"Deep Thoughts": October 2009 Archives

I've been trying to make especially nice food for myself since I've become so poor, and it's interesting that what is nice food for me might sound like deprivation to someone else. I've noticed a tendency among a lot of men to think of a "real dinner" as a big hunk of meat and some potatoes and a little bit of something green on the side, and maybe a pile of cornbread to go with it.

I used to want to make soup for dinner a lot, and Boywich always complained that that wasn't dinner, even though my soup has so many goodies in it it's nearly a solid.

I was at a friend's house one day while she was making soup for herself and her husband (I had dinner plans already), and I saw him look kinda bummed when he realized what was for dinner - until she threw a bunch of sausage in it. His eyes lit up with what can only be called relief.

If it had lots of sausage in it, then it was real dinner.

Apart from the obvious fact that I don't eat sausage (or meat of any kind), I don't get what the big deal is. I used to eat meat, and during that time, I still loved having soup for dinner. It didn't feel like deprivation; it felt lovely - warm and comforting, like home in a bowl. And yet even some of my vegan male friends look down on soup.

I've got only one male friend who feels the same way I do about soup, and he was born in a different country and grew up in a state of actual poverty - the kind where you don't own a pair of shoes until you are ten years old.

In the years that have elapsed since Boywich and I lived together, I've had soup for dinner about 80% of the time, every winter. I make different kinds, once or twice a week, and I eat it nightly until it's gone, and then I make the next batch.

What I've been doing lately that's special is to add some homemade bread to the equation. I'm not sure that's such a good idea - the bread is too damned good, and I eat too much of it, and then feel like I'm carrying around a whole extra Me in my stomach.

But it certainly feels luxurious. I put out the soup and the big uneven pieces of bread and feel like I'm living like a king.

I've been reading this blog intermittently, and being very interested - not just in how the various writers solve the problem of eating within a pretty strict budget, but also in the idea that one can eat well without spending so much.

The first rule is obvious - you need to cook most of your meals yourself, rather than eating out. But the rest becomes more complex, and more interesting. To some extent, it may depend on what you consider eating well. Anthony Bourdain, who's in a position to know, is fond of saying that the very best dishes come from peasant food. From people who get creative and take care with their food precisely because they can't afford the tenderest cuts of meat or "jet-fresh" out-of-season vegetables.

I think, too, that there's a certain appreciation of simplicity and craftsmanship required. I was thinking, as I kneaded the bread on Monday, that it's just like making pottery or spinning yarn. It's not just sustenance, it's art. And that's why it tastes better. I can taste my own spirit in there, and friends, I am yummy.

It gets cold and my joints start to hurt, especially my knees. I notice that I can't start fast, and I can't climb hills fast, and everything just sets off frightening little twinges. I slow down some. I slow down some more. I warn the boys that I will be slow, and tell them they can drop me on the bridge if they like, but they don't.

They are not my usual boys. They keep a nice pace, one that doesn't hurt me to keep up with but still gets me just that little bit out of breath that I need to achieve some kind of benefit to my old heart.

I feel like thanking them, but I don't really know them well enough, and it would require some explanation.

It would require explaining that I spent all summer racing to keep up. I liked it, and it made my legs stronger than they would have been, going my own pace, but it's impossible now.

I did a bunch of cooking today; it was a lot of work, and it hurt my back, and afterward I had to mop the floors, which made it worse. I thought some about the slow food movement in Italy.

I thought about how that'd never in a million years fly here. We're all about nanoseconds - you should see the bagel guys get impatient with people who can't rattle off their orders in auction-speak, who don't know what kind of cream cheese they want, whether they want it toasted or not toasted. Everything here gets abbreviated: LES, EV, UWS, TriBeCa, DUMBO.

To bicyclists, the bridges are the QB and the Willie B and the Manhattan (no abbreviation there, other than to drop the gratuitous Bridge at the end). Nobody rides over the Brooklyn, just as nobody spells out Brooklyn. It's always Bklyn, or the even-shorter Bkn, or even Bk.

I do it, too. I have a friend who rides a Paris Sport, who always calls it by its full name, and I get irritated. Why don't you just call it the Paris?

I suppose I hate slowing down. My knees are happy, but I feel a lot less like a superhero. I can see the need for it in food, though. I put a pot of chickpeas out to soak overnight, after I'd spent four hours making bread.

The only way to make good food, especially if one is a vegetarian, is to take your time with it. To start from whole pieces of things. To go to the farmers market. To soak dry beans. To cook in that magical way where you are only half-conscious, musing on something more important, or more trivial, or just listening to music, or watching MI-5 or whatever BBC America is serving up that evening.

I know that part of why I don't want to stop is that I can't look at anything right now. It's not often the way I operate, but for the time being, I just can't look at that thing on the shelf.

I can look at the bridge rising up like a long-limbed robot, I can look briefly at Chinese vegetable stands. I can look at half a squashed dead rat and wonder, quietly, which is worse - that or the intact, squiggling version.

I can look at bladed spokes. I can look at the muscular calves of friends, now mostly clad in tights. I can look at a stray morning glory straggling along a fence, and wish it were a grove of pines.

a) I have a headache.
b) I ate two scoops of ice cream yesterday.
c) The two are not related.
d) It's windy like I've rarely seen in the city, and it's kicking up a bunch of acorns and a wonderful smell.

Night ride in the park with my boys. That Halloween smell swirling around us. Our bikes buffeted by the wind. Laughing as we try to avoid crashing into each other. Everyone wearing helmets. These boys are so cute, they even look cute in helmets, I think, as I watch them swoop by in a wavering line. Pedals flashing.

Some nights I just think I have the very best life.

One of the younger ones might possibly have a little crush on me. One can only hope. He's the cutest of them.

I come home and the cat is perched on the back of the couch, looking happy to see me. She quickly moves to my lap, and then the floor, where she lies on her back, wriggling her tummy in the air, unmistakable cat-lingo for "Hello, I love you."

One of the boys tells me the Brooklyn Bridge is silent at midnight, and a good place for a date. I wonder, I really wonder, if he's suggesting something. He is really just so cute.

I haven't solved anything, and I don't know how to make money or what to do with the remainder of my life, but at this moment I feel so alive that I don't care.