If you can possibly find a copy, grab "Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices" (Herter, 1960*) off the shelves and dig right the hell in. It's a brilliant collection of old-fashioned everything, including photographs, restaurant reviews, and local information about Seattle, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and god help us, Disneyland.
To give some indication how totally cool this book is, just to let you know just what kinds of antiquated, obscure, and dubious information are to be gained within its eroding covers, behold the very first subheading of the very first chapter of the book: MEATS. How to Make Real Corned Venison, Antelope, Moose, Bear, and Beef. Yuh-huh. Bear. The book also contains instructions for Jefferson Davis' Southern Chicken ("a man who liked food well prepared and saw to it himself that his cooks knew how to cook"), a brilliant method of pressure-cooking raw chicken, then lightly breading and pan-frying it in butter. The Herters instruct, "Save money any way you can, but do not try to save it by using margarine or cooking oils or fats to pan fry chicken. Chicken can only be fried in butter." (italics mine)
"Doves Wyatt Earp," a recipe developed by the real man, is listed after a comparatively lengthy and unquestionably sympathetic history of Earp's gunslinger days. According to Herter, Earp was an "outstanding cook," and "his Wyatt Earp breakfast consisting of a half inch thick slice of beef or buffalo, eye of a rib steak with thinly sliced onions on top put between two slices of buttered bread with the butter well sprinkled with salt and served with two fried eggs on both sides was very popular and justly so." The brief biography ends with Herter's assertion that "(W)e need men today like Wyatt to put law and order in today's Hollywood and New York's television area more than we ever needed him in Dodge City or Tombstone." One shudders to think of that much belligerent firepower loose among such misunderstood heathens.
Within this invaluable and endlessly fascinating tome are also offered descriptions of Catherine de Medici's fabulous legs and her subsequent invention of ladies' panties (so she could ride and show off her gams) as well as recipes for "Birds Saint Thomas Aquinas," "Prairie Dog Bat Masterson," and "Swedish Muskrat." A subchapter is entitled "How to Make Liverwurst of Duck, Goose, Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, Pheasant, Moose, or Calf's or Pork Liver by Johannes Kepler."
In the Herter's instructions for making caviar, carp is listed as having the finest-tasting caviar, though its flesh constitutes some "very poor eating" and is, indeed, poisonous, according to them. I'd never seen instructions for making caviar before this book and thought the method worth reproducing, though I am unconvinced of its end results:
"Here is the original and best caviar recipe:
"Take one gallon of water. Add 2-1/2 cups of salt. See if an egg will float in the solution. If it will not, add more salt until the egg will float. Add 1/6 of an ounce of sodium nitrate. Add 1/32 of an ounce of sodium nitrite. (Get both from your druggist, it costs practically nothing)
"Add one level teaspoon of powdered ginger. Add one level teaspoon of dry mustard. Wet mustard will do if you do not have dry. Stir well. Then take the carp egg sack and cut it open and squeeze out the eggs into the solution. Leave stand at room temperature for five days. Then strain out the carp eggs and place them in glass jars and keep them under refrigeration or frozen until used. If you have no refrigeration put the eggs in mason jars and put on mason caps. Sterilize them as described elsewhere in this book and store in a dark place until used."
I'll be posting more from Bull Cook, as well as myriad other antiquated cookbooks, at later dates. This information, colloquial or otherwise, is too good, too woefully obscure, to exist solely between these fading covers. It should be shared and loved, if not outright canonized.
And if anyone tries out the caviar recipe? For the love of Food, lemme know how it comes out and whether or not anyone dies of it.
*"Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices," written by George Leonard Herter and Berthe L. Herter. Published by Herter's, Inc., Waseca, MN, 1960.
Showing posts with label Eat Me.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eat Me.. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tales of the Extemporaneous Luncheon
Had Key West bartender friends in town this week for Tales of the Cocktail.
After an entire week of missed connections, we finally managed to get Dave, Al, and Terry over to the house for our own Southern-style Lazy Sunday Afternoon Suckerpunch-to-the-Duodenum. Afterward, we popped off to Tujague's and the Spotted Cat for drinkies and abbreviated lessons in New Orleans' history.
However.
We worked up to those history lessons with this lesson in Why You Should Come to Our House Hongry:
(...and smokin a bowl first couldn't hurt...)
Cornmeal-Tempura Fried Green Tomatoes with Horseradishy Remoulade Butter.
Dirty Rice with Locally Farmed Vegetables, Cajun Cow Sausage, and Melty Brie.
Smothered Local Sweet Corn, Onions, and Creole Tomatoes.
Blackberry-Mustard Barbecued Chicken Gams.
Butter-Fried Bread Pudding with Steen's Cane Syrup.
...'Cause we secretly can't stand these guys.
Thanks for lettin us feed y'all.
Come back and see us sometime.
After an entire week of missed connections, we finally managed to get Dave, Al, and Terry over to the house for our own Southern-style Lazy Sunday Afternoon Suckerpunch-to-the-Duodenum. Afterward, we popped off to Tujague's and the Spotted Cat for drinkies and abbreviated lessons in New Orleans' history.
However.
We worked up to those history lessons with this lesson in Why You Should Come to Our House Hongry:
(...and smokin a bowl first couldn't hurt...)
Cornmeal-Tempura Fried Green Tomatoes with Horseradishy Remoulade Butter.
Dirty Rice with Locally Farmed Vegetables, Cajun Cow Sausage, and Melty Brie.
Smothered Local Sweet Corn, Onions, and Creole Tomatoes.
Blackberry-Mustard Barbecued Chicken Gams.
Butter-Fried Bread Pudding with Steen's Cane Syrup.
...'Cause we secretly can't stand these guys.
Thanks for lettin us feed y'all.
Come back and see us sometime.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
First Kiss New Orleans
This is my first trip to New Orleans.
I find every bit as much Oxymoron as I expect,
but
not always where I expect to find it.
I also
find Serendipity,
Felicity,
and Coincidence,
and I realize,
beyond any skin or bone or flesh at all,
that this city is waiting for me,
that it can go on limpidly waiting and
will not be bothered in the slightest
if I should take a thousand years
or even
forget to come at all.
Its ghosts will remain and are willing willing willing
to tell all manner of Stories in form of Secrets, in form of Tall Tales, in form of involuntary Nightmumblings.
There is a strange Beauty about this city, beyond its romantic architecture, beyond its great moss-weeping trees, beyond everything that draws Dreamers & Seekers & Scalawags to its plumply velveted, jasmine-scented lap. I begin looking for a name for this ambiguous Beauty at the Jazz and Heritage Festival, when New Orleans' heart is purported to be at its finest.
*******
DAY 1.
First thing in, Thursday morning, right as the gates open at 11 a.m., I'm devouring Ms. Wanda Walker's Cochon de Lait po'boy with wet slaw, served up on a crusty third of a baguette; pork so sweet and soft, I could eat it toofless. Oh, it's so perfect. It's just what babies should taste like. I also manage a bite or two out of Otter's softshell crawfish po'boy, shells softer than kettle-fried chips, with fried sour gherkins and cabbage; crawfish never tasted so wickedly delicious. After breakfast, we're set for a day of music and food and music
and food and
and let's get it goin already, y'all.
On the Jazz & Heritage Stage, Red Hawk Hunters Mardi Gras Indians, resplendent in thousands of ostrich feathers, hand-beaded headdresses and chestplates, left to right, orange yellow fuschia green.
Kelly Guidry's sculptures (Breaux Bridge, LA) of elongated female forms. Beautiful winged mermaids, giant bugs, and the loveliest giant fishing lures. Dreamy whimsy. Romantically menacing.
Pirogues hand made by Tom Colvin, whose Cajun-French accent is thick enough to make communication difficult to my uneducated ears. The boats are joined without aid of screws or metal parts. They are flawless. I shed my first Fest Tears at this astoundingly skillful demonstration of a Beautiful and Dying Art.
New Orleans Rhythm Conspiracy at Congo Square.
Squirrel Nut Zippers meets Gogol Bordello.
...That about sums it up.
Panorama Jazz Band at Gentilly. Sousaphone, Potosa accordion, clarinet, awesome (girl) tenor sax and trombone, drums, banjo. New Orleans/Island/Latin jazz outta the 1920s-40s. Danceable, mysterious, nostalgic, ultimately joyful.
A man with a tie-dyed prosthetic leg sits in front of us on the lawn, tapping his fingers against his personal rainbow.
Timbuktu Art Colony out of Ellenwood, GA. Silversmiths who make The Most Amazing Jewelry I have ever seen. Turquoise and amber and silver in sweeping, gracefully organic designs. Yum.
Strawberry cream sno-balls and strawberry lemonade.
Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers. Kermit singing "What A Wonderful World" makes me feel the magnolias in my hair. As the band plays and swings and jives and invites everyone listening to Up and Enjoy all that Life offers, the band is slowly joined by family members, children, everyone playing some instrument or another, everyone dancing. When they play "When It's Sleepytime Down South," Otter and I get all teary-eyed.
Randy Newman. "God bless the potholes down on Memory Lane." Funny as all hell, to my surprise. "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country." Watch a guy camping next to us, who had set up his site early just to see Randy Newman, fall asleep about 15 minutes before the show starts, skin burning in the alcoholic afternoon. Newman has the quote of the day, about New Orleans: "It's important that America has a place like this, that knows what's important." When he sings "Louisiana 1927," a song about the worst river flood in U.S. history, there isn't a dry eye as far as I can see.
"It's not what you look like when you're doin whatchya doin!" is shouted over a thousand sunburned bodies by Tower of Power. It's their first time playing Jazz Fest, surely through some gross oversight. You wanna talk about some heavy bass- and horn-powered Funk, this is where it's at. Bootys shakin everywhere. Emilio Castillo shouting, "Let's see how many laws we can break tonight!" gives me the happy energy boost I need.
Fais-Do-Do stage has all the best dancers from across Louisiana. Swear. You can tell the natives by the movements that actually complement, actually belong with the music of CJ Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band.
And...and I'm dragged over to see,
to see...
Dude.
Deacon John.
Seriously.
Old New Orleans style is Original Cool.
Slow Fluid Graceful.
A seizure carved outta butter.
No segue, from the Crescent City to the (rock-infused) blue Delta with its flesh-palpitating rhythm and shake.
Sexagenarian duckwalking across stage.
Breaks a string playing so hard.
Plays his guitar with his teeth.
Whole band in black suits, white shirts, dark ties.
Moved from Sweet Slow Slide "Amazing Grace" into half-fast "Shake Your Moneymaker."
Sky full of sunset, lovebugs, and bubbles.
No metaphor.
Best act of the day.
This evening, walking around Faubourg Marigny, our friend Jay exclaims, "If you're anti-porch, you're antisocial!"
I am inclined to agree.
DAY 2.
Second of May, Friday, promise of rain from drift-cloudy skies.
Photography of Jerry Moran, his Jazz Titanic series. Patina'd and rusted clarinets, case after case, ghosts of the River.
Brienne Joubert's surreal Cities of the Dead.
Ghosty New Orleans, pre and post, of Libby Nevinger's eyes.
Christopher Porche-West, his full-sized doors home and history assemblage, hold us rapt and overwhelmed with its layers of meaning and innuendo. Tiny essay on the importance of teaching history to our society's children: what it means, how it affects us, how it shapes us and teaches us and connects us to something greater than the sum of our lives.
The Driskill Mountain Boys coulda been Grandad and his buddies gathered together to accompany a Saturday dance. Pure bluegrass untainted by pop country or rock & roll. I cry like a baby, missin my grandad's fiddle.
Joseph 'Zigaboo' Modeliste, original Meters drummer, brings the funk, as well as an injunction to every musician to include at least a single track, on any album they record, that is positive, constructive, and encouraging to folks who're listening. He said it was an obligation of artists to do their part to lift up their audiences, their communities, to spur them to Love and to Action.
