#that said. it's so hard to find high quality pics of teen days and the episodes arent on raiplay which is kinda weird since they have | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vegetacide · 4 years

Photo

Veggie art’ing Part II complete… This is a continuation of THIS

Also for something a bit new as I had several notes asking what was going on with the previous pic I wrote a little something to accompany this. It took a rather unexpected direction on me as I had ordinally intended for this to be a reconciliation picture.. Just were my mind veered for some reason.. I blame these two idiots…

I have spent far too long plunking away at this so bare with me if its absolutely crap.

Anyway.. if you wish to read it.. look check out below

Working title: …haven’t come up with one yet.. meh. Sue me

Blanket warning: Hints to adult subject matter that some might find offensive or triggery..mentions of past trama…. etc etc

Rating: Teen.. I guess

Word count: 2726 words

Characters: Virgil/Kayo

Fandom: TaG’verse A/U

Location: My made up beach house located somewhere on Tracy Island..

Veggie notes: Any errors are completely my own and I am sure I will catch them at some point on one of my obsessive read throughs of self doubt. :D

Enjoy…

o0o

Damn, how in the world had it come to this?

Virgil watched as she padded on quiet, bare feet across the beach house deck. Retreating again and effectively shutting him out. Her slender shoulders so small under the too big flannel of his shirt, were hunched as she protectively wrapped her arms around herself. Closing off like she always did when things got too close and too real for her to deal with.

His chest hurt, a dull ache behind his breast bone and he rubbed at it subconsciously. Like his heart was too big and in its floundering it was trying to break through the meager sack of flesh that housed it.

Cursing, he rubbed at it again and resisted the urge to drive his fist in the plastered wall of the beach house. The effort wouldn’t serve any meaningful purpose anyways other than splitting his knuckles. There was no detracting from his present circumstances and potential broken bones wouldn’t change that.

He should have taken more care with his words instead of letting his thoughts run free as he did and he kicked himself for his short sightedness, not that it fixed anything. He’d been too caught up in his own little world, completely forgetting the reality they were living and now here they were.

On opposing ends of a vast chasm. Him holding on with all his might to keep his family whole while Kayo fought against it. The horrible twisted image of family that a mad man had imprinted on her at too young an age warping her view on things to the detriment of them both. An idea she had been fighting her whole life to make different and one she couldn’t escape, it seemed no matter how hard they tried to.

The old doubts and worries were always just beneath the surface just waiting to spring forth to bugger things up. The present being a prime example.

The morning had started out completely different and felt almost like a dream to where they were now. Warm and lazy with a vague like quality one found just upon waking.

Kayo had been snuggled in his arms. Her legs tangled with his among the rumpled sheets. A sweet ocean breeze blowing through the gossamer curtains and dancing pleasantly over their satiated bodies. Wicking the dew of sweat from their skin as their pulses slowed and their minds drifted back from the bliss of carnal sensation.

His fingers had been lazily tracing up and down her back, over the sinewy grace of her shoulders and down the curve of her spine. Paying homage and mapping every glorious inch to his artist brain.

He’d been lost in a day dream of what could be. The gentle rise of her hip, the varied valleys of her ribs directing the course of his thoughts. A picture was forming of a future, one that stretched out before them like a blank canvas, waiting for them to take up the brush and fill it with colour and life.

A story in images had started to sketch itself in his mind’s eye. The two of them, together. Healing, growing and evolving with a world of opportunity before them and nothing to hold them back.

Not being able to contain himself as he lazed with her, Virgil had voiced his thoughts. Letting loose all that he’d hoped for. A tumble of words spewing forth that had Kayo suddenly growing still and stiff to his touch.

“Virgil, stop…” Had been all she’d uttered before she’d turned from his embrace and slipped from the soft comfort of their bed. Her hair a tumble of love tousled ebony, hiding her face.

“It would be a nice picture to paint.” He’d replied, mind still on other things and not on the present. “Go anywhere, wherever we want. Take in the sights for a change instead of just jetting by them. Go to that little cabin by that lake I told you about… it would be a perfect spot to..”

“Enough! …” The abruptness of her raised voice had him snapping his jaw shut.

With jerking motions, she’d grabbed up his shirt. The match to his favourite pair of lounge pants. The one she loved to cozy into and entice him with. A glimpse of flesh here as it rode up her thighs, a flash there as supple mounds peaked out between the row of loosed buttons. Now though it covered her in a different manner entirely. Like a shield, she clasped it tightly

He’d pushed up to his elbows, brows dropped low with concern as he’d finally taken note that something wasn’t quite right.. “Kay?"

She’d cast her gaze back at him then. The briefest of looks had been enough for him to catch the shadow of disquiet in them. Their usual vibrancy muddied by brewing clouds of anger that had him sliding from the sheets and reaching for her.

“Don’t.” Was all she said, shaking her head as he’d risen and moved towards her. Her hands held aloft to hold him back as she’d strode from the room.

“What… Tin, what’s going on?”

Grabbing up his pants Virgil had stumbled after her, hopping as he yanked them on amid a litany of colourful words.

“Shit… Wait..”

Steps later he was confronted by a fury he hadn’t expected considering where and what they had been doing mere moments before.

She had been pacing like a caged animal, across the expanse of the living room and back again. Rage flowing from her with each hurried step.

“What…?” Was all he managed to say before she turned on him. Fire in her gaze, colour high on her cheeks.

“You know what?” She seethed, poking a finger in his direction as she did another circuit of the room.

He’s own anger bubbled to the surface, “Actually, I don’t. So would you enlighten me to whatever erroneous infraction it is that you think that I’ve done?”

“Oh, don’t give me that. You know exactly what the problem is.”

Virgil’s brows shot up as her words had struck a chord in his grey matter. “Problem? You really think…”

“What in the hell were we thinking?!” She growled out, shoving a chair out to the way and knocking it over with a crash. “Selfish..Stupid.”

“With the lives we lead….You can’t ask this of me!”

Her words had been like a physical blow and Virgil had taken an involuntary step back. She’d wanted her words to hurt and she’d succeeded. She never did pull her punches and her aim was as impeccable as ever.

He’d seen the realization of what she’d said flicker through her gaze but she’d quickly buried it. Instead of saying more, she shook her head, turned her back on him once more and walked out the open sliding doors putting more than just distance between them.

And he’d let her go, his shoulders slumping at the writing between the lines of what had been said. In his mind there was only one option open to them but maybe for her that wasn’t the case. The implications of those options was something he couldn’t dare to fathom…but it was a road he wouldn’t let her travel down alone.

He had a responsibility to uphold, as her husband and as the man he prided himself on being. A rescuer in dark times, when there was no one else capable of the job and sometimes those that needed rescuing were closer to home.

Squaring his shoulders he went after her. She was begging for a fight. An obvious distraction from the core reasoning behind her lashing out at him but he wouldn’t take her up on the invitation. He wouldn’t let her push him away to deal with whatever this was on her own.

Passing through the doors, his eyes scanned over the deck and his breath had caught.

She looked so small, fragile and it had brought him up short. Slumping, he braced himself between a support post and the beach house wall. An uncanny exhaustion suffusing him as he saw the uphill battle of the task ahead. A task he was determined to see through to the end, no matter the outcome.

He hated seeing her like this and despite her best efforts to push him away, Virgil knew her too well. Had spent most of his life knowing her. He could read her nuances, gestures and mood even when she tried to close off from him like she was trying to do now under a mask of anger.

“Tin,” He said carefully, dropping his hand and pushing away from the post. He drew in a breath and let it out slowly, letting the tension slip from his shoulders. Approaching her with all guns blazing would only crank her defenses up higher and wouldn’t get them anywhere.

He watched her stance with a practiced eye as he stepped closer. She was like an abused animal. Even with all of her training, when she was emotionally compromised as she was right now the scared little girl she had been came to the fore. The one they met when she’d first came to live with them, hiding behind her father’s leg.

He hadn’t known her history then, the actions of her uncle and the effect that it would have on the rest of her life. How it would shape her into the strong, determined woman she was today. Never letting anyone get close enough to see the frightened child she closeted away inside. Virgil though had managed to find his way inside, found the cracks in her apparent impenetrable armour and had broken through to the core of the woman inside. The one she tried desperately to hide from the world in a shell of fierce resolve and purpose.

Under it all was a woman, who had seen too much. Abused, battered, basically orphaned by her absentee father and desperately afraid. To top it all off, she hated the weakness and fought tooth and nail to hide it from everyone. With the exception of him, she didn’t have a choice there. He’d wormed his way in and he wouldn’t stand by and let her retreat from herself or from him.

Gently he placed his hands on her tight shoulders, cupping their slender, wavering strength and he whispered her name again. “Tanusha…”

Her head bowed further, a meager attempt to hide in the fall of her hair but he could feel the quiver in her body now, hear the soft stuttered intake of her breath. She was crying and trying oh so hard not to be.

Pain and love swelled through his chest, and an undeniable protectiveness.

Virgil pulled her back into his embrace, encircling his arms around her waist and with little resistance she melted.

“I’m sorry,” He whispered over the curve of her ear, brushing his lips across the elven-like arch of it. “I’m so sorry.”

He put all his love he could into the words, hoping that by apologizing for something he wasn’t wholly the cause of would help alleviate her suffering in some way.

“I wasn’t thinking and it was insensitive of me.” He tightened his hold on her, reassurance imbued into the gesture and slowly began to rock giving her the time to pull herself back together again.

The slight tremor slowly dissipated, her breathing settling into a somewhat normal rhythm and he knew that she was ready to hear. More so when she dragged in a ragged breath and exhaled a long drawn out sigh. He could almost hear her counting to ten in her head. A method she used to reign back in some of her control and a calm he knew well creeped back in. One that camouflaged a great deal of hurt.

He did the same, his warm breath stirring her hair and ghosting across the smooth column of her neck which peeked out from the drooping collar of his shirt.

“You know we’ve got this, right?” He questioned though he wasn’t expecting an answer. “Yes, he’s out…” She stilled once more in his hold but Virgil couldn’t stop now, Kayo needed to hear this even if it was just a band-aid to the problem. He couldn’t sit by and let her lose herself in fear so he pushed on. There was too much at stake.

“Yes, he’s upped his game in a big way. Dad knew he was capable, your Dad knew….” A flinch at the mention of the absentee man but again he pressed on. There was no backing down now. What he had to say, needed to be said.

“We were unprepared but we know better now and I promise you, Tanusha Kyrano Tracy; just like I did on the day you said ‘Yes’.. That I will never, ever let that man hurt you again.”

He slipped a hand down, between the soft folds of flannel, across her silky, soft skin that concealed honed muscle and deadly skills. Brushed the edge of fine lace and stilled, cupped and shielded that which was only known to the two of them.

With strength of purpose his chest swelled, a determination unlike any he had ever known bulked up the threat behind his next words. “I’ll do everything in my power to protect both of you, I swear it or the Hood will regret the day he heard the name Tracy.”

She turned, taking his hand in her own and lightly brushing her lips across his knuckles. “You’re too good for me Virgil Grissom Tracy and I don’t deserve you.”

The brief storm of anger has fled from her eyes, leaving behind only doubt and fear. “But I don’t think it’s as easy as that. You’re too good a man to stoop to such levels and I don’t think I could live with myself if you made that sort of sacrifice on my behalf.

Besides, what sort of life could we offer with him out there. He’s already been the cause of so much pain. You and your brother’s have suffered for years because of it..I don’t think I would have the strength if he was to get you or….”

Virgil’s frowned. “Tin, I married you. All of you and everything you brought with you. I knew full well what I was marrying into but that man, that bastard… he can’t come between us and what we want unless you let him.”

Her gaze dropped and with gentle fingers he lifted her chin and waited for her to meet his pleading eyes. “Don’t let him win… not in this. Please God, not in this.”

“We may not have a choice…” Came the whisper of her response, her forehead resting against his own as a lingering tear slipped from her lashes.

“Tin, please….”

“Virgil, I love you. God, how I love you but I can’t tell you what you want to hear. Not right now. If the Hood found out….

Just then the island klaxon blared and Virgil’s comms started to ping with urgency.

Kayo took a step back from him and he stared after her. Brain going a mile a minute with words he wanted to say, emotions he wanted to express.

“Go…” She said with resignation, her arms once more crossing over her frame. “You’re needed..”

“I’m needed more here.”

His comms buzzed again followed by the voice of his star loving sibling. “Virgil, you’re needed in Ops. A.S.A.P. Please confirm.””

Conflicted, Virgil stood unmoving, his fist clenched at his side. Trapped between the woman he loved and the life they’d chosen.

“Go, I’ll be here when you get back..”

His brother’s voice sounded again from his comms, pulling him in two directions at once. The hint of stress he picks up in it though had him unfreezing and heading for the underground access to the hanger.

