Bulk

I shopped at Costco.  It seemed like a good idea at a time, and what drew me to it was that it was not a very New York thing to do, at least when it comes to groceries.  As a born penny-pincher, I cringe at the $6 a box for breakfast cereal and the $15 pound for salmon that you can spend.  I figured one trip to Costco, just to stock up on some long-lasting staples, would do me better than slowly buying the goods at my local rip-off grocery.

The first problem came from the fact you have to pay for parking. Yes, I could have tried to find parking on the street, but I do enough of that anyway.  But the $5 for two hours felt like an indulgence, like an eggnog latte for the car.  Costco in the city resembles Costco in the burbs: a hulking monolith, the way that going there means a trip to that store and nowhere else, the oddly long walk from the car, like the approach to a temple.

I picked up a great big cart.  I needed the variety of things that one would expect to find in Costco: rice, hand sanitizer, cheese, maybe an impulse buy like a flat screen or a Chinese baby, which I’m sure they now carry in bulk.  The trip, however, was largely disappointing.  Hand sanitizer came in packs of two gallons, enough to fill my kitchen sink.  The bags of rice looked like they could have come from the UN High Commission on Refugees.  I had my share of the copious food samples on offer, which I now view as part of their business plan.  Have a little taste, then buy the 8-pound package of barbecue chicken wings or herring.

Reality goes out the window at Costco.  Because you can only get things in large quantities, you suddenly think you only need them in bulk.  I could have bought some Cheerios, but I really didn’t need 4 boxes to try to cram into my closet.  Maybe non-perishables are less of  problem, but the piles of great big cuts of meat and box upon box of unloved vegetables make you suspect the vast quantities of waste that one store must produce, that all the customers put their share in too.

I say unloved vegetables because anything that is designed to sit in a refrigerated warehouse for weeks on end is bred to be durable and sort of flavorful.  Sure enough, the pillow-size bag of snap peas I bought fed us decently for 3 weeks, but it wasn’t exactly a flavor sensation.  I somehow thought that Costco would carry organic and farm-based fare in bulk too.  They did have an enormous box of ‘artisanal’ lettuces, grown out of season and in an elaborate plastic packaging that could have passed for modern art.

Still, my bill came to over $100.  I guess we’ll be set for crackers and yogurt for a while, but eating in bulk is much more boring than buying in bulk.  After days and days of the same turkey and provolone sandwich, my husband and I are sort of ready for something – anything – else. 

My one impulse buy was a big plastic box of boysenberries for about $5.  Boysenberries are really only summer fruit, and the best ones should be eaten right from the vine, or made into jam immediately.  Still, $5 doesn’t usually get you that many berries, and it made me think of a pie for the week.

So with my tough-bred out of season berries I made a little lattice-top pie.  Lattice top because I underestimated how much dough I would need!  In pie making, I see, it’s not the filling but the crust that takes some knowledgable hands.  Practice, practice….  I stupidly underbaked it, but it was still tasty!

Boysenberries in their cinnamon sugary goodness.

 Don't they look like a single organism?

My baking companion!

Thanksgiving

Have a good Thanksgiving? Who doesn't. Even a good fight makes for a good Thanksgiving. I suppose it's a more meaningful holiday when you take the time to explain its significance to young children, or you think about it yourself. But if you find yourself at the table with extended family, wordlessly packing in the carbs, it's a bizarre exercise.

I do generally like the food at Thanksgiving though, and I suppose like everyone else I've gotten used to the way my family does it, and that's the way I like it best. Aunt Mimi's stuffed mushrooms, Aunt Nancy's yams with pears and ginger, mom's pies. The feast strongly resembles the Christmas dinner, with maybe a swapping out of the turkey for a ham or some other roast animal. I even like the turkey, the low-fat carob of meats, which I otherwise experience during the year as an inoffensive protein source in my sandwich. On Thanksgiving day the roast turkey is a time sensitive issue: the skin stays crispy for so long, the dark meat is only good while it's warm, and even the leftovers for sandwiches just have a couple of days before you have to give them to the dog.

