julie & julia... delicious & delicious!

I've just finished reading Julie & Julia, and it's a really charming book. The memoir begins with author, Julie Powell, deciding that she is fed up with the mundane grind of her life as a secretary pushing thirty and living in Queens. To fight her feelings of ordinariness and waste, Julie decides to do something daring and unique: 1) cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and 2) chronicle her (mis)adventures in a blog.

Julie’s life (in an out of the kitchen) is a string of mini-disasters. She treats each kitchen mishap (food mill won’t work, lobster won’t die, not enough butter in the fridge) as a matter of grave importance. The upshot of this melodrama is a very funny series of events, narrated in Julie’s quirky, charming voice. The other characters are relatable and likable folks, particularly Julie’s husband, Eric, who is an unfailingly supportive partner-in-crime/cheerleader during the Julie/Julia project.

In moments, Julie’s observations about city life teeter on the irritating ramblings of a classist white girl. As a native New Yorker (daughter of immigrants, raised in Brooklyn), I was deeply unsympathetic to her gripes about living in an outer-borough and trying to communicate with non-English speakers. Such experiences are the stuff true city life is made of, and are not half as lamentable as Julie would have us believe.

Despite these moments, Julie & Julia is a pleasure to read. Powell's prose is easy to navigate and full of the rich, personal details that make so many of us turn to the voyeuristic blogosphere. And then, there are the recipes! The dishes are totally intriguing – more impressive than delicious, full of obscure, high-end ingredients, entirely too much butter, and strange animal parts.

(Plus, as Julie herself points out, there is a deep sensuality to the sort of cooking she engages in page after page. Each recipe is truly a labor of love, requiring more than a little bit of physical exertion, decadent ingredients, strange scents, heat, and time.)

It was indulgent and gripping to read about Julie’s experiments, and as she mastered the art of French cooking, so did I (in theory). I too learned how to make the perfect crepe, flip over omelets, and kill a crustacean several different ways. As a reader, I found myself celebrating each of Julie’s successful dishes and cringing at the violence and high-fat content called for in certain recipes – I shared in her kitchen defeats and victories.

This book entered my life at a very opportune time. My kitchen is not yet in cooking condition (an exterminator has been called), and my dinners have been last night’s Papa Johns, or Key Food natural peanut butter spread over an apple, or Farina microwaved with soy milk, salad out of a bag, or cheese --- just cheese. Thanks to Ms. Powell’s diaries I have been able to enjoy my fill of everything from artichokes to lamb to pink potato salad (which, interestingly enough, ain’t just a French thing – Dominicans eat it too).

But beyond the secondhand indulgence of each culinary catastrophe or triumph, I loved watching Julie fashion a new identity for herself over the course of the book. As Julie achieves something great and on her own terms, I felt pride for her and re-encouraged about the possibilities for greatness in my own life.

The true gift of this book is its message that we are all made extraordinary by the things that we decide to do. The projects that we undertake – whether social, professional, or domestic – give our lives meaning and define who we are.

Bon Appétit, indeed!

poems i like

This post is pretty self-explanatory. I am putting up a list of some of my favorite poems. Each poem title links to a website where you can read the text. I cannot vouch for the websites hosting these poems. I found the links on Google and just put them up. Consider this my disclaimer for any sketchy content you may stumble upon on these sites. This being said, all of the poems are worth reading. Please leave comments including thoughts about these pieces or a list of your own favorite poems.

"Love in Bloodtime" by Sharon Olds

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

"This Living Hand" by John Keats

"Poema X" by Pablo Neruda

"Soliloquy of the Solipsist" by Sylvia Plath

"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes

"I Ask the Impossible" by Ana Castillo

"Kitchenette Building" by Gwendolyn Brooks

"Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth

"To A Dark Girl" by Gwendolyn Bennett

"Cross-Fire" by Staceyann Chin

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"From the Dark Tower" by Countee Cullen

"1 Corinthians 13"

seen

These vignettes are based on people and scenes I have encountered on New York City subways. Big up to the Q, the A, and all my other trains. Also, please don't take any of these vignettes and say that you wrote them because that's just not true!

Seen

A little girl boards the train. She is two, maybe three years old. Her mother is with her, peddling. I search my pockets, but I have no singles left, no change. At the bottom of my bag, I find a couple of crayons. They are left over from a weekend trip to a diner with my nephew and niece. We ate burgers with mustard and onions, French fries, and heavy sweet shakes. They colored pictures of hot air balloons and sailboats, while I took photographs of them with a digital SLR, the kind with dials that click and whirl each time I focus, adjust, and snap.

