Stories

A hive has been part of my menagerie for almost a year now. Our bees were transferred from a friend’s chimney (where the bees had been pretty happy for a while) to a couple of bee boxes under an olive tree. Kirk Anderson, a.k.a Kirk O’bee, did the job, and has been our bee guide ever-since. Kirk leads the the Backwards Beekeepers, a group of Los Angeles area bee enthusiasts. Monthly meetings are open to the public and they’re quite informative. The last few meetings have been held at Farmlab, and that’s a place that is cool to see.

Since positioning the hive on the hill, we have basically let the bees be. We figured whatever honey the bees had made, we would let them keep it for their winter food supply (which is what honey is). Commercial bee keepers often harvest honey in the fall, and then feed their bees sugar water though the winter. We sort of ignored ours all winter, just checking for activity (flying in and out) occasionally. Ever since it got warmer there has been so much action! Busy, busy bees.

A few weeks ago a friend of a friend invited me to a pig roast.  Having never attended one, I looked forward to what seemed like the perfect California outing: meeting new people and trying new food, all at a BBQ in February.  Eating a pig that had been selected from a local, organic farm also sounded rather virtuous as far as meat-eating goes, and maybe in my heart of hearts I was thinking of the party as a kind of Omnivore’s Dilemma, Live.  Besides, I like to say that I’ll try anything once, especially when it comes to food and I think that I might get an article out of it.  I even started to string together a few premature sentences about The Pig Roast on the way over, dreamily trying out lines like “fork-tender localness”.  (Michael Pollan I obviously ain’t.)  Mental notebook at the ready, I pulled up to a trendy house in Los Feliz and quickly found myself among a crowd of strangers, each of us staring down at a charred animal the size of an eight-year old.  The pig, laid out on its grill of cross hatched re-bar, turned a party of stoned hipsters into Lord of the Flies characters with edgier haircuts, everyone vaguely competitive and wondering what to do now.

No story, memoir, recipe or review here…just a list.  My food list.  There are certainly a few people who won’t understand this, like those who don’t wake up thinking about what they’re going to eat that day or the unfortunate man I once met who had no sense of taste or smell.  But if you’re reading One for the Table, you’re undoubtedly a foodie, bon vivant, epicure, connoisseur, gastronome, gourmet, gourmand, grazer or nosher – and you will understand.


First food I ever loved:
Gerber baby butternut squash

Favorite dishes my mother used to make:
Breaded veal cutlets
Spaghetti with her homemade meat sauce
Fry beef sandwiches (the kosher answer to a BLT)
Mac and cheese (yup, made with Velveeta)

Food I disliked as a kid and love as an adult:
Beets

Food I loved as a kid and dislike as an adult:
Lamb

Two foods I love that I wish I could live without…but can’t:
Cheese & Bread

When I have a party, I try to invite everyone. I really do. And if my best friend has another best friend, I invite the other best friend. I include the world. If I happen to run in to you (random person reading this) a week before said party, I will invite you even if we’re not the best of friends. I even like it when people crash my parties or when someone calls me and says boldly “Do you mind? I hear you’re having a party and I’d really like to go.” What I LOVE about that is that the person who makes that kind of call, does know me. They know, I’m so happy to include everyone.

I believe I got this from my mother who would say, “You have to invite the whole class, not just some.” Or my dad, who carried his entourage around with him, leaving no one out. Both my parents never let anyone’s feelings get hurt.

One day, in maybe the 5th or 6th grade, a girl named Debby had a party and it seemed like she invited just about everyone. Except me. And maybe the worst part was that she included my best friend Susie. It felt like a real slight. On that particular weekend of Debby’s party, I remember feeling very alone on Saturday night. Susie and I were pretty inseparable.