Navel Gazing

 I made two big life changes during the pandemic: started running and started meditating. The other one, which I didn't initiate ('rona did it) is no more twice-a-year visits by my mom which even though they were only twice, took up a bigly amount of space in my head because they were so stressful to plan and execute, so it always seemed like a visit was happening soon or had just happened.

But I digress, so running was due to not being able to go to spin as my main way to "stay in shape" whatever that is to a given person. I got really into it as something I could do when I couldn't do anything else and I was maybe running a little too often and pushing my mid-40s (cough *late 40*) body a bit, and since about May I have scaled back and run on average 4 times a week, 3 miles at a time. At that level, I don't get any injuries or soreness so it seems good. I found that I love to run in the extreme cold so I may up my distance again when the temperatures drop. I usually run at around 7 am everyday, rarely later than 8. Yeah, running is cool if you can do it and/or don't hate it. I do get sick of my McKinley village/Elvas area runs but I have a newfound appreciation for Compton's Market and their deliciously old-school logo and vibe. I mean, I don't shop there often but I think about it a lot as I run past. I love how there is a bar inside for East Sac Grateful dads to drink brews. I have also learned where the citrus, fig, loquat and cherry trees are to raid and pillage as I run

OK, now blogger has decided to center align, whatevs. 

Second change, meditating. That one is a bit more recent. UCD sponsors live meditations sessions, so I started that, and downloaded the Calm app (which I now got rid of and use 10% happier instead which is a great app despite the pathetic name). Now I meditate for a short sesh most days, sometimes twice or even three times. Sometimes if I do a body scan style one I will fall asleep briefly. That has been a life changer because it's making me tune into bodily sensations, and to note how often my heart is racing or I feel super nervous or tense. It's helping me to change that.

A side-effect of changing that is that I'm starting to notice I can't "handle" the stress I used to be able to. But what does "handling" mean anyway? A lot of times I think handling is just supposed to mean ignoring your stress and bodily sensations and plunging in. That's a lot harder when you are tuned into those feelings. Maybe that's why this younger generation is viewed as kind of fragile, because they are aware of mental health best practices and yikes "self care".  Anyway, these are musings that are on my mind, it really doesn't take much time at all to take a few breaths and ground yourself periodically, it can be done during the same amount of time that you might normally be scrolling on social media or stress snacking or something.

Shirley Jackson and Chile Rellenos

I watched the Shirley Jackson-ish movie last night. And by "ish" I meant that the movie is based on a fictional novel with only a tangential relationship to Shirley Jackson's life, mostly because there are no kids in it and she had 4 kids. The movie has a Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf vibe with a fictional young, hot couple coming to live with Shirley and her obnoxious husband.

Few things: Shirley Jackson is a damn trip. You can be a fan (I am BIG TIME) and not realize she wrote two child rearing non-fiction books. Life among the savages and raising demons. Reading Haunting of Hill House and imagining her in the Erma Bombeck type of writing space is very weird. 

How is Shirley the movie? Better than I thought it would be. It all hinges on Moss and some of it is a bit wobbly at times but overall maybe I was just swayed by the excellent shirts that Shirley Jackson wore. 

This duck one is particularly good

Here's another trip about Shirley. She died at 49.

People really aged differently back in the day. But I feel like a dick pointing this out, I'm being honest that I was tripping on it, but also a reason I vibed with the movie is because as someone who has grappled with self image my entire life I am drawn to stories of women who yield power and magnetism that they do not gain through beauty. 

During the movie Shirley is writing a book that I had no idea is a real book, called Hangsaman and now I must read immediately but help I have like 12 books lined up to read right now!!! Current rotation: Call Me By Your Name (trying to rush to the dirty parts), How the Word is Passed (reading with a friend) and a book on daughters of narcissistic mothers. Just finished: Shirley Hazzard The Great Fire.

As far as the Jackson oeuvre I've read We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Hill House is the best scary book of all time IMHO. Of course I've read The Lottery but probably should check out more of her short stories but I just don't really like reading short stories.

The director of Shirley is Josephine Decker who has an interesting body of work. I have seen her movies "Butter on the Latch" "Thou Wast Mild and Lovely" and also a very cringey doc. that she made with an ex about their relationship that has a lot of real sex in it! And them talking about where their relationship went wrong. Shirley was def her biggest movie, with Coppola as producer and I wonder what it did for her career. It got released during the pandemic. I know flops are harder for female directors to recover from. She has a new movie in post-production with Jason Segel in it. Haven't thought about that guy in a while.

