The Rake Magazine

Author: Ann Bauer

  • Swallowing the Wormwood

    It is a firmly established fact about human beings that we want what we cannot have. Once stores run out of Furbees or fetal Cabbage Patch babies or giggling Elmos, suddenly every mother’s child must have one. When exorbitantly-priced iPhones hit the market already in limited supply, people line up at 2 a.m. I’ve heard this is even a paradigm used by sex therapists: by telling even a couple they are not allowed to have sex for a week, experts say they can get even the most disinterested spouse to churn with desire.

    And so it is with absinthe, the drink preferred by Ernest Hemingway, Vincent Van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which supposedly drove each of them crazy and was outlawed in the United States in 1912.

    It is supposedly the wormwood in Absinthe that makes it so deliciously dangerous. An herb that’s poisonous in even moderate amounts, pure wormwood contains trace amounts of thujone, a ketone with hallucinogenic properties — and it’s possible, I suppose, that absinthe provokes delusions in very rare cases. Though the same can be said of sugar, sleep deprivation, over-the-counter cold medicines, and love.

    Laws restricting the sale of absinthe have been loosening for years, since 1972 when the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act lifted the ban on the liquor itself and focused instead on concentrated thujone, which occurs naturally in sage, thyme, and rosemary. Once distillers realized that the absinthe they’d been drinking in Spain and Portugal (and believing had mystical properties) actually contained such a negligible amount of the hallucinogen it qualified for sale in the U.S., they were faced with a conundrum. The very thing that made this substance legal might lessen its appeal.

    In other words, without the naughty element of absinthe, what is it but a bright green syrup with a nearly lethal level of alcohol?

    I am a confirmed wine drinker AND I do not care for the taste of anise. Keep these two facts in mind. But my experience tasting absinthe for the first time left me truly puzzled as to what all the fuss is about.

    It smells herbal with a touch of sweetness, like bakery in the middle of a stand of fir trees. This I truly liked. . . .But the first sip was like dragon effluvium: livid, scorching, and green. It burns for a long time (a looonnnggg time) on the tongue and in the throat and later in the gut. The predominant taste is licorice and leaf and something vaguely scotch-like — if your scotch were subject to a nuclear flash.

    Most disturbing, for me at least, the flavor lingers for hours. Neither breath mints nor vigorous tooth (and tongue) brushing can expunge it. With an alcohol content of 62 percent — that’s 124 proof — it’s as if the imprint is soldered onto the inside of your mouth.

    I tried drinking it straight and as an absinthe drip, a process that reminded me of every heroin-cooking scene I’ve ever seen on TV. There is dramatic ceremony to this drink — no doubt one of the things that made it popular among the writers, artists, and actors of yore. Traditional preparation requires a slotted spoon and a sugar cube. You trickle ice water directly over the sugar, allowing it to melt into the liquor through the spoon’s vents. This creates a "louche," or pale white cloud, topped with a ring of iridescent chartreuse.

    It’s pretty. But the fact is, I liked the absinthe even less this way, preferring the pain and boldness of a flavor I found confounding to the watered-down and sugary slurry edged in green. The only way I could imagine liking this liquor, frankly, is in coffee with a heavy dollop of whipped cream — which would not only soften the flavor with mocha but might thankfully heat off some of the alcohol as well.

    Tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., Surdyk’s will begin selling Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, one of only two varieties currently available in the United States, for $70 a bottle. And Jim Surdyk, who has an exclusive on the introduction of absinthe to the Twin Cities, says he expects a line around the block by 7:45. "It’s interesting to people, the whole mystique of it," he said. I agree. I also think this is a rather dangerous drink, not only for the pocketbook but for public health. It is a fascination: a century-long withheld novelty that will make you very, very, very drunk very, very, very fast.

    And this, in addition to depression, schizophrenia, and syphilis (respectively), likely is what caused the madness of Hemingway, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

  • Top Ten Tastes of 2007

    Truth to tell, I’m not a big fan of these end-of-year Top Ten lists. They tend, I think, to be both subjective and showy: meaning listmakers record either what’s obscurely relevant to them or what will demonstrate their great intellect and breadth of knowledge, or both.

    Two years ago, for instance, every book reviewer in America was raving about the Zadie Smith novel On Beauty, which I bought (in hardcover) and tried to bull my way through but could not abide. Then I went back and looked over the articles I’d read; suddenly I realized they sounded remarkably similar to one another. Follow the leader, it seemed to me. Being a fan of the young, beautiful, biracial Smith was simply the style that year.

