Does someone want to be a super-secret super-spy with me? I am “secret-shopping” Big Bowl (at South point) Friday and I’d love to recruit a second super-sleuth to go with me… and dinner’s on me!
Any takers?
:-)
Food & Wine
Quick update
I have been much slack in updating of late. Oops.
As an excuse I offer: busyness! (surprise! ;-)
Ok, so last weekend I:
- Met Heather and Debra at Carrburritos (I think I might’ve put too many “rrrrrr”s in there) for Burritos as Big as Our Heads (BaBaOH) tm followed by Tift Merritt‘s album release party at the Cat’s Cradle. The Super Double Bonus was that Gary Louris (of The Jayhawks), who sings backup for some of the songs on this album, played as well. In fact, he sang one of my Most Favorite songs — All the Right Reasons — solo accousitc. Mmmmmm! I gushed at him a bit afterwards…
- Saturday was the Day of Organization. Jeff & I went to several stores with multiple sets of measurements in hand in order to find a storage solution for my fabric and yarn. This is not an insubstantial problem.Some sewers/knitters, you see, find a pattern they like, then buy the fabric/yarn to complete it, then make the thing. Not me. Nope. I find fabric/yarn I like, then visit it on a regular basis, so as to be able to hear it when it tells me what it wants to be when it grows up. This means I have *lots* of fabric and *lots* of yarn. The sad thing was that my storage capacity was so limited that the materials were all squashed up, so some of them weren’t being heard properly (I mean, really, how could a nice little piece of quilting cotton in yellow expect to be heard over lime green polarfleece?).
So now I have four little Target cabinets (with doors! on sale! $23.99/ea.!) that all the fabric can safely live in and two little shoe cabinets with 25 compartments each where all my yarn can live. Needless to say, the fabric and yarn are quite happy to be grouped by weight and color. And it makes me really happy to be able to go upstairs (the shelves line the catwalk that connects the stairs with the loft area of my house) and see all my pretties all nice and neat!
- Saturday night, Jeff and I met ferociousbcycad, one of my significant ex-others (ex-significant others?) for dinner at Babymoon Cafe. Potentially awkward, yet decidedly not in reality (yah!). We had a blast (they actually have quite a bit in common… INTP’s [I’m listening to you all gape in surprise at that one! ;-)] who ride motorcycles, etc.) and ended up talking until nearly ten.
- Sunday I decided that if I could finish a big (and very long-in-the-making project), I could clear off one of the tables upstairs, which would give me space to cut fabric (which would be far more ergonomically correct and far less backache-inducing than the current system of cutting it on the floor). So I spent Sunday afternoon (and evening and part of Monday night) reacquainting myself with how to do this craft that I’d not done in, oh, I dunno, 7 years? (geep). Only minor injuries were sustained and The Project (which is not being detailed here for a pretty good reason) is completed!
- Tuesday night I met Greta for dinner at Rocky Mountain Firebird Grill Thing at my mall. Greta is one amazing person, and this time, just like last time, we managed not to do a stitch of knitting, but instead gabbed for three hours. :)
- Wednesday night, thebroomecloset (surprisingly, another significant ex-other or ex-significant other, take your pick) and I met for dinner at Rockfish (and also gabbed for going on four hours*). Pretty amazing … I’ve known him for eighteen years (I think we figured out?…) and he’s still one of my favorite people on the planet.
Whew.
* OK. That’s not all that amazing. I talk. A lot. I get it. ;-)
Atkins Kills Twinkies
Well, not quite, but America’s disenchantment with sugary goodness* is spelling trouble for the manufacturer (and possibly bankruptcy).
* Note: I don’t actually like Twinkies…too “yellow”-tasting. Now if Peeps were to become financially unstable *that* would make me really sad.
Iron Chef!
The big thing this past weekend (gads, I’m slow. big project launching this week, though, so I have a semi-excuse) was that Sunday Jeff & I had a few friends over to his house* for sushi-rolling goodness and Iron Chef!
