Me

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2011-01-05T19:56:40Z

On New Year’s Day, I shared a plane ride and an “engine ding” and a delay and a plane switch and a reboarding and another plane ride with a kid named Dylan, age 12ish?, who carried in his backpack a panda Pillow Pet and nothing else. He started a game, kind of, in which he’d flip to a random page in SkyMall and point out what he believed to be the weirdest thing on the page, read the description to me and share some commentary. My favorite: “I think the only person that would buy this is someone who kills people but want them to look not dead.”

He also read to me the list of approved electronic devices. And the Southwest Airlines drink menu. I was charmed and annoyed, felt defensive of him when strangers in the far-reaching range of his voice whipped around to glare at him. We were friends for the course of these few hours, weirdly. We both missed the announcement about reboarding the second plane, me because I was on the phone and Dylan because he had dropped his backpack at my feet and taken off running full speed to the bathroom. The flight attendant paged us over the intercom by our full names, like we were a team—a surreal moment I spent convinced we were, in fact, traveling together and I was just the last to know. Sitting on the plane reading Saveur, I felt bored with reading about food and with food writing and writing and writing about food and food. Dylan was reading it over my shoulder (when I tried adjusting myself slightly, he smacked it back down to his line of vision and said, “Oh, I was trying to read that”) and so I gave it to him and told him I was going to take a nap.

When I “woke up,” Dylan handed me the magazine and said, “That’s a really good book.”
“Yeah? Do you like food a lot?” I asked him and he nodded.
“I want to be a cook,” he said, and continued in a breathless stream. “Or a Portuguese translator or a paramedic and I thought of something else that should be in that book a restaurant it’s in Milton Florida.”
“What is it?”
“It’s like a Chinese restaurant but the chef literally cooks the food at your table. It’s awesome.”

I smiled and told him that was awesome and I may have heard of that place, and I was strangely grateful for this exchange. It was exactly the kind of thing that makes me love to talk to strangers about eating, or talk to anyone about anything, really. One of those small affirming instances that surprise you when you’re feeling indifferent about everything.

When we finally landed and were walking off the plane, Dylan thanked me for not making the plane ride “totally boring.” I was essentially sleepwalking at this point and my response to him was probably half-hearted, but here I’d like to thank Dylan for making that trip, the first night of 2011, less totally boring. And for reminding me of Benihana’s existence, for telling me he wished I could try his stepmom's banana bread (I feel like this is such a kind thing to say to someone), and for reminding me to scrump something, even if I don’t do it again till it’s 2012. Until then, happy new year of eating and talking to people about eating and talking to anyone about anything!

everything's so good!

2010-11-15T21:48:17Z

From top: brunch at Elizabeth's down the street. Those are poached eggs on top of fried green tomaties (that's kind of a cute typo) and praline bacon I was skeptical of, but it got better every bite till eventually my eyes were wide and the poor bowl of fruit we ordered almost forgotten; my favorite from the po-boy festival was easily this guy with pork and slaw and dirty rice aioli and the grateful silence it was eaten in; lunch from the convenience store run by a family led by a heavy accented old man punctuating everything with "sweetheart," where I ordered red beans and rice and got asked, "What two sides do you want?" and I said greens and potato salad and then got asked, "Now do you want sausage or you want fried chicken?" I ended up refusing the french bread with butter because this final question seemed designed to allow me to say no to something and feel I'd drawn a line, even though taking this home and opening it up, looking at it, made me feel a guilty sort of appetite born only from our deepest and darkest indulgences. No pride from turned down bread.

It is a good thing that I do not cook like this at home.

cool it grain have a sazerac.

2010-10-25T02:17:13Z

A few New Orleans-y eating notes.

Last week, I’m in the car with my mom driving around Mid-City while she points out all the houses she used to live in, and the bars she went to in college. It’s been a long time since she’s been there and I’m watching her paint everything with thick nostalgia and I realize where I inherited my ability to sentimentalize, say, Vienna sausages, or the Borders parking lot where I crashed my car. We drive past the very old Creole-Italian restaurant Mandina’s and she turns down its street. “Maaaandina’s, now that is a good restaurant.” She looks out the window and slows to a near-stop. “They have a salad called the Wop Salad,” she says in the kind of reverent tone you use to describe great acts of kindness. “And the waiters,” she sighs and smiles fondly, “are so, so rude.”