    Please take my list for what it is: a random recollection of my ten most memorable eating experiences of the year, touched by all the emotional, irrational, and regional variables that make one meal sing like a chorus of angels while another — equally well-prepared — falls flat.

    1. Pizza Lucé — The Ruby Rae, an upside-down pie with spinach, tomatoes, Italian sausage, and crushed hot peppers, covered in a thick red sauce and sprinkled with parmesan; our favorite takeout meal.
    2. The Sample Room — Roasted Vegetables on Wilted Spinach, a huge plate of greens, warm, hearty roasted vegetables (such as squash or beets), and a balsamic vinaigrette; great for a cold winter night.
    3. Kinhdo — Tofu with Spicy Peppers and Extra Cabbage, a stewlike vegetarian meal over white rice and hot, hot, hot (are you sensing a theme here?); best eaten at home on paper plates.
    4. Atlas Grill — Fire-Roasted Salmon over mixed greens, a simple, nearly untouched piece of fish flashed over fire and served with fresh leaves of arugula, maché, and the like.
    5. Restaurant Alma — Roasted Duck with Baby Brussels Sprouts, as simple and wholesome a meal as I had all year and so fresh, I could have been dining on the farm.
    6. W.A. Frost — Cauliflower and Goat Cheese Soup, a creamy, savory mixture as warm as the crackling fire in the dining room and topped with fresh tomato purée plus a dollop of nutty green pesto.
    7. Hell’s Kitchen — Huevos Rancheros, a crisp tortilla layered with hash browns, scrambled eggs, black beans, heaps of cheese, salsa and a big scoop of sour cream; breakfast enough to last you all day.
    8. Coffee News — Carrot Cake, five layers high and covered in cream cheese frosting; this is my occasional indulgence before teaching a night class at Macalester.
    9. Lake Avenue Cafe (Duluth) — Black Bean Burrito, a hot wrap stuffed with beans and feta cheese, served with homemade corn salsa; my standard after the motorcycle trip to the North Shore.
    10. Home — John’s Satay, a combination of peanut butter, serrano peppers, and lime juice; nothing tastes better to me on a night when I’m tired, hormonal, or coming down with a cold — I’ll even eat it on popcorn.

     

    And there you have it: a list reflecting my personal tastes (I think it’s pretty obvious, I’m partial to spicy food, black beans, and goat cheese) and highlighting a handful of really excellent restaurants, plus my husband’s best recipe.

    But as I said, "expert" Top Ten lists are by definition self-limiting and narrow. What’s important is not what I liked this year but what you did. So. . . what did you eat that you loved in 2007?

  • The Cure for Scrooginess: A Hot Martini at Oceanaire

    I’ve spent only one Christmas alone — and by "alone," I mean myself and three young kids.

    I was recently divorced. My parents were visiting my sister’s family in Philadelphia. And my ex-husband, a "recovering" Catholic and practicing alcoholic at the time, had slid into his annual holiday slump. This is how I found myself in a movie theater Christmas Eve, with my three all lined up and feeling — I’m sure — a lot less melancholy about the situation than I.

    In fact, they were very good sports. We went home and had frosted pumpkin bars around our kitchen table then separated and went to bed. The next day, we watched a video and stayed in our pajamas until well past noon. Everyone survived. And yet. . . .It was a little lonely. Even for the four of us clustered together in a tight little snow-covered house. Though we had movies and sugary treats to keep us occupied. Despite the fact that we’re Jewish, for God’s sake!

    It is a fact of this ceaselessly commercial and bedecked season that being alone — or even with others but not celebrating — feels odd and empty. Everything is too quiet. Houses are either unoccupied or bursting. All the stores that were jam-packed only 24 hours ago are closed. You can’t go to the gym or the library or the mall. Here in Minnesota, it’s often too cold even to take a walk.

    That’s why my family now throws a small party on December 25 for all the people we know who are far from home or sharing kids with an ex-spouse or non-Christians who would ignore the holiday and go to work only their offices are securely closed. (We never give gifts on this day: it’s an irrational but deeply-held principle of mine that the only way to buck the mercenary nature of Christmas is simply to opt out.) And in its more profit-conscious but equally merry way, I’m sure, Oceanaire is doing the same — holding a special dinner on Christmas Eve.

    They can’t announce their specials yet, because chef Rick Kimmes doesn’t decide what to feature until the daily fish shipment comes in. But the front of the house is promising a Bing Crosby’s White Christmas theme with vintage holiday songs and hot drinks including buttered rum, eggnog, peppermint patties, hot toddies, and a warm Café con Leche martini made of coffee liqueur, vodka, butterscotch schnapps, and heavy cream.