As the woman and her daughter make their way across the car, I retrieve a handful of crayons. I extend them to the woman. I say, "I don't have any money, but I have crayons."

She smiles at me and runs her fingers along my palm, picking up the crayons. She nods thank you and begins to move away. I reach back into the bottom of my bag and see that there is one crayon left.

“Oh, here. I forgot one,” I say. I hand the orange crayon to the girl.

The child’s face breaks into a smile. Her eyes brighten and I see for the first time, their color. Her eyes are light blue with little orange spheres in them, like burning worlds suspended in sky.

“Orange!” she says. “Orange!”

She squeezes the orange crayon in her fist and moves away from me, smiling, trailing behind her mother, chanting.

Orange! Orange!

* * *

Coming out of the Union Square station, I see an old woman and a child – her nephew? Her son? Her grandson? The woman coughs into her shoulder. She is hunched over – to reprimand the child? Because she is ill? Because she cannot stand? She clutches a cane and boxes the child into a brick wall. He is stuck between the low, menacing curve of her, her cane, her limbs. In one hand, she balances a cigarette between two fingers. She presses her face close to the child and smoke floats above their heads in the night. “It’s a dangerous world,” she says, and coughs.

* * *

This woman is over six feet tall. Her skin is a deep brown and her hair is like honey, uneven at the edges, and drab against the richness of her skin. She leans far away from the pole, dangling her self. I do not know whom she is speaking to when she shouts.

“I’M A FUCKING PRINCESS!”

* * *

There are three boys. You can tell they’re brothers. They look mixed, all café con leche skin and soft gold fros. They have ashy hands and ankles and wear plain plaid shirts and pants that are only just too small.

They sit down right on the floor in the middle of the car and begin to play their instruments. The oldest has a guitar with long, unclipped strings. The middle brother has a tambourine covered in rainbow stickers. The youngest brother has only two drumsticks with him, to beat on the floor of the train.

Without much of an introduction, they begin singing, shaking the tambourine, strumming the guitar, and beating the floor. They play the Beatles.

I once had a girl, or you could say 

She once had me.

The guitar is perfectly tuned. Each string twangs when it should, drops, chimes with the next. The oldest brother plucks and strums. His brown hand is beautiful.

They half-sing, half-shout, with voices too young to startle. Their harmonies are sweet; their call and response is a game.

Marco?

Polo!

I love this song.

The bells on the tambourine ring and the boys look so alike. I look up and down the car. Folks are smiling, rummaging for change, or swaying with eyes closed as the train charges ahead. I wonder what they are remembering.

We talked until two,

And then she said it’s time for bed

They don’t look at anyone or at each other as they play. In my mind, I see a motel room without chairs. And a thin woman, maybe with gold curls like theirs, laughing. A small fire blazing from damp logs, maybe driftwood, the kind that sparks blue and green, and smells like the sea. A box of wine on a cheap rug.

I get out a dollar. The boys finish up the last few bars.

And when I awoke, I was alone

This bird has flown

They do not say much. They collect their coins and move to the next car.

soccer, venus, & feminist grunting

In June, I spent some time watching pick up soccer games. It was fascinating for me to watch people who love the game so much running, jumping, kicking, bickering with each other, and laughing on the field. Besides my short-lived basketball career in seventh grade, I have never been involved in team sports. When I used to practice muay thai, it felt like a very personal commitment to me that was ultimately about my body, confidence, and mental strength. It was also a way for me to belong to a community of people who loved the sport and trained hard. I have had a glimpse of the deeply personal and communal nature of sports, but as someone who has never followed any sport on television nor attended many sporting events, I was still very intrigued by the pick up soccer game. Here are some photographs I would like to share from that day in the park. I shot these pictures using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT.

Watching soccer that day in Fort Greene park was not just a window into the world of team sports; for me, it was also a window into the secret world of men. The ways the men interacted with each other felt so foreign to me: the aggression (two fights nearly broke out during the game), easy camaraderie, competition, and modes of communication felt so far from anything I have ever been a part of.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend the U.S. Open. I saw Venus Williams play and she was awesome. She seemed to win easily and have fun while doing it. She was gracious during the on-court interview after the match and the crowd was crazy for her.

I must confess that there was one small thing about her performance that made me a tad uncomfortable. Each time she served or returned a ball, she screamed or grunted. If I were serving a ball at upwards of 100 mph, surely I would grunt or scream too. Yet, I found myself cringing and embarrassed that a stadium full of people (many white, many male, many affluent) were watching her grunt and scream. The sounds seemed so sexual, so guttural and embodied.

