Uninvited Guests

My very small apartment has fallen victim to a sudden and fierce attack of fruit flies. Part of me understands why they are here: it is early fall and while the days are still warm the nights are starting to be cool. I imagine they are probably cold. Plus they are lured inside by the fruits of the season-- fresh peaches and tomatoes filled my fruit bowl yesterday. And in the garbage? Other good things I imagine they might enjoy. Delicate peach skins, beet greens and peels, some stray juices from a nice piece of steak.

The problem is that my apartment is small. You can trip over the bed trying to get to the table. You can make coffee, put on make up in the morning, and watch the Today show all at the same time. No need to run up and down the stairs when the coffee timer rings, and don't worry about being late because you've paused to watch something on the tube.

The petite-ness of the apartment leads to big problems when the small bugs come to play. The counter space is so compact that when they swarm, they swarm everywhere. And last night they migrated to the computer screen, likely enticed by the glass of Pinot noir that was sitting next to the computer.

I covered the fruit bowl knowing that the tiny beasts were most definitely small enough to crawl underneath the corners. Sure enough, when I reached for a peach this morning a swarm appeared. They seemed to have multiplied over night. This fact was confirmed by my internet research: "fruit flies reproduce at an alarming rate!"

Now I am stuck with fruit flies producing at an alarming rate, feasting on the foods I want to be enjoying (and not fair that they get to do this all day while I am at work!) But I am armed for combat. The solution, the internet bug experts say, is to take out the garbage daily, put the food you can in the fridge, and rinse the sink with bleach. Done, done, and done. Fairly simple stuff, though it will take effort to remove the trash every single morning and I am not putting my tomatoes or my olive ciabitta bread in the fridge. The bleach however, is fine.

But while that bleachy-clean small is permeating everything in the apartment, exterminating my tiny fruit fly foes, I might just go out to eat.

I am almost always hungry

I am almost always hungry is the name of a cookbook that I do not own, nor have I ever really looked at. But the title is often stuck in my head.

I too, am almost always hungry. Except when I'm not.

The sensation of not being hungry when you are supposed to be is a strange one, and until recently not one I had experienced often. Sure, you can loose your appetite when you are sick or worried or scared.

Sometimes if you've eaten a very big meal, you won't be hungry. Instead you'll feast again mentally on the dinner or lunch, the two or three course meal complete with coffee and milk. But it is rare to expect that you will be hungry, to turn your attention to the belly and instead of growls and cravings, feel nothing.

I had two slices of cold day old pizza for lunch yesterday. I ate it at 1pm, sitting at my computer washed down by a diet coke. It was a crazy, merciless day at work filled with computer problems and meetings. By the time the day was done I was in need of a drink and a good meal.

The perfect evening would be to go home and to have M there to cook for me. He'd have music on, wine opened and would be whipping up something tasty and hearty. But this was not going to happen. Long distance love is not equipped to handle bad days at work in that way. I thought instead about what was in the fridge: leftovers, and none of them too exciting. I wandered through two (yes two) different grocery stores. I told myself the options were endless, whatever I wanted I could have. But I didn't want anything.

On the drive from the first grocery store to the second I told myself that if I could think of something, anything from any restaurant in the entire city I could have it. I live in a city filled with fantastic food. Yet nothing piqued the interest of my stomach. It was a very sad moment.

At 8:30 PM I warmed leftovers and opened a cold beer. It wasn't satisfying, but I was mostly trying to prevent a 3AM empty stomach wake up call. While eating I realized that more than being hungry I was lonely. Anything would have tasted good if I had the right person to eat it with and camaraderie would have easily stoked my appetite.

School Lunch

September brings cooler weather, the hint of changing leaves, sharpened pencils, new shoes, and thoughts of Back to School.
I love this time of year. For me it is an apt time for renewal. I make New Year's resolutions in September. I set goals. I clean my closets and make stacks of books and magazines to read on the nights when I just can't go out. Ideally I cook and bake more. This year I'm going to try to move more too, enjoying the crisp weather and Indian summer sunshine before the rain begins to fall.
One thing I have never been successful at, no matter the time of year, is lunch. It is my least favorite meal of the day. My boss says it is one of her favorites because she loves leftovers. But as a girl who lives alone, leftover dinners are less leftover and more a meal cooked in two batches: one for Monday night and with a fresh steamed veggie, another for Tuesday or Wednesday. I don't really like to eat lunch out. This is partially because the choices always seem limited, it is also because those dollars add up and beyond that the servings are always a bit too big. I like to have control of lunch.
Sadly I fail at the very task I continually give myself. My lunches are notoriously boring, even to me. I can rarely get it together enough to come up with something inspired so I end up with some hodge podge version of what's in the fridge. One notable recent lunch: sauteed brussel sprouts, followed by hummus, crackers, and cheese with figs for dessert. Certainly not a gourmet lunch to die for!
My other mistake is making lunch immediately after eating breakfast. Lunch seems hours away and my stomach is full. I always under estimate how much I'll feel like eating and sometimes make very stupid decisions. Did I really think a half a peanut butter sandwich and 15 tortilla chips was going to sustain me?
I wish I could say that I thought my lunch habits would change, but sadly I don't think they will. No matter how many great one bowl salads or simple sandwiches I find recipes for, I just can't complete the final product. My pathetic interim goal? To make all my other meals and snacks great enough that I don't miss what's missing from my twelve o'clock hour-- namely fresh sliced veggies, aged cheddar, nitrate free ham and the nuttiest wheat bread.

