Vacationed in New Orleans the first week of June ’14. Loved it. Want to move there some day.
In the meantime, I took copious pix which have been uploaded into two galleries (right-hand nav). Pix are typical vaca pix; things that I thought were interesting; tattoo process shots; cats of NOLA; and lots of food porn. Skip what’s uninteresting; enjoy that which is.
k.
You see George, you really did have a wonderful life.
I think often, we forget how really wonderful life is, I know I do from time to time. I get caught up in the minutiae of the daily grind and forget what is truly important, truly wonderful: the magic of being alive. It really is a gift. To throw out another appropriate movie quote, Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.
Drink in life. Eat up every last morsel. Savour every last moment. Life is too glorious not to.
So catching up. Thanksgiving was odd, but lovely. Jamie, as I mentioned in the last post was sick. He got up long enough to enjoy our dinner, or enjoy it as much as someone without a sense of smell due to clogged sinuses is able.
That weekend, our friends John and Karen came in from London for a week’s visit. We kicked it off by going to Peter Luger’s Steakhouse, a fav of ours. Luckily, Jamie’s ick had subsided enough for him to enjoy the evening and taste the food.
Then later that week, on Thursday, J & I went to the 75th Anniversary Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. And it was. Spectacular.
We go every year. We love it. We love the over-the-top wackiness of it. We love the live camels on stage and the hokey holiday–ness of it all. But this year, being the 75th Anniversary, it was even better than usual. It was all about the Rockettes, who are indeed, always “featured”, but this year they were truly the stars of the show. They even got their own holiday souvenir martini glass
filled with, of course, the Rockettini, which was basically a slushie with really high proof rum poured over it.
All during that week after Thanksgiving, along with show-going and friend-greeting, we were getting ready for our first (annual) holiday party. Lots of food, liquor and mixers bought. Some food prepped here. And that Saturday, 12/1, from 5 ’til, well, I’m told that it went on until about 1:30AM, a grand time was had by all.
We spread it out over such a long period as:
It all worked out beautifully. Except, of course, for my being done in by a nasty drink introduced to the party by our friend Suzanne. She had recently edited a drink book and this, unfortunately stuck in her mind; I certainly will never forget it. It is a wicked little concoction called a Duck Fart. And it does smell, not that I’ve actually ever had the pleasure, but I imagine it would be similar, like a duck fart.
It, however, is really tasty. It is layered in equal parts of Kahlua, Bailey’s and Jack Daniel’s. It goes down smooth and hits hard. And so, I ended about an hour or so before the party did. Ah well, a good time was had by all.
In the following two weeks, I had the joy of going through a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. A little holiday treat, that. My last physical turned up a bit of anemia and we’re trying to figure out what’s up with that. Nothing showed up in either of those tests, so we’re on to more. I get the next round of results after the holidays – easy tests, just blood-work. Somewhat ironic that they needed to take four vials of blood to see what’s up with my anemia…
As my reward for going through rather unpleasantly invasive tests, I gave myself the gift of theatre. Jamie & I went to PA to the theatre I grew up in, Genesius, to see “The Belsnickel Scrooge”, a PA Dutch take on “A Christmas Carol.” We loved it. It is so amazing to be reconnected with that theatre.
While in PA, we celebrated Christmas with my folks and our dear extended family members, Sue and Liz. We don’t get to see either my parents or S&L often enough.
Oops, forgot, on the weekend between my c’scopy and my e’scopy, we went to visit Jamie’s Mom in FL for her birthday. We had a great time visiting with her and Jamie’s sister, nephew and his new girlfriend. It was nice to get away from NYC for a bit, although I couldn’t wait to get back to the more seasonal weather. FL is nice, but give me seasons. I don’t care how many decorations you see, if it’s 80 degrees, it just doesn’t feel like Christmastime. This is, of course, coming from a confirmed Northerner, however, Jamie feels the same way and he spent most of his life in FL.
Anyway, that brings us up to the week past, which was filled with Christmas hubbub and such, including a wonderful holiday concert on Saturday featuring Karen Mason, an amazing singer and a lovely person. I worked with her years ago on “And the World Goes ‘Round: The Songs of Kander and Ebb”, back in the day when I was doing backstage stuff. She has such amazing control of her voice and such an amazing energy. She’s just, well, amazing.
