While I started my culinary novel over a year ago it was initially born out of my raw assumptions of what people wanted to read. And along the way I realized how unequipped I was to achieve this so I sought out various means of learning whether online classes, simply reading constantly, and trying different things out.

During the process my main goal was assumed to be that they are entertained while believing my sincerity. And I am at the point now where sincerity isn’t enough. That is because I am not a sincere person, not precisely. Rather I am an obsessive person at heart. I can’t help but want to drown myself in something. And while writing this culinary novel I rediscovered that I absolutely get off on cooking. And not just simply doing it myself, but the theoretical and cultural aspects.

But I am a terrible customer because at this point I don’t care if your roast whatever is cooked perfectly. And even worse I dare say that I don’t care if your braise has perfectly gelatinized. I need to know who you are, how to communicate ideas or culture, or how you exorcise something into life. Quite frankly there’s no clear reason to believe there’s anything to civilization beyond shitting, fucking, and eating. This is what I aim to write about, maybe minus the shitting. But hey it takes place in New York so…

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Some fiction like John Updike or random old Greek tragedies. But mostly philosophical shit concerning different concepts of freedom or the history of Liberalism (as opposed to Libtardism). It’s a weird thing to read and muddle over freedom since if one didn’t put any time into it then it could be easily assumed to be an easy thing. Yet it is not. It lacks the boundlessness many of us dream because it is fundamentally about relationships.

And in my various readings I’ve come across enough musing over nature and if exists at all. I understand their processes and thought, in theory, and maybe part of me agrees. But it’s also such a fucking waste of time, again maybe just for me. I go outside during these hot days and spend time amongst my perennials and walk amongst the “hazies”. Those are the tiny flies or whatever that always seem to hover where the air is most specific. I watch the goldfish peck at the algae and notice how my tomato plant seems to grow an inch a day. This stability I discover around me never sways me from the reality that everything hangs by a thread. Humans seem to be the only ones uniquely aware at this terrifying truth, yet we are the only ones uniquely pissing this beauty away. There are too many ideologies, too many disagreements, too many thoughts in general. I still believe in reason and rationality, but sometimes you are in an age where it is near impossible to have proper supplies of it.

As a true Taoist, my response is to calmly wait for the waves to smoothen even though there is boundless suffering today. A deeper reckoning filled with fresher agreements is needed for when the waves turn our way.

Note: This post should start off by mentioning that our trip was cut short because our little pug Clyde developed some freak melting eye ulcer. And from where we were it took us 2 hours by car, 2 hours by train and having to wait another day to get return flights back to New Jersey. The feeling of helplessness meant that Jenny and I didn’t really sleep for several days. The thought of him being in pain, surrounded by strangers, and with a catheter made me sick. When we got back to Paris with a night to wait the only thing that soothed the knots in my stomach was a bowl of pasta. I love French cuisine. It’s clever, introspective, and embraces seasonality more than other cuisines. But straight forward Italian food holds my hand when faced with precarious situations. We made it back to my little boy. We still haven’t really slept and as I write this, tomorrow he’s going in for surgery to get his eye removed. I expected that though we fought for a days to avoid it. Soon he will be a true Passaic dog: feral and filled with a deep smiling rage.

Dordogne

This trip was about settling in. No longer overcome with planning, rushing, and anxiety my mind didn’t know what to do with itself. Like Galactus, it consumed. I felt like a Porsche that went off a cliff and was still in midair. Where was I going?

My long gone friend Etienne used to say that I wasn't like the average American, that my soul was to the whole world. And regardless of where you stand it is evident that the American mind is quickly closing. I needed to go to a place where I could attempt to feel and see the things in my mind in particular freedom hence Dordogne.

To be deep in France in a part that is so ancient there is memory of a time before civilization is to be glorious. But we did have to make a pitstop in Paris, a place I wasn’t necessarily pining to be back in. I’m not in any way knocking it, in many ways it is better than New York, but I needed to be in more primal or bucolic surroundings. We zipped down to Bordeaux on a train (Why the fuck don’t we have good trains here? Punkass, bitchass, motherfucking government) and snagged a Peugeot.

