The business on the main floor of the picture accompanying this post, a one-beautician salon, used to provide great razor haircuts for fifteen dollars, twenty including tip. Teresa-Beata (my mother and I couldn't keep her name straight) was a bit eccentric; she disliked when I entered for walk-in cuts, but when I made a ten o'clock appointment she showed up at eleven. She refused to cut my hair without a picture and accepted guests as she cut, but I was never disappointed with her work nor the bargain.
My A.D. ("after dorm," not anno Domini) life in Greenpoint is a strange one because of all the changes in the neighborhood. An English-language bookstore, Word, opened in 2007 -- I would have killed for one growing up -- and numerous traffic lights were installed at stop-sign intersections, which isn't good for this pedestrian who's been nearly hit a handful of times. But did Teresa-Beata's business really have to go the way of Heath Ledger for his bar, Five Leaves?
My partner in hipster cuisine and I sampled the grub there last night, and for someone who wanted to protest the place with a poster asking for the return of fifteen-dollar haircuts, the fifty-dollar meal for two, not including tip, I found the trip was worth not making a big stink about losing my hairdresser.
The place was already crowded upon entering around seven-thirty, the whole left side taken up by winers and diners, leaving a narrow walkway between them and the bar for us to make our way to a table in front of the kitchen. The slightly slow service asked what we wanted before we had any menus, but they were otherwise attentive. I ordered a "Five Leaves burger," an Aussie burger with a fried ring of pineapple instead of avocado, and he ordered a hanger steak with potatoes and shallots. We had the same red wine, which I couldn't pronounce, but it was good. Rarely do I enjoy wine straight from the bottle, but this one pleased the palate.
Since we were chatting up the waitstaff, the wait for our entrées didn't seem long. My burger came with crispy shoestring fries, and the meat was cooked to medium-rare perfection. My first bite, however, was disastrous; gooey cheesey sauce dripped down my hand. Regardless of the mess, the blend of flavors -- egg on a burger! -- provided a delicious dish. Though my buddy disliked his steak's gamey texture, he thought the veggie sides were excellent.
We were both very full from our respective plates and decided to skip dessert, though I really wanted to test the tiramisu. We'll be back and be sure to leave room for it next time. (Zucchini bread, made this morning, more than hits the sweet-tooth spot left vacant last night.)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Grammy's gwumpki
I wrote the elegy while waiting for tickets for Hair. Grammy had died the previous night, and I was on and off the phone with relatives about the funeral arrangements. I wanted to finish a Lou Krieger book, get into Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and write about the Muggles' equivalent of Felix Felicis. The elegy flowed, however, and I wasn't going to force anything else.
I didn't get to express the nuances of her life or my relationship with her -- she was a career woman, a seamstress who worked at Fink's, and made flower-girl and communion dresses for me; she also firmly believed I'd grow up to be president -- but what came out, I think, really hit the nail on the head in terms of melancholy and acceptance.
I also failed to mention her specialty: gołąbki, or stuffed cabbage. It was always a treat when she cooked a batch, and my family hadn't had the dish in years until my mom asked for the recipe. Sure, she cuts a few corners with onion-soup mix instead of chopping an onion and mincing garlic and the nostalgia adds flavor, but it's good if you want to try your hand at Polish food. Anything in bold is my spin on the classic recipe.
1 medium head of cabbage, cooked (look for one shaped like a football)
1 mesh bag Minute Rice (or 1 cup of uncooked [brown] rice)
1 package instant onion soup mix and 1/2 cup of water (or 1 chopped onion and 1 chopped garlic clove)
1 diced green bell pepper
2 cups grated cauliflower
1 lb. chop chuck
1 egg
1 10-3/4 oz. can of tomato soup (Campbell's is fine)
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
Cook whole cabbage in boiling water for a long time; you want really soft leaves. Drain and cool. Cook rice. When rice is cooled, hand mix with chop meat and egg (and pepper and cauliflower).
Mix together onion soup and water. (Or melt butter or add olive oil to a skillet. Cook onions and garlic over medium heat for five to ten minutes, until clear.) Add onion stuff to meat mixture.
Peel leaves off cabbage. With a knife, trim thick center vein from bottom of each leaf. Eyeball the amount of meat for each leaf; you want to be able to wrap the leaf around the meat without meat spilling from the sides. Continue stuffing cabbage leaves until all meat mixture is used up.
