wd-50

I became obsessed with molecular gastronomy after reading an article written by one of Guy's clients--while I don't think anyone would ever call the food scene in New York boring, there does seem to be a certain amount of repetition. Beets are suddenly on every menu. Oh no, wait, now it's pomegranates. Something a little more adventurous and experimental sounded, at the very least, worth trying.

So, for our three and a half year anniversary*, Guy planned a surprise. A surprise which he came so very, very close to keeping a surprise. He told me what to wear (less gay than it sounds--he gave me a dress for Christmas and told me to wear that) and that it was an experiment. And then the day before he 'fessed up to his plans. Really all for the best--it gave me the opportunity to study the menu.

We were right there in that corner booth spot. My brown dress matched the decor. It was early, and therefore empty, so I felt absolutely no hesitation in demanding advice from our Paul Rudd-ish server, who declared that we had given ourselves the best possible meal without order the tasting menu.

Guy ordered the popcorn soup with shrimp medallions and tamarind-marinated jicama. It was exquisite. The soup tasted like creamy popcorn, but wasn't in any way overwhelming. The jicama was a surprisingly strong burst of sour--but the shrimp. Oh, the shrimp. At first bite, all you tasted was popcorn soup. Chew a couple of times, and all of a sudden there's lemon. And then it's gone, and you have shrimp. Amazing.

I did not intend to eat an entire slab of foie gras all by myself, but I did. Guy didn't get it--he also didn't notice that the lentils made of mole sauce were exactly what we'd been reading about and fascinated by and why I ordered the thing, but anyway more for me. And I'm feeling fine today; my heart is still beating and everything. I loved the consistency and the just damn coolness of the lentils, but they didn't taste too mole-y to me. I've had tiny melting yumminess of foie gras before, but never a big old steak of it, and my lands, it's rich. But if I loaded a bite with beads of mole, wriggling foie gras, and a smudge of quince yogurt, all these flavors smooshed together and became much more than they were on their own.

Guy deviated from his original plan of lamb, and went with the Paul Rudd's suggestion of pork belly instead (hey, I ate the foie gras all by myself--I don't want to die alone). It was a little dry in places, but the fattier bits (normally not my favorite thing) were squishy goodness. The sunchokes were crispy, and Guy at first mistook them for water chestnuts. The caper sauce had a little mustardy bite to it--which was nothing compared to the ancho-soaked pineapple slices.

I ordered the scallops. They were normal-sized, which I was relieved to see; giant scallops are a little too milky for me. I'm a mushroom fan, but the black trumpet mushrooms just seemed to be kind of there, and not really part of the dish. However, everything else worked together wonderfully well. The scallops and mushrooms were sitting in a broth of spice bread, and laid over the top were cranberry fruit leather strips. Taken on its own, the cranberry was way too tart--certainly wasn't cranberry cocktail fruit leather. But with a swirl in the broth, a dab of chestnut mayo from the corner, the bite was excellent.

Dessert, however, was by far the best dish. While I was fascinated by the white chocolate, potato, and white beer ice cream, I was pretty full from all my foie gras, and we went with the yuzu curd and shortbread. The yuzu had the consistency of soft cheese, and sat on a salty shortbread cracker. The pistachios were ground up into something resembling a granola, as well as a smooth green sauce. And dabbed about the plate were little white spoonfuls of spruce yogurt. Which tasted like spruce. In a good way.

And then we went home and watched Buffy. Because that is what we do, and crazy good food doesn't change you all that much.




*The three and a half year anniversary of us getting together. Not of us getting engaged, which is in April, or of us getting married, which I guess technically is August 2009 (though we did toast it in 2007. Cause we're weird). Lots of opportunities for celebration.

Bad Things That Happened To Me Today

7:45 AM Wake up. 'Nuff said.

8:50 AM Walk out the door. Ow. It's fucking cold. And Bob Dylan's Return To Me is playing on my iPod because God knows why I have it on there and it sucks and my hands are too cold to take out of my pocket to skip the song.

