Halloween Madeleines?

 

I am a person who remembers absolutely everything. I remember being sick when I was two years old and believed (one, hopes, due to fever and not psychopathology) that tiny men were marching out of my laundry hamper. I remember the first day of kindergarten, the exact words in the note from Eric saying he didn’t like me that way in fifth grade, the way the flap of skin looked after I jumped on a clam shell in Maine when I was ten, and the phone numbers of all my friends from high school.  I remember the way the air smelled in Boston on a day when it brought the ocean into the City, and the diesel smell of the streets in Europe. I remember slights and offenses and try hard to forget them, I remember generosities and kindnesses, and I remember to do the things I say I’m going to do, unless I’m under enormous stress. (That’s a whole different issue).

So remembering things about Halloweens past should be easy, right?  All of the pumpkins, and costumes, and cobweb-covered porches should transport me back, like Proust in Rememberance of Things Past:

And suddenly the memory revealed itself: The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.

No dice. I love Halloween; in general I prefer the autumn holidays because they don’t happen in summer (which I dislike) and I don’t have to buy gifts, decorate the house or forget to send cards again. I remember all of Sam’s Halloweens, from his first one-house trick-or-treat venture in a little dalmatian suit to the toddler year when he fought me the entire time I was applying his clown makeup, so that he went out looking like a tiny Phyllis Diller with a rainbow afro. Last year I dressed him as Sarah Palin (complete with a skirt suit and a rifle); the year before, I made him an iPod costume; one of my greatest creative accomplishments ever.  I am a veritable encyclopedia on The Halloweens of Sam;  It’s my own Halloween history I can’t remember.
I am sitting here looking out the window at fallen leaves. A pumpkin scented candle is burning, and I am reaching back as if a $250.00 fee for an hour of Freudian analysis depended on my success. If I really strain, I can remember precisely two costumes. When I was in kindergarten, my best friend Leslie’s mother made us pink satin tutus with real tulle skirts. I loved  Leslie’s house because she was the only child of well-to-do, older parents, who were able to provide Leslie (and often, me) with all of the good things in life. Leslie had a bedroom with carpet, a pink canopy bed, and her mother did not work, but stayed home to make us crustless fluffernutters for lunch.  Tragically, my own mother worked, had a one-year-old baby, didn’t sew, and refused either to buy “Fluff” or to cut the crusts off of sandwiches. Leslie’s family moved to New Orleans after that year and I never saw her again, but my tutu lived long enough for me to make my brother wear it when he was four or five. I put a washcloth on his head as a stand-in for longer hair, and called him “Mary.” (His session is right after mine).

 

The only other costume I can dredge up was related to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a television show which, like “The Prisoner,” I watched with my parents with not so much as a moment of comprehension. Our highly flammable, non-reflective costumes from that era (maybe 1970?) came in boxes, and included a plastic mask with an elastic string around the back to hold the thing on your head. The eye slits were never where one’s actual eyes were, and even if you used your free hand (the one that was not holding the plastic bucket shaped like a pumpkin) to push it into place, it would return, immediately to its previous location. The one-piece costumes were very thin, and I remember the war about whether I would have to wear a coat OVER MY COSTUME, or just wear lots of layers beneath, so that I looked even rounder than I actually was. I remember trick or treating with my father, glad to have his hand to hold because I was virtually blind, with sweat running down my face behind the plastic mask while the rest of me began the conversion from flesh to ice because I had “won” the argument about wearing warm clothes.
I don’t remember any other costumes, but I remember two other things, both of which concern candy. I remember that my trick-or-treating years coincided with the first (real) episodes of razor blades and poison in candy, and that every piece of our hauls had to be inspected by a parent, with all homemade, loosely wrapped, or otherwise suspicious treats thrown away along with those that had a visible razor entry line or reeked of bitter almond. My parents were generally very low on the overprotection scale, but it would not have looked good in the press had one of us consumed strychnine in a Mars Bar and they had issued a statement that they were, of course, saddened, but that they generally tried to “let us try to make our own decisions.”

The other candy-related issue was the Great Sorting of the Haul. This process didn’t start until my brother was old enough a) to trick or treat without being carried and b) to escape the parental mantle of attention that protects younger siblings from being swindled by their older brothers and sisters.  We had very strict rules developed independent of parental involvement: the candy was dumped in front of its owner (post-parental inspection), and after we each had a chance to examine what we had, the trading began. No one cared about Mary Janes, Bit ‘O Honeys, or those peanut butter things with squirrels on the wrapper. This was about the chocolate (which is complicated, because while I dislike all things chocolate flavored, from cake to ice cream, there are certain types of actual chocolate that I enjoy). Also, it is patently clear to the most clueless of children that there is a Natural Hierarchy of Halloween Candy, and that while Dum Dum suckers may be at the bottom, chocolate is at the top).

 

When my brother was really little, I could persuade him that he should give me a Snickers bar for a plain Hershey bar, or even (until I was busted and monitored) give me chocolate in exchange for a worthless but deceptively impressive pile of junk like suckers and root beer barrels, but the older and shrewder he got, the more complicated became the trades. I coveted rolls of Spree candy, bags of Sweet Tarts (which my explains why my teeth are now very fragile and prone to breakage), Snickers bars, PayDay bars, Baby Ruth bars, and regular Hershey bars, or the kind with almonds.  I secretly hated Butterfingers (that crunchy stuff gets stuck in my teeth), both Three Musketeers and Milky Way bars (cloyingly sweet), anything with dark chocolate, 10,000 Dollar Bars, or most anything with caramel in it, with individually wrapped Kraft “Milk Made” carmels at the nadir of my list. Well, along with black licorice. The value of a Tootsie roll was also related to size (never let anyone tell you it doesn’t matter); the tiny rolls that came in appalling flavors like vanilla and lime were worthless, but the large version that required the support of a cardboard sheath, and could be broken into pieces along scored lines was a prize. As long as I provided no “tell” to my brother that would alert him to the fact that I was offering him something for which I had no desire, I could, over the course of the process, redistribute the wealth in a way favorable to me, if not my teeth or my physique.

 

That’s all I’ve got. I just spoke to my mother, who reminded me about witch costumes, a clown costume, and my brief belief in The Great Pumpkin, but those are her memories, not mine. I did ask her whether there had been some Halloween-related assault on my psyche that might have made me repress memories, and she told me that as far as she remembered, I had always loved Halloween. The good news is that despite my unusual amnesia in this area, I am able to look forward, with great anticipation, to the Jack O’Lanterns, costumes and wild October nights of begging that will take place this year, and for many more to come. It may be hard to get Sam to go trick or treating when he’s 27, but I’ve got stuff on that kid that will keep him under my thumb for the rest of my life……

What I Wore

[Note: this is a somewhat rehabbed post from my "other blog," which I am in the process of dismantling, since I no longer need a place to write about things other than food. All apologies if you've "heard this one before..."].

I’ve been watching a lot of  things on TV that have made me think about my clothes, past and present. (Before I tell you what I was watching I must say, in my defense, that since I have actually read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in Middle English, I am allowed to watch whatever garbage I want to watch on TV, particularly when I am not in a very splendid mood).

First I watched “Gossip Girls,” which I never get to see any more because it’s on opposite “Two and a Half Men,” and I’m outvoted.  It is the perfect genre of mindless, visually appealing, meaningless dreck with excellent music that I love. (Have I mentioned that I am a big fan of “The O.C.?”) During this turgid drama, a mother remarked to her daughter that she should wear a certain dress to a fund-raiser because “it was the thinnest and prettiest she would ever be.” Later, I watched “The Devil Wears Prada” which. as you may know, is all about fashion and clothes and the relationship between who we are and who we appear to be based on our fashion choices.

