Chic Canadian minimalism

Greetings from Day # who even knows at this point of moving to Canada. A variety of steps are involved, considering that a) it's another country, and b) the move involves flying with a dog. There's also the slight possibility we'll arrive two weeks before our mattress does, and the question of where to buy an air mattress in Toronto is surprisingly un-Googleable.

But the main thing has been just sorting through all our... stuff. What sort of stuff? Every sort of stuff that we own for no obvious purpose, and clearly shouldn't move. For several uninteresting reasons, we brought over a ton the last time we moved, by which I mean, the usual sorting-through of knick-knacks, papers, and stained t-shirts happened, but not sufficiently. And then there was the brief blip of living in (what seems to me to be) an enormous apartment. The last week or so has been spent figuring out where or how to recycle or donate, whom to give or sell, all manner of stuff. (Word to the wise: Staples of all places will take your broken blender, whereas a long-since-unused microwave needs to go on a special day to the county dump.)

It's not so much that we were keeping things for sentimental purposes (well, some) as that the huge apartment meant not having to make a decision about anything either way. Not sure what to do with whichever thing? The study! The study was always the answer, and thus not especially useful for... study. It discreetly kept the broken hair iron, the broken blender, the broken cellphone, and so much more. But the rest of the apartment always looked reasonable.

In any case, there's no The Study where we're moving to, which is probably for the best. As someone who defies the laws of human nature by feeling calmer in a busy city and more comfortable in a small apartment, I'm happy with this development. As for the one really unwieldy bit of stuff - the car - that I'd thought I'd be sad to part with, but as the day of carlessness approaches, I'm actually quite OK with it. The lower danger of stuff-accumulation is just a side benefit.

Cue the discussion, I suppose, of KonMari, of snobbish minimalism, and of the fact that too much stuff is (if that's even still a thing) a first-world problem. It means some combination of that you have/once had disposable income, or people with disposable income who care enough about you to give you gifts. Except in the age of cheap crap and credit cards, it doesn't necessarily mean anything of the kind. I mean, always a little bit. To be swimming in a sea of broken appliances and old newspapers, you probably once had working appliances and that day's newspaper. But if you are (ahem) a woman with oh so many pairs of shoes, of which most turn out to be unwearably worn-out ballet flats, loafers, and others that wouldn't be repairable even if shoe repair were a thing where you lived, you sort of do and don't actually own a lot of shoes.

Too-much-stuff seems like such a non-problem, and yet even if it's objectively not the biggest thing you've ever had to deal with, it's daunting. There was this sort of streamlining, out-with-the-old satisfaction getting me through the first few rounds of this, but you can only Google 'how to dispose of...' so many times before you start thinking those people whose only kitchen implements are a knife and a saucepan have the right idea.

What I'm saying, I suppose, is that there's a paring-down that isn't quite at the level of throwing out everything that doesn't "spark joy," but that does involve tossing some things that aren't necessarily garbage.

But still there is guilt. There is frozen mango that's going in the trash, as well as more nearly-full spice containers than I care to discuss. (I'm sure I had a reason for buying marjoram however many years ago, but I now couldn't even begin to guess what it tastes like.) After a truly vile pantry use-up lunch yesterday, a "soup" of sorts that may have ended up wasting more fresh ingredients than properly using up pantry ones, I've come to terms with the fact that moving to another country means the time does eventually come to stop agonizing and start just throwing things out.

A brush with the famous

There isn't that much to do in the part of NJ where I live, but today there sure was something - a dog show! With poodles! The toys were very early in the morning, so I didn't actually see them, and the miniatures were... one dog, which I suppose must have won that competition. But the standard poodles, my goodness! That was the show to see. (Photographic evidence in the usual place.) The dogs themselves were pretty spectacular, and then whoa, a celebrity poodle-handler! Westminster winner Kaz Hosaka was there, which maybe isn't all that surprising if he lives in Delaware, but watching him in action, it's clear he's some kind of poodle-handling genius, which, as someone who is not that, I find impressive.

The dachshunds were adorable, but I didn't get any good photos. The cutest of the bunch was a longhaired miniature black-and-cream that some woman was holding in one of the tents. How it rated in terms of breed standard, who knows. There were also very nice and fox-like shibas, but only in crates - didn't see them compete!

The show itself was part typical NJ-area fair (fried food and gyros), plus opportunities to buy exquisite grooming equipment, including something called a "competition table." It turns out you can bring your own non-show dog if you're just going as a spectator, which would have been good to realize, maybe, but Bisou would have probably found some way to break the concentration of her hairspray-coated counterparts.

