Comps, and What Happened After...

So...erhm...back in May I had this blog...


And then comps came and stomped all over it, and I stopped posting. So, here I am again, and I'm not sure where to pick up. I haven't eaten anything extraordinary recently, or I would tell about it. So uhm...maybe things will pick up a little bit once the semester starts...


Just a little more hiatus...

Summer in the City

All across Boston, the farmer's markets have officially opened! What this means for me is good, cheap, organic produce throughout the summer months. And now that I have a car, I can pretty much hit any farmer's market in the city. So if I need some greens, or an heirloom tomato, or a radish, I can stop at multiple locations during the week. Now, I tend to frequent the Davis Square market because it is one of the best I've found, but it only happens once a week and I need produce more often than that (it goes bad so fast!).

Anyway, go to your local farmer's market whenever you can. In the first place, when you do you are supporting the farmers who actually grow your vegetables, not a series of middlemen and distributors. Second, more often than not, the farmers at the market are treating their animals and vegetables with great care and respect. By extension, the veg. they produce are better for the environment. Third, the food is tasty. Really tasty. And one of the reasons why it is is because you're going to be eating varietals and species of vegetable that aren't ever available in the grocery store. Those varietals (think heirloom tomatoes) often have intense and concentrated flavors you've never experienced before. So, you aren't just  supporting a farmer, you are supporting biodiversity as a whole. 

 

Farmer's markets aside, you are probably wondering, gentle reader, where I've been since February. Well, I had final papers, and a production of Mary Zimmerman's Arabian Nights, and conference paper submissions, and...well, you get the idea. I was busy. But that doesn't mean I wasn't eating. Because I was. I was eating a lot. 

What was I eating? Well, I've been having some amazing adventures with pico de gallo (the fresh stuff, not the shit you get at most "Mexican" restaurants),  experimenting with macaroni and cheese (and failing miserably), creating powerfully hot chili (successfully), and discovering new delicacies (where has giardiniera been all my life?). I've also been drinking of course-- wines from Virginia and North Carolina, Gin and Tonics as the weather became hospitable, and Mojitos (with Cruzan Rum, and fresh mint of course). Beer is, of course, my usual staple, and I've been trying the plethora of summer seasonals out there (Harpoon has a good one this year) as well. Sigh. Well that's what you've missed out on for now.

 I'll try, as usual to keep posting throughout the summer as time permits. 

I bid you peace. 

Down the Rabbit Hole...

Now that I have access to better food more of the time, I've been cooking a lot more than I did last semester. This has been great for me, but the bigger problem now is storage. Last night, I had pasta with sundried tomato pesto and kale that I sauteed with garlic, olive oil, and a little red wine. This was delicious, but I haven't finished off the roasted vegetables from last week, so I've got seriously limited space. In some ways, you'd think this would give me the motivation to finish more of my leftovers more quickly - but who wants to eat the same thing every night? So, I think it might be time to invest in some serious tupperware, and maybe even some corning ware - really anything I can use to freeze food for later. Right now, the lightweight Glad-ware just isn't cutting it. First of all, it is all too small. Secondly, it just doesn't keep out the freezer-burn over long term storage. 


Until recently, I lacked a car where I could get to important places to buy things like, say, tupperware. Now I have one, and I plan on heading to Target the first chance I get and buying all the things that, for some reason, I could never bring myself to purchase online. Additionally, I realized while chopping garlic last night that my knives are getting quite dull. I have a nice 10 inch Wusthof chef's knife that is my pride and joy, and the other day I detected a nick in it. That's just unacceptable. I've heard tell that there's a store around here where they will sharpen your knives for a small fee, and I plan on availing myself of this soon. When I do, I'll post the name of it on here, because there is nothing more annoying (or dangerous) to have in your kitchen than a dull knife. 


Oh, so many things are now accessible to me that are nowhere near bus or T stations! Besides that, my car is perfect for a city like Boston - a small, blue Toyota Scion Xa that looks a little like a smart car if it was all grown up. It has four doors and a nice hatchback. It was love at first sight. Only I have to rename him now. My last car was named Toulouse (after the little Parisian painter Toulouse-Lautrec), but surely this car has a totally different personality. We'll have to see how he feels after driving him a few weeks (he's definitely a 'he' though). Tomorrow, I need to convert my license to MA (goodbye NC, I guess you've finally got to go...) and confirm my status as a New Englander. This will feel a little weird, especially because I spent years claiming that I would never transfer my license, and also that I never wanted the hassles of having a car here. So it goes. 


Thinking about change again, I remember that last semester I kept saying I didn't have time to cook. A friend of mine (you know who you are) said to me at one point that you have time for what you want to have time for. That is totally true. People make time for the familiar and the habitual because they don't want to do anything new. Because the adjustment always seems harder than it really is. Turns out, I was no different. Forcing myself to break out the cutting board, the knives, and the pans in the evening...is my time. I can just concentrate on making something delicious and drink a glass of wine. After that, I can get down to business. But that time is my time, and damn it, no amount of reading, or e-mail, or whatever, is going to take that away from me. 


I bid you peace. 

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things..."

Usually, I would come to the end of a semester break and feel guilty about the amount of work I've done (not enough) or feeling drained from doing too much (school work, travel, socializing, family-time). This time, I feel pretty content. I worked but also played, traveled appreciably, but also stayed at home. And, most importantly, I started cooking again. All in all, a well-inaugurated New Year. 


One of the best things I've done so far is to join Boston Organics. What this means is that I no longer have to spend a ton on produce for the week or go to the grocery store anywhere near as often. Basically, this is a CSA-type endeavor. The only difference is that they deliver the food right to your door instead of you having to go and get it yourself, which is a smart and convenient upgrade. So far, I love it. In my box this week I got kale, oranges, apples, potatoes, garlic, beets, turnips, and etc. I made a beet, carrot, rice, and bean soup this week. It was delicious, and I had tons of leftovers to freeze for later. In fact, I may thaw some of that soup because it is bitterly cold tonight, and I expect to be going out later to Foundry on Elm with some friends for a last hurrah before the semester begins in earnest on Thursday. 


