On the Phone (instead of the Table) with Eric Ripert

So a couple of years ago, in 2011 to be exact, I had the opportunity to get "on the phone" avec Eric Ripert for an article I was writing about him, and Le Bernardin, for enRoute Magazine. 

I listened to the interview again about a month ago and really liked it (duh, obviously, I'm talking to Chef Ripert... what's not to like?) so I contacted his (lovely) press people and they graciously gave me permission to post it here, on my little ol' blog. 

Le sigh. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

Hajimemashite! Watakushi wa Urusura desu

My mother always liked to tell me that I could do anything I set my mind to so it probably came as no surprise to her when, after graduating from university, I up and moved to Japan. 

My interest in Nippon had been growing steadily since the age of 13 when I tried my first piece of sushi. At the time, there weren’t Japanese restaurants on every street corner the way there are now. Back then, Chinese take-out was considered exotic.

1st photo in Tokyo; vending machines 

So my love of raw salmon translated into a love of everything Japanese and at the tender age of 22 I put everything I owned into storage, as many clothes as I could possibly fit into one suitcase, and I was off.

The ride to the airport, besides being uncomfortable because my parents were in the same car, was somber. “You know they light people on fire in China, don’t you?” asked my father over his shoulder as he drove.

At the airport, things got worse. My dad, who was wearing the shortest short shorts known to man, broke down into tears while my mom made me check my ticket and passport for the millionth time, “just to make sure they’re still there.”

“Okay, well… see you in a year,” I said jokingly as I crossed the line into the unknown.

cheesu!

So this was my new home; a one-bedroom apartment in Koshigaya, Japan. Nice kitchen, nice living room, interesting washroom (how does that work?).

The bedroom floor was traditional and covered in tatami mats. Little did I know that it was also covered in hundreds, or thousands, of mites. “Mom,” I cried on the phone a couple of days later, hysterical, “it’s awful. There are mites everywhere, even in my underwear drawer, and I can’t get rid of them.”

My mother always liked to tell me that Dettol took care of everything. Parachlorometaxylenol, or Dettol, is a cleaning solution so powerful it doesn’t need advertising. It just works.

In the case of mites, it’s absorbed through their skin before it kills them as a result of toxic shock.

While the mites were slowly dying I was going through my own version of shock; culture shock. The honeymoon phase of my time in Japan had come to an abrupt end and I was no longer amused by people pulling out my “yellow” hair for closer inspection. Similarly, Japanese housewives wearing teddy-bear themed aprons at the grocery store made me want to commit violent acts. I was now knee-deep in the rejection phase.

JET photo; blondinka much?

But as any “gaijin” knows, this too shall pass.

Halfway through my stint in Japan I hit my stride. I could speak the language relatively well, I had made a couple of great friends and I was really enjoying everything Japan had to offer. On weekends, I would set out with a long list of things to do and actually do them. 

spot the gaijin, aka me

This is when my mother decided it was time for a visit.

purikura

Both she and her Japanese friend Taeko stayed with me for a week in February. Taeko is the person who first introduced us to sushi in Montreal so it was a little surreal seeing her in my very own Japanese pad (definitely not maxi).

It was still pretty cold when they visited and my apartment didn’t have central heating. My mother was shocked. 

“Couldn’t we put this space heater closer to us?” she asked one night as she shivered uncontrollably in bed (this coming from the woman who always told me to be careful about literally everything). 

“We could but we’d probably catch on fire. What would dad think then?”

4 and 3 and 2 and 1!

Like Uncle Albert and Bert in Mary Poppins, I love to laugh. 

 "some only blast"

Growing up in the nineties, I lived for watching shows like The Wonder Years, Perfect Strangers, The Golden Girls and, of course, Seinfeld. Also, Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live. 

I remember this one time when I laughed so hard during Perfect Strangers that I literally showered the television with the yoghurt that was in my mouth (TMI?). My mother was not impressed.

I don't own a television. As such, I don't want much TV. Not that it matters. There just isn't anything that funny on anymore. 

Or so I thought.

While I enjoy Girls and sometimes even laugh out loud while watching it, nothing is funnier than Broad City, a comedy series that debuted on Comedy Central in 2014 but started online in 2009 as a web series.

broad city theme song; latino and proud by dj raff

I just Wikipedia'd the show and found the description quite amusing: "Broad City follows Ilana and Abbi, both are self-professed Jewish feminist women that perpetually experience misadventures of carelessness and frivolity in New York City. Ilana seeks to avoid working as much as possible while pursuing her relentless hedonism and Abbi tries to make a career as an illustrator, often getting sidetracked into Ilana's hijinks." 

Hijinks??? Now that's funny! 

This is how I'd describe the show: Broad City follows Ilana Wexler and Abbi Abrams, two best friends in their twenties who, while broke, smoke a lot of pot and have a lot of fun while getting into their fair share of sketchy situations.