Passing through the automated door and hitting his comms to reply to John, he looked back at Kayo. His heart sinking and doubt filling him as he watched her turn away from him.

Uncertainty prickling across his skin as he questioned the validity of her words but there was nothing he could do right now. Lives were at stack…more so than just those that needed rescuing and his hands were tied…

“FAB John, on my way…”

FIN….????

53 notes · View notes

aharris00britney · 5 years

Photo

ASKS 14

Ok so 24 hours after I planned to do this but... last time I answered stuff was January(5 months ago). There is a lot under the cut ;n; sims, nonsims, other games, all kinds of stuff ya know

Anonymous said: Hi! Wcif the shirt you used on your Belle hair post? (Btw, that hair is GORGEOUS.)

I have the cc I use in my previews linked on Patreon. Makeup/skin and all that will be on my resource page once I get around to updating it for my 2 new models (who will be up for download soon hopefully). Also ty <3

Anonymous said: What make-up do you use for most of your posts?

The only eyeshadows I use are by @crypticsim or @catplnt. The makeup I use on Macie/Taylor are listed on my resource page. The other two models makeup will be added once I get them added on there but I know they both use similar stuff to Macie/Taylor.

@thatsimmergirl91 said: Just wanted to take a moment out and say how amazing you are ! I love all your stuff and your blog. Never forget how awesome you are 💗💗💗💗🙌🏻🙌🏻

Thank you so much. Like I know I am going to be typing a lot of thank yous in this post, but I truly mean them. Playing Sims/Making cc is something I did not think would be such a big thing in my life but god is it and I love doing it. Thank you again <3

Anonymous said: You're incredible and I love all your hairs! In fact, you're my favorite cc hair creator. My question is are you planning on making any hairs with the Island Living meshes anytime soon?

Thank you! I am glad you enjoy my hairs <3 I am planning some stuff with the island living meshes. Probably just a conversion to toddlers if I am able and I might do something simple with the adult meshes to release outside of my Patreon stuff. We shall see though! Ty again

@ayoshi said: When are you opening an Onlyfans?

idk babe when are you posting your birthmarks? ;)

Anonymous said: Heya! Love your cc! You're real talented

thank you! <3 It isn’t so much talent, more or less just a lot of practice and time. I appreciate the compliment though

Anonymous said: any tips to get high quality sims screenshots??

I have 2 methods I use. When I am taking CC previews I rotate my screen using Ctrl + Alt + the ◄ key. For my lookbooks/upcoming Sim downloads I use a method by foursims who deactivated?? This is the method/video <3

@verdeclaroangels said: What skin do you use??💕PS i love u

I use @luumia newest vanilla default, alongside his Smooth Butts overlay, and my own fruitpunch overlay. All are linked over on my resource page <3

@vhlori said: Austin queen of pop!

q king of edits! <3

Anonymous said: i love your creations and i appreciate the time you put into your cc, i wish i could support you 💕

Thank you!! Sometimes the time crunches can be stressful but I put them on myself so I survive haha. Don’t feel the need to support me please <3 I make sure everything is public eventually so that people dont feel like they are missing out on anything by deciding not to pledge. Thank you for wanting to though, I appreciate that a ton.

Anonymous said: Just a rant here. I'm annoyed that there are no rings in the glove category or some other category. The reason I want this is because I use eyelashes that are in the skin detail section and rings don't work and I don't want to use the accessory eyelashes because my sim wears glasses. It annoys me but that's all.

i... rant away luv i feel u

Anonymous said: What do you do besides sims? That is all you post about and I was curious if that is all you play?

I play Roblox with @ayoshi sometimes, cause that is about all my computer can handle lmao. I have a switch so I play some Nintendo titles on there like Zelda, Splatoon 2, and other stuff. I also have been plying Fortnite recently with @imvikai @greenllamas and @pinealexple. That is about all I play right now lmao. I play Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Pokemon Go on my phone.

Anonymous said: Hi there ! Just wanted to say I've also been experiencing that problem with your 'downloads' page. I don't have a Tumblr account so I had to tell you this way. Perhaps it's a MacBook issue ? I'm not sure, but I'm using a MacBook Pro. Anyways, thank you for all the beautiful cc you provide us with, you're the best.

Yeah I got another ask about them using a Mac for it. That seems to be the problem. I am not a coder, nor do I know a single thing about coding. All I can suggest doing is going to http://aharris00britney.tumblr.com/tagged/s4cc and using that which sucks to page through I know :( I am sorry

Anonymous said: This is really random, but I love your Sims! I normally don't like Sims with Clay hair, but GIRL, you make them work. Just want to say to keep it up, and if I had money I would support you <3

Thank you lmao <3 stan clay hairs

Anonymous said: Literally im in this sims discord nd they were DRAGGING how you make the same sim in different skin colors and how you make such cookie cutter sims and honestly i felt bad

Meanwhile me in CAS:

Anonymous said: This may be a strange request but what does that one alien toddler you've used on multiple occasions to model hair look like when he's older?

He uuh... idk where they are in my library tbh I can’t find them cause I was going to age him up and show ya but.. yeah idk what happened RIP alien toddler

@amorimlulu said: Hi! I love your creations, they're incredible! I'm completely in love with two of your sims: the asian woman from the patreon 06-16 post and the woman from the ava hair post. Could you, pretty please, upload them on the gallery? I'm dying to play with them. Thank you ^^

I am planning to in the next month! I have the photos taken I just need to get the CC list together and plan it around Island Living posts, CC posts, all that jazzzzzz

Anonymous said: Hello Austin! I really like the way your sims look, so I was wondering if you can tell me where to get the skins and lashes, please? I am new to the Sims 4 and searching for some cute looks :)

Hey! I have this stuff listed on my resource page, and I have over 100 WCIF’s I have answered along with my lookbooks for some clothes. My cc finds blog is @aharris00finds if you want to look there :D

Anonymous said: can i just ask? how do you remove the shadows on hair with S4S? im a complete noob at s4s and i was wondering how you would do it?

You just need to click shadow, then make blank :) pic below

Anonymous said: Hi, just a quick message to say THANK YOU for all those beautiful creations. You are so talented and I want you to know that. Thank you so much for making my sims look way more beautiful !

thank you so much <3 I have said it before and idk if anyone will be able to convince me, but I am not talented lmao it just is experience :)

Anonymous said: hey, could u pls make a tutorial abt how u make ur mesh?? i love ur hair meshes so much

I have tried filming a tutorial before and I will just have to wait til I get a good mic lmao. My speed meshing videos are somewhat useful for learning but they are sped up and without instructions so take it with a grain of salt

Anonymous said: would you ever try to recreate lydia martins hair in 3.04? sorry, but you're the only teen wolf fan thats a simblr that i know and i desperately need that lovely hair in my game. thanks!

tbh I never finished Teen Wolf XD I stopped at the end of season 5 I think. Idk I just lost interest as I grew up :( Also I have no idea what hair that is sdfgfvb and google isnt telling me either. If you can send a link to a picture or DM me a picture I can see if I can make it <3

Anonymous said: Hi, could you please please upload this sim post/183989453251/e41 ! She's just too pretty

Anonymous said: please upload this sim from your post/183989453251/e41 for download? Thanks

Idk if I still have her saved but if I do I might upload her. I will check and see later tonight lmao

Anonymous said: Is there any way to put everything you make into a .zip file. I really like what you make and I wish there was a way to mass download it. It sounds dumb but really I enjoy your content

Tbh since I post hairs 3 times a month it would be hard for me to keep everything up to date. I might do something like all my CC from 2017 in one zip, and all my cc from 2018 in another? and then make one for 2019 at the end of the year. I’m not sure though.

Anonymous said: Wheres the hair in yo profile pic? And will you upload that sim? AND can you make more clothes ur amazing at it!!! (Also, asking 4 my bff <3 r u boy or girl?)

the hair in my current profile pic is Maddie Hair, the sim is already for download, and I will have some clothes coming next month :) I am a boy :P

Anonymous said: hello! is the model sim in your eve hair valentines special downloadable? I find her really pretty. I really enjoy all of your cc!! I love all of them soooo much.. :)

I will check if I saved her to my library, if so I will add it to the list of stuff I wanna try and do <3 also thank you

Anonymous said: Hey! Love your hairs! Can I request a Riley hair without the hairclip?

the riley hair doesn’t have a clip so I am going to assume you mean the Peyton hair since it was released in the same month. It wouldn’t really be possible to do Peyton without the clip since it has a part of the hair going up into the clip. Without it there would be a hole and if the hole was filled in it would still look weird since the hair would be going up into nothing. I’m sorry <3

@lacr1mation23 said: Kinda not a question. But, i'm gonna fangirl all over you. You ROCK!!! I LOVE your CCs. BEST. HAIRS. EVAR. Impressed like woah from Florida.

thank you so much ;n; this made me smile lmao I appreciate stuff like this a ton

Anonymous said: Hey I think there's something wrong w/ your Lydia hair.. could u fix it?

I’m not sure what the glitch is, so if you could send me a photo or an explanation of what it is then I could help.

Anonymous said: I'm sorry you're having a bad day! I want to let you know your CC is lovely and I hope you have a better day tomorrow! Lots of love and if you like chocolate then I'm sending you plenty of virtual chocolate to help you feel better!

lmao idk what ‘bad day’ I was happening when this was sent but thank you!! I had a rough semester but I am doing a lot better now I think :)

@simsloverlilian said: Hi lol I just think this is really funny, my friend asked me where do you get your cc? and I was like: "oh.. ahoob's WCIF place xDDDDDD" and we both died laughing.. at your place you can get amazing hairs, accs, shirts! (lol love your cc keep it up! ;))

thank you so much! I love that yall use my blog for finding cc :)

@raha-plays-the-sims said: Okay... I actually want to take a screenshot of my Sim with your new Riley hair on to my hair dresser and tell her to cut my hair that way XD I love it so much! Thank you for continuing to make amazing content!

lmao i have wanted to do this before with a male hair i found for my game. I never went through with it though XD thank you for the compliment <3

Anonymous said: Everyone!!! Stan LOONA for clear skin and good health...

stan red velvet and WJSN

Anonymous said: I just want to say that "EVERYTHING" about your blog/cc/sims is absolutely immaculate. Your CC is like renaissance to Sims 4 modding(I ain't even kidding).Thank you for sharing/uploading them here on tumblr. Would you be uploading any video on how you create your sims on youtube anytime soon? And what sliders do you usually use in creating sims if there are some?

thank you so much!!! I have tried recording my game before and the footage just comes out super lag. Hopefully later this year I will be able to get a computer and I could record something then. Also I don’t use any sliders or presets on my main Sims :)

@lllac-lady786 said: This isn’t a question, but your sims are just so pretty and you are so talented 🤩

thank you <3

Anonymous said: Did something happen to your Lydia hair?

I don’t think so? It seems to be fine for me

Anonymous said: How are you able to edit the new game pack when sims4studio hasn't been updated yet? I am itching to edit some stuff but I can't yet :(

I use CAS Tools! I might make a tutorial this week depending on how busy I am. Not sure though <3

Anonymous said: How likely would you be to recommend the new pack to another simmer out of 10?

(this was sent during Strangerville) I would say 8/10 recommendation. But I love storylines and stuff in games so my opinion is very based on that.

Anonymous said: Would you ever make male hair or recolour some of ea's so they work with your ombre accessory?

I am thinking of doing some ombre accessories for the new Island Living pack for the two ombre hairs. I am not sure if I will be able to or not but I will see :)

@milugameplay said: Hello sweetheart, I just like to say that I love the hairs that you create. Thank you for sharing them with us.

thank you <3 i appreciate the compliment

Anonymous said:Hi! When you uploaded peach earrings, the blonde sim had a braided hairstyle. Was it cc or a maxis one?

hey! It is from outdoor retreat GP :)

Anonymous said: Have nothing to ask. Just want to tell you that you are amazingly talented. ❤ I have been playing the sims since its original Sims 1 release, and have always been a heavy CC user. (Upwards of 50GB in sims 3). Never have I ever felt the need to download EVERYTHING a creator has ever made, until I found you. So, in short, you are amazeballs. Keep it up.

this is so sweet lmao. Even I don’t have all my own CC in my game <3 I appreciate this so so much. Thank you for this

Anonymous said: How did you learn to create custom content??Did you see any video tutorial? I'm trying to create a hair but I can not get it :(((( help me please

most of the stuff I have learned from trial and error, or help from S4S fourms and friends :) Feel free to message me with questions on tumblr or discord

Anonymous said: I know Sims 5 is still so far away, but I still have a question! With the release of Sims 4 so many awesome creators for Sims 3 just stopped creating from one day to another. So my question is: Could you imagine yourself creating Custom Content for Sims 5? I'm asking because I seriously love every single piece you create for Sims 4, and I really wish the glory era of Ah00b won't end with the release of Sims 5. Ily! <3

it depends on the style that TS5 goes for tbh. I love Sims 4 style and I don’t know much of anything about creating alpha hairs so if TS5 goes that direction I doubt I would be able to create for it. also thank you for calling it the glory era of ah00b lmao

Anonymous said: You have hairs named after all the girls in black pink except Rosé. Is there a reason for this?

