Julie’s Noodles: a little bit of heaven in a bamboo steamer
When you’re a child, and your mom and dad have a favorite restaurant they like to take the family to, you naturally believe that the joint has been there forever, and will always remain. (What’s more, you don’t understand all the work it takes to keep such a place going and attractive.)
But like all things made of man, it is temporary. (Unless of course it’s something like McDonald’s or Taco Bell, which are as permanent and unchanging as a Styrofoam container in a landfill.) The enchilada house burns down (as happened to the treasured La Casita of my Denton, Texas childhood). The barbecue pit gets behind on its taxes or lease payments. The pasta joint’s owner gets sick, or, god forbid, dies. Some bright kids get sent to college, graduate, and settle into high-paying professions, and their parents’ Chinese restaurant, having thus served its purpose, closes its doors.
So as I’ve grown older I appreciate even more those mom & pop places that are welcoming, cheap, and highly competent at what they do. I gather me rosebuds, and cheese and onion enchiladas, and roast duck, while I may. One of the current standouts for me is Julie’s Noodles, here in Austin, a place that serves first-rate Beijing style noodles and dumplings.
It doesn’t pander to generic Chinese-American tastes: you’ll have to go elsewhere for cloying fillers like lemon chicken or sesame beef. On the other end of the spectrum of inauthenticity, neither does it countenance precious, overly-contrived “fusion”-style contraptions. No Szechuan tacos, no pork-belly-stuffed jalapeno poppers here. No aioli anything, thank goodness. (There is something called a “Beef Burrito”—sliced, spiced brisket rolled in a Chinese-style green-onion pancake—but that is just a case of lazy translation. And deliciousness.)
It does a few excellent things, inexpensively and with consistent craftsmanship. Pork-and-leek dumplings with thick, meaty shells, served steaming hot. Pork and crab soup dumplings, with thin delicate skins containing a little meatball and a spoonful or two of boiling hot broth. (Woe to the diner who carelessly bites into one before letting it cool! The penalty for such impatience is a burned tongue and a splattered shirt.) And their ja-ja mein: wide, mile-long home-made noodles in beef and black bean sauce. And not incidentally, they provide a clean, friendly, and unfussy place to enjoy the food in.
I consider Julie’s Noodles (and its culinary little brother, Chen’s Noodles) almost more of a public service than a commercial enterprise. It’s one of those places, like the Upper Crust bakery, that make this community a little nicer, a little more human.
Who knows how long Julie’s Noodles will be around, but as long as it is, I will continue to demonstrate my loyalty, with my wallet and belly.
Jonathan Eaton’s “In Praise of the Live Performance” tops our readers’ poll for best blog post of 2019
Despite facing stiff competition, the novelist Jonathan Eaton’s essay in support of the theatrical arts, “In Praise of the Live Performance,” centered around a no-wardrobe malfunction he witnessed during a Skokie Community Theater production of Equus, has won the first annual Garden of Eaton Readers’ Choice Award.
It was a long, hard battle. The Overseas American votes favored posts with an international angle, such as “ANOTHER COUP FOR BRITISH INTELLIGENCE”, about the internal diplomatic cable that leaked all over the carpet. The evangelical wing of our audience voted for the pious sentiments expressed in “A Prayer for the President”, ignoring the fact that it was posted after the contest was announced, making it ineligible for this year. Progressive Texans and armchair historians supported the daring and remarkable “I Live in Slaveholder, Texas.”
But after the electoral dust settled, the Garden found itself in an unprecedented predicament.
A predicament! Without predecent!
“In Praise of the Live Performance” and “ANOTHER COUP FOR BRITISH INTELLIGENCE” were tied for first place, at one vote apiece!
According to the Garden’s ancient and hallowed bylaws*, if the contest should end in a tie, the winner is decided by the Plenipotentiary Ad-Hoc Subcommittee on Dealing With Shit.**
After urgent consideration over a cold beer, a nice nap, a lovely lunch, and another nap, “In Praise of the Live Performance” emerged as the winner.
