The Doree Chronicles

In the spirit of The Awl’s recent turn to the Home Arts, I’d like to share some of the...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:43:00 -0500

In the spirit of The Awl’s recent turn to the Home Arts, I’d like to share some of the heretofore secret Shafrir family recipes, which my mom collected in a cookbook for me a few years ago.

Flank Steak

One flank steak
1/2 bottle Wishbone Italian dressing

1. Marinate overnight/all day in a nonmetallic container

2. Broil/barbecue on each side for approximately 5-10 minutes

3. Slice thinly against the grain

Caviar Dip

3 T mayonnaise
6 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
8 oz. cream cheese
2/3 cup sour cream
1 4-0z [sic] jar black lumpfish caviar (in supermarket, not expensive)

1. Stir mayonnaise and eggs

2. Spread over bottom of serving dish

3. Layer onion

4. Combine cream cheese and sour cream; spread over onions

5. Sprinkle with caviar

REALLY IMPRESSIVE LOOKING

saucy: sarahcooley: Checking out Swirl Sample sales by Daily...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:55:48 -0500

saucy:

sarahcooley:

Checking out Swirl

Sample sales by Daily Candy

This. Is. Dangerous.

I gotta say, I wasn’t super impressed by the debut: a designer I’d never heard of selling overpriced cashmere. DC’s gonna have to step up their game if they want to compete with the gajillion other sample sale sites out there.

Gail Collins: Whatever happens, we do not want the government conducting any studies on whether...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:49:04 -0500

Gail Collins:

Whatever happens, we do not want the government conducting any studies on whether current health practices actually do any good. Let this continue and soon you will not be able to get your hands on a good leech when you need one.

Yes.

Also, whenever anyone mentions leeches I automatically think of that scene in Stand By Me.

thingsiatethatilove: Saying on Facebook that you are “in a...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:30:19 -0500

thingsiatethatilove:

Saying on Facebook that you are “in a relationship” is so middle school, as a relationship-seriousness barometer. The high school version of this benchmark is sharing your Google Calendars with each other. The only thing is you have to remember to take the incriminating appointments off your calendar first.

I think your Tumblr needs a new name.

(N.B.: What do you do if your significant other refuses to use Google Calendar? You don’t know what either person is up to at night until, like, that afternoon. Also, some annoying double-booking tends to occur.)

Those dogs are fixated, but remarkably calm… [Zany Pickle...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:13:45 -0500

Those dogs are fixated, but remarkably calm…

[Zany Pickle via thedailywhat]

Very Serious Question Time

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:29:39 -0500

perpetua:

In your life, are you a cheer captain, or are you on the bleachers? I suppose you could be something else related to this scenario — a quarterback on the field, a stoner under the bleachers — but I’d prefer that you stick to the simple binary. Cheer captain, or on the bleachers?

I love Taylor Swift but she is SO NOT in the bleachers, and one of my pet peeves is the totally gorgeous/successful actor/singer/whatever who is all, “But I’m just a big nerd INSIIIIIIIIIIDE.”

When traders become cops: Last week, Officer Montilla said he arrested a 400-pound man in a housing...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:00:19 -0500

When traders become cops:

Last week, Officer Montilla said he arrested a 400-pound man in a housing project in Harlem who had 10 bags of crack cocaine on him.

“The man was saying he was going to kill my mother, and kill my family,” Officer Montilla said. He said the angriest person he dealt with before was someone who wanted a better rate on their municipal bonds.

Of course, we don’t know how fat that person was, so.

If you’re going to put a dog in a Santa suit, PUT THE DOG...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:58:35 -0500

If you’re going to put a dog in a Santa suit, PUT THE DOG IN THE SANTA SUIT. Photoshopping it onto him later is NOT ALLOWED.

Andrew Ross Sorkin: I must say that one of the frustrating parts of researching my book came when I...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:50:59 -0500

Andrew Ross Sorkin:

I must say that one of the frustrating parts of researching my book came when I finally got to ask the question of Wall Street chief executives and board members that you just raised: Do you have any remorse? Are you sorry? The answer, almost unequivocally, was no. (Or they just didn’t answer.) They see themselves as just one part of a larger problem, with many constituencies to blame.

Many of the most senior members of management on Wall Street now consider themselves “survivors,” as if they were cancer survivors or something. That’s the word they use. While many of them are self-aware enough to politely nod at the notion that they received help and were part of the problem, they seem reluctant to acknowledge they were “rescued” or “saved.” There are probably a few exceptions, so I shouldn’t paint them all with the same brush, but on the whole, that was the takeaway.

I recognize that that answer will only increase public outrage. But it is true.

Yes, Justice Kennedy’s staff insisted on seeing the article written in the Dalton school...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:43:18 -0500

Yes, Justice Kennedy’s staff insisted on seeing the article written in the Dalton school newspaper before it was published, and yes, First Amendment blah blah blah, but how come nobody is wondering how a Supreme Court Justice ended up giving a talk to high school students in the first place?

meltzer: Coming to grips with the existence of “Hung Like a Five-Year Old” t-shirts. I don’t...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:03:06 -0500

meltzer:

Coming to grips with the existence of “Hung Like a Five-Year Old” t-shirts.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come to grips with them.

