Sipping Chocolate

It's safe to say that all of my good friends are those with whom I can enjoy a good meal. I don't mean good as in the size of the meal. I mean good as in the quality of the food, the time savored in appreciating it, the location of the meal, the conversation we share, you surely see where I'm going with this.

I just returned from my auntie's house. It was a really windy afternoon and I was irritated because I was cold and because I have done something to my ankle, and I cannot run or walk in high heels properly. You understand my frustration. I went over to her house because she called me saying she had something for me, not that I need an excuse to visit her. She was telling me a story and I interrupted her to request her famous sipping chocolate. Hopefully if you're reading this, you have experienced this drink or can interrupt me at some point and request that I make it for you. We bundled up, hopped in the car and ran to the local market to purchase half and half. We came back home and sat in the kitchen, chatting away as she whisked up one of her many specialties. It's half and half, solid chocolate (56%), coarse salt and a dash of vanilla. Served in thin, porcelain demitasse cups makes for an elegant affair. We curled up on the couch and sipped our food of the Goddesses accompanied by Spanish polverones (fine, Spanish, cinnamon, almond cookies). We talked and talked. Ranted and raved. The usual.

I remember the first thing I said when I took a sip, as I held the delicate cup about an inch away from my face so that I could still enjoy the olfactory part of the experience, was "I feel bad for people who don't ever do this."

I don't feel bad for them that they can't do it, but rather that they don't take the time to. I guess some people don't prioritize this kind of stuff and that's okay. I don't prioritize having fancy cars very high on my list of life ambitions, well I don't think having a fancy car is even on my list of ambitions. I don't prioritize having tons of money either, but I digress. I enjoy drinking extremely rich chocolate and talking with a person I love. And I hope you have something simple that you can do in your regular life that gives you great pleasure, that you don't feel guilty about, that is uninterrupted and enjoyed with every part of your being. I wish that for you, and for everybody.

Family

Family.

What images and emotions does that word evoke for you?

For me, I think holidays, my parents, my brother, my cousins, aunts/uncles, stress, pressure, eating, fights, love, happiness, hurt, the list goes on and on.

I think it's safe to say that the majority of people take their family for granted. Yes we fight, but at the end of the day, the people we are fighting with are still our family. It's hard. We have expectations for our family members. Maybe unreasonable ones. Sometimes we let them slide, time and time again. Sometimes we use and abuse them. Underappreciate them, walk all over them or simply forget to tell them how we feel about them. I catch myself getting really frustrated with my family sometimes and I later look back and realize that I was not being fair. I wouldn't do that to my friends or even a stranger, so why would I allow myself to do it with my family?

I just want to put this little note out there to remind myself of the importance of my family in my life. I'm super blessed to have these wonderfully flawed people in my life that keep me sane and drive me insane. God knows what I do to/for them.

I love you, fog

Anybody who is familiar with West Coast climate will appreciate this.

I just spent the past 3 weeks between New York City, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia playing tourist while visiting friends. The weather was miserable. One day in Philadelphia it was dumping rain, but hot at the same time, in fact we were in the middle of a thunder storm but could not keep cool despite my being in a tank top and sandals and soaking wet! In Washington D.C., the buildings are air conditioned excessively. I believe this is unhealthy, to require a sweater to sit at your desk and then go outside and sweat instantaneously only to enter the next building and cool down far too quickly due to the cold air blasting in your face accelerating the natural process of sweating as a cooling process for the body. New York City was just muggy and hot. I could not escape the humidity, it was penetrating. You inhale and it's like you don't get enough air, it's suffocating.

I was so excited to be coming back to California, and better yet, flying into San Francisco! I had my face pressed to the window of the airplane in anticipation, turning back every 3 minutes or so to express my joy to the guy sitting next to me. You can't imagine how big the smile on my face was when we were near landing and I couldn't see a thing due to the fog, it was like you had just given me a dark chocolate mousse cake and a bottle of chilled champagne. (Maybe that's too personal of a reference. Anybody who knows me, or well, no, that's just my life.) Upon my exiting the plane and walking through the ramp connecting the plane to the gate, I had to put on my fleece! Unlike my transfer in Kansas City where I stepped off the plane and was suddenly hot, sticky and out of breath until I entered the gate, only to be shot with blasts of forced cold air from the AC vents, at which point I needed the fleece. San Francisco was naturally cold, yes! I practically ran down to baggage claim, the luggage had not yet arrived and so I bolted outside and just breathed a breath of fresh air, and then another, and another all with a goofy smile on my face.