She was briefly joined by Greg Edelman, Liz Calloway, and The Accidentals (a tight jazz acapella group) – all were great.
Oh and before the concert, we went to see Sweeney Todd, the film, not the theatre piece. It was magically delicious, go see it.
And that brings us to tonight, Christmas Eve.
We went to NJ to our Godson’s for the evening. Met the little fella and his mom at the train station – he loves trains – then headed to the 4 o’clock Children’s service at their church. Very nice service; Jamie & I both forgot how much we like the practice of going. We’ve decided to check out our local church soon. We both miss the brilliant eucharist at our old church, unfortunately, the emotional/spiritual toll of that place was too high so, the search continues.
After church, we went to their house and met up with the G’son’s dad and sister, Aunt and friends and we all shared a delicious dinner.
Then back to the city in time for me to light my bayberry candle. All these superstitions… I don’t know if it’s a PA Dutch thing or where it came from, but it is tradition in my family to light a bayberry candle on Christmas Eve and let it burn through the night into Christmas day – it must burn completely away. It’s said to be good luck, and like Jamie with his “the tree must come down on New Year’s Eve”, I ain’t messin’ with the mojo.
So here I sit writing, now officially Christmas day, while Jamie sleeps, dreaming of the early morning present opening to come.
So many opportunities we’re given. So many wonderful things to do and see and experience; just look back over just my last four weeks.
It really is a wonderful life.
And now, now that the candle has reached a point of safety, meaning, as it burns merrily in the sink, if it falls, it’s short enough to pose no danger of toppling out onto the floor, but rather just rolling around in the sink, I can guiltlessly go to bed. Jamie is very, very, nervous about the candle. Very. But it’s safe now, and I’m tired, and he’s going to get me up at first light for Christmas morning present-opening, so in the Christmas spirit I say,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
k.
Are tedious. I learned this last night. Last night, as I was peeling them for the stuffing that is at this very moment in the oven inside our turkey.
Jamie has written about our Thanksgiving dinner. Although somewhat smugly. Ahem…
Indeed, I have been loathe to go against the food experts and cook my stuffing inside my turkey. The recipe we’re using, however, makes it easy to cook it inside the turkey, to maximize the flavor, and yet easily remove said stuffing for continued cooking to temperature after the bird is removed. Indeed, compromise.
I don’t know about the green bean casserole happening today. I’ve been doing all the cooking this year, as Jamie has come down with one whopper of a cold and has been laid out since yesterday. I’m hoping against hope that I’m not visited by the same bug. Fingers crossed.
But yes, the chestnuts. I’ve never peeled chestnuts. Everything I read, pre-peeling, seemed to indicate that it was indeed a laborious, hit-or-miss kind of thing with, very often, crumbled, rather than nice, whole, nut meats.
I decided to try the 1896 recipe that I found on About.com. It worked beautifully. No crumbled nuts.
It’s still not easy though, prying the shells off the suckers; imagine hot splinters shoved under your fingernails over and over and over again and you’ll get the gist. My thumbs are achin’.
I’m sure the chestnuts will be delicious in the stuffing. I’ll enjoy it immensely and keep it as a fond memory as I’ve no intention of ever peeling chestnuts again.
The cranberry salad. This is an anticipated treat in my family usually prepared by my Aunt Marcia, and since she’s not here to prepare it for us… While I’m not at liberty to share the recipe, I can assure you, and Jamie, that there are no oysters or chives to be found. It’s delicious. It better be ’cause I did make a hell of a lot of it, although not the 18 pounds Jamie has indicated. By the time we finish it up though, it might just seem that way.
So last night, after I finished mutilating my thumbs, I took a needed break from the kitchen and headed outside.
Oh it was lovely. It was about 11PM. It was misty, very misty, with the light of the street lamps diffused in a beautifully cinematic way. I headed down our block to a little garden area notable only as it offers a break between buildings and an unobstructed view out over the park.
