The perfect pork

Ever since I moved to the northeast in 2006, I've been looking for the "right" version of one of my favorite Chinese foods, shredded Sichuan pork with garlic sauce. I grew up in Houston with a specific version of this popular dish and it's in my top 4 of favorite foods ("4 things" - August 30, 2007).

I'm happy to say that after five years of searching, I've finally found a reasonably similar version and it's just two blocks away in Manhattan.

The restaurant is called The Grand Sichuan and it's very similar to a restaurant called Grand Sichuan Eastern (minus the "The") where Puck and I had lunch together for the very first time back in 2008 (it's a block from where I used to work at Agent K). That restaurant has some wonderful spicy Sichuan dishes, but their shredded pork is all wrong.

The Feng Ling (the restaurant in Houston) version of this dish has the pork cut into thin strips no larger than 1/8th inch in thickness, and combines it with tender bamboo, black ear mushrooms and slices of water chestnuts in a thick brown sauce. Most of the versions I've encountered up here miss one or more of these elements - the pork pieces are too large, the sauce is too watery, or they add weird stuff like celery and carrots.

As a bonus, The Grand Sichuan's hot and sour soup is also a reasonable facsimile of Feng Ling's, although a little more watery (they probably don't add as much cornstarch), and I also tried the sliced conch in hot oil, which was mouth-numingly spicy the way Sichuan food is supposed to be. I'll definitely be moving this menu to the top of the home delivery pile.

Now if I could just find a decent crawfish etouffee and Japanese eggplant with pork dish in New York, there will no culinary reason to ever return to Houston!

Non-stop action

The rain is pelting windows outside, and it's almost 1:30 in the morning as I write this. Hurricane Irene is knocking on the door. I don't think this event is going to cause me to have to work from home, but I guess we'll see on Monday morning.

It's been a non-stop week of activity for me since my last post. Sunday I went to the American Museum of Natural History with Lori and we saw the Hayden Planetarium show, "Journey to the Stars." Mostly we talked about life, love, ex's, etc.

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then wandered an indoor/outdoor flea market across the street from the museum. I bought some used CDs and some tea for Puck as a back-to-school present. Agnieszka loves flea markets and she would have loved this one - lots of antiques and vintage clothes and jewelry. Then we had dessert at Shake Shack and went our separate ways home.

Monday night I attended a reading by author Christopher Ryan of his book Sex at Dawn, an anthropological history of sorts about sex and monogamy. Lots of Open Love NY people where there, and I sat between friends Eric and Beth, and someone named Kim, whom I introduced to our group. The reading was really good, very funny and thought-provoking, but the venue was way overcrowded, so I left early because I was feeling a little hemmed in.

Tuesday was Open Love NY's monthly meeting, and Puck met me there. We had a pretty large turnout and a lively time at the diner afterwards before Puck and I went home together. Then Wednesday was the Poly Women's Group meeting at Whole Foods, and we had a big turnout there too - Katie, Therese and Kate from the last meeting joined me, Sylwia and two new women, Sarah and Olivia. We had a great conversation and before we knew it, it was past 10 pm. Sylwia and I had a nice catch-up after the meeting and in the subway on the way home too.

Thursday Piper came over to watch True Grit with me, and we had a very nice, chill evening together. Between her, Kacey and Puck, my apartment is seeing quite a bit of traffic these days, compared with the prior 11 months (although of course only Puck sleeps over). It's nice to have friends who I'm comfortable with and are comfortable enough with me to hang out one-on-one.

Friday I had a night to myself, which was sorely needed after so many consecutive days and nights of activity, stretching back to the previous Thursday. Today, Kacey and I were supposed to go to a Fringe NYC play together, but that got cancelled due to the hurricane, so I've been content to stay home and clean the apartment, watch movies and continue reading Kushiel's Legacy books all day, waiting for the rain.

It's now coming down quite hard, so I will go to sleep and see what tomorrow brings.

Beauty and beatings for a better life

It's already been a full weekend's worth of activities, and it's only Saturday night. I had arranged to take Friday off to do a chore for Open Love NY and to have a long-awaited visit to the Met.

It had been exactly a year less a day since my last visit, which was the last date I had with Bonnie, so I was long overdue for a visit. I lingered in the American wing for long periods of time, reminiscing about my first meeting with Tara in October 2005 that irrevocably changed my life. But mostly I was just keenly aware of being surrounded by beauty, drinking it in through my eyes, fingers, the pores of my skin. Oh great Met, how I've missed you!

