it is something of a small leap well I mean it's not like someone walked on the moon or anything but it's not nothing either that more americans can say syria now than could some years ago and one or two of them can pinpoint the landmass on a map but at the same time it is terrifying that devastation is what it takes and even then it just barely registers I hear little peeps of news I can’t read very well now it is not that this skill is in remission it's just that the words fall apart under my eyes I need to have someone radio me the news directly and even then it’s hard to take even the little bits leave me speechless and teary unable to swallow I don’t need a steady diet of images to see what's going on the imagination has been made vivid across years of looking at what humans have done to one another besides at the moment I can’t watch tv there is no tv in our home I sometimes see tv at the dentist where someone thought it would be a good idea for the patient to watch cnn while getting drilled or at the pump when filling the car with gas but that’s not real tv that’s pump tv and I don’t think they are streaming footage of bodies sliced up by government forces in beiyda and banyas and though I use it for emotional and logistical reasons I don't believe in the internet because how do you know where to begin with the endless parade of voices I can’t aggregate filter screen or discern so the only news I can handle and really I can’t at all is a box of chocolates brought back from amman jordan by a friend they are made by ghraoui a chocolatier based in damascus still at it in wartime maybe they are doing a brisk business with well-heeled supporters of the regime maybe the rebels or the opposition whoever they are at this point are shelling out for chocolates to keep their morale up I doubt it they don’t have the lirat for that the box is on the table right here bright orange and very cheery at first I thought how nice someone from syria has sent a box of chocolates they are thinking of us what with boston and all that the thought ridiculous but not at all far fetched after all there are syrians sending their condolences to boston on the web it is very nice of them to be thinking of the rest of the world at this particular time in their shitshow present and some people in boston are reaching out in return this is a kind of grace made easier though perhaps too more complicated by an internet how close we can seem to come and yet how far apart we remain we remain facts on the ground in very different places but still it is almost like touching like almost but it would also not be a terrible thing I suppose to cut to the chase to post a picture that says hello syrians the reign of terror and death you are subject to is not like boston in the least but we love you and we are watching you at the gas pump and please don’t worry israel is going to take care of everything sorry we cant lift a finger despite all the prattle about red lines and chemical weapons use as a marker of utter terribleness as though all the other ways one can get done in syria style are incapable of generating a red line no nothing gets the big boys hackles up like chemical weapons use that is beyond the pale if you are sliced up and dumped in a ditch the most obvious and visible of ditches of course if you are made into a sign for others in this age-old manner it is not so utterly terrible that it will bring down the wrath of the apathetic upon your land you have to die a spectacular choked up mess in a cloud of gas to get anyones attention around here then you can be at the very least cause for some concern once we establish the facts because this is something we civilized humans have decided we should not do to each other it is against the law I guess slicing and dicing is not slicing and dicing is chopped liver in this calculus chemical weapons use is caviar is a box of high end chocolates it is the moral equivalent of death by chocolate but all that stupid dessert name means in this instance is that I am eating out of the gift box as I take in some grim news I am working my way through the syrian version of godivas they are medium quality too much hazelnut too much milk not enough bitterness chocolates from syria should be so bitter as to be inedible but I would go on eating them anyway while I try again in spite of my illiteracies to read something about ugliness in the land of ghraoui sweets the news tricking me into thinking the world is so small if there were not oceans between us you could reach out from aleppo smack the box out of my hands and say how could you do such a thing while so much death is being dished out and speechless already from reading about you I would be speechless all over again because you somehow managed to touch me

at breakfast an unjumbo egg is telling me something it has a message to get across it is letting me know that at a date certain it will become a bad egg a salmonella vehicle a pale yolk with a runny watery white that spreads out in the skillet and has no body left to it this egg where did it get these words that’s not egg it’s english those are someone else's words and that someone bless their unclogged heart is steering me clear of potential harm we need all the help we can get because who can tell good eggs from bad anymore in this food chain someone has to put words in the egg's mouth though I suspect the egg is perfectly capable of speaking for itself and would never say enjoy that is a factory talking not an egg I am not going to enjoy this egg according to a bland command I am going to eat it maybe on toast if there is any and with pleasure if there is any of that left when someone has told me to enjoy and given me a deadline to do so I am early to the expiration date party it is only September 6 in the morning and at this hour all messages seem vague I mean what year is this factory talking about what if I were supposed to enjoy the egg by September 15 2011 and I ate it now then I would be in for it then I might be facing a bout of something that could hardly be called enjoyable come on egg can you be a little more specific can you please clarify before I eat you if I could hear you over the din of this cautionary red label what year would it be what kind of world would you want to be living in what would you be trying to tell us in plain egg

