12.18.13

"rushdie plays backgammon, and i love, love, love backgammon," said the beautiful young attorney seated beside me on our plane from puerto rico, "so i'm hoping we can play the next time i see him." man, i thought. i was feeling pretty good about frolicking with wild iguanas and having a feral cat party and scooping a bee out of the sea, but playing backgammon with salman rushdie sounds pretty boss. i need to step up my game again.

tropical vacations for people who spend a lot of time thinking about david foster wallace are interesting propositions. mostly they aren't sinister at all, and when one is reclining on a chartered sailboat in the caribbean with some of one's best friends in the world it's easy to feel suspended forever in the sunlight like a beetle in amber. then one returns to land and is commanded by the well-intentioned but intimidating queen of the concierges to smile, to smile more broadly, to smile more broadly still you are in paradise, and one is beneath the waves in a sea of childhood-holiday-photo angst. the sea is figurative and the sailboat is real, though, so one is still doing pretty fucking well.

images of indolence are on their way; in the interim, please enjoy this photo of an iguana on a patio table. i know i do.

12.11.13

the dirty dozen {notes from my hometown police blotter, as reported by the oc register*}

Suspicious person/circumstance. 12:47 p.m. A parent said a 12-year-old daughter locked the parent out of the house.
Citizen assist. 2:52 p.m. The caller said a man was stealing lemons from his tree and looking through his window.
Disturbance. 9:26 a.m. The caller reported a man standing on the corner.
Assault report. 11:10 a.m. The caller said a customer tried to steal a pizza and threw it at the manager.
Suspicious circumstance. 10:43 p.m. Several juveniles were allegedly putting duct tape on cars and in the street.
Drunk in public. 7:28 p.m. A caller reported a drunken man speeding through the park in a golf cart.
Terrorist threats report. 4:20 p.m. The caller said his step son, who lives in La Palma, told him he's going to go down there and teach him a lesson.
Disturbance. 4:24 p.m. A local Starbucks manager said store employees refused to serve someone they believed was selling drugs on the afternoon of Aug. 31.
Disturbance. 8:00 p.m. The caller reported a man yelling at them to stop playing at the park.
Keep the peace. 10:18 p.m. The caller said her roommate wants to move out in the middle of the month, but is demanding to be refunded for her part of the rent.
Citizen assist. 1:08 p.m. The caller reported a nasty note from a neighbor left taped to his door several days ago.
Disturbance. 9:22 a.m. The caller said a man just punched him in the face.

*previous installment here.

12.10.13

the dirty dozen {twelve things before the tropics, where, i'm told, it is rainy}: part 2 of 2

07 thistle hill tavern's buffalo cauliflower recipe.
08 simon beck walks all day to make massive patterns in the snow.
09 DENVER IN MANTLE OF SHIMMERING WHITE STOPS ACTIVITY AND EVERYBODY JOLLIFIES.
10 joe called me at work yesterday afternoon to report that he'd looked at the little silhouettes on the cans more closely and it turns out we've been feeding steve and matty dog food for the last month. i asked the internet if this was irreparable. cats are not small dogs, the internet said.
11 on royal swan upping.
12 frank o'hara, from "meditations in an emergency:"

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they're missing? Uh huh.

12.09.13

the missus and i are leaving for st. thomas at 11:59 on wednesday night; between now and then i'll have shipped a magazine (it's you or me, february 2014), dragged myself 1001 miles at long last, probably failed to donate blood, and slept, hopefully. matty has broken us down over the course of a week of restless nights without interrogating us or making any demands, which seems like questionable strategy, but whatever, i'm not a kitten.

the dirty dozen {twelve things before the tropics, where, i'm told, it is rainy}: part 1 of 2

01 an important video about gifts.
02 rachel's favorite gingerbread recipe.
03 cheetah cam at the metro richmond zoo in chesterfield, virginia.
04 raymond chandler's twenty-four los angeles homes.
05 david lynch nearly makes hemingway interesting in a 1988 obsession ad.
06 "letter to a hotel manager," a lydia davis story for this year's hay festival.

