The Dutch are very literal, practical, down-to-earth, commonsensical. Stereotyping, but what the heck–it’s usually true. I encountered several subtle examples while I was in Amsterdam. Among them:
Everyone’s cell phone’s ring-tone is “ringing phone.” That’s what I have my phone set to in the US, and I may seem like a total square, but I least I know for sure when it’s my phone ringing because I’m the only one in the whole country under 80 who thinks this is what a phone should sound like. In Amsterdam, I was reaching for my phone every 10 minutes, because someone sitting near me in a cafe was inevitably also a total square. Except there, it was normal.
My friend Adriana stopped through on a layover one day. She had flown in on KLM, and she said that in KLM economy class, the little decorative covers on the headrests say “Economy.” Not “Tempo” or some other euphemism. Not nothing at all, which is what airlines that haven’t thought up a euphemism do. “Economy.”
There was a third item, but I’ve forgotten it now. But you get the idea. This attitude can be refreshing when you come to visit Amsterdam for the first time. After long familiarity, though, it can seem a tad bleak and passionless. Especially when it creeps down into food. Which I’ll get to…
In the meantime, a rare example of Dutch whimsy: cheese slices shaped like Easter bunnies.
So it’s Mother’s Day, and I should probably be calling my mom instead of writing on my blog, but it seems like a good time to first say thanks to the woman who made me eat salad every day when I was growing up. And also to talk about women working in restaurant kitchens.
I just read this post by the chef-owner of a restaurant called dirtcandy, about how girls can’t cook. She’s upset that women chefs get a relatively small number of James Beard Awards. Which, on its face, seems reasonable, because so few women actually work in restaurant kitchens. But she also points out that women chefs get very little press coverage compared to men–and of course it’s media buzz that drives the Beard Awards. So it’s not very encouraging for women coming up in the ranks.
This disparity is all due to one thing, I think:
Vegetables.
Let me explain. I started to think about this last year when I noticed that Naomi Pomeroy, who runs the restaurant Beast in Portland, says on her restaurant’s website:
Our food is simple, refined, and–dare we say–feminine.
What constitutes “feminine” food? I pictured some Bronte-esque spread on lace doilies. Meringues. Candied violets. But of course Pomeroy is a lot smarter than that.
I thought back to when I (briefly) worked in restaurants. Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune was, and still is, a singular restaurant. I wanted to cook, but I didn’t want all that “yes, chef” and who-gets-to-wear-black-pants bullshit to go with it. I didn’t want to put garnishes on things with tweezers. I wanted the challenge–the heat, the instinctive action–of the restaurant line, but I wanted to cook food I liked. Prune was the only restaurant in New York that seemed to offer that–and it still is.
What’s the difference? Simply: Prune cooks whole meals, and that includes vegetables. There’s always a salad–a real, good salad, with hearty greens and an aggressive dressing, not a token “mixed greens” salad that the consultant told the chef he needs to put on the menu for the ladies. You have to order vegetables, because they don’t come with the main dishes. And if you don’t order greens, your server (if she’s Tamara) will advise you to, or else you might be in a world of hurt.
In your average (run-by-a-man) restaurant, you get some deep-fried appetizers, maybe a goat-cheese salad if they’re feeling a little livelier than the usual token mixed greens, and then you get your main dishes, which are all big slabs of protein with some sauce and a symbolic amount of Frenched green beans buried underneath. This is why I hate going out to eat.
The only restaurant I’ve gotten excited about recently is Momofuku and its iterations. Those are some meat-heavy restaurants, and a lot of the vegetables are deep-fried. But at least the menu is set up in a way that you can go heavy on the veg and light on the meat. I don’t need or want vegetarian–I just want a little freedom from the tyranny of the protein slab.
America’s food culture is totally screwed up–we all know this. As a nation, we hate vegetables. In fact, as Jamie Oliver recently showed, a lot of Americans don’t even know what vegetables look like. Popular, lowbrow, fast-food culture is largely responsible, but it doesn’t help that high-end restaurant culture reinforces the problem. Perhaps the new obsession in seasonal food will offer a new, non-gender-specific way of dealing with vegetables.