Got lunch one day at a convenience store po-boy counter. While I was waiting, I noticed (too late) a plate lunch selection behind glass: trays of baked macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, a pile of brussels sprouts so appetizing I wanted to press my nose to the glass like I was 10 and staring at cream puffs.

Making red beans and rice, my dad said offhandedly, “My grandma used to always put mustard on her red beans.” I tried it that night and it made so much sense-- the sausage, the kick of spicy mustard, of course, of course she did this. It was the simplest exchange of ritual, skipping a generation and then, there it was, mustard on my red beans and rice, an idea given to me like a gift.

The Saints lost in an embarrassing fashion. But inside the Superdome, they were selling bags of Doritos cut lengthwise and filled with nacho droppings. I watched people happily eating from them as though what they were doing was to be expected in the world. It was something. So, in a way, we all won today.

i-55 south.

2010-10-20T03:17:47Z

On the way from Chicago to New Orleans, we stopped at a gas station in southern Illinois for a 60 oz. cup of Polar Pop and a few hours later I was back on the side of the country where you’d never find a single pop-saying person. My last meal in the Midwest came after a 25-minute deliberation in front of the Doritos display. I ate it in the passenger seat while Carrie and I accidentally listened to a Christian radio station.

In Memphis, Tennessee, Carrie ordered us Chinese food. She shouted the name of my entree into the phone fifteen times, in front of the front desk clerk at the hotel, until I had to turn away to keep from making her laugh. We ate in our room while I tried to talk Carrie into watching HGTV. This may be the only meal I ever eat in Tennessee. It was bad. With schezuan sauce, with schezuan sauce, WITH SCHEZUAN SAUCE WITH SCHEZUAN SAUCE.

On day two, we stopped for sandwiches in Jackson, Mississippi, which surprised me by being lovable and pretty. It made me wish I was taking a walk to the library and also that it was 1955. The lunch was mediocre except for their hot sauce and the free Coffee News newsletter and especially the On The Lighter Side column, the entirety of which I read out loud to Carrie with my mouth full. “‘Life is a trip,’” I read while lettuce smacked my chin (I was compelled!), “‘Do you have a ticket or are you hitchhiking’ IDON’TGETIT, is it supposed to be a joke? An observation?” Carrie seemed to think her sandwich was better than mediocre but was not as impressed with Coffee News. She took the time to explain to me “A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.” IT’S ON THE LIGHTER SIDE!

After lunch, we were relieved to see our truck was not towed from its illegal parking job outside the old-timey drugstore (I guess if it’s actually that old, it’s just old, not old-timey?) and we were saddened to walk in and see the soda fountain counter where we should have eaten lunch, unchanged since 1946. We ordered a vanilla milkshake. It was good.

some crumbs.

2010-08-02T19:10:26Z

Did you forget my feelings on the office coffee?

"this coffee...
on a scale
it's like
here's coffee, at 0
1-5 are different teas
6-8 are infused waters
9 is a mysterious milky substance
and 10 is hot dogs
and we're at a full on 10"

My boss told me that, on Easter, he and his Polish family have a traditional butter lamb, which they take to church and get blessed before spreading it on their coffee cake. I’d like to, just once, take a butter lamb to get blessed.

On Saturday, at a writing workshop for little girls, I listened to a few of them get loud and excited over a list they were making: their three favorite foods. I could’ve listened to this all day. One girl is an elderly woman in an eight-year-old’s body. Her list read salami, boiled eggs and sweet potato pie. They kept shouting at each other for remembering things they didn’t think of (“OREOS HOW COULD I FORGET OREOS!!”) and then erasing, re-writing. One girl got her questions mixed up, wrote for her three favorite places: 1. school, 2. museum and 3. fried chicken. After they finished, Camille told me how she wanted the fly in the room gone, but didn’t want to swat it. “I hate when nature dies,” she said. She got very serious and told me a story about a time she accidentally knocked the petals off a flower with a rock. She lit up when she described orange chicken.

I told that story to Matt and he said, “My niece cried when she had to throw away an orange peel. She cried about Pluto being left out.”

I had a dream where I baked everyone I love their favorite cakes and we ate them together at a banquet table. It was as nice as it sounds, except for some reason I didn’t have any cake, and I was eating scrambled eggs instead. One year, serving my birthday cake, we gave Meredith a raw egg and cat food instead, and then we sang a song about it. Do you remember that shitty song that came out a few years ago and it went, “You had a bad day! Something something something...” Ours was set to the tune of that song, but it went, “You had a bad day/you only got an egg/didn’t want to be impolite/but it seemed like everyone else got cake.”

