insomnia haiku

Drink, drink, and be merry

The time: Friday night
The setting: Crate and Barrel
The players: a perky salesguy; me

Me: I'm looking for a large round plate.
Perky salesguy: What do you need it for?
Me: I'm making flan.
Perky salesguy (perking up, more): Flan! You know what flan is?
Me: Uh...
Perky salesguy: It's fun, with an L!
Me: [thinking: no, that's "flun"]
Perky salesguy: Flan! [less certainly] Fla-un?!
Me: OK then.

Saturday night I had an open that bottle night, which technically is supposed to happen worldwide in February, not July, but then I've never been one for rules. That, and/or a procrastinator. Anyway, the point of an OTBN is to open, finally, that bottle of wine you've been saving for a "special occasion." Trouble is, you could wait forever, and no occasional could ever be special enough.

The bottle I'd been saving was a 1994 Williams Selyem Russian River Vallery Pinot Noir, which I got when my dad, a big wine enthusiast, retired and had a vertical wine tasting (same winery and type of wine, different years). At the end, we drew numbers and got to take home our favorite in the order we drew. I got number one, and I chose the '94.

This, to be sure, was worth way more than a night on the couch in front of the TV. But then the years rolled by and by, and my parents told me they'd opened some other Williams Selyems, and they'd gone bad. So it was time, at last, to drink the darn thing, with friends who maybe had bottles of their own, and their own stories to tell.

On the menu: tortilla de patatas (also known as tortilla espanola, which is basically like a big egg-and-potato pancake), arroz con mariscos (sort of a Peruvian paella, with seafood and chorizo), green salad, and the aforementioned flan.

Without getting into too many details, let's just say that I have never had so many cooking crises in my life. In making the flan, I ended up melting three different batches of sugar (I even had to go back to the store at one point), throwing out the first two attempts in disgusted failure. Here's the trick to making caramel sauce for flan. OK, three tricks: 1) sugar goes through a bunch of phases before it gets to the right amber color -- liquid, then crystalline, and then that amber caramel -- so don't panic; 2) be sure to make enough caramel so that it covers the entire bottom of your mold, and it's better to have too much than not enough; 3) if you don't have enough, and you pour it in and it stops swirling and looks like it hardens right away, it's a trick! It hasn't hardened! Do NOT reach out like a dope with your right middle finger and try to touch it! Because you'll end up with an alarmingly huge and occasionally painful blister on your finger, and perhaps you wouldn't believe you'd need your right middle finger to do much of anything except flip people off, but you would be so very wrong. Typing the letter "i," for example. That comes up a lot.

Then again, I am a big idiot, and most of you are not.

Also the tortilla de patatas ended up sticking to the pan, because I don't have a nonstick pan, and it was the biggest cooking disaster I've ever had and I was ready to throw the entire thing out, but I saved it (apparently) by giving everyone a little bit on a plate with some red pepper spread on top. And now I'm tired of typing with only nine fingers so I'll just post some pictures, except I will tell you that we had a fantastic time, and the pinot noir had gone flat and lost nearly all of its complexity, but at least it got drunk, and in fine company, too.

The lesson here? Drink your wine. That's what it's there for, to be drunk and enjoyed. What are you waiting for? In that spirit, tonight -- on my couch, in front of my TV -- I opened a 2001 bottle of syrah I'd had for ages. Frankly, it wasn't much good. But I've got many more to go.

The arroz con mariscos:
 

The flan (third time was the charm):
 
My bottle:
 

Patrick's bottle (which was delicious):
 

Annah's bottle (Hungarian!):
 

Patrick's second bottle:

Salud, everyone.

Insomnia Haiku: The Meta Version

Wow, if you Google "insomnia haiku," you get a LOT of hits. It seems that many many people turn to an ancient form of Japanese poetry in times of sleeplessness. And here I thought I was being so original. Still, I take it as a minor point of pride that I come up first. And now, in honor of that distinction as well as my current insomnia, a new offering:

Laptop, restlessness
Who else lies awake, somewhere
Writing a haiku?