each time I post a plate of something like this summery short rib with blistered haricot, sautéed cucumber and red onion, roasted radish, cherry tomato, bleu d’auvergne, oregano, and reduced beefy jus I feel since old liberal lefty guilty impulses die hard ethically impelled to include a gentle reminder to self and others via a pictoral supplement to this food porn diet or more likely via these thousand words that the burning world is full of painful contradictions that bear repeated pointing out no matter how obvious they may appear to be and so it is this morning that I wonder who is trending underfed up in the skyless cloud there must be pictures to counterweight my ribs who are the internet biafrans of today and if you get that reference you and I can date each other don’t get it mixed up with Bangladesh that was another story they got a concert from the hippiest beatle of all as far as I can recall there was no concert for biafra all biafra got was jello but that was then this is some kind of now in which the current poster children for starvation if they would please turn on location services before sending out instagram photos of themselves starving then we would know where they are lol and behold they might be from Mississippi the odds-on domestic favorite but how on earth could anyone be starving there don’t they have a Costco or a Walmart on every sunny side of the street has the war on poverty not reached the southern front yet no the war on poverty ended ages ago and yielded less than a scorched Iowa corn field in 2012 its been a grim summer people are going to pay for it at the high fructose corn syrup pump I’m going to pay for it every time I pile into my corn-fed hybrid to go source some local baby fuel some non-GMO line-caught downer-cow-free infant formula I have no sign in my rear window but I do in fact have a baby on board in tow here she is

this joyful little shorty is brand new to the world which may be why I am thinking so much about life and death and eating she eats 7 or 8 times a day and poops and pees all over the place in and out baby but no burgers just formula and though she’s not a "huge foodie" she is asking for edible dirt already but she doesn’t really have the stomach for it and I have mixed feelings about it as well I mean I used to think so what if chefs want to put out plates of signature mock-earth and they utilize the latest in culinary science to concoct dirt out of top-notch ingredients

but now I am changing my tune about this fabrication of terroir because dirt is already edible you can almost live on it just ask any Haitian who was making dirt cakes and eating them after the big earthquake in 2010 when there was a shortage of short ribs and baby formula not to mention potable water so if any old hot iron top celebrity chef wants to make haute dirt maybe he or she needs to take a little trip south and see how it is really done please be sure to ask a Haitian for some pairing recommendations ok ok maybe I need to come down from my high horse and stop shouting insolent misguided condemnations and holier-than-thous in such a delusional self-edifying voice edible dirt has been around for a long time kids have been making it since the dawn of oreos not just fancypants cooks besides I have never been to Haiti and though I have eaten dirt by which I mean had my face smashed into the ground I have never tried to survive on the stuff but should I ever find myself in that position I am going to call on every chef in town who plates soil to see if they can help me out they may politely refuse my calls but I will leave a detailed message nonetheless kind sir due to an unfortunate turn of events and a drastic change in my circumstances I need to eat dirt I need some for my baby too sister can you spare a dime bag or just a little spoonful of your precious crumble and if I don’t hear back I will rummage through your dumpster anyway or the dumpsters of any number of other high end cutting edge bandwagon-jumping eateries where the LA food dirt scene is being defined as we tweet "we are all dirt eaters tonight" we are always all something in twitterland something being jelloless biafrans in search of Mississippi mud in the dumpsters of the rich and famous where we hope to strike gold in a little leftover pile of edible soil and if I am lucky or if I source it properly it will be properly local though I won't snub my nose at any of the stuff that someone had fedexed in from Haiti just in time for dinner service because it is delicious the foie gras of dirts it is the shit

ps

dessert for meatball:

