When my Mom brought over a small bag of early garlic scapes from a nearby farmer’s market, I immediately sent out feelers over FaceBook and Twitter to find the best way to make use of them. My social media hive brain has occasionally been the source of inspired culinary experiments. Most of the recommendations were for a pesto, but I only had about six or seven scapes, hardly enough to even reach the food processor’s blade. Instead, I added them to a sauteed asparagus dish, where their delicate garlic flavor provided a scintillating accompanying flavor, and saved a particularly curvy one for a martini garnish. (A friend said I should stuff an olive with the scape, so I made double use of it as the olive holder.)
It was a stroke of genius. There was just enough flavor in the single cut end of a scape to subtly shade a single martini. The olive, threaded onto the surprisingly firm stem (no flimsy, hollow chive nonsense here) took on just the merest hint of garlic goodness. It was reminiscent of the three tiny drops of garlic olive oil that were once added to a martini I savored in Washington, DC. (At first I balked at the preciousness of the thing, the way the eye-dropper was so carefully placed, dotting the surface of the gin in three distinct spots. But the taste, while questionable at first, made such a difference. When it comes to altering the classic martini, a little goes a long way.) Here, a variation on the traditional olive martini with just a nod to a Gibson (the garlic makes a potent substitution for a cocktail onion) is a refreshing way of employing any extra-curly scapes that find their way into your kitchen.
This is the week when it happens: the unseen blooming of the linden trees. They are everywhere in downtown Albany, but their blossoms are subtle and go largely unnoticed. It took me several years to figure out that the sweet perfume that carried over the streets at this time of the year actually belonged to these trees, so insignificant were their blooms (which are lime green and similar to a maple tree’s flowers, if you’ve ever noticed those). What does make an impact is their fragrance. It is so sweet as to be almost cloying, but I cannot get enough of it. I even have a bottle of linden shower gel that roughly mimics the scent.
For now, the linden trees sprinkle their intoxicating magic over my lunch-time walks and evening strolls, carrying pleasantly on the breeze, reminding all to slow down and breathe in the arrival of summer.
It’s a sentence I use often when conversing with co-workers and acquaintances.
“We had some drinks and then saw a movie,”I will follow. Then comes a story about the drinks portion of the evening. A funny story. Perhaps a charming anecdote. At one of our recent film excursions Alan made a joke a few moments into the feature. As a goofy but harmless teacher stood on the screen greeting the students in his school, Alan looked at me and said, “It’s Mr. M!” I couldn’t help but share a pretty significant laugh. You see, I work in an inner-city school and ‘Mr. M’ is what my students know me as. The man on the screen was not a bad representation of my presence in my school. Goofy, middle aged, undeniably terrible jokes… yet somehow ingratiated with and appreciated by his students. I couldn’t help but chuckle as he hit the nail on the head. I turned to him and said, “You’re one of my favorite people to watch movies with.” He replied with “Well, duh!?!” as only he could. That’s Alan Ilagan in a nutshell. That is my friend.
For several months he’s been after me to complete my second guest post for his infamous blog. I was happy to do so. But saying I will do a task is very easy for me. Actually fulfilling said task is much harder. Forget about on time. Writing is an endeavor that I enjoy. And it is an endeavor that I am told I have a gift for. Sitting down to put pen to paper nonetheless is a task. For me at least.
When it comes to writing the prospect of a looming piece I find it daunting. My mind swarms with ideas. Far too many to count. An ocean of swarming fish. Each an idea desperate to take the bait. But with the looming endless horizon laid out before me I am unable to let cast my line and reel it in. I am lost in the abyss of potential. Sitting on the deck that is the rocking boat of my mind thirsting for inspiration. As is life, sometimes inspiration comes from the queerest of places. In this instance, that is my friend Alan.
