First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? A Vegetarian

My Christmas Eve dinner menu was set until yesterday, when I learned that one of the guests is a vegetarian. Actually, he’s a pescatarian, but that didn’t let me off the hook, since the main course I’d planned was filled with meat. For about a minute, I considered racing off to Santa Monica Seafood, which is hands down, the best place in L.A. to buy fish. But the idea of waiting in a frantic line was more than I could deal with. I quickly flipped through my most reliable cookbooks, and came across a delicious spanakopitas recipe that I’d served the last time vegetarians came for a meal. The Christmas miracle? I had most of the ingredients on hand.     Continue reading »

Go Hug a Dog

When friends fall madly in love, I invoke my 3-month rule, to make sure I give them adequate space for the “gaga” phase. But after 3 months, if a newly coupled friend doesn’t have quality time for me, I start to get huffy.

One of my closest single buddies is occupied with a promising new romance, and I’m thrilled for him. With the pressure of the holiday season in full swing, I’m also feeling sorry for myself. I checked out a previous post, 7 Ways To Dig Yourself Out of a Bad Mood, and realized I must’ve been in a really good mood when I wrote that, because right now, NONE of those ways are working. I’m going to try hugging my dog.

Thanks to all who entered our first CONTEST, Surviving the Holidays When You’re Single. Winner(s) will be announced on Christmas Eve.

(Image: My beautiful and huggable Rose)

My Idea of a Good Time

The workaday world is grinding to its seasonal halt. You can feel it in the air and see it in the restaurants and streets spilling over with people who refuse to go back to work. Today when I heard the gezillionth Christmas Carol on the radio, I found myself relaxing into it, knowing that soon enough this time of year will be over, and Valentines Day will be staring me in the face.

Despite my plea on the importance of holiday planning, my personal game plan for Christmas Day (and Eve) are still fuzzy. But I’m determined to have fun. Over the weekend, I will carefully read through everyone’s comments from our first annual, Surviving the Holidays Contest (polls close shortly) and settle in to some expert advice.

(Image: Gary Taxali, Fun, 2009)

Tis the Season!

I don’t don costumes for the holidays, nor do I dress my pets in gay apparel. But then again, I’m no Tim Burton. This festive 1997 Polaroid taken by filmmaker extraordinaire, Tim Burton, is part of a major exhibition at MOMA showcasing the breadth of his art and other-worldly filmmaking career. Now through April 26, 2010 in New York. (This just made it to my list of holiday plusses.)

What Doesn’t Drive Me Crazy About Xmas*

I’m a holiday grouch. In the interest of finding some seasonal grace, I’m taking a verbal fast from the sentence (…fill in the blank)  is driving me crazy? For example, the long wait at the post office is driving me crazy. Or, the fact that I can’t find a spot in the parking lot of the movie theater because it happens to be in the same place as the shopping mall is driving me crazy. *Using Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas is driving me crazy. I’m touchy. You get the point.

To turn around my mood, I’m compiling a list of the nice things about this time of year. As of today, I could only come up with five. PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN.

1. People donating money and time to charities
2. More chocolate truffles than usual
3. Cooks really giving it their best shot
4. Truly unexpected gifts
5. Between Christmas and New Years, there’s a lot less traffic (in L.A.)

Don’t forget to enter our first CONTEST. Deadline for comments is December 18, 2009.

A Night for the Perfect Food

Cooking latkes (the Yiddish word for pancake) wreaks havoc on my kitchen, turning the floor and stovetop into an oily mess. But once a year, it’s worth it, to bite into the crispy potato cake infused with grated onion and salt (and to be the one with a stash of leftovers in the freezer.)

I’ll be serving them to a few friends this evening in honor of the first night of Chanukah. And though I can’t yet vouch for this recipe from Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking (after the jump) I’m going to give it a try. I appreciate that he allows for some leeway to reheat the latkes in a 425 degree oven, hours (or even days) after they’ve been fried, rather than insisting we serve them immediately from the pan. I am not of the generation of women (like my Latvian-born grandmother) who were happy to toil over a hot, messy stove, while their guests sat down to eat.     I want to join in the fun.     Continue reading »

CONTEST: Surviving the Holidays When You’re Single

HERE’S YOUR CHANCE TO WIN SOMETHING! (and the odds are pretty good)

Christmas muzak is starting to bug me, so I know the holidays are upon us. What’s the best way to glide through the holiday season when you’re SINGLE? You tell me.

