Food Flying Breakfast and the Music that Drove Me Mad

A Marriott breakfast is a thing to behold.

Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” plays mercilessly in the lobby of the hotel albeit at 7:00 in the morning even though it is not Jackson himself zinging it over the speakers but a Jackson imitator- an hour or so before the unremitting sun begins to burn through your clothes- alternating with simulacra performances of much too familiar Beach Boys tunes. Occasionally a genuine Aretha Franklin ditty is thrown in to imbue the musakical soundtrack thunderously wafting through the large space perhaps with a modicum of authenticity and plant the notion in your brain that this is not really a form of mind control.

Ah, morning in Irvine!!! The entirety of Orange County appears to be  cloaked in a kind of moaning soft rock subtext that is not all that “sub” and sort of bangs you over the head wherever you happen to be, with melodies mainly from the nineteen fifties and sixties that were better left behind; the ubiquitous soundtrack however seems to fit perfectly in some truly terrible way with the huge sunglasses everyone wears to stave off early blindness. You are assaulted with this noise at all the big box stores and some little ones too; it becomes impossible to grab lunch or find the kind of tissues or toilet paper or SPF 1,000 sunscreen you seek while these cacophonous beats drill through your consciousness.

A typical day: I exit the elevator with its sonorous ping way too early  as I do each morning, nod in the direction of the unusually friendly and alert front desk folk and bop through the lobby to the sound of knock-offs from the “Thriller” album, not fully awake yet, not entirely clothed, but yearning for one of those frozen undersized bagel look-a-likes and tiny packets of solidified cream cheese or hardened dollops of jam similarly wedged into foil; from a distance the thing on which these odd condiments land resembles a bialy gone very, very wrong or a weird, uncooked donut, but close up it tastes sort of like one of those stiff, round objects found in the supermarket frozen case minus the highly chemical, vaguely onion flavor that makes these soft sponges of re-heated ice chips almost palatable when you prepare them at home in your toaster oven. Be that as it may, I devour the repast in about two bites and thank my lucky stars for the cappuccino impersonator that accompanies this meal because at least it looks like the real thing. The word that most comes to mind in this neck of the woods is “cardboard,” because it’s all recyclable.

After a couple of days of this sad though exciting ritual of unappetizing food and rousing music in a scene peopled largely by bright-eyed-bushy-tailed corporate conference attendees roaming around in identically colored pale blue shirts with an assortment of ties and slightly glazed stares, I have all but forgotten that low fat double chocolate muffins exist and that there are aromatic beans sitting in huge barrels three thousand miles away at Zabar’s, giving off a pungent, mouth watering scent of real coffee as a suitably classical piece on low volume gently nudges the background, and that there are  lines of slightly edgy shoppers cracking cynical, funny jokes with the servers and looking comfortably scruffy; that it may even be raining or at the least cloudy and that all this exists as we speak, as I type, as Marriotts all over the globe begin to serve their version of breakfast.

Fear of (Food) Flying, Part One

I survey my fellow passengers to rule out potential terrorists and am relieved it’s a fairly benign looking group. Asians tend to wear surgical masks when flying and the guy across the way has a really neat one on- it has a thick double ear loop and a sturdy, rather sleek looking breathing cup to match his streamlined, shiny laptop with which he is seriously engaged. I’m tempted to ask him where he got the mask but desist from doing so and am convinced in any case that he will be food-less during the flight because of the mess involved.

We are on our way to Food Police Central Command- California! - and I am dreading what I will find on the menu there, but for now we are at ground zero of that which is barely edible and will remain in this position for several hours as we cozily rub up against our strange new companions on even smaller, slimmer, more crowded, more energy efficient planes as the flight attendant explains when we comment on the coffin-like atmosphere; she rhapsodizes that they too miss the old 767s where next to these you could dance in the aisles. As soon as the seat belt signal goes off, people stealthily start whipping out their meager airport provisions trying not to bump elbows with their seat companions. The couple next to me quietly produces two cellophane wrapped sandwiches and when the guy chomps down on his it oozes a substance from all sides resembling vegetable cream cheese, even though I know it cannot possibly be vegetable cream cheese as he simply does not look like a vegetable cream cheese kind of guy but more of a pulled pork man. His pony-tailed companion carefully unwraps something tidier, a pile of closely packed thin slices in between two brownish squares of whole grain bread and a bit later she will discreetly place a banana peel on the tray carefully folded and then leave it there for the duration, during which time I will have to gaze upon it every time I incline my head to the right.  It’s ironic, air travel really does not inspire hunger  and yet the smell of those invisible plastic “snacks” they heat up in the back- rewarmed frozen pizza? Petrified chicken cacciatore? Sizzling Twinkie-like cakes?- creates a sort of sense memory of longing for a hot meal, perhaps like the old aromatic canned spaghetti and ketchupy sauce once served at the automat. I myself have stowed a low-fat double chocolate muffin from Zabar’s but since I had to purchase it two days before flying it implodes when touched.

Three and a half hours into the flight they’re coming around again with the rolling carts, this time with myriad little cups of feces water, a liquid which I refuse to drink having just learned from Yahoo that you should never partake of airline H2O for above reasons of gross contamination, and so I ask for a seltzer. An hour or so later I am sitting close enough to business to see the flight attendants deferentially deliver warm, damp facecloths to the One Percent comfortably ensconced in their big seats, then collect the towels as if in a sushi bar before delicately plopping them onto a tray with some sort of pincers; the action is a cross between a ritual that happens in the operating room and a fancy Japanese restaurant.

The clouds are starting to look like generous masses of white mousse with ice blue streaks flowing through and I wonder what flavor that concoction tastes like and if I will find it in the land of All Things Fresh and Good. As we start to deplane like a long, slow conga line at a 1960’s “Love In” I bid a fond farewell to the trail of chip and pretzel wrappers glutinously dotting the aisle like petals from a flower girl’s basket along with the random, defiant gatherings of crumbs here and there that seem to say they do not give a fig (or an olive or a pomegranate for that matter) about the land of nouvelle or novel cuisine- a place where I will encounter the foot soldiers of chocolate chip-soy-avocado shakes and worse- and I prepare to meet them bravely. . . .  

The Food Police and Tyrannous Gluten

What’s worse than being born with three heads or the prospect of a nuclear holocaust? The unabashed tyranny of gluten, that’s what- a scourge that is truly hard to fathom in a twenty-first century world!

It’s egregious, this complete disregard for dietary evil personified, a rampant addiction to toast and bialys that has more than a whiff of the sacrilegious about it- do we really wish to live by bread alone? Clearly, we are still in the stone age of nutritional, spiritual and mental health. I mean, how stupid and in denial are we, thinking that those spine chilling glutinous substances only present a danger to the 1 in 133 Americans clinically diagnosed with Celiac disease. Now everyone can act as if they have this unfortunate affliction- why discriminate? We like to pride ourselves on the fact that we are an inclusive society, and what better place to start than where it counts, in the gut?

And speaking of grains, whole or otherwise, these guys are far from innocent, being the very hosts in which the culprit thrives plus having their own set of malfeasances. An entire wannabe pop best seller recently devoted itself to the horrors of genetically engineered grain monsters that purportedly result in the flesh eating, soul mashing condition of something (I shudder to say it) called Wheat Belly. . .  a prospect meant to frighten, warn and disgust. As we know, any belly of prominence is to be scrupulously avoided unless you want to look like a rotund silly whose buttons are too tight and have pants that strangle, but this particular chubby mid section against which the author admonishes apparently presages something far, far worse: instantaneous fatality followed by eternal damnation by the Food Police; I really have to force myself to avert my eyes whenever I see ads for the book and have had trouble saying the word “belly” since I learned of the phenomenon. So between the nightmare of gluten and the slippery slope of Thomas’ Whole Wheat English Muffins, what’s a breakfaster to do? A hearty repast of merely butter and jam? Just a few baked blueberries, no actual muffin? Invisible popovers? The chocolate chips minus the cookie dough? And if you’ve ever had the pleasure of interacting with that yellowish, translucent, strangely tasting rice product that’s meant to stand in for ziti, or those sickeningly sweetish, stale looking masses of crumbs pretending to be pastries, I think you will agree that look-a-like pretenders are out- the only thing worse than being maimed for life by gluten is engaging with anything that touts itself as “gluten-free. . . .”

So many dangers out there, so much treachery at every turn, but it would appear all pales next to gluten, the genuine perpetrator of everything unseemly in the cosmos. Forget international terrorism and the spread of highly contagious bubonic plague-like diseases, worldwide hunger, endless war, pestilence, famine, cyber attacks and the destruction of the ozone layer, to say nothing of the polar ice caps melting away- this is all mere child’s play. The real and present threat we face on a daily basis seems to be that which croissants are made of, and why may I ask is our dysfunctional congress not doing anything about this??? Bid your birthday cakes adieu. Bagels will soon be a thing of the past. Pizza is more destructive to your digestive system than arsenic. Baguettes simply have got to go. And yes, even whole wheat pasta. . . well, in this last case it may not be such a loss.

The media of course has been suppressing the extent of the gluten pandemic, probably on the orders of government officials sworn to secrecy in order to prevent widespread panic and other catastrophes like bread burning orgies and the large scale dumping of bags of pretzels into the oceans thus leading to further environmental damage. In truth, the only way I can even wrap my brain around the horrific possibility of an imminent gluten Armageddon is to think back to one of my favorite sci-fi movies, “The Blob” with the ineffable Steve McQueen. Who could ever forget the scene wherein the gooey rather glutinous as it happens mass of red jelly that has been taking over the world suddenly oozes through a projector room, swallowing the projectionist and sending the story’s theater going audience running  screaming as they flee for the exits. . . .

Ah, those were the days of sheer imagined terror! In truth, I think we miss ‘em in these times of real catastrophes and thus the need for a new bogey man, often disguised as a nicely spherical San Francisco sourdough or a mild mannered raisin challah, with the occasional kaiser roll or chillingly fearsome rosemary ciabatta thrown in for added shock value. They’re saying that if you gaze too long upon a peasant bread your partner will turn to salt. Will this never end? I try not to think about it and have sworn off watching or listening to the news for fear the “g” word may be mentioned. It’s just too darn upsetting. 

The Food Police: Quinoa

There’s a distinct snob value in knowing how to pronounce quinoa (keen WAH). You do not want to be caught musing aloud in the health food store or at the burgeoning tabouli-bulgar-cous cous-wild rice section at Fairway that for some time now you’ve been itching to try kee-NOA (or much, much worse, kwee-NOA). It immediately will brand you as some kind of retro, twentieth century food ignoramus who still eats fruit loops.

In truth, it’s all about the name here and it can be quite intimidating. The food police like to remind us that there are basically two types of people in the world: those who know how to say the word and those who do not; this division of food class creates chasms of socio-political-economic differences that speak volumes about your dress style, choice of music, voting habits, number of plastic bags used in a lifetime, breed of dogs cleaved to, type of movies watched, whether you have an iphone or an android or neither, if you practice yoga or pilates, cross training or walking, which browser you prefer, the vagaries of your moral compass and life expectancy to the minute.

It’s all so smarmy, and for what? The particular grain, whose name I refuse to type again lest I give “them” the satisfaction of knowing that I too have succumbed to pressure and learned how to bandy it around without a shred of linguistic awkwardness, is completely tasteless and tends to make people stutter when trying to say it. It’s a loser big time against such formidable competitors as kasha, which can also be used to help comprise a knish, and wheatberry, another fiber blockbuster with a much more charming name evocative not only of all things wholesome and clean  but also of fairy tale meadows. Are they kidding or what? The stuff has a weird, trick spelling and is boring beyond belief. And most sadly, there really is no way to jazz up that ubiquitous, obstinate mulch of tiny kernels completely devoid of any flavor- the dish is simply the queen (pronounced KWEEN, not KEEN) of bland.

Bland, bland, bland!

And I will not take back those words, even at the threat of being excommunicated from the kitchy kwizeene klub.

The Food Police: Kale

Organic produce is not pretty. I just needed to say that. It has to be said.

C’mon folks, when was the last time you actually had the urge to bite into a nice, crumpled organic peach, or worse, a creased and spotted nectarine? They look a bit like shriveled spaldeens. The avocados are positively growth stunted and the limes more than a bit creepy. But the organic insanity is just the tip of the iceberg, no pun on that much maligned, prosaic head of lettuce once used basically as sandwich filler in the glory days when Wonder Bread reigned. Nowadays it’s all about giant globs of food foliage, huge bundles of garden fodder that look like mid-sized bushes or house plants on steroids, whether pure and straight from the earth or tainted, partially frozen and sprayed with baddies; it has to arrive on a stem and be big, very big. And this “greens” craze can be downright scary if only in terms of the actual space these humongous, unruly plants and veritable small trees take up in your shopping bag and then your fridge, with or without pesticides. Despite these obvious detriments, I succumbed to the hype; and as a result this tale could very well have been entitled “Kale: A Journey of Love, Loss and Acceptance.”

I first started hearing about kale through my vegetarian friends, those good intentioned souls in search of immortality through beta carotene who casually throw off now and again with just the slightest hint of sanctimony that they sautéed some up for dinner; or that a clump of branches from the edenic shrub had been included in their weekly food co-op delivery. This cornucopia of healthy fare comes by way of a local growers cult that basically rations what you will be eating under the guise of “available and fresh,” even though you live in the food capital of the universe and the untamed, somewhat feral looking contents of the box left outside your door often look amazingly unappetizing. Though not a cult member myself I had heard the word “kale” without actually ever having had occasion to use it and knew that it was something crunchy, curative and cool along with its pal the rather dashing and romantic sounding “Swiss chard,” but beyond that I had not given it much thought. Would I even recognize it in the produce section?

My encounter with Big Green happened as I stood staring at the veggie counter one day trying to figure out if I should try some watercress or just play it safe and just grab the romaine. But in truth the watercress could wilt before you even got it home and I desperately needed a change, even at the risk of being called fickle. And that’s when I first noticed it, that big curly-headed lug of a Green with a capital “G” that made me think of bouquets and spring and unheard melodies. The large swath of exotic foliage looked so fresh and happy- dare I say sexy?- I was envisioning detoxifying like crazy, garnering intense light rays of energy as I went and possibly achieving immortality. And so I began to figure out how to prepare it.

For those of you who have gone this terrible route, starry eyed and hopeful only to be crushed in the end by the sheer weight of the leaves themselves, this will not come as a surprise; to the others, heed a warning. In essence there is no way to cook or eat kale; parboiling and then sautéing is an abysmal failure. The texture is akin to cowhide, and chewing on this stuff interminably, as one must do in any attempt to digest, evokes unsettling images of the very animal from which the tanned aforementioned leather emanates. Unless you are in need of serious jaw exercise, probably best to skip; in addition, you will never get it out of your teeth. Baking is no better and reduces it to the kind of miniscule flakes that often fall off dead geranium leaves. It’s a fad boys and girls, created and promulgated by the foot soldiers of the Food Police! But fads take on a life of their own and grow tentacles. A recent NY Times real estate piece brazenly announced: Union Square: A Place to Converge and Buy Kale.

It’s obvious they control the media now, so shut all your devices, put your screens to sleep, chuck your phones, head for the hills as far away from lower Manhattan as possible, tell no one where you’re going and include a month’s supply of Twinkies in your back pack. 

Exit 41, Part One

Sartre in his absurdist drama “No Exit” once indicated that hell is other people, but as is often the case with such high-flown observations of grand philosophical import, he was wrong; it’s really road trips, and occasionally billboards. But I get ahead of myself, so let’s start from somewhere else, perhaps a point of light.

It is 4:30 in the morning at the Vineyard Haven ferry dock and a deeply textured sky of layered indigo seems to blanket the entire harbor except for a few shafts of brilliance reflecting off the bay- lights from a cadre of small yachts, seabourn little adventurers now anchored and bobbing quietly on the waves in plain sight of the pier. It really is quite magical and almost perfectly still, although the dead-of-night aura stealthily and invisibly is beginning to give way. Just as I am starting to channel Melville and Conrad I realize that If I were not totally and completely wiped out after being torturously kept awake for upwards of twenty-four hours, the absolute serenity and mystery of the scene combined with the damp, reassuring smell of the ocean surely would be something in which to revel and possibly exalt; as it is though, I am in that strange netherworld between dozing envy and bare semi-consciousness that is causing me to wonder how long it will take to start hallucinating. Ugh, bummer! Romantic visions of Lord Jim, Ishmael and Billy Budd dashed to pieces! My husband drowsily points out from where he’s slumped in the driver’s seat that in the near distance a crazed skunk appears to be scampering to and fro at intervals, from ticket office to nearby bushes and then back again to ticket office. We imagine the little creature wanting to be the first to snag a coveted round trip spot on the ferry for the holiday weekend when the counter finally opens, much in the same way that we are the first and only people in line for standby in more or less the middle of the night in order to leave the island on the first boat, or any boat, without a reservation. As I sink tiredly into the pre-dawn comfort of the salty air and a watery blue heaven devoid of the usual noise and distraction of life on solid land, my transcendental swoon intermittently gives way to thoughts about the effects of sleep deprivation, along with vague notions of how long I actually can go without the benefits of delta waves or even short bursts of REM as we face up to the long trip ahead. . . 

Why would anyone want to leave such a phantasmagorical tableau of nautical charm- a veritable aquatic Valhalla- and return to the jarring and rude terra firma of the mainland, and at such an ungodly hour? I guess you could say it all began the moment we went online looking for “a nice place to stay. . . ."

Skype is Weird

Skype is weird. I've said it before and I'll say it again. 

This week's blog is part reprint of an earlier complaint, part continuing rant against virtual "face time," part frustration because I did not have a new and fascinating post ready in time this week having spent days fixing computer glitches, thus the slightly re-edited skype post. But the idea is relevant, more than ever!

In addition, the very word has become the same kind of word that "fridge" once did, way back when during the heyday of Frigidaire products when they first replaced ice boxes. I mean, does anyone still even use "Skype" or has google taken over that world too? Should we call it "Googype??"

Yes, Skype is still weird, small or capitalized, in color or black and white and of course Google Hangout is not much better. Let’s face it- you’re not really hanging out. . . .

Two dimensional encounters devoid of real, human contact amid a screen of wavy lines, where the distraction of myriad pixels interferes with the actual talking and being- the human sharing connection- is weird; and this is to say nothing of frozen frames inter-dispersed with moving portraits held hostage to flat, staccato, marionette style images and movements that do not create an environment of intimacy or communication, meaningful or otherwise. 

Occasionally the sound goes out and we have to resort to screens and phones, like something from an old Flash Gordon movies.

Oh yes, you can display things and objects, like haircuts, toys, pets and funny faces as well as living arrangements- kind of like show and tell- but it really doesn’t fly, does it? Group video fests are even more chaotic and incomprehensible, with everyone screaming at each other and the screen simultaneously.

Virtual in actuality means “almost” or “not quite.” The brave new world may long have been both with us and upon us, but the “picture phones” of early sci-fi dreams from days of yore (when people still used the entire name "Frigidaire" to signify an electrically powered ice box) now function in the age of the internet as primitive, almost stone age devices. I picture earthlings of decades and centuries hence looking at the old footage and roaring.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: skype is weird.
That's all. Just needed to say that.