Sausagetarian

Growing Food Is not a Trend

2009-06-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

"Man, it is cold out there at the Dogmatic cart! Our spot at the Bleecker Playground is an enigmatic microclimate, a black hole that sucks the temperature down at least a good twenty degrees. Tourists and foolish teenagers stroll past in flip-flops while we cover over the grill, warming our numb hands. If the afternoons were busier then it would not be an issue, but when it's slow there's not much to do besides thinking how miserably cold it is.
My co-workers have taken to wearing multiple pairs of long underwear. I tried this yeasterday and found myself only marginally warmer, plus I felt like a fat slob."

That's from 2007, probably late October or November. I rescued this draft of a post from some dusty computer brain archive in the outer-dimension netherlands of ephemera. Now it sees a sliver of daylight, even if only by my eyes.

Fast-forward two and a half years: it's mid-spring 2009, and we're planting a garden plot in Portland. When I signed up for a spot in the community garden on the other side of the field behind our yard, I figured it would be a good way to experiment a little, and get a few shriveled squash and withered leaves of kale, if nothing else.

But now that I am digging around out there, the relative enormity of the plot dazzles. There is so much space to plant seeds! It makes me giddy and dizzy, and a bit overwhelmed. I've worked about a third of the ground so far, and in what I knew was foolish haste planted chard, kale, and fennel seeds already. The soil is too heavy and needs to be amended with a big truckload of cow poop.

Our plot was fallow last year, and so I am now combing through various ground covers in search of dandelions to eradicate before I give the ground a working-over. It is work indeed. I should get a hoe, but all we have is a shovel and small trowel.

This whole blossoming of gardening in the face of global financial adversity is heartwarming, but the concept that gardening is cheap is a lie. Seeds, yeas, are relatively cheap. But our plot coasts us $100 a year. Our wheelbarrow was $30 at the sued tool shop, but the more I use it, the more I realize how great it would be to have other tools, like a hoe, a rake, and one of those asterik-looking devices you twist to loosen up the dirt. And a bench, and a trellis or two, and the aforementioned cow poop. Gardening nourishes the soul, but it also plants the seeds of consumerism.

This new wave of so-called "victory gardens" needs a new handle. Our gardening is not like the Greatest Generation's stalwart raising of vegetables in order to defeat the Axis; no, our victory shall have to be over the consequences of our own rampant greed. A victory over credit. In order for our victory garden to succeed, I shall have ot keep our own slender credit card sequestered deep in my wallet, and settle for back-breaking labor over nifty tools, even if they are secondhand.

No More Cocks

2007-01-27T20:02:00.000-08:00

The Dogmatic cart is no longer open. It's been a while, like since the end of November 2006. Dogmatic may return someday, but I'm a free agent now (i.e. unemployed) and don't keep up with Dogmatic developments.

I am still no longer writing a blog, although you can read my stupid MySpace page, which has become my default writing-promotion page. I post links to my most recent articles on my MySpace blog.

And, in order to put photos on your MySpace blog, they need to be online. So I post photos here in order to put them on my MySpace blog. That accounts for the untitled photos that are not related to anything. The end.

2007-01-17T06:29:00.000-08:00

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I needed to post these online for a non-blog reason

2007-01-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Back in Action

2006-10-31T05:25:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from posting. I still work at the sausage cart and all, but I find that my observations have not been very sausage-related, and I don't want Sausagetarian to morph into an outlet for my frustration at living in New York and working yet another dead-end service job.

Go read some other blog. There are, oh, only about a thousand really good ones out there. I'm busy writing my novel. Check back in a few months when I'm discouraged about novel-writing; maybe I'll be posting again. And thank you for reading!

Competition?

2006-10-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

Rachel Ray in the burger business? Interesting. Look out, she may tackle sausage next.

Cool Stuff You and I Missed

2006-10-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

I got a group photo from the organizer of the 2006 New Jersey Hot Dog Tour (you know, the one my husband and I missed the bus for and so we went to Ikea instead). Check these folks out, man. They look like they could learn me a thing or two about hot dogs.

In another news of missed events, the Vendy Awards were yesterday. Yup, at the very moment I was slaving away at my own mobile food vendor cart, people in the know were celebrating the excellence of other mobile food vendors. WNYC announced the winners today (in between pledge drive rambling about free Tony Bennet CDs with a gift of $50), but I was still half-asleep in bed at the time. None of the winners were sausage-related, I do recall that.

Career Advice

2006-10-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

A vociferous New Yorker came by the cart this afternoon as we were preparing sausage for a family who were visiting the city. He told the family a portion of his life story, then he told my co-worker Juliet a portion of his life story. Juliet reciprocated by telling him her life story.

This fellow was going about the neighborhood, saying his goodbyes—he was moving to Cleveland the next day. He told us when he lived in the West Village in the 80s, the neighborhood was full of crack and tranny hookers. Then he talked to the tourist family some more, about a good many things: the improv class he took a few years ago, the quality of cupcakes at Magnolia, the amiable homeless man he was friendly with and the noisy homeless man he used to rap on the head from his apartment window…

At last the family moved on. Our new friend moved on to us, discussing everything under the sun. He was a nice guy, but very manic; he took a lot of energy. He was a creative director and he was moving to Cleveland to, oh, I dunno—direct Cleveland creatively.

After ordering a beef sausage with ketchup, he asked us what we did. I told him I was a food writer. “What, like restaurant reviews and stuff?” he said (this is what everyone says.”

“No,” I said, “I develop, test, and edit recipes.” I would have elaborated, perhaps, but he didn’t give me a chance.

“No, no, that’s all wrong. Listen to me, I give great advice—just yesterday I got this interior decorator a great job.” He filled us in on his brilliant breakthrough with this woman’s career, and then he told me he’d do the same for me. “It’ll change your life, but I gotta make a deal—give me a bottle of water.”

I considered it for a second. “I’ll sell one to your for a dollar, and I’ll pay for the other half myself with this tip you kindly gave me a minute ago.”

“No,” he said, “you gotta give me a free water.”

“Then it’s off,” I said. “I can’t give water away. It’s against the rules.”

“Whatever suits you,” he said, “but you’ll regret it.” He stayed another ten minutes, talking and talking—Juliet was delighting in this guy—and then he left. It was like a long exhale as he stepped away.

I wonder what he would have said to me. Maybe it would have been helpful, but what does he know about my career? He knew that I’m a writer working at a sausage cart, which is maybe enough. But he does not know anything about me, who I am, what I really want to do, any of my background in cooking or writing. People are so quick to tell you how to fix everything right up. When talky know-it-alls come around, I usually stay mum and let them get their kicks. Probably they think I’m some demure, shy nerd. But maybe one of these days I’ll speak up. I should have told that guy his life would be totally great and different and amazing if he’d shut up every now and then.

After they guy left, Juliet mentioned how he reminded her of Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty—she’s reading On The Road at the moment—but I disagreed. Sure, he had the same unbridled energy and loudmouth lust for life and attention, but this guy was a successful creative director, not some drunk freezing train tracks in Mexico. In any case, I think Neal would have drove me nuts, too. Dean Moriarty, he’s just a guy in a book—you can shut a book. People, you can’t shut.

We Have New Bread

2006-10-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Dogmatic switched baguettes. We were using baguettes from Tom Cat, and I liked them. They had a nice golden-brown color and a crust that shattered pleasantly when you bit into it. This, however, meant that when we cut the Tom Cat baguettes at the cart in the morning their crusts shattered and made a big crummy mess. The Tom Cat baguettes had an airy interior that sank quite effortlessly onto our toasting spikes, too.

Now we're using baguettes from Pain d'Avignon. Their crust does not have the same deep caramel color, but their crumb is denser and tangier. I'm not sure which baguettes I prefer. Every day I do little experiments, seeing how long it takes to get a good toast on the interiors of the Pain d'Avignon baguettes (longer than Tom Cat) and tasting little bits of bread to get a handle on their flavor. This baguette switch has provided me with way too much entertainment, but I'm a nerd and find these bread comparisons intriguing.

The other day someone from Berkeley, CA's collective The Cheese Board came by with a few of her friends. She was in town for a co-op convention and had read about Dogmatic in the Times. I told about our recent baguette switch, which led to a little bread talk. Nice. Despite its name, the Cheese Board is known more for its baked goods than its cheeses (not to put down its cheeses). They sell pizza by the pie and by the slice, and the line for this pizza is usually too long for somone like me, soneome who thinks people who wait in line for an hour just to eat are saps.

But I have had Cheese Board pizza a few times. They make one kind of pizza a day and that's it. Every time I've been there it's a sauceless pizza. They seem to alternate between three-onion/three-cheese and three-mushroom/three-cheese. The crust is great, but to me it's more like very cheesy flatbread than actual pizza.

The Cheese Board is in Berkeley's fabled Gourmet Ghetto, not far from Chez Panisse. I used to drive through down Shattuck through the Gourmet Ghetto quite often, usually on my way to Amoeba to get records. In fact, just typing this is making me quite nostalgic--every day this happens. I recall our life in California and I look around and think "Why the fuck did we move to New York?" But then I think about all of the brazen pedestrians in the Gourmet Ghetto, Berkeley intellectual types with their 3,000-dollar strollers and fair trade hemp beanies and shit, how they'd just stroll right into the street no matter what because they were too busy thinking about getting a soy latte at Peet's to bother looking. I almost hit this dumb-ass UC Berkeley student right in front of the Cheese Board, in fact. That's exactly what drove me nuts about living in the San Francisco Bay area. Of course, New Yorkers jaywalk as well, but it's different, somehow.

All of the time I mull over how my husband and I moved across the country so I could get a great job and here I am, working part-time at a sausage cart. It's a way better job than the job I had in Berkeley. I guess we could move anywhere and there will be wonderful aspects and crappy ones. And there will always be eccentric, low-paying service jobs waiting.

Slow Day

2006-10-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

Walk down 8th Avenue on my way to Bleecker Playground, pass bum in camouflage cargo pants digging through the trash for recyclables at Abindgon Market, singsonging "I'm a bum, I'm a bum, I'm a bum, yeah I'm a bum..."

Drink juice box, fruit punch flavor, despite dislike of juice. All-natural organic juice blend tastes a lot like Hawaiian Punch.

Eat piece of toasted baguette with feta sun-dried tomato sauce.

See man with half-chewed cigar dangling from mouth walk past us three times in half an hour.

Cops come and harass bum in camouflage pants, who by now is digging through the Bleecker Park trash cans and continuing to loudly proclaim his bum status. Bum leaves, cop car lingers for ten minutes or so.

See guy who I though was Henry Winkler, then realize is not Henry Winkler.

Attempt to read Village Voice's Best Of issue. Throw paper away five minutes later, after reading "Savage Love." Best Of issues suck. Attempt to read New York Post. Learn the Eddie Murphy knocked up Scary Spice. Am amused by appropriateness of this has-been coupling. Wish them well. Scoff at Post's overblown coverage of Madonna's adoption of baby from Malawi. Throw Post away.

A mom at the playground says "Excuse me, sir, do you have any ice?" I turn around and tell her I'm a woman, perhaps with more malice than is due. She is embarrassed. I say don't worry about it, give her cup of ice. Spend next five minutes watching six-foot models and model wanna-bes walk by in knee-high suede boots and American Apparel leggings. Feel dowdy, old, and impossibly unstylish. Be glad am married to husband who apparently does not mind that I am easily mistaken for a man.

Sell bag of Tings.

Eat toasted baguette with white cheddar jalapeno sauce.

Eat apple.

Eat granola bar.

See little girl on scooter coast by with a friend, also on scooter. Their moms are on foot. Little girl says "There's that cooker girl who's always here!" Little girls scoot away. Look at kids frolicking in playground and realize even the kids in this neighborhood are more stylish than me.

Eat toasted baguette with pesto.

Break down cart. Head to subway station to get the hell home. Notice my end of platform is eerily deserted, notice C train on opposite side of platform is stopped and empty. See swarm of MTC cops loitering around. See big wash of blood on the platform just below the closed door of empty C train. A cap sits on platform next to wash of blood. See no owner of hat or blood. Turn away from sight of whatever just happened in order not to be lookie-loo. Woman with cameraphone takes picture, MTA cop yells at her and calls her a sicko and yells at people on platform to either get on a train or get away. Half a dozen more MTA cops and about a dozen firefighters walk to scene of mystery event, stretchers in tow. They walk, don't run. Figure maybe someone died--otherwise they'd be running. Maybe six stretchers go by. How many people were involved in this thing? Feel weird, in the way. Just want to get home. Realize if Weegee were here he'd be photographing all this. Realize all those Weegee photographs I like so well are of real dead people and their real living bereaved. My E train finally comes. Get on car, as it speeds past the fiasco on platform passengers crane necks to get a look. I don't look up from my New Yorker. Look at New York Times website this morning, see no mention of event. Guess it's just another incident in the city. Update: Looked on New York Post site and found out what happened. Morbid curiosity satisfied. I knew the trashy old Post wouldn't let me down.

The Sausage Index: Good. Ate a shit-ton of baguettes with cheese sauce yesterday, but actual sausage intake is well under control. Last sausage consumed was last week, a cigar-sized beef sausage to small to sell. I grilled it off and ate a few bites plain (man, those things are salty), then with spicy ketchup.

Puschart Shop Talk

2006-10-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

The best things about working as a mobile food vendor—besides the abundant availability of sausage and the daily opportunity to work out of doors—is talking to customers and passersby. Under normal circumstances I am horrible at making small talk, but the Dogmatic cart is a wonderful source of banal but appropriate material for casual conversations. People ask how long Dogmatic had been in the park (about five weeks), who came up with the idea (people who are not me), where the idea came from (people who are not me), what the sauces taste like (depends on the sauce), what we plan to do when it gets cold and snowy (dress warmly and give it our best shot).

I’ve found that New Yorkers are particularly asky. I’ve worked a number of jobs that involve dealing with the public, and most anywhere in the country patrons and customers are talky—they’ll mention the rain, or the traffic on the way over. I’d have to ask them questions to get a good, non-weather conversation going. But here, in New York, usually the customers are the ones who ask me questions. Where did those toasting spikes come from? How do you get this cart here to the park? Do you own this? They want to know. I love it.

This weekend, a fellow walked by the cart, did a double take, and turned around to face us. He was probably in his mid-forties, heavy-set but not fat—a very regular-looking guy. In our West Village neighborhood, most of our customers are either young and stylish or old and eccentric, so everyday folk stand out a bit. He asked me how much a dog was. I told him they were five dollars, and he said, “What the heck. I’ll have a beef sausage with white cheddar jalapeno.”

While I prepared his order, he told me he operated a hot dog cart for twenty years, so when he saw our cart it stirred his curiosity. I asked him how he prepared the dogs, and he said “boiled. It was a non-processing cart.”

Ah! Dirty water dogs. So that’s a non-processing cart. In New York City, any cart that sells mixed, cooked, chopped, cut, toasted, steamed, or grilled foods is considered a processing cart and must have a sink. A cart that sells items as-is, such as pre-packaged ice cream novelties or uncut, unheated bagels, is non-processing. But there’s an exception: carts that sell boiled (a.k.a. dirty water) hot dogs need not have a sink. This hot dog loophole is so illogical to me. I told him that, and the ex-hot dog man said that it boggled his mind, too, and that he couldn’t even sell knishes at his cart, just hot dogs, which had miffed him.

By this time his sausage was ready, and when I handed it to him he thanked me and walked away. I would have loved him to linger so I could ask him questions about the hot dog business. But maybe he was in a hurry, or maybe it didn’t occur to him that someone might find years of experience working at a non-processing hot dog cart very fascinating. But it was fun to have a few minutes of shop talk. I need to seek out other mobile food vendors during their slow times and pepper them with questions, and then I’ll be the asker.

Bum Fight

2006-10-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

The brick-paved area surrounding Bleecker Playground has its share of bums. I recognize most of them now. They are generally harmless people, mostly men, mostly down on their luck and intoxicated into oblivion. All day long they lounge on benches and talk about god knows what.

Dogmatic and the Bleecker Bums have an unspoken code: live and let live. We hadn’t had any problems so far, except for the time this tattooed-face guy dressed up like a leather pirate (complete with gauntlets studded with three-inch metal spikes) demanded a free Coke because he was crazy and had just returned from Iraq. I’m sure deployment in Iraq can mess you up, but I’m not sure such it would result in such rapid, visible mental and physical decay.

We haven’t seen the Leather Pirate since, thank god. Bums are like pigeons: if you feed one once, you’d better get used to it pecking around your feet. No one should go hungry, but the bums do what they have to do to get by, and so do we.

Last week, though, I messed up. This new bum I hadn’t seen before came up to us during a very slow spell. I was just entering the tip of my 24-hour flu, and I was sitting on the rear tire of the cart, yearning for some Advil and a nap. “Hello ladies,” said the bum as he sidled up. He looked fairly tidy, in clothes that actually fit him. He babbled for a bit, saccharine pleasantries about how lovely our smiles were and all that crap. I smiled mutely just to humor him, but he didn’t go away.

“I’m just wondering, ladies,” he continued, “if you happen to have a little bit of food you could share with a hungry man. I haven’t eaten in a long time, and I’d appreciate any little bit of food you’d throw away otherwise.”

We don’t throw food away. Throw sausage away—that’s a sin! I shook my head at him. But he persisted. “I’m very hungry, ladies, and God said never to turn a hungry man away.” This evocation of God did me in. I never help anyone. I’ve worked in close proximity to bums at several jobs, and I feel that giving them spare change and/or sausage is not the best way to help them. I prefer to save my change for tipping barristas and clerks at bagel shops, people who work hard.

But that’s all I do. Tipping junior college students hardly qualifies as charity. I used to donate money to good causes, but that’s when we had money. Nowadays the difference between me getting a black coffee in the middle of my Dogmatic shift is if I get a dollar tip or not. I hate having nice things like a warm apartment and a car and stable parents and yet not doing anything to help other, less fortunate people. Like the bum hounding us—even if he was annoying, he probably was hungry.

Early that morning I’d made a tuna sandwich at home to eat for lunch that day. But sitting there on the cart’s rear tire, the thought of eating lukewarm canned fish was revolting. Why should I waste my lovingly made tuna sandwich? Our passivity wasn’t chasing the bum away—we’d either have to be nasty or generous to him. I chose the latter.

The bum was overjoyed. He thanked us about five times and requested another set of smiles. I wanted to tell him he was pushing his luck, but I didn’t. As he finally loped off, I regretted giving him that sandwich. We were not seeing the last of him.

I went home sick later that day and didn’t come back to the cart for another two days. Upon my return, I discovered that there’d been unrest among the bums of the park. My tuna sandwich guy had been bragging about his food score to all the other bums. And one of the bums had stolen the backpack of Michael, my Dogmatic co-worker who had the propane fireball in his face. Michael had no valuables in his backpack, nothing but his Dogmatic uniform—which we saw the next day, hung up on the gates of the playground.

One the day of my return, one of the bums was particularly belligerent and vociferous. He swore a lot and had a pair of boxer-briefs on his head. I eventually recognized him as the tuna sandwich bum. That bastard—bragging about my sandwich! That’s the last time he gets anything from me, especially if he’s going to sit around with boxers on his head and threaten the other park bums.

The next day was quite chilly in the park. I finally got a tip and I went over to get a cup of coffee at the corner market so I could have something warm in my hands. When I got back, Jes, the car supervisor, excitedly told me that one of the bums had just beaten another bum to a bloody pulp. I was both glad and bummed to have missed the fight—I’ve never seen someone beaten to a bloody pulp in front of my own eyes. That’s okay, I guess. The triumphant bum—the beater, not the beatee—was strutting around the park with a menacing gleam in his eye.

The bums have been agitated lately. There’s something in the air. Deborah, the park attendant, came over and told us to get her if any more bums cause trouble. That’ll put at least a temporary end to these eruptions of bum violence—even the Leather Pirate would be a fool to mess with Deborah.

Dogmatic's Lame Homepage: Vote!

2006-10-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

We're on MenuPages now. Too bad we don't have a menu, at least not a paper menu. We write our menu out on a chalkboard every day. The nice, nerdy young MenuPages guy who came by the cart the other day had a clipboard with him, and I think he wrote our chalkboard menu down on his clipboard.

As much as I like to draw and doodle and make things look pretty, I hate writing the menu on the chalkboard. I'm left-handed and hold writing impliments in a unique (some uppity right-handed snobs might say "wrong") manner, which makes it difficult for me to write legibly on vertical surfaces. It takes me about twenty minutes to write the menu on the board. That's ten minutes too long, and it still looks like something a third-grader in the slow class did. My consolation was finding out the other day that these lovely ladies are/were left-handed as well.

Dogmatic's own page is up, as well. While the little cartoon characters are great (I like the butt-crack hescher and the guy who looks like Sonny Bono in particular), overall the page is LAME! No information whatsoever. Like, where and when can I get these so-called Dogmatic things? What do they look like? How much do they cost? What are fabulous people like Florence Fabricant saying about them in the press? Can I see a picture of the cart, so when I actually do find your location I'll know what to look for?

So, keeping in mind the vast differences in a meandering, self-indulgent blog and the homepage of a business, leave a comment and vote for the site you think is best. I'm counting on you here, folks. I wanna see numbers! Like, three comments total would make me happy.

Update, 10/19/06: I guess I didn't post the link to the Dogmatic site when I originally posted this. I fixed that, and just to be super-nice, I'll even put it down here: www.dogmaticgss.com.

Rained Out

2006-10-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

My flu is gone. I triumphantly returned to work at the cart yesterday, only to have rain cut my shift drastically short. Our Dogmatic cart has a metal shelf right over our prep area, a “tin roof” that creates shade on sunny days and protection from raindrops on crummy days. So we were fairly dry in the rain, but business was abysmal. We figured it was a lost cause, and we shut down around four.

Shutting down the cart is a pain in any case—it’s not hard, but it is dirty work that involves a lot of wiping down rough-edged metal surfaces and exposing the delicate skin of one’s face to flying droplets of grease and crud. Yesterday it was wet work, too. We shut the cart down in record time.

So, because of my flu and the rain, I have worked a grand total of 4 hours this week. Fortunately darling husband has a real job, and can be counted on to bring the bacon home. Apparently I can’t even be counted on to bring the sausage home.

Most street vendors are not so lucky. Your cart is your life. A week with several cold, wet, slow days can make the difference between paying bills timely or late. And if you have the flu, well—either the cart is open or it’s closed, huh? I slept my flu off, but I know at least a percentage of mobile food vendors would have spent it boxed in a roach coach, where they’d perhaps puke discreetly into a small trash bin in their cart. There are no sick days in the world of mobile food vending.

The Sausage Index: Zero. I have had no Dogmatic sausage in over…um…four days! Yesterday, during my pathetically dead shift, I did consume a small bit of baguette for training purposes. We have a new sauce, brie with white truffle oil, and I wanted to try it. Let's just say that sun-dried tomato feta is in no danger of being toppled from #1.

Important Safety Tips

2006-10-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

This is a very unflattering picture of me with poison ivy. I got it while running on trails through Forest Park, close to where my husband and I live. My running and hiking on trails had led to a handful of very nasty bouts of poison oak and ivy over the years. All I have to do is get within a few yards of the stuff for me to break out in seeping blisters. I had poison oak on my upper lip when I met Julia Child at a book signing. I was mortified about it, but good old unflappable Julia didn’t bat an eye. What a woman.

The poison ivy presented problems for me at the Dogmatic cart. The mother lode of sores on my arm are, as you can see, utterly repulsive, and not anything you’d want to spot on the exposed flesh of anyone preparing you food. But poison ivy heals faster when it’s not bandaged. My solution was to cover the big-ass sore up with band-aids, medical tape, and gauze right before the beginning of my shift. By the time I was riding the subway home after work, I’d be scratching away at those scabs like mad. Ick.

