Success(es) and Failure

Before we proceed, I need to acknowledge two individuals who helped make dinner such a success. The first is Dan, and by extension, all the folks at Grazin' Angus Acres who practice some sick ass voodoo to make their chickens come out that way - the chicken is so good that, try as I might, I cannot curse Dan et al for making them so damned expensive. If that's what it costs to have chicken that good, well, I guess I've been suckered in. Locals, this chicken can be yours as well on Friday and Saturday at the USQ Greenmarket and Sundays at either Carroll Gardens or the Museum of Natural History. I will not receive a kickback, there is no ulterior motive save the fact that this is the best goddamned chicken I have ever eaten in my life! The second is Adam of The Amateur Gourmet who provided me (and the rest of the internet - we're not actually acquainted) with this recipe for roasting a chicken. So easy, a one-armed blind man could do it with finesse. If you've never roasted a chicken, I swear to you, I was once just like you, and then I discovered the two gentlemen just mentioned and now I roast chickens and devoted partner thinks I am the one with the sick ass voodoo.

My clothes are becoming pinker by the day. I now know, as in know for certain, that there are no items in the wash that have never been washed before. I know this for true. Yet, this morning, I removed more pink clothing that had not been pink before. Where does the pink come from? I am now resorting to the clusterf*ck that is the internet to get remedies from the masses for arresting this horrible development and, I fervently hope, salvaging the already pink clothing - I mean two white button downs, people - I need those shirts so that I can look not crappy. Bleach and Cascade. Lemon juice and bleach. Bleach and bleach. Some people are claiming that the one actual bleed from the first time I used this washer is lurking within and that I will need to perform some kind of washer exorcism involving bleach and empty loads. I am running an empty load right now sans bleach because I don't have bleach. I now know where I'm going after work, though. The bleach store.

But, on the bright side, something that should be pink (well, purple really, but I'm trying to wordsmith here!) is definitely pink and tastes fantabulous: the concord grape sorbet part 1. It just finished churning and is now hardening in the freezer. I'm feeling quite good about how it looks and tastes, so much so that I see a quenelle photography session in my future.

And Now I'm On That Watchlist For Nothing

If the number of Edward Said books and things called "The Persian Puzzle" purchased by me on Amazon hadn't already warranted a multi-paged file in the halls of big government, my online sign-up for Arabic classes through Greenwich Continuing Education probably sealed the deal. As one friend asked, "are you planning on joining the CIA?"

I enjoyed musing about my fellow future classmates. Who would schlep to Greenwich High School every Tuesday night to learn Arabic from an Armenian woman? Now, it's true, I could have taken Italian or Spanish instead, but both of those languages seem like they would be easy to pick up on one's own - or certainly easier than Arabic and, before some of you ask, Greenwich Continuing Education did not offer Portuguese. So, the people who signed up to take Arabic might be vastly different from the people who signed up to take Italian or Spanish. Perhaps, like me, they'd turn out to be just a trifle eccentric.

And, truth be told, I don't have a very good reason for choosing Arabic. Yes, my grandfather spoke it, and all his grandfathers before him, and a number of my cousins speak it, but my grandfather is dead and I see those cousins perhaps once every five years, so there's no pressing family reason to start conversing in a foreign tongue with them now. And, yes, I hope to visit quite a few more countries where Arabic is the language, but having seen Egypt and Morocco and a sliver of Jordan, I'm rapidly using up my stable Arabic-speaking destinations. I just know I've wanted to learn a little bit for a fair number of years. When I saw that for a piddling amount and a small investment of time, I could at least, maybe, start to decipher words on menus, I was excited.

Of course I knew somewhere deep down that it wasn't meant to be. Without being able to kindly put my finger on it, I had a good suspicion that the hausfraus of Greenwich were not clamoring for a good Arabic class, nor were the HedgieHusbands going to sneak out of work early to spend an hour and a half phlegming their ways through a truly non-essential tongue. I knew, without really knowing, that I was the only person who would sign up for that class - that the class wasn't going to happen - which is why I was only the tiniest bit surprised when the message on the answering machine told me precisely that.

