I loved this song from the moment I heard the first few notes on the MacBook Air ad, and now that I've found this video, I love it even more.
There's something about this song/story that feels so familiar to
me - watching her walk in to a new space, and size it up, and start turning it into a home... and the idea of a soul moving through the world "making every possible mistake..." and "learning what is true and what is fake..."
And when the walls fall down, and she finds herself outside, in this big gorgeous magical world, I can totally relate to that sense of wonder and surprise.
I reluctantly crawled out from under my electric blanket this morning and headed out into the cold winter sunshine to listen to Jen Maiser interview June Taylor at the Ferry Building.
I'm so glad I did; it was a lovely interview, full of valuable insights. June cares deeply about the traditions and heritage of fruit preservation, and approaches her craft with great reverence.
She said many things that I'm still thinking on, but this particularly touched me: "I used to think it was about control," she said. "Now I think it's more about playing, and dancing, and seeing what happens."
Yes!
(I don't do this very well yet. I know it's the way to living more joyfully, but it's difficult! And I'm honestly not quite sure how to play. Or dance, for that matter. But I'll get there.)
Though I've never attended a TED conference, I've long been in love with the idea of an event at which visionaries from many different disciplines gather to exchange thoughts, dreams, travelogues and stories. When the TED crew began to post the conference talks online, I was beside myself with excitement. Since then, I've spent many enjoyable hours watching and listening to the talks.
This morning I discovered another gem: Maira Kalman. Maira is an incredibly talentedillustrator and creative thinker who gives herself permission to be fully... herself. She makes up words, admits to numerous idiosyncrasies, doesn't have a specific narrative arc to her talk, seems totally at ease in her skin. She describes starting a company based on the premise of knowing nothing.
"Good things come out of incomprehension," she says, and I find myself wishing I could invite her to tea.
As a writer, I struggle to balance careful planning with letting go and allowing things to unfold around me. I realize that being open to life's serendipities requires a sense of trust that the ideas and projects and people I need will appear at exactly the right moment. Even knowing that, I often find it difficult to consciously release my expectations and open myself to the unknown. Watching people like Maira strengthens my sense that the effort to be effortless (does that make sense in some kind of crazy way?) is worthwhile.
"I daydreamed through my life," she says, with complete confidence.
I won't try to distill it further; you can watch it yourself:
One last thought on this topic: over the summer, I kept an audio CD set in my car of a talk given by Thich Nhat Hahn, in which he described a conversation with a friend about his poetry. The friend told him that she greatly admired his poetry, only there wasn't enough of it.
"If you would spend less time gardening," the friend said, "you could write more poems."
To which Thich Nhat Hahn replied: "The time I spend growing lettuce is indistinguishable from the time I spend writing poetry. You cannot have one without the other."
This is a loose paraphrase from memory, as I finally had to return the CD set to the library, but I'm still thinking about it, reminding myself that the time I spend aimlessly wandering or taking an afternoon nap will in fact make my work better, that my conscious mind is but a small part of what I know, and that surrendering to the mystery is a form of intelligence.
Here's to dawdling and daydreaming and humming when you can't remember the words. Here's to not knowing what is going to happen in the end.
Last night, I pressed the send key on the last write-up of the last chef I was assigned to cover for the upcoming issue of San Francisco Chefs. I felt a tinge of sadness hitting that key; the project was one of the highlights of my summer.
Last year, when I read about the publication on Catherine Nash’s blog, I asked for a copy, and eagerly read it from cover to cover. Due in no small part to Catherine’s sharp, witty writing, the pieces were engaging and distinct, a window into the life stories of our local chefs. Even better: the piece benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the finest institutions dedicated to helping children and their parents cope with life-threatening diseases.
I felt like a kid in a candy store when I got to be involved in the publication this year. Sit down with some of my favorite chefs and talk to them about the creative process? Twist my arm!
From Corey Lee at the French Laundry to Cal Stamenov at Marinus in the Bernardus Lodge in Carmel to Xavier Solomon at The Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, every single person I sat down with was gracious and engaging.
One of my favorite moments occurred when I was chatting with Ron Siegel at The Dining Room (you know how much I love TDR; big balloon hearts everywhere!), and I got to ask him about how they made my favorite amuse – a perfectly poached quail egg perched atop a glass dish of wood smoke and garnished with brioche croutons and caviar – and he animatedly described the whole process. It was far more involved than I had guessed, and now I’m an even bigger fan, if that is even possible.