Nachos for breakfast, cheeseburger for lunch, chips & salsa for dinner. Childlike indulgence, even by my standards.

It’s the last month of summer. Hey, August. Here’s a song that isn’t shitty. Did you know that, depending on what part of the country you're in, Indian summer is either the hottest time of year, like now, or a warm period after there's already been a first frost? I always thought the former, but I think that's wrong. Either way, I'd like to go on a picnic.

Picnic on wild berries
French toast with molasses
Croquet and Baked Alaskas

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2010-07-26T18:14:10Z

This is only distantly, vaguely related to food, but oh well. I've conducted some light Internet research today and discovered a cross-country boredom epidemic, which I am currently fighting with songs and looking at pictures like this one I took of a man on the train, using an orange juice bottle as a pillow.

Later this afternoon is the office happy hour, where we will drink wine from coffee cups and I will accidentally imagine someone slapping a warm palmful of casserole-dished hummus onto someone else's face just to shake things up.

Everyone in this dessertless place is asleep with their eyes open. Happy Monday, everyone!

sun-blasted.

2010-07-21T21:36:51Z

I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to remember what I’ve eaten this July, so far. This is what I came up with:

The peach popsicle I bought at a convenience store on my way home, when what I really wanted was a peach but a peach is harder to get. I needed a couple other things and didn’t think I had enough cash to get this peach popsicle, so the owner (who someone once told me she saw watching porn behind the counter) told me, “It’s okay, just take the popsicle.” And I thought it was kind of a we’re-in-this-together sort of gesture. In what together, I’m not sure. The neighborhood, I guess? So I thanked him and took the popsicle and then he looked straight at me with a weird frown and said, “Just bring 75 cents next time.” AND he watches porn behind the counter and these are the reasons I will pretend to boycott this place until I give in and return a couple weeks later.

Banana ice cream I ate while walking down the street and talking about cities, I think. We passed a man standing next to the sidewalk and watering the grass there with a hose. His jeans were rolled up and he was wearing suspenders. The banana ice cream was surprisingly delicious. It reminded me of the banana cookie ice cream I ate almost every night for a month one summer in New Mexico. Nena’s dad used to eat his in a glass with milk poured over it, which I thought was fascinating, and have recently realized is sort of genius. Speaking of which, did you guys read about this banana “ice cream” that requires barely any effort at all?

Lindsay made these toasted marshmallow milkshakes (so, so good, really just like drinking ice cold s’mores, which maybe sounds gross but it isn’t at all) and when talking about us eating them, kept saying, “even though I know you hate marshmallows,” but I DON’T hate marshmallows, I just don’t love marshmallows. Though my whole stance on marshmallows is starting to get muddied and confused. “I know, I know, you just wouldn’t eat them out of the bag,” she said. And I said, “No, I would.” So who knows how I really feel about marshmallows.

Cashews for dinner, in a hotel bed in Dallas. The next day was the office potluck and I missed it after spending a long time predicting what dishes each of my co-workers would bring, but all the predictions came from a dark place in my brain that I go to in the afternoons, so they were like “an edible pinata made of raw lamb skin,” for example. All I ate that day was a piece of Starbucks coffee cake, while driving on some highway in Plano, looking for an especially beige building in a sea of beige buildings. I was running late when I burst into that Starbucks and tried to order a coffee cake at the last minute and the girl working stared at me and said, too slowly and in a very Texan way, “That one is rill, rill good.” It was gross, but felt life-saving at the time. I'm vehemently against Starbucks in my day-to-day life and then end up there in moments of true desperation. I feel relieved, then ashamed. One weekend on South Padre Island, I couldn't find coffee anywhere, not even a Starbucks, so I made three return trips to a grocery store to buy canned pre-made Starbucks iced coffee. It was awful, watery and flavorless, but I was filled with gratitude. And some self-loathing.

I had a Slurpee and was disappointed in the way you often are when you taste things you loved as a kid. It just tasted like bad wet sugar. On a related note, I had some ranch Corn Nuts and was not disappointed at all. They tasted like standing around the middle school vending machines and admiring my own white Adidas ankle socks, which I think is probably what everyone else was doing, too.

A lot of spicy peanut butter sandwiches. You should make them-- crunchy peanut butter, soy sauce, Sriracha, cucumbers, red bell peppers, tomato, sprouts, red onion. I had two on the same day once, many at my desk, one while watching “The Bachelorette” and wondering how Frank’s eyes got so sun-blasted.