So I'll have to spend my Tuesdays doing something else. I thought, very briefly about calling back and asking if I could simply register for Spanish or Italian instead, but I decided against it for the simple reason that my heart wasn't into it. Which is not to say I wouldn't like to know how to speak Spanish or Italian, because I would, I just get the sneaking suspicion that, given the relative simplicity of both of those languages, I might find learning them in such an informal setting to be kind of a letdown - something the difficulty of Arabic would have counteracted. So I'll refer to the little bit of Arabic I did learn in Egypt and say to this situation, ma feesh mushkeleh - "no problem."

What A Difference A Day Makes

Standing in the Dining Car on the 9:56

I stepped onto the train and into past that may or may not have existed. Maybe it's that we've finally started watching Mad Men, or maybe it's more personal: that I've always wished that trains were more Orient Express and less Metroliner, but this was exciting.

The first car of the train was the dining car. I've been taking this train every day, always in the first car, but this was the first time there had been a dining car in the train, and what a delightfully romantic and retro moment it was to board that first car.

At first, I considered threading my way to the next car where a more traditional seat could be found, but I saw there was clearly room for me in the seated area, and that this might not be an opportunity I wanted to turn down.



Growing up, we took Amtrak quite a bit to Baltimore and Washington to visit our relatives. I remember my mom was often solo with the two of us, and we were not the best behaved of children, nor, in all fairness, was there anything to do on the train.

Seated in the Dining Car on the 9:56

If we were lucky, we cold get the conductor to give us a stack of the multi-colored tickets he used to denote which passengers were going where and then we;d, I have no idea what we did with them, but I remember they were important.

The train took a long time, it stopped at nonsense places like Trenton, and there was no TV, no radio, and no chance to convince a parent that we needed to stop at the next rest area. So I had no strongly fond memories of train travel.

Not to fear, I assured myself as time went on, in Europe they still travel well by train. It doesn't smell like pee in European trains. So, it was with great excitement that I boarded my first European train as a 17-year old on vacation in Italy. The excitement lasted no time at all. The train didn't look like it had just come from the set of a Hercule Poirot mystery, it looked like Amtrak. In theory I enjoyed being pressed up against dozens of Italian men while we all jostled for space in the smoking car and smoking hallway, but in reality, these were Roberto Benigni Italians, not Marcello Mastroianni Italians.

By the time I was paying my own way in Europe, I was oh so over train travel. While our friends bought their Eurail passes, we leased a car - I wasn't going to spend money to have to worry about being drugged and having my luggage stolen and not having enough space to smoke.

There was an allure to train travel that persists long after actual train travel became antithetical to its mythos. While devoted partner claims the TGV from Dijon to Paris was awesome, he means that it got him from point A to point B in comfort and swiftly, not that riding on it was an "experience."

So, it was with a soupcon of joy that I spent 30 minutes yesterday in this train car of time's past. From the horrible orange and yellow accents to the faux wood paneling to the other passengers, for the most part, putting away their phones and reading their papers, there was something different about riding in that dining car, and I almost feel that we, its passengers, were in silent agreement about that.

You Make My Stalking So Easy

Dear Sir,

It was a crowded train, but your interesting accent made me take notice. I am pleased to discover that you are a world traveler, seeing as how you will be in Mexico City this Saturday and Sunday before flying to Brazil for Monday and Tuesday. I, too, like to travel and, what with your knowledge of Central and South America, two areas I have sadly overlooked thus far, this was highly gratifying information to receive.

I am further pleased to note that your business, oblique though it still is to me, is going well, and that the Middle Eastern bank might want to invest. However, this did give me pause. Was it a Jordanian bank? Perhaps an Emirates bank? These would demonstrate the kind of straight and narrowness I look for in my stalkees. However, I should warn you that, due to the current political climate, if the interested "Middle Eastern bank" is of the Syrian, Iranian, or, god forbid, Iraqi variety, my own interest wanes. If I think about it further, I must admit that I am a little concerned that you referred to it as a Middle Eastern bank as it makes me wonder if your geography isn't all it could be and that you might not be able to distinguish among Middle Eastern countries.

