OTR Memphis & Boston 2012

March 19th Feast of St Joseph Please Help Me

I took the red eye from Portland to Memphis via Atlanta. Because I was a priceline customer I was given one of the valued pickle seats — middle of the road. I had two Atlanta natives trying to sleep on either side of me but I kept the reading light on and continually got up hoping one of them might actually offer to trade me seats. It didn’t work but it helped me get through the trip on just ginger ale and a package of pretzels. I arrived at 9:45 and Jabba was waiting at the airport in our limousine we had rented from Avis or Hertz. We don’t do compact cars with Jabba. We wandered off to our hotel where checkin time was at noon but because there were several local soccer teams in town we couldn’t check in until 2:00 so we took the time to find us a place to eat. We wandered for quite some time passing golden arches, big boys until we found a place open on Sundays that we didn’t recognize. According to the sign Huey’s has been serving up Blues, Brews and Burgers since 1970. They touted a casual laid back feeling in a legendary tavern where the entertainment includes blowing toothpicks into the ceiling with your drink straw. They claimed that you would want to try one of their mouthwatering burgers…voted “Best Burger” by Memphis Magazine every year since 1984. Huey’s had also been voted “Best Pub Grub” and “Best Beer Selection” in Memphis Magazine’s Readers Restaurant Poll. This place showed why I am very wary of reader’s polls. Too often the help is required to send in their votes every day before leaving work. I tried their Texas Toast Burger which was their world famous Huey burger topped with pepper jack cheese, grilled onion and jalapeno served on Texas Toast. I wasn’t sure what Texas toast was but I assumed it would be big and I was hungry because the pretzels were starting to wear off. To my amazement the toast wasn’t much bigger than a slice of wonder bread (and won’t they never cease) and the burger fit snugly inside with the crust hanging over the side. The only thing legendary about the burger is that they had managed to grow the smallest jalapenos in the world. The pickle was an afterthought and when I suggested they change the station from Nascar to the NCAA basketball tournament the only response I got, “You ain’t from these parts are you?” said in that tone of maybe you should go back to the hole you crawled out of. Jabba was not very impressed with the size or quality either. We slid out the back door as a group of church goers came in, all stopping at the small television sets to see what was happening in the pits — when I think barbecue I usually think pits has something to do with food, not here at Huey’s. When we went to pay our bill I told them I got water.  I wanted Ice Tea but I didn’t get any. They assured me that the glass at my table was for ice tea. I went back to take another look. It did have an object floating in it that could have been a lemon slice. You don’t have to worry about the caffeine in that ice tea.

We finally got checked into the hotel at 3:30 after several false starts towards our room. One of the challenges of checking in only three and a half hours after they said you could is that you might not have all of the amenities you expected.  For instance, we got three small tubes of body gel — no shampoo or conditioner. It is a frightening thing sharing a room with Jabba when he is happy but when there are no glasses to drink some Tennessee Bourbon he gets very agitated.

   Soul Fish Cafe

We wandered around German town looking for Southern Cooking. At the Soulfish you aren’t going for the atmosphere or ambiance — you go there for the Catfish served with Cajun Cabbage, Collard Greens, Cole Slaw, white beans and a slice of Bourbon Pecan Pie or Coconut Cake.  The fish is fresh, moist and served with a good remoulade sauce. They are also well known for their sandwiches which include Catfish, Blackened Chicken and Memphis smoked pork & bacon as well as the Cuban which is smoked pork tenderloin, ham, pickles, Cuban Mayo and Swiss Cheese.  You can also get Fish Tacos with either plain or blackened catfish.

The Entrees:

Smoked Chicken
A half chicken slow-cooked over hickory
and served with our homemade mashed
potatoes.

Catfish Basket
Catfish dusted with seasoned cornmeal
and fried golden brown, served with
French fries, hushpuppies, and coleslaw.

Blackened Catfish
Catfish filet seasoned and blackened,
served with fresh vegetable.

Blackened Tilapia
Tilapia filet seasoned and blackened,
served with fresh vegetable.

Whole Catfish
Two Whole Catfish dusted with seasoned cornmeal and fried golden brown,
served with French fries, hushpuppies, and coleslaw.

Fresh Vegetable Plate
Three of our fresh vegetables or sides
with cornbread.

But don’t forget the sides — they are well prepared.

Coleslaw, Hushpuppies, French Fries, Mashed Potatoes, Pickled Green Tomatoes, Cucumber Salad, Cajun Cabbage (I loved this version of cooked cabbage), Sweet Potato Fries and for those who care, Broccoli.