So I was thinking about the clothes and shoes and bags that, over the years, have been significant in my life. Here are the things I remember, and why.

1. The brown corduroy jumper with a purple satin heart patch pocket which I wore over a purple turtleneck and purple tights for my fourth grade picture. I was quite pleased with all of the colors, and it was comfortable.
2. The forest green ensemble with which I started the 6th grade. This collection included a cabled turtleneck, stretchy Levi bell-bottoms (not corduroys), a green tweedy skirt and tan Earth Shoes. Oh, and a necklace with a white enamel seagull like Jonathan Livingston. Everything came from the Jacobson’s “Miss J Shoppe” and I was dying to wear it all right away. It was too hot for wool, and I spent my first day of middle school sweating, red-faced and itching. I will say, though, that forest green is always a good color for me.
3. The Famolare shoes that had thick, rubber soles with waves on the bottoms. I wanted them desperately (mine were like Mary Janes on top) and I loved them with a passion all through middle school.
4. The leather jacket from high school. It was very 70s chic; tan, belted, mid-thigh. My hair wouldn’t feather and I didn’t look good in jeans with Hiney-Binders, but my leather coat smelled like a million bucks (especially mixed with a little Jovan Musk) and I looked like, maybe, one of Charlie’s dumpier Angels.
5. The Gunne Sax dresses. I had two; one was a long dress which I wore to play my senior recital, and the other was shorter, but still long-ish and full. Both involved the button-down-the-front bodice, the scooped neckline trimmed with lace, and the lace up bodice in the back. The shorter dress had a vest to match. I felt curvy, and pretty and always on top of my game in those dresses. I got my first kiss in the short one and my worst kiss in the long one.
6. The terrible dress which nevertheless (I think) looked lovely on me, which I used to wear at my first college, in Boston. It came from Lord & Taylor, and involved a burgundy slip and a floaty, patterned over-dress. I wore it with burgundy T-straps (Van Eli, I think, from Pappagallo) to concerts at Symphony Hall, and for holiday gatherings. I really shouldn’t have.
7. The black Katherine Conover dress, from my second, more Bohemian college experience. It was a perfect shape for me: tight (and a bit bosom reducing) through the bodice, sleeveless, and full from the waist down. It was middle calf-length, and black cotton. For three springs I wore that dress with black flats and (usually) a vintage black beaded cardigan from a thrift store in Oberlin. If I could replicate the outfit right now, I’d do it. I’d buy 4 of them, and rotate.
8. Dead Uncle Dave’s overcoat, which I also wore during my Bohemian years. Dead Uncle Dave had given it to my father at some point, and since my father was about a foot taller than Uncle Dave, it was not, shall we say, a “pearl of great price” around my house. I co-opted the big, salt and pepper tweed thing, rolled up the sleeves and wore it for years with my uber-80s (more CBGB than Valley Girl) jeans and flat, black ankle boots.
9. The Banana Republic Skirt. When Banana Republic was still novel (before they came fundamentally indistinguishable from J. Crew and Ann Taylor), and they had those nifty, narrative catalogues (kind of like the old Peterman catalogues) they offered a long, full, tobacco-colored skirt that promised adventure, romance and a little Isak Dinesen action if you were lucky. I bit, I bought, and for years I wore that skirt with cropped tops and boots, feeling all the while as if something wonderful might happen. Sometimes, it did.
10. The Suit of My Dreams. In law school, it was often necessary to wear a suit – for moot court, for interviews, and for legal clinics which involved working in the court system. In my second year of law school, I purchased from Filene’s a beautiful suit that was flattering, unusual enough to make me feel un-cloned, and formal enough to be ladylike and appropriate. It was a tiny dark forest green and black Houndstooth check with a cropped jacket and a long-ish skirt with pleats that were stitched down through the hips and then opened gracefully. With a black scoop-neck blouse and heels, I was Susan Dey on L.A. Law. Well, she would have worn a shorter skirt; perhaps I was Susan Dey on L.A. Law crossed with my New England grandmother? Regardless, I felt smart and pretty and jurisprudential.
11. The Sexy Retail Clothes. For two years after law school, since there were no law jobs in Boston and I didn’t want to leave, I ran a very high-end store in Copley Place, in Boston. During those years, I was the thinnest I have ever been in my life, and my mother came for a conference and took me on the best shopping expedition of my life, featuring Ann Taylor (also cooler back then), Neiman Marcus and Talbot’s. Of the many wonderful things we bought (or, more accurately, she bought) my favorite was an extraordinarily expensive knee-length black linen sheath from Neiman Marcus, marked down 50%, which I wore constantly with different long, shaped jackets – a bright yellow, a bright orange, a cream, black tights, and very high black heels. It was tight enough that it made me look a little flatter and a little thinner, and it always looked good no matter what. I love my mom.
12. The Beautiful Clothes of the Professional Years. After returning to Michigan, single, 30 and a little desperate, I opened a law office and did LOTS of dating, including men who worked in the same building. I had to look good (in my opinion) from the second I left the house until I actually crawled into bed. I had two “best outfits,” one of which consisted of a long, A-line floral skirt and a cropped, very fitted black jacket worn buttoned up with nothing underneath and a pair of black Stuart Weitzman heels called “The Tipper Gore.” (Tragically, the Tippers were subsequently eaten by a beagle puppy). This outfit was heavily influenced by Julia Louis Dreyfuss’ clothes on “Seinfeld;” I even wore a brooch sometimes. My other favorite, apparently influenced by Robert Plant’s backup singers involved a tight-ish, black knee-length skirt, black tights, black suede heels, a neutral shell and a hip-length black jacket.
13. The Terrible Sweater. After I became a mother and gave up my law practice, I fell under the spell of the casual and sloppy clothes often worn my similarly situated persons. I liked the elastic waistbands, I liked the fact that I could sleep in whatever I was wearing, wash it if it had Spit-Up Shoulder, etc.. Towards the end of the Years of Dressing Badly, I made a friend who gave me a giant blue chenille sweater she no longer wanted because she had lost weight. It was cozy and huge and hid everything, and I imagined that I looked thinner and sort of “fun.” On mature reflection, I am aware that I probably looked as if every exploited Asian child responsible for the manufacture of the sweater was in there with me.
14. The Magic Skirt. I am currently in possession of a recreation of my long, black, pleated skirt. I think it came from J. Jill. It’s a knit so it doesn’t wrinkle, its lightweight so it moves beautifully, and it is absolutely life-transforming with a red sweater or a black cashmere cardigan, and a pair of high-heeled black boots.

What do you remember?

Plus ça change: A Fable and a Fresh Start

I have been writing this blog since June of 2006, which, by my calculations, is more than three years.  For a very long time, it was about food. Lately, not so much. When it was good, I think it was pretty darned good, and when it was bad, it was…a middle of the pack food blog that contributed little to the universe, but kept me off the streets for an hour or so most days.

Staring down the possibility of a commitment to NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month) which requires a post every day during the month of November, I have come to one of those wrenching realizations that I imagine I share with pre-altar-jilters, and Sophie, before making her choice. I cannot write about food for thirty days straight. I’m not sure I can write about food for fifteen days, or even a good seven. I might want to, but I might not.

This is not, however, the end. Here is the fable:

A Girl and her Cello: A Fable

[This is of course not a fable, but a straight-up autobiographical story; I just liked the alliteration of "fable" and "fresh start." ].