Also, you could have been more precise about what exactly you are trying to get people to invest in. Who knows, I might have been interested. You never know where fortune will find you. You referred to cable a number of times, but I couldn't quite distinguish whether you were discussing it in reference to the fiber optic kind of cable or the CNN kind of cable. No matter - both are interesting.

You're looking to rent your house in Old Greenwich! Wise move. In these troubling economic times, rentals are slightly more attractive than purchases due to the fluctuations of market values and the inability of many credit-worthy individuals to secure mortgages. This seems a sound business investment for you. I, personally, would hesitate to admit to people that while they will be renting your house, you will be living in a studio "because you travel so much." This information isn't important to your potential renters and, as a renter myself, this would lead me to smell blood in the water. You would prefer to live in your house, but you can't afford to, so you will rent me your house while you live in your car. See how this could create an unfavorable impression and yield a lower return? I would say that, having just recently rented in this general vicinity, your price of $2,650 sounds soft. After all, it's a 2-bedroom and you yourself admitted that the attic "needed work." Whether that means there are bats or a crazy first wife, it would give me pause. Also, it's more than I paid for my 2-bedroom and I have 1/3 of an acre as well.

All in all, I feel my introduction to you was a thorough one. I know generally what you do, that you're a comer, that things might be looking up if certain unspecified Arabs give you money, and that you own a 2-bedroom in Old Greenwich that, should these deals come through, you might not need to rent out while you live in a studio somewhere. I also know what you look like. Sadly, after listening to you make no fewer than four separate lengthy phone calls within a roughly 35 minute period, I still can't tell where you are from. My instinct says the Netherlands because the accent was vaguely Germanic, but sadly, I wouldn't put money on it. Perhaps the next time our paths cross you could find a way to work that into one of your many conversations.

Yours most sincerely,

Yelena
aka the girl who was trying to read

P.S. I am well aware that at present this might be a little beyond your means, but they have invented a mode of transportation that allows the important businessman or woman to conduct important business while in transit. You sit in a plush backseat with lots of legroom and an employee drives your large car while you cheerfully merge and acquire, obsoleting thousands of employees with a wave of your hand while toppling the Yuan. It has been my experience that if you cannot afford that luxury, your business is not that important. Just an observation.

Project Charlie: The Legacy

See, some of you are laughing and smiling knowingly and others of you not so much. Project Charlie was the "kids should not do drugs" class we all took in school. Spearheaded by Katie, my best friend's mom (a best friend who isn't bestest enough to read this daily - I hate you Ed, see you at dinner tonight), Project Charlie attempted to convince us that drugs are bad mmmkay. I don't know how successful that part of the class was, but the part I'm pretty sure hit it out of the park was Project Charlie on drunk driving.

Yeah, we were a bunch of city kids for whom the idea of getting behind the wheel of an actual automobile was likely only if our dads lost sight of reality long enough to let us take their 911s out for a spin in East Hampton. It wasn't like any of us had access to a car that in a few short years we would need to drive regularly, but the lesson was imparted nonetheless. Don't Drive Drunk. Ever.

Driving drunk, in my memory, was akin to clubbing seals. It was something good people never ever did, but something we would encounter time and again. When senior year rolled around, the only reason I signed up for driver's ed was that I knew I'd be going off to college where everyone else was going to be driving drunk so I figured I should know how to drive myself home if I was the only sober person in a sea of drunks.

So I had a license long before I had a car, or even access to a car. Coincidentally, the weekend after my 21st birthday when a rental company would deign to rent me one of their fleet, I took the opportunity to drive to best friend Ed's house in Massachusetts for the weekend. I can't be positive, but it might be truth that until we moved to Greenwich, I had never had so much as a single drink in my system prior to getting behind the wheel.