Hotel-  We were looking for a cheaper place to stay so we ended up at Hackes Cross Road about twenty minutes from downtown Memphis. Right away I knew why it was so remote. When you went up the elevator they played banjo music from the movie Deliverance.  The fragrance of the shampoo was Swamp and if you exited the back stairs the muzak was playing squealing pigs.  The primo view was an open field with a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the other side and an ATM machine that looked like it had been dragged a few hundred yards.  To be fair, the room was nice and they served breakfast every morning. Often it was omelettes, biscuits and gravy, several cereals, toast, muffins, bagels, make your own pancakes (it was a interesting to see what shape the pancakes came out once they went through the tunnel of flapjacks — some had no top, some had ridges and I kept wondering where the rest of the batter was. By the end of the week the machine was decommissioned. They proudly served Folger’s coffee. They did have an apple and orange juice dispenser. Jabba didn’t always get up in time to eat but he did manage to stop before we went into town frequenting McDonald’s, a ham distillery, a chicken establishment and another ham dispensary.

March 19th

Having finished my novena to St Joseph we ventured down to the bridge tournament I began my conquest to learn about Memphis. All I knew about was Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination and that not many basketball players ever graduate from a school that Calipari coaches at.  I was about to find out that all of those things are much more than trivia questions — an amazing look at one part of the country.

 Blues City Cafe

Blues City Cafe opened in 1991 under the “Doe’s Eat Place” sign. Doe’s was originally a rib joint in Mississippi. Charlies and Dominic (Doe) were one of the first businesses to relocate to Memphis and help revive Beale Street. They have had an impressive list of musicians play on their stage over the years from BB King to Queen Latifah to Richie Havens. Bill Clinton ate here, of course. He eats everywhere I do it seems. Carol Channing & Garrison Keillier, Keith Carradine and Jabba. We went for ribs between sessions — they were fall off the bone tender but not nearly as good as the ribs that come of the Fireman’s menagerie of fire objects or Gordon’s 16 hours of Traeger Love.  They also claimed to have the best meal on Beale which was catfish and ribs.  I would give this restaurant a eat if you are there rating, but not a special trip (although if they had someone good on stage that would make a difference) — ok if you are there, but I’m thinking there has to be better ribs in Memphis (which we are on a crusade to find). The Blues did have an interesting version of tamales — basically meat, spices and peppers rolled into corn meal then wrapped in parchment paper and cooked. They were a little greasy (about the size of a tiparillo) but lots of flavor. I think in the hands of a cook these could be good.  I asked the waitress if there were some special spots in Memphis we should try while we were there. I will give her credit. A blank look came over her face while she ran her mind’s rolodex of places to eat. “I think the best places are Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Spaghetti Works — those are my favorite Memphis restaurants.” Yipes! I thought.

March 20th

  

Indian Palace

Memphis isn’t your mecca (maybe that’s the wrong description) for Indian food, well it isn’t your Taj Mahal either. Cauliflower, pickled lime, eggplant, chicken curry and basmati rice. When I suggested we order the food 3 or 4 stars spicy the Indian team mates said they would never be able to play with such spice (which I thought meant we needed more but I was quickly corrected that we needed less). The cauliflower dish was a little overcooked and many Indian restaurants serve basmati rice on a platter — at the Indian Palace they served it in a finger bowl. They were willing to fill it up but after a few requests they wore us down and we didn’t order any more. We also had some Naan which was barely warm. I was warned by the Mahatma of Ames Iowa to go to another restaurant but it was a day late and I couldn’t get anyone to go again. There were only two other customers in the restaurant so it wasn’t that they were so busy (I don’t think) they couldn’t get everything out in a timely manner.

March 21st     Holiday Inn — Site of biscuits/gravy

After another breakfast at the hotel (the gravy for the biscuits seems to be getting thicker each day) Jabba and I headed out to McAllister’s for lunch. I watched while he consumed their smoked turkey and cole slaw. This chain which rivals the number of McDonald establishments in the city appears to be a grown up Subway chain.  Nicer chairs and booths.

The Civil Rights museum is an amazing place. It is located  next to and in the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.  The exhibit is broken into a lot of different parts. One is the advertising that featured blacks in menial roles in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Another was looking at different states in the South and the history of violence. Truly amazing and it wasn’t that long ago (and there is probably a fair remnant of the attitude still around). Juxtapose this with the current events in Florida and we know we still have a long way to go.  I spent a good deal of time reading about the Emmet Till case (which has resurfaced on current news channels) and seeing how battered the young black boy was. His own relatives he was visiting for summer vacation couldn’t recognize him. Lots of conspiracy theories, amazing coincidences (like the black officer who was assigned to watch the hotel was forced to leave a short time before the gunmen killed Martin Luther King Jr. tough to get back to bridge after visiting a museum like this one.

