I'm 蕃tastic

We were celebrating three very important birthdays--in honor of my mother and both godmothers--gathering for a sumptuous dinner at Daniel. I've been noticing that fewer and fewer New York restaurants still maintain such formality of the dinner service. Even the new schmanciest places seem a little more dressed down, attributable to cultural spillover from the startup explosion of the 90's. General wisdom is to behave as the rich do. Anyway I enjoy this show of elaborate ceremony, but induces in me an absurd impulse to grasp the tableware with fists and start eating like a savage. I can tame it, but only by imposing a kind of exaggerated primness.

Keeping up appearances often feels like a struggle against your own nature. I’m lucky that my family makes few demands and appear just genuinely happy when I make a little time for them. Which makes me feel all the guiltier for the infrequent interactions in recent months, and conscious to my own clumsiness w/r/t family social dynamics.

I had forgotten the extent to which my family tends toward taciturnity, compelling me to overcompensate by chatting everyone up. And since I am not generally known for being much of a talker, the result was both awkward and unnatural. I am truly terrible at this.

Also, most of my family are, by and large, teetotalers, indulging in a little wine only on special occasions and usually for toasting. It mades me very self-conscious about the fact that I was drinking wine (enjoying it even!). And although I know that they do not judge me, and that rationally my actions are appropriate, my sensitivities toward family are entirely irrational. Deep within still lives that girl who wants her mama to believe she abstains from drink, sex, and bad words.

All of it seemed to accentuate that nagging feeling of non-belonging, confirmed by the following incident. My godmother noted how I couldn't take my eyes from the array of cheeses as the cart rolled past. Imagine, a Chinese person liking cheese. The novelty!* To this, mama said I am 蕃 (FAN), which means foreign but is often used pejoratively and connotes barbarian. It was an offhand comment motivated by cheese, but I wonder that mama doesn’t also regard me as such in other respects.

It is expected that during at least one point in life, your mother will say something that will hurt you unintentionally. But this criticism is particularly unfair. There is no way to refute it because there is no measurable way of demonstrating cultural adequacy. The standards of authenticity are so arbitrary, the minute the label蕃 (FAN) has been attached to you, all—your arguments, actions, behaviors, traits—will have acquired the stain of otherness. It’s a kind of a reverse-Orientalism (Occidentalism?).

Even if there did exist a monolithic Western Tradition, can I help it that, having been educated in the United States, it serves as the dominant framework for my own thought? Not to get all Veda Pierce, but it is because of mama that I am the way I am. While my sister and I were growing up, Mama was strict. But the rules were never a set of black-and-white proscriptions and prescriptions. She had always emphasized our ability to make our own choices**, to eschew ideological rigidity, to respect diversity of thought, and to evaluate ideas impassively. Mama often expressed her views but rarely imposed them on us; She did this, I assumed, because she did not want to inscribe us within known boundaries but instead have us embrace a larger world.

Do we now assume that because I have adopted “Western” views by accident of my education I have also forgotten or rejected the traditions of my cultural heritage? Why must they be set in zero-sum opposition to each other?

Or maybe I am looking at this all wrong. Maybe, just maybe, 蕃 (FAN) is an oblique comment regarding my recent conduct, for the benefit of my grandpa and auntie, as an explanation for my frequent absences and filial inattentiveness. By attributing grander reasons for personal failings, it lets me off the hook. Embarrassing behavior is involuntary for the unmannered 蕃 (FAN).

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*In response to my godmother, I posited that fear of cheese exists everywhere and is not specific to the Chinese and that it is due to the strong odors, often a signifier for decay. But there is a difference between the beautiful stink of living and the death stink of rotting food. I also pointed out that the Taiwanese as well as other cultures makes fermented soy products which has what some might consider an objectionable odor.

**Except for that time she insisted that I take Spanish instead of German because she thought Spanish was the more practical language. I’m still annoyed that I caved.

BFF

Jenne and I were the bestest of friends from preschool, and our friendship had always been relatively straightforward. Sometimes best friendships between girls can get complicated; it’s not all just rainbows and flowers. To be someone’s best friend is the grade-school equivalent of marriage. Or at the very least, it’s training for a monogamous relationship. You can only have one (at a time).

And it’s all very good, finding that someone who is fun and with whom you want to spend all of your time: “You like apple fruit rollups? Me too! You have Voltron at home? Cool! Let’s be best friends! “

It’s the Forever part of Best Friends that’s difficult. Especially when friends move far away, which is what Jenne and I did—she to New Jersey and I to Long Island.

