Homemade Life

"When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and ever meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be."--Molly Wizenberg, from A Homemade Life

Molly is right. Food never is just food. I think about this a lot now that the braces have completely changed my relationship to what I eat. I have to be more more thoughtful in my choices, more leisurely in my pace. It seems the act of being mindful should be meditative (and help with weight loss according to the NY Times). However, it is in fact more stress inducing. I want to sink my teeth into carrots and crusty french bread. I want a handful of honey roasted cocktail nuts. I want to eat popcorn on Oscar night. I want to take a slice of pizza to my lips and, like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, chomp it with my front teeth as I walk down Brooklyn streets. These simple desires feel large and luxurious.

I have settled into patterns of eggs and soft potatoes, oatmeal, soups and stews. Things that offer warmth and comfort, even if they sometimes feel strange and tentative in my mouth.

I like the quote above (and can't wait to read the book) and I wonder how the food that I am eating now is changing me. Am I growing soft? Will I have the urge to simplify my life as the food I take in is in its simplest, most boiled down form? Nothing can escape the natural cycle: what I take into my body to nourish me, will feed my cells, inform my choices and affect my actions. If I'm eating things that offer warmth and comfort, am I increasing my ability to be warm and comfortable for those around me? Or am I offering a more ascetic version of myself to the world, unable to take in the great variety that surrounds me and therefore, reflecting back a less juicy, meaty, crispy, spicy form of me?

I will harken back to the Alexander Graham Bell quote from a few posts back--I have been looking regretfully upon the closed door, and I am not seeing what I am bringing to my kitchen table now, at this moment in time. I have new stories that go along with the foods in my kitchen. I have learned to make egg drop soup, my mother's recipe, remembered from a Chinese cooking class she took when she was in her 20s. I bring the knowledge and memory of how much my father loved her Chicken and Hoisin Sauce (and I did too!) when she would make it on special occasions all those years ago. I have tea given to me by my sister-in-law's mother from Paris, carried lovingly across the ocean in her suitcase. I drink in these tisanes to invoke Danielle's sweetness to warm my frozen winter days. I bring the stories of my great grandmother's mamaliga (Romanian for polenta) which I never tasted, but have tried to recreate in my own pot. (So braces friendly!) I make sherried broccoli soup, a recipe I've made up. This is my story in my kitchen. This has become my homemade life.

In Ya Grill!

I don’t even know where to start with this one:

http://www.slate.com/id/2245622/

I’m not a Lil Wayne fan, but it looks like we share the same fascination with teeth. (No, my braces didn’t cost $150,000 but I seem to have spent 150,000 hours worth of thought and energy on them.) The man had EIGHT simultaneous root canals (YIPES!), got his present implants redone and added some new ones, and as the icing on the cake, had his few remaining teeth repaired. Good God, what was the man putting in his face? (Eating? Snorting?)

Have you seen his diamond encrusted teeth? Weezy calls them “his form of braces” and they do look just like them, only with a bit more sparkle. Why would anyone want that? And for $150,000 to boot? Dang. I hope he brightens up the big house with those babies. All he has to do is open up his mouth, and turn himself around to be a human disco ball.

Dirty Mouth

Yesterday was my six month anniversary with the braces. I can't believe that it's been six months already! It seems to have gone very quickly, and yet, it's been the bane of my existence as well. I imagine that this is how mothers feel--so caught up with the everyday needs and care, that time seems to play tricks on them, and months and years fly by to put this fully formed human being in front of them. I look in the mirror at my "six month old" and am full of wonder. I've likened this whole braces process to children before, and in many ways, it is an apt comparison. There is a cocooning, a birthing, and rearing that is taking place. And at the end, like all proud parents, I will be able to look at my teeth and say, "I made that happen."

It's quite a leap to be able to think about that moment right now, but I think it's because, for the first time, I can have that proud day in my sights. My teeth really do look different. They are still figuring out how and where they should move, but they are definitely doing it! My orthodontist was once again very happy with the progress, which in turn, makes me very relieved. I was also glad to get my bands changed, as my friend Nicole delightedly exclaimed last week: "Wow, you got neon green bands! Cool!" Except for the fact that they were neon green because of all the curry I had been eating. Lesson learned--no more curry unless I'm going to the orthodontist right afterwards! Now my mouth is so bright and clean. Are you listening Orbit gum? I'm posterchild ready for your "dirty mouth" ads!

My friend Ginny shared this quote from Alexander Graham Bell recently: "When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us." That has been true for me for a long time now. I've been mourning losses--the loss of my freedom of food, my healthy routine, and a certain person that I loved. But something has shifted along with my teeth and those closed doors have led me down a hallway towards something entirely new. Though these past few months have made me hesitant to walk down that hallway and open other doors, now I'm peeking around the corners and getting curious.

Call me Alice. It's time for colorful, interesting and exciting trip down the hallway...if not the rabbit hole!

Neverending Birthday

I'll admit that I was dreading turning 37. Somehow it seemed like it was just too many steps beyond my "mid 30s" and teetering dangerously on the edge of my "late 30s" and I didn't want to celebrate. Stupid late 30s. Stupid braces. I figured I'd have a dinner or two with friends and leave it at that.

But wow! It’s been non-stop birthday action leaving me utterly charmed with a gleamingly bionic grin on my face! Just yesterday I had a lovely lunch at Jean Georges (with George Stephanopoulos just a few tables away) where they brought dessert after dessert to delight the anniversary of my naissance. Molten chocolate cake, flan, vanilla bean ice cream, and then, they brought an entirely new plate of carrot cake, bejeweled for my birthday:

And on top of that, they brought out chocolates, homemade marshmallows and rhubarb marcarons de paris (my favorites!!)

