Bunniblog

Candy Corn Infused Vodka

2009-10-30T13:44:00.002-04:00

For those of you wondering how to make candy corn infused vodka, the recipe is simple.

1 1/2 cups vodka
1/2 candy corn

Place the candy corn and vodka in an air tight container and leave for 3 hours. After 3 hours, strain the vodka. Viola!

To serve, I recommend that you mix the vodka with a bit of OJ and a squeeze of lemon juice, shake with ice, and serve in a martini glass with a gummy tarantula or worm as garnish.

Costume Sneak Peak

2009-10-25T20:48:00.002-04:00

My Grandmother Tells a Story About a Naked Gardener

2009-10-23T10:32:00.003-04:00

So I was reading this Metafilter post about a man who was arrested for being naked in his own kitchen Apparently details are still forthcoming, but regardless it shocked me that it COULD be considered illegal to be naked in one's own home. I mean even if the guy IS a flasher, he was in his own freakin' house!

Being raised in a "medical" family (ie both parents worked in medicine as do several members of my extended family) nudity was not considered, in and of itself, sexual. I didn't understand nudity as being funny (why did anyone care?) nor do I see it as something threatening. Not that I was going to go to school naked, but certainly it was OK to be naked in a private setting. So much so that when I was very young, I often went skinny dipping in our pool as did my mother. (I know, that Mere Lapin is a racy one!) Now my house was in the middle of the forest and the only side of the house that faced the street was protected by a very high fence. Thus no one could casually spy me swimming regardless of whether I was clothed or naked.

I've continued to have a rather casual attitude towards nudity-more European than American I suppose. I do lounge in my apartment naked (not as much now that there are workmen outside my window ALL THE TIME), and it is how I prefer to sleep in the summer. I'm not trying to let you in on more than you need to know, but I think I should be OK doing that. And if someone DOES spy me naked accidentally, they should just avert their eyes and move along not call the freakin' cops even if there is a 7 year old kid in tow. It's just not something to freak out about.

If you are one of those people, DO NOT GO TO A BEACH IN EUROPE. It's rather common to see even 7 year old children stark naked, casually playing in the water. My Parisian boyfriend made fun of Americans as Puritans, and in this respect he is right. I was perfectly comfortable hanging out with topless matrons and naked kids because, again, I don't think of nudity as shameful or inherently sexual.

But all of this is aside from the point, I wanted to share with you a story my grandmother told me, which illustrates how much our attitudes have changed. Not just towards nudity but towards out neighbors, particularly when children are involved. (This whole "think of the children" cult is plain old ridiculous. I'm not going to get into it in detail, but just seeing someone naked? Not that scarring for a kid especially if the parent talks to the child about it instead of creating a media frenzy. But I digress.)

In the early 70s, a psychiatrist and his wife moved into the neighborhood where my grandmother lived. Apparently, the psychiatrist liked gardening in the nude. So every day, he would go out there naked. Now my grandmother could care less, but she was amused by let's call it the theater of neighborhood drama. The neighbors would call the cops, who would arrive, and tell him to put on clothes. He would argue for a bit and then do so. Well this played itself out every day for almost two weeks. Finally, the cops said, "Listen, we can't show up here EVERYDAY. You need to wear clothes when you garden or when you're outside your home or we'll be forced to arrest you."

The next day the psychiatrist was gardening clothed. So a week goes by, and the neighborhood finally begins to believe the reign of the naked gardener is over. They become convinced when he and his lovely wife decided to have a cocktail party to make amends for the dispute and get to know people. Imagine the horror one their faces when he opened the door to greet all of his guests in the nude!

The point was since he was IN the house, this was perfectly fine, and my grandmother thought it was AWESOMELY entertaining, which I think is the right attitude to have. If it was me, I would have laughed and said "OK where's the wine and cheese?" After that, the neighborhood arrived at a comfortable truce-inside the house he and his wife could frolic in the nude, while outside he would dress. Essentially, everybody wins.

Except now in which heaven forfend a 7 year old gaze upon a naked human being. Sheesh.

Being a Woman is NOT a "Pre-existing Condition"!

2009-10-22T10:39:00.001-04:00

or, Create a Petition

Losing My Religion

2009-10-14T22:05:00.002-04:00

Aubade

2009-10-09T23:19:00.002-04:00

My Tribute to Gourmet: Risotto with Radishes

2009-10-09T16:58:00.007-04:00

The truth is I never thought I liked risotto. My mother always ordered it, and I tasted once or twice and hated it. Now I have a thing about textures-mushy or mushy with grains in it, I don't like it. (Yet somehow I love yogurt with grape nuts. I'm just weird that way I guess.) But then a few weeks ago my mother and I were in an Italian restaurant and she ordered risotto. And it came with carrots. My mother hates carrots, and carrots weren't listed in the description of the dish, but there they were. And I LOVE carrots, so in the name of carrots I tried a bite and I realized that I do like risotto if it's al dente. Whenever I discover something I new I like (for example artichokes 2 years ago) I can almost hear "A Whole New World" playing in the background, which is odd because I've never watched Aladdin. Suddenly a whole new venue of recipes and dishes, I can see them in my head laid out on a long table with a white cloth, which makes me excited to immediately get into the kitchen and begin playing around because I've already wasted too much time thinking I didn't like this wonderful thing. Thus my risotto revelation resulted in my desire to begin making it, and just my luck the most recent issue of Gourmet included a risotto with radishes dish. I had some leftover radishes, and it seemed that Destiny was trying to tell me "It's time you make risotto."