When the cat's away

My husband's in Germany. Given that I don't have jetlag, and that I can look forward to things being open (well, open-ish) on Sunday, seems I'm not. I'm spending the evening:

-Writing.
-Feeling guilty about any time not writing.
-Preparing the pumpkin purchased weeks ago for use as various food-type ingredients - puree for future (tomorrow?) use in muffins, and seeds for... if history is any guide, eating all at once because fresh-roasted pumpkin seeds are delicious, then feeling kinda queasy and wondering what could possibly have caused this.
-Ordering a salad spinner... plus holographic nail polish because free shipping and shiny.
-Having a Twitter conversation about Knausgaard and fiction vs memoir.
-Rewatching some "Mary Tyler Moore Show," after a recent attempt at moving beyond old sitcoms led to a Netflix choice that started out this interesting Japanese movie, but suddenly morphed into something that would shock even Dan Savage. (Not graphic, just weird.)
-Having contrarian thoughts re: the proposed Mercer County plastic-bag tax, but then wondering if the fact that I always reuse these at least once might not be statistically significant.
-Watching Bisou play with her new, squirrel-sized toy rabbit. (I'd mostly come to realize dog toys are a waste of money, dog-toy-material, etc., given that tennis balls, old clothes, etc., are just as fascinating, but the temptation was just too great to see how she'd react to something that looks like the rodents she's so fixated on. I'd kind of figured she wouldn't much care - that these are toys meant to look rodent-like to the dog's owner, but that without the scent, she wouldn't be interested. How wrong I was!)

A "bookish" roundup

I was frequenting this brunch place in town, not because I like brunch, but because that bread. It's this odd mix of fluffy and wholesome, with all the grains and such I like, and none of the ones I just sort of tolerate. I figured it came either from the place or, more likely, from some special Central European bakery, perhaps a wholesaler, I'd have no access to. And... today I discovered said bread at Wegmans. $5 a (huge) loaf, or $3 for half, but still a better deal than the $13 (now $15) for the brunch. There are also soft pretzels that look... familiar, but those I haven't tasted to confirm. 

It's quite possible (I have my reasons to suspect) that everything the place sells comes from Wegmans, which is on the one hand disillusioning, but on the other... I mean, eating out always means a markup. They probably don't want customers to know their stuff comes from the supermarket, but they, I don't know, curate it? I'd have never found this bread otherwise, and it's amazing. ("Seven Grain Bread," for those in Wegmans territory.) And it's on the whole a good thing for me personally that I can recreate the meal I so enjoy. But this may well spell the end of a briefly-revived stint as someone who does brunch.

***

So I was trying to cross the street just now with my husband and our dog, and we were at a crosswalk without traffic lights. It wasn't particularly dark out yet. There was a car coming, but quite far, and on a 25mph road, so I stepped into the road - I think we all did? - and made the 'we're crossing' gesture. The car slowed down in a way that indicated the driver saw us, then sped up, only to more abruptly stop once we were definitively in the crosswalk. As the driver passed, he shouted a sarcastic, "You're welcome!" from his SUV, as if he'd done us the biggest favor in the world, allowing us to cross where you're supposed to, the way you're supposed to. And... I know I'm newish at driving culture, but is this a thing? You're supposed to thank cars that allow you to cross in a residential area, in a crosswalk?  

When I'm driving, I stop for pedestrians (without making a thing of it! they have the right of way!) and sometimes get a gesture of appreciation, but by no means usually, and I by no means expect one. I suppose maybe it's weird when a pedestrian thanks the driver who stopped first, but not the one on the opposite side of the road, but I've had this happen exactly once, and lost exactly no sleep over it. So, to be clear, this guy was in the wrong, correct?

***

A guy I think I went to college with (name sounds familiar, don't know if I'd ever met him, had no preexisting opinion of him, but it's a huge school) wrote this week's Modern Love. It reminded me of a novel I read not that long ago, so much so that I kept wanting to congratulate the female author on creating such a convincing heterosexual male protagonist. 

Anyway, what interests me is this:

I was amazed to have gotten this far. As my friends were sick of hearing, it made no sense to me that a gorgeous woman in her early 20s who spoke four languages and had lived on three continents was spending her Saturdays with me, a 31-year-old bookish type from Pittsburgh.

 And:

“How old are you?” one asked, which put our substantial age difference — something we had not yet talked about — suddenly under a spotlight.

(You can tell this is someone from UChicago because of the "bookish type" self-description.)

Anyway, a pairing of "31" and "early 20s" doesn't seem all that outrageous, although there's often a life-stage difference between 20 and 24, one far greater than between 24 and 31. I would say something about how you never see 31-year-old women with several-years-younger men, until I remembered several couples I'm friends with who fit that pattern.

