I am coffee

Today we walked briskly along St. Marks, facing the bitter cold winds of New York City, determined to find something to warm our shivering bodies.
Coffee? I said timidly, seeing a sign we just passed. No one turned around.
Udon? I tried again, seeing another window with warm bodies indoors.
I could go for that! I heard a voice beside me. Looking up from the folds of my scarf, I saw L., equally frost-pinched.
Udon? I repeated.
No, the coffee... he said hesitantly.
Ok! I jumped. Taking few steps back to the sign, I looked up. It hangs over the passers by, inviting them for an authentic coffee experience... and hot chocolate! If there is anything better than strong coffee with rich cream on a cold winter day, it's rich, dark hot chocolate, made with milk and served with love. My stomach forgot its recent pleas for sustenance and I rushed up the stone stairs. Mmmm chocolate!

Through the sliding door to the left, there is a coffee bar, behind which stands a smiling, friendly and disarmingly genuine barista named Katarina, serving meticulously prepared coffee beverages and freshly made hot chocolate. She has a European accent and according to an old and rude tradition, my friend and I begin to guess where she is from. Turns out, it's Italy. So says her brother, who is lingering on the guest side of the bar after his shift, chatting with a friend and occasionally popping behind the bar to mix a coffee or help his sister out when her hands are full. There are several machines and thus several technologies for preparing coffee. I notice the drip, and get excited. Another gentleman comes in, orders an espresso and joins us at the tiny bar. My friend, prompted by the lack of space, instantly sparks up a conversation with him.

The brother and sister duet is serving a drip coffee to L., accompanied by a petite steel pitcher of cream - delicious, may I add! and Katarina prepares our hot chocolates with milk. Before she serves us, she detects a hint of doubt, so she shows us what she would be using to make our drinks. Despite being half-frozen inside a banal plastic container, the chocolate mix was freshly made every day to be later prepared with hot milk; it resembled the chocolate truffle mix I make at home. Looks like dreams do come true, I thought. Thank you, I am coffee!

As she served our drinks, a hearty tablespoon of chocolate in each, with an off-white saucer for our spoons and a dainty sparkling steel sugar bowl, the barista told us to stir in the chocolate for 1 minute. The hands-on approach to making your own drink may deter the lazies in the crowd, but for this 'artesian' coffee shop the goal is to engage you with the beverage. Katarina tells me that some drinks on the menu are never made to go - like the espresso - and being far away from her homeland of Italy, she and her family will not break that sacred rule. I ask her if it is a family business... yes, it is, she says: it was started by her uncle with her two brothers and herself just two and a half months ago. Finally, things are picking up, she smiles. Behind her are traditional laced curtains for kitchen cabinets familiar to me from old Italian films with a young Sophia Loren. What do they hide? Perhaps coffee, pastry and chocolate secrets of a distant Italian home...

There are now seven of us standing at the bar - there are no chairs (and no space for them) - and from our privileged height we see wistful gazes of walkers wishing for a reviving cup of coffee. Alas, I am coffee is packed to carrying capacity at 7.

Katarina tells me that yes, the place is small, but it is a traditional Italian spot, with coffee served - and drunk - at the bar, standing and socializing with fellow drinkers. She wants to bring this tradition to the U.S., sans compromises. Space is not an issue, she points out to me, showing me the three-cup curved saucers made seemingly for espressos but also used to hold coffee, cream and sugar comfortably in one hand at the crowded bar. And we even have these, she says with an infectious smile, pulling out a dark sepia decorated mini-saucer, for pastry. When she says pastry, my eyes wander over to said objects, and I see only 3 varieties: cookies and two pies. The pies are not pre-sliced, even though it is apparent they will be sold by the day's end. They look too delicious to try so soon... maybe next time...

