Sneakily Clever

I am just tooting my own horn (funny on SO many levels) here: I have won third place in a poetry contest. Unfortunately/fortunately, it was a BAD poetry contest. And Jewish, no less. Oy. But it does have to do with food. Doesn't everything?

My entry, "Blue Dishes," (yeah, let's pretend it was my only entry), was called a "sneakily clever paean." Oh, indeed. Because if there is one thing I am, it's sneakily clever.

And here, the write-up and the poem.

Here’s our third-place winner. — who’s written plenty of non-bad material — treats us to this saga that mixes G-dly love, the love of complicated relationships, food love, and love of being rebellious. (And, really, what says “Jewish” more than food, religious laws, and contrariness?)

For her pains, she wins a copy of David M. Bader’s Haikus for Jews — and bragging rights at any party at which she appears for the next 365 days.

Blue Dishes

He said blue dishes “looked dairy,”

She said she’d use them for meat.

He told her, stop being contrary

But she said she wouldn’t retreat.

You would think that someday, the fight would go away

That love and time both would resolve it.

But you would be wrong: Marriage can be quite long

And if anything, this fight dissolved it.

There are those who contend that she went ’round the bend

And purely had acted from spite

When, on their silver, he came down the stairs

And was shocked when he turned on the light.

Surrounded by blue dishes in the kitchen was she

She gestured and said, “Here I am!

I TOLD you these dishes were better for meat!”

And he saw. They were covered with ham.

Whitefish. A Love Story.

Okay. Let's talk about a few things.

First, never blog after you've had a glass of wine. You may misspell. Mortifying.

Second, let's go into how awesome my job is (with the exception of the whole inconsistency-of-pay thing). It's AWESOME. I really almost misspelled "awesome."

Wow, I am SO going to regret this.

But I think of you, my five readers, above and beyond anyone else. Well, that's not really true. But it was extremely important to me that I alert all five of you (feel free to comment so that I have some small sense of personal validation) to this...

AUGUST 26TH.

RUSS & DAUGHTERS. A TASTE OF APPETIZING.

I'm not sure if you know what that means, so I will elaborate.

A TASTING. Of countless offerings of HERRING. And NOVA. And OTHER SMOKED FISH. From the head of the "Louvre of Lox" (no, sadly, I did not think of that) = Russ & Daughters. One of Anthony Bourdain's 13 Places To Eat Before You Die. Egregiously enough, I have NEVER eaten their allegedly magnificent wares. This is an omission that needs to be rectified. It's right up there with never having been to Japan or never...um, okay, I'm going to keep that one private.

Back to the topic at hand, I've never eaten the joys of Russ & Daughters. This, despite having a five year old son who, if faced with the choice of only having to eat one food for the rest of his life, would without hesitation and with no small amount of glee, select nova. It makes me schepp naches. I have done something right in my life. But I have never provided him with the gold standard of smoked fish. I have SETTLED. Well, NO MAS.

I'm covering the tasting. Meaning, I go to said tasting. I taste. I savor. I write. I get paid.

I mean, who needs Babeland?? Herring, people!!! HOT!!!

But you, too, can attend, and are most welcome. I will pretend we have never met and will behave in a very professional fashion.

http://www.russanddaughters.com/event_details.php?nID=278

There are some things in the world I simply cannot understand. Causeless hatred, for one. Deliberate cruelty, another. And a third: How could you NOT want to reschedule your entire life so as to attend said function?

Okay, let's close with this bit of wonderful goodness...

http://blog.russanddaughters.com/2009/04/02/whitefish-a-love-story-a-short-film/#more-1081

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Julie & Julia & Jubilance

Hi to all. Just saw Julie & Julia last night, and felt the obligation to write. Not only because she wrote a blog and then turned a corner and HELLO! people were raining cash down on her head (don't worry -- I've put up my money umbrella just in case of such a contingency), but also because of all the attention that's been focused on eating and food as a result of the film.

I separate those two categories, "eating" and "food," though one could convincingly argue that you can't have one without the other. In watching the film, I realized that eating, for me, is not just about the food. Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the movie in that it went into savoring the act of creating the food. I love cooking, though I rarely get to do it to the extent that I'd like, and particularly like baking. But I'll admit that it is not the act itself that is my favorite part -- it's the experience of eating it afterwards, with good company.

Maybe it's because of my having grown up in a big family, but I don't think I could ever enjoy a meal eaten alone nearly as much as I'd enjoy a meal eaten with others. On my [unnamed though fairly obvious ethnic dating website] profile, I'm asked for my "ideal relationship." Well, I know very well what that's NOT, but that's not the question. I attempt to answer the question by saying something along the lines of the following: "I once read a Wall Street Journal article which says that you can have great food and great wine, but the ideal pairing makes each one of those things better than it would have been alone." I then courteously point out that I am using a metaphor to make a point (for the benefit of the not-so-smart guys out there; I'm trying to widen my pool a bit).

For some, food without wine is wasted. But for me, food without company could never be as good as it would be if it were eaten with others. It is the marriage of two of my favorite things -- learning about people and savoring exquisite tastes. Brown paper packages tied up with string -- please, girlfriend.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that I don't want to have eating without company. Growing up, my parents always placed a premium on eating together as a family. Sure, when we were little, there were two seatings -- one for the kids and one for my parents, and each one of us knew we'd 'arrived' when we were allowed to attend the latter. But conversation was always wonderfully lively (ask me another time to elaborate on the conversational "egg timer system" and the "Olympic judges"), and the food was a delicious accoutrement to us getting to know each other as individuals.

Skip ahead to law school, when I'd organize "Big Night" dinners for moot court practice. Everyone would come over and bring something they'd cooked, wine and occasionally a brief we were working on. In college, grad school and law school, Shabbat dinners were always a place where we could get together and create our own worlds of conversation and cooking. Friendship and fressing, if you will (and I will!).

A few years later, I'm working around the clock at a law firm on a case that would have given Kafka ulcers. Yet every night, our 20-man/woman team would, at my pushy little impetus, take time out for a dinner I'd have ordered in. Some nights Colbeh (Persian), some nights Chinese (Shun Lee - big client!), Greek, Lebanese, Italian, you name it...we'd take an hour off the billable clock, sit around a huge table in the conference room and get to know each other as people.

And now, the Fressenwagen. I love eating and getting to know all of you, and feel very lucky that we live in/near the best city in the world in which to do it.

Leave the Gun, Take the Hummus

Was that not the original quote? My bad.

Hummus. Never something I've been particularly fond of, by the way. Whether it's the color or the consistency, I can take it or leave it. That being said, I have an adorable 2 year old nephew. He is fixated on two things in life: alligators and hummus. If he could wear an Izod shirt and bathe in a tub of hummus, the kid would be in heaven. He eats hummus on everything possible: hamburgers, chicken, chips, whatever. He'd put it on ice cream as a topping if my sister would let him.

So in deference to him, I'll give it another go. So it looks like wallpaper paste. So what? One person's condiment is another man's food group.

Plus, the reviews of our next destination, Mimi's Hummus, look quite good, and Mimi was super nice and accommodating. We're in.