What struck me, then, was how much of a thing it is, for a 31-year-old man, to be dating a younger-but-not-indecently-so woman. This isn't just, for him, a thing that happens once you're an adult, and are socializing with people who weren't necessarily in kindergarten the same year you were. It's part of her value. It's not enough that she's beautiful - she's a catch because of her not-31-ness. And yes, this absolutely did strike me because I, too, am 31. I'm surprised-but-not-really that even men as young as 31 would find same-age women excessively ancient. That a woman of legal age could be, in some meaningful sense, a younger woman to someone 31.

So I've watched some "Millionaire Matchmaker" in my day (and so I nominate myself for the alumni award for Least Bookish Type, literature PhD notwithstanding), and there, the men of course want younger women, but this will be for one of two (stated) reasons. One is that it hits them at a haggard 57-ish that they'd like kids. The other is that they just prefer women under 25, 30, 19, whatever, which is the trickier issue. These same men will also claim they want to settle down. (Yes, I understand that it's probably semi-scripted and actually an interwoven series of ads for cupcake and flower companies.) One put it... best?... when he said his perfect woman would be 29 and three quarters forever. The late-middle-aged man in question looked like a cross between Eric Cartman and Donald Trump.

It seems, in other words, a gamble to be appreciated for your youth. For your beauty... well, beauty may fade, but is more subjective. A man might cease to find a woman beautiful without her having changed in appearance, or might continue to be attracted to her because he still sees her as she looked when they met. But a man who settles down with a woman because she's such a great distance from the age at which he thinks women cease to be interesting... I mean, she will, barring unforeseen disaster, turn that age.

"Mobility"

-There is a dog in Japan that looks exactly like Bisou. Not as in, another gray poodle. Exactly.

-The housing changed the locks into card-entry, for the same reason as they came in and replaced our furniture - subsidized academic housing has its quirks. My husband's ID works to get into our apartment. Mine does not. I now have to enter through the back door (no innuendo intended!), which still allows a key. I'm sure it will all get resolved soon enough, but just, as they say, saying.

-Comfort-chic is so-very-now. According to a fashion expert, "[T]his season it’s about freedom and mobility." Flats, sweatshirts, etc. This - as I've said before - is a mixed blessing. If comfortable shoes are "this season," we can anticipate that next season will be a return of those horrible platform-plus-stiletto Louboutins, and the associated trend pieces calling such shoes (choice feminism! sex-worker-inspired!) empowering. Give it a couple months, and "mobility" will be so last season.

Used J.Crew

In Princeton, for my purposes, there are two clothing stores: J.Crew and a consignment shop that doesn't but very well could go by the name of Used J.Crew. Because of the tremendous sales at the former every time the students go on vacation, both are comparably affordable, but the latter has other brands, seasons, etc., and was closer to where I'd gotten a late-afternoon Eiskaffee, so when I'd finished my work for the day, it was there that I browsed.

I had a goal in mind, kinda-sorta, namely something floral and Elaine Benes. Yes, I know, that was the look several seasons (that is, years ago), revived as part of normcore or pre-normcore or something. But maybe the dream I had last night that was set in my elementary school lobby as per usual got me on a 1993-nostalgia kick? Who can say. Whatever the case, Used J.Crew didn't have anything of the sort.

What they did have, however, was a tremendous clearance section upstairs, and it was there that I was reminded of the other item I'd been looking for, namely a short-but-somewhat-voluminous checked-pattern skirt like the ones the super-elegant women of Tokyo would wear. I had tried on some skirts or maybe dresses along those lines, but the problem was that this is a look that's very often designed to give ultraslim women the illusion of hips. I require no such illusion. What I needed was a skirt in that style, but designed for the Western consumer of tremendous amounts of pasta.

And there it was! Pale-blue-and-white thick-patterned gingham, even - perfection! Specifically, this - formerly (allegedly) $69.50, but for $8. I say allegedly because this is a skirt that lies. Not citing specific numbers, but J.Crew has vanity-sized itself into absurdity. Not that I, post-Eiskaffee, was necessarily complaining. But it does get confusing when you see a garment you want, and it comes in just the one size, and it's one that, in principle, you shouldn't be able to even try on without ripping.

More Dish, and a bat

Anything I have written or will write for the Dish can be found here. 

I'm a little bit blogged-out for the day as you might imagine, but I will link to this Planet Princeton story, simply because, that bat. The local news has a tendency to make everything - storms mostly - sound apocalyptic (these are, after all, the big stories), but... that's a pretty scary bat. I doubt it's the bat that's terrorizing the residents of Linden Lane, but I also doubt if that bat - which we know to be rabid - is less frightening.