That’s all over with now, thank god. But as the poison ivy started to clear up, I got a 24-hour flu that got me sent home in the middle of a shift. I felt fine that morning, but as the day progressed I couldn’t stand up for more than two minutes without getting dizzy. I slept for two days straight and am in nearly tip-top shape now. I figure the poison ivy weakened my usually impenetrable immune system and made a gateway for flu germs on the subway or at some other germ-ridden spot one so often comes into contact with in this city.

So my safety tips are to stay away from trails, and to wash your hands at every opportunity. I myself will completely ignore the former (no way will I stop my much-needed nature infusions) and rigidly adhere to the latter (I wash my hands so many times a day it’s crazy, and I even count to twenty).

And here’s another, possibly more important safety tip: when lighting pilot lights, make sure all of the burners are OFF. My valiant co-worker Michael was kissed in the face by a fireball because one of the cart’s burners was still ON when he was lighting the pilot lights. It singed his eyebrows and gave his entire face what appears to be a severe sunburn. Michael is an actor, and his immediate concern was the state of his face—his vehicle, as it were. Don’t fret, he and his visage are fine. I was not there to witness it, but I don’t wish a similar episode on anyone. It taught me to always wear my little white Dogmatic baseball cap when lighting the pilots just in case a fireball comes a-callin’—if you can’t save your face, save your scalp.

Bleecker Playground Poems

2006-10-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

navy suit man
loud on cellphone
businesstalk in park
under bricked-in trees
shiny shoes step away
just as pigeon shit falls
misses him
damn
***
sullen balloon man, tall and
narrow like the hotdog balloons in his caddy
he comes on slow weekdays to make a little cash
hoping the mommies in the playground
will be generous and get balloons for their kids.
he ties hotdog balloons in simple shapes-
flowers, swords
-why do they all look like penises?
a mom, distracted, sits
on a playground bench
amidst toddlers with balloon penis-swords and penis–flowers
she chews on the nipple end of a half-deflated balloon
spaced out just like me
***
Homeless guy
old bread
feeds skank pigeons
why
***
Sex in the City Tour
always they eat cupcakes
then snapshots on Carrie’s stoop
woman throws Magnolia Bakery Cupcake icing
on sidewalk for bloated pigeons
who poop on my backpack
outside, I smile at lady
inside, I beat her face

Hot Dogs Meet the Big O

2006-10-04T05:52:00.000-07:00

How did I miss this? The New York Times made a video about organic hot dogs months ago. Months! So it's not breaking news, but these Times video extras kind of suck, anyway. Just goes to show how much talent it takes to turn out a minute-and-a-half bit of news fluff--more than you think!

Dogmatic's sausages are not organic, per se, but they do come from animals who live in rainbow-spanned green meadows that they share with dwarf technicolor ponies who have sparkle tattoos of stars and seashells on their asses.

And, like this "new" crop of organic weenies, our sausages are nitrate and nitrite free. Nitrates and nitrites supposedly can lead to cancer--and for a weenie/cock-lovin' gal like me, that's a bit scary. But cured meats made without the dual Ns have a dismal brown look that's about as appealing as a dirty gym sock. I have a tiny packet of this scary stuff called TCM (tinted curing mix) at home. TCM looks like salt or sugar, but it's highly toxic, so they dye it bright pink to avoid confusion with more common granulated products. TCM contains the dual Ns, and it only takes a fraction of a quarter teaspoon to turn pounds of meat pink-red. I got my TCM from the local slaughterhouse in Marietta, Ohio for a sausage-making jag I was on at the time (I also got my pork casings from them). Anyhow, TCM is pretty creepy because it can kill you, but it's nearly essential for the proper sausage/bacon/ham appearance.

When I was in cooking school, my charcuterie instructor (yes, the CIA taught charcuterie back then) told my class that back in the old days, meats were cured with sea salt, and sea salt has naturally occurring dual Ns--so meats cured with sea salt had that happy rosy blush. I'm not sure how organic franks get the pink in their weenies (the Times video alluded to sea salt and celery juice), but I'd like to lean more. Maybe it's time for a field trip to the organic sausage factory.

Yesterday's Sausage Index: One turkey sausage with sun-dried tomato feta sauce, plus one toasted baguette with sun-dried tomato feta sauce but no sausage.

Bohemian Hall Double Dog

2006-10-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

This Weekend’s Sausage Index: Two, in the form of frankfurters consumed at the Bohemian Hall in Astoria on Friday night. Bohemian Hall, also known as “the beergarden,” is the sort of place you hear lots of people mention when you first come to New York City. It’s the last of its breed, the largest beergarden in the city. I’d imagined a Wonderland of beer, like unlocking the door to the Secret Garden and stepping inside to see a lush enclosure of greenery and fine European suds. Well, it’s more like a huge dirtpatch with hundreds of picnic tables and drunk folk in ultra-casual mode. It’s a lot like the dining area at the county fair, actually.

They do serve food at the beergarden—starchy, porky fare like bread dumplings and schnitzel. We made our way there on Friday night, I with visions of bread dumplings and mushroom gravy in my head. But no, that night they were serving only Americanized Oktoberfest-y fare: kielbasa with kraut and fries, hamburgers and fries, hot dogs and fries. The kielbasa were major schlongers, like eight inches of sausage. I’d just eaten a slice of bad pizza and could not handle such intensity, so I got the hot dog. For four bucks, I got two decent franks on one bun, plus a side of sort of okay fries made from fresh potatoes. The franks were a deep red, mildly spiced with a good flavor. This two-franks-one-bun configuration was new to me, a double dog. I like the double dog.

Some Commonly Asked Questions

2006-09-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Sausage Index: 3 spears of asparagus with sun-dried tomato feta sauce (non-sausage), plus 1/2 each beef and turkey sausages, cut up, in a box of Trader Joe's macaroni & cheese consumed with husband for dinner (sausages brought home because cosmetic flaws rendered them unsellable but emminently edible).

We set the cart up at Union Square yesterday for a special event with Allure Magazine. I was working the afternoon shift and arrived to see the cart abuzz with action. It was perhaps our best day yet, sales-wise. A prominent position on a busy corner didn't hurt. But I have to say that Union Square lacks the charm of our regualr spot in Bleecker Playground.

More people walking past the cart means more random querys.
Commonly Asked Questions
-Dogmatic...is this a cart for dogs?
-How long have you been here? Is this your regular spot?
-Do you have a permit for this? How did you get that permit? Was it hard?
-How do you get the hole in the bread?
-Do you have regular mustard?
-What's better, the beef or turkey?
Infrequently Asked Questions, Infrequently Made Comments
-What's a baguette?
-Is this free?
-This cartoon here on the sign of the woman with the sausage saying "Portable sausages...I don't get it"--well, I'm embarassed to say so, but I don't get it, either.
-Grilled asparagus--is that a sausage?

Pat and Jennifer Love Hewitt

2006-09-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ate two turkey dogs during my shift. The first was with sun-dried tomato feta sauce, which was gone for a bit and then came back. Sometimes we rotate sauces, and blue cheese didn't cut it for me, so the return of S-DTF was a happy sight.

Turkey dog #2 was with spicy metchup (spicy ketchup and Dijon mustard). I had dog #2 because it was a mistake; sometimes we throw one too many sausages on the grill. And I just can't chuck a good sausage.

Both dogs I gobbled up with animalistic speed. Standing there behind the cart, generally blocked from the view of passersby, I though of the chorus in the song "Jennifer Love Hewitt Litterbox":
In the Jennifer Love Hewitt Litterbox
Little band from Cotati, the Mismatched Socks
It's Patrick at Top Dog, he's gobbling a cock
The Jennifer Love Hewitt Litterbox
The song is by Willard's Canteen, the one-man band of Matt Pamatmat. (Listen to it here.) Pat is a curious fellow, a friend of ours who lives on Dr. Pepper, bacon, and sausage. He can drink a liter of Dr. Pepper in under two minutes. You think I am kidding, and for Pat's sake I wish I were.

Pat's favorite place to eat is Top Dog, the wonderful Berkeley, CA hot dog institution. Top Dog serves what is probably the closest thing to a New York hot dog in the entire San Francisco Bay Area, but they also serve veggie dogs, turkey dogs, brats, hot links, etc. Pat likes the calabrese. I eat hot dogs fast, but Pat has me cornered in the cock-speed department.

So yesterday I did my feeble Pat impression behind the Dogmatic cart. Pat my be fond of the noteworthy Top Dog, but in all other culinary arenas he is suspicious of quality. Dogmatic's baguettes would probably throw him off, although there is a chance he would go for the white cheddar jalapeno sauce.

Today I will try my best to forgo any dogs at work. I am doing a sausage micro-fast. But I am weak, and I may gobble a cock anyway, and as I'm gobbling a cock, I will think of Pat and say, "This dog's for you." And I'll say it with a mouth full of half-chewed sausage.

Dogmatic in the Times

2006-09-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

See, I told you so. Scroll down a bit to see Dogmatic--we're under the blurb about the new Broadway Panhandler.

Hours of Web-Based Hot Dog Entertainment

2006-09-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

Here's the excellent Hot Dog, Sausages, & Bratwursts area of the very active Roadfood forum--the place where I found out about the New Jersey hot dog tour I missed the bus for. If you have a hot dog concern or issue, it is a good place to go.

FloFab and the Inspector

2006-09-25T09:39:00.001-07:00

If you are working at a mobile food vending cart and a health inspector shows up, you must drop everything you are doing until the inspection is over. Even if you have a line of ten people waiting for food, you cannot cook until the inspection is over. Even if Florence Fabricant from the New York Times comes by, in fact, which is what we found out the other day.

It was a slow period at the cart—mid-afternoon on a weekday. I was working with Jes, who had stepped away for a moment, and I was contemplating whether I should wipe crumbs off the spike machine or look into space thoughtfully when a tidy-looking man walked up to the cart with a distinct sense of purpose. He showed me his I.D. badge and license and told me he was a health inspector. I tried to hide my excitement—I’d just received my license in the mail and was eager to show it off to him—but he was not there to see me or my license. He wanted to see the permit for our icicle tricycle, the custom-built cooler-on-wheels that we serve gourmet sodas from.

Jes saw what was happening and scurried over to speak with the inspector; since he didn’t want to see my mobile food vending license, there was little I could do for him. They were going back and forth with calm civility about parks department regulations (the inspector was quite a nice fellow) when an older woman came up and introduced herself as Florence Fabricant from the New York Times (faithful readers may recognize her name from a snarky previous post about pigs in blankets). Wow! Florence Fabricant, the mouthpiece of all that’s shaking in the food world of New York, was right there at our spiffy little cart. But I was immobilized by the presence of the health inspector, and therefore unable to prepare a sausage for her.

It was incredibly awkward, mainly for me. I told Ms. Fabricant that the inspection would be over in just a few minutes, if she didn’t mind waiting, but she told me unfortunately she was in a hurry. We stood, she pressing buttons on her cell phone and me shoving my thumb further up my butt (that’s completely a figure of speech, by the way). I considered telling her that I was a food writer, but perhaps she would have asked me what my name was, and I’d tell her, and she’d say she didn’t recognize my name and ask me what kind of food writing I did, and I’d say, “Well, currently I write a little-read blog about working here at this gourmet sausage cart.”

It didn’t seem like a good idea. I thought about mentioning how I’d read her article about pigs in blankets, since it was sausage-related news, but I declined to do so. This is what separates those who get ahead from those who do not. Get-aheader: makes charming but idle chat with Florence Fabricant, tells her to read his or her fabulous sausage-cart blog, gets cushy gig at New York Times. Me: Just stands there.

The inspector left, and our Dogmatic cart received no violations. But Florence Fabricant departed before he did, saying she’d send someone on Friday. It was very eventful for an uneventful afternoon. Of course, I was not working on Friday, though I heard that someone from the Times did stop by the cart.

So keep an eye on the New York Times for Dogmatic. And we are in the latest Time Out New York, though to see the online edition you need to shell out some skrill.

Famous People

2006-09-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

Some famous people came by the Dogmatic cart this weekend. I won’t say who they were, but I will say they were real people and not plastic, inhuman people like Jessica Simpson or Puff Diddlydoole. I will also say that the famous people got three turkey dogs and one beef dog. They were good customers.

I tried my best to be nonchalant towards the famous people, and because I was trying so hard I probably came across as a total ass-kissy nincompoop. The famous people didn’t seem to notice; I assume after years of celebrity, they have developed the skill to ignore the conspirational niceness of non-famous folks during everyday interactions.

As long as we’re having famous people visit our cart, I might as well become very dreamy and shallow and make a Dogmatic Famous Person Wish List.
-Any member of Sonic Youth, preferably Kim and Thurston with their daughter Coco in tow.
-Kirsten Dunst.
-Werner Herzog.
-The Olsen twins (either or both), just because it would make a good story to tell people at bars.
-Jonathan Ames, even though he’s not really famous, and even though I doubt he eats sausage. From his writing I’ve gleaned he’s not big on processed meat (even if it’s all-natural and nitrate- and nitrite-free), or any food item that gives one gastronomic pleasure, unless it’s a banana. Mr. Ames, please note that we do sell grilled asparagus spears, and that if you pass by the cart when I am working, I will comp an order for you, which is not something I would do for the Olsen twins.

Once Juliette Binoche came into the chocolate shop where I worked. She bought a pint of ultra-premium strawberry ice cream. I’m sure I acted silly around her, too. I wish it were not so. I am idealistic and simple and would prefer to treat all customers with equal kindness and professionalism. Come by and get a sausage and see if this is the case. Hopefully you are not famous, lest I act like a dingbat, but maybe you won’t even notice.

Man Push Cart

2006-09-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

My food vendor license and I.D. badge came. I am so legit now. The envelope was square and it didn’t fit in our odd, narrow mailbox very well. I knew right away what was in it, and I tore into the envelope with the excitement of A Christmas Story’s Ralphie when his Little Orphan Annie decoder pin finally arrived in the mail. I wonder if I can use this I.D. to get into bars and stuff.

My husband and I took in our first feature at one of New York’s arty cinaplexes, and of course we saw a film about a mobile food vendor called Man Push Cart. The movingly dingy little movie has nothing to do with sausages, but I was moved to see it because the film’s protagonist, Ahmad, operates a roach coach on some anonymous busy New York City street corner. Even though the bulk of the story takes place out of the cart, that’s not how it feels; the scenes with Ahmad going about his daily pushcart routine are shot in such a claustrophobic tightness that it infiltrates the whole film—boxing him in, as it were.

Ahmad is boxed in in more ways than one. He rises at 2am to arrive at the commissary by 3am, and then he pulls the silvery mass of his cart however many blocks while fighting off the ominous headlights of hulking semi trucks and buses that whoosh past him bullyingly. Then Ahmad sells tea and coffee and bagels, then he pulls the cart back to the commissary, washes it, and makes his way back to his craphole apartment back in Brooklyn—but not before trying to hawk a few bootleg porn DVDs for extra cash.

Cash is Ahmed’s stumbling block. He has none. His wife is dead, he’s estranged from his young son, and the pop idol career he had back in Pakistan is only a shadow of a lost era. Ahmad is simply too emotionally and physically numb to make the push for a better life. He’s only a shell.

It’s not a happy movie, and it won’t be bringing in any new roach coach recruits any time soon. As far as I could tell, Man Push Cart’s depiction of mobile food vending is accurate—especially the scenes in the dismal, cave-like commissary. Luckily, we don’t have to move our cart manually like Ahmad; we have the Dogmatic cart towed. But not every pushcart proprietor can afford that. We also don’t have to carry a propane tank around like a silent sidekick, as Ahmad does. A little cash in hand, I guess, goes a long way to make a potentially miserable job a truly enjoyable one. We are fortunate that way.

Mobile food vending, for most people, is a very hard way of life. My husband and I left the theater, feeling glum after the film’s glum credits rolled. We stepped into the noisy, smoggy streets and the litter hovering above the balmy grates in the sidewalk, and we then vowed not to see any more movies set in gritty New York City in the theater as long as we continue to live here. Movies are for escape, not reality. We get enough of that.

Photo Compantion to the NJ Hot Dog Tour

2006-09-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

This was my Ikea hot dog. Yeah. Not much to look at, not much to eat. I took a picture of the giant Ikea hot dog sign, with its blocky Ikea font touting 50-cent hot dogs under a photo of a massive hot dog striped with a squiggle of yellow mustard, but I somehow managed to delete the photo. Needless to say, the reality of Ikea dogs is much less pretty than the god-like proportions of the sign.
I actually took a lot of photos, but in keeping with the day's the spirit of loserdom (we'd missed the hot dog tour bus and instead had to set out on a pathetic hot dog tour of our own), I wound up deleting most of those photos--including the gorgeous chili and kraut dogs we got at Galloping Hill Inn. But here is the sign. Unlike the hot dog in the sign, the real Galloping Hill Inn hot dogs did not have little arms bearing trays of beer and burgers. Sigh. They were still wonderful.

The Tragically Truncated NJ Hot Dog Tour

2006-09-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

I am such a loser. All week long I had been looking forward to the third annual New Jersey Hot Dog Tour, which entails a comfy charter bus, eleven highly revered New Jersey hot dog joints, and the insights of not only our tour guide, hot dog authority John Fox, but of hot dog authority Erwin Benz (Benzee) and a bus full of hot dog maniacs. I could hardly sleep the night before, I was so excited.

And we missed the bus. Of course. That’s the last time I’ll ever get New Jersey driving directions from Mapquest. It’s so sad, too. I’d laid everything out the night before: tape recorder with a fresh cassette and batteries, digital and non-digital cameras, directions to and from New Jersey, maps, cell phone, list of hot dog joints we’d visit.

We got a slightly late start, because my husband was not as enthused about the prospect of devoting an entire Saturday to gorging on hot dogs as I was. But we were doing okay—maybe we’d miss the first stop on the tour, that’s all—we drove and drove deeper into god knows where strip mall hell, and I knew something was amiss. I pulled out my cell phone to call the tour’s organizer, only to realize I’d left his number at home. We were screwed.

A friendly AAA employee helped us get sorted out, and she redirected us to get back to the tour bus departure point: the Galloping Hill Inn in Union. Yes, the bus would be gone, but at least we could get hot dogs there on our own. Maybe the Inn’s proprietor would know where we could catch up with them. I refused to call the day a failure.

The Galloping Hill Inn is a cheery, popular place; it’s been operating since 1925, and as its soda cups inform you, it was featured on the Food Network. I can see why. Their dogs were fantastic. I ordered a chili dog, and I opted for what I assume are traditional New Jersey toppings of spicy brown mustard and chopped raw onions. (Swap the spicy mustard for yellow and add slaw and you’ll have yourself something quite close to West Virginia hot dog.) The pork/beef frank was griddled, and its natural casing had a great pop. If a frankfurter could be smooth-tasting, that was the one. I was impressed with its mildness yet clarity of flavor. The substantial bun was glossy, puffy with a good chew—a Kaiser bun in hot dog roll form. The chili was pasty and runny like West Virginia hot dog chili, but it was spiced like a less assertive version of Cincinnati chili. In my journal, I wrote “I’d have to get this whole thing, even if I were full. Yummy.” I was enamored.

My dear husband got a hot dog with kraut, relish, and spicy mustard. The relish was tart and not overly sweet—an outstanding relish for adult tastes.

The happy fullness in our bellies clashed with the melancholy sense of loss from missing the tour bus. I inquired inside if anyone knew where they were or how to reach them, but no one did. There was only one way to salvage the day, and that was to drive to Ikea in Elizabeth.

I did have directions to Ikea, and unlike the directions to Galloping Hill Inn, they worked. We bought shelves and a hamper and some cheap candles that smelled like fabric softener. More importantly, I got a hot dog. Ikea hot dogs are 50 cents, and they taste like it. The frank was narrow, wobbly, and rubbery, the bun pallid and listless. I dotted it with ketchup and mustard and washed it down with my brilliant cocktail of Diet Pepsi and lingdonberry juice. We also got these little Swedish junk food cookies that had a dot of raspberry gel on top and a filling of vanilla crème.

We drove across Staten Island to Brooklyn and then back to Queens, where we assembled our new furniture. We had salad for dinner. I can only imagine the internal damage wrought by consuming up to eleven hot dogs instead of two, but I would have been happy to risk it. As it was, at least I was able to cobble together a sorry little hot dog tour of my own. There’s always next year.

Bonus Baguettes

2006-09-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

One of the best perks of a foodservice job is leftovers. I once brought home two roasted beef tenderloins from a catering event and enjoyed hot beef sandwiches with blue cheese and caramelized onions for three days solid. And when I worked at Dean & Deluca in Napa Valley, I routinely brought home sample products, which kept my pantry stocked for nearly a year. I had a wardrobe of a dozen top-quality vinegars. It was dreamy. Dean & Deluca had a rotisserie, and after we roasted ducks one day, I brought about a dozen duck carcasses home to make stock. The smell of the simmering stock was so strong it woke me up at night. It was great stock, but quite powerful. A woman living on her own has only so many uses for two gallons of rich roasted duck stock. I wound up reducing it to a glace and freezing it in ice cube trays so I could easily enrich sauces and stir-fries.

My food haul from Dogmatic seems to be going straight to my belly during my shifts—I can’t very well bring home cold grilled sausages, now, can I? Well, actually, I am the kind of person that would. I recall how my mother once mortified me by stuffing napkin-wrapped oatmeal cookies into her purse from the buffet at a small collage’s perspective students weekend. But the joke’s on me, because the older I get, the more like her I am. I had probably about fifteen pounds of chocolate in my kitchen when I worked at Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker; I’m only now down to my last 9.7 ounces. The thought of actually having to buy chocolate crushes me.

Oh, I’ll cope. In the meantime, I am enjoying baguettes. We serve Dogmatic sausages in toasted baguettes from Tom Cat Bakery. I love baguettes, the brittle micro-veneer of caramelized crust that gives way to a creamy, chewy interior. At the end of the day, we always have a few baguettes around. And since we don’t serve day-old baguettes, they are free for the taking.

The mom in me kicked in. I’ve been brainstorming uses for leftover baguettes: panzanella, savory bread pudding, croutons, crostini...but I’ve held off, for I hope soon the novelty of stale artisan baguettes will fade. My husband and I need to eat more whole grains; our current diet needs no supplements of white bread.

The other day, though, I did give in. I brought a baguette home for our dinner: sloppy joes made with vegetarian grounds (as per my sausagetarin guidelines). We didn’t have any buns at home, and before leaving work I figured a baguette beats a bun any day. I hollowed out two baguette ends by impaling them on the spike, then I wrapped them in foil. At home, I warmed them in the oven before stuffing them with sloppy joe filling, making more of a grinder than a sloppy joe. It was wonderful.

Please understand there’s no love lost between me and squishy white Wonder Bread hot dog buns; it’s just that I enjoy those exclusively when they contain a frankfurter. If I worked at, say, Papaya King, I’d not be clamoring to take day-old hot dog buns home. In fact, I bet I would not be allowed to. Once more reason my job is awesome.

The Sausagetatian Lifestyle

2006-09-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I arrived at the Bleecker Playground for my Dogmatic shift with the full intention of not having any sausage that day. I’d enjoyed a big bowl of homemade turkey and rice soup, along with a crusty roll, and I’d packed an apple with me to snack on if hunger struck midway through my shift.

I got to the cart early and ate the apple before I even began working. Then I suited up in my chef coat and apron and grilled off a few sausages for customers. I enjoy seeing people’s reactions to both the presence of our cart and its offerings. We have a sign on the side of the cart (see photo) with a drawing of a mopey woman saying “Portable sausages? I don’t get it.” Most people do get it, and get it quickly. What about artisan sausage in a toasted baguette is there not to get? Meat, bread, Bob’s your uncle. Some passersby are perhaps a bit timid, or a bit full, or a bit hurried, but I sometimes see the wheels turning in their minds, filing us away in their memory.

And some people really don’t get it. Backcountry camping, the band Ween, living in New York City—these are all things you either get or don’t get. Add sausage to this list. The people who don’t get Dogmatic walk on and continue with their lives. Maybe they get something that I don’t get, things like baseball or Scientology. You can’t expect any one person to get everything.