Today Niharika taught me about the Wonder Wheel!

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:35:43 -0500

Today Niharika taught me about the Wonder Wheel!

This is a real shoe you can buy for $1800 (a pair) at bergdorf...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:57:53 -0500

This is a real shoe you can buy for $1800 (a pair) at bergdorf goodman.

save the date

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:57:02 -0500

meltzer:

I just got Elizabeth to commit to throwing a 90210 party with me on 9/02/10.

I might go as Andrea Zuckerman? Thank God I have ten months to decide.

I call Brenda! BRENDAAAAAAA!!!!!

meltzer: Sometimes I like to fantasize that someone hires me to create Marisa magazine or, while...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:49:04 -0500

meltzer:

Sometimes I like to fantasize that someone hires me to create Marisa magazine or, while we’re firmly in fantasy territory, Sassy 2.0 and I start putting together my dream team of writers and editors. (Does anyone else do this?) I think Joon would get the back page.

Please create Marisa magazine.

This is the kind of political analysis I am interested in reading: I don’t think [Bill...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:25:16 -0500

This is the kind of political analysis I am interested in reading:

I don’t think [Bill Thompson]’s the RIGHT kind of douchebag. Ed Koch was also a douchebag, but he was a douchebag in the right way. Giuliani transcends douchebaggery and shoots up to a level of dickslappery for which a word has not yet been invented, but he also had something that made for effective governance (not that I’m endorsing what he did, but he was able to push it through). I don’t get any sense from Thompson that he’d be able to utilize his own internal doucebagness to make things happen.

The few remaining Jews of Yemen have mostly been resettled in Monsey, N.Y., with a few going to...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:10:24 -0500

The few remaining Jews of Yemen have mostly been resettled in Monsey, N.Y., with a few going to Israel. They had been living pre-modern lives:

Raida became the last redoubt of Yemeni Jews, who continued to lead a simple life there alongside Muslims.

Ancient stone homes dot the town. Electricity is erratic; oil lamps are common. Water arrives via truck. Most homes lack a TV or a refrigerator. The cell phone is the only common modern device. Some families receive financial aid from Hasidic Jewish groups in Brooklyn and London, which has enabled them to buy cars.

Typically, the Jewish men are blacksmiths, shoe repairmen or carpenters. They sometimes barter, trading milk and cow dung for grass to feed their livestock. In public, the men stand out for their long side curls, customarily worn by observant Jewish men. Jewish women, who often marry by 16, rarely leave home. When they do, like Muslim women, only their eyes are exposed.

For fun, children play with pebbles and chase family chickens around the house. At Jewish religious schools, they sit at wooden tables to study Torah and Hebrew. They aren’t taught subjects like science, or to read and write in Arabic, Yemen’s official language.

Also, one of the women—I guess when she was trying to leave the country, though the article doesn’t say—tried to board the plane with a live chicken.

Secret Mission Rescues Yemen’s Jews [WSJ]

From Sunday’s Book Review: To the Editor: Andrew Hacker’s letter (Oct. 18) asks for the...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:29:46 -0500

From Sunday’s Book Review:

To the Editor:

Andrew Hacker’s letter (Oct. 18) asks for the progenitor of the term “WASP.” He says that he first heard it at a Princeton faculty party and that he first used it in an article in 1957.

I could not persuade my son, Tad Friend, in his book “Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor” (reviewed Sept. 27) to date the term back to at least 1952, when I first heard it. It was used upon me then by a Jewish girlfriend from Queens College, who socialized with young writers at Columbia University, who used it too. I therefore suggest that the term may not have a single progenitor, and that it may have arisen in such circles as a critique of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. It was probably a simple term of cultural derogation — although Professor Hacker’s inquiry may yet find an individual claimant.

THEODORE FRIEND
Villanova, Pa.

Could the Jewish girlfriend of Tad Friend’s father’s who “socialized with young writers from Columbia University” please come forward?

(Best letter ever, obviously.)

Ahhh, Pete Wells gives a shout-out to the best, dearly departed food truck on the Penn campus:...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:23:00 -0400

Ahhh, Pete Wells gives a shout-out to the best, dearly departed food truck on the Penn campus: Sophie’s. Their meatball subs (did I call it a meatball hoagie then? Can a hoagie even be hot? I can’t remember) were perfect. They made them to order—none of that powdered Parmesan cheese crap—in an oven in the truck. Then one day, just like that, Sophie’s was gone, and meatball subs in Philadelphia were never quite the same. Primo’s on Market Street made a pretty good one, though, as I recall.

(Also, I understand the inherent regional appeal of the cheesesteak, but I would argue that the roast pork sandwich at Tommy Dinic’s—topped with broccoli rabe and provolone—is the best sandwich in Philadelphia.)

Lee has been exploring different hangout spots in our new...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:35:44 -0400

Lee has been exploring different hangout spots in our new apartment. (She prefers enclosed spaces, like the bathroom, or somewhere she can lie up against something, or her bed.) Today she’s taken over the space between the table and the couch.