Hawleyblog

I Mad Men-ed Myself

Jean bought the second season of Mad Men on DVD, and she and Dad went through it like shit through a goose. When I talked to Dad on Saturday, they had only the final episode left.

I still have a few episodes from season 1 to catch up on. I loved how season two ended and am eager to see what happens next to Don, Betty, Peggy, Salvatore, Joan, Roger, and even Pete, whom I unexpectedly grew to like as the season drew to a close.

My Mad Men-ed self doesn't look much like me. Then again, Don Draper looks like a big dorkwad and, mercy, he's anything but that. And Joan clearly needs to have bigger cans.

A Visit From John

My friend John is up in the Northeast, visiting from Austin, Texas. He and Hal drove up from New Jersey a week ago yesterday.

John got to meet Rudy for the first time. And he got to see the big-ass kitchen countertop with under-counter storage he and his now ex-wife Joanna (it was a pretty amicable divorce; they still hang out together) gave me when they moved to Texas from Bucks County not long after I moved to Brooklyn. I neglected to take a picture of him with it, though. He was impressed at how precisely it fit between my stove and the wall. I'd measured the space and thought the unit would fit just about right, and I was so thrilled when it actually did. And my Dad was happy too; he'd helped me bring it up to New York from Pennsylvania in his pickup.

Anyhow, enough about my stupid kitchen. John, Hal, Bob, and I (we all know each other from college, and we were all editor in chief of the student newspaper but not consecutively) went to brunch about midday Sunday. We were going to go to Dizzy's, a favorite breakfast spot of mine. But the wait was going to be 15 to 20 minutes, and John said he'd rather go to Donuts Luncheonette, a place a short distance away that has inferior food but that would certainly be able to seat us right away.

We all got breakfasty-type stuff, blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs, and such. Toward the end of the meal, John bit down on a piece of metal wire in his food. Ack! I didn't point out that that never would have happened had we gone to Dizzy's. He and Hal hadn't had anything to eat all day, so I can understand why speed was more important than quality.

After a little while, John, Hal, and I went to Alphabet City to hang out with Abby, who was John's girlfriend when John and I shared the top floor of a house in Trenton in the mid-90s. She and her boyfriend, Adam, are on a street hockey team, the Denim Demons, that plays in Tompkins Square Park. As of this writing, the Demons are ranked third in the BTSH—Black Top Street Hockey—league. The teams refuel at the East Village Tavern after their games, and that's where John, Hal, and I met up with Abby.

The EVT has an impressive selection of beers. Hal offered to get the first round, and I opted for a Blue Point Blueberry, which I'd enjoyed for the first time about a year ago. We could see the bar from our table. Hal and some preppy-frat-boy-looking guy* were chatting and giving each other high-fives, and a few minutes later, Hal brought our beers over. He told us that that guy had paid for our round of drinks. He couldn't remember the guy's name. He said he wasn't used to guys buying him drinks.

A couple of minutes later, the preppy dude walked past our table and Hal motioned for him to come over. John and I thanked him for the drinks and introduced ourselves. He gave his name as Zach and moved on pretty quickly.

John and I finished our beers before Hal did. I told Hal he needed to go work his mojo on Zach so the dude would buy us another round. Hah! Zach seemed to have had a lot to drink, and maybe he was just in seeking-out-bros mode. And maybe his parents pay off his credit card for him every month. Or he's a trust fund kid. Or maybe he found Hal to be irresistible. :-)

It was fun hanging out with Abby. She's a really good dancer; that was her major at Rutgers. She's since gone the direction of a surprising number of people I know and is now a librarian for the New York Public Library. (In the photo, Adam is in the red T-shirt; John is at right. It's not the best picture in the world. I took about 20 candid shots and one posed shot of John and Abby and this one was the most fun/least crappy.)

John brought me a great selection of MP3s to add to my iTunes. I'll write more about them in my next all-music post, but I have to mention Todd Snider's "Conservative Christian, Right-Wing, Republican, Straight, White American Males" now. It's an awesome song and one that's particularly germane to this post, considering that the dudes I referenced in the footnote almost certainly all grew up to be them. The lyrics are great; I especially love that the CCRWRSWAMs are all categorized as "regional leaders of sales." Hah!

Hal and John decided that they wanted to catch a movie that night back in Jersey, but they had time to get dinner with me. Since John was in the mood for Italian food, we went to the go-to pasta joint in my hood, Sotto Voce, which I've been to so many times I shouldn't even have to look at the menu anymore.

