Day 60

I've been ordering fresh produce from a local cooperative, and yesterday's delivery was a bonanza of greens and lettuces, radish and baby broccoli, a scattering of herbs and lemons, a grapefruit, some blueberries and onions and a couple of tiny worms. The rendering -- the washing the drying the organizing the storing -- of all this fresh produce gets my tiny little mother mind™ thinking about convenience and waste and the myriad depressing ways a lot of us live, saying we're too busy or can't be bothered or whatever. Whatever. I'm no farmer girl, no rural girl, no grower of my own vegetables nor do I have any desire to do any of that. What I do love is fresh food, recipes and cookbooks and puttering around in my kitchen doing domestic things. I also like fancy things -- half and half in a glass bottle, tiny little jars of pot de creme from France, a weird Italian green that tasted salty like the ocean or what I imagine a cactus (it looked like one). I don't have much to say other than I've been depressed in a way that I can't remember being depressed and I'm very much aware of the luxury in that statement and the unoriginality in the condition. I'm angry, too, but I'm made of anger in no small part and as the gray takes over my hair I will try to be as exuberant as unapologetic because it's all about letting go letting god letting.






as much as i try to be an easygoing, stretch your wings and fly type... i just can't stop trying to burst people into flames

a card that a beloved sent me



People I'm Currently Trying to Burst Into Flames In No Particular Order, Except for the First Three:

Donald Trump
Mike Pence
Mitch McConnell
Men with submachine guns
Men who assault women
Men who kill black people
Men who shoot children
Men who beat up women
Men who make stupid jokes
Men who harass women
Men who are religious zealots
Men who date girls
Men who refuse to apologize
Men who can't get their shit together

Feel free to add to the list.

Tripping to Sicily on a Leopard

Looking Sicilian

On Friday night ten people gathered at Casa Aquino to discuss Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel The Leopard and to eat a Sicilian spread. I think we were unanimous in our love for the novel, and the food disappeared, so I believe everyone was happy. Before I post pictures and the menu and have your attention, I wonder if you might hear me out about an idea I have of making this Books & Bakes literary and food salon an online business as well. What I'm thinking is a website where one can download the whole package -- the book suggestion, discussion questions and background/supplemental material and links, a full menu for the accompanying meal and recipes to download with links to where products can be found or ordered. You would, basically, be able to have a literary and food salon of your own, wherever you are and with whomever you'd like to invite, and I'd provide you with everything except, obviously, my physical presence. I'd appreciate your comments and suggestions for how much you'd pay for something like that. Given the constraints of caregiving, I am really trying to get creative with freelance work, so this might be a possibility.

Let me know.

In other news, I am going to Sicily with my sisters, cousin and father next weekend. My father turned 80 years old last April, and we decided that we'd like to take him to the old country. We'll be going to Sicily first because we've never been, but then we're headed to Calabria and the town where our family began. I am not sure what kind of internet service I will have while away, nor will I know if I can post from my phone, but if I'm gone for ten days, you'll know why. I'll take lots of pictures, in any case and post them on Instagram, if you'd like to check out my feed there.

Here's the menu from Friday night and some photos, excepting the dried fava bean soup, homemade cannoli and vanilla ice-cream. I forgot to take pictures of those! I would like to give a shout-out to my cousin Danielle who lived in Sicily for years and helped me with the menu. I ordered genuine Sicilian products from Gustiamo, a wonderful Italian food distributor where she works and highly recommend the outrageously delicious Sicilian extra-virgin olive oil and Sicilian sea salt. OMG, as the kids say.

BOOKS & BAKES

September 30, 2016

The Leopard

By Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”

MENU

Campari and Blood Orange Soda

Caponata

Polipetti Murati

Slow-Cooked Octopus with Estratto and Wine

Bessara

Sicilian Dried Fava Bean Soup

Pesto alla Trapanese with Busiate Pasta

Insalata di Lenticche con Menta e Scorzetta di Arancia

Lentil Salad with Mint and Orange Zest

Citrus Salad with Anchovies and Black Olives

Cannoli

Vanilla Ice-Cream with Sicilian Olive Oil and Sea Salt

Big Ole Pan of Caponata

Caponata and Italian Flatbread

Insalata di Lenticche

Citrus Salad of Blood Oranges, Oranges and Grapefruit with Anchovies and Sicilian Black Olives

Polipetti Murati

Pesto alla Trapanese with Busciati Pasta

A Moveable Feast Chez Moi

Last night nine beautiful people came over to my house to discuss Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, drink an aperitif and good wine and eat a meal that I prepared.

