In our peregrinations around New York, Delaney and I took note of some interesting trends.  I list them here for your edification, in case you want to know what the cool kids are doing, eating, and wearing.

–Dogs in shoes.  Dogs are everywhere in New York, but the cutest canines are all wearing sneakers.  It’s all the pavement, I suppose; their poor little feet need protection, since they don’t have dog-friendly grass to run around in.

–Oatmeal.  Yay!  Oatmeal has finally hit the big-time.  Restaurants are serving the humble oat in ways that that range from predictable (berries, dried fruit, nuts) to surprising (bruleed, baked, and topped with every decadent dairy product you can imagine).

–Rainboots.  Well, boots in general (even with shorts, which I find utterly perplexing), but rainboots are especially dear to my heart.  There’s nothing so pleasant as having toasty dry feet on a cold, wet day.

–Ukraine.  Yes, I realize this is a former Soviet republic, and therefore not even a little bit close to New York, geographically speaking, but we were surprised (in a good way) to find ourselves in a sort of Ukrainian neighborhood, complete with restaurants, a church, and signs in Cyrillic.  That was fun.

–Eating local.  This just kind of cracks me up.  I mean, it’s great.  If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I’m a huge fan of the locavore movement.  And it’s wonderful to go into a coffee shop in New York that’s using local milk, but I did sort of wonder how they’re defining local.  I mean, I’ve roamed all over that island in the last couple of weeks, and I never did see any cows grazing.  And yes–the milk that we drink at home?  I’ve seen those cows.  I know where they live.

–Riot gear.  Totally trendy, especially amongst the crowd-control types.

–Protesting.  Just as trendy as the riot gear, and usually found in the same parts of town.

–The Highline.  This is a new-ish park, built on an abandoned elevated rail line, and it’s going on my official list of Favorite Places In The World.  Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way–it was packed on the (chilly, windy) day Delaney and I were there.

–Barbecue, southern-style.  Oh, puh-leeze.

–Niceness.  Delaney and I concluded that the people who live in New York are pretty much all very nice.  Tourists?  Not so much.

–Books.  It warmed my heart to see people reading–in parks, on the subway, in coffee shops.  And books are being advertised on billboards and trains and the sides of busses.  I’m glad to know we still love to read.

We made huge progress last weekend–we cleaned Toby’s room!  After months of having him hanging out in the kitchen (I love him, but the constant underfoot was really getting old), we realized that the only solution was to move him–and all his stuff–back into his bedroom.  Step one:  clear out his room.  In order to use the space, one has to be able to actually enter the space.

We warned him that it was coming.  We gave him several weeks’ notice, and ample opportunity to take matters into his own hands.  No dice.  He insisted that it couldn’t be done, it needn’t be done, and he wouldn’t allow it to be done.

So we waited until he headed out for a long bike ride, then Lee and I rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

Note:  if you have a son, you will most likely face this problem at some point.  My (very unscientific) poll of grown men and parents of boys indicates that the vast majority of boys are, to some degree, total slobs (most, but not all, appear to grow out of it to a greater or lesser degree).

Our approach–whenever we need him to sort/dispose of/put away some pile of junk, we put said pile in an inconvenient spot (usually the hall), and then hang over him to ensure that it gets dealt with.  It’s a ridiculous amount of hand-holding, but I accept this.  I may be a complete failure at teaching my kids to be responsible for their space, but it’s too late to fix that at this point.  I’m just trying to protect what little sanity I have left.

So that’s what we did.  We pulled everything out of his room.  Emptied the dresser drawers.  Dug piles out from under the bed.  Poked around behind the furniture.  EVERYTHING.

And then he got home from his bike ride.  We were on pins and needles, wondering how loud the explosion was going to be.  Delaney was frantically trying to find a friend to come whisk her away.  We waited.  He finally went upstairs, saw that his detritus, piled up in the hall, made it physically impossible to traverse the hall, and whipped out his phone to take a picture.  It was a watershed moment:  even the owner of the hoard could see its ridiculousness.

And that was that.  A few hours later, he had thrown away/donated/Craigslisted a mind-boggling amount of crap, and his room was inhabitable once again.  Lee and I were hugely impressed (and more than a little surprised) by his maturity–he was willing to part with far more “memorabilia” than we had anticipated.  And (as has been our experience), once it was gone, it was gone.  He doesn’t miss it.

On the contrary–he seems pleased to have his room back.  He’s doing his homework at his desk, instead of the kitchen table.  When he wanders into the kitchen to tell me something or show me his latest Youtube discovery, I’m actually glad to see him, instead of frustrated by his constant presence.

