Paris or Little Rock?

Sunday, January 19, 2014 – Paris or Little Rock?

With a forecast of 4 to 7 inches of snow by midnight, I’m looking forward to a quiet day at home.  But I knew that before I could settle down, I needed some exercise.  So right after breakfast I did a half-hour walk in the neighborhood.  It’s also important to have plenty of reading material in the house on a snow day, so I made a quick trip to the library.  Now I’m ready to spend the rest of the day reading (The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert), sipping tea, and listening to my new CD of choral music by John Rutter.  If Elliott gets ambitious, I might do all this while basking in the warmth of a blazing fire.  Unfortunately, I’ve never mastered the fire-building technique.  Decades ago, I was a Girl Scout dropout and as well as an utter failure at building a campfire at summer camp.  All of my efforts at our present homestead have been dismal failures.  I can manage to set some newspaper on fire, but then the flames sputter out within seconds.  It’s a good thing I don’t live in the wilderness. 

Speaking of where I live, I was intrigued by recent Facebook posts by several friends who did the Buzzfeed quiz to find their best city.  Out of curiosity, I decided to take the short online quiz myself.  Some of the questions were easy enough, but others were challenging.  For example, I had no trouble answering the question “How do you like your coffee?”  (I picked “Cappucino with plenty of foam.”)  But I had to reach out for assistance from Elisa in order to answer other questions, such as “What is your favorite Beyoncé song?”  After analyzing my responses, Buzzfeed told me I should live in Paris, which wasn’t a surprise at all.  I’ve often thought I could be happy living in Paris. 

I should have stopped there.  But I saw another link on Facebook to a website called FindYourSpot, which confines itself to U.S. cities.  I couldn’t resist trying their online questionnaire, too.   At first I was encouraged because the questions seemed more meaningful than those on Buzzfeed.  The FindYourSpot questions related to the kind of activities I enjoy, the kind of weather I like, the kind of community I prefer, etc.  After indicating that cultural activities (concerts, museums, etc.), non-extreme weather and public transportation were extremely important to me, I was certain that New York, Washington DC or a similar major city would be at the top of the list.  I was especially eager to see which city would be in first place. 

Within seconds, I had a list of 24 cities that would fit my requirements, and Washington was indeed on the list, ranked at #6.  Three of the cities in the top 5 came as no big surprise: Baltimore, Albuquerque and Portland, Oregon.  But you’ll never guess which city was ranked first – Little Rock!  Yes, according FindYourSpot, the capital of Arkansas would be my best choice.  With sincerest apologies to all you Little Rockers out there, I can’t begin to imagine myself living in your hometown.  In fact, I’d never considered living anywhere within a 500-mile radius of Little Rock.  (Where exactly is Arkansas, anyway?) 

The city profile for Little Rock indicates that it does indeed have museums and concerts.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a terrible choice after all.  Should I consider it as a retirement destination?  Should I at least take a little trip out there to get a first-hand look?  On second thought, I recall that Bill and Hillary Clinton chose to relocate to New York rather than go back to Arkansas leaving Washington, DC.  Maybe I’ll hold off on buying that plane ticket to Little Rock. 

In any case, while the surveys were fun, I seriously doubt that I’ll be leaving the DC area anytime soon.  Where else could I find all the world-class museums (mostly free!), the wealth of high quality cultural events, the sheer range of fabulous restaurants, the (somewhat) reliable public transportation system, and much, much more.  Granted, DC area residents pay a premium for the amenities our metropolitan area offers, but it’s worth it to me. 

Just consider what I’ve done close to home in the past week:

Winter Restaurant Week is always a highlight of the season.  This year, I visited an old favorite and tried a few new places as well.  In the immediate area, 2941, with its park-like setting and inventive, exquisitely executed cuisine, never disappoints me.  At lunch with my friend Cheri at the end of last week, I enjoyed delightfully crispy calamari with roasted peppers and cannellini beans; a robustly flavorful beet salad with dried cranberries, goat cheese, and a pistachio vinaigrette; and a succulent salmon filet a l’oseille (with sorrel sauce).  Chocolate panna cotta with blood orange sorbet provided a perfect finish.   