If ya'll haven't read A Moveable Feast, you should -- particularly if you're a writer or a lover of wine or food or Paris. I practically ate the book itself, and I've never been a Hemingway-lovah.

Here's my menu:

Chambery Cassis

(vermouth, creme de cassis and soda water)

Pissaladiere

Puff Pastry with Caramelized Onions, Anchovies and Black Olives

Camembert with Crackers

Soupe au Pistou

(Hearty vegetable soup with pesto)

Coq au Vin

Endive Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

French Apple Tart with Creme Fraiche

Sorry about the lack of appropriate French accents on my menu -- I can't figure out how to do those things on my Mac.

Here are some pictures:

I have to say that my French Apple Tart was the piece de resistance (without accents that looks really, really bad). I don't bake as much as I used to, and while I trained under some amazing pastry chefs in New York City, it's been some time. I've forgotten how much I love to make pastry dough and assemble something beautiful. Like other good things happening in my life,  classic pastry is at my fingertips. I apparently haven't lost my touch and I'm grateful for that. A moveable feast --

Oh la la.

Right Ho Jeeves!

We had a lovely night on Friday at my monthly Books & Bakes salon. We had read P.G. Wodehouse's novel Right Ho Jeeves, and because several of the attendees were die-hard Wodehouse lovers and the rest of us had never cracked one open, it was a lively discussion with lots of laughs. My friend Allen had just returned from a nine-month stint at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, so he cooked our traditional French meal. His husband Craig brought wine, as did several of the other guests, and between the champagne cocktails, the rich food and French whites and reds, we were all pretty happy by the end of the evening. I bought Christmas crackers given the British setting and made placecards for each person with the name of a character from the book. It was easy to go all out when someone was making all the food.

Here's Allen preparing something:

Here's Oliver peeling pearl onions, a thankless task that he did in tears.

Here's the Green Bean Soup, my favorite dish, and one plated so beautifully in Allen's interesting soup bowls:

Here's the main course: Breast of Chicken Agnes Sorel (you can read the scandalous story about her in my previous post) with rice and wild mushrooms, glazed butternut squash, carrots and pearl onions:

I know the quality of that photo is poor, but those are asparagus sprigs on top of the chicken, and the sauce is a traditional Madeira. Everything was delicious and cooked perfectly! I felt blasted back into my days as a commis at Lespinasse in New York City where I worked for nearly two years doing ridiculous high end food for an insane chef. Allen is the total opposite!

I did make the dessert -- a Cranberry and Raspberry Vacherin. It's basically two discs of meringue, layered with whipped cream and a compote of fresh raspberries and cranberries. It's tart and sweet and crunchy and soft, all at once, and is one of my most favorite holiday desserts:

Reader, how was your weekend?

Lutefisk Love

So, have ya'll ever had lutefisk? I ordered a pound of it from a Norwegian food company in Minnesota and girded my loins to open the bag when it came on Friday afternoon. J. Ryan Stradal's book Kitchens from the Great Midwest describes the processing and cooking of this traditional food in detail, and it wasn't good. In an interview with the author, he compares the taste to what he imagines aquarium water to be. I'm not sure about aquarium water, but the moment I cut open the bag, I smelled fish and not the good, clean smell of fish. The texture of the filets was spongy -- grossly so -- and later, when I'd roasted it in the oven, it seemed more like jelly than fish. A couple of brave souls tasted it, declared it okay, but fishy, and one woman suggested I crumble it into balls, roll it in Panko and fry it.

I threw it away when everyone left.

So that's my lutefisk experience -- apologies to all Norwegians who hold it close to their hearts.

Other than the lutefisk, we had a really lively discussion about the novel with nearly everyone agreeing that it needed a bit more character development but was otherwise entertaining and a good read. Given how light it was, though, I'm tempted to suggest a heavier one for October and am floating around To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. That's probably one of my top three favorite novels and has an incredible dinner party scene that I could replicate for Books & Bakes. What do you think? Anyone out there have any suggestions for next month's book? Please leave a note in the comments if you do.