Place each stuffed cabbage, sides touching -- the closer they are, the better they hold together -- into an 11 x 13-1/2 size baking pan, making 1 layer of approximately 12-15 stuffed cabbages.
Mix together soup and sauce. Pour completely over all of the cabbages.
Cover baking pan securely with foil and bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 1 hour.
I didn't get to express the nuances of her life or my relationship with her -- she was a career woman, a seamstress who worked at Fink's, and made flower-girl and communion dresses for me; she also firmly believed I'd grow up to be president -- but what came out, I think, really hit the nail on the head in terms of melancholy and acceptance.
I also failed to mention her specialty: gołąbki, or stuffed cabbage. It was always a treat when she cooked a batch, and my family hadn't had the dish in years until my mom asked for the recipe. Sure, she cuts a few corners with onion-soup mix instead of chopping an onion and mincing garlic and the nostalgia adds flavor, but it's good if you want to try your hand at Polish food. Anything in bold is my spin on the classic recipe.
1 medium head of cabbage, cooked (look for one shaped like a football)
1 mesh bag Minute Rice (or 1 cup of uncooked [brown] rice)
1 package instant onion soup mix and 1/2 cup of water (or 1 chopped onion and 1 chopped garlic clove)
1 diced green bell pepper
2 cups grated cauliflower
1 lb. chop chuck
1 egg
1 10-3/4 oz. can of tomato soup (Campbell's is fine)
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
Cook whole cabbage in boiling water for a long time; you want really soft leaves. Drain and cool. Cook rice. When rice is cooled, hand mix with chop meat and egg (and pepper and cauliflower).
Mix together onion soup and water. (Or melt butter or add olive oil to a skillet. Cook onions and garlic over medium heat for five to ten minutes, until clear.) Add onion stuff to meat mixture.
Peel leaves off cabbage. With a knife, trim thick center vein from bottom of each leaf. Eyeball the amount of meat for each leaf; you want to be able to wrap the leaf around the meat without meat spilling from the sides. Continue stuffing cabbage leaves until all meat mixture is used up.
Place each stuffed cabbage, sides touching -- the closer they are, the better they hold together -- into an 11 x 13-1/2 size baking pan, making 1 layer of approximately 12-15 stuffed cabbages.
Mix together soup and sauce. Pour completely over all of the cabbages.
Cover baking pan securely with foil and bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 1 hour.
Monday, September 15, 2008
I believe in God (the band)
My musical tastes have grown ever more discerning since I got over the grammar-school "I like whatever Z100 plays" phase. I rebelled against acts like the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys with Linkin Park, Staind [sic], and Limp Bizkit (bands that, sadly, remain guilty pleasures) and re-acquainted myself with mainstays like the Beatles, Queen, and David Bowie through an after-school job. Co-workers introduced me to Franz Ferdinand and PJ Harvey. Friends who got me addicted to musical theatre praised Adam Pascal, Jamie Cullum, and Sufjan Stevens. My protests against Pink Floyd were silenced once I took a psychology test with David Gilmour playing in the background, and Led Zeppelin got me through college.
It's usually not worth it to write about a defunct band, but I wish God: The Band were still around. There's not one bad song on the band's final album, Rawk, because it's so diverse, from the radio friendly "Radio Friendly" to the sprawling multi-part "Botswana" to the double-entendre-filled "When She Comes" (you'll never think of childhood classic "Comin' 'Round the Mountain" the same way again). Rapt during the first listen, I immediately re-played the album, which stayed in my CD player until I moved out of Kensington, and then watched the video for "The Lifter." Filmed around Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, filled with authentic slapstick, and edited with clarity, "The Lifter" sealed this athiest's belief in God (the band).
Where are they now? I had the pleasure of hearing a few unrecorded songs by Mugwump last week, and Ben will be playing a solo acoustic show tomorrow night. Of his solo albums, Dead at Disneyland is my favorite, and I'm crossing my fingers for "Blotto."
It's usually not worth it to write about a defunct band, but I wish God: The Band were still around. There's not one bad song on the band's final album, Rawk, because it's so diverse, from the radio friendly "Radio Friendly" to the sprawling multi-part "Botswana" to the double-entendre-filled "When She Comes" (you'll never think of childhood classic "Comin' 'Round the Mountain" the same way again). Rapt during the first listen, I immediately re-played the album, which stayed in my CD player until I moved out of Kensington, and then watched the video for "The Lifter." Filmed around Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, filled with authentic slapstick, and edited with clarity, "The Lifter" sealed this athiest's belief in God (the band).