Finally in Dordogne, if it wasn’t for all the boulangeries one would think it was the English countryside. The mornings were crisp and carried the sounds of babbling streams softly. With the hearty food and towns of stone it is a fine place to be provided there are less crowds. The wine is also quite good and deliciously cheap. Out of the many bottles of Bergerac was on average €15 with layers of flavor that would make me sound like a wine asshole.

What attracted me to Dordogne is the thing that never escapes my daily mind. The precariousness of existence. Do not take that to mean I’m some melancholic mope, though maybe I am. But what lingers over me is that when you strip away the civilization, the literature, ideologies, and religions all of life exist on a razors edge. Even worse, we have a nasty habit of taking ideas as real, the great barrier to actual progress. As I strolled through stone villages and observing ancient outcroppings I could see there were different times when we did less of this. When a destination was more than a dream. I wanted to go to a place that was at one point the limits of humanity. The ice age made it so that humans couldn’t push much further. And those who lived here semi settled down and created culture. They thrived on this razors edge. Somehow life became more than just struggling to find food and struggling to raise children. Life seems to have become special, something to be celebrated. That isn’t something to be taken for granted. And dotted all around the valleys are caves with art of various animals, some possibly sacred and others food.

Another thing that drew me was reading Henry Miller. He spent some time here, and spoke fondly of it. I only encountered his writing a few years ago, and at first was dismissive. And I know why: reading him is like listening to myself talk. He can be prickly, coarse, and dismissive while also being accommodating. We stayed at the same Inn he did, probably sipping wine along the same stream. His life, in his words, read like some alternative universe to my own with both of us naturally seeking out select places. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think back to the roaring waves of Big Sur.

That’s as much as I can say about Dordogne, or care to. But I expect you are here to read about food. So don’t let me disappoint you. Dordogne is also the land of foie gras, truffles, and walnuts amongst other things. Did I eat truffles everyday? In some form, yes. Did I eat foie gras everyday? No, I would have died. But I had it plenty. It’s not something I enjoy as much anymore. It’s just not as primal as I’d prefer. There are places to get a simple roasted piece of goose liver with some onion jam and a sweet sauce. That is more my thing.

The restaurants here are all great as far as I’ve experienced along with the people. Many speak directly with a touch of disdain at first then welcome you with a big genuine smile. Free time was spent enjoying a cigarette over a game of cards. One particular man seemed to despise me. I think he thought me a Patagonia vest wearing American to which I playfully displayed my own disdain for. He reminded me of a classmate from culinary school, a particular working class oaf with big dreams. After a few days our greetings were with a slyness as if we knew a secret joke.

There’s the wine. In Dordogne, the most attractive thing a person can do is tsk at you when asking about wines from around Bordeaux. The tsk seemed to best converted to American English as: bitch, please. The disregard for a neighboring region is one of the ways I judge if a place is truly a place. We lugged back a few bottles that I look forward to tearing open once life settles down.

I stopped writing to enjoy this trip and thought maybe I’d experience enough to propel my work further. And it has, though not in the way I expected. There have been doubts about my efforts due to my inexperience and paranoia that I’m never good enough. But I did realize one thing: that I’ve come to enjoy the characters in my book. They aren’t entirely my creation and no longer solely based on people I once knew. They are alive. The only problem now is that it makes my progress slower, because I spend a lot of time discovering them.

Did you have a great 2024? I hope so. And as for Jenny and me, I think we did on a personal level. It kind of just flew by. But on the macro there was a lot of shit going on around the world. I’d speak on those things, but perhaps not in this post aside from a few snarking comments.

First, there’s the book. Alex are you done???? Or maybe it’s, wait you’re working on a book? What the hell do you know about writing? It’s chugging along. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned the topic, but it is a first person fictionalized story of my time in culinary school back in 2006. Hipsters were only barely creeping into New York City, the iPhone didn’t exist, and DiCaprio and Gisele Bundchen were still together. Some themes are food vs cuisine, the transition of the food scene, the rise of the celebrity chef and chef millionaires, and other shit.

