Day in the life
Old Armenian Town
This is about all that's left of a once substantial Armenian neighborhood in downtown fresno.
Each time I visit my hometown, I feel a little more sad nostalgia for the once-vibrant downtown. My parents lived in one of the old residential neighborhoods in downtown when I was born. I’m not sure our house on S St. was officially within the area now referred to as Old Armenian Town, but we had many Armenian neighbors, which was fine for our Greek immigrant family.
Of course, as a teenager and even young adult, I didn’t think much about the neighborhood in which I spent my toddlerhood. But a few years later when it dawned on me that it would be really nice to see the street (or even the house!) in which we lived, I was sadly disappointed to find that not only was the house gone, several blocks of S St. no long existed, having been turned into medical office complexes around nearby Fresno Community Hospital (where I was born). Even some of this is now gone and replaced with a disappointing-looking condo complex. Still, about every third or fourth visit to Fresno, I would drive down there and wander the streets hoping I would discover some hidden fragment of S St. that would be a little time capsule, an example of what it was all once like, an indication of where I came from. Eventually, I sort of, well, got over it.
Two years ago, however, I got worked up again when I learned that the City had approved (re)development plans for what sounded like a cheese-ball commercial project to commemorate Old Armenian Town, called, oddly enough, “Old Armenian Town.” They demolished the last of the former Armenian neighborhood, saved three or four small houses, and moved them over to an empty field directly next to the elevated freeway, where, I guess, they would be “on display.” There they have been on display ever since, up on blocks and surrounded by chain link and barbed wire, disintegrating in the Fresno summer. Links to an alleged page about the “Old Armenian Town” on the Fresno Redevelopment Agency web site return “page not found” and no mention of this “major commercial development” is made anywhere I could find on the site. This is no surprise. Counting the number of empty lots around Fresno where historic buildings once stood but now mark the sites of developments that stalled after the demolition phase is a lengthy, tedious exercise. If anyone knows anything more about the project, leave a note. I’d love to hear something good about it. At this stage, something would be better than nothing, I suppose.
Well, when I started this post, I meant to talk about my little photo walk in the neighborhood just to the south of the Fulton Mall and post some photos. Instead I became distracted by Old Armenian Town. Forgive me for that. I’ll get back to the photo walk shots in a day or so. In the meantime, here’s a couple more shots of the spot, including a nice one of the Sycamore trees I remember all over the neighborhood when I was small.
Sycamores in Armenian Town
Old Armenian Homes in a museum of decay.
Pot Luck Paté
It was our turn to host a little foodie group that has been getting together for potlucks for the past year to share wine and recipes. The core group is made up parents of a gang of boys who were in kindergarten together and now mostly in cub scouts together.
I decided I’d make leg of lamb, which, since we don’t eat mammal much at our house, I had not tried in a long time. And also, since we don’t eat mammal (much) at our house, I thought I make a couple chickens also.
I checked prices on lamb at a couple places. I ended up getting a six pound boned leg at Costco. I think this was a mistake. In the first place, it was not THAT much cheaper. I might have got the same kind of price, about $5 per pound, at Trader Joes or even Safeway. More significantly, this Australian lamb was not as tender as I would have liked. And I was careful not to overcook it, so I know that was not the problem. I should have gone back to the wholesaler near my work and purchased the $9/lb local stuff. Next time.
Then I went to Magnani’s, the local North Berkeley poultry shop to get a chicken or two. I ended up getting the usual Fulton Farms birds and had them butterflied. While I was there, this tub of chicken livers started whispering, “take me home, take me home, make paté,…” What could I do? I had to buy a pound of chicken livers.
Well, now I had a few things to make. So the night before, I started marinating everything. I used basically the same kind of marinade for the lamb and for the chickens: lots of lemon juice, greek oregano, rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, and a cup of red wine, Folie a Duex’s Menage a Trois. Getting those trimmed, marinating, and back into fridge didn’t take too long.
So, why not make paté, too? That’s the kind of thing, I think, that benefits from being made the day before and letting the flavors blend. Well, I went through various cook books to find a recipe I’d made before. I consulted a stack of books, The Joy of Cooking, Julia Child, all the Silver Palate cookbooks, a New York Times Cookbook, etc. I easily ruled out anything that involved lining a terrine with pork fat or bacon and covering with aspic. I didn’t have the ingredients or inclination for that. Yet, I couldn’t quite decide on which recipe to make. None seemed to perfectly match the vague concept of paté floating around in my head. So, I sort of combined a couple and made something up. Someone asked about the recipe. So, here, as best I can remember, is what happened while bouncing back and forth between books while cooking this up. Ironically, it probably came out best of all the things I made.
