NYC

Super-easy soup

by mayberry on February 8, 2008

Since I went ahead and confessed that I am a lousy cook, I thought now would be a good time to post a recipe. Right?

I am going to a Soup Swap on Monday. It’s like a cookie exchange, but for soup. Here’s what I’m going to bring (there is a contest for best soup name … if you can think of a better one, I am all ears). I’m making 40 cups of it tonight (8 cups x 5 recipient swappers).

I Think I Can-nellini Bean Soup
Makes: A lot. At least 8 servings depending on who’s eating. Probably about 35 servings if you are serving it to a small child.

3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 16-oz cans cannellini (white) beans
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1 head escarole (or kale I think would also work), chopped
4-5 cups chicken broth (sub veggie broth to make this vegan)
S&P
Shaved parmesan cheese for garnish

1. Heat the olive oil in a big soup pot or dutch oven. Throw in the garlic and saute for a couple of minutes.

2. Dump in everything else.

3. Bring to a boil.

4. Simmer for 20-25 minutes (or whatever. Until you are ready to eat it).

5. Top with shaved parmesan and serve.

See? If you can open a can and boil water you can make this.

My only problem is that my husband doesn’t really like soup (weirdo). So I am going to have 40 cups of incoming soup to eat all by myself. Guess what I’ll be eating for lunch for the next 40 days!

(When I was a poor editorial assistant, I always brown-bagged except on Fridays. Then I’d treat myself to lunch out. If I was feeling really flush I’d go to the Soup Nazi. I think it cost about $7 a serving [this was way back before the Seinfeld show even aired] but it came with bread, fruit, and a piece of chocolate and damn, this soup was so. good. It was entirely worth the anxiety and abuse and the very very long line.)

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Reporting for duty

by mayberry on January 9, 2008

Have you ever served on a jury? I think everyone should. When you live in Manhattan, you get a summons every two years on the dot. Luckily, mine was for a criminal case (civil case = snore) and I didn’t yet have any kids or big job responsibilities. This was back in the days when jury duty meant a lot more “sitting around in the courthouse reading magazines waiting for your name to be called” and a lot less “call this automated voice to see if we need you.”

So I got put onto a case. The perp was an alleged drug dealer. A bike cop–why that detail sticks with me, I don’t know–watched him holding fort inside a pizza place (or a pizzeria, as true New Yorkers always call them) over the course of several hours. The cop described customers entering, money changing hands, and each customer being apprehended, a few blocks away, with drugs in hand. The bike cop summoned a squad car and the dealer was arrested, given a quick pat-down, handcuffed, and put into the car for a ride to the station.

Once at the station, the car was thoroughly searched and a bag of drugs was found under the seat in the back. The question was, could we the jury be certain enough that the dealer had ditched his goods there to convict him? Or was it, as his lawyer argued, possible that they belonged to some other person who’d ridden in that car that day?

What struck me most, then and now, was how seriously we all took our job. We were a real cross-section of New Yorkers (well, we lacked some corporate titans and skinny socialites but we were at least of all ages, races, and education levels). It was a really straightforward case but we took our time discussing its merits and debating the guilt of the accused. The best part was when we considered whether the man could have sneaked his stash under the seat of the squad car while handcuffed. A tiny old lady volunteered that she had tested this out at home by putting on her own handcuffs and stuffing something under the cushion of her couch!

We voted to convict and I still remember how my heart pounded as I affirmed my vote aloud in the courtroom. I knew it was the right decision (the judge, in thanking us for our service, agreed as much) but it still felt scary to be in a position to send someone to jail. It took me a week to breathe normally again.

I posted at The Full Mommy about our holiday hits and misses — click over to find out what we liked and didn’t.

What are you reading tomorrow? I have too much to choose from: Sunday’s New York Times, a pile of magazines, this month’s book club assignment (Jane Austen’s Persuasion), or my next PBN review title. It might depend on the weather. If it snows, as is predicted, I think Persuasion is the way to go. And if I read it with a cup of tea, I’m killing two birds with one stone.

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Yup. There’s no place like it.

by mayberry on December 1, 2007

I will freely admit that I am a creature of habit. A homebody, a Cancer, a don’t-rock-the-boat, status quo kind of girl. So these trips throw me entirely out of whack. I love to go, to get back to New York. It’s like visiting the old me, tasting what my life would have been like if we’d stayed. But as the days go by (and this past trip was a long one), I start to itch for my real life, my current one, with its precise routines and familiar comforts.