It was great hanging out with Mr. Robinson. He and Hal should both move to the city. Hal is actually talking about doing that. He said a lot of the women he was paired up with on a dating site were in Brooklyn. And his eyes always pop out of his head, just like my Dad's, when he's checking out the women in my neighborhood.

While I was in the bathroom at one point, though, John was working on convincing Hal to move to Austin. No way! John tends to go back and forth between Texas and New Jersey every few years, and it's totally time for him to move back up here. Word.

Now, a couple more photos:

John in front of one of the lioness statues at the entrance to Prospect Park near my building

And Hal acting thoughtful at Donuts

*He reminded me of the Princeton University dudes we'd see when those of us working at the crappy newspaper in town would go to the Tap Room—excuse me, the Yankee Doodle Tap Room, oy—at the Nassau Inn to see Ken's band, Red-Headed Boogie Child, perform. Only this guy didn't have a backwards baseball cap on his head. And, I reckon, no Rohypnol in his pocket.

The Flowers of Summer

Yesterday's flowers from the Greenmarket: red and white asters. 

 

The week before that, I thought about getting blackberry lilies, whose name comes from the appearance of its seed clusters, not its flowers:

But I wanted a nice and showy bouquet, something to cheer me up when I came home late from work during my busiest week of the production cycle. And the "lilies," which are really irises, didn't look like they'd put on much of a show. It is fun that the flowers twist themselves up once they're done for, though.

Instead, I got two different bunches of flowers: green-colored zinnias and green lace flowers.

 

I went with that combo mainly because of the gorgeous zinnia at right in the top photo. Unfortunately, I didn't trim any of the flowers nor give them a fresh cut until just before I went to bed that Sunday, and the zinnias suffered for it. I had to compost all but three. At least the prettiest one survived. The green lace flowers look like Queen Anne's lace but I don't know whether that's what they are. Some of the flower clusters were greenish-white, and some were white-white. I couldn't find much on the Google to help me out; I found a lot of embroidery and craft sites instead. And I found this pretty variety of primula.

Those suckers went to seed really fast. A bunch of the seeds ended up on top of my entertainment unit. And when I shook the flowers on my fire escape, another mess of seeds rained down.

And speaking of lacy flowers, I took a picture of some really purty blue flowers that looked sorta lacy in the neighborhood a little while ago.

The week before that, I had on display some sunflowers that I got from Mood's Farm Market on the way back home from Gran's house. The gal who waited on me was supersweet and wrapped a wet paper towel around the ends of the stems to help keep the flowers happy. I don't know when I'll be passing by there next, but if I want to pick up something at a farm market on the way to or back from Gran's (and I pass by several on my route), I'll be stopping at Mood's. Customer service!

I love the ones that are all yellow except for the green center.

And the week before that, I bought calendula and yellow yarrow.

And finally, I went back and took some more photos of the tulip tree once the flowers had dropped and the seed pods had formed. I love that buttery lighting at the top.

A Fun Long Weekend With Family, Friends, and the Woofers in South Jersey, Part III

I meant to post this series of pictures of Granny and Rudy in one of my first two AFLWWFFATWISJ posts:

***

And I also meant to tell this little story:

After dinner Sunday evening, I said I was sure glad I didn't have to drive back to Brooklyn that night. Dad said that that was why we never went too many places when Tracey and I were kids: because he always hated the drive back. I said I'd have to tell Tracey that the reason we never did anything fun when we were kids is because we'd have to come home. *sigh* I asked Dad, What did you want to do instead of driving back from the shore? Turn into sand crabs? He laughed. I told Tracey this story in an e-mail and she (sarcastically, of course) replied that that was "a great reason we never went anywhere as kids."

***

And while I'm at it, here are a few more photos:

The breakfast of champions: Blueberry Cake and a bloody Mary

Rudy leaving tracks in the sand on the way to Higbee Beach

Yellow rose of Jersey (in Dad's garden)

And one more of Dad's comic books

Sodomy Rules

On Saturday night, Jack and Bill G. from the Gamesters group and I saw a one-man show called Sodomy Rules: The Bowers v. Hardwick Trial that was part of Fresh Fruit Festival, a GLBT arts and culture festival that's running from July 9–26. It was written and performed by Bill Crouch, a friend of artsy Gamesters host Mark who'd stopped by on game day a few weeks ago to plug his show. Bill C. said SR was about the abominable U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1986 that found Georgia's sodomy law to be constitutional. A person convicted of sodomy in that state could be jailed for 20 years for having sex in the privacy of his or her own home!