8:57 AM The PATH platform is shoulder to shoulder. Police Action and 20 min delays. I am suffering from slight claustrophobia.

9:25 AM I finally get on a train, but I am stuck in the middle of the car with nothing to hold on to. Luckily, it is so crowded that I can just crash back and forth into people's shoulders with no fear of falling down.

9:45 AM Walking to work. Ow. It's fucking colder.

10:15 AM Spill glass of water all over my desk, keyboard, notebook, shoes, and pants.

10:30 AM Realize headache and lack of coordination is most likely result of glass of paint thinner aka eggnog I foolishly drank last night.

11:00 AM Wish boss would stop being randomly snippy. Understand it is not actually directed at me, but still. Is annoying.

12:00 PM Look at NYNZ and back at my own post-in-progress and realize that I too suffer from a brain that has been exposed to too much Bridget Jones. Realize that I had already realized that this morning as I walked to the bathroom thinking "Resolution Number One: drink less."

1:00 PM Go to get my unexciting lunch of leftovers from yesterday's lunch out of the office refrigerator, only to discover that someone had eaten most of it, but put back the three or four bites of rice they didn't want. Very thoughtful.

1:02 PM Send mildly nasty email round the office, receive many queries of what exactly it was that I had planned on eating for lunch, as well as offers of someone to walk with while I buy another lunch.

1:15 PM Eat someone else's food that was in the refrigerator as surely this is the Karmic thing to do (but only after ascertaining that it is indeed up for grabs).

1:30 PM Post complaints on Blogger in hopes that day will turn around once I make my unhappiness known to the universe at large.

The Day After

Well. They didn't want to go see Enchanted again. And while this may shock no one, it was sort of surprising, since they had requested to be taken to see it only three days before. But then, Christmas Eve was No Man's Land at our house, and nothing could be expected to go according to plan or logic.

Boy asked to be allowed to open all his presents about fifty times over the course of the day, and responded to patient reminders that tomorrow is Christmas, and that he can open them then with shouts of "It's not fair!" Guy suggested that Boy's New Year's Resolution be to remove that phrase from his vocabulary.

Girl was not exactly ill-behaved, but she did make life tough in that she was absolutely entirely unwilling to any thing--any single thing--by herself. She couldn't play by herself, she couldn't get dressed by herself, she couldn't eat a snack by herself, she couldn't pee by herself. I find this tiring.

We offered up Enchanted as something to take up a few hours in the day, and also as incentive for good behavior. Except for how suddenly they didn't want to see Enchanted. They wanted to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. (And they wanted concession stand popcorn and soda. Because, Boy's logic ran, if we could afford to buy him all these presents we should be able to buy him whatever the hell else in the world he wants. Also his mom gets him soda and popcorn every time.)

My self-sacrifice does not extend that far. I stayed home. Guy went and wished he'd brought a book and headphones. The kids adored it. (And they drank water and ate Trader Joe's popcorn. Plus a lot of candy.) It made Boy stop asking to open presents for ten whole minutes after they got home.

We ordered Japanese food and watched Olive the Other Reindeer. It was very silly. We began hustling them down to bed. Only Girl balked. She didn't want to sleep here. She wanted to sleep at her mom's house.

Now, if a six year old kid--or frankly, any year old kid--wants to sleep at his or her mom's house and that house is just down the street, then damn skippy that's what they'll do. And that's what Girl did. But I won't pretend that after a long day and a long week and some long months of building up this Christmas in my head it didn't hurt my feelings.

Boy put it very succinctly as he lay on the floor sobbing as Girl walked out the door: "I just wanted this Christmas to be about the four of us, of us together, as a family. I wanted to wake up with her on Christmas morning. How can she not care about that?"

