New Restaurant to Year Goal

Add: Clinton St. Baking Co. & Restaurant

In addition, I cannot wait to watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC. I wish he came to my town and cooked for us. That would be AWESOME.

Quick Dinner

Greg has been gone for the past week and being the lazy person that I am, I've only made three meals, which has lasted me until today.

On Monday I made Chinese cabbage and ate that for two days with rice. I then took the chili that Greg made a week ago and remade it into a soup with celery, potato, carrots, mushrooms, and corn. It was pretty good and watered down the vast amounts of garlic that was in the chili.

Yesterday I went out for sushi and sat at the bar by myself. It's kind of Greg and mine's neighborhood hang out now so I feel pretty comfortable going there and having a meal by myself. Actually, I felt like pretty cool eating by myself. While there, I read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I had tuna tartar and a spicy scallop roll and a tuna, apple, mango, avocado roll. I really like it there b/c they'll make whatever we ask for. (Side note, does anybody know who you are supposed to tip when you are sitting at the bar? It was weird b/c the waitress would bring me water and sometimes my food, but it was the sushi chef who took my order and made my sushi. I tipped him $4 and the waitress $2. I was embarrassed so I ran out of the restaurant. It wasn't the usual waitress anyway.)

Tonight was my quickest meal. I threw in leftover lettuce, mushrooms, celery, chopped up half an apple and threw in a really old piece of ciabatta bread (I munched on it as a snack like a week ago and didn't throw out the leftovers, I know its gross, but frugal don't you think?) as croutons. For the dressing I used the Thai peanut sauce Greg and I made a few weeks ago. So Voila, I got rid of all of my leftovers and it was rather delicious. It probably tasted better than it was because I was reading the Buttermilk Channel menu when I was eating. I miss all the restaurants in NY. If I lived in NY, I probably could have had every meal out since Greg has been gone.

Tomorrow for lunch I will have the leftover soup. I saved it so I didn't have to cook over the weekend. I'll have to make another batch of soup with the other half of the chili tomorrow.

There is still a squash and chives from when Greg went grocery shopping. Don't you just hate it when other people buy the stuff and they don't cook it? Not that he had time to make it. I love squash, but I don't want to cook it b/c I'd have to chop it all up and throw it in the oven -I know, simple enough, but growing up in a Chinese household, we never used the oven much so I am not so used to cooking that way. Also, I can't just make a squash, I'd have to make other stuff to eat with it, and that's just too much work for me. It be pretty strange just to have a slice of squash for dinner, although I wouldn't put it past me.

For my sake, I hope Greg comes home on Tuesday. Before he left, he joked that I was going to eat cabbage all week, which was close enough. I tend to cook vegetarian when I am by myself because it is the most simple. I don't like to only eat meat so I'd have to cook meat and veggies. I also do not like cooking meat in general so I cook veggies.

The New Yorker

I hope that I get the next issue of the New Yorker. Greg got it for me for our anniversary. I especially want the next issue as it will contain much of J.D. Salinger's short stories, some of which have only been published in the New Yorker back in 1965.

J.D. Salinger, Dead at 91

Today, the great J.D. Salinger died at the age of 91.

Work

My life has come to a stand still since beginning this job. I forget about things I need to do...like check my bank statements, pay my credit card bill, cut my fingernails, etc. I've been forgetting the smallest and most crucial things. I come home, change, and immediately grab a pint of ice-cream and listen to podcasts such as This American Life, the Moth, and Planet Money. My mind is blank, I can't think of anything and I am constantly trying to remember what I should do as a person who is currently not working for the next few hours...and I don't know what to do. I want to work out, but I am tired. I want to read, but the thought of looking at print is tiring.

The Supreme Court Judges must be High

Or stupid. Today the Supreme Court passed a law allowing corporations and unions to spend however they want on campaigns. Way to lose 400 years of history and make government as political as possible.

I do not support Bing.com

So this has been out since November, but I am just writing about it now, because I heard a podcast about it on Planet Money. Bing.com is thinking about paying newspapers for exclusive content. This means Bing.com will pay the Wallstreet Journal tons of money so that when you search for Walstreet Journal, you will have to go to Bing rather than Google. While this may be helpful towards failing newspapers, it is hardly enough money to save them and to maintain the quality of their content.

I think the whole idea sounds a bit illegal. Search engines do not create content, they aggregate content or they can access accent with more ease. So if Bing buys exclusive rights to the Wallstreet Journal, you'll have to go to Bing in order to find and search its content. If you want to find it on Google, tough luck, it won't be there. Which makes equal opportunity unequal. Bing wants to buy these exclusive rights because they feel that they cannot compete with the giant that is Google, but taking content from the world wide web doesn't seem right. So if I want to search on a topic like Flannery O'Connor and there is an article in the Wallstreet Journal, I will not know about if I search on Google. I'll have to do another search on Bing.

