Brooklyn's best (and a new Manhattan story)

WTF Coffee Lab in Brooklyn. Photo by Nalin Bhutt

Last month, Ettu celebrated his fifth birthday. Prior to the big event, he informed us that he desired nothing greater than to wake up the morning of his birthday to be surrounded in bed by these, and only these, few things: a cupcake, a present, and the company of Nooa, his papa, and me. When we told him that all of that could be arranged and then asked him if it was okay that he was going to wake up that morning in New York instead of Chicago, he seemed a bit worried. Perhaps that might just ruin his grand plans. Well, we did make that little trip to New York, and he did wake up in an apartment in Brooklyn with all the other things he requested (with cupcakes from Clementine's, the lovely bakery right next to our building), and he seemed quite happy, even amidst the change in venue. The boys quickly took to referring to our abode as our "Brooklyn house."

In past years, when we were kidless and fancy free, Nalin and I would take trips to Manhattan and think nothing of being out all day and late into the evening. When we stayed in Chelsea two years ago, with a one-year-old and a nearly three-year-old, it seemed that our enjoyment of this grand city might be compromised, at least in the ways we had formerly known. Perhaps our past, easy-going times in Manhattan as we once knew it was over, or at least put on hold for the time being. Don't get me wrong, we are city people through and through, raising our kids in the heart of Chicago, but something seemed a bit more challenging about our recent visits to New York with small children.

Funny face at great heights

And then we found Brooklyn, choosing this time to stay in Clinton Hill and wander the borough with abandon, taking the G trains and R trains to destinations known and unknown. We had, of course, visited in the past, but this year we took a five-day trip to New York and spent four out of five days in Brooklyn, going into Manhattan really only on the birthday boy's day to fulfill some of the fantasies he had been dreaming of through books at home, as if to build our own story of New York through his eyes, instead of our own: ascending the heights of the Empire State Building, seeing the four-way clock and the ceiling of constellations up close and personal at Grand Central Station, passing the Statue of Liberty and the gateway to my German grandmother's American arrival, and surprising a young space enthusiast with a visit to the Enterprise Space Shuttle at the Intrepid on the Hudson. The rhythms of Christoph Neimann's Subway book coursed through us each and every stop along the way. The rest of the time, we stayed wrapped in our cozy confines of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene in our fabulous airbnb-hosted apartment. 

Poached eggs with biscuits and gravy at Milk Bar

And here's what we found and loved in and around our adopted neighborhood and beyond: walking to Choice Market on Lafayette around the corner for our morning coffee fix, pastries and breakfast; Milk Bar near Prospect Park for amazing cappuccinos and a lovely brunch; WTF Coffee Lab on Willoughby Street for seriously good coffee; a ride on the G train west toward the river to eat awesome Thai street food with good friends at Pok Pok NY; and Sunday mid-morning grazing at Smorgasburg, Brooklyn Flea's food haven in Williamsburg. I know this barely begins to cover the vast food oasis that is modern-day Brooklyn, but it was a start, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time, especially with the kids. Perhaps their ages helped, perhaps the pleasant nature of the neighborhoods with kids galore helped, but it was hard not to feel welcome during our brief and lovely stay. 

Ettu's drawing of three friends saying goodbye

And this time was made even more special with our friends Brian and Kumiko and little Mia, who became the third musketeer with the boys. On the day we took the Staten Island Ferry to Battery Park, we stopped for a bit of time on Wall Street, eating from the food trucks and enjoying the outdoors with the kids frolicking on the greens up high near the S&P building. It occurred to me that the city, on either side of the East River, has so much to offer families with children. It's just all in the way you navigate it, and that might be different than what we knew before. And that is the joy of travel. New discoveries for the new expansions in our lives. And when we returned to Brooklyn that afternoon to pack and leave for Chicago, we felt sad to leave. For it had become a little home away from home. And we will certainly be back again one day soon. 

Understanding my place in this space. Thank you, Mr. Sendak.

