Hawleyblog

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving, Dad, Jean, Granny, and I all went to the Gerbers' house. Tracey cooked the turkey and, with some help/hindrance :-) from the rest of us, made most of the side dishes.

Jean brought chocolate cream and pumpkin pies. Yum.

I made Bill's Browned Brussels Sprouts and an orangy cranberry sauce, the recipe for which I got from Martha. It's basically sugar, water, cranberries, orange zest, and orange juice. The boys helped/hindered me with it, but they wouldn't eat it and said the corn syrup–loaded kind from the can is much better. Dad said he liked "the taste," which meant he wouldn't eat it because it wasn't smooth. *sigh* And this time, Mike wouldn't eat the Brussels sprouts even though he said he liked them OK when I made them the last time I visited the Gerbers. And Matt "tried" one by holding it up to his mouth and putting his tongue on it for a nanosecond. I need a foodie family of dog lovers with a handsome gay best friend to adopt me. Please!

Everything was delicious, and the leftovers were even better. Tracey made oven-baked mashed-potato cakes crusted with panko bread crumbs and heated up individual portions of her stuffing in a muffin pan. Mmmm.

On Thanksgiving afternoon, we started putting up the Gerbers' Christmas tree. They put the ornaments on that evening as the rest of us watched. It was fun seeing the same battle being played out between Tracey and the boys that she and I used to have as kids. Like me, Matt and Mike wanted to put the homemade ornaments in the front, but my unsentimental sister insisted they go in the back.

On Black Friday, we went to a mall, not because we're insane but so I could try the food at Bobby's Burger Palace, which M&M said has the best burgers of all time and puts 5 Guys Burgers and Fries to shame. My verdict? I did like both my hamburger and the fries a little better than 5 Guys'. Because the boys had said you could get all kinds of weird stuff on your burger, I had assumed BBP had a board with a list of toppings, like 5 Guys. But it's got a selection of burgers that you can make additions to or deletions from. I got a boring Palace Classic, hold the cheese. Pictured at left is Tracey's L.A. Burger, with avocado and watercress. Two more things that put BBP over the top: You can get your burger cooked to order, and it's served on a real plate. Woot!

After we ate, we walked around the Bergen Town Center mall a little, including the Target. And then, at my suggestion, we walked around Ridgewood, which has a wonderful, actual town center. I got a pair of jeans and a cool shirt at Lucky. On the way back to the car, I snapped a picture of a chipmunk that I saw emerge from a little pipe in a wall. Can you spot it? If not, click on the photo to make it larger.

Ooh, I almost forgot, I brought the wine, aka The Precious Liquid That, Goddess Willing, Will Prevent Another Stabbing Incident Like the One Back in 2000 for Which Jean Is Still on Parole. Hah! I kid. It's really Granny who's on parole. :-)

Everyone says to drink pinot with turkey, so to quaff with the bird at T-day dinner, I took the 2007 Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir Reserve. One of the staff writers on My favorite writer for the magazine, who works in the Portland, Oregon, bureau, sent four bottles of this wine to the New York office to thank us copy editors for all of the times we've saved his bacon over the years. Thanks, Anthony! Dad, Jean, Tracey, and I all enjoyed this tantalizing red-fruity wine.

I took a magnum-sized bottle of, gasp, Beringer White Zinfandel to keep Dad and Jean happy. And a quite nice new-to-me malbec from Legado and another pinot, from one of my favorite producers, MacMurray Ranch, to keep everyone happy. Except for the boys. Who like to get hammered on Painkillers. Hah!

Tracey has been on a kick for Pineau des Charantes. She bought one at Red, White & Bubbly the last time she visited that she really enjoyed, but when I popped in the Sunday before Thanksgiving, RW&B was sold out and wouldn't have more until after the holiday. And none of the other liquor/wine stores in my hood had any PDC at all. So I got one from Maison Brillet at Sherry-Lehmann Wine & Spirits, which is very close to work. Bug* liked it.

M&M and I played lots of video games, especially some new ones I'd bought for my iPhone: Skee-Ball, Rolando, and Pinball: Rollercoaster. Skee-Ball is good fun, and I'm sure I'll enjoy Rolando more and more as I continue to mess around with it. Rolando has gotten excellent reviews, and I've always loved rolling-type games ever since Marble Madness and, especially, Run Yourself Ragged, aka Screwball Scramble and Snafu. I'm enjoying the pinball game, but $5 seems too high for it considering there's only one table and given the price of other games in the app store.

I even got some sewing done while I was at the Gerbers'. I sewed up holes in my coat pocket and a reusable bag and reinforced the bottom of another bag. I took my sewing because I figured if there was anything my family would enjoy more than discussing or interrupting my every bowel or bladder movement, it'd be the sight of me with a needle and thread in my hands.

And of course, I played with the woofers a lot. I rented a car so I could take the dogs with me. Emme was on her best behavior except for one minor incident when Molly, unbeknownst to me, had a piece of bread in her mouth and Emme wanted to follow her into her crate to grab it from her.

I guess there's not much left to do besides post a string of photos.

A photo of a snoozing Rudy with a turkey chew toy near his head ...

... is paired with this shot of Emme's behind sidled up next to a sheep chew toy that Tracey said I should bring home with me because Molly never paid it any attention and Rudy enjoyed playing with it.
 

Emme under the Christmas tree

Me in need of another hand

Tracey, Dad, and Jean

Rock on, David!

Granny at the kitchen table

Uncle Bill's place setting

Mike, Bug, and my dinner plate

Dad reading The Marshmallow Incident to M&M

Trace got the boys personalized violin-player ornaments to put on the tree. This one is Mike's.

When I left on Saturday morning, the boys said I should move in. I would live in the downstairs guest bedroom and I could bring Emme and Rudy too. :-) I'd love to have lots more time to hang out with my wonderful 'phews, but I think the commute into the city would kill me. Or David would. ;-)

*A family nickname for my sister that dates back to when she was 5 or 6 and had a dress with a cute bug on it. Dad called her his little Tracey Bug.