And then I found out Gourmet was folding.

I'm going to digress for a moment about Gourmet. When I was little, I remember my mother getting Gourmet and leafing through the pages. This was back when my mother cooked, and we had family dinners every night. I knew that Gourmet was important to my mother, which is why I recall the following incident so clearly. My mother had angered me. I don't remember why, but I was mad. And being me, I decided to seek revenge, so I tore up the front page of the latest Gourmet. My mother hadn't even looked at it yet. It had a bunch of purple wet grapes on the front, I think. (It could just as easily have been blueberries.)

But my revenge was calculated. By tearing up the front page, I knew it was bad and I was interfering with her enjoyment of the magazine. However, I also understood there was just an ad on the other side of the page. I wasn't destroying anything with real content. So my revenge was calculated to be hurtful, but even I wouldn't destroy the precious contents, which were the real value of the magazine.

This is how far back my memory of Gourmet goes. In high school, when my mother had long stopped cooking and dedicated her entire caloric intake to rice cakes with peanut butter, I began to cook. Instead of showing me how to make things, she would simply tell me where to find the recipe in the recipe books. And this is how I began to teach myself to cook. I couldn't sleep at night in CT and so often I would begin making elaborate dishes at 11 only to finish cooking around 1 or 2. I would make steak au poivre, potatoes dauphinoise, or minestrone in the middle of the night. I would leave the leftovers in the refrigerator and put a note on the table so my mother would know that should she wish to eat actual food it was available.

Thus my mother got me a subscription to Gourmet, which I enjoyed throughout high school. In college, I didn't have a kitchen, but while in graduate school I discovered Epicurious. Glory be! I didn't need Gourmet anymore to get recipes from Gourmet! Until a few months ago when Gourmet sent me an offer I couldn't refuse and even though I like Epicurious there is something about getting Gourmet. Maybe it's that I remember watching my mother read it as a child. Maybe it's all the dishes I learned how to make when I was in high school. Or maybe it's just that it's one of the last great magazines. But when I found this out, in the wake of 2 of my favorite restaurants closing (We Liang Ye, which was written up by Gourmet, and Payard) I thought "This is truly the end of American Culinary culture." (I know, I know. I'm a drama queen.)

This is not to say that Gourmet didn't have bad moments or contribute to hours of my time lost to make some dish that was only so-so. I remember one dish in particular-a white bean dip that they claimed could be made in a food processor OR blender. NOT TRUE. Only Cthulhu could make this stuff in the blender and not lose his mind, but I wouldn't give up. Unfortunately, the result did not nearly warrant the hour and half of sweating, cursing, swearing, and improvising so I could serve it to my then boyfriend and my mother who were decorating the Christmas tree.

Or even more entertainingly, in the back of issue there was a list of specialty cocktails including a long island iced tea. For some reason, despite the fact that ALL the other recipes had the serving size listed under the title and before the ingredients list, this recipe had the serving size at the end. Thus everytime I would mix a long island iced tea, it wasn't until I got to the bottom of the recipe I would see "Serves 2" and realize I had to drink a double all on my own. Somehow, I never remembered this and made the mistake over and over. Still, I'm filled with nostalgia for even the more trying moments I had with Gourmet, and so I wouldn't give them up. It makes it easier for me not to give them up that most of the time I would make a recipe, realize I screwed up after the fact, and still get something delicious out of it as well as a lesson learned.

As such, I felt morally bound to make a tribute to my love of Gourmet while it still was around. And so exhausted on a Friday, I set to work in my postage stamp of a kitchen making risotto for the very first time. And let me just tell you not only was the dish MADE OF AWESOME, I even managed to make it look pretty, which I NEVER PULL OFF. So it seemed like a fitting tribute to one of my favorite periodicals ever.

If you do make this, a note. The radish salad and risotto work well on their own if you're as nervous about putting radish salad on top of the risotto as I was. You can try them separately and then try a bit together just to be sure that they work. Also I used regular chicken soup because, well, I had it and I didn't want to run out to the store again. Long story short, you can use regular chicken broth and just omit the salt later. Seriously, it'll be fine.

So in closing, thank you Gourmet for all the the articles, the food porn, the tips, the hours spent in frustrating contemplation of "how the hell did they pull this off in 35 minutes in the test kitchen?", the fantasies about owning a kitchen large enough to include some of the fabulous equipment you showcased, the recipes clipped with the best intentions of being made that week but somehow patiently waited for years before they were attempted, the "Eureka" moments when I tried a new dish that on paper seemed questionable, but on the palate were a revelation, the "crack bar" recipe (chocolate and caramel covered graham crackers) that is the hit of every party, and, most importantly, the accidental double long island iced teas. I'll never forget you...mainly because I still have a backlog of about 400 recipes to make from old issues. So you'll still be a part of my life, which is good. It's very very good.

Bed Bugs Help Me Teach How NOT to Deal With a PR Scandal

2009-09-29T16:56:00.004-04:00

Over the last few years there has been an increase in bed bugs in NYC. So far this fall not one BUT TWO colleges-John Jay and now Manhattan College- have serious bed bug problems. So now as a NYC college prof I risk getting bitten by bed bugs and potentially bringing them back to my apartment all of this in the name of trying to get my students to read a 6 page article, which they didn't do. They couldn't even bother to feign interest in it. And this wasn't 6 pages of the Lacanian literary analysis, this was 6 pages of this is how to handle a PR scandal.

