Oddities and Obsessions

Let me just say it right here, with the internet as my witness, "I have a serious addiction to potatoes." There, my secret is out.

It's sad, but I am unable to consume a reasonable amount of potatoes when they are placed in close proximity.

Whether they are mashed, made into gratin, scalloped, french fried, baked, latkes, chips and even tater tots, (I could go on and on), I have a propensity to over-indulge in this tuberous root vegetable.

Even when called a tuberous root vegetable, it still doesn't turn me off. I think I'm a potato ho.

I rank potatoes right up there with butter and mayonnaise.  Spuds and I go way back.

What I don't appreciate is the "unspoken potato rule". Yes, there is one.

The rule is, "we always wait for the main course meal to enjoy this perfect food".

WHY?

To say that truffles are an acquired taste for me would be an understatement; I can’t ever think of a moment when these heady gems crossed our family table growing up. Truffles and Tex Mex don’t normally hang out together, you know. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I had my first taste of the powerful fungus, and if you’ll allow me to be dramatic for just one second, it literally knocked me off my feet.

Much has been said about the beauty and rarity of truffles, so I’ll go ahead and leave the praise and culinary history to the professionals. By now you probably already know they are fungi and that they are harvested by dogs and pigs in Italy, France and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. You probably already know that they can fill a room with their aroma, but did you know that I know a Fed Ex driver who curses and swears each time he makes a white truffle delivery? Hey, I could think of worse smells for the inside of a delivery truck, can’t you?

I think just about everyone loves tomatoes. Every time I mention to someone that I grow tomatoes in my garden they immediately turn a little green with envy. Tomatoes are really a labor of love. Some years the bounty is great and in others you're lucky to pick just a few. Last year there was the blight and this summer it's blossom end rot due to the extreme variations in heat. Luckily my tomatoes haven't been affected by that but since I am growing them organically, I do often find a critter who has made a home inside one of my prized possessions. I guess that just shows I'm not the only one who loves them.

This year I'm growing heirlooms for the first time. I collected seeds from my favorite specimens last year to grow this crop. All plants were babied from seed. They all seem to be doing well, but heirlooms have their own peculiarities including odd shapes, split skins, and areas with russeting or blemishes. Nut I would rather tend to them than grow the supermarket hybrids, which tend to look more like plastic. Though I do like a beefsteak tomato now and then. I don't even bother growing plum tomatoes because I can't get them any better than the canned San Marzano variety from Italy, where the weather and terroir is optimal for growing them. But so far my soil has given me a pretty nice colorful collection.

In early December, an esteemed acquaintance of mine, Jill Soloway (writer and director of the current award winning feature Afternoon Delight) mentioned on Facebook that her beekeeper friend David Bock had local honey for sale and that it made a ‘perfect holiday gift’.

My first thought was “Wow, locally made honey? There are actually beekeepers in the city? What does that even look like?” My second thought was “hell yeah it makes a perfect holiday gift. I’d sure want to receive it.” The other perk I discovered was that raw local honey can boost your immunity to allergies. Her post on Facebook said he’d be selling the honey at a stand outside his house until 2:00 p.m. that day.

Things came to a screeching halt however, when I saw his address. The street name had a foreboding quality to it. “Division Street”. I didn’t know Los Angeles even had one and I’m a native. Sure, maybe Chicago or San Francisco but for some reason I felt like if you found yourself on Division Street in Los Angeles, you’d be hurled back in time to the Los Angeles Elizabeth Short might have dwelt in.

The last time I’d come this far east was when my daughter Lena was 14 and wanted to see the band Of Montreal in a club called The Echoplex. It should have been called Club Code Violation but man that show was good! On the way back from The Echoplex we drove on a street that was like driving on an inverted “V”. It seems so benign when you type out the words “driving on an inverted ‘v’… believe me, it’s not. It was traumatic, especially in the dark.