A Post About My Labor Day Weekend and the Day After

I took off last Friday so I'd have a very long Labor Day weekend. I had a very enjoyable date on Friday evening: drinks at a bar in the Village with a guy whom I'd met through an online dating site. He's cute, funny, and interesting. And he's from Milwaukee, so if there's ever a temporary lull in the conversation, we can fall back on singing the theme song from Laverne & Shirley: "We're gonna do it!"

I got back to Brooklyn just in time to have the usual 9-ish pizza dinner with Bob and Jen. The next day, B&J and the kids went to Greenwich, Connecticut, to hang out with their friends who'd moved there just a couple of weeks ago. I was left in charge of feeding B&J's cats, Simon and Mr. Peterson.

That morning around 10, my buddy Glenn texted me to ask whether I wanted to go with him and "two furry guys" to Sandy Hook at noon. I asked him whether that meant, specifically, the nude beach at Sandy Hook. He assumed as much. Chub! I said I'd try to get a dog walker lined up on short notice and I'd get back to him. Rebecca, my fantastic backup dog walker who is often able to humor my last-minute requests because a) she's a doll, b) she lives in the neighborhood, and c) she truly enjoys hanging out with my woofers,* was able to humor me again, so I called Glenn back to let him know I was in. He said I actually had until 12:30, which was when the Zipcar his friend was renting would be available. I ran to the health food store to get some Odwalla Bars, which are my go-to beach snack; washed up; packed my backpack; grabbed my beach umbrella; and headed for the subway.

Glenn's "two furry guys" actually ended up being one furry and cool guy, also from Wisconsin, named Mike Pickles, whom Glenn calls Pickles. The car was supposed to be at a parking lot in Chelsea, but we couldn't find it. While Pickles called the Zipcar people to make sure we were looking for the right kind of car, Glenn and I watched and heard one of the parking lot attendants zip like a bat out of hell toward us in the area where the rentals were parked. The car he was driving was our car.

It was a fun ride toward the shore. We talked a lot about our dogs; Pickles has two and Glenn and his partner, Derrick, have one. And we debated Apollo vs. Helo. Pickles said he'd rather do Helo, and Glenn and I said it was the Bamber all the way. That bod, those eyes, that accent. That bod. Quick, give me somethin' to bite on. *chomps on Rudy's tail as Rudy continues to snooze on the love seat* Grrr!

As we approached Sandy Hook, we saw electronic signs along Route 36 East saying that the park was closed and that you had to go to a different beach. We kept heading toward our goal, hoping that it would have reopened by the time we got on the scene. Then there was a sign indicating that Sandy Hook was closed but would reopen at 3. It was a little after 2. Since I was the most familiar with the area, having gone to SH more than Glenn or Pickles, they asked me what I thought we should do. I suggested we could park somewhere, kill some time walking around a town or a strip mall outside SH, and head back in time to hit the entrance to SH at 3. G&P were eager to get to the beach, a beach, and time was a factor because the car had to be back at the lot in Manhattan at 6:30. I said that if we kept following 36 as it made a 90-degree turn and headed south, we'd come across a series of beach towns. The very first town is Sea Bright, and at first, there were a bunch of private beaches with no public parking. And then we passed some public parking lots that were blocked off because they were supposedly full even though you could see some open spots in them. Pickles parked on the street in a two-hour spot, figuring that we shouldn't stay longer than that anyway or risk getting back late, what with the inevitable traffic.

We had to pay $8 apiece to go on the beach. And we had to wear, like, clothing. So I didn't get to see Pickles's pickle.** Or Glenn's gherkin. As I posted on Facebook, "ending up in Sea Bright when you meant to go to Sandy Hook is kind of like ending up in Fresno when you wanted to go to San Francisco." But I still had fun hanging out with the guys. Even if we weren't able to let it all hang out.

 

The guy visible in the background above Pickles's hat had the craziest set of man boobs I've ever seen. He wasn't heavy overall, but he had some low-hanging breastages, let me tell you.

I can't remember whether it was on the way to the shore or the way back to the city, but Pickles mentioned that his father's name was Richard. And that he never went by the name Dick. How could you not call yourself Dick Pickles if your Pickles-last-named parents chose the first name Richard for you?! OK, I understand that would be pretty ludicrous to have as your everyday name. But it sure makes for a fun porn-star name. If I ever achieve my goal of doing porn fall into the porn biz, I'm so gonna call myself Dick Pickles.

The next day, I went to the Gamesters group for the first time in many weeks. Well-traveled Gamesters host Mark had spent several of those weeks in his native state of North Dakota. I made a Blackberry Coffee Cake, aka just Blackberry Cake, which is the same thing as the much-mentioned-on-here Peach Cake, a blueberry version of which I made and took with me when I visited Paul and Dan in Cape May in July. The cake was a hit. When I took it out of my pie holder (so used because I'd baked it in a glass pie plate), I babbled something about the topping not running because I used raw sugar that was much heavier than refined sugar. Only I couldn't think of the words "raw" or "refined." *sigh* You drop globs of the spicy, buttery, sugary topping onto the cake when it's almost done baking, and then it runs over the rest of the cake to cover it completely. This time, the topping hardly spread at all, which actually made it look quite purty. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the completed cake, though my friend and regular Gamester Jack took pictures of the Gamesters ooh-ing and ah-ing over the cake—at Coppola-wannabe Gamesters host Mark's direction. Mark always has everyone do that whenever someone brings something homemade to the gathering. So when he sends out the pix to everyone on the Gamesters e-mail list, I can add one of them here.

Gamester Bill made fun of me for mentioning, in a not terribly erudite way, the topping issue. And later, when I had to leave, I said, "Well, I'm gonna run." And he said, "Like raw sugar." And I said, "No, like refined sugar. You can't even mock me right!" Zing! I mocked the mocker for not mocking me well. Man, I'm such a dork.

I didn't do much on Labor Day itself. Bob and Zane came over for a little while after I ran into them on 3rd Street and Zane insisted that he had to see the inside of my apartment. Even though, of course, he'd seen it before. And of course, once I let Rudy and Emme out of their crates, Zane spent most of his time running away from Rudy's eagerly sniffing nose.

