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I just had to say, before I go to bed, that one of my greatest pleasures lately is watching the berries grow on the Mulberry tree at the side of our building. They’ve gone from flowerbud to flower and now to green berries all over the tree.

Soon, they’ll be their wonderful deep purple. Soon, they’ll be dropping off the tree staining everything under them. Soon, I won’t care for the Mulberry tree at all, it will just be that tree with the annoying berries that get all over the place.

But for now, I’m enjoying the simple miracle of nature, ever producing, creating, growing.

Gotta hold on to that thought when I’m slogging through a carpet of mushy, inky mess.

Nite,
k.

Tags: Food, General, NYC by Kirk
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So tomorrow is the kickoff of the Big Apple BBQ.

This is a big deal for Jamie and I. How far the mighty vegetarians have fallen. Well, as they say, everything in moderation… Except for occasions like tomorrow.

Fourteen champion BBQ purveyors from across this great land of ours with their pits running at full smoke! And since it’s going to be hot and humid tomorrow, I mean that in all its permutations. All right in tony Madison Square Park. Hundreds, if not thousands, of folks walkin’ ’round with plates piled high with brisket, pulled pork, short ribs and sausage.

Oooh, sausage. Jamie and I usually disagree on who serves the best brisket, but we are always in full agreement that the best sausage, probably in the world, comes from The Southside Market in Elgin, (hard “g” as in goat, not as in the liquor) TX. Great Gravy Marie is their hot sausage good. You can order it online for delivery, but we never have. It’s a treat we get to experience once a year at the BABBQ. Someday we’ll make the pilgrimage to Elgin and try it out in their restaurant; a worthy expedition, and probably the only thing that would get me to TX.

I did note from the BABBQ site, that our other fav, Smokey O’s from St. Louis, MO, will not be there this year. We liked their brisket a lot, we loved the woman who ran the place, and we especially loved the reaction you got when you told someone that you’d had BBQ’d snoot, which is a Smokey O’s specialty. “What”, you ask, “is BBQ’d snoot? It couldn’t be…, could it?”

Yes, Virginia, yes. It could. BBQ’d snoot is the meat from around the pig’s snoot (odd that I keep typing snot), flattened, deep fried and served with BBQ sauce. Think pork rinds from a different part of the pig. Last year’s were less cruchy than the year prior. I think I preferred it that way, while Jamie preferred more crunch. But alas, unless a trip to St. Louis is in our future, and since I doubt we’ll be doing any baseball stadium trips this year, we’ll have to go snootless this time ’round.

This is a two day event and usually we attend both days. This year, however, since the Tony Awards are on Sunday night, we’ll be skipping the second day. This is a painful sacrifice but a necessary one. It’s about an hour from where we live to the BBQ. And since we’ve given up TV (more on that some other day), we’re watching the Tony’s in midtown. We’ll undoubtedly want a rest between events and well, that’s just too much travelling for entertainment. So we’ll eat our fill on Saturday. Rest up on all Sunday during the day and then head to Luxia/Mont Blanc for our Tony viewing pleasure.

Now, truth be told, we don’t usually watch the Tony’s. But this year, our favorite duo Kiki and Herb are nominated for their Broadway show in the Special Theatrical Event category. Oddly enough, the only other nominee in the category is Jay Johnson, the ventriloquist, for his show The Two and Only!. It is odd for so many reasons, but the one that strikes me as oddest, at the moment, is that Kiki and Herb’s show had to close to make room for Jay Johnson’s. Kiki and Herb could’ve extended their run but the theatre was closely booked. So Kiki got kicked out of the theatre to make room for puppet boy. An interesting contest indeed. And, to be fair, I do hear that The Two and Only was quite a good show and Jay Johnson is not a boy. Not that he’s a girl, he’s just a bit long in the tooth to be called a boy.

Anyway (or as David Milch writes it in any script he pens, “anyways”), I’m just hoping that the Special Theatrical Event is on the actual broadcast and not in the non-broadcast “we need to give out these creative awards but who cares” section. As a former theatre techie, I find the dismissal of the creative awards maddening, but I also realize that most of America couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Tony’s anyway, so keep it short for America. Anyways…

Ok, so there’s the weekend. Big meat in a tony park and Tony’s midtown of the Big Apple. Fun filled and jam packed.

But first, we’re getting up a 6am tomorrow to do the laundry. Will the glamour never end?

