still cold. I told him to let it come to room temperature and try again, perhaps using the side of a bowl or mug to help him since he didn't have a baseball bat.

John closed the door to his apartment after he'd gone back inside, probably to get back to pounding the dough with a hammer. I wished his pizza well.

bartlett

2009-11-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Some people have memories of their childhood that involve summer swims and lakeside cabins or first kisses behind the couch. Some remember a topsy-turvy night out with their compadres. Others remember a sentence that changed their perception like one of those quarter-driven stationary binoculars. I remember fruits.

I remember a peach I ate in 1996. I remember the moist buzz of the skin as I pulled it away from the flesh. I remember the flavor and the juice, the pit's easy release. This peach had a slightly tannic taste but it was wonderful.

I remember a nectarine I ate sometime between 2002-2004. I had rinsed it with tap water from the kitchen faucet, taken a quick bite out of idle hunger and stopped to marvel at its bright, bold perfection. I remember sitting down on the sofa, in the sunlight, telling myself to eat the nectarine slowly so that I would enjoy every bite of the firm, juicy flesh. Its gold color sparkled and the red bleed from the stone reached towards the skin ever so shyly.

Moments ago, I stood in my kitchen and cut bruises from a Barlett pear that I had a suspicion would be delicious. I cut slices away from the core and placed them in a bowl. From the core, I took a few bites of flesh and instantly, I felt its memory forming in the most sturdy parts of my brain. This pear will go down in my tastebud history as one of the greatest to ever exist and then cease to exist by the greedy slurping of my tongue and teeth. Its friends are green with envy, ripening to their pale yellow best on my kitchen counter. This pear was curvy and lumpy like a hardworking mother of 5, grandmother of 15. The flesh near the skin was slightly bitter, its core was a bit acidic. But both qualities brought to life its slippery, soft meat, replete with pear magic.

Go find pears (and pomegranates!) at the farmers markets soon, my food loving friends. May they have been harvested for a worthy reason, not to succumb to spots of mold which according to Chef Dong Choi are "Mother Nature's fingertips coming to take back what's hers."

pillowside library

2009-11-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

When I turned 27, I bought a big girl bed. After years of sleeping on a European single which is like an extra-long twin from your old collegiate days, I bought myself a $150 frame from Ikea and a $700 full-sized mattress. Oh, how the extra inches felt like yards and yards of drowsy terrain.

On the bed, during the precious few moments before slumber rolls over me like a fog approaching the shore, I read a few pages from whatever books I'm into. Being too tired to return them to their respective shelves, I've allowed a pillowside library to erect itself on the corner of my mattress. The library usually contains anywhere from 2 to 4 selections. When the number of volumes becomes too high and I can't sleep for fear of a stack of books falling on my head in the middle of the night, the lesser titles find their way to the floor.

It's an interesting barometer of my mental or intellectual state. Sometimes of my emotional state. Consistently over the past few years, dictionaries have appeared and disappeared from the library. In the periodicals, there's usually a section or two of the New York Times. Over the summer, I read On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. Then it was the September issue of Vogue and the Food Lover's Companion (3rd Edition). A UK paperback of "The Prophet" by Gibran travels back and forth between the mattress and the floor.

If you didn't know me, you could easily take the books and conjure what would probably be fairly accurate assumptions about my interests. I'm probably a "foodie". I'm probably a woman. I probably went to college. Maybe I'm an artist or perhaps a wannabe hippie. Maybe, based on the frequent appearance of dictionaries, I'm an English professor. I'm probably an old English professor as many of the dictionaries were published before 1960. Maybe one of my liberal and fairy-headed students gave me a copy of "The Prophet" as a gift. These are all reasonable paint strokes giving context to a stack of books.

Right now, the assortment of books is fascinating. I'm currently sleeping with three, independently published poetry books one of which was copied at Kinko's and stapled by hand and a book on self-defense. I recently saw the poets Ellyn Maybe and my idol and friend Rachel McKibbens and quickly snatched their chapbooks from them, shoved money into their hands and ran off to immediately crack them open. The "Complete Guide to Unarmed Combat Techniques" was written by man whose nickname is "Lofty". Presumably a reflection of his goals. This one I found sitting in a friend's box of discards.

To save myself, I'm armed with the writhing, tentative words of two poets. I've got the curt directions of a British Survival Instructor whose orders are accompanied by agitated black and white illustrations of people fighting off attacks. You can tell the women by their skirts and black high heels.

Defend your body with your body. Defend your heart with your heart. Here's a better glimpse into the pages that punch and jab and wriggle me free. Reprinted without permission.

"I found a year that likes my body
1921
girl sitting on a rock
Picasso painted a woman with my thighs."

"I lean into the paintings.
I veer to the outside to find out what Picasso
called each work.

I like titles.
Their vocabulary of oil."

-Ellyn Maybe, from the poem "Picasso" found in walking barefoot in the glassblowers museum

"The head on a hinge, the man notices a small light coming
from somewhere inside the cat, possibly between the fourth
and fifth cervical vertebrae. He takes his pen and digs around,
parting flesh and fur chips as best he can.
Inside, he finds Theresa, the first girl to tell him "no."
He can tell it is Theresa, even though she is considerably smaller, because she is sitting on a stool polishing spoons by candlelight and of all the women he has ever known,
only Theresa would do such a considerate thing
at at time like this. Theresa! I knew it was you! How are you?

Theresa looks up and smiles.
I'm doing just fine, Charles. Thank you.
She sets down a polished spoon inside of the other.
There are tall stacks of spoons spooning that surround her
feet and stool. She pulls a new spoon from a crate
and huh huhs her breath into its shallow bowl,
rubbing it with a handkerchief. She is mesmerizing.
A three-inch tall Elizabeth Taylor.

She continues to polish spoons as if he is not there.
The man realizes he has interrupted a meaningful pattern
of pure and absolute beauty. A natural machine, designed for no
one other than the machine itself. Clumsy, he interrupts one last
time. Are you thirst Theresa, would you like me
to bring you a cup of tea?

Theresa continues her stack, then reminds him:
There isn't a teacup small enough. The words
form a dinner table of malice inside his chest,"

-Rachel McKibbens, from the poem "Thirsty Theresa" found in Tomatoes and Daffodils

"The teeth can be very useful in self-defense. If you're a woman, bite on whatever you can get hold of, ideally the ear. And once you bite don't let go - you'll just arouse the attacker. Bite into his neck, his throat, his ear; just bite, chew, rip and spit."

-John "Lofty" Wiseman, "The SAS Self-Defense Handbook: A Complete Guide to Unarmed Combat Techniques - Chapter 2: Your Body's Weapons"

chickenhead

2009-11-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

I roasted my first chicken last week. When I purchased the bird from a Korean market, I stared wanly at the chicken head encased with the body under the cellophane skin. It looked sleepy and featherless.

I prepared a brine with Kosher salt, garlic and a little bit of sugar. "It should taste like the ocean in terms of saltiness" said Nate, my professor. I took teaspoons of brine from my stock pot until the mixture reminded me of my first surf lesson.

Upon tearing the plastic wrap off the bird, I realized that the chicken still had its head on. I had picked it up out of the tray with my bare hands so I leaned over the sink to have a think. Do I put the bird down, wash my hands and take out a knife to decapitate it or do I brine with the head on and return later with the guillotine? I decided on the latter so the whole bird went into the pot and I washed and returned to my other prep.

When it came time to cut it off, I wasn't as squeamish as I thought I'd be. After a pointer from Nate, I took my gyotou and cut the head off at the base of the neck and threw the head into the trash. The stuffing, salting and tying took a while but eventually the bird was placed on a bed of spinach and yams to roast for about an hour. Meanwhile, I made creamed corn with what I thought was fresh corn from the market and a basil plum cobbler.

The chicken was saltier than we thought it'd be but most of the salt fell into the spinach and yams. Those were eaten sparingly. The creamed corn suffered due to old, tough kernels and the basil plum cobbler was surprisingly minty due to Thai instead of Italian basil. All in all, we had a good meal and a lesson that sometimes you have to deal with life head on.

how it all comes around

2009-10-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I posted about returning my keys and my thanks to New York City. I'm back on the blog now, with a year of stories from the marketing trenches of a small, burgeoning restaurant group. I will share some of those moments in time. For now, I want to offer a bit of ridiculousness about how things come around.

I have a baker friend. A brilliant and profoundly dedicated baker. The first time I tasted his pain au lait, the world seemed to shift ever so slightly. The light, slightly elastic white bread melted in my mouth and I understood that I had not eaten the right bread for most of my life. What does right mean? I wish I had the words to explain it. It was as if clarity burst into my brain through the roof of my mouth. The pain au lait was ever so sweet with a moisture-leaving quality that most breads don't have. What do you give to someone who has changed your understanding of a food? Who has created loaf after loaf, croissant after croissant of wonderful, well groomed yeast and flour?

He likes Rice Krispy Squares.

Making him Rice Krispy Squares leaves me feeling like the Little Dummer Boy haphazardly whacking a tom-tom for the baby Jesus. But I took to the task with the precision of a professional. I read and re-read the 5 lines in the recipe (3 of the lines are occupied by the ingredient list) and prepared my mise en place. I measured the marshmallows with my digital food scale. I microwaved the butter in 15 second increments so that I would not overheat it. I stirred in the marshmallows until consistently melted; whatever evil they are made of adequately softened and wrangled. I added the Rice Krispies slowly so that I would not have too thin a coat of this sweet, gooey white gold. I shaped the squares by hand on a Silpat.

They're sitting on the counter now. A far cry from frankincense and myrrh but we do what we can and we give what we are able to make without fucking it up.

Let the food blogging begin.

the keys

2008-11-25T23:58:00.000-08:00

Today, I mailed the keys to my New York apartment back to New York. Back to my roommates who will be moving out this weekend, ending a tale that started a little over a year ago.

I went away for no real reason. It was so frivolous really. But I don't have any regrets. I look back sometimes, when someone mentions a restaurant I once knew in New York, when someone speaks of the vibrant energy in Manhattan. I was there. I took in those skyscrapers almost every day.

I'm poorer now, in bank account. I'm less a lot of clothes and shoes and material. But I'm so much more brave. I'm in a job that I have no experience doing and every day, I face my coworkers with the hope that we'll succeed together. And I let them watch me fall but not fail. What a difference a letter makes. Letters are the keys to telling a story and I'm proud of mine.

no air

2008-06-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

There is a song currently emanating from the radios of 14 year-olds everywhere by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown. It's called "No Air" and it's about being in love to the point where your paramour's affections become as necessary as air. It's growing on me as I listen to it here in Aspen. Or maybe it's because I'm delirious from the altitude and the fact that I literally have NO AIR because at this height, the oxygen content of the air is 53% of what it is at sea level. I'm huffing and puffing all day.

The weather is beautiful and I write to you from the balcony of my room at the Aspen Meadows Resort. Thanks to my job and the good people at Food and Wine magazine who sponsor the event which I'm attending, I'm able to gaze at snow covered mountains riddled with dark green pines and yet wear my pajamas outside in the sun as tourists play guitar on the grass below.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon into the valley of this mountain range and had dinner at Cache Cache with Dan Phillips of The Grateful Palate. The restaurant was bustling with locals and visitors alike. I started with a lovely beet salad with goat cheese, mixed greens and a light lemon-truffle vinaigrette. I veered off the beaten path and ordered house smoked salmon and a seared foie gras appetizer for my duo-app entree. The salmon was soft and fishy with tart creme fraiche and accompaniments like capers, onion and chive. The foie was delicious as foie always is (except at eat. on sunset... what a mistake!) For dessert, a trio of ice creams - vanilla, chocolate and a fresh mint and chocolate chip which sorely disappointed me because the chocolate chips were not meant for ice cream and tasted like bits of brown crayon.

Yesterday, lunch was enjoyed at Boogie's Diner where a truly American tasting was ordered. Chili cheese fries, a cheeseburger and a meatloaf sandwich were split between my boss and me. Both of us becoming lethargic and stoney by late afternoon. I splurged on a strawberry malt which was pink and doughy but in a good way.

Back in LA, I left my car in the care of a friend who noticed my tire to be a little flat so he added a few PSI to it. I could certainly use a bit of that here.

More later!

"112th and Central Park West, please."

2008-06-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's the last time I'll utter those words for a while.

I'm leaving on a jet plane in a few hours and once again, I'm saying goodbye to the city. But this trip has made it clear to me that one day, I must be back here. Hopefully I'll have found a job and be living in an apartment I like and maybe, if I'm lucky, be in love as well.

My first destination yesterday afternoon after a lazy morning under the hot sun of my apartment window was the Korin store on Warren Street. Surrounded by so many professional chefs, I've learned that a good knife is the start to good cooking so I bought my first "real" knife, a 210mm Togiharu gyutou. It's a carbon steel knife which means it will rust if I don't use it but it also means that it keeps its edge just a little bit longer. Good thing because I tend to lose my edge when I'm back in the confines of Hollywood wonderland Los Angeles. I've been taught how to sharpen the blade and as soon as I get a stone, the smell of my own blood mixed with iron will fill the air of my new apartment. That's how you know you're doing it right.

From Korin I wandered to the Lower East Side to stop into one of my favorite boutiques called Honey in the Rough. Ashley, the curly-haired proprietor of the store is on vacation so I didn't get to thank her in person for the postcard she sent me in LA thanking me for my purchases. The streets emanated the heat of the reflected sun, concrete hoarding the warmth of the day only to release it through the night. I made my way north to the East Village where I met Felipe and friends at Luzzo's for pizza and conversation. It just sort of happened. The Caesar salad Felipe and I shared was delicious with a slick, fishy dressing and hard, crunchy croutons. Two pizzas were ordered, a Tartufata and an Arugola, and both were incredible. Just as I remembered.

I shopped at Filene's Basement in Union Square and had a late night snack with my roommate Karen at Pongsri Thai on 23rd and 7th. She had pad thai with tofu and I pad see-ew with tofu and we chatted about our lives. Returning to the apartment, Karen lasted nary 15 minutes before passing out and I took phone calls from friends who needed to be caught up.

This morning, I left for A Tempo, a boutique on the Upper West Side which had a necklace I needed for a friend. From there I wandered along Amsterdam and Broadway and picked up the necessary items for tonight's event.. mainly I needed baby powder because I was so sweaty all day and a nail clipper. I met Felipe at Niko's on 76th and Broadway for a quick Greek plate of antipasti. I haven't had good Greek food in a month and I was really hurting for some tarama and hummus.

It was then time to pretty-up for the James Beard Awards, the reason I was back. Felipe helped me with my dress and out the door into the 90 degrees we went. We hailed a cab and stopped at a Starbucks before I walked up the red carpet to go know what I needed to know. Outside Starbucks, Felipe and I encountered Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and two of their children. I didn't recognize them as I was focused on my tall iced green tea latte but heard Demi's voice and turned to see Felipe's face in that controlled expressive state of surprise.

He left me at the awards while I waited for my new boss to arrive and watched chef after chef walk the red carpet and stop for paparazzi and interviewers galore. Food is big now, friends. Bigger than most people would have expected. Big to the point where there's actually a red carpet now at Lincoln Center which is traversed by the cooks we've exhalted and the people they've fed or wed or hired to help them.

The ceremony was filled with tributes and acknowledgments. It was kind and respectful and full of admiration. There were famous chefs, products of the Food Network star-making machine (Bobby Flay.) There were badass chefs who ran about the stage as if they'd owned it their whole lives (Masaharu Morimoto and Michel Richard.) There were chefs who spoke calmly to a crowd rapt by their words (Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz.) It was a black tie affair with all the hype of a big splashy awards show except the catering at this event was probably better than anything the Oscars has ever seen.

My chef did not win the award for which he was nominated but he was unfazed. It's still about the cooking afterall and the family he has built in the restaurants he has opened. At the reception after the show, it was all about eating and drinking and hugging old friends. For me, I just tried to be useful by remembering names and polite by not speaking with my mouth full and graceful by not stepping on the train of the red BCBG Max Azria gown I wore while holding clutch purse and programs in one hand, food and drink in the other. In my patent leather blush pink heels. The ones Chef Dong Choi calls "ridiculous."

I left the party around 11pm and walked alone to the line of taxis waiting to ferry revelers to their hotels and homes. I gave the driver my destination and as we drove north along Amsterdam Avenue, I kid you not, the lights turned green one after another as we approached every street. Sixty blocks and we only stopped once.

I leave in 7 hours and I should be asleep now but the lingering warmth of the day has permeated into night and my room is too stuffy for comfort. And part of me, a small bit, doesn't want this to end, this love affair. Until I find my person in life, I will always pine for the city where I loved to be. I will come back to it and for it.

a month and a day

2008-06-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the space where I used to lay. I'm sitting in my bed in my apartment in Manhattan. In the apartment I still rent. For a month and three days, I'm bi-coastal.

The smells are familiar. The soap from my roommates' bathroom. The trees across the street. The stillness of humid summer air in the stairwell. I've missed this city.

