waiting for godot and the pie

I am on hold. I am having a friend for dinner and waiting to hug, to say hi, to display the food, and to serve. And in service of my guest, a great amount of fun. Not late, just waiting. I love to cook for others, and slight myself when eating on the run, on my own, in the morning.

My mornings are spent at the last 5 minutes eating the oatmeal with vanilla on the bed as I sit, dressed for work, scanning the paper. I drink another cup of coffee, fill the commuter mug and head out the door.

I rarely sit down to actual dinner at home; last year I did daily, here or at my lover's home, we always had placemats, candles... My late mother in law always sat to dinner with same. I don't feel slighted, I just don't.

So it is a huge fun to come home early, cook, plan, set the table, set the candles and light them and play music to sing to while cooking. House cleaned up, at least the frontal part, the lobotomy is behind the closed doors.

Tonight I have made a tomato tart, tomatoes are in the last flush of summer, and I have been wanting to make this for some time. He loves cheese; is headed to Asia where cheese is non existant and so the tart. An ungodly amount of butter in the dough, and fat in the Emmentaller and Mozarella. Layered with overlapping coins of tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil and thyme, the tart now sits glistening with oil and oozing aroma into my kitchen. I have portabellos ready to saute, the wine chilled, the baby carrots fresh from the garden ready to nuke with cumin, and a light salad with rice wine vinagrette. No dessert.

so I sit. My usual companion when cooking, Leonard Cohen is on the music and I look out the window at the darkening night.

waiting.

waiting for things to happen, for things to be put on hold due to trips, but waiting and enjoying the anticipation. I wish I could have company every night, in fact, I would cook for my love like this every night. Would he show up?

nothing more to say

vampryic food

Garlic.

Bulbous, papyrus-skinned, globes of garlie lie in my copper container on my kitchen counter. Vampire non-food.

For years I used to track down vampire literature, reveling in the seductive and repellant themes, especially during Halloween time. I read Dracula the classic by Stoker in college when working in a bookstore. The point was, I worked the night shift. After seven p.m. few came to buy books and my little store was across, dear reader, the alleyway from the main store. At nine when we closed I would shuttle the money bag back to the main store. Sure, I began to read about Vlad Dracul but by the middle of the book you have got to be kidding...now way was I going to finish it and walk across that alleyway. I finished it in the light on weekends.

But still, I love the stories and have collected them over time up to The Historian which had it all: Turkey, the Romanian connection, travel, sex, threat, and the vampires. I like to think of Ottoman Turks terrorized under the shadow of the Hagia Sophia by the bad, evil, vampires. It fits that region.

so back to garlic.

When I use garlic I cannot help but think of its association with DRacul. And, in a strange kitschy way I have a Turkish charm in my kitchen: faux garlic wrapped with blue evil eye beads. I like to think instead of the stake and cross that the evil eye and garlic would repel the undead.

But tonight I am cooking the dead, dead chicken. And for that matter: dead arugula, radishes, corn, and grapes. If you think of it, unless cannabal-like in a vegetarian way we stand in the garden and eat food still planted in the ground, we eat food of the dead. Not for the dead, but of the dead. It lies in its little crypt in my fridge waiting to be eaten. The chicken, chicken no more, is on its way to immortality, for a while, if to transpose Hamlet, " thus a chicken can go through the guts of a beggar to feed a king." All the food is dead before I cook it. Through cooking we have a rebirth, no stake through the chicken to keep it down.

My Tim Burton dinner is approaching garish associations, better stop. But I kind of like the idea anyway, a goth dinner, maybe with candles and black lace.

Back to garlic. I do love garlic and have said I would rather do without chocolate than garlic, onions, tomatoes and coffee. My mirepoix would suffer without garlic. My temper would remain if I could not smash the hell out of a clove of garlic with my chef knife. My home would never smell of baking cakes or cookies, I am not a sweet and comfy cook. But it does smell of garlic, immolated in great olive oil, throw in the onions, and pour on the wine to deglaze. I would rather cook garlic anyway.

There is no better gift to give a chef than food things and very sharp knives. I have in my covetous possession great, large, firm, garlic from Gilroy, the Mecca of garlic. Not this spurious "who raised it" garlic import from China. Not my dessicated and tortured garlic from the old back yard, suffocated by bad soil. No, this garlic is lush, plump, and redolent. Good gifts taste better than those foraged or bought.