Of course, this is, apparently, an untenable position to hold while living extra-urbanly. My mother-in-law and I once got into a multi-hour fight about our competing positions (I'm right by the way, just because calling a cab if you want to down two bottles of wine with dinner is inconvenient, it's still the right thing to do). So it was with trepidation, dear Jeff, that I asked you last night if you wanted another round. You had debonairly offered to pick up the first round and I didn't want you to think I was the kind of girl who tapes up your mild groin injury in 1994 and then expects free drinks for life, it was that we had enjoyed a beer with dinner, and I was certainly enjoying the bourbon I had just finished and... well, and in less than 90 minutes, I was going to be at the parking lot in Port Chester getting my car.

I don't know what it feels like to drive while mildly intoxicated. Based on what I had drank and how long it would be before I needed to drive I was fairly certain I would be on the right side of the law, but is DUI something I want to play the de jure de facto game with? I fervently believe in zero tolerance for DUI, and by zero tolerance I mean like zero for reals for serious. My intransigence probably contributes to mother-in-law fights as well as devoted partner fights, but considering that DUI kills completely innocent people, I don't mind being Giuliani-esque on the enforcement end of things. So this is an issue where I don't want to slide by on a technicality.

Whilst in the burbs, it's easier: 1 drink. 1 drink because when the drink is finished, I have to get in my car and drive home. I guess if I wanted to be a pill about it, I could make sure that I had 1 drink per hour and left more than an hour after the last drink, etc. etc., but we're getting back to letter and spirit of the law with that nonsense. 1 drink is easier. But if I'm having dinner or drinks in Manhattan, it becomes a little different. The hour on the end is built in - it's the time it takes for me to get home. I allowed myself a second drink based on that. And, truth be told, I felt 100% normal when I got into my car with or without the knowledge that home was fewer than 2 miles away.

But it made me consider, with anger in my heart, the following: upon entering the track at Grand Central I saw the beverage cart: the cart that sells beer to commuters for their train ride. WHY IS THIS NOT ILLEGAL? You are selling beer to people to drink while they wait to drive from the station to their homes. But Yelena, you say, drinking and driving is against the law, why would it be permissible to sell these drivers booze? I cannot answer that question, dear friends, because frankly I feel like the only passenger on the Logic Boat here. Putting aside my utter and complete disdain for the jackholes who can't wait until they get home to have a frosty Bud Light (someone help me out here - is it "cool" to drink while Metro Northing? do these guys, and they're always guys, have serious drinking problems? what on earth is the deal with needing, or frankly wanting, a watered down beer while you shuffle homewards?), don't these beer stands downplay the severity of drinking while under the influence? I mean, hey, if you're going to sell me a beer before I get in my car, that's tacit approval right there. I know some of you are more inured to this than I, but last night, as I wrestled with the issue of how much is too much, seeing people buy beer to keep them company during their harrowing 45 minute train ride, chafed me real good. Thank god one of them wasn't sitting next to me or the train ride might well have turned harrowing.

Nonpropos: I'm about to channel my father when I say I can't believe I paid $70 for a pair of jeans. I realize that every woman reading this now thinks I'm insane because the jeans they buy all cost at least double that, but I find jeans, like t-shirts, to be a utilitarian item of clothing and not a fashion statement; ergo, $8 t-shirts and jeans from The Gap. But it seems that jeans from The Gap are now $70. In point of fact I'm not complaining because I'm so flipping happy The Gap has decided to stock jeans again - it's been about 18 months of jeans that are only available in size Ethiopia and size Jerry Springer guest. I was so excited, the thought never crossed my mind to wait for them to go on sale. The jeans I currently wear have gotten so bad that devoted partner, a man who has commented negatively on my clothing maybe three times in twelve years, came out and told me my jeans were unflattering over the weekend - something I couldn't even begin to get bent out of shape about because he is absolutely right. I am wearing stretched out jeans a size too big ultimately becoming the poster girl for saggy baggy elephant ass; but as I mentioned, The Gap has not been selling jeans recently. So thank you, The Gap, I may have felt like an idiot buying something called Curvy Low Rise Boot Cut Stretch jeans while being simultaneously flabbergasted by your new sizes where you list a waist measurement (note to The Gap: your jeans come nowhere near my natural waist - the area they do fall near has not been 31 inches since elementary school so this number is, essentially meaningless; nowhere on these pants is there a diameter of 31 inches), but at least I am now wearing jeans that fit, that do not have holes in the buttocks, and that are destined to ruin an entire load of laundry when I forget to wash them separately.

