last week i was poking fun at how a friend of ours who just got a completely spazed out puppy only posts photos of the puppy sleeping and being completely restful.
all photos lie, as we know.
couple days ago i took the pups on an errand at the corner of Washington and La Cienega (one heck of a busy intersection) and as we stood there, waiting for the light, which cycled three times without giving us the walk signal, i saw the skateboard coming, before the-one-with-known-skateboard-issues saw it coming, and i decided to go for it. so you can picture the three of us, one running like holy hell (having finally seen the skateboard), the leash stretched as thin as leather can go, me with both arms out looking in all possible directions, and the merle dog trotting behind, saying “excuse me, owner-lady, but you just dropped your phone.”
so its back to the Edge for me and my first generation iphone until i can get another one at AT&T’s upgrade price. good news is that i’ll be able to use that nifty little charging stand. bad news is that if i ever need to get back to Washington and La Cienega i don’t have a GPS anymore.
in 1907 Ernest Shackleton went looking for the South Pole with a motorcar, no sled dogs, and 25 cases of whisky. on top of that, the ship he took was called the Nimrod. now i don’t know when connotations of that word went south but i do know in New Mexico when someone broke into our car and left a screwdriver with their name written on the handle we told the police “some nimrod named *** broke into our car.”
in 2007, some workers restoring Shackleton’s hut way down south found three cases of Scotch, frozen in the snow. after a long journey back home and having its contents siphoned out and put under scientific analysis, the scotch has been replicated and is now being sold to collectors (complete with a box made in China).
i read about Shackleton’s Scotch in a NY Times article, where Charles McGrath mentions how tasting notes for Scotch now run as wild and crazy as those for wine, such as “This one is sweet and grassy, with a hint of barn straw and damp car seat; that one smoky and peaty, with notes of dried moss and wet sheepdog.”
i do think my dogs paws smell like Doritos, but i had never imagined i could enhance my Scotch with a quick spray of the hose on the resident sheepdog. but it works! after a day at the beach we gave the pups a bath, and i took a shot of Scotch (courtesy of Mom and her love of duty free shopping) and drank it while sniffing and snuggling. it had a little of both descriptions, wet sheepdog and damp car seat, but it was simply divine.
the city decided to lay down a slurry on our asphalt last week, and, giving less than 4-5 days notice, asked for all cars to be removed from 6 in the morning until 6 that night. in addition, there were several other warnings, like not to let water run onto the surface for at least three days, and even after the “curing period,” (where we shouldn’t be driving on it at all,) for the next several days we were advised not to turn the wheels unless the car was in motion.
not to worry. flyer with English on one side, Spanish on the other.
day of, all the neighbors got their cars off the street, even the jerks across the street from us who always park their van in the middle of the two available spaces (and we were so hoping they were going to get towed). too bad. then the city workers came (one of them had a highlighted map of the streets they were doing that morning, unfolded it and turned it around several times and said “where are we?”), put a lame little barricade on the fresh slurry, finished up and left around 10 am.
the thing about these kinds of city projects is that once they left they had no way to keep people off the street until 6 that night. there was a full 8 hours where people abused their power steering, over-watered their lawns and pulled out of their driveway, realized they screwed up, and pulled back in. the thing about wet asphalt slurry is that by the time the curing period is over you know exactly who on your block is an asshole and who isn’t.
on a hot afternoon after visiting the lovely city of Sintra, Portugal, after discovering a delicious drink called Amarguinha (almond liquor served with lots of fresh squeezed lemon and ice), after discovering that the dessert the Portuguese call “Byronian” was—in one word—a cracker, some pals and i took a long, winding bus ride to the Western-most point of Continental Europe.