    Now granted, this won’t solve the problem of single mothers or orphans or elderly shut-ins, but if Charles Dickens taught us one thing with his timeless Ebenezer Scrooge it’s that all the money in the world doesn’t stop a man from contemplating his own mortaility in a cold bed alone on Christmas. I suggest our local Ebenezers drop off a donation at Sharing and Caring Hands or some other philanthropic organization before stopping in at Oceanaire for crooned carols, warm food, and a good stiff drink.

    And just in case you can’t make it on Christmas Eve, be assured, all these warm winter concoctions will be available at least throughout the holiday season, until the New Year.

    Oceanaire is taking reservations up to 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve, 612-333-2277.

  • Men: Great Hearts, Weak Noses

    I had dinner with Robert Bly last week. Now you may think the biggest perks of my job involve food and wine and freebies but it’s not true. The best thing is meeting people like Bly and being able to ask anything I want.

    And here’s what I wanted to know: What’s up with men?

    I was sitting in a booth at Cue, drinking a glass of M. Chapoutier Côtes du Rhône, which you may know by now is one of my favorite affordable wines. I also like that Chapoutier is one of only two winemakers in the world who puts a braille label on all of his bottles because, he says, wine selection shouldn’t be limited by people’s ability to see.

    Bly was sipping a Bombay Sapphire martini while eating roasted ringneck pheasant. And we were discussing Peer Gynt, the 1867 Norwegian play about a hapless, self-absorbed young man, which Bly had — just hours before — finished adapting so that it contains, for the first time in history, Ibsen’s original rhyme scheme in English.

    "This is a great play about a wild young man," Bly told me. "Gynt is loved by women but hardly knows his own father. And the play asks what happens to such a man?"

    This, of course, is a perennial theme of Bly’s as well. In addition to being an internationally-recognized poet and translator, he wrote Iron John: A Book About Men and helped found the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement, a 1990’s-era self-help method for men that involved storytelling, new age shamanism, forest gatherings and drums. Yes, it sounds like voodoo.

    But ask Bly about the rites, as I did that night, and his explanation is clear: "We were just pleased to be with other men who weren’t brutal or cruel," he told me. "The men who came weren’t angry with women, they loved women. If anything, they were angry at their fathers." The one thing his followers shared was a hunger to be recognized by older men. "The question they were asking," Bly said, "was, Am I worthwhile as a man? That’s all they needed to know."

    It happens, coincidentally, that I have for several months been reading books by men: those muscular, intelligent but addled, sex-fueled American types ranging from Saul Bellow to Richard Ford. Currently, I’m in the middle of Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs, a novel as uneven as a hastily-gathered deck of cards, but one that I nevertheless like.

    It’s about a man named Lucy. (You can imagine, I’m sure, why he needs assurance that he is worthwhile.) As a child, Lucy is accosted by a bunch of older boys and locked in a trunk down near the blood-red Cayoga River. Terrified, he passes out and awakens hours later to the sounds of a couple having sex on the ground at his side. (Why they didn’t wonder about a trunk on a riverbank, I cannot say. . . .this is one of the ragged elements of the book.) The woman hears him shifting and throws open the lid of the trunk — naked from the waist up, of course — thus freeing the boy who gets out, walks home along the river, and finds his father waiting for him on the bridge by their house.

    It cannot be coincidence that there is everything in this scene that Bly described: the brutality of boys and the joy at seeing a bare-chested woman and the desire only to be gathered up by his father and safely transported home. It is, I’m beginning to see, a ubiquitous and rather winsome theme in men’s literature and lives — this need to be comforted, to be carried, to be loved.

    I’m a big fan of men: wife to one and ex-wife (still good friend) to another, as well as the mother of two nearly-grown sons. I can speak to the softness that exists in all of them, the hunger, as Bly put it.

    So I found myself wondering one day about men and wine. There is a strange, swooning, wide-eyed fever that men bring to their drinking. The same one, it seems to me, they bring to most everything else, be it war or stamp collecting or golf. And maybe it is the reason that most of the world’s winemakers and tasters and raters and vendors even today are men, though women have been proven, scientifically, to have a far more acute sense of smell. Biologically speaking, Robert Parker should be a woman in her 30’s, not a 60-year-old guy with an outdated JD.

    As a woman wine writer, I can hardly claim prejudice. After all, you’re reading me. But I’ve been examining these men and their stories, thinking about what I can take from them — Bly and his moonlit drum beating, Russo and his childhood fear and fantasy, Chapoutier and his gallant but quixotic mission to make wine buying easier for the blind. Then there’s the man I met the other day.