When Alan and I talked of this article it was often over drinks before a film. Typically we sit together at a bar speaking far too loudly than is comfortable for those around us. He’ll have a Negroni and fume over the bartender’s inability to make it properly despite having grilled Alan beforehand about the ingredients and preparation. He will then laugh under his breath at me as I attempt to impart my ‘bartender wisdom’ on our drink server in an obvious display of contempt. I will typically sip the bar’s most expensive Scotch and their cheapest beer betraying my peculiar dichotomy. This has become a richly appreciated and comforting tradition. Drinks and then a movie.
I can’t really overstate how much I appreciate these get-togethers. I find them to be a respite. A welcome retreat from the simple but very real pressures of life. There are, of course, the drinks and the movies. A welcome frosty cold bottle of beer in front of a long-awaited Summer Blockbuster; a belly-warming 12-year-old MacCallan before the winter’s surefire Oscar Contender. But much more than that is this: our conversations.
Conversations that are sometimes perfectly shallow and pedantic. Where we might argue over the nature of some meaningless pop culture topic. How we viewed a particular song or show or film. Where I might laugh at how he has no earthly idea who LeBron James is, or how he finds it sad that I only know Patti LuPone as the mom from ‘Life Goes On’.
Conversations that are sometimes downright hysterical. Some of the times in which I’ve laughed hardest in my life were at moments shared around a bar or high-top table. Moments where we discussed some of the most terrible people life forced us to work or interact with. As someone who has dabbled in stand-up comedy, who has always prided myself on my ability to make people laugh, I’ve never had a better audience than Alan with a couple of drinks in him.
Conversations that are sometimes as deep as the trenches of the seas. Moments when we might discuss the more somber and terrifying prospects of life; relationships, families, love, life, death. Conversations as deep and true as earnest friendship.
It’s not always just the two of us. Often we’re joined by a guest conversationalist. Our favorite being Andy. Not the vaunted VanWagenen, Alan’s Better Half. But rather Mr. Pinchbeck. A man who adds his own unique vantage point. An always welcome third-party who balances our takes with his own, representing a view we hadn’t yet seen.
When we talk we find something that is missing from our own myopic view: perspective. A perspective that is not our own. Even though we might share a great number of similar views be it politically, philosophically or otherwise there are still a great deal of experiences that we have that are unique to us. Alan has lived a life as a minority and a gay man that I would never have known nor understand were it not for our friendship. I like to think that I present to him an inside account that is the day-to-day workings of a traditional straight married white man that he might not experience otherwise. By sharing our experiences through the rich tapestry that is woven over many nights of conversations, we better one another and help to expand our worldview.
I am reminded of a night last June. We were in Boston. Inside of Alan’s beautiful condo in the Back Bay. It was the last night nearing the end of our annual Red Sox weekend. A tradition now entering its 4thyear. We had shared a weekend laden with food, drink, memories, and most importantly world-class conversations. Bags packed, calling it a night, readied for the morning commute back to New York, Alan turned and said to me, “I hope we can do this when we’re 80.” I do too, my friend – I do too.
I can’t help but to wonder – wouldn’t these conversations make a phenomenal podcast?
With its handsome dark foliage and complementary cherry blooms, this fuchsia is a totally tubular magnet for hummingbirds, who love poking their elongated beaks into the funnel of a flower and extracting its sweet nectar. I should have planted more of these, as it’s a brush with the magical and the sublime when one of the hummingbirds deigns to visit. They love these blooms. I’m told they seek out red flowers more than any other, and the form of the blossoms means that large bumblebees can’t get to the nectar, only moths and hummingbirds. (The hummingbird moth is an equally-enchanting creature, if slightly scarier considering that it is, in fact, an insect and not a bird. I prefer bugs to be small, slow and on the ground, and this one checks off none of those boxes.)
Hummingbirds, however, are not only welcomed but courted. I didn’t get around to ordering a certain cultivar of Salvia that they are said to adore, but hopefully White Flower Farm will offer it again next year. So much happens at this time of the year – I can’t be expected to remember everything. But the invitation to hummingbirds stands, and I do hope they drop by.