When I first got back to LA, I immediately felt the absence of skyscrapers and beveled windows. But my time here was so short relative to my life there that moments arose when I had to remind myself that I once lived in this city. That I used to be a New Yorker. I was so happy to see my friends who had celebrated my departure with hope and encouragement. It felt right to be back but now that I'm here again, I'm all goopy inside. And it's not the H and H bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon I just devoured. Nor is it the jet lag. It's the ache of knowing that I will have to leave brokenhearted.

oh, it's what you did to me

2008-05-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

I've smelled the urine of your detractors. I've rumbled through the tunnels beneath you. I have molded the snow in your park and jogged its paths. I've gifted you with my personal economic stimulus package. I've admired your bucolic upstate. I've been disappointed by your produce.

I've dodged the squealing smaller versions of you as they ran past knee and under foot. I've stopped in my tracks at museums and parks where they hover in swarms around confounding adult objects that give them pause from school. I have sat pensive next to your Harlem Meer. There, I ate a bagel with cream cheese and lox.

I have navigated you, finger to my Moleskine with its MTA map, eyes to your signs. I have listened, peered down the stairs and made a run for it. I've backtracked and moved forward. I found shelter under your awnings and your umbrellas.

I've given up the practice of my personal journalism in order to be exhausted by the innumerable, careful steps taken to traverse you. To round your corners and ascend your hills. Some grey, some green. I have bantered with your shopkeepers and your brassy commuters. I've heard slang, swear words and Senegalese.

I've pulled jackets off my sweaty arms as the air changed from the cold outside kind to the stuffy inside kind. I've slapped my hands around the brushed metal poles of your trains and caught the bugs of my fellow citizens. I have sat in the beams of your sunlight and warmed myself like a lizard.

I have photographed your unsuspecting near and far. Tricolore salad and train car. I've grown fat with your offerings and my hourly decisions to accept them. You are quite literally a part of me.

I have admired and mocked your businessmen. I've envied the rings of your fiancées. I've smiled at your stroller-bound babies. I thought ruefully of home while you stood tall and proud around me. I've cursed slow-moving tourists.

I've been tousled and jostled by your finest. I've fallen asleep on your rails. I've turned myself out of revolving doors in the base of office buildings. Out into your brisk pace. My ankles have faltered on your ridges. Here, I have wondered about my weakness. I left you for spells and returned to call you home.

I have stood breathless in Times Square and squinted, awe-struck, at the lights above. I've been swindled by your resourceful homeless. But I've not had any change to spare. Only enough for my own.

I have freed myself of regret. I left myself behind. I have loved you and for a brief and glorious time, I was yours.

the duck wasn't the only one

2008-04-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

As rich people get richer, so do their tastes. You move from polyester to cotton to silk. From a Civic to an Altima to a BMW. And as their preferences grow, so does their ennui. What was once an achievement, like dating a supermodel for example, becomes a bland fact requiring a bit of variation. A lot of cocaine, say, can keep mundane supermodels interesting. As food boredom goes, you evolve from Cheesecake Factory to Spago to Per Se to The Fat Duck where you are challenged in all your senses by Heston Blumenthal's sensitive and thoughtful madcap experiments. Experiments which he has perfected over the years to yield an amusing and tasty dinner.

Much like many fine dining establishments dangling at the end of dirt roads in nondescript towns, we arrived in Bray around 8:30pm to find the only real source of light to be that of a lonely pub. The restaurant was unmarked except for an official city notice painted above the door which read "H. BLUMENTHAL AUTHORISED TO OPERATE BUSINESS FROM THESE PREMISES." Were there not fellow diners leaving when we walked up, we may not have found it at all.

Inside, it's a small dining room which seats 47 and behind it a small kitchen which fits about 6. It's tiny. The prep kitchen is across the street we were told as we were seated immediately and settled in for what would be over 3 hours of complicated food.

We were poured a splash of Krug and then a palate cleanser of egg white foam with lime, vodka and a dusting of green tea arrived. The foam was sprayed into a pot of liquid nitrogen and rolled around with spoons until it formed a small ping pong ball. The exterior was crisp like meringue and when I bit into it I was informed that liquid nitrogen "steam" flew from my nostrils as I exhaled the delicately tart flavor of lime. How bullish of me.

The bread served was moist and stretchy like an airy rubber. The butter, unpasteurized and enveloping, was fabulous. The flavor emanating a completeness which I've never tasted before. We could have eaten only this for our entire meal. Canapes which arrived included Native oysters in a passion fruit jelly with lavender. The oyster was fresh and pleasantly briny. Pommery grain mustard ice cream was served in a small quenelle over diced cucumber as a red cabbage gazpacho was poured at the table. A beautiful dish with its floating island of flecked yellow in a sea of magenta. The flavor was spicy with a bit of tannin from the cabbage. My nose tingled with a hit of mustard. What followed was mind blowing.

A box topped with wet oak moss was set between Gareth and me as we each then received a small oval bowl tilted towards us on a pedestal. Think 60s pod chair. Inside was a parfait of foie gras in a pool of langoustine cream hiding a quail jelly on top of green pea purée. On an accompanying plate was a slice of toast black with truffle and topped with radish and parsley. The oak moss box was filled with dry ice and as the waiter poured hot water into a small opening, the ripples of white steam flowed over the lush greenery. You smelled the moist darkness of the forest and as you ate all the elements together, you could taste the underbrush of wood and earth.

Next came snail porridge which was escargots on top of a green porridge of oats made with parsley, garlic, butter and chicken bouillon. Strands of Jabugo ham and shaved fennel rested on top. The snails were chewy and soft and the porridge was gentle and creamy. The parsley oil held the garlic at bay keeping our palates neutral. Foie gras which I can only imagine was sous vided came next. The foie was perfectly cooked and decorated with shaved almonds and chives. On the plate were brushstrokes of black cherry coulis and a chamomile emulsion. Tiny cubes of almond extract jelly sat in a row to the side. This was one of my favorite dishes as the acidity and brightness of cherries and almond lifted the heavy foie gras and sent it sliding across the tongue. At moments, I tasted the black duck eggs common in Chinese markets with their hint of ammonia. One of my favorite courses.

Earlier in the evening, I had watched a 6-top of grown men listening to conch shells outfitted with iPod shuffles. Some closed their eyes to concentrate on the sounds I could only imagine. When it was my turn, I was completely bowled over by what happened. Emanating from the iPod earphones snaking from the conch shell was sounds of seagulls and the crush of the ocean along the sand. Somewhat subconsciously, I felt the cool of the sea and the salt in the air. We were served a simple but gorgeous vessel that was a box with sand with a glass plate lofted above. On the plate was a section of the shore. To the left, tapioca flour with tiny, crunchy fried baby eels designed to look and feel a bit like sand. To the right, a shellfish foam that replicated the surf. Along the "coast," a mussel, razor clam slices and another Native oyster were served with four different kinds of seaweed, some dark purple, some green, all gorgeous. This is one of Heston's signature dishes and I was in awe. The foam mixed with the sand was salty and crunchy and made a perfect compliment to the sea creatures on the plate. If you listened carefully over the recorded surf, you could hear my synapses chatting excitedly and my taste buds hugging in celebration.

The act that followed this tough one was poached salmon wrapped in a licorice gelée which I didn't care for. The plating was exact with dots of balsamic reduction and individual pieces of grapefruit pulp creating a colorful pattern. Artichokes and vanilla mayonnaise didn't help the bland salmon which, to be fair, was cooked perfectly. The licorice was too subtle and didn't add anything interesting to the taste. This disappointment was quickly erased by a ballotine of Anjou pigeon (squab) which was soft, bloody and flavorful with a hint of Asian influence. It came with a streak of black pudding and was a grand finale for the savory path of our adventure.

Hot and cold tea? Indeed. A soft jelly was made out of black and somewhat Orange Pekoe tea with a bit of sweetness and a hint of lemon. However, two temperatures were introduced in one small glass. When you drank it, your tongue was bathed in cold and warm sensations which were pleasantly puzzling. Then followed a small sugared tuille cornet with a story about a woman named Mrs. Marshall who may have been the originator of ice cream in the mid-1800s. The cornet, decorated along the rim with alternating white and pink dots of sugar, was filled with orange and ginger granita and then topped with apple cinnamon ice cream. The flavors were light and the cornet was crunchy and crumbly.

Then the silliness began anew as vanilla beans arrived with a small paper pouch filled with a subtle sweet powder infused with Douglas fir. It was like uber-strange Fun Dip. The vanilla bean was hard and texture in what I guessed was to imitate tree bark. It prepared us for the mango and Douglas fir puree which was placed on top of a lychee bavarois with black currant sorbet. A pleasantly fruity plate, you didn't taste a lot of Douglas fir but mainly the tart roundness of mango and black currant.

It was now finally time for breakfast which started with individual boxes of parsnip cereal brought to us in small bowls accompanied with parsnip milk in a creamer. The parsnip chips were crunchy but a little difficult to chew at times and the parsnip milk was a touch overwhelming with its intense parsnip flavor. After a bit of a wait, a copper pot arrived tableside with a burner that seemed to be out of gas. Then a waiter appeared with eggs and utensils and said "It appears that I have no more gas so I will have to make breakfast with liquid nitrogen instead." The eggs were stamped with the Fat Duck setting and cracked into the pot as liquid nitrogen was added. What came out of the shells though was not a white and a yolk but rather an egg yolk and heavy cream mixture which was instantly frozen with the liquid nitrogen to yield ice cream. It was flavored with a hint of bacon and ladled on top of a take on french toast and a slice of streaky pancetta dried and candied to look like bacon. It was a breakfast for sugar fiends. More tea jelly arrived as we cracked into the bruléed slice of toast with eggs and bacon. The ideas were ingenious but I didn't particularly enjoy the flavors, salty bacon, sweet ice cream "eggs" which I found to be too intense.

We neared the goodbye. But not before being presented with a picture frame and in it, a map of Scotland and to the side, one of Tennessee where in each region, 5 different whiskey gums had been affixed. When you peeled each gum off, it revealed the name of the area. The gums were soft and chewy with intensely different whiskey flavors. As a non-alcoholic, they were bitter to me but the idea was creative and I had a blast learning about the drunken fixation of the Scottish on their firewater.

And finally...the mignardises. It was after 1am and Gareth and I were ready to roll out the door and make our way back to London. We nibbled on aerated Mandarin orange chocolates which were small domes with Mandarin orange puree under the top and filled with bubbly chocolate at the base. We crunched into orange infused carrot lollipops and bit into violet tartelets which were dark purple gels in sablé crust shells. We chewed on apple pie caramels which were in edible, clear wrappers. At last, we paid our bill and wandered into the dark street.

It was a fascinating meal. Mostly tasty and wholly intriguing, I was mindful of the care that went into each dish and the ideas had during a flash of inspiration which ultimately found their way to the plates and serving vessels in front of us. It is not a meal for comfort or for practicality. It was a dazzling show which incited evaluation and complimented a marriage proposal (she appeared to say yes as she couldn't stop smiling as she passed our table to go to the ladies' room.) A special night indeed which impressed both Gareth and me.

Up the road we could see the light of the parking lot but mostly, it was black with the faint outline of trees above us illuminated by faint moonlight. Good thing though because black is slimming and that night, the duck wasn't the only one that was fat.

at approximately 5pm local time

2008-04-22T03:53:00.000-07:00

About ten hours ago, I made the delicious mistake of ordering chocolat chaud Laduree at the famed patisserie Laduree which one can only find in Paris and at Harrods department store in London. It was a thick, dark mess of drinking chocolate with which I also ate three macarons, one chocolate, one pistachio and one lemon. I think the unusual introduction of a large dosage of caffeine into my blood is what's keeping me awake right now at 3am London time. The perfect time to write.

As arrogantly promised to my darling friend Gareth, I have brought sunshine and warm weather to this normally dreary city. The day I arrived, it had been gloomy for about a month. I took the tube from Heathrow to Gareth's flat in Covent Garden and literally watched the sun emerge, marveling at my ability to move clouds. I needed to refuel.

I picked up a small sandwich from Paul Patisserie which is across the street from Gareth's. Cured ham with lettuce, tomato and BUTTER on a poppyseed baguette. I'd forgotten that Europeans enjoy butter on their sandwiches instead of the typical mayonnaise. It was tasty and oily.

The sun shone on us, a caravan of Gareth, Claire, mother of two gallivanting youths Mackenzie (10) and Tavish (8) and Anila (10), friend and conspirator of Mackenzie. The kids had just seen a screening of Nim's Island and each carried complicated and fantastic balloon animals, the most impressive of which was a pelican which slowly lost its body parts as beak and intestine popped during our day out. Anila took the injuries quite well.

We mounted the tube to Camden where we strolled amongst the funky clothing stalls and food vendors. Whoever said punk was dead hasn't been to Camden lately as there was spikey hair and boots everywhere. Blacklights and fluorescent strips of fabric galore. We walked into a shop called Cyberdog where a half-naked raver gyrated in the corner. The children were unfazed as they headed straight to the "electric" t-shirts that came with battery packs and animated light designs.

From Camden we walked along the canal past the London Zoo to Primrose hill where a race to the top was won by me, the jetlagged, slowest (but steadiest) member of the party. Gareth had piggybacked Tavish. Anila had run for a bit and then collapsed in giggles on the moist grass. Claire had offered an effort but slowed after a few meters. I simply trudged slowly and tried not to step in poo. I don't know how I won really.

After admiring the view from Primrose Hill, we headed northwest to Claire's where a real Scottish haggis from Scotland awaited us. On the bus, Claire and I discussed the poem "Under Milk Wood" by Dylan Thomas which I had recently heard due to a link the Duke had sent me. It's an incredible poem that jumps and darts from the page. There were references that I hadn't understood after looking it up online and emailing it to myself so I produced my Blackberry and asked Claire, the student of poetry, for answers. It was English Poetics class on a double decker bus. Educated British people are great.

I'm probably the only person who was excited about the haggis. Bits of sheep, ground up and stinky, shoved into a sheep's stomach casing...come on! I took it out of the fridge while Gareth rocked the kids in Wii games. It smelled of the farm, of wet, molding hay. It looked like a large turnip with the ridges of the stomach lining making like the peel. Claire set about cooking dinner while I tackily fell asleep in Tavish's room because of my rudeness and fatigue. I slept like a dream and it rained while I was out. Coincidence? Or my inability to control clouds while unconscious?

Had I not taken in the stench of the haggis prior to eating it, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more but really, it was palatable and gamey. The stuffing was soft and crumbly like meatloaf and in addition to it, we had cauliflower with cheese, organic chicken (which was skinnier than most but raised in a "happy" way, the type Mackenzie has mandated that Claire must cook from now on) with roasted potatoes. There was another dish of carrots and cauliflower of which I've now forgotten the name. Oh and we had peas. Delicious peas in England which I suppose are already English peas. In Los Angeles, there'd be a notation made.

This city is a wonderland of European cultures. As snotty as the English can be, they exist amongst the immigrants from countries all around in a stiff harmony. As I walked the streets today, I heard languages and saw newspapers that I didn't understand. A rarity which reminds me of how small a life can shrink.

A dear friend Vanessa called me for lunch at the last minute this afternoon and we had Indian tapas which was fantastic. Curry chicken with various sides including a dish with lentils, yogurt, raisins and some crispy bits that was fantastic. We caught up on events over the past year and half since we'd seen each other. She returned to her volunteer work during her vacation week (admirable!) while I went to Harrods. We met for dinner at the Prince of Wales Pub in Covent Garden where we both had fish and chips over which we bitched about boys. The fish was soft and flakey and the batter was crisp and fragrant. More peas arrived along with chips and for both Vanessa and me, swirls of Heinz ketchup.

After dinner, Gareth and I walked across the Millenium Bridge to the Oxo building and had drinks and a cheese plate while we watched couples around us slather themselves in each other. To quote Homer Simpson (as this bar did also) "Alcohol, the source of and answer to all of life's problems." I suppose life cancels itself out. Although the drunken street rat who harassed Gareth for money didn't seem to have an antidote. As he brushed my hip with his hand and said "I'm hung low," I was glad to be alert thanks to Laduree's chocolate which still courses through me although the adrenaline of the encounter is gone.

New York has inadvertently prepared me well for this trip. The city doesn't seem as jarring as it did last time. The weather is familiar and the habits of keeping money and subway pass close to my body are automatic now. It's a city of soot and pedestrians like New York. It's got banking and culture. It's got parks and neighborhoods that elbow each other. It has an appreciation for the rest of the world that New York has. An appreciation which I forget in myself during long periods of domestication.

More to report soon as I have dinner at The Fat Duck on my agenda as well as a trip to the British Museum where the pilfering ways of the English have yielded an incredible, if scandalous, collection of artifacts which always render me in awe of humanity and the evolution of human society.

big fat rain

2008-04-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

It's here! It's April and it's spring. The weather has finally warmed and bare skin is out in bloom. The trees in Central Park are shivering with new leaves. The ground is yawning awake with daffodils.