Speaking of which, I need to get going. I'll have more later, but before I go I do want to tell you that I've installed a new gadget to the right of the page under the "About" section that will link you directly to my Yelp reviews. This way, when I mention a place that I have already reviewed on Yelp, I don't have to replicate the review on the blog, and it is easy for you, my gentle readers, to check out the information on any of the places I mention (even if I haven't reviewed them myself). So, go ahead, click on it! 


I bid you peace. 

Ending the Semester...

Christmas Day, 2010. One of the only white Christmases in my memory, and a strange one at that. I've never been driving through the snow on Christmas day, or expected to do so on the road from Charlotte to High Point, NC. The holidays are hard for a lot of people. What we've done here is to create this arbitrary period of time where we're supposed to reflect on our lives, think about what we've done, register regret, and look hopefully towards the future. It's a simple thing maybe, and we all do it in different ways, but for most people the end of a year is bittersweet. We're all a year older, we've all forgotten about the promises we made ourselves the year before, and we all have concerns about the future - that "undiscovered country."


Thankfully life is more complicated than all that, and the end of a year, however good or bad, is just as arbitrary as it seems. As some songwriter wrote once: "Nothing changes / On New Year's Day." He was right. Nobody changes like this. Real change is difficult and wrenching, and takes real work and dedication. No one changes overnight (I hate to generalize, but I've never seen it happen). And old Ebenezer Scrooge, if he had been a real man, would have taken a long time to get used to the idea that Christmas wasn't all that bad. Change, real change, takes vision, strength of character, and reflection. 


I don't mean for this to be some type of homily. I'm just sitting here on the eve of Christmas Day thinking about the end of my own year, and what that might mean to me. Looking forward, I get anxious about the various hoops I have yet to jump through, about all the studying that has yet to be done, about the next tasks that have to be tackled. But rest assured that I will tackle them, that I will continue to make many of the same mistakes I did last year, and that each task will be completed as I come to it in some fashion. But, like most of us, I try not to make the same mistakes twice, and to know my direction a little better by the time I sit down by myself on a cold winter's evening in December to write a blog entry that no one will ever read. So, in the light of all that, things get a little sweeter and a little less bitter, I think. 


And even if peace on earth is probably not something that any of us can look forward to celebrating, we can possibly be looking to get better at making an environment in which that type of thing might be possible someday. It will take many more years to come, but if we start thinking about it now, we might get there. 


I bid you peace. 

Quakers...

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was a Quaker. After an extremely hectic Thanksgiving, filled more with research and writing than eating and socializing (though, there was some of that too), I decided to go to meeting for worship for the first time in a long time. It apparently needed to happen, because my mind breathed a sigh of relief during the silence. Suffice it to say that that hour every week of reflection has been something I have not only missed, but has become a time that I need in order to take care of myself properly week to week. Why is it that at those times that we most need it, we neglect the life of the spirit and choose to hunker down deeper into our troubles instead? I suppose that when we feel low on energy and/or stressed out, it is natural to turn inward instead of outward, to become insular and isolated. Basically, this is one of the most un-helpful impulses I think we can follow. Better to turn outwards to a supportive, loving community than to dwell on problems that, if we are honest with ourselves, aren't anywhere near as big when we can tackle them with each other. 

This might sound extremely "kumbaya" for those of you who don't know very much about Quakers, but it is certainly a very real and tangible feeling when I leave meeting and re-encounter the tasks I need to perform that week. Certainly today was a day that, for no particular or specific reason, showed me why the act of having faith is so unbelievably important and visceral, and why reaching out again to the community is an act from which a great deal of perspective can be drawn about our lives and the lives of others around us. I know that if I don't do it, I start to lose the ability to have grace and compassion for people who I don't necessarily see eye to eye with, and I lose the ability to be frank, kind, and honest about what I'm thinking and feeling with the people around me. These are qualities that I'd like to try to embody in my day-to-day world that just don't get fostered by the environment of graduate school, or of Boston in general. 

I know I haven't posted since October, and there's no way I can catch the blog up on the things I've been eating, thinking, or reading for the past two months. However, I'd like to start by saying that I went to Seattle and ate a lot of delicious food. I can pretty much stop eating burgers now, because no burger will ever come close to the one I had at Lunchbox Laboratory. Nothing will ever be able to compare with this. Period. If you're in the Seattle area (and you should be because this is an amazing and wonderful city), you MUST go here. Additionally, I could spend forever going through all the possible beer choices in Seattle, but I won't. I won't because good beer practically falls into your lap at many, many, microbreweries and pubs all over town. Just take a walk. Also, I found this, and I want one. 

Next, let me say that I recently bought a 15 inch cast iron skillet. That's right, 15 inches. As one of the greatest kitchen purchases I have ever made, it has so far produced perfect and bubbly Mac n' Cheese that I'm busily patenting the recipe for, and I plan on making cornbread in the near future. Comfort food, here we come! The main advantage here is the ability to start something on the stove top and finish it in the oven with even heat. Not to mention, if you use it the way its supposed to be used, the pan is non-stick and lasts a lifetime. 

I'm working on all kinds of papers right now as well, so you can expect another long wait before I actually post again. I'm trying to find a way to post or link my papers to the blog somehow (in the interests of academic posterity and the possible future failure of ol' compy), but I haven't figured it out yet. I'll be in touch. Go cook something. Right. Now. 

I bid you peace. 

Onward/Upward

As an extension of my life in graduate school, this blog has served a lot of purposes. Food, of course, has a special place here, as do musings about the academic world and the life I've chosen. So it would be remiss of me if I neglected to let you know (whoever it is who actually reads my blog) that I passed my thesis defense and now have a Masters in Drama. You may well ask, "now what?" Does the blog end? Do we go our separate ways? Is there life after graduate school? In short: no, no, and I hope so. 

