4 Days: Butter is best

Just made luscious pasta.  So scrummy.  We eat far too much pasta, I think, but if there are enough veggies and flavor, it should be OK.  The secret?  Butter.  Butter is always the secret.  Why?  Nobody wants to know it’s there.  But if your food tastes extra-amazing at a restaurant…it’s because of the butter piled on as a finisher.  You can count on it.  It’s my secret, too.

Pasta is my sisterly tradition.  I have two sisters.  When we’re together, one of us very often hops into the kitchen and whips up some pasta.  When one of them does it, it’s pretty plain.  A can of tomato pasta sauce, maybe some extra garlic, salt, and pepper.  When I do it, I usually make my own sauce.  Veg, of course onion, tons of garlic, tomato, olive oil, sometimes zucchini, bell peppers, greens, ginger, mushrooms, and so much more.  I like my pasta spicy.  I throw in a ton of chili.  Cayenne.  Hot paprika.  I’m fond of Vietnamese fish sauce instead of salt (don’t tell my sisters!), and sometimes, I throw in butter at the end.  Oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, cilantro.

Then we sit, each with a deep Asian soup-cereal type bowl, and watch sappy cable TV.  Sometimes it’s America’s Next Top Model.  Sometimes it’s a a wildlife documentary like Big Cat Diary, which my youngest sister, Indiana Jones Jr, loves so damned much.  And my personal favorite — British Murder Mysteries – Dalziel and Pascoe, Inspector Linley, Miss Marple, Midsommer Murders.  These days if we’re lucky there are some great Gordon Ramsey shows.  It’s fab that he has so many damned ventures, because he’s on in some capacity all the time…and usually fantastic entertainment.  I dream of being on Hell’s Kitchen these days.  I have the skills and training.  Wouldn’t it be cool to be screamed down by that blond monster?

But these days, our middle sister is stateside.  We miss her.  Jones Jr and I are boiling and sweating in our skins, watching Finding Neverland, after a slew of boring modeling, wedding, and other ridiculous reality TV shows didn’t make the grade.

Pasta.  Spaghetti.  Al dente.  Cooking in water as salty as the sea.  Tonight served with zucchini.  And butter.  Always finished with butter.  It’s best that way.  Warmed with memories.

176 Days: Irish Contentment

The Winding Stair Overlooking the Ha'penny Bridge

Today is my last full day here in Dublin. I’m a bit sad to leave tomorrow, but not heartbroken.  It’s given me energy and a bit of peace of mind being here.  It’s really exciting to be “going for your dreams.”  Life can be stressful, but goodness gracious, there is indeed so much to look forward to.  A lot of things are hard (publishing a book, building a company, making ends meet, creating a lasting mark on the world…), but it can be fun, exciting, joyful, and good to simply be going for them.  Putting in a strong effort.  This simple optimism is missing from my life on a day to day basis, quite often.  And it’s something that was essential in my life when I was in uni, and especially when I lived in Dublin 9 years ago.  I’ll have to find a way to remember this.  To make it mine, daily, again.

Yesterday, I had a “day of decadence,” I think I’ll call it.  Got up quite late, went to The Winding Stair, an old independent bookstore that has a cafe above it.  Well, it’s been completely redone, and the cafe is a gourmet restaurant in the best liberal Irish tradition — local fare, local ingredients, organic produce, imaginative yet wholesome menu — and just a lovely bright room, lots of wood, overlooking the Liffey right at the Ha’penny bridge.    I ate lamb liver, streaky bacon, mustard mash, and whiskey sauce, with an interesting amber beer from Italy I’d not had before.  Really lovely.  Liver was more cooked than I liked, but still a good meal.  Very warm, smart, attentive staff.  I’m so glad I went back there.  In college, I used to hang out there a bit.  The cafe then was “literary themed” which I do kind of miss in the place now.  You could get sandwiches named after famous books, and I was quite looking forward to a “Watership Down,” or an “Anna Karenina,” or something like that.  Lamb’s liver was more than fine, of course, but it would be fun if they’d included more books in the decor, and added back some of the whimsical which made the place so special before.

