Everyone who sees me joke that I am never without my camera, it is true, I have learned to always bring my camera along, no matter where I go, even when it is cold, rainy, foggy and there could not possibly be a photograph worth taking, worth carting the camera around. I always bring the camera, it is one of life’s elemental truths.
I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with squid, a/k/a calamari, in the family of slimy and strange foods I have avoided, except for the occasional fried calamari, the fast food version of eating squid. All the more reason, I decided this week, to order some and cook it for Sunday dinner.
I believe there are several ways to die. There is the death of the body of course, but I meet a lot of dead people who are still walking around, they are all closed up, filled with do’s and don’ts, on the left, on the right, clucking about young people today, how the world is going to Hell, they don’t see this kind of movie, they don’t read that kind of book. I call that the first death, the closing of the mind. I resolve to keep alive until my body goes, and then accept my death.
What has this to do with the humble squid? I got an e-mail from our local food co-op, the Cambridge Co-Op last week advising me that squid was available this week, shipped in fresh from Boston. Normally, I think of squid as cold and clammy appetizing. Another change to move forward, open up a bit, learn something, make a good meal for my former girlfriend, who I happen to know is fond of squid but doesn’t ever eat any because she thinks I don’t like it.
I ordered a pound, I started going online looking at recipes, I started asking the good people at the Co-Op for ideas, it is the best place in the world to get recipes and ideas for cooking, I pester them all of the time, they are generous and kind to me. But I was nervous, this was outside of my experience, I was also a little queasy about eating squid in non-fried form. I asked them to freeze it, we were going to New York and I went to the co-op this afternoon, my heart sank a bit, it smelled very fishy and looked very white and shiny. Fried calamari is delicious, but to me, a bit like eating fried chicken, not where I really want to go. I wanted a good-tasting meal, I wanted a healthy meal.
She even went for seconds. I decided to saute the calamari rather than broil or fry it. Middle-ground.
My recipe: I prepared an egg batter – three eggs a bit of almond milk, some seasoning. I made a pan of wheat flour mixed with cornmeal. I chopped up three cloves of garlic (Maria did that). We sliced the calamari into thin strips (they are hollow, they cook up to be rings). I dipped each of the strips into the egg batter, then rolled each one in the flour/cornmeal mix. I took out the Wok and poured peanut oil (which cooks hot) into the Wok and threw the chopped garlic into the bottom of the pan.
I let it get hot and sizzle then put the calamari strips into the Wok, they sizzled and I stirred them continuously for about 2-3 minutes. Then I scooped those out and put in the second batch, I used several seasonings I like, sea salt and some other stuff.
So the meal turned out beautifully, the squid was delicious, Maria and I loved it and I got big points from the wife for my adventurousness and culinary skills. Making Maria happy is a goal of mine, I like doing it.The result was pretty great, the calamari was a bit crisp but not fried or heavy, the taste was sweet, the calamari was soft but not at all slimy and the coating gave it body and flavor. Sauteing was a good idea. This is a simple meal, and the point of all this is not that I am a great chef, I am surely not, but that almost every time I open up and try something different, I am glad I did.
Staying alive is not just about pills and procedures, health plans and retirement insurance, it is about experiencing life, opening to change, learning and growing. I accept the death that will come for me and all of you, I do not accept the earlier ones – the death of the soul, the death of the fearful and rigid and closed mind.
I do not say I will never do this or that, I look for the right thing that I never did, and then do it. I don’t try every single thing, I look for the right opportunities. Squid is on my list now (along with the oysters I cooked two weeks ago and my white clam pizzas which a local restaurant has offered to sell). I never cooked for most of my life, I cook now. When I get discouraged or anxious, I think of all the things I do now that I never did before, and I give thanks for the gift of change. Nobody else gets to define me.
