The Corona Diaries Vol. 15: My Lawn Looks Like a Terrence Malik Movie (The Food'n'Films Edition)

Mid-May 2021

With the anonymity afforded by the internet, I feel comfortable revealing that my darling Frau suffers from an addiction – to lingonberry jam.

I think it developed sometime over the winter and now I find that we must have multiple jars in reserve at all times. Just in case hackers take out vital fruit infrastructure or the apocalypse comes and grocery stores are forced to close, I guess. This, of course, is in addition to her pre-existing addiction to buying shoes. Still, I suppose it could be worse - like an addiction to diamonds or luxury yachts.

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Since my previous entry, I am happy to say that our kitchen now has underlayment!

4'x8' sheets of OSB were nearly $51 apiece! I think they were more like $15-$20 a shot pre-pandemic. So we are one step closer to a new floor. Plus, this allowed us to put the stove back in the kitchen. Last night I took advantage of the oven and made jerk pork. I let a pork shoulder smothered in jerk paste cook for 3+ hours at 250°.

I once asked an employee of the late, great restaurant Jamerica for their jerk sauce recipe. The guy gave a friendly laugh which made me think this wasn't even the 1000th time he'd been asked this and said that he couldn't reveal it, but that I should start with Walkerswood and puzzle out the formula from there. Even though the jerk paste was billed as "mild", it was still rather spicy.

I think I understand what he was getting at. Jamerica's jerk recipe was notable for little to no allspice and clove taste and I think that, if you remove those flavors from the Walkerswood paste, you'd have something very much like Jamerica's. 

Before making the jerk pork I made this:

A German recipe featuring chicken breasts seasoned with smoked paprika atop a bed of sweet and sour cabbage. It turned out well, I thought.

While I'm on the subject of food, I went to my first Pakistani restaurant recently. A friend and I went out for dinner before going to the cinema and we went to a place called Karahis & BBQ out on the west side. I learned that a karahi is a cooking pot – think a flat-bottomed wok – that is used in southern Asia. I ordered chicken while my friend got goat. Both were extremely delicious.

All of that julienned ginger, fresh lemon, and magnificent mix of spices made for a very tasty dinner. It's curry and, if pressed, I couldn't tell you the difference between this and an Indian curry as they were very similar to my tongue. Regardless, we were happy to support a little mom & pop hole in the wall restaurant. I think the place was staffed by just two people, one cooking and the other waiting tables and being host.

The area around south Gammon and Watts Roads has turned into an international marketplace, being home to Istanbul Market, Bombay Bazzar, Namaste India Grocery Store, and East African Market. If you want someone else to do the cooking, there's Akari Sushi, Turkish Kitchen, India House, Caspian Grill, as well as Karahis & BBQ. Oh, and across the street there's La Bamba and Chang Jiang. It all makes for a nice contrast to the McDonalds, Olive Gardens, etc. that you find just a couple blocks north on the other side of the Beltline.

Over here on the east side, the former Visions strip club is now owned by a couple who immigrated from Gambia and are going to turn it into a grocery store that will feature West African foods in addition to your traditional American things. Apparently the Hawthorne/Truax neighborhoods that surround the store host a large percentage of the West African population in town. One of the owners is quoted in the article linked above as saying, "In this area there’s a high population of folks from our part of the world." I didn't know this but it's not totally surprising considering the African & American Store, a store with a bit of everything African - food, clothes, etc., is only a mile and half to the south.

Getting back to the cinema, I saw my second film at a theater this year after stuffing myself with curry:

It's a Chinese film that takes place in the Manchuria of 1931, shortly after the Japanese invasion. It depicts the efforts of Chinese spies to smuggle a man out of the region so that he can testify to Japanese war crimes publicly. It was fun and very stylized. Not only was there snow in every exterior scene, it was actively snowing. There should have been 30 feet of snow on the ground by the end!

Truth be known, Cliff Walkers was not only the second film I've seen this year in a theater, but it was the second film I've seen in a theater since the pandemic started. The very first was this one:

It was a low-budget horror/thriller by English director Ben Wheatley whose work I really enjoy. I must admit that it felt rather odd to be seated in a movie theater once again after a 14-month absence. I look forward to not having to wear a mask at the movies, but, once I get mine situated, it isn't too annoying. It's nice to see flicks on the big screen and to get out and do things after being told to shelter at home for so long.

After being cancelled last year, the Wisconsin Film Festival returned this month as an online event. No offense to the fine folks who program it and do all of the work to make it happen, but I took a pass on it. And this despite there being some flicks I am keen on seeing including the film that really caught my eye, Undine by Christian Petzold.

I am simply becoming ever more tired of trying to be content with ersatz online experiences instead of engaging in the real deal. Some of this is no doubt just the plain frustration that we all have felt at having our lives upended and being told to shelter with family and only be around others when necessary. But I feel that some of it is also dissatisfaction with so much of my life revolving around things online. I want the "movie-going" experience, not simply to watch movies in solitude on my couch; I want to play board games and role-playing games around a table with friends, not sitting by myself in front of my computer.

Online activities were fine as we initially navigated the pandemic but I seek more "genuine" experiences these days. I cannot/will not extricate myself from an online life completely but I want the balance tipped towards the offline.

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Now that spring has sprung, I get out fairly often…to mow my dandelion crop. They grow so tall that my yard looks like a scene from Days of Heaven or just about any other Terrence Malick film.

My mower suddenly stopped working the other day so I had to take it to have the engine looked at. I found a guy online and he managed a 24-hour turnaround which was impressive. In addition to getting the mower back into working order, he also gave me a ration of crap about not maintaining it properly. Fair enough. For taking his abuse, he threw in a lagniappe – a jar of his smoked salt.

Now that I am able to mow again, I am going to neglect my yard work and head out of town. The Frau and I are going up north for the weekend.

Bonus photo:

One of the Frau's cousins here in Madison is a master chocolatier and just look at what she received on Mother's Day:

The Frau is allergic to rose so that one in middle on the right was all mine!