As the judge remarked, “It just stood out.”
Congratulations, Mr. Eaton!
*established by me, just now
**committee chairman, sergeant-at-arms and sole member, me.
I believe there are two types of great writers in this world: those who seem to have been born with an inexplicable knack for it (Jane Austen, Isaak Dinesen, Yukio Mishima, Mark Twain, to name a very few), and the rest of us.
If you are human, and your eyes are open, and your heart is open, and you have the temerity to write honestly about your experience, you can write something well worth reading.
About thirty years ago, I was judge of a short story contest sponsored by a community college. The record will show (if the record still exists) that there were three persons on the panel, and I was none of them. The reality is, I was all three (and that’s a story for another time). I awarded the first-place prize to a woman who wrote a story about a woman who was so envious of the love and attention the family dog got from her husband and her children, that she began turning into a dog herself.
I heard that at the awards ceremony, she said she hadn’t submitted the story with any hope of winning—in fact, she had only submitted it because submitting a story to the contest was the assignment of the week for her English class. She said getting the award changed the way she felt about herself—that for the first time in her adult life, she felt like what she had to say—how she saw the world—was significant. I don’t know if she continued to write (or if she even wanted to), but I hope that feeling of pride in her own voice stayed with her for as long as my memory of her remarkable short story has.
Those of us who want to write, but weren’t born with the inexplicable knack, can still be great. We all have something no one else has: our own experience and our own voice.
I’m not encouraging everyone to write. I’m not one of those who believes that everyone should write, just like everyone should brush their teeth. But if you do want to write, and what’s holding you back is that you don’t think you’re any good at it, or you don’t have anything to say, I beg to differ.
Here’s some tips for the beginner, which you can trust absolutely as having come directly to you from a beginner:
If you can’t think of anything else to write, try writing yourself a letter. Write as if you were your own BFF, and hadn’t seen or heard from yourself in a year, and you want to catch you up on everything that has happened in your life. Remember that honesty is key here.
If you want to write a story: Explain nothing, just tell the story. Don’t make your characters explain anything, just let them speak. For the advanced beginner: Try coming at things sideways, just for grins.
If you want to write a scene: Get the scene in general in your head, then imagine that somewhere in your scene, you have hidden a beautiful gem for your readers. Take a long walk and think about what that gem might be, and where it might be. Keep walking until you find it.
If you want to write a novel: Join a writers group. Don’t think of your fellow writers as critics of your work, think of them as people who will show you how your writing affects people. Remember that the first priority of a writers group is to encourage people to write. Take criticism humbly and with an open mind. It’s bound to hurt a little bit, sometimes, but you can handle it. Give criticism kindly. Perhaps the best advice I can give concerning criticism in a writers group is, it’s often less hurtful and more productive to say “Tell me what you were going for here” than “This doesn’t work.”
One last piece of advice: Read Isaak Dinesen’s “Seven Gothic Tales”, and Freud’s “Psychopathology of Everyday Life”, and Vonnegut’s “Long Walk to Forever.”
Finally, what some might say in anger or frustration, I say with love: If you’ve got something to say, say it.
“Can you believe that I will be impeached today by the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, AND I DID NOTHING WRONG! A terrible Thing. Read the Transcripts. This should never happen to another President again. Say a PRAYER!” – the president of the United States of America, December 12, 2019, via Twitter
Dear Lord or Lady in Heaven,
I know you know I’m a Jewish atheist but at this point I’m willing to try anything.
I do not hate the Trump “base,” LOLIH. They know not what they do in their ignorance and funny red hats. They are but victims of cynical pandering, Russian misdirection, and thinly veiled white nationalist rhetoric masquerading as journalism. In other words, Fox News.
I pray today that You will touch their hearts, O Lord Or Lady, that they may see the error of their ways, and the benefits of a single-payer affordable healthcare system. I also humbly pray that they will start to take the roasting and drowning of this planet, Your awesome creation, seriously, O LOL. But most of all I pray that they will repent of their Tea-Party ways and rid the White House of…well You know who. The Orange Face of Anger. The Manhattan Mephisto. The Vile Tweeter of Vitriol. The Prince of Snarkness. We get the joke, L or L, but it’s just not funny anymore.