So tonight I am making the famed 40 cloves of garlic chicken. Forty, count 'em, fourty cloves, denuded of their skins will rest inside a chicken. And it is no longer a food for the dead. GArlic brings things to life, it ressurects, it will perfume the chicken like frankensense on a mummy and create a great sauce when deglazed with some white Burgandy. I'll use some toasted garlic on the corn, and slivered garlic with French baby radishes in the arugula salad. I won't put essence of garlic on my breasts or pulsepoints but I will know that the home smells great. Opening, inviting, no garlic around the neck to repel some intimacy, and the sheer joy of planning the meal.

vanilla daze

I love vanilla. It is calming, soothing, and better than a session on the couch to calm down. ( I mean as in Freud, not that kind of couch session, get over it.)

Lately I have been aware of the constant presence of vanilla in my home and cooking. I have vanilla scented candles and light them when I come home. During the summer I use lemon, or a green scent, but now that it is turning to fall, I turn to vanilla. The sweet, calming scent is perfect after a day where I must wear my public face as a teacher. I don't over do it, the scent is not everywhere in my home, just in that candle. Ever since I have moved into my home, I light large candles in the evening to provide a presence, light, and scent. They are my company in a way when dogs and humans are not here. My pantry is filled with former candle jars now serving as cannisters for dried pulses and rices.

I have vanilla lotion and it is a nightly ritual to slather it on before bed, and after showering in the morning. Whether it is my own touch on my skin or someone else's hands on me, I like to think that the scent of vanilla is a relaxing, slightly sensual and at the same time creates memories of childhood as I smooth it on.

There are several types of vanilla in my pantry: Madasgaster, Mexican, and one from Hawaii. I have beans, paste, and extracts. Actually, I didn't realize I had so much or use so much until I began to write. Vanilla goes in my smoothies in the morning, along with yogurt, bananas and some fruit. It flows into my steel cut oats, flavoring their al dente bite instead of sugar. I generally make the coffee, start the oats or the smoothie and then drink and eat as I finish my hair and make up before running out to the car. The smell of vanilla and the light tan it tints my breakfast is a constant. Trivia? Maybe, but this is my posting and I am into it. Vanilla starts and ends my day, whether on my skin or on my tongue.

I could write about nutmeg or cinnamon, other favorites, and in truth will someday. But tonight I want to celebrate vanilla. If we could, as we taste each other, taste like vanilla, it wouldn't be a bad thing. Comfortable without becoming cloying, reminiscent of desserts in the past without nostalgia, and evocative of nights ahead with smooth and perfumed skin, it is truly a gift of orchids. Better than any orchid corsage, I would rather have vanilla in my clevage, my breakfast, and my perfumes.

watched pots

As the cliche goes, a watched pot doesn't boil. And I would add, over-watered herbs perish, a fridge that is opened too much grows toxic, and a waited for phone never rings. I must keep learning this lesson over and over.

So what is the difference between proactive smash the hell out of a piece of garlic and toss it in the grill compared to lightly bruising the thing and hoping it releases its fragrance? Between Calling first, or initiating the dance verses waiting for the guy to be well, manly, or ask you to dance. Or to do whatever.

Much is made of taking time and letting flavors develop. We marinate, macerate, brine, pickle, make ahead, and slow cook. Daubes, stews, casseroles all depend upon a slow marrying of flavors, bringing the heat up, and letting them simmer in their covered juices. Not much different from how relationships work. In the old days.

Darwin-like we have speeded up many things, we cook with microwaves, at a cosmic speed of light, race through drive through Starbuck's, and pour the smoothie into the travel mug. Two dates, the kiss, the bed. Three dates and it is over. Well, not always, but hold on here! Just slow down, and let the flavors mellow.

But do we have time? Peak oil, peak experiences, past experiences, and the french knife is heading to our lifeline, the thread ready to be cut. AT this point in life, should we wait? Why do we? Can we blend somehow a quick prep and preheat in the microwave of existence so we can then mingle, blend, and season our relationships over what time is left? Can we be both fast food and an eight course dinner delivered over hours with bottles of champagne?

