mystery pies.
Usually when I get a roll of film back from the lab, I find myself pleasantly surprised at how some of the photos turned out — decently exposed despite low light, or perhaps an off-the-cuff shot that ended up not so blurry after all. If it’s a roll that took me a while to finish, I’ll sometimes have that moment of Oh, right! I’d forgotten about that moment! , and it’ll be a nice way to remember something I’d otherwise lose to the wilds of my overstuffed memory.
But it’s not often — pretty rare, to the point of just about never happening — that I look at a photograph and have absolutely no recollection of taking it. And so when my most recent roll from the Spotmatic came back, these two photos jumped out at me — not so much for the content (it’s pizza, after all), but because I have no idea when or where they’d been taken. Based on where they are on the roll, I’m guessing that this is somewhere in Brooklyn, but I can’t think of any pizza shop near me that has particularly interesting notions regarding toppings (read: corn?!). And so I remain baffled. Ideas, anyone?
12 hours, photographically.
Last night Donny and I met up for some slurpy noodle action at Hung Ry, over on Bond near Bowery. Good stuff! The duck soup I got with hand-pulled noodles was excellent. Afterwards, on the F train back to Boerum Hill, I found myself completely mesmerized by a lone yellow rainboot.
Woke up early this morning, and caught a bit of the dawn light making its way into middle Brooklyn. As I was getting ready for work, I figured I’d end my roll of Portra 400NC on the Spotmatic with a couple of related shots: Pony, the Yashica, on its perch on one side of my mantle; and a photo of what usually happens around 8:50am every morning: deciding which camera, and roll of film, and pair of socks, to bring, load, and wear, respectively. The socks, if I can find a matching pair, are usually the easiest to figure out.
PS. Today I brought both the Nikon and the Leica, and three extra rolls of color and black & white film. Some days, it’s just easier to bring everything. You never know what you might stumble upon.
PPS. After a day of pricing Leicas on eBay, I’ve decided to get one of my very own. To be sure, saving up the funds and justifying the purchase is going to take some doing (read: profound rationalization), but after the last roll I took, there’s just no way I can’t have that kind of visual possibility not always readily available to me. I haven’t been that pleased by an entire roll of film in a very long time.
lupe, from the archives.
It’s been a while since I posted a photograph of my dear Lupe, my long-term and long-distance muse. This was taken ten years ago (!), back when she lived in New Cross Gate with our friend Mark, and across the street from the best Sainsbury’s ever. It was also the winter where we inexplicably discovered the joys of hot chocolate with a shot of Captain Morgan. (Don’t ask; just take my word for it.)
Anyhow, here you go: your first 2011 Lupe photograph, taken in the mid-afternoon glow of January 2001.
weekend lights.
It may speak to how un-seeing I’ve been recently, but I didn’t even realize how limited I’d allowed myself to be during these winter months in terms of really noticing the wealth of interesting plays of light in interior spaces around me. I mean, yes, I try to take photographs in whatever available light there is, but I don’t think I’ve been really thinking about that light, how it shapes a room and the objects within it. Or at least I haven’t been consciously thinking about this for a while; I think I’ve been on cruise control for a few months now.
Or maybe the light just scatters differently in the badlands of North Brooklyn? Either way, the Leica and I had a blast this weekend: new neighborhoods, new bars, lots of fun new eats. Even my scrambled eggs with salsa and smoked salmon glowed in the middle Brooklyn winter light. (And, as an aside, I have to confess that I’ve only recently figured out how to make proper scrambled eggs. Low low heat! Patience! A splash of milk! It’s shocking that it’s taken me this long, but I’m pleased to have finally figured this out. You’re all welcome to come over and try them some time.) The Ektar 100 — my 2011 film of choice so far — is proving incredibly versatile and flexible, capturing pretty decent detail in low light without losing a lot of fine grain, and allowing colors to pop so wonderfully in daytime natural light.
Also, a cat! Hello, Lefty.
january.
It’s been a strange month, full of anticipation, disappointments, elation, and surprises. I’m grateful to have ended the month surrounded by friends, food, and one really, really great show.
Last week, Daniel, Andrew, and I found ourselves at Congee Village, where we tore into huge bowls of noodles and lamb & dried bean curd skin casserole. Soup dumplings rounded out the meal, which was dominated by a spirited Fuck/Marry/Kill session. That conversation — well, let’s just reiterate that it was spirited, shall we?