I also made some more meatballs like I made with the Gerber guys. We'd used only a pound of ground beef, so there weren't many left over after our Saturday dinner. I'd finished up the rest and was hankerin' for more.

On Tuesday, after I got done work, Missy and I went to a Kathy Griffin book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca. This may get my embossed and laminated Officially and Totally Gay card revoked, but I've never seen her Emmy Award–winning reality show on Bravo, My Life on the D-List. I always record and thoroughly enjoy her comedy specials on that gay-friendly network, however, and I loved her as the host of the Joan Rivers roast on Comedy Central. Although I gotta say, I think I laughed the hardest during that show when Greg Giraldo referred to Griffin as "Tranny Bonaduce."

Anyhow, I met Missy, who'd taken that day off, at the store a little before 6:30. She'd already bought me a copy of Griffin's book, Official Book Club Selection, which entitled me to the same green paper wristband Missy had, which said we weren't guaranteed to get to meet Kathy. Those with purple wristbands were guaranteed to meet her, and the group of purple people ended not long before us in the line that snaked throughout the store, though there were also a few of those people behind us. *shrugs*

We waited on the line for a looong time. The store employees said that Kathy was scheduled to leave the store about 8:45 or 9. While we were waiting, Missy and I were able to read good chunks of the book, and it's really a lot of fun. I've continued jumping around in it, and my favorite chapter so far is the one with a bunch of e-mails she and Steve Wozniak sent back and forth to each other when they were sort of dating.

The line was full of the gays. So instead of trying to figure out Which Guys Are Gay Here?, I'd have had to play Spot the Heterosexual Men. Here's a picture of Missy reading while on the line.

We weren't allowed to take photos after we reached a certain point in the line, and the store employees had announced that Kathy would only be signing her name, with no personalization, so she'd be able to get to as many fans as possible. Here's the closest photo I was able to take of her.

When we got up to the signing table, Missy told Griffin that her husband is a big fan of hers but he had to work. Kathy replied something like, "Well, he's straight, though." And Missy said that his friends say he's the gayest straight man they know. Nate does like him some musical theater, it's true.

I greeted Kathy with "Hey, hon." She thanked me for coming, I thanked her for coming to sign her book, and she thanked me for buying the book "or stealing it. Whatever got you here." And I gave her a little wave and a big smile and let her sign the next book. She was very cute in person. Someday, Missy, Nate, and I will have to catch her live.

And to wrap up this post, here, via Joe. My. God., is a clip of Kathy on Jimmy Kimmel's show presenting a trailer for her upcoming Lifetime "film" Kate Is Enough. Hah!

*And why wouldn't she? They're awesome!

**It took me and a team of writers hours to come up with that line. :-)

UPDATE on Sept. 15: Here are the photos of the cake that blackberry-loving Gamesters host Mark sent out at the end of last week.

And here's one he took of me with Bill and Jack before I headed home to the woofers.

'Tis and Swish

I've been reading more books, and now I must write about them.

'Tis is the biographical sequel of Frank McCourt's stupendous Angela's Ashes. But you probably already knew that. It's been around a long time, and it was even sitting in my to-be-read pile for, I bet, a couple years. Pat had lent it to me either after I had read AA or I'd told her I was enjoying McCourt's debut memoir, and I, in turn, lent it to Paula before I read it. I really enjoyed 'Tis. It wasn't as earth-shatteringly intense or as funny as AA, but it was a great read. McCourt didn't flinch at showing what a dick he was toward his first wife. And the passages about his early teaching jobs were priceless.

Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever by Joel Derfner was loads of fun. Even though it may sound profoundly superficial based on its title, the book contains a great deal of wisdom mixed in with the humor. Derfner is supersmart and a fantastic writer, and he manages to mine an amazing number of insights from such swishy and wacky situations as joining a cheerleading squad (as a non-college-attending adult) and teaching aerobics to the severely mentally ill. The last chapter, about his undercover visit to an ex-gay retreat, was a fine bit of journalism and a terrific piece of writing, but it seemed tacked on to make the book even more serious. And it was: Derfner writes that his editor "suggested that part of my book be about something unexpected and subversive." It was both of those things, but it seemed off topic by 180 degrees (going to an antigay-group gathering is the very opposite of delightfully embracing your gayness) and might have been better as an article for The Advocate, which would have snapped it up if it knew what was good for it. All in all, though, Swish is a fantastic book that you definitely should read. I picked up my copy when I visited Heather and George in the swishiest city in the country.

Derfner is known in the gay blogosphere for being Faustus, M.D., the author of "The Search for Love in Manhattan." I've added a link to the blog in my READ THESE OR ELSE! list.

A Long Weekend in Cape May and Manhattan

I took a train down to Trenton on Friday afternoon, and Paul drove us to Cape May for the weekend. Dan was already down there, living the life of leisure, unlike us poor working stiffs. :-)

Dan made burgers, corn, and green beans for dinner for a bunch of us in the campground: D&P; Ed and his new squeeze, A.P.; Alec, Luke, and Sam; and me. Paul and I shared a bottle of wine that I'd schlepped down: the 2007 Cuilleron Lybel Syrah Rosé from the Rhône. We liked it pretty well. I didn't take any homemade baked goods like I did last year. I think I sort of made up for it, though, by taking down some morning rolls from Patisserie Colson for breakfast Saturday morning. I won't stop until everyone I know has enjoyed their deliciousness.

Saturday was pretty overcast so we hung out at the campground until early afternoon. Then D&P and I had lunch at Cabanas with Dan's longtime friend Steve and his wife, Deb, who were up from Kentucky for vacation. Not visible in the photo at left: the hunky Olympic wrestlers who were on the big-screen TVs in the bar. I told Paul that I'm always disappointed when the less-hairy guy wins. It just doesn't seem natural! :-)

Saturday night, Ed and A.P. hosted a seafood night. I tried king crab for the first time. It was OK but not worth the price, as far I'm concerned. Ed deep-fried some tilapia and grouper, which I enjoyed, and some shrimp. Dan, Paul, and I shared another bottle of wine that I schlepped down: the Madonna Estate Chardonnay I had ordered when I was out in California visiting Heather and George. I enjoyed that, too.