Saturday morning, I crafted (more on this later) and that afternoon we went to the little Asian market in Chapel Hill for supplies …Silver Wok Gourmet, I believe it’s called — it’s right near where Mariakakis restaurant was (gads, I miss that place.. the huge cheesy white pizza with the “ziki-ziki” sauce. Yes, I know it’s tzatziki sauce, but I called it “ziki-ziki” sauce). Anyway, the SWG is run by a little Japanese woman who reminded us of Jeff’s mom and who was very sweet in making recommendations to us about which sort of miso to buy, etc. (Though she reminded me of Jeff’s mom immediately, I didn’t say anything to Jeff while we were in the store because I was afraid that it would come off as some sort of “all older Japanese ladies look alike” thing, and it wasn’t. But then in the car on the way to Wellspring (sorry, Whole Foods) Jeff said she’s reminded him of his mom, so I fessed up too.).
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Anyway, post-shopping we had dinner at Rockfish (I do <3 Rockfish), followed by more craftiness for me… I made a pocketbook and chopsticks for the party (more on those later).
I took those cheap snap-apart chopsticks (I had to snap about 20 pairs of them to get 10 even-enough pairs to pass muster — good thing I’m a packrat!), sanded them with 00 and 000 grade sandpaper, wrapped masking tape about an inch down from the top and painted each one with two different colors of paint. Finally, I sealed them with clear nail polish (which is almost like lacquer, right?) and set them to dry.
Sunday afternoon we did all the prep work for the sushi…made rice, made it sushi rice, slivered cukes and carrots, boiled shrimp, tried to slice the cream cheese but gave that up as hopeless, and considered slicing the tuna, but decided to wait until the last possible moment for that. We also made the miso soup (ok, Jeff did), and cut up all the bits for the tempura (sweet potatoes, broccoli, onions, shrimp, and green beans) and cleaned up.
Then I got a little obsessive-compulsive (me? no way!) and decided that I needed to add beads to one chopstick from each pair (the Japanese aesthetic values asymmetry, right?). Here’s the result
I also made voting sheets for everyone so that they could rate each chef. On the real program, each chef is judged on:
- originality,
- expression of the theme ingredient,
- presentation, and
- taste;
however, given that we couldn’t taste (sadly), we judged on:
- originality,
- chef’s “style”,
- appearance, and
- would I eat it?
We favored Morimoto over Flay (heck, we would’ve favored Bob Saget over Flay, I think!), and were quite disappointed when he was *robbed*! It was a blast, and not nearly as stressful as I feared (I know I’ve mentioned my hostess-stress before — doesn’t that look like it should be hostessstress? — mostly because it was a very small group of people *and* people were kind enough to bring goodies (like sake! mmmmm).
* a double-whammy of a shocker! As may have been mentioned before, Jeff’s (a) Introverted (notice capital “I”) and (b) doesn’t much care for parties (that was an understatement, actually, as he pretty much doesn’t like them except under some very specific circumstances), so it amazed me that he agreed to it and agreed to have it at his house. I think the biggest thing that helped make this OK was the fact that he got to (for the first part of the party) be involved in cooking (which meant not a whole lot of having to interact with people) and then (for the second half of the party) be involved in the watching (ditto). In addition, this was “comfortable” territory… he is at home with making tempura, etc. Plus he had all the cool little bits like pretty soy sauce dishes and sake warmers!
Oh, while I’m thinking of it, don’t buy the little Japanese “jelly” candies that look like jello in those little creamer cups (only clear). They are, I have determined, NOT food.
Charleston
Jeff and I split town for the weekend, which was a Very Good Thing. We left Thursday night and got haircuts in Greensboro (yes, I drive to Greensboro for haircuts…have I mentioned that before?), then headed on to Charlotte to spend the night there. We added 2 hours to our drive time down, but were able to leave “early” (for me at any rate) from Charlotte (and get shorn en route), which put us in Charleston at 11:30 am and well rested (with “hot donuts now” for brekkies…mmmmmmmm!) .