It’s a win-win.

Some entertaining discoveries we made during the clean-up:

I counted 26 undershirts, but that was a mistake.  I later found five more in the laundry.

Ten hockey jerseys.  He hasn’t played hockey since, what?  Fifth grade?  Sixth?  It was so long ago none of us can remember.

His (extensive) collection of musical instruments included a pile of buckets.  There actually used to be five of them; I think we’re down to two or three now.

Every swim team ribbon he ever received.  If you’ve ever had a child on a summer swim team, you know they get several dozen ribbons every year.  He swam for probably five summers.  That’s a lot of ribbons.  One of the funniest moments of the whole process was when he announced that he’d need to buy a safe to take with him when he moves out.  To keep stuff in, like the ribbons.  Um.  We had a nice conversation about what sorts of things one might put in a safe.  Needless to say, ancient swim ribbons were not on that list.

A jumble of cables, like so much spaghetti.

A serious, orchestra-quality gong.  Cuz, y’know, every house needs one, right?

A dozen ties.  I counted.  And this is a boy whose idea of dressing up is jeans instead of shorts.

You may notice, in this photo, a wooden airplane and a teddy bear.  Yes, he’s a bit of a sentimentalist.  Another of my favorite moments was when we got a hard pitch for a storage unit.  He actually argued that most Americans have a storage unit, and we’re some kind of freaks because we don’t.  Sorry, kiddo.  If I don’t need to have it in easy access, I don’t need it at all.

My favorite moment of the whole day–the moment when he saw the light, and started really getting rid of stuff in earnest–was when he sat down on the stairs, and called us to come look.  He was holding two portable cd players, one in each hand.

“Why do I have TWO cd players?  Why??”

He’s an iPod kid.  Has been for years.  Before that it was a Zune.  We haven’t used a cd player in this house in years.

I think that was the moment when visions of that crazy hoarder life flashed through his mind, and he resolved not to go there.

You remember Hoppin’ John, right?  Well, meet Hoppin’ John’s unfortunately-named cousin–Limping Susan.  I had never heard the name Limping Susan till a local restaurant owner wrote about it in his weekly newsletter–but the dish was totally familiar.  Rice, tomatoes, okra–some of my favorite things, all jumbled together.  I don’t know who  gave it such a silly moniker, but I wonder if maybe they were trying to avoid the okra stigma.

Ben Barker, owner of Magnolia Grill (another local restaurant, and a leader in the upscale Southern food trend), writes about this recipe in his book, Not Afraid of Flavor:

“When we served this as part of a smoked pork tenderloin plate, the menu description ‘stewed okra’ seemed to deter a sizable percentage of customers.  But once we changed the name to ‘tomato gumbo,’ the dish became amazingly popular.”

Ben apparently has better luck than I do–Lee wasn’t buying any of it at our house.  I bought some okra, with every intention of making the “gumbo.”  But when he asked what was for dinner, I made the mistake of telling him.  Okra.  He convinced me to go out.  Every night, until I had to throw the okra away.

I finally got smart and made it last week, while he was out of town.  That way, I figured, I could have the whole pot to myself (and yes, he TOTALLY missed out–it was delicious).

Ben Barker’s Stewed Okra (a.k.a. Tomato Gumbo)

1 T olive oil
1 T rendered bacon fat (yeah, I just left that out, since I don’t usually have bacon fat hanging around)
1 medium onion, peeled and diced fine
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 cups tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 pound okra, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
salt and black pepper to taste
1 cup cooked long-grain white rice

Heat the oil (and bacon fat) in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat.  Add the onion, lower the heat, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens but doesn’t color.

Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and bay leaf, and cook for 1 minute.

Add the tomatoes (and any extra juice).  Bring to a simmer.

Add the okra and simmer until the okra is tender (approximately 8 to 10 minutes).  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in the cooked rice and serve.

This article has us a little concerned.  It says you should never let your medications get hot.

Um, ours come in the mail–in North Carolina.  It gets mighty hot in our black mailbox, with the summer sun beating down.  And insurance companies are beginning to require the use of mail-order prescription services like Medco.

(Of course, when Lee read the article last week, I posed a broader question:  even if we get our prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy, how do we know the medications were kept cool en route to the drugstore?  It’s all quite troubling.)

Confession:  I have no idea what poison ivy looks like.  I know the old adage–leaves of three, let it be–but what does that mean exactly?

Herewith, my dilemma.

The thing above: obviously not poison ivy (it’s a pretty white flower; Queen Anne’s Lace, specifically).  Okay, that was an easy one.

