Sign of the Times

Sometimes you don't realize how much you take something for granted until it's about to leave you. Case in point? Our local dollar store. Unlike the wave of similar models opening shop around the neighborhood, this one was independently owned -- by a nice Middle Eastern guy who always offered a warm greeting and never tried to
up-sell.

We counted on them for staples like bungee cords, tissue paper, and shower-curtain liners. Every once in a while we'd come across a great pair of cheap sunglasses or set of Asian dishware. Now they're packing it in, liquidating the whole inventory for 30% off (they do the math in their heads at the register, and sometimes it's closer to 20%, but who can really quibble over a dime?)

I went in yesterday to stock up on a few things and express my sympathy to the owner.

"Yes, what can you do?" he said. "The neighborhood is changing. It's very hard."

He's right. The neighborhood is changing. Yesterday a hipster in a white jean jacket walked past me from west of where we live (I was comforted when he wasn't past checking out some furniture someone left in the alley for the trash man). A renovated sports bar has opened two doors down from the store. And probably most consequential, the national Family Dollar chain has a targeted expansion plan for neighborhoods like ours.

Still, business isn't coming in droves to this frenetic stretch of Fullerton. My best guess is the storefront will stay empty for a long time, probably replaced by a cell-phone shop. We have a situation that's too late for a dollar store and too early for a boutiquey cafe. It makes you wonder what this means for economic development, and what kind of forecasting (or audacious gambling) a business will have to do before it can take up residence there and be successful. If they're legit and independently owned, it's a fair guess we'll be supporting them.

Let the good deeds go unpunished

This guy was talking just today about how damn lucky he feels in this life: He's travelled the world, plays in a band he loves, and has a great house in a neighborhood where both guitar repair and streetside cheese tamales are just a few paces away. He wondered out loud when his luck might run out, saying he was really in no position to complain if it did.

Sometime within the next hour, he lost his Blackberry.

Since that put a bit of a damper on the afternoon, I thought I'd note for the record that my good luck is simply in knowing him. (If you know him too, you surely feel the same). This week alone he took our dog to surgery, helped her up and down the steps at least 15 times, put antiobiotics and pain pills down her throat, stuck her haunches with a needle, lost sleep as she whimpered through the night, and still had enough will and stamina left to repair the trellis that broke in half during February's blizzard.

He gives money to drifters, mows the neighbor's lawn, tips his servers at least 25%, and installed a ramp for the dog next door when she became too arthritic to take the back stairs.

I've been known to complain about dirty dishes and unhung coats left about the house, but that's a ridiculously small tariff for a guy with power tools and an unspeakably generous spirit. He could lose a thousand Blackberries and a thousand hours looking for them, but he'll never lose the thing that makes him always just a little bit better than he needs to be.

When Things are Pretty for a Day

Yesterday we woke to gloomy rain the very day we were scheduled for our block group's annual Clean & Green, in which we roll out of our houses in grubby clothes and together clear the debris that's taken up residence on our blocks. This is no easy task. For those of you who have visited, you know the litter has become something of a character in the drama of our lives here in the neighborhood, and not a very nice one at that.

By the 10am start of the clean-up, the skies had cleared a bit, and household by household, people started emerging to lend a hand. Not every household, mind you -- and some of the worst offenders were unsurprisingly not to be found -- but it was great to see kids, new neighbors, and people I've never met before pitching in to make this a place that looks like it's cared for rather than an urban dumping ground. It's really something to look down the expanse of our blocks and see one green front yard after the next, unpolluted by fast-food bags and discarded beer bottles -- just spring perennials in bloom, trees coming back to life, and lawn decorations of every stripe.

Part II of yesterday, after a hot shower and hearty lunch, found John and I taking a three-block walk to the festivities of Record Store Day. This is a national annual event, and we were happy to see our local record shop, despite being a scrappy newcomer to the scene, participating with zeal. John was there when the doors opened at 9am, and he was hardly the first in line. He bought a bunch of special releases, and we spent the afternoon watching seven different bands playing for free. We haven't seen the store as packed with devoted customers since their grand opening a year or so back.

We put the day to rest over a pot of homemade ginger lentil soup, the perfect thing since the cold rain had returned by early evening.

So here's the thing: Today is a windy day, and we know that within an hour or so, litter will be blown from Fullerton Avenue right down our blocks and into our yards. But we also know that people may be more likely to pick up that random detritus, at least for a little while. And we also know that our little corner garden, which now has native perennials transplanted from five different households, is blooming again -- those flowers resilient despite a brutal winter and all the exhaust and smog of the city. And that's one of the more hopeful signs I can think of for what may lie ahead.