Earlier last week, I traveled into DC with my friend Kathy for a day of culture and cuisine.  We started in the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Art, where we admired the newly installed Chagall mosaic panel.  This monumental piece, entitled Orphée, stands 10 feet high and is 17 feet wide. Chagall made the piece in 1969 as a gift for his friends Evelyn and John Nef, and it stood in their Georgetown garden for decades.  The mosaic is comprised of thousands of tesserae (hand-cut pieces) of glass and stone in a variety of colors.  Some pieces absorb the light while others reflect it.  It will be interesting to back several times over the course of the year to see the mosaic under different lighting conditions.  In the photos, you can see Orpheus, the Three Graces, a couple lying under a tree, a huddle of immigrants and skyscrapers and Pegasus and an angel floating around a golden sun.

Orphée by Marc Chagall (1969)

A close-up view of one section of Chagall's mosaic

 

We also went into the museum to take a quick look at a Van Gogh painting that the NGA recently acquired and is proudly displaying.  In addition, we got a glimpse of the temporary exhibition on Byzantine art, which looked fascinating.  However, we couldn’t linger at the museum because we had a lunch reservation at The Bombay Club, an upscale Indian restaurant just a block or so from the White House.  It was my first visit to The Bombay Club.  The entire meal was delicious, but we were most impressed by two unfamiliar fish dishes we ordered.  Fish Moilee was a Kerala style fish stew (in this case, grouper) cooked in coconut milk and spices including cloves, cardamom and curry leaf.  We didn’t let a single drop of the luscious sauce go to waste.  Hariyali fish was a filet of striped bass grilled with a coriander-mint paste and topped with tomato kachumber.  As for dessert, I never pass up an opportunity to indulge in the warm, syrupy sweetness of gulab jamun, but Kathy made an excellent choice with the trio of sorbets – mango, coconut, and pomegranate.  

Ready to try Fish Moilee at The Bombay Club

Fairfax City was the site of my next restaurant meal.  SistersThai Café opened within the past few months and is getting rave reviews, both for its cuisine and its cozy décor.  Eleanor and I stopped by for lunch after we renewed our parking permits at George Mason University last Thursday.  I’ll certainly add this to my list of good Thai restaurants in northern Virginia. 

Liberty Tavern is another restaurant I was eager to try.  It’s been highly rated by local critics and appears on the latest Washingtonian magazine Best Restaurants list.  Since it’s located in Arlington, Elliott and decided to meet Marshall there for dinner on Saturday night.  It was a bitterly cold night, and Elliott wasn’t too happy about the block and a half walk from the car to the restaurant.  (I was just thrilled to find a parking place on the street in Clarendon.)  Once inside, we warmed up with the tenderest imagineable grilled octopus salad (with garlic puree, rapini, blood orange), and a divine roasted beet salad (with hazelnut, chevre, orange, and fennel) for starters.  We followed that with half-size orders of pasta.  Elliott chose homemade tagliatelle Bolognese (an unusual ragu of duck and pork, porcini mushrooms and Parmigiano) while I chose the cloud-like gnocchi al pomodoro (fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and arugula).  We even had room to split a dessert – goat cheesecake with a scoop of champagne sorbet.  

Enjoying dinner at Liberty Tavern

Grilled octopus salad

Marshall at Liberty Tavern

 Then there was this past Sunday.  Since it was a long weekend for my teacher-friends, Cindy and Michelle wanted to use their extra time for a mini-vacation.  We started with a visit to the National Museum of Women in the Arts to see an exhibit of quilts, many of which dated back to the mid-19^th century.  Afterwards, we stopped at nearby Point Chaud on 14^th Street for a quick crepe break before heading to a Gala Theatre production called La Vie en Rose.  This show was a collaboration between the theater group and the Washington Ballet.  It featured live music (piano), singers, and dancers, all interwoven on stage to bring the joy of French art song and cabaret music to life.  It was a delight to be part of the audience.  When the show ended at 5:00 p.m., it was time to eat again.  We chose Logan Tavern, on P Street near 14^th, for its casual, neighborhood vibe, and its straightforward, well-prepared food.  Of course, we also stopped at Pitango, a few doors down from the restaurant, for what many consider to be the city’s best gelato, before heading back out to Virginia on the Metro. 

