PEAK FISH & LOBSTER ROLLS

Any self respecting lobster roll deserves reporting here.  But Greenpoint Fish and Lobster Co. not only has an exceptional lobster roll, they are possibly the best fish market/restaurant I know.  I happened to find them poking around my Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch app.  In the app's map I found a fish monger approved by them right near by, so I decided to pay them a visit.

First I went just looking for raw fish to buy, but when I got there I saw a great kitchen and bar to sit and eat.  That day I got some very reasonable Boston Mackerel.  Since then I have had the several other sustainable fish from them, the wild catfish, an invasive species in the Chesapeake, and Lion Fish, an invasive species in Florida and other tropical waters.  With a recent study showing that overfishing has depleted the worlds fish stock by HALF since 1970, it seems harder and harder to justify eating any kind of protein other than beans and rice.

But all these invasive species they were selling gave me the idea of an "Invasive Species Dinner Party"...  Why not gorge on meat that you can feel completely guilt free in eating? 

This Label Could Be Really Bad For You

A great NY Times Retro Report about flame retardants warrants a more personal account of our own interaction with the furniture industry.

We bought new couch from IKEA a few months ago When it arrived it smelled like a chemical factory.  We realized that we were so excited to find an affordable convertible sectional that fit our specific parameters we completely forgot about all of the research we had done years ago about flame retardants and their negative health impacts.  While it is likely some of the smell came from the equally worrisome glues and the formaldehyde in the particle board, it did the trick of alerting us to the perils of flame retardants in furniture.

When our first child was born in 2011 we read the Chicago Tribune series about how the cigarette industry convinced California regulators that it was not cigarettes causing house fires, it was the furniture, and how the chemical industry stood dutifully ready to solve the problem.  Of course it turns out the chemicals lower IQ and cause cancer among other things.  At the time we did what we could to mitigate their presence.  Now, three years later, we realized a lot had changed, and much had not.  In 2013 Governor Jerry Brown changed the California law, no longer requiring the chemicals. But the furniture industry was not required to label what it was making.  We had to rely on their word, and a helpful NRDC guide to some manufacturers. In the end we went to the trouble of taking the couch back to IKEA for a refund (I couldn't imagine selling it on Craig's List).  

Last week we ordered a (much more expensive) couch from Room And Board, which by all accounts is be free of flame retardants.  Room And Board, incidentally says that all of their furniture is free of all flame proofing, except a few convertible couched still made in china.  Note: even R&B's own publication is not clear about which fire retardants are NOT in their couches (PBDE flame retardants were largely phased out in 2006/8  it is the chlorinated Chlorinated Tris: TDCP and TCEP that are the culprits du-jour)

Of course with all of these decisions I am struck by the great effort and expense we went to to mitigate the problem in our home. How would a family, relocating regularly for work, with more limited financial resources and less time be able to keep these chemicals out of their children's blood.

And as our dad's old business partner, Robert Kenner, so clearly discusses in Merchants Of Doubt the chemical industry is just part of the systematic undermining of real science that has more severe implications with climate change. 

One thing to do is to sign this petition from Move On (remember them?) And buy a new couch.  

The Steadfast House in Seattle

After a long hiatus from posting I'm looking forward to contributing some more.

A piece in the New York Times today informs us Edith Macefield's "Steadfast" house in Seattle looks like it will be torn down soon.
If you are interested in the story 99% Invisible did a fantastic podcast on the house last September.
The podcast has interesting details on Macefield's life, and her relationship with the construction superintendent, Barry Martin, who, while building the building around her, took care of her and eventually inherited the house.

While your at it, subscribe to 99%Invisible.  Its amazing.

ALSO check out China's Nail Houses in the Guardian:

The Longest Shortest Time

Sleep and other traumas of being a new parent. 

I’m thinking of my friends Elizabeth and Alan who had their first child a few months ago.  And I am trying to recall what life was like when Antonia was that age.  I remember being astounded at the number of people with children only a few years older than Antonia who could barely recall the details of specific ages or their own parenting traumas.  Now I too am having trouble with the specifics of our experience. With Antonia well past two years old we find ourselves emerging from the initial shock and awe of the first years of parenthood. Now I think I might have the perspective to remember not only what was happening, but also why I’m likely to forget all but the most vivid of details any day now. 

One example comes to mind. When Antonia was five month old we were living in Los Angeles and we took a long trip to visit friends in New York. Antonia was having an incredibly hard time sleeping.  She has often fought the urge to sleep, but this was the worst we had experienced, and remains the single worst episode of sleep trouble to date.  We were traumatized by a child who would not nap, could not be consoled by our presence in the room, and would often only sleep if we walked her around in the stroller.  For Allison and I it was devastating.  We were questioning everything about what we were doing as parents, and everything we had done to that point.  We tried everything, read all the books searched all the websites. Nothing was working. 

While we were going thru this I remember asking our friends Kirsten and David about how they dealt both of their son’s sleep at that age. As usual they had insightful thoughts, but they were remarkably shy on the details.  I was shocked.  They must have had at least a few moments of similar trauma.  Why couldn’t they remember how they got thru the difficult periods that at the moment seemed to be being seared into my memory.