What's fun is MC is handling it the wrong way, which illustrated my point to the class exactly. While they did send out an email to students, they didn't inform students about 1. what to do if they suspect they have bed bugs 2 how to prevent a bed bug infestation. Considering what I teach-the first thing I would do (after dealing with getting students into "clean" housing) would be to clarify these issues. As it was, I spent a large portion of the class discussing ways students can prevent an infestation. (I happen to know because my apartment had bed bugs when I first moved in.) With a lack of disclosure and useful information, it's not surprising that some students say "They also say that neither the building manager nor college officials are handling the situation correctly."

I would agree.

The school sends out daily emails about H1N1, but doesn't do the same for bed bugs? Not only should students receive an email but ALL STAFF-the kitchen staff, guards, receptionists,-should receive an email clearly explaining what is going ("The infestation is confined to one building off campus") and how they are coping with it ("We have moved those students to another dorm on campus while we make alternative housing arrangements"). Furthermore, they should include directives to help prevent a bed bug infestation (a special mattress cover can help reduce the likelihood of infestation as can vacuuming every three days).

Finally, because of the way the school is handling information (or not handling it) students aren't finding out from administration, they are finding out from word of mouth. Not only does this fail to instill faith that administration knows how to cope with such a situation, it also increases the potential for misinformation to be repeated as truth. We know from the game "Telephone" that even a well intentioned repetition of what one THINKS one hears can result in a horrible distortion of the original phrase. Now imagine that same game in a highly emotionally charged atmosphere and with the players who have their own agendas-emphasizing or inventing details to make the story more dramatic. Essentially by not offering clear information, the school is fostering an atmosphere where damaging "untruths" will proliferate.

And now I'm going to vacuum everything in my apartment (sigh).

Big Tatas, Fox News, and Jewish Hell

2009-09-28T18:28:00.002-04:00

Kirk Cameron, the Origin of Species, Hitler, and These Kids Today

2009-09-25T19:11:00.002-04:00

Meditations on Thomas Chatterton

2009-09-22T15:19:00.002-04:00

Two Great Things that Go Great Together

2009-09-10T18:14:00.000-04:00

My Cat, The Cockblocker

2009-09-06T23:21:00.003-04:00

Waiting for Godot at Gina La Fornarina

2009-09-06T18:05:00.004-04:00

Brief Musing in the Adjuncts "Suite"

2009-09-04T12:37:00.003-04:00

So I'm sitting at the computer going through my bazillion emails, and I happen to look at the bookcase. The first thing that catches my eye is the copy of Whitley Strieber's Communion on the shelf next to the Elements of Style and the MLA. The "library", such as it is, is supposed to be composed of books that we would actually use to teach. Is there a course about Alien Narrative that I don't know about? And if so, can I teach it? I would require District 9, ET, and Alien plus select episodes of Star Trek (the original and Next Generation) and the X-Files.

Then I notice the MLA. They only have the 4th edition even though the MLA not only put out the 7th edition over the summer, but all the English profs were informed we were to be well versed on the new edition when we returned in the Fall. Well, I would love to be, but it would help if you had a copy here for immediate reference in case I don't want to schlep it in every day what with all my other books and papers.

But this goes to my overall wonder about what has made it onto this shelf and what hasn't. Communion is there, but the latest MLA guide isn't? I'm guessing these books were just donated by profs, which means that reference books would only be donated AFTER they were no longer of use (hence the hopelessly out of date MLA). But what does this communicate to your staff? You require knowledge of a book but don't offer even minimal support to help them achieve it?

(shakes head)

But it's too lovely a day to sit here and ponder the eclectic and unfortunate nature of the "library" so I'll head out into the sun where hopefully I will not be abducted by aliens (which make me have to revisit the whole "How relevant is Communion" issue).

Incidentally when I went to the local Barnes and Noble, THEY didn't have a copy of the latest edition although there were Chicago Style Manuals lying about.

My Life Becomes the Premise of a Bad 80s Sitcom Part 1

2009-08-16T22:18:00.006-04:00

----------------
Now playing: Secretions - I Can Make You a Man (Reprise)
via FoxyTunes

The first guy I broke up with I never dated. In fact, I broke up with a guy 2 years before I even HAD a boyfriend.

When I was 16 years old, I was a regular at the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Wethersfield CT. Of course, I liked the theatrical part of it, the interaction, the glitter and the costumes. But what I really liked was feeling like I belonged because the other regulars were misfits like myself-people who didn't feel accepted. At 16, the Rocky Horror Picture Show crew was like something in a Fellini film-and I fit right in.

That isn't true.

I didn't fit in. I was queen. I wasn't just accepted-I was noticed and admired, even fawned over. At the time, I found my extreme popularity inexplicable since these were OLDER people-these were people in their 20s-independent and fully adult, while I was just barely able to drive. They were supposed to be the cool ones and I was supposed to be laboring for their approval, or so I thought.

Now, I can understand why. Most of the regulars were in their mid-twenties working, if at all, in marginal jobs barely able to eke out rent.Many of them feared the rejection of others, having been rejected not just by their peers, quite often by their own family. Thus they forged a deep bond with each other and a serious commitment to what most would consider a ridiculous and frivilous "hobby." They were passionate about developing new jokes or responses or sewing costumes and rehearsing. It was their solace-as writing is mine. The place were they felt not only comfortable, but powerful.

