Hospital Food and Bookmarks

This month I spent too much time in hospitals.

I wonder why the food in the cafeteria is NOT healthy. Its because most cafeterias are run as cafeterias and not as health centers. You don't want to scare anyone, and want to make sure there is a comfort food option. Who are we kidding? They are run by the cafeteria paradigm-basic food. Ideally not terrible. Put cheese on everything, this is America, dammit. The sawdust cheese, they won't even notice!

I also sketched out the idea for a children's book, called the Bookmark Lady. It is about performative moments in a hospital, and being able to overcome your own emotions by being kind to others-and handing out bookmarks as gifts. Sometimes people need to be distracted by their own simple humanity-just long enough to get out of their own heads about being scared at a hospital.

MIT Reality Hackathon and Midnight Pancakes

Attended the MIT Hackathon about XR, actually called a Reality Hack.  I crafted and scripted the narrative about Desegregation in Miami in 1957-specifically a story about Frank LeGree and how his family had picketers outside his house, threw rocks and eventually erected a cross on his front lawn-all in order to get him out of a neighborhood.

The video of the AR experience we created is here: https://youtu.be/C6w3e4wqwfk

Our team would love to do more with AR and explore this and other stories of America's growing pains further. Desegregation of schools, different neighborhoods in large cities i the 1950's. Life for a growing country and how that time period brought forth change that is still unresolved today. 

Connect that period with When They See Us-and #OscarsStillSoWhite and you will see how America still exists in black and white for so many people. The best part of the Hackathon was the idea that so many different people could come together to build a new reality. One in which the only judgments issued are on a lack of imagination.

Cultural and Culinary Adventure in Provincetown!

Having spent Thanksgiving in Provincetown, with all its associated Portuguese heritage, I noticed that there is an Annual Blessing of the Fleet and weekend-long Festival at the end of June (6/25-28/2020) More information can be found here:
https://provincetownportuguesefestival.com/

It's never to early to plan your time in this seaside town, especially bc it fills up so quickly in the summertime. See you then!!

Interviewing Paige Lipari of Archestratus

As part of the amazing Food Writing class I took with Devra Furst, we were encouraged to interview someone within the food industry.  Something that would make a good story.

As a sheer coincidence that night, Paige casually mentioned that it was the 4th anniversary of the store.  Of course I had to follow up.

So before the last class, I sat down with her for a quick chat that turned into one of those amazing conversations.  Here I was expecting her to blow my mind with recommended cookbooks-which she did. But I also got a larger conversation about life and how it can lead you in funny directions.

The gist of it all, and the thing that has stayed with me, is that she has always wanted to create a space that was about bringing people together to do their thing. To create a container. It's not that her passion is NOT cookbooks, or creating a food store, it's all that and MORE. She's facilitating a way for people to express themselves. Creating a community. The books, the cooking are a way to get there. And the best rainbow cookies in NYC don't hurt either. ;)

(Actual interview still to come!)

Collecting the Best Breakup Restaurants in Greenpoint

If you really want to get distracted by amazing fries while your Soon To Be Ex is crying into their avocado toast, check out my new series on Breakup Joints in North Brooklyn!  On the lookout for sweet & semi-romantic, with enough of an edge to these hidden gems to make the both of you laugh over your shared dessert.

PAULIE GEE’s

Take your former beloved to your once favorite pizza joint.
Nod and smile as you mentally try to deconstruct the Neffy’s Porkpie White,
with sweet Italian fennel sausage, basil and ricotta. 
You were never able to take out a whole pizza here-
something about violating the crust by putting it on cardboard.
But shrug and smile, knowing you’ll never have to listen
to your ex complaining about his Mom
and her weird obsession with always wanting to do the laundry.

You know the secret ingredient, Mike’s Hot Honey,
will fix any pizza mistakes you may make when you experiment with pizza-making at home.
Besides, PG recently opened up a slice shop for freshly single people
like you
who don’t have the time to waste on frivolous conversation.

PAULIE GEE’s

https://pauliegee.com/greenpoint/

347-987-3747

60 Greenpoint Ave @Franklin St

Brooklyn, NY 11222

Dine In Only

Paulie Gee’s Slice Joint

110 Franklin St @Noble St

Brooklyn, NY 11222

A Single Ingredient: Sugar

A summer evening festival, a blur of white skipped past me in the under the string of lights,

dressed like it was her first communion or her wedding day. 

But she was only 6 years old and so was I.

And I stopped her for the most important of reasons,

“You’ve got sugar on your face!” I said.

Stopping, she looked me and right in the eye and then said something of grave importance. 

I didn’t understand her.

Her voice was Portuguese,

familiar but just out of reach.

A lullaby language, words my mother and aunts used, but not as items I could understand.

They were just sounds, as familiar and as foreign as the Festa, or festival,

the same kind they had multiple times of year. 

There is a Christmas kind of gathering,

and one for Easter,

and one where they parade a statue,

and one where they cover the streets with flower petals,

and one where you wait in the hot sun to share soup sitting on picnic tables.

But most every festival had malassadas (“under-cooked”) also known as fried dough.

Our grandmothers wouldn’t make it at home, at least not MY Vovo.

She saved her dough for Massa Sovada, fresh every week,

for the family to eat for dessert with butter.

Grown-ups were even harder to understand than Portuguese words,

but butter seemed like an adult’s version of sugar; a coating for the basics. 

I put my hand to my cheek and then- so did she.

It was like looking into a mirror.

She brushed her cheek and said something else.

“Obrigada,” she said in Portuguese and then “Thank you,” with an accent I wished I had.

And then she skipped off, comfortable in two languages, with a little less sugar on her face.

And left me standing, alone.

Thoreau/Twain in Concord

I'm happy to report that the performance of Thoreau/Twain: Brothers in the River for the Thoreau Society was a tremendous success.

Brent Rinalli, Tammy Rose and Joel Hersh

The main performers were Brent Rinalli, who has been in and around Concord giving lectures and historical interpreting as Thoreau for the past few years and Joel Hersh, a local actor known for his varied musical ability-played Twain.

The main conceit of the show is that an Academic is trying to summon the spirits of the authors, to have them discuss a major, and underexplored parallel of their lives.  Both of them had a deep relationship with a brother on the river of their childhood, and both of them lost that brother to a sudden event. This happened before either of them began to write-but both found inspiration in their brothers and documented the influences strongly in their writings.

The authors -who had never met in real life- get deep into conversation, about their lives, commonalities they share-and especially their brothers. Most of the text of the play is taken directly from journals, letters and the formal published writings of the authors-and their contemporaries. They argue with each other using their own words and get a chance to recount a major emotional moment in their lives. (No pop-psychology or therapy here-the drama comes directly from their own words and existing texts).

Thanks to the Thoreau Society and to all the amazing and attentive attendees!  Especially those who took pictures and gave me feedback on new areas to explore between the two!

And extra special thanks to my fellow Tourguides who make all the research and the entire experience of Concord SO MUCH FUN!!!