What winter evenings are for

(Does that mean it's winter?)

Last things on a dark Sunday at 6pm: the old fashioned raisin bars are on top of the stove, cooling, waiting for lemon juice icing. Some for us and some for work. Bevan's spinach gnocchi are in the fridge, firming up before being rolled into shape. Our champagne flutes are waiting for more Veuve Clicquot (thanks Eric!) - to which I added a little sugar with Angostura bitters....Vince is asleep on the daybed. We drank our glasses of bubbly and talked about our trip. Botswana's Okavango delta, the Kruger Park, and all points inbetween were floated. The delta is a bit far-fetched. Which makes me smile. It's deeply expensive now to stay there the way most people do, but recently I read in Go! that an overland do-it-yourself way is possible. But there are lots of Ifs. That's a lot of gas. Gas is cheap here. It ain't there. And we 'd need a car. If not the 4 x 4, the Volkswagen bus. V. pointed out that we can sleep IN the bus if animals are an issue. It's very far. We sipped champagne sitting cross-legged in our jeans, and planned and dreamed.

Help wanted

From the cat.

Catskills in Fall

Vincent is sitting up and blogging! The flu followed by a weird lurgy left him flat, but chicken soup soon put some stuffing back into him. The Catskills post is stunning. As usual, when there, click on a pic to start the slideshow.

Last gasp

The empty fig and a last surprise from the thorny New Dawn.

AT&T Universal Card Interest Rates

[This to the Times, but to anyone else who has this problem - start writing: your congresswoman or -man. Your newspaper; on your blog. Write.]

Is anyone covering or has anyone covered - or does anyone plan to cover - a story about the AT&T Universal Card (Citigroup) raising interest rates from, in some cases, below 7% to over 29%*?

This happened to me recently: I noticed that my APR had gone from 11.9% to 18.9%. When I called to ask what had happened, and to ask to have it lowered, I was told that it was the result of a change in the credit card agreement, which I had not read. I was told that, in fact, the APR would go to 23% unless I rejected the change in terms - in which case my account would be closed at the end of its lease, so to speak.

I was dumbfounded.

This for a customer who has never been late, never been over the limit and who, in fact seldom uses the card. It is one of two credit cards I own.

I am lucky, as I have a low balance and can easily pay it off, which I have done, ahead of closing the account. I was told on the phone that I could close the account and then pay it off! Following this awful advice would have damaged my credit rating. As it is, closing one of two credit cards will probably lower my credit rating, but I cannot, in good conscience, keep a card that rewards its customers with robbery. What about people with significant balances, paying as agreed? Haven't the banks just BEEN bailed out? Who created the mess we're in???

It's wrong.

A cursory trip through the Web shows on blogs and in chatrooms* [29% mentioned here] that this phenomenon is widespread. My blog gets hits every day from people googling AT&T APR since I posted about this. People are being fleeced. Good customers, not delinquents.

I am deeply disturbed. In fact little has unsettled me as much as this has. What are the wider implications? Is it being done for an immediate pay off, regardless of lost customers? Does it contain even fragments of the makings of a class action lawsuit? Who else will follow suit?

I've just become an American citizen. I am learning that some animals are more equal than others.

Camp Terror

After Christmas just outside Montreal with Vince's family (at last!), we will head south of the equator once again, to the southern tip of Africa.

Thing is, we haven't a trip planned. Aside from enjoying the parental home, many hikes in the mountains, and hopefully some horse riding, there is no Trip. Last year I had been angling for the Kruger Park, but Vince had his heart set on the dunes - a childhood dream - and now the memories of the Namib and Kgalagadi are very, very dear. We wouldn't mind going back.

With the popular Kruger, I am worried about traffic jams. That's when ten or more cars swoop onto a siting of something Interesting, like lions, or leopard, and just park their fat rear ends haphazardly in the middle of the road with telephotos pointing up each others' bottoms. It's horrible. In the middle of beauty you get...road hogs.

