Red Sauce

Give Me a Donut and a Cop, Pronto!

“Can I interest you in some pastry items?”
This was the opening line of the community police meetings in Park Slope that I attended as a youngish reporter. Never failed. Once everyone was seated in their pews, a chubby cop with a tight shirt and small, fat hands would offer up the “pastry items.” And every time it made me smile because the pastry items were just a bunch of donuts in a box. Not even Dunkin Donuts. No, these were bought at the local grocery store.
The meetings were at times stultifying and revelatory. Mostly, the complaints dealt with noise. And it being Park Slope other less stultifying complaints dealt with racism and crime. And I would have to then go back to the offices of the papers I worked for, where I barely made any money and got absolutely no respect. I then stayed up late and wrote at least two stories from these meetings and eventually I got fired. But that's another story for another time.
Back to the noise...The noise complaints used to make me cringe. It’s New York City, I thought. So what if a truck rolls by once in a while and makes your brownstone shake? What do you expect? A new bar opens on your street, there will be noise, you crazy old people. Construction down the road? Live with it! Or move to the ‘burbs. Or move in with your children who you say are so wonderful. Go away.

Rub My Fat Belly With Avocado

Give me some creamy guacamole, a pulled beef quesadilla, a plantain and black bean empanada and some prickly pear margaritas to start.
After that I want a caramel crepe filled with pistachio paste, covered in ribbons of chocolate and caramel, lying next to a round of homemade intensely vanilla ice cream and then I want an illicit tryst.
Thanks.
You ask for shit and you get it. This is my new revelation. It’s so powerful that I need to break it apart in pieces. First I will consider the cost.
Because inflated costs leave you not only with a bloated belly and a bloated credit card but an oddly configured ego that can make you a shut in on a rainy Saturday afternoon, throwing out old sweaters, shoes and listening to hours of Al Green and Aretha Franklin. Taking me home, ‘Ree.
Dos Caminos is excellent. But an overpriced bitch that I won’t be doing again anytime soon. And it was, yes, illicit, because the bitch did not really own up to her costs in dollars and sense right away. And you know, I didn’t ask, either.
And usually I give it up for restaurants that do a meal right. I give them that and say, eh, so the burger was $20, but it was a good fucking burger. So, the tryst made you lose sleep and throw out some perfectly good shoes. Eh, it’s a price you pay…
But for many reasons, quesadillas are a food that should always be reasonably priced. If it’s a duck in mole sauce, I expect you to give me an inflated price. But black beans and plantains and beef in a tortilla, should be delicately priced, just like a soft kiss on the belly. Aaaah, even an inflated belly likes to be kissed.
That’s what Mexican food should feel like when you are done, actually, no matter how bloated your belly is, it should just feel good. Mexican is the feel good food.
So the final bill for my Mexican belly kiss? $120. I do not scoff at spending money on food. Now that I no longer spend so much on pot, coke or alcohol, I indulge in the finer things that can stimulate my taste buds.
But baby, baby please, break it to me with a kiss on the belly.
The illicit tryst was only welcomed by an appetizer of waffles with fruit, caramel and fudge and that was all it needed.

Denied My Own Personal Cheese Pocket

Inside every burrito lies a cheese pocket. It’s a beautiful, warm cubby of melty cheese that is a pleasure to cut into whether you are holding the burrito in your hands or cutting it with a knife and fork.
The only problem that may incur with you enjoying a cheese pocket is if you don’t like sour cream and the burrito order comes and there is sour cream in your burrito. So you decide to take fork and knife to burrito to try to cut out sour cream parts. But then you find that underneath the sour cream parts, on the outside of the line of cream sandwiched between tortilla and sour cream, is your cheese pocket. You are totally screwed.
Unless you are willing to eat the sour cream, you can’t have what you have been looking forward to. You’ve really just been denied your joy. Well to be more exact, your joy is surrounded by something you loathe.
Foods from the weekend:
Friday evening: A bit chewy thin fried calamari rings and Mee Goreng (Indonestan style stir-fried egg noodles with shrimp rofu and bean sprouts) from Mai in Boerum Hill. The food is not outstanding here but it’s better than some other thai and south Asian food in Brooklyn. It’s all worth it to take in their lovely garden. It’s quiet, serene and green.
Saturday: Burrito with aborted cheese pocket noted above
Brie, Chevre and crackers with a very buttery Australian grenache.
Sunday: Buckwheat banana pancakes and bacon
Popcorn and a coke
Fake meat Chinese from Gobo
For entertainment? A marathon viewing of "Bad Girls” This UK soap is set in Larkhall prison. It reminds me of good ol’ Prisoner Cell Block H. But with no Bea, it can’t really compare but it’s good, addictive trash nonetheless.

