m a y

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A few weeks ago I was stuck in Charlotte, NC for work and trying desperately to impress a Michelin-starred chef. I was mostly just trying to prove I could do the simple adult task of correctly sending a Google Meet invite. My time zone was off from Chicago by an hour and his time zone was off by 12 more. And after one missed flight due to an airport acronym blunder, we had to reschedule for 24 hours beyond that. I was unsuccessful at this very basic task, due to the malfunction of my Google Calendar app and its acute awareness of my exact coordinates on earth, but the meeting happened when it was due in our respective time zones.

Today I am time traveling again. I am lucky and privileged enough to be on a plane eating the tiniest chicken tikka masala with Israeli couscous 9 hours ahead of schedule. A celebratory visit to one of my very best friends for a mark in time. Every time I travel I am brought back to the last flight I took before time stood still. I think about the time I sat on a beach in Koh Samui and read Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Now, on this plane, perched in my lap is his follow up collection of poetry, Time is a Mother, along with four other supplementary readings I thought I would bring, if nothing else to hold in my hands for comfort. So, to make the chicken taste better and the time go faster, I start with another mother classic, MFK Fisher’s Consider the Oyster. Daniel passed this one to me in the final minutes before I left. Because four books was not enough. 

“‘She savored her enjoyment with carefully sensual slowness, and then she sighed, as it came to its inevitable end…. Ah…what a pity that I do not have little taste-buds clear to the bottom of my stomach!’” See, Fisher is quoting Vaudoyer’s compersion, who is stealing a moment, a memory of another. “Often the place and the time help make a certain food what it becomes,” writes Fisher, “even more than food itself.”

Food is like this. Contextual, to say the least, and transformative at its best. In this moment, on this airplane, as the flight attendant is nearing row 35 seat H, as I listen and watch and size up who chooses what: the masala or the pasta primavera, I wonder where this in-flight meal is taking everyone.

I don’t know if you can tell, it’s me, Liz. The other txa you don’t hear from very often in these newsletters. Though they are assembled, designed and edited by me, Daniel is the chief writing officer elect for most of our copy, passages, recipes, poems, prose, stories, concepts, and not only because he has multiple merits to fit the bill, but because his dreamy style and intellect move most and challenge many. He is brilliant and so he will keep this role, but today, you have me. Because sometimes we are moved to stray outside of ourselves and say the things we have to say. And I hope I don’t disappoint.

This one is about time. Marks in time, travel through time, topographical crossroads of the psyche, the loss of and bartering for more. The slipping of sand through fingers. The hurry up and wait, the 5 more minutes please, the I can’t wait another minute time. The time we borrow, cheat, and steal. How we mark it, how we stand still within it, and how it moves through us. 

Last supper club was a dream. And for those of you who came to witness the magic, you know what I mean. It was a collaboration with two women who inspire people from so many artistic fields. To Tatine, to Margo and her right-hand woman, Nicole, and to all who joined and transcended time and space on that evening, thank you. Last supper club I did not want to go home. 

When supper club ends, the last candle blown out, the last glass washed and re-racked with its mates, the last of the delis are washed, and the last of the plates are packed, we make the trip home and up the many flights of stairs to the top of our three flat to unpack it all over again. It’s a process and one that Daniel and I have down to a science. It’s comforting, and therapeutic, as we spill our peaks and valleys, our yummers and bummers, of the evening. We laugh and giggle and tip-toe on sore feet and stretched raw fingers, and when we can’t do anymore, I make popcorn and we leave the rest for Saturday morning coffee.

This past coming home marked a moment in time. One month since the passing of our cat, B. The night of the supper club before I took her to the animal emergency center and 7 hours later we left without her.

For my 29th birthday Daniel wrote me a book called 29 Words. He printed, bound, and mailed it to my apartment that sat about 25 houses away from his. I remember the day I opened it. Sitting in my kitchen on Albany Avenue I shared with a roommate. That kitchen got such great light. I pulled the cardboard string where it said to pull and out came a book. I had a long piece of lace I found in my mother’s husband’s basement covering the wax and paint that caked the surface of the table. I worried the dried mess would ruin the thing. I ran my fingers down the hand-sewn spine fearful if I cracked it open, my heart would follow.