Starting in the fifth grade, I played the cello. I started with “Fifth Grade Strings” at Wardcliff Elementary School, added private lessons on Saturdays, and after one major glitch the first year (it took me while to understand the “practicing” thing after years of faking my way through piano lessons because I could play by ear), I was totally obsessed. I practiced hours every day, I listened to classical music almost exclusively, I played in orchestras, quartets, duets, performed at recitals,  attended summer music camp, competed with other string players statewide, and fought to win chair challenges from 6th grade through 12th.

I played a Senior Recital in high school, and a solo with the orchestra, and was generally functioning at a fairly high level in a very tough music program that set national standards.  I auditioned for conservatories my senior year in high school, got into all three, entered the New England Conservatory in the fall of 1980 and…was back home by January of 1982, a complete wreck of a human being.

It had finally occurred to me that I was good, but not really good, not good like my friends who headed to places like Curtis, Eastman, Indiana and Julliard after High School, most of whom are now professional musicians. I loved music, and  I loved playing in an orchestra, but I also got so nervous that I threw up before lessons, and once dropped my bow on stage because I was shaking so hard.  It’s a tough business being a professional musician. There are very few jobs to go around, and while I had some technical proficiency and a lot of discipline, I was not driven to play music the way a professional musician must be to survive. You must either be so talented that you can get work performing solo or in an ensemble, or so passionate that you don’t care what you do, as long as you get to make music.

As a practical matter, I lacked the talent and drive to be anything more than a public school music teacher (and public school music teachers who are failed musicians rather than passionate teachers are a curse upon children everywhere), which that was not what I had in mind. As a spiritual matter, I had simply lost my heart for the whole endeavour. It wasn’t a matter of failing (although at the time I was completely demoralized) it was a matter of my whole being seeing what my pragmatic, plan-driven brain refused to accept. While most Westerners will tell you that their “self” is between their ears, people in many other cultures will point to the center of their bodies as the seat of their being; I’m pretty sure my soul got the memo and began resisting while I was still in high school, when the terrible nerves and anxiety began, but my brain wouldn’t let me admit that I’d chosen wrong, that I’d made a bad plan, that I had devoted every atom of my being for seven years to something that might be a wonderful hobby for me, but could not the central feature of a peaceful, useful existence.

-Finis-

I am seeing in myself, these days, the same process: a mental compulsion to stick to the program, and honor my original promise, coupled with a real, deep-seated resistance to continuing. As part of my day job, I often read the heavy-hitters in the food blog world, the equivalent of the Julliard grads who get a chair in a symphony orchestra after graduation. Blogs like Orangette, Chez Pim, David Liebovitz and Smitten Kitchen have it all:  the pictures that take your breath away, the willingness (and cash) to experiment, and mad writing skills. Additionally, although there are certainly some fine “niche” food blogs out there, most members of the Food Blogger Pantheon are not cooking for children and following a diabetic diet. I do not want to write about low-carb recipes all the time, because a) it often bores me to tears, and b) that particular niche is already beautifully filled by blogs like Kalyn’s Kitchen.

Having finally understood the lesson I learned somewhat brutally 25 years ago, I know that I do not have the cooking or photography talent necessary for the A-List, and that I do not have the passion to keep writing about cooking, knowing that it is being done so much better in so many other places in the interworld. I will always cook, and love food, and read about food; I may even write about a particularly juicy recipe or cookbook. It is just not my soul. Writing is my soul. [Note to self: figuring that out in high school would have saved everybody, particularly your parents, a lot of time and money].

So, we have a Fresh Start. I probably need to turn myself in to Foodbuzz and let them know that this is no longer really a “food blog,” for starters. Although I’m willing to turn in my badge and gun, I won’t change the name of the blog because I still, always, imagine that I am talking to all of you at my kitchen table. (Not all at once, please; I can really only fit two or three chairs in there).  I will just take a leap into the void of being a Blog Without a Theme, which, according to some people, is the very kiss of blog death. And I’m sure as hell no “Dooce.” That niche is filled, too. You’ll just get me, and maybe I will have something to say that interests you, and maybe you’ll shake your head sadly and go back to reading “The Huffington Post,” or” Salon.”

As a callow youth-ette, the opening of a poem by John Keats gave me goosebumps (still does) :

“When I have fears that I may cease to be/Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain…”.

I know that feeling; I know it every time I feel that I have to write something no matter what I’m supposed to be doing, no matter who will read it, or if anybody will read it. I’ve been writing since I was in the fourth grade, and no matter what else comes and goes, it appears to be the grand and sustaining passion of my life. Keats barely had time to write everything that filled his “teeming brain,” but I have the rest of my life ahead of me.  Seems like a pity to waste it.

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner

I am not good at reading non-fiction, and a perfectly juicy book will sit on my pile for months, rejected in favor of far callower fiction, because it has the misfortune to have the word “memoir” or “account” on its cover. I blame this problem on school, starting with the first grade, where the only books about women on the “Biography Cart” were Amelia Earhart, Florence Nightingale and Julia Ward Howe, books I could recite from memory by the end of second grade. I was not interested in Daniel Boone, Henry Ford, or the other 70 books, all about famous men, and machines and shooting and so forth. The deal was sealed in law school, where I recall reading the same sentence in a Property case approximately 30 times, and probably highlighted it at least 15 of those times. I am capable of reading for information, I do it when it’s necessary, but never in my 47 years have I said to myself “I wish I had time to read a really good piece of non-fiction.” Not one time. No Malcolm Gladwell, not even Thomas Friedman.

Strange, then, that I am so completely smitten with Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen, (pronounced “Bic,” by the way) which is not only non-fiction, but has the word “memoir” on the cover. I bought it because it was about many things of great personal interest to me, including Food, Asia, Asians, Asian Food, Buddhism, and  Differentness. It sat and sat on the shelf, however,  as I read novels, then magazines, then nothing; it sat until I picked it up yesterday morning, began to read with my morning coffee, and consumed it as greedily as the author remembers consuming American candy in her early years here.

The secret here, is that Nguyen became a friend early in the book, and I trusted her to tell me everything, to do it beautifully, and not to leave me feeling manipulated or “instructed,” and she didn’t disappoint.  We have much in common, the author and I; we grew up a scant 9 years and 68 miles apart, we are both avid readers, come from a mix of cultures, and felt ourselves to be “outsiders” as children. She describes, in lyrical detail, the lunch room scenes, the foods and even the stores and restaurants I know from growing up in Michigan. She also read and re-read  the same books I did, from Laura Ingalls Wilder to Harriet the Spy, and was also enthralled by the descriptions of what everybody ate. That’s more than enough social glue to form the easy beginning of a friendship.

The differences between us though, are what held my interest. Nguyen was an immigrant from 1975 Saigon, and her sense of “differentness” and search for her true identity were of a very different variety from my own. I could have chosen, perhaps, to be more athletic and less eccentric, but Nguyen’s alienation involved an immutably Asian face, a petite frame and Buddhist roots among a sea of tall, blonde, Christians in Grand Rapids, Michigan (before we all became so “diverse”).  It also included a multigenerational home with a grandmother who made daily offerings to a Buddhist shrine,  a Hispanic stepmother with a culture and baggage of her own, an absent birth mother who could never be discussed, and the shame of bargain-basement clothes and generic cookies in a universe of pastel crewnecks and Hostess snack cakes.

Ngyuen grows up moving among her Vietnamese roots, her stepmother’s traditions and decrees, and her yearning to be like the families she sees in commercials and meets at friends’ houses. She does not fit into the world of her Grand Rapids school friends with their canopy beds, fervent Christianity, and mothers who are “homemakers” and send to school perfectly packaged lunches full of desirable, brand-name items. She is equally ill at ease with her stepmother’s family and their traditions, and eventually becomes so thoroughly assimilated that she mixes badly with the clique of other Vietnamese immigrant children who have grown up preserving their heritage through language and cultural tradition. No matter where she is, even when it seems that she is getting what she wanted, Nguyen is missing pieces of her other selves, and rarely feels complete or satisfied.