You learn a lot about yourself writing fiction like your habits, neurosis, anxieties, etc… And since you are determined you must create new habits and routines to get things moving along. Another theme in the book is “time”. If you know me well you know that I have a special relationship with time. It is my torturer, and closest thing to a personal deity. That is why when we had our store my motto was “If you can do it now, do it now!” I put a lot of pressure on myself, but even if I get this book done and worked on the others I have outlined I’m not sure I’d consider myself a writer. I’m just someone who wants to express ideas and it can be in any form, as long as it hits a nerve. Plus none of that takes into account the maturity to be able to express things effectively let alone the skill.

Jenny and I did a fair bit of traveling this year if you go back into the previous blog posts. From the frozen forests of Washington State, tiled sidewalks of Barcelona, mascletas of Valencia, Thomas Jefferson’s pompous wine cellar, a remote island on the Adriatic, and to my family’s rice farm in the Philippines we experienced a decent amount. Such a world in flux. There’s good, bad, worse, and seedlings of things that hopefully flower into something beautiful. On the shores of a Croatian beach I listened as thousands of boulder sized rocks roared as the waves came crashing in. And there I realized that what was more important than thinking about the world was to listen. The world is full of information that it is almost a bottomless well. And that is the structure of our modern society. And if you listen most of that stuff is just noise, useless ass noise.

Now let me switch to something better to the eyes, nose, and tongue. We ate at some Michelin blah blah and Top 50 Restaurant yada yada, but also closet sized vermut bars and even a food truck on a Native American reservation. My conclusion? Do whatever makes you happy, like truly truly happy and not just checking off a box. I was disgusted to be in an alleged top restaurant and the table next to me recorded their entire meal, and possibly live streamed it. I also got rather depressed at another place because their music in the restrooms sounded straight from a looney bin. How did they expect me to enjoy the food when washing your hands feels like the moment leatherface drops the chainsaw on your neck? The best meals I had on our travels were at a small Vermut bar in Barcelona, a cevapi place in Split, and a seafood place on Vis. I base this on the quality of the food and the hospitality of the people working/owning them. The fancy places take too many risks to be consistent, at least they are daring and strike with creativity. It becomes performance art, and some days are better than others just like going to watch a Broadway show. And let’s be real, there’s a big market for this performance art food. Bigger than the talent pool. But I say, hey keep throwing things against the wall and give it a go. Eventually the next thing will come around and it will burn bright.

Did anything surprise you this year? Three things were fairly surprising for me, and they’re all related to the election. One was America’s willingness to cynically betray one of its primary myths: that we always do the right thing in the end. Two was watching the moment when the Democratic Party of my youth implode. I was in the Philippines during the election and I remember watching at my aunt’s house a specific moment that it all became so apparent. And three was watching the tech bros steal the Presidency from MAGA. Maybe the third one isn’t conclusive yet, and I know some will say the second isn’t the case. Sure, okay. I just want our society to be about us again, and not billionaires consolidating their fiefs. I was raised in the Classical Liberal shades of the Roosevelt clan; so whatever makes homes cheaper, health insurance cheaper, people happier, the general vibe of desperation wither, and the New York Jets not a shitty team I am down.

Oh my god, above I said I wasn’t going to speak on a few things but I did anyway. Oops.

2025 I’ll continue to work on this book and ideally by the end of it I can beg a few of you with help finding people to pitch for publishing. If not then maybe I’ll use ai to turn it into an anime. We have plans to go to France in the winter and specifically down to Dordogne. It is the land of Foie, but I am really there to attempt to see the painted caves. I’m obsessed with beauty and especially the primeval. What could be more captivating? There may be a trip to Chicagoland for a Cubs game, deep dish, hot dogs with lots of pickles and relish, and the Art Institute. But everything else is on a holding pattern until we see Donnie Boy in power. As the grand finance wizards of Wall Street like to say on Bloomberg: We don’t know what we don’t know.

My mother and I finally managed to take Jenny to the Philippines to see my family’s home island and farm. There’s finally a direct shot to Manila from the tristate area, unfortunately it’s at JFK. Many of things that can be said about JFK can also be said about herpes or a backed up sewer line. Sometimes things are best left in the past, so I’ll just NOT say more than that be prepared for Tita’s checking in 15 boxes each. I swear some boxes were legit washer and dryers. I won’t talk about the check-in staff, the security line, the TSA, or the terminal itself. It will trigger an anxiety attack.