    I was at Costco, where I’d gone to buy a case of the Chapoutier Cotes du Rhone for a party. Why would I battle the traffic and noise and hotdog stink of that hellhole? Because here the Chapoutier sells for $8.59 a bottle rather than $12. This fact — and a Xanax — were enough to get me through the horror of a Christmas shopping throng. Only then, there was no wine! Luckily, I found a man in a red apron who lifted another case off a high shelf.

    Selling wine was his hobby, the man told me. And he wasn’t just a fan of the wine I was buying, he was avid, recommending it to everyone he knew. As I was checking out, he came running over to hand me a sheaf of background materials. I mentioned that I was a writer, told him my name, and said I might post the information. . . .then felt ill and called it an early night. He called the Rake first thing the next morning and demanded to know where my new column was, leaving his number so we could alert him the moment it went up.

    I’m not complaining. In fact, I think if there’s something we women can learn from men, it’s to indulge in a little reckless enthusiasm and genuine need. Men in the woods, telling each other fairytales and beating drums. It kind of makes sense.

  • Hotcakes in Hell

    It is a fact that I have never made a decent pancake.

    My children could tell you this. For years, when they’d have friends sleep over and I’d offer—in the morning—to whip up my special whole wheat-and-yogurt pancakes, I’d get an urgent “No! That’s alright. We’re not hungry.” Then they’d sneak off to devour a box of cereal in the basement. Yet when I arrived at Hell’s Kitchen for my first day of work—because as a restaurant critic, I felt I should know what it’s like on the other side—I was put on griddle duty. I think Steve Meyer, lead cook and co-owner, believed I would do the least damage there.

    I was stationed between Meyer and his second-in-command, Pepé Yupa. A forty-five-year-old Ecuadorean national and former roofer, Yupa started at Hell’s Kitchen six years ago as a dishwasher and rose quickly to become a line cook. He speaks little English, but he reads the order tickets lined up in front of the heat lamps in a flash. All day, he and Meyer communicate in a hybrid Spanglish mixed with metaphor, a private language I had no hope of deciphering.

    Besides making pancakes and lemon-ricotta hotcakes, my tasks included finishing the huevos rancheros—a favorite at Hell’s Kitchen—with cheese, heat, salsa, and sour cream (in that order), and calling out orders to the kitchen crew as they came off the printer. This last job entailed scanning each ticket, compiling the various items in my head, and reciting them in a particular order, which, despite multiple reminders, I could never recall.

    I did pretty well at the second job: topping the huevos rancheros with a handful of shredded cheddar and sliding the plates under the coils of a huge Salamander oven. The problem was I would become distracted: New orders flowed in ceaselessly, guys kept edging behind me yelling, “Benedict WALKING!,” and a constant scroll of soap operas played on the television overhead. Once or twice, I noticed the rancheros I’d started beginning to smoke.

    When it came to pancakes, I’d toss a little melted butter on the griddle, then ladle on the batter. But I consistently poured either too much or too little, so my pancakes were thick and lumpy or weirdly long and thin. Finally, Yupa took over. “Like this, honey,” he said, scooping, dumping, flipping, and producing a perfect stack. “See?”

    And I nodded, though I didn’t see at all. My hands were sticky, which I hate; sweat was running in a steady stream down my back; and there was no pattern I could discern to this work: It would be screaming busy for twenty minutes, then preternaturally dead for ten. I always chose the wrong time to use the bathroom.

    At five-foot-three, I might have complained about working in a kitchen where everything is overhead. Except that Yupa is the same size, and he managed somehow—moving, stretching, reaching, lifting, and catching with a Kirby Puckett-style grace.

    Only very good friends with great humor and sky-high risk tolerance would let me attempt to cook in their restaurant. I became a food critic not because I’m a frustrated weekend chef but because left to my own devices, I would prepare nothing but plain yogurt with fruit, peanut butter sandwiches, and popcorn. But Meyer and majority partner Mitch Omer not only allowed me to stay that day, they asked me to return the next.

    “You come back?” Yupa said when I arrived. He looked stunned. It was Saturday, the day Hell’s Kitchen routinely serves five hundred people by noon.

    “I want to learn,” I said. “Pancakes mejor.” I’d spent the night before practicing several phrases in Spanish with my husband, who lived in Barcelona for years. But at 7:30 a.m., after a single cup of coffee, the only word I could recall was the one for “better.”

    By nine o’clock, it was clear my pancakes would not be mejor. And the orders were coming in so fast Yupa finally nudged me gently out of the way.

