Rest period

"I don't know about your brain, but mine is really...bossy," says Laurie Anderson.

Well. I don't know about your brain, but mine is really hamster-like. It spends far more time than I think it should on a mental hamster wheel, racing, racing, spinning out thoughts, going nowhere. It won't even take a moment to call me "Baby Doll."

While I might like an affectionate nickname, what I need is a rest. Laurie Anderson speaks (or rather doesn't speak) volumes about rests. It wouldn't be a Laurie Anderson song without unusual rests in the middle of phrases, as Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives demonstrate in their parody/tribute My Dinner with Laurie. Anderson knows how to use silence. Her idiosyncratic pauses and rhythms give the same old, same old words and phrases new meaning.

We talk about "the pause that refreshes." Anderson makes intentional use of these, to great effect. What about those involuntary pauses, when our thoughts scatter and we lose the important ones? Most of the time, this doesn't feel particularly refreshing: "I had something I wanted to say and now it's gone straight out of my head," or "I came to the grocery store for something but now I can't think what it was."  There is refreshment, though, in getting lost this way--not in thought, but from thought.

When upsetting things happen, my brain keeps me up most of the night, apparently training for a triathlon on its hamster wheel. So it's been, lately. Then, this morning, something changed. I had a second or two in which I blinked dazedly in my not-a-morning-person way and thought, "I was upset about something, wasn't I?" For just an instant, I couldn't remember what it was. It all stormed back over me in another instant, but now I know things are going to get better. It's not the sleeping or not sleeping; it's the moment of waking up having forgotten.

Such moments cleanse the mind in the way that sorbet cleanses the palate. There's much to explore on the topic of why Laurie Anderson is and is not like sorbet; my brain got on the hamster wheel for a while about that. I thought about unusual sorbets, ones whose flavors give us pause. These were popular about ten years ago, as part of an exploration of the psychology of food. (Because we expect these things to be sweet, the brain struggles to catch up with the palate when we face mustard ice cream or salmon sorbet.) The unexpected frozen flavors cause us to think, rather than not think, though. They provide the opposite of an intellectual rest. Traditional palate-cleansers are simpler.

Sorbet needs to be churned or spun to keep it from freezing into a block of flavored ice. That's easy with an ice cream maker, tough going without one. If I had an ice cream maker, I'd make a palate-cleansing sorbet out of kkaenip (Korean perilla), a vegetable with a flavor halfway between mint and amaranth greens. (I've never seen a recipe for this. I just think it would work well.) Since I have no ice cream maker, I made a sorbet substitute from the food network's web site. It's quick, easy, and refreshingly good.

Frozen Banana Sorbet

1 ripe banana, cut into chunks and frozen
1 T lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 T honey

Place all ingredients in a food processor. Puree. Stop when the puree coheres but is still slightly chunky. Serve immediately.

This recipe is courtesy of Chef Bobo, Executive Chef and Food Service Director, The Calhoun School.

I added a few frozen blackberries to mine, for more color and a brighter flavor. Next time, I want to make a more thought-provoking version, without the blackberries but with fresh mint and chili peppers. I imagine the basic recipe would also be good--and more dessert-like--with the addition of shaved dark chocolate or Dutch cocoa powder.

Expect the unexpected, possibly three-square meals a day of it

Eight or nine years ago, I began hybridizing some of my houseplants. The hobby has increased my patience (in addition to branding me, unmistakably, as a botany nerd). I chose to work with Hippeastrum, a genus of tropical bulbs grown for their showy flowers. They're easy to hybridize, but they take a while to grow up. On average, they need three or four years from seed to bloom.

"Store-bought" (commercially available) Hippeastrum hybrids blooming for me in the fall of 2011

"Average" is one of those slippery concepts that's not always helpful. My first hybridizing attempts went well. I put the seedlings outside for the summer, where they and the parent plants were decimated by Narcissus Bulb Fly, a truly disgusting and destructive pest. Disheartened, I stopped growing these plants for several years. I've grown them for more years of my life than not, though, and missed them enough to acquire a few more, a few years later. I hybridized the new plants, but lost those seedlings, too, because I couldn't care for them during a series of big life changes. Three years ago, I tried my hand at hybridizing again, using those Hippeastrum still with me after several years of neglect. I got a huge crop of seedlings, and pampered them until last fall, when an injury required me to give up most gardening activities. I've had to reduce my houseplant collection drastically, and I have no place for the Hippeastrum. I dragged all the pots of seedlings--too many for me to care for--and all the pots of parent plants--also way too many--outside onto my rooftop this spring and left them alone all summer. When Hurricane Sandy threatened, I dragged all the pots back in, but only so that they wouldn't be blown off the roof and onto the heads of passersby. I left the Hippeastrum in the back hallway to dwindle into husks.