And there I stood looking out into the night sky. Alone with my thoughts. And it was one of those beautiful nights, so quiet, full of anticipation, “holiday nights”; everyone is inside preparing or sleeping, dreaming of tomorrow.
And then it rained. But not rain. I was standing under a wonderful old tree whose leaves had all gone yellow. A lifetime ago, I’d have been able to tell you what kind of tree it is, but it’s one of the many things that I’ve forgotten over the years; funny how that goes. At any rate, there I was, in that gauzy mist-light in an amazing drizzle of yellow leaves. I must have stood there a good 10 minutes marveling at it all, the leaves gently falling all around me.
I love magical moments like that. That’s what is brilliant about life; you never know when those kind of things will happen. You just have to stop and be amazed when they do.
And then I went back inside and continued cooking… until about 2AM. Whatever, I’m a late-night person. Always have been. I’ve been totally acting against my nature with my current job that requires me to get up at 6AM; I can do it, but really I’m not meant to, and by the end of the week, I’m worn out from it. But I digress…
So today, I’ve been taking it slow; Jamie’s still feeling like crap, though less so than yesterday. We were going to put off Thanksgiving until tomorrow but I didn’t want the turkey to sit in the brine that long. So I’ve meandered in the kitchen today, really all that was left to cook was the pumpkin cheesecake – had batter left over, made cupcakes, yummy! – and finishing off the stuffing for the turkey. Everything else was done last night.
Except for the imported, organic green bean casserole (see Jamie’s piece for that one). We’ll make that tomorrow.
For now, the comforting aroma of roasted turkey wafts enticingly ’round the house. It’s almost time to pop the sucker out of the oven to rest while its companion dishes fill the oven void to warm up to dinner temperature.
And on that note, it’s time to baste!
Happy Thanksgiving!
k.
Well, really Fred II.
He’s, or rather, it’s, my bread starter.And I’m starting his (’cause after all, it is a living thing that must be cared for, much like a pet, so it is far more of a “he/her” rather than an “it”) birthing process tonight. And in 6 days, I’ll have a very weak, hungry, but very much alive, starter.
Ironically, a few years ago, I discovered that I have a wheat intolerance; no, I’m not celiac, I’ve simply discovered that wheat/gluten products make me bloat, make me feel run down. You can tell by looking at me when I’ve indulged my delight of bread, I get, well, puffy.
So for quite some time, I was very strict: no wheat, no oats, nothing with gluten. I cleared my pantry of all my flours. I cleared my fridge of… Fred I. Well at the time, he was just “Fred”, not “Fred I”, but now that Fred II is coming into the world…
Ironic why, exactly? I was, am, a baker. No longer professionally, but still passionately. There is little more satisfying than starting out with some powders and liquids and conjuring up a crispy crusted, fluffy centered, delicious bread. The various aromas created throughout the process are enough to send me to heaven: First the deep, muskiness transforming during its time in the oven to a blissful, I’m at a loss for words to describe the amazing smell of bread baking, but I can say that just thinking about it now as I write, my heart is beating faster and my head is light. It is one of the most comforting smells in the world.
And I gave it all up.
And then, last January, in Paris, I had bread because, c’mon, how can you not have bread products in France? And what I discovered is, I didn’t puff. In fact, it didn’t seem to affect me at all.
My guess is that I’m not necessarily intolerant of the wheat/gluten, but rather all the processing and chemicals to which American bread products are subjected.
I’m intolerant of the adulteration.
So since when we were buying appliances for our new home I convinced Jamie to let me buy the convection oven that I’d always dreamed of, it seems incredibly stupid to not bake bread. And while it is true (he said immodestly), I’ve learned to make a mean loaf of gluten-free bread, it is simply not the same. Not the same in the production. Not the same texture in the pre-baked state: batter rather than soft fleshy-ness. And not, at all, the same smell.
And lets face it, having a convection oven at your beck and call and not baking is like having a Ferrari and driving in the slow lane. It’s denying the machine its nature.