...And goddamn, this man shakes a stick like no one but the King of the Funky Drums can!
The pomp and ego and pure fuckin skill of Trombone Shorty is a wonder. Straight up New Orleans Funk all over Congo Square. He and his tenor sax and trumpet players leave the stage and snake through the crowd for several minutes, blowin and struttin and makin a joyful noise. As soon as they return to the safety of the canopy, the sky lets loose the first of its baggage, and we begin to drink the rain. It lasts just long enough to cool our backs from relentless sunshine and warm, just long enough to begin softening the interior of the racetrack and turning everything to mud.
The photographs of Frank Relle catch our eyes; they emit some measure of the light and spirit we feel around us in this city. Nightphotos of old New Orleans houses.
We head over for a bit of Stevie Wonder before heading back to Congo Square for Michael Franti. Stevie gives a shout-out for Obama, asks for a moment of silence for Katrina victims, dead or displaced, a moment of silence for all loved one lost (cue crowd tears). There appears a rainbow in the still-wet downpour-threatening sky.
Michael Franti + Spearhead. Ohhh, goodness, this is the most wonderful show. It pours, in vehement fits and sporadic spurts, down and down and down; Franti leaves the stage, cordless microphone in hand, to share the deluge with us, to sing among us, with us. He sings "I Got Love for You," and we feel it, we love them and each other and ourselves. The water comes harder, and we outdance it. We are soaked, grinnin, full of love and rowdy exuberance. We are ready to heal all wounds with our lightnin feet. This show is a blessing. A perfect end to Friday at Jazz Fest.
Later, on Magazine, we take a friend's recommendation for an awesome taco spot and are happy, happy, happy with what food finds our mouths. Everything, down to the plain ol' black beans, has intense, creamy, adventurously homey flavors. I'm not telling what or where the place is; they looked like they had plenty of business and, honestly, I don't want to have to fight another ogling tourista for a spot for dinner. Our lagniappe happens to be our server, Sunshine, who is a charmingly petite competitive eater; she proudly pronounces that she can put away a 17-ounce burrito in under a minute. We are impressed.
DAY 3.
Traversing the city today, checking out neighborhoods, performing our own odd surveying. I am glad for the break from Jazz Fest's sea of mammals.
Tonight we check out Rebirth Brass Band at the Rock 'N' Bowl, a second-storey bowling-alley-concert-dancehall that shakes to beat hell when it's full of people dancing like the devil's after 'em.
Oh, Rebirth, thy name is Joy!
Goddamn, we have the greatest time here, for any number of reasons:
talkin with two septugenarian ladies about Atlanta strip clubs and the joys of pot-smoking;
dancing until we shake the house, top to bottom;
eatin turkey and andouille gumbo in the middle of all that jostlin and dancin;
fascinated watchin the lady behind the merch counter embroidering bowling shirts to order;
looking over at the lanes and realizing everyone bowling is dressed as some sorta royalty, from Disney's aryan-nations Cinderella to ye creepy olde Burger King, and they are drunk and dancin and ludicrously beautiful;
watching six burly guys (including one of our own drunk, kind-hearted, built-like-an-appliance friends), sweatin and strainin, maneuver a 400-pound man in a wheelchair backward down a storey-and-a-half flight of steep stairs, depositing the gentleman into a wildly applauding crowd. No one knows how the wide giant got up the stairs to begin with, and he is not exaclty forthcoming about the matter.
End the night with joyfully circuitous conversation in an untopped convertible,
arms of grand oaks and
lights of New Orleans
stretching around
and above
us.
Perfect.
DAY 4.
Jazz Fest again;
the Final Day,
the most ridiculously crowded day.
The fairgrounds overfloweth with people, with mud, with mud that smells a lot like horse-and people-shit combined, with trash, and with unbelievably good spirits, considering how fuckin tired and hungover everyone is. I spend my own suffering dreaming of eating more Houma fry bread than my tummy has thus far been able to accommodate, and I also repeatedly dream of eviscerating my mother-in-law. When distracted from that, I get to dig on
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, bass-directed supercool funk, which helps shake off a lot of the previous night's party. We catch the beginning of Dumpstaphunk and the end of Galactic, those new grandaddies of N.O. funk, playing a high-energy set featuring some supagroovin tuba solos.
The only band I sit through, unattached, is The Raconteurs, though the sidereally related maternal hurricane is sitting next to me, which colors everything a little resentfully. Still, the band was pretty good altpoppowerrock, if you're into that sort of thing. They sorta sound like the Mars Volta if MV were, say, in junior high, recording in their parents' garage, praying for the experience and wisdom that will one day make them such an amazing band to watch and hear.
While waiting for the set to finish, we notice that dozens of birds are coordinating a grand mass of sticks and fluff atop several of the stadium lightposts. And the birds appear to be...parakeets. We later find out that New Orleans is home to wild Quaker parrots, indigenous to Argentina, now comfortably settled here, as well. Apparently, no one knows exactly how or why they're in New Orleans, but there are a hell of a lot of 'em. ...Huh.
The last day of Jazz Fest 2008 means:
We've gotta see the Neville Brothers.
Just gotta.
It's their first year closing Jazz Fest since 2005.
Apparently, there was some local ambivalence about the Brothers' belated performance:
"What took you so long?" and
"We're family; where you been while we need you like we do?"
seem to be the basic (painful) questions at the root of any popular hesitance.
Tell you what, though...
soon as that family opens their mouths?
soon as the first beats ride out on the humid evening air,
soon as the bass moves the mud,
soon as the keys color the clouds,
the entire crowd is one great embrace, one grand family, with its beauty and nasty and bicker and joy, these people are astoundingly happy to be together,
today,
right now,
doin what they doin.
And y'know, that kinda sums up the whole experience of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival: there's thousands of different people with different agendas and ideals, crammed into one blazingly hot, pretty grossly messy area for seven hours a day; there's a million-billion ways this thing could go wrong, wrong, wrong, but...
It doesn't.
I do not see a single argument while I am here.
I do not see any angry people.
I do not see a single person trying to meddle or control or interfere.
I do, however, see a lot of smilin, a lot of laughin
...a lot;
I see a lot of old-fashioned courteousness and instinctive lagniappe;
and I see a hell of a lot of people
happy to be together
today,
right now,
doin what they doin.
Welcome to New Orleans, baby.
Where you been?
Thanks to Internet Archive for the gorgeous live and 78rpm music that accompanied this transcription and translation. Ma Rainey, King Oliver, Michael Franti, Ethel Waters, and on and on and on. Thank you for making these available to the world.
I find every bit as much Oxymoron as I expect,
but
not always where I expect to find it.
I also
find Serendipity,
Felicity,
and Coincidence,
and I realize,
beyond any skin or bone or flesh at all,
that this city is waiting for me,
that it can go on limpidly waiting and
will not be bothered in the slightest
if I should take a thousand years
or even
forget to come at all.
Its ghosts will remain and are willing willing willing
to tell all manner of Stories in form of Secrets, in form of Tall Tales, in form of involuntary Nightmumblings.
There is a strange Beauty about this city, beyond its romantic architecture, beyond its great moss-weeping trees, beyond everything that draws Dreamers & Seekers & Scalawags to its plumply velveted, jasmine-scented lap. I begin looking for a name for this ambiguous Beauty at the Jazz and Heritage Festival, when New Orleans' heart is purported to be at its finest.
*******
DAY 1.
First thing in, Thursday morning, right as the gates open at 11 a.m., I'm devouring Ms. Wanda Walker's Cochon de Lait po'boy with wet slaw, served up on a crusty third of a baguette; pork so sweet and soft, I could eat it toofless. Oh, it's so perfect. It's just what babies should taste like. I also manage a bite or two out of Otter's softshell crawfish po'boy, shells softer than kettle-fried chips, with fried sour gherkins and cabbage; crawfish never tasted so wickedly delicious. After breakfast, we're set for a day of music and food and music
and food and
and let's get it goin already, y'all.
On the Jazz & Heritage Stage, Red Hawk Hunters Mardi Gras Indians, resplendent in thousands of ostrich feathers, hand-beaded headdresses and chestplates, left to right, orange yellow fuschia green.
Kelly Guidry's sculptures (Breaux Bridge, LA) of elongated female forms. Beautiful winged mermaids, giant bugs, and the loveliest giant fishing lures. Dreamy whimsy. Romantically menacing.
Pirogues hand made by Tom Colvin, whose Cajun-French accent is thick enough to make communication difficult to my uneducated ears. The boats are joined without aid of screws or metal parts. They are flawless. I shed my first Fest Tears at this astoundingly skillful demonstration of a Beautiful and Dying Art.
New Orleans Rhythm Conspiracy at Congo Square.
Squirrel Nut Zippers meets Gogol Bordello.
...That about sums it up.
Panorama Jazz Band at Gentilly. Sousaphone, Potosa accordion, clarinet, awesome (girl) tenor sax and trombone, drums, banjo. New Orleans/Island/Latin jazz outta the 1920s-40s. Danceable, mysterious, nostalgic, ultimately joyful.
A man with a tie-dyed prosthetic leg sits in front of us on the lawn, tapping his fingers against his personal rainbow.
Timbuktu Art Colony out of Ellenwood, GA. Silversmiths who make The Most Amazing Jewelry I have ever seen. Turquoise and amber and silver in sweeping, gracefully organic designs. Yum.
Strawberry cream sno-balls and strawberry lemonade.
Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers. Kermit singing "What A Wonderful World" makes me feel the magnolias in my hair. As the band plays and swings and jives and invites everyone listening to Up and Enjoy all that Life offers, the band is slowly joined by family members, children, everyone playing some instrument or another, everyone dancing. When they play "When It's Sleepytime Down South," Otter and I get all teary-eyed.
Randy Newman. "God bless the potholes down on Memory Lane." Funny as all hell, to my surprise. "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country." Watch a guy camping next to us, who had set up his site early just to see Randy Newman, fall asleep about 15 minutes before the show starts, skin burning in the alcoholic afternoon. Newman has the quote of the day, about New Orleans: "It's important that America has a place like this, that knows what's important." When he sings "Louisiana 1927," a song about the worst river flood in U.S. history, there isn't a dry eye as far as I can see.
"It's not what you look like when you're doin whatchya doin!" is shouted over a thousand sunburned bodies by Tower of Power. It's their first time playing Jazz Fest, surely through some gross oversight. You wanna talk about some heavy bass- and horn-powered Funk, this is where it's at. Bootys shakin everywhere. Emilio Castillo shouting, "Let's see how many laws we can break tonight!" gives me the happy energy boost I need.
Fais-Do-Do stage has all the best dancers from across Louisiana. Swear. You can tell the natives by the movements that actually complement, actually belong with the music of CJ Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band.
And...and I'm dragged over to see,
to see...
Dude.
Deacon John.
Seriously.
Old New Orleans style is Original Cool.
Slow Fluid Graceful.
A seizure carved outta butter.
No segue, from the Crescent City to the (rock-infused) blue Delta with its flesh-palpitating rhythm and shake.
Sexagenarian duckwalking across stage.
Breaks a string playing so hard.
Plays his guitar with his teeth.
Whole band in black suits, white shirts, dark ties.
Moved from Sweet Slow Slide "Amazing Grace" into half-fast "Shake Your Moneymaker."
Sky full of sunset, lovebugs, and bubbles.
No metaphor.
Best act of the day.
This evening, walking around Faubourg Marigny, our friend Jay exclaims, "If you're anti-porch, you're antisocial!"
I am inclined to agree.
DAY 2.
Second of May, Friday, promise of rain from drift-cloudy skies.
Photography of Jerry Moran, his Jazz Titanic series. Patina'd and rusted clarinets, case after case, ghosts of the River.