I am off the 'Gram so I have nowhere to post food photos. This one is an extremely bad photo and also you can see where I salted after cooking and there's salt on the plate. I made chile rellenos. Two coworkers had told me it's not worth the trouble but I would make again. I made two kinds: stuffed with Oaxacan cheese and the other stuffed with a saute (how do you spell) of shrimp, onion and tomato.

I made the sauce from garden tomatoes, serrano chile, garlic and onion. Blended, cooked down and strained.

The different thing about frying rellenos is you whip the eggs. The recipe I had led to me overwhipping them so that they were too foamy and wouldn't coat the chile (which is first dipped in flour). So while frying the second batch I added another egg white and mixed in so it would not be so stiff.

You roast the chilies beforehand and de-skin and de-seed etc. I think I overroasted them slightly so they were too soft and tended to split. You can hold them together with toothpicks for frying, but it seems sketchy like you are going to bite into one.

Delicious! It made me miss my customary 524 relleno order even though mine were better.

Burgers and platters

 A friend (Raske) made burgers on the 4th and I wish I had taken a picture. They were the best and they erased the memory of the bad Shake Shack burger from my mind. He's a great cook, so I knew I should be excited about his burgers but he surpassed my expectations. A few things he did:

• Got an 80% lean ground beef. He got his at Albertson's but the Corti burger blend has this same ratio. 90% lean is too high
• Generous salting of the meat, but without handling it a lot. He kind of spread it on a plate and salted the top, not really mixed
• He formed the patties directly onto the grill, and made them thin
• I did not check out his coal formation, I should have, I wonder if there was a hot spot or spread out
• He cooked them for a pretty long time. He did a second round when the coals were cooling and they were on there a while. This made a good char. I usually make my burgers way too thick and then also trip out and take them off early so they are sometimes unpleasantly bloody
• American cheese (natch)

Other than that, we rode home just when it was getting dark and many the noise was cray, but I had eaten a weed gummy so I feel asleep early and slept through most of the hoo-hah.

Have you guys gotten knives or sharpened your knives at Crocker Cutlery yet??? Ya gotta! Gabriel is so cool, and his shop is so cute and smells great (he is into essential oils) and knife sharpening is like ten a pop. He has knives for all price ranges but will not hard sell you. Look at this cute platter I got there!

I am trying to bring show listings on Undietacos back, so that I can stay off Instagram. Anyone can make a listing, no Zuckerberg involved! I deleted the Gram from my phone, mostly just because of what a timesuck it is. I'd rather be reading. Of course, I get FOMO and the everyone is hanging out without me feeling, I won't deny that, but mostly I just spend from 30 minutes to an hour on it a day and that's too much.

In which Becky eats a shackburger

 I used to go to the original Shake Shack in Madison Square Park back in the day. And by back in the day, I mean 2004 and yes, I was probably listening to Interpol or Spoon on my headphones at the time. I thought it was good.

In 2020, Sac got a Shake Shack. It had instant lines and seemed like a COVID hot spot, so I avoided it. I gave some money to the local LGBT+ center on big day of giving and in return I received a coupon for a free burger. This is brilliant, and I knew I should use it so that Shake Shack would know that this marketing opportunity had worked. Yes, that's right, I ate a burger because I'm sooooooo altruistic.

I had June 28 off for the Juneteenth holiday (yay UCD you rule in so many ways) so I decided to use my coupon. I got a regular Shackburger which has: "shack sauce" not to be confused with "donkey sauce", tomato, lettuce, American cheese. 

Firstly: too salty. I love salt so if I say something is too salty most would agree. Secondly: bun is gross. It's like the saddest, squishiest version of a Wonder Bread bun. The texture is not recognizable as a bread texture. Thirdly: needs pickles or something acidic. Fourth: of course the tomato was orange and gross. 

This is a terrible burger. For a similar size and style of burger, the Suzie Burger one is better. I also got a chocolate shake which was immediately not thick enough.

I'm not sure if Shake Shack was never good, or (more likely) that upsizing from one cafe to hundreds there is no way to keep something tasting good. I shall not go back unless someone tells me the shroom burger is good.

Show me the horsebreaking

 

Without realizing it, I embarked on a Western masculinity mini-seminar, and I'm digging it. It started with paying for The Killing of Two Lovers on Amazon Prime (yes, I wish I could quit Amazon, and I mostly do, except for the streaming). I tried to go see TKOTL at Tower, but on the day I went, it said online that Tower was showing it (a Thursday) when I arrived, the theater was closed. It is open 3 days a week, unless that has changed in the last couple of weeks. That Angelika website is A MESS. And now that the Bee doesn't have movie listings any more, it's hard to figure out.

