In My Pot

In the kitchen of my workplace, while waiting for my English muffin to toast, a lovely odor came from the microwave.

"Bacon?" I asked.

"Nope," the big bald guy answered proudly with a grin, "barbecued chicken!"

And he opened the little door and out came about half a chicken, a leg and lots of breast, nicely browned and covered in spices, shiny in its coating of fat.

Oh man. It looked awesome. The man graciously offered me a taste, but I was too shy to accept (foolish, I know). However, we struck up a conversation about food and I dare say I made a new friend in an office where I know nearly no one outside of my own department.

As anyone who knows me can attest, the kitchen is my favorite place to be. Some people procrastinate by obsessively cleaning the house; I look at cookbooks, marvel at the little jars of herbs and spices nestled in the cabinet, and if these acts happen to make me hungry, I might just see what I can put together with what's in the fridge.

Sometimes I experiment; sometimes I work with a recipe. Depends on my mood and what's on hand.

Making soup has always been my favorite thing to do. It's such a simple thing, greatly lacking the precision of baking. Just bring to boil some vegetables, maybe some meat, salt and pepper (usually all you need), something savory - garlic or dried or fresh herbs. And then a miracle occurs. Okay, a chemical reaction, but one that never ceases to amaze me: a bunch of solid stuff covered with liquid cooks down to make a broth, or with more time, stock. It fills my home with wondrous smells and, more importantly, feeds me.

But I digress...

I guess chicken has been on my mind quite a bit lately. A couple of weeks ago, David and I wanted to use some ginger sauce that I'd brought back from Singapore. We went to the butcher, bought a whole chicken and brined it for a few hours. After rinsing the bird, David stuffed the cavity with green onion and ginger and poached it. Neither of us had ever brined a chicken before, so we weren't sure if it made a difference, but the meat was just perfect -- tender, juicy, lots of flavor, with a slight hint of the ginger. The end result was Hainan chicken: small slices of chicken with two dipping sauces - the ginger sauce and another sauce made of garlic and chili sauce - along with rice that had been cooked in the chicken broth.

Delicious. And there was lots of broth left over that is probably still in David's freezer.

Now that's something that most of us seldom have. Homemade stock. Makes anything better, but the time investment can be off-putting.

I coveted this treasure and wanted a supply of my own.

So with chicken on my mind, I threw a couple of stalks of celery, a carrot, an onion, two cloves of garlic, bay leaves, thyme and a few sprigs of parsley in a pot with about four pounds of skin-on, bone-in breasts. I covered it all with water and watched as opaque circles of fat began to form on the surface. It began to bubble. Magic.




About half an hour later, I had exactly what I wanted, a nice broth that I'll use to make soup and lots of gently poached bird that I'll use for a myriad of good things.





Time well spent.

Gender, Misogyny, and Bull Riding in Urban Cowboy

Gender, Misogyny, and Bull Riding in Urban Cowboy (1980, directed by James Bridges)


Definitely not a modern film in terms of gender roles, Urban Cowboy is Texas working class values to the hilt. Men are men and girls are girls.

Bud (John Travolta) moves to Pasadena from Spur, Texas. He works a dangerous job at a refinery during the day and carouses at Gilley’s at night. He meets Sissy (Debra Winger) and they fall in love and get married about a week later.

Marital bliss is interrupted when the mechanical bull is installed at Gilley’s. All of a sudden, it is all about who can ride that bull.

Bud is obsessed with it. He rides it over and over again. Sissy says she wants to ride the bull, but Bud refuses, “Girls don’t do that.” He tells her that it is too dangerous. She rides it anyway. She taunts him that she can ride it better than he can. Bud slaps her.

Wes comes onto the scene. He rides the mechanical bull better than anyone else. This bothers Bud.