I was listening to one of the most intimate interviews I have ever heard (now twice) again a couple of weeks ago, replayed on Fresh Air, upon the death of the beloved Maurice Sendak. Terry Gross interviewed him for the last time last September. I remember the day I listened to it then. I was visiting my parents in Missouri, and I was in the kitchen preparing food for the family. I recall stopping chopping to sit down and enter in. Someone posted part of this interview on their Facebook page on the day of Sendak's death:

I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Many may or may not know that Sendak never had any children of his own, and as a gay man (who came out quite late in life, although he had a long-time partner for four decades who died in 2007), this could have been perceived to be a result of being gay in a time where it wasn't as prevalent for gay men and women to have children. However, he rejects this notion. He tells Terry Gross that he never wanted children (well, maybe one daughter who he thought would be nice to have around in his latter life — but only if she came out fully grown so he wouldn't have to worry about how to dress her every day, etc.). He loved his life of the mind, so to speak, to be able to read, write, and submerge himself in his work in a way he would never be able to do had he had even one child. He understood the commitment of parenthood and how that would, ultimately, take him away from his life's purpose. And this was a choice he was not ready to make. Ironically, the major canon of his work has been beloved by children and families for years.

The New York Times began their article on Sendak like this:

[Sendak was] widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century... [and] wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche.

I understand this quite well, as the only book we own of Sendak's is his picture book Brundibar, created with Tony Kushner (who wrote the text) in 2003 and based on an opera originally composed by a Czech Jew who died at Auschwitz and originally performed by children in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. It's darkness is captivating. I've often wondered to myself the affect of this book on my children as I read it to them occasionally. It is a beautiful and haunting story. The other book we know quite well from several library borrowings is In the Night Kitchen, which I've thought often of writing about in this blog, with its enticingly nocturnal journey through an idyllic New York landscape and the baking of bread with a naked little hero ("nangu boy" as my boys call him in Hindi) named Mickey at the center of the story.

But I digress just a tad. What I've thought about most often the last couple of weeks since his death is this very conversation he had on Fresh Air, where he opened up so genuinely about his choice not to have children. Here is someone who has touched the lives of children in ways a parent can only dream. And yet Sendak, like so many other children's book authors, has created worlds centered around the hero child, with the parent in the proverbial background, either asleep, sick, overworked, you name it. I don't have his books in front of me, so I hasten to say this will fall short of any sort of true literary analysis, but from what I recall in reading his books, some more recently than others, the parent figure is both villain and savior. Their actions, either purposeful (like a punishment) or inadvertent (like an illness), tend to pave the way for the break of independence that sends the child off on his or her journey, and yet the very bond of the relationship lures the hero back home in to the arms of the waiting, perhaps even remorseful, and loving parent. This brings to my mind an inherent conflict: in what ways do we truly shape our children, as they explore the world on their own terms. And as well, Sendak's seeming understanding of what one gives up to be a parent, at the expense of oneself or even one's child hangs like a cloud over his landscape. For certain, endless articles and books have been written on these subjects, but I come to this from a purely emotional place.

My love for my children has changed my life, as have the choices I've made to be a parent. And my own journey to the land of the monsters, with the fear and trembling along the way, reminds me that Sendak's work is much more universal than what sits before us on those beautifully illustrated pages. We are all seeking that same unconditional love and acceptance, along with an ever-present desire for independence from those most close and devoted to us... our partners, our children, our parents, our friends. It is the loneliest and most exhilarating place all at once. And Sendak's greatest gift may have been that he led us to that place where we abandon the familiar in search of the new; and when we go back home, we have all changed for the better.

An unlikely communion

Okay, I know I'm going to sound a bit strange now, but one of the things I miss most about working (outside the home, that is) is riding public transportation. No, I don't miss the constant stale and body-odorous smell of the red line in the winter or the traces of spilled or neglected food or drink left behind in the seat crevices; what I miss is the interaction, however brief, of my being in contact with other beings in small and [hopefully] speedy containers. Most of the time we are all involved in our own insular worlds, with our smart phones, headphones, perhaps even a novel or two, but the understood trust and camaraderie, even if forced, is inherent in the air around us. Jason Kottke recently posted a fantastic photograph taken by Stanley Kubrick in the the 1940s of a subway rider when he was working as a photographer for Look magazine. The Museum of the City of New York has a collection of hundreds of his photos taken on the New York City subway during this period. You can check out some of the photos here. It is interesting note that some things are still quite the same amongst subway riders from city to city, from time to time.

