Things I Like, July 2013

I'm going to report on my recent travels to Massachusetts, New York, and Hill Country, TX, but in the meantime here is a small compendium of important things that I like right now.

1. THE PALETERIA!

It being sultry, sultry summertime here in Houston frozen treats factor largely in our routine. Paletas, Mexican popsicles, are my new favorite and Alex surprised me by delivering us to the best place in town. Upon arrival I bolted inside, figured out the paleteria layout and got serious. After some deliberation on a) how many can we eat at once? and b) which flavors have the fewest and best ingredients, I decided on one chile cucumber, for dinner, and one rice pudding, for dessert. But then I noticed some other irresistibles in an upright case: mangonadas and a similar production with sandia (watermelon). These delights consisted of: either frozen mango or watermelon with a liquid mixture of chile and cayenne pepper swirled through. I think you're supposed to take the entire thing out of the cup and eat it on its stick, but it's big and drips all over. I used the stick as a utensil and everything in the world improved.

Our collection at El Pibe Paleteria

All frozen things were consumed on the spot as other paleta fans looked at us strangely, but knowingly. 

2. CHAMOY

Chamoy has a pickled fruit base to which you add salt, sugar, lime, and chile pepper spices. It can range in consistency, from a liquid to a powder. In powder form (chile en polvo) we've had it sprinkled on fruits and vegetables and in mixed drinks, especially those containing mezcal. We've had it on mangoes in San Antonio, where they take an entire beautifully ripe mango, impale it with a sturdy wooden pole, slice petals into the fruit, and douse it with liquid and powder chamoy. It is now a part of our culinary lexicon and I'm excited to experiment with the sweet, salty, sour, and spicy recipe. 

Homemade chamoy and Mezcal brought back from DF (Mexico City).

3. CAJETA

Cajeta is a Latin American dulce (sweet) that I first discovered in Philadelphia actually, in the Italian Market. Back then it was made with goat's milk, sugar, and wine. It's no longer made with wine, sadly, but I still love the buttery caramel spread. You can find this dulce in all kinds of Mexican candies, especially at the Fiesta market. You can find it at here in Montrose at Blackhole Cafe in a cajeta latte or offered as a topping on a snoball (shaved ice) or piped inside churros.

For my first visit to Texas I traveled by train, from NYC, and the state seemed very exotic to me. We took a day trip to romantic San Antonio where my senses were inspired by many things. Hidden in the back corner of a bookstore there, feeling pretty excited, I secretly copied a recipe out of a cookbook. How could I resist the title: San Antonio Chocolate-Cajeta Flan Cake (from The Tex-Mex Cookbook by renowned food historian Robb Walsh). This was ten years ago and I have been making the cake ever since in various Northeast cities.

Fine. This is a fancy styled photo and not my own. But this is how my cake looks!

The flan sinks to the bottom of the bundt pan and the chocolate cake rises to the top (when you flip it out of the pan the flan is then on the top). Once the cake has been set free, get generous with MORE cajeta. It's a beautiful cake and I love making it. I recently made it for a friend's birthday here in Houston, to go with our Mexican themed dinner (con mezcal margaritas).

My mother in law gave me her copy of The Tex-Mex Cookbook since I had lost my little recipe card/scrap from 2002 and as I was reading through it I learned how Tex-Mex was introduced to France. It was after the film Betty Blue (32'7 le matin), 1986, came out in Paris. Apparently, everyone in France watched it and since there are several mentions of Tex-Mex style food (chili con carne, tequila, etc.), the French demanded this exotic cuisine. Soon Tex-Mex was making its way through Europe. Crazy!

I recommend this film. It's spectacularly romantic and sad. Pair it with all of the above food and drinks for a memorable evening.

One last thing I've been dreamy over: BBQ smokers. I have never seen these anywhere in the north, but they come out in full force around here, especially during summer. While I probably won't sample from these ubiquitous smokers in the near future, I can drown happily in the scent that pretty much permeates the entire city right now. It makes for a heavenly, uniquely Texan atmosphere.

Jean Vigo's L'Atalante, 1934

I have waited at least five years to see this film, which recently became available on DVD. It arrived in our mailbox on Valentine's Day. We haven't really kept up with our queue at all so it was actually unexpected. I'm in love with the story, the look, and all of the characters. 

One of my favorite scenes: 

Also: I need to style myself after Juliette. Flapper bob with finger waves, striped shirts and bias cut day dresses! This film has it all, really. I found it to be very modern in its expression of realistic love, anguish, sensuality, nostalgia, humor. There are cats, too. Highly recommended. 

Finland, France, Norway, and South Dakota.

No, it's not my next travel itinerary. Just random bits of interesting things.

FILM:
We recently watched Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre (2011), a French language film shot in Normandy. Incredibly atmospheric, wonderfully unexpected. Highly recommended.

Jean-Pierre Darroussin and his anana.