So I’ve paused in my writing and put Fred II together. So simple. And I have to thank Julia Child and Nancy Silverton for the particular starter recipe I use to create my Freds.From Julia’s “Cooking with the Master Chefs” series, I present, for anyone hankerin’ to start their own “Fred” or “Ester” or whatever you choose to call your frothy, bubbling new pet: Nancy Silverton’s Bread Starter (I’m condensing-you can follow the “Cooking with…” link for a video of Nancy making it in Julia’s kitchen.):
Nancy Silverton: The bag of grapes will gradually appear inflated, and liquid will begin to separate from the flour base. The mixture will begin to taste and smell slightly fruity and the color will be strange. That is as it should be. By the sixth day, the bag of grapes will have deflated, the color will be yellow, and the taste pleasantly sour: the fermentation is complete. The starter is living but weak, and it needs to be fed.Feeding the starter:
I didn’t say it was a fast process, nothing worth it ever seems to be, but it is so very worth each and every one of those nine days. And after this first big production, it gets much easier, you just need to do the three day feeding process each time you want to use it. To clarify, you will not be using all the starter in a recipe, unless, of course, you’re baking a hell of a lot of bread; more power to you.
And now, like Fred II and, indeed, Jamie (who’s been asleep for hours), I’m off to bed, to dream of delicious, crusty pillows of delight!
Ok, so I really, really like bread; so sue me.
Nite, k.
Sphere: Related Content That’s her, Jamie’s mom, Pat, otherwise known as MomFLa – pronounced “Mom-fla”. As opposed to my mom, MomPA – pronounced “Mom-P-A”.
This was all mentioned previously, in the last post, as a matter of fact. But I thought I’d refresh the memory.
So then, part two of J & my Florida weekend.
Saturday we got up, not too early due to the drinking mentioned in the previous post, and afterall, it was a vacation. Had coffee and some treats from the continental breakfast downstairs. Off to the checkout desk we went. There we discovered that, although we had pre-paid the hotel in advance, there was an additional “resort fee”.
“What is the ‘resort fee'”, queried Jamie, “What did it pay for?”
The reception clerk, looking a bit uncomfortable, said, “The soaps and shampoo, the towels…”
We let it drop. There is a price to be paid for staying on the Disney property. That price is the “resort fee”, a fee which entitles you to the amenities other hotels, even the low-end ones, supply for free. Ah well, it won’t stop me staying there. It’s really a fee for the convenience, the nearness, the shuttle buses; of being part of the Disney Universe. And it really is a Universe that I love.
We headed to Tampa, really Sun City Center, where the golf cart as vehicle rules.
Lots of hugs and kisses. Lots of catching up, because even though Jamie talks to his mom every Saturday morning on the phone, there’s nothing like a face to face.
Pat had a few choices of activities for the day. The first, Sunken Gardens in St. Pete, seemed to be her favorite choice, but Jamie was unconvinced as it was a bit late to head over there. The second choice, El Festival del Sabor, in Ybor City (a Tamp suburb), seemed more do-able. And so we headed out to Centennial Park in Ybor City.
It was great. A lovely celebration of Hispanic culture featuring great music and great food. We walked around the vendors, danced a bit by the stage and had some excellent pork and plantains. Bought some delicious pepper spread from Uncle Paul’s Peppers (not really a Hispanic business, but spicy nontheless). MomFLa went for the extreme, the Habinero spread, while we went for the less-hot, deliciously smoky Poblano. Of course, we later remembered that we couldn’t take it on the plane without checking our bags, and who wants to do that?, so we left it with Pat and ordered some online when we got back home.
Ybor city has revived its streetcar system and they were giving rides at 5 cents a pop that day, so we decided to tour Ybor by streetcar. They’ve got two types, a more enclosed model and the open, Rice-a-Roni, style. We went for Rice-a-Roni. Oddly, they were giving out yellow rice from Vigo (who sponsor the street-car system), not R-a-R. It was a nice ride on a hottish day.
After that, we headed back to mom’s place. We dropped her off for the night and headed to the Holiday Inn Express in Bradenton.
