If You Could . . .

If you could somehow speed up your life like you can in video-editing programs like Final Cut Pro (you see it all the time now — just look for that ultra-speeded up shot, usually of cars or nightlife) and somehow every person you ever met or communicated with became a blip or a flare or something with a time reference, say, a brief email communication with someone over a purchase from eBay that you sold, or a mutual interest in some subject, or the dépanneur guy that you see every day but then one day disappears, never to be seen again . . . what would your life look like in fast video motion?

It would be a remarkable series of flashing lights, some too fast to almost see, with flares of relationships that last weeks, months or even years, every person you ever said hello to, every neighbor you greeted on a given morning, every interaction with a bureaucrat; in essence, every face-to-face meeting you ever had with anybody, including your loving relationships (this perhaps a bright, dayglo blue band that supports all the other flickering transiencies and serves as a continual — hopefully — base?) and would serve as a map of your Life With Others.

I’ll always remember a video I saw a long time ago (a LONG time ago) that showed someone’s house, then pulled back slowly and pulled back and back until it was just planet Earth, then the solar system, then the galaxy, then the cluster of galaxies and so on, and this was WAY before the Internet . . . and I was blown away. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could do something similar with a short film about all the relationships you’ve ever had with anyone?

I guess it’s called Memory but that probably wouldn’t sell well on screens nowadays.

Basi

Hanging around the markets has its rewards. Atwater has its own aura, and Jean-Talon does too. Lately it's my quest for the perfect garlic that drives me there. I know it's ridiculous to expect to find newly-harvested garlic now but, hey, I can dream. So now, though I can't find the ail au baton, I do find the ail de Provence. I found some at Chez Louis, possibly the premier go-to place for chefs across this city.

But I digress. Near the corner that houses Capitol, the Italian getwhatchouneedery, there's an intriguing cornerplace. That would be Basi. More on this later, but suffice to say that I went in to use the bathroom (excuse) and talked to chef-owner Maurizio and lo and behold, I'm going to dinner there next Wednesday. Not a thing over $30 except the very moderately-priced wines, and who knows? A camera might suddenly pop up. A review might be written. Who knows?

These days I go at a restaurant very differently than I used to. This is possibly due to an inordinate watching of the Food Channel (I signed up to my present cable service ONLY because I wanted the Food Channel, many years ago).

But what I've realised over the years is that instead of anonymous drones bringing you plates, these are real people slaving over very hot stoves and managing businesses that have very short odds. That's the difference between then and now. They were faceless providers whom I didn't know and would never know then but they are real people who really go in and out of business and put their heart and bank accounts into making you eat well. I know, it's easy to say "Well, doh, what did you think? It's an army of robots making your food?" But it's just as easy for many people, as I myself used to, to make the disconnect.

Sure, I'll write an un-partisan view of the restaurant as I see it, but I'll take into account Maurizio and his wife's smiling faces while I do it. That can't be so bad, can it?

Thoughts on Yet Another Birthday

So today I celebrate (mourn?) an event that traumatised the hell out me one day many years ago. Back then, computers were still 10 feet tall, occupied entire rooms, used tape for RAM and possessed the memory of a present-day pocket calculator available at the dollar store.

Wars, cold and hot, were being fought between major countries in almost every quadrant of Earth (yes, I know, it sounds like a Mel Gibson epic, doesn’t it?)

The moon shot was years away. To dial anyone from anywhere that was not your ville, you absolutely had to go through an operator. There was "Person to Person" and "Station to Station." It cost an incredible amount of money for the time. There were no faxes. Telegrams were the usual method of communication, with their staccato “IN TOWN TONIGHT STOP OKAY NOT TO COME TO AIRPORT STOP WILL TAXI STOP LOVE YOU STOP.”

Men wore hats. Almost all men and some women wore hats. I was born in a hospital in Calcutta, India, which, like most hospitals, whisked me away from my mother and put me in a bassinet somewhere in the neonates room, where, no doubt, Dad came to gaze, not smoking a cigar, but a cigarette. Hell, the doctor probably lit one up with him. And they let my mother smoke in her room while she recovered.

Flying was an incredible luxury. It was like going to the moon. All the men wore suits and ties. All the women were dressed in their finest. Going from New York to San Francisco probably required two stops, but no one minded, because they were in the lounge, smoking and drinking.

I lived in India for ten years, so at the time there was no television, period. Even Gandhi didn’t have television. There was no radio. The only music came from a mono wooden thing that stood 4-feet tall and played Nat King Cole, scratchily. There were no battery-operated toys.

On the day that I was born, so many years ago, the world was literally a different place. If I put my son in a time machine and sent him back to it, he’d be bewildered. No computers? No fast food? No Dora the Explorer?