fig, lebneh quenelle, coffee-chile-cardamom-chocolate, pistachios

I made a trip to Costco today it’s always a risky proposition because they don’t stock anti-depressants in the obscenely bulky amount that one would have to down all in one gulp in order to avoid the sinking feeling that sets in as soon as you set foot in there and I would have needed a second massive dose when I approached the register with two small items in hand all I had was a roll of parchment paper and a piece of cheese I felt so horribly inadequate almost as though I were doing something improper buying so little I did not feel like one of the Joneses at that moment and you know I like to keep up and it gets me down when I fall short I didn’t even have a goddamn cart let alone 40 lbs of breakfast cereal or the largest box of crackers in the history of distorted food production systems I told the cashier no thank you I did not need a box for my items I got out of there in one piece maybe two but in the freeforall parking lot was swamped with a sadness that bulk xanax could not combat even if they sold it and they should because it might be that the act of purchasing itself would do the trick if the fuckin pills didn’t do anything then I went home and worked on this composed salad I will keep working on it until it’s good and then present it to you ladies and gentlemen the post-Costco anti-depressant summer fruit and feta plank

knives were on the to do list I took them to Pasadena farmers market dramatic against the cloudy mountains at 8 in the morning why would anybody live down here when there is such an up there in those clouds our village is not in the mountains it is in the valley it is not agricultural it is urban and its people somewhat unskilled we don’t know how to split wood a few of us and sadly I don’t count myself among this number though I know I got it in me far fetched as that may sound considering I grew up on a country club know how to grow blueberries or butcher a pig everything is delivered on a platter silver or styro it don’t matter our village is not in the mountains nor near Hama nor surrounded by ghosts or rebel forces who have all sharpened their knives too the shit is going to come at that village in the clouds from all sides best of luck telling the good from the bad the oppression from the democracy the coin doesn’t even have two faces it has a single face so don’t bother to flip it no matter how it lands it‘s going to come up throat-cutters the man at the market did a top notch job with the sharpening I cut myself already almost not really just flayed a little sliver of fingertip skin back when I was wiping the blade it was careless oversight quite frankly nothing to write al-Qubair about dear body part let me tell you I know exactly how you feel a letter wouldn’t get through at this particular juncture anyway all I am trying to do is make a little dinner with a very sharp knife and there are terrible pictures flitting before me in thought having read the reports and listened to some handwringing on national public radio who are we kidding well ourselves what the fuck are we doing well we are trying to go about our business and make dinner why and I can’t imagine it is only me that is struggling with this conundrum has it become so difficult to go on as if nothing was going on as though the face of the world were not boiling over to just portion the fish as if it will turn up endlessly beneath the knives to throw up our hands as if we all belonged to the UN to hold back tears when I think of the old city of Damascus the shops shuttered and everyone in there and in al-Qubair and in the whole world well at least a few people waiting for something else terrible to happen avid readers of blog I wish I had better news for you but I won’t

another night-in supper almost finished, all the bowls of springy risotto with a pea leaf tarragon spring onion garnish and the duck leg braise that one had its own nod to spring and to labor intensive product with a fava bean salsa verde those dishes are washed and dried and stacked and the salad plates they're all cleaned up too sorry there are no pictures of anything take my word for it the salad had shaved fennel and slivers of meyer lemon and bright green castelveltrano olives and anchovy vinaigrette and the dessert almond pound cake and harry's strawberries and runny whip all over it all gone all that's left to do is the laundry and eat the one leftover pint of seascapes not necessarily in that order

a partial menu from Monday's "night in" dinner, with special guest Molly Stevens, she was in LA working her new book, "All About Roasting," though not every dish as you can see had a roasted element that would have been overkill dessert for instance was a simple pear tart with walnut frangiapane and the salad nothing roasted except for some meyer lemons which went pureéd into the vinaigrette, the whole thing was a blast and sort of from the past, Molly and I met long ago in Reagan's 80s when we both lived on a post-hippie vegetable farm in central Vermont before she began a long tour of cooking-related training and work and finally landed in LA almost 30 years later and it was great to have her in the kitchen for this dinner, she has expansive food knowledge and skill and enthusiasm and the roasting book is super-solid and action-packed thankfully it does not fall into the trap of some food writing that coaxes us all down memory lane with stories of grandma roasting a hunk of something on Sunday nights or uncle jimmy's delicious roasted chicken that someone ate as a kid every fourth of july and has been trying to recreate ever since she started cooking or that unforgettable spit-cooked lamb I ate with some bedouins in a windswept tent so many years ago what a crazy night all that's all well and good and food can certainly take us to those places but not everything has to be a trigger-happy memory-inducing madeleine now does it well what about these other pictures from the evening then

In two days two quarts of yogurt will have become one—future lebneh for legs of lamb. That might be a kitchen haiku, or a telegram, not unlike "Knife's edge is sharp that's no carrot goddammit that's my fingertip send first aid kit."