verbatim

Having Survived the Mall

I've pretty much recovered from my marathon mall episode yesterday, and I realize I left out two important points in my brief summary: 

1. Mark my words: I will never again set foot in Abercrombie & Fitch, not even for 10 seconds. I went in for less than 2 minutes yesterday to see whether it would be a good place for Pete to shop (he's recently discovered a world of clothing options outside of basketball shorts and Nike T-shirts) and left nearly ill. The pitch-darkness is one thing, the deafening music another. But the overpowering cologne that hangs like a cloud is positively toxic. I had to sit on a bench outside the store for several minutes until the nausea and threat of fainting passed. I honestly thought I was going to pass out. It's hard enough to imagine people shopping there, but how about working there? I would think OSHA would need to get involved. (For the record, Pete did pretty well at The Gap.)

2. The food court has quite a few decent options, surprisingly. I always make a beeline for Gourmet India, and it is always excellent. Yes, really, Indian food in a mall food court! Yesterday I got chicken tikki masala and Mugal-style cauliflower and potatoes. Steph and Julie are fond of the Thai mandarin chicken and rice, and Pete can always be counted on to polish off a Turkey Gobbler at D'Angelo. There is a newish place that serves nothing but different types of grilled cheese sandwiches, which is right in my wheelhouse, but I can never pull myself away from the Indian food. (No one else in the family eats Indian, so I don't get many opportunities to have it. Although the Whole Foods on the way home from my chiro's office nearly always has their excellent veggie korma in the prepared food section, so I get that every other week or so.) We are always surprised at how many people wait in line for the McDonald's in the food court when they could be eating what we're eating, or Sbarro pizza, or one of the other options.

Reminder for Next Year

Next year, when Hanukkah is approaching (and, as I've mentioned before, it begins the night before Thanksgiving next year!) and I'm busy thinking about other things and wondering how I can get off easy, please remind me that giving the kids mostly cash and gift cards amounts to a death sentence for me, because then I will be obliged to take them to the mall. Like I did today.

OK, so we spent 7 HOURS at the mall today. Oh, and you know how I'd rather get a root canal than go to the mall? Yeah, that.

By the end of the day, I was so worn out that the kids barely had to touch an item and I'd say, "Buy it. Buy two. I don't care. Just please let me go home...." They totally cleaned up.

Steph loves Forever 21, so that's where she did the most damage. She is also still owed a personal makeup session at Sephora, complete with a $50 purchase. (This is actually a win-win, and that's all I'll say about that—some of you know what I'm talking about here.)

Pete went to three different shoe stores three different times each before he chose his Nikes. The right shoes are a big deal to him. He is also still entitled to order a soccer jersey online that does not cost a million dollars. Which we have not yet found.

Julie is done. She is still (relatively) easy, easy, easy. Although I do want to say that she is at that in-between age for fitting into jeans, and we finally found them at Delia's, but for $50! As I hemmed and hawed, the sales clerk pointed to the  "Jeans: Buy 1, get 1 free!" sign and there was much rejoicing.

Then we came home, and Andy poured the vodka before I could utter a sound, and I will sleep well tonight.

Just Another Friday

You might have heard that the world was supposed to end today. As far as I'm concerned, last Friday seemed much more like the end of the world. I can't tell you how many times in the past week I started a blog post and then deleted it, too heavy of heart and too angry and too despairing to finish. Through tears I wrote about children and parents and teachers; with rage I wrote about guns and gunmen; each time I hit the delete button instead of the save button. 

So instead, today I will wish Steph the happiest of happy birthdays—Sweet Sixteen, if you can believe it! And I will celebrate the solstice, knowing that the days are getting longer again. And, beyond that, I will just hope that this "new cycle" on the Mayan calendar will be one of peace.

Schmaltz!

Remember earlier in the year when Michael Ruhlman (yes, the real Michael Ruhlman!) asked if I would copyedit a small project for him? And then it was a total secret and I couldn't tell even my blog readers about it? Well, the schmaltz is finally out of the bag.

Yes, that's right, the schmaltz. Never one to shy away from controversial topics—in fact, dare I say, always one drawn to controversial topics—Michael had heard of schmaltz before, but it wasn't until his neighbor Lois was talking about all the cooking she had to do for Rosh Hashanah and all the schmaltz she had to make that Michael's ears really perked up.

