having been read

I walked into work yesterday afternoon, and my boss said, "So, I read your blog..." Eek. My initial reaction was somewhere between embarrassment and mortification. (His response was that it was "nice.") This afternoon I kept wondering why I inwardly panicked at the prospect of having been read. That's the whole point, isn't it? The point of blogging, the point of being a writer, the point of writing. This is not my journal, there's nothing even superficially private about it, and there's not supposed to be. I have the url listed as my website on facebook, I've told people I have a blog, it's not a secret, not anonymous. So why the conflict?

I could write something like, 'I just don't think I have anything interesting to say or worth reading,' or similar, but that's clearly not true if I'm sitting here typing words onto the screen and planning to click the publish button. It's not true if I intend, as I do, to continue writing, not just today, but every day possible until the day I no longer have the mental capacity for it.

Is it fear of criticism? Probably a little. I don't want to be thought of as cute ("oh, that's cute, you have a blog."), but I don't want to be thought of as taking myself too seriously either. That's not meant to be as self-deprecatory as it sounds to me having just written it. I have been in the restaurant business for a long time, and I plan on staying in it for a long time, getting even more involved, in fact, but I know I don't have the necessary expertise to write a real review. What I can do, what I am good at, is analyzing someone else's review, of comparing several pieces of evidence at once, which is what I was attempting (casually) with my last post.

I'm tempted to mention the restaurant by name just so it shows up on my boss's google alerts again, but I think I'll refrain.

My point about the review in Time Out was primarily that it was wishy-washy. He writes that Alex has "tightened her focus," and that the food is "among the most solid Iberian fare in New York," but that the restaurant is "far less inspiring than the sleepers from which it sprang." Perhaps I am unclear about what he means by "sleepers." If her prior two restaurants were/are unexpected successes, saying that the new one is far less inspiring seems nonsensical to me in this context. I understand if one thing is less inspiring than a prior thing, and I understand the prior thing being an unexpected success, but how can something new be less inspiring than something unexpectedly successful? Does the word choice here highlight that the new thing has the potential to be successful but we may not immediately expect it to be so? Is he giving the restaurant the equivalent of crossed fingers? I am questioning his critique on the basis that it is not direct enough.

Anyway, enough about that. I have the urge to write down every word that comes into my head, but this is not the outlet for that. This is the outlet for making (non)sense. Clearly.

it's been a while

Which means I could sit here rambling for a while, but instead I'm going to sum up. In the past two months, I completed PhD applications, decided to take the LSAT (moral support / what the hell), went to Argentina for two weeks with friends, decided at the last minute not to take the LSAT, and got a new job. That's not all, but it's enough.

So, I'm working at a fairly new restaurant, Txikito, cocina vasca, at 240 Ninth Ave b/t 24th and 25th in Chelsea. I have to say: I love it. It's small - way smaller than I'm used to, especially after Dos Caminos Third, which seats 600. The dining room seats 24 give or take, with an additional 10 or so at the bar, which is reserved for full dining when we're busy, which is just about every night from 7:30 to 9 or so. (No reservations necessary, however.) The sides and ceiling are planks from an old barn in New England, with light fixtures that resemble marshmallows and thumbtacks, and a cool bright blue rear wall that really opens up the space. Limestone bar with shiny red barstools. A recent reviewer in Time Out New York called the decor "spartan" and lacking in "snug warmth," but, though it could be regarded as minimalist, when the restaurant is full of people, wine or zurra, and some of "the most solid Iberian fare in New York," the weathered wood and slate gray of the tables and bar serve to highlight the colors that matter -- the focus is on the food, and the decor serves that very well.

Additionally, I wonder what the reviewer meant when he wrote that "The few stools at the bar are the most lively and sociable seats in the house." As communal seating areas, bars do tend to have a more intimate feel than adjacent tables do, but he seems to imply that guests in the dining room are missing out on something by enjoying the company they brought with them. This is not to suggest that those of us behind the bar are not fostering a fun atmosphere -- on the contrary: the whole restaurant is made to feel lively.