Where are they now? I had the pleasure of hearing a few unrecorded songs by Mugwump last week, and Ben will be playing a solo acoustic show tomorrow night. Of his solo albums, Dead at Disneyland is my favorite, and I'm crossing my fingers for "Blotto."
Monday, September 08, 2008
elegy
"You'll get the mass card in the mail, by the way. My mother refused to let me make it out to 'Gram.'"
--Ashley
My maternal grandmother, Grammy, a.k.a. Felicia Nowak, died at 10:20 Thursday night while I was drinking, smoking, and watching the Republican National Convention, almost three weeks to the day after I had expressed hatred and contempt for my family, saying I couldn't wait until they were all dead so I could be free of them.
Her last days were spent in Wyckoff Hospital, just a few blocks from where I spent many summer Saturdays at Bushwick barbecues. She was there a week and a day after waking up and not being able to speak. The doctors thought it was a stroke, but I knew better -- what took Grandpa wasn't taking Grammy. She was diagnosed with numerous infections and had fluid in one lung. I visited three times: on Thursday she was weak and groaned sentences, Saturday she seemed better and lively, and Wednesday she wasn't sentient at all.
Her last years were spent incapacitated on Java Street, just a block from where she spent her married life. She moved soon after Grandpa died and lost the ability to walk when I was a freshman in high school. She made due with a wheelchair, but by the time I was a sophomore she was bed bound. I'd spend weekdays with her because life on Humboldt Street became especially unbearable. I'd arrive at Java Street with Chinese food because I never ate at Molloy, tell her everything that happened during the day, then leave to do homework in the living room while she watched Judge Judy. It was a safe haven until my uncle lost his job and became too controlling of what little social life Grammy had left.
Joey, for some reason, never bonded with Grammy the way I had. She once made me chicken soup from scratch when I was very little, and I remember enjoying the way she chopped vegetables. I was sick as a dog yet mesmerized. When my mother still had a life of her own, Grammy baby-sat and taught me math, spelling, and cursive, sparking my intellectual curiosity well before first grade. I credit my mother for making me passionate about books, but it was Grammy who made learning my first love.
Wikipedia defines cognitive dissonance as "an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously." I am happy she's dead -- not because I am free of her but because she suffered so and truly is in a better place, whether that's an afterlife or six feet under. I am unhappy she's dead because she held my family together. Without her, we're all free, frightfully so, and tumbling unknowingly into the future.
--Ashley
My maternal grandmother, Grammy, a.k.a. Felicia Nowak, died at 10:20 Thursday night while I was drinking, smoking, and watching the Republican National Convention, almost three weeks to the day after I had expressed hatred and contempt for my family, saying I couldn't wait until they were all dead so I could be free of them.
Her last days were spent in Wyckoff Hospital, just a few blocks from where I spent many summer Saturdays at Bushwick barbecues. She was there a week and a day after waking up and not being able to speak. The doctors thought it was a stroke, but I knew better -- what took Grandpa wasn't taking Grammy. She was diagnosed with numerous infections and had fluid in one lung. I visited three times: on Thursday she was weak and groaned sentences, Saturday she seemed better and lively, and Wednesday she wasn't sentient at all.
Her last years were spent incapacitated on Java Street, just a block from where she spent her married life. She moved soon after Grandpa died and lost the ability to walk when I was a freshman in high school. She made due with a wheelchair, but by the time I was a sophomore she was bed bound. I'd spend weekdays with her because life on Humboldt Street became especially unbearable. I'd arrive at Java Street with Chinese food because I never ate at Molloy, tell her everything that happened during the day, then leave to do homework in the living room while she watched Judge Judy. It was a safe haven until my uncle lost his job and became too controlling of what little social life Grammy had left.
Joey, for some reason, never bonded with Grammy the way I had. She once made me chicken soup from scratch when I was very little, and I remember enjoying the way she chopped vegetables. I was sick as a dog yet mesmerized. When my mother still had a life of her own, Grammy baby-sat and taught me math, spelling, and cursive, sparking my intellectual curiosity well before first grade. I credit my mother for making me passionate about books, but it was Grammy who made learning my first love.
Wikipedia defines cognitive dissonance as "an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously." I am happy she's dead -- not because I am free of her but because she suffered so and truly is in a better place, whether that's an afterlife or six feet under. I am unhappy she's dead because she held my family together. Without her, we're all free, frightfully so, and tumbling unknowingly into the future.
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