The second episode of the first season was called Pu$$y Weed. This is why:

"the vagnagna is nature's pocket" 

The show was created by it's two stars, Ilana Glazer (who plays Ilana Wexler) and Abbi Jacobson (who plays Abbi Abrams) who also happen to be best friends in real life. Glazer and Jacobson are alumnae of the Upright Citizens Brigade, an improvisational theatre in New York.  They met, and became fast friends, when they joined a sub-group of the theatre called the Secret Promise Circle. 

Amy Poehler joined the comedy duo as an executive producer for the final episode of the web series. Thanks to her considerable influence, Broad City got picked up by Comedy Central and the show went from 4 minute episodes to 22 minutes. And the rest, as they say, is history.     

Wikipedia describes the characters as feminists and while I wouldn't disagree with that, I don't think that's the central premise of the show. Broad City, essentially, revolves around the friendship between Ilana and Abbi, which is what makes it so relatable. 

To me, anyhow. 

And if you still need convincing, here are some of the funniest clips (I could find on You Tube):

the worldwide bloodstream

nature skills

to peg or not to peg?

ilana's intern army

abbi on the edge of glory

eight f**king thousand dollars

Good thing I didn't have any yoghurt in my mouth.

Oh, and one more thing. I die for Ilana's head dance:

A living language OR English on fleek

English, like you and me, is forever changing. It may not be a living, breathing matter but it is constantly evolving in response to a variety of factors including migration, culture and technology.

Especially technology. 

Just the other day I was struck by how technology, namely texting, had changed the way I use the English language (i.e: incorrectly). For some reason, I started using "high-larious" instead of "hilarious" when texting close friends a while back. When the time came for me to use the word hilarious in a "non-textual" environment, I couldn't remember how to spell it. 

Actually, that's a lie. I thought it was spelled the way I had been writing it over text.

Groan.

Because of how time-consuming, and frustrating, it can sometimes be to text (especially with my new killer claws) I've developed a slew of acronyms and abbreviations to save time: addy instead of address, b4 instead of before, k instead of okay and tom instead of tomorrow, for example.

The problem is, after repeated use of texting slang I'm starting to forget how to write correctly. 

And that scares me.

All of this got me thinking about the evolution of language, English specifically. Every year, the Oxford English Dictionary enters new words and revises versions of existing entries. The amount of new words the OED enters is nothing compared to the amount of new words actually being used by English speakers the world round.

2014 was particularly ripe with new words. As such, I've decided to dedicate this blog post to the top 10 new words that are "on fleek"  right now. On fleek, most obvs, is one of them.

All definitions come from the Urban Dictionary, unless otherwise indicated.

1. Amazeballs: a douchey/hollywoody way to say amazing, originated by a Youtube comedy duo named Jessica and Hunter and popularized by blogger Perez Hilton. 
*otherwise indicated: the word "balls" can be added to a variety of words, for no apparent reason. Shadeballs, for example, refers to a particularly shady, or "sketchy," person or event.

2. Bae: the most f@$#%&g annoying way to say girlfriend, boyfriend, crush, or any other sort of significant other. Commonly used by ghetto folks, swagfags, and annoying f$%ktards.
*otherwise indicated: ummm... alrighty then.   

3. Erday: means everyday, just slurred a little bit.
*otherwise indicated: erday I'm hustlin'.

 the boss, aka the teflon don, aka ricky rozay, aka rick ross

4. FOMO: a state of mental or emotional strain caused by the Fear Of Missing Out.

"my FOMO is through the roof!"

5. Hashtag: the battle cry of hipsters OR a way for people to search for tweets that have a common topic.

6. On fleek: when your eyebrows, eyelashes, outfit, makeup or any other s$%t like that is on point.
*otherwise indicated: the first time I saw the words "on fleek" was on JLo's Instagram. It was in reference to her eyebrows. I had to look it up. Embarrassing much?

7. OOTD: means Outfit Of The Day. Usually refers to a picture of someone's clothes found on social media such as instagram, twitter, pinterest, tumblr or facebook. 
*otherwise indicated: I had to look this one up just this week. At 39, I'm obvs a grandmother now.

8. Steeze: style and ease, you put it together and get steeze.  
*otherwise indicated: too similar to "skeeze" for me to use comfortably.

9. Turnt up: phrase coined by Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa that basically means to go HAM at a party, usually while intoxicated.  
*otherwise indicated: really??? I thought it came from this song...

 turn down for what by dj snake and lil john

10. YOLO: abbreviation for You Only Live Once. Also, one of the most annoying abbreviations ever.

*otherwise indicated: popularized by Drake in his song The Motto, along with "erday."

 the motto: drake, lil wayne and tyga

And then there's this... the battle cry of a generation:

 YOLO: the lonely island with adam levine and kendrick lamar

Can anyone guess what YODO means? 

LOL.