Archive for December, 2008

It’s the season of retrospectives and clip shows.  Slow news days mean dipping into the back catalog and disguising it as the Year in Review.  So I present ten of my favorite posts of 2008.  Feel free to vote for one of these or nominate your own in the comments.  From recent to not so recent…

1. When Frida didn’t meet Lee at SFMoMA – pondering the connections between Lee Miller and Frida Kahlo
2. Rockport shoe ad bait and ditch – the quest for imaginary shoes
3. Cheesed off in Davis Square – the quest for the perfect cheese sandwich
4. San Francisco in six shades of blue- photos from fog city
5. What wood you say is the future of radio? – the future of public radio
6. Fried Chicken White Wine Blind Tasting- just what it sounds like
7. Leaving newspapers on the train: littering or sharing? – pondering litter on the train; this one provoked my favorite comment ever
8. Improving the board, one tile at a time- maintaining public scrabble sets
9. A Purim story: the data miner, the demagogue, the marketeer and the synagogue – a cautionary tale
10. With bagels, everything is nothing- the zen of bagels with unwitting guest star Seth Godin

With somewhere around 250 posts, 2008 has been a banner year for limeduck.  Thanks for reading, and happy new year.

Thanks to the Connections program, I used my PRC membership card to get in to the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York city free.  There were three shows of serious photojournalism and documentary photography by Susan Meiselas, Cornell Capa and W. Eugene Smith, which were all impressive and moving, and an extensive (150+ images!) show of tintypes called America and the Tintype.  Before you read more, note that these shows close January 4, so get your butt over there.

Tintypes were to the late 19th century perhaps as polaroids were to the late 20th – democratic, cheap, widely available pictures that refelcted and also formed the culture.

The profusion of tintypes produced means that many are still floating around.  See some results at google images, on flickr and also on ebay.  There are even a few modern practitioners, such as John Coffer, who lives the full 19th century life of an itinerant tintypist.

Although tintypes still required relatively long exposure times and the presence of a professional photographer, many images in this show display a looseness and playfulness that was surprising to me.  I don’t really think of sticking your tongue out for a picture as something anybody did much until cheap instant film hit the scene.  Don’t even get me started on the shenanigans enabled by flickr and youtube.

In one image the sitters frame their faces with their tennis rackets, staring through the catgut grids in their fancy sportswear.  In another, a grown man sticks out his tongue and pulls his lower eyelids down.

One of the cover images for the exhibition shows one of the classic photo-manipulation tricks of the morbid set: holding your own severed head on a platter.  Or in this case, on a line just drawn for the purpose.  And enough hand-painted dripping blood for a teenager’s gory notebook margin doodle.

The ICP website shares about half the images in the show, a remarkable ratio, but they omit a few of my favorites.  Notably, one in which two white men sit in chairs.  Two black boys sit in their laps.  The men look at the camera and the boys look at eachother, seeminly lost in a game of rock-paper-scissors, or perhaps exchanging a post-civil-war fist bump of victory.

In nearly every case, the identity of the photographer and the sitters is unknown.  Some pictures survive in elegant frames, others as just paper.  Some have extensive overpainting or tinting, some just a little or none at all.

In one of my favorites, a blacksmith poses with his tools, wild 19th century whiskers and all.  His hands are visibly dirty but his cheeks have been tinted with a rosy glow. There’s a bright white bandage on this little finger.

M

Thumbnail images from ICP and eMuseum.

They say that New York is one of the few cities where you can get road rage walking. The post-Christmas shopping crowd on lower Broadway was appalling. And I wasn’t even really shopping. The density of tourists and out of towners meandering and stopping suddenly and consulting maps and iphones, combined with the street vendors, made the sidewalk almost impassible. I cut over to Crosby street and doubled back to the Angelika to catch a movie.

Afterwards, the crowd thinned a bit by dark and cold, I wandered around in search of a bite to eat. The canopy said “Dumpling Diva” so in I went. Past the thermal curtain was a small room with maybe ten tables and a decor that can best be described as ongepotchket, but in a good way, a bit like a hipster version of Cuchi Cuchi. I wish I had more time to study the art on the walls and the contents of the seasonal display table. As it turns out, the place is actually called The Kitchen Club.

I started off with a tasty glass of Boccadigabbia largely because it’s fun to say. The Rosso Piceno 2006 if you’re keeping track. The menu had several small plates that looked interesting, most for around $10, including several varieties of dumplings. I ordered pumpkin soup with ginger and cream and a set of mushroom dumplings.