Nite,
k.

Tags: Food, Jamie, NYC, Theatre by Kirk
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I am not a waiter.

By that, I don’t mean I do not work in a restaurant serving meals. Truth be told, in the past, I have indeed waiter waited; I did not do that well either. In the end I’d describe myself as an optimistic misanthrope; I like individuals, I just find humankind as a whole pretty overrated. That kind of outlook doesn’t serve one well in the hospitality industry. But I digress…that is not what this is about.

No, I mean waiting, as in passing time until something that is going to happen, happens. I do not wait well. It stresses me out.

The constriction of waiting. This is what leaves and flowers must feel as they are pushing, groping their way into bloom; aching through hard ground, unveilding wood until finally, finally released, they unfurl into relief.

Here is the misconception about waiting: it seems a passive endeavor. It is nothing of the sort. Waiting is an extremely active thing. It is like a race car, engine revving, wheels spinning, but with the brakes held firm, anticipating that moment of release, building up tension, energy, until released, it shoots from the starting line like a madman pursued by screaming demons.

A bit dramatic perhaps, but nonetheless true, for me anyway.

This Co-op buying experience that Jamie and I have been going through has been 10% active and 90% waiting. And it’s been going on for months. And we will continue on in stasis until next week. Until next week. He sees a light at the end of the tunnel, he sees the light changing from red to yellow and oh so soon to green. His foot tingles at the thought of lifting from the brake. He senses relief coming like a cool breeze on a stagnant summer day. He sees an end to the waiting.

This is not buying a toaster. One cannot walk into a store, pick up a home and head to the checkout. It’s a long, drawn out process. It is a process that is maddening to the bad waiters of the world. And yet…

Soon Jamie and I will have a home that we can call “ours”. And while it’s true that our current rental is our home, the Co-op will be our home. A place owned that we can make our own.

And that, my friends, is worth every bit of the wait.

Nite,
k.

Tags: Jamie, Life, Moving, NYC by Kirk
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No really, this post is about a recipe. A real recipe, not an excuse to sidetrack into a paean to the unfathomable forces of the cosmos that have brought together, like so many disparate and seemingly uncombinable ingredients, the elements that are this wonderful soup that is my life.

No, I shan’t do that. No, this post is about a recipe. A recipe, as it turns out, for soup.

But first, let it be said that the thing I think I will miss most when Jamie and I move to our new home, is the Greenmarket that occurs every Saturday nearly right outside our door. NYC has done an amazing job getting these set up all around the City and indeed, while we are not moving more than 15 minutes north and thus will still have easy access to our market, it won’t be as easy. It will now take more planning than, “Lets go downstairs to the market.” Boo hoo to us, indeed. Sometimes you do get used to the convenience of things.

But plan we will ’cause we must have our Patrick Farm milk (a thing of beauty, cream sitting clotted on top waiting to be shaken back into an unhomoginizable, delicious slurry) and eggs. Our Patrick Farm friends also sell yogurt that a neighboring farm, Evans Farmhouse makes; life wouldn’t be the same without it.

Oh and all the cut-and-picked-this-morning fruit and produce. And the organic cheese maker, and the free-range turkey (hot Italian turkey sausage!); well, as the song goes, “Never can say goodbye”.

Oh, soup, you say? There was something said about soup? Ok, ok, I’ll leave my orgiastic organic reverie. But I’ll bring with me the asparagus. It’s in bountiful season just now. And it make a delicious, phenomenally easy, soup.

I came across the recipe in the current (June ’07) issue of Food and Wine (p.106). It is incredibly good as is, but being the kitchen tinkerer that I am… Here’s the updated version:

Asparagus Egg Drop Soup Unnecessarily Dressed Up

2 TBS Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO for the RR fans)
1 TBS Sweet Butter
1 medium Onion, cut in half lengthwise and then thinly sliced from top to bottom
3 cloves Garlic, thinly sliced and matchsticked
1 ear fresh Corn, kernels cut off the cob
4 C Chicken Broth or Vegetable Broth if you prefer
1/3 C White Wine
1/2 LB Asparagus, cut on the diagonal into 1″ pieces
2 Eggs
Salt and Pepper
Fresh Nutmeg
1/4 C freshly grated Pecorino Romano or better still, the old hard rind of same, about 2″ square.

