Lady Apples

How do you like them apples? If you answered "small" then today is your lucky day, my friend. The lady apples have arrived.

These tiny, rosy-cheeked, tart and tasty little guys are in stores now, and they are impeccable sliced up and tossed up in a salad of mache or baby greens, a splash of sherry vinaigrette, and slivers of shaved manchego. Or take them for a sweet turn with Martha's easy recipe for fun caramel lady apples.

Still mad for Mad Men, but especially the Mad Women

The second season of Mad Men seems over almost before it began. I don't know how I'm going to get through the long, cold, post-election winter stretching out ahead of us without it. But they went out with a bang -- or at least, the contemplation of one during Cuban Missile Crisis. All sesason long, Mad Men has successfully juxtaposed the simple but profound changes wrought by new technology -- television, the photocopier -- with its equal capacity for devastating destruction -- the American Airlines crash, the threat of nuclear weapons.

I know the NY Times is whining about the general melancholia of this season, but I actually found its depiction of its characters' confrontation of a new, horrific and unknowable reality -- and decision to seize it as a chance to fundamentally change themselves and their lives -- not only elegant, but inspiring. Peggy's move into Fred Rumsen's old office; Betty's random end-of-the-world sex and contemplation of an abortion; Peggy's confession to Pete about having his baby -- all of these prompted fist-pumping feelings of solidarity. While mindful of the desperation and pain that have moved the characters to these actions, knowing that we as a species came through that episode in 1962 more or less intact, I was happy for a prime-time example of the rare clarity provided to humankind by events like this. In the midst of a fierce crisis of our own on many fronts -- and confronted with an unprecedented opportunity for change -- I hope some of us will exhibit the same clarity and courage.

PoMs, and the End of Old

So, Saturday I went to the Sticky & Sweet concert in NYC.

Nothing bad about that: a best girlfriend came up to the city; we had some decadent times; saw the sights and enjoyed gorgeous autumns weather. All in all excellent. Madonna's concert was spectacular in the most literal sense of the word: Lights, costumes, dancers. Pharell Williams. A Rolls Royce. It was a great show: like you and 50,000 of your best friends dancing to a remixed version of Madonna's newest album and greatest hits, singing along and waving your arms and throwing up horns. It rocked.

That also was kind of its problem. Madonna is the best and worst of this show. She entertains you with two hours of the most imaginative, athletic dancing and soulful singing you can imagine, putting a whole new spin and a whole new soul into tunes you've loved for years. The trouble is, she does so after making you wait for more than 90 minutes. And then she berates you. "Stand up, New York!" she shouted. "You guys are pussies! Show some respect." The show opens with five minutes of her growling "My sugar is rawwwww" into the microphone. That's where the bar is set, and about where it stays. Show some respect?! How about the 90 steamy, dinnerless minutes we just spent waiting for that? We are prisoners. Prisoners of Madonna (PoMs).

But my fellow Prisoners did not care. The excellent thing is, she gets away with that because she is Madonna. And she is 50. And she makes being 50 look like the most awesome thing ever.

At the beginning of the show, she slowly emerges onstage, sitting at the top of a flight of steps, one leather boot-clad leg drapped nonchalantly over the arm of a giant black-lacquered throne, the back of which is arched in an elaborate "M". Her dancers bow before her and one of them hands her a tall pimp cane. Then she gets Pharrell and the Rolls. Then she does double-dutch jump-roping. THEN she undulates against a stripper pole on a mobile platform attached to a DJ scratching the shit out of a couple of turntables. THEN she thrashes on her guitar.

At which point I said to myself, "I want all that! The pimp cane. The rolls. The adulation of dancers and audiences. The guitar-thrashing. And most of all, those most awesome black leather Louboutins.

If this is fifty, sign me the fuck UP! I am so there!!!"

Considering that I don't play guitar, know Pharrell, have access to a Rolls or thigh-high Christian Louboutin boots, or have many screaming fans at this point, it's a good thing I have twenty years to work on this. Thanks, Madge, for the lesson.