Sunday was a great day for the beach, though not for swimming, at least for landlubbers like me. The surf was rough, and the lifeguards were calling everybody out of the water rather frequently. They kept open a little alcove to our right where lots of people were surfing. I sat down on the rocks to get myself wet so I could cool off.

D&P and I got lunch at a diner, and I got my traditional Cape May meal: a pork roll sandwich. As D&P pointed out, I could always buy a four-slice pack at the store and make myself a sandwich at home, but I know it's not terribly healthy for me, so I limit my consumption to the one or two times a summer I go to the shore with the fellas. As I've noted on the blog before, pork roll and pasta with butter were staple foods for me and my sister when we were kids, so a pork roll sandwich is comfort food for me. Ooh, and the tater tots we shared were pretty comforting, too. And now they've adhered to my belly, so I can look at them and reminisce about them anytime I want. :-)

Paul drove me back to Trenton, stopping for pizza on the way, and I caught the 9:01 train back to New York.

The next morning, I picked the woofers up from boarding and then took the slow-ass F train to Lexington and 63rd to meet Tracey and the boys at the Central Park Zoo. Matt and Mike's birthday was the next day, Tuesday the 26th, which means they're now 10 years old. Holy crapola!

After we saw everything there was to see at the Central Park Zoo, including the feeding of the sea lions, which involved them putting on a little show in return for fishes, we went to the Tisch Children's Zoo. Then we had lunch at La Bonne Soup. I had a bowl of gazpacho and a tasty crepe with chicken, peppers, mushrooms, and mozzerella.

The boys opened their cards and presents. I got them each a cute pop-up card; Matt's had dogs on it and Mike's had a big ol' goldfish in a bowl. They already knew I'd gotten them Boom Blox for the Wii. They'd rented it at Blockbuster with their Daddy for a sleepover birthday party last weekend. (If Mommy had been there, she might have found a subtle way to discourage them from choosing that game.) They enjoyed the game so much they said they wanted to buy it the next day with their birthday loot. Tracey told them they couldn't, so they figured out they were getting it from me. *sigh* It's almost impossible to keep a surprise around those hooligans.

At least they were surprised with the books I got them. Numbers 2 and 3 from the Hank Zipzer series by Henry Winkler, the first two books in the Molly Moon series by Georgia Byng, and numbers 3 and 4 from the latest iteration of the Tom Swift series that's been written under the pseudonym Victor Appleton ever since 1910. The new Tom Swift books are well reviewed, and the boys enjoyed the first two books in the series, which I got for them two Christmases ago. I looked for some more last Christmas, but bookstores don't carry them. The woman at my neighborhood Barnes & Noble said she could order them for me but I'd have to pay for them in advance. I guess B&N wants to make sure you're going to take them and not change your mind, so they don't have to put them on the shelf where they'll take up space that could be used for more-popular series. Whatever. As far as I'm concerned, if most lemmings people don't like something, it often means it's wonderful.

I ended up getting the Tom Swift books from Amazon.com because I wanted to make sure Mike and Matt got them in time for their birthday. The next time I buy a book online, though, I'll get it from Powell's Books, because I like to go with the underdog whenever possible. There were also two different versions of the books on powells.com, and I couldn't figure out the difference, if there was any. Both were listed as being new, as opposed to used.

After lunch, much to M&M's chagrin, we did some shopping along and near 5th Avenue. We stopped at FAO Schwarz, though, which made the boys happy. I bought myself a stuffed basset to go with my stuffed corgi. I prefer the more realistic look of the corgi, but the basset's cute. I also tried in vain to get Tracey to buy precious, precious iPhones for all of the Gerbers at the Apple Store. :-)

And now, herewith, a cavalcade of photos:

Purty sunflowers in a vase in D&P's screenhouse

D&P clowning around with crab legs

A.P. and Ed, who's acting pretty dignified, FOR ONCE! :-)

Dan holding his Claire bear

Paul cuddling with Ed's dog, Lucy

Ed's bright and colorful balls

The neon dolphin on Ed's trailer

Some random hunk Paul photographed as he was leaving the beach ;-)

Dan, Sam and Paul

Flowers in the dunes

More flowers in the dunes

Mike and Matt with (out of focus) spectacled eiders between them. M&M said the eiders were the ugliest birds ever, so I said I should take a picture of them with the eiders so they'd look even more handsome than usual in comparison. I read constantly about animals when I was a kid. Gran and Pop were always buying me animal books, and my Aunt Marian got me a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine. I recognized the birds as eiders before I saw the sign. In your face, Jeff Corwin! :-)

Some tuxedoed fellow who took a dip at the zoo

The boys making like baby turtles, with my sister's foot

The Gerbers posing for me as they got ready to depart for Jersey

I've Been Reading Books

And then not writing about them. So I've got a bunch to mention now.

One of the most important things I gained from reading Michael Pollan's excellent In Defense of Food is the understanding that a lot of what we eat isn't really food. Hence his need to defend actual food. Pollan also makes it clear that a lot of the decisions we've made in recent decades about what we should be eating have been based on beliefs—pushed by nutritionists and food companies—that later proved untrue. He talks about the rise of "nutritionism," which convinced us that fad foodlike products that were spiked with the latest thing we were told we needed or formulated with none or very little of the latest thing we were told to avoid could replace actual foods. To counter that way of thinking, "don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food," he advises us. And along that same line, "avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronouncable, C) more than five in number or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup," which our bodies are ill-equipped to deal with.

