Category Archives: food, literature, travel

May 17, 2013 · 10:14 am

Fortune Cookies

A scholar's writing lasts longer than a martyr's blood.

A scholar’s writing lasts longer than a martyr’s blood.

You have an excellent sense of humor. Lucky number: 13

I have a moderate book problem.  I inherited my addiction from my father, who suffers from a severe, raging book problem.  He spends hundreds of dollars on books each month, scouring book-buying clubs for the newest titles, the latest, greatest publications to acquire.  He views his acquisitions in terms of collections, and is continually searching for ways in which to improve his collections. His Africa collection is exhaustive, as are his Peoples of the World and Peoples of the American Southwest. He taught these subjects at Utah State University throughout my youth.

I go on book binges, but have not yet reached a point in my life where I can afford or find room to house hundreds of dollars worth of book purchases.  My only prized “collection” – of food writing and cookbooks – falls far short of comprehensive. Sometimes I make second-hand purchases, a practice my father finds reprehensible.  I can’t help myself.  Books comfort me.  I love their distinct printed smell, the silken heft of their pages.  I do not feel settled unless I can see their colorful spines, lined up in rows on my bookshelves and arranged alphabetically by author’s last name or, in the case of anthologies, alphabetically by book title.

Can a love of words really be transmitted through a genetic line?  My dad and I both love to read in general.  We’ll read anything we can get ahold of, and spend all day doing it if time and circumstance permit.  Though I didn’t grow up in my father’s house, we cultivated our relationship over summer breaks.  My mother showed little interest in books and she sometimes teased me – not maliciously – about my reading habit, which causes me to wonder if I picked it up casually through observation of my father (whose houses over the years were technically libraries with beds, measured in linear shelf space rather than square footage) or whether there’s something to the theory of genetic transmission.

Your smile lights up a room. Lucky number: 2005

Another thing I inherited from my dad: a button nose.  I got my mother’s hazel eyes, and my father’s round chipmunk cheeks and pert nose.  My sister and brother are also blessed with the nose.  I used to like my nose passively; it was something that made my face seem less plain in photographs, though I gave little regard to it otherwise.

A large black Chow subdivided my nose in 2005.  Thirty-seven stitches later, I retained a nose, with a board instead of a button.  It healed into something wholly unremarkable, except for the thin vein of white scar tissue that flashes like lightning over the bridge.  I actively appreciate my nose now.  Had I been standing an inch to the right or left, I might have been severely disfigured or blinded.

Recently, my daughter, who is six years old, contracted mono. (We live on the campus of a boarding school, and, as such, germs befriend one another quickly.)  I have never before been so acutely aware of her spleen.  The weight and worth of my daughter’s existence catapulted to the forefront of my mind.  Simple tasks like riding her bicycle to school or competing in team sports are out of the question for the time being.  Nothing is worth risking the rupture of this small internal organ.

The body is such a miracle.  My daughter will recover.  My nose remains in tact.   Sometimes it’s the misfortunes that make us feel fortunate.

You have lovely eyes. Lucky number: 2

As a writer, I rely on my eyes to gather the visual details I tuck away for later: the tufted dandelion sprout, floating in the air; the crooked upturned arm of my spiny blue cactus; the silhouette of a horned owl, high up in a tree against the blush of sunset.  My eyes revel in my son’s playful smile; they drink in my daughter’s freckled cheeks.  They are vessels that carry the words I read onto the vast, curvaceous rivers of my mind.  If the day’s first blessing is waking up, the next true blessing must be opening one’s eyes to the possibilities of a new day. Thanks be.

You are an enigma. Lucky number: ?

Research for this essay returned me to a book I hadn’t read in years: Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.  In a chapter titled “Double Face,” one of Tan’s characters, Lindo Jong, recounts sifting through potential fortunes at the fortune cookie-making factory where she once worked, in the hope of finding one that would elicit a marriage proposal from her beau.  She selected a fortune that read: “A house is not home when a spouse is not at home.”  Her clever plan succeeded.  The next day, her boyfriend asked, “Lindo, can you spouse me?”

My research also brought me to an article about the largest producer of fortune cookies, Wonton Food, Inc., which distributed over four million cookies a day in 2005.  That amounts to nearly a billion and a half cookies annually!  Who eats them all?  My theory is that most people – excluding children, who would eat cardboard if it tasted moderately sweet – are more interested in the fortunes than the golden cookies themselves.  Sometimes the messages resonate; sometimes it’s the lucky numbers. In 2005, lucky numbers won 110 people sums of approximately $100,000 each in a single day’s Powerball drawing.  The accompanying fortune?  “All the preparation you’ve done will finally be paying off.”

I don’t harbor strong feelings about fortune cookies, but I love the intrigue they hold within.  Maybe if I had taken the time to read a fortune on the day of my new nose, it would have read: “Beware of inauspicious strangers.  The admiration of their beauty wields a deleterious cost.”

All the preparation you’ve done will finally be paying off. Lucky number: 2013

My dad once advised me to prepare to hold at least three professions in life.  The changing world, he said, required adaptability.  To date, I’ve worked in about twelve positions – with vastly different titles and responsibilities – without interruption (and sometimes simultaneously).   My love of words has threaded through each of my professional incarnations.  I am very grateful to possess a skill that benefits myself as well as others, and buoys me, despite sharp changes in the economy and employment rates.