Lest you think I spend all my time in restaurants, I want you to know that Elliott and I are going out on a daily basis to look at granite slabs and kitchen cabinets.  The remodeling project is inching forward, and we’re hoping to make some final decisions within the next couple of weeks.  It’s been a difficult process.  I’ve had so many (too many) different ideas about style.  My kitchen fantasies have included a French country farmhouse, a minimalist Japanese interior, a Southwestern adobe structure, and a seaside cottage, to name just a few.  But I’ve finally realized that it’s best to let our natural surroundings dictate our décor.  We live in a beautifully wooded setting, and we can take our cues from the views outside the windows to help us make decisions about color and material.

The snow is falling steadily now.  I'm thoroughly enjoying this day at home.  I think I'll get up and make another cup of tea and give Elliott a subtle hint about building that fire. 

What's Up with Elliott?

Monday, January 13, 2014 – What’s Up with Elliott?

Elliott hasn’t made much of an appearance in my posts lately, and everyone always wants to know how he’s doing.  So I’m instituting a monthly Elliott status report.  Here’s the January edition.

These last few weeks have been a challenge, pain-wise.  Elliott hardly ever complains, but I hear his moans and groans, and I can see how difficult it is for him to move.  On the worst occasions, he has managed to get some relief from supplemental pain medication (in addition to his twice-daily dosage).  However, he doesn’t do this very often.  Most of the time, he is able to distract himself with mentally engaging activities, including a new lecture series from The Great Courses.  This one focuses on religion in the “Axial Age,” a period of time from about 800 to 300 BCE.  So far, we’ve learned about Zoroaster and the Indo-Iranians and are about to start on the Indo-Aryans and the development of Hinduism. 

Fortunately, our kitchen remodeling project requires plenty of Elliott’s attention.  We schlepped out to Lowe’s in the pouring rain last Saturday and spent nearly three hours going over design modifications with their kitchen planner.  While we’ve made a lot of progress, we still have quite a bit of work to do (so many decisions!) before any actual construction begins.  And yes, we’re definitely going with the island rather than the peninsula. 

The crazily erratic weather pattern has kept Elliott indoors more than he’d like.  Cold and Elliott don’t mix, so he avoids going out on the coldest days.  Fortunately, temperatures were in the 50s yesterday, so he went for a walk with me in the neighborhood.  By the way, he added a new 3-wheel walker to his transport collection.  This will be the downstairs walker, and it’s the identical twin of a 3-wheeler he currently uses upstairs. It replaces another 3-wheeler that met an untimely demise when he left it parked in back of our car and I accidentally drove over it. 

Despite Elliott’s relative inactivity, he still has a good appetite.  I was very impressed that he agreed to join me for lunch recently at Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant in Chantilly (right next to Lowe’s, in fact).  As you can see, he really enjoyed the pumpkin chowder and he made very favorable comments about the mock-chicken with cashews and vegetables.   

Digging into a bowl of pumpkin chowder

This foray into healthy eating was an exception, however.  For the most part, his eating habits are essentially unchanged.  But it’s hard to fault the Elliott Thompson Diet for Longevity – it obviously works for him.  If you want to try it, stock up on cookies, ice cream, candy, marshmallows, peanut butter, jelly, goldfish crackers, whole milk, butter, French bread, cheese, potatoes, salami, and red meat.  By the way, Elliott hasn’t gained a single pound in the past few months, which baffles (and infuriates) me, as I continue to ration out my tiny daily portion of dark chocolate and try to squeeze in another session at the gym. 

At Elliott’s most recent doctor’s appointment, he had no major concerns.  Really, he just wanted to get a new prescription for Cialis.  After all, what’s the point of living to 101 if you can’t have a little fun?

Pho Weather

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 – Pho Weather

Today’s frigid temperatures gave me a perfect excuse to go out for a steaming bowl of pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup.  It’s usually made with a beef broth, but there’s a restaurant in Annandale that makes a pretty good vegetarian version.  I had a wonderful time tearing up fresh basil leaves, biting into crunchy bean sprouts, slurping up rice noodles from the tasty broth, and fishing out delectable meatless morsels (made of soy? wheat gluten?) with my chopsticks.  It’s a rare indulgence, due to the high carb content. 

