How I Spent my Spring Break

I've been busy for the past week. Some of it has been pleasant, and some mot. Still, I'm back, and happy to see you!

WHat have I been doing? Working, mostly. And spinning. And sleeping. And going to the spa. Tonight I may take in a movie. Oh- and getting ready for Easter.

I know- it makes no sense. I'm a Buddhist, and Buddhists don't have Easter. But I made a New Year's Resolution to put more ritual in my life. I think ritual is very important- it helps us stay grounded. So, just like I celebrate Christmas as a pagan holiday (and honor the winter solstice by giving presents and having a feast), so I'm celebrating Easter in a pagan fashion (and honored the vernal equinox by making a cake for my co-workers, and planning a feast for Sunday).

I ran around last week gathering items for the Easter basket I'm assembling, and I dyed and prepared a few eggs this week. I followed what for me is a custom- I went to my favorite Italian bakery and bought a marzipan lamb. It's small, and as the silliest smirk on its face. On Sunday it will be sacrificed by having its head bitten off (Mr. McSmirkersons wants to carve part of it out and fill it with fake blood so we can read its entrails, but I think that's going a bit too much- but then again, he wants me to put chocolate in the head of the bunny cake I'm making so it'll look like sweetbreads when we cut it. He's a very twisted man). I'm also making a cake, and a very expensive ham that will no doubt be delicious. I'm debating about roast potatoes and maybe carrots; or maybe a spring vegetable like asparagus would be in order. I love asparagus.

Bento Love: J-List and Lunch In a Box

I've mentioned 'bento' a couple of times, and some of you might be wondering what it is. To put it simply, it's the Japanese term for what we would call 'lunch box'. However, that's like saying both filet mignon and Wendy's are beef.

The Japanese are as obsessive with making lunch cute and pretty as they are about styling pretty much everything. Instead of a plain soup and a sandwich, a lot of Japanese (especially children) eat lunches packed in special containers that are chock-full of foody goodness and which incorporate ideas of shape, color, and seasonality. I became interested in bento a few years ago by accident when I stumbled across J-List, an online store that has both gorgeous and adorable boxes of different sizes for both men and women.

However, to really understand bento, you have to look inside the box, and that's where my favorite site Lunch In A Box comes in. Biggie, who is the brilliant proprietress and a former resident of Japan, takes you by the hand and explains everything about bento- what kinds of food carry well, how to maintain food safety, how to pack healthy fruits and veggies that even the most persnickety child or adult will eat. Because I have such a bizarre work schedule where it's hard to buy non-starchy food I've taken to packing my lunch almost every night, and reading Biggie's site has helped me keep from getting bored. the essence of bento is variety- a little meat, some veggies, some fruit and maybe a small dessert, all packed to be as enticing as possible. Bento, as Biggie points out, lends itself to using up leftovers and to make-ahead dishes, so that a fully-stocked box can usually be assembled in 15 minutes, more for less.

Eating bento style has helped me lose weight- no small feat when you consider that the average night-shift worker gains weight and is more prone to heart attack than those who work during the day. But if you're still not convinced, you might want to go over to Flickr and search for 'bento'. There are tons of people photographing some of the most beautiful homemade meals you've ever seen, and sharing recipes with each other. You'll also find that not everyone is using fancy containers from Japan to store their meals- chances are if you have a couple of takeout containers, you too can put together some amazing bentos.

Crochet Love: 3-Corner Field Farm

I love 3-Corner Field Farm. It appeals to the completist in me. I discovered the farm's meat long before I even learned crochet; it happens that Karen Weinberg and her husband Paul Borghard, of Shushan, New York raise some mighty delicious organic grass-fed lamb on their sustainable family-run farm. Many of the great chefs in New York City agree; their farm sells its meat to some of the finest restaurants in town, as well as to ordinary folk like me. Then one day I saw a guy at the Greenmarket with a beautiful staff topped with a ram's horn; he said he'd gotten the horn from Karen & Co., who often sell the horns to local synagogues.

It's Karen's friendly face you see when you go to the Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesdays to buy lamb, cheese, milk soap, hats and sweaters, and full sheepskins. And wool. I love her wool. It takes Kool-aid dye wonderfully and hooks up prettily. It looks like it would be perfect for socks, although Karen says it's worsted weight; I find it's perfect for projects like laprobes for the car. I often leave in in its natural buttery-yellow state. Karen will also sell you raw fleece once shearing time is done- I can hardly wait.

While most of Karen's yarn business is with knitters and she doesn't crochet, she is extremely crochet-friendly and deserves your business. Besides, how many other yarn stores can you go to where you can pick up a skein for $10 and get a lamb shank for dinner, too?

I Saw Bobby Flay, and I Didn't Kick Him in the Shins.

I've had rough week. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it wasn't a picnic. One of the operators at the Firm had his hours cut, and another one is in an understandable depression because his 16 year-old cat died last week. There were some bright spots, though. For instance, at School I explained the concept of culture this week, and used it as an excuse to throw Mardi Gras beads at my students on Tuesday, and to demonstrate my spindle on Thursday. Plus, I received a ridiculously large bag of goodies from an acquaintance that included lots of wool to spin. I'm going to be an expert in no time.

Last year around this time, if I'd had a rough week I would just have come home and slept, and then tried to eat everything in the kitchen. However, I made a resolution to take care of my stress in more healthful ways. In my case, that meant going to the spa again. I'm loving that place- I want to marry it. I want to move in, be a spa slave, and bear its children. Fridays are perfect for going there, because the place doesn't get busy until around 4pm. When I got there this morning at 10am (after working all night on some complex jobs and then checking my bank account and receiving the cheering news that the School hadn't sent out my paycheck due to some missing paperwork that I didn't need to fill out), I was stressed and a little... testy. Ok, a lot testy. I'd even go so far as miffed. So I did what anyone in my position would do- I changed into my spa uniform of shorts and tee-shirt, went to the third floor, rented a bathing suit and a robe, changed again and got in an outdoor pool of water that was delightfully warm and bubbly. After ten minutes I actually began to giggle.

More spa-age occurred, and a small nap was taken. I no longer wanted to punch the entire Human Resources staff at School in the head. I came home by subway, and just as I came above ground- there he was. One of the most annoying people on the Food Network, Bobby Flay himself.

My subway stop happens to be right at the location of the Union Square Greenmarket, which was open today. And there was old Bobby with fawning camera crew, preparing for another episode of his obnoxious show, 'Bobby Flay's Smackdown'.

This is how you know you are a New Yorker- any other person would have asked for his autograph, or stared for more than the minute I spent ogling until I could figure out what was going on. A tiny unrelaxed part of me wanted to challenge him to making sweet potato pudding without his having an entire truck full of supplies or a month of preparation, but the Spa Gods soothed my brow and got me to hold my tongue. It's amazing what a little warm water can do.

Porky Goodness, or the Pleasures of Dining Alone

I work from 12 midnight until 8am five days a week. I'm lucky- I live in Manhattan and a car from the Firm comes to pick me up each night and whoosh me off to work. Lunch time is at about 3am, when I open my beloved Nissan wide-mouth or one of my bento boxes and set up lunch. But by 8am, I'm kind of hungry, and it's dinnertime at Casa Carpenoctem.

Working at night has made food more important to me than at any other time in my life, save one (we'll get to that at a later date). It's what makes my nights bearable, and I often plan my meals on a weekly basis, while conforming my desires to the vagaries of the local Greenmarket.

There are times though when my 'breakfast' becomes even more important to me than my lunches. Usually when I come home from work I down some cereal and a glass of juice- caffeine ins a no-no, since I'm in bed by 2pm if possible. But this morning (last night to you) I kept thinking of a sausages that were in my fridge.

Understand this- I am not the world's biggest fan of red meat. I only eat hamburgers if they come from really good joints, and only when there's nothing else to eat on the menu or I'm suffering from a heme-induced craving. I actually have to feel anemic before beef looks good, and the only reason I don't use iron supplements is that I've found they don't make me feel healthy the way red meat does.