Whoa. Deep.

Eating my way through Montreal, or, how to induce a heart attack in four days

I just got back from spending a few days in Montreal, which is almost exactly like being in France, except you don't have to feel quite so guilty for speaking English. And there's no jet lag.

I've reached the point in my life where I've decided that the best way to get to know a city -- the only way, really -- is through its food. So I did my due diligence (via Chowhound) and came up with my list of places, which my cousin was kind enough, and curious enough, to indulge me in visiting.

(Apologies in advance for the terrible pictures. Apparently I haven't yet mastered the art of food photography, which involves taking pictures indoors, at close range, without a flash, and without shaking the shit out of your camera.)

So obviously, when it came to Quebecois food, I couldn't leave without sampling poutine, more than once if at all possible. I'd heard so much about this dish but had never had it; it's said to be an acquired taste, but what's not to like about fries with gravy and cheese curds? Bring on the poutine! And oh, it got brought.

First up: A late lunch at Ma-Am-M Bolduc, a charming, quirky little spot on Avenue de Laurimier, where the laminated menus are covered in hand-drawn pictures. I got the poutine bourguinonne, which I'd heard was a must. Good gosh a-mighty. Crisp fries, ground meat, mushrooms, wine sauce ... it was fantastic. My belly protested, but my mouth perservered; I polished off nearly the entire thing -- and the plate shown below is the small, mind you -- and then ate nothing else the rest of the day except a hot dog and a couple of corn chips. (You can find much better pictures than mine, and a more detailed description, here.)

Meanwhile, everyone and their mother kept insisting that when it comes to the religion of poutine, late-night hangout La Banquise is its high holy temple. We finally made it there a couple days later, and maybe I would've felt differently if I hadn't already experienced such poutine nirvana, but I was underwhelmed. True enough, there were more poutine options available than either God or nature intended, but my poutine mart -- hot dogs, bacon, mushrooms -- was on the salty side, and unlike with my poutine at Ma-Am-M Bolduc, the cheese curds weren't in the slightest bit melted. Maybe they weren't supposed to be melted (I'm no poutine expert), but I'd already picked a favorite, and this didn't come close to toppling it. That said, if I'd been drunk and it had been three in the morning, I would've LOVED it.

My trip wasn't all cheese curds and gravy (though I wouldn't knock it if it were). I also insisted that we pay a visit to the Jean-Talon Market, a lovely tented-off space where you're treated to aisles and aisles of nearly every food under the sun: cheeses, meats, herbs, roasted nuts, crepes, fruits and vegetables ... We passed one stand whose shelves were full to bursting with fresh strawberries, and I didn't really want a whole container, but after we'd kept walking I could shake the craving; so we went back and I asked how much they would charge me for just one strawberry. The woman at the stand smiled and handed me one for free, and it was cold and ripe and every bit as scrumptious as I'd been imagining in my head. For lunch we had juicy sausages that I conveniently pretended weren't made from veal.

 

Another place I was determined to visit was Au Pied de Cochon, a monument to carnivorism that's amassed a rhapsodic cult following (it's one of Anthony Bourdain's favorite restaurants). The chef, Martin Picard, believes in embracing all parts of the animal; the name of the restaurant (and its signature dish) means "the pig's foot," if that gives you any indication as to the chef's true mission. Meat? High-end comfort fare? Foodie cred? I'm in! Plus, having just won $265 at craps in the Montreal casino, I was ready to spend some bank. Unfortunately I'd found out about this place too late to make reservations, but we showed up at the restaurant at 5:30 on a Sunday and commenced with the begging. The hostess reluctantly agreed to seat us at the bar, but only if we were gone by 7:00. We promised to eat fast.

I forwent the foie gras poutine, feeling that I should start off with something light and save room for the entree. So we began with an incredibly good bluefin tuna tartare, which taught me that all tartare needs to have something fried and crispy sprinkled on top of it. (I have no idea what it was. Fried bits of pig skin, for all I know.)

