I read a review of the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human in the NYRB. As usual the article summarized much of the book’s ideas. The author, Richard Wrangham, argues that the eating of cooked food by early protohumans was, to a large and unacknowledged extent, what enabled them to walk upright, get brainier, become more social and even to verbalize. In a nutshell, he says that since cooked food allows a more efficient transfer and absorption of nutrients than raw food does, the digestive track could evolve into a smaller-sized part of the animal (raw foods require large stomachs and long digestion), which then allowed the little guys to begin to stand up more, as their bellies were smaller. It also enabled the brain to evolve into a larger organ, as large brains require a lot of nutrition only available to hominids by eating cooked food. I’m beginning to see how some of these factors converged in ways that were lucky for us.
Cooking, Wrangham claims, necessitated that some part of the household guard the hearth (and children), and it also meant that groups larger than a single family were more practical. It’s been argued by others that the increased social interactions of early humans were what formed many of the brain’s pathways that determine how we behave and get along, or don’t get along. These new complex social structures also required larger brain capacities, as others have suggested… and both allowed and demanded the evolution of language to help mediate some of that social drama.
Wrangham also says that once we started eating cooked food, our mouths and jaws no longer had to be equipped mainly for tearing, ripping and intense prolonged grinding… which left early mouths available for other purposes — vocalizing… and maybe singing, too?
It’s an amazing argument — to tie all these crucial protohuman attributes to cooking. And equally interesting is how each attribute facilitated the others — all seemed to be interdependent.
Needless to say, Wrangham doesn’t buy into the relatively recent raw food movement — which claims that we humans are more naturally engineered for eating uncooked food, which is therefore presumed by adherents of this movement to be better for us. The assumption there is that early man and woman didn’t cook. Wrangham says that if they didn’t cook they wouldn’t have survived, and could never have evolved into us, as cooked food is so much more efficient at delivering nutrients. He says that standing and talking would never have happened on a diet of raw foods.
Sufficiently caffeinated from the morning’s bus coffee, Mark and I hopped on bikes and rode downhill to the seaside hotel in Leith. Fed, showered and shaved I ride back into town, noting the interesting shop fronts along the way.
Later I meet up with Hungarian-American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth and his family at the Talbot Rice Gallery, where he has an installation. Right now the family is living in Roma, which must be interesting — a lovely city, but I imagine it’s a bit hard getting things done and running an efficient organization out of a southern Italian town.
His show consists of quotes from Nietzsche and doodles by Darwin, interspersed and rendered in white neon. One has to “read” the exhibition. It’s presented in a room that was one of the studies where Darwin worked; this one originally contained thousands of stuffed birds. The frilly Victorian details add a nice touch; the columns along the walls serve to break up the texts at irregular intervals, making reading a bit difficult. Cleverly, Joseph arranged that the text fits perfectly, making a circle around the entire room and its little balcony. The Nietzsche quotes form an argument that art and creativity are the highest forms of philosophy… the Darwin doodles look like proto-genealogical trees, as if his hand was unconsciously figuring out how evolution worked.
Next door is a show by Jane and Louise Wilson based around some stuff they found in Stanley Kubrick’s archives. Here is an image from the Kubrick archive site:
Apparently he’d planned to make a film about a Polish-Jewish woman who passed herself off as a Catholic in order to save her family. The film was never shot, but a lot of screen tests with a young actress, and much location scouting, were done.
The Wilsons’ video shows the now slightly older actress re-enacting some of the earlier screen tests and poses, with her voice-over added. In another room were some of Kubrick’s location shots, which, to me, were truly bizarre. Like anthropologists or archaeologists he photographed banal details (windows, doorways, corners of rooms and stairways), always with a striped yardstick in the picture, sometimes held by an assistant. (The inches were alternately painted black or white, so they could be easily counted in these 8 x 10 prints — much easier than trying to see the little gradations on a regular yardstick.) As with archaeological and dinosaur dig photos, these give an accurate sense of scale — critical when one is looking at a photo of a fossilized bone fragment or a piece of partly buried pottery, but a normal Polish room interior? It seems a bit obsessive — a clue to Kubrick’s working method — and maybe that’s the point of the Wilsons’ inclusion and interest in these.
I wonder how many unfinished projects Kubrick had on the go? Another one was A.I., the film about a robot boy looking for love, which was eventually directed by Spielberg. Apparently the original story and script was a Kubrick project, and completing it was Spielberg’s way of making homage.