We stayed at the Charleston Place, which was absolutely fabulous — definitely one of the nicer hotels I’ve stayed in. Jeff found a good deal (he’s the king of finding good deals) on the Executive Club level, so we splurged and stayed on the seventh floor. The nifty thing was that on the Executive Club level there was a nearly non-stop supply of food and drink — so much so, in fact, that we only ate out once (!!!) between arrival Friday morning and departure Sunday morning.
The “schedule” of treats was as follows:
- continental breakfast — pastries, cereal, fresh-squeezed orange juice, sliced meats, cheese, fresh fruit, etc.
- afternoon tea — this was the winner for me. A classic cream tea, with cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, Camembert, fresh fruit, cheesecake, truffles, pasties, tea (of course) and coffee
- evening cocktails and hors d’oeuvres — heavy hors d’oevres, including spring rolls and miniature spinach quiches, cheese, pita & hummus, grilled vegetables, wine, beer and “spirits”
- after dinner cordials with desserts — including cheesecake, pistachio cake (odd, but quite good), truffles, cookies, fruit and cream tarts, and, of course, liquors. (I’ve decided my favorite after-dinner drink is Bailey’s, Kahluha and cream (which seems to be a mudslide minus the vodka)
A plethora of food choices — all delicious (these were not the typical continental breakfast stale danishes!).
After arriving and checking in Friday we headed to the historic part of town, where I took about a gazillion pictures (links to come as soon as I get them sorted out). We headed back in time for tea (of course), and arranged a carriage tour with the “club level” concierge. A wee respite from the heat in our room, then the driver picked us up at the hotel. There are apparently six different routes the carriages take and which one you get is determined by a lottery ball in the carriage-driver-routing-stand. (I kid you not). After boarding the carriage, we left the hotel and went to the routing station, where our driver had to give his license number and wait for the assignation. We were lucky and drew the “historic homes” tour, which is only available before 6pm (since the neighborhood deserves some peace & quiet at night). Our driver was full of content (most of which I admit I missed, as I was busily snapping photos and ogling at the houses), and the ride itself was lovely. (There are two types of carriages, BTW: the ones run by the tour groups, which are more like trams that are pulled by the horses, and which have 6-9 people on them; and the “proper” (IMHO) carriages, which are what you think of when you think of horse-drawn carriage, and which hold only two (or four, I suppose., given that the seat facing us was empty. We opted for the latter, and would definitely recommend it.).
One funny thing — as we were at the stand waiting for the route, we overheard one of the drivers telling his cart (it was the other type of tour) that if you see what looks like a ball floating in a puddle DON’T let your kids pick it up. Apparently the drivers carry markers that look like half a superball with a little flag on top, which they use to mark the piddle puddles so the sanitation crews can see which areas they should hose down!
We arrived back at the hotel in time for hors d’oevres (=dinner … I wasn’t joking about the food) and pre-sleep cordials.
Saturday morning we got up in time (for breakfast and) the Easter Hat Parade. This was a blast (and should definitely be seen, so I will post photos soon). The parade was comprised of about a hundred ladies (who lunch, I imagine) in fabulous hats and one tiny chihuahua in a tuxedo parading through downtown Charleston. Truly startling! I was a bit sad, as I’d wished I’d brought one of my “fancy hats”. As it was I only had my squashable black straw travel hat (which was, I guess, better than being hatless!).
Post-parade we hiked north and rented bikes. Charleston is, IMHO, the ideal biking location, as it is completely flat. Yah! We rode the bikes further north and visited the Charleston aquarium, which was nice (good exhibits, clean, etc.) though sort of small. Admittedly I’m biased, as aquariums are a “thing” for me (undergrad was in Zoology with many of my courses in Marine Sciences), so I’ve been to some really fantastic aquaria (Monterey Bay, Baltimore and Chicago Shedd top the list). I was curious about one of the exhibits: an “open” bog (plants and water and mud and turtles in a big, open container, with no lid, so you could lean over and see them). I’m not sure how long they’ve had this exhibit, but I noticed it contained several tadpoles (one of which had its rear legs), which made me wonder if there was someone whose duty it was to monitor the polywogs for “legginess,” as it seems that once they’ve gotten legs, they could just jump right out. Frog on the loose!