Enough people get us that I have brief but rewarding exchanges with customers every day. Some people get very excited when they see our spike machine, which impales the bread and toasts it from the inside out. Some people—usually European expats—recognize this baguette-toasting method from their homeland, and they smile knowingly. But being an American establishment, Dogmatic offers elaborate, multi-syllable gourmet sauces like Sun-Dried Tomato Feta, which I’m guessing they don’t do in Europe.

So observing what people do when they see the cart is all part of the fun. The other part of the fun is cooking and grilling the sausages. I can’t wait until I’m working the grill and we get slammed. I want my grilling-and-filling motions to be efficient and poetic. There’s some footage in Rick Sebak’s A Hot Dog Program of an employee at Gray’s Papaya flipping several dozen hot dogs on the flattop with one flick of an offset spatula. It’s mesmerizing. Someday, that’s going to be me turning sausages so beautifully.

In the meantime, I have some work to do. I need to be faster, but yesterday was not terribly busy, and I had no chances to practice this dog-flip maneuver. Instead, I got hungry an hour into my shift and ate a dog—beef with sun-dried tomato feta. I think maybe I like the beef dogs best, at least for now. I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow. Anyway, my turkey and rice soup and healthful apple snack did not deter me from caving in to the whims of the sausage gods. Once I’d prepared my hefty sausage snack, we had some customers, so I wrapped my beef-feta dog in a foil bag and attacked it a few minutes later, once business had been taken care of. The sauce had soaked into the bread a bit. It was kind of nice. Our sausages are extra-portable that way.

Not long after I’d broken my sausage fast, the lady from the ice cream truck across the playground came over to say hello. We talked about the weather predictions for the week, and what days we were planning on being at the playground. We offered her sausage and she offered us ice cream. Of course I took her up on this offer—ice cream! She pulled up to the curb right before she left for the day, and she made me a vanilla cone with an extra-tall swirly top. Her truck is a Captain Softee truck, which I assume is a Mister Softee knockoff. The ice cream was fluffy, with the appealing but highly artificial flavor of mass-produced marshmallows. I might even prefer it to Mister Softee. We owe her a dog now. I want to become friendly with our new vending neighbor, but it could be dangerous. I may have to choose between ice cream and sausage.

In any case, once the turkey soup is finished, I’m going to give the sausagetarian lifestyle a go—no more meat for me unless it’s in sausage form. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

My Job Is Cooler Than Yours

2006-09-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

I work at a gourmet sausage cart. Most of you reading this are probably at work right now, taking a little internet respite from desk-bound tasks. I’m sure you make more money than me (although Dogmatic does pay me a very decent and fair wage). But, while I grill sausages and squirt tasty sauces into toasted buns, I am quite possibly having way more fun than you. Working at a sausage cart is so awesome—I get to meet new people, be outside, and gobble excellent sausages during my break. Every day I plan to try a new sausage/sauce combination. I used to give tours of a chocolate factory, and very few people arrive at a chocolate factory feeling grumpy and demanding. The same, so far, seems to be true of the Dogmatic cart; people eat sausage because they want to, not because they have to. It makes for much merrier interaction with the public than if I worked at, say, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at 42 Broadway, where the majority of the employees sit behind sliding glass windows emitting the distinctive whiff of disgruntlement.

In any case, I’m still a pushcart neophyte, and I should not be so quick to pronounce my contentment with my present sausage career. I have a lot of things to learn. Here is a roundup of things I learned during our first two days of operation:
-Don’t break up big chunks of ice by slamming them against the stainless steel surface of the cart. It dents the cart.
-Plastic gloves can melt, but if you wear two pairs, the heat only melts through one pair.
-Everything close to the grill and the bain marie gets hot. Might as well burn yourself now and get it over with.
-If there are only two people working and you are handling the cash and wearing the money belt, don’t wander off during your sausage-scarfing break to visit with the park custodian in her office in the playground.
-If a crazy homeless guy dressed like a leather pirate comes up to you and tells you how he lost his eye in the Iraq war seven months ago, don’t encourage him. Ignore him.

In order to better understand our product, I have been diligently sampling sausages. These come from Violet Hill Farm “upstate,” I am told, though I’m not sure upstate where; there’s a lot of up to the state. Currently we offer turkey and beef sausages, as well as a grilled asparagus option for vegetarian folks (actually, if you had the asparagus with pesto, Dijon, or spicy ketchup, it would be vegan). The turkey sausage has, to me, a slightly bratwurst-like flavor—generally mild, with a peppery finish. The beef sausage is more robust. One customer noted its similarity in color and flavor to a Slim Jim. I’d have to agree—the beef sausages are a lovely brownish-red shade—but our sausages are missing the preservatives and the professional wrestler pitchmen that Slim Jims are known for. They also don’t leave that greasy film on the roof of your mouth. Hmm, maybe they’re not so much like Slim Jims.

I can’t decide if I prefer the beef or the turkey. Maybe I’ll never have a favorite. The popular combinations so far among Dogmatic employees seem to be beef sausage with sun-dried tomato feta sauce, and turkey sausage with white-cheddar jalapeno sauce. The white-cheddar jalapeno sauce is rich and creamy, and much less spicy than you’d figure. It reminds me of the béchamel sauce used on classic homemade macaroni and cheese, only with a kick. The sun-dried tomato feta sauce is bright and tangy, but not as spicy. We also have Dijon mustard and spicy ketchup. “Do you have regular mustard or non-spicy ketchup?” a few people have asked. Um, no, I say to them, and then I recommend the sun-dried tomato feta sauce. Generically throughout New York City, pushcarts and sausage/hot dog vendors don’t offer yellow mustard, so we are hardly charting new waters of mustard exclusivity. I’m a fan of spicy mustard, so it does not bother me, but it seems unfair to those who prefer wussy mustard.

As for the spicy ketchup, I feel it’s our most underrated condiment; it’s not spicy-hot, per se, but it does have a nice pep to it, thanks to house-made hot sauce. It has a really clean taste, not too vingegary, and it would be fantastic on French fries (which we don’t sell, but who needs fries when you have sausage).

The grilled asparagus is going to be my salvation. I’ve decided to not eat more than one baguette-bound sausage a day, and so if hunger pangs attack, grilled asparagus it is. Either one of the cheese sauces makes the asparagus dog a substantial meal. Several customers have been confused about the asparagus dog, thinking it’s some kind of asparagus sausage, which conjures to me images of green goop in casings, some kind of Kermit the Frog sausage. So no, it’s simply lovely spears of grilled asparagus. Be glad if it.

But grilling sausages for hours sure does make you want to eat a sausage. They sizzle and blister so fetchingly on that cast-iron grate, and I always give in. I may have to go on a no-meat diet, with a sausage exception. I’ll be a sausagetarian.

The Cart Is Open!

2006-09-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

Dogmatic opened this past weekend. (“Hmph,” you folks must think, “about time!”) Overall it was great, though of course there were some literal and figurative obstacles we had to overcome, most of which had to do with getting the cart and its contents to and from the site at Bleecker Playground.

On Saturday morning, I emerged from the subway to find Manhattan semi-deserted. Weekend mornings in Manhattan are the blissfully deceptive; very few people are out, and as you jaywalk without having to dodge too many cars or cut off any pokey pedestrians, you get tricked into thinking that the city belongs to you, and that you, for once, are at equilibrium with the oft-overwhelming metropolis. Then you walk into the commissary to pick up your sausage cart.

Pushcarts must, by law, be stored in a facility approved by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. A commissary is like a combination parking garage, car wash, and food wholesaler for pushcarts. In the morning, it is a hive of frantic activity, as pushcart operators and employees of the commissary smash well-dented pushcarts into each other as they try to extricate individual carts from the mess. Our cart, naturally, was way back against the wall.

A commissary is really interesting for about five minutes, and then it’s simply another depressing place you want to hightail out of. It was dark and impossibly crowded, with a potent smell of industrial cleaners. There’s also an intriguing cultural element, which I won’t get into since I’ve only been to the commissary twice, but I think that Saturday was the first time three young, skinny white chicks ever came in to pick up a cart. Men who spoke poor English kept on approaching us and introducing themselves with very wide smiles.

Lots of pushcarts purchase all of their supplies for the day at the commissary, stock their carts, and roll out to feed the hungry masses. Dogmatic’s food comes from elsewhere, but we did pick up several cases of cola. While waiting in line, I peered at other carts’ order for the day—piles of soda, pale and spongy hot dog buns, and mysterious foil bags that had “Sabrett’ stamped on them. These, it turned out, were sacks of onion sauce for hot dogs, which surprised me, until I considered that most pushcarts don’t have the space or equipment to griddle onions and stew them in sauce—of course they don’t make the sauce themselves. Even after having a decent amount of foodservice work experience in some pretty diverse settings, I’m always taken aback to see what happens behind the scenes with the foods we hurriedly eat: paper-wrapped hamburgers that sit under a heat lamp at McDonald’s, or Dairy Queen Dilly Bars that somehow seem to appear there magically, without one trace of human element. Someone in a factory somewhere cooks up industrial batches of hot dog sauce in computerized vats, probably, and then a depositor squirts the proper amount of sauce into the foil bags that wind up at the factory. So many separate elements to one $2 dirty water hot dog!

Once our cart was freed from the pushcart traffic jam inside the commissary, we filled the tanks with water and located a person to tow our cart to the playground—otherwise we’d have to push it about 30 blocks ourselves. 30 blocks is not terrible, really, but it is when you have a gigantic stainless steel cart with several hundred extra pounds of batteries and water.

While the other girls rode down in the truck towing the cart, I took a cab down to Employees Only, the restaurant where our cart’s food comes from—not foil bags of gloppy sauce for us! I found Jeremy Spector, the chef of Employees Only and, by extension, Dogmatic. He’s definitely one of the more laid-back and approachable chefs I’ve worked with—which is fortunate, because I continuously had to bug him to help me locate sausages, sauces, dry ice, bleach water, etc. Jeremy's approach to cooking is straightforward yet highly flavorful, perfectly suited for the offerings of a gourmet sausage cart.

After picking up the supplies, we journeyed several blocks north to meet the cart, now settled into its spot just outside the bustling playground. We installed the propane tank, fired up the grill and baguette-toasting machines, iced down our drinks and food, and were finally ready to sell sausages. Which we did, and which I shall tell you more about in the next post. Until then, please be aware that the cart will no reappear at Bleecker Playground until Wednesday, September 13; we are taking the cart in for modifications so that your sausage-eating experience will attain maximum pleasure.

Pigs in Blankets in the Times

2006-08-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Thank god Florence Fabricant wrote about pigs in a blanket in today's New York Times food section. Otherwise, how would we know they are cool again?

Well, to me they were always cool. Mmm. Yes, some crescent roll dough, a package of Li'l Smokies (or maybe Li'l Smokies with Cheese), a quick assembly line, a cookie sheet, twenty minutes in the oven, some Jufran and a bottle of yellow mustard...that's all that it takes.

And yet the Times supplies us with a list of the best pigs in blankets purveyors in the city. Well, I suppose some people can't be bothered to make their own retro-trashy food. I say if you are ordering take-out apps, order something that your seven-year-old can't make on their own. The palpable bile in my tone aside, I'm happy to see mini sausages in the news.

How Food Can Become Contaminated

2006-08-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

I promise this will be the last post about food handling regulations. After today, it'll be nothing but sausage, sausage, sausage all of the time.

Today was hopefully my last visit to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at 42 Broadway. I was there on Friday with what I understood to be the paperwork required to get my license, but they gave me the runaround—my Social Security card didn’t use my maiden name as my middle name, my tax ID was under an LLC, not my individual name, blah blah. I lost my patience and left. Today it got all squared away because I returned to 42 Broadway with reinforcements—my sausage cart supervisor. She explained to the cantankerous lady behind the glass that my paperwork was indeed correct. The folks working at these NYC government offices are taught to accept only scenario A; in case of scenario B, don’t ask for help or examine any guidelines—just say no. The lady behind the job was following this approach with impressive conviction. I’m surprised anyone can manage to sell food anywhere in this city.

Another (and kinder) lady behind the glass took a photo for my I.D. badge, which should arrive in the mail in a matter of weeks. Six to eight, in fact. That’s how long Sprint told me it would take to process my rebate. Let’s see who’s faster, Sprint or the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Your guess is a good as mine.

In the meantime, I’ve been casting a critical eye on mobile food vending carts. It’s like I’m an unofficial health inspector. The violations are just racking up. The dueling street meat carts of Steinway Street in Astoria, for instance, both have coolers sitting on the sidewalk next to their carts. All components of your operation must be in, on, or under the cart—not on the sidewalk. Carts in Manhattan, at least the busy pedestrian parts, couldn’t get away with that crap.

Then today on the way home from C-Town (a crappy New York grocery store chain) I passed another popular Astoria street meat cart. It always smells so inviting, the sizzling meat gurgling in the bright yellow-orange sauce. Yet I still have to take the plunge of actually stepping up to the cart and getting food—I go to that area to visit C-Town and buy groceries for dinner, not to eat a rice plate while sitting on the curb of C-Town’s parking lot.

Usually while walking past the C-Town street meat cart I focus on the delectable smell, but today I zoned in on the prep areas of their cart. They had sauces stored in the sink, which means a) the sauces were almost definitely in the danger zone between 41 and 140 degrees F, and b) they don’t wash their hands very often, because the sauces would get in the way. Heaped up about six inches high to the side of the flattop was a huge pile of cooked meat, ready to be served, threatening to spill off the flattop and onto the sidewalk. On the opposite side of the cart a compact fry-o-lator churned with hot oil, a few falafels bobbing up and down. Every inch of flat space was taken up with squeeze bottles, Styrofoam containers, steaming cooked food, steaming raw food…

I’ve worked in tight kitchens before. You have to get creative if you want to make tasty food with efficiency. Sometimes you can dream up things to make life easier, clever storage solutions or systems with better flow so you don’t crowd other people’s prep stations. Sometimes, in the process of doing that, you break a sanitary guideline. Sometimes guidelines are dumb, but usually they exist for a pretty good reason. That street meat cart by C-Town was crawling with time-saving health code violations, and I decided it was best to leave them a mystery, so I walked past the cart and into C-Town, where the surly clerks would soon be stuffing my romaine lettuce and red bell peppers into white plastic bags.

How to Wash Your Hands, Part 2

2006-08-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

After the first day of our Mobile Food Vendor License class at the Health Academy up in Harlem, we all went back to our respective homes and…well, maybe some of us studied for the exam the next day. I did, actually; the class workbook came with about a dozen insanely easy fill-in-the-blank review worksheets, and I filled them out while waiting for MySpace pages to come up.

Some of my fellow pupils may have needed to study because of language hurdles; the class is taught in English, but the workbooks came in about a dozen languages—so half of the lesson could have been gibberish to them. And maybe some students didn’t have a language barrier, but they did have a stupid barrier. So perhaps good but dim little students went home to practice hand-washing all night long, even though there was no practical segment of our exam.

Class on exam day commenced late. I forgot my #2 pencil, but the kind fellow next to me lent me one. It would have been great if we were to take the test right off the bat, but we wound up having a review session for about an hour. Then we had a very practical Q. & A. session with our sprightly instructor, Akin, about health code violations. For instance, if you are working at someone else’s cart and an inspector comes and writes up a ticket, who pays—you or your employer? (Your employer.) I wanted to ask if it was a violation to wear jewelry. Would hoop earrings be a violation? How about a simple ring that’s not a wedding ring? But I didn’t ask, because I wanted to take the test, not sidetrack Akin and open up what might perhaps grow into a heated debate.

Akin announced a 20-minute break before the test. I’d not brought any snacks, as I had the day before, and I was starving. So I ran down the street to the roach coach I’d passed the day before to order some cheap, dirty food. It was a fairly big roach coach/street meat hybrid, selling hot dogs, gyros, hamburgers, knishes, shish kebab, and probably bagels and ice cream, too. The cart was positioned right in front of a hospital entrance, and I saw a man in scrubs with an plastic I.D. badge around his neck run out and order a chicken gyro plate. See, even health professionals patronize roach coaches.

A wizened neighborhood lady got in front of me and ordered a hamburger. The man taking the money shouted the order to the man working the grill, even though there was no need to shout since they were in close quarters. The grill man slapped together a hamburger, the cash handler stuffed it in a small brown paper bag and handed it to the wizened lady, and the lady pulled the foil-wrapped burger out of the bag. She peeled back the foil and the top of the bun flopped off, reveling anemic patty under a pile of tired, shredded iceberg lettuce. “It fell apart!” she cried. “I didn’t do nothing to this hamburger and it fell apart!”

The roach coach cash handler shrugged. “I don’t want this no more,” she said. “I want my money back.” She seemed a little nuts, the kind of person it’s wisest to give into. Better to lose $3 than make a big scene in front of gyro-plate-buying doctors in scrubs. He gave her the $3 back, and she limped off, hopefully in search of a more nourishing lunch. What can you expect from a $3 roach coach burger, though?

It was my turn to order. I got two hot dogs, which turned out to be those “dirty water hot dogs” that they boil instead of grilling or griddling. The dogs were a buck each, and the grill man wadded them up in regular grocery store aluminum foil, which the cash handler then bagged and gave to me. Two dirty water hot dogs with yellow mustard and ketchup. The buns were gummy, the franks lukewarm and mealy. This roach coach didn’t sell no Sabrett dogs—their franks were without a pedigree. They were USDA Grade Barely Acceptable, like school cafeteria hot dogs. Well, for two bucks, I got what I paid for.

I had five minutes to be back in my seat, taking my test. I gobbled those cocks down in about 30 seconds and rushed back to the Health Academy.

Back in the classroom, my fellow pupils had reassembled. Akin asked us for a show of hands to tell him who would be needing tests in what languages. I kept track of this: we had people taking the test in Farsi, Spanish, Greek, Russian, English, Chinese, Arabic, and Bengali. Had the two native Vietnamese speakers in the class chose to take the test in English, we’d have at least one booklet of each language in the class.

This really ticked me. Here we were, people from all over the world, and the thing that brought us together was the desire to sell food from pushcarts. We all wanted to take the test and hit the streets to seek our fortune. I felt a wonderful solidarity with all of them.

Except these two Latina ladies, who I think were fixing to cheat. Akin zeroed right in on them before the test was to begin, and he put them at opposite ends of different rows. I wonder of they passed.

I did. I completed my test in about two minutes (we had thirty), and I reviewed my answers to the 15 questions before handing in my answer sheet, just to be sure I didn’t make a stupid mistake and fill in the wrong bubble. Then I settled down with my book, The Age of Innocence (mention of sausages so far: zero) and read until Akin softly called out my name to inform me that I’d passed, and that I’d earned a perfect score, and that I was free to go.

I gathered my things and left. As I went up the staircase, the Greek woman (or the Russian lady, I’m not sure) asked me if I’d passed. “Yes,” I said.

“Good luck!” she said. I wished her luck as well. I didn’t have to ask her if she’d passed, because she was smiling (besides, a monkey could pass that test). We walked out into the Harlem sunlight, past the roach coach/street meat cart, and in our idealism we dreamed of how much better our pushcarts would be.

How to Wash Your Hands, Pt. 1

2006-08-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Health Academy has granted me a Mobile Food Vendor License. In short, I passed my 15-question test with flying colors. So, probably, did every other person in the room with a pulse. A cheat sheet for the test would read: Hot food hot, cold food cold, wash hands after poop, danger zone bad.

Anyone working at a mobile food vending unit in New York City needs this license, and the only way to get it is by taking a two-day food-handling class up in Harlem. Those wishing to work in a restaurant here in New York need to take a five-day class, which I did as part of my curriculum at the Culinary Institute of America in 1997. But that class (even if it is three days longer) will not do for a Mobile Food Vendor License—nope, you have to learn information specific to serving food from a pushcart.

It costs $56 to enroll in the class, which culminates in a pass/fail test. I made sure to bring a good book and a new issue of The New Yorker to my first day of class, because I assumed I’d be bored witless.

It wasn’t so bad—with the exception of the first hour. We started at 12:30, not noon, which we had been told was the starting time. Perhaps this was a trick, because the classroom’s fifty-odd desks were not filled until 12:29. I’d read an article about surfboard blanks and started one about the reconstruction effort in New Orleans by the time our instructor showed up. He was a small man with very dark skin, and I’m not sure where he was from originally, but he had an intriguing accent.

The first half-hour of class consisted of roll call. Akin, the instructor, called out our names, and one by one we walked up to his desk to show him a photo I.D. He then issued us workbooks in the appropriate language. I considered opting for a Spanish workbook just for a challenge, but I stuck with English.

Men and women of all ages and races were there with me. Everyone seemed surprisingly attentive and earnest, not cynical at all. The classroom, which smelled like cleanser, resembled the classrooms I’d sat in during high school, except this classroom had a full-blown mobile food vending cart pushed up against the left wall. It was a shiny new model, quite similar to the cart I’d be using, but instead of a grill it had a flattop.

After the endless role call, Akin the instructor told us a bit about himself. He’d been a health inspector for 7 years, and a supervisor for 6. I’m not sure how long he’d been teaching this class, but he had a good method based on repetition and reinforcement. He’d tell us a few key points, ask us questions about them, and then we’d repeat them back at the end of the section. The biggest key points were about washing hands (you need to do it with soap and warm water, rubbing the hands together vigorously for at least 20 seconds) and keeping food out of the danger zone (germs thrive between 41 and 140 degrees F, and will double in half an hour when stored between these two temperatures).

Akin had an amusing way of talking about the symptoms of food-born illness. He clutched his stomach and then bent over a bit and went “brtt, brtt, brtt”…the sound of puke or diarrhea hitting the bowl of a commode. I’ve had food poisoning before (who hasn’t?), and it makes me think that even very clean establishments can slip up. The world is so full of germs—germs on food, germs on poop, germs on hands, germs on doorknobs, germs on hair—that it’s amazing we’re all not dead. Personally, I think some of these people who are so concerned about germs and have antibacterial soap and spray and hand gel probably slip up themselves. Have you ever counted to 20 when washing your hands? It’s a long time, man. No one washes their hands for a full 20 seconds unless they are a surgeon. For all you folks who visit the sausage cart, though, I’ll try.

Who Has Good Personal Hygiene?

2006-08-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

This is from my Mobile Food Vendor Food Protection Course workbook. After lots of learning and lessons, I had gained enough knowledge to choose the correct answer, B. However, B is not a hygiene ideal; her fingernails, for instance, are far too long. And she appears to be wearing jewelry, which is not appropriate--maybe one of her earrings could fall into a hotel pan full of sauerkraut.

Cream Cheese + Hot Dog = Seattle

2006-08-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

This just in: Folks in Seattle eat their hot dogs with cream cheese. Well, some of them do. It says so here and here.

Harlem Halal

2006-08-22T05:58:00.001-07:00

Here's an illustration of a hybrid Street Meat-Roach Coach, parked about a block away from the Harlem Health Academy where I took my Mobile Food Vendor class. I didn't get any closer to take the photo because I was trying to be sneaky. Anyhow, there on the side of the cart you can see photos of hamburgers and gyro plates. The green signs list the Halal plates available. This is a pretty big cart; there were two guys inside, plus one on the sidewalk hanging out and talking to the customers as they waited.

Street Meat and Beyond

2006-08-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

New York offers way more street food than just hot dogs. In fairness to non-sausage pushcarts, here’s a rundown of what I’ve seen around.

First off, there are two main types of carts: processing and non-processing. Processing carts perform some kind of preparatory function with the food: it is mixed, cooked, cut, heated, fried, melted, sliced, etc. A non-processing cart serves food as is. You can scoop ice cream on a non-processing cart, but once you pour chocolate syrup over the ice cream, you’re processing. Most carts are processing.