Right now, I teach Humanities to a gregarious group of middle school students.  I have no idea how I got so lucky in this latest gig: not only do I get to read and write, I get to geek out about reading and writing with young, enthusiastic minds!  Together, we explore worlds that are so different from our own with characters who are so similar to us.  I love when my students ask questions about the text and I can literally see their imaginations flare.

I do not know what the new school year will look like for me, but I hope that the long weekends of lesson planning and grading will pay off.  I hope that this year of channeling my own creativity into the creativity of others will not have been in vain.  In truth, I have missed the freedom to write and read on my own schedule.  I have missed marching into the grocery store; sweeping ingredients into my arms, like long lost lovers; and coming home to a joyous orgy of cooking and photography.  But I have also cultivated positive relationships with seventeen great students.  I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be a teacher… and learned that the process of learning never really ends. Nor does the adaptability of my spirit.

I face the fortune ahead of me with gratitude and optimism.  My love of words has yet to let me down.

© Julia Moris-Hartley 2013

1 Comment

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 17, 2013 · 7:02 am

The Ort Report

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Ort: Noun. A scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

Recently, I accompanied two other faculty members and our entire class of 17 middle school students to a 255-acre outdoor learning center called IslandWood on Bainbridge Island, Washington.  We spent three activity-driven days, exploring the island’s lush forests and challenging ourselves to learn from the natural world.  We hiked a lot and sampled native plants, such as stinging nettle leaves and salmonberry blossoms.  We spotted wrinkly, orange-bellied newts and thumb-sized green tree frogs.  We listened for the chipper call of the bright yellow American goldfinch, the state bird of Washington, and picked up a few songs to carry home with us, among them “The Ort Report”– arguably the most memorable tune we learned in our time at IslandWood.

I had never heard of an ort.  I certainly had not given much thought to tiny scraps and morsels prior to learning “The Ort Report,” which we sang after every meal served in IslandWood’s spacious dining hall.   Here are the words to the song:

Ooh, ahh, the Ort Report,
I said a-ooh, ahh, Ort Report,
Jiggy jiggy jiggy.
(Repeat twice, and don’t forget to swish your hands in the air during the jiggy part.)

The song’s mission is simple.  It introduces visitors to the concept of eating “just enough” – not so little that one is left hungry, nor so much as to prompt the loosening of any belts – and leaving fewer orts on our plates.  Though most of the students visiting IslandWood with us were fourth and fifth graders, who, because of their age, might be more prone to giggling, even our middle schoolers couldn’t camouflage their goofiest, lopsided smiles when we sang the song. That is brilliant marketing.

Not that the IslandWood dining hall markets anything except reduced food waste.  We ate family-style, each table served by a “captain,” who fetched heaping bowls of food from the kitchen and brought them to the table for us to share.  Once everyone received the first round of platters, Deborah, a tall strawberry blond who facilitates dining room affairs, encouraged anyone still hungry to claim second helpings.  IslandWood welcomed us to eat as much as we pleased, but issued gentle reminders – through Deborah – to eat “just enough,” so that we weren’t sluggish and inobservant in the field.  After meals, we sorted our plates according to food and liquid waste, compostable matter, and dirty dishes.  Deborah and a rotating group of student helpers then weighed the food and liquid waste, and revealed the findings to the diners, prefacing their announcement with “The Ort Report” song.  We (in all, roughly 200 visiting students and teachers from four schools) wasted about ten pounds of food and liquids after our first meal.  By the end of our short visit, we’d lowered our waste to two pounds.  Brilliant.

Deborah also taught us a lesson in fractions, whittling down an apple to a sliver of 1/32nds.  The apple represented the earth.  The sliver: the portion of the earth available to grow the overwhelming majority of foods we enjoy today.  Deborah prompted us to consider how much food gets tossed into the trash, un- or half-eaten, each day… at schools, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, airports, and in our own homes.  I can’t speak for others, but seeing that tiny apple sliver in Deborah’s slim fingers profoundly reinforced the notion of leaving behind far fewer orts.

Several of the middle school students returned from the trip with an interest in changing food practices in our own dining hall. They serenade me with “The Ort Report” in class.  Their smiles and laughter remind me that it’s not too late to decimate the ort population and stop eating at “just enough,” even if it’s just a few of us making that personal choice.  I’d do almost anything to make their world a bigger, better, longer lasting place.  The journey begins at breakfast.

1 Comment

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 21, 2013 · 8:06 am

Tiny Ninjas

The naked man standing in the hallway across from my Las Vegas hotel room covers his crotch with both hands and grins at me.  Though I need to leave the room, my momentum halts. I slam the door quickly, sealing myself inside.  My friend, Casey, a tall, bodacious blonde, stops short, looking confused. I’m not sure how I articulate the naked man’s situation, but Casey seizes the moment, pushing me out of the way and pressing her phone to the door’s peephole. She snaps multiple photos of his toned derriere as he furtively knocks on his locked room door.

I blush, breathing hard, my back pressed against the wall like I’m evading a zombie in pursuit.  Casey gives me the play-by-play peephole recap: the couple who encounters the man there in the hall, naked as the day he entered this world; their playful responses, goading him into reluctant laughter; the man’s gratitude when Casey tosses him a hand towel from our bathroom; the best wishes we offer him when we finally stop giggling, compose ourselves, and leave the room.

The elevator light dings at the end of the hall, smoke lingering in the stagnant air.  Casey turns to me, blue eyes sparkling, and says, “This is going to be the best day ever!”