The book was beautiful. 29 names, assignments, bridges, connections, explorations. 29 reasons. 29 marks in time. Daniel and I were only slightly more than just friends. And at the back of the book a note read: There is a typo in here and I will take you to any restaurant in the city if you can find it (paraphrased). I sat in the kitchen in the light of the afternoon with B on the table, basking in the sun, and read every word. I have picked it up many years after the fact in search of buried treasure. I have never found it. I cannot spell.

These impressions are sharp and dull. I remember the light in the kitchen that day, the feel of the thread of the spine on my fingers. The wax on the table I feared would ruin my new treasure. For many of us, marks in time mean before and after. Post and pre. Who I was then and who I am now, because of. A tangible transformation. These marks are like notches on a belt. Divots on a dance floor.

Most English speakers talk about time in a linear sense. Two fixed points we are oscillating between, with little room for depth and too much focus on punctuality. Many languages use words connoting time as a shapely physical mass, a spherical subject, a muffin baking in the oven rather than al dente vermicelli stuck to the ceiling.

We used to joke we would taxidermy B when she finally passed. She was so pretty. Everyone who met her said this aloud. I think back now on those half day dreams, imagining her on a shelf. I wondered if they would be able to match the pale blue in her eyes. Maybe the afternoon light would catch the white and brown and beige waves of her Colorpoint coat that flowed down her back. “She’s just too pretty” we would say with a smile. Now, I see the dark midnight velvet bag that holds her ashes. Soft and still on my nightstand. Sometimes I move it on top of the stack of almost falling books, a little higher, a little to the left. They say blue is the most calming color. Which for me, defies so many laws. It's incredibly rare in nature and most of the time seen as a warning sign. The olivewing butterfly being the only true blue color the eye can see. Everything else is a reflection. Every time a blue word is muttered I think of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets:

“Fifteen days after we are born, we begin to discriminate between colors. For the rest of our lives, barring blunted or blinded sight, we find ourselves face-to-face with all these phenomena at once, and we call the whole shimmering mess ‘color.’ You might even say that it is the business of the eye to make colored forms out of what is essentially shimmering. This is how we ‘get around’ in the world. Some might also call it the source of our suffering.”

In sobriety the most asked question is “how much time do you have?” A key measurement of success. As a cook, as a bartender, as a person in hospitality, timing is everything. We tell time differently. Working in restaurants for 20 years means your worth is measured in “sense of urgency.” This makes one a desirable candidate. A person who can sense what is needed before the guest can think what is needed. 2 minutes in restaurant time is an eternity in real time. 

While floating backwards transatlantic through time and space, I sit with my little chicken masala and Fisher and my little oyster and I catch a wave of cerulean blue hair dancing on the back of someone’s headrest. It is Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey rolling around on a frozen pond and bouncing from memory to sad complicated memory, evading the inevitable, like we all do. “Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.” Kirsten Dunst quotes Nietzsche softly as she confesses her admiration for her boss, something she has done, unbeknownst to herself, many times before. The movie is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. One of Daniel’s and his brother, Sam’s, favorites. And admittedly, it reminds me of every transitional period in my life when I happen to catch it playing in the Target electronics aisle on the television or the back of the headrest, I can not look away.

I once had an old boyfriend tell me that the earth was speeding up. Little by little our cerulean blue ball is heaving itself as quick as it can off its axis. He said the years will go by faster and faster, and how unfair that his childhood was so long and his adulthood so short. He also thought the dryer was shrinking his jeans, but really it was all the grilled meat I was feeding him, and his overall general new relationship-comfortably-in-love-10-pounds we all gain when we are happy and happy to share too many extra pieces of cake.

I had another tell me everything good and exciting in your life happens before you are 25. He said the rest of the years are filler and that’s why he didn’t write songs anymore. I think he was quoting a very sad and very famous rock star, so forgive me. But sometimes I think my life just started 5 minutes ago. Every five minutes. And I am many years past the age of 25. Time is a meat grinder I have heard once or twice.

Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence also says time is a flat circle and that everything that has happened will happen again. Time will repeat itself. We are complicated people and these ex lovers are full and generous souls filled with kindness and contradictions like we all are. They made me who I am, and so have all of you, and for that I am grateful. 

A few weeks ago, on the first warm and very sunny day of the year, I was in my car driving home for work for lunch listening to a dear friend of mine who knows a thing or two about time and space and the severity with which it plays a role in people’s lives. B’s ashes had come that morning. Shipped to us in a small cedar box inside of a velvet blue drawstring bag. She said a thing about grief that pierced my heart. “Grief becomes you,” she said. “Moving through grief requires us to do a very vulnerable thing, and let it in. Let grief become you. Once you’ve touched grief, it never leaves you. But in my experience, why would you want it to? Our losses are huge and the lives we mourn are rich and vibrant — the fact that we can leave such an imprint on each other is profoundly powerful. We are so gorgeously linked that I have a hole in my heart where you used to be — that’s poetry in motion. Tragic and beautiful poetry. The ones we love never leave us, and grief is an example of that.” She is a beloved astrologer who you can find in the Hudson Valley area in residency at the Omega Institute. Jordan Shomer and her tender words on love and life can really transport a person to a place of peace. Give her a read, or listen.

I love the way Daniel talks about recipes. He often quotes Jacques Pepin, relaying that recipes can never be truly replicated. “When writing a recipe, one records a moment in time which can never be duplicated exactly again,” he says. “The paradox is that the recipe tells the reader, this must be done this way, when, in fact, to get the result you’re looking for, the recipe has to be modified each time.” For it is me and us and we will always have different circumstances. I will always be different, the climate more temperate, the day sunnier, the oven off a degree or two, my hand heavier. I will move through this recipe this time differently. Because I know more and forget something at the same time.

This supper club was a mark in time. A notch on a belt that felt too weak to fasten. And it broke. For this one I came home to an empty house. No pitter patter to meet me at the door, hands full and fingers stretched to the limit, burning with the teeth of the crate I was carrying full of plates and half full delis and linens. And for 15 years I have been very cognizant of how long the door can stay open before the cat takes brave and curious notice. This time the door stayed open the whole time. Between each trip from the car, up the stairs, to the kitchen. All 15 of them.

I have been many different people in 15 years. Many versions. Inventions, many failed, some faint and discreet still hovering dormant in the background. When B started getting sicker she found a spot in our art room. Atop a mountain of folded fabrics and forgotten sewing projects. A safe and quiet corner to rest. Many people ask us where the name TXA TXA comes from. But, what does it mean? Txa txa comes from the Basque word txoko. Literally it means cozy corner. A txoko is a society or club that comes to cook together. A collective. But more than what it means, it represents: a sense of time. Or past time. A way of dining representative of a way of life. When we started txa txa, that’s what we wanted our dinners to feel like: somewhere between noon in Barcelona, midnight in Bangkok. Transported across boundaries, culture, and era.

Last supper club, at Tatine, a guest told me after the meal that one dish took him to his grandmother's rhubarb patch where he used to sit and pick and eat the raw sour stalks. Another told me one dish tasted like his favorite cereal growing up. Another, a Butterfinger, their favorite candy bar. This is the point, you see? A memory woven and drifting with us through time and space, floating around like a blueberry in a muffin rather than a fixed point on the noodle. A time and place where your olfactory glands and taste buds are asked to expand and contract slightly further than where they anatomically rest. That is what txa txa is for us, and for others, I hope. 

I am different after this mark in time. I am different after this supper club. And, I am different after this recipe. And that’s a good thing. 

yours,

liz + dsp

last month:

t a t i n e

vol 21

This dinner was all about impressions. Specifically culinary impressions left on us from our travels to Sardinia and Thailand this past year. We were hosted by the small but mighty crew at Tatine Atelier, who styled out their uber vibey workshop with forest floor tablescapes, an earthenware punch bowl with grapes and laurel, and the entire evening was twinkling with the whips and curls of candlelight. We even sealed our menus with black wax as an homage to the lipophilic medium of Tatine’s art.