These days, relying on my well-driven minivan (yes, I did become one of those moms), I cart my kids to preschool and activities and drive myself to the gym and grocery. You see, Chicago is one of those big cities that has a relatively good public transportation system but still has a remarkable number of drivers, unlike New York. Part of that is that we actually have places to park those cars for the most part, unlike that other large city on an eastern coast. We may not be quite as car-reliant as LA, but we're probably close. Most families I know in the city have one or two cars, although those working in the city almost always take public transportation to work. Several mornings, I get texts or emails from Nalin on his way to work. He's been browsing his phone or iPad on his commute down and sends me some invaluable story or tweet to get my day started. I envy this time to melt into oneself. I read many novels and magazine articles just in the time I was on the bus or subway after Ettu was born. I was still working, and this travel was the only time I found I could really have all to myself (well, in proximity to 50 others, that is).

So perhaps this post is ill-named. After all, it doesn't seem that we share much with anyone we ride with on these trips of necessity — with the exception of the brief bodily brushes and occasional head nods. But perhaps communion doesn't necessarily have to involve true intimacy with those around us. The greater power is in knowing that we are part of a larger fabric, and this precious time we have to ourselves with the present awareness of a bigger and, yes, sometimes stranger world is what gives us our humanity. And that's a communion I can really dig.

A tree grows... wherever (and a special shout-out to urban dwelling)

Photo by Andreas Laszlo Konrath for
The New York Times Style Magazine

Once one starts writing, the repetition of themes creeps in and takes root. One such theme that seems ever so pervasive in my thoughts is city-dwelling in all its pains and glories. We live in the third-largest city in the United States. No, we're not on the coast, but our lovely "little" lake helps us feel a bit closer to this supposed ideal. A few of my earlier posts such as A tree grows in Chelsea and A space of one's own and learning to love the little things, ironically published almost exactly a year ago, celebrates city living in all its diversity, complexities and, at times, inconveniences. While skimming The New York Times Style Magazine last week, I came across a small story about Ramdane Tahoumi and Victoire de Taillac who decided early in their relationship to live the life of nomads, and three children later, they have lived in Paris, Jaipur, Brooklyn, etc. This takes the idea of urban dwelling to a new level; after all, most of us stay put for more than two years at a time, but they seem to make it work for them:

Some 15 years and three children later, however, the “T-n-T” clan, as they are affectionately known, are living a life of nomads, hopping from continent to continent and city to city — Paris, Jaipur, Tangier — setting up camp in temporary lodgings and then, when it’s time to move on, literally pulling the rug out from beneath their feet. “We do two years per country,” Touhami says. “That is my rule.” And that would sound like a compromise in the couple’s relationship if it weren’t for their incredible talent for making themselves at home no matter where they are in the world.

God knows that this is a lifestyle we can't all achieve, regardless our aspirations, but I do fantasize at times about being able to just get up and go live in India for a bit, then perhaps Tokyo, New York, or Sweden... lovely places with lovely friends. Like the "T-n-T" clan, our children share a heritage divided between two diverse continents, and the thought of them growing up in the midst of both places is certainly something worthy of dreams. What makes this particular family so unique is the way they crave and embody creativity. The nomadic life not only allows them to fulfill various professional goals, but provides for them a richness of diversity and beauty that few can brave to imagine.

And there's that magical word "imagine," which brings me to another string of thought. On the way to pick up my children from preschool the other day, I was listening to a local public radio program and an interview with a writer whose name I hadn't yet caught. This guy was speaking so articulately about, in essence, how living in cities can actually make us smarter. I was provoked by this strand but had to leave my car before catching who was actually doing the talking. Turns out that the interviewee was Jonah Lehrer, prolific writer-extraordinaire for The New Yorker and Wired magazines. His new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, explores the catalyst for invention and innovation. Today, I sat down and read the review of his book in The New York Times and was drawn to these last few paragraphs of Michiko Kakutani's review of the book:

...Mr. Lehrer makes a strong case for cities as incubators of innovation. Echoing Jane Jacobs, he argues that the sheer density of urban life, “the proximity of all those overlapping minds,” forces people to mingle and interact with a diversity of individuals. This, he goes on, creates exactly the sort of collision of cultures and classes that often yields new ideas. He even quotes a theoretical physicist, Geoffrey West, who says he has found data that validates Jacobs’s theories.

