365 Memories

I have a kitchen angel. He's been with me in every apartment I've ever had, watching over culinary endeavors from his spot on the wall, giving a blessing in the form of a kiss. The angel was once a living man, a butcher in a small grocery near the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 57 th Street in New York City. His name was Frank, and he was captured through the lens of my mother's camera in the 1980s. In black and white, his portly frame leans toward the viewer, lips puckered and hand lifted in the moment of having blown a kiss. He's in his stained whites, paper hat on his head, an average workday. There's a story behind the photo, and I remember it this way: My mother was taking a photography class, and for an assignment she was focusing on service industry workers on their breaks, "taking five" from the demands of their jobs. I am pretty certain Frank was part of this series, along with a shoeshine man named Neal—his chair in front of the N/R subway e...

Eight years ago today, my husband and I were watching stars in the night sky, listening to the sounds of a creek flowing through the Woodland Valley Campground in Phoenicia, NY. Woodland Valley is a beautiful site in the Catskills, at the foot of Slide Mountain, which is the range's highest peak. In our tent, we curled close together. We needed beauty, badly. Just four days earlier, our sense of normalcy was shattered, permanently, along with our sense of peace and protection, of safety and justice. A half-day previous, we'd met my father in Grand Central Station, and caught a train with him up to Connecticut. He'd been in the city for a meeting; we were heading out to borrow a car and escape to the mountains. It was the first time I'd seen either of my parents since the 9/11 attacks, and something in me cracked wide open when I saw my father's solid presence standing at the terminal's info booth, waiting. I hadn't realized how much I was feeling the shock...

So, my mention of Irish colcannon in yesterday's Portugal post (both countries have traditional recipes with potato and kale) now has me thinking of Ireland. Ireland brings many memories, some I've already posted on the blog, but one I have not yet mentioned: bushwhacking. In September of 1995, my parents and I visited the Emerald Isle. It was my second of three trips and their first and only. My father made all the arrangements—he is personal travel agent extraordinaire, as I may have mentioned elsewhere—and he decided to rent a car for our travels up and down the rocky western coast. For small group travel through Ireland, car rental is a great way to go, but it does entail some hazards. Actually, this is another thing that Ireland has in common with Portugal: for some years, the two countries have seemed to compete fiercely for the unhappy distinction of having the most traffic accidents in Western Europe. For locals used to the lay of the land, things like extremely narrow...

Today, I purchased a fabulous cookbook: The New Portuguese Table , by David Leite . It has traditional recipes as well as updated recipes that bear the personal stamp of the author. The photographs are lovely, and I can't wait to try the recipes. But more than just whetting my appetite, this purchase brought back memories. In May of 1991, my parents and I had the good fortune to visit Portugal. This was following my college semester abroad in France, where I had stayed with an inhospitable host family and worked a job at La Defense. Study abroad is usually no holiday, despite how magnificent the surroundings and how eye-opening the experience; it's often quite difficult. I was in need of a vacation, and had a splendid one. My parents came to meet me in Paris, then we took a short hop to Lisbon and from there headed toward the resort town of Cascais . We stayed in a posh hotel by the the water—one that was at one time a private home, a royal summer retreat—the Hotel Albatroz . T...

At one time or another, I think most kids are enthralled by some type of build-it-yourself model, be it an antique car, an airplane, train, or ship in a bottle. Ranking high on the list of parent-child "quality time" activities, model building seems almost cliché —makes me wonder how many models are built simply because it's something a parent is "supposed" to do with a child; one of those experiences like fishing or running a lemonade stand, that you are practically obligated to provide if you want your child's early years to be truly complete. And, especially if working on a historic model, it's a project with built-in nostalgia: even as you're only just beginning to work on it, you know you are making classic memories, constructing a keepsake treasure of time spent together, tweezers and glue in hand, brushes carefully caressing the miniature pieces. Something about the scene makes me think of a Norman Rockwell illustration. It's very Saturday...