I explained to Boy--and to myself--that she does care, but she wants her mom. And it's okay to be sad about it, and to wish things were different, but it shouldn't ruin Christmas. She'll be over at 7 am, and we'll open presents, and it's really not a big deal. It shouldn't be taken as any kind of indication that this family unit is anything less than that, just because that other family unit eight doors down has its own pull on her emotions and needs.

Boy went to sleep. Guy and I went upstairs, and set out the presents from Santa, and dutifully ate the cookies and drank the milk (didn't even pour it down the sink, though I did consider it. Milk is yucky). We talked ourselves out of feeling sad and discouraged and wished each other a Merry Christmas. And we went to bed. Only I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned for hours, and started to wake Guy, and so went upstairs to sleep on the couch. (Which somehow felt sort of sacreligious. Santa can't come if I'm sleeping on the couch right in front of the Christmas tree.)

Only I couldn't sleep up there either. I could go into the ironies of as a kid not being able to sleep on Christmas Eve, and then as an adult not being able to sleep on Christmas Eve because of kids, but I find it too depressing. I felt very sorry for myself up there on that couch.

But then the doorbell rang promptly at seven and Boy and Girl rushed up the stairs and ooohed and ahhed over the missing cookies and the notes from Santa (which I tried to write extra messy so they wouldn't suspect it was me) and woohoo Santa got us Pictionary! And a jewelry box! And jewelry to boot! And Guy got me a giant whisk and just about every bath ball Lush makes and he liked the shoes I got him and also the Kurt Cobain action figure because it's So. Freaking. Insane. (Even though it doesn't come with a gun. Sigh.) And there was wrapping paper everywhere and Maud was playing in it and it was all happening on my living room floor in my house with the people I live with and love.

It was a nice day. I took a bath with one of my Lush balls, and we watched Dinosaurs "Not the mama!" and played Pictionary (thanks, Santa, for giving us the one game Guy and I suck at) and I somehow managed to stay awake for all of it and even shout orders at Boy as we made a very harried chilli-chocolate pudding while sending smart ass texts to my sister because nice as this Christmas was, and important as it was to me, I still felt very homesick.

But I did sleep last night. Like the proverbial rock. Only one who was cuddled.

A Christmas List

This has been a stupidly hard week.

Monday: Clean office in preparation for construction of office. Get many papercuts. Listen to people complain about how they're getting screwed and their desks are getting smaller. Tell them gently to suck it up. Refrain from pointing out that I too am getting a smaller desk and somehow managing to not have (or be) a cow. Do not sleep well.

Tuesday: Office party. First party I have planned that wasn't thrown at my house. Call restaurant at 4:00 to confirm for the eleventh time that all is well. "We'll see you at 7:30!" they say cheerily. "5:30! 5:30! Are you setting up? 5:30!" I now have a cow. I rush over to the restaurant an hour and a half early--only to discover that all is well, and I have to sit and chit chat with the only other person who for reasons unknown arrived early--the hands-down scariest person in the office, who has never managed to figure out who I am among the other peons. Others finally arrive, and party is widely hailed as best party office has ever had. Get very drunk at party. Do not sleep well.

Wednesday: Am horribly hungover. Give in and take sleeping pill.

Thursday: Am hungover from sleeping pill. Everyone in office suddenly decides that today is asshole day. Fit-pitching over desk-downsizing reaches astronomical level. My attempts at placation backfire. Try and hide, but feel very exposed and frankly just want to crawl under my desk while it's still big enough for me to fit under it and listen to the new PJ Harvey on repeat until everyone goes away. Day lasts forever, and does not improve. Watch Grey's Anatomy as closest thing to Enchanted and discover that so close is still so far. Cannot sleep, get up and take sleeping pill, which does not work.

Friday, i.e. Today: Hungover from sleeping pill which did not make me sleep. Really desperately do not want to be here, even though everyone's mood seems to have improved. Need to make a new list. Things that make me happy list.

