After returning from Seattle, we took a week off to clean the crap out of the house (and yes, even the messy kitchen is clean!), but now we’re back. Back and posting again, only today I’ve gone to South Dakota. Well, not really. Read on.

A while back, the scrumptiously wacky Ayun Halliday, author of No Touch Monkey!, Job Hopper, and The Big Rumpus, dropped me a line and asked me if I’d be willing to host a day of her virtual tour for her newest book, Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste. At first, I tried to pawn the duties off on The Cat, but Ayun wisely balked at that suggestion, knowing full well what sort of mincemeat an Angry Cat can make of her victims (even those who are interviewed at arm’s length). Good thing too because now I had a fun book to read and The Cat would have just turned it into 219 pages of crumply paper that once contained rompingly entertaining tales of a culinary life more ordinary.

Also there’s theater. Not so much in the book, but since I knew that Ayun was from a theater background and her husband Greg Kotis was a Tony Award winning playwright, I couldn’t not at least talk a little about theater. So, out with The Cat, and in with the interview.

But, you know me. I’m not content to simply conduct a virtual interview for book tour day #15 after witnessing all the recent and deleriously mouth-watering shared meals over at Dirty Sugar Cookies, no sir. Instead, I determined we should throw convention to the wind and meet halfway. So I got out an atlas and a ruler and we took a little trip.

(The scene: A diner, about halfway between Friday Harbor and Brooklyn. It’s nothing more than a bump in the road; a cafe named Dot’s or Fleck’s or Smidge’s or something, about ten miles east of Pukwana, South Dakota. The service is sketchy, the food outrageous, and the ambiance, a cross between Twin Peaks and Trader Vic’s. There’s a guy in the corner playing an endless rendition of ? and the Mysterians’ 96 Tears on a roller-rink organ, and somewhere in the back room, rumor has it, lives a screech monkey in a massive, well-accoutered cage.)

(Mrs D and Ayun sit at a booth, utterly surrounded by sparkly vinyl and sparkly Formica. A waitress with tall hair hovers nearby. They peruse their oversized menus.)

MRS D: Order whatever you like on the menu. I’m having the squid. I hear it hitches a ride on the Dakota Southern Line. Only takes five days from the coast.

AYUN: Oh well, in that case, I’ll have the sushi.

(The waitress, whose name is also Dot, or Fleck or Smidge or something, scrawls the order on an alarmingly grease-stained pad and exits.)

MRS D: Excellent choice. So, I have to ask. How are you defining yourself these days? Pescetarian, vegetarian (with lapses for most excellent five-day-old sushi), or “basket case”?

AYUN: I’m in my usual basket, wolfing down any swimmer who’s got a shell, scales and/or no bathing suit. And I just received my first public smack down from an officially disgruntled vegetarian, who took umbrage at “Just a Sliver”. the Dirty Sugar Cookies chapter I selected as my website’s free sample! Ironically, the smack down took place not in the Vegetarian Times or a radical vegan zine, but in the comments section of Finslippy, a parenting blog whose editor kindly agreed to host Day 11 of the Virtual Book Tour. Actually, it was kind of a nice palate cleanser. Some of the commentary that preceded it was growing a bit tiresome. Okay! I’m an anti-motherhood, self-aggrandizing bitch, we get it! Though for the record, I would prioritize an animal’s comfort over test driving a new cosmetic and the reason I stopped eating them (again) is that I was inspired by an interview with Sue Coe, an artist who’s on a mission to fill the public in on the hair-raising and I would say immoral practices of factory farming.

(The waitress strolls past and drops a sparkly Formica platter on the table.)

AYUN: Anyway I’ll get off my high horse. Hey, is that your bacon? Even if it
isn’t, it sure smells good.

MRS D: I think it’s the amuse-buche. Hang on a sec.

(Mrs D activates a Star-Trekkian wireless device and reads all the comments at Finslippy.)

MRS D: Day-um. I was going to ask about kids and mention that I’ve always been jealous of the popularity of Mommy Bloggers and how I’ve been thinking about adopting a puppy and pretending it’s a kid so I can write a popular Mommy Blog, but I’ve just changed my mind. Besides, I have this aversion to talking about kids unless they’re dressed up in costumes and I’m making them memorize their lines. It’s pathological, actually, but that’s another story for another time. So, let’s talk theater instead. (she coughs and narrows her eyes) You are planning on writing a theater anecdote book sometime soon, right?