UPDATE: The fuchsia has already worked its magic. Before this entry was posted, I was sitting on the patio reading when I heard of rush of air: a hummingbird had practically dive-bombed me, as I was right in front of the pot of fuchsia. It was a gray and black beauty, and I watched it float there, suspended perfectly in mid-air, just before flitting away over the fence again. Welcome to summer, little friends.
The wooden paneling of our family room surrounded us with warmth. The couch, in an old ratty plaid fabric, sat against the wall facing the television set. It was the room where some of my earliest childhood memories were made. The time my brother threw himself off the couch in a tantrum and cut open his head on the corner of the coffee table. The time we were playing in the toy cabinet and I moved a lock of his hair so it fell to the other side, saying I liked him better that way, and the way he smiled and chuckled at such meticulous behavior. And the time that my Dad, when I was too little to know how precious the act was, peeled grapes for me so I didn’t have to eat the sour skins. My legs, chubby and far too short to reach the floor, fit on the couch cushion beside a bowl filled with grapes.
Like so many things about my Dad when seen through the prism of childhood, this was another moment of pure magic. He’d pluck the grapes from their shriveled vine and, with the delicate and sure maneuvering of a doctor, in a few quick motions he’d have them peeled and ready for devouring. They were so much sweeter that way, softer and smoother too, and for a kid that was divine. We sat there together, probably only going through about six or seven of them – how many grapes could a little boy eat? – and I would call out for more. I couldn’t even form the word yet – all I managed was “geeps” and my parents would echo that attempt whenever I wanted a grape.
A man of few words, my Dad said more to me in peeling those grapes than I could ever muster in years of blabbering and writing. With each peeled grape, a little ‘I love you’ was given from a father to his son. The very same love that was in our after-dinner walks for ice cream in the summer, or when he’d let me ‘help’ with mowing the lawn. Mostly I just stood there, at a safe distance, but feeling like I was doing something. A good father knows how to do that – to make his child feel safe and important.
It remains one of my happiest memories, and on this Father’s Day I wanted to say thank you to my Dad for filling my childhood with such treasures.
Not content to stay at ground-level, the clematis is one of those vines that likes to climb toward the sky before putting on its flamboyant show – all the better for us to see it up close. I’ve already made my apologies to this plant for not appreciating its hardiness and ability to withstand neglect while still putting on a decent performance, and this year is no different. In a forgotten and slightly-shaded corner of the yard it blooms reliably, each year sending out one or two more blooms and adding to its beauty. We’ve got another one in the front yard, up against a lamp post in the most cliched of places, where it winds its tendrils upward, seeking the sun and the warmth while its feet stay cool beneath a succulent groundcover of sedum.
These are classic plants for the home with good reason. Stalwart and pretty, defying winter and rising every spring, they don’t enough credit for that they do. May this post, and all the others I’ve done similarly in years past, make up slightly for such dishonor.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a torrid post of naked male celebrities or nude male models, so before anyone thinks this site has gone all PG on your ass, here’s a post to get the tongues wagging again. Several guys who have already been featured here are back in the shirtless game, starting with Dan Osborne, who models underwear like it’s going out of style. Given that he looks just as fine with no underwear on at all, that may be a good thing.
Our neighbor’s backyard looked down over a large rolling hill that led into what was called the ‘Four Diamonds’ – a set of four baseball fields sprawled over a broad plane of grass just above McNulty Elementary School. It was the perfect place for the neighborhood kids to gather on summer afternoons and evenings, usually after dinner, because it was a large property with lots of opportunities for hide and seek. They had a gym set, several gardens, and the entire expanse of green that was bordered by a forest.
The older kids would horse around, supposedly keeping an eye on the younger ones. I was somewhere in the middle, happy to disappear in the pack for a while. There were so many kids around that it was one big party, with groups breaking off into subsets, when one could flit from friendship circle to friendship circle like a butterfly or bee and no one was offended or bothered. It made it easy to disappear.
