Posts from April, 2010
-
Walk a Mile
I’ve been thinking a lot about my shoes. Other people’s shoes. Shoes I haven’t bought yet. People who have no shoes.
I’m also the sort of person who consistently wonders at the end of a day of travel that I woke up in New York City! and here I am in Omaha! San Francisco! South Jersey! tonight, where a whole other set of lives I had no idea about are perpetuating themselves, enjoying a new angle on the sun, and so on.
I wear this one particular pair of shoes all the time, because they’re super comfortable, they’re small enough for cold morning feet and they expand with twelve-hours-standing-up feet, they look presentable enough with a suit or jeans, and I can run in them. (Yes, run. in. them.) Longer than life workdays, conferences, important meetings, and memorable days walking around my city and countless others. They were born in Los Angeles, when I realized I needed a grown-up shoe that wasn’t a heel, and they came all around the country with me, through twenty-something states, sixty-something cities and two other countries.
It’s been almost five years with these shoes, just a little longer than my marriage — they incurred their first scratch at the hand of the front door at Kleinfeld on the day I bought my wedding dress. They’ve driven my car and run me down the street in rainstorms and strolled me to the subway in 100 degree heat. They have something like 1200 miles under their belt.
Which is why they’re shot to shit. The edges of both heels are chipped off, there are multiple divots bored into formerly pristine leather soles, they’re drowning in scuffs, and there are three deep scars from the three! separate! occasions! on which I stepped in glass (the last of which poked a tiny hole through not only the sole but the lining and then my skin).
But the crux of this is that I cannot part with them. Nor am I going to commit some blasphemy like resoling, which could ruin everything. The flex-to-firm ratio here is exactly why they’re runnable, why they’re comfortable, why they’re flexible, and why they’re my shoe best friends.
Right now I’m just wondering how many miles we have left together — wondering if we’ll ever start out in New York and finish the day in Portland! or Boston! again.
-
Incentives
Thanks to this reminiscence of childhood cake lust, I just re-read a post from 2003 which referred to 50 Cent as an entity unrelated to currency, and thought, no, surely not. It hasn’t been that long. But lo, dude’s been platinum since 2003.
I never thought years would run together for me the way they seemed to trick my parents when I was a kid — naturally, when you only have nine years under your belt, they’re a little easier to keep track of.
Anyhoo. (Only jerks say anyhoo. And only very, very smart people type it.) I’m going to self-impose the sit-up tax proposal of 2003 starting today (wishful thinking that Bloomberg will hop on my bandwagon, of course).
$32.81 at the grocery store. 33 sit-ups. Check.
(But I’m not sure 33 sit-ups will be much in the face of the mozzarella, parmesan, heavy cream, and Oreos that came home with me.*)
*this list is real.
-
Vinegar and Mousse
They go together, right? Half of you are thinking ick, and half are all, well, if it’s a strawberry balsamic reduction, maybe.
Doesn’t matter because they won’t be touching until they get in my belly.
This evening’s culinary treat consists of an asparagus salad over pasta…
(Thin slice a bunch of asparagus, finely dice a red onion, add a big handful (maybe two) of grated pecorino, some salt, a lot of fresh ground pepper, my favorite olive oil in the world, and about a half cup of vinegar (red wine).)
…and a chocolate mousse dessert which I totally shouldn’t be eating but oh well.
(I usually do this with egg whites, but tonight I did about a half cup semisweet chocolate, melted and added to two egg yolks whipped up with a quarter cup of sugar and then added to 3/4 of a pint of heavy cream (whip before combining, and combine a little at a time so you don’t unwhip the cream with all the subsequent spooning), and save the remaining 1/4 fresh whip for a topping. Chill for an hour.)
-
83 and sunny
When you wake up on a day like this…
…all you want to do is make some pickles.
Not really, but that’s what I did, because I’m preparing for the summer of Consistently Awesome BBQ. And what do you need next to a gorgeous, dripping, cheese-globbed burger? A crispy delicious pickle!
Sterlize jars, boil vinegar and water mix (50/50 makes a tangy pickle; go with less vinegar if you’re more mild), add whole garlic cloves, pepper flakes, some fresh dill, a few bay leaves, and half a tomatillo pepper to each jar, along with the freshly washed and cut cucumbers, then pour the liquid mix in, seal up the jars and refrigerate. In as few as three days, they’re perfection.