I have no idea. I am just playing, laying, with this idea. I want both. I want it now, the fast food, the quick saute, the immediate thaw, and satiation by the time the oven is cool and the CD is through with its set. And, I want the full on Sunday afternoon tete a tete, oven heating, a great coq au vin simmering, wine chilling, wine breathing, and whip cream ready to layer on the dessert. I want fast hands, slow embraces, quick step dance and langorous stretches.

I want a microwave life in a rustic chateau, dripping with antiquity, cellars, and old world slowness. Taking time to work over an old table preparing food for someone I love, I use my old crystal, hundred year old silver, and new spices.

So you, if you are reading this out there, be both so I can be both. The paradox of modern life is I am not alone in this wish, and pinpoints of light are out there as maybe, someone is reading this. But we are everywhere, Darwin was wrong folks, we want it slow, it is the century which has sped up. And how do we find eath other, writing in our chateaus, our back rooms, our internet illusion?

slow food, slow love, a lifetime in the what may be, fewer years ahead than behind me. Hell. They had best be full on years, I have wasted enough.

salsas

hot hotter hottest.

the declension of heat. I have been reading about salsas, including those made with chipotles, smoky and elusive, with avocados and corn, smooth and chalky in their formation, with green tomatillos, bitter, grassy with some heat of habineros. All are vibrant cousins, and an over the top flavors compared to the jars and tubs of salsa made some time yesterday.

I understand, in the mythology of food which has run rampant, that salsas are running ahead of ketchup in sales. Ketchup, the puree of tomatoes, with salt and vinegar a red line staple on top of hot dogs is being replaced by chunky tomatoes with chilis in some form on top of a taco, eggs, steak, shrimp, even grilled fish. Paired with fruit, mango salsa is a dynamo over pork, mixed with jalepenos, a puree infusion of salsa was a flavor in a martini I had recently.

Salsa dancing is a new fave, I have tried, not successfully, to learn. But the name! Salsa meaning: hot, choppy, bringing up heat, a condiment to the feet and the music as it were, to dancing. Waltzes, now maybe they are the ketchup of dance. And Tango is the mustard, to extend the spurious metaphor. But salsa implies that I can mix and match what I want for the beat, as long as I follow a recipe in a way: one part heat, one part texture, two parts fruit or acid. Dancing: one part sex, hip to hip, or gyrate in pairs, one part pattern of the feet in unison mirror-like: he goes forward, she goes back; and two parts sweaty bodies moving as fast as you can to the increasingly hot beat of the drums.

No wonder that both are popular. Salsa the condiment adds a topping, a frisson of flavor on top of germane foods. It invokes the other, the non Protestant, non traditional, back street world that is not European, not Anglo, and much, in fact, a hell of a lot more fun. We need more fun in our lives. Live a little. Forget the low salt, non carb, organic ketchup. Toss the environmentally appropriate companion planted mustard seed and dijion jar. Go for the home made, mortar ground tomatoes with hot and hotter chilies and for the hell of it throw in limes, onions, and cilantro. Why not? live a little and for salt content; get over it.

As for the dancing: a slight reversal. I grew up in the 70'80's do what you want on the floor dirty dancing style. Gyrate, move over, around, and through your partner and move in your own space. but Salsa demands working as a team, with the woman responsive to the pressure of a man's hand to move in the direction he wants. It is damn sexy to watch and harder to learn. I can't just go where I want, I have to wait, and follow, and then surrender to the hand. And until I get it, I only get asked once by the men as they figure out I am not really in synch. But I will keep trying as the lure of the paired sexuality is just so great. And the humbling of rejection of only being asked once is a good learning point. Sort of.

I am still the ketchup to their salsa, damn. But my heart is there, my moves are catching up, the heat is, and always has been there for the dance. Just a few more lessons.

Off to grind tomatoes and prep the peppers as I listen to the music.

Orientalism

I am not an Orientalist. This, according to Bernard Lewis, is a person who fantizes about the Middle East, the exotic Orient, the desert, the Sheik.

Well, then I am an Orientalist. I shimmy when I hear the oud, I writhe and do a subtle shake when I hear the saz and the music of the Mideast.

I would rather have olives, tomatoes, cheese and yogurt than eggs and stupid pastries for breakfast. I would rather hear melodies from a campfire and Bedouin tents than rock music, I would rather have raki than bourbon. I would rather have a sheik in my bed than some pasty faced northerner with freckles.