These may be the last days of the Central Park Horses, who have pulled carriages through Central Park since 1858. Animals rights groups, the ASPCA, the new mayor are all demanding that the horses be banned from pulling people in the park (they are supposedly heading to “rescue” farms) and replaced by “vintage electric cars.” Animals rights groups have been after the horses for years, and some recent accidents with cars and trucks have renewed calls for their elimination. The new mayor is adamant they be replace. The argument is that it is inhumane for horses to operated in a crowded city filled with trucks and busses.
I don’t live in New York and have no say, but it seems a shame to me, horses have been pulling cars for thousands of years, usually in much rougher conditions than Central Park, many dogs and cats have accidents also and some are mistreated, but nobody is proposing to ban them from our cities. This seems to me a natural evolution in the idea that rights for animals means they need to live as humans would like to live – have no work to do and be dependent and pitied for the rest of their lives.
I’ve seen these horses all of my life and I’m sure some are mistreated, most of the ones I see love to work and seem much loved, the drivers do not want to be pulling electric carts, they want to keep working with their horses. Animals need to work among people, not be segregated in “rescue” and “no-kill” imprisonment facilities for the rest of their lives, that is not, to be, the definition of being humane.
I fear this is one of the last times I will see this horses before they are sent off to be “saved” from the only real work available to them in urban areas, where they can be seen and loved. Perhaps some judge will recognize the right of people to work with animals and keep them among human beings.
I was walking down the street in Brooklyn near BAM (The Brooklyn Academy Of Music) and I saw a sign for “Dance Studio Auditions” and I looked through the window and I saw a bench full of people waiting for their auditions to be called, you could see it all so clearly through the window, even the dance instructor or auditioner coming down the stairs, everyone looked up at him. A scene of waiting, of yearning, of trying out, of coming out, of putting oneself out there, as all creative people do.
Walking in New York City, I could see two worlds, the one above the clouds, the one below, and I thought – I couldn’t stop looking up at this eerily beautiful sight – I live in two worlds all the time, the real world, the one where life happens continuously, the other world, the spiritual world, the world of imagination and aspiration, the world I aspire to, the world I live in.
In New York, I finally got to see the Coen Brothers new movie, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” it was a beautiful movie, I really loved it, the acting and music were wonderful, the photography just achingly beautiful. I should be honest and say it was a sad, melancholic movie, there was a lot of life and truth in it, not so much hope and relief. It is very much about the two worlds most of us carry around in our heads.
The story is about a Dave Van Ronk (he was a marginal 60’s musical figure in Greenwich Village) type musician in the pre-Dylan era who is okay but not brilliant, and he wants to be brilliant and successful and the creative struggle is eating him alive. He is broke, cold, lonely and ferociously committed to his folk music. He is not an easy person to be around and nobody much wants to be around him. He is an alienator, somebody who viscerally keeps people at bay and annoys almost everyone around him but a cat.
There is an absolutely magnificent scene in the middle of the movie where Llewyn, who is inhabiting the smoky cafes of Greenwich Village in the late 1950’s, travels to Chicago – a grueling and depressing trip – to meet Bud Grossman, a music producer played by F. Murray Abraham. Grossman listens carefully to Davis and tells him an awful truth: “I don’t see any real money here.” Davis sees his future, finally comes to terms with it. It is a knockout scene, the heart of the film.
I related quite a bit to this movie and this character, I see myself as someone who has had to come to terms with being good but not as great as I wished to be, as others are. I think this is the great creative struggle, to come to accept where you are, not where you hoped to be. I like where I am, I am grateful to be where I am, but I have also worked hard to accept that I am good but not great in my work, and I always wanted to be great. I always wanted to be John Updike, I am not John Updike, I will never be. Acceptance is a faith with me, an ideology, it is what the animals have taught me about life.
I think this is a wonderful film, I highly recommend it, but it is not a cheerful film, you will not laugh or walk away tapping your feet. Be prepared to be a bit sad about the Llewyn Davis’s of the world, creative warriors who never quit but never quite get where they most wanted to go. The genius of the movie is that is it not about greatness but the reality of being ordinary, accepting who you are may be the greatest creative challenge of all.