My friend looks at her watch and we realize we're late for our bus. All good things must come to an end! Thankfully, the drip coffee and hot chocolate can be made to go. I say goodbye to the smiling barista, grab a business card and head down the steps to join the flowing crowd of St. Marks. No longer hungry, I cradle the best hot chocolate I've ever had in my hands and L. is uncharacteristically drawing out his cup of coffee as we head west. Finders - keepers.

I am coffee is located at 9 Saint Marks Place
(between 2nd and 3rd Ave)

How To Cook Underwhelming Food

If you find yourself with a limited budget (perhaps after a splurge on some imported beers) and suddenly hungry, there are a few recipes - sort of - you can use to feed yourself. If you are lazy, this may be especially helpful.

3 Pork Cutlets

1. Find leftover rice in your refridgerator. Note to yourself it's there; forget in 15 minutes.
2. Take out pork cutlets (mine have been in the fridge, bottom shelf where it's sufficiently cold, for 2 days by this point) and give them a rinse to freshen them up. Then lay them out on a cutting board, or wherever.
3. Break an egg into a small bowl, whisk lightly; you can use a fork, because a washing a whisk afterwards is a pain. 
4. Add salt (I only have sea salt, but you may have more varieties), red and black pepper, thyme and a shake of basil (I say shake, because I assume if you're reading this you don't like cooking enough to have a bouquet of fresh basil leaves in a small jar on your kitchen counter). Mix until all ingredients look like a view through a kaleidoscope.
5. Take out extra seasoning - I use more of the basil and garlic powder (because can't be bothered to peel cloves of garlic), you will use it to season the cutlets before they hit the pan.
6. Take a few tablespoons of flour and spread them out on a big plate. The plate should have elevated edges if you're clumsy.
7. Take cutlet # 1 and dip it into the egg yolk. At this point you should remember that you need to fry this on a surface, so obtain a surface, preferably nonstick and warm it up.
8. Back to cutlet # 1: Jiggle it around in the yolk, then move to the flour and put face down on the plate, first on one side and then on the other.
9. Note that your cooking surface is getting very hot. Pour olive oil, potentially too much. Have paper towel on hand to absorb the excess. Lower the heat to um, low.
10. Quickly move cutlet # 1 from the flour to the pan (let's call the frying surface that, it's a 3-letter word: easy). Now glance back to the operating table and see you have forgotten to add the extra seasoning. Normally I'd let it go, but it may just be worthwhile adding the garlic powder. Sprinkle basil and garlic powder on top of cutlet # 1 already in pan. Sprinkle only on the side facing up, as flipping it yet would be too messy. 
11. Repeat steps 7, 8 an 10 with cutlet # 2 and cutlet # 3 (don't get a new hot surface for every cutlet) with one adjustment. Now that the pan is on the stove, you are less distracted and can remember to sprinkle cutlets with garlic and basil at some point after they have been dipped in yolk and before they land in the pan. 
12. If you have any leftover veggies in your fridge that will soon go bad, now is the time to take them out. In my case it was celery. 
13. Wash them, dice them, and thrown 'em into the pan. If it's a non-stick pan, you may forget to stir, which is fine - people like us are the reason they make them.
14. After about 7 minutes, peek at the bottoms of the cutlets. Cutlet # 1 should be a dark golden color down there. Flip it. Even though cutlet # 2 and cutlet # 3 are more raw, flip them also, because the pan was hotter by the time they were added... and otherwise, I might just forget.
15. Repeat step 14. Then repeat step 15 with decreasing time intervals over the course of 12 minutes. 
16. Turn off the gas (I have a gas stove) and let the food absorb the remaining heat in the pan. Then after a few minutes, serve. 

Benedict Cumberbatch - is he the Alan Rickman of our generation?

