Crema

Over a year ago, perhaps it’s been two by now, I went to “Fall for Greenville”—a local food festival with my friend.  There, I feasted on mussels and lobster mac and cheese, fried green tomatoes and bacon brownies, but these, I’d had before.  It wasn’t these things that stuck with me, well no more than good food normally does.  Here I was first introduced to gelato and this was memorable. The flavor was birthday cake and it was profound.  A perfectly frigid representation of the treat. 

The next time I had it was in Torino, in the closing days of summer.  All previous memories disappeared in the delight.  Pepe and I found the storefront close to Porta Nuove, underneath the covered walkways.  Instead of a piazza, there was a park with a fountain.  Walking through there later, we would see children playing by the water, old men reading the paper on benches, a young man and dog drinking from the bull’s head (see below), and one particularly amourous couple laying together in the shade.

Bull's head, Torino's symbol.  More importantly, a water fountain!

But this was before the gelato.  Crema.  Cream.  It’s a flavor we don’t have here, at least to my knowledge.  Even if we did, it wouldn’t compare.  There were undertones of butter, the good, saltless kind.  Neither of us was expecting to be so overwhelmed by a simple ice cream cone.  I had pure crema.  Pepe soon admitted his error in wasting a single spoonful on chocolate.  That was the taste, better than Italian chocolate. 

My gelato and me, such love.

The day after, we thought that the beauty was in crema itself.  We were wrong.  We tried gelato from another store front, throwing it away in disgust.  One can do this in Torino, where gelato goes for a mere 2 € and the servers’ stinginess is non-existent.  We changed path, favoring an extra walk for the superb gelato of the day before.

The day he left, we went for gelato again.  In October, in the cold, we had gelato.  In November, when I was in Torino sans Pepe, I had gelato.  It was a problem, but an inexpensive one that didn’t need any help.

Now, sitting in the second winter of South Carolina’s impossible weather, I want crema gelato from that little store in Torino, almost as much as I want to be in Europe again.

Chez André

Enough good things cannot be said about Chez André, an unassuming restaurant in Paris.  It's expensive, but it's off of George V so that is to be expected.

I first went in January 2012, with my not-yet-SOs family.  For me, this was awkward.  I hadn't exactly been invited to dinner, but brought along, after staying late at the apartment.  We arrived, to be met by uncle and uncle's friend, cousin and boyfriend, then there was mother (and maybe father?) and Pepe, and me.  I was on the end, deploring the hole I now realized was in my shirt.  My Goodwill shirt.  Next to me, were Chanel purses and Rolex watches.

Conversation turned from pleasantries to (uncomfortable) stories about cousin's time in Mexico.  Pepe and I weren't allowed to order.  Cousin insisted on the burger and fries.  This, my one expensive meal in Paris.  I wasn't thrilled, but the food spoke for itself.

Later that night, the friend drove us home, my first time in a car in weeks.  First time ever in Paris.  What can I say, taxis are expensive, walking more useful.

Chez André is now a necessity.  In October, Pepe and I went back.  This time, I scorned burgers, for a Chateaubriand steak.  I… I just can't give that steak justice.  The steak, with the perfect fries and bernaise and Bordeaux.

I need a steak.  Just a little one.  Just the one from Paris.

Round 2 at Chez André, we sat next to Portuguese speakers, which tickled Pepe to no end.  We ended the night walking blocks, singing until we were complemented.

In December, we sat next to a couple, speaking in a spatter of English and French.  Neither was their first language.  Beyond them, were an American couple.  Insufferable really.  They started talking to the old couple next to them, for no reason at all.  The American man, spoke to them in French, saying he had worked in Paris for five years, that they were trying to get their son EU citizenship, that he loved the city… and on.

Apparently, I've misplaced all photos of the actual food...

The accent was so horrific, even the dog, sitting under the old woman's chair three tables away sighed in confusion.  It was so crowded, the man talking so loud, that trying to ignore it was impossible.

But then, my steak arrived with my wine.  Everything became pleasant again.

Baking Abroad

In Brazil last summer, I made Pepe his first "real" birthday cake.  Real as in handmade, with an added dose of affection.  Granted, baking abroad is rough.  What I consider basics--baking soda, baking powder, a normal sized bag of powdered sugar-- simply don't exist.

My cake beautifying skills are somewhat lacking.  It tasted good though!

I already have a list of the necessities I'll need this summer, when  I go back.  English measuring cups are the most important.  In Paris, I took up cookie making.  The New York Times BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe, to be exact.  I loved the recipe so much, I converted it in it's entirety to the metric system, at which point it looked somewhat like this...