I found the show to be both entertaining and enlightening. The script, which you'd never suspect was Bill C.'s first work as a playwright, provides lots of information without ever seeming pedantic. And he did loads of research, interviewing everyone involved in the case who's still alive; sadly, Michael Hardwick died in 1991 due to complications from AIDS.

Bill C. takes on the roles of all of the major players, including Hardwick himself, a courageous bartender who fought the law after he was arrested in his own bedroom for engaging in oral sex with his boyfriend. Under the statute in question, sodomy was defined as any sexual act other than penis-into-vagina penetration. Of course, no heterosexual had been prosecuted for the crime in many decades at the time of Hardwick's arrest. And he wasn't actually prosecuted either. The district attorney declined both to drop the charge and to bring the case before a grand jury. Hardwick's lawyers filed suit in an attempt to get the law ruled unconstitutional, and the 11th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals found in his favor. Michael Bowers, Georgia's attorney general, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Bill C. does a great job of bringing the case to life. I especially enjoyed his switching back and forth between Assistant Attorney General Michael Hobbs, who presented the state's case because Bowers was, no joke, busy making time with his mistress*; various Supreme Court justices; and Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe, who presented a terrific minimialist-government argument to counter Hobbs's family-values bullshit.

I learned some interesting tidbits about the case that I'd never heard before. In addition to the fact that Bowers was committing adultery while trying to prosecute a gay man on a morals charge, I learned that Hardwick had been beaten by three men just days before his arrest. He thought they were connected to Keith Torick, the police officer who'd given him a ticket for drinking in public earlier that month and who seemed to be out to get him. Torick wrote the wrong court-appearance date on the ticket and tried to arrest Hardwick at his home before the day of the beating for failing to show up in court. Torick claimed he had nothing against gays, but he told Bill C. that Hardwick needed to learn who was in charge. And he admitted that he let several seconds pass while he watched Hardwick and his lover have sex before he made his presence in Hardwick's bedroom known.

I also learned that the swing vote on the court, Justice Lewis Powell, changed his mind at the last minute based on an appeal from one of his clerks, a devout Mormon named Michael Mosman. Those goddamned Mormons always fuck up everything for the queers, don't they?

Though the Georgia sodomy law was declared unconstitutional six years later in relation to a heterosexual statutory rape case, Bowers v. Hardwick effectively made consensual homosexual sex a legally unprotected act until it was overturned by Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003. And in the extensive timeline Bill C. provided to all showgoers, he noted that the case was frequently used to deny custody to gay or lesbian parents in states that had sodomy laws on the books.

After the show, Jack, Bill G., and I went to The Dish, a big gay diner in Chelsea. Bill G. said Bill C. should put on the show in Atlanta, and I said I thought that was a terrific idea and he should suggest that to Bill C. The show is really something special and deserves to have a life beyond its two-day run at FFF.

At the Gamesters gathering Bill C. came to, photo-crazy host Mark asked us guys if some of us would mind taking our shirts off so we could do an homage to the Petticoat Junction opening credits. Hell, I've taken my pants off for less of a reason than that. Here's one of the resulting photographs, taken by Jack. That's Mark to my right. Mike is on the other side of Mark, and Kevin is to my left.

We also posed with Bill C., who kept his shirt on, and the postcards he brought advertising his show. My eyes look awfully glinty in this shot, but it was my favorite of the ones Mark sent me, probably because, at Mark's direction, we're all groping Bill C. And I love everyone else's expressions.

*Anti-gay scolds were every bit as hypocritical in the 1980s as they are today.

A Fun Long Weekend With Family, Friends, and the Woofers in South Jersey, Part II

After breakfast on Sunday, Dan, Paul, and I took Emme and Rudy to Higbee Beach, where you no longer can take your wiener out of your trunks but you can still take your wiener dog out for a swim.

It was a pretty long walk from the truck to the patch of sand we claimed. E&R drank a whole lot of water and then settled in under the beach umbrellas.

It didn't take long for Rudy's perpetually drooly mouth to get caked with sand. As Dan pointed out, he even had some sand-and-saliva stalactites hanging down from his lower jaw. Poor little fellow.

And I had to keep a close eye on the girl to make sure she didn't eat something that was going to make her sick. Or at least that would have made sick an ordinary dog that doesn't have Emme's cast-iron constitution.

Me (sternly): "Emme, have you been hunting for things to eat in the sand?"

Emme (with a lisp because of the sand on her tongue): "Unh-unh."

At one point, I decided to go for a walk and told the pooches to stay put. After I'd gone several hundred feet, I realized that Rudy was right behind me. We walked a little farther, and Paul came trotting over with Rudy's leash. He said he'd only closed his eyes for a minute and panicked when he opened them and saw Rudy wasn't there. (Dan had already closed his eyes and was napping or at least trying to nap.) My boy is so devoted. He didn't want me to get out of his sight (or, more likely, smelling range) for long.