I’ve been going to the Philippines since I was four years old so I’ve seen it change a lot. Manila Airport has gotten better in that when you exit the airport chaos doesn’t descend on you like a scene from a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. And there are express highways that zigzag the city for those who are willing to pay to dodge the insane traffic. We were in Makati for a day. It is probably the best place for a first time or frequent visitor to Manila. It’s where many of the hotels, shopping, and safe food are located. Hell there’s an Hermes store, Din Tai Fung, and a Raffles. Manila got a DTF before New York, and even has two. SHAME.

My family’s home island is Panay which is part of the central Philippines, but the province is Iloilo. And it has also grown quite a bit over the years. Back when I was a kid the airport was just a field with some goats, and now it’s concrete and glass. And they’ve developed some new areas of the city specifically around all the call centers. Remember all those times you’ve had to call customer service and “Andy” picked up the phone. Well his name ain’t Andy it’s really Ezekiel Jesus Santos de la Cruz. I guess when they were dropping the fiber someone had the right idea to pass it here. I get a kick out of all the change. Near our hotel was a Starbucks and McDonald’s but you walk a block away and it’s still people cooking skewers along the sidewalk. It reminds me of when I lived in China during the mid 2000s and witnessed their rapid transition. Jeepneys are one of the most iconic symbols of the Philippines, but now they have to compete against modernized buses with air conditioning. And talking to my family and meeting friends of friends I got to see how much of their mentality has changed with all this development and how much hasn’t changed. Though I must say that I didn’t hear anyone complaining, and how can you when a decade ago you may not have had electricity.

My family’s farm is forty or so minutes from Iloilo City. And on the way you pass many smaller cities like Janiuay and Lambunao. I have family in just about every town along the way, but if you come from an immigrant family like mine you know that sometimes you don’t want them to know you are around. Wanting to egg an aunt’s house is a rite of passage.

As for the farm, there’s not much to say except it’s got rice, bananas, coconuts, swine, chickens, and geese. Taro and Pandan grow on the side of the walking path and aside from a current drought it usually rains everyday here and there. All my mother’s immediate family have left the farm for America, but we still have family living and working there. I don’t know if you know anything about rice farming, but it’s like a sprint. When you gotta go you go, but sometimes you’re just chilling around waiting. Imagine the deepest July when it’s 98 degrees and the air thick as shit. Some of my family that has been in America too long like to complain they aren’t doing anything, but I’m like stfu it’s too damn hot.

There are only three things I really do when back on the island. One is eat, another is hang with family, and lastly is go to Guimaras which is just the next island over. What do I eat? Well, rice of course. There’s plain rice, fried rice, arroz caldo, congee, and my favorite: garlic rice. Now I don’t eat it like my family over there. Maybe I eat 2 cups at each meal, but they get down. I remember seeing Jenny’s face seeing how much rice my cousins eat. Oh you thought you’re Asian? I’m a show you something lol. There’s also all these desserts that are variations of rice flour and coconut milk you can’t get in America. Then there’s all the fruits from pineapples, mangoes (not in season at the time), lanzones, and the sacred kalamansi. I also make my rotation between grilled chicken at Mang Inasal, and seafood dishes like prawns and crab at various places. In all honesty, food in the Philippines is mostly simple and specific. Ornate dishes are reserved for the annual fiesta. Amazingly many of the iconic dishes are stews which just sounds crazy when you rarely see a low below 80 degrees.

Guimaras is famous for its mangoes. It should be more well known for the beaches, but I guess they aren’t developed enough. You definitely see Europeans and Australians around, but not many Americans yet. Perhaps that’s a good thing, though in my experience Americans have more manners than the type of European/Aussie that makes its way around that part of the world. I just go there to chill on the beach and eat prawns. North of the home island is Boracay which has amazing beaches, but it’s got a bit of that “Diddy” vibe.

