The Rake Magazine

Author: Ann Bauer

  • Licking Toads

    I would watch Philip Seymour Hoffman fold his laundry. Magnolia, 25th Hour, Capote. Like a blond, overfed version of Sean Penn, he is so riveting onscreen — so true in every single role he plays — that the actors around him seem to fade.

    In The Savages, which I saw this afternoon at the Edina Cinema, Hoffman plays Jon, a 42-year-old eternal boy who teaches dramatic theory and whines to both his sister and his beautiful Polish girlfriend about his inability to commit. Yet Hoffman infuses the character with such rumpled confusion and genuine decency, you cannot help but love the child-man. And when he and his sister, an equally emotionally-stunted 39-year-old named Wendy (Get it? Jon and Wendy. . . .I kept waiting for a Peter), must stow their demented and dying father in a nursing home, Hoffman manages to play the part simultaneously with impatience, sadness, disgust and a profound sense of loss.

    See this film for the wry story, for Laura Linney and Philip Bosco, for a cameo bit by a young Nigerian-American actor named Gbenga Akinnagbe as a brusquely gentle geriatric nurse. But see it. And you may go home as I did, less concerned about the rampant dysfunction in your own family and hopeful that even incredibly fucked-up people can show a little humanity when brought right down to the wire.

    After the movie, while basking in the glow of shared neurosis, I opened a Languedoc from 2004, the Domaine de L’Hortus Grande Cuvée 2004, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre, and the last of the holiday bottles we had on hand. It gave off a musty, almost yogurty smell when first I removed the cork. I took a tentative sip and maybe it was the movie still running through my mind — Philip Seymour Hoffman’s meaty, sweaty charm — but when my husband asked whether I liked it I said I did, though it was rather amphibious, like licking a frog.

    This begs the question of whether I have actually licked a frog, I suppose. And the answer is no, I have not. But the first mouthful I got had the flavor of river water and mushrooms; it tasted the way murky ponds smell. After this, however, the Grande Cuvée lightened almost magically, with cherry and coriander on the tongue with a bit of burlap sack. I liked it a great deal, because I love a wine — as I love an actor — that will change and surprise me, being at once funky, mean, and sweet.

    Our 13-year-old happened through the room as we were discussing The Savages and debating the taste of wet frog. She informed us that there are people who lick toads, not for their flavor but because their skin excretes a substance that will produce a good high. Now, put aside for a moment that she knew about his practice while I did not (a precocious child, she), and be assured that tomorrow we’re going to have a long mother-daughter talk about what exactly a young lady should and should not lick.

    The important thing is that I’ve done some research — on behalf of my daughter and you — and determined that toad licking is not, after all, an effective means by which to get high. According to The Truth About Toad Licking (and who would not trust such a source?), the slimy stuff you ingest when licking the back of a toad actually is venom. In order to get a good dose of the hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT, it’s necessary to collect a quarter cup or so of toad juice (by agitating a toad — and I’m totally serious about this, look for yourself), heat the goop until it crystallizes, then smoke the grains.

    Now call me a pessimist, but I don’t think your average toad-licking addict has the follow through to complete all the steps in this process. I know I don’t. What’s more, I wouldn’t recommend it. There are so many startling joys in life even without the use of hallucinogens. For instance, I’m very happy drinking my frog-tasting wine and thinking about the way Philip Seymour Hoffman makes unshaven and schlumpy look so wordly and suave your whole world simply turns upside-down.

  • The Idiot's Guide to Ending Hunger

    I haven’t a clue how to fix most of our huge national scourges. Global warming, gang violence, reality TV. These issues are just too big and ghastly and amorphous. What’s one person to do?

    But hunger. Now there’s a solvable problem. People are hungry, you feed them. Even tiny efforts make a difference. And every single person who has enough to eat can help.

    It’s been an era of wretched news from the nation’s food banks. Need is way, way up; donations are way, way down. In some states, homeless shelters simply don’t have the raw materials it takes to feed all the cold, hungry, ill, and marginalized people streaming through their doors.

    Luckily, that’s not the situation here in Minnesota, where being homeless in winter is a genuinely lethal prospect, and eating a decent meal can be the difference between weathering the cold and freezing to death. The organizations that feed our most vulnerable brethren actually do have enough in the coffers and cupboards to get by.

    But according to Heidi Stennes, director of communications for Second Harvest Heartland Food Bank, an organization that distributes food to 950 agencies and programs serving the poor, demand is going up among low-income working people. And that’s a need the current system can’t quite meet.

    "Half of the people using Minnesota food shelves have a child at home; half have a job," says Stennes. "Why is this happening? The price of gas is up. The price of groceries is up. A lot of folks are losing their homes. People get to the end of the month and after paying the heat bill and the rent and child care bills, they’re going to food shelves just to try to make ends meet."

    And the situation is getting worse. . .as it does each January. Shoppers tend to be happy and generous throughout the holidays, tossing coins into bell ringers’ buckets and volunteering at soup kitchens Christmas week. But come the long icy stretch of early year and a lot of that goodwill dries up. Suddenly, no one’s showing up to wear a frilly apron and ladle out chicken salad. Everyone who can afford to be is worried about taxes. Food donations slow.

    But there is something you can do.

    Second Harvest accepts already-prepared food from restaurants and suppliers (currently Leeann Chin and Target Greatland delis are among their top donors) and donations of both money and food from individuals and corporations. Workers there sort and box items appropriately — putting ingredients together with boxed meals, for instance, so the meat and/or butter a family might need to make a noodle dish come at once. The organization even has a $400,000 two-year grant from the state exclusively to buy milk. That’s a lot of milk. . . .

