I just got back from New Orleans, where my goal (aside from conferencing it up with about 20,000 librarians) was to eat all the food. New Orleans is a city known for its unique food culture, and I wanted to experience every last bit of it. I even bought a book, Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table
Continue reading Eating New Orleans
I can hardly believe how quickly my ten days in Barcelona passed. Coming back to Boston…well, I’ll be honest. It was a bit of a let down. Barcelona is just so coooool. The streets, the people, the food, the cava (and cava, and more cava), the bars, everything just overwhelmed me with awesome. We stayed with a friend in the Barri Gotic, the old part of the Barcelona, which is all narrow, windy streets, old buildings, sweet little bars tucked into tiny corners, walking into unexpected plazas, people watching on the Ramblas, and best of all, the Boqueria. We were only a few blocks away and we visited more than a few times.
The Boqueria is a sensory overload of smells, colors, people, and food items you’ve never seen before. The closest thing to it I’ve seen in the States is the Ferry Plaza Marketplace and Farmers’ Market, but even that isn’t even close. The Boqueria seems to mirror the area in which it’s situated: a labyrinth of narrow aisles that twist and turn and make it very easy to get lost among the jamon. But I could think of worse places to be lost.
Continue reading Back from Barcelona and Missing the Boqueria
Just in case this place hadn’t gotten enough press yet, I decided to drag Mr. X out to Inman Square this weekend to check out Chris Shlessinger’s All Star Sandwich Bar. As one of the few places featured in Bon Appetit I can actually afford, I was pretty eager to see what all the fuss is about. Of course, I’m not the world’s biggest sandwich fan, and actually prefer the much maligned wrap (gasp!), but when a place gets this much attention, I figure even someone as sandwich neutral as I might find something to love. And I sure did.
I could kick myself for forgetting my camera the afternoon my aunt Maggie and I walked down to Sombrero’s to get the only burrito I ate during my San Diego adventure. How I managed to get out of there with only one burrito in my belly I will never know, but I did realize one major thing that is wrong with all these Boston taquerias. It’s not just that they put rice in their burritos. It’s not the lettuce (although I have major issues with that), or the lack of tortilla steaming. It’s the dang tortillas themselves!
Burritos in San Diego come wrapped in the most perfect Platonic ideal of tortillas I’ve ever seen. They are so floury your hands are coated in a thin powder of fine white flour dust when you’re done. They are super soft and almost buttery, but they still have some bite, some heft to them. They are a dream. A dream, I tell you! I’m not sure how it’s done, really. My homemade tortillas don’t even come close. Sometimes I suspect there’s a little abuelita in the back of every taqueria, making those things by hand. But I doubt it. However, they make me want a little abuelita in my kitchen, making them for me, because they are unparalleled in their wonderfulness. Sigh.
My Sombrero’s burrito? Even though Sombrero’s isn’t really the best of the best, and I would have preferred El Indio, or Roberto’s, or Alberto’s, or any one of the ‘bertos’, that carne asada still far surpassed anything I’ve had outside the city limits. I could weep for its memory.
(Another weird aside: We never called them taquerias in San Diego when I was growing up. I never even heard that word until I moved to Santa Cruz. I don’t remember what we called them, except maybe taco stands.)
I’ve been in San Diego this week for my little bro’s high school graduation. Man, I can’t believe my little boy is all growned up. And about a foot taller than me. I’ve been trying not to be too sentimental.
The actual graduation ceremony was yesterday, and we had a big family dinner at a little bistro in South Park called Vagabond. (Beware: their website has music.) The South Park neighborhood is an area I never spent much time in, but my oldest little brother lives there now, and it seems like a pretty cool neighborhood–a few small restaurants, a coffee shops, and a friendly-looking dive bar.
From what I can see, Vagabond has most often been described as eclectic. The menu is kind of Asian-Caribbean-French fusion, and the little space is brightly painted, sunny, cozy, and welcoming. And as in San Francisco, it was nice to see an interesting menu with prices under $10–a rarity in Boston.
Three days in San Francisco is just not enough for me. Hell, three weeks in San Francisco wouldn’t really be enough for me–I want nothing more than to move back there, and I would prefer not to have to wait too long.
Mr. X and I spent the weekend in San Francisco for a friend’s wedding–the first of my college friends to get married. It was a lovely wedding which involved way too much vodka and champagne, but best of all this weekend reconfirmed for me that it is the city where I belong. I love the energy of San Francisco, and the diversity. I love the plentitude of coffeeshops and taquerias. I love the bars and the thrift shops and the bookstores. After a Boston winter, I love the variety of fresh, local produce that’s so much easier to find, and I love the fact that a delicious dinner out doesn’t have to cost over $100.
This weekend Mr. X and I went to Duchess County, New York, to visit his Ma for Mother’s Day. I’d never been to the area and jesus christ, he wasn’t kidding–It’s really, really green this time of year. I mean, the Boston area has been green but it doesn’t even come close to the greeness of the Hudson River Valley. It was a little overwhelming.
We spent most of the day Saturday driving around, checking out Mr. X’s stomping grounds: the elementary school, the cornfield he drove his car through, a few of the many, many restaurants he worked in. It was a spectacularly pretty day and the night ended with some delicious tacos and margaritas as a place in Tivoli. The next morning we took a tour of the Vanderbilt Mansion and checked out the Culinary Institute (way bigger and more grand than I expected).
Then we went out with his ma to a late lunch at a new restaurant in Poughkeepsie, The Artist’s Palate. I gotta say, I don’t think the name is very good, but the food and atmosphere more than made up for it. The place is huge and airy, with streamlined tables and chairs and an excellent collection of jazz posters on the walls. The wait staff were all great: friendly, helpful, and good looking, to boot. Even the bathrooms were impressive.
The Dogwood Cafe is a JP staple, and I’ve been eating here since I moved to Boston, amost three years ago. I crave the broccoli cheddar poppers, their brick oven pizzas are creative, and almost never disappoint, and they offer Anchor Steam on tap. So why do I so rarely even remember that it’s there when trying to think of a place to eat dinner?
I honestly have no answer to that, other than, perhaps, location: The Dogwood is at the very end of the Orange Line, at Forest Hills, on the Washington Street/Hyde Park Ave side of the station–a place I very rarely am. It should be more often remembered, though, and I’m glad I thought of it last Saturday night.
Since the last time I took the Sam Adams Brewery tour, here in JP, it’s gotten a few write ups, become more popular, and been revamped a bit, formalized and fancified just a little. No more standing in puddles of beer and water while someone yelled about beer makin’ over the clanging sounds of, well, beer makin’. Now they have a special presentation area, and microphones, and…alright, it wasn’t really too different from the past, it’s only been polished a tiny bit more. It is still an especially excellent reason to come out to JP. Continue reading Saturday Morning at the Brewery