For the main course, once again I'd done my homework, and without hesitation I ordered the Duck in a Can. When it was ready, the waiter set a plate with two pieces of bread and some mashed potatoes on it in front of me, then produced a beige can that pretty much just said "can" on it. After opening it with a hand can opener, he poured the contents upon my plate -- at which point the guy sitting next to me, who was by now openly ogling my food, let out a gasp. The contents of said can: half a Magret duck, foie gras, balsamic reduction, bacon, roasted garlic, sprigs of thyme. Now, I am a dedicated and practiced meat-eater, and I will eat nearly anything, but I have never in my life had a dish as decadent as this. As I wolfed it down -- or tried to, anyway -- it occurred to me that this would be the perfect thing to request as your last meal before you're executed. Not only is it indescribably delicious, but it's also very likely to kill you anyway.

 

My cousin had the signature dish, the Pied de Cochon, which was also so good that if I were a chef, I'd consider killing Martin Picard so that I could steal the recipe. She did not, however, opt for the version stuffed with foie gras, which was probably wise. Buried under that mound of onions is the pig's foot; we asked the cute chef working in front of us what the yummy croquette was made of, and he explained that it was ... well, I could be misunderstanding his sign language, but I think he said it was the meat from the toes. Maybe we shouldn't have asked. I should add that after our meal -- in which we didn't even get dessert! -- we fell into a food coma so profound that we ended up going to bed at 8:30 pm. I am not kidding.

 

I had one more item on my "to eat" list, and that was Portuguese rotisserie chicken. My first choice, the heralded takeout place Romados, was closed when we got there one night; but on Tuesday we grabbed lunch at Coco Rico, a most delightful alternative. It had a different flavor than Peruvian rotisserie chicken, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you how; and they slather it with sauce just before serving it to you, which gives it an extra added zing. I made sure to order a nata, a Portuguese custard tart that's almost like a creme brulee, except creamier and sweeter, with a bottom crust. It was right around now, after four days of eating to excess, that I started to worry about my health. We'd done a lot of walking, but still ... How many crunches do you suppose it takes to work off custard, foie gras, duck fat and several plates of fries?

 

For our last meal we ended up in Chinatown, where I ordered my type of comfort food: soy sauce chicken, roast duck (yeah, I know, more duck -- I really must have a death wish), Chinese vegetables and white rice. It was a solid, unmemorable meal except for the fact that at the end of it, the waiter leaned over and told me conspiratorially that we were getting the "special" in which we wouldn't have to pay tax, and I'd be paying in cash, right? Then I noticed that we'd been given the free sweet-bean dessert that only Chinese people get, even though we'd ordered everything in English. I grinned down at the bowl. My dad would be so proud.

In honor of the Icebox Man

Go 5:34 in. Dear me, my brother and I had this routine memorized. It's not the same version we knew by heart -- the routine of my recollection was a live recording -- but it still gets me smiling, even though I hadn't heard it in 20 years.

The YouTube version also leaves out our favorite part:

What you're really saying is, "Let my family eat the rotten bread! I'll take care of Numero Uno!" And down you go, into the loaf .... Down, looking for the two that you want -- a matching pair.

Was there ever a wiser truism spoken than "Let my family eat the rotten bread"? Rest in peace, George Carlin. Or as you would probably prefer, $#%@! off, you *%#$% awesome &#%$@*er.

In which I grill Michelle Obama, hang out with Mo Rocca

One day last week, this guy I know at work came over to me with a guy I didn't know and said, "Hey Patricia, do you want to be an extra in a video?" Now I realize this is the kind of story that usually ends in "And so, Your Honor, I honestly had no idea they were underage," but I was in just the right frame of mind to spice up my week, so I said yes. Only later did it occur to me that I had no idea what the "video" was. A music video, I guessed? Ooh, who would the talent be? Rilo Kiley? Justin Timberlake? Those Jonas kids that are all the rage these days?

