How I Made Lavender Lemonade and Lived To Tell the Tale...

Half a block away from my apartment is a little organic market.

For someone like me, who makes her own ketchup, this may sound like a good thing.

But, to be honest, I’ll do pretty much anything to avoid going in there.

Don’t get me wrong.  Despite its tiny size, the smart little shop is stocked with fresh and healthy options.  It’s a dream-like hideaway amidst a neighborhood full of fast food joints, slices of pizza, and restaurants that specialize in arroz con pollo.

It’s just….

The woman who owns the shop is THE Most Miserable Woman in the World.

I will never forget the day she snapped at me, “What?  You don’t like my miso?”

And then there was the time I was looking for fresh, organic lentils.  The ones I’d bought at the supermarket wouldn’t sprout.  My friends began joking that I had “old, dried-up lentils”.

Oh!----the facile sexual innuendos I endured….

So when I asked the “nice lady” at the health food store if the lentils were fresh….

“Fresh?  They’re dried beans.  What do you want?”

“But….I know.  I know they’re dried.  But will they sprout?”

“Of course they’ll sprout,” she barked.  “Do you want them or not?”

So I bought them, because she was scary.  And in all fairness, they DID sprout.  But when I was looking for tea tree oil…

“It’s tea tree oil.  That’s all you need to know.  There you go.”

I won’t say the name of her shop.  I’m sure it’s hard to be a small business owner.

But with all the little drawers of herbs, sachets of stimulating teas, and bottles of organic elixirs…

SHE’S MISERABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She ruins my day.

She’s not a happy person. 

Seething anger is running lava-like from her pores.

She IS Mount Vesuvius.

Upon entering her store, you must be prepared to meet your fate of transforming into a Pompeian plaster cast made from the ash deposits of her rage.

Signed, Pliny the Younger.

So how does a woman surrounded by health and wellness become such a nasty old crone?

I have no idea.

I don’t want to get that close to the volcano.

Recently, I needed some beeswax.

Why?

Well, it’s none of your….

Sorry.  I couldn’t help myself.

But I needed beeswax.  Coming back from the post office, I found myself right in front of her shop.

Oh god help me.

I dreaded going in there.  What means of excoriation would I suffer now?

It was like that moment in a horror film where the crowd at the movie theatre yells out, “Don’t open the door!!!  Bitch, don’t open the damn door!!!!!!!!!!!”

I opened the door.

I seem to recall the eerie ring of a little bell…

A black shop cat scurried deftly past my feet.

I surveyed the room.  Le Miserable was nowhere in sight.  There was a young clerk working that day.  She didn’t race from behind the counter to accost me, so I took my time looking around.  Finally, I got up the nerve to approach the counter. 

“Hi.  I’m looking for some beeswax.”

“No.  Not today,” she waved me off.  “We carry it.  But not today.”

I could tell she was but a few servings of brown rice away from turning into another Nosferatu.

I ran out of there like the time I accidentally found myself in a Santeria shop in Washington Heights.  I thought it was a spice store.

I don’t believe in voodoo.  But it’s not the sort of place you’re “just browsing”.

So today I needed essential lavender oil…

I was this close to hiding a cross in my bag and wearing garlic around my neck.

But I needed it, so I dared to enter the portals…

Happily, I managed to procure essential lavender oil without leaving a broken shell of a woman.  But the newest clerk gave me the fish eye when I walked in the door and had no enthusiasm for my latest jaunt into health and wellness. 

It’s like they’re all dead.  

Health Food Store of the Living Dead.

If you’re trying to eat healthy and you’re miserable, then you’re doing it wrong.

And that’s a whole other chapter. 

So, a few weeks ago, I stumbled across a post about Lavender Lemonade. 

I make lemonade a lot at home.  I just needed the lavender oil and was dreading the Haunted Health Food Store.

You don’t even need a recipe.  Just remember the numbers 666.

And after the Health Food Store story…how can you forget 666?

6 cups of water

6 lemons (juiced)

6 tablespoons of simple syrup.

What is simple syrup? 

Ever try to put sugar into iced tea and notice how some of the sugar doesn’t dissolve and winds up at the bottom of your glass?  It’s because sugar doesn’t dissolve as well in cold water. 

Simple syrup is basically 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar.  Put this in a pan over medium heat and dissolve.  When cool, put it in the fridge and you can use it for everything from iced tea to cocktails.