I meet the Kosuths at the Café Royal, where Joseph claims Princess Anne used to meet her lovers. It’s a baroque pub and café tucked away in an alley behind busy Princes Street, so it does seem plausible — though the place is too crowded for secret assignations these days. I have local food: black pudding (blood sausage) followed by local oysters. The food is gastropub fare nowadays — the black pudding isn’t wallowing in grease as it might be in a more typical Scottish café. Here there are dainty little greens sprinkled around it.
While on tour in Italy a few weeks ago, our new friend Giorgio invited us to lunch at a restaurant in Modena, where we were playing in a beautiful old theater.
Little did we know this would be a culinary experience of a lifetime. The restaurant, Osteria Francescana, had been voted number 13 of S.Pellegrino’s top 50 restaurants in the world just the day before — which also made it the top restaurant in Italy. That’s saying something.
The whole band was invited to this incredible lunch, which featured Lambrusco, an amazing sparkling red wine. Sometimes touring isn’t so bad… well, actually, this tour has been a lot of fun so far. Massimo, the chef, uses local Emilia-Romagna ingredients, processed with the techniques of molecular gastronomy. This region is famous for its Parmesan cheese (as well as its balsamic vinegar), so one memorable dish had the cheese prepared 4 or 5 different ways — as a foam, a pudding, a sauce and a solid. It was a carnival ride for the mouth. There was also a dish that featured another specialty of the region, bologna, turned into something that looked like a dollop of whippy ice cream, speckled pink. Haute hillbilly food.
I glanced at the 50 best list online and saw that I had been to a small number of these establishments. A couple of them in NY, one in London and one in San Francisco. Yes, the food at all of them was amazing, surprising and innovative. But most of the winners are fairly “haute”… and while not necessarily fussy, they’re not what you would call casual. None are cheap (duh). Some are slightly more relaxed than others and forgo the elaborate serving rituals. Some do less as far as presenting food as geometrically arranged art objects. But in general these establishments are of a type. They are the kinds of places that stay more or less within a given range.
The chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adrià (whose restaurant was voted best in the world five times, including this year), was invited to participate in documenta in 2007, the curated art event held in Germany every few years. I don’t think they went so far as to christen his dishes "works of art" — but why not? I’ve never eaten there, but I have perused one of the large art books he publishes, illustrating the dishes and techniques invented over the preceding years. It’s art, all right — edible and ephemeral — I don’t know what else you’d call it.
After all that, I wondered, who decides that the "best" is all more or less of a related type? It’s almost always true, isn’t it — not just for food, but books, films, you name it.
While C and I were wandering around Barrio Alto in Lisboa a few days after the amazing meal in Modena, we stopped to eat at a nondescript lunch counter filled with locals on their lunch break. One outside window looked on to a flat grill, typical of any diner — though on this one, fish were grilling.
By the cash register, under the counter where the donuts might be in a NY diner, there was an array of fresh merluza, dorada and some of the famous Portuguese sardines. The special of the day was octopus stew, so we ordered that along with a couple of draft beers, and a fish. (These came with simple salads.) Here’s the point: the fish, simply grilled and served with olive oil and lemon, was one of the best I’d tasted in a while. The stews weren’t bad either. The beer was cold and delicious. I’d rate the place, on the strength of the fish alone, as one of the best I’ve eaten at — but of course the S.Pellegrino judges won’t give it a glance.
In Melbourne, Australia C and I joined some friends at Cumulus — sort of an unpretentious foodie lunch place.
We sat on stools and had plates to share. Here is the cauliflower, roasted with pine nuts on a bed of goat’s curd with fresh herbs, that had a surprising mix of flavors.
In Kyoto, Noriko Fuku arranged for us all to dine at a place near the university where she teaches. It’s not a highfalutin kaiseki place — the expense account restaurants that offer set menus of a series of tiny, super-refined dishes — but was maybe just as delicious. Here is an appetizer of preserved fish eggs in a slightly thick broth.
In Wellington, NZ their famous green-lipped mussels could be ordered almost anywhere — and they were both larger and more succulent than any of the ones imported to fancy NY restaurants. This plateful was from the local brewpub/restaurant.
C and I went to a fancier seafood restaurant for lunch one afternoon, Martin Bosley’s. Quite a bit fussier than the brewpub — which is saying something for NZ. Here is an example of some clam porn.
When the dishes are as fresh as they were at these places, sometimes there isn’t really any point in making the presentation or preparation too complicated or fancy — it would merely cover up the actual taste of the item.