- 1 stick butter
- 3 Tbls butter
- 2 small celery ribs with leaves
- 6 whole peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 cups water
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 large shallots finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- 1 small golden delicious apple, peeled, cored, grated.
- 1 lb chicken livers, rinsed and patted dry
- 1 boneless, skinless chicken thigh, rinsed and patted dry
- salt and freshly ground pepper
- tiny pinch of cayenne pepper
- 2 tsp dry mustard
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 cup calvados
- 2 Tbls heavy cream
- 1/3 cup dried currants
Cut the stick of butter into small pieces about 1/2 inch big, and spread them out on a plate, and place them in the freezer.
Add celery, peppercorns, and bay leaf to 6 cups water in a saucepan. Add 1 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. While that’s simmering…
Melt 2 Tbls butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the shallots and cook until quite soft, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add the apple and stir constantly until softened, about 3 minutes. Remove all to the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Back to the water…
Add the chicken livers to the water and simmer gently for about 10 minutes; livers should still be slightly pink inside. While they’re simmering…
Melt the last Tbl butter in the same skillet that had the shallots and apple. Add the chicken thigh, season with salt and pepper, and sauté on medium heat about 3 minutes each side, until lightly browned and just cooked through. Add the thigh to the apple mixture in the food processor. Add the calvados to the skillet and deglaze, stirring and scrapping any bits stuck to the pan with wooden spoon. Tip the pan to catch the flame and burn off the alcohol (use a match if cooking on an electric stove). When the flame goes out, pour it all into the food processor with the other ingredients.
Remove the chicken livers from water and add to the food processor, discarding the water, celery and other things. Add the cayenne, mustard, nutmeg, cloves, and cream to the mixture. Start processing and, with the machine running, add the cold butter pieces one at a time down the feed tube. Pause to taste and add salt or pepper if necessary. When all the butter is incorporated and the mixture is silky smooth, scrape it into a crock or bowl and gently mix in the dried currants.
Smooth the top with a spatula. Cover by pressing plastic wrap directly on to the surface of the paté. Refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours, or overnight if possible. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.
Serve with thinly sliced baguette, toasts, or crackers. Of course, cornichons, onion marmalade, and other such condiments are fine accompaniments.
Cold Tone Spring
880 South
I was going to say that lately, photography has felt like a struggle. Then I remembered that it isn’t just lately that it has felt that way. Last year I was talking to photographer and lab owner Seth Dickerman about a little creative crisis I was going through. At the time, I was shooting a lot, pretty indiscriminately, in fact. He said to me, “Sometimes, the hardest part is figuring out what you’ve got. Take your time and look at what you have.” He was talking about editing. My struggle at the moment is with inspiration to shoot at all. In a way, the same advice applies. Even with a trickle coming in, there are still so many images to come back to, review, retouch, organize, and so on. Looking again at what you have can lead you to some ideas to develop further, and then off you go, shooting with a new focus.
As it turns out, I have several series I have started working on over the last couple years that remain unfinished. I could do with some more time spent organizing and editing, and post-processing. This led me to another little series: experimenting with a cold tone look on urban landscapes. It has a kind of nostalgic look, and almost a little corporate or government brochure feel in some cases, as in the image above, 880 South. This is just the start, so we’ll see how far I get and where it goes.
Three Along the 880
The W. T. Rawleigh Co.
New Street Light
Albany CA. 2010
I just noticed tonight that the street light right outside our house is different. It is is very white, almost blue light, and almost looks like LED. Then I noticed that several, but not all, of the street lights in the neighborhood have been replaced. It is easy to tell, because the contrast with the old yellowish sodium lights is striking.
I thought a web search was in order to see if this was part of something significant. Sure enough, I found the following information in this PDF:
The City will be replacing all “cobra head” street lights in Albany from High‐pressure sodium vapor (HPSV) to LED. Approximately $400,000 in Federal Stimulus Funds (ARRA funds) for energy efficiency will be utilized for this project. This project has many “green” benefits including:
- CO2 reduction: 170,042 Kg/year
- Energy savings: 324,506 kWh/year
- First Year Cost savings: $28,374
They will be replacing over 600 of the old sodium lights. There’s also a lot said about improved visibility. It definitely seems much brighter out there. I hope it is not too much, since our bedroom window faces the street. On the other hand, I do like the quality of light much better than those terrible orangey sodium-vapor lights. It’ll make mundane neighborhood night photography much more fun.