July’s almost over and I need to eat a peach that is not mashed up into a popsicle. I think today might be the day.

eating with dad: tiny pancakes!

2010-06-24T15:23:07Z

At home, my dad makes red beans and rice in this one big green pot, the same one for as long as I can remember. As a kid, this was my favorite dinner. The presence of that pot on the stove was a comfort.

I also loved the leek and potato soup he made a lot. It was the color of grass. My first bowl, I was surprised by its shocking and alien brightness, so much louder than usual soup. He made Christmas quail one year, just for me and him. I stared at it a while, wondering how to eat it, marveling at how small it was. It made me uncomfortable and excited—these were new things to feel in front of a plate of food. Once, he made homemade cannolis for me and the cast and crew of a play I was in. I loved the way the pistachios looked, dotting the ends of the cannoli where the cream peeks out. They looked so elegant to me, distant relatives of the desserts I was used to eating. No offense to Zebra Cakes, of course. I love you still.

But this dessert made me feel grown-up in some way, which isn't saying much, as I could produce that false feeling from thin air and doing so privately was a favorite hobby. I've mentioned here before my affinity for turning black cherry soda to wine, always the key to attending a cocktail party in my mind. A precursor to the weekly martini mixers of my fully-realized adult life, of course.

Anyway, the cannolis. And my dad, making stuff. I'm not sure what his favorite thing to make is, or what it was when we were little. My favorite to get handed was maybe the silver dollar pancakes, partly 'cause he'd shout out the status of each one while he piled them on our plates one after another. Man, they were so small! Cute. I could eat a million of them, so they'd disappear from my plate almost instantly and he'd call out, "One more almost done, two more getting there, this third one just got in," etc, etc. The mornings of tiny endless pancakes were obviously the best kind. Maybe the key to loving cooking for others is shouting out your progress the whole time.

I know I inherited my dad's tendency to wait, tense in a happy way, while someone tastes a meal I cooked for them. I guess anyone who cooks for anyone they love feels that. I don't think I know yet what my favorite thing to cook for someone else is and I'm pleased, as that seems like a pretty fun thing to learn. I know I like handing a bowl of ice cream to someone I love, an act I can take no credit for, but is great to share and should count for something, right? ("Putting the scoop in now! First scoop in the bowl! Second innnn.......now! Two scoops in!")

I'll save "What's your favorite thing to hand someone, proudly, after putting in really barely any effort at all into it?" for another day and for now:

What's your favorite thing to cook for someone else?
(Thanks, Molly, for the question idea, and for "dinner wizard.")

eating with dad: oysters!

2010-06-24T15:22:10Z

On Father's Day, I talked to my dad about oysters. Given he's a chef in New Orleans and given the BP oil spill, we talk about oysters on almost every phone call now. As you might imagine, there's not a whole lot to say about oysters. I check in on if they're still serving them and how people are feeling. It's a dismal conversation.

But before I was having this dismal, now regular, oyster talk on Father's Day, I was thinking about oyster po-boys. Oysters from my kid perspective, free of political and personal complexities, and oil-free, too.

The first oyster po-boy I ever had I ate in the breakfast nook in my grandparent's house, the one that's not really there anymore, or maybe it is there but you can't go inside of it. I'd driven with my dad all over the neighborhood he grew up in. He was insisting we'd find the place and I figured this was the same as all the times he'd insisted the sudden turn we took was a "short cut." We did find the place, we never even got lost. All I remember about it is a sloped white awning, a front porch and my dad smiling like he'd won a huge prize, returning to the car with a roast beef po-boy and an oyster po-boy to split.

"This way, you can try both," he said, and as everyone should know, this is how you eat with someone you want to really share a meal with, someone you want to get the best of things. I know that's a cheesy way to put it, but that is what I believe. We should all be so lucky as to have two disparate sandwich halves on our plates.

At grandma's, we unfolded the butcher paper anxiously but carefully, like archaeologists. It looked like a mess and I could tell by the way my dad grinned that it was supposed to. He gave me one half of his and I gave him one half of mine. I took the first bite and he was waiting for me to react, the way he always does when he gives us a food he's excited to watch us try, that eagerness to see us taste it that he never voices out loud but I always feel.