With a name slightly less ordinary, he is hard to pin down and impossible to forget. An intellectual rambler, a hipster with classical British undertones, a peculiar face - neither handsome nor harrowing - that is beguiling in its oddity... He is well on his way to becoming the nerdy girl's celebrity crush and an actor whose film choice you trust so much, you could watch a film he's in without first sampling the trailer (so please, Mr. Cumberbatch, don't do what Colin Firth did with What A Girl Wants). He can make you hate, love, pity or be mystified by his character by the second frame. He is not pretty or even handsome (I say it so because of the predominance of the former to the detriment of the latter in modern Hollywood productions); yet he is, beyond a doubt, very talented.

Like Mr. Rickman, he is a latecomer to the Hollywood mainstream, appearing in Star Trek and The Hobbit when already in his thirties. And like Mr. Rickman in his time, he will portray villains in both of these films, which will probably captivate their cult audiences. Do you remember the Sheriff of Nottingham? Mr. Rickman plays flawed beings, especially villainous ones, so masterfully that you find yourself anxiously wondering about their fate. I certainly felt this way when watching Starter for Ten and Atonement (albeit those initially made it on my movie list because of James McAvoy).

Then there is the unmistakeable physical appearance. The high cheekbones, the sharp profile, the blue eyes of a pensive predator... I would have also added his height, but that may be a poor judgement because his male costars (including James McAvoy and Martin Freeman in Sherlock) have been of less than moderate height. And then, of course, the VOICE. Alan Rickman's voice is unique. Every generation ought to have a hero (or an anti-hero) with a cavernous voice to adore, and among today's hulky stars none come to mind. No, it should be an imperfect, pale, enigmatic Englishman - in his roles great, but not always good - who, while avoiding the limelight, is always stealing the spotlight.

Mistakes are the Guiding Lights in the Lost Galaxy where My Ship sails

I guess I was supposed to keep up with this blog throughout my time abroad, the end of my studies, and my early professional life (i.e. first job). Here I am, 2 years later, sleep-deprived for no justifiable reason, completely disorganized, creatively confused and geopolitically doubtful... and I have ceased to write in this blog.

I suppose writing out my thoughts just did not seem appropriate when my thoughts were in a jumble coated with worry and insecurities; but now I have untangled a little bit of it all and am grasping at some solid strings. And one of them is that my poetry is a big part of my life, however mediocre or bad it may be. It is in Russian, and thus a testament to my cultural heritage and my perception of myself and my emotional output. I think a good way to begin the path to a proper life is by putting some of myself out in the open. Knowing no one will probably read this certainly helps a shy soul!

But here they are, a couple of poems from last year (around college graduation time, to be precise):

***

Нам не всем суждено раскрыться

За назначеный юностью срок...

Ночь не терпит; она искрится,

Призывая всех нас забыться,

В сердце взращивая порок.

Тот, кто пишет, уже не узнает,

Как он прожил бы эти часы:

На пергаменте он гадает,

На салфетках он вычитает

Жизнь, выравнивая весы.

Мы пошутим, споём, станцуем

Пусть другие напишут о нас!

Мы не злимся, и зря не тоскуем;

На прощание юность целуем

Горячо, как в последний раз.

Нам не раз предстоит столкнуться,

И мы вряд ли прощаемся тут.

Но те ночи уже не вернутся,

И те чувства уже не очнутся,

Даже если их позовут.

April 2011

***

Здесь начерчена тропа

Чем-то белым, чьим-то мелом;

И исчерпана строка –

Не находчиво, но смело!

Здесь затихла в сердце боль:

Умерла, где и родилась!

Каждый шаг, как новый ноль,

И в нём прошлое топилось.

Спят здесь старые мечты

На перине ожиданий;

Падают на них цветы

После ветра повеваний.

И друзья пивных затей

Бродят призраками в тенях

Среди греческих идей

И химических творений.

Здесь всё в прошлом, даже мы –

Лишь страница альманаха.

Разлохмачены холмы,

Как зелёная альпака!

Там пройтись в последний раз

Просят сбившиеся ноги...

Ради утешенья глаз

И протоптаны дороги.

