Gangsta style

You know that scene in Mary Poppins, when Dick Van Dyke starts dancing with the penguins? Needing to become more penguin-like, at one point he sort of hitches down his pants so that the crotch is around his knees and starts waddling.

Well, today as I was walking to the library I found myself behind a hip, urban gangsta type, wearing an oversize green tracksuit with a low-slung waist and the crotch hugging his knees. Thus encumbered, his walk was more of a rolling waddle.

So here’s the question: if you were a hip, urban gansta, would you go out of your way to look like a green, plush penguin?

Mamet's Three Magic Questions

I was skimming through a book by David Mamet called Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business and I found the following nugget on page 85:

"The filmed drama (as any drama) is a succession of scenes. Each scene must end so that the hero is thwarted in pursuit of his goal – so that he . . . is forced to go on to the next scene to get what he wants. . . . To write a successful scene, one must stringently apply and stringently answer the following three questions:
1. Who wants what from whom?
2. What happens if they don't get it?
3. Why now?"

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Mamet as a filmmaker; I find his pacing dreary and the acting wooden and way too mannered. He has, however, written some great scripts.

Regardless of his merits (or lack) as a filmmaker, what really interests me is the applicability of the "three magic questions" to the study and teaching of theater. Does this work as a good way to approach dramatic tension in Golden Age plays?

Tractor Tipping

To understand this story it helps to know who Frank is. And to know that, you have to be familiar with the movie Cars. In Cars, Lightening McQueen, a famous racecar, is sentenced to rebuild a road in the small desert town of Radiator Springs after he accidentally destroys said road while fleeing the police (it’s all a big misunderstanding, but as often happens in drama, without that misunderstanding there would be no plot, so go with it). Lightening learns to love the other cars in the town, and in particular becomes great friends with a battered old tow truck named Mater.

Mater is a bit of a hillbilly, and takes Lightening out one night to do some tractor tipping (i.e. cow tipping). He warns Lightening to look out for Frank. Soon enough Lightening and Mater are being chased across a moonlit field by Frank: an angry, rampaging combine (bull).

Gabriel adores this movie. He obsessively collects all the characters (he has not one, but four Lightenings, one for each of the various paint jobs the character sports in the film) and is constantly recreating scenes. We cannot go on a simple family walk without Gabe scraping his foot through the dirt (imitating Lightening accidentally ripping up the road in Radiator Springs) or bellowing out full-throated roars (imitating Frank). And when Gabe gets in his Cars zone, it’s next to impossible to get his attention or shift his focus. Just ask Erika, who more than once has located Gabriel in the grocery store by listening to the calls of “Mac! Mac!” (imitating Lightening’s frantic search for his big rig transport when he first finds himself alone in the desert) from two aisles over.

Fast forward to today. Gabe and I went for a walk down by the Bay. I was envisioning a Mayberry moment (whistling while we walk by the bay, skimming stones). What I got was drag, drag, dust cloud, dust cloud.

“Will you stop dragging your foot like that, PLEASE!?” I fumed at one point.

“Why?” Gabe asked.

“Because sometimes it’s nice just to walk together,” I replied. “You don’t always have to pretend to be Lightening.”

Gabe did not seem convinced, but he tried walking in the plants for awhile, to appease me, I guess. On our way back to the car he started looking back furtively.

“Hurry,” he said, “Frank’s coming.” This went on for the next hundred yards or so to our car; furtive glance, “Frank’s coming, hurry.” At one point he let slip that “I’m pretending that those people are Frank.”

I looked back. Frank turned out to be an African American family of four. And my kid’s been dashing away and nervously glancing at them for the past hundred yards. As we climbed into our car and drove away, I thought I saw the father giving me a LOOK. I just bowed my head and moaned.

Innocents Abroad

When I lived in Madrid years ago I used to buy pistachios from an Iranian refugee in Retiro Park. I don't recall his name, but I decided to call him Stan. It drove him crazy, but I called him Stan anyway. Why did I call him Stan? One word: Ferguson.

Ferguson is every tour guide that graces the pages of Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad. The author and his cohort call their guides Ferguson, whether in Paris or in Athens. The name drives each Ferguson crazy, but they do it anyway. They know that their Fergusons aim to impress, so their goal is to remain unimpressed, no matter what the site or the feat. Standing in a charnal house before the withered remains of some long-gone saint, they adopt a pose of wide-eyed idiocy and ask the same question: "Is . . . is he dead?" All to drive the Fergusons crazy.