Here's the menu from Friday night. All food, except for the caramel ice-cream, was mentioned in the book. A few of the recipes even came from the book!

Margaritas

Wisconsin Cheese and Crackers

Lutefisk

Summer Corn Chowder

Caesar Salad with Croutons

Vegetarian Lasagna

Pork Shoulder Tacos with Mint

Black Beans and Feta

Heirloom Tomato Salsa

Apple Crisp

Homemade Caramel Ice Cream

Celeste's Mud Bars

Rapture in a Strip Mall

I was just about to combust when I received one of three daily phone calls from Sophie's school with an ever cheerful robot voice letting me know the latest salient facts regarding SENIORS. New readers might not be aware that Sophie, as a 20 year old, is still eligible to attend the great LAUSD, a mixed benefit that I am grateful for, I am, but that this is her third year as a SENIOR thus we are subject to all the excitement and responsibility that is due a SENIOR, all excitement that she is distinctly not a part of in any way but this robo call daily, until May of 2016 when she will not graduate but go on to her last and final SENIOR year. There will be no SENIOR portrait or cap and gown or prom or even a visit from the United States of America Marine Corps Recruiters (yes, they still call), and with the exception of the last, it makes me a bit bitter, a bit -- well -- combustible.

I didn't combust, though, because I left to have the most amazing lunch I've had in years and ended up in a near rapture. There's my hipster Instagram photo of homemade celeriac pasta with celery root, celery crudite with pickled mustard seeds, celery ash, and crispy Jerusalem artichoke. I ate this in about 3 seconds flat and then licked the plate. It's from a new little restaurant in a strip mall on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. The restaurant is called Baroo, but I will henceforth call it Rapture in a Strip Mall. Don't get your panties in the proverbial Biblical wad. The dish cost $9. The chefs are Korean, and I think the fanciest, most prestigious restaurants in the world might be missing a chef or two, and they're right here in the big shitty in a tiny place in a tiny strip mall. Seriously. Don't tell anyone.

Here's the dish that my friend ordered:

It was called the seaweed something or other and had grains and berries and horseradish and each flavor just hid, all subtle, and then jumped out at you as you chewed and then swallowed and then broke into tears. I won't even tell you about the shortbread, two tiny rectangles with some kind of little giblets of something or other on the top. My friend and I ate those standing up, outside the car, and it was sort of obscene given how high the temperature is today anyway.

This is why we live in the shitty, folks, even if God is still using the blowdryer on us, the humidity is rising, it's 104 degrees in the shade and we're praying that when El Nino comes, we don't return to the mud from whence we emerged.

Books & Bakes Re-cap

We missed you!

Here's the menu, a kooky and entirely delicious collection of Shopsin's recipes from his memoir cookbook Eat Me and the above featured Mini Baked Alaskas:

Bing Cherry Vodka Mojitos

Avocado Guacamole

Banana Guacamole

Creamy Tomato Soup with Garlic Toasts

Coconut Rice

Pita Feta Salad with Tabbouleh

Andy's Way Sandwiches

Chicken Pecan Enchiladas

Chicken Pot Pie

Mini Baked Alaskas

The most wonderful, erudite people came last night -- some I'd never met and now call friend. We laughed and discussed the book and ate ourselves silly. 

There's still time to sign up for next month's meeting on June 22nd. Email me if you think you can make it. And have a happy Saturday --

A Books & Bakes Chechen Feast

That's what I looked like several hours before last night's Books & Bakes, mainly because Saint Mirtha wasn't there yet to help me and also because what the hell was I thinking when I decided to concoct a Chechen menu?  Here it is:

Moscow Stinger

Eggplant Walnut Dip with Lavash

Sliced Radishes with Yogurt

Dates and Almonds

Yogurt Cream Soup with Herbs

Vegan Stuffed Grape Leaves

Beef Manti

Chechen Peppers and Mushrooms

Halvah Ice Cream

Dark Chocolate Sauce

Salted Peanuts

It was actually not entirely Chechen, but I stuck pretty close to the cuisine of the Caucasus with some Russian and Armenian borrowings. The Moscow Stinger was a very bracing cocktail made of vodka and white creme de menthe, shaken and poured over ice. I ran around Los Angeles visiting several liquor/package stores to find the white creme de menthe. I am being perfectly honest when I say that I have never been to a liquor store in Los Angeles -- not because I'm chaste or a teetotaller, but  -- you know -- any liquor that I drink is usually already at my house and has been there for at least fifteen years or someone brings it to a party. I found a very dusty bottle of the stuff at a place on Melrose and Vine, and it cost $7.99. Frankly, it might have been mouthwash (and I imagine mouthwash costs a hell of a lot more), but the combination of the vodka and that was bracing and very refreshing. We all had a swig or two while eating the eggplant dip and admitted that prior to reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomenoa, none of us had the remotest knowledge of Chechnya beyond the vague wars fought there and the recent brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon. If you haven't read Anthony Marra's novel, you must. It's a novel in which you can get lost -- lots of tragedy and drama and horror -- but it's also a novel of hope and dark humor. You will learn about Chechnya. It does feel a bit odd to be celebrating the food of the region and exulting in Marra's writing, particularly as the events and story described are so brutal and so far removed in any real way from our own. We talked about that, about the presumption and pretension of it, about the relatively pampered lives we live here. There's no getting round that discomfort, I guess, and I don't have any wise words to do so. I am grateful, though, to love like I do the words of others, for my eyes to be opened to places and situations that are different, true, but that also shed light on what it means to be human. 

That's a whole lot of cliche and folderal, though. Here's the food:

Denise wrote a wonderful blog post about last night. Read it here.

Post Lament and Citrus Zest

Really. I just couldn't resist. For the record, I've uninstalled (is that the word?) Facebook from my phone and have pledged to only visit there once or twice a day. I've also sworn off the news, so unless Bob Dylan or someone like him dies, I don't want to hear about it. I went on a long walk with a friend this morning for the first time in -- well, let's just say that it's been too long, and as my friend says, I've got a situation going that's not getting any better. On the way to her house, I walked past a single heart monitor thingy lying in the grass and took it as a sort of omen that I need to get on the stick and exercise more regularly before the situation gets out of hand. Yesterday's lament and its residual anxiety hangover disappeared somewhere along the route we took and truly went up in a puff of salt, crushed pepperoncini and citrus zest that covered the thin slices of avocado that lay on the toasted baguette that I ate at a restaurant along our walking route. Back at my house and outside my bedroom, despite the constant whine of big box mega-mansion construction and a steady stream of male Spanish talk and music, the lemon and orange trees are blooming and literally assailing me with their sweetness. I wish I could box it up and send it to someone in Maine (Christy?) or Boston (Single Dad? Claire?) or New York (Sandra?).

Reader, what's happening with you?

Books & Bakes Literary Food Salon: "The Debt to Pleasure"

BOOKS & BAKES

A Literary and Food Salon

Friday, March 20, 2015

The Debt to Pleasure

By John Lanchester

Are you a lover of literature but stuck in a book group that never really discusses the book? Are you a lover of food but want to cut through the pretension of the foodie world? Do you revel in devouring both beautiful fiction and food, especially when they intersect? Are you looking for a unique gift for your loved ones or yourself? Come join a community of like-minded souls and share your love of literature and food at my second Books & Bakes literary and food salon. Salon size is limited to 10, so rsvp early! A light dinner, drinks and stimulating conversation are included.

$75.00 per person includes facilitated discussion about The Debt to Pleasure, related food and alcohol.

Email Elizabeth Aquino at elsophie@gmail.com for more information and to RSVP. The salons fill up quickly!

A Latin America Food and Marquez Feast: Group Two

I held my second Books & Bakes literary and food salon last night with another ten people. Mirtha made her Latin menu again, and I baked a red wine chocolate cake with a red wine chocolate glaze. I think the night went really well -- so interesting how different the two groups were and how different the conversation and discussion. This group was a mix of close friends, people I don't see very often but whom I really like, my friend Sally from San Francisco, and a woman whom I'd never met who found the salon through my blog! I felt so privileged to be in all their company and grateful that this small dream came true. I can't wait until next month when we'll be discussing Monique Truong's novel The Book of Salt and eating, probably, a combination of French and Vietnamese food. Although it's quickly filling up, I still have some spots in both groups on February 13th and February 27th, so email me if you're interested!