A Post in Three Parts

I.
The phone rings at 9:00pm. From our position on the couch I am closer to the nearest handset. As I get up I remember that I've spoken to both of my parents within the past three hours and that devoted partner's sister was spoken to the evening before meaning, "my bet's on your mom." I was wrong. It was his dad.

Now devoted partner's father and I have had our ups and downs, but for the past two or so years we've been in an ups phase. Still, and with no malice, whenever he's on the phone there's something strange. Like he still can't believe that telephonic technology works. He is always calling from in transit - and much like my father believes that other people really really want to talk to you while you're driving your car and cursing at traffic - and always seems a little confused that, after dialing our number, a person picks up on the other end.

So his mild discombobulation is normal. Last night, however, there was a fever pitched-ness about it: he was, obviously, calling from a moving vehicle, but the scenario he described was reminiscent of a Thelma & Louise scene from the cutting room floor. He was in the car with devoted partner's aunt (it was her car); they had wrangled a large rug out of his apartment, stuffed it into the Audi convertible, and were on their way over to give it to us. One might inquire why this was being done in the middle of the night, but I know better than to ask. I myself have a younger brother and I loved this imagery.

Surprisingly, given the slightly bizarre location of our house, they arrived about fifteen minutes later in one piece and yes, with a rug hanging out of the convertible. Devoted partner and dad wrestled it out of the car and into our house while I refreshed Aunty's drink and gave her the grand tour. I could sell neither of them on a slice of nectarine cake, but was able to pass around some freshly picked Honeycrisp apples - my role as hostess preserved.

Now we need another rug pad.

II.
Yesterday morning I stopped off at my parent's apartment to pick up some black cherry tomatoes my mother had kindly purchased for me at the market. As I was getting ready to leave, I calculated the number of blocks to work and realized it was the perfect number for a leisurely morning cigarette.

And then I remembered I'm not smoking.

I think New York smokers all calculate distance by number of cigarettes needed. For example: my best friend's house was 2 cigarettes away from mine - 11 blocks. From my house to school was 1 - and what a good 1 it was; our old apartment to the subway wasn't long enough for even one cigarette which never seemed ton stop devoted partner (and which always perplexed/vexed me) - and while our old apartment to my old job was also a little short for a full cigarette, given how I didn't want to rush to my desk, I didn't mind spending the extra minute or so outside finishing my cigarette.

I mention this because even though I have not had a pack of cigarettes within grasping distance in over a month, the habit is still in there. In fact, I think one of the reasons the quitting has been so easy for me is that I think of myself on vacation from smoking rather than on permanent holiday. This has the potential to be very dangerous - mostly because I already catch myself thinking that I could become one of those rare birds for whom a cigarette every once in a while is an easily accomplishable thing; the kind of person who, when out for the evening sipping bourbon obviously also smokes a quarter or a half pack, but then doesn't smoke again for a month. I can almost see myself as that person. But, I'm not going to test that theory quite yet.

I may have mentioned that built into my quitting plan was the escape plan: smoking is permitted on international vacation. If you've ever been a smoker, and you've ever been to Europe, you'll know that this makes lots of sense (even now as those damn Europeans are smoking less). Still, walking across Paris from south to north without a cigarette in your mouth seems somehow wrong. This was a fairly easy caveat to squeeze in, mostly because I knew there was probably not going to be international travel for at least six months (the islands don't count - no one had her enjoyment of the tropics diminished by a lack of cigarettes). So I gave myself an opportunity to outlast the craving. If six-twelve months from now I still think I'd want a cigarette while driving from the Geneva airport to Dijon, I guess I'll see what happens; but I simultaneously allow for the possibility that I'll become one of those horrid ex-smokers who wrinkles her nose at the smell of smoke. If I can last 6-12 months, I can try a cigarette and rely on my sheer force of will, that same force that made quitting a breeze, to prevent a slide back to habitual smoking.