Well I named a hair Rosanne thinking it was close enough to her name lmao. I might name a hair coming in July Rosie. We shall see when it gets to July XD

#asks #oml this was a mess bc my computer froze after I answered all these the first time and I had to go back through and reanswer #so I didn't answer some stuff the second time bc I was a bit annoyed with my computer #inbox is cleared Ill start answering stuff once a month #lets hope

50 notes · View notes

erictmason · 7 years

Text

Top 10 Disney Cartoon Shows

Turns out that last list didn't quite get all the Disney out of my system, so I'm at it again. Only this time, it's about Disney's efforts on the small screen. It's actually kind of hard to overstate the significance of Disney's choice to get into the television animation game back in the 80's. Before then, whatever else one could say about its merits, animation on TV meant one thing: cheap (well, OK, that and "short films imported from a radically different era", but let's not split hairs here). That isn't to say quality animation could not be found on television pre-Disney, but rather that said quality (both in the visual and writing departments) was rarely if ever the priority. But when Disney came along, with a mission statement of bringing with it the level of craft that had defined their theatrical films (though naturally they were never really aiming that high), that changed, and animation studios of all stripes suddenly had a reason to pour a lot more effort into their animated TV shows. I don't think it's unfair to say we're still living in the world Disney helped create, in fact, whether it's the overt influence many of Disney's shows have had on the newest generation of animators or else by virtue of the space they helped to make where such shows can exist and thrive. So, with the reboot of "Ducktales", the Disney TV animation studio's first breakout success, having recently launched, I thought it would be an appropriate time to look back at that vast, storied history of Disney TV cartoons and pick out my personal picks for the best of the bunch. As usual, there are a few provisos, a couple of quid pro quos if you will. 1.) It has to be a show made by a division of Disney Television Animation, not just airing on a Disney-owned channel. That means no Lucasfilms, no Marvel, and no imports from, say, Canada or Japan. 2.) TV shows only, no shorts or compilation shows. So much as I adore them, the current run of "Mickey Mouse" shorts will not be on here, sorry. 3.) It has to have aired in its entirety. I feel like it's unfair to judge a TV show on a list like this without being able to see it as a whole, so as intriguing as, say, "Star VS. The Forces of Evil" is, it isn't eligible since it's still producing new episodes. With the rules established? Let's make some magic!

10.) Aladdin: The Series (1994-1995): Here's a bit of irony for you: half the reason Disney ventured into television animation in the first place is that, at the time, the future of their theatrical animation division seemed in doubt. Not long after, however, along came "The Little Mermaid" and the Disney Renaissance, and suddenly it was the television side looking to the theatrical side for source material. Quite a few Renaissance pics got the TV show treatment as a result, but for my money the best of the bunch remains "Aladdin: The Series", mainly because it's the one that feels most of a piece with the original movie. Part of that, of course, is that "Aladdin" was already a bit more suited to the adventure-a-week formula, since that's kind of where the roots of the original story already run. But part of it is also that the ways in which the show expanded on the original's world were genuinely clever. Pulling not only from Arabian mythology, but Greco-Roman, Aztec, Egyptian, and beyond, the show managed to deliver remarkably-solid adventure stories, few of which ever continued from the other but all of which worked surprisingly well together to create a world that felt remarkably alive and vibrant. Sure, Aladdin himself remains a fairly uninteresting protagonist, Dan Castellanata can't hope to replace Robin Williams as The Genie, and Iago is a lot less fun when he's asked to be a constant lead presence rather than a humorous diversion. But even so, "Aladdin: The Series" succeeded at taking the original's lead, running with it, and in the process delivering a show that felt exciting and interesting to watch week from week just to see what new corner of its world it would uncover.

9.) Phineas and Ferb (2007-2015): OK, confession time? I actually don't like this show very much. I hardly dislike it or anything, but I was never able to really get into it the same way I could other entries in the remarkably-specific sub-genre of "TV Cartoons Aimed At Kids Which Manage To Also Garner A Sizable Teen/Adult Audience" like, say, "Steven Universe" or another show that's probably on this list. Nonetheless, I can't deny this thing is maybe the success story of modern-day Disney television animation, lasting longer by far than any other show on the list. Nor am I unaware of what made it so popular: the strong, heavily-geometric character designs, the charming musical numbers, and the mad-cap, self-aware comedy. It's that last piece I find most interesting, because I think it speaks most strongly to what helped "Phineas and Ferb" stand out from the pack: it's kind of like the kid-friendly version of "Family Guy", at least in the sense that it derives its humor less from the story or characters, who are deliberately archetypal, and more from its ability to use those archetypal characters as delivery machines for rapid-fire punchlines predicated on equal parts dry wit and pop-cultural reference. In other words, it never becomes itself an "adult" series, indeed its whole perspective is an exaggerated version of childhood, but it does use an "adult"-oriented style of comedy most other kid's shows didn't really utilize back when it started. That kind of unique creative choice can often do a lot of help a show stand out from the crowd, and, with four seasons, seven years, and over 200 episodes (to say nothing of TV specials and movies), I think it's safe to say that's exactly what this show did.

8.) Fillmore! (2002-2004): Man, why don't more people remember this show? Following up on the renewed popularity of crime procedurals thanks to both the "Law and Order" and "CSI" franchises being at their peak, it takes the structure and tone of a 70's/80's-style crime drama and refits it into the world of Middle School. Cops become Hallway Monitors, overzealous politicians become overbearing teachers, and Grand Theft Auto becomes bicycle theft. It's that last part that proves the most amusing; since murder is pretty obviously not going to fly on a kid's show, the crimes they do come up with display a remarkable breadth of creativity. Trying to chase down a graffiti vandal turns into a "Silence of the Lambs"-style criminal vs. criminal scenario, fandom obsession leads to dangerous sabotage, smuggling food into school is treated like something akin to drug-running, that sort of thing. And best of all, while the show is entirely aware of its own absurdity, its sense of humor is 100% deadpan, and the result is that it really does play like a "straight" Cop Drama despite its setting. It's a unique tone that is equal parts engaging and funny, and it creates this really interesting one-of-a-kind style that no other show has ever really tapped into, either before or since. Top it off with a great pair of lead characters-the titular Fillmore himself, a Good Guy With A Past played with a crisp cool to match the show's tone by Orlando Brown, and his reformed-ex-con partner Ingrid Third, another notch in veteran VA Tara Strong's belt, and you've got a great kid's show that's every bit as gripping as the shows it parodies, even as it also gets some solid laughs along the way too.

7.) TaleSpin (1990-1991): For the most part, it's easy to draw the lines that connect the Disney Afternoon's initial shows to the pre-existing Disney properties they're based on. "Goof Troop" is really just those old-school Goofy shorts about domestic life updated to match with 90's-style family sitcoms, "Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers" plugs the titular duo into kid-friendly adventure romps, and so on and so forth. But "TaleSpin" is just so weird in that respect: it may borrow three of its key characters from there, but it can't really be said to be based on Disney's 1967 version of "The Jungle Book". Instead, those characters-or rather heavily modified versions of those characters re-conceived to fit in to the show's new setting-are placed into an entirely new world, which itself is something like a steampunk fantasy version of 1920's America, guided by the spirit of old-school Adventure Serials. But the very oddity of its construction allows "TaleSpin" to feel at once familiar and new, able to ground itself by way of those "Jungle Book" characters you know and love (with the twists it puts on them being endearingly clever, like making Shere Khan a Lex Luthor-style corporate mogul) while also spring-boarding out into a wide variety of classic adventure stories. Daring duels with pirates, high-stakes air races, and even the occasional flight of overtly-magical fancy...there's a lot of Tales to Spin here, and the show consistently does so with an admirably clear-eyed sense of its own genre and how to best play with it. And again, it's all connected to a charming cast of characters. "TaleSpin" is a tricky little thing to pin down, then, but for that very reason it's way too memorable to overlook or ever forget.

6.) The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988-1991): "Winnie the Pooh" stories are a tricky thing to do right. They'd been around for close to half-a-century even back when Disney first adapted the property into a trilogy of animated short films during the mid-to-late 60's, and that history, combined with the stories' enduring popularity, means we all have a fairly solid idea of what they "feel" like. Moreover, by their very nature, the best "Pooh" stories are short, simple things with only the barest hint of narrative intent or moral center. Which means trying to expand on them in any significant way runs the risk of stuffing them with more familiar story-telling tropes and styles that simply do not belong there. So "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" deserves a lot of credit, if not for dodging that fact entirely (as was increasingly common in kid's TV shows of the time, it made sure to center a lot of its stories around "lessons" in a fashion much louder and more overt than the source material), then at least for managing to make a show that consistently felt like it captured and exemplified the right spirit even so. A lot of that, it should be said, comes down to the voice actors; not only did Paul Winchell (Tigger) and John Fiedler (Piglet) return to reprise their iconic roles after having sat out the previous "Pooh" TV show, "Welcome to Pooh Corner", but this also marks the first "Pooh" project where the title character is voiced by Jim Cummings, who has played the role in every other "Pooh" production to come out of Disney in the nearly-three decades since. Their performances aren't just consistently entertaining, they also lend a sense of spiritual continuity that benefits the show greatly. More to the point, though, the animation has an intriguing physicality to it that recognizes the stuffed-animal nature of its core cast, as well as a delightfully-poppy color scheme. The writing, meanwhile, uses a particular blend of sweetness and humor that feels at once akin to the original Disney short films, but also distinct and enjoyable unto itself. Wordplay, slapstick, and gentle philosophizing, hallmarks of a good "Pooh" story since the very beginning, all show up in "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", but the show always puts a just-so slightly-modern touch on each one. To be sure, "New Adventures" plays in the same ballpark as more typical Saturday Morning cartoon fare, but it does so with the invaluable lessons of Pooh himself pretty clearly having been taken to heart in the process, and the resulting show is simply delightful.

5.) Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1985-1991): Technically speaking, the first Disney Television series is the short-lived plush-toy spin-off "The Wuzzles". Meanwhile, the first real breakout hit for the studio was unquestionably 1987's "Ducktales". But the one that first really established the studio, granting it the foothold from which it would build its future successes, is "The Adventures of the Gummi Bears". On paper, it sounds very much like a "Smurfs" wanna-be, centered as it is on a tribe of small, magically-inclined creatures with matching names set in a vaguely-Medieval England fantasy world. But in execution, it winds up weaving a remarkably-compelling tale with a surprisingly-dense internal mythology which it treats with an impressive degree of respect and earnestness. That isn't to say it's some Super Serious Epic (we'll need to go a bit up the list for that show), but even as it keeps things primarily centered on kid-friendly slapstick and gentle goofing off (and does a fine version of it in both cases too), there is nonetheless an underlying spine of genuinely weighty world-building to it that adds just the right amount of extra heft to even the lighter aspects of the series. The way our main characters, the Gummi Bears of the title, slowly but surely discover more and more aspects of their history and culture (much of it tangled up in an ugly war stemming from prejudice and distrust), all the while hoping for the day they'll be able to reunite with their own people, underlines almost every episode, pulling you in and often taking you by surprise. As well, while all clearly archetypal (in the old Seven Dwarves tradition of being named for their defining traits, even), those characters are all delightful to spend time with, again thanks to a strong cast of voice-acting veterans like Paul Winchell, June Foray, and Bill Scott, and a dynamic that feels warm and lived-in. Moreover, this is the show that Disney's TV animation really used to show off its skills, with some of the most fluid, engaging use of motion in any cartoon of the era; some episode are naturally stronger than others, but the best of them are genuinely gorgeous stuff. It is, in other words, a show with an intriguing story that feels very much like the best sort of Bed-Time Story, inviting and friendly on one level but with a deeper center just beneath the surface to pull you in and keep you coming back, and realized with a strong, compelling craft. So it's really no wonder that these "Gummi Bears" were, in their way, the ones to start the long-lived legacy of Disney's TV cartoons.

