This is authentic |

Keeping Virginia blue

I don’t put a lot of photos of myself up here, but this one was too good to resist. My little family, along with about 30 other like-minded NewYorkers, decamped to Virginia Beach for a few days leading up to the election, to help the Obama campaign get out the vote in the slightly less glamourous cities of Norfolk and Chesapeake.

And it worked!

For five days we went door to door, in neighborhoods that ranged from lovely to desolate, making sure that the President’s supporters had the information, the wherewithall and the motivation they needed to exercise their right to vote.

We spoke to a very blonde, very white woman, all dressed in pink, who told us how happy she was to see Obama supporters “out of the closet” because so many of her peers are voting for the President, but don’t want to advertise that fact. We talked with people about the economy, jobs, women’s rights and the difficulties of returning home after fighting in a war. We made sure that people understood the new ID laws that were put into place, by the way, largely to intimidate the very people we were talking with. We compared notes on raising small children and how to keep turtles alive through the winter. We drank some of the worst coffee and ate some of the best baklava I’ve ever encountered. Didn’t find any transformative soul food joints, but Johnson’s BBQ did the trick in a pinch.

Most of all, we checked out a corner of our country that is very different from the mean streets of Brooklyn, we gave our daughter a priceless lesson in how our democracy works (as well as s few people we talked to) and we participated, which is exactly what the bad guys didn’t want us to do.

And I took a bunch of photos while we were at it, a few of which I have included here for your viewing pleasure.

Here’s one of the walls at Johnson’s BBQ in Norfolk:

A typical street in the Chesapeake, VA area we frequented:

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Obama!

people

Here’s my dad, with the President of The United States.

Can’t even begin to express how happy/proud/relieved I am that President Obama gets to keep his job for another 4 years.

But maybe the smile on my father’s face in this picture comes close.

Thank you, America. You have restored my faith.

Hi Sandy!

places

Braving the elements during the height of Superstorm Sandy.

Took a walk early this evening just to see what was up down by the river. The wind pushed us back into the apt, but we at least felt the storm on our faces before hunkering down for who knows how long.

We were just riding this carousel last week:

Crazy.

You don’t own me

music

It’s that time of the decade you people. Beware the relatively large number of political posts that may be coming your way in the next couple of weeks. A veritable barrage of e mails, phone calls and PSAs flooding your inboxes. Not to mention the TV commercials and the leaflets. When will it all stop?

It’ll slow down on November 7th, most likely. But until then, let me add to the fray.

I was honored to be a part of a PSA designed to motivate women to get out and vote for Obama on the 6th day of next month. Because we can’t afford not to, frankly. Set to the song “You Don’t Own Me,” which was originally recorded in the late 60′s by the inimitable Leslie Gore, a whole bunch of amazing women from all over the country lip sync their hearts out in a genuine display of fierce sisterhood. Half the fun is trying to figure out who everybody is, as there are quite a few notables in the cast, indie and otherwise.

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living the dream

misc

So my in laws are cleaning out their house. The one where they have lived for 40ish years. Making space, freshening up, etc etc. Secretly, I think it’s just an excuse to get rid of all of their grown kids’ junk and finally reposses the place for themsleves.

We’ll never know for sure. But what we do know, is that, during every visit from them, a new set of boxes or bags or just piles of stuff arrives in our already overcrowded apartment. Could be annoying (do I really need to see the cumberbun my beloved wore to various bar mitsvas as a teenager?) but a few things have made the whole process worthwhile.

One of these gems is The Big Orange Splot by the great Daniel Pinkwater. It tells the story of the moustached Mr Plumbean who, after a bird spilled orange paint on his roof, was inspired to transform his mundane home into a psychedelic junglescape, complete with hammocks and tropical drinks in the yard. The neighbors all freak out, and one by one attempt to convince Plumbean to come back into the fold of conformity, but the awesome Plumbean doesn’t give in.

I mean look at this place! Would you change it?

Of course not. And neither would your kid. This is a beautiful example of a person following their dream and creating their own world. Would that there were more Plumbeans out there.

For some reaosn beyond all understanding, The Big Orange Splot is out of print. But it is readily available at Alibris, and other second hand book stores both in the world and online, so you can go find it.

cooking class: chips ahoy

food - kids

Please find pictured above the insane amount of produce and other sundries that we recieved this past week from our friend Farmer Totman. Plus I forgot to include the huge hunk of pork and the yogurt, both of which are keeping themselves cool in the freezer and fridge, respectively.

Clearly I need to have more kids.

But as I don’t see that happening any time soon, I guess I’ll just need to get over my inherent laziness and get creative with this abundance.

Enter the kale chip. Brilliant in it’s simplicity, in how quickly huge quantities of kale-in-this-form are inhaled, and in it’s appeal to even a finicky preschooler who claims that she does not, nor ever will, like kale.

Don’t they look delicious?

recipe, etc, follow if you click below…

It’s really quite simple. And here I must credit Deb of Smitten Kitchen fame for jogging my memory.

Just cut the stems and any other rough parts out, and cut the remaining leaves into managable sized pieces. I leave it up to you to decide what “managable” means. Then dump them all into a big bowl, toss with some olive oil and a few healthy shakes of salt. You can also add a splash of apple cider vinegar here, if you’re looking for a bit of that flavor in your chip. Then spread the coated kale pieces onto a cookie sheet in a single layer, put them in the oven at 300 degrees and bring ‘em out when they are crispy (about 12 minutes or so, depending on your oven.)

They will be gone before you know it.

cooking class: the farmer returns

food

For the uninitiated, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a group of like minded folks who pony up a chunk of cash at the beginning of a growing season in order to support one farm. In return for the financial stability, the farmer then delivers the bounty from his harvest to those same people on a weekly basis for as long as it lasts. Some CSA’s have their members go to a central spot to pick up their goodies. We are extremely fortunate to have our deliciousness delivered right to our door.