There were swaths of gooseneck loosestrife, with their white flower spikes gracefully curving with bowed heads, a patch of herbs by the brick garage, dominated by chives and curly-leaved parsley, and a grand mound of bridal wreath spirea on the corner of the property, right before it turned into field. The spirea was so immense and full, it created a hiding spot haven: its arching branches went up and flopped over, forming a hollow tunnel that a small child could hide within. There was magic in that for a plant-lover like myself, and I confess I was more interested in the gardens and what they held than any social-mixing with the kids in the neighborhood. Beside the loosestrife was another semi-invasive species, lily of the valley, which spread its sweet scent along a shaded portion of the house, running to a formal stone step-entrance to the back door. In the side yard, two trees stood, signifiers of spring and summer: a pussy willow and a pear. The former would magically drape itself in gray cat paws every spring, while the latter would offer a few hard pears later in the year that were never quite ripe enough to be sweet. We climbed those trees as kids, dangling our feet high in the air and calling out to one another whatever kids say at such moments. I liked the vantage point and the view, taking in the Mohawk Valley from behind a curtain of white pear blossoms.
The other kids seemed largely unaware of the treasure-trove of horticultural finds, just as they passed by the staghorn fern inside or the majestic ponytail palm that filled a window in the back without so much as a pause to admire their beauty.
Despite my love of plants, I wasn’t immune to a little adventure and fun, so I joined the others in their escapades. We’d play loosely organized ball games, races, hide and seek, and all sorts of silly things that we’d make-up on the spur of the moment. There was a lot of running and playing on the gym set – swinging and pulling ourselves across the wooden bars with our hands, hanging there as long as we could without letting go. I was doing just that, dangling in the air and looking out over the fields that led all the way to the river when an older kid came up behind me and pulled my pants down. It was so sudden and unexpected, I just froze there, not knowing what to do. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if I hadn’t gone commando that day. I was in such a rush to get out of the house I had pulled on a pair of loose shorts without bothering to put on any underwear. Even as a kid, I liked to be free.
Mortification and exhilaration burned red across my face as my ass hung mid-air, framed by a jungle gym and backed by the verdant valley of the Mohawk River. No one was in front of me while my cock rocked out; a full-frontal tease from the very beginning. I dropped and quickly pulled my shorts up. Laughing, the kid who did it came up to me and apologized, saying he had no idea I didn’t have underwear on. I laughed it off too. I could do that then. Maybe the exhibitionist side of me was born at that moment. I’d been naked for the world to see and a bolt of God’s lightning hadn’t struck me down. No shame of original sin stained my bare bottom, and everything up front was intact and doing just fine. Not that any of this played upon my mind as I adjusted my shorts and went on to the next game.
It was the summer of ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Danger Zone’ was blasting over every radio.
As the light in the sky slowly faded and we approached the 8 PM bewitching hour (our curfew), the June bugs would arrive, swarming the trees and street lamps. They looked as I imagine the locusts would look in biblical times, and they always freaked me out, but as long as they stayed high in the sky it was all right. Our games slowed, our shouts softened, and the hush of the day’™s end lent those last moments a certain reverence. We looked down over the field, and the bank of wooded land that stretched out to the right of it. Later in the night, teenagers would gather in a little clearing hidden by a bend in the forest, smoking and drinking beer. Teenyboppers, we called them derisively. Someone even created a little song for them:
Teenyboppers, oooh, teenyboppers (neer, neer)
Teenyboppers, showing off their rear (neer, neer)
That was it. (I played no part in writing it, thank you.) But it was catchy enough and I sang along. Apparently there were whispers that the teenagers would come out and moon those who spied on them, as if it was the most scandalous thing that could ever happen in Amsterdam. And maybe, in those days, it was. It would be years before a classmate shot himself, years before the tribute pages of dead kids would show up in our yearbooks. Our dangers were mostly imagined then, and how we thrilled at them.