I've been feeling bad about about littering the back hallway of my building with dying Hippeastrum. Last weekend, I decided I'd make things better for my neighbors by cleaning up that mess. Sifting through dead leaves, I found bulb after bulb not just not dying, but actually sending up buds. Mostly, the parent plants are budding, but one of the seedlings is, too--the first of my own hybrids to bloom for me in all these years.

I was already on a high from unexpected events, having just stumbled across something else I'd given up on: a vegetarian recipe for Vietnamese pho. The non-vegetarian version of this soup has what might be the best broth in the world, made with, among other things, a whole chicken and an awe-inspiring number of spareribs. After extended experimenting, a few years ago, I gave up on making the dish because I didn't think it was possible to get that flavor without the meat. I was looking for a recipe for something else, but there this one was. Reading the recipe, I realized I'd never tried to flavor broth with star anise.  I will be using it frequently now. That was unexpected, too: the flavor it adds to broth is almost magical.

I really didn't follow the pho recipe. I can't find fresh Thai basil or Vietnamese cilantro around here at this time of year, and I had other vegetables that I needed to use up. What I made is certainly not pho. (It doesn't have any noodles, to start with.) It does highlight the abilities of star anise.

Not Pho with Star Anise

peanut oil

1 small-medium onion

2 scallions (you can skip these and use a lightly larger onion)

1 clove garlic 

1 pod star anise

1 small-medium sweet potato

1 medium Korean radish (or use daikon, or turnip, or rutabaga)

salt

freshly ground black or white pepper

pinch sugar

1 egg per person eating

handful mint leaves

3-4 large, outer lettuce leaves

Slice the onions thinly. Chop the scallions and garlic. Saute onion, garlic and scallions in a little peanut oil until softened, but not browned. Add about 6 cups of water and the star anise. Bring to a boil over medium heat while you dice the potato and radish. Add diced vegetables, bring to a gentle boil again and cook over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the mint. Slice the lettuce leaves crosswise into 1/8"-wide ribbons. Fry the eggs in a little more peanut oil. When they've cooled slightly, cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Season the soup with salt, pepper and sugar. Add the lettuce and cook another 2 minutes. Put the soup into bowls and top with mint and egg.

Serves 2-3 hungry people who like to eat a lot of soup, or 4 people who are eating this soup as part of a meal.

Let me know if you try this recipe, and if it surprises you or is unexpected in any way.

My seedling 

Unexpected things are a bit like meteorological events.  They drop out of the sky, sometimes evenly paced, like steady rain, and sometimes clumped irregularly, like the fused snowflakes that drift around during warmer-weather  snowstorms. We could say 'expect the unexpected,' but what is the point of making the unexpected into something predictable that occurs, say, once per week, or by 10:00pm on the first Saturday of the month? Lack of temporal regularity sharpens the joy of the unexpected. Still, I know the allure of predictability; I like being able to count on things. I want to be able to count on surprise and novelty. What to do?

Follow recipes. Listen to music.

A recipe regularizes the unexpected. The meal you made turned out so well, I need you to record what you did so I can have those unexpectedly delightful results whenever I want them. In fact, I have trouble following recipes. (And every time I write one out, I have to include notes on how others can vary the procedure or the ingredients.) In my own balance of expected and unexpected, I like a little more unexpected, at least with food. What works best for you?

I do better with listening to music, where composers and performers manipulate regularities (like rhythm) in unexpected ways. Ravel's Bolero came to mind when I was thinking about my Hippeastrum, at first because the drama in that piece takes a long time to build. But more interesting is how the drama builds.

The web site maurice-ravel.net explains:

Ravel was insistent that the work should be played at a steady and unvarying tempo (as his own recording demonstrates). "C'est une danse d'un mouvement très modéré et constamment uniforme, tant par la mélodie que par l'harmonie et le rythme, ce dernier marqué sans cesse par le tambour. Le seul élément de diversité y est apporté par le crescendo orchestral." (Ravel, [1938]). After a performance in 1930, he reprimanded Toscanini for taking the work too fast and for speeding up at the climax. (Coppola, [1944], p.105)

Rhythmically, Ravel uses the expected in an unexpected way. Or we could say that the unexpected, in this piece, is the regularity.