I had lunch with my friend Angel, who works at the museum and got me a comp admission, so I treated her to the meal at a diner that Puck and I went once where they have an excellent Eggs Florentine. I also shared a marvelous bread pudding with pears, cranberries and creme fraiche, which was Angel's first bread pudding.

After letting Angel get back to work, I spent a few more hours looking at the musical instruments rooms, which I found interesting, what with my recent explorations of the violin. I was just getting ready to start making my way to the exit when I got a text from Agnieszka, asking if I wanted to go with her to MOMA for the Free Friday promotion. I agreed to meet up in an hour, so I took a bus down Fifth Avenue to the next stop on the famed "museum mile."

When I got there, I saw that the line for the free admission went from the front door half a block to Sixth Avenue, a whole block to 54th and down that street farther than I could see! Knowing we were never going to get in, we switched plans and met on Broadway to try the Book of Mormon ticket lottery. Failing to win those tickets, we eventually ended up seeing Conan the Barbarian at the Regal RPX Theater on 42nd Street before she hopped a bus home from Port Authority.

Whew, that was a busy day!

Today was equally packed, but slightly less exhausting. I went to get my hair coloring redone by Kelly, who did my red panels last time. This time I wanted to add purple to the mix, and it turned out really well. It took a long time, almost five hours, because she had to lighten my hair to do the color right. We talked about our family backgrounds (she's originally from Malaysia, like my mom's side of the family). We talked about children and spouses and the differences between Singaporean and Malay laksa. Her coworker, an older gay Asian man, suggested some authentic Malaysian restaurants to try in Elmhurst, since I can't seem to find what I'm looking for in Manhattan.

After the coloring was done, I walked over to Home Depot to buy some window treatments for my bedroom. Puck came over Thursday night to work on their linguistics paper (because it's less distracting at the apartment than their house) and slept over - which was doubly fortunate since I was off work Friday so I could make a leisurely breakfast for them. But they didn't sleep well because of the lights that filter into the bedroom from the adjacent building, so I decided to remedy this long-standing problem.

I got a couple spring rods and panels of deep red taffeta drapes that blackout the windows. They didn't have the sheers that I would have liked for my living room windows, so I will go back for those another day. But now my bedroom should be pretty much pitch dark, which is my preferred state too, but I've just gotten used to the light over time.

In the evening, I tried the Mormon lottery again solo - no luck of course - and then went out in the cool of the evening to run some errands before Piper and Jet's fundraiser party at their house in Astoria. They are raising money for a play that Jet is working on that will run for a dozen performances later this year. I exchanged my Sony headphones at Best Buy for the premium Bose noise-canceling headphones, reckoning them to be better at twice the price.

I stopped at Barnes & Noble to pick up the next two Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Justice (which was available in hardcover for a bargain $5.98) and Kushiel's Mercy in paperback. I'm currently tearing through Kushiel's Scion, the story about how a young man learns how the arts of love can bring pain as well as pleasure. In a way, his story mirrors my own explorations of kink, which continued later that night.

I brought a box of cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery to the party and chatted with all the usual group of friends. There was a raffle for various items, including a dragon's tail whip made of pleather. Guests also bought tickets to be exchanged for administering wicked blows to bottoms using a dizzying assortment of toys.

I was fascinated by something we nicknamed the dragon's tongue - a short braided leather whip with a triangular piece of leather at the end. I almost asked someone to try it on me, but didn't quite find the nerve. I don't think I'm ready to do those kinds of things publicly before trying it in private. Piper got two lashes with it, leaving bright pink welts on her bare bottom, along with loop-shaped marks made by a particularly nasty toy made from a length of coaxial cable formed in a double loop.

The raffle was drawn at midnight (didn't win anything for the second time that day), and I left shortly after because Lori and I are planning to visit the natural history museum on Sunday. Now to bed in my darkened bedroom cave, and another fun day on tap tomorrow.

Company picnic

The date has been set for something rather important to happen. I'm bringing Puck to meet my coworkers on Sept. 16 at our annual company picnic.

The only person in the office who has met Puck is Jennifer - they met briefly at the 2010 Pride Parade when Puck was not feeling well and we only stayed to watch for a few minutes. Everyone else knows about Puck, but as I don't keep any pictures on my desk or talk about them much there will be some surprised faces.

