Recipes for Trouble

The first time I visited New York, I was seven years old.

I was with my family. I was wearing a pink dress. I remember Broadway, and the Statue of Liberty and The Empire State Building. But the one, most spectacular, magical memory that remains from that short trip actually had to do with food.

I discovered the Automat. a fast food restaurant comprised entirely of vending machines. But what vending machines they were! Put a dime, or a quarter in a slot, and a towering machine with different cubicles would whir and open the door I’d chosen…to reveal a piece of pie on a plate, or a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

Automat, by Dennis Hopper, 1927

It was so modern, so…Jetson’s!

From that moment on, New York was and is a place I go to to find out what’s new - in art, in theatre, and in food…But I also go to find what’s old….New York is part of my pop culture history, from King Kong to Sex in the City.

I’m going to New York this weekend!

For four days I’ll be looking at art (Kara Walker at the Whitney, The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum of Art), shopping (the Canadian dollar is holding its own, more-or-less), walking, looking, listening to music and…eating!

What’s your favourite place to eat under $50, in NYC? Under $10? Best pastry/bagels/ croissant? Best Thai or Chinese? Most beloved coffee shop? What is your favourite thing to do in NYC, period?

Ann, from A Chicken in Every Granny Cart sent me a generously detailed email about her favs. So now, Beast, Intoteca, and Clinton St Baking Company are on my list…

I’ve never been a foodie in New York. It’s always been about the art, the underground feminist and queer cultures, the films and, well, OK, the kasha varnishkes. It’s still about all that, but now, as my friend The Feminist Lawyer put it, there is this other, secret world…the world of food.

Send me your recs!

And check back to read about my adventures.

I hear there’s a retro Automat in the East Village.

N an I are chatting aimiably, having accidentally met in a movie lineup. In the last few years we’ve run into each other at a few media studies conferences. As the line slowly nudges forward we cover the usual topics: academic gossip, films we’ve seen, current projects.

“It’s amazing, how many things you do,” says N. She’s a film theorist, and a junior academic, like me. I’ve sometimes found her a bit standoffish, but there’s something tough and rebellious in her, that I like. It’s contrasted with something else in her - vulnerability? fear? - a flavour I can’t quite identify; it draws me in.

We’ve both recently been offered tenure-track university gigs. It’s serendipitious: how often do you run into someone living through the same set of life-changes as you? I’m eager to break through the fog of jealousy and half-remembered resentment that clog so many interactions with artists and academics. I’m excited to speak as equals.

But an amused smirk tugs at the corners of her mouth. I’ve been reminiscing about a film I screened at this same cinema a year ago.

What’ so funny?” I ask.

“Well, it’s just - you do so many different things. I just can’t get over it.”

I realize she’s bestowing the faintest of praise on me: I can do a lot of things. It’s like I’m a well-trained circus monkey. Well, I get that a lot. I write books, make films, and teach. Some people find that a bit much. She’s younger than me, by at least ten years. She’s probably just feeling insecure.

“Oh I think it’s just that I work in a lot of different genres,” I say, sounding huffy, not meaning to.

N winces, almost imperceptibely. “No. You. Really. Do. Do a lot of things. It’s. Uncanny.”

Trying to make sense of this, I mentally rummage through what I remember of Freud’s essay, “The Uncanny”, that I once read in school. It’s an essay about dreams and of dream-like but real situations, like, for example, seeing a double, or someone who reminds you of you - on the street. You start to doubt your own self: who are you? Yourself, or this other? According to Freud, moments like that make you feel mortal, aware of the frailty of your own existence. Too familiar becomes too strange.

Maybe my artistic productivity reminds her of something about herself. I’ll probably never know what - a film she wanted to make? A sense of beauty or artistry she’s grappling for in her own theoretical work?

She won’t reveal it anytime soon. Her eyes cloud over. I can’t think of anything more to say. We turn away from each other - our eager recognition has dissipated. We stare blankly towards the doors of the cinema.

I get my ticket ready for the bored, black-haired, kohl-eyed girl at the cinema door. I watch N disappear into the lobby.

