Cookbooks

“This place could be dangerous,” I thought as I pushed open the wooden door of Joanne Hendricks’ bookstore, located on part of the ground floor of her home at 488 Greenwich Street in Manhattan.

I’d written down the address on a slip of paper and stuck it in my wallet after reading about Hendricks’ shop in Edible Manhattan last year. For weeks, I intended to stop by but something always detoured me: work, family, the holidays. Finally, I set out for Cookbooks, determined to be undeterred this time. And when I opened the door, I knew I wouldn’t leave empty-handed.

I didn’t- I bought a first-edition (!) copy of Vertamae Smart Grosvenor’s Vibration Cooking; or Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl, which I’d been searching for a while. But even better was steeping in the space Joanne has created with obvious love and care over the years. The shelves are loaded and sagging with first or special editions of some collectible favorites– Brillat Savarin, The Joy of Cooking, Emily Post’s manners guides, Ferran Adria’s carefully documented life of the now-shuttered El Buli– and all sorts of ephemera– culinary themed postcards and pictures, tea cups, and even a tiny cookstove. In the midst of it all is Joanne herself, who is more than willing to talk about cookbooks and culinary travel with you but who is no gastro-snob. (We talked about my favorite food place, Mexico).

The best way to approach Cookbooks is to browse, with no particular title in mind. You’ll no doubt find something you didn’t even know you were looking for. There aren’t a whole lot of places like it–old, intimate, and real in every sense of the word– left in Manhattan, where, Joanne notes with regret, trendy floor to ceiling glass windowed buildings are replacing brick Federalist-era walk-ups like hers. Supporting it seems important– and, fortunately, fun too.

Cueva San Gabriel, Samana, Dominican Republic

San Gabriel is one of several caves accessible to the public in the Los Haitises National Park in Samana, Dominican Republic.

Llego Papa.

The taxi driver wanted to talk about New York, the weather here and there, and whether it was my first time visiting the Dominican Republic.

He did not want to talk about politics.

“Si, es mi primera vez,” I said, adding that I didn’t know why it had taken me so long to visit the Dominican Republic, when I’ve been kicking around the Spanish-speaking Caribbean’s other islands, Puerto Rico and Cuba, since 2003. “Yes, it’s cold in New York, and yes, I’m happy it’s warm here.”

Now can we talk politics?

The campaign posters on the side of the road intrigued me, while exposing my ignorance. A close watcher of Latin American politics, I had been paying attention to the countries where I’d lived and traveled. The Dominican Republic’s presidential campaign wasn’t on my radar. I knew the current president’s name, but nothing else.

I barraged the driver for the basics: How many viable political parties do you have? When is the election? What are the term limit laws?

His answers were of the “just the facts ma’am” variety, and he tried to change the subject as I pressed on. Now that I’d gotten the basics nailed down, I wanted him to tell me about the current cast of characters, two in particular: Margarita and “El Papa.”

I could see his eyes looking at mine through his mirrored sunglasses; that’s how thin the silver film was, cheap knock-offs of a more expensive brand. Was he just not interested in politics, or was he wary of answering questions from an American woman who seemed far too excited and interested in his country’s politics… and oddly disinterested in hearing about the Brugal rum factory we had just passed? Uncharacteristically, I didn’t care if he wasn’t interested in politics, and no, I didn’t want to know about Brugal. I was so intrigued by the campaign ads staple-gunned to every power pole and tree we passed that I wanted someone to decode their significance for me.

Finally, he gave in.

Margarita, he explained, is the current president’s wife, and she was going to run for president but the party didn’t think she should head up the ticket, so she’s the ruling party’s VP pick. “Interesting,” I thought, making a mental note to read about her later.

But “Papa” was the one who really interested me. “So who is this guy?” I asked, clearly oblivious to the fact that he is a former president, having occupied office before the current president, Leonel Fernandez, who is finishing up his second term. His ads blew me away with their dual references to a paternal figure (“Papa”) and a religious figure, the latter a not so subtle nod to “El Papa,” the Pope, which is only reinforced by the golden light that seems to illuminate his head like a halo in every poster. As if the symbolism wasn’t hit-you-over-the-head obvious enough, Papa is gazing upward in the ads, as if gaining inspiration from and– more importantly–being blessed by God Himself. The text on many posters was the kicker: “Llego Papa”… “Papa has arrived” (or “returned”, depending on your particular translation, and either one really fits the bill here).

