green, my ass

It's been a good while since I got a parking ticket in DC. About ten days ago they hit me while the 51 was at Eastern Market on a Sunday. I can almost guarantee they've changed the parking regs on 6th St NW since we've parked on all those blocks on Sundays at least 15 times. Fine, I'll pay.

I was impressed with the "Go Green option" on the tickets. For some reason, e-mail notification does not interest me at all...

needs another weekend

It was an interesting and packed weekend.

I have class on Saturday afternoon this quarter, from noon to 5pm, so that cuts a large swath from in the middle of the day. At least I don’t have to be there at 8am and it doesn’t infringe on our evenings. As the kids have (or will soon) departed it’s only the two of us in the house; she can come in with me if need be and do some work at her office. My Saturday (and Friday afternoon) class is Garde Manger so it covers mostly cold dishes like sandwiches, banquet food, appetizers, fancy stuff, etc. To open the quarter we made loads of bread (baguettes, rye, and whole wheat) to freeze and store for use over the next few weeks as we create various canapés and whatnot. Unfortunately, I’m just now beginning Baking and Pastry (Monday – Wednesday evenings) so I was trying to learn and follow along with my teammates: big mistake. Everyone in my class has already had Baking so I figured they’d have some basis for production even if it had been a few quarters ago (there is one guy is quite excellent). As with most things, don’t get too comfortable assuming knowledge resides in anyone’s bean. Of course, we are doing all these breads in Baking over the next three days so my own experience will greatly improve. Our product came out poorly, at best. I might knock out a few extra loaves of each in the bake shop so I can carry them over to the other class.

After wrapping up on Saturday afternoon, the 61 went to dinner in D.C. and then to see One Man Lord of the Rings at Woolly Mammoth. Both of the girls are big Ring fans so I figured they enjoy one guy, dressed only in a jumpsuit and wearing a microphone, running through all three movies in a bit more than an hour. It was very enjoyable, even for a non-Tolkien-only-mostly-seen-the-movies-and-never-read-the-books chaperone. I pointed out to both of them after the show that the movies seemed to me to be mostly marching, running, fighting, and horns a-blowing; when reduced to an hour you’d surely discover that I was mostly correct.

I tried to engage X on what she thought the civil engineering/scheduling plan might be for the Orange line and new Silver line Metro trains once they hit East Falls Church station. She actually left the room mid-query to show her waning interest in that conversation.

The 51 hit Eastern Market early yesterday morning and were enveloped in a heat index of over 90° at 9am. We did stop for crepes before making a few passes through the flea market, art/craft/creation stalls (I’ve now narrowed down my cutting board desires) before gathering up our ingredients in the food hall. We ended up with quite a crowd at The Hilltop for Sunday pizza night last night so I had execute some deep mathematical formulae to figure out if I had enough pie to cover five adults and four children. We managed.

is the word....that you heard...

I was over at the Border’s earlier today – writing out a few recipes, if you must know – and there were a couple of young guys, maybe 24, having what amounted to a job interview. From what I could gather, as if I could help it, was that one was applying for a job, or volunteer, position for a summer day-camp-thing that involved teaching and playing chess for children. They went through the usual, if somewhat stilted, quick array of questions (Where did you go to school? Where have you worked? What are you doing next fall? What do you think of Philadelphia?, etc.) before getting to the meat. “So,” says interviewer, “what’s your chess background?” Now, I’m really interested and a million things go through my mind in that few seconds of dead time. Maybe this kid is a ringer. Maybe he’s never played chess at all and is simply hoping to find work in this economy. Maybe he’s Josh Waitzkin. (Well, he couldn’t be Josh because he’s too young to be him, isn’t he? (he’s not) and he doesn’t look at all like him.) Maybe he’s from India, is a chess master, and he’s simply trying to pass along his wisdom and skill so some Daniel Larusso kid. It turns out the guy lets him know that he plays often enough, online and with his brother. I’m not sure what to make of this chess CV but it doesn’t matter: the interviewer drops the interview bomb: “Well, of course, we should play ten games or so.” Yikes. Out comes a board and I hear pieces being set-up for the interview showdown (“The Borders War!” See how I did that?). What will happen? Is this guy just lying about his skills? After the chess hush falls over the Borders coffee area I hear four or five moves, some deep breathing, and then this, “Well, that’s good enough. You know how to play.” What? What happened? Was application boy all over chess club man’s fortress that quickly? Was there embarrassment on the horizon? I needed answers. I got none. I think it might have come down to this: moved one pawn one space, moved one pawn two spaces, did a diagonally thing, and made the horsey do an L. Done deal. Ten games? What was this? The World Championship?