You can have a complimentary copy of this year’s edition if you’d like – just send an e-mail to info@sf-chefs.com by October 5 with your name and full mailing address, and you’ll get to read about what inspires these men and women in the kitchen, and what they do when they’re not slaving over a hot stove.
Fear not: your name and address will not be given away, sold or shared. Not for any reason, ever.
If you need a bit more convincing, here’s the full list of chefs included in this year’s edition:
Acquerello – Suzette Gresham
Aqua – Laurent Manrique
Auberge du Soleil – Robert Curry
Bernardus Lodge – Cal Stamenov
Boulevard – Nancy Oakes/Pam Mazzola
Dry Creek Kitchen – Charlie Palmer/Mike Ellis
Manresa – David Kinch
Michael Mina – Michael Mina
Myth – Sean O’Brien
Piperade – Gerald Hirigoyen
Quince – Michael Tusk
Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay – Xavier Salomon
Silks Mandarin Oriental – Joel Huff
The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton (SF) – Ron Siegel
The French Laundry – Corey Lee
Go ahead, ask for your own copy... 'cause I'm not parting with mine!
This is the last weekend in July, which can only mean one thing: the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
What? You’re not going? You don’t want to drive into the hot, garlic-scented valley on a one-lane highway rife with minivans with bumper stickers that read: “It’s Chic to Reek”?
Can’t say that I blame you, but honestly: everyone should go at least once. It’s a kick. The atmosphere is contagiously goofy, and the air smells so strongly of garlic that even if you don’t eat any (impossible during the festival weekend), you’ll smell like it for at least three days afterwards. I spoke to Andrea Froncillo yesterday, chef at The Stinking Rose; he’s on his way down to Gilroy today for three days of garlic madness. He’ll be judging the Garlic Cook-Off, and then taking the stage himself, cooking from The Stinking Rose Restaurant Cookbook.
He’ll be in his element; the man is a born performer. He loves the energy of the crowd. I’ve often thought that his restaurants should have counter seating, where he could cook for an audience; it's truly what inspires him.
Which brings me to my fig story.
A few years ago, Andrea invited me to a dinner party hosted by his business partner in a gorgeous home in Russian Hill. About two hours before dinner was supposed to start, Andrea drove to Whole Foods and made up his menu on the spot in the produce section. He didn’t give it a thought before the moment he walked into the store; that there would be ten or twelve hungry mouths to fill in a short time didn’t daunt him in the slightest. He bought whatever was fresh and in season and piqued his fancy. Arms loaded with bags, he proceeded to the house, where he chopped and stirred, moving leisurely until guests began to arrive. Then he really started cooking.
Last week, as I was sorting through an old box of stuff, I came across this picture of my mother, circa 1972. Isn’t she a hottie?
Not that she would want me to say that. She blushes easily, my mom. She doesn’t like the spotlight; she listens more than she talks. She is a woman of strong convictions, but she holds them quietly. More than twenty years ago, she was already passionate about natural foods, and believed that organic was the only way to go. When people challenged her on this, she blushed all the way to the roots of her glossy brown hair, but she stood her ground.
Her early influences were Adelle Davis, Frances Moore Lappé (Diet for a Small Planet was a bit hit in our house) and Sugar Blues by William Dufty. She joined the first Rodale Book Club, and read each month's shipment before she carefully wrapped it up and sent it back. She read everything on nutrition and health that she could get her hands on, and she sought out people with "alternative" ideas. We didn't have health insurance, but we did have cod liver oil and raw garlic and all the vegetables we could eat, thanks to my mother.
I’ll never forget riding across the countryside with her and watching her point out a crop duster hovering over the fields. “Roll up the windows," she said tersely. "He’s spraying deadly poisons all over the ground." Her voice was grave. “People are going to eat that food.” We all felt the gravity of what was taking place right in front of our eyes. “What do you think will happen to that man?” she asked us. “He’s breathing in all of those fumes. Do you think his lungs will suffer?”
Those are the kinds of conversations that stick with a person.
Towards the end of last year, in preparation for our big trip in January, I contacted two people I wanted to meet and asked if I could sit down with them when I came to town. One was Richard Näslin, executive chef at the Ice Hotel in Sweden, and the other was Choumicha, the foremost food television personality in Morocco.