1. Sweeney Todd got good reviews, and I shall go see it this weekend. Although that probably indicates that therefore I cannot see Enchanted, so strike this one.
2. Period is arriving, so this feeling of weepiness and nausea will pass soon enough. Although then period will be here. Strike this one as well.
3. Office closes today at 3:00.
4. Christmas is four days away, and I need to be here in this office for none of those days.
5. Christmas is four days away.
6. I really like the presents I got Guy. And he has to share them with me because I live there too.
7. We've decided not to make a turkey for the four of us at Christmas as that would be insane.
8. I love the Christmas tree in the PATH tunnel.
9. Our Christmas tree is still standing. And still green.
10. I got the Enchanted soundtrack on my iPod last night. Didn't even have to wait for Christmas.
11. I got a bigass TV and didn't even have to wait for Christmas.
12. I am comfortable with my commercialism and the fact that sometimes things DO make me happy.
13. The mexican restaurant in our neighborhood now serves Tortilla Soup.
14. The kids are happy that they're spending Christmas with us.
15. I'm happy that they're spending Christmas with us.
16. They're going to be so psyched about their presents. That'll be fun.
17. Guy takes and is going to take good care of me. I bet he'll draw me a bath if I ask him to. Although not tonight, because no bath is relaxing when the kids keep knocking on the door to see if they can come in or if I'm done yet.
18. I finished all my Christmas knitting weeks ago. This still makes me happy.
19. I bet the kids would want to go see Enchanted again on Christmas Eve. And so would Guy, because whatever everybody thinks about how he's super self-sacrificing and good to me and yeah, sure, that's all true, but the fact is he loves the movie too and won't take much persuading.
20. People love me even though I'm delusional and insane. That's nice.

On Love

Since I first heard of the concept love, I’ve dreamed of it. So I must have been, what, six? Seven?

As I got older, my daydreams changed from going to the movies and long, closemouthed Disney kisses to banter, adventure, and sex. They were always complicated and heavily-plotted, though—sometimes at recess, instead of going out to play, I would sit with my head on my desk and dream up some wildly romantic get boy-lose boy-get boy back story. I learned to tell my teachers I was tired and needed a nap.

This continued through high school and college and even after—and it got a lot more active. Instead of sitting or lying in bed with my eyes closed, I would go for long walks and meet and talk with the imaginary man I fell in love with. Or sometimes I would spend an entire day alone in my house (or dorm room, or apartment) not alone, but blissfully kept hostage by evil orcs/mobsters/vampires and—sigh!—being rescued. Or just talking and laughing with someone I loved.

This may sound very lonely and Miss Havishamy, but it wasn’t. I oftentimes couldn’t wait for family and friends and even boyfriends to leave me alone so I could get back to my daydreaming. It made me very happy, and I miss it terribly.

Because you see, I can’t anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ll go on a walk, and I’ll bump into a stranger, and it’ll be some miraculous connection (you know the scene) and I’ll start talking to him and it’ll be just like old times…except, my brain will skip forward and I’ll think about what will happen when I get home and how will Guy feel and my heart will break and I so don’t care about imaginary stranger man and poof! He’s gone.

This is very frustrating. I’m just trying to have a harmless little daydream. It’s how I used to occupy my unoccupied time. I am now unable to have impure thoughts.

I’ve tried getting around the heartbreak by first imagining Guy having an affair, or suddenly turning into a bad person, which would thereby free me up to fall in love with that man who really needs a place to hide for the night because he’s Johnny Depp and the paparazzi are after him, and he and Vanessa split up, didn’t I know? But instead I’m so angry and hurt at the idea of being cheated on that I can’t keep Johnny from poofing either.

I suppose this is all very romantic. I am so in love with Guy that I am incapable of even thinking about possibly loving someone else.

It’s still fucking annoying though.

Easily Enchanted

So I've been having a hard time for the past week. I'll sleep for hours, and still feel exhausted. Everything is a struggle. Cutting up Girl's chicken cutlet has felt like the hardest task in the world. Line-editing a manuscript should not take me an entire week. And crossing the street while horns blare and headlights blind should be commonplace, not shocking.