This is actually the third company picnic since I've been at Nearing, but the first one I'm planning to attend. The first year I was a contractor who had only been there a week prior to the picnic, so I didn't think I'd fit in among strangers (although I was certainly invited to attend). The second year I had procured tickets to see Porcupine Tree at Radio City Music Hall several months in advance and it turned out to be the same day as the picnic.

This year, things are a little different too because I've been at my job for almost two full years and most people around the office know me, although only a handful of people outside the Communications group knows anything about my private life. I'm not really concerned about the queer angle. After all, our CEO would hardly condone homophobic behavior among his staff. Our poly relationship and our age difference may raise eyebrows, though.

I still remember vividly when I told one of my co-workers about Puck and how they lived at home with their parents, prompting her to ask me how old Puck is. Her jaw dropped and her eyes fairly popped out of her head. At least she got that reaction out of the way so it shouldn't happen when they meet in person.

On some level, I suppose it's a trivial thing for people to know who my significant other is. I used to keep my work and personal life strictly separated for the longest time, ever since transition. Maybe I never trusted people before to be non-judgmental about my alternative lifestyle. But it's important to me because it's also part of living an honest life.

I love Puck dearly, and they are my family. They deserve to come to events where families are invited. Puck has had to endure stress in the past to defend our relationship with members of their immediate and extended family, so I am happy to return their faith in our relationship by representing it openly to my colleagues at Nearing.

Whatever happens, it should be a very interesting night a month from now.

Dancing through life

Well, it's been a while since I got back from Ireland, and I'm finally over my jet lag, plus I don't feel much like working today. To the blog, then!

Last weekend was quite restful for me. I got my laundry done and out of the way as soon as I walked in from work on Friday. My building is being remodeled, so they had to reduce the size of the laundry room by about 80 percent. So I'm trying to do my laundry at unexpected hours to avoid the wait on weekends.

Saturday my friend Barbara came to town and we tried once again to win tickets to "Book of Mormon" - no such luck. There are just too many people vying for those tickets, usually at least 150 to 200 on a Saturday night. So we had dinner at a new barbecue place on 9th, where I had my first American-poured Guinness (it tastes the same, but they didn't fill the pint glass all the way to the top like they do in Dublin). Sunday, I stayed home pretty much the entire day and cooked food for the coming week.

Puck finally came home on Monday after a month in St. Petersburg, and they've been fighting a serious case of jet lag. I went to Poly Cocktails Monday night and had a pleasant enough time - no red cards handed out, and I met some interesting new people, plus got to know Rose Regina (an Open Love NY member and friend on FetLife) better.

Tuesday night was Ardella's 21st birthday at the Russian Vodka Room, a scant five blocks away from the apartment, so I could scarcely countenance not attending. Leon was there, along with Alissa, whom I met at Wicked Faire back in February ("Wicked Faire!" - Feb. 21, 2011). I met some other of her friends and had a blintz with farmers cheese and chocolate.

Random note: I'm tearing through the first three books of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. I finished the second half of Kushiel's Dart while on vacation, then ripped through the 700 pages of Kushiel's Chosen in only a week, and now started on the third in the trilogy, Kushiel's Avatar. I haven't read books this voraciously since the Twilight days.

Last night Puck and I finally reunited after our longest-ever separation since Argentina (which was before we were actually in a relationship), going to see a dance recital by The Next Stage Project at City Center Studios in Carnegie Hall, nine blocks directly north of the apartment. The room reminded me of scenes from Black Swan, but the dancing was beautiful and exquisitely done. Puck got their "Dance Your Ass Off!" t-shirt as a souvenir, and we went home together to have an early bedtime. It was nice having them home again.

For love of nature

In the wake of my Ireland trip, I’ve been thinking a lot about nature and the natural world. Traveling across the Emerald Isle, seeing herds of sheep, cattle, goats and horses, especially my beloved Holstein black and white cows, makes me realize how different the rural areas are from the great city where I spend most of my time.

The only wildlife I see with any regularity is, unexpectedly, at the train station, where each afternoon I look for a small bunny rabbit that lives on a patch of lawn near the inbound platform. He’s usually there three or four days each week during the warm months of the year. Once I saw a doe outside my office building, but that’s a rare thing.

Seeing the awesome views of the Ring of Kerry and Killarney National Park makes me understand a little more about why the Irish love their land so much. There’s so much elemental beauty packed into that small country that it’s almost overwhelming. It would make almost any city dweller indulge in the fantasy of becoming a farmer and getting a fill of a slower, more peaceful existence with fresh air and being surrounded by living things instead of concrete.

