Chris was working late a few nights last week, and inevitably when he does that I end up watching a bit too much TV and knitting until my fingers hurt. So last week I saw my second episode ever of House, yet another hospital drama in which poor, sick patients are plagued (literally, in that this particular poor patient had the Black Plague!) with unknown yet horribly gruesome ailments. And I realized the show is really pretty sadistic. This poor woman was being driven insane by insomnia, suffered nose bleeds and rectal bleeds and internal hemorhaging and the painful ministrations of the doctors (can I just say rectal exam, and the camera focusing on her face contorting in agony? ugh!) and ultimately liver failure. But of course in the end, her lesbian lover whom she wants to dump donates half a liver in order to be her heroine and save her and trap her into never leaving, so she lives and it's all okay. And the show opens with a Massive Attack song which is certainly something you don't hear every day on TV. But I think I've had enough of House for a little while. Coming up on my Netflix queue in not too long is Anne of Green Gables, the mini-series that they showed on Sunday nights on PBS back in 1985 and that I adored. In fact, I remember one Sunday night when the Emanuels came over for dinner and Jill and Lauren wanted to watch Punky Brewster which, of course, was on at the same time as my beloved Anne, and we got into an argument about what to watch. I think we ended up in separate rooms. Not sure if I ever confessed to the fact that we had already set up the VCR to record it...
Friday, April 28, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
twisted logic
Moussaoui, I have no doubt, will be sentenced to death sometime in the next few days. And if he is, this will be despite the fact that he was in jail on September 11th, 2001, despite the fact that he seems to have been a bit player in the planning of September 11th, 2001 and not the mastermind that he claims, and despite the fact that though he is clearly, if evil, also off his rocker and just dying (quite literally) to be a martyr. And all of this also despite the fact that apparently the United States has in its custody two of the men who actually were deeply involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks but whom our government has chosen not to bring to trial.
But wait. It gets even weirder. Moussaoui's defense team has submitted evidence - testimony from these two men in U.S. custody. They claim that Moussaoui didn't have much to do with the plannning of or the execution of the September 11th plot, that they themselves are responsible. But here's the clincher. This testimony was most likely obtained under torture. That's right. The U.S. government tortured these guys, they took responsibility, and now that testimony is being used against the U.S. government who is prosecuting this other guy for the same crimes. And the suspicious-minded amongst us might wonder--how did the defense get this testimony in the first place? And to what purpose? I would assume that the CIA is not just handing out secret intelligence to defense lawyers, certainly not in this administration. And yet. Maybe, just maybe, the government wants to set a precedent for trials to include testimony obtained through torture, but couldn't play that card on its own. Besides, this particular testimony hurts their case, though probably not enough to prevent an execution.
This from the April 17th New York Times:
"As the jury considered whether Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to be charged in an American courtroom with the Sept. 11 plot, was involved in it enough to serve as a proxy for the 19 hijackers who died that day, no one mentioned an obvious issue. What about the involvement of those who gave testimony about the plot who are in American custody? Why aren't they on trial?
The answer, not shared with the jury, is that these Qaeda officials, who include another financier and the man who was supposed to be the 20th hijacker, are being held overseas in the Central Intelligence Agency's secret prison system and have been subjected to interrogation techniques that would make it difficult to bring them to trial."
I can only imagine what those techniques may have been, and the results they may have had, but I find that last line, in all of its simplicity, to be one of the most chilling things I have ever read. And this is not the Soviet gulag, or a Latin American dictatorship, or a Chinese cultural revolution re-education program. This is our country.
But wait. It gets even weirder. Moussaoui's defense team has submitted evidence - testimony from these two men in U.S. custody. They claim that Moussaoui didn't have much to do with the plannning of or the execution of the September 11th plot, that they themselves are responsible. But here's the clincher. This testimony was most likely obtained under torture. That's right. The U.S. government tortured these guys, they took responsibility, and now that testimony is being used against the U.S. government who is prosecuting this other guy for the same crimes. And the suspicious-minded amongst us might wonder--how did the defense get this testimony in the first place? And to what purpose? I would assume that the CIA is not just handing out secret intelligence to defense lawyers, certainly not in this administration. And yet. Maybe, just maybe, the government wants to set a precedent for trials to include testimony obtained through torture, but couldn't play that card on its own. Besides, this particular testimony hurts their case, though probably not enough to prevent an execution.