There are New Yorkers (and Italians) who rate certain pizza places as favorites — and that doesn’t mean the pizza is arranged in a tower, foamed, frozen or gelled. Massimo from Osteria Francescana often goes out for pizza at the end of the day. Even high-end chefs love simple, fresh food that’s well made. In Japan there are fierce discussions over which soba and ramen joints are “za besto.” One could easily say that some of those places also qualify as being “best in the world,” but they’re not in the running for the S.Pellegrino list. One would need a huge number of categories in order to list all these places.
Maybe that’s OK. Maybe we have to take all these ratings and lists with a grain of salt (oops), or at least accept that there’s some implicit category and limitation being discussed in each one that’s not always mentioned outright. Everybody knows that certain genres of film will never be nominated for Oscars, and the books that win prizes are equally of a type — complex, weighty and “important.” Every “best of” list may be the best within a limited category, but not simply the “best” in all categories. We’re supposed to know, for example, that Oscar-winning films are often serious, and therefore somehow morally uplifting, which doesn’t always mean feel-good. Who determines what is morally uplifting, well… that’s another question.
At Johnny’s suggestion, three of us took a local commuter train 25 minutes east to Howth, a village at the narrow neck of a bulbous peninsula on the seaside. There was a market in the town parking lot with local Irish breads and cheeses and a whole pig on a spit — though by the time we got there, only the head and bones were left. Further on, a path leads around the perimeter of the peninsula, along some spectacular windswept and barren cliffs. When the sun came out, it was gorgeous.
Back in the village, we stopped for Dublin Bay oysters and prawns — both amazingly fresh. I don’t know if I’ve ever had oysters as fresh; in NA restaurants, they’re usually flown in from somewhere — with the exception of Seattle and Vancouver.
In the Beginning Was the Word Image
The next day, at Keith’s suggestion, I went to view the Book of Kells at Trinity College. The book itself was fairly underwhelming — the vellum (calfskin) pages had yellowed somewhat, and those on view were partially transparent. The blown up reproductions on the walls were easier to marvel at, and much more engaging. Wall texts detailed the book’s history: the monastery on the barren and windswept island of Iona, off the Scottish coast, where it was created; the repeated sacking and burning of the monastery by the Danes (Vikings); and how the book was always sequestered and saved.
Some of the symbolism in the elaborate illuminations was explained — for example, the intricate mesh of snakes covering many Celtic objects typically represents rebirth, as snakes do in many cultures, because they shed their skins.
But even with the various wall texts, diagrams and maps, something — some vital piece of the information puzzle — seemed to be missing. Why does this book (and some others from the same period) look both so Arabic and Pagan to our eyes? To us, it looks as if the Christian “content” is merely a clever way to distract us from the real mystical shit hidden in all those intricate and labyrinthine illuminations. Sounds a bit Da Vinci Code, eh? I suspect that the mystery-in-plain-sight quality is part of the power and attraction of this “book.” “Book” in quotes, because it was always less a book than a sacred object, displayed on the altar on a specially constructed stand rather than read from. It seems the “information” it carries is not just in the text… though the “word” is acknowledged to be a powerful force. One thinks of the passages in the Bible — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” — and then the bit where God names things. When something is named, and therefore placed in a separate conceptual box and isolated from everything else around it, that power is immense. It allows us to both think abstractly about things and people, and to intellectually manipulate them when they’re not right in front of us — even if they exist somewhere in the future.
These illuminated books seem to celebrate the letter and the word while at the same time rendering them completely meaningless — mere shapes overwhelmed by the deep psychological power of Pagan symbolism.
Up some stairs, above the Chubb Insurance Company security case that encloses the book, is the Long Room library... there are a lot of words in this room.
It’s the middle of winter and it’s a gorgeous day — jacket weather, sunny. I’ve done the bike ride around Stanley Park before, so this time I bike to the Art Gallery of BC to see a new show of BC artists. Some fun stuff, like an artist who made fake elevator doors, but almost as interesting was the amazing bird poop splatter in the top of the rotunda.
There was also a nice audio piece — outside the museum entrance, hidden speakers playing the sound of English starlings from a tree.
I then visit a museum devoted to the world of Bill Reid, an artist and activist who passed away in 1998. His dad was of European descent and his mom was from Haida Gwaii — she was Haida, one of the Northwest Indian or First Nation tribes on the west coast of North America. He made a huge sculpture dedicated to her, and that place, called “The Spirit of Haida Gwaii.”
