Stories

Last year I traveled quite a lot and had memorable meals in Houston, Providence, Block Island, Bristol (Rhode Island), and Los Angeles.  When it comes to food, America seems on fire.  Locavore is the new black.  Eating seasonally keeps us connected with nature and ourselves.  "Flavor profile" is now used in ordinary conversation. It's all good.

One of my favorite eating moments last year was, in the scheme of things, a small one, but it made a lasting impression on me.  At Jose Andres' Bazaar, I had his Rojo Canary Island Potatoes.  They are simply prepared.  Small potatoes are boiled in heavily salted water until the water boils away and the potatoes are coated in salt.  Served with a cilantro-parsley dip, they are simple, elegant, and delicious.

What made the dish so memorable was that I could duplicate it at home with excellent results.  Andres goes to great lengths to import his potatoes from the Canary Islands.  I stay closer to home and buy mine at the Palisades and Santa Monica Farmers' Markets.  I discovered that any small-sized potato will do.  To the eye the little salt dusted potatoes look very unimpressive, which makes a first-time eater's response all that more fun to watch.  Their eyes go wide when they taste the salty-sweetness of the potato and they marvel that something so ordinary looking could have such an extraordinary flavor.

Among the many beloved rituals associated with this time of year, one that is often overlooked is the Ritual Cleaning of the Purse. Possibly this is due to the fact that I am the sole observer of this particular practice, but I find that it dovetails beautifully with the necessity of carrying wads of both used and unused Kleenex, and the fear of dropping a Victoria’s Secret coupon in the aisle before Christmas Eve services.

In order to prevent embarrassment, and to feel that I have control over at least one of the bloody messes in my life, I set aside a calm twenty minutes around the Winter Solstice to remove everything from the currently favored bag, evaluate the contents, and put back an optimistic selection of goods and chattels to accompany me on my seasonal rounds.

Onto the dining room table goes everything, in this instance a wallet, cell phone, reading glasses, an iPod, car keys on a ring the size of a dessert plate, a quilted pink makeup bag, a pad of Post-Its, a wad of receipts and coupons, an empty Kleenex package, three used Kleenex, a wad of unused Kleenex, several ticket stubs, a rubber ball, a single earring, a flier for Life Seekers Church, a furry breath mint, an empty Trident package, a piece of newspaper with an address written on it, a tiny first aid kit with nothing but alcohol wipes left, three paperclips and empty but pungent vial of something that smells like a waitress in a health food restaurant.

An open letter to President Barack Obama:

Dear Mr. President,

As a woman who worked very hard to make sure your last opponents were not elected -- walking door to door in the snow on your behalf, registering more than a thousand Alaskans to vote, exposing Palin in the national media, etc. -- I feel obligated to write you about a few of my concerns.

Your secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, recently told reporters asking about Shell's recent drilling permits and Alaska's Arctic, "I believe there's not going to be an oil spill."

Sir, he just wrote the headline for the first oil spill under arctic ice.

"I believe" is not good policy. I believe that unicorn fur is the most absorbent clean-up product.

The Coast Guard, on the other hand, has held to its reality-based position that it doesn't have the assets necessary to cover a spill in the Arctic. The Coasties will have to pull resources from drug enforcement and fishing fleet security to boost safety in our most northern ocean. The Kodiak Coast Guard base is closer to Seattle than it is to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas -- 700 miles closer. Last winter we had to rely on a Russian icebreaker to deliver fuel to ice-bound Nome.

Trusting and believing is great in church, but when it comes to oil exploration and development, we have to do better.

Truth be told, I’m not all that social. It’s odd, since my actual job title is “Hospitality Coordinator,” a job for which I am completely without portfolio – my background in literature and law suggests something rather more Jarndyce and Jarndyce than Julie, Your Cruise Director. I dodge phone calls and invitations, ducking them as if they were fire-tipped arrows. I am often glad that I went wherever I went, but the dread is crippling. In some weird agoraphobia variant, I fear being buttonholed by a bore, made to act out The Twelve Days of Christmas or just jangled to death by the repetitive intrusion of other peoples’ noise and chatter and energy.

At this time of year, when events are thick on the ground at work and there are concerts, and holiday parties and family gatherings lurking around every corner, I find myself drawing into a tight, gray ball to think mutinous thoughts. I will wear all black to the Christmas party, I will sit in the back of the auditorium so I can leave quickly and quietly, I will extricate myself from the Never-ending Story by claiming that my phone buzzed and it’s probably my brother making his annual call from the research station in Antarctica, so I’d better take it.