Turns out it was nothing of the sort. I showed up at the set (read: video conference room next to the vending machines) at the appointed time, and the first person I saw was Mo Rocca. Yes, the same Mo Rocca on whom I used to have a hugely dorky crush, and then I sort of turned on him. But we've had some distance now, and his hair has greyed in the most lovely way, and he doesn't have that terrible bowl haircut anymore, and when I met him I felt a little of the old zing after all.

I'd forgotten, but Rocca has a blog at AOL (so I guess he's technically my co-worker! sort of), and he was taping a little video spoofing the ridiculous notion that Michelle Obama used the word "whitey" at a press conference. Check it out -- not just because I'm in it (that's me with the bad posture on the left, playing a news reporter, or at least a news reporter's back), but because it's really funny. My favorite? The white tee. THE WHITE TEE!

Of course this is so going on my reel.

The sweltering heat is no longer an excuse for my insomnia (yet I still can't sleep)

Dudes. I'm sorry, I got nothin'.

Things I could muse about at length but won't, for fear of killing you with boredom (and I just couldn't have that on my conscience):

• I finished reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this weekend. Had it in hardcover from my publishing days but had never gotten around to it until now. Holy Jesus, what a mind-fuck ... I think? Never before have I read such a strange book, that had me so confused, and yet I still wanted to keep reading. My friend Nomi said that when she finished the book she sort of felt like she'd been had -- which isn't a bad description, since it's like a mystery novel that never ... well, let's just say that there were answers at the end, which was a relief, but 88% of the rest of the stuff just stays weird and unexplained. I enjoyed it, though. Coincidentally, my friend Josef just blogged about the cover, and I read his post while I was finishing the book, but Murakami would say it wasn't a coincidence, and his explanation of why it wasn't a coincidence would somehow involve a red vinyl hat and a beating heart in a bag.

• Sorry. That was kind of "at length," wasn't it?

• Last week, while I was bored waiting for Top Chef (Stephanie for the win!!) to start, I finally caught an episode of So You Think You Can Dance. And now I hate myself. Because dammit, I liked it. Stupid kids and their hypnotic choreographed hip-hop.

• I am an aunt now. A real one. Not just an aunt to the dog.

• Two reasons I can call myself an adult: Air Conditioner #1, and Air Conditioner #2. Yes, after suffering through 13 summers in this apartment without any air conditioning whatsoever, I now, as of a week ago, have two A/C units. Two reasons I am little more than a juvenile, irresponsible adult: At various points over the past week, they have both been on at the same time.

• Freakin' Lakers are reminding me why sports is depressing.

• I'm going to see Bob Dylan in August at Prospect Park. Yay! Never seen Dylan before, so I'm excited. I also accidentally ended up with two extra tickets -- the expensive reserved kind -- and at first I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get rid of them, but apparently they're in such high demand that I could mark them up 200% and make a tidy profit, which I've never done before and probably won't do, but, hmmm.

• I can't decide which of my many unread hardcovers to brave next, so if I ask for your opinion, please feel free to weigh in.

• Tonight I was craving ice cream something awful, and I debated with myself for 15 minutes whether I should throw on some clothes (I'm wearing a t-shirt that says "Fuck Bush" on it right now, and I don't think that'll go over so well with my neighbors) and venture the several blocks away to go buy some, and finally I didn't, and I can't decide whether this makes me virtuous or lazy.

• Tonight's season premiere of Weeds made me laugh almost nonstop, because I didn't realize it before, but apparently I think Albert Brooks is hilarious.

• I think I had more, but fortunately for you, I can't remember it.

My favorite quote from today

"We pledged to support her to the end. Our problem is not being able to determine when the hell the end is."

-- Hillary Clinton supporter Representative Charles B. Rangel

And as a bonus, here's my favorite quote from yesterday:

"So you won the fucking bronze medal. Congratulations. There you go."