We decided to go to Marmalade which is run by an older black couple who opened it up in 1982 after retiring from the post office and school system. $9.50 for two pork chops, corn bread, black eye peas, turnip greens, candied yams and beans with a large salad to start the dinner off and a free bowl of popcorn while you watched a DVD of BB King playing music. The place seated about a hundred and opens at 6:00 pm.  We left at 8:00 and no one else had come and it didn’t look like they were expecting anyone other than Godot to show up. The pictures on the wall showed a number of local celebrities as well as Michael Jordan and Liza Minelli’s ex-husband three times (not that limited). There was a strange aura about the place and I think Mae thought we were regulars. I’m not sure I would recommend the place as one of the best dinners in town (although we still haven’t found that place yet) but it has an eerie historical feel to it that I liked.  The pork chops were like many of our parents would have cooked and cooked and cooked. The salad was your basic chopped up lettuce, two slices of tomato (pretty thin, they wanted to have some leftover in case someone showed up later. I think they only had one tomato), shredded cabbage and your dressing on the side. Black pepper from a shaker was mandatory. Although the fine restaurants use a pepper mill it tastes better in a shaker we were informed. I wanted to get up and help Mae bring the food to the table. They didn’t have live music any more but her son came to play on New Year’s Eve when he wasn’t working any where else. White Zinfandel, White Chablis and Merlot — all refrigerated like it should be.  OK food, great prices, Dad’s cooking and Mom waiting on you.

The Cheese Cake Corner — I had found a quiche and cheesecake store on a side street while we were looking for Marmalade that intriqued me. You weren’t going to get any sandwiches here and the wine selection wasn’t much better than Marmalade’s. (I’m  not too impressed with the level of wine appreciation in this town). But 100 kinds of cheesecake and fifteen different quiches from a small shop on a side street. Now there were more people in here than Marmalade (three) but I can’t imagine how you can make a living occupying your favorite table watching Project Runway. The owner opens at 3:00 pm so I guess he is trying to catch all of the late lunch goers. (I also forgot that some states still allow smoking in the restaurants and bars.) The late dinner people hadn’t showed up yet. He said he had been in business for ten years and “if I don’t make it, I don’t sell it.” The road takes another turn tomorrow but I’m not sure if it will be a dead end or not.

The Cheese Cake Corner

Quiches of the Day:

Cheeseburger, Crab, Creamy Chicken, Sausage33, Chicken Tortellini, Macaroni & Cheese with Chicken, Salmon, Shrimp, Spinach & Artichoke, Turkey & Dressing, Turkey & Ham and Vegetable.  Now that’s a quiche lineup you don’t see every day but it is a piker compared to his cheesecake list:

Almond Coffee, Almond Raspberry, Amaretto, Apple with Caramel,  Applie Pie, Banana Creme, White Chocolate, Black Botton, Black Walnut, Blackberry, Blueberry, Brandy, Butterscotch, Caramel Chocolate Chunk, Caramel Praline, Pecan or White Chocolate, Carrot, Cherry, Cherry Almond, Chocolate — Banana, Coconut Almond, Coconut Mint, Fantasy, Fudge, Mint, Cherry, Cherry Almond Chip, and that’s only part of one of three columns of cheesecake selections.  Creamy Lemon, Eggnog, Irish Cream, Peaches N Cream, Raspberry, Rum Raisin, Sweet Potato, Tuxedo are a few more.

I ordered a slice knowing it would last a couple of evenings.  Jabba ordered two knowing it wouldn’t last the evening but to his credit it did make it to the hotel intact.

March 22nd

The day began as always navigating through the machines that make breakfast as good as home (we never got any breakfast at home but it is still not a given that the above statement is true). I am  intrigued by the pancake machine.  After you press the button magic begins on the inside and after waiting a few minutes the theory is you will have two beautiful pancakes and this would be true if you enjoyed your pancakes without a top or bottom. I never thought you could just get the innards of a pancake out of a machine. Today the tops must have been sticking for a couple of hours because the pancakes were coming out shredded in many different shapes. I was convinced I saw the shroud of Turin and perhaps even the stigmata in one pancake but it turns out someone had accidentally dropped a cherry yoghurt into the batter.

The only fruit we have is banana.  They purchase them at the beginning of the week and they tend to be green and hard. They get handled a lot so by Thursday when they are starting to ripen there are fingerprint bruises all over them.

The toasters have a mind of their own.  They haven’t stopped working but they are on a slow down.  Not much production but occasionally something slips through with a bit of color.