They both agreed to meet me. Our meetings (one in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, and one in Casablanca) were delightful; both Richard and Choumicha were warm and smart and engaging. They graciously responded to all of my questions. I typed furiously on my laptop as we spoke, and snapped a few pictures before we said goodbye.
I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since.
See, I told them I was a freelance writer, and that I was going to turn our chats into articles that I would then send to magazines, with the hope of getting something published. I didn’t promise them anything, and neither of them seemed to care one way or the other.
But I cared. I really, really wanted people to know about these two. I felt like they were special, and that there was a compelling story in both of them.
Story or no story, there was the pesky issue of getting through to an editor who felt the same way. The whole business of magazine article writing has always been something of an enigma to me. Several years ago, when I decided to write for a living and not just as an incidental part of a job, I naturally thought that I would write for magazines. Isn’t that what writers do? Write articles? I envisioned opening up the latest issue of Saveur or Food and Wine or Vanity Fair and seeing my name in perfectly set type, nestled among pretty pictures and riveting words.
My Taste3 experience began early last Sunday morning, when Margrit Biever Mondavi bought me a cappuccino. We were standing at the cafe counter inside Copia, looking for a caffeine fix to start the day. The woman behind the counter explained that they weren't open yet, but that she would make the drinks for us anyway. Margrit handed her a bill, waving aside my money with a shake of her regal head. We huddled over our cups with Katrina Markoff and Alex and Aki, chatting about which tours we were taking later that morning.
Magrit was leading a tour inside the studios of several Napa Valley artists; Katrina, Alex and Aki were all going on a tour of the French Laundry; I was headed to Quixote Winery.
As we went our separate ways a few minutes later, I thought: this is going to be an amazing three days.
Out in the parking lot, I climbed into a small van along with several other people, thrilled to see the friendly face of Elise from Simply Recipes, and we set off for Quixote. A man in a Panama Jack hat sat to my right; as the bus hummed along, he occasionally pointed to a building and made a comment about something that was happening there - a new owner, a feud, an interesting wine. When I finally asked his name, he introduced himself as Paul Franson, writer and author of NapaLife. I wished I could have sat beside him longer and listened to some of his insider stories.
Situated on a narrow winding road off of the Silverado Trail, Quixote Winery suddenly appears around a bend like a child's fantasy drawing come to life. The walls curve and dip; colorful tiles meander across the adobe-colored walls. At the far right, a gold onion dome winks beneath the sunlight. Most strikingly, the building seems to grow out of the landscape; the Stags Leap Palisades rise up in the background like a natural cradle, creating a visual feast of sumptuous curves and random textures.
I took this picture in Rabat, Morocco back in January. This herb and produce purveyor is sitting beside a busy street; apartment buildings are clustered on either side of her, in front of her, and in back of her. She has arranged her goods in a slightly recessed area; it looks as if a building might have stood there some years ago. The pallets in front of her hold (from left) coriander, flat-leafed parsley, mint and cardoons.
She sits placidly throughout the day, chatting with the housewives who walk by and buy bunches of fresh herbs to take home with them. When I took out my camera, she turned her head and hunkered down a bit, but my sweetie said a few words in Arabic to her, and she sat up and smiled.
She might be surprised to know that she is currently on display in what I affectionately call the Smallest Art Gallery in the World – the room that opens off of my kitchen. Some people might call it the “family room,” but we call it the “gallery room.” Every 2-3 months, I take everything off of the walls and hang a new “exhibit.” Last weekend, I hung the Morocco exhibit, with 8 of my favorite photos taken from our trip in January, plus a few small paintings and a pair of embroidered Moroccan slippers.
Upcoming “exhibits” this year include a collection of words - type-driven posters, metal letters and signs – and my “girl power” collection of drawings and prints of powerful women.
I really enjoy the process of thinking through what to do next, and the changing space ensures that I always have something interesting to look at while I’m cooking.
In the area? Stop by for a look! (Psst: Cookie? Aren't you hunting for a certain something nearby?)
Hours: Whenever I’m dressed and presentable, and not gone to the farmer’s market or the bookstore or on a walk with Petra. Oh, and when there isn't any laundry waiting to be folded or dirty dishes in the sink.
Admission fee: Chocolate.
P.S. - I wanted to add that I've been using Mpix to print my photos, and I've become a huge fan. The paper is thick and gorgeous, the colors are true, and turnaround time is quick and efficient. Their Kodak Professional Metallic paper - yummy! The colors in the photo above just pop out - the coppery streaks on the wall behind the woman in the picture above really shine.
