How to End a Year

It is four-thirty in the afternoon on the thirty-first of December. The house is quiet and the fog is rolling in. The celebration has not begun yet, but it will soon. The champagne will pop and the glasses will sparkle and we will eat and laugh and love as if it were the last time. It is, at least until 2009.
My sheets are clean and my kitchen is too. The food has been bought and the parties planned, the purple dress ironed and the last latte drunk so I can stay up as late as needed, at least until midnight.
The errands have been run, and a new skein of yarn has been purchased to knit into something small and soft as the holiday football games go on and on over the next few days.
The bags are unpacked and the presents are put away.The wreath is still up, the white lights are too, but the thank you notes have not been written. These, and other things, can wait till next year.
For now I savor the last moments of 2008. It was a very good year, indeed. I'm not altogether sure I am ready to say good-bye to it. A new year is coming -- what will it bring?
I will begin to find out tomorrow and share all that I discover.
Happy 2009.

What We Find Beautiful

It must have rained the night before we arrived in New York. The streets were littered with tattered umbrellas, the cheap kind that you purchase in a hurry because you simply cannot stand to get wet and you had no idea it was going to rain. Black and flimsy, these are the umbrellas that shelter beautiful women, old people, and children from a cold and blustery shower. When they break or turn inside out due to a powerful gust of wind it isn't a problem. They are dropped in the gutter, on the sidewalk, near the trash can. The next morning the city wakes up to sun and blue sky and all remnants of the night before are forgotten, abandoned in the rush of a new day.

I don't notice things like dead umbrellas. I notice people and I notice food -- the towers of confections in a sweet shop, rows of freshly baked bread, a vintage plate with a well-composed sandwich and pile of freshly dressed greens. While on vacation this is the artwork I want to document. I can buy postcards of great works from the museum and photographs of perfect tall buildings from vendors on street corners. But to me, the flavor of a vacation is captured by the photographic and textual recollections of what we eat.

I am forever toying with taking photos of my dinner, photos that never turn out as well as I wish. But still I try, in hopes that one day I will figure it out and learn how to make the photograph of perfect beef carpaccio with black truffles and shaved Parmesan speak a thousand words of what it was like to sit eating at Gramercy Bar & Grill on a Saturday night, white Christmas lights sparkling all around me.

But M. notices umbrellas and he loves the dead and forgotten ones best. This is why, on our first morning in New York, we spent hours documenting the umbrellas that littered the street. While I marveled over the bright orange coffee truck parked on a busy street corner, he took photo after photo of abandoned umbrellas. I watched the rows of people waiting in line at the orange coffee truck for mud colored black coffee and he took photos of trash, an artful umbrella perched on top.

Left behind umbrellas make me a little sad. They aren't promising, and the photos of these umbrellas certainly aren't vibrant and spontaneous like the pictures I tried to take documenting our vacation. But to M. the umbrellas are beautiful.

I have given up on arguing about this, given up on trying to explain how black tattered umbrellas lost in a gutter are kind of depressing. Now I am trying to understand, to see them through his eyes, as a small clue to the bigger picture of a life someone, somewhere, is living. Just like what you eat for breakfast says a little bit about who you are, your cheap umbrella, how you destroy it and where you toss it, must say something too.

We Love Pork

It is a seven hour flight from New York City to San Francisco. Seven long hours with nary a meal in sight but all the Direct TV you can stomach. I had a book, and a magazine, and a tiny white bag filled with Italian pastries. But I had nothing substantial to eat. This shouldn't have been a problem if you take into consideration the endless meals and snacks I'd been munching on for fifty-eight hours. But still, the idea of seven hours with no real food was enough to make me hungry on the spot. Thank goodness there was still food to be had in New York City.

We wandered through the East Village, slow and quiet on a lazy Sunday afternoon, until we came to Porchetta. Porchetta is a tiny restaurant. There are six stools and space for a line of about six people -- and that's if you don't mind standing close to the person in front of you. It is an intimate little party. The menu is small too. You can order the porchetta plate, the porchetta sandwich, a small selection of porchetta complementary sides. Making the decision was easy. The porchetta plate seemed unlikely to travel well but the sandwich? Oh yes, it would be perfect.

This porchetta is pork loin wrapped in pork belly and seasoned with a thick green paste of fennel, sage, rosemary, thyme, and garlic. Then it is oven roasted until it is tender and savory and smells like pork perfume.