Oh! And on the way to the aquarium, we passed MINIland! This giant parking lot *full* of new little MINIs all waiting for their people (normal people would call it a “shipping depot,” I think). I am, I am 90% sure, buying a MINI very soon, so this was quite exciting.
Then south on the bikes to the “point” of Charleston — a long ride on an avenue with sea breeze a’blowing. Very nice on the way down. A wee bit tricky on the way back, as the lovely breeze was blowing the wrong way, impeding progress. We turned the bikes in and hobbled back to the hotel so as to (a) have tea and (b) recuperate a bit before our dinner out. (And shop, too, although I was quite restrained, in light of upcoming MINI goodness).
Dinner was at Tristan’s — wow! We did the chef’s tasting menu and were quite pleased at his willingness to deal with our peculiarities (I won’t eat spicy food and Jeff’s not all that fond of seafood and is experiencing a lack-of-tummy-happiness with raw tomatoes of late). Let’s see, dinner was:
- corn chowder with sauteed shrimp (me) and black bean soup (Jeff)
- amuse bouche of tiny quail leg with some sort of sauce
- grouper cheek with some sort of savory/sweet sauce (mango?) (me) and duck confit with cherries on an arugula bed (Jeff)
- skate wing with sausage butter (me) and sauteed duck breast with confit sauce (Jeff)
- Halibut with shallot sauce, squash medley and garlic mashed potatoes (me) and and rotisserie leg of lamb with rosemary/garlic juice and vegetable medley (Jeff)
- chocolate hazelnut mousse (yet, solid, somehow) with mint ice cream (me) and pear tart (Jeff)
- cotton candy — yep! a big plate of cotton candy as the final treat!
Was I in heaven? Why yes, I was.
We stumbled home in a state of bliss.
I saw The Passion of the Christ the other week, and now I’m sure I’m going to hell… I couldn’t get “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” out of my head during the crucification scene.
This weekend
Three major things of note:
(1) Friday night I “secret shopped” Rockfish. They compensate you for your meal, and in return you fill out a *very detailed* report on everything (food, service, cleanliness of tables, outdoor lighting, you name it). I think I’m pretty good at that sort of thing (noticing details and presenting them in a coherent written format), and what the heck? a free meal’s a free meal, right? In addition, this one was fun because we got to award a “gift certificate” to the server if she met all the criteria, which she did. So fun all around!
(2) Saturday afternoon, my friend Heather and I threw a “girl’s afternoon out” thing. Basically it involved eight women, four pounds of cheese, two pounds of chocolate, at least 5 bottles of wine (maybe more) and fire. Yes, Fondue Forks for Everyone! It was an interesting mix of people and ended up being a complete hoot. We’re going to try to do another one soon, with perhaps some craftiness added in, as it turns out that a (surprising?) number of us knit, make jewelry, spin, scrapbook, sew or make cards. Or all of the above.
(BTW, I’m trying to learn the lesson here that this — the throwing of casual events — doesn’t have to be incredibly stressful, time-consuming or expensive. Yes, it took some time to put together and there was cost involved, but sharing the work with someone else made it ever-so-much easier. And, of course, I was stressed, especially at the beginning when people were first showing up, but for no real reason, as it all was good!)
(3) Sunday night was my friend Kim’s birthday shindig. As originally scheduled it was to have been a Saturday night get-your-groove-thing-on, adults-only party; however, due to Kim (and Tim, her hubby) needing to be out of town Saturday night, it got shifted to a more mellow, pot-lucky bring-the-kids Sunday evening thing.
First and foremost, I had a wonderful time. T/K’s friends are, to a (wo)man, charming, intelligent people, whom I really enjoyed talking to.
With that important statement clear, I’ll admit: it was *weird* and disorienting. Not only was I (get this) the ONLY single straight person there, I was also the only one without child(ren)! Me and my friend Kenny from high school and his partner David were the three representatives from the land of childrenlessness.