But then there’s RICH simple syrup.  2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water.  It’s thicker, you use less (bartenders love it because it doesn’t water-down their cocktails), and it keeps longer in the fridge.

This is what I generally make.  And to make it a tiny bit healthier, I use organic pure cane sugar.  While normal simple syrup comes out clear----any kind of raw sugar syrup will be a bit darker.

So---666.  And then you put in one drop of essential lavender oil.

ONE DROP!!!

Yes.  I went thru all of this agony today for one drop.

If you do more than that, your lemonade will taste like the kitchen floor your Spanish-speaking grandma just mopped with Fabuloso floor cleaner.  No bueno.

Garnish with a few extra lemon slices and some mint sprigs---or lavender, if you like.

It’s delicious and refreshing and especially soothing after a bit of yoga!

And to take it one summer-y step further…

Lavender Lemonade Popsickles!

In my ice pop maker, it takes about 2 ½ cups of liquid to fill all 10 molds. 

But I only wanted four popsickles just for me---so I used one cup of the lemonade and added in an extra tablespoon of simple syrup.  Frozen treats need more sugar to allow the flavors to come thru.  Sugar is the salt of popsickles!

When they’re done, I take them out of the molds, wrap them in wax paper, and use a little sticky label to wrap them and note the flavor of popsickle.

Sure, I could have put some lemon slices or mint leaves into the popsickles to make them look all fancy---but who needs that stuff?

One of these days, when the Wicked Witch of the West at the Health Food store is melting, maybe I’ll bring her one of these.

Because there’s nothing like a lemonade popsickle on a hot day to remind you that, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”  

Confessions of A Vanilla Badass...

Sometimes, because I’m a quiet white lady and I only weigh about 108 pounds and a little bit older and I don’t have tattoos or crazy hair and I don’t do drugs and I’m nice and I enjoy giving out homemade dog treats to the local pups…

Sometimes, people see me as a “pushover”.  The sort of delicate flower you can step all over and they’ll just sit quietly in a corner of the garden and “take it”.

But I’m actually kind of a secret badass.  Maybe because I went to Catholic schools.  Two things you learn there---when you’re forced to wear uniforms, you’re forced to develop a PERSONALITY to distinguish yourself from the others.  And second---nuns may look all sweet and gentle…  But DO NOT mess with a nun.  

I repeat---DO NOT MESS WITH A NUN!!!
  

There's a mistaken belief that you need to “look dangerous” and “talk tough" to be a badass.  But the worst kind of badass you can encounter is a Vanilla Badass---someone like me---because you'll never see it coming.

My mother is a Vanilla Badass.  Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't swear. Never has and never will.  You do NOT want to run into her in the dark alley of your life.

Because don't even THINK of taking advantage of my mother.  I've seen her do battle with every kind of "bad guy" imaginable.  She always wins.  After she's dispatched her latest assailant, she goes home to enjoy a cup of tea with rye bread and butter to watch the nightly news while her victim curls up like a partially-aborted fetus and whimpers under his mommy's bed.

Being a Vanilla Badass has NOTHING to do with skin color and EVERYTHING to do with your attitude towards life, your fellow man, and the world around you. 

Gentle, but with an inner strength.  An Iron Butterfly.

Last week, my friend Jana was in town from Bali where she works as a healer.  As we chatted over tea and coffee and a delicious lunch in the East Village---I learned SO much about Bali. 

Pros:  It’s BALI!!!  Beautiful weather, fresh fruits and vegetables, lots of yoga and relaxation.  Ah! 

Cons:  Bugs.  Huge ass bugs.  And lizards and snakes and lots of other creepy-crawly things…none of which seem to have any trouble getting into your home.

As I squirmed in my seat, Jana shrugged it off and explained, “After all, it IS the jungle.”

That's SO badass!!!  

It would take a LOT of yoga for me to be all namaste about that.

But she gave me two little gifts from Bali that thrilled me to no end---cocoa butter and Balinese vanilla beans!  Two products not only inexpensive in Bali, but perfected there.

One of the things Jana mentioned over lunch, “It’s weird, I can buy vanilla beans and vanilla bean paste and powdered vanilla….but I can’t find vanilla extract anywhere in Bali.”

It wasn’t till I was I was back home that it dawned on me.  I remembered something else she’d mentioned over lunch so I sent her an email.

“I have a feeling that the reason you can’t find vanilla extract in Bali is because it contains alcohol.  But I’ve made it at home and it’s easy! I’ll send you the recipe.”