Oh happy is the day when our first Farmer Totman box arrives! Starting the first week of June and continuing on, more or less without cease, through Thanksgiving, the weekely arrival of fresh produce, eggs, meat, grains and other goodies signals the end of my dependence on Whole Foods in particualr and, more importantly, the end of my horribly disorganized style of grocery shopping. At least until the dark days of winter come again, and the deliveries stop for another season, we eat what’s in the box.

Farmer Totman is the current incarnation of the esteemed fashion designer Christopher Totman, who I met and instantly befreinded back in the olden days of the 1990′s. (I still wear something of his probably once a week, which speaks to both the quality of the workmanship as well as the design…) One of the truly wise ones, he ditched the mean streets of NYC for the more pastoral venue of his family farm in Western Massachusetts, turning his artistic eye from shaping dresses to creating crops.

And beautiful crops they are. Lucky are the 24-odd families who receive the fruits of Farmer Totman and his carefully curated posse’s labor. Because the box includes not only the produce that he grows himself, but also goodies from other local small producers in the area… including South River Miso and Side Hill Farm yogurt, which is hands down the best I’ve ever tasted.

But it can be almost oppressive. How do you go through such bounty and use it all up each week before the next week’s delivery arrives? What if, god forbid, we go away for a weekend or dine out more than once in a week? Or if we’re just feeling lazy?

No time for any of that. It’s all about taking what’s in the box and making the best out of it. And the best is pretty damned good, if you ask me. This summer and fall are going to be all about working through the entire box, and sharing some of the great tips/recepies, etc I learn along the way.

Click below for the first installment of this particular story.

So for example, here’s a photo of what showed up a couple of weeks ago…

Yum.

Just looking at it all makes me hungry. So I decided to rip off one of the appetizers at Prune, a favorite spot to eat, especially when you’re stuck in Manhattan. Just clean the radishes, dip them in some softened butter, dip that in some salt and enjoy.

When you start off with the perfect radish, you don’t have to do much!

clean up time– recycling electronics

tech

Just recently I said goodbye to my TV.

We began our relationship in my family kitchen in the mid 80′s and hung tight through various apartments and boroughs until finally, relegated to the hallway, it’s remote (which was the only way you could change channels) beyond repair, I decided that it was time for the television to be recycled. Especialy as I had no plans for it’s reduction or reuse.

One of the most convenient things about writing for the Krrb blog is that I get to research topics I’m actually interested in. Like this piece on recycling electronic waste I wrote a while back. So when it came time to move the TV out of my life, I just read that piece again. And the great news that I rediscovered is that the Lower East Side Ecology Center has a huge electronics recycling warehouse in Brooklyn that is ready and willing, any Tuesday through Saturday, to accept your electronic waste for proper recycling.

Like this stuff here:

They also host e-waste recycling events all over the city, if you’re not looking to drive over to the warehouse. The next one, for example, is on June 16th in Chelsea.

Such an easy way to do right by your environment. I loved my TV, but it’s time had come. We have finally graduated from a non-TV watching house to a TV-less house. Which feels more authentic.

Which is what this is about, right?

Bye bye…

library day – old school phones

kids

Call me crazy, but I have decided, for some reason that I cannot articulate, that it is extremely important for my daughter to know about all sorts of analogue stuff that has become almost obsolete but that, in my opinion, remain far more desirable than their modern digital counterparts.

She knows how to put a record on the turntable, she can dial a rotary phone, and one of our favorite books is The Lonely Phone Booth, by Peter Ackerman with wonderful, slightly cock-eyed illustrations by Max Dalton.

It tells the story of a real live phone booth (still standing today!) on the upper west side of Manhattan that is ignored in favor of cell phones until an electrical storm takes out the cell towers.

Here’s the phonebooth, wondering what on earth those little silver things are that everybody is speaking into.

Maybe I love this book because the story celebrates a relic of my youth, growing up in NYC. Or maybe I love the storyline because it reminds us how fleeting all of this digital technology is. Or maybe I just like it because it justifies my rotary phone (which worked during the last 2 huge power outages, by the way…)

Whatever the reason, it’s a sweet story, and a great thing for a city kid to read. Plus the next time you’re on 100th street and West End Avenue, you might just be tempted to make a call.

arts and crafts – sheila hicks at sikklema jenkins

art

I love this show.

Sheila Hicks is a genius. And her exhibit (on view right now through June 2 at Sikkema Jenkin s in Chelsea) is not to be missed if you have any interest in checking out work that takes the traditional craft of weaving to a whole new level that can only be described as sublime.

Every encounter with this work, from her tiny framed swatches of colorfully woven yarn with the odd porcupine spine thrown in (above) to larger more sculptural pieces made (for example) from seagrass emerging from a clawfoot tub (below) inspires me both to pick up a loom and get to work creating my own projets and to go out there and make a bunch of money so that I can afford to take one (or five) of these pieces home with me.

Her work also serves as monumental and stunning proof that one does not have to be a 25 year old hipster to be contributing beautifully relevant pieces to the lexicon. Born in 1934, this Sheila Hicks has been around the block, and her experience imbues the work with an intensity it might not otherwise have.

More pretty pictures if you click below…

Here are a few other examples of why I love what this woman is doing. And a compelling argument for hauling yourself over to Chelsea to check the show out before it’s gone…

A tiny framed piece of… twine..? How does twine become so moving?

A wall sized colorful riff…

A detail… with porcupine quills.

And just a little something for the corner…

Anybody want to take up weaving with me?