Among other things, Pollan has gotten me rethinking soy milk. "The ancient Asian practice of fermenting soybeans and eating soy in the form of curds called tofu makes a healthy diet from a plant that eaten almost any other way would make people ill," he writes. "The soybean itself is a notably inauspicious staple food; it contains a whole assortment of 'antinutrients'—compounds that actually block the body's absorption of vitamins and minerals, interfere with the hormonal system, and prevent the body from breaking down the proteins in the soy itself. It took the food cultures of Asia to figure out how to turn this unpromising plant into a highly nutritious food. By boiling crushed soybeans in water to form a kind of milk and then precipitating the liquid by adding gypsum (calcium sulfate), cooks were able to form the soy into curds of highly digestible protein: tofu." I've had second thoughts about soy milk in the past because it contains estrogen-like compounds and because I feel I'm helping to legitimize the industrial-agricultural corn-soybean behemoth, even though the soy milk I buy is made from organic beans. The fact that its nutritional value is also questionable may be the third strike necessary to get me to give up on it completely.

Pollan's bedrock advice, which is highlighted in the cover photo on a band wrapped around a head of red leaf lettuce, is: EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY PLANTS. I should follow a tip he offers regarding not eating too much: He says we're likely to eat less if we appreciate food for the sensual experience it is and eat more slowly, appreciating each mouthful. I'm not typically a really fast eater of savory foods, but I suck down ice cream, cookies, and other sweets like I'm competing in a blood-sugar race. I need to learn to enjoy each spoonful or bite and so be more likely to be satisfied with a small bowl of ice cream or only half of a large brownie.

My father visited me this weekend, and In Defense of Food went home with him after he started reading it here.

***

Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry also went home with my Dad. Jean's son, Rob, got it for my Dad a couple of Christmases ago. I borrowed it mostly because I thought it sounded like something Bob would enjoy; years ago, he had a completely cool, purple, flare-sided pickup truck that he loved. It turned out, though, that I ended up liking the book more than Bob, even though I've never owned a truck and have spent my adult life happily free of the pickup-ownin', Nascar-lovin', no-"funny"-salad-eatin' Really Southern Jersey culture I grew up in. Perry is a phenomenal writer with a tremendous gift for metaphor. He sometimes comes across as trying too hard to sound like just a simple guy, but I found myself feeling that way less than Bob apparently did. I was drawn in by his wonderful observations about life and his story about finding the woman of his dreams while he and his brother-in-law restored an old pickup he'd owned for years that was no longer drivable.

***

Mark Doty, author of Dog Years, is another amazing writer. I wasn't surprised to read on the jacket copy that he's a poet, because his prose is so complex and lyrical that I often had to read a passage a couple of times to get its full meaning. The book is about his relationship with two retrievers, with a focus on their eventual declines in health and their deaths. It's a sad but beautiful meditation on love and loss. I feel I would have gotten more of an emotional charge out of the book if I'd confined my reading of it to my apartment, but I read a lot of it on the subway. I wouldn't allow my emotions to get the better of me because I didn't want to break into tears on the train.

***

Finally, there's Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan with Melissa Jo Peltier. I love Millan's TV show, Dog Whisperer, and I gained some valuable insights on handling my woofers from this book, including the idea that something we want to see as an aspect of a dog's "personality" might really be something that needs to be corrected. The only gripe I had was that he too often lapses into celebrity worship. But I understand that Jada Pinkett Smith was his first celebrity client, and she helped him get more business from Hollywood stars. And no one can blame him for playing up his Oprah Winfrey connection. If she'd talk about Hawleyblog on her show, I wouldn't have to keep trying to shame my family and friends into reading and commenting on my stupid blog. :-)

I think Millan's greatest accomplishment in this book and on his show is convincing people to treat their dogs like dogs and not like children. Dogs need us to be their pack leader and help them live the best, doglike lives they can. We do them no favors when we treat them like little humans. A calm, submissive dog whose owner exudes calm, assertive energy is a happy dog and a wonderful companion.

Two Weekends With Visits From Family, Part II

Tracey and the boys came to visit me on Friday. I had gotten us tickets for the Gazillion Bubble Show that night, which, like I wrote in an earlier post, we'd planned to go see in February. I sent Tracey and the boys a joke e-mail a couple of weeks ago saying that I couldn't get tickets:

You're never gonna believe this but ... When I went on ticketschmaster.com to get tix for the Gazillion Bubble Show, they were all sold out for the night we wanted to go. But ticketschmaster saved the day! It suggested tix for the Thousand Bubble Show. Which is put on by some dude with a bucket of dish soap in a vacant lot in the Bronx. And we've got front-row seats! How awesome is Uncle Bill?

Tracey knew, of course, that I was joking about the Thousand Bubble Show, but she assumed I was serious about not being able to get tickets to the real bubble show until I e-mailed her back that the WHOLE THING was a joke.

We had lunch at Miracle Grill because the boys were psyched for some quesadillas. Then we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, because I wanted Tracey, Mike, and Matt to see what the Hawleys and I had seen the previous weekend. On the walk to the subway, I told the boys we should have a contest to see who could be the most botanic while we were at the garden. Hah!

The flowering trees weren't quite as spectacular as the previous weekend, but they still looked great. And we saw some beautiful crab apple blossoms that I don't recall having spotted last weekend. The boys liked that the clusters of cherry flowers felt fluffy. And Tracey loved the lilacs. Matt took this picture of Tracey and me. I don't know what the purple-flowered trees in the background are, but they're not lilacs:

I took lots of pictures of koi at the Japanese garden:

And one picture of the koi fountain near the visitors center:

After we left the BBG, I jogged home from the Grand Army Plaza subway station and quickly walked and fed Emme and Rudy. Then I jogged to the 7th Avenue subway station so we could all take the Q to 14th Street.

Tracey wanted to have dinner at Max Brenner because one of David's co-workers had recommended it. Unfortunately, none of us liked our meal very much. The boys hardly touched their shared Happy Pizza Toast. I think the kids menu is atrocious. Variations on toast with potato chips and ketchup! Or cereal. Or a hot dog in a "secret roll cave." Michael recognized that that was a stupid way to describe a "bun." Tracey got Marinara Penne, which she could have made much better at home. And I got the Roasted Chicken, which tasted like Shake 'n Bake. The sides were seasoned potatoes, many of which were burnt, and mushy, tiny asparagus spears. Blargh!