Is this admirable? No, but it epitomizes the experience of Americans abroad. It is brash, showing at once disdain for and secret envy of the old world, its people, and its institutions.

This is the book that instilled in me a wanderlust that still afflicts me, even though I have rarely been able to satisfy it. When I read it for the first time, I wanted to travel the world and call my guides Ferguson. I still do.

A Moment at Mervyn's (Retail Hell)

So we’re at Mervyn’s buying me some work clothes when we get the call that Joe the fix-it guy is at the Viking waiting for us. So we scramble to finish picking out the clothes and then rush to the register to buy.

The cashier is a skinny kid, about 18 or 19, with a flipped up collar that tells me something about him is fundamentally unserious. We watch as he starts scanning our purchases in slow motion. He stalls for a moment as the machine refuses to scan one of our items. With a puzzled look he slowly rescans, then scans again.

We have plastic smiles on as we mentally urge him forward, man, forward.

Then the phone rings.

“Men’s department,” he says. “Tuxedo shirts? Let me . . .”

Erika grabs my arm to keep me from using it to strangle him.

“. . . call you back, ‘cause I’m with a customer right now.” The youth finishes, and lays the phone down. Erika is satisfied that she has kept me from killing him for no reason. Then before he rings up another of our items he’s back at the phone with a blank piece of paper. “What’s your number?”

Another clerk drifts into range. “Have these been rung up yet?” she asks.

“You tell me,” Erika says. “You’re the one with the screen.” She looks back quizzically, no doubt wondering why these strange Americans are always in a hurry.

Meanwhile, our clerk is still on the phone. “Is that a land line or a store phone? ‘Cause I can’t call out on this phone. . .”

Finally Erika can stand it no more. “Hey,” she bellows, “finish with us. We’re the ones paying $134 here.”

I pout because the clerkish child does not look penitent enough as he returns to finish ringing up our order.

“Do you have a Mervyn’s Card?” he asks politely, no doubt as taught in retail sales school.

“No, and I don’t want one,” I snap back.

“Why not? You’ll save 30 percent.”

Surely he’s aware that all debt management gurus say to avoid store cards like the plague. I simply say, “no time,” grab my things and race out the door with my family close behind.

A pair of tapas

Supposedly, tapas originated in Spanish bars as a way to keep the flies out of your glass of wine. The bartender would put some tidbits on a little plate and lay it on top of the glass of wine. Tapas can be as simple as a few marinated olives, or they can be quite elaborate.

These two tapas come from ¡Delicioso!, by Penelope Casas, my bible of Spanish cooking. The cheese dish was nice and smooth, but had a little bit of a kick to it because of the garlic and the cilantro. The other one is toast with an anchovy/olive paste and ratatouille on top. The vegetables and Garum (anchovy mixture) work well together because the veggies cut down the intensity of the anchovy. They are both very nice tapas.

Queso fresco con mojo de cilantro
(Fresh Cheese in Cilantro and Green Pepper Marinade)

Start preparation several hours in advance.
½ teaspoon salt
6 cloves garlic
½ medium green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cut finely chopped cilantro (stems trimmed)
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
1 pound fresh cheese with a solid consistency, such as fresh mozzarella or mild goat cheese, cut in 1-inch cubes

Mash to a paste the salt, garlic, bell pepper and cilantro in a food processor. Stir in the oil and vinegar and taste for salt.

Gently mix the cilantro sauce and the cheese together in a bowl. Refrigerate several hours or overnight. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Tostadas de escalivada y garum
(Roasted Vegetable Canapés with Anchovy and Olive Paste)

1 red bell pepper
A ¾ pound eggplant
1 small tomato, halved
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon thyme leaves or ½ teaspoon dried
1 tablespoon fruity extra virgin olive oil
Eight to ten ½ inch bread slices cut from a long narrow loaf

GARUM
8 anchovy fillets, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons capers
12 cured black olives, minced
¼ teaspoon sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Arrange the red pepper, eggplant, and halved tomato in a roasting pan and cook in a preheated 500 degree F oven, turning the pepper and eggplant once, for about 20 minutes, or until the skin of the pepper browns and separates from the flesh. Cool. Peel, core, and seed the pepper. Peel the eggplant, cut in half lengthwise, and scrape out most of the seeds, then dice the pepper and eggplant. Chop the tomato, removing as much skin as possible. Mix all the vegetables together in a bowl with salt, pepper, thyme, and the tablespoon of olive oil.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet and toast in a preheated 350 degree F. oven for about 5 minutes, or until crisp but not brown. Place the ingredients for the Garum in a mortar or mini processor and mash to a paste. Spread the Garum on the bread slices, spoon the vegetable mixture on top, and garnish with thyme.