I collected my luggage, got in my friends car and continued with this air of climate-induced euphoria as we made the drive down to Pacific Grove. As we approached the Monterey Bay, the clear blue skies turned gray, again causing this silly smile to come across my face.

Maybe I have this association with my childhood, with my family, with my friends, with memories of being a teenager or with home but fog has become something I absolutely love. The fog here is not super bad, it starts your day off fresh, cool and energizing only to burn off and give you an even more beautiful day. The landscape is made for this duality. The oak and the pine trees juxtaposed with the ocean change in color with the change in the backdrop which is the sky (or topdrop, I guess as it's the sky but that word doesn't exist.)

It's great to be home.

Famous 4th Street Delicatessen

Some friends and I were visiting a mutual friend in Philadelphia last weekend. Before I continue with the story, I have to tell you that my friends and I don't mess around when it comes to food. We are professional eaters and travel accordingly.

With that said:

The friend who is studying and living in Philadelphia took the four of us to Famous 4th Street Delicatessen (http://famous4thstreetdelicatessen.com/). He warned us not to eat beforehand, as the portions were huge.

We entered the deli and the first thing that came to my mind was that it was clean and inviting. It was a black and white checkerboard motif with photos of celebrities dining at the deli and black and white photos telling the restaurant's past. We sat down and were greeted with a bowl of "Health Salad," a pickled cabbage slaw topped with several big slices of dill pickles.

What remains of the pickles on top of a bed half-eaten bed of "Health Salad"

The waitress was not only super friendly but also, honest and took care of us magnificently. She told us what their most popular dishes were, both of which we ended up ordering: the challah French Toast and the Corned Beef Hash. We also ordered a side of Tsimmes, I wanted to know what it was and she described it as a vegetarian kind of sweet stew made of yams, carrots, prunes and raisins. It sounded great. The Corned Beef Hash came with 2 medium easy eggs on top and a side of 2 thick slices of nutty, grainy toast. The French Toast came with 4 potato pancakes. And I had bottomless coffee, which was never empty.

Mountain of Challah French Toast, this was incredible. I must admit, it was my first time having Challah French Toast and I was totally sold. Due to the soft, thick nature of the Challah, it retains it's sweet softness on the inside and adopts a thin, crisp, outer shell due to the fried egg. And of course, dusted with powdered sugar, how could you go wrong?

Corned Beef Hash with 2 over-medium eggs on top, I'm afraid to say that this photo does not do the size of this dish justice. The heaping mound of food was a good 6 inches high, at it's highest point. It was a mix of potatoes, tomatoes, onions and finely chopped corned beef. Definitely a bang for your buck, we hardly put a dent in it and had to take about 3/4 of it home, luckily the waitress had warned us and had even assured us that it would freeze well!

Tsimmes! A hot mound of cooked yams, carrots, prunes, raisins and walnuts. Caution: prunes contain pits. In the background you can see 2 of the potato pancakes

Wait until you see the pastry case. The site of the cakes was incredible. Each standing at about 10 inches high and arranged beautifully, one next to the other begging to be eaten.

On the way out, I saw a couple eating a pastrami sandwich. As my friend described it, it was more like, "would you like some bread with your meat." There was literally 4 times more pastrami than bread. That also looked delicious but there was no way we could eat anymore.

If you ever find yourself in Philly, you MUST eat here. But, you've been warned, the portions are huge and delicious, so don't eat before and don't expect to eat much for a long time after.

Behavior

So I think about our behavior as human beings in this society that we've created. Behavior, as I see it, is instinct which is then refined by religion, culture, experience, age, tradition, the way we were raised, and pop culture; which I guess could be considered a sub-category of culture but I tend to use pop-culture as my guide of "How Not to Behave," but I digress.