But the past couple of years I have left my family manse to feast with my husband and his family (well, I guess it's my family too). Every trip to Virginia, holiday or otherwise, involves a plummeting of my intake of vegetables. While Korean cooking involves vegetables, they are usually mixed up with lots of meat. Fortunately I am one of the few white people around who likes kimchi, the smelly staple dish of cabbage fermented with ground shrimp and fish sauce. It's a side dish at nearly every meal, even the Thanksgiving one, where the table will also include a deep-fried bird and sweet potato casserole with marhsmallows.

This year the meal was not made by my mother-in-law but by another relative who is also a home-cook extraordinaire. I longed for food from my aunties. I think the issue is that while my new family likes to cook an American-style Thanksgiving dinner, they do not use recipes for their Korean cooking, so they stalwartly do not use recipes for anything else either. Mashed potatoes were just that, no butter, no cream, minimal seasoning. A salad was served for a vegetable, which was nice but functional, and I am no fan of bottled dressing. We did have a deep-fried turkey, are rare treat for us Yankees, but the gravy was forgotten, and the tougher parts of the bird cried out for moisture. No cranberries in sight.

Korean dessert is usually fruit, often the enormous Korean pears that manage to be very crunchy and sweet and juicy. To contribute to the meal I made a sweet potato pie with some Asian twists, thanks to a fortuitous new recipe from everyone's favorite Mark Bittman. The graham cracker crust calls for coconut flakes, and he adds coconut milk to the pie, along with the expected seasonings.

My mother-in-law and I went shopping for the ingredients she didn't have at home, the graham crackers - which I was surprised to find in an Asian market - and the coconut milk, which does not regularly fit into Korean cooking. (She does advise it for a soak for squid though.) We came home and were surprised to discover that she did not have ginger in the fridge, one of the three in the holy trinity of Asian cooking (garlic ginger and soy sauce). We luckily found some pieces floating around in her turnip pickle mix, which although it was fermented at least wasn't covered in hot sauce. We washed off a few probiotic slices and mashed them up for the pie. It was a hit, and no one knew the difference.

Hmm, maybe I could get cracking on a pie a week, just for practice....

Chicken Dinner

I was being rather productive last Monday morning when I had to hustle out of the house for my mid-day Feldenkrais class on the West Side.  Traversing this skinny island does not look like it would take much, but on the 79^th street bus it becomes a 45-minute passage.  I drop what I’m doing at 11:30 to run out the door to get there in time.  The night before I had put a frozen chicken in the fridge to defrost for the night’s dinner, and I left it out on the counter while I was home to speed up the process.  Somewhere on the bus, I couldn’t remember if I had put it back in the fridge before I left. 

It had been a happy chicken.  Before becoming my chicken it was at the farmer’s market, and before then – one presumes – at a farm.  Some big beautiful farm somewhere upstate. I spent the $15 on it not only with the hopes of a wholesome, locally-sourced, sustainably-harvested, lovingly-slaughtered meal for me and my mate, but the promise of a more chickeny chicken experience.  Something that would taste of bird and grain and grass and not Styrofoam or antibiotics. 

I mentally bargained with my chicken as I sat on the bus.  You can’t be defrosted yet, surely you’ll do just fine on my tile counter for an hour or two until I get home.  The more desperate I got, the more manageable my chicken’s situation seemed to be.  It was wrapped up in plastic, that will hold the cold.  My mother used to leave meat on the counter all day, surely I would be okay this time.  Though the chicken was squishy to the touch when I left, I assured myself that the 3 hours that my trip would take still could leave it with ice crystals on the inside.  Surely cooking it would kill any germs.  Surely I wouldn’t be poisoning my little family.  But I did put it back in the fridge, didn’t I?