Brienne Joubert's surreal Cities of the Dead.
Ghosty New Orleans, pre and post, of Libby Nevinger's eyes.
Christopher Porche-West, his full-sized doors home and history assemblage, hold us rapt and overwhelmed with its layers of meaning and innuendo. Tiny essay on the importance of teaching history to our society's children: what it means, how it affects us, how it shapes us and teaches us and connects us to something greater than the sum of our lives.
The Driskill Mountain Boys coulda been Grandad and his buddies gathered together to accompany a Saturday dance. Pure bluegrass untainted by pop country or rock & roll. I cry like a baby, missin my grandad's fiddle.
Joseph 'Zigaboo' Modeliste, original Meters drummer, brings the funk, as well as an injunction to every musician to include at least a single track, on any album they record, that is positive, constructive, and encouraging to folks who're listening. He said it was an obligation of artists to do their part to lift up their audiences, their communities, to spur them to Love and to Action.
...And goddamn, this man shakes a stick like no one but the King of the Funky Drums can!
The pomp and ego and pure fuckin skill of Trombone Shorty is a wonder. Straight up New Orleans Funk all over Congo Square. He and his tenor sax and trumpet players leave the stage and snake through the crowd for several minutes, blowin and struttin and makin a joyful noise. As soon as they return to the safety of the canopy, the sky lets loose the first of its baggage, and we begin to drink the rain. It lasts just long enough to cool our backs from relentless sunshine and warm, just long enough to begin softening the interior of the racetrack and turning everything to mud.
The photographs of Frank Relle catch our eyes; they emit some measure of the light and spirit we feel around us in this city. Nightphotos of old New Orleans houses.
We head over for a bit of Stevie Wonder before heading back to Congo Square for Michael Franti. Stevie gives a shout-out for Obama, asks for a moment of silence for Katrina victims, dead or displaced, a moment of silence for all loved one lost (cue crowd tears). There appears a rainbow in the still-wet downpour-threatening sky.
Michael Franti + Spearhead. Ohhh, goodness, this is the most wonderful show. It pours, in vehement fits and sporadic spurts, down and down and down; Franti leaves the stage, cordless microphone in hand, to share the deluge with us, to sing among us, with us. He sings "I Got Love for You," and we feel it, we love them and each other and ourselves. The water comes harder, and we outdance it. We are soaked, grinnin, full of love and rowdy exuberance. We are ready to heal all wounds with our lightnin feet. This show is a blessing. A perfect end to Friday at Jazz Fest.
Later, on Magazine, we take a friend's recommendation for an awesome taco spot and are happy, happy, happy with what food finds our mouths. Everything, down to the plain ol' black beans, has intense, creamy, adventurously homey flavors. I'm not telling what or where the place is; they looked like they had plenty of business and, honestly, I don't want to have to fight another ogling tourista for a spot for dinner. Our lagniappe happens to be our server, Sunshine, who is a charmingly petite competitive eater; she proudly pronounces that she can put away a 17-ounce burrito in under a minute. We are impressed.
DAY 3.
Traversing the city today, checking out neighborhoods, performing our own odd surveying. I am glad for the break from Jazz Fest's sea of mammals.
Tonight we check out Rebirth Brass Band at the Rock 'N' Bowl, a second-storey bowling-alley-concert-dancehall that shakes to beat hell when it's full of people dancing like the devil's after 'em.
Oh, Rebirth, thy name is Joy!
Goddamn, we have the greatest time here, for any number of reasons:
talkin with two septugenarian ladies about Atlanta strip clubs and the joys of pot-smoking;
dancing until we shake the house, top to bottom;
eatin turkey and andouille gumbo in the middle of all that jostlin and dancin;
fascinated watchin the lady behind the merch counter embroidering bowling shirts to order;
looking over at the lanes and realizing everyone bowling is dressed as some sorta royalty, from Disney's aryan-nations Cinderella to ye creepy olde Burger King, and they are drunk and dancin and ludicrously beautiful;
watching six burly guys (including one of our own drunk, kind-hearted, built-like-an-appliance friends), sweatin and strainin, maneuver a 400-pound man in a wheelchair backward down a storey-and-a-half flight of steep stairs, depositing the gentleman into a wildly applauding crowd. No one knows how the wide giant got up the stairs to begin with, and he is not exaclty forthcoming about the matter.
End the night with joyfully circuitous conversation in an untopped convertible,
arms of grand oaks and
lights of New Orleans
stretching around
and above
us.
Perfect.
DAY 4.
Jazz Fest again;
the Final Day,
the most ridiculously crowded day.
The fairgrounds overfloweth with people, with mud, with mud that smells a lot like horse-and people-shit combined, with trash, and with unbelievably good spirits, considering how fuckin tired and hungover everyone is. I spend my own suffering dreaming of eating more Houma fry bread than my tummy has thus far been able to accommodate, and I also repeatedly dream of eviscerating my mother-in-law. When distracted from that, I get to dig on
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, bass-directed supercool funk, which helps shake off a lot of the previous night's party. We catch the beginning of Dumpstaphunk and the end of Galactic, those new grandaddies of N.O. funk, playing a high-energy set featuring some supagroovin tuba solos.
The only band I sit through, unattached, is The Raconteurs, though the sidereally related maternal hurricane is sitting next to me, which colors everything a little resentfully. Still, the band was pretty good altpoppowerrock, if you're into that sort of thing. They sorta sound like the Mars Volta if MV were, say, in junior high, recording in their parents' garage, praying for the experience and wisdom that will one day make them such an amazing band to watch and hear.
While waiting for the set to finish, we notice that dozens of birds are coordinating a grand mass of sticks and fluff atop several of the stadium lightposts. And the birds appear to be...parakeets. We later find out that New Orleans is home to wild Quaker parrots, indigenous to Argentina, now comfortably settled here, as well. Apparently, no one knows exactly how or why they're in New Orleans, but there are a hell of a lot of 'em. ...Huh.
The last day of Jazz Fest 2008 means:
We've gotta see the Neville Brothers.
Just gotta.
It's their first year closing Jazz Fest since 2005.
Apparently, there was some local ambivalence about the Brothers' belated performance:
"What took you so long?" and
"We're family; where you been while we need you like we do?"
seem to be the basic (painful) questions at the root of any popular hesitance.
Tell you what, though...
soon as that family opens their mouths?
soon as the first beats ride out on the humid evening air,
soon as the bass moves the mud,
soon as the keys color the clouds,
the entire crowd is one great embrace, one grand family, with its beauty and nasty and bicker and joy, these people are astoundingly happy to be together,
today,
right now,
doin what they doin.
And y'know, that kinda sums up the whole experience of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival: there's thousands of different people with different agendas and ideals, crammed into one blazingly hot, pretty grossly messy area for seven hours a day; there's a million-billion ways this thing could go wrong, wrong, wrong, but...
It doesn't.
I do not see a single argument while I am here.
I do not see any angry people.
I do not see a single person trying to meddle or control or interfere.
I do, however, see a lot of smilin, a lot of laughin
...a lot;
I see a lot of old-fashioned courteousness and instinctive lagniappe;
and I see a hell of a lot of people
happy to be together
today,
right now,
doin what they doin.
Welcome to New Orleans, baby.
Where you been?
Thanks to Internet Archive for the gorgeous live and 78rpm music that accompanied this transcription and translation. Ma Rainey, King Oliver, Michael Franti, Ethel Waters, and on and on and on. Thank you for making these available to the world.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Hungry.
There's a lovely little article in The Guardian today about the world's shrinking food supplies.
No, no...no.
...In actuality, it's about the world's violent crises surrounding growing food costs.
The above are
Two Very Different Things.
Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, is pleading for $500M from wealthy countries for the World Food Programme. In the World Bank's assessment, "Rocketing global food prices are causing acute problems of hunger and malnutrition in poor countries and have put back the fight against poverty by seven years." The International Monetary Fund is right in line with this, stating that, "more than 20 African countries will see their trade balance worsen by more than 1% of GDP through having to pay more for food." And while it seems like Africa and their (Western-)imposed poverty are a long way off, look at post-Katrina New Orleans, muthafucka, and tell me starvation can't happen here. Look at any major US city, look at any poor US hill country, look anywhere in this country outside the golf courses and resorts and tell me that It Can't Happen Here.*
In lieu of physical food, here's some food for thought: if the IMF and World Bank are the agencies acting as canaries in our global coal-mine, something is seriously fucked up. How morally bereft are we Western peoples if we've gotta have two of the most notoriously money-grubbing organizations in the world tell us to quit being so goddamned greedy? I mean, really.
On a very relevant side note, why the hell aren't more people growing gardens? From personal experience, I know how easy it is to grow enough food for yourself, your family, and a few of your neighbors in just a smidgen of space. I mean, tending anything to fruition is a bit of a commitment, but...what a worthy commitment it is! Get seeds from Sand Hill Preservation, from Heirloom Seeds, or from the Seed Savers' Exchange, all companies committed to real food, unadultered by genetic modification or insecticides. Sand Hill Preservation also sells all manner of fowl for eggs and meat, including many breeds of geese, chickens, ducks, and etcetera that have gone out of fashion or are in risk of becoming endangered. Many cities now allow, if not outright encourage, keeping a couple of chickens (yardbirds, according to Grandad) around the house, both for their obvious culinary benefits and for the less obvious benefits of natural pest control and soil enrichment.
While I am overwhelmed by current global food trends and my inability to just fix everything, my inability to make sure no one goes to bed hungry, I/we can at least take care of ourselves and our neighbors. We can at least make a start, a dent, an honorable effort at reversing our downward spiral into starvation.
It looks like we gonna be poor and poorer for a long while yet, but poverty need not be a death sentence.
We are all we have.
Take care of each other.
Grow your food and feed as much Family as you can.
*"It Can't Happen Here," written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935, is available in full text through this link to Project Gutenberg. Read it, damn it.
No, no...no.
...In actuality, it's about the world's violent crises surrounding growing food costs.
The above are
Two Very Different Things.
Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, is pleading for $500M from wealthy countries for the World Food Programme. In the World Bank's assessment, "Rocketing global food prices are causing acute problems of hunger and malnutrition in poor countries and have put back the fight against poverty by seven years." The International Monetary Fund is right in line with this, stating that, "more than 20 African countries will see their trade balance worsen by more than 1% of GDP through having to pay more for food." And while it seems like Africa and their (Western-)imposed poverty are a long way off, look at post-Katrina New Orleans, muthafucka, and tell me starvation can't happen here. Look at any major US city, look at any poor US hill country, look anywhere in this country outside the golf courses and resorts and tell me that It Can't Happen Here.*
In lieu of physical food, here's some food for thought: if the IMF and World Bank are the agencies acting as canaries in our global coal-mine, something is seriously fucked up. How morally bereft are we Western peoples if we've gotta have two of the most notoriously money-grubbing organizations in the world tell us to quit being so goddamned greedy? I mean, really.
On a very relevant side note, why the hell aren't more people growing gardens? From personal experience, I know how easy it is to grow enough food for yourself, your family, and a few of your neighbors in just a smidgen of space. I mean, tending anything to fruition is a bit of a commitment, but...what a worthy commitment it is! Get seeds from Sand Hill Preservation, from Heirloom Seeds, or from the Seed Savers' Exchange, all companies committed to real food, unadultered by genetic modification or insecticides. Sand Hill Preservation also sells all manner of fowl for eggs and meat, including many breeds of geese, chickens, ducks, and etcetera that have gone out of fashion or are in risk of becoming endangered. Many cities now allow, if not outright encourage, keeping a couple of chickens (yardbirds, according to Grandad) around the house, both for their obvious culinary benefits and for the less obvious benefits of natural pest control and soil enrichment.