We usually stay in Tampa, or Apollo Beach, but this time Jamie wanted to try some place new. He’s better at picking restaurants than hotels. 😉 No really, it was fine. Really. The only problem was, on our first night there, there happened to be a travelling little league team also in residence. They seemed to have no adult supervision whatsoever. None. From the moment we got into our room at about 8PM until 2AMish, they ran though the halls screaming and careening off the walls.
Early on, Jamie popped his head out of the door and asked them to “Hold it down a bit.” The oldest of the group, 15ish perhaps, sneered and said, “What does that mean?” Showing perhaps why 15 years of teaching had been enough, Jamie replied, “It means ‘Shut the fuck up'” and slammed the door. It was a bit less unruly in our hallway for a bit, but not too long. About 1AM Jamie called the front desk and was told they were doing their best to control the situation.
Next morning, J went down to reception and said, “I checked in yesterday for a two day stay,…”. That’s as far as he got before the Reception clerk said, “They are checking out today.” Clearly we weren’t the only ones to have complained. And they did check out and the second night was quite peaceful.
And that’s that for tonight’s installment of Jamie & Kirk in FL a week ago.
One of these days, I’ll get through the entire weekend and move on to other things of little or no import. Until then…
Nite,
k.
And relaxing. And wonderful. And sorely needed.
That’s what our weekend get-away was. We didn’t realize how desperately we needed to stop our lives and leave town for a breather.
We left Thursday, later than expected; our flight was delayed about two hours. Well first one hour, at which point we called the restaurant at which we had a 9PM reservation. We moved it to 10:30, the latest we could make it. After the next hour delay, we called and cancelled the reservation. Ah well, disappointing, but what are you going to do?
We finally made it to Orlando at 10:30. We grabbed our rental car and drove to the hotel, The Royal Plaza. Very nice. On the Disney property and all. We found a place to eat right around the corner, nothing to write home about, the food was decent, they had a huge beer selection. Lots of beer and drink specials. In the end, it was a far more relaxed dinner than we had planned. Everything works out the way it should.
Got up the next morning and took the first Disney shuttle (8AM) to EPCOT. Got our tickets and stood in line for the opening of the gates. Countdown – 10, 9, 8… Got into the greeting area. Forgot to look for our pic and note on the slabs. At the entrance to EPCOT they have this lovely money-making gimmick, you get your pic taken and/or write some note to go with the pic and then they photo process them onto metal sheets about 1 1/2 inch by 1 inch and affix them to these monoliths, for future generations to marvel at. Last year, we fell prey to the vanity of it and had our pic taken, together of course, and wrote “Kirk and Jamie, Honeymoon January, 2000”. Somewhere on those slabs we are indeed immortalized. We just forgot to find out where. On o’ these days…
So then we went to the entrance to the main park area, where we stood waiting for the next countdown as Mickey, Minnie, Chip ‘n Dale and Goofy, paraded and shook hands from the other side of the red rope. Countdown, 10, 9, 8… And we were off into the park proper.
First things first, got to ride the fav staples, Test Track, Ellen’s Energy Adventure (Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye – The Sciene Guy – Jeopardy and travel through time. Who’d miss that?!), Figment’s Imagination ride (Eric Idle and a purple dinosaur thing that is definitely not Barney). The big sphere thing was closed so we had to miss that this time. Oh, and how could I forget, “Listen to the Land”, a lovely boat ride through the Disney experimental greenhouses?
By this time, we were mighty hungry. So we crossed over to the World Showcase area to do what we had really come for: eat. And eat we did. We love the EPCOT Food and Wine Expo. All the different countries represented, plus some others that just set up for this event, have tasting plates of their native foods – $2 – $4/plate. With wine pairings. There were so many great things. Jamie, who has a much better memory for the food specifics, will hopefully detail more on his page. Suffice it to say that by 5:30 we needed a food break before our evening’s major event.
And so we paused to hear Starship, yes, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and for years now, just Starship. Honestly, I thought this was going to be a joke. I was not expecting it to be anything I would want to see. I was wrong. Mickey Thomas still has an amazing voice. They did all hits, of course. They even did a retrospective journey though the band’s permutations starting off with a lovely female singer doing, yes, at a Disney park, White Rabbit. Brilliant. They had the place rockin’. I was amazed at how much fun it was. And then it was over, and just in time, as we had to hurry on over to the aforementioned main event of our day, the South African Wine Tasting (with food).
