Islands in the Stream
As the SciFi2Uers recently discovered, the “Lost” writers hid easter eggs for those unbound by time and space; still, I was bound to produce an authorial image in black and white that represented his serious intent and the timely fashion in which readers could trust he would post.
Below are two images that almost made the cut; visit Joley’s blog to see the one he chose—remembering that, as for Desmond in the most recent episode, plots can pivot on images.
While you read, you might listen to Joley’s last.fm station, or at least some Chris Joss, the latest in a string of artists Joley has alerted me to and appropriate for the odd month of February, when the universe seems to unravel a little, as if discotheque dancing or the sea when young—from the car that some Others must have parked in front of the library,
to the sinking feeling that the refrigerator might be a wormhole.
Last Thursday on Ben’s birthday, I opened the door, ignored the shelf of vanilla skyr (Ben and I have a solemn pact to buy all the vanilla skyr in the Whole Foods dairy aisle), pushed his Guava Goddess Kombucha aside (that raw food drink is for another post), unwrapped the Roomkaas cheese I bought in the firm belief that the double gouda must be linked etymologically or synchronically to architect Rem Koolhaas, and decided not to poach the rest of the white bean soup Ben had made (from last month’s Gourmet, worth a look).
I selected one of the blood oranges I reserve for cosmos, plucked all the Meyer lemons, fished around for a lime, and closed the door.
I decided upon a citrus cake for Ben’s birthday; I find citrus cheering in winter and the beautiful zests go into and on top of the cake—natural garnishes, the blooming rinds of the fruit, trump icing flowers in my kitchen.
Then, like a swarm of nanobots dispersing, the poppy seeds are incorporated into the batter.
I’ve tweaked the 2002 Martha Stewart recipe to make extra cream cheese frosting since I split the three cakes in half, creating six layers that are topped with a (Meyer) lemon glaze. I took the cake and cava first to Theory Group, then to this one bar we frequent where twentysomething friends gathered to celebrate.
The snow helped chill the cava, but was otherwise a nuisance,
(and left some sad snowpersons in following days).
While the cake chilled outside, I opened the refrigerator again, opened a drawer, and eyed the sun-dried tomato pesto.
In January I developed a dangerous habit of lazy lunches. And the pesto remained from the final iteration of a revamped classic duet of spaghetti and meatballs that began one day when I made Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson’s meatballs with scallion and shaved cheese salad.
Distressing as it is that onions and parm qualify as a salad in February’s Food and Wine, the inclusion of ricotta in the mix keeps the meat moist and the recipe’s real brilliance lies in its restaurant translation—the meatballs cook in broth, hold nicely, and are finished over the grill or high heat in a pan. Better, though the recipe calls for ground veal and lamb, either and beef work just as well.
Never having considered meatballs a legitimate dish, I began to deconstruct the spaghetti part, turning first to the silent partner: tomato sauce.
Winter tomatoes depress me in their woolly nothingness, so I opened a can of whole small Italian tomatoes and added it to half a cup of onions and garlic sautéed and then simmered with white wine. I added half of a teaspoon of chopped fresh oregano and half that much in red pepper flakes and let it reduce for fifteen minutes,
while I pondered what “acid regulator” listed in the can ingredients might mean.
The acid regulator, included, I conjecture, to take names and kick the separately listed citric acid into shape, worked its magic and the sugo was soon finished.
Tossed with linguine fine, and garnished with chiffonaded sorrel, I plated the formidable pairing divided by sautéed scallions.
The second iteration seemed too derivative though, and as a good Derridean might, I cannot say what this spaghetti and meatballs was, only what it was not. After Ben’s savvy comment on the last post that we call mussels “busters,” I titled that seafood recipe “Busters en Brodo.” In the same vein, I wanted this dish to resist a bit more.
And so I made pesto, which expands the range of appropriate pasta shapes, and makes apparent its components. Not alchemy and not a sugo, this pesto exposes the granularity of the ground garlic, parm, pine nuts, and sun-dried tomatoes. Pesto adheres, but does not coat pasta—stirred, not sauced, I did not have what I did not want.
Still channeling the WWJ(acques)D vibe, I made my peace with an almost villanelle, and added it with a few Others to the portfolio: one a controlled burn, another just desserts, and a third exposing seams. Deconstruction requires dedication, but how can we be wrong? Between fully extracted poetical forms and pieced remnants of prose, ingredient isolation and critical cultural engagement, there is another world. Sail away with me—we can rely on each other. (Uh-oh…)
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Posted Friday, February 16th, 2007, 11:09 am * Filed in Design, Food, Photography. * . Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Kristen, how do you find time to write these weirdly wonderful hybrid posts? Is there much editing involved? This post dives into its content and swims around like an oregano flake in those lonely tomatoes.
And thanks again for taking the headshots. I can only wonder what the trepidation was about. The blog is now picking up a little steam (it seems one of the actors posted), and USA Today got in on the act; the 2/21 edition should have an interview. And I appreciate how you’ve woven the Lost theme into the food writing.
That first B/W photo — I’ve seen my brothers give that same howler-monkey look, but that’s the first time I’ve seen it on my mug. I guess I am one of them.
And let me say that I also appreciated the bacon ice cream at the Chinese New Year’s party. Never, ever did I conceive of putting meat into ice cream. It was a food experience up there with street meals in Guadalajara; delicious in a unique way.
Some day I might ask you about a pizza recipe I’ve been working on for about five years now. The sauce is clam-based (buster based?). When I came down here and learned no one knows from real thin-crust pizza, I took it upon myself to make my own, but I’ve not had feedback from a true foodie.
How was Felski? I’d been looking forward to that, and got stuck covering a Writing Center shift. It goes with the assistant director territory.
February 21st, 2007 at 9:14 am
J, I’m very intrigued by pizza con vongole, and I would be delighted to taste the result of five years of tweaking.
Felski’s work was very smart, as usual, and I imagine I’ll be enchanted (one of the key verbs) by the book. I made a crystallized ginger and caramelized pear upside-down cake to go with her “Unmanifesto.”
Congrats on the blog’s increasing popularity—I look forward to reading the interview. I could ask you where you found the time to write a book, but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to intimate either of us is bound by time or space.
Oh, and the trepidation I mentioned at the beginning of this post stemmed from knowing how important one picture can be, having just watched Des stare into the street photographer’s snapshot and, well, get lost.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:32 pm
The citrus cake and cava made for a delightful theory group and wonderful kick-off to my birthday festivities. The cake traveled to Escafe, where passers by gazed enviously at its cream cheese frosting–and even more enviously at the beautiful group of fabulous friends who made my 26th–yes, I’m saying it, my 26th–a memorable and magical occasion.
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Passing along some more music info. This won’t show up on Last.FM, not yet anyway, but it’s a commercial-free streaming site. It’s all downtempo, housey-type music, good for cocktails and background noise when grading or otherwise pretending to work. I’ve had my head stuck in it for about a week now. It’s at http://groovera.com/, but you should be able to stream it through whatever system you’re using.
And the latest Lost blog post is up; this one took some real digging….
March 20th, 2007 at 10:55 am
This entry almost inspired me to cook! However combining me with a kitchen often equals near death experiences.
I loved the pictures and descriptions :)