I hurt my shoulders in Feldenkrais.  The method, a less-popular cousin to the Alexander technique, appears to be a sort of extremely gentle yoga for middle-aged women and the occasional young person, like me, who has managed to develop pain just from how they move doing day to day tasks.  Yet a class, which looks like a bunch of people rolling on the floor, can leave you feeling released, taller, more comfortable, and somehow more willing to believe in yourself.  But I spent the time thinking about my chicken, my inability to take care of such a simple task, how this must reveal many other character defects, and how I surely I would be a terrible mother someday.  I thought about my chicken, bloody at the joints, blue in the veins, turning into another pile of wasted American food.

Returning home at 3 pm, I raced up the stairs, hastily unlocked the door and rushed into the kitchen, where my gleaming white counter stared at me blankly, as if asking what the fuss was all about.

The chicken was snuggled in plastic on its customary shelf in the fridge, still with ice crystals inside.  It was a fast roast for a small bird, yielding a beautifully burnished skin.  The meat was lean and chewy, but very flavorful, and was a texture foil to the tender squash and onions we roasted along with it.  I put the bones in the freezer – I just double checked – to make stock.

If you can't beat 'em, blog 'em

As part of my wild and crazy New York life, I am sitting on a bus. A bus back to Boston for a concert with my band. It's pretty disproportionate, ten hours of travel and two overnights for an hour of music making.  I could whine forever about this, but I suppose this is always how it is. The funny thing being that during those few moments of performing, nothing else exists in the world, not even this excruciating trip on the bus.

Forget my numb butt for a moment.  Forget the dangers I'm putting myself in by typing without a comfortable set up. Let's talk about the boys in the back of the bus.

Or better, the boys right smack next to me. I've been listening to their loud, inane conversation for nearly three hours now, coming right through my ear plugs. I will chronicle the juicier bits of their discourse now, making up the rest of their life stories as best I can.

Their names are Judd and Dimitri, I bet, and they've been best friends since freshman year.  Both grew up in minor Massachusetts cities (are there any other kind?). Dmitri named by left-leaning parents who wanted him to lead the proletariat, Judd named by left-leaning elites who wanted him to seem more approachable to the proletariat. Judd is wearing a suit (on the bus?), has long hair in a pony tail and no neck, yet holds a neck pillow on his lap. Dimitri also has a pony tail, curly hair, and a pubic mustache.  Friendship doesn't describe it right.  Rivalry, kept in check by keeping each other close, as they would surely tear each other to pieces or perish from the sexual tension if they remained apart. They have each had sex exactly once (I can tell), neither of which were especially successful occasions. Their laughter and gasps get very excited

Judd: "Ice wine is amazing, so sweet, I love it.  Romania actually makes some amazing sweet wines."
Dmitri: "I like port, it's not really wine though."
Judd: "Neither is ice wine I guess."
Dimitri then discusses the port wine process, "The things you learn from reading Wikipedia!"
Judd then ponders who gets to be on Wikipedia, and how that would be such a "me-high."
Judd asserts that the measure of human achievement is when you "have scholars." As in, Bill Gates has scholars, Steve Jobs has scholars, Macintosh.  This seems to mean that there are scholarly people writing about them. "How about Chomsky?" "Yeah, he has scholars."

"Did you hear about the biggest pot bust ever?"
"What did they do with it? Burn it?"
"Yeah, it was the saddest thing I heard about. I bet the price of pot went up that day."
"Isn't it bad for the atmosphere?"
"They can do it in sustainable ways."

Judd and Dmitri are now fortifying themselves with an 8-piece box of Roy's chicken, yet still their mouths are running.  They drink gatorade, one blue and one orange.

"Why is there such a controversy around corn syrup?"
"There's a big maple syrup farm around here."
"For my 21st birthday I had a maple-sugaring contest, and my best friend at the time, a little tiny girl, won."

The subject of women keeps coming up, once when they mentioned some girl who "apparently very  smart, kind, and funny, and just happens to have enormous boobs." And when Dmitri offered to set up Judd with some girl, "she really is a scientist," but Judd declined, citing his contacts with all sorts of people all over the world.