I then rushed up to one of the main cinemas in town off of Parnell Square, and I saw the much praised Slumdog Millionaire.  It was fun to see a film in the middle of the day.  It was a feel-good experience.  Nice story.  Having just been in India, I actually wasn’t too keen on “being back there” so soon.  But everyone’s been raving…  Thing is, as good as it was, it wasn’t anything to write home about for me.  It was fun, it was romantic, it was a nice glimpse into India.  But it doesn’t seem like Oscar calibre to me.  It was average-good.  A box office hit, sure.  Nice color, nice young people, hard work triumphing, a deserving youth.  But I don’t think I saw any stellar performances.  We shall see…

Then, I went to Kilkenny, not the place, but the design shop on Nassau Street.  There is a jewelry designer I am absolutely smitten with, and I was told I might be able to find his stuff at this shop.  Sure enough, a whole case of Alan Ardiff.  His works move!  They do!  It’s like gorgeous clockwork in miniature hanging on your neck.  Ducks bob on water, stars rotate, doors open…it’s amazing.  And so very pretty.  All silver, all cute, and so unique.  Problem was, I didn’t have a spare 200 Euro.  I think I’ll have to create a list of birthday requests for my family…it’s cheeky, but I would really love to have one of those pieces.  It’s art.  And it would make my day.  Here is one of my favorites, called, “Follow Your Star.”

Follow Your Star

I then dashed over to The Market Bar on Fade Street where I met some old friends from Trinity.  Such fun.  Munching on tapas (well, I got a cheese and meat platter and they barely ever pecked!), drinking wine, and catching up with such good people.  One is a filmaker who I pray will make it big.  The other a director and arts administrator who basically runs the Dublin theatre Festival.  A great evening.

And now, now, now, I must get offline, get dressed, and get out of the house!  I’m going to another wine tasting extravaganza with the lovely S, this time at the Guinness storerooms.  Hurrah!  I love Dublin.  Should I find a way to move back?  Should I find a way to export my friends to be near me?  Start an Israeli-Irish winery?  Perhaps, perhaps?  Ah life.  It’s good right now.  We’ll see about tomorrow when I have to be on a 6 am flight out of here…

178 Days: Cristal Serendipity

How does the world do it?  The gods and the cherubs and saints and dead Israelite forefathers have conspired to make my Dublin trip bizarre and incredibly amazing.  I have spent the entire day with a brand new friend S, a gorgeous ridiculously intelligent woman, a mutual friend of my friend who turned 30, for whom I came to Dublin in the first place.  And we have been swilling world-class wines!  All day!  And to top it off, I have had my first glass of Cristal!  Amazing.  And Tokaji, and 10-year old and 20-year old Portos, and climax-inducing Muscatos, and Reislings to change your world, and more and more and more (including a local cheese spread, the best ham I’ve ever tasted, and a smoked fish selection — tuna, mackerel, wild salmon, and kippers — that I thought were the absolute best).

How did this happen?  S’s parents own an off-license (Irish for liquor store) and pub in a nice Dublin suburb, and she’s in business with them.  This wine tasting?  A wine distributor she works with sometimes had this amazing array set up at the Four Seasons.  And they welcomed me with open arms.  And we met more and more people, one of whom was a weird-ish Maltese guy who’s been living in Dublin for 15 years, being a chef and restaurant manager, who latched on to us.  We ended up closing the tasting with some Proseco, then moved on to the hotel’s bar, drinking a Rioja and a Reisling (spent 80 Euro, goodness), some horrifically overpriced bland fish pub food, and then moved on (well, we crashed…) the post wine tasting dinner event.  See, S had never heard of these happening, but when we got there, we just snuck happily in and had a huge free meal — black pudding and rocket salad atop some stewed apples (I think), veal and mashed potatoes, lemon tarte and brownies, cheese platter (!!!), and coffee and tea.  With, of course, a huge amount of great great great wine.  Our bizarre (socially awkward) Maltese friend with us the entire time, and joined by my birthday girl friend after she got out of work, it was just one of those evenings that dragged on and on, but didn’t drag.  It unraveled and unwrapped itself like a gift.  The Maltese man ended up inviting me to Italy to plant grapes at a new vineyard that he was going to be investing in as soon as he’d raised 75,000 Euro, insisted I take his number, and did all but beg me to get together later in the week to, “have the finest glass of wine you’ll ever have in your life.”  AND the gorgeous manager of this upscale wine bar cum gourmet Irish restaurant who I’d been eying and who may have been eying me at the wine tasting earlier in the day asked for me number!  Yay!

I’m more than a bit frazzled, giddy, and delighted to have made new friends, spent time with old friends, and I’m currently being horribly anti-social by typing away at this blog while my two girlfriends are chatting around me at 12:30 am.  Life is lovely.

And for your viewing pleasure, a film you MUST all see.  My friend’s original show.  That’s right.  She wrote and directed this funny gem, and she’s touring to Abu Dhabi tomorrow.

190 Days: Scrum-diddli-umptious Food Photos!

Shots from my first catering gig, detailed here.  Enjoy!