*

Casey’s friendship comes with many perks, among them: travel, random naked men, and opportunities to try new foods.  Casey travels frequently for work. Usually my children and my teaching/tutoring schedule prevent me from accompanying her, though I would like to, but sometimes serendipity grants me its favor.  Casey’s most recent trip to Las Vegas occurs during my school’s spring break.  Would I like to join her for a few days of sunshine and fine dining in Vegas?  Yes.  Yes I would.

*

Casey convinces me to get a foot massage with her, despite my reservations. She is far more massage-friendly than I am, and she promises me that this experience will be “amaze-balls.”  (After the morning’s nude review, I’m not so sure.)  I reluctantly accompany her to the Foot Spa in Vegas’ Chinatown. I stress all morning in anticipation of the massage.

Golden curtains divide the spa into several intimate spaces.  A radio quietly plays classical music.  Water trickles from a waterfall in the corner.  I can’t see anything but tile flooring with my face pressed into the plush brown spa chair.  My massage therapist clearly struggles with her previous life as an angry ninja.  She karate chops my back with exaggerated gusto.  I begin to question the term “foot massage,” and how precisely it correlates to the face, scalp, arms, back, and butt.  My contemplations arrive belatedly in our hour-long session.  I beg the woman who “massages” me to be gentle.  I whimper.  At times, I clench every muscle possible in order to evade the pain.  I decide, resolutely, that I definitely do not like people to mess with my spine.

When the time comes to settle the bill, I realize why she’s been so rough on me.  She doesn’t understand a word I say.  I tip her $8 – about 25% – for the mercy of escaping alive.  My kidneys ache; patchy purple bruises begin to blossom under my skin.

Outside, Casey’s oversized grin confirms that she, too, has succumbed to ninja torture.  Sunlight assaults our dimmed Zen eyes.  Casey peers at me and asks, “We’re still friends, right?”  I assure her we are. But a teensy tiny part of me receives satisfaction in the mental image of the tiny ninja – all knees and elbows in full attack mode, perched on Casey’s back.

*

Casey is a gateway drug.  We first met at work five years ago.  Casey introduced me to important life skills, like smart, intentional networking; opening myself to new experiences; and being 100% genuine and true to myself at all times.  I learned these by observing her.  Then, she upped the rush by absconding me to different restaurants and kidnapping me for purposeful writing (and eating) retreats.  She seamlessly inserted herself into my family’s life, showering my kids with superhuman affection.  I just can’t see myself quitting her.

*

It’s not my place to judge ninjas.  Foodies are kind of like tiny ninjas: ever on the prowl; stealthily stalking the next delicious meal; unsheathing our swords in the rarest and most tragic cases of food injustice.  Our attacks are little… but impassioned.  I spend the last day of our trip in bed, felled by a persistent, nagging sinus infection.  The inside of my head feels like it’s going to implode.  Casey has made plans to eat at Gordon Biersch, and all day I’ve felt pain in my face as well as my heart, lamenting that I won’t join her.

I watch her as she perches, cross-legged, on the floor in front of a huge mirror, braiding her long hair and applying makeup to her porcelain face.  “What time is your dinner thing?” I croak.

“We’re meeting at six,” she says, lips relaxed, smoothing on her signature red lipstick.  “Dinner starts at seven.”

I sit up in bed, the jackhammer in my brain momentarily ceasing, and look up the menu online: gorgonzola-pear salad, lobster bisque, blue crab and artichoke dip… Ingredients that I cannot purchase within fifty miles of my home.  Casey eyes my computer screen in the mirror’s reflection.  “It’s only half a mile away,” she says, her voice lilting.  “Worst case scenario, if you start feeling really bad, one of us could bring you back to the hotel. Or you could even take a cab… It’d be really close….”

Somewhere deep inside, a tiny ninja rallies to life, shrieking out her battle call.  I join Casey for dinner.

*

When the server sets out a large plate of crostini aside a bowl of creamy white, bubbling crab and artichoke dip, I dance a gleeful rumba in my seat.  I haven’t eaten since breakfast.  One glass of cabernet has gone straight to my head.  I am ravenous.  This dish – not so much an appetizer, as it appears on the menu, as an entrée – is the highlight of my day.  I have Casey to thank for luring my sorry butt out of bed.

Back at the hotel, Casey climbs into her bed, pulls the covers up to her ears, and says, “I’m sorry you feel so bad, Jules.”

“I’m sorry I am such a wet blanket,” I say, honking into a tissue.  “I’m so lame.”

Casey snorts and asks me if I need anything. I think of the thousand ways she has impacted my life and my attitude towards life since we met.  My gratitude to her knows no bounds.

Even ninjas need friends.

Hello, sunshine!

Hello, sunshine!

© 2013 Julia Moris-Hartley

Leave a comment

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , ,

February 25, 2013 · 8:31 am

Appetite APB

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA My appetite is gone.  Poof! Whoosh! Alla Shazaam!  I don’t know  where she has gone, but for the last few months, I have lived without her.  My food enthusiasm has not waned – I still troll food blogs, ogle food photography, and fondle fruit in the produce aisle.  I read all the articles that appear in the Dining & Wine section of The New York Times.  The cheese case still makes my body sing.  But when the time comes to eat, I am impassive.  Filet Mignon?  Raclette?  A piece of wheat toast spread with salted butter?  I just don’t care.  This bothers me.

Where has my appetite gone?  Maybe, like Mayzie, my appetite has grown tired of her perch inside my egghead brain, and has flown to laze about in warmer, less turbulent climes.  Maybe she is baking in the heat of the Aruban sun, where, I confess, I would love to join her.  Winter has felt very long this year.  It would be nice to feel warm sand under my feet, to smell coconut oil in the balmy breeze.  I miss my appetite.  I would rejoice to reunite with her.