Now that I’m home, my first task is to restore those routines, that order. My first day back, I had an awful, nauseating headache, along with a pile of urgent work that couldn’t wait another day. And not being able to stop and unpack, reorganize, dig through the towering stack of mail, reply to any but the most essential emails — was almost physically painful.

Today I’m feeling better. My stomach is back to normal, my suitcase is empty and I’ve done four loads of laundry. My to-do list still unspools behind me a mile long (do not remind me how many shopping days are left until Christmas, I beg you) but just being home is, for now, enough.

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That’s my little rainbow boy

by mayberry on November 28, 2007

OPIE: Where TJ’s two moms? [TJ is the neighbor kid.]
ME: One of them is right over there.
OPIE: Where TJ’s TWO moms?
ME: She is at work.
OPIE: Okay. *wanders off*

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File this away for next year

by mayberry on November 25, 2007

Crisp apple-scented roast turkey with cider-Calvados gravy

I’ve had it twice this month (actually, six or seven times, if you count the leftovers) and it is SO. GOOD.

(Why twice? Because two weeks before Thanksgiving, my husband, apparently weakened by the presence of so much fowl in the supermarket, decided he needed to roast a turkey. So he did. It was excellent. Yes, he rocks in many ways … but that also meant that there was an entire weekend in there where I had to be on 100% kid detail because he was up to his elbows in poultry. It was worth it though.)

Don’t skip the gravy, either. It’s the best part.

And here is Jo’s summary of the trip, entitled “Jo New York Book.”

A Turkey Dinner on Thanksgiving.
And a Tea Party.
And a Dinosaur Museum.
And spin on the Whee Chair.
And P.J.’s Secret Hideout Place With Toys.
And make a Paper Penguin.

Hope you all had a terrifically tryptophanic weekend.

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I provided tissues

by mayberry on November 16, 2007

Roger: strange old coot
Jowls, limp, cranky attitude
Eyes crossed, heart mighty

When we lived in the city, like real city people we had a dogwalker. He came once a day to dispense biscuits and walkies to the dog and lots of opinions to the humans. That’s if we happened to cross paths, which we’d do our best to avoid. Roger was one of those people who’d just plunk down on a kitchen chair and rattle on about who knows what, oblivious to any signs that we were ready for him to move along. It was only the other “animal children” on his route that kept him from staying parked for hours. Once I came home from work early to take something to the post office and discovered he hadn’t yet arrived. As I gathered my things I heard him huffing up the front stairs of our building. Like a total coward I actually sneaked out the back door just to avoid being waylaid.

Still, he found other ways to dispense his wisdom. Three-minute long voicemail messages, say; or his daily notes reporting exactly what happened during the walk. Not just what the dog produced, but anything they saw or people they met. Once there was a page-long tale of a “Young Girl” who accused Roger of not picking up after our dog. He defended himself by pointing out that the “feces” she had indicated were not fresh, since they were no longer warm. To prove this, he wrote, he made her touch them (“I provided tissues,” he noted). I’m sure the Young Girl was sorry she ever tangled with Rog.

If only I’d saved more of those notes (or had a blog back then). We did preserve the final missive. Here it is, with only a few identifying details changed.

Well here we are! Down to the final walk. These past four (almost) walking F. have been good. She will be missed. The years go by as quickly as a wink. It was good to work with you & I tried my best.

Of course I knew Jeff from the times at [his former address] when he would take care of [a friend's dog/fellow Roger client] & I would travel down to walk the canine

Please enjoy the new page of your collective lives in [Mayberry]. I am very happy for you also especially Jo who will have a chance to attend good Public schools when she is ready.

Until we meet again

Roger

I do wonder about him still. If he’s still shuttling up and down the Boulevard with his animal children, living with his cats, complaining about his landlord, his neighbors, and most of humankind. I hope so.

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18 miles of books

by mayberry on November 14, 2007

New York’s famous bookstore, The Strand, is celebrating its 80th anniversary with The Strand 80, a list of its customers’ 80 favorite books. I’ve read over 50 of them (yes! go double literature major) and several are among my personal favorites. I discussed it a bit with a friend and she pointed out these are not necessarily meant to be classics — they are popular picks. Of course, many are undisputed classics (Les Miserables, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Crime and Punishment, Homer’s Odyssey). Others might more commonly be called pop-culture phenomena (The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter).