While I am overwhelmed by current global food trends and my inability to just fix everything, my inability to make sure no one goes to bed hungry, I/we can at least take care of ourselves and our neighbors. We can at least make a start, a dent, an honorable effort at reversing our downward spiral into starvation.
It looks like we gonna be poor and poorer for a long while yet, but poverty need not be a death sentence.
We are all we have.
Take care of each other.
Grow your food and feed as much Family as you can.
*"It Can't Happen Here," written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935, is available in full text through this link to Project Gutenberg. Read it, damn it.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Getchyo Ass Back in th' Kitchen!
JesusTits.
I've been so strung up with holidays and houseguests and wedding and catering gigs and a reg'lar job (or two)...when's a word slut s'posed to get a thought in around here?
In fact, I've got to run back out the door to scour the island for stuff like orange flower water and annatto paste and am so goddamned scattered my skin feels like it's stuffed with bees.
Tonight and tomorrow, we'll be preparing dinner for about 30 people, people who regularly cook and serve food we love to eat. They have a tapas-style restaurant and have asked us to act as guest chefs at their holiday party, to cook down-home Louisiana+ food for 'em; stuff they don't normally prepare or get to eat. Food that can't be found within a 300 mile radius of Key West, outside of our house. In spite of Otter's ironic warning that "nobody likes a showoff," I feel behooved to reprint our working menu here:
______________________
Bread on the Table:
* Homemade Sweet Potato-Roasted Garlic Rolls with Plugra butter (Mmmm...Pluuugraaa)
Salads:
* Pine Nut and Cumin-encrusted Goat Cheese, Baby Greens, and Poblano-Almond-Lime Vinaigrette
* Triple-Spicy Chilled Shrimp (poblano, jalapeno, chipotle), Avocado, and Hothouse Tomatoes
* Smoked Hearts of Palm, Romaine, Rum-glazed Pecans, and Roasted Shallot-Plantain Vinaigrette
Sides:
* Butter-crusted Crawfish Cheesecake with Crawfish Tail Saute
* Chayote/Mirliton stuffed with rustic Celeriac Mash
* French-fried Asparagus
* Bourbon Vanilla Pralined Sweet Potatoes
Entrees:
* Pig, Alligator, and Rabbit Jambalaya (Otter's four-generations-old recipe & method)
* Ghengis Khan Duck (packed and encrusted in rhubarb and roasted vividly tender)
* Pepper-crusted, Sugarcane-skewered Scallops with Sparkling Rose Butter
Dessert:
* Pecan Pie Baklava
* Cafe Brulot Diabolique (with Grand Marnier standing in for the traditional brandy)
_____________________
We'll just roll 'em out the door afterward.
Satiate 'em with food and then set their dining room afire with their after-dinner coffee.
I can't wait to see how we're able to feed people when we live close to real butchers and farmers again, instead of living at the mercy of, godhelpme, Sysco.
Bon appetit.
I've been so strung up with holidays and houseguests and wedding and catering gigs and a reg'lar job (or two)...when's a word slut s'posed to get a thought in around here?
In fact, I've got to run back out the door to scour the island for stuff like orange flower water and annatto paste and am so goddamned scattered my skin feels like it's stuffed with bees.
Tonight and tomorrow, we'll be preparing dinner for about 30 people, people who regularly cook and serve food we love to eat. They have a tapas-style restaurant and have asked us to act as guest chefs at their holiday party, to cook down-home Louisiana+ food for 'em; stuff they don't normally prepare or get to eat. Food that can't be found within a 300 mile radius of Key West, outside of our house. In spite of Otter's ironic warning that "nobody likes a showoff," I feel behooved to reprint our working menu here:
______________________
Bread on the Table:
* Homemade Sweet Potato-Roasted Garlic Rolls with Plugra butter (Mmmm...Pluuugraaa)
Salads:
* Pine Nut and Cumin-encrusted Goat Cheese, Baby Greens, and Poblano-Almond-Lime Vinaigrette
* Triple-Spicy Chilled Shrimp (poblano, jalapeno, chipotle), Avocado, and Hothouse Tomatoes
* Smoked Hearts of Palm, Romaine, Rum-glazed Pecans, and Roasted Shallot-Plantain Vinaigrette
Sides:
* Butter-crusted Crawfish Cheesecake with Crawfish Tail Saute
* Chayote/Mirliton stuffed with rustic Celeriac Mash
* French-fried Asparagus
* Bourbon Vanilla Pralined Sweet Potatoes
Entrees:
* Pig, Alligator, and Rabbit Jambalaya (Otter's four-generations-old recipe & method)
* Ghengis Khan Duck (packed and encrusted in rhubarb and roasted vividly tender)
* Pepper-crusted, Sugarcane-skewered Scallops with Sparkling Rose Butter
Dessert:
* Pecan Pie Baklava
* Cafe Brulot Diabolique (with Grand Marnier standing in for the traditional brandy)
_____________________
We'll just roll 'em out the door afterward.
Satiate 'em with food and then set their dining room afire with their after-dinner coffee.
I can't wait to see how we're able to feed people when we live close to real butchers and farmers again, instead of living at the mercy of, godhelpme, Sysco.
Bon appetit.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Betrayed by the FBI; Saved by the Vegetables
...FBI, in this case, stands for Food-Borne Illness,
the bitch that's been riding my back for the past 24 hours or so.
I thought it was the tequila, but I didn't have much at all; like, four shots over the course of several hours. Realistically, that ain't shit. Even on an empty belly.
What the tequila did contribute to the evening's debacle was my tipsy mortal weakness in the face of a meat-laden, rubber-crusted pizza from Papa John's. Oh, lordy. Within three or four hours of ingesting a couple pieces of that stuff-that-claims-to-be-food, it was rocketing forth from my mouth at a velocity that'd make the Cape Canaveral kids blanch with envy.
Terrifying.
How can they say that stuff is food? I mean, it's (barely) edible, sure, but it has the ability to turn the palate into an absolute wasteland, the gut into a chemical testing ground, and the body into one's own worst enemy.
It's fuckin poison, man.
Goatheaded gastronome that I am, I determined to make myself some real food, whether or not my body agreed, and somehow force myself to keep it down.
First off, by way of scene setting, my sweetheart and partner, the guy with whom I share a kitchen, is a really fuckin awesome Cajun cook. Like, not a pretender to the cuisine, but a real live Cajun by birth and blood, a gentleman who was makin' roux on his daddy's stove at age 5. That said, there's not much besides meat in our fridge. And, ohlordgawd, there was no way in hell I could keep anything resembling meat inside my body after 18 hours of vomiting.
Not even his beautiful duck.
I was getting suckerpunched with nausea every 5 or 10 minutes so didn't feel like risking the bike ride down to Waterfront Market for some fresh veg. Everything had to come out of what we had.
And did I ever need vegetables. And broth. Vegetables and broth. Yes.
We always, always have onions, garlic, carrots, and jalapenos, those comestibles whose fortitude is fortunately stronger than their timid aging. Sauteed those with a little dried thyme (out of fresh), some cayenne and allspice, a bay leaf and a few cracked peppercorns. Added a quart of water and cooked it all down to Flavorful. In a separate little sauce pot, I had dried black-eyed peas, water, and a couple cloves of garden-grown garlic, cooking to creamy softness.
Otter came home in the middle of all this, after a long-assed day in the kitchen. Poor darlin was so tired and, after watching me chop, stir, stir, hold on to the counter and try not to puke, stir, stir, wobble with nausea, etc., he began determinedly trying to skooch me away from the stove so he could finish making my meal.
Sometimes, even if it looks like I couldn't possibly be having any fun whatsoever, sometimes gripping the counter top and supporting my weight with a wooden spoon in an effort to take charge of my own sustenance is exactly what I need for my well-being.
I shooed Otter back with both a threat to disgorge on him and a promise to ask him for help if I really needed it. I added a couple of hurricane-emergency cans of Ro-Tel to the vegetable broth, smashed the pea-simmered garlic cloves with a spoon and tossed the whole mess into the soup pot, and then rough-chopped some on-its-way-out spinach and tossed that in, too. Yeah, I think that was about it. Oh, and good sea salt. Of course. I would've loved some fresh corn and okra, but y'know...for being on the cusp of projectile vomiting the entire time, I did pretty well.
And actually, the soup got Otter's approval.
Otter, who is suspicious of any dish without meat.
Otter, who thinks vegetarianism is some sort of mental disorder.
Otter, who cannot talk about "vegan food" without snorting.
He not only ate the soup (with a few extra jalapenos), but wolfed it down and was surprised it had so much flavor.
Vegetarian and vegan food is not as awful as most people make it.
In fact, veggies are the only thing my tortured digestive system didn't hurl back against the wall. This simple little soup took a few minutes longer (including swoon time) than ordering and devouring I'll Eat It If I'm Drunk pizza, but it actually contributed to my well-being rather than detracted from it. And I'll be goddamned if it wasn't tasty enough to warrant kudos from a carnivore. Hell, yeah.
the bitch that's been riding my back for the past 24 hours or so.
I thought it was the tequila, but I didn't have much at all; like, four shots over the course of several hours. Realistically, that ain't shit. Even on an empty belly.
What the tequila did contribute to the evening's debacle was my tipsy mortal weakness in the face of a meat-laden, rubber-crusted pizza from Papa John's. Oh, lordy. Within three or four hours of ingesting a couple pieces of that stuff-that-claims-to-be-food, it was rocketing forth from my mouth at a velocity that'd make the Cape Canaveral kids blanch with envy.
Terrifying.
How can they say that stuff is food? I mean, it's (barely) edible, sure, but it has the ability to turn the palate into an absolute wasteland, the gut into a chemical testing ground, and the body into one's own worst enemy.
It's fuckin poison, man.
Goatheaded gastronome that I am, I determined to make myself some real food, whether or not my body agreed, and somehow force myself to keep it down.
First off, by way of scene setting, my sweetheart and partner, the guy with whom I share a kitchen, is a really fuckin awesome Cajun cook. Like, not a pretender to the cuisine, but a real live Cajun by birth and blood, a gentleman who was makin' roux on his daddy's stove at age 5. That said, there's not much besides meat in our fridge. And, ohlordgawd, there was no way in hell I could keep anything resembling meat inside my body after 18 hours of vomiting.
Not even his beautiful duck.
I was getting suckerpunched with nausea every 5 or 10 minutes so didn't feel like risking the bike ride down to Waterfront Market for some fresh veg. Everything had to come out of what we had.
And did I ever need vegetables. And broth. Vegetables and broth. Yes.
We always, always have onions, garlic, carrots, and jalapenos, those comestibles whose fortitude is fortunately stronger than their timid aging. Sauteed those with a little dried thyme (out of fresh), some cayenne and allspice, a bay leaf and a few cracked peppercorns. Added a quart of water and cooked it all down to Flavorful. In a separate little sauce pot, I had dried black-eyed peas, water, and a couple cloves of garden-grown garlic, cooking to creamy softness.
Otter came home in the middle of all this, after a long-assed day in the kitchen. Poor darlin was so tired and, after watching me chop, stir, stir, hold on to the counter and try not to puke, stir, stir, wobble with nausea, etc., he began determinedly trying to skooch me away from the stove so he could finish making my meal.
Sometimes, even if it looks like I couldn't possibly be having any fun whatsoever, sometimes gripping the counter top and supporting my weight with a wooden spoon in an effort to take charge of my own sustenance is exactly what I need for my well-being.
I shooed Otter back with both a threat to disgorge on him and a promise to ask him for help if I really needed it. I added a couple of hurricane-emergency cans of Ro-Tel to the vegetable broth, smashed the pea-simmered garlic cloves with a spoon and tossed the whole mess into the soup pot, and then rough-chopped some on-its-way-out spinach and tossed that in, too. Yeah, I think that was about it. Oh, and good sea salt. Of course. I would've loved some fresh corn and okra, but y'know...for being on the cusp of projectile vomiting the entire time, I did pretty well.
