On Being a Pack Rat
My paternal grandmother, Ruth, was a pack rat. At least, that’s what my mom would tell me with a note of defeat when she implored me to clean my room every day.
It’s true. Gramma’s where I got it.
Going to her place was an archeological expedition. There was always treasure:
Books from the 1800s, leather-bound and dusty; mid-century Life magazines (not enough Marilyn); National Geographics; a first edition, a signed Ripley’s Believe It or Not, signed by Mr. Ripley himself, to which Gramma’s stepfather had contributed; drawings and paintings; rocks painted to look like shoes and bugs; macrame owls; piles of crocheted throws; family photos; autographed celebrity photos from the 1930s; a Drinking Bird that sipped water out of a glass; a little rubber King-Kong that once had a surprise wasp in its mouth (OUCH!); Chanel No. 5; Jean Naté dusting powder; lavender hand soap wrapped in fancy tissue; my father’s well-loved-yet-creepy Zippy chimp; several Kewpie dolls; Black Snake fireworks (definitely the original, toxic kind); a full-length vicuña coat that had belonged to her sister who married rich and died young; silk scarves and linen handkerchiefs; and So. Many. Hats. —Everything from a flat, straw Victorian garden hat, piled with tulle, to a pith helmet, painted blue and bedecked with flowers and birds. And don’t forget the trucker hats with questionable slogans.
Ruth’s home was a riot of cultural detritus, a lifetime of not throwing things away.
My mother loathed the chaos. Dropping me off for the weekend, I could see her tension. I was eager for the the opportunity Gramma’s afforded, to spelunk through time.
That’s where I picked up my thrift-shop habit. A collection of random stuff makes me feel like Ariel in her grotto.
I love to see what has fallen through the cultural sifter. Sure, there’s junk. But there’s always something that sparks my curiosity— if not awe. I may not want to bring those tureen-based frilled table lamps home, but someone certainly pulled out all the stops designing and making them!
Sometimes, I find a gem.
Last week, I picked up the James Beard’s Beard on Pasta, with drawings by Karl W. Steucklen from 1983. What a treat! Beard’s voice is singular. He writes that he”must have been six or seven before I ever ate spaghetti, but I was eating Chinese noodles long before that,” given to him by Let, a Chinese chef who worked for his mother in Portland. He decries the fashionable snobbishness of using only fresh pasta when dried is often better. He includes spätzle and udon kneaded by foot.
Beard imparts an irresistible philosophy of bonhomie in the kitchen. For once, a writer in the 1980s is not telling me how to lighten a thing by omitting the fat. Even Julia Child and Jacques Pepin had started referencing low-fat by the end of the decade.
Beard explains the in’s and out’s of the very Eighties trend, home pasta extraction machines, gently nudging the reader off the idea, as the machines can’t handle the hard wheat flour necessary for a good noodle. Yet he understands the appeal and tells us how to make the best of it.
The recipe in the book that gave me the most pause, that illustrates a forgotten way of thinking about food, is the “Avocado Pasta.” It’s a fresh noodle made with avocado then blanketed in an avocado-cream sauce (two cups of cream!). This could taste peculiar to a modern palate, but who am I to question James Beard? I haven’t had enough avocados ripe and on-hand to make it yet, but when I do, I’ll check back in and let you know.
And don’t get me started on the illustrations. Streucklen’s drawings are exuberant. They impart the idea of what’s being asked of us better than a video. They encourage one to forget about an Instagram-ready plate and think about flavor and technique. They give the feeling of one more presence in the book showing off his skills.
I’m pushing against a tide, I know, but I’d like to see more room in food media for real-life essays that ruminate, people and food ungroomed for camera, drawings that burst off the page.
My grandmother has passed on, but many of her possessions are in storage at my dad’s. I can open a trunk and inhale the scent of her house, even now. There is much to be said for being a family of pack rats.
Soundtrack:
Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For - the audio sit-com!
Happy Pride everyone!
Here’s an excerpt from Mo’s adventures in not getting throw out of the game in Ep 6, pitting egalitarian ideals against the competitive drive of wimmin’s softball.
If you want to bawl your eyes out, though, jump to “Episode 8: On the Road.”
Our heroes join the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The original audio of chanting, speech, songs, and the recitation of names from the AIDS quilt puts you right there in a way a documentary never will.
Watch:
—produced by Mike Schur; written/directed by Shea Serrano
The Mike Schur of it: An ensemble of oddball, lovable characters.
The Shea Serrano of it: a San Antonio Mexican American family with lots of heart.
I want to hang out with these people every week—but maybe not live with them.