First of all, I'm not going anywhere because I'm now in the doctoral program. Second of all, I've really come to appreciate having what amounts to a non-academic outlet to talk about academic life. Because the world is scary out there right now for everyone. Jobs are scarce in the profession, and the competition for what jobs there are is intense. Keeping up, from what I understand, is about consuming critical/theoretical tools like we were eating or breathing and then formulating immense amounts of original work from all that consumption. But while doing that, you should be applying for fellowships and grants, pursuing publication, attending conferences, and...oh, right...teaching. With all of this to do, its important to have somewhere to go to talk about something else, or vent, or...whatever. And that's what the blog is for. 

Pursuing this life can be overwhelming, but I think that I'm much more excited about it than frightened these days. There are moments when I feel like my life is totally out of control, but these have gotten fewer, and I've learned a lot about the way that works and how to control it. As it turns out, you do what you can when you can and how you do it best. You improve over time if you can acknowledge your mistakes as places for growth and not as personal flaws, and you also learn how to give yourself the impetus to keep going without being constantly overwhelmed with what you could be doing. Because you can always be working, but you also simply can't always be working. So, you know, I'm excited all over again for the next step in the process. Because this work is incredibly important and fulfilling, and I love teaching. 

I bid you peace. 

The Challenge...

Today was a beautiful day, and I took advantage of it. I walked from Harvard Square to Davis Square, with a stop at Porter Square on the way. Ambling along, Burdick's hot chocolate (half dark, half milk) in hand, something struck me. Well, several things. Let me tell you about them.

As I passed by restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and boutiques, I started to notice a trend: almost every single one of these businesses boasted locally and/or sustainably sourced product. One restaurant was featuring fresh New England oysters, another farm-fresh vegetables delivered daily, and yet another locally grown beef. Several proudly displayed the farms they sourced from on their menus, and many boutiques featured clothing and crafts from local artists. Also, these were nearly all local, independently owned businesses. 

This is good news. The understanding that local and fresh is better and tastier, that fast food isn't good food, is taking hold. Farmer's markets are springing up all over town, even at this late point in the season. For instance, there will be a farmer's market actually on Tufts' campus once a week for an undisclosed period of time once school starts in two days. This is proof that advocacy for farmers is working. Consumers are becoming choosier and more savvy, suddenly realizing that there are hundreds of different types of heirloom tomatoes (see my last post) or that fresh herbs, meats, and cheeses, can be affordable alternatives to the dreck usually available at the local Shaws or Foodmaster. Why buy from these places at markup when I can get the real deal right from the farmer (whose name and business I know personally), and it tastes so much better? 

And what's even more wonderful is that, whereas I knew a lot of these businesses existed before, there were at least a half dozen new ones that are pursuing the same strategy: farm fresh ingredients made into good, wholesome food. For instance, this place Posto is doing it, and a new restaurant called The Foundry is set to offer a significant number of local brews (no website or menu yet!). When I try these places, you'll be the first to know. Now, we just need to get people cooking all this great produce in their own kitchens. Seriously folks, the great thing about fresh produce is that you can achieve delicious meals faster because you can let the flavors shine through in simple preparations. If I've said it once here, I've said it a thousand times...start cooking! 

Now there is another significant matter to discuss. No one who knows me from this blog knows that I used to be a vegetarian. And I don't mean one of those idiots who identify themselves as a vegetarian "but, I like, sometimes eat chicken and fish." No. That's not a fucking vegetarian, people. Because, contrary to popular belief, chickens and fishes are both living and breathing organisms with nervous systems and brains and etc. They are, in short, meat.  No, from 2003-2008, not a bit of meat passed my lips knowingly. I had been a vegetarian before that as well, but I'm not going to claim those years because I can't remember when I started. 

One of the big things people used to ask was, why? And now they ask, why did you stop? So I'm going to briefly answer both of these questions now because I have an ethical quandary I'm busy sorting out, and I want to put it out there and make it official. I want to mark the day, so to speak. 

I stopped eating meat for ethical reasons. For one thing, the meat industry in this country is morally and ethically bankrupt- treating animals to horrifying conditions before being slaughtered, forcing them to eat each other in their feed, forcing them to eat grains, drugs, and hormones their bodies are not equipped to withstand. I'm also a pacifist, and was one long before I identified as Quaker. To take this literally means that killing other living things, especially when it isn't necessary, is abhorrent. I also had a belief in Gandhi's principle that "violence begets violence," and that that's a good enough reason to stop participating in the mass wholesale slaughter of animals. I had other reasons too, but those were the biggies. 

Then I came to Boston, and I was poor. Very, very, poor. My roommate Amy, whose own eating habits and knowledge about food and cooking I absolutely and fully respect (she just got her MA in nutrition at the Tufts Friedman School), saved me from certain starvation by pooling her resources (read:food) with me. We had several long discussions about vegetarianism, about best-practice meat production,  and about the economics and ethics of sustainable food. In the end, I started eating meat again. 

In some sense, this will seem hypocritical in the most profound way. The ethical stance I had was, after all, very clear. Please bear with me. First and foremost, my thought was that supporting a structure of meat production that was antithetical to industrial practice was very important, and second, I had never understood or really been exposed to the "meat culture" in America. I grew up in the Virgin Islands, a son of two health-conscious European ex-pats, with soy milk, tofu, and vegetables as dietary staples. Even after I came to America, my exposure to meat was limited to the occasional (organic, free-range) hamburger. This was fine with me, and I had no compunction to rebel against it because I felt that what I was eating was much better than what the kids down the street were eating (and I knew for sure after I had stayed over for dinner a few times). I got interested in how the other half lived. I wondered, what was I missing? I decided, partly for these two reasons, to forgo being veg for a while to find out what it was like to eat meat in this country, and how available sustainable  and affordable meat products really were. 