Food is an essential part of Nguyen’s journey through childhood without a comfortable identity. There is always, in her house, the Vietnamese food cooked by her grandmother, and the fruit which, after it is offered to Buddha, is lovingly peeled, cut and presented to Nguyen and her sister Anh. There is the haphazard, low-budget, sometimes Mexican cooking of stepmother Rosa, and the wonder of the tamales prepared by Rosa’s family for various holidays.  There are always dreams of the American food seen on TV: the Pringles, the bouncing cubes of Jello, the salad dressing pouring from the cruet at the family table, and mothers who, in cahoots with Poppin’ Fresh, understand that “Nothin Says Lovin like Something from the Oven.”  There are restaurant meals, from ersatz Mexican at Chi Chis to a brief family love affair with Ponderosa. There is a particularly lovely thread about Nguyen’s difficulty using a knife and fork to cut meat at a friend’s house , and of her grandmother’s unspoken understanding in the form of serving her un-cut pieces of food so that she could practice using a knife and fork.

Although I would have loved this book just because Nguyen writes so lovingly and with such focus about food, there is much more to relish.  Nguyen’s frank narrative also outlines the tension of a blended family, a difficult relationship with her stepmother, who is “not her real mother,” but is also her only mother, her changing place in the family as her sister and stepsister become teenagers and leave her behind, and the constant pressure to accept Jesus and be saved, despite the fact that she replaces the word “God” with “Buddha” when saying the pledge of allegiance in school.

Running through the vivid descriptions of Nguyen’s complicated childhood are filaments which, in the end, come together to answer the question of what is “real life.” Is it the commercials with perfect families, the Grand Rapids households with bobbed mothers who bake, the Vietnamese community with its Tet celebrations and dried squid snacks, or the world of Jo March and Laura Ingalls Wilder? This question is answered in a way that is at once inevitable and surprising.  What could, with a heavier touch, have become a  sodden tale of yearning and isolation becomes, in the end, one of the most life-affirming things I have ever read. The life it affirms is messy, and complicated, and confusing, but a life that shaped a writer of this caliber really can’t be written off as “sad.” Please read this book, read it soon, and give yourself a little time to savor what you’re offered. I may never again see the word “memoir” and flinch.

Advice from a Friend: Don’t Eat Here

It was a dark and stormy night, and I was trying to figure out a restaurant that was a suitable place  for my family, my nephews, and my parents to eat dinner. It was a school night, so reasonable quickness was an issue. My parents do not at anything  that may possibly have been stored in the same cabinet as a grain of pepper in 1999, so no Chinese, Indian, Thai or Mexican. Rob and I are carbophobic, which makes it hard for us to make good choices at places like “Oodles of Noodles.” The kids needed something fairly simple, which made it unwise to eat anywhere with “creative” soups or plating involving a swirl of cardamom oil. I refuse to eat at The Olive Garden, just because.

As if in a vision, the idea of a quick soup-and-sandwich kind of place came to mind.  My friend Ted recently conducted an informal poll on Facebook concerning whether Panera was “fast foood,” and the consensus with which I agree, is that it is “fast” but also ell prepared, and very healthy if one makes wise choices. Panera was a viable option, as was The Grand Traverse Pie Company, a more regional restaurant offering counter service and a wide assortment of freshly made soups, salads and sandwiches (with pie for dessert if you aren’t me. I remember it fondly). I like both of these places a great deal, but since I had never tried the third option, McAlister’s Deli, I asked my mother if we could eat there. New horizons and all that.

The take-home message here, is that new horizons are to be avoided at all costs. Oh, the humanity! The place was unprepossessing as restaurants go, resembling most closely a sports bar with the “bar” and “sports” removed. This was not a big deal when dining out with assorted children; we had not been expecting Philipe Stark furniture and a chandelier. We were greeted at the counter by one of the two high-school aged women who were the only visible employees, both of whom elevated sullenness to an art form.  We gave our orders to  the blonde (hereinafter “the blonde”) who was clearly not happy to see a party of 7 that included children, drummed her fingers on the counter when orders were not forthcoming quickly enough, and asked questions in a way that indicated that, if you had not memorized the intimate details of their menu, you should probably go home and study. To whit: I requested a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with a slice of Havarti, dry. “You mean you want the ‘Be Choosey?!’” she asked in a tone that was the equivalent of “Duh.”  Apparently I did, but I had tragically failed to distinguish between the “Be Choosey” and the flashier options, say, the “Smoked Turkey.” The side choices were kind of a problem for the carb-challenged; I could choose from chips, potato salad, mashed potatoes, “seasonal fruit,” or cole slaw. The menu on the internet includes steamed vegetables, which I did not see at the restaurant (possible my bad, maybe because I felt compelled to order as if giving a recitation at the closing ceremonies of the Evelyn Woodhead Speed Reading Course) and a side salad could be had for an additional $2.50.  I ordered the fruit, figuring that I would give it to the kids. After all, I reasoned, I’d get a big sandwich and it would be a light, filling dinner. I even considered the fact that if, like Panera, the bread was too thick for my carb intake, I’d have to open the sandwich and pull out some of its insides. I needn’t have worried.

As the food was brought to the table, it became apparent that no human was actually cooking anything. My son and nephew received bread bowls, one filled with soup, and one with chili. When Sam, who really isn’t a complainer, told us that the bread was stale, we all took a taste and agreed that it probably was not actually “stale,” but “bad bread;” it was the kind of airy, flavorless bread that is often euphemistically labeled “Italian” at grocery stores. It did not have, if you’ll forgive me, the cojones to stand up to a ladle of hot liquid, and our kids, who have had terrific bread bowls elsewhere (again, Panera comes to mind) were bitterly disappointed that they could not, or rather would not enjoy the ritual eating of chunks of soup-soaked bread as part of their meal. When my mother called one of the employees to the table to let her know that Sam was unhappy with his bread bowl, (we’ll call this one “the brunette”), she looked skeptical, said she was “really sorry,” and walked away. It later occurred to me that she was presented with a customer service conundrum that perhaps exceeded her experience or interest level: when you have made an error in the kitchen, you can offer to replace the food with an improved version. When your food is just not good, there isn’t a lot you can do by way of an upgrade. (Gift card to Panera, perhaps?)

My sandwich was a small portion of turkey and a slice of Havarti on store-bought whole wheat bread. I tried to make it last, but there really just wasn’t much to work with. The “seasonal” fruit tasted as if it had previously been jarred or canned; at the very least it had been mixed together a long, long time ago. Although my young nephew, accustomed to school food, found it acceptable, my suggestion would be that “seasonal fruit” in Michigan in October would best be represented by a fresh, crisp apple. Grapes, pineapple, and whatever the smushy bits were are rarely, if ever, in season in these parts. My mother had a sandwich that was either corned beef or pastrami, from half of which I ate the meat and cheese because I was really, really hungry. It was beyond undistinguished; in fact my inability to tell whether it was pastrami or corned beef should say it all. Her sandwich, like mine, was he size of a particularly grand commemorative postage stamp.