Our customary welcome cocktail was a riff on the white negroni. Using a base of Letherbee gin (Letherbee and Tatine are voisins in the converted Hammond organ factory space), we made a bitter and fragrant n/a aperitivo with chrysanthemum—inspired by the ubiquitous tea we had in Bangkok—dried geranium from our summer garden, white peppercorn, and nutmeg, the leading profile in the Italian n/a Crodino aperitivo. Guests were greeted in the candle room with the cocktail as they perused and sampled the vast selection of Tatine candles. 

We moved into the kitchen/work space for dinner, where tables for 34 were set with lavish floral runners and, of course, more candles. First course was a spread of nam prik ong—a northern Thai chili relish typically made with pork and tomato, and served with various crudité or blanched vegetables. We swapped the pork for jackfruit and served ours with blanched garlic scapes, snap peas, chive blossoms, and chicharronnes, also a common find on most nam prik ong presentations. Crudité and dip. Every culture has their variation. There’s verdure e bagna cauda in Italy, and the common carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower with ranch. The Thai version celebrates whatever vegetation is local and comes with a bit of fiery funk, as other variations of the dish compound the chilis with fermented shrimp paste. 

Our second course was inspired by an Italian classic. On our first night in Rome last September, we landed in a small, classic trattoria after dropping our bags at our room. We had the classics—pasta all’amatriciana, insalata di radicchio, and bresaola with arugula, walnuts, and pecorino. So for this menu we prepared a cured tuna bresaola (similar to the Spanish mojama), and served it with a thick, emulsified dressing of walnut, black garlic, and coconut, along with some crisp, bitter endive and torn pieces of betel leaf (a common component of Thai miang kham, or snack bites with betel leaf wraps). 

The next dish of the evening was a take on gaeng som, an infernal bowl of sour curry from southern Thailand, typically consisting of tamarind, turmeric, cabbage, green papaya, and, in most cases, shrimp. (Read more on this dish in the RECIPE section below.) We’re also suckers for cabbage rolls, so our approach was a shrimp and almond mousse-stuffed savoy cabbage roll, cooked slowly and covered until just-tender, surrounded by a pool of mouth-tingling hot and sour soup. We dialed the heat back to a conservative medium, but the real deal, unless otherwise requested, is diabolically piquant. 

Up next was slow-cooked pork shoulder—seared and braised in tamarind and coconut—with Sardinian fregola, a pearl-shaped pasta similar in size and texture to Israeli couscous. We wanted to incorporate saffron, present in Sardinia from nautical routes of the spice trade, with coconut for a creamy and aromatic component, as well as some rhubarb mostarda—the sweet and sour Italian agrodolce for a little tang to cut the richness of the pork, finished with a few threads of makrut lime leaf.

We pulled out all the stops for dessert. What we dubbed a MIRTO TERRAZZO is the center cut to a multi-channel Eular diagram. The dessert was a mirto (myrtle leaf) panna cotta studded with ectoplasmic green pandan-coconut jellies, deep amethyst grass jelly (‘bats cloak,’ or PANTONE #090609), and topped with crispy mung beans. Mirto, used all throughout Sardinia for both its leaves (think: bay leaf) in fish preparations and soup bases, and it’s bitter berry (like a blueberry with a tinge of road rage) in liqueurs and gelato, gave a richly fragrant and herbal note to the panna cotta. And then there’s the jellies and the mung beans. The jellies, along with a plethora of other sweet and savory confections, are not only common toppings for ice cream in Thailand, but are also found in the dessert called ruam mit, literally “all the friends together,” as it is many desserts in one. And since the jellies would be set in jiggly stone, so to speak, we wanted a nod to the beautifully speckled composite Italian floor design, hoping the dessert would leave everyone, well, floored.

No doubt, it was a night to remember. And we offer a very heartfelt thank you to Margo and Nicole at Tatine and to everyone who joined us for April Supper Club. We hope to see you all again very soon.