At the time, I was very aware that my response was problematic. My embarrassment was due to my own internalized sexism. I was embarrassed for her and I was embarrassed for me. Each time she cried out, I, too, felt exposed. I felt like my physicality - strength, sex, body, presence - was being publicly articulated.

By the end of the match, I was making noise myself. Screaming and cheering and jumping up and down for Venus. I am not proud of my initial reaction during the match. Her grunts were the cries of ecstasy and exertion that must come from playing so spectacularly.

What would I have preferred? Neat silence? Control? Holding it in or holding back? Of course not.

Perhaps what I felt is the same shame that causes women to clap their hands over their mouths when they speak too loudly or out of turn, or when they make too much noise during sex, or when they say something unladylike.

One of my favorite zines about consent includes the following quote:

"Analysis does not equal immunity."

I am a feminist, but that doesn't change that I've got to work to decolonize my mind. Sometimes my thoughts are racist and antifeminist and perpetuate all of things that hate and hurt me. I'm a work in progress. For now, my goal is to be a little more like Venus. It was an honor to see her play. She is powerful and a supreme athlete. I did not take the above photograph of Venus, but I like it. It seems as if she is singing or dancing, as well as winning whatever match this is from. Cause that is what she does. And she is good at it.

eating pizza in a garden

Tonight, I went to Lewis Ave. Lewis Ave. is home to a small strip of bougie restaurants and shops in Bed Stuy. My boyfriend and I made the long walk over in order to check out Saraghina, a restaurant I have heard about ever since I moved to the neighborhood. It has been hailed by The New York Times as not just a pizzeria, but a true trattoria, bringing artisanal pizza to a neighborhood that although it is being gentrified, still ain't teeming with snazzy restaurants like Billyburg or Park Slope.

First, a bit about me and gentrification. I inhabit an awkward role in the changing landscape of BK. I am from Brooklyn, it is in my blood and in my heart, it will always be home. But my privilege (chiefly due to my education) separates me from many of the people in my community. In some ways, I am implicated in the displacement of my people - of my own relatives, of my neighbors, of little girls like me who go to the same elementary school.

For instance, I scowl at white people at the Hoyt-Schemerhorn station, then I exit and find my way to a rooftop party near BAM. I usually feel awkward at these parties thrown by and for white alumni from my college. I clutch my Red Stripe like it's a security blanket, watch the lights, and feel guilty. I think about double consciousness, but mostly I think about whether I will be able to recognize any of these streets in a few years. I decide the music sucks, but sometimes I dig it, and then that reminds me of where I have been, the many different places, all the hybrid influences that have made me this hybrid brown girl with hybrid dreams and longings in her heart. I am always the first guest to leave and walk home. The whole way, I talk to myself and I complain about yuppies and hipsters and their pricey beer and fancy cheese and fucking lame music (it all sounds the same!). But I was still there and will be there again.

Just like I was at Saraghina. Do with that reality what you will. I split two pies with my boyfriend as part of the strange, ongoing experiment in double consciousness that is my life.

Before we entered the restaurant, we sat in front for a while, marveling at the absurd brunch prices. It was $7 for bread and butter with jam and nutella, $10 for organic eggs. I'm more of a $2 egg and cheese on a roll kind of girl. We joked about sticking to the Dominican spot we know where you can get "fluffy pancakes" or "Fhench toast" with meat and eggs for $5.

The interior of Saraghina is beautiful. The decor alone seemed to be a parable on gentrification. It was all dim lights and wooden tables, tall bottles of water. Everything looked old, from the Xeroxed menus, windows with chipped paint, dusty mason jars, Citronella candles, and plastic chairs that reminded me of my elementary school classrooms. Some would say Saraghina had a rustic Italian vibe, but I think the restaurant just looks like any other building in Bed Stuy with old details and chipped paint --- only more expensive.

Everything from industrial architecture to trash on the street to people of color makes Brooklyn feel real and edgy and chic to folks moving in, and Saraghina is certainly capitalizing on the grit factor of the neighborhood and the building to attract its clientele.

Nearly everyone inside the restaurant was white. I was expecting this since the place has been written up in the Times. I had also come across online reviews of Saraghina where people had posted comments like, "This is the only place in my neighborhood that I feel comfortable taking my family when they come to visit." The customers were white couples feeding slices to their small children and groups of thirtysomethings sharing wine and mussels. It seems that, in general, Saraghina customers are people who 1) like pizza and 2) enjoy eating pizza with other neighborhood folks who look like them. When we arrived, there was only one other couple of color in the garden. We smiled at them and said hello. SOLIDARITY.