The posts have become sparse over the past month because I've been busy working. The days of wine and roses or in my case fresh squeezed orange juice and idle shopping have faded into a blur of production assistant work and helping out on a photo shoot. The shine of Manhattan became tarnished with 5:30am call times which resulted in the common cold which stayed the course of a 2-day photo shoot. Good thing the models were cookies and cheesecake and not wafer-thin models with weak immune systems.

My days on set were long and I didn't realize I was becoming ill. I thought I was merely a large wimp with no desire to get near a director or a famous actor, unlike many of my colleagues working on WANTED re-shoots. The first day I was outside in 40 degree wind for about 12 hours. By the end of the day, I was half asleep in the holding area where I guarded the personal effects of extras with little to no gumption. The second day on set was much more pleasant both in weather and in company. I was assigned to a lead production assistant from LA and we spoke of the sunny city we missed. It was a great experience for me to see the nuts and bolts of where the money I'd see approved in an office faraway would go. From the signature page of a greenlight package to the hiring of a somnolent assistant to direct pedestrians away from the location of a chase scene, the view was very different.

The photo shoot was for Self magazine. I had been introduced to the food stylist through my eating partner Molly. Ed was a lot of fun to work with and a total genius about faking delicious food. A former chef and restauranteur, he had a depth of knowledge which bridged the gap between creating the illusion of something tasty and the actual creation of something tasty. The studio was the quintessential and cliched "movie version" of what a photo studio would be. Big windows, thin gossamer curtains, a view of the Hudson River, white walls. A stocked kitchen with pots and utensils, bowls and counter space. I wanted to live there. But instead, I'm leaving to go back to LA. By the time I go, I would have been a New Yorker for three glorious months minus one trip west, one trip to Boston and one trip to London (since it's so close.)

Yesterday, I ran the curvy perimeter of Harlem Meer which is a small pond near our corner of Central Park. I saw a man catch a largemouth bass. I stomped on the wet dirt and smiled at the freshness of spring. The air was warm and I strolled through Nolita with Molly after dinner at Eight Mile Creek marveling at the change that occurs during a day here. It was overcast, then mild and warm, then sunny. An unpredictable mix of thaw that the city and its inhabitants enjoy.

Dinner was adventurous, emu carpaccio served with rocket (arugula) and lemon with a slathering of fragrant black truffle oil. The dish was surprisingly meaty with the dark, blood-rich emu slices covering the entire plate. We also tried a crawfish soba with miso butter which was good in flavor but soft and pasty in texture due to overcooked soba noodles.

For our entrees, Molly had rack of lamb with garlic mashed potatoes and a rocket salad. The lamb was tender and cooked more rare than she ordered but it suited the meat well. I had seared Maine scallops in a mild curry sauce with a cellophane noodle salad that had carrot and (what?) more rocket. Everything was good.

Dessert was ordered because of its name really.. LAMINGTONS! LAMINGTONS! are sponge cakes dipped in chocolate and covered in dry coconut flakes. One came with a strawberry jam center and both were served with whipped cream. The sponge cake was a bit dry and the combination made Molly exclaim "This is something someone liked eating as a child." It grew on me though as I sipped a mild chamomile tea.

Coming out of the subway on my way home, I was met with a sudden downpour of big, fat raindrops. I laughed as I pulled out my umbrella, the water coming down in waves as if every apartment dweller on Frederick Douglass Boulevard came to their street-facing window with a kitchen sink hose and pulled the trigger. My pant legs were soaked. I looked at the splashes in the puddles at my feet, crowns the size of half dollars popping open and splashing into the sooty mess that drained slowly into the street. It was wonderful. I'm sad to leave it.

seating chart

2008-03-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

In October of 2006, while suffering the worst of broken hearts I'd ever had the pain of enduring, I took a trip to London. I needed a respite from the places where we'd been. The physical reminders often led to the recollection of the metaphorical ones. Where were we? Oh, in the courtyard of the Getty Center. But really where we were was in love. When you're sad the good memories, the pockets of time when love was pristinely inspiring and wholly encompassing, become the worst memories. The ones that make you run. I ran away from the city that reeked of that boy.

On the plane, I sat next to a man with a lovely voice. A listening voice, I called it. He wore a dress shirt and a red tie. I noticed his Esquire magazine tucked into his seat pocket and when I innocently asked him about an article in it, what began was an eight-hour conversation that carried us over the fruited planes and the Atlantic ocean. The broken heart tumbled from my lips. He consoled me with his own tale of great woe. About his incredible chance meeting, courtship of, marriage to and ultimately divorce from a woman he met while in search of an art museum in Budapest. I listened for hours. We spoke of his family and of mine. We spoke of the future. We spoke of sustaining the hope of love. We spoke of New York where he had once lived. After London and Paris, I'm headed to New York, I told him. A place where I've always wanted to live, I said. He encouraged me to follow my dream. I nodded in agreement but deep down inside, in the same place where the truest reasons for my break-up hid, I admitted to myself that I was chickenshit. I looked at this man who seemed to believe that I would actually move to New York and felt like I was merely appeasing him. Little did I know.

We parted ways at Heathrow. He wished me luck. I wrote down his story in my travel journal and a year later when I decided to move, I thought of him. I thought about the timbre of his voice, of his calm, dare I say suave demeanor, of his inability to stop believing that love would find him again. I wished that I could tell him that I was moving to New York afterall. An act that seemed so obvious to him yet that eluded me for so long.

I've been away for almost two months but I'm back in L.A. for a week. I'm celebrating Easter which last year, ended a period of grave depression for me. It was a Lent I will never forget. As I planned my week of sunshine and long hugs with the people I've missed, I set aside tonight for a particular person who ended up not being available. In lieu of that dinner, I went out with my friend Kristen. We had originally planned on going to Hugo's on Riverside but then thought a drive was in order so we headed to West Hollywood where I thought Lucques would be a better option. Suzanne Goin can really cook.

As we were seated, we both became sympathetically aware of the couple next to us on a first date. Kristen had a view of the woman and I faced the man. He spoke to her about something inane and awkward like any real first date requires. Their questions to each other were innocuous and forcibly innocent. He seemed sweet. He seemed like he was trying to drag a large stone to the surface of a deep, uncertain ocean. It was painful. It was him. By the grace of an unforeseen seating chart, the man from the plane was again sitting next to me. I whispered to Kristen that I knew this man. I would tell her the details later. My heart raced for a spell. I ate my black grouper with pea shoots, creme fraiche and cara cara oranges (fantastic) with mild distraction. I waited until it was time to leave and as he continued a story about something inevitably designed to seem interesting, I interrupted.

He remembered me. He said "You're the poet." I briefly told his date our story and then reminded him of our discussion about moving to New York. I'd actually done it despite my fears. He was congratulatory and thought that he had convinced me somehow. I let him have that. I told him I recognized his voice. He laughed. He asked me if we had exchanged business cards on our flight. We hadn't. Last night, he didn't have one on him and I'm not one of those types. I told him that I was sure we'd run into each other again and wished them both a good night. With some people, it's ok to play a game of musical chairs.

I told Kristen the man's story in the car on the way home. She agreed that I had had no choice but to say hello. I think his date may have been so impressed by this random coincidence that I might have helped him score some pleasantly unexpected ass. Unexpected because this time around, I realized that while he is truly hopeful for love, he's sort of a boring man. But fortunately, my life isn't boring. My life is amazing.

the process - a post for february 22, 2008

2008-02-26T22:23:00.000-08:00

They say no two snowflakes are the same. We can't ever prove that this is true. The melted snowflakes of yore and the incalculable googolplexes of snowflakes of the future make the statement a mere theory despite the scientific probability. What never errs is the process by which snowflakes, beautiful branched bits of ice, are made. The physical reaction of water to cold, the crystalline structure of molecules and their atoms. It's microscopic and its product is ephemeral. This I know. Today, I went to play amongst the 6-pointed stars before their inevitable disappearance. Carpe snowflake.

I had watched the snow from my room all morning. I lollygagged in my bed, my only movement to turn over now and again. By the time I'd put on my only boots of the leather cowboy variety, the city had warmed up and the snow had a touch of slush. The trees were white with ice, the underside of branches dark with moisture. I walked to our little corner of Central Park armed with two cameras and a bit of ribbon. Mr. Kansas had given me an idea. After a 20 year hiatus, I picked a spot and gathered snow in my mittens and made a snowman.

I'm no sculptor. I couldn't visualize the snowman in my mind's eye before I got the media in my hands. For me, the process was more important than the the product. I got out of bed to play in the snow. How awesome is my life? I watched my breath escape in white steam from my lips. I packed snow into a round and set it up for my photo shoot. As the snowman evolved, so did my love for creating art. I had forgotten what it felt like to make something unique out of something so simple.

During this process, a group of children passed the "set" on their way home from school. A little girl, forward and probably 8 years old, called out to me from the path and asked if I had made this snowman. I replied yes. She said it was a good snowman. They were accompanied by a woman who produced a camera and asked if she could also take a photo of it. Some of the kids took great interest in it. Some hung back and left their footprints in the unmarred blanket of white. A boy asked me if I still wanted the snowman. I told him I wasn't done photographing it. I couldn't tell if he wanted to take it home and freeze it or exterminate it with his boot. You know how boys are.

I stood back for a moment and watched the interested children lay on the ground next to the snowman to admire it. I asked the kids if they wanted to have their picture taken which they did. I asked the woman for permission which she granted. Two photos later, they continued on their way and the boy with the boots asked again if I still wanted the snowman. I told him I did. This creation of mine had made friends on a grey day in the park. It was worth photographing further.

For art, I will suffer many indignities. Wearing brown cowboy boots with grey fleece track pants, for example. Clomping around looking for suitable twig arms and digging through the detritus of fallen leaves blown up on the steps of a public park with my bare hands are not things I normally engage in. At one point, as I crouched to get a good shot while concurrently trying to keep my digital SLR dry, I slipped and fell, belly-first into the snow. I laughed out loud and then realized that I was actually at the perfect height for a great shot. By the end of the photo shoot, I had dirt and bark under my fingernails, a wet camera lens and soaking, soggy fleece pants which grew increasingly wet as I walked home and the hems dragged in the slush. But I have this to share with you, my friends who read my blog and whoever else has stumbled across it. Forget the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, these will make you smile:

From my bedroom window. I watched the man plow the sidewalk for a good long time.

Walking east on 110th Street also known as Cathedral Parkway.

Ah yes, there it is.

A close-up of the nascent snowman.

Speechless.

A pleasant man of snow in a scarf made of ribbon from La Maison du Chocolat where, were he ever to visit, he would cease to exist. Now the ribbon seems less like a scarf and more like a noose. Twisted.

The Friends of Small Snowmen Coalition. Look at that rascal on the right. He's the one who kept asking me if I was done with the snowman.

A candid with Frawley Circle in the background.

My favorite shot.

My pant leg after I fell the first time.

The snowman looks away.

Both of my pant legs after I fell the second time.

While I was down, I took advantage of the angle. But it was time to go home.

The door to our apartment building with layers of imagery--the foyer, the buildings across the street, me--provided by glass and light, not Photoshop and a mouse.

And now, for the food report. I was late for dinner due to a change in service on the subway of which I was unaware until I'd already wasted time waiting for a canceled train. I arrived at Joe Shanghai in Chinatown to meet my friends for soup dumplings. They'd already finished and I was starving and ate the leftovers with a speed that should have been embarrassing. The food was delicious. Sauteed ong choy, sticky rice flour discs with pork and onion, pork soup dumplings in a thin, stretchy wrapper. Nearby, we stopped for steamed pork buns from the Mei Lai Wah Coffeeshop where I introduced myself to Mr. Lam, one of the servers who reminds me of a pancake. My friend bought me a ton of buns and we headed back to their apartment on the LES where we chatted and played with Martin (short for Martini), the sweet labradoodle who was visiting.

Today was a day I appreciated because I knew that I couldn't predict when it would snow again this winter. It was a chance to take advantage of circumstances. To seize a completely unique moment that would never happen again. Like the same snowflake twice. And though it may not be a fact, it is a theory that inspires me to make the most of time and snow.

day on

2008-02-26T21:16:00.000-08:00

The irony of living with 3 employed persons is that I'm often the only one who knows what the date is. It must be my internal clock. I know the day of the week, the date and the time. I'm atomically accurate.

Karen has one weekday off that changes every 7 days. As a pastry cook the rest of the week, on this wholly decompartmentalized day, she just wants to be a normal human being who sees the sun and walks into stores during normal business hours. She doesn't want to plan or navigate or think. Her day off becomes my day on because it is her day of leisure. It's my day to schedule crucial meetings with clothing we don't need and bakeries with cakes of laughable but delicious simplicity.

A few weeks ago, Karen slept while I went for a long run on 110th Street, along the north edge of Central Park. I needed stamps so I headed to the post office in Spanish Harlem. Along this route, I passed carnecerias and panaderias filled with the hungry people who prefer their rice orange with cumin. The day was bright and sharp. When I got home, I was sunburnt which reminded me of the sun's power even at this latitude. My skin didn't register its heat but its rays made me look cheerful. As if I needed the help! Today was someone's day off and I would appreciate the morning promise as if it were my own.

Our first stop was the Korin shop downtown where a knife would be purchased. Dramatically lit with steel blades of noblesse displayed in glass cases along the walls and on islands in the middle, the store is serene. And deadly. They don't have silk screen printed art for decoration. They use swords.

Conveniently, Korin is downtown near the bargain fashion mecca Century 21 which is one of my favorite stores here. I purchased a pair of boots and we met up with April, meeting-taker/ laptop dragger. The poor girl was weighed down like a mule but in office clothing. We took a train to her hotel The London where we dined on small plates at the London Bar. Gordon Ramsay's kitchen may be hellish but the pale aqua green upholstery of the space was chic and cool. Mirrors reflected the afterwork crowd of women in cowl neck sweaters and pencil skirts. Seemingly oversized men huddled around tiny tables with tiny dishes and large drinks. The three of us had a slew of snacks... hamachi tartare rolled in cucumber which was mediocre and fishy tasting, wonderful cubes formed of braised short rib topped with fat, sliders with an extra side of fries (the frozen kind but still acceptable), Caesar salad with real anchovies and a pleasant charcuterie plate.

We saw April off as she prepared for the next leg of her trip which meant Vancouver to be on set with one of the corporate partners on a film. Before she left us, her enthusiasm and focus was inspiring. I've known her for a long time and was never more proud to call her my friend.

Before going home, Karen and I walked two blocks to Kate's Paperie where we stood agape at the intricate and expensive wedding invitations that so many exuberant brides must decide on. The books of samples were heavy with proofs for envelopes and card stocks so carefully designed that you'd never want to throw the announcement away. Oh but wait, YOU WILL. Quite possibly the greatest waste of money and time because the hours spent choosing the right one and then the cost associated with printing up the specifics will both go into the wire mesh garbage can in the guest bedroom eventually. Our smug disbelief evaporated when we stumbled across what may be the greatest piece of correspondence stationery we'd ever seen - a box of fine paper notecards in a classy shade of off-white but not with a monogram or a graceful flower, no, that'd be pedestrian. Instead, in raised lavender ink, two sumo wrestlers locked in battle. If the box of 6 cards wasn't $30, we would have still laughed at whatever price it was. Even though the cards are awesome.

At home, we sat complacently on Ed's leather couches and watched a bit of bad reality on the ALT. Despite the variegated ways that Rock of Love (I think that's what it's called) offends me, the way it gets me the most is that it reminds me of how skinny women inaccurately represent the general population and how no matter the intelligence or willingness to sleep with him, the dipshit with the long hair and bandana wouldn't ever give a "backstage pass" to the girl in the turtleneck and khaki pants. I have successfully avoided a lot of trashy TV in my day. In New York, this is the first time I've ever felt so appalled at the lows of human transparency. And I'm from LA!

On another of Karen's days off, I ran, and I use the term loosely, 30 blocks to Zabar's with a canvas tote rolled up in the pouch of my hoodie. I bought lox and bagels and orange juice again and took the train home what with a heavy bag of groceries on my arm. Canvas shopping bag, public transportation...I was feeling very green.

We spent most of the day shopping at the many discount clothing stores here that put the ones in California to shame. Karen exclaimed that she never realized I was such a bargain hunter. For a period of about 6 months during the ghastly I'm-about-to-turn/ I've-just-turned 30 phase, I bought every and any retail item I wanted. Now, in the cluttered aisles of Daffy's I give many hours of my time to make up for the shoes and dresses I've so capriciously purchased at full price. Oh, my father would be proud. Sort of. He still wouldn't understand the coup of finding a $650 blazer for $200. Even though it's made in Italy. And it fits me perfectly. And I'm spoiled.

That particular afternoon included a stop at NYC Cake and Baking where I found Callebaut chocolate chips for cookies that I wanted to make for a dinner party. I've truly fallen in love with the smooth, Belgian/French confection that has a hint of coffee mingled with the cocoa. I don't know that I will ever bake with another chocolate again. Other people swear by Valrhona or Scharffen Berger... but me, my heart belongs to Callebaut.