This one:  also not poison ivy.  It’s a wildflower, but I think that botanically it’s some sort of legume.  Pretty, no?

How about a sweet little yellow flower?  Lovely, but I’m still fairly confident that it isn’t poison ivy.

Once we get away from the flowers, I have to really look carefully.  But I’m pretty certain this is not poison ivy.  Those leaves are bigger than my head, and I’m fairly certain poison ivy is sneakier than that.

The frondy-looking stuff reminds me of carrots, and they don’t give me a rash.  So I’m fairly certain this is safe.

Red alert! Red alert!  Leaves of three.  BUT–that is a blackberry.  I’m usually pretty good at identifying things that can go into a pie, so I’m just positive that is definitely a blackberry.

This has three leaves, but it’s clover.  Harmless.

But now we are into tricky territory.  Three leaves.

Also three leaves.

And three leaves.

Oh wait.  This one has five.  But am I really going to know the difference when I go stomping through a patch of it on my hike tomorrow afternoon?  I think not.

This might be it.  But then again–it might not.  As you can see, I have no idea what the stuff looks like.  I know it’s around here; Lee once went outside with a weedeater and wound up with the worst case of poison ivy you’ve ever seen.  Apparently you shouldn’t inhale the toxic miasma created when large amounts of the oil are released into the air.

And we still don’t know how to identify it.  Suggestions?  Bueller?

I’ve explained this before, so forgive me if I sound repetitive.  We’re up in the mountains for a few weeks.  Running is a logistical challenge up here.  My mother-in-law’s house is on a dirt road on top of a mountain, way out in the country.  The people who live nearby are . . . country folks.

They have dogs.  Their dogs run free.  Any time I step onto that dirt road, I’m likely to be chased by a loud, barky, big dog.

I have a dog phobia.  I also have a constitutional need for large amounts of exercise. We have a house full of people (nine this past weekend), which stresses my introverted self in every possible way.  This is a challenging scenario.

Here’s the solution I’ve worked out this summer:  We drive into town (25 minutes), I drop Lee off at a coffee shop, and I park the car at the public pool.  There’s a 2-mile trail, so I run out and back, getting in a perfect 4 miles.  Then I shower at the pool (for $2, it’s the best deal in town), and go back to the coffee shop to pick Lee up.  Then we go on with our day.

Yesterday we had 2 teenaged girls in tow (Delaney and a friend).  We roused them early, so that I could get my run in before it got too hot.  We dragged them into town, making sure they stuff to do while they waited, plus all their gear for a day of adventuring.

I got everyone situated (the friend was swimming laps at the pool).  We had all the timing and transportation and communications worked out.

I got ready to run.

I had forgotten my sneakers.

In the trunk of the car, I found 4 bags of garbage (don’t ask), and my Tevas.  River sandals.  I debated for about 30 seconds, then I put on those sandals, cinched the straps down, and went for my run.  All 4 miles.*

I’m flexible, spontaneous, and creative.  Also:  determined, desperate, and slightly addicted.

*It went fine actually, making me wonder if I should reconsider that whole barefoot running trend.  On second thought, maybe not.  I missed my sneakers.

This is why I love Youtube.  Every now and again, I come across something (usually pointed out by Lee or one of the kids) that makes my day, and when I get stuck in a sticky plot point or a sentence that won’t come together in a way that makes sense, I go watch my new obsession two or three times in a row, until things look a little better.

This one meets all my criteria–perky music, interesting scenery, a nice message about peace and unity, and cool dance moves.  I could watch dance videos all day.  It’s a terrible distraction.

This is the original.  It’s several years old, and you’ve probably seen it fifteen times, but it’s still inspiring.  You should watch it again.  And then go have a fabulous day.

Lee and I have learned some lessons from our (ongoing) 2011 house purge.  Foremost on that list of lessons:  we have a lot of stuff that we don’t need.

That’s not especially surprising–it seems to be the American way.

The corollary, though, is mildly interesting, in my opinion:  buying more stuff to organize your stuff doesn’t really work.

First off, the systems themselves are ineffective.  I’ve tried it all–shelves, baskets, boxes, crates, hooks–and unless you are willing to invest a significant chunk of time in implementing the system (and doing so effectively, ie, culling the junk instead of just dumping it all in a box and stuffing it under the bed), you haven’t really dealt with the problem; you’ve just kicked it down the road, to be dealt with at a later date.

Besides, if you hang a hook beside the door and label it CAR KEYS, and then your teenager insists on leaving his car keys on the coffee table, you haven’t really dealt with the clutter problem; you’ve just added a nicely labelled hook to your house-wide collection of stuff.