Anyway, I show up, ready for movie, no movie. So I rent it. The director went to grad school at UCD, and an earlier movie of his (God Bless the Child) is set in Davis (you really wouldn't be able to tell unless you already knew, it's just suburban streetscapes and parks). I watched God Bless The Child after TKOTL, but it's just kids (his real kids) being feral and if you like kids it would be awesome, but....

So TKOTL is set in some stark area, like, IDK let's say Montana. It's about a stoic beardy blue collar worker guy hurting over his marriage breakup. But with the scenery, the camera work, and the performances it's more than the sum of its parts. And there is one really unforgettable scene. It stuck with me (enough that I watched that other movie) and I really wish I had seen it in the theater.

Then, I decided to watch The Rider, the prior movie from Chloe Zhao before she won the Oscar for Nomadland. I remember seeing the big standup poster for it, I think at Tower, and just having no interest despite all the raves. I don't care much about Westerns. Wow, that movie is fucking incredible. It's a real family (that's the dad and son above, with the director) playing thinly veiled versions of themselves, and the protagonist's scenes with his  disabled friend are just beautiful and heartbreaking. And his real, non-neurotypical sister is in it and she's so good too.  And the scenes of South Dakota are gorgeous. There's a lot of horsebreaking and rodeoing scenes. My high school had a high school rodeo, and I don't know how many times I went but I enjoyed it. It's undeniably exciting. I always rolled my eyes when they played Lee Greenwood "proud to be an American" but ya know, there wasn't a lot to do in my town.

So this was just coincidental, but then I needed a book to read and I marveled that although we've had a copy of All The Pretty Horses forever, and I've read I think most Cormac McCarthy books, I had never read it. I am just loving it, I'm about a third done. It is so funny and man I wish I was riding horses across Mexico (not really, but I'd love to go anywhere, especially Mexico). I wonder if the Matt Damon movie is any good.

There's some extended horsebreaking in All the Pretty Horses Too and I don't even like horses but somehow I love to see/read about the art of breaking them? Maybe it's a new fetish, who knows.

After years of books by women, mostly about women (ever since #metoo and me realizing my own internalized misogyny), maybe I can let some male energy back into my media life, I guess. 

Viva Heckasac

 Trump's blog is dead and mine is alive, which inspired me to post.

I was out of town the last 3 weekends in a row, which is definitely something that hasn't happened since 2019 and is a sign of me getting back to normal: overscheduled and loving it.

Weekend one: Pinnacles National Park. This was on a Sunday/Monday since those camping spots are hard to book for weekends. Pinnacles is interesting, I definitely recommend it for a visit, but maybe not a revisit. There is pretty much just hiking (which is spectacular) but other than that the campsites are stark. The kids in the group loved the pool, and I have never before experienced a dip in a pool after a hot 15 mile hike which really can't be beat. Oh yeah, Pinnacles has pretty extreme temps, so you either have to prepare for that or only visit within a few months.

Weekend 2: Burner-style campground "Raven's Landing". On the road to Clearlake, again, pretty stark and hot. But unique and worth a visit. It has it all (imagine this in Stephon voice): snakes, tame deer, dusty communal kitchens, silent discos, and thanks to Elon Musk, a launch of a 100 satellites that had all of us (who had no cellphone reception) convinced we were seeing the end of the world. Luckily their were youngs wearing fur bikinis (see also: silent disco) to slur "Elon Musk" at us as we freaked out.

Weekend 3: Memorial day at Crabber's Cottage in Trinidad. The more expensive of the 3 options, but also the coolest, weather-wise and prettiest. I visited the beach in Trinidad during the pandemic so I had never seen the actual "town" of Trinidad (pop 350) and the harbor is so cute. The crabber's cottage is two blocks from it, which was a treat. The local market had anything we needed to make meals in the makeshift kitchen, which was too makeshift for much. I had anticipated we would eat out more, but the restaurants were too slammed. I did not want to wait in line for mediocre fish and chips. I don't know if these lines are typical for that holiday weekend of if this was a post-pandemic rush. 

Masa drama

 I need help! During early quar. I did an order of corn and "cal" (the chemical you make masa with) from Masienda. And I ordered a Victoria, hand crank grinder for like 70 bucks. There is not a lot of English-language guidance for grinding masa from whole corn, and Masienda is literally like "hey, buy our $2000 grinder". And I'm like, I'm not living your LA expensive hat lifestyle and no can do. These guys seem cool but c'mon that is way more than my first car cost (and yes I am hoping to get it for my birthday jk smiller doesn't even read heckasac any more)

For almost a year now, once a month or so, I've been boiling the corn, soaking the corn, rinsing the corn and grinding the corn. It is fun and something I enjoy. The longest step is grinding, which take like 20 minutes, including assembly and breakdown of the machine (and washing when I am not leaving that to smiller). Above is grind one, I love the fluffy texture when it comes out of the grinder

The problem is the masa makes stiff tortillas that are not pliable. The flavor is good, but what good is a tortilla that won't wrap? Sometimes I solve this by making a sope kind of platform, but then unless you use a lot of oil they are kind of dry and even somewhat raw in the middle.