12.05.13

We could eat grapes half the morning like Goethe
hunkered against an obelisk,
waiting on the proper angle for the season
to see the Sistine sun-kissed,

or we could slip a coin in the device
that illumines another masterpiece
in a sordid chapel (but soon again
dark shrinks it to a gleam of grease).

(ange mlinko, from "revelations," granta 125)

12.03.13

in our exercise room on friday morning there was a man in loafers, dress pants, and a tucked-in oxford striving mightily on a stationary bike, and i salute him.

VEGETARIAN THANKSGIVING: THE POST-GAME REPORT

candied tangerine peels. the pith beneath the peels was so minimal and easy to remove that i didn't bother to try to trim it; i gave each tangerine a soccer-practice quartering, peeled each quarter and chucked the fruit into the juicer, julienned the peels after trimming their tips, and that was that. these were delicious, and we now have a jar of tangerine simple syrup for making old fashioneds. all's right with the world.

homemade cheez-its. midtown manhattan was uninterested in selling me annatto seeds with which to boehner my dough when i first attempted this recipe a month ago, so i subbed in a few teaspoons of pimentón; i also grabbed the wrong pepper grinder and ended up adding a dash of garlic powder by accident. i've repeated those mistakes in four(?) subsequent batches, and i'll probably repeat them in four more before the year is out. mike bloomberg would pose for a photo with these crackers.

pretzel & nut mix. at some point i should probably write david lebovitz and let him know he's been my kitchen's godfather for years. this mix takes no time to throw together, it's a deeply sexy blend of maple-syrup felicity and a chile kick, and it makes you feel like a roald dahl character who lives in a fabulous pie.

roasted butternut squash salad with warm cider vinaigrette. learning that ina garten was a nuclear policy analyst before she was the barefoot contessa has led me to forgive her for the fact that this recipe only works every other time i follow it (and thursday wasn't one of those times); she doesn't have time to idiot-proof her salads and weigh in on budget legislation (and source her weapons-grade velvet pantsuits; i saw one in person and was altered). i could of course be to blame for thinking i could sub mesclun in for arugula, but we needn't point fingers. in future attempts i'll be conservative with my greens, liberal with my vinegar, and in velvet of my own, hopefully.

green bean casserole. martha stewart takes a hell of a long time to pull together her gourmet version of a cream-of-mushroom-soup casserole base, but i'll concede that it's fancy-tasty; the whole casserole, moreover, can be pulled together and refrigerated a day ahead of time, so the fact that it takes, er, an hour isn't quite so terrible. i neglected to account for its chilled state when i got around to baking it on thursday, so it didn't reach the table in what i would call a piping-hot state. i hear this happens to everyone on thanksgiving? at some point i should develop an oven schedule like rachel's.

nick's nut roast with warm coriander dressing. this dish has been my friend cara's holiday main for years, the scotsman describes it as "a stonking veggie alternative to the christmas roast," and there was no way i wasn't attempting it. i found the lingham's chilli sauce at shi eurasia on orchard street; the owner, thrilled that i'd called her about it, took me through her mother's special recipe for fried crabs. the black nigella seeds turned up at kalustyan's on lexington, and i was straight-up smug by the time i packed the roast into my bundt pan on wednesday night (we didn't have a big enough loaf pan, and we grew so enamored of saying "nut bundt" that we felt we had to go with it). the roast wasn't especially interested in debarking from the bundt when i baked it the next day and looked a bit like a laird's ruined castle when i brought it to the dinner table, but it was crunchy, spicy, and like nothing i've made for a holiday meal before. omnivores went back for second helpings. you are good to me, cara.

savory mushroom gravy. god knows what happened to the gravy. well, hubris happened, as i assumed it was the one part of the meatless meal i definitely wouldn't shank (even tofurky gravy is good, and tofurky is the devil's doorstop), and gullibility happened, since i believed the internet when it claimed this was the BEST RECIPE EVAR, but i worked hard and played by the rules, and i expected to retire in comfort. instead i had to call joe in to what-seems-to-be-the-trouble-little-lady my nasty-ass gravy and spoil my solo-thanksgiving-prep streak, and it ended up tasting marvelous, and fuck capitalism.