What she had mentioned was that while Bali is fairly autonomous from the rest of Indonesia due to both its reliance on tourism and the fact that it’s always been less of a Muslim culture than a Hindu/Buddhist/animism culture steeped in thousands of years of ritual---it’s still technically a Muslim country and alcohol is…well, not exactly forbidden, but… 

You CAN import it---but with a tax of 300%. 

So let’s just say it’s “discouraged”.

Vanilla has a fascinating history. I’ve read TWO books about vanilla this past year---both written by the same woman.  Patricia Rain.  She’s known as “The Vanilla Queen” and probably the world’s expert on vanilla.  SO badass! 

As her website explains: 

“Patricia Rain is an author, educator, culinary historian, and owner of The Vanilla Company (www.vanillaqueen.com), a socially conscious, product-driven information and education site dedicated to the promotion of pure, natural vanilla, and the support of vanilla farmers worldwide.”

A few basic things I learned about vanilla to impress your friends:

1. The world’s two favorite ice cream flavors originated in Mexico---chocolate and vanilla.
2. What kind of plant does vanilla come from?  An orchid.  It's an orchid flower.  
3. WAY before Cortés hit the shores of the New World, the Mexican tribes had been cultivating vanilla for hundreds of years.  The invading Spaniards fell in love with its fragrance and (after killing thousands of Mexicans) took the delicious new spice back as booty to King Carlos of Spain.  Not “that” kind of booty.  The war kind.
4. Back in Europe, when they couldn't get the seeds to turn into anything even remotely resembling vanilla, they went back to Mexico and were all like, “Hey guys!  Sorry about killing all your friends and family.  But we can’t get these things to grow.  Could you do us a solid?”  The Totonoc Indians were still (understandably) a bit peeved about their whole civilization being destroyed so they pretended to not understand what the conquistadors were saying.  This would be the first documented instance of a Mexican pretending not to speak…well, in this case, Spanish.  You killed my family and now you want my help to grow crops?  Um…no hablo espagnol.  The problem?  Their colonial plantations didn’t have the right tiny little Mexican bees to pollinate the plants.  Mum’s the word. 
5. It wasn’t until 1841 when a slave on Madagascar’s Reunion Island off Africa, Edmond Albius, discovered that you could get vanilla if you hand-pollinated the orchids….  To this day, almost all vanilla is hand-pollinated.  
6. Bourbon Vanilla does NOT contain bourbon.  The vanilla-cultivating Bourbon Islands off Africa were colonized and named after the Bourbon line of the French throne.  But bourbon and vanilla ARE the perfect match!  
7. Artificial vanilla is actually----wait for it---cardboard.  It’s basically a wood by-product leftover after making pulp paper.  Another type of “vanillin” is made from coal tar.  So if you’re using it in your baked goods---you’re doing your dessert a disservice.  It’s the margarine of the spice world.  That is, unless you enjoy newspaper-flavored ice cream or you’re baking Christmas cookies for some shitty kid and you can’t bring yourself to give him the bag of coal he actually deserves. 
8. There are three basic Latin genus of vanilla-----Vanilla planifolia, V. tahitensis, and V. pompona.  The quality varies by farmer and producer, but Vanilla planifolia is generally considered the most fragrant.
9. Vanilla can take up to five years to produce a profit for the farmer.  Because of the time and labor involved, it is the world’s second (behind saffron) most expensive spice.
10. While it’s an easy guess that fresh vanilla beans would be best stored in the refrigerator----NOT!  They don’t like humidity and can easily get moldy.  The Bourbon ones, especially, will crystallize.

Upon squirreling my Balinese vanilla home, I promptly stored the beans in a test tube-like container I saved from the vanilla beans I bought at Fairway last summer.

I tucked the little jar into my larder and there the beans will remain----well, probably for only a week or two till I make Balinese Vanilla and Cocoa Butter Ice Cream!  I just have to figure out a recipe…

But making your own vanilla extract is easy!  The homemade version is really just infused vodka.

Okay---vodka in 50 words or less:

Vodka is vodka is vodka.  Don't let some bully bartender shame you into ordering the bogus "hand-crafted top shelf" stuff.  The house brand IS likely poorly-distilled, but the rest of it is all pretty much the same.  And if he's a good bartender---he knows this, too.

By the way, if you recall, the school bully was always the dumb kid.  Remember that next time someone tries to steal your lunch money.