AYUN: I would LOVE to write a book of obscure theater anecdotes, but the anecdotes probably wouldn’t be the only obscure thing about it. (Extremely rare edition. Only 100 printed and 23 sold.)

MRS D: But limited edition chapbooks are where it’s at! I’m thinking about doing one myself: How I Came to Hate Being Stranded on an Island in Eighteen Interminable Months. It’ll be a huge hit with the tourists. So. New York City bloggers. There must be bazillions of them. How many lunch and dinner dates have you snagged so far from this semi-virtual book tour?

AYUN: Well, let’s see now… Stephanie the Pie Queen came over. We were going to make an apple pie with the kids but she was about to go on a writing retreat and my head was about to explode from the several kazillion things I had on my plate, so we just lounged around feeding on fig jam and some other delicacies I hadn’t been able to resist at Fairway. She gave me one of her books, Honey: From Flower to Table, which in addition to luscious recipes and the low down on bee keeping, has these absolutely gorgeous golden photographs that would give Winnie-the-Pooh a boner in like 5 seconds flat. I asked her if she knew about this guy who’s keeping bees on the roof of his nearby brownstone and she answered that she did.

MRS D: Bees? I’m sorry I was completely distracted by the mental image of Winnie-the-Pooh with a boner. Um. Go on.

AYUN: Then, let’s see, Adam, The Amateur Gourmet and I met at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House and that was just a real treat, food-wise and company-wise. You know, people are often bewildered how someone who loves food as much as I do can hate pasta…and I think I might have experienced a similar reaction, wondering how it can be that The Amateur Gourmet – this adventurous, prolific, childless New York City food blogger – can have spent so little time in Chinatown? How can it be? He allowed me to lead him around the corner so I could point out one of my other favorites, The Doyers Restaurant, which is probably in every tourist’s guidebook, but he graciously behaved as if I’d turned him on to something secret and cool. I hope he goes back and has the shrimp paste grilled on sugar cane. Maybe we’ll go together.

(Mrs D drools visibly at the mention of shrimp paste grilled on sugar cane.)

AYUN: I wasn’t planning to hook up with Leland, who is one half of Eat (the other half is his mom, who’s based in Pittsburgh). But then it turned out my computer is too elderly to handle a 3-way audio i-Chat for our podcast, so I told him that it was no problem for me to hook up with him in the West Village as long as Milo could tag along. Wait a minute, does “hook up” mean to have sex with? Because, he’s really cute and all, but it would have been way too weird. I mean, I’m married, and my 5-year-old-son was sitting on my lap, and it’s a small apartment. Leland’s boyfriend was right there, and they had this camera rigged to the top of their computer monitor so his Mom could see us. We just did the podcast and I went on my way, okay? Leland gave Milo a chocolate chip cookie to take with him and the next day, when I was coming home from the gym, I found it crumbled in the bottom of my purse and I ate it and it was delicious.

MRS D: Ah. Dirty Chocolate Chip Cookie.

AYUN: And yesterday, I went out with Karen and Andrew of Becoming a Chef. Karen and I both waited tables at Dave’s Italian Kitchen in Evanston, Illinois, but not at the same time, so Andrew had to sit there with a patient smile pasted on his face while Karen and I quizzed each other on mutual acquaintances. Then we realized we had both worked at the Sherman Snack Shop so we ran through the drill all over again. When they described our historic meeting on their blog, they said that the company was better than the food and I have to concur, and not just because it was their treat. They also gave me a copy of their book, The New American Chef, which made me want to Eat, Travel, Eat Some More and Cook, in that order.

MRS D: Stop making me hungry. Let’s talk about florescent purple vomit instead, because it was at that moment in Dirty Sugar Cookies that I realized we shared childhood experiences. (Well that and the mistaken-for-a-boy-thing. And summer camp. And This is The Salt.) Also, I am remiss in having not included a vomit story in previous Belly Timber posts, so I think it’s worth visiting here. Hell, I may even share mine. (It’s cute. And color-coordinated!)

AYUN: Lemme tell you about Inky puking from her top bunk in the very tiny room she shares with Milo the other day (the first in the family to fall prey to a stomach bug that effected half of Brooklyn.) it was like Apocalypse Now — that scene where Martin Sheen is paralyzed in the dripping, ominous jungle. and Milo, curled up fast asleep in the one 2 foot area that didn’t sustain a hit.