Being a Cowboy…

When Sissy asks Bud, “Are you a real cowboy?” she’s asking him if he’s a man. Trouble between Wes and Bud starts when Sissy acknowledges Wes’ superiority on the mechanical bull, “You’re a real cowboy, ain’t ya!” This is not a question. Bud is livid. Sissy has pointed out the new alpha male at Gilley’s, ensuring that Bud’s status is shaky at best.

Wes is a convicted felon. When Sissy slips away to Gilley’s while Bud is working, Wes teaches her how to ride the bull and seems to nurture her independence. As an outlaw, he is free from societal constraints. Wes is free, but he is also dangerous. Sissy is drawn to him (as is Bud, evidenced when, at the prison rodeo he comments that convicts are the best bull riders because “they don’t care if they get hurt”) as he allows her to do what Bud has forbidden.

The Bull Becomes a Steer

Interestingly, as Bud and Pam leave Gilley’s (following his charming invitation to mate of, “So when you gonna take me home and rape me”), she tells her friends, “I found me a cowboy.” Pam tells Bud that she has a weakness for cowboys – certainly a fetish. She takes care of Bud, buys him things, which makes him uncomfortable. In Bud and Pam’s relationship, there is an obvious role reversal, where although Pam attaches the label of cowboy to Bud, she takes the lead to the extent that it is somewhat emasculating.



Being a Lady

And so Sissy rides the bull against Bud’s wishes. Riding the mechanical bull, within the world of Urban Cowboy, is a virtually unmistakable analogy for sex. The scene where Sissy rides the bull to taunt Bud and Pam is little less than soft porn: she is thrusting, sweaty, and bereft of a bra. It is an act meant to flaunt her independence, to convey to her estranged husband that she is powerful and sexy on her own and doesn’t need him - but it ultimately backfires. Bud recoils. Aunt Corine and Uncle Bob look embarrassed. Sissy hasn’t mastered the bull; she’s only managed to make herself look like a slut.

While Sissy naively puts herself on display, Pam keeps a mounted saddle behind the closed doors of her bedroom, indicating that her sexuality is something that she keeps hidden. Pam is discreet. She would never wish to ride the bull, especially in front of others. This is a fundamental difference between Sissy and Pam, and Bud recognizes it, telling Sissy that he found a real lady.

Sissy doesn’t clean the trailer, nor does she keep food in the kitchen. Bud is angry and embarrassed that there wasn’t even a box of instant when he wants cornbread, implying that Sissy isn’t doing her job as a wife; she isn’t being a good woman. And what’s worse, Aunt Corine has taken notice: “Y’all live like pigs!”

Indeed, Sissy isn’t much of a woman. For starters, her name is Sissy – which is a name given to a child. She’s young; she’s immature. There are frequent references to Sissy as a “girl” throughout the film. Limitations on what girls can or cannot do are frequently imposed by Bud when Sissy hits the bag on the punching machine or rides the bull.

Too Much of a Man?

Despite Sissy’s displays of independence, she leaves Bud’s trailer for Wes’ trailer (and I wonder why she didn’t just go to her parent’s trailer). Turns out that Wes has the same expectations of a woman as did Bud. However, when Sissy resists, Wes is even more abusive than Bud, hitting her or grabbing her by the hair to force her to pick up the carton of cigarettes that she has thrown at him for cheating on her. Wes, the uber-cowboy, is a brutal criminal, and Sissy finds herself in a considerably weaker position than when she was with Bud. Deciding to focus on the lesser of two evils, Sissy knows she has to straighten up and fly right if she wants to win Bud back.

So Sissy plays the good woman, cleans up Bud’s trailer, as Kenny Rogers loves the world away. She writes him a heartfelt apology note that he will never see.

And Pam, being no fool, decides to move into the trailer after she discovers that Sissy has cleaned it. No doubt she notes Bud’s delight to find that his castle is clean. As a lady, she knows what Bud expects from a woman; she has dinner and a custom made shirt ready for him when he returns from work.