4.) Recess (1997-2003): There came an interesting point of transition for Disney's TV animation studios toward the end of the 90's. The Disney Afternoon block, long the most visible home for their shows, was finally shutting down after a solid seven-year run, and a new once-a-week block, fittingly named "1 Saturday Morning", was rising up to take its place. The block managed to last a decent five years, but very few of its shows managed to make much of an impact. But among the ones that did, the clear front-runner, to my mind at least, is "Recess", a love letter aimed not only at the nostalgia of the playground but also to the iconic TV comedy "Hogan's Heroes" (compare the theme songs to both shows, and then look at the mix of archetypes that comprises the core cast for each one). That mixture allows the show to present a vision of childhood that is simultaneously deliberately hyperbolic-the age-old notion of schoolyard hierarchies is here portrayed as a rich, thriving society unto itself, complete with its own king and economy-while still grounded in relatable ideas and characters, especially as regards the oftentimes contentious relationship between the students and teachers. That latter aspect especially speaks to why "Recess" is probably my pick for the best overall show of the "1 Saturday Morning" era, too; yes, as is typical of a show aimed at kids, it plays to their own feelings by painting the teachers as alternatively cruel and inept for the most part (while quite a few episodes focus on the difficulties the kids have with their parents, too), but it never forgets their own humanity in the process, and some of the show's best moments stem from that fact. Still, at the end of the day, it does really come down to that "Hogan's Heroes" influence I mentioned. No real kid has ever assembled the complex schemes and adventures that are "Recess"' primary source of stories, but I promise you every last kid has dreamed of it, and by placing those scenarios in the world it does, where the audience can at once recognize how much this is an exaggeration but still grasp what reality it draws from, it makes this really intriguing atmosphere that sparkles at once with a kid's sense of wonder and an adult's sense of humor (a lot of the best jokes stem from sharp wit that connects a young adult's perspective to adult concepts like a full-time job or balancing responsibilities). It's a style quite a few shows, cartoon or otherwise, have tried out over the years, but "Recess" is one of the very best examples of the form.

3a.) Gravity Falls (2012-2016): If you were paying close enough attention, you may have noticed something about the opening credits of animated television shows around the beginning of the '00's: series creators were being prominently credited. It was indicative of a larger amount of trust and control being placed in distinct creative voices as the industry slowly eased out (or tried to, anyway) of the merchandise-driven business model that had defined it for most of the 80's and 90's, and across the board it led to some very distinct visions making their way onto screens. For Disney, the example du jour is Alex Hirsch's "Gravity Falls", a show whose existence is all the more surprising when you consider just how very Not Disney its premise-kid-oriented "Twin Peaks" riff by way of "The X-Files"-really sounds. And yet here we are, with a show that is at once a razor-sharp comedy, a poignant examination of what it means to grow up and what we do and do not have to leave behind in the process, and a veritable parade of some of the most off-the-wall horror-sci-if-fantasy mash-ups of all time. And the thing of it is, the glue holding all of that together and keeping it coherent, allowing the show to build effortlessly both towards fantastic punchlines and deeply emotional culminations, stems from Hirsch: in interviews, he talked about how much of the show's premise stemmed from reflecting on the tourist-trap vacations he himself took as a child, and indeed, a lot of the series' best moments (an early episode centered on a haunted convenience store springs to mind in particular for me) succeed by tapping into that particular vein of childhood, where the simple change in environment that comes with vacation lends even the most mundane things an air of mystery. By the same token, so too do the characters feel keenly drawn from reality (even as they do still possess a cartoon's foibles and exaggerations); Dipper and Mabel are two of the most believable pre-teens I've ever seen on TV, both in their own way smart enough to no longer be children but struggling with the greater maturity necessary to really become grown-up, Grunkle Stan feels like every huckster you've ever seen on TV right down to the niggling sense that there is a tremendous amount more to him than what we see, and the change in perspective the show gives us on Wendy, initially kept at arm's length because of Dipper's crush on her only to emerge more fully as a person once he recognizes her own feelings on the matter. And then on top of all that, it's connected to a genuinely-compelling mystery that the show gradually teases out more and more, and those who are paying attention really do have an honest shot of piecing the puzzle together before the characters do, adding a new layer of visceral excitement to the experience. But the real strength of the show is that those twists and turns, as much as they might pull us deeper into the puzzle box, are really more about exploring and growing the characters first and foremost. That's the key to "Gravity Falls" above all, to my mind: yes, its internal mythology is uniquely well built, and yes, pushing the envelope on how genuinely scary/dangerous it's allowed to get is fascinating, but it never loses sight of how much its characters are the real heart of the story, and how much that fact helps this weird, wild mixture really come together.

3b.) Darkwing Duck (1991-1992): Yes, the #3 slot is a draw, because when it came right down to it I simply could not pick between the two shows I was considering for it. Leaving "Gravity Falls" off felt simply unacceptable to be, but neither could I find it in my heart to axe this, maybe my personal favorite of the entire Disney Afternoon era, from the list. Because the thing of it is, when you really think about it, "Darkwing Duck" shouldn't work at all. Superhero parodies were old hat even by the early 90's (indeed, at that point they probably outnumbered actual superhero shows), while spin-offs had long ago developed a reputation for being cheap-and-easy cash-ins (though the extent to which "Darkwing Duck" is, in fact, a spin-off of "Ducktales" is a touch debatable, I suppose, even as they share a handful of characters). But despite the odds against it, "Darkwing Duck" does indeed prove to be a consistently entertaining piece of work, and a lot of why boils down to the remarkably-multilayered construction of its title character. That isn't to say Darkwing is the only good thing about his own show; his rogue's gallery is an amusing assortment of pastiches of classic Villain archetypes-the plant-master, the crazy clown, the evil double, and so on-while the supporting cast, including "Ducktales" veteran Launchpad McQuack and excitable youngster Gosalyn Mallard (a character who, by rights, should be insufferable, but is instead genuinely endearing thanks in no small part to her voice actor, the late, great Christine Cavanaugh), is equally enjoyable. As well, the show's sense of humor has an ahead-of-its-time sardonic edge to it that was nowhere near as commonplace in kid's cartoons by that point, but which here provides just the right level of sharpness to the comedy. And the animation is fascinating, too, with a far more "Looney Tunes"-style sensibility to a lot of its best moments (which in turn informs the characters a lot; there's more than a touch of Daffy to Darkwing, but we'll get to that in a minute), while also showing just how far the iconic Disney "duck" design could be stretched while still being recognizable. But it really is Darkwing himself who makes the show, because despite the core conceit being fairly simple-poking fun at the inherent egomania of the superhero by portraying one as a glory hound interested more in publicity than actual heroism-there actually prove to be quite a few layers to him when you really get into it. For one thing, he's actually quite good at his job; for as many times as his inadequacy is the butt of the joke, "let's get dangerous" is more than just a catchphrase; it's a sign he's about to show you what he's really capable of. For another, his sincere affection for and protectiveness of Gosalyn shows there really is a heart underneath all that bluster, and that if he could just get out of his own way, Darkwing might well be capable of true greatness. But all too often he is, in fact, his own worst enemy (there's that Daffy Duck influence again). It's all played mostly for laughs, sure, but, especially thanks to Darkwing's VA Jim Cummings, who navigates each of those layers coherently and effectively, it comes through clearly even so. And it elevates the entire show to this unique, interesting place that has helped it stand the test of time.

2.) Gargoyles (1994-1997): As established during our introduction, the entry of Disney into the world of television animation in the mid-80's was a real paradigm shift in the industry. But a few years later, in 1992, came another, arguably even more profound game-changer: "Batman: The Animated Series". Every last element of that show-its writing, its visual style, and especially its revolutionary craft-proved profoundly popular, not only with viewers but people inside the industry. Soon enough, almost every TV animation studio around mounted a response: for Marvel Television, it was the "X-Men" cartoon, for Hanna Barbera it was "SWAT Kats". But far and away the best answer came from Disney, in the form of Greg Weisman's fantasy epic, "Gargoyles". From stem to stern, this is maybe one of the richest, most satisfying stories Disney TV ever crafted, and in stark contrast to just about every other show on this list, that doesn't come with a "but it's not as serious as all that" caveat. There's comic relief, to be sure, but still, this is nonetheless an entirely-earnest Modern Fantasy Epic, comprised of equal parts deep-cut cultural/mythological references-everything from Shakespeare to Arthurian Lore to the tales of Anansi the Spider, all realized with a remarkable degree of understanding and specificity-and exceptionally well-structured characters. Stoic Goliath, striving at once to protect what little remains of his kind while also seeking to do good in a world he struggles to understand; Elisa Maza, a sharp-minded detective who is always determined to stay on top of the situation no matter how crazy it becomes; Demona, a tragic figure consumed with anger and grief who seeks greater and greater means of destruction; Xanatos, one of the greatest masterminds of all time, always one step ahead, always a new scheme at the ready. "Gargoyles", in other words, weaves an impressively intricate tale that inhabits a sprawling, detailed world with rich, compelling players, by way of some of the most impressively-intricate long-term story arcs I've ever seen in a cartoon show. Whether it's the gradual transformation of Xanatos from inscrutable antagonist to complex Family Man (even as the extent to which he can ever really be trusted remains in question) or the slow-burn, exceptionally rewarding progression of Goliath and Elisa's relationship, or even things like the young, impetuous Brooklyn slowly growing up into a possible leader, "Gargoyles" hones in with perfect precision on how best to expand these characters over time. Likewise, watching as the scope of the world, and our own understanding of it, expands to include concepts like aliens and mutants amongst its gods and monsters is impressive and fascinating. And the series paces itself equally perfectly. There is a genuinely organic quality to "Gargoyles"' arcs, both character and plot; it never feels static or overly obsessed with the Status Quo, but it also does not rush through anything. Each plot twist, each character epiphany, feels earned, and all the more powerful as a result. And, cherry on top, the animation is top-tier stuff; it is perhaps not as overtly stylized as "Batman: The Animated Series" (though its focus on night-time settings and a darker color palette feels evocative of that show), but the combination of a Disney-esque sense of character design with the show's strong narrative backbone leads to exceptional results even so. "Gargoyles" may have been made in "Batman"'s image, but it wound up being a one-of-a-kind classic in its own right.

1.) Ducktales (1987-1990): There are a number of reasons "Ducktales" more or less has to top this list. Its pedigree, for one thing; drawing a lot of its premise (and directly adapting several of its best episodes and story lines) from the famed Carl Barks "Uncle Scrooge" comics (though notoriously, Barks' most famous successor, Don Rosa, has a less-than-sunny attitude toward the show) provides the show an exceptionally well-built and endearing structure. Whether it's outer-space epics or intercontinental treasure hunts, espionage action or magical mayhem, there's no breed of adventure "Ducktales" cannot comfortably tap into. Another thing to consider is its place in history; almost every other show on this list owes its existence to one degree or another to this show, which proved to be exactly the sort of powerhouse success story the Disney TV studio needed in order to prove its chops, and that means "Ducktales" holds a special place in animation history too, given how much Disney TV has played a part in it as a whole. And naturally, there's the animation to consider too; it may seem a touch standard-issue today, but compare "Ducktales" to just about any other contemporary cartoon of its era, and you'll realize just how much care goes into keeping characters on model and letting them movie not just fluidly, but also in a way that's enjoyable to watch. And last but hardly least, there's the stellar cast of characters (and voice actors); Huey, Dewey, and Louie may all be interchangeable, but their dynamic is lively and enjoyable anyway. Webby, meanwhile, is a fantastic foil, not only for them, but for Uncle Scrooge. And naturally, Scrooge himself (given an iconic performance by the late, great Alan Young) is just fantastic, a multi-layered, larger-than-life character who is nonetheless so much fun to simply spend time with you never want to stop. But the thing of it is, "Ducktales"' real claim to #1 is a bit harder to quantify than all that, because even as it excels on just about every level, it doesn't have, say, the same depth of theme and character as "Gravity Falls", or "Gargoyles"' tapestry of plot lines and character arcs. Its animation is certainly high quality, especially for the time, but it's not that much better than "Adventures of the Gummi Bears". And yet, even so, "Ducktales" is the one everyone remembers, and I feel like that comes down to it adding up to something more than just the sum of its parts. There really is this unique, ineffable energy to "Ducktales" that is equal parts charming, endearing, exciting, and thrilling, and it enhances each and every one of the things the show already does so well to a special level all its own. Some of that can be chalked up to nostalgia, sure, but a lot of it, I think, can also be ascribed to the sheer sense of discovery innate to the show. Not simply in the various people and places our heroes encounter (though there's that too, naturally), but in the fact that this new effort on Disney's part was hitting its stride, and in so doing opening up a whole new world of possibilities, for the show itself and for the future. Which is maybe being a touch too grandiose about it, but even so, "Ducktales" has endured enough to make me think there may be something to it. And hey, if literally nothing else, it really does have one humdinger of a theme song.

#Disney #disney afternoon #television #ducktales #Countdown #ericthemason #My writing

18 notes · View notes

jillmckenzie1 · 6 years

Text

The Silver Lining – Online Dating on the Road

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away, I came across a guy on Bumble who immediately proclaimed in his bio that faith was the number quality that he was looking for in a woman. Okay. He then proceeded to say how much he loved positivity and hated photo filters: “Real is beautiful.” You got it, bud. I second the filter hate train. I mean, I’ll send you a dumbass video of me with cheeseburgers circling around my head, but a hard no on the cat ears for public visibility. In true Stephanie fashion, I led with: “Should I start sending all my Snapchat filter selfies now or later?” (don’t worry, the answer is yes, I do amuse myself). Here’s the part where you sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. His response: “Funny, Funny. I wonder what a vagina looks like filtered? Huh [insert light bulb emoji]. I have an idea. Test it out for us. Send me one both ways. I’ll let you know [insert smiley face emoji].”