I’m trying not to panic.  I remember the intense sympathy I felt for Molly Birnbaum when I read her book, Season to Taste, in which she recounts losing her sense of smell.  How can one have an appetite or appreciation for food without the ability to smell it?  I shared her story with my husband, who responded with a tepid “Meh.” Meh?  Meh?!  How dreadful to live out your life in a state of “Meh”!  I’m a party-like-it’s-1999 kind of girl.  And yet, here I am, skipping out on meals and dodging Meh’s specter in the realm I hold most sacred.

I placate my growing sense of fear with the knowledge that I’m a first-year teacher who didn’t know she would be one until it happened.  I expend a lot of creative energy in the classroom.  Every single day involves intense planning for the next class… from scratch.  Every day poses a new challenge, like learning a new delivery style, adapting to the moods of my students, and accepting that sometimes technology fails at the exact moment when you planned to show the perfect YouTube clip.  I’m like a contestant on Chopped, an amateur trying to prove myself worthy enough to be in the League of Super Teachers.

I’ve also battled several colds since the school year began.  Colds mess with appetites, right?

Though I haven’t shared this information with anyone, I suspect my friends know that something’s amiss.  Plans for food-related gatherings and excursions have increased threefold since the New Year.  Hostel rooms have been reserved for extended food outings in the north.  Friends anonymously deliver delicious foodstuffs by cover of night.  I may be lacking in cravings, but I’m not lacking in good friends.  I am so grateful to have their love and support, especially now.

I can, thanks be, still appreciate the taste and flavor of good foods.  I can still smile into a bowl of creamy, cheesy grits.  I just can’t feel my own food mojo anymore.  So I’d like to formally issue an APB.  My appetite is about 5’2” and she recently cut her hair and added auburn streaks.  If you happen to see her, please tell her to come back to me.  I’ll be waiting right here with open arms.

© 2013 Julia Moris-Hartley

6 Comments

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

February 10, 2013 · 8:56 am

A Day at the Pea Plantation

Live... and thrive!

Live… and thrive!

I stand in the snow, panting, on a sunny winter day.  Sweat rolls down my forehead; rivulets drip down my back.  Though temperatures have peaked in the mid-thirties, I’ve discarded my jacket, scarf, and gloves. My shirtsleeves are pushed as high as they can go. I lean against a sagging chain link fence, brushing my hair, which clings to my face, away from my eyes. I’m sucking air like I’ve just run a marathon. I need a moment’s rest, so I focus on the rugged, white mountains that rise in the east and the piercing blue sky. A woodpecker alights on a nearby telephone pole, embarking on its evolutionary carpentry: tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.  I have just spent an hour shoveling a narrow footpath in knee-deep snow along one side of the fence, preparing the dark, wet soil to receive thousands of little pea pods for the spring harvest.  I am in the Pea Plantation of greater Salt Lake.

My friend, Casey, the enabler of virtually all of my culinary adventures, kneels about twenty feet away, hunched over in the snow-crusted soil, pulling up the woody remains of last year’s pea plants.  Later, she tells me how much the intractable woody stems frustrated her, but each time I look over at her, I see only her bright smile, directed at me or at one of the several others with whom she labors.  Later, I tell her how hard it was to shovel all that snow, especially towards the ground line, where it hardened into ice, but in the moment I work slowly and patiently, gleaning snippets of information from the volunteers who shovel with me.  Cameron, a reedy young chef in a white t-shirt and skinny jeans, is a fellow kombucha connoisseur; he has repurposed an old bottle for carrying water.  Jorges and Mirielle, an attractive Latin couple, are transplants from Texas.  They have a young baby at home – a fact belied by lithe Mirielle’s flat abs and perfect butt – and practice veganism out of their respect for the sustainability of the planet.  They tell Julia, a brunette graduate student from North Carolina, about different types of food documentaries, one of which (whose name I miss) makes Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation look like cartoons.  I smile to myself.  Though shoveling snow is hard work, I am among my people: foodies at their finest.

Ironically, we are all migrants of a kind: transplanted souls called to Utah for various reasons. Unlike the migrants who typically do the backbreaking work of today’s industrial farming, however, we have gathered voluntarily at a local, family-run farm, united by our beliefs and by an honest desire to effect a change. Casey found this community through a website called meetup.com.  Our fellow farmers cited other social websites and word of mouth.  There were fewer than ten of us in all, but many hands can clear away a lot of snow in an hour.

The Pea Plantation is one of fourteen community gardens scattered across three acres throughout Salt Lake City and operated by Sheryl McGlochlin.  Sheryl’s website is liveandthrive.com, for those interested in exploring her work further, but, basically, her farms have flourished, producing table-ready produce until late November each year, because of local volunteers who help her work the soil… and reap its bounty.  She charges a $100 annual membership fee.  Members receive a bounty of produce in exchange for the fee and a little sweat equity.  For people who want to try it out before committing, like Casey and me, there are Saturday gatherings, where one can put in an hour’s work and receive a freshly cooked meal from Sheryl, along with a bag full of the extras, like bagels or cookies, that she gets from bartering/trading with other local businesses.

As the sun begins to set, our bodies cool and we stand huddled, hugging ourselves. Sheryl feeds us a delicious 16-bean soup, salty with bacon (which Jorges politely reserves and shares with Julia) and pleasingly warm.  After dinner, we thank Sheryl for her hospitality and disband for the day.