    But what gets me is, any one of us can do some good by spending an extra $2.59 on a can of beef stew or a box of whole wheat pasta. Throw it into the bin at Lund’s or collect a few shoppings trips’ worth and take them to a drop-off location. That’s it. This genuinely is a case where a little bit goes a long way.

    And if I can put my own little plug in here: the poorest people in our community consume far too much salt, sugar, fat, and preservatives, because that’s what’s in the food available to them in their local stores and through nonprofit agencies. If you can pay the extra dollar to donate something that’s organic, whole grain, or (at least) contains no MSG, artificial dyes, additives, high-fructose corn syrup, or synthetic sweeteners, all the better.

    The items most needed by Minnesota’s food shelves include:

    • canned fish (tuna) and meat
    • hearty soups and stews
    • complete boxed dinners
    • pasta, rice, cereal, crackers
    • peanut and other nut butters

    • canned or dried fruit

    Now I have to admit, I’m feeling all mawkish and chipper and Tiny Tim-like here. But dammit, it’s true. Feeding people — when done right, with respect and a sense of equity — not only sustains their lives, it preserves their dignity. And if we have the time and resources to debate restaurants, chefs, and gourmet ingredients, I think it’s the least we can do.

  • A Killing Cold

    Typically, it is heat that frightens me. Perhaps this is because I grew up in Minnesota, but sweltering temperatures seem more sinister — thick and canopy-like and unavoidable — whereas cold has always struck me as surmountable. Until now.

    It was just last week, on what I assumed then would be the coldest night of the year, that my son suffered a relapse of a condition called Autistic Catatonia. We imagine catatonic patients as still and statue-like. Frozen, even when they are warm to the touch. What we do not consider — what I forgot — is that catatonia actually signals an exponential speeding up of the brain; it is what doctors call a "paradoxical condition," meaning the body’s stasis is masking a panic of mind. And it’s often preceded by a bout of mania in which the afflicted individual moves wildly in an effort to shake off the coming storm.

    It was in this incipient period that my son began wandering, desperately, after dark. It was 14 below zero the first night he stepped out the door and nothing we did or said could stop this giant young man.

    We spent 24 hours, my husband, my younger son, and I chasing, coaxing, begging, warming. We slept in shifts. When dusk fell the following evening and the temperature began to drop again, we knew we couldn’t last through another night. Finally, we called everyone we knew to call. They came, blowing through our front door with a killing cold. And they took my son away.

    Tonight, the thermometer will go even lower. But my son is safe. Or rather, he is as safe as a fragile, shuttered soul can be. But there are other people out wandering. I know this, because I’ve come close enough to touch the life they have. And no matter where they seek shelter — in bus shelters, abaondoned buildings or skyways — it’s unlikely they’ll every truly get warm.

    Even our house is failing to keep out the cold. Granted, it was built in the 1920’s, and the windows are like loose dentures, rattling with every windy sigh. Our wine rack sits in the south corner of our dining room, and when I removed what promised to be a very nice bottle of Domaine Olivier Bourgogne Pinot Noir tonight, it felt as if it had been thoroughly chilled.

    We opened it and toasted, my husband and I, in thanks that our son was not only inside but beginning, gradually, to emerge from his whirring state of mind.

    But the first taste was not what we had hoped. "Maybe it’s corked," my husband said. "It’s awfully sour."

    I swallowed a bit of wine, its cranberry flavor as sharp as a knife. "Let’s let it breathe," I said, "and warm. I think it will be fine."

    In fact, I, too, would have thought the wine was bad, but the finish was too nice. Corked and cooked wines always end badly: raggedly, with hints of sulfur, mold, or lye. This one did not.

    We left the bottle open for 20 minutes, then poured individual half-glasses and warmed them in our hands. When we tasted again, the Olivier was entirely different: full and sweet and delicate, with scents of lemon and eucalyptus, and the flavor of wild strawberry, oak, and mint.

    By the end of the bottle — and yes, in our relief, we did polish it off — this pinot noir had expanded kaleidoscopically. It was not at all the same as the chilled liquid we’d poured originally, two hours before. Never have I experienced such a profound change in a wine over the course of a couple degrees.

    Watching my son come out of his delirium had been a little like this on a much grander scale. The doctors gave him 2 milligrams of Ativan (such a tiny pill!) and suddenly, he calmed to the point where he could, once again, talk and focus and move.

    "What were you thinking?" I demanded as soon as he could listen to me. "When you went out in the cold. . . .do you remember? What the hell was going through your mind?"

    He tilted his head and really pondered the question. After a full minute, he spoke. "Eric Clapton’s Layla," he said soberly. "The second version — the acoustic one — not the first. That one. . . ." We’d been playing Cribbage and he glanced at his hand, as if to remind himself of the game. "I believe it might have been Eric Clapton with Derek and the Dominos. I like that version, too. But I don’t think it was in my head at all the night I got lost."

    Then he put down a card for the count. And that’s how I knew the cold had receded and my son was back.

  • Michael Dorris: Lessons in Anguish and Drink

    I’ve spent the day researching the life of Michael Dorris: reading him, reading about him. And the dark, frantic moral of his story seems to be simply that some lives are unlivable. This is not a comforting thought.

    He was an extraordinary writer. No matter what his myriad sins, this man had a way on the page that was gentle and lucid and lyrical. I’ve no doubt it inspired other people to be better than they were, even if he, the writer, was hiding a self so sinister he eventually killed himself (in 1997) rather than be revealed as the Hyde that he was: nocturnally — when he was out of the public eye — an unspeakably monstrous man.

    In addition to being an essayist, a novelist, and a scholar, Dorris was the author of a 1990 memoir called The Broken Cord, which is among the loveliest, most heartbreaking books I have ever read. More important, he more than anyone was responsible for publicizing the scourge of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) particularly in Native American populations, and for calling on legislators to enact laws that would make it illegal for a pregnant woman to cripple her unborn child by drinking.

