Pathology of Meals

Meals are telling in our lives, in one way or another. Depending on what they consist of or what the surroundings are, we know the occasion. A turkey surrounded by sweet potatoes and cranberries tell us something specific. Lilies and silver trays say “occasion.” Sitting in the middle of a construction site I paid $300K for, eating Indian food out of a paper carton on Friday night says that times are changing. I’ve been staying here for the last week, since the Agent told me we should spend the week apart to see how we feel. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know what to do or think or say. I still don’t.

My meals this week have been more telling than usual. I had lunch with [old friends who happened to be in town]( http://omnivorousfish.com/node/65); a [meat binge]( http://nymag.com/listings/bar/corner_bistro/) on the way to bring a mattress up to my place. Then I went “home” to pack a bag and went to another old friend’s to eat leftover Thai food to avoid thinking about the bag in the car. Tuesday, I went to dinner with my oldest friend in New York, who met me as an eccentric, sleepless, sexually ambivalent seventeen year old, obsessed with getting our diesel biology teacher to come out once and for all. I cooked for money back then, and if Ferran Adria had been around (in South Jersey) I would have thought he was the shit (now I’m not impressed). We already covered [what I ate Wednesday]( http://omnivorousfish.com/node/113).

Thursday was dinner with some of the South/West Orange crew, coincidentally at a slightly disappointing but overall decent “comfort food” place out in their hood.

Tonight, samosas and chicken biryana from the Indian place. Yes, up here it’s *the* Indian place. There’s the Indian place, the sushi place, the sort-of mexican place and [the other place]( http://omnivorousfish.com/node/113) up here, and that’s pretty much it. Sure, there are Chinese joints and pizzerias, but they’re all garbage. There are two fusion-type restaurants, one Asian-Latino, the other Pan-Asian-American, but they’re both pricey ad neither really delivers the goods. Besides, they’re both trying to be the nice restaurant in a non-shishy area, and since the food isn’t amazing, they’re both pretty much just plain pretentious. Further east are several Latino places that I will begin checking out, but I’m trying to drum up some recs from my super before I go one alone.

Besides, [I hate eating alone]( http://omnivorousfish.com/node/113). Meals at their best are a fellowship; to use a word that has been sullied by religion, communion. Food prepared by and for each other that nourishes our bodies, our souls and our psyches. The Agent and I were good at this, which is why it’s hard to have these repetitive let-me-tell-you-what-happened meals interspersed with these lonely ones. I’m adjusting to the sleeping alone (center of the bed- good advice from [Shuna](http://www.eggbeater.typepad.com/shuna)) and the empty apartment when I get home from the theater, but the meals are the toughest part thus far.

Listening: “Good Morning, Lazarus” by The Low Road. Lots of them this week.

Eating Alone

I’m famous for hating to eat alone. I regularly ensare more or less total strangers to have lunch with me at work, since I never pack and often eat at the wholly unsustainable but democratically priced diner near the theaters.

That said, I still eat alone all the time. I’m spending a few nights in my “investment property” in Washington Heights, where there aren’t a ton of resaturants to begin with, and a sizable portion of them are patently abysmal. Tonight, I wandered into a place that I’ve been to for lunch in the past with acceptable reuslts. Sometimes, it’s better to eat at the bar when you’re alone, but not when the restaurant doubles as the one-tier-from-dive-bar of the neighborhood. At dinner, like many places for which I see no discernible reason, they like to turn the lights down really low. And, while there may be heart shaped mirrors along one wall, it’s not exactly a romantic spot. Interestingly, the lights were low, but readable until I unfurled my dinner companion (the new New Yorker). At that instant, the lights went down even further, probably for the benefit of the ONE other inhabited table.

I ordered pasta against my better judgement, and told myself that no matter how poorly cooked the pasta itself (pretty bad) I would base my judgement solely on the sauce. In this case it was linguine with portobello mushrooms and goat cheese.

In my imagination, the pasta was going to come out with big, meaty chunks of portobello along with tart globs of goat cheese loosened with some wine or pasta water. What I got was overcooked bad box linguine with slightly burnt thin slices of crimini mushrooms with a smear of supermarket goat cheese all inundated by some truly bad tomato sauce.

In about a month the kitchen in this place will be able to be cooked in. Yee-haw.

Listening: “Half a World Away” REM Out of Time

Weaknesses

I can’t make coffee worth a damn. It’s a good thing I have mostly dated people that make excellent coffee, because the coffee I make by and large sucks. I used to make great coffee, and I honestly don’t know what happened. I used to make bitchin’ espresso and decent drip coffee, I made turkish coffee all the time, and I wanted to buy a percolater, though I never did.

Then one day, something changed.

Maybe the coffee elves lost my address. Maybe it was the water in Queens, I don’t know, but now I am starting from zero. Less than zero, really, since the search for good coffee is complicated by my new intolerance to caffeine.

Funny how one day things can change.

California Dreamin’

I spent some time in Northern California many years ago. I stayed in Walnut Creek and went to San Francisco a lot. I also did a bit of camping and experienced some of the natural wonder the area has to offer. Total, maybe I spent two weeks there. I stayed in Sacramento for a couple of months after that, and went to Berkeley and had a job interview in Emeryville. The job didn’t pan out. I closed my business and went on the road the following fall.

Naturally, I am now convinced that Northern California is heaven on earth and everything wrong in my life would be better if I lived there. I fantasize about farmers’ markets and chilly foggy evenings in late spring, wearing [cable-knit sweaters](http://www.benbellen.com.au/alpaca-sweaters/mens-alpaca-sweater.html) and growing my hair longer.

We ate at Tabla last night, but the truth is I have been staring at the screen for an hour, and just don’t feel like writing about it. It was ok. I wouldn’t go back. I liked the decor, and the service was what you would expect from Danny Meyer, but the food all tasted like cumin, and nothing on the menu jumped out at me.

Listening: Watching Law and Order reruns, never a good sign.