That led us to wonder, though: What makes a classic? Obviously a work that can stand the test of time is often called a classic. If you can read a book written 50, 100, 200 or more years ago and find that it resonates with you today, then that’s classic. There have to be more criteria than that, though. What do you think?

By the way, there is exactly one picture book on the list: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

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Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

by mayberry on September 30, 2007

1. Work: Eh. Lovely catching up with coworkers and demonstrating that I am, indeed, more than just a voice wafting through the speakerphone. Much slower pace than last visit. Project that I went to launch didn’t launch, thanks to no help at all from other parts of our group. Blah blah story of our little team’s life blah blah.

2. Opie: excellent companion. Befriended many fellow travelers. Dug the subway (except when it was “too woud”). Can demonstrate Statue of Liberty pose. Wants to be a “stick guy” for Halloween.

3. Neighbor child doting on Opie: Largely annoying (mostly because he riled Opie up so that it took me an average of one hour each night to get him to fall asleep). All forgiven when I learned he’d written in his school journal that “the best part of this week is taking care of the Baby Opie.”

4. Celeb sightings: No Clooney, but Opie saw Chris Noth and Eric Bogosian and we both saw John McCain.

5. This weekend, aka The Return:

Guess whose is whose?

The lost tooth, by the way, is literally lost, somewhere in the depths of Home Depot. I only hope the next person rummaging through one of those drawers full of nuts and bolts doesn’t find a small, bloody incisor instead. Jo wrote the following note to the fairy (punctuation emphatically hers):

Jo! lost! my! Tooth!
Look! for! it! at!
Home!
Depot!
[signed]
Jo!
Bye!

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Gimme a muffin to go

by mayberry on September 25, 2007

For the record, this is what I brought to entertain one 2.5-year-old boy during two airplane flights and an airport layover:

6-8 miniature vehicles, including motorcycle, airplane, and various cars and trucks
4 books
2 coloring books/markers
2 pacifiers
1 laptop/5 DVDs
1 string of beads (vehicle theme)
1 baggie goldfish crackers
1 baggie trail mix
1 apple
1 turkey sandwich
1 sippy cup

This is what proved to be most entertaining of all:

1 overpriced, very dry blueberry muffin (place both hands on top of muffin; squeeze. A good 10 minutes of hilarity!)

I’m in New York this week with 1 junior sidekick. So posting will be light as I am busy massaging unused-to-high-heels feet, playing Frogger trying to cross Atlantic Avenue (see: feet too sore to reach crosswalk), catching up with friends, and — oh yeah. Working.

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My stay at the Home for Wayward Girls

by mayberry on September 20, 2007

Last Sunday’s New York Times blasted me to the past with this article about the Salvation Army’s Parkside Evangeline Residence. When I first moved to New York City after college, I needed a place to stay while I was interviewing for jobs and looking for an apartment. I spent about 10 days at the Parkside Evangeline, which I insisted, then and now, on calling the Home for Wayward Girls. I think it cost $35 a night.

This women-only, single-room-occupancy, extended-stay hotel was a throwback even then, with its dingy decor and prim rules about male visitors to your room (as in, none allowed. Not that I had anyone to invite up). I didn’t eat in the dining room or spend any time in the lobby — if I wasn’t out prowling for a job or an apartment, I holed up in my room with a few books and a tiny radio for company.

I did have friends in the city but I mostly remember feeling lonely and scared. I’d lived in Philadelphia for the past four years but was still felt like a total rube in NYC. Sleeping alone in a dim, narrow room, skulking down the hall to use the bathroom, and communicating with the outside world via the hallway pay phone didn’t help at all. Nor did the bank screwup that left me with almost no cash (or credit) for a few days, weighing whether to spend my last $1.50 on a subway token or a bagel on the morning of an interview.

And I never availed myself of my one and only chance to visit Gramercy Park! Curses.

As for the plan to evict the remaining tenants from the Parkside Evangeline and sell the building, I can’t say I blame the Salvation Army. Yes, the deal stinks for the current residents and for people in the position I was in. And it’s a shame to see one of those places that makes New York New York be turned into yet another luxury condo. But all that sentiment and $1.50 will not even get you a ride on the subway.

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