    In his 1992 testimony to the Centers for Disease Control, Dorris said:

    Unlike so many good people — scientists and social workers and politicians — who have chosen out of the kindness of their hearts and the dictates of their social consciences to become knowledgeable about fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect, to work with their victims, to demand prevention, I was dragged to the subject blindfolded, kicking and screaming. I’m the worst kind of expert, a grudging, reluctant witness, an embittered amateur, and, above all else: a failure. A parent.

    I’m a living, breathing encyclopedia of what hasn’t worked in curing or reversing the damage to one child prenatally exposed to too much alcohol. Certain drugs termporarily curbed my son’s seizures and hyperactivity but almost certainly had dampening effects on his learning ability and personality development. Fifteen years of special education — isolation in a classroom, repetitive instruction, hands-on learning — maximized his potential but didn’ t give him a normal IQ. Psychological counseling — introspective techniques, group therapy — had no positive results, and may even have encouraged his ongoing confusion between what is real and what’s imagined.

    Brain surgery hasn’t worked.
    Anger hasn’t worked.
    Patience hasn’t worked.

    Love hasn’t worked.

    (from Paper Trail, Harper Collins, 1994)

    I read this and several other of Dorris’s essays last night, not out of literary or professional curiosity but because I was trying to figure out the motivations of the man.

    His words ring true to me, despite everything I know. Despite the allegations by Hennepin County investigators that Dorris abused (sexually and physically) four of his five living children before taking his own life in a New Hampshire hotel room. He was a man who had lost a child — his older son, Abel, whom he’d adopted at the age of three then tended and coached for 20 years — and appeared, for all his egregious sins to be entirely shattered. Grief-stricken, not just because his grown son was hit by a car and killed. But because his life, while he’d had it, had been such an unholy mess.

    Dorris reportedly bullied, hit, kicked, and screamed at his children. He probably — though we in the public will never now know — sexually violated his young girls. He tortured the son afflicted with FAS whom he believed (or said he believed) could pay attention if only he tried. Dorris’s conduct was, in the strictest sense of the word, unforgivable. But at the same time, he seemed genuinely bewildered and undone by his inability to help his child.

    Today, desperate to understand and learn from the mistakes of those who’ve gone before, I actually contacted Colin Covert, the terrific writer who covered the Michael Dorris story back in ’97 and went on to become the Star Tribune‘s film critic.

    An excerpt from Covert’s landmark investigative piece "The anguished life of Michael Dorris":


    Although Dorris’ writing about his family humbly noted many of his
    shortcomings as a parent, it never hinted at violence. But his son
    Abel, describing his life in an epilogue to "The Broken Cord," cited
    incidents in which Dorris pushed the retarded boy "face first into the
    wall." He said Dorris punished his younger brother by shutting him
    alone in his room to cry for hours.

    "What I want to know is, what was your gut feeling at the time, as you
    investigated?" I wrote to Covert. "Was Dorris guilty? Was he victimized? Was it a combination of the two?
    He seemed — in his writing — to have been wrecked by his own inability
    to cure his adopted children. Was this simply hubris turned ugly? Or was it a
    father’s grief so dark that it took him over and made him do terrible things?"

    I signed my name, then added a postscript. "I am the parent of a profoundly disabled child and I find that as he grows
    older — and becomes more intractably impaired — some of the people around him have begun to behave in odd and hurtful
    ways. That’s why I ask these unanswerable questions. . . ."

    Here’s what I did not say: One family member no longer speaks to me — or to my two younger children — because she faults me for my 19-year-old son’s worsening struggle with autism. And a caregiver my son once loved and counted on has become punishing, hostile, and sporadically cruel, probably because he cannot deal with the fact that his attention did not constitute a cure.

    Frustration, fear, and hopelessness seems to have driven these once caring people completely insane. And I am afraid of going over the edge with them. I read Dorris, in part, to remind me. To hold me back from being so jaded that I, too, am useless.

    Covert must have sensed some of this in my e-mail. He wrote back immediately, advising me to re-read the piece and draw my own conclusions. Then he added a postscript of his own. "I wish you all the strength in the universe. You’ll be in my thoughts and prayers tonight."

    It’s amazing to me how much that sentence — coming from a virtual stranger — matters. Tomorrow, there will be a meeting at which we will, hopefully, begin to determine my son’s future. And I will try once again to rally faith that despite all the uncertainty and cynicism surrounding him, he has one to face.

    It is ironic, I admit, but I opened a bottle I’d been saving — a 1996 Lyeth Meritage — to help me figure this out tonight. Bottled the year before Dorris died, this is a red table wine that’s aged and acquired a bite, like an old man with a wicked tongue. It’s sour upon first sip, cherry and apple cider and vinegar and, yes, piss. But the finish is smooth and knowing, as the Atlantic surf receding, a definitive end to a wine that’s lived long enough to know how to exit. I like it because it matches my mood, which is both determined and resigned.

    It is tempting, as a writer, to act as Dorris did: to use words in order to appear collected and enviable. He did this to his — and his family’s — detriment, I think. Said Mark Anthony Rollo, editor of an Indian newspaper called The Circle: "Michael started falling apart, I believe, when the chasm between his
    public persona — which was in a sense fictional — and his self in
    private life just couldn’t be reconciled."

    I decided tonight, after a couple glasses of the Meritage, that it is better to be open, flawed and unsure, rather than covert and vain. Even as a writer, even in print. It is wrong — and dangerous — to put forth a front of heroism while living an addled life.

    Perhaps that is the lesson of Michael Dorris. If, indeed, one exists.