I miss Hawaii. I miss the warmth and the sunshine and the ocean. I miss my parents. I even miss their smelly-ass dog. In Hawaii, I got to sit and read. A book, not a manuscript about addiction-recovery or menstruation or religion. I was so relaxed, I even stopped knitting in Hawaii.

Everything here is hard, and demands so much of me. And it's a life I chose, and would still choose over again (since sitting at my parents house, no matter what my mother says, is not a life), but that doesn't mean it isn't kinda tough sometimes. Especially when we have the kids almost every day while I'm still adjusting.

So, given all that, we needed to find something to do to entertain them on freezing cold Saturday. So, even though they'd already seen Enchanted, we took them again. Guy sat me down on his right, and put the kids on his left, and set about doling out popcorn and candy and whatall.

And I spent two hours in a state of utter delight.

Enchanted starts off as a very silly movie. Disney snarking at itself is all well and good and pretty funny, but that's about as far as it goes. Shrug.

But then something happened...some unnoticeable moment where it became something more, where Disney said yes, we know, we know, but look--this is what we do. And it was suddenly the sweetest and happiest movie I'd seen in a very long time.


Not that it wasn't still funny--oh, it was. That bouncy-ball of a prince, the eye-rolls of Patrick Dempsey, the spot-on delivery and physical comedy of Amy Adams--all hilarious. But I kind of expected that.

I didn't expect it to be sexy.

And oh, it was. Not lewd, just some damn fine chemistry--another thing I haven't seen in a very long time (Pride and Prejudice? Was that the last time? Crikey).

And romantic. And there was singing and dancing. And pretty dresses.

What does it mean that I am now in such a fabulous mood (and might I mention, even as I type this, flying through my line-edit)? Part of me thinks it shouldn't be that easy--that my problems are actual problems, and can't be solved with a trip to the movies.

But then, they seem to be. Maybe I'm just that shallow. Or just that mercurial.

If I knew how to turn a cartwheel, I'd be flip-flopping my way past the cubicles. As it is, I skip. I'm waving and smiling at everybody. I might go have Pinkberry for lunch. We have the kids tonight--and I'm looking forward to it. Maybe we'll invent some more Pictionary phrases--impossible to draw Pictionary phrases, like Cliff Clavin, Captain Underpants, or Cheerio Baby. Maybe we'll bake. Maybe we'll dance.

It may not be warm here, but I have lots of things that make me happy. I have a fun boss, and Anthropologie, and a dried rose on my desk, and Christmas coming, and friends, and two demanding but everlastingly loving stepchildren.

And I've also got a guy who took me to see Enchanted again on Sunday.

What more could anyone ask?

Thanksgiving, 2007

Day 1

We played much scrabble on the plane. I mostly won. I discovered that I looooove Magic Loop, and will knit socks with Magic Loop always and forever, Amen. Guy discovered that he likes Thomas Pynchon.

We ran to make our connecting flight. No, really ran. As in out of breath ran.

We arrived in Hilo in the rain. We went to sleep.

Day 2

We hiked, and my Dad was crabby he didn't get to play tennis. He complained that he had a headache, but really he was just crabby about the tennis.

We picked berries and my mom made Ohelo berry pie. Guy helped--he picked out worms. All of the worms. Yes indeed, for I ate no worms.


Day 3

Guy and I went to Waipio Valley, which I've been trying to arrange for the past three years. It was worth it.


We tromped around in the mud and through streams and hey look there are some stoned hippies and whoa more stoned hippies and that's fun.


And it was sure pretty.


Then we had dinner at the world's worst Mexican restaurant that my dad loves onlybecause he likes being difficult but they do have good margaritas so we ordered a pitcher but then it turned out my dad wasn't drinking and Guy was driving so it was just me and my mom and oy.

