Tag: food

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So Mike has been in town and yesterday he, I, his friend Karen, and Lolita took ourselves off to five hours of liquid satisfaction at Spa Castle. Bliss is a well placed jet of water. If you’re a New York resident or planning a visit, make your host take you there: it’s like a civilized water park with immaculate saunas and a decent food court thrown in. You can get baked eggs. One note though: bring a change of clothes, because you end up so clean that putting your old duds on at the end of it can be a bit of a let down.

We also had two fantastic meals: before we submerged ourselves we had a very civilized brunch with Thor at good. And on the way home we joined Jason and Sue at SriPraPhai (sorry Dan, I know we should have called you), which has expanded and remodeled and yet was still as delicious as ever. Then J was so very kind as to offer Mike and I a ride back to my place, where a not too disgruntled Lehigh awaited her evening walk. There was a little canoodling, and then the Sandman showed up for a three-way.

You could say I was satisfied.

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So yesterday Thor came over to help me contend with the forces of It-which-must-not-be-named (the laundry), which caused us to have many trips into the sunshine of my neighborhood. He was a valiant Wash Warrior. And then, at the very moment that we were bringing in the last folded loads, we heard the tinkle of the ice cream truck a block away. I’m not lying when I say that I saw six-year old Thor pop out when I assured him that yes the truck was coming and yes we could have ice cream. So determined was he that I walked the clothes upstairs while he waited in the street below, looking down the block to make sure the truck didn’t swerve around the corner at the last minute. When I came back downstairs Mister Softee was just pulling up and Thor bought me a cola float and himself the weird Spongebob treat he’s holding here. We sat out on the stoop and chatted with my neighbors for a bit while cooling down. Afterward, Thor reminded me of his touching entry where he wrote about how important the ice cream truck was for him growing up. Reading it again made me understand his determination, and reminded me of how lucky I am to know him.

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Pulled myself out of the house yesterday evening, to meet with Fred, and a couple of other folks for dinner. I suggested Gobo, which did not dissapoint. In fact, as I was heading home I reflected on how much better my body was feeling after a day full of headaches, allergies, bloaty-ness and lassitude. I guessing that in part it was because there were very few carbs in the meal. The standout dish was a nori wrapped tofu in a thai red curry. It had bite and an undercurrent of smokiness. As for the company, it was one of those evenings where as we talked more, we ran across yet another person that we knew in common. It was one of those cases where we were much in each others lives, even though we saw each other rarely. Perhaps the fact that I didn’t have any real responsibilities in the evening helped to lighten my mood.

Today I’m teaching at the center, and then getting together with some more friends. It’s funny how elastic time is: when I start doing little tasks, I have plenty of it: when I worry about tasks it flies by and I feel like there’s not time to do anything.

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I’m feeling down these past couple of days: cut off, out of it. And physically a bit wrong. The causes are multiple, but a big one is the fact that Monday was the anniversary of Phil’s death. Along with a couple of other dates in the year, it’s become a spot where I have to watch for my emotions to go into a nose dive. I’ve also been on a extended period of eating poorly and not moving as much as I’d like. Finding out what my tax debt for the past year is was not much of a help either.

Paradoxically, my solution in part to the eating issue is to cancel my weekly deliveries from Urban Organics. This is the second time I’ve used their service and both times I went itno it with the idea that I would cook at home more, and eat healthier. But the result has been the opposite: a box of vegetables arrives, and while there is stuff in there that I like, there’s stuff that I don’t like as well, If I don’t eat it right away it starts to spoil, and then I feel guilty about buying stuff from the market. Which means that I eat out more and still have the sneaking suspicion that I could purchase the same amount of food myself for less. So no more deliveries, and I go back to shopping more regularly.

The other kooky thing I’m doing to cheer myself up Is to remind myself of the groovy people I have been lucky enough to make contact with this past year, including the fellow mischief-maker above. It’s now been three times that I’ve had fun with him, and we have the fourth on the schedule. So creepy as I may feel, there are folks out there willing to knock some sense into me. And I’m grateful for that.

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Acid stomach – bleh.