I feel as if that experiment is drawing to a close. As it turns out, and as other people have concluded before me, we eat too much meat. We've sanitized the process of killing to the point that we have no connection with the animals on our plate, nor do we care. Meat is just another "product"- a nearly artificial-seeming thing produced by a mystical process that we don't want to hear or know about. As if there was a "meat-tree" from which prepackaged cuts of ham and steak materialized and were put in the grocery store freezer. And this is wrong on nearly every level I can imagine. Life deserves respect which, at the very least, has to begin with an acknowledgment of taking it for sustenance. We have to understand where these animals come from, how they were treated, who treated them, how they died. Animals have stories and feelings and histories, and denying them that is the goal of our meat-centric culture. And, while this may seem like hippie-tripe to some people, our lack of respect is quite literally killing us.  From heart-disease to mad-cow to rampant obesity, our obsession with death (and the requisite cover-up of it for an ignorant public) is deadly. We're killing biodiversity, and animals, and ourselves, in a nearly perfect industrial machine that even professionals have to take years trying to understand. 

So, starting today, I'm ramping down the experiment. Eventually, this means that I will probably be totally vegetarian again. I'm starting by never eating ANY animal that I can't verify had a good, healthy lifestyle before it showed up on my plate. I want to know where these animals live and how they die, because that's the very least that I owe them. I want to know the farmer who took care of the animal, to look them in the eye and understand something about my place as a consumer. We can call this phase two of a multi-phase process.  And as an acquaintance of mine argued well to me not too long ago, dropping out of the process of meat-production, industrial or sustainable, is actually one of the best things we can do to help. Lowering the bar for meat-production of all types is itself the best discouragement of industrial agribusiness. Because if demand lowers, agribusiness must follow, and that means that the small farmer has a better shot anyway. So that's it. No cheating, no going out to get a random burger from a random restaurant, nothing unless I know what I need to know about that animal. 

This has been a long and strange journey for me, but I am glad that at this stage of the process I have somewhere I can document it. I am confident that this is the right thing to do. 

I bid you peace. 

The Road Ahead, The Road Behind

When I'm not working, I get a little crazy. 

I had decided to allow myself an enforced break from work now that the summer is winding down and the busiest time of the year is about to start. You would think that I would be ready for this, that my brain would want to let go for a little bit and sink into a state of stupefaction in front of a television, or at least with one of those summer novels that people like to read on the beach. Instead, I am plagued with ideas for papers, with thinking about upcoming conferences, with the possibilities for this or that article...and the list goes on and on. I can't. Stop. Thinking. And the result is that I end up here, sitting in front of a computer and remembering the statistics concerning the relative ages of people who have psychotic breaks (turns out, its about my age). 

Maybe you reach a certain point where the brain doesn't want to take breaks anymore? Where it just wants to run down all the stray ideas? I don't know. Maybe it means I should be writing that paper now? Trying to publish that article? All I know is that I can't watch any more Law and Order, and for God's sake lets get the semester started already! 

Anyway, my insanity aside, I have finally been eating some delicious food. I did promise that I would slow down enough to do that, and Restaurant Week came at the end of the summer like a shining beacon of light in a field of food despair. 

But before I get into that, let me say that the tomatoes this year have been unbelievably beautiful. I went to the farmers market and bought heirloom tomatoes, the kind you practically never find at the store because of small-minded agribusiness. Go to the market now and get some! There are so many varieties and so many different flavors and colors to choose from. I also bought some fresh burratta, which is essentially fresh mozzarella stuffed with cream and other delicious things. In this case, it was stuffed with sweet roasted garlic and onion. Add in a baguette, and you have a feast for one worthy of the summer. You don't really need anything else, except perhaps a glass of wine. 

That same evening, I made burgers for a few friends who stopped by. I used free-range ground beef that I had gotten at the same market. Instead of buns, I favored a fresh baguette from When Pigs Fly in Davis Square, an excellent bakery. I made the burgers by hand with Sweet Vidalias and just a touch of breadcrumb to keep them moist. I topped the burgers with fresh Mozzarella, some more of the heirloom tomatoes, and a pesto dressing using fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. I also used a technique that I've been employing more and more to cook meat: starting off on the stovetop to get that nice sear, and then finishing in the oven. This works especially well for the cheese, which for the mozzarella meant that it got melty and lightly browned on top. You want a pretty hot oven for this, probably around 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 

For the side, I made onion rings. This is super simple, and incredibly rewarding. Season some flour with your favorite seasonings (I used salt, pepper, cumin, and a little chili powder) and place in a bowl. Place 1-2 cans of evaporated milk in another bowl. You want to use large onions to make sizable rings. Now, dip the rings into the milk, and then into the flour: Repeat. You want to double dip them so that you get a nice crust on your rings. Make sure your oil is hot enough (but not too hot!), and drop the rings in a few at a time so as not to crowd the pan. When they float up to the top golden brown, they're done! I served them with a dip that was a mixture of chili sauce and sour cream.  Salt them a little more right after they come out of the pan. This is also something you can get guests to help you do when they get to your house. It keeps them involved in the cooking process! 

I also tried my hand at blueberry cobbler recently. I love blueberries, and I found some great ones at the market. I used a recipe I found online, and it worked out pretty well. I'm in favor of the biscuit-like topping it makes, and the blueberries couldn't have gotten any fresher unless I had picked them myself. 

Now, with all the farmer's market goodness drawing towards a close, I'm wondering if there are any CSA's I can join over the Fall/Winter months that would help me feed myself through the busy times in the semester? If anyone has any ideas/suggestions, please post them in the comments. I'm interested mostly in winter vegetables (squash, potatoes, onions, winter greens) rather than meat/fish. 