-Street Meat. These processing carts serve Halal meat, typically chicken, in a variety of forms: on a stick, over rice in a yogurt curry sauce, in a pita like a gyro. My lovely husband Joe coined the term “street meat”; these carts may have another nickname, but I don’t know it yet.
-Nuts 4 Nuts. These are processing carts that roast and lightly candy nuts like peanuts, cashews, and almonds; the nuts are served warm, and the smells rising from these carts are very enticing. I luh Nuts 4 Nuts. If you are concerned about sanitation and contamination, Nuts 4 Nuts carts are relatively safe.
-Mr. Softee. Okay, these are soft-serve ice cream trucks, not carts. In the summer they can be found every few blocks all over the city. They serve Good Humor ice cream novelties, as well as overpriced but pretty decent soft-serve.
-Roach Coaches. These carts tend to be boxier, with the cart operator inside the cart, not standing next to it. Roach coaches are especially popular in the morning, when they offer bagels, donuts, muffins, and coffee. Some roach coaches are processing, some are not. They might have a real name, but it’s not Roach Coach. Some Roach Coaches sell what are known as dirty water hot dogs—boiled franks served lazily on squishy buns. This is no way to treat a hot dog.
-“Park Carts”…I’m not sure how to describe these carts, other than to say that they always appear on the perimeters of big parks, like Prospect Park and Central Park. They sell Good Humor ice cream novelties, gross stale big-ass pretzels, hot dogs (grilled or dirty water), and knishes. Avoid these carts unless you are having a hunger emergency; their overpriced wares are of inferior quality.
-Produce carts. Usually these non-processing carts sell mostly fruit. The guys at these carts always lick their fingers before tearing open the plastic bags they bag your fruit in—gross!
-Italian ice carts. These carts are usually small, selling flavorful and refreshing Italian ice for pretty decent prices.

The Healthy Bums of Bleeker Street

2006-08-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

On that first day of sausage cart work, the day of the informal tasting, I had an amusing exchange with a few bums there. Bleeker Playground is a park with a playground, yes…but there’s also a mess of benches off to the side, outside of the playground’s wrought-iron fence. Lots of benches mean lots of bums, but they seem pretty docile. You never can tell with bums, but as long as you approach them with caution, they can be pretty cool. Depends on the bum, I guess. They may look, smell, and act inhuman at times, but bums are people too, and their lives are often mired in stories much more interesting than the average person who has a home.

To prep for the tasting, we cut some tasty baguettes in half crosswise—you get two sausage rolls from one baguette. But the baguettes are a few inches too long for the sausages (you want a little sausage poking out—it’s what folks pay for, the sausage, and it’s sort of phallic, too), and we needed to trim off and dispose of a two-inch segment of the baguette.

This left us with a bag full of perfectly wonderful baguette rounds. Normally I’m the kind of person who would bring them home and make bread pudding or croutons, but it was in the mid-90s that day—way too hot, for some reason, to haul a bag of bread bits around. So I took them over to the bum benches and offered them to a pair of bums.

“Would you guys like these?” I asked. “They’re from fresh baguettes.”

The bums smiled, cigarettes dangling from blistered, stained lips. “Thanks, sweetheart,” one bum said, “but white bread is the worst thing for you. That and white sugar.”

I smiled at them and returned to the cart, pitching the baguette bits in the trash can on the way. I love it when strangers call me sweetheart. Maybe someday I will buy them wheatgrass shots, and they can mix their vodka in them.

Coney Island Baby

2006-08-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

This being the glorious tail end of summer—we have, what, at least four weeks left of lovely weather and a few weeks before school starts for those unlucky young’uns—it’s an ideal time to evoke images of Coney Island. I’ve only been there once, early this May, when it was still spring.

For those who have never been to Coney Island, the utterance of the name will still not fail to conjure up images of hot dogs…Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs. In fact, some sources go so far as to claim Coney Island/Nathan’s as the birthplace of the hot dog, but I heavily dispute this (the birthplace of the hot dog could be anywhere some hungry sod first slipped a sausage into a hunk of bread and called it a day). Even so, Coney Island’s role in American hot dog lore cannot be underestimated.

New Yorkers have been heading out to Coney Island for oceanside frolicking since the early 1830s, when a shell road led out to the place. It was a den of gambling, whoring, and full-body-coverage bathing suits. A friend told me that Coney Island was built as an attraction to get people to ride public transit to the end of the line, but this is not true; over the years, many forms or transit, such as boats, roads, street cars, and trains, have been employed to make it easier for folks to get to Coney Island. From what I’ve read, the subway extension to Coney Island was completed in the 1920s, allowing poor folks access for around a nickel.

Nowadays you go on the N trail to get to Coney. We took the N from its northern terminus in Queens and rode it all the way to Coney Island, the southern terminus. It takes over an hour. Bring a book or some friends and a Mad Libs tablet.

There were big Coney Island eateries prior to Nathan’s, but Nathan’s is the only old-schooler going strong today. Restaurateur Nathan Handwerker opened his place around 1916, but didn’t find success until the early 1920s. (Get the full scoop here.)

Nathan’s is now a national franchise, selling hot dogs in food courts in malls and airport terminals. I’d never had one of their dogs, though, until visiting Coney Island in May. Might as well hold out for the original, huh? Here’s what I wrote in my journal:

“We ate at the Coney Island Nathan’s today, Sunday 5/15. Joe was angry because the ditzy girl at the counter mistook our order and we wound up with two extra hot dogs, making a grand total of 4 hot dogs between me and Joe. The breakdown:
-1 kid’s meal (hot dog w/kraut, fries, Diet Coke, toy)
-1 kid’s meal (hot dog w/onions & kraut, fries, Diet Coke, toy)
-2 hot dogs w/onions & kraut
The franks themselves were good—long and slender, good snap, griddled & greasy w/a natural casing. The buns were cold—well, not hot—and they were very bad-squishy by the time we got around to eating the final two dogs. Nathan’s only has spicy mustard—no yellow. Forget the ketchup, even if their onions are not the sweet, tomotoey ones like Gray’s Papaya. Nathan’s onions get lowest marks: slimy, too oniony, too long and wormlike, and most of all smacking of tinned black pepper. Ick! In my estimation, black pepper has no business being on a hot dog unless it’s mixed into coleslaw.
Nathan’s fries are thick, broad and crinkle-cut. They are too heavy/mealy and the ones in our kid’s meals were in dire need of salt. I feel pre-salted fries are far superior to those which the diner themselves applies the salt. Skip the fries.
Kelly told me that the Coney Island Nathan’s is not the best one because they can get away with being mediocre. I readily believe that. Coney Island was a blast, but Nathan’s was a lowlight in a day of highs. I ate 2-1/2 dogs and am feeling ill. I have a long way to go before I am a hot dog pro.”

Coney Island is worth a visit for its other attractions, most notably the Cyclone roller coaster and the Sideshow. The place wrings its appeal out of a faded, decaying glory. People come for the sadness of its midway full of skuzzy carnies and the greasy fried clams that every Coney Island food stand sells. The also come for Nathan’s 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, where that skinny Japanese guy always wins. Even if the dogs are mediocre, one must visit Nathan’s when at Coney Island. That’s all there is to it. Maybe get one lone hot dog and move on.

A Sausage by Any Other Name

2006-08-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

A S&T reader emailed me his thoughs on my use of the word "cock" when applied to sausage-on-a-bun foodstuffs. He found it unrefined. I agree. But my pal Rev. Pamatmat uses it all of the time, and it I caught the bug.

I've been saying cock because I wanted some variety; "frank" and "hot dog" were becoming tiresome and overused. Let's make a list of nicknames for our little friend Mr. Hot Dog and see if any are worth using again.

-red hot
-frankfurter
-frank
-weiner
-weenie
-tubesteak
-dog
-and, of course, cock

Readers, I need your help--can you think of any I'm forgetting? My list seems awfully short. "Tubesteak" is so gross and funny--it's one of my favorites, but I'll never use it myself; I like hot dogs too much, and I'm not a fan of steaks or tubes.

Gray's Update

2006-08-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I lunched at the Garment District Gray's Papaya (8th Ave. & 37th St.) again. This time they put the sauerkraut on the dogs as I had requested, and they were much better than the kraut-less dogs I'd had a there a few weeks prior. The onion sauce is too sweet to have on its own. Also, my papaya drink was less frothy this time. It raised my spirits greatly, although my poor stomach is rebelling against me.

I was there in the Garment District looking for sewing notions. My search for an 18-inch zipper took me to a store that sells nothing but zippers--invisible zippers, brass zippers, molded zippers, you name it. They customize zippers. But the line was too long and the zipper selection was overwhelming, and I left the zipper superstore empty-handed.

So, back to the tale of the sausage tasting, my first day of work. I'd earlier related how we wheeled our shiny new cart some 20 blocks to the restaurant owned by the chef who's a partner in the sausage venture. Three young ladies pushing the rather large cart down the street...it may have been quite a sight. Pardon my racism here, but usually you don't see young white chicks pushing food carts around. People took notice.

Not all mobile food vending carts have the good fortune to be pushed by theee people. Most of these vendor dudes transport their carts solo, though their carts tend to be equipped with a hand brake. Ours has none. What our cart does have is a tiny sink, a grill, a steam table, and a number of storage areas for food and dry goods.

We loaded up the cart with pork and beef sausages, baguettes, bottled water, sauces, paper towels, and plastic straws. Then we pushed it over to the playground that will daily host the sausage cart once it's up and running for real. That day, though, our first go at the cart, was an invite-only tasting; we did not yet have the proper permits to be selling to the public.

The chef, J., rode the soda bike after us. We won't just sell cocks, see--we'll have freshly prepared sodas, too, served from a tricycle similar to those that ice cream vendors use. There's a cooler on the back end and a place to put up an umbrella for shade.

After about an hour of poking around and meeting with other sausage cart partners, the setup was complete and the sausages were sizzling on the grill. This is another difference: our sausaged are grilled on a grill, not griddled on a flattop. And we don't have a steamer, and we don't use buns. We serve the sausages on baguettes that are toasted on a spear-like device that burrows a hole in the bread and toasts it from the inside out. Impaling the baguette on the toasting spear in an incredible phallic task, but after a few snickers we got over it.

The grill was fired up, the sauces in their squeeze bottles, and the invited guests began to arrive. Chef J. demonstrated to us future sausage cart overlords how to properly assemble the sausages. The cocks themselves are pre-cooked and only need to be heated through on the grill until they show some light charring and blistering. Then we grab a toasted, bored-out baguette, squirt the requested sauce inside, and stuff the sausage in there, making sure the sauce is properly distributed. That's that. Sausage time.

It's pretty easy. We all had a go at the grill, flipping sausages and squirting sauce. I had a blast. It's been years since I've been in a professional kitchen during service time, and while this was hardly demanding work, it was thrilling to lord over a smoldering heat source. We passed out cocks to the invited guests--mostly kind hipster professionals who were extremely patient and sausage-savvy--and generated many curious looks and a good number of inquiries from passers-by. It went off rather smoothly.

I had two sausages that day: a beef with feta-tomato sauce, and a pork with grainy mustard. I think I prefer the pork sausage, but I'm a pork fiend. The beef-and-feta cock was extremely satisfying and substantial. We'll sell the dogs for $5 a pop, and lemme tell you, that's the best $5 lunch to be had in New York. (The best $2.75 lunch I mentioned at the beginning of this blog). My second cock--the pork one--tore up my mouth from baguette overexposure. I learned my lesson: if I cross the one-dog mark, eat dog #2 sans baguette.

After the guests thinned out and gradually returned to their work at advertising firms and whatnot, our tasting was over. We wheeled the cart back to Chef J.'s restaurant and broke it down. After some light wiping-off of stainless teel surfaces with bleach water, I looked at my rag and saw it was covered with black crud. That, folks, is the air in Manhattan. The crud on the rag was in my lungs. I can't wait to see what the cart will look like after a full day in the park. Viva air quality!

After the cart was spic-and-span, we wheeled it 20 blocks back to the parking garage. The goal is to store the cart in a depot where they will empty the waste water and refill the propane, etc., and where it will safely be stored under government-approved conditions. Until then, it's the 20-block commute.

My cock co-workers and I then went out for drinks with the sausage cart business partners, their treat. I had sangria, then a Bud Light, and then a shot of tequila. The partners/investors/Chef J. were in a good mood, happy to see the fruits of two years' labor in tangible sausage form. Me, I was just drunk. How I blundered into that fatal combination of alcohols I do not wish to say, but I was smart enough to excuse myself before I passed out at 7:30pm after a mere three drinks. I stumbled to the subway, my tummy full of cocks, and promptly got on the E train, which took me all the way to Roosevent Street before I realized I needed to be on the V. Whoops.

The Maiden Voyage

2006-08-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

There is a finite number of moblie food vendor permits in New York City, and among those there is a set number of permits for hot dog vendors. Those permits are all taken, in fact. So how is this young Turk of a sausage cart that I'm working for manage to get into the game?

By not selling hot dogs, that's how. All along I've been refering to this project that I'm working with as "the hot dog cart." Well, legally they can't sell frankfurters because those permits are all taken; they instead have a permit for gourmet foods, and our gourmet food is sausage. Yes, yes, I know--a frankfurter is a sausage. But we legally can't sell franks.

The government has special standatds outlining what makes a frank a frank. As long as the sausages we sell don'y meet those standards, we're in the clear. Here's some text from the code of Federal Regulations:
"Frankfurters (a.k.a., hot dogs, wieners, or bologna) are cooked and/or smoked sausages according to the Federal standards of identity. Federal standards of identity describe the requirements for processors to follow in formulating and marketing meat, poultry, and egg products produced in the United States for sale in this country and in foreign commerce. The standard also requires that they be comminuted (reduced to minute particles), semisolid products made from one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle from livestock (like beef or pork) and may contain poultry meat. Smoking and curing ingredients contribute to flavor, color, and preservation of the product. They are link-shaped and come in all sizes -- short, long, thin, and chubby." (See the full page here.)

The sausages served at our cart (or, more accurately, the sausages that will be served at our cart) are not emulsified (or, to use the language abouve, comminuted); they are somewhat coarse and moderately spiced, but quite flavorful nonetheless. The all-beef ones in particular are very beefy and robust. A company upstate makes them exclusively for the cart. The pork sausages taste a bit more trad, not quite as burly. They are in natural casings and about the diameter of a regular frank, which leads me to belive they are using lamb casings.

But enough about sausage specs. What about the cart? Friday was its maiden voyage. The thing was brand spanking new and stored in a parking garage--a temporary measure. Three of us met at the parking garage to push the cart about twenty blocks to the restaurant that one of the sausage partners owns. There, on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, we washed off the cart, filled its water tanks, put in the propane tank, and stocked the bins with ice and sausage supplies.

Pushing the cart--500 pounds of cart--is not too tough. The back wheels are fixed and the front wheels pivot, so the back pusher is the engine and the front puller is the steerer. The biggest challenge is navigating around pedestrians, who do not always yield to the 500-pound cart. Also, the sidewalks down there get narrow, so there are times when an inch makes the difference between skinning a poor urban tree and barely skinning a porr malnourished urban tree.

The hubby is getting restless, I must shre the computer...more on sausage cart debut in the next post.

Hot Dog Safety Update!

2006-08-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

The date of my two-day class to become a licensed mobile food vendor approaches. It’s good for the public to know that these folks selling weenies from carts are at least required to become aware of safe food handling practices. There are actually a lot more hoops for a mobile food vendor to jump through than your run-of-the-mill line cook.

From what I hear, the basic refrain of the class—which is perhaps blearily elementary—is “Keep hot foods hot, keep cold foods cold.” That potato salad? Chill it. If it’s prepackaged in a plastic cup and on display, that display should be refrigerated or on ice. The Dean & Deluca where I worked in St. Helena, CA got busted for keeping its pre-made sandwiches at room temperature, so there are folks who enforce this. Of course, it’s more important to keep high-protein food out of the danger zone (between 40 and 140 degrees F, I think), because bacteria especially loves protein. So that tuna salad sandwich that made you sick—it was probably not the mayo, which is fairly acidic and inhospitable to bacteria, that did it. Nope, it was the tuna.

For your edification, here are the USDA’s hot dog handling safety guides. Not much to learn here unless you are a total food-handling ninny.

Gray's: The Cheapest Best Dog in New York

2006-08-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

My darling husband, in a comment about a former post, said that Sabrett hot dogs suck. I know what he means, but I’d like to note that Sabrett (parent company: Marathon) franks themselves do not suck; they are of high quality, and they dominate the frankdom of NYC (read more about it here in Ed Levine’s 2005 New York Times article). It’s just that a lot of these little street carts in Manhattan that serve Sabrett franks do an awful job of preparing them—it’s a injustice to Sabrett, really.

To prove my point, Sabrett/Marathon in all likelihood supplies the franks to my favorite NYC hot dog joint, Gray’s Papaya. If Papaya King is about presentation, Gray’s is about thrift. Those dogs are infamously cheap and infamously edible. It’s the best lunch deal in New York: two hot dogs and a papaya drink for $2.99. I think a single dog is a whopping 75 cents. Where in Manhattan, let alone anywhere in the USA, can you get a hot dog deal like that? (Maybe in West Virginia, maybe, but those dogs are another thing altogether.)

Gray’s offers pretty much the same concept of Papaya King, but the menu is not as extensive (Papaya King sells fries, but who needs fries when you could have a second hot dog instead?) and the premises tends not to be as tidy. That’s what you get for a 75-cent hot dog.

There’s a great Gray’s/Papaya King debate that has been raging for years. My allegiance is with Gray’s, even if they are a Papaya King knockoff started in the 1970s by a former Papaya King employee. That’s because of nostalgia. I used to work at a magazine test kitchen in Manhattan, and every morning I’d go down to Balducci’s (the original location; this was the late 1990s) to buy groceries for the recipes I’d be testing that day. Sometimes if I screwed up—which, sadly, was not infrequent—I’d have to go back downtown and get more supplies so I could re-test the recipe. It might be around or after noon, and I might be hungry. In a great anthology called Roadside Food I’d read about papaya dogs, and one day while looking for a subway entrance close to Balducci’s I ran across a Gray’s Papaya, and I had to try one of the Recession Specials they’d mentioned in the book (the Recession Special is the aforementioned 2-dog, 1-drink, $2.99 steal).

I was hooked. I loved the cheapness, the speed, the frank-papaya combo. It became a special treat to go to Gray’s and have what I call 30-second hot dogs. Most food I believe is best eaten like a civilized human: sitting down, savoring the bites, talking with friends or family or alone, reading a great book or magazine. Cloth napkins are a plus.

Well, with hot dogs, I’m not that way at all. I like to gobble them down while standing or walking, and I usually do it in under one minute per frank. It’s a great way for an urbanite to connect with their inner savage.

So, because of the soothing hot dog respites I took in the West Village (at 6th Ave & 8th St), my heart belongs to Gray’s. Gray’s dogs are sloppily assembled, and their buns can be unevenly toasted. Each hot dogs comes on a flimsy, tiny paper plate that you can cradle around the bun like a taco shell. The papaya drinks are frothier and seemingly less pure than Papaya King—they have almost an Orange Julius thing going on.

This Gray’s in the West Village is what I think of as the Papaya Dog Triangle. There’s a Papaya King (7th Ave & 14th St) nearby, and two knockoff-knockoff papaya dog joints as well, Chelsea Dog and Papaya Dog. I have not yet worked up the courage to visit these imitators, but my feelings are that two papaya dog sellers are enough. Here in Astoria on Steinway, there’s a place called Mano’s Papaya. My husband and I ate there once, and we were disheartened with their dogs and drinks—not enough oomph. My rule of thumb is the more non-frank/non-tropical items on the menu, the less focused and less spellbinding the papaya dogs will be.

Sadly, my last Gray’s Papaya visit was a letdown. We were in the Garment District shopping for fabric and saw one somewhere around 34th St. I had the recession special and my heart did not skip a beat. Perhaps now that I live in New York the availability of my hitherto twice-a-year papaya dog splurges has tarnished some of their sheen. Either that, or it’s not as good as the West Village Gray’s.

Introduction to Papaya Dogs, Part I

2006-07-31T11:34:00.000-07:00

Most lovers of great, cheap eats in New York are big fans of two chains: Papaya King and Gray’s Papaya. Both sell hot dogs and tropical fruit juices. Sounds gross, tastes divine.

Papaya King is the original. It’s been around since 1923 and was founded by a young Greek immigrant named Gus Poulos. Gus owned a deli, and after a vacation in Florida he returned with the bright idea to sell fruit juices at his deli. The idea went off well, and Gus opened a few other fruit juice shops. Gus added hot dogs a number of years later to draw in Polish and German immigrants. And that’s how hot dogs met papaya juice.

Papaya Kings are fairly clean inside, with lots of garish signs and decorations in tropical colors. The hot dogs have a great snap and are assembled quickly, but with grace and care. I prefer them with kraut, onion sauce, and spicy mustard. Papaya King—like most other NYC hot dog purveyors—grills their dogs, though they are more accurately griddles, as they sizzle on flat top griddles, not grills. This griddling gives them even more snap. Papaya King franks are supposed to have a special secret spice that no other franks in the country have. I’m not sure what that spice is, but I do know the dogs have natural casing (as do all decent and respectable NYC franks).

Though it may sound goofy at best and repulsive at worst, the papaya/hot dog combo is a marvel of flavor and texture. There’s the salty, greasy frank, with its pungent toppings of kraut and mustard. Then there’s the silky, sweet-tart papaya juice, which helps to cut the grease and salt. It’s a perfect match. Other tropical fruit juices are available at Papaya King, but I ask: why bother, when papaya and frankfurter are so well-suited for each other and work so well as a team? One must alternate bits of hot dog with sips of papaya juice in order to get the full effect.

The papaya juice at Papaya King is supposed to be 100% juice, freshly squeezed. I’m not so sure—it seems to lack the umph of fresh-squeezed juice, but I’ve never had papaya juice otherwise, so what do I know? What is odd is my usual dislike of papaya in its solid form: I think it stinks like baby poo. But if it’s in liquid form with a hot dog, I’m a fan.

Next post, we will examine Papaya King’s cheaper knockoff and rival, Gray’s Papaya.

New York Hot Dogs: An Introduction

2006-07-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

Since there won't be any hot hot dog cart action for a bit, I'm going to use the next week or so to give a general overview of all things hot dog in the Big Apple.

I'm also going to add a disclaimer/mission statement for this new version of Sneezy & Tacky. Longtime S&T readers (including my husband and a few friends, most of whom hear this stuff firsthand anyway) know all too well that S&T is basically my bitching ground for job woes: I work silly jobs and interact with the peoples of America, and I complain about them. I also air nasty thoughts about my employers.

But sorry, I'm going to do my best to keep S&T Mach "Hot Dog" free of cynicism. I'll start by not mentioning the name of the gourmet hot dog cart concept I'm working for--this is not some fake blog that's actually an advertisement, as evidenced perhaps by the sorry state of design and grammar here on this page. Also, I believe in the thing these people are trying to do, and I don't want my occasional gripe to muck it up. This is something I'm doing because I thought it would be fun, that's all.

Okay, so on with the show. Today will be a NYC hot dog overview. For tourists, hot dog carts are probably the most familiar NYC hot dog sight/concept. A street hot dog can satisfy emergency cravings, but they have two drawbacks: a) they are overpriced, at $2 a pop and up, and b) they are not nearly as good as the hot dogs available from stationary, bricks-and-mortar places.

I've noticed that hot dog carts are most present in areas where tourists are thickest: the borders of Central Park, around Times Square, in front of museums.

From what I can tell, Sabrett wieners have a monopoly on hot dog carts here. You can't find a cart that is not graced with one of their yellow and blue logo-crested umbrellas. The wieners themselves are okay--it's the preparation that can disappoint. First off, it's all too often possible to have a stale, un-toasted bun from a street cart. Sometimes the dogs have been sitting around cooked for a while, too, and they lack that grease-slicked newness of a freshly griddled wiener.

