Potatoes Redux

13 Monday Jul 2015

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On April 20, 2013, Lo and I made plans to buy a variety of potatoes and cook them and write about them. We did.

I just came across the pictures I took that day (April 20, 2013), attempting to capture the lushness of the color, the pleasure in the arrangement, the curiosity about the taste.

We paired them with sprigs of fresh rosemary:

and garlic chives:

Glazed them with olive oil, roasted them for two hours at 400 degrees, and returned to glistening pans of roasted red, purple and white potatoes.
Yummy.

It only took about 4 days for Lo, Steve and me to consume all 25 potatoes.

Detroit was a Hit!

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by WS50 in Art, Entertainment, Travel

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Clifford Bell's. Coney Island Hot Dogs, Detroit, Detroit institute of Art, Diego Rivera, Guardian Building, Penobscot Building, Slo's Barbecue

Hitsville USA Detroit. 2.28.15

BY JULIE SEYLER

Exactly four months before the wedding day, Lois and I boarded a plane to Detroit, Michigan. Despite being repeatedly peppered with “Who goes to Detroit?” and “Why go to Detroit?” and “You are going to Detroit, in the dead of winter? We never wavered. Detroit beckoned.

We knew this was the perfect trip, and I say this even though we were stranded in the Detroit airport for 8 hours and ended up having to overnight, un-comped, at the Westin Hotel due to a nor’easter. No matter, we went swimming in our underwear while the storm raged on.

After a swim at the Westin at the Detroit Airport. 3.1.15

And we met lots of interesting people because endless hours at an airport leads to bonding amongst strangers. But prior thereto, Detroit packed a wallop.

There is so much to see and do. Saturday morning we had a Coney Island Chili Dog at American Coney Island.

Breakfast of champions.

The waiter had no idea that there was an actual place called Coney Island which put hot dogs on the map.

We walked down Woodward Avenue studded with grand old 19th century churches past the stadium that houses the Detroit Tigers and into the The Detroit Institute of Arts. A keen kin to the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I discovered Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “The Wedding Dance,” painted in 1566. It was a harbinger of my June nuptials and screamed a wedding is a party where lust and love are offered and accepted in the most bawdy of fashion.

The Wedding Dance. 1566

We also got a chance to see Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals. They were a motivating reason to come to Detroit because the murals he had planned for Rockefeller Center were felled by public outcry. But in Detroit, we had an opportunity to see the intact in situ Detroit Industry murals, a visual panorama of the pros and cons of industry, where both management and workers are represented.

After a delicious lunch and a thorough scouring of the museum shop, we taxied over to the house where Berry Gordy founded Motown.

I found the Motown tour a little thin, but it was totally cool to see the recording studio where the Temptations, Supremes, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder etc. congregated and made gold records.

We had cocktail hour at a 1930’s speakeasy — Cliff Bell’s — and barbecue at Slow’s. And defnitely one needs an Uber app to trek around Detroit at night.

On Sunday, we were heading out at 12:00 for our 2:00 flight back to Newark, but we had heard that the Guardian Building is a must see architectural gem. It’s one of many skyscrapers that epitomize Detroit’s status as a leader of commerce and instury at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s where the automobile was born.

The Guardian was built by Wirt C. Rowland and its purpose was to celebrate the world of finance. It’s open for viewing every day and it’s free. It was worth the trip to Detroit. And for those who stand in awe of the Chrysler building, which is fabulous, the Guardian Building has a bit more over the top deco-ishness.

Interior of the Guardian Building.

One of 5 remaining original Tiffany clocks inside the Guardian Building.

We capped the morning with scrambled eggs and bloodies at The Dime Store and were on our way to the airport right on schedule where the weather intervened.

The Stuff of Mike Kelley; The Fare at M. Wells Dinette

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by WS50 in Art, Food

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Art, Food, Julie Seyler, M. Wells Dinette, Mike Kelley, The Write Side of 50

Blackboard of wines.

BY JULIE SEYLER

I milked a lot of blog mileage out of 17 days in Indonesia, but it’s time to move on. A couple of Saturdays ago, I made plans with a friend to see the Mike Kelley exhibition at PS 1, the public school converted into an extension of the Museum of Modern Art located in Queens. I was familiar with his stuffed animal sculptures, and was interested in seeing the full spectrum of his work.

The subway ride out there is not fully subterranean:

Emerging from Hunts. Pt. Av. on 7 train.

There is art to be seen as you emerge from the nether-regions of the underground to the rooftops of Queens. If you appreciate the grit of urban beauty expressed in colorfully decorated graffitied buildings and boxy industrial complexes, it’s nice to take it all in.