Dan had made sandwiches for the three of us, and when it was lunchtime, I asked him if he wanted me to have Rudy carry his sandwich over to him in his mouth. Ha!

I didn't want to stay on the beach too late because Dad had said he was going to be making barbecue chicken for dinner and I didn't want to push back dinnertime past 6. Alec and Sam showed up not too long before I'd planned to split. Paul offered to drive me back so Dan could hang out on the beach longer with the guys.

The walk back to the truck was awful because the sand had gotten terribly hot. I had sandals on but they didn't stop sand from getting in under my feet. Paul's bare feet were burning up, and poor Rudy stopped at one point and cried while holding up an overheated paw. Eventually, we got to a shaded part of the path and got some relief.

I'm glad Rudy was able to go to the beach this time, but I don't think I'll be taking him back anytime soon. He's not a beachy kinda dog. He wouldn't go in the water despite Dan's attempts to lure him there. And both he and Emme are so low to the ground that they really get socked by the heat rising up from the sand.

I'd gotten the car pretty much packed up before we left for Higbee Beach so the kids and I got on our way fairly quickly after we got back to the campground. Paul suggested I go back directly via Route 47 rather than pick up 47 from the Parkway. I liked that way better even though it might not be quite as fast. I believe I was on only three different roads the whole way from Cape May to Bridgeton.

Ooh, I'm reminded of something else Paul said that weekend: He claimed that Cape May is actually south of Washington, DC. What what what? Can that be? The best answer I could find on the Internets was this blurb that originally ran in the Atlantic City Press a few years ago; Cape May and Washington are at similar latitudes but the southernmost part of the nation's capital is father south than the southernmost part of Cape May County. I would never have guessed they were even that close latitudewise.

After I got the dogs watered and fed and got myself cleaned up at Granny's house, I drove her over to Dad's. Along with the chicken, Dad made chicken-flavored rice from a package and delicious corn on the cob from Rottkamp Farms, which is one of the farms listed in the Farm to Fork directory at SJHotChefs.com. My friend Diane, whom I went to grade school and high school with, married into the Rottkamp family. Regina Rottkamp was in our class; she passed away not long after we graduated from high school. Diane is married to Regina's brother Gerry.

Jean's daughter Debbie, son-in-law Brian, and granddaughter Livia were visiting from western Pennsylvania. They'd spent the day in Ocean City, New Jersey, and came home earlier than expected, so Dad didn't have enough food for them too. Had he known ahead of time they weren't eating on the boardwalk like they'd planned to do, he could have made more chicken and four different kinds of starches instead of only two. Zing!*

Here's a picture of Debbie, Livia, and Grammy Jean:

After dinner, we went out to look at Dad's garden. We picked some tomatoes and Dad pulled up some beets for me to bring back with me. Then Dad, Gran, and I went to get some frozen custard/ice cream and bring back a shake for Debbie.

After we watched a little TV, I drove Granny back down the road to her place. Dad was going fishing in the Delaware Bay the next morning with his cousin Buddy, so Gran and I were going to be on our own for breakfast.

We went to the Golden Pigeon diner out by Carlls Corner, and Gran, of course, got what I got: French toast, orange juice, and coffee. We were going to go to the Green Olive but found it was closed; it doesn't open until 10 on Monday.

I got Gran a few things at the nearby ShopRIte. Her blood sugar has been high lately, and I wanted to get her some things to snack on besides raisins, which she's been eating a handful of every time she wants a little something between meals. I got her some Stonyfield Farm yogurts, which have less sugar than most fruit-flavored brands. And I got her some peanut butter. I wanted to buy the all-natural, no-sugar kind but Gran got grossed out by the oil floating on top and wanted no part of it.

After we got home, I started packing up the car. The ride home was pretty uneventful. When I called Dad to let him know I got back OK, he was making sure seagulls didn't grab any of the flounder he and Buddy had caught while Buddy was in the process of cleaning the fish. They'd had a good day and both of them caught many more than they could keep. If a flounder isn't 18 inches long, you have to throw it back.

And now, here comes the inevitable string of photos that wouldn't fit around the words:

That's Brian holding Livia, and that's Dad's hand grabbing onto Livia's cute little foot.

Granny eating her French toast at the diner

Some carnations I picked up for Granny at the grocery store. I bet the rose-colored vase they're in is older than Dad. I think it might be the one that the guy at the furniture store threw in for free when he found out Gran and Pop were newlyweds.

