Bread and Bread

The last time I had a reading planned, I canceled it to stare nervously at the wall while waiting for biopsy results. We all know how that turned out. But the first hint that I might be slowly turning the dial away from the all-cancer-all-the-time-cancer-channel phase of my life (knockonwood) came the other day the frozen yogurt shop. “Excuse me, can I just say—” began a woman at the next table. Here it comes , I thought, bracing myself for a comment on how brave I was to have not found a way to magically keep my follicles from releasing my hairs while on chemo. “I really like your purse,” she said. Friday night I gave my first reading in seven months, opening for Sean Carswell at Skylight Books. It was a friendly, mellow, well attended reading, with a bucket of PBR fresh from the liquor store and no ice. I read a little bit of my near-future story about genetic testing. Jim Ruland read about karaoke in Alaska. Sean read from his new book, Madhouse Fog , which promise...

A few weeks ago on Good Food —which I listen to with the non-participatory fascination that many people watch Inside the Actors Studio —a guy who might have been Michael Pollan was talking about how until relatively recently, meat was a special-occasions-only food in most cultures. This had to do with scarcity and the sneaking feeling that it was a slippery slope from munching on a roast pig to cooking up a fellow human. They developed elaborate rituals around meat eating to ensure it couldn’t be done to excess. With the exception of a petite slice of mozzarella in a Caprese salad made by our friend Hataya, I haven’t had fish or more than bite-sized bits of dairy since Earth Day. Portobello, grilled onions, cucumbers and hummus on marbeled rye. Well, I did nibble at a rind of brie last weekend. The rind is my favorite part. B and I used to argue about it—she thought the rind wasn’t meant to be consumed, and that it would poison me. (Her preferences were never preferences;...

It’s been two weeks since I made the bold decision to kinda sorta* be a vegan for, you know, a little while. Last night I dreamed I was in some unnamed war-torn country in which bands of guerrillas charged down the street, setting stores on fire and yelling, “Revolutionaries go to that side of the road, conservatives to that side!” Whichever side you picked, you got shot. In the dream, I was looking for a good gelato place. So, I guess you could say there’s a lot I would do for dairy. I miss lattes and Greek yogurt. And without fish, soy, eggs or milk, it can be hard to get enough protein. I’ve been eating a lot of beans and nuts. If you are imagining a pot of red lentils soaking on my kitchen counter, great, keep imagining that. I’m imagining it too. They’re organic and I got them at my local famer’s market! I brought my own container, so no plastic was involved! Just don’t imagine me at Leo’s Mexican Food ordering a bean and cheese burrito, hold the cheese, while my gr...

1. my best life may or may not contain cheese It’s the first day of spring. I love new beginnings—I love the metaphor of life regenerating after a long hard winter (we had SEVERAL DAYS OF RAIN this year in L.A.). On a less poetic front, I love an excuse to convince myself that starting now, I’m going to do it all right. I know better, and I know the danger of this myth, but the more I see it for what it is, the more pleasure I take in it. This spring, I’m telling myself that I’m going to sidle up to veganism. I’m going to keep eating fish, and I’m not going to check every baked good for eggs, but I’m going to try to eat less dairy. Estrogen-positive breast cancer and all that. Right now I’m at Poquito Mas, where I just ordered beans, hold the cheese. It took more willpower than you can imagine. According to Facebook, my primary news source, it’s also International Happiness Day . Despite my love of new beginnings—or maybe because of my susceptibility to self-improvement na...