I always come back from the Philippines feeling good. It’s nice to see the country chugging along, yet it’s the same old same old. There’s nothing better than walking out in the morning to the humidity carrying the fragrance of fresh rice. Well maybe some fresh Pan de Sal dunked into Nutella.

Jenny and I have returned from Europe just in time for the start of the New Jersey Devils hockey season. Their first home game was a dud despite winning their first two games in Prague. I’m fairly neutral about the season, not bullish or tepid. I just want to see some exciting hockey. They happen to be in a competitive division especially next to their rich kid cousins across the Hudson so they have their work cut out for them, but even more opportunity for some fun. You can’t take sports thaaaat seriously. Look at how much the athletes get paid, and even worse at how sports teams are money laundering schemes for billionaires, mostly and not entirely. The owners of the New York Rangers don’t even pay property tax, because as we know New York City is run by idiots. Drink a beer at the game, yell at some refs, and cheer when the object goes from one side of the box to the other.

That’s enough of all that. I am here to write about our trip to Europe, specifically Croatia and Munich. Let’s get Munich out of the way. There is very good chocolate to be purchased there, not cheaply, but better than almost everything I’ve ever had here. I kick myself for not buying more. The beer is fine, the food fine, and it is pleasant to walk around town. Their subway system looks like it was designed by someone with a PHD who has zero social and practical skills. But once you get past the chaos it’s convenient. Lastly, the people there stink. I don’t mean they are rude or unfriendly. I mean they literally stink from the businessman in a crisp tailored navy blue suit, Uber driver, hipster barista, and biergarten bartender. On my last day there my senses had enough and I developed a stomach ache from their stank. I’d rather hang on the northwest corner of Washington Square Park next to the bums. In Munich, the BO, to quote Seinfeld, is BBO: Beyond Body Order. I’ll probably end up back there for chocolate, but ideally with a hazmat mask. It shames me that some of my ancestors are Bavarians.

Now onto Croatia. I’m notoriously skeptical of everything. If you told me oxygen was cool I’d hold my breath until blue. People used to tell me Venice was amazing, and I refused to go until my mother asked me to take her. And boy did I eat my words, because Venice is awesome. It was the same situation with Croatia except various things drew me there. We flew into Split. Yeah, it sort of reminds me of Venice which makes sense since it was under their control long long ago. I was told Split is a circus during the summer, and the locals are experiencing the positives and negatives of the tourism economy. But everyone we met was friendly and curious.

The food, if you must know, is not amazing in the way of Italian or some French cuisine. It is simple, fresh, straightforward, and makes you feel good. Double espresso for 1.90 Euros and people watching suffices for the morning. A sandwich of paprika sauce, yogurt, the softest feta I’ve ever had, and cevapi is good midday. For dinner squid risotto, grilled snapper, Pommes Anna, and wine followed by 3 Euro beers at the park overlooking the water. For a changeup there’s always the squid, barley, and lentil soup and lots of bread to dunk. There is of course the olive oil gelato which I had 6 times because no shit I’m the gelato guy. I’ll go back to Split, just not in the summer, though that can be said for almost all of Europe.

Then we were off on a ferry to an island far far away as I could be from proper society yet still have an air conditioner. And to our amusement the ferry was full of French guys headed to a music festival. They weren’t your ordinary baguette holding Frenchmen either. About half looked like the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine Zack de la Rocha, hair and mean mug included. During our two hour ride I watched as they unsuccessfully wooed this or that girl with their smooth talking or bizarrely, a pushup contest. Before you think they were 19 or 25 years old, they were closer to my age. I like to say most Americans never mentally get beyond junior year of high school, and there’s definitely a segment of the European population that has never left the club from their early 20s. Despite all the unwashed greasy jeans and white people dreadlocks, they didn’t smell anything compared to the businessmen in Munich.

Upon landing on the island the sun was slowly coming down. And since the air was damp from previous rain it felt truly Slavic in my mind. That is, reality is permanently set to “Vivid Cool” on your iPhone, everything is a bit grey and chilling. As we walked through town to our hotel I saw some men smoking while wearing Adidas sweatpants and finally I turned to Jenny and said we are definitely in Slavia.