For dessert, Tracey's Crunchy Chocolate & Peanut Butter Snack was enjoyable, but my Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cookie, at $6.50, was nothing to write home about. The boys literally had a "mess" for dessert, the Max's Palace Famous Chocolate Mess Party, which consisted of chocolate cake, chocolate sauce, ice cream, "chocolate rocks," whipped cream, toffee sauce, and strawberries. I'm almost getting a stomach ache right now writing about it.

And speaking of getting sick: I can't say for sure that the restaurant was the cause, but by Saturday morning, two of the four of us had vomited.

We made out better at the show. Tracey nearly fell down when she saw that the tickets were $61.50 apiece. That did seem pretty steep for a show mainly intended for kids. After the show, Matt said he thought it should have cost $40, and I said that sounded right to me. The boys get to do a whole lot more than Tracey and I ever did as kids, but I'm optimistic that they're learning to appreciate how much things cost—or should cost—and won't end up toooo spoiled. :)

Anyhow, the show was quite enjoyable. Bubble artist Ana Yang made loads of bubbles, including ones that slowly leaked smoke as they floated, a bubble tower that shimmied to the music, and a square bubble that seemed to defy the laws of physics. As we entered, the ushers said no flash photography or recording devices were allowed. I took that to mean we could take nonflash photographs but couldn't videotape the show for resale, which foiled my plan A. :) Now I see in the program that it says you're not supposed to take any photographs. I didn't take any pictures of the performer herself because I thought that seemed inappropriate, but I couldn't resist snapping this picture of Michael with my iPhone during the finale as a sea of bubbles passed over the audience. That's Matthew beyond him.

I'd joked before the show about how I intended to count the bubbles to make sure we got our money's worth and that they weren't lying about the gazillion part. Afterward, the boys said they counted one bubble short of a gazillion. Dammit! :)

The next morning, I took Matt and Mike to get bagels, and they chose peach Yogurt Drinks from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy as their beverages. They liked them so much that we took them to the farmers market to get more for the road.* We were going to visit the Treats Truck, too, but it wasn't where it should have been. Later, I saw on the Web site that she wasn't scheduled to be in Park Slope that day even though she'd been coming to Union Street for five Saturdays running. Please come back, treats lady!

I was sad to see the Gerbers go, but Tracey wasn't feeling so great and she wanted to head back to North Jersey. I want the Gerbers and the Hawleys to come back in June, when the roses will be in full bloom at the BBG and, let's hope, the Treats Truck will be back in the hood.

*One reason why the boys were so jazzed for the yogurt drinks is that my sister has started buying soy milk for them because she's decided industrially produced cow's milk is bad for them and they're not digging the soy stuff yet. How did Tracey come around to that way of thinking? Because of her brother, who used to be a part-time organic dairy goat farmer and who's been drinking soy milk since before the twins were born? No, because of celebrity author Marilu Henner, whom Tracey recently met through her involvement with her local library booster group. Sigh. After Tracey mentioned Henner's citing of an unbelievable increase in dairy production per cow that can't be good for the animals or for us, I told her I should lend her The Omnivore's Dilemma, so she could read more about the horror of industrial agriculture. I also lent her Heat, because I thought she'd get a kick out of it like I did.

The February Birthdays

I went down to South Jersey last weekend to visit my Granny and my Mom for their birthdays. First, though, I stopped over to Bob and Jen's that Friday night to wish Jen happy birthday. Hers was Feb. 10, my Mom's was Feb. 11, and Granny's was on Feb. 2.

I didn't bake anything for any of the birthday gals because I just couldn't find the time or energy in the days before. I'll try to rectify that, at least for Jen, this coming week.

I got Jen an iTunes gift certificate and two books: What the Buddha Taught and Brooklyn Was Mine. Jen had expressed interest in Buddhism recently, and the latter book is a collection of essays by great writers about "America's favorite borough."

While looking at the Buddhism books, I found a new translation of the Tao Te Ching by Jonathan Star, who's the son of one of my favorite professors in college, Aura Star, who taught botany and evolution. I bought the book to expand my understanding of Taoism. A poetic translation of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell left a big impression on me when my buddy Dan gave it to me not long after we graduated from college.

I got down to my Granny's house with the woofers a little after 2 on Saturday. I took her a pretty cyclamen that I'd bought at the farmers market that morning.

After a while, I suggested we go to the big liquor store in Millville where Dad had bought a couple wines for Granny to give to me for Christmas. I had really enjoyed the 2005 Houghton Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, made from a blend of two white grapes sourced from throughout Western Australia, and I wanted to get some more of it. The store had four or five different Houghton wines in stock but no SSB. I instead picked up a Houghton Cabernet Shiraz Merlot, which I took over to B&J's today. Jen's parents and brother came over for a late birthday lunch. Bob made delicious chicken and eggplant parmigiana; as I've noted on the blog before, though without using this precise phrase, Bob is the king of parms. I enjoyed the Houghton CSM but not as much as the SSB.

At the liquor store last weekend, Dad asked for a suggestion for a red wine he could drink before bed. As I've also noted on the blog before, I'm a big fan of Argentinean malbecs. They're easy to drink and usually only about $10, and I don't recall ever not enjoying one I've tried. I picked up a 2006 Don Miguel Gascón Malbec for him to try, and I also bought a bottle for myself. I talked to Dad yesterday, and he said he was really enjoying the wine and would stick with it as his nighttime wine. I had tried my bottle on Monday night, and, unfortunately, it was corked. I'm glad I grabbed that bottle and left the good one with Dad. I don't know that he would have figured out it was corked; he might have thought I'd steered him to a shitty wine.

That evening, Dad and Jean treated Granny and me to dinner at the Coach Room. On the way into the restaurant, we saw Jean's daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Charlie, going into the bar part of the building, called the Hillcrest Tavern. They wished Granny a happy birthday, and they ended up paying for our drinks. Thanks, E&C!

Here's a picture of Granny at the restaurant:

Granny, Dad, and I were all boring and got Veal Parmigiana, a parm Bob hasn't yet tackled. Or at least not when he's had me over. Come on, Bob! Jean got a fried seafood combo.