Take Me Out

I have never completely understood why couples (especially married couples with children) insist on regular "date nights." You live with the fellow and ideally see each other often, why would you need to go on a date?

Dates seem even less needed for the unmarried, childless set. I am fortunate enough to eat amazing food and go special places with my love all the time. Dates seem irrelevant, and even more then that kind of bratty. For me to insist that he take me out on a date after we've spent Saturday morning walking the neighborhoods of SF, eating dim sum, and becoming members at the art museum together seems a bit high-maintance and demanding. This is why I was caught off guard when the discussion turned to our evening plans.
"I was thinking we might try to go to Chez Panisse," he said.
"What?" I had been expecting a low key weekend full of cooking and eating at home. I didn't even pack a skirt.
"Chez Panisse. I called yesterday and tried to make a reservation. They were full but we're on the waiting list. I'm going to check and see if anything has opened up."
"Ok, that would be great. But we could plan ahead and go next month too."
But M was insistent. He called again, and though they had no room downstairs, there was a 9:15 spot in the cafe upstairs. We had a date at Chez Panisse.

In my mind Chez Panisse was an epic restaurant. M warned me not to get too excited, that often people got so worked up about eating there that the experience was anti-climatic. But I had no such expectations other than that I hoped it would be wonderful, a truly special dining experience.

M wore a shirt I'd given him for Christmas and a jacket, fancier dress then I had ever seen him in. Chez Panisse was low lit and elegant, like eating in a very special dining room. The service was excellent and the food was simply beautiful. Each plate that arrived was like a perfect piece of art: colorful, balanced and tantalizing.

To start we shared a pizetta with wild nettles and pecorino cheese, and Martin's romano beans and roasted figs with duck confit and sage. Next M had Tomato Panade with shell beans and pounded basil while I enjoyed oven roasted Georgia white shrimp, frisee, and gypsy pepper salad with almond salsa. For dessert? A light and spongy almond cake with Lucero Farm strawberries, and fresh whipped cream. To accompany all this goodness we drank sparkling vouvray from France to start, and a beautiful rose (also from France) with the meal.

A dinner, and a man definitely worth waiting for.

Comfort food

Comfort food is really an ironic phrase. All food brings comfort: comfort from hunger, comfort from fatigue, comfort from the hot or cold. But sometimes we use food to comfort ourselves from emotion. And when we do we usually require very specific things.

When I think of comfort food I think of homemade macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, starchy food stuffed with butter and oozing with cheese or juice. Southern food, but not the southern food that I grew up eating. I think of pudding, chocolate chip cookies and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

For me, comfort comes in strange forms: rice (brown or white) with lots of butter and salt. Toast, well done with lots of butter and honey or strawberry jam. Milkshakes, vanilla and just starting to melt. All white, relatively plain foods but with a good dose of fat.

I eat comfort food when I am sad or not feeling well. Sometimes there is no reason for the sadness, I just feel puny (What a wonderful word puny is! I imagine myself a flower faltering in the wind or rain. I'll make it, but it might be hard.) Plain food calms my stomach, calms my nerves. Some say it is boring. They suggest Vietnamese soup or Jewish chicken soup or grilled cheese. But even these are too fancy. I like simple things that in their diminutiveness remind me to pay attention to whatever is eating at me and keeping me from feeling well.

Sometimes I eat comfort food when I have lost my appetite. This is truly a sad state of affairs. But there is nothing like a bowl of hot buttered rice to bring me back to life. On dark, sad January nights I have been known to eat one bowl and then another. Perhaps it is the only nourishment besides toast and vanilla flavored cream I have had all day. It feeds my soul.