And actually, the soup got Otter's approval.
Otter, who is suspicious of any dish without meat.
Otter, who thinks vegetarianism is some sort of mental disorder.
Otter, who cannot talk about "vegan food" without snorting.
He not only ate the soup (with a few extra jalapenos), but wolfed it down and was surprised it had so much flavor.
Vegetarian and vegan food is not as awful as most people make it.
In fact, veggies are the only thing my tortured digestive system didn't hurl back against the wall. This simple little soup took a few minutes longer (including swoon time) than ordering and devouring I'll Eat It If I'm Drunk pizza, but it actually contributed to my well-being rather than detracted from it. And I'll be goddamned if it wasn't tasty enough to warrant kudos from a carnivore. Hell, yeah.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Aching for New Orleans
Oh, I am aching to move.
For a girl whose sense of self-worth rests largely on her ability to help people in some meaningful sense, my life in Key West is becoming more than a little depressing. Sure, I'm feeding people (always always always), but it's largely the wealthy, or at least the Wealthy Enough, those people who can afford to vacation here and drop several hundred dollars on dinner. When I'm painting for a living, it's painting the vacation homes of these same people, or painting businesses that cater to these folks. The catering business that Otter and I are starting up will, of course, cater to people with disposable income enough to pay several hundred or thousand for an inclusive meal in their own weekly- or monthly-rented domiciles. I mean, it's great that we can fill needs and niches, but...
...I know there are people out there who are hungrier, who are in more desperate circumstances, who need us far more than these priveleged sojourners want us. I also want to do more than just feed the hungry, y'know? I want to participate in the mycoremediation of New Orleans' soil, so damaged and diseased after being submerged in sewage for several weeks. I want to start guerrilla gardens all over town, not just for their beauty and edibility, but for their ability to brings bright spots of hope into places decimated by man and nature, abandoned by those elected to help them. I want to take Alice Waters' super-awesome Edible Schoolyard and try to duplicate it in other sections of New Orleans, bringing kids in close contact with the life cycle and their intrinsic part within it.
...For all my talk of wanting to do more than just feeding people, it's funny how all the stuff I wanna do just leads back to feeding people or helping them feed themselves.
Food is a beautiful thing.
Growing and sharing it is even lovelier.
For a girl whose sense of self-worth rests largely on her ability to help people in some meaningful sense, my life in Key West is becoming more than a little depressing. Sure, I'm feeding people (always always always), but it's largely the wealthy, or at least the Wealthy Enough, those people who can afford to vacation here and drop several hundred dollars on dinner. When I'm painting for a living, it's painting the vacation homes of these same people, or painting businesses that cater to these folks. The catering business that Otter and I are starting up will, of course, cater to people with disposable income enough to pay several hundred or thousand for an inclusive meal in their own weekly- or monthly-rented domiciles. I mean, it's great that we can fill needs and niches, but...
...I know there are people out there who are hungrier, who are in more desperate circumstances, who need us far more than these priveleged sojourners want us. I also want to do more than just feed the hungry, y'know? I want to participate in the mycoremediation of New Orleans' soil, so damaged and diseased after being submerged in sewage for several weeks. I want to start guerrilla gardens all over town, not just for their beauty and edibility, but for their ability to brings bright spots of hope into places decimated by man and nature, abandoned by those elected to help them. I want to take Alice Waters' super-awesome Edible Schoolyard and try to duplicate it in other sections of New Orleans, bringing kids in close contact with the life cycle and their intrinsic part within it.
...For all my talk of wanting to do more than just feeding people, it's funny how all the stuff I wanna do just leads back to feeding people or helping them feed themselves.
Food is a beautiful thing.
Growing and sharing it is even lovelier.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Fantasy Fest Bar Notes ...or... Our Fest-Obsession and Puritanism Are Obliterating Small Town USA
At the Parrot.
Saturday night of Fantasy Fest week.
Brought food (delicata squash stuffed with andouille spicy rice, topped with a little bruschetta, toasty pecans, and parmesan; sweet pickled beets and peppercorns on the side) to a beautiful friend who's working a double, right in the thick of the crowds and parade.
Sat here at the back bar with the same friend and watched parts of the bodyart contest, which basically consisted of a buncha old white dudes taking photos of women's tits.
My beautiful friend told me how she has watched Fantasy Fest evolve, over the past 8 years or so, from an artsy, costume-float-frivolity-focused occasion into an event populated by middle-aged swingers lookin to see some tits and maybe, maybe get lucky with someone besides their own wives. While empathizing about the pathetic debauchery that is rapidly coming to signify the Key West Experience, it occurred to me that this same progression seems to happen to every place or event that is able to bill itself as some sort of bastion of freedom. ...Freedom, I say. Not that All-American crap that tries to fit in Freedom's underpants.
Maybe too many people found out about Fantasy Fest.
Too many people whose lives are otherwise totally constrictive.
Too many people craving an anonymous outlet for their Not So Deviant deviant behavior.
Too many people desperate to shake loose the Manacles of Propriety that they themselves helped fashion.
...................
It's pretty disheartening and more than a little disturbing.
...Y'know, the more I think about it.
....................
So, which is the next poor town or festival to fall prey to Ustians' flight from their own Puritanism? How will these (Our) towns and festivals pay for the privelege of being centers of openmindedness?
Will we pay with legal sanctions on/against our festivities?
Will we pay with our vibrant, living communities' eventual conformity to our country's mediocre standards?
Will we trade our neighborhoods and small businesses for the Big Box's cunning conveniences and contaminated comforts?
Will we pay, in effect, with the same qualities that made our towns and celebrations such wonderful destinations in the first place?
Saturday night of Fantasy Fest week.
Brought food (delicata squash stuffed with andouille spicy rice, topped with a little bruschetta, toasty pecans, and parmesan; sweet pickled beets and peppercorns on the side) to a beautiful friend who's working a double, right in the thick of the crowds and parade.
Sat here at the back bar with the same friend and watched parts of the bodyart contest, which basically consisted of a buncha old white dudes taking photos of women's tits.
My beautiful friend told me how she has watched Fantasy Fest evolve, over the past 8 years or so, from an artsy, costume-float-frivolity-focused occasion into an event populated by middle-aged swingers lookin to see some tits and maybe, maybe get lucky with someone besides their own wives. While empathizing about the pathetic debauchery that is rapidly coming to signify the Key West Experience, it occurred to me that this same progression seems to happen to every place or event that is able to bill itself as some sort of bastion of freedom. ...Freedom, I say. Not that All-American crap that tries to fit in Freedom's underpants.
Maybe too many people found out about Fantasy Fest.
Too many people whose lives are otherwise totally constrictive.
Too many people craving an anonymous outlet for their Not So Deviant deviant behavior.
Too many people desperate to shake loose the Manacles of Propriety that they themselves helped fashion.
...................
It's pretty disheartening and more than a little disturbing.
...Y'know, the more I think about it.
....................
So, which is the next poor town or festival to fall prey to Ustians' flight from their own Puritanism? How will these (Our) towns and festivals pay for the privelege of being centers of openmindedness?
Will we pay with legal sanctions on/against our festivities?
Will we pay with our vibrant, living communities' eventual conformity to our country's mediocre standards?
Will we trade our neighborhoods and small businesses for the Big Box's cunning conveniences and contaminated comforts?
Will we pay, in effect, with the same qualities that made our towns and celebrations such wonderful destinations in the first place?
Friday, September 21, 2007
Fuck You, Kitchen!
I may have made it out this time.
F'real.
I'm painting for income and loving, loving, loving it. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to it. I can come home with a clean conscience. I am not prepared to fight to the seeping marrow for my "painting ideals." I am free...
I am free to cook, to bake in the ways I believe are right and true. Free to feed people--all people, not just the few who can afford it--as I believe they should be fed: with love.
So, fuck you, commercial kitchen! I hope I don't cross your path for a good, long while.
F'real.
I'm painting for income and loving, loving, loving it. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to it. I can come home with a clean conscience. I am not prepared to fight to the seeping marrow for my "painting ideals." I am free...
I am free to cook, to bake in the ways I believe are right and true. Free to feed people--all people, not just the few who can afford it--as I believe they should be fed: with love.
So, fuck you, commercial kitchen! I hope I don't cross your path for a good, long while.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Guerrilla Food Wars
I read in "Restaurants & Institutions," a culinary trade magazine, that 52% of US consumers, aged 25-34, would "prefer to use convenience foods instead of cooking from scratch," "even when time is not a problem."
This disturbed the hell out of me: over half of UStians my age would rather not cook for themselves or their loved ones if offered a plastic-wrapped alternative.
How fucked up is that?
Do people remember how to cook?
How to sustain themselves without the help of corporations who lean toward profit rather than nutrition?
Do their tongues even know the difference between real and mass-produced food anymore?
To the last question, I present this observation:
To combat the oppressive heat and emotional simmering of the kitchen where I am employed, I started making ginger syrup for homemade ginger ale. Fresh ginger + sugar + water, cooked down to a thick, strong syrup, then mixed with soda water and a squeeze of fresh lime; it's absolutely refreshing. On my favorite prep cook's suggestion, I mixed the syrup with Seagram's ginger ale (loaded with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavor) instead of soda, and was told by most of my coworkers that these new drinks were even better than the original, unadulterated product. My tongue being what it is, I wholeheartedly disagree with them, but that's a little to the side of the point. The point is that most of the cooks in this fine-dining establishment, cooks whose palates are daily exposed to high-quality ingredients, to better quality methods of preparation (food mills vs. giant mixers, hand-chopped vs. food processor, etc.) still craved the chemically enhanced taste of factory-produced soft drinks. We're not talking people who don't know better. We're not talking about folks with no other frame of reference than fast food. We're talking about fucking professionals whose job it is to know true flavor when they find it.
And, y'know,
...they didn't.
Inga Muscio offers this illustrative example in "Autobiography of A Blue-Eyed Devil":
"An old woman in Mexico was given a tortilla-making machine. It was explained to her how it works, and how much easier her life would be if she used it, and how much more convenient it is than forming tortillas by hand. She wanted nothing to do with this machine, and the person who gave it to her tried to patiently explain that she was being ignorant.
"The old woman sighed deeply.
"She patiently explained that her life, love, thoughts and memories all go into each tortilla she makes. It is this that nourishes her family, and the tortilla is merely a vehicle through which this nourishment is absorbed into the bodies of those she loves and feeds. A tortilla machine made no sense to her because it would separate her from the act of making tortillas, which was the whole fucken point of making tortillas.
"So who, exactly, is the ignorant one in this story?
"...You are what you eat, and when our entire culture eats mass-produced, machine-made food that is rarely, if ever, touched by caring human hands, it is no wonder that there is little compassion and respect for our food, our world, and one another."
Yeah.
What she said.
Why is this trend as ubiquitous as it is?
Better yet, what the hell can we do to stand in the face of it?
To threaten it?
To turn it back?
This isn't just the US.
Not by any imaginative means.
Cradled within the NAFTA contracts is a (UStian) law that destroys and prohibits collective, indigenous farms (ejidos) in favor of US-style agribusiness. Whole communities are now unable, by law, to feed themselves, their families and communities, in the ways that best nourish them. Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista movement refers to this as "a death certificate for the Indian peoples of Mexico."
The new Iraqi constitution, also handed to them by the US, prohibits Iraqis from using seeds that they have saved from previous harvests, demanding instead that they purchase their seeds from companies like Monsanto, companies that have trademarked seeds bred by generations of Iraqi farmers. Stealing people's livelihood and selling it back to them for exorbitant profits, at the expense of entire, ancient, tried & true means of survival. This is not only colonization, 21st century style; it is part of the New Slavery.