I've always loved this bush that's right outside Granny's backdoor. It gets absolutely loaded with small white flowers. Maybe my horticultural adviser Will knows what it is.

Coreopsis in Dad's garden. The soil in Cumberland County is generally very sandy.

Every time I visit, there's at least one new thing in the upstairs, back bedroom I sleep in at Granny's. This time, there were several new things that Gran had dragged out from who-knows-where:

Hardy Boy books from my childhood. I was always partial to Joe because he was the younger brother and Frank could be a pompous dick.

Some of Dad's 1940s-era comic books:

A couple of back-cover ads. The biggest license plate is for Iran:

And there were a couple of Pop's hats from many decades ago. This one was my favorite:

Very dapper. And too small for my big ol' head.

*As I've noted on the blog before, my Dad is not a fan of most fruits or vegetables. And I feel a need to zing him about it every so often.

A Fun Long Weekend With Family, Friends, and the Woofers in South Jersey, Part I

On Friday, I drove the woofers down to South Jersey to visit the family in and around Bridgeton and my buddies Dan and Paul in Cape May. When I'd made the plans with D&P, I'd expected to kennel the dogs, take a train to Trenton, and catch a ride to the shore with the guys. And I'd suggested to Dad that he, Jean, and Gran could drive into Cape May on Saturday and have dinner with us. But I was foiled in my plan to board Emme and Rudy at my veterinary office and in my backup plan to have dog walker Rebecca house-sit with them. So I decided to bite the bullet, rent a car, and haul my ass down to South Jersey on my own gasoline.

I was due for a trip to Cumberland County. I went down a couple of times in December for Christmas-related visits and in February for Mom and Gran's birthdays and haven't ventured south of Seaside Heights since. And I was eager to see what Rudy would make of the ocean.

Years ago, I took Emme and Cody down to Cape May with the fellows. Emme was a bitch toward one or more of Dan and Paul's girls,* so I haven't asked to bring my dogs down again. But my hands were tied this time. I told the guys I'd put Emme in her crate the minute she started acting up, if she started acting up, but D&P decided to leave Claire and Missy with Petey in Trenton.

On Thursday night, I baked a variation of my often-made Peach Cake** using blueberries instead of peaches. As you can see in the photo at left, I made two of them so there would be some for everyone who drops over to D&P's trailer around breakfast time on a given weekend. And that's usually several people, including teenagers and early-20-somethings with big appetites. The cakes were ready to go into the oven for the first time when I took the picture.

I got a later start than I'd wanted to on Friday and hit a good deal of traffic in Staten Island and on the New Jersey Turnpike. So Dad, Jean, Gran, and I didn't leave for dinner at—where else?—the Green Olive until 7. I was in the mood for pasta, so I ordered angel hair with meat sauce. And for dessert, I got a piece of mass-produced but decent red velvet cake.

The next morning, Dad brought coffee and danishes over to Granny and me for breakfast. And then I loaded up the kids and headed off to Cape May.

I'd asked Dad to write down directions for me. He gave me a couple of options using MapQuest as a starting point and supplementing it with notes of landmarks and a hand-drawn map. At one point, the route I chose involved driving on 347, which my Dad said is the most dangerous road in South Jersey. I can't find anything on the Net to verify that claim, but I can say that I saw two drivers acting like morons during the less than 10 minutes I was traveling on it. N.J. Route 347, which connects Cumberland and Cape May counties, has a lot of curves, and some people apparently like to speed on it while passing as many cars as they can in as little time as possible. Fuckers!

I got sidetracked only briefly, just outside of Cape May, when I thought I was heading in the wrong direction but wasn't. I checked into the campground about 10:20. The fellows were just starting to make breakfast. We (including young'uns Alec, Luke, and Sam) had coffee and bloody Marys (just us legal adults), blueberry cake, pork roll, and eggs.

Then we headed to the Cape May city beach. It was mighty windy, so we didn't stay out on the beach very long before heading to the newly reopened Rusty Nail at the Beach Shack for lunch and liquid refreshments. Before we left, Paul offered a tip on ensuring your beach umbrella doesn't get toppled by the wind: Remove the point from the business end of the pole before sinking it into the sand. That enables the pole to be surrounded by sand both inside and outside and makes for a windproof shade.

That night, D&P, Sam, Alec, and I played Michigan rummy after a dinner of barbecued chicken, frying peppers, and corn on the cob, all cooked on the grill by Dan; green beans, prepared by Paul on the trailer's stove; watermelon; and (Pepperidge Farm) chocolate chip cookies. I'd never played that card game before. It was fun. And we played just for fun, with pennies and assorted trinkets as the loot.