As far as they could tell, I led a charmed life. My parents were well off and hadn't disowned me. I went to a reputable private school. I was young, attractive, and smart. As far they could tell, there was absolutely no reason why I would fear rejection or failure. And my presence, that I had chosen to hang out with them, indicated to them the hope that perhaps not everyone outside of their little set was a complete and total asshat.

And I was hot.

I loved the attention to be fair. The boys in high school had crushes on me, but never asked me out. They would confess to me later, when we had become friends that they wanted to say something but were intimidated. "But I'm a 4 ft 6 disabled Jewish woman! How much less intimidating do you need me to be?" Of course, it was this kind of "ACT LIKE YOU GOTTA PAIR" attitude that intimidated them-and then they would chase girls who were less challenging. But the guys at RHPS weren't intimidated.

Of particular interest was Bill-the blonde blue eyed 25 year old who played Rocky. He was my type to the T-right down to the history of emotional problems, specifically anger management issues. Bill had been arrested for bar fights and had the word TEMPER tattooed on his arm.He was dangerous and forbidden. He also worked as a gravedigger-a job he was embarassed to disclose to me. Since I was popular as friend, but never had a boyfriend in school I LOVED finally having power over a man. Instead of feeling rejected or at the mercy of some boy, I was the one who was in control. I flirted with him, and after a while he asked for my phone number. We talked on the phone and talked at the theater, but Bill never so much as kissed me. Not even with a closed mouth. He never asked me out for a cup of coffee or even walked me to my car. So imagine my surprise when he introduced me to a friend as his girlfriend.

I said nothing as the following week I was going to work at a summer camp. It was an overnight camp so I wouldn't have access to a phone with any regularity. I gave him my snail mail address and hoped the problem would resolve itself before camp ended.

I received a rambling 5 page letter from him the second week of camp. Not only did the letter clearly indicate that he did want the relationship to become more physical (I remember the line to this day "I've been practicing my sensual massage technique so it will be perfect for you when you return") but also the depth of his apparently psychotic delusions about our emotional connection. He was planning a huge return party for me when I would meet his parents and he threatened that he had a big and life changing surprise waiting for me when I came home. Luckily, one of my closest childhood friends was also at camp, so we sat on my bed and discussed strategies.

I decided the best course of action was to invent a camp boyfriend. It was a perfect solution. The boyfriend could be from anywhere-Florida, Maine, California even Germany-so his absence after camp would be completely explicable. Being young, having a long distance boyfriend would be believable. All I needed was some letters, which my friend could easily write, to prove his existence.

I wrote back that I was sorry to tell him that I had met someone at camp-a boy who was disabled like myself and understood me in a way he never could. He sent a letter saying how sorry he was because he had dreams for us-living together and getting married. (Most people go on at least one date before marrying, but hey I just agreed to leaving the planet with a perfect stranger last night so hey, I guess not so crazy.) He also said he understood. Shortly after I returned, the Wethersfield theater announced they were closing down the RHPS. The last night I saw Bill, he was sad and withdrawn. He barely spoke to anyone as the rest of us hugged each other promising to keep in touch.

We never did.

The Entertaining Power of the Come On Line When Applied Properly

2009-08-16T05:20:00.002-04:00

Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad

2009-07-30T19:43:00.002-04:00

So I'm doing a thousand things on my email trying to distract myself from the barbaric depression that is at the gates and I see this quote on the top of my gmail page "Whoever is happy will make others happy too." So I give it the finger because I've spent most of the day in tears hating myself, my disability, the nurse who called about my lyme test results but DIDN"T TELL ME THE RESULTS, my mother who would do anything for her bf but can't be bothered to hold my hand through a blood test, etc. This whole vacation has made me farther away from people. I thought the disability was something I could overcome, I thought I could use the shared range of human emotion to bridge it, no more. I don't write not because I have nothing to say but because I think I have no one to say it to, no one who understands, or if they did they wouldn't want to admit it.

As I get older no children, no husband, no ability to walk upstairs, no bestselling novel-and apparently no ability to connect to all you healthy folk who walk around without thinking about it, wiggle your toes, feel the sand under your feet, run up flights of stairs, have kids, relationships, people who want to live with you.

So I gave the finger to this optomistic saying and then I realize it's Anne Frank. Yep I gave the finger to Anne Frank.

I'm the one who needs to go, not her.

Stuck in Cape Cod

2009-07-30T16:31:00.002-04:00

Don't have much time to write as I've borrowed a computer while I attempt to untie the gordian knot which is the how exactly do I get back to NYC since the bolt bus for tomorrow is sold out. I'm awaiting my host to discuss options. Details will emerge.

This has been a miserable, miserable week.

Well, not THAT miserable, but fairly miserable on and off. I would say the more appropriate term would be alienating.

And now I'm stuck here.

Not that I want to go home, you see, but all the options present problems. I could take the Acela train from Boston (which is just as fast as a bus-no joke) or for a bit more I could stay in a hotel in Boston for the night, maybe go to the aquarium, and take the bus on Saturday-or I could rent a hotel room in Ptown, change my ferry tickets, and then take the bus home all on Saturday.

Of course if my host ever arrives it would make figuring this out alot easier, but as usual it seems when I need people the most they are not around.