But for now, food that’s “good for you” tastes bad, and when you go out to eat, you “splurge.” This has a lot to do with restaurant machismo. A friend opined that all the big-knife, swearing, meat-obsessed chef culture comes from men overcompensating for the fact they’re doing what’s perceived as “women’s work.” I think she’s right. Restaurant kitchens and their products are for putting on a show, for doing something special–not for doing something as workaday as nourishing people.
Of course there are exceptions to the meat machismo, such as Thomas Keller, who has a vegetarian tasting menu at Per Se. And David Chang has raved about vegetarian restaurant Ubuntu (although his tone had a whiff of holy-crap-I-didn’t-know-you-could-eat-so-well-without-pig-parts about it).
Then there’s the flip side: April Bloomfield is a well-known woman chef and gets praise all the time. And why’s that? Because she serves giant f-ing stuffed trotters. Just looking at the menu at the Breslin makes me tired, like I’ve been following some intractable political situation in the news, and now just don’t want to read another word about it. And if Naomi Pomeroy’s restaurant weren’t called Beast, and she didn’t have pics of herself carrying around a pig carcass, I doubt she’d get much play either.
Aside from Bloomfield, women chefs aren’t popular, because they make you eat your vegetables, just like your mom.
For which I say again: thanks, Beverly.
(Yes, I call my mom by her first name. I don’t know why.)
I complained on Twitter that Amsterdam is a bitch of a place to take photos. Somehow, the light is always bad. During the so-called golden hour, when everything looks beautiful, the sun is actually so low in the sky that everything around you is in darkness. And if the sun is any higher, it’s harsh. And most of the time, there’s haze or cloud cover that adds an awful glare.
But I got some good pics. And in several posts to follow next week, I’ll have a few bonus photos.
To win, you had to guess how many miles I drove recently on my New Mexico research trip.
The answer:
3,284 miles
Uh, that’s a lot. And probably a third of those miles were “Crap, I missed my turn/didn’t see whether that shop was open/made the wrong turn/don’t want to pull in front of that truck with the gun rack so he can see my Obama sticker” kind of miles. I wish I had a chess clock hooked up to the odometer, and I could slap it every time I’m driving pointlessly.
And, let me point out, this is only the first of two research trips. I still haven’t even been north of I-40, and I didn’t do the road through Pie Town and Datil.
So, first of all, thanks to Beverly for letting me use her car. Next time, though, I’m getting a rental, which only seems fair.
Now, the winners.
Technically, I planned to give away two books to the closest guesses. Those two bona fide winners are:
Mitch Hellman of Alotta Gelato, whose guess was only 216 miles off. This guy has a good grasp of the scope of the American West. And he heard me complain about how much driving I have to do.
Gabriella Gonzalez, who works for Rand and is good at quantifying things, I guess. Her guess was 316 miles off. Also, her parents live in Silver City, so she knows how far in the middle of nowhere a lot of places in New Mexico are.
But I’ve got an awful lot of books sitting here. And I admit there was some funny business near the end, when I gave away a monstrous clue (how many tanks of gas I bought: nine). So, at risk of this ending up like American elementary school, where everyone’s a winner, I have to give a copy to:
Nate Rex, who objected to the irregularity, and resubmitted his guess, at 3,100 miles, via Facebook. Really, he was the winner, as he was only 184 miles off.
And to:
Mike Waggoner, who made the closest pre-gas-tank-clue guess, and is someone I genuinely do not know personally. So that’s exciting! Strangers playing, and playing well, should be rewarded!
And I’m giving one last prize to the farthest-off (it would be damaging to the self-esteem to say worst) guess, because I figure this person is most in need of a guidebook!
Linda Olle, who went with 400 miles. And she was allowing for zigzagging. Linda, hope to see you in big, big New Mexico someday soon!
Thanks for playing, everyone! And now you know never to lend your car to me.
The wild West of yore is all about trains and cows and gunslingers and dudes in hats. Today, cattle still roam the range in New Mexico, and folks wear pistols on their hips and hats indoors. But the trains have, for the most part, gone.
Sure, there’s the venerable Super Chief, Amtrak’s service that plods across the desert, often running eight hours late by the time it hits Los Angeles (I know from personal experience), and there’s the scenic Cumbres & Toltec steam train up in Chama.
But for real getting around? People use cars, just like everywhere else in the American West.
