Trimming the Fat

It's 6 in the morning and I'm making bacon. More bacon than I have ever dared rest my eyes on at one time. I'm teaching myself to render bacon fat for the food blog I write for (not this one), which touts the philosophy that we should keep eating the way our primordial ancestors ate, which includes using all the parts of an animal, as well as finding ways to use (rather than discard) its fat.


I can't help but think, as I photograph the bacon fat in the light of a new sun that has just barely come up, how I am not a caveman, and I do not want to eat bacon, nor find uses for its fat. As I walk back to my bedroom, my clothes, my hair, and the entire bottom floor of this building stinking of fried lard, I think: Oh, Nana. And all the Nanas of the world. How did you ever handle it back then, in the 40s, 50s and 60s when bacon was such a regular and desired-after breakfast module? Daily bacon. Really?

The Opera is on Friday.

The dishes were accumulating so I couraged up and tackled them, and now I'm biceptually intimidating. That is, my muscles are strong.


Les Huguenots will premiere this weekend, so there are a lot of people in my building right now singing opera. That's how I got sidetracked and muscular -- I was on my way to the kitchen with a heavy box of plates when a voice came out of nowhere. Holding my heavy box I creepily lingered in the hallway in front of the door where that voice was coming, perking my ears and trying to take part in the music. My arms, oh they were aching with the weight of those dishes, oh and people were passing now too, giving me odd stares. But I didn't budge. I was standing there, with my heavy plates, enjoying the singing, and my arms were shaking, but it was beautiful, it really was.

Eventually, of course, the music stopped, and I went away. My dishes now are done, and I am sipping tea in my room, reflecting on the chicken and fingerling potatoes I ate at lunch, drizzled with lemon-caper dressing. I will sleep well tonight. The opera is on Friday.

The Upper West, Yes.

Searching for an apartment in New York City has been a nightmare, but the worst may be over now.

Brian came up from PA yesterday to help me look at a place, and we put our deposit down on an apartment located around the Petit Senegal neighborhood of 8th avenue. We found it on Craigslist after weeks of complicated searching, which entailed my driving back and forth to the city on the weekends and meeting with various people to see a very limited array of options based on what our budget allows (apparently that includes anything from a basement apartment with no windows to a fifth-floor walkup with no stove).

There was an air of inevitability about it, that something else would come along. And sure enough...this video might be our new backyard. I should hear from the building owner this week.

Other forms of it.

I have been standing or sitting on the Oriental rug, looking out the window, listening to the Opera singer who lives next door sing through the wall. I have been writing research papers, not journal entries. I am not cooking, but I am very, very glad.

Sharing is caring

Sharing is caring, my colleague assures me. And my best rejoinder yet for stealing all his printer ink? Homemade brownies.

I find that making desserts is, in general, a pretty fool proof idea. Especially in grad school. Especially when you're looking for an excuse not to analyze the Deweyesque notions of democratic education one more time, because if you do your brain will Deweyesquely explode.

The glory of dessert is something I first learned back in high school, when I never had a pen or was always forgetting my text book. I'd get someone to share with me by offering them the freshly baked whateveritwas in my lunch. There was great success in this method then. Some things never change.

Blangavo

The source of all misery is rejection. It's true even for old fruit. So better to be kind-- when an avocado is nearing the end of its edible life, do whatever you can not to throw it out. Instead, accelerate a rebirth.

Rebirth and acceleration are big reasons why I own a blender. Blenders do a darn-tootin' good job of both accelerating the rebirth of foods that are nearing their throw-away stages, and accelerating my access to newly born foods that are otherwise tedious or just plain boring to eat. Maybe you don't experience this, but when I look at an avocado, I want badly to do something creative with it. Still, I end up just eating it by itself, plain, scooping it out of its thin dark skin with a spoon. Afterwards I look at some eggs longingly. I pick up and put down a pineapple. I close my eyes and contemplate the taste of a blueberry-avocado-cilantro mix. Had I employed a blender, I could have made a morphing. I could have pulverized several foods into one, and made something new of avocado which was also only accessible by straw. Turning food into a one-way road kind of deal (one serving device vs. plate, fork, napkin etc.) is a great aid to those of us already plagued by so much indecision in so many aspects of our non-kitchen lives.


Today, in need of a creative half hour, I actively took my own advice and blenderized. Blueberries, a little coconut milk, agave syrup. Ice, plenty of ice. No forks, no chop sticks. Straw only. Orange slices on top...

....and guess what?

"Blangavo" means "this recipe needs work."