Inside the EPCOT exhibition space, there was a band beating out a jazzy South African beat, there was delicious food, and wine, lots of wine. There were four kiosks around the room. Each kiosk had four sides and on each of those four sides was a different winery. Each winery had several different representations of their product. We tasted a lot. I have notes on the wines we really liked. At some point when I find those notes, I’ll post a list here. So from 6 to 8:50 we ate and drank.
Then we decided that we’d had enough and we should go watch the fireworks. As we paused outside the space, we started chatting with two women, Wendy and Connie, who were also at the tasting. They told us about a fun piano bar on the property and told us to join them after the fireworks. Sure, why not?
So we ohhh-ed and ahhhh-ed at the glorious fireworks display. And then headed on over to Jellyroll’s.
There’s always been this path in EPCOT that we’ve never travelled. We thought that it just led to the resort hotels in Disney proper. Well, it does do that, but it also leads to the Boardwalk, a cool little area with shops and bars. Yes, bars, Jellyroll’s being one of them.
Jellyroll’s. It’s a sizeable but still intimate space. A bar on each side of the room. A stage at the head of the room. Two grand pianos on the stage. And all night, two guys, well four actually, they switch off, playing and singing just about any song you request. They were great. We had a blast, although they never did play Jamie’s request, The Cure’s Just Like Heaven, but we survived; they played a hell of a lot of wonderful music.
And then we wound down and, unusual for us when we get going, left before the bar closed and headed back to the hotel. We had to get up relatively early the next day to drive to Sun City Center (outside Tampa) to visit Jamie’s mom, or MomFLA, as we call her, as opposed to my mom, MomPA. We settled in our very very comfy bed and realized with great amazement that we felt so very far from our daily NYC lives. I mean that in a very good way. In one day, we felt a week away from NYC. It was great and relaxing and wonderful.
And now, I’m up too bloody late writing this and I’ll have to finish the rest of the weekend tomorrow ’cause I’ve gotta get up early and go to my hideous job.
Oh, yeah, did I mention that calm, that relaxing “Ahhhhh”, that giddy smile, lasted about two hours into my return to work today. Gone, all gone.
That is, until I started writing about it tonight. I felt relaxed and happy all over again. Maybe I can make it three hours tomorrow before it fades.
Nite,
k.
Well, just when you are in need of it, more often than not, a happy little giggle moment of surprise comes along.
It’s been a rough week, well, three or so weeks. Work has been tough; too much to do, not enough hours in the day even when I’m pulling 9 or more hours a pop. Sometime it not the thing, it’s the time it takes to do the thing that’s daunting. Sometimes things seem to be designed in the most convoluted way possible, as if, in giving directions to exit a room to get to the office next to you, you said, “First, knock a hole in that wall and then scale down the outside of the building, then go around the block. Come in the street level door, take the stairs, not the elevator, never the elevator, to your floor, then go to the office.” “But,” you might say, “there’s a door right there? Couldn’t I use that?” “Not our way,” you’d be told. “Not our way.”
I believe in simplicity. I suspect, if you read me rather than know me, you might find that hard to believe. I suppose I should restate: I believe in cutting through the bull. There, that’s better. I think it has something to do with nearly dying. (How’s that for a teaser?) Here’s a problem, lets find the best way of solving it. Perhaps it’s a Virgo thing. I believe in straight lines; they get you to your destination much more quickly.
Of course, that only holds true for my work life. In my “real” life, I like curves, I like the found paths, the little-used byways. They are far more interesting and fun. But at work, I don’t like to waste time; I don’t like my time wasted. Most of the time, I feel I’m doing extremely trivial things and putting out fires. I don’t feel like I’m actually accomplishing anything…worthwhile.
Ok, it’s work. Work is work. But work can be, and sometimes still is, rewarding. But not as rewarding as it has been with past jobs. I suppose that’s why I started writing again. Writing here. Not that I have anything earth-shattering to impart, I think that much is clear, but rather that I do indeed have something to impart. It gives me some small creative outlet, and, after all, the subtitle of the site is: “Built to amuse…myself”. And it does.
