20 pages - a photo essay

I'm writing a 20 page paper, wishing the writing was furious, but really it's slow and my mind wanders. And my clicking wanders to iPhoto to snapshots of the past few weeks...

Cooked up a storm

This year we stayed home in Brooklyn for Thanksgiving and I made grand plans to create a Thanksgiving feast for 4 - us and our friends who just had a gorgeous new baby (see below). Admittedly, I got in a little bit over my head. And it was exhausting but I had a lot of help and I loved every minute, from shopping at the Union Square Green Market on Wednesday morning to pulling that turkey out of the oven on Thursday afternoon. I turned to Saveur, Epicurious, Martha, and Smitten for inspiration and I found it. That table displays cauliflower soup, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Mike's famous mashed potatoes with caramelized onions, an insane dressing whose ingredients included oysters and bacon, gravy, and a sage & thyme brined turkey. (Not pictured: Shaker lemon pie.)



The Green Market was amazing - I even got my cranberries there... Thank you farmers!



Feeling lucky to be able to create this meal, I laid out the bounty on the dining room table.



I taped all of my recipes to the cabinet doors and got to work.



Cauliflower soup with roasted garlic, parmesan, and thyme.



Mike's mashed with caramelized onions and chives.



The makings of Shaker lemon pie.



Cranberries swimming in Ruby Port.



The dressing, after many steps with about 15 ingredients prepped by all 4 of us, was ready to go in the oven...



As the bird came out...



Our plates runneth over.



One of the day's cozier moments.



And to top it all off, it was Heidi's birthday - an amazing celebration.

So much to be thankful for - most of all loved ones from coast to coast, our health, new babies, and food on the table.

I'm Back Because of Bacaro

Hello friends... Are you still there?



Local Everywhere is finally back reporting on a beautiful meal with lovely company.



Bacaro is a special place, a little bit out of the way, with a cavernous underground dining room, dimly lit by candles and chandeliers. It transports you.



And the food. Is. Just. Melt-in-your-mouth good. I started with lightly fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with a cloud of ricotta, and ended with stewed beef over creamy polenta.



It was divine. And it's good to be back!

Independence!

Making Waves

On a sunny May day, Mike and I needed to get away without going away. That's when we usually turn to Wave Hill. It's a heavenly public garden and historic estate right on the Hudson River in the Bronx.



There are little hikes, glorious gardens, incredible views.



Poppies pop and



Roses rise in The Flower Garden.



I can't help but think of The Secret Garden when I stumble upon a scene like this.



The Aquatic and Monocot Garden is Mike's favorite.



Hidden benches are abundant on the property. Perfect for hiding or reading or writing the day away.



Another hidden treasure.



An artist-made fort was perfectly situated among the trees.



Ever Present



Never Twice



The Same

Wayne Reads

Wayne Koestenbaum reads with the sensitivity and understanding of a poet and the comfort and articulation of a studied actor. He is a precise writer and a more precise reader. He beams with kindness and generosity. I get lost in his readings, but I don’t lose the words or the narratives. The other night, he read at Renwick Gallery in the middle of a show named for a Gertrude Stein line from the 1914 poem Tender Buttons, the same sight slighter,. It was a great setting, with the quiet (slight) artwork surrounding him. Between poems, films screened, but I really just wanted to listen – poems from Best Selling Jewish Porn Films (Turtle Point Press, 2006) and new ones, not published yet, and Stein.

An Evening of Pairs

Jeanne and I. Dietrich and Phillips. Dosas and Lassis. That was the order of a recent evening.



We saw the Painting and Misappropriation show at Swiss Institute. Swiss painter, Adolf Dietrich’s (1877-1957) lovely little still life, landscape, and animal portrait paintings are on view side by side with Dietrich-inspired and larger than life Richard Phillips (b. 1962) paintings.

In some works Phillips recreates Dietrich, but huge and slick.



In others he adapts Dietrich’s surreal landscapes into hyper-real backgrounds for portraits.



It is certainly painting about painting, not always my favorite theme, but there is a lot to like about this pairing. Dietrich’s paintings are detailed and nuanced where Phillips’ are saturated and confrontational.



I found myself walking around the show a few times to take it in – homage, exploitation, appropriation, singularity, and duality.

Side Note: The Arnold Odermatt show in the reading room is interesting, disturbing, and wonderful photography. According to the press release, Odermatt was a police officer in Switzerland who photographed traffic accidents that were part of his professional life and became famous in his retirement on the publication of Karambolage, a journal of these photos.

Another great pairing just down the street from SI– dosas and mango lassis from Hampton Chutney Co.



This is excellent not-quite-fast-food in Soho. Dosa fillings include, but are not limited to, traditional masala potatoes as well as non-traditional spinach, jack cheese, tomatoes, avocado, grilled portabello mushrooms, and balsamic roasted onions. Each dosa also comes with a chutney on the side. We had cilantro and tomato – both sparkled with flavor.

Crossing the Williamsburg

Friday night was beautiful, and unusual for me. I wasn’t in a rush to be anywhere or meet anyone. So ending up at the foot of the Williamsburg bridge on the Manhattan side around 7:30pm, something I might normally think of as an obstacle, became an opportunity. Why not walk across the bridge? Some alone time (except, of course, for the bikers, the JMZ, the cars below…) could be good.



The sun set behind me and I walked higher and higher. It really starts to feel like you are floating in a red cage over the water, cities in front and behind.



Lights in buildings and over baseball fields flickered on, and as dusk began to fade into night I was back in Brooklyn again.