Vegetarian pho at Pho Hot in Annandale

 I certainly didn’t let the cold weather limit my activities today.  I worked out with my trainer at the gym, went to a doctor’s appointment, made a quick stop at Beth El to pick up my next Torah reading assignment, ran into Sears at the mall to shop for my mother’s new wardrobe (because she has gained so much weight in assisted living), and finally rewarded myself with hot pho.  Elliott hasn’t ventured out of doors since the temperatures plummeted yesterday.  But he’s planning to get out tomorrow, when the temperature will rise to the 20s, a veritable heat spell after today’s arctic blast.  In the meantime, he’s keeping busy at home with research on kitchen remodeling.  By the way, the island vs. peninsula question has been revisited.  This time, we’re favoring the island, after getting some very helpful suggestions from neighbors.

The Polar Express

Tuesday, January 7, 2013 – The Polar Express

Ready for the Polar Vortex

Welcome to Washington, home of the “Weather Wimps.”  Here in the DC area, we’re getting our first taste of the weather phenomenon dubbed the Polar Vortex.  It’s only fair that the nation’s capital should experience some of the extreme weather that has plagued much of the country for the past several weeks.  The meteorologists on our local TV stations have been salivating at the prospect of record-shattering weather conditions.  Now that the Polar Vortex has officially arrived in our area, I can finally commiserate with my friends and family in New York, Rochester, Chicago, Boston, and Concord, New Hampshire.  

The temperature this morning is 7 degrees (above zero).  Wind chill temperatures will fall into the negative range.  However, I don’t plan to stay inside all day.  In fact, I’ve already been outside, to pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway.  Expecting an Arctic blast, I first bundled up in boots, puffy coat, gloves, and Nepalese hat.  After a minute of exposure to the elements, I reported back to Elliott, who was still toasty warm under the covers, that it really wasn’t so bad outside.  In fact, I’d describe it as bracing rather than bone-chillingly cold.

However, with forecasts calling for the lowest temperatures in decades, Fairfax County decided last night to cancel school today.  I guess the school kids should thank the new school superintendent, a transplant from Houston, Texas, for this gift.  I wasn’t surprised by the cancellation.  At the first mention of snow, people flock to supermarkets to stock up on milk and other necessities.  An inch or two of the white stuff is enough to shut down Fairfax County schools for at least a day.  Our metro system can’t seem to run trains when there’s a bit of snow on the tracks.  Still, I welcome the wintry weather, as long as it’s gone by the weekend. 

Annual Reading Roundup

Sunday, January 5, 2014 – Annual Reading Roundup

It’s time to blog about one of my favorite subjects – books I’ve read during the past year.  I’ve been keeping track of my reading, somewhat obsessively, since high school, so I have a list that goes back decades.  However, today I’m limiting myself to the books I enjoyed reading in 2013 and would recommend to others.  Looking back, I see that my reading leaned in the direction of non-fiction, especially memoirs.  

In the fiction category:

The Painted Girls – by Cathy Marie Buchanan – fictionalized account of the young French dancers who posed for Degas.  Set in 1870s Paris.

Beautiful Lies – by Clare Clark – London in the 1880s.

The Song of Achilles – by Madeline Miller – beautifully retold story of the ancient Greek hero. 

The Buddha in the Attic – by Julie Otsuka – poetically written depiction of life for Japanese “picture brides” brought to America for marriage.

Doc – by Mary Doria Russell – fictionalized account of the life of Doc Holliday in the Wild West

The Good Lord Bird – by James McBride – wildly imaginative and entertaining historical novel about slavery and John Brown

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – by Rachel Joyce – set in contemporary England.

In the non-fiction category:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers – by Katherine Boo – life in the slum of Mumbai – beautifully written. 

Crossing the Borders of Time – by Leslie Maitland – tells the story of the author’s mother, who fled the Nazis in France and built a new life in the U.S.