So tonight, I go outside to have my evening’s perambulation and upon exiting the building, I discover happy halloween decorations lining our little dead end street. A flickering pumpkin, a couple of those big, baloon-y things with lights in them, a pumpkin, a pumkin with a cat on it, etc. Stupid things. But really quite charming. Lovely that our building does that. It made me smile. And writing about it, I’m still smiling.
I suppose that’s what gets me through life, finding and treasuring those small moments that somehow move you in a positive way. I love those kinds of gifts from the cosmos. Difficult to believe if you saw me, walking down the street with my NYC, “don’t bother me” face on, but I love to smile, and laugh. It really feels good, and generally, no one does it enough.
So tomorrow, as you’re going through your day, look around and find your blow-up pumpkin. And smile.
Oh that seems a lovely way to end this, doesn’t it? But ramble on I will. One more thing to say.
J & I are off tomorrow to visit his mom in FL. It will be a nice trip, we haven’t seen her since last December.
And it will be nice to have a getaway. We’ve been so busy with the apartment this summer that we didn’t really do much else. I’m not at all complaining. I love what we did this summer. I’m proud of the work we did on the new place and even more, I’m more proud that we did the bulk of it ourselves, quite successfully and beautifully, I must add. But it will be nice to get away for a long weekend.
And we’re giving ourselves a mini-vacation within the vacation. We’re taking Friday all to ourselves. We’re spending it at EPCOT. We love Disney. We love EPCOT. So sue us; it’s great fun. And this month is the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival. All the little faux countries around International Lake (or whatever it’s called) have tastings of their native foods. There are food events and wine tastings.
And taste we will. Friday night, we’ll be at the South African wine tasting dinner. It should be wet and tasty. And a very nice way to transition between NYC and Sun City Center, where Jamie’s mom lives. SCC is the kind of place where you are just as likely to see people driving a golf cart down the road (yes, the roads have golf cart lanes) as driving a car.
But, as I said, it will be really nice to see Jamie’s mom. It’s been too long.
And there’s a damned good BBQ rib joint just down the street from where she lives. Gotta love that.
Nite,
k.
As in Cell Phones. As in… cripes I don’t know, bane or boon. Oftimes something can be both. And the cell phone is the perfect example.
Ok, I had a long, hard week. I ended my work day extremely cranky. Met Jamie at our local Mexican restaurant. Had a couple margaritas. Got buzzed and pissed off as they, the restaurant, never fails to rip us off and tonight was no exception.
So I meet Jamie for (theoretically) Happy Hour. I order a margarita, the barkeep asks, “On the rocks or frozen?” “Up”, I say, as that’s my preference. And off she goes to prepare Jamie (as he’s been moved to switch from Cerveza) & my drinks.
We are planning to move to a table and have dinner after we finish drinking.
I finish mine more quickly then Mr. H., as usual, and order another.
As we then finish together, we ask to settle up at the bar before we move to the table. The check arrives. It has not been a happy hour for us. We have been charged full price for our margaritas. Jamie queries and we are informed that the Happy Hour margaritas are only of the “on the rocks” or “frozen” kind; “up” does not qualify for the Happy Hour discount.
Jamie calmly informs the barkeep that we were not informed of this odd distinction. He requests that since we are staying to have dinner, could we let this slip as we were not informed of this non-icy anomaly? No, I’m sorry you were not alerted to this, but no, the check stands.
Really? Really? Yes, really.
Now, this is a place, and we discovered this the hard way – on returning for our second meal and examining the bill more closely, as the first time didn’t make much sense, but what the hell, we had a good time and were buzzed so it didn’t matter that we seemed to be paying too much – that automatically adds 15% to the bill. This is very odd in NYC. This is also detrimental to the waitstaff, at least when dealing with J & myself, as we’ve both been waiters in our pasts and tend to tip very well. But hell, if the tip is added to the check, which we find really irritating, we’re not about to leave any more. Live and learn.