I got to thinking about this today when I was thinking about judging people. I was raised Catholic and was constantly told, in that environment, to not judge people. Judging is bad and there is only one judge for us all upon our death. We have all heard countless stories about judging someone based on their appearance and then later repenting upon finding out that despite their wearing rags, they have a fortune. Or treating a stranger poorly until it is revealed that he or she is some high-profile celebrity or big shot, at which point we change our behavior towards him or her, suddenly showing him or her more respect, wanting more attention or even apologizing for our "normal" behavior to him or her, claiming "I had no idea it was you!" That is bogus. I firmly believe that we can judge people based on how they treat us. I almost want to say based on how they treat others but that might be a stretch because we don't know what they are going through with other people to cause them to behave that way.

Example. If I meet somebody for the first time and they are rude to me and show no interest in having a conversation with me despite being a friend of a friend, I can judge that they are an unfriendly person, or I can be more optimistic and conclude that they are not having a good day, or that I have caught them at a bad moment. I try not to judge people on their clothes, hairstyle, job, ethnicity or education. (However, all of these things can result in great conversation topics.) I think we should treat all people with a basic respect that can then grow or shrink based on the interaction we have with them. Take for example, manners. I like being polite because I think it's a part of the refinement of our behavior that distinguishes us and it makes life easier at no additional cost to us, except maybe a smile or a kind word. Plus, weren't we all told in kindergarten to treat others the way we wanted to be treated and I like for people to be polite to me so I am going to be polite to them. Furthermore, I have found that the amount of goodness in the world is abundant and if you are just good to others, it will be reciprocated to you in the form of say a free dessert at a restaurant or a job offer or just about anything you may need in your life that other people have and can help you with.

I'm going to keep this short but my moral is to just be good to others. It makes you feel good and you would be surprised by the connections you may make or what you have in common with others. Also, we all have bad days and a little compassion and understanding could make someone's bad day not so bad.

:)

Rodents

I really like that there are rats in the NY subway. Maybe that's not sanitary, because the rats carry diseases and maybe it's cruel because they often get run over by the trains and maybe it's weird that I like that rodents run on train tracks under one of the busiest cities in the world. But I think it's cool that in such a seemingly lifeless environment, these creatures live and procreate, despite the rodenticide that the city sets out to try to eliminate this problem. If you're not looking for them, you probably won't even see them, which is also a lesson in being alert and attentive. Cool stuff.

Money doesn't matter

I love when popular singers sing about money not being important. I disagree with them. You would be quite foolish to believe that in the society that we live, you would be able to survive without money. Maybe it's an unfortunate conclusion, but it's the reality. What I do believe is that it's absolutely terrible to obsess over money. Some people get so caught up in money and having an abundance of it that they lose their morals, values and/or beliefs in pursuit of wealth, only to find themselves completely consumed with obtaining more and more that they end up not enjoying what they have. Or never even realizing this unconquerable desire and die miserable.

Let me go back to what I said about popular singers' message to us common-folk. Of course they tell us to be happy without money, as they go home to a multi-million dollar home, multi-car garages filled with cars with tanks full of gas, I don't think they pay to fly all over the world for their concerts, or even if they did, the return from the concert makes it very worthwhile, and don't worry, you too would look like a Barbie doll if you had a personal chef and trainer who came to you rather than you chasing after them, ensuring your proper nourishment and daily exercise tailored to your personal needs. All of this costs money, and a lot of it. And where do they get that money? Recording silly songs telling us to be happy and not worry about a thing, so long as we buy their $18 CD, to support their lavish lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy good music and I support the arts, however; one thing is supporting an artist, listening to music that people spend hours upon hours of practice to refine their talent, and another thing is paying a good looking, super done up person who had the courage to perform and found him or herself at the right place at the right time, a great deal of money for a record or even an more absurd amount of money to attend what society calls a concert. This phenomenon is something I personally don't understand. Several thousand people gathered in a huge park or better yet, a closed entity, all hysterically screaming, sweating and pushing themselves forward to be closer to this fan-entitled immortal being, aka, singer/band. From an outsiders' perspective don't these people look absurd? They are screaming to the point of unconsciousness pushing other people, often enraging themselves and maybe even engaging in brawls and fights! In 2 hours these singers make how much money? I don't think they pay to rent the facility out, in fact, they are paid to perform. They probably make more money in one concert than many people make a year working full time. That's one concert, but they go "on tour." Jackpot. We pay for that. We, as a mass are their employer, bit it doesn't work like the traditional employer that you may be used to. Be at work five days a week, on time, limited vacation, limited time for sick leave, drink your coffee at your desk while working, etc. We, individually, pay for 2 hours in a lifetime (or, repeat offenders attend multiple concerts), only to be extremely pleased with the work we see and unable to reprimand our employers if they are late or don't fulfill or standards.

