New New Year

"Stay with me! You can do it! Stay with me! Come on! You and me, one last time!" -- the Tenth Doctor

I've always loved science fiction, but in recent years, one corner of the genre owns my heart above all others: the BBC's Doctor Who. Unlike every other sci-fi franchise in existence, Doctor Who has never relied on sequels, prequels, rebooting the franchise, rewriting history, or changing the linearity of the plot to keep things going. Incredibly, the series has followed the adventures of one character (a 900 year-old time-traveling alien named "the Doctor") since its inception in 1963.

To accomplish this, the show's writers gave the Doctor the ability to change every cell in his body when mortally wounded -- and thus gave themselves the freedom to swap out actors every few years. This "regeneration" process has allowed eleven different men to play the role, and for sanity's sake, fans distinguish them using their number on the roll call rather than the ubiquitous character name.

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I'm familiar with all of the Doctors even though most predate my years. And, of course, I have a favorite. Though I feel like a bandwagon jumper and/or a squealing fangirl by admitting this, the Tenth Doctor -- played by the incomparable David Tennant -- is my preferred incarnation by a long shot. Ten is brilliant, geeky, witty, wounded, confident, insanely hot, selfless, sensitive, and a total asshole all at once, which pretty much makes him the perfect man in my estimation.

My one-sided love affair with Ten has gone on for five years. All of that changed at the end of today's episode of Doctor Who, though, when Ten regenerated into Eleven. The Doctor is now played by an actor who, though incredibly talented, is fresher, younger, and far less sexy than his predecessor. I might grow to love him, but I'm still in mourning.

I spent the first day of '10 observing the last day of Ten, so I decided to honor both with a Top Ten list.

Ten Things I've Learned from the Tenth Doctor

10. High-top Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars are proper attire for any outfit and any social situation.

9. Nothing feels better than bantering with someone whose mind is a perfect match for yours.

8. Keeping life in balance often involves a little sacrifice.

7, Don't offer too many second chances.

6. Dance.

5. You can save the universe if you have the right people standing next to you.

4. Too much scientific knowledge is never a bad thing.

3. Sometimes, it takes more courage to let go than to hold on.

2. You don't need to say "I love you" out loud to really mean it.

1. You can wear glasses and still look sexy.

Festa Dei Pesci

"Take some macaroni home!"

"No, I can't! I made macaroni three times this week!"
"I understand. [Pause.] Take some macaroni home!"-- two of my aunts

I'm Italian-American, so Christmas Eve in my family means a crazy, raucous, seafood-based meal with a couple dozen relatives and entirely too much food. Entirely too much amazing, incredible food so delicious that I had three helpings of it.

We started off with antipasto -- provolone and parmigiana, cured meats, dried sausages, bread with chunks of prosciutto baked in, and a variety of pickled vegetables.

Next came the macaroni course, and we offered three different varieties: linguine in a red fish sauce, rigatoni marinara, and penne a la vodka. Shrimp, fried calimari, and potato croquettes were available as hot appetizers.

The centerpiece of the meal -- zuppa di pesce -- followed. Though the name of this dish translates to "soup of fish," it's actually far more complicated and rich than the name suggests. Ours featured mussels, clams, scallops, lobster tails, crab legs, cod, squid, shrimp, and scungilli stewed in a zesty tomato sauce.

If anyone was still hungry after that, we also had some escarole and beans and veal valdestano (cutlets topped with prosciutto, mozzarella, mushrooms, and roasted red peppers). We then finished off the meal with a cold seafood salad.

I didn't photograph the dessert spread because I was too full and happy to pick up my camera by that point.

Ironically enough, the inspiration for our meal -- the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes -- came into existence during the Middle Ages as an exercise in abstinence from meat and culinary moderation. Ha!

Someone To Fall Back On

"I know the darkness pulls on you, but it's just a point of view. When you're outside looking in, you belong to someone. And when you feel like giving in at the coming of the end, like your heart could break in two... someone loves you." -- Brandi Carlile

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, mostly because of the food involved but partially for the traditions I practice. I head out to my high school on Wednesday morning, then I have lunch with friends, then I grocery shop, then I go home and start cooking. I finish cooking on Thanksgiving morning, then I have dinner with several branches of my massive Italian family with napping in between. And at some point during those two days, I blog about all of my reasons to feel grateful.