Later that night, Casey and I settle into our hostel beds, nursing zinfandel from mismatched coffee mugs.  “Just think how much work it must take to manage 14 acres of farms,” I say.  “I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow.” My respect for Sheryl and our fellow farmers is sky high.  Though I only contributed an hour’s time, I feel really proud of what we accomplished.  I want to keep coming to help.

“I think I’m already sore,” says Casey, laughing as she stretches her long legs.  Then she winks at me and says, “That was fun!”

Leave a comment

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

February 2, 2013 · 9:58 am

Forgetting

Jules_025

A violent flurry of words blows through my mind before finally, after several perplexing minutes, stilling on the word I want: kachun, the heart. Google Translate tells me that this is not the literal translation for ‘heart’ in Russian or Ukrainian, but it was the word my mother used when she cut vegetables down to their very cores, trimming away leaves, florets, and fibrous layers to reach that special center piece of certain lettuces, cauliflowers, and broccoli.  I’ve eaten plenty of kachun in my day, but lately I’m finding it more difficult to recall the word.

*          *          *

I recently read The NeverEnding Story, a task that’s been on my bucket list since I first saw the movie in 1984.  I was seven.  My mother took me to see it at the cinema on Fairview Avenue in Boise: the burgundy velvet seat soft under my legs; the air redolent with the scent of buttered popcorn; that one splotch in the upper left corner of the screen that marred Noah Hathaway’s smooth, tan face. The movie made quite an impression on me. I’ve since watched it dozens of times, and am planning to host a theme party in which all my NES friends can geek out.  My children are approaching the age where I can share the movie with them, an experience I eagerly anticipate.  I don’t know if they’ll respond to the movie the way I did, but I hope they’ll at least enjoy some of the characters: Artax, maybe, or Morla or Falkor.

In the novel, which continues far beyond the movie’s scope (the movie ends roughly halfway through the book), Bastian enters the world of Fantastica (or Fantasia) and experiences many adventures alongside his good friends, Atreyu and Falkor.  Bastian wears the AURYN, a necklace that grants him his every wish.  Each wish he makes, however, costs him a price that is surreptitiously exacted: he loses a piece of his memory.  He forgets his bearings – his life as a son in the human world, as a wimpy student frequently picked on by others.  He begins to forget himself, even as he becomes stronger, more respected, and more essential to life in Fantastica.

If you forget something but don’t realize you’ve forgotten it, was it something actually worth remembering?  This is what bothers me about kachun.  If I lose the memory of this word that I heard my mother utter all my life, what else have I forgotten that I can’t remember?  I still remember mom’s face: the prominent inverted black ‘v’s of her eyebrows; her almond-shaped brown green eyes, which, like mine, turned deep olive when she’d been crying; her pale lips and small, straight teeth; the white shock of her hair, sprayed into a pouf on top of her head.  I remember her voice.  She loved to sing.  (So, too, do I.)  I remember how much she enjoyed playing with my children.  But I remember her most when I see my friends with – or talking about – their mothers.  Oh right, I think, my mother is gone.  And with her, the thousand little memories and details I no longer remember and can never retrieve.

*          *          *

Some memories beg to be forgotten, while others fester resolutely despite all efforts to be rid of them.  Which of my memories have disappeared unawares? Am I better off without them?  What was the last conversation I had with my mom?  I can’t remember. Yet the image of her propped on a mattress in the Bellevue SICU – purple eyelids swollen shut, bandaged head, the hiss and suck of the ventilator – is seared into my memory like a cheap, ugly brand.

Worse still are the memories that don’t belong to me at all.  I see my mom walking home from a Valentine’s Day Dance at the Ukrainian Senior Center in the Village, heading north by foot on Second Avenue.  In her purse, she carries birdseed and a half-eaten sandwich. She starts down the crosswalk at 23rd Street: gray concrete sidewalks, shop windows caked with old sale signs. Cigarette smoke wafts from the teens standing, haphazardly and with vacant stares, on the corner.  As she crosses the crosswalk, undoubtedly with clearance to “WALK,” the white pick-up truck with the blue plow attachment, fully raised from clearing snow at city bus stops, turns left.  Mom screams before being stricken down, to the horror of onlookers.

I wasn’t there to see any of it, but I can’t un-know that mom saw her death coming.

*          *          *

I’m not sure if the man who killed my mom was released from his job at the organization that employed him.  He was not charged with any crime, because the police determined that the incident lacked criminality.   Two of the organization’s representatives visited mom as she lay in the hospital dying, though whether the driver was one of them is up to speculation.  The organization, which I can not name for purposes of legality, placed a very low estimate on the value of my mother’s life because she was retired – therefore not “contributing” to the local economy – and because she didn’t have children young enough to be deemed “significantly bereft” of the loss of their mother.

Three years have elapsed since her death. My sister and I have yet to receive a single word of apology.

*          *          *

Several of my students questioned my sanity when they caught me, during structured reading time, absorbed in a book titled How Did They Die?  It is a tightly composed collection recounting the deaths of celebrities and notable historical figures. Isn’t that a little macabre, Mrs. Hartley? Why are you reading that book?

Strange though it seems, reading about the deaths of others provides a measure of comfort.  No one eludes death.  Eventually we all experience it, even über humans, in gradual and sometimes tragic, sudden, crazy ways. We all occasionally face challenges that we must try to forget.  The trick is to hold tight to memories that uplift us and bolster our spirits so that the world remains a tolerable place, so that hope remains.  I will not give sorrow much room to grow, though sometimes its fierce will to survive incapacitates me. I hold on to joys, like my daughter’s incandescent smile and my son’s owlish compassion for others.  As the anniversary of mom’s death approaches, I once more remember the strength I derive from within: kachun, kachun, kachun.