The best meal award goes to my older nephew, who was smart enough to order a potato microwaved with bacon and cheese on top. It’s hard to mess that up, and the blonde and the brunette had, in some combination, assembled and nuked it with great culinary flourish. The worst meal was Rob’s. He ordered the aptly named “Nasty” sandwich (actually “The Nasty;” I just report this stuff) which, according to the menu, was tender pieces of roast beef, gravy and cheese on an open-faced sandwich. Not my thing, but, done right, his dream come true. It was a horrific mess of what appeared to be a can of “Beefy Gravy” Alpo flung on a flaccid hoagie roll, with shredded cheese melted on top in the microwave. It most closely resembled school food at its most punitive, and although Rob ate it because we were all really quite hungry, he was not happy. His parting words to me on leaving the alleged restaurant was that he was “going to get some dinner.” This is not the parting thought dreamed of by most restauranteurs.

In summary: the service was unpleasant, and there was no visible adult management. A legitimate complaint (from a very cute kid, I might add) was met with thinly veiled contempt. The food was not fresh, not good, and not sufficient.  If yopu have had a better experience, I’m all ears.

My mother called this morning to complain about the meal (since she and my father had also stopped for dinner on the way home from dinner) and an apologetic manager offered to send her some gift cards as an apology. In her most polite and Wellesley way, she thanked him, but told him that he needn’t send the gift cards, because she would never eat an McAlister’s again.

You’ve been warned.

Doing an About Face(book)

Since two of my three “real” jobs involve spending a lot of time on the computer, I have experimented fairly extensively with social networking. I started thinking about what Facebook means to me because of a series  of articles in various media and posts on Facebook.  One published piece concerned the popularity of the game “Farmville,“  and another addressed the class stratification apparent between Facebook and MySpace users. On a more personal level, at least three of my Facebook “friends” have posted about how much they hate having to receive a steady stream of information about the quiz scores, Mafia Wars requests, Farmville acquisitions and “free” offers posted by others (the most recent of which involves a computer). The articles are thought-provoking, and I have read many in print and online, ranging in topic from whether Facebook causes people to lose “real” friends, to the difficult issue of “unfriending,” or being “unfriended;” an act that cannot be reversed.

The public statements in the form of status posts inveighing against quiz-takers and denizens of Farmville, however,  seem to  serve no purpose other than to make people feel guilty about their own quiz taking and contest-entering behavior. I want to ignore them, those pronouncements of judgment, but in all honesty, they make me feel like a moron and not the witty savant I imagine my Facebook persona to be. Such statements also make me wonder about how someone highly intelligent and busy like my-brother-the-doctor can take the occasional quiz without being a raving idiot, while another equally intelligent and busy “friend” finds them abhorrent and stays up late at night figuring out ways to block all evidence that anyone has ever taken one.  People seem to join Facebook looking for different things, and as ones’ “friends” multiply, so does the stream of information through which one must sift.

My thesis about all of this, which may offend some (and shock others, because I so rarely have a thesis of any variety) is that Facebook is a “free country” aside from the violation of state or federal statute. It is, for each user, what they want and need it to be, and no one should feel judged because of their chosen activities on a fairly meaningless, virtual playground for adults. If you don’t want to see a request for weapons in Mafia Wars, you needn’t look at it. (You can, in fact, “hide” it, as I have done). If you resent people who post and re-post the same three YouTube videos, my advice is the same. There are people who are using Facebook for networking, business and otherwise, and some (myself included) who view it as a perpetual drop-in cocktail party, and a way to connect and stay connected with a geographically diverse group of people. Maybe my thesis is, to quote the late great Mama Cass Elliott, “make your own kind of music” on Facebook, have fun, and don’t give up activities that give you pleasure because someone has labeled them annoying. (Does anyone actually need this advice besides me? If not, I apologize, reflexively and profusely).

Let’s back up a bit, and talk about what’s out there, and why Facebook is my “main squeeze” for internet social life. I checked out MySpace quite a while ago, and found it claustrophobically cluttered with moving pictures, music that started as soon as you entered “their space,” and such a sensory assault in the form of wallpapers and fonts that I knew it was not My space. I get requests for something called “Linked In” all of the time, but  it seems to involve business connections, and while I do not begrudge anyone their business connections, I break into hives every time I have to put an invoice together, and I prefer to pretend that the business aspect of the world doesn’t exist.

I do Twitter fairly often, but I don’t love it. I heard it described once as a way to write “a blog post in 140 characters,” and I am just not that Zen in my blogging. (Again, no doubt a shock to all of you). My friend Michael S. explained Twitter to me in a way that makes sense: Facebook is social, and for “talking” to friends; Twitter is better for sharing information quickly and getting it from a variety of useful sources.  I use Twitter when I want to know about something, or when I actually have a thought that might interest someone in only 140 characters, but otherwise not so much. Many days, I don’t even open it.

Facebook had me at “hello.” At its best, Facebook is like the International Departures Lounge at an airport in Marrakesh. I have conversations that are amusing and pull in friends from around the corner, from high school, from college, and from jobs long gone. They represent a diversity of age, vocation and location that  gives me a toasty glow just thinking about it. Sometimes I will look at one of these “strings” of replies and smile, feeling that, like the founder of a particularly fine feast, I have brought together a collection of people who may never really meet, but all of whom I love. I see pictures of new babies, learn about new jobs, and answer cooking questions. I have often asked for (and been given) objects or information that I needed, simply by “getting the word out.” I find out about broken water mains, school closings, rain-barrel sales and all manner of good things faster than the speed of light. I have had a fabulous dinner at a restaurant I was dying to try, just because a kind and clever friend was paying attention to my discussion about “Top Chef,” and I have had the incredible pleasure of catching up with people who I never expected to find again in this life.

I also “talk” to people who I see frequently in real life, and there is no diminution of our “live” friendships based on the virtual. I still have coffee or wine with friends, go to parties and run into people at Parent-Teacher conferences, but among a group of busy people, there is often more opportunity to keep up with the details of their lives on Facebook.  I see no harm in finding out that Diane went on  a great vacation by reading about it on Facebook, and then asking her about the great vacation when I run into her on the soccer field. On the flip side, I have “friends” I’ve never met. They are friends of friends, fellow local Democrats picked up during my brief career as a politico, and, in some cases, I never figure out why we are “friends.” I will say that I have “befriended” three women in Nashville, not one of whom I’ve ever met (although they all know each other), but all of whom have enriched my life greatly with their generosity, wit and charm.I also enjoy it when friends add recent blog posts to Facebook (because I am lazy about subscribing), and I post my own. (This may also annoy some people; so far no one has complained). I not only take quizzes;  I take ridiculous quizzes like “which Winnie the Pooh character are you?” and watch as the quiz spreads, like a virus, so that everyone who is dying to know whether they are Tigger or Owl is fully satisfied. I do those things where you answer questions about yourself like what you ate for breakfast, I do them with great relish, and I genuinely enjoy reading the answers of other people because I am profoundly nosy.

I do not play Farmville or Mafia Wars because I find them exceedingly dull, and after a desultory attempt at the whole “Green Patch” thing, I gave up.  Again; this is just a matter of personal taste. I have been known to spend literally hours playing “Scramble” during periods of great stress. The thing about those games is that, if you hit “ignore” when someone offers you a flower or asks you to join their Mafia family, nothing bad happens. It occupies a scant second of your life, the person probably never remembers that they asked you in the first place, and all of the folks who get their Farmville on or really like building up the Mafia eventually find, and play with each other.

At it’s worst, Facebook slides South in the direction of a parking lot carnival redolent of hot grease and musk. Just as the aforementioned posters are bedeviled by seeing which Disney Princess I am, there are things people do on Facebook that bother me. There are Complainers, those of the incessant “I had a terrible day,” I hate my job,” “my kid stole another car…..” you get the picture. These posts make me feel galvanized to respond in some way, but 99% of the time the plaint is not one that has a resolution within my power. If they need a ride, a cup of sugar, or a copy of the third “Twilight” book, I can help. If their differential diagnosis is Crappy Life Syndrome, there’s not a whole lot I can do.