So there.

I loved Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, I remember the 50's movie The Egyptian more than other movies of the time, I remember walking the souk of Izmir with my Mom buying shisk kebab over a bbq in the suburbs. My life growing up centered around the dancing bears on the street five floors below, hearing the minaret calls at sunset, knowing that my neighbors were Turks and were lovely, exotic, and life friends. I grew up with trips to Ephesus, pocketing mosaic fragments, learning archaeology, and coming home to foods which 50's kids did not know in middle America military base.

And, I am a proud American at the same time. Proud in the base commissary way, with imported Spam, fishsticks, Russian dressing, cheeze whiz, all the foods of the maligned 50's. I don't think of these foods this way as we lurched into a modern, world view of foods long before Chez Panisse and California rocketed onto the food scene in the eitghties.These foods were home in a world of kofte, domades and izgara. I was a hybrid: cheeze triangles and kofte with fishsticks and chicken pot pies. Imported celery from Italy for my parent's cockatil parties, and pistachioes staining our fingers red as we cracked the seeds and dropped them on the gypsy's bears five stories below.

It this Orientialism, the romantizing of the " other; the "sheik" with kohl-rimmed eyes and the swooning blonde, so be it. This is how I grew up. I grew up with fishsticks and handfulls of nuts on the street. I grew up with a maid from a village who after pulling us on towels to polish the marble would make us pistachio sweets with honey. After the Spam for dinner we would have lokum the sticky delight clinging our fingers. I credit my parents for not making it 'the other' but makinig it our oppoortunity, our chance to try other foods and culture. I ate goat cheese, stuffed mussles, cheese triangles, coconut on the slice, juice and tea on the street and through the gift of my parents' indulgence and openness, an appreciation of the culture.

To the point that I don't feel here. I don't feel anywhere. I feel a tug, a drumbeat of the Orient, and sitting here I am playing Sahara Lounge music. I would rather hear an oud than a drumset. (Except Cowboy music but that is another event. )II wiggle, I think of pistachoes, I want some raki, I remember Turkish delight. And I am thankful that my parents encouraged me to be an Orientalist before it became a non-political apporporiate word.

Put on the Turkish coffee, put out the blue beads for guests. Cook the chicken with yogurt and mint, prepare the lamb with cinnamon and couscous. Play the music, scent the air with cardamon. Use henna on your hands, on your feet, wiggle your hips and be full figured. Toast the almonds and pour the anise liqueur. Think desert tents, indulgence, survival, and yes, seduction. I am thankful for the past, a part which is now part of my being.

shoe shopping

Cinderella has the glass slipper, and in these days it is probably recycled. Made from a melted Smirnoff bottle, or a 7-up, good for her. Or, it is made from recycled plastic water bottles, with a sustainable cork lining, and a top of ecologically raised, non-poluting, and naturally dyed cotton woven by a women's cooperative in the dark side of the moon. It is stamped in European sizes, ( 30) and U.S. ( 6) and sold in a high end store which reduces its carbon footprint by recycling the boxes printed in soy ink, and planting a tree each time they sell non-leather. Made in China.

I digress, but that was fun. There sre sooo many choices these days when shopping. I considered once having each student read the countries on the labels of their clothing and put up push pins on a world map where things are made. In military exchanges, the signs used to say Buy American but I don't think that would be possible anymore.

I am fascinated with where things are made. And the designs, and potential. I have shoe lust but my feet say, " Be practical, you are all beat up after years on concrete on your feet, and stilettos don't go through the security anymore."

I would love high shoes, red patent and a slinky dress. And,I want more, the thin Italian sandals with jewels on them that scream Firenza. And high boots, cowboy ones tooled and glistening in rich cinnamon leather, just the ones to go with black jeans. And flats with t-straps for the sundress. And lots and lots of clogs to look cheffy in my new chef coat. And topsiders, saying we are so darn rich we don't need socks as we jump onto our yacht. And converse, maybe in tourquoise just because one time I was a studio art major. And spectators, with tan and white when I feel retro. And hurraches, and espadrilles, and Indian slip ons, and velveteen embroidered slides from Venice.