As usual, Paul had the radio set to a station that plays all '80s music on the weekends. So we heard some good songs by Billy Squier, Duran Duran, and Culture Club and some songs I maybe didn't need to hear again, like "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo. "You're moving in circles / Won't you dilate?" Say what?

Emme and Rudy were perfect angels that night, and I couldn't have been prouder. I stacked their crates next to my pull-out bed in the trailer, and they didn't make a peep until I got up. D&P said Missy and Claire would have been whining to go outside two hours earlier.

I'll wrap up the first part of this post with some more photos, starting with the rummy players.

 

Alec

Sam

Paul

and Danny Boy

Here's a purple-and-green kid's bike with training wheels I was admiring. It was parked near the big bike rack where we always lock up our bicycles before heading out onto the sand. Paul didn't think I was cool enough to pull off this ride. Damn him and his negativity! :-)

A bit of Rudy outside the trailer and Emme with Paul's calves inside the trailer

And finally, here's a shot of Emme's rear end pressed up against her cage just before I went to sleep.

*I remember her being particularly nasty toward Okie but the guys recall it being Missy and/or Claire. I'm probably right. :-)

**This post brings more Web surfers to Hawleyblog than anything else I've written except for the post on the artist Charles Harper (whom I really should have called Charley) and the posts in which I've used the acronym TITC for Thanksgiving in the Country. Those posts draw non-native-English-speaking straight guys looking for "titc" when they should be looking for "tits." And they find stories about a country house tour written by a gay man who's not really a go-to source for booby pictures.

A Quick Follow-up Food and Drink Post With Big D and a Botanical Question

Yesterday at lunchtime, I met Desirée at the Union Square Greenmarket. She picked up a bunch of stuff to make for dinners during the coming week. I didn't buy much because I'm going to South Jersey for the weekend to visit family and to hang out with Dan and Paul in Cape May. I can't wait to see Rudy at the beach. That's gonna be awesome.

I gave Desirée crap about not blogging lately, and I pointed out how it's ironic that her most recent post, from April, on one of her blogs is called "The Pull of the Blog." Hah! I'm such a d-bag sometimes.

We got lunch at a Chipotle just off the square and before we crossed the street to go there, I noticed the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck over to our left on the other side of the street. How's that for a coinkydink?

D wasn't very cooperative about letting me take a picture of her for my stupid blog. I think this one's a good one, though.

 

I love you, Big D! We have to hit the Shack sometime soon. And bring your sweet hubby!

Some gorgeous salad mix with nasturtiums. D and I both bought a little of this.

***

All of the farmstands at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket except for one haven't had strawberries for a couple of weeks now. Williams Fruit Farm, which is in Ulster County, New York, and not on the Web, has still had big, very ripe strawberries the past two Saturdays. I wonder whether they're Tribute everbearing strawberries. I'll have to ask if they still have them a week from tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, during the height of the season for June-bearing strawberries, the Greenmarket's own stand posted some trivia questions about this popular fruit on their tent poles. Ah, but is it really a fruit?

I thought the answer was that it's a fruit but it's a special kind of fruit called a compound fruit that's made from several flowers.

I'm not sure that's correct, though after I read it, I did recall hearing that the seeds are the true fruits within the strawberry. Quick, to the Internet, where lots of potentially stupid people can weigh in on the topic!

My answer was sort of right, but my definition of a compound fruit was wrong. A compound fruit develops from several ovaries; the ovaries may come from one or more flowers. And strawberries are specifically the aggregate type of compound fruit, meaning they develop from one flower that has multiple pistils. (A pistil consists of an ovary and a stigma, which is the part that collects the pollen.) Strawberries are also accessory, or false, fruits because the fleshy "fruity" part that we like to eat develops not from the ovary tissue but from nearby tissue. The "seeds" of the strawberry, as the Greenmarket's answer said, are the actual fruits, botanically known as achenes. (Multiple fruits is synonymous with compound fruits.) This page from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas says the flesh of the wild strawberry "is actually the central portion of the flower," or receptacle. I think it's more accurate to say, though, that the strawberry develops from the receptacle. So even though the strawberry flesh may be a "false" fruit, let's still call the whole thing—the achenes plus the part that comes from the receptable—a fruit. Agreed? Good.