And the Winner is…

In spite of domestic abuse, alcoholism, slovenliness, and adultery, Sissy and appear to grow up and realize that true love is worth hanging onto. Although Bud apologizes for hitting Sissy and regains his alpha cowboy status at Gilley’s by winning the mechanical bull contest and beating the living shit out of Wes for hitting Sissy, it is undeniably Sissy’s behavior that has to change. She tells Bud that she doesn’t want to ride the bull anymore in a subdued and childish voice. Wes is arrested for trying to rob Gilley’s. Bud restores Sissy’s nameplate in the rear window of the pickup truck. They proclaim their love for each other and head back to the trailer. Order is restored.

Does Sissy grow up or is she simply beaten down, realizing that Bud’s occasional slap in the face is a damned sight better than the brutality of a former convict?

The real tragedy is that while Sissy is squatting in a steamy, battered tin can of a trailer outside of Gilley’s with Wes, Bud is “uptown” with Pam, living the high life in affluent Houston. While Pam, despite being a real lady, ultimately wears the pants in the relationship with Bud, I’ll assert that Sissy’s options are considerably more limited. Bud is very clearly the best option for her, yet Bud demonstrated that he could, and did, branch out.

Hell of a couple of weeks.

Stella Dallas Isn't Nice

**Musings on Stella Dallas, 1937, directed by King Vidor, starring Barbara Stanwyck and John Boles

Stella (Barbara Stanwyck) stands in the front yard of the little wood frame house where she lives, book in hand, watching for Stephen Dallas, the wealthy and cultured man she believes will be the way out of the life she was born into.

Part of the allure of Stephen Dallas is that he has a past worthy of a soap opera plot. He was once engaged to a beautiful society girl, but just before they were to wed, his father provokes a major scandal when he commits suicide. Stephen flees his luxurious life and his fiancée, finding a relatively anonymous existence as an executive at the mill where Stella’s father and brother work.

Stella voices her disgust that her brother isn’t more ambitious. When he angrily rejects the bologna she has packed for his lunch, she initially refuses her mother’s request to bring him something better. Then, looking into the mirror, Stella’s eyes become calculating (something no one ever did better than Stanwyck), a tiny smile plays upon her lips, and she suddenly changes her mind.

At the mill, Stella makes her way into Stephen’s office. She is wearing a hat and is dressed in a frilly white dress. She flirts and it takes no time to sink her hooks into the lonely Stephen.

Stella tells Stephen that she wants to learn his way of life. She wants to be educated and say the right things and get in with the right people. Stephen tells her that he likes her the way she is, that he doesn’t want her to change. As Stella is a good girl and doesn’t want to let Stephen kiss her if he isn’t serious, they marry. Trouble starts after Stella gives birth to her daughter, Laurel. The Dallases have been invited to a dance at the River Club. Stephen wants Stella to follow doctor’s orders and rest. Stella sees a chance to get in with the right people.

At the club, Stella dances with Ed Munn. Munn gambles on horses. He is boisterous and loud, which complements Stella’s brassy personality. She laughs uproariously at Munn’s jokes, causing eyebrows to raise and gasps of shock from high society. While Munn has been admitted into the club, and ostensibly has money, he is a gambler. Munn is not acceptable and Stephen will not allow Stella to sit at Munn’s table, nor will he make nice when Stella manipulates her way into another dance.

Back at home, Stephen criticizes the “cheap imitation” jewelry that Stella wears. He tells her that she has to change her behavior, especially since he has a chance to work in New York. Stella doesn’t want to change, nor does she want to go to New York.

She raises Laurel largely on her own. Although Munn is in love with her, she keeps him as a friend. Stephen arrives home one day to find Munn in the house. Munn is drinking bourbon. Someone is banging out a loud tune on the piano. There is a smoldering cigar in the baby’s bowl. Not nice – even though Stella only drinks sarsaparilla and never, ever returns Munn’s occasional advances.