Kale and klezmer

Farmer's market love-hate, the eternal topic. Mark Bittman wants us to feel OK about swapping our checking account for a small handful of really top-notch tomatoes. I want to feel OK about having done so this morning. Current objections, though, are as follows:

-The markets here are either Thursday from 11-4 (tough if you have what South Park once referred to as a jerb) or Saturdays 9-1 (tough if you have any sleep to catch up on from the week, or if you did anything other than anticipate the following morning's produce options on Friday night).

-I do live in a big produce-growing region. But for obvious population-density reasons, the local farms ship their goods to the city. I doubt if lettuce season is actually over (in fact, the presence of local lettuce at the supermarket suggests it's not), but at the market today it seemed to be.

-As Bittman says, "Farmers’ markets are not just markets. They’re educational systems that teach us how food is raised and why that matters." And, indeed, everyone on front of you in line demands copious education. For themselves or, if bringing kids, for the kids as well. If this has to happen at each stand, it can go from convivial to there goes the day rather quickly.

-The number of cars parked near the market this morning in no way matched up with the amount of produce available. This is a thing to do, a place to listen to pesticide-free banjo klezmer music or whatever, but not by any means an alternative to the supermarket.

-Buying kale or chard doesn't necessarily mean going on to eat either. Although I'm now starting to see where that green-juice fad emerged from. Other people probably also had fridges full of uneaten bitter greens, and, in attempt to do something with them, threw them into the blender.

A Friday night unlikely to inspire a pop song UPDATED

Bus to the train to the other train to the shuttle. Lags almost each step of the way. It's almost as if I don't really live in greater New York, is what I start to think on such occasions. Princeton's a suburb, but one where you need to sign up years (!) in advance to be able to get a parking spot at the train station, and where overnight parking is permit-only regardless. It's certainly suburban, but what exactly is it a suburb of? Philadelphia radio works here better than NY radio, which maybe tells us something.

So yes, slightly tired, even though none of this was today, even though I just had a jumbo cappuccino* at the (fabulous) Viennese coffee shop in town. Commenters who believe my linking to a story about French anti-Semitism makes me a fascist (!!!) can expect snippier and shorter responses than the usual graphomaniacal graciousness to which they've grown accustomed. (And, uh, no further responses. Tapped out when it comes to that sort of thing.) Great ambitions for the evening include remembering where I parked, driving home, walking my supermodel dog, and... that's probably it.

*Caffeine, wonder drug. I tend to forget, because the coffee I make at home, no matter the method, no matter the beans, never seems to have much of it. Meanwhile, thanks to the hugeness of this outside-coffee, I finally figured out this thing I've been trying to write, finally. And no, I'm not referring to this somewhat phoned-in blog post.

UPDATE

So the evening ended up more exciting than planned - I ran into some astrophysicists and ended up seeing Saturn through a telescope. And before that, parking someone I don't normally park led me to pass by the... Japanese language school of Princeton. I had no idea such a thing existed, but now know its fees (not bad!), when the intro class meets, and when I'd need to have signed up by. Technically Dutch is first on the new-languages priorities list, but there's the small matter of it not being taught anywhere outside the countries where it's spoken. (I exaggerate, but slightly.) Also of being able to get by in Belgium in English or French, whereas if I ever do make it back to Japan...

In un-defense of Princeton in summer

-Because nothing happens in Princeton, and extra-nothing happens in the summer, the local news has taken to posting photos (well, a photo) of relatively minor (no apparent injuries) car accidents in the area, including of the individuals involved. I was not involved, nor do I know these people; this is an online-shaming question. It's not exactly unethical to post a photo of this, but is it necessary? Is it news? It's at any rate still up on Facebook but down from Twitter - maybe there are some legal or ethical issues here apart from being me being squicked out by that sort of thing.

OK, there's a slight personal angle, which is that I'm sort of convinced that someone's going to take one of those viral "bad parking" videos of me, given how long it can take for me to get into a spot.

-More flooding! While an excuse to not go running is semi-welcome, it would be nice to be able to properly walk a certain dog, as vs. taking her out in the snippets of time when it's not feeling too apocalyptic.

-If I were a 20-year-old model who looked great regardless, I might do one of those "ugly selfies" to convey just how terrible my hair looks in this weather. You will instead just have to take my word for it.

In defense of Princeton in summer

-It's not as bad as it might be. And low expectations have a way of being exceeded. I mean, my husband's away, as are most of my friends. It's hot and humid, and my hair looks awful. It's tick season for humans and dogs, so the woods are, if not out altogether, substantially less appealing. Expectations were really, really low.