Day 4

Guy and I went to Richardsons and ate a ton of Hawaiian junk food (and also a ton of ants) and lay in the sun and saw big splashy waves and turtles but the water was cold so we didn't go swimming. Then we went home and made dinner and I took a bath in my huge ginormous clawfooted bathtub that I miss terribly and then we played scrabble and I won but then we played Trivial Pursuit and I lost.

My mom has always been crazy busy but now that my dad is all judgy they're both crazy busy so we didn't get to see as much of them as I would have liked. But we made them stuff they probably don't eat even though they can get it all the time--poke and poi and haupia. Which didn't harden really, so it was haupia creme. Still tasted good.

We played trumps. Dad and I won.

Day 5

I got a migraine. We didn't go to the beach, but stayed home and watched Slapshot. Cause you know, nothing makes your head feel better like watching other people's heads get pounded into the ice. I took another bath.

We played trumps. Mom and I won.

Day 6

I helped prepare the turkey. Okay, not really. I had every intention of helping with the turkey this time, but once again, I saw my dad reach in there for the packages of bloody turkey bits, and then talk about how we want to use the okole for the gravy, and that was it, I couldn't help anymore. At least I stayed in the room.

We cooked. We cleaned. We prepared for the onslaught by hiking and then eating a lot of cheese. My cousin Drew came home after three years of being stuck on the mainland. We hugged. My grandmother loved her shrug. My cousin Jeremy drank three martinis without seeming much the worse for wear. Guy was impressed. We cleaned some more. My cousins all looked beautiful. We sang the Doxology in Hawaiian, and recorded it on my sister's voicemail to make her cry and prove to her that she should never be away from home ever again.

We ate a lot.

We played Trivial Pursuit. The Gorillas won.

We passed out.

Day 7

My parents had to work AGAIN.

Guy and I went on the Volcano Artists' Tour. I kept a straight face. Or tried to anyway.

We met with the wedding photographer. Guy decided he's in the witness protection program, because how on earth would an Italian with a German last name go from the marines to model photography in Volcano?

We played trumps. Guy and I lost.




Day 8

Mom and Dad went to a funeral. Guy and I packed. I took one last bath. We read outside. My book was terrible, but damnit I was going to finish it. I got sunburned. The cats had fleas.

We did yard work. We cleaned up. We went to dinner. We were all very tired.

We went to the aiport. We played trumps one last time. Dad and I won.

Guy and I managed not to fall asleep until we were on the flight to Newark. Then we slept long and painfully. I am doing the full body turn today.

Day 9

We stumbled our way through the airport and unpacking and shopping and cleaning out the kitty litter. I snuggled with the kitty and finished my second book. The kitty missed us.

In an effort to get ourselves back into New Jersey life, we followed our Sunday evening routine of Guy making steaks while I sat and knit, and then eating the steaks on wobbly TV trays while we watched our Netflix (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Utterly forgettable. Robert Downey Jr. was asleep, but Val Kilmer was funny. The world is askew). And we practiced swearing again.

Guy: That fucking guy is like Harvey Keitel's Mr. Wolf in Res Dogs.
Cordelia: Harvey Keitel wasn't Mr. Wolf in Res Dogs. He was Mr. A-Color.
Guy: Five dollars.
Cordelia: Done. He was Mr. A-Color. You're thinking of fucking Pulp Fiction.
Guy: 100 dollars. It's fucking Res Dogs.
Cordelia: Fine.

Ten second pause.

Guy: FUCK! I just lost a hundred fucking dollars! Fuck! It was fucking Pulp Fiction!

Yeah, the swearing doesn't ring true to me either.

After the movie, we figured it was time for bed. We were certainly sleepy enough. Guy brought the dishes into the kitchen.

Cordelia: What time is it?
Guy: Um. What time do you want it to be?
Cordelia: Uhhh...9:30? 10? What time is it?
Guy: It's only 7:40.
Cordelia: Oh. We can't go to sleep at 7:40.

So we watched an episode of Angel and I managed to keep my eyes open during the part where Darla kills herself (because you can't miss that!) and then we went to bed. At 8:30.