It only happened once in the Kgalgadi because we were there in the hot season, so there were not many people about. But how about Kruger in late January or early February?

The parts I liked, loved, about camping were the beauty, the fire, the cooking, the utter self- sufficiency, the feeling of being iconic within an icon. Hard to describe. I am camping. Look at me camping. My espresso pot, my braai, my glass of red wine, my man, the camel thorn trees.

This gave me great pleasure.

But what I discovered was that my night terrors have stayed the same since the age of 7, when I tried to camp on the lawn in my parents' garden: what's that?? and that? footsteps! creeping nearer! man with an axe! hyenas!! a mad, frothing dog!!!!!!

Unless I feel quite safe - and we did in deserted Namibia, especially at Sesriem and Klein Aus, where only tourists and park workers were nearby, I am a nervous camper. I spurned the cliff-ringed, huge-treed site at Koedoesrus, because it was totally deserted. Not another tent in site. Only one road in. It was the set of a horror movie. Beautiful, remote, inaccessible. House nearby for the ranger lady and man. Murder in the making. Silent leopard sneaking to the zipper of the tent at night. Pouncing on human going to pee in the, er, wee hours. It happens!

Fughedaboudid.

And at Paternoster, a few hours from Cape Town, where my night terrors caused Vince to take up all night watch outside the tent. I couldn't reconcile it: not a mile away, in the seaside village, people were sleeping in their tidy, picturesque, whitewashed houses with triple locks, artful burglar bars and alarms, and here we were sleeping inside a nylon tent. Huh? Not 150 miles away my brother and wife had robbers sneaking up their stairs in the middle of the night.

An engine idling on the road above us for about ten minutes froze my blood. It was past midnight. Why would they do that? I remembered the lone bakkie with the lone man patrolling the road in the late afternoon, what did they want? Was the 4 x 4 a hot hijack item? We had chosen a spectacular camp site, away from all the others. Hidden by granite boulders. Great. Hidden. Out of site. We're making it easy for the pouncers.

Can anyone answer these questions? A seasoned South African camper? Do campers get pounced on? Is it all in my fevered imagination?

I wish I weren't like this. But in this context I am a wuss. I will step, and have stepped, into the middle of a brawl, if I see a way to stop it, or go on the offensive if I see someone being hurt; the call to action in these cases is automatic. But it's the fear of being snuck up on unawares that does me in.

To clarify. I think I would feel the same camping anywhere. It's in my head. It's the movie myth. The camp fire spook story. The couple in Bainskloof hacked by the escaped convict. The innocents by the roadside. The brother who taught me about werewolves under the bed and sharks in the swimming pool.

In the South African context, though, there is that larger mental mantle of violent crime so feared and so ingrained.

I would like to take the equivalent of a barium meal and highlight all those amygdalic fear pockets and have them removed, so I that may sleep in peace, and allow my husband to sleep in peace, under the stars.

So: Kgalagadi again? We never went as far as the Botswanan side last time. Karoo National Park? Kruger? Wild Coast (I can see I would have camping issues there...)?

And for a cursory look at crime in SA, click here.

USS New York

Fighter jets over the Hudson tomorrow, loud cannon booms from the USS New York. A celebration, so don't jump out of your skins.

I have to say my blood runs cold on the rare occasion when I see or hear an F16 overhead. It brings back the time when they patrolled the sky in pairs, too late, on that beautiful morning.

Apparently the ship's bow is built from 7 and 1/2 tons of World Trade Center steel and the ship's motto is, "Strength through sacrifice. Never forget."

I find this more than a little troubling.

Vince visited the warship last week (he's now flat on his back, sick...bad vibes?) and was impressed by the demeanour and helpfulness of her crew. He'll post about it when he's functioning again. He and I are nostalgic for people who say please and thank you, who stand aside and who stand up straight. Of our stomping grounds, neither the entitled sidewalks of Cobble Hill, nor the hood on the LES, is a fertile hunting ground for a person searching for humans who practise deference, or unfettered, disinterested kindness.