Wait, schmaltz? What the heck is schmaltz? Well, if you're like me (by which I mean a Jewish American who grew up a few decades ago), schmaltz was something your mom kept in a little glass jar in the fridge so that she could make chopped liver and other goodies. It's rendered chicken fat cooked with onions, and it's the base of many traditional Jewish foods, from the aforementioned chopped liver to kishke, knishes, kreplach, and more.

I have to admit, I had thought that schmaltz was just the rendered chicken fat itself (go here to see where I say as much); I somehow didn't know about the onions! When I started working on this project, I said to Mom, "Did you ever make schmaltz without onions?" She looked at me as if I were crazy and said, "Of course not. That's not schmaltz."

So now, thanks to Michael, we have Schmaltz: A Love Song to a Forgotten Fat, an iPad app (and soon to be available on all platforms). It consists of an introduction to the whole idea of schmaltz, historically and culinarily, from the most frugal and practical aspects about using every part of everything one purchases, to the most decadent—oh, the flavor! Included are two dozen recipes, including both the traditional (see above) and some contemporary applications (chicken confit, pâté de foie gras en terrine, and more).

Accompanying every recipe are the most spectacular photos from Michael's wife, Donna Turner Ruhlman. I nearly ruined my keyboard drooling over these pix. Her process shots are just amazing—you can practically smell the onions sautéing. Here's a little preview:

For me, this project was a thrill—working with Michael and Donna, of course, but also getting in on the iPad app thing, which was all new to me. I mean, I have an iPad, but I'd never helped create a cookbook for one! It's pure genius, and I can definitely see myself plunking my iPad into a gallon-size zip-lock bag when cooking from now on. Tap, tap, swipe—dinner's ready!

Many thanks to Michael for the opportunity to work on this exciting project! You can still see my work behind the scenes on his popular blog, in this Kindle single he did recently on how his career kind of happened to him, and on some future cookbooks to come. Stay tuned—and get cooking with schmaltz already!

Book Group

Last night our book group met to discuss The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. This very slim novel—readable in just a few hours—packs in a lot to think about but, as we discovered, not a huge amount to talk about as a group. The story is narrated by an unnamed housekeeper who is assigned to work at the home of "the Professor" (we never learn his name either), an elderly, formerly well-known mathematician who suffered brain damage in a car accident many years before. He is still sharp as a tack, mathematically and otherwise, but the injury has caused him to be able to remember back only 80 minutes. As soon as 80 minutes are up, he can recall only what occurred up to 1975 (when the accident occurred). 

So, every morning, the housekeeper has to introduce herself to him. His way of getting to know people is to ask them questions about numbers, like "How much did you weigh at birth?" or "What is your shoe size?" Then he talks about why that particular number is special or interesting or related to some other number. To remind himself of important things, he scribbles notes on scraps of paper and attaches them to his suit with mini binder clips. But even when he reads these notes, he doesn't have any memory of having written them, just the sense that they must have been of some importance to him when he wrote them.

At the urging of the Professor, the housekeeper starts bringing her young son along with her to his house, and the three strike up a curious but very warm friendship based initially on an appreciation of and enthusiasm for the inherent beauty of numbers—and a mutual love of baseball. 

It's a sweet and simple book, but the writing/translation is elegant, the plot interesting and thought-provoking, and the characters charming. So while I don't think it was an ideal choice for sparking a lively discussion, we were all happy to have read it—and we did talk about it some, just not as much as we do with some other books. 

Our January pick is Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.

Pressing

So it's time that I come clean about why I haven't been blogging much lately. Yes, I'm slammed with work; yes, the family and home responsibilities keep me busy; yes, I try to find time to do "me" things like read a book or finish the NYT crossword puzzle once in a while. But, really? I've become totally and hopelessly addicted to Letter Press. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I still play Scrabble, Words With Friends, Hanging With Friends, and Scramble With Friends (oh yeah, and even Dice With Buddies) nearly 24/7, but this ... this? This is something else entirely.

Imagine you have a Boggle board but no time limit, and every time you make a word (that isn't a shortened version of a word already played) you steal your opponent's tiles. How awesome is that? It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I lost to a lot of strangers before I figured out what I was doing, but now I'm hooked. 

Unfortunately, Letter Press goes through the dreaded iOS Game Center, but no matter: Once you're in, you can pretend that part never happened.

I go by "wisekaren" in all of these games, and I invite you to challenge me to a game. Of anything. But especially Letter Press. (Although I should tell you that if you're all about winning, I've recently lost my mojo in Hanging With Friends, and it's showing no signs of returning, so you're more likely to win there.)