Heat the Olive Oil over moderate flame in a 4 quart sauce pan. Add the butter and let melt and foam. When the foam dies down, add the onions and garlic. Stir and cover. Let cook gently for 3 minutes, then add the corn kernels. Season with salt, pepper and 8 grates of nutmeg (a good 1/4 tsp) stir and cover for about another 5 minutes when the onions and garlic should be translucent.

Add the broth and wine and bring to a gentle boil. If you are using an old cheese rind, add it in now to soften and disperse. If using the cheese rind, gently boil for about 10-15 minutes, breaking up the rind from time to time with a wooden spoon. If not using the rind, you can either bring broth mixture to a higher boil right away, or let it boil gently for 10-15 to marry the flavors.

When rind has dispersed, bring soup up to a higher boil and add the asparagus.

While that cooks, only about 30 seconds, gently mix the two eggs in a separate bowl. Do not scramble; just mix them around enough that the yolks are broken and semi-combined with the whites. Season with a bit of salt and pepper.

While gently stirring the soup, gradually pour the eggs into it in a figure eight pattern. Do this slowly. And then let this cook about another 30 seconds until the eggs are cooked through.

If using the grated cheese, add it just at the end and stir.

That’s it. Eat and enjoy. Jamie and I often eat just this for dinner. You could definitely serve 4 using smaller portions.

I hope someone tries this and that I’ve been clear enough, a recipe writer I’m not. It’s an amazingly simple but outrageously delicious soup. In fact, we had it earlier this evening. Now I’m out of asparagus until this Saturday’s market. *Sigh* Thank God I bought enough yogurt to last the week!

Nite,
k.

Tags: Food, NYC, Recipes by Kirk
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This is what I need to learn.

And so…

Walking tonight, well yesterday nite really,
The air outside was like
I’m 6, 7, 8, 9 and on my parent’s porch.
The thunderstorm is coming, but for now
The night is close, even with the breeze
That carrys the promise of violence.
Violent, but yet comforting.
Because I’m on the porch, watching,
Waiting for the unleashing. Expecting
Downpours that will brush under the
Eaves and touch me with their clean,
Electrified majesty.

And now, to quote a favorite song by The Smiths , Frankly, Mr. Shankly, “I didn’t realize you wrote such bloody awful poetry.”

I promise not to do it too often. Really I do.

Nite,
k.

Tags: General, Life by Kirk
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As I passingly mentioned in my last post, (see, already I’m not procrastinating!) Jamie and I are packing up our apartment in preparation for our move to our new home. Or rather, what hopefully will be our new home should we ever get a closing date. With luck, we will have that date in stone sometime this coming week.

This is a major move, not that we are moving far. We’re not moving out of state. We’re not even moving out of the City. No, we’re moving about a 15 minute walk north of where we are now. We are moving from Manhattan to The Bronx.

Now, while many Manhattanites would see the move from this fair island to the northernmost mainland borough as a major change, that’s not what makes it a major change for me. In the twenty years I’ve lived in NY, I’ve lived in 4 apartments in Manhattan, 3 in Brooklyn and even lived for awhile across the mighty Hudson in Bloomfield, NJ.

What makes this move different is this: I have always been a renter. Now, I will be an owner. Or rather, Jamie and I will be owners.

And so, it was decided that we would purge. Well, Jamie would purge and I would purge a lot. You see, when Jamie’s and my life came together oh those eight years ago, he had stuff and I had… stuff. I had stuff on shelves, I had stuff in closets, I had stuff in boxes that I hadn’t opened in years. We, collectively, had lots of stuff.

When we moved from Brooklyn to our current apartment, it was a fairly quick move and so the pre-move purging process was omitted. Omitted to the point that all our stuff wouldn’t fit into the huge moving truck that we had hired and so the next day we had to rent a van to move the rest of it from place to place. That’s a lot of stuff.

This time, however, due to the drawn out process of buying, we have had ample time to cull the wheat from the chaff (understanding, of course, that even in that process some chaff will inevitably remain, but still…). This has been much easier for Jamie than I. Jamie doesn’t really care for stuff. He cares more about it than he thinks he does, but he is not committed to stuff in the way I am.

Some stuff is useful stuff, stuff that is used. No problems there.

Some stuff is more insidious, it is useful, maybe not right now, but someday, it could be of use.