And speaking of local food, I had a lovely (and entirely local) meal at Henrietta's Table two nights ago. Crabcakes with a delicious relish, duck with blackberries and a port wine reduction, Taza Chocolate mud pie (all proceeds donated to help Taza rebuild after a flood). Basically, this is comfort food, served at tables that feel like they might have been taken from your mother's kitchen. The atmosphere and service were pleasantly informal, and the menu was precisely what was needed for a rainy day. The Restaurant Week menu was the normal menu (always a pleasant surprise), and the wine list was robust and affordable. All in all, I recommend it highly. These folks, like Craigie-on-Main, are serious about local and sustainable product. That's pretty important in my book. 

That's all for now, I think. 

I bid you peace. 

What I've Been Doing, Or, Why I Have Not Posted In a Month

The short answer is that I've been busy and exhausted. I've been a group leader at a theatre camp at Tufts  for the past six weeks, doing final revisions on my thesis, and trying to study for comprehensive exams - all simultaneously. 

I've also been eating pretty badly, so I haven't really had very much to report to you about good food because there hasn't been very much of it. I'm planning on getting back to some kind of normal rhythm in time for school to start again on September 7th. At that point, I'll have the Fall just ahead of me and the last glorious days of summer just behind. I believe I have mentioned more than once on this blog how wonderful the Fall is in Boston. It might be the best time of year here, and there's bound to be apple doughnuts sometime in my future. 

Now, the summer has been nothing if not productive. My thesis is done, camp was wonderful, and the studying (while I could stand to throw some energy into it) has been going just fine. I had time to myself at the beginning, and now I have just enough time to get my head back in the game and prepare a new syllabus for my Introduction to Acting class version 2.0. I'm streamlining the class this year, going simple and neat, without all the bells and whistles. I think it will turn out just fine, and the kids will profit from it. 

After having done my thesis I, of course, don't even want to look at it. Writing the conclusion was like pulling teeth. How does one summarize a year's worth of writing, editing, and revising in a few pages and make it make sense? I still don't know. What I do know is that I learned something from the process of doing it that I didn't know before. Which, I suppose, is the most important thing. 

I'm not going to try to summarize any of that here and now. Partly because I don't really want to talk about it now, and partly because I don't want to jinx myself. I still have to get people to read it and defend the thing. It's not over yet. When it is, when I don't have to talk about it, I think I'll be able to think about the whole year a little more clearly, and then it will start to come out in fits and starts. 

Anyway, when I start eating something worthwhile, you'll know. Right now, I have to go and read. 

I bid you peace. 

Pesto Power and New Horizons

When most people think of pesto, they think of a mixture made with basil, pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and garlic. This is all well and good, but we often forget that pesto just means "paste" in Italian, and that you can make delicious pesto that has none of these ingredients. Pine nuts are expensive, and you can absolutely toast walnuts in a dry pan and use them in a pesto, or put in kalamata olives, or even substitute Spanish Manchego instead of Parmesan. You can make a delicious pesto using mint, lemon juice, walnuts, olive oil, and toasted bread crumbs. The proportions are really just to taste, and you can use any shape pasta you want. Throw in a few (soaked) sundried tomatoes into a traditional pesto for added depth of flavor. This is truly frugal food, and it provides light sauces with intense flavors using seasonal ingredients. 

In other news, a friend and I have been toying with the idea of an interdisciplinary conference on Lady Gaga. We've had some trouble getting it off the ground because we've both been incredibly busy, but I think we've found a reasonable alternative. In order to build support, or as a professor of mine says, to build "hermeneutic momentum" in the interest of eventually holding such a conference, I'm probably going to create an academic blog devoted to themes and scholarship related to Lady Gaga. The blog would be dealing especially with her place in pop culture, her theoretical implications, and her possible applications to other sociocultural spheres. I've been seeing this type of scholarship pop up all over the internet, which proves to me that there is a broad arena of support in multiple discourses for this type of work, and a clear suggestion that scholars want to be having this type of conversation. This article is an excellent example. 

More and more, I've been seeing the traditional boundaries of academic departments break down and enter into fascinating conversations with other disciplines. This is one of the major reasons I appreciate the way Gaga has been proliferating. She has become a flashpoint in the intellectual landscape for gender theorists, Marxists, post-humanists, and many others. If thinking about her work brings us into a deeper conversation with each other, I believe we can use her work as a stepping stone to intersect matters of art and culture that are deeply relevant, pervasive, and important. I'll keep you all apprised of the process as I start to think about the blog's design and discussion format. Start preparing your submissions now, since we'll be opening the field up to multiple contributions! 

When What You Ought to Do Isn't What You're Doing.

Going home isn't always easy. There's an adjustment period. Things have changed, people have altered their lives. Nostalgia gets in the way of the moment, and sometimes you waste time trying to recall moments from a long time ago. Well, maybe not so much a moment, but the feelings you had during those moments that made it feel like home in the first place. This is why people use the tired old phrase "You can't ever go home." Because you can't. And I say you "waste time" because that's what you're doing when you've made choices and then expect for everything to have been frozen in time like a capsule. That's not the way the world, or people, or anything, works. The way things do work is that everything grows and changes and replaces the you-shaped hole that you left behind. And it is chaotic, and illogical, and doesn't really make sense. Trying to make it make sense is silly and just makes you sad, like everyone gets when they feel like they've lost something meaningful. 

These are all things I thought about in the car on the way back from Greensboro. And, you know, I was sad in some ways for the reasons I just mentioned. However, I was also happy because, you know, people and things had grown in strange, interesting, and unfamiliar ways. If I try to tie it in to everything I've been studying, which is a lot about desire and it's inherent creativity, then everything just kept renewing itself in my absence, which I think is pretty wondrous in and of itself. Not, of course, that this would happen despite my going away (which would be unbelievably narcissistic), but that it happens at all, and that I get to experience it in a different way. Because otherwise what good would it be? If we had to reach deep inside ourselves and try at being honest, do we really want it all to be the same? Stagnant? Unchanging? I'd like to think not. 