Plus the carts fleece you--they are at places where people are often tired, hungry, and desperate, so they can sell substandardly assembled hot dogs for $3 or so. Also, bottled water at these carts is, like, $2! Water should have gold flecks in it for that price.

My gourmet hot dog cart associates tell me that there is a citywide hot dog Mafia. This I can believe. The everpresent Sabrett is, to me, evidence. Perhaps in the future I will learn more about this mysterious hot dog Mafia as it present challenges to the progress of the gourmet hot dog cat.

The skinny on hot dog carts--the "Mafia" ones, that is--is to avoid them unless absolutely necessary. I've had satisfactory hot dogs from them before, but considering the options, there's no need...unless it's a truly desperate situation, and we all have those every now and then. Tomorrow will begin a 3-part overview of the non-cart places to go to instead: purveyors of papaya dogs.

Hot Dog Progress: Day 1

2006-07-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

I'm back. For now, at least. Many months ago I stopped updating this blog because I no longer found it rewarding or fun--plus I didn't have any interesting things to say. I had the brilliant idea to write an essay about why I stopped writing my blog, reasons like how I was not in a position to make any money, or gain wide literary renown, from it, etc. Well, the very next day, lo and behold: someone on Slate.com beat me to the punch. See, people everywhere are joining in the blog-dropping fun!

The reason I'm firing up Sneezy & Tacky again is to chart the progress of the hot dog cart enterprise that has kindly offered me employment. Mr. Bir Toujour and I moved to New York City to offer me better access to the publishing industry, and I get a part-time job at a hot dog cart. Let the fun begin.

I found out about the job through Craigslist. The posting--which was under either "Etc." or "Retail, Food & Hospitality" was a call for gourmet sausage engineers. I clicked on it because I wondered what the heck a gourmet sausage engineer was. They were having drop-in interviews at the Bleecker Playground the next day, and I needed to get out of the house, so I went.

Two very articulate and organized but easy-going girls were there. No one else was. We talked, and I learned that they were launching a gourmet hot dog cart concept. Sounded good to me, and I was charmed with this romantic idea of being the friendliest, most cheerful hot dog cart person in the city. Regulars would come by and we'd chat; the New York Times would do an article in the Wednesday food section. I'd eat great-tasting hot dogs on a very, very regular basis.

They offered me a position for quite a reasonable wage, considering it's an outdoor food-vending job. I accepted, to my simultaneous delight and dismay. I love hot dogs, and it's been a while since I've dipped my toes in the churning waters of the foodservice industry. But I also want a full-time job in a nice, air-conditioned office...a job with benefits and a salary that's a visible improvement from what I've had in the past. Still, the hot dog cart...it's impossible to resist!

This blog affords you kind readers a behind-the-scenes look at what makes a hot dog cart tick. To operate a hot dog cart in Manhattan, first you need a mobile food vendor license. To get that, you need to go downtown to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene with a check or money order to enroll in a food handling class.

The only available class isn't until a few weeks from now, so the only thing I'll be able to do at the cart is handle non-food transactions (i.e. cash). Sort of disappointing, but that's the way it is. New York is strict about those laws.

The hot dog cart is not up and running yet, mind you. A tasting is set for next Friday. Until then, I'll just bide my time and wait for the grand opening...details as they emerge.

Too Much Nature

2006-04-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

It's raining. Again. Today is the millionth day in a row that had brought us rain. Someday I'll be stuck in a relentless summer heat wave and drought, and I'll miss the splashy days. From my home office I can see a tree in the neighbor's yard, a tree with green busd of leaves. That's nice. The green really stands out against the gray sky.

I think of West Virginia as a very green and gray place. The mountains hunch over the landscape, making the dense forests dark and shadowy. It's a wonderful place. If you want to learn more about the very special hot dogs of West Virginia, visit this excellent blog.

Up Close with the Screamer

2006-03-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

There's a guy who lives in a delapidated house down the block. Joe calls him the Screamer. He's an old bachelor who has screaming fits late at night. I've never heard him, but Joe, who is often in the garage in the evening, has once or twice heard the Screamer in action. What he's seen more often is an Albany Police car parked outside the Screamer's sad little house near midnight. The policemen pound on the door and yell for the Screamer to either come outside or just shut up. The Screamer will eventually open the door a crack and insist everythign is okay.

I park in front of the Screamer's house sometimes, because there is usually a spot there. His yeard is patchy with yellow grass and brown dirt. The same blue recyling bin has sat on his doorstep for years. There's a partially gutted primer-gray Mustang on concrete blocks in the driveway. The curtains are usually drawn, but when they are not you can look through the front window and see a dark, sparse room with furniture placed randomly, with no regard for flow or logic, the way men who live alone just plop a chair or a table where there happens to be space for it.

The first time I saw the Screamer he was stepping outside his front door. I'd just parked on the street in front of his house. He waved and said hello. He was heavy-set and sort of greasy-looking, an older guy with glasses in thick, dorky science nerd frames. He seemed harmless enough.

A few years later our doorbell rang just before dinner. I thought it was Joe, coming back from a walk without his key. Nope--it was the Screamer. He was going around with a petition, collecting signatures for a statement that said e didn't cause a disturbance. I guess his next door neighbor was always calling the police because of his late-night fits--fits that he, there on our doormat, denied. He planned on using the statement in court, where this next door neighbor had taken a case against him. The neighbor also claimed that the Screamer played his clavichord at odd hours--I guess the Screamer is into early music.

I signed the statement, partly because it was true: I hadn't ever heard him screaming. But Joe had, and what if he were home? The main reason I signed the statement was to get him out of our doorway. I caved under pressure. He creeped me out. Something about him was not right. I wondered what it was. Why did he scream?

After that, I stopped parking in front of the Screamer's house so often. Every time I walked by I wondered what he was doing. He'd told me he was a writer. Was he on SSI? How did he afford that house?

The other day I went on a nice long run--a longer one than usual, so I made a point of walking the last quarter-mile to cool down. I walked past the bank of paper boxes on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store, and I stopped to grab the alt-weeklies. Some slow, pokey guy was right in front of the box with the East Bay Express, and I stood to the side, waiting for him to move. He didn't. I realized it was the Screamer. He riffled through the stack of papers with a deliberate slowness, a slowness that told me to get going. I scurried home, leaving the Screamer to his eccentric time-killing.

All those fleeting moments in front of the Screamer's house when I wondere what he did with his days, it all came to me: Nothing. He did nothing. He didn't write books; he just banged away at his early music in fits of maddness. I wanted to tske back my signature on his statement. What a sad life, wasting away in his wasted house with nothing but his late-night screams to keep him company.

Chocolate Wafers on White Pillows

2006-03-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

I was away on a trip for a while. Now I'm back. I think bloggers should be blog-exempt while they travel, if it suits them. I still wrote; it's just that none of you folks saw what I wrote, because I was away and not wanting to sit at a computer. That's part of the reason to take trips, in my view--get away from the trappings of your day-to-day activitives and taste the real flavor of the world.

Plus I was busy. I went to a food writers' smposium at The Greenbrier in West Virginia. I can't say enough glowing things about the Greenbrier--first off, their scholarship made it possible for me to attend the symposium. And they put me up in style. I'm not used to staying at such lodgings, places where mints grace the pillows at turndown and staff emembers at every level take the time to greet you with a smile. As a service industry worker, I'm used to being the person who creates the hospitality. Being on the reciving end felt great!

I'm glad to be back home, though. It's nice to be able to eat a plain old apple when the fancy strikes you. The food at the Greenbrier was demandingly equisite in that it was fine and rich. My system was not pleased. I may have put on a few pounds. Before and after the Greenbrier I stayed at my loving parents', and that meant more food. What is there to do at home but eat? Sheesh.

Speaking of food--when am I not, I suppose--here's a link to a story about organics that makes a few points I am right behind. It's not about the dark side of organics as much as it is the gray areas. Today I need to go buy a ton of groceries at a few markets, since my dear husband cooked not one bite while I was gone and our food supply is lean and wilted. Off to Berkeley lala land I go!

TV Hangover

2006-03-13T09:29:00.001-08:00

Ugh. I'm at my parents' house in Ohio. Last night I got stuck in a black hole of cable TV. I could have gone to bed and read "Adam Beade" like a good girl--one can only gain by reading George Eliot--but instead I picked up the remote at 10:55 and didn't set it down intil almost 2am. Revenge of the Nerds was on, and Rosanne and The Cosby Show, and also some behind-the-scenes Food Network show about making their own shows, and then a doc about the fattest man in the world, and then South Park, and then a pretty awful show called Drawn Together. I collapsed in bed in a TV-drunk heap.

This morning I got up after 11am. Pitiful. My head hurt and my mouth was all pasty. I haven't had one drink since hitting Ohio soil, so it's not that. I have had lots of sugar, though. I had a TV attack and as sugar attack (the sugar I consumed prior to the television spree. Perhaps the sugar attack is to blame of the TV attack).

At least I got to see South Park. Revenge of the Nerds was pretty good, too. I'd never seen it. Typically I find 80s teen movies off-putting, but this one packed just the right mix of cliche and--dare I say--freshness. I was especially surprised to find a very fey-gay black man classified as a nerd. And Booger wasn't a nerd so much as a pretty gross stoner. And how many stoners are nerds? Me, I'll take a nerd over a stoner any day.

TV Hangover

2006-03-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

McHappy's

2006-02-22T10:59:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help myself and watched "Bubble" again last night, this time with the actors' audio commentary. And I was right--it is McHappy's Donut Shoppe! I used to go to the McHappy's in Marietta with a few of my guy friends once we were old enough to drive. McHappy's was open late. That's what a crazy night was for us: instead of partying, we drove around and jumped on people's trampolines and ate fattening food and smoked a few cigarettes. Well, maybe those guys partied, too, but never with me. That was fine. I was happy to eat donuts late at night.

Rob Pollard did the music for the moive. Debbie Whatsername, the movie's heavy-set lead actress who was discovered working as a manager at the KFC in Parkersburg, mentioned in the commentary how she met Rob Pollard and he was so nice and he did a great job with the music. Rob Pollard is from Dayton, and I'm happy they got an Ohioan to do the music. In the DVD extras you can tell what a kind, good, positive person Debbie is. She meets the lead singer of Guided by Voices and makes a point of saying how wonderful he is. There may be a bunch of simpleton hicks where I grew up, but there are a lot of folks like her, too. I miss them.

Just Like Home, Sort of

2006-02-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

Finally we saw "Bubble" last night. It was filmed in Belpre, not Marietta, so I didn't recognize too many landmarks. Belpre was on the way to the mall in Parkursburg, and so I think of Belpre as a sort of gateway to the mall. It took maybe half an hour to get to Belpre, and on the way you drove past a bunch of chemical plants that stunk and coughed up all sorts of terrible pollutants. Then in Belpre you crossed a bridge over the Ohio River to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It was a toll bridge: 35 cents. Damn! What a bargain, a 35-cent toll bridge. But here's the even better part: once the bridge was all paid off, they took out the toll booths and it was a free bridge. That's what life is like in the rest of the world, maybe. Instead of $6, it costs 35 cents.

Parkursburg is a pretty gross town. It's not as cute as Marietta, my hometown. But as a child and a teenager, I was always happy to leave the confines of Marietta and venture out to the endless possibilities of the mall. The mall had movie theaters and record stores, two things that Marietta did not. Plus the mall had a Gap and a Limited.

The Grand Central Mall makes no appearence in "Bubble." We see what I think is the interior of a McHappy's Donut Shoppe on several occasions. We also see the interior and exterior of the Lee Middleton Original Doll Factory. The factory is moving to China. The factory scenes are the best scenes in the movie. I saw the characters pulling solidified vinyl arms and heads out of greasy, ugly cast-iron molds and characters airbrushing doll faces under flourescent lights and noisy vents that sucked the poisonous paint fumes away from the doll-face-airbrushers. I saw the white blue-collar folks that I grew up surrounded by performing these tasks unhurriedly, and I imagined the Chinese sweatshop to come where peasants who had recently migrated from the dying countryside performed the same tasks in a much rushed and nervous manner.

"Bubble" made me think of accents. I grew up accent-free, but my parents moved to Marietta and had no accents themselves. None of my friends' parents had accents, either. I hate to say it, but the accent is perhaps a class thing. The Mid-Ohio Valley accent is Appalachian twang tempered with a slowness of speech, like a tongue that's a bit lazy. It was music to my ears last night, but I used to think of it as a tip-off to a person's inferior intellect. This is not ture at all--some of the engineers who work for my dad talk the same way, too. But I don't see why some 3rd-generation Mariettans have the accent while other 3rd-generation Mariettans don't. I think roots on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River may have something to do with it, because the accent is more West Virginia than Ohio.

I had to watch the DVD extras to see something I recognized, and my heart leapt up when I did. It's the old railroad bridge over the Muskingium River in downtown Marietta. No trian pass over the bridge; it's now for pedestrian traffic only. My dad recommended that the bridge be condemned, because it's old and falling apart, but the Marietta Chamber of Commerce opposed that because the bridge is a popular route for tourists' strolls. I used to climb on the bridge and walk across the non-pedestrian side with its railroad ties and gaping holes in between.

Today I may watch the movie with the cast commentary, just to see if I can gleam any more locals-only tidbits. Maybe I won't. If you arent's from the Mid-Ohio Valley, you'll maybe like "Bubble." Really, outside of the doll factory and the Mid-Ohio Valley accent, it could have been filmed anywhere. Trees, roads, grey skies clouded with waning industry, McHappy's Donut Shoppe...

Roses and Blogs Are Free

2006-02-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

This morning I was a bad person. I ate the last little yogurt in the house. Fruit on the bottom. It's not mine. My husband eats them. But I wanted yogurt, and we were all out of the plain yogurt that I prefer to eat. Plain yogurt has a better texture.

Today is President's Day. Ther library will be closed. The store where I work will be open; I will work there today. Only a half-day. Some people spend more time at the gym than I do at my job. This week I'll only work 16 hours. I need money, too. I've been invoicing this dude for article reprint fees for months and he still has to respond. Maybe it's his spam filter.

This is the shittiest post I've posted in ages. I'm all out of insights. My friend Bryan finished his comic, I SEE ROBOTS. Buy a copy. It's only a dollar. It may be just me, but it seems like $1 Xeroxed zine-thingies are waning in popularity. Blame it on blogs. Blogs are free, so it costs me 0 dollars for no one to read this.

As a failing freelance writer, I read about the media a lot. I keep on seeing articles about blogs. Blogs are not the next--or even the current--big thing, at least in my mind. No one will get rich from blogs. Blogs are fun to write. Contrary to the fun value of this particular post, that's why I write this blog. Not to get attention or exposure, not to make money or break the big new scandal. Nope. I'm just here for the fun.

"Bubble"-foiled

2006-02-14T18:43:00.000-08:00

I really want to see "Bubble." It's not playing in any local theaters, and the one copy at our local video store was checked out. Drat.

"Bubble" was filmed in the Lee Middleton Original Doll Factory, in Belpre, Ohio. Belpre is one town over from my hometown, Marietta. I am now feverish to see this movie. I think it's homesickness. Funny thing is that the movie is, as far as I can tell, not particularly flattering towards the lovely Mid-Ohio Valley. Swell as the place is, my ass has a better economic climate. It's just another cluster of dying small towns in dying industrio-rural America.

But I miss it, and I miss being around salt-of-the-earth folks. Joe teases me that my deepest desire is to move back to Marietta, and he's right. I have to admit it. I'd move back there in a split second, but I think it would take at least a few months for me to regret it deeply. There is nothing for us there. Nothing for me but memories, and nothing for Joe but in-laws. If I could write there, all Joe would have to do is get a job at the college (Washington State Community College or Marietta College), and then we could buy a sweet-ass historic house for cheap. And we could save up money and travel and then have a family and raise them with solid American values.

Oh, it's a sorry pipe dream. My pipe dreams used to be of leaving Marietta, of going off to bigger, better, more cultured places. Well, culture can be hollow and ruthless. No matter where I live, I will always dream of leaving, and I will always dream of returning. To somehwere.

In lieu of my own comments on "Bubble", as we are so pathetically "Bubble"-deprived, here's some local Mid-Ohio Valley color in the form of a rambling blog interivew. One interviewee is impressive on two counts: a) she used to guide tours at Lee Middleton; b) she sounds intelligent. You don't have to live on a coast, east or west, to be smart. Ha.

No Cooky for Amesy

2006-02-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

Last night, my writing group met up at the Make-Out Room for the this month's installment of the Progressive Reading Series. The idea is that attendees donate money that goes to funding campaigns for Democratic candidates. In exchange, we reading geeks get to see some literary big guns strut their stuff. I love seeing writers read their work. When it's good, it's better than most any rock show. (When it's not good, it makes a girl pine for a decent rock show.)

Last night's lineup of readers caught my eye because of two names: Jonathan Ames and Curtis Sittenfeld. Regular readers of S&T may already know of my fondess for Ames. He's my favorite living writer, which is a bit embarassing--he can be wildly funny, but also wildly self-obsessed and repetitive. Penis, ass, balding, bowels, trannies, boobs. Repeat. He writes very tenderly of his family, which is a nice change of pace...but he's known as the perverted writer, not the family writer.

And yet this guy is my favorite writer! Why? He makes me laugh. He maked me feel better about myself, and when he's really on he makes me feel better about this larger-than-life character called Jonathan Ames.

As for Curtis Sittenfeld, I read her bestselling book Prep because my dearest friend went to boarding school with her. Prep is set at a boarding school, and though it's not an autobiography, Curtis' time at the real-life school had to color a great deal of Prep. Reading it, I felt privilaged to special window inside the book that the average reader wasn't.

So I saw this Progressive Reading Series lineup and decided I had to be there. No big deal about that. No, the deal is that I also decided I should say hello to Curtis and to Ames. And the bigger deal is that I decided to make them cookies.

Every year around Valentine's Day I make sugar cookie hearts and ice them in pink frosting. Then I pipe names on the cookies in white icing and give them away to whoever the name corresponds to. It's fun; I like to bake, I like cookies, I like pink things, I like hearts. So after piping names across a dozen or so cookies I realized there were lots of leftover hearts, and I piped "Curtis" and "Ames" on two of the hearts on a whim.

Joe and I went over the the Mission last night with the heart cookies in a plastic bag (I had also made name-cookies for the people in my writing group, people we were meeting at the reading). I wondered if I'd go through with the cookie exchange. Why am I compelled to be such a dork? If I were a well-known writer at a reading and a fan gave me a cookie with my name on it, I'd be touched. And creeped out. I'd not want to eat the cookie.

I've done this cookie-fan thing before, at a special Valentine's Day show with a bunch of bands. I made a bunch of cookies, one cookie for every member of every band playing that night. I also made dozens of unnamed cookies for the concertgoers, so I guess that tones down the scary-fan factor.

The reading we packed. Five people read in all. Ames read the thing he always reads, an essay called "Bald, Impotent, and Depressed." It's his greatest hit; he's been reading it for years, that and another essay called "I Shat My Pants in the South of France." He's honed his timing on these essays down to a science, and he elicits lots of guffaws and gasps from the crowd. They make for good reading readings. I felt sort of beyond it, though, as he described his erectile disfunction and flatulence for the umpteenth time; I knew that this man was capable of more. Still, when he was up there the audience was his, and after his reading I felt proud of my Ames. I smirked to myself, thinking how I knew about him way before most of the people in the room, and that made me cool somehow.

Curtis read after Ames. Compared to Ames, whose reading style is deadpan and affected with a charming but unsettling old-timey diction--as if he were a political figure of the early 20th century giving a speech--Curtis' reading voice was natural and comfortable. She read a short--too short, maybe--passage from her book, then skittered off the stage. Maybe she's shy.

Tobias Wolf read last. He seemed like a great guy, a guy who can chum it up with younger folks and gruff old dudes like my Dad. It's nice when really famous writers don't come off as dickwads.
I didn't have a cookie for Tobias Wolf. I wonder if his friends call him Toby.

After the reading, it was still crowded and dark in the club. Curtis Sittenfeld sat in a banquette very close to where I was standing. I stood there stupidly, waiting for just the right moment to tell her--to tell her what? That I knew an old schoolmate of hers? That I remember reading her stories in the boarding school's literary journal? Why did I feel so compelled to say these things to her?

But it was too late. I was in the hole and the only way to get out was to speak to Curtis. I did so, clumsily, like a kid at a high school dance asking their crush to dance with them. The exchange was kind, civil, unextraordinary. I didn't give her the cookie, but I was proud of myself for accosting a writwer whose book I admired.

Then it was on to Ames. The last time I saw Ames read, I asked him to sign my copy of "The Extra Man," my favorite book of his. It's charming and depraved and sweet all at once, and one of its main characters, the extra man of the title, is perhaps my favorite literary character of the 1990s. I've read the book a few times, and my paperback copy is stained with brown spots of hot cocoa that leaked out from my thermos when I worked at Scharffen Berger. I handed the book to Ames to sign, and I said, "Sorry about the spots--it's from hot cocoa. I work at a chocolate factory."

"Are you sure it's chocolate?" Ames said, eyeing me with suspiscion. Stange folks are attracted to that man, and I think he's learned to keep his guard up around fans. But a part of my Ames dream of us being writerly chums crumbled right then. That's life--and that's fandom, just a daydream fancy. Ames has written a books that I treasure, and that's good enough in the end. He owes me nothing. He signed my brown-stained paperback without further comments about the brown spots.

So last night I was especially reluctant to bestow him with the cookies; beside, I'd already spent a chunk of my resolve on taking to Curtis, who seemed much more down-to-earth. How could I have the guts to face Ames? As I exited the bar I passed the booth where he sat with three women. He looked skittish. Maybe he did not want to be around those women. Maybe he did and his wanting to be around them made him nervous. Maybe he was tired of the bar, and the women were his supportive friends. In any case, there was no way I was going to give him the cookie right then, in front of his lady friends--I might mortify him! And me! Why am I compelled to be a giant dork?

My writng group met after the reading, and Joe went home on his own. After our meeting ended, I walked to the BART station and ate Curtis' and Ames' cookies while waiting for the train. They were too sweet, and I felt thirsty and slovenly after gobbling them down. Ames' heart-cookie was broken when I took it out of the bag. I broke his heart. Once I got off the train I walked home briskly, thinking of Joe and how I loved the anticipation of seeing him during the lonely, quiet walk home from the BART station in the dark.

The Wilting Plant

2006-02-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

Novella Carpenter wrote in her "Rev" column a few weeks ago that a blog is like a houseplant; it needs to be tended to regularly, lest it begn to take on an unsightly cloak of neglect. So let's say that this blog is a houseplant. It's kind of brown and ugly at the moment. I've been busy doing...stuff. It's been very sunny. What can I say. Life needs to be lived somewhere besides the chair in front of a laptop. To be honest, the less I write in this thing, the better you can assume my life is going.

Life is okay at the moment. Money, as usual, is a problem. Recently I gave myself a haircut and bought a new pair of runnign shoes. My hair was getting bushy, and my feet were starting to hurt when I went on longer runs. I can do an okay job cutting my own hair, but I can't make my own shoes. So I took advantage of the 50% discount I get at the silly store where I work and purchased a new pair for $46. I'd have spent about the same amount getting my hair cut at the salon I can't afford to go to anymore.

I gave myself the same haircut I've been giving myself for about 10 years. I tried out several new looks during my last few years of dallying in the salons, with varying success. My new haircut is not awful, but it is a bit severe. Short. It'll have a month to soften a bit before I fly off to the food writing conference I'll go to in March. why I needed to cut it now. I gotta look professional.

My mom sent me a check as an early birthday present so I could buy a new outfit or two for said conference. I could use some spiffy clothes for this thing, too--the thrifty hipster look won't cut it, at least not for five days straight. But I'm using the money to pay for the new running shoes, plus maybe something else...living? I'm screwed until the next payday, which is fortunately this Friday. I hate money.