-Everything's on sale. At least everything in Princeton I might want to buy, which admittedly isn't much. But I just got discounted coffee beans from Rojo's at a pop-up (!) in Urban Outfitters and then, for $25, the pair of $70 linen pants I'd long been admiring at J.Crew, thereby filling the summer-clothing-other-than-shorts-or-nightgown gap in my wardrobe. (While I'm by no means a 000 at that store, I can extrapolate from their vanity sizing why such a size would be necessary.) But J.Crew at sub-Uniqlo prices, with tremendous selection... let's just say whatever shtetl peddler-type lives within me returned atavistically at this discovery.

-No one's around. Which is sort of bleak when it comes to Bisou-walking (if easier to handle after a week in Manhattan), but sort of fabulous when it comes to driving and parking.

Baby animals vs. croissants

As it happens, three friends of mine are currently visiting Paris. Three that I can think of offhand - Facebook could probably alert me to more (French grad school will do that), and I'm not counting those who live there. I'm what would be called, on "The Only Way Is Essex," jeal. (David Lebovitz, you're not helping.)

But whatever, it's fine! There are good things about where I am, too! For instance, this Bisou-sized fawn.

Very important thoughts of the morning

-In the past week, I've spoken French while driving; read (part of!) Kafka's The Castle; and gone running at 7:30am. All of these because of peer pressure. I'm starting to think my friends are not just lovely people I enjoy spending time with, but good influences. (Otherwise it would be singing along to Bastille while driving, reading one of those contemporary novels that inevitably ends up being set in Brooklyn even if I hadn't realized this when choosing it, and running later in the day or not at all.)

-Into The Gloss has taken a refreshing step away from reminding us that Parisian women are effortlessly chic to ask readers about their hometown beauty looks. The way the post is framed, I was worried that what they're looking for was a bunch of 'where I come from, everyone's tacky and conformist, unlike in NY/Paris/London where I live now, now that I work in/want to work in Fashion', but the results are far more varied.

-Jezebel kind of gets but kind of misses the point of "You Did Not Eat That." And oh, the comments. I have my doubts about "thin-shaming," and I say this as someone who has, yes, been thin-shamed. I mean, it's a thing if you're thinner than is generally considered attractive, unhappy about this, yet constantly being accused of having dieted to get to that build. I'm sure that does get frustrating. But when we-the-merely-not-fat stand accused of "anorexia," or listen to (mock) disbelief that we eat carbs, are we actually insulted, really? I mean, beyond the way it's insulting for your body to be commented on no matter what? It's more woman-shaming than thin-shaming, if anything, because one doesn't leave such an interaction (at least I don't) thinking life would be easier if one were a different size. One just leaves feeling sort of gross in a generic leave-me-alone sort of way, and extra-gross if it happens in a professional context.

"Small plates to share"

For our anniversary, my husband and I went to a restaurant in town that I won't name. Not because I didn't like the place - I did like it! - but because anything other than 10 out of 10 gushing may lead to angry emails from owners, or eternal banishment (again, I did like it, but more like 9/10), or who even knows. Maybe I'm still reeling from an incident, early in WWPD history, when I blogged (accurately!) that a certain now-defunct Brooklyn coffee shop was pretty but overpriced, only to get furious emails from Mr. Coffee Shop, who'd Googled the name of his coffee shop and somehow imagined that telling me his coffee shop wasn't overpriced would, I don't know, make me remove the post? I checked, and it's still up, so I suppose that didn't happen. But it did have the effect of making me reluctant to ever mention the name of a food establishment other than the handful of old favorites (Chelsea Thai, Dos Toros, Sobaya) that I'm giving a uniformly rave review. 

So. The place - and if you live here, you will soon know which it is - is the newish, less-expensive (but still, Princeton) version of a wildly expensive place just outside of town. It opened shortly after another restaurant also promising farm-to-table, Brooklyn-by-way-of-Central-NJ cuisine. That one, which I was so curious about for however long, turned out to be sort of... bad. A nice bar, but exactly the kind of American-means-bland food that these source-fetishization menus (not uncommon, as I recall, at cheaper places in New York) seem to imply. After that disappointment, it was back to the regular lineup: lots of cooking pseudo-Italian food at home, or if going out, Ajihei for schmancy, Shanghai Bun for not-so-schmancy, Chung Sol Bat in Edison or Nam Phuong in Philadelphia for excursions, and... I'm starting to think that if the cuisine doesn't include soy sauce, chances are I'm less interested. So there wasn't any great rush to try the latest sourced-ingredient establishment. 

That, and everything I'd read about the place - and I'd read a lot! not much new ever opens around here! - said that it would be small portions at entree prices. Under more let's say urban circumstances, with more options, I'd see something like that and be like, forget it, never going there. But it's Princeton. Options are few. And the prices seemed kind of... not that high for this town, even allowing for the apparent need to order more. Our waiter reiterated the "small plates to share" concept, and asked if there was anything we couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't eat (don't remember how he phrased this), in a friendly way, but one that indicated that small portions and unexpected ingredients were things people were complaining about on Yelp.

