A Quarantine Note
“I could tell you my adventures— beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
Happy Day Four!
I hope you are well and coping. I’m not going to opine just yet on what all this means for real estate. For retail and restaurants and art and music and events and hospitality and communing with friends and neighbors. These times are slowly revealing interesting things about our foodways. About what and how we consume things. About us as social creatures. It’s too soon to know anything for certain, except that this will end, and we’ll all be different people when it does.
Strange things are certainly afoot at the Circle K
I’d rather share with you a Quarantine Reading + Watching + Eating List. Books I’ve read that you might enjoy. Movies you’ve probably seen but are worth revisiting. A list of what I’m planning to read, and one of my family’s favorite recipes that ought to be fairly quarantine-proof.
But first a note on how you can help local restaurateurs: At Revel our business is built on local retailers, artists and restaurateurs. Frankly our communities are built on them also, and they are struggling mightily. As a consumer, you can help right right now:
First the good news: the CDC does not believe COVID can be transmitted via food.
Get at least one To Go meal every day from your favorite local restaurants. Many offer curbside service now if you don’t want to go in.
Get meals delivered if you’d rather not go out, but call the restaurant directly and ask how they prefer to do it. This cuts a lot of the crushing third-party fees.
Buy local gift certificates now and use them later. Buy merchandise directly from operators (not Amazon): this is cash flow that they desperately need to stay afloat.
Donate to The Giving Kitchen
Ten Books To Read
All The Presidents Men hasn’t lost a single bit of its bite even now. Many forget it was published before Nixon’s resignation; the equally-good sequel Final Days covers those last months.
Parting The Waters: America In The King Years 1954-63. Indispensable. How hard were jobs to find for Jim Crow-era African-Americans? If you were a pragmatist who wanted a secure job, you became a preacher. If you were a dreamer who didn’t mind a life in penury, you became a lawyer.
Last Call: The Rise And Fall Of Prohibition. A perfect storm of progressivism, religiosity and xenophobia created the loopholed Volstead Act. But it worked: the average American man drank 1.7 bottles of alcohol a week in the late 1800s
At Home. Why do we have salt & pepper shakers? Or private bedrooms? A wonderfully interesting turn through every room of the house you’re now stuck in, by the engaging Bill Bryson.
Strangers In Their Own Land. Arlie Hochschild spent the early 2010s asking southern Tea Party members about their stories and their lives. If you had read her book in 2016 you would have bet all your money on Trump’s election.
Power Of Gold: The History Of An Obsession. Humans have fought for thousands of years to hoard a metal that has no actual benefit or use. Have you ever wondered why?
My Paris Kitchen. My most-used cookbook. Ex-pat American / former Chez Panisse pastry chef David Lebovitz has compiled wonderful stories and recipes from his life in Paris. Mustard Chicken (cover) is one of our favorites.
If you are one of our clients you have probably received a copy of Ten Restaurants That Changed America. No book better explains the American restaurant industry’s roots.
Minding The Store, by Stanley Marcus (of Nieman Marcus). “The path to success is paved by how you handle failure.” A must-read for anyone in retail.
Five Movies To Watch
We’ll start with Tom Hanks since he and Rita were the first actors to get sick (and recover!) Joe Versus The Volcano is by far his most underrated flick. Meg Ryan’s too. His character Joe Banks (no relation) is diagnosed with a terminal “brain cloud” and so decides to travel to Polynesia to throw himself into a volcano. May we all be so lucky (shoutout to Taylor Smith and my wife for both reminding me about JVTV).
Wag The Dog. To divert attention from a “Firefly Girl” scandal, the President’s fixer (DeNiro) hires a Hollywood producer (Hoffman) to produce a fake war with Albania. The dialogue is fantastic: “You think this is a setback? Try making ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.’ Three of my horsemen died two weeks before the end of principle photography. This is nothing.” Hoffman based his character on . . .
. . . Robert Evans, the most famous producer you’ve never heard of. His bio-pic The Kid Stays In The Picture details all the highs and lows of his fantastical career, derailed not by association with a murder trial or getting caught with a steamer trunk full of cocaine, but worse: for producing a flop. Before that he made some movies you might have heard of: Love Story, Marathon Man, The Godfather, Godfather II, and. . .
. . . Chinatown, still the best American movie ever made. Have you watched it in a while? It’s even better than you remember. Director Roman Polanski insisted on the unhappy ending: his pregnant wife Sharon Tate had been killed by the Manson Gang four years earlier. Bonus two-fer: watch The Big Lebowski afterwards and enjoy their many (intentional) similarities.
Some of the books and shows on my list. Your suggestions are always welcome!
St. Mark’s Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street. Calhoun
A Burglar’s Guide To The City. Geoff Manaugh
The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones. Rich Cohen
One Summer: America, 1927. Bill Bryson
Drinking French. David Lebovitz’s newest book
The Most Spectacular Restaurant in The World. Tom Roston.
There Was A Time: James Brown, The Chitlin’ Circuit, and Me. Alan Leeds
Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 (HBO)
Every season of The Crown (Netflix)
Salt Fat Acid Heat (Netflix)
I got married to my lovely wife in 2004 on a beach in Mexico and not long thereafter I started making her Chilaquiles on Sunday mornings. Now they’re my daughters’ favorite also. This recipe serves four, but it is easily halved or doubled, and the sauce freezes well if you don’t want to get up early.
1/4 cup of corn or canola oil
1/2 to 3/4 of a large bag of restaurant-style tortilla chips
3 large tomatoes
1 to 4 jalapeños, depending on how hot you want it
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 white onion, peeled and halved
1/2 cup cilantro leaves, divided
1 chicken bouillon powder cube, preferably Knorr’s
1 large shredded rotisserie chicken breast or 10 oz canned chicken (optional)
Toppings: Mexican crema or sour cream, cotija or feta cheese, pickled jalapeños
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add tomatoes, jalapeño(s), garlic and one half of the onion to a pot of water. Lower to maintain a strong simmer and cook until the tomatoes are very soft, 18–20 minutes. Add half of the cilantro (1/4 cup) and continue cooking one minute more. Drain the vegetables, discarding the cooking liquid, and let them cool.
Once cooled, peel and core the tomatoes and stem the jalapeños (for a milder sauce, remove the seeds). You don’t need to be a fascist about removing the tomato skins, but it is better without seeds. Transfer the vegetables to a blender and purée to make a smooth sauce. At this point you can refrigerate the sauce for several days (or freeze) and finish the remaining steps later.
Dice the remaining half onion and divide
Heat the oil over medium in your largest skillet. When hot, add one half of the diced onion (1/4 onion total) and cook, stirring frequently until softened and translucent, 7–9 minutes.
Stir in the reserved vegetable sauce and chicken bouillon, turn the heat up to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and add the tortillas chips and chicken (if using), gently stirring and turning to coat with the sauce. Simmer until the tortillas are tender but still chewy, 2–3 minutes.
Transfer the chilaquiles to warm plates. Put out crema, cotija, pickled jalapeños, remaining cilantro and raw onion for guests to top as they choose. A fried egg on top is never a bad idea. Serve hot.
It’s not all doom and gloom in retail. We are still busy with several projects, some in the final stages, others larger multi-year developments that are just beginning. In my next note I’ll take a stab at some of the New Normal trends we think we’ll see, from the grocery delivery’s moment in the sun to the return of fine dining and many other things in between.
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If you have any book or movie or podcast suggestions, please let us know! We may start making your suggestions a regular feature.
As always, thanks so much for reading. Be safe and well.
G