Another Chicago memory, this one very fuzzy. I was perhaps six or seven. It was the mid-1970s, and my parents and I lived in the Lincoln Park area of the city. All three of us had gone out grocery shopping, so I assume it was a weekend morning or afternoon. Back then, the family had a car, too (thematic connection with the prior post unintended). I don't remember being inside the grocery store, although I remember distinctly that it was an A&P, and I remember the orange and red colors of the letters in the logo. My father was driving. The reason that this day of mundane domestic activity stands out, always has, is because of a little girl who was possibly my age, maybe a little older. I don't remember her name, though I'm sure I must have heard it. My mom must have asked. I don't remember anything about this girl's specific circumstances; I don't recall for certain how it came to be that our lives intersected for even the shortest time. The sequence of event...

Warning: the content of this post is not for the faint. On our way to and from a baseball game today (the New York–Penn Minor League), my son and I crossed New York Harbor on one of the cheerful orange boats that make up the Staten Island Ferry fleet. The ride was fabulous, passing Lady Liberty on calm waters, and the second round-trip we've made on the S.I. Ferry. I hope we'll do much more of this. The thing about the trip, though, was that it brought up a not-so-pleasant memory of another ferry ride, in June of 2006. My son was three years old then, and my parents were celebrating their ruby (fortieth) wedding anniversary. Despite how not romantic it might seem to celebrate a wedding anniversary with a daughter, son-in-law, and three-year-old grandchild in tow, this was how my parents wished to celebrate: with a family vacation to Block Island, Rhode Island. I had never been there, though I had heard wonderful things. The island lived up to its reputation—it was charming, l...

I remember an olive green, plastic recipe box. Really just a filing box for index cards, I think, not necessarily designed in any special way for recipes. I remember it sitting on the kitchen counter of the condominium we lived in during our last year or so in the Windy City. I remember the window at the end of that galley-style kitchen; I think I remember a loose plaid wallpaper pattern left over from the family before us (excuse: it was the 1970s). I remember sitting on the counter, swinging my dangling legs, talking to Mom while she cooked or baked. I also remember that it was here I saw my first ever big-city cockroach, perched on top of the paper towel roll that was mounted under the sink, attached to the inside of a cabinet door. The roach was big, brown and glistening, and it sent Mom running to the store for boric acid. End of roach. End of roach memories, because really, it's not something you want to linger on—certainly not in a post about recipes. Like all memories, my ...

I remember lyrics to musicals; I can't help it, they get stuck in my head. I have mentioned this fact on the blog before, but I decided that there is one musical that merits its own post. I am willing to guess that many people today, certainly outside of New York City, don't know the show, and that's too bad. With Broadway musicals being what they are today, well . . . I don't want to be a snob, because pure entertainment without much thought required does have its place, but the show I'm thinking of is no Disney production. It has, in fact—despite my fear that it may someday sink into oblivion, at least in terms of any sizable audience—the distinction of being the longest running production in the history of American theater: more than forty years, a lifetime (mine anyway). Welcome to something amazing: a show called The Fantasticks . The musical opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in 1960 and closed in 2002 (its last curtain on my father's birth anniversar...

This is what I am, once again: sleepy. Bone tired. The kind of tired you are not sure you will recover from, and the kind that makes you feel like a child no matter your age. My memory of the moment springs from this feeling, which my son apparently shared tonight. This depth of fatigue is no problem when you are able to lie down and drop immediately into a profound sleep. Sometimes, however, that's not possible, which is when you'd be glad for someone to rub your back. For years now—since a particularly tortuous transatlantic flight with my then-toddler—my son has asked for someone to "rub my back and count to twenty." Counting to twenty is getting off scott free: the whole ritual took form on that cramped airplane, when the only way I could get my son to sleep was to start counting . . . and count all the way to two hundred before it had any effect. Now it's either one of us (my husband or I) who counts at night, but there's another thing that only I do; I ...