This makes me sad, because I am a bit of a train geek. Not a mouth-breathing, clipboard-toting railfan, but someone who really enjoys a good train ride. No bickering with the navigator, no squinting at traffic signs—just pure relaxation as the scenery whisks by. I’ve ridden trains (often with my more-railfannier-than-I-but-still-not-foaming-he-would-like-me-to-assure-you husband) everywhere possible—even in Australia, which made Australians laugh.
This is all leading up to the Rail Runner, Albuquerque’s commuter train. It started service in the ABQ area in 2007, and there was talk of extending to Santa Fe. Miraculously, before I even had time to get cynical about it, the service was running, as of December 2008.
I admit, I got a little teary-eyed watching this video:
So I finally got around to riding the thing on this trip. You’d think it might not be all that exciting—it’s just an hour and a half, and it makes the same trip I’ve made at least a thousand times in my life.
But it was even better! First, just saying the words, “Let’s get the 4:13 train,” while sitting at my mom’s kitchen table outside Albuquerque, was such an amazing novelty.
Then, also, the idea of anyone in New Mexico following a real schedule—also delightfully novel.
On the train, for the first time in my life in Albuquerque, I got to peer into people’s backyards. I saw real, live hobos hunkered down by the freight tracks. (I guessed they were pros, because they didn’t wave at the train, unlike the various regular guys just sitting and drinking by the tracks.) We zipped past bizarre arrangements of industrial scrap in giant junkyards.
So Albuquerque isn’t sounding so scenic.
But after just a little bit, we were out in the back of beyond—not even a road to be seen. At this point, the train conductor advised us not to take photos, at the request of residents in the pueblo lands we were passing through. I wonder where else train passengers are banned from taking photos, and not for security reasons?
This photo was taken before the ban, I swear (and features my dad off to the right):
The whole area around the last stop in Santa Fe has been swankily redone—what used to be a vast scrubby open space by the tracks is now parkland, and there are galleries and train-station-themed coffee bars. It’s a whole new side of Santa Fe, one not cloaked in faux adobe finish, and if I’d come by car, it would seem insignificant. Getting off at the station, it seemed like the center of the world.
We walked back down the tracks to dinner, stuffed ourselves with enchiladas (at La Choza), and walked over to the plaza for dessert (at the Haagen-Dazs place, because everywhere else was closed). Just like in a regular city! (Except for the places being closed.)
On the trip up, we chatted with some great people—a younger guy who managed a band and worked on a Tennessee shortline, along with his friend, who’d never been on a train (like most New Mexicans probably, he asked, “Why does it have to follow a schedule? Why can’t it just go?”).
There was also a couple who were reading my guidebook!
The landscape of New Mexico is forever changed. Thanks, Rail Runner!
Today’s the last day for a chance to win free copies of my Santa Fe guidebook–enter here.
I admit, I was instilled with some serious anti-Texan prejudices as a child. The flatlanders came to New Mexico to ski (“If God had meant for Texans to ski,” went one typical grumble, “He would’ve given them their own mountains”). They set up resort enclaves in Ruidoso and Red River, and decorated them with chainsaw-carved bear statues. They came to Santa Fe to swan around saying, “How kaaaay-uuuute!” about everything, and then buying it.
But since I’ve grown up, I’ve met some perfectly excellent Texans, who have much better taste, and realized my attitude was probably not productive. Besides, now New Mexicans have moved on to hating Californians.
So now when I go to southeastern New Mexico, where the state line is just a formality, it’s kind of cool—like two vacations in one.
You get your green chile (admittedly, often mixed with cream-of-mushroom soup, which gives me the heebie-jeebies), but you can also get your barbecue. I ate some beautiful brisket in Carlsbad at Danny’s BBQ—the smoke ring was lurid, and the flavor was so good I didn’t even bother with sauce. Here’s my dad’s pork, which came in a portion bigger than his head, and we had to stuff it into sandwiches the next day.
I seem to have lost my photo of that (or perhaps I never took it–the beauty is just seared in my brain), so in lieu of that, here’s the menu board at Pat’s Twin Cronnie in Portales, NM, where fad diets are not catered to:
I didn’t realize how deep the Texan strain went until this visit, when I noticed the much-fetishized Blue Bell ice cream in grocery stores in Tularosa and Artesia. I imagine the Dr. Pepper down in those parts is also fresher.
