Monday, April 18, 2005
“Accomplishments” Sounds Like An Overstatement
When Friday ended I had just about run out of energy; I got home with my mind full of broken pieces of my week endlessly re-collating themselves into different imaginary crises. Kel didn’t have much of the ol’ vital force left in her either, so she recommended we create a nice clean break with the week just concluded by going out to the Riptide to have a beer. The Riptide is a rustic biker bar out at the ocean end of Taraval, way off in the deepest depths of the avenues. The bar was accomodating, if not actually enrapturing, with plenty of cold Anchor on tap and plenty of cold thrasher metal on the jukebox. People around us seemed to be having real conversations and we were very comfortable draining our pint glasses as the afternoon matured.
By the time we were done and walked out it was nearly sunset; the change from sitting on a warm sheltered barstool to walking into the chilly pacific wind elicited in me a strong desire to relieve myself of some superfluous fluids. Luckily, the “Taraval Comfort Station” was right there waiting for me - a sturdy old WPA edifice with fresh paint, fresh flowers (and a nice variety too), ornamental detailwork on the doors, red tile roof and black-and-white tile floors… I was shocked to find such a truly comfortable “comfort station” way out where the surfers and sharks congregate. Joining me there was a man of middle years, carefully washing himself, his torso and head covered with handsoap suds, painstakingly rinsing off in the tired pedestal sink.... The old pipes rattled like a jackhammerwhen he ran his rinse water, jarring and disruptive in the surprisingly serene setting of the public bathroom, and his ablutions seemed enervating from where I stood. Which was way over on the other side by a wall-mounted fixture, for no longer than was absolutely necessary.
Once I had achieved re-equalization of my internal hydrostatic pressures, Kel and I walked up to the top of a small bluff to watch the sun drop behind the horizon. Once again, there was no green flash, but it was a gorgeous sunset anyway. The dunes were peppered with couples, mostly heterosexual, standing in transfixed embraces as the disk of the sun got redder and redder… as the ocean grew purple in its reflection… as the final thread of sunlight squeezed itself dark against the inexorable horizon.... there was a moment of hushed silence. Then occurred a prompt and remarkably consistent movement among, it seemed, all the women, independently, who each wrapped an arm through the arm of the man she was with, and walked him firmly and swiftly off the bluff, out of the wind and back to the comfort of their cars. These women hauling their men off the dunes, all at once, with the identical determined chilly-nippled stride - it would have been funny if I’d had a chance to stand there and watch it, but Kel was cold so we got the hell out of there.
Friday night we finally watched Donny Darko. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to people who are okay with the ideas of time travel, 80’s nostalgia (same thing, really), the willing suspension of disbelief, and malevolent ghoul rabbits. Also, the phrase “I begin to doubt your committment to Sparkle Motion” is currently one of my personal mantras, though I’m not sure what it’s there to teach me. I’m starting with it as a sort of koan and seeing where it takes me.
Saturday I shopped and cleaned and rested, and attended an interesting citizens’ advisory meeting about public transit on the major boulevard at the end of my block. I’m on those busses daily so I felt as if I might as well find out what fresh tribulations they might have in store for me. Vibrating massage chairs? Special seating for the hygiene-impaired? Monkeys to roam through the passenger section, checking for tickets and raining monkey-spit and feces down on fare-cheats? As far as I was concerned, anything was possible. I expected the meeting to be a rinky-dink affair, poorly attended and without much information to impart, but I was completely wrong - they had brought traffic engineers and urban planners to make a thorough presentation about the whole corridor being studied, and then talked specifically about some plans that have been effective in other cities to make high-volume corridor transit with busses more effective. In small-group breakouts, I then got a chance to bat a few gripes and ideas around with some fellow riders, some of whom I recognized from the bus and would be psyched to talk to again. I actually came up with one fairly radical plan that I think has a lot of promise, but I don’t want to jinx things - especially with the price of plutonium in such flux these days, and the pandas under such tight contractual limitations. Let’s just say, if my plan gets implemented, rapid transit will never look the same again. Those lead vests can be very slimming.