 

  Corky’s

Corky’s has been around sinc the early 1970’s. He wanted a great BBQ place with a 1950’s environment.  Corky’s has old wood decor to make it look like a barn. You are inundated with neon, polished brass, ceiling fans and brick decor. The servers wear bow ties and white shirts and the music is right out of Sun Records and other 50’s and 60’s billboard hits. Ribs are what Corky’s is about.  Wet or Dry, Full Rack of Half served with hot honey rolls, beans and cole slaw. First, they are cooked over hickory and charcoal — a good sign and something that seemed to be lacking at the Blues City. I had a combo so I got to try their catfish (crisp and moist) and their sausage as well as the ribs.  Jabba had a slab of ribs which serves three people but that wasn’t the case at our table. It served one and an extra bite of ribs off my combo plate. Like the Blues they served tacos and I think most of my Latino chefs would cringe at the small cylindrically rolled creations. We tried the Karo pecan pie which was moist and the ice cream was a bit larger than the slice of pie — a good thing. We heard that Bill Clinton ate here as well.  The portions and prices are very good. What bothered me was they had one picture of Bill Clinton eating there and several of Dan Quayle. Who’s going to eat smoked Quayle?  You can’t possibly keep it on the grill long enough for it to get tender.

March 23rd– laissez les bon temps rouler   Dejavu

Today we found DeJavu — a creole and vegetarian restaurant on Florida Avenue. We had asked two different policemen how to get there and both of them gave such convaluted directions that we couldn’t find it. I finally asked one of the ladies at the information desk and she said, “You probably don’t want to go there, they have alligator stew and vegan dishes.”  “Have you been there?” I asked. “I love it because of the spiciness and all the down home things we eat like the catfish poboys and when they have crawfish specails you got to get that.”  Jabba andI winded our way around a railroad track in a vacant lot area and were about to make our U-turn when we saw the sign Florida Street. We continued under the overpass and saw a small house on the left hand side of the road, bars on the windows, Somewhere in the back is chef Gary Williams is brewing up sides like red beans & rice, smothered okra, grilled cabbage, carrots & string beans, fried plantains, veggie brown rice and sweet potato fries.  He has a Mardi Gras Pasta — sauteed shrimp with multi colored peppers, sundried tomatoes and onions tossed with penne pasta in Dejavu’s cream sauce. The Big Easy Pasta has shrip, chicken, sausage, onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes, fresh and dejavu’s own spice blends in their cream sauce or Big Keith’s Bayour Classic with grilled catfish or tilapia, topped with a creamy reduction of fresh lumb crabmeat, crawfish and shrimp. You can get any of their fish deep fried, grilled or blackened with two sides for $8.00!! The cajun side has a New Orleans sampler with gator stew, gumbo, shrimp creole, crawfish etouffee and rice. You can get crawfish etouffee (Jabba went for this special), chicken and sausage jambalaya, alligator stew, boudin (pork and rice stuffed sausage), honey roasted. BBQ, southern fried or smothered chicken. Pork chops are served fried, grilled or smothered. Chef Gary also has ten vegan items on the menu from including tofu your way and spinach mushroom quesadilla.  Finish it off with a New Orleans bread pudding with whiskey sauce, bananas foster, peach cobbler (my weakness) or strawberry turtle ala mode. Visit the website and see some of Gary’s recipes and pictures of this amazing little barred up house in an industrial lot area of Memphis where food does make you transport yourself to a different time and place.

http://dejavurestaurant.org/index.html

March 25th

The stay is about over in Memphis. The last two days have been eating Southern foods.  At the end of the day I think that both Texas and Kansas City are better for barbecue. The baked beans here taste way too much like they are sweetened ice tomato tea — the locals might like it but give me a dry rub and more spice. The cole slaw isn’t quite as soaked in mayonnaise as some places but there is way too much for my taste.

  Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. As I waited in line (45 minutes at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Friday) I noticed that I wasn’t going to have to compete in any of the top weight classes. I am more of a lightweight at Gus’s. The $5.99 special was two legs and two pieces of thigh with baked beans and slaw. Sometimes  you think about eating a piece or two of chicken with all of the breading and then tearing off the breading and just eating the chicken but no one at Gus’s would do such a thing. I had the luncheon special which was more than I needed but even the smallest customers seem to be going for the half chicken and many of the customers were ordering the whole chicken for themselves. The tables were stacked full of used napkins, the ice tea glasses slipping out of the waiter hands (maybe that’s why offer the souvenir cup to go if you want). I’m not sure it was the best chicken in the world but the breading was good with a slight hint of cayenne pepper and moist chicken on the inside and surprisingly few puddles of grease on the plate. The wonder bread was sufficiently mediocre. If  you have the time and want a cheap lunch that will be with you the rest of the day this is a good choice.