    I spent the rest of the shift melting cheese over huevos rancheros and stepping to the side when the real cooks needed to sail through unimpeded. Then I would watch, and this, I must admit, was the best part. Communicating in a language I was beginning to understand, they danced and wove amongst each other and tossed things through the air.

    When I left Hell’s Kitchen at two p.m., more tired than I’ve been since the last time I gave birth, Yupa asked, “You come back tomorrow?” I shook my head and he grinned, then stuck out his hand and said, “Bye, honey.” Despite his best effort, I still cannot make a decent pancake.

  • Aloof and Expensive, But I Like It

    Maybe it’s an Edina thing. You step inside the city limits and suddenly you rather like a restaurant server who eyes you suspiciously for several minutes, then approaches sniffily to ask what you want.

    You don’t mind paying 20 percent more for a loaf of bread with goat cheese and olive tapenade than you would, say, in Powderhorn Park. Or half again as much for a tiny appetizer-style hamburger as you would downtown. I don’t know what it is. . . .All I do know is, I’m typically a bear about service and price, yet I keep going back to Beaujo’s Wine Bar & Bistro because — and I don’t have any better explanation than this — I just like it there.

    In all fairness, a lot of it is quality. When you get that loaf of bread it comes with three really generous pots of the various spreads and a set of crackers, too, in case you’re feeling less carb-consumptive than usual. When you order the Wasabi Ginger Salmon Salad you pay a hefty $14.50, but the greens are absolutely fresh and the julienned snow peas are crisp and the dressing has the most pleasing bite.

    What’s more, there’s really not a bad table in the place (and I find this is very rare. . . .). There are a couple high four-tops in the front window that I particularly like. And all the others are against walls, so you’re never sitting stranded in the middle of a room with servers brushing by you and carrying trays overhead.

    Recently, Beaujo’s made a couple changes. They’ve freshened up their wine list, adding some really excellent ones, like the Chateau du Trignon Cotes de Rhone, a Saint Pierre Sancerre, and the Alamos Torrentes from Argentina. Every wine they serve is offered by the glass, the half glass, or the bottle (which I LOVE because often, when I’m driving, 1-1/2 glasses is just right but two is excessive). They’ve added flexible wine flights to the menu: basically three half-pours for a set price. And they’re now open on Sundays, starting at 3 p.m.

    Personally, I’m very happy about this last bit of news. Because there’s nothing I like more on a Sunday than a cheap matinee at the Edina Theater followed by a glass of wine. And no matter whom I’ve met at Beaujo’s, they’ve been happy there: whether dining on salads or sandwiches or biscotti and tea.

    The one thing, truthfully, that I still cannot figure out is the service. I have been ignored at this place for long stretches of time — never in a hostile way, but I get the feeling that the women who man the bar (an odd phrase, I know. . . .but in this case, it’s fitting) simply don’t care if I stay and take off my coat or get tired of waiting and slip away. No matter how many times I visit, no matter how familiar I become, they approach in the same way: warily, as if I’m taking up their valuable time. Sometimes it makes me angry.

    Then the wine arrives at a pitch-perfect temperature and the salad comes pretty and fresh and clean. And I forgive them. Again.

  • Are YOU Killing the Food Network?

    Look, I think I’ve been honest right from the get-go.

    I’ve never been a foodie. In fact, I’ve always been a little squeamish about diehard foodies. And I stumbled into food writing because I was an out-of-work English professor who needed a job, not because I stayed up nights dreaming of the perfect creme brulee.

    God knows, I haven’t hidden this. My 2006 essay on Salon.com, Food Slut, provoked quite a stir, including daggers from Hans Eisenbeis, then editor of this very publication, who called me dyspeptic and narcissistic, and said that writers such as I "try to reduce the cacophony of their little corner of the world into a trickle valve of distilled meaning, but they must be careful not to let it be curdled by the acid of falsehood-by-simplification." (I swear, he said exactly that. You can read the entire stream of metaphor here.) And while much of what Eisenbeis said may be true, I think if he were a real, serious reporter, he would have interviewed my ex-husband to find out exactly how dyspeptic I can be.

    But I digress. . . .

    My point is, I’ve been dissing TV chefs and ice sculpture openings for years. But don’t think I’m not aware — painfully aware — that I am, in a sense. . . .all food writers are. . . .riding on the coattails of Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray and all those other hyper-irritating people who’ve made cooking the modern equivalent of Olympic ice dancing.