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Yep, this actually happened. Seriously. I responded and questioned why, on any planet in any point in time, he believed this response would be an acceptable way to speak to a woman. Ever. I recall using words like “disgusting” and “degrading” (I’m sure the screenshot is somewhere deep in the abyss of my iPhotos if you need evidence). His response? He was joking. Right. Super funny, dude. Real funny. Report. Block. Terminate. Bye.

If you’re single, you’re not surprised by this story. If you’re in a relationship, I hope to God you are completely astounded. And, while I often think dating apps are the absolute devil, it is also the current means to an end. Are you even a real single person if you are not on a dating app? Not even kidding. Okay, slight over exaggeration, but truly, never in our wildest teen years did us 30-something-year-olds imagine using our phones to score a significant other (AIM, sure, but not our phones).

So, I exist in my current reality. Fact: I’m single. Fact: I’m transient. Fact: I’d like to be in a relationship. Fact: I don’t care whether or not that relationship exists in a transient or stationary state. So, yes, if our vibe is high and you want to hop in the Airstream and explore every end of the earth, great. If you work in a job you love in a city that you call home, ask me to stay. Let’s ride the wave. Together. Because, seriously, doing life with someone who really gets you better than anyone else ever could is the real damn deal.

Back to dating. I don’t think anyone actually dates anymore. I am actually convinced that it’s not really a thing these days. There’s like pre-dating in which you entertain the idea of actually dating. And then there is friend-zoning or jumping deep into the abyss of quasi-matrimony. I speak with experience from the former, not the latter. And, mark my words, “friends with benefits” is so hot right now. I actually went toe-to-toe with two guy friends at a bar last weekend in a pursuit to convince them that the typical Millennial male is more often than not seeking a friend with whom he can simply have sex than an actual committed relationship (let’s just say they didn’t disagree). Because, I actually do believe that most men do not want to sleep around with handfuls of random girls. They seem to be perplexed by their own paradoxical existence of not wanting anything serious (i.e. being forced to attend your grandma’s 80th birthday with you) while simultaneously wanting to have sex as much as humanly possible.

Let me present to you exhibit A.

I moved to Denver in my Airstream last spring. I met a guy on Bumble who happened to be on the way to a bachelor party for the weekend. I assumed we would engage in an hour-long text conversation that would end with him asking me to send nudes or with him sending me a completely unsolicited dick pic (because, yes, as you can assume from the above scenario, guys really do that). I’d tell him to (a) Google a nude, any nude (most certainly not mine), if that’s what he wanted, or (b) I’d cuss him out for exposing himself like a disturbed and arrogant asshole, and I’d add another tally to my list of douchebags found in the wild.

Welp, surprisingly, he proved me wrong. Beyond that, he actually seemed interested in who I was as a human being, and he proceeded to text me non-stop over the course of the weekend. While at a bachelor party (I feel that this detail needs repeating).

So, he returns home three days later and we commit to actually meeting face to face (like, whoa). And, for lack of a better word, it’s flawless. We’re super funny together (priority one), conversation is natural, and chemistry is fire. We hang out for a few weeks, which inevitably leads to sex. Immediately, he drops the bomb: let’s be friends. Let’s. Be. Friends? Oh wait, I’m sorry, correction, let’s be BEST friends. Perfect. Great. Because, I’m really lacking in the best friend department (insert massive eye roll here).

At this point, I assume it will die out. I assume that he used the nice guy “let’s be friends” card in an attempt to save my feelings and he will vanish as quickly as he had appeared. But, no. He quite literally continues to pursue my friendship. For a month he asks me to do nearly everything with him. He also proceeds to pay for everything: climbing, concerts, movies. Let’s note here that he also proceeds to take my clothes off on a semi-regular basis (despite his constant commentary on us needing rules to prevent such happenings). Final bomb: after a Luke Bryan concert, while sitting on a bench enveloped by a Colorado night sky, he tells me that he loves my soul. I’m sorry, what? Like, we are dating, bro. We. Are. DATING. I don’t care what you title me, but let’s call this thing by its Urban Dictionary definition. He follows up this statement with the fact that I simply deserve better. One, I think I am being dumped for the first time without ever actually having been in an established relationship. Two, fuck off. No one gets to tell me what I deserve. I decide that. So, no, I don’t deserve better. You simply deserve less based on your own evaluation of whatever this thing is that we’re doing. Say that, please. Own that.

So, spring came. And, spring went.

Summer roared in like a lion, and I committed myself to rock faces and mountain peaks, two things that I find to be (surprisingly) much more predictable than men. I also dove even deeper into my work (don’t worry, the digital dating gods still delivered amidst my commitment to my professional projects).

Enter exhibit B.

As a freelance creative director and brand strategist, I work remotely for all of my clients. Idaho. California. Kentucky. Texas. I sometimes wonder if I have a subconscious goal to knock off all 50 states. With all that being said, I met a guy in another state who pursued me completely on his own accord. My vision had always been to travel with my Airstream, but I was never 100% certain on dates. This guy gets my number, he uses round-about questions to engage me in some witty banter, and low and behold he says, “Move down here and I’ll fix all your dating problems.” Wow. Bold statement. I like it. So, after a couple months in this state of flirting euphoria, I commit (amongst a sea of many factors, but I’m intrigued by what’s happening here). He calls me pet names and we have running jokes, and if you know me, these are the keys to my heart. So, I’m smitten kitten. Without any expectation of what will actually become of it. If anything.

The point here is that I show up. I have the luxury of saying yes and then doing something about it. I want to be next to him, so I choose that. Because his voice brings this uncanny smile to my face, and when his name appears on my iPhone notifications, there is a simultaneous level of excitement and comfort. He is fireworks, and he is coming home. And the beauty lies not only in the feeling, but also in the reciprocation of the feeling. Because, there is zero bone in my body that has interpreted anything that he’s told me as being untrue.

Until I’m there. Until I’m standing in front of him begging for every inch of contact. And, that alone becomes the culmination of months of aggressive flirting. Me. Begging (like, seriously, just kiss me before I scream). Because he likes me, but he doesn’t know. I’m sorry, what? Yes, he likes me, but he doesn’t know. Because, self-admittedly, he is a tease. And, he likes it, even though he’s not proud of it (his words, not mine). Perfect. Great. Because, my character flaw is not consuming enough water daily. The effect of this flaw on other people: zero.

At this point, I need to clarify two things. One, I respect people who have an awareness about what they do not know. There is nothing wrong with not knowing. I would take harsh honesty over a sugar-coated lie ten times out of ten. My frustration or disappointment or bewilderment exists in the actions that suggest otherwise. I get it, the pursuit is fun, but if you are not ready to take the elk out of the woods after the hunt, then why are you going hunting in the first place? Terrible metaphor, by the way, but rolling with it. Two, I do not believe in forcing anything in life. I spent far too many years making things happen in the pursuit of checking off items from some proverbial checklist (which is entirely bullshit, by the way). So, for someone not to choose me does not devastate my being. Yes, I have feelings. Lots of them. Too many of them, probably (hello, Leo over here). But, in a world where we get to choose everything (for argument’s sake), I’m not into forcing anyone into a choice that involves me.

What I have observed in this last eighteen months of singledom is that no one wants to commit. To anything. There is no need to commit to anything. Most guys are on dating apps to have sex. Okay, rephrase, most guys are on dating apps posing like they want something substantial in order to get sex. I actually have the most respect for bios that read, “If I’m being honest, just looking to hook up.” Bravo. Kudos to you, dude. Because, I have had my own seasons of wanting more and wanting less. And, there is nothing wrong with either choice. There is nothing wrong with existing in either space. It’s the lack of honesty that burns me to my core. Stop flirting with me if it’s not going anywhere. Stop wasting my time. I don’t need more friends off of Bumble, or sliding into my DMs, or through obscure means of getting my phone number. Truly. I’ve reached my lifetime quota after 34 years.

In tandem, what I have observed in the last eighteen months about myself is that I am, most certainly, a lover and believer of words. And, that is the crux. That online dating, or simply just dating, is this whole show of words. That are so easily believed. And it’s just all shit. If I had a dollar for every guy who suggested running away with me in my Airstream, I would have been able to pay straight cash for my new F-150 a few weeks ago. Seriously. There’s one in LA, and a couple in New Jersey, a handful in Texas, and so many in Colorado that I’ve actually stopped counting. Because the minute I say, “Okay, I’m calling you on this statement,” my experience indicates that they can’t live up to it.

Great, tell me all about your fantasies, homeboy, only to ghost two days later (or, better yet, I find out about your undying love for your current girlfriend on your second to last Instagram post from five days ago). Newsflash, smoother operator, this is my actual life over here. Hope you enjoyed your glimpse.

So, yes, I’m attempting to not grow cynical. I’m also attempting to unpack two very real personal questions. One, if a game must be played in order to win the affection of another, and that game requires me to act outside of my normal state, then am I even winning if I do “win?” For example, guy articulates that he doesn’t know if he wants anything. Then, the same guy asks for me to bring him food because he’s stuck at work. I show love through service, so naturally, my being is dying to deliver said food. But, guy advice (based on my current inner circle) is usually, don’t bring him the food: “He’s using you. If he can’t say that he wants you, but is willing to get favors from you, show him that you don’t have time to do him favors without him giving you a respectable level of commitment.” And, this is fair. This actually makes sense. But, still, I deliver the food (yep, that’s me) because, yep, that IS me. And, I don’t want to be anything but myself. Ever.

Two, what is my responsibility to give people space to be honest and themselves but also to guard my own heart in that process? I believe in ease. I believe that there are certain things in life that mysteriously and beautifully fall into place. I’d like to believe that a romantic relationship would unfold in a similar fashion. But, if this guy says he doesn’t know and then proceeds to engage with me in a fashion that suggests otherwise, should I believe his actions or his words? And, the fact that I’m asking that question is my answer, right? If the right person were standing in front of me, I’m confident I wouldn’t have to be choosing between his actions and his words in the first place because there would be an alignment in both areas that carries the level of integrity that I demand for in my own self. Yet, here I am, FaceTiming my best male friend at 7:32pm on a Wednesday night to ask how to respond to the 47th text message from a guy who just doesn’t know what it is that he wants from me, making me perplexed on how to proceed with my own verbiage and actions.

At this point, let’s add the nomadic element to the mix. And, I am quite confident that therein lies a bigger piece to this commitment-phobic puzzle. Because, it is easy to fall into a routine with someone who resides within your city limits and has a similar schedule to your scripted life. It is an entirely different thing to choose a person who has the freedom to leave. To ask someone to stay requires a deeper level of commitment. It means that someone is choosing for me to do life alongside him, and it means that we are taking off into the sunset together or I am abandoning the road to call someone my home. Ultimately, that choice is my desire. Because, the more I embark on adventures alone, the narrower the gap becomes for me to experience those things for the first time with someone else.

And, I’m starting to question whether or not anything is actually beautiful without it being shared, without it being seen through two sets of eyes in the same moment, if anything is real without the conversation of that thing existing between two coherent bodies.

So, I continue to sit and manifest these desires in the belief that, one day, I’ll be done with the exhibits. That, one day, someone will choose me, and I will choose him back. Without force. Without fear. Without the twenty questions. Granted, maybe I’ve already missed out on Mr. Perfect somewhere in between. Because I didn’t like his shoes. Or his haircut was weird. Or, I swiped left because he failed to include a bio (c’mon, guys). Regardless, I know that wanting something requires attention to that thing. I know that wanting someone requires intentionality to his existence. So, I’m here. Showing up. Attempting to live outside of our digital dead zone. Attempting to keep doing the work to have that one thing that my heart yearns to explore. I can reason that if it were easy, then everyone would do it. Like, really do it. It’s not easy. Not everyone does it. Like, really does it. But, it will damn well be worth it.

Meanwhile, if you need help with your pickup lines, don’t hesitate to slide into my DMs. They’re currently still free for the taking.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/the-silver-lining-online-dating-on-the-road/

0 notes

pinkarcadecandy · 7 years

Text

THE MOST EXCLUSIVE RESTAURANT IN AMERICA

AUGUST 29, 2016 ISSUE

Damon Baehrel’s methods are a marvel, and his tables are all booked until 2025. Or are they?