-- Richard Blais, Top Chef

Your tax dollars at work against scofflaws like me

I am having a miserable week -- am trying to launch a huge project today, was at work until 1 a.m. last night, I'm averaging four hours of sleep, I know, wah fucking wah -- and I was trying to get to the office on the early side so I could communicate with our web technician in India. I usually get off the F at Broadway Lafayette, walk up a block and get on the 6 train at Bleecker, taking it one stop up to Astor Place (believe it or not, this saves a bunch of time). I wasn't late, but it was around 9:20, which is already 6:20 in India, and today is launch day, so, OK.

As I came into the Bleecker Street station, the train was at the platform, and the guy in front of me ran through and made it onto the train safely. I was a few feet behind him, and I knew I wasn't going to make it, but I stuck my arm through the doors just in case I got some sympathetic conductor who might re-open the doors for me. Keep in mind that I never do this, but everyone else does it whenever I'm on the train -- hurling themselves at narrowing gaps the width of a comic book, jamming their bags between the doors like they're playing some urban game of chicken  -- so I figured, why not me, just this one time? No dice, of course. The doors paused, I extracted my arm almost immediately, and then they closed and the train moved on.

A cop -- an actual NYPD cop -- approached me. "May I see your ID?" he asked. And he WROTE ME A TICKET. He didn't try to talk to me first, he didn't brook any argument, he just whipped out his book and started writing. He said that some woman got dragged by the train last week and was suing the MTA, so I guess they're having some crackdown on people who don't stand clear of the moving doors. There were three or four other cops there, standing in a little group, because apparently there's been a lot of crime at the Bleecker Street station lately. Law-breakers such as myself are unpredictable and dangerous and generally high on crack, right? They could've had to wrestle me to the ground.

He was already writing me the citation, and I didn't know exactly what it would be, so I merely stood there, figuring that any protest would just sound like a string of excuses. I wasn't that bothered about the ticket, really (though I was hoping it would just be a warning). I just wanted him to issue me the thing so I could get to work. But here's what got to me -- while he was writing everything down, and checking for the proper code, and consulting with his colleagues, two more trains came and went. And I could do nothing but stand there as they passed by. Isn't that, like, double jeopardy? I mean, you can keep me from getting on two trains OR write me a ticket, but both?

And that's when I lost it. I started thinking about the week I'd been having, and how goddamn tired I was, and all the things I still had to do for this launch, and how the minutes were ticking by and the poor webtech in India was wondering where I was after I told him I'd be in early; and the tears, unbidden, started to roll. Awkward. But I know this about myself -- I can't cry during movies, but get me a little frustrated and it's waterworks time.

Finally, the cop tore off the ticket and handed it to me, pointing out the number I could call if I wanted to contest it. Or I could just pay the fine, which was $50. He peered at me. "Are you CRYING?" he asked in disbelief. (Rude!) And I explained that I was just having a really bad week, and now I was really late to work, and I never ever hold up the train but everyone else does it and I was just running late and only did it this one time. (And I realize how lame and "I didn't inhale"-like that sounded coming out of my mouth, which is why I hadn't tried saying that in the first place.) When he brought up the woman who was suing the MTA, I said I would never do that, which I wouldn't, because please, what a moron.

Obviously, none of that mattered. Suddenly trying to be kind, I guess, he said it was just like a traffic ticket, and it wouldn't go on my record, but the thing that I couldn't quite explain was that it wasn't the ticket that was upsetting me, it was the fact that I missed two trains on top of it, and that I was feeling sorry for myself. And I sort of wanted to tell him that I barely even got my arm in, and I'm like the most embarrassingly law-abiding citizen I know, and what about the people who jump the turnstiles, can't they go catch them, and didn't they all have something better to do than hang around the Bleecker Street station and wait for people to try to make the train? But it didn't matter, because I did break the subway law or whatever, and right then another train came up and I got on it and rode away to face my day. And then something went wrong with the site I'm building so we can't launch it today anyway.