On my drive to my high school yesterday morning, I tried to decide what I was going to write about this year. I was going to stick with an updated version of last year's list, but a conversation with a dear friend inspired me to think outside the box.

As part of our high school's Thanksgiving festivities, my friend was asked to describe a memory from his junior year of high school that makes him feel thankful. Problem was, he couldn't think of anything to share. He had awesome stories from every other year of high school, but junior year stumped him completely. So he called up five of his best friends -- all classmates from high school -- to see if they could suggest any stories, but they couldn't remember anything good either. He then realized that, despite the fact that he graduated from high school over twenty years ago, he still has five high school friends on speed dial... and that's something incredible to be thankful for in its own right.

So this year, instead of providing a laundry list of things to be thankful for, I'm going to focus on friendship. More specifically, I'm going to write about how wonderful it is to be able to care for others and know that others care for you in return.

I'm perfectly aware that I'm not an easy person to get along with. I'm generally kind to everyone I meet and I know enough to find common ground with nearly everyone, but I don't go out of my way to make an effort to get to know strangers. I'm very quirky -- I have an odd sense of humor and lots of obscure interests -- and I lose patience very easily with people who don't immediately understand what I'm talking about when I speak. I'm also not the sort of person who ever puts on any pretenses; aside from what's required for polite conversation, I don't change my speech patterns or censor my conversation for anyone. I refuse to compromise who I am or pretend to be something I'm not to impress someone, either. I've been described as completely unapproachable, and I don't deny that for a second.

And despite all of that, I have a core of wonderful friends who love me. I have friends who laugh at my jokes, regardless of how stupid they think they are. I have friends who listen to my rambling stories and my complaints about life. I have friends willing to taste my more bizarre culinary experiments. I have friends willing to stay up until three in the morning watching obscure German musicals with me. I have friends willing to care for me when I'm feeling ill at work and friends willing to let me crash at their places for a night or a weekend. I have friends who have put up with some incredible crap from me and continue to call me a friend because they like having me around. I have friends who sense when I'm hurting and try to cheer me up. I have friends who defend me and fight for me, even when doing so will cause them endless personal inconvenience.

I'm thankful for all of them today, and I hope they know how much they mean to me.

Fifty Percent

"I don't pick out his ties or expect his tomorrows, but I feel when he's in my arms he's where he wants to be. We have no memories bittersweet with time, and I doubt if he'll spend New Year's Eve with me." -- Helen Reddy

Happy 2009 all. In direct opposition to this blog's theme -- my quest to find and capture extraordinary moments in ordinary life -- I'm spending my New Year's Eve in the most ordinary way possible. I didn't spend my entire day planning and preening and anticipating the evening; I spent the entire day in clinic trying to meet a data deadline. I'm not dressed to kill with my lips painted red and my curls cascading down my back; I'm wearing a tank top, pajama pants, and fuzzy socks, with my face free of makeup and my hair pulled into a ponytail. I'm not socializing with adored friends or attractive strangers; I'm channel-surfing between all three parts of That's Entertainment! and The Twilight Zone. I'm not standing or dancing or bursting with excited energy; I'm on the couch under a blanket and I just woke up from a little nap. I'm not enjoying a top-shelf open bar or even a keg in someone's living room; I'm swigging Moet & Chandon White Star right out of the bottle. I didn't even cook today, not even once; I'm snacking on Costco's hors d'oeuvres and ordered a pizza for dinner.

It's a painfully ordinary and slightly pathetic evening, but honestly, the thought of spending New Year's Eve alone on my couch felt more appealing than accepting any invitation I received in or around New York City. I've been in a bit of a funk lately; I've had a loud and stressful few weeks and desperately longed for a little time to think and decompress. And so far, it's been lovely. The one thing that could have made my evening more fulfilling would have been a handsome and quirky fellow to share my couch and kiss me at midnight, but that would have put a serious dent in the blessed ordinariness of my situation.

On a related note, what should my New Year's resolution be?