The store is a smaller, cramped, baking version of Surfas in Culver City, another one of my favorite stores. Shelves were crammed with cake molds and styrofoam rounds for displays. But Karen and I hit the jackpot when we discovered scads and scads of silver and gold dragees which are illegal in California. Small round sugar centers coated in real silver which leave them looking like ball bearings that make cakes look darling. So what if you eat 10 pounds of them they'll give you silver poisoning. Who's going to eat 10 pounds, you big bad FDA? We will be back for supplies as both of our sisters are getting married in the next year and have bestowed Karen with the honor (or horror) of creating their wedding cakes. I look forward to being her first mate in the sea of bridal decision making hell.

That evening, we had dinner at the new Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar and Grill which is near Columbus Circle. We asked to sit at the sushi bar where we admired the graceful movements of hands and knives over smooth wood.

We started with a tofu salad followed by a few bites of sushi and sashimi which made me want to run back under the stern gaze of Mr. Nozawa on Ventura Blvd. I miss that man more than some of my friends. My friends can't cut fish for beans. After sushi, we had a few chunks of grilled hamachi collar which was salty but fine. Then, a new friend Chef David who oversees the grill in the kitchen sent out a scallop dish which really came together nicely. A scallop shell (think of the eponymous gas station) filled with sauteed mushrooms, tender scallops topped with smelt roe mixed with a touch of mayonnaise. It was a supple spoonful of delicious subtlety. Before we got our "fried chicken" which we ended up canceling, David also sent us a beef and bone marrow skewer, sort of like takoyaki but without the octopus. This was by far the most incredible dish of the night. The charm of beef flavor sprang out with the first bite with bone marrow oozing out all around. The ratio of beef with other ingredients yielded a fantastic spring and soft chew. It erased the mediocre sushi and the service which was friendly but somewhat uninformed as evidenced by the waiters suggestion of having a light dessert like creme brulee. We ordered it because we wanted a heavy dessert and it was good, flavored with roasted green tea powder which made it a touch gritty a times but, we did manage to eat most of it. Light, my ass.

Karen says that she just lets me lead her around on her days off because I know where I'm going whether by train or bus or foot. She tells me that it's great that she doesn't have to think. I've since passed on to her a small pocket map of the city I don't use very much. Which is ironic because I am still jobless and I don't know where I'm going but I certainly have a lot of fun finding my way. I never feel lost.

calling a spade a spade

2008-02-24T23:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's not a bad idea for every restaurant to name itself according to its menu. Though it would drastically redefine the Zagat guide, it would steer us clear of the not-so-delicious. No more witty puns like "eat. on sunset". No more names like "Joe's". Just call a spade a spade. A place that sells really awesome spaghetti should be named as such.

I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner this evening at the aptly named Quality Meats. The bar area was crowded with business types meeting for drinks after work. I rushed through because I was late meeting Mr. Z and his friends from SNL - a few members of the technical team who were funny and incredibly smart. What you don't see when you watch the show is the faces of the people responsible for the fact that you are indeed ACTUALLY watching the show. The HD cameras take Tina Fey and produce the pixels that are compressed in a room (which I stood in and which was totally Mission Impossibly) that are sent to your local affiliate which are sent through a tunnel with little Alsatian gnomes who put them on your television. That's how they explained it to me.

In a dark booth under the stairs, next to a room with creepy meat hook chandeliers we were fed charcuterie plates and bottles of Robert Mondavi and Clean Slate wine. I ordered the crabcake to start followed by an aged sirloin cooked rare. I had originally ordered a rib steak but the waitress told me that it was too fatty to be cooked to a pleasant rare which meant with "a cool red center." Too fatty? I grit my teeth but allowed her to bring me the sirloin. The crabcake was essentially a mountain of crab with tangy bits of dill and mayonnaise topped with a crunchy bruleed breading. The sirloin was a bit tough but had good flavor and a singed bone which I gnawed on the next day.

For dessert, they brought us a selection on the house but I audaciously ordered two scoops - an orange creamsicle sorbet and a cookies and cream. Both of them were amazing. I don't say this often nor am I a huge ice cream fan especially as for dessert. The orange creamsicle was citrusy and creamy placed atop wedges of orange. The cookies were not just the standard bits of crumbled Oreo but also a homemade chocolate chip cookie resulting in a milky sweet chewy delight. I'd go back just for the desserts.

We stopped by Gilt at the Palace Hotel for a drink before heading home. More alcohol for the adults, water for me. The room was painted in gold and has been landmarked so the interior contains the original ornate carvings. To modernize the room, a god-awful wall was constructed which looks a little like a segmented igloo with violet lighting shining up from the floor. I turned away from it because it made me angry. As an artist. As a person. As a person with eyeballs.

I saw the boys again live on Saturday night when I tagged along with Mr. Z to the first post-strike taping. I was met in the lobby of 30 Rock and hung out in the hallway behind the set before the show started. I've always watched the show through its many iterations of cast. An institution with a rich history headed by a brilliant Canadian and I was honored to be on the very floor where the magic has and continues to happen. It's not hilarious all the time but, that night sitting in the risers above the set, I'd have to say, during one particular skit, I laughed harder than I had in a year. Later that night at the afterparty, I told Bill Hader how much I enjoyed it. What a sweet, gentle person he was. Gracious and humble. Like THIS brilliant Canadian. I'm just calling myself a spade.

quality not quantity

2008-02-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

The comfort I get from this apartment is unparalleled by any other place I've lived. Never have I felt more peaceful in a home than here, in the late morning after the roommates have all trudged to their jobs. Walk into the living room and you will find me sitting in the corner between two windows with just the sunlight, the sound of children playing outside and my laptop. It's not a big room nor a big apartment. But, it's quality not quantity.

I leave it occasionally. Yesterday I left to finally retrieve my Time magazine from Isaac at Pennyfeathers Cafe. He is a pleasant man with a childlike innocence that sparkles when he greets the guests. I arrived at the end of his shift and after he handed me the magazine, he informed me he was going to go home with a grilled cheese sandwich and head straight to bed. He would, however, love to have dinner with me on one of his days off. I agreed to it immediately. This would be my first dinner proposition of the day. Red letter!

I sat in "my" corner table after Isaac left and sipped a cranberry juice he comped me. I tried to focus on Heart of Darkness but had difficulty with the thick, archaic language and colloquialisms. The soft sponge of a brain required to bend to literary classics is no longer contained within me. I like my books short and modern. But Heart of Darkness is only a hundred or so pages you say, you erudite knaves. 'Tis. 'Tis approximately one hundred dense pages of what I endeavor to understand is a story told almost like a stream of consciousness by an old man on a boat. I'm supposed to watch Apocalypse Now too for the book club. My avoidance is completely collegiate.

Molly rang at 6ish and I met her in Brooklyn for a freezing night's adventure. We first stopped at Mullanes Bar and Grill where we snacked on sweet potato fries. It's a big space with dark wood and the promise of loud, raucous Saturday nights. This was a quiet Tuesday of few patrons and newspapers strewn about the bar. Our caravan included Molly's boyfriend, the food stylist and his wife. We were met by a sixth at Di Fara.

Oft-reviewed and completely hyped, the small green room was thick with hungry people and smoke. Domenico De Marco is a small man with a spine curved to his countertop. I don't think that he will ever straighten himself or that he would ever want to. I mean, he makes pizza all day, may the process do to one's body what it do! We ordered our pizza a little after 8:45pm and stood about for the next hour waiting for it. Mr. De Marco makes each pizza by hand. This means throwing the dough, ladling the sauce, shaving the fresh mozzarella, adding the toppings, firing the pizza in the oven which only holds about 4 at a time, removing the pizza when it's done and cutting fresh basil, which he grows himself, onto it with a pair of scissors before rolling the pizza cutter through the finished artisanal product. What you taste is a soft crust with a gentle sauce and fresh cheese that makes you wonder why Italians ever leave Italy. You taste the time each ingredient spends in Mr. De Marco's floury, rough hands. He pours olive oil from a teapot onto each pie in slow, caring swirls before he sends it away like a parent dropping off his child at school. Half or even a quarter of Mr. De Marco's dedication would yield a very different world were we each to adopt a bit of his work ethic. Take the trouble, spend the time, find the best parts to render your sum a result of which to be proud. Imagine the toys from China!

I encountered more attempts at perfection when I arrived at Pegu Club and was treated to an Earl Grey MarTEAni. Gin infused with bergamot, a little bit of egg and lemon zest in a small glass became one of the most amazing drinks I've ever had in my limited experience in the adult world of alcohol appreciation. It was a friendly, mildly sweet mixture made smooth by the egg which does something to bind the alcohol to the rest of the elements. A silver martini, it's called. I call it a drink so delicious that for the first time I understood how people become shitfaced without realizing it. I used to think it was impossible to find an alcoholic libation completely disguised in flavor but I was 2 sheets to the wind off of one martini.

Despite the aid of firewater, the conversation was animated and educational. Mr. Z was in town from L.A. and I met his friends J.J. and Henry, both insanely smart individuals and each with a gentility not found often anymore. When I reached to shake Henry's hand, he remained distant and said apologetically, "I don't shake hands. Germs." He gets enough microbes from his children. I told him I understood and suggested we shake our bodies in unison. He was seated so I shook for the both of us. J.J. complimented my sweater, a Rebecca Taylor cashmere shrug purchased at a thrift store in San Diego for $30. The compliment was not simply a "looks nice" type of pedestrian aside, it was a full discussion of the yarn, the buttons, the craftsmanship and the purl instead of knit stitching. A straight man who understands these subtle differences is rare. I may build J.J. a shrine. In the meantime, he invited me to dinner with his wife and daughter at a restaurant called Buddha Bodai which he claims has the best vegetarian Chinese food in the city. The anticipation consumes me.

Mr. Z, his colleague and I hopped a cab and headed uptown. After dropping them at their hotels, the cabbie and I continued to Harlem. Along the way up Central Park West, we chatted pleasantly about Senegal and L.A., our respective origins and the unfamiliar winter cold. The cabbie gave me career advice and as he delivered me to my destination, asked me if I wanted to go to a club or to dinner. I declined as any man who asks me to go to a club is not the man for me. I told him I was a quiet person and preferred places of a lesser volume.

Gastronomically, today was a day of quality and a lesson in the attempt at and success of creating a bite or sip of perfection. All told, I was asked to dinner three times. Each time by a man I didn't want to smooch. As dates go, today was a day of quantity.

April in february

2008-02-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

It's one of those strange phenomena. The first day when a friend visits from a different climate, the weather changes. Usually, and magically I might add, the weather matches the guest. My friend April arrived from L.A. on Sunday night and today New York warmed up to nearly 60 degrees. It was incredible! One sunny blonde gets off a plane and the natives are practically nude in celebration.

En route to her midtown hotel, my eyes met with a stranger's on the train. A relatively handsome but petite man with a beard and earphones sitting across from me. I looked away but realized that I was not going to be the demure young lady who averts her eyes. I literally stared at him until he looked at me again and then I smiled. He smiled back in embarrassment as we continued our ride in silence.

The car door opened while we were motion and a man dressed in black with a large plastic bag scanned the passengers. He approached me and of all the things he could pull out, genitalia excluded, nothing could have been more fateful than a pirated DVD of Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, a script which I had read over a year ago, a project which we had greenlit last year and a film currently in theaters released by my people, my company! The DVD was the one-sheet art, clear, crisp, perfect. I asked this peddler of stolen intellectual property if it was the real DVD. He assured me it was. WRONG MOVE. I considered buying the DVD from him for analysis by our anti-piracy team which includes my friend the Vice Chairman of the studio. I considered kicking him in the shins and stealing from him as he had stolen from us. Instead, when he tried one last time to convince me on purchasing the movie, I told him that I worked for Universal Pictures and that he really shouldn't be selling it to me or anyone else. He seemed unfazed and I felt helpless. There is a great world out there of unscrupulous individuals and this saddens me. I'm currently not being paid to defend the company but I defend it nonetheless because it's just not fair. I defend it even if no one is listening. The Glancer was though and when I got up to disembark, he smiled and nodded at me. I waved. Don't buy the DVD, dude.

April was bundled in a black coat and a green scarf which I told her she might not need but I remembered that she's a California girl through and through. We took a cab to Soho with the intention of having a late lunch at Fiamma but instead we stopped at Pennyfeathers to retrieve my Time magazine from my friend Isaac. When he kissed me and told me he didn't have it, April and I decided to walk around the Village and had pizza at John's on Bleecker which was fantastic. Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and peppers on a chewy, crunchy crust. We split a salad of simple iceberg lettuce with fresh tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. We dabbed our pizza with napkins. We couldn't shake our Cali habits.

Outside the restaurant, I spotted a woman with a beagle who looked much like our beloved Steinbeck the dog who is in L.A. with my family. I approached her and asked her permission to pet him. This beagle was only 2 but had a smooth coat and was more than friendly. I missed Steinbeck more than I have the entire time I've been gone. I asked my sister if she surmised that he felt my absence. She advised me that she didn't want to find out because if she were to ask him to search for me in the house and he was unsuccessful, he would begin to whimper and suffer great distress. Ah, thus is the standard reaction of many in L.A.

As we walked through the Village to Soho, we caught up on our lives. April is a gentle and sweet girl. She giggles often and although we don't see each other often, we have stayed friends for almost 7 years. We had gelato - stracciatelli and blueberry for me, caramel for her. We spoke of love. We wandered into the Alessi store on Spring St. where April got a cappuccino. We spoke of the genius of their design aesthetic. We spoke of Italy where April wanted to return. They know how to stop there. They know how to live without living to work. We continued on to the Taschen store and then to Eres where I tried on a $400 bathing suit. I'm heading to Florida in a couple of weeks so I needed to make sure I was appropriately jiggly. No better dipstick for that than a bikini. I needed more fat so at the recommendation of the barista at Alessi who was formerly of Jacques Torres, we found Vosges and got a Parisenne hot chocolate. April and I also know how to live.

A few more stops along Broadway where I introduced April to the beauty of Muji and we were escaping the rain and the resultant dearth of available taxis by taking the train. We hugged goodbye and I switched to the train that would take me closest to home. On the C, I stood next to a petite, sandy-haired woman holding a red rose with a handful of rain on its confluence of velvet petals. She wore a red coat and had friendly eyes. I asked her who gave her the flower. She smiled sheepishly and told me that she found it on the ground and that she just wanted to salvage it. She liked how the droplets glistened. I asked her if she was going to keep it or give it someone special.

"I'm going to give it to my roommate. She's had a bad week. She'll like it."

I liked the idea immensely. A lost object with a found importance. We stood peacefully for a moment until I reached my destination when she offered me the flower at the same time as I told her that the world was a lovelier place with her in it. We were stumbling over each others words of kindness. I declined the rose because I told her that her roommate needed it more than I and that I had had a good week. April showers brought me flowers. For me, the city is a blossom with each avenue and neighborhood a petal which opens itself to me slowly every day.

at home

2008-02-17T23:27:00.000-08:00

Some people have salad. Maybe a light soup. Then they have something forgiving...like a chicken breast. Followed by a coffee. Black. Boring.

I can't do that. I forced myself to run this morning because I refuse to stop eating the things that make me stop in my tracks when passing a bakery. The foods that make me loquacious when extolling their flavors. I ran through the park even though it was bitter cold because unlike my body, I like my meals fatty. And so does Molly.

On the train to Brooklyn, I came over the bridge and saw the orange sparkle of industry in the velvet backdrop of night. I almost didn't notice because I'm so accustomed to the soot covered darkness of the tunnels. It felt like I was going somewhere unfamiliar yet I have never really felt out of place here. There are moments when I lose my way for a block or two but despite the vast difference in terrain between cities, I feel strangely at home.

We met, my favorite eating partner and I, and walked in the rain to The Farm on Adderly at which Molly had only gone for brunch. The restaurant was warm and homey with dark wood tables and chairs. Towards the back of the space, there was a wall of exposed reddish brown brick. It's not a unique feature especially in restaurants but the contrast of the brick against the cream colored walls was pleasant.

At a tiny table next to the swinging kitchen door, we fit ourselves to eating. Our dynamic is fairly fluid when we dine. One of us offers a suggestion in terms of an appetizer which is quickly met with a swift, happily resigned "Done." The question that begins with "Wanna share a..." is cut off with a "Yes." In palates we trust. Tonight was no different. "Cheese plate?" "Good." "Hanger steak?" "Do it." "Pork chop?" "Mmm." "Share a vegetable pave even though we both have accompanying sides already?" "Do I really need to answer that?"

The cheese plate ranged from triple creamy to mature and complex. The bread was toasted but still soft and fresh. Chestnut honey was curiously excellent as well as the gooseberries which Molly had to identify for me. I only know my Blackberry. My hanger steak was fantastic. Cooked rare. Tender. Animal. The wine braised red cabbage was sweet and acidic, the perfect compliment. Molly's pork chop was a good cut of meat however was overdone. Thank goodness for the layer of fat around the edge. Kale and sweet potato gnocchi also helped. Our vegetable pave was uninteresting at first. The dark tower of blackened unidentifiables on top of a bed of sauteed Swiss chard was a little unappetizing. But once we cut it up and ate its components, it grew on me. Eggplant layered with Yukon gold potato, roasted tomato and maetake mushroom. The Swiss chard was slick and bitter with chlorophyll. Molly excused herself mid-chop and when she came back, I was done.