Along with rape, I believe that fucking with people's foodways is about the most destructive, invasive, soul-killing method of imperialism practiced on this planet. It is absolute physical and psychic murder, drawn out over generations, that will result in wide-ranging cultural genocide. And the thing is, we UStians, the ones who are exporting this shit all over the world, were the real test subjects for this brand of indoctrination. We didn't always eat the crap we currently tell ourselves is food. We didn't always eat like this. At the ripe age of 32, I am one of the only people of my generation I have ever met who was raised on home-baked breads, home-grown vegetables and fruits, and self-slaughtered animals. I am one of the few people I know who has a pretty damned good idea where my food comes from. I know what real food tastes like, although my taste buds generally suffer in this regard, living as far from any real farms as I now do. Too damned many UStians have never had this culinary luxury.
Maybe we are no longer able to see how our food choices impact our lives and the lives of our progeny, the lives of the animals and plants with whom we share our great blue-green home. Perhaps we are unable to see how our dietary proclivities affect our minds and elusive spirits as well as our bodies. We don't receive proper nutrition from boxes, regardless what those boxes advertise on their exteriors (low fat! low cholesterol! high in nutrients and vitamins!). Our bodies do not absorb chemically manufactured vitamins as easily as when they are naturally occurring in our food. For example, we are obviously better able to use the Vitamin C found in fresh oranges than we are in orange-flavored chewable vitamin-pills; so why do we, as a nation, so often choose the latter over the former? Are we so goddamned lazy that peeling a fragrant, dribbling-down-our-elbows, pop-juicy orange is too much trouble for us to handle in the middle of our workday? Are we so hopelessly inured to our truly meaningless, wage-slavery jobs that we cannot take an extra couple of minutes to care for ourselves the way our employers never will?
Have we forgotten, collectively, how joyous eating can be?
Have we forgotten that joy is necessary to our evolution and survival?
This is an opportunity for guerrilla warfare on a domestic scale if ever I've seen one. With agribusiness not only flooding our grocery stores, but also whittling our food choices (both in product and production) down to a Lesser of Evils decision, growing our own food, or paying our neighbors for their willingness to grow real food for us, is tantamount to sedition. I believe it is a choice that will bring heavier penalties from the corporate-government as time goes on; a choice that may one day require us to pay with our lives and/or livelihoods, much as it now does in places like Mexico and Iraq. If we're not brave enough to stand up to our government and its corporate henchmen (or is it our corporations and their government henchmen?) over basic things like healthcare for all people, equal and adequate pay for equal work, or the ridiculous breach between monetarily rich and poor peoples, then maybe, maybe we can find it within ourselves to at least stand up for dinner. Quit making excuses, start scrubbing our brains and palates clean of the pap we've been fed by people who don't give a shit about us, and do a little something that
might
mean
everything.
Find the space. I've grown tomatoes and herbs in buckets in my bedroom when I didn't have gardening space. There are tiny strips of dirt in every urban area, just begging to be brought to life. Herbs and vegetables, especially all kinds of lettuces and greens, will grow in the tiniest of spaces, with the tiniest bit of care.
Make the time. How cool would it be to just push back a little dirt with your fingers and plant some seeds leftover and dried out from that awesome tomato you had on your sandwich last week? Or that cool-looking cucumber you saw in someone's trash? How hard is it to do this in a little weed-patch on your way to work or school, somewhere you pass every day? How good would it feel to actually care for something that will in turn care for you?
Find the space, find the time, find the heart still beating in your chest---
y'know, the one that still cares?
The one that isn't totally jaded and Over It?
It feels So.
Fucking.
GOOD!
to bring your own food to life!
It feels even better to be able to grow enough to share with a friend, whether that friend is human or animal. And fer chrissakes, preparing food for ourselves doesn't necessarily mean dragging out a bunch of pots and pans, dirtying plates and forks and counter tops; it can be as simple as plucking berries from a vine or fruit from a tree. I am faaar more satisfied with simple snacks of found-food than I am with anything taken out of ecocidal plastic and reheated in a cancer-causing microwave. Done and done. It is high time...hell, it's long past time that we extend an effective middle finger at the forces that try to stiflingly rule us. They're not gonna listen to us, no matter how loudly we shout or how pointed our protest-sign slogans. We've gotta do something meaningful. Take back what no one has ever had any right to take from us. We have got to relearn what food IS and how it is us, from seed to waste.
52% of a population is a scary statistic.
That's a lotta people done been brainwashed into thinkin they can't care for themselves,
or that caring for themselves is best left to someone else.
To this brainwashing, I say,
"Pffft!"
We're smarter than that, damn it!
Way smarter.
And we deserve better.
We all do.
The whole crazy mess of us.
Now, how best to disseminate that knowledge through a vast population of people too nervous to hear the truth of their own bodies....
This disturbed the hell out of me: over half of UStians my age would rather not cook for themselves or their loved ones if offered a plastic-wrapped alternative.
How fucked up is that?
Do people remember how to cook?
How to sustain themselves without the help of corporations who lean toward profit rather than nutrition?
Do their tongues even know the difference between real and mass-produced food anymore?
To the last question, I present this observation:
To combat the oppressive heat and emotional simmering of the kitchen where I am employed, I started making ginger syrup for homemade ginger ale. Fresh ginger + sugar + water, cooked down to a thick, strong syrup, then mixed with soda water and a squeeze of fresh lime; it's absolutely refreshing. On my favorite prep cook's suggestion, I mixed the syrup with Seagram's ginger ale (loaded with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavor) instead of soda, and was told by most of my coworkers that these new drinks were even better than the original, unadulterated product. My tongue being what it is, I wholeheartedly disagree with them, but that's a little to the side of the point. The point is that most of the cooks in this fine-dining establishment, cooks whose palates are daily exposed to high-quality ingredients, to better quality methods of preparation (food mills vs. giant mixers, hand-chopped vs. food processor, etc.) still craved the chemically enhanced taste of factory-produced soft drinks. We're not talking people who don't know better. We're not talking about folks with no other frame of reference than fast food. We're talking about fucking professionals whose job it is to know true flavor when they find it.
And, y'know,
...they didn't.
Inga Muscio offers this illustrative example in "Autobiography of A Blue-Eyed Devil":
"An old woman in Mexico was given a tortilla-making machine. It was explained to her how it works, and how much easier her life would be if she used it, and how much more convenient it is than forming tortillas by hand. She wanted nothing to do with this machine, and the person who gave it to her tried to patiently explain that she was being ignorant.
"The old woman sighed deeply.
"She patiently explained that her life, love, thoughts and memories all go into each tortilla she makes. It is this that nourishes her family, and the tortilla is merely a vehicle through which this nourishment is absorbed into the bodies of those she loves and feeds. A tortilla machine made no sense to her because it would separate her from the act of making tortillas, which was the whole fucken point of making tortillas.
"So who, exactly, is the ignorant one in this story?
"...You are what you eat, and when our entire culture eats mass-produced, machine-made food that is rarely, if ever, touched by caring human hands, it is no wonder that there is little compassion and respect for our food, our world, and one another."
Yeah.
What she said.
Why is this trend as ubiquitous as it is?
Better yet, what the hell can we do to stand in the face of it?
To threaten it?
To turn it back?
This isn't just the US.
Not by any imaginative means.
Cradled within the NAFTA contracts is a (UStian) law that destroys and prohibits collective, indigenous farms (ejidos) in favor of US-style agribusiness. Whole communities are now unable, by law, to feed themselves, their families and communities, in the ways that best nourish them. Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista movement refers to this as "a death certificate for the Indian peoples of Mexico."
The new Iraqi constitution, also handed to them by the US, prohibits Iraqis from using seeds that they have saved from previous harvests, demanding instead that they purchase their seeds from companies like Monsanto, companies that have trademarked seeds bred by generations of Iraqi farmers. Stealing people's livelihood and selling it back to them for exorbitant profits, at the expense of entire, ancient, tried & true means of survival. This is not only colonization, 21st century style; it is part of the New Slavery.
Along with rape, I believe that fucking with people's foodways is about the most destructive, invasive, soul-killing method of imperialism practiced on this planet. It is absolute physical and psychic murder, drawn out over generations, that will result in wide-ranging cultural genocide. And the thing is, we UStians, the ones who are exporting this shit all over the world, were the real test subjects for this brand of indoctrination. We didn't always eat the crap we currently tell ourselves is food. We didn't always eat like this. At the ripe age of 32, I am one of the only people of my generation I have ever met who was raised on home-baked breads, home-grown vegetables and fruits, and self-slaughtered animals. I am one of the few people I know who has a pretty damned good idea where my food comes from. I know what real food tastes like, although my taste buds generally suffer in this regard, living as far from any real farms as I now do. Too damned many UStians have never had this culinary luxury.
Maybe we are no longer able to see how our food choices impact our lives and the lives of our progeny, the lives of the animals and plants with whom we share our great blue-green home. Perhaps we are unable to see how our dietary proclivities affect our minds and elusive spirits as well as our bodies. We don't receive proper nutrition from boxes, regardless what those boxes advertise on their exteriors (low fat! low cholesterol! high in nutrients and vitamins!). Our bodies do not absorb chemically manufactured vitamins as easily as when they are naturally occurring in our food. For example, we are obviously better able to use the Vitamin C found in fresh oranges than we are in orange-flavored chewable vitamin-pills; so why do we, as a nation, so often choose the latter over the former? Are we so goddamned lazy that peeling a fragrant, dribbling-down-our-elbows, pop-juicy orange is too much trouble for us to handle in the middle of our workday? Are we so hopelessly inured to our truly meaningless, wage-slavery jobs that we cannot take an extra couple of minutes to care for ourselves the way our employers never will?
Have we forgotten, collectively, how joyous eating can be?
Have we forgotten that joy is necessary to our evolution and survival?
This is an opportunity for guerrilla warfare on a domestic scale if ever I've seen one. With agribusiness not only flooding our grocery stores, but also whittling our food choices (both in product and production) down to a Lesser of Evils decision, growing our own food, or paying our neighbors for their willingness to grow real food for us, is tantamount to sedition. I believe it is a choice that will bring heavier penalties from the corporate-government as time goes on; a choice that may one day require us to pay with our lives and/or livelihoods, much as it now does in places like Mexico and Iraq. If we're not brave enough to stand up to our government and its corporate henchmen (or is it our corporations and their government henchmen?) over basic things like healthcare for all people, equal and adequate pay for equal work, or the ridiculous breach between monetarily rich and poor peoples, then maybe, maybe we can find it within ourselves to at least stand up for dinner. Quit making excuses, start scrubbing our brains and palates clean of the pap we've been fed by people who don't give a shit about us, and do a little something that
might
mean
everything.
Find the space. I've grown tomatoes and herbs in buckets in my bedroom when I didn't have gardening space. There are tiny strips of dirt in every urban area, just begging to be brought to life. Herbs and vegetables, especially all kinds of lettuces and greens, will grow in the tiniest of spaces, with the tiniest bit of care.
Make the time. How cool would it be to just push back a little dirt with your fingers and plant some seeds leftover and dried out from that awesome tomato you had on your sandwich last week? Or that cool-looking cucumber you saw in someone's trash? How hard is it to do this in a little weed-patch on your way to work or school, somewhere you pass every day? How good would it feel to actually care for something that will in turn care for you?
Find the space, find the time, find the heart still beating in your chest---
y'know, the one that still cares?
The one that isn't totally jaded and Over It?
It feels So.
Fucking.
GOOD!
to bring your own food to life!