Interesting fact: The Book of Salt is a novel about a Vietnamese chef who works for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. When I originally envisioned this salon, I fancied/dreamt of a bohemian type thing with women and men and artists and writers and musicians and thinkers and cooks who come and go. I've always fantasized about being a sort of Gertrude Stein with a monolithic head (physically, not figuratively) and body, married to a small woman who adores me. Ha! So weird that I picked that book and it's about them! I guess there are no accidents.

Another Interesting fact: Monique Truong worked on the manuscript of her book while a resident at Hedgebrook, the place that awarded me a residency in June! I only learned that when I read through her acknowledgements. What are the chances? I think that's a good omen, no?

A Latin American Food and Marquez Feast

The photo above does small justice to the array of foods that my dear friend and caregiver to Sophie, Saint Mirtha, made for my inaugural Books & Bakes literary and food salon. Here she is preparing the empanadas, corn tortillas tinged red with paprika, stuffed with beef and potatoes and spices, then fried until crisp:

There were also Colombian arepas, pico de gallo, a brothy, beef soup called estofado de carne, a coconut chicken dish (pollo en salsa de coco), and beans (frijoles rojos Colombianos). We drank margaritas, Chilean white and red wine and finished with a Chocolate Red Wine cake -- a recipe that inspired me to pick Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as my first Books & Bakes discussion. If you've never visited Cara Nicoletti's blog Yummy Books, please do. She's a young kick-ass butcher, writer and cook with what looks to be an amazing book coming out next summer.

Marquez' book of short stories, Strange Pilgrims, inspired a great discussion. The people who attended were really engaged, and whether they liked the book or not, had so many interesting thoughts and reactions. We all marveled over the language of the short stories, the humor in them, and above all, the seamless way Marquez moved from tight and journalistic prose into the flights of imagination that mark his mastery of magical realism. I learned so much from others' commentary and believe I managed to facilitate the discussion quite well. I have a second group of people coming in two weeks, and then Books & Bakes is on to another book, The Book of Salt by Monique Truong.*

* I have some open spots for February 13th or 27th, so if you're in the area and are interested, please email me to reserve one at elsophieATgmailDOTcom.

Books & Bakes Number 2

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

Here's my second notice for my new business/pleasure/ecstatically doing venture. The book we'll be reading is a first novel, and I haven't read it, yet! I remember when it came out, but it passed me by, and when I was mulling over what to assign for my next salon, I went on the internets and stumbled on a syllabus for an English literature class at one of the Best Universities On the West Coast. The name of the course was Literature and Food, and one of the books listed was The Book of Salt. I read a bit more about it and was sold. I toyed, too, with assigning perhaps my very favorite novel -- Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse -- not just because it's incredible but also because a pivotal scene in the novel revolves around boeuf en daube, a perfect meal to make for a group. Maybe another time. For those of you here for the first time, I've recently started a literary and food salon called Books & Bakes. For January I've got two groups reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Strange Pilgrims, and I'll be posting pictures and notes about it this weekend. Here's how I describe Books & Bakes on my phantom website*:

Are you a lover of literature but stuck in a book group that never really discusses the book? Are you a lover of food but want to cut through the pretension of the foodie world? Do you revel in devouring both beautiful fiction and food, especially when they intersect? Are you looking for a unique gift for your loved ones or yourself? Come join a community of like-minded souls and share your love of literature and food at the monthly Books & Bakes literary and food salon. Salon size is limited to 10, so rsvp early.

A light dinner, drinks and stimulating conversation are included. 

$75.00 per person includes facilitated discussion about "The Book of Salt" by Monique Truong, related food and alcohol. 

This month's special includes a $25 discount if you bring a man to the group (a little affirmative action!). He'll pay full price!

Email me at elsophie@gmail.com and please share with your Los Angeles friends! 

RSVP with your email and/or contact information, which date you prefer. Payment will be expected to confirm spot and can be either mailed or charged to PayPal.  

*I have yet to create a logo, a website, something really professional yet still bohemianish. If you know of any graphic designers who don't charge an arm and a leg or might want to barter (cakes?), please send them my way!