Brighton Ave, Albany CA, 2010.
Misty Mountains, Mystical Morning
Looking south from St Nicholas Ranch into the Kings Canyon area of the Sierra Nevada.
Last week we attended the Winter Family Camp at St Nicholas Ranch. The ranch, run by the Greek Orthodox Metropolis in San Francisco, is located in Squaw Valley near the entrance to Kings Canyon National Park. It was the first time I had been to the retreat, after hearing about it for years.
We had a wonderful time at the family camp. The weather was perfect, but with moments of drama as above. We met Greek families from all over California, from the Bay Area all the way down past Los Angeles. We ate, drank, talked and played. It was great to experience the Sierras again; I have always loved those mountains and been missing them for a couple years. Saturday was spent sledding at Grant Grove. The kids loved that, but I was happy just seeing the giant sequoias, the biggest living things on the planet. They are simply awesome, in the original sense of that word.
The site also has a monastery with a dozen or more nuns. Thus, Sunday started out with the Divine Liturgy in the chapel at the monastery. This was an amazing thing. One enters an incense-filled cavern of gold, marble, and medieval iconography, and hears the etherial voices of the nuns. Huddled over to the right of the altar where you can’t quite see them, they stand and sing for hours, occasionally shuffling and moving things. Softly but quickly they weave their way through the liturgy. Colored light streams in from above. The mysticism of the Orthodox Church transforms everything. Suddenly, a pair of nuns emerge with small incensors the size of a genie’s lamp and fitted with sleigh bells, their faces dimly visible beneath their black scarves; shaking bells in time like a chant, they quickly and precisely float around to each of the icons stationed around the chapel, shimmying the smoking bells as they bow before each one. Just as suddenly they disappear behind the altar screens. The singers continue spinning their soft cloud of sound. Outside the fog slowly lifts.
One day in the waiting room
Efrosini Serafimidis
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the board and care facility where my mom lives. It was late morning. They said she simply woke up complaining of intense pain and couldn’t move her left leg. She had been in bed all morning. I went over as soon as I could. She was clearly not able to move her leg much and certainly could not stand. But as she lay there in bed, she said she would be okay, that she just needed to rest her leg because she had been overdoing it. Then a little later, she said she had fallen down a couple days before and now it was sore. I had seen her a couple days ago. And the day before. This didn’t really quite add up. That’s not really a big surprise considering she has worsening dementia. Nonetheless, I worried that she had indeed fallen and that I wasn’t getting the whole story from the nursing home. They claimed she just woke up with pain in her leg.
She was actually in pretty good spirits and insisted she would be fine with some bed rest. I already had a lot on my mind that day, so I didn’t push it. I decided I would go back home to finish a couple errands and call the Kaiser advice nurse from there. I described the situation as best I could. The advice was to get to the ER as soon as possible. Which we did.
I started to assume the worst, which was that she had fallen and destroyed the hip replacement she had just had done in May, and from which that she had only just fully recovered. In fact, just two days before when I had seen her she was really getting around great with her walker, and taking a few steps here and there without it. This was part of the reason for my increased worry. She has always been incredibly stubborn. I plead with her to be safe and always use her walker. Which she doesn’t.
We spent all day and evening in the ER. They x-rayed her hip. It looked fine. That was a huge relief. She is so small that the x-ray image got about down to her knee, and the ER doctor saw something down there. So eventually they got another set of shots of the left knee. There they saw a bone chip. The location and lack of bruising suggested that she had not fallen. The doctor opined that something like a sudden muscle contraction could have pulled off a bit of her fragile bone. Perhaps she was catching herself from falling. It also appeared that there was not much to be done about it. After finally hearing back from the orthopedic doctors about her x-rays, the ER doc declared that they would put a brace on her leg and that we could leave. But it was now midnight. Everyone would be asleep at her facility. I would have to get her into my car here, and out at the other end—or pay a few hundred bucks for an ambulance. And she was pretty loopy from the morphine, not to mention tired and in pain when she moved. Moving her at the moment didn’t see like a good idea. So, I talked the doc into keeping her there in the ER overnight so that I could come and get her in the morning. Which I did.
We had an appointment with the orthopedists the following week. We sat in the waiting room. I took some pictures. Eventually we saw the doctor. The doctor agreed that surgical intervention was not worth it. But she cautioned that it would be painful for a while. Which it has been.