Give unto us a President Pence. The man has some problems, sure. For example, he lives in an imaginary world in which he leads a crusade against a fictive ‘war on coal’. But we’ll taketh what we can getteth. You gotta admit, he’s pretty super in the church-going line. (As a manner of speaking only, L or L! I know You don’t ‘gotta’ do anything!)
I know You’re quite busy, Lord/Lady, as the cosmic CEO. I don’t ask you to enlighten every deplorable. But if You could see Your way to touching the hearts of at least, say, 20 Republican United States senators before the impeachment trial comes up for a vote…I’ll convert!
Don’t think I mean it? I dare You!
Also, if You wouldn’t mind causing the nail salon in the strip-mall next door to my apartment complex to revert back to the great little Italian joint it used to be? Cause now I have to drive to Lampasas just to get linguini with clam sauce! I know You didn’t mean for that to happen!
Thanks, Lord or Lady, and keep up the mostly good work.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party secured a landslide victory in the British general election[…]The election marked a sharp realignment of the country’s election map along lines shaped by Brexit. Johnson ran on a platform to “get Brexit done,” a promise that seemed to win over areas that had voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum.– “U.K. Election Results Map: How Conservatives Won in a Landslide,” New York Times, December 13, 2019
It’s not true that we Americans have a stereotype for the Average Englishman. We have several.
There’s the overeducated nob, probably the Twentieth Earl of One-Thing-Or-Another, who can quote Horatian odes in the original Latin but needs help buttoning his jacket. These are the ones generally in charge of running the country.
Then there’s the rough and ready northern factory worker or Welsh coal miner who loves to grumble about the class system and makes a hobby of going on strike but is the first to sign up whenever his green and pleasant land is threatened by Bonaparte, say, or The Hun.
Then we have the uncomplaining lower-rung bureaucrat who lives with his family in the kind of narrow two-story row house that we’ve all seen in a thousand BBC movies and TV shows. His idea of a great time is sitting in front of the telly in an old cardigan and slippers on a Sunday afternoon, drinking beer and watching so-called “football” or some inane variety show on the telly. He’s almost American.
And finally we have those thuggish louts with shaved heads who like to go to soccer matches on the continent, get drunk, urinate on the local sacred monument, and beat up their counterparts from Germany and Holland. But no one here thinks his kind is representative of the nation.
In general we have an impression of the British as a slightly better version of ourselves. Polite, worldly, moderately progressive. You’ve gotten over your resentment at losing Empire. But that history means that you’re quite used to rubbing shoulders with third world chaps. London neighborhoods as well as newspaper offices and newsrooms are filled with brown and black faces in addition to white ones. Unlike Americans, who vacation mostly in America, Brits vacation in places like Spain, Cambodia, and Kenya. Watch a news report about an NGO bringing clean water or vaccinations to a benighted African or Bengali village, or saving elephants somewhere, and the person running the operation usually seems to have a British accent.
Sure, you had your Thatcher era. But no one’s perfect. And that Brexit referendum? Well, you just got a bit complacent, that’s all. Too many sensible people stayed home because no one thought such an evidently stupid idea would ever pass. Like what happened to us in 2016. But now you know better, right? Right?
So what the hell happened, England?
Is the fabled English penchant for playfully masochistic sex now transformed into a kind of national mania for real self-inflicted pain? Do you feel guilty about all those years of duty-free Bordeaux? Do you miss those long waits in customs and passport-control lines? Or do you secretly just want to piss off your sensible Scottish and Irish neighbors who want to stay “in”? Or are you weary of having a voice on the world stage? I suppose it has something to do with your immigration problem—which is what, exactly? Or self-determination. And what is so important that E.U. membership prevents you from self-determining? Please explain it to me, England…’cause I don’t get it!