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to pass the time we had some fun with languages, since between the four of us we had English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian covered. we were all a little brain dead, so mostly it consisted of trying to pronounce the Chinese and the Russian words, and noticing similarities between the Latin languages. and then someone suggested “mushroom.” now what a silly word. there’s some debate as to the origin of the word mushroom, most likely from the French word mousseron (to mean moss), but some argue it goes back to the Greek work for mucus (mykes, from where we get “mycology”). (on a side note, back in those days, a candle snuff was called a “snot”). in any case, there we were, with “Mushroom,” “Grib,” “Mógu,” “Cogumelo,” “Champignon,” and “Funghi.” the only one missing was the Spanish. no matter how we stared and blinked at each other, no one could remember. we tried ordering a pizza in Spanish, we tried imagining a can of mushrooms in Costa Rica (sadly, the label said “Champignons”) we tried thinking of all the Mexican dishes that had mushrooms featured (er… none), we tried hating mushrooms, and collectively not caring what the freaking word for mushroom was in Spanish, but still it eluded us, for hours. damn hongos.
to keep from going crazy we went back to things we knew, like the English alphabet, and played a game of “what so-and-so has up his bum tonight.” it’s a daunting task for a non-native speaker trying to remember unfamiliar words, such as Kleptomaniac’s birth control, or Suzanne Somers, and so this is very impressive.
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and this, is in honor of “a laundry.”
while the garden and backyard was being dismantled i went to Lisbon for two weeks to attend the Disquiet: Dzanc Books Literary Program and solve the mystery regarding certain Asian pastries and why they don’t seem very Asian once you stop cooing over how delicious they are and think about them in relation to their fellow brethren (like fried milk, red bean paste, sesame rice dumplings, etc).
i thought i was onto something when i found out the wine my parents used to serve (before i had a say on the matter) on fancy occasions (Lancers and Mateus) were both from Portugal. hm… i thought, was it something that filtered into their consciousness via Portuguese influence over Macao and Hong Kong? i asked my father, and he said “I know Mateus is made in Portugal, it is the info I got from recommendation from some magazine long ago. Lancers was introduced by some friend.” not that he answered the question, but that’s Dad for you.
so, the great pastry tale starts in Portugal in the Age of Discovery: in 1498 Vasco De Gama found the route from Portugal around Africa to India, allowing the Portuguese to dominate the spice trade, colonize Macau and various other spots along the way, and bring pastries to China. thank you!
i have always wondered why the egg tart served in Chinese dim sum was such an anomaly. it’s baked, for one thing, it’s a custard, which is weird for the Chinese, and it’s a tart, even weirder. now that i have gone to Belem (the old home of Pastel de Nata) i’d have to say the Chinese should have followed the recipe better. more creamy, less egg-y, and with the dusting of powdered sugar and cinnamon the thing goes “poof” when you bite into it.
visiting the old home of a special food is a great thing. in Belem when you order the custard tarts they ask “how many.” maybe the little guys operate on the buddy system, or maybe this was influenced by the Chinese. In Nanxiang, China, when we ordered soup dumplings they asked how many steamer baskets. makes you want to learn the numbers of foreign languages real fast.
one morning i dropped by my favorite cafe and ordered a coffee (by the way, their espressos are ok, not great, but ok) and the largest pastry i could see. i took one bite and almost peed my pants. whatever it was called in Portuguese i don’t remember, but what i was eating was the famous Hong Kong pastry called the Gai Mai Bao, or the Chicken Tail Bun. Buttery and coconutty and open faced, it’s always been my mom’s favorite, even though what she knows is an eclair-shaped pastry with the buttery goods stuffed inside. Same difference really.
finally i went to Castella do Paulo, a Japanese/Portuguese bakery where i found out that a famous dessert called Pão-de-Ló was taken to Japan by Portuguese missionaries in the 1500’s, and the Japanese in classic form morphed the recipe, perfected it and renamed it Castella cake. And how. here’s a video of their “and how.” (They’ve got this thing about beating it by hand in gorgeous copper pots. Please play the sound full volume.)
also in Belem is the port from where all the Discoverers set sail. pretty amazing to think Vasco De Gama looked at this same view as he took off. minus the bridge, of course, which, incidentally, was built by the same people who designed San Francisco’s Bay Bridge. I know I know, looks like the other one…
nowadays Lisbon is so lovely and beautiful i can’t believe anyone would want to leave. the drinks all come Pantone coordinated and all the plants look like Los Angeles. and that bridge? really…
recently a friend of mine with kids told me that her 7 year old son had started skateboarding and soon afterwards was begging to be taken to a real skate park. so off they went, somewhere in the safe environs of South Pasadena, to a park filled with older kids popping ollies, being cool and constantly texting on their phones. my friend’s kid, snotty, nerdy, and skinny, took a position against a wall, pretended he didn’t know his mom, and pulled out his calculator and starting texting. Yo. lol. ~\(+.+)/~
Stevie: the only reason you win is because i’m more interested in a real flesh rather than a dumb toy
MO: mmmmf
Stevie: for instance i got that possum good
MO: yeah, that was gross
Stevie: wimp
MO: am not
Stevie: are too. i shook that possum down, and then i rolled on it. i wore its perfume. you? you let that stinky-ass stub-tailed cat drink from our water bowl.