Interesting how that works.

Oh here they are now. Wish me luck.

Every Day is Brighter with Gordon Ramsay

2009-07-14T18:25:00.006-04:00

Anybody who knows me know I LOVE me some Gordon Ramsay. I mean love. There is nothing I would deny Gordon. He is welcome to my pots, pans, spices,lingerie collection, and bed whenever he wants. (Seriously, have you SEEN this man? Woof!)

I could spend all day on why I love him-from the fact that he is the one who inspired me to clean out my fridge, his books dominate my recipe book shelf, both of us are intense devotees to "tough love" as well as just rewards, we both love Paris , or maybe it's just the way he says "Fer fuck's sake!"

I love me some Gordon Ramsay and just when I thought I couldn't love him more, well it turns out I can.

Sunday I spent a lovely afternoon running around the Village including purchasing some yarn for my FIRST lace project (wish me luck). On my way from the yarn store to Doc Holliday's I happened to see a couple holding hands. Now just the week before this would have sent me into a tailspin-blubbering that no one would ever love me and all the effort I've put into living has been wasted. But today-whether it was the sun or my bag filled with fingerling yarn or just that they were happy without being a fucking e-harmony commercial (you couples on the UES who want to run me over you're so happy you can't let go of each other's hands AND have to take up the entire sidewalk YOU are who I am talking about)-I smiled at them. The girl, even though she must have been about late 20s, had a pirate Jenny thing going on with thigh high striped tights and a black frilly skirt. Her boyfriend was older and more "goth-y" black fingernail polish, long dyed black hair free, a black t, black leather pants, black slightly platformed boots. They walked happily hand in hand and I smiled, and remembered what I was like when I was in college when I loved EVERYONE-the strangeness, even the mean-ness-of people. Hard to believe, but I just loved people. And in that moment, I had that college girl back again grinning in the sun.

Before I walked into Doc Holliday's, I stopped into a hat store, which had some BEAUTIFUL hats and I was sorely tempted. Then I remembered that Enchantments, a magic store (a REAL magic store, not rabbit out of the hat magic store) was around the corner. Enchantments has been in NYC as long as I have, which is saying something. I buy all my incense there because it's hand blended, but also because I studied the "black arts" for a bit.1 I love these stores. They remind me of high school when I used to carry a pouch of crystals, wrap my tarot cards in a purple scarf, and wear hand blended oils to bring the love of a certain boy (which it NEVER did). I read books on magic from the popular (To Ride a Silver Broomstick) to the more obscure (On Psychic Self Defense and 777)2

While in Enchantments, I walked to the back where they had a range of herbs and other, uh, things, in jars. If you are a real practitioner (as I once was), you often burn a specific blend of herbs for a particular spell or ritual. The jars in the back are kind of like the magic version of the candy in Dylan's Candy Bar. You can put together your own mix for your ritual rather than relying on whatever blend yahoo has decided you should burn.

I was eyeing the jars when I noticed the happy goth couple was here too. The boyfriend picked up a jar, opened it, and inhaled. I couldn't see what it was till he tipped it towards his girlfriend's nose. "Here, smell," he said. She stuck her nose in and inhaled. "What is that?" she asked. "It's star anise," he replied, "Gordon Ramsay uses this to cook ALL THE TIME!" I couldn't hold back. I looked at him and said "My God, you love Gordon Ramsay?!" "Of course! He was cooking lamb today!" We chatted for a few minutes about the F word, raising veal and turkeys, and recipe challenges before they walked back onto the sidewalk (the store was SWELTERING). I purchased some incense and went back into the bright bright sunshine thinking that living in NYC isn't really as bad as I thought it was just a week ago.

I meant to write about this sooner, but I knew I had to post this story when I saw this article about how Gordon's "colorful" ads (and by the way if you haven't seen this spoof, it's fabu) have improved traffic for a "hospitality" job site. The article seems to imply this is surprising because Gordon is so "abrasive". THE GUY HAS 3 TV SHOWS fer fuck's sake! OF COURSE it helped because if an English professor and a goth guy can both share a moment over star anise and cooking lamb because he must be doing SOMETHING right.

So if you have a free moment, don't DO NOT watch Hell's Kitchen, watch the F Word or go to i-Tunes and catch one of his recipe podcasts. Trust me, every day with Gordon is a good day for me.

1While it may not seem appropriate to write about it here, the reason I got into reading about witchcraft was my father. I don't know why, but when I was very young, like 8 and 9, he started bringing me home antique books on the practice of magic from the outright ludicrous (one book offered a love spell that involved the menstrual blood of a goose, if you can imagine such a thing) to the historical (one book offered a history of the Knights Templar among other things). Thus, over time, I managed learn a great deal about the various practices and history of the "black arts." While I no longer practice, I often think of those days with great nostalgia. Thus going to Enchantments bring back some of those happy days when I would go to magic stores to get crystals, incense, or candles for a particular spell.

2 These books were far harder to get in my day. I was lucky there were so many antique book stores around and living in a college town right after the 70s helped I'm sure.