Isaac’s Army – by Matthew Brzezinski – the story of Jewish resistance to the Nazis in World War II Poland.

The Lady in Gold – by Anne-Marie O’Connor – life in pre-World War II Vienna and the famous painting by Gustav Klimt

Sugar in the Blood – by Andrea Stuart – a family history going back to the days of slavery on a sugar plantation in colonial Barbados.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – by Rebecca Skloot – discovering the story of the woman who unknowingly provided the cells used in medical research.

Fort of Nine Towers – by Qais Akbar Omar – life in contemporary Afghanistan.

The Family – by David Laskin – the story of an Eastern European Jewish family that meets different fates as one branch goes to Palestine, another to the U.S. and another remains in Europe in the early 20^th century. 

I already have a long, long list of books that I want to read in 2014, but please send me your recommendations. 

Preserving History

January 1, 2014 – Preserving History

The National Archives is currently exhibiting a collection of artifacts (books, scrolls, photographs and documents) that shed light on the long history of the Iraqi Jewish community.  The items were found quite by chance.  In May of 2003, American soldiers were searching Baghdad for Saddam Hussein’s supposed cache of weapons of mass destruction.  In the building that housed the headquarters of the regime’s military intelligence service, they searched a flooded basement and discovered the treasures.  It’s not clear exactly why Saddam’s government had seized the more than 2700 books and tens of thousands of documents from Iraq’s synagogues and Jewish community organizations.  Some of the items found dated back to the mid-16^th century, while others were as recent as the 1970s. 

Since the basement storage area was flooded by four feet of water, the artifacts were in terrible condition.  Many were fused together.  In an attempt to prevent the further damage, preservation experts immediately froze the items and packed them up for shipment.  With the cooperation of governments and organizations from several countries, efforts got underway to clean, preserve, catalogue, and digitize the artifacts that told the history of the Iraqi Jewish community.  While only a small number of actual items are on display at the Archives in Washington, the entire collection will soon be available for viewing online.  The originals will be returned to Iraq later this year. 

It was fascinating to see these items, all of which still show signs of damage.  There was a large Hebrew Bible printed in late-Renaissance era Verona, Italy, and a Babylonian Talmud printed in 18^th century Vienna, also in Hebrew.  Other interesting books included a hand-lettered and hand-decorated Hagaddah (the story of the Exodus from Egypt) from 1902 and an 1815 copy of the Zohar, the mystical Kabalistic text, with fanciful drawings of animals.  In addition, there was a cylindrical wooden Torah case, covered in velvet and shaped like a minaret.  This type of Torah container was commonly used by Middle Eastern Jews.  A selection of letters, school records, calendars and other written documents was also on display. 

It was a fragment of a Torah scroll, one of 48 recovered, that moved me the most.  Seeing the beautifully handwritten Hebrew letters, which I could read so clearly, made me reflect upon history, continuity and survival of the Jewish people over the centuries.  It looked identical to the one I will chant from next Saturday, and identical the ones Jews have treasured for thousands of years.  I could easily imagine an ancestor of mine standing before such a Torah scroll, chanting these same words. 

The textual commentary accompanying the artifacts gave an overview of the history of the Jews in Iraq.  The Iraqi Jewish community dates back a couple of millennia, to the time when the area was known as Mesopotamia and, later, Assyria.  After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE, a large numbers of Jews went into exile in the city of Babylon.  Centers of scholarship were established and the Jewish community became an integral part of the population.  However, in the 1930s, a pro-Nazi government came to power in Iraq and attacks on Jews began.  The turning point for many Iraqi Jews came in 1941, when an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence left over 180 killed and hundreds injured.  This violence increased in 1948 when Iraq went to war against the newly created state of Israel.  As a result, most of Iraq’s Jews fled their homeland although they were forced to forfeit their assets and their citizenship.  Those who remained faced ongoing persecution, along with other minority groups.  Today, only a small number of Jews still live in the land where their community had flourished for centuries.  

I wish I could include pictures, but unfortunately, no photography was allowed.  But you can visit the special section of the National Archives website to see several examples.  If you're in the DC area, you can see the exhibit through January 5.