Well! The portions were not tiny, which would make me think this was a conspiracy by the place to get people to order more (we really didn't need five dishes for two; three would have been more than enough), except that the people saying this online are telling you not to go there because you'll be ripped off. Anyway, a salad was the same size (and style of dressing) as at the not-tapas-inspired place down the street. Luckily I'm a big fan of that salad. Especially luckily, given that these same greens seemed to come with almost every dish. Everything also seemed to come with dollops of white cream (or was this the famous foam?), each with a different taste. OK, one plate did seem small - the falafel salad my husband got, with falafels that looked quite molecular. 

Then - and here I'm giving away the place, so be it - I had the "stuffing gnocchi," which were my introduction, I suppose, to... is this molecular gastronomy? At any rate, to food more posh-and-now than I'd probably ever come across. It was gnocchi - at least the texture and appearance of gnocchi - but the taste was Thanksgiving stuffing through and through. As gnocchi and stuffing happen to be two of my favorite foods, I couldn't have been more pleased. Plus, I got to enjoy these two starchy kid-foods under the guise of sophistication. There were also mushrooms, which I've relatively recently taught myself to not mind (still not so sure about a giant portobello, though), maybe even enjoy? Maybe. And the foam-cream with this dish was "smoked curd" flavor (maybe? it was the only listed item that made sense) and delicious.

The other not-so-small plate I dug into enough to remark on was smoked arctic char. I was expecting something in the lox family, but pleasantly surprised to find something that - much in the manner of the deceptive-in-a-good-way gnocchi! - looked like cooked salmon but tasted like smoked trout. It came with the very tasty eggs of an unspecified fish, and some potatoes I'd have been more excited about if I hadn't just eaten all that gnocchi. (How will I ever recreate stuffing gnocchi at home?)

The desserts looked a little too... main-course-ish. One included peas and "sable", which either meant whitefish, rabbit, antelope, or a kind of French cookie, according to Wikipedia. It's 50-50, from the context, whether it was the fish or the cookie. There was also an ice cream sandwich with barley and rhubarb - possibly wonderful, but I'm a culinary peasant whose preferred ice cream adornments are cookie dough or rainbow sprinkles. There are many reasons I'd never make it as a restaurant reviewer, but that's got to be one of them.

YPIS 8.0

After obsessing about YPIS since forever, I finally had a chance to bring YPIS 2.0 (more like 8.0, I suppose) to an audience. I'd been wanting to write such a piece for so long that it was getting to be a bit like, in grad school, when I had this project going about a really neurotic 1840s half-Jewish anti-Semite, but it didn't quite fit with what ended up being my dissertation topic. But that earlier project kept fascinating me, so I presented it at a conference as more of a stand-alone, and was pleased to have done something with it, even if it didn't end up being quite as extensive as I'd imagined. So, too, with YPIS - no 10,000 word manifesto (not this week, at least), but something I'm pleased with. I'd been searching for the best angle, and then a privilege controversy fell into my metaphorical lap.

And, in case anyone was losing sleep over this, why didn't I bring up the Jews-and-white-privilege angle, which is a topic I've obviously given a good bit of thought? I left that out because nothing in Tal Fortgang's essay really addressed this. He wasn't saying that being Jewish makes him any less white in America today. He wasn't making any claims about Princeton being a place where, unless you're Mayflower stock, even to this day you're considered lesser-than. He discussed the Holocaust, yes, but put it into a kind of generic struggling-white-immigrant narrative.

And I guess the best I could come up with would be that you can't have it both ways. Either you feel that being Jewish is a form of marginalization, in which case the "white privilege" charge is inappropriate (or less appropriate than it would be for someone white and non-Jewish), or you think (white) Jews are just generic white people these days, in which case your objections to the expression "white privilege" have nothing to do with your family's past encounters with anti-Semitism.

Pants (in the American sense)

When I moved to the woods, something happened to how I dress. Gray sweatshirts started to feature more prominently. Shoes became not merely city-walking compatible but poodle-in-woods-compatible, which is another whole level of comfortable. It's not that the previous incarnation had been all that haute - I was living in Paris and NY, but as a grad student and not in the finishing-school sense - but even so, the chances that I'd go out in sweatpants, loafers, and a puffy jacket were slim. I'd make some effort.

Here, I sort of figure, I probably won't see anyone who isn't a deer or squirrel, and everyone human I might see is someone who's seen me in the above-mentioned ensemble. And it would be kind of silly to dress up to write something from the couch at home. I know this is something people do, mimicking officewear for work not done in an office, but do these people's dogs require quite so much muddy exercise? And isn't the advantage of not-an-office the ability to wear sweatpants so old you don't remember if they're from Old Navy or Target?