I've read online and a lot of people will tell you to grind it through the handcrank grinder twice. The already-ground masa is really tough to get through, you have to keep pushing it and adding water, which is kind of a mess, it over doubles the grinding time and - here's the kicker - I still had non-pliable, breaking tortillas which may have led to rage, gnashing of teeth and maybe even yelling? Smiller has sworn not to tell and neither will I.

Here's the view of the second grind when morale was still high in the kitchen and their was a naive belief that this extra effort would work and be worth it.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong and I feel like there must be some kind of middle ground between $70 grinder which doesn't seem to work and $2000 investment so I can start Becky's Tortilleria, a business that I can guarantee absolutely no one is clamoring for.

There is a rumored one in the $200 range that can only be purchased in Mexico, and costs like 100 to ship here. I may try to get my mom to lug that here if she's ever able to visit the US again. But I can use advice!!!!

I had more satisfaction a week or so later when I made pozole from scratch, starting with dried hominy.

I made it with bone-in pork butt (heh heh), but without the ribs or feet, etc. to really get that richness to the broth, but the chile paste (a mixture of roasted, soaked and ground ancho and guajillo) made up for that. One funny thing is that I got this heirloom hominy from Anson Mills and it was...not what I want pozole hominy to be. It was coarse, yellow and oh-so-slightly sweet. It was more flavorful than what you usually get and I want hominy in pozole to be a more bland vehicle for soaking up other flavors. I would not buy it again, I would get the Rancho Gordo hominy, or just regular.

These are tortillas I mixed from Maseca flour, which the guys from Masienda will shit all over but it's still more flavorful than pre-made packaged tortillas (which are good and which I will not kick out of bed, basically all tortillas are good)

For the topping, I lacked cabbage and lime, but I made a mix of cilantro, dried oregano and onion. This meal made me miss Alonzo's and eating two baskets of chips and salsa before I get the pozole. If you like cilantro you are really missing out if you are not chopping the stems and including them in stuff.

I'm back at the movies and it's weird.

 I love movies. LOVE. Mostly art-house, but also action and sci-fi. You know that if you've read Heckasac. Give me a long French movie where someone just strolls around and talks about life and I'm in heaven, especially if one of those people is La Binoche or Huppert.  It's been a real bummer not being able to see movies, and one reason is because I have a hard time staying off my phone when I'm watching movies at home.

I'm fully vaxxed now so one of the first things I did was go back to Tower. I so far have refrained from eating popcorn so I can keep my mask on, even though eating movie popcorn as a meal is one of my other favorite things besides watching Isabelle Huppert sit on a beach in the south of France and whinge about something. I saw Minari.

Then, on Tuesday of this week I went to DOCO with Smiller and saw Nobody. That felt significantly less safet because a) the rest of the audience was all young people (less likely to be vaxxed, more likely to carry COVID19 and not GAF) and b) there were more people in the theater than at Minari. The closest folks were probably 8 feet away, and munching popcorn the entire time (no mask).

I did not feel super COVID safe at Nobody, and indeed, have a back-of-the-mind fear that I might have the rona right now (Based on nothing, and got my weekly negative test at work from yesterday). But I'm also like: is this how life will be forever now? I mean, I'm vaccinated so I'm very unlikely to get a severe case.

I don't know, I don't have any answers. But I like being back at movies, even though it's not as comfortable and relaxing as it used to be. Nobody is pretty good, I really love Odenkirk. It's kind of silly. I thought it was charming that the youngs in the theater were into it. RZA is wasted in it, he could have been given a way bigger/better role.

So now I love rice and my maftoul journey

Growing up, rice was rarely served at my house. Maybe once or twice a month, long grain white rice as a side to meat (often a hamburger-based dish). No sauce or seasoning, except maybe butter/salt/pepper. I was not a big fan. I preferred any type of potato or bread as a carby side dish.

My eating has done a complete 180 since I was a kid. What I ate was shaped by a) we didn't have a ton of money and we were a family of 5 and b) my dad mostly cooked and the dishes were midwest by way of the military. He was not in the military but his dad and bro were and they liked military-style food. I know I have posted about shit on a shingle before.

Over time I ate a lot of rice out in restaurants, but at home as an adult I would make it fairly rarely, often brown rice with the thought that it was "healthy". I liked rice but did not love it.