My To Do List

The base for a salmon hors d’oeuvre

The Buffet

Eggplant with a nipple or underdeveloped Siamese twin

Organic beef liver, fresh goose fat, handmade fig and onion jam, and oh so lovely

Fancy Deviled Eggs

Wild Mushroom Filo Triangles

Shrimp, Bacon, and Roquefort

Pate, pate, and more pate

The party!

192 Days: Glistening traif and shiny happy Jews

You want to hear about my first huge kick-ass professional catering experience?  Well, you’re gonna.  I served traif to Israelis, and they lapped it up like tiny kittens tasting cream for the very first time.  (Insert evil laugh here).  Traif, for all you non-Jews out there, means non-kosher food.  And in this case, oh boy, oh boy did I go all out!  The timing was perfect.  Perfect!  A different tray of hot food came out every ten or fifteen minutes or so.  There was just enough food.  Not too much left over.  Nobody went hungry.  And people were raving.  I’m thrilled.  The menu, for your reading and salivary pleasure:

Bacon wrapped shrimp smothered with Roquefort cheese

Crisp filo triangles of 5 types of wild mushroom sauteed in red wine

Baked prosciutto-wrapped medjoul dates stuffed with almonds (THE hit of the evening)

“Gourmet” deviled eggs, complete with capers, dijon mustard, anchovy paste, and fresh chive

Smoked salmon on garlic dill creme fraiche mousse with fresh thyme

Veal liver and goose fat pate (yes, I made this by myself, from scratch) with homemade fig and onion compote (b-day boy loves figs)

A vegetable platter to end all vegetable platters (carrot, fennel, baby cornichon-style cucumbers, celery, tri-colored peppers, vine-ripened cherry tomatoes) with three homemade dips: slow-roasted sesames in fresh goat labaneh cheese, fried garlic and fresh chive in a creamy farmer’s cheese, and a killer thousand island (don’t ask me why, but Israelis are gaga for 1000 island.  It’s like their ranch)

Ceviche of Dennis fish (a local fatty fish), and as the birthday boy cannot stand cilantro (aka fresh leafy coriander), this was made with parsley, ginger, chive, green onion, shallots, lemon zest, lemon juice (of course, to “cook” the fish in), olive oil, salt, pepper, and a dab of chilli (I served them in tiny little cups, like rectangular shot glasses, with adorable wee forks.  Gone like hot cakes)

Baked Brie: a lovely creamy brie cheese, raspberry preserves, and slivered almonds, all melted inside the golden loveliness of a buttery puff pastry (the Israelis went orgasmic on this one)

AND

The Main Course

Two Moroccan Tagines:

Beef stewed with onion, garlic, dried apricots, figs, prunes, and dates, seasoned with cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and course black pepper

Eggplant, zucchini, onion, garlic, fresh vine tomatoes, and chick peas, stewed with a bottle of red wine, bay leaves, and a touch of chilli

Both served over couscous

AND

Three salads, of various compositions, the most interesting of which was the fresh baby leaves, red onion, anjou pear, and roasted walnut salad (funny story  – totally forgot to make salad dressed and rushed at the very last second, dumping a ton of freshly squeezed lemon juice that I had on hand into some olive oil, and then added a few spoons of the fig jam from the pate, whisked a bit, salt and peppered, and dumped over a couple of the salads, and then used the 1000 island on another one.  Well, my lemony concoction apparently went over so well, people were scraping the last bits of salad from those two bowls…1000 island went almost untouched…)

AND

Punch: fresh mint lemonade with ginger, spiked with vodka. Hit the spot.

It was a very ambitious menu.  I only realized this after I presented it to the family, them oohing and aahing.  It took every bit of effort over the course of the week not to have a panic attack over this.  See, the difficulty was this.  It was a surprise party.  Which meant, this ambitious menu could not be cooked in the house in which it was going to be served.  No, oh no.  It was arranged that I could use the kitchen of an aunt in the same neighborhood, and then transport all of the food 2 hours before the party was to begin.  Right.  But this was going to take more than cooking some things on the same day.  My uncle very generously offered me his kitchen earlier in the week (my kitchen is less than a galley with absolutely no counter space), and I took him up on it.  I was there for about 10 hours on Friday, making as many preparations as possible so that I wouldn’t have a heart attack the following day.  The pate was made there.  All of the veg for the platter was chopped up there.  All of the dips were made.  The mushrooms were sauteed there, so they could be rolled into filo the next day.  Etc. etc.