Papa’s given name is Hipolito Mejia; the 70 year old presidential candidate for the Dominican Revolutionary Party is a galvanizing figure in domestic politics. One friend, an American scholar in Dominican history, compared him to George W. Bush, noting the similarities between the two: overconfident but underprepared, brash talking men prone to verbal gaffes in public. She pointed me to YouTube, where more than two dozen videos are catalogued under a “Hipolito Mejia malas palabras” (“Hipolito Mejia bad words”) keyword search. If you speak Spanish, they’re worth a bit of time.

The Dominican Republic isn’t the only Latin American country in the midst of an election cycle; Mexico is also having a presidential election this year, and the race has taken a fascinating turn this week with the PAN’s nomination of Josefina Vasquez Mota as its candidate. Though domestic and foreign media are calling her election a “long shot,” she currently enjoys a favorable popularity rating in the polls and has certainly outshone rival Enrique Pena Nieto of the PRI party, who has repeatedly stuck his foot in his mouth during TV interviews and public appearances (one much-discussed incident was his inability to name three books that have influenced him; another was his inability to state the price of a tortilla).

For armchair analysts like myself (and admittedly, that may well be too generous a term), the presidential races in other parts of the Americas are even more interesting than the every-primary-more-bizarre-than-the-last here in the US. I’m staying tuned.

Are you following any elections? Have insight to share? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

We don’t actively seek them out when we travel (well, not usually), but when we happen upon them–and we generally do on our trips– we tend to wander into cemeteries. They’re excellent for giving a quick read about the geography, politics, and social relationships of a place.

Earlier this week, we were on assignment in eastern Long Island, working on a feature article for Aer Lingus’ in-flight magazine, Cara, when we were directed to the Green River Cemetery in a part of East Hampton called The Springs. We’d just been given a tour of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center by director Helen Harrison, who had opened up the house in the off-season just for us. If we wanted to see where both Pollock and Krasner were buried, she said, we could drive a mile or so down the road to the cemetery.

And so we did, though neither of us is particularly fond of Pollock’s or Krasner’s work. The small cemetery is the most creative one I’ve ever seen, with tombstones clearly reflecting how artistic this community has been for decades. Check out this headstone of Stan Vanderbeek, an experimental filmmaker:

Stan Vanderbeek's grave

Pollock’s and Krasner’s graves are toward the back of the cemetery, abstract (appropriate) shaped stones with rough edges, Pollock’s considerably larger than Krasner’s (also appropriate). Pollock’s life ended horribly, in a drunk driving accident he caused, just a mile or so from the house where the two lived together and where Krasner continued to live and work until her own death in 1984.

So many stories that go to graves.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

After that museum visit, though, I was sure that really was it: I had seen all there was to see of Van Gogh’s oeuvre.

Then, we went to “Van Gogh Up Close.”

The exhibit, consisting of 46 Van Gogh paintings and approximately 30 ancillary works that facilitate an exploration of Van Gogh’s influences (namely, Japanese prints and photography), is organized around a tight temporal and topical theme: the four-year period of frenetic artistic activity that preceded his death, during which he demonstrated a preoccupation with depth of field and perspective. The paintings produced during this period were highly experimental within his overall body of work, and the feeling of intense closeness they convey may well be a metaphor for Van Gogh’s own mind and life- a sense that things were coming closer, closing in.

Even after my Van Gogh aha moment in Amsterdam, I lapsed into my jaded “Van Gogh was the first artist I learned about” attitude and entered the “Up Close” exhibit as blase as I had been pre-Amsterdam. But when I saw “Quinces,” I was shaken to attention again.

"Emperor Moth"

This exhibit isn’t just yet another Van Gogh retrospective. By grouping together paintings around such a well-defined idea, the curators not only have the opportunity to present some works that may be new to many visitors, but also help even the most knowledgeable Van Gogh lover learn something new. The exhibit opens today and runs through May 6. It’s well worth a visit.

**
Exhibit Information
Venue: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. & Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dates: February 1-May 6, 2012
Cost: General admission is $16; student admission is $12; senior admission is $14; entrance contribution is voluntary on the first Sunday of each month.

**After the closure of the exhibit in Philadelphia, it will be packed up and moved to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, where it will be shown May 25-September 3, 2012.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been invited to serve as a committee member of Real Heroes of Mexico, a group that “believes it’s vital to showcase the positive news and goodwill efforts taking place in Mexico, especially those who are making a difference.”