“What the numbers clearly show, and what she was clever enough to anticipate,” Mr. West says, “is that when people come together, they become much more productive per capita.”

One study by Mr. West and another physicist, Luís Bettencourt, Mr. Lehrer writes, suggests that “a person living in a metropolis of one million should generate, on average, about 15 percent more patents and make 15 percent more money than a person living in a city of 500,000.”

In the later pages of this engaging book Mr. Lehrer turns from analysis and reportage to prescription. The jostle and serendipity of city life, he believes, can provide a model for how the Internet might be retooled to accelerate creativity.

“Instead of sharing links with just our friends, or commenting anonymously on blogs, or filtering the world with algorithms to fit our interests, we must engage with strangers and strange ideas,” he writes. “The Internet has such creative potential; it’s so ripe with weirdness and originality, so full of people eager to share their work and ideas. What we need now is a virtual world that brings us together for real.” 

Obviously, not everyone can or wants to just quit their lives and move to a bigger city. After all, there are so many pros and cons on both sides of the coin. I regularly dream of the space we could have for such a lower cost if we were simply to leave this city and move somewhere significantly smaller. And as I approach the inevitable process of determining the right school situation for my nearly five-year old, I wince at the prospect of finding the optimal opportunity for him (after-all, as a dear friend mentioned to me just this morning, in the public school scenario, at least, the idea of choice is often a fallacy, as we are at the mercy of our lottery-driven system). What these stories and books attempt to convey though, in no uncertain terms, is that wherever we are we can dare to imagine a better, more innovative life for ourselves, quite simply in the very ways in which we interact with those people and objects around us, wherever we are, that challenge our boundaries of thought and place. What takes root then may grow into something that allows our creativity to soar above the humdrum. And that, my friends, is a life worth living.

My son communicates in keywords and other kid-related tech talk

Photo by Nalin Bhutt

Perhaps this is an ever-more familiar scene: mom sits down at the computer to catch a glimpse of the news, write a quickly-formulated email, even browse Facebook for a guilty second; within minutes her four-year-old son pops over and says, "Type 'fireman,' 'sam,' 'helicopter' and see what comes up, mama." I really cannot believe it, but my child is conveying his desires in keywords. My how things have changed. And it's not just that. My two-year-old sits in front of our iMac and brushes his index finger across the screen to get the page to change. Unbelievable. And this is in a house that has a very limited technology and television presence for the kids. They are allowed one-to-two hours of video a week (we don't have a television, so the video is on the computer or the iPad), and that usually happens on the weekend, and they maybe get 10-15 minutes on some sort of tech device every day or two at the most. And yet...

It's a different world than when I grew up, and their minds and bodies have the dexterity and drive to handle it all. My kids go to a Waldorf-inspired preschool, so technology and television is quite frowned upon at most stages of development and education, but somehow I don't know how it will be possible to avoid the inevitability of it all, and, honestly, I'm not sure I'm altogether opposed to the ways in which technology will inherently alter the ways in which they learn and gather information. Nalin and I are in agreement when it comes to too much video or television. The passivity it engenders is not at all good for creative development. And yet it is a much more complicated landscape. Last fall, The New York Times had an interesting article about a Waldorf school in the Bay Area that many of the top tech executives send their children. The Waldorf philosophy favors learning and physical activity through creative, applied tasks, as opposed to more traditional forms of memorization, testing, phonics, early adoption of reading, etc. And, by extension, the focus of technology in most classrooms in the country is not something that is subscribed to by these types of schools. I have yet to determine whether this is the absolute right path to travel with our kids, but there is certainly something to say for children learning how to think critically and dialogue and imagine prior to learning letters and multiplication without a larger context. And we also understand that Waldorf may not have all the answers, either. I realize that this is just the beginning of a long process with respect to our children's education; a path that we must take a central role.