After dinner, we went back to D&J's and watched Rio Bravo on DVD. I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but it sucked me in. And I got a huge kick out of Walter Brennan as Stumpy. Brennan's IMDB page notes that he's the only person to have won three Oscars for supporting roles. (It also mentions his extreme right-wing political views and says he "cackled with delight upon learning of Martin Luther King's assassination," according to those who were on the set of a television show with him at the time.)

My Dad digs Angie Dickinson, and I found Ricky Nelson to be pretty easy on the eyes. Thanks to an Internet search on my fantastic iPhone, I was able to tell Dad that Dickinson is 76. He'd guessed she was 71. Nelson was born about four months before my Dad. Contrary to rumors, the fire that caused the plane crash Nelson died in (along with his fiancée and band) wasn't believed to have been started by Nelson or someone else on the plane freebasing cocaine. It's believed to have been started by a short-circuiting onboard heater, per IMBD. He was 45 when he died on New Year's Eve 1985.

The next morning, I tried to take a picture of a bunch of wild turkeys that were walking through Granny's yard. They scooted away when I came out the back door.

This is the closest shot I was able to get, of one crossing Gran's driveway and going around toward the front of the house:

They all ended up in the woods across the street. There must have been about 20 of them:

I left the woofers in their crates at Granny's while I went to Millville to visit Mom. All weekend, Granny kept remarking how big Rudy is, especially his ears, and at how good he and Emme were. I teased Granny that that was because they were afraid she'd open up a can of wupp-ass on 'em if they didn't behave.

Mom wanted to show me all of the lobbies on the various floors of her building. Here's the view from the eighth-floor lobby window looking out onto Main Street, with the Maurice River in the background:

The eighth floor is the top floor. Mom is on the third floor.

Dad had shown me a photo of Mom that had run Saturday morning on the front page of the Bridgeton News, which is owned by the same company as the Millville News. I figured Mom had seen the paper, but Dad suggested I take it to her in case she wanted another copy. Mom was very proud of her media appearance. She was shown taking a flier from a member of the Guardian Angels, who were trying to get volunteers to help fight a gang problem in the city. Mom said she was glad the GAs had come to town and told the guy as much, though she didn't sign on to patrol the streets at night with him. :)

Here's a photo I took of Mom with the Millville paper:

Mom had posted the newspaper clipping on the bulletin board in the downstairs lobby. She showed it to me and asked whether I thought she should cut away the article, leaving just the headline and the photo. How could she ask such a question of her son? Who used to be a newspaper reporter! That reminded me of an incident from back when I worked at the jack-crap twice-weekly newspaper in Princeton. I had worked for a day at a farm, one of the few remaining in the McMansioned-up township I covered, and written a first-person story about it for the paper. In an odd preview of my life at the farm/B&B, one of the things I did that day was clean up goat poop. And a picture ran in the paper of me in the goat pen with a rake in my hand and a goat or two milling around me. A woman who came to all of the school board meetings told me, "I saw your picture in the paper," which I interpreted to mean, "I didn't read the story you wrote because it was too long and would have undoubtedly bored me." I can't recall for sure how I replied to her comment, but I think I must have mentioned the story. One of the other reporters on staff described my writerly voice in the piece as Charles Kuraltish, which I took as a huge compliment because I was a big fan of his.

Mom opened her presents and was thrilled with the T-shirt with the woofers' photo on it and the jigsaw puzzle made from the photo of Matt and Mike in the giant challah bread.

Here's a photo of her holding up the T-shirt:

I called Mom this morning and jokingly asked her whether she'd gotten the puzzle put together yet. She said she's going to look for a card table because she doesn't think the puzzle will fit on her living room table.

Mom wanted to go to LongHorn Steakhouse for lunch. That's where we went last year for her birthday. My Mom likes her steak well done. Sometimes she'll even say "well well well done," so the waitress knows she really means it when she says she wants the cook to ruin it. :) I ordered my steak medium, but it got cooked pretty much well, with a patch of medium well. At least it was seasoned OK. With Prairie Dust! :) And I enjoyed the Sweet Potato with Cinnamon and Butter we both got as a side dish. LongHorn Steakhouse, I found out recently, is owned by Darden Restaurants, the same company that owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster. I share that in case you're, uh, interested in the ownership of chain restaurants.

After lunch, I went back to Gran's, picked up the woofers, said good-bye to Gran and Dad, and got back on the road to Brooklyn.

One More Christmas-Related Post

I got a terrific Christmas present from the boys: books they'd written and illustrated themselves through a program at the local library. Matthew's is about a zebra named Cody that gets separated from his herd but finds his way back to his mother with the help of a friendly giraffe. Michael's is about a boy named Michael whose Uncle Bob teaches him how to ride his horse in preparation for a big race, which Michael wins in a come-from-behind victory. A copy of the books will be available at the library for kids to check out and read.

For a slightly early Christmas present, I got the boys each a puzzle book to take on the plane with them. I told Mike I'd have to do one of his puzzles to keep it even. :) I bought myself the latest issue of Games magazine, so I'd have something to keep myself occupied, too. Word games are my favorite, natch, especially the Double Cross, where you answer crossword-type clues and then transfer the letters into a grid to spell out a quote. The first letters of the clues going down spell out the source of the quote and the work in which it appeared.

Rhymes in Puerto Rico

I came up with what I thought were some clever rhymes while I was down in Puerto Rico. I started thinking them up on the second morning we were there.

The first one was:
I like to rock like Rocky Balboa.
And I'm kinda crazy like those nuts from Mauna Loa.

I was in the habit of calling everyone, especially Matt and Mike, Rock or Rocky or Rockamarola. That played a part in that first rhyme and in one later in this post. As for the required background for this next one: David was being a smartmouth late during the dinner at Pasión, saying he didn't want to switch chairs with me so I could share a Chocolate Treasure with Tracey because it would mean sitting next to Jean. Jean switched chairs with Tracey and playfully gave David's a shove when she passed by him. And the boys had posed for their Mommy in their underwear while holding a large wooden leaf that was on the coffee table in our villa over themselves. That made it look like they were naked with the "fig leaf" hiding their private stuff.