Hurley Stone House

For the second half of our Catskills sojourn we stayed a mere stone's throw away from Woodstock, outside the village of Hurley, to the south of where we had been. A gallery-owner-Harley-rider at the Woodstock Inn looked down his nose at this arrangement, when my mom explained it to him (he was touring the woods on his hog), but we could have stayed in the area another week and not have found every road and view it had to offer. I hate hopping from place to place. I like embedding myself. In response to the Harley rider my mother said, quite unselfconsciously, My husband rides a BMW, which he says is a real motorbike.

I had found the Stone House online and was attracted by the website, its rooms and pictures of breakfast, as well as the mention of two in-house cats (although it said that they are NOT allowed in the rooms).

The home is indeed very old, as an owner will tell you in earnest detail the minute you arrive and well before you have seen your room and unpacked (I might leave the lesson for later in the stay). But I understand the enthusiasm - they renovated the place themselves and are clearly very proud of it.

Our room was very comfortable and attractive, the bed a dream. At night the house creaks a great deal as guests move about on the old wooden floors, or in our case, go to a separate, but very pretty, bathroom down a hallway; and said floor delivered a nasty splinter to my bare foot. I liked blogging wirelessly from an antique desk.

In the large grounds (I was dying to suggest a garden, especially on the slope down to the river, as there is nothing right now), two enormous old sugar maples are the source of the maple syrup at breakfast. This was fascinating news and I rushed out at once to look at them...

Breakfast is indeed good, arriving in plated courses, although I don't think I'll ever find coffee that tastes like coffee, and Vince and I were late on day one, having overslept, and arriving sheepishly at the communal table where everyone is fed on the stroke of 9am. I dread communal tables, but we had good (Brooklyn-exclusive) company. I just am not a conversation-at-breakfast sort of person.

My favourite breakfast remains: good bread, good butter, good jam, good coffee. More elusive than you'd think.

The hole from whence the sap ran.

Maple syrups on pancakes. The shot is bad as I was far too self conscious to do the usual thing from all angles.

Considering what the Stone House charged - for our huge room $200/night - and what the Inn on 23rd - my mom's abode in Manhattan - charged ($329)...no comparison. The Inn is really a dump and I get angrier about it the farther away it gets (I should learn to say what I think). OK, so the Inn is in New York, but in fact, the restaurants at which we ate out here (Terrapin - really bad - in Rhinebeck, and Le Canard Enchaine - ordinarily good bistro food but very overpriced, in Kingston) charged high prices for food and service that were significantly not up to scratch. So I'm not sure that prices are that different this close to the city. A ripoff remains a ripoff. High-freakin' way robbery. Stay at the Stone House. Spurn the Inn.

Oh, and the cats? We met Mila, a cat with a dramatic life's story, and who was incredibly friendly and who walked with us to the river. Very sorry he was not allowed into the guest areas. He never stayed still long enough to be photographed properly.

Momofuku noodle bar and Ssam

Almost an afterthought, we took my mom to Momofuku's noodle bar*, on 1st Ave and 10th Street. The faraway part of the bar, looking onto the kitchen, was deserted or some reason, and we grabbed seats there; the best ones in the house, I think because you're practically in the cooks' laps.

My pear salad was dee-licious, featuring pears three ways: fresh-shaved, pickled and other-pickled. It had hazelnuts grated over it, pickled mushrooms (honsemeji)) and cherval and tarragon for an anise bite, and something red and tart, too, which I couldn't figure out: crabapple skin??? It was wonderful.

Of course we had pork buns. Can't not have pork buns. Toothsome, succulent, delightful. Vince had pan fried potatoes mit lardons and poached egg. I had an oxtail soup that was over-salty but otherwise good, and my mom...had Savoy cabbage with apple and maybe a hint of kimchi. Food arrives rather randomly, so ask to have it served as courses, which is what I prefer, even if that makes me an infidel..