Which is amazing again because when you're driving, when you're in between places, you're almost in the best place of all. You have the memory and desire of a location in time and space, and you have the same for where you just were, wherever that was. Which means that you get to be in multiple places in multiple times, and if that's your reality then time and change sort of stop mattering. And I know that there's always a lot of talk about the "haunting" of our memory - about how memory is always changing us, how history is always just now. I don't like "haunting" as an adjective because it implies terror and fear. Like we have no agency in the matter, like we're all helplessly in thrall to an unfriendly hall of memories just waiting to carry us backwards into a shadowy underworld. I think this is nonsense at least part of the time. Because if we have memory, are always "making" history, are always using desire to create something new, then we can also manipulate these "middles" to our advantage. To use an overused parallel - if you really deny the spoon's existence then you have agency over it, because thinking is making something so, no matter what fool says that it can't be. So it isn't that memory always "haunts" us, but that we get to have it, and live to construct our whole lives all over again, and have/be/experience something new all at the same time. 

All of which I think is pretty great, and (at least for me) takes the edge off just a little. 

I bid you peace. 

Yes, I'm Still Here...

Intermission Tavern, I have to get this off my chest before I can go any further in life: there was an enormous jungle-sized roach running up your wall. I know you gave us a free round of drinks, but that's not enough. Your burger (which I then ate with trepidation) was cooked well, and your appetizer was fine, but that does not mitigate the disgust of seeing this roach. We live in a modern world, filled with devices and chemicals for disposing of these types of pests. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend you as a result.  You can't even claim to be a dive, because your food is far too expensive for that excuse. If my burger is twelve dollars, I deserve better. 


Fix the problem, and I'll come back. You deserve a better rating. 


Now that's done. I have to apologize (again) for taking so long to post. I've been so consumed with writing this thesis-thing ("thing" might be the best word for it at this point) that I just couldn't bear to write more. Also, Facebook is the great time-thief. I've been recycling links, quotes, videos...practically anything I can in a vain attempt at procrastination. I swear that Go Fug Yourself helps me think. 


Anyway, its been so long that I can't even remember what I've made for myself in the past few weeks. All I remember is a caffeine-induced blur punctuated by words like "heteronormativity," "rhizome," and "deterritorialisation." I did make pizza for myself, and I remember that because it was delicious. This is my recipe for the dough.  I like it for a few reasons. It has a wonderful, easy to work with texture, it takes less time than most other recipes because it calls for a single rise, it can be put on the grill (perfect for the summer), and it tastes fantastic. You don't have to have a stone, though this makes for a far crispier crust. 


Now, for the toppings you can do whatever you want. I had some things lying around that I needed to use because I was going away for the weekend (more on that later). I had: bacon, sausage, spinach, basil, ricotta, tomatoes. I think I had some other things as well, but those were the basics. I crisped the bacon and cooked the sausage through before putting it on the pizza because I didn't want to rely on the oven to make sure it happened. It was great, and I want to do it on a grill before the summer is out. In fact, if you want to do some prep beforehand, you can do a pizza party with friends where they get to make their own pizza and you just grill it off for them. Add some good beers, or even some bellinis, and you have yourself a hell of a party. I've done this before, and everyone loved it. Just make sure you have all of your toppings (a pretty wide range) prepped ahead of time, and you can double (or even triple) the dough recipe. 


Speaking of pizza, I was away last weekend. I visited friends in New Jersey, but I stopped and met them in NYC before heading to the farmlands. We, of course, ate things while we were there, and I had my first example of NY pizza. For some reason, I had never had any in all the times I had been here. I get the feeling that this wasn't standard NY style pizza, but it was nevertheless totally delicious. We went to this place, and you'll see my review there as well. 


The slice of artichoke pizza (why would you get anything else?) is sublime. The rest of their offerings are just fine, but this piece of dough slathered in artichoke dip is, undeniably, the star of the show. Also, the crust is perfect for it. You need a strong base for this kind of thing, 
and the crust is well equipped in taste, thickness, and texture to handle the immense field of creamy artichoke goodness before you. My only complaint is that they only serve Budweiser on draft. But, since the area has tons of bars, you can definitely get your fix after you've conquered your slice (if you don't care for Bud, that is). Now, this isn't a gourmet experience. The artichoke dip isn't going to get five Michelin stars on its own. However, if you're out on the town for a few beers, this is the best. 


Now, I'm going to go down to Greensboro soon. This Friday, in fact. I'm so excited to leave and go to a place that has traffic laws and street signs that I can't even express it properly. Which brings up the fact that I'm driving. This summer, I've enacted a flying embargo. I just need my music, my little rental, and the road down south. I need to drive and remember that there are roads that can carry a person away from Boston, away from Tufts, and take me to a place where people miss me and want to see me. Not that people wouldn't miss me here, but I live here, and its not home. And I need a reminder that that's important.  Sure, this thesis is really important. But everyone needs a vacation. 


There are things I know I need to do while I'm there. For one thing, I need to sit in my favorite diner at 2 AM and eat totally delicious, cheap food. I need to eat some Barbecue, and I need to visit the Beef Burger and have, ironically, their veggie burger (the best in town!). I need to sit in my favorite bar, with my favorite people, drinking amazing local beer. Because, damnit, that's what home is all about. And, you know, I'll update the blog in between all of the awesome food I plan on eating and tell you all about the trip. 


That's enough for now. 


I bid you peace. 

The Things I've Made...

Lately, I've been a klutz in the kitchen. I've been ruining sauces, overcooking vegetables, and basically wreaking havoc upon my food. Apparently, I've turned a corner. Not surprisingly, the corner was turned at the end of this hellish semester (see last post), so I've had the time and foresight to focus more on cooking. Let me tell you about it. 


