A few months ago I spied thse shoes dangling above Sanchez Street. Most of us know what shoes on the wire mean but some how this gives the idea added irony.

Now I read "to commemorate the 70th anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz” next year...[t]he consumer products division of Warner Brothers and Swarovski, the crystal company, came up with the promotion to benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, with an auction planned in the fall of 2009 20 plus designers are rethinking and reinterpreting as designers are wont to do.



Jiminy Crickets!

Drop a handful of leaves in a bowl and hum a tune. What's it from? Oklahoma? Gypsy? It takes a minute while you're dicing up a carrot to figure out its The Carpenters.

Irony, you think to yourself, is a bitch.

Drop the cut up carrots in the bowl with the leaves and pivot on your heel. Grab the onion and get that reduced down to cubes and tetrahedrons and polygonical bits. You're good with a knife, but you could be better. Not playing with a knife everyday means less practice and less skill and less proficiency.

Open the bag of precooked chicken from the pseudo hippie-woo-woo grocery store (which is different than the organic grocery store) that you were surprised to see selling smaller portions on styrofoam. You made a mental note to report them to the city and stop shopping there all together. While you listen to the Nightly Business Report (Goodnight Susie!) ramble about the GDP dropping as vegetable prices rose 6% on the 2nd quarter, you shred the chicken with your hands into the big bowl.

Look at it all lying there and once again win the war with the camera. A picture would be nice but not really challenging. You pick up the camera and take a picture of it just so you can say you did it. Still it needs something.

A 6oz container of cottage cheese gets up ended into the bowl with a couple of glugs of olive oil. The green against the white which is against the beige which is against the orange which is against the green again looks great. You take a picture of that too knowing it will never be seen by any one anyway anyhow.

Tongs toss the whole mess. A fork shovels the first bits into your mouth where you're instantly as bored with the flavor as you would be having to sit through a conversation with Miley Cyrus (Miyllie? Meyley?) The pantry gets yanked open and the seeds and the pods and the leaves and the thistles get dropped in and the crystallized salt and the pulverized pepper follow. The tongs get back in there. Over the sink you get brutal with the mixing just like you used to when you were making salads like this for 100 people. You do it over the sink because just as you expected, you make a huge mess, because like your knife skills, this skill has diminished with time.

You don't think about how you feel like your beloved skills are gone but instead you grab a beer out of the bottom of the fridge and go into the living room and looks at want ads for jobs you'll never apply to just to make yourself feel connected and in the game. As you search you hum another tune? The Carpenters? No... Sondheim, West Side Story.

Could be.. who knows....

If you want to contact Elizabeth Dole regarding her intention to name an AIDS funding bill after Jesse Helms, please go here:

http://dole.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInformation.ContactForm

Hot Salad

1. On the way home from therapy, stop by organic grocery store. Plan on flirting with daddy-ish butcher who always takes his time to talk to you but instead get the other guy who barely speaks English. Repeat "one pound of bacon" five times. Get 2 chicken breasts. Bone in is better, but you worked your ass in therapy today and you're tired.
   
2. Walk home. Take the long way past the dog park and laugh as you watch French bull dog puppy terrorize a husky who keeps trying to lie down only to get attacked by this 8 inch tall black furry thing. Ponder standing there to watch this joyful thing a while until you remember you have raw chicken in your messenger bag.
   
3. Get home and place cast iron skillet on stove. You know the one you've used so much you only have to season it on week ends? Crank up the heat under it. All the way up.
   
4. Cut the chicken up into 1" pieces.
   
5. Drop two big soup spoon fulls of bacon fat in the smoking hot pan. As it melts, dice 2 of the small carrots, the left over cucumber and the left over orange pepper from last night. Spy remaining peeled garlic cloves in the fridge. Toss them in the melting fat and then toss the container in the recycling. You do recycle, don't you?
   
6. Let the garlic get brown on a couple of sides. Add the chicken, Season with s&p. Cook through but just barely.
   
7. In a large bowl add a big handful of salad greens, the chopped vegetables and some torn up parsley.
   
8. remove chicken and garlic cloves to a plate to cool a little. Pour 1/4 rice wine vinegar into pan and reduce by half. Pour hot vinegar and fat over salad.
   
9. Add chicken and toss to cover.
   
10. Start to open package of herbed organic tortilla wraps until you are once again reminded that your pants are leaving marks on your midsection where they're too tight. Grab big bowl, plop down in front of cable arts programming. Change channel to watch Days of Our Lives on soap net instead. Enjoy bacony, chickeny, veggie salad. Wonder who the hell half of these people are on this show because you haven't watched it in years.
11. Win staring contest with camera when it reminds you to take pictures of your dinner.