"Braintree [?] was an absolute disaster and the reason why I didn't get into Harvard. I had a letter of rec from Marc Warner's campaign manager and [someone else] and I still didn't get in. Tufts and Brandeis actually called my mom to say that they weren't sure if he could pay for it and would need a bank statement certifying his funds."

"My plan was to kill myself for a while, but I went to Montreal instead to smoke and fuck my brains out. If I can't get smart I want to get dumb and happy."

Dmitri: "One of the easiest ways to get money from a company is to have a party. You buy a bunch of foodstuffs, get reimbursed for that, then throw a small party, then at least you have some free food."

Now they are discussing recreational use of prescription and other kinds of drugs. "I'll take some amphetamines to help me stay awake. I was pulling out beard hairs and stressing out about this paper. I went out into the hallway, lit some candles, and just sat their shaking. I got an extension."

"I think he didn't like me because I wouldn't sleep with him. Oh my god, that was a perfect 3-way thing: She was making out with him to get to me, he was making out with her to get to me, and I was making out with him to get to her."

OK, I'm done. Is this really my writing for the day? This trip is always a dip in a cesspool- the wasted hours of my life mixed with those of strangers. (Judd is now blowing his nose.) Funny though, all these trips combine into one memory when I've reached where I wanted to go: either to make music, or to be home with my dear one.

Shabbat

It happens four times a week in New York.  Right smack in the most productive part of the day, by law New Yorkers must rest.  Some sit idly, some read.  Now with laptops and a little stolen wifi, we can surf.  Like little islands of calm in the work around us, we pause, until we return, refreshed, with a new perspective to our busy lives.

I’m referring of course to alternate side of the street parking. I had my first experience with it last week, coming to the lovely little space I had found for myself first thing in the morning to dutifully clear out for the street sweeper. I was pulling out the car at 8:58 AM, when I noticed something funny.  No one else on the block was moving their cars.  Hardly anyone was even in their cars.  What do they know that I don’t?

My plan was to feed the meter for an hour or so, maybe going to a café for breakfast.  As a back up, I brought some work with me and a pear.  So I started circling the ‘hood.  There were no meters.  It seemed that most everyone had already moved their car, or planted themselves close by and double parked.  I kept circling, my stomach growling.  Eventually I came to another spot where the sweeper had just left, and I sat and waited quietly, the world whizzing by just to my back, until I was ready to join it.

I can see how this can get old, and I can only imagine what the winter will be like…  Today, for example, I went to a main street with a meter and I am now sitting happily in a café.  But the meter machine refused my 2 credit cards, forcing me to use my precious quarters, which are urgently needed for washing today.  And – only in New York – my breakfast of a flat bagel and a juice cost $9.  Come to think of it, why do flat bagels cost more than regular?  They are just smushed regular bagels – do they really need my extra 40 cents for the trouble?

So this Shabbat might not be a luxury I can afford too often.  Still, after a week of being sick, it’s just a treat to leave the house. 

Postscript: As I was writing that really deep observation about flat bagels, I was getting a $65 ticket.  I did feed my meter, but I carelessly stuck the ticket face-side down on the dashboard.  Really?  Forget Shabbat.  The hunt for parking, the observance of byzantine parking rules is no moment of zen.  This is why they call it a jungle, this is why this is a tough town.  Will I never know peace unless I pay for a garage?

Space

As a drama teacher this summer, I taught – and learned – how everything around us affects the character of the space we occupy.  A basic theater game involves mirroring a partner’s hands, working in tandem to agree without words on how to shape the space.  Is it thick? Heavy?  Slippery?  Only after mastering this can an actor move on to shaping the space around them in a way that communicates emotions.  If two people are having a fight, how can we tell that just by looking at them?  They use their bodies to change the shape around them, giving it hard edges, electricity, and violence.  The study of acting includes not just how you twist your face or deliver your words, but your awareness of the entire space around you.