At Ssam , a few days later, I ordered the $8 bread and butter. I think it was Sullivan Street baguette, my favourite; the butter was from Vermont and artisinal, of course (I would love to create an alternative menu with "store bought butter, Velveta cheese plate, yellow cheese sandwich"...but that's another story). The white stuff? Whipped lard.

Yes, lard.

I then had what may have been one of the most yummy things of all, though presentation could have been perked up: rude slices of honey crisp apple marinated in kimchi, with labneh(thick, strained yoghurt) spiked with maple syrup, in one of those skidmark schmears that have been appearing on plates for about a year (a reaction to squeeze bottles and toothpicks?), and pork jowl bacon, which was as crispy and unctuous as bacon can get.

My mom had more stone crab claws served with harissa mayonnaise and Vincent had more pork buns and then spicy sausage with Chinese broccoli. Good, hot, comfort food

I am now looking at gym membership.

Bowery at Houston

Evening spread across the sky.

[11/08/09: Or, as Mr Christie put it in an email, admonishing me - the font size is accurate:]

....evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table.

Ok. Like he said.

The inner Chinese lady

My lovely friend far away (not too far) said to me in an e-mail, apropos a back-and-forth about How Fleeting It All Is:

I have a little chinese lady voice in my head:must enjoy. goes by fast. must live live live. must wear the tight jeans. have another chicken leg. look at hot man. spend. yes, pick that fight. let hair grow. must wax eyebrow for hot men on street.

I meess you, my friend.

Prune

In the last two weeks I kind of fell in love with Prune again, after getting pretty tired of a lunch menu that refused to change. It seemed lazy, especially with so much in the markets.The 'chef's special' salad was always the same old sopressata-thing. The potatoes 'this way or that' were always that way. So I stopped going. But with my mom in town, and Prune just over the road from work, it was an ideal place to meet for lunch if I was working, so off we went. She loved it.

It was good to sit in the little, bright, light-filled room again, and to see...new things on the menu! And even new from week to week, as it should be, apparently because Gabrielle Hamilton had decided to celebrate ten years of Prune with homage paid to old favourites. Yay.

The crab claws above do appear in season, but I'd never ordered them, as, at $15, they're over my lunch appetizer budget (hey, what am I thinking? I don't have a lunch appetizer budget!) ...but with my mom in town...heheheheh. Quite delicious, dipped into melted butter with a squirt of Tabasco. We were also given 4 or 5 claws as a pre-appetizer little present, to start. This (possibly calculated, who cares) generosity is what sets lovely apart from ordinary.

Then, this New Thing. Inspired by James Beard, it said: his onion sandwich with chicken liver. I loved the presentation. A fairly hefty triple decker tea sandwich, crusts off, on wonderbread (I'm guessing), so that the heft is all air and food additives, with one mayonnaise-rich side dipped in chopped parsley, and the inside mayonnaise and onion. The chicken livers are dipped in flour, I think and fried, so the outside was crisp, and the inside just pink. Small onion slivers in more - totally redundant - mayonnaise on the side. Brilliant. Then, I love onion. Thin red onion slices on cold-buttered bread, salt, yum, and very good for you.

The espresso here is good. And when your check arrives it does so with a piece of house-made candied ginger for every person. And the ginger is delicious. Reminds me that I want to make some for Christmas presents.

So, a place I recommend highly to locals and visitors for lunch. Dinner is fine, too, just packed, and with a different, and pricier menu (up to $33 for a main course). Brunch is a zoo. The lunch prices are really reasonable, nothing over the $15 crab claws, and you're sitting in that pretty room, with a lovely little bar, on a quiet street, eating distinctive food to which someone has given some thought.

Downtown Brooklyn

The new crepuscular hour, just before 5pm.

Fried chicken recipe

So...I had yearning, a hankering, a need for crispy, fatty fried chicken. Something about preparing Fried Chicken make some feel like I'm mainlining America (this kind of language always unnerves my husband, who thinks I've had a more colourful past than the one I own up to). It makes me wish I was Southern.

