Tag: New Yorker Magazine

Girl with Wall Street Protest SignWhen the Occupy Wall Street kids shout “MAKE ‘EM PAY”, they don’t mean make’ em pay $15 dollars a half-pint for apple butter at Zabars. But those bankers would, because they’re too lazy — I mean, too busy, too busy gambling with your money — to make their own.

For the rest of us mere mortals (the other 99% of us) and for the 1 in 5 residents of New York City who are now living in poverty according to the latest statistics, I offer you my recipe for apple butter. There’s nothing better in the dead of winter than a slice of homemade whole wheat toast slathered with apple butter, eaten at a window while watching the birds cluster around the feeder.

And one last thought, brought to you from New York City, too, from one of those kids occupying Wall street . . .

I was pouring over Saveur Magazine, trying to come up with some ideas for Dave’s birthday dinner when I read an article about a meal in Lebanon.

Dave’s family lived in Lebanon for a year, so the title caught my eye. I was moved by the idea of friends told to gather “whether there was a cease-fire or not”, their way guided by votive candles, lighting the blacked-out street and stairwell.

I think of my friends sometimes as those votive candles, lights that guide me through dark moments, and the article made me want to give them the same experience as the author—who turned out to be Carolyn Forche.

In the clear light of day, however, I realized I would need a staff to prepare such a feast. With twenty-nine trees to plant and two huge boxes of bulbs from White Flower Farm sitting on the . . .