I forgot to mention from our Eastern Market trip on Saturday that L. pointed out to me how often I open with the phrase, “I’ll tell you what…” when shopping / ordering / involving sellers at outdoor markets, farmers markets, and my cheesaries. I told her she reads too much. That little quip didn’t actually do much…

There was a new lion cub born at the National Zoo this morning and I’m only using that event so I can steal a photo of two of the adult lions that reside there. The lioness in this shot has a lot of Lemon the Slayer in her. Or, vice versa.

rock market

The 51 headed down the walk to the Metro and on to the Eastern Market this morning. X and kids were off to save a river in the wilds of Virginia. Apparently, the farmers show up to see just what these Buddists were up to - the farmers trotted off thinking the Buddists with pickaxes and saws were badass. I'll let her pass that along.

A few things to pass along. First, the Slobberbone Web site has suddenly been redesigned which bodes well for the greatest bar band of all time getting back in the studio and on the road. I've brought it up before, and I'll do it again, nobody but nobody in this generation is a better songwriter - and no band is better in a bar - than Brent Best and Slobberbone. Great stuff. Even if it's for only one more turn, that turn will be gold. It's hard to lockdown any really good video of the guys rocking but I can give you some Brent doing one of the greatest songs ever, Robert Cole. The song is loosely based on a piece by the great author, Larry Brown. Kills.



I picked up a few more 1970s cookbooks at Capital Hill Books today. These were a hat trick of the Time Life International series: Middle Eastern, Italy, and Spain and Portugal. What's interesting is that they were $6, $7, and $8; they were all in the same condition so I'm trying to sort out the pricing. What's interesting about a lot of these series' is that we've dumbed down ethnic cuisine over the last 30 years and these books give some solid skills and deep recipes from the old days. You get history, biography, and cooking all in one.

My second push is for Sarah's graduation from her Vet Tech program on the 20th. A much smarter 21-year-old than I ever was. She did her first year at ASU before deciding that it wasn't for her - the college thing. She turned to her first love and then ran through it like nothing. She wants to go on to Vet school after this and she's laid a nice path in that direction; quite admirable. I imagine she'll work for a few years or so and then apply to move along her career path. As with most of my lot, I've not been as close as I should have been over the years but that doesn't dull my pride.

We're doing a belated dinner for Amy tomorrow that will have langistinos, a huge organic leg of lamb, and pie tips. You do what you can do...

t

smoking? pot? what?

“Again, understand that walking away is a kind of communication, too. Sometimes "better communication" is "less communication." You can't argue everything. And you can't argue the things you pick ad infinitum.”

This is an input in a conversation thread at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog after a long comment thread blew up last week on one of his entries. Within the confines of the discussion it's pretty hard to process and when pulled out of the context it makes lots of confused sense to me. I don’t even know if that makes sense, check that. I think the heart of the sentence is that we, as political and social creatures, tend to think we have the back story of an issue when we really don’t; that story comes from the experiences of our lives and no one else’s. We don’t understand the position of another person whose life is so varied from ours and sometimes positing, and then forcefully debating that issue, isn’t going to necessarily come to something positive. As much as I want to believe in my opinion on gay rights, women’s rights, civil rights, being black, or growing up poor, the facts are the facts and I’ll never know regardless of my good intentions; sometimes that’s hard to accept. Sometimes you do your level best and then walk away.

We managed our way through L.’s birthday dinner, and a bit of an ode to the mothers at the table, last night. She requested salmon (I smoked it), magic potatoes, and tzatziki. She also picked out a chocolate cake from the Great Baking Book and we made that together in the afternoon. Nothing says lots of dirty pots and dishes like a made-from-scratch cake – I actually ran out of stuff to use.

Our trip to Eastern Market yesterday was a smash. The crepe guy was there and with our early arrival we were able to beat most of the line and at least keep warm with crepes for The 61. I went savory and the two girls went sweet. We gathered up the King of Chairs that we purchased last week (see below), X picked up some pearls, and I pulled some cheese from the Market’s cheese seller, some S.C. strawberries, and a pound of fresh S. Virginia asparagus. We also stumbled upon a gentleman who runs a great stand that stocks used cookbooks and used cast iron and enameled cast iron cookware. He gathers high quality used Le Crueset, Capco, and other marks and then sells them for a fraction of what you’d pay at Williams or elsewhere. The Copco stuff he had was about $35-$40 per piece and quite nice but couldn’t match the three pieces that X scored at Goodwill for $10, total, a few months back. He was happy we had some at home and didn’t rue the fact that we’d managed product for so little. (Copco is now making the Batali stuff so if you’ve seen that newer line then you have a general idea of the classic line.) He also had five or six volumes of the late 1970s set of Time Life cookbooks that are popular among all chefs – most of my instructors have a least a portion of the nearly 30-volume set. I grabbed four of those and disappeared into the morning sun.

I’m registered for classes next quarter (begins after the 4th of July holiday) and have Garde Manger, Intro to Baking , and Intro to Pastry. I sense loads of sweets and breads early in the week.

t