MRS D: Cool. Projectile vomiting.

(The waitress arrives and places two ominous platters on the table. It appears the chef de cuisine has just recently discovered tall food. Mrs D digs in while the waitress hovers at the next table, quite obviously eavesdropping.)

MRS D: Speaking of food poisoning, do you have any grand food poisoning stories that didn’t make it into the book? Oh — wait, even better. Food poisoning from theatrical food. It’s bound to have happened, right?

AYUN: Yeah, but thank god it never did. Not even with all those cold scrambled eggs I had to choke down in The Miracle Worker in high school.

MRS D: The best I can come up with is someone eating a shellac-covered pasty in Sweeney Todd. No food poisoning; just a big sour face in the middle of More Hot Pies.

AYUN: That makes my teeth hurt worse than they already do from a visit to the dentist who made me wait two and a half hours before he started whappin’ on my enamel with this doll-sized ice pick.

MRS D: So I’ve been sneaking peeks at the previous 14 virtual book tour days and then on the 14th, I follow the link to your husband Greg’s new play Pig Farm, and immediately I’ve got to shoot an email off to Chopper (yes, email — his computer is up one flight of stairs and I’m too lazy to schlep up the stairs or even turn on instant messaging) because: duuude! Chopper used to work at the Old Globe in San Diego — tech crew, set construction, all of that crazy shit. So, next time you see Pig Farm’s John Ellison Conlee, ask him if he remembers a 6′4″ long-haired tech dude hanging around during the Globe’s production of Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), cuz that was Chopper!

AYUN: I still haven’t met John C. He was GREAT though as the farmer whose world is collapsing around him. He has this speech that he repeats about five times at the end of the play – much to the elderly subscribers’ disgruntlement – a real Clifford Odets-y elegy about how “the herds got bigger and the price of pork went down”. Man, that guy! Somehow he managed to elicit real sympathy even as he keeps returning to this ridiculous, poetic speech because… well, I can’t tell you why come, because I don’t want to spoil the end of the play. Let’s just say there are interruptions.

MRS D: One would expect interruptions on a pig farm…

AYUN: Really? I suspect it’s more of an unceasing cycle of foul-smelling drudgery. (I hope I’m not giving the critics any ideas.)

MRS D: So, am I safe in assuming that because the play takes place on a pig farm, there are culinary ramifications?

AYUN: Not many because my husband, unlike yours, is not a cooking man. One of the pigs does get barbecued, but other than that, there’s not a lot of eating going on.

MRS D: Does the theater sell pork rinds in the lobby during intermission?

AYUN: No, just eight dollar Dixie cups of rot gut Chablis.

MRS D: Wine-in-a-box?

AYUN: Quite likely, though they decant it into recycled bottles for appearance’s sake.

MRS D: Oh, and the other thing, and this is kind of freaking me out, is I started reading the blurb about Job Hopper and I had this moment of extreme horror. Ersatz costume designer, belligerent artist’s model, and avoiding anything with a dress code? Sister, you are talking about the last 15 years of my life and then some. (Okay, so I never played Burt, but I did play a bird in a children’s play and that’s only two letters off.)

(The waitress, bored with the change of topic, wanders off.)

MRS D: So — after recovering from my horror — my question is: how did you survive all that? Yeah, yeah, I know. Buy the book. Tell us your rags to riches story. In three sentences or less. (Kidding. Sort of.)

AYUN: I knew I wanted to be an actress by the second grade, when I I was cast as a poinsettia in the school Christmas pageant, but I never quite marshaled the ambition to get an agent, look presentable, learn how to behave naturally in front of the camera, train myself not to resent potential employers when their auditions were held across town… The child of a banker and a journalist, I was drawn to the bohemian romance of the crappy job that keeps the artistic body and soul together. Then the first baby came along and changed our lives and Urinetown came along and changed our lives even further and now we raise our children in bohemian semi-squalor, unyoked from day jobs (knock on wood.)

(Ayun looks around for a non-Formica surface. Finding none, she fishes a non-photo-blue pencil from the depths of purse and attempts to knock on it.)

MRS D: (holding up three fingers) Holy crap. That was three sentences. Nicely done. By the way, I think my squid is made of wood. Feel free to knock on it. Shall we order dessert?

(From somewhere near the kitchen, we hear the sudden, passionate screeching of a monkey.)

— fin —

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 5:10 pm and is filed under cook n' books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.