For dessert Molly had a coffee with Bailey's (she's Irish, it's basically milk to her) and helped me with an odd chocolate and banana upside down cake which had a fantastic coconut sorbet buddy but also an extraneous and runny caramel sauce. When eaten together, the elements yielded a delicious finish but separately, the banana had a mushroom texture and was unripe. But still, it didn't stand a chance.

We walked off the meal and went to visit friends who lived in the neighborhood in a real home with a real porch and real space. We arrived to find 4 toasty friends sitting around a wooden dining table, laughing, sipping and eating banana cake with Scharffen Berger ganache frosting. "Do you girls want some of..." "I don't, but Katie does." Molly is so brave. I finished the rest of their cake with a bit of Malbec. Sigh.

The conversation was fun. It was a group of friends who had come together through triathlons. Cheerful and diverse, I enjoyed meeting them, the advertiser, the educator, the food stylist and the graphic designer who convinced me to apply for a job at Jet Blue. Free standby air travel was all she had to say. When Molly's boyfriend arrived, we moved from the dining room to the living room where a fire kept us warm. Conversation, wine, a house with wooden floors with inlaid designs. Cozy. I almost fell asleep on the train back to Harlem. Bad. A girl on the subway at midnight is not a girl who should be dozing off in the presence of strangers. But you know, I just felt so at home.

movie busyness

2008-02-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

Prior to There Will Be Blood, I had only watched one movie by myself in a theater. It was The Last Kiss starring Zach Braff and that awful girl from The OC who drains the screen of charisma when she appears on it. It was a summer Sunday matinee and the theater had been relatively empty. Last night, I sat in a crowded New York City theatre on Broadway and 70th, wedged between two couples whose men draped their arms around their women. In my bag I had fruity contraband: a Granny Smith apple and an oro blanco grapefruit purchased from The Food Emporium across the street. I'm ghetto like that. But ghetto in a fresh produce way.

The trailers were mostly engaging especially for Stop Loss. Hot Southern boys fighting for the country they love and the women who wait for their return? Perhaps engaging is not le mot juste. Perhaps I meant to say that cowboy hats and honor make me accidentally bite myself while eating an illicit apple in a dark theater. Before I left the apartment, I had watched Memphis Belle on television. These noble boys with their accents, they were everywhere.

There Will Be Blood was haunting. Daniel Day-Lewis always amazes me in his utter disappearance into his character. Though the movie ended oddly, I was left reflecting on the many meanings of blood that were presented. Blood as murder, blood as salvation, blood as family. I moved with the throng of post-movie zombies. I thought about the credits I'd seen and how the names of certain producers and actors have special meaning to me since I worked in the business. It made me feel connected to Hollywood, a land mysterious to many and despicable to the reasonable. I missed it.

Today, a craving for a bagel with cream cheese and lox nearly blinded me and I went for a stroll on the Upper West Side to procure the ingredients from Zabar's and H&H. On my stroll there, I passed a restaurant called Dovetail on W. 77th which looked incredibly interesting. I had spotted people in a subterranean room with soft lighting and linens. I searched for the menu posted on the outside of the restaurant and after reading it made a mental note to return. No Zagat rating, no insider blog info, just a bit of luck. Further along, I saw Cafe Frida at which I would like to write some time.

Zabar's was crowded at 7:30pm on a Saturday night. I got my lox and some orange juice and could not find Callebaut chocolate chips with which to make cookies. I walked next door to H&H and purchased two bagels and cream cheese. I thought I'd head home but the night was mild and I kept walking and came across Westsider Books where I got a 1964 copy of The Heart of Darkness by Conrad and a centennial edition of East of Eden by Steinbeck which I had started reading right before I left L.A. Fortunately, they had the same edition I'd been using. And I bought the Conrad for my book club assignment. A book club! Me! With people who have been to graduate school. I will divert their attention away from my elementary understanding of literature with delicious baked goods. Tasty and distracting.

I bought the 2008 NYC Zagat guide. The task of tallying this city's restaurants is monumental. There were plenty of places that I'd been which weren't listed in the maroon tome. The eateries here are nearly innumerable but sadly, the pounds I'm gaining are. There isn't always a good reason to eat, but there's always something fantastic to eat here (around every corner according to Nina and Tim's minions) and I can feel the memories of these meals becoming part of me. Literally. I stopped at a grocer for blueberries and grapes before returning to my pen.

I smeared the poppy seed bagel with cream cheese and carefully applied the beautifully thin lox. I sat in front of the ALT and happened to catch Garden State which I had always wanted to see. How perfect of an evening, I thought. The bagel was soft and perfectly chewy. The lox was smooth and salted. I sipped orange juice and watched Natalie Portman light up the ALS (Absurdly Large Screen.) I longed for imagination. I was reminded how affecting a movie can be. I've been too preoccupied to sit long enough to absorb a film. All I do is absorb snacks. I'm busy.

public service

2008-02-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

Riding the trains on a day like this one, I caught a glimpse into the intimate exchanges between lovers. Not lovers who sniff and devour each other but lovers who simply love and bear gifts. Public transportation offers no nooks in which to caress. Mofos be grabbin' each other e'rywhere and in plain view. Practical men in wool coats with single roses wrapped in cellophane. Mothers with heart-shaped mylar balloons and plush teddybears. Older, solemn women with shiny, pink Victoria's Secret shopping bags quite possibly containing slinky delights. It's always the Hungarian ones.

Mr. Kansas and I plotted. We wanted to be around couples drowning in the perfunctory pleasantries of the obligatory Valentine dinner or perhaps couples so tightly "wound" that they might well begin fornication on the table top. Role play was discussed but not the sexy kind. More he as the boyfriend who proposes, I as the girlfriend who declines and then he as the infuriated reject who throws a glass of wine against the wall. I had my diamond ring and a spare ring box ready to go.

I stood outside the Focus Features office picking lint off my yellow mittens when Mr. Kansas appeared and immediately pulled out his Marlboro lights. "It's been that kind of day," he explained. We walked up towards Union Square and exchanged our last minute Valentine gifts - mix CD from me to him and from him to me a handmade card printed off the internet and decorated with Hershey's chocolates wrapped in seasonally colored foil. I'd say it was fair.

We reached Yama Sushi on Irving Place and 17th Street which was highly recommended by Mr. K's friend the sushi snob. I assured him that there was no sushi snob greater than I but when I saw "yellowtail jalapeno roll" on the specials board, I relented. Rolls and rolls were ordered, lobster tempura, spicy salmon and avocado with flying fish roe to name a few. The fish was acceptable and the rolls were hearty and satisfying though not life altering. Those only exist in L.A. Of this I am certain. The dinner was great. The couple watching was mundane. Mr. Kansas and I had to resort to speaking to each other. I'm sure he wasn't paying attention. Like a real date!

Sushi and two gingerales later, we walked to Union Square proper in search of a movie or a dessert - like a real date! The movies were sold out and the wait at Max Brenner's was laughable. Spontaneous me decided to drag him into a Whole Foods where we got blueberries on sale and slices of almond creme and black and white cake. We made our way to a Starbucks where we got coffee and tea as well as prime seats for observing a very odd couple sitting along the window. We literally turned our seats to face them as the girl coddled not cuddled the boy as if she were consoling him because of some tragedy. She seemed motherly. He seemed despondent. We certainly weren't. We were stuffed and delighted when we said goodbye and boarded our respective trains.

Attention ill-at-ease ladies and gentleman riding the Uptown A on this cool Valentine's night at midnight: Although you may believe it does, staring at the coffee cup rolling back and forth on the floor does not make you invisible. Remain calm. The vociferous young men sitting in this subway car will not harm you. They care little about your fur coats and your Coach bags. Do not become alarmed. Their conversation may be loud and insistent against your thin eardrums but do not mistake it for a discussion on how to assault you. The reason I am able to stand literally in the middle of their group is because I have my earphones in but am not listening to music. I understand who they are and what they are saying and am unafraid. Mainly because I'm taller than they. But for you, below are a few facts to help you cope with your discomfort:

1) They are Puerto Rican gangbangers.

2) These particular gentlemen are "Bloods." They wear the color red to distinguish themselves as members of the faction. You know, like all of your friends at political rallies.

3) Their presumably antagonistic tone towards one another may mislead you in thinking that they will become violent with each other but note their references to the same "shawties they hit" (sexual partners.) Clearly, they are friends. In fact, if you pay attention, they are actually commiserating on the unsurprising turn of events when a particular shawty lamented to the boy in the red bandana the fact that one of his friends "stopped fucking with her because she wouldn't let him hit it." I think everyone agrees that she should have let him hit it.

4) Even though they are not black, they are allowed to use that word that you're not allowed to use. THAT word.

5) "Narc" is slang for what your self-righteous nephew does for the police department.

When you arrive at your station, please rush hurriedly off the train without making eye contact with them as they won't be looking at you to begin with. Save yourself the trouble of feeling sorry for their street-weary existence as they quite enjoy living their lives like hip hop cliches. And remember, like you, they are simply human beings who ride the train. The only difference being that they aren't afraid of you.

Any boy who prevents me from weeping in public due to my loneliness on this Hallmarky holiday is doing a public service. So, thank you to Mr. Kansas for keeping the streets dry and for keeping me company on the day of wine and roses. I've selectively forgotten that his plans for drinks fell through due to a friend's illness and I've also relegated his lack of other options to the far corners of my mind. Happy, happy, deluded Valentine's Day. I truly enjoyed my day in that spoony way. Unlike this girl:

Eeek.

in the fiber optic valley

2008-02-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

It was my second snowfall here. I woke to see the soft, white flakes of symmetrically organized water crystals sailing down from the sky. The early ones disappeared into puddles on the ground but slowly, they amassed and the grey world became bright. It's a noiseless transformation. If you don't notice the snow with your eyes, you can be pleasantly surprised. But I watched it fall. I monitored the gradual disappearance of blades of grass, staring out the window like a grandmother waiting for her family.

Last night, I met My Molly at Pearl Oyster Bar for an early dinner. My boots don't have any traction so I walked steadily through the Village to get to her, my redheaded friend who knows her way around and had both sturdy boots on and a glass of wine by the time I arrived.

We sat along a wall in the cream colored side dining room decorated with various marine accouterments. By order of Paul Getto and Eric Lane, we were to have oysters to start, six friend and six raw; the lobster roll and the blueberry crumble (if served - Eric insisted and would reimburse us.) Happily, we obliged.

Molly cooed after her first fried oyster and I slurped the raw. We compliment each other's eating styles because somehow, we always end up loving the same restaurants but the opposite things within them. The lobster roll was fantastic. Perfectly poached lobster chunks tossed with a gentle mayonnaise from Maine and served on a Sara Lee roll (I believe) with shoestring fries. I veered slightly from the plan of attack by having skate which was soft but with a crisp exterior having been dredged in flour and fried. It arrived with Brussels sprouts sauteed with carrots and bacon which were exquisite, the hint of bitterness of the sprouts countered with the sweetness of the carrots and salty smoke of the bacon. I also had an extra side of grilled vegetables - eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, red peppers, asparagus and fennel. The vegetables were charred a little too dark but were seasoned well and fresh. They didn't offer the reimbursable blueberry crumble so Molly accommodated my devotion to Callebaut and let me order the mousse with which it is made. The dessert disappointed us as it didn't taste of enough chocolate nor did it melt properly. I suspected that they used a stabilizer so that it stood up and could be presented in a large quenelle without any logistical difficulty but the flavor, texture and melt-resistant behavior left us wanting more.

Molly resorted happily to a cigarette. I just stewed. I described to her the luck of living with a pastry chef who brings home leftover desserts which would be otherwise discarded from one of the best restaurants in New York. Some people have an Oreo for a midnight snack. I get to have what the roommates and I call "the chocolate tube." A cylinder made of thin, expertly tempered Valrhona chocolate and then filled with layers of milk chocolate mousse, praline crumble, chocolate cake, chocolate cremeux and more milk chocolate mousse. The seams of my jeans cower at the sight of it in the fridge.

We said goodnight and when Karen returned home after work, I tattled on the Callebaut abomination I had encountered. She had just the remedy: a fresh chocolate tube in a shiny black take-out box. I knew just the person who needed this more than I.

The next day, I used Molly's inexperience with the chocolate tube as a reason to leave my cozy, sunshine-filled apartment where I read and relax most of the day away, I marched into the MTV office with its exposed piping and unfinished ceiling. I handed Molly the triathlete the mystical Daniel dessert. She ate it standing next to her desk and stared at me in disbelief. Could something be that delicious? Yes, my friend, yes.

It was the end of the day so Molly left with me to take the train downtown. I was headed to Yeah Shanghai to have soup dumplings. MTV (the 'M' is for Molly) is located in the heart of Times Square. No matter how crowded it gets with slack jawed Midwesterners wearing sweatshirts with collegiate lettering, I still love it. Every time. It's impossible to navigate but I secretly like getting stuck behind the family with the turtlenecks and the plastic bags from the ESPN Zone store. It is a fiber optic valley with stock updates and music videos marching along the walls. Millions of tiny lights wink. And every time for a fleeting, glorious moment I feel famous.

I had two orders of soup dumplings one pork and and one pea shoots with shiitake mushrooms. Both were delicious although the dough in L.A. is made with more dexterity and is thinner and with better elasticity. However, these dumplings hit the spot. I also ordered a very Shanghainese dish of salted pork belly slices served with knots made of what is known as yuba skin which is translated from the Japanese. I'm not sure of the Chinese translation. Thin soy bean curd is pressed through a screen to produce a pale yellow sheet that sort of has the texture of rubbery eggs. The sheets are then bunched into ropes which are tied into knots and each knot cut off individually. There is a bit of a fermented stink to the dish due to the soy but it was fantastic and who can deny a slice of salted pork belly on a rainy night?

After dinner, I walked across the street to Mei Wah Coffeehouse for pork buns, steamed and baked. The old men behind the counter spoke "country" Cantonese and admonished me when I only ordered one bun. I ended up getting one of each kind and two egg tarts. The buns were fantastic. I had the steamed, Karen the baked. Soft dough with a fatty and not too sugary BBQ pork filling. The tarts had a crisp, flaky shell with a lightly sweetened egg custard. I'll eat anything. Out of respect for my elders obviously.

a girl's day

2008-02-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

The wind was icy today. I could feel it through the glass of the windows in the apartment. It called for cashmere and fleece and wool.

I bundled myself from neck to toe because I couldn't find my knitted hat and was blown to Tribeca where I took a meeting with a well-known female producer and one of her directors. The woman power was great. I volunteered to help with a film festival and the opening of a hotel. I'm a Jill of all trades.

When I left the warmth of the office, I walked in triangles trying to find a place to eat. I wasn't satisfied with my most immediate options so I referenced an email from one of my food mentors and went out of my way to find Bouley Bakery. There, I stood on the tiled battleground between macarons, lemon tarts and chiffon cakes versus croissants, breads and rolls. I sided with a plain croissant, a spiced squash soup and orange juice. I carried my wooden tray to the second floor where the sun filled the room with a welcome heat. I ate my lunch and wanted to curl up on the windowsill but I know better than to lay down in public. That's for protesters.

I wanted to picket against the brisk air that made my lips hurt with cold. As I walked to the train station, I stopped to buy a hat from a Chinese man with a street stand. I chose a cream colored one that he said matched nicely with my sweater, a Ralph Lauren which I bought in the summer of 2000 at Bloomingdale's in Century City because I gasped when I walked past the mannequin that displayed it. I didn't feel as passionate about my new hat but it kept my head wicked warm.

At 3:00pm, I had an appointment with Ivan, a friend from Hawaii whom I had never really chatted with at length. Currently an apprentice at Bumble, Ivan invited me to be his model for his one day a week classroom training. He knew I desperately needed a haircut and was grateful to have him go at this raven mane.

I surprised him a package of macarons tied with a red ribbon for Valentine's Day. He surprised me with a pair of fingerless grey gloves with a cap that goes over the fingertips when necessary. I had just noticed them for the first time on a man in the subway and as serendipity and thoughtfulness would have it, they were now on my hands.

Ivan giggled and spoke while he washed and then cut my hair as his instructor periodically checked his work. He was great fun and so silly. We laughed and updated each other on our mutual friends. My haircut was gorgeous and were it not for the angry cold outside, I would have flounced up and down Madison Avenue. I put one boot onto the sidewalk outside and immediately had to cover Ivan's brilliance with my new hat. It was a perfect afternoon followed by a trip to Chelsea for dinner and dessert with Johnny, a fellow Bumble apprentice.

