The Spiral Staircase

USA Boxing Nationals

It's lovely to be back in Spokane with the milling coves, guest blogging for the Huffington Post and Stiff Jab. My first post is here.

Big B-Hop and Lil B-Hop

Seventeen-year-old Chris Colbert is the reigning Junior Olympic champion at 95 pounds. He's since moved up to 106, and with any luck might see featherweight some day.

When Chris first walked into Atlas Cops and Kids Boxing, trainer Aureliano Sosa gave the skinny kid the nickname "B-Hop," because he resembled the great Philly champ Bernard Hopkins, not only physically but in natural fighting style and gift of gab. 

Lil B-Hop and Big B-Hop posed together at a press event to promote this Saturday's fight at the Barclays. One is long past a magnificent prime. One approches a peak of unknown dimensions.  

Lil B-Hop says, "He gave me permission to use the name in the pros." 

 

Ethan Iverson Solo Recital

My husband is my role model for self-discipline in the arts. Every day he gets up early and goes off to practice, while I lay in bed malingering. 

I'm looking forward to hearing the fruits of his labors at his solo recital in the Abby Whiteside concert series.

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

Wednesday, February 27, 8PM.

Party to follow in Brooklyn.

He'll be playing modernist classical music by Louise Talma and Stravinsky as well as jazz standards and improvisations. It should be a good one! You can buy tickets here. 

A Boxing Birthday

I began my thirty-ninth birthday with some roadwork, just to make room for the impending debauchery. Cardiovascular conditioning has never been my strong point, and I had to stop and walk about nine times during the three-mile loop. Oh well, I thought, it's my birthday and I'll walk if I want to.

Kelly was in my neighborhood after a successful job interview, and we celebrated our twin triumphs with the all-you-can-drink brunch at El Pollito. I held at two bloody Marias, for fear of peaking early and losing steam in the late rounds. My breakfast burrito was yummy.

Kelly's son Shu Shu is one of the best young boxers at our gym.

When I got home, Ethan had some Veuve Clicquot on ice, which saw us through the rest of the afternoon. Alicia arrived at 5PM with assorted cheeses, and Julie did a drive-by with a key lime pie.

The only fly in the ointment at this point was that, due to my insistence on playing Jeremih's "Birthday Sex" on repeat for like an hour, we didn't hear Fresh Direct arriving with the groceries for my wine group's dinner the following night, and I had to ask my landlady to take delivery later that evening. The theme of the wine group was to be rieslings, and I was a little afraid for the unrefrigerated safety of all those sausages and pork chops, but it all worked out.

Wine group would be cancelled due to Nemo. Ethan, Debi, and I valiantly ate all the choucroute garnie.

Ethan went off to the Vanguard to play with Chris Potter; Alicia and I headed out to St. Patrick's High School with a key lime pie in my gym bag.

Three of my team's boxers were due to compete that evening in the 141 pound open class, but two drew byes. In retrospect I think this was lucky. Kareem Walters, who got matched, was the only one who was really in peak condition and hadn't struggled to make weight.

"What should I do in the corner?" I asked Quiro.

"The first round I go in and talk to him," he said, "The second round you are going in."

This was a surprise. Going inside the ring to give instructions is the head trainer's job. I had thought I would just be the peon with the spit bucket. It was very generous of Quiro to put me forward, but was it wise? Taleggio, herbed brie, and drunken goat cheese swirled in my stomach.

As my old trainer Mike used to say, "The anticipation of an ass-whooping is worse than the actual ass-whooping." The lead-up to a boxing match was always the worst part for me: stripping to my underwear in front of my future opponent in order to weigh in, eyeing her across the room while waiting for our bout, making the walk through the crowd to the ring.

The young men I coach are so much calmer and more confident than I ever was. Kareem looked loose and dangerous as he climbed the ring stairs. I followed with Quiro, glad I had opted for sensible shoes. The champagne buzz was now entirely gone, but it would have been in character for me to topple down the stairs. Just last week I tried to walk laterally across a moving treadmill and took a truly spectacular fall.

I thought Kareem's opponent looked small for the weight. He was fighting unattached and appeared to be there solo, without a trainer. I got a sort of sanguine-ish feeling.

Photo: Debi Cornwall. That's Kareem in blue.

The first round was a good one, although Kareem wasn't letting his hands go enough. Quiro was stern during the round break. I successfully held the spit bucket and once again avoided tripping on the stairs.

Photo: Debi Cornwall. Quiro breaks it down for me.

The second round was more of the same. Kareem dominated, although he was still too tentative for my taste. Quiro and I agreed that he could stop his opponent if he would just keep the pressure on. At the bell, I stepped between the ropes and knelt on the ring floor. 

Photo: the fabulous Debi Cornwall. I think my hair looks good in this picture. Note scab on right elbow from Epic Treadmill Fail.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked Kareem. "Get this guy out of there."

