Saturday, January 30, 2010
~ Frang-no ~
Even though the transition happened while I lived in Chicago with the flagship store only a few blocks from my office at the Art Institute, Marissa's grandfather worked at Marshall Field's for years, and I love chocolate, I myself felt little (if anything) when Frango Mints started to be manufactured in Pennsylvania. For me, they were a delicious but rather expensive treat, therefore eaten only during the holidays around Christmastime.
But today I discovered that the new Frango Mints are not nearly as good as they used to be. First, the Santa-shaped variety come in a box all jumbled together, and the graphic design and even the typeface of the package are unappealing -- the presentation is certainly inferior to the green rectangular boxes. Furthermore, the exterior coating of the chocolates is waxy and pale. Worst of all, the inside lacks the chunky yet velvety cocoa-mass richness sprinkled with minty pixie dust -- instead, it's a semi-whipped confection, minty but with an unpleasant oily aftertaste.
Now if I didn't know any better, I'd think these are half-decent chocolates for being mass-produced, and they are okay enough that I will likely find myself finishing the box. But I am not blissfully ignorant. Thinking to winters past, with the comfort of an occasional Frango Mint to brighten the cold darkness, I know these are an affront. Ersatz food like this makes me feel like Winston Smith, living in some kind of world where War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
8:21 PM
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
~ admission ~
I have to admit that during Beatrice's early months I used to compare her abilities to move and communicate with what Mookie was capable of, and more recently would compare Solomon's capabilities with Beatrice at the same age. Marissa would continually remind me that it was unfair, but I just couldn't help myself comparing the children. Lately I've been doing this much less frequently. Still...
Sunday evening Beatrice threw a ball around the living room for the joy of running after it (as Solomon joined in with his own ball, she exclaimed that she was playing football and that we should watch out for the quarterback) and her play reminded me of Mookie's enthusiasm for similar games. She throws much more accurately than Mookie ever could -- the closest analogue is when he scampered after balls and intentionally nudged them away -- but she doesn't come anywhere near his ability to catch. Neither can she run as fast as he could zoom and leap. In every other way, however, she goes beyond what he could do. This is of course what one would expect and hope for any human child, especially one's own. But there is some small part of me that is mysteriously bittersweet.
Solomon has developed certain skills rapidly this month: manipulating jigsaw puzzles, recognizing the importance of saying letters and numbers, interacting verbally, stacking lego-like blocks, sitting still for entire books, singing the ends of lines of songs. I remember these developmental stages for Beatrice and it seems to me he is still developing later, but progressing at a faster pace. His development makes me mostly happy, to watch him grow, but occasionally I pause to reflect as he progresses through these toddler months, to think how this could be it, the last little one.
8:23 AM
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Sunday, January 24, 2010
~ playoffs ~
Today's games:
New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts
I would love to see the Jets win for several reasons:
- When in doubt, root for the underdog.
- I am so tired of Peyton Manning's smarmy face. I admire him as a player, despise him as a personality.
- I get annoyed by Peyton Manning's histrionic gesticulations at the line of scrimmage.
- Alan Faneca deserves to go to the Super Bowl again.
- As a place to live, New York > Indianapolis.
- Long ago as a boy growing up in NYC in the 60s and early 70s, in my dim awareness of football and Joe Namath, if anyone had asked me which team I liked, I would have said the Jets.
- The Jets play like the Steelers did several years ago: solid defense, rookie quarterback, reliable run offense.
- When the two teams met last month, the Colts pulled many of their starters, including Manning. The Jets won. This had several consequences:
- The Steelers, who were fighting to get into the playoffs, fell behind.
- This directly set up the rematch between the Jets and Colts, with the Jets motivated to prove that they can beat the Colts at full capacity.
- The Colts gave up their opportunity to pursue a perfect season in favor of the admittedly rational decision to minimize injury to their most important players. But I would love to see kharma bite them in the rear.
Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints
It would be a good storyline, if it weren't already beat to death, concerning the hardened veteran Brett Favre. And Adrian Peterson can be an exciting player to watch. Nevertheless, I'd much prefer to see the Saints go to the Super Bowl. Favre is a carpetbagging mercenary who should just go home. Meanwhile, I'd love to see the city of New Orleans, which has endured so much, celebrate their team heading to the Super Bowl.
4:07 PM
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~ eat me ~
Yesterday morning I devoured (ha) most of the book Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin. Looking past the occasional crude language, it's a portrait of a man who loves to cook, takes creative short-cuts in the kitchen, and who enjoys being with his family and his customers.
***
The best puttanesca I ever had was my first... at Caffe Venezia in Berkeley starting in the mid-80s and continuing all through grad school. First they would serve a savory salad of mixed greens -- one of the few salads I've ever really enjoyed -- with shavings of parmesan cheese. Then the puttanesca would arrive: bold flavors of softened garlic, hot pepper, anchovies, capers, olives, and chunky tomatoes vying for attention. It's been 18 years since I've eaten there, but I still remember the sensation of the top of my head feeling as though it were evaporating into the trompe-l'oeil Venetian courtyard.
Every other puttanesca has been a pale imitation. Even at a restaurant named Puttanesca, two blocks from where we lived in Hell's Kitchen, their signature dish, as much as I enjoyed it, lacked the same punch. It wasn't piquant enough, puta enough.
***
My approach to making puttanesca sauce at home is to start with a good store-bought base and then fix it. Trader Joe's has a reasonably priced puttanesca sauce, but it's too mild-mannered. After warming up the sauce in a bowl, I add a strip of anchovy paste and cross with another strip of sriracha sauce. Those two additions improve matters immensely.
I serve with a sprinkle of Trader Joe's parmesan (which lacks animal rennet). Today for lunch I had some good olives from Sunseri, so I nibbled those at the same time. Bulk olives from a place like Sunseri or Penn Mac are a great addition to this dish. I haven't tried adding roasted garlic or capers yet, but I'm not sure that would be worth the additional effort.
***
UPDATE (1/24/10): It's not clear whether Caffe Venezia remains good, which would be a disappointment, but nothing stays the same. Also, the recipe for Caffe Venezia's pasta alla puttanesca circa 1985 can be found here!
3:17 PM
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~ awake ~
Awake nearly two hours, from gentle snoring verging on the purring of a cat. On autopilot, to a place of comfort that means watching blurry "Imitation of Life" and listening to 1991 unplugged "Fall on Me".
This week Beatrice asked Marissa out of the blue, "Did you eat me when I was a baby?" so we explained that there are different parts to someone's belly, and she wasn't in Mama's stomach. We pointed to various tiny pieces of food on her tray and said that once she was even smaller than any of them, but now she was a big girl and growing even bigger. She was pleased to hear that, but still she asked to come out of her high chair and then curled herself up into Marissa's lap. Of course this meant that Solomon wanted out of his chair too.
Also this week she came up to me and declared that when she grows up and lives somewhere else then we will be strangers. She seemed incredulous when I said that we wouldn't be and that she would always be my daughter, and pensive when I said that she would be doing things that I wouldn't know about but still she would tell me about some of them.
This afternoon when we were in the big bed as I attempted to convince her to take a nap (or at least let me take one) she remarked again about the large drawing of Mookie. During the conversation, which I cannot quite reproduce, she said that Mookie had run away and wasn't here anymore, speculated that he had run away to the hospital, and wondered whether he would be coming back. I said that there were times when Mookie had run away, sometimes staying close to me, sometimes running around the woods, but that he had always come back. And that he loved to run. I said that his body is now buried in our backyard, which didn't seem to register at all, but I'm sure there will be more conversations about this topic. She has been hitting the big topics lately, in order to make sense of this world in which we are born, grow up, and die.
Solomon in the past two weeks has become extraordinarily verbal. Marissa's blog (to which I do not link, in order to maintain some semblance of the children's privacy) does a great job of listing the explosion of words he now speaks as well as other developmental milestones, though it's interesting how she hears him somewhat differently than I do. I think he says "Bibi" instead of "Bea Bea" for Beatrice, and similarly "nini" instead of "nee nee" for binky. Neither representation really captures the smiling delight with which he says his sister's name nor the plaintive manner in which he refers to his pacifier.
Along with his ever-increasing ability to enunciate has come more explicit verbal interaction. He still confounds the negation "no..." while shaking his head with the affirmation "yah!" but beyond this quirk he is quite skilled. Before leaving this evening he said "cah" to indicate that we were headed to the car and repeatedly exclaimed "Mimi!" in reference to seeing his aunt. This afternoon I asked him to pick up a chair, then remove two books from under it, and he understood perfectly. He also loves to pretend, augmenting Beatrice's game that their toy shopping cart is a car by pretending that a nearby bin is also a "cah" ("bee bee!" he says for "beep beep!"). He also likes to take stuffed toys like "ceuh-ceuh" (Cookie Monster) for rides in the toy stroller.
He is a very sweet child with at times a bit of a mischievous streak. He is at that age where throwing food and dishes on the floor is hilarious. He also loves to do whatever Beatrice is doing at the moment, whether drinking milk, reading a book in my lap (he brings a different book), building with blocks, drawing on a doodle-pro, or solving a jigsaw puzzle. At times this tests Beatrice's patience and she talks to him ("Solomon, no... you can't do that because this is a big kid's toy" or some other contrived explanation) or sings, ("Beata says don't bother me... but Solomon wants to play"). When she's less able to control her frustration she affects a cry ("waah...") or sometimes pushes him but after being called out she regrets it and hugs him. She is aware of her brother's increasing facility with language and enjoys talking with him while they eat together.
When Solomon gets frustrated he sometimes sobs, but other times he stands in place and steps his feet rapidly. Even just saying "No" firmly to him can upset him at times, but not always -- sometimes he just laughs.
He continues to walk in a way that suggests he may fall at any moment, but in reality he is much more steady than he appears, forging ahead. He does have a tendency to bump his head, a habit which my mother has reported I had as a child. Friday evening he slid off the couch, completely vertical for a moment before landing flat on his back. I was horrified but he stood up and kept right on going.
I miss his long hair even though it was kind of a mullet and occasionally he got confused for a girl. He had these great curls at the back of his head. With his shorter hair he does look more like me from pictures when I was a child, but he also looks a good deal like Marissa as well as Les. From different angles and expressions Beatrice can most often resemble Marissa, her aunts Joyce and Kelly, her cousin Anna, and her father's maternal grandmother. Both are so clearly brother and sister, and also resemble both Marissa and me, yet they are distinct from each other and of course to their father's eyes absolutely beautiful.
3:08 AM
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