after-dinner treats 

Plums in chocolate. Okay. Cool. What else?
How about this: artisanal vintage numbered plum preserves.
Artisanal, vintage, numbered. Why?
Well, because plums, like grapes, have their good year and bad year. These preserves are stirred in large kettles, then packed by hand: only a couple of hundred jars are made each year. I have jar no. 184.
Could you tell the difference if it was from the year 2002 rather than 2001?
Jam should be eaten with as much care as anything else. I bet if I paused and savored it and rolled it around on my tongue…

one small kitchen (outside of Warsaw) makes these in limited quantities  

What else?
Honey from pine forest undergrowth.
Say what?
I can’t translate it. You need to taste it to understand how the essence of the forest can make its way into a great honey. This jar is somewhat depleted not because I had a honey craving and dug in halfway through the trip, but because some of the honey exited from the jar mid-flight.

"eco" means that it meets organic production standards 

Continue!
How about these artisanal cholcolates, individually crafted? I think Belgium is going to have to share the stage pretty soon: Polish chocolate is catching up to its EU neighbor!

delicate, refined, unusual. 

Anything non-foody?
Too many holiday secrets in my suitcase. But I can show off this rooster that I now put in the kitchen: he is made of Polish hay and let me tell you, it brings the barn smell right into your home.
Is that a good thing?
Yes: I am referring to the fresh, sweet smell of hay. Okay, maybe it’s not that pungent, but if I bend down and sniff and close my eyes, I can see the haystacks before me…
That would not be a winter image now would it?
No matter: the rooster traveled straight from the holiday market in Krakow and as he sits perched on my kitchen countertop, he is my tiny reminder of who I am and where it all comes from. I am transformed again. Friends wont recognize me.
(Oh oh, are we going to see more of that Eastern European angst? The eat, drink and be merry cataclysmic personality that plunges and plunders and then writes dark brooding stories about the meaninglessness of life? )
(People have such weird ideas on what it means to be Polish.)

hej, gory, nasze gory... 

Celebrate the countdown toward summer!

It is always a relief to survive December 21st. Understanding that henceforth the days will again grow longer feels extraordinarily wonderful. Ocean is all about celebrations: cheers to the coming of summer!

Hardy peasant stock? Maybe not.

Yesterday, when temps hovered in the upper thirties, New York dogs wore sweaters and Burberry coats. This morning the weather turned vicious. The streets had a dusting of snow (and a two inch layer of salt, it seemed). Temperatures imitated Wisconsin. Dogs were being carried by owners across the street. The wind kicked up, reminding me what winter was really like back home. Thanks a lot, New York. I would have appreciated one last morning of something gentler and tamer. This stuff is for the Olafs and the Ingas and husky Vladimirs of this world. Me, I’m the one that is genetically linked to the Ludmilas who stayed home by the kitchen hearth and stirred the porridge. Or, better yet, my ancestors were probably of Mediterranean stock, those that got mixed up during the European battles that merged our troops with theirs. Bottom line: this winter stuff isn’t for me.

A slick early morning walk 

where are the pink tones and gentler temps? 

"Voices leaking from a sad cafe... On Bleecker Street."

Being away means keeping to a schedule that bears no resemblance to the one at home. It means not reading the Sunday Times, not tracking anything beyond the top half of the front page (displayed on newsstands). And not cleaning, organizing for the week. And it means writing inconsequential posts.

There is something innocuously pleasant about going to the Village and walking down Bleecker Street, stopping at the (crowded!) Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes and looking at the cute and quirky holiday decorations on brownstones and in store windows. That’s it. Nothing could be simpler, less taxing. And short-lived.

Tomorrow, a return to the moment when I nearly missed the bus for O’Hare. Sigh. Poland didn’t quite leave my system the way it was supposed to.

No room inside for a tree, or for the family bikes. 

From Magnolia Bakery: two down, seven to go 

holiday pink, inside and out 

Holidays? What holidays? Oh, those holidays! Yes, sure, right, I remember.

Hey, jingle bells, jingle bells!
Huh? You mean we’re in the Christmas season?