Friendship, Drinking, Teenagers and Healing

Last night I walked around the corner and met two girlfriends for happy hour. I had the above drink -- some spicy concoction of ginger beer, vodka and lime juice. I had two of those -- a rare second drink kind of evening. We also ordered food -- mussels, french fries, arugula salad with fennel and parmesan, a grilled artichoke with aioli and some seared tuna with a sesame crust and shaved raw zucchini. We sat and talked about the daily grind -- what it's all for, whether it's mid-life crises -- and speaking of, why the hell are we not in menopause, yet? We talked  about our children, The Teenagers, about social media and sexting and their curiosity about our own teenage and college years. When does all that start? my friend with younger children asked my other friend and me. We told her that it starts now, the curiosity, the questions. I told her that earlier that day at Target, as I perused the aisles with my older son who recently got his driver's permit and now believes himself to be mature, asked me, When's the last time you got drunk, Mom? He's been asking me questions like this a lot, lately, out of earshot of his younger brother but enough to make me realize that it's happening, he's getting older and curious and what I say is as important now as it's ever going to be. You know, Henry, I said, sometimes your questions are a little too personal, and I want to say that it's none of your business, but I actually haven't gotten drunk in so many years that I've forgotten. I was never a person who drank enough to get drunk. Maybe I had too much to drink in college every now and then, but the feeling the next day was horrible enough that I never really kept at it. I see that he literally digests what I say and chews on it. My friends and I agreed that it's more difficult today to be a teenager with social media, with the threat of complete and irrevocable exposure hanging over you. We agreed, too, that our children are so much more open with us than we were with our parents and that that's a good thing. We discussed our boys and the #YesAllWomen campaign, how nervous it all makes us. We agreed that the relative boldness and ease of young women today compared to when we were young was both positive and a tad scary. We agreed that our boys are both dopey and clever. We laughed a lot. After a few days of horrible news and attendant anxiety, much of it self-inflicted, I'd venture to say it was a healing night for me, that I'm somewhat righted -- shored up.

Onward, as one of my writing teachers used to say. Onward.

Home School, Science, Bread and Butter

So, this morning we did some experiments with the new chemistry kit and then I dropped Oliver off at his urban homeschool science class. I read a bit in the car, took a walk and bought a baguette at a crunchy granola hipster market. I bought some fancy French butter with sea salt, too, that was ridiculously expensive, and then I unashamedly smeared it on the baguette with my fingers in the car. I know that if I were sexy Nigella Lawson ya'll would think I was great and love her! but I'm just me, with sea salty buttery fingers and a half of a baguette in a brown paper sack in my white Mazda.

Virgo (August 23 to September 22)

I think I'm celebrating my fiftieth birthday until the Virgoan era is over on September 22nd. Today, my dearest in the whole dear world took me to an amazing brunch at an amazing restaurant. I drank a Bloody Mary and a glass of champagne.

I broke my no-sugar fast (one week successful and I will begin it again tomorrow) and nibbled on an amazing pecan cinnamon bun or danish. I ate ground sirloin with a fried egg on top and the most delectable jus (not juice) I've ever tasted.

I opened presents -- incredible presents, really. Art and jewelry that is art, poetry magazine subscriptions, and a purple purse to die for. I laughed myself silly and cried a bit, too. When the time came for blowing out the candles, and I was just about to do it, Cara yelled, "Wish BIG!" and I stopped and everyone stopped singing and then I took another deep breath and wished

SO

BIG, that you couldn't possibly know what I'd wished.

Well, maybe you could imagine.

It was the most perfect morning a fifty year old woman could possibly have, and I just can't possibly do it justice -- or these women who bless my life.

Things I've seen

Last night, I went out to eat with The Poet at a strange and wild restaurant that I couldn't begin to do justice with words. Think stuffed animals -- not the toy kind -- antique zoological prints, a mantelpiece, strange and careful collections. Think Sigmund Freud's boudoir, as the Poet said. Think the aching and fussy decadence of Vienna with the mirth of Fellini. Two young men played music, one a trumpet and the other a guitar and then a saw. Yes, a saw. It sounded like a woman moaning and not in a good way. Who knew that scraping a bow through the tines of a blade could disturb the air? There were crows (stuffed) here and there. I do hate crows but laughed at one above my head. We shared a plate of meze -- tapenade and humuus on salty crisps. I had clams and chorizo in a spicy broth, sipped a glass of white wine and laughed.

It would seem that the zany atmosphere even changed what I looked like.

