Emma Crowe

ecrowe19

Travels in Spain: A Meat Journal

August 10, 2011 Dispatches

June 17, Barcelona
Burgers Recollected

After the sad burger I had on our layover in Brussels, I vow never to eat so poorly again, at least not while in the European Union. As my girlfriend Ashley and I touchdown in Catalonian country, a craving comes over me that only meat of the reddest proportions, fish of the freshest means, and cuisine of the finest and oldest preparation can fill. Waiting at baggage claim can be so torturous after a long journey, but there I recall that most excellent bite of food from my last trip to Barcelona. The stand out. The thing that made me come back. The McFoie. It was at Carles Abellan’s restaurant, Tapas 24. A “foie gras burger” of veal sirloin and foie gras constructed to look like a McDonald’s hamburger, a touch of home for any American who grew up on the flat beef patty, two pickles, and dallop of ketchup. The McFoie came rare and juicy, and with an artisan’s touch, too rich to be eaten too often, but with flavor so profound that I found myself dreaming of it as my baggage arrived and my girlfriend’s did not.

The Woods Behind the Palace Park

August 3, 2011 Dispatches

By IZA WOJCIECHOWSKA

There is a palace in a tiny rural village two hours west of Warsaw, with an orange mansard roof, two spired towers, and a park stretching beyond it. It is strange to think that in the 1940s, when war was grinding Poland into the ground, the palace still belonged to the prominent Radziwiłł family, who shared it with Nazis while members of the underground Home Army, villagers, hid in the woods behind the palace park. Here, planes dropped packages into a clearing among alders, cherries, and pines. They’d drop food or weapons, which the villagers distributed or took to Warsaw, and sometimes they’d drop men.

Finding Faulkner

July 27, 2011 Dispatches

By GREGORY CURTIS

Today’s dispatch from Gregory Curtis was originally posted on The Mailer Fellowship Blog, which features essays from students and teachers at the Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Curtis is a mentor to the Colony’s non-fiction fellows.

I like visiting writers’ houses. You see the spaces that enveloped their imagination day by day. You see the furniture they sat in and the paintings and photographs on the walls. You see the dishes in the kitchen. You see the books on their shelves and the bed they slept in. It’s possible to assume too much from all this, but what’s the point of going at all if you don’t make some conclusions from what you see?

Coming Home to London

July 13, 2011 Dispatches

By ROLAND KELTS

I was looking for a light blue raincoat. The bulbs were dim and the ceilings low. At Heathrow Airport’s Passport Control Center, the line of my fellow arrivals amassed in clumps, passengers slouching and scratching away the hours of cramped flight, fingering their cell phones and sleepily eyeing watches. There were browns, blues and starched whites—sweaters, jerseys, overcoats and t-shirts. But no light blues. Not a raincoat in sight.

Seltzer Man

July 11, 2011 Dispatches

By JULIA LICHTBLAU

Eli Miller, one of the last Brooklyn seltzer men, delivers his syphon bottles when he divines need. Calling ahead isn’t his style. He has a formula that factors days, bottles, weather, holidays. It’s always right, but his timing’s terrible. At five on random weekdays, the bell rings as I face an empty fridge or race out to collect a kid. He’s a walking library of Brooklyn lore, a writer’s dream. But I’m always too pressed to listen. He tactfully ignores my impatience. “Julia, you’re my favorite customer,” he rasps, his impish smile a surprise in his long face.

Lost Histories

July 6, 2011 Dispatches

By KITTY HOFFMAN

I already know Gaudi’s phantasmagoria: the commissioned houses that curve like ocean waves or flash in the sun as though they were covered in fish scales, the Art Deco-Gothic cathedral spires that replicate eternity via never-ending construction, the public park that simulates an underwater landscape. I already know the urban legend that Walt Disney, after spending time here as a young man, would forever replicate the fanciful stone gargoyles, arches and spires of the Barri Gotic in his cartoon worlds, and in the Fantasyland of his first theme park in California.

Brooklyn Reading

July 5, 2011 News and Events

Event Date:

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 – 7:00pm

Location:

Rocky Sullivan’s

We’re hosting a reading on August 17th at Rocky Sullivan’s (Brooklyn, NY). Come and enjoy an evening featuring readings by Brook Willensky-Lanford, Maura Candela, and Maria Terrone. The event starts at 7 PM and is free and open to the public.

After a Fall

June 29, 2011 Dispatches

By GAIL FOLKINS

The white horse at the railing stood alone, saddled and loose with no rider on his back. I searched for a person in charge, someone holding the reins and hidden from view behind the horse, but the gelding in the outdoor riding arena faced the morning clouds by himself.

After Rain

June 22, 2011 Dispatches

By BRIAN SIMONEAU

The wind comes warm as breath
and stirs me like laundry
on a line. Then it’s gone. Life
weaves itself together
from next to nothing;

Greenfield Reading and Event

June 22, 2011 News and Events

Event Date:

Saturday, July 30, 2011 – 2:00am

Join The Common at the Greenfield Arts Collective at Greenfield Energy Park in Greenfield, MA, between 2 and 9 PM on July 30th. Enjoy a live band, watch one-act plays, and listen to readings from a number of authors, including our contributor Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller!