All I want to eat in this weather is ceviche, ceviche, ceviche. I don’t trust myself to make it–raw fish requires an expert touch, I fear–but I wolf it everywhere I find it, especially at the swoony jungle rooftop garden of the Llama Inn. I’d eat ceviche for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could possibly manage three meals in this heat. Maybe a fish taco for variation every once in a while, but, really, bring on the ceviche. We can solve the country’s problems with ceviche, I think, because I’ll devour even the most unappetizing fish if it’s been marinated with many habaneros. So let’s do white supremacist ceviche, NRA fanatic ceviche, transphobic troll ceviche. Fuck it. Let’s do Trump ceviche.
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The Church of Crab Risotto
As I write this, it is 2:23 pm, the world is exploding, I am completely stuck on all my writing projects, my sunflowers are sagging, and it is too hot to do anything outside happily. But my house is beautifully cool—I sprang for a second AC when I got an extra gig last month—and my refrigerator is brimming with good ideas: produce from the local greenmarkets, red and white wine, seafood from Chelsea Market, butter from an Upstate friend, supplies from the old-school Italian grocery down the street. So I am cooking a crab risotto, the decline of western civilization be damned. Continue Reading →
Summer of Reckoning, Summer of Love
Astrologically, the heavens right now resemble those of 1969. So why is this the opposite of the Summer of Love? Is everything wicked in our culture–everything rotten that’s been simmering like the worst witch’s stew—coming to a boil so we can recognize it, expel it, brew something better? I incant, I pray, I roll up my sleeves to make it so.
The day after the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I was riding on a rush hour subway to a Black Lives Matter march to be followed by a screening of the Ghostbusters remake. (An incongruity that underscores how irrelevant I find my work lately.) Around me, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to face, stood the rainbow of New Yorkers that you can find on any MTA subway car at any minute of the day. Everyone looked worn, weary, wary. It wasn’t just me, I was sure of it. If there’s ever been a moment on a New York City subway uninformed by centuries of financial inequities, gender politics, religious wars, and, yes, slavery–and I highly doubt it–this most definitely was not it. Continue Reading →