Literary Supper

This picture makes our bungalow look a whole lot bigger than it actually is!

Last spring The Husband and I offered to host a literary supper for our charter school's fundraiser. People sign up and pay to attend a small gathering, and all the money goes to the school. Last night, we had about a dozen people over, some we knew and some we didn't, including our school's principal who led us in a great discussion of Toni Morrison's powerful, spare novel Home. The Husband made an amazing stew of lentils, sausage and chicken with a big green salad and crusty bread. We drank wine and laughed and talked -- a lot about the book and a lot about the world in general. We ate Hallelujah Cake and talked some more before everyone left around 10:00. It was a wonderful community gathering and made me grateful, again, to live in such a diverse city and to be a part of such a progressive school.

Here's the recipe for Hallelujah Cake, which I've posted before and which comes from my Texas friend Johanna. It's a weird recipe that goes against the pastry chef in me's grain, but it works and it's incredibly good. Evidently, it's named for the exclamation one makes when you take a bite.

Hallelujah Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Butter a cake pan. I used a large oval Le Creuset, but you can probably use a 9X12 rectangular

Sift the following ingredients together in a mixing bowl:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
pinch o salt

Melt together in a microwave:

1 stick of butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
6 heaping T of good quality unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup of water

Pour that wet mixture into the dry mixture and then add:

1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix well and pour into baking pan.
Bake for about 30ish minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

When cool, spread with this icing:

Mix the following together and beat in an electric mixer:

1 stick of butter, melted
8 heaping T good quality unsweetened cocoa powder (I use a very dark Belgian one)
1/3 cup milk
1 box of powdered sugar

Silver Linings Playbook

You must be picked up by one of your very oldest and best friends in the world who has been out of town for months and you must park on the roof of the theater and run around scaring seagulls, exclaiming at the skyline and the dark clouds over the city and then watch the movie and laugh and cry in the movie and then walk in the light rain to a nearby bar, drink a glass of rubies (Zinfandel), eat some sweet potato fries and some spicy tuna on lettuce leaves and some of his macaroni and cheese and then drink a Blue Moon with a wedge of lemon while listening and telling secrets before walking back in light rain to your car and drive home.

You really must.

Limbourg Brothers, plan of the Monuments of Rome
illuminated manuscript from the Tres Riche Heures du Duc de Berry, ca 1416

Rain for Angelenos is rain for so many ninnies, should I go out or should I not?, brake lights, minivans parked too close, the quandary of wet shopping carts and a gray blanket over the hills.

Natasha Trethewey, the poet laureate of Mississippi and the United States has a mellifluous voice and read poem after poem from her book thrall, weaving together her interracial roots, relationship with her poet father, eighteenth century paintings, the 14th century myth of the miracle transplant (black donor, white recipient) -- my hands lay in my lap, clenched and relaxed, the weird tension of loving words.

I ate ramen afterward in a small restaurant in Little Tokyo, wide bowls of steaming broth, a flaky hard-boiled egg cooked soft in soy sauce, melting in my mouth before the crunch of scallions, noodles slipping from the chopsticks, sliding down my throat, the voice of the host, keeping things moving, his Angeleno Japanese voice. The mix of the city, young, old, Asian, Hispanic, white and black -- we passed the tents of skid row, one after the other squared up neatly, their backs against low-slung buildings.

The idealized painting above of the monuments of Rome was commissioned by Jean de Berry who was very angry with divisions of the Church. It is said that he liked to run his fingers over the forty churches depicted, tracing the former path of the Bishop of Rome. The little white square on the left, in the middle, depicts snow, ordered by the Virgin Mary on a warm summer night to fall and mark where a church should be built. The idealized painting had little to do with reality, it is said.

Rotation

Like the moon that night, my father --
        a distant body, white and luminous.
How small I was back then,
        looking up as if from dark earth.

Distant, his body white and luminous,
        my father stood in the doorway.
Looking up as if from dark earth,
        I saw him outlined in a scrim of light.

My father stood in the doorway
      as if to watch over me as I dreamed.
When I saw him outlined - a scrim of light -
      he was already waning, turning to go.

Once, he watched over me as I dreamed.
       How small I was. Back then,
he was already turning to go, waning
       like the moon that night - my father.

Natasha Trethewey