  • A Bad Movie and a Fine Hungarian Wine

    Here’s how we end up at Gusto Cafe & Wine Bar in Hopkins:

    It’s Saturday evening and we have nothing to do because the party we thought we were attending actually is next week (someone — that would be me — put it on the wrong space in the calendar) and all the kids are occupied elsewhere and it’s too late to make dinner reservations. So we decide to hit a cheap movie.

    We intend to see American Gangster, which has Russell Crowe, so how bad can it be? But we get to the theater two minutes too late and walk in at the end of what looks like a pivotal opening scene involving bloodshed, then sit down next to three young boys who proceed to giggle and text message one another. After 20 minutes, I admit to my husband in a whisper that I have no idea what’s going on. So we get up and walk down the hall.

    If we wait 20 minutes the ticket taker tells us, we can see Dan in Real LIfe instead, which has Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, and Dianne Wiest, so how bad can it be? Well! Where to begin?

    Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. . . .

    This is a film that manages to be both tedious and irritating, with just enough cloying drama to keep you from thinking about something more compelling — say, tomorrow’s grocery list; or what you might want said at your own funeral — but nothing that will lift or transport or even amuse you into forgetting you’re sitting on a scratchy theater seat in Hopkins.

    It’s about two brothers (Carell is one; a comedian named Dane Cook the other) who fall for the same woman (Binoche) for reasons that remain murky. She’s got a sexy bottom — this is demonstrated in a looonnnngg aerobics workout scene — but no personality to speak of and she crashes into the film’s opening segment expressing some breathy angst that you assume will be central to the plot but it never becomes really clear.

    Yet we wait out the entire movie — and I know you’ve been here — thinking it will get better or maybe even worse but different in some way that’s interesting. Besides, it’s our second attempt of the evening and the adjoining seats are full of old people, so no one is text messaging. Plus, we paid only $2.50 apiece for our tickets, which is the great thing about going to the Hopkins Cinema, but still, that’s $5 and there’s nothing else going on and the party is next week and what are we going to do if we end up leaving anyway?

    So we grit our teeth through exactly one hour and 39 minutes and after the movie’s denouement, involving the obligatory fistfight between brothers and a touching scene with three vapid, wide-eyed children and a raucous wedding where everyone dances, we walk down the street because at this point, we’re both really craving alcohol.

    Also, we’ve been meaning to try Gusto.

    It turns out to be a warm, twinkly little storefront bistro on Mainstreet Hopkins, just down the block from the antique shop and directly across from the tattoo parlor. We walk in and take two stools at the 4-seat bar. They are, by the way, the cushiest, most comfortable barstools I’ve ever occupied — with thick padding and high backs — putting those theater seats to shame.

    The wine menu is pretty ordinary, for the most part: McManis Viognier and Avalon Cab. But it also offers both the blanc and rouge varieties of the M. Chapoutier Cotes-du-Rhone that I’m forever crowing about. And on the very tail of the white list is a wine I’ve never even heard of: Oremus Tokaji 2004, from Hungary.

    So we order it because, I mean, how bad can it be?

    And it isn’t! In fact, it’s surprisingly terrific: full and complex and smooth, like the whites of southern France, but limned with the flavor of something entirely foreign. The scent is intensely citrusy, a twist of lemon and lime, but the taste is orchard-like: pear, apple, a little kiwi and green pepper. Then it settles on the roof of the mouth — almost as if it gravitates upward — with a lingering finish of burnt sugar or caramel. The alcohol content is 13% and you can feel it, a nice low burn like vodka on mute.

    Turns out Hungary is now an emerging fine wine exporter, thanks to the fall of communism (which opened up winemaking as a commercial enterprise), a recent surge in tourism, and a boatload of French investors. Tokaj, a city in the northern part of the country, has been famous for its vineyards since around 1067. Think swords and shields and storming Huns.

    But back to Hopkins:

    Chuck Venables, a Parasole ex-pat (he worked in various roles, both chef and front-of-the-house, at Blue Point, Buca, and Manny’s) and former manager at the Graves 601 Hotel, opened Gusto in April 2006. He wanted something closer to his house, he says; also, he believes in the way the city is changing.

    "I wouldn’t have done this five years ago," Venables tells me. "Hopkins wasn’t ready. But today. . . ."

    Indeed. It appears Hopkins IS ready, because the place is full. Every table in the tiny dining room is occupied and a well-dressed couple has claimed the other two seats at the bar. The food going by on its way out of the kitchen looks wonderful, and the used plates going back in are uniformly scraped clean.

    There’s a happy mix of voices in the room and a faint scent of garlic, bacon, and cream hanging in the air. Prices are on the high end for this part of the metro: our three glasses of wine (one each and one to share) come to $39 without tip. But the place is so pleasant, with its suede-colored walls and black wrought-iron chandeliers, this is fairly easy to forgive.

    We sit for a while and consider dinner but decide ultimately that it’s been a long evening already, we’re just recovered from the aggressive mediocrity of the movie, have thoroughly enjoyed our wine and, frankly, don’t feel like pushing our luck.

    So we leave and walk through the still, quaint streets of downtown Hopkins to our car. Snow crunches beneath our feet. And across the street, the dim glow of the tattoo parlor lights our way through an iridescent low-hanging fog.

  • Eating Japanese, I Think We're Eating Japanese

    And if you’re not eating Japanese yet, what exactly are you waiting for?

    First, there was a minor surge in the opening of small sushi and bento box places over the past year. Then, last week, in roughly the time it took for 2007 to become 2008, we went from an urban core with shamefully slim Nipponese offerings to — poof! — practically overnight, Sushi Central on the upper side of Hennepin Ave.