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comin’ up

GOLDUST—

VOL 22

friday 05.26.23 6pm-9pm

We’re extremely thrilled to be hosted for May Supper Club vol 22 by GOLD DUST WOMAN Studio & Salon. Helmed by trendsetting stylists Kelly Bush and Emily Katz, GOLDUST STUDIOS grinds against the grain of the commonplace hair salon. Emily and Kelly have been glamming up babes since 2011 and are tapped into the deep pulse of connection and creativity, crafting their studio to foster meaningful and transformative experiences, both in and out of the chair. 

We’ll be featuring a menu that strives to tell their stories of sisterhood and sustainability, as we dine in their gorgeous, airy West Loop loft space with a beautiful eastern view of the Chicago Skyline. So come, let’s shatter your illusions of love, and piece them back together as something entirely new. Rock on, ancient queen.

Though this event is sold out, we know that life happens, and sometimes, we have cancellations. We are currently taking names for the waiting list. Please email hello@txatxaclub to be added.

B R U N C H

gillin’ + chillin’

Sunday, May 17 @ 1PM - 4PM

Later this month we’ll be popping up on the patio at Judson & Moore Distillery as part of their Slow Start Sunday series. The grill will be lit and the snacks ready for slinging. No tix necessary, just swing by, have some snax by us and brunch bevs by J&M.

SHELF LIFE

FRIDAY JUNE 23RD

a collaborative DINING experience between artist, food maker, and guest…

6-10PM@

MANA Contemporary Arts

How do we determine what's relevant? What's saleable or marketable? What's fit for public consumption? SHELF LIFE is a collaborative investigation of how cultural associations of presentation and platform inform our assumptions about the value of food and art.

For this incredibly special one-off dinner at MANA CONTEMPORARY, we’re working with artist Dee Clements and inviting 6 Chicago based artists to create work in response to the theme of Shelf Life :

Grace Gittelman

Francisca Villagrana

Norman Teague

Olivia Juarez

Cody Norman

Seth Keller

These artists, working across various platforms and media, will create work that will be integrated into the dinner program and will be part of a silent auction throughout the course of the night. And yours truly will be curating and preparing a stunner menu in dialogue with the artists’ various interpretations of the dinner theme. 

Here we are considering ‘shelf life’ in both its literal and figurative implications, such as what it means to have an expiration date, or a timeline of gallery exposure. Does the value of art or a dining experience expire when it is no longer a commodity? This question seem apt for understanding public reception of both food and art, for understanding how we assign value, both culturally and with our $$$.

This is a collaborative experience between artists, food makers, and guests as consumers. It’s going to be an amazing night, with limited seating, so jump on your tickets before they’re Gone.

RECIPES

On this last trip to Thailand, we spent a week in the south on the island of Koh Yao Yai, the larger (though more remote) of two sister islands in the Phang Nga Bay. Our first night there, we walked at dusk up the hill and around the island to a small place called Baan Kedtap. I was on the hunt for gaeng som and there was a Maroon 5 cover rattling through a single speaker.

Gaeng som, or “sour curry,” is a staple of southern Thailand, described by Thai food guru Mark Wiens as “a bowl of orange juice set on fire.”

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but the shop owner invited me back into the kitchen to watch and take photos while she prepared the lusty curry. (Southern Thai curries, I should mention, are water-based, much different from the more common coconut milk-based curries of Northern Thailand. And much spicier.) Chaawp phet? she asked me, inquiring whether I liked it spicy. She had a curious bend in her smile, so I knew that if I said yes, I like it spicy, then she was going to light me up. Phet mak! I proudly, though perhaps foolishly, replied. She paddled up a rather sizeable mound of chili paste and slapped it into the pot. And then another one.

The dish typically consists of tamarind–that’s the sour, cabbage, shrimp, and green papaya. Moments later she brought out a steaming bowl of radiant orange curry. And it was, in fact, rather infernal. But spicy as it was, it was even more delicious. Simply prepared, expertly balanced, and a tidal wave of flavor.