Recently, these keyword searches of Ettu's and the subsequent "browsing" have created an interesting quandary. I picked him at school the other day, and he was sitting at the table sewing with another girl in his group, while his brother and another schoolmate napped on the floor nearby. He was engaged and invigorated, creating something of his very own. As soon as we got into the door of our apartment, he started asking to look at the Playmobil site on the computer to make a "wish list" of his favorite characters and sets. It occurred to me as it has in the past that our children are way too smart sometimes. The more we open the door to certain types of exposure, the harder it is to squelch. He ultimately knows that this type of thing is not an acceptable pastime at school and has the ability to focus on other more constructive and creative activities but obviously feels that we will be more lenient at home. Here is where the job gets harder. Media serves as an effective learning tool at given times and with the appropriate collaboration, but let's face it, most of us use it as an easy way to occupy our children while we get things done. And honestly, this is my biggest and most conflicted dilemma as a parent. My ideals and the realities of my day-to-day struggles often don't correspond and can even inspire a frustration that never ceases to surprise me.

Recently, there has been much in the media about the roles of women and mothers in society — at home and/or in the workplace — brought to light by comments by Hilary Rosen, directed at Ann Romney. (Catch Frank Bruni's recent op-ed in The New York Times, which is an interesting read on the subject.) I can't say that I have followed all of the comments or news surrounding this oft-heated debate about our roles as women and as mothers (and frankly, let's not forget stay-at-home dads in this as well), whether we are at home with our kids or also working outside the home, but I can say that all of us, moms and dads alike in all our varied experiences, have a profound role: educating and providing for the creative and emotional well-being of our children. Now, if only I could find the keyword that would provide me the answers for that.

A moose, a mammoth, and one mama's attempt to explain it all

Photo by Nalin Bhutt

My boys and I have a usual nightly ritual. Book 1, Book 2, sometimes Book 3 depending on the time; then lights out; every once in a while I'm asked to tell a story that goes something like this: Fireman Sam meets up with Neil Armstrong and they fight fires on the moon, with Moxie, the paramedic at their side (and if Nooa has anything to say about it, a princess inevitably shows up to steal the show); ending with "mama, please sing 'the boys' song" (I'll sing it for you some day); and then hopefully sleep. Although usually sleep is preceded by two very distinct sleep preparations: Ettu usually mutters something rather out of left field (tonight it was "I don't want to ride on the ferries this summer") and then immediately falls asleep; Nooa, however, takes a bit longer, sitting, standing, asking for water for no less than three times; tonight he did two downward dog stances before collapsing on the bed. The fact that they sleep together in a double bed is often a major exercise in personal space negotiation.

I can't tell you how many times we've been told to just leave the room and let them fall asleep on their own, that we've created a bad habit of dependency, etcetera, etcetera. But I'm forever fascinated (and yes, okay, sometimes irritated) with watching this nightly ceremony. The best part of it all is that bedtime is actually something they seem to look forward to. Something they are ready for. But perhaps most importantly, we've realized that the nightly act of reading to them is just too valuable to give up. Lately, the library books on the bed stand have included selections about woolly mammoths. We even drove to St. Louis last weekend to see a wonderful exhibit (originally curated at The Field Museum, ironically) on mammoths and mastodons at the Missouri History Museum. And on that trip we listened to the same story over and over again: Dr. Seuss' Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose, from an audiobook of classic Dr. Seuss stories. You may or may not remember this one about the kind moose who lets so many critters camp out in his antlers until he practically starves to death, as his "guests" will not allow him to move across the lake to the mossier spots during the winter, and he is too much of a host to ask them to scram. Finally, the hunters come, and things change quickly and decisively. Thidwick remembers that it is antler-shedding season, so he is able to rid himself of this heavy load and escape to greener pastures. His guests then are not so lucky as they stay behind on their new home at the mercy of the hunters. I've always loved Dr. Seuss for the playful, engaging, and elaborate language. But recently, I've become ever so aware of the not-so-subtle messages in the text itself. And now, thanks to mammoths and moose hunts, among other things, even in the seemingly harmless pages of a Dr. Seuss book, I am confronted with a child's endless curiosity about the harsher realities of indifference (the "guests" attitude to the kind-hearted moose), starvation, hunting, killing, and extinction, just to name a few. And so the education begins.