My go-to vodka is a Polish brand simply called Wódka.  Last year I used it to make limoncello with Meyer Lemons.  Homemade hootch.  Pretty badass.

How to make vanilla extract?  Chop up some vanilla beans, put them in vodka, cover tightly, and let it rest in your cupboard for a few weeks.  Feel free to shake and sniff it occasionally just for fun. 

That’s it!

Here’s a tiny little jar of what I call Bourbon-Bourbon Vanilla Extract. 

It’s bourbon, infused with a bourbon vanilla bean.  Perfect for bread pudding!  To give you an idea how much vanilla to use----this is one vanilla bean in a tiny airplane bottle.  As long as the beans are submerged in the alcohol, they won’t go bad.  In fact, they’ll continue to age and flavor the alcohol.

Armed with the simple idea of infusing, you now have the tools to make everything from vanilla extract to limoncello to a catnip tincture for colds to a darn fine household cleaner.  And what is more badass than Mr. Clean?

Sometimes I think if people read my plays, they might not mess with me.  I may be quiet---but my thoughts are dangerous.  My favorite book on the craft of writing is called The Triggering Town by poet, Richard Hugo.  

He says: "To write a poem you must have a streak of arrogance---not in real life I hope.  In real life try to be nice.  It will save you a hell of a lot of trouble and give you more time to write."

To Yelp A Yelper...

The other day I went on Yelp to get the address of one of my favorite restaurants in Minneapolis to share with a business traveler friend.  What occurred next prompted me to write my first (and probably last) Yelp review.  

Enjoy.


SAIGON UPTOWN by Joyce T. New York, NY

I've dined at Saigon Uptown many times. The food is delicious and the service lovely. That's why I was shocked to read a review by "J.B.": "The food has been ok, but I didn't care for the shitty attitude of the lady that worked there when I paid for my egg rolls with a card. What a bitch."

To hear about the Exorcist-like head spin of that kind, older lady... Has she been possessed by Satan to have such a complete character change from her otherwise mild demeanor? Were you excoriated and beggared not to return? Did she pummel you with bitter melons till you were left broken and bleeding at the curb?  Did she call you a bitch?

And how were the egg rolls?

Sadly, that was your entire review, J.B. And it left me feeling somehow empty.  Could you provide more details? Some information that accentuates your encyclopedia-like knowledge of Vietnamese cookery? A review that takes a simple eggroll excursion into an Anthony Bourdain-like gastronomic escapade that dazzles us with your literary talents, your culinary expertise, and your tender humanity?

Because it's hard to get past your potty mouth.

So I read your other reviews. You mentioned being a waitress. I don't know where you work. But at one point you wrote in a review, "Hey! Somebody hire me!" And in another, you wished you had a job at Dunn Brothers Coffee. You really enjoyed your cup of coffee that day, didn't you?  I'm so happy you FINALLY had a good day!

But if you're still looking for work... I would highly recommend you NOT provide a link to your Yelp page on your resume.

Before you think of me as a "budinski"... I'm just doing the same thing you're doing on Yelp---sharing an experience and trying to help a business improve. I mean, that IS what you're trying to do, right?  So that's why I'm writing this review of your reviews---to HELP!

For starters, you seem to spend a lot of time waiting 20 minutes for a server to acknowledge your presence. That's bananas! 20 minutes is a LONG time. Maybe there's a problem with your watch? Only a pathetic doormat would wait that long. You might want to visit a watch repairman. You may only be waiting a minute or two. I'm sure you could look on Yelp and find a good repairman---that is, if you can look past all the nasty things people write on Yelp. Sometimes I read the reviews and go, "It's obviously not the shop---it's THEM! They're a miserable, unhappy person who takes out their bad day on other people."

It's pretty easy to see. I'm a writer. That's what we do. Subtext.

And you REALLY like Happy Hour! Over half your reviews are for Happy Hour specials. Are you going to be able to wake up in time to work brunch? An employer may worry about that.

PS---you seem to rank the service MUCH higher when you get free stuff. I can clearly see a bit of a taint.  And not in the smutty way. If you're snickering, the onus is upon you.

No.  I said "onus".

That "free stuff" comes with a price. I know because I'm also a waitress. Not bragging, but... At the lower-priced joints where some diners nowadays think that a camera on their cell phone and a Yelp account make-thee a Michelin critic.. They can't "make or break" an Olive Garden; but they CAN cause a 12-dollar-an-hour manager to lose his job. So when someone complains that their "drink is weak"...

