January 13

1/13

I always amaze myself with how unproductive I can be when there's no one watching me "work." I got less done in the entire weekend than in a single hour of work at "HQ" (Teresa's twee name for her apartment). Somehow I managed to cobble together something presentable for Teresa this morning - drafts of presentations on bioswales, green roofs, and the weather science workshops. Today was mostly spent amending those, and also making lugaw.

The doorman was sick, but no one could take his place, so he had to come in to work. Not the one who was there on my first day, and who knew my face and name by the second, but another, who is determined to bring back old-fashioned servantly deference. He calls people "ma'am" and "miss" and "sir", and not in the natural Southern way Christian has but something more forced, like an imitation of a butler from a sitcom.

Anyway, I made him lugaw (or arroz caldo, as people of Teresa's class call it) in one of Teresa's Staub Dutch ovens from the rock-hard leftover rice in the takeout containers in her fridge. She didn't have any meat with bones so I had to use vegetable bouillon for the stock, but with plenty of garlic and ginger it tasted just fine. Then I took a boiled egg which had been sitting around for a while, sliced it, and spread the spices in a fan on the bowl Teresa ladeled out for the doorman. Add a garnish of toasted garlic and it should make you feel better just from looking at it.

We didn't have the lugaw for lunch, though - Teresa has a palate which craves variety. She told that to Christopher, who was on lunch duty today. For the following half hour our work was punctuated with exclamations of "Italian!" and "Vietnamese!" and "Thai!" etc. Finally he decided on a Domincan place in East Harlem and ordered ox tail stew, garlic mofongo, chuletas, and extra plantains and avocado. The ox tail was awesome, and even Christopher with his stylishly birdlike appetite tucked away a huge chunk of fat and cartilage.

After that hearty meal Teresa decided we were all too sleepy to work anymore. I felt ok, but I put on my tall pleather boots and followed her out to Central Park anyway. We walked along the reservoir, which had been left gray gravelly soup by the recent thaw. To avoid my heels sinking down into the muck I walked on the concrete base of the fence, where I could look down and see all the ducks huddling at the edge of the reservoir. Teresa and Christopher were curious about the colors so I explained to them that the green-headed ones were male and the brown ones were female. They were amused to see that they were all in mated pairs, lined up in boy-girl order.

We passed the Guggenheim and a big church and I realized I'd never been in this part of the city before. It felt new and exciting and mysterious, like a scene in a dream.

When we were satisfactorily woken up we went back to the apartment. The lugaw bowl and spoon, washed clean, sat outside the door. I put them away and then we all went back to work.

At six I got a text from Dad saying Abigail wanted to go to Palisades Park to eat Korean food that night. I managed to extract myself from HQ in time to take the bus to meet them there at eight thirty. We had a seriously extravagant night on the town. First course was bananas foster honey toast, red bean porridge, sweet potato cappuccinos, and waffles with matcha gelato at Caffe Bene. Second was two huge bowls of comforting rice porridge (a lot better than what I made the doorman) at a porridge-only restaurant. Third and final (only because all the restaurants were closing then) was jajjangmyeon at the oldest Chinese-Korean restaurant in town. Now I feel myself slipping straight into a food coma and I've got to get to bed.