Pandemic time, and my cooking went from 2 nights a week to 6 or 7, every week, for the last year. We def. averaged less than once a week for takeout. I feel guilty about this due to wanting to support restaurants but hey, I had nothing else to do and also for quite a few months the takeout containers and pickup process freaked me out as well.

I also started to crave rice. One of my first really good pandemic meals  I made was chicken katsu and I had some Nishiki short grained that was so perfect. And the rice and salmon as well I love.

Then jasmine rice, I have been making lots of riffs on Indian dishes with lentils and chickpeas and tons of aromatics and spices. Can't get enough of jasmine rice.

That's my rice story. Kind of lame, but it is mine.

Now, short journey to making maftoul, which was billed in the LA times as "the Palestinian cousin to couscous". I am lucky enough to have been gifted 2 different Palestinian cookbooks and I had some teeny tiny couscous and was looking for a recipe, and saw a recipe for a chicken maftoul dish. I knew I had to get some! I ended up randomly locating it on the Patagonia provisions website, and buying lots of overpriced energy bars and some tinned fish in order to get free shipping.

It's organic and fair trade, so seemed cool. Then I started to make the dish, but since I am for some reason pathogically unable to read recipes all of the way through it called for twice as many yellow onions as I had, but I threw in 2  plus some whole shallots (as a sub for pearl onions, which i could not get)

You know if a recipe calls for this many spices it is probably going to be good! I love nutmeg in anything, and I have a vague guilt that my cinnamon is probably not real cinnamon but I don't know how to fix that easily.

Here's the finished result with my typical and neverendingly bad food photography. The maftoul was boiled with olive oil and half the spices. The rest of the spices were with the chicken, which was seared and then boiled with the chickpeas and lots of onions. I sauteed the chicken and onion in ghee, which is like the best aroma in the world, especially when you throw all those spices in. The maftoul itself was completely unique in flavor, I love it! It's naturally sweet (no added sugar), chewy and earthy.

They are whole wheat flour rolled around bulgur! You simply must check it out.

Newsflash!

 Newsflash: Heckasac is not a Substack now. I mean, if it was you wouldn't be reading it here, right? Also, where did the word "newsflash" originate? No one is ever like, "did you see the newsflash? Crazy!" Ah, Merriam Webster said it is often used ironically when something is NOT surprising. Which I guess is how I was using it.

I've been thinking about meals because 

a) I spend 34% of my time thinking about food (a percentage that has been a bit lower lately, maybe because I'm FINALLY a bit sick of cooking

b) I read the Deborah Madison memoir "An onion in my pocket" and the last chapter details memorable meals.

If you don't know who she is (that's her on the right): she's a cookbook author and she started the SF vegetarian restaurant Greens. Which was maybe the first fancy vegetarian restaurant in the country. I have a post-pandemic goal to eat there. I've never eaten there but when I looked inside a couple years ago I discovered it is gorgeous!

She is from Davis (her dad was a UCD botanist) and she was a member of the SF Zen center and a good cook so they kind of ordered her to open the restaurant. I didn't know that after opening it she only ran it for 6 months and has been mostly a cookbook author since. I have two of her cookbooks and they are pretty good. I feel like I should use them more.

Her memoir is great and she is a bit grumpy but in a way I agree with, like wanting food to be simple and not fussy. 

But: memorable meals! I will share one. Please share your own. I posted about it at the time, but I still remember it fairly clearly! 2009. Belgium. Hop growing area. We got a tour of the brewery and the guy who conducted it was also escorting a Japanese-speaking visitor with very little English (none of us knew Japanese) and he convinced us to go to a fancy restaurant. I was nervous because I think it had a Michelin star and I didn't know if we could afford it.

Our Saint Bernadus brewery worker companion gave a vibe that we were a bit uncouth from only knowing one language and being worried about the cost, so I remember a feeling of shame mixed with excitement.

The whole agriculture area smelled like manure very strongly, and the big deal was the the hop shoots were coming up at the time (spring). They are a delicacy in the area, and only available for a few weeks. We got (I think we split it due to the price) a pork steak with hop shoots on top. The picture is in this post.

The craziest thing was that somehow the steak had picked up the earthy, raw character of the manure-y smell of the fields (like a steak terroir) in a way that was not gross but uncanny.

Nice to discover the restaurant is still around! Share a memorable meal.

Is Heckasac a SubStack now? Good idea? Bad idea?

The New Yorker had an article about SubStack. I subscribe to a couple SubStack newsletters, and I pay for at least one of them (not sure about the other, I subscribe to so many apps and services that I can't keep them straight). The article got me thinking maybe I could do a SubStack newsletter to roll into the second decade of Heckasac.