Всем по ним в какой-то путь:

Плакать, радоваться, верить,

Жаждать, думать, видеть суть,

Жить, и жизнь свою не мерять!

April 2011

The intellectuals are drinking their coffee at home... Part II

Hey,

been gone again!

After plane and bus hopping for 6 days, I was back in the comfort of my dorm room at Colby College on Tuesday night, utterly exhausted.

But the trip - mostly done inside an airplane - across Europe has prompted some thoughts.

1. Europe is a very diverse continent; it is internally diverse, form a historical perspective, as it includes a plethora of ethno-linguistic groups, and has been the cradle of many religious movements. Europe is also extremely diverse as a result of immigration during the post-World War II era, which continues today, despite efforts to curb it. This diversity is beautiful, and I have a difficult time accepting statements as to the more homogenous nature of European societies: this is no longer applicable. Having said that, the image European media projects is a lot less diverse than the societies it ought to reflect. For example, take an airline like Lufthansa: in their advertisements, it is rare to see a non-aryan looking face, although their staff and your average German citizen walking down the street in Frankfurt or Berlin is far more likely to be of mixed or Turkish, or African (and so on) descent than Lufthansa's promotional campaign would have you guess. So why not put the different faces of Germany, France (doing better on this point), Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and others on the front pages of magazines and bring the public's attention to the success stories - and the typical struggles - of the immigrants living there? I hardly think such a project would create a backlash, as it doesn't change policy, only attitudes. Then, in turn, 'integration' policies would be easier to create, accept, and enact.
2. French unions need to stop protesting. The inevitability of this set of reforms, in one packaging or another, has to be evident to French citizens. Just across the channel, the British government is introducing a budget that, for better or worse, is quite revolutionary for its epoch, from a fiscal austerity point of view - it is seeking to reduce Britain's debt and in order to do so, is slicing chunks off budgets of various ministries and social services, under the umbrella of reducing overall government spending. There will also be a sooner introduction of the new retirement age, 66 for both men and women, as well as some pension reform. There is a risk of stifling Britain's recovery, but in my personal opinion, I think the UK had always managed to use little to achieve a lot, so I'm holding my fingers crossed for their calculated gamble. So this leaves France, with its retirement age still at 60 and generous pensions, seeming like a spoiled, crying child throwing its final tantrum. Yes, it is easy to understand why the French are so protective of their social welfare benefits and their readiness to spill out into the street is admirable, but there comes a point when reflection has to happen. Is it fair for the British, the Germans, and even the Italians and the Spanish to tighten their belts and to work longer (years) in order to give the French citizens the privilege of holding on to an older system of social benefits no longer viable in the world they live in? Not to mention, the French reforms are timid in comparison to reforms taken on by Spain and Greece (and again, Britain) - but then again, let's reflect on what brought the first tow countries to such a desperate situation? I doubt the French people would like to be seen in the same position in a decade's time.
3. The wave of nationalism sweeping through Europe is alarming (to go back to the diversity point made above), and it is not even so much nationalism as it is Islamophobia. There is no reason to be afraid of Islam, of Muslims and especially of terrorism on the home turf. Security services and intelligence agencies will, in sha'allah, do their job, and citizens' vigilance will not be the sole source of protection for Western societies. But the irrational association of Muslim to dangerous or hostile or foreign should end, really, because the new diverse Europe is as much Muslim as it is Christian and atheist, and it is better for that; this will become evident when European governments will stop their obsession with integration, but instead become open to intra-state cultural exchange, fostering an awareness and an understanding of 'foreigners' problems' and by extension of issues facing foreign governments of immigrants' countries of origin - all this will equip the EU citizens to better deal with the challenges of the 21st century.

Espousing the ideals of the Fifth Republic and the pillars of French society, or vice versa, floating above the gritty realities of daily life of the 'les gens désabusés des banlieux', French intellectuals of the old mould may just have to confine themselves to drinking their coffee at home.