Thursday, August 14, 2003

Oh, fer fook’s sake.  First of all, on what day does my aol account decide to just fucking collapse?  Why, on the day the Amanda Hesser article about me comes out in the New York Times Dining section, of course!  I couldn’t open the damned thing until 11 at night, and by that time I was being called an asshole by reporters and family members alike.  So the first order of business is this – if you’re trying to reach me, be assured I am trying to reach you too.  It just takes some time sometimes. Secondly – quite a racket this New York Times rag has going.  Erica Marcus writes a thoughtful interesting article about me for Newsday, and I get congratulations from my mom and a letter from some second-hand bookseller in Boca Raton.  Amanda Hesser writes a thoughtful interesting article about me for the New York Times, and I get totally fucking bum rushed.  Fox News called.  Fox News.  The Fair and Balanced Network has clearly not done much deep reading on the blog, is all I can say. All this to say, I got no cooking done last night.  To be fair, this was a result not so much of the vagaries of fame as an inaugural meeting of a woman writer get-together thingy hosted by my Helen, who made yummy gazpacho and salad – or wait, her roommate made the salad – and put me in charge of slicing the limes for the gin & tonics.  I couldn’t stay really long because Eric was making Wolfman Jacks, but it was really fun – there were all these people there who actually make a living writing, sort of.  One of them covered the Michael Douglas-Catherine Zeta-Jones wedding.  I was shocked.  And, so okay, it was kind of fun when we were sitting around chatting with two of the women who’d just come in, and we were talking about where they’d come from – they’d biked over to Morningside Heights from East 75th Street, quite a jaunt, if I exercised that much I’d drop dead of the shock, but maybe I could fit into this dress again for my funeral, and they ask where I live, and I say Long Island City, and one of them says, “Oh, did you read that article today in the Times about the girl in Long Island City who’s cooking – Oh!  Was that you?”  That was fun.  But mostly the whole thing was fun.  I don’t particularly think of myself as a Woman or a Writer, so I’d been a little nervous going in, but it was pretty nifty, actually.  Thanks, Helen.  So this all sounds very glam, I know, but meanwhile it’s now 6:00 in the morning and I have to head in to work for an 8 am board meeting, and it’s 6:00 in the morning and I’m already sweating like Nixon.  And Chris, I am still poor as shit – though everyone’s contributions yesterday certainly help – I just thought people were sick and tired of hearing me bitch about it.  I’d be glad to go back to breast-beating if you like.  And tonight I’m back home to fill and ice my Gateau a l’Orange and maybe tackle Julia’s  solution for canned onions, if I can find any canned onions to solve.  So don’t worry, Julie’s keepin’ it real in the L.I.C….   A bit of housekeeping.  I would like to thank Jenn for the link to the Ms. article on Julia.  It’s nice to know that she might not mind my using my blog with her name on it to regularly bash the Bush administration.   If you like the Chris Lydon interview, check out his one with The Real Live Preacher, a blogger I like. Oh, and so we have movement on the dog-naming front – a possible dark horse (Watch out, Clafoutis.)  Eric’s colleague and Georgian-food-making-maniac Kristin astutely pointed out that if we name our dog Cookie, we can call it Fucker for short.  I’ve done a little research, and it seems there’s a ten-year-old Sheltie with kidney problems in Memphis name Cookie, who just might fit the bill. 6:57:34 AM    comment []