Where have you been? We are moments away from the big day itself!
This year I just cannot wrap my mind around Christmas. I have been in places that have holiday spirit up the wazoo, yet being away from home makes me think that the holiday season is remote.

Get with it! You are out of step with the calendar! Quit flipping the channels to different cities around the globe and start baking!
Monday. I am going home tomorrow. But why bake when there are holiday cakes for sale around the corner of every place I go to? This begs for a photo run. Just three examples from the past week:

Warsaw cakes, just down the block from my father's apartment 

the more elaborate Parisian holiday cakes 

around the corner from the NY apartment 

Haven't you had any cool Christmas moments in your travels?
Oh sure. Clearly the most pristine “holiday” moment has to be handed to Rynias. I mean, don’t they make Christmas cards that try hard to replicate these kinds of scenes?

A simple hay-stacking device used by highlanders 

winter sun, tall pines -- the mood is perfect 

And I have to give a thumbs up to Krakow for its holiday craft market. Insofar as people associate glass ornaments with Poland, you had them aplenty there. No, I did not bring one home. Bad enough that my sister gave me several hand-painted eggs (blown-out, of course) and they broke, I did not need to travel with broken glass as well. Things are pretty tight in my suitcase(s).

glass ornaments from Krakow: every tree should have some 

And in spite of the fact that New York department stores offer the most elaborate Christmas displays, I am drawn to the little ones in Paris. They are singularly different, each one attesting to the mood and predilection of the store owner.

a food shop with a traditional take on things (the little sheep move their heads) 

one of my favorites: a window in a small designer-clothes store 

In New York, what I find most evocative and holiday-ish are the trees propped against lampposts and parking meters. Nothing speaks so perfectly to the idea of a city Christmas.

Are New Yorkers rather 'last minute' about their tree buying?  

Ah well. Tomorrow marks the end of living out of a suitcase for a little while. I would say it’s full steam ahead in terms of holiday cheer except that I just got an email from a friend who is complaining about the traffic on streets leading to malls, and another email from someone who says it’s damn cold in Madison, and of course, my students have been “enjoying” themselves filling out bluebooks all week-end long – blue books that I’ll have to read with alacrity, so I can’t say that returning home will be one happy holiday indulgence. I’m thinking a snowstorm might be nicely evocative. Just hold the flakes until I’m done traveling, please.

City walks

The interesting thing about walking from one end of Central Park to the other is that it allows you to face prominent and not so prominent vistas. On the southern end (at 59th street) there is the Plaza Hotel. On the northern end (at 110th street) there is a little plot of land set aside for home gardens. Behind it are apartment buildings of the sort that, one hopes, would not be built anymore. But just inside the Park, on the northern end, there is a reservoir and at dusk it is stunning.

Suddenly, after 96th street, the nature of the neighborhood changes. 

The Plaza at one end, this at the other.

It is, nonetheless, worth investigating the northern corner of Central Park

Week-end in New York: from the noble and refined, to holiday crass commercialism

Yesterday was all about seeing good people and beautiful museums. Here, I even took a photo of the building that I lived in and the museum where I hung out for the better part of the afternoon.

Yesterday's run in with the past at 1010 Fifth Ave, and with culture at the Metropolitan. 

Today was entirely different. I spent the morning filling Big Brown Bags (aka shopped at Bloomingdale’s). Why did I do it? I am, after all, known for my hatred of malls. But I’m staying a mere four blocks away from the department store and it seems right to be holiday shopping a week before the holidays.

Oh, and guess whom I ran into there? Answer: no one known to me, but everyone else was making a fuss. So I went up, always eager to make a fool of myself with my camera and as a result, I was filmed chatting to this guy. I am certain that there will be the following commentary: Robert Verdi (that appears to be his name) meets a shopper in Bloomingdales while filming for his E! Fashion Police show and wonders, after looking her up and down, why people go out in public looking so… casual. I was very sorry I did not wear my new French rose-beige corduroys.

So take a look. Am I the only one who had no idea who this dude was? Btw, that’s me, the one with the gloppy cords, but cool enough jacket and scarf, standing next to him.

Hey, his scarf matches my shirt.  

Bloomingdale's shoppers with Big Brown Bags, reflected in the windows of the store