I haven’t worked this hard in ages.  Maybe ever.  And you know what?  As hard as this life may be.  As strenuous physically as this was and may continue to be.  I am still glad I left my high tech job.  I’m still over the moon I’m out.  I have no regrets.  When my finances crash, I may think differently, but I am really OK now.  I was really proud of the job I did.  The food was very pretty, as stressed as I was.  I almost lost it on a few occasions (would you believe that early arrival guests, sitting next to the kitchen, started eating raw shrimp and raw bacon they found on parchment paper on a baking sheet, and managed to eat half of this particular batch before I found them and nearly started fuming and scolding them!  How crazy do you have to be to eat that shit raw!  They were in the kitchen, for goodness sake…it wasn’t my fault they were butting their noses into my domain!  Ee gad!).  But I ultimately survived, appeared professional, passed out a couple dozen business cards, and hopefully, hopefully, will get a few jobs out of this.  Because this was for family friends.  Not exactly a profitable gig.  But seeing as it was my first, I proved to myself I could do it.  And do it impressively.  Score!

249 Days: Lentil Comfort

Agam's Dizingof Fountain

I’m sitting in one of my favorite Tel Aviv spots finishing off a lovely bowl of lemony black lentil and spinach soup: Dizi, a vegetarian cafe, DVD rental, and laundromat.  It’s right on Dizingoff square, across from an aging cinema, a flaking fountain, and the site of the twice-weekly antiques market.  It’s also around the corner from a tiny used book store that I discovered has a mega-collection of English-language sci-fi books selling for dirt cheap.   Not a bad place to spend an afternoon.  Oh, did I mention this cafe is also an internet place?  You can rent a laptop for 40 shekels/hour, and for customers, there’s free wi-fi.  What place doesn’t have wi-fi these days, of course, but still.  When i arrived in Israel last year, laptop-less, it was nice to be able to rent one for a while, work on CV’s, feel normal for a change.

DIZI Cafe Interior - I'm sitting on that sofa now!

I’m working on an article that I hope will be done done done within a couple hours, so that I can treat myself to a glass of wine and chocolate cake.  Ah, food.  Ah, lentils.  Ah, wine.  Ah, life.  And maybe I’ll have the courage to call the new man in my life, cutie gentleman that he is.

I got my ticket to India today, and I bought my mega huge insurance package.  Now…all I need is a VISA!  Please, please send good karma to the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv, dear friends.  I need all the luck in the world.  One week to India…I hope…Fingers crossed!

260 Days: MASSIVE CHANGE

I quit my job yesterday.

I bought a ticket to India today.

I leave on December 1st.

When I get back on January 2nd, I immediately begin a 6-month manuscript workshop with an excellent instructor and small group to get my book beaten into shape enough for me to send to agents and publishers.

Also on January 2nd, I begin my life as a full-time freelance writer/food writer and personal chef.  I am already creating a business plan, of sorts, and I at least own the textbook bible how-to of setting up this kind of business (thanks to B).

I am shocked.  I am shocked and stunned and awe-struck because I am achieving my goals.  I wrote them down.  First, here in this blog, and second, on paper this week.  And I’m checking off the list.  I am nowhere near professional success…but I’m not on square one.  And I am much nearer personal success than I had believed.  I have accomplished or am about to accomplish the first four items on my list: finish the book; go to India; get a pet; find career/money/happiness balance.

• One – I’ve signed up for the manuscript workshop, it’s costing a lot, I have to work hard on the thing even before it starts (in the 2.5 weeks I have!), and I’ll be damned if I don’t make something of it with all of this structure I’m creating.
• Two – I got my ticket to India today!  I go for a month.  I wish it could be for two, but a month is a long trip, still.  I am being realistic.  I can’t see all of the country in this amount of time.  But I can focus on three or four regions, have a good time, and learn something.  I’m planning on taking classes on Punjabi and Kerala cuisines, and really try to get an amateur-mastery level before I come back.  Plus — I have number three to worry about…
• Three – I adopted two cats on August 8 of this year.  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.  And I don’t think I would have done it otherwise and under different circumstances.  My sister asked me.  It was her last day on her archaeological dig, and the all kittens the site manager had brought with him from home to be adopted had been — apart from two.  I suspect they were the runt and the bad egg.  However, Cassiopeia (the runt) and Fischer (the bad egg, aka the tornado) have been wonderful.  After I got used to them.  The first month or two were very hard.  Very hard.  I always thought I was a pet person.  Instant companionship.  I felt invaded.  That my life was taken away from me.  My only safe haven in Israel destroyed.  But apart from keeping them from chewing on precious artwork (I live in my grandfather’s old art studio), and having to empty a litter box, they’re my family now.  I don’t love them like I love people.  But it’s nice not to be alone.
• Four – Figure out the work/life/money/creativity – well, I’m doing it.  I quit the job that was horribly for me in many, many ways.  And I’m going to put in a real, hard-working, 6-month effort at food and writing and food writing.