That's the theory, anyway.

III.

It strikes me that I could, from time to time, encourage you to cook. I liked this cake I made Sunday. It was easy. It needed only a little tweaking. I think some of you should make this cake because making cake is good for the soul.

Nectarine (or any fruit, really) Cake
adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2009

• flour........................125 grams
  
• baking powder........10 grams
  
• salt..........................good pinch
  
• butter.....................115 grams
  
• eggs.............................2 whole
  
• sugar #1.................170 grams
  
• sugar #2...................20 grams
  
• vanilla extract............5 grams
  
• almond extract...........2 grams
  
• fruit...............................to taste
  

Combine dry ingredients. Beat butter and sugar #1 until light and fluffy; add eggs one at a time; add extracts; add dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Slice/segment/ensmallenate fruit. Pour batter into greased springform pan (9") and spread evenly; stud with ensmallenated fruit (next time I make this I will be pushing fruit under the surface of the batter as well as piling it on top); sprinkle sugar #2 on top. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.

Some ideas I've been toying with:

Use pears and add some star anise;
Use figs and add some chopped pistachios;
Add vanilla bean;
Add candied almonds.

Play around with it, the recipe is a cinch!

The Nesting. It Begins.

There have been murmurs, rustlings even. It was around the time pillow cases for the couch were purchased that suspicions should have aroused. Also when mother-in-law was invited over "just because." It is true, I baked for the neighbors, but that could have been a fluke, a one-off. After all, the excuses are legit: there is no prep table and the counter space in upstairs kitchen is limited. Still, now that there is a 32qt. stockpot on the stove with water in it ready for boiling, and now that the pantry has been stocked with 6 jars of jam, it is probably time to admit that I have nested.

Devoted partner is not necessarily a devoted picker of his own fruits. I am. I know that there is no true cost benefit and that instead of simply buying fruit I now have to pick it myself, but as anyone who has ever seen me spend 10 minutes going through the cherry bin at Union Square picking out the individual cherries I want could guess, I like having the kind of quality control that pick your own fruit provides. I tried a brand new farm because they had Honeycrisp apples (which are really really good) and because they also offered raspberry and blueberry picking as well as pears. It was like one stop shopping for all my in season fruit needs. I had not done much raspberry consuming all summer and knew I wanted to have some jam, so I beseeched devoted partner and he charmingly acquiesced (devoted partner likes picking apples which are easy and fun and he likes to eat them - devoted partner does not like eating raspberries and finds picking them from tiny low to the ground thorny bushes a pain). It was a rainy crappy day so we had the farm essentially to ourselves and 4 pounds of raspberries and about 35 pounds of apples later, we were returning home in a very sweet smelling Subaru. I made the jam Saturday night. Please note how cool the golden raspberry jam looks.

Saturday was also a big deal because we made some progress towards being able to see one another after sunset. Having been utterly failed by traditional home decor stores, we stopped at, no joke, Goodwill, to get temporary lights. I find it disturbing that for $5 we could get lights that didn't offend us any more, stylistically, than those we could have gotten at Crate and Ethan Barn for $150. So, now we have tide us over lights with the added hipster cache of having gotten them at goodwill (sadly there was very little in the leopard print clothing department).

Much as I adore summer and wonder at how I'm going to be able to make my tan last until winter vacation, the cool weather is finding me snuggled into a leather chair with my feet tucked beneath me knitting and watching DVRed episodes of Top Chef as I spread homemade jam on bread. The last bite of that nectarine cake will be my personal symbol of the changing seasons. I'll probably make the next one with pears.