I was invited by The Mexico Report founder Susie Albin-Najera to serve on the committee, and am proud to serve alongside a a group of people who are as passionate about Mexico as I am.

We’ll be sharing stories of overlooked people in Mexico who are doing good. I invite you to follow along and learn about the real heroes of Mexico at The Mexico Report.

Know someone you’d like to nominate? You can do that here.

This is possible because of them.

In 1958, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, both from the same town in Virginia, went to Washington, D.C. to get married as it was illegal for them to do so in their home state, thanks to miscegenation laws. Virginia authorities weren’t about to let the Lovings get away with tying the knot elsewhere but living as a married couple in their state; one night, acting on an anonymous tip, police dragged the couple out of their bed and charged the Lovings with threatening the Commonwealth’s “peace and dignity” with their mixed-race relationship.

Thus began a chain of legal events that would eventually culminate in the Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia (which you can read about in the excellent book, May It Please the Court). The justices ruled unanimously in favor of the Lovings, overturning all previous decisions made in Virginia circuit courts.

“The Loving Story,” an exhibit currently on display at the International Center of Photography in New York, presents the work of Grey Villet, a LIFE photographer who was covering the Lovings on a two week long assignment that resulted in a short photo essay in the magazine. There’s a lovely narrative of the backstory of that assignment, written by Villet’s wife, that was published by the New York Times’ Lens blog on January 18; that narrative is accompanied by many of the photos in the ICP exhibit.

What Barbara Villet writes, and what is evident to the point of being achingly palpable in the photos, is that the Lovings were deeply in love with one another and with their three children. There are stories in the photos that are suggested but not fully spoken and never will be (despite, I suspect, a forthcoming documentary), as both Richard and Mildred are now dead.* Knowing that those stories were trapped there forever broke the part of me that wants to preserve everything that feels important. I wanted to crawl into the photos and move the camera away, as if their lives could just keep going on.

The exhibit, comprised of such a small number of photos, left me wanting more, much more. I wanted to take in every image that existed of them, of their children, of their families (and what about their families, who seem, in the photos, to approve of and support their marriage?). I wanted to know more of their story before and after the landmark Supreme Court decision. I wanted to know about Grey Villet, too. How had the LIFE assignment that resulted in this collection of photos impacted him, maybe even changed him? This wanting, however, shouldn’t be read as a criticism. It did what the best exhibits do: compelled me to think and sent me back out into the world to learn more.

*Richard died in the 1970s when a drunk driver crashed into the car he and Mildred were traveling in. Mildred survived, though she lost an eye in the accident. She died in 2008.

**
Exhibit Information
Venue: International Center of Photography, 1133 Sixth Avenue (at 43rd St.), New York, New York
Dates: January 20-May 6, 2012
Cost: General admission is $12; student/senior admission is $8; entrance contribution is voluntary on Fridays from 5-8 PM.

Belizean food: Kristin Fuhrmann-Simmons' purview as Belize Road Warrior.

When I met Kristin Fuhrmann-Simmons in person, I knew, without a doubt, that she was the perfect person to be the next Belize Road Warrior.

Kristin, a MatadorU student, attended one of my Food and Travel Writing workshops in New York City a couple months ago and I was immediately taken by her personality. As she silently read an essay, she laughed, she clutched her chest, and her breath caught. She expressed deep pleasure and showed close attention. I didn’t have to dig to discover her passions or her gifts; they were right there.

Kristin is a pastry chef. She doesn’t just love food in the way most of us love food–that is, as a gustatory experience–she loves food for all of the stories that surround it: the stories of where ingredients come from; the stories of the people who make it; the stories of how we share it. That’s why I knew she’d be perfect as the next writer-in-residence.

Kristin arrives in Belize tomorrow and starts a three-month journey around the country, meeting professional chefs and home cooks, farmers and cheese makers, beer producers and cashew wine makers, lobster fishermen and cacao producers. She has some incredible ideas about how she’s going to share those experiences, and you can follow along on the following channels:

Blog: 4ticketsplease
Twitter: @kafcooks
Facebook: 4ticketsplease Page

Besides food, Kristin will be covering family travel; her husband and their two cuter than pie daughters will be joining her for part of her tenure and they’ll be blogging and sharing their own stories.

I’m so excited to be working with all of them.
*
By the way, if you missed the previous Road Warriors or haven’t kept up with them since they were in Belize, here are their blogs:

Megan Wood

Lily Girma

Norbert Figueroa