Bolero is inseparable, in my mind, from the movie 10, which I saw, on tv, I think, when I was too young to understand it. All I remember of it is a scene with Bo Derek and Dudley Moore. One of them asks the other,"Have you ever done it to Ravel's Bolero?" Supposedly, this results in off-the-charts sex, and they proceed to try it, but decide they've messed up part-way through, somehow, and restart the music in order to get it right. Talk about trying to regularize something so you can expect unexpectedly great results.

Tastes Like  Chicken  Turkey

I was crazy about Gilbert and Sullivan operas when I was little. I listened to The Mikado so much that, at age six or so, I was able to recognize one of the themes from it in a piece by Beethoven. According to my mother, I exclaimed, outraged, that Beethoven had copied Gilbert and Sullivan. 

Although I was troubled, at first, to learn that my beloved Gilbert and Sullivan had perhaps ripped off Beethoven, rather than the other way around, I began to like Beethoven more for having heard The Mikado in it. I believe this experience started an equal appreciation I have for "original" (or "real") and "imitation." They're not the same, but each has its intrinsic value. That appreciation persists, as does the habit of hearing things in other things.

One morning last week, while rushing around, trying to get out of the house on time, I heard Pandora radio doing something weird. It was playing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Qawwali singer, except he was singing--no, it couldn't be a Peter Gabriel song, could it? 

Please tell me: does this remix of Tainu Takda Rawan remind you of Youssou N'Dour singing in Shakin' the Tree?

Having listened again, and again, I still hear the resemblance. (I don't think it was just me not being a morning person.) I haven't found any connection between the recordings, although I haven't done any kind of extensive research. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Peter Gabriel did collaborate, and they performed together. I don't know what, if any, interaction Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had with Youssou N'Dour. I don't know whether this is a case of two completely separate things sounding like each other, or a case of one artist paying respect to (or being inspired by) another.

In no way do I mean to imply that, of these three artists, one or two are "real" and the others "imitations." Instead I'd like to ask: does real (or original) versus imitation (or rendition or tribute or cover or version) matter, and, if so, why, and under what circumstances?

I'm reminded of a commercial for frozen pizza, also from Pandora radio. In evidence of how well the ad works, I don't remember the brand of pizza. I remember the opening lines, which make the claim that imitation is never as good as real. Knowledgeable Voice-over Man adds, presumably in case we couldn't get that concept in the abstract, "Just ask any guy who's tried to propose with a cubic zirconia." (We learn, at the end of the commercial, that this particular brand of frozen pizza uses real cheese.)

About this fine example of analogy run amok, I'd say, if someone proposed to me, and I happened to want to marry that someone, I wouldn't care whether a ring came with the proposal. And if there was, in fact, a ring with the proposal, I wouldn't care if it were made out of a re-shaped paperclip. I'd care that someone I wanted to spend my life with also wanted to spend theirs with me. Sure, there's a difference between real and imitation, and, sometimes, that is not the point.

Apparently, sometimes that's not the point even in the case of real and imitation foods. I don't usually like meat substitutes, but I went through a brief phase of eating Tofurky, a product made from soy beans that have been molded, colored and flavored to resemble smoked turkey. My two cats, always focused on food, went insane the first time I brought Tofurky into the house. They began climbing up me when I took the sealed package of it out of the shopping bag. When I opened the package, they did their slithery, unstoppable, I-am-everywhere-at-once best to get to that unbearably delectable-smelling fake turkey.

"It's not real, guys," I told them.

They continued to beg.  And climb up me. And jump on the counter. And slither around me and onto the counter from the other side when I tried to block them.

Finally, to prove my point (and to get a little peace in which to make a sandwich), I gave each cat a sliver of Tofurky.

Gone!

Before I could really process what had happened, they'd devoured the fake meat and resumed their efforts to get more.

"Guys, you're eating tofu," I told them. "You're cats! You don't like soy beans."

I don't know what that stuff is flavored with, but the cats have the same reaction each and every time I bring it home. It doesn't taste much like real turkey, as far as I can remember. (I haven't always been a vegetarian.) Clearly, they don't care. They've focused on its intrinsic value. 