Les Chouquettes

2009-07-09T22:05:00.005-04:00

If you are anything like me, and I really hope you aren't for your own sake, you go on these obsessive little tangents. Early in my life these were reading obsessions, all the plays of George Bernard Shaw's plays AND THEIR INTRODUCTIONS (Oh.The. Pain). The entire Grimm's Fairytales. Everything Kurt Vonnegut wrote. Now my obsessions are more varied-knitting socks, crocheting a cthulhu bathmitt, reaching level 60 at WoW, and baking. Who can say what captures my fevered brain's attention, but once the fever catches I am on, for all intensive purposes, a maniacal obsession of epic proportions to achieve my goal. For example when I came across David Lebovitz's blog, I immediately went to Kitchen Arts and Letters and bought the Sweet Life in Paris. As someone who loves French cooking, who longs to be an expatriot, AND who has the roughest possible draft of a Parisian travelogue, I justified this purchase as "research." David's style is easy so I devoured the book in hours.

Early on in the book I became obsessed with a recipe called Chouquettes Aux Pepites de Chocolate or "Cream Puffs with Chocolate Chips." Part of what immediately filled me with excitement was due to the simplicity of the recipe, I had all the ingredients save ONE. David was quite adamant that the chouquettes had to be topped with "Pearl sugar-large, white irregularly chaped chunks of sugar (roughly the size of small peas)" which he claimed was available from King Arthur Flour.

Indeed it was, but it would cost me about ten bucks to get 2 ounces of the stuff and while I was insanely obsessed, well, I was hesitant to fork over the cash. Besides, this is freakin' NYC right? I should be able to get "pearl sugar."

Sure.

Williams Sonoma-they have pink mexican crystal salt, but no pearl sugar. Neither does Eli's. Broadway Panhandler? When I called, they didn't even KNOW what I was talking about. Luckily, I discovered another blogger was just as obsessed as I was and she was NYC based! Smitten Kitchen wrote a post about Chouquettes partially inspired by David, and at the end of the post she let me know that the NY Cake and Bake store (the Sacre Couer of Cake Baking supplies to my heart) So off I went to NY Cake and Bake, and not only did I discover pearl sugar, but I discovered it in several colors so I purchased it in plain, hot pink, and rainbow. The colors themselves would make me happy.

Which is good, because as I detailed, despite my slavish attention to detail my chouquettes turned into "fluffy chocolate chip cookies"! Sure, people still thought them delish, but I was crushed. AND I had wasted some seriously high quality butter.

So I did what any brilliant person does when an utterly inexplicable failure hits them....Well after the crying and drinking of vodka. I called someone knows better than I do.

Much like Socrates, my so called intelligence rests mainly on my knowing who to call about what. I've got a great rolodex-need to know about orthopedic pediatric podiatry? a good brunch place in New Orleans? the literary term for a being who travels between different realms of existence? baudrilliard's theory on sign and simulacra? when blood oranges are in season? Give me a minute and I'll get you the answer.

So I emailed my good friend Bakerina. I described my problem in detail and asked for her help and despite the fact that she is law school, she sent me back a page and a half long detailed analysis. After reading the comments at Smitten's blog, I saw many people had similar issues with the recipe (even Smitten's dough was a bit "runny"). And let me tell you Bakerina's corrections fixed my chouquettes so that they were they HIT of my mother's asshat boyfriend's daugher's birthday. Did you get that? My mother's bf, who I hate, has a daughter, who I like. For her birthday, I made the chouquettes. This was a grand success because 1 it was one of the few dishes asshat doesn't KNOW how to make so he couldn't talk about how he would make them better (he thinks himself an expert in the kitchen even though he over salted the pesto until it was inedible this weekend) 2 as the ex husband of a Parisian he prides himself on French cooking so a second HAHA in my court. And finally, I was glad the daughter liked her "present" which were tasty indeed and every girl should have decadent Parisian fresh baked goodness on her 21st birthday. If only I had an appropriately hot garcon on hand to present them to her, it would have been the perfect present.

Unfortunately, I did not think to get pictures of the second set of chouquettes (only the failed ones) so I'll just have to make more (sigh) and post them here.

Still I thought I would share with you David's recipe with Bakerina's corrections so if you get filled with my mania you will not have to waste the quality butter that I did on the first batch. I've added Bakerina's corrections in purple. I recommend with ever fiber of my being that you pay close attention to her corrections.

Chouquettes Aux Pepits de Chocolate

Makes about 25 Puffs

1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
2 teaspoons sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1 cup flour
4 large eggs at room temperature
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup pearl sugar

1. Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

2. While David instructs the reader to heat the water, salt, sugar, and butter-Bakerina insists that you BOIL them. According to her, "this is a critical difference. If you cook till the butter is melted, your sugar will probably be dissolved, but it also might not be. When you cook to boiling, there's no doubt about it."

3. At this point David instructs the reader to remove the mixture from the heat and add the flour. Bakerina again adds critical information, "Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the flour to combine, AND put it *back* on the oven, and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat for four minutes. The goal is not just to have it pull away from the sides of the pan, but also to coat the pan a little bit on the bottom. Your flour/liquid mix is now called 'panade' in French, and this step is known as roasting the panade."

4. Allow dough to cool for two minutes, then briskly beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth and shiny.

Again, a direction that SEEMS simple enough, but benefits from Bakerina's more exacting eye.

"David tells you to beat in the eggs, one at a time, until the dough is smooth and shiny. The thing is, dough is a funny beast, and sometimes 'smooth and shiny' isn't enough, and sometimes you need more or less egg depending on the size of the eggs you are using. So we were told that whenever we were presented with a choux recipe, to hold back one egg in the beating, then do a pinch test, pulling off a piece of dough with my thumb and forefinger, then moving my fingers apart. If the dough stretches between them, it's done. If the dough breaks into clumps, you need the other egg. Beat it in well. Do another pinch test if you want, but that should do it."