How You Bake: A Story

The hummus and pesto at left were not added to the cookies...

Recipe: 7.14 grams baking soda, 7.14 grams baking powder... but wait, baking powder doesn't exist here.  Frantically search for a substitute, after spending over an hour at Monoprix scouring the aisles.  Learn that baking powder causes baking soda to react, therefore rise.  That the latter can be activated by yogurt, or lemon juice.  Try the former, settle for lemon juice because bubbly yogurt looks disgusting.  Save the converted recipe for next time.



Only next time you're in Italy, in the new apartment without internet.  You've managed to find dual metric/English measuring cups, but you only have the converted recipe.  You try pouring 233.33 grams of flour, then turning the cup around, to approximate.  It doesn't match up.  Somehow, the cookies still turn out.

You then become the designated baker, leaving Tupperware full of preformed cookie balls in your wake.  For Christmas, you make pie.  Only Italy lacks canned cherries, the main ingredient to your specialty.  They also lack fresh cherries.  So you decide to make apple pie, without a recipe at first, because you were going to make cherry pie. 

After peeling, coring, and slicing eight apples, you finally decide to look at a recipe.  It calls for 12 apples.  You think that's a lot, but send your boyfriend out for more anyway.  You season them all up, then try shoving 12 apples into a non-deep dish pie plate.  It doesn't work, per se.  But you sent him out in the cold.  You have to use all the apples.  Instead of a pie, you make an apple pyramid.

The End.

My baking adventures are at their usual university-standstill.  Until summer.  Then, with my suitcase full of baking equipment in tow, I'll take Brazil by cookie (and pie, and maybe cake).

Cliff Bars in Washington Square Park

My favorite story squirrel is the one from New York.  I was there as a graduation gift, from Tante Sheri, my somewhat more southern, significantly blonder maternal aunt from Texas.  Five days of roaming around, my first time out of the South.  I was sixteen years of excited all wrapped up into a single moment.

Washington Square Park, at the tail end of the trip, there was a piano and singing and swing dancing.  I looked on.  Reluctantly joining in, when asked to dance (and encouraged by my aunt).

I did this!

This was the New York I'd always imagined.  Full of life.  Fresh.  Smelling of grass and sun, instead of the hotdogs over on Fifth.  There were dogs and a "gourmet milk bone stand" for their benefit. 

Puppy noms

But then there was the squirrel.  A whopping 5 ounces of extroverted rodent.  Used to the normal, frigid rodents of Florida and South Carolina, I was surprised when the little guy approached me.  Practically sticking out his hand for an introduction.  As I had some squirrel appropriate food, a carrot cake Cliff Bar, I ripped off a piece, and presented my hand for hellos.

He put his paws on mine.  He was touching me.  Things seemed to be going well.  He was appreciative of the protein bar, taking it into his little hands and nibbling.

The moment of truth.

He promptly spit out the horrors and left me, affronted at my offering such food.

I later saw him sitting on a bench next to an old man, savoring French fries one by one, until his paws were covered in grease, and his belly resembled the beer gut of the man feeding him.    

Perfecting Yoga

I’ve reached a new level of university-induced exhaustion.  After reading half of Defoe’s 1722 novel Moll Flanders (consequently discussing at length, what exactly is a prostitute/ mistress and are there, in fact, any differences), eight odd short stories (there was definitely a history professor in one of them… I’m not sure which one.  She was hateable.), Stephen Graham Jones’ Bleed into Me (all of it, ugh), and writing a paper over the weekend (the ties between women and their sexuality as shown in Lazarillo de Tormes and Simplicissimus), I fell asleep during yoga.

Shavasana, I’ve mentioned it before.  You lay on your mat, the lights are dimmed.  You clear your mind; focus on your breathing until it becomes deep and natural.  I certainly did all this.  When the instructor rang the Buddhist gong thing, my mind was confused, started talking to me. 

Apparently it's a rin or suzu gong, also known as a Tibetan Singing Bowl

Was I sleeping?  Good heavens.  How did that happen?  I was just talking, with Dad, about work.  There was light.  Wait a second, my eyes are closed.  Dad isn’t here.

The instructor’s voice broke through, calmly.  “Start to bring movement back into your breath.  Roll onto your right side.”

See, I wasn’t sleeping.  Only…

I managed to fall asleep again in the few seconds of lying on my side, arm extended, knees up.

I think I’ve managed to perfect my shavasana (English translation: corpse pose). 