Paella extravaganza

I broke out my paella pan yesterday for a tapas and paella shindig out by the pool. Damian and his wife Kristin came up from Sunnyvale; we also invited Neil and Melissa, and the Baileys (Scott and Jennifer). Conversation centered around academic shop talk, with a little Air Force mixed in.

The paella turned out great, even though the clams didn’t open up, which is always distressing. I hate it when I’m sold dud clams. I also pulled a couple tapas from my trusty ¡Delicioso! book: queso fresco con mojo de cilantro, and tostadas de escalivada y garum. Garum is a pretty potent anchovy and olive spread that apparently dates back to Roman times. I found it to be too intense on its own, but it goes great on toast with escalivada, which is essentially a mixture of roast eggplant, peppers, and tomato.

I adapted my paella recipe from ¡Delicioso! a long time ago. I cooked the paella outdoors on a charcoal grill, which is a little less precise than doing on the stove, but more fun.

Paella mixta (Meat and seafood paella)

6 cups chicken broth
½ pound medium shrimp, peeled
2 ripe tomatoes
3 boneless/skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces*
Sea salt
6 tablespoons olive oil
½ pound Spanish chorizo (2 hot dog sized chorizo) cut into ¼-inch slices*
¼ pound piece of prosciutto, diced*
1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1 bunch scallions (green onions), chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced*
2 teaspoon paprika*
1 cup frozen peas*
¼ teaspoon crumbled thread saffron
3 cups short-grain rice*
12 small mussels
12 small clams
1 roasted red bell pepper

* Notes on ingredients:
Spanish butchers hack the chicken to pieces, bones and all. Using boneless is therefore less authentic, but less of a pain to eat. Do NOT use Mexican chorizo; it is not the same as Spanish chorizo. I actually bought “Spanish-style” chorizo from our local over-priced gourmet-organic market. Spanish jamon serrano is actually better than prosciutto, but it’s easier to find the Italian stuff. For the paprika, I used pimentón that I brought back from Spain. For the rice, short grain is preferred; I used Calrose, which is technically medium grain. Do NOT use long-grain rice. It is a travesty and evil (at least in paella. It’s fine in other things).

1. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise. Squeeze gently to extract the seeds and with a coarse grater, grate down to the skin. Drain off any excess liquid (I actually did not drain off the liquid and it turned out fine. Call me crazy, but I think a little extra liquid doesn’t hurt).
2. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt. (Don’t be afraid to be generous).
3. Heat the olive oil in a paella pan. Stir-fry the chicken pieces about 10 minutes over high heat, until lightly browned on all sides. Remove to a plate.
4. Add the chorizo, ham, and shrimp, and stir-fry about 3 minutes. Take out the shrimp and set it aside. Stir the chopped green peppers, scallions, and garlic into the pan with the meats and cook over medium heat about 5 minutes. Stir in the paprika, then the grated tomato. Add the peas. Add the saffron. When this is all stirred together into a goop you can
5. Stir in the rice, combining it well with the mixture that’s already in the pan. Pour the chicken broth over the rice.
6. Return to a boil and simmer over medium or medium low heat for about 10 minutes. The dish should be no longer soupy, but there should be enough liquid left to continue cooking the rice.
7. Stir in the chicken and the shrimp and taste for salt. It should be well-seasoned. Arrange the mussels and clams over the rice WITH THE EDGE THAT WILL OPEN FACING UP (I once screwed up on this step; it doesn’t affect the flavor, but it looks silly and unattractive to pull the paella out with upside down mussels). Arrange the strips of roasted red bell pepper attractively over the top.
8. Close the lid on the barbecue and simmer for about another 10 minutes. Hopefully by this time the coals have burned down to the point that the cooking will be really gentle.
10. Remove from grill, cover loosely with foil and let sit another 10 minutes before serving.

