The Spiral Staircase

The Irony of Samsara

A bit more Buddhism...

THE IRONY OF SAMSARA

   

Imagine this scene: a layman sits in front of his house, eating a fish from the pond behind the house, holding his son in his lap. The dog is eating the fishbones and the man kicks the dog. Not an extraordinary scene one would think, but ven. Shariputra commented:

   

      

"He eats his father's flesh and kicks his mother away,
        The enemy he killed he dandles on his lap,
        The wife is gnawing at her husband's bones,
        Samsara can be such a farce."

   

   

What had happened?. The man's father died and was reborn as a fish in the pool, the layman caught his father, the fish, killed it, and was now eating it. The layman's mother was very attached to the house so she was reborn as the man's dog. The man's enemy had been killed for raping the man's wife; and because the enemy was so attached to her, he was reborn as her son. While he ate his father's meat, the dog - his mother - ate the fish bones, and so was beaten by her son. His own little son, his enemy, was sitting on his knee.

   

For more teaching stories, go here.

The Bhikshu

From the Dhammapada:

Bhikshu, empty your boat!  It will go faster.
Cast out greed and hatred and reach nirvana. . .

Meditate, bhikshu, meditate!  Do not run after
sense pleasures.  Do not swallow a red-hot
iron ball and then cry, "I am in great pain!"

Overheard at FAO Schwartz

From behind me on the escalator as I descended from the upper (Harry Potter and Madame Alexander) floor to the lower (mostly plush animals) level:

VERY SMALL BOY: Teddies!  Teddies!

MOTHER: You're too old for teddy bears.

He knew just what to say

Shad Again

I'm reposting one of my most popular posts, in honor of shad season.  This was written two years ago; I think that now it's not really advisable to eat shad roe due to declining populations.  But everyone should taste it once...

Yesterday I made shad roe, which I'd never before eaten or prepared.  Trying to figure out how to deal with the thing -- which looked like a bloody, red tongue

-- I checked my old standby but was surprised that Larousse Gastronomique was silent on the subject (the "shad" entry only focused on the flesh;  the "roe" entry covered other kinds of roe but not shad);

 

I guess this is because shad roe is an American thing, really.  Unsurprisingly, Jasper White came through with a terrific recipe, beautifully written.

I buy Kenyon Mill white cornmeal at Dean and Deluca.  It's stone ground and makes a fabulous johnnycake. The shad roe is available now from Fresh Direct.  This is really an easy recipe, about twenty minutes start to finish. 

We drank hard cider with this, which was a delicious combo.  I was totally surprised by the taste of the shad roe.  It was so filling and rich -- sort of like liver -- but with the taste of the sea. 

From Jasper White's Cooking from New England, a book that makes me nostalgic for a past that I did not have:

SHAD AND SHAD ROE

"When the shadbush is in bloom and the roe is fresh, the swamp Yankees like to fix it with a plate of johnnycakes."  So says Tim the Miller of Gray's Mill in Adamsville, Rhode Island, and he is right. The shad has made a considerable comeback, not only in numbers but also in acceptance and popularity.  This bony member of the herring family is an ocean fish that like salmon spawns in the small estuaries of the rivers it enters each spring.  In the Connecticut shad cookout, an old New England tradition, a firebox with applewood is used to slow-cook the shad and its roe, imbuing them with a fine, smoky flavor.

Although fillet of shad is quite good when properly boned (almost impossible to find) and prepared, I will concentrate on shad roe, which is one of North America's truly great delicacies.  Shad roe is usually sold in sets or pairs that already have the outer membrane removed.  If you catch your own shad, remove this outer membrane carefully, so as not to damage the thin inner membrane that protects the delicate eggs. Always handle the roe sacs with the utmost care.  Trim off the excess membrane that holds the pair together and also remove any blood clots or veins.  Wash the roe very gently.  When purchasing shad roe, look for lobes that are in perfect condition, with no torn membrane or other damage.  The color of the roe will vary from yellowish red to deep red.  Color is not a quality factor, unless the roe is extremely over- or under-ripened, and you will rarely see that at market.  The key factor is odor -- there should be none -- which is a sign of aging.  As with all fish and fish eggs, the fresher the better.