An image of this sculpture is on the Canadian $20 note. An old English lady is on the front. In the many photos of Bill in the museum, it seemed he looked pretty much like a typical Canadian of European descent, but he declared himself Haida and all his work owes a huge debt to the traditional work of those peoples. It’s a curious thing for me to try and wrap my head around. Reid’s work is somewhat contemporary — the material of the sculpture is untraditional — and he also made prints and lithographs. But what is curious to me is that the images look like, or are very closely related to, those typically seen in and on Northwest Coast tribal lodges that date back a century or more. He must have made a conscious decision to become part of a long lineage of imagery and mythology.
I suspect that the Haida view of art is different from the European view that dominates most museums. Reid worked using styles, images, characters and mythologies that were not his alone, but part of the long history of his people. Though he contemporizes the work by pulling the imagery into newer materials and contexts, he leaves very much of the traditional imagery intact — like an artisan working as an apprentice in a renaissance workshop. From a European standpoint, his work lies outside “official” art history — but he would say he’s part of a longer, deeper history.
Reid became an activist, helping to prevent logging and deforestation of Haida lands. He constructed an elaborate model of a traditional village that is incredible — a giant diorama of decorated lodges, side by side, interspersed with a myriad of totem and other poles. The whole village appears like one giant ritual object, or a living symbolic sculpture, facing the nurturing sea.
I then rode over to North Vancouver, over a bridge with a great view of the town, and a range of snow-capped peaks in the background. I’d been told by a friend in Seattle about a great Indian restaurant called Vij’s. Vij’s was only open for dinner (and I’ve got a show to do) but their next-door café Rangoli was open for lunch. It was worth the trip. I had a drink of something called Jal Jeera, a mixture of tamarind and cumin. I’d never tasted anything in the world like that combination before. I saw other people’s dishes arriving and they all looked incredible. I settled on the goat curry (how often do you see that on the menu?), which was delicious but not so different from flavors I’d had before — possibly just better, fresher.
There was a rack of coolers over by the register with pre-made boil-in-a-bag meals, so I bought a grocery bag’s full to divide among the buses for our long ride to Edmonton tonight. This restaurant is no local secret — Mark Bittman and Jamie Oliver have raved about it.
Our show, in the 3000-seat Queen Elizabeth Theatre (that old English lady again), went very well. I noticed a little old lady, in an usherette/security uniform, trying to get people to stop dancing — or at least stay in their seats — but after the 4th song she gave up. After that there was no stopping the crowd — they were dancing almost the entire rest of the set.
After the show, I was told that the mayor was backstage. Keith, Mauro and I hauled a bucket of beers and wine into the green room, where the guests were waiting. The mayor, Gregor Robertson, and his wife Amy chatted with most of us, and it turned out they had arrived on bikes! At one point they seemed slightly antsy, so as an out I offered that they probably had to get going, but they hung around — and after a bit, we all went to a nearby bar-rest for local wine and mussels. I chatted with Robertson about my own bike rides around Vancouver, and how NYC has made great strides in becoming more bike-friendly. I mentioned the efforts of Enrique Peñalosa, Janette Sadik-Kahn and Jan Gehl in transforming some cities into more livable places.
Robertson said that there has been a radical transformation of the land and cityscape in a generation. Vancouver is no longer a small city, and having seen all the new condos and office buildings here, I wondered aloud if developers were simply unstoppable; if the city might lose some of its charm and character; that the human scale of the city will be lost if profit is left as the prime force determining urban texture. In Peñalosa’s terms this means that people with lots of money determine how everyone else lives, and what kind of city we all live in — which, he feels, is undemocratic.
Robertson responded,
“I don't really see them as unstoppable. I'm doing the aikido thing, moving that drive for building and profit into the most positive outcome possible for the community. Not a simple thing. But my hopes are high.”
He continued that the development industry in Vancouver has built lots of great stuff, and has accepted the terms and conditions requiring large whacks of community amenities (parks, childcare, public art, community centers, etc.). He claimed that the Vancouver formula is far better for the community than almost any other city’s, which has made for some very livable urban hoods.
“I'm encouraging projects with affordable and rental housing, and ensuring we keep pushing the leading green building standards we have. And I’m very much open for business.”