Now I can already feel myself forgetting the details. The sensation of complete terror that we were doing something totally wrong seems to be disappearing as our family drives past the quaint dirt road of those first months where we started our journey and we begin to see the larger terrain of mountains and plateaus we are ascending and descending.  The initial excitement that reveals each discrete detail of every turn and bump at the beginning a long road trip have now disappeared into the overall terrain.  The inevitable pothole is now is recognized as the passing hiccup that will ultimatly be navigated.  But in those initial moments the very real sense is that each dip is a much bigger deal than it is, each flat tire an epic crisis. 

Of course none of this does anything to provide the parent in that crisis moment with specifics.  And if we’ve learned anything it is that specifics are just that, peculiar to one child’s situation, and her parents ingenuity, and surprisingly useless to others.  It turns out that none of those books you can read about raising kids are about YOUR child. The big lesson is: do what it takes, don’t hurt yourself or your child, and rest (if you can) easy in the knowledge that it will all blur into a much more epic journey remarkably quickly.

Preschool Little Data - Bicoastal Style

Last fall we knew there was a chance we would be moving back to New York over the summer. We knew Antonia would need a preschool to go to in the fall. But there were enough balls in the air that the move east was not definite. It became apparent that we had to find preschools in both New York and Los Angeles at the same time!  That search not only yielded a school for Antonia to go to this fall, but also had a bi-product that we feel is worth sharing.

We hadn't lived in New York for 2 years and we had missed all the conversations with our friends about their school experiences. In LA we were having the normal conversations with other parents in the same boat, but our conversations were brief and limited. Our network in LA was in its infancy. One highly touted book for Los Angeles proved a disappointment, covering just over 40 schools in the entire city (we found over 40 in our area alone...)

In order to wrap our heads around the options (and the various dates and cutoff ages) we needed to do some research. As a result we created 2 Google spreadsheets with as many options as we could find within a reasonable distance from our homes in both cities.

Perhaps a little obsessive, maybe a little type-A, whatever the provenance, it became clear that NOBODY should have to do the same research. So I have scrubbed the spreadsheets of our personal information, made them public, and have handed over editing capabilities to new parents in both cities.

The lists are currently limited to the areas we were considering, but could easily be expanded. In New York we searched around our place in Williamsburg: downtown to north Brooklyn and some Manhattan options, mostly near 14th street (with some exceptions largely for comparison)

In Los Angeles we looked around Korea town, Los Feliz, Silvelake, Glendale, Echo Park, Eagle Rock and Pasadena.

Here they are:

New York

and
Los Angeles

Rather than include thoughts and commentary, a comprehensive list with as many facts as possible seems better than getting into the murky territory of endorsements and reviews.  Most people know what they are looking for.

Please feel free to share the lists, and if you know a good person (new parent) to contribute to it, please recommend them. If there are any programmers who want to turn this into some kind of Wiki database, even better!  

Great Site For Kids Stuff

I just discovered a great baby stuff review site: The Nightlight from the creators of Sweethome.  Created by a brother and sister team.

A review of crib mattresses has a good discussion of phthalates and has several options.

They are not actually a sister site of The Wirecutter, but apparently the founders are friends.

One year Ago

On this sad anniversary a little bit of tradition. After the death of our father Allison told me about the Jewish tradition of the Yahrzeit Candle.

Simply; it is a candle that is lit on the anniversary of a loved ones death. It burns for 24 hours. I have grown to appreciate its simplicity.  Judaism seems to get many of these emotional markers right: sitting shiva, burying the dead quickly, and of course, Passover: who can deny the power of telling stories over a long dinner? All these traditions, while often rooted in practicality or scripture, seem to me more emotionally useful than most other religious observances I have encountered. 

In retrospect I feel like we waited a little too long to hold a service for our father.  At the time it seemed practical to wait for the end of summer so everyone would have a chance to be there for the event.  But there is an emotionally sound case to be made, however jarring the circumstances, for diving into the grieving process all at once.  Perhaps religions, like people, get more stuff right the older they are.

So, in the tradition of borrowing whatever works, I light a candle in memory of Caroline, her family in San Francisco is doing the same. Thanks Allison.

Here is Dennis' lovely obituary that appeared that week:

Caroline Anna Jones, age 40, died peacefully on Thursday, April 4th, in San Francisco after a courageous two year battle with brain cancer.  Caroline was  born November 22, 1972 in New York City, daughter of the late Antony Winslow Jones and Magda Rydlo Jones.  She attended the Brearley School in Manhattan, then earned degrees in Art History and Anthropology from Connecticut College in 1994.  Caroline moved to San Francisco where she married Devon Earl Brian Boyle in 2002. She worked in artistic development for the San Francisco School of Circus Arts until the birth of her daughters Charlotte in 2004 and Eloise in 2008.  She was a volunteer and board member of the Little People of America. Her sense of humor, forgiving manner, intelligence, and enthusiasm inspired everyone whose life she touched. Caroline is survived by her mother Magda, her brother Adrian, sister-in-law Allison, niece Antonia, husband Devon, and daughters Charlotte and Eloise.  Services will be held in New York on April 13th and in San Francisco on April 27th.  The family has requested that donations be made to the Little People of America in lieu of flowers.