america surveyed

"If only 23 percent of those polled approve of the way Congress is doing its job, how is it that 96 percent of incumbents in the House are re-elected?"
-Letter to the editor, NYTimes

I read this to my boy this morning and he said, and rightly, "Duh! It's all those other guys who are bad!" I might paraphrase slightly, as he doesn't generally employ the term "duh."

But in all seriousness, folks, can I just say that this most recent poll of America's approval ratings of Bush and his administration is really quite astounding? Much as the circa 30% approval rating of Bush as a whole is both mind-boggling and vindicating, what struck me most is that 13% of us continue to approve of his "handling of oil prices" and I began to wonder how many people are employed by the oil industry. But to keep it in perspective, I also read somewhere earlier this week, in reference to this amazing 13%, that 12% of Americans also believe that we or someone we know has had an interaction of some kind with a UFO. I use the term "we" loosely here, as I am not amongst this 12%, though numbers like these can't help but make me proud to be an American. I use the term "proud" loosely here as well.

kugel

I never imagined I'd say this, but over this past weekend I had a craving for noodle kugel. I had kugel a couple times in college. Being at Barnard, it was hardly avoidable. But really what I remember so fondly is going to the Cronen's house down at the end of our road in Mohegan Lake many a Saturday afternoon and eating their shabbat meal with them, including deliciously sweet, cheesy kugel. I found a bunch of different recipes and, never having made it before and of course not having an old family recipe or anything of my own, I ended up glomming a couple together pretty much like this:

I cooked 12 oz. of wide egg noodles just under the recommended time.

While the noodles cooked, I mixed a stick of butter (melted), 1/2 cup sugar, 2 cups cottage cheese, 4 cups milk, and 5 eggs in a big bowl. After straining the noodles I tossed them into this mixture and stirred it all up into a big mess. Spooned the noodles and all the liquid into a large rectangular buttered baking dish. In another bowl I mixed 2 1/2 cups Special K and crushed coarsly, then added 1/3 cup dark brown sugar and a bunch of cinnamon and mixed that all up. Then I poured this cereal mixture over the top of the noodles and put the whole thing in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour.

This turned out okay, but though we both liked it well enough, I'm not entirely sure Chris got quite why I was making it or what it was for or what to do with it. It did seem a strange craving, even to me. I made it on a Sunday morning, so it was breakfast, but it was sweet enough to be dessert. If I make it again, which I probably will eventually, I'd cut back on the milk and use some sour cream and more cottage cheese, and I'd cut back on the sugar in the noodles themselves, and I'd cut way back on the butter, as it turned out a little too greasy, and I'd add some dried cranberries if I had them around. I had them around this time, which is actually one of the reasons I thought of kugel in the first place, but then forgot them in the end. Very frustrating indeed. But still, it was a nice experiment, and very easy, and made me feel like I was ten years old again.

house

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...

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.

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."

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.

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

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

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.

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."

more scarves (in the works)

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)

blanket bonanza

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.

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

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?

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 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