Being a New Yorker, maybe I’m sadly more cynical. In spite of how well things are going in New York, the balance is always precarious. I offered that the economic downturn might slow development a bit, and turn out to be an opportunity for all folks, wealthy and less wealthy, to reassess what kind of town they want to live in and what kind of life they want — given the unexpected (for some) break in the years of relentless acquisition and striving. “Given a second to think about it, would people really choose to live in vertical ‘rabbit hutches’?” I said, glancing out the window at a new condo tower with only a few lights on. “Well-appointed rabbit hutches,” Robertson replied. Change is not always a bad thing; I wouldn’t claim that all development is evil. But maybe with some safeguards in place, we might save that which makes a city livable — and that seems to be the tack that Robertson is taking.
Being only a visitor, my impressions are of the surface, and probably influenced by the mess that many US cities are in. Judging from their health care industry, maybe the Canadians have more perspective.
Robertson chatted with Paul and mentioned the gang problem that Vancouver is dealing with. Paul suggested, semi-seriously, that the mayor might watch some episodes of The Wire.
We said good night, I folded up my bike, and the drivers began the long haul to Edmonton. A little before 8am, I got out of my bunk to pee and glanced at the spectacular scenery outside. I never went back to bed. Here is the road around Lake Louise, near some hot springs — steam rose off the water and covered the road.
Singapore, meanwhile, isn’t quite as bad as HK for cycling. As in Japan, urban cyclists ride on the sidewalks, which aren’t that busy with peds except in certain areas. There are no dedicated bike lanes, but we do all right. The night we arrive, C and I head out to get something to eat. We stop at the Hindu section of town on the way to dinner.
The Hindu area, called Little India, is mostly lined with sari and jewelry shops, but in the middle of it all is a typical Hindu temple, with gaudy polychrome sculptures of Ganesh, Shiva and a host of others. We take off our shoes and wander in with all the others, who are there for their evening prayers and pujas. It’s a cacophony — an invisible voice sings along with a tambura drone as people move from one shrine to the next. Some hold cups of chai, and others make offerings and pour oil over the statues or light incense. There’s a grotesque Kali with a skull and blood dripping from her teeth. On the way out I nearly trip over the singer, who is casually sitting on the floor, mic in hand. An assistant guards a little box that electronically produces an endless tambura drone, and feeds it into a tiny amp along with the singer’s voice.
On a previous trip to Singapore, I arrived during Thaipusam, a Tamil Hindu festival during which devotees in trance pierce their bodies with metal rods — through their cheeks and elsewhere. Some hung limes from their chests using little hooks embedded in their flesh, while others carried elaborate apparatuses overhead, supported by rods and poles that dug into their skin.
There was no blood. Not a drop. I watched as one man was getting pierced. A musician playing a double reed instrument wailed into the adept’s ear, while another man wafted incense all around him, creating a heady, overwhelming environment. Then, fairly quickly, a priest thrust a rod through the guy’s cheeks. There was no feeling of suffering — this was not a kind of penitent deal like the Catholics do. It was beautiful, and not for weak stomachs.
We continue on, riding along the sidewalks, as do some food delivery guys. Away from the center of town or the bustle of Little India there’s little or no foot traffic. On my previous visit I had stumbled upon areas of outdoor food stalls called hawker centres. I remembered that the food was fresh, local and delicious — and the place had character and liveliness, in contrast to the restaurants in the glass offices and condo zones that make up much of this city. There are a few of these hawkers in town — this one is called Newton Circus.
We find an available table and order dishes from the myriad of surrounding stalls offering cooked food. In structure it’s a bit like the food courts in shopping malls or airports, but in content and vibe this is another world. Here the food has wildly unexpected flavors — all good and inexpensive. You can get huge shrimp (more like lobster, really), stingray in sambal sauce, (delicious) crab…
…cooked vegetables, snails, marinated meat — and for dessert, a mountain of shaved ice with sweet syrup poured over top. Singapore, being a place where a lot of cultures and peoples met — Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese — has some of the best tasting food anywhere. The mixtures of flavors are like nowhere else. Though we would have more delicate and refined food in Japan, and more delicious seafood in Australia and NZ, Singapore might come close to taking the prize for:
The next day C and I went on a more ambitious ride — halfway across Singapore Island to Haw Par Villa. Aw Boon Haw was a businessman who, along with his brother Aw Boon Par, developed Tiger Balm and made a lot of money from it. As a kind of give-back to the community, he built the deco-futuristic Haw Par Villa and gardens (and similar ones in HK too — since torn down, of course), which he opened to the public and decorated with statues representing Chinese mythology and Buddhist Hells. I didn’t know Buddhists had hells, but in this manifestation, they sure do. The difference between this and the Christian hell is that this one is temporary; after a period of horror and unimaginable suffering, you are given the cup of forgetfulness and you move on to your next life. So, welcome to hell — you can have a picnic lunch or a durian popsicle (I did) sitting next to a giant crab with a woman’s head, or a monkey taking a photograph. Or, in this case, a chicken couple having a domestic spat.