(This is precisely where my chouquettes went wrong so if you ignore ALL of the other advice, I would definitely do the pinch test.)

OK now the recipe pans out as David writes it:

"Using two spoons, scoop up a mound of dough with one spoon roughly the size of a walnut and scrape it off with the other spoon onto the baking sheet." ( I pulled this off with one spoon, but my "mounds" weren't very delicate or rounded.) "Place the mounds evenly-spaced apart on the baking sheet. Press coarse sugar crystals and chocolate chips over the top and sides of each mound. Use a lot. Once the puffs expand rise, you'll appreciate the extra effort (and sugar.)

Bake the cream puffs for 35 minutes, or until puffed and well-browned.

(If you want to make them crispier, you can poke a hole in the side with a knife after you take So them out of the oven to let the steam escape.)"

So there you have it. While I thought them a delicious dessert, the chocolate reminded me of pain au chocolat and so they might be just the things for a decadent brunch with some cafe au lait served in a big bowl!

This entire recipe and the resulting debacle and success reminded me that Julie Powell was utterly brilliant in her assertion that there is a difference between EASY and SIMPLE. Chouquettes are SIMPLE, but EASY-but they are WORTH IT.

Trust me and enjoy!

First Vlogging Attempt Courtesy of NYU Bureaucracy

2009-07-08T18:08:00.003-04:00

Rise and Fall

2009-06-22T23:06:00.003-04:00

So somehow I ended up at David Lebovitz's blog and specifically his post about Chouquettes. Being me, which is to say obsessive, I was seized with an absolutely MANIA for making these. I had already made pate a choux a few weeks ago for gougeres, so I was confident and familiar that I could master this recipe.

One of the major problems was finding pearl AKA crystal sugar-large coarse sugar crystals (not the same as "sanding sugar" which is often colored and used to decorate sugar cookies in my grandmother's house). I went to William Sonoma and Eli's with no success. After that I called Broadway Panhandler and the person who picked up the phone responded to my inquiry with an uninspiring "I guess."

Luckily Smitten of Smitten Kitchen was as obsessed as I was and discovered that NY Cake and Bake carries "pearl" sugar. Today I went there having never been. I was immediately filled with wonder and glee. Here was not only pearl sugar available in "plain" and in colors; rainbow of gel food colorings as well as edible glitter; sacks of flavored pastry fillings, tubs filled with chocolate discs for candy making, an array of candy molds, cookie cutters, and cake pans; wedding cake toppers of various ethnicities; cake and cupcake stands; ready to cut colored fondant; edible cake decorations in every type of flower; dolphin, halloween, and star and moon "jimmies" and...well anything and everything you could ever possibly want to make the dreamiest cakes, cupcakes, cookies and chouquettes.

I restrained myself somewhat. I bought 3 containers of pearl sugar(plain, hot pink, and rainbow).2 gel food colorings (electric blue and regal purple), and 2 cookie cutters (a copper Fleur de Lis and a little bunny).

I left the store smiling feeling that with such a store I could make any type of pastry I could imagine. Once home I set to work confident that soon I would be eating this pastry that had haunted me for a week.

The dough ended up runny, closer to cookie dough. So much so that when I put it on the sheet it spread out. I was nervous, but I had followed the recipe with slavish devotion to detail (unlike my first attempt at flourless chocolate cake, which I screwed up twice, but turned out perfectly). What came out of my oven were essentially big sugar topped chocolate chip cookies. I reviewed the recipe-no error. So I added more flour to the second batch till the dough was stiff. This time the puffs failed to rise at all and didn't even cook through.

So here I am feeling defeated. Sigh. I feel defeated alot lately, which is why I don't write that often. I've even stopped carrying around my writer's notebook. All the news I get these days pretty much sucks so hiding the energy to write is scarce. I direct it now into knitting, which even when I fubar results in a somewhat wearable pair of socks.

So like the chouquettes I fail to rise to the occasion. Still I'm not easily defeated. I've signed up for a class at NYU so I can have a recent recommendation from a Prof since most of my profs from grad either no longer remember me (it was a decade ago) or have retired and don't bother with such things anymore. And Thursday I'm going to try the chouquette again after reading some trouble shooting tips from Smitten.

A Meditation on Marginalia

2009-06-14T20:20:00.003-04:00

Twice this week I've been reading (The Flaneur if you must know) and been approached by strangers curious what I was reading that I made notations in the margins. They were of the opinion that if I was reading a book AND making notes it must be IMPORTANT. They confusion grew when they discovered that I was reading for pleasure. I generally read with a pencil in my hand (or a pen w/ post it notes if it's a book I truly love) regardless of whether the book is for a class I'm teaching or a novel I'm enjoying. This habit was reinforced by graduate school, but it interests me that so few people understand WHY I would write notes in a book that I am reading for pleasure.