What is it about shoes? I think it is the desire to do something about feet, when other parts of our body just don't cooperate. Too high, too much bust, a thin waist, freckles, sometimes our clothing just has to fit, to be practical etc, etc. I am contradicting myself, but shoes can work. Even with high arches, impossible toes, and
foot gear that makes it look like medieval torture in my shower, I find shoes that are fun.

One must always have red shoes. I have four pair. Each year I cul, I throw away, and move on. But I always have red shoes. And, I have a pair of silly pointed pink slides with embroidery that I got in Panama and love to take out. I like the contrast with jeans, or crops. And for the sandals I can wear, red toenail polish.

Men just don't have any fun with shoes. The daring may try European sandals, and in Eugene just about every other person is schlepping around in outdoor shoes, or rafters, tevas, something that allows them at a stopwatch minute's notice, to run the 20 K.

I refuse to wear my hiking shoes around town, I look like Minnie Mouse on patrol. No big "trainers" for me, I prefer my summer ones of cross strap with white leather that looks like it was painted by Jackson Pollock's sister. And for fall, same in ochre suede with blue dots. It may be lurching to resort wear though, can the spangled sweats be far behind?

I think not, and have the true work shoes. I really do. I have the chef clogs, and the new German version. Not Doc Martins, but they do in the Kitchen. And I have the school shoes, the date shoes, and the walking the dog shoes from Land's End.

And, I try to wear shoes in the kitchen; I dropped a new tart pan on my foot about 11 pm one night trying to finish a dessert. The blood was the color of the plums, I went pale and had to sit down. Then I put on shoes and made the dessert all over again. Now I am shoeless in the kitchen if I am cooking for someone and hope I look fetchingly casual. It doesn't always work, but worth trying.

No glass slipper, no Prince Charming running after me with his hand out holding the Waterford size 6. Shoes at the door, shoe in, walk in someone's shoes, put yourself in other's shoes, shoe-fly come bother me. It is all fun, and lightly sandaled until the cold of winter and boots become the story. Another day for that.

mezzes

Mezzes, or appetizers, tappas, antipasto, all are introductory dishes. These are to whet the appetite, to build anticipation for the meal, and test creativeness of the chef. They usually accompany a light liqueur, drink, and bowls of nuts. Turkish tradition has mezzes as the raki plate, a meal to accompany the no holds barred hi proof anise liqueur.

I have been making mezze lately. I had a friend over last night and figured that food; protein would be needed after a long day and anticipation of a longer musical viewing night. A little sliced rare beef, toasted almonds, Romano, tomatoes, garden carrots; a support system for hunger with a little grazing and crunching. Work off stress at the end of the day gnashing and noshing. And my way to show hospitality, caring and 'my tent is yours' in my world. I greet, I feed, and I always meet people arriving at my home at the door, and see them to it when they leave. Appetizers are greeting food, they show I choose them now, and care.

Last week I made another platter for houseguests. It included breasola, the air cured beef of Italy. Dried, but pliable sliced parchment thin, it is not jerky. It is dark burgundy, the color of blood, lust and beef. Drizzled with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and some crystals of Kosher salt, it is visceral on the palate. I had also: radishes with olive oil and roasted cumin, fresh dug carrots with nutmeg, thin-sliced Reggiano with its salty contrast to the bowls of cherry tomatoes, little round worlds of seeds and red flesh. We included firm Kalamata olives, not the wimpy, mushy, cheap ones from the olive bar, but from a glorious can from the Peleponnese. The next day we went back and bought three more cans, a point noted by the purchaser, a Turk. “I guess we can agree that Turks and Greeks make good olives, " he said wryly.

As mezzes go they are a way for the chef to show creativity. Not limited to some signature dish of protein with starch side such as pork chop with mashed potatoes, an appetizer or tappas is creative, free form and a place to try an idea. For Mediterranean cultures it is a culture in itself, one can troll up and down a street in Madrid or Istanbul and graze on small plates. There are specific mezze or tappas dishes.

I am relatively easy I think, although my former loves and husbands might think not. I welcome all into my home and love to feed them. But when I order out I rarely order the entree. I prefer the appetizers, order two for my meal. They are more creative; I am seduced by adjectives: caramelized, glazed, and nouns: ginger, pomegranate, roasted fig, olive....I drool. I anticipate and forget even looking at the entree. I guess then, that I am high maintenance in this respect.