Other films recently watched that deal with similar concepts of underemployment, illegal immigration, and acts of humanity: Rosetta, by the Dardenne brothers and Biutiful, by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Actually I couldn't get through Rosetta. Biutiful, while very good, was several hours of low grade misery. It really made me think closely about the overwhelmingly consumeristic tastes of the world. The cheap mass production and consumption of goods is so universally depraved. I could hardly enter a retailer today, jam packed with rabid customers and piles of stuff, without feeling sick. There's just too much being made and usually by people who are not necessarily regarded ethically. Do we really need all of these things? Of course not. No. But am I helping anyone but myself if I cut my intake of products (from Old Navy to Apple) newly made-in-China, India, Bangladesh, Tunisia, et cetera? I don't know the conditions under which most things are made, even those made in America or France or Italy. It's a difficult and emotional question. Best plan? Keep object based purchases down to a bare minimum, appreciate what I have, learn to make more things myself, and of course: travel! This must be the best way to spend money I think.

ARCHITECTURE:
While doing library research, I was thrilled to find out that this amazing medieval stave church in Norway...

Early Christian Borgund church, Norway, 12th century

was copied by architects in South Dakota! It's well known that the northern states of the Midwest were heavily settled by Scandinavians. It seems that there were plenty of Lutheran Norwegians in South Dakota. These guys were granted the original blueprints of the medieval church and went for it! I have never, ever been inspired to take a trip to that part of the country, but now I find myself puzzling together an adventure that will lead us right there. 

In both the original and the modern reproduction, wonderfully carved wooden dragons alternate with crosses, marking the combination of pagan beliefs with Catholicism.

Purism, Synesthetes, and Simultaneity: Modern Art Musings.

Inspirations from this week's lesson. I forgot that I actually like some of the art from the early twentieth century. Here are three interesting concepts that evolved during that time.

PURISM: French artist Amédée Ozenfant, along with Le Corbusier, eschewed the decorative, disordered qualities favored by Cubists. Together, they founded the Purism movement with their manifesto: The Foundation of Modern Art (1925). Purism advocated a return to clear, precise, ordered forms, expressive of the modern, machine civilization.  

Ozenfant, The White Pitcher, 1925.

Ozenfant, The Vases, 1925.

SYNESTHESIA: Even though I have a strong aversion for the collective, Der Blaue Reiter, especially the Russian artist Vassily Kandinsky, I appreciate the probability that he was a synesthete. This describes someone who "hears" color and "sees" sound. In other words, when one sensory pathway is activated a second pathway is automatically, simultaneously activated. He and his fellows were interested in reuniting humanity with nature and spirituality in an attempt to counter the cold, modern mechanical world. The allowance of the subconscious to come forth organically determining the painting would soon be exploited by other artists, notably the Surrealists. This provocative short film stylishly explores the concept of synesthesia.

Terri Timely, Synesthesia, 2010.

SIMULTANEITY: Ukrainian born artist Sonia Delauney shows us how to collapse spatial and temporal distances, fusing art with life, with Simultaneous Dressing. She is known for layering repeat patterns (dress, jacket, accessories: same print). This idea was taken farther by dressing useful machines, such as automobiles, in the same pattern.

She and her husband, painter Robert Delaunay, liked to express the dynamism of modern life in rhythmic and bold patterning, the sensation of movement is caused by putting certain colors together. The clothing is meant to identify the wearer as modern.

Sonia Delaunay

Delaunay also made costumes, along with plenty of other modern artists such as Natalia Goncharova, Michel Larionov, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Georges Braque, André Masson, Giorgio de Chirico, and Oskar Schlemmer. 

Delaunay's costume for ’Cléopâtre’ in the Ballets Russes production of ’Cléopâtre’, 1918

Look at these costumes! Designed by Oskar Schlemmer for the Triadic Ballet, 1922, Stuttgart.

Tristan Tzara's Dadaist play, The Gas Heart, 1920's. Costumes by Delaunay.

David Bowie (with Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi) gets in on the Dada look, Saturday Night Live, 1979.

Çatal Hüyük, Werner Herzog, and Wall Painting.

This reproduction depicts the prehistoric village of Çatal Hüyük in Turkey (7500-5700 BCE) from an aerial perspective. All of the buildings were linked together and entrance was through the roof, so instead of streets on the ground, they were on top of domestic dwellings. According to some archaeologists, the brightly colored triangular form may represent an erupting volcano, Hasan Dağ, located just beyond the village. There is also some speculation that the yellow form is an apotropaic leopard pelt. This may be the oldest known map, but since the original Neolithic painting was found in a house shrine, it may also have some kind of religious significance. 

In Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog points out proto-cinematic drawings in Chauvet Cave, France (32,000 BCE). No ordinary person will ever see these very important Paleolithic paintings, some of the earliest works of art, in person. Thankfully we have this film, which provides something close to the experience.