Making meatloaf

Yesterday I went to see Jeanne Dielman, a 1976 film by Chantal Akerman.

It’s three and a half hours long with very little dialogue. In other words, I could hear the man two rows up and seven seats over chewing his popcorn. No worries though. I’m sure he heard me too.

I'm no film expert, but I do know that this movie involves watching a widowed, single mom and prostitute perform her daily household routine over three days – breading veal cutlets, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, making coffee, setting the table. There seems to be lots of setting the table.

Nothing really happens for long stretches of time, but that’s part of what kept me hooked. I kept waiting for something. The “I’ll be damned if I’m leaving now” kind of thing. Then I realized that something is always happening. And the real point I suppose is that the extended length of scenes forces us to experience Jeanne Dielman’s kind of sad role in society – washing dishes and all.

During one scene, when she kneads meatloaf for a solid three minutes, a guy in the theatre let out a flutter of laughter, which totally set me off too. It was the most uncontrollable bout of silent, row-shaking inappropriate laughter I’ve experienced since, oh, maybe church at age 7. It was excruciating, and sort of awesome.

And also, after hearing about a friend who frantically whipped mousse while mad at her boyfriend, I’ve been thinking about food as a conduit for releasing aggression. The meatloaf scene reminded me of that a bit.

If you’re in the mood to make meatloaf, I suggest this recipe, which I made for a photoshoot at work a few months ago. My co-workers seemed to like it. I hope you will too.

Tea break

Interlude

I can't figure out how to say what I want to say sometimes. Here's something pretty in the meantime.

Keegan DeWitt "Wild Heart (Fleetwood Mac cover) from Lake Fever Sessions on Vimeo.

Beets + Beats

This is a not-so-fabulous photo of a fabulous dessert.

It's beet cake with beet gelato from the Breslin Bar & Dining Room in NYC. The server told me that Chef April Bloomfield plated it herself because she didn't like the look of her staff's first version. "Beets are deadly serious," wrote Tom Robbins.

I admit I've been wearing out that Robbins line lately. I tweeted it a few weeks ago when I learned that beet juice would help de-ice Tennessee roads this winter. And given that the pink cake across the top of this blog also gets its color from beets, I figure it's time we hear a bit more about beets from Robbins:

The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies. -- Tom Robbins

So why all the talk about beets?

I'm going back to NYC next weekend. In a fit of procrastination (and anticipation), I created a 41-song NYC-themed playlist. You can listen to the first eight songs by clicking here.

Do you have a favorite song about New York?

So Far Around the Bend ~ The National
A Letter to the New York Post ~ Public Enemy
Myriad Harbor ~ The New Pornographers
Queensboro Bridge ~ David Mead
My My Metrocard ~ Le Tigre

M79 ~ Vampire Weekend
Good Fortune ~ PJ Harvey
New York is a Woman ~ Suzanne Vega
Sheena is a Punk Rockers ~ The Ramones
New York ~ Cat Power

Glad Tidings ~ Van Morrison
The Only Boy Living in New York ~ Simon and Garfunkel
Yeah! New York ~ Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Chelsea Hotel #2 ~ Leonard Cohen
Song for Myla Goldberg ~ The Decembrists
New York Was Great ~ The Ravonettes

M79 ~ Vampire Weekend
You Said Something ~ PJ Harvey
Alphabet Town ~ Elliott Smith
Shattered ~ Rolling Stones
14th Street ~ Rufus Wainwright
Paranoia Blues ~ Paul Simon
N.Y. ~ Doves
Hotel Chelsea Nights ~ Ryan Adams
The Hudson ~ Dar Williams
New York City ~ John Lennon
Train Under Water ~ Bright Eyes
Good to Go ~ Elliott Smith
Talkin’ New York ~ Bob Dylan
New York City ~ Grandmaster Flash
This Mess We’re In ~ PJ Harvey
Daughters of the Soho Riots ~ The National
Bulletproof Weeks ~ Matt Nathanson
An Englishman in New York ~ Sting
Damn, Sam ~ Ryan Adams
Zephyr & I ~ Suzanne Vega
Famous Blue Raincoat ~ Leonard Cohen
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant ~ Billy Joel
Times Square ~ Marianne Faithful
NYC ~ The Charlatans
First We Take Manhattan ~ Leonard Cohen
Visions of Johanna ~ Bob Dylan

A good sign

At Arnold’s Country Kitchen they don’t bother with a bunch of nonsense on the sign.