When we woke up in the morning the island was a completely different place. The filters were turned off and someone cracked up the saturation. I swear to you that the Adidas disappeared and replaced with colorful t-shirts, croissants and espresso; and kids laughing as they played along the dock. Everyone had a smile. During our stay I talked to a lot of people and it was nice to experience those who have only concern for what is in front of them or those who are so intensely focused on sharing the things deep in their hearts, at least appearing so. Days were void of advertisements.

I felt an equilibrium rather quickly, for deep inside I am bursting with Mediterranean zeal while outwardly carrying a Nico Bellic cynicism. Going to Croatia was about an element of refusal, a fucking breather from the suffocating chatter of our civilization. And I got some of that, if just for a bit. Where else can I read aloud Rimbaud with fury and fire alongside the Mediterranean? I had a short moment of lamentation while resting in a cove. During my mid 20s to mid 30s I lived in California and specifically in the West Marin County I regularly walked and spent time at the Point Reyes area. It was here I felt the birth at the numbness of being human at the dawn of social media and the smartphone. I’d climb the jagged rocks towering over the beaches and unleash fury much in the same way as Rimbaud.

And in this cove and on this mellow Adriatic island my trembling hands went still, if just for a few more days. I could face fears with calm and a smile. I’m notoriously in poor sync with time, it is the closest thing to a God in my life. It is always teasing, prodding, and warping. I needed to be some place where time is less of a concern and where possibilities can blossom. Croatia offered me that a feeling of possibility.

May elements of refusal find you.

I will be uploading a blog post about our trip to Croatia very soon. I’m just editing relentlessly and making sure I’m not ranting too much, as I usually do.

It was a great trip, and also a reminder than I am not a shithead, not always. Sometimes you become so bogged down by the bullshit in life you feel like a negative person. And it is nice to be know that it isn’t the truth, in the overall sense.

I had a blast from the past and came across someone from at the start of my culinary career. I worked myself to a manager and when I was leaving that job I found them crying. When I asked why they told me it was sad I was leaving. So even though they were crying it was nice to know that I could have an impact on someone like that. Closing APEM was sort of like that, but it wasn’t so close to the skin and I was quite young.

One of the special things about being human is that a lot of us feel almost too much, and yet are almost never emotionally capable. The rarest genius is who can encapsulate this humanity into something beautiful. I say this because I feel that we are in an era of false genius.

May the air of Autumn still our hearts,

Alex

Don’t our lives have a strange aura hanging over? Not so long ago, today and yesterday life hadn’t happened just yet. There was always something better to come and we were yet to be fully realized as individuals and as a society. I envy those delusions, for now we live in an era of awaiting catastrophes. An acquaintance posed the idea that they’ve already happened and we are living in the aftermath. To my American mind, it seems unbelievable since we proselytize grand spectacles raised under the boot of Hollywood. But my exhausted Romantic mind, the one that claws at the great blue sky for universality, will sit with these thoughts and play. And play together with my Spectral mind that passes through masses of genres and fashions to search for truths.

What a time to be alive. Reality is too dire, too real. In a society consumed with catastrophe what other way to be then to bravely exercise your dreams.

This conversion from a food person to whatever the fuck it is I am aspiring to has been full of peaks and valleys. Sometimes life feels like climbing out of a deep dark cave. Other days and weeks are so full of fog the only thing that can lead me out of it is my sheer desire to go crashing into the waves. You do one thing, learn another thing, and practice practice practice. Afterwards after you body and mind have consumed and digested it all you stare at what comes out. Is it mine? Is it ours? What the fuck? It is my effort to take the world around us, reach beyond the real, and conjure what can be. I don’t care about the dangers for the possibilities are already all around us.

Turning a mundane scene about roasting a chicken draft after draft into something with cultural symbolism and beauty at one point broke me down into tears. And not because it is so bad, but through the processes I catch a glimpse of those dreams of a world where catastrophe is a meaningless word. The spirit is allowed its wings. Things are far from over, but to you who is reading this I hope you too bravely exercise your dreams. I can live in yours and you in mine, and as this old stale reality that forces itself upon us fades it is replaced with possibilities and love.

e multis, plura