This from the April 17th New York Times:
"As the jury considered whether Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to be charged in an American courtroom with the Sept. 11 plot, was involved in it enough to serve as a proxy for the 19 hijackers who died that day, no one mentioned an obvious issue. What about the involvement of those who gave testimony about the plot who are in American custody? Why aren't they on trial?
The answer, not shared with the jury, is that these Qaeda officials, who include another financier and the man who was supposed to be the 20th hijacker, are being held overseas in the Central Intelligence Agency's secret prison system and have been subjected to interrogation techniques that would make it difficult to bring them to trial."
I can only imagine what those techniques may have been, and the results they may have had, but I find that last line, in all of its simplicity, to be one of the most chilling things I have ever read. And this is not the Soviet gulag, or a Latin American dictatorship, or a Chinese cultural revolution re-education program. This is our country.
Friday, April 07, 2006
the rule of four
Just finished reading a rather silly book, The Rule of Four, but this passage, read on the A train hurtling north beneath this city, I found strangely moving:
"Imagine, Paul said to me once, that the present is simply a reflection of the future. Imagine that we spend our whole lives staring into a mirror with the future at our backs, seeing it only in the reflection of what is here and now. Some of us would begin to believe that we could see tomorrow better by turning around to look at it directly. But those who did, without even realizing it, would've lost the key to the perspective they once had. For the one thing they would never be able to see in it was themselves. By turning their back on the mirror, they would become the one element of the future their eyes could never find."
"Imagine, Paul said to me once, that the present is simply a reflection of the future. Imagine that we spend our whole lives staring into a mirror with the future at our backs, seeing it only in the reflection of what is here and now. Some of us would begin to believe that we could see tomorrow better by turning around to look at it directly. But those who did, without even realizing it, would've lost the key to the perspective they once had. For the one thing they would never be able to see in it was themselves. By turning their back on the mirror, they would become the one element of the future their eyes could never find."
Monday, April 03, 2006
perfect day
Beautiful Sundays, crisp and sunny, with no plans or obligations, seem like a rare jewel, and yesterday was one of those perfect days. We slept in luxuriously late, after not getting home until pretty late the night before from a lovely dinner party in Hell's Kitchen. We went to Angela's to get eggs & cheese on rolls and cups of coffee, brown-bagged it up to Fort Tryon Park, and ate our deliciously greasy sandwiches on a bench overlooking the Hudson River. We meandered our way through the park, admiring the crocuses and daffodils, smelling the new growth on the boxwoods, and gawking at the one lone forsythia bush frothing all over the place. Came home, basked in the sunlight streaming in our living room windows, books or crocheting projects in hand. Decided to cook ourselves a real dinner for a change. Went to the grocery store. Came home to find that our friend Sam was in the neighborhood with his girlfriend, visiting his parents. We put out some cheese and crackers we happened to have on hand, and a bowl of those wasabi rice crackers I find so addicitve, opened a nice pinot grigio. Had an impromptu and lovely mini dinner party, our groceries for two supplemented by their contribution of a couple dishes from the Indian restaurant around the corner. Went to sleep early, satiated and satisfied by a day well spent.
Dice the potatoes and boil in water until tender and easily mashable, about 20 minutes. Drain, mash, add butter and stir until butter is all melted and mixed in. Stir in milk and mint. Add touch of salt & pepper.
Spinach Salad:
Package of baby spinach, crumbled goat cheese, dried cranberries, some walnuts, and clementine slices, drizzled with simple oil & vinegar. (We stole this idea from the aforementioned dinner party, and it's deliciously easy.)
We planned to attempt stuffed chicken breasts, and made the stuffing with the goat cheese, sun dried tomates, and chopped garlic, just all mixed up in a bowl. But what with the unexpected company, and the fact that we only had one full breast, we ended up browning the breast in some butter, cutting it up into smaller pieces, and then continuing to cook the pieces on the stove with the goat cheese mixture just thrown into the saute pan with the chicken, becoming a delicous sauce instead of stuffing. It turned out wonderfully, and there was just enough for all four of us to have a little taste.