Blythe Bomber

2006-02-04T11:18:00.000-08:00

What a night. Strange dreams, strange dreams. They kept waking me up, so these dreams stuck to me in my waking moments this morning. One dream had to do with a terrorists threatening to blow up a vast, old-fashioned movie palace (like the Paramount in Oakland) with a bomb hidden in the head of a Blythe doll. It wasn't an angry Hamas or Al Quaeda terrorist, just your garden variety crazed American maniac terrorist--the kind we all know from movies, a la Travis Bickle.

This may sound far-fetched, but if you've ever seen a Blythe doll, you know how creepy they look, and how the huge head of one could easily house a bomb. I think all you aspiring screenwriters out there should pick up on this, as it would be a great element in your latest Harrison Ford-starring espionage script.

Another dream had to do with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, because I woke up trying to remember their names. I made it as far as Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Donatello...but the last turtle? I could picture the paintings by the eponymous artist, but not his name. This really drove me nuts, because when I was younger, I was into renaissance art the way some kids are into--oh, I don't know, shitty bands like My Chemical Romance or Good Charlotte. I went to college wanting to major in art history and specialize in Christian iconography of the 15th to 17th centuries. What the hell was that all about?

Finally I remembered. Raphael, the 4th turtle. I think Donatello is not a very good name for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, because Raphael, Leonardo, and Michaelangelo were all contemporaries...Donatello was a bit earlier. Maybe they could have named him Veronese instead, but Veronese came after Leonardo et. al.

Last night I went to see Mr. Bir Toujour's band play a show at Bottom of the Hill. I'm not very fond of that venue, but the parking is excellent. I arrived there and was feeling draggish. I kind of wanted to stay home and watch Bubble, but I have a feeling that I should see Joe's band now while I can; someday I may regret not attending more of their performances. I was a fan of the band before I was a fan of Joe, so to speak. In the early days I would see their band play and it was always amazing to me, exciting and musically challenging and beautiful. Then something changed--probably because Joe and I started dating, and I would never be able to hear the band in the same way again. This spark of magic was lost.

I sort of feel that way about every band I see live these days. I wonder what part of me is missing that can't get the magic back. I'm musically frigid now, perhaps.

These things were running through my mind at the club; they made me feel like I didn't belong there. I stood around acting detached and snobby--just the kind of attitude that I observe in other clubgoers and grow sickened at. Joe's band played, and it was amazing, and most of it passed right by me. Then they started their last song, which Joe had told me would be a reworking of an older song of theirs that I never much cared for. I still didn't care for it much--I just thunk it's kind of boring. But at the end they did an accelerando and it got crazy. I love shit like that--loud, fast, repetitious. It's a tough thing to keep up, but they went on and on, faster and louder, and it began to get tense in a thrilling way out in the audience.

Then Schuyler's smaller crash cymball fell over, and Schuyler got up and started ripping shit up. He began hammering on Joe's cymballs; he knocked over drums; he knocked over more drums. I've never seen Schuyler do stuff like that before. It was spontaneous and wonderful. The show ended in a heap of bandmembers and equipment, and it was all completely without calculation.

I left right after that, because I wanted things to end on a high note. Joe came home much later that night and told me that Schuyler had hurt his knee very badly up there and was unable to walk. What a drag. The one time he decided to bust out onstage and he hurts himself. I think his hust knee had something to do with those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle dreams. Well, I enjoyed the spectacle/debacle onstage that night, but I'm not sure if it's worth Schuyler's physical harm. The myth is that rocker types love to inflict pain upon themselves for the sake of art, but the truth is no one was around to pay Iggy Pop workman's comp back in his Stooges days.

Manic

2006-02-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling wound-up lately. Wound-up in a good way. Yesterday I made a lot of headway on my to-do list, turning in several articles and completing quite a lot of cooking. I wanted to clean the house and go running, too, but I ran out of time. A person can only do so much.

It's disrespectful to people who truly are manic/depressive for me to say this, but I suspect I fall prey to milder versions of such cycles. Maybe it's called being human. In my "depressive" phases I do a lot of reading in the middle of the day. Reading and naps. "Manic" is pretty cool, but I tend to be unfocused and fidgety because I can't decide what to do--there are so many things to choose from! Boo-hoo, the life of an artist is so hard.

Today I have to work. I'll need to leave in a little over an hour. On days when I have to work I get really wound up and want to finish all of these unrealistic projects. For instance, I'll wake up and want to read The New Yorker, vacuum the apartment, check my email, put on makeup, balance my checkbook, revise my novel-in-progress, slap a little entry on the blog...it's too much. Especially since I sleep until 8am. I think on days when I do not have to go to my stupid job I don't have such ambition. Why? Why do we always lust after the impossible?

Oh, yesterday I forgot to mention the thing pertaining to the "I Am Famous" portion of my post's title. Another book I've been into is The Best American Recipes 2005-2006. It's a book that's part of the "Best American" series. I got a copy for free because I have a recipe in the book (they paid me, too. Nice!) That's why I'm famous, even though they spelled my name wrong. The check was spelled even wronger: it was made out to Sar Ah Bir. If I ever need a pseudonym, that's gonna be it.

The cookbook itslef is highly enjoyable, and I'm not saying that because I have a recipe in it. I've been having a lot of fun browsing through it, and the headnotes and tips are breezy and helpful. So far I've made mojo pork tenderloin and Hoosier chicken, both of which I'd make again. But not today. I have to clean the house before I go to work.

On the Bookshelf / I Am Famous

2006-02-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

This last week or so I've been in a manic phase of reading. I love it when this happens. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing good around to read...and, other times, there's too much. Such is the case now. I go to bed with literally three book on my lap, because I can't decide which one to focus on. Here's a rundown.

-I Love You More Than You Know by Jonathan Ames
My husband and I love us some Ames. This is his third book of essays--and, I think, his weakest, though I may be saying that because I read half of them once already when they were published on the web or in magazines. It's like how when you wait for your favorite band to release a new album and half of the songs are re-recordings of tracks that were already on an EP. That's the way I am about Ames: a superfan, a fan who seeks out magazines when I get wind that he has a piece in them (I read the articles at Barnes & Noble, then out the magazine back on the rack; I'm not that obsessive). A bit embarrassing, especially since the more Ames I read, the more disappointed I am by his unrelenting obsessions with his malfunctioning body, his malfunctioning career, and his malfunctioning lovelife.

The man is truly hilarious, though. I have a big crush on his literary persona, just like a number of other deranged females. Ames the man I don't know personally, and I have a feeling that he might actually be a drag...but what does it matter? We'll never be pals. So the present arrangement works out splendidly: I have a crush on a stack of books by a neurotic maniac--books that I can put away when I choose--and I have a caring, stable, flesh-and-blood husband to love in real life.

-Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
This book came out what seems like ages ago--2001. I am just now getting around to reading Reichl's trilogy of memoirs, and it's both discouraging and encouraging. You see, Ruth Reichl is currently one of America's most respected food writers. She's the editor of Gourmet, a magazine that improved a hundredfold under her direction. Her self-portrait in food Tender at the Bone talked about her early life, but its follow-up, Comfort Me with Apples, is, to me, way more fun to read. That's because it's--pardon the pun--dishy. She becomes a restaurant critic and meets all of these towering figures in food media; she sleeps with some of them, even.

Comfort Me with Apples takes place mainly in the Bay Area--Reichl lived in a commune on Berkleye's Channing Way for over a decade--and it's full of landmarks that I recognize. As an aspiring food writer in my late 20s, I read this book and become inspired--she did it, I can do it too! But I also read the book and run across all kinds of now-famous names and marvel at how some people have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Have you ever met someone that seems to know everyone and have been everywhere? I should not care about becoming that person, but maybe I do. A little.

-Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memmoir by Graham Roumieu
This is a follow-up, if not a sequel, to Bigfoot/Roumieu's previous book, In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot. That book gave me and the Mister countless hours of idiotic joy. Me Write Book is twice as long and a bit more thematically complex (it deals with the dark emotional underbelly of fame). Both books are picture books for adults, narrated in Bigfoot's inkblotted scrawl. They are too fuckin' funny. Here's a passage from Me Write Book: "Yes, everyone know Bigfoot smell like shit. Please make effort not to point out every time you see Bigfoot. Thank you." I ripped off this Bigfoot voice 100% in one of my anti-JT LeRoy tirades, but I will happily admit this.

-Marriage, A History by Stephanie Coontz
Whoa! What an eye-opener. This is too heavy for me to read too much of in one sitting. It makes me a little depressed. Love marriage is a pretty new thing for us humans; Coontz maintains that it began to emerge only during the Enlightenment, which--in grand terms, was not so very long ago. What forms did love take prior to this? I think that back in the day--marriage or no marriage--people just did not have very much time to run arounf flirting and fucking, because they were too busy trying to get food and shelter. So maybe, just because of circumstances, many crushes on Oog the next villiage over didn't have time to blossom because Ogg was too exhausted after gleaning millet fields for 13 hours. See what technology has brought us! More time to pine.

Old and Frumpy

2006-01-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend I found out that I am the oldest employee at the store where I work. This is a new thing for me; I'm only 29, for christssake! My manager is 23. When I was 23, I had just moved to California and was working 15 hours a week putting books away at a library. That was in 2000 pay, too. I bet this new manager of mine makes just a little more per hour now than I did at the library back then. Library gigs are a good deal if you can find one. I'd way rather work at a library than manage a woman's apparel store.

So I'm amused and a little shaken about being the oldest gal at my job, but I'm not bitter. I'm always looking for my way out. I'm no retail lifer. Retail kind of sucks. It's so demeaning. People ask me questions about our product line all of the time, and I try to answer the best I can because when I am a customer, I value good service. But lately I have begun to resent questions because I don't care. Why should I devote my brainpower to learning about properties of performance fabrics like Tactel and Lycel? I have other things to worry about, like finding a better job that pays me enough to afford groceries.

Yesterday a woman came in asking if we had rash guards. Fuck if I knew what a rash guard is. "Rash guard?" I asked her. She motioned around her shoulders, like she was brushing off a rash. "Um, we do have Bodyglide," I said. "To prevent chafing." Bodyglide comes in a stick like deoderant and you slick it all over yourself before a long run or hike. It really does work. I used to use Vaseline, but Bodyglide is better.

The woman gave me an odd look. "No, that's not what I need," she said, and she walked away. Later I round out that a rash guard is a tight top to wear when you surf of boogie board or whatever. Hey man, I don't surf! How am I supposed to know that!? Turns out we did carry rash guards, but since we receive like two minutes of training, how was I supposed to know? I felt embarassed for what I'd said to the woman, who must have thought I was nuts. Now I just think it's funny. But if I went into a store asking for, say, a paring knife and the clerk offered me a can opener, I'd likewise roll my eyes. The rash guard woman can think I'm an idiot, but the truth is I'm super smart because I *don't* know what a rash guard is. I'm smart because I'm training myself not to care about retail crap.

The store is supposed to sell workout wear, but in truth we don't. The store used to sell workout wear, but now all they sell is overpriced yoga wear and leisurewear made out of this fleecy stuff called Cashmore. It's super soft and cuddly, the kind of thing you'd want to wear if you stayed home sick from work. Cashmore separates are basically like really expensive sweatsuits. They come in colors like Celadon, Powder, Periwinkle, Cotton Candy, and Creamsicle. It's soft, fuzzy, and baggy like an Easter Bunny costume. Very frumpy.

My new mission is to dress foxy for work. It is the one way I can rebel against Cashmore Frump. I used to make an effort to wear outfits that looked like I might have bought them at the store, but no more. I don't have any clothes like that anyway. I'm wearing my fitted jeans and hipster tops and shit like that. None of those ass-ugly sandal-tennies or drawstring capris. I'd rather look hoochie-mamma than frumpy. I may be 29, but I ain't old and lazy.

Sandy Sawbuck

2006-01-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

This space has been very useful for complaining about my crummy retail job. I am a huge baby and I exaggerate; the job is not that bad. It started out as seasonal, which was fine for both parties. But after Christmas came and went, no other job opportunities revealed themselves to me, and the store still needed help. So I stayed on and became a permanent part-time employee.

This means that I now have no clear escape in sight, like I did when I was a temp. I see these prime years of my life goign down the drain as I spend my days adding customers to our mailing list and straightening bra tops on hangers. The clothes at the place make me sick now. They are so lame, so Bay Area Mom. I have to wear a small or extra-small in most of them, and lemme tell you--I'm thin, but I ain't no extra-small. Spending so much time around casual, baggy pastel clothing makes me wanna revert back to my black denim and motorcycle boot mode of attire, but that would kind of stick out. So I wear the few baggy, shapeless, unstained and unholed clothing items in my closet over and over again. I have, like, one work outfit because everything else is too dressy (?!)

Some of the women I work with get to me as well. I like working with men, who may be just as sensetive, but they cover it up with cussing and crude jokes. My catty nature is rising up at this all-woman clothing retail job, and I don't like it. I'm trying to be more zen.

However, I have made some work friends who feel just as I do about the retail life. This helps a lot. One of these people is Leslie, who is also keenly aware of the time and talent that Fat Woman Fleece is sucking from her vitality. Yesterday we were both off, and we took her chocolate lab Hannah to the Bulb for a romp in the frothy chemical stew that is the Bay. Standing there on the little strip of beach behind the horse track, I noticed a slip of green sticking up from the sand. A ten dollar bill! It made our day--well, no, not really. But is was a nice bonus. After touring the Bulb we went to this coffee place down the block from my apartment and were big spenders. I got a 12-ounce latte instead of an 8-ounce latte, and I tipped a whole dollar instead of my usual 50 cents (and that's only if I have change). Yes, we were riding high, sipping grandiose coffee drinks and talking about what the hell we should do with ourselves and our mangled careers.

I wonder who dropped that $10 bill in the sand? Why would anyone have their wallet out at the Bulb, anyway? There's nothing to buy there, which is why the place is so special and fun. Bulb entertainment is free: the spectacle of nature's bottom-feeders taking over mankind's industrial flotsam. Well, whoever you are, person, I hope you had 10 bucks to spare.

The Most Wonderful Sound

2006-01-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I walked to work. This is what I do for excersie on days when I don't have time to go on a run. It's a whopping 2-mile walk--maybe less than that. My pedometer is broken, so who really knows how long it is. If I book it, I can get to work in about 20 minutes. Usually I don't book it; yesterday, for instance, I was groggy and a wee bit hungover, and I'd stopped at a bakery for a latte and a scone. So I ambled along in the Sunday sun, nibbling my scone and gulping down my latte. (I have no illusions about lattes. They are, for all practical purposes, warm milkshales for adults).

My walk takes me past little Berkeley houses, the kind that cost half a million bucks and look delapidated and semi-trashy from the outside. I figure mot of these homeowners have lived there for decades, and they don't feel any irony in their stockpiling of broken chairs or splintered palets in their tiny front yards.

But at least they are green front yards, with trees around and fairly little automobile traffic. It's a nice little walk. I rounded a corner and heard the wonderful sound of skateboard wheels on the sidewalk behind me. When I was a young boy-crazy girl, I associated this sound with cute skater boys and their drop haircuts and oversized pants and t-shirts. It always made my ears prick up.

That was long ago. Now that I am a married lady on the eve of her 30s, I associate the sound with mu husband, who was once one of those cute skaters with comically gigantic t-shirts. He still skates, but now he wears clothes that fit. I didn't know him back in his skating heyday, but I'd rather be married to him now than have had a crush on him in 1992.

So I heard these skateboard wheels rolling towards me as I walked to work with the foamy dregs of my latte lining the paper cup in my hand. I didn't turn around, but I did move to the edge of the sidewalk to make room for the skater. He rolled past me, and it was a kid--a kid who couldn't have been more then nine years old. He had a sleeping bag tucked under his arm. He was probably coming home after spending the night at a friend's house.

It made me happy. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like you never see kids do stuff like that these days; their paranoid parents drive them everywhere. Maybe someday Joe and I will have a kid who skates to his (or her) friend's house with a sleeping bag in tow. That would ne nice. I'd have a third image to associate with the sound of skateboard wheels on pavement.

Winter Holiday, Part II

2006-01-20T08:21:00.000-08:00

I kicked a door and hurt my foot yesterday. Not very smart, but Joe punching his truck and putting a dent in it is not very smart, either. That happened on the way home from Tahoe.

I wrote "Winter Holiday, Part I" after playing/walking in the snow for three hours. My mind was swimmign with brilliant thoughts, thoghts that rose up while the snow drifted down. Snow is good for thinking. I found an old cemetary and got nearly lost and then was found again--I walked down a dead-end road, turned around, and didn't see my footprints from earlier. Why? Because it snowed over them, duh! But that didn't keep me from panicking for a bit. I made it back okay and then ate a huge-ass lunch. Then I wrote on my laptop until the battery wore out.

Now all of my snow brilliance is lost. It melted. I'm not sure what I was going to say, only that I hope next year we are living in a place with seasons. Fall and Winter and Spring, rain and humidity and ice and leaves turning.

The rest of the trip was fun. The snowboarders returned and we played Pass the Pigs and drank wine and ate veggie chili. I put TVP in the chili and Joe and I had lethal fats for a whole day after.

We needed chains to get out. Joe bought some at a gas station and our good friends spent nearly an hour helping us get them on--otherwise, Joe and I would have been screwed. We're mechanically inept. Then we made it to the ski resort and the parking lot was full (!!), so we rolled on out of town. Once we got down out of the mountains we pulled over and did a very bad job of taking off the chains (hint: when removing snow chains, undo the hook facing the axle FIRST, then undo the one closest to you). Joe had to tear the lid off the cooler and lie down on it to get under the truck and find the back hook. This took about 20 cold, dirty mintues. Joe swore and shook. Initially it scared me, but I stood back and watched the show and admired how manly he was behaving. This is when he punched his truck. Not smart, but he did get the chains off.

As for me, I kicked a door yesterday. My stupid job in the stupid store has no immediate bathroom access. We have to walk down the sidewalk to use a public restroom. I don't mind this, but sometimes there's no soap or toilet paper. Yesterday I walked to work, and by the time I got there I had to go. The public restroom door was locked. I grumbled and decided to try again later. After 30 minutes passed, I tried again. No. Door locked. This is when I kicked the door and yelled GODDAMNIT!!! like a crazy homeless person. The right to take a dump when it's time to take a dump is important to me. I don't want to liken my job to being a POW at Guantanamo Bay.

I was wearing cowboy boots yesterday. They are not very good for kicking, and my foot hurt all day long. What is dumber, punching a truck or kicking a door? A food is harder to fix than a dent, but Joe could have hurt his hand while I merely could have scratched my boot. When Joe has a temper tantrum I usually snicker to myself...but I think all in all, my temper may be worse.

Winter Holiday Part I

2006-01-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

Everyone else went snowboarding. I stayed behind at the house because I don’t participate in winter sports. Initially I was not even going to come to Tahoe, but once I realized I had the weekend off I figured there couldn’t be any harm in it. Our friends had access to a well-furnished cabin for free, and my husband would be driving his truck u up with or without me—so my presence made little difference, cost-wise, and I am very keen on keeping the cost aspect of travel to a minimum.

We were the first to arrive last night, and we poked around in the dark, looking for the hidden key so we could let ourselves in. The cabin—a house, really—was in a gated area right at the edge of Lake Tahoe, not too far from the highway but distanced enough from the casinos and various tourist gee-gaw shops to cast an illusion of isolation. While we waited for the others, Joe and I walked a short distance of the wet, sandy shore of Lake Tahoe. The moon was nearly full and it hung, silvery and bright, in the inky black sky. The wind on the lake was strong, conjuring waves to assault the shore. By the time the chill sent us seeking warmth, our friends had arrived and we began hauling luggage—snowboards, coolers, cases of beer—into the house.

Joe and I slept in a tiny room that was barely bigger than the double bed it housed. The heat didn’t penetrate that corner of the house, but we piled wool blankets onto the bed and pulled on our long underwear, which kept us toasty all night long. The wind and the waves continued all night long, their rhythmic cries beating at the little house’s walls.

The plan was for all of the snowboarders to rise very early in order to make the most of the slopes, but the high wind meant that most ski resorts had few, if any, ski lifts running. So we brewed pots of coffee and had a leisurely breakfast. By ten o’clock the wind had calmed, and the snowboarders suited up to try their luck, hopefully scoring half-day lift tickets at reduced prices. Joe pulled on his borrowed snowboarding pants and fiddled with his borrowed snowboard. He hadn’t been snowboarding much since he injured his shoulder in a bad fall four years ago, and though he was excited, I was a bit worried. What if he fell again? What if he didn’t fall, and he had such a great time that he wanted to make multiple trips to Tahoe each winter? That would be expensive for us, and lonely for me. But I also go on adventures of my own, and I know that he worries about me, and I wish he didn’t.

The main reason I tagged along on this trip was to figure out what people saw in this Tahoe place. It’s a four-hour drive from the SF bay area in the best of conditions; factor in snow and traffic and god knows how long it might take. But people love it. I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about.

Since I wasn’t going to the resorts with everyone, my plan was to mess around in the snow for a few hours, then retire inside to read, write, and relax. I put on the warm clothes I’d brought, thinking how special it was to be wearing them, since in California items such as heavy wool sweaters and waterproof pants didn’t come in handy very often. Those clothes were from a different part of my life—different parts, actually—and it felt good to have them on, like I was resurrecting a dead, more noble part of myself. I put a water bottle in my big blue backpack, along with a fleece vest and a packet of Espresso Love Gu. Then I pulled on a fleece headband and a coarse South American wool hat with ear flaps and stepped outside.

I walked along the lakeshore for about half a mile. Snow flurries spun madly in the air, and the mountains painting the skyline on the opposite side of the lake were completely obscured in a dingy grey haze. I could be anywhere, I thought. I walked past shuttered beach shacks and overturned sea kayaks, and I stumbled across a tiny red plastic shovel embedded in sand and ice.

Dramatic slopes populated with tall pine trees and gnarled rock outcroppings rose behind some of the houses. I wanted to hike up one, but wire fences and PRIVATE PROPERTY advised otherwise. The houses in the estate were mostly new, with a deceptive suburban residential look—that faux grandeur look of exaggerated ceilings and lofts that overlook gas-powered fireplaces that flame up with the flick of a switch. But the actual development was quite old, according to our host. Decaying piers jutting from the water attested to this, as did a plaque I found close to the one non-decayed pier. The plaque commemorated two steam-powered vessels that launched in the late 1800s, ferrying tourists around Lake Tahoe until the late 1930s. I tried to imagine what Lake Tahoe was like back then; resort towns I’d been to in the east had aging grand lodges and ramshackle cabins to point to their past, but here I saw nothing but weekend houses for well-off professionals.

I walked out the end of the pier (a sign at its gate read GOLF CARTS ONLY) and looked down in the water. The wind was kicking up again, but the depths were still quite clear; I could make out rocks and the quivering images of wooden beams descending into the sandy bottom. I imagined the summertime joy of jumping off the pier into the cool water, which was probably about ten feet deep at that spot. I also thought of poor Fredo rowing his niece around Lake Tahoe in The Godfather Part II, a movie that served as my primary reference for what the real-life Lake Tahoe was like.

After the pier, the walkable lakeshore terminated. As the snow flurries increased, I made my way along the roads, past empty vacation houses and luxury cabins with snow-covered vehicles parked in their driveways. With tall trees bordering either side of the road and no traffic to speak of, it was peaceful just to wander along the road, feeling the snow crunch under my boots. My pace was nearly lethargic, but fending off the cold for over an hour had piqued my hunger, so I tore open the Gu and slurped the sticky, sickeningly sweet mess down.

Some roads seemed promising at first, but after a steady climb they all ended in PRIVATE PROPERTY sings. Hardly anyone was around to object to my trespassing, but I wanted to be respectful, and not to wander too far away from our own little weekend house. So I followed many paths only to retrace my steps on the way out, but I didn’t care. The day was becoming whiter and whiter, and in the quiet I felt I was enjoying my own private snow day.