Hot Water
The Old Water Heater
Hot water has been in short supply around our house for a few years now. The problem is not so much that it runs out, but that it simply doesn’t get very hot. Moreoever, the water heater seemed to go to sleep with the rest of us, and wake up only when we did. This made the first shower of the day a distinctly less-than-hot one. Something needed to be done.
About a year ago, my friend Jason replaced the water heater in his new house with a tankless system. He offered the water heater, which was actually newish, to me. Naturally, I accepted it and resolved to replace my ancient water heater ASAP. There were, however, two problems: the first is that I am only moderately handy and was not confident that replacing the water heater was within my ability to do with a sufficiently high likelihood of success; the second is that my water heater is down in a small utility basement (with the furnace); draining it down there and hauling it out presented additional challenges. And Jason reported that it took more than a few hours to drain the one he’d removed. All these considerations gave me pause. I didn’t want to take such a prolonged time to replace the water heater, leaving both our house and Rocky’s house with no hot water or perhaps any water, and also risk having to call a plumber in on an emergency basis Sunday night if I screw something up.
I procrastinated for months. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as I embarked on other projects that seemed less daunting, like painting the kitchen and dining room. That took a couple weeks right there. Or running the speaker cables through the crawl space under the house. Yes, even braving unknown insects and critters in the dark was a satisfactory delay tactic. After several months of this, I started feeling like I really needed to face it. This weekend, the threat of severe marital discord made it a forgone conclusion: this weekend was it.
Of course by this time, the “newish” water heater had been sitting out in the yard, white-trash style, for almost a year. Would it be okay? Would I be calling for an emergency installation of a brand new unit?
Draining the Old One and Pumping It Out
The first thing I had to do was disconnect and drain the old tank. The shut-off valve at the tank did not close completely, so I had shut off the water at the main to the whole house. This led to increased risk should things go sideways, but I proceeded anyway. I finally decided to drain it into a little tub and use a portable sump pump to pump the water up and out to the street. This ended up working very well. The only kink was that (those) in the cheap old garden hose I connected to the pump. (I further resolved that the hose would go into the trash after this job was accomplished.) In fact, the draining of the tank went very quickly, much less than an hour.
Drug the Body Up the Stairs
After this was done, I managed to drag the old tank up the stairs and out to the street by myself without injuring my back or reigniting an old shoulder injury incurred 10 years ago while trying to lower a stove on a dolly down a steep set of stairs. Next, I managed to get the new tank down into the basement and into it’s narrow corner with no problems. I hooked up the water. I hooked up the gas. I turned on the water. Leak…
The Old Water Heater - Connections
I took the stupid cold water connection apart and put it back together again three or four times, trying more teflon tape, less teflon tape, cranking it down more, cranking it down less, etc. Each time it leaked. Finally I got a better light and bent the flex tubing so that I could see in there. I finally realized that the washer had completely deteriorated and bits of it were in the threads. Time to go to the hardware store. I bought a 99-cent washer and, after chiseling out the remains of the old one with an awl, installed it. This time it worked–no leak.
The next test was the real one. Did it heat? Well it took a couple tries to manually light the pilot, but eventually it stayed lit. The burner fired up. Three and half hours and 99 cents later, the new water heater was working! Later that afternoon I scalded my hands at the kitchen sink; I didn’t mind it a bit.
The Replacement Waterheater - All Done!
Chimneys of Albany
Albany Chimney #8
The leaning, the straight. The clean and symmetrical, the organic mess. Squared, rounded, rock, brick, plastered. These are the fireplace chimneys of Albany.
I would hate to apply a misleading name to something. Looking on the web and within Flickr, “fireplace” seemed like it would be more misleading than “chimney” which is also a little snappier. If there is a better word for referring to the exterior structure of the fireplace and chimney on a residential home, please let me know.
In any case, it seems that these houses, like most of the houses in Albany, were built by a builder named Charles M. MacGregor. Around here, a necessary and sufficient condition for dubbing a house “a MacGregor” is that it has the following floor plan: split level with garage at grade, main living area up about 8 steps, and two bedrooms and a bath above the garage. The master bedroom is right over the garage looking out towards the street, followed by a bathroom , followed by another bedroom overlooking the back. I suspect this can’t be a correct definition, but it works well with the rest of the local MacGregor mythology. Me, I look for whimsical chimneys.
I’ll try to dig more on the man and the myth soon.