As she approaches adolescence, Laurel seeks culture. Her teacher wants to take her to Boston to art museums. She rides horses, plays tennis. Society finds her. She is a nice girl. Dick, a nice young man from a good family, gives her his fraternity pin. Laurel is part of the smart set. Stella understands this, owning up more than once that Laurel “takes after her father.” Laurel, like her father, does not like adornments, preferring clean lines to frills. Stella doesn’t try to change her daughter, even when she begins to realize that these differences are bound to separate them.

But Laurel isn’t like her father. She loyally stands by her mother, even after her teacher, a nice lady, sees Stella and Munn laughing uproariously on the train (apparently nice people don’t laugh, especially with members of the opposite sex), and decides that she will not attend Laurel’s birthday party (no one showed up), or when Stella becomes the object of ridicule at the exclusive hotel they rent for a summer. Stella, wearing too much makeup, a mink stole, jangly bracelets, and little bells on her shoes, marches across the club past the ladies who lunch poolside, past the golf course in search of the mother of Laurel’s new beau. She is oblivious to the smirks and snide comments. Until this scene, Stella has shut herself off from the others, choosing to spend her days in bed reading movie magazines, munching bonbons.

We initially take Laurel’s wish to depart the hotel as a sign that she is ashamed of her mother, but then the realization comes that Laurel only wanted to protect Stella - to the point of turning her back on a seemingly dazzling future.

In the course of the film, Stella’s appearance will undergo a transformation. She never sheds the “cheap imitation” jewelry; on the contrary, the lace that trims her collars gets wider, she is wrapped in feathers and fur and animal prints. She is steadfast in her garishness – it represents her unwillingness to conform to a society that doesn’t want her. Stella may look cheap, but she’s honest.

Stella dresses down only once when she makes her one and only attempt to lure Stephen back into her life. She opens up a closet clogged full of frills, thoughtfully selects a dress and rips off the lace. She dabs on lipstick, then wipes it off. The ruse works for a bit, until an inebriated Munn appears, making Stephen recall his earlier belief that Stella is bad news.

She stands in stark contrast to the stately Helen, Stephen’s former fiancée, who Laurel describes as being like one of the goddesses from mythology. As Stella enters Helen’s marbled, Grecian New York mansion, decked out in a big hat in the shape of a bow tie on frizzy, bottle blond hair, a bulky printed coat and many strings of plastic pearls around her neck, she never looks more like a fish out of water. Helen, wearing a simple silk dressing gown, receives her graciously. Here Stella is at her most vulnerable, as she relinquishes her husband and her daughter to Helen so that Laurel can have a (seemingly) better life. Stella has given up on herself; her own dreams never came to fruition. She has become sad and dowdy; her former feisty spark is gone.

In Stella Dallas, it’s all about appearances. Stella is part of the common folk; her initial manipulative urges desert her as caring for Laurel becomes more important. Although Stella pursues Stephen so that she have a good life with the right people, it doesn’t take her long to realize that she is unable to change. She is unwilling to remove herself from Munn, who is unacceptable company for nice people who live a nice life. Stella is simply herself.

And so Stella stands in the rain, watching Laurel get married through a window. We assume that Laurel, while hoping that her mother will come to the wedding (assuming Helen sent her an invitation), will live happily ever after with Dick, surrounded by polo ponies, tennis courts, dogs with pedigrees, and fancy garden parties. And we wonder if Stella is truly the loser, now that she has released herself from ever having to deal with the nice people.

Fashion Musings

When I was in the sixth grade, our school had 50s day. My mom got on her sewing machine and whipped up a billowy yellow cotton below the knees skirt that I wore over multiple petticoats of scratchy netting and paired with a plaid shirt, bobby socks, and penny loafers. I wore a ponytail and my Dad's letter jacket, which smelled like the garage and came down to my knees. I think I tolerated those petticoats for an hour, tops.

"Everything comes back in style eventually," I remember my mother musing.

"Even bell bottoms?" I asked in horror (remember, the 80s were all about pegged jeans, a throwback to the 50s).