Apartment 2B

I don't even remember the moment when I wrote the following poem.  I think, October.  I was in Torino, staying with my SO's family.  They had just moved into their apartment, were still in the process of arranging and rearranging.

In my four days there, half my time was spent in and out of decor stores.  Zara Home, numbers of times a day.  Months later, the cashier still remembered me, though language had separated us from ever saying a word beyond Ciao.

I was struck, in the first days of the house, by its lack.  Everything necessary was there, but nothing else.  It was skeletal and because of this it was stunning.

Apartment 2B
It was the opposite of a haunted house.  Pristine perfection.
Untouched ivory, still attached to the skull of a raging elephant.
Full of the could bes, the ghost of infinite possibilities and lives to be lived.
Of the newness of infants and the aging of a woman alone at the end.

She entered the house as a stranger, when it was becoming new again,
erasing whatever past it once had, and rewriting itself as crystal.
The dust of tears grinding themselves into polished marble.
The taupe walls coloring to frost, then disappearing into clarity.

She returned in its infancy, still tempestuous waves of change and decision,
everything done but nothing quite finished.
That's how it stayed, an ever changing tidal pool,
welcoming the sandpiper and jellyfish alike.

A Parisian Dream

I was in Paris last night.  It was vivid.  I could smell the pastries, feel the cobblestones.  I remember taking an arm, leading it towards the best view.  Sharing my city with my grandmother.  I remember the excitement.  She was with me.  Here.  Every moment, she was distracted.  By the cars passing, by the birds.  Every instant a moment for a photo shoot.  I wanted to surprise her, with the view of views.  Place de la Concorde.  The Louvre, Champs Élysées, the Eiffel Tower, the Seine.  All at once.  Turning and turning to take it all in.  

I hate waking from Paris
Where I am with Mama
walking along the streets,
coming out of the metro
Keep your eyes closed.
Are they closed?

It’s her first time here,
camera slung across her shoulder
with her handbag in tow.
We’ve already stopped at a boulangerie,
scarfed two tartes aux poires,
ordered in the French that has
become rusty.

Now we’re at Concorde,
where the Grande Roue
of the marché de noël is
in my memories
of last year,
where I was lost,
waiting for friends
twice before.

We face the Tuileries
the little arc’s horses

face away from us.
There is the pond

and the plane trees,
with the pigeons and seagulls,
who swarm if given pain,

The arms of the Louvre

embrace us.

She opens her eyes.

A poem about distance

A rather productive morning was had, though I should have been doing other things.  Poetry always hits me at the wrong moment...

Because I really hate titles, not because I couldn't think of one, I share...

Untitled

Occasionally it seems too far

An impossible desire

But there was Paris

There was here

And São Paulo,

the warm winter.

The sun and St. Augustine.

There has been

The food and the wine

The hellos in airports

The horrible goodbyes,

Hugs and smiles and neediness.

Paris round 2, round 3

Italy in warmth and snow.

Valtournenche

and here and there.

The cafés and metro

The espresso and sleepless nights.

You pulling me through frigid Paris.

You and me,

Today.

I forget the nonsense of distance
Relishing in moments of then.

La Place Dauphine, Île de la Cité

A little slice of heaven

After a rather horrific second attempt at hot yoga this weekend, marked by several black outs and an upset stomach (apparently it is necessary to eat, drink, and sleep before a session, who would have thought), and the following day of soreness, I nevertheless decided to press on in my yogic endeavors.  I rushed out this afternoon after the briefest of Sunday dinners, into the warm embrace of an antigravity hammock.

A collection of people in heaven.

Antigravity hammocks.  Cocoons, if you will.  I've decided that, when I grow up, I definitely want to be a professional "silk worm".  This is the pose that is shown in the photo above.  Laying, warm and fuzzy, inside your own little slice of air.  Silk worm, this is what I will do with my  life.  I already knew I was good at napping, doing it inside a hammock is more acceptable, right?

As wonderful as silk-worming was, this wasn't the majority of the class.  There were adaptations of the usual little cobra and mountain pose.  We had a chillax position, forward bends, the whole shebang.  

Then, there were the inversions, which piqued my interest the most.  The instructor walked us through how to fold, jump, and ground our hammocks.  Then legs out, around, out around and up.  We were upside down.  Without even realizing it.

   

 Tadaaa!  A very bad attempt at an inversion.  I'm not nearly flexible enough to do the pose justice.  One day, soon, if I can will myself into a proper yogi.  We flew, we pushed ourselves back and forth, we leaned on and abused the hammocks.  Then we silk-wormed our way into shavasana.