Last night I ate brown rice with liberal butter and grey salt harvested off the coast of Brittany. Not feeling entirely blue and hoping for some sort of revitalization, I heaped the rice with steamed fresh green beans, red cherry tomatoes and pine nuts (yes, also dressed with butter and salt). The combination of my tried and true comfort food and the life bestowed by fresh picked veggies did the trick, I am happy to report.

Remembering the perfect peach

The most delicious part of the day was morning. Late morning really since I slept in until nearly 11AM. This happens rarely; only when I have no plans and my body can relax and whittle away the hours in sleep.

Upon awakening from my Sleeping Beauty-esque twelve hours of nirvana, I was at a bit of a loss. Breakfast had certainly passed and lunch might have been acceptable but I wasn't quite in the mood. I reached for a peach, another gift from A. It was picked by her husband and was huge-- bigger than my fist-- and a perfect fuzzy blush color. Smelling its skin I imagined layers of peaches, vanilla yogurt and crunchy vanilla. I carefully peeled my peach, its delicate skin sliding off in neat, slim strips. It was just right. Not too soft or too firm and the flesh had somehow escaped marks and bruises. Perhaps it had been picked right off the tree?

I sliced the peach into my favorite bowl. The bowl was rather large, appropriate for a small amount of cereal or a large amount of soup. Sometimes I even use it for serving. When sliced, the peach filled the bowl even threatening to topple on to the floor as I moved from counter to table. There was clearly no room for yogurt and granola. What to do? Eat a few bites to make some room and then compile my Sunday breakfast?

Instead I took a bite, and then another. It was the perfect peach: ripe, soft, the exact blend of sweet and tart. I ate every perfect sun-drenched slice and thought what a shame that A said she didn't really care for peaches.

First Fig

I have become recently obsessed with figs.
This is a minor surprise considering both how common figs are in the gourmet circle, and how often some of my favorite literary mavens write about this provokative fruit.
Just now I was flipping through Edna St. Vincent Millay's A Few Figs From Thistles. The first two poems in the slim volume are of course First Fig and Second Fig. How strange that neither of them actually mention figs! Instead my favorite, First Fig reads:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
Dear Sylvia Plath wrote a bit about figs too. In a terrifying scene from The Bell Jar she imagines a fig tree where each plum fruit represents a different dream or ambition. She wants them all- the children, the job, the happy life. But can't grasp all of them. She exhausts herself trying to reach for everything.
In thinking more about figs, and fig leaves, I realize that the literary connections could likely go on and on. But I'd rather return to my recent adoration of figs.
Figs have always been something I didn't think I cared for. They were not very common growing up in the 1980s in Salt Lake City Utah. I doubt that I encountered my first fig before college, and even then it would have been a strange looking thing perched on the edge of a fruit plate.
I found black Mission figs (now my favorite) particularly repulsive: there was the dark soft exterior with the fleshy, sweet, seedy interior. It seemed, dare I say it? Sexual. I avoided them at all cost, lumping them into a category with dates, another brown sweet fruit I have no stomach for.
And then, the conversion-- or should I consider it a demise?
The local grocery store has been hosting Fig Fest 2006, complete with several varieties of figs all with the most delicious names (the Brown Turkey comes to mind). I noticed them of course, but remained aloof and disinterested.
But last week I had dinner with W and she had picked up several small green figs and brought them home for us to share. They were just ripe enough and the contrast between their grassy green skin and the figgy insides was just too much. I had to taste it.
When I did, it was like being introduced to a new friend you immediately recognize you'll get along with for life. These figs were perfect: just sweet enough for my sweet tooth, while still green and fresh enough to satisfy that part of me that longs for food grown in the dirt.
Since then I have become somewhat of a fig addict. I visit New Seasons every few days, filling my basket with a new varietal. I have loved them all, though I do profess a soft spot for the Black Mission. They are seemingly ordinary in comparison to the others but I am new to figs, and the Black Mission's beauty and sublime sweetness makes me oh-so-happy.
My only sadness? I admitted my new love to M, hoping that this fall could be filled with fig plates, fig picnics, fig picking-- he has a fig tree in his back yard! Alas, he doesn't like figs.
Suddenly defensive I said, "Who doesn't like figs?"
He gave me a very intelligent answer about how he doesn't like fruit without acid and finished by saying, "I'll be happy to watch you eat them."
This was not what I had in mind.
Now sitting alone in my apartment on a delightfully sunny Friday morning I have decided that like the grand ladies who came before me I am happy to let my love affair with figs continue. A snack composed of a few figs and contemplations about life and ambition is enough for me.