A few days later, JT and I met up at Sake Bar Hagi for some small plate satisfaction before heading uptown to see The Decemberists play a sold-out show at the Beacon Theatre. The food was delicious; the show just shy of extraordinary, at times breathtaking. We were amused to find that we were far from the oldest people in the audience — in fact probably closer to the median age. Parents! They like The Decemberists too!
Other than a photograph of the stunning theatre interior, I’ve no pics from the show, so I’ll leave you with a song from the band’s latest album, The King is Dead. The live version of January Hymn was just … wow. The album version is just as elegiacally gorgeous. It’s a fitting song to end the month, I think — after many highs and a handful of unexpected lows, there’s nothing like a quiet song about loss and hope and winter to give voice to what I’ve been feeling for a little (maybe too long) while now.
(Hmmm. WordPress is having some audio problems. You can listen to the song here as well.)
amatriciana sunday.
I was a great deal more social this past Sunday than I had originally anticipated. Between a lovely, lazy brunch at Char no.4, to catching the second half of the Packers-Bears game at Pacific Standard, and then some drinks with the ladies at the local, there was hardly any time to, or for, myself. So inbetween brunch and football, I carved out two hours, just to putter around the kitchen and work on my amatriciana sauce.
I’ve been tinkering with this sauce for a couple of years now, experimenting with different tomato preparations — I’ve got some roasted tomato sauce, from end-of-summer tomatoes, in some ziploc bags in the freezer; this has produced the most full-bodied sauce thus far — and the onion vs. no onion dilemma, and each time I get a sauce that I absolutely love for different reasons, and I find myself not wanting to commit to one particular preparation going forward.
This time around: onions, yes; canned imported peeled Italian tomatoes instead of one of my fresh-frozen packs made from Greenmarket tomatoes; guanciale from Eataly (oddly pre-sliced, but nonetheless it imparted a great salty-smoky flavour; particularly potent dried red pepper flakes from Buon Italia; and some fancy imported pasta to boot. (Er, no pun intended.) As almost always, I failed to have any pecorino on hand, but no matter: this might be my favorite version so far. The pre-sliced guanciale made for quicker prep time, as did the canned tomatoes; and the slightly fancier pasta held the sauce quite nicely. Next time I might add a glug of white wine to the proceedings, just to give the sauce a little more zip, but that’s a minor quibble. I think for the time being we’ve got ourselves a winner.
PS. Check out the knife on the right hand side in the first photograph — it was a Christmas/birthday gift from my father, an exquisite Santoku chef’s knife from Shun. Slices onions like a dream! (Occasionally also my fingers, but, well, it’s entirely worth it.)
grand street.
I stepped out into the cold night air from the subway stairs at the B/D Grand Street Station stop last night, hat pulled down and jacket zipped right up to the top. As I do pretty much every time I exit that station, I looked over to my left, at the soccer fields in Sara Roosevelt Park, to see what matches might be unfolding. But last night, what an odd and unexpected sight to behold — it was just past 7pm, so the fields were dark, but there, in the center, were two fellows, kicking around a soccer ball. In 12 degree weather. In shorts, with leggings underneath. The snow had been cleared from the field, but remained piled high along the sidelines. The soccer guys appeared oblivious to the icebox in which they were playing.
In warmer weather, I like to take in some of the soccer matches at Sara Roosevelt Park, especially in late summer, as the shadows start to get a wee bit shorter but the late afternoons no longer take on hothouse-like humidity and people no longer look like they’re melting into puddles on the sidewalk. It’s around 6pm or so when the action is best — not only on the fields, but on the sidelines as well, where dozens of old Chinese men congregate — mostly to socialize, it seems, but occasionally to take in the matches, muttering occasional words of approval at a particularly well-placed goal, or nodding at fancy footwork making its way down the field. One afternoon back in early September 2009, I brought Pony, my Yashica, and snapped a few photos of some folks peering in from behind the fence. When I turned around to see what might be happening away from the fields, I saw a diminutive older Chinese woman, surveying an entirely different scene.
Looking at these photographs now, I’m struck by how quiet and still Chinatown feels here, almost as if I have my headphones on and all of the bustle and ambient horn honking is on some sort of strange version of the mute or pause button.
when in soho.