I was telling a friend recently how I felt like, living in cities as I do, I am much more accustomed to the rhythm of city life than the rhythms of the natural world. I know exactly how to move through a crowded street to avoid collisions or injury. I instinctively know how much distance a train will take to stop at a platform so I can position myself at the door. I operate a car safely and efficiently when needed. I make a million tiny decisions each day to keep myself in synchronization with the rhythm and flow of my urban surroundings.

If I were to live in the country, I would get used to an entirely different rhythm. I would be better at predicting the weather without relying on the Internet. I would know how to walk on uneven ground without spraining my ankles. I would notice how plants and animals grew day by day, and the harvest dates of the year that I currently mark on my witches’ calendar would have much more immediate relevance to me. My activities would be dictated by sunlight rather than an arbitrary clock. I would be used to a slower pace in nearly everything I do.

In short, I’d be an entirely different person.

I think there’s a primal hunger in all of us for some kind of connection to the natural world, even if we’re not all cut out to live on farms. Seeing Ireland in all its majesty made me realize how important that connection is to me. I’m lucky that I don’t work in the city in one respect – I do get some exposure to nature outside the concrete jungle each workday, even if it’s just watching a rabbit graze in a field at the train station.

Ireland

It was a marvelous trip to the Emerald Isle, other than various traveling logistical difficulties. We seemed to have brought some of our East Coast sunshine to the perpetually rainy Irish weather, which was welcomed by all. Apparently, before Agnieszka and I arrived, the summer had been unusually cold and wet, but during our stay we really only had one rainy day, and one or two that were simply gorgeous.

First, the bad stuff. The first time I tried to leave for my trip, I got all the way to the airport before I realized I’d forgotten my passport! So obviously I couldn’t fly without it and it was too late to get it and return, so I had to reschedule for the next day. So my trip started out one day shorter right off the bat.

On my second attempt, I had all my stuff together, but bad weather in Charlotte, NC cancelled my connecting flight and forced me to stand in a lot of long lines to get rebooked on a different flight. The plus side was that I got a Continental non-stop flight straight from Newark to Dublin. The downside was that it left seven hours after my original flight so I was waiting around the airport a while. And then the more bad news was that, due to the change, my checked bag didn’t make it with me, so I had to go the first 24 hours in Dublin without a lot of my stuff. I wouldn’t have even checked that bag if the TSA security hadn’t flagged my liquids and gels in my carry-on bags, basically forcing me to check a bag or lose some of my stuff.

Anyway, I left NJ about 11 pm and arrived at about 11 am the following morning, where a friendly cabbie named Darren picked me up and brought me to the house where Agnieszka’s family lives – her brother Adam, his wife Asia and their daughter Julia, who is two-and-a-half years old and quite a handful, so much so that her mom has been living there since Julia was born to help care for her, since both Adam and Asia work during the day.


Julia

Upon arriving, of course I was rather jet-lagged, so I took a nap before Agnieszka and I ventured out to explore Dublin. We crossed the River Liffey at the famous Ha’Penny Bridge:



We walked from landmark to landmark, visiting places like Temple Bar, Christ Church Cathedral, and the gardens at St. Stephen’s Green. Along the way, we saw many examples of urban graffiti, some of it very Banksy-esque:

We also stopped in a pub, although having just gotten off the plane, I wasn’t ready for my first taste of stout, so I had a local Irish red beer instead, somewhat the color of my hair:



Wednesday morning we took a tour bus to visit the south coast of Dublin, guided by a wonderfully droll bus driver named John. Our first stop was Powerscourt Gardens, a magnificent 45-acre array of formal gardens. If some of the views look familiar, it might be because it was featured in the movie adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Guy Pearce, Jim Caviezel and Richard Harris.









From there we journeyed to Glendalough, or Glen of the two Lakes, one of the most important monastic ruins in Ireland.









Finally we ended the tour with a drive through the Wicklow Mountains, including a stop at the famed Wicklow Gap, with a 360-degree vista of the 17,000 hectares of the Wicklow Mountains National Park.