So, there you have it.  Living my dream.  Still, I’m alone on a Thursday night (like Friday night everywhere else in the world).  But it’s better.  I talked to several friends today, and I have some plans for the weekend.  No dating.  Kind of.  Mr 23 is still loitering in the outside lobby of my social life.  But tonight, I have an iMac, two (thankfully) sleepy cats, an apartment to clean, some old movies, a novel to edit, and a trip to India to plan.

Congratulate me, if you will, if you’ve read this far.  And let me know if you have suggestions for India.  I’m a (nearly) blank slate. You know, you can do it, too.  How simple it is.  Just write it down, and check the items off as you go.

My first blog entry: Just Another Number? Just Another Life.

My List of things to do before 30

364 Days

The number of days until I am finally – you know what…

Old. Mature. Arrived. Or rather, a random number that means something only because we have placed meaning upon it.

364 days. It sounds like such a small number. $364 is very little. To us Westerners. For those who live on a dollar a day, well, it’s a year’s salary. It’s donation amount needed to get a 10 second slot on the radio in Chicago. I will have 364 un-birthdays until the blessed event. And 364 chances. 364 days and nights with which to fill with work, with procrastination, with joy, with sorrow, with suffering, with success, with anything I choose. Because most, if not all of these things are choices. Getting up in the morning, we decide what the day will bring. I 364 chances. Chances, opportunities, moments to choose between that which is hard and that which is easy, between positive choices and that which is self-degrading, between laziness (or a mere therapeutic tendency toward inertia?) and directed action.

I gave some thought today as to a realistic goal as to where I would like to see myself in one year’s time. And surprisingly, three very clearly defined pictures appeared to me (which is surprising because they came to me in the half-asleep half-awake moment of an afternoon nap…probably one of the best moments to have profound thoughts -second only to toilet pondering- and one of the most unfortunate, as these thoughts are oft forgotten). If I were to achieve or reach one of these goals (and they are not insignificant), the me that I am know would feel content. Who knows whether the me of a year from now will feel thus (Side Note – do you ever find that happiness and success are only felt in retrospect? that happens to me a lot…”wasn’t last summer a golden time?” and “the weather in London when I lived there was really a dream for me…so temperate…”…when really, you were stressing out the whole summer and suffering from the rain in the winter and heat in the summer in London). The three pictures of what I think would be a good place for me to be in one years time are:

1) Getting my book published – or very reasonably along, with an agent, prospects, real milestones felt on this process.

2) PhD program – I have come to the conclusion, which I have come to many, many times before (but was too lazy or chicken or stubborn or scared to really acknowledge and take action), that I love being in an academic environment. That I thrive in them. That I achieve great things in them. That I feel safe in them. And PhD programs are basically a half- to full-decade-long ticket to intellectual bliss, as compared with the outside world. Sure, I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses now. But when studying at university, both times I was in university, I was in an “almost happy” kind of mood. My general well-being was much of a much higher level. There were deadlines, goals, interesting people, great things to read, and good competition. That is another topic in itself.

3) A good job with good prospects in Food Media. What I mean by this (and I have been told by several now within the industry that it would be a perfect fit for me) is finding work at some food-oriented television or media outlet, whether it be as a producer or editor of something, a writer, a critic, anything really. I love creative work (I have experience as a radio producer and editor), I have a very extensive background in theatre and performance (which can translate into on-camera, on-air, or behind the scenes work in the sort of setting), I am a writer with a very critical mind, and I love food and now have a professional culinary diploma and experience to back this up. I mean, now, all I want to write about is food, essays on food, the history of food, the impact of food in our lives, on this planet, the science of food, the future of food. I am passionate about this. And a media job in this field would draw on all of my strengths and many of my interests. This is an industry I could stick with for life. It is also an industry that I would probably have to move back to the States for, but should I land a dream job, I can imagine I would hop on the next flight to New York.

So there you have it. Three ideas. All realistic for one year’s work. I have enough time to work my ass off on the book. I have enough time to submit applications and work on my academic CV. And I can job hunt. The question is, do I work on them all? How likely are they? Do I sacrifice one for the benefit of the other two? The book is almost entirely in my control, and it may very well be the most difficult and fantastical thing to achieve of the three. The other two are very largely out of my control and after a point, require far less energy than the book.

I think the most important thing is to just get to work. On any of the above. And do it now. You see, I have only 364 days to do this in. 364 chances.