Letters and telephone conversations are excellent means of communication, but in the second grade it is a challenge to use these tools as the primary method of maintaining a friendship. There are too many new experiences that your BFF cannot relate to and you have to start facing facts: This long distance thing is not going to work.

Enter Gemma.

Gemma was what some might call a high maintenance BFF. She pouted and frequently complained of boredom: “Chiiiiiiiiik, I’m boooooooored.” This astonished me because she had such an impressive collection of My Little Ponies. To this day, I’ve never met anyone so passive and so needy of constant stimulation. I did my best to invent ways to amuse ourselves.

It was during this time that I witnessed a bewildering sequence of jealousy and betrayals, an outcome of an imposed and unnatural exclusivity. Before my tenure, Gemma and Kimmie were the bestest of friends. But it’s the rule that you can only have one BFF. So Kimmie, who was initially sweet and welcoming, became increasingly hostile as Gemma began showing preference for me.

Gemma began complaining how “Kimmie is so conceited. She doesn’t ice skate and she has glasses.”

It is obvious that Kimmie would harbor resentment and hurt feelings, that I had usurped her place, if unwittingly. Still, I was confused why it was necessary for Gemma to repudiate her. I’m a social idiot—what do I know?

Kimmie got over it.

Then came my birthday, when I invited Jenne to stay over my house for the weekend. I had forgotten how good it was to hang out with Jenne, how little effort it required, and how she was happy and game for just about anything. So I was excited when she brought matching fluorescent sweatshirts—one for me, one for her.

-We could wear these together!
-At my rollerskating party!
-Let’s coordinate our outfits
-We could be twins!
-Woo!



I miscalculated. Jenne was my friend first and I had expect everyone to understand this. It wasn’t supposed to be at anyone’s expense. I felt sick about it afterward when I saw how upset Gemma was. It was the first time anyone had called me “such an ASS-O,” although I am positive she meant ‘asshole.’

All of it passed. Gemma had a brief reconciliation with Kimmie, but eventually forgave my transgressions. Eventually she moved away and we each found respective BFFs. During this time, for a period of two years, we stayed in touch and maintaining a long-distance connection. We went to camp together, invited each other to our birthdays, and accorded each other the official title of BFF even though we had since developed closer friendships locally. And then we stopped, tired of this double life, maybe—but more and more aware how little we had to talk about.

Jenne has the distinction of being my oldest friend (in duration not age). I’d say we are ‘best friends’ if I still used that term to describe members of my intimate circle. We don’t dress like twins anymore, though.

Schadenfreude

The day right after people get “let go” from an organization, you see the others scuttling about, whispering in hushed voices. It is a natural response to reassure oneself and others that one has friends, control, and all relevant intelligence. What is shocking are those that take this even further, their frowns and head-shaking barely concealing what appears to be glee.

Yes, glee. Or at the very least, a perverse self-satisfaction at having escaped the chopping block. These are the ones that you hear whispering across the cubicle wall: “Tsk. That’s rough. Well, you know what I heard…”

I shake my fist at you, little twerp

A 12-year-old kid squeezed my behind as I got off the train. I had the urge to smack the grin off his face, but it seemed wrong to strike a child.

Not known to be the quickest with a response, what I said was: "Ya' little twerp..."

That ought to scare him.

Overheard

BOY: You remind me of someone. Who do you remind me of?

GIRL 1: That is such a line. You know, lot of people say I look like Jennifer Aniston.

BOY: Yeah! Yeah, maybe it's Aniston... You totally remind me of someone though.

GIRL 2: I get that a lot, too. Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl. I'm like a mix of the two.

BOY: I could kind of see that.

GIRL 1: Sometimes I look like Jessica Alba.

GIRL 2: I think you're more Parker Posey.

GIRL 1: Huh.

GIRL 2: You know what my boss says? She says like I'm like Britney Spears. That is so insulting.

BOY: Yeah, I could see that though.

GIRL 2: You think I look Britney Spears? That's really so insulting.

GIRL 1: No. Well, you're boss is probably like 30. All old people think Britney Spears means like young and cute.

GIRL 2: Still.

BOY: Yeah, maybe Jennifer Aniston. I know you remind me of someone. But who?

GIRL 1: ...