Here are the problems

1) not interactive. you can do comment threads but that's not the same. but I should admit that with the exception of the weird spam in the last post and Cody's very welcome comment, that Heckasac is largely not interactive either and 

2) the SubStack newsletters I get always feel like somewhat of a drag to read, like a chore or something. They are both food-related, and both good, but for some reason having them in my inbox on a schedule I don't control makes it feel more like a to-do read than a pleasure

So yeah, probably won't do it? We'll see. I love the idea that I started Heckasac because The New Yorker explained to me what blogs are and then I could move onto another platform for the same reason! It's still my main way to find out about many things.

I'm currently in 3 book clubs. One is a neighborhood one reading White Fragility. We had our first meeting I think it went ok. I've organized a previous, work-based book club for this same book but this iteration is my first time with a non-white person in the group. That makes the discussion just a little different because so much of that book is "white people, stop doing this shit" but I am thoroughly excited and engaged to have the convo with a non-white person as well, with also not wanting to put extra pressure on them as far as the group dynamics

My other book club is reading Luster by Raven Leilani. It's actually not a great book club book because it's compulsively readable and it's also short, so some of the group had read over half of the book before we even convened and now we are already done and we just started! Next time maybe we'll read Ulysses, ha.

This post is boring me so I won't go into the third book club, suffice to say that it's an attempt to keep up the only friendship I have made during quar.

Now that the holidays are over, my year stretches out as a featureless blob. I am looking forward to eating Dungeness crabs in the backyard with one friend soon. I have an April camping trip planned that hopefully can still happen, but bummer we probably won't be vaccinated by then.  Oh yeah, and inauguration day to get rid of the creep.

Secret?

 I watched First Cow last night, the new-ish movie from Kelly Reichardt (Meek's Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy). Really enjoyed it. I was apprehensive when I saw Alia Shawkat in the first scene because I'm not a big fan, but without spoiling I will say it's a cameo. Orion Lee, who plays King Lu is an enormously appealing and charismatic actor. I looked him up and looks like he's done a lot of theater.

I had a thought while watching it and thinking about all the movies I've watched recently that were made by female directors: what if male directors aren't very good? I think this might secretly be the case and I'm putting this forth without any kind of developed argument. 

New phase of quar: same phase of quar

These days I mostly just watch The Vow and as of last night I started hate-watching We Are Who We Are but I don't think I can get through it. Also, Smiller and I finished the Sopranos. He had never seen the ending! I had only seen it once, close to when it was first on (I  think, my memory could be wrong). Brilliant! Best ending.

As far as the list of brilliant female directors, the one movie I've watched lately is Red Road. Intense! Has one of the craziest sex scenes ever. Then I found out the director, Andrea Arnold (pictured), directed American Honey and also the second season of Big Little Lies. I also saw her movie Fish Tank, I think I went to see it, so that was 11 years ago.

As far as quar. phases go, maybe the new phase is just settling in and not going through any truly new phases? I have the ingredients to start fermenting miso but keep forgetting to start it. I have a camping trip planned, but I'm fully expecting either fires or rain to interrupt it since everything I try to do with friends gets canceled.

I am getting even less social, my 2 bookclubs are the only things I do consistently (well it's really 3 bookclubs but one is for work so I don't count that as social). 

Wow, boring post!!

Brilliant underappreciated female directors

Hi to you if you are reading this, but these days I'm posting just for myself since it's not much of an interactive space. I was watching La Cienaga last night, as part of the Criterion "Bad Vacation" collection (I've watched almost all of them - may rewatch Haneke's "Funny Games" although it's one of his weaker movies), anyway, La Cienaga is brilliant and is directed by an Argentinian woman and I was thinking since I often forget director's names that I should start a list of brilliant female directors so that when I'm looking for a movie to watch I can browse theirs.

So: Lucrecia Martel. She has quite a few and La Cienaga is her first full-length. She seems to be quite acclaimed so not sure why I haven't heard of her.

The other day Mike C. texted me to ask if I had ever seen movies by Lynne Ramsay and I said no and then looked up her movies and I've seen most of them! I think I was a bit confused by Morvern Callar, but I liked We Need to Talk About Kevin and liked but didn't love You Were Never Really Here. I need to watch Ratcatcher! That seems like one maybe Smiller would watch.

Then there's Eliza Hittman, Here most recent (this year) is Never Rarely Sometimes Always is super gripping and important. Beach Rats I remember liking. I need to watch It Felt Like Love now.