Christmas Wrapping

"When what, to my wondering eyes did appear? In the line was that guy I've been chasing all year! Suddenly we laughed and laughed, caught on to what was happening. That Christmas magic brought this tale to a very happy ending." -- The Waitresses

Happy Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and Festivus to all of you! I'm in the middle of another lovely, hectic holiday, so this will be a short post. (Luckily, I love hectic Christmases most of all.)

Perhaps as karmic punishment for the fact that I haven't actually done most of my Christmas shopping yet, I didn't get the one thing I really wanted for Christmas. I'm probably closer than I've ever been to that gift, though... but of course, I'm the worst judge in the world when it comes to these things. In any case, I hope all your wishes came true this holiday season!

And now I'm off to cook Christmas dinner... my second of three Christmas dinners. Peace!

Pizzelles

I put a curse on that plane. My sister is on that plane. I put a curse on that plane that it's gonna explode, burn on fire and fall into the sea. Fifty years ago, she stole a man from me. S'aprice l'uomo! Today she tells me that she never loved him, that she took him to be strong on me. Now she's going back to Sicily. Di returne Sicilia! I cursed her that the green Atlantic water should swallow her up! -- from Moonstruck



I love gifting baked goods because food makes me happy and I can't think of a better present for someone I love than using my time, my talents, and a few good ingredients to share that happiness. My culinary gift of choice during the holiday season is a package of pizzelles, a type of holiday cookie that, like me, originated in the Italian region of Abruzzi. The English translation of the word pizzelle is literally "flat, round, and small," which is a perfect physical description of the cookie. They're light, they're buttery, they're beautiful to look at, and because they're made two at a time using a special iron press, they represent a pretty significant time commitment. It takes a full afternoon or evening to make enough pizzelles to feed a decent number of people -- my normal recipe makes about eighty, I usually double it or triple it for Christmas, and each pizzelle needs to be spooned onto the iron individually and cooked for about a minute.




Thus, good company is mandatory on pizzelle day. I would sit with my grandmother as she made pizzelles every year until I was twelve, then she passed along her recipe to me and, until her death a year and a half ago, she sat with me whenever I decided to make them. She'd tell stories about the good ol' days, pass along tips for perfect pizzelle technique, describe evenings spent sitting with her own mother making pizzelles and having the same sorts of conversations. Last year was my first holiday season without her, but dwong and my cousin TD came over a few days before Christmas to keep me company as I worked the pizzelle iron. This year, I made them on a whim late on a Thursday night, so with no one around to share the experience, I created my own companions by watching Moonstruck on DVD as I baked.



Like my technique, I inherited my pizzelle iron from my grandmother. It's an electric iron, close to forty years old, and it makes pizzelles with a snowflake pattern on one side and a woven pattern on the other. We have a few earlier models around (which require the baker to stand over an open flame flipping cast-iron plates for Lord knows how long) and a few more modern models around (which are slimmer and lighter and don't run the risk of burns or electrocution), but I still end up using the same ancient electric iron every year. The pizzelle iron itself actually strengthens the cookie's ties to love and family -- irons are meticulously cared for and passed down for generations, and those open-fire irons I mentioned earlier were often custom-wrought to imprint the family crest onto every cookie.


Since those elaborate irons have fallen out of use, people must often rely on taste to identify a pizzelle's family of origin. And you wouldn't believe it, but every baker makes pizzelles so differently that this is more than enough of a cue. My recipe -- which also belonged to my grandmother before me -- makes crisp and lemony pizzelles. My aunt's pizzelles are paper-thin with a touch of orange zest, one paisano makes them softer with anisette, another uses almond extract, another aunt works cocoa powder into her batter. I think my recipe blows all of them out of the water -- and most people who try it seem to agree with me -- but, unfortunately, I won't be sharing it with you today. Typing out a recipe and posting it on the internet seems to defy the spirit of la famiglia needed to successfully make pizzelles -- and believe me, that's half the wonder of it all. If you come to visit me, though, I'll make you a cappuccino, pull up a chair, tell you a few stories about the good ol' days, and happily show you how it's done.

Home for the Holidays

"New York is lovely in the wintertime, when the sidewalks are white as snow. The buildings, all the people that pass me by, how the smile on his face says he's in love." -- Rosie Thomas

It's a gorgeous weekend in New York City; the streets have always felt different to me during the holiday season, and though it's not even December yet, the anticipation and joy have already spread throughout my beautiful metropolis.