Our version incorporates the shrimp and cabbage in a stuffed cabbage roll wading in a vibrant, ochreous bath of the soup.

HOT + SOUR SOUP W/ 

SHRIMP & ALMOND MOUSSE CABBAGE ROLL

(Makes: 1 qt; serves 4)

40g (1 ea) shallot

9g (3 ea) garlic

9g ginger

6g galangal

15g (1 ea) fresno, seeded

1g (2 ea) birds eye, seeded

40g (2 ea) limes, juiced

50g (1 ea) tangerine or orange, juiced

32g (2 TBL) tamarind concentrate

18g (1 TBL) rice wine vinegar

8g sugar

8g fish sauce

6g (1 tsp) shrimp paste

1g turmeric

4g (1 tsp) salt

2 cups veg stock

2 cups h2o

+ 1 cup shrimp-almond mousse

+ 1 head savoy cabbage

SHRIMP-ALMOND MOUSSE

(Makes: ~3 cups)

76g (½ cup) almonds, blanched and peeled

1 lb shrimp, peels and tails on 

1 tsp coriander seed

½  tsp white peppercorn

½ tsp salt (plus more to taste)

1 birds eye chili, seeded and minced 

200g (½ pkg) medium firm tofu, drained

FOR THE SOUP:

You want to sweat the aromatics without getting any color or browning, so I prefer a dutch oven with a TBL of oil and a pinch of start to get started. Let sweat over med heat, covered, about 8 minutes, or until cooked through and softened. In a separate bowl, combine lime juice, orange juice, tamarind, vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, shrimp paste, turmeric, and salt. Add to pot and stir to combine. Add stock and h2o and let simmer ~10 min. Transfer everything to a vitamix and blitz. Strain through a chinois or fine mesh strainer. 

FOR THE SHRIMP + ALMOND MOUSSE:

Bring a quart of h2o to a boil with 1 whole lemon, halved, and a tsp of salt. Add shrimp and cook until pink and floating, about 90 seconds. Remove and let cool. Meanwhile you’ll need to peel the almonds, which sounds irksome but is really quite easy. Prepare an ice bath and return h2o to a boil. Blanch almonds for about 1 minute, remove and shock in ice bath. Strain and pat dry. Using your thumb and forefinger, pinch the almonds, and they should scoot right out of the brown waxy shell. Takes no time at all. Peel the shrimp (reserving peels and tails), and add to food processor with almonds, tofu, bird’s eye, and salt. Grind coriander seed and white peppercorn in a mortar and pestle, and add to mix. Process until until smooth and airy. 

FOR THE CABBAGE ROLLS:

First, blanch the cabbage. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and have an ice bath on standby. Trim the base of the cabbage, leaving about 1” of pure white stalk, and make sure to keep the individual leaves intact. Blanch leaves a few at a time, or as many as will fit in the pot. Submerge for 3ish minutes in the boiling water then plunge into the ice bath to shock the leaves and keep from cooking further. Pat leaves dry and set aside until rolling.

When ready to roll, lay flat a cabbage leaf and place about 2.5 ounces of mousse mix, about an inch from the bottom of the leaf. Roll leaf up and over the pork mix, using your hands to form a kind of eggroll shape. After one full turn of the cabbage leaf, fold the sides in and continue to roll to the end of the leaf. When using the smaller, thinner leaves, you may need to use two overlapping leaves to have enough cabbage to cover and roll the mousse. You got this. 

Place rolls snuggly in a baking dish, cover with foil, and refrigerate until an hour before you’re ready to cook. Overnight in the fridge is fine, too, as it makes things easy to knock out prep the day before.

Pre-heat oven to 350. Remove baking dish from fridge and let come to room temp. Pour enough stock and/or excess lentil cooking liquid (see below) into the dish so that it covers the bottom of the dish. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for ~45 minutes.

For serving, carefully remove a cabbage roll from the baking dish and place in bowl. Add soup, any additional chili oil or herbs as you see fit, and enjoy. If it’s not spicy enough to make you want to eat a few Kleenex, then add a few more bird’s eye chilis next go round.

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