"Yes, even bell bottoms."

And sure enough, in the 90s, somewhere in the midst of my college years, bell bottoms were back.

As is seemingly the case for fashion resurgences, the 80s tiptoed in. For me, it was apparent when one of my friends remarked that my striped, spandex, off the shoulder shirt with the big white plastic buckle was way too Pat Benatar. Whatever. I wore it to Numbers, paired with hip hugger flared jeans.

Despite this, my first reaction to these shifts is typically to balk. After all, I remember the 80s. And they were, for the most part, ugly. Especially the late 80s into the early 90s. Yuck.

That said, I like wearing earrings that I've had since high school. Let me tell you, that Caboodles I had stashed away was a veritable time capsule that yielded lots of forgotten treasures.

I like boots, too. A lot.

I'm skinny enough to wear the tight jeans, thanks to the gym and my various neuroses.

Tights do wonders for my legs.

Stuff I personally can't take include (but are certainly not limited to): Gladiator sandals, tights on their own (wear a skirt or some goddamned pants, PLEASE. That is too much ass, even if you weigh 90 pounds, and in New York winter, it's dumb), the small billed Panama hats as well as those Oliver Twist styled hats (let's face it, I really hate the hats), pastel colored pumps paired with dark tights.

And things have, perhaps, gone too far. On more than one occasion, I've snidely noted that Williamsburg is the capital of bad fashion. And maybe that's unfair; this section of Brooklyn boasts some really great thrift shops and boutiques as well as lots of open-minded people who are free enough to express themselves without feeling self-conscious about it.

But retro is never entirely retro, is it? No, it's bits and pieces from the past with a right now kind of spin. And I realize that 2009 fashion is all those bits and pieces, the good and the bad from the 80s arranged in an anything goes kind of way.

It's definitely kind of liberating. I like not having to obsess about what on earth I'm going to wear with those magenta shoes - because I can wear them with ANYTHING.

That's right. Anything. Random shit from my closet. Fuck it, just throw it on. It'll work. Maybe it'll even make a statement.

I've been thinking about all of this haphazardness for a while and two theories have emerged from all the muck in my cranial cavity.

Theory 1: Recession. Take the pressure off, wear what you have. That green golf shirt you bought for a buck from Goodwill will work great with a pink dotted swiss sarong, a brown concho belt, purple tights with orange tulips and those sweet little Keds that are soooo 1986. Don't worry about costly pants and skirts, the tights'll do!

Theory 2: It's all the fault of Generation X. Gen X was all about irony. A Gen X'er wore some kid's cast off softball shirt precisely because it wasn't made for her, it was someone else's, part of someone else's life. A Gen Y'er buys a softball shirt at Urban Outfitters because I'd argue that a Gen Y'er wouldn't recognize irony if her life depended on it because she grew up with Gen X irony. To Generation Y, irony equals actuality.

As for me, in the spirit of being financially responsible, I'm shopping my closet more than ever these days, which has helped me to remember where I was and how I saw myself - while I attempt to put a new spin on something tried and true (or not).

Souvenirs

If left to its own devices, paper will breed and multiply - especially if you stash it in an out of the way place where it is easily forgotten. Only when, in its abundancy, it spills out into plain sight, usually aided by the cat, it becomes necessary to cull and (usually) void. In my case, the majority of this particular fecundity consists of mutual fund prospecti and 401k statements that I just can't bring myself to look at. Into the void with them!

It was during one of these undertakings that I came upon a chain letter that a coworker had passed to me. Specifically, it was a chain bookclub, where you mail a book to the address on your letter and forward the chain letter with your address on to 6 other people who, if everyone does as they should, will all forward books to you.

I had completely forgotten to send my letters and truth be known, I wasn't sorry about that. For peoples' book preferences, like perfume, tend to be very personal. And it's good to know a little bit about the person who is to receive your book. I had agreed to participate in the chain out of sudden impulse, but once I'd thought it over, I realized that I was potentially setting myself up for getting a stack of mainstream paperback pulp.