One of the surprises and  highlights of the trip was the Belz Asian-Jewish museum. I thought this was going to be a half hor walk through as I made decisions about what to do next. Instead it became a two and a  half hour excursion (including a movie, The Boy with Striped Pajamas) of amazing jade and terra cotta sculptures from the Ming and earlier dynasties. Five foot mammoth tusks carved with a hundred elephant figures or four story river boats with hundreds of people. Amazing collection of puppets and embroidery as well. The Jewish side of the museum had a lot of contemporary sculptures and paintings based on both the Old Testament and some current works of art depicting the holocaust.

Graceland — Bruce Springstein said something like there were a lot of tough guys and pretenders and a couple of contenders but there was only one king. Being way too young to know about Elvis as his star rose in the sky I was amazed that the glitz and glamour of Graceland was an amazing look at a grownup child who made an incredible amount of money and seemed to vary between a kid trying to spend it all and a person who was curious about the way the world was changing and he wanted every new toy.  I knew he was from Tupelo, Miss but I didn’t realize he had a twin that was stillborn which left Elvis to grow up as an only child. He moved to Memphis when he was 13 and both the gospel music from his church and the black R&B he heard on Beale Street influenced his style.  He was the star in 33 films, appeared frequently on television and of course did concert performances throughout the world.  There is an interesting timeline on the internet to celebrate 75 years of Elvis Presley.  http://www.elvis.com/timeline/default.aspx                                                                                                                           The gold fixtures in the airplane bathroom, telephones and televisions — headsets for people to listen to music. I wish Delta would take the hint that air travel can be comfortable and reasonably enjoyable. Elvis fans know a lot more about the gold records, reflection gardens, jumpsuits, cars and jungle room than I do, or ever will. that said it gave me a lot more insight into some of the things that made Elvis tick and learning about anyone with so much influence is a good thing.

West Street Diner was our destination this morning. We had to drive through three mega churches — patrol guards out to slow down the traffic, allow pedestrians to walk and occasionally force you into their lot in hopes of finding a convert. With Jabba driving (a little drool for effect) they knew they shouldn’t get between us and our omelettes. It is a long drive, mostly just average breakfast food but churches are mind blowing down big down here. It is a long way from just you, god and father fahy in the confessional. Tomorrow I have another full day of airport food as I head to Boston to see Bluebelly, the Profiterole Man and search for a NCAA Harvard basketball shirt.

March 26 — Boston

They don’t go to Washington DC from Memphis so I was re-routed to Charlotte (couldn’t find any Cuvee) and then to Boston. Other than being three hours late into Boston not much could go wrong with that.

Breakfast in Watertown with Profiterole and the saintess. The editor  provided the cook with an iced coffee and she provided us with pancakes, eggs, maple syrup from a special tree in Vermont and coffee. Right after I got a call from Bluebelly the editor dropped me off in Harvard Square. I watched a group of people playing fast chess in the coffee shop (too cold to use the table outsides yet). One of our classmates was featured in an article on fast chess in Harvard Square. He was making a living but if his room was any indication of his needs he probably didn’t have to make much money to keep similar accommodations now. (the last time I saw him he had just consumed his tenth can of nutmeg and was trying to bounce a basketball off the ceiling of the indoor athletic building into the basket. He was helped off the court by a couple of attendants in white coats.

Bluebelly and I met up at the COOP. Couldn’t find any NCAA jerseys (and in NY I couldn’t find any Linmania shirts — at least over size large. I was told that because Lin was Chinese they didn’t need extra large shirts for the main buyers.  I told them they were missing out on the Samoa market but it didn’t seem to phase them.) We walked along Brattle Street arriving at the   Algiers for lunch. We started with their luncheon special Merguez, the French transliteration of the Arabic word mirqāz or mirkās. It is a spicy small sausage used in Tunisia and Algeria. It is served alone as a meze or sometimes with couscous or other foods such as the braised dishes known as tagines. At the Algiers it was served with rabbit food with a hint of lemon (I think they called it a special salad dressing — tasted like they had taken the squeezed lemon out of someone’s ice tea and used the small remainder of juice to “perk” up the salad). It was also on a bed of hummus. Despite the nightmare that every restaurant has to serve lettuce in a college town these days (political correctness) the sausages and hummus were very good. In Tunisia they can be sun-dried too by leaving them in hot, dry, direct sunlight for 48 hours, protected against insects and animals, puncturing the sausage with a skewer so they dry better. I don’t know if they were protected from insects in Cambridge but I can tell you the sun made it seem like 32 degrees and the wind made it seem like 20 degrees. I think they used the time honored cook them on the grill method here. They can be stored for several days in glass or earthenware jars filled with olive oil but I imagine a tourist might be noticing these critters for a few days if they had meat, stored in the sun next to a pile of camel dung.