All this being said, the food was good. We got a pie with buffala mozzarella, which tasted just like regular mozzarella, but cost $2 more. We also got a pie with zucchini and eggplant, which I loved. The crust was crispy and thin, there was not too much cheese, the marinara sauce was tomato-sweet, and the vegetables were grilled soft and perfect. It was very, very good.



My boyfriend was not as impressed. He said, "How could you eat guiso and then think this is good?" I'm pretty sure he would have preferred for us to stay home and use adobo and a couple of packets of Goya azafran to make black beans and rice. It would have cost us about $2, as opposed to the $35 we spent on our meal and the tip. Despite his complaints, he still ate almost all of the buffala pie by himself.

We left with our stomachs full, and the curiosity that had first led me to the place was definitely satiated. Whether I will return again for another delicious and pricey experiment in double consciousness is TBD. The garden was beautiful, the waitstaff was kind, and the two Latino men in the kitchen held it down cooking the stuff that is the lifeblood of the establishment.

So there you go. My lengthy treatise on an evening out with my boyfriend (who looked very cute in his V-neck tee), gentrification, and this new neighborhood pizza place.

the purple room

My new room is purple. It's a deep purple and I painted most of it myself with key help from some friends. I like to think of myself as living here, in this old house in Bed Stuy, writing from a purple room. I am guessing that I will come to associate this moment in my life with the color purple, which until now, I haven't really cared for. It just struck me as a good color for a room. I have a view of a busted garden from my window. It's all dead grass and fallen fruit, a tree larger than the three stories of this brownstone.

I dig the time I get to spend here alone, but for a few nights, I have had the company of a caring companion who falls asleep after I do, hammers things, and who sat out with me on the stoop during a thunderstorm. (The storm was amazing – I experienced rain like you never can in a building. When you are encased in brick, far up from the ground, a storm becomes just part of the view. It's not like when you're sitting out on the street and you can see rain pooling in the gutters, people gathering under the awnings of bodegas to stay dry, the way the whole street brightens like it's day when there is lightning, and the way the crack of thunder seems to start right above your head and unfold over the whole neighborhood).

I am twenty minutes away from where I grew up in Fort Greene. Where I am in Bed Stuy reminds me of Fort Greene ten years ago. Beautiful houses in disrepair, the G train, cafes and restaurants like lone satellites every couple of blocks, gunshots, schools, Golden Krust, open vans parked on the street playing jazz or Motown, old ladies perched like sentinels on stoops to survey everything that happens on the block, churches, the familiar sound of someone scraping ice from a cart to sell piraguas.

It's better for me to be here although I am already homesick for Fort Greene. If I were at home at my parents’ house, I would be watching Buffy DVDs in my pajamas and eating Indian food I can't afford, trying to escape the empty spaces in me by not moving at all. To stir would be to wake all those fears and possibilities up, make them alive and burning, looking for me by their own awful light. So I would just sit. Sit and steep myself in the sweat of our living room, feeling heavy and round, sick with secrets.

The purple room is supposed to be space for me to be still yet work to confront things. The college I went to is a tough place for poor girls of color like me, but it was easier than home in many ways because I had the freedom to build an identity for myself. After four years away, I returned to Brooklyn last summer and had to find a way to fit the woman I had become into the Old World of home.

Old school paradigms for Dominican good girls forbid all sorts of things – from boyfriends to girlfriends to birth control, beer, moving out before you’re married, disagreeing with your mother, and being fat.

The old cliché goes, "The truth will set you free." But I would like to contribute an addendum to the saying:
Only if you let it.

And it is in that spirit, of submitting to the truth about myself and my dreams, that I write to you, from my purple room.

something you've got to believe in

I was not a fan of "Crazy." It was on the radio entirely too much and I just wasn't feeling the hook. But "Going On" by alternative hip-hop/neo soul act, Gnarls Barkley, is an excellent song. It is an anthem about freedom and self-reliance with a cool dance beat and some very beautiful, trippy and melodic moments.

The video concept is weird yet awesome (a la Gnarls Barkley). It features a group of people journeying in search of a portal to another dimension. It was shot in Jamaica and has some solid dance sequences and quality lip synching.

Watch it here:

Warning: if you listen to this song once, you may be bound to listen to it many, many times again.