Now, again, don't get me wrong listening to live music can be very entertaining and enjoyable but these concerts that are so popular don't make sense to me.

You live and you learn

You live and you learn, hurt, though it may. Today someone told me you make many mistakes when you are young. I think we make many mistakes period but when we are younger we haven't learned from our mistakes quite yet. Or we are just so full of life and energy that we do things without thinking. Or we are still naive and have different expectations of people and life.

I learned a lesson from a mistake I made today. Well, I saw and acknowledged that I had made a mistake, only time will tell if I learn the lesson.

Sense and Sensitivity

Today when I stepped into the elevator to go downstairs, I was hit with the overbearing smell of old lady perfume. It was the same perfume that one of my female relatives used to wear when I was a child in Syria. I started to cry, I remembered hot summers in Damascus, eating ice cream and going for evening walks with my aunt or great aunt and having that smell, incessantly in my nostrils. It even affected the taste of my ice cream. I thought, the world is cruel. I am not with my aunt right now, nor am I seven years old anymore or eating ice cream on a hot summer evening.

I went for my run and pondered the conclusion I had come to and came to a new conclusion. I don't like negativity and I decided that the world is not cruel. How great it is that our senses can trigger memories with such vivid reality that we would not have normally remembered without that whiff of asphalt, the breeze that blows our hair in our face, the taste of sangria or the deep bellow of a violoncello. I wrote in my journal, "our senses are so sensitive," I leaned back and laughed to myself. I had never realized that sense was the root of sensitive. I'm sure I could have told you that if asked but I had never made the connection before. I got to thinking more about it and it makes perfect sense, our senses are sensitive, and that's what's so wonderful about them. That's what makes them our senses, because they are sensitive. They are ours and nobody feels them other than ourselves, they are tied to our history, our past, our experiences, memories and everything that makes us us. I decided that I am glad my senses are so sensitive, I am blessed to have had such wonderful experiences that can so easily be called upon by such simple a thing, as the smell of perfume.

Wilde Quote

Fellow readers, I really do apologize for my absence, my brother was visiting me and then we were joined by our parents at which point we did a mini tour of Spain after I finished work and moved out of my apartment. As you can imagine, it was hectic.

When I was in Madrid with my brother, we stayed with a friend of a friend and on his bookshelf I found Oscar Wilde´s "The Picture of Dorian Gray." I had picked that book up in the same apartment in December and was captivated by the first page but abandonded the book due to upcoming travels. This time, the owner of the book told me to take it and get it back to him whenever I got the chance. He said "to share a book with someone is splendid. To know that someone else is getting use out of the book is satisfying. Otherwise I feel like it´s a waste of space." Cool philosophy!

So now that my family has left, and my life has settled down, I am reading again. I just wanted to share this quote with you because I can really relate to it.

"You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know." -Lord Henry, pg 28 of Wilde´s "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

I often feel this way, ignorant, there´s so much to know and so little time and I want to be an expert on bee keeping and wine production and speak several languages and astraunomy and biology and you get the picture. However, that doesn´t take away from what I do know, which I often forget.

I think curiousity is a wonderful feeling that we should all strive to keep alive until we die. Otherwise, what are we doing here if not learning and sharing with others what we know, and re-evaluating what we know and listening to others.....?