    Now, I’ll admit, this particular stretch of Minneapolis has its problems. Block E is the kind of urban planning debacle a city never really gets over: a mismatched monstrosity with the exquisite Graves Hotel on one end, an Applebee’s on the other, and miles of corridors in between that reek of urine and peach-mango Jamba Juice.

    But the good news is that Randy Norman and several unnamed partners have arrived to spruce up the corner of Hennepin and Seventh with two new restaurants: r. Norman, a steakhouse, and Seven Sushi. These are the guys behind Bellanotte — or at least, a couple of them are. But there’s a veiled secrecy to the ownership of all their restaurants, as if you’re going to open a door in back and run across an underground railroad for battered women or a rousing game of Russian roulette. I think they like it that way; it’s part of their mystique.

    To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of Bellanotte. It has a too-cool-for-school kind of vibe that I find interesting for about three minutes. The regulars all seem to be dressed in P. Diddy’s cast-off clothes. The women. . . .well. . . .they wear so little — even in the dead of winter — it’s impossible to pinpoint an actual style. And the food, while fine, has never been the draw. (Quick: Can anyone name the chef at Bellanotte? Or any chef who’s ever been at Bellanotte?) This is more like a nightclub that happens to serve food — a place where you pay a price to join the in-crowd for a night.

    From what I can see, r. Norman, which opened January 2 on the north side of the Pantages Theater building, looks like more of the same: roaring fires, flaming cocktails, and slinky servers with mile-long legs. But I think Seven Sushi, which occupies the top floor, has a shot at bringing something worth bundling up in the middle of January, paying $10 to park, and climbing two flights to see.


    First — and it hurts me, an avowed shunner of ubiquitous Shea designs, to say this — Seven is simply gorgeous. Sleek chocolate suede banquettes with marble-topped speakers doubling as tables. The accents are rich: red, cream, gold. And the sushi bar itself shines with a steely glint. The wine and liquor offerings include 20 kinds of sake, champagnes up to a $500 Cristal, and specialty martinis. As for food, chef John Ames (formerly of Fuji-ya) is putting out everything from maki to nigiri to a sushi and sashimi platter for two ($50).

    Prices are high, but perhaps not as high as you might think. Baked mussels (6) go for $10, seared crab cakes can be had for $14, the baby squid tempura is $8, and a dish of edamame costs a mere 5 bucks. My bet is that Seven will see a huge return on its liquor business — which, by the way, dictates they must serve food all the way until closing. That means sushi every night until 2 a.m.

    Strangely, just a few days before the opening of Seven (and after several delays), the far more modest Japanese eatery Musashi — just one block down on Hennepin and 8th — turned on its neon-green OPEN sign.

    Musashi is a very different world: plain and cavernous, with servers in traditional black-with-red-piping double-breasted Asian coats. The atmosphere here is quaint, with wooden tables and flower vases and a stack of paper takout menus on the maitre d’s desk.

    There is a huge, drafty bar to the south — serving table wines such as Menage a Trois — and a street-facing dining area with a sushi bar that offers a slightly more scaled-down menu than Seven’s. But Musashi does have an amazing 29-item list of maki rolls and many a la carte options.

    This restuarant also has a separate hibachi room to the north, where people cluster around hot griddles and watch showmen chefs with Fu Manchus dice, sear, and serve up their food. The bento box and hibachi dinners use fairly pedestrian ingredients (chicken, steak, shrimp) but are served with an entire complement of sides, including soup, Japanese salad, vegetables, fried rice, and noodles.

    Incidentally, my husband delicately explained the lyrics of the song that inspired this blog this morning (Turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese. . . .), which gave me an entirely new perspective. So let me just point out that the sushi bars at both Seven Sushi and Musashi are very nice places to dine, um. . . .solo.

    For reservations: Seven Sushi, 612-238-7777
    For reservations or takeout: Musashi, 612-332-8772

     

  • January: Days of Emergen-C and Ice

    Let’s face it. The Days of Wine and Roses are past.

    This is January, month of frigid temperatures and atonement. And all I have to say is, if you overindulged in December. . . .well, join the club.

    I’m not a glutton by nature. I don’t typically stuff myself; I’ve been drunk maybe twice in my life. But there’s something about the relentless holiday season with its obligatory parties and family gatherings and professional to-do’s. You’re surrounded by food of a junky, sugary sort. Pretzels crusted with blocks of chocolate and whole grains of salt. Pastries oozing a cheesy strawberry cream. Chex Mix spiked with red and green M&M’s.

    And the wine. It just keeps coming, like a spigot you cannot turn off. Put down your empty glass and it’s full again. Just the other night, on the first of January, I finally hit a point of saturation with the whole hedonistic affair. I’d had a glass of something French, then an Italian table wine with the New Year’s meal. Afterward, someone poured me a glass of Syrah, I took one sip, and something in me rebelled.

    "Aren’t you going to finish?" our host asked.

    "No," I said — politely, I hope. "I’ve had enough." And I meant it.

    This is not to say I quit drinking wine. I was, in fact, back at it tonight. But only a glass, or two. Something dry and red and low in sugar, after an abstemious meal of grains, vegeatables, and seaweed.

    Beyond that, my cures for the bacchanalia of the season include:

    Emergen-C: I know it’s a hackneyed starlet’s trick, but I love these packets of water-soluble vitamins and, placebo effect or not, I swear they make me feel better; I take two doses of Emergen-C Lite in ice water each day.

    Lemon juice: It’s astringent, cleansing, and somehow — despite all the citric acid — can settle your stomach on even the worst of days; I squeeze a full lemon’s worth into hot water and start the morning with this brew. Evenings, if needed, I drink it cold.

    Green tea: Think of it as a dietary tonic. Green tea is antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and — supposedly — boosts both the immune system and the metabolism; experts recommend 4-5 cups a day, with organic honey (but never milk, which inhibits tea’s healthful properties).