Are you really so resigned to a future of mediocrity that you would turn your fate over to someone like Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? The con-artist with a bespoke education? A man whose pro-Brexit position, so late in arriving, was so transparently a political calculation? A yellow journalist who claimed in his newspaper column that staying “in” would result in bans on teabag reuse and balloons—claims which are simply lies?
Is it the man’s charisma? The magnificent hair? The habit of speaking to reporters by mumbling as he looks at the floor? Is this the best you can do? Did Nelson die…for this?
Oh, I know what you’re thinking, England. You’re asking what gives me, an American, the right to question anyone else’s political choices? Haven’t we done just as badly…or worse? Isn’t our president something like a louder, semi-literate version of your prime minister?
But this is the thing, England. We expected better of you than of ourselves. Where’s that vaunted British phlegm, that calm logical approach to problems big and small, that absence of hysteria, that skepticism towards easy nostrums and soapbox oration? Sure, other European countries have recently gone down the jingoistic, xenophobic rathole recently. But Italy is not Albion. They may be proto-fascist this week, socialist next week, and then Christian-Democrat again after that. And whatever they pick, they don’t really believe in it.
But if it can happen in England, it can happen anywhere. If you have the chance to undo a terrible mistake, but instead give your squalid, self-serving leader a second chance—in fact, given the new majority your latest election has endowed him with, an even better chance than before—to do bad things to your country, then so can we.
I wish to set the record straight about some rumors that have begun to circulate in the cybersphere. The truth is that the global campaign to “save” the “planet” from overheating and pollution by mandating the use of energy- and water-efficient technology is indeed nothing more or less than a ruse to make Donald J. Trump look silly.
Er. Sillier.
After an earlier experiment (code-named ”John Boehner”) exceeded our wildest expectations, we proceeded with a project to introduce “efficient” LED light bulbs whose real purpose to was to turn Mr. Trump a bright orange.
Or, as he would say, arange.
We were able to heighten the effect by adding “just back-from-a-ski-trip” type white puff-pads around the eyes. And the unnatural way the middle of his lips open when he speaks, while both ends stay shut? Some of our best work.
And we didn’t stop there. We are responsible for permanently freezing the Vice President’s face into a parody of a squinting Clint Eastwood-esque self-satisfied grimace-smile, and for Devin Nunes’ beady little weasel eyes.
We also developed a process to turn Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell into a nice frog green, but some of us felt that nature had already punished the man enough. We don’t pile on.
For the record, we had nothing to do with Kellyanne Conway. Also, Sean Hannity’s 1928-style haircut is all on him.
Why do we do these things? For fun, or course! Life isn’t all about just bringing the American economy to its knees by promoting useless environmental regulations, developing energy efficient technologies, and saving animal species with funny Latin names that no one even cares about.
Not all of our projects are frivolous, however. But our plan to use an infrared ray gun to increase the stiffness in GOP senator Lindsay Graham’s spine appears to have failed, and, judging on the evidence, may have made his condition even worse.
I don’t have time right now to explain our plot to make Americans flush the handle 10-15 times per bathroom tip. I’ll just leave you with this: sadly, it’s the only exercise many of you ever get.
the Garden of Eaton is beautiful but a bit prickly
And unlike our Republican friends, we don’t require 2 picture IDs!
As this hideous year slouches towards its conclusion, we pause to admire the sparkling jewels of wit and wisdom that bloomed (pardon the mixed met!) here in the Garden over the past 12 months. We have selected the best of the best, the crème de la freaking crème, the crispiest, longest French fries out of the fryer (the ones with the little bits of skin on the end) as our nominees for Best Blog Post of the Year. As ever, you, dear reader, are the judge! Vote for your favorite by posting a comment below by Friday, Dec. 20!
Note: this being the cheapest format that WordPress provides, you will have to scroll past a bunch of annoying ads in order to find the comments section at the bottom. But it’s there.
SCENE: The annual Harvard-Yale game. A HARVARD running back
strolls briskly towards the end zone, football in hand. A YALE defender hastens
to reach him before he is able to “score a touchdown”.
