Berkeley of the East Coast
While Brooklyn and Berkeley are two unique and distinctly different cities, I have always thought of Brooklyn as the Berkeley of the east coast. In addition to both locations having many things in common—genuinely friendly people, amazing cheese and coffee shops, an emphasis on the importance of local business and community—there are few places I have visited where I feel instantly comfortable, and that immediate sense of belonging that I felt on my first stroll through Brooklyn, mirrored my first visit to Berkeley.
As usual, my time in Brooklyn felt all too short, but in addition to going to The Great Googa Mooga and catching up on about sixteen hours of sleep, my days were filled with leisurely walks around Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Boerum Hill, long talks with old friends, and many delicious meals.
Most of my walks around the neighborhood led me to Mile End so I could get their lemon almond cookies to snack on for the walk back home.
Does anyone have a good recipe for lemon almond cookies they would like to share? One of my goals this summer is to recreate them in my own kitchen!
Cookie number two of the six that I bought during my four day visit. Two salted macaroons were also purchased during my stay. Unfortunately, those were devoured before a photo could be taken.
Somehow, we still had it in us to have a real sit-down dinner post-Googa-Mooga. Here are Rebekah and Matt, mulling over the menu at Roberta’s.
We finally decide on the Fennel Frontier (we are fennel fanatics, afterall)…
…and the Axl Rosenberg (ordered for the double garlic and because I am still a fan of Guns N’ Roses).
This poster made me so happy! I’m just crackers about cheese, too!
Brunch at Flatbush Farms involved crispy duck confit with beluga lentils and apricot jam, and savory French toast with ham and cheese; both are topped with a duck egg.
My very first Swingle (chocolate-dipped key lime pie on a stick!) from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies. This photo really doesn’t do the Swingle justice.
Crepes for dinner at Cafe Lafayette. In an incredible reversal of roles, I ordered the savory (goat cheese, caramelized onions, spinach, and mushrooms) and Matt ordered the sweet (banana, strawberries, and Nutella).
Saturday, In the Park…
…I think it was The Great Googa Mooga! Yes, I did just reference a song by Chicago, and yes, I did come back from Thailand just in time for this event.
Despite the long lines for food, the lack of cellular reception, and being extremely jetlagged, I had a fantastic time Googa-Mooga-ing with my friends.
I sampled the Infinite Monkey Theorem for the name alone. And it was delicious.
The Brooklyn Brew made especially for the event. On the sweet side for beer, but as someone with a massive sweet tooth, you will hear no complaints from me.
Sausage, peppers, and pine nut polenta from Frankie’s 457 Spuntino.
I was so amused that Cookin’ with Coolio was there! Full disclosure: I own his cookbook, and it is hilarious.
Celebrity sightings! Coolio himself and April Bloomfield of The Spotted Pig.
The only real disappointment of the day was learning that my general admission ticket would not allow me to go to the silent disco or see speakers such as April Bloomfield and Anthony Bourdain. I would have loved to watch April butcher a whole pig, but paying $250 for an Extra Mooga ticket just wasn’t in the cards for me.
And speaking of pigs, this is Hamageddon. Yes, that is a whole pig roasting inside this giant metal pig.
I didn’t get to try the foie gras doughnut—all eight hundred doughnuts were gone by 2pm!—but despite the somewhat negative reviews my friends and I heard from people we spoke to in line (criticism ranged from it being “too rich” to the “flavors not blending well”), I still plan on heading to Do or Dine the next time I’m in Brooklyn to give them a try.
James’s fried cheesecake balls in chocolate and lemon ricotta.
I wish I had taken more photos of all the different foods we ate, but my jet-lagged brain was clearly focused on eating. The following are not pictured, but were consumed with much gusto: Little Muenster’s Oaxaca grilled cheese sandwich, Liddabit’s bacon-bourbon caramel corn, Mile End’s smoked meat sandwich, Num Pang’s fried banh mi, Calexico’s nachos, DBGB’s Thai sausage, Brooklyn Soda Works’s grapefruit basil soda, Third Rail’s iced coffee, and Momofuku’s crack pie.
All in all, it was a pretty wonderful first day back in the United States.
Minimalist Muppets
Don’t these muppet prints by Eric Slager put a smile on your face? I stumbled upon them while browsing through some posters at a street fair in Park Slope this past weekend. Limited suitcase space and my own minimalist ways thanks to a near-month-long travel schedule led me to not make a purchase right then and there, but I was able to find them here.
My favorite print is of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker.
My inner child was so relieved to (still!) be able to recognize all her muppet friends.
“Capital-T Truths”
David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech to Kenyon College is a body of work that I find myself going back to over and over again for reminders of the kind of person I want to be and become. The following excerpt from Wallace’s speech reveals some of the best insight on love and on being human that I have ever read:
“Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”
Today is commencement day at Vanderbilt. I am not a student and I am not receiving a diploma for anything that I have learned in my time in Nashville, but I do feel like I am graduating—to the next phase of my life, that is—right along with all my friends who are donning a cap and gown.
As I approach becoming a student again this fall and my friends approach the workforce as newly-minted lawyers and teachers, I know that we will, at some point or other, get caught up in the rat race. It is inevitable that we will get scared, that we will lose a little bit of ourselves in our work regardless of how passionate or indifferent we may feel towards it. But no matter what happens in the next phase of our lives and no matter how much formal education we amass, I am confident that we will never “default” for too long—that whatever we lose will come back to us. I know that the most important lessons we learned these last couple years were not from school, but from each other. I know that the people I call friends in Nashville will always have the ability to “truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.” And that’s the “capital-T truth.”
So, congratulations to everyone who graduates today, but especially to my friends. I am so lucky that we met.
Remembering Maurice Sendak, 1928 - 2012
Thank you for introducing me to Wild Things, Bumble-Ardy, Jack and Guy, and for teaching me the importance of protecting your younger siblings from goblins. I can still remember (almost) every word to Chicken Soup with Rice and Pierre.
“I don’t really like the word depressed. I prefer to say that I’m in a tailspin.”
Damsels in Distress had the potential to be a much darker and more serious movie, but the silly jokes, deadpan lines, retro style and soundtrack, and optimism of the characters kept me smiling and laughing the entire time. This film alone proves that theres no trauma that can’t be talked or danced through!
One of the best parts of this movie comes in the form of The Sambola! International Dance Craze. If you want to learn it, you’ll have to see the movie!
Congratulations, Kaki and Andrew!
Yesterday, two of the kindest, loving people I know got engaged to each other. The sincerity, depth, and respect they bring to their relationship totally redefines what it means to be a power couple.
Kaki and Andrew, you are amazing role models and friends, and I am so happy for you both!