By Nick Paumgarten

“He is an unheralded genius,” a food critic said of Damon Baehrel. “He really should be in the upper echelons of the greatest chefs who have ever lived.” Illustration by Eleanor Davis

The first time Jeffrey Merrihue came across the name Damon Baehrel, he was amazed that he hadn’t heard of him. “I didn’t understand how the secret had been kept,” Merrihue said recently. “The people I go around with, it’s hard for us to find something that is genuinely unique and new.” The people Merrihue goes around with are gastronomes, the trophy hunters of haute cuisine, the kind who travel the world to dine at famous, or famously obscure, restaurants. After a trip to Cape Town this spring, to a restaurant called the Test Kitchen, Merrihue, who lives in London and produces promotional videos for restaurants, became, he says, the second person to have eaten at every restaurant on the so-called World’s 50 Best list. He’s also been to eighty of the restaurants to which Michelin has granted three stars.

Around Christmas in 2013, a friend of Merrihue’s alerted him to a Bloomberg News piece about an unranked contender, which Bloomberg called the “most exclusive restaurant in the U.S.” It described a gourmet operation—in Earlton, New York, a half hour south of Albany—in the basement of a woodland home. Once called Damon Baehrel at the Basement Bistro, the place was now simply called Damon Baehrel, after its presiding wizard and host, who served as forager, farmer, butcher, chef, sous-chef, sommelier, waiter, busboy, dishwasher, and mopper. Baehrel derived his ingredients, except meat, sh, and dairy, from his twelve acres of yard, garden, forest, and swamp. He made his oils and ours from acorns, dandelions, and pine; incorporated barks, saps, stems, and lichen, while eschewing sugar, butter, and cream; cured his meats in pine needles; made dozens of cheeses (without rennet); and cooked on wooden planks, soil, and stone. He had christened his approach Native Harvest. The diners who got into the restaurant raved about it online. But at the time it was booked through 2020. “We spend our lives looking for places like this,” Merrihue said.

Undaunted, Merrihue sent an e-mail to the address provided on Baehrel’s Web site. A man who identified himself as Terrance, a friend of the chef ’s, wrote that Baehrel had stopped taking reservations. “That wound me up even more,” Merrihue said. “I pride myself on getting into restaurants.” Still, it didn’t look good. “I thought, I might die before I get a chance to eat there.”

A year and a half later, Merrihue heard from Terrance again. Baehrel had an opening, three weeks later, on a weekday at 4 .. Merrihue hastily assembled a group, a “fantastic four of fine dining.” The three others were Kevin Chan, the editor of the Web site Fine Dining Explorer, who claims to be the first person ever to eat at all of the 50 Best; Andy Hayler, a well-known critic who says he is the only person ever to eat at all of the Michelin three-stars; and Mijune Pak, the editor of the Canadian Web site Follow Me Foodie. Chan ew in from Hong Kong, Pak from Vancouver, Merrihue and Hayler from London. They met in Manhattan and hired a limousine to take them the two and a half hours to Earlton. There was a fifth person as well—“my brother, who has no credentials,” Merrihue said.

The brother arrived early. The gate to Baehrel’s property was closed. Once the others had arrived, the gate swung open. The driver left them and headed into the nearby village of Coxsackie for some pizza. They walked up a driveway to a house on a hill. Around back, they came upon a manicured entrance to the basement. Baehrel, in an apron, greeted them enthusiastically.

He told them that he had just served a fteen-course lunch to fourteen diners. Over the next seven hours, he served Merrihue and his companions twenty-three courses. “I hate long meals,” Merrihue recalled. “But we couldn’t believe it—it just ew by.” In the end, they paid around four hundred and thirty dollars a head, including a corkage fee. (They’d brought their own wine.)

“The consensus was that it was absolutely outstanding,” Merrihue said. “It is the most memorable meal I have ever had. Would it have been my favorite if it had been made by twenty people? O.K., no. But top ten, maybe. I have never seen anywhere where one person does everything.”

“It was incredible,” Chan told me. “High quality, precisely cooked. The avor prole. Each course so well thought out. It’s almost too surreal to believe.”

All four wrote glowing reviews online. A few months later, on Merrihue’s site, FoodieHub, he named Damon Baehrel the best restaurant in the world for 2015. “He is an unheralded genius,” Merrihue told me. “He really should be in the upper echelons of the greatest chefs who have ever lived.”

“The depth of your wrongness is so deep that it is unknowable.”

Is Baehrel unheralded? You can read, and watch, a lot about him on the Internet. There are stories from Bloomberg, the Daily News, the Daily Mail, Town & Country, Fox, Reuters, China Central TV, and ABC News, as well as raves from foodie bloggers who have been there and, in spite of a purported dining-room photo ban, posted the requisite dish pics. His story caters to such gastronomes, as they vie for superlative experiences—most extreme, most local, most remote, most odd. Here’s a Fäviken, the exotic farmhouse restaurant in rural Sweden, except it’s just one guy, in Earlton, and it’s booked through 2025. Its implausibility may be as important to its appeal as any range of textures or tastes. In June, the blog Opinionated About Dining released its list of the top hundred restaurants in the United States, based on a survey of globe-trotting pilgrims like Merrihue. Baehrel came in fifth, ahead of any other restaurant east of Chicago. (Blue Hill at Stone Barns was seventh; Eleven Madison Park was fifteenth.) MSN.com just named it the best restaurant in the state of New York. One evening in May, I happened to be watching “Jeopardy!,” and under the category “Almost Fanatical Devotion,” in which the other questions had to do with Stephen Colbert, Soul Cycle, and Phish, the following appeared on the screen: “There’s a 10-year waiting list for Damon Baehrel’s Earlton, N.Y. restaurant & its 5-hour this ‘menu’ of small portions.” A contestant guessed correctly: “What is the tasting menu?”

There are armchair gourmets, too, among the devotees. In June, Baehrel honored the Make-A-Wish request of a teen-ager from Nebraska. The boy has a condition that prevents him from being able to eat food, and, perhaps as a consequence, he has a fascination with food preparation. He wished for a day of working in the kitchen alongside Chef Baehrel, whom he’d discovered on the Web. The family brought along special air lters, and the boy wore a mask.

In February, I got in touch with Terrance through an e-mail address on the Web site. His reply began, “Thanks for contacting Damon! I’m Terrance. I’ve arranged Damon’s reservations from my NYC office since 1993.” He added, “I’m not an employee, just a friend. I’d be happy to present your inquiry to him.”

Terrance arranged a time for me to talk on the phone with Baehrel, to discuss my desire to write about the restaurant. Baehrel had an avid, guileless way of speaking that put me in mind of Ned Flanders, from “The Simpsons.” “How lucky am I to get to do this?” he said. “Most chefs aspire to get out of the kitchen. Not me.” I told him that I wanted to see him at work, on a night when the restaurant was full. I imagined something like the setup in an Agatha Christie movie: a convergence of exotic strangers on a remote locale.

Baehrel told me that he couldn’t make room for me as a paying diner, and there wouldn’t really be space for me to hang around and observe. He didn’t want to spoil the experience for his guests, who have been waiting for years, and have often travelled a great distance and are paying a great deal.

Instead, Baehrel invited me to meet him on one of his days off. “I’ve got great news about Monday February 29,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We were able to re-arrange almost everything that day so you and I can get together.” He suggested 11 .., as he had an unmovable appointment earlier. I asked if it was something I could observe, such as a delivery or a meeting with a supplier. He wrote back, “I got a chuckle out of when you suggested I may be ‘meeting with a supplier.’ Not sure if you realize, I have no suppliers. No ordering or waiting for delivery trucks . . . ever.” The morning obligation had to do with an adult son, who is severely disabled. “My wife takes care of him,” he told me. “We can’t go away. One of us has to be home all the time.”

I drove up from Manhattan. It was a wet, blustery day. The G.P.S. steered me off the Thruway onto narrow winding back roads pegged with “Repeal the S.A.F.E. Act” pro- gun yard signs. After a while, around a turn, I came upon a tidy wood sign painted with Baehrel’s name and a logo of acorns, pine needles, and cattail spikes arranged around a sumac bob. I was a few minutes early. The gate was closed. I waited. Beyond the gate, a newly paved driveway curved through a wide lawn, past garden plots and trees hung with sap buckets, and up toward a simple two-story drab-green clapboard house. At eleven, the gates swung open.

I parked in a small lot. In addition to the house, there were a neatly painted red barn with a brick patio, a small greenhouse, some cold frames, a tractor, and a big silver Dodge pickup. Out back, a brook ran from a broad marsh and through several acres of woods. From the lot, a brick path led under a white arbor to a doorway of leaded glass and wood, with the name Damon Baehrel over the door. I knocked, and he answered immediately and chided me for knocking. “Come on in!”

Baehrel had on a brown apron and a tunic with his name and “chef/grower” stitched on the chest. “I’m going to cook for you,” he said. “When I say I’m the luckiest person in the world, I really mean it.” He’s in his early fties. He had puffy cheeks, slightly sunken eyes, straight brown hair, and a kind of goofy, high-strung optimism at odds with the popular notion of chefs as chilly sophisticates or imperious pirates.

“He says he feels empty inside.”

“The gate is closed,” he said. “No one is going to bother us.” The dining room was snug, seating no more than sixteen guests, with a table set up in the middle as though for a single party of six. It was tidy, not really rustic, more varnished than one might expect. The walls were painted a brushed ochre. A stained-glass panel in the wall read “Good Food” backward. Baehrel had installed it that way so you could read it in a nearby mirror. Along the back wall, a broad table was arrayed with bowls of seeds, nuts, leaves, roots, berries, and mushrooms; Mason jars of sap and our; and vials of oil, all marked with painter’s tape describing the contents and the vintage—“Acorn oil 8/15,” “Golden Rod our ’14.” The Native Harvest tag had been his wife’s suggestion. “I was inspired by Native Americans,” he said. “I wanted it to be based on the people who were here in this country before we were.” Supposition was his guide: he said that he had never actually read anything about Native American cuisine.

He worked through the items on display. Lily tuber, cattail stems, milkweed, bull thistle. By watching deer in the woods, he had discovered that the inner barks of certain trees have a salty taste. While chopping wood, he found that a particular lichen takes on an oniony flavor for three weeks a year. He made a cooked powder from it. “You’re gonna love it!” Baehrel relies heavily on starch and stock made from rutabagas. He uses wild- violet stems as a thickener. He inoculates fallen logs with mushroom spores. He’ll spend seven hours gathering three-quarters of a pound of clover—enough to ll a steamer trunk. “I do it at night, with a headlamp,” he said.

He had me sit at a table in the corner, a two-top, from which I couldn’t see the door to the kitchen. He wanted me to have the dining experience. He said, “Don’t worry, I’m a professional. I’m not going to kill you.” He filled my glass from a pitcher. “It’s sap. Sycamore sap.” It tasted like water, with a hint of something. A few minutes later, he came out with another pitcher. “This is sparkling maple sap, with dried lemon verbena. I have lemon trees in containers, but I don’t get many lemons. Just the leaves.” He said he harvests about a dozen saps: maple, birch, sycamore, hickory, walnut, butternut, beech, hardwood cherry. “Sycamore sap, when concentrated, is a little salty. You can brine things in it. Hickory sap is very briny and salty. Good for long cooking. I’ll brine a pork shoulder in hickory sap and pine needles for nineteen days. Cherry sap is salty and sweet, bitter, with herb hints like marjoram and lavender.

“My biggest challenge is creating enough our,” he went on. “I make it from cattails, pine—the inner bark—dandelions, clover, goldenrod, beechnut, hickory nuts, acorns. A huge part of my life is making our. It takes one to one and a half years to make acorn our. Acorns from the red oak have bitter tannins. White oak is more like a nut. In fall, I gather the acorns up in burlap sacks. Around New Year’s, I put the sacks in the stream, tied up. I leave them there all winter, under the ice. By spring, the tannic bitterness is gone.”

I asked him how he’d figured this out.

“Soaking didn’t work. I tried a circulation tank, and that didn’t work, either. I press them by hand, in a vise, or with stones. No machines.”

The first course was served on a slab of sawed wood. It was a small rectangle of what looked like salami atop a curled cracker. He said, “It takes me sixteen to eighteen months to make cedar our. I use a pull knife, a two-handled grater, to shave off some cedar under the bark. The shavings are bitter, tannic—inedible. I soak them in water. Every four to six weeks, I soak them. After a year or a year and a half, I can grind it into cedar our. So the crisp is made from cedar our, with a little hickory-nut oil, duck- egg-white powder, water, sea salt, which I sometimes render.” He produced a jar of sea salt from the sample table. “I made the batter and baked the crisp today.” The rectangle of meat, he said, was blue-foot chicken cured in pine-needle juice, pulp, and powder for eighteen months.

The morsel was delicious, though it was difficult—and would continue to be, during the next four hours—for an amateur and glutton like me (in fact, for anyone who is being honest with himself ) to tell whether my appreciation, fervent as it often became, had been enhanced by the description of the work and the ingredients that had gone into it. The tongue is suggestible. New words register as new flavors. As numerous blind wine tastings over the years have demonstrated, you taste what you want to taste.