We also had Mujadarha.Mujaddara is the Arabic word for smallpox; the lentils among the rice resemble pockmarks and I’m hoping that is the only thing that would remind you of smallpox when you eat it..The first recorded recipe for mujaddara appears in Kitab al-Tabikh, a cookbook compiled in 1226 by al-Baghdadi in Iraq.Containing rice, lentils, and meat, it was served this way during celebrations. Without meat, it was a medieval Arab dish commonly consumed by the poor, reputed to be a derivative of the “mess of pottage” Jacob used to buy Esau’s birthright. A saying in the Eastern Arab world perhaps inspired by the Biblical story is, “A hungry man would be willing to sell his soul for a dish of mujaddara.”  There are many different recipes for Mujadarah, the Algiers recipe was very simple and despite the rumor that it is inexpensive in Tunisia it still costs you a tenner in Cambridge. It was served with a pile of yoghurt. Bluebelly who lived in Tunisia during his Peace Corps days (and the only person I know that has been to Timbuktu) said it was passable.

The mint tea in Algeria tea is made in a samovar in the Turkish manner.    No doubt a remnant from The Ottoman Empire. The waitress said they didn’t have a Samovar like a  Russian restaurant. (I guess that’s where Samovar’s come from, I’m still not sure where little girls come from — that song is bugging me today. I can’t remember the words.) Mint tea should be poured “from up high”. Do not attempt this with just any teapot. Particularly do not attempt this with the teapot from the Algiers. You need a North African one with a long tapered spout. Not a leaky metal pot from Brattle Street. I tried practicing by starting the pour very close to me and the tea cup then slowly raise the tea pot. The trick is a very slow pour and good aim.  I failed on both accounts and so I will do some more laundry at the House of Profiterole tonight.

Sackler/Fogg Museum all stars are being \housed in a museum just outside Harvard yard. (We walked past the old Charles Warren History Center where I worked in college. It has long since moved out of the building but it was nice they hadn’t changed the yellow house very much.)

The case of the sink and baby socks. One of the most amazing exhibits at the museum was a very large sink and instead of faucets or pipes there were long platic tubes coming out of all of those orifices and at the end of the tube were young girl’s socks and shoes.  The second featured exhibit was 25 potatoes attached with battery cords. They had to change the exhibit regularly because the potatoes spoiled — art in motion. We spent most of our time on the upper floors looking at glimpses of the Fogg museum — tombs from ancient civilizations, paintings and sculptures.

Parking in Holymygodyoke Center — We found Bluebelly’s car on the first attempt. It was nestled under a cement wall about five feet high (good thing he had an accord.  There was a sign that said they weren’t responsible for damaged roofs!). When we got up to the cashier the parking toll was $23 for four hours. I know people who complain about $3 at the shop for ten hours. We live in paradise (but I’m not sure how J. Diamond got in?)

Duck and Fig Pizza

La Campania

Waltham for Italian? I’m sure this isn’t the usual way to select an Italian restaurant in Boston (nor is going to the Bronx in NYC) but you can find some amazing restaurants that have set up in the burbs. La Campania serves up Neopalitan style Italian food.

Antipasti — artichokes three ways with lemon shallot vinaigrette, white truffle oil and wheat crostini;  Pan seared King Oyster Mushroom with baby arugula, warm gorgonzola, 20 yr old balsamic and fontina basket; Prosciutto di Parma stuffed with asparagus, teeny greens, fontina cheese and shaved fennel scallion vinaigrette; Oven roasted tomato with mozzarella di bufala, torn basil and sopressata; Seared Diver Scallops risotto with crispy prosciutto, gorgonzola creme and aged balsamic reduction; Spicy rock shrimp with garlic, chili flakes, pan roasted red and yellow grape tomatoes. We had the pan seared foie gras with fresh fig, duck leg confit, port wine and orange reduction with gorgonzola creme. We almost opted out for the arancini and panzarotti risotto and potato croquettes with speck (I first had this on a food tour of the Chelsea Meat Market in NY with the zagsters), plum tomato ragu and shaved Parmigiano. We also had the funghi trifolati pizze with roasted mushrooms, fontina cheese, truffle oil and shaved parmagiano.

Home made pasta — Gnocchi from hand cut potatoes with sauteed wild mushrooms and white truffle oil; braised pork cheek agnolotti with brown butter and san marzano tomato sugo and shaved parmagiano; Campanelle with veal, pancetta and san marzano tomato ragu.