The bike ride to get there was long — and the last part, paralleling an elevated highway, was no fun — but the park is one of wackiest roadside attractions you’ll ever see. Below is the punishment for moneylenders who charge exorbitant interest rates! Thrown onto a mountain of daggers. Isn’t that part of the new economic recovery program?
A teeny bit suggestive, the placement of some of those daggers, eh?
Singapore, unlike HK, does have some public amenities. There are quite a few parks scattered about; playing fields open to the public; a long waterfront promenade and bike trail with seafood restaurants and picnic tables; trees and shade; and institutions like the hawker’s markets that allow people to mingle and relax together. There are streets and neighborhoods with small, locally owned shops and stalls, not just chain stores. There’s a new, incredible looking performing arts center that resembles two halves of a split durian fruit — a curious choice, as durian is notoriously stinky, but maybe it’s an inside joke, as it’s a local fruit. Sadly, we didn’t play there — it wasn’t available; we did a convention center, similar to the place in Hong Kong. Ah well. It went well — the audience was a mixture of locals and expats. The food at catering was (this is Singapore) unbelievably good.
Despite all this Singapore hasn’t been able to resist the lure of developers during the heady years of the South Asian economic boom — most of the city is high rises and glass-walled offices. We saw one neighborhood that seemed to represent what Singapore used to be like — charming houses on winding streets with porches and gardens, and small shops on the corners. The area seems preserved, like a monument or physical memory of what the city used to be — like Greenwich Village in NY. Another such area has a sun-covering over several entire streets, creating an indoor/outdoor arcade. The city must have realized at some point that those areas — like Little India and Chinatown — are what give the city its identity and flavor… and are tourist attractions, too.
One of the public parks is like no other park I’ve seen. To save the public the effort of climbing up and down the hills, they’ve built a high, elevated walkway that takes you through the treetops. A sign says “Don’t feed the monkeys. Have a nice walk in the park, but don’t lean over too far."
Why does Singapore have all these things for its citizens when it could have easily covered these hills with more condos, as Hong Kong has done? Both were island “nations” colonized by the British, established (in the British point of view) as commercial hubs where goods from neighboring lands could be traded and exported. Both have large percentages of Chinese, especially in the business worlds — though Singapore is certainly less dominated by the Chinese. What is it that gave one island nation the nerve to say, “No, we will save some parkland for our citizens; we will save some chaotic marketplaces and hawker centres?” (— though I’ve heard that the hawkers here are under attack on health grounds, much like the Red Hook Ball Field stalls have been in NYC). What causes one place to say no to immediate profit if it destroys something in the public’s interest, and another to always see profit as the right way to go?
Biked to the Red Hook ballfields on Sunday — famous for the vendors who on weekends sell “homemade” regional Latin dishes. Salvadoran pupusas, Mexican huaraches, ceviches, super colorful Guatemalan dishes. It was 1PM — lunch hour — so there were lines, but as it was a Sunday no one was in a big hurry.
In recent months the Parks Dept (it’s in a city park) has threatened to evict the vendors — for health violations, expired permits, lack of places where prep can be inspected (the food is often prepped in people’s homes) and risky food storage (on the ground). Items like the latter have been dealt with — but there is more. This from New York Magazine:
The city, eager as ever for the fat stacks that only a bidding war by commercial concessions can offer, has given the vendors notice that their Temporary Use Agreement, the permit given to them by the Department of Parks and Recreation, won’t be renewed. The city wants to open the parks up for concession bids, which will almost certainly mean an end to the makeshift food stalls that have been operating there for over ten years. “They told us that the last day we can operate in the park is September 8,” Cesar Fuentes, the executive director of the Food Vendors Committee of Red Hook Park, Inc. “The only person that can extend our permit beyond this season is the Commissioner of Parks.”
The blog Porkchop Express has super up to date info — a long letter from Cesar Fuentes about the vendor’s situation and where things stand. Dept of Health is in charge of the regulations for food handling and prep. Odd that the hot dog and halal carts all over town aren’t subject to the same strictness.