(I tried to take a picture of the cats eating Tofurky, but they vacuumed it up too quickly for my camera. I didn't give them a large portion since it's really not a natural food for them. Here, they're doing their staring-deep-into-my-eyes routine, trying to hypnotize me into giving them more imitation meat. )

When Two Worlds Collide

A friend laments being "male-bonded"--slapped on the arm and called "Bro," and/or offered non-sequiturial comments about women's asses by men he doesn't know, simply because he and they have the same chromosomal makeup. My friend attributes these behaviors to something he calls "bro culture." He experiences them as manipulative, stereotyping  and intrusive on a variety of levels. Talking about a recent episode in a restaurant, he said, "The waiter and this other guy were male-bonding me, and they just wouldn't stop. I felt like they were doing it to get a bigger tip."

 The restaurant episode had a surprise ending. My friend reported, "I was ordering my food, and they were male-bonding me the whole time--and I was wishing they'd stop--and then I sat down and took off my coat and hat, and then they just...stopped! All of a sudden, they completely ignored me." He was baffled, but happy.

After a moment of appreciating the silence, he realized what had happened. It had been Hat Day at the middle school where he teaches. He'd forgotten to wear a holiday hat, but had made do by tying the ribbon from a student's gift into a floppy green bow around his head. At the restaurant, after the surprise relief from being male-bonded, he realized he'd forgotten to take the ribbon out of his hair. Delightedly, he told me, "I must have looked like a total queen. They'll probably never bother me again."

He and I laughed at the story, but agreed that it's troubling, to say the least. Along with the more obvious stereotyping it involves, the story raises questions about what it means to define, belong to or shun a culture. Problematic, indeed. My friend said, "I'm beginning to think 'culture' is like a pile of sand." It's hard to define and contain, with boundaries that keep slipping away. And it's very hard to talk about, or to try to define, without stereotyping or somehow overgeneralizing. ("Bro culture" is, of course, a stereotype.)

I also think culture is like dialect; we manage more than one, often without thinking about it. I told the green-ribbon story to another friend, whose gentle, empathetic nature is  about as far from bro culture as a person can get. She's very familiar with this culture, though, because she's engaged to a member of it. "What's that like?" I asked her. "It's like a totally different world, sometimes," she said. She described the process of getting to know her fiance as "A lot of translation."

Maybe I think too much about communication, but I see all of it as translation. Always.  We all come from different worlds and speak different languages. "After all," my empathetic friend said, when I complained that people assume cultural similarity because of geographic proximity, "My brother and I grew up in the same house, and it's like we're from different worlds."

I grew up in America, the melting pot. I'm the child of a mixed marriage between two people who, although they both grew up on the northeast coast of this country, might as well have come from different planets. I used to embrace what I call the culture of liminality--the "I don't belong anywhere" culture. Then I realized it's not much of a stretch to flip the ideas of "nowhere" and "everywhere."

When cultural sand grains slip from one pile into anther, I feel I benefit. I might feel differently if I had a strong cultural identity, but as it is I'm drawn to mixes. I think that's why I'm charmed by the Welsh Cajun band Cajuns Denbo. Those who know more about Cajun and zydeco music than I do say this band isn't great, musically, but I like their spirit. You can listen  to the entirety of their album Stompio here, on grooveshark. In honor of my green-beribbboned friend's victory over male-bonding, I'd like to suggest that you start with the track "Cajun Cwins." ("Cwins" is the Welsh spelling of "queens.")

All the mixing reminds me of bibimbap, a dish of mixed ingredients, mixed together, and a way that I mix food from another culture into my own. I learned to make bibimbap from Maangchi. As she explains in her video recipe, "bibim" means "mix" in Korean, and "bap" means "rice." Bibimbap is a mix of stuff mixed with rice. The recipe looks complicated, like it's going to take forever, but each ingredient is easy and quick to prepare. (Kosari has to soak overnight and then undergo a lengthy boiling process, but I don't make it at home. I dislike the strong odor it emits while it's boiling.) While I sometimes follow Maangchi's recipes exactly, as she advises, I often innovate, probably because of low cultural boundaries. At least bibimbap is traditionally variable; the dish originated as a way to use up leftover side dishes, I believe.

This time, I made bibimbap with fresh shitake mushrooms, baby bok choi sauteed with garlic, soybean sprouts, egg, and a small beet that I cut into matchsticks and microwaved for a minute.

Mixing, like everything else, is, well, mixed, and not foolproof. When things unmix and translation fails, we get those moments of "I've been working with/friends with/playing soccer with/living with/married to/etc. this person for [however long] and right now they're a complete stranger to me." For those moments, there's always a bit of 90s musical melodrama and motion sickness.