I made the mistake of eating a green Belgian Waffle from the waffle truck at lunch. I should have backed away when the guy who made it asked me to let him know how it tasted. “You mean no one else has bought one of these?” I squeaked, surprised since it was already like 2:15 pm and green waffles were pretty much the only waffles he was offering. He said nothing and raised his eyebrows. Unfortunately I had already handed over my money by that point and the hot viridian waffle was already sitting in front of me on the truck’s counter. It looked like it was stuffed with chlorophyll. I took a bite and everything seemed normal, so I gave the thumbs up and walked on, eating the thing as I went. It was only after I had finished that the food coloring’s chemical aftertaste kicked in.

I can taste it still around the edges of my tongue, a flat chemical burn. I don’t even have the excuse of drunkenness to cover for my foolish impulse buy.

But maybe I can use my foolish impulse buy as an excuse for my future drunkenness: it’s going to take a lot of Guinness to wash this taste away.

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Today you visited me in the form of a cinnamon roll, disappointment. A roll that looked so rich and caramelized on the platter. A roll with promise.

But once bitten into you were stale, dry, crusty without being crispy, and the icing that coated your top was bland and hard. No yummy raisins lurked on your depths, only the ashen mockery of a morning treat.

You won this round disappointment, but but I vow that ultimate victory shall be mine.

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These are a few of the edition that I made as a benefit item for Location one. Last night they celebrated their tenth anniversary and the editions were a premium giveaway for the people how contributed the most.

I’m looking at my calendar and it’s filled with commitments for pieces for benefits. I’m trying to sort out what I need to do when. It’s a sad fact that the non profit art world runs on such contributions. For the most part I’m happy to do them when asked. I understand that without non profits, I’d have no career, and I believe in there being some way for artists to take control of their own methods of exhibition and value.

But deadlines are still deadlines, and it’s only now, after much rushing that I’m sitting down to get things straight. I haven’t been inclined to post here for a while, and in fact have missed out on much of the “March Question Month” stuff. I may not do it, given that I’ve just spent close to six hours sorting through my email inbox, and there’s more than enough stuff that I need to respond to there. Taking on another set of exchanges is probably not the best thing for me to do right now.

Al in all, my news is pretty good right now: the visit to LA allowed me to connect with friends both long-time and previously virtual. Last night I heard something about the work that if it should come to fruition, would be a remarkable step forward. The only downside to my recent life is that all of my rushing about has lead to little exercise and poor even slightly compulsive eating. I’m feeling distinctly unhealthy.

Here’s a hint: I sometimes backdate posts, especially photo posts. If you care to, you might want to look at this blog off of your friends page, and see what else has been going on.

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…I think. My shipment of ThinMints arrived today, and I’ve been spreading them around the office as fast as I can, because otherwise I’m going to eat them all right now. As it is I’ve already had five! Stop me before I nosh again…

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Balancing working and socializing. Managed to locate a BBQ place on H street whose hot sauce reminded me of the sauce I used to adore at Smokey’s on Amsterdam Avenue.

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In no particular order:

The first truly satisfying episode of Top Chef this season aired last night. Pouty, self-styled intellectual gets sent home, goofball gets the win, Eurotrash gets slapped around, and some of the food made me hungry.

Today’s lunch: Pesto Chicken salad wrap from deli on 43rd, supposed to have tomato, cucumber and avocado. But once I check it back at the office, I find universal green. Where are my tomatoes? Wrap is passable without them, but still. Banana provides some solace, eaten with multivitamin.

Said banana was bought at Grace Building news agent’s (nervous greedy checking tells me that the Mega Jackpot for tomorrow is 40 million, too low for me to play) along with the latest New York Review of Books. Julian Bell writes on Watteau

Thus I am reminded of the death of John Updike; It says something about my LJ friends list that the passing of Eartha Kitt garnered far more notice; I certainly felt a deeper regret when I heard she died. Updike remains for me one of those indigestible lumps of American culture that always seems to be standing in the way of some other, more interesting activity. I think his art criticism to be sensible and well made, but reading his novels was an experience that I found similar to having to watch sports on TV with my dad. There was clear evidence that the activity mattered to many people, but I could never work up the enthusiasm for it.

Here is a fascinating post on the authority of cultural institutions in the current web climate.

And that white stuff that fell from the sky over Brooklyn a couple of days ago? This picture is what it looks like this morning.

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I’ve decided to start mirroring my lj here.

Oh and I bought a new SD card, so I could celebrate my greasy friend, the whole wheat donut.

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There are times when I feel like I could just content myself with living on burritos for the rest of my life.