A Food and Drink Post With More of Everything I've Been Writing About Lately

I missed the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck at the Brooklyn Pride festival. I went to the gym in the late afternoon and figured I'd be able to hit the truck for an after-workout treat on the way home. But all of the vendors were gone or packing up by the time I got to the festival location on Prospect Park West near Bartel Pritchard Square. That night, I went to Excelsior (which I learned on Jeopardy! the other night is the motto of the state of New York) and on the way spotted the BGICT outside Ginger's Bar. I got a chocolate-vanilla-swirl soft-serve cone, and it was so gay! How do I know? Because it left my mouth all creamy. Hah!

***

I've made cupcakes twice since my last all-food-and-drink-related post. The first, double batch was for Eugene's and Joyce's birthdays in late June: Marble Cupcakes With Dark Chocolate Frosting. The recipes for both of the components came from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes; if the cake recipe is on Martha Stewart's Web site, it's well hidden. You make a yellow cake batter and add a cocoa–boiling water mixture to about half of it to make the chocolate batter.

Eugene invited a bunch of his friends to a potluck picnic at the Celebrate Brooklyn concert the night of his birthday. The performers were Afro-funk groups Melvin Gibbs' Elevated Entity and Femi Kuti & the Positive Force. Between all of the yakking and eating, I didn't catch much of the music until near the end of the night, but one song that stood out for me was Kuti's "Beng Beng Beng."

Eugene said the cake tasted like corn, and I said I'd noticed the same thing. I'd used a soft-wheat pastry flour that's lighter than all-purpose flour but heavier than cake flour. I'd also detected the corn flavor in the Chocolate Chip Cupcakes, which had also called for cake flour. I'd bought the pastry flour at Back to the Land and assumed it was the same thing as cake flour. Well, I've definitely learned my lesson about that now.

I couldn't taste corn at all in those cupcakes that ended up consisting of slightly more chocolate cake than yellow cake. And the frosting was good enough to make up for any other glitches. It's got two hits of chocolate in it: melted semisweet chips and the same cocoa–boiling water combo that's in the chocolate cake batter.

I took another dozen into work the next day, Friday, for Joyce's birthday, which fell on that coming Sunday. Joyce said she took it as a good sign that the day before I'd posted on my Facebook wall that "Bill Hawley loves the smell of yellow-cake batter." :-) 

There's Eugene holding a cupcake as the sun was setting slowly in the West near the Bandshell.

A pan of cupcakes before it went into the oven

And the two chocolates that went into the frosting. The melted chocolate chips are on the left.

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I made the second batch of cupcakes for the Gamesters group this past Sunday and for the Schultieses. And so I could finish up the chocolate frosting, which Martha wrote would last for 10 days in the fridge. I decided to go with a pure vanilla cupcake flavored by vanilla beans, and I found a promising recipe online. And I liked how the cakes turned out. They're rather white because the batter's got only one egg in it. They maybe could have been slightly moister. I didn't have enough frosting for all of them, so I ended up eating three plain. The consistency reminded me a little of shortcake biscuits. Certainly not that dry but headed in that general direction.

As I previewed in my most recent post, I decided to put the icing in the middle of the cake like one of Michael's teachers had done. Rather than cut off part of the already frosted cupcake and smoosh it on the top, I first cut the cupcakes in half like buttermilk biscuits and then put the frosting purposefully in the middle.

While I was in transit to the Gamesters group, some guy on the subway commented that they looked like sausage biscuits, and they certainly do.

Bob e-mailed me to tell me the cupcakes were "yumma." I asked whether I'd managed to prevent Abbe and Zane from eating only the frosting. He replied: "Zane ate about 3/4 the way intended. Abbe took off the top, ate it and then began licking licking licking."

***

I made a good Raspberry Vinaigrette using fresh raspberries from the farmers market a couple of Fridays ago for pizza night. The next day, I made another batch of it and liked this version a good deal better.

I blended together a pint and a quarter* of raspberries, 1/4 cup of water, and a couple teaspoons of sugar. I poured that through a strainer to remove the seeds and into a bowl and whisked in 1/4 cup of canola oil and 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Outstanding.

***

Twice last weekend, I had the same meal, once for lunch and once for dinner, and it was a humdinger: a pork-and-beef burger, oven fries with fresh parsley and steamed summer squash. Mmmm.

***

My new plan for Huge Pooch Homemade Ice Cream was to sell it at the Park Slope Farmers' Market on 5th Avenue. I spoke with the woman who handles new vendors for Community Markets and she seemed enthusiastic about offering ice cream at the market. She said I'd need a 20C license from the state and I'd probably have to produce the ice cream in an inspected professional kitchen. She said I could most likely find a way to buy some time in such a kitchen and she sent me via e-mail some more information and an application for selling at the market. It's all very daunting. There are many hoops to jump through, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. But I'd still like to go forward—if not for this season, then to have things lined up for next year.