Leave a comment

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 8, 2013 · 10:14 am

Red Curry Days

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
“It’s something you can’t explain exactly, why people become friends. It’s chemistry, is what they say. Maybe it’s just being the right people with the right feelings in the right place at the right time.” – After Eli

I’m standing at the kitchen counter, mincing a dozen garlic cloves for a Thai-themed New Years Eve dinner with friends.  The snow-crusted landscape outside the large kitchen window reveals its secrets as I chop: trails navigated by fluffy, short-eared brown rabbits, deer, and silver foxes; the incisions – narrow, wide, and wild – cut during afternoons of sledding.  The garlic burns my chapped fingers, but I savor its aroma.  My friends roll limes and juice them. We marinate large London broil steaks in garlic, lime juice, brown sugar, and Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce.  We’ve boiled shell-on shrimp in Fat Tire beer and paprika. Rice simmers and swells on the stove.  Several generous tablespoons of red curry paste enliven two cans of coconut milk in a pot, bubbling gently. We’re joking and laughing… well on our way to a Thai feast.

Three days earlier, I sent these same friends a frantic email reneging on my offer to be the dinner chef for a short getaway we’d planned together.  I cried as I typed: nerves frazzled, ready to breakdown.  There’d been a death in my husband’s family; the combination of the emotions wrought by her death and the stress of packing bags and supplies for the entire family overwhelmed me.  I told my friends that I just couldn’t do it.  It was one obligation too many.  Could someone else please cook the food on the last night?  I immediately received two responses: one graciously offering to cook, and one expressing pride in me for asking for help.

My mood lifted as soon as we arrived. We walked into the rented house and received cheers. Someone handed me a beer. Someone else hung up my coat, and shepherded me to a chair. During those three days, we cooked, ate, drank, and played heated rounds of Bananagrams and Oh Hell, cursing with gusto.  My friends showered me in hugs.  They counseled me, refusing to let me make a decision in which I would “make do” and achieve less than my highest potential. I don’t care if I sound hokey.  I love these people.

After dinner on New Years Eve, I stepped outdoors to admire the shadows of the bare, white trees. I listened to the snow, faintly crackling as it hardened into a crusty shell, the muffled horn of a freight train hugging the curves of icy tracks in the distance.  My face pinkened in the cold.  My fingers felt brittle and difficult to bend. I thought of the bunnies and the scraggly foxes, how they manage to thrive in such a beautiful, but harsh landscape. Though my friends and I live in warm, comfortable houses, there are elements of our environment that are harder to endure, but we hunker down and endure them together.  I’m so grateful to have friends who come clamoring with hot drinks and warm cheer when my spirit threatens to plummet into brittle, icy winter.

Red Coconut Curry

My friends, Alethea and Jonelle, tie for the title of Curry Queen.  I am only a Curry Handmaid, but if you find your spirit in need, here’s a quick recipe to help warm you.

1” nub fresh ginger, grated (I use a microplane)

1 yellow onion, diced

3 tbsp. red curry paste

1 can coconut milk

Vegetable oil

Warm a little vegetable oil on medium heat in a large skillet. (I use about a tablespoon.)  Add ginger and red curry paste.  Stir and cook for a couple minutes, then add onion.  Stir to combine and cook onion until soft.  Add coconut milk and stir to combine.  Serve hot over a nice bed of jasmine rice.

Also delicious with chicken, shrimp, or vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, tomatoes, or crisp green beans.

2 Comments

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 19, 2012 · 8:36 am

Thanks Be

Dear Mary Frances,
Thank you for pioneering the genre of food writing.  Your smart prose blazed the way for thousands of writers today – most significantly, female writers –stripping stigma from a field once thought to be solely esoteric and reminding us that food offers so much more than its nutritional content.  Your writing rallies interest in the pleasures, no matter how modest, of the plate.  I have read The Art of Eating at least half a dozen times, and I always discover new meaning with each reading.  You are my idol.

Cher Jean Anthelme,
Your immortal words set the tone for each episode of Iron Chef.  What would the tone of the show have been without them?  Would Chairman Kaga have appeared so Chairman-ish?  The Iron Chefs so ennobled?  Your keen attention to the virtues of culinary enjoyment is rivaled only by your witty social commentary.  I really appreciate that level of attention.  I’ve been wondering… If I believe that wine, cheese, and bread are major food groups, does that mean I’m actually French?  Do tell, do tell.

Dear Julia,
I’m thankful that we share a common first (and nick) name.  I’ve often envied what I’ve read about your marriage to Paul.  He wrote you lyrical love poems for your birthday, for goodness sake!  Together, you created personalized valentines to share with friends each year.  You had what truly seemed like a passionate storybook relationship.  I envy that.  But I also envy – perhaps I should say admire – your robust sensuality.  You would have been so fun to party with! I would have loved to watch you at work in the kitchen.  Sometimes I pretend to be you. (My daughter, Rory, finds these reenactments hilarious.) I think of you every time I accidentally drop a piece of food.  Thank you for making it okay to use the five second rule.

Dear Laurie,
Your writing gave me the idea to host a tea party in honor of my daughter’s birthday.  As I draped beaded garlands over the lights and scattered lavender buds across the table, I thought I heard your voice calling out in singsong approval.  Thank you for writing about your daughter with warmth and affection.