Shad roe does not take well to any type of intense heat.  It requires gentle cooking.  If you wish to saute shad roe, you must gently poach it first.  It is too delicate to saute from the raw state.  You can . . . then season and dust the roe with flour before slowly browning it in butter or bacon fat.  Be careful of popping, which can throw hot fat far enough to burn the cook.

Shad Roe Slowly Roasted in Butter

Over the years, I have tried just about every known method for cooking shad roe.  Still not completely happy, I invented my own method, which pays heed to the most important elements in cooking shad roe: slow cooking and basting.  The trick is to find a saute pan that is just barely big enough to hold the roe.  For one pair weighing about six ounces a six-inch pan with one-inch sides is perfect; for two pairs of that size, a nine-inch pan is about right.  The roe is roasted slowly in this pan with enough sweet butter to almost cover the lobes. This eliminates basting, and since the dish is started from the cold state and uses a very gentle cooking, it also eliminates poaching. When the roe is perfectly cooked, it is transferred to a warm plate to rest for just a moment, while you prepare a brown butter from the butter in the pan.  I like a bit of chopped bacon, anchovies and capers, but if you wish to enjoy the lovely nutty flavor of shad roe unadulterated, simply omit these ingredients. Serve one piece of lobe as an appetizer or two as a main course.  I think the richness of this dish, however, makes it more appropriate as a starter.

Serves four as an appetizer or two as an entree
(NOTE: I halved this and thought it was perfect as a main dish for two.  You can't really halve the butter, though, because you need it to cover the roe. Most of it gets thrown out anyway.)

2 pairs shad roe, about 6 oz each
salt and freshly ground black pepper
6-8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon finely chopped capers
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 anchovies, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped cooked bacon or ham
juice of 1/2 a lemon
8 slices of baguette, cut on the bias, toasted or grilled, or 8 johnnycakes (recipe here)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Trim and clean the shad roe as described above.  Wash gently and pat dry.  Season with salt and pepper
2. Place a 9-inch saute pan on low to medium heat and  melt 6 tablespoons of the butter. Place the shad roe in the pan; if the butter is not nearly covering the lobes, add a little more.
3. Place the pan in the preheated oven. The cooking should take about 15 minutes, but you should check in 10 or 12 minutes to be on the safe side.  Squeeze the roe in the thickest part to feel for firmness. If it is still soft, cook a little longer.
4. When the roe is done, place on warm plates.  Pour off about half the butter (NOTE: if you are halving recipe, you will need to pour off about three-quarters of the butter) and place the pan back on the burner. On medium heat, cook the butter until it begins to brown and develop a nutty aroma.  Watch out for the popping of a few eggs that may have fallen into the butter. When the butter is well browned, quickly add the chopped capers, parsley, anchovies, bacon or ham and lemon juice. Spoon the foamy butter over the roe. Garnish with toast or johnnycakes and serve immediately.

Partying with PEN

I was honored to be able to help the PEN World Voices Festival throw a party at the Cervantes Institute on Friday.  For a list of the remaining events, go here.

About fifteen years ago, I was a college intern at PEN during a hellishly hot summer I spent in an illegal sublet in Williamsburg.  I worked in the mornings as a PEN intern and then I would go to my paying job at the Dean and Deluca espresso bar down the block.

Both gigs were equally difficult.  At Dean and Deluca I had to deal with mean, caffeine-starved yuppies (Martha Stewart was very rude to me while buying apple tarts, which I knew she was going to pass off as home-baked), and I left each night with swollen ankles and coffee-stained cuffs.  At PEN, I was shown the computer and told to write letters to heads of state expressing my outrage over human rights abuses.  Talk about writer's block.  I was nineteen years old, and I would stare at the computer screen in terror, trying to think of what to say to the Prime Minister of Turkey.