In the meantime, I made a single batch of Black Raspberry Ice Cream this week. I liked it, though I think it could have used more half and half and less fruit. It was slightly gummy and not as creamy as I'd have liked. But like a very similar flavor of ice cream I've made many times before, Blackberry, it sure was pretty. Especially when sprinkled with a few fresh black raspberries.

*I reckon an even pint would work fine, but for some reason that I can't recall now, I used a pint and a quarter.

A Visit to New Jersey With a Review of LocoRoco 2 Thrown In

On Friday, I took a lightning-fast trip to New Jersey to hang out with Mike and Matt, Dad, and Granny. Dad, Jean, and Granny had been taking care of M&M while Tracey and David were on vacation in Italy. Jean had left for a family reunion out near Pittsburgh earlier in the week, and Tracey and David were due back that evening about 7 or 7:30.

I arrived in Ridgewood a little after 11, and until that morning, I'd been counting on staying long enough to at least welcome T&D back. But when I'd looked at the train schedule again that morning, selecting the holiday listing for specifically July 3—as opposed to a generic holiday schedule, which follows the weekend schedule—I saw that the last train leaving from Ridgewood was at 7. That meant we were going to have to pack more fun into a smaller time frame, and to me, nothing says fun quite like cupcakes and video games.

None of us was very hungry for lunch right away, so first we wandered around town a little. And then, after Granny announced that she couldn't walk anymore, we sat in the car for a while. The boys took turns playing LocoRoco 2 on my PlayStation Portable while the other guy played Kirby Super Star Ultra, a game for the Nintendo DS that I'd gotten the twins for Christmas and that they're still enjoying. They'd both had a lot of fun with the original LocoRoco on my PSP a couple of Christmases ago. And ARROHK, I raved about the original game in a post in which I predicted I'd buy LocoRoco 2 as soon as it came out. And I did. But I didn't start playing it right away because I was still too addicted to and trying to beat every table in the PSP game the Gerbers had given me for Christmas, Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection. (My favorite tables: Genie, Goin' Nuts, and Tee'd Off.)

Now I'm totally hooked. LR2 is very much like the first LR in terms of gameplay: You roll, bounce, and slide your way around a level, finding Mui Muis and growing in size as you eat orange fruits. Platforming is mixed with exploration as you jump into hidden areas and try to eat every berry possible and leave no prizes behind. New to LR2 are the rhythm minigames that kick in at various places in a level: You press the circle button when a moving musical note covers the outline of notes that appeared on the screen. And there are several new minigames you can play in between levels in the main game, including a Defender-like scrolling shooter.

As in LR, the music is fantastic and the character designs are, for the most part, incredibly cute. My favorite new creature in LR2 is the one that looks like an otter; if you let him grab ahold of you while you're trying to swim past him, he'll carry you up to the surface and break you apart with a rock. Heh heh.

I'm more than halfway done with the main game, and I'm trying to stretch the experience out a little by occasionally replaying older levels before moving on to the next unlocked one.

Once we all felt like we could eat lunch, we went to our usual spot in Ridgewood, Natalie's Bakery & Pasta House. Mike and I both got what I ordered the last time we were there: Pasta Franco. Matt tried some of ours, and he said he would order it the next time he went there. Does Uncle Bill have good taste or what? :-)

There was a huge cupcake in the display case of desserts, one that was big enough to serve probably five people. Gran asked one of the waitresses how much it was, and she said about $25. We all had to get cupcakes for dessert, of course. Dad and Gran split a red velvet, and the boys and I split a large, but not huge, chocolate with mint icing. Man, was it good.

Mike said that one of his teachers used to cut off half of the cake part of a cupcake and smoosh it on top of the icing to try to get kids to actually eat the cake part rather than just lick off the icing and throw out the cake. That story served as inspiration for my latest batch of cupcakes, which I baked on Sunday and which I'll write about in my next post devoted entirely to food and drink.

After lunch, we went to the Gerbers' house and just generally took it easy. The boys and I played games on the Wii, and they played some more LR2. And I petted on Miss Molly Girl.

I caught the 6:30-ish train in Ridgewood and got back to Brooklyn in time to have our usual La Villa pizza and red wine with Bob and Jen and guests Mike and Gina.

And now, to end this post like I usually do, with some bonus photos:

The gang at Natalie's

Matt plays LR2 while Mike watches.

And finally, here's me giving some love to best girlfriend Molly.