I miss fighting so much. I still hit the bags and stuff, but nothing compares to the mind state you enter during sparring or - better yet - a competitive match. But here it was again! That one-minute round break possessed the same simultaneously infinite and accelerated quality I remembered from my fighting days.

Kareem was damp with sweat but did not seem overly winded. I spoke to him with the gently nagging tone of an aggrieved aunt. Every trainer has her own style. Was this mine? Was it effective and highly motivating?

I'll never know. Out of the corner of my ear, I heard people yelling my name and saying something about stopping. I assumed they were exhorting me to tell Kareem to finish things. But the fight was already over. Kareem's opponent had resigned on his stool after the second round, and so my corner instructions were purely rhetorical. 

 

Photo: Kareem Walters. The winner with coaches Aureliano Sosa and Hilergio "Quiro" Bracero. 

I'm blessed to be part of the best team in New York. Atlas Cops and Kids has won the NYC Golden Gloves team trophy three years running, and this year looks to be no different. 

Aureliano Sosa, one of the main factors behind our competitive success, congratulated me on, as he put it, popping my cherry.

"But you should have hit him," he said. "He would have stopped that kid sooner." 

I'm not sure I have it in me to hit my boxers. It's probably a good thing I'm just the conditioning coach. I gratefully rejoined my birthday entourage, and we carved up the key lime pie.

Photo: Debi Cornwall. Pie: Julie Worden. Spatula: St. Patrick's High School.

It must be said, speaking objectively, that my birthday entourage consisted of the four best-looking people in the room. Alicia, speed skating champion and Pilates instructor, has long been my fitness role model. Debi is mid-sabbatical and looks like a bronzed surf goddess. And what can I say about Oona and husband that is not already captured on her magnificent blog?

Photo: Oonaballoona. The bodacious blogger in one of her own designs.

The best and most embarrassing part of the night was when the boxers and their families sang Happy Birthday to me during a round break in one of the later matches. The decibel level was impressive.

Photo: Debi Cornwall

Certain of my yuppie-oriented acquaintances have expressed distaste for the pugilistic arts. I always tell them that, by and large, the people I've met in boxing are kinder, wiser, and more peaceful than the people I've met as a yoga teacher.

Photo: Debi Cornwall

I think it's because, in the ring, primitive emotions are fully experienced and exorcised. In yoga, you might imagine you have mastered things (anger, fear, disappointment) that you've really only repressed. I call this condition "premature transcendence," and it's responsible for a lot of the passive aggressive behavior you see at juice bars and vegan restaurants. Boxers are never passive aggressive. They're too tired out from all that real aggression.

After the Gloves wrapped up, my birthday entourage headed out into the snowy evening. We located a nearby bar using advanced Internet techmology.

The joint was called The Wicked Monk, and initial signs were inauspicious. The interior was styled like a church, the music was set to ear-shattering volume, all the customers were tubby frat boys, and my hopes and dreams of getting an order of mozzarella sticks were shattered by the dire news that the kitchen had closed. 

Photo: Michael Racis. My bantamweight days.

If I was known for one thing as an amateur boxer, it was my refusal to quit, even when getting my ass handed to me. I dug deep over the next seven rounds, and The Wicked Monk soon became my favorite bar. DJ Andy, although impossibly young, was spinning all the hits of our high school years. The depression I had been feeling about the first wave of memoir rejections faded. I felt swaddled with love. I also felt a little woozy. 

(Was it really seven rounds? Debi claims it was, submitting as evidence the fact that she took two rounds off and still managed to taste all five flavors in the "Cocktail Bitters Traveler's Set" that was my birthday gift from Mr. and Mrs. Oona.)

In a spectacular, eleventh-hour act of menschy-ness, Mr. Oona now disappeared for fifteen minutes, reappearing with hot mozzarella sticks from the diner down the block. Sadly, it was too late for such cautionary measures. Although I am forever exhorting my fighters to stay hydrated and eat properly, I'd just consumed seven shots of Maker's Mark, neat, after a dinner of key lime pie. The damage was done.

The next day Mr. Oona submitted the following multiple choice question to the group:

A subway leaving Bay Ridge at 2:30 in the morning will reach midtown Manhattan at what time?

A) 3:10 am

B) 3:33 am

C) 3:45 am

D) 4:25 am, you dumb ass. Why didn't you get in a cab?

Alicia, Debi, and I took a car service to various points in Brooklyn. Our driver was actually named Lancelot, and he let me feel his hair. Lancelot rolled down the windows because he claimed that the alcohol fumes rising off our three bodies were enough to skew the results of his breathalizer test should he be stopped by the police. I'm pretty sure I could have talked down any patrolman who stopped us, though, seeing as how every item of clothing I wore read "Cops and Kids." Lancelot tried to get each of us, in turn, to either kiss or date him, but we demurred.