So, tonight, after being again screwed by this restaurant – it would have been so very easy for the barkeep to say, when I ordered my margarita up, “You know, that isn’t a Happy Hour margarita permutation” (of course, she wouldn’t have stated it that way; yes I’m sure about that) – we decided not to have dinner there after all.
Jamie was in the mood for some tasty red meat. That gave us two immediate options: Jake’s Steakhouse, just next to the annoying Mexican restaurant or The Riverdale Garden, a short walk away. We opted for The Riverdale Garden. We like it there. The staff is lovely. The garden is lovely. The food is lovely.
So, in the end, everything worked out well. We had a much better, if more expensive, meal than we were planning on.
What did we have? We split the excellent Red & Yellow beets with camenbert and roasted hazelnuts. Then J. had the delicious, beautifully charred Hanger Steak. I had the incredibly tasty Wild Boar with figs and a yummy cold white bean salad.
For the wine, we had Domaine des Deux Anes (House of the two asses – donkeys, that is), a naturally produced wine from Corbieres, Languedoc Rousillon. It was… ok. A bit too tanney and high in alcohol content, 14.5%, for me. The alcohol pretty well drowned out the pleasure of the fruit. I prefer a lower alcohol content with more depth. Now it sounds like a horrid wine and it wasn’t, it was perfectly passable, just not to my taste. And that, as my late dear friend Bob used to say, is what makes the phone book.
Dessert. Jamie had the pecan pie. A mound of pecans in a delightful tart crust with a side of praline ice cream. I had “Mom’s Chocolate Pudding” with Chocolate Pretzel Bark. My mom, and I love her cooking dearly, never made chocolate pudding like this. Not sweet, just delicious chocolate-y richness, topped by a dollop of whipped cream surrounded by a tasty crumble of, well, pretzel bark; bark being the catch-all for any flat, broken up chocolate with some ingredient mixed in.
Finished it all with a nice cup of French press coffee and then waddled home. Jamie to bed – how he goes immediately to bed after a large meal is beyond me, I need to digest – and I to, well, here.
And there it is, the happy roller coaster that we call life: an annoying day at work followed by a couple tasty margaritas followed by an annoying incident followed by a wonderful meal.
Not a bad ride at all. Of course, now I haven’t spewed about cell phones. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.
Nite,
k.
Stewart. That Martha. She pissed me off. What about? Quinces.
There was a piece in the latest Martha Stewart magazine about “The Forgotten Fall Fruit”, ie: quince. Jamie & I were at our local, really good, fruit and veggie market yesterday when there, in a bin, were some quinces. I thought, “Why not?”, and chose two that, to me, looked quite lovely.
Arriving home, I looked up the article and found that Ms. Stewart says to buy quinces with no sign of green skin; that ripe ones are pale yellow to yellow. I, of course, had bought two greenish ones. Why? Why did I do that, you ask.
Because the art director of the piece, for whatever reason, had used two lovely green quinces on the first, full-page picture of the article. And as I tend to lean more toward the visual, I remembered the picture not the words.
So now, I have two greenish quinces resting on the kitchen counter, ripening. One day, the air will be redolent with their, reportedly, lovely scent and they will be the proper, yellowy color.
But for the moment, they’re green and I’m still pissed off at Martha.
…Didn’t I just write about falling into petty annoyances. Ah well… I’m only human. 🙂
k.
Sphere: Related ContentOverly so. Extremely so. “One waffer thin mint” so (as the line goes in “The Meaning of Life”). But, oh, so good.
Jamie will outline the dishes in a post soon to come, but in the meantime, what a wonderful meal! What an extensive meal. Oh, so good.
If you can, I urge you to try The Riverview Garden. The food is lovely. The people are lovely. The wine is lovely.
It is in a difficult location, but if you’re willing to travel (and you so should), I urge you to do so; you won’t be disappointed.
More later. Now, after eating for 4 1/2 hours, I’m pooped.
I am so useless at work tomorrow. That is, unfortunately, until tomorrow comes, when I’ll be my usual, responsible self.
I so need a night of drag.
Nite,
k.