He cleared the slab and arrived with a plate with a spoon on it, and in the spoon a piece of fish with a chip on top.

“I wanted to show you the power of the sycamore sap,” he said. It was Scottish salmon, which had been brined for thirty-nine days. The chip was a slice of black burdock root. “I peel off the fibrous outside of the root, slice the inside, and bake it.” A drizzle of sauce bisected the plate and spoon. It consisted, he said, of pickerel-weed seeds and unripened green strawberries stored in homemade vinegar of a low acidity, then blanched in water in a stone bowl. “With another stone, I mashed them into a paste. Added homemade green-strawberry vinegar and wild-sorrel vinegar and grapeseed oil. That’s the paste. The copper-colored powder is the ground leaves of wild marsh marigold.” Of course. Every milligram seemed hard won.

Baehrel is steadfast in insisting on his total self-reliance.

Photograph by Jonno Rattman for The New Yorker

He told me, as he had told others through the years, that he got his meat and dairy from a Mennonite farm in the area, and his sh from a seafood broker who delivered it several times a week. He said that I would not be able to talk to the Mennonites, as they were extremely press-averse. Having told me he had no suppliers, he seemed almost embarrassed by the acknowledgment that he did have some, after all.

Over the next several hours, as he brought in course after course, he appeared and disappeared (“I’ll get you some more sap!”) like a character in a resort-hotel farce. But the dishes were a dizzying array of tastes and textures. Oyster mushrooms, palate- cleansing ices (one was made of wild carrot juice, stevia tea syrup, pickled baby maple- leaf powder, violet leaves, and lichen powder), cured turkey leg, mahogany clams, lobster, prawns, swordfish ham, brined pork with goat sausage—all of it subjected to a jumble of verbs and nouns, many of them new to me. Bull-thistle stem, chopped barberry root, ostrich fern. I deployed an index finger to dab up every woodland fleck. The platings were whimsical and inspired. The sprigs and needles that adorned the mid-meal platter of cheese and cured meat brought to mind Saul Steinberg or Paul Klee.

The fifteenth, and final, course was something he called Earlton Chocolate. It consisted of the fermented leftovers of his “coffee,” which he makes in the autumn from hickory nuts and acorns. (He does not serve actual coffee.) The nut dregs become a kind of paste. “It gets gloppy after three months, then it relaxes.”

That observation kind of explained how I felt after four hours, especially without coffee. Embarrassed by all the labor undertaken on my behalf, I offered, as one does, to help clean up, and Baehrel laughed. Now he invited me to see his kitchen. It was quite small, about two hundred square feet, and immaculate. It didn’t look or smell as though anyone had prepared a gourmet meal in there. My first thought, as a failed clean-as- you-go guy, was a tip of the toque.

Baehrel is from Massapequa, Long Island. His father was a Nassau County cop. On weekends and in the summer, the family went upstate to Earlton, and when his father retired they moved up there for good. Baehrel’s mother, who was from Brooklyn, was an avid gardener, and he credits her with his early expertise in native plants. He remembers being fascinated by the big red sumac bobs on the side of the road, and his mother using them to make sumac-ade, but no one paid any particular attention to cooking or food. “My dad, he likes plain stuff,” Baehrel says. “We grew up eating roast beef, baked ziti, leg of lamb.” In terms of the precocity of his palate, Baehrel recalls, “I was the kind of kid who melted my ice cream. When it was warmer, it had more taste.”

Baehrel was also into motocross, and for several years, in the eighties, he raced professionally. He told me that he’d turned pro as a teen-ager and entered races all over the country. “I made a little bit of money, but would’ve done it for free,” he said. “So much of it was mental. What it taught me was how to divide your mind up to multitask.” I asked if he could connect me with anyone from that era I could talk to. “Oh, God, that was a long time ago! That’s a lifetime ago—wow, I’d have to think about it. Geez, I wonder if anyone is still alive.” In a motocross chat room, I found the name of Carlo Coen, a local racer from the eighties. He replied to me through e-mail that Baehrel had been a “track friend”:

He was fast, competitive. He could run up front. Great family. His father would work the starting gate at local Claverack Motocross track. Still running today. Good times.

In 2002, Baehrel said, he shut down the restaurant for renovations and got back into competitive motocross, entering races around New England. “I made some money,” he said.

“The family’s plan was that I’d be a lawyer or a businessman,” he told me. But he never went to college. He met his wife in the area. They were married in 1986. Baehrel’s parents had sold him a plot of land across the street from their own—a thousand dollars for six acres. (He bought the additional six acres in 2011.)

“We built this house by hand that spring,” he said. “My mother, my father, my wife-to- be, and me. There were nets on the windows to keep out the mosquitoes. The restaurants opening now, these multimillion-dollar places—young chefs don’t want to start off small. There’s an attitude, there’s arrogance. They forget that this is hospitality.

When we started, we had no investors. We couldn’t get a loan. Although, eventually, we got a loan.”

The main thing, in the early years, was a catering business, which they called Sagecrest. At its peak, in the mid-nineties, they were doing a few hundred weddings a year. “We did two thousand weddings over twenty years, all over upstate New York and New England,” he said. “We had hundreds of part-time employees.”

“You can kill me, but you can’t kill the navy-blue-blazer-and-khaki-pants combo.”

Baehrel has said that he invented Native Harvest in 1989, when he opened for business. A few years before, he had an epiphany that everything he needed was on the property. “Every our, oil, and seasoning. I wanted to create the components. I was walking around in the woods. It was autumn of ’85 or ’86. Leaves were falling from the trees. The worms were there. That means you’re going to have soil. I don’t know if you know this, but worms are the source of all life.”

After this epiphany, he said, “I didn’t sleep for three days.” (He says he has never taken drugs: “Not even aspirin.”)

Over time, he made inferences: “I knew that pine needles fall to the ground and sour the soil. They make it very acidic. Very few plants will grow. So why can’t I take the acidic reaction and transfer it to things?” He began to make pine-needle juice, powder, and pulp and use them to cure meats.

The inventing seems to have happened gradually. People who dined at the restaurant in the nineties have described a more conventional operation. Between 1995 and 2001, he had a sous-chef, a local named Mark Esslie, just out of college. Esslie, over the phone, recalled seventy-hour workweeks and hectic weekends of weddings and summer parties. “Damon’s a phenomenal chef,” Esslie told me. “I would put him up against anyone in the world, in terms of talent.”

In the late nineties, Baehrel had waiters and bought from local suppliers. Esslie had hoped to take over the catering part of the business, which he said was very lucrative, but when that didn’t work out he left the food business and went into finance. The price of a meal at the restaurant has steadily risen. When Esslie was there, and when Baehrel first offered the tasting menu, it was thirty-five dollars for eight courses. Five years ago, it was around a hundred and fifty dollars, far below the current four hundred dollars a head.

Baehrel has often described himself as self-taught, acquiring his culinary expertise through trial, error, and observation, and not from books, or even from other chefs. He watches TV only for weather reports, has no cell phone, and can’t remember going to a movie in decades. “It’s been twelve or fourteen years since I’ve been out to a ne-dining restaurant,” he said. “I’m dying to have someone bring me something. A sandwich!” He told me that when he was a teen-ager he’d worked for some French restaurants in the area. “They are all gone, and everyone is dead. I learned what not to do.”

One of the restaurants, which Baehrel didn’t mention, was an old-school French bistro called Chez René, in Glenmont, ten minutes south of Albany. It was owned by René Facchetti, a Breton, who sold it around thirty years ago.

“He learned from me,” Facchetti told me, when I called. “He has never mentioned this. He was my cook, my assistant. I knew his father and mother. I’m the one who taught him to pick watercress, chanterelles, and all these things in the woods.”

Facchetti’s wife, Corinne, said, “Never once has he acknowledged my husband. Why can’t he acknowledge us? There’s no such thing as a self-educated chef.”

It’s hard to know why Baehrel is so steadfast in insisting on his total self-reliance. There’s mythmaking in it, clearly, but of a kind that seems unnecessary.

I can’t say when, exactly, I began to question the myth. It may have been at the end of that meal, when Baehrel took me on a tour of the property, sticking to the perimeter of the lot, making a great fuss over bits of incidental vegetation that would seem hardly ample, even in high summer, to provide for, say, dozens of guests a week. I asked him what was in the red barn, and he said not much. He declined to show me his living quarters. (He had said that his wife and son would be returning during my visit, but by the time I left they had yet to come home.) Whenever I asked Baehrel questions about his past, his family, his influences, or even the rudiments of his business, he changed the subject to whatever ora or provender was at hand. Dandelions, violet stems, burdock. “More sap?” He took me by the cold frames alongside the barn. There wasn’t much in there. He said that on snowy winter nights he sometimes crawled in under the translucent corrugated covers and lay on his stomach in the warm soil.

In the days that followed, I called the diners whose names he had given me: Merrihue and others like him. They raved about the restaurant, but all of them, it seemed, had been there only for a special seating, either on a day he was usually closed or in a slot he’d shoehorned in between regular seatings. I wanted to hear from people who had been there recently when other parties were there.

Several months later, I’ve yet to find any. Within days of my visit, I talked to a range of people who, either after their own meals or after failing to get a reservation, had concluded that Baehrel couldn’t possibly be serving as many diners as he claimed, or be fully booked through the year 2025, or make do with what he foraged on his patch of land.

“No, you die first.”

I came across a story by the restaurant columnist for the Albany Times Union, Steve Barnes. It ran last November: “BS alert! A 10-year wait for reservations! Locally!” Barnes referred to Baehrel’s fully booked claims as “utter bogusness.” He noted that Baehrel had once told him that the White House had inquired about the Obamas coming to his restaurant. Barnes had published this news and then learned from a friend in the White House communications office that it wasn’t so. (A White House spokeswoman wouldn’t conrm any of this.)

Dominick Purnomo, the owner of Yono’s, one of Albany’s fancier restaurants, told me, “I’m doing the math, and it’s just not making sense.” The last time Purnomo was in Baehrel’s basement, five or six years ago, with a group of eight, he recalled, “We asked to see the kitchen, and he declined. I’ve never been to a restaurant where you can’t see the kitchen.” Baehrel told them that a group had just left, and that another was coming at 10 P.M.

Many people who’ve dined there report similar instances of Baehrel’s mentioning earlier or later seatings—highly improbable, in light of materials, labor, energy, and the likelihood of, say, a bus of Japanese tourists travelling to Greene County for a twenty- course dinner starting at 11 .. Anyway, when I visited, Baehrel said he did “less and less as I get older. In a good week, maybe thirty-five to forty guests. But I never talk numbers.” He was scaling back, he said, to four days a week. “It just takes me more time and effort to execute these cooking techniques and everything, and I’m doing more courses—probably three times as many courses as I was seven or eight years ago.” He disdains the industry practice of referring to customers as “covers.” “I never thought of a dining guest as a cover,” he said. “I must be weird.”

Baehrel has described the skeptics as jealous peers—what he calls the Albany club, whom he accuses of a long campaign to undermine him. He suspects them of hacking Yelp to portray his restaurant as closed. One club member is Barnes, who, after failing to secure a reservation over the course of six years, had a testy e-mail exchange with Baehrel’s wife, writing, “No one I have ever even spoken to has been to Damon Baehrel in that period. That’s not a restaurant as it’s commonly understood; it’s Brigadoon.”

This spring, Barnes’s colleague Susie Davidson Powell, the Times Union’s food critic, managed to get a table and publish a piece. “If the workload and culinary science seem fantastical, it’s true of the dining experience, too,” she wrote. “It’s hard not to imagine Baehrel as a real-life Wonka with a tribe of Oompa Loompa helpers in his Earlton woods.” Still, she related what Baehrel had told her. He mentioned a few previous guests: the band Journey and, on another occasion, René Redzepi, the world-famous forager and chef at Noma, in Copenhagen. After the review went to press, Powell heard from Redzepi, through Twitter, that he’d never been there. Baehrel then denied having said it. The paper published a correction. Recently, I heard from the members (and ex- members) of Journey. None of them can remember having been there.

In each instance, Baehrel has a plausible explanation. People must have misheard him, he says. It was Redzepi’s former partner who’d come; he always says he wishes Journey, his favorite band, would come; it was an Obama supporter who had tried to arrange a visit for the President and the First Lady. People hear what they want to hear.

Yet the implausibles pile up. Three dozen cheeses! Cheese experts I spoke with considered it highly unlikely, especially in light of Baehrel’s claim that he makes cheese without rennet, the standard curdling enzyme; he said that he used organic coagulants, such as nettles or carrot-top hay. Even for a full-time cheesemaker, three dozen would be a lot, especially if they aren’t mere variations on one or two basic cheeses.

