Lessons in Domestic Science

I have been visiting DC every couple of weeks now since that's where the Boy lives, that is perhaps in part why the radio silence has persisted on this blog. I've since made DC almost a second home, where I build the same sort of routines that I cherish here in Brooklyn. Boy lives in Dupont Circle, where there's certainly no lack of things to do and a New Yorkishly accessibility to get things done. While most stores in dc close by the depressing hour of 1-pm, the 24-hour CVS pharmacy keeps the circle pumping with nightlife. Unfortunately, I'm only partially kidding.

But getting on, One thing that I almost always do when I am in DC is stop into Second Story Books. Located on the increasingly-posh strip of P Street that cuts across the circle, it's the Beacon's Closet of Bookstore. No, wait, it's slightly classier than Beacon's Closet, it's like... the Edith Machinist of Bookstores. With quite an eccentric group of personalities that work behind the desk- One day, it's a heaving 500 pound man with his butt glued to the rolling office chair, the next a elfish 20-something girl wearing a onesie, and once again, a studious rail-thin and stretched out carbon copy of Dwayne Wayne (from A Different World!). It's seriously bizarre, but somehow fitting in the bookstore. The bookstore carries the rarest of hard-to-find gems, copies of Goodnight, Moon seemingly teleported from their original publication date. Divided into sections (History: World War I. Cultural: Armenia. Cultural: Pre-colonail British), the bookstore is mostly a collection of non-fiction works, a place where you can get lost in any land, any culture, any story that's every been written.

I go for their lone food shelf. well, one-and-a-half shelves, technically. One full of cookbooks, the other half of food and cultural writings. I hit that, and have managed to find such jewels as Frank Bruni's recent memoir Born Round (didn't like it, more on that later I suppose), Harold McGee's essential On Food and Cooking, the James Beard on Pasta (check out those illustrations, for reals) book- not as seminole as Beard on Bread, but I'm on the lookout!) - and most recently, Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me With Apples. But my FAVORITE find has been this, Twenty Lessons in Domestic Science, originally published in 1916by Marian Cole Fisher.

A lady in a petticoat, punching on a typewriter with her glasses falling to her nose to pen this "lesson book" is exactly the image that is conjured when I flip through its contents. To get a full scope of its contents you need not turn further than the table of contents, where, rather than chapters, the book is divided into "Lessons". Lesson II is entirely devoted to "LEAVENING AGENTS", among them (in order listed) - Baking Powder, Acid Phosphate, Cost of Baking Powder, How to Measure, Leavening Agents....(and more!). Mostly an almanac of cooking rather than a recipe book, this small, 108-page hardcover pretty thoroughly = covers every food group, why we should eat, what we should eat, and where we should get our raw materials from. It's, I imagine, everything the traditional housewife should have known. The book also references the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. more than once through the course of the book- leading me to imagine what sort of campaigns our government was trying to enact in the 40s, and the 50s, perhaps when this book may have been its most popular.

I don't think I'll be taking this book too seriously, but it does provide such an interesting peek into the history of our culture. Plus, the diagrams are pretty f'ing amazing.

The Baker's Dozen

I'm back, and for my not-quite-inaugural post, I'm offering a link to the James Beard Foundation's top thirteen baking cookbooks. I've recently come into acquisition of a few new books, and though have none of these, would like all of these.

1. “Baking: From My Home to Yours,” by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006).
2. “Beard on Bread,” by James Beard (originally published 1973; reprinted by Knopf, 1995).
3. “The Book of Great Desserts,” by Maida Heatter (Andrews McMeel, 1999).
4. “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice,” by Peter Reinhart (Ten Speed, 2001).
5. “The Cake Bible,” by Rose Levy Beranbaum (William Morrow, 1988).
6. “Classic Home Desserts,” by Richard Sax (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000).
7. “Cocolat,” by Alice Medrich (Warner Books, 1990).
8. “The Fannie Farmer Baking Book,” by Marion Cunningham (Gramercy, 1996).
9. “Great Pies and Tarts,” by Carole Walter (Clarkson Potter, 1998).
10. “The Italian Baker,” by Carol Field (William Morrow, 1985).
11. “Martha Stewart’s Cookies,” by Martha Stewart (Clarkson Potter, 2008).
12. “My Bread,” by Jim Lahey (W.W. Norton, 2009).