    And if you get truly desperate, you can revert to "colonics:" a method for detoxifying that’s preferred by super models and Swedes. This is, of course, actually just a fancy, upscale name for something that’s done with a bag and a hose and warm, soapy water (or coffee, if you’re into that pleasant mocha scent). But I wouldn’t advise anyone to undertake this "cure" unless under a doctor’s — or massage therapist’s — care.

    Given a couple days of clean living, I think you’ll find extreme measures involving reverse-ingested caffeine just aren’t necessary. And slowly, you’ll be able to return to the wine. In fact, you’re going to need a little nip from time to time. Because the days are getting longer — or so I hear — but it’s still the same steel gray sky each day. The realities of a new year have set in. Work has resumed. And it’s just too damn cold outside.

  • Looking Back on 2007

    Say you were offered the option to go forward or backward in a time machine. Which would you choose?

    If science fiction is any indication, most people would leap ahead to find out what the world will be like at some future time. Me? I’d go back: to the Last Supper, to Ludwig Beethoven’s Vienna, to the birth of my firstborn. I’m fascinated by what has happened and by the changes wrought. Whereas others blow horns and throw confetti, kissing strangers and drinking too much to welcome the new year, I tend quietly to look to the past.

    This is why I love those recap shows — even the really sappy montages set to music — that show the events of the previous year. It never fails to awe me how much transpires in so short a time and how long the events echo.

    In 2007, for instance, we as a world suffered the loss of Kurt Vonnegut, Ingmar Bergman, and Luciano Pavarotti. There were other deaths, of course, which for whatever reason don’t rank as high on my personal list. I’ll admit I’m irrational. That Norman Mailer finally shuffled off this mortal coil, leaving some 17 wives and 98 children, seems fitting somehow; but the silencing of Vonnegut’s wit and preternatural understanding struck me as abrupt and left me cold.

    There were the iPhone and the Kindle; the collapse of the 35W bridge; the massacre at Virginia Tech; and the real estate crisis that precipitated a slow-moving but monstrous economic slump. As a result, people are reading The Da Vinci Code on handheld screens. Commuters of sound mind are taking long detours to avoid crossing rivers. College professors who teach writing are on alert (I know, because I am one) to pick out troubled students. Once secure and successful homeowners who thought they’d made a failsafe investment are going broke. And all this took place in the space of a year.

    In my smaller corner of the world, 2007 was the year I celebrated my one-year wedding anniversary to a man I never expected to meet — and whom I did not yet know on New Year’s Eve 2005. I was 39, the longtime single mother of three teenagers, and happily resigned to a life of independence (though far less happily to a life of celibacy) when we brushed against one another for the first time in the Heartland Wine Bar. That we are now a family simply amazes me.

    I also watched the resurrection of my older son — the one whose birth haunts me because of its profound normalcy — from a trancelike condition called autistic catatonia. In 2007, I allowed the doctors at Mayo to hook my child up to machines and jolt him with electricity in hopes it would bring him back to life. And in the sort of weird coincidence that appears in books like The Sirens of Titan, I took comfort from the fact that Vonnegut once made the same decision regarding his son, Mark.

    I spent an afternoon with Leonid Hurwicz, the 90-year-old winner of the Nobel prize who fled the Nazis as a young man and came to Minnesota where he developed economic theories touched with the humanity of one who knows both honor and sin. I met Max Fink, one of psychiatry’s most well-known and controversial figures. I finished my second novel. I joined the staff at the Rake.

    Truth? I also culled a lot of people out of my life this year. It happened around the time of my son’s illness as the community I knew divided neatly into those who remained admirably steadfast and those who became distant, accusing, or mean. It saddens me to say that several friends and my own younger sister were among the latter. And while I try not to live with the grudge in my throat, I find it’s a relief to know where in the world you stand.

    All this happened, and yet it feels like no time at all has passed since the night of December 31, 2006. I was in a hotel room in Madison, WI, drinking a glass of something red and watching my then-brand-new husband sleep as the bells and whistles and gongs of some faraway New Year party announced midnight’s turn.

    I began contemplating all this last night, while sipping on a strange wine called The Other. I will rarely admit this, but I bought the bottle mostly because the label rather appealed to me. It’s simple and incredibly off-topic but the line drawing somehow speaks to what it is to be a woman in flux. It’s inexpensive: about $12 in most stores. A blend that, confusingly, changes each season depending upon both crops and the winemaker’s whim, this Peirano Estate Heritage Collection variety doesn’t list a year. But the one I tried was 60 percent Cabernet, 30 percent Merlot, and 10 percent Syrah. Heavy, fruity, and almost leathery, today’s Other belies the naked yoga pose on the label. Like hearing the voice of Queen Latifah come out of the mouth of Heidi Klum. This is a thick, thoughtful, serviceable wine. It exists in no time, apparently, and contains an oddly specific 13.8 percent alcohol.

    It’s a wine with a wallop, a rough finish that lasts for full minutes, and a dissonant drawing on the front. But after such a year, I’m thinking Kurt definitely would approve.

  • Zimmern's Complaint

    Here’s what happened. Mitch Omer — one of my dearest friends in this world — showed up at my house on Thanksgiving with a red-lined version of Andrew Zimmern’s December column, livid about some of the things it contained. Mitch railed. I defended Andrew on many points. We got into a bit of a tiff, which we worked out in about 30 seconds over a nice Cabernet. Then we moved on.

    Before leaving my house, Mitch asked if my editors at The Rake might be interested in publishing his thoughts. I said they might, he should send. So he did and they did and Mitch’s funny, blasphemous and hugely popular Ode to a Sycophant was published early on the morning of December 27.