And boy, do you have the WORST luck not getting any liquor in your drink!  How does that happen SO often? And those free drinks you're getting-----um, the bartender is stealing. He wants a big tip. Managers may not see your team spirit the way I do, J.B. They'll see you as trouble walking in the door.

I hope you don't mind me calling you "J.B." I only do so because in your reviews, you mention servers and managers by name. Sucks-for-them that a waiter's name is on the check. As for managers, you get their names by acting all indignant and saying, "Excuse me---what's your name?" But you seem to know this already.

I wish I had more time to chat, but I have TWO waitressing jobs! One of my restaurants is a neighborhood establishment. LOVE my regulars! My other is one of the top restaurants in NYC. A huge hunk of our clientele is the rich, famous, and culinary elite. So while this affords me the opportunity to dine in the finest places----this is my FIRST Yelp review! Never bothered because the better restaurants don't pay attention to Yelp. They don't think Yelpers know anything about food or wine or service. They expect reviewers to know so much STUFF! I mean, I LOVED that piece you wrote about the pho not having enough broth.

Who knows? One day we may be working together at Bon Appétit! No need to worry about getting a server with a "shitty attitude" when we're dining at Condé Nast! I've had lunch there and it's cafeteria-style! I want you get an AMAZING job so you can afford to go to REALLY nice restaurants and become my food writing bestie for ALL the top publications! And maybe even become a better person in the process.

Sub-textually yours....

Kitchen Remodel 101---Or How To Utilize Your New Mental Health Insurance

If I haven’t been posting lately, it’s because I realized that the time was ripe for remodeling my kitchen!

So I haven’t been cooking as much as I normally do.  In fact, last week I discovered that the take-out Chinese place across the street from me (I don’t normally order from there, I prefer the take-out Chinese 10 blocks away)…but they have a DELICIOUS fried half-chicken!

Five dollars!  

It’s take-out Chinese, so I can’t vouch for the pedigree of the chickens.

But it got me thru the night while I was painting my kitchen.

We’re not talking an episode of This Old House.  After all, I’m a renter.  There’s only so much money I’m willing to put in here.

But since the construction of a new apartment complex next-door to our Pre-War building, there have been some cracks in the walls.  The building management sent in surveyors with devices that resembled those laser-pointers you use to torment your elderly cat.  Everything was notated.  Many letters regarding various insurance policies were slid under our front doors.  

But in the end---nothing.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I may not look especially handy----but I am!

I started making plans.  I Googled things.  I spent hours pummeling the Dominican guys at the local hardware stores with lady questions.

Several people suggested, “Why don’t you just call your super?”

Well…supers all across this great country of ours have a tendency to blame YOU for whatever problem you’ve called them upstairs from their mole-like basement apartments to repair.

I once had a super try to blame me for the fact that my 1962 refrigerator had finally met its demise.

“Ehhh….the problem is,” he explained in a thick Egyptian accent, “you open it, eeehhhhh, too quickly.  It ruins the plastic.  Then!---it does not work anymore.  But we will get you a new one.  You just have to open it VERY slowly.”

This advice came with a demonstration on how to open my refrigerator at the pace of Continental Drift.

And he was a Coptic Christian, so he suggested that a portrait of Jesus above my refrigerator might help.  After all, he kept the picture of Jesus in the boiler room----and was there ever a problem with the heat?

Well....it was Minnesota.  So there was. But I didn't want to blame Jesus.  I kept my mouth shut.

Not only would my Spanish-speaking super somehow find a way to blame me for the cracks in the ceiling.  “Mami, I hear you are tap dancing in here.  You can no do that.  Tap shoes will destroy even The Empire State Building!”

And I'm not here to hate on documented or un-documented citizens.   

They work hard and they deserve the best.

But you can't choose your super.

You can barely choose your over-priced NYC apartment.  

It's a sad fact of life here.

But no matter where you live, he's a troll-like guy who's missing a few teeth and dwells in the basement with the roaches and rodents

I ALSO knew from experience that he and his assistants would do a sloppy job.  Don’t even get me started on the time a portion of my ceiling got flooded from a burst pipe upstairs and fell to the floor.  My super saw the damage that day, but I waited months before I finally braved that call the would bring on the angry crusaders to rape and pillage.  All I remember is that I got home from the dinner shift at 1:30 am.  I had no idea when they would finally reach Jerusalem all drunk on mead, scrofulous and bedraggled. But by 7:10 am, they were pounding on my door.  I begged for five minutes to put on some clothes while they sulked and diddled themselves in anticipation of their pre-apartment rape of my ceiling.  Within fifteen minutes of rolling out of bed after 4 hours of sleep, they’d smashed thru my walls and covered my entire apartment in a fine coat of asbestos dust.

yay.  