Of course, since I have a sniffle that I'd rather not see bloom into a full-fledged cold (which may be a lost cause since I couldn't breathe in my sleep and have consequently been awake since 5:30AM), I spent this entire lovely weekend indoors in flannel pajamas. Three marginally exciting things happened, though:

"Transformer man, transformer man. Sooner or later you'll have to learn the cause and effect." -- Neil Young

1. I cleaned my grandfather's apartment and, while moving a little side-table, realized that it was far heavier than it should have been. A little investigation led me to find a hidden latch, and a little more investigation caused the entire table to fold open, revealing a 1960s-era Sears Roebuck sewing machine in beautiful condition. It looks like I have a little restoration work in my future.

I also found some Sculpey polymer clay that I forgot I had, which solved the button conundrum from my second-to-last post. I made some buttons last night, then I made a scarf to match them.

"Even that's polite -- the worst pies in London! If you doubt it, take a bite... is that just disgusting? You have to concede it! It's nothing but crusting. Here, drink this; you'll need it." -- Stephen Sondheim

2. I baked a ton of Thanksgiving leftovers -- potatoes, cauliflower, asparagus, two cups of shredded turkey, and some leftover dough -- into a pot pie today, and believe it or not, it didn't turn out half-bad. Maybe I'll work on the recipe and post it one of these days.

"But I've got to stop crying! I'm not going to waste the rest of my life dreaming of a man I can never have!" -- from The Thorn Birds

3. I don't have to look at my hands when I crochet, which is fortunate since I'm a multi-tasker who can't stand to only do one thing at once. This weekend, my crocheting accomplice was The Thorn Birds, a miniseries from 1983 that spans fifty years and details a doomed love affair between a woman and the priest left in charge of her family's estate. He fights an internal war over whether he can ever love God as much as he loves her, she rails against life because she knows he is too ambitious to ever give up the Church for her, and all of it makes for ten hours of insanely good television. (It also made for controversial television in its day, mainly for the scene when he flies halfway around the world, finds her on a deserted beach, throws her down in the sand, and breaks his vow of chastity... repeatedly.) I watch the whole miniseries at least once a year, and as I'm usually a year older and wiser with each successive viewing, it always seems to inspire me in new ways. This year's viewing made me want to sit down and write an epic and meaningful story. Let's hope the impetus is still there when I finally find direction for my tale.

Gratitude

"If I told you that I loved like an ace, then I'd be lying 'cause I've made some mistakes. But I'm trying with perfect faith! When I let you in, I began to win, and now I'm just all gold. After all I've done and the road I've run, I want to thank you. I want to thank you." -- Gavin DeGraw


I'm thankful for early-morning Thanksgiving mass at my high school and late-afternoon debates about genetics, Family Guy, and everything in between that almost always follow them. I'm thankful for family traditions, and even for the gaping slice wound on my thumb (because no holiday in my world is complete unless someone slips with a knife, burns oneself, or falls into the oven). I'm thankful for food, and for having enough of it to be able to use it creatively. I'm thankful for having a roof over my head, even if I complain about it incessantly. I'm thankful for two-dollar subway fares and the men who powerwash the Bryant Park station at one in the morning on a Thursday. I'm thankful for New York City, which is equally beautiful when it's packed and noisy and crazy and when it's eerily desolate (like it was during yesterday's commute). I'm thankful for an office window with a view of the Chrysler Building and a windowless clinic seat with an, um, equally gorgeous view. I'm thankful for cancer research, I'm thankful for my job, and I'm thankful for the contract I signed yesterday that officially changed my status from new hire to full employee. I'm thankful for my quick mind, my calloused hands, my strong back, my flat stomach, my freckled cheeks. I'm thankful for the love I've offered, the love I've received, the love I've made, the love that still awaits me. I'm thankful for the opportunity to find more things to be thankful for today and tomorrow and the day after that. I'm thankful for my ability to use words to express what I'm feeling and thinking, and I'm thankful for the writers and songwriters who inspire me when my own words fail. And I thank you for reading.