Back home, I was overjoyed to find that Ethan had taken in the Fresh Direct boxes and put the perishables in the frig, thus freeing me up to lie on the shag rug and watch the ceiling rotate. He'd been waiting up for me after his gig. He looked tired and a little bit worried about my shag rug technique.

"Can I do anything for you?" asked my adorable fellow Aquarian, who turns 40 on Monday.

I told him to go to sleep. There are some wounds that only time can heal.

The Rabindranath Tagore Taxicab

After a traumatic day of major reversals, I decided to spring for a car service so I could bring my (very heavy) harmonium to the yoga class I teach on the Upper East Side. This might have been my last class, because nobody ever shows up. I can't tell if I've lost my touch, yoga-wise, or if it's just a dry streak.  

There were four people in the class, one of whom had to leave early.

"I have a special treat for you!" I told them. "Chanting!"

"We hate chanting," they said.

So we didn't chant, and after this I felt very depressed and went out for a veggie burger and some red wine. I walked six blocks with the dark star of a harmonium, only to find that the veggie burger place had a 30-minute wait.

I was about to go home in a fog of gloom when I saw a red neon sign that read, "Turkish Cuisine."

Turkish places always have good vegetarian food. I sat at the bar, and that's when the night started looking up. My Georgian bartendress was poured into her sweaterdress and turned out to be a great fan of erotic literature. The imam bayaldi was superb, as was the homemade hot sauce, which I poured over the hummus and steamed vegetables. I sat next to the owner, Suleiman, who gave me free eggplant salad and plied me with a third glass of pinot noir. I staggered back into the evening, groaning beneath the weight of my harmonium.

"The world is an okay place, after all," I thought, hailing a cab.

The best was yet to come.

When I opened the door of the cab, magical music oozed out. It was like the music they play in the land of elves and unicorns. The cabbie turned it off immediately.

"What was that?" I asked. "Chanting?"

"It is Bengali music," he said.

"Oh," I said, deciding to free associate. "I love Rabindranath Tagore."

The great Nobel Laureate is the only thing I know about Bengali culture. I'm obssessed with his devotional poetry. My copy of Gitanjali, with its magnificent WB Yeats intro, is dogeared and stained with shrimp juice.

"That was a song of Rabindranath Tagore," said the driver. "Do you want me to turn it back on?"

So began the best cab ride I have ever had. I think my driver might be the East Coast authority on Rabindranath Tagore. On the ride back to Brooklyn, he played me a carefully curated selection of songs, interspersed with biographical notes. It was hard to make myself get out at Park Slope.

"One more," he said. "This is about the rainy season. I think it is from Gitanjali."

I wonder if it was #40: 

The rain has held back for days and days, my God, in my arid heart. The horizon is fiercely naked -- not the thinnest cover of a soft cloud, not the vaguest hint of a distant cool shower.

Send thy angry storm, dark with death, if it is thy wish, and with lashes of lightning startle the sky from end to end.

But call back, my lord, call back this pervading silent heat, still and keen and cruel, burning the heart with dire despair. 

Let the cloud of grace bend low from above like the tearful look of the mother on the day of the father's wrath. 

The Best Essay Nobody's Heard Of

We're done! It's been a long road, but Mom and I finally finished our co-written account of our lives and kidney transplant surgeries, tentatively titled Ask Me Why I Have Three Kidneys: A Mother-Daughter Memoir. When I get depressed about how hard it is to sell a book, I just remind myself that the best personal essay I've ever read had to be self-published.

Ethan just bought this for $180. It's signed by the author, who printed a run of a thousand copies. Thirty-two excruciating pages.

Like our memoir, A Guide For the Undehemorrhoided has an activist slant. Mom wants to spread the word about the damage lithium does to the kidneys; Willeford wanted to prevent other men from suffering as he had: 

I will make this statement at once and at least once: if a man is past thirty, it is not worth his while to have a hemorrhoidectomy. I say this flatly and categorically, because there are not, simply, enough good years remaining to any man past thirty to make the pain of this operation worth it. Moreover, any young man under thirty, especially young men who have relatively dim futures anyway, should realistically and judiciously examine his post-operative prospects before submitting his ass to the proctologist's knife.

You can read the first page here. To read the rest you will have to buy your own copy (There's one on Amazon now for only $49!) - or maybe, if you ask really nicely, we'll let you borrow ours. 

New Directions Rent Party

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who came out to support me and my mom. We had a fabulous turnout and raised about $3,000! Mom has a party report on her blog.