    And NOW, I read in yesterday’s New York Times that the Food Network has cancelled Lagasse’s show and plans to restructure its programming because — ye Gods! — ratings have dropped (and dropped significantly) for the first time in four years.

    Well, here’s my question: What’s your problem? Why have you — epicures of the first order who use the word chef as a proper noun (as in "Chef is one of my best friends") — abandoned the Food Network? And does this spell the end for dyspeptic, narcissistic writers who are curdled by. . . .oh, whatever. Is America’s romance with chefs and restaurants and all things "foodie" actually coming to an end?

    There are signs, you know. My co-blogger, Jeremy Iggers, recently wrote a piece about Zagat, the popular everyman’s reviewing system which has been picking up a head of steam. But also, consider this:

    On Tuesday, I went into a Juut Salon at Southdale. But this was not just any Juut; it was the one occupying the former Louis XIII space. Now, Treize (as it was called in the business) was the most anticipated new restaurant of all time — according to many — the year I started writing about food. Its owner, David Fhima, was sexy and long-haired and he had a suave accent. Everyone wrote articles about him and talked about his genius and showed him in Spandex, jogging around Lake Calhoun, while his palatial, Spectacurama restaurant on the edge of Southdale was being built.

    When Louis XIII finally opened, after a series of delays, there were chandeliers and velvet drapes and an $1,800 bottle of Remy Martin cognac socked away in the wall. That was 2004, during food’s heyday. Now, can you name a single restaurant opening in Minneapolis or St. Paul that will get the same level of media coverage or bring the glitteratti out to mingle while holding mango duck lollipops on a stick?

    Also, in case you missed this part, Treize has since closed and they’re now doing bikini waxes in the place where the kitchen used to be. It’s my assessment that the wave has receded. Restaurants are fast going back to being establishments where we, uh, eat. Damn.

    Seriously, folks, if you’ve found things to do that are more important than watching the Food Network — say, reading a book or taking a walk or having really good sex — I can get behind that. Narcissistic as I may be, I’m hoping you have more to do than sit rapt while Rachael Ray smacks her lips. And if this means the end of my free ride restaurant reviewing career, then so be it. I’ll find something else to write about. Don’t worry about me.

  • Keeping the Faith

    I work out at the Y five or six times a week, so I see a lot of naked women.

    There are very elderly ones who stand crookedly in the shower,
    bones protruding, washing their thinning, silver hair. Others have
    bodies so wrinkled, the folds of skin fall like ripples from their
    shoulders to their thighs. One woman of about 60 has had a double
    mastectomy; she stands facing out under the hot air dryer on the wall,
    scars running diagonally, like a geometry problem across her flattened
    chest.

    These women neither frighten nor repel me. But there are many who do.

    They’re the middle-aged matrons who wriggle into stretched-out
    nylon thongs and strut around the locker room with sad, flaccid butt
    cheeks dribbling out. The ones who climb on the scale and stand for
    full minutes, inching the weights backward an eighth of a pound at a
    time, sweat breaking from their clenched foreheads. Those with hard,
    synthetic breasts and nipples that point ahead like ray guns: strange,
    white, manmade protrusions on bodies otherwise middle-aged, sun-worn
    and tan.

    “Never let me do that,” I’ll hiss at my daughter as we leave. “If I ever buy a thong, you have to shoot me. Promise.”

    She rolls her eyes: an entire revolution, the way only teenagers can. “Don’t worry,” she’ll say. “I will.”

    I understand the temptation, or at least, I’m beginning to. At
    41, my gray hairs now number at least a dozen and despite the fact that
    my weight is steady, my body somehow is becoming simultaneously bony
    and too soft. Running hurts my knees. Caffeine keeps me up at night.
    When I tell people I have a son who is going away to college next fall,
    they rarely shout, “You? Impossible. You’re far too young!”

    I’m hardly the first to be struck by this sudden sense of age.
    Yet, I have to admit, cliché though it may be, all these changes come
    as a rather jolting surprise. And I don’t want to turn out like those
    sad thong-wearing women with the synthetic boobs and sagging butt
    cheeks.

    So I went in search of wisdom and grace.

     

    Faith Sullivan, the novelist, is 74. She’s small and delicately
    rounded, like a sparrow in winter. Her hair is pewter and pure white,
    cut in an old-fashioned bob. She wears bright clothes and oversize
    glasses, like Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote
    (which remains, in syndication, Sullivan’s favorite TV show), and she
    calls everyone either “Darlin’” or “Dear Heart,” depending on the level
    of intimacy.

    Among the people I know, she is universally loved.