HARVARD: I say, what is all that fuss over there by the 30-yard
line?
YALE: Haven’t the foggiest, old boy. But from all the excitement it looks like
someone broke into the biology lab again and made a great heap of ethanol punch.
I say, would you mind possibly, er, picking up the pace a bit? Otherwise long
tradition holds that I must overtake you and shove you rudely to the ground.
HARVARD: Hang on a mo, it looks like they’re holding up…signs!
I can just make one out. Something about “Climb A Jane”…sounds intriguing,
what! Oh, and fall upon me if you must. I shan’t take it personally.
YALE: No, the sign says “Climate Change”.
HARVARD: Oh not that again. How tiresome. Haven’t those drudges with overdeveloped
medulla oblong-whatsits over at that trade school, you know the one…
YALE: Do you mean the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
HARVARD: Just the ones! Haven’t they sorted it all out yet? And
for heaven’s sake, make up your mind—do you intend to ‘tackle’ me or not? The
end zone is nigh!
YALE: The problem is, you see, that those science johnnies
have done a smashing job of explaining the facts of the matter. Now it’s up those
of us in positions of real power to actually, er, get the ice cubes back in the
tray before they all melt, do you see…
HARVARD: Nice metaphor, Yale!
YALE: Too kind, Harvard! What is the score, anyway?
HARVARD: I believe your boys are up by 7….
YALE: Well, I suppose it’s only fair to let you pass, then. Just allow me a tiny shove, for appearances’ sake…
HARVARD: That’s fair. Ow, that was a bit rough!
YALE: Oh, stop acting like such a Columbia Lion. Now what are
we going to do about this global warming mess?
HARVARD: I’m sorry, I must have been upset by all that
shouting. On Monday I’ll have my footman
wire my uncle on the Supreme Court and my cousin on the board of the World Bank
and have them look into it. I say Yale, would you mind getting off me?
YALE: Is that a serious question, Harvard? Just joking, old
friend. Only make sure they don’t upset the old money boat. A generous trust
fund is a terrible thing to waste on some perfectly survivable long-term catastrophe…
HARVARD: No worries, Yale, I’ve got your back!
YALE: And I yours!
HARVARD: And thanks for the wink-and-nod on the end-run. I won’t forget it, Yale.
In which we predict the hottest catchphrases of the 2020’s
stable genius: person of low intelligence and questionable emotional stability
Example: “Whatever you do, don’t put Larry in charge. The guy is such a stable genius!”
elector: to gain a position of power through a technicality, even though someone else is more popular or more qualified
Example: “Don’s the new CEO, even though most of the board voted for Liz. Somehow he got electored!”
pull a Rudy G: sacrifice one’s integrity and esteem for no apparent reason
Example: “Everybody used to love Rick. But after pulling that Rudy G, they won’t even let him join the West Avery Hills Saturday Morning Bagel Bunch Meetup!”
fake news: something that is absolutely true
Example: “You’re engaged? Girl, are you kidding me?” “No, I swear it’s fake news!”
The greatest [s.t.] in American history: describes a horrible or painful occurrence
Example: “Have you seen The Avengers XXXII yet?” “My god, the special effects sucked, the dialog was stupid, it was an hour too long, and the story made no sense. It was like the greatest cinematic experience in American history!”
Warren: female
Example: “Jane is so smart and has such great ideas! How come everybody feels so threatened by her?” “Cause she’s a Warren, duh!”
put ‘Kraineon: apply pressure on [s.o.] through extortion or threat
Example: “He says he won’t testify against his mother? Just put some ‘Kraine on the guy!”
let Mexico pay for it: avoid responsibility for a mistake or misdeed
Example: “Hey, I think I dinged that guy’s car door. Should I leave a note on his windshield?” “Nah, he won’t notice it until we’re gone. We’ll let Mexico pay for it.”
Melanize: survive a painful or depressing situation through denial and feigned indifference.