Now rationally I know that the majority of people my age are married, and of those, a majority probably have children by now. That being said, some of my most immediate friends don’t have kids and at least a few are still single (getting fewer by the day, but that’s another story)** and I don’t regularly attend play groups or shop for groceries in the middle of a weekday afternoon*, so it’s pretty rare for me to see “the majority” in action.
So, honestly, it was a little disconcerting to all-of-a-sudden be dropped into a whole different demographic. Honestly, I felt a bit like the Freakishly (/Childless) Single One — again, through no fault of anyone at the party, but just because I was the exception not the rule.
Anyway — maybe more on this later, but for now, just the observation.
** For example, the Saturday girl’s thing ended up being 2 single, 4 married, 2 married+kids.
* Not that all women with kids are stay-at-home moms, but more that many of the folks with free time to shop during weekday afternoon are likely to be stay-at-home moms (who would remind me of the “majority state” of things).
Weekend Edition
Friday night was crazy, but everything ended up working out just fine. I had intended to go out with my friend Phil, but just as he and I were heading out he got a call from another friend of ours from high school, Steve. Steve and his wife MargEva are good friends with Laura and Jonathan (whom I also know through the Duke Talent Identification Program, where Jonathan was an instructor and I was a resident advisor in 1990). Since Jonathan’s step mom is affiliated with Duke, they often end up with basketball tickets, so Steve was calling Phil to ask him if he’d like to meet up with the rest of them (MargEva and Laura) to go to the ACC Tournament. Phil kindly said “oh no no, I’m going out with Gina,” but right after he hung up I told him not to be rediculous, that this was the ACC Tournament and fer-cryin’-out-loud he should go already. So he called Steve back, and Steve came over to Phil’s house to fetch him (bonus for me, since I hadn’t seen Steve in a while either).
Meanwhile back at the ranch — I’d gotten a call earlier in the day from my friend Elizabeth, whom I’ve known since I worked for her at The Limited during summers in college. She’d wondered what I was up to that evening, but at the time, I already had the Phil-related plans. So, after I talked Phil into taking the b-ball tix, I called Elizabeth back and ended up meeting her for a late dinner at a Japanese steak house, which was wonderful. It had been far too long since we’d seen each other, and it was great catching up.
See, I told you it all worked out.
Saturday night was all about fun! First, Meghan came over to Jeff’s house, where I presented her with her birthday presents: a little japanese siilly toy I’d bought for her at Giant Robot last time I was in San Fran; a 50’s style apron I’d sewn for her out of two pink and cream prints (must get photos!); and a necklace I’d made of thin leather cord, amazonite (I think?) and various shades of blue glass beads, which for once, I didn’t match exactly (as painful as that was for me), since Meghan’s not into matchy-matchy things.
Then we went out to Rockfish (mmmm! fish & chips!) for her birthday. We also got in a wee bit of QST (Quality Shopping Time) at Nordstrom’s, where Meghan scored not one, but two!, nifty belts. (Aside: that’s one whole area of fashion that I completely miss out on. I *never* wear belts!).
After dinner (eaten completely without poundage guilt over the fish-and–chips, I might add…it was that kind of evening), Meghan and I headed over to our friend John Santa’s house for his monthly music jam. John is a music producer and knows *tons* of pickers and players and singers… and once a month he gets a crowd of them together to just play.
John had been worried about a small turn-out, and had even considered cancelling, but we ended up full-to-overflowing! We even had four singers, which was incredibly fun. Virginia and Ruth have very strong lead voices, so Meghan and I harmonized on most things. (Meghan’s also got a fantastic lead voice, but she was not feeling up to it Saturday night). Ruth also brought a lot of new tunes to the party, and Meghan and I had a blast singing two of our favorite Tift Merritt songs, Trouble Over Meand Virginia, No One Can Warn You. And though this is a song I’m not particularly fond of, the four part harmony on To Know Him is To Love Him was amazing.