    Later that same day — around noon, according to the time stamp — Andrew’s Chow & Again appeared responding not to Mitch but to me, referencing a desultory, down-home Top Ten list I’d posted in large part to make a point about these lists being rather ridiculous: subjective, random, and, in most cases, designed to show off what the reviewer knows or where he’s been.

    Zimmern wrote:

    Bauer is a very good writer, more of a craftsperson than I will ever
    be—I am more of a hack. But reading [Breaking Bread] throughout the last
    month and finally seeing Bauer’s piece touring us through the
    highlights of her year of eating was the biggest buzz kill of my day.
    Sample Room? Kinhdo? Coffee News Cafe? Pizza Luce? Atlas Grill? Anne,
    you need to get out and eat more!

    Now, put aside the fact that he misspelled my name repeatedly [note: most, but not all, of these errors have since been corrected, no doubt by MSP’s fact checkers] as well as the confusion about why Andrew happened to be on our site reading and what he actually was upset about. . . .

    There are a few things I’d like to clarify. (Though in truth, I feel as if I’ve been clarifying them for years, and it’s getting pretty damn old.) First off, I AM NOT A FOODIE. I am a food writer who also writes about literature, film, art, culture, history, religion, health, and politics. I often tie these things in, because I believe that food while central to existence should not be central to life. (It’s a fine distinction, I know, but one which I hold strongly.) My 2005 Salon essay "Food Slut" described my position as a food writer — and, by the way, resulted in a truly delightful turn on Zimmern’s now-defunct radio show, Chowhounds — and I posted a blog just a couple weeks ago restating it.

    Second, in order to get a rise out of Andrew Zimmern — let’s face it — I’d have to eat great-spotted lizard eggs or suck down the testicles of an endangered wildebeest. This is a man who travels the world and masticates things I believe should be left to evolve in the wild. . . .or, rarely and only for the sake of study, housed happily inside the glass walls of a terrarium. Not my bag, and how it informs an audience of viewers in Indianapolis or Billings about what to eat, I just cannot parse.

    This brings up another point: I will never knowingly eat food that involved the torture of animals — or the exploitation of people — in its production. This means no foie gras (which I absolutely love) unless someone can assure me the fowl that donated their livers never had their feet nailed to the floor and grain poured through a tube down their throats. Not even in pursuit of the perfect meal. Never.

    Finally, Zimmern suggests The Rake should send me out with more money to dine and runs a list of his own, which includes:

    Patricia Quintana week at Masa

    Heartland on principle and because I love the ‘everything from scratch’ vibe.

    Foie terrine at Cosmos

    Sautéed fish with pickled vegetables at The Teahouse

    Quail with pineapple at 20.21 . . . and brunch as well—the smoked salmon alone is worth it.

    Almost anything at Peninsula

    Morton’s for a salad, a steak, and some creamed spinach

    Oysters at Oceanaire

    Striped bass at Alma

    Everything I ever ate at La Belle Vie, and each time I go there, it gets better and better.

    Mussels and a wedge of pate at the bar at Vincent

    Homestyle tofu at Little Szechuan

    Lunch at Que Nha—you can’t go wrong.

    Passion fruit and chocolate dessert insanity at Chambers, and its truffle pizza and the ridiculously good galangal dipping sauce

    Punch Pizza

    What I find puzzling is this: Why is his pick of Punch Pizza somehow superior to my predilection for Pizza Lucé? And how is that tofu at Little Szechuan hits a higher mark of sophistication than tofu at Kinhdo?

    As it happens, I did go to Vincent this past year and I was
    disappointed (heartbreakingly so, for the first time ever, in both the food and the service) which is why the restaurant didn’t make my list. I love the food at 20.21, always have, but am so fatigued by the noise level it downgrades the dining experience for me. I’m long on record as loving Oceanaire, but as a former East Coaster I prefer to eat my fresh shellfish, er, fresh and by the sea. I went to the Chambers this year and, to be blunt, the décor there gives me the willies, making it tough for me to enjoy my food. And I have been perplexed by Masa — the brightness, the weird layout, the ersatz Chihuly light fixtures, and the high-priced pedestrian fare — since the day it landed on the Nicollet Mall.

    As for Heartland, I adore the restaurant, the wine bar, and the owner, Lenny Russo — with whom I am under contract to write a cookbook about his "everything from scratch" philosophy. I am there often and have written about Russo’s cuisine as recently as December 5.

    I am, moreover, a synesthete, which means my senses intertwine. I see sounds in color, I taste emotions and can identify the flavors of wind, thunder, sun, and rain. Along with this heightened sensitivity goes a tendency to evaluate factors other food crtics might not. If there is a scent coming from the kitchen that does not cohere with my meal, I will be unable to separate the experiences. One wine I tasted recently brought to mind the memory of kissing a baby’s sweet, sweaty neck. A dish like the vegetable salad at the Sample Room, which was on my original list, delights me because it is simple and triangulated: cool greens, warm winter gourds, oily dressing. To me, it evokes hay fields and full October moons, lacy, gray clouds scudding across the darkening sky.

    In other words, a good, hot black bean burrito with goat cheese and homemade corn salsa in a clean, bright lake-facing room after a long motorcycle ride is going to make me happier than all the pomp and whipped beef foam and jangling table service in the world.

    As for Zimmern’s charge that he goes out more and has a bigger expense account: True and true. (So, so true. . . .) My bet is that he dines out 8 to 15 times a week (and is known by the proprietors in 90 percent of these cases), while I go maybe four times and am treated the same way, uh, YOU might be. If there is any limit on Zimmern’s budget — which I doubt — it’s probably still ten times the one I share with Jeremy Iggers to do this blog. One reason for that is that The Rake has less money to throw around because they let us say absolutely anything we think, without regard to how it will affect advertisers, which is what I call journalism.