I am also, personally, annoyed by people who post every newspaper article they encounter in the course of a day, for reasons vocational, political or other. Frankly, it begins to be like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” when really significant stories and issues are buried in a flood of daily reportage. So I do not enjoy Complainers, and I do not want to see 500 news stories in my News Feed, but I still see no reason for hostility. When someone posts the 500th story in which I am not interested, I cleverly block them from my News Feed, and there’s no longer an issue. When people complain constantly, I use my handy-dandy scroll thingie, and move on down the page without fanning the flames with a “gosh, I’m sorry.”. Just as I would not call the police to report people who do things in real life that bother me (gum snapping, dressing little girls like hookers, etc.) I feel no need to call them out on Facebook.  They are making their own kind of music, and I am changing stations.

I have no agenda here regarding those who would eradicate everything they perceive to be foolish from the world of Facebook. I might wish them gentler, or more tolerant, but my own history of snark and cynicism does not exactly make me the Dalai Lama. I am speaking to all of you who are collecting cows, sub machine guns, and flowers with faces, and to myself, the hapless, compulsive quiz taker. Anyone who believes that Facebook is essentially a forum for sharpening their critical thinking facilities and discovering the articles from the Wall Street Journal that they missed due to an unfortunate coffee accident…is wrong. It’s a place to play, to relax, to stalk one’s high school boyfriend, and to reach out to people who, realistically, we might otherwise lose from sight.

I’m going to take a quiz now; I need to know how emo I am. Aren’t you a little curious?

Everything from Addiction to Zeitgeist

Although the word “zeitgeist” generally refers to the tastes and preferences of a given period in history, I am, in this post, using it in reference to my own bad self. I have lots of time to think about things like, for example, my Own Personal Zeitgeist (covered well by Depeche Mode, I might add) because I am still sciatic. If that is, indeed, an adjective. I am better, more mobile, less drugged, and able to work a few hours a day, but I still have long periods of lying on my back. These are the times when I am still not reading great novels, or watching PBS specials about the Detroit riots; I am feeling sorry for myself, reading magazines and watching television. I would classify the magazine reading and the television watching as “addictions” which seem to have taken a much firmer hold on my psyche than the Vicodin, which is pretty much gathering dust at this point.

Here’s the problem: I have read every current issue of every magazine even remotely related to fashion, beauty and other superficial pursuits, including Vogue, Bazaar, InStyle, Marie Claire, Allure, Elle, Oprah, Real Simple, Vanity Fair, and even Nylon. I have considered and rejected the “Mommy” magazines because I do not want recipes for pot roast or ways to clean grout, I am not interested in the whole Time and Newsweek genre because, Geez Louise, I had trouble reading the “serious” articles in Vanity Fair. I am left, at this point, to choose among Soldier of Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics and Field & Stream.

As is often the case with addictions, my strong desire at this point is to turn from magazines to television, the other available drug. (I do, by the way, have a pile of approximately 200 books next to my bed, some of which have even won prizes, but I am just not interested in that kind of commitment quite yet). Television, tragically, has also lost its potency. The Rachel Zoe Project is over for the year. Fashion Week on HSN and QVC has been replaced by panderers of Christmas Crap, which is not actually interesting, but is also not so over-the-top cheesy that I find it hilarious and diverting. It’s mostly just stupid. I’m okay during Primetime, but in the dark of night I flip, and flip, and flip, and…last night I ended up watching a movie on “Lifetime” called “Fat Like Me” which involved a thin, pretty girl wearing a fat suit. You see my problem.

[By the way: if you have come to this blog trailing breadcrumbs and looking for recipes, only to find yourself lost in the very dark woods of my current mental state, I apologize. I will tell you, by way of apology, that I made a decent pot roast with gravy, Qinoa and green beans for dinner last night. Now run back to your horrid parents' house and don't eat any of the gingerbread or I'll throw you in the fire with Balloon Hoax Dad and Spencer Pratt].

In the absence of (acceptably vapid) reading material, and with “Mom at Sixteen” on for background noise, I started thinking about this whole fashion thing. I was thinking that all of last summer I was letting my hair go grey, and air-drying it so that it curled, and experimenting with tofu and reading “Dharma Bums.” When I started doing some catering, I went to the grocery store mid-prep, hair pulled back, slightly dirty white apron on – if I could have gotten away with a chef’s jacket and toque, I would have worn them. Now I am all about the home blowout, disinterested in food, and trying to figure out how to get a vintage Chanel jacket. These are only the most recent of the zeitgeists. I have, over the years,  been Uber Mommy, Super Lawyer, Musician, Politico,  Shakespeare Scholar, Fag Hag,  Church Lady and Community Activist. There is really no way for me simply to add an interest; I am kind of an all-or-nothing person. I get obsessed.

I have always been like this. As a child, I was someone different on a weekly basis; I distinctly recall telling a girl on the blacktop in the first grade that I was Heidi (as in “of the Alps”). She called me a liar, and I was deeply wounded, although my credibility was perhaps undermined by the fact that I had a pocket full of earthworms, which I collected on rainy days with the intention of saving them. (Needless to say, my mother was delighted to discover the great clump of dried worms when passing on the coat to a friend with a younger daughter). I was General Custer, I was Laura Ingalls Wilder (never Mary, who I found somewhat drippy), I was ever female character ever invented by Frances Hodgson Burnett, I was a Little Witch, I was Jo March (a lot), I was…Sybil? I was always perfectly clear on my actual identity, “grounded in reality” as we like to say at the Clinic, but I did burn with the passion to be seen as I saw myself at any given time – as a brave pioneer girl, as an apprentice witch, and most often as some orphan or other (sorry mom & dad).

I believe that this is normal behavior among children, particularly imaginative children, but is it a normal trait to carry into adulthood? Do other grown women have multiple zeitgeists which they adopt and cast off? Do I have friends who secretly fancy themselves Amelia Earhart and spend hours online searching for the right kind of white scarf? Do men do this? Is this pathological, or does it mean that I am eligible to be hired for a job in which I am classified as “a creative?” Does it reflect a lack of solid identity? If you asked me about myself today, I would tell you that I am Rob’s wife, Sam’s mom, my parents’ child, my brother’s only sister, and the Rachel Zoe of East Lansing, Michigan. Had you asked me a month ago I would have given a similar answer, although I would have been the Mario Batali of East Lansing.

The good news, I guess, is that once the zeitgeists go wherever they go when I finish with them, there is usually a part of each one, a barnacle, if you will, that stays with me permanently. Although I no longer share many characteristics with wither General Custer or Heidi of the Alps, I am still a lawyer (kind of), a lover of Shakespeare, a cook, a person involved in the community…I get to keep something good. I’m never sure what my hair will look like, or if I’ll be reading Antigone or Allure, but I can guarantee you that I will be able to discuss almost anything at a dinner party for the rest of my earthly existence…..

It’s a Wonderful Life

The only serious fight I ever had with a dear college friend was over the merits of the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” He found it smarmy, sentimental, and overrated; I found it endearing, reassuring and charming. It was shown annually at Oberlin the night before we all headed to our various “real” homes for winter break, and I vividly recall standing outside the building in which the movie was about to start, frustrated and angry to the point of tears as the snow swirled around us and groups of exhausted, well-bundled fellow students streamed towards the doors. Years later, I fell in love with the house in which I live and write, because the banister reminded me of that in the “drafty old house” inhabited by George Bailey and family, and the built-in plate rack and swinging kitchen door were reminiscent of the house in which George grew up.