Problem number two (and I believe this is actually the greater mental leap, for most of us):  well-organized clutter is still clutter.  Your collection of old National Geographic magazines may be in numerical order, in a special dust-free, archival-quality lidded box, but the bigger question is why are you hanging on to a collection of old National Geographic magazines?

Someone, at some point in time, is going to throw them away.  It’s inevitable.  So why not get rid of them now, and clear out that space?

Gabrielle Hamilton, owner of Prune restaurant in New York, has written a memoir.  This, in itself, is not huge news–chef/foodie memoirs come out all the time, and there’s at least one every year that gets big headlines and good sales.

Blood, Bones and Butter is different from most of the others.  It’s a beautiful, well-written, skillfully-crafted book.  I have no idea what her food is like (I’m still kicking myself for not going to Prune when I was in New York a few weeks ago), but I do know that Hamilton is a talented writer.  Scattered throughout the book are lyrical passages that I read and re-read, for the sheer pleasure of the words.

The book is not really about restaurants.  Or about food.  Or even about the making of a top-notch chef.

Instead it’s about one woman’s fairly screwed-up life, and what she does with it.  Food–as work and as pleasure–is important, of course, but more often than not, it’s a metaphor, or a lens through which Hamilton understands and interprets her world.  Food, for her, is a symbol, or a method of communication, or an expression of love.

Ultimately, I think, this is true for all of us who have moved beyond basic subsistence–how we cook, what we eat, and with whom–all take on great significance, perhaps because they are such a fundamental part of life.  Hamilton writes about food in a way that covers the range of our experience, without too much of the heavy-handed “insider’s view” that so often makes me want to stop eating in restaurants altogether (although, if you’re a fan of huge catered meals for several hundred, you might find yourself having second thoughts).

What I loved most was her honesty–she doesn’t hesitate to explore her own screw-ups and mistakes, her bad behavior, or the personality quirks that make her prickly and difficult.  She doesn’t shy away from her own culpability in her dysfunctional relationships.  She paints herself as neither perfect nor innocent.

Only in two cases (albeit important ones) did I feel she missed the mark–I didn’t feel like I really understood her relationships with either her mother, or Michele.  I won’t say more than that, because I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone, but I’d love for some of you to read it, and tell me whether you agree.

Lee took my car to get new tires over the weekend (another story, for another day).  While they were being installed, he waited, in the small, rubbery-y smelling waiting area of the tire store, reading his book.  He was one of four people in the room, three of whom were reading–on Kindles.  There wasn’t a traditional paper book to be seen.

Electronic readers are here, people, and they aren’t going away.  Paper books, on the other hand, are going away.  Perhaps not entirely–we’ll always want “souvenirs” of some reading experiences–but for the most part, serious readers have made the switch.

The key word in the above sentence is serious.  For a hard-core consumer of books, it just doesn’t make sense to keep fighting the current.  E-books are cheaper, more convenient to purchase, to carry, to store.  The market is breaking open–almost all “old-fashioned” books that come out now are also in e-format, but the reverse is not always true; plenty of books are now coming out in e-format only.

What cracks me up is when people look at my Kindle (I’m on my second one, for the record–I was an early adopter, having gotten my first one for Mother’s Day in 2008, and it is my absolute favorite piece of technology, ever) with contempt.

“Oh, no,” they’ll say.  ”I could never read on one of those things.  I’m a book person.”

Um.  Hello?  Serious book person here.  Hard-core.  I love books.  I actually have a small collection of rare and antique books, none of which are particularly valuable, but all of which have great significance to me.  I have books that I’ve read so many times they’re falling apart, the spines cracked, corners dog-eared, endpages covered with my scribbled notes.  I have books on my shelves that Santa brought me when I was a little girl, next to flimsy, handbound pages that my children made for me when they were small.  The cookbooks are stained with wine, with butter, with tomato juice.  The trashy novels are stained with salt water, chlorine, and sunscreen.

I could go on.  I could point out, for instance, that there are books in every room of our house, including the bathrooms.  Or that the biggest obstacle to cleaning out the attic is the boxes and boxes of books, overflowing with everything from my graduate school textbooks, to the children’s early readers.  I could even point out that I have a PhD in literature–seriously.  I love books!

But ultimately, it’s what’s in the books that I care about the most.  The stories, the recipes, the knitting patterns, the history and adventure and travel advice and all that other stuff that I look for when I read–I get that on my Kindle, and I get it where and when I want it.  The whole world of books, at my fingertips.

It boggles the mind.