Then there's one of my FAVES: Maren Ade. Towering talent there, but OF COURSE does not get the props she should of would if she was male. She's only made 3 movies in 17 years so I hope she makes more soon. She probably can't get funding cuz she's a woman.

Then there's Atlantics, which is on Netflix and I hope everyone has watched it!! It's very arresting, for the setting in Dakar as much as anything else. And I love the soundtrack and horror elements. Directed by Mati Diop, who also starred in a Claire Denis movie, so she's multitalented.

I need to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire although I don't tend to like those type of period pieces, but that's directed by Celina Sciamma and I know people loved it.

I'll think of more and add!

Quar Phase Report

 It's now about two months since my last post. Dull, repetitive time flies! 

I deactivated my FB today. I hesitated on total delete due to photos, memories, etc. The final straw was looking at the Sac Antifa page about a protest I was planning to go to. I went home before dark, which was when the Antifa-organized one started. It was peaceful and inspiring.

Anyway, this Folsom bro (using his real name) was like "this is a great time to try out my Dodge whatever protester ramming truck". I flagged it as a violent threat. FB reviewed it and left it up. This along with articles coming out that FB refused to remove threats in advance of that kid killing the Kenosha protesters. 

It was a pretty easy choice given that I've wanted to do it for years, but I used to be afraid I would miss events. But without events.....

I will definitely miss Natalie's Mark Trail content.

Other quar stuff:

I make sourdough bread every week. It's tasty but ugly. I just bought a bread proofing basked and a lame (which is a knife you use to score the bread). I'm hoping the lame will help with the ugliness aspect. I have discovered that an overnight proof gives the best flavor. I'm not sure I'm using the term "proof" properly. I make bread, but I'm not a bread nerd. I don't read about it or anything, I just use the same recipe over and over, with slightly different mixes of flour.

My Elena Ferrante book club is going strong, one of the better quar. things I've done. We have finished book two. These books are mightily entertaining but don't linger in the mind. Not great for a book club because there's not a lot to discuss, but I enjoy the people in the group.

Still been doing a lot of writing, mostly for the Bee. Have another thing lined up for Sacramento Mag. 

I am stalled on my secret political activism project because work has been intense. It's too boring to go into, but it leaves me no time during the day for little projects, and then when I'm done I don't want to stay on my computer.

But politically, I've been donating more, I have a diversity book club at work, I just did my first protest in a while as I mentioned. 

PS Trump is going to win prepare yourself.

Criterion "bad vacation" collection is giving me life right now! Love it.

state of the Heckasac

What the world really doesn't need right now is....a new Heckasac post! But yet here it is.

"Quar" as I mostly call lockdown, shelter-in-place, what have you has so many different phases, right? It's always changing, yet always flat and dull. I won't say boring, because I have Criterion channel, a sourdough starter (thanks EL), a fun husband, and a lifetime of books, so I'm not "bored' but life is just flat and kinda drab.

I won't go through all the phases (a few: joking about gaining quar. weight, flour shortage/baking, backlash against joking about gaining weight) ok of course it's me so I would list the food ones.

Here's the phase I'm in now:

1 book club started (reading My Brilliant Friend), waiting for my books about racism to come in so I can start 2 more. Of the two I am looking to start, one is with friends (The New Jim Crow) and one is at work (re-reading White Fragility), since my work needs it!

Making sourdough on the regular. Ok, twice, but the second time the flavor was on point.

Starting a secret political activism project, not ready to share yet, hope I can keep up momentum on it

Bought a Dyson (one of the cheaper ones)

Running 4 times a week (3 miles each) and doing yoga or barre in my bedroom the other days

Still can't get a handle on my chaotic movie watching, which is upsetting to me. I want to find a way to stick to a theme, it's just to all over the place. Watching I Will Destroy You and tripping on it, on Season 6 of The Sopranos with Smiller and loving it more than ever. It will be a trip when we finally finish the show, it's going to feel like really turning a quar corner

Thinking about food writing a lot. I have made many mistakes and I'm learning. The latest thing is Peter Meehan stepping down at LA Times yesterday. I truly never got him. I always think about being so annoyed at how macho the first Lucky Peach was that I threw it away, and then people I knew later were able to sell their copy for a hundred bucks.

This year I've been doing more writing than ever, thanks mostly to a good editor hookup at The Bee. Writing about The Last Supper Society is one of the most rewarding things I've written in my career as far as feedback, so that's going well. With no social life, writing deadlines don't bring on dread like they used to, so I enjoy writing more. Plus, now I do The Cook In every Friday and that's been really fun and delicious.