In the daylight, we’d walk down into the field where the teenyboppers had gathered. Hidden by the foliage at the edge of the woods, we’d whip out our dicks and pee, giddy at the freedom of that insignificant act of rebellion. We would inspect the little pit of what had been a fire, the charred wood and ashes in shades of gray and black. Crumpled beer cans and bottles filled with cigarette butts littered the space. Once, we found a beer ball – a magnificent orb of dark amber plastic whose opening smelled vaguely of skunk. We could scare ourselves into feeling like we were being watched, as though the teenyboppers might suddenly appear and attack us. At such times we’d let out a warning cry that they were coming, then bolt out of the wooded area, running as fast and as far from the danger-zone as possible.
It’s always better when the danger is only in your head. That’s what summer is, at least for the lucky kids: controlled excitement and adventure within the safe confines of neighborhood backyards.
Truth be told, I’m not a big fan of this penstemon plant that I put into the perennial bed last year. I was much more looking forward to the coreopsis that was next to it, but of course that one didn’t make it through the winter, and so we are left with this straggly thing that looks better in photos than it does in real life. If you examine it closely, you can see its messy nature: the faded flowers stick to the same stem on which new blooms are borne, lending it an unkempt feel. I’m a notorious Virgo, and that’s extremely troublesome to me.
Less troublesome, and the reason why I haven’t excised it to the hidden side yard yet, is the coloring. It’s a gorgeous hue somewhere between fuchsia and purple, and it gets set off brilliantly by a backing of lady ferns currently in their early-season chartreuse shading. That combination alone sets off fireworks, and saved this little penstemon for the moment.
(Word of warning: I’m not promising anything when the flowers fade for good, so enjoy this moment while it lasts.)
All I wanted was some peach ice cream. Chasing after a childhood memory that probably never even happened, Suzie and I were with Chris on a hot summer day in Central Park. We’d scoured a nearby Whole Foods Market for a carton of peach ice cream, finding nothing but frozen yogurt which is most definitely NOT an acceptable substitute for ice cream. Chris looked quickly online and said there was talk of peach ice cream in the Chinatown area, but it was too hot to move from our rock.
We sat on a large piece of native stone, something that had been here before the city went up all around it, something that would likely remain after it fell. The day was sweltering, but in the shade of a few plane trees and the company of a couple of close friends it was all bearable. It might have even been beautiful. If only we’d found the peach ice cream.
The original memory, sketchy and problematic as it may be, was of a restaurant in New York City – something like Serendipity. We couldn’t even have been teenagers yet, as Suzie and I were traveling with our Moms. We had been in town for a couple of plays – ‘Lost in Yonkers’ and ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ – and were finding a brief respite from the pounding heat of a New York sidewalk in the middle of the day. We had our lunch while whimsical lamp fixtures fascinated from the ceiling. When it came time for dessert I played it safe and ordered a hot fudge sundae or something similarly plain. Suzie ordered a bowl of peach ice cream. It was the prettiest, most luscious-looking dish. Peaches dotted the creamy mound of ice, wonderfully crunchy in frozen form in the spoonful that Suzie offered me. A perfect treat for a hot day. It was a summer memory made instantly, one that I have held onto and probably morphed into some more than it ever was, especially seeing as how Suzie doesn’t even recall it happening. But I know it did. The details may have been different, but that bowl of peach ice cream was real. To this day, it symbolizes childhood, summer and New York City all at once.
And so we found ourselves, years later, sitting on that Central Park rock and dreamily contemplating an elusive bowl of peach ice cream, making a new summer memory while simply passing a hot, sunny day.
Andy’s Dad passed away one year ago today, and the weather of this afternoon seems to match the mood: ambivalent, cloudy, peaks of sunshine, and dramatic winds. Dark patches of sky threatened to cry down upon us, but for the most part remained peaceful. The pounding thunder of last night has been replaced by something calmer.