But today, I was meeting a friend for lunch and thought, I'm going to wear the slightly uncomfortable pants. No, not the British meaning (WWPD has some discretion), just U.S. English for the black Zara jeans I ordered online without knowing the right size, and thus ordered in what's maybe half a size too small. Such that they look normal enough - the ubiquity of stretch is such that, really, how could they not - but are definitively pants and not sweatpants. To the outside world, I looked about as I always do - no 'why the dress, special occasion?' effect, and they're not even all that flattering - but I didn't feel like I was in pajamas.

And then, as the afternoon progressed, something happened. No, not corset-style fainting. A kind of burst of professional activity I'd wanted to catch up on. (Reminder to self: this will happen in the library or the coffee shop more often than at home.) And even a driving mini-adventure - that is, a trip to a strip-mall I'd never driven to alone before. I spent the day feeling very... not glamorous, exactly (it takes more than the Zara jeans for that), but competent. I leaned in, even if leaning in any particular direction posed some difficulty. My epiphany, it seems, is pants.

How Isabelle Huppert got her groove back

-In New York, Bisou learned that she had gotten a nice haircut "for New Jersey." This has to be the best underhanded compliment ever.

-And back in New Jersey, I watched "In Another Country," a movie that one is probably supposed to discuss in terms of cinematography, but I will be WWPD about it and mention that what's most interesting is that it chucks two romantic conventions: that the woman must be young (or younger than the man), and that if one party in an opposite-sex romance is to be East Asian, it shall be the woman. The movie's about various women played by Isabelle Huppert going to Korea and falling in and out of love with a bunch of Korean men. Most notably, each of these women gets her groove back with a lifeguard who spends much of the movie running, shirtless, to the shore, "Baywatch"-style. Although the main message is a more predictable one: if you're going to be a woman of a certain age, be French.

-You know how "health" advice is always euphemistic diet advice, as in how to lose weight? I believe I've managed to transcend this with the following suggestion for how to eat one's vegetables/use up the vegetables purchased with best intentions: tempura. Dust them with potato starch (if some is on hand; not sure this step is necessary), and dip in a batter that's a mix of all-purpose flour and seltzer. (Someone online recommended Diet Dr. Pepper in place of the seltzer. I would not do this.) Fry the vegetables (I used eggplant, asparagus, and carrot) in a mix of peanut and sesame oil. For extra carbs, serve with rice.

WWPD, ahead of the curve

The great dream of wandering around Williamsburg was finally realized. It only happened because I picked the only plausible day to go within a span of X weeks and made a haircut appointment for that day, namely today. But this non-spontaneity meant going a) when it was leggings-under-jeans-level freezing out, and b) while still recovering from some variant of the seasonal ailment seemingly affecting everyone lately. I'd recommend going in a more robust state, and in better weather, but still! So much excitement!

What you, oh jaded New Yorkers, see as a so-last-season condo-filled mall, I - someone whose usual options are actual malls - see as the epicenter of cool. What, the epicenter shifted, and is now in Bushwick? (I suppose it had while I was still living in the city.) Somewhere cooler than Bushwick? Perhaps so, if you want the best parties or galleries. But Google Maps-level planning suggested that for a day of urban leisure, for glamor before 11am, the L to Bedford (but straying off Bedford itself) would do.

First there was a flat white, this special Australian cappuccino-type thing with denser foam, from a suitably New Williamsburg establishment, Toby's Estate.

Then there was a haircut at Commune Salon and Gift, whose website seems to be down. It's in any case a super-chic Japanese hair salon, where I got a super-chic Japanese haircut.

Then it was time for lunch. My initial thought had been that of course I'd get the hamburger from Diner, but with Samurai Mama, a much-recommended Japanese "tavern," right next door, that became the obvious answer. I got the yakko (cold, custard-like tofu) with seaweed tsukudani, a condiment (?) I'd never had before, but that was delicious and can now go onto the list of Japanese dishes to try to recreate at home. Then I had the vegetable gyoza, which come in the small frying pan they were (presumably) cooked in, with some kind of batter connecting all the dumplings into one pancake. This came with an amazing dipping sauce, as well as a spicy chutney (?). Fabulous, and I can already say, impossible to recreate at home. I mean, the gyoza I could manage, but who knows what the webbing between them was made out of. It was too early in the day for tavern beverages (a novelty - NJ's very BYOB, not that I can even bring any B, what with the driving needed to get anywhere), but I hope to be back and try some of those - and basically all the other dishes - as well. No idea if my Princeton friends will read this, but if you do, let it be known you will be dragged there the moment it's not this cold out.