The other night, I made risotto. This time, it was perfect. More like a vegetarian paella than risotto, I made it with habanero pepper, lime, zucchini, onion, and a touch of curry powder. Surprisingly delicious. Risotto is about patience. 


Tonight, I made a simple pasta dish using lemon, basil, garlic, olive oil, caramelized onion, and cheese (aged gouda). Both meals were exceedingly simple and tasty, and took not more than an hour to make. I drank a Carmenere that I paid very little for, but was altogether very satisfying.   


Summer, as it turns out, is a wonderful time to cook. Light dishes are the order of the day, and we can bring a bit of variety back into the kitchen. I'd been getting so tired of root vegetables and bad produce at the store, that I had forgotten what warm weather can bring. And, while no one here will ever understand the joys of peaches from a peach stand in the middle of nowhere, there's still a lot of good food to be taken advantage of (even this far north!).  


I will regale you with more tales of food soon. But now, to bed! 

The Glory of Doing Nothing

Finally, and at long last, the semester is over. Literally, and without exaggeration, this will go down as the single worst semester of my academic career. I've had bad semesters before, but this one took the prize. Without my glorious Introduction to Acting class, I would have been lost at sea.  I'd have left without a by-your-leave, and taken up on a schooner bound for the Indies. Like you do, when things get bad. 

Now I am, as promised, drinking a Sauvignon Blanc on my patio on this most glorious of spring days. I would tell you which one it was, but I didn't really care for it. I got it from what has become the single most sub-standard wine shop in the Boston area: Grapevine Travelers. This place used to be decent, but then it was sold and the new owners clearly have no earthly idea about anything having to do with wine. I doubt they would know a grape if I put one in front of them. However, they are VERY close to my house, and this makes them tempting. Now, if you want some wine, you need to go to The Wine and Cheese Cask near Inman Square. Sure, its a walk from the T, but totally worth your while. They have a fantastic selection of wines, beers, liquors, and cheeses from all over the world. If I ever need, say, a bottle of Calvados or Grappe, this is where I go. I can't recommend the place highly enough. 

In fact, I love Inman Square (and its surrounds) because it is home to several establishments that I have sentimental attachments to. For one thing, Dali is wonderful, as is Bukowski's and the Druid. Christina's has great cheap ice cream (fuck off, J.P. Licks), and the spice shop right beside it is fantastic. If I could justify living in this neighborhood, I would, but I would be far less frugal than I am now. 

Now, there is some cause for excitement. The farmer's markets are nearly open! I'm very excited about this because, you know, I'm into the whole 'local food' thing, and I like the Davis Square market a lot. I'll have to let you know what I get, and where, and all that other goodness. Oh, and I'm going to make pasta soon. No really. Like within the next few days. Then I'll talk about it, and these roasted veggie sandwiches I made. For now though, I'm going to probably have another drink and relish the dusk. 

I bid you peace. 

Something Old, Something New...

I know, I know...I haven't posted in almost a month. Will I relieve your pain by posting all of my updates, reviews, cooking trials and tribulations right now? No. Will I promise to update by the end of the week? Yes. Am I being consumed alive by papers? Yes. 


However, it will soon be over, and I have promised myself not to work for a few days thereafter. During that time I will sit down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and type my little heart out on the porch. Just for you. I will also cook some amazing and delicious things. Just for you. I promise. 

Dinner again...

So, enough of my philosophical musings. Let's talk food. 

I made dinner for four people the other night. I made: 

Risotto: Butternut Squash, Maple-Cured Bacon, Crispy Sage

Crispy Roasted Duck: Haricot Vert, Watercress, Vinaigrette

Two very simple dishes, but fairly tasty and easy to serve to many people at once. Boston in the Spring can be a bit chill, and I find duck and risotto to be optimal comfort foods. The key with duck is to let it roast for three hours on 250, allowing the fat to drain out of the skin through holes that you have poked in it. Then you raise the temperature up high (375) and let it get a little smoky (turn off the fire alarm) so that the skin crisps. I did some things wrong here, so learn from my mistakes. First, you have to turn the duck breast side down for those three hours. In my haste to get it in the oven, I forgot this for the first hour and not enough of the fat drained out. So, not crispy enough. Second, I couldn't make up for this mistake when I turned up the temp. because I allowed some of the fat to drip down to the bottom of the oven. That's a real problem, because duck fat burns at low temperatures, and smokes a lot. Also, you must have the duck directly on a rack if you don't have a proper roasting pan, or nothing will ever get crispy because it will roast in its own juices. Now, no one was complaining about the duck, but these are things that can be prevented. 

Risotto has a pretty good wow factor, partially because you can't make it ahead. If you have an open kitchen, you can mingle and make your risotto while your guests enjoy cocktails and marvel at your culinary prowess :) My risotto needed more butter and half and half at the end. This makes a world of difference. As it was, my risotto got a bit too gloppy, and much less smooth than I prefer. I also could have used a dash more stock at the end. You have to be careful about your stock, because if you use too much at the end you're going to come out with something like rice soup. If you use too little, you get the consistency of oatmeal. You have to taste it constantly to make sure you're going to reach al dente at the right moment. In short: simple concept, temperamental process. 

Now, if you want something that is easily made ahead, then you can make pasta. I make ravioli because you can roll it and cut it without the aid of a machine. That's probably my next dinner escapade. Honestly, I made so much of it not too long ago that I felt like I was becoming a one hit wonder and decided to move on to other things. However, like my defunct penchant for Lady Gaga, I feel like it might be a good time to bring back an old favorite. What should I put in my ravioli, dear readers? What delicious cheeses, vegetables, or meats can I shove into my protean pieces of pasta? Are ravioli sexy?  I welcome your commentary on this matter, as well as people willing to taste my culinary cornucopia. All right, I'm done with the alliteration. Seriously.

I bid you peace. 

Old News...

