odd pairings

pairing food with the terrible events of the day who wrote this business plan good food doesn’t make things unterrible but that is precisely not the point anyway, to make the world go away, it’s not like a soufflé all air incorporated puffing up melting on tongue getting called ethereal disappearing can make everything else up and vanish along with it well maybe for a few seconds nor does it work to pin up a pretty picture of pretty chanterelles, leeks, yellow beans, paprika rice and fried egg as though it will paper over the pileup of unnerving shots from New York or Oakland, cops, batons, mayors, barricades, banks, or the Levant, tanks, sieges, protesters, dead, and clear the decks for the idea of a simple lunch in the messy world even though I could use some real lunch soon not just a picture of it “though I must say” I made this one very deliciously the chanterelles are abundant they are among the costlier facts on the ground at the moment but that was lunches ago, yesterday, paired with a powerful Zuccotti and served with a goopy reduction of smug post-mortems for a movement that has so far “failed to define a goal” that’s nonsense the point, or a goal if you must have one, is that things that have long been on so many minds are now on so many tongues and I am not talking about chanterelles or even soufflés well then what else is there for lunch today, can I interest you in a last of the season fresh shell bean minestrone paired with a fruit-forward new Italian technocracy that no one voted for, you don’t just stop eating because democracy has been reduced to such ridicule or because there is hunger in the world or because not everyone can afford a chanterelle but then one of the questions on the liberal table at high noon is how do you build an ethic into what you do or what you eat without resorting to some sort of 2% of profits for peace or locally-sourced chanterelles gimmick

abandon your post

it's intentional, of course it is, these posts, historically, have recipes worked into them, lists of ingredients at least, things you can whip together, as though anyone can cook though I'm not sure I believe that, and usually a photo but today the plate is empty the recipe is for disaster and there are too many ingredients to list:
the Aleppo of pepper and underground mystical souks, the Damascus of sweet diesel fumes and upscale coffee shops and everything seething below its surface we’re not going back there now it is a different place it is a stomping ground at least outside the gates but maybe that report I watched on “frontline” was all staged, part of the plot to drag down the nation to bring on outside intervention don’t sweat it son no one is firing up their jet fighter plane engines just yet the flyboys aren’t even striding out across the tarmac
that journalist had some big balls how did she get into Syria without raising suspicion those balls you can’t hide them in your jeans very easily all kidding aside give her a Pulitzer for laying it out, focused disoriented terrifying life in the Syrian underground opposition movement, context provided by a second report with history, experts, disturbing footage, though the plot is not thicker than blood and it’s easy to follow put yourself in the shoes of a beleaguered regime and it makes sense: If you write slogans against me I will show you the freedom you demand I will show you sweet release, If you draw pictures against me I will cut off your hands, If you sing against me I will rip out your throat, well, this is, in part, class warfare, I acknowledge that, so I will get someone else to do these things for me that’s what makes it classy, it’s pretty simple, pretty straightforward I think you see how it works
Heads will spin
Heads will roll
and we will hold on we will not cancel the gala because of some pesky complaints and criticisms it’s the gala if you can pay the price of the ticket then the fray that you are above is simply titillating you don’t have to lose any sleep over it its not like you are cutting out your own throat
the president, it is reported, is following the advice of his mother, who apparently is telling him, in so many words, have tongues cut out, have bodies riddled with holes, and if there are not enough ditches along the roadsides, have more ditches dug, the Hama rules are still in play they are the oldest play in the book all the talk of reform has always been a dumbshow we are sticking with what we know, the old playbook, which is better because it is the devil everyone knows
that’s like so Pinochet, so Guatemala, so East Timor so Colombiana
history that’s like so 20 minutes ago the whole world isn’t watching
2000 years ago I remember the photo-of-the-day on a website of “most-viewed” photos was a Palestinian boy shot it appeared by IDF in Gaza, his father clutching him behind a concrete barrier the next day the boy dropped to second place the latest cutest puppy in the world had plopped into the number one slot now over the ether out of the cloud I learn that in the ensuing years there has been a controversy swirling around this boy’s shooting, some claim the whole thing was staged, that p, l, and o are the first three letters of plot, but perhaps because of a global penchant for puppies such arguments don’t get much “like” I’d say thank goodness for staged puppies but dead Palestinians aren’t getting much traction either and years from now in 20 minutes when the creeping vines and mosses hang down thick into old roofless mainframe server facilities a few remaining humans will straggle in and after initial perplexity put two and two together ok this is where all the puppies and lol cats and dead people and thoughtful comment threads and invective and striking photo archives of the anti-capitalist movement were stored, my friends we have stumbled into a treasure trove of cultural artifacts too bad none of this equipment works anymore the throat of that singer in Syria that message sent by a forgotten regime it’s in here somewhere it still has something to sing to us from a few seconds or centuries ago, we were a troubled people back then smothering ourselves in poverty and excess if I had been alive and had had a throat it would have been choked with corrupted spammy urgent files maybe even one that read: dear leader, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes let alone your head what a mess it must be, if I may so casually project, I mean as an opthalmologist what is your view of the fact that one of the boys who wrote graffiti on the school building in Dera’a was caught and had an eye gouged out by the secret police, that’s classy, and if people run out of peepers there should be a brisk business in manicures the odds are ten to two you won’t lack for a living, then in the future in another 20 minutes, fingernails, tongues, hands, and eyeballs have surrounded the nation's capital shouting are you in there are you even in that big head of yours you can come out now