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You get the picture. I bring you this conversation so I may share with you the experience. That is, the feeling of disbelief, trying to guess whether they're all drunk, delusional, or just dim. Maybe I was feeling mean-spirited that night, but I'm positive the boy had been lobotomized and neither of the girls bore any resemblance to Jennifer Aniston. Nor Britney Spears. Nor any combination of the actresses mentioned above. They just rubbed me the wrong way.

Even if I do have drunken jackass nights, at my worst I'm not this embarrassing. Not nearly. It makes me shrivel up inside to think that I may have had listeners-by despairing to tears (just as I had despaired that night), wishing that I would just shut up already, please.

Eating alone at 3 a.m.

The waiter pulled out the table wide, not only to accommodate her girth but also because she had all uncoordinated movements of a woman who was feeling her liquor a bit too well. She threw herself into the adjacent booth, and with a clumsy backhand threated to knock over my glass of wine, which I quickly moved to the other side of the table. "No No No. I need no menu," she beckoned the waiter. "I know what I want and what I want is a big plate of seafood. Pronto."

The seafood plateau arrived with due speed. I tried to mind my own business, but couldn't avoid hearing the crunching and squishing--exoskeletons crushed between the woman's massive hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shove a lobster tail into her mouth with the fleshy part of her palm. Seafood juice dripped down her arm to her elbow.

She caught me looking. "Hey," she said, leaning over toward me. I could feel her breath on my cheek. "Hey, you like oysters?"

"Yeah I like oysters," I said, nodding, not really comprehending until I watched with horror as she grabbed two Malpecs and threw them on my bread plate. "Well there you go. Enjoy!"

"Thanks." I stared at the Malpecs. And then to return the gesture of friendship, offered her a piece of my catfish. I asked her what drives a person to manhandle shellfish in such a manner (OK, I didn't ask her that, but you get the idea).

Her date had ditched her earlier that night. During the main course, he got up abruptly, throw money on the table, and then ran out. I was curious about the conversation immediately preceding her companion's hasty departure, but I felt it was awkward to ask even if she didn't appear to be the shy type. She left dinner humiliated, spending the remainder of the evening belting out show tunes at a karaoke bar. "I'm a good singer," she said. "I'm an actress, you see. Trying."

She pointed to the platter before her, adding: "Really, I can't even afford this. I'm forty years old, nobody will have me, too old to have children, and I'm still having my 80-year-old father in Rome pay for my meals. So yeah, I'm a loser."

This made me feel very sad for her and at the same time self-conscious. To me, dining alone is great pleasure, but one that borders on pathetic when it is an elaborate compensatory measure. Although I suffered no insult that evening, I was compensating for the consecutive nights spent at the office working into the wee morning hours. Blue Ribbon was consolation for an entire day deprived of food, fueled on coffee alone. It was a way pretending that I didn't need people to care for me--the ones that used to drag me out from the office before midnight, to call me and demand where the hell I was, and to tell me "I miss you, please come home soon."

Instead, I was here with a struggling Italian actress, who at the moment was swirling the contents of my wine glass. "Ah, so you're drinking a Bordeaux," she said, tipping the glass sideways. "I work as a wine captain at [**restaurant**]."

This could be me in 10 years: older, impoverished, struggling, alone and miserable. I watched her play with my wine. She appeared unsuspecting of the unkind thoughts running through my mind and I immediately felt ashamed for it.

"I think you're beautiful," she said. "So what I want to know is how come someone like you are here like this, eating by yourself?" She meant this as a compliment. But any response acknowledges that implicit notion: that only losers eat alone. So what's my excuse?

"Well, I'm hungry," I said trying my best not to sound defensive. "And I treat myself well." This last bit was, of course, a lie. I do not treat myself well at all--bestowing energy on the wrong people and never demanding my due. These are all the hallmarks of those who posses a low regard of their own worth.

"What? You don't have someone out there to treat you well?" she asked. "You shouldn't be by yourself. I can't believe there aren't half a dozen guys out there..." Again, she intended this as some sort of compliment. And for someone so compromised by drink, she certainly strikes to the nerve with deadening accuracy.

"Yes, I do," I said. "But, er, it's 3 a.m. and I don't like to bother people at this hour. I'm okay by myself..." I trailed off. It was already too much and I needn't have said more. It was an indictment on me, my loneliness, my failings. Next to me was a woman who out of desperation allows herself to be mistreated, one who drinks herself to such blithering stupor that she will readily admit to any stranger how far she has fallen with respect to her aspirations. So why was it that I felt like the lame one? Empathy is only part responsible. But perhaps it is our uncomfortable similarities--only in my case, I lack the honesty to admit to my own shortcomings and vulnerability.