At Nooch, I started with agedashi tofu and a spicy tuna roll. The tofu was fantastic, fried with a coat of mochi in a briny broth with a hint of ponzu. The spicy tuna roll was perfunctory. The nori was thick and chewy and the tuna was bland. For my entree I had pad see oui gai which is a sweet flat rice noodle dish with chicken, egg and broccoli. Nooch's version also included red pepper and cilantro which were pleasant novelties for me. The dish itself was acceptable but a bit too wet.

After dinner, Ivan and I split from our group and walked to a bakery that a man recommended when he couldn't tell us where Billy's was. I'd heard of Billy's bakery before when it was written up in some magazine. I was told recently that Billy sold the bakery and became a lady. I was interested in seeing if he was still on hand to dish out the sweets and as we reached this alternate bakery destination, it turned out that it was indeed Billy's afterall.

Banana cake baking in the oven yields a smell that I would imagine to be like heaven and inhaling it is like watching angels hug. The cream cheese frosting, the small chunks of firm banana, the way your belly glows like E.T.'s finger afterwards...all elements of a perfect dessert. I also had ice box cake which is chocolate wafers layered with whipped cream. When left to lay long enough, the moisture from the whipped cream sneaks into the wafers making them soft and cakey. The effect of properly assembled wafers and whipped cream looks quite fetching. Eating a lot of this makes one look the opposite.

Before returning home, we stopped into a grocery store on 8th where Ivan danced in the aisle as I looked for bread and cheese. I taught him how to choose oranges by the look of the peel and their weight relative to the other oranges in the bin. I miss the oranges in California. The ones here have thick hard rinds and less juice. The ones here are New Yorkers.

snow and the city

2008-02-10T22:10:00.000-08:00

People who grow up in cold climates can tell when snow is coming. I can tell. The air becomes kind and warm relative to the chill and then without any herald, the snow silently swoops down and makes Manhattan clean.

I missed my first snowfall here because I was indoors on Broadway. I had unsuccessfully tried to find the Bella Muse card stand on Spring Street so I had gone to the Muji store to get some knick knacks for La Crevette and stumbled upon a newly opened samples shop. The longer it snowed, the more clothes I tried on. The more clothes I tried on, the more clothes I tried not to buy. Two dresses, three tanktops, one missed snowfall.

In search of a pretty Valentine to send to my friend Dale in Honolulu, I went to Pearl River Mart to find something delicate and colorful. The Chinese are deft with paper. I saw lanterns and streamers and found the perfect card for my adopted Hawaiian Daddy.

When it's cold, people who spend their afternoons shopping on an empty stomach look for comfort in noisy French brasseries. At Balthazar I encountered the opportunity to speak French, a great dinner and one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had the fortune of overhearing.

It was still early when the dining room began to fill with an erudite older crowd. Tall, greying men. Women with frosty blonde bobs. As I waited for a spot at the crowded bar, I stood next to a seated couple, Cranky Man and Emphatic Lady. They were in their late 30s, touching each other as they cupped their slowly draining wine glasses. They were both dark haired, Emphatic Lady's long and laying against her back. Cranky Man wore a grey scarf and a perturbed expression. She gushed.

"I love being with you. I only want to be with you, baby. I love when you make love to me. Our love is amazing." She grabbed his arm. I think I may have hiccuped. I was startled by the frank and forward love arrows she shot at this man. I reached for my Blackberry and took notes. Did love like this truly exist? How rare and exceptional. I almost began smiling to myself at the folly of the infatuated. She had the effervescent fervor of a hormone-ravaged teenager. Cranky Man had surely lucked out to find a disproportionately more attractive woman who was so indefatigably enamored with...

"I can't believe you fucked that guy! Did you just need to get laid or something?!?!"

The typing stopped. Emphatic Lady laughed it off. She seemed to enjoy making her man jealous. But I soon found out that he was not her man when her retort came in the form of "I can't believe you brought your WIFE to my house!"

The typing resumed. People are insane when it comes to adulterous sex. I was waved to my seat by a French waiter with an angular face and a small tight ponytail of dark blond hair. It was two chairs away from the cheating Bickersons and I could no longer discern their inappropriate sentences.

For my dinner, I ordered a Balthazar Bar Steak cooked rare which was served with perfect french fries. The steak was a piece of flank which was quite chewy. The Steak Frites is a different cut which I will try another time. The beurre maitre was delicious, a melting pat of herbed butter that slithered along the sinews of the meat. Emphatic Lady would have enjoyed watching it.

For dessert, I had what will be a dessert I shall always remember. Apple and Frangipane tart. The crust was a crisp, buttery phyllo dough shell with a layer of mild frangipane. The apples were just sour enough and bruleed dark and caramel. On deck, a simple but pure vanilla ice cream. Below deck, a Calvados foam. Crunchy, soft, sweet, acidic, warm, cold, creamy, apple. It was incredible and exemplary.

A stylish girl sitting to my left asked me how it was. I was effusive like a mistress. We started talking and I got my first email address from a stranger in New York City. She's a former Donna Karan designer starting her own clothing label. I told her I had two hands that needed to be put to work doing anything not involving answering a phone or scheduling a meeting. Or compromising a married man. Ick.

the life of my night

2008-02-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

You know you're a rock star when you wake up in time for dinner (Doritos and hummus followed by an orange) and take a disco nap immediately afterwards before leaving your house at 10pm to go meet friends at a bar. What's become of me? I am not this cool.

No one sleeps here! At 10:30pm, I was coming out of the subway and walking along Houston. The rain found its way from sky to sidewalk on this sparkling Saturday night but it didn't deter me or the hundreds of other people rushing to find their good time. In fact, the rain only drove people into places more unfamiliar than usual. I met Miss Molly at The Edge on 3rd Street and First Avenue on the Lower East Side. I was covered in raindrops and chatted excitedly as I removed every damp article I could leave on a bar stool to dry. When you spend most of your day asleep or not speaking to anyone because you're alone, drunken boys on a Saturday night make for a game audience. Molly's brother Pete was out with his friends Will and Brendan. There was more explaining of "why New York?" but they were easier to convince than most of the people I've encountered so far. They all love it here as much as I do. They love Crif Dogs where we almost all had the "Chihuahua" which is a bacon wrapped hot dog served with avocado and cream cheese. I threw in some chili cheese fries and a root beer for good measure. Everyone else drinks hip people beer. I drink the drink of teenagers which I've only started to crave since being here. It's quite odd.

After an unsuccessful attempt at ACE Bar, I said goodbye to the stock analyst, the attorney, the musician and my Molly. I was a few blocks away from Katz's Deli so I stopped by for a slice of cheesecake and a black and white. The ability of these people to eat at all hours humbles me. An hour after midnight and there is a line at Katz's for pastrami sandwiches. On the train home, the platforms were crowded. Fellow soggy revelers in their black coats and hats. At home, the cheesecake disappointed with its leaden crust and it's tight cheese. The black and white was perfunctory with no real spark. They bored me and contrary to the rest of the citizens here, I did sleep. But not before having a heated discussion about the kindness and inutility of bidding my roommate to have a good day and to "see you later."

"It's a given, I WILL see you later," the curmudgeon asserted, "What's the point?"

"Because it's nice!" I screeched. Sweetly. The discussion went on for fifteen minutes with the cop growing ever more practical.

The next morning, before heading out to Soho I swung open the bathroom door that doesn't lock while Ed showered. Facing his naked ass diffused by the holographic pebble pattern shower curtain I wished him a FANTASTIC day. I assured him that I would see him later. He agreed and returned to his lather.

movin' on up

2008-02-08T21:22:00.001-08:00

My room is about 9 feet by 7 feet. To call it a room is fair but the irony lies in the fact that I don't have a lot of it. Fortunately, the ceiling is 10 feet high so there is space to grow. This room is the smallest space I've ever slept in since wedging myself between my parents in their bed when I was 2.

My bed was delivered today by 3 sweaty gentlemen who didn't see that there is an elevator in our building and who dragged my mattress and boxspring up 4 flights of stairs. As they set up my bed, I gave them the risers on which to place the bed frame. The risers allow me to store things under the bed which now occupies more than half my room. But I've used the vertical as best as I can and although it's no loft, I did buy a step stool to make getting into bed a little easier. Like the rest of Manhattan, I'm movin' on up.

I'm also movin'. As the streets calmed after the initial rush of morning commuters, I put on my running gear and took on the NW corner of Central Park as my new training ground. I hadn't run in at least a month so my soft muscles combined with the cold air made climbing the most conservatively sloped hill feel like running straight up a wall made of oil. My legs seized as if I had asked them to wade through a chest-high bowl of pudding. The run, not so successful. It devolved into a walk mixed with spurts of running past people who looked like I might feel embarrassed for walking in front of. While strolling (and panting) however, I did notice that many of the trees and bushes and flowers in the park are labeled with their common names. It was an educational 10 minutes.

By the time I crawled back to my apartment dragging my offended limbs, I was starving and wolfed down a bowl of leftovers concocted with noodles, char siu pork, shrimp, greens, fish, crab... I ate like I was being paid. The cop lay asleep on the couch while I masticated. When he woke, he dropped me off at Bed Bath and Beyond for yet another trip to procure handy items to make my space more efficient. My doors look like candles, clothing on over-the-door hooks dripping down all surfaces.

I had never strolled through the Upper West side much before and I was quite enamored with the big name stores alongside small boutiques. The pedestrians were mainly middle-aged women with very young children and Columbia students. Not being sweaty or terribly kinetic but very slovenly, I hadn't changed out of my running clothes so I looked pleasantly faux-sporty. A necklace caught my eye in the window of a shop called A Tempo at 290 Columbus Avenue. A necklace I don't need but which I ordered anyway as my first gift to myself here. It's got the silhouette of a small bird on it. I'd also bought a jewelry dish with a bird handle. I've left the nest to build another.

The Magnolia on Columbus beckoned but instead of dense cupcakes with painfully sweet buttercream, I splurged on dark darling Bing cherries from a small grocer. They're not in season but they were passable for dessert following my final meal of Chinese New Year leftovers. Roasted duck and fried rice. The duck was still rich and the rice heated beautifully. I considered returning to the UWS to catch a movie but the comfort of home was so enticing that I stayed in on my Friday night to write and stay in touch with friends online. At the end of my evening, I literally climbed into bed and slept like a princess on a pedestal.

you better watch where i point this thing

2008-02-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

Note to aspiring spies: When trying to be inconspicuous while taking candid photos of strangers in the subway, it is best NOT to wear a yellow rabbit fur coat with an enormous sheepskin collar OR use a pink camera.

Hm. I think that was pretty self-explanatory.

I finished the rest of my prime rib from Tavern on the Green this morning with another soft sandwich of beef and cheese. It smelled like the faux Santa Will Ferrell's character suspiciously sniffs out in the movie Elf. Breakfast was again served at around 3pm before I braved the world to head to the Focus Features office to pay another visit to the boys of film: Mr. Kansas and Felipe.

On the B train, I saw this boy who very much so would not take his mind away from his cookie. You can't really see it clearly in the photo but he bore an expression of wry curiosity with a bit of aloofness.

I arrived late enough that the boys could leave for the night and we walked along Bleecker to the Village. Felipe commented on my hurried gait. It's happening. I'm becoming one of them. The fast-walking, no-bullshit New Yorkers who spit and swear at the slightest provocation. But I did neither because we were headed to Pinkberry where Felipe and I plucked Mr. Kansas' Pinkberry flower.

The shop looked the same as the others in L.A., the green striped windows and the pebbled floor. But the yogurt was different. It was fluffy and full instead of cool and clean. I ordered a medium original with strawberries, blueberries and raspberries but got mango instead of the latter. When I mentioned it, they gave me a small cup of raspberries on the side which we all enjoyed. Mr. Kansas liked his first taste of controversial frozen yogurt. Red Mango was across the street. The competition in this city is thick.

Mr. Kansas took his leave early and Felipe and I got a moment to ourselves to speak and wander. He is lovely. Tall. Beautiful. Kind. An ex-lover made a bad choice when he decided to let Felipe go. No one should let someone of his sweetness walk the earth alone. If only I were a boy. Sadly, my burping and farting without apology does not a boy me make.

We parted ways at the West 4th train station and I made my way to Golden Unicorn for Chinese New Year dinner with a friend and her NY entourage. The F train was bare except for what I named "The Snob and the Sleepy Trio of Grey Knitted Cap Wearers". The station at East Broadway was vacant. I walked behind this woman through the tunnel to the street I needed.

Above ground, I consulted my Streetwise map many times to figure out the way to Chinatown. The shops were all closed for the celebration. I walked cautiously as men passed. There were photo opportunities here but somehow I felt unsure of my surroundings enough that my vigilance stifled my inner journalist.

Dinner with strangers is always interesting for me. It is a challenge to connect over a meal. I met four new people this evening and the conversation was never awkward or still. We spoke of coincidences and similarities and bonded over our collective inability to read the Chinese menu. But this was only a minor obstacle as we did order a grand list of foods my parents would deem excessively decadent for a regular dinner. But it's a new year, baby.

We started with roast duck wrapped in rice flour buns with scallions and plum sauce. The duck skin was oily and crisp. Fantastic. We also ordered sweet and sour pork chops, a mixture of duck, pickled vegetables, sprouts and mushrooms, e-fu noodles with crabmeat and chive blossoms, Yang Chow fried rice, steamed fish with ginger, scallions and soy sauce, sauteed pea shoots and salt and pepper shrimp. Everyone was ravenous. We spoke and ate until movement became laughable. For me, the highlight was the women's restroom where the door was decorated with a glass plate that displayed an inlaid rose with a pair of lips at the stem. It was the most romantic restroom door I'd ever seen.

Stuffed and sleepy, we were a caravan of Chinese kids who can't read Chinese headed for the trains. On the D (which I thought was the B) I saw this woman sitting across the aisle from me. She seemed worried and I couldn't stop looking at her. I thought she needed consolation. I wondered what troubled her. At moments I thought she might cry. I wanted to wish her well but I refrained. Something kept me silent. Eventually, she closed her eyes and looked to be dozing. This brought me some relief as if she were truly distressed, sleep would not come so easy on the express train that didn't stop at 110th St.

I didn't realize I was on the wrong one until we breezed through my station and I had to switch to a downtown train. There, at 125th Street, I saw these kids with their father and his friend. The boy in the brown jacket splayed himself on the platform bench with a preternatural swagger. The girls, possible siblings, were haughty and stoic. I tried to take their photo without any to do but their father noticed and seemed to be upset. I couldn't hear him through my iPod shuffle but I could feel his displeasure and caught what sounded like muffled unkind words about me. He was a father who kept his children out until midnight on a school night but nonetheless they were his children and I was the girl in the fur coat who so brazenly and obviously was taking pictures of them. It made me regretful. I am not impervious to the annoyance I may cause. I skipped the train that came in order to avoid a confrontation with the father and also with two drunken Korean boys who asked me if the A train stopped at 86th St. It seemed rhetorical. I sensed their mischief. All these factors made me feel nervous so I called the cop and he met me at the station near our apartment.

Seeing him at the top of the stairs was a moment of relief. We walked in the cold night to our home and I felt safe and protected. He'd had a bad day so I tried to dote on him a bit. Boys are funny that way. They want you to know that they're down but they can easily refuse your care. How bold.

The chefs returned late and our nightly ritual of jokes and anecdotes began at 2am. We come together from the corners of the city and we eat. We laugh. We commiserate. We are a family. I asked the cop if he could smuggle his uniform home so that we might each wear a piece of it and take a portrait. A portrait of my safety in a city that grows increasingly more fascinating and frightening each day. I love to come home and as for our portrait, I'm sort of a big deal when it comes to taking photos with a pink camera, you know.

a taste of balmy

2008-02-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

Not one delectable thing that I've eaten here can compare to the magic of a warm New York day. Today was delicious.

Some mornings I can't discern the weather from inside my apartment. This morning was standard in that I woke up after noon and leisurely showered and dressed for a day out. I enjoyed a yoga session to Britney's greatest hits. I don't like the calm, chanting, chakra-soothing crap they force on you at yoga studios. I like hip hop and pop music that pulsates and writhes out of the speakers as I stretch and strengthen. I think the juxtaposition calms me.

Cereal in the belly and wool scarf and coat on the body and I was on the move only to step out of my building into a curious and wonderful New York. A New York of a springtime softness. I removed my coat and beamed with delight. It was a beautiful, balmy day and I had missed the morning rain in the safety of my flannel sheets.

At 5pm, I arrived at Bullfrog and Baum for a meeting about a possible internship. The company represents a lot of chefs and restaurants and also has a burgeoning lifestyle division which is where I would land. In all honesty, not an admonishment of their hiring practices but who would say no to me for an UNPAID internship? I enjoyed meeting the women with whom I would work. They were welcoming and encouraging. It felt strange going from one who would order interns around and who had to conduct interviews to be the one sitting on the scrutinized side of the table. I smiled and did my best. I have nothing to lose except two days a week of furious strolling through the streets of Manhattan.

I asked the ladies of Bullfrog for a restaurant recommendation. I was sent to Cafe Grumpy where I sat in the corner with a green tea latte begrudgingly brewed by an obstinate barista. The tea was roasted and clashed with the cream I'd added to it so I finished it as quickly as I could. I attempted to read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter," a novel I stole from a friend but I was too distracted by the city outside.