butterscotch-pecan ice cream. another david lebovitz joint, and my favorite homemade ice cream of all time; it came out beautifully, as it always does. i was so excited the first time d-lebz tweeted at me that i printed and squirreled away a screengrab of the message. i'm not ashamed.

tangerine sorbet. also also lebovitz, and a solid formula for any citrus sorbet. i used a megajuicer i inherited from my magazine's food editor to juice my tangerines, and in retrospect i probably should have done it the old-fashioned way, for the pith that remained between the segments after i removed the peels gave the juice just a touch of bitterness. what are the domestic arts without a touch of bitterness, though?

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 if martha stewart had worked for the government in the '70s, what would her job have been?
02 do you make schedules and charts when you cook, if you cook?
03 is the internet right about anything?
04 i'm leaving for my first-ever tropical vacation as a grown-ass adult next wednesday. what should i bring? (bathing suit already acquired.)

11.24.13

we've been brainstorming life updates in response to a request for holiday-newsletter material.

lauren and joe have received their spare set of house keys from their petsitter who moved to new jersey.
lauren and joe have stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.
lauren and joe have succeeded in business without really trying.
lauren and joe are on a wintertime sleigh ride through hans christian andersen's copenhagen.

11.22.13

the dirty dozen {notes from my hometown police blotter, as reported by the oc register*}

Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:33 p.m. The caller said his 15-year-old son and the caller’s mother have barricaded him out of his home because he recently quit smoking and the son is now upset because he bought an e-cigarette.
Unknown trouble. 3:51 p.m. The caller said the caller's roommate has a machete.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 5:58 p.m. Informant called from McDonald's saying people at Arby's took her balloon and treated her badly.
Disturbance. 5:10 p.m. An informant said the neighbor is angry at the informant's son because the son moved a tree and a seed fell, upsetting the neighbor.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 3:53 p.m. Informant reported that pornographic films recovered in the mail were not ordered.
Terrorist threats report. 8:51 p.m. The caller said a student shoved the caller and said she is going to file a report that the caller was the one who pushed her.
Disturbance. 7:14 p.m. The caller reported a man rolling around on the grass in front of the mortuary.
Disturbance. 12:36 a.m. Informant reported a neighbor that goes out and blows a bugle type horn and marches around the yard with a sword. Subject reportedly does it all the time.
Suspicious person. 7:19 p.m. A man reported that his phone lines had been tapped and that someone was hacking into his bank account. He later said he might be a methamphetamine user.
Disturbance. 4:38 p.m. A male transient who reportedly goes by "Hollywood" was seen urinating in public. The transient was reportedly wearing a shiny cape.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 1:41 p.m. The caller reported neighbors burning their fireplace for the last four or five days without stopping and a very odd smell coming from the house.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 6:48 p.m. A male subject was reportedly standing on a white van and was preparing to skateboard off the top of it. A subject was reportedly videotaping.

*previous installment here.

11.19.13

the dirty dozen {notes from my hometown police blotter, as reported by the oc register*}

Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:49 a.m. The caller said a car has driven by her house five times this morning. She said she put puppies for sale on Craigslist and thinks this could be related.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 7:59 p.m. The caller said she thinks people are intentionally trying to cause a traffic collision with her because her family is wealthy.
Assist outside agency. 9:28 a.m. The caller said she is at IHOP and a lot of customers began coughing.
Disturbance. 4:22 p.m. The caller said a tenant has a bad attitude and the caller doesn't want him there anymore.
Burglary report. 9:26 p.m. The caller said his terrier was stolen from inside the house. The dog has a GPS but the caller doesn't know how to use it.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 6:31 p.m. A woman reported that a man knocked on her door and asked for help with paperwork because he was in training to be a police officer.
Unknown trouble. 1:38 p.m. The caller said a naked woman walked into her house and then walked outside.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 1:47 p.m. The caller reported several men washing cars in the self-carwash without permission.
Disturbance. 5:16 a.m. The caller reported a man and a woman having sex in the Jacuzzi.
Found property. 11:23 a.m. The caller said he received a large package of marijuana.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 12:22 p.m. The caller said a man walked into her house smelling like marijuana. She said his excuse was that “all the homes look alike.”
Suspicious person/circumstances. 6:19 a.m. The caller reported a large amount of broken glass in the sandbox.