Minted Mashed Potatoes:
4-5 medium red-skinned potatoes
2-3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
1/4 cup milk
salt & pepper to taste
4-5 medium red-skinned potatoes
2-3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
1/4 cup milk
salt & pepper to taste
Dice the potatoes and boil in water until tender and easily mashable, about 20 minutes. Drain, mash, add butter and stir until butter is all melted and mixed in. Stir in milk and mint. Add touch of salt & pepper.
Spinach Salad:
Package of baby spinach, crumbled goat cheese, dried cranberries, some walnuts, and clementine slices, drizzled with simple oil & vinegar. (We stole this idea from the aforementioned dinner party, and it's deliciously easy.)
Chicken:
a couple of chicken breasts
sun dried tomatoes
goat cheese
garlic
white wine
a couple of chicken breasts
sun dried tomatoes
goat cheese
garlic
white wine
We planned to attempt stuffed chicken breasts, and made the stuffing with the goat cheese, sun dried tomates, and chopped garlic, just all mixed up in a bowl. But what with the unexpected company, and the fact that we only had one full breast, we ended up browning the breast in some butter, cutting it up into smaller pieces, and then continuing to cook the pieces on the stove with the goat cheese mixture just thrown into the saute pan with the chicken, becoming a delicous sauce instead of stuffing. It turned out wonderfully, and there was just enough for all four of us to have a little taste.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
what i'm listening to right now
Sequentia's Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper (X & XI Centuries). We were lucky enough to see Benjamin Bagby and his medieval music ensemble, Sequentia, at Corpus Christi Church on 121st Street here in Manhattan last October. I found myself entranced by this strange, charismatic man and this strange, ancient music that he so obviously adores. And a couple days ago Chris very sweetly got for me the recording of the program that we saw. My favorite description, this of a piece entitled Veni, dilectissime: "Emerging from beneath the monastic censor's black ink, this is probably the oldest surviving erotic dance-song in Latin."
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
scarves for this blustery march
elsebeth lavold alpaca/merino ribbed scarf for my boy(six skeins, 109 yards/skein, this is a big scarf)
manos del uruguay wool (red, two skeins)red heart lustre acrylic (green, 2 skeins, plus some bits of other colors worked in)
Monday, March 13, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
garlic three ways soup
I forgot to mention that one of my favorite things in Alaska was the garlic soup I had for lunch one afternoon at a cute little tapas restaurant after walking through the freezing cold to take in the Anchorage Museum. Perfect soup for winter weather, and given my penchant for soups, we've been trying to recreate it back here at home. I think we've gotten it down pretty well now.
Peel a head of garlic and roast in a toaster oven at 375, wrapped in aluminum foil and drizzled with olive oil, until soft and golden (maybe 40 minutes or so).
Peel another head of garlic, or more if you want to be really bold. Divide. Chop some up pretty fine and throw in a soup pot with a little olive oil and saute over medium heat till golden. Pour in as much beef broth as you want (one could of course use chicken or veggie broth, but there's something especially delicious about the simple meatiness of the beef broth with the garlic). Toss in the whole garlic cloves that you've set aside from that second head of garlic and bring to a simmer. Throw in a pinch of cayenne just to spice it up a bit, and the cognac.
While the soup is simmering away, slice the baguette and put a slice of mozarella on each piece. Broil briefly in the oven just until the bread is slightly toasted and the cheese has melted nicely. Also don't forget about the garlic in the toaster oven, which you can either mash up and throw in the soup pot, or mash up on the cheese toasts, or just leave whole in the soup.
After the soup has simmered long enough for the whole cloves to be pretty soft, maybe 20 minutes or so, place two slices of cheese toasts in each bowl. Crack an egg into a small prep bowl and slide the egg into the broth so that it stays whole, and let cook just intil set (no more than a couple minutes). Ladle some soup, including the funny-looking round poached egg, on to the toasts. Repeat for each serving. If you've got the eggs right, the yolks will still be slightly runny and will burst out into the broth and cheese and toast and be one of the best things you've ever eaten.