Designers of sets, cars, clothes, and most anything else keep these ideas in mind.  Angular is masculine, tough, and ominous.  Curvy is feminine, kind, and comforting.  That’s why the inside of an SUV is as inviting as your mother’s lap, and women’s suits in the 80s conveyed a bulky strength that women didn’t have before.

Since we arrived in New York in early September, hurricane season filling the space with humidity you could slice, I’ve been very aware of how the space has been carved by us, and how we shape it as well.  All these angular buildings and endless flat stretches of pavement – how strange it is to be an animal in this sort of space!  In most cities you have a sense of the features of the land.  Not just a hill or two, but more trees, grass that’s been there for a while, a guess at how water comes in and goes out on its own.  It’s hard to imagine that this town has ever been natural, hard to even guess what it might have looked like as an untouched island, with a soft shoreline and marshes.  When the space is hard around us, it is no longer part of who we are, receptive to our movements and our soft bodies.  The square buildings cut the space into hard-edged blocks that move as we move around them, cutting into us sometimes.  I think this is why we feel either exhausted by being here or energized, as we rally ourselves against the unnatural.

In addition to a constant awareness of the quality of space in New York one can’t help but notice the lack of it.  Parking is difficult, sidewalks are crowded, subways are packed, the job market is competitive, and you can’t get a reservation in a restaurant.  I am delighted to come home and close myself in a room, feeling my own space at last, even if it’s just a rental.  And parking depressed me so much on my first try, as I searched for half an hour, always just missing an opening, endlessly hunting for my spot in the world, or at least on the block.  But oh the thrill of finding your very own space, safe and sound and just right, even if it’s out in the public where everyone can see.

New Project

Well hi. Nice to see you remember me, old blog. Thought you might not recognize my password there, that you'd vanished into my memory, taking with you our good times and my best intentions. I'm sneaking up on you in the middle of the night, hoping that my post-performance energy might carry over to this most personal performance, the act of writing, for an audience of one, the toughest crowd I'll ever play to.

I am a writer who does not write. Recently, I practiced being a singer who does not sing. These are ways of being I cannot stand for very long. However vain, however ignoble, I have devoted myself to music, and that is what I simply have to do. Even if my talents have their limits (but doesn't everybody's?), or even if what I have to offer only appeals to a few. We all have our lights to shine. If this isn't mine, what is?

But then there's writing. Why on earth pursue another non-paying artistic passion? In my case, it's a way to confront fears. Fear of failure every time I try to write something new, or making a story as perfect as it's going to be. Fear of failing right this very minute to bring a sentence to a fullfilling close. Sitting down to write, without quite knowing what will happen, is a glimpse into the work of a sculptor, revealing the figure within a stone. It's another way to perform. Earning smiles of excitement in a writing class or feeling the energy of a page bring something new out of me is as exhilirating as anything I'll do in public. And if I don't write, I only confirm that my fears were right all along, that I'm better off failing before I even try. But surely, anything is better than making your fears your reality.

So here's a new idea. In the year or so since I last dropped a post on this blog I've built up my courage to create fiction, I've published one and written several satisfying personal essays, and even became something of a regular contributor to a music magazine. But I'm a dabbler. I hereby make a new plan: I will publish one post a week about my yearlong stay in New York. I am happily returning to my home city for my new husband's new job, which is giving me the chance to try some new career moves, take a new perspective on what I can offer the world, and generally think and act about what I want to be when I grow up. I will write charming accounts of life in our cozy neighborhood. I will share the stresses and joys of big city life.

But I also will write about where art figures into it all, here in the digital age. This past year, I have returned to regular reading, and I've been so happy getting to know fictional characters that I've nearly neglected the real one's in my own life. But what a joy. As I read I will share my favorite - and least favorite - moments as I come across them, and keep track of my progress through literary history. I might also throw in tantalizing bits about the second year of my marriage.

But first, time for bed. I'm not even in New York right now. Not even in Boston, the town I left. I'm in cold and sunny Maine, singing concerts and feeling like royalty. I'm not a superstar, I never will be. But I shared beautiful music with a few people tonight. I was happier for it, and I think they were too.