For this very reason, I felt a sudden and strange protective impulse toward her. After she finished her meal, I made sure she collected her scattered belongings and I made sure that she arrived safely at her apartment.

And she, in her own way, took care of me, defending my honor from the catcalling dudes in her neighborhood: "Boys, boys, boys, a little respect here," she said, arms akimbo teetering on a pair of three-inch stacked heels. "This is my good friend and you to don't talk that way to my good friend." I thought her slurred speech and demeanor would have the opposite intended effect, but to my surprise, it chastened the pack. Then she turned to me and said: "You see, Chiik, I take care of my good friends."

"Yes." I said good night and hoped that in the morning she would have no recollection of the night's events. Perhaps she may, instead, do what I do in similar situations--that is fabricate from imagination a sort of revisionist history, filled with romance and adventure: I went on a hot date, ate a belly full of seafood, drank a whole bottle of whiskey, and sang a lot of show tunes. That was a fun night! Woo woo!"

mid-palate phase

The girls hovering by the window around the gourmet ice cream truck really bothered me. One already had three midget spoons in her hand: "Oh okay, sorry, can I try the Gianduja now?" Her friend: "Oh, I really like that one. So special!" They stood there for three minutes rolling the ice cream on their tongues, considering the flavor profile.

For the love of god, it's just ice cream. Is everyone in this city auditioning for the Food Network?

Boiled Chicken

I've had some long torturous relationships with bad eaters in my past. But the worst would have to be Dixon. He was the kind of guy who would insist on having pasta at Le Bernardin and eschew cheese at Artisanal. When Morimoto first opened in Philly, we drove down for a sumptuous meal where the only thing he would eat was a California roll. Even if I didn't have such a one-track mind about food, I would still find his behavior difficult to stomach. I have no interest in interfering with what and how a person chooses to eat. Dixon couldn't be persuaded to try even one actual piece of fish at Morimoto precisely because of the joy I take in eating. He was intimidated by it. And unable to acknowledge anything beyond his own limited sphere of experience, he sought to spoil my pleasure rather than share in it.

He was invited to my mom's birthday celebration at Aquavit, where it became soon apparent that he didn't know quite how the menu worked. It wasn't really that complicated, but when I began a gentle explanation he cut me off: "I know!" Except he didn't know: "I'll have the green salad with citrus dressing... without the dressing. Yes, that will be all." He ignored the looks of consternation from the waiter and the whole family. And proceeded to sulk in silence with his $15 plate of lettuce, refusing the multiple offers to share in our food as they came multiple course after another. After dinner he complained: "God this restaurant is so overrated."

At first, Dixon's acts of sabotage used to bother me. It is difficult for me to enjoy a meal if friends and family are not. Sociability is really at the heart of eating--thus the expression: "breaking bread." One of Dixon's problems, a cardinal sin of sociable eating, was how he allowed his dietary hangups to interfere with the pleasure of fellow eaters. Dixon's discontent often became someone else's probem. He couldn't just keep it to himself. And so his frequent (and unquiet) dining malfunctions had caused my ordinarily gracious friends and family to request that I stop bringing him to social events: "Please come, but come alone."

Dixon thought his contrariness demonstrated how he was above this aspirational consumerism, but I thought his behavior was just stupid. And, I suspected that he did it in part to spite me. Lest you believe that conflicts occurred only in hoity-toity eating establishments, one of Dixon's worst offenses was at Big Wong, a Cantonese place on Mott Street. My family and I go there often for Boiled Chicken.* It has such a straightforward name (unappealing and dull, even), but I'll say without hyperbole that it is possibly the best chicken I've ever had in life. The texture is silky, the flavor is pure, and the meat impossibly tender--it sells out quickly.**

Dixon took a bite of the Boiled Chicken and shoved the remainder of the piece to the far end of his little plate. "It tastes raw." I thought: yes, it is the closest one can get to the Platonic ideal of Chicken, biting straight into its juicy thigh. Okay, I realize how gross that sounds to, well, probably everyone. But this chicken is so simple and startling in its honesty. With its pale bumpy skin looking too much like skin, bone still red with marrow--it resemble too closely, perhaps, to its form when alive. Big Wong's Boiled Chicken is a source of unease for those who would rather think of their food not as the living but as something best described as "Comestible Units." They would prefer to hide that dirty deed of slaughter in the cloying nectar of General Tso.