This stuff is fairly easy to release. It’s been in a box for any number of years and still you haven’t found a use for it. Or else, you are just being foolishly cheap, no one needs 5 bottles of glue or three hundred pens, or even one replacement head for a Sonicare that died months ago. Small twinges of anxiety with some of these tossings, but really, not much.

Other stuff is stuff of memory, of emotion: that cheap plastic flower X gave you X years ago, those cards another X sent you, professing eternal love and committment (and we now see how that turned out), that notepad from a hotel in Berlin from your days on tour; these are the things that seem to have memory locked within them and when gazed upon, they transport you to another time, another life.

These things, as (appropriately ironic, I now realize) the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father said, “Oh horrible, most horrible.” How can I ever rid myself of these? It seems a betrayal of one’s past. Tossing away these things would be like tossing away a part of myself.

But hold on a moment there, Petey, these things don’t magically hold any memories, they are as dead as last year’s Thanksgiving turkey; you hold the memories. If you can’t conjure up a memory of something without this inanimate mojo, then most likely, it’s better forgotten.

That was the lesson I learned, am still learning, with these moving preparations. It has been a very difficult, very necessary and in the end, very freeing lesson. I urge everyone to throw out something they think they couldn’t possibly part with. It is the most liberating thing I’ve done in a long, long while.

And the rest of the stuff is just cool stuff. That stuff is definitely going to Da Bronx.

Nite.
k.

Tags: General, Jamie, Life, Moving, NYC by Kirk
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I am not a procrastinator.

I seem like a procrastinator to, well, most people who know me. But I’m not a procrastinator.

Take this site for example; a year or so ago I moved my site to its current host. They supply many, many, options for blog/web publishing that can be effortlessly installed onto your site. While this is, indeed, not unique, it was daunting.

I decided to install, for reasons that memory fails to retrieve, Drupal. Drupal was, well, simply, much more than I needed. And thus daunted by the myriad of options, doohickies and whistles, I wrote one post crowing my entry into the blogging world and then promptly ignored my site.

For about a year.

Until I came to my senses yesterday and decided to switch to WordPress. This switch effectively killed two birds with one stone.

1. One: It meets my needs (although arguably, who needs to blog?).
1. I need a heart transplant.
2. I need to get out of the way of this speeding truck.
3. I need to see Jello Biafra at the Knitting Factory because he comes to the East Coast so rarely.
4. I do not need to blog. Although I’m sure that someone actually does.
2. Two: Jamie already uses WP and thus is readily available for assistance.

So, yesterday I installed WP and today, Jamie gave me a list of all the cool toys he uses on his site, queerspace.com. And I’ve spent the day fiddling and uploading and cropping pics for the front page. And now, it’s 1:30am and I’m busily writing this post.

Jamie will be pleased. Jamie will be overjoyed.

You see, Jamie is convinced that I’m a procrastinator.

Jamie has also said that I think too much. There will be no argument here; I do think too much. This is why I can’t sleep. This is why when he’s calling me from the other room, I don’t hear him. I admit it, my head is obsessively caught up in thought.

I am not a procrastinator; I am an over-thinker.

This is not new, I’ve been overthinking all my life. It’s not what I do, it’s who I am. I’m not saying it’s pretty, but for the most part, it has served me well.

Have you ever seen the mini-series The Singing Detective, not the movie, which I’m sure is lovely, with Rob’t Downey, Jr. and all, but the mini-series? Michael Gambon’s character is an over-thinker. If you have an over-thinker in your life, I urge, no, compel you, to rent it from Netflix or where ever else you procure you home viewing matter. This work is required viewing, both for your sanity and the sanity of your beloved over-thinker.

If you’ve not seen it… no, just go and rent it. I know, it’s three disks, it’s seven hours long, but the disks and hours fly by and even if you know no over-thinkers (and if you say you don’t, well, I’m sure you do or perhaps are one yourself), it is worth the time simply for the brilliant writing and amazing performances.

So anyway, I love my dear darling husband who spent all day packing up the apartment for our impending move, cooking lunch and answering my WP questions whilst I searched for plugins and such, but he’s wrong on this account. I am not a procrastinator, I am an over-thinker.

And if you are reading this and it’s, oh say, June 15th of this or next year and it is still the second post, well then, ok yes, indeed, I may be a procrastinator. And then, maybe, if I have time, I’ll work on it.

Nite, k.

Tags: General, Jamie, Movies, Television by Kirk
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