Veal Genovese — slowly stewed veal medallions with garganelli pasta  Salmon Roulade, pan seared Scottish salmon with stewed Umbrian lentils and balsamic glaze cippolini onions; Wild Boar chops with artichoke puree, whipped potato, broccoli rabe and red wine Sugo; grilled beef rib-eye with basil smashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and black truffle infused butter; colorado lamb rack with sun dried tomato bruschetta crust, potato gateau and basil pesto; grilled veal chop with rosemary roasted yams, sauteed spinach and gorgonzola creme; my main course was the asiette of venison and duck with a venison chop with red onion tart and red wine sugo and a duck leg confit with escarole and orange reduction sauce; One of the Pilgrims had a salt encrusted whole branzino — oven roasted with teeny green and french pear salad and whole roasted garlic.  We had to try the Pear crostata — spiced pears with almond butter gelato even though the signature dessert dish is the warm chocolate souffle with vanilla ice cream — but you should always have a very good reason to go back.

They have relations with a wine store that does dinners with Italian winemakers at the restaurant and their list  includes Piedmont, Tuscany, Umbria, Sicily as you would expect but they also have cnosen wines from Lombardy, Veneto, Friulia, Trentino, Puglia, Campanta, Le Marche, Abruzzo, Calabria, Sardinia  — nice selections starting at $30 going up to some of the great Barolo, Barbaresco and Super Tuscan in the $500+ range.

It is worth the drive even if you have to sit next to three pilgrims reminiscing about their voyage over and the less than suitable conditions at Plymouth Rock their travel agent got for them.

March 27-28-29 New York

Fung shu bus trip ($15 versus $128 on the train, what could go wrong?) Booing through New Haven, found out where Quinnipiac College was (One of Harvard’s recent rivals in the ECAC hockey). The trip was not only $113.00 cheaper than the train (you can get cheaper train tickets if you order ahead online but it is still $69 via train) but we got dropped off after Crossing Delancey in the middle of Chinatown NY. I was a bit lost. I took a considerable walk before finding a subway stop. My hunch is there was one closer but my questions didn’t seem to elicit any great information. I know I crossed the Bowery at one point and then ended up in front of Dean and Deluca. A lot of times the road does lead through a bakery in New York.

My condo had been hijacked so I was staying at the Flatiron Hotel (which is in the same general direction of the Flatiron Building but it is not in the Flatiron buillding where I assume Flat Stanley usually stays). The rooms were smaller but very well done. The bathroom was almost as big as the sleeping area (a trend in upscale hotels) and the mirror was one of those talking mirrors. If you pointed a remote at it the lower portion of the mirrow would become a television so you could watch tv while you brushed teeth and even be interactive if you wanted to floss through a republican debate. I waited until the wine lady was suppose to arrive and walked to Penn Station where there were a lot of people offering their opinions of my person. Hi old man, couldn’t you find the shoe department at K-mart; hey gray hair nice day to hang it out on the line; hey pot belly you can get a slice of Pizza at Penn Station. This was the area that the bag man thought had extremely friendly girls but they were all so tall but dressed up even in the afternoon. He just loved going out for a drink in New York, the people were friendly (and all had adam apples I pointed out. Last drink he had on his own that trip.) You can’t find out what track the train from Newark is coming in which makes it difficult to meet someone. (Security) After a few errors we just met in front of Madison Square Garden taxi stand and headed back through the land of truth but by this time the wind had picked up and most of the critics were inside fussing with their do.

The wine lady and I were looking for an easy meal. What could be easier than taking a cab to Bayard Street and having Chinese noodles?  When we arrived at the    Hong Kong Station on Bayard (across the street from the Nice Green Bo one of my favorite Chinese restaurants) and next to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. This is reputed to be the best ice cream in NY — Here are a few selections:

Almond Cookie, Chocolate Pandan, Green Tea, Red Bean, Black Sesame, Coconut, Lychee, Strawberry Shortcake, Cherry Pistachio, Egg Custard, Mango, Taro, Chocolate Carmel Pecan, Ginger, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Zen Butter.  They also have 15 sorbets from Mango-Papaya to Longan.   Exotic Flavors from Cherry Pistachio and Coffee Brandy to Pumpkin Pie and Wasabi.  The origins of ice cream is felt to have occurred during the Tang Dynasty (I’m sure many cultures can trace the origin of ice cream back to one of their myths). CICF has been around almost 30 years (pretty good when most people are thinking stir fried dishes when they hit Bayard Street). The daughters Christina and Katherine Seid are carrying on the tradition. If you want to see a few videos on making ice cream go to their site: http://chinatownicecreamfactory.com/category/image-galleries/press-articles-media

Back to the story — First you order Noodles at the HKS.