I could say that Dixon's tastes buds have been rendered insensate through systematic exposure to processed shit. Some might question my own anger. But when Dixon said "raw" what his face meant was "dirty". He doesn't like eating the food my family eats. That is, he doesn't eat foods of people he deems filthy, which as far as I could tell excludes all cuisines except Korean, New York Italian, and turkey sandwiches (if that can be called a cuisine). It isn't really my intention to be authoritarian about taste. But I do look down on the small-minded who will do such injustice to themselves, that they should act not on experience but on prejudice.

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*I also love their congee--my favorite is the thousand-year-old duck egg and lean pork. You can be sure I didn't bother suggesting it to Dixon.

**When this happens, Big Wong sometimes substitutes the inferior Boiled Chicken from their brother restaurant Wing Wang. The Wing Wang switcheroo throws me into such a rage that I fancy my skin might turn hulk green and I might just bust out of my clothes. Raaahr!

Thoughts over breakfast on Sunday

I'm pretentious. I sometimes impose upon myself postures, habits, and aesthetics that are unnatural to the realities of my daily living--my background and my upbringing. These picture-perfect trapping are semi-private constructions, a sort of theater akin to the wholesome imaginings of childhood: "Today, I'm a fairy princess. I'm going wear a lot of pink and wave around this star-tipped wand because that's what princesses do. Tomorrow, I plan to be a paleontologist. I'm going to go out and dig up some dinosaur bones."

This Sunday, I got out of bed at 8:30 instead of the usual squandered time of half past noon. The house was actually tidy for a change and I had the novel sensation of getting a full night's rest. The sunlight had none of the depressing mid-afternoon hue, streaming brightly through the bay windows--and wait, did I hear some birds chirping?

I sat down with a bowl of yoghurt & strawberries to read the morning paper. Ah, this must be what it feels like to be healthy and informed. Oh yes. But I was too distracted by the act of experience to truly experience the act. Did I really enjoy this or do I simply enjoy the idea of me eating fruit & yoghurt and reading the paper at breakfast? I do love greek yoghurt. For five years, I've been going to the same place twice a month for 'yiaourti sakkoulas'. But because I rarely have time to eat breakfast at home, much of it goes to waste. It seems silly that I should be maintaining a habit that isn't even a habit, or worse, to perpetuate this myth that I must be "the type of person who..." Same with the newspapers. To be frank, I find them incredibly dull and I'm sick and tired of McCain, Obama, Clinton, and the whole election horserace. So with the pile of other things that require my attention, why do I choose to read this pabulum first thing in the morning on my day off?

Am I over-thinking this???

Spaghetti con Pane Tostato

The best chefs from Piacenza all know that the secret to great pasta is in the reheating. This process allows the noodle to absorb the deep flavors in the sauce while at the same time eliminating any residual "chew" from the first cooking. To achieve optimal texture, use precooked pasta from a can, which has the consistency of soft pudding. For my money, I like Chef Boyardee's Spaghetti and Meatballs because the composite meat product has a wonderfully bold, gamey flavor that requires little additional seasoning of any kind.

For a quick treat, try making Spaghetti con Pane Tostato. If you feel intimidated, just think of this classic dish as essentially an open-faced sandwich--or, if you prefer, a soggy variant of pizza using toast in lieu of crust.

Pull on the tab of the easy-to-open lid and gently scrape the contents of the tin can in a bowl, separating the meat product from the noodles. On high heat, sear the meatballs in a heavy cast-iron skillet until browner, roughly one minute. While cooking, be sure to tamp down on the meatballs with a spoon or spatula; this will keep them from rolling off the toast when dining. Add pasta to the skillet and cook under medium heat until pasta turns meltingly tender.

Pour the ragout of Boyardee on seven pieces of buttered toast, making sure to scrape all the bits and pieces from the skillet. The texture of the bread serves as the perfect counterpoint to the squishiness of the pasta.

I have found that the stretchy texture of string formaggio is an ideal accompaniment to this dish. I recommend cheese from the region Polly-o, but many local markets carry other top quality varieties. Pull five sticks of formaggio into strings and cover the dish. Garnish with a sprig of parsley.

Buon Appetito


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Inspired by Russell Baker's spoof "Francs and Beans." His version is far superior.
Also, modeled after Paula Wolfert--I love her style.