While the purpose of the excursion was to see “art,” we also wanted a meal at M Wells Dinette. I had heard about this restaurant when it opened in Long Island City about three years ago, and received over-the-top reviews for its celebration of the fattiest, lardiest parts of the pig. Then it closed. When I read that it had reopened as the cafe at PS1, I really wanted to go there, and see if it was as intriguing as the reviews had indicated.

In keeping with the whole public school theme, the dinette is a classroom. The students, i.e. us eaters, are seated at long tables facing the kitchen. The menu is printed on a page from a lined composition book, and the wine list is written in chalk on the blackboard. The selection that day included cavatelli with goat meatballs, blood pudding, oysters and tete de cochon. We opted for the rabbit and foie gras terrine, and the tart with escargots and bone marrow: Paired with a glass of petit Chablis, the ensemble was the perfect meal to have in your stomach before wandering through a terrain of 40,000 square feet to view art. And great art at that:

The show was fabulous, albeit raw and sometimes too vulgar for my tastes, but absolutely honest. I stand in awe of someone whose width and depth of imagination, not to mention curiosity, led him to explore and master materials in every shape, size and texture to create sculptures, paintings, videos, performance, and installations that ranged from small to large. Each piece was infused with originality, intelligence and wit – wit that could be sardonic, sarcastic, skewering and tender. His work is both compassionate and enraged. There was a lot to take in, but the mad vividness and unique perception of the way this particular man expressed his ideas remains unforgettable.

From the Kandor Project.

There were stuffed animals, stuffed together and stuffing each other, and stuffed animals that gave the fleeting impression of being hung as disco balls, scatological posters and a classroom sized table top rendering of every school that Mike Kelley attended. There was a multi-room installation devoted to Superman’s hometown, Kandor, and this does not take in all the videos and paintings and and other pieces that filled the three floors of the museum.

Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites.” (1991-99).

Mike Kelley committed suicide in 2012. The only reference I read for an explanation was from The New York Times obituary, which indicated severe heartache. We will never know. He was only 57. He is immortal through his work.

Indonesia, The Finale: Ubud, Bali

11 Monday Nov 2013

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Indonesia, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50, Travel, Ubud

Welcome to my world. Goa Gajah.

BY JULIE SEYLER

I have no way of knowing whether this is a fact, but I think everybody who plans a trip to Bali lands in Ubud at some point. Not just to walk through the inside of the 9th century cave known as Goa Gajah, “the elephant cave,” or to get pounced on by a monkey in the Monkey Jungle,

but because it is a village that packs a wallop. Ubud has everything.

A foot massage after dinner on the street:

Daytime visits to museums and galleries that are set in lavish gardens, and festooned with welcoming marigolds where you can see a vast collection of paintings by artists, that I believe, are completely absent from the Met:

Museum Puri Lukisan.

“Punished Souls in Hell” (1932) by I Gusti Nyoman Lempad.

There was nightly, live, entertainment: dance performances under the stars, folk music in local cafes, and shadow puppet shows. We opted for two different danced versions of the tale of how Sita is abducted by Ravana from the Ramayana tale. The Legong, which is performed with the gamelan, was a bit more accessible than the Kecak, which has no music- only a group of men chanting, but the Kecak is more iconic and is performed with a fire on the stage:

There were restaurants galore, and thousands of shops. Shops that sold handcrafted soap and shops filled with Buddhas and shops devoted to paintings, sarongs, batiks, jewelry, and wind chimes:

It was glorious.

But we didn’t just shop. Steve would have blown his brains out. In fact, he almost did after one full afternoon of walking in and out of every single store on the Ubud Main Road. (And a few side roads.) But he was saved because Ubud is also a central location to take in Pura Goa Lawah aka the Bat Cave Temple because there really are thousands and thousands of bats living in the cave:

Neither the intense odiferousness of mounds of guano, nor flying, screeching bats deter the devoted from making offerings in this cave. In fact, it is a hugely important temple because it is situated close to the sea, and close to the mountains.