This is neither here nor there, but this recipe reminds me of Francie Nolan, one of my childhood heroines and the central character of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Her esteemed mama would make Francie and her little brother wear a head of garlic around their necks when they went to school in the winter. She believed that garlic had medicinal properties and would prevent the little ones from catching colds and flus and other scary public-school-at-the-turn-of-the-century germs. And indeed they didn't get sick, but Francie believed it wasn't the garlic's professed medicinal qualities that did the trick, but rather that the garlic reeked so badly that none of the other school kids would come near them.
This soup'll warm your belly, keep you healthy and ward off the vampires, and how can you go wrong with that?
Garlic Three Ways Soup:
Several heads of garlic
Beef broth (I used a mixture of boxed and canned, plus a bullion cube or two)
2-3 tablespoons of cognac, added to the broth
Baguette
Mozzarella
Eggs
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Several heads of garlic
Beef broth (I used a mixture of boxed and canned, plus a bullion cube or two)
2-3 tablespoons of cognac, added to the broth
Baguette
Mozzarella
Eggs
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Peel a head of garlic and roast in a toaster oven at 375, wrapped in aluminum foil and drizzled with olive oil, until soft and golden (maybe 40 minutes or so).
Peel another head of garlic, or more if you want to be really bold. Divide. Chop some up pretty fine and throw in a soup pot with a little olive oil and saute over medium heat till golden. Pour in as much beef broth as you want (one could of course use chicken or veggie broth, but there's something especially delicious about the simple meatiness of the beef broth with the garlic). Toss in the whole garlic cloves that you've set aside from that second head of garlic and bring to a simmer. Throw in a pinch of cayenne just to spice it up a bit, and the cognac.
While the soup is simmering away, slice the baguette and put a slice of mozarella on each piece. Broil briefly in the oven just until the bread is slightly toasted and the cheese has melted nicely. Also don't forget about the garlic in the toaster oven, which you can either mash up and throw in the soup pot, or mash up on the cheese toasts, or just leave whole in the soup.
After the soup has simmered long enough for the whole cloves to be pretty soft, maybe 20 minutes or so, place two slices of cheese toasts in each bowl. Crack an egg into a small prep bowl and slide the egg into the broth so that it stays whole, and let cook just intil set (no more than a couple minutes). Ladle some soup, including the funny-looking round poached egg, on to the toasts. Repeat for each serving. If you've got the eggs right, the yolks will still be slightly runny and will burst out into the broth and cheese and toast and be one of the best things you've ever eaten.
This is neither here nor there, but this recipe reminds me of Francie Nolan, one of my childhood heroines and the central character of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Her esteemed mama would make Francie and her little brother wear a head of garlic around their necks when they went to school in the winter. She believed that garlic had medicinal properties and would prevent the little ones from catching colds and flus and other scary public-school-at-the-turn-of-the-century germs. And indeed they didn't get sick, but Francie believed it wasn't the garlic's professed medicinal qualities that did the trick, but rather that the garlic reeked so badly that none of the other school kids would come near them.
This soup'll warm your belly, keep you healthy and ward off the vampires, and how can you go wrong with that?
Monday, January 09, 2006
alaska
I'd never been to Alaska before this winter. Funny, I've traveled a bit in my life but never anywhere particularly cold or particularly warm. Anyway, it was quite the adventure and we were incredibly lucky to have Maia to introduce us to the place. We discovered quite a lot, us new yorkers in a foreign land.
The ice delicately etched along the inside of our attic room looked magical in the night with the street light setting it aglow. The first morning, waking up at what we thought must be no later than 6 a.m. given the color of the sky only to find that it was 9 a.m., was completely disconcerting. And walking out the door of this little house, set right in downtown Anchorage (with an outdoor skating rink, office buildings, and a reindeer in someone's yard all within a couple blocks) to find beautiful snow-covered mountains looming on the horizon is enough to take your breath away.