Didn’t get home ’till 1:30. Slept like the proverbial log. I got up, watched a bit of the barbeque show on PBS, got showered went to meet Steve (see paragraph 1, above) and his darling daughter Eleanor for lunch Sunday morning (ok, it was still Sunday morning to me). This was the first time I’d met Eleanor & she’s a real charmer.
After I got home, Jeff and I toook the bike out for a long spin since it was such a pretty day, ending up at Maple View Farm Creamery for ice cream. Poifect! It was pretty amusing to me, as it was 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon and the place was packed! I’d have thougt that all the parental units would have said “no, you’ll spoil your dinner”, but there was a line wrapping all the way around the inside of the place. I had cookie dough and butter pecan, and I did, I admit, spoil my dinner a wee bit. Jeff and I ended up makign soft tacos at about 8, when we finally were a bit hungry again. Iron Chef and Whose Line and bed followed.
Three things
1) There are *two* commercials featuring the Tommy Tutone song “Jenny (867-5309)” (Milky Way and …erm… Cingular?)!!! I wonder if this will provoke another round of driving the phone companies nuts.
2) There’s a new toothbrush commercial (yes, last night I sat and watched the ABC Family Movie “Who Wants to Marry Ryan Banks?” and knitted) that features “Cross-action Rubber Stimulators.”
Oh my.
3) At Souper Salad last night one of the featured pasta things was “Screwdled Tuna”. Now I don’t know about you, but “screwdled” sounds like a bad thing to me:
“Yeah, honey, I got screwdled today — they passed me up for a promotion again!”
Weekend Update
Busybusybusy, but really good.
Friday night Jeff and I saw Big Fish and had a very very late, snackish sort of a dinner at CPK. Big Fish was visually stunning (as are most of Tim Burton’s films, IMHO), and more touching than I expected to me. Kind of sad, but not in a boo-hoo way. Dinner was yummy (new salad at CPK: lettuce, blue cheese, walnuts and beets — mmmmm!) and reminded me how much I like Cosmopolitans (a lot).
Saturday I had lunch with Greta. I don’t really know how to describe it, except for this: anyone who knows me knows that I *hate* cold. Just not very interested in numbness and runny noses and shivering. Greta and I sat outside, with the temperature steadily dropping for three-and-a-half wonderful hours. The whole time I said Not One Word about the cold (indeed I didn’t even notice it for a while which, given how chilly it got, was pretty amazing in and of itself) because I didn’t want to interrupt the magic. Probably a lot more could be said there, but suffice it to say that it’s pretty incredible to meet someone who’s just like you want to be.
But wait! There’s more! Saturday night Meghan and I went to see Calendar Girls (really fun movie), followed by sushi (spiral ecstasy— yummmy!) (Ed. note: “ecstasy” is a really funny-looking word.)
Sunday afternoon I met my friend Ann for knitting lessons, part deux. She’s starting her first knit-in-the-round project (which will be her first DPN project too), a lovely little baby hat. I attempted to cast-on and knit the devil hat for Jacintha; however, upon examination of the results later that evening, it is clear that I’m not quite good enough yet to attempt seed stitch without my full concentration. Her hat’s turning out great, though I had to frog a bit on mine.
Sunday evening there was a baby shower for my friend Patryce (who was “Pat” when I met her in high school, so calling her anything other than that requires a conscious effort), wherein we crocheted squares for eventual inclusion in a baby blanket. Terribly clever idea. I had quite a comeuppance upon discovering that what I’ve been thinking was basic (aka “single”) crochet for the eons that I’ve been doing it is, in fact, chain crochet, and wasn’t at all what we were doing at the shower.n Uh-oh. Back to looking like a complete dolt while struggling to figure out which loops it is, again, that I’m supposed to pick up this time… Oh well. Now I know. And I’ll be finishing both my square and Amy’s (friend of Patryce who is also the sort-of-ex sister-in-law of my boss, David).
Then more knitting and home and *pizza* — regular old Papa John’s cheese pizza! I haven’t had “normal” (as opposed to Thai chicken a la CPK or Gorgonzola & Artichoke a la Loop) in *forever*. It was goooooood.
Realm of the Lint Queen 