13. “The Simple Art of Perfect Baking,” by Flo Braker (Chronicle, 2003).

via NY Mag.

Edible: The Book

I'm so excited. I love the Edible Communities; it's without a doubt one of my favorite publications (In fact, I've been daydreaming about writing for them....living the life of a food-obsessed community-oriented rogue....but that's another story). After reading about the release of their new book today- chock full I'm sure with recipes, heartwarming stories, local heroes, and juicy pictures, I absolutely cannot wait until May arrives.

yoga + unemployment

I'm not the only one.

Indian Ashram

Time to wind down from a busy, too-much-stimulation week(end).

Click here for a great article from National Geographic about Ashrams, or yoga retreats. I promise it's not a super hippie cultish article. If you liked Eat Pray Love, you'll enjoy this.

Off to yoga!

Good Week/Bad Week

I highly recommend adding The Week to your daily reading list, or just subscribing to it (It's pretty cheap not to mention a great bathroom read). The Week is, as it's namesake indicates, a weekly publication of current events, editorial roundups, cartoons, and all sorts of random bits of information from news sources all over the world. It's informative without being too wordy, which is important to me. (I could have just said it was concise, I know...)

My favorite section is the Good Week/Bad Week page. The editors take pretty bizarre news stories and deem them either good or bad for whoever or whatever is involved. Example:

Good week for:

'Heteropaternal superfecundation,’ after Mia Washington of Texas entered the biology textbooks because a DNA test revealed that her 11-month-old twins have different fathers. She admitted to have been sleeping with two men when they were conceived.

Internships, after a small Spokane, Wash., distillery developed a small army of volunteers to bottle and package its vodka and gin for no pay, as long as they get free shots of the products at the end of their shift. “It’s grown popular entirely by word-of-mouth,” said Don Poffenroth of Dry Fly Distilling.

Miracles, after a Texas couple reported finding a Cheetos cheese snack that bears an incredible resemblance to Jesus. Dan and Sara Bell said they will see what they can get for “Cheesus” on eBay. “If it’s only 25 cents, we’re just going to eat it,” said Dan.

Bad week for:

Maureen Dowd, The New York Times columnist, who admitted that a 43-word paragraph in a recent column was nearly identical to a paragraph written by blogger Josh Marshall. Dowd’s explanation was that she somehow lifted the paragraph from a conversation with a friend, who “must have read Josh Marshall without mentioning that to me.”

Driving under the influence, after a Massachusetts man was ticketed for driving erratically while eating a bowl of cereal on his lap. He explained that he was hungry.

Bodybuilding, after doping officials showed up to do steroid tests at the Belgian bodybuilding championship, and all 20 muscled competitors grabbed their gear and ran out the door. “I have never seen anything like it,” said doping official Hans Cooman.

See more Good Week/Bad Weeks HERE

the Straight Angle

As indecision rules my life, it has made an appearance yet again. I've changed the title of this blog.

I'm three-fourths into reading Murakami for the first time and I'm slowly falling in love with him. I rarely remember specific lines to movies let alone any line in a book, but for some reason this one line really stood out to me. I found it ironic, funny, succinct, and so true. The perfect quote, no?

Lots of people have suggested to me picking up a Murakami book, and one friend specifically advised me to NOT read The Wind Up Bird Chronicles as the first one. A strange bit of advice. When I asked him to clarify, he said it was so good of a book that I would only be disappointed if I read any of his other books thereafter. So at Spoonbill I made a conscious effort to pick up the lesser-known A Wild Sheep Chase instead, and disappointed I am certainly not. My favorite line of the book jumped out to me right away, on page 37:

"Tell me straight, because that's my favorite angle"

Page 249 is pretty sweet too.

Day 1

Quote of the day:

"Let's start a book club, where all we do is watch movies"

I tossed and turned last night, a mixture of anticipation and anxiety keeping me up. That, and the 90-degree days NY has been experiencing have left me with a close to 80-degree room for me to sleep in.

