Dreamscope

 I think this swept through social media for about two seconds.  It’s an app for the iPhone called “Dreamscope” and it can turn any photo into a variety of ersatz end-products, including an oil painting that can look like this one.  There is water color and  Impressionism and black-and-white etching and all kinds of specific painter-ish renderings to suggest a Picasso or Pollock or Monet or Warhol or whomever you wish (probably).  I cringe at the implications but I’m not immune to the fun of it.  And, hey, maybe some 14-year-old will learn who Rauschenberg is:  https//dreamscopeapp.com

Carlos Lopez photo art redux

Last May I bought a photograph from Carlos Lopez (an image of it is posted on here).  This year I bought this one.  It has been transferred to a 16”x24” wrap-around canvas and the subject is a “corkscrew palm.”  Carlos told me he found it in some off-the-beaten-path neighborhood in Miami.  It is a one-and-done photo because when he went back a couple of weeks later to give it some more serious consideration the tree had been chopped down.  I think it is beautiful…both the tree and the photograph--and just look at that sky!

Ghosts of bagels past

Since practically the first day, probably the first week, that I moved to Florida (that would be August of 2014) I have been searching for what has turned out to be a ghost.

When I moved to Brooklyn, NY in 1971 my first culinary discovery was the lowly bagel.  So for over four decades I was spoiled into thinking they would be with me forever.  When friends and family came to visit I automatically got them hooked on various varieties of bagel, to their individual taste of course.  Some chose plain; some chose whole wheat or pumpernickel or cinnamon raisin and some settled on a variety of toppings, from basic sesame or poppy seed, to onion to garlic to salt and the ultimate in taste bud explosion(s) the "everything."  A lot of my guests insisted on stopping at my local deli (Terrace Bagels) on their way out of town so they could treat their loved ones back home.  I took having these bagels available, fresh daily, for granted.

I have now realized that searching for a reasonably facsimile in the Ft. Lauderdale area is impossible.  I am saddled with a memory.  Nothing here can compare with there.  Various friends and acquaintances have recommended a phalanx of restaurants and/or delicatessens but all have fallen on the wrong side of palatable in comparison to those served up by Terrace Bagels or, at least, my memory of them.  And, after all, it hasn’t been all that long since I moved.  The one place that comes close is Chesapeake Bagels but only because they look right.  But they are really as ordinary as the rest.

I just wish I had traveling friends who could bring me bagel largesse from my old neighborhood.  Now I understand why they did it.  They are only made manifest in New York City.  Here they are ghosts.

To bury or not to berry

I was invited to an Easter lunch and the host requested, as my contribution, either an apple or a berry pie.  On Saturday I went to the bakery at Publix supermarket in Wilton Manors and beheld a nice selection of pies.  However, there was only one berry pie left and it was not really ready for prime time; being moofered in various ways…it probably should not even have been offered for sale.

When I was a junior in high school we studied Macbeth in my English class.  I was pretty much clueless about Shakespeare then and hated it; both Shakespeare and my cluelessness.  Until, that is, a senior girl I liked, whose English class was studying Julius Caesar, suggested we help each other by reading the plays out loud (a recommended technique in understanding Shakespeare).  I learned Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech by heart and I remember shrieking girlishly with my friend when I made farce of the second line, which is:  “I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

I have waited 63 years to have an opportunity to use my aberration in public and as I stood in front of the bakery case this Saturday, staring at that messed-up berry pie, I had my opportunity:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen; I have come to seize your berry, not to praise it.”

But, alas, I couldn’t do that to the poor overworked clerk who was looking at me expectantly.  “May I help you with something,” she said; kindness oozing from her every pore.

“I’ll take the Dutch apple,” I said.

Deep Eddy

This is my new cocktail of choice.  I first saw this bottle of Deep Eddy Ruby Red behind Rick’s bar at the Wilton Manors bowling alley. It caught my eye because of its color and, when I asked about it, Rick told me it was grapefruit-infused vodka.  So I gave it a try.  For my taste it was way too strong to be served on the rocks so, since Rick had no clue with what to cut it, I requested it be topped off with tonic.  A strike!  Make the next one a double!  Maybe even a turkey!