And we took a mighty fine, and easy, bike ride down around Mount Batur through the ever present verdant and plush rice fields:

We visited the temple at Tirta Empul, with its baths that have been devoted to purification since the year 962. Still today, Hindus from all over Bali come here to be cleansed and blessed with good health:

There was Pura Kehen, another temple dating from the 11th century, that may win the prize as the most ornate and delicately carved. Inside there were magnificent statues of Hindu gods and goddesses. It was mind-boggling just to take in the level of detailed design on every surface of the facade. Even the steps were incised with a motif of individually sculpted swirls:

And there was Yeh Pelu, a 75-foot frieze carved into the rock face of a cliff that tells, in life-size renderings, the story of a heroic hunter warrior. It is not known who did it, or why he did it, but the pundits believe it was done sometime between the 10th and 13th centuries, and the hero may be the Hindu god Krisna:

And when the day was done, and we were hot and caked with sweat, there was the en suite infinity pool:

There was so much more, and I have the 3,788 photos to prove it. I have shared a few, and have loved every minute of recounting some of the highlights of the trip. I guess it was made even sweeter because of the cancellation last year due to my hip. Thank goodness we canceled. I know now that I could never have done that trip with no cartilage. Anyway, this is the last official installment on Indonesia. No doubt I will periodically revisit, but in the meantime, I want to scream out loud THANK YOU to Diane Embree of Bali Barong Tours. She is the travel agent par excellent. She worked with us on every aspect of the itinerary, picked out all of the hotels, and was ALWAYS accesible. Anybody wanting to go to Indonesia, CALL HER. I did just last week, because I want to go back next year- Sulawesi, Sumba, Lombok and the Gili Islands beckon from across the sea! Not to mention more shopping in Ubud.

The Saturday Blog: A View

09 Saturday Nov 2013

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Art, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Photo by Julie Seyler.

Make your Saturday leisurely, and make room for a view from your favorite window.

Time Flies Quickly (and Backwards) on the Internet

04 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by WS50 in Concepts

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confessional, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50

BY JULIE SEYLER

2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
So I am filling out relevant personal data online to obtain the cheapest airline ticket possible, and my date of birth is required. I click “1” for the date and scroll down to October for the month. Then I must enter the year. Up pops 1988, and I start scrolling down and down, past
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
1979
1978
1977
1976
1975
1974
1973
1972
1971
1970
and I am still not there! I ealize that people born in 1973, the year I graduated high school, are so young. They are only 40. Even though it seems like yesterday, it really was a while ago. Anyway, I keep scrolling.
1969
1968
1967
1966
1965
1964
1963
1962
1961
1960
1959
1958
1957
1956
And bingo! I finally hit 1955.

Gosh. It is so far from the top, and with each passing year so much closer to the bottom. Today, online, the oldest year you can be born is 1893. In 47 more years it will be 1955. What a way to visualize time marching forward and backward.

The Saturday Blog: The Gamelan

02 Saturday Nov 2013

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Art, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Sultan’s Palace. Yogyakarta.

Indonesian musicians listening to music.

Indonesia, Part 5: Pemuteran, Bali

28 Monday Oct 2013

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Bali, Indonesia, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50, Travel

Bali rice terraces.

BY JULIE SEYLER

The island of Bali is all that it is cracked up to be: rolling, verdant, rice terraces, tropical flowers in every hue, massages and facials galore, temples everywhere, and fabulous shopping. I have never read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love, so had no preconceptions of the island except an overall sense that it is supposed to epitomize beauty. It does. But the photos do not do it justice.

Birds of paradise.

The beauty comes from the entire vista; the panoramic scope of a landscape treated well by its inhabitants. There is still hands-on tending to the rice in much of Bali, although it is slowly being leeched dry by the tourist trade. (Mea culpa.)

Our first introduction to this island of lushness was on the drive from the airport in Denpasar to Northern Bali for a couple of days of snorkeling. We stopped along the way to buy fruit we had never eaten before, like mangosteens and jackfruit,

Jackfruit.

and to see a temple called Pura Ulun Danu Bratan. It is not so old (1926), but because it honors the goddess of lakes and rivers, who helps make the rice grow, it is very important.

It is built on an island in the lake, and is quite festive in spirit. The goddesses and gods, like Ganesha, the elephant god, were draped in various colored cloths, and protected from the sun by fringed parasols. There were priests dressed in white preparing for a ceremony and families out for an afternoon stroll and of course the group tourist trade in droves. The grounds were lush with orchids and trumpet flowers and hibiscus. As we wandered around we came upon a sort of private-mini avian zoo of various exotics, like giant bats and mega-toucans.

If you wanted to, you could have your picture taken with one of them. (I have a funny feeling this whole business might not be permitted under some law of the U.S., but cock-fighting, albeit illegal, is an open sport in Bali.) In any event, the collection was interesting, and the animals looked awfully well taken care of. Ultimately I could not resist having my picture taken with a wise old owl. (Forget the bat.)