Seven years ago this evening, I was in a New York steakhouse with my husband, enjoying a rare dinner out. Somehow he had managed to unshackle himself from his four-star job for a night, and we went to Sparks on East 46 th Street. I am pretty sure that my sommelier husband chose Sparks due to its wine list—a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner many times over. It was all the same to me. I like a good steak on occasion, but I confess that I have never really understood the steakhouse concept. Meaning that while I get that it's all about the cut of beef, behemoth -like on your conservative china patterned plate, I have always been offended that the vegetables are ordered on the side, charged separately. When you pay top dollar for a slab of meat, can't they just include the side dishes? And can't they be more inventive than sauteed spinach or a baked potato? Truth be told, I would have preferred going out for sushi, or to a great Thai or Vietnamese restaurant. But meat and p...

I am elbows deep in dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, lost in my own thoughts while keeping time with Collective Soul, a CD played for the first time in what must be ages—loud, or loud in comparison to the usual silence. Two small hands reach around my waist from behind, squeeze in a little-boy hug with muscle to it. A hug that hangs on. I hadn't even heard my son enter the kitchen. Then his six-year-old voice tells me, a mom who feels on the edge much of the time: "You rock!" I do? I don't recall using that expression around my son, so I figure it's something he's picked up at school or at camp. This cool-kid slang invading my son's speech makes me smile. It's so unexpected. Also, I am instantly high on this praise. How did I earn it? Was it the ice cream base we just made together and put in the refrigerator to cool? Was it the music I put on? Or was it the promise of going outside once clean-up was finished so that we could squirt each other with wa...

It's Bastille Day. I could write about the French Tricolor; about Marianne, berets, baguettes, and pétanque . Or about champagne; champagne's always good. But today was just another day of long hours and feeling depleted. Am I getting one of those rotten summer colds going around? I've got no real symptoms, but there could be something to it, since I'm craving licorice. What does licorice have to do with anything? With Bastille Day? Well, nothing except that I ate half a bag of it at lunchtime: deep, black, gooey, stick-in-your-teeth licorice. And it now brings to mind an odd home remedy from nearly twenty years ago. I was back from college for a stretch—I suppose it was summer vacation—and I had the beginnings of a cold coming on. I remember my mom and I driving to Westport , to a health food store there. I don't know what was originally on the shopping list (if we even had a list), but I do know what we came home with: a bag of hot wasabi chips and a box of black...

It's getting late. Not later, really, than my usual posting; maybe I'm just more tired today. I have a lot on my mind, mostly time-intensive work projects. And really, I feel empty of memory. I am having a hard time remembering even my name at the moment. Just a big, black void that—hey!—that reminds me of something. Reminds me of a big, black void, in fact. One I experienced when I was sixteen years old (though I suppose a person could argue that simply being sixteen is enough of a black void in itself). This, though, was physical. I remember it was a summer day, and hot. Not middle-of-August-and-humid kind of hot, but hot enough to be uncomfortable . I was home from school and home from the hospital. I've posted about my Sloan-Kettering experience already, so won't go into details, but will just toss out a bone to those who don't know (a reminder to those who do): I was, in the summer of 1986, subjected to surgery followed by nine months of a fiberglass cast on ...

The hiss and boom of fireworks are tapering off. Another Independence Day in the United States. Today, I think about all the reasons why I feel lucky to belong to this messy community of free thinkers and loudmouthed discontents. News in recent weeks is enough to remind us: we do have basic freedoms of thought, speech, and action that people (especially women) in other parts of the world can only hold in their hearts as hope. I don't have the strongest record as a patriot, but there are not many other places I'd rather be at the moment, barring the need for serious health care (knock wood). Well, on vacation, yes, but that's different. So this day of anthems and outdoor grilling is coming to a close, and what do I remember in this moment? Really, because of the fact that this afternoon our family did nothing to mark the holiday (traditional plans fell through), I am remembering the picnic we would have had—the one that we've had whenever possible, in the years since I ...