It feels even better to be able to grow enough to share with a friend, whether that friend is human or animal. And fer chrissakes, preparing food for ourselves doesn't necessarily mean dragging out a bunch of pots and pans, dirtying plates and forks and counter tops; it can be as simple as plucking berries from a vine or fruit from a tree. I am faaar more satisfied with simple snacks of found-food than I am with anything taken out of ecocidal plastic and reheated in a cancer-causing microwave. Done and done. It is high time...hell, it's long past time that we extend an effective middle finger at the forces that try to stiflingly rule us. They're not gonna listen to us, no matter how loudly we shout or how pointed our protest-sign slogans. We've gotta do something meaningful. Take back what no one has ever had any right to take from us. We have got to relearn what food IS and how it is us, from seed to waste.
52% of a population is a scary statistic.
That's a lotta people done been brainwashed into thinkin they can't care for themselves,
or that caring for themselves is best left to someone else.
To this brainwashing, I say,
"Pffft!"
We're smarter than that, damn it!
Way smarter.
And we deserve better.
We all do.
The whole crazy mess of us.
Now, how best to disseminate that knowledge through a vast population of people too nervous to hear the truth of their own bodies....
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The Bile Piles Higher
I either have time for the briefest of notes, or I have time to write a novella.
Welcome to my see-saw.
Yesterday the 'chef de cuisine,' someone who was once an ally (I thought), engaged in a completely unprovoked, very personal, verbal attack against me that very nearly turned physical.
Kudos to me for avoiding the assault train.
I was in the bakery, back to the room, beating egg whites with a frenzy, when I hear this chef say "Are you done fucking over my friends?!"
What?
Is she actually talking to me?
Jeezus, she is talking to me.
What the fuck is it this time?
I thought she was in a good mood today, and I could slip out largely unnoticed as soon as my work load was finished.
Wrong.
She has apparently set it in her mind that I am in league with the Devil and have been doing my all-fired best to screw over everyone she knows. Her initial question, followed by my repeated queries of "What are you talking about," followed by a string of accusations of a purely personal sort (I've gotta stress that through this whole confrontation, not a single word about my job performance was uttered), quickly escalated to her pointing at me and yelling, "Fuck you! Fuck you!"
At that point, I realized that this was never going to evolve past vituperation into an actual conversation, so I started packing up my things to go. For the record, I never leave my necessary jobs unfinished, so, y'know, I was pretty upset. I've worked straight through 14 hour days, with a vomiting migraine, without leaving my work undone. However. I had told the executive chef, last time this happened, that if it ever occurred again I was gonna walk. Fair's fair. So, I get almost all the way out to my bicycle before I realized I'd forgotten to clock out. I returned to the kitchen and clocked out, with her sending up high-school style taunts of "Oh yeah, that's a good idea, fuckin clock out, you stupid bitch."
Fed up, tired, and...well, just fed up and tired, I sighed, "man, fuck off" as I was walking out the door. I heard her behind me, heard her anger building in her voice, say, "What did you just say to me, you little bitch?" as she's stomping, trotting, running up the ramp behind me. As she exited the kitchen, 10 feet behind me, in full chef's whites, she yells in full view of incoming clientele, "Do you wanna fuckin GO?!"
"No, Martha. No, I don't (just keep walking, get on your bike and go, go find Niki or Otter or anyone who will let you be calm and help you think)."
"Fine, then! Get the hell outta here! And don't come back!"
sigh.
Now, the fucked up part was (yeah, more fucked up than all that), she waited until everyone had exited the kitchen to unleash her vitriol...everyone except the three illegal immigrants who work with me, the three people who could never in a million years stand up for me in any legal sense because to do so would be to endanger their families and their livelihoods. She did that the last time, too.
Diabolical.
Absolutely diabolical.
I talked to the head chef on the phone, after I had calmed down considerably, and briefly explained what had happened. He's such a sweetheart, and I truly love him as a fine and very funny, warmhearted human being; he is also even more averse to confrontation than I am. When he told me he'd "try to get to the bottom of this," I understood that she would likely run roughshod over him the same way she does over everyone else. It's a lose-lose situation.
So, now, right now, I'm looking at the clock, know she's done "working" and is outside drinking at the bar by now, and I am absolutely sick at the thought of having to return to that place. Absolutely sick.
I'm looking for alternate employment, but, let's face it folks, this is the off-season, the hurricane season, when most places are shuttering up for the first few weeks of September. Ain't nobody hiring right now. My weekly checks are a full $500 less than they were in the winter months, so it's not like I've got a big ol' pile of cash to support me. Otter has a lovely new job, but he, too, took a massive cut in pay when he went to a smaller, more "respectable" restaurant. I mean, we'll get through. It's not like we're in a war zone, not like we're in Mexico having to kowtow to NAFTA-endorsed slave labor. We can still feed ourselves and we still have a roof over our heads (and a rare-as-emeralds sweetheart of a landlord). We have a wide base of beautiful, wonderful, openhearted friends who have shown their willingness to help us in whatever ways they can.
...But, goddamn.
Goddamn.
I think I've shown myself to have some pretty good willpower, some no-small-power to put up with a lot of psychically damaging nonsense, but...
...but goddamn.
I'm holding monetary struggle in one hand and my sanity in the other. I know what's most important to me. But how many other people are gonna have to pay for my decision? Otter, of course. But also the executive chef, who will have to take on all my baking work until they can find another freakishly-rare baker/pastry chef (and why is that? why are bakers so goddamned rare when bread is, and has always been, the acknowledged Staff of Life?). How many people have to pay for my sanity?
I say, goddamn.
Welcome to my see-saw.
Yesterday the 'chef de cuisine,' someone who was once an ally (I thought), engaged in a completely unprovoked, very personal, verbal attack against me that very nearly turned physical.
Kudos to me for avoiding the assault train.
I was in the bakery, back to the room, beating egg whites with a frenzy, when I hear this chef say "Are you done fucking over my friends?!"
What?
Is she actually talking to me?
Jeezus, she is talking to me.
What the fuck is it this time?
I thought she was in a good mood today, and I could slip out largely unnoticed as soon as my work load was finished.
Wrong.
She has apparently set it in her mind that I am in league with the Devil and have been doing my all-fired best to screw over everyone she knows. Her initial question, followed by my repeated queries of "What are you talking about," followed by a string of accusations of a purely personal sort (I've gotta stress that through this whole confrontation, not a single word about my job performance was uttered), quickly escalated to her pointing at me and yelling, "Fuck you! Fuck you!"
At that point, I realized that this was never going to evolve past vituperation into an actual conversation, so I started packing up my things to go. For the record, I never leave my necessary jobs unfinished, so, y'know, I was pretty upset. I've worked straight through 14 hour days, with a vomiting migraine, without leaving my work undone. However. I had told the executive chef, last time this happened, that if it ever occurred again I was gonna walk. Fair's fair. So, I get almost all the way out to my bicycle before I realized I'd forgotten to clock out. I returned to the kitchen and clocked out, with her sending up high-school style taunts of "Oh yeah, that's a good idea, fuckin clock out, you stupid bitch."
Fed up, tired, and...well, just fed up and tired, I sighed, "man, fuck off" as I was walking out the door. I heard her behind me, heard her anger building in her voice, say, "What did you just say to me, you little bitch?" as she's stomping, trotting, running up the ramp behind me. As she exited the kitchen, 10 feet behind me, in full chef's whites, she yells in full view of incoming clientele, "Do you wanna fuckin GO?!"
"No, Martha. No, I don't (just keep walking, get on your bike and go, go find Niki or Otter or anyone who will let you be calm and help you think)."
"Fine, then! Get the hell outta here! And don't come back!"
sigh.
Now, the fucked up part was (yeah, more fucked up than all that), she waited until everyone had exited the kitchen to unleash her vitriol...everyone except the three illegal immigrants who work with me, the three people who could never in a million years stand up for me in any legal sense because to do so would be to endanger their families and their livelihoods. She did that the last time, too.
Diabolical.
Absolutely diabolical.
I talked to the head chef on the phone, after I had calmed down considerably, and briefly explained what had happened. He's such a sweetheart, and I truly love him as a fine and very funny, warmhearted human being; he is also even more averse to confrontation than I am. When he told me he'd "try to get to the bottom of this," I understood that she would likely run roughshod over him the same way she does over everyone else. It's a lose-lose situation.
So, now, right now, I'm looking at the clock, know she's done "working" and is outside drinking at the bar by now, and I am absolutely sick at the thought of having to return to that place. Absolutely sick.
I'm looking for alternate employment, but, let's face it folks, this is the off-season, the hurricane season, when most places are shuttering up for the first few weeks of September. Ain't nobody hiring right now. My weekly checks are a full $500 less than they were in the winter months, so it's not like I've got a big ol' pile of cash to support me. Otter has a lovely new job, but he, too, took a massive cut in pay when he went to a smaller, more "respectable" restaurant. I mean, we'll get through. It's not like we're in a war zone, not like we're in Mexico having to kowtow to NAFTA-endorsed slave labor. We can still feed ourselves and we still have a roof over our heads (and a rare-as-emeralds sweetheart of a landlord). We have a wide base of beautiful, wonderful, openhearted friends who have shown their willingness to help us in whatever ways they can.
...But, goddamn.
Goddamn.
I think I've shown myself to have some pretty good willpower, some no-small-power to put up with a lot of psychically damaging nonsense, but...
...but goddamn.
I'm holding monetary struggle in one hand and my sanity in the other. I know what's most important to me. But how many other people are gonna have to pay for my decision? Otter, of course. But also the executive chef, who will have to take on all my baking work until they can find another freakishly-rare baker/pastry chef (and why is that? why are bakers so goddamned rare when bread is, and has always been, the acknowledged Staff of Life?). How many people have to pay for my sanity?
I say, goddamn.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Whatchoo Eatin?
Proposed introduction to Otter's and my joint food history/education project:
This project is an endeavor to educate ourselves and each other about the stuff we all eat.
This isn't to suggest we all eat the same stuff.
Not by a long shot.
This is to suggest that, amidst the gamut of worldwide gustatory experience, we do crash into each other's mouths a lot more often than most of us think.
We are related by a whole string of culinary coincidences, a zillion different people peppered along a chain of sociopolitical, economic, religious, you-name-it events in which food has often been our only common bond.
What we aim to do is illustrate how we're formed and connected by a very basic, very necessary understanding:
We need to eat.
The Ways and Whys and Hows of our eating proclivities are the places where all the really interesting stuff comes in. Those are the places that teach us about each other and ourselves. There are old folks and young kids and everyone in between, scattered all over the globe, who are inventing new ways with food and/or sustaining ancient traditions, many of which are rapidly disappearing in our "free-traded" world. We love learning about, and challenging, sacrosanct truths concerning food and diet, and some of the best ways we've found to do that is by, flat-out, asking questions of absolutely everyone about absolutely everything food-related. We encourage you to do the same.
Hell, we demand it.
We love food. We absolutely, passionately adore flavor. We will eat damned near anything and are attracted by everything from home-grown vegetables and wild-gathered fungus, to alligator backstrap and duck-stuffed Javalina. When it comes right down to it...
We just love to eat,
We love to feed people,
And we love to learn about food:why we eat what we eat.
Salud.
This project is an endeavor to educate ourselves and each other about the stuff we all eat.
This isn't to suggest we all eat the same stuff.
Not by a long shot.
This is to suggest that, amidst the gamut of worldwide gustatory experience, we do crash into each other's mouths a lot more often than most of us think.
We are related by a whole string of culinary coincidences, a zillion different people peppered along a chain of sociopolitical, economic, religious, you-name-it events in which food has often been our only common bond.
What we aim to do is illustrate how we're formed and connected by a very basic, very necessary understanding:
We need to eat.