So after indulging my need to play consummate, hokey tourist, we moved on to a waterfall hike, and about 4:30 arrived at our destination – Pemuteran, a small village on the cusp of a development boom. According to our guide, Pemuteran is what Kuta in south Bali was like 20 years ago. There was our hotel, and a few more dotted along the beach, but no shops and few restaurants. We had come to snorkel, and there really was nothing else for us to do but relax. What I did not know was that we were going to be doing nothing in a place with so many delectable options of where and how to relax. Therefore, I never really relaxed.

There was the private plunge pool to constantly dip into, especially at night once the stars emerged. Then there were the choices of where to sit or lie: the veranda located directly in front of the pool, which was furnished with inviting armchairs, perfect from which to sip a Bintang beer, or the double-wide chaise, with soft fluffy pillows perfect to take a nap on. But the piece de resistance was the upstairs sitting room, reached by an outdoor staircase, which hovered above the pool. It was equipped with chairs, a desk and a mosquito-netted daybed in case we wanted to sleep outside.

The whole place was a little slice of paradise. But before I could take a nap or read a book, I had to fit in a facial, a massage and a reflexology treatment (all at price points one-tenth of what one pays in New York City), plus the snorkeling excursions. And we only had two days. There was way too much to do, but we managed to do it all.

The Saturday Blog: Headshot

26 Saturday Oct 2013

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Art, Halloween, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Is he trickin’ or treatin’? Photo by Julie Seyler.

This photo, taken through a barber shop window in Manhattan, reminds us that Halloween is coming.

Indonesia, Part 4: Komodo Dragons

25 Friday Oct 2013

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Indonesia, Julie Seyler, Komodo Dragons, The Write Side of 50, Travel

Welcome to Komodo Land.

BY JULIE SEYLER

It takes four hours by boat from Labuan Bajo, on Flores Island, to see your first Komodo dragon:

Komodo on Rinca Island.

They are the largest lizards on earth. Mighty predators that will eat anything. We saw a few collector buffalo and deer skulls on our trek (the rangers’ sense of humor), but according to our guide, the last attack on a human was back in 1988, when a little boy died. All they need to do is give you a swipe with their bacteria-laden tongue and you’re a goner – slowly poisoned. Then they come around and lick you clean. But however deadly they may be, they are otherwise not particularly interesting creatures to observe. Basically, they lie there. Sometimes, they move an eyeball, or lumber an inch or two on their short stumpy legs:I guess they are hot, tired and lazy, which is better than them being active and feisty. I certainly don’t want to be nabbed by that: They live on Rinca and Komodo Islands, and the ride there and back includes snorkeling off a pink sand beach, sleeping on the boat under the stars, and eating some wonderful local food: fresh caught fish, the ubiquitous noodle dish, mee goreng, tons of bananas and the best watermelon ever. It does not involve running water or a toilet that flushes. But it is one beautiful boat ride: The sea shifts from turquoise to aquamarine to transparent cerulean. A sea that crystalline is a finite resource because we keep mucking it up. For now though, it is still pristine, broken up only by thousands of small brown islands dotted with sparse vegetation and, occasionally, a fishing village:

Can you see all the blues?

Then you arrive at Rinca Island, where you are given a choice of a short, medium or long walk to find Komodos. We chose the long haul (in 98 degree heat at 1:00 in the afternoon), and saw three dragons slurking around some holes a mama had dug to lay her eggs in, as well as indigenous megapode birds, and lots of water buffalo actually hanging around, and in, a watering hole:But no more dragons until we returned to the ranger station, where they seem to hover, thereby guaranteeing that a tourist who travels zillions of miles, will see a Komodo dragon:We reboarded the boat, and headed farther east as the sun sank, and docked near Komodo Island so we could start our second hike for the dragons at 7 the next morning. The trek was gorgeous,but we did not spy a dragon. Instead, we had our best best birdwatching session for non-birdwatchers: falcons, a golden oriole and a cockatoo: Back at the ranger station, there they were – perfect chameleons laying about, allowing us to take a photo or two: It was about 10:30, and time to start the return trip to Labuan Bajo, but there were a few more pit stops for snorkeling in that AMAZING body of water. And then it was over. We were back on dry land, missing the boat, but loving the shower. The next day we had an early morning excursion to a cave of dripping stalactites with such pointed spears you had to wear a helmet to protect yourself not just against the sharp edges, but also the fruit bats and spiders that inhabit the cave: A quick stop at the local market: And a mad dash shopping splurge for ikats at the airport,