Part of it goes to my attitude towards reading, which is that it is NOT a solitary pursuit, it's actually a conversation between the reader and the author. Reading itself is a CONSTRUCTIVE act, not passive like watching TV. While reading, even the most craptacular hackneyed romance novel ever, the reader must take the words on the page and create a mental image. These words that describe characters and action can become so influential, as a result of this collaboration, that readers will sometimes react as if the fate of the character has befallen a close friend or a real person. The clearest example of this is the Sherlock Holmes museum in London, which is supposed to be his house even though he was the fictional creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Film versions of books often fail to entertain those who have read the book first because the reader has imagined the scenarios and characters using their own biases and tastes, thus the invention is uniquely pleasing to them. A film, on the other hand, while created by hundreds of people-is a more general vision, trying to please a wide variety of tastes without the benefit of being customizable.

A movie, however, demands attention for about 2 hours, a book may require not only far more time, but also more involvement by the reader depending on the difficulty and sophistication of the text. Some books absolutely require multiple rereads or even sentences to be read again and again. A friend of mine felt this way about the work of Jacques Lacan. Thomas Mann claimed his 700 page novel about a tubercular colony, Magic Mountain, should be read twice. Once to get the general plot, and the second time to appreciate its nuances. As a professor, I often have to read the same books over and over again-thus I've read some works like the Inferno, the Iliad, the Odessey, and Antigone so many times I've lost count. Even other professors have remarked on why I would take the time to reread these works each time I taught them instead of just skimming notes. I did it, mainly, because each time I read these works I experienced them differently-gained new insights or changed previously held theories. If I simply skimmed my notes, my understanding of the texts would remain static.

So considering the personal and yet collaborative nature of reading, marginalia seems like a natural outgrowth. When people borrow my books, they often remark on the entertaining nature of the marginalia even though I never intended for others to read it. For me, there is something amusing about reading my own marginalia to see how my opinion has evolved over time. Some of my books have several sets of notes taken in different ink (most notably Lolita, which is a book that DEMANDS more than one read) which allows me to see and understand how my ability to interpret and analyze the literature has changed over time. Some of my books bear marginalia from a high school age Bunni, which is both embarassing and mildly endearing. But it seems clear that the idea of reading and writing being linked developed in me quite early.

So I'm a bit perplexed by this surprise by marginalia. Part of what shocks me is considering how interactive writing on the internet is-facebook statuses, tweets, and blog posts can all receive comments-that this passion for commenting hasn't carried over to printed texts . In fact, a book, Zero Comments , proclaims blogs are "driven by an in-crowd dynamic in which social ranking is a primary concern. The lowest rung of the new Internet hierarchy are those blogs and sites that receive no user feedback or 'zero comments'." (Making this blog lowman on the totem pole (sniffle). Since written feedback is considered so key to these social sites, why isn't reading a book considered as interactive as a facebook status?

The key difference is that while I can write what I like in a book, I do so without the expectation that anyone will read it. In fact, the intended audience of my marginalia is me-whether it's notes for a future a lecture or the title of a poem I will to research in more detail. The intended audience for comments on facebook and twitter is the whole online community. Thus the real surprise, or lack of understanding, comes from people unable to understand the effort of writing comments that aren't intended to garner praise, attention, or a response. The idea that these comments are for me (and my students often respond this way when they see me reading with a pencil in hand) is "What's the point?" Of course, to me, I can't quite wrap my head around the question well enough to answer it. On the surface there might not be a point. I may never read the book again. (I do have quite a few well annotated books that I have not reread...yet.) But I don't consider the time I took to write the comments wasted. Partially because the comments may have helped me develop my thoughts more coherently, but mainly because one of the chief joys of reading is feeling in communion with the author. The comments are the outgrowth of that collaboration.

It saddens me that so few people write marginalia. Growing up I lived by a Paperback Trader (it was literally up the hill from my house so we walked there often in the summer). I love owning previously owned books, a book with its own unique history, but it's always a delight to find something left behind by the previous owner(s)-a ticket stub, a news article, a postcard used as a bookmark. Even more interesting are their marginalia, even if it's in such abbreviated short hand that it makes no sense. I don't know why it intrigues me, but it's lovely to have some sort of connection with the previous owner. A link between the two of us who have both shared this physical book even though our experiences of it may be radically different. And, as a result, I miss the Paperback Trader and the days when I used to prowl the bins outside of the Strand for hidden treasures.

On one level, I fear the day of Paperback Traders has gone (the one by my house went out of business despite the fact that it was located ACROSS THE STREET FROM UCONN CAMPUS and had a wide selection of cheap textbooks) as has marginalia. Still, I shall continue to sit in the park, on the bus, and, of course, in bars-pencil in hand scribbling a response that no one but myself could be interested in.

Did You Ever?

2009-05-18T00:51:00.002-04:00

I was just on the phone talking to a friend of mine, and I heard myself say "I'm 34 years old with no children and no boyfriend." I was actually talking about a legal situation, but the moment I said it, the truth of the situation hit me. And all I could think of was "I started out so well."

Actually, I didn't. I started out life about to die, and then serious disabled, and then about to die a few more times. I fought my way back from that and THEN I started doing well. But now, again, I'm failing.

At moments like this I remember what the late Christina Middlebrook said about having cancer, "You want the world to make exceptions. It doesn't."

A writer like C.S. Lewis would tell me to be thankful, as every moment since I was 6 months old, no matter how painful, has been a gift.

It's hard to see it that way when I see people everyday who are far more gifted than I and have no awareness of it, no idea what it would mean to me to be able to easily walk up a flight of stairs or feel warm sand beneath my feet, nevermind what it would be to actually be able to trust someone to take care of me when I needed them.

This is what life is like without a net, I suppose.

Time for another trip to Paris.