And the moral of the story is, never take the subway when you can walk nine blocks instead.

If I'm supposed to pay it forward, I'm carrying a balance

A few days ago, I gave a pregnant woman my seat on the subway. As usual, I saw her before it occurred to me to get up -- like, "Oh, that woman's pregnant... It sure is nice to be sitting down... OH."

About a week before that, coming up out of the subway at East Broadway, I saw a younger Chinese woman struggling to lug her suitcase up the stairs. I picked up the bottom of it and helped her carry it up; at the top, she thanked me profusely in Mandarin. "No problem," I said.

I mention these two incidents not because I'm so altruistic, but because I'm usually so NOT altruistic that they stood out to me. Not only that, immediately after helping the woman with the suitcase, this thought came unbidden into my head: "Wow, that was nice of me. So when is that karma going to pay off?" Classy! I believe wondering when your good deed is going to pay off is pretty much the opposite of doing a good deed.

Anyway, despite that ridiculous thought, there have been plenty of times that some complete stranger did something nice for me -- many more times than I've done the same in return.

After college, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I had just finished the Radcliffe Publishing Course and was hauling my suitcase to the T station to get to the airport. That shit was heavy. One of the wheels was broken. The streets were cobblestone. And I had not just another heavy bag with me, but a leather jacket (it was only my second East Coast summer, and I was an idiot). So I would take a couple of steps and the suitcase -- which was one of those old-school ones you pulled along with a leash, like a dog -- would fall over; a couple more steps, and it would fall over again. I was about to cry when some guy on a bicycle pulled over and, with barely a word, chained up his bike, hoisted my suitcase up to his shoulder, and carried it for me the remaining six blocks to the T station. Then he gave me a cheery wave and took off. Now that's a goddamn good Samaritan.

Even earlier, one one of those chaperoned trips to Europe after high school, a bunch of us were in Germany (can't remember the town) trying to find some trail going up some mountain. We had no idea where the hell we were. We stopped this nice lady and asked her for directions; but four years of high-school German wasn't enough for anyone to understand what she was saying. She gestured and took off at a brisk pace, and we followed. When we got to a fork in the road, she pointed and tried to explain what we were to do next -- but, still gibberish to us. So she took a deep breath and took off again, eventually leading us all the way to the bottom of the trail we were seeking. "Danke, danke!" we said (which was apparently all the German anyone knew), and with a curt nod, she was gone, probably to work, where she would have to explain to her boss how she was 45 minutes late because she had to lead some retarded teenaged tourists in a straight line.

For the life of me, I can't think of anything I've ever done for a stranger that's as kind as what those two strangers did for me. The way I figure it, I still owe them.

On the other hand, I wonder what it means that the two examples I could think of were both over a decade old.

Review Haikus: Sex With Strangers

Sex and the City
Good as the show? Nope.
But you'll be grateful to hang
With long-lost girlfriends.

Note: I thought it wasn't as focused or well-written or witty as the show; the jokes were broad; it was too long. That said, it really was just like getting to see four friends you haven't seen in a while. So I enjoyed it, even if I didn't think it was a great movie or anything.

The Strangers
I don't watch horror
So I guess this is ... standard?
No plot, torture. Um.

Insomnia Haiku: Infomercial Edition

Work-related stress
Celebs love the Total Gym
Hmm ... how much is it?

Goin' Mobile

Reason #2 I've come to love having a Blackberry (reason #1: Google Maps) + Reason #862 I love Brooklyn: I'm writing this from the waterfront park in DUMBO (don't know what it's called), soaking in the impossibly gorgeous weather, with the Manhattan Bridge looming up above me as I try to muster up the courage to spend $1,000 on a dresser. There's a wedding party nearby. Wiry boys without their shirts on. Kids. Bikes. Boats. I can see Pier 17 across the water, just beyond the Brooklyn Bridge.

Why I don't do this more often is beyond me.