Blog to Remember: A Recipe for Pasta
As a new means of annoying readers–ahem, remembering things I’ve cooked so I can do it again–I will start posting kitchen exploits. This one, involves last night’s dinner. As usual, dinner last evening was a last minute affair. Searching through the fridge I found a couple packages of grocery store ravioli, like maybe Buitoni, with cheese and chicken. There was not much with which to make a sauce, particularly one that Theo would eat, but I dug around the pantry and fridge to see what I could find. While hunting around the freezer, I saw some frozen peas. That caused me to flash on a dish I remember eating at an Italian place in Fresno about 2o years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t quite remember the name of the place. It was out on Shaw Ave near West. It was owned by one of the kids or something of the Fresno Italian Restaurant dynasty, the DiCicco’s. Wait! Lido’s is what it was called, I think. The place was pretty cuisine-y for Fresno in those days, different feel than the old school chain places the family ran, and apparently still runs. It was a pasta course with a creamy tomato sauce with peas. It was good, and the memory wouldn’t let me go. I thought, “What the hell, I’ll play with that idea and see what happens.”
I found a small onion, chopped it fine and threw it in a hot saute pan with a couple Tbls. olive oil. After the onions started to wilt, I turned the heat down and added a couple cloves minced garlic. I started adding some chicken broth, about 2/3 of a cup, but in about 3 or 4 increments, waiting for each to reduce down before adding the next. I learned this from Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s first book, “The Splendid Table”. I used to love to listen to her show on KUOW in Seattle, and still can’t really believe there is not a single freaking station in the SF Bay Area, self-annointed foodie capital of America, that carries the program. At least there’s a Website and podcasts.
I finely diced a couple smallish carrots, and threw those in with the last of the broth. While that was simmering, I measured up a cup of the frozen peas, and found a large can (24 oz?) of chopped tomatoes in the pantry. Chopped would not do, so I got out my aged Cuisinart food processor and zinged them up really well. I still have the first Cuisinart I ever bought, a DLC-10 plus, which was in about 1985 or so. The model was later renamed The Classic, or something like that. I can’t believe it still runs. Maybe it will outlast me. I wonder if the new ones are still built like this. I’d be happy to endorse their products. At least their food processors. At least the ones they sold in the mid-80′s.
Anyway, I threw the pureed tomatoes in to the pan and let that all simmer for awhile. I’m not sure how long. Perhaps long enough to boil 4 quarts of water for the pasta. Then I added the peas and salt and pepper. After a few minutes of cleaning up, I put the pasta on. Then I had to face facts. I had no cream. And I have NEVER had luck adding milk, or even half-and-half to a sauce. It always curdles. And I was not going to the store now. I stood there staring into the refrigerator and finally saw the Greek yogurt–you know that brand no one can really pronounce, FAH-yeh. Damn that shit is good. Anyway, I got brave and finished the sauce with a couple-three big spoons of that full-fat Fage. I added until it looked the right color.
There was almost enough vegetable matter in it to justify going with it as a one dish meal. So we did. And you know, it wasn’t half bad. Sorry I didn’t get picture. You’ll just have to make it yourself to see it.
Community=trust, or is it the other way around?
So, I roll into my new favorite wi-fi enabled coffee office, and as I am about to order I see that they don’t take credit cards yet, and I know I have no cash, and the nearest cash machine will charge me more than the cost of a cup a joe to give me my own money. And the nearest Wamu-Chase joint is a 15-minute bike ride away.
So, as I am thinking about all this, the woman at the counter, who turns out to be one of the owners, sees the look on my face and says, “no cash, eh?” And then she asks me if I wanna do an IOU? She says, “you look familiar”.
So, I am kind of blown away, because you definitely don’t get this anymore. I’ll be honest, i really liked this place anyway. It doesn’t hurt that the coffee is really good, as are the oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies and shortbread squares, the vibe is cool, the wi-fi is provided without an attitude, minimum purchase requirement, or sideways glance like you’re stealing something.
But now, they have a totally loyal customer for life. This is a down economy, and the restaurant business is tough in the best of times. This place is still new and could probably stand to see more cash flow. So, it is really gratifying to see people expressing trust and building community. One might argue that this is just smart business, and I would not disagree. I just think it is not all that common these days. So, you know, come get some coffee and a pastry. Bring cash.
tweets
- Backdrop http://ff.im/-pONvQ
- Aug 22, 2010: The San Francisco Cirkus Shoot-out at Dolores Park http://ff.im/-omXd1
- Crazy Man by Freakwater http://ff.im/-oaFBU
- Cactus Sinawi by Henry Kaiser, Charles K. Noyes, Sang Won Park http://ff.im/-nZjLD
- Sugar by Ladytron http://ff.im/-nZ6j3
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