I am nearly certain that my friend still rolls his eyes every December when those of us who are sentimental types settle in to watch George Bailey discover what is really important in life; I am absolutely certain that I watch the movie every year on or about Christmas Eve, and that I cry from the moment George announces that he “wants to live” until his friends and family gather to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” and  Clarence gets his wings. I am unrepentant, unashamed, and generally pleased to discover that my cynical, black-wearing self can still be moved by the notion that even at our worst, we are an essential part of both our own small worlds and the larger universe.

Over the past few weeks, due to the tedious limitations imposed by sciatica, I have had some opportunity to see what my own life would be like if I weren’t around. (There has, unfortunately, been no cinematic rush of wind to signify the emptiness that is The World Without Annie, and I have no ghostly escort – just the Vicodin). Let me also say most emphatically that Rob is a good and consistent helper, picking up my slack on top of his own work, with no complaints. Well, hardly any. The following is in no way intended as one of those exceedingly cliched rants about how husbands do not fold laundry, remember to pick up the kid from band practice, or put the roast in the oven. Like my mother before me, I have been blessed with a husband who knows how to do stuff, and does it. I will also be forthright about the fact that I am not a particularly good housekeeper, and my house is never ready for a white glove test, although I am good at a quick vacuum-cushion fluff-scented candle procedure when company is inevitable.

There are, however,  many things that I do on a daily basis, without thinking. When there is something on the floor, I pick it up. If I am walking through a room, I will generally collect all objects, on the floor and otherwise, that belong somewhere else in the direction for which I have set my course, and put them where they are supposed to be. Considering only the floor, there are a remarkable number of such objects. One of the cats spends all of her waking hours retrieving socks, clean and dirty, from wherever they may be, carrying them laboriously down (or up) the stairs, and presenting them to us with impassioned cries. We think she is under the impression that she has snuffed them, but no one knows for sure.  These laundry murders lead to a trail of socks, black and white, clean and dirty, throughout the house. They are on the stairs, in the dining room, in the upstairs hall, and on a particularly bloody day there are as many as four or five of them.

I see these socks, I pick them up, and since the clean v. dirty issue has become moot during the trip in the cat’s mouth, I put them in the dirty laundry. I also pick up the bits of tissue that the dogs chew up and leave on the floor, Sam’s clothes which are left on the bathroom floor post-shower, the great clumps of flaxen hair that one of the dogs seems to eject from her body as she passes through the house, and the swirls of papers that fall from Sam’s backpack.  As I am currently unable to bend over without feeling that I am one step away from an acutely painful death, I have to ask one of the male members of the household to pick these things up and dispose of them properly. One of them does so with great graciousness, the other with considerably less, but it gets done. I wonder, though, if I were not here, if my husband and son would now be up to their belts in socks, tissue, dog hair, pre-algebra worksheets and dirty clothes?

I also do the laundry, and I know how many of everything everyone has, whether they have enough of them, and exactly where each article of clothing is currently located.  Since laundry involves a number of perilous activities for my sciatic self, including carrying full baskets up and down the treacherous basement stairs, my current laundering activities are confined to folding. Last Friday, Sam (who currently has exactly one pair of long pants for every day of the week) was horrified to learn that the laundry had not been done, and that he had been given the pants he had worn the day before. The word “given” is important here, because part of my usual life as an enabler involves assembling and laying out complete outfits for him so that they are ready for the following day. If I was out of the picture, Rob would certainly do the laundry, but would he know when it was critical to run a dark load so that Sam would have clean pants? Would he know how to remove Sharpie from denim? (Okay, neither do I, but it sounded good).  Would he know that the blue and white Abercrombie sweater can be machine washed,  but must be dried flat because otherwise it will shrink to the size of a doll quilt?

I could go on forever (and you may, in fact, feel that I already have). Seriously, though, if I were gone, who would send the school pictures to the relatives? Who would know that Sam didn’t love Cocoa Puffs anymore and wanted Frosted Mini Wheats? Who would know which upcoming social engagements were surprises, and should not be discussed with the surprisee? Who would know which one of Sam’s friends probably hadn’t called his mom to say he was coming over after school, and that he needed to call her before she filed a Missing Person report? Who would clean out the refrigerator once a week? Who would know the dates of dental cleanings, jury duty, the last fall leaf collection by the City, and when the library books were due? There’s also the issue of cooking – Rob can, and does cook, but it’s difficult to imagine him poring over “Bon Apetit” in the evening looking for the perfect rendition of barbecue sauce. There would be a lot of grilling, a lot of burgers, and they would both probably be delighted.

There are also spots I fill in the larger community that are empty these days. I can’t drive my dad to his eye appointment because, well, I can’t drive right now. I am missing meetings right and left because I can’t sit for very long, and lying on the conference room table at City Hall is frowned upon. I did not take chicken soup to my sick friend Diane, I have not been to see Patty’s adorable new puppy, and I have turned down everything from a Girls’ Night Out to seeing David Sedaris (and believe me, that one hurt). I am kind of a recluse who lies on the couch most of the time and is occasionally thrilled to be able to perform menial tasks.

Setting aside the perfectly likely solution that, if I disappeared,  Rob and Sam would just split up the work and get it done, I see a fairly bleak existence for them without me. (Except for meals, which they might prefer under an Ann-Free regime). I pick up, I spruce up, I care about the icky warren of cords under the table in the living room, and the mysterious and significant scratch on the dining room table. I know that it is a crime against nature for Sam to wear a blue v-neck sweater over black wind pants, and that Rob can’t go to Church with a spot on his tie.  I am the Family Sartorialist.

The existential question here is smaller than the one posed by “It’s a Wonderful Life;” obviously if I had never been born, Rob would be married to someone else, Sam would not exist, and my brother would be much happier, having been an only child. The question is really what happens when I stop doing everything that I do? Does it matter? Have I just encouraged all sorts of pathological dependence in order to justify my existence? Does it really matter if there’s a trail of socks on the floor and dinner is burgers every night?

I like to think, I guess, that I am an essential part of this family,  this community, and maybe even this world. Things do work better when I am functional, and I am reminded of that daily whether it’s the Great Duplicate Pants Scandal of 2009 or my simple inability to strip the bed by myself on laundry day. Maybe (and bear with me here) this whole Sciatica thing is a figurative “angel,” showing me that the world is a better place if I’m not merely alive, but actually doing something useful.

Every time a bell rings the Sciatica gets its wings?

Blech.

You may recall from childhood the story of Rumplestiltskin, the nasty little man who was able to spin straw into gold. Consider me to be Annie, the woman who can turn food into straw. Or worse.

This is meant to be a “food blog,” one of the millions of its kind that fill the interworld to bursting with descriptions of golden, spatchcocked chickens, gluten-free macaroni and cheese, and (in my case) low-carb dishes that can make one forget that he or she will never, ever eat another french fry. To keep myself in blogging trim over the years, I have watched everything from “Top Chef” to “Good Eats,” read every magazine that contains a recipe, and kept a pile of cook books next to my bed just because it was a delight to learn how to preserve lemons before drifting off to dream of elegant tagines full of cous cous and raisins. It has been part of my “day job,” and a great joy to me to peruse the Great Food Blogs, and to feverishly bookmark anything I might ever consider cooking, no matter how unlikely it is that my family will eat lamb curry or bacon ice cream.

For right now, the love affair is over. I don’t honestly know whether it’s my ongoing battle with my left hip and leg, the huge amount of medicine I’m taking to control pain, or the vague (and exceedingly) unattractive depression that accompanies the inability to drive, concentrate, or do much of anything without a little help from my friends. I do not want to eat anything. Nothing at all. I am, as I write, forcing myself to consume a big, sweet, juicy Honeycrisp apple. If it’s sending me over the moon, it’s a slow launch.