*previous installment here.

11.14.13

101 in 1001 {III}: 008 take a knife-skills class [completed 11.03.13]

i thought i wanted to learn to cut things efficiently and safely because joe (foe of onions) always complains that i don't dice things finely enough and because i seem to lose the tip of a finger to a laughably-uncomplicated prep job (this year it was chopping parsley; sorry about that, right index) once a year or so. those are solid reasons to learn to cut things efficiently and safely, and brooklyn kitchen's celebrated class addressed them; i've now spent substantial time practicing the previously-scorned not-removing-the-stem-of-the-onion method, and i now know to make a tiger claw with my non-cutting hand before i get to work on, say, a carrot, and that i should be honing my knife before and after every big job (if you look at the blade of your knife straight on and can see reflected light, it needs to be honed). i also know, thanks to the preview of the advanced knife skills class to which we were treated at the end of our class, that i'm unlikely to become one of those rare and mysterious vegetarians who can prepare meat for others, as the spectacle of our teacher taking a chicken apart on a cutting board directly and graphically in front of me was at least sixteen times more disturbing than the small-stage production of titus andronicus i saw at the public two winters ago (in which a small child wandered around puncturing a lumpy plastic bag full of blood each time a character was dispatched); you omnivores terrify me.

what i now realize i actually wanted was to see someone chop an onion really, really fast, as they do on foodie-reality-tv shows like top chef. i am not a very good pupil as a general proposition, and i am especially lousy at following right-handed people in demonstrations: i have the visual-spatial intelligence of a baby carrot and a short attention span, so i get confused and promptly move on to thoughts of, say, how i might make myself octopus smoking slippers* or teach steve to jump through a hoop instead of digging in and figuring out how to make my clumsy old left hand do the thing i'm expected to learn to do. (i'm a bad teacher for similar reasons, and wonder every now and again if all those archery "lessons" i gave as a girl scout camp counselor ever led to fatalities.) i did not see anyone chop an onion really, really fast (our teacher was far too responsible to encourage us to go benihana on our vegetables), and it's unlikely i myself will be chopping an onion really, really fast at any point in the near future, but i'm not sorry i froggered out to north williamsburg in the middle of the new york marathon to learn knife skills: i'll remember the tiger claw, i now have a freezer full of wonkily-cubed stock ingredients, and i also have a class handout i can consult if i ever develop the self-discipline to sit down and puzzle out diagrams for more than a few minutes at a time. sometimes that's enough.


imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 did i make it sound like i do all the cooking when i mentioned joe's prissy onion thing?
02 do you know how to take a chicken apart?
03 were/are you a good pupil?
04 were/are you a good archer?
05 when did you last take a class?
06 if you were to customize a pair of smoking slippers, how would you do it?


*they are in the works and will be boss.

11.06.13

it's That Week in central park when every third pedestrian has some sort of musical instrument and it feels reasonable to rent a bike for $30 an hour. as i headed for bethesda fountain yesterday afternoon i saw a couple waltzing slowly beneath the elms. forget you, hollywood! i bet they were both in perfect health.

11.04.13

My voice is a zoo right now for this,
and this paces very much inside it,
it would like very much to escape
and eat hot blood again and go home,
and right down to the restless way
I walk I am an argument against zoos.

(patricia lockwood, from "what is the zoo for what," new yorker 10.28.13; her second collection, motherland fatherland homelandsexuals, will be out in june)