Photo by Nalin Bhutt

Although I would like to protect my sons from some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of life, I find myself torn a bit between the arguably easier sugar-coating of these ideas and how to more accurately depict our role in the cycle of life and death. Because of Ettu's recent fascination with animal hunting in the time of the mammoths, he was drawn to the figure of a stone-age hunter at the museum. The figure was carrying a spear and a mammoth tusk, and Ettu just had to have it. So we got it, with a tad bit of reluctance, trying to explain the necessities of these hunters and trying to find that balance between the hunt for survival and the hunt that may or may not have caused this massive creatures to find their ultimate end as a species. When we visited the lovely Left Bank Books in downtown St. Louis the next day, we found a beautifully illustrated book entitled Kali's Song, about a boy who is learning to hunt during the time of mammoths. We just breezed through it before buying, and only upon reading it in the car did we realize that the book skipped over the realities of hunting altogether, favoring the story of a boy who used his arrow to play music that charmed the animals and made everyone believe he was a shaman because of his unique abilities to bring peace, guide the people, and cure the sick. Now don't get me wrong, I love, love, love this story. But I was left with the nagging feeling that the authors left out the fact that others were certainly still having to hunt and kill, so that the tribe could survive — not only for food, but for shelter and more — but I guess that's not so important to this story. Because we are not vegetarians, it is essential for us all to understand how the food we eat comes to our table. And I am amazed at a young child's complex comprehension of some of these things. I guess the time for learning is when curiosity meets us wherever we are.

And so the circle continues, and tonight I may be asked to read about the bison and buffaloes that we learned about at our recent visit to The Field Museum. How did they suddenly and brutally disappear after existing for so many years among the Native Americans, who hunted them for survival. Another sad story. Another small step into the larger context of history and what comes after. But for now, couldn't we just go back to Goodnight Moon now? Please?

What a trip

Mia, Sophie the giraffe, and a plate of pasta in New York, Summer 2010.
Photo by Nalin Bhutt.

"We all just do what we want to do to make life worthwhile." This line was spoken — in translation — by one of the "cast" members (I believe it was the 91-year-old head priest of a Buddhist temple if I remember correctly) in the glorious documentary Eatrip. After our own culinary delight of Nalin's homemade cassoulet and a glass of Granache, we sat down to watch this little Japanese film about the relationship between humanity and food. I've rarely seen something that so richly encapsulates what I believe to be an ideal in life. As another in the film says, "Eating means knowing your ingredients." But more than that, it is forever a communal undertaking. Whether we grow, raise, or kill our own food or rely on others to do it for us, we are bound together in a process of dependency on people and nature. And even if we do it all ourselves on a plot of land in the country with a river nearby as our main water source, the true satisfaction is in how we share our bounty and privilege with those we love.

This film is food porn in the highest degree (that is, if you are committed to a more natural or organic way of gathering and preparing food). Interwoven with the interviews of actors, singers, homemakers, fish wholesalers, priests, etc., is the captivating preparation of a single meal, from the selection of the healthy and active chicken in the beginning. The editing and cinematography are sublime, and I couldn't help but feel that I must move to Japan straight away. One segment features an older woman in a shop near the fish market (it was her father, she says, who began of the process of shaving dried bonito flakes), speaking about the "old" or traditional ways of cooking and relating to food. She wishes the younger generation would relish the things of the past rather than relying on fast food. After all, she says, "even simple foods can be delicious." Even if you don't cook, she goes on, use a good stock and make a simple broth, miso, etc. Nothing is better than soup. With that same reverence of the past, another comments that "we used to be discerning — that was admirable."

The most articulate voice in the film is a housewife with two young children living in Okinawa, Naoko Morioka, who has cultivated a life of natural farming and motherhood that inspires (and that is an understatement). She grows her own food, brings her own water from an nearby river (no tap water in this home), processes her own rice and grain with a bevy of baskets and cloths, and does so with one child on her back and another running about alongside her. Without even the slightest hesitation, she remarks about her life, "doesn't it make you feel rich?" And as her daughter and her friends sit down at their chabu-dai with the expanse of food within reach, you can't help but whisper to yourself, "yes."

The crux of the film is that the partaking of this ritual, called eating, something we do day after day after day, is essentially about mutual respect. It is about awareness. It is about conversation. And that is why the way we relate to food is such a symbol of so much more in our lives. We may not be able to get everything just right, but we can certainly enjoy the trip.