The Ways and Whys and Hows of our eating proclivities are the places where all the really interesting stuff comes in. Those are the places that teach us about each other and ourselves. There are old folks and young kids and everyone in between, scattered all over the globe, who are inventing new ways with food and/or sustaining ancient traditions, many of which are rapidly disappearing in our "free-traded" world. We love learning about, and challenging, sacrosanct truths concerning food and diet, and some of the best ways we've found to do that is by, flat-out, asking questions of absolutely everyone about absolutely everything food-related. We encourage you to do the same.
Hell, we demand it.
We love food. We absolutely, passionately adore flavor. We will eat damned near anything and are attracted by everything from home-grown vegetables and wild-gathered fungus, to alligator backstrap and duck-stuffed Javalina. When it comes right down to it...
We just love to eat,
We love to feed people,
And we love to learn about food:why we eat what we eat.
Salud.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Bitter Bakers
There's such a dark undercurrent that runs through every kitchen I've ever frequented (and is probably why I keep going back), but professional bakers...
Bakers are somethin' else.
If most kitchen denizens delight in being analogous representatives of bright, slickey slaughter, bakers stand in for the darker, stickier blood, the next-day's-leftover stuff that's still thick and viscous by the bed, even after buckets of hot water and heavy scrubbing, ever ever after.
I think it may have something to do with...aw, jeezus, with a buncha stuff.
Like working day after day with egregious, brashly joyous celebrants of carnage who obviously would never in a million years have the patience and meticulousness to gracefully, mercifully kill another living being.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
म्म्म्म. The Kitchen of Inebriation
Mmmm...
This is how we do it in the undulating kitchen:
Simmer Chayote (a.k.a. Merliton) with Jalapenos.
The Peppers' texture is mellowed by squash, the squash's subtlety set afire by the chilies.
Drain 'em, chop 'em up with Avocado, Cilantro, Chipotles. It's just enough smoky red to accentuate the layers of soft, creamy greens; the herb and pepper's vivid viridian to the squash and stone fruit's berylline subtlety. Sultry, creamy, sinfully sensuous textures playing footsie with cheek-reddening heat.
Fresh Corn still on the cob, whole Tomatillos, quartered Red Onions and navel Oranges, whole Jalapenos and cloves of Garlic, Coriander and Cumin seeds, a little Thyme: toss in olive oil and roast together.
Fresh, sweet Costa Rican Pineapple, cut 3/4" thick on the latitudes: smear it with Date Sugar, Molasses, Olive oil, Cayenne, roast it 'til it softens a little, 'til it browns a bit, 'til all those earthy flavors really lock tongues with the sunshine, 'til Soil brings Sun closer to the ground without compromising either's intensity.
After all that roasting, everything falls beneath Knife: cobs kerneled, vegetables and pineapple chopped, caramelly oranges squeezed over all. A handful of chopped fresh Cilantro. Good sea salt. Smoked Paprika.
Lasciviously rub cold muscle, Rib Eye, with Spice, --Spice!-- complex and hand-mixed; a great part of the mix's heat supplied by homegrown, home-dried, home-ground chili peppers from a friend in New Smyrna;
This Spice is so spicy, it sends me into convulsions of sneezes when Red, Red Meat hits hot Cast Iron.
Sear it. Bloody rare. Cut on diagonal, 1/4" thin or so.
Tortillas (masa o harina), warm and soft, homemade if I'm not too muddled to deal with all that kneading and rolling.
Perfectly ripe, raw Avocado.
Two really stoned and inebriated cooks, terribly in love and surprisingly self-satisfied.
Tuck in.
Let the grinning begin!
Let Fingers and Teeth commence their voracious degustation!
This is how we do it in the undulating kitchen:
Simmer Chayote (a.k.a. Merliton) with Jalapenos.
The Peppers' texture is mellowed by squash, the squash's subtlety set afire by the chilies.
Drain 'em, chop 'em up with Avocado, Cilantro, Chipotles. It's just enough smoky red to accentuate the layers of soft, creamy greens; the herb and pepper's vivid viridian to the squash and stone fruit's berylline subtlety. Sultry, creamy, sinfully sensuous textures playing footsie with cheek-reddening heat.
Fresh Corn still on the cob, whole Tomatillos, quartered Red Onions and navel Oranges, whole Jalapenos and cloves of Garlic, Coriander and Cumin seeds, a little Thyme: toss in olive oil and roast together.
Fresh, sweet Costa Rican Pineapple, cut 3/4" thick on the latitudes: smear it with Date Sugar, Molasses, Olive oil, Cayenne, roast it 'til it softens a little, 'til it browns a bit, 'til all those earthy flavors really lock tongues with the sunshine, 'til Soil brings Sun closer to the ground without compromising either's intensity.
After all that roasting, everything falls beneath Knife: cobs kerneled, vegetables and pineapple chopped, caramelly oranges squeezed over all. A handful of chopped fresh Cilantro. Good sea salt. Smoked Paprika.
Lasciviously rub cold muscle, Rib Eye, with Spice, --Spice!-- complex and hand-mixed; a great part of the mix's heat supplied by homegrown, home-dried, home-ground chili peppers from a friend in New Smyrna;
This Spice is so spicy, it sends me into convulsions of sneezes when Red, Red Meat hits hot Cast Iron.
Sear it. Bloody rare. Cut on diagonal, 1/4" thin or so.
Tortillas (masa o harina), warm and soft, homemade if I'm not too muddled to deal with all that kneading and rolling.
Perfectly ripe, raw Avocado.
Two really stoned and inebriated cooks, terribly in love and surprisingly self-satisfied.
Tuck in.
Let the grinning begin!
Let Fingers and Teeth commence their voracious degustation!
Monday, April 30, 2007
गेट Get Your Filthy Proboscis Away From Me!
NoSeeUms.
A.k.a. Biting Midges.
I had never heard of them, much less run into any until I moved to the subtropics. They, however, apparently know me well enough to recognize my inherent value as a meaty, freckly, nonstop, Vegas-style, gorge-'til-you-explode, insect buffet. I am covered with the results of their gnawing on my flesh. I look like I got in a fight with an icepick-wielding madman, like my body is the arena for the Insectival Olympics. This is ridiculous. Everyone who's seen my legs recoils, to one degree or another, in some shock, some disgust. The NoSeeUms win the gold for Prolificity; Mosquitoes take the silver in Amount of Damage Inflicted with a Single Bite.
The concensus is that I am allergic to whatever filthy, disgusting, virulent plague these barely-visible parasites carry within their miniscule bodies. Most people, when bitten, host small bumps that annoy for a few hours, maybe an entire day; I break out in winding hillocks of tumid pestilence, little lumps of un-ignorable itching that, within minutes, start wending and swelling their way toward my heart...my heart. No joke. It's fucking freaky.
Of course, most of the places I really, really, really want to travel are rife with hundreds of thousands of bazillions of these rotten beasties, as well as umpty-dozen other worms and insects and arachnids that wouldn't think twice (assuming they think at all) about burrowing beneath my skin, into my veins, and swimming upstream to where the blood is really fresh and delicious. I mean, I'm flattered that my flesh is considered to be so goddamned succulent to such a wide variety of creatures, but seriously...get your filthy fucking proboscis away from me!
...Gross!
A.k.a. Biting Midges.
I had never heard of them, much less run into any until I moved to the subtropics. They, however, apparently know me well enough to recognize my inherent value as a meaty, freckly, nonstop, Vegas-style, gorge-'til-you-explode, insect buffet. I am covered with the results of their gnawing on my flesh. I look like I got in a fight with an icepick-wielding madman, like my body is the arena for the Insectival Olympics. This is ridiculous. Everyone who's seen my legs recoils, to one degree or another, in some shock, some disgust. The NoSeeUms win the gold for Prolificity; Mosquitoes take the silver in Amount of Damage Inflicted with a Single Bite.
The concensus is that I am allergic to whatever filthy, disgusting, virulent plague these barely-visible parasites carry within their miniscule bodies. Most people, when bitten, host small bumps that annoy for a few hours, maybe an entire day; I break out in winding hillocks of tumid pestilence, little lumps of un-ignorable itching that, within minutes, start wending and swelling their way toward my heart...my heart. No joke. It's fucking freaky.
Of course, most of the places I really, really, really want to travel are rife with hundreds of thousands of bazillions of these rotten beasties, as well as umpty-dozen other worms and insects and arachnids that wouldn't think twice (assuming they think at all) about burrowing beneath my skin, into my veins, and swimming upstream to where the blood is really fresh and delicious. I mean, I'm flattered that my flesh is considered to be so goddamned succulent to such a wide variety of creatures, but seriously...get your filthy fucking proboscis away from me!
...Gross!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Cucurbits and Tubercles
(...or Squashes and Root Veggies, for those of you who don't garden, speak Latin, or make love to words like an OCD logophile)
I love eating food in season, not just for its superior quality, but also for its perfect fit with the turning year's mood swings. In the segue between autumn and winter, just around the first frost of the hermetic season, root vegetables (tubercles and the like) attain a sweetness and a depth unmatched at any other time of year. They are perfect for roasting, for steaming and blanching and sauteeing and frying, for mashing and smashing and bathing in butter. Burrowing roots and tubers are the winter kitchen's blank canvas.
The other great autumnal rock stars are the brilliantly armored winter cucurbits---the humble squashes. O Kabocha! O Calabaza! All you earthly-hued cousins of sweet meaty flesh! You cry out, insistent, for heated sacrifice. You are tragically resplendent hollowed and roasted, your shiny skins filled with your own dressed innards. I love you sweet and savory, creamy and rough, smeared on face and speared on tongue. If root vegetables are the canvas, winter squashes are the ochred foundation painting. These two are the basis for comfort & joy in hearthside hibernation.
Scattered and smashed and artfully married with these are the brightly colored palettes full of winter fruits, window-grown herbs, late-harvested grains and cold-tapped sugars; apples and quinces, sage and thyme and rosemary, hard wheats and rich, earthy molasses and maple syrup.
These are the foundations of our burgeoning cuisine. These are the meals of preparation and promise. The pumpkin colored carpet leading to the dirt-velvet burrow. These are the offerings of hunt and forage, of stiff-fingered plucking and digging. This is plunder hard-won from the cold & sleeping earth.
Dine well this winter, sweet gastronomes, and be grateful for each mouthful, for every morsel pushed backward on the tongue.
I love eating food in season, not just for its superior quality, but also for its perfect fit with the turning year's mood swings. In the segue between autumn and winter, just around the first frost of the hermetic season, root vegetables (tubercles and the like) attain a sweetness and a depth unmatched at any other time of year. They are perfect for roasting, for steaming and blanching and sauteeing and frying, for mashing and smashing and bathing in butter. Burrowing roots and tubers are the winter kitchen's blank canvas.
The other great autumnal rock stars are the brilliantly armored winter cucurbits---the humble squashes. O Kabocha! O Calabaza! All you earthly-hued cousins of sweet meaty flesh! You cry out, insistent, for heated sacrifice. You are tragically resplendent hollowed and roasted, your shiny skins filled with your own dressed innards. I love you sweet and savory, creamy and rough, smeared on face and speared on tongue. If root vegetables are the canvas, winter squashes are the ochred foundation painting. These two are the basis for comfort & joy in hearthside hibernation.
Scattered and smashed and artfully married with these are the brightly colored palettes full of winter fruits, window-grown herbs, late-harvested grains and cold-tapped sugars; apples and quinces, sage and thyme and rosemary, hard wheats and rich, earthy molasses and maple syrup.
These are the foundations of our burgeoning cuisine. These are the meals of preparation and promise. The pumpkin colored carpet leading to the dirt-velvet burrow. These are the offerings of hunt and forage, of stiff-fingered plucking and digging. This is plunder hard-won from the cold & sleeping earth.
Dine well this winter, sweet gastronomes, and be grateful for each mouthful, for every morsel pushed backward on the tongue.
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