**

Sunday, December 30

8 p.m. Cocktails and Snacks

10 p.m. Musical Performances by Christopher O'Riley, Sam Newsome, and my husband Ethan

Suggested Donation: $20

ABOUT THE DONATION:  If you can afford more, please give more.  All donations are fully tax deductible and benefit New Directions Support Group, a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

BONUSES FOR BIG SPENDERS: I'm offering the same reward tiers as I did for my Kickstarter supporters: $100 gets you a private personal training or yoga/massage session. $500 gets you a catered dinner party (5-course tasting menu for up to 10 guests or buffet party for 30. You pay for ingredients, I shop, cook, and clean).

ABOUT THE CAUSE: When I was nine years old and my brother was seven, our single mother had a psychotic episode and was committed to a state mental hospital. This terrifying ordeal might have destroyed us, but my mother used it as an inspiration to heal herself and help others. She got her master's degree in group therapy and started a support group to help those in danger of falling through the cracks.

Twenty-six years later, New Directions is the largest support group in the Philadelphia area and has helped thousands of people suffering from bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, Asperger's, AIDS, and other illnesses. My mother is a loud voice in the media and with elected officials, working to combat stigma and make life better for those who suffer from mental illness.

Two years after I gave her my kidney (renal failure is a side effect of lithium), Mom is still going strong. Every dollar of your donation helps give her a living wage and supports the life-saving programming of New Directions.

For more information, or to make a Paypal gift online, see:

http://newdirectionssupport.org/

Debi Dinner, Day 3: Pink Grapefruit-Tequila Sorbet

Today I glazed the parfait and made the grapefruit sorbet base, which I'll put in the ice cream maker tomorrow. This is easy and delicious, another Nancy Silverton recipe. We used to serve this at Verbena.

PINK GRAPEFRUIT-TEQUILA SORBET

4 cups fresh-squeezed pink grapefruit juice

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup tequila

Stir very well until all the sugar is dissolved. Chill and then freeze in an ice cream maker.

It was fun to be back at the gym today after a week layoff! When I came in, Earl Newman and Nkosi Solomon were having an instructive sparring. Earl is a classy heavyweight, and Nkosi is just starting out but showing great promise as a superheavy. A few days ago, Earl posted this fight to Facebook. A brutal war between a boxer and a puncher, from 2003 when James "Lights Out" Toney was in his late prime.

Check out how Toney fights off the ropes in round 6! Vintage Detroit style. The Kazakh champ is a machine and keeps coming grimly forward, but Toney is just too slick."Lights Out" finally gets Jirov down in the final round but can't finish him and wins a lopsided decision. Great work in Toney's corner by the calm, mystical Freddie Roach.

Debi Dinner, Day 1: Brown Stock

This Friday I'll be cooking a dinner in honor of my dear friends Debi and Eric. I wanted a festive, rich winter menu. Here's the plan:

• blinis and caviar, frozen vodka
• chestnup soup with truffled mushroom wontons
• cold scallops and uni with avocado and grapefruit sorbet
• venison stew
• cheese and port
• mocha-hazelnut-orange parfait

It's a little heavy, but what the hell. We'll drink champagne with the soup and fish, then switch to a big red for the venison. Kate and Eric are my only friends with a proper wine cellar, so I look forward to their selection. I began yesterday with the stock and the pastry.

If you have great stock, you have a great meal. This is my recipe, which is cobbled together from various places including Lynn Rosetto Kaspar's magnificent book on Emilia-Romagna.

I'll use this for the chestnut soup and the venison stew. These quantities are really approximate: it's hard to go wrong as long as you use good meat, carmelize well and let it boil down a lot. Veal bones give the cleanest flavor, and the turkey wings add additional richness. I like to make a big batch and freeze what's left. You can also boil it way, way down to have a glaze for sauces. 

BROWN STOCK

6 lbs veal bones, cut up 
2 lbs turkey wings
two bags of carrots, chopped into big pieces
bag of celery, chopped into big pieces
two bags of onions, sliced thickly (leave skins on)
head of garlic, split

Brown everything well in large saucepan with a little canola or grapeseed oil. Use many batches to avoid crowding in the pan and get a good sear on both meat and veg. As you finish, put them in the stockpot. This should take at least half an hour.

Deglaze with water. Taste the deglazing liquid. If it's bitter or burnt tasting, discard. If not, pour over meat and veg. Add to stockpot: 

bunch of parsley<
few springs thyme
3 bay leaves
pinch black peppercorns
pinch whole coriander
3 cloves

Cover everything with enough water to cover the surface by half an inch. Bring to a boil. Lower to a very slow simmer and cook all day, like 12 hours. Cool. Strain (through a chinoise if possible), pressing on the solids lightly. Today I got about a gallon. 

The easiest way to degrease is to refrigerate overnight and scrape off the fat in the morning. Now it's ready to use in recipes or serve as is with some chopped herbs, lemon juice, and hot sauce. 

 

Holiday Windows at Printemps