Someone's in the Kitchen with Nitrous

Calling all nonprofits or charitable organizations: Invite me to your silent auction! I admit it. I have a sickness. I've never met an auction I didn't like, and I've never stepped away without bidding on something. Sometimes it's very small: a gift certificate for a frame shop, or a bottle of wine. Sometimes it's quite large: 10 days of seaside lodging in Croatia, for example, or more recently, Chef for a Day at Moto restaurant.

If you don't know Moto, it's one part traditional kitchen, one part mad-scientists' lab. Their food is a mash-up of normal old grocery-store staples and unpredictable techniques employing food dehydrators, liquid nitrogen, nitrous oxide, edible paper, and machines invented expressly to unfoodify (yes, I've just made this up) the dishes. You get 10 or 20 small courses, depending on your level of extravagance and purchasing power. The result is at times extraordinary (a signature box that heats consommé so it steams a piece of fish inside, or a faux Cuban cigar wrapped in collard greens) and at times disappointing (edible packing peanuts seem to mock rather than play with their consumers). But it's always original. And I can say now from experience, the kitchen crew is having a blast preparing your meal.

I spent four hours in their stunning basement kitchen yesterday, listening to a soundtrack of 70s classics as I peeled carrots or sliced shallots through a laughably unstable mandoline, marveling at how these culinary experiments start with the most banal ingredients. This struck me as either a lighthearted extension of the restaurant's sense of humor, or a comforting sense that everything, and I mean everything, begins with the basics.

Ben, the pastry chef, who has gained fame through his appearances on Future Food, and also happens to live in my neighborhood (see how I did that? brought it back to the neighborhood? because otherwise, you're right, this doesn't fit the parameters I've set out for this blog at all. thank you, Ben), took me under his wing. He insisted that I taste everything, including his amazing housemade ice creams: Earl grey and sassafrass. He's enjoying sassafrass lately and also made it the esssence of his homemade marshmallow fluff. I tasted pineapple infused with vanilla, densely macerated banana puree, and a rich dark chocolate truffle into which is inserted a small marshmallow wick that is set on fire like a tiny bomb. When the flame goes out, you put the entire truffle in your mouth and it explodes with the taste of a campfire s'more. At one point, Ben put a pastry bag of his banana puree into an industrial vaccuum sealer.

"What's that doing?" I asked.

"Running the restaurant." He was smiling, but he wasn't kidding.

I joined the crew for "family meal" around 2:30, when everything breaks for some needed staff sustenance and revelry with the front-of-house folks. One of the chefs made a decidedly un-Moto like chicken marsala with truffled mashed potatoes and homemade pasta. I could've eaten that marsala for days.

I also got a window into their service strategies during the 4:15 staff meeting. They reviewed the reservations -- so many dietary restrictions! -- and decided on the fly how to substitute dishes to keep Table 4 gluten-free, make sure Table 11 had no dairy other than cheese, or avoid refined sugars for Table 8.

All in all, it was an unforgettable day. So different from being in my grandmother's restaurant as a kid, when my sister and I would flee to the walk-in when the French chefs would start screaming at each other. In fairness, they couldn't've been overjoyed to have two sticky rugrats in their kitchen stealing melba toasts from dry storage.

There's something kinetic about a restaurant kitchen. Especially so when you're sucking all the moisture out of a mushroom to turn it into a crunchy garnish for beef, or pouring a vat of liquid nitrogen into a bowl of who knows what, filling the room with smoke. Ultimately, though, it all comes down to that banana puree, and how they remind you of the ones your father used to mash for you as a toddler, when you weren't old enough to remember much, but this was one of the things that mattered.

Gustatory One-Act

Overheard today at the winter farmer's market (the last of the year):

Man to bread vendor: Do you have any normal bread?

Vendor: What do you mean by normal bread? Do you mean white bread?

Man: You know. Something to make a sandwich with. White . . . rye.

Vendor: I have walnut, or whole wheat.

Man: No, no, no. None of that tricky stuff.

Of all the tiny telenovellas that have played themselves out at the market -- the sad-eyed alfajores baker aching to make a sale (delicious, but $4 apiece); the alfalfa sprout vendor from downstate, resiliently appearing after being implicated in the Jimmy John's salmonella scare; flirations between vendors and patrons; visitors who graze on free samples and never buy a thing -- this is undoubtedly my favorite.