As a daughter who enjoys a deeply bonded relationship with her father, a memory springs to mind now, on the eve of my wedding anniversary; a memory concerning a tradition I imagine might be perfunctory for some, but that for me was anything but: the father-daughter dance. I remember, in the months leading up to the wedding, agonizing over what song we should dance to. Whose idea was it, finally, to choose a song by Alan Jackson? By default, I assume it was my idea, but I can't remember the notion actually coming to me; it's possible he made the suggestion. Really, it seems just as appropriate (emotionally, if maybe not technically accurate) to say that we found the song together, both of us owning the idea equally. My father had been a fan of Alan Jackson since way back. I remember being college age when I first borrowed his album, Don't Rock the Jukebox , and heard Jackson's accented voice and his clever lyrics, humorous and soulful, for the first time. I appreciated h...

Father's Day is coming to an end. I have been thinking of my dad throughout the day, though, and wondering what I could possibly write to do him justice, to honor him. A lifetime of memories—forty years of them, shy some months—often simply blend into a constant, comforting knowledge: less a specific image or recalled dialogue, more just an ongoing certainty that he is there for me, always has been, in every interpretation of the phrase. We are bound by more than our blood, our cells, our DNA . . . and without him, I would be a sorry shadow of the person I am. And yet, he reminded me of something the other day: our first trip together, just the two of us, in the summer of 1978, when I was almost nine years old. In August of that year, we drove from Chicago down into Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains, before continuing on to Georgia, where we'd meet other family members. We stopped and stayed a couple of nights in Gatlinburg , Tennessee , a quaint rustic town proud of its simple...

When the weather got hot, when I was between the ages of six and nine and my family lived in Chicago, my mom would kindle the entrepreneurial spirit and set us to work in the kitchen. We'd cream sugar and butter; add eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder; we'd overdose the chocolate chips and spread the batter in a pan. I remember the smell of gooey bar cookies fresh from the oven, chocolate still shiny with heat. We'd do a taste test for quality control. We'd get a giant pitcher, fill it with cold water and scoops of Country Time Lemonade mix, stir well. We'd take the lot of it, along with an antique ice-cream table and chair set (wood table top and seats, iron legs and backs), and head across the street from our apartment on Lake View, into Lincoln Park. We'd set up at a sidewalk intersection, where people came frequently in and out of the park, and do a brisk business in lemonade and cookies. I remember the Dixie cups, the repeat customers (especially joggers, ...

I see the picture in my mind's eye: me, my mom, and my mom's sister Cay. Is my father in the snapshot, too, or was he the one pointing the camera at us? The photo is in an album somewhere in my parents' home. In it, we are sitting on the deck of a houseboat, floating on the Mississippi River, each of us wearing a white T-shirt with a large navy blue logo of the Playboy bunny in the center of it. It's the mid-1970s, and my father has taken some time off from work (Playboy Enterprises, therefore the shirts) so that we could have a bit of Mark Twain summer adventure on the great Mississippi. We've rented this houseboat, maybe for a week. I don't remember how long the trip was, or what our starting and ending points were. I suppose it was a round trip, and the starting point couldn't have been far from Chicago, which is where we were living at the time. Many details are fuzzy, but not the overall sensation of excitement. I know now that this trip was likely plan...

Today I was honored with a gift: a gorgeous orchid plant in luscious, fertile bloom. The colors are instantly uplifting, especially on as drab a day as today is in New York City, the sky going from black to gray to white and back to gray. In front of me, however, a complex cluster of waxy yellow petals that look as though they've been flecked first with an intense shade of purplish-pink (really, the color you first think of if I say "orchid"), and next with a touch of orange-red, right in the center of each flower. The picture to the left does not do justice to the color saturation; the blossoms are much brighter than they appear here. The orchid is an interesting plant. Its flowers seem fragile; you'd expect them to be like tissue paper. And yet not only are the leaves hearty and thick, the petals (at least on this variety) are sturdy as well. Another seeming contradiction: the blooms are, on the one hand, the epitome of refinement, of elegance . . . and yet, if you ...