And because I’m a doormat when it comes to supers, I tipped them 50 bucks for the dastardly deed.  This ensured that they did a “curtsey sweep” and left me to clean up the bulk of the mess.

In short-----I’d spend as much time and money trying to clean up their mess as it would take me to do it myself---and do it better!

So I put on my overalls and got down to business.

Walls are an arduous task.  First you wash the walls (kitchens are notorious for collecting grease), then you lay down the tape, then spackle, then paint…  Not to mention all the time you have to wait in-between these tiresome steps.

It's pretty boring stuff.  But I don't think of it as "boring".  I connect with my Buddhist side and I don't think---I just paint the walls white. 

In the beginning, I decided to listen ONLY to The Velvet Underground while working.  But I ran thru their oeuvre so quickly, that I switched to Tom Waits.  And then Bix Beiderbecke (but he died so young!).  So I moved onto violin concertos.  And there are a lot of them, but….  Now it’s strictly Mozart.  He also died young, but was amazingly prolific.  By the time my kitchen remodel is finally finished, I’ll be climbing down from the step-ladder as Gregorian Chants echo inside my pristine monastery walls.

Bear in mind, I’m not weaving medieval tapestries-----it’s not all about the walls.

But those Zen moments you have while spackling around the gas pipe and cleaning up the paint drips from the ceiling after you’ve spent five hours of looking forward to nothing but “white----clean white”-----those moments are when you’re at your most creative and problem-solving best.

Why are the pot holders there?  That’s not convenient.  If the homemade crackers are about to burn, I need the pot holders HERE where they’re handy!  

The perfect place for the pot holders has been driving me bananas for almost two weeks now.  

And why is the coffeemaker there?  I should not have to gather things from five completely different places in my kitchen just to make a cup of coffee at 7am.  What have I been thinking?  Why am I making my life so hard?  You do realize you’re doing this all to yourself, you know?  And why do you still have that old coffeemaker from the break-room of an office you worked in years ago?  I mean, it still works, but for godsakes, it’s old and stained-----and you broke the glass pot in the dishwater THREE months ago!  Why have you been content to make coffee in a measuring cup for the past three months?  What is wrong with you?  Stop being a doormat!  Just buy a new coffeemaker!

And that stupid ice cube tray….really?

Oh!----EVERY inch of my kitchen has come under consideration!

And it should not only be user-friendly----but warm and inviting!

Why am I re-painting it white?  Why is my kitchen so damn white?!?!

Which brings up my “tidiness”.  I don’t like to say OCD.  Because I swear, I’m really not.  But my grandma’s idea of babysitting was to put me to work cleaning.  I’d spend entire afternoons of my youth crawling into deep cabinets and pulling out cast iron skillets that weighed a much as me, “You’re small and I can’t bend down there, honey.”

It’s why I know how to do old lady things like wax floors, polish silverware, clean ovens, and take apart and clean a crystal chandelier.

When she died of a sudden heart attack, I spent the entire week of her funeral helping the family by cleaning her house for the wake.  

Because that’s what Grandma would have wanted.

I still have the Webster’s Encyclopedia of Dictionaries my aunt bought for me as a reward.  It’s inscribed:

"To Joyceee for being hostess at Grandma’s during the week of her funeral.” 

I was fourteen.  I’d spent my life learning that if you cleaned, you would be loved.  

The strange thing is that, to be honest, I’ve put down a three-month moratorium of letting ANYONE into my apartment.  There is no instant-love-gratification in the works.  Not that I’m party-central.  I’m SO boring.  But outside of the super (my toilet HAS been a bit tricky lately) I really just want some time to be in my comfy space and make it perfect for ME!

No drop-ins.  No reservations.

This is so selfishly and unabashedly about me.

I did a pretty good job in my kitchen when I moved in almost 8 years ago----but my needs have changed.  I’ve grown smarter, wiser, and (with all my quirks) even more self-confident.  

I am a woman who knows what she wants in her kitchen.

And in her life.  

I want the pot holders THERE.

And a little to the right.  

Up just a bit….