Dear Calvin,
Though I think your wife, Alice, was spot on when she coined the term “food crazies,” and though chances are likely that I am one myself, I appreciate your sustained interest in all things food-related. Thank you for being a “food crazy.” Your version of the first Thanksgiving is far better than the one I learned in elementary school.  I fully support your campaign to make spaghetti carbonara the official Thanksgiving dish.

Dear Harold,
You know you’ve got real cred when chefs all over the world refer to your tome as their “McGee,” as in, “I’ve got my McGee right here!”  I thank you for your tome and your cred. You’ve helped me through many a food inquiry.  I hope you don’t find this too creepy, but I think of you as Uncle McGee.  You seem like the type of person I’d enjoy spending time with on my deck.  As the sun descends over the western mountains, I might casually turn to you and say, “So, Uncle McGee?  Tell me the story about when you wrote your book.  Did you have a grant to fund your daily expenses as you researched?”  And you might chuckle, take a sip of your Malbec, and say, “Well, it all started back in the eighties….”

Dear Jeff,
You are an enigma when you guest-judge on Iron Chef America and Top Chef.  You share the same name as one of my first “real” crushes, a sous chef named Jeff who worked at the finest dining establishment in my college town.  The state he left me in was not funny, but you are.  Thank you for giving your assistant a comically disproportionate amount of work to do and for fielding so many marriage proposals. Thank you for accidentally poisoning yourself with taro leaf and writing about it with humor.

Dear Jane,
Mushrooms, onions, butter, sour cream, and dill…  Who knew? I serve your sour cream sauce over a big bowl of rice.  The mushrooms whisper, “We are so happy,” and so am I.  Thank you for loving fungi enough to dedicate an entire book to them.

Dear Tony,
I started watching your television show before I read any of your work.  I (unfairly) assumed you had writers.  Then I read your books, and your writing bowled me over. I couldn’t believe it!  Your prose is tight!  I haven’t had the good fortune to travel the world like you, but your writing amazed me with its ability to make me ravenous.  I’ve never tried pho, and yet I feel as if I have tasted it with you on the streets of Vietnam.  In my imagination, we traipsed across the globe throughout A Cook’s Tour, loosening our belts and belching happily.  I was your Zamir.  Thank you for making me hungry.  Even though No Reservations is over, never stop being hungry for more, okay?

Cher Jean Louis,
Will you ever find me indispensable? I think the world of you and would gladly be your scribe.  Thank you for renewing the zeal of my Francophilia.

Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading my work. I’ve been busy with a new job and haven’t been in the kitchen as much as I’d like, but I really appreciate all of your continued support. I am thankful for you.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Jules

Leave a comment

Filed under food, literature, travel, Jean Louis

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 30, 2012 · 8:10 am

French American Idol

Will Jean Louis ever find me indispensable?
Quoth the raven, “Maybe next time.”

On Saturday, October 20, 2012, my friends and I attended the inaugural Halloween Spectacular at Salt Lake City’s Caterina, the current culinary venture of my not-so-secret French crush, Jean Louis. I had vowed to make myself indispensable to him in my New Year’s resolutions. Ten months later, I found the courage to make the first move.  We set off to Caterina so I could proposition Jean Louis about collaborating on a cookbook or memoir.

My friends and I hired a driver to deliver us from our hotel room to the restaurant.  Our driver seemed annoyed about his line of work. “You’re going where?” he asked, swerving in and out of lanes and fiddling with his GPS unit as we slid from one side of the backseat to the other. “That is much farther than I thought,” he said, glaring back at us without slowing down. (The restaurant was about 40 blocks away.) Our driver drove like multiple warrants had just been issued for his arrest, and he almost murdered two pedestrians who happened to be crossing an intersection at a red light.  He shook his fist at them and screamed, “Go on, then!  You are already dead!”  We chose to ignore this dark omen, tipping the driver to silence him and leaping from the still-moving vehicle once we arrived.

A skeleton wielding a cocktail glass greeted us in the lobby, as did a dapper courtesan in a vest and beribboned patent shoes.  The courtesan introduced himself as Martin Skupinski, and waved us into the spacious dining room, where more skeletons sat in various poses, their legs crossed and jaws dropped in toothy, lascivious grins.  Spider webs enshrouded the large chandelier and the room’s high windows.  Several of the other diners wore costumes or masquerade masks.  Pirates, gypsies, and zombies milled about as the wait staff cleared a space in the center of the wooden floor.

The spectacular began with a social dancing lesson, which, we quickly discerned, is a euphemism for “compulsory dancing with random strangers.”  Martin, a dashing emissary from the Land of Happy Dancers, led the exercise, pairing strangers with timely nods of his head.  I immediately started sweating.  I’m not a fan of formal dancing and I value my personal space; the thought of strange hands around my waist without a lubricating quaff of alcohol repelled me.  The shrieking in my mind only worsened when a woman named Cindy volunteered to be my “man.”

Cindy, a seasoned (and likely professional) dancer clad in a red tango gown, placed my left hand on her shoulder and her right hand on my waist, grasped my other hand in hers, and proceeded to box step her way right over my heart. Her heavily kohled eyes caught every misstep.  Skeleton feet prodded my rear end as she dragged me through the motions.  After three dances and at least one hundred iterations of “You walk the circle, you pause at three” and “Lower your arm to here,” Cindy dumped me on the dance floor, leaving me with nothing but a scornful assessment of my fox trotting abilities.