Made correctly, they are bite after bite of pure satisfaction. I’m so happy that I lived in San Fransisco, so I know what good burritos are. If I was getting gaymarried, I’d so be going out for El Toro for carnitas supreme burritos afterwards.

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Back from Dunkin Donuts where I went for a box of munchkins (mistakenly called “nibblers” in a previous post – I watch too much Futurama) for my office mates and an extra chocolate frosted donut for myself, which was excellent. Thank god this afternoon’s dessert alert didn’t progress past a code orange!

By the way, I spent this weekend depressed and freaked out, la-la.

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…. of stale, stale cake. All set to chow down on a hunk of carrot cake, bite one tells the sad tale: grainy, stiff, flavorless. A second bite is no better; it’s not just the outside edge, it’s pretty much the whole thing, I try just eating the creamcheese frosting and taste the flavors of stale refrigerator air. So into the garbage it goes and with it a small bit of illusury luxury.
Now how will I punctuate my afternoon?

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…about not posting enough. The past week has provided two states of being: feeling ill, thus too limp to reflect and type or doing stuff, in which case there is no time to type. The result? A week slips by with nothing. So now finally some time is wrested from the job, which allows for a quick update. here’s some of what’s been happening:
1. I’ve attended three plays Lee Bruer’s new production of “A Doll’s House”, Cabaret, Wonderful Town. All through the great graciousness of my friends who offered me tickets.
2. I’ve spent weekend in bed convulsed by coughing to the extent that I thought I had ripped a muscle.
3. I haven’t played any Pikmin.
4. I purchased two bookshelves at Crate and Barrel.
5. I watched the people’s court.
6. I compiled a list of people I needed to contact, calls I needed to return, projects I needed to nudge forward…and despaired.
7. I had a number of exchanges and attempted to apologize for my boorish behavior.
8. I organized a still life of t-shirts and ribbons in the back room of my gallery so that it could be photographed for an ad in artforum.
9. I’ve eaten BBQ ribs on several occasions.
10. I’ve drawn.
11. I’ve spoken to my therapist about submissiveness.
12. A friend graciously came by and fixed the desktop machine, if by “fix” one means walking me though another clean install.
13. The buzzing, counfounding strains of NPR have woken me every morning, and the self reflexiveness of Adult Swim has droned me to sleep each night.
14. I’ve fretted about my filing system, and the extreme amout of facial hair left around my wash basin.
15. My family hasn’t called, nor have I called them.
16. I have found myself unable to decide between a dead or fake christmas tree.

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I was going to write all about this but Thor ( http://www.livejournal.com/users/thornyc ) has done a much better job than I could have. Suffice to say I was at my first Beefsteak, and for those of you who know me , you can imagine how I felt to be at an event where waiters bring endless platters of food, that you are encouraged to wolf down using your hands. Everything served was admirable. To top it off, Thor and I were drunkely mistaken for brothers who were professional wrestlers. This by a guy who actually had wrestled in college and who was so attractive that I would have said that I was secretary of state had he wanted me to. As you can imagine testosterone ran high in the room. The one thing that irked me was the way that a number of attendees wouldn’t shut up for a second during our hosts’ brief and jovial remarks. It smacked to me of the blase, “I’m too important for any place I find myself” vibe that is the worst aspect of New Yorkers. I mean, if you were coming to an event like this, then get into the spirit of it, or don’t come. Yes I shoveled beef into my face with my hands. Towards the end of the evening, stuffed with meat and flushed with beer, I actually had to stop after a single bite of chocolate cake. It was a ludicrus, privileged, american moment that left me exhilerated and abashed.
Afterwards, the misty walk down Fifth Avenue reminded me of late nights in San Francisco, and also of the thing that I love about New York: the feeling that one is a tiny part of it, and yet the owner of it.

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Which means that there will be no thimble full of tropicana with my breakfast special at the diner. Toomey’s Diner that is, a block and a half away and my local hangout. They make a fantastic plate of short ribs, and somtimes the french toast is all I could ever wish for. And I get to go in and yack with the other locals, which is one of the things that reassures me that I’m a New Yorker at heart. It’s one of the things that I forget about when I’m weaving my elaborate “gonna live in a self built shack in the woods upstate” fantasies: I like being the jovial fat guy in the booth reading Newday and The Sun and bantering with the staff (Iris, Shane and Shanda) and the owner (Chris, who, truth be told, I have a bit of a crush on)
And I have to go pick up the laundry.