25th March 2008

Tuesday 10:45 pm : A Notable Absence of Photos
I have a series of photos I'd like to write about, but iPhoto is absolutely nonfunctioning and therefore I am absolutely nonfunctioning.

I've tried deleting my preferences file, I've tried rebuilding the library, I even tried a gypsy curse, but so far no luck. I'm continuing to pursue other avenues and soon I will, with any luck, have much to share.

In the immediate future I have a Farsi test on Thursday, for which I am patently unprepared, and a whole series of other distractions so I must patiently wait for a troubleshooting opportunity.

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9th March 2008

Sunday 05:12 pm : Running the Reservoir
Today Meghan and I went for a run in Central Park because it was so lovely and sunny and, well, not warm exactly, but at least sunny. I haven't been running in months, save an occasional short run on the treadmill, so I knew I wouldn't be able to do the loop or any such thing. But we ran to the reservoir, circled it once, and ran home. 30 minutes, three miles. Not so bad for a sluggish me.

I have two well-fitting pairs of running shoes--one Asics and one Mizunos--and today I wore my Mizunos. We've been together for only maybe 60 miles outside, so we will run many more. I'm not sure how to count wear for shoes when I wear them on the elliptical, since it has almost no effect on the tread, though it does wear the cushioning (which is modest, because these shoes are delightfully welterweight).

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8th March 2008

Saturday 07:30 pm : Tea
I had a friend and her two daughters--ages four and six--for tea today.

Tiny sandwiches: egg salad rectangles, peanut butter and jelly triangles, and cucumber circles.

Strawberry and black cherry jam cookies. The girls loved the jam, but didn't love the cookies as much, which is funny because I feel the exact opposite way. I only put the jam there for aesthetic value.

These strawberries were beautiful, but also delicious, a rare combination in early March.

The cucumber slices were actually the most popular dish at the tea party, and perhaps I spoiled them by putting so many in the sandwiches! Who knew that four- and six-year-old girls loved cucumbers so much?

Chocolate chip scones. I made plain scones as well, all the better for topping with jam and whipped cream, for which they exist merely as a vector. I topped both batches with turbinado sugar and the tops were delectably crispy. I often kick myself for forgetting to sugar the tops before I slide them into the oven, but not today. Today was a day for remembering the details.

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Saturday 07:09 pm : Reading and Typing
For the last three or four weeks I've been either reading the Economist on the subway, or listening to my iPod Shuffle. After a flurry of reading--The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, The Lovely Bones, A Million Little Pieces, Heat, Service Included--I took a bit of a break from books and toted around only my Farsi text and notebook and the week's copy of the Economist.

But then on Thursday, bright and brilliant and lovely, I went to Borders and splurged on three new books. I love shopping at Borders. I could spend so much less if I just used Amazon.com instead, but there's such pleasure in wandering the aisles and suddenly remembering a book I had never properly explored before and seeking it out, and then thinking of another that I was desperate to read. It's an activity in a way shopping online cannot be. Though I do have three other books coming in the mail this week or next. Anyway, the current selections:

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Written by a woman who had part of her jaw removed as a child, it's a memoir about identity and self-image and beauty. I read the excerpts of this on Amazon.com quite a while ago, and liked it so much that I kept pressing the "random page" button to read more, even if it was out of context. But somehow I hadn't bought it yet.

Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett
This is sort of a companion to Autobiography of a Face, because Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy were best friends. After Grealy died, Patchett wrote this memoir of their friendship, which is a lovely idea. It's not about Patchett or Grealy, but about their friendship.

Five Quarts
This is a book about blood. It's the sort of book one often finds on shelves these days, telling the story of one commodity or theory or object... salt or bananas or God. There's been a lot of thought about blood in my life lately, and I know much more about it now than I did even when I earned an A in my human biology class in college, but I thought it would interesting to read a sort of anecdotal book about blood through history.

I haven't started Five Quarts just yet, but I will very soon. The other two, however, I have already devoured. I started reading Autobiography of a Face on the train to class Thursday night and finished it on the train to work Friday morning. It was so compelling that I stayed up half the night reading and only stopped because I wanted to save the last thirty pages for a treat in the morning. And I finished Truth & Beauty within twenty-four hours as well, though it didn't affect me the same way Autobiography of a Face did.

Also, I wrote a one-page composition in Farsi for class last week. I am extremely proud of myself, and prouder still because it's typed. My typing is getting quite speedy--at least as speedy as an inept late-middle-aged decidedly-middle-manager at a factory in Nebraska--and just last night Sam and I discovered the keystroke for typing a zero-width non-joiner (ZWNJ) character on the Persian keyboard on the Mac that has absolutely revolutionized the way I pluralize typed words! The people who will understand the enormity of my joy on this matter fall in the intersection of Persian-speakers, Mac-users and typeface enthusiasts (the latter two of which heavily overlap anyway). The group includes at least me and Sam, and possibly Luke (Persian-speaker and Mac-user at the very least), so the joy is not confined to my apartment.

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4th March 2008

Tuesday 11:07 pm : Another New Haircut
I have resolved never to cut my hair again, because it's an almost universally traumatic experience.* Friday night I had a bit of a shock when I put my glasses back on when my hair was cut and dried and there were significant bits missing and some bangs had suddenly appeared.

But with a little help from John Frieda and some careful camera angling, I am finally warming up to it.

*This is my typical hyperbole. Don't worry; I'll still cut my hair according to the usual schedule. Once per year.

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Tuesday 09:56 pm : Masa
Sam and I, along with two of his cousins and one of his friends, had dinner at Masa tonight.

I have only been eating fish for a few years, and I've only had raw fish a handful of times, so it was a bit ambitious for me to commit to a meal of basically nothing but fish and that cost nearly half a month's rent. But I firmly attest that it was worth it!

We started with hairy crab. (Can it really be hairy?) It was tasty, with a nicely acidic bit of juice at the bottom, but a calm, easy introduction to our meal.

Then we had caviar with toro tartare and little bitty toasts, followed by some blowfish (upon which Masa made his name). The blowfish included various and sundry elements, excluding the poisonous liver, and I did give the next chew a bit of a second thought when Masa said "intestine," but better that than poison-liver, I suppose.

Next we had tempura of some kind of ice fish and a bitter green, both of which were lovely and delicate. Then we had some sea urchin risotto and, as with my sea urchin at Eleven Madison Park, I couldn't really identify the sea urchin. Thankfully.

The next course was shabu shabu: Japanese grouper with little bits of foie gras tucked inside, which were sealed in as the grouper cooked in the broth. The broth was then served to us as a soup.

And then... the cavalcade of sushi!

Toro sushi (two)
Fluke sushi (two)
Deep sea snapper sushi
Japanese squid sushi
Hiro fish (which I may have misheard) sushi with bits of black truffle
Sweet shrimp sushi
Clam sushi
Red clam sushi
Scallop sushi
Grilled toro sushi
Something like herring sushi
Something like mackeral sushi
Shitake mushroom sushi
Sea urchin sushi
Kuruma shrimp sushi
Octopus sushi
Sea eel sushi
Eel in a beautiful roll of cucumber... perhaps the highlight of the meal.
A small ball of sushi rice, rolled in impossible quantities of shaved black truffle
Toro roll
Pickled lotus root with shiso leaf and sour plum paste
Four slices of Kyushu Island strawberries

We sat at the famously daily-sanded hinoki wood bar and Masa and his sous-chef (or whatever the Japanese equivalent might be) sliced each piece of fish with amazing gracefulness and care. I really admired their knife skills, but I'm sure that experience wouldn't have been as good if Masa didn't have such amazing fish flown in from hither and thither every day. Quite remarkable.

It was a lovely night, and to top it all off, I was wearing the beautiful, sparkly new earrings that Carrie gave me for my birthday, which made me feel quite fancy in all the best ways.

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26th February 2008

Tuesday 09:58 pm : Eleven Madison Park
Sunday night Sam and I had dinner with four of his Yale buddies at Eleven Madison Park.

First off, let me tell you that I had an absolutely fantastic night. The meal was quite wonderful, but an array of things made it a really lovely experience. For one thing, I felt really pretty. I was wearing my new green shoes, which I find absolutely stunning, with an otherwise all-black outfit, and I just felt good about it. For another thing, the guys were all great fun, and what girl doesn't enjoy being the only woman amongst five men at a table? It was a wholly satisfying evening and well worth every penny (many thousands) and every minute (more than two hundred fifty).

Now, on to the menu... The table did the tasting menu, which is why the meal exceeded four hours. It started auspiciously, with wonderfully charming hors d'oeuvres and itty-bitty cheesy popovers, munched on during an absurdly and amusingly long discussion about wine choices. (I was pretty disengaged from that debate, so I was busily focusing on my amuses bouche.)

Hors d'oeuvres
Graham crackers with foie gras; sweetbreads cones; tuna tartare; and a tiny savory macaroon

Like I said, these were quite a nice start to the meal. The accompanying popoverlettes were an unexpected surprise, and a nice bready counterpoint to the delicate, fancy-pants hors d'oeuvres, without forcing me to actually eat bread. (Little known fact about Alissa: I don't much care for bread. Or potatoes. From time to time I enjoy a dabbling, but for the most part I prefer to abstain.)

Fantasy of Eggs
Sea urchin, Knoll Crest Farms poached egg and Royal Sterling caviar

This fantasy was actually the primary reason that I wanted to get the tasting menu. I was excited to compare it to Jean Georges' egg caviar, which was in fact superior, but I liked this very much, too. Really, though, I don't remember a thing about any sea urchin.

Heirloom Beets
Liquid sphere with Lynnhaven "Chevre Frais"

Oooh, this was a highlight of the meal, let me tell you. These two little globules in two little spoons were clearly made in the same manner as the olives at El Bulli that Mark Bittman made with Ferran Adria last year and the effect was absolutely marvelous. The little spheres just pop into a powerful burst of flavor--one of beets, one of fresh goat cheese. The contrasting colors--pure white, deep red--made the presentation all the nicer.

Maine Diver Scallops
Ceviche with lobster, Satsuma tangerine and Frantoia olive oil

I have quite a taste for ceviche, and the scallop ceviche was not only delicious but sliced into a perfect little half-dollar, reclining in a bath of tangerine juice that I really wanted to slurp up with a tiny straw. I will carry a tiny straw with me in the future for such occasions.

Foie Gras
Terrine with golden pineapple, pickled pearl onions and rum-raisin brioche

This was a foie gras-heavy meal. After the foie gras of the hors d'oeuvres, these were Foie Gras Preparations Numbers Two and Three. Because in fact this was a terrine of foie gras and also a little foie gras custard on the side with a pineapple foam. I liked it a lot, and the rum-raisin brioche was phenomenal, but I couldn't finish my foie because, well, the thing is quite rich.

Nova Scotia Lobster
Poached with Madras curry, green apple and lemongrass

Whoa ho ho. This is some fine lobster right here.

Red Snapper
Slow cooked with saffron endive nage and piquillo peppers

At this point in the meal I started to eat two-thirds portions of each course because, well, I was fairly stuffed to the gills. I'm only one person and I had eaten lunch, despite my best intentions to build up an enormous (rather than simply a giant) appetite.

Everglades frog's legs
Lasagna "forestiere" with vin jaune and nasturtium

I love frog's legs! Everyone says they taste of chicken, but if I ever try chicken I'm sure I'll say it tastes of frog's legs.

Vermont Squab
Herb roasted with parsnip and chestnut

I was pretty well done in by the time the squab came. I've had it once before, at Jean Georges, and I was a little indifferent toward it. Sunday night I was decidedly apathetic, being already so full and having limited poultry experience under my belt. (Sam has been working more on building up more obscure meats in my repertoire, rather than the more quotidian ones.)

Fromage
Selection of Artisinal cheeses

Surprisingly, the mouth-feel that remains most strongly with me from this meal is not the wonderful beet and chevre spheres, but one of the three cheeses I had. I only really remember that one came from the Willamette Valley, and of course I chose it because I, too, come from the Willamette Valley.

Winter Citrus
Parfait with tarragon and black olive caramel

This was the better of the desserts, because that tarragon sorbet was something special and the accompanying garnishments were cubed segments of citrus. You don't have to know much about me to know that I'm a sucker for gimmicks and there is nothing quite as gimmicky as a cubed fruit that is usually round.

Essence of Arabica
Crispy cannelloni with coffee, chocolate and milk

Every course came with a detailed explanation, excessively heavy on the proper nouns, but with this course we got simply: "This is the Essence of Arabica." What, praytell, does that mean? Well it turns out it means a wafer-thin crispy cylinder with various fillings and accompanying sorbets.

Mignardises
Tiny brioche with delicious inside; olive oil gelee; passion fruit tartlet; pistachio financier; chocolate something;

I barely touched these charming petit fours because I was desperately overly full.

Perhaps because of the Oscars, perhaps because of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, perhaps for reasons beyond our understanding, the restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived at 7:00 pm and by the end of our meal at 11:30 pm it was entirely empty. This was quite to our advantage because our sommelier and waitstaff were attentive and patient and wonderful, and they even let me peak into the kitchen after the meal. Of course, by then it was absolutely dead in there, except for a a bit of floor-scrubbing and dish-washing, but it was still nice to take a look around.

It's late on Tuesday now--nearly forty-eight hours after we left--and I'm still feeling a warm sense of satisfaction from the meal and the night.

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23rd February 2008

Saturday 08:27 pm : Vacation
I took a Vacation to Connecticut this weekend.

On Friday, despite a massive snow storm, I set out to Stamford via Grand Central. Normally I leave from Harlem/125th Street, because it's walking distance from me, but in this case that would have taken about three hours and soaked and frozen me to the bone, so I used underground transport and got on a packed train express train from Grand Central. This part of the trip was a bit cramped, but it was also dry and warm, so I have few complaints.

Sam picked me up at the train station and we killed a couple hours with Farsi homework and shoveling the driveway... the second shoveling of the day for poor Sam. I think I must have been confused about the old adage of "lift with your knees, not with your back," because judging from my condition today I was lifting with my calves, not with my back. Today every time I sit for more than five minutes, I'm hit with some serious tightness and soreness at the top of my calves when I try to walk. But damned if that driveway didn't look good! It was my first-ever snow shoveling experience, since I have lived in Manhattan for ten years and before that lived in the moderate climes of the Willamette Valley for nearly eighteen years.

Anyway, the reason for my Vacation to Connecticut this weekend was that my dear and beloved friend Emma was in the freshman play at Yale... and no little eight inches of snow was going to stand between me and Emma, believe you me. Since Julia's lovely parents live in New Haven, and have two theatre-ish daughters and are therefore well acquainted with amateur theatre--I invited them to join me and Sam for the show, which turned out to be great fun. For me at least the whole thing was a big, fun adventure and I was glad to have so much good company along for it! Sam and I got to New Haven a bit early and we were a bit wary of too much movement (because of the snow, the ice, the parking, the unpredictability, the lack of four wheel drive on the MINI, and so on and so forth), so we parked by the theatre and hunkered down in a coffeeshop for more Farsi practice and hot chocolate before dinner.

Sam is ab-so-lutely wonderful helping me with Farsi. I struggle to explain what makes him so brilliant in this regard: he's a native speaker, of course, but I know plenty of native speakers who aren't nearly as intuitively conscious of the difference between English and Farsi. He parses the language and ably articulates not only the differences but the reasons for them and the way to overcome them. I have no doubt that I'll be comfortable in Farsi in most situations within a couple or three years because of my coursework and study group and general commitment to it, but if I ever speak Farsi well it will be entirely because of Sam and his tremendous (informal) pedagogy.

Anyway, while we were at this little coffeeshop, none other than Emma herself happened to drop in for a little pre-show snack and spotted me and Sam in the back. She fairly squealed my name and came running over, and I fairly squealed her name and bounded up to hug her and tell her to break a leg. It was nice to see her before the show, so she knew Sam and I were in fact there, despite the nasty conditions. Anyway, after the study session and hot chocolate and Emma sighting, Sam and I met Andrea and Jon at a Thai restaurant for dinner. Sam and I had just watched the pad Thai episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown, our favorite, so I of course got the pad Thai. It was already really good, but I appreciated it all the more because now I know exactly how many ingredients go into it. (One million.)

The show--The Shadow Box--was at the Yale Repertory Theatre, which is absolutely gorgeous, and the Yale frosh did a really great job with their production. The show was, frankly, a bit of a downer, but almost without exception the ensemble cast did a phenomenal job. We were all impressed, particularly by a girl who played an elderly woman quite effectively, and of course by Emma, who played the middle-aged wife of one of three terminally ill patients in hospice. I admit that lately I'm particularly prone to being affected by stories of people battling against the odds, but Emma's monologue near the end of the show made me cry a bit.

After the show we gave Emma our congratulations and Jon and Andrea and Sam and I parted ways, and Sam and I set about de-icing the MINI, which was no easy task. The whole world had iced over during dinner and the show, though the roads ended up being not so bad. In the process, I re-discovered one of the reasons that Sam is such a good friend for me: he's not only an excellent driver, but a cautious driver. He carefully checked the road conditions when we first got moving and kept us at reasonably low speeds from New Haven back to Stamford and I never once felt a bit nervous or like I wished I was driving instead of him. Having a bit of a safety fetish and being particularly fastidious with driving, I generally feel a bit uneasy in cars, but not with Sam, even under the worst possible conditions. In my book, that's roughly equivalent to winning an Oscar for Best Driving.

I slept over in Stamford and this morning Sam's mom and Sam and I had a lazy morning before she had to take off for work. Sam and I were not so productive and we didn't get out of our pajamas until about 5:00 pm... and didn't feel a bit guilty about it! We watched Helvetica (me for the first time, him for the second) and... well, I'm not sure what else we did. Not too much. Sam's mom made delicious lunch--bigoosht (meatless) for my sake--and we drank a lot of tea and coffee and watched parts of North by Northwest and Psycho. And then Sam dropped me off at the Stamford train station when he went to pick up another friend who is having a little Vacation to Connecticut herself. This time my train was not only express, but not at all packed and I had plenty of room to spread out and relax after my Vacation to Connecticut. It was such a nice little getaway; I didn't answer my phone or check my email or read a single blog while I was gone, and even though it was only a day and a half, it was great!

Now I'm home and already having thoughts about bed because I have Farsi Study Group tomorrow morning, a trip to the gym with Meghan in the afternoon, and dinner at Eleven Madison Park in the evening.

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16th February 2008

Saturday 12:57 pm : Three Day Weekend
This is day one of a three day weekend.

Last night I went to see Eddie Izzard perform. I went with Andrew, Julia, and Julia's parents, all of whom love Eddie Izzard at least as much or more than I do. And he was, per expectations, hilarious. The only problem was the show was at 10:30 pm and didn't really start until almost 11:00 pm. Therefore I almost fell asleep before the end, despite the funny.

Persian is going really well. I'm slowly becoming much bolder speaking Persian with Sam. Or at least reading to him; I still don't produce a lot of original speech in Persian with Sam, but on Tuesday night when we were trying to wait out the storm I was reading a story aloud to him. We read some poetry in class this week--just simple pieces, a couple lines here and there--and it was so lovely that I actually enjoyed romantic poetry for the first time! (I always enjoy poems that are read for comedic effect, but I have a hard time enjoying the sappy stuff. I think it might really just be because English isn't such a poetic language, but Persian sure is.) I am just starting to harbor hope that someday I will speak Persian rather than just read and write Persian and be a repository of Persian grammar, though we continue to make speaking and understanding strongly secondary to reading and writing in class. Thank heavens for Farsi Study Group because it's the only time I get to practice speaking and understanding with any of my classmates!

This is a photo of me and Sam from Monday, taken using my new tabletop tripod and remote control, which Sam gave me for my birthday. We took a ton of self-portraits to test out the new equipment. Please note Sam's fantastic socks. My socks are also fantastic, but in a non-visual, more tactile way, because they are profoundly fuzzy and soft.

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11th February 2008

Monday 11:19 pm : Stuffed Full of Birthday Dinner
It's my 28th birthday today and Sam took me out to a new restaurant, Dovetail, which had delicious food and a really charming waiter.

Other than that, it wasn't much of a day.

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10th February 2008

Sunday 09:26 am : Itty Bitty Mini Mardi Gras: The World's Smallest Mardi Gras Party
Last Sunday I threw the world's smallest Mardi Gras party: Itty Bitty Mini Mardi Gras.

It was just me, Andrew, Julia, Sam, Sam's cousin, and Carrie. And a giant pot of seafood gumbo, some Louisiana rice, corn bread muffins, and king cake, and a whole load of purple, green and gold decorations.

Peppers for the gumbo.

Seafood gumbo on the stove.

King cake, from yeast to rising to naked to dressed.

Cheddar chili and green onion corn bread muffins.

Mardi Gras decorations.

Alissa with a mask and glasses.

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27th January 2008

Sunday 08:19 pm : Creme Brulee
I have, once again, spent a big chunk of my weekend on laundry and dusting. I feel rather like Sisyphus.

But yesterday I had some good times. I went to the gym--fancy new gym with fancy new equipment--and had a short but satisfying cardio workout and then ran two great miles. Over my holiday break I was more consistent with working out plus I lost about seven pounds, so my running has correspondingly improved and it felt great yesterday.

Last night Sam came over to watch The Lives of Others and make creme brulee with me. The movie was good; we didn't think it was great, like everyone I know thought it was, but it had a beautiful ending and was a pleasure to watch, even if we did keep having to rewind because we didn't read the subtitles fast enough. And the creme brulee (cream brooley, as we said all night) turned out beautifully, creamy and luscious. Yes, luscious is exactly the right word to describe it.

Sam often keeps me awake past my bedtime (for shame!) and last night was no different, so today I have been a bit groggy, but I was suitably awake and perky for Farsi Study Group this morning and still managed to get the laundry washed and the apartment dusted. I even washed all my pillows (four standard, two accent), my orange coverlet (which had suffered many spills, often due to my eating on the bed rather than at the table), and my tiny little throw rug. I spent $20 in the laundry machines, but darn if it wasn't worth it! My pillows are fluffier than they've been in a long while and the coverlet looks crisp and clean. I also did a little reading. I finished A Million Little Pieces several days ago and started reading The Historian, which is pretty so-so at 90 pages in. Mom and I had a discussion about it and we concluded that I should read 200 pages before I make my final assessment. But in the meantime I'm also reading Service Included, which Sam lent me.

And I've already picked out some nice brown pants and a pink shirt for tomorrow, so it should be a pretty nice Monday!

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21st January 2008

Monday 07:43 pm : Making the Least of a Holiday
Today was a holiday and I decided not to make the most of a day off, but to make the least of it. A lazy Monday was in order! I slept in until very, very late (having had a very poor record of getting to bed on time this weekend) and then putzed around the apartment until maybe 11:00 am. Then I went to a new location of my gym--way uptown--and had a great, great cardio workout. I did 45 minutes of elliptical and then ran just one mile, but that mile felt fantastic. My body is getting strong again and perhaps I'll be back to running the loop in the park by the time it's warm enough to run the loop in the park.

After the gym I picked up a quart of heavy cream (!!), some milk, a lot of yogurt, and some fruit and came home to shower and read, read, read. And I did read, read, read. I finished Sam's copy of Heat on Friday, but Erin (of last weekend's bliss in Virginia) loaned me her copy of A Million Little Pieces and I've been reading that. She liked it despite the controversy, and recommended it. I was cold for the first twenty pages or so--the lack of punctuation and the creative capitalization convention rubbed me the wrong way--but I finally warmed up to it and now I'm about two-thirds through it. And good thing, since my reading rate will drop precipitously when Farsi starts on Wednesday.

Friday night I saw some Becket shorts at a theatre in the East Village, which was the only happy result of poor Evan being rather sick. He and Carrie offered their tickets to me. Andrew and Sam both had prior commitments (it was Friday night after all), and so I decided I would just go alone, which I did (and sold the other to some poor dame who was desperate to see the show). Oddly, Mikhail Baryshnikov was the lead. The first two shorts were great; the second two were less great. But the staging was fantastic and I really liked the production, so it was an evening well spent! Sam picked me up afterwards and patiently watched me eat cook and eat dinner so that we could then work on some overdue crossword puzzle homework. This was my first bedtime malfunction of the weekend.

Saturday I went on a Persian Excursion to an exhibit with my Farsi-speaking friend, and then to lunch at Pars Grill for some salmon kabob and some very mediocre tadigh. (Though tadigh has been ruined for me since I had Sam's Khaleh Ziba's tadigh. It was so transcendently good that nothing can compare!) Then Saturday night I met up with a friend for dinner at Blossom Cafe on the Upper West Side for dinner. It's a vegan restaurant with a bunch of raw food options. Being still rather full from the salmon kabob, I decided to take a chance with the raw zucchini linguine. That's not linguine with raw zucchini. That's linguine made out of raw zucchini. But it was wonderful. Seriously. Really quite delicious. And also, trying saying it: zucchini linguine. It's great fun!

Having slept only two short three-hour intervals on Friday night, I did go to bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday night. *cough*ninethirty*cough*

And then yesterday I had the first Farsi Study Group of the new semester, which was something like three and a half hours of half-Persian practice and half-catching up from a month's vacation news, all accompanied by jasmine tea and sesame sticks and peanut butter pretzels (which are not culturally appropriate, but which are extremely delicious).

On Sunday afternoon I was bitten by a spring cleaning bug, despite sub-freezing temperatures. I threw out bags of nonsense and organized piles of things that had been sitting around for months. (The mere existence of piles in my life is evidence of either some kind of psychological decay on my part, or else evidence of some kind of psychological recovery.) It felt amazing to get things in a bit more order her. Or at least to return the order that had--in my eyes--been disrupted. I don't know what happened, but I didn't actually get into bed until midnight. Oh, I also did the laundry and the ironing. I told Sam that I was excited to go to bed because I had freshly ironed sheets and he said, "You iron your sheets?" Somehow I had kept this precious piece of information from Sam. How did I keep up this masquerade for all this time, despite our long-standing teasing about each other's ironing habits (him: last minute; me: the moment the clothes comes out of the dryer)? In my defense, I only iron the pillowcases and the visible portion of the top sheet, but the devil's advocate would like to point out that I iron my pillowcases and part of a sheet every week.

And now it's nearly bedtime on a Monday night that feels like a Sunday night. My pants and sweater are all laid out for tomorrow and I'm ready to curl up in my fleece sweat pants and fleece hoodie and read a little more and sip from my cup of hot tea.

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13th January 2008

Sunday 09:25 pm : Virginia
I just tonight got back from a weekend with my friend Erin down in Northern Virginia (NoVA, just like one of my favorite shows). It was such fun! After a hectic bit of travel to New Orleans and back through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, it was great to have a slow, low-key girls' weekend in. We went to the gym on Saturday morning, then to dinner and a play (Edward Albee's Seascape) Saturday night. And that's where we took these photos.

The lovely Erin:

And a series of me, taken by Erin, while I was enthusiastically chatting about camera and yoga pants with the woman sitting behind me:

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Sunday 09:19 pm : New Orleans
I have been living in a whirlwind for the last ten days and I can only document it through photos right now because I'm still a bit frazzled from all the activity!

A wonderful statue at a gallery in the French Quarter:

Dinner with Luke at Candice's house

Mozzarella, tomato, basil and cucumber:

Crawfish:

Oysters (which I can't quite manage to eat yet):

This is how the oysters get opened (no pearls resulted):

King cake, a New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition (a month early):

Candice, in a theatrical display of peppering a Bloody Mary:

Crawfish as finger puppets:

Me and Luke, driving in a truck from New Orleans to New York in two days:

At the ersatz Tun Tavern at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia:

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1st January 2008

Tuesday 01:38 am : Welcome 2008!
2008 is starting off really well, though New Year's Eve day started off inauspiciously.

I had planned to go to Times Square with Sam and a friend of his, but then Sam had a fever and (wisely, I feel) decided not to go stand in the cold air for even an hour or two. I considered bucking my plans entirely--I was even in bed, reading in pajamas, at 9:00 pm--but at the last minute I decided to pull on some jeans (over tights) and a long-sleeve tee (over an undershirt) and brave the cold, the crowd and the crazy. Turns out none was particularly bothersome.

The night was absolutely perfect, except that Sam wasn't there for it. I loved the big throngs of people, the giant hullabaloo and the messes of ticker tape. I found a friend I hadn't known was going to be there, and latched on to him (literally, at points) all night, and felt super happy!

Plus I shook the mayor's hand. Mostly so that I could mention it at cocktail parties and such. It seemed the thing to do.

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29th December 2007

Saturday 07:55 pm : Christmas in Connecticut
It has been a very busy few weeks, it seems. In some regards, actually, I'm less busy than I was during the preceding four months because my Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings are now available for non-Persian-related activities. But I have somewhat overbooked myself because of that perceived free time and I've been all a-tizzy with... oh whatever. This and that.

My Saturday nights of December I spent, for the most part, at a sketch comedy show that my friend Carrie was in. So I spent three non-consecutive Saturdays--10:00 pm to midnight, once the post-show mingling is counted--in a small black-box theatre in Times Square, laughing at the sketches. This is, of course, extremely well suited to my temperament: I laugh big, I laugh easy, I enjoy hearing the same jokes more than once. (How many times have I told my favorite pirate joke? And I still laugh every time I tell it.)

Persian is over for the semester--it restarts on 22 January 2008--and I am confident I aced the exam. There were not many curve balls and my Persian is pretty good, so undoubtedly I will get an A. Would get an A. If I were a real student and not a non-credit post-baccalaureate student. Instead I actually got an R. I don't even know what that stands for. Two days after my final exam I went to Shab-e Sher (Persian Poetry Night) at the Bowery Poetry Club, which was, um, not bad. Shab-e Sher has been recently revived, and I think it might need an iteration or two to really thrive. But I'll go back, no doubt. In fact, I plan to try to talk a friend into co-reading a poem at the open-mic portion. (He doesn't know I'm going to ask, because I only just realized that I might actually have the cojones to do it if I do it with a partner.)

Ma and Pa were here for Christmas, and I have photos to tell that story. They came in last Saturday and we spent Christmas in New Haven, Connecticut, with Julia's family. At first blush, spending three days at Christmas with my brother's girlfriend's family seemed like a recipe for 100,000 pounds of awkwardness (if awkwardness is measured by weight and not by volume), particularly since our parents and Julia's parents only met once, at Andrew and Julia's graduation dinner. In 1846. (Or some comparably long-ago year.) But Andrea and Jon were tremendously gracious and welcoming and I couldn't have felt more at home. It turned out to really lovely, lovely holiday. Here's the proof.

Mom wrapping a present on Christmas Eve-Eve:

Dad, pondering something he's about to wrap:

Mama, deep in thought:

My ill-fated attempt to take a self-portrait of me and Dad. (Really sorry about your eyes, Dad!)

Best Photo of Alissa, 2007:

Presents under the tree.

Check out the hair on this thing! I think it's a dog.

Wolfie.

Andrew and the one thing he asked for this year.

As the photographer, there are few photos of me, but I love the expression I've got in this one! (That's a JCrew sweater from Jon and Andrea that I've just opened. Nice!)

Stockings, with mystery hands in background.

Now it's post-Christmas and things are pretty status quo. Today I went to see Persepolis--a movie about a Persian girl, but all in French--with a like-minded francophone and farsiphone friend. Thank heavens it had subtitles, because my French isn't what it used to be. I might actually speak Farsi better than French now.

I plan to make the most of the next three weeks of winter vacation, so I am going to go charge my camera battery now.

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16th December 2007

Sunday 07:28 pm : Oops, sorry.
I haven't been updating my blog and apparently that means a certain husband of a good friend of mine has stopped reading my blog. If that's not motivation to write, I don't know what is.

So here's where things stand:

Tomorrow is my Farsi final and then I have no more class until 22 January 2008. 2008! Can you believe that's really happening? I remember feeling very certain that I was now living in the future after the calendar flipped to 2000. And now it's going to be 2008. Where the heck is my hovercraft?

Another notable happening in 2008 will be my tenth anniversary in New York, and my ninth anniversary in this lovely little apartment. I have a lot of blessings to count, and this apartment is surely one of them. I am feeling particular affection for it today, because the view of snow-covered Central Park is a bit inspiring, and the overactive radiator is warming the place with surprising gusto.

Mom and Dad arrive on Saturday night for the Christmas holiday, which will be our second Christmas in New York. The first was 1998. Though, actually, this time Christmas proper will be celebrated in New Haven, Connecticut, with Julia's family. I think it'll be an exciting new adventure and, despite my bah-humbug attitude toward to the holiday, it will be nice to spend the holiday with my mom and dad and brother for the first time since... maybe 2000? I think I had waist-length hair the last time I went to Oregon for Christmas festivities.

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29th November 2007

Thursday 09:47 pm : Nothin' Doin'
I haven't been doing much lately.

I did bake this pumpkin pie, of which the whipped cream is the more important part.

I also had a lot of fun playing with shaving cream. When goofing around in the bathtub one day, I discovered that shaving cream makes pretty shapes when you blow on it. I made myself dizzy experimenting with it, and finally decided to make an official activity out of it. And here are the results. Please don't notice what a striking resemblance the shaving cream below bears to the whipped cream above. I assure you they are quite different.

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22nd November 2007

Thursday 09:02 pm : Enchanted
In lieu of Thanksgiving, today I celebrated... um, well, I guess just not going to work. But I did sleep in until 8:00 am and went to a movie in the afternoon. A movie that turned out to be better than I expected, and a real pleasure! I decided to see Enchanted because the New York Times review of it was so good and, indeed, the review was right. I might have been the only person in the audience who was neither a child nor a parent, but it was everything I wanted: clever, funny, distracting.

I also ate two pieces of deep-dish apple pie, which I feel was a nice accomplishment.

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