The boys like to prance around in their underwear.
Grammy Jean shoved David in his dining table chair.

David's morning workouts inspired this one:
David works out at the gym until he's had his fill.
He's still not half as ripped as studly Uncle Bill.

Then to show I'm not all about ragging on David:
Uncle Bill still had it or at least he thought he did,
but sometimes the only ones laughing were the voices in his head.

Later, David and Matt came up with this one that pays tribute to the boys' fantastically thick hair:
I've got a bread roll, and I'm not afraid to use it.
With hair like this, I hope I never lose it.

The next two involved presents I got for the boys and Granny for Christmas. Tracey had mentioned to me how the boys wanted Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, a book about all of the cartoons that have appeared on Nickelodeon over the years. The boys kept asking me about whether I'd gotten it for them. I made up a story about having bought it and then taking it back because I thought it was defective. The book has a bubble-wrap-like cover with green goo sealed inside. You know, like that stuff they're always dropping onto people's heads on Nickelodeon. I said I returned it and demanded a refund, and the woman at Barnes & Noble was rolling her eyes at me and I told her off, etc. At one point during the week, I told them, absolutely seriously, that I definitely had gotten it for them for Christmas, hoping that would end the questioning. It didn't. For Granny, I got some limoncello because she'd really enjoyed it when she had some at Sotte Voce here in Park Slope. As of this afternoon, she hadn't tried it. And she lives on a street called Beebe Run Road.

I got that Nick book for Rocky 1 and 2.
Then I took it back, cuz it was filled with goo.

I got something for Granny on which she can get drunk.
She'll be running down Beebe Run naked, showing off her junk.

On the bus ride to the airport, I pointed out an auto body shop called Rocky's. David started a rhyme whose first line began with "Rocky's" and ended with "shop." Then he paused to think of a second line. I jumped in with, "You'd better think of something soon or your rhyme will be a flop." Hah! Then I told Tracey to take the price tag off David because I owned him. Zing! Good times, good times.

Two Must-Read Foodie Books

I've been meaning to write about The Omnivore's Dilemma and Heat for quite some months now. In defense of my tardiness, it's not like these books were under-the-radar finds that required the vast media power of Hawleyblog to bring them to my vast readership's attention. *crickets chirp*

Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma is a must-read for its truth telling about the food-industrial complex. Of particular interest to me was the part about big organic producers. In that section, I learned that Horizon Organic's dairy cows are kept in "a grassless fenced enclosure," which is permissible under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's organic rules because cows need only have "access to pasture" at some part of their lives. Similarly, I learned that Petaluma Poultry grows 20,000 chickens in an indoor enclosure that has little doors leading to a small grassy yard. The doors aren't opened until the birds are five weeks old, so the chickens have no desire to leave the building they've been housed in since birth because they don't know any better. Mass-produced organically raised animals are every bit as much cogs in a machine as mass-produced inorganically raised animals.

The other really fascinating part of the book for me was the history of corn and its ubiquity in Americans' diet. Pollan says corn is a freak plant that would have been incapable of propogating itself were it not disovered and cultivated by Native Americans. He notes that because of corn's use as animal feed in industrial agriculture and its presence in sweeteners, starches, and chemicals that are almost unavoidable in processed foods, the diet of Americans is more dependent on corn than that of Mexicans, for whom corn has long been a staple food.

The main narrative of the book involves Pollan's efforts to track the history of the foods he eats in four meals. Along the way, he meets some interesting people, including Joel Salatin, who raises many types of animals in a network of relationships that all owe their existence ultimately to 100 acres of pasture. Unlike factory farms, whether organic or inorganic, Salatin treats his animals like animals and wants them to be able to live lives to which they're suited. So his pigs spend their spring aerating cow manure in his barn while rooting through it for kernels of fermented corn. They're as happy as a pig in shit, you might say. And when they're done going through the manure, which had been periodically covered with woodchips and straw to provide bedding for the cattle in winter, it's been turned into compost.

That's in contrast to industrially raised pigs, whose tails are mostly snipped off, at the recommendation of the USDA, in order to prevent them from allowing other pigs to nibble on their tails, which could lead to infection. Pigs that are kept in crowded confinement "beneath a metal roof standing on metal slats suspended over a septic tank" are usually too depressed to care whether their tail is being chewed on, Pollan writes. Creating the stubby tails ensures the pigs will be in enough pain to fight back against the nibbling. It's really a sick, twisted thing to do. But that's modern agriculture.

The USDA doesn't just sell big producers on inhumane animal husbandry methods; it also actively tries to squelch small producers. "Federal rules stipulate that every processing facility have a bathroom for the exclusive use of the USDA inspector," Pollan writes. The only reason for that rule is to prevent little producers from processing their own meat. A friend of Salatin's is described as on the verge of financial ruin because he'd opened a meat-processing plant to serve small, grass-based producers and the USDA "pulled its inspector, effectively shutting him down" because he wasn't doing a large enough volume "to justify the inspector's time—in other words, he wasn't sufficiently industrial, which of course was precisely the point of the whole venture."

There's lots of other great stuff in the book, including a section on "The Ethics of Eating Animals" and Pollan's adventures as a hunter and gatherer.

Bill Buford's Heat was loads of fun, mostly for its behind-the-scenes look at Babbo, Mario Batali's celebrated, New York Italian restaurant. Buford was there to learn the ropes of as a "kitchen slave."

I've often thought about going to cooking school but never pulled the trigger because I assumed it would be less rewarding and glamorous than it appeared to be. Buford convinced me I was probably right in thinking that way. He gave up the job of New Yorker fiction editor to pursue his culinary training, which also included a stint learning how to be a butcher in Italy.

As in Dilemma, the people Burford meets make the story. The backstabbing chefs at Babbo hate each other, and the Italian butcher shop owner is larger than life. It was also fascinating to see Buford struggle to learn each new skill and to follow how badly he'd fuck up or how impressively he'd triumph.