Food and Footage

  Allow me to introduce you to my new and forever city, Portland–a place where wild artichokes grow in unkempt front yards, a place where grown men ride tiny little baby bicycles for some inexplicable reason, a place where you can drink beer and eat pizza in a second run movie theater.And not just any beer, but really good IPA’s from local breweries. Appetite is an essential part of life here and being a small weight or a tsk-er of carbs is tantamount to blasphemy. This was made clear to me when I opted for a pint of beer rather than my own personal pitcher. “But what if you run out of beer half way through the movie?” My kind and native companion asked. So I got me a pitcher and a couple of slices with local artichoke pesto and pickled red peppers and headed in to watch Greg Mottola’s Adventureland.Adventureland is one of those rare indie rom-com’s that didn’t make it big because it was a little too smart and understated for the general movie going public. The film is full of moments that take basic coming of age situations and subvert them just enough to make you laugh again at what has become the most tired of all film genres. And the dialogue is so good that I wanted everyone in the film to talk louder so I wouldn’t miss a single thing they said. They should issue mandatory closed-captioning for Mumblecore films. Or maybe I should not drink a whole pitcher of beer during an hour and a half film screening.By the time the lights went up, I had to pee so bad I thought I might have to go in the empty pitcher. My level of ebullient drunkenness was forcing me to say obvious things like, “This really is the ladies room,” as I waited for the next available stall, and to muse about my future pick-up lines for a Portland audience; “Who’s your optometrist?”, “Are the bars always this full on a Tuesday?”, “How’d you like to knock me up, so I can get on WIC?”Two bourbon-neat’s, and a Megavideo interrupted attempt to watch The Wizard of Oz later, I settled into bed almost looking forward to tomorrow and my first Portland hangover. Just as I’d expected, Portland was gentle to me the morning after. I woke to an overcast sky, walked less than a block and found really great coffee which I could drink slowly amidst the sound of languid conversation and lugubrious music. I took my sweet time eating my tuna sandwich and reading my mystery novel. When I finally felt clear headed enough to head back home, I checked the Craigslist food classifieds and found out Nostrana was interviewing. I sent in my resume and got an interview within the hour. In two days, I begin work at possibly the best restaurant for foodies in Portland. I thought about Dorothy, my childhood Idol, and her little line about not being in Kansas anymore. She wanted to go back, but I would just as soon stay here in Oz, thank you very much. 

This is the salad: 

• 1/2 cup of decent mixed greens, though by no means transporting
• 5 halved grape tomatoes, not especially flavorful
• a quarter cup of chopped red and golden beets
• 6 string beans
• a really blah vinaigrette  

 HOW COULD THIS SALAD COST 12 DOLLARS??? And why are people paying for it? I just assumed a salad like this would be 8$ tops and so I didn’t look at the price. When the bill came, I was flabbergasted. Last night, at a cute hole in the wall place called Weird Fish, my sister and I spent 60$ on a salad, two sides and a fish dish (and two glasses of wine). The kicker is, I was so hungry after dinner, I ended up grabbing a 4$ taco. I just want to state for the record that no salad is worth more than $10 dollars, and that salad must have some kind of wildly flavorful protein accent–house cured salmon, or grilled prawns, or skirt steak. I really need to get out of San Francisco. 

In five days I will get on a plane and leave behind this place, the partner I had for 3 years and all the friends I made in the 2 years I lived here. The sky is threatening rain, which is nothing new for Berlin, and I can hear my compact washing machine spinning in the background. Chicken soup is on the stove-top and the apartment smells like an old Jewish lady, in the best possible way, of course.

Because I’ve never been much of a scenester, the memory of the places I’ve lived are always based on the apartments I lived in. But, as many agoraphobics I’m sure will agree, that apartment is a microcosm of the city at large. Take this apartment in Berlin. There are millions of weird details that would only be found in a prosperous European country. For example, the toilet has a shelf–or a German Stool Inspector–as my friend Lee fondly refers to it, and two flushing options. There’s also a special heating rack which you can hang towels on so the towels are nice and warm when you get out. This detail in particular held a lot of weight with me because when my parents went on vacation to Venice one rainy April in the mid 90’s, my mother came back raving about the hot towel rack. It became part of our conception of luxury, ditto with bidets. When I ended up in possession of one of these magic racks, it was a strange bittersweet reminder of how far away I was from my family and how different my life was from their’s.

Right now I’m imagining myself as an alcoholic old woman speaking mysteriously about her former life to near strangers in a bar; “I was in Berlin for two years between 2007 and 2009. The walls were gray and the church bells rang at 6pm every day and twice on Sundays. ” But I suppose part of this whole blogging business is a safeguard against forgetting all the details of your life at different stages. Maybe I’m afraid I won’t remember my gray walls when I’m drinking heavily in my 70’s. Maybe I’ll just wander around drunk telling people to google me. God how depressing!

And the irony is, Berlin embraces drunk 70 year olds. They still fit in at clubs and bars. The US is terrible in that respect. Women, especially, become invisible after 40. For some it happens even earlier.

And yet I am leaving this place and risking invisibility, suburban living, mass consumption, a population known for their irritating earnestness, dogmatic tunnel-vision, and overwhelming stupidity. Because at the end of the day, I can’t live with that towel-rack feeling. I can’t just reinvent myself in a foreign land and lose connection to my family and my homeland. For all my snobbery about the old world, I am an American and I want to wither and die there.

Auf Wiedersehn and Danke schön Berlin meine liebe! Thanks for the memories.