So, it’s with mixed feelings that I observe this day. Sure, back then life was simpler, but was it? Was it really? Probably more people than today were still busy killing each other, probably even more so than today pollution, poverty and horror were rampant . . . need I go on?

Just wish I’d been born thirty years later.

Can you say Barney the Dinosaur?

Guess What The Postman Brought Me Today . . .

A Friendly Fridge Game

This one, August 8th:



And this one, today, November 25th:



Can you tell the difference? I know it's subtle and all the labels are not necessarily visible, but in the first I was a complete vegetarian.

In the second I'm a complete omnivore. Can you see what has remained the same?

Spot the similarities.

One who does wins a date. (The fig kind).

What does YOUR fridge look like? Send me and I'll post it, if you want. You can remain nameless.

Son of Pizza Meetsa Mozza

Yesterday it was experiment time. Now I know enough about pizza-making to not panic when things go wrong. (Famous last words).

One thing I've learned about an extensive pizza session is to prepare the day before. Do all the prep of the meats and vegetables and cheese. That means, cook the Italian sausage, shred the prosciutto, slice the olives, onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic or whatever it is you're using, make the tomato sauce you'll be using, and stash it all in the refrigerator. Then actually assembling and making the pizzas should be fairly brief.

So the next day all you have to do is preheat the oven (I suggest for at least an hour at 550 degrees, with your pizza stone in), bring the dough to room temperature, bring out the mozza di bufala and let it drain, assemble your dough board, corn meal, olive oil and brush (if you use olive oil) and you're set.

I had a to-and-from with Blork as I was doing the prep and I asked if he thought my following theory might hold water: I figured that if you kept all the ingredients as cold as possible, they wouldn't cook as quickly and the crust would have more time to develop a char and a crispy underside.

He figured that it would probably delay the cooking for less than a minute, and maybe possibly cool the stone down as well. Good reasoning!

Then, I wondered if the layering made a difference. He pretty much described his layering the same way I do it; stuff like green peppers, slivered onions, mushrooms (if any are being used) on the bottom, followed by possibly some cheese, then the meats/olives and then the top layer of cheese.

I agreed with him, but since I was making four pizzas I decided to experiment.

One thing I found out right away is that the first pizza will be the best. The stone will be ultra-hot and the oven won't have been opened for an hour and a half.

Then it goes downhill with all the opening of the oven and the repeated cooling of the stone, but it's unavoidable, unless you have all four pizzas dressed and sitting on their peels and you just shove them in one after the other. Which can't be done in my kitchen.

What I also found is that the cheese on the bottom is a very bad idea. I did two identically topped goat-cheese pizzas but just reversed the layering, and the one with the toppings on the top burned badly. The one with the cheese on top was pretty damn good.

I found that I could get a pizza done in 7-8 minutes, which is pretty good, considering some home recipes call for 15-20 minutes on 425! Ouch, don't be giving me a slice of that.

So, the pizza saga goes on. I will not rest until the dough does! (Hey, I'm getting pretty good at spinning! They're actually looking non-rhomboid!)

How do you Relate to a Child?

Well, I’ll tell you right off that when you’re a child yourself the job is made easier. But when you think of it as we’re all permanent children, that none of us ever fully grow up, and if we did, that in itself would be strange, because how can anyone graduate from being a child? It is not possible — then it’s very reassuring.

One thing that’s very important is being self indulgent.

The tiny one wants gratification immediately. He wants it with no agenda, just wants to be happy RIGHT NOW with no quantizations or rules. But when you look at it, isn’t that us, all of us, at all ages, even at 50, at which mark I find myself? You just want a warm place with warm hearts and some — any — loving presence to watch over you while you sleep, and just a knowledge that the Great Big World is not going to go away any time soon.

I used to deal with kids with joking and maybe even trying to scare them, because I saw them so powerfully in me. I had no connect button, no reason to treat them as kids, because I was so concentrating on how to make my own kidself an adult. I divorced myself from them because I hated their kid-dom, that it was vaguely scary how random they would be, how arbitrary, and I felt the subtle chaos that that represented.

But now, at age 50, I want to be like them. Secretly, I know I never stopped being a kid, there was always a tiny kid in me who just never went away, but now it’s just amazing to talk to a kid, as if they’re an ambassador from your own past, that they can explain your life to you in a way that you just simply can’t any more. It’s an incredible window that shines with a light that you only wish still made your life resonate.

I guess I’m just preaching to the choir but when I think of my son I’m so glad he happened and when I’m pathetically old and grey (read: now) I hope he still loves me. He’s a little kid but whether or not he knows it, he’s me, I’m him, and we’re always going to be little kids together.

Please pass the ketchup.