I also saw that this doughnut shop in Hobbs had kolaches on the menu:
Unfortunately, the doughnut shop was closed by the time I rolled up. Actually, maybe for the best—if the paint job outside was any indication, it was the kind of place where I wouldn’t be able to decide what to order.
Another food item I associate with Texas is pecans. But they’ve got pecan trees all around Tularosa (and yummy pistachios!). And just south of Las Cruces is Stahmann Farms, the largest privately owned pecan orchard in the United States. Take that, Texas!
This week, I’m giving away copies of my Santa Fe guidebook–go here to enter!
Southern New Mexico is a little alien to me because they do weird things with their chile down there, and they engage in businesses that you don’t see that much of up north, such as oil drilling, UFO spotting and cattle ranching. I was driving around Roswell, headquarters of “alien” in southern NM, when I saw the sign: Sale Barn Cafe.
I pulled in, as it’s well known that cafes near livestock auctions are good. Or at least it seems like they should be—even though of course they are not slaughtering the cow right out back, like you imagine.
The parking lot was packed, but it didn’t occur to me there was an auction in session until after I’d wandered through the cafe, cautiously nosed into the main building itself, perused the ads for ranch horses, and then heard the buzz of activity through the swinging doors behind me.
I stepped through and found myself in a short concrete hall leading up to the front, below the rings of seats. I stood there a bit, trying to decide whether I was welcome or not. When it became clear that the place was not going to fall silent, and the entire crowd of cowboy-hatted men was not going to swivel around to stare at me, I sidled in and took a seat, all casual-like. After a while, I took a little sound recording of the auction:
And after a bit more, I started taking some photos. When I eventually moved up in the bleachers for a better vantage point, a handsome younger rancher leaned over and said, “Hey, you’re one of those animal-rights people, aren’t you?” Best pickup line ever.
I said no, I wasn’t, but I was curious about where my meat came from. He went on to explain the whole system—how these cattle weren’t being sold for slaughter, but between ranchers to round out their herds. Ranchers running short of grass were selling extra head to those whose sections were just now getting green. He clued me in to the various codes, signals and marks on the cattle—it felt a lot like learning the basics of a new sport.
He also explained, as a side note, that they used to auction horses for slaughter here, but that got banned—and as a result, now New Mexico is infested with horses that have been set loose because their owners couldn’t afford to keep them and had no other way to get rid of them. I’d always suspected there was another side to the ‘protect the wild horses’ story, but had never heard it.
As I left, I asked the rancher for his name or a card. But he politely declined. He still thought I was one of those animal-rights people after all.
I’m running a contest all this week, for free copies of my Santa Fe guidebook–enter here.
Many people mistakenly think New Mexico is warm like, say, Arizona or Texas. This leads to many panicked purchases of coats and boots upon arrival in Albuquerque. The sun does shine nearly every day, but hell yeah, man–it snows here!
Which was precisely my fear when I first arrived. Snow can fall in huge blizzards anytime up until May, and that can put a serious cramp in my carefully timed research trips. Four years ago around this time, I got caught in a tremendously awful blizzard that shut down all the interstates, and I caught a tremendously awful cold while waiting out the storm at a friend’s house.
So for this trip, I concentrated on southern New Mexico. The Chihuahuan desert spreads over a lot of the southern part of the state, and there are fewer mountains–which still means it can snow, but the risk is a lot less.
For most of the trip, I toodled around the desert lands and the open plains of “west west Texas” (as eastern NM is sometimes known). I also headed west, and popped into Silver City, tucked up in the mountains, just after the snow had melted from the worst storm they’d gotten in like 80 years.
Normally, I think of the flatter parts of southern New Mexico as a little bleak and short on scenery. But in the middle of winter, the relative warmth is welcome, and the scenery was beautiful this time of year. Tiny spots of green were just showing up, and the winter had been so wet that the earth was darker, giving a sharper contrast to all the gold-blond scrubby plains that look so monotonous in summer.
I spent one long day driving from Silver City to Roswell (304 miles, when you take the direct route–which I did not). It was like watching an eight-hour film, with the clouds scudding overhead and the vistas opening up at each mountain pass. Near the end of the day, there was a stubby rainbow, and then the clouds turned bright pink and loomed up on the horizon like the biggest cake in the world. After the sun set, lightning crackled all along the horizon.
I’m running a contest all this week, for free copies of a Santa Fe guidebook–enter here.