Sometimes It Don't Feel Like it Should

It’s getting easier to get up. But two days ago, I could barely lift myself off any surface. I still use both hands to help me.
I place my hands on the arms of my chair or on top of the lovely light shiny wood of my desk, bow my head down to the gods, and lift up gingerly. I usually give off an audible, albeit quiet, “ow.” Or sometimes an “ooohhh.” Last time, it was a “Jesus!” I have since learned to breathe in on the way up and off my seat. This way I don’t scream or say anything out loud that may make the photo editor who sits next to me (who, strangely looks just like Natalie Merchant if she had blond curly hair) were to ask me what was wrong.
I have internal hemorrhoids. Or at least one ‘roid. I had external ones years ago and you know it’s painful shit.
Well, I mean it’s painful. And I am not talking about the act of pooping.
So this photo editor, she is sweet, but I don’t want to put her in the position of asking me why I am in such pain. So I hide my pain. I just don’t want to have to turn to her and tell her I have internal ‘roids. That would just make the sweetness and light disappear from the room forever. We would forever then have a new relationship—post ‘roid relationship. I like to keep up the fantasy of our love for each other right now. Though we did discuss the painful crotch burn one gets from bad bicycle seats. So, yesterday morning when she asked how I was and I said my crotch hurt she laughed and there was still sweetness.
So, of course I have been doing some googling and research about hemorrhoids. And of course conversing with my pregnant friend about them and, you know, not much you can do about these puppies if you don’t want to go to a colorectal specialist to discuss.
And I am not going to buy a donut to sit on.
So, I sit here with a change in my diet (I had two peaches yesterday, some broccoli and oatmeal, but then bad bad dinner of pizza. The pizza was good, as usual, my obsession pizza. But white flour is not good for the ‘roids. But Fornino’s funghi misti pizza wins out over the ‘roids) And with the change in diet, things will settled down in there a bit.
The internal hemorrhoid is a major obstacle to bicycling. I was actually convinced that the reinvigorated bicycling routine I was enjoying was the culprit. I figured I was pinching, restricting some blood vessels down there and causing the roids. But apparently this is not true, just that all that sitting and restricting of anus blood flow can make the ‘roids flare up worse than they would. This morning’s ride was only slightly unbearable.
For breakfast today? Some Kashi GoLean Krunch cereal and a peach. I am going to conquer this one. And it means this former vegetarian needs to stop pouring so much red meat down her throat.
I think crazy Andrew Young may also have ‘roids. Maybe the distrustful Arabs, Jews and Koreans overcharged him for the Preparation H and so he just lives with the pain and when your butt is in pain you don’t have any censors.

The Life of a Sexy Ass Guido

The life of a sexy ass guido is not an uncomplicated one. I beg and I borrow this a bit, but when it says so much by saying so little, I have to take it.
I met a man that looked like Donald O'Connor in a yellow jersey and I am just now recovering from the whole experience.
He is standing there in his fancy yellow lycra cycling jersey, puffing out around his flat belly, and he is sporting a slight but constant smile on his face and he is asking me if I “ever met anyone at these things.” "One of these things" is an organized bike ride through a New York cycling club.
I can’t get his face out of my head. It’s sitting there like the last chip in a bowl or not the last chip in the bowl because that is usually the most desired chip. No, his face is sitting there stuck in that place in my brain where things stick and become a vision all around you even if you are looking at the 7-11 on 23rd off Park Avenue like the last girl standing at the high school dance. But I never went to high school dances, but still, there is that girl standing there and this guy, the guy with the yellow lycra thinking he is all Lance Armstrong studly standing there, grinning.
“Have you ever met anyone special or interesting at these rides?” he asked again after I said, “Huh?” the first time he asked.
The man looks a bit like Donald O’Connor but O’Connor would for sure be nicer, kinder, gentler and not in dire need of a post-divorce fling with a chick in her own lycra jersey. And he might sing and dance and be friends with someone like Gene Kelly.
This Donald O’Connor man may even be obsessed. Yes, he seems obsessed. He bought a $2,000 Serotta bike and got professionally sized for another $500 and he is sporting all this cycling gear, Look clips, Cannondale socks, Pearl Izumi cycling shorts and he is constantly smiling. No, he is grinning. He is suave. No, he thinks he is suave.