The sky had dimmed when I began my stroll up 7th Avenue. I surveyed the shops in the fashion district. Fabric stores and notions stores and stylish future designers everywhere. I was hungry and decided to stop at Ginger House which before I looked at the posted menu I had mistaken for an English pub due to its dark wood paneled walls. It felt like I was in Boston or Washington DC. But better...because I craved roast duck and they had it. My parents were 3000 miles away and it was Chinese New Year's Eve. I connected with them gastronomically.

I sat alone along a wall outside a wait station. Most of the patrons were not Chinese but I don't usually judge Chinese restaurants by the racial barometer reading. The waiters were stern but swift and soon I had BBQ pork, roast duck, sauteed string beans and white rice before me. Starved, I set about my dinner and watched a table of loud, boisterous fashionistas. They were dressed with spunk and loving their conversation. As I finished, I cracked open my fortune cookie which read: "Be calm and collected. Peace is a virtue." And then on the reverse, "haircut" with the Chinese characters in translation. I suppose fate finds me harried and hairy. I am not.

I walked. I walked for blocks. Forty. I carefully crossed forty streets along 7th Avenue and then Broadway. I wove through the tourists in Times Square. The lights, the signs, the bustle, the taxis, the life vibrating in the warm air of this glorious night. The last night of the Lunar New Year and I was standing in the middle of the city that continues to entrance me. I looked up to the top of the skyscrapers, the cliffs of industry and we the meandering river of bodies and strollers and packages that course through the divide. I swelled with peace and joy and light. My heart was brighter than the marquees on Broadway.

At Columbus Circle, I boarded the M10 bus headed north on Central Park West. A homeless man also got on and threw his fare with disdain into the till. There was a bit of tension between the driver and this man. A kind woman swiped her Metrocard for him to avoid a delay in service. The driver was edgy. I sat with my leftovers in my lap, the scent of my people wafting out of the smiling plastic bag. When I returned home, my roommate Ed rang and we met to explore our neighborhood and find his dinner.

It was 9:30pm in Harlem with my roommate as we stopped along the restaurant row of Frederick Douglass Parkway. We will try them all in due time. The air began to change. It was growing cold. I decided to take Ed back to Miss Mamie's where I would have my first repeat restaurant experience here. Where without warning, suddenly I became a frantic cornbread glutton. I had just eaten dinner but I consumed two plates of cornbread. I just walked forty blocks, I justified to Ed, so I had to eat four orders of cornbread so that I wouldn't die. Butter became a game of "How much can Katie use?" I made a small city with the emptied, tiny white plastic containers with their foil lids peeled away. Ed ordered us the "Sampler Platter" with Southern fried chicken, North Carolina BBQ rib, short rib and fried shrimp. We had potato salad and beans and rice on the side. Everything was delicious, especially the short rib. The meat was tender and soaked with a rich glaze.

We barely spoke. The comfort between us like that of people who hate yet tolerate each other. As we strolled home, I shivered in my sweatshirt and Ed repeatedly offered me his jacket. Perhaps we don't hate each other. Or perhaps one beautiful day had thawed a hardened cop turning him into the chivalrous gentleman I glimpse now and again. A man doesn't always have to be a meal of perfection. Sometimes a taste is good enough to tide you over. Much like the day that will resound in my memory. A day that was everything I loved about New York from all my vacations here.

At home, more eating. Nate had made hummus and babaganouj today which we inhaled on soft torn slices of pita bread in front of the ALT (Absurdly Large Television.) We watched Project Runway and retired to our rooms in the wee hours of the morning. Our midnight snacks a new favorite pastime.

wither i wandered

2008-02-05T19:36:00.000-08:00

He was late. I stood outside the appointed Starbucks at Hudson and King, thick and perfect Jacques Torres dark hot chocolate in my hand. It was the earliest I'd woken up since moving here. And he was late.

Months ago, a gentleman excused himself from my boss' office during an unexpected phone call my boss had to take that interrupted their meeting. As he sat politely in the chair across from my cubicle, he asked me about my plan at the company. I told him I was moving to New York to be a writer (in theory.) He offered to introduce me to his friend who was a fairly accomplished writer living in the city. The writer who would be late for our meeting.

On the train downtown, I saw a handful of Giants fans wearing the mass produced jerseys of their idols. An Eli Manning stood over me as he examined the MTA map. I asked him if they were going somewhere, like the Pro Bowl perhaps. For those of you who are football deficient, the Pro Bowl is an assembly of the best players in the National Football League who get together after the season just to play for fun. This Sunday LIVE FROM HONOLULU, HAWAII!!! RAWRRRRR!!! BEER BEER BEER MANLY MANLY MANLY. Just when you thought there would be no more football, the money grubbing NFL brings you MORE football!!

The Eli Manning pointed out his father on the train with us. It was sweet. Filial fanaticism. I thought they were merely extra exhuberant but apparently they were headed to a parade! I've only attended gay pride parades and I was fairly certain that this particular one would be decidedly "un-gay."

The writer. I watched him walk past me and survey the Starbucks for the self-described "tall Chinese girl." He looked dodgy. He wore a blue Dodgers hat with a moustache and a beard.

"Kathleen?" he asked as he walked out of the caffeine fray. His expressionless face would later appear bored.

We walked to a diner a few blocks away and had eggs with bacon so dark it looked like strips of tar. He asked me what I wanted to write. I asked him his process. Had he been more interested, I think he might be incredulous at my lack of focus but mostly he sat across from me, clearing his sinuses and telling me about how he never reads what he writes and that he gets paid a lot of money for it. I wasn't sure what I needed to get from him but what I got was the technique of writing the perfect sentence and then leaving it behind to move onto the next. Without fail. He told me not to self edit. He also told me to, well, write. The fundamental key to writing is writing. He said that it didn't seem like I wanted to write badly enough to belly up to the bar alongside writers who can't fathom doing anything else. So here I am.

He paid for my breakfast and we said goodbye on the corner. He told me to email him and let him know how it's going. It was generous of him to meet with me, a complete stranger. I appreciated that. I don't think he appreciated my never having read a single thing he'd written. Presumptuous of him to think that I would have. But then again, he writes without fear and with the assumption that all those who are literate will rush to find his words on the printed page.

After our meeting, I walked through Soho looking for a shop selling Valentines. I stopped at a Daffys and spontaneously tried on a pinstriped Elie Tahari pant suit. It itched. I felt fraudulent. The suit represented the opposite of what I was about to do on a Tuesday afternoon. I had no destination. I had no plan. I had the day to myself.

I wandered in and out of stores. I marveled at the simple yet entirely fantastic items at Muji. I walked on Canal Street. I saw fakes on display. Watches, scarves, small electronics all copied from quality originals. Other fraudulent items. When I reached the Village, it started to rain.

Sans umbrella, I randomly took shelter at Pennyfeathers Cafe on 7th Avenue South and Barrow Street. The enclosed patio in the front was fairly empty and I sat in a corner with windows around me. I opened my Time magazine and ordered lemonade from a lovely and cheerful waiter named Issac. The chill of the rain came through the glass protecting me from its moisture. I asked Issac which soup he liked and he produced a mild black bean with sour cream and onions on the side. He spoke with an Israeli accent and had the manner of a loving auntie. The starchy dark soup comforted me a little but there was something about the day that left me searching for true warmth. When the rain dissipated, I dressed for my departure but I stood next to my table for a moment as Issac came to retrieve my credit card slip. I needed a favor.

"Issac? Would it be weird if I asked you for a hug?"

"NO! Oh, you make me feel so good!" he replied. We hugged near the door of the restaurant. He was delighted and held his hand over his heart. He asked me if I lived in the neighborhood. When I told him I lived in Harlem, a woman at a nearby table asked me where specifically and then told me that her mother lived at 125th and Lenox. Issac told me to come back whenever I felt like talking or having a cup of coffee. He smiled so kindly on me that it was the bit of sunshine I was looking for on this overcast day.

I strolled to Kate's Paperie to look for Valentines (paper not people.) There, I picked up a job application. Imagine me! Amidst the paperpress notecards and ribbons by the yard. Crafty heaven. From Kate's, I stopped at the grocery store for fruit and laundry detergent.

On the C train home, I realized that I had left my Time magazine at Pennyfeathers. I put my laundry in the wash and called my new friend Issac. He told me that he was taking the magazine home so that it didn't get lost in the shuffle at the restaurant and that he would be working Saturday through Tuesday. I told him I'd be back to see him and pick up the rag over the weekend. I look forward to hugging him again.

My evening at home was peaceful and domestic. I sent thank you notes to friends in LA. Belated with more coming but still, gratitude delayed. I walked to the bodega at the corner of our building and traded 5 nickels for the lone quarter I still needed to dry my whites. I made myself a sandwich with the leftover prime rib. Cheddar, beef and a little bit of Gulden's mustard. I liked meeting the man at the bodega. I liked pretty much everyone and everything about my day. It's probably a little odd for New York.

When my roommates came home, we stayed up late recounting the day. We snacked and laughed. They made grilled cheese sandwiches with the bread and sharp cheddar I'd bought at the grocery store. I've deemed Nate's impersonation of Frenchmen to be a new anti-depressant. His intonation is simply, like my day out was, "hah-may-zang-ghah." And for a good belly laugh, it's never too late.

"I'm naht sittin' on ya head!"

2008-02-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

Okay so for the fifth day in a row, I woke up during the post meridian hours. Today, the off-duty pastry chef and I set out on a houseware adventure. My fabulous coworkers in L.A. sent me off with an incredibly generous gift certificate to Zabar's where I can eat, shop and feel like the Kosher Jew I know I am on the inside. That was our first destination. I bought nary a houseware but I did spend eight whole dollars on four slices of nova lox. I then spent 75 cents on a mediocre bagel only to discover an H&H next door after we left. We stopped at a Starbucks for Karen's chai latte while I sat us next to a student who very coldly made room for us at the window counter. I think she'd had enough of my crinkly wax paper smoked salmon madness when she made like she was going to leave but actually moved to a table near the front of the store. I devoured the soft lox and pedestrian poppyseed bagel. Karen sprung for cream cheese from the barista and I sipped fresh squeezed OJ. Sunshine in a bottle.

We turned south and went to Macy's at Herald Square so that I could lay around more but this time with the focused goal of purchasing a bed for my closet/ room. On the crowded train, people were meeting people in a squishy afternoon melee. Passengers got on and stayed on, every stop filling the train with more dark winter coats and more gloved hands reaching for brushed metal poles. I spotted an Asian girl with bad blond hair and bright blue eyeshadow. I dubbed her "The Mermaid." A lady with a seat next to the door became agitated and started snapping at a man forced to stand next to her. The entire car laughed when he retaliated with "I'm naht sittin' on ya head! Quit complaining. At least you gaht a seat." Pardon the New York-ness of it all.

Macy's keeps the original wooden escalator on certain floors and we marveled at the feeling of it. The ricketiness, the rumble of wooden slats a nostalgic change from sleek steel. This is where Macy's began and it was unlike any I'd visited on the West Coast. This one had a Louis Vuitton in it! I ordered my bed without much fanfare and we celebrated with Auntie Anne's cinnamon sugar pretzel sticks. An entire island covered with real pretzel salesmen with carts on every corner and we get ours with a thick coating of cinnamon and sugar from a chain of shops typically found in sterile shopping malls across America. Pardon our L.A.-ness.

We shopped further at Daffys where Karen met a old man searching for a Valentine gift. We then met our friend at H&M and headed for Korean BBQ at Shilla. Delicious kalbi, chewy buckwheat noodles in cold broth, orange wedges for dessert. I burped the garlicky burp of Korean evidence all night. Later, I actually laughed so hard I farted while Karen folded her laundry in the living room. I'm not ashamed.

Before we headed back to the apartment, we made a stop at Duane Reade and picked up snacks and dishwasher detergent. On the platform at 34th Street, Karen tempted me with strawberry creme Peeps. Never has pink airpuffed sugar dipped in red sugar been so delicious. A stranger noticed our chewy treasure and made a comment about how good they looked. Karen offered him one and although he declined he remarked that she was generous and that it was a good thing. We're friendly. Pardon our L.A.-ness.

The night was topped off with Reese's Peanutbutter cookies and cereal for me. And some dark chocolate Ferrero Rochers. "When we are happy, we both get fat." (1)

(1) From the song "Life in a Nutshell" by the Barenaked Ladies.

most valuable posterior

2008-02-03T23:38:00.000-08:00

I stayed up late on pre-Super Bowl Saturday catching up with an Angeleno for whom I particularly pine. Again, as the slovenly trend would have it, I rose after the lunch hour to find Karen and Nate in front of our absurdly giant television. Law and Order, a most bewitching program had hypnotized the two of them for at least an hour. I declared that I needed to eat and be back by 6pm in time for the kick-off. They were complacent and easily swayed. It was Sunday.

We found ourselves at Miss Mamie's on 110th Street at around 4pm. The dining room was quaint with red vinyl chairs, a red piano and white wainscotting along the walls. The curtains in the window were of a strawberry pattern and the sweet tea and lemonade served in mason jars. Karen and I both ordered southern fried chicken with an assortment of sides between us: mac and cheese, cornbread stuffing, potato salad and candied yams. Nate ordered ribs with black eyed peas and collard greens. We wolfed down our food stopping only for hysterics as Karen recalled a man she saw on the train. The man wore particularly fitted trousers and Karen found it difficult to avert her eyes from his, clinically speaking, "junk." To be candid, she said it looked like he had a soda can in his pants. Mr. Pibb? Dr. Pepper? I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. It's delightful when that happens.

The service was slow on that Super Sunday afternoon and sensing our growing annoyance with Toni Braxton's greatest hits blaring from the sound system, our waiter comped our coconut cake and peach cobbler. Ken, we salute you and your dancer's physique. We will see you both again very soon.

6:00pm. Back in front of the electronic window. It was the first time I truly enjoyed the life-like quality of HD programming. Little Eli Manning looked crisp and forlorn. Every hair on Randy Moss' face was defined. Bill Belichick furrowed that brow and I felt it in my basal cortex. And Tommy Brady...that face paint was FIERCE, GIRLFRIEND! Nate and I forced ourselves to pay attention through the first half. Karen dozed off before the game started but came to after halftime when things got good. At the conclusion of the game, after Lil Eli spun out of the dog pile and passed the amazing pass and eventually ran out the 1 second remaining, New Yorkers outside my window cheered. I don't like to take credit for bringing luck to this city, but I will.

an avid reader

2008-02-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

I have trouble with novels. In the advent of multi-tasking and Microsoft Windows open 20 at a time, I find it hard to concentrate sometimes. I love to read though and I do it often here. I read traffic lights. I read subway maps. I read the covers of books being read by real readers on the train. I read street signs and sale signs and department store floor categories. I read all day.

Yesterday, the weather was grey and I allowed myself the irresponsible luxury of sleeping past noon. The reasoning behind it was simple: I did it because I could. I turned myself out of bed and dawdled about the apartment and left it around 3:00pm to pay a visit to the boys at Focus Features. I had never met them before, the bodies which produce the voices I'd become familiar with over so many months. It was great to meet the tag team of assistants who often stay later than even I would like for them, to accommodate the time difference between us and the Eastern sea board.

Mr. Kansas directed me across the street for my breakfast, served at 5:00pm. Cafe Angelique with its Parisian tiling and non-Parisian low-fat, low-carb baked goods. I'd been advised that the chicken pesto sandwich on fougasse bread was worth investigating so I ordered that and a "Chocolate Bombe" which was a flourless chocolate brownie. Breakfast of sloths! The fougasse was toasted nicely and there was plenty of chicken pesto but the pesto was not strong enough and a bit creamy for me. The tomatoes sliced into it were old and tasted metallic with age. The chocolate bombe however was fluffy and crumbly and like dark cocoa velvet. The bombe was fantastic.

It's OK to eat one fattening meal a day if it's the only meal you eat. And I like to justify the consumption of chocolate with the presence of rain. Big, lackadaisical, slappy rain. The hems of my jeans were dark with the watery filth of this town. I stepped carefully down into and up out of the subway. The slick floors were shining with potential accidents. Gross. Earlier in the week I had tripped walking up the stairs of the subway and caught myself with my bare hands on the steps traversed by thousands. I quarantined my paws until I could find gloves made of hand sanitizer. I walked a few blocks like a criminal at gunpoint held hostage by bacteria and the slides I was shown in Microbiology class. I'm not a fan of bacteria and other assorted invisible foulness.