Some of our favorite places:
the moose's tooth great beer, great pizza, and between our friend and her brother, i think they knew everyone there. Of course, this seemed to be the case throughout Anchorage which, after all is a big small town.
the bear tooth theatre great beer, delicious food delivered right to your seat, $3 movies, some actually really good and some so bad they magically turn good (we saw the latter, in the form of Wes Craven's Red Eye, perfect for the night before a cross-country flight).
the snow city cafe we went here for a very late breakfast our first full day in alaska, waited interminably for a table and then for our food, but it was delicious upon arrival. went back a couple days later for lunch, practically empty despite being the downtown business lunch hot spot!
the alaska zoo I've been to my fair share of zoos, from the huge Bronx Zoo, to (I think) the even more gigantic San Diego Zoo, to the sweet little Central Park Zoo, to the barely there Bear Mountain Zoo, and by far the best was the Alaska Zoo, experienced in 17-degree weather in the dead of winter. lacy ice dripped from the trees, the stream gurgled beneath, in places, a thick layer of ice, and no one was around 'cept us and those crazy animals. we bonded with an arctic fox who chased his tale and caught snowballs in his mouth. we were threatened by a wolverine who was on the prowl for a little afternoon snack. and we fell in love with maggie, the lone elephantine survivor of the alaska zoo, a truly tragic figure (who ever heard of an elephant in sub-freezing weather,I ask you?). but a very compelling figure, and I'd never realized how oddly beautiful and exquisitely graceful an elephant's trunk is until being smelled sensed and perhaps deemed acceptable by this lonely singular creature in the far north.
The ice delicately etched along the inside of our attic room looked magical in the night with the street light setting it aglow. The first morning, waking up at what we thought must be no later than 6 a.m. given the color of the sky only to find that it was 9 a.m., was completely disconcerting. And walking out the door of this little house, set right in downtown Anchorage (with an outdoor skating rink, office buildings, and a reindeer in someone's yard all within a couple blocks) to find beautiful snow-covered mountains looming on the horizon is enough to take your breath away.
Some of our favorite places:
the moose's tooth great beer, great pizza, and between our friend and her brother, i think they knew everyone there. Of course, this seemed to be the case throughout Anchorage which, after all is a big small town.
the bear tooth theatre great beer, delicious food delivered right to your seat, $3 movies, some actually really good and some so bad they magically turn good (we saw the latter, in the form of Wes Craven's Red Eye, perfect for the night before a cross-country flight).
the snow city cafe we went here for a very late breakfast our first full day in alaska, waited interminably for a table and then for our food, but it was delicious upon arrival. went back a couple days later for lunch, practically empty despite being the downtown business lunch hot spot!
the alaska zoo I've been to my fair share of zoos, from the huge Bronx Zoo, to (I think) the even more gigantic San Diego Zoo, to the sweet little Central Park Zoo, to the barely there Bear Mountain Zoo, and by far the best was the Alaska Zoo, experienced in 17-degree weather in the dead of winter. lacy ice dripped from the trees, the stream gurgled beneath, in places, a thick layer of ice, and no one was around 'cept us and those crazy animals. we bonded with an arctic fox who chased his tale and caught snowballs in his mouth. we were threatened by a wolverine who was on the prowl for a little afternoon snack. and we fell in love with maggie, the lone elephantine survivor of the alaska zoo, a truly tragic figure (who ever heard of an elephant in sub-freezing weather,I ask you?). but a very compelling figure, and I'd never realized how oddly beautiful and exquisitely graceful an elephant's trunk is until being smelled sensed and perhaps deemed acceptable by this lonely singular creature in the far north.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
the great pacific northwest
welcome to Fidalgo Island, western Washington State
downtown Anacortes, WA,
11:45 a.m., 12.26.05
miss pig, waiting for her ride
a book geek's dream
view down 20th (?) street towards the Anacortes harbor
big sky
just another blustery day in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, home of way too many art galleries, a wonderful yarn store, and a most excellent brewery
big water, from here to there
even in the pacific northwest in december, the sun comes out sometimes
scarf for nate
the great frozen north
what lucy must have seen when she came out of that old wardrobe
alaska can be weird.
enough said.
makes me wanna go to church.
almost.