I hope she finds the art she’s looking for.

It’s the season of lights.

Lights on houses, lights on trees. Lights on Chanukah candles.

My friend the Anti-Poverty Organizer and I often spend at least part of Chanukah together. I love how solemnly she lights the menorah, and how irreverent she is about ritual. How she likes to mix things up and enjoys nothing better than to help me decorate my Christmas tree, irony minging with delight.

I’m not Jewish, but I grew up with knishes, latkes, kasha, borscht, chicken soup, gefilte fish, rugaleh, challah, and Ukrainian colloquialisms identical to Yiddish, like shmata and tshotscke. We share culture and history with the Jews, in complex and unequal ways. My love of so many things Jewish is mixed with the shame I feel for the anti-Semitism embedded in the history of my culture. I see myself as an ally, not a wannabee. Still, at this time of year, when I put up a Happy Hanukah banner at my workplace in reaction to the huge Christmas tree; when I travel miles to the Jewish neighbourhood to search for knishes; when I clip latke recipes out of paper and magazines…The Anti-Poverty organizer sighs ruefully: You. Are. Such. A. Wannabee. she says.

It gets worse. When taxi drivers and store clerks wish me Merry Christmas, I respond by telling them I’m Jewish. I do it so they’ll think twice about the rigid hegemony of the season. But it just makes The Anti-Poverty Organizer roll her eyes.

And here’s another thing. When I was a kid, my family used to celebrate Christmas on January 6, according to an older (way older) Julian calendar. December 25 would find us watching TV, eating Chinese food, going to movies. And trying to avoid people who would wish us Merry Christmas. Sound familiar?

But the love of light…It’s universal. From my dour Portuguese neighbour who installs a whimsical lit-up fairyland of deer, Santas and elves in his front yard, to my Jewish colleague who has strung Christmas lights all along the bookshelves of his office…we are all of us turning towards the light.

Happy first day of Chanukah.

December arrived with glowing white drifts of snow.

December arrived with a frenetic bout of cooking and baking (Harried, crazy November was all about takeout, and eating out, and strangely bland organic frozen foods).

December arrived with a pizza made by yours truly and The Guitar Player. Nothing fancy, unless you think three cheeses is fancy (which I do). We’re trying to keep things simpler. We’re trying to make it not so much about the food. We’re trying to have evenings full of grace. We’re trying.

December arrived with a huge cake, that I made for The Gay Schoolteacher. It was his 50th birthday. I met him in high school, thirty five years ago! He’s a sweet, brilliant, and very funny man. I wanted him to have a birthday cake made with love.

The cake was nothing fancy, but it took two whole days to shop for, make, and decorate. By the time I was done, I was too exhausted to take a picture. Still, I was particularly proud of what I wrote on the cake, in torturous scrawls of gluey yellow fake icing: To Sir With Love.

December arrived, marking the end of my first semester as a full-time prof. How did I do it? There were sleepless nights; days choked with anxiety. There were charming students, diffident students, there were some supportive colleagues and friends. There was Dancing With the Stars and long-distance phonecalls and bleary days and nights of course prep and marking.

To celebrate the end of term, I bought some lovely cheeses: Sauvagne, from Quebec; Stilton; and something tangy with apricots. We drank a California merlot, nibbled on cheese, and slowly, very slowly, made a three-cheese pizza with grilled vegetables.

December arrived with the baking of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

December arrived with dog rolling in the snow drifts.

With plans to go to New York for a holiday.

With relief and expectation and a wise kind of innocence.

December. May it be full of grace.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

I cup butter
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 tspn baking soda
½ cup boiling water
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten
1¾ cups flour
½ tspn salt
2 cups quick oats
½ cup dried coconut
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Cream the butter, then blend in the sugar until well mixed. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water and add it to the butter-sugar mixture, followed by the vanilla and the egg. Stir together the dry ingredients, then add them slowly to the creamed mixture. Mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips. Form small balls, place on a greased cookie sheet, flatten with a fork, and bake for twelve to fifteen minutes.

You can also freeze all or part of this batter and use, defrosted, when desired.

This makes about two dozen cookies.