Most of the dishes are small plates, minitures of traditionally larger dishes, so that even a table of two can enjoy food the way the Basques intended: a little bit of everything on the table and lots of it. The menu is structured so that a table can and should order two or three things per person, including one or two of the larger options, like the lamb chops (Chuletillas), should they care to. What else he got wrong: the Pintxos ("pinch-os"), or canapes, are much larger than "one bite." The Itsas Mendi is, in fact, a txakoli, but it is not one of the effervescent ones on the menu (which are the Txomin and Ametzoi, the latter of which is served by the glass as well as the bottle). And the Copa de Chocolate is not a "dense bittersweet-chocolate pudding," but a whipped chocolate flan topped with sherry whipped cream. Which is completely amazing and wonderful and goes very nicely with a glass of Vina Salceda, by the way.

To sum up, I must agree with one of the review's commenters, who wrote: "What I don't get, is if you like the food so much, as we all seem to, why so grudging a review. Why not simply celebrate a terrific new restaurant, and a brilliant young chef and her equally brilliant husband/partner, going out on their own."

A few other reviews:
New York Magazine 6 Nov 08, 13 Nov 08, 14 Nov 08, 23 Nov 08, 29 Jan 09 (lunch menu!), and 8 Feb 09 (Valentine's specials).
Serious Eats New York ("The space is just as inviting as the food.").
And Gourmet on 11 Nov 09.

It's just such a pleasure to work in a restaurant where nearly every table audibly loves the food. Mms and Oh-my-god-this-is-amazing, have-you-tasted-this-yet?-you-have-to-try-this's are not rare, do not need to be asked for. "How is everything?" is more often than not answered before it is asked. I know where I'm going on my night off.

couldn't make this shit up

Iraqi Journalist hurls Shoes - note the plural.

Shoe-Hurling Iraqi Becomes Folk Hero - can one become a folk hero after a day?

on or off the wagon

In keeping with my view that everything is and should be contradictory, I'm not going to explain that. Let's just say that at a certain birthday party recently, we went to the Clover Club at 210 Smith St in Brooklyn, a speakeasy-style joint that serves concoctions and cocktails conceived before my grandmother was. I have the Leone: tequila, solerno, peychauds, and something else, martini-style with the peel of an orange bigger than the glass itself and a little side-car on ice to refill my glass. It was delicious and decadent, and only $11. Highly recommended.

These places are hot right now. My friend works at a place in Williamsburg, Hotel Delmano, which is almost identical (but better, of course! and they have Russian Standard Vodka - my favorite!). So today I decide to check out the New York Times, and there's an article on - you guessed it - mixologists and such. I love my job, and I know the servers where I work use their tequila and wine knowledge more than the bartenders get to, but I miss bartending. Maybe it's good that I'm not doing it anymore though. Time to focus on my other career. (One more application to go!)

On the menu tonight

In honor of PhD applications (of which two have been submitted!!), I decided to cook myself up a little feast this evening. I had minestrone to start out with - organic, from a can, added parmesan cheese and a few slices of seasoned focaccia. Then I made enough pasta to serve a large family (leftovers for me!), which contained:

Orechiette Rigate (it means "little ears")
Four cheese tomato sauce
1 Eggplant
1 Zucchini
a small onion
a clove of garlic
basil
and a yellow Beefsteak Tomato (grown locally)

Delicious. And as an accompaniment, I made a little chopped salad of baby spinach, basil, yellow beefsteak tomato, cucumber, and fresh mozzarella with a ton of balsamic vinegar. So good. The salad was bigger than the plate of pasta.

But the most important thing, of course, is that I have submitted two of my six applications. One is six days before the deadline, the other 16! My supplementary materials are all on their way (except one, which is waiting for letters of recommendation to get back to me - why those can't also be online, I have no idea). I've been crazy stressed out the last month, and right now I'm wound tighter than a spring, as they say, but it's not actually that bad. It all comes together when you set your mind to it. This kind of pressure really makes me think. There have been some elements of my life that have been adding stress, perhaps unnecessarily so, if only in the sense that I certainly didn't need them, and there have been these great unexpected inspirational moments that I will never forget.