Then came some more Williamsburg wandering around, being generally freezing and blah, navigating icy streets, noting that the beard trend (so very absent in my part of NJ) lives on. I tried on nail polish at the Woodley and Bunny "Apothecary," but didn't buy any. (The royal blue Uslu Airlines was tempting, but then I remembered I have that color from the Rite Aid in the shopping center.) I noted that the some of the shoes in a "curated" store off Bedford were a brand with a store on the main street in Princeton. As always happens, I start to see the area again through jaded-New-Yorker eyes, and start wondering if maybe I should have just gone to Zabars and been done with it. Except no - that whole bit on Grand Street was probably worth the trip.

Hermit fail

New Jersey - among other locales, it seems - is in for another round of snow-and-frozen-rain-pocalypse. The local news is providing regular updates on just how panicked we should be; the answer is, as always, very panicked. The town and the housing I live in are also keeping in excellent touch with reminders - rarely does a minute go by when everything doesn't ring or buzz in some capacity to announce that it's snowy and only getting worse. So many dangers! This road-skidding business is no joke, and makes 12 mph as scary as it was when I was first learning. And the falling wires and branches (and whole trees) one is meant to watch out for! But watch out how? Driving can be avoided - everything's closed anyway - but until this poodle learns to use the facilities... And then there are the little things, like how the trash bin outside has frozen shut.

There are also the even littler things - a certain completely inessential haircut trip to Williamsburg-and-environs that was meant to happen after I turned something in, which I've... turned in. (Although it's been so long since I've had a haircut that I keep getting comments on my 'new haircut' so maybe I should just go with it.) Also ever-so-slightly-smaller dream of driving to H-Mart in Edison, a dream duly replaced by the hope that the power doesn't go out (as it has elsewhere in town) and destroy whichever non-Korean groceries I already have.

Because my husband's away for this round of Weather, the main thing is not to go full-on hermit. So far this time I've found ways to avoid that, but give it time. Everyone who thinks they'd want to be alone in a pseudo-cabin in the woods indefinitely, reading and writing, with occasional breaks to walk a fluffy dog, I can attest that even for the relatively introverted, that eventually gets old. It's conducive to productivity, but it has its problems. I've had experiences like, my dreams will be populated by sitcom characters and people I only know/only see regularly on social media. Leaving the house has its advantages.

Ina Garten, Edina Monsoon, and other role models

FreshDirect has arrived in the bustling metropolis where I live, and with it, two $50-off coupons per household. Between the $8 delivery fee, the lower prices on most items than nearby supermarkets, the implicit necessity of tipping, the eliminated need to drive to the store, the reduction in impulse purchases, and the need to reach $125 for the coupon to even kick in, I can't yet tell if this is, like, wise. But it's certainly appealing. It's freezing out, the roads are icy, and strip-mall grocery shopping in New Jersey is something like the opposite of perusing the Raspail organic market in Paris. There are, I suspect, no romantic photos of Ina Garten exchanging banter with someone from the bread department at Wegmans.

It feels very decadent, very Edina Monsoon, having one's groceries brought to one's door, but could well turn out to be the cheaper option.

But what I really can't tell is if it's quicker to choose groceries online or at the store. There's something frustrating yet freeing about not having to physically inspect each onion, when ultimately you're cooking them down regardless and one's as good as the next. So it ought to be quicker. But because you're at home - perhaps with several other windows open with actual work, it can be a procrastinatory sinkhole that, unlike other online shopping, feels deceptively practical.

Practical, that is, until you realize you've had the same FreshDirect window open for the past five hours, going back and forth to it whenever you need to clear your head. Three tomatoes or four? Or is that pounds of tomatoes? How did one tomato just come to over $2? (Actually, that turned out to be a very expensive tomato, which I then removed from the virtual cart.) And which cheese? Is camembert something you can buy sight-unseen? Should I be suspicious that this brand of it costs more everywhere else? When you go to the store, you walk through it and eventually you're at the registers, at which point you know you're done. This way, you enter and never leave. (I have, after several days, submitted the order, and am choosing to ignore the 'modify your order till 5pm' option.)

Drawbacks, then, are the strangely addictive nature of online food-shopping, but also the false promise of NYC-specific treats (striped bass - and all alcoholic beverages - seemed available, but no; dreams of bagels and pastries went unfulfilled), and the let's say Eurocentric aspects of the offerings. Not only is FreshDirect not, understandably, the Japanese supermarket I might want it to be, but rice paper, for example, is not happening. As an alternative, they recommend wax paper or parchment paper or something. The other drawback, of course, is the distinct possibility that with this as an option, and with basically all my work and entertaining these days being couch-compatible, I will never again leave the house.