Fully innoculated, I woke late on Saturday and spent it reading in the apartment. I ate leftovers of grilled veggies and veggie lasagna from Certe and enjoyed a bit of solitude. Another grey sky spread outside my window and I didn't leave the house until 7pm when I took the train to 72nd Street to join my dear friend Dale and his mother for dinner at Tavern on the Green. While not the fanciest food, the history of the building dates back a lot of years and we were seated in the Crystal Room which is inspired by Venice and felt like the inside of an Easter egg dream. The chandeliers were everywhere and I indulged in a cocktail of Chambord and gingerale. Dale and his mother had just returned from a cruise and as I ate my seared ahi tuna with black seaweed salad and lotus root, I clicked through photos on Dale's camera. For my main course, I ordered the prime rib but only ate the cap. My entire life I'd only liked eating the cap but always felt silly about it, not knowing what I was doing until the French Laundry happened and Thomas Keller diagnosed my palate. TK, I love you. I want to have your food baby.

It's a culinary feat for that many people to consume that much food of a certain quality day after day. Everyone enjoyed their choices, iceberg blue, lobster bisque, pork chops, sea bass...and when I say everyone I mean us and the other hundreds of people celebrating that evening. Birthday parties, anniversaries, friends from the ends of the earth coming to dine and spend a moment looking at familiar faces before separating again in a puff of warm air on a chilly night. I wore my long, black wool coat that night and felt very much a sophisticate. Especially on the train back when a couple of Puerto Rican kids were making fun of a homeless woman. One of them made eye contact with me and smiled his acknowledgement that I knew they were being snarky. I wasn't afraid. I was a cool, calm New Yorker.

before i turn to stone

2008-01-31T20:42:00.000-08:00

30 Rock is not just a sardonic TV show but it's also the nickname for the actual headquarters of one of the largest media conglomerates in the country. NBC Universal. It's where I went this morning but where I arrived too late to see a few of the executives whom I loved so dearly when I was an assistant at my former place of employment. I stood sweaty and panting outside the office of the head of the company as he walked past me to get to another meeting. I looked oily and crazy. I glanced around sheepishly at the thin and beautiful assistants in their office savvy outfits and their acclimated body temperatures. I consoled the disappointment of my failed mission with a tuna sandwich and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice from Pret A Manger, a chain of shops I haven't seen since I was in London over a year ago. I sat amidst the lunchtime crowd of dashers and smiled on the inside. I had nowhere to be but back at my apartment to perhaps buy some household items with my roommate the cop. I smelled the amalgam of scents that compose the symphony of the wedge hour that drives the day into two parts, the before and after. I watched it spin around me though I was not part of its universe let alone the center.

Coming out of the train station at 110th street, I encountered two small Chinese women. They were probably 70 and less than 5 feet tall. The older one wore a light purple knitted cap and the sunglasses given to patients of ocular dismay. The kind that block out all manner of light to save the fragile corneas and retinas of people who have seen too much. The younger one had a worn red coat and a smiling face. We climbed the stairs together and I noticed they had each a bag and a wheeled duffle/ backpack. They had trouble dragging the larger bags up the stairs so I asked them in Cantonese if they wanted some help. They giggled and accepted but without shame. Their accents betrayed their origins in the countryside of Canton where lives are meager. I took one dufflebag and marched ahead as they tended to the other. I looked back and saw that it was still causing them a bit of inconvenience so I handed over my Louis Vuitton purse and took a second dufflebag in my free hand and above ground we went. They smiled at their luck to have help. I laughed at the absurdity of me in my high heeled boots, towering nearly 6 feet tall over these two women who had just come from the markets of Chinatown with ingredients for the Lunar New Year feast coming in a few days. Their dufflebags were laden with raw vegetables and meats. As we walked, we discovered we lived on the same street just a few buildings apart. They invited me to have tea with them and sit for a while but I declined as I had shopping of my own to do. I wished them a happy new year and good health. They giggled further.

Two people have been cold to me in the past week but for the most part, I've connected with strangers just as I would have were I in LA. I told a man on the train that his sandwich smelled delicious. I told a gay waiter at a soul food restaurant that his ass was fantastic, probably the most fantastic I'd ever seen. I've smiled at passengers on the subway. After purchases at Bed Bath and Beyond followed by won ton soup at Penang and fried banana won tons at Lime Leaf, the cop and I returned home to unpack, unwrap and assemble. I recounted the story of the little old ladies. I was advised that I should stay out of the affairs of others and that no good deed goes unpunished. I felt sad for the cop. Everyone knows that little old ladies should be the first recipients of a random act of kindness. This city has hardened my roommate and I refuse to succmb to the same stony evolution.

panelist

2008-01-30T23:42:00.000-08:00

After a chocolate chip cookie on the train, Karen and I emerged on Wall Street to attend an event at Deutsche Bank. "Investing in Hollywood." My former boss spoke on a panel of executives involved in the film business and its investment opportunities. We entered the auditorium in our jeans and casual clothing and tromped between rows to two empty seats in the center section which afforded the clearest view of heads of studios and film finance gurus. I surprised myself with how much information I had accumulated through office osmosis. When terms were dropped and trends were discussed, I understood. Who knew I could feel so smart.

Karen and I left the suits to their cocktails and chatter for a bit of shopping at Century 21. So many pretty things. So little necessity. As we grew hungry, I emailed my Jedi council of former New York foodies to ask for a recommendation in the Tribeca neighborhood. Bubby's was the winner where Karen and I sat down around 8pm and ravenously tore at jalapeno cornbread. She ordered chicken pot pie with coleslaw and hush puppies. For me, three meat meatloaf with mac and cheese and sauteed spinach. The chicken pot pie was a bit dry and the hush puppies unremarkable. My meatloaf had personality and bacon. The sides were lovely, mac and cheese creamy and hot with little bit of gruyere, the spinach lush and green. I tried fresh cranberry juice for the first time and loved it. It was crisp yet a strong red. For dessert I ordered Callebaut hot chocolate which was a bit too sweet but fantastic nonetheless. They went low fat on me with the use of whole milk instead of cream but I always must remind myself that we're in New York and not Paris. Tant pis.

From Bubby's Karen and I took the train to the Mandarin Oriental hotel located at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. We met my former boss in the Lobby Lounge on the 24th floor with a view of 59th Street and a corner of the park. The walls were black marble and the appointments were all very Asian. We sat in soft chairs next to a high window and sipped MacCallan 12 year scotch on the rocks. When I say we I mean the former boss and me. He finished my scotch for me as I am but a child when it comes to hard liquor. I admit that the scotch was incredibly smooth though. A manly drink for manly people who want to sleep like babies.

We chatted about what I'd learned recently about the finance industry. We talked of things that adults speak of when they sip expensive drinks in dim rooms...Nebraska, cooking, life. It was the first time I knew this man as not my boss but as my friend in a way. As a man over whom I could lord my superior sense of humor and inappropriate behavior. I stole a green apple from a bowl in the hallway on the floor of his hotel room. I stole his Times Dining section. I tried to steal his complimentary hotel slippers but he was wearing them. I suppose he misses my presence at the office. More than he'd miss a set of shampoos and conditioners anyway.

eating and sleeping

2008-01-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

I took a New York City bus for the first time today.

I had ridden with Vera in a taxi out to LaGuardia for her return flight to Toronto. We had risen too late to dine in the city so at the airport we had lunch at au bon pain. I ate a tuna sandwich on a French roll and an orange which cost $0.79. I looked across the table at my friend and felt a very nonchalant comfort. Though we have been friends for more time than we haven't been friends, we get to a place where everything goes but anything can still sting. She drops the prickly facts on me every now and again as I do on her. Saying goodbye was also a time to say "This is what I meant by what I said..."

On the M60 bus back to Manhattan, I stopped into a mattress shop on 125th St. to lay on bed after bed. I haven't decided on a winner yet since everything costs between $400-$600. Not having an income at the moment, the way my money leaves my hands has changed. I was never a frugal person but growing up and having to consider finances is inevitable. It's the in and out of cashflow. For now, I monitor the in and out of air through the leak in the Aerobed.

I decided to walk 12 blocks through Harlem back to my apartment. It had started to sprinkle but I was in a down coat that withstood the rain. For 10 minutes, I was the only non-black person I saw. It was a curious feeling that I haven't experienced since I started doing poetry in 1999 when I would be the odd one out at readings. Most of the people I saw were older. It was Tuesday afternoon so the children were at school and the mothers and fathers were at work. I stopped into a bakery for orange juice and got home just as Nate was waking up. A real Italian at the restaurant where he works recommended a pizza place on the LES that he wanted to try so I tagged along to Luzzo's. We took another bus and strolled the LES along 1st Ave. We passed Bird Bath Bakery and each bought a cookie. The store was of a strange ambiance. It's a "green" bakery but the vibe was somber and stolid. Tall pillar candles stood next to stacked cookies in the window. A very odd display.

Luzzo's was incredible. We started with calamari which was mezzo mezzo. The squid was not fresh and too chewy for my taste but the pizza...oh, the pizza. I had thought Lombardi's set the standard for my pizza eating future but Luzzo's crust and soft burrata from Napoli made the rainy weather clear up. The dough was light and soft like a cloud with a crisp bottom. The sauce and the cheese, the basil and the scent swirled together in a perfect pizza dream. We also had an order of gnocchi which I thought was lovely though Nate found it a bit gummy. For dessert, we walked a few blocks to Sugar Sweet Sunshine and got a half dozen of vanilla, chocolate, pistachio, lemon, pumpkin and red velvet cupcakes. Then a quick stop at Starbucks for coffee (for Nate) and a green tea latte (for me) and back home to tear into the box of pastel goodies with Karen who had come home from her shift.

This is possible here. The many stops for food. New Yorkers are like hummingbirds in constant search of nectar to sustain their perpetual motion. In Los Angeles, making a stop for food is an annoyance and a bother. But here, walking home usually means you'll pass a delectable storefront at which you can pause for a bite.

PST

2008-01-29T09:49:00.000-08:00

Pacific
I've kept my Blackberry on West Coast time to mind those whom I love. I glance at it, see the hour and wonder about my friends. Some are waking, some are resting, some work, some play. All are in my thoughts.

Standard
Monday morning, my best friend since the age of 9 and I went to the jewelry district to see a man named Leigh. He sells antique engagement rings and Vera was interested in resetting a diamond of her grandmother's. It's a funny coincidence that she and I both wear diamonds passed down through the women in our family. De Beers would be disappointed.

In the netting of streets located around 47th and Madison, jewellers abound with velvet trays. Bracelets shine, necklaces sway, rings sit with their stones sparkling up towards our curious eyes. In Leigh's office, he produced 6 or 7 trays full of settings. Some had diamonds in them, some were empty, their prongs like the beaks of small birds, open and ready for a faceted feeding. Vera chose her setting and we set out with one of the assistants to see a slew of men with dirty fingers and rusted tools. Each specialized in a particular step of the process. Ivan sized the ring, sawing a section out and welding it to the specifications of Vera's finger. Hye reset the stone and secured the diamond of Vera's past into the platinum of Vera's present. Gabe polished the finished product and onto Vera's hand it went. They all wore wedding bands and the unimpressed expressions of jaded men who have seen many pretty things.

Time
Lunch. At Certe with a commodities trader. At the door was a tray of brownie cubes. The one I snuck was delicious. For my meal I had vegetarian lasagna with a side of grilled vegetables - zucchini, asparagus and red bell pepper. The lasagna was creamy with spinach pasta sheets stuffed with asparagus, mushrooms, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes and cheese. For dessert, a small cup of tres leches cake. And another brownie cube on the way out the door. For braving the elements.

The commodities trader couldn't seem to understand what the appeal of New York was for me. I had to explain the food, the culture, the stimulation, the rituals. He lives in an enormous condo in Jersey with his wife. Neither of them seem to like these things and we reached an impasse after I tried to defend myself for about 5 minutes. We stopped in on his office and I poked around the spreadsheets on his desk. It didn't seem to matter if it were film ultimates or gold trades, it was boring.

As we left him to his work, I examined a sculpture in the lobby of the building and read its accompanying plaque. It was created by a German artists whose work has appeared at the Guggenheim and MOCA in Los Angeles. I stared at the recycled metal pieces. I admired it. The commodities trader looked at Vera and proclaimed that in the 3 years that he has worked at the company, he had never once stopped to look at the sculpture. Suddenly the difficulty of my lunchtime defense of New York became clear.

From there, Vera and I walked about 30 blocks to the Met which unfortunately was closed. Mondays. I made note. We cut through Central Park and encountered a woman with her baby and their dog. We asked directions and as she spoke, the baby, in his baby holder, moved his arms and legs like a bouncing starfish she wore as a badge. He was a serious baby. I guessed that his father was a very serious man and that his mother was the spicier of the two. She smiled, agreed and we said goodbye. Vera seemed to think I was bothering her. She said that people may just be polite sometimes and that I shouldn't be so chatty. I like to give myself credit for the ability to read people. I think perhaps I misread Vera.

Dinner. We took the train to the Village to meet with a real estate man. Another friend of Vera's. Another man with a wife and a disbelief in my move. We ate at Lombardi's and ordered Caesar salad and a sausage and mushroom pie for the three of us. Crunchy soft pizza dough, spicy sausage and a hit of sweet onion. I couldn't have it any other way again.

After dinner, Vera and I headed to the Bowery Ballroom to see Chromeo. The concert was the key reason my dear friend had come to visit and we rocked out to 80s electrofunk as my brand new boots got scuffed under the heels of hipsters doing likewise. I watched Vera laugh with glee as song after song hit her ears. I smiled as she enjoyed herself. I cried on the inside for the ruined leather on my feet.

Following the concert, we stopped in on one of the ibankers from the previous night. The rent for his midtown studio is the same as our 3 bedroom apartment in Harlem. Morgan Stanley must be a kind man. Vera and he caught up further as I stood in his walk-in closet and pulled an accounting book from the shelf. I cracked it open at his desk and began reading about this mysterious study which entices so many people as the foundation of where money is tallied. I borrowed the book as the ibanker cocked his head and told me to call him if I had any questions. Questions, yes. I think I will have many. The main one though is why do these people have such a hard time believing that I could just up and move to this glorious island?

oh, it's what you do to me

2008-01-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

I'm here. I'm in my new apartment on a new street in a new neighborhood with a bodega on the corner. It's winter. Chill is in the air. We don't have curtains for the windows yet so the renters in the building across the street can peer into our lives here, our small three bedroom apartment with two baths. One bathroom looks like a closet with a window in it. It's tiled in white and beautiful.

Today begins my adventure in New York with all the promise and potential of a first kiss. I'd call today a wink.

I ate Cream of Wheat in the car on the way to the airport this morning. My mother made it with a soup of chicken, pork both salted and plain and a healthy addition of napa cabbage. My father drove fast. My mother drew a happy face on the foggy window with her knuckle. I stared at the San Bernardino mountains for a while. The dog had been clingy as I raced back and forth from my suitcase to my room. He knew I was leaving.

On the plane, more staring at mountains, more strange uncertainty until the plane taxied around a corner on the runway and suddenly gained speed. The rumble of quickness and the thunder of air brought a smile to my face. It was happening. I did it.

On the flight from Denver to New York City, I ate a small bag of small pretzels and sat alone in a row of three seats. I became sleepy and folded my rabbit fur coat into a makeshift pillow and lay my head on the newly decadent aisle seat and "slept the sleep of assassins and kings/ remorseless." (1)

The first thing I ate here was a handful of strawberry Starburst candies. Apparently Karen likes cherry, Nate likes orange and I'm no prognosticator but I'm seeing a lot of lemon Starburst in what I can only describe as something that looks like the garbage can soon. Maybe Ed will eat the yellow ones.

Call it an amuse bouche. Follow it with dinner at Daniel and that was the first meal in New York City. Canapes and amuses at one of the best restaurants in the city, sauteed foie gras with cherry clafoutis to start and a paupiette of black sea bass. Think of a paupiette as a frilled, fried potato jacket wrapped around a smooth white fish with wide, soft flakes of protein. Like a delicious ocean armadillo. Desserts came in sets of three courtesy of my roommate Karen and her cohorts in the pastry department. Blood orange sorbet, chocolate cremeux, strawberry vacheron, peanut crusted banana, coffee infused ice cream sable sandwich... all mini versions suitable for a tasting menu.

I miss Los Angeles but, this is what I've been waiting for. This is my time to be. Time to ruminate. I met a bunch of investment bankers today. I learned about a financial product called a "derivative." We ate dinner at Barcibo Enoteca (2), an Italian tapas restaurant on the NE corner of Broadway and 69th. I had veal meatball bruschetta and a three cheese panini with mushrooms. Both were savory and soft with crisp bread to balance the texture. For dessert, tiramisu in the raw which was assembled with ladyfingers, a cup of espresso and a bowl of whipped marscapone, cream and sugar with a dusting of cocoa powder. As they inquired of my origins they immediately asked me what I was going to do for work. I told them I wasn't. Are you trying to find a job, they asked. I'm actually not, I replied. They smiled the theoretical admiration of people who would never do what I've done. I suppose since I'm not making $200K/ year, it's easy for me to not care about money because I have so little. It's because they have more that they do care. They have an appreciation for their many hard earned dollars. But to love my life as much as I do, I could tell immediately that that's something they don't have.

(1) Sleepyhead Assassins, a poetry book by Mindy Netifee.
(2) They don't have a website. Come visit me and I will take you there.