MO: nah-ah
Stevie: yah-ha
MO: i rolled on a dead animal just the other day
Stevie: yeah, right
MO: no, i did. eau de doo. i did.
Stevie: where was this? where was i?
MO: on the sidewalk, maybe you thought it was the letter “E”
MO: (^_-)———-
it rained dead animals left and right this week so i am only posting pictures of cuteness.
on Tuesday at dog agility class where our teacher has goats, chickens, bunnies, turtles and dogs, we found out one of the turtles had been sat on to death by its older wiser fatter friend. I thought turtles have this built-in defense, like they bring their own helmet to battle, but apparently this turtle had a faulty helmet or at least one with a bad ISO rating or whatever. a friend once told me the story about his large grandmother rolling over in her sleep on top of her chihuahua. (*smash*). the family didn’t have the heart to tell her so they just got her another dog that looked the same (i think its name was Fifi) and that was that.
even though i was tempted, I didn’t take a picture of the turtle, but then last night one of the dogs (and I know which one) did a little disco with a possum—Shake it Shake it Shake it—and so first thing in the morning i discover a dead little thing back behind my garage. I suppose even though peace has been found inside the house it’s still a little iffy out in the real world.
we called animal control who said we had to be present when they arrived or else they wouldn’t go into the backyard. since we were on our way out they told us the best thing for us to do was to somehow get the thing to the curb.
so David navigates a shovel to pick up the thing, which still has its tailed all curled up, likes it’s sleeping, and it’s a bit of a struggle because he sounds like he’s about to puke and he’s using all his long-limbed advantage to scoop, while staying as far away as possible. of course mr. possum resists being picked up, as most dead things do, and when he dumps it into my trash bag, all I can think of is that there is nothing like something that stiff, weighing roughly the same as our cat (without the scratching and screaming), plummeting to the bottom of a bag you have open and are barely wanting to hold on to.
so like I said no dead pics but here’s the bag we managed to get to the curb.
from there we went to a store that wasn’t open yet, and while waiting a freaking bird flies into the window and rolls its eyes and plops over right in front of the dog who Shook it Shook it Shook it last night and slept very well thank you very much. the bird survived but was in shock for a few minutes and then the security guard came over and just as i said “don’t touch it” he picked it up and brought it to the nearest tree.
Not dead yet!
update: it’s been almost 12 hours since possum discovery and the bag is still out there. i had a thought maybe by the time we got home it would be deflated with a little tear in the plastic, but no such luck. animal control did say to give them 24 hours. ick.
the May 23, 2011 issue of The New Yorker has an article by Michael Specter on growing meat in a test tube or petri dish. i’ve always wanted a meat tree in the garden, so now that we’re putting in new containers and ordering shitloads of dirt i thought it would be a great time to try.
first we pulled up all the fava beans still lingering in the yard.
then we staked out the area for the new containers, set them into the ground, sprinkled heavily with water… and the next morning…
VOILA!
turns out you don’t need compost, or dirt or anything. just a nice steady morning light. chicken cacciatore anyone?
on a different note, Specter’s article talks about Willem van Eelen, who “was born in 1923 in the Dutch East Indies, yet his youth of freedom ended abruptly on May 10, 1940—the day the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Van Eelen enlisted and served in Indonesia, but he was eventually captured and spent most of the war as a prisoner, dragged from one P.O.W. camp to another. After the war, he studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam, but he struggled with the intertwined memories of starvation and animal abuse in the camps.”
for some reason (combined with the fact that the Rapture came and went with hardly a tremor of any kind in this earthquake-prone city) this reminded me of my sister-in-law’s parents, who started out as missionaries in Indonesia. they soon realized that the locals didn’t need religion, they needed irrigation. so off they went back to Europe to receive a degree in agriculture, and afterwards returned to Indonesia to help on that front.