ilke, coolest dog in the north
light like you wouldn't believe,
1:30 pm, 1.1.06
kinda makes you believe in fairy tales again
-11 degree weather brings out the best in us
natural beauty
even in a state as red as the AK, they can get a little down and dirty now and then...
burning bush, AK style
high noon just south of the arctic circle
Monday, December 19, 2005
merry christmas vs. happy holidays
I think Nicholas Kristof had a very good idea when he suggested in a recent op-ed that Bill O'Reilley and the rest of his so-called "War on Christmas" ilk traipse on over to Darfur, or Iraq for that matter, just to take a gander at what a real war is all about. Especially given that so many of these hardcore "Christian" blowhards managed to weasel their way out of Vietnam all those decades ago.But that's neither here nor there. The holiday season, how ever you wish to call it, is in full force at last. The better half of this past Saturday was spent dashing about looking for last-minute gifties for various friends and relatives, from the Body Shop to a little tiny Chinese dried-fish store (hundreds of bins full of creepy delicacies from gift-wrapped dried scallops to loose shark fin for $299/pound) to Starbucks to the craft fair and green market at Union Square. Then a mad dash home to wrap some of said gifts before cabbing it down to Chris's parents for an early Christmas with his family.
Yesterday was tree-decorating at Dave & Josh's 6th-floor East Village walk-up, and can I just say, I'm just glad they had already lugged that tree up all those stairs! But it was a lovely evening full of cute little christmas ornaments, delicious grilled cheese sandwiches dipped in tomato soup, free watches (again with the Chinatown), homemade pumpkin pie and black-bottomed cupcakes, and other oddities.
Chris and I are leaving Friday morning for a week in Anacortes, Washington, and then flying north for nearly a week in Anchorage, Alaska. I haven't been home for Christmas since 2001, and Chris hasn't yet spent Christmas with my family, so I'm both excited and just a little bit anxious about the whole thing. But Mom and I have already been making plans about what cookies to make for which visitors, and what to have for dinner on Christmas Eve, and where to do our post-Christmas shopping (which will last all of an hour, despite our best intentions of doing that whole manic best-deal-hunting shopping thing, and will end in both of us throwing up our hands and saying, "Oh hell, let's go get a latte!").
Really one of the things I'm most looking forward to is going on one of the ferries out to Friday Harbor, on one of the San Juan Islands. Our big plan is to head out on a 3:30ish ferry after Mom gets off work one of her early days, so that we can see the islands and the ocean and boats (and probably an oil tanker or two... but sitll, it's beautiful...), have dinner at a little Mexican restaurant in Friday Harbor, and catch a later ferry back, showing off the Anacortes skyline, such as it is, or at least the eerily beautiful oil refinery lights at night.
But really what I'm most looking forward to is baking and cooking and sharing knitting stories and other family gossip with Mom, and watching everyone open their presents, because I really like everything we've bought or made for people this year, and I think they will too. And that pleases me to no end.
Anyway, to all, I wish you a lovely holiday season, whether it's Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanza or something I don't even know about, especially to you, Nathan, newly arrived in New Zealand and the next part of your great adventure. Merry Christmas, kiddo.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
just a little bit o' teen angst
I don't know why it got in to my head the other day, I must have been listening to something that reminded me of it, but I suddenly had to go dig out my old Belly album, the first one, the one that I listened to incessantly the summer before my senior year of high school. Chris was surprised, said, "I don't think you've played that since we've been together!" and to the best of my knowledge, he's right. But I put it on as we were cooking dinner, and at first I couldn't quite figure out why I'd liked it so much. Chris was politely tolerant, and I was a bit befuddled, and then Feed the Tree came on. And I had to go turn up the volume. And there's still something completely, if perhaps adolescently, compelling about Tanya Donnelly breaking into her chorus of:
Take your hat off, boy
When you're talking to me
And be there when
I feed the tree...
And it's not like I know what she's talking about, as far as the tree thing goes, but at 16 these lines felt like they could make me soar.
Take your hat off, boy
When you're talking to me
And be there when
I feed the tree...
And it's not like I know what she's talking about, as far as the tree thing goes, but at 16 these lines felt like they could make me soar.
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