Looking over old papers, I found one from about two years ago, here in severely altered format. I was just getting out of school for the second time, and this paper was my final for the English Capstone course. Hopelessly confident and idealistic, I wrote it on ethical and moral contingency in Iain Pears The Dream of Scipio, a book I still return to even now to remind myself of my ethical process.  


Reading this paper again, I find I have become far more cynical in the past two years than even Iris Murdoch, who writes:  


"Good is mysterious because of human frailty, because of the immense distance which is involved. If there were angels they might be able to define good but we would not understand the definition. We are largely mechanical creatures, the slaves of relentlessly strong selfish forces the nature of which we scarcely comprehend. At best, as decent persons, we are usually very specialized . We behave well in areas where this can be done fairly easily and let other areas of possible virtue remain undeveloped...the self is a divided thing and the whole of it cannot be redeemed any more than it can be known" (Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, 89).


Now I'm a little older, a little less wide-eyed, this reads truer than it ever did before. Goodness, such as it exists, is a fragile and rare thing. I thought then that it might be all the more beautiful because it happens so infrequently. The question I ask myself now is again existential and spiritual, but framed very differently. Whereas in my paper I saw the Good as glorious because of its mysteriousness, as good because of its nearly unreachable place in the sun (see the Allegory of the Cave), I now see it as opaque and unattainable: a world of darkness punctuated only by haphazard flashes of insight and selflessness. How do we find salvation when so much of our capacity to do good is outside our control?

The only light I can find here is the same one that Murdoch and Pears find: we invariably sacrifice to protect and nurture the things we love (or think we love) whether or not that seems right. Now, often the thing we love is ourselves, or a figment, or an outright lie, but nonetheless it is nearly always out of a kind of love that we act. Does it suffice then, that we act on occasion out of love for the other? Is that enough to save us (and I don't mean 'save us' only in the protestant Christian sense, in terms of personal salvation, but more in terms of palpable communities and relationships)? I don't really know anymore. I know only that we could stand to talk about it more, struggle with it more, and stop being self-righteous about it.

To close, I plagiarize myself of two years ago:

"Presupposing a Platonic divinity, and thinking back on the influence of Scipio’s remarkable text, what is to keep the liberal-ironist from becoming disheartened by the implication that what an individual perceives as “the Good” may simply be the false reflection of the divine, or as also posited, the mistranslation of historical fragments? What if “the warmth and light of the sun” merely implicates us all in a lie of reflection, where all of our ethical and moral choices represent at least as much wrong as right (if not more)? At the end of the day, the ironists may find themselves racked by “resentment, fantasy, and despair. The refusal to attend may even induce a fictitious sense of freedom: I may as well toss a coin" (Murdoch, 77, 89).

If nothing else seems transparent, it seems clear that we can never afford to "toss a coin."

I bid you peace. 

So, Not so Frugal...

When a friend invited me to Craigie-On-Main for 'research,' I simply couldn't resist. Let me warn you in advance that this is not a frugal dinner. Dinner at Craigie is a sensual excess, an inspiration to the amateur chef, and a reminder that food has the power to change your life. 

Craigie specializes in fresh, organic, local food. That goes for everything from their meat to their cocktails. Their menu changes daily, dependent on the market. The list of their local farm suppliers is on the back of their menu, but you don't need to see that because you can taste it. 

Stepping into Craigie from the cold, rainy evening was like stepping into another world. With a  totally open kitchen facing the doorway, the impression was of well-controlled chaos as chefs performed their intricate dance in the tight passages between lowboys and hot fry pans. The environment was that of a bistro, with warm decorative touches amidst elegant but homey surrounds.  Tables were farther apart than at Ten Tables, giving everyone a little bit more room to have intimate conversation. 

We had, of course, the six course tasting menu. The ten course was a bit too steep, and the six is very satisfying in terms of portion size. To start (and yes, it was different than the sample menu) we had three amuse-bouche: first squid noodles with crispy roasted garlic, then house cured salmon, then fried Maine clam with squid ink. All of these were delicious, but my favorite was by far the house cured salmon, which was worth dying for. 

Second course was sashimi-grade tuna with a chili vinegar, ginger harissa, and avocado. Third was a striped bass, cooked to perfection, on a ramp sauce. Fourth was chicken leg comfit and boudin noir with a micro-green salad and poached egg. By the fifth course, I was unclear what I was eating anymore, but I knew that it was delicious. I remember eating a succulent rib and crispy pork belly and zucchini pasta in a pork ragout. 

Finally, and this needs a separate mention, I cannot begin to describe the joy and comfort of bone marrow on toast. I have had few culinary experiences that were more hedonistic, rich, and other-worldly. Served right out of the bone it came from, the marrow is silky smooth and creamy, buttery and earthy. In other words, exactly what one needs on a rainy evening. 

The meal ended with homemade sorbet as a palette cleanser, followed directly by a kind of napoleon with chocolate and a banana foam. 

Now, Craigie also has some of the better cocktails I've ever had, and they would give Gargoyles a run for their money.  I can only remember that I had the Northern Lights and St. Bruno, and both were fresh, refreshing, and properly made. That brings up the service actually, because my first drink was late arriving and therefore was immediately taken off of the bill. The service was crisp but informal, and all of the staff were attentive. We were left to finish our meal in peace (one of my pet peeves is when wait staff try to take my plate before I'm done with it or otherwise pester me). 

Well, I'm smitten with this place, but I won't be able to afford it again for another year. Here's to eating! 

I bid you peace. 

Nailin' Palin...

I don't really want to talk much about Sarah Palin, but I ran into the Weekly Dig's winning protest cover for the event. Check it out. They are right about the WTF appeal and the clean design. And yes, there was a porn of the same title (Nailin' Palin) developed during the last presidential campaign. I have no idea how I know this. No, really, I don't remember. 


What morons these people are. No wonder they've become so popular.