Example: “I know I’m in an abusive relationship, but until the divorce is final I’m just going to sit back and Melanize.”
when the president releases his tax returns: never. Example: Hey, could you lend me 50 bucks? I swear I’ll pay you back tomorrow!” “Yeah, you’ll pay me back…when the president releases his tax returns!
shoot one’s self in the other foot: to make the same horrible, needless mistake a second time.
Example: “Did you stay up last night watching the presidential election results?” “Yes, I can’t believe we shot ourselves in the other foot!”
1. Allow Barack Obama to run for a third term. Not incumbents in general, just Obama.
2. No universal background checks which infringe on our rights under the 2nd Amendment! Instead, anyone convicted of a crime committed with a gun will share their cell or gurney with the person they got it from.
3. Medicare for all except people who text at stoplights.
4. Transfer the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to the federal prison system and use the empty cells for the people who own JUUL.
5. Instead of the new aircraft carrier the Navy doesn’t even want, every day is National Free Beer and Bratwurst Day.
6. Free college tuition for everyone except psychology and communications majors. Unless someone can tell me what all those psych and communications majors actually do.
7. Every citizen between the ages of 21 and 71 must spend one continuous 24 hour period a year homeless. Except for, like, actually homeless people. They can spend the night in one of those empty homes.
8. Jeffrey Epstein will be re-generated from his own DNA. So he can spend his next life in jail.
9. Fossil-fuel corporation execs who have refused to acknowledge climate change will be exiled to rapidly dwindling icebergs.
10. Universal free nachos and margaritas for school teachers, veterans, and the nice lady at the bagel shop who always remembers my name.
11. Congressional Medal of Honor for Martin Scorsese and Greta Thunberg. And also my mother.
12. The ERA. Like, duh.
13. No-strings NEH grants for people who write clever blogs.
Dear Garden of Eaton or whatever you call yourself,
I have wrote you This Email because many of you are
wondering why would anyone Blow a Whistle against such a Great President?
And the answer is So Simple.
It is because the American People deserve The Truth. And to Tell the Truth about the Greatest
President Ever you need the Greatest Whistle Blower Ever.
Some of you in the Fake News Media have compared me to
Daniel Ellsberg and Deep Throat. So unfair! I Blow the Whistle at least a
hundred times better than Dirtbag Daniel or Deep Doo-Doo. I hear that from a
lot of people.
Garden Of, you made a very nasty post recently where you
said that Anonymous was Melania Trump. Not even Close! Though Melania would be a very classy Whistle
Blower. If she ever tried it. She better
not!
I cannot tell you Who I Am but if you think for a minute about
who is The Most Awesome Person right now you’ll probably get it!
It is a big responsibility to be this Country’s Whistle Blower
in Chief. But sometimes we get so Distracted by the Lying Media’s obsession
with a stupid Forest Fire (ok, whatever) or some supposed ‘Ally’ getting Ethnically
Cleansed (so fake!), and we forget about the Great Job that our President is
doing. And that is where I, the Greatest Whistle Blower in history, can help,
by making you Keep your Attention where Attention needs to be Kept.
Plus I have an awesome Book Deal. It will be the Greatest Book ever. And don’t worry, I can Blow the Whistle and write a Great Book and be The Greatest President Ever at the same time.
NOTE: In honor of Anonymous’ forthcoming ‘insider’ book about Donald Trump, we reprise this Facebook post from September, 2018.
FOR MELANIA TRUMP (aka “Anonymous”) To the tune of “Stand By Your Man” (with apologies to Tammy Wynette)
Sometimes it’s hard to be first lady Pretending that you love that orange ham Our USA has bad times And he has good times Doin’ things that no one understands
But if you love us you’ll subvert him No one else can make him change his plans! And if you love us, then please Mel, help us, And snatch those papers from his hands.
Stand by your man, So you can watch his actions And all his nutty factions Like freaking neonazis! Stand by your man That’s 24 by 7 Hold on to what control you can Stand by your man
The Garden of Eaton 