Last night I tried to make a meatloaf (since other people around here are still hungry and expect regular meals) but the damned thing just wouldn’t cook. I have made thousands of meatloafs (meatloaves?) in my life, but this one, after an hour at 350, then half an hour at 375, then 10 minutes under the broiler, still looked like something from a CSI crime scene. I’ve lost my touch. Worst of all, although I felt bad for the folks who had to make do with the (relatively) cooked ends of the Victim Loaf, I just didn’t care.

I have tried several self-help measures to set this thing right. First, I told myself that since I’m not eating much, I could probably get away with eating something verboten, say, a plate of chili cheese fries or a box of eclairs. This possibly didn’t even create a ripple of titillation. I mean, if you show up at my door with the chili cheese fries I’d be grateful and eat a few (and I wouldn’t even complain about the fact thatthey were now cold), but I don’t see myself going into guilty raptures. Next, I tried reading a Ming Tsai cook book a friend gave me, and all I could think about was that it all sounded like a lot of work, and who on earth would stand around crimping wonton wrappers? Finally, I watched food TV again. I lasted 10 minutes before switching from Christopher Kimball talking about the best kind of baking chocolate to QVC selling some kind of ridiculous coat hanger thingies. It was a fail on all counts.

[Lest you should imagine that I am getting the side benefit of wasting away to a sample-sized waif, let me remind you that I am also not moving much. I get up and walk around because I was told to do so, but I am barely able to get up the stairs without clinging to the banisters as if I were approaching the summit of Kilimanjaro in my fur-lined parka].

So here’s the thing: I’m not really cooking, I’m not really eating, and for this particular historical interval, I don’t care about any of it. I do, on the other hand, want to keep blogging – my mind still works, more or less, and the world is full of interesting things that are not sauteed, baked, locally grown, filleted, minced, or bathed in a sherry reduction. I am too grumpy to figure out how to put an actual poll thingie in this post, but I need to know if you still want me. If all I do is monitor Rachel Zoe Project message boards, read Japanese novels about misunderstood loners who fall on their respective swords, and download sad, French pop music from iTunes all day long, do you still want to hear from me?

Or should I wait until the day when I awake, spatula in hand, all atwitter about the possibility of roasted vegetable soup?

Hint: a good answer would be “keep writing; we don’t care what you write about. Just eat the other half of the damned apple and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah

I am, at the suggestion of my friend Eric, re-posting one of my favorites from the archives. Please to enjoy.

When I was a kid, I always wondered what the “someone” was doing in that kitchen with Dinah. (Aside, that is, from singing “fee, fi, fiddly-i-o”). When I was really young, I imagined that Dinah was my grandparents’ dog, Dinah, who bit my hand and necessitated a series of rabies shots. When I was older, I assumed it was Dinah’s boyfriend, who I somehow confused with the guy who was “working on the railroad, all the livelong day” and clearly had no business strumming on his old banjo for Dinah in her kitchen as she tried to peel potatoes.

In my present state of evolution, I have an entirely different take on Dinah’s situation: Dinah is trying to cook, she has a relatively modest kitchen, in which “someone” has parked himself with a banjo and professed his desire to help her with dinner preparations. “Someone” is her brother in law, her next door neighbor, or her visiting college friend. He has, he tells her “done a lot of cooking.” He has a great suggestion about a better way to clean the mushrooms, or an idea about cheese that will melt better than the one she chose. He wants to tell her a long, rambling story about office politics or play her the new Keith Urban CD. She wants him to get the hell out of her kitchen so that she can cook in peace, dream a little, listen to her own music, or invent something without any voice other than that of her own inner chef. She wants him, and his damned banjo in the living room with everyone else, eating chips and guacamole.

As you may have gathered, I am a solitary cook by preference (although there are exceptions). I am self-taught, and did not grow up in one of those big families where all of the women-folk slice and dice and shell peas together. My grandmothers both cooked solo in their own kitchens, and while my mother (and father) were willing to teach me in the kitchen, they didn’t cook together or with children most of the time. I never lived in a co-op or worked in a restaurant kitchen where sharing and cooperating are required.

I like my stuff where it is, and I like to be in charge. If I cut up my onions and garlic and put them in little bowls ready to take the dive into hot olive oil, I want them left there. When I’m happy, I like to listen to the music of my choice cranked up to “stun,” and to dance, unobserved, as I improvise. When I’m sad, I prefer to work in silence, using the methodical chopping and stirring as a form of therapy. In the end, I like a certain veil of mysticism between my work in the kitchen and the fait accompli of a well-sauced pork chop in the dining room.

I didn’t know I was a solitary cook until alien interlopers interfered with my culinary mojo. I recall cooking in the highly dysfunctional kitchen of a long-ago ex, with his visiting mother. We made potato salad “together,” a process which started with me boiling potatoes, because I like potato salad with potatoes, scallions, red pepper, mayonnaise and mustard. The next step involved Ma Ex fishing every potato out of the water, cutting it smaller and putting it back into the water. She then added eggs to the boiling water so that they could be included in the salad. She was a fierce little person, and I cowered in submissive terror, eventually completely paralyzed to the point where I allowed her to add not only the eggs, but pickle relish and Miracle Whip.

My friend Healthy Jeff is also banned from my kitchen because, although he is as dear to me as a brother, he is a person who “eats to live” and does not “live to eat,” resulting in an unfortunate predilection for odd 5-grain mushes and mixes of organic juices and whey powder. He likes his pasta whole wheat, his sautees prepared with Pam, and no unnecessary seasonings. Cooking in his presence I feel like Paula Deen laughing vivaciously while building hardened arteries into every serving. When he is in my kitchen, I find myself trying to cook in a way that he will respect and admire (as if I regularly cooked with soy butter and textured vegetable protein), despite the fact that I personally have no desire to eat utilitarian meals that provide essential nutrients but deliver no pleasure in the cooking or the eating.

I also, alas, am unable to cook with my mother. We are very close, but it has become apparent over the years that neither of our kitchens is big enough for the two of us. I make a suggestion and she replies that she “has been cooking since before I was born.” She makes a suggestion and I indicate with some acerbity that I have “read, like 20 recipes for this already, and I am sure this is how I want to make it.” While she is very gracious about allowing me to prepare meals in her kitchen, she does not join me, and we have learned that even a casual remark from the doorway (”you aren’t going to chop those?”) can lead to emotional mayhem.

I do have a friend I can cook with, and this I cherish. Because he is a sensitive person (and accepts my truly astonishing levels of neuroses and need to control everything), when he is in my kitchen it is understood that I am the chef and he is the sous chef. The very fact that he clearly “gets” this lets me relax enough to allow him to take the lead when he is inspired. When he is inspired, its good, and we all eat well. He is orderly, he respects certain culinary orthodoxies that are dear to my heart, and he is vocal in his appreciation of my splendid chef’s knife, well-stocked pantry and functional storage system. He would never put Miracle Whip in the potato salad, judge me if I burnt the garlic, or look askance at a tablespoon of butter.

Maybe Dinah was really down with having someone hanging around in the kitchen with his banjo. Maybe she was lonely and needed company, maybe the banjo guy was the love of her life and she didn’t want him out of her sight, or maybe she was just in a good mood, dancing a little from sink to stove to refrigerator with a glass of wine in her hand and a smile on her lips. Maybe Dinah was a better person than I am, which isn’t actually all that difficult.

But maybe, just maybe, he was driving her nuts.