Then another unsettling thought came to mind: What on earth would I relinquish to a complete stranger? Of course I could send something I didn't like, but I don't keep what I don't like.

Books are mostly what is in my storage unit back in Houston. Those I brought to New York were those that I could not live without or had not read yet. Among those in the 'could not live without' category, are books that I knew I'd want to read again, books that were good references, and books whose very presence on my shelves were a comfort to me. These books are far more valuable to me than the words they contain; they are representations of where I was and what I was doing while I was reading them. They are tangible evidence of my own history.

I looked in vain on my bookshelf for something to relinquish. Finally, I decided to send Ian McEwan's Atonement, which I had recently read and which, while I did not hate it, I did not find it particularly impressive, despite the rave reviews.

But what a waste. I would be sending someone something I did not care for, something that I would have certainly disposed of in order to give precious limited shelf space to a more worthy volume. It dawned on me that others may be as silly about their books as I am about mine and we'd all send substandard books. Ugh.

And so the unsent letters went into the trash.

And here is a small sampling of my 'cannot live withouts:'

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll - I spent August of 1985 in England with my grandmother and her husband. I was a mopey 13 year old stuck spending a month with senior citizens who took me along on outings which were geared for senior citizens. The trip was not without its bright spots: it was my first trip overseas and I saw a lot of great sights. However, for the most part, my best friends were my Walkman and the books I picked up at a charming little book shop in Twickenham that carried a great deal of Penguin paperbacks. My copy of Alice is battered and the pages are yellow. On the inside of the cover is the legible schoolgirl version of my signature.

All the Little Live Things, Wallace Stegner - Required reading in my contemporary literature class at UH. It takes place in the 60s in a California enclave where new neighbors -- an idealistic young woman and her husband and a hippie teenager and his merry band challenge the status quo views of an older resident. The work is probably the most accurate portrayal of the generation clashes of the 60s I've ever read. As a 22 year old, it struck a chord.

Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Greil Marcus - I borrowed a copy of this from Mike Switzer in 1995. It's not a quick read, and it was a six month effort to finish it, but it was time well spent. It begins with the Sex Pistols and traces the history of the art of anarchy and chaos. Shortly after reading it, I learned of Guy Debord's suicide in the French newpaper, Le Monde. I was taking a course in modern French culture at the time and decided to use the article for an in class presentation, which was to be a big part of the final grade. I worked unusually hard on the assignment; indeed I remember wearing my very best poet blouse and going over my index cards in the car before class.

The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, Jane and Michael Stein - Long before Road Food, the Sterns put together an incredibly entertaining lowbrow pop culture work containing entries on the likes of Hawaiian shirts, motor homes and camper/trailers, meat snack foods, professional wrestling, and Tammy Faye Bakker. My first post college job was at Borders, and one of the only perks of my minimum wage existence was the generous discount on merchandise. I smoked a lot of weed in those days, ate a lot of tabouli and lentils (being poor), and spent lots of time in the john laughing as I read this book.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, B. Traven - All about greed. While this tale does not warm the heart by any stretch, it came to me along with some wonderful lemon tea in a care package from Ramon when I'd just moved to New York. I was lonely and poor, living in a dingy room in the boring Upper East Side and care packages from dear friends seriously kept me going. And the greed motif of the book was appropriate - I worked for an investment bank.

The Indian Clerk, David Leavitt - I love a hefty historical fiction when its well researched and well written. The characters in this novel are real -- G.H. Hardy, British mathematican and Ramanujan, Indian protege -- and the story is about the relationship of these men in the onset of World War I. It's touching without being sappy and it's laugh out loud funny in parts. I bought this book for airplane reading when I went to Singapore for work back in October. It was a wonderful way to relax after some very punishing work days and it has lingered in my thoughts. This one I'll definitely return to.