But my boss Siobhan Dowd was very kind.  I will always remember the shock I felt when she gave me the other intern's letters to edit.  Up until that point, I had thought I was doing an awful job.  I told Siobhan that and she said, "Yeah, well, your letters take me slightly less time to fix."  I edited the other girl's work, and Siobhan gave it back to me to redo. "Never edit in red pen," she said.

I named one of the special cocktails of the evening in Siobhan's honor, the Freedom to Write. 

I love the Cervantes Institute.  There's something sort of otherwordly about it.  It was really cold, but no one wanted to stay inside because the gardens were so beautiful. 

It was cool to be around so many writers.  It sort of made my brain hurt.

All for one, one for all, that is our motto:

Eduardo Lago was sort of like d'Artagnan: 

Then we slunk off into the night,

and we got up to mischief of one kind:

and another

  Many thanks to the excellent photographer Ezra Mabengeza. 

The Frankfurter School

An old buddy has started a beautifully written blog called The Frankfurter School. 

The Frankfurt School was a nickname given to the scholars and thinkers from The Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt in the 1930s. These pioneers of critical theory and critics of capitalism were opposed to the extreme orthodoxy of many adherents to Marx, and fiercely critical of both Nazism and Soviet Communism.

The frankfurter is a processed meat product that has come to be associated with Americana, and it is often served at July 4th barbecues and at baseball games. It is made from scraps of meat products that cannot be sold on their own. Most people in fact, do not want to know what is in them.

This blog is meant to be a tool in the search for information about what is really going on in our country and the world, and how we got here. Like discovering what is really inside a hot dog, you may repulsed by what you find. But like the critical theorists who gave birth to the New Left, The Frankfurter School believes in intelligent and public criticism as the best way to help our society move towards a fair-market, regulated economy with a strong social safety net.

Also newly spiffy is the always funny and subversive Tickles TV, which now adds weekly new content.  It's about time, because I've already watched this one ten million times.

Happy Birthday, Indigo

Happy birthday to the darling Indigo, who turns 30 today.  We are going out to celebrate, and I've hired the cool tarot reader from Employees Only, who is a genius.  The skill of a tarot card reader lies not just in being able to interpret the cards correctly, but in drawing the right cards.  This girl has hot hands.

Just found this cool blog. Warning: not really for children.  I don't think any children read my blog anyway, but am always worried they do.

My math teacher from college, who was my favorite teacher ever, is finally getting some credit for this great essay he wrote about how math has been murdered in our educational system.  It begins:

A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream he finds himself in a society where music education has been made mandatory. “We are helping our students become more competitive in an increasingly sound-filled world.” Educators, school systems, and the state are put in  charge of this vital project. Studies are commissioned, committees are formed, and decisions are made— all without the advice or particip

.

ation of a single working musician or composer.

It's a great essay, and reminded me of how fun it was to play around with ideas.  Back in the day....

I'm very sick at the moment from a suspicious chicken Caesar salad I had around the corner.  Do I go in and tell them?  Will they just mock me?  Is it irresponsible NOT to tell them, sort of like spreading an STD?

I don't think I'll tell them.  I hated it there.  The waiter stared at me in a weird way, perhaps because he knew the salad contained improperly washed greens.

Perhaps I'll repost the baby Tasmanian devil picture.  Reposting the baby Tasmanian devil always makes me feel better.

Hafiz du jour

Sober up,
Steady your aim,
Reach in,
Turn the Universe and
The Beautiful Rascal
Inside out.

Me and My Facebook Doppelganger

There is another Sarah Deming out there who looks eerily like me.  Has Facebook opened some sort of wormhole through time and space? 

Should I ask this girl to be my Facebook friend?

If we became friends, would the world explode?