Things that have changed the way I cook, and some ramblings about spice and typography (who knew?)

Fresco's lovely little granite mortar and pestle

I realized yesterday that I have yet to post another meandering note about the items that have made cooking, rather than a chore, an even pleasurable pastime. Back in April, I chatted on about the glorious world of cast iron. The last few weeks, I've come to recognize my dependency upon yet another small but essential kitchen object: the mortar and pestle. You see, our small one met its demise in our dish rack (or should I say "out" of our dish rack), when it fell to its breaking point on the kitchen floor. We went for weeks without replacing it, which turned out to be quite difficult, as I became acutely aware of how much I actually used this damn thing. This came as a bit of a surprise, since, like many, I grew up with ground spices in the cupboard and ground garlic or ginger (if we had any) in the fridge. When I met Nalin, I soon realized that much of the delight of cooking was grinding fresh spices (not necessarily for every meal, but perhaps after two or three, having ground enough to last for a few preparations). I was soon hooked. I had never had guacamole so wonderful, as when the smoking ground cumin was added to the bowl. Why smoking? Well, it is a lot easier to grind the spice seed if you roast it a bit in a pan and then grind it. The flavor is also remarkable. If you've never experienced freshly roasted and ground coriander, you might just be missing out on one of the great sensory experiences. Okay, so now I'm sounding a bit nerdy. But it is true. After about a week without my mortar and pestle, I found myself at Trader Joe's buying ground cumin and other pre-ground spices. Interestingly, I could definitely tell the difference in my food. Not only that, I also seem to rely on it for pounding ginger or lemon for tea, for crushing fresh herbs, even for making some pastes.

So we finally started researching to get the perfect(ly reasonable) mortar and pestle and came across this beauty from Fresco. We knew we wanted granite but also knew that we needed the inner surface of the mortar and the end of the pestle to be a bit rough as opposed to the smooth exterior to aid the grinding process. Cook's Illustrated had some great recommendations, which led us to this, especially since we didn't want to spend quite so much money (this one was around $30). I love the simplicity of design and functionality. We've used it now for a couple of days and are quite happy. Things seem back to relative normal. I've been able to add the right amount of spice to the right dish, without overwhelming it or mixing too many things together. The very nature of this "primitive" practice creates a more tangible response to the spice or herb, which I believe helps me judge its appropriateness to the food at hand.

So what does this have to do with typography? Well, lately I have been reading a book I got for Christmas entitled Just My Type: a book about fonts by Simon Garfield. Thank you, Janette! Which, as its Amazon description states, asks the question about what your favorite font says about you. Early on, there is a passage that I couldn't help comparing to the idea of cooking and food, especially with respect to spicing. You see, spice is a tricky thing. You can do it too much, too little, pair it unwisely, etc. It is something that I struggle with on a daily basis and ultimately end up using the same old spices in the same old way. As a graphic designer over the last several years, I found that typography was similarly something that could be extremely tantalizing and exciting, but if used incorrectly, could be a disaster. Oftentimes, the answer was to be safe (which could also prove quite boring). Beatrice Warde, friend/lover of Eric Gill (Gill Sans, anyone?) wrote extensively and sometimes provocatively on type in the leading design journal of the time, The Fleuron (back in the 1920s and 30s). Here is what Garfield writes about Ms. Warde:

Her simple and sound theory was that the best type existed merely to communicate an idea. It was not there to be noticed, much less admired. The more a reader becomes aware of a typeface or a layout on a page, the worse that typography is. Her wine analogy was cool and mature, and perhaps now appears a little trite: the clearer the glass, the more its contents could be appreciated...

I don't completely agree with Ms. Warde, but I admire her belief. After all, I like a well-placed, even wild and consuming font as much as the next guy: if it has a solid purpose beyond just using it for the sake of using it. And I'm afraid that goes with spicing as well. Too much of anything can be a pretty bad thing — ruining what could have been so inviting. But one should not be afraid of creativity. Knowing one's subject and being open to new ideas can dramatically change the outcome. Thank god for tools that help us in our daily dalliances. For whatever our mode of communication or creation, an awareness of the broader impact is largely key. And energizing all our senses is a start.