    “Faith has shown me how to be more than just a writer,” Kate
    DiCamillo, the Newbury award-winning author, told me. “I remember being
    in a bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Faith had been there
    before me. They had a letter from her on the bulletin board thanking
    them for the lovely time that she’d had reading. And I remember saying
    to myself, all the bookstores I visit, they deserve thank you notes,
    too.”

    I’ve seen it myself. Sullivan’s last published work, Gardenias,
    came out at exactly the same time as my first novel. I spent weeks
    compulsively checking my book’s Amazon ranking, driving myself and
    everyone who knew me crazy with tedious fretting about low sales, until
    a luncheon at which Sullivan told me she didn’t even have an Internet
    connection and wasn’t at all interested in anonymous reviews.

    “I gave a copy to the lady who does my dry cleaning,” Sullivan
    told me. “And she was just delighted. That’s what you have to do,
    darlin’. You wrote a wonderful story; now share it with people who will
    appreciate it.”

    This is how she became popular: through word of mouth,
    bookstore clerks who hand sold her first several novels, local reading
    groups that bought her book en masse and told all their friends in
    other states about Sullivan’s work.

    “I’ve known Faith for ten years,” says the writer Kit Naylor.
    “And she goes whenever a book club or a library asks her to speak. It
    doesn’t matter where they are or how many people attend. And she’s
    genuinely happy to do it.”

    That’s how Sullivan behaved when her first three books were
    published — a comedy, a mystery, and an experimental novel she
    describes as “like magical realism” — in the early 1980s. All three are
    out of print now, but her 1988 semi-autobiographical novel The Cape Ann continues selling today. And she’s written three more books, The Empress of One, What A Woman Must Do, and Gardenias picking up on storylines from Cape Ann.

    She’s been married to former Los Angeles Times theater
    critic Dan Sullivan for 43 years — since shortly after they met during
    a rehearsal at what was then the brand-new Dudley Riggs Theater — and
    has three children, ages 42, 40, and 37. They lived on the West Coast
    for 20 years before returning to Minnesota (“home,” she says) in 1990.

    Today, at work on a fifth about Hilly Stillman, a minor character from Cape Ann,
    Sullivan is writing more slowly than before. Since July, she’s had
    chronic headaches due to inflammation of the nerves at the base of her
    neck and has been on a regimen of steroids and heavy-duty painkillers.
    But when I call her to ask if she’ll have dinner with me, she accepts
    on the spot and tells me cheerfully she’ll simply “take an extra pill”
    before our meal.

  • Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 2005

    For a Jewish Gen X’er, I have a strangely regressive Protestant work ethic. For instance, I tend to feel guilty when I have fun while I’m on the job. And after last Thursday at Thomas Liquors — let me tell you — my conscience is simply awash.

    These guys are crazy, in a very good way. Led by Mike Thomas — the third-generation owner of what used to be St. Paul’s party central (they were, Mike says, the "keg pros" for nearby Macalester, St. Thomas, and St. Kate’s, until the drinking age was raised to 21) — this is a group that knows how to throw a wine tasting. Just to give you an idea: I think, at one point, around the seventh bottle, Dionysus wandered through.

    Thomas Liquors is a little hard to find. It’s on Grand Avenue, but only the solid brick exterior, painted with grapevines, shows streetside. We were in the back room around 4 p.m.: Mike, two wine vendors (Eddie and Corey), Dan — an employee — my good friend, Mary, and myself. There were shelves of liquor lining the walls, a round wooden table piled with bottles and books, and a space heater pumping out warm, red rays.

    The topic of the tasting was French 2005’s. Now, 2005 was an ideal year throughout Europe; all grape growing conditions were perfect: rain, sun, temperature, and ripening time. Compare this to — say — Italian films of the 1960s (when Sergio Leone was in his prime). Which is to say, even choosing at random, it’s hard to find a bad one. Wine or western, as the case may be. . . .

    In any case, the vintage was one thing. The company another. Thomas himself is a jovial former beer drinker who admits freely that some savvy vendor handed him a Wine Spectator 25 years ago and insisted THIS was the future of the liquor and spirits biz. Eddie is a recently married rep for Wine Adventures, and the proud purveyor of a Cotes du Rhone that’s now near and dear to my heart (I’ll get to this in a minute); his cell phone, which went off every couple minutes, played the theme from Batman — the one that signals the boys are sliding skulkily into the bat cave. Corey, from Cat & Fiddle Beverage, was hawking a Chablis of all things and talking about the Catholic funeral (his first, apparently) he’d just attended: "Two hours long. But I liked that. When you’re burying someone, you shouldn’t be in a fucking rush."

