Protest and Hyperbole
For myself, I'm not too fat, my nose is large but not unreasonably long. And yet for years I could not accept my own physical appearance. I used to dream of looking like Samuel Beckett. (To have a profile like his would perhaps also imply another way of life.) I took a number of self-portraits, and each time I "disguised" my face because I rejected it totally. I grimaced, I played tricks with the light, I deliberately moved the camera. The cure for this play-acting came when I was obliged to look at myself for the whole length of a television film . . . . There the dose was strong enough to cure me. This man whom I saw before me existed with all his weaknesses. He was real, and in a sense he was beyond my control. I was no longer responsible for his appearances.
I've always wondered if I could use this "cure" and desensitize myself. Somebody take this camera away from me...
My cleaning soundtrack was provided by brother John -- he sent me some mix CDs recently, including one titled "Omaha Rocks!" Well obviously. The CD consisted of tunes beloved by his kids. I discovered that his nine year old and I share a love of Cake. Also huge in Omaha: Fallout Boy, Chris LeDoux, and Porky Pig's version of Blue Christmas. It's that sense of adventure and eclectic taste that make this country great, people!
Note: Not only are these children musically gifted, they are also blindingly cute. Seriously, you have to wear special glasses and everything.
The menu included five courses.
I wore my new reading glasses, because ladies who drink tea have reading glasses, ya know.
By the fourth course, we were starting to feel the effects. 
Not wanting to waste a perfectly good sugar buzz, we repaired to the bar at the St. Paul Grill and let down our hair, so to speak.
Eventually, we even had dinner across the street at Pazzaluna. A lovely time and a great way to shake off the cold. Thanks ladies!
**Photos courtesy of Fiffy's cute new camera. Thanks Fiffy!
This one had Billie Holiday on one side and Michelle Shocked on the other. He created this design with paper images and scotch tape in a way I have not been able to duplicate. It was a multi-layered design, on both the case and the tape itself:
So good.
UPDATE: I thought of another one:
6. Doowutchyalike by Digital Underground ("oo ooo I see guys an' girls dancin'")
It's Matty's birthday today. Happy Birthday! To celebrate, I'm posting his adorable but potentially embarrassing 2nd grade photo. Anyone who's been to my house has seen it already--I can't resist pointing it out. There's the classic scab on the forehead, undoubtedly from some farming-related activity. But I love the obsequious half smile honed from years as his oldest brother's right-hand man. For a long time, I believe Beau never held a tool that was not fetched for him by Matt.
The more recent photo was taken at my birthday party a couple years ago. He drove all the way up to St. Paul to celebrate with his sister. Awww.I've become an avid watcher of cooking programs. The Food Network, the PBS shows, Anthony Bourdain, and even the random cooking segments on the weekend "news" programs, if I'm clicking through on my way someplace else--I'm an equal opportunity watcher. My viewing has become a bit more tentative since I began my current reducing plan--I can only handle so much delicious food photography these days before I have to run away and eat a Rykrisp. And foodies and chefs are notoriously averse to, say, removing the butter simply to make a dish healthier. Taste is their master, and the rest of us just have to control ourselves.
Indeed, most of the these shows are really focused on special-occasion food, even though the most talked about show currently is probably Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals. (And her magazine, Every Day with Rachel Ray.) In general, these people are making entrees that helpfully include most, if not all, your daily calories. You know, so you save the trouble of eating more than once a day.
The weird necessity of narrating something as mundane as cooking makes many a show tedious, but I love tracking the stuff that comes up over and over. Like, every time someone busts out a shallot, you hear some version of, "Shallots have a mild onion-y flavor that won't overwhelm the [main ingredient]." Every. Single. Time. And lord, the chicken. Everyone MUST treat it as a biohazard. Alton Brown's instructions for breading chicken that's about to be fried is like something the CDC would come up with. Wash your hands or the terrorists win!
But I'm spending a lot of time on the food shows. And I'm not the only one.
One of my favorites is America's Test Kitchen on PBS on Saturday mornings. It appeals to my irrational belief that there is in fact a best way to do everything. That's the whole premise of the test kitchen and the magazine it supports, Cooks Illustrated. They'll take a common dish (today it was Chicken Kiev) and create what they can call a definitive recipe. (In case you were wondering, no definitive recipes are ever low-fat or low-calorie.) Perhaps I'm also drawn in by the fact that the magazine's editor is the show's host, even though he's kind of a smarty-pants know-it-all. But, in my experience, most magazine editors are smarty-pants know-it-alls, so I guess I shouldn't hold it against him.
Everyday Food appears periodically on the Saturday morning PBS lineup--it's on at 10:30 a.m. these days. It's a typical offering from Martha Stewart Omnimedia. The kitchens look art directed. The hosts, ingredients, scripts, tone are flawless, which can be a little off-putting. (Omni is such a good prefix for Martha. Everything about her is so damn ... consistent.) But this show led me to the magazine of the same name that I've been evangelizing about for a while. I love its design, the choice of recipes and how each has a limited number of ingredients, the way they feature specific ingredients (Have you tried dried figs?), the index, and the fact that every recipe is provided with accompanying nutritional information. Say what you want about Martha, but she puts out excellent magazines.
Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals on the Food Network is mostly unwatchable, I think. Her voice is like a perky foghorn. I can actually feel my hair blow back when her show comes on and she starts in with the yelling. I haven't tried any of her recipes, so I don't know if her cooking stands up. I can't get past the voice and over-enthusiastic manner. I could pick up her magazine, I guess, but she's photographed to be a faithful print version of her television persona: waxy, airbrushed, and aggressively cheerful. I do appreciate that unlike most people on TV, she has a normal woman's body and doesn't seem to feel the need to turn herself into a stick. That crap is especially disingenuous in cooking-show hosts.
Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network is enjoyable, though she's definitely true to the whole "special-occasion food" thing. Everything she makes seems to have a million calories, though, to be fair, her show is really about entertaining. Also, I wish I knew how she got her hair so shiny.
I kind of like the idea of Rick Bayless's Mexico, One Plate at a Time on PBS. He travels around Mexico talking about food in the different regions, and he's obviously passionate about the cuisine. But he gets too close to the camera and talks in this weird affected way. You just know that in person he's a close-talker who totally corners people at parties and discusses random topics too earnestly while stroking their arm in a way that makes them uncomfortable.
The food show that I loved more than all of these was Cucina Toscana. Two guys, Damian and his nephew Johnny, who are equal parts Italian-American and Texan. It was this mishmash of barbeque and Tuscan cuisine, with "y'all" and "ciao bella!" bandied about in the same breath. They talked a lot about their extended family. They always had music playing, and Damian was always randomly bursting into song--usually some old country tune. Why oh why won't PBS bring this one back? Oh, I have the biggest crush on Damian.
Tomorrow: Giant teeth and the horror of "tablescapes."