I recalled how once my brother and I went out in the woods behind our house on a snow day. We each had a backpack with a granola bar in it. Under what I assume was the guidance of my brother, a war movie fanatic, we pretended that we were POW escapees. What war, I’m not sure. Perhaps Vietnam, although there’s not much snow there. So let’s say Korea. We got sort of lost in the woods, ate our granola bars with freezing fingers, and we finally emerged hours later in a cornfield next to the volunteer fire station a few miles away from our house. Their flag flew half-mast, in accordance with President Regan’s declaration of national mourning for the Challenger disaster. I was happy to see the fire station and the road we could walk home on, but something about the scene seemed eerie as well. That’s a snow day for you.

Bigfoot: No LeRoy

2006-01-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM BIGFOOT

Lately me read article by smarty-pants reporters who use Bigfoot name in same breath as JT LeRoy. This no acceptable. It part of Bigfoot creed not run into spotlight, but me no can stand for this. LeRoy no Bigfoot. Here why.

For many century me "people", the Sasquatch, try live own life of peace in boonies. Every now and then must venture out so get spotted by hunter or hiker or Humbolt county pot farmer. We no want hurt, just part our tradition to keep human on toes. There big debate on "do Bigfoot live?" and lot of nutty people make website full of "cryptozoology" with claim facts on me life. True is, me do live. But most people who think they know all Bigfoot don't know dick.

It not walk in park be Bigfoot. Have to live isolation in woods where cold and no very good place to get magazine or latte. Sometime me want make friend and just gossip about Brad and Angelina or talk about Alito confirmation hearings for Supreme Court. See, me try stay up on current event. I naturally curious. But it me duty no reveal self fully to human. Must be mystery.

But me no hoax. Me never try pull wool over eyes of believers or make lies for money--and let me tell, be Sasquatch no pay much, either. Bigfoot could use the money. But me honest and no prey on trusting public.

See, me no happy now because thing happen with little sissy-boy writer who hip kid buy book of and snobby critic say "oh he write so bracing and with so raw honesty about life on street and abuse." Gimme break. This pencilneck name JT LeRoy. Me read he book "Sarah" and almost stop read, because no make sense half time and me prefer book with strong character development and good narrative flow. This book not have that. Mostly dark, impressionistic crap about little boy who dress up like girl to make money from horny fat truckers. But me finish story because bio say JT LeRoy live life like that he-self in West Virginia. Me sometimes go vaction in West Virginia when me sick of Pacific Northeast. JT LeRoy book West Virginia no like what Bigfoot see in real state, but whatever.

Rumor say JT LeRoy shy and no read he own work in public. He too in band but no sing or be on stage, only write word. Me think if you no sing and you no play, then you no in band. But he too afraid be in front people because he skin full of zits--he young still, and no very tall. So no see LeRoy ever. But then he books start pick up fans and then LeRoy he at party with Madonna. Oh, so he no too shy meet one most famous women in world but cannot go to book signing of own book? Me say bullshit.

Picture of LeRoy start pop up. He wear wig and sunglasses and look like girl. Then he say he want be or think he is girl. Bigfoot open-minded and okay with transexuals and transgendered population, but me smell fish when LeRoy say he have the trans.

Now turn out LeRoy no write own book. LeRoy in wig at parties no LeRoy either. Stupid people in he "band" with make up LeRoy so they make money and play with fan feelings. Take advantage of goodwill and swindle celebrities. This Bigfoot never do. Me heart full of love and want all creatures of Earth to live healthy lives in harmony. Me no have material want, but maybe those reporter who say LeRoy like Bigfoot might take two seconds consider how this "LeRoy" character greedy and liar. Sure, me dream how it nice if perfumier create exclusive fragrance just for Bigfoot and Bigfoot no have to pay--but me no ask for it just to abuse me fame!

JT LeRoy, it good thing you no real person, because if me see you I bite your head off and stick it up you ass.

A Hoax, Folks?

2006-01-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

My feelings about JT LeRoy now feel so vindicated. We own two of Mr. LeRoy's books. I enjoyed reading them--whoever it was that penned them--but they didn't rock my world. Plus, the West Virginina references didn't ring true to me. I enjoy a good mess like this one, which creates a silly hubub to distracts us so well from more urgent international matters.

My lawyer has composed the following statement in the wake of the breaking JT LeRoy scandal:

Let me assure you, dear readers, that the woman who appears in public claiming to be Sara Bir is indeed Sara Bir, the little-known writer whose harrowing background includes a difficult childhood in the semi-rural wilds of the Mid-Ohio Valley. All prior claims that Ms. Bir was a shocking sixteen years old when she experiences her first kiss, and that she once was so bored that she and her friends dyed her hair black with a Clairol product purchased at Kroger's, and that she was neither popular nor unpopular--these, kind readers, are all verifiable true events.

Ms. Bir's physical manifestation is not that of a biological male identifying as female, nor is it that of a biological female identifying as male. Ms. Bir is a woman, though she does indeed have small breasts and, at times, hairy legs.

Additionally, Ms. Bir's 2001 semi-fictional account of working at a public library populated with homeless vets was indeed based on a real-life experience. All of Ms. Bir's written allusions to drug use can be traced back to actual ingestion of drugs and alcohol--including the time she smoked a joint in the darkroom at her cooking school and then proceeded to drive her 1992 Geo Prizm across the campus to deliver the school newspaper.

Ms. Bir's occasionally mind-boggling past is 100% real. It happened. Ms. Bir is a real person, and her realness can be vouched for by countless celebrity supporters and trendkeepers--including members of several indie rock bands whose recordings have been issued on actual microscopic record labels, not self-released CDs like what go-nowhere bands have to do if they want to impress members of the opposite sex by saying "Hey, my band has a CD out." Let me reiterate: Sara Bir knows actual, certified cool people. The fact that she once sold Juliette Binoche a pint of superpremium strawberry ice cream at the gift shop of a chocolate factory is not a fabrication.

No one else but Sara Bir publishes articles and stories and blog entries under the name of Sara Bir. Sara Bir is, according to the birth certificate ensconsed in the important files in her own office, 29 years old, just as she has stated multiple times.

Sara Bir lives. She breathes. The lungs furnishing fresh oxygen to Ms. Bir's body are the lungs of Sara Bir, not the lungs of a 41-year-old male video game tester who lives with his parents on Long Island. The human being pressing the keys to make these words appear on the screen of her laptop is Sara Bir, who is not one in the same as a failed creative writer who supposedly manages the complicated personal life of and then privately assumes the persona of Sara Bir. Sara Bir is self-contained.

Thank you.

Go to Sad 13 for Postings

2005-12-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

For the next few weeks, I'll be turning my feeble blogging attention primarily to the Sad 13 Challenge blog, where one new playlist will be posted each day, along with random thoughts of sadness. Also, please note that I'll be hosting the Livewire reading at Zebulon's on Tuesday, December 13. It starts at 7pm. I'm not reading, but I'll probably sneak in a little something just to indulge myself.

Snake Attack

2005-11-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

My beloved husband awoke me this morning just before 4 o'clock with a spaztic fit. "There's a snake on me!" he said as he flailed wildly, crawling over me with his arms lashing at the darkness. He then fell out of bed and half-stood, stomping and struggling with the invisible force. This led me to belive that he was wrestling with an intruder, and I may have screamed. It all seemed so real at the time, the way these things do. I thought we were toast. After a few seconds, I switched on the bedside lamp and saw Joe, naked and terrified, with no intruder and no snake. We both went back to bed, but it took a long while to calm down.

In his frantic attempt to shed himself of the imaginary snake, Joe somehow mahed his hand up against my earlobe, which today is red and sore but not swollen. He also broke one of the rods on our drying rack, but a little glue will fix that right up.

This is not the first time spectres of snake attacks have ripped Joe from his slumber. I guess it's a theme with him, an Indiana Jones snake pit kind of terror. Me, I'm not scared of snakes, but I am scared of Joe being scared of snakes. What horror.

Free from Chocolate Cake Opression!

2005-11-28T12:31:00.000-08:00

I just sent in my simple chocolate sheet cake assignment. This means that, for better or for worse, I am free from chocolate cake! Now I can eat proper lunches and breakfasts. Like leftover stuffing, which I am just now off to eat. I'll print the recipe here on the blog once I hear the outcome. The outcome may actualy determine where Joe and I will live in the future, so it's no small potatoes. Anyway, I'm basically pleased with the cake I created, but I still want to refine it even more. I ran out of time; today was the deadline. I'm just happy to be finished and able to get on with my life. The rest of the day I will spend doing housewifey things like cleaning, doing laundry, shopping for groceries, paying bills, and making food. I'm very good at doing those things.

Still at It

2005-11-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

I'm on cake #7 now. I'm not sure if I should keep going or quit while I'm ahead. Every day I'm eating the equivalent of two gigantic pieces of cake, all in little tastes. All in all, seven variations on a simple chocolate sheet cake is only knicking the tip of the iceburg. But then, a cake is a cake--right? Give twenty people the task of coming up with the ideal simple chocolate sheet cake and you will get twenty cakes.

That said, I think I'm realizing that I'm not as into Scharffen Berger cocoa powder as I thought. As a former employee, I have scads of the stuff around, so I'll keep on baking with it as needed. But today, as I poured boiling water over the Scharffen Berger cocoa powder and whisked it into a smooth paste, a hammy, almost smoky bacon-esque aroma rose from the bowl. At the Scharffen Berger factory the cocoa powder always seemed appealing, but perhaps because of the overall sensory overload of chocolate permeating the air. In the isolation of our lackluster kitchen, this is not the case. So we'll see how cake #7 turns out. Hey, do you need some chocolate cake? Leave a comment and I can hook you up. But I don't deliver.

Too Much Cake

2005-11-16T18:55:00.000-08:00

This is what I've been doing lately. It's a secret project, but obviously it has sonething to do with chocolate cake. I'm going for the ultimate chocolate sheet cake. I've baked five so far, and I'll probably bake at least five more. Sometimes I can't even tell the difference between cakes..I got a headache this afternoon, because I'd eaten primarily nibbles of chocolate cake and not much else. It's more work than you'd think, tasting cake. But I'm keeping at it.
P.S.--#1 is made with Valrohna, # 2 with Scharffen Berger.

Frugal, not Gourmet

2005-11-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

Could you make dinner from the following leftovers?
-about 1 cup unused parsnip, potato, and carrot ravioli filling
-10 ounces meatloaf
-4 ounces mushroom stems

Plus you have the services of the following non-leftovers:
-1/8 bag frozen green peas
-three carrots
-one onion
-one bottle Trader Joe's Winterfest Double Bock Dark Lager (a very fine beer, considering the $4.99/six pack price)
-milk
-all-purpose flour
-unsalted butter
-fresh sage & parsley
-Dubliner cheddar

...well, I did. I minced the onion and mushroom stems and cooked them until soft, then added some butter and flour. I opened the beer and poured in maybe 4 ounces (the rest went into me) and stirred in some milk and water. This became the gravy. To this I added minced meatloaf, diced carrots, frozen peas, and minced sage and parsley. I dumped this mixture into a gratin dish; the ravioli filling, which was pureed and starchy, became the topping. There. Instant shepard's pie. I grated a little cheddar cheese on top of the potato/parsnip puree to gild the lily, so to speak. Who knows, this might turn out tasting like crap--but I just took it out of the oven, and it smelled great. It has yet to pass the most stringent of tests, the Husband Test. Joe will reject or embrace odd, thrown-together dishes with no predictability whatsoever. Will this very thrifty casserole strike his fancy? Time to eat now; I'll report tomorrow.

Budget Cuts

2005-11-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

The small capitalist nation that is Joe and I is in the midst of a budget crisis. Well, it's really just my nation--Joe's part of it is okay. But I am facing the prospect of a mounting defecit, with no revenue in the immediate future. Unlike certain other nations, however, I have the foresight to anticipate financial quagmires and thus am strategizing with cost-cutting measures. No more dinners at restaurants with table service. From now on, if I go to a coffee shop franchise, it's nothing but hot tea (always the cheapest warm beverage item). All Christmas gifts this year will be handmade from items we already own. Alcohol consumption must plummet (either that or I cultivate a love for mixed drinks, as we do have a pretty decent stash of hooch). No clothing, book, magazine, or music purchases unless absolutely necessary (e.g. I'd need a new pair of black shoes to wear to a new job). No motion pictures unless they are at matinee prices or $1 budget cinema chains. No movie rentals.

If I play my cards carefully, I'll be able to coast through the end of this month and the very beginning of next month. However, I'm unsure of what will follow. One job prospect may require a trip across the country, which would not be cheap. Then there's things like auto and health insurance, the January trip to Mexico that I put a deposit in for but still owe a good chunk on, my final car payment, and the trip to San Luis Obispo that Joe wants to take for Christmas. I'm all in favor of travel and fun, but the prospect of mounting debt is terrifying. Many folks have it worse, but I don't want to rack up debt just by everyday living. Debt is for emergencies and major life aquisitions/transitions (moving, house, car, unforseen medical nighmares), not crap like PG & E bills.

I think I may try to back out of the Mexico trip. Bummer, but I got myself into this financial position in the first place, and I can 'fess up to my duties.

Worse comes to worse I have Joe to step in and cover some of these costs--he is, after all, my husband. But it's not like he's Daddy Warbucks or nothin'. I guess the fun of marital money matters begins for us now.

How Can JT LeRoy Bite Me If He Does Not Exist?

2005-11-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

Those of you with minds like steel traps may recall that I have a little bit of a problem with JT LeRoy (see "JT LeRoy Can Bite Me" from this very blog). So this Woman's Wear Daily article was particularly delightful to me. It seems there are those (including David Segal of the Washington Post, whose writing I dig, though I know nothing of his investigative skills) who suspect that the pan-sexual slyph with the troubled past, celebrity friends, and addiction to personalized fragrances may be a hoax. Is he real? It's fun to debate, I suppose, but in a way I don't care. Real or not, he's kind of a sham anyway (yes, I'm still pissed about that Scharffen Berger episode. What a whore!) Maybe I should find some homeless kid to be my alter-ego, huh?

Oh! So I'm copying below a portion of the my original post from June of this year, "JT LeRoy: The Saga Continues." JT LeRoy, be a fucking human!

Perhaps I spoke a bit harshly in my previous post about JT LeRoy. I was upset because he and his assistant phoned the PR line of our chocolate factory asking for chocolate, when in fact my own generous offer of free chocolate many months earlier via email went ignored. But perhaps JT LeRoy never even saw the email. There's a good chance he didn't. Emails get lost in space, sometimes.But then Mr. LeRoy's assistant sent a follow-up email after the call. This is an excerpt.
"JT is unusual in that he hearkens back to an earlier time when filthy lucre was avoided by means of barter. In the world of big business, advertising dollars are spent willy-nilly, in periodicals that may or may not attract a dedicated audience. JT decries this depersonalization of product. He prefers to give items that he loves apersonal spin, explaining, as only he can, how his life has been enhanced by this or that thing. I've attached a piece that JT had done for Black Book about Mandy Aftel's perfumes. Through it, you will see how JT can best any PR firm's appraisal of a product. As you read it, please understand that no money ever changed hands between Mandy and JT. Instead, gifts were sent to JT's friends and a story woven out of that experience."
Sick! So if we give JT LeRoy chocolate to share with his friends, he'll write about us? I personally feel that this is filthy lucre, and that if he wants to write about Scharffen Berger, he should just do it. We give everyone free chocolate; you don't have to get all slimy about it. The whole thing leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

Bike Wreck

2005-11-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

Well, my five minutes of local radio exposure has come and gone. It was fun, though. Funny, because doing this thing took me from 6:30am (waking up and getting dressed) to 8 (arriving at the station). It's 10:53 and I'm just selling in here at home. Of course, I did stop for post-radio coffee and a maple scone. Mmm, maple scone.

On the way home I passed an accident. There was bad traffic and it slowed eveything down. Some guy slid on his motorcycle (or, more accurately, *off* his motorcycle) on a 2-lane overpass on 101. I drove right past the ambulence and accident scene. The empty stretcher was there, waiting for him. The guy was on the ground against the barricade. I saw his bare legs--he was wearing shorts--but that's it. The paramedics were getting ready to transfer him to the stretcher right as I passed. I was a rubbernecker, what can I say? I really wanted to get a good look at the accident, but safety and respect got the best of me. Funny, I always avert my eyes when I see scary movies--but real life, whoa! That's a whole other ballgame. I think in real life, scary things are scarier after they happen.

Sad 13 Update

2005-11-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

I'll be on Sonoma County's KRSH 95.9 FM on Friday morning (that's November 11) at 8am-ish with my enthusiastic and supportive editor, Gretchen Giles, to talk up the North Bay Bohemian's amazing Sad 13 Challenge. Also, the column announcing the Sad 13 Challenge came out in the Bohemian on 11/09/05. You can take a peek here (sadly the Sad 13 Challenge Blog was omitted from mention, but this will be rectified in subsequent issues!)

Lately I've been thinking that I need to be less modest in the arena of career accomplishments and developments (i.e. I need to promote myself more, even if it is cheesy and full of badly styled spin). So that's what I'm doing here. Listen to KRSH, darn it! Enter a CD in the Sad 13 Challenge!

Hmm...not sure how I like this self-promotion thing. Maybe I need to practice and refine...

Not Sold in Stores

2005-11-08T11:49:00.000-08:00

I'm jet-lagged. A 3-hour time difference is not a very big deal, but I think I have a general lack of sleep compounding it. The flight home from Ohio was without event. Here I am now, back in our little apartment with a few suitcases to empty and an empty refrigerator to fill.

While in Marietta I watched a bit of television; I do every trip. Late on a Friday night I ran across paid programming for the new Time-Life 70s Music Explosion collection. I MUST HAVE THIS! You can say whatever you like about 70s FM & AM hits, but I love them with a vengance.

I also love Time-Life paid programming on late-night television. These ads are extremely effective; they've goaded me into buying the Country Classics collection and almost had me sold on Classic Soul Ballads. The 70s Music Explosion ad is hosted by Barry Williams, a.k.a. Greg Brady. Some perky co-host who was probably born in 1974 is on with him, saying things like "I love that song! Weren't the 70s great?" Dang, she must have a great memory of the world when she was 5 years old.

Ignore the Greg Brady and Nincompoop Girl segments--the best parts of these ads are the snippets of "performance" footage that play as the songs in the collection scroll across the screen. We see all manner of one-hit wonders lip-syncing in awful sequined jumpsuits in front of preposterous backgrounds...plus lots of gross, gross 70s guys with sick mullets and terrible facial hair. Bands like Pilot ("Magic") and Bread ("Baby I'm-A Want You," one song on the collection that I despise) and Player ("Baby Come Back"). It's fascinating to me. How did folks get suckered into loving this stuff when it was so hopelessly cheesy? Obviously it's the quality of the music. The two songs I'm really dying for are "Indiana Wants Me" and "Hitchin' a Ride." Both are pretty depressing songs when you listen to them, but they are dripping with that sunshine pop sound.

So, dear Santa, please bring me the 70s Music Explosion for Christmas. That's all I want, except for Classic Soul Ballads and the new Rhino girl groups box set. I know it's a worthy investment, because County Classics was *so* worth it. Life-changing, in fact. Time-Life puts together some mighty fine compilations, even if they are riddled with cliches. I got The Folk Years box set for free from my old job, and I am still nuts over it.

I think the fondness for 70s Music Explosion and The Folk Years traces back to the K-Tel and Sessions compilation LPS that my mom ordered from ads back in the day. I have three of them: Mellow Gold, Together, and Beautiful Music. Mom played them incessantly when I was younger, and they are responsible for this time-freeze pickle I'm in now. If I'm not a fan of the Go! Team or Franz Ferdinand, it's Mellow Gold's fault.

Greetings from EST

2005-11-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

The quality of Marietta's thrift stores has gone down. I used to be able to find all kinds of great stuff, but now it's mostly stretched-out cotton knit shirts and lame jeans in too-big sizes. I did score two nice straight-leg jeans from the Salvation Army for .99 a pair. Someone at the Salvation Army store walked by me while I was standing in line and said "Excuse me, sir." Um, no, I'm a girl. Are the matching silver hoop earrings and lipstick not a dead giveaway?

I also went ot the public library to write for a bit on my laptop. It's a Carnegie library, built in 1916 and remodeled in 1992 or '93. I used to work there at the circulation desk. I liked it. I was nervous about seeing former co-workers, because I'd be afraid they would not know what to say to me, or vice versa. Luckily there's a staircasedirectly from the breezeway to the mezzanine. From the mezzanine I could see these two older ladies who I worked with back in the day, plus I could hear them mention a girl who likewise worked there at the time. So all three are still there. A library is a good place to work, but a small library like that is a tough place to move ahead. I'd love to have a workaday library job at this point, though, so I should keep my mouth shut.

Walking around downtown, everything seemed very real to me. But I felt like a spy. I felt like a spy in my own hometown. I usually do when I come to visit.

Ohio Bound

2005-10-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

This next week I'll be reporting from Ohio. Tomorrow I'm flying home to visit my parents for a little while.

Happy Halloween. Here is a list of costumes I've seen in my local travels so far today.
-1/2 angel, 1/2 devil (worn by a blind woman; I know because I saw her cane, and she was walking down the sidewalk just a block from the School for the Blind)
-vampire standing on streetcorner
-Renaissance wench-girl walking under BART tracks
-girl wearing black & white striped socks w/ a black & white striped dress and black Chuck Taylor high tops, also walking under BART tracks (I'm not sure if this was a costume or not)
-toddler in black cat costume at Albany Community Center

I saw other people and kids dressed up, but they were moving in packs and hard to get a good look at. I have no costume this year, but we will be passing out candy. Hershey's Take 5 bars. I tried one earlier and they are not half bad--peanut butter, caramel, peanuts & milk chocolate on a lattice pretzel. Very sweet and very goopy. Candy is the best, except when it's bad.

Previous Post: Piglets

2005-10-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

I put up a picture of the Piglets below, but I think Blogger is acting retarted right now, because on my screen the image is about half the size of a postage stamp. Well, at least you can barely make out the two Piglets on my knees. See, I really did finish them.

Also, I fixed the link to my Sad 13 Challenge blog. I was dumb for messing up the link. Please do not let that deter you from entering a mad sad mix CD.

Dude, I feel all squishy in the head right now. We had our 2nd annual Pumpkin Carving Brunch today. I was all antsy in the pansty to drink mimosas, so I cracked the sparkling wine open the split second our first guests arrived. Well, a few hours later the bottle was half-empty, but no one else was drinking mimosas. Yes, I may have been quasi-drunk before noon. Awesome! Well, no, not awesome, because my head hurts now. How does a career lush do it? I am a wuss.

I also made mulled wine. A total retard could make mulled wine. It's super-easy and quite tasty.
What makes a beverage a mulled beverage? Infuse it with spices and serve it warm. In the cookbook ("The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery," published circa 1948) it said that cider, juice, wine and beer can all be mulled. Even water, I suppose. Know what we call mulled water? Tea.
TOTAL RETARD MULLED WINE
-1 bottle un-crappy but not super-great fruity red wine, like a Merlot
-Juice of 1/2 orange, strained
-3-inch piece orange rind
-4 cloves
-2 sticks cinnamon, each about 3 inches long
-4 green cardamom pods
-at least 1/4 cup sugar
-at least 1/4 cup honey
Combine all ingredients in an enamel-lined pan (aluminum pot = tinny taste). Warm gently for at least one hour; do not boil. Taste to check for seasonings (the less yummy the wine, the more sugar you will need). Serve.
Note: Instead of using an enamel-lined pan, you can dump everything in a crockpot; this eliminates the possibility of boiling.