Happy trails, winter market. You've served my pantry and my eavesdropping well.

Buy me a record

Remember when I dreamed this record store into existence? That was a pretty good dream. It's been nice to have them around the corner, especially because almost every weekend features a free live performance by one musical act or another. Some are bands you've surely heard of. Most are unknown, like shiny wrapped presents.

Yesterday we saw Matthew Mullane, an acoustic guitarist who looks as young as my nephew but plays like a virtuoso.

Previously we've seen a rowdy blues band, an electronica DJ (with a film projected behind him onto a white bedsheet), a moody Califone, and a Southern-gothic punk outfit that would challenge you to a staring contest as soon as look at you.

We've missed Jon Langford, a handful of noise bands, two film premieres (shown on the same white bedsheet), three art openings, and a 17-member punk-rock glee club singing a cappella. No matter. There's always something new on the calendar.

Watching music this way corrects for all the things I've come to hate about the late-night rock club:

- Afternoon performances. You leave and it's still daylight outside

- Just one or two bands on the docket, with none of that endless set-up and breakdown in between

- Crowds you can breathe in, even if you're short

- No danger of getting knocked over by some liquored-up jerk trying to recreate the mosh pits of his youth

- Sometimes there's a dog in there

- Free show!

See? It's not that I don't love music anymore. Not at all. It's more that after 20+ years of heading out at 10pm, sitting through two different bands before hearing the one I came to see, and dodging the collective machismo of the room, I'm ready for a kinder, gentler delivery system. Now one has opened just around the corner, and I don't even care that my husband is single-handedly keeping them in business. Whatever it takes, I hope they stick around.

Someday I'll write a shorter post, but apparently not today

Little in life makes me happier than a new thrift store. This one isn't so new, but it's a new discovery for me since I've started walking to work.

Cargo, as it's called, has been around for a year, and the cheerful Global Cafe next door is part of the same operation. Both businesses are connected to a detox center that's operated for years, modestly and even mysteriously, out of a pair of storefronts.

A year ago, they put in a community garden in the empty lot next door. They rehabbed what had been their meeting space -- a place where clients could get together behind closed curtains and have a cup of coffee and a chat -- to the public. Now the clients work in the thrift store or the cafe, earning a modest wage as they get back on their feet and build up their portfolios.

Does it surprise you to hear me say I adore this model? (I didn't think so).

I popped into the thrift shop yesterday and encountered who must be the founder of this eponymous facility. He was a lively character, definitely turning on the hard sell for a BCBG dress (I bought it) and some grandmotherly china (I passed). He talked about making a collage of Michael Jackson magazine photos for the wall, then trying to sell it for $25. He led a sweet, pregnant Spanish-speaking woman to a box of onesies, all on sale for $1. He pushed me to buy a $10 spider plant, which will help fund the insurance they need for their community garden, a bureaucratic formality that clearly disgusts him. The pregnant woman's 7-year-old son told him $10 was way too much money for a plant. I'll probably eventually buy the damn thing.

And then a curious thing happened. The guy held up something I've never seen before. It looked like an old pin, but was actually a clasp you attach to a scarf to keep it in place. Sweet, but superfluous, so I told him thanks, but not today.

And then he gave it to me.

"Please take it," he said. "This looks like you and you should have it."

"Thank you," I said. "That's incredibly kind, and I accept it."

Now I hesitate to tell the rest of the story, because it casts a bit of a pall on this moment, and I admit it made me wonder if this was truly a gift or a covenant he was enlisting.

But after talking of the good karma he thought this would bring him, he told me that everything he does is in service to the Creator, and isn't the Creator's will majestic?

You know me by now, so you know I had no answer for this question. I smiled, thanked him again, and headed out the door.

But the whole thing left me wondering. What does it mean to take my tea and gently-used dresses with a side of old-time religion? Will I continue to shop in the store, or will I avoid the place to avoid the conversation? Will I feel too disingenuous to wear my scarf clasp?

I navigate these questions frequently in my work, which revolves largely around faith-based institutions. But I've also started outing myself as a nonbeliever ('atheist' can come off as confrontational in my line of work), and the sky hasn't fallen yet.

I suppose I could handle myself with the same diplomacy with a guy like this. I might just have to buy the Michael Jackson collage to let him know I'm not the devil.