1. Avoid Broadway and Prince Street at all costs, unless you need to use the restrooms at the Apple Store. Or unless you’re on a mom-requested mission to get fancy tinned sardines from Dean and Deluca. (What? Some of us have moms like that.)
2. Find a roundabout way to get to the APC store on Mercer just south of Prince. If they’re having their annual sale, sort through their stock and see what deals you might be able to find. If it’s regular old nowhere-near-a-holiday time, just sigh a lot.
3. Break your vow about avoiding Prince Street long enough to cross it to get to Lure Fishbar, so you can get away from the madding crowd and sit at the bar. Order a glass of wine and a plate of their chicken lollipops. They are excellent. If you’re still hungry, or want something more substantial, order the Lure burger deluxe. It is the closest thing you’ll get to an In-n-Out burger on the east coast (paying, of course, NYC prices. But still! Glorious.)
4. Curse the fact that you’re in Soho for no good reason, and decide that since you’re already here, and despite the fact that you’re stuffed from all that Lure goodness, you need to stop into Grandaisy Bakery, on Sullivan Street just south of Spring, so you can get your not-often-enough fill of their awesome room temperature slices of pizza. Get a pomodoro slice and a patate slice (ask for corner slices; they’re the best, and the folks behind the counter are usually obliging). Consider getting a sandwich, since they’re almost uniformly outstanding (the PMB — pancetta, mango, and basil — is extraordinary), but really, all you need is the pizza and the Sunday paper, and you’re pretty much set. Except for the part where you’re in Soho, and you need to find a way out that doesn’t involve being on Broadway or Prince Street.
5. Accept the fact that maybe you’re just a hapless, fully indoctrinated member of the bourgeoisie, and enjoy your pizza anyway.
my proustian moment (sort of).
My boss very sweetly brought in these macarons from Eli’s last week for my birthday. Though they were all very tasty, I have to admit: after biting into the neon pink one in the front right-ish corner, I was transported back to my childhood, though not to a memory of Maman’s madeleines macarons, but rather, to my mornings with Smurfberry Crunch. Yes. Smurfberry Crunch. No joke. Even my co-worker had a bite and agreed. (And raise your hand if the theme song just came into you head, as it did ours when we realized that we were having the same involuntary taste memory.) It was as hilariously poignant a Proustian moment as you can possibly imagine — crunchy sweet neon red and blue puffed cereal devoured inside the drab, never-fully-sunlit dining room of the condo where I spent my elementary school years. And almost always on a leisurely weekend morning — on weekdays we were too harried to have proper sit-down breakfasts — with mine and my brother’s chairs positioned so that we could see the morning cartoons on the living room TV. Sometimes my parents would come downstairs and insist that we eat eggs, or at least some toast, something with colors actually seen in nature. Occasionally they’d try to get us to eat the puffed rice cereal they had purchased from some vaguely healthier place than the local supermarket, maybe just mix some of it in with that crunchy blue stuff, please?, but we’d resist through and through.
But Maman Mom, ever the Francophile, insisted on referring to the Smurfs as Les Schtroumpfs, which, when you’re eight or ten years old, sounds just as bizarre and goofy as Smurfs does to me now. I’m thinking that that bit of nostalgia would make Proust proud. Until he actually saw the packaging of the cereal in question.
holiday sundays.
Most Sundays I take pretty slowly. Maybe a brunch here, a walk around town there, a glass or two of wine in the late afternoon. But Sundays before Monday holidays are that funny beast where it doesn’t quite feel like a Saturday, but nonetheless has so much expansive potential. Anything is possible on a holiday Sunday!
So this past Sunday involved a failed visit to M.Wells (the line — outside, on a freezing day — was 20 people deep!), a failed visit to the Grand Central Oyster Bar (closed!), and finally a most successful meal at Hill Country Chicken, where waaaaay too much chicken was purchased and then inhaled. (I’ll have photographic evidence of our gluttony, hopefully, in the next few days.) Then it was onto Wogies to watch the second half of the Seahawks-Bears match, nurse a whiskey, and foolishly order some waffle fries (which were good, but again, you’ll have to wait to see the fried chicken photos to understand my folly). A late afternoon nap — it’s a holiday Sunday, after all — and then many rye-based cocktails and some artisanal cheeses over at Dram in Williamsburg. And finally, as holiday Sunday crept into holiday Monday, a Dumont burger, just to gild the lily.
My fuzzy head the next morning was completely worth it.
hong-an tran 