ON a saturday that begins quietly, with a penguin-spotted fleece and cold feet exposed to the world, I welcome the true start of wintertime! sunny winter days in oberlin are few and far between, but the feeling of sitting in my pajamas with a cup of hot chocolate glancing at the blue sky and the frozen grass feels me with hope, happiness, joyful calm, serenity, and warmth!

upon that backdrop the world seems to shrink upon me, as my life is captured (or kidnapped) by words, music, recordings, impending travels, and not a moment to think!

yet everything works in two ways. i am optimistic due to the influence of ms. marianne moore, who takes the hallowed theme of animal and puts it to paper. is this the voice of one nishy, i ask thee?

.....
Openly, yes,
with the naturalness
of the hippopotamus or the alligator
when it climbs out on the bank to experience the

sun, I do these
things which I do, which please
no one but myself. Now I breath and now I am sub-
merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object

in view was a
renaissance; shall I say
the contrary? The sediment of the river which
encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used

to it, it may
remain there; do away
with it and I am myself done away with, for the
patina of circumstance can but enrich what was

there to begin
with.
.....

(and so on, much further on)

and back. i wonder how through this whole class of modern poetry, i have really only been struck by two poets, moore and eliot. wallace stevens and yeats and frost all left an unsatisfied feeling in me, and as an admirer of their works, i wondered what this might be. at the end i find myself returning to a common theme, which is that all art might be created either for the sake of individual enjoyment or over-stimulation, or both, and the 2 poets who capture that most boldly in my limited reading of the past few months are moore and eliot (and ashbery, who is not a modern poet.) and perhaps this is a personal ideal, because lots of people love yeats, worship frost, and see stevens as a beacon! but where is the fun, or the driving passion? Philosophy is not enough, but must be infused with humor, passion, love, or desperation, or all of these in one...

lately i have been thinking that i began writing because i was sort of lonely, and now i am a bit lonely without writing... therefore this trip and january mark a new task of writing! food, music, travel, it should all be contained within.

Sheer outrageousness...

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061113ta_talk_collins

Though not a regular consumer of lard and such, the refried beans at Nuevo Leon in Chicago will be etched into my memory for the rest of my life. How dare they cut off the supply to the next generation!

The Week of Mishappery!

Could it be my life is a series of comedic mishaps, frantic confusions, and stunningly bad timing? Well, sort of. It usually reserves itself for week-long periods, so that once the tide begins it attains its own momentum, has its own life and thought.


In the past week, I have....

lost my beloved digital camera! (no more pictures of food, scenery, or oberlin for some time, i am sorry to say)

dropped my cell phone in the rain, upon which I had to look for about 10 minutes till i found it in 2 parts, dismembered by the thunder-god.

played bolero on an audition, but somehow managed to forget to tongue the first note. upon the wispy sound of my air, i shuddered, blinked a lot, and lunged at it again. from there it was downhill...

sat on my glasses. not my first time. not since middle school, though! if i can keep those kind of time periods going, that will be some accomplishment!

got lost on the way to the half-marathon. then, with 5 seconds to go before the start, felt my pocket and realized my key was missing. this, the only key to my car (the copy is in philadelphia, which is another area of my stupidity). as everyone started running, i stood still, frantically questioning: do i run or do i freak out? i freaked out, though within slight bounds, and soon, with the help of some race-workers, found my key! i lost about 2 minutes in the race, my estimate. this is important for 2 reasons. my goal was between 1:45 and 1:50, and to get a medal in my age group (only 4 people running!). i ran an offical 1:46:20, and was passed at 12.5 miles by 2 people in my age group, who beat me by about 2 seconds in the end. NOOOOO! i don't care what they say, in my heart the trophy is mine! phooey! the last 3 miles were an experience unlike any i've had before, and when i was done i was surprised to see my face caked in salt! i looked like i had been in a freezer for a we hours or something!

and now i sit here, praise the earth that the week is over, and smile! on towards greater (or at least less hectic) things!

HOW TO SPEND FALL BREAK

watch "400 blows"

make the following

penne with ricotta, swiss chard, peppers, mushrooms, mozzarella, pecorino romano, and of course, some cream....

french bread (if residing in ohio, don't get stuck on quality or authenticity)

wine!

on this, the first day of snowfall for the upcoming year, my mind draws in towards joyous thoughts, joyous scarves, fluffy hats (and my stunning ability to lose them), cross-country meets in middle school and the smell of winter air, leaf piles in unexpected places, the upcoming end of schoolwork and with it a temporary end to the critical evaluation and analysis of the things i do, the impending return of running tights, hot showers followed by cold air, and all such things...

ah, we have missed much in this week. since this is a food blog first and foremost, i will attempt to transcend with the ordinary! 2 momentous occasions of ordinariness this week...

1, the perfect junk food meal, crafted in honor of the eagles-cowboys game, because when you take a break from balance, its important to make it count. therefore, the following items were purchased: 1 code red mountain dew, 1 bag kc masterpiece bbq chips, 1 bag tortilla chips, pre-packaged guacamole, spicy cheese salsa, 1 breakfast burrito (sadly i could not bring myself to eat this, as the package said it has 93% of a person's daily cholesterol) even on this holy day i have some limits...tex celebrates in a moving display!2, the ideal simple lunch! i have lived a life full of fancy lunches (red peppers, fresh roast rump, feta cheese, goat cheese, rosemary bread, etc....) YET... i still have a love for those simple lunches that can be put together for about 2 dollars a pop. bologna sandwich w/ provolone on 12-grain bread, with a side of hard pretzels and a banana! is there any thing better???

petite de vie (crocker park)! the first restaurant review!

except i must announce. this is not a restaurant. no, not even a cafe. petite de vie is an outdoor market stand, which on the rainy day i chose to go, looked abandoned, lonely, and dark! but as i rounded the ski-resort-like shopping market's edge i smelled....yes, i smelled the smell of fried things! as i ordered my 3 beignets and cafe au lait it occured to me that the server had just about the best job in the world. sitting in a small enclosed box wafting in the smell of beignets, on a rainy day with about 4 people standing around, who look as though they are headed towards champps, not towards beignets. i was handed a nice-looking box of the beignets, topped with a beyond-healthy helping of powdered sugar! and a very solidly good cae au lait, not too sweet, rich, but a bit mild...


i bit into the beignet (a french style donut, crispy and buttery flaky soft on the inside).... it had a solid crunch, and the inside of the pastry melted in my mouth, wave after wave of buttery flavor leaving its mark. i have a feeling these were beignets over the top style! as in, heavy on the frying, heavy on the butter, heavy on the powdered sugar! yet, if there is one way to go wrong, its extra! the delicious seeped in, as i quickly devoured the next two, and my car had attained the luxurious long-staying aroma of beignet! success!!! i'll have to go back and sample the rest of the menu, to be continued...

This is where I run! What used to be a railroad line is now a glorious bike-path, leading through farms, foresty patches, shooting ranges, abandoned highways, and as Grandpa would say, "oh the foilage!" As it was a railroad line in its hey-day, the path is utterly flat and straight, and features two nicely-dug trenches on either side, which form little rivers when the weather so desires.




Willow Poem
"It is a willow when summer is over, a willow by the river from which no leaf has fallen nor bitten by the sun turned orange or crimson. The leaves cling and grow paler, swing and grow paler over the swirling waters of the river as if loth to let go, they are so cool, so drunk with the swirl of the wind and of the river -- oblivious to winter, the last to let go and fall into the water and on the ground." - William Carlos Williams