On Thursday we went on a second tour with John to explore the historic Hill of Tara, ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland and the most important center of political and religious power in pre-Christian Ireland:







We also drove by Slane Castle, well-known as a modern concert venue (check out U2 Go Home, their best concert on DVD) and Trim Castle in the town of Trim along the banks of the Boyne River:



Finally, we ended the day at Newgrange, a Neolithic passage grave over 5,000 years old (built 1,000 years before the pyramids of Egypt). We got to go into the passageway and see a simulation of how the space within was built to be precisely in alignment with the rising sun during the winter solstice. The decorated entrance stone and the Corbelled inner chamber are some of the most impressive abstract stone age art of the early farming communities in Western Europe.





Friday the weather took a turn for the wet, so we spent another day in Dublin, visiting various museums and looking at more graffiti art.



The highlight was a simply amazing exhibit on the life and works of William Butler Yeats at the National Library of Ireland. Here’s an excerpt of the audio-visual display of one of his well-known works, “The Stolen Child”:



We also came across a sand sculpture exhibit in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, which we went back to visit several times to view the progress of the four works, which were supposed to represent the four points of the compass:



Saturday Agnieszka and I took her mom on a cross-country trip on the Paddywagon tour bus to explore the Southwest and drive one of the most scenic drives in the world, the famed Ring of Kerry. Our first stop was at Kate Kearney’s Cottage at the scenic Gap of Dunloe, where I took the opportunity to go off-trail a bit and explore on my own and finding this rock, which reminded me of one that stories tell of creating passages between worlds:





There was also a cave a little too high up for me to reach in the limited amount of time we had, but I got close enough to get a good photo of it (the dark place on the right side of the photo):



Here you can see how high I was above the road that everybody else walked on (you can see my purple bag in the upper part of the photo):



And here’s a view of the bridge and the valley beyond from the edge where I was standing on the outcropping:



Here’s the view that most people think of when someone mentions the Ring of Kerry drive:







At the top of one lookout point, the wind was quite fierce:



We stopped in Sneem, one of the little towns for handmade Bailey’s Irish Cream ice cream, which was fantastic, and I found the art installation titled, “Where the Fairies Went” or Sneem Pyramids, hidden behind the parish church (inexplicably not part of the tour).



From Sneem we drove through Killarney National Park, with its breathtaking vistas and the lovely Torc Waterfall:





Once we got back to Killarney, we took a horse carriage through parts of the national park, which featured views of the lakes and Ross Castle in the distance, plus the beautifully Gothic St. Mary’s Cathedral in the center of town:



Sunday Agnieszka and I traveled to northwest Dublin to Phoenix Park, the largest urban outdoor park in Europe, as my guidebook said cricket is played there on Sundays, and sure enough, we got there about 45 minutes before a match was to start.





From there we made our way back east toward the City Center, marked by The Spire (a 395-foot high sculpture nicknamed “Stiletto in the Ghetto” by the local smarties):



We stopped at National Museum Collins Barracks and the Old Jameson Distillery, where we took a fascinating tour of how they make Irish whiskey:





It also included a sampling of the product, of course, which the Irish typically drink with cranberry juice, lemonade or ginger ale, unlike New Yorkers who tend to have it with cola. Agnieszka got the opportunity to become an official Irish whiskey taster by volunteering to taste a sample of Scotch, Jack Daniels American whiskey and Jameson’s Irish whiskey to taste the differences.

Monday was our last full day, although we had to retire early because I had an early morning flight home on Tuesday. Since it turned out I had room in my suitcase, we went back to the Jameson Distillery to buy a bottle of Distillery Reserve Label 12-year whiskey which is only available from the Jameson locations. We also visited some of the old churches in Dublin, and looked in on the sand sculptures one last time at Dublin Castle.

We had lunch at a charming and colorful little bistro called Urban Picnic in an outdoor mall, where I had Guinness beef stew, served with mashed potatoes.



I also finally had my first pint of Guinness stout at the famous Grogan’s Bar! The perfect pint is poured in two stages: the glass is filled three-quarters full, then allowed to sit.



After the head settles, the glass is filled to the top, creating the iconic silhouette that is seen in gift shops all over the city. And actually, even though I’m not a beer drinker, I really liked the taste of Guinness, so fortunately there are Irish bars all around my apartment if I ever want a pint of the dark stuff again.



So all in all, my trip was full of what the Irish call "the craic," a Gaelic word that roughly translates as "lively talk and good times." The craic is the sort of thing that's difficult to find only when you're looking too hard for it. Large crowds, loud music, and one pint too many can also make the craic elusive. When your companions all seem clever and handsome, and you can't imagine better company in the world, that's when you know you've found it.