Straight Outta Hundred Acre Wood

2005-10-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

Please, No '00 Revival

2005-10-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

The comment sparring on my last post reminded me of a song by Mike Watt: "The Kids of Today Should Defend Themselves Agains the 70s." Eddie Vedder sings guest vocals on it, which now seems very '90s to me. Fetishizing decades seems to me to be very 20th Century. Did folks in, say, 1180 get all nostalgic for 1150?

I hope when I'm 50 there's won't be a big resurgance of the 2000-oughts. I think this decade, as far as trends and culture, is pretty crummy. Even in crummy times there's something decent to rally around somewhere, so I'm not complaining too much. But I don't want low-waisted flared designer jeans to come back in. Ick.

Remember the Sad 13 Challenge? It's now a contest, to be announced officially next week in the Bohemian. I started a blog for it: www.sad13challenge.blogspot.com. Please make a CD and enter.

Rain Comes in on Lightfoot

2005-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Woke up to rain this morining. That's fine with me. I should be staying inside today, trying to write and stuff.

In bed, listening to the raindrops against the window, I realized Danger Bike was out on our back patio, getting wet. I imagined it rusting up into one big mass of ferrous crud, which was distressing to me. I didn't want it to get more messed up than it already is.

I put it in the garage. Seemed okay. Yesterday I didn't write a blog entry because I was working on my book. Maybe that will be the case every day from now on. Blog: good. Book: better.

It's a good morning for Gordon Lightfoot. We have four Lightfoot records. Anyone who dirts Lightfoot can go to hell. He's awesome.

Discovery at the Cemetary

2005-10-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

I run through a cemetary not far from here. All in all, it's maybe a 4-mile loop, but en route I go through Albany, North Berkeley, El Cerrito, and Kensington. The cemetary, Sunset View Cemetary and Mortuary, is on a hill overlooking the bay; you can see Mt. Tam, the Golden Gate Bridge, Albany Hill, the refinery in Richmond, and some of Berkeley and Oakland. At the right time of day, it's possible to see the sunset...as well as the sunrise, but I've never heard of a cemetary called Sunrise View.

There are trees and open space in the cemetary, which is why I like to go there. It's probably the quietest, greenest open space within reasonable walking distance. I don't explore the grounds too much because I'm always paranoid that I'm going to get chased out, or that a mourner will spy my in my sweaty running shorts and be offeneded. Still, I try to go there at least once a week. People should be using that space.

It takes a while to get to the top of the hill. At the bottom, by the entrance, there's a mortuary and chapel with a 70s'-looking fountain, parking spaces, and a special spot for the hearse to unload. Then there are small family mausoleums, lawns seperated by a winding paved road, and a few smaller fountains built into the hillside. The trees are tall and the grounds are kept up fairly well.

At the top of the hill is another building, a huge mausoleum and columbarium. I see people getting out of cars up there with flowers and such, and I always try to stay out of their way and go unnoticed.

Yesterday Joe and I walked to the cemetary for a change of pace. Joe had only been there once before, so he noticed all sorts of things that I gloss over during my runs. There are graves there dating back to 1907; the trunk of a tree encroached on one of them enveloped it like one of those trees in Fangorn Forrest.

We went all the way to the top, where the big mausoleum is. It's not too impressive from the outside, just a big, white structure. But we noticed a sign reading VISITORS WELCOME, and the main door was open. Joe and I looked like ragamuffins, but some force drew us up the steps. An older fellow in an Indiana Jones hat came up to us and said, "I'm sorry, but you have to be in a jacket and tie to come inside."

His face broke into a smile a second later. He was joking, of course; he was wearing neither himself. We said hello, and he said to come one in, that everyone was welcome. He was the office manager there, and he started showing us around right away. Here's what we learned.

First off, the Sunset Mausoleum is a different establishment from Sunset View Cemetary. The mausoluem was built in 1927, and it contains tons of Italian marble and travertine. From the inside, it's much more striking: gilded, vaulted ceilings; veined marble laid out on butterfly patterns that mimic Roscharch inkblots; crystal chandeliers; stained glass windows. It's a quiet, cool, cavernous place. Our guide, Bud Branch (I took his business card) seemed happy to have an audience to share his enthusiam of the place with. There were three side chapels (or wings, I suppose), plus a main chapel at the opposite end from the main entrance. This chapel was huge, and looming in the middle was a massive white marble statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched. Joe and I went over to the chapel and poked around a little bit. Bud had classical music playing softly over a PA.

Bud told us to check out the lawn downstairs. "How could there be a lawn down there?" I thought, but I guess "lawn" is archaic mausoleum-speak for a big, open space. Most ever wing upstairs had an underground counterpart. It was especially still down there. I walked past stories of niches with urns in them; I felt compelled to softly say the last name inscribed on each niche. Thousands of names, and I wondered how long it had been since a person had pronounced one.

We were there for about 45 minutes. I liked Bud, and I want to go back someday. For all of its opulance, the mausoleum smelled stale, like a church basement, and there was water damage in a number of spots. But it was cool, this secret place I've literally run right past about a hundred times.

Discovery at the Sunset

2005-10-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

I'm sleepy now. It's only 6pm and already I'm ready to curl up with a blanket and a book, maybe some cocoa. Aww. How cozy.

This weekend seemed to fly by. I stayed busy, but I don't feel like I have tons to show for it. Here's what went down:

-Friday night: Made pastitsio and had my brother and his girlfriend over for dinner. We watched "The Sation Agent," the I read a few magazines and parts of a couple books.
-Saturday: Made omeletes for breakfast. Went running. Finished the Piglets. Bought some awesome, cheap-ass boots at Payless Shoes, as well as a totally dorky pair of cheap-ass black loafers to wear to the catering gig I worked that night (we were to report wearing all black, and I have two pairs of back boots, but no black shoes).
This catering gig was on Treasure Island. Part of the reason I chose to do work it was the location, as I've never had a reason to go to Treasure Island. It's mostly an old Coast Guard station. The event, a Christian film awards ceremony (?!), was in a huge-ass hangar. I worked back of the house at the bussing station, scraping plates into the trash and loading dirty plates, flatware, and glasses into crates. It was fun. I'd forgotten how cinchy most careting jobs are when you are part of an on-call events staff. Brainless work, easy cash, hookups to tasty leftovers. I'm sore today from lifting crates full of plates, but that's okay. We were done at 10--early to my standards. Treasure Island has great views of the Bay Bridge and the SF skyline.
Sunday: Made banana pancakes, apple bars, and quince compote. Sewed rick-rack trim to an old demin jumper. Walked to the cemetary with Joe...checked out the columbarium. I'll write more about that tomorrow, it's time to eat now...

Special Guest Star: "Fatherhood"

2005-10-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was in a funk. Today is better. I decided to just embrace my unemployment and be fruitful in other ways, like by reading and sewing. I'm gonna finish those frickin' Piglets today if it's the last thing I sew, ever. Then I'll take a picture of them and post it here, for real. I never do that, but this time I will, just to gloat over my Piglet triumph.

Our pal Rev. Matt sent us some mail art recently. My favorite part was scrawled on the back of the envelope. Matt, I hope it's okay if I share this, because I think it deserves to be shared.

"Fatherhood" by Rev. Matt

Saturday evening 10/15/05
I'm getting drunk
Jasper is singing into
a plastic banana
along w/ Tom Waits

10/17:
"borrowed" some of
Jasper's Lactaid milk
to make a White Russian

10/16
punched a
plastic-wrapped
ham hock
@ Rayley's, Rohnert Park
Jasper laughed

No Milk in the House

2005-10-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Last night ourI made oatmeal neighbor's daughter came over and asked to borrow a quarter cup of milk. Our carton probably had only half a cup left in it, so I told her to just take the whole thing. After she left, I realized that they were probably making macaroni & cheese from a box, which always calls for a quarter cup of milk (no matter what brand, Kraft or Annie's or anything). I should have asked her, but it was too late.

This means that this morning, we don't have any milk ourselves. I made oatmeal, which I always like a spot of milk in. After a little brain-racking, I recalled that we had vanilla ice cream in the freezer, so I stirred a tiny scoop of that into the simmering oatmeal. Once in the pan, swirling and melting slowly, it looked to me more like a knob of butter than a mini-scoop of ice cream.

The oatmeal was satisfying. For those who like cream in their coffee, vanilla ice cream works there in a pinch as well.

Not working is driving me crazy. I already filed all of the articles I have due this month, and I keep racking my brain for more ideas, but the old thinker is dead. I'm dry, man, no good ideas here. So lame.

Yesterday I spoke to a Media Studies class about being a rock critic. Those poor kids, I wonder how long it took them to realize I am a sham. It was fun, but I realized what a lazy rock critic I am. Maybe that's what I'll do today, look for something good to write about in the yawn-inducing world of current rock music. Wish me luck.

Potter Worries

2005-10-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

I saw a trailer for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Last month I finished re-reading the book, and it's pretty fresh in my mind. So in the preview, Ron and Harry have longish hair, kinda teeneagery. They also look a good 16 or 17, but in the book they're only 14. 14-year-olds can be pretty scrawny, and though Harry's above average in a few spots (quidditch, emerging alive from encounters with the most evil of all wizards in history), he's no giant jock or anything. Ron (actor Rupert Grint) meanwhile, has got himself this young hoodum look in the trailer.

The trailer set off a weird dream for me this morning. Can't remember its events, but I was dreaming a Harry Potter movie (I prefer the books, but who can resist seeing the movies?)

The movie opens late next month. We'll be in San Diego then for Thanksgiving, so I'm not going to drag everyone out just so I can put my curiosity to rest. But I'm waiting with baited breath for this movie. It's messing up my sleep--baited breath! Sleep apnea!

Unstealable

2005-10-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

I had a super-freaky dream about earthquakes and tsunamis taking out most of the Bay Area. in the dream, I was on a cruise ship in the bay and, for some reason, the tsunami didn't take out the cruise ship. It was tossing around like crazy, though. This dream woke me up around five or six this morning, and I was so messed up from it that I didn't get out of bed until almost 9.

I hope that's not a bad thing. Maybe I was just tired. How did I spend this weekend? I spent this weekend not writing.

-Friday: Joe called in sick to work. We went to the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden because I had free passes. Plants are good. We also took out old loveseat to the dump. We had to pay $18 to dump it there. The dump is scary but neat in its own stinky way. Then we met up with my brother and his girlfriend for Chinese food, followed by Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride" (like all T.B. movies, cool but way overrated).

-Saturday: Made this stuff called cranberry ketchup. It's like regular ketchup, only with cranberries instead of tomatoes. Didn't think regular folks like us could make ketchup, huh? It's fun, try it sometime. That night I was to meet my friend Leslie in the Mission for the Litquake Pub Crawl (dozens of venues, hundreds of writers reading). I put on a Mission-tastic outfit and rode Danger Bike to the BART station. Lit Crawl was cool, plus Leslie's husband is on the board at Luna Park, and we ate yummy food there as her treat. I was pretty buzzed when I took the BART home. Danger Bike was still there, so I'm going to keep on leaving it unlocked as a social experiment to see if anyone will steal it. I rented "My Architect" and then read "Everything Is Illuminated" until Joe came home at 2 in the morning (he'd been at some warehouse party/show in Oakland where his band played).

-Sunday: Made pumpernickel bread and banana cake. Ate at Royal Cafe with Joe. Tried to finish sewing these stupid Piglet stuffed animals, which are hells of hard to make. Walked to the Bulb with Joe and saw a new thing: a two-person swing with toilet lids on the seat. We called it the poop swing but did not swing on it. I finished sewing one Piglet while we watched a stupid Michael Keaton thriller called "White Noise." It's not very thrilling.

Not Like You Don't Know This...

2005-10-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

...but looking for work blows. The best way is to know someone, and I don't know no one. At least not anyone who can get me the kind of job that I'd like.

I'm especially bummed about this now because I just read a short story in the New Yorker (a Conde Nast publication: notoriously hard to get a foot in *their* door) by Jeffrey Eugenides called "Early Music." It's all about professional failure and ther impossibility acheiving a fulfilling artisitc life and still being able to afford three squares a day. Man, what downer. One character makes these mice filled with scented pellets called Mice n' Warm. The other is a failed clavichordist. Me, I'm like both rolled into one.

Maybe I'll just have to get over the writing-for-a-living hangup and get a workaday job to bring home some bacon. A few slices of bacon is enough, but I can't stand splitting the whole day between looking for jobs and trying to get people interested in publishing my articles (the latter is more of a mental workout--all in my brain).

Only me and just about every other person in America feels this way. It's no big deal.

Litterbug: Bite Me!

2005-10-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

On my run today I driver at the stop sign in front of the BART station open their door and toss out a rumpled McDonald's bag, presumably full of greasy napkins, cheeseburger wrappers, squeezed-out ketchup packets, and those little spear-shaped fries that always fall to the bottom of the bag. Then the driver drove away. I wanted to run out and grab the bag and throw it at the car, hopefully to have a half-full medium Coke inside explode all over the windshield. "I hope you wreck and die, you piece of shit littering fucker!" I would have yelled.

But I didn't do that. The car was too far away, and I know better than to run into an intersection. I wanna go and shit on the floor in that person's home, though. Joe and I live a few blocks down from a Taco Bell, and there's a high school a few blocks up the street in the other direction. These students are always stuffing Taco Bell wrappers and cups into the bushes in front of our apartment building. I hate litter. I hate it so much I can't even articulate my disgust at the morons who do it. Argh!

Speaking of litter and shit, we saw a really drunk bum in Santa Monica sprawled out next to this concrete parking barricade right by a huge intersection. Two other bums were with him. He pulled down his pants and pooped right there, right in front of his bum friends and a few dozen drivers. I guess if you have no home and your blood is 99% hooch, it don't matter where you poop. I've been on the pot before with the door open, but that's the pot: white porcelain and clear (if not clean) water to receive the feces. Besides, usually I only pull that casual #2 action when Joe is around. And I've answered the heaveir call of nature in the great outdoors before, but that was with the camoflauge of a good many trees in between me and other possible campers/hikers. But I hope I never leave a McDonald's bag in the BART station intersection, or poop on the side of a bust road in broad daylight. I think both are equally bad.

Bangs!

2005-10-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a haircut news flash: I got my bangs fixed. Bit the bullet and called my hairdresser Terri like I should have all along. It's an improvement now, still kind of dorky but not as much.

Walking home from the salon, I went to take a shortcut through the parking lot of the abandoned mortuary like I always do, only to realize they put up a temporary chain-link fence all around it. That's good, I guess; it was getting pretty dicey back there, with old mattresses and Cheetos wrappers and junk like that. But I like to take the shortcut and investigate the creepiness there. I wonder if they have plans for the space. If I had a digital camera I could just post pictures, which would probably be much more interesting than reading this...

Unfinished Business, or the Penis & the Armpit

2005-10-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

9:30. That's when i got out of bed this morning. How mortifying! What a wasteoid I am, sleeping in and leaving little messes all over the house. But last night was fun, so it's worth a little sleeping in.

Leslie, a friend from my writing group, and I went to Porchlight, a storytelling series in San Francisco. People--some of them well-known locally, some of them just regular folks--get up and tell a 10-minute story without the aid of notes or cards. Each night has a theme, which I sense is not so much a thing to centralize the evening as much as it is a jumping-off point for the storytellers.

The week is the Litquake festival in San Francisco, so the storytellers at last night's Porchlight were all writers. One was Joshua Braff, who I'd seen read at last year's Litquake because he was on a memoir panel with my friend Chun (also from writing group). Another was a reformed bank robber, another was a reformed alcoholic, another was a reformed sex addict and color guard member. Oh, and another was a bat magnet.

But one storyteller was sick, so the event hosts promised to put together an impromptu lightening round with audience volunteers: one minute story each, with a bell to signal the end.

Once storyteller, whose name was Edie somethingorather, related a story about some of her wild days, and it involved flying to Orlando for a perspective job with a dicey-sounding company that turned out ot be in the white slave trade business--I guess she was in a slave audition and didn't know it. The story's a little hazy to me, becuase right as she started out she said, "I'm going to do a little audience particiation thing, and ask you guys out there to shout out the first thing you think of when I say 'bohemian'."

"Hairy armpits!" I blurted out right away. It was an unstoppable, knee-jerk reaction, like she'd reached out to the balcony where we were sitting and prodded an exposed nerve with a long, poky stick. So the storyteller went on, incorporating the hairy armpit metaphor into her story about being bohemian, but I got the sense that she had been fishing for a metaphor that was not hairy armpits, and I spent the rest of her story regretting my blurt and feelign badly about throwing her off.

During intermission, I volunteered to do the lightening round. I wanted to clear this thing up. They drew my name first--maybe because I volunteered first, who knows--and I was all rearin' to go. One minute! I stepped up to the mic and started:

"So you know how Edie was up here telling her Florida limo white slave story and she asked the audience to shout out something that was bohemian and someone yelled 'Hairy Armpits!' Well, that was me, because I had hairy armpits when I was in high school, and I saw them as emblematic of my rebellion agains the close-mindedness I encountered in the small Ohio town where I grew up. All of these boys thought I was a lesbian because of my armpit hair, but I was horny for boys and I was like, 'no, no, I'm not a lesbian, hairy armpits don't make you a lesbian, lesbians shave, too!' I was very hairy. Like Sampson, my hair--only in this case, the hair in my armpits--gave me strength: the strength to be an annoying reactionary feminist. Growing my armpit hair became a hobby, almost.

"So one day I was browsing through a bookstore and picked up an illustrated sex dictionary. At that point, I'd never even touched a penis or anything...well, in the book I saw an illustration of a sex act consisting of a penis in an armpit--"

DING! The story was over. I had to stay up on stage while the other volunteers told their one-minute stories, none of which I remember because I was very distracted about having ended on the penis-in-armpit note. I never got to make it to the payoff of the story, which was not about kinky sex but about my eventual compulsion to expel my body hair, which is how I gave myself this awful haircut with these silly bangs.

Every storyteller after that alluded to penis-in-armpit. I was busted! Porchlight takes place in a large music hall, called the Swedish American Music Hall (it smells like an old church!), and there must have been at least a hundred fifty people there. I was wearing a red, black, and white striped shirt, as easy to spot as a target. I felt eyes boring into me, projecting all kinds of strange suppositions on me. I think it's just paranoia.

Well, I'll finish the penis-in-armpit story here in this venue someday, just form the sake of completetion, but I must warn you: it's vastly anticlimactic. Leslie and I went downstairs to Cafe du Nord after the event so Leslie could have a pizza, and we were surrounded by young hipster kids, and I felt a little more safe, for some reason.

When I got up this morning, I saw little things all over the house that let me know what Joe did while I was gone. He bought Pop Tarts at Albertsons; used the last of the Eucarin; hung a skateboard on the wall. I think it's good he was at home and not at the Swedish American Music Hall, watching his wife tell an audience of hundreds about the penis and the armpit.

The Saddest Music in the World

2005-10-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

My friend Mike made a bet with his friend to see who could make the saddest mix CD. 13 songs total, with a cap of three Hank Williams, Sr. songs. Mike put on a song by Scrawl called "Please Have Everything," which is one of those co-dependend love songs masquerading as a sweet, reassuring song.

Mike claims that he lost the bet because of the Scrawl song. This is disheartening to me. I love Scrawl, and I am of the opinion that they are masterful writers of truly sad songs. I'd have put a Scrawl song on my sad mix CD, though I'd probably have put "Your Mother Wants to Know" and not "Please Have Everything." In any case, I'd have lost, too.

What makes a song sad? I suppose it's the listener. When you are down in the dumps, a lot of songs are sad--like when I was in my early onset of midlife depression, all love songs made me sad because I had been dumped. Even silly love songs, songs like "Da Doo Ron Ron." Which is no longer a sad song to me, thank goodness.

Sad songs don't have to be dramatic; they just have to be sad. Like *sad* sad, a sat down in the gut like an elevartor shooting down a few floors to soon. I've been thinking about my own 13 sad songs, and it's hard. I keep on thinking of the sadness in context--like Joy Division. Ian Curtis offed himself, and their songs are pretty depressing to begin with, so to me that makes Joy Division songs doubly sad. A lot of love songs are sad. "Happy Together" is actually a sad song, in a way, because its longing is so acute and bleary that's it seems desperate and off-center. So maybe that's not actually sad, but scary.

I can't get this sad CD thing out of my head. Mike was going through a divorce at the time he made his CD, and I'm a happy newlywed, so maybe my sad CD would seem disingenuinous. Is that a word? Well, I still want to take the Sad 13 Challenge. As Elton John sang, sad songs say so much.

To the Grindstone

2005-10-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm applying for jobs today, as well as contacting leads for freelance work. The glamour of unemployment has lost its sheen. I'll be pleased if just one of these people/places gets back to me. I don't want to work at Peet's slinging overroasted coffee grounds if I can help it. Economizing is no big deal to me--it's debt that freaks me out. I can make due with a thin, steady trickle of money. That's the tough thing about freelancing: money comes in gushes that very quickly dry up.

My haircut seems to be settling into itself a little better now. It's not so silly-looking, but it could still benefit from a trim. I wanna go off the unemployment I.V., but at the same time I really, really want a real haircut. And boots, tall leather boots with a stacked heel that's not *too* tall. Cordovan color. Is that too much to ask for? Um, yes. Yes, it is.

Today's Breakfast

2005-10-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

The house is a mess! We had a party last night, but that's not why. It's a mess because I've been creating little piles of bills, manuscripts, magazines, fabric, receipts, CDs, grocery lists, handbills, shoes, clean but unfolded laundry...plus the floors are a mess. I cut my hair in the bedroom in a fit the other day, so there's snippets of brown hair ground into the carpet there. Party mess was easy to clean up: take out the recycling.

So that leaves two messes to clean up: the house and my haircut. My haircut isn't bad, per se, but it's very blase. I gave myself bangs, which I have not had in fifteen years. Back then, I think, my hair was thicker, because my new bangs are wispy little fringy things, and I don't recall my childhood bangs as being such. Plus I may need some layering. I did this home haircut trying to eschew a trip to the salon (a cost-cutting measure, so to speak). Well, I didn't work, but at least I gave it a shot. Some things are best left to the pros.

So I woke up from a beery sleep. I'm not sure how many beers I had last night--it felt like a lot, but I wan't feeling too beery this morning. All of that pizza and cake must have softened the blow. Kids, remember to eat high-carb, high-fat foods before you drink! That's why your drunk body craves junk food--it's trying to batten down the hatches.

I also woke up hungry for eggs and sweets, a very post-party sensation. But I didn't want to cook. There was half a leftover fritatta in the refrigerator, which I happily polished off.
SARA'S CLEAN-OUT-THE-REFRIGERATOR FRITATTA
-Olive oil, probably 2 tablespoons
-8 to 12 ounces roasted new potatoes, leftover from husband's specual burthday dinner, cubed
-Two scallions, thinly sliced
-Two small summer squash (crookneck or zucchini or combination), grated
-Four large eggs
-The white of one large egg (the yolk went into your husband's birthday cake)
1. Put an 8-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and add a little olive oil. Cook the potatoes, tossing frequently, until they sizzle and begin to heat up. Add the scallions; cook one minute. Add the grated summer squash. Season with salt and pepper and toss to distribute.
2. Add a little more olive oil to the pan. Beat the eggs and the egg white with a little salt and pepper. Pour over the stuff in the pan and allow to cook, undisturbed, for about a minute and a half. Once the eggs have begun to set around the edges of the pan, use a rubber spatula to life up the cooked edges of the pan so that the still-runny egg mixture can flow to the bottom of the pan. Allow to set, and repeat the lifting-runny egg procedure one or two more times. Peer under the eggs; when the bottom layer is golden brown, invert a dinner plate over the pan and flip the fritatta onto the plate so that the cooked side is up. Add more oil to the pan and slide the fritatta back into the pan, cooked side up. Cook until the bottom side is golden brown, about three to fove minutes.
3. Slide onto a new plate and either serve immediately, or allow to ist out at room temperature for at least an hour before serving (this way is the BEST!) The more olive oil you add to the pan, the tastier the fritatta will be.