Noodles  Cold $1.50

Thick Noodle          Thin Noodle        Cooked Noodle         E-fu Noodle          Instant Noodle           Udon          Lai Fun          Mai Fun          Ho Fun

Then you order a delicious topping ($2.50 each)

Fish Balls        Curry Fish Balls        Special Fish Balls        Fish Balls with Meat or Squid or Curry Squid          Fish Cake         Pan Fried Fish Cake        Squid Balls or Lobster Balls or Fish Dumplings        Beef Stew       Beef Tripe         Beef Pancreas        Beef Stomach        Beef Shin         Beef Stomach        Curry Sauce        Pig’s Feet        Pork Skin        Pork Intestine        Pig’s Blood        Pig’s Sausage        Spam       Ham Eggs        Spring Rolls        Chicken Gizzard         Chicken Wings         Curry Chicken Wings         Malay Spring Rolls         Seasonal  Veggies         Mushrooms       Fried Gluten       Turnip       Tofu         Tofu Skin      Beef tendon      Beef Shank     Beef Pancreas       Beef Balls

Then you choose a sauce

Garlic Sauce          Parsley & Scallion          Curry Sauce

You get plenty of food for $2.50 for noodles and $1.50 for each sauce.  When we got there about fifty people were standing outside the restaurant and all of the tables were full. What caught my eye was that no one seemed to be eating. I went inside to put my name down and I realized that the Knicks were on television and all of the waitresses were wearing Linsanity tee-shirts. Even though LIn (a Harvard grad as I am sure you all know) wasn’t playing because he was injured people were still watching the game through the outside window or sitting inside. The game was just getting over and soon we had the whole restaurant to order our noodles with extra gluten, spam and lobster balls. Sam would have taken his mask off to eat at this place.We were obligated to try the J. Lin Bubbly Tea. It’s hard to say how to categorize this restaurant. The noodles are very good, the broth varied between the three bowls I ordered (Pork and cabbage, egg roll and beef stew). I liked the beef stew with garlic the best. But to eat in New York for $4 and have plenty of food, well that’s more than just getting lucky in finding a place that served two kinds of fish balls, that is just amazing!  (However the cost of our meal went up when I had to the extra special Lin Bubble Tea $3.50)

  

Eataly  — Partners (Oscar Farinetti is founder and creator) Mario Batali (15 restaurants, eight cookbooks and tv shows) Lidia Bastianich (chef, television shows, cookbook author and creator of her own line of pastas) Joe Bastianich (son of Lidia who parterned with Batali to open up much acclaimed Babbo)

So what’s all the fuss about.  Eataly is part Italian Food Museum and part sensory overload (not that I think sensory overload is a bad thing).  They have shelves of wines, beers, cookbooks, cheese counters, coffee & tea (americano latte is a good thing to sip on while you are visiting the museum), dry and fresh pastas, meats, olive oils, salumi, sauces, seafood, etc.  You can eat at twelve different food outlets in the building from the more formal Manzo which offers both modern and traditional Piedmontese dishes and the chef Michael Toscano likes to use everything like tongue and cheek to Pasticceria an array of Italian pastries (dolci al cucchiaio) you can get spoon desserts and pastries in small cups to small cakes.  We tried the Porchetta Sandwich & Italian Bread. Slow roasted after crisping the skin of the tenderloin this sandwich had a lot of flavor and was served on focaccia bread. Intense flavors, complex results for such a simple method.

It always start with great coffee (great grapes, great friends) and the fair trade coffee at the coffee corral is one of the best cups I have had. I got an espresso as well as latte. They also give you a little art with a foam heart, I sucked the love out of that right away and got down to the actual consumption of the coffee.

Eataly is a museum of Italian Food.  Many different producers of pastas, salamis, sauces, olive oils, biscotti, cheese, wine and different stations with different temptations. It is both museum and a brilliant marketing plan. You only spend $10 to $15 at any one stand getting your coffee, your sandwich, your gelato, your take home fish (they looked too good to pass up and what problems can there be taking a fish back to your hotel room?)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

My wing — The Michael Rockefeller Wing is a great collection of African and Indonesian Art including a wing of slit gongs, canoes, tribal carvings, masks from Papua New Guinea where Michael lost his life.

The Fellowship was started by his twin sister, Mary and siblings.. I’ve had several occasions to meet her and her brother and sister (Stephen and Ann). I think they were the ones that really got me to think that it was possible to travel and occasionally amuse your friends with tales and that spirit came from their brother.

There was also an exhibition from the Stein collections (Gertrude & siblings) The above picture is a Picasso they collected that is titled something like “Still Life with Grande Ronde.”  Collect those carvings, McVay might be the next Rodin, Daumier or certainly at least help you consume your wealth as most of the great artists did for their patrons.