It’s a bold statement, don’t you think?

(Drops mic. Walks off stage.)

Ahem. Number 1....

I love lists. I make one every day (at least). And when I was robbed last year, it truly thrilled me to see my to-do list tumble out of my bag as the criminals ran away.

So it's also with much joy that I welcome the season of the "best of" list. This time of year magazines and newspapers recap everything -- books, movies, music (and on and on....and on!).

But I like that the "best of" list expresses opinion and offers a mini celebration of everything that's been good about a year.

As not to miss my opportunity, here are some of my favorite things from '09. (Disclaimer: List not even close to conclusive.)

1. I love Heidi Swanson's cookbook, Super Natural Cooking.

But this year it was in her blog that I found the recipe for "Green Soup with Ginger." The sassy bits of root make it fragrant, and it's loaded with healthy greens and hunks of sweet potatoes. Even though I try to experiment lots, it's rare that a dish enters "the repertoire." The Green Soup did. It makes me feel good.

2. "Let's Go Surfing" by The Drums...Ditto for feel good.

The Drums - "Let's Go Surfing" Music Video from Pheasant Plucker on Vimeo.

3. Nine Kinds of Naked by Tony Vigorito.

It actually came out in late 2008, but I learned about it this year thanks to Samir and Matt. It's a zany manifesto on synchronicity. An excerpt:

"The average raindrop exists for twenty-three minutes......But this was a raindrop destined to live fast and die young, the vanguard of a mighty storm, an oversized dollop pitched from the center of a churning free-for-all, spinning like a glass speedball toward a home run, streaking out of the sky like it was late for a waterfall, a shimmering, pulsing bead reflecting a world on the brink of chaos and beauty."

4. The Ace Hotel in New York City

I have a mini minibar obsession. It's not that I enjoy taking things from them (too expensive), I just love looking at them. They're like carefully edited treasure chests. You never know what you're going to get and they usually express the style of a hotel.

At Ace there's nothing mini about them. They're full-sized old-fashioned refrigerators with everything from bottles of St. Germain to potato chips from far-flung lands.

But I loved the Ace Hotel for way more than the minibar.

Such as its little slogans...

And its restaurant, the Breslin Bar and Dining Room (from chef April Bloomfield of The Spotted Pig), where I sank my incisors into a juicy lamb burger topped with a thin slice of feta and spread with cumin mayonnaise.

5. This band.

The guys from Parachute Musical let me climb onto their green van and travel with them for 1,200 miles while writing about their every move. I laughed more that week than I might have all year. I sort of turned into a dude temporarily. But most importantly they let me ask them anything and never held back the truth. For a journalist that's heaven. Oh and they're wicked talented.

6. Farms.

I spent time learning about a few of them this year and fell in love with the people from Bells Bend Neighborhood Farms just outside Nashville. A doctor couple, who live on the main property, started the farm to help save their community from development. They built fences while tearing others down and pretty much handed over their land to a 23-year-old farmer. On Tuesday nights they also hand over the kitchen to the farm's workers and volunteers for a group meal and celebration of harvest.

Farmer Eric.

Eric's dog Red guarding the lettuces.

7. The Southern Foodways Alliance.

I can't stop talking about them. The people with the SFA help preserve Southern culture and discuss food in intelligent, alternative ways. They also throw a great party.

At the symposium in Oxford this year, we heard a lecture on hip hop and chicken. We watched a New Orleans food critic come to tears over his city and Springsteen, and we listened as a Columbia University professor peppered his lecture with snippets of Billie Holiday and James Brown's Keep it Funky. Later, we boarded a bus bound for a catfish fry while passing around a bottle of Evan Williams. H1N1? Pshhh.

Perhaps I'm biased, but there's a certain eccentricity among some Southern people that I adore. It's as if the humidity seeps into our bones and made us a little crazy. Good-crazy, that is. The people with the SFA seem to embrace that, too.

Still riding the bus

Yeah, I've been a bad blogger lately.

The day job has kept me rather busy. But this weekend I'm going to New York City where I hope to find inspiration, delicious food, and these people who count in increments of five and use pay phones...

Phenomenal Handclap Band "15 to 20" Official Video

The Phenomenal Handclap Band | MySpace Music Videos