SPARE TIME

What do I do in my spare time? I donate my creative energies to SCRATCHbread. I Paint giant arrows and I look for signs where there are none.

MY FEAR OF SWEET THINGS THAT BRING JOY: ECONOMY CANDY

I remember Halloween growing-up for two distinct dramatic events: one was the year my friends came hours late to pick me up for Trick or Treat and I sat on the front stoop waiting in my little princess costume feeling terribly sad (Ok, maybe I was dressed as a hobo - but I had the heart of a princess damn it! And I was distraught!) And the second Halloween drama would happen each year after Trick or Treat when we would gather up all of our treats and bring them to the hospital to have them x-rayed for fear that pins of razor blades had been surreptitiously placed inside a Snickers or a Mars bar. I am sorry...did ANYONE else do this?!

I think partially because of this I am not a a big fan of sweet things in general but I am a big fan of bright and bountiful nostalgia with cool graphics! Well, and I Do eat sweets sometimes and then I seek the perfect sweet, in the perfect place. Economy Candy on the Lower East Side has been serving the dental community since 1937.

Gum balls in lock-down at Economy Candy on Rivington St.

SNAILS IN WAITING

Zimtschnecken waiting to proof. In English: cinnamon snails. How lovely and true! Call it what it is: we are a sticky semi-sweet cinnamon snail that will sneak up on you. Yeah! There is a hot kick. Welcome small shelled creatures!! 

PORK SHOP

Esposito's Pork Shop dishing out delicious pig parts and more since 1933 in Hell's Kitchen, NYC. Truly a beacon in the night after a spirit-sucking sort of day that called for a closing portion of spicy Italian sausage from some of the more than 10,000 pounds of the stuff they produce each weeks. (Don't really want to imagine the mass of that but..maybe the size of a VW van? Or two?)


Thank you pork people at Esposito's.

PERFECTLY PLASTIC

Tupperware held all of his sadness: a middle class and midwestern thump of hurt. The sadness of being raised on iceberg lettuce instead of arugula. It was the damage of the scraped and dinged (slightly melted at the lip) frosty-green iceberg lettuce crisper. The Tupperware that was no longer in use because no one could find the lid. The crisper was expendable, but no one cared enough about the container to even throw it out! It had so little value that it wasn't even worth throwing away. 


The guy hadn't showered in weeks. I couldn't smell him right then, but I knew who he was and he never showered. He was a drunk boy/man with a hurt heart and he stood screaming below our apartment windows that night in Cleveland. He wasn't looking or yelling for me specifically - it was my room mate who had caught his wrath - I was just in hearing distance, and yet he seemed to be yelling at me too. He cursed her, he cursed all of us (women), he was hard to understand at times but the proclamations were building to one last insult - the crescendo - bellowing..."You, you treat me...you treat me worse, you treat me worse than anything! You treat me like...like, I'm Tupperware! TUPPERWAAARE!"

I still recall his name. I remember his sour body smell in our house mixed with turpentine and stale cigarette. I remember the look of his paintings and that he was smart and well read. But today the only thing that truly resonates carried through the windows that night: You treat me like I'm Tupperware. 

DAILY DENSITY MEASURE

SCRATCHbread

Sometimes I define an inner chaotic day by a number of external measures: like how many subway rides I take. A four fare day is doable (0 is great! Two is cool.) while a 7 or a 9 would be exceptional and undesirable in theory...it would also make me wonder what the hell was going on!   

Now with the work in the bakery/kitchen I have a new external daily density measure because yesterday was a 10 sack day.

FOOK HING

 Ha! I could not resist posting some signs from local Chinese hotspots in the Bushwick and Bed-Stuy area of Brooklyn. Are you FOOK HING kidding me?

SUPER SALAD IN ONLY 35 DAYS!

Spring has sprung. I was inspired to recycle some egg cartons to grow rosalita lettuce and arugula in one of the more ambitious gardening moments in recent memory. 

MORGH-E TORSH

 My friend Susan in Vienna is a great Persian cook and introduced me to Morgh-e Torsh, a sour chicken, herb dish that she actually makes with fish sometimes (which is not traditional). Susan also grabs hot pots out of the oven with her bare hands, also, not traditional! I think her fingers are made of asbestos. 

THE EARNEST BAKER (VEGAN FOR A NIGHT)

Every time I run out of eggs or butter I become a vegan. (Until, of course the next day when I buy more eggs and butter!) I know some great bakers and some great Vegan bakers...I am neither under any circumstance. I am an earnest baker at best and a lazy half-*#ssed baker otherwise. Tonight was an earnest attempt to conjure up some peanut butter cookies for a dear friend who deserves a decent vegan treat!

Recipe follows....

INFINITY CHICKEN

 This is my Infinity Chicken with...

A RARE THING: HONEY HARVEST

“…A Rare thing, fine as a beeswing.” Beeswing song by Richard Thompson

Have you ever really looked closely at a beeswing? This fineness may hold true for rareness and as a lyric in a song but if you get one of those beeswing stuck between your teeth it can be a real bugger to get out! A few years ago I cut my finger on a sugar cube and I think it is a cosmically comparable experience to the beeswing-between-teeth scenario that occurred this weekend.

1932 news about bees

Because this weekend was Honey Harvest and I was nipping at a pile of oozing honey and comb when the fine beeswing found me! I harbor mostly allergic and allegoric relationships to bees and was thrilled to expand experientially at my first ever Harvest. I also highly recommend that if you happen to have lost track of a dear friend in the world the best place to reunite is in a garage cutting and scratching honeycomb…thank you for the invitation Al!

Honey Harvesting 

And thank you Kurt and Rita for being urban beekeepers!

BEET BEAT

Spiral and bullseye beats mesmerized my salad and me.

HELLO, MY LITTLE DUMPLING

Pork, beef, cilantro, scallions, fish sauce, soy sauce, Chinese cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, fennel, over 900 folds = 100 dumplings (half vegetarian/half meat)

DIE BLUMEN STRUDEL

ANOTHER ALLEGORICAL MEAT CARROT

What a minefield I got into when I naively started some searches on the web for “soap on a rope”, “meat on rope“ and “meat on a thread”. Who knew? I, of course, had been in search of a literal commonsense explanation for the utterly unexplainable.

A city’s street level detritus should be considered omens of the highest rank. These abandoned or lost trinkets, playing cards and small change can serve as valuable talismans (often in lieu of actual advice or time consuming therapy). What is left on the streets (if anything) tells a great deal about a city too. The ability to garner meaning from this flotsam and jetsam is just one of the urban gifts I have picked-up as a global city dweller. Some people look at clouds and see sheep and snails I find an Ace of Spades and a tie clip and expect to meet a powerful employed stranger.

HOSPITAL VIEW

It looked like the most beautiful hospital view in the world. Unless it is actually what you are looking at, then it is all about the point of view. Leave beauty to the beholders. I was a visitor.

ROLL WITH IT

I spent the last 4 hours writing a series of reviews and letting dough rise but all that turned out was the breakfast. Luckily the whole wheat homemade rolls proved the perfect Sunday salve after loosing ever single word I wrote to the hinterland of my laptop. Looks like it is starting to be one of those Why me? sort of days. 

IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER

SUNDAY SPECIAL

I am not sure what impresses me more, that this is a Budget Best Bets recipe or that it comes from the diet center Weight Watchers! The awe doesn't end there though because the architecture of this Crown Roast of Frankfurters is manufactured to hold a can of beans and some sort of cabbage salad. As elegant as it is inviting for that special Sunday supper.