Oh, Give Me Land, Lots of Land

I was standing at a pole (once again) on the 4 train, staring at two fat balls of sweat hanging on to the edge of a woman’s forehead just across from me when I realized I have cabin fever. I need to get out of the city.
Yeah, yeah, I was all about embracing the summer in the city and my new full time freelance life is agreeing with me. My new full time freelance gig (lasting to November) even embraces biking to work with showers in the office and bikes in every cubicle.) But it’s hot, soupy and people are angry and I just need to rest my ass down near some water, lapping up and down the coast and then stare at the moon and the stars with a cold beverage in my hand.
In the meantime, I am planning on stocking up at the Farmers Market this weekend and perhaps actually making a meal worth telling you all about this weekend.
Last night, I saw a slight, angry woman start yelling at a big, bulky man on 14th street. The air was thick with humidity and for once the drops of water coming down and landing on my shoulder and neck was not air conditioner schmeg but instead it was rain, only intermittent drops, but still refreshing, uplifting, inspiring, optimistic rain.
The bulky guy in the oversized white t-shirt yelled back at this slight woman wearing sunglasses in the dark and then he raised a square, fat hand and punched her in the face, in the nose. She bowed down, held her nose and looked up as blood started streaming down her face. Several cell phone-equipped women started calling 911 frantically and stayed, transfixed at the scene. On nearby Fourth Avenue, the Mr. Softee truck was busy with a hot, impatient line of people waiting for their cones.
New York - just like I pictured it.
I wondered at the time, not what started the fight or even if they knew each other before (they didn’t seem to), but why none of the boys or “men” on the street called 911. They just kept on walking, for the most part.
When Latwonda was pregnant and, Willow has agreed, the white men never get up for the pregnant ladies on the subway and these men also don't call 911 when someone is attacked on 14th Street, apparently.

Voices Drown, the Tourist's In Town

Directly after enjoying a lovely lunch of chick pea cakes, duck confit in a cherry sauce and a dessert of chocolates and peanuts at Telepan, whose restaurant week menu is long and lovely, I went to Human Resources to bitch about Sheen of Puke. The perky HR woman, whose office was stifling hot, assured me they were aware of his problems and planned to do something about him.
So, as pleased as I was, I was then off to clear off my desk and head over incongruously to Bloomingdale’s where my sister in law and her two daughters were. They came in from Michigan for the weekend to shop and to eat.
We ate like queens this weekend. The relatives fought like schoolgirls and I saw New York City in some ways as a tourist. I saw it as a loud, hair extension-donning, label wearing tourist who is a bit upset her teenage daughter needs space.
The moment I knew it was going to be a long weekend was when over a bucket load of creamy, spicey guacamole made at our table by a dark-curly haired handsome gentleman here, my sister in law said, “Oh my god. Is that Paris Hilton?”
I looked over at a skinny blond woman who looked nothing like Paris Hilton and just said, “No.”
Then my sister in law said, “I really like her. She’s so classy. That Nicole Richie is just so tacky.”
Yeah, um, what do you say? I mean, surely, I was confused. I wanted to get more details. What did this mean and how is she measuring this tacky factor? But I didn’t ask. I just let that sentence lay there in the air of Rosa Mexicano and over my pomegranite margarita, which was thankfully very strong.
I am still recovering a little from my weekend.
I slept until nearly noon today and biked most of the afternoon.
On my long ride through Brooklyn, I was struck by the two images I am left with from my weekend. The first is of my sister in law pushing open the huge doors of La Perla’s Madison Avenue branch and in a loud unmistakable Midwestern accent asking the demure saleswomen all dressed in black and talking in whispers, “What’s upstairs? Sales?”
And then silence from the demure. And an even more silent head nod from one of them.
And the next is my sister in law pulling out one of her extensions on Bleecker Street and laughing and holding it up against the sky. “Hey, look, I lost one of my extensions. HA HA HA HA HA HA.”
I am exhausted.

What's the Frequency, Bagel Lady?

This morning, in an indulgent move, I went to the local bagel shop and ordered a bagel. “Whole wheat everything with cream cheese.” I am a carb junky. I try to limit the carb intake but it’s my last day at corporate media hell job and I figured I would treat myself to some carb, but semi-healthy whole wheat carb.
But the dumbass bitch who clearly even restated my order back to me got it all wrong.
“Whole wheat everything, light cream cheese?” she asked as she flipped on the lights to the refrigerators housing the juice bottles.
“Yes,” I cheerily and politely spouted back. “Whole wheat everything, light cream cheese.” I am slap happy joyous as it's my last day going to corporate media house. I get my brown paper bag housing the bagel and I skip down to the lovely L train subway platform.
So, I get to hell job where I walk the long way through the maze of halls that lead through three addresses on one long block to the cavernous dot com newsroom. On my iPod is playing R.E.M.’s “Untitled” and I sing along and attribute unrealistic personal meaning to the lyrics -- “This world is big and so-awake//I stayed up late to hear your voice
//This light is here to keep you warm//I made a list of things to say//But all I really want to say//All I really want to say is//Hold her and keep him strong//While I'm away from here//Hold her and keep her strong//While I'm away from here”
I purposefully get nostalgic and think back of all the time, the years, I have been at corporate hell, all the while comforted by warm, just baked bagel in bag, smelling up everything in it (including my sweater which now reeks of garlic). There was the crazy Sunday night news anchor who is a goddess and loved both patty melts and Shun Lee. And there was bosswoman from Staten Island who was fierce and worship worthy at times and once donned high-heeled converse sneakers and then, of course, Latwonda and Sheen of Puke, a study in contrasts.
I get to my ergonomic seat, press button to turn on computer, get a no need to respond “Hello” and “It’s your last day,” from a coworker and I open the bag housing comforting, rewarding bagel and what the fuck????????