While I waited I watched pork juices run down the fingers of hearty eaters and grabbed a few extra napkins for the road. We were the only people in line but it seemed to take forever for our little pork bundle, wrapped well in foil and brown bagged, to be presented to us.

I am sure this sandwich would rate in the top ten sandwiches of my life, had it been eaten warm. The sad fact is that after a few hours on the plane my porchetta sandwich presented itself as cold pork wrapped in a thin layer of white fatty lard. Perhaps this shows that I am not a true gastronome, but this cold soft mess was a bit too much for me. I ate around the lard, digging soft bits of pork out of the center of the sandwich. M. inherited a crescent moon shaped mess that he claims he enjoyed eating, fat and all. Of course he did eat it the next day, warmed, for lunch. As it should be eaten, I think.

The Gifts We Give

This is the gift my stockings will be stuffed with this year. Have a sweet holiday and enjoy the snowflakes falling all around you!

Bittersweet Chocolate Bark
1 lb bittersweet chocolate (preferably 66%, chopped)
1/2 cup shelled, unsalted roasted pistachios
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel

1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a double boiler over a pot of simmering water, heat the chocolate until 2/3 melted. Remove from heat. Stir chocolate with a rubber spatual until it is totally melted and registers about 90 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.
2. Spread the warm chocolate on the parchment paper to about 9 by 13 size (if you prefer thicker bark spread to a smaller size... I wish mine had been a tad thicker)
3. Working quickly so the chocolate does not set, scatter the pistachios & cranberries over the melted chocolate. Gently tap the cookie sheet on the work surface to flatten the chocolate and allow the toppings to sink in slightly. Sprinkle the fleur de sel evenly over the top (this will give it just a hint of savory/ saltiness but can easily be left out)
4. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes or until just firm. Cut or break into 2 inch pieces. Eat now or save for later.

Favorite Things: Russ & Daughters

M. has a long list of favorite things in New York City. My list is shorter, but growing. His list, however, usually dominates my list for two reasons. One, he can manuever the city quickly & easily, I meander and wander. This means his list can be accomplished in much less time. His list is dominated by action, my list involves looking. I walk twenty minutes to a favorite shop and say "Look! Isn't this boutique filled with the most beautiful and amazing things? I can't afford any of them. But I love to LOOK." His list involves action. He goes, he looks, he buys, he conquers.

Such was the case at Russ & Daughters, a smoked fish and appetizers shop on the lower east side. It is a tiny place, all done up in white and black subway tile. You take a number when you enter the door and wait. Eventually one of the fishmongers in a white lab coat will call out your number. You must move quickly, pushing to the front and asserting that yes, you are number 109 and you have the paper slip to prove it.

Then, time stops. For the fishmonger will spend as long as you like slicing fish and answering questions, helping you to find just the right thing. These are trained fish professionals, not at all like the guys behind the deli counter. These fellows know their stuff: lox and caviar and smoked fish, trout, and a dozen different kinds of pink, fatty salmon.

As always, M. does the ordering. He knows exactly what he wants while I provide supplementary information, such as the kind of H&H bagel I want for the plane. During this visit I decided to be selfish and take up space in the small shop rather than wait outside. I stared at piles of dried fruits and chocolates, black & white cookies, candies, crackers, cheeses, teas and coffees. These are the things found on the other side of the shop, a mere five feet away from the fish action. Still, it seemed quieter and less frantic.

Russ & Daughters is the kind of place you want to take photos to try to capture and remember the excitement and uniqueness of this most distinct shop. At the same time, you know that no photo will do it justice. So you stand in a corner, listen to what people are ordering and watch the old woman with the small cart and a half-dozen to-go containers try to push her way through the aisle. You watch the bagles and the cream cheese and the onions and the fish fly out the door, and once outside you watch three people get parking tickets for stopping in the middle of the road, hoping to hop out and quickly run in.

You take it all in and hope that you will be back again very soon. And if you aren't, you'll at least get a few good meals and snacks from the portable cooler packed with a whole smoked white fish, pastrami smoked salmon, bagels, a ramekin of French cheese, a pumpernickle bagle, and seven dollar danish rye crakers. This should do -- for awhile.

First Taste

We arrived in New York early in the morning and took a long subway ride into the city. Even though the train was full of people: workers on their way to work, children on the way to school it was hard to stay awake. My blurry eyes still drooped and my head wobbled from side to side. It was, after all, the middle of the night on the West Coast and the rocking movement of the train was so relaxing.

