At The Goat Factory, Preparing for Performance on Easter.
The night before Joel’s Boys in the Sand open studio happening at Penn & Fletcher, I went to The Goat Factory to make a glazed ham and share with Annie—who was in New York after her appearance in the Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival—and James, Lauren and Van.
It was Easter Sunday, and a busy day, as that afternoon had been the closing seminar of the Patricia Field Art/Fashion show at Howl! Happening.
After the seminar, I called James and we quickly set the menu: a glazed ham and potato salad. Van was with his relatives having brunch and would join us later, he had on his Sunday best: Pucci hat, Liberty of London tie and Paul Smith jacket. Annie was also visiting friends and would make her way to the Factory, where she was staying during her sojourn.
A quick stop at Key Food yielded the simple ingredients and I stopped by the Ranch to change and then head over to Bushwick Avenue. I put on my A.P.C. tee with brushstrokes, a favorite of mine, and two gifts from Tony: an Italian flower print apron he gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and a white pair of Levi’s 501 jeans he gave me. I got to the Factory at godspeed on the J. Serendipitously, Annie and I arrived at the gate of the house in precisely the same moment, and we hugged and brought our groceries inside.
Annie had brought some delicious sushi rolls and chicken teriyaki and we snacked on them as we prepared the food, which was good, as the ham would take about of couple of hours to make.
I looked at the Grundig/Majestic console in James’ room, which is almost exactly the same as the one I grew up with in my bedroom in Puerto Rico, which my dad had bought in New York City in the early 50s and kept in his Washington Heights bedroom for many years. It warmed my heart to no end.
James decided playing Apollo by Brian Eno as our soundtrack for the evening, which set a magical tone. I had in my book bag the xeroxes to make the booklets for the performance I would be presenting the same day at Joel’s happening.
I asked Annie if she would help me assemble them while I cooked, and she graciously folded and paginated the booklets, numbering them as an edition when she was done. I loved having her beautiful energy permeating the booklets as she folded the pages and numbered in ink.
In the kitchen, Charlie constantly tried to get into the food but he eventually relented. James cut up the potatoes and I stirred the dressing for the salad. The gods were with us and the recreation of my dear Uncle Vicente’s recipe, which is the one I always emulate in making the Puerto Rican style potato salad, came out absolutely perfect. It was as if he was making the salad through our hands.
As we were waiting for the food to be ready, I rehearsed the performance in front of Annie and James and felt really good about doing it the next day.
The ham was in the oven, and Van arrived with cake truffles from Momofuku Milk Bar, a gift from his niece Courtney. Lauren, whom I discovered is a friend of Darien, brought some homemade cream puffs!
We sat around the table in the dining room and shared the lovely meal, I was quite astonished at how the potato salad tasted like Vicente’s. After dinner, I did the performance again, this time also in front of Lauren and Van. We took some photos next to an amazing mechanical goat sculpture—which moves animatedly and makes all kinds of sounds—as well as a taxidermy goat on the wall wearing a Scooter tee.
At that point it was almost 2 in the morning, so I put some ham in a Pyrex to bring to Scooter and we all said our goodnights. Van and I headed back to the Lower East Side in a cab.
Photos: 1, 7. Van Wifvat. 9. James Rubio. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10. Jorge Clar.