Share your tip with us, and the best piece of advice will win a prize: Judith Jones beautiful and useful cookbook, The Pleasures of Cooking for One. As a book editor at Alfred A. Knopf for over 50 years, Jones has introduced Americans to some of the world’s great cooks. If I didn’t already own this cookbook, I’d enter the contest.

Comments must be received by December 18, 2009, and include your full name and email address. And since we still believe in hard copies of books, if you win, we’ll need a U.S. shipping address.

UPDATE: Check out the winning comments!

How Not To Be Anxious for the Holidays, Part 2

It’s high time to get squirrelly about the season. I’ve already begun my annual “I hate New Year’s Eve” rant. A few years ago, I experimented with spending December 31 alone. (I’d inched towards it a year earlier, by meeting friends at the movies and getting home well before midnight). By 2007, I was ready for the challenge of a completely solo New Year’s Eve. I prepared a lovely 3-course dinner, put a screener of The Great Debaters into the DVD player, and settled into a comfy evening in sweatpants. “This isn’t half bad,” I thought. Before taking the first sip of my martini, I had an odd sensation of liquid on my head. I looked up, and to my horror, saw water dripping from the ceiling. “This can’t be happening,” I cried out into an empty room. Yet there was no time for pity. I quickly moved my uneaten meal out of harms way, put a bucket in its place, and called a handyman, who miraculously came to the rescue and fixed the leaky toilet upstairs. If there’s a bright side to this story, it’s that I was lucky to be in place at the right moment, rather than coming home later to serious water damage. I heated dinner and rebooted the evening.

Holiday tip: Don’t get ambushed by the season. Plan ahead (and check your plumbing.)

(Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, 1968)

Shopping Tale from Cyber Monday

On Black Friday, against my better judgment, I went shopping. On the hunt for a marked down “puffer” jacket, I roamed through crowded stores ranging from The Gap to Neiman Marcus. I need the jacket (really, I do!) for a trip to Memphis this weekend, and though it may seem over the top to bundle up for Tennessee, I’m an L.A. weather wimp, with no real outerwear to call my own.

No one dragged me shopping, and I love a bargain as much as the next woman, but I lack the patience to comb through racks of unsorted merchandise for a gem in the rough.  (I’m not a flea market shopper either.) I prefer experts to do the curating for me, so that everything I look at is beautiful and easy to find. I often sit out sales, and live in regret when I hear about the amazing discounts I’ve missed. Which is probably why I hate online dating. Spending hours squinting at thumbnail photos of men I have no desire to go out with, in the hopes of finding that one decent guy (that fits), really depresses me.

On the bright side, it’s Cyber Monday and I counterintuitively darted to the mall, and found the cutest black puffer at H&M. This one fits like a dream, for only $49.95.

(Photo by Trent Parke, 2006, Magnum Photos.)

When Holidays Work

1. A close friend with whom I have no friction is here for a 5-day visit.
2.  This close friend is a floral designer (and straight!) and schlepped 3 dozen flowers on the plane with him to decorate the Thanksgiving table.
3.  It’s 75 degrees and sunny in Los Angeles, but chilly enough in the evening to feel like autumn.
4. Everyone in my immediate circle is in relative good health.
5.  Earlier this week, I got a holiday bargain, enabling me to completely side step Black Friday and still feel satisfied.
6.  Food shopping, DONE. Kabocha squash and fennel soup, DONE. What’s left is cooking the fun stuff.
7.  I’m feeling relaxed enough about my to-do’s that I’m heading to the movies.
8. The ballet studio I go to is open on Thanksgiving. More exercise, more food.
9.  No recent dating mishaps to angst over. Haven’t been on Match.com for a week.

(Photo: Elliott Erwitt, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon, 1986. Magnum Photos.)