Coffee, I thought. Coffee will save me. Coffee and breakfast. But where?

M. had a vision. There is a famous and trendy restaurant in New York called Momofuku that serves yummy big bowls of raman and other Asian inspired gourmet delights. Recently they opened a bakery. The bakery, we heard, served strange and wonderful treats like sandwiches with pork belly and green curry banana bread. What a perfect way to wake up and say hello to NYC.

So we went to the Momofuku/Ssam Bar Bakery, stared in awe at the rows of cookies and pies and ordered (what else?) but the egg and pork belly bun and a generous slice of the green curry banana bread. There was no hot coffee, which was a problem, but the food was so wacky and the moment so surreal that it almost didn't matter. Coffee is not that hard to find, but it is not every day that you get to eat a fat slice of subtly spiced banna bread that tastes a bit like breakfast and a bit like an exotic vacation all in the same bite.

Parties Parties More and More

We had another party, tis' the season!



M. called and wanted to know if I wanted to go out for dinner instead of staying in and playing hostess. The economy is bad (did you know?) and we have heard horror stories of couples going out to eat and only ordering one entree and one glass of wine. That's it -- not one glass of wine and one entree each, one glass of wine and one entree, that's all. How very sad for all involved!



To boost restaurant waitstaff morale we toyed with the idea of dressing up and going out and ordering lots of food and wine and living as big a tip as we could. But then the restaurants were all booked up -- I guess on this night in the city all was merry and bright. So we decided to stay in.



M. brought home purple cabbage and red cabbage and sausages and apples. I swept the floor and made cranberry-pistachio shortbread cookies. Together we cooked, drank fine German Riesling, laughed and told stories with a friend of M.'s who is a real live Indiana Jones. This intense fellow is an archaeologist who just returned from a dig in Belize.



He had secrets to share, you could tell, but none for me. We just met last night, after all, and if he told me he'd have to kill me, or hold me captive for a very long time, or something equally cold and distasteful.

Hostess Gift

The other night we had a party. It was a small party, only four people, and four very large, very fresh crabs that went into the hot pot kicking and screaming. There was lots of wine and laughter and conversation.

When our guests arrived one of them handed me a brown craft take-out box with a wide orange satin ribbon tied around it. "Just brownies," she said.

Just brownies, indeed. I couldn't wait.

When the meal was finished and we had lingered a bit over the last of the wine I opened the box. Inside were six very small, very dark, perfectly square brownies. These brownies were not deliciously lumpy homemade brownies. They were smooth, elegant, and sophisticated brownies. And they were rich, so rich that even I could not eat an entire one.

It turns out that one of our dinner guests works at Nopa, a fashionable San Francisco restaurant. Although she is not a pastry chef, she was able to acquire some of these magnificent brownies that are served alongside house made ice cream at the restaurant. It is hard to imagine that these brownies need any accompaniment at all. But I guess a simple dark brownie alone on a plate is a little austere, especially for the holidays.

Four whole days later, there is still one brownie and a half of another left to be eaten. M. has eaten a bite or two, but mostly it will be up to me to nibble away at a most fantastic gift.

These guests will be invited back someday very soon. And I will keep my fingers crossed that when they come, another simple brown box will make its way into my very thankful hands.

What's For Dinner?

It's December and it's foggy and cold. We are headed to the cinema tonight for a viewing of Milk, the bio-opic (as the New Yorker calls it) of Harvey Milk.
This is what I think we will eat before we go:

Polenta with Vegetable Ragout
4 tablespoons olive oil
yellow onion, chopped
garlic, three cloves, finely chopped
zucchini, one, sliced
mushrooms (I have portabello) 3/4 pound, trimmed and sliced
1 can tomatoes (not seasoned or spiced)
fresh rosemary, 1 tablespoon, minced
Red wine, 1/4 cup
Salt and pepper
Chicken broth, 4 cups
Quick cooking polenta, 1 cup
parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup, grated

Make ragout:
In a large frying pan over medium heat, warm three tablespoons of the oil. Add the onion and saute until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, zucchini, and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, rosemary, wine, and about 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.

Make the polenta:
In a saucepan over high heat, bring the broth to a boil. Whisk in the polenta and 1 teaspoon salt. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, until the polenta is thick and creamy, about five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil and the cheese. Spoon the polenta into shallow bowls, top with ragout and serve.
Enough for 4.