I think that information should be free and the whole idea of paying for content is preposterous to me.

NY Events

These are the things I would go to if I lived in NY:

Joyce Carol Oates and Elaine Showalter
92nd Street Y; 1/17 at 11 a.m.; 1395 Lexington Ave., nr. 92nd St.; 212-415-5500
What two better authorities to discuss women and writing on the occasion of the publication of Showalter’s A Jury of Her Peers, a history of American women writers from 1650 to 2000.

Patti Smith
Barnes & Noble; 1/19 at 7 p.m.; 33 E. 17th St., at Broadway.; 212-253-0810
The poet queen of punk reads from her book Just Kids: From Brooklyn to the Chelsea Hotel, a Life of Art and Friendship, about her fabulous, rocky friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Kwame Dawes with Vampire Weekend
Barnes & Noble; 1/21 at 7 p.m.; 33 E. 17th St., at Broadway., 212-253-0810
The Ghana-born poet, who just won an Emmy for his documentary on HIV/AIDS in Jamaica, joins preppy songsters Vampire Weekend, whose highly-anticipated sophomore album Contra came out this week. 1) Free admission + 2) Three sold-out VW shows this week = Get in line early.

Eros

I am currently watching a short film collection called Eros. It is a collection of three short films by Wan Kar Wei (The Hand), Steven Soderbergh (Equilibrium), and Michelangelo Antonioni (Dangerous Thread of Things). Like the Greek god that it is named after, the short films are about eroticism, beauty, and love.

I have only watched the first out of three short films, Wan Kar Wei's The Hand. It is difficult to watch -slow, sad, bewitching, dark. Equally erotic and unbearable, it is about a young tailor who becomes enthralled by a prostitute. As the prostitute ages, loses her clients, beauty, vitality, and health, the tailor continues to be entranced.

Perhaps I haven't watched enough of Wan Kar Wei's work (I've seen Chunking Express, In the Mood for Love, and 2046), but I believe he is more and more drawn to the darker side of love, obsession, and self repression. Since Chunking Express, his movies have become darker and slower. The music has become erotic -more Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish songs -deeper more meaningful. More strings as opposed to the upbeat pop tunes of the Cranberries and The Mamas and the Papas in Chunking Express. Whereas the two stories in Chunking Express ended relatively optimistic, The Hand, In the Mood for Love, and 2046 have ended far more tragic.

I have become a huge fan of Wan Kar Wei as of late and I have my friend Rachel to thank. His work moves me to create and to work harder.

I also watched An Education this week. I really liked it, but for some reason I can't describe what or why I like it. It was really good though and the soundtrack is great as well.

My gastro schedule for the new year

1. Wondee Siam (the first)

2. inside the Ace Hotel

3. Buttermilk Channel

4. Rockaway Taco (Queens)

5. Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecote

6. Spotted Pig (I am going to treat myself if something really good happens and I don't care if I have to wait three hours)

7. Locande Verde

8. Veselka (always wanted to get pierogie's here, but always end up going somewhere else)

9. Saltie

10. Umi Nom

11. Trini-Gul

12. Calexico Carne Asada

13. Vinegar Hill House

14. M &T

15. Laut

16. Charles' Country Pan Fried Chicken (I've always wanted to get fried chicken in Harlem- let's make it happen this year)

17. Choi

18. Mimi's Hummus

I probably won't go to all of these places, but I sure am going to try. I don't usually make trips out to Brooklyn or Queens and since I am nowhere near Manhattan now, that will be difficult as well, but where there is good food, I will go.

Contra

The new Vampire Weekend album is CRAZY. I thought that Ezra Koenig was brilliant on Discovery...it looks like he carried some of those quick beats over to Vampire Weekend. The African beats are certainly more powerful here, but both have that electro-pop going and are very dynamic.

Road trip 2: Dallas

So for the second time this year, Greg and I drove all the way up to the Northeast (I had to get a car from Texas). We spent New Years in San Antonio (home of breakfast tacos, gorditos, fajitas- the city is ~75% hispanic and you can feel the liveliness everywhere you go).

If you are in Dallas, go to the Bishop Arts District. The area is being gentrified, but there is a nice medium between art, food, and the original culture.

Eat at Hattie's or Eno's Pizza Tavern. Hattie's was closed on the first so we opted for Eno's. I had the grass fed hamburger and fennel and fig (replaced by pears) salad. Greg had a pizza with extra fresh mozzarella and garlic. The hamburger was good, but the patty was a little over salted. However, for $6 it was really really good. The salad needed more acidity. The pizza was good. If you like thin crust, this is the place to go. There was also a Soda Gallery, but unfortunately everything was closed. Lots of other wonderful places so if you are in Dallas, go there!

Hattie's:

418 N Bishop Ave

Dallas, TX 75208

www.hatties.com