Fridge fallacies and other ways good design changes the way we think

© jihyun ryou

I just came across this most interesting entry on the Treehugger blog that is one of the best examples of how design and functionality meet to create sustainable solutions. Korean designer Jihyun Ryou has developed the amazing designs above to serve as sexy storage containers for items that have in more recent tradition been stored in the our refrigerators, taking up valuable space and energy, but actually do not need to be kept in these expensive cooling devices if properly stored. Some of these items may surprise you (eggs for example). Ryou developed these designs after listening to her grandmother or others in her community who learned these techniques from "traditional oral knowledge which has been accumulated from experience and transmitted by mouth to mouth."

What I love most about this article is what the designer says about how we understand our food: "We hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator. We don't observe the food any more and we don't understand how to treat it." Isn't that so powerful? I think that statement is the essence of why we fail so often in our daily relationship with food and why waste is so prevalent in our culture. It would seem as though good design has once again taught us an important lesson, for if we truly are what we eat, we must take a deeper look at ourselves and our past and let our collective creativity show us the way.

Ettu's favorite video these days: break ton neck

An evening meal, legos and all

Aloo gosht, dal with greens, pickles, and a visit from our very own space shuttle.

Familia and other communal remembrances

"Waiting" snacks on a cold and lovely Thanksgiving day.

Two-and-a-half months. Yep. That's how long it's been. And before that, I can't quite call one or two posts a month for most of late summer and fall a prolific run. So here is my new year's resolution (set in ink, so to speak): write, write, write. Let's see how well I follow through.

The picture to the left is from Thanksgiving — an absolutely blissful day with friends, and while that seems like ages ago, the event has happened in the time since I last visited this blog. The themes that figure front and center tonight, as I write, are those of family, friends, place, space, laughter, and, of course, the sharing of food. After all, that's what the holidays are for, right? We had the grand privilege of having family in town from India for weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year's, and as I watched my children playing with and performing for their aunties and uncles and the bottles of wine being shared one after another during long nights of cooking and conversation, I couldn't help but long for some grander communal experiment. 

Some people think I'm a bit odd, perhaps since we don't live in the biggest of apartments, but I absolutely relish having people come to stay with us for long periods of time. This has been especially true since having children. I often think back on the years I grew up with lots of college students coming through our home (my father is a theology professor). We had wonderful babysitters and dinner and holiday guests, and at more than one occasion we mourned someone's graduation, which meant he or she was leaving us for good. On the up side, some of those students became friends I still keep in contact with to this day. And some of those friends left me with memories and moments that most certainly impacted the woman I am today. The first journal I received on my birthday at age 11. The canvas black Chinatown slippers I got from a dear friend's holiday trip to New York City and the stories of that vacation that ensued later that night. That is what I most long for for my children. The embrace of people and the plethora of ideas that will shape the men they will become.

Nalin has a wonderful book by Guy Mirabella, Eat Ate, which he got from my sister-in-law one Christmas. It is part cookbook, part journal, part photo album. About half-way through the book, he has a little insert with a written memory of his childhood. On the front of it, he writes, "Life carries on. In the rush to embrace change, we need to take what is good from the past, to remember those things that remain relevant and essential for us today. Like breakfast." A lovely and simple sentiment, and one that reminds me of another beautiful time. We have some close friends in Sweden who we see so rarely yet think of so often. The one time we traveled to Sweden together was to attend the wedding of our dear friends Johanna and Henrik. Right after landing, we drove with Johanna's brother Gustaf directly from Stockholm to the southern part of Sweden, kept awake only by bubbly water and sour Swedish candies. We arrived at a clustering of farm houses on an idyllic lake, and proceeded to experience one of the most beautiful weekends of our married lives. And out of all of that loveliness, you know what I recall most often? Breakfast. In the mornings before and after the wedding, everyone would gather and work to create something quite ordinary and yet extraordinary. A bit of plain yogurt and granola; plates of cheese, ham, cucumbers, and tomatoes; thickly sliced bread, jams, and butter; dark, bold coffee with cream; fish paste and mustard; soft-boiled eggs in cozy little cups. And nearly a dozen or so of us would come together and eat from this table. And at those very moments, I never wanted to leave that place. I did, of course, but perhaps I took a bit of it along with me. And perhaps it is still with me today.