Sometimes the nicest dates are the ones you have over bento boxes and macaroons at the ferry building talking about how you feel smarter than everyone else.

Came home from work and open a can of tuna, dressed it in a left over aioli, with some chopped cornichons and some parsley I had on hand. Tossed some bread I made over the week end in the toaster and sat down to watch the news.



( Read more... )

Finished editing Jacques's portraits today.





( Read more... )

In the freezer waiting for Lazy Bear

1 qt fig chutney
1 pt blue berry compote
1 qt lime basil pesto
1 qt salted cherry compote
1 pt lemon curd
1 qt egg whites for whipping and then folding into lemon curd.
(1 small container of mild delusion that I'll be able to whip egg whites standing in in front of a tent)

I tell people all the itme that if you know how to do 5 basic things in the kitchen, you can pretty much do anything a recipe calls for.

1. Chopping vegetables - If you can learn how to hold your knife and square off a vegetable and cut it into strips, it's just a short jump from there to fine julienne and dicing.
   
2. Sautee: Take the above skill and cook the onion to a sweet but savory compliment which is the basis of many many dishes. Learn how to balance heat and fat so you don't burn things.
   
3. Pan fry a protein. Different than sautee. Sure it looks done on out the outside, but is it still cold and raw on the inside? Learning to do this will let you judge you meats and also allow you to learn how to cook larger cuts of meat. This doesn't just apply to beef, but chicken, pork and fish.
   
4. Steam/blanche vegetables; Learning how to cook vegetable quickly with out turning thme into grey mush open you up to rice, grains and then other processes with them. Steam some broccolli, puree it in the blender, mix it with some cream and there's soup.
   
5. Sauces: learn toi make your own salad drssings and you'll also learn how to make the basis for a pan sauce. Learn to make a roux and add it to cream and you can make your own mac and cheese. Learn to make your own ragut and you'll never buy jarred pasta sauce again.
   

The Chron today takes that same idea but approaches it a little more expansively and specifically. It's a good read and a good refresher.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/08/FDTA11HHDM.DTL

Jacques joins the gay mafia....

3 bunches of basil
1 bunch of heirloom carrots (they're purple)
1 big bag of arugula
1 big bag of string beans

I would have gotten some of the really colorful and sweet juicy plums I tasted but I didn't have much cash on me.

Now what to make?

Probably some pesto for Lazy Bear.

As I wandered around I thought about an asian string beans salad with carrots, ginger, peanuts and garlic. And then I remembered the goji berries. Yes, they'll go in there too. Maybe I'll grab some tuna on the way home and sear that off and have it with sauteed arugula.

Found this on mlh58 Morgan's blog. I didn't realize I lean forward and gesture so much when I talk.

Jacques learns how to tyra-laugh.

We took 254 pics today. I've got a ton of editing ahead of me. But for now, off to a BBQ.

1 Burberry Navy Blue Trench Coat
1 Ferreti Double Breasted Navy Blue Blazer
1 Pair Armani Slacks W29 L30
Assorted tank tops
2 ties, circa 1994
1 down jacket, size medium
1 pair rocket dog flip flops
1 old navy olive green swater with epaulets
1 pair fatigue shorts, 29w

All of this is getting taken to one of those second hand places on Market that buys your used clothes, refurbishes them a little and then sells them for profit.

It's my past. The Burbery and Ferreti are my 1st lovers clothes that I took when he died 15 years ago. The Armani were bought for me at Barney's in Chelsea back when there was still a Barney's in Chelsea. The down jacket kept me warm, and at the time quite stylish, through a few winters in NY but now is just a little bit much for SF weather. I haven't worn a tie to work in years. I only wore the flip flops once before deciding they weren't my style. The sweaters have been languishing for a couple of years as I tell myself I'll find a reason to wear them and then never have.

I've held on to Ed's clothes as a way of holding on to him, but after 15 years it's time to let go.

I've held on to the Armani in a way of holding on to Bob and Steven as way of telling myself that maybe they really didn't treat me as badly as they did and it's time to let go.

I held on to the sweaters because at one time they made me look really good, but I'm not a 150 pound party boy any more and it's time to let go.

I've held on to the shorts in a vain clinging to the idea I'll have a 29 inch waist again but I'm comfortable with my body now and it's time to let go.

It's just time to let go of a lot of things that those clothes represent. Over the next few weeks I'll be purging a lot of stuff. Physical and emotional.

It's just time.