I don't want to be the entree with the same starchy side night after night. I have been twice NOT someone's entree. Perhaps at this point in my life and the lives of friends and loves I have, that entree is not all it is cracked up to be. Or sautéed, or roasted...it is instead about the introduction, the chase, the anticipation, the roll on the tongue mixing of flavors and unusual combinations. Forget waiting for dessert after slogging through the mashed potatoes, have the appetizers, they are dessert with protein. Put muscle, not sugar behind your creativity. As Auntie Mame said, “Life is a banquet and some poor fools are starving to death."

Life is short, pour the Prosecco, plate the olives, slice the cheese and present. Drizzle my stories with rich oil, plate my words in arrangements that are pleasing, savor them with scent and originality, and lick your fingers, suck the olives. Make my, your, own menu and forget entrees. If entrees follow, then they will, but maybe the anticipation will fill the hunger now without pedestrianism.

Campari girl

I love bitter things, Angostura, Cynar,Pimms Cup, the bitter taste of herbs, astringency of grapefruit in the morning and now Campari. As with all things, too much is too much, and this is the zen karma balance of food. ( Mixing religious metaphors aside) Too sweet and it is cloying. Too sour and pucker up. Too chared and the free radicals of carbon will date you. And, too bitter will deny any nuance.

However, this holds true with my sensibility of things; when wildly sentimental, I am also slightly cryptic, when wearing bright colors I tend to add a neutral, when in a wild no holds barred full on romance there is a part of me which is cynical. So also my perfumes. Not for me the cloying scent of insence, amber, rose or lily. No girly things like that. Black bra under the pink top, Leather with lace, and my perfumes tend to the androgynous. I used to wear 4711, herbaceous, with lime, now a scent developed in the 1920's for the jet set marketed as "worn by Cary Grant AND Ava Gardner". It is tart, herbal, slighly floral, and crisp.

Maybe I protest too much and it will take the right guy to find that inner rose. None have gotton it yet, and tough gal that I try to be, the military kid, I keep a stiff upper lip and put on the scent, the careful balance of clothes and crispness. I put on internal chain mail with the crisp smoke of sandlewood perfume, and go into the kitchen. It would be nice to discover that rose, damask'd and subtle. But, I wait.

So I have discovered Campari. I like Scotch, neat, with the layered flavors of smoke, maple and wood. Campari works in the same way. It is terrifically astringent, tight, bitter, and on the tongue very light. Paired with soda water, or Pelegrino over ice it is much better to me than a cold beer on a hot day. And, it appeals to my snobby food side, just like my perfumes. Mixed with other liqueur it becomes the Negroni, the Italian cocktail. Mixed with grapefruit juice it is a double whammy of sharpness, a two punck kick of tart and tight, just right.

I detest the drinks that have things in them. Small umbrellas, cherries, whole spears of fruit or celery, ice that bangs against my teeth, none of these have a place in my glass. I do not want to collect charms, play with the umbrella or eat the lime. I don't want to circumnavigate my glass following the salt. Although, I do like salt on my wrist, a lime and tequilla. I do like a martini if it is sharp, say made with cucumber or pomegranete. See, again no sugar.

When I was painting murals, in college I had a job creating whole walls in the bar. I would go in during the day, lights up and paint the alpine village. And, raid the olives and martini onions. These are ok, not in drinks but by them, along with Kalmata olives and almonds toasted with rosemary and salt. As for the maraschino cherries, only with stems. I can, with my tongue, tie the stem into a knot in under a minute, less if not laughing. A talent for another time, my whole family can do this, something about genes and tongue rolling.

Campari to me also creates in my imagination a drive down the hills to Monaco, in a Ferrari, red of course, and a light chiffon scarf around my Princess Grace hair, pulling into the casino where James Bond will order his martini before saving the world from thugs. I can dream. It reminds me of horizontal striped black and white fisherman's tops, black crops and espadrilles. It makes me want a scooter to run up to Triest on. I dream of 1935 and want to meet Ava Gardner. We wear the same scent.

So, in the middle age of summer, at the height of the day waiting for friends from the Eastern Mediterranean, I am chilling the glasses and getting ready. The olives are out, the almonds are toasting, and my bitter is on the way to a sweet afternoon.