In the same way that his Mom’s passing is now a part of the early holiday season, his Dad has become part of our early summer remembrances – not only because of Father’s Day, but because his birthday falls right now as well. It is a bittersweet time of the year, one that completes a poetic full-circle of life.
It’s still too soon for his memory to be much more than sad, but as the years pass I hope we can move to happier reminiscences, and that June will be a time to celebrate and honor everything he did as a father. For now, we mostly mourn, and miss the guy who brought his family such fun and amusement.
More than roses or clematis, the flowering of the Chinese dogwood tree is my official marking of the arrival of summer. Blooming much later than the American variety, and after their own handsome foliage has filled out in bright green form, this is the perfect personification of the purest summer day, with their creamy white bracts (the actual flower is insignificantly hidden in the middle of those lovely bracts). They last a little longer than typical flower petals do too (think of how long those red poinsettia ‘blooms’ last – same principle, same architectural structure).
The branches also make great cut flowers, so if you need to do any pruning, now is the ideal time. A single stem can make an entire bouquet of blooms that seems to float like a collection of butterflies. I’ve had guests over solely for the purpose of showing off one of these bouquets. (Don’t tell them that though.) For that reason, the blooming of the dogwoods has always recalled happy gatherings of friends near and far, the same sort of giddy remembrance I get when thinking of summer parties and pool days. A joyous thing indeed.
When there are rainy summer days, or mosquito-infested summer nights, I retreat to the basement, where there’s a new sofa, a television that always has lots of trash playing, and a pristine desk for prime project development. As we get ready for our summer hiatus, this is where I’ll be working on some new things, and when we return in the fall this site will (hopefully) reap the fruits of that labor. As much as I may love summer, there are always those moments when one needs a respite from all the heat and haze. The cool below-ground calm of the cellar provides just such an oasis.
These little pockets of space are important during the summer months, and I find myself seeking them out when I’m in Boston or New York. It’s not just the place itself either, it’s the frame of mind. Summer, the season that’s supposed to be such an escape, has its confines as well.
Whether it’s a stifling heat-wave or a drought that devours the garden, there are stretches when relief is not at hand. A line of summer storms that hits every weekend is equally mentally debilitating, when the world refuses to grant us a break. Summer cuts both ways.
I’ll put on ‘Gosford Park’ or a black-and-white oldie like ‘The Women’ – each lends comfort to a gray or sickly-hot day in their own way – and I’ll languidly lounge in some ridiculous robe and a pair of underwear. If I had children (God forbid) this would be the state in which they’d be mortified to show their father off to their friends. Thankfully, we remain happily unburdened by children, so there’s no danger posed to anyone other than a wayward Jehovah’s Witness that dares to ring our bell.
Moments of respite and underground escapes – these cool jewels keep my mind mentally collected in a season hellbent on making us all loopy. Not that I’d have it any other way; the shackles of winter leave scars that run deeper than summer’s brief lapses in loveliness.
I’d been reading raves about Dominique Ropion’s ‘Cologne Indelebile’ and its lasting power, which for a neroli-based scent is a striking aspect, worthy of note. It announces its name definitively, without asking or requesting, content to state itself without any other option for dispute. Yet it does so in the most elegant and refined manner, not flopping excessively about with its sweetness, or departing after one whiff. Its neroli notes are reminiscent of any number of similarly-themed scents, but this has a surprisingly long life on my skin (consider it the powerhouse version of Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino, with a more masculine slant).
Don’t ask me why I paired the packaging with a peony for these photos, other than the simple fact that I loved the pink juxtaposed beside the fiery orange. I suppose in certain peonies there is a hint of tea and spice, just as there is the slightest hint of such elements in the Cologne Indelebile, so perhaps they are bound together in ways not initially or outwardly detectable after all. Everything happens for a reason. There are no accidents.
For the summer of 2018, this is an auspicious beginning, and a signature scent that recalls summers past with anticipation and citrus vibrations of what’s yet to come. A nod to the before and after.