Lamb I like. I especially like lamb stew- once a year. I could care less if PETA hates me; I like veal, but I haven't had any in years. But pork and I have a love/hate thing that goes back to childhood. I may be one of the few people in the US who genuinely hates pork roast without having vegetarianism or religion as a reason. The thought of chitlins and hogmaws is enough to make me turn green. I turn up my nose at pork chops, stuffed or otherwise. I have scrapple in my freezer, mostly out of nostalgia. For the most part, I would rather eat ground glass than sausages. The only parts of the pig that I like are bacon (cut thick, smoked, and cooked until still somewhat limp), ham (only if my mother or I make it), and whatever on earth cuts are used in pulled pork sandwiches, roast pork buns and pork fried rice, at which point I become a fiend, but only temporarily.

Part of my dislike comes from having grown up in a mostly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood- I just don't dig the pig. And part of it comes from a horrifying childhood incident in which I found out that people cook pig feet not for the meat, but to eat all of the the fat, too. While I don't mind a ham hock in my greens, I only use it for seasoning. I just don't see it as food.

But last weekend my boyfriend was going to come into town. The BF is pure Celt. He is mostly Scots, with a lot of Irish mixed in, and he spent a few years in England as a kid. This is a man who loves his pig with a passion, and in his honor I went to Myers of Keswick and bought pork sausages.

Now Myers is a British-style grocery in the West Village, which is like saying roast goose is a nice piece of poultry. The family who own the shop are from the Motherland, and the owner's father was a butcher who came to New York to visit his son and started making sausages out of homesickness. While a lot of British food looks like a dog's dinner to my American eyes, there's one place where the Brits excel and that is with the humble sausage. The shop sells chipolatas (the much more tasty equivalent to the American breakfast sausage), Cumberland sausages (think mild Italian sausage, but more delicate), and pork and leek sausages that might possibly convert a vegetarian into an omnivore. I picked up a few of each and brought them home, only intending to eat one or two and feeding him the rest.

When I got home, the phone rang. The BF, who has been moving things in for a while now, had just gotten some great news- he had a job interview with the US government and another four in PA, and had to prep. He apologized profusely,and I was stuck with sausages that I don't eat.

I thought of freezing them, but sausages like this (some of which had literally been made while I was in the shop) were too fresh to ruin by freezing. I decided to make fried eggs and pork and leek sausages, with toast on the side. That was a mistake- I hoovered them.

This morning I kept thinking about the chipolatas, which are pink and delicate in their natural state. There were four of them- big deal. I cooked them this morning, again with two farm fresh fried eggs and toast. American sausages tend to shrivel when you cook them, but not these honeys. They just browned and got crispy on the outside, and were as fat as a female wrestler's fingers. I made tea and sat down to an almost proper English breakfast (all that was lacking was the broiled tomato)- and gobbled the whole thing down in about 6 minutes.

I tried to be genteel about the whole thing. I really did. I prepped my teapot and even covered it with The World's Ugliest Tea Cozy. I set the table and sat in a chair instead of eating over the sink. I sliced a photogenic slice of lemon and floated it in my Lapsang Souchong, and put music on in the background. But these sausages just kept calling to me- maybe it was because of the butter I had used to grease the pan, or the delicious eggs over easy that were snuggled up against them like sleeping babies in crocheted afghans. It was all I could do to actually use a knife and fork instead of sticking my face in the plate and licking it clean. I sat there, philosophically munching, and tried to tell myself how intelligent the average pig is compared to one of my students, and realized that most of my students would lose the contest. I mused on how slaughterhouses are evil places, even though I know Myers uses pigs that are raised on small farms. I thought about how I was probably going to go to Hell, and how my vegan acquaintances and old Orthodox neighbors would stand on the edge and laugh at me, as my soul fried like a piece of bacon in a pan at high heat.

And then I put another piece of sausage in my mouth and decided that I could hardly wait until Friday morning to fry up the Cumberlands.

Sometimes, happiness is mopping up sausage grease and egg yolk, and being secretly glad that your boyfriend is in another state where he can't see you stuff yourself like a barbarian at a Roman feast.