    But we’re not here to debate the flimsy firewalls at Minnesota’s lifestyle magazines.

    Here’s the truth. I enjoy Andrew Zimmern — a lot. I think he’s funny and smart and raucous and, for that matter, just darn cute. What other middle-aged man do you know who can get away with wearing a suit and red Converse shoes? But it’s never occurred to me that we were competing for audience share. His show is grand and opulent. He travels the world on someone’s full-service jet. He has been shown in the pages of his own magazine sitting in his huge, perfectly-decorated, and photogenic home.

    I, on the other hand, am a woman more like you. A little younger than he and definitely less monied. I live in a little St. Louis Park house that no one is going to feature in a magazine, but I love it because there usually are six or seven teenagers draped over the living room couch. I have a talent for writing and for tasting and if I don’t quite have Zimmern’s globe-trotting flair, I think of myself as serving a different constituency altogether: people like myself and my husband, hardworking professionals and parents for whom a night out at Restaurant Alma (the one place where my list and Zimmern’s overlapped) is a profound and rare treat.

    The way I think of it is this: When Andrew’s followers go out to eat, they talk about the food. But mine? I’m hoping that you, like I, enjoy the meal but discuss more important things. Whether there is a God. What your 16-year-old’s curfew should be. Philip Roth’s latest Zuckerman novel and whether he is the last great Jewish male writer extant.

    Here’s one more thing you should know: I’m not, depite the way I may posture, a cynic. And neither is my colleague, Jeremy Iggers, which is one of the many things I love about working with him. Both of us bring a strong ethical approach to food, and a reverence, if you will, for the fact that we’re surrounded by riches. Restaurants needn’t be brand-new or lushly carpeted or habituated by the so-called "beautiful people" and visiting starlets to impress the two of us.

    We’re big fans of the long-standing Minnesota restaurateurs who’ve been in operation for years, chefs who care about the provenance of the food they prepare, and establishments — both haute cuisine and casual — where diners receive exactly the same high level of service no matter what their color, dress, or station in life.

    Which reminds me: I forgot to add Milda’s Cafe on Glenwood Avenue to my original top ten list. It’s not going to appear on anyone else’s, I guarantee you. But I had one of the most pleasant and inspiring lunches of my life in this little box of a place. I watched people walk in and be greeted by name: black, white, elderly singles, and families with small children. It was as happy and warm and welcoming as anywhere I’ve been. And more to the point of this blog, I had an entire plate of American Fries — diced, golden, grilled potatoes mixed with crisp shards of green pepper and perfect little curls of fried onion — for about three bucks.

    It may not be Morton’s, Andrew. But the company at Milda’s was wonderful. The conversation was uplifting. And the food? Amazing.

  • Can You Eat Your Way to Better Sex?

    So. I was at the Jewish Community Center on Christmas Day — along with what appeared to be every other fitness-minded non-Christian in the western metro — on the elliptical trainer, reading Self magazine, when I ran across an article entitled The Great Sex Diet. And out of a deep sense of professional responsibility, I read.

    This was no small task. It was a very lengthy treatise that included not only food advice, but a list of "myths" about aphrodisiacs, the testimony of a sex expert, and (oddly, I thought) the intensely personal thoughts of the author — an online novelist (?) named Valerie Frankel — who had tried all the recommended techniques with her husband, as well as a blow-by-blow account of exactly how each one worked out.

    Unlike most magazine articles, however, this one failed to provide any useful, scannable information in the form of a handy-dandy bullet-pointed list. Rather, the advice was buried in and amongst details none of us needs to know. So in order to save you the pain and embarrassment of reading the entire article for yourself, I’m going to do here what I think the editor at Self should have done for her readership.

    If you want to have better sex, try eating:

    Almonds and Walnuts — they’re high in arginine, an amino acid the body uses to make nitric oxide, which in turn opens blood vessels and allows them to expand

    Salmon, Cod and Halibut — also contain arginine, plus omega-3 fatty acids, which may increase both libido and orgasmic intensity

    Spinach, Broccoli, Beets, Berries, and Grapes — because they’re high in antioxidants which clean up free radicals and improve general cell health

    Dark Chocolate — also a great source of antioxidants, plus endorphin-raising compounds that enhance circulation

    In other words, the very same foods (jeepers!) you should eat to ensure peak cardiovascular function, prevent premature aging, maintain a healthy weight, and build strong hair, bones, fingernails, and teeth. Hmmm. . . .Could it be that healthy living actually leads to better sex? Wow!!! Who in the world could have predicted that?

    Apparently not Frankel, who went on (the diet portion was only the first third of the article) to talk about all the fancy supplements she took to increase her level of free testosterone, her always "reliable" clitoris and inadequate G-spot, as well as her use of a device called a GyneFlex that sounded kind of like a Thighmaster for the vagina.

    Believe me, you’re better off not reading the entire article, in which Frankel talked glibly about giving up cigarettes temporarily in order to improve her circulation so she could orgasm more easily (never mind breathe. . . .) And then she went way, way too far, suggesting that those in search of good sex should give up coffee and alcohol, too. As if being perpetually cranky, tired, and stone cold sober ever did anything for anyone’s love life.

    Anyhow, culling the two or three paragraphs of useful information from this mess of personal memoir and genital workout routine, I think the message can be distilled down to this:

    On your next date night, go out (or stay in), relax, have a glass of red wine; a spinach salad with walnuts and a nice balsamic vinaigrette; a piece of grilled fish; and for dessert, a few squares of 70-80 percent cacao dark chocolate. Then feel free to finish it all off with a good, strong cup of espresso.

    This is me talking now and I say go for it, caffeine be damned. Because God willing, you’re going to be up until dawn.