This blog also has reviews of each and every vendor/tent — complete with family histories and what’s in each dish.
Here are a couple of pupusas that we ate. One of them with pork and cheese inside and one with beans and cheese. The ensalada is cabbage with some mild salsa.
And here is a huarache — yes, the same name as the sandal (these would be about a size 12) with meat and cheese and pretty spicy green sauce.
To wash these down we had horchata — a drink made with rice, almonds, spices and sugar. It’s a kind of sweet milky drink that goes really well with spicy food (the original version is a Muslim drink made with tigernuts — and Valencia, in Spain, even has a council to regulate the quality of the horchata sold there). I also had some mango slices to which was added hot pepper, salt and lime. They were sweet, spicy, salty and delicious. We were full — so, if things get worked out, future visits will allow sampling of the many other dishes.
The big Ikea blue box next to the ballfields is almost finished. Nearby are some lovely little residential neighborhoods, some brick projects and, further on, a dock for cruise ships — we watched passengers walk the gangplank onto the gigantic Classic Princess and wondered if they’d have a good time. Further down the road a group of hipsters were working on what looked like a large parade float with metal horses lying around ready to be mounted and decorated.
I recently heard about an upcoming forum called “New York: Is it in danger of losing it’s Soul?”. Red Hook, much of it anyway, still has plenty — but as the waterfront gets developed there is always the danger that the lure of big bucks will carve big chunks of that soul away. There are plenty of vacant lots and crumbling warehouses here — there were some suspicious large fires last year. As beautiful as dead tech is, I’m not suggesting that the areas with crumbling concrete and rebar spikes sticking up be kept intact, but that development be allowed to take place on a human scale and at a human pace.
My own neighborhood, South Hell, still has some of what might be called soul — though some would just call it funky and underdeveloped. There are neighborhood restaurants, a butcher, a fishmonger, a baker, a few delis and a vegetable market. Some small theaters and the usual — for this neighborhood — zipper repair places, steel clothing rack makers, pushcart warehouses and tailors. This area used to have a lot more or all of these, but it was a rough part of town in the 80s and 90s — before I moved here — and I think changes in other parts of town took business away from the fishmongers, for example. Now there is just one left. There were lots of prostitutes in the recent past, and before that gangs controlled certain blocks. The whores are pretty much gone, which is a little surprising as the tunnel entrance is right here and often the Jerseyites are prime customers. There are still some halfway houses and a methadone clinic — there are certain times when the junkies can be seen in the surrounding blocks — nodding or frozen like zombies. The local police station says they’re all harmless. Hotels and condos are going up fast — so things will change further — but the huge gouge in the neighborhood that constitutes the tunnel entrance and approaches will permanently stifle the flow and interchange that allows a neighborhood to have character and life. When it was built, that area was maybe the worst in the city, in Manhattan anyway — so tearing it down seemed like a reasonable idea I guess — but to replace it with a dead zone is not exactly a solution.
Here is a website called Save Soccer Tacos — it has links and letters you can send.
I’m wondering what’s with the pepper grinding ritual that invaded U.S. restaurants a decade or 2 ago? I agree that freshly-ground pepper is a nice addition to many foods — like salt, it seems to bring out the flavor, to stimulate the palate. But that’s obviously not the point of this ritual — the point is social, economic, and psychological. How and why did it become a little ritual to have the food arrive and then be quickly followed by a man (usually a man) who asks, “Do you want some pepper ground over that?” He wafts the phallic object over your food like a wand and waits for you, the master, to tell him “when”. Then he is gone and may never return.
Wouldn’t it be easier to have a little pepper grinder on every table? It wouldn’t be harder than keeping all those refilled saltshakers out there, would it?
But that’s not the point, I suspect. What’s important is the ritual and the relationship. The servant and the implication of service… the feeling of being pandered to and pampered in a customized manner. One hopes that this little ritual assuages any impulses by the client to imperiously order the staff around, and sometimes it does seem to absorb these impulses, though not always.
Went for another surfing bout yesterday. Last time was about a year ago in Perth. Mauro was the organizer, naturally. He's the most avid surfer. We had to drive south, to the bottom of the peninsula, about an hour away, where the actual sea was. Lovely beach, if a bit windy, and I could get up on the board as far as my knees and steer with them — and be hands free!
Saw llamas, parrots, kangaroos and some ibis as we drove back north.
Stopped at McLaren Vale winery area for an early dinner on the way back and fell out when I got back to the hotel.