    It was a little like one of those afternoons in college when you know you should be studying but you amble down the hall to a friend’s dorm room instead. Pretty soon, there are six or eight people sitting around and there’s a guy playing a guitar, or Pink Floyd on the stereo, and you drink beer and order a pizza and someone reaches under a bed and pulls out a. . . .OK, never mind. We’re not here to talk about the indiscretions of my youth, we’re here to talk about wine.

    So anyway, we sat around the table and passed our glasses back and forth and tasted more wines than anyone should in a single sitting. But the fact was, the mood was right and it was toasty and I love the theme from Batman. Also, there were crackers.

    Of the ’05’s we sampled, here were my top picks (note: I’m not going to list the year for each — they’re all 2005 — and prices are for Thomas):

    Bourgogne Les Setilles — all Chardonnay but there’s no butter; instead, this is pure cream, smooth with just a hint of cardboard on the edges of the tongue; a nice body of apricots and peaches with a sexy, musky finish; 13% alcohol/$16.99

    Billaud-Simon Chablis — a very pleasant surprise for someone who associates the word "chablis" with the yellow liquid that was stored in my grandmother’s refrigerator in a box; a light, flinty white with citrus and tropical fruit; 12% alcohol/$26.99

    Louis Latour Pinot Noir — the loamy bouquet of a French field; midweight with plenty of cherry and oak but NO anise; an incredibly versatile, drinkable wine; 13% alcohol/$13.99

    Chateau Beauchene Grande Reserve Cotes du Rhone — I saved this for last because it was my favorite by far; an absolutely exquisite wine made from vines that once were part of the Chateauneuf-de-Pape region; fig, blackberry and a diamond-clean finish with a wonderful whiff of something like vintage violin strings or library dust; 13% alcohol/$16.99

    We tried a few others, too, truth be told. We laughed and talked about the movies we’d seen and where we went to college and had our first jobs. Corey gave Eddie marital advice, or the other way around. Nobody (thankfully) spat.

    When we left the back room and went out into the store so I could pick up a couple bottles of the Cotes du Rhone, Mike introduced me to all of his employees and many of the regular customers in the store. We’d spent hours and if I didn’t have hungry kids waiting at home I easily could have stayed on into the night. Thomas Liquors is a truly happy place. And more important, I suppose, they offer some excellent wines. Plus a really fine cracker. . . .

    So I took notes and wrote the story and let all of you in on the secret of where you can get a downright beautiful French ’05 for under $14. Can I stop feeling guilty now?

  • Cheap Date

    It is that time of year when we pause and give thanks for small blessings. And among these I count Uptown, where my husband and I (who are saving up to send a kid to college) have had a succession of brilliant but inexpensive Saturday night dates.

    In this era of Transformers on 16 screens, where else can you find FIVE quality first-run films playing in a space of three blocks? Parking is free if you’re willing to walk a quarter-mile or so. And after the movie, there are no less than a dozen dirt-cheap places serving hot, tasty (mostly Asian) food. In the past couple months alone, we’ve seen Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, and I’m Not There. We’ve eaten at the Lotus, Kinhdo, and Tum Rup Thai. Movie tickets are $8.25 apiece; and dinner usually costs less than $35, wine, tip and all.

    Last weekend, we went to Amazing Thailand for the first time. It was after No Country and there were many things to discuss: What was the significance of Tommy Lee Jones’ dreams? Was the dark mood of the film ironic or merely dystopian? Did the sinister-yet-clever airgun bit hold up over a period of two hours? Was the taciturn anti-hero evil, amoral, or simply a man with a solid work ethic, getting the job done?

    It turns out Amazing Thailand is a wonderful place to deconstruct: garishly neon on the exterior, it’s actually soft and dim and acoustically pleasant inside. We ordered stuffed chicken wings with broccoli in garlic sauce and pad thai with mock duck at their top spice level (5). Tucked snugly into a back corner, we held hands and ate off a single plate. The dishes were robust: not nearly so fiery as promised (we asked for extra chile sauce) but warm and good and full of flavors as obvious — and as comforting — as colorful baby blocks. And the total for our late meal? Twenty-six dollars, with enough food left over to feed a nearly college-age kid his hefty midnight snack.

    I lived in Providence for a year, where I had to drive to Seekonk, Massachusetts, and pay $10 a ticket (in 2002), in order to catch an independent film. Parking was impossible. The theater was surrounded by Applebee-like chains. I learned how hard life can be.

    So today, I give thanks for rugged, snow-covered Minnesota with its accessible culture and incredibly cheap pad thai.