With no 'rona, I would have been heading to Tampa for work soon, and then from there I was going to fly to Havana. If Cuba didn't work out I was going to go to Miama and the Keys. Those were my last travel plans for the year, besides a vague plan to go to Malaysia by myself in the fall. The lack of travel plans is the major contributor to the flatness of life for me.

So that's the state of Heckasac on July 2nd.

comedy article

I wrote a thing for the Bee on local comedy doin's

I think I've already written more this year than I did all of last year. It's so different taking on deadlines now because there's no social life for them to conflict with. It makes the writing more enjoyable.

cry of the day

This article on directors' memories of the Cannes film festival made me cry. Just this morning I was thinking I miss movies so bad! I think going to a movie will be an early post shelter in place activity for me, as long as the theaters put precautions in place. I'll do that before I'll eat sit down in a restaurant I'm pretty sure.

The lone exception in that article is the Wes Anderson part, which is lame and should have been cut out.

There are so many directors and movies mentioned that I haven't watched! My favorite is the quote from Hirokazu Kore-eda:

Because I experienced firsthand the vast reach of cinema and the abundance of its history. And then, once I accepted my own minuscule presence and my immaturity as a director, I experienced joy. The awareness that although I was but a single drop of water, I was flowing with the bountiful river of cinema. 

He directed Shoplifters, which I have wanted to watch. Why the fuck does pasting change the font sometimes, does anyone EVER want that to happen?@? Too lazy to fix.

Everyone is talking about this Robert Pattinson profile, I have to read it!

Sopranos and trips not taken

Smiller and I watched the season finale in season 4 (Whitecaps) of the Sopranos last night. WOW. The acting was so visceral and upsetting. I just checked, and Gandolfini and Falco both won Emmys for it, which was their right! Falco won the Golden Globe that season 2. Their marriage-ending fights in that episode made a Marriage Story look like the weak sauce it was. There's so many little touches like how Carmela shakes from nerves or even how she squints at the light when she's sick in the first part. One of my favorite episodes.

So my memory (no plot spoilers) is that season 5 and 6 are not that great? I think there's even a chance there are some episodes I never saw. Can't remember. I am glad I have more episodes to watch though.

We were supposed to be heading for London from SMF around midnight tonight. We had a decent red-eye with a one hour layover in Newark, and then would arrive in London on Friday night. We were hoping to be early enough and not too tired to get to our hotel in Islington and then grab a pint and fish and chips. It was going to be perfect to overcome jetlag because we left at night and arrived at night. I had a reservation at Ottolenghi Islington I think Saturday? And I was casting around for places for us to get a Sunday roast. And I had made a map in Google maps of other places to eat and go. Last time we were in London I was loving hanging out near the canals and checking out the barges people live and recreate on and also going to open air markets and sampling the food. And I saw so much cool art last time - the Christo in Hyde park and Toma Abts at the Serpentine.

Oh yeah, and because I was loving the London parks last time, and because of this New Yorker article about cold water swimming, I was planning on swimming in the Hampstead Heath pond, which has a men's and women's area.

dream job

I've never really had a "dream job". When I was a kid I told people I wanted to be a dentist because I knew I wasn't a hard enough worker to be a doctor and dentist sounded impressive. But I never took the slightest action to pursue that.

When I started college at Sac State I wanted to be a therapist and was a Psychology major. I still kind of wish I had stuck with that, as I probably would have been in practice for over ten years now and would be pretty established and settled probably.

But I veered off into being interested in the brain, and for a brief time (couple years) I guess my "dream job" became neuroscience researcher. I def. daydreamed about being all celebrated and garnering awards, etc. That led me into the lab and eventually into a job at UCD where I still am. But again, my realizing how hard I would have to work made me drop that. At least I know myself!

Writing about food has never really been a dream job, because I know doing it full time would ruin it. I mean maybe if I could take a time machine back to the 80s, which in retrospect was the heyday of food writing (on into the 90s), sure. But the field was small back then and I probably couldn't have cut it anyway.

Which leads me to my true dream job, which would also necessitate a time machine: working for Springbok puzzles in the 70s and 80s. If you have ever read the back of one of their puzzle boxes you know that there was some crazy creativity and wackiness going on there. And probably some recreational drugs as well. I picture pitch meetings for new puzzles, and I want to be in those meetings. So maybe my title would be creative director? Or just writer. Middle class jobs were a thing then so imagine this work allowing me to be financially secure enough to buy a ranch house, maybe with a conversation pit.

Although, looking at the Springbok history page, I see that it was founded in 63, but then sold to Hallmark by 67. Hallmark would probably suck to work for. So is my dream job even more specific than I thought? Is my dream job, being Katie Lewin and founding Springbok? What did she do after she sold it?

Wow, there is a jigsaw wiki!