The Dixie Chicken we found at the side of the road in the Catskills was welcome, warm, and just what we needed that cold day, but I wanted to see if I could erase the memory of the pale chicken skin we found beneath the thick batter. Pale chicken skin...it has no place in our lives.

I am not a master fryer, so was still feeling my way around, alarmed at how much oil I bought. Was it corn or vegetable. I forget. Southern cooks would kill me.

So, I took apart an organic chicken, with wings, legs, thighs, breasts (cut in two), and a piece of the back featuring. For kicks I included the neck...

Marinade:

1 Quart buttermilk
1 Tbsp paprika
1- 1 1/2 Tbsp salt (taste before you put the chicken in, for seasoning, and adjust)
Enough cracked pepper to make the surface black
2 Tsps powdered coriander

Taste for balance, and add chicken pieces. Refridgerate and keep as long as you can, up to a day. I managed 6 hours.

Flour coating:

About 3 cups flour
1 Tbsp salt
Lots of black pepper
1 Tbsp paprika
2 Tsps powdered coriander

Dip finger into flour mixture to taste. Maybe add more salt.

In a cast iron skillet or Other, heat enough oil to almost cover chicken - about 2" deep.

Meanwhile take chicken out of buttermilk, piece by piece, and dip and roll each piece in flour, pressing onto skin if it threatens to fall off. Lower into oil once a test piece sizzles. Add about half the chicken pieces, so as not to lower the heat too much. Cook about 8 minutes per side, turn carefully when deep golden. Don't have the heat as far as it can go, or the crust will cook faster than the meat inside and you'll get burned, underdone chicken and an oil fire at once. Remember not to put water on the fire. First turn off heat, then cover with a lid, or sand?

Do not overcook the breast pieces: they cook faster.

As pieces are cooked, transfer to wire rack placed over kitchen paper or something else to sop up dripping oil. I read Alton Brown's advice for fried chicken and he said for some reason not to put it right on the paper. Reasons?

It was pretty good. The best, crispiest crust I've had so far. No pale skin.

I'd like to experiment more with seasonings. I'm wondering about lemon zest in the buttermilk.

I had a Scrumpy's Cider with my chicken. Vince was dealing with the leftovers of his Chivas, lemon and Cointreau cocktail.

We both had an early night...

Baked feta

...helps with lots of things, and it's quick. Of course, finding the right feta...I leave that to you. As usual, this is the French feta from Sahadi's.

Hunk of, in foil, on oil, with chile, baked hot for about 8 minutes. Slathered on good, crispy bread.

Mad as hell

AT&T Universal Card*

"To Whom It May Concern [in Customer 'Service']

Because my AT&T card doesn't usually see much activity I have not been reading my monthly statements in full. Today, however, I noticed that my APR has been 18.99 % for several months! A customer service rep, Deneal/Danielle, said tonight that there was nothing she could do to lower that, that it had been included in a recent Change of Terms (which I did not read, either), and would in fact be going up to 22%.

I explained to her that unless my APR could be lowered I would be closing this account. She did not seem to have a problem with that.

Is this really the case? I have been a good customer, using credit wisely, for years, and am given the rate of a delinquent.

Have you noticed the state of the country, economically? Has it not made the slightest impression on you?

If it is indeed true that my APR cannot be lowered significantly, then I will close this account, a very serious step, for me. Frankly, you do not deserve my business or support.

Please let me know.

Sincerely

Marie Viljoen"

*Citigroup

I have been reading message boards and blogs about this, and it seems widespread. And customers are bailing. I am pretty shocked, given the context of this CREDIT CRISIS.

The response:

"Customer Service Wrote:

We received and have processed your request to reject the change in terms for your account. You may continue to use your account under the existing terms until your card expires, at which time the account will be closed.

Was this message helpful?

Let us know

Thank you for using our website."

That's it. And misses the point . I REJECT the existing terms. Crooks.

So what do I do with my real money which resides partly in Citibank?

Mattress?