Today was day one of unemployment. Unbeknownst to me, it's now commonly referred to as "Funemployment". Hm. We'll see if it lives up to that. Since I don't want to fall into the deep dark depths of white-trash unemployment (read: drink until wee hours of the morning, sleep in 'til the afternoon, watch Price is Right/Days of Our Lives/Maury, eat jenny craig TV dinners) I am trying to create a schedule for myself, filled with many fun activities. Factivities? Anyway, these activities, so far, are comprised mostly of having lunch with friends who are either unemployed or have odd-hour jobs, and trying to do yoga/go to the gym. Fun.

I celebrated Day One by meeting up with my funemployed mentor Laura. No really, she is my inspiration in layoff life, talk about milking unemployment for all it's worth... I also think she was the only person, when I told her I was getting laid off, that actually physically jumped for joy and told me what great news it was. And no, she doesn't hate me. I think...

Back to lunch. We ate at Egg- I kept hearing about this place, but since I don't eat eggs, there wasn't much desire for me to go there. duh. But after perusing through their menu upon Laura's suggestion (and this amazing drool-inducing article in Edible Brooklyn) ohhhh meohmy there was SO much desire to go there! For all you breakfast aficionados, they serve breakfast until 3pm every day. And for all you penny-pinching aficionados, all their main breakfast/lunch plates hover around $7-$8. Their menu was simple but so elegant and rich, how could I say no? And looking back, it is everything I look for in a solid neighborhood joint. A great, open atmosphere, good music, super quirky waiter who gets things done with a smile on his face, great hearty fare imported from artisanal farms, and the strongest iced coffee I've had in awhile. AND the two of us had a perfect filling lunch for $20. Yum, on account of stomach and my wallet.

We also had great lunch conversation, which is where that quirky quote of the day came from. Laura did nothing short of coach me through what will be a rough week one of unemployment. Rough, only because it's so foreign and so mind-alteringly different. I mean, I am not gonna lie- I've been ridden with anxiety this entire weekend. So many what-ifs, so many things up in the air. What if I don't want to work right away, what if I pass up job opportunities now and they don't come back, what if I become straight up lazy, what if I slowly drift away from my friends at work, what if WHAT IF WHAT IF. So many of them. Laura managed to assuage my minor freak out and bring me back down to funemployment land. She told me about all the people she's met and networked with since she was laid off, the opportunities that have been presented to her, the trips that she has taken, and the lovely projects she has been able to work on, the super cool program she is volunteering with (http://feastinbklyn.org), and how the new thing to do is to barter services for goods.

It's a novel idea- this new concept on bartering goods. In a time where so many people are unemployed, it's really a great tool, both for your own benefit and to others, not to mention to build community character and comraderie as well. I'm totally into it.

From our lunch we took a short walk around Wburg into Spoonbill and Sugartown, my favorite independent bookstore in NY. I got two books, and the reason I share this with you is because this is one of them:

Excuse the shitty picture, but you get the idea. I mean, I like Tom Robbins and all, but really, the main reason I purchased this book was for its cover. (And the $2 price tag)

I came home, and after spending about an hour looking at craft blogs, my mind was spinning and I could barely keep my eyes open. So I took a nap.

No one told me unemployment was so exhausting.

Leviathan

I came across this awhile ago, and thought it was one of the most beautiful book covers I've ever seen!

On the subject of book covers:
If you're like me and will pick a wine for its label, a restaurant for its website, or in this instance a book for its cover...you must check this out, if not for your interest in book covers then definitely for the sheer simplicity of website design (sorry, my inner silicon valley geekiness comes out sometimes):
http://www.bookcoverarchive.com/

On the subject of titles with 'whale':

Here's a very awesome band that I revisit every now and again.

Take a listen!

Call and Response - Or, the Whale

And finally on the subject of whale imagery:

here is a little drawing by artist David Choe, whose work I've admired for some time now. In my opinion, the epitome of Bay Area/california art, borne from Generation X. this isn't my favorite piece, but the whales are cute.