A few months ago, I went to dinner at Tao, and it was expensive and delicious - decadent! (not the service) - and with dessert (a giant fortune cookie filled with white and dark chocolate mousse and rimmed with sprinkles - highly recommended) they gave us giant fortunes. Mine reads "If you do not know where you are going, any road will do." I still have it hanging on my wall, sprawled across Russia on a small map of the world. At the time I thought it was kind of comforting, and of course it's supposed to be. But what's funny is that I've long had this theory that if you hold on to a fortune for too long, it's reverse becomes apparent. And I'd forgotten my childhood theory until just now, but the fortune had long since - the last few weeks at least - inspired the opposite feeling in me:

If you know where you're going, not any road will do.

That doesn't mean that only one road will do, I would never think that. But it does mean that, especially given as much as I travel, if you know where you're going, you probably know how to get there, or at least can find your way. Maybe that's more to the point: I am absolutely capable of finding my way. I've been on the journey the whole time. Maybe I just forget periodically where I'm going. No, I don't forget. I just get wrapped up in the journey sometimes. I can still enjoy it and stay focused. It's all about balance. Getting this accomplished tonight (this and other things), I haven't felt this balanced in a long time. Just one thing missing.

Update: five of six applications have been submitted. Awesome.

the end is near

That sounds so ominous, jeez. I should retitle this post "the end is in sight" or "almost there" or "so close to the finish line I can taste it." Something like that. Tomorrow after work I'm going to send off five of my six supplementary packets to various departments or admissions offices. Thursday I'm going to rework my personal statement(s) so that I am happy with them. And Saturday I will hit submit six times. That's right: Saturday, November 29. Six days before my first deadline and two and a half weeks before the most important one.

The reworking of my personal statement is absolutely necessary. Right now, it sounds rushed. It sounds like I was trying to say a million things and I had to take out half of them. Which is an accurate portrayal of its writing so far. I barely mention grad school. I don't mention my trip to St Petersburg. And now, as of last Wednesday, I want to include something about my impending trip to Buenos Aires.

Little reward for all this application anxiety: two weeks in the BsAs neighborhood of Recoleta. Which means that after I hit that submit button six times, I have a lot of research to do. It's going to be a writing/researching trip primarily (for most of those involved), but it will definitely be a vacation as well, of course. And since I hadn't been planning on going there before a few weeks ago, I know nothing about the place. But I will.

Back to the s.o.p. I need to incorporate my travels as related to my research interests, and that means I have to be more specific about my research interests. I want to study Cold War-era literature in the context of migration, particularly writers who emigrated to or from Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and the West. How do these different migrations inform the worldview set forth by the authors' narratives? That seems particularly broad, but that's sort of my idea. I want to know what happens when we stop thinking in terms of the Cold War on one hand and postcolonialism on the other hand. That and I find "postcolonial" to be a problematic term for a variety of reasons. I also find the idea that the international situation was dominated by a staring match between two countries out of 190 or so reductive. I'm not denying the influence of these two schemas on the twentieth century (and twenty-first). On the contrary, I wish to explore what is generally accepted as "the way things are/were" because oversimplifying is dangerous business. Question everything. That's what I'm saying.

tmik, tliu

If the abbrev fits...  

I really feel like the application process is designed to make one feel completely inadequate.  On the other hand, that may be because I am not qualified.  I think I'm qualified for one program in particular, however.  (No names.  I don't want to jinx it, even though if you know me, you know which program I'm talking about.  It's something to do with writing, maybe.  If I write it, it will be real, and there's only so much hope - I mean confidence - I can muster.)  I finished a personal statement, but at 1200 words, with two major topics to throw in, I realize I'm supposed to have 500 words.  Talk about concise.  I just wrote a 60-page argument, and now I'm supposed to sell myself to a committee in two pages?  Well, plus the 20-page writing sample that is said 60-pager, but still.  

Anyway, I was journaling just now and actually thought - as if I am used to thinking in proverbs - that the more I know the less I understand, and really my thinking of it is more of the song lyric (Don Henley, which I'm listening to right now, actually), but I couldn't think of Don Henley, so I googled it, and there were all these blurbs of people asking what it meant, so I wrote my version.  

The more I know, the less I understand means that increased knowledge comes (by definition) with the knowledge that there is more beyond it, so it does not mean that the less, quantitatively, I understand, but on the contrary that the more understanding I gain, the more I understand that there is so much more to understand and that I will never understand.  

But we try.