skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Spent most of last week at Sundance, working on a travel story, watching "films," turning 35, doing a little skiing, and a fair amount of eating.
35 is big. Not old, but big. No more pretending to be in your post-grad years. No more playing young and stupid when you mess up. MTV doesn't want you anymore (fine, it was never that good anyway, we were going in different directions). Looking ahead to something that looks different from the last 15 years.
But on to the festival. A quick recap:
Celebrity sightings: Maggie Gyllenhaal (prettier in person), Justin Timberlake (shorter in person, but aren't they always?), some guy from Metallica (just what you'd expect).
Favorite movie: American Blackout (Hey, turns out one person can make a difference!)
Restaurants visited: Zoom, Chimayo, Chez Betty. Chimayo was the favorite, but I gotta say, when you live in San Francisco, you're grading on a curve most everwhere else.
Yikes, does that mean I've become one of them?
Behold the best chai latte I've ever had. It's from the Pine Cone Diner in lovely Point Reyes Station.
What made it so good? No added sugar, so you can control the sweetness; just the right amount of spice and heat; and a nice crown of foam. Surprising how hard it is to find that, even here in latte land.
Photo: Kirsner's cell phone
One of the great thrills of going back home was the chance to visit two of my 
old haunts in Cambridge. The first, Formaggio Kitchen, is the former employer of Jessica from Feed and Supply, and still the best cheese shop I know. Hi-Rise Bakery is a
source of superior breads, pastries, and jams, and an employer of comically grumpy and disaffected art students.
I love Formaggio not just for its good looks and jaw-dropping selection. It's the cheese cave underneath the store, where all the little live things are allowed to come to their peak ripeness before they hit the floor. With that kind of care, you're always assured that the Abbaye de Belloc for which you shell out $22/lb. for will be so good, you'll only need to eat a little bit at a time. There
by resolving your ambivalence about paying $22 for a hunk of cheese.
As for Hi-Rise, I love them for their brichoe, their jam, and their jam-filled brioche. And the shrimp salad. The cookies and cakes and pies are also buttery and tender, but I save my calories for the jam and bread.
Hi-Rise's big downside, or charm, depending on how you look at is, lies in the subduction zone of the cash register, where cranky staff meets entitled customer. This is the great risk of doing business in places like Cambridge, and I'm not sure there's much to be done about it. The millionaire, NPR-listening, gluten-sensitive buyers believe they are each more special than the next. They struggle to share the big "family table" in the middle of the store. No room! Too many exceptional people! Meanwhile, the art students fail to conceal their contempt. And I silently project I'm not one of them, really while I order a jam-filled brioche, but with the apricot-lime jam, please, not the raspberry. No, not the apricot-lemon, the apricot-lime, 'cause I really like what the lime does to the...oh, uh, thank you.
Just got back from a tour of Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. We never spent more than 2 nights in any one place, but I got to visit my hometown (that's the defunct 99-cent movie theater in the photo), Lenox, Stockbridge, Cambridge. I love that cold, dark, snowy little corner of the world.
When I lived in New Mexico in the mid-90's, I must have flown home for the holidays. I just don't remember it. But what a pleasure this time. The plane came in low over the farmland that borders Bradley Airport and looking down, I saw large snowy fields bordered by maples, each with a little lighted farmhouse in the center and snow on the roof. And, just because the scene was so perfect, I'm going to say there was smoke coming out of those chimneys. "Look!" I said. "it's New England!"
When we got down to the little baggage claim, we saw crowds of families greeting their arrivals. Rosy cheeks, laughter, embraces. Mom and Dad in the crowd. Sometimes life forgets itself and hands you your own Capra moment. The trick is to stop and take it in. And then remember it, when you're back in your quiet office, two weeks and 3000 miles away.
Spent most of last week at Sundance, working on a travel story, watching "films," turning 35, doing a little skiing, and a fair amount of eating.