He never made them at home. I don't even know if people really make po-boys at home. Seems like you eat them at places with gingham table cloths, pressed down under plastic covers. That's the table where I remember another oyster po-boy, eaten after walking several blocks downtown (or maybe it was mid-city?) and served with a sweaty bottle of Barq's.

Come to think of it, did grandma have a gingham table cloth? It's possible.

I can't remember what I said after biting into that first po-boy. I remember the crispness of the bread and how salty and hot the oysters were, how good they were, insanely good, and that the juice from the sandwich dribbled down my wrists. I looked at my dad eating, saw the po-boys making his wrists messy too, and figured that was the way you eat a po-boy, and it is. It was the best sandwich I'd had, ever.

I think that, despite all the movies, books, albums, cities and ideas my dad has introduced me to and continues to share with me, my all-time favorite is perhaps the oyster po-boy. If you've ever had an oyster po-boy in New Orleans, you will likely agree my priorities are firmly intact.

a bad recipe for a good meal.

2010-06-18T19:37:22Z

The other night, I made this easy dinner I loved from ingredients I use all the time and I don't know what made it so special. But it was, so I thought, "Oh, I'll write a recipe for once in my life, so I'll know how to make it again." Well guys, it turns out writing a recipe is hard and I have a new respect for those that do. Seconds after I finish cooking, I can't remember what I just did or how much of what I put in, let alone describe to someone how to replicate it. Short of re-tracing my steps laboriously, unsuccessfully and with too much of the wrong kind of detail/too little of the right kind, I'd never be able to explain what I did.

So, here are my steps re-traced laboriously.

Chop tofu (about half of one 16 oz. package) into squares and think about how hilariously uneven they are, then put them in a pan with hot oil and some garlic and onions. Stir them all around a lot while they cook, until the tofu starts to brown and the garlic and onions get a little transluscent. Realize this happened a lot sooner than you thought it would and now you have to turn the burner off and let it sit while you prepare everything else.

Slice up a red bell pepper. Slice about six little mushrooms into pleasing, perfect mushroom shapes. You know what I mean? Take out your soy sauce, sambal oelek, red pepper flakes and coconut milk. Be annoyed at your lack of counter space and pile them all up on top of one another.

Put a few tablespoons of olive oil, one tablespoon of soy sauce, a smattering of red pepper flakes, some sambal oelek and 1/2 a cup of coconut milk into a saucepan. Put the heat to medium even though you never know for sure what that means. Stir the sauce frequently while it simmers, not letting it bubble really. Add a little more coconut milk, just because you don't think the sauce is the right color. Taste it. Decide it's not spicy enough. Add more sambal. Realize it's right because it's now that creamy red-orange of panang curry, which is the color you're going for.

After about eight minutes, think to yourself, "This seems thick, like a sauce," and turn the burner off, and remove the saucepan from the hot burner. Realize you have nowhere to put it but it needs to be away from heat, so take it to the dining room table.

Add some oil to that other pan with the tofu in it and turn the flame back on. Try to pick up all your sliced vegetables and drop half of them. Eventually, add all the bell peppers and mushrooms to the pan and saute 'til they soften a bit. Dump that sauce in there. Turn the burner down so it's barely on. Your kitchen should smell great at this point and if it doesn't, you're doing something wrong.

Boil water and put in some lo mein noodles, a fistful-ish. Let the vegetables and tofu simmer in the sauce while the noodles cook. Add some fresh basil leaves and fresh jalapenos, sliced, to the sauce. Let those simmer, too.

Smell burning. Discover that one of the lo mein noodles has flopped over the side of the pot and is on fire. React in a completely unproductive way, spinning around one full circle in the kitchen, for no reason. Pick up the pot and move it away from the flame with one hand, while stirring the pan of vegetables with the other hand.

Pull the burning noodle out, throw it in the sink, yell an obscenity if you feel like it. Make sure the noodles are al dente, or just short of it, drain them, and pour them in the pan with the vegetables. Stir. Taste. Decide it's not spicy enough, add a few more jalapeno slices.

Pour a couple bowlfuls. You know this should feed three or four people, technically, but you also know that's not realistic and will just feed two. Top it with fresh cilantro.

After you finish your meal, discover you have a little bit of coconut milk left. Not enough to save and re-use really, but too much to toss. Remember you have mango ice cream. Jump for joy, literally. Make mango and coconut milk-shakes. (Put them together in a food processor and blend it 'til it looks like a milkshake.)

Drink it too fast, preferably near an open window. Feel satisfied and proud, despite probable stomachache.