duck with oliver twist

early on there are big questions to answer for the day, Should we bomb Iran for its nuclear mendacity? or Is Herman Cain goin’ down, so to speak? or Breakfast: Oatmeal?

Violá!  Oatmeal! but that’s not oatmeal that’s last night’s little test dish, some duck breast, Hmong mustard greens, leek, chile, garlic, Japanese sweet potato fried in duck fat, seared persimmon, roasted grapes in duck jus it was pretty super tasty but this morning it hit me that the duck dish was easier to make than delicious, well-seasoned oatmeal getting the salt right is no mean feat that should be a quickfire dry-iced drag-out stadium-cooking challenge on every foodsport show in the nation the visiting venerable tatooed chef and tight-buttoned well-seasoned foodie judges get wet pants and spout praise “heavenly, you salted this oatmeal perfectly,” or, better, one knits a brow and vaguely expresses disappointment “I didn’t find the oatmeal particularly good” and the other blatantly insults “can’t you make a decent fucking oatmeal this isn’t even oliver twist-worthy” the logic of such spectacle is beyond me I can’t follow it in imagination let alone abbreviated on twitter “omg so and so just got dissed for oatmeal on foodfight usa!” this morning, however, I sent myself a tweet that read “I'm having duck breast for breakfast with oliver twist” now that's not beyond me and that settles breakfast next question please come on we're burnin' daylight 

measure in business days

 

tables and benches waiting for tops, then sitters and eaters, what time do you arrive, are you on your way, have you even left yet, the short ribs are braising, on low, the most slowest cooking there is they should take 10–14 business days, curiously the exact same amount of time for the tops to arrive assuming there are no bumps in the road and to get screwed into position that sounds like fun soon enough we will sit with beefy steam trickling up getting in our noses, “redolent with barnyard and black tea,” or we just have Turkish coffee and sweets though I can’t top these pistachio-filled numbers from the souk in Aleppo there's no way of telling when you will get here if you are coming from Aleppo let’s roll the TV in to watch tonight’s frontline about Syria we better figure out how to read the mud that’s left in the bottom of the little coffee cups that is as good a way as any to predict what is going to happen over there in this sad long ruthless time ruthlessness is not short-lived it lasts way longer than 10-14 business days and regime means “business” not “spring is just around the corner” you don’t need a phd
the mud can tell you that 

proposal with anchovy

rain, rare, welcome, and news lifting up not dampening spirits since no matter the story the coffee is hot and the help appears with the breakfast and it turns out the help is me what percent does that mean I am when I announce, “What we have for you this morning is a soft-boiled egg on a bed of caramelized cippolini onions with white anchovy, capers and coarse parsley on whole grain sourdough boule, lightly toasted with a delicate smear of butter and a scattering of fleur de sel. Enjoy.” and even though I just did I don’t like to say it that way, not that it’s inaccurate it could simply be more simply put, a little toast, a proposal with anchovy, as modest as “end corporate greed” well that’s never going to be handed to you on a platter followed by an imperative to relish it and I could also stand to never hear the word enjoy used after a description of a snack or of any other plate set before me as though only now that it has been described in telling detail is it possible to enjoy it and my enjoyment will be all the more with all the knowledge I now have of what provokes it but I really just want to eat the damn thing after all I made it for that purpose shut up I am trying to eat not to mention end corporate greed and read the reports that are coming in over the wire there’s a lot going on up in Oakland and Seattle and in downtown LA and downtown NY and everywhere all over the place, make sense of it all, or try, anyway, lift spirits, toast, anchovy, enjoy