Freed from our bad romance, I seated myself at the table and tossed back an entire glass of wine in three deep gulps.  Then I drank another, whereupon I decided that it was high time to find mon cher, Jean Louis.  Busy with preparations and management of his wait staff, he greeted me in the lobby, though not as warmly as I had hoped.

I last saw Jean Louis about a year ago at his Park City restaurant, Jean Louis. The reception he gave me then would have tempted even the saintliest of women to abandon their husbands and abscond with him to his native Normandy.  My heart fell this time around.  His blue eyes didn’t twinkle in my direction.  He did not compliment my perfume, dimples, or sparkly eyes. My words evaporated.  No propositions were made.  I returned to the table and tried not to cry into my butternut squash soup.

*

I once knew someone who asserted that food quality corresponds directly to the cook’s mood.  I agree.  I also think a chef’s mood affects the dining experience, particularly when the chef prides himself on how he welcomes his customers.

Jean Louis worried me. Denim jeans hung loosely against his legs.  His eyes darted across the dance floor to assistants and the wait staff, transmitting instructions, prompting them to action.  He stalked between the serving station and the kitchen like a caged lion, carrying out tray after tray of food for each course of the night’s meals with the help of his staff.  He served the entire buffet alongside them.

I’d planned poorly, impetuously.  I was foolish.  It’s bad form to spring a proposition on an unsuspecting chef.  I’m sure there were many factors and circumstances beyond the glamour and glitz of the dining room. I would have liked to ask Jean Louis about them.  Productions of spectacular proportion require exhaustive planning and preparation.  A chef of Jean Louis’ reputation – he’s worked in a kitchen since he was twelve and has a distinguished professional pedigree – finds a way to pull it off without breaking the illusion of fluidity and ease.  I worried anyway.  The smile I’d hoped to see made far too few appearances that night.

*

Dazzling Martin tried valiantly to resuscitate my self-esteem during the dessert course.  With a mischievous smile, Martin twirled me around the dance floor, amiably bantering, for two pleasant minutes, and he, at least, dumped me with a flourish and a bow.  I was very grateful for his kindness.  Sadly, the internal wounds I had sustained earlier in the evening were too deep to overcome. Our driver’s prophecy proved true. Brutalized, beaten, and emotionally shanked, my self-esteem died shortly prior to midnight.

My crush on Jean Louis lingers, but it has been tempered by a splash of icy cream in the hot soup of my heart.  It will probably be another year until my friends and I save enough money to return to Caterina, but when we do, I hope that we’ll see a Jean Louis who smiles again.

***

The skinny:

Caterina is located at 2155 South Highland Drive in Salt Lake City, Utah. Private dining menus range from $35 – $65. The restaurant can be reached by phone at 1.801. 819. 7555 or found online at http://www.caterinaslc.com.

Though I was too distraught to register the quality of the prepared meals, my friends said they were very delicious.  They went back for seconds in many of the courses. Our waiters were courteous, and they provided meticulous service.  The $55 prix fixe menu, however, did not include water, for which they charged $8 per bottle. This seemed a bit excessive given that we were essentially serving our own food.

The restaurant’s décor was spirited and a little saucy – perfectly apropos to Halloween. My friends and I had a lot of fun taking pictures of skeletons, bottles of wine, and raven figurines.

I plan to return to Caterina on an ordinary night, perhaps one more auspicious for the making of propositions.

“Go on, then! You are already dead!”

Leave a comment

Filed under food, literature, travel, Jean Louis, Park City

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

October 4, 2012 · 10:23 am

Picture Perfect

Last Wednesday after work, I left the classroom, grabbed my camera, and drove up Power Plant Road into the mountains.  Power Plant Road is a common picnic location for town residents.  Giant evergreens flank the road, making it feel as if one has entered a fairy tale; rough, oversized picnic tables sprawl over lush grass, shaded by woodland.  Squirrels, conspicuously nonexistent in town, scamper from tree to tree, chattering and squealing.  Giant crested jays scissor through the pine trees; woodpeckers flit from branch to branch conducting their evolutionary carpentry.  Water rushes from the small, red brick power house that gives the road its name, filling the air with pleasant white noise, and a stream fed by last winter’s snow trickles just beyond the safety fence, winding through a grove of aspens.

For two or three fleeting autumn weeks, this place explodes with color. Aspen leaves flutter in syrupy gold; maples blush shocking crimson.  What once was green glitters like gems on nature’s shapely limbs. Acorns and snail shells litter the trails that lead into the mountains, where new snow has already fallen.  Cool air sweeps down the slopes.  A person has only to look around to realize that beauty exists in everything, from the smallest hat on an acorn’s head to the sweeping valley swathed in low clouds.

I went to Power Plant Road to photograph this beauty. I needed to remind myself that it is sometimes very pleasant to be alone; to drive the car in fits and starts, wheeling off the road with the blinkers flashing, stalking from one point of view to another trying to capture that perfect picture. Usually, I’m apologizing and begging to take just one more shot: perpetually the first person to enter the room and the last to leave, camera bag askew on my shoulder as I hastily put my camera away. My tiny digital SLR accompanies me everywhere.

My brother is the true photographer in the family.  I’m just an amateur enthusiast, but I find that photography helps me recollect the details I want to include in my writing.  It’s a hobby that costs practically nothing, but records the moments of my life in full, vivid detail, so that I can later accurately record them in my work.

Last Wednesday, the wind and the trees beckoned me.  I went gladly.  I stopped often.

Leave a comment

Filed under food, literature, travel

Tagged as , , , , ,