'First They Say They Want You'

I was really good at sitting still and being quiet as a child. I could stand or sit and be quiet for hours and used to do this until someone would notice.
But time is relative to age. When you are a child, ten minutes is obnoxiously long. So I could definitely stand and be quiet for, I would say, 20 minutes, and no one noticed. I could sit, though, for hours before anyone noticed.
It only came in handy for school musicals where I had to stand and mouth the words since Ms. Chistener thought I had a horrible singing voice. (But she forever turned me onto Neil Diamond.)
Otherwise, it has come in handy at corporate media job. I sit still and don’t do much here. My job was stripped from me by sheen of puke when he started on and attacked my Latwonda. So even though I used to edit, write and command a general piece of corporate media’s web site, in the last few months, I sat still. Sounds nice, right? But it was maddening, soul sucking, crazy driving, horribleness. So I no longer sit still. Instead, I walk away.
All this had me thinking of previous bosses. Here’s my rundown:
1) Racist editor at hometown suburban paper. I got fired for calling my hometown racist in a column where I reminisced about Donna Red. Donna, are you out there?
2) Lou Grant-type editor at wire service in Chicago. He was mean, gruff and insensitive but the best journalist I ever worked for. I learned more from Zimbo than I could have learned from anyone anywhere. He made me tell a woman her husband died on my last day. It was for the man’s obit.
3) Naked literary agent doyenne. She was lovely and smart and an old East Village activist relic a la Bella Abzug-. Her 75 year old boyfriend used to hit on me, rub my back, my arms, once brushed up against the boobies when no one else was around. I had to quit.
4) Evil Brooklyn Paper Editor brought in from New Hampshire who hated women. Got fired with another reporter the same day for no reason that we can think of, except for we knew Brooklyn better than he did and corrected him a few times.
5) Crazy corporate media boss caught sending porn to fellow reporter. I volunteered for a lay off and received a sweet deal.
6) Nice, gentle Woody Allen-esque editor at big city paper. He really wanted to be a filmmaker. He tried to kiss me after dinner one night.
7) Lovely Latwonda, my office spouse, soul mate, pizza partner and one of the funniest, smartest, most pleasant bosses I have ever had. She left after she broke her water in the office and off we were to the hospital so she could deliver bouncing baby girl. She’s not coming back to corporate media job.
8) Sheen of Puke – the repulsive man who sent me into a freelance world, full of uncertainty but also promise.

In between of course, there was a fitness guru with frizzed hair and spandex at Vic Tanny and a crazy creepy woman at a photo booth in Detroit.

Some Things For Certain

One thing you can count on is that July in New York City will be so hot, you just find yourself giving in.
When it comes to a crowded sidewalk, you just move over for the couple who is walking slowly and stopping abruptly and in your way. When you have to carry two huge laundry bags home on a Saturday morning, you just let the beads of sweat drip from your forehead to your toes that are flipping along in your havaianas. Drip, drip, drip on your third toe. Hmmm, refreshing.
Another thing you can count on is that your last week at hated job will be the worst. Today at corporate media house, I chastised the photo department for blatant ignorance and appeasing corporate media house with offensive slideshow concerning “the gays” and I lost it on co-worker who was being blatantly condescending to me. Finally, I phoned my mother and asked her to stop sending me her church bulletin emails.
Anyone else want to mess with me?
Here’s a list of what I ate this weekend. And here's a tip on what I am craving: barely cooked brownies with caramel swirls, of course.

Friday dinner:
Salty, slightly stale popcorn with butter and junior mints at this dumbass movie. Though, props to Meryl, of course. But I actually nearly wept at movie. Um, yeah. That was a more fragile day.

Pork Tenderloin pan seared in a chianti sauce with baby artichokes and grilled pears at I Coppi (one of my new favorite restaurants)

Saturday:
Breakfast: Whole Wheat Sesame bagel with cream cheese from here.

Lunch: Veggie burger

Dinner:
Sausage laden red sauce with spaghettini as well as fat, plump porchini ravioli studded with fresh balls of goat cheese.
Homemade Peach Pie!

Sunday:
Breakfast: Go lean cereal

Lunch: Cremini, shallot, Manchego cheese omelet Whole Wheat English muffin

Dinner:
Salad, Fish and Chips here.