Sipping my wine and people-watching, I suddenly became aware that there was a dog in the dining room. A bulldog I think, wearing a red bandana knotted at a jaunty angle, and wandering from table to table. Not some socialite’s purse dog on the loose. Not a service dog guiding the blind or a police dog protecting our safety. Not a stray hustling for scraps. This dog was part of the operation, an official dog, an intact offog if you will. I started to notice pictures of this dog on the walls.

I tried not to panic. I’m not a dog person and I’m not used to seeing dogs in restaurants.  Clearly the dog lives or works here. It’s probably not going to freak out or make a move on somebody’s food or mount the nearest leg of the nearest diner. But it’s a dog and its in the dining room of a restaurant. That’s not ok, is it? You certainly can’t bring your dog into a restaurant, can you? (ok, I know some people who do, but that dog is kept in a duffel bag at all times) Maybe it’s better to have a dog in the dining room than in the kitchen, but how do I know there aren’t ten more like this one in there? Give the opportunity, many dogs will eat poo, their own or somebody else’s. They can be polite and respectful but they can’t be servsafe certified because they can’t read. I scanned my soup for traces of fur or slobber.

The dog visited the table next to mine where one diner cooed at it and even touched it. Another diner told the story of someone who forged a letter from a psychologist so that he or she could take a treasured pet on a transcontinental flight in the cabin rather than in the hold by declaring it a service animal for some made up anxiety disorder. Then the bulldog tuned to me.

“Sorry buddy. I didn’t go to Yale.” I turned back to my dumplings but kept the pooch in peripheral vision. It’s hard to eat dumplings while white-knuckling your chopsticks.

Chibi – that’s the dog’s name, I have since learned – saw that I wasn’t interested and moved along.  I unclenched just a bit.  The soup was smooth and creamy, slightly tangy, and entirely hairless. The dumplings, served in a neat row in a narrow sushi type plate with ginger soy sauce, were steamed potsticker style and chock full of mushroomy goodness, heavy on shiitake and portabella, maybe others, too.  Lots of sesame seeds on top, too.

Despite my lingering unease about the dog, I was warming up to the place, so I ordered another glass of wine and the stuffed sardines.  Bulldogs don’t like sardines, do they?  Who am I kidding, dogs eat anything.  That’s why we call them dogs.  After what seemed like a long time, I was served two whole grilled sardines with some greens.  The sardines smelled great but were a little dry, and the stuffing – thyme or tarragon, I think – was a bit stemmy.  I wanted to eat them whole, like I did in Croatia years ago, but they were a little large to crunch down on the bones.  I ate most of the first sardine before I figured that out.  I deftly zipped the spine out of the second one.  There was no salt on the table, but that was the first time I had missed it.

After I paid the bill, Marja Samsom, the chef-owner – and dumpling diva – popped by to ask me how things were.  I wasn’t really up for explaining the totality of my feelings, so I went with “very nice, thank you.”  My unease about the whole dog thing should do nothing to diminish the enjoyable character of the place and the unimpressive sardines shouldn’t diminish the rest of the meal or the excellent service.  I didn’t even touch the mains, so this is definitely someplace to return.  Next time I’ll be sure to have a nerve-settling drink before I have to face Chibi.

I’ve been eating and writing about savory scones and other pastries for a while now and word seems to have gotten out.  I helped analytic marketeer L out with her mom’s Etsy site (plug: not too late for holiday shopping) and was rewarded with not scones (or muffins as has sometimes been the case) but madeleines.  Madeleines?  Proust’s mind-altering drug of choice?  Yes, and no.  L’s madeleines were made with Roquefort cheese, pears and walnuts for an earthy flavor and a mix of textures from the almost fluffy dough to the crunchy nut bits.  A far cry from what Proust had to soften up with tea.

I found a recipe for walnut pear blue cheese madeleines that might be similar at Five Spice Duck, so of course I have to include it here.  A few days later, I found sweet madeleines in a handy 3-pack at Starbucks.  Very buttery, not in any need of tea-soaking at all, but I did dip them in my extra hot double tall soy mocha.

Following the random walk a step further, here’s a bit from Salon that questions how much Proust knew about madeleines and how much we really know about the madeleines of his day.

Perhaps years from now a bite of something might bring memories of today flooding back.  The late George Carlin posited that “vuja de” would be “the feeling that you’ve never been there before.”  I’m thinking maybe it could also be the making of a memory that will one day come roaring back at a trigger yet unknown.  I look forward to many savory snacks from now until then.