Aioli Disaster

Last night's dinner featured artichokes with homemade aioli. I think we need to find a new aioli recipe. This one was so intense, my mouth didn't know what hit it. Thing is, it wasn't the garlic that was overwhelming. I think it was the olive oil. It tasted like an over-the-top caesar dressing. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Heroic Computer Dies To Save World From Master's Thesis

Via Eric Mayer, from the Onion.

Choice sentence: "I guess when she got to the chapter about how the 'imitative tactility' used in the first two stanzas of 'Young Sycamore' can act as a 'neo-structuralist, pre-objectivist perlustration and metonymy' of the importance of anti-Episcopalian sentiment in the rise and fall of central West Virginian coal miners' unions, the computer just decided that something had to be done for the greater good."

The San Mateo County Fair

Since today was such a beautiful, warm, summer day, we decided the moment was perfect for going to the fair. We live just 10 minutes away from the fairgrounds in San Mateo. Fairs, in areas such as this, are not as big a deal as in a place like Bishop. We didn’t even know the fair was going until we saw the lights of the Ferris wheel the other night as we drove out to see the meteor shower. When we walked in today I checked the schedule and found out that the fair had already been going almost a week.

We made sure to eat lunch before we went, thinking we would save some money that way, but we still plunked down a pretty penny, what with admission, rides, snacks, and whatnot.

Among the highlights: I test drove a Segway, once hyped as the wave of the future, but now reduced to a sight gag on Arrested Development.

They charged me $5 to ride the thing, when they should have been paying me to do it. The guy in charge swore up and down that Segways are selling like hotcakes, but I suspect that if they were I would be seeing more of them around town. Still, it was fun. It moves intuitively: lean forward, and it moves forward; lean back and it slows, and eventually starts moving backward. I suppose that if I could drop $5,100 and not miss it, it might be worth buying a Segway; but since I can’t, it isn’t, so I won’t.

I tried to get Gabe to go down the giant slide, but he refused, so I ended up going alone.

I did manage to get him onto a small rollercoaster and onto the Ferris wheel, where we admired the view.

Gabe also won some goldfish at the midway, and then we capped off the day with a trip to the pig races.

Hurricane Flossie?

So are we naming hurricanes after cows now?

Democracy in Action

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to commend the administration of incipient Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez for its "commitment to democracy." Just thought I'd pass it along.

Perseid meteor shower

Tonight we drove out to the hills away from the city lights to check out the Perseid meteor shower. It's supposed to peak tomorrow morning in the early pre-dawn hours; we went tonight at 10 p.m., so it wasn't as spectacular as it's going to be, but still quite impressive.

We told Gabe we would be going out to see the shooting stars when it got dark enough. He didn't know quite what that meant, but the anticipation was killing him. About 7:30 he pointed out that it was starting to get dark (it was barely even dusk yet) and we patiently said it had to be even darker. He was climbing-the-walls crazy, asking every few minutes if it was dark enough yet until finally, about 10 p.m., we climbed into the car and drove to a Vista Point on a ridge on the road to Half Moon Bay.

There were other star watchers there before us, and more folks came and went during the hour we were there. We spread our blanket on a patch of ground and stared into the night sky. It took awhile, but every so often in my peripheral vision I would see streaks of light, and then the pay off: a long streak, like a jet leaving a vapor trail, right in my direct line of sight. Every time a good one lit up the sky the crowd would ooh and ahh like watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.

It was chilly, and the three of us snuggled together to keep warm. Gabe saw one or two meteors, but soon was ready to go. I was starting to get cold, but Erika wanted to hold out a little while longer. Meanwhile, the crowd seemed to be getting younger and the overheard snippets of conversation more raucus. Not wanting to share space with the high school set, we finally packed up and left.

All told, a pleasant way to spend a summer night.

Empanada de pescado

An empanada is a meat pie. The best empanadas I have ever had, bar none, were the ones I used to buy from a bakery in Ponferrada, a town along the Camino de Santiago in the northwest of the province of Leon. I lived in Ponferrada for five months, and I would frequently stop by the bakery close to the apartment where we lived with a local family and buy empanadas, either of chorizo or tuna. These empanadas were as big as a plate, with a delicious, savory Galician-style crust, more like bread than the puff pastry shell that is common in Madrid.

My empanadas are based on a recipe I found 20 years ago in a cheap paperback cookbook I bought in Segovia called Cocina facil para todos los dias. Cocina facil calls for merluza (hake), but I usually use canned tuna (believe it or not) and have attempted it with all kinds of fish, with varying degrees of success. Frequently, when we have fish, if there's enough left over I'll use it in empanada: halibut (which my sister brought back from Alaska), salmon, tilapia, snapper. I think it works best with the tuna, because the flavor doesn't get drowned out by the tomato sauce. Tonight I tried it with left over tilapia, and it turned out well, but since tilapia is a mild fish that tends to take on the flavor of whatever it's cooked with, I found that the flavor got buried by the other ingredients. However, I recall attempting an empanada once with leftover orange-glazed salmon, which did not turn out good at all. So, strong-flavored is good, but wrong-flavored won't work.

For the crust, I usually use pizza dough (1 pound), but I've also used puff pastry and even those canned croissants you get in the dairy section of the supermarket. Tonight I used puff pastry.

Empanada de pescado

1 package puff pastry

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 medium onion, diced

1/2 bell pepper, diced

1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce

salt

sugar

1 6 oz. can of tuna

red pepper flakes (optional)

1 hardboiled egg, diced

1. Thaw the puff pastry according to package directions.

2. Saute the onion and bell pepper in the olive oil until the onion is transclucent. Add the tomato sauce and simmer uncovered for a few minutes, then add salt to taste and a dash of sugar to bring out the tartness of the sauce.

3. Stir in the tuna, crushing slightly with the spoon so it is well integrated into the sauce. Add a dash of red pepper flakes, if desired.

4. Remove from heat and add the hardboiled egg.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

6. Place one sheet of puff pastry on a baking sheet and spread the tuna mixture evenly over it. Lay the other sheet of puff pastry over the top, crimp the edges with a fork and place in oven.

7. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool on wire rack, and serve.

This can be eaten hot or cold, although I prefer it at room temperature.

R.I.P Merv

Long before My Big Fat Greek Wedding thought of inventive uses for Windex, The Man with Two Brains, gave us a serial killer who dispatched his victims by injecting them with window cleaner. The killer turned out to be Merv Griffin. The world may mourn him as the creator of Wheel of Fortune, but to me, he will always and forever be the Elevator Killer. R.I.P.

Buckley Update

I finished Florence of Arabia last night. It's a good read, funny, but with a much more serious tone than his other books that I have read.

I found this op-ed from him that seems to clarify somewhat his political position.

Book Nook

I have discovered Christopher Buckley.

Satire comes in many forms, but its overriding purpose is to ridicule folly wherever it can be found. It doesn’t hurt if it’s also funny. Christopher Buckley is very funny. His favored targets are Washington beltway insiders, PR flacks, politicians, and their enablers in the media. Buckley’s own political bias is not easy to discern, which is surprising, considering his pedigree: son of William F., graduate of Yale, member of Skull and Bones, former speech writer for George Bush I. One would peg him as an urbane, eastern establishment conservative, and one would probably be right, but how do you label someone who creates characters like the 30-year-old public relations specialist whose favored method for solving the social security crisis is voluntary suicide for baby boomers? Or the junior Senator from Massachusetts who is inspired to run for Congress after an epiphany experienced while tripping on acid at the Kennedy Presidential Library? Or the spokesman for the Religious Right, a preacher equal parts Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton, a virginal 40-something tub of lard who dresses like Colonel Sanders, is always ready to go on camera to rail against America’s moral failings, but who nevertheless has a crisis of faith, gets involved with Russian prostitutes, may, in fact, have killed his own mother, but who in the end turns out to be an OK guy after all?

The novel in question is Boomsday, which satirizes self-indulgent baby boomers and the problems they have caused, along with those who would try to solve those problems. This seems to be a theme with Buckley: good intentions (especially governmental good intentions) often cause more problems than they solve. I’m currently reading Florence of Arabia, in which the title character is a U.S. State Department employee who is sent to a fictional Middle Eastern emirate to start a satellite TV station with the aim of airing programming that will lead to the emancipation of women in the Middle East. I’m at the point where her efforts are about to blow up in her face. Who is the target of this satire? The U.S. for trying to fix the Middle East, or the Middle East for needing fixing in the first place?

The book that started me on my Buckley kick was No Way to Treat a First Lady, in which a Hillaryesque first lady is put on trial for assassination when her philandering husband dies after a marital spat. The spat is precipitated by a presidential affair in the Lincoln bedroom with a dim-bulb socially conscious singer/actress (shades of Streisand?) who is prone to believing everything her press agent says about her efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

Pure bliss.