I thought I would never eat again…until that evening when my friend Michal and I went to Red Cat, which I’ve been dying to try. Michal had *gulp!* bacon tempura, which is the most decadent thing I've ever seen, and they brought out a lovely bread pudding with more homemade marshmallows and superrich truffles with candles in them. Oh my!

I suppose it wouldn’t be a posting from me if I didn’t include a quote from the Buddha, so here goes:

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

I have certainly been lit up by my friends in my 37^th year! Thanks to you all! And the party is still going on--bring on the weekend!

Bionically Speaking...

There have been some questions, and the answer is, yes, those are my teeth in the x-ray you see at the top of your screen. Gosh, the roots of my bottom molars are turning upwards so much that they look like umbrella handles. I like that it appears that I'm smiling, and there are all these emanations around making me look all bionic and powerful. Move over Lindsay Wagner! There's a new bionic woman in town!

iTeeth

Ok, now I've seen everything. We've got iPhone apps for the toothies.

We've got a "tooth whitening app" which will show you what your teeth will look like if you get them whitened. It even comes with a "whitening glossary" which has completely piqued my curiousity. What kind of terms are they going to define. Ecru? Pearlescent?

And then there's 3D Teeth, which gives you all sorts of info about each individual tooth. I thought was supposed to be for dentists-to-be who needed to bone up on their studies, so I got suckered in. I downloaded the thing, and really, after all my web research, there isn't much on the app I didn't already know at this point. But it is useful to bring with me to the orthodontists office and point to the teeth that I want to talk about and have the proper terminology.

I swear, at the end of this process I deserve a DDS!

Catching Up

A lot has happened since the last post. I had a GREAT birthday. A lovely dinner made by my friend Nicole (thanks, Nicole!) on Friday and on Saturday, I had a superfantabulous evening out with friends at Brooklyn Bowl. Yes, they made us wait 2 and half hours for a lane, but we were drinking champagne and beer and eating cupcakes and rock and roll fries:

and having one freakin' good time. (Love you guys! I salute your bowling prowess!)

It's funny, in light of my last posts where I had a bona fide case of the gloomies I was so pleasantly reminded of how easy it is to simply enjoy yourself. For the last few weeks I was hearing that old song in my head telling me to, "forget your troubles, c'mon get happy..." but it can be even so frustratingly depressing when you can't figure out HOW.

I realized the other day, that it's it's not about the HOW, but simply creating the right conditions to let the good stuff happen and the endgame will take care of itself. Just pile the friends together, add liquor and hipster bowling. Honestly, it's the most fun EVER.

Flawsome!

Double post today--saw this and thought it was flawsome!--especially the part where they "Embrace their braces!"

Happy Almost Birthday

I will admit it. It's my birthday tomorrow. Already I've been taken to see Wicked (Lawdy, the voices! Oh my!) taken to Robert DeNiro's restaurant Locanda Verde (thanks, Frannie!) and to Maya (thanks, Mel!), had the most scrumptious desserts homebaked by co-workers today, and there is much more celebration on the horizon.

But despite all this, I've been a little down. I'm trying hard to smile and to be happy. I should be happy, right? I've got great friends and family and much to celebrate. I've got all my limbs and my marbles. I've got the whole world in my hands. So why the funk? Why can't I, like a faucet, just turn off the gloomies when they're just not useful?

I read this today:

"Realization is unconditional happiness, an indescribable inner joy. We are always seeking something, trying to see, to know, just like we try to get ordinary things and accumulate ideas, and that desire is endless. But not seeing is true seeing, not knowing is true knowing. Not finding can be finding the true essence also. It sounds like nonsense, but it is recommendable. It goes deep. Not just superficial smiling, or momentary sense pleasure. It is beyond the mind as we think of it usually. Words don’t reach that.

Happiness means including everything. Why not? There is a blissful experience in the empty true nature of everything, when seen through to the essence."

- His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa from the interview "Awareness Itself" (Tricycle, Fall, 2005)

I don't know what a Gyalwang Drukpa is, but this seems rather smart. It's the act of trying to know, are trying to see, trying to find meaning that give us our answers. It is the people we meet, the teachers we seek, and maybe even the blogs we write that help us to get to the place that gives us a greater perspective. If we automatically knew and make our realizations immediately then we would all simply sit still, rub our own bellies and know everything. Not too exciting is it? No oceans crossed, no lips kissed, no home runs...no teeth straightened!

Heh. Maybe I'm getting wise in my old age after all! I'll let you know tomorrow when I hit the big 37!

The Practicality of Pessimism

My friend Linda sent me this video of Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Work Week:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/presentations/

Though the title, "The Practicality of Pessimism" is catchy, the video basically says to name your fears so that they're not so powerful. He includes this quote from Mark Twain: "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." Similarly, there is also an old African adage that says, "All things that make noise at the side of the road, do not enter the road." I love that saying. I use it often.

Ferris talks about Cato, the ancient Stoic, who wore clothes that were out of style in his day so that he could learn to be ashamed of only the things that were truly shameful, and ignore the things that others would simply have low opinions of. It's strangely comforting, in a way, to think that the folks in the 65 BC were just as concerned as we are now with judgmental glances from strangers. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

I suppose the point is that there will always be something that will garner a disapproving stare: a laugh too loud, an outfit showing too much skin, or perhaps even braces. So laugh too loud anyway. Show off your *ass*ets and smile when you wear the braces. This is the practicality of pessimism indeed.