More Aussie cuisine:
• Hundreds and thousands — (also known as freckles) — Tiny candy sprinkles. • Spiders — ice cream in a soda. • Capsicum — red or yellow peppers (not the hot ones.)
Here are some local election posters — Keep those bastards honest, Kate!:
Nice piece in 3 Quarks Daily on Trapped In The Closet. I’m jealous. It’s a lovely musing that begins with observations of this surprising pop phenomena and segues into thoughts about how our brains organize our thoughts and how we tell stories — with some words I’ve never heard before.
“…if it's true that it all comes down to syntax, then you could also say that human thought can be divided into two basic categories, paratactic and hypotactic. They are the two most elemental ways of putting thought together.”
Ganda cooked over 100 dumplings for everyone last night in her room after the show. Dana’s mom dropped off cupcakes that spelled “Here Lies Love”.
I went by the museum and took some pictures of their lovely dioramas — but was stopped for using a tripod. But I managed to get a few off before I had to put it away.
Tonight is the last show…until when?
Giant animals that used to live in Australia:
In Pleistocene times, giant "megafauna" inhabited Australia. These animals mysteriously disappeared in Australia about 15,000 years ago, including:
• The great rhinoceros-like Diprotodon, the giant kangaroo standing 3 metres (10 feet) high • A giant marsupial wombat • Megalania, a goanna 6 metres (12 feet) long • Quinkana, a land crocodile 3 metres long • Wonambi, a python 7 metres long • The flightless birds, Genyornis (giant emu) and Dromornis, which matched the great Moa in size
Here they are seen in a kind of Antipodean garden of paradise.
Aboriginal stories which have been recorded throughout Australia indicate clearly that the animals were a part of the environment of early man on this continent, remembered with both fear and awe for generations.
The oral tradition goes back that far…15, 000 years! It makes written history seem — well, not worth the papyrus it’s written on.
Tonight’s show was the last one here. It was probably the best played one we’ve done. Really beginning to lock and rock on many tunes. Kind of sad to be putting the performances on hiatus for a while, but we’ll see. Got lots to think about — how the narrative can be transmitted without my talking bits — which are fun but kill the momentum, etc. etc.
Had a pot luck late lunch in Graham’s room…almost everyone brought food or cooked food in the hotel kitchenettes and we had loads of leftovers that we ate after the show.
Long tech rehearsal today. Band is amazing, as most of them have just gotten off the 20+ hour flight — they check in to the hotel and then are rushed over here to the venue. They all work hard and no one complains about being tired, not once.
It’s like doing a first gig ever — so many new songs and so much to remember — lyrics, marks, lighting, guitar chords and settings — I’m scared and overwhelmed. Kind of nice, though, thrilling even, being less than sure and confident about it all. Jumping in the deep end without too much of a safety net. But scary as hell.
Aussie cuisine:
Pie Floater — a meat pie “floating” in sea of mushy pea soup, with a squirt of tomato sauce on top. To be eaten when drunk.
Flavored milks. Saw a large strawberry milk at the venue lunch counter. Milk here comes in a variety of flavors, such as apple, banana, caramel, chocolate, cookies 'n cream, lime, malt, mango, papaya, strawberry, tropical fruits and vanilla, with a few more exotic flavors available.
NZ features many more flavors — spearmint and…peanut butter flavored milk!
Woolworth’s in Whangarei (NZ) decided they could get around some selling restrictions by also selling "Milk Flavoured Milk". Milk flavored milk!
South Australia has the highest consumption of flavoured milk per person, where Farmers Union Iced Coffee outsells Coca-Cola.
I remember from a previous visit the shockingly unusual crisp (potato chip) flavors. Ham and mustard. Big red and meat pie. Feta and herb, Thai chili.
To be fair, almost every restaurant meal I’ve had here has been extraordinarily delicious. It would be nice to think that the cooking is simply all top notch, which in many cases it is, but I think other things might be involved. I’m going to suggest that due to the relative sparseness of the population here, and the fertility and abundance of the local fields and seas, there is an unusual availability of fresh produce, meats and seafood. I suggest that it is this freshness of all of these that makes the foods so much better — and that we, especially in NYC, are just not used to super fresh foods. The taste is definitely better.
I had some calamari that were lovely and an octopus over greens that was much much better than the mangy little tentacles served up in top restaurants in NY. This was like a steak but with big suckers on the side!
NZ features many more flavors — spearmint and…peanut butter flavored milk!