Baehrel wouldn’t let me meet or talk to his friend Terrance, his wife, his Mennonite meat supplier, or his seafood broker. “After contact is established, it’s all me!” he wrote. He declined to give me their names. (I had that of his wife, Elizabeth, who goes by Beth; he had included her name as a co-sender of a mass-marketing e-mail.)

In June, I wrote Baehrel to tell him I’d need to talk to these people for fact-checking purposes. He replied, “I do not and cannot make it public information any of the current associations or past business arrangements I have or have had. I can assure you my meat comes from farms & seafood comes from the ocean.” He added, “I would also not reveal things like who I purchase propane from (a propane supplier) or where we buy our toilet paper, insurance or anything else.” He didn’t want me to talk to the Make-A-Wish family, either. (I was able to verify that story with the foundation.)

A few weeks ago, he provided a fact-checker with a surname for Terrance, who he said had since “moved on”: Hyll. We couldn’t find anyone in the country by that name. Informed of this, Baehrel wrote in an e-mail, “I have not given you or [the checker] the complete personal or business name of our former reservation & appointment assistance.”

“I joined an online fraternity.”

SEPTEMBER 16, 2013

“The whole element in this day and age of putting everything out there—it’s a different generation,” Baehrel told me. “We like to keep to ourselves and leave a little bit to the imagination.” At the same time, he’s an evangelist for his way of cooking, often welcoming writers and television crews. For all his protestations of being a humble chef of the woods, and his professed amazement that anyone should have heard of him, he seems to seek the validation of the establishment. “Food writers weren’t coming,” he told me. “They weren’t interested. You want to share it. But they didn’t believe it.

They’ll say they haven’t heard of it. How can that be, when I have guests on the waiting list from over eighty countries? The New York Times, Gourmet, Food & Wine: No one was interested.” In 2013, he was a semifinalist for a James Beard Award. He failed to advance, perhaps because very few Beard judges could get in to dine at his restaurant. Nonetheless, the omission contributed to his contention that there is a kind of conspiracy against him.

For years, Baehrel says, he fielded interest from publishers who wanted to do a book with him. He turned them down, because they wanted him to team up with a writer. He was also put off by their questions about whether celebrity diners might be willing to write promotional blurbs. Then some occasional dinner guests, Ken and Virginia Morris, had an idea. The Morrises run Lightbulb Press, a publisher of financial-education manuals. A recent title is “Guide to Understanding Annuities.” They had never published anything like what Baehrel had in mind—a coffee-table book outlining the precepts of his Native Harvest cuisine—but they thought, Why not try? Baehrel started writing. “Damon does the drafts, and we put it in a format,” Ken Morris told me. “We will share the proceeds.” The book—“Native Harvest”—is due out in December. I’ve read a great deal of it. It is, characteristically, a recitation of ingredients, principles, and practices.

The Morrises’ first meal at the restaurant was ten years ago, with a cousin who lived in Schenectady. It wasn’t hard to get in back then. They returned on their own another time, and on the third visit Baehrel walked them through his process. “He’s a crazy genius,” Ken Morris said. “How does he conceptualize these things? How does he figure them out?”The Morrises put Baehrel in touch with friends who run California Winemasters, a festival that benefits cystic-fibrosis research. Baehrel went out there. “His station was cleaned out in an hour,” Morris said. The trip increased his renown. He and the Morrises hope the book will do so further.

In 2012, Eric Steinman, a writer in Rhinebeck, New York, who was interested in Baehrel, got a table three weeks after inquiring, and he went with his wife. One other couple was there. A few months later, Baehrel let Steinman watch him cook. “No doubt, he’s talented there,” Steinman told me. Nonetheless, Baehrel refused to provide information or corroboration—the Mennonite farmer, the seafood guy. Steinman said, “I got a call from Terrance. It was Damon, representing himself as Terrance.” He added, “Damon has a very particular tone and cadence.” I had heard this suggestion—that Terrance is Damon—from others as well. “What the hell is that?” Baehrel said, when I ran it by him. “That’s nuts!”

There were other nagging matters: a supposed visit from the comedian Aziz Ansari (which Ansari denied), a laudatory quote attributed to the Per Se chef Thomas Keller (which Keller disclaimed). There was one guest who, on one of those nights when Baehrel said he had another party coming, realized, after leaving, that he’d left something behind. He had to drive back and climb over the gate to get in. The house was dark. Baehrel was cleaning up: no sign of the late seating. Steinman looked into suppliers in the area and couldn’t nd any who were serving Baehrel. I, too, called an array of food suppliers. None were doing business with Baehrel. One said that he used to sell him cheese and charcuterie but hadn’t in years.

Steinman wrote a sixteen-hundred-word piece for his magazine, Edible Hudson Valley, giving no hint of his skepticism, even though, as he told me, “I couldn’t in good conscience tell an editor, ‘This is real.’ I think it’s sort of a J. T. LeRoy thing.”

Consider, once again, the reservation backlog. You have to first accept that anyone would reserve anything ten years out. Then you do the math. Baehrel, or, if you will, Terrance, has cited, in e-mail responses to people seeking reservations, “125,000 new reservation TABLE requests from 72 countries that came in between late December 2013-March 15, 2014 which is when we stopped accepting new requests for an extended period.”

A hundred and twenty-five thousand requests in three months—that’s an average of around one a minute (twenty-four hours a day). He has also claimed to have two hundred and seventeen thousand pending “TABLE requests”—from all fifty states and more than eighty countries. That’s a lot of countries. Say each request is for an average of four people. That’s almost a million diners willing to wait many years for the privilege of travelling to the sticks in order to drop four hundred dollars a head. “No one is more surprised than me that this has happened,” he told me. “This isn’t something I sought out.”

W hen I described the situation to a friend of mine, he suggested a “stakeout.” But that seemed crazy. Doughnuts and coffee? Full camo? This wasn’t a crime story.

If Damon Baehrel is in some measure a fairy tale, what, exactly, isn’t true? And, if it isn’t entirely on the level, what’s the hustle? What’s he up to, out there in the woods? The perception of exclusivity and privileged access enables him to charge big-city prices, but if he were serving only a handful of diners each week it wouldn’t add up to a huge haul. For what, then?

“Turn over and I’ll do your back.”

JULY 3, 2000

Baehrel has concocted a canny fulllment of a particular foodie fantasy: an eccentric hermit wrings strange masterpieces from the woods and his scrabbly back yard. The extreme locavore, pure of spade and larder. The toughest ticket in town. Stir in opacity, inaccessibility, and exclusivity, then powder it with lichen: It’s delicious. You can’t get enough. You can’t even get in.

If Baehrel didn’t exist, foodies would have to invent him. And to a certain extent they have. In the fall, the ABC News digital series “Garage Geniuses” visited the restaurant for a segment that came out in April. At one point, the camera lingers on Baehrel’s handwritten reservation list for the year 2025. There are no specic dates, no contact phone numbers or e-mail addresses, or, for that matter, national or state affiliations— just names and a number denoting the size of each party. My attempts to contact twenty-nine of these people—Ginny Grizzle, Donetta Helper, Vi Rollin, King Mona, Cherri Burbank, with nary a Tom, Chris, or Mary among them—came up empty. This seemed damning. But a call to the producer of the segment, David Fazekas, revealed that it was he, and not Baehrel, who had come up with this phony reservation roll. “Damon wouldn’t let us see his actual list, so I wrote it myself—like a reënactment in a documentary,” he said. “There are services on the Internet that generate fake names.”

The media has certainly been complicit in gilding the Damon Baehrel mystique. Baehrel himself, when called out for various inventions or exaggerations—inflated numbers, mis-dropped names—has tended to blame the messenger. “I don’t know where they get this stuff,” he says.

A gourmet meal is a kind of magic act, a sleight of hand and heat, often performed with a little misdirection and some fast talk. Many restaurateurs mythologize their cuisines and pretend to be doing better than they are, to stir up interest. In April, the Tampa Bay Times published an investigation into the farm-to-table claims of local restaurants, which found that many of them were bunk. Perhaps it is a matter of degree. At a certain point, one has to draw a line between a chef who is running a restaurant, with all its tedious arithmetic of supply, demand, and cost, and instead is hosting elaborate private dinners, by appointment only. It’s this distinction, or perhaps the failure of the food press and rankings mavens to make it, that riles other restaurateurs.

Many of Baehrel’s dishes are trompe l’oeil, with foraged ingredients subbing for more traditional ones. Consider a favorite of his book publishers, the Morrises—what he calls “the phony egg.” “I use native components to build an egg,” Baehrel told me. “The egg white is cattails. The yolk is pickled heirloom tomatoes in a broth of wild parsnip juice. I use willow bark to make the home fries, and squash as bacon.” Though he did not serve this one to me, I have seen photographs of it. It’s uncanny. I have no reason to doubt that the phony egg is phony in the way he says it is. But in the context of all the other questions surrounding his operation the egg can seem like a provocation. Why not just serve an egg?

I went back for a second visit, in late May. I’d asked, repeatedly, for a better look at his process of culling and preparing the comestibles. A photographer came along with me. The property had burst forth with greenery since I’d last been. Baehrel rolled up on a utility vehicle and invited us inside for a pitcher of sap and a bottle of Pellegrino— which he said he keeps on hand for the Morrises. “You want to see how this happens?” he said. “I’ll show you the cheesemaking, the cured meats.” He said he’d never shown a journalist any of what we were about to see.

There were two cars in the lot—a BMW S.U.V. and a truck. His wife and son, he said, were up at a cabin they have in the Adirondacks. He took us out to the barn, pointing to sprigs along the path: wild barberry, garlic, bergamot, sorrel, sage. “Oh! Check it out. See all the wild strawberries!” A door led into a sort of side garage full of shelves: his root room, which was a more extensive version of the dining-room display table—Mason jars of our, oil, vinegar, and sap, bowls of wild seeds, wine boxes of soil with sprouting potatoes and rutabagas. The supply was spare and very orderly.

“Nothing to be concerned about. We just want to show you our phony badges and then leave.”

DECEMBER 13, 2010

He took us through the front door of the barn, into a large prep kitchen—his base of operations and the former headquarters of the catering business. On an island in the middle was a bushel of beech shoots. He was trimming and baking the leaves, to grind them into powder, and clipping the branches into finger-length sections, to create a beechwood broth. On the stove behind him were a couple of large pots. “I make my cheeses in clean pots, in small batches,” he said. “I don’t have boilers or evaporators.” I had asked about a cheese cave, as cheese experts had suggested that one would be important. “No cave! No, between my one cooler here and other storage in my house, I probably have twenty-five in the works. I usually make a cheese or two a week.” They were on racks in a fridge with a glass door, displayed with great symmetry and with their frog-tape labels facing out, denoting milk source, date, and curdling agent. I counted three dozen, and a block or two of butter.

He led us into a walk-in refrigerator. Several sausages of various shapes hung from a rack. Elsewhere on shelves were a leg of lamb; a rabbit carcass under a layer of conifer sprigs; a single cooked lobster on a bed of ice; swordfish ham; a few pieces of salmon, air-sealed in sycamore sap; a pork shoulder brining in pine-needle juice; four marrow bones in a bag with mustard greens.

I asked again about the source of the meat. “Yeah!” he exclaimed. “A bunch of different farms. I have one particular farm that I’ve worked a lot with—they’re Mennonites. About a half hour away, in Schoharie County.” I hadn’t been able to find any Mennonites in Schoharie County. He said they might be closing, owing to the difficulty of paying minimum wage. “They are thinking about maybe going to Michigan. But very low key.”

Later, back outside, as Baehrel led us around the property and identified plants, my attention wandered, and I thought about my first visit, months before, and a particular dish, the sixth course, which had so engaged my attention that the only surreptitious

photo I got of it was of a plate licked clean. It consisted of a small layered cube of wild daylily tuber and wild honey mushrooms—a phyllo of the soil. He’d sliced the tubers thin and soaked the mushrooms in fresh maple sap, then stacked them in more than a dozen fine alternating layers. He then roasted it on a slab of oak wood, dribbled it with grapeseed oil and wild-fennel-frond powder, and added a drizzle of dried milkweed pods cooked in fresh birch sap, which he’d mashed in a stone bowl with some rutabaga starch, and a second drizzle that he called burnt-corn sauce, made from liquefied kernels that he’d scraped off the cob onto a stone, dried, then thinned out with sycamore sap. Somehow I got all this down in the notebook. Beneath it, I’d written, “Sublime.”

Now, down by the road, near the gate, Baehrel guided us alongside his garden beds. In one of them, a single sprig of asparagus rose from the earth. He snapped it off and handed it to me. It tasted like—asparagus. ♦

Nick Paumgarten has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2005.

This article appears in other versions of the August 29, 2016, issue, with the headline “The Country Restaurant.”

#Nick Paumgarten #Damon Baehrel #new yorker #food #chef

0 notes