Orange and Lime Love.

For my 16th Birthday, my mother asked me what kind of cake I wanted. I asked for my old favorite. A cake I somewhat invented when I was three and my mother perfected. I wanted an Orange cake with Lime frosting. It is a perfect union if you are the type who enjoys citrus flavored baked goods. I must say I am still impressed with my three year old self for coming up with such a perfect combo of flavors. Of course stores don't sell orange flavored cake mix nor do they sell lime flavored frosting. Once again I had to be weird and make everything more difficult. Many children just love chocolate-chocolate or Funfetti but not me... I order off menu. My mom made me her special cake, flavored with orange and lime Jell-O. unbeknownst to either of us, my grandmother also heard my request for orange-lime cake. She also made me a cake, similar but totally different from Mom's. Grandma made my cake with orange juice and lime zest, it was all from scratch. Mom's cake was candy and Grandma's cake was a spring afternoon in the English country. I loved both of those cakes, they were perfect.  Now that I look back, I realize that my Grandmother died a month after this glorious cake. She was dying at the time from esophageal cancer and probably couldn't eat any of it. At the time I didn't know how sick she was, I didn't even notice if she ate cake or not. What an act of love it was for her to make such a beautiful cake when she couldn't share it at all. I wish I had photos from that party, I wish I had photos of the cakes and my family that day... but they are etched in my heart and I really wish I had someone to make me a cake like one of those. A cake that is made purely of love (and flour and sugar) even when it's not easy like chocolate. I wish I could make a cake like that.
Happy Birthday.

Hello old friend.

I miss Blogger. It seems like a lonely place now that the Book of Face has taken over easy communication of friends. But this was a place where I had longer and slower talks. I met new people. I travelled to Antarctica and Tanzania through my fellow Bloggers posts. I'm not quite ready to give up. So here I am just dropping in to say hello.

Soup that Butternut!

How to make Butternut Squash Soup. 

1. Cut open your squash and take out the seeds. 

2. Bake it at 400F until soft. I like to leave garlic cloves in the hollow parts of the squash

 3. heat up some stock on the stove. You can add carrots to the stock if you want to make the flavor more complex.


4. Let the squash cool enough that it doesn't burn your fingers, then add the insides to a blender (you can even do this the next day) If you had carrots in your stock or garlic in with the butternut, strain them out and add them to the blender too.

 5. Slowly add the stock and a cup of coconut milk and blend until smooth.


6. Add salt, pepper and olive oil to taste.

Enjoy!

The unseen

What this photo doesn't show you; the statue of liberty just to the right, or the humidity in the air that makes me feel like I'm walking in soup. It doesn't show the sweat dripping from my clothes or the project I just finished for work. It doesn't show my concern for loved ones back in California, or my lost hopes hovering somewhere above that horizon. But sometimes it is good to let everything fall to the sides and just enjoy one beautiful sunset over a beautiful river. Let all the things that you don't see be quiet, just for a moment.

The promise of Spring

The buds of May, the buds of April... soon these trees will be full of blossoms. 

This is always the hope. This is always the promise. It's not guaranteed, but it is most likely. 

 You must enjoy what you can when it is possible...

Thinking about home

I want a version of this for San Francisco. I've been feeling so rootless these days.

Shopping

Today was spent as a professional shopper. Oh the glamorous life... searching store after store in hopes of finding the most specific thing in as close to the best size you can find, knowing that you are guaranteed the pleasure of returning 3/4th of the things you are buying in a matter of weeks. Mostly if you want a visceral sense of what my job is like on shopping days you're going to need two 15lb weights. Now carry both, one in each arm, walk about 5 miles while avoiding people and not putting down your weights. Be sure to take lots of stairs while you're at it... because I work in New York most of the time... and that's about where I'm at. My feet hurt, my arms hurt and I am ready for bed a good two hours early.

Autumn?

Finally the season begins to turn. The Air Conditioners have become less and less, the heaters haven't turned on just yet. I am ever so grateful for the joy of sweaters and scarves, and I continue to visit my favorite place in all of New York. Work continues to be unpredictable and I often wonder if I'll ever just find my rhythm here. But we breathe, we prep food on Sunday, we take one step at a time. And we talk in the Royal "We"... apparently.

sad

Courtesy of Hyperbole and a Half.

Summer Blues

 I discovered that it only takes 30 minutes to get to Coney Island from my apartment. It takes longer to get to the library or Prospect Park... so today in my deep dark funk I went for the second time in two days. I may go again tomorrow. Yesterday it was grey and humid and gross but the beach was semi-free of people. Today it was sunny and beautiful and people littered the beach. That's the thing about New York. There's nowhere to go and be quiet. The most quiet place is my apartment but I don't want to sit at home all day, so I go out and try to find a place that is less noisy. I tried walking to Manhattan Beach and found mansions on the way and another beach even more packed with people. I took a moment to sit in the grass at a church. I was sure a security guard would make me leave but no one bothered me. I walked back to Brighton Beach and along the shore until the sun started to set and people started to leave, finally a patch of sand that wasn't jammed with people opened up. I just sat and watched the waves. I tried to not think about how noisy everything is and how plans don't seem to work out. I just tried to not think about the racists taking over the country and the megalomaniacs running the country and how any day I'm just going to see a flash of light and a loud noise and everything will be different. Just watch the waves. Just keep breathing.

Rainy day

I found myself on my commute home today admiring how beautiful everything gets in the rain. So sad that my phone doesn't have better resolution, I moaned about how overexposed everything was. Meanwhile, on my left hip was sitting my fancy Nikon SLR just being ignored. I had brought it to work for a quick portrait session and promptly forgot that I was hauling it along with all of my other possessions when it hit me; I am an idiot. I am carrying the perfect camera to capture these dewy leaves, I'm just so used to having the convenience of a phone that I forgot about the awesome power of a tool designed to do one thing very well.

Be Skeptical

It has now been a full year since I've received my MFA. I went to the showcase for the class of 2017 last week.
Although he has a hard time getting around these days our dear professor Ming Cho Lee actually showed up to see the work. He uses a walker, stairs are difficult, but he still loves talking about theatre.  At the end of the day, we gathered to toast the graduates and Ming was coerced into giving a toast which he began “I have some concerns…”  Classic Ming. His concerns were mostly that everyone thinks too much and feels too little ; “Stop being so goddamned pragmatic and start finding the romanticism in these stories”.  He also touched on our current political situation. A man who escaped Communist China and lived through the Great Depression and WWII has perspective on this trend of nationalism and choosing sides. On that topic he told us to be wary of concepts, to not easily align ourselves with any one idea. He said “be skeptical, have a sense of irony”.  I miss that man. Some people aren’t patient enough to hear what he’s saying but I am ever grateful that I got to study with him.