Sunday morning we had Mitch and Catharine come over with baby Eli for a brunchy sort of thing. I threw together a nice blintz soufflee, together with a couple rashers of bacon and a bunch of fried yuca. I also got a pineapple, a papaya, and some blueberries, diced the big fruits, and stewed them up into a compote that went very well with the soufflee. Overall it was a successful gorging. The thing that shocked me, though, was that neither M nor C knew much about cooking yuca. They’re sophisticated worldly-types; they eat in good restaurants and built themselves a real gourmet kitchen because they can use it to proper advantage. They freely admit to going out to eat yuca. Yet the notion of home-cooked yuca startled and excited them. This was, in fact, the second time in a row this humble root turned out to be a culinary exotic for our table guests. So I figured, as a reward for putting up with this rambling substitute for therapy that I’m calling today’s post, I’ll tell you how to cook yer yuca:
Melissa Kaplan says: “People in Hispanic countries use cassavas (also called manioc, mandioca, yucca, yuca, yucca root, yuca root, Brazilian arrowroot) much like those of us in the U.S. use potatoes. Some of the tubers are sweet even when eaten raw; others are bitter. In the case of the Agavaceae, most times the bitterness seems to be in the skin, so peeling the tuber before using or cooking should greatly reduce the bitterness (which is due to its prussic acid content). Fresh tubers can be hard to peel; nuking it for a minute or so may make it easier, just as it does with winter squash. The fresh tubers don’t have a long shelf life, so use within a couple of days of purchase. The flowers, especially the young ones of must Yucca species are tender and sweet when eaten raw. You can even stuff them with a savory vegetable/bread crumb stuffing and steam or bake them.”
So there you have it, right? I’ve never seen the flowers, but I see the roots in many of the better asian and latino produce markets in my neighborhood (which, I’m glad to report, are so numerous that I get to comparison shop). This is what they look like in the store; you’ll often find them heavily waxed, I guess to keep them fresh - they do tend to go bad quickly. But, supposing you can even find them - what do you do with them?
Well, they’re long thick tubers that come to a blunt point at the end - you figure it out. But for cooking purposes, I like to cut them into manageable cross-sections, and then pare them by cutting off 1/4” all around the edges - removing both the skin, and the lighter-colored clear sheath underneath the skin. Cut the trimmed sections into quarters and steam them for about 10 minutes, till a fork penetrates easily. Let them cool, then cut them into bite-sized (or slightly larger) chunks. As you do this, watch for the thick fibers that tend to run up the middle of some roots, or even out from the middle to the side; you can just cut these out with a knife. Finally, heat about an inch of cooking oil in a large saucepan to a nice high heat; dump in the yuca and let it fry up for a while - give it about five minutes at a sizzling fry before you turn it with a spatula, so it can develop a nice golden-brown color. When it’s sufficiently fried, drain it on newspaper or in a collander as you would with fried potatoes, and then serve it tossed with spices like white pepper, paprika and kosher salt. It looks and acts like potatoes, but it has a fun, nutty flavor and a lighter texture. Plus, it can also be used as a weapon. Really, those things are like the baseball bats of the vegetable kingdom. Yuca is considered not so much the silent killer as the unflavored injurer, but still represents the bane of a tragically underreported epidemic of kitchen violence. Do your part: eat one today. The bumpeded head you save may be your own. Or, more importantly, mine.
After brunch, I slept the sleep of obsessive overeaters for 90 delightful minutes, and then I worked on some new material for the upcoming passover seder. I’ve got a lot of good stuff to try out this year, and any festival 3,000 years old demands a bit of an up-do when you dust it off for another year’s service. I worked on it till the evening was upon me, and by the time I was done with it and with preparing this post while I was still fired with the thrill of living these very events I have described for you here today, it was my bedtime. Out of respect for